How Latin America’s Indigenous groups are showing solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza

Latin America’s Indigenous communities, such as Bolivia’s, show solidarity with the people of Palestine and call on their leaders to push for the dignity and self-determination of the Palestinians. (Supplied/AP, Juan Karita)
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Updated 02 January 2024
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How Latin America’s Indigenous groups are showing solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza

  • After centuries of persecution and dispossession, Indigenous communities say they recognize the plight of Palestinians
  • In Brazil, Colombia and Mexico, Indigenous groups have joined protests and written letters to condemn Israel’s war in Gaza

SAO PAULO: Demonstrations have taken place in several of Latin America’s biggest cities against Israel’s ongoing military operation in Gaza since the war broke out in the Palestinian enclave in October.

Indigenous peoples have been among the protesters, with many of them issuing public letters in support of the Palestinian people.

In Bogota, Palestinian organizations and Colombians have staged a number of demonstrations that have included Embera Indigenous activists.

Inhabitants of the Choco region in northern Colombia and adjacent areas since time immemorial, the Embera have been displaced by the armed conflict between left-wing guerrillas, right-wing paramilitary groups and the army.

They have called on the government to ensure a safe territory for them in their region.




Aid officials say conditions in Gaza are worse and calls for unhindered aid deliveries. (AFP)

At some marches, Embera activists have walked side by side with supporters of the Palestinian cause and have carried Palestinian flags.

Other Indigenous nations have also expressed solidarity with Palestine, such as the signatories of a public letter of support to Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who since the start of the Gaza conflict has sided with the Palestinians, leading to fierce criticism from his opponents.

The letter was published in November by the Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca — known by the Spanish acronym CRIC — which gathers eight Indigenous groups in southwest Colombia.

On Dec. 4, CRIC published another letter that read: “We want to express our total and deepest solidarity to the Palestinian people, who have been suffering for 56 days a true genocide at the hands of the Zionist State of Israel.”

The letter added that Israel is using the conflict with Hamas as an excuse to kill Palestinian civilians, especially women and children, in violation of international law. It accused the UN, especially the Security Council, of ignoring the crisis.

“The struggle and resistance of the Palestinian people is the struggle of all Indigenous peoples,” the letter read.

“As Indigenous peoples, we fully identify with the suffering of the Palestinian people, because it reminds us of the genocide that we ourselves have experienced.”

Israel mounted its military campaign in Gaza after the Palestinian militant group Hamas launched an unprecedented cross-border attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing some 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and kidnapping 240 others.




In Bogota, Palestinian organizations and Colombians have staged a number of demonstrations. (Supplied)

Although Israel enjoyed initial sympathy from the international community, its response in Gaza, which has resulted in more than 21,000 deaths, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, has seen public opinion swing in favor of the Palestinians.

Many critics of Israel have argued that its treatment of the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank, the continued illegal occupation of Palestinian land by Jewish settlers, and the failure to create an independent Palestinian state provoked the Hamas attack.

Some have even accused Israel of using the conflict to drive the Palestinian people out of Gaza altogether so that Israelis can settle the land in their stead — a narrative all too familiar to Latin America’s Indigenous communities.

Israel itself has denied these accusations, insisting it does not intend to reoccupy the Gaza Strip and merely seeks to eliminate the threat posed to its security by Hamas and to rescue the hostages.

Jhoe Sauca Gurrute, a member of the Kokonuko people and one of CRIC’s leaders, told Arab News that many Indigenous groups have collaborated to gather donations and send them to Palestine in recent weeks.

“Israel is trying to exterminate the Palestinians. That’s not only a physical attack, but also a spiritual and cultural one. They want to erase the Palestinian identity,” he said, adding that the Colombian media portrays Palestinians as the villains.

“The far right uses the media to attack President Petro as well due to his support for Palestine.”




Organized Indigenous groups have also been taking part in protests. (Supplied)

Sauca said many Indigenous nations still struggle for their traditional territories in Colombia. “There are 115 different peoples in our country, and many of them are only now recovering their identity after decades of forced silence. The fight for Indigenous territories is continuous,” he added.

Organized Indigenous groups have also been taking part in protests against Israel’s attacks in Mexico’s capital and other cities.

Soledad Ortiz Vasquez, a municipal agent in the city of Santa Maria Yosoyua in the southern state of Oaxaca, is one of the Indigenous leaders who have been promoting the participation of such groups in pro-Palestine marches.

A member of the Mixtec people, she is a feminist leader and one of the heads of the Observatory of the Peoples’ Human Rights, an international organization founded in Mexico that monitors and denounces human rights violations of Indigenous groups.

