 | | with Sammy Westfall |
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| Destroyed buildings are seen in Khan Younis on April 30 after the Israeli military pulled out troops from the southern Gaza Strip. (Mohammed Saber/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock) |
In a fit of ideological pique last week, far-right Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) scoffed at protesters agitating against pro-Israel policies on campuses across the United States. “I get a strange inkling that all these Columbia and UCLA students running around yelling ‘Free Palestine’ would not be jumping at the opportunity to do a semester abroad in Gaza,” she wrote on social media, before later journeying to a protest encampment at George Washington University and almost sparring with students when trying to pull down a Palestinian flag. Boebert’s scorn is shared even by some of her opponents in the Washington establishment, many of whom have cast the student demonstrations as, at best, unproductive far-left agitprop or, more darkly, dangerous antisemitic behavior that must be expunged from the academy. Hundreds of campus protesters have been arrested in recent days in police crackdowns from California to New York. Boebert’s comment, though, drew derision on two counts: First, that protesters angry about alleged Israeli war crimes in Gaza would need to go to the besieged territory itself to justify their anger. And, second, that students could even do “a semester abroad” in Gaza, where Israel has spent the past half year systematically destroying most of its educational institutions, including all of its universities. For months, Palestinian civil society activists have drawn attention to the steady eradication of Gaza’s cultural patrimony. Israel’s punishing campaign against militant group Hamas has seen much of the territory reduced to ruin. In the process, many libraries, museums and colleges have been ransacked and razed — in some instances, by deliberate Israeli demolition. Thousands of artifacts in various collections, including Roman coins and other materials from Gaza’s pre-Islamic past, have been potentially lost during the war.  | | |
The hysteria over campus protests in the United States has shifted American attention away from the depth of the ongoing calamity in Gaza. U.N. officials and aid agencies are still grappling with the scale of the destruction in the territory, where dozens are still dying every day. Since Hamas launched its Oct. 7 terrorist strike on southern Israel, more than 34,500 Palestinians in the territory — many of them women and children — have been killed. Some 5 percent of Gaza’s overall population has been killed or injured, according to a U.N. report that cites local data. That figure doesn’t include the more than at least 10,000 people that the U.N. estimates are still missing beneath the rubble, citing the Palestinian Civil Defense (PCD). The challenge of finding the missing is growing more dire, given the widespread destruction of heavy machinery and equipment needed to dig through the debris. “Rising temperatures can accelerate the decomposition of bodies and the spread of disease,” the U.N. humanitarian affairs office said in a statement, adding that the PCD was appealing to “all relevant stakeholders to urgently intervene to allow the entry of needed equipment, including bulldozers and excavators, to avert a public health catastrophe, facilitate dignified burials, and save the lives of injured people.” Sifting through Gaza’s wreckage will be no simple task. Israel has dumped a huge amount of ordnance on the territory. Mungo Birch, head of the U.N. Mine Action Program in Palestinian territory, said last week that the amount of unexploded missiles and bombs lying in the rubble is “unprecedented” since World War II. He said tiny Gaza is a site of some 37 million tons of rubble — more than what’s been generated across all of Ukraine during Russia’s war — and 800,000 tons of asbestos and other contaminants. He said his agency has only a fraction of the funding it needs to begin clearing operations whenever the war ends.  | | |
Over the weekend, U.S. and Egyptian officials attempted to facilitate a last-ditch effort to broker a truce between Israel and Hamas. A delegation from the Palestinian militant group was in Cairo and expressed optimism that a breakthrough could be found. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who faced mass protests at home against his continued tenure in office, seemed more wary of the arrangement and remains bent on carrying out a full offensive against the southern Gazan city of Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians already displaced in the territory have taken shelter. Top U.N. officials say famine has already gripped parts of Gaza. Beyond the desperately insufficient trickle of humanitarian aid into the territory, the war has also “severely hampered” Gaza’s “ability to produce food and clean water,” according to my colleagues. “Israeli airstrikes and bulldozers have razed farms and orchards. Crops abandoned by farmers seeking safety in southern Gaza have withered, and cattle have been left to die.” The fear surrounding Rafah and the uncertainty over a potential cease-fire sit against the looming reality of how difficult it will be for Gaza to recover. More than 70 percent of all housing in the territory has been destroyed. A report by the U.N. Development Program (UNDP) found that the war has reversed 40 years of development and improvement in social indicators such as life expectancy, health and educational attainment in Gaza. The agency estimated that reconstruction, at this point, would cost some $40 billion to $50 billion. And if it follows the pace observed after previous conflicts, UNDP estimates that it will take “approximately 80 years to restore all the fully destroyed housing units” in Gaza. “My very big concern — in addition to the numbers — is the breaking down of communities and families in Gaza,” UNDP regional director Abdallah al-Dardari told The Washington Post. “If you know 60 people in your family have been killed — like our colleague Issam al-Mughrabi who was killed with 60 people in his family during one raid — you will go numb,” Dardari said. “The consequences of this war will stay with us far beyond the end of the war.” |
| Members of the Sahel team backstage. |
Children who accompanied the Sahel team play at the stadium. |
Reporters Rachel Chason and Yacouba Lido profiled a traditional dance troupe from a Burkina Faso village where it’s too dangerous to dance: The musicians and dancers traveled in a military convoy to reach the competition, moving in armored cars with soldiers through parts of the country where Islamist extremists have banned their violins, drums and dance moves. There was a dancer whose close friend had been killed for listening to a radio while he farmed. A violinist who no longer dared to play at the marriages and baptisms in the villages where he used to make his living. A young dancer who could no longer go to concerts with her friends in neighboring villages. The group journeyed from Burkina Faso’s Sahel administrative region, one of the most dangerous areas in a country racked in recent years by violence committed by Islamist extremists. At this national festival, the troupe would face off against teams from across Burkina Faso. At stake was pride and money. For the Sahel team, it was also about resistance. “In the villages now, you cannot play music on your phones or have even a little instrument,” said Amadou Ag Anasbagort, 36, whose friend was killed by the militants a few years ago after he was caught listening to his radio. “So when we are here dancing, we are happy. It is like we have a bit of power.” |
| • Israel’s government moved Sunday to shut down the Al Jazeera Media Network’s operations in Israel, clamping down on one of the few international broadcasters providing largely uninterrupted coverage of the Gaza war. Israel’s Netanyahu said the decision followed a unanimous vote by Israel’s war cabinet, saying “the incitement channel Al Jazeera will be closed in Israel.” He accused Al Jazeera correspondents of having “harmed the security of Israel” and said “the time has come to eject Hamas’s mouthpiece from our country.” Israel’s actions placed it in the company of several autocratic countries in the region that have tried to stifle the network. • As the results of local elections across England and Wales were tallied Friday, they painted a bleak picture for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s ruling Conservative Party and its prospects of holding on to power this year. The Conservatives lost seat after seat on town councils, while the opposition Labour Party finished strong, taking away votes in areas once considered Tory strongholds. It was the last test before Sunak and his government must confront voters in a nationwide general election, likely to be held this fall, though it could come sooner, especially if the embattled prime minister faces a rebellion among his own anxious lawmakers. • In case you missed it: Canadian police made the first arrests Friday in the shooting death of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar last year outside a gurdwara in British Columbia, and are continuing to investigate allegations that the Indian government directed the brazen killing. The three members of the alleged hit squad were charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. Each is an Indian citizen with non-permanent resident status who has been living in Canada from three to five years, police said. The Washington Post last week reported on the campaign of repression, surveillance and harassment by India’s spy agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) against critics of the Modi government in the Indian diaspora. That effort includes the foiled assassination attempt last year against Gurpatwant Singh Pannun on U.S. soil. Pannun, a U.S. citizen and Sikh activist, was an associate of Nijjar. The Post found that U.S. intelligence agencies believe the plot against Pannun was approved by Samant Goel, then the head of RAW. |
