AP News Summary at 6:10 p.m. EST“ They are blocking food. Essential needs. Medicine. They are using food as a pressure tactics. A freezing winter is coming. It is going to be tough. Thousands have vanished. Refugee camps are bombed. Universities have been fully destroyed. There were 34 hospitals in Gaza. All destroyed.” Dr Abed Elrazeg Abu Jazer, Chargé d’Affaires at the Embassy of the State of Palestine in Delhi, is a seasoned Indian hand. He has done his PhD from Jamia Millia Islamia Central University in Delhi in political science. His subject was: ‘India and the question of Palestine — 1980-93’. He has worked as a professional journalist since 1995 and has been a media advisor to the Palestinian Authority. He was posted to India as a senior diplomat in 2014. “I miss journalism,” he says, wistfully. In conversation with Amit Sengupta, Editor, timesheadline.in, and a seasoned journalist, who has been writing on Gaza since last October . Yesterday, the Security Council passed a resolution seeking ceasefire in Gaza. This is maybe the fourth or fifth time they have done it. As many as 14 countries have supported it, including France and Britain; but, yet again, America has vetoed the resolution: 14-1. They said the resolution does not have a reference to the hostages. However, the final resolution does have a reference to the hostages. What is your opinion on this? This is not our first experience with the Americans. It has happened so many times in the history of the occupation, and our freedom struggle. You know, they always use the veto against our rights and aspirations. Almost the entire world, including India, has called for a ceasefire, but, no, the US will not allow a ceasefire and always backs Israel to the hilt. Through these decisions, they are going against the collective global voice against the genocide currently happening in Gaza, the world’s biggest open-air prison. Basically that means that nothing has improved on the ground. America has given a green signal to the Israeli aggression — politically and militarily. They simply don’t seem to care for all the other voices in the world. Both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have said that the people of Gaza are suffering. Harris has used this rhetoric many times. But they have done nothing on the ground. Instead, they have pumped bombs, weapons, and billions into Israel which has been used to kill the people of Gaza. This is not a political speech. There are figures and media reports. American reports. Statements from the Pentagon and the State Department in Washington. The New York Times , Washington Post, Wall Street Journal , and others, have all published the facts and figures. They published these stories with all of the details about the continuous supply of military equipment to Israel, the big bombs, including bombs that were being used and tested for the first time. On our people. On civilians. There is continuous military support. These are reports coming from America. This is the type of leadership in the rich countries. Your wife and children were trapped in Rafah at the border with Egypt for a very long time, even while the killings continued relentlessly. All communication systems were dismantled. Thankfully, they are now in India. In recent times, Israel has started evacuating refugee camps, like the Jabalia camp at the Israeli border, which is the largest refugee camp with more than 100,000 displaced people. They have been bombing shelters, hospitals, and schools. Almost 250,000 people were reportedly forced to move from Northern Gaza at gunpoint. There is no food. Aid has been stopped by the Israeli military. Many young boys and men have been taken in vehicles to unknown destinations. This is a one-sided war. A strategic war. It is not war. It is a genocide. It is not between two soldiers or two armies. Here, there is one strong country with a strong army, backed by the biggest military power in the world, and some Western countries. Gaza has 2.5 million unarmed people. Yes, most of them are refugees; they live in refugee camps. The majority of the people are extremely poor. They get basic food with UN support — wheat or sugar. Now, bombs are targeting them in tents. People are living on the beach, in tattered tents, in the open. In big houses, more than 100 people are taking shelter. One bomb destroys all of them. Civilians. Israel knows about them, uses its technology for surveillance, and then they bomb them. So this is the target and this is their war. You can see videos that are evidence. Almost 90 percent of Gaza is fully destroyed. I am from Rafah in the south. It’s on the border with Egypt. Almost 90 percent of Rafah has been totally destroyed. Including my house. My brothers and father’s house as well — we are neighbours. Their homes too have been destroyed. We have lost everything. My father is 90 — now he is a displaced refugee. Many others are like him now. Some people have lost everyone in their families. Thousands of children have turned orphans, including seriously wounded children. Consider their trauma. They are blocking food. Essential needs. They are using food as pressure tactics. Jordon, Emirates, other countries are sending food. But they are blocking it — using food against the