North Coast Voices will not be posting between Monday, 20 May and Thursday, 23 May 2024.
Apologies to readers and browsers.
Monday 20 May 2024
Sunday 19 May 2024
For around 43 years the invasive Fire Ant has been expanding its territory on the Australian east coast and the federal & state governments have still not eradicated this dangerous menace - in fact they appear to be losing the battle
Fire Ant (Solenopsis invicta) nests have been surfacing on the Australian east coast from Port of Brisbane, Qld to Port Botany, NSW beginning in February 2001 but are believed to have actually arrived on the Australian east coast up to 20 years earlier, given the initial Port of Brisbane discovery uncovered 470 known colonies spread over 8,300 hectares.
The most recent NSW infestation was found in northern NSW at Wardell, near Ballina, on 19 January 2024.
Approximately 99 per cent of the Australian mainland is vulnerable to this invasive species which according to the National Fire Ant Eradication Program has the capacity to surpass the combined damage done each year by our worst pests: feral cats, wild dogs, foxes, camels, rabbits and cane toads.
Image courtesy of Invasive Species Council under creative commons licence 4.0
On the 18 October 2023, the Fire Ant situation was referred to the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee for inquiry and report by 18 April 2024.
The 96-page report was published on 13 May 2024 under the title "Red imported fire ants in Australia: Don't Let This Come Back to Bite Us".
The report made ten recommendations which, in diplomatic language, pointed to the fact there is no statutory body overseeing the current eradication plan.
While the Queensland-focussed 10 year plan itself, now morphed into a broader 5 year plan struggling under the need for expanded expertise, is still significantly underfunded and hampered by past poor execution starting from the federal-states decision making right down to regional level response. With the most notable blunder occurring during the federal Howard Liberal Government years when funding was permanently withdrawn around four years into the original eradication response. This was followed in 2012 by a Qld Newman Liberal Government reduced both funding and staff numbers in that state's fire ant eradication response. Both these events at various points in time have (not without a degree of justification) been blamed for the current failure to either eradicate or contain the spread of fire ants in the eastern half of the country.
So perhaps the following news article should come as no surprise.
ABC News, 18 May 2024:
When Amanda King and her mother Leanne Williams were bitten by fire ants, they were not prepared to become frontline recruits in the federal government's battle with the pest.
The pair were last year bitten multiple times at their Kleinton home, north of Toowoomba, resulting in painful pustules on their legs and arms.
They reported the suspicious nests to the state and federally funded National Fire Ant Eradication Program (NFAEP) in April last year and it took 67 days for a program officer to inspect and subsequently eradicate the pests.
What happened during that time, Ms King said, were repeated requests for them to collect photographic and physical evidence before inspectors would visit their home.
"He basically said, 'No. You need to send photos first,' and then he sent an email with specifications of what to send," Ms King said.
"I rang back and said, 'I can't get photos.'"
What are fire ants and why do they pose such a threat?
There are fears the spread of fires ants could change the outdoor lifestyle Australians know and love.
Ms King, a veterinary nurse who often works 6am to 6pm, said it was difficult to take accurate photos in the dark and that the program was putting too much of the surveillance burden on the public.
"What happens if it's some 70-year-old lady who thinks she has [them]?" she said.
"She's probably not going to have an iPhone that's going to take a proper photo. I think it's unfair for them to do that, so that needs to change."
Her mother agrees....
The ants, which were first detected in 2001 in Brisbane, have spread to south east Queensland and northern New South Wales, with concerns they could enter the Murray-Darling river system after being found at the Oakey Army Aviation Centre in April [78 nests].
Biosecurity zone to be set up
A biosecurity zone will be set up within a 5-kilometre radius of the Oakey base on Monday, placing further legal requirements on those in the zone.
Yesterday, 4 kilometres from Amanda and Leanne's home, fire ants were also officially detected in Meringandan West for the first time.
NFAEP said public help was vital to the program.
"Reports from the public are vital to our national eradication effort and we thank Ms King for her vigilance in notifying us about this sighting," the spokesperson said.
