الكاتب: kafej

Up to 25,000 garment workers clashed with police in Bangladesh on Thursday, officials said, as protests rejecting a government-offered pay rise forced the closure of at least 100 factories outside Dhaka.

A government-appointed panel raised wages on Tuesday by 56.25 percent for the South Asian nation’s four million garment factory workers, who are seeking a near-tripling of their monthly wage.

Bangladesh’s 3,500 garment factories account for about 85 percent of its $55bn in annual exports, supplying many of the world’s top brands including Levi’s, Zara and H&M.

But conditions are dire for many of the workers, the vast majority of whom are women whose monthly pay starts at 8,300 taka ($75).

Police said violence broke out in the industrial towns of Gazipur and Ashulia on the outskirts of Dhaka after more than 10,000 workers staged protests in factories and along highways to reject the panel’s offer.

“There were 10,000 [protesting] workers at several spots. They threw bricks and stones at our officers and factories, which were open,” Mahmud Naser, Ashulia’s deputy industrial police chief, said.

“One of our officers was injured. We fired rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse the workers,” Naser said, adding that more than 100 factories were shut down in Ashulia and surrounding areas.

Thousands of workers also clashed with the elite Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) and police at Konabari and Naujore in Gazipur, with police using batons and tear gas to drive them into alleys.

“About 15,000 workers blocked the road at Konabari, and vandalised vehicles and other properties. We had to disperse them to maintain law and order,” Gazipur municipality administrator Sayed Murad Ali said.

At least two injured workers were taken to hospital, police said.

Gaza Strip – When Israeli bombs began pummelling the once-bustling streets of Gaza City, Diana Tarazi and her family fled to the Holy Family Church, the only Roman Catholic place of worship in the Gaza Strip.

The 38-year-old Palestinian Christian, her husband and three children huddled alongside fellow churchgoers and Muslim neighbours and friends, lulling their children to an exhausted sleep amid the sounds of bombing, muttering soft words of encouragement to each other.

“Together, we try to get through the war until it ends – and we survive it,” Tarazi told Al Jazeera.

Their sense of safety was shattered on October 19, when Israel bombed the nearby Church of Saint Porphyrius, Gaza’s oldest, killing at least 18 people. The Israeli army said in a statement that the church was not the target of the attack.

“The missile fell directly on it,” Tarazi said of the Greek Orthodox site. “We cannot believe that the church was not their aim.”

Two days earlier, an explosion at Al-Ahli Arab Hospital – an Anglican institution located a few blocks away – killed and injured hundreds, according to Palestinian health authorities. Hamas blamed the blast on an Israeli air raid, while Tel Aviv claimed it was caused by a malfunctioning rocket fired by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, an armed group based in Gaza.

Despite Gaza City and adjacent refugee camps being surrounded by Israeli ground forces, and air raids pounding the area, Tarazi is refusing to leave. “We do not accept displacement from our country, our land and our churches,” she said.

“I will not leave the church except to the grave.”

‘Threat of extinction’

At least 10,569 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7.

Only 800 to 1,000 Christians are believed to still live in Gaza, constituting the oldest Christian community in the world, dating back to the first century.

Mitri Raheb, an Evangelical Lutheran pastor and founder of Dar al-Kalima University in Bethlehem, said it was conceivable that the current conflict would spell the end of its long history in this strip of land.

“This community is under threat of extinction,” Raheb told Al Jazeera. “I’m not sure if they will survive the Israeli bombing, and even if they survive, I think many of them will want to emigrate.”

“We know that within this generation, Christianity will cease to exist in Gaza,” he added.

The broader region of historic Palestine is the birthplace of Christianity, as well as the setting for many of the events in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible.

In the fourth century, Gaza, located along a major trade route with access to a vibrant port and a cosmopolitan city, became a major Christian mission hub. After 1948, when the state of Israel was established and 700,000 Palestinians were displaced from their homes in what became known as the Nakba, or “catastrophe”, more Palestinian Christians joined the community on the coastal enclave.

