Category: Columns

Statement on Gaza by Tom Fletcher, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator

To the Israeli authorities, and those who can still reason with them, we say again: lift this brutal blockade. Let humanitarians save lives.

To the civilians left unprotected, no apology can suffice. But I am truly sorry that we are unable to move the international community to prevent this injustice. We won’t give up, even if the world has given you every reason to give up on us.

Mohsen Mahdawi — the Columbia student arrested at his citizenship appointment — speaks

In the first media interview with any of the Trump administration’s student detainees – all at risk of deportation — Mahdawi spoke to Leila Fadel in the Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans, Vt., where he’s awaiting a court hearing Wednesday in a petition that argues government officials violated his First Amendment right to free speech and his right to due process.

Editor’s note: On Wednesday, April 30, a federal judge in Vermont ordered Mohsen Mahdawi’s release while his case proceeds.

Long overdue release of Ahmad Manasra marks the start of a long and difficult path to recovery

Ahmad Manasra’s release comes at a time when thousands of Palestinian prisoners and detainees face unprecedented levels of torture and other ill-treatment and denial of their most basic rights, such as food and healthcare. Israeli authorities repeatedly claimed that Manasra’s prolonged and cruel solitary confinement was aimed at protecting him, but in fact it subjected him to immense suffering.

Scholasticide Continues: Israel’s Ongoing Destruction of Gaza’s Education System Jeopardizes an Entire Generation’s Future

The growing impact of malnutrition among children and students in Gaza—driven by the Israeli-imposed blockade and its deliberate policy of starvation and denial of humanitarian aid—has become a key factor undermining academic performance. The deteriorating humanitarian conditions and widespread food insecurity have led to a sharp rise in malnutrition rates, impairing students’ physical and cognitive development and significantly diminishing their ability to concentrate and engage in learning.

Pierre Nicodème on the Complicity of the Ministry of Higher Education with Reichman University: “Disgust and Anger”

Pierre Nicodème, a retired mathematician and computer scientist at the CNRS, is returning the CNRS Medal of Honor, which he received in 2013, in response to pressure from the Ministry of Higher Education on the IEP of Strasbourg to maintain its partnership with Reichman University in Herzliya, Israel. In an open letter we publish here, he expresses “disgust and anger” at the ministry’s political choices. It is also an occasion for him to offer a personal testimony as a committed intellectual on how France, over the past two decades (since Nicolas Sarkozy’s election in 2007), has completely abandoned any concern for justice and balance in its handling of the Palestinian issue.