But with 36,945 suspected fire ant reports made since May 2023, and 13,786 of them confirmed as positive, testing is a mammoth task for the governments and departments involved..... [my yellow highlighting]
Read the full article at
Saturday 18 May 2024
Quotes of the Week
"'Repetition, cliché, malapropism, daft diction, plodding syntax, more cliché, and bucketloads of sentimentality? This book has got it all.'.....I suspect that Plans For Your Good will deliver unto posterity the portrait of a leader driven by profound faith, yes, but a leader who allowed that faith to licence a political career characterised by evasions, refusals and shockingly little care for the lives of the poor, the suffering and the vulnerable."
[Writer & editor Catriona Menzies-Pike reviewing former Australian prime minister & retired Liberal MP for Cook Scott Morrison's meagre memoir, "Plans For Your Good: A Prime Minister’s Testimony of God’s Faithfulness" in Crikey on 14 May 2024]
"Reliable industry source says #ScottyFromGilead’s book has sold 1,003 copies so far… #auspol"
[Chris Wallace posting on X/Twitter on 14 May 2024]
Friday 17 May 2024
State of Play in the Occupied Palestinian Territory of Gaza Strip, Day 214 on 17 May 2025
According to the United Nations by Day 214 (08.05.24) there were 34,622 recorded Palestinian fatalities in Israel's War on Gaza, 24,686 of which have been fully identified and of those identified 7,797 were children, 4,959 women, 1,924 elderly, and 10,006 men.
Today is Day 223, there is still no ceasefire and est. 1.7 million Palestinian men, women and children have been internally displaced by Israel's ongoing punitive war.
Of these internally displaced persons tens of thousands have had to flee the Jabilia refugee camp in northern Gaza since 11 May 2024 due to an sustained IDF assault and another est. 600,000 people have been part of a forced evacuation from Rafah and it refugee camp since 6-8 May, as Israeli forces completely closed the border crossing bringing humanitarian aid to southern Gaza and continued to target the city.
Internally displaced Palestinians arrive to Khan Younis after leaving Rafah following an evacuation order issued by the Israeli army, southern Gaza Strip, 11 May 2024. EFE-EPA/MOHAMMED SABER
The Israeli Defence Force killing of civilians continues across the Gaza Strip.
On 13 May 2024 Egypt's Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced the country intends to file a declaration of intervention in South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), in light of Israel’s increasing aggression against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip, as well as the systematic practices perpetrated against the Palestinian people, such as the targeting of civilians and the destruction of infrastructure. Egypt’s announcement follows Columbia and Libya's requests to intervene in the case.
On 15 May the bloc of 27 nations comprising the European Union issued a statement titled "Gaza: Statement by the High Representative on Israel’s operation in Rafah" calling on Israel to refrain from further exacerbating the already dire humanitarian situation in Gaza and reopen the crossing point of Rafah and warning that should Israel continue its military operation in Rafah, it would inevitably put a heavy strain on the EU’s relationship with Israel.
Yesterday,16 May 2024 and again today 17 May the International Court of Justice scheduled public hearings in the matter of Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel) having received an urgent request for the indication of additional provisional measures and the modification of previous provisional measures from the Republic of South Africa.
Thursday 16 May 2024
Former Liberal MP for Cook Scott Morrison exceeding his authority and expertise while in the US this week
In the U.S. this week in an attempt to drum up sales of his meagre memoir, Scott Morrison meets with Donald Trump in New York in between Trump's criminal trial hearings.
Heaven knows how indiscrete Morrison has been during this conversation. His own party was worried about the national security risk he may have represented in 2021 in relation to this AUKUS submarine deal.
Wednesday 15 May 2024
Is this going to be one of the shorter 'neutral' periods in that dance Australia's weather conditions do between El Niño and La Niña climate patterns - approximately 44 days before the pointer swung towards "La Niña Watch"
It appears that Australia has a 50-50 chance of entering a La Niña event in the second half of 2024.
Increased rainfall across much of Australia
Cooler daytime temperatures (south of the tropics)
Warmer overnight temperatures (in the north)
Shift in temperature extremes
Decreased frost risk
Greater tropical cyclone numbers
Earlier monsoon onset
According to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology: In eastern Australia, the average December-March rainfall during La Niña years is 20% higher than the long-term average, with eight of the ten wettest such periods occurring during La Niña years. This is particularly notable for the east coast, which tends to be less affected by La Niña during the winter months but can experience severe flooding during La Niña summers.
The record breaking NSW Northern Rivers floods of February-March 2022 occurred in a La Niña event - part of the 'triple dip' La Niña which occurred in 2020-2022.
Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM), Climate Driver Update: Climate drivers in the Pacific, Indian and Southern oceans and the Tropics
14 May 2024
SUMMARY
La Niña Watch—some signs of La Niña formation later in 2024
La Niña Watch
The El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is currently neutral. There are some early signs that a La Niña might form in the Pacific Ocean later in 2024. As a result, the Bureau's ENSO Outlook has shifted to La Niña Watch. When La Niña Watch criteria have been met in the past, a La Niña event has subsequently developed around 50% of the time. There is about an equal chance of neutral ENSO conditions in the same outlook period.
Sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the central Pacific have been steadily cooling since December 2023. This surface cooling is supported by a significant amount of sub-surface cooling in the central and eastern Pacific. Recent cloud and surface pressure patterns are ENSO-neutral.
The Bureau's modelling suggests that ENSO will likely remain neutral until at least July 2024. It is important to emphasise that early signs of La Niña are most relevant to the climate of the tropical Pacific, and that the long-range forecast for Australian rainfall and temperature provides better guidance for local climate.
The Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) is currently neutral. The most recent 2 weeks have seen the IOD index within neutral thresholds, and follow 7 weeks of the index being above the positive IOD threshold (+0.40 °C). The current SST observations suggest that recent development of a positive IOD may have stalled. If a positive IOD eventually develops, it would be earlier in the calendar year than is typical historically.
Global sea surface temperatures (SSTs) have been the warmest on record for each month between April 2023 and April 2024, with April 2024 SSTs warmer than April 2023. The global pattern of warmth is affecting the typical historical global pattern of sea surface temperatures associated with ENSO and IOD variability. As the current global ocean conditions have not been observed before, inferences of how ENSO or IOD may develop in 2024 that are based on past events may not be reliable.
The Southern Annular Mode (SAM) is currently neutral (as at 13 May). Forecasts indicate the index is mostly likely to remain neutral or become positive in the coming fortnight.
The Madden–Julian Oscillation (MJO) is currently weak. Most models forecast indicate that the MJO will remain weak before re-strengthening over the eastern Indian Ocean or Maritime Continent region from mid- to late-May.
Tuesday 14 May 2024
Centrepay remains a dysfunctional gamble for many welfare recipients in 2024
Unfortunately the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme did little to rid the Australian Public Service of all key individuals nurturing the rotting cores of the Dept. of Social Services, Services Australia, NDIS and Centrelink.
The Guardian, 13 May 2024:
Energy giant Origin wrongly received money from the welfare payments of former customers via the government-run Centrepay debit system, the Guardian can reveal.
Origin is now the third energy retailer known to have wrongly received money via Centrepay from vulnerable and low-income Australians after they had ceased being customers.
Centrepay gives approved businesses early access to welfare payments, prior to them hitting a welfare recipient’s bank account, a system designed to ensure individuals always have enough for essentials like rent and energy.
But a Guardian Australia investigation has identified deep and ongoing problems with the system. In one case, the Centrepay system allowed energy giant AGL to continue to take welfare money from more than 500 people who had ceased being AGL customers, resulting in overpayments over a period of years totalling about $700,000. The company says it has now paid that money back.
In other cases, Centrepay has helped to financially prop up a disgraced Christian rehabilitation centre practising gay conversion therapy and forced baptisms, and allowed rent-to-buy household appliance retailers to take excessive amounts from the welfare payments of customers in remote Indigenous communities.
Origin Energy is the biggest user of Centrepay of any energy retailer. The ASX-listed company had 32,894 residential customers paying for their energy using Centrepay last financial year, about 1.8% of its total customer base.
But Guardian Australia can reveal that Origin has also wrongly received money from the welfare payments of people who had ceased being its customers.
A spokesperson confirmed Origin had identified “issues relating to payments made through the Centrepay scheme”.
“We proactively reported these issues to Services Australia, have been attempting to contact impacted customers and are working with Services Australia to process refunds to customers,” the spokesperson said. “We have also strengthened our processes in relation to Centrepay payments.”
Both Services Australia and the energy company declined to say how many customers were affected or how much in welfare payments was wrongly received by Origin.
In response to a question on notice by a Greens senator, Penny Allman-Payne, the government confirmed that it was currently working to return Centrepay overpayments from three utilities companies and three “household services” companies.
Services Australia would not release details of which companies were affected......
Monday 13 May 2024
Fifth Annual NSW Statewide Street Count of homeless people sleeping rough - results for the Northern Rivers region from Clarence Valley to the NSW-Qld border
TheEcho, 10 May 2024:
Byron Shire topped the state with a 16 per cent increase in rough sleepers, but the count also showed significant increases in numbers across Tweed, Ballina and Lismore shires.
While Sydney has remained stable with a one per cent increase it is the regional areas experiencing the biggest surge in homelessness in the past year. The 2024 street count found 2,037 people sleeping rough in 2024 compared to 1,623 people last year.
‘The sobering street count figures again paint a harrowing picture of homelessness and street sleeping across our state.,’ said Minister for Homelessness Rose Jackson.
‘While levels of street sleeping have stabilised in Sydney, we are still seeing an unprecedented increase of homelessness in many of our regional towns. We don’t just need data to tell us this – our regional communities are feeling this every day.’
The impact of climate disasters like the 2019-20 Black Summer bushfires, the 2022 floods, the rising interest rates, cost of living pressures and a shortage of rental homes are just some of the factors that are continuing to drive homelessness and street sleeping.
It is important to note that these are just the people sleeping on the street and in their cars, they do not reflect the number of people who are homeless and for example are staying with family or sleeping on friend’s couches etc.
Lismore saw an increase of rough sleepers jump from 40 in 2023 to 64 in 2024. Tweed Valley went from 145 to 174 in 2024, Ballina went from 30 to 63 and Byron Shire went from 300 to 348.....
Read the full article at:
https://www.echo.net.au/2024/05/byron-shire-sees-biggest-increase-in-rough-sleepers/
According to NSW Government Communities & Justice, 2024 NSW Statewide Street Count: Technical Paper, published on 8 May 2024:
Street counts took place between 1 February and 1 March 2024, in more than 400 towns and suburbs in 76 local government areas (LGA) across NSW.
Half of the counts took place in the evening, scheduled between 10:00pm and 3:00am, with the remaining half occurring in the morning between 3:30am and 9am.
Over 300 local organisations either consulted in the planning phase or participated in the delivery of street counts. Partners included Community Housing Providers, local councils and Specialist Homelessness Services, as well Aboriginal organisations, Local Health Districts, local community groups, and Police.
In 2024 in the Northern Rivers region local government areas (LGAs) with the largest decreases in people sleeping rough were:
Richmond Valley - 3 rough sleepers as of 22.02.24 at 5 locations. Down from 19 persons in 2023.
Clarence Valley - 58 rough sleepers as of 20.02.24 at 6 locations. Down from 69 persons in 2023.
As for the other five LGAs:
Kyogle Shire - had no rough sleepers as of 23.02.24 and zero persons in 2023
Ballina Shire - 63 rough sleepers as of 28.02.24 at 6 locations. Up from 30 persons in 2023
Lismore City - 64 rough sleepers as of 23.02.24 at 5 locations. Up from 40 persons in 2023
Tweed Valley - 174 rough sleepers as of 27.02.25 at 15 locations. Up from 145 persons in 2023
Byron Shire - 348 rough sleepers as of 29.02.24 at 9 locations. Up from 300 persons in 2023.
Across all 400 NSW sites counted in February 2024 there were 2,037 people considered homeless and sleeping rough. This represents a 26 per cent (414 person) increase compared to 2023.
Sunday 12 May 2024
Two years into appointment to this portfolio, and unfortunately it seems that Australia's current Minister for the Environment and Water is getting the media attention she deserves in May 2024
The Australien Government has made an ad about our broken environment laws, and it's surprisingly honest and informative #auspol 🐨🇦🇺
— theJuiceMedia (@thejuicemedia) May 5, 2024
✨ feat. Special Guest @punterspolitix pic.twitter.com/gmRZv8no7E
Saturday 11 May 2024
Friday 10 May 2024
When science speaks and governments refuse to hear, the world enters a dark and perilous place
“I think we are headed for major societal disruption within the next five years,” said Gretta Pecl, at the University of Tasmania. “[Authorities] will be overwhelmed by extreme event after extreme event, food production will be disrupted. I could not feel greater despair over the future.” [The Guardian, online, 8 May 2024]
When science speaks of what world governments and their peoples once thought of as an impossibility and, the vast majority of Australian politicians still refuse to admit the extent of the perilous situation situation we find ourselves in, then as a society we have entered a dark place.
The Guardian, 8 May 2024:
Climate crisis
World’s top climate scientists expect global heating to blast past 1.5C target
Exclusive: Planet is headed for at least 2.5C of heating with disastrous results for humanity, poll of hundreds of scientists finds
‘Hopeless and broken’: why the world’s top climate scientists are in despair
Damian Carrington Environment editor
Wed 8 May 2024 19.00 AEST
Hundreds of the world’s leading climate scientists expect global temperatures to rise to at least 2.5C (4.5F) above preindustrial levels this century, blasting past internationally agreed targets and causing catastrophic consequences for humanity and the planet, an exclusive Guardian survey has revealed.
Almost 80% of the respondents, all from the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), foresee at least 2.5C of global heating, while almost half anticipate at least 3C (5.4F). Only 6% thought the internationally agreed 1.5C (2.7F) limit would be met.
Many of the scientists envisage a “semi-dystopian” future, with famines, conflicts and mass migration, driven by heatwaves, wildfires, floods and storms of an intensity and frequency far beyond those that have already struck.
Numerous experts said they had been left feeling hopeless, infuriated and scared by the failure of governments to act despite the clear scientific evidence provided.
“I think we are headed for major societal disruption within the next five years,” said Gretta Pecl, at the University of Tasmania. “[Authorities] will be overwhelmed by extreme event after extreme event, food production will be disrupted. I could not feel greater despair over the future.”
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But many said the climate fight must continue, however high global temperature rose, because every fraction of a degree avoided would reduce human suffering.
Peter Cox, at the University of Exeter, UK, said: “Climate change will not suddenly become dangerous at 1.5C – it already is. And it will not be ‘game over’ if we pass 2C, which we might well do.”
The Guardian approached every contactable lead author or review editor of IPCC reports since 2018. Almost half replied, 380 of 843. The IPCC’s reports are the gold standard assessments of climate change, approved by all governments and produced by experts in physical and social sciences. The results show that many of the most knowledgeable people on the planet expect climate havoc to unfold in the coming decades.
The climate crisis is already causing profounddamage to lives and livelihoods across the world, with only 1.2C (2.16F) of global heating on average over the past four years. Jesse Keenan, at Tulane University in the US, said: “This is just the beginning: buckle up.”
Nathalie Hilmi, at the Monaco Scientific Centre, who expects a rise of 3C, agreed: “We cannot stay below 1.5C.”
The experts said massive preparations to protect people from the worst of the coming climate disasters were now critical. Leticia Cotrim da Cunha, at the State University of Rio de Janeiro, said: “I am extremely worried about the costs in human lives.”
The 1.5C target was chosen to prevent the worst of the climate crisis and has been seen as an importantguiding star for international negotiations. Current climate policies mean the world is ontrack for about 2.7C, and the Guardian survey shows few IPCC experts expect the world to deliver the huge action required to reduce that.
Younger scientists were more pessimistic, with 52% of respondents under 50 expecting a rise of at least 3C, compared with 38% of those over 50. Female scientists were also more downbeat than male scientists, with 49% thinking global temperature would rise at least 3C, compared with 38%. There was little difference between scientists from different continents.
Dipak Dasgupta, at the Energy and Resources Institute in New Delhi, said: “If the world, unbelievably wealthy as it is, stands by and does little to address the plight of the poor, we will all lose eventually.”
The experts were clear on why the world is failing to tackle the climate crisis. A lack of political will was cited by almost three-quarters of the respondents, while 60% also blamed vested corporate interests, such as the fossil fuel industry.
Many also mentioned inequality and a failure of the rich world to help the poor, who suffer most from climate impacts. “I expect a semi-dystopian future with substantial pain and suffering for the people of the global south,” said a South African scientist, who chose not to be named. “The world’s response to date is reprehensible – we live in an age of fools.”