Estimates have indicated that the number of Christians in Gaza dropped in recent years from the 3,000 registered in 2007, when Hamas assumed complete control of the strip, triggering Israel’s blockade and accelerating the departure of Christians from the poverty-stricken enclave.

Attacks in West Bank ‘quadrupled’

In the West Bank, Christians are on a stronger footing with more than 47,000 people living there, according to a 2017 census.

But violence and persecution have unsettled the community there too. “Attacks on clergy and churches had quadrupled this year compared to last year,” Raheb, whose academic institution documents such events, said.

On January 1, days after Israel swore in the most far-right government in the country’s history, two unidentified men broke into Jerusalem’s Protestant Mount Zion Cemetery and desecrated more than 30 graves, pushing over cross-shaped tombstones and smashing them with rocks.

On January 26, a mob of Israeli settlers attacked an Armenian bar in the Christian quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, shouting “Death to Arabs … Death to Christians.”

A couple of days later, Armenians leaving a memorial service in the Armenian Quarter were attacked by Israeli settlers carrying sticks. An Armenian was pepper-sprayed as settlers scaled the walls of the Armenian convent, trying to take down its flag, which had a cross on it.

The attacks have continued to escalate, in tandem with Israeli attempts to “silence any voices coming from Palestinians inside Israel”, Raheb said.

“They are Jewish terrorist settlers, but the international community doesn’t recognise them as such because it is part of the same colonial [mindset],” he said, adding that he worried the constant threat of violence would eventually drive out Christianity from the Holy Land.

‘My children were disfigured, dead’

Back in Gaza, Ramez al-Souri is trying to wrap his head around the deaths of his three children, Suhail, Majd and Julie, in the Church of Saint Porphyrius bombing.

“The building contained civilians who did not belong to them,” he said, referring to the Palestinian group Hamas, which launched the surprise attack in southern Israel on October 7 that led to Israel’s bombing.

Al-Souri had hoped his loved ones would be safe in a holy site, but not even the sanctity of its premises could shield his family from Israeli bombardment. The Israeli army is known to have also targeted UN schools sheltering displaced women and children, as well as hospitals, ambulances and aid supplies.

“My three children came out disfigured from the effects of the missile and shrapnel,” he said, still visibly in shock days later.

“I cannot believe that I will not talk and play with them again in my life.”

Life in Gaza is dominated by fears of Israeli attacks, finding somewhere safe, worrying about food, water, medicine and whether loved ones are still alive.

In the middle of this brutal present, some world leaders have already begun discussing the future, once the war is over.

The United States Secretary of State Anthony Blinken says neither will there be a place for the Palestinian group Hamas, nor can Israel reoccupy the Gaza Strip.

That is contrary to what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is saying.

Why do some leaders appear more concerned about who will govern Gaza once the bloodshed is over than in ending the war?

Presenter: James Bays

Guests:

Mohammed Nablusi – Lawyer and organiser with the Palestinian Youth Movement

Ilan Pappe – Israeli historian and author of, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine

Vincent Fean – Former British consul general in Jerusalem and trustee of the Balfour Project

Gaza City – Ibrahim Abu Rish feels fresh, thanks to a barber at al-Shifa Hospital who gave him a haircut.

The civil defence rescuer, who has been doing this job for 15 years, has not been home in more than a month.

“My home is in Karameh, and the whole neighbourhood got destroyed,” he said. “I haven’t had a chance to see my wife and children yet, who are displaced. My wife calls me many times a day, but I can’t answer her every time.”

Abu Rish, 35, has witnessed things over the past month that are worse than anything he could have imagined. The Israeli bombardment of the blockaded Gaza Strip has killed more than 10,500 Palestinians since October 7, most are women and children. Israeli air raids have targeted homes, residential blocks, entire neighbourhoods, schools, mosques, churches and hospitals.

“This war has no mercy,” Abu Rish said. “We cannot guarantee our own safety.”

At least seven rescue workers have been killed.

Abu Rish’s colleague Mohammed al-Ghaleez and five other civilians were killed in an Israeli air attack on the al-Tuffah police station on Salah al-Din Street in Gaza City.

