19/09/2025

FRIDAY | SEPT 19, 2025

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Top UN investigator sees Rwanda, Gaza parallels

‘SPAIN TO PROBE RIGHTS VIOLATIONS’ MADRID: Spain will probe “human rights violations in Gaza” to assist the International Criminal Court, which has sought arrest warrants for Israeli officials over alleged war crimes. Spain’s top prosecutor, Alvaro Garcia Ortiz, has “issued a decree to create a working team tasked with investigating violations of international human rights law in Gaza”, the attorney general’s office said. The investigative team’s mission will be to “gather evidence and make it available to the competent body, thereby fulfilling Spain’s obligations on international cooperation and human rights”, it said. “Faced with the current situation in the Palestinian territories, all evidence, direct or indirect, that can be gathered in our country” on “crimes committed” in Gaza “must be included” for potential use in the ICC case, it said. – AFP JUDGE ORDERS KHALIL DEPORTED WASHINGTON: A US judge ordered pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil be deported over claims that he omitted information from his green card application, court documents showed on Wednesday. Khalil’s lawyers said they intend to appeal the deportation order while saying a federal district court’s separate orders remain in effect that prohibit the government from deporting or detaining him as his federal court case proceeds. Immigration judge Jamee Comans said Khalil “wilfully misrepresented material fact(s) for the purpose of circumventing the immigration process and reducing the likelihood his application would be denied”. Khalil’s lawyers submitted a letter to a federal court in New Jersey and said he will challenge Comans’ decision. – Reuters

BR I E F S

people, mostly ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus, were slaughtered – are clear. As head of the International C r i m i n a l Tribunal for

it always seems impossible until it’s done”, she told AFP in an interview. “I consider it not impossible that there will be arrests and trials.” The Independent International Commission of Inquiry (COI), which does not speak on behalf of the United Nations, issued a bombshell report on Tuesday concluding that “genocide is occurring in Gaza”. The investigators also concluded that Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant have “incited the commission of genocide”. Israel categorically rejected the findings and slammed the report as “distorted and false”. But for Pillay, the parallels to Rwanda – where some 800,000

LOS ANGELES: Hollywood blasted the White House for targeting free speech after ABC pulled Jimmy Kimmel’s talk on Wednesday under regulatory threats, rallying behind the late-night comic after his comments about the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk. The Walt Disney-owned broadcaster said it was yanking Jimmy Kimmel Live indefinitely after at least one affiliate said it would replace the show on its airwaves and the nation’s top communications regulator threatened investigations due to Kimmel’s statements. The late-night host, a frequent Trump critic, had suggested in his monologue on Monday that Kirk’s allies were using his death to “score political points”. Unions representing writers and actors said the move amounted to an attack on constitutionally protected free-speech rights, saying ABC should not have caved in the face of government pressure. Israeli leaders, she said, had made statements, including calling Palestinians “animals”, which recalled the demonising rhetoric used during the Rwanda genocide, when Tutsis were labelled as “cockroaches”. In both cases, she said the target population is “dehumanised”, signalling that “it’s OK to kill them”. The International Criminal Court has already issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant for suspected war crimes. Pillay said securing accountability would not be easy, highlighting that the ICC “does not have its own sheriff or police force to do the arrests”. But she stressed that popular demand could bring about sudden change, as it had in her home country. “I never thought apartheid will end in my lifetime,” she said. The 83-year-old took on a particularly daunting mission four years ago when she agreed to chair the COI tasked with investigating rights abuses in the occupied Palestinian territories and Israel. Since than, she and her two co commissioners have faced a barrage of accusations of bias and antisemitism, which they deny. Pillay said the commission aims to draft a list of suspected perpetrators of abuses in Gaza, and also explore the suspected “complicity” of countries supporting Israel. That work will be left to her successor, since Pillay will be leaving the commission in November, citing her age and health concerns. Before that, she said she had her visa ready to travel to New York to present her report. So far, she said, “I have heard nothing about that visa being withdrawn”. – AFP

o ‘Not impossible there will be arrests’

GAZA CITY: Israeli tanks and warplanes pounded Gaza City yesterday, sparking what a top UN official called “new waves of mass displacement”, as the military intensified its assault on gunmen in the territory’s largest urban hub. Journalists reported a steady stream of Gazans heading south on foot, in vehicles and on donkey carts their meagre belongings piled high. “There is artillery fire, airstrikes, quadcopter and drone gunfire. The bombing never stops,” said Aya Ahmed, 32, sheltering with 13 relatives in Gaza City. “The world doesn’t understand what is happening. They (Israel) want us to evacuate south – but where will we live? There are no tents, no transport, no money.” Palestinians say the cost of a ride to the south has soared, in some cases topping US$1,000 (RM4,196). The offensive has sparked outrage among the international community, with the territory already devastated by nearly two years of war and the Gaza City area gripped by a UN declared famine. “The military incursion and evacuation orders in northern Gaza are driving new waves of displacement, forcing traumatised families into an ever-shrinking area unfit for human dignity,”World Health Organisation chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. “Hospitals, already overwhelmed, are on the brink of collapse as escalating violence blocks access and prevents WHO from delivering lifesaving supplies,” he said. Hospitals in Gaza reported that three children were among at least 12 people killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza City on Wednesday night. Gaza’s civil defence agency, a rescue force operating under Hamas authority, said Israeli fire had killed at least 64 people on Wednesday, including 41 in Gaza City. The Israeli military said it continued to target “Hamas infrastructure” and also operated in the southern areas of Rafah and Khan Younis. On Tuesday, Israel launched its US backed ground offensive on Gaza City, pledging to destroy Hamas GENEVA: The UN investigator who this week accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza said she sees parallels with the butchery in Rwanda, and that she hopes one day Israeli leaders will be put behind bars. Navi Pillay (pic) , a South African former judge who headed the international tribunal for the 1994 Rwanda genocide and also served as UN human rights chief, acknowledged that justice “is a slow process”. But as late South African anti apartheid icon Nelson “Mandela said,

Rwanda, she says watching footage of civilians being killed and tortured had marked her “for life”. “I see similarities” to what is happening in Gaza, she said, pointing to “the same kind of methods”. While Tutsis were targeted in Rwanda’s genocide, she said “all the evidence (indicates) it is Palestinians as a group that is being targeted” in Gaza.

Israeli bombing intensifies

Hollywood comes to Kimmel’s defence after ABC pulls show

The suspension of Kimmel’s show marked the latest action against media figures, academic workers, teachers and corporate employees over their remarks about Kirk. “What we have signed on to – painful as it may be at times – is the freeing agreement to disagree,” the Writers Guild of America West and Writers Guild of America East said in a joint statement. “Shame on those in government who forget this founding truth. As for our employers, our words have made you rich. Silencing us impoverishes the whole world.” A 22-year-old suspect has been charged with Kirk’s murder and his precise motive remains unclear. SAG-AFTRA, the union representing actors, condemned the scrapping of the show, saying “the decision to suspend airing Jimmy Kimmel Live! is the type of suppression and retaliation that endangers everyone’s freedoms.” – Reuters

Smoke rises in Gaza City yesterday following strikes. – REUTERSPIC

“Enough, we want to be free. We want to live, we don’t want to die,” said Gaza City resident Mohammed al-Danf. “Who told you we want to die? Tell Netanyahu: we don’t want to die!” – AFP

infrastructure in the area. The United Nations estimated at the end of last month that about one million people were living in Gaza City and its surroundings. Israel says 350,000 of of them have fled.