Democracy Now!

Our guest is the Haaretz correspondent Amira Hass, the only Israeli Jewish journalist to have spent 30 years living in and reporting from Gaza and the West Bank. She is the recipient of the 2024 Columbia Journalism Award, and on Wednesday she addressed the graduating class of the Columbia Journalism School in New York City. Hass discusses the ongoing Israeli war on Gaza, why journalists should resist the normalization of evil and injustice," Israel's recent censorship of Al Jazeera, its maintenance of a strict apartheid system, its complete rejection of the prospect of Palestinian statehood and more. Israel took Palestinian life, liberty and freedom as hostage for the past 75 years," says Hass. You go to Tel Aviv, you think you are in New York or you are in London - and 40, 50 kilometers away, Palestinians live in cages."We also play an excerpt from the student and faculty-led People's Graduation" held Thursday at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City in response to Columbia University's crackdown on student protest, which culminated in the administration's cancellation of university-wide commencement. Centering Palestinian solidarity, the People's Graduation featured speakers including the Pulitzer Prize-winning data journalist and illustrator Mona Chalabi, who praised the work of student journalists. While our institutions have failed us these past seven months, ... we listened to your radio stations if we wanted the truth," she said.

We Don't Want Ships. We Want Safety": Displaced Gazans Reject U.S. Pier; U.N. Calls for Land Access, Spain Bars Ships with Weapons For Israel; 13 Foreign Ministers Warn Against Israel's Rafah Assault, Israel's Genocide Has Reached New and Horrific Stage": South Africa Requests Urgent ICJ Intervention, Police Raid and Arrest Students at Gaza Solidarity Encampments at UC Berkeley, DePaul University, WaPo: Billionaires and Execs Urged Eric Adams to Send Police to Columbia's Gaza Encampment, SCOTUS Overrules Challenge to Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, NYT: Upside-Down Flag Seen Outside Alito's Home in Jan. 2021, a Symbol Used by Election Deniers, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott Pardons Known Racist Who Murdered BLM Protester in 2020, Texas Storms Kill 4, Cut Power to a Million Customers, Biden Admin to End New Leases in U.S.'s Largest Coal-Producing Region, Ron DeSantis Eliminates Climate Change as Priority in Florida's Energy Policy, Congolese Mourners Call Out Rwanda and Western Supporters for Genocide" on Its People, HRW Says Rwanda Denied Entry to Its Researcher, Another Deportation Flight Leaves the U.S. for Haiti Despite Grave Dangers", DOJ Moves to Reclassify Marijuana

Human Rights Watch has documented ethnic cleansing in the West Darfur region of Sudan by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and allied militias against the Masalit people and other non-Arab communities. These allied militia and the RSF then, from April until June, conducted a rampage of killings, of lootings, of torture, of rape," says Belkis Wille, associate director with the Crisis, Conflict, and Arms Division at Human Rights Watch. She says international actors must cut off the flow of arms to all warring parties, but adds there is little political will" to enforce an arms embargo in Sudan.

Ukrainian forces are withdrawing from some areas in the northeastern region of Kharkiv as Russian forces continue a new offensive that has displaced thousands. This latest setback for Ukraine comes more than two years after Russia invaded the country. Human Rights Watch has documented several incidents of Russian soldiers summarily executing surrendering Ukrainian soldiers, with drone footage showing the killings in clear detail," says Belkis Wille, associate director with the Crisis, Conflict, and Arms Division at Human Rights Watch. They take off their vests, they put down their helmets, they lie on the ground and put their hands up. And then we see them being executed by Russian soldiers in cold blood."

A new Human Rights Watch Report finds Israeli forces have attacked humanitarian aid convoys and facilities at least eight times since October 7 despite being given their coordinates. Israeli authorities did not issue advance warnings to any of the aid organizations before the attacks, which killed at least 15 people, including two children, and injured at least 16 others. More than 250 aid workers have been killed in Gaza over the past seven months, according to the United Nations. Aid workers, unfortunately, die in conflict zones," says HRW researcher Belkis Wille. What's really unique in the context of Gaza is the high number in such a short period of time."Wille also discusses a recent U.S. government report that found Israel has likely violated international law in its assault on Gaza but that it could not make that conclusion definitively - a shocking" finding, she says. The United States absolutely has to start doing more to limit military assistance to Israel. ... And it needs to do far more to protect civilians more broadly."

Aid agencies are running out of food in southern Gaza amid Israel's ongoing offensive in Rafah and the shutdown of the two main border crossings in the south. Some 1.1 million Palestinians are on the brink of starvation, according to the United Nations, while a full-blown famine" is taking place in the north. Meanwhile, some Israelis have been blocking aid from reaching the Gaza border, including a violent attack on trucks carrying humanitarian relief through the occupied West Bank earlier this week, when settlers threw food packages on the ground and set fire to the vehicles at the Tarqumiyah checkpoint near Hebron. They did whatever they want," says Israeli lawyer and peace activist Sapir Sluzker Amran, who documented the attack on the aid convoy. She says Israeli soldiers appeared to be working with the settlers, refusing to intervene. They were just standing aside like there is nothing that they can do, like it's normal, what's happening."

Gazans Flee Israeli Attacks Across the Territory as Chaos Reigns in Besieged Territory, University Human Rights Network Concludes Israel Is Committing Genocide in Gaza, Israel's Far-Right Leaders Dispute Future of Gaza, Biden Is Making Jews the Face of the War Machine": First Jewish Biden Appointee Resigns over Gaza, Israeli Historian Ilan Pappe Interrogated by U.S. Agents at Detroit Airport, Germany Lifts European Ban on British Palestinian Surgeon Ghassan Abu-Sittah, Refuse to Accept Hell as Normal": Amira Hass Delivers Graduation Speech as Students Keep Up Protests, Sonoma State President Placed on Leave After School Agrees to Academic Boycott of Israel, Unions Representing UC and Harvard Student Workers Challenge Violent Crackdown on Gaza Protests, Prime Minister of Slovakia in Stable Condition After Assassination Attempt, Far-Right Populist Geert Wilders Forms Dutch Coalition But Agrees Not to Become Prime Minister, Putin Backs Beijing Peace Plan for Ukraine as He Meets with Xi Jinping in China, France Declares State of Emergency in New Caledonia After 4 Killed in Clashes with Police, Activists Say Javier Milei's Rhetoric and Policies Led to Deadly Attack on Lesbians, Ex-Gambian Interior Minister Ousmane Sonko Convicted for Crimes Against Humanity, SCOTUS Restores Louisiana Voting Map with Additional Black-Majority District, Biden and Trump Agree to 2 Network Debates, Eschewing Debate Commission

Students and workers at the City University of New York held a peaceful occupation Tuesday of the school's Graduate Center in solidarity with Palestine and renamed its library The Al Aqsa University Library," after Gaza's oldest public university, which was destroyed by Israel's bombardment. This comes as over 500 faculty and staff at CUNY have signed a letter demanding the charges be dropped against at least 173 people arrested in April when NYPD violently raided a peaceful Gaza solidarity encampment on the City College campus. This is really the most egregious example we've seen of violent repression of pro-Palestinian organizing," says pro-Palestine activist and CUNY alumni Musabika Nabiha, who says the crackdown wasn't in response to the tents, rallies or free food, but because the encampment's demands themselves proved a threat to the constant accumulation of profit and profiting off of genocide that CUNY is engaged in." Alex Vitale, coordinator of the Policing and Social Justice Project at CUNY's Brooklyn College, criticizes the school administration for being relatively harsh on student activists. "CUNY is spending millions of dollars for a security apparatus that fails to address the real security needs of students and is really there in moments like this to be a tool, a kind of private army, for the administration to suppress student dissent."

Palestinians across the globe are marking the 76th anniversary of the Nakba - which means catastrophe" in Arabic - when those establishing the state of Israel violently expelled over 700,000 Palestinians. Palestinian historian Abdel Razzaq Takriti says closer to 900,000 Palestinians were forced out or massacred during Israel's founding, which is being celebrated inside Israel with calls to ethnically cleanse and settle the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank. The Nakba is continuing. This is a colonial continuum," says Takriti. It's not enough to commemorate. It's not enough to talk about it. We have to stop it right now. ... The first step to doing that is to stop the genocide in Gaza." Takriti lays out four principles for Nakba education: refuting Nakba denialism, recognizing the Nakba is part of an ongoing process of settler colonialism, stopping that process, and then reversing it by restoring Palestinian national rights.

Democracy Now! speaks with Dr. Adam Hamawy, one of around 20 American medical workers trapped in Gaza after Israel closed the Rafah border crossing into Egypt. A plastic surgeon and Army veteran, Hamawy is on a volunteer mission with the Palestinian American Medical Association at the European Hospital in Khan Younis. Like many Gazans, the U.S. medical workers are now facing dehydration and other deadly health conditions. We're continuing to do our job. ... It's tiring, but this is exactly what we need to be doing," says Hamawy, who calls on President Biden to stop supporting Israel's assault on Gaza. If my best friend is a serial killer, I'm going to stop being his friend." Hamaway describes treating massive" injuries to civilians in Khan Younis, where much of the city has been destroyed and vandalized in Hebrew. It's going to haunt all of us. ... I'm here. I see it with my own eyes. At some point in time, everyone is going to see it."

In the historic criminal hush money election fraud trial of former President Donald Trump, New York prosecutors are wrapping up their case charging Trump with falsifying business records in an illegal effort to influence the 2016 presidential election. On Tuesday, Trump's former fixer Michael Cohen admitted he misled the Federal Election Commission about hush money payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels. In cross-examination, defense attorneys tried to suggest Cohen was motivated by vengeance against Trump. He's the one who has firsthand knowledge of the actual deal that he and Donald Trump struck in order to pay the hush money, create a phony retainer, and ultimately falsify the business records," says criminal defense lawyer Ron Kuby. The boss betrayed him. And now he, indeed, is out for revenge." Kuby says Trump and his right-wing allies are using the trial as a backdrop for politics, and discusses the possibility of Trump serving prison time. Kuby is also representing climate crisis activists arrested at Citibank headquarters in New York City during Earth Week last month and pro-Palestinian activists arrested at recent protests at Fordham University and SUNY Purchase. I tend to view these struggles ... as perennial struggles with each generation kind of rising up to do their part," Kuby says. I just have mad respect for the young people who are literally risking their education, their careers and their futures to stand up for the planet, to stand up against the slaughter in Gaza."

Biden to Send Another $1 Billion in Arms to Israel as Palestinians Mark 76th Nakba Anniversary, Palestinian Truck Drivers Face New Risks After Settlers Attacked Aid Convoy in West Bank, Israel's National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir Joins March Calling for Resettlement of Gaza, Pro-Palestinian Protesters Disrupt Google Conference over Israel Contract, Harvard Students End Encampment as Officials Agree to Discuss Divestment Demand, House Speaker Mike Johnson Visits Trump Trial & Bashes Prosecution, Maryland, Nebraska and West Virginia Hold Primaries, Ukrainian Forces Withdraw from Areas of Kharkiv Amid New Russian Offensive, Protests in Georgia After Passage of Foreign Influence" Bill, Biden Places 100% Tariff on Chinese Electric Cars, DOJ Says Boeing Violated Settlement, Could Face Criminal Prosecution, Eight Migrant Farmworkers Die in Bus Accident Heading to Watermelon Farm

Amid an intensifying crackdown on asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border, we speak to the author of the new book Unbuild Walls: Why Immigrant Justice Needs Abolition about U.S. immigration policy under the Biden administration. Author Silky Shah is the executive director of Detention Watch Network and a longtime immigration rights advocate whose new book aims to debunk the idea that immigration is a public safety issue," in the face of narratives, from both the Republican and Democrat political establishments, of criminality and deterrence. Despite Biden's campaign promises to reform the immigration system, his administration has ceded more and more ground to the Republicans and moved the whole conversation to the right," Shah says. Legalization isn't even on the table." Shah discusses how the immigrant rights' movement uses the language of abolition to build connections with other social movements fighting oppression, from mass incarceration to police brutality. These systems aren't separate. ... We have to call for abolition of the whole system and understand those things together."

As student protests around the world call for their educational institutions to divest from companies with ties to Israel, we speak to the Reverend Dr. Serene Jones, the president of Union Theological Seminary, an ecumenical seminary affiliated with Columbia University that is one of the first schools to begin divesting from companies that profit from war in Palestine/Israel." Jones says divestment is an extension of Union's long policy of trying our best to bring our values, our core mission and our conscience to bear on how we invest our money," and credits student activists with pushing the administration to action. Jones criticizes Columbia's decision to arrest student protesters with a police takeover" and violent decampment," in contrast to Union's approach to student political expression. We support students learning what it means to find their voice and speak out for justice and freedom," she says.

Over 450,000 Palestinians, many already internally displaced, have fled Rafah in the past week alone since Israel launched an offensive on the city. Another 100,000 have been forced to flee homes in the north of Gaza amid escalated bombing and ground attacks. Among the recently redisplaced is our guest, the Gaza-based journalist Akram al-Satarri, who joins us from a crowded shelter outside the Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza. Displacement has been weaponized," al-Satarri says, citing the experiences of families who have been displaced as many as eight times since the start of Israel's assault. People are suffering. They are deprived of everything," al-Satarri adds, due to Israel's seizure and closure of the Rafah border crossing, preventing food, water, supplies or aid from reaching the famine-stricken population. They are trying to prepare the Palestinians for full subjugation," he continues. Life in Gaza is unimaginable; however, Gazans are living it."

Israel Strikes UNRWA School, Intensifies Air and Ground Attacks Across Gaza, 20+ U.S. Medical Workers Trapped in Gaza, Face Severe Health Issues, After Israel Shuts Rafah Border, Hashem Ghazal, Leading Figure in Palestine's Deaf Community, Killed with Wife in Israeli Airstrike, U.S. Army Officer Resigns over Enabling and Empowering the Killing and Starvation of Palestinians", At Least 10 Israeli Military Members Have Died by Suicide Since Oct. 7, This Was All About the Campaign": Michael Cohen Testifies in Trump Hush Money Trial, Democrats May Investigate Trump Comments Suggesting Quid Pro Quo with Oil Execs If Reelected, Blinken in Ukraine to Show U.S. Support Amid Russian Advances in East, Australia Sentences Whistleblower to 5+ Years; U.K. Court Ruling Expected on Assange Extradition, Death Toll from Brazilian Floods Mounts as Residents Question Livability of Region, Climate Protesters Disrupt Italian Open, 5,000+ Mercedes-Benz Workers in Alabama Voting on Whether to Join UAW, University of California Union Could Strike to Protest Violent Crackdown on Campus Encampments

The police fatal shooting of Win Rozario, a 19-year-old Bangladeshi teen who lived in Queens, New York, has set off protests and demands for justice from the family. Rozario had called 911 in late March asking for help as he experienced a mental health crisis, but two New York police officers who arrived at the family's home shot him at least four times within minutes after entering the Rozario residence. The NYPD claimed Rozario came at" the officers with a pair of scissors when they fired at him, but police body-camera footage shows he was standing on the other side of the kitchen, several feet away from the officers, as his mother desperately tried to shield her son. He needed help, and what they did instead was kill him," says New York City Councilmember Shahana Hanif, who represents the city's 39th Council District. She also discusses progressives' ongoing efforts to pass a ceasefire resolution at City Council to demand an end to the war in Gaza, as well as Mayor Eric Adams's crackdown on asylum seekers.

We speak with civil rights attorney Ben Crump about the police killing of Roger Fortson, a Black 23-year-old Air Force member who was fatally shot by a Florida police officer mere moments after opening the door of his apartment. Fortson's family says the police had arrived at the wrong home and that Fortson had grabbed his legal firearm as a precaution. Police body-camera footage shows Fortson answered the door with his gun at his side, not posing an imminent threat to the officer, who immediately shot Fortson six times. The Second Amendment applies to Black people, too," says Crump, who has represented victims of police violence in many high-profile cases. The police claim that officers were responding to a domestic dispute is contradicted by the fact that Fortson was home alone, Crump says. They need to go ahead and admit that it was the wrong apartment and quit trying to justify this unjustifiable killing."

Israel is intensifying its war across the Gaza Strip, with the official death toll now over 35,000, including more than 14,500 children. More than 360,000 Palestinians have now been displaced from Rafah as Israeli forces ramp up their attacks there despite warnings from the United States and others against an escalation in the southern city, where more than a million Palestinians had sought shelter. This comes as the United Nations General Assembly voted 143-9 on Friday in support of full membership for Palestine, with 25 countries abstaining. The measure grants new rights to privileges to Palestine, though it can't become a full U.N. member without support from the Security Council, where the U.S. vetoed a Palestine statehood resolution last month. The last seven months have unmasked, beyond doubt, many things, including the hypocrisy, selectivity, double standards of certain international actors, and I believe the U.S. administration is right at the top of that list," says senior Palestinian diplomat Husam Zomlot, currently serving as ambassador to the United Kingdom. Zomlot also casts doubt on the claim Israel lacks clear goals in its assault on Gaza. Israel does have a plan, and Israel is executing the plan with almost perfection. And the plan is genocide."

The play Grenfell: In the Words of Survivors, which is being staged this week in Brooklyn, tells the story of the 2017 apartment fire at Grenfell Tower in London that killed 72 people. It was the worst fire in Britain since World War II, and survivors blamed the government for mismanaging the public housing block and neglecting maintenance. The play tells the story of how the residents of Grenfell Tower, from the Caribbean, Portugal, Syria, Morocco, Ethiopia and Britain, created a thriving community even as their homes fell into disrepair in the years before the fire. Playwright Gillian Slovo says she was moved to create the play after watching in absolute horror as that building burned," wondering how such a tragedy could happen in one of the richest neighborhoods of London. We also hear from Grenfell survivor Ed Daffarn, who barely escaped the inferno with his life. I'm here. It's like a million-to-one chance," Daffarn says.

Gaza solidarity encampments, which started on U.S. college campuses, have now spread worldwide as students call on their educational institutions to divest from companies profiting from Israeli apartheid and occupation. The uprising echoes the anti-apartheid movement of the 1980s, when many in civil society called for divestment from companies that profited from South Africa's system of racial domination. Democracy Now! explored the parallels this week with South African-born novelist and playwright Gillian Slovo, whose parents were legendary anti-apartheid activists Joe Slovo and Ruth First. I have been to the West Bank, and I had a childhood in South Africa. I knew what apartheid looked like," Slovo says. When I went to the West Bank, what I saw was apartheid in action."