“The hardest thing I’ve seen is the torn bodies of children, the children under the rubble who we can’t reach,” Abu Rish said. “Bodies litter the streets. The smell of this city is one of rotting, decomposing bodies.”

He has also seen people desperate for water drinking from the hoses the civil defence uses to extinguish fires.

More than 2,660 people are missing under the rubble, including 1,350 children.

“It drives me crazy that we can’t save these people,” he said. “I’ve had to tell people that we cannot rescue them. I could see them, but there was no way to reach them. Imagine waiting for death like this.”

The civil defence is sorely lacking in heavy machinery and equipment needed to move the rubble, his colleague Musleh al-Aswad said. Their vehicles are rusty, and if they don’t break down from a mechanical problem, the damaged roads and shrapnel hinder their operations.

“We don’t have the resources,” the 40-year-old said. “No fire engines, vehicles, ambulances, machines. People use metal cutters and their hands to dig through the rubble.”

Tractors and excavators are rare and, even if available, need fuel to work, which is not available.

Telecommunications blackouts add stress and prevent rescue teams from coordinating with each other.

“I’ve been in the field since 2007 and in every war since then,” al-Aswad said. “But this one, … what is happening to us is unprecedented.”

He sees his family every few days, stealing half an hour with them and making sure they’re OK before changing his clothes to head out again.

“We are definitely afraid in our line of work, but our determination is stronger,” he said. “We took an oath to protect our people.”

Abu Rish said there hasn’t been a single road that Israeli warplanes and tanks have not targeted, and when they strike, it’s always more than once.

“We want a ceasefire and for the injured to be transferred outside for treatment and for all of this to end,” he said. “Enough.”

Bogota, Colombia – As Israel’s bombardment of Gaza enters its second month, world leaders have increasingly voiced concern over the rising death toll and suspected human rights violations in the Palestinian territory.

But in the West, few have been as vocal — or as severe in their criticism — as the leftist leaders in Latin America, many of whom came to power as part of a progressive wave known as the “pink tide”.

On October 31, Bolivia severed its diplomatic relations with Israel, citing “the aggressive and disproportionate Israeli military offensive taking place in the Gaza Strip”. Colombia and Chile echoed that criticism, recalling their diplomats from Israel the very same day.

“If Israel does not stop the massacre of the Palestinian people, we cannot be there,” Colombian President Gustavo Petro posted on the social media platform X.

His message came minutes after his Chilean counterpart, Gabriel Boric, denounced the Israeli offensive as a “collective punishment on the Palestinian population in Gaza”.

Analysts said these acts of censure send a powerful signal from Latin America, a region that has largely maintained close, if sometimes tense, ties with Israel.

“It speaks to a Latin America that is not willing to tolerate such obvious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law,” said Mauricio Jaramillo, an international relations expert.

The Latin American leaders’ sharp rhetoric, he added, stood in stark contrast with statements from other Western leaders, like United States President Joe Biden, who have been more circumspect in their criticism of Israel.

In response to Latin America’s diplomatic backlash, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs called on Colombia and Chile to support its right “to protect its citizens”. To do otherwise, Israel suggested, would be to align “with Venezuela and Iran in support of Hamas terrorism”.

It also called Bolivia’s decision to cut relations altogether “a surrender to terrorism”.

Bolivia, Chile and Colombia were not alone in their criticism. By Friday, the leftist government in Honduras had likewise pulled its ambassador from Israel for “consultations”. And after last week’s bombing of Jabalia, Gaza’s largest refugee camp, more left-leaning leaders from Latin America spoke out against the Israeli violence.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Argentina, for instance, home to the largest Jewish community in Latin America, condemned the attack in a statement: “Nothing justifies the violation of international humanitarian law.”

Cold War legacy on left-wing politics

The current conflict in Gaza, however, is not the first time Latin America’s leftist leaders have taken a stand against Israel.

Jaramillo pointed out that Cuba’s Fidel Castro became the first Latin American leader to break relations with Israel back in 1973.

