DimitriLascaris

On the evening of March 14, 2024, as Israel continued to commit genocide against the Palestinian people, Palestinian Muslims gathered at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem for evening prayer. Dimitri Lascaris accompanied worshippers from the Damascus Gate in East Jerusalem to the Mosque. This is what he saw.

On March 13 and 14, 2024, following five months of relentless attacks on Jenin refugee camp by Israel's military, Dimitri Lascaris and Rehab Nazzal found widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure in Jenin.

In the early morning of March 13, 2024, Israeli forces launched yet another deadly incursion into the Jenin refugee camp in occupied Palestine. In this incursion, Israeli snipers shot dead two men and wounded four others in the compound of Jenin Governmental Hospital. According to witness accounts and security camera videotapes, none of the men was armed, and one of the killed men was shot in the back as he fled into the emergency ward of the Hospital. In this report, Dimitri Lascaris interviews the General Director of the hospital, who showed Lascaris security camera videos of the attack. The attack took place directly across the street from the local headquarters of the Palestinian Authority police.

On March 13, 2024, Dimitri Lascaris visited what remains of an EU-funded, UNRWA-operated daycare centre in the Tulkarm refugee camp in occupied Palestine. In January, Israel's genocidal army blew the facility up, claiming it had found both assault weapons and booby-traps in it. If in fact the building was wired by militants to blow up, why would they store their weapons there? Predictably, the EU imposed no sanction on Israel for this war crime. The EU appears to have accepted - without a hint of scepticism - the suspect claims of an apartheid regime that lies pathologically.

On March 12, 2024, Dimitri Lascaris and Canadian-Palestinian artist Rehab Nazzal visited the Freedom Theatre in Jenin refugee camp in occupied Palestine. The theatre was established decades ago, during the first Intifada. It was run initially by Arna Mer Khamis, a revolutionary who devoted her life to campaigning for freedom and human rights, together with Palestinian women in the refugee camp. Mer Khamis was born to a Jewish family and chose to live and work among Palestinians. During their visit, Lascaris and Nazzal spoke at length with the Theatre's Artistic Director, Ahmed Tobasi. Tobasi described the horrific abuses to which Israeli forces had subjected him and other members of his team after the attacks in Israel on October 7, 2023.

On March 12, 2024, hours before Dimitri Lascaris and Rehab Nazzal visited Jenin refugee camp in occupied Palestine, Israeli forces stormed a house belonging to a family of Palestinian refugees and brutalized young men who were resting in their bedroom when the soldiers blasted through the front door. Upon arriving at Jenin, Lascaris and Nazzal visited the house and spoke to the mother and father of the young men. According to the parents, the soldiers beat their sons savagely while they used the mother as a human shield to protect them from Palestinian militants in the camp.

On March 12, 2024, Dimitri Lascaris visited the Jenin refugee camp in occupied Palestine. His first stop was the site where Aljazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was murdered last year by an Israeli sniper. As explained by Palestinian-Canadian artist Rehab Nazzal, who accompanied Lascaris, Israeli soldiers have destroyed a monument erected in memory of Abu Akleh, as well as the street that was named after her.

For years, the families of Mohammed El-Kurd and other Palestinians living on Othman Bin Affan Street in the Sheik Jarrah quarter of occupied East Jerusalem have resisted expulsion proceedings launched in Israel's kangaroo courts by lawless Israeli settlers. On the first day of Ramadan 2024, Dimitri Lascaris visited the El-Kurd family home. There, he discussed the legality of ongoing efforts to confiscate Palestinian homes in Sheikh Jarrah. Lascaris also discussed the recent imprisonment of Mohammad Alayan, a Palestinian lawyer from occupied east Jerusalem. Lascaris met Alayan in 2016, shortly after Israeli forces demolished Alayan's home and rendered Alayan's family homeless.

On Day 21 of their indefinite hunger strike, McGill University students Rania Amine and Bogdan Stilmashenko spoke with Dimitri Lascaris about McGill's refusal to accede to any of their demands, and even to hold a public meeting with the many groups at McGill who seek justice for Palestinians.

Dimitri Lascaris reports from the perimeter of Al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar, the largest U.S. military base in the Middle East.

From March 4-6, 2024, Qatar hosted the Doha International Maritime Defence Exhibition & Conference (DIMDEX). Qatar bills DIMDEX as a "flagship event for the international maritime defence and security". Dimitri Lascaris attended this year's DIMDEX conference and reported from the floor of the Qatar Convention Centre, where Western merchants of death were hawking their latest weapons while Israel's genocide raged on in occupied Palestine. As he crossed the convention floor, Lascaris came across an Iranian-made drone named after Gaza.

On March 1, 2024, Russian state broadcaster RT published an audio recording of a conversation between senior German military officials. In that recording, the officials, including a German General who is close to German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius, discussed the delivery of Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine. The missiles are capable of striking Moscow from Ukrainian territory. The conversation occurred after German Chancellor Olaf Scholz assured Germans that his government would not deliver Taurus missiles to Ukraine. Dimitri Lascaris discussed these developments with Zain Raza of German independent media outlet AcTVism Munich. Lascaris and Raza also discussed the recent death of Alexei Navalny, U.S. efforts to extradite Julian Assange to the United States, and the recent hearing at the International Court of Justice regarding the legality of Israel's decades-long occupation of Palestinian territories.

On March 3, 2024, Dimitri Lascaris reported from the outskirts of Akrotiri, Britain's colonial-era military base in Cyprus. The U.K. is using the base to supply Israel during its genocidal war on Gaza. Akrotiri is also being used by British and U.S. forces to launch attacks on Yemen. While reporting from the edge of the military base, Lascaris took footage of aircraft that could have been drones. From Akrotiri, Gaza is within the flying range of certain types of U.S.-manufactured drones.

Reporting from the Green Line in the divided capital of Cyprus, Dimitri Lascaris discusses Britain's unauthorized use of colonial-era military bases to arm Israel and bomb Yemen. Despite the determined opposition of Cypriot peace activists, Britain's military and its American partners are using Cyprus as an "unsinkable warship" to enable Israel's genocide.

On January 26, 2024, shortly after the International Court of Justice issued an historic preliminary ruling in South Africa's genocide claim against Israel, Dimitri Lascaris spoke with Regis Tremblay about the scope of the decision and its enormous implications for both Palestinians and for the Western governments that have supported Israel until now.

After Israel's drone strike in Beirut on January 2, I spoke today with Lebanese journalist Nada Raphaël. Nada explained that, many weeks before Israel's attack in Beirut, Israel had already begun to escalate its war on Lebanon by striking Lebanese homes deeper into Lebanon, and by killing Lebanese civilians. Israel also destroyed large olive groves and agricultural land in south Lebanon by saturating the area with white phosphorus. #Lebanon #Israel #Hezbollah #Palestine #Beirut

On January 2, 2023, I spoke with Yves Engler about South Africa's genocide claim against Israel in the International Court of Justice (ICJ). I explained why I expect the ICJ to rule against Israel.