Stephen Lendman

The mission crew on the ship — The Spirit of Rachel Corrie (officially
known as FINCH)

On May 16, at 6:54AM Gaza time (3:54AM GMT), in international waters, an Israeli naval vessel attacked the Malaysian owned Spirit of Rachel Corrie ship (officially the MV Finch), carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza. More details below.

Lawless Monday followed Nakba Day's bloody Sunday, Israeli security forces assaulting unprecedented numbers of nonviolent demonstrators in Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and along the Lebanese/Syrian borders.

Egypt was complicit, blocking activists from reaching Rafah. So was Jordan, forcefully preventing Palestinian supporters from approaching the King Hussein Jordan River Crossing Point.

Nonetheless, the day was potentially historic. Activists hope it will inspire greater global support for Palestinian liberation and justice, what only hindsight will show.

Up to two dozen were killed, scores injured, and many arrested, soldiers and police firing high-velocity tear gas canisters at point blank range, rubber bullets, live ammunition, and tank shell warning shots, a shocking display of violence given scant coverage in America's media.

Now this, Israelis attacking Rachel Corrie's spirit after an Israeli bulldozer operator killed her in Gaza on March 16, 2003. Trying to stop a Rafah refugee camp home's demolition, witnesses said she climbed atop the giant Caterpillar tractor, spoke to the driver, climbed down, knelt 10 - 20 meters in front in clear view, blocking its path with her body. With activists screaming for it to stop, the soldier-operator crushed her to death deliberately, running her over twice to be sure.

Patrick O’Connor
WSWS

The chief prosecutor with the International Criminal Court (ICC), Luis Moreno-Ocampo, yesterday demanded that arrest warrants be issued for Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, his son Saif Al Islam, and intelligence chief Abdullah al-Sanussi, on crimes against humanity charges.

Three ICC judges will now examine a 74-page dossier detailing the alleged crimes before making a decision on the requested warrants. These moves come after the UN Security Council issued a request in late February for a criminal investigation. Britain and France, backed by the US, instigated this as part of their drive for regime-change in Libya, aimed at installing a client regime in the strategically significant and oil-rich state.

The rank hypocrisy of the imperialist powers levelling accusations of crimes against humanity is transparent. The leaderships in Washington, London and Paris have no legal, political or moral authority to be issuing such charges against anyone. They are collectively guilty of war crimes being inflicted daily on the Libyan population.

Just hours after Moreno-Ocampo submitted his dossier to the ICC, NATO air strikes again hit Gaddafi’s residential compound in central Tripoli in yet another attempt to assassinate the Libyan strongman. The unlawful US-European efforts to liquidate senior regime members come as the bombing campaign is intensifying, with a wide range of civilian infrastructure now being targeted.

Many civilians and hundreds of Libyan troops have been killed. NATO now makes little pretence of limiting its intervention to protecting civilians from repression by the Gaddafi regime—the ostensible remit of the intervention as laid out in United Nations Resolution 1973. Western Special Forces and intelligence operatives are active on the ground, coordinating NATO air strikes and the moves of the so-called “rebel” fighters.

The neo-colonial war is but one theatre of the US military’s operations internationally. The Obama administration has intensified the war in Afghanistan, extended the conflict into Pakistan’s border regions, and carried out extra-legal targeted assassinations in Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan and other countries.