people. It’s extremely difficult for the survivors. Now, a freezing winter is coming. It is going to be really tough. Thousands of people have vanished. There are other types of suffering. No schools. Universities have been fully destroyed. There were 34 hospitals in Gaza. All destroyed. There was the Abu Yusuf hospital in Rafah, one of the main hospitals. This is the latest hospital they have bombed. Fully destroyed. Apparently, there are only three hospitals, damaged or otherwise, which are still there. Scores of doctors and nurses (and patients) have been killed. Even doctors have been arrested and taken to unknown destinations. There are epidemics and diseases. How are the people coping with it? Health care has been severely hit. Minimal primary health care is available. They are not allowing medicine or medical aid from outside. They are not allowing doctors, specialists, or volunteers to enter Gaza. Surgeries are urgently required for many patients. But where are the doctors? Nobody can enter Gaza. It’s totally controlled by them. Even the international media is not coming. Only Israeli media is coming with their soldiers. They are the spokespersons of the Israeli government. They publish the Israeli agenda. For example, we have lost 188 journalists since October 7, 2023. Many of them were killed in targeted assassinations. Local civilians are now working as journalists. They too are being targeted. There is no internet or connectivity. Nobody’s coming from outside to report. No big channels like CNN or NBC or the New York Times, Washington Post, etc. They are targeting journalists because they don’t want ground reports to reach the world. They want to wipe out the truth from the world’s consciousness. Hence, you will not see, for instance, stories about human beings trapped or buried under the rubble. Or similar stories. If there is a ceasefire, and journalists can enter, you will see that thousands of buried or forgotten stories will emerge from the ravaged landscape of Gaza. That is also why they don’t want a ceasefire. Several men and young boys have been picked up recently and taken to unknown places by the Israeli army. And how many Palestinian children and women and others are in prison in Israel? They have arrested several people from the north and the south of Gaza, and also from the West Bank. They have built new prisons. The prisoners are treated with cruelty. This is their policy. They catch the people for no rhyme or reason, and they take them to the prisons. They punish them. It’s very bad. They torture them. And this has been going on much before this one-sided war started last October. They treat the 2.5 million people like prisoners in a gated society. They control everything. Nobody can travel without their permission. Nobody can go out of Gaza. There is no education, no employment, no food security. The economic condition is abysmal. They are not only killing the people physically, it’s a daily and endless mental torture. Everyday existence is hell. What is happening in the West Bank? In the West Bank, large areas have been forcibly taken over by Israeli settlers. Most of them are armed, patronised by their, government, and have full impunity to do whatever they want with the locals. They have taken over our homes and houses. A lot of people have been killed in the West Bank too in recent times. Plus, there are other types of war. There are assassinations. Raids. Arrests. Special operations. There are military invasions. They enter Ramallah and other towns. There are 80 checkpoints. They have divided the land according to their security and other needs. You can’t go from one point to another without their permission. If you travel, a 30-minute journey will take more than three hours. They can arrest anyone at any time. Stop anyone anytime. You can’t cross the King Hussein border with Jordan without their permission. They refuse to refund our tax, agreed as per the Paris Agreement. They make it economically unfeasible to run the administration and cater to civil society needs. With a meagre budget, it becomes extremely difficult for the Palestinian Authority in West Bank to operate. People get 60 or 70 percent of their salaries only. They control the banks. It is like they have actually annexed the West Bank, and now Gaza. This is the original Israeli dream. Western media reports have stuck to a figure of 43,000 people dead, and around 17,000 children dead. This figure remains unchanged despite the daily killings in Gaza since weeks now. Plus, those who are buried under the rubble. Unofficial sources say the toll could be many times more. I think the number is much higher than these media reports. I presume the ministry of health also thinks the same. No one knows the number of people buried under the rubble across Gaza. Among the dead, the number of children and women are many times high. Indeed, they particularly target women and children, especially mothers. They want to eliminate the children en masse because they are the future of Palestine. They kill mothers and young women because they will bring children to this world. That is why the number of women who have been murdered by Israeli army is very, very high. They know everything. They use technology to spy on