“For Indigenous peoples, territory is something sacred. Our rivers, mountains, woods and lands are sacred,” Ortiz told Arab News.

“That’s why our struggle is the same struggle of several peoples in the world, including the Palestinians.”

She said “genocide” is being committed in Gaza, and Mexico’s Indigenous peoples repudiate the indiscriminate killing of civilians by Israel.

“For years, they’ve been limiting Palestinian lands with walls and fences. It’s like apartheid. And now the Israelis want them to go away. That’s not fair,” Ortiz added.

In Mexico, the Mixtec and many other Indigenous nations live in communal lands, but such territories have for decades suffered pressure from mining and agribusiness interests, leading several groups to organize resistance.

“For many years, past administrations have conceded licenses for gold, silver and coal mining endeavors in our territories. Some of them caused irrecoverable damage to Indigenous lands,” Ortiz said.

That is the case in Magdalena Ocotlan, a city in Oaxaca where a Canadian mining company polluted nearby rivers and groundwater, she added.




Palestinians who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes shelter in a tent in Rafah. (Reuters)

“In other regions, paramilitary groups have taken control over large areas and expelled the Indigenous villagers. We’ve always needed to struggle for our territories. We’d give our lives for them,” she said.

In Brazil, various Indigenous groups have expressed solidarity with the Palestinians, such as the Guarani Kaiowa from Mato Grosso do Sul state, who released a video in which activists salute Gazans in their original Guarani language.

“They (the Palestinians) have the same right to struggle that we, the Guarani Kaiowa, have. Long live Palestine,” they say in the video.

In Porto Alegre, capital of Rio Grande do Sul state where a large Palestinian community lives, protests against Israel have been promoted almost every week since October. Members of the Kaingang Indigenous people have been present at every march.

“The situation in Gaza became unbearable. Obviously people would react. That’s what happened,” said Odirlei Fidelis, an activist who lives in the Kaingang village of Van Ka, located in the rural area of Porto Alegre.

The identification of Brazilian Indigenous groups with the plight of the Palestinians is natural, he added.

“We face the same kind of discrimination that they face every day. We’re confined inside our territories and there are no policies to help us. Our rights and our sovereignty are violated all the time,” he said, adding that like the Palestinians, the Brazilian Indigenous peoples have to “ask the oppressor’s authorization to do anything they need.”

Even the insufficient lands granted to the Kaingang have been coveted by big landowners, who at times manage to persuade Indigenous leaders to occupy part of them, weakening the collective organization and creating divisions among the villagers.

Last week, Fidelis recalled, the Brazilian Congress annulled the vetoes that had been imposed by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in a bill concerning land grants for Indigenous peoples.




Indigenous nations have also expressed solidarity with Palestine. (Supplied)

The bill establishes that only the Indigenous groups that occupied their traditional territories in 1988, when the Constitution was promulgated, have the right to be granted their lands now by the government.

Lula tried to impede the bill’s approval, but the agribusiness bloc in Congress was stronger and formed the majority.

Critics of the bill say it contradicts the dispositions of the Constitution and ignores the fact that many Indigenous peoples were violently displaced from their territories, so they could not occupy their traditional lands as they wished to.

“We’ve been defeated. Although Lula defends our interests, we felt that his administration failed to fight for us as much as possible in that case,” Fidelis said.

Many Kaingang groups have been living in roadside camps, waiting for a land grant. “We’re peaceful, but we’ll keep fighting for our rights. We’re oppressed every day. We feel like Palestinians, surrounded by Israelis. We’ll resist like them,” Fidelis said.


Iraq’s Jewish community saves a long-forgotten shrine

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Iraq’s Jewish community saves a long-forgotten shrine

A few months ago, the tomb of Rabbi Isaac Gaon was filled with rubbish
“It was a garbage dump and we were not allowed to restore it,” said the head of Iraq’s Jewish community, Khalida Elyahu

BAGHDAD: In a vibrant Baghdad district, laborers are working tirelessly to repair the centuries-old shrine of a revered rabbi in an effort to revive the long-faded heritage of Iraq’s Jewish community.

A few months ago, the tomb of Rabbi Isaac Gaon was filled with rubbish. Its door was rusted, the windows shattered and the walls stained black from decades of neglect.

Today, marble tiling covers the once-small grave, and at its center stands a large tombstone inscribed with a verse, the rabbi’s name and the year he died: 688. A silver menorah hangs on the wall behind it.