About a quarter of the IPCC experts who responded thought global temperature rise would be kept to 2C or below but even they tempered their hopes.
“I am convinced that we have all the solutions needed for a 1.5C path and that we will implement them in the coming 20 years,” said Henry Neufeldt, at the UN’s Copenhagen Climate Centre. “But I fear that our actions might come too late and we cross one or severaltipping points.”
Lisa Schipper, at University of Bonn in Germany, said: “My only source of hope is the fact that, as an educator, I can see the next generation being so smart and understanding the politics.”
Thursday 9 May 2024
REVEALED IN 2024: Artist's reconstruction of head of mummified Egyptian woman held by Grafton High School for over a century
ABC News, 3 May 2024:
But part of that mystery has now been solved.
Since the Grafton High School head featured on ABC RN's Stuff the British Stole last year, forensic experts pieced together details of who this person was.
The information was then used to create a facial reconstruction sculpture, showing what this ancient human would have looked like in great detail.
"[Having] a disembodied remnant of a person, and seeing it come to life through this amazing process … it's been so exciting," Grafton High School history teacher Simon Robertson says.
A head in the library
The mummified head has been residing in the school's air-conditioned library, with only one clue to its backstory.
Throughout its reign, the British Empire stole a lot of stuff. This is a series about the not-so-polite history behind those objects.
Accompanying the head is a typed note from 1960, saying it was a "genuine example of Egyptian mummification" donated to the school in 1915 by Grafton doctor T.J. Henry.
The note explains that Dr Henry purchased it as a medical student in Edinburgh during the late 1800s — a time when Egyptian artefacts were very much in vogue in the UK.
However, none of this can be substantiated.
Another theory is that it was given to the school by Sir Grafton Elliot Smith, a local who became one of the world's foremost Egyptologists in the early 20th century.
Nothing else was known about the remains — the sex, age or if it was even actually Egyptian.
Over the years, the head has been used as an educational tool for ancient history students, but some at Grafton High School saw its presence as problematic.
Mr Robertson says the head "brought out very differing responses in people" from "we need to keep it and look after it" to "'it shouldn't be here … this is a person".
So the school attempted to repatriate the remains to Egypt, and offered them as a donation to a Sydney museum, but say they were rebuffed in both attempts.
The school hit a wall until Stuff the British Stole started investigating — and they got new leads from a CT scan, helping the school answer decades-old questions.
A new chapter
In June 2023, Janet Davey, a forensic Egyptologist from the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine (VIFM) and Department of Forensic Medicine (DFM) at Monash University, facilitated a CT scan of the head.
Analysis of the scan data by Dr Davey, other experts at VIFM and DFM, and the University of Chieti in Italy confirmed two key elements: That the skull belonged to a female and she had died aged between 50 and 60.
A head in a glass case being CT scanned, with a screen showing a scan of the head.
Meanwhile, flecks of gold leaf attached to the head indicated she lived during Egypt's Greco-Roman period.
"The Greco-Roman period encompasses Alexander the Great, in 332 BCE, past Cleopatra VII, into the Roman occupation and the early Christian period around 395 CE," Dr Davey says.
 |
Read the full article at:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-03/grafton-head-reconstruction-stuff-the-british-stole/103790776
Wednesday 8 May 2024
An Israeli full-scale attack on Rafah in southern Gaza is imminent
This is Now or Never. The whole World needs to shutdown. There are 1.7 Million+ people in Rafah & there's no where to go. It's a dead end and Israhell is deliberately bombing them. This is Genocide & monstrosity at it's fullest#PermanentCeasefireNow#EyesOnRafah #AllEyesOnRafah pic.twitter.com/7Lx32PyFYr
— سید ہمایوں (@Syed_HumayunAz3) May 7, 2024
Unconfirmed video
Click image lower right full view arrow
At present it is estimated that 1.5 million displaced Palestinian civilians - men, women & children - are sheltering in the southern Gaza city of Rafah and environs.
Financial Review, 7 May 2024:
Jerusalem | Hamas announced on Monday (Tuesday AEST) it has accepted a ceasefire proposal, but Israel said the deal did not meet its “core demands” and it was pushing ahead with an assault on the southern Gaza town of Rafah.
Al Jazeera, 7 May 2024:
Israeli tanks have taken over the Rafah crossing in Gaza’s border with Egypt after advancing during the night as their warplanes pounded residential homes, killing at least 12 people.
The Guardian, 7 May 2024: (approx. AEST 1:00am)
Thousands of people are evacuating from Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, hours after the Israeli military told residents and displaced people in eastern neighbourhoods to leave in advance of a long-threatened attack on the city and its environs. Witnesses described frightened families leaving the city on foot, riding donkeys or packed with their belongings into overloaded trucks on Monday. Overnight Israeli airstrikes had reinforced “panic and fear”, prompting more to heed the instructions to move.
 |
| al Mawasi camp in April 2024 Image: The Guardian |
It is reported that the IDF has ordered est. 100,000 of those displaced persons in an eastern section of Rafah to move to al Mawasi, where there is a makeshift camp on the coast. About 450,000 displaced Palestinians are said to already be sheltering there.
The al Mawsi area has been subject to IDF attack and what infrastructure there is damaged and the camp unable to support a further influx of people according to United Nations sources.
Suhaib al-Hamas, the director of Rafah’s Kuwaiti Hospital, has said the facility is teeming with dozens of wounded patients as Israel’s military operation intensifies in the city, reports the Wafa news agency.
The hospital is receiving more patients than usual since the city’s main public health facility, al-Najjar, is now located within the Israeli military’s red zone and unable to take them in.
CNN, 8 May 2024 (approx. AEST 3:15am):
Israeli strikes in eastern Rafah today. AFP - Getty Images
The Guardian, 8 May 2024 (AEST 3:49am):
An intensification of the operation should be unthinkable: it would vastly increase the disaster. Many of those now in Rafah were forced to flee from other parts of Gaza. Ordering evacuation is pointless when there is nowhere safe to go. Unicef says 600,000 children are in the city. According to Gaza’s health authorities, 14,000 minors have already been killed, along with 6,000 mothers: there are 19,000 new war orphans.
Media and other reports suggest that up to 1,000 Australian citizens have journeyed to the State of Israel since 7 October 2023 in order to serve in the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) during its War on Gaza - as dual Australian-Israeli citizen IDF reservists or as non-dual citizens in the IDF Mahal volunteer force.
UPDATE:
ABC News, 9 May 2024:
Since the start of the seven-month Israel-Hamas conflict, powerful US-supplied 2,000-pound bombs have been used in bombardments on Gaza's heavily populated cities.
Now, for the first time, US President Joe Biden has acknowledged that the bombs, which military experts say turn "earth into liquid", have killed civilians in Gaza.
And the US will be delaying a shipment of thousands of bombs over concerns about Israel's invasion of the southern city of Rafah.
"Civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of those bombs and other ways in which they go after population centres," Mr Biden told CNN.
"I made it clear that if they go into Rafah ... we're not going to supply the weapons and artillery shells used."
Analysts say it's a "powerful symbolic move" from the Biden administration.
But, it's unlikely to have an impact on the conflict overall, or Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's planned assault on Rafah....
Washington has paused one shipment consisting of 1,800 MK84 2,000-pound bombs, and 1,700 500-pound bombs, according to US officials. These are the 2,000-pound bombs the US is reportedly sending Israel The US has in recent days reportedly green-lit the transfer of billions of dollars' worth of bombs and fighter jets to Israel.
Four sources said the shipment, which has been delayed for at least two weeks, involved Boeing-made Joint Direct Attack Munitions, which convert dumb bombs into precision-guided ones, as well as Small Diameter Bombs...
The blast of an MK84 bomb is so immense "it turns earth into liquid", Marc Garlasco, a former Pentagon official and a war crimes investigator for the United Nations told the Associated Press last month.
"It pancakes entire buildings," he said.
He added an explosion in the open meant "instant death" for anyone within about 30 metres.
Lethal fragmentation can extend for up to 365m.
SBS News, 10 May 2024:
Highlights
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu said Israelis will fight with only their fingernails, if they must ["But we have much more than our fingernails"].
Ceasefire talks make some headway, but no deal, Egyptian security sources said.
Israeli officials said operation in Rafah to proceed as planned.
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