women. They scan everything. Drones can come in at home, anytime. If I am a peaceful and quiet citizen, and sitting quietly at home, they can come and kill me. They know that there is a civilian family, perhaps one hundred of them are living in the four floors of a building. They know. Like a game in a play station, they play this game of death. They especially choose to kill the mothers because they will give birth to children. Entire families have been wiped out. That is why they kill children in the hospital. Nurses and doctors have been murdered. Even new-born children die because of lack of medical facilities. They need special care. Hence, all medical aid is cut of the little ones. This is the government policy of the Isreali government in Tel Aviv. (Courtesy: www.timesheadline.in ) —–
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court seemed likely Wednesday to uphold Tennessee's ban on gender-affirming care for minors. The justices' decision, not expected for several months, could affect similar laws enacted by another 25 states and a range of other efforts to regulate the lives of transgender people, including which sports competitions they can join and which restrooms they can use. The case is being weighed by a conservative-dominated court after a presidential election in which Donald Trump and his allies promised to roll back protections for transgender people. The Biden administration's top Supreme Court lawyer warned a decision favorable to Tennessee also could be used to justify nationwide restrictions on transgender health care for minors. Supporters of transgender rights rally Wednesday outside the Supreme Court in Washington. In arguments that lasted more than two hours, five of the six conservative justices voiced varying degrees of skepticism over arguments made by the administration and Chase Strangio, the ACLU lawyer for Tennessee families challenging the ban. Chief Justice John Roberts, who voted in the majority in a 2020 case in favor of transgender rights, questioned whether judges, rather than lawmakers, should weigh in on a question of regulating medical procedures, an area usually left to the states. "The Constitution leaves that question to the people's representatives, rather than to nine people, none of whom is a doctor," Roberts said in an exchange with Strangio. Justice Neil Gorsuch, who wrote the majority opinion in 2020, said nothing during the arguments. The court's three liberal justices seemed firmly on the side of the challengers, but it's not clear that any conservatives will go along. People attend a rally March 31, 2023, as part of a Transgender Day of Visibility, near the Capitol in Washington. Justice Sonia Sotomayor pushed back against the assertion that the democratic process would be the best way to address objections to the law. She cited a history of laws discriminating against others, noting that transgender people make up less than 1% of the U.S. population, according to studies. There are an estimated 1.3 million adults and 300,000 adolescents ages 13 to 17 who identify as transgender, according the UCLA law school's Williams Institute. "Blacks were a much larger part of the population and it didn't protect them. It didn't protect women for whole centuries," Sotomayor said in an exchange with Tennessee Solicitor General Matt Rice. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said she saw some troubling parallels between arguments made by Tennessee and those advanced by Virginia and rejected by a unanimous court, in the 1967 Loving decision that legalized interracial marriage nationwide. Quoting from that decision, Jackson noted that Virginia argued then that "the scientific evidence is substantially in doubt and, consequently, the court should defer to the wisdom of the state legislature." ACLU lawyer Chase Strangio, left, and plaintiff Joaquin Carcano address reporters after a June 25, 2018, hearing in Winston-Salem, N.C., on their lawsuit challenging the law that replaced North Carolina's "bathroom bill." Justice Samuel Alito repeatedly pressed Strangio, the first openly transgender lawyer to argue at the nation's highest court, about whether transgender people should be legally designated as a group that's susceptible to discrimination. Strangio answered that being transgender does fit that legal definition, though he acknowledged under Alito's questioning there are a small number of people who de-transition. "So it's not an immutable characteristic, is it?" Alito said. Strangio did not retreat from his view, though he said the court did not have to decide the issue to resolve the case in his clients' favor. There were dueling rallies outside the court in the hours before the arguments. Speeches and music filled the air on the sidewalk below the court's marble steps. Advocates of the ban bore signs like "Champion God's Design" and "Kids Health Matters," while the other side proclaimed "Fight like a Mother for Trans Rights" and "Freedom to be Ourselves." Four years ago, the court ruled in favor of Aimee Stephens, who was fired by a Michigan funeral home after she informed its owner she was a transgender woman. The court held that transgender people, as well as gay and lesbian people, are protected by a landmark federal civil rights