Larry Hamm is chair of the People's Organization for Progress and a Princeton alumnus who took part in protests at the school in the 1970s to call for divestment from apartheid South Africa. He visited the Princeton student encampment earlier this week and says he is really proud of the students" for their protest against the war in Gaza. Hamm, who is running in the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate from New Jersey, is promoting a vote for uncommitted" in the state's presidential primary vote. I'm totally opposed to the Biden administration's approach to this genocidal war in Gaza. There must be an immediate and permanent ceasefire, and the United States should cease any military aid to Israel."

Over a dozen students at Princeton University have been on hunger strike for the past week as part of a Gaza solidarity encampment on campus protesting Israel's war on Gaza and calling on the university to disclose and divest from companies with ties to Israel, among other demands. The hunger strikers are also calling for all charges to be dropped against a number of students arrested on campus in late April as part of the encampment. Areeq Hasan, a graduating senior at Princeton who has not eaten for a week, tells Democracy Now! the hunger strike was a response to the university's stonewalling. We feel unheard at every step of the way, so therefore we resorted to a hunger strike," says Hasan, noting the long history of hunger strikes as a means of protest. It is in solidarity with the history of Palestinian political prisoners since 1968. ... We're tapping into this long-standing tradition with both Palestinian political prisoners and also in the Irish and Indian liberation movements."

The first faculty-led Gaza solidarity encampment in the United States was launched Wednesday at The New School in New York City, where nearly two dozen professors and lecturers pitched tents inside the lobby of the university's main building on Fifth Avenue. The encampment is named after the Palestinian writer, poet and professor Refaat Alareer, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza in December. The faculty protest began after the police raided a student encampment at The New School and arrested more than 40 students following a request by the university administration to clear the encampment. On Thursday, 12 more people were arrested outside The New School as the faculty encampment continued inside. Democracy Now! was on the scene and spoke with protesting faculty who denounced the school's ties to Israel and the militarized police response against student protesters. For the state violence that our students were subjected to and traumatized because of, we could not stand on the sidelines any longer," part-time lecturer Suneil Sanzgiri said. What we're doing here is calling for all faculty across the country to step up, to risk more and to escalate, because we have to get all war profiteers out of our universities."

100,000 Palestinians Flee Rafah as Israel Pummels Region from the Sky, Keeps Border Shut, UNRWA Closes East Jerusalem HQ After Israeli Arson Attack, Campus Uprising: Hunger Strike at Princeton, Arrests at UPenn, Victory at Sacramento State, Protests in Sweden Call Out Israel's Participation in Eurovision, HRW: RSF Likely Committed Genocide Against Masalit and Other Communites in Sudan, Interim Chadian Leader Mahamat Deby Wins Contested Presidential Election, General Strike Brings Argentina to Standstill, Three Boeing Accidents over Past Two Days Draw More Scrutiny on Embattled Company, Police Kill 23-Year-Old Black Air Force Member Roger Fortson in His Own Home, Biden Admin to Unveil New Rules Making the Asylum Process Even Harder, Virginia School Board Votes to Restore Confederate Names to 2 Schools, USC Valedictorian Asna Tabassum Gets Standing Ovation at Pared-Down Graduation

Millions of voters in India are casting their ballots in the third of seven phases in the country's mammoth general election. The election pits Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist BJP party against an alliance of more than two dozen opposition parties led by the Indian National Congress. Modi has recently come under fire from opponents for referring to Muslims in India as infiltrators," but our guest, the award-winning Indian author and journalist Siddhartha Deb, points out that the Hindu right, they've always been extreme," using genocidal language" to describe those who do not fit the ethnonationalist image of their masculine, violent, patriarchal project" and modeling the vision for a Hindu supremacist state after Israel, with its idea that a strong, muscular, militant majority that are the only people who have the right to [the] nation." Deb, a professor at The New School, also discusses India's growing inequality gap, U.S. politicians' embrace of Modi, and faculty support for pro-Palestine student protests in the U.S.

Jerusalem-based journalist and author Nathan Thrall has been awarded the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction for his book, A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy. It tells the story of Israel's occupation of the West Bank through one Palestinian father's quest to seek answers and accountability after his 5-year-old son is involved in a deadly accident. We speak to Thrall about President Biden saying for the first time that he would not supply certain weapons to Israel to be used in an all-out invasion of Rafah. It is too little, too late," Thrall says. It is a step in the right direction, but the administration has said that it has not made a final determination even about these paused weapons." Thrall also discusses Israel's ceasefire talks with Hamas, anti-Netanyahu protests led by families of Israeli hostages, Israel's intensified crackdown in the West Bank, how criticism of Israel is conflated with antisemitism, and why debates over the future of a Palestinian state are an enormous distraction from the reality on the ground" - Israel's system of domination that is extremely bureaucratic and elaborate, [that] has lasted for over half a century and [is] not going anywhere."

Tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians are fleeing Rafah as Israeli airstrikes and shelling hammer the eastern part of the city. Fuel, food, medicine and other supplies have been cut off following Israel's seizure and closure of the border crossing with Egypt. The main hospital in the area has also been shut down. Over 1.4 million people are seeking shelter in Rafah, the southernmost city of the Gaza Strip. Tent camps in some parts of Rafah have now vanished, springing up again as displaced families head back north. Over 60 Palestinians were killed across Gaza, many of them in Rafah, over the past 24 hours. We get a live update from Rafah from Dorotea Gucciardo of the Glia Project, who is currently on a medical mission in Gaza. The situation on the ground is dire. Everyone here is quite afraid. To say that there's not an incursion in Rafah right now is patently false," Gucciardo says. Throughout this entire day I have heard bombs, explosions, I have heard machine gun fire, and it seems to be creeping closer and closer to where we are."

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A historic case against U.S. military contractor CACI brought by three Iraqi survivors of torture at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq ended in mistrial in Virginia last week after the jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict. The lawsuit against CACI - which was hired to provide interrogation services at Abu Ghraib - was first filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights in 2008. Since then, CACI repeatedly attempted to have the case dismissed. Plaintiffs Suhail Al Shimari, Asa'ad Zuba'e and Salah Al-Ejaili had accused CACI of conspiring to commit war crimes at Abu Ghraib. The three were subjected to sexual abuse and other forms of torture by interrogators. Democracy Now! speaks with Baher Azmy, attorney in the case and legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, who said it was a historic human rights case" despite the outcome. What they could not stop is three courageous human beings who stood up against every obstacle and told their story in a U.S. court in a breathtaking, compelling manner. And while we didn't get a judgment from a jury, we got historical testimony that makes clear, I think, CACI's responsibility for these clients' harms," says Azmy, who adds that they intend to retry the case.

A group of more than 60 journalism professors has written to The New York Times calling on the paper to commission an independent review of its report that members of Hamas committed widespread sexual violence on October 7. Numerous media outlets, as well as some of the paper's own staff, have raised questions about the December 28 article headlined Screams Without Words," reported in part by a freelance Israeli journalist who had liked multiple posts on social media advocating for violence against Palestinians. The Times has even published subsequent reporting undercutting some of the key elements of the article, which was used by Israeli leaders and Western allies as justification for the brutal military campaign in Gaza that had already killed tens of thousands of Palestinians up to that point. It was very troubling to professors of journalism to see such a shoddy article be published without a retraction or an investigation," says Rutgers media studies professor Deepa Kumar, one of the signatories, author of Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire. She also says that as an academic, she is troubled by the mainstream media's depiction of student encampments as places of hate and violence. For those of us who have been to these encampments, we know that the atmosphere there is peaceful until the police show up and start to create chaos. ... These are fantastic spaces of learning."

As students around the country set up Gaza solidarity encampments on their campuses, many universities have called in police who have arrested students and dismantled the sites. But students at a number of colleges have managed to negotiate agreements where administrators have acceded to some of their demands, including considering divestment from Israel. We speak with four students who have been involved in pro-Palestine protests on campuses at Middlebury College in Vermont, Evergreen College in Washington state, Brown University in Rhode Island and Rutgers in New Jersey.Being an American complicit in this and being a student at an institution complicit in this genocide directly, I couldn't imagine standing by and not acting," says Duncan Kreps, who is graduating from Middlebury.Aseel, a Palestinian student at Rutgers who is only using her first name out of safety concerns, tells Democracy Now! that nearly 100 of her relatives have been killed in Israel's assault on Gaza. The Gaza that I once knew is essentially gone, but I am more than confident, along with my family, that we will return and that we will rebuild it," she says.

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Gaza solidarity protests continue at college campuses across the nation - as does the police crackdown. This comes as more than 50 chapters of the American Association of University Professors have issued a statement condemning the violent arrests by police at campus protests. At Dartmouth College last week, police body-slammed professor and former chair of Jewish studies Annelise Orleck to the ground as she tried to protect her students. She was charged with criminal trespass and temporarily banned from portions of Dartmouth's campus. She joins us to describe her ordeal and respond to claims conflating the protests' anti-Zionist message with antisemitism. People have to be able to talk about Palestine without being attacked by police," says Orleck, who commends the students leading protests around the country. Their bravery is tremendous and is inspiring. And they really feel like this is the moral issue of their time, that there's a genocide going on and that they can't ignore it."