Announced in the midst of the Cold War, Castro’s decision served as a rebuke both to Israeli aggression in the Middle East and to its biggest ally, the US — Cuba’s adversary at the time.

The legacy of the Cold War has primed Latin America’s leftist leaders to be sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, according to Jehad Jusef, the vice president of the Palestinian Union of Latin America, an association of Palestinian diaspora groups.

During the Cold War, the US backed military dictatorships in Latin America that suppressed leftist movements, Jusef said.

That history, he argued, serves as a parallel for the modern-day situation in Gaza, where the US is supporting Israel in a campaign that has raised grave human rights concerns.

Israel played its own role in Latin America’s Cold War period, serving as a major arms dealer to the US-backed military dictatorships in places like Guatemala and Argentina.

“Imperialism in Latin America is the same as imperialism in the Middle East,” Jusef said.

Experiences with displacement

Experts said Israel’s settlement of Palestinian territories has also fostered a sense of recognition among Latin American leaders.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians faced displacement during the 1948 establishment of the state of Israel after a period of prolonged Western involvement in the region. The UN continues to denounce the expansion of Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories like the West Bank as illegal.

That history resonates in Latin America, where an estimated 42 million people identify as Indigenous. They too continue to grapple with a legacy of dispossession from their ancestral lands and racial discrimination, as part of European colonisation.

“Progressive movements in Latin America approach the Palestinian cause as one of decolonization,” said Manuel Rayran, an expert in international relations. “They identify with that cause because [many of the inequalities] seen in Latin America today are inherited from colonialism.”

Some political analysts like Cecilia Baeza have noted that Indigenous groups have even taken a leadership role in supporting Palestinian causes.

“In Chile and Bolivia, where this political convergence is particularly strong, it is not unusual to see Palestine solidarity protests called by both Palestinian diaspora organizations and Indigenous movements,” Baeza wrote in a 2015 article.

Political divides shape Israel relations

Support for the Palestinian cause also falls along stark ideological lines in Latin America.

In the case of Bolivia, the country’s first Indigenous president — the socialist Evo Morales — was also the first to sever relations with Israel in 2009.

But his successor, the right-wing Jeanine Áñez, decided to renew ties within weeks of taking office.

The country’s current president, Luis Arce, is considered part of the present-day “pink tide”.

This leftward trend began with the election of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Mexico in 2018 and continued with leftist victories in Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Honduras and Chile.

In Colombia, the 2022 swing to the left was particularly historic: Never before had a left-wing president taken office.

But Petro’s victory in Colombia has shown some of the weakness of the latest “pink tide” movement.

Breaking ties comes at a cost

Only a year into his term, Petro’s approval ratings have plummeted to 32 percent, as he struggles to implement his domestic platform against a strong right-wing backlash.

While opposition leaders in Colombia have accused Petro of using the crisis in the Middle East to divert attention away from his domestic troubles, Elizabeth Dickinson, a senior analyst for the think tank Crisis Group, questioned that logic.

She argued that — instead of winning public opinion points at home — Petro’s decision to take a stand against Israel could come at a cost.

After Petro compared remarks made by the Israeli defence minister to those made by Nazis, Israel suspended its military exports to Colombia, including the sale of planes and machine guns used in the government’s efforts against rebel forces.

Actions and comments from other Latin American leaders could lead to similar repercussions, Dickinson warned. Israel’s defence exports alone are a $12.5bn industry.

“This is not an easy or obvious decision,” she said. “It’s clearly a political choice that these leaders have made despite the possible risks to their own interests.”

The diplomatic rebuke from countries like Colombia, Chile and Bolivia is unlikely to deter Israel from escalating the war, she added.

“These are countries that don’t have a definitive economic or political relationship [with Israel] that could shift the conflict in one way or another,” Dickinson said.

It does, however, build pressure on the US, Israel’s closest ally, to call for a ceasefire.

Dickinson said she suspected that the South American countries timed their actions to coincide with an international summit in Washington last Friday. Both Petro and Boric used the meeting to encourage their US counterpart to condemn Israeli actions.

“It’s a point of entry for Latin American leaders to push this forward with the United States,” Dickinson said.