Nisreen Ramadan Abu Kashif, 48, gathered her nine children to venture down the road in Khan Younis to look for food on Monday.
Most of the children walked barefoot, but their mother was focused on their empty stomachs.
After nearly nine months of the Israel-Hamas war and very little aid making it into Gaza, she worries about feeding her family. Every day, each child carries their own pot — small ones for the younger siblings and larger ones for the eldest — while navigating dusty rubble, in hopes of cobbling together their next meal.
“We were living off the aid that came through the border, and now, there’s no border,” Abu Kashif told Mohamed El Saife, a freelance videographer with CBC. “The situation is more than terrible.”
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said Sunday it would halt its military operations from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. local time along the stretch of the road that includes the Kerem Shalom border crossing and the Salah al-Din highway, a major north-south road. The pause, which it said began Monday, is meant to get aid into the strip.
The border crossing has become a major pipeline for aid since Israel expanded its operations in Rafah last month.
However, despite the brief reprieve, aid organizations said they’re still running into significant barriers trying to get enough water, food and supplies to those in need.
The military later clarified the pause would not stop the fighting in Rafah, once a place of refuge for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.
“We created this creative solution in order to make sure that the international organizations are feeling safe to provide the distribution of humanitarian aid from the Kerem Shalom crossing,” IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari said in an interview with CBC News on Monday.
“We are fighting Hamas, not the people of Gaza…. We will continue to facilitate humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza.”
The flow of UN aid in the devastated Palestinian territory has been heavily squeezed since Israel’s operation began in Rafah, the key gateway into Gaza from Egypt. Israel is coming under mounting global pressure to ease the crisis as humanitarian agencies warn of looming famine.
Jens Laerke, a UN spokesperson, told The Associated Press on Sunday that Israel’s announcement was welcome, but that “no aid has been dispatched from Kerem Shalom today,” with no other details. Laerke said that the UN hopes for further concrete measures from Israel, including smoother checkpoint operations and regular entry of fuel.
Nisreen Ramadan Abu Kashif says she’s worried about feeding her family and fears that aid organizations can’t keep up with demand. ‘I wonder from where do I secure food and water for them,’ she told freelance journalist Mohamed El Saife.
Abu Kashif said water is hard to come by in Khan Younis — even seawater.
“All of the Palestinian people are suffering from a lack of entry of the aid because they closed the [Rafah] border.”
Israel has said it hasn’t limited humanitarian supplies for civilians in Gaza. It has blamed aid organizations for failing to deliver, or Hamas for intercepting shipments to fuel its own operation against Israel.
UNRWA, the main organization delivering aid to Gaza, said it received a notification from the Israeli military about the daytime pause, but that it was in English only, and was soon followed by the government contradicting that instruction.
“There has been information that such a decision has been taken, but the political level says none of this decision has been taken,” UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said in a news conference in Oslo on Monday.
“So for the time being, I can tell you that hostilities continue in Rafah and in the south of Gaza. And that operationally, nothing has changed yet.”
Aid trucks are not getting into Gaza, strangling food, water and medical supplies. Some truck drivers avoid areas where Israeli settlers attack aid trucks while Egypt and Israel blame each other for keeping the main Rafah crossing into Gaza closed after Israel captured it a week ago.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday criticized the plans for a pause.
An Israel-Hamas agreement to end the war still appears distant, eight months in, despite international pressure on both sides to accept a ceasefire deal. Israel’s military campaign has killed more than 37,000 people in Gaza, according to the local health ministry, and laid waste to much of the enclave.
Israel launched its assault after Hamas-led fighters killed some 1,200 people, by Israeli tallies, in a surprise attack on Oct. 7.
Back in Khan Younis, Abu Kashif lined up at a local soup kitchen, her only option in the strip for food. Two men stirred the contents of the pots over an open fire. They were serving a vegetable soup.
“The organizations can’t keep up with the needs of the kids and the needs of the residents,” she said.
“I’m very worried.”
Published at Mon, 17 Jun 2024 23:41:52 +0000
Maryland just issued 175,000 pot pardons. Can Canada do the same?
As It Happens6:32Maryland just issued 175,000 pot pardons. The attorney general says it’s a matter of racial justice
Maryland’s governor issued 175,000 pardons for marijuana convictions in one fell swoop on Monday.
It’s the largest state-level program of its kind in the U.S., and one that Attorney General Anthony Brown says will impact people of colour the most.
“In Maryland and across the United States, this so-called war on drugs has had a detrimental effect, particularly on Black and brown communities. People have difficulties getting jobs, housing opportunities, educational opportunities,” he told As It Happens host Nil Köksal.
“You can only imagine how it impacts families and begins to erode and tear apart communities.”
In Canada, meanwhile, a program to pardon minor pot offences has seen little uptake since it was first introduced five years ago, and logistical challenges are hampering a federal effort to hide cannabis convictions from background checks.
‘It means a lot’
Gov. Wes Moore announced Maryland’s pardons on Monday, nearly two years after residents voted in November 2022 to legalize marijuana in a ballot referendum.
“We cannot address the benefits of legalization if we do not address the consequences of criminalization,” Moore said.
The pardons cover convictions related to misdemeanour possession of cannabis and certain convictions for misdemeanour possession of drug paraphernalia.
Electronic court records are expected to be updated within two weeks, and convictions are expected to be eliminated from criminal background checks in 10 months.
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore announced Monday the state will issue 175,000 pardons for marijuana convictions in an effort to combat racial injustice and undo harm caused by the war on drugs.
Shiloh Jordan, who lost his job on his second day at work after a minor cannabis conviction appeared in a background check by his employer, said the pardon “means a lot.”
“I know a lot of people that have been convicted for petty cannabis charges, and it really affected their whole way of life and their whole way of thinking,” Jordan said at the news conference, where he stood alongside Moore and other state officials.
Heather Warnken, executive director of the University of Baltimore Law School’s Center for Criminal Justice Reform, described the pardons as “a win for thousands of Marylanders getting a fresh start to pursue education, employment, and other forms of economic opportunity without the stain of a criminal conviction.”
What’s happening in Canada?
Moore issued the pardons by way of an executive order, and those eligible for pardons won’t have to apply.
In Canada, meanwhile, “it’s a much more challenging process,” says Andrew Tanenbaum, director of the non-profit organization Pardons Canada, which helps Canadians navigate the system.
The Liberal government legalized cannabis in Canada in 2018 and introduced an expedited pardon process for pot possession charges.
While it simplifies the pardons process, Tanenbaum says Canadians still have to apply and undergo a police check to “prove you’ve been out of trouble in the recent past.”
Busted with a joint at 18, an employee with a federal contractor says Ottawa’s pardon process for cannabis convictions is broken after he has lost his job over the charge that dates back to the late 1980s.
The federal government initially estimated that 10,000 Canadians would be eligible for pardons under the program. But earlier this month, the Parole Board of Canada told CBC News that only 1,300 have applied, and just 845 pardons had been granted.
In some cases, applications were rejected on technicalities.
In an effort to speed things along, the NDP passed a motion in 2022 that would automatically “sequester” Canadians’ pot possession convictions — in other words, hide them from criminal record background checks.
But that, too, has proved logistically challenging.
Criminal records at the federal level are handled by the RCMP, Tanenbaum noted, but there are also “repositories across thousands of local police stations.”
The federal government previously told CBC News it’s on track to meet its November 2024 deadline for sequestering records, but couldn’t say how many have been handled so far.
Tanenbaum says it’s possible there just aren’t that many people in Canada who still need pot-related pardons, as cannabis convictions were already declining in the years leading up to legalization.
But for those who do have convictions hanging over their heads, he says the consequences can be dire.
“Pretty much every employer in the country is doing criminal checks. So if you do have something on your record, even if it’s from 20 years [ago], it’s getting in the way of you getting work,” he said.
Advocates, including the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, have long been calling on Canada to take a blanket approach to pot pardons.
Asked whether mass pardons like Maryland’s are possible here, a spokesperson for Public Safety Canada deferred questions to the Parole Board of Canada, which was unable to provide a statement before deadline.
More work to do
Gov. Brown, meanwhile, says his the pardons are just a first step in undoing the harm caused by the war on drugs in Maryland.
“The pardons address historical wrongs. And now we need to look at present day,” he said. “We see the presence of racial bias because we see disproportionate arrests and convictions and stiffer sentences that are against people of colour. So there’s still a lot of work to do.”
He says he’s optimistic for the future, especially as the state’s first Black attorney general working with its first Black governor.
“We will be very intentional about addressing disparities and inequities,” he said. “There’s a new day in Maryland.”
Published at Mon, 17 Jun 2024 22:22:07 +0000