In Rafah, we speak with Gaza-based journalist Akram al-Satarri about Israel tightening restrictions on humanitarian aid, refusing a ceasefire deal and planning to invade the city where over a million Palestinians are sheltering. Israel's military seized control of the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing with Egypt, blocking humanitarian aid from entering the besieged territory, and trapping Palestinians under heavy Israeli bombardment. This comes after Israel also closed the Karem Abu Salem crossing in southern Gaza this weekend after a Hamas attack killed four Israeli soldiers. Israel is not allowing the entry of the humanitarian aid to Gaza, which is perceived as a lifeline," says al-Satarri, who reports Palestinians are in despair" as Israel orders a third of Rafah's population to move ahead of their invasion. They understand that more destruction, more devastation, more death and deprivation is coming for them." Al-Satarri also speaks about Israel banning Al Jazeera, one of the only international outlets with reporters in Gaza. I think they want to silence Al Jazeera and they want to silence all the free media for the sake of preventing any further exposure of the things that are happening on the ground."

Even after Hamas accepted a Gaza ceasefire proposal Monday, Israeli forces moved in with tanks to seize the Rafah crossing with Egypt. Israel says the ceasefire deal falls short of its demands, and Hamas has called for international intervention." Former Israeli peace negotiator Daniel Levy says the limited information and political maneuvering of all parties raises more questions than answers right now, but the core issue is whether all parties can maintain a sustained end to hostilities. In addition to testing each other, the Hamas and Israeli parties are testing the United States of America and the Biden administration in an unprecedented way," says Levy. Hamas detects that the U.S. may finally be serious about offering a sustained calm." While Levy says growing external pressure from global protests are having an impact," he doubts U.S. and Israeli leaders feel they must change course yet. The pressure does not feel sufficient that Netanuahu's politics needs him to accept a ceasefire. He still thinks he can wiggle out of this," says Levy. If this deal doesn't go through, I fear we're in for the much longer haul."

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Police have now arrested more than 2,500 students at pro-Palestine protests across the U.S., yet students continue to call for an end to the war on Gaza and universities' investment in companies that support Israel's occupation of Palestine. We speak to three student organizers from around the country: Salma Hamamy of the University of Michigan, president of the school's chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, about the commencement ceremony protest she helped organize, and Cady de la Cruz of the University of Virginia and Rae Ferrara of the State University of New York at New Paltz about police crackdowns on their schools' encampments. De la Cruz was arrested in the UVA raid and banned from campus without an opportunity to collect any of her belongings. She says repression has strengthened the resolve of many protesters, who are willing to risk their academic futures to push for divestment. All of us there felt like we have more time on our hands ... than the people of Gaza," she explains, We would hold it down for anything."

The World Food Programme is warning northern Gaza has reached a full-blown" famine that is spreading south. This comes after the Israeli military has spent months blocking the entry of vital aid into Gaza, attacking humanitarian aid convoys and opening fire on Palestinian civilians waiting to receive lifesaving aid. We get an update on conditions among the besieged and starving population of Gaza - including of children now suffering from the psychological effects of intense and prolonged trauma - from Dr. Walid Masoud, a vascular surgeon and a board member of the Palestine Children's Relief Fund who is just back from heading a medical mission to Gaza.

As the death toll in Gaza soars to more than 34,700, Israeli authorities have taken Al Jazeera off the air in Israel and ordered Palestinians in eastern Rafah to evacuate ahead of an Israeli offensive. The Israeli government is trying to conceal what's happening in Gaza and trying to intimidate Al Jazeera ... and delegitimize the whole coverage," says Al Jazeera's managing editor Mohamed Moawad, explaining this is a strategy" to try to make sure that the story doesn't reach the world." Over the past eight months, Al Jazeera has been one of the only international outlets with reporters on the ground inside Gaza, where at least three of its employees have been killed by Israel's monthslong assault. Israel has been threatening to ban Al Jazeera for incitement" via a series of intimidations" for months, culminating in a criminal act," says Moawad. He calls on the international community, including the U.S. government, to condemn Israel's suppression of a free press.