| By Taylor Telford and Julian Mark | | |
By Shira Rubin, Rachel Pannett, Annabelle Timsit, Lior Soroka, Adela Suliman and Susannah George | | |
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| By the Columbia College Student Council | The Guardian | | |
By Jay Caspian Kang | The New Yorker | | |
By Washington Post Letters to the Editor | | |
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| Laura Esquivel prays inside the Church of the Immaculate Blessed Virgin in Torvaianica, Italy. She had lost her faith before her encounters with the pope. (Alessandro Penso for The Washington Post) |
VATICAN CITY — Sea gulls soared over St. Peter’s Square as Laura Esquivel, clad in tight leather pants, aimed herself toward the high walls of the Holy See. “It’s not too much? My makeup?” she asked, self-consciously touching a rouged cheek. “I don’t care what people think. But this is the pope.” She hurried into the Vatican’s cavernous Paul VI Audience Hall and was ushered to the front row. Before her, a 23-foot-tall bronze sculpture of Jesus gazed down. Behind her, the faithful flashed curious looks. It was the third papal meeting for Laura, 57, a saucy Paraguayan sex worker who, in her realest moments, described herself as “una travesti,” outdated Spanish slang for “a transgender woman.” She lived by a code: Tough girls don’t cry. But the first time Pope Francis had blessed her, she couldn’t suppress her tears. On their second meeting, they chatted over lunch. He came to know her well enough to ask about her health. On top of her longtime HIV, she’d had a recent cancer diagnosis. During treatment, the church sourced her a comfortable hotel room in the shadow of the Colosseum and provided food, money, medicine and tests. The outreach reflected an unconventional pope in the most radical stage of his papacy. From his early days in 2013, when he famously declared, “Who am I to judge,” Francis has urged the Catholic Church to embrace all comers, including those living in conflict with its teachings. Now, his unprecedented opening to the LGBTQ+ community has reached its zenith — and ballooned into the most explosive issue of his tenure, fueling a bitter clash with senior conservative clerics, who have denounced him in remarkably harsh terms. In recent months, Francis has given explicit approval for transgender godparents and blessings of same-sex couples. He penned a defense of secular civil unions — once described by his predecessor as “contrary to the common good.” His pronouncements have sometimes seemed contradictory or in tension — authorizing baptisms for transgender people one day, while warning of the moral risks of “sex-change intervention” on another. He has said “being homosexual is not a crime” but hasn’t altered church teaching that homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered.” Nevertheless, as the 87-year-old pontiff moves to cement his legacy, he has been emphatic about his overarching vision: the open door. |
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Laura meets Pope Francis for the third time during the March 27 papal audience at the Vatican. (Stefano Pitrelli/The Washington Post) |
Nothing made that point more vividly than his decision over the past two years to welcome nearly 100 transgender women, many of them sex workers, into the sacred spaces of the Vatican. These were imperfect people who had lived through rejection, vice and violence, some losing faith along the way. Like Laura. She’d worked the streets on two continents, starting at age 15. She did time in an Italian jail for cutting another trans woman in a fight. “Soy hecho de hierro,” she’d say. I’m made of iron. She apologized to no one for her life, up to and including the pope. Yet through once unimaginable encounters with the supreme pontiff of 1.4 billion Catholics, and with the support of a local priest and nun, she’d begun to soften. For the first time in years, she’d started to pray. If she beat her cancer, she knew she faced a decision: return to prostitution or, as her supporters hoped, forge a new life. From the front row, on the last papal audience before Easter, she kept her eyes on the pope as he approached in his wheelchair. “Pope Francis!” she said, reaching for his hand. “Laura!” beamed the pope. – Anthony Faiola and Stefano Pitrelli Read more: How Pope Francis opened the Vatican to transgender sex workers |
| ADVICE  (Marvin Joseph)
By Mari-Jane Williams |
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