law that prohibits sex discrimination in the workplace. The Biden administration and the families and health care providers who challenged the Tennessee law urged the justices to apply the same sort of analysis that the majority, made up of liberal and conservative justices, embraced in the case four years ago when it found that "sex plays an unmistakable role" in employers' decisions to punish transgender people for traits and behavior they otherwise tolerate. Demonstrators against transgender rights protest Wednesday during a rally outside of the Supreme Court in Washington. The issue in the Tennessee case is whether the law violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, which requires the government to treat similarly situated people the same. Tennessee's law bans puberty blockers and hormone treatments for transgender minors, but allows the same drugs to be used for other purposes. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, the administration's top Supreme Court lawyer, called the law sex-based line drawing to ban the use of drugs that have been safely prescribed for decades and said the state "decided to completely override the views of the patients, the parents, the doctors." She contrasted the Tennessee law with one enacted by West Virginia, which set conditions for the health care for transgender minors, but stopped short of an outright ban. Gender-affirming care for youth is supported by every major medical organization, including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychiatric Association. 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ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. (AP) — As much enjoyment as Micah Hyde was having coaching his son’s soccer team in sunny San Diego, the lure of resuming his playing career and one last opportunity to bring a championship to Buffalo was too much to pass up for the Bills veteran safety. And Hyde chose to return to wintry Buffalo on Wednesday without any guarantee he’ll play by signing to the practice squad. In doing so, the 33-year-old willingly accepted taking on an expanded leadership role as mentor and sideline coach. “Listen, I’m here to help. I left my ego in San Diego,” Hyde said. “The goal has always been to bring a championship back to Buffalo, and if I can help in any way, if I’m able to give T-Rapp or D-Ham or whoever’s out there a nugget to make a big play in a big game, I did my job,” he added, referring to Buffalo’s starting safety tandem of Taylor Rapp and . Hyde isn’t so much coming out of retirement after going unsigned once the final year of his contract expired in March. In rejecting interest from other teams, Hyde stuck to his vision in keeping the door open to resume playing but only in Buffalo, where he spent the final seven of his 11 NFL seasons. “Match made in heaven, baby,” he said. “Everyone’s saying, ‘Welcome back' It’s more like ‘Welcome home.’” For Buffalo (10-2), Hyde is a late-season addition who brings experience, stability, leadership and familiarity with the defensive scheme to the . “You're just excited because you know what type of energy he brings to the locker room, you know his personality,” edge rusher Von Miller said. “We just got better by adding Micah Hyde, whether that’s on the football field or off the football field. ... It’s all plus-plus in each and every category.” Coach Sean McDermott stressed that as much as he welcomes Hyde’s addition, it in no way reflects on Buffalo’s safety group. And yet, Hyde does provide insurance down the stretch in the event of an injury. “We’re in a good spot, very confident in the guys that have played there all season long and have both done a nice job,” McDermott said. “It’s about the team. It’s always about the team, and it’s never about one person. And in this case, Micah would not want that to be, in this case, about him.” The Bills never ruled out the possibility of Hyde’s return, by keeping his former locker stall vacant and not assigning his familiar No. 23 to another player. Hyde’s signing comes on the heels of Buffalo’s division-clinching . The Bills, who travel to play the Rams (6-6) on Sunday, now have their sights set on chasing down Kansas City (11-1), a team they defeated last month, to win the AFC’s top seed entering the playoffs. McDermott’s bond with Hyde runs deep, going back to 2017. That’s when the then-first-year coach identified Hyde and safety Jordan Poyer to become Buffalo’s first key free agent signings. Hyde and Poyer signed hours apart and opened seven straight seasons as Buffalo's starting tandem. Hyde, who spent his first four seasons in Green Bay, earned second-team All-Pro honors in 2017 and 2021. Poyer, an All-Pro selection in ’21, is now with Miami after being released by Buffalo in March. Hyde missed a majority of the 2022 season with a severe neck injury. He started 14 games last season, though he missed three games because of injury. Hyde said he’s injury free and also lost weight in spending his time off working out regularly. The only thing certain, he said, is this will be his final NFL season, whenever and however it might end. “After the last game, that (retirement) paper’s going to be right here and it’s getting signed,” Hyde said. “You can guarantee that, for sure.” AP NFL: