Some people love shopping. Others wants to remind people that their loved ones are being wiped out in a more than year-long conflict that more and more organizations—including Uniited Nations and even Oxford Union—are describing as genocide.
Underneath the rain on Black Friday, protesters gathered outside Tampa’s International Plaza to bring attention to the Israeli government’s now more-than-400-day assault on Gaza and surrounding areas. The conflict—which has killed nearly 45,000 people including over 17,000 children—has led the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
President Joe Biden has pushed back on the warrants while Netanyahu and supporters continue to trot out the excuse that Hamas—which killed about 1,200 people during a terror attack on an Israeli music festival on Oct. 7, 2023—is using Palestinian civilians as “human shields.”
Amnesty International, which is monitoring and investigating those claims, said it does not have evidence to support that claim, adding that “Under international humanitarian law even if ‘human shields’ are being used Israel’s obligations to protect these civilians would still apply.”