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Nearly seven months of constant bombardment, siege and obstruction of aid deliveries have annihilated the healthcare system in Gaza. Last week, the Palestinian Health Ministry said that around 600,000 Palestinians in the northern Gaza Strip no longer have access to any kind of healthcare. The World Health Organization has said that Israel is systematically dismantling" the health system in Gaza. Only 11 hospitals out of 36 hospitals in Gaza are partially functioning. At both of Gaza's largest hospitals, Al-Shifa and Nasser, Palestinians found hundreds of bodies buried in mass graves after Israel raided and destroyed the facilities. Democracy Now! speaks with Dr. Ismail Mehr and Dr. Azeem Elahi just after they volunteered at the largest hospital still operating in Gaza, the European Hospital in Khan Younis. The healthcare system has been always in a noose, and that noose tightens at times when there's conflict," says Mehr. Right now that noose has completely just hung the healthcare system."

Democracy Now! speaks with Hala Rharrit, the first State Department diplomat to publicly resign over the Biden administration's policies backing Israel's assault and siege of the Gaza Strip. Rharrit is an 18-year career diplomat who served as the Arabic-language spokesperson for the State Department in the region. I could no longer be a part of the State Department and promote this policy. It's an inhumane policy. It's a failed policy that is helping neither Palestinians, neither Israelis," Rharrit says. We are not authorized to send military equipment, weapons to countries that commit human rights abuses. ICJ has determined plausible genocide, yet we are still sending billions upon billions of not just defensive weaponry, but offensive weaponry. It is tantamount to a violation of domestic law. Many diplomats know it. Many diplomats are scared to say it." She adds, I read the talking points that we were supposed to promote on Arab media. A lot of them were dehumanizing to Palestinians." Rharrit also discusses how corruption" in government allows for arms sales to continue. I could not help but be concerned about the influence of special interest groups, of lobbying groups on our foreign policy and, as well, on Congress - on the people that decide whether or not some of those shipments of arms get sent. The bottom line is that our politicians should not be profiting from war. And unfortunately, we have some institutionalized corruption that enables that," she says.

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Workers around the world rallied Wednesday to mark May Day, with many calling on the labor movement to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian cause. In New York, Democracy Now! spoke to demonstrators who demanded that U.S. unions apply political pressure for a ceasefire in Gaza and to stop their government's arms trade with Israel. Workers do have the power to shape the world," said Palestinian researcher Riya Al'sanah, who was among thousands gathered at a May Day rally in Manhattan.

A new report from Amnesty International finds the sale of U.S.weapons to Israel for use in its indiscriminate assault in Gaza is in violation of U.S. and international law. We speak to Budour Hassan, a Palestinian writer and contributing researcher to the report, who says the U.S. is complicit in the commission of war crimes" and must halt all arms transfer to Israel as long as Israel continues to fail to comply with international humanitarian law and international human rights law." We also discuss Israel's detention of thousands of Palestinians without charge, the inadequacy of U.S. human rights investigations into the Israeli military, and Israel's threatened ground invasion of Rafah.

We look at how university administrators have responded to Palestine solidarity protests by students with Frederick Lawrence, former president of Brandeis University and now the CEO of the Phi Beta Kappa Society and a lecturer at Georgetown Law School. Brandeis was founded in 1948 by the American Jewish community in the wake of the Holocaust and named after the first Jewish Supreme Court justice, the celebrated free speech advocate Louis Brandeis. Lawrence says the nationwide university crackdown on student protesters is a worrying violation of the principles of academic freedom. Provoking people, challenging people, asking difficult questions, making people uncomfortable, that's part of the price of living in a democracy," he says. He also notes that what constitutes a threat to campus safety should be narrowly defined. You are not entitled to be intellectually safe. You are entitled to be physically safe."

We get an update from the University of California, Los Angeles, where police in riot gear began dismantling a pro-Palestinian encampment early Thursday, using flashbang grenades, rubber bullets and tear gas, and arresting dozens of students. The raid came just over a day after pro-Israel counterprotesters armed with sticks, metal rods and fireworks attacked students at the encampment. The Real News Network reporter Mel Buer was on the scene during the attack. She describes seeing counterprotesters provoke students, yelling slurs and bludgeoning them with parts of the encampment's barricade, and says the attack lasted several hours without police or security intervention. "UCLA is complicit in violence inflicted upon protesters," wrote the editorial board of UCLA's campus newspaper, the Daily Bruin, the next day. Four of the paper's student journalists were targeted and assaulted by counterprotesters while covering the protests. We speak with Shaanth Kodialam Nanguneri, one of the student journalists, who says one of their colleagues was hospitalized over the assault, while campus security officers were nowhere to be found." Meanwhile, UCLA's chapter of Faculty for Justice in Palestine has called on faculty to refuse university labor Thursday in protest of the administration's failure to protect students from what it termed Zionist mobs." Professor Gaye Theresa Johnson, a member of UCLA Faculty for Justice in Palestine, denounces the administration's response to nonviolent protest and says she sees the events as part of a major sea change in the politicization of American youth. This is a movement. It cannot be unseen. It cannot be put back in the box."

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