“It was a garbage dump and we were not allowed to restore it,” said the head of Iraq’s Jewish community, Khalida Elyahu, 62.

The Jewish community in Iraq was once one of the largest in the Middle East, but now it has dwindled to just dozens.

Baghdad today has one synagogue left, but it has no rabbis. And many houses that once belonged to Jews are abandoned and dilapidated.

The Jewish community itself is funding the shrine’s restoration, at an estimated cost of $150,000.

The project will bring “a revival for our community, both within and outside Iraq,” Elyahu said.

With the backing of Iraqi officials, she said she hopes to restore more neglected sites.

Little information is available about Rabbi Isaac. But when Iraq’s National Security Adviser Qassem Al-Araji visited the tomb earlier this year, he said the rabbi had been a finance official.

Rabbi Isaac Gaon was prominent during the Gaonic period, also known as the era of Babylonian academies for rabbis.

The term “Gaon” is likely to refer to his position as the head of one such academy.

His name was mentioned in the 10th century by another rabbi, who told a tale that never appeared elsewhere, according to Professor Simcha Gross from the University of Pennsylvania.

“There is only one single story,” said Gross.

It goes that Rabbi Isaac led 90,000 Jews to meet Ali Ibn Abi Talib, the fourth Islamic caliph and a relation of the Prophet Muhammad, who is also revered by Shiites as the first Imam, during one of his conquests in central Iraq.

“We have no other evidence for this event, and there are reasons to be skeptical,” Gross said.

Nothing else is known about Rabbi Isaac, not even his religious opinions.

But the tale has origins that are not without context, said Gross.

In the 10th century, minorities — Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians — began to tell stories of how they greeted “Muslim conquerors” because “their privileges including taxes were dependent on whether or not they were believed to have welcomed the Muslims,” he said.

At that same time, Jewish shrines started to appear, even though Jewish roots in Iraq date back some 2,600 years.

According to biblical tradition, Jews arrived in Iraq in 586 BC as prisoners of Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II after he destroyed Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem.

In Iraq, they wrote the Babylonian Talmud.

Thousands of years later, in Ottoman-ruled Baghdad, Jews made up 40 percent of the population.

A turning point was the 1941 pogrom in Baghdad when more than 100 Jews were killed.

Like other Jewish communities in the Arab region, their history has changed since the Palestinian Nakba — “catastrophe” in Arabic — and Israel’s creation in 1948. Soon afterwards, almost all of Iraq’s 135,000 Jews went into exile.

Decades of conflict and instability — Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship, the 2003 US-led invasion and the ensuing violence — completed the community’s erosion.

Some who stayed on converted to other religions, or do not reveal their faith.

Today, 50 synagogues and Jewish sites remain, Elyahu said. Most are crumbling, and some have become warehouses.

Rabbi Isaac’s shrine once included a synagogue and a school, but has been reduced to the small room housing the grave, the restoration’s supervisor said.

“It took us two months to clean it of garbage,” said the supervisor, who asked to remain anonymous.

Now “we are receiving requests from outside Iraq to visit it.”

Decades ago people would come to pray and light candles, believing in the rabbi’s “healing powers.”

Mussa Hayawi, 64, lives nearby. He recounted stories from his childhood in a quarter which was, until the 1940s, one of several Jewish districts in Baghdad.

He said women used to soak themselves in water from the shrine’s well, hoping to conceive.

Rabbi Isaac “was a revered man.” People came “to pray for their sick, to ask for a baby, or the release of a prisoner,” Hayawi said.

Turkiye will fine airline passengers who unbuckle before the plane stops

Updated 47 min ago
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Turkiye will fine airline passengers who unbuckle before the plane stops

  • The updated rules came into effect earlier this month
  • Turkish media reports have said fines of up to $70 will be imposed

ANKARA: Airline passengers in Turkiye who unbuckle their seat belts, access overhead compartments, or occupy the aisle before their plane has fully stopped now face fines under new regulations issued by the country’s civil aviation authority.

The updated rules, which aim to enhance safety and ensure a more orderly disembarkation, came into effect earlier this month. They were adopted following passenger complaints and flight inspections indicated a growing number of safety violations during taxiing after landing, according to the Turkish Directorate of Civil Aviation.

It is not unusual in Turkiye for passengers to stand up or move inside the cabin soon after the plane has landed, often leading to chaotic disembarkation.

Under the new regulations, commercial airlines operating flights in Turkiye are required to issue a revised version of the standard in-flight announcement to remain seated, warning that violations will be documented and reported, according to a circular issued by the aviation authority.

Passengers are also reminded to wait for those in front of them to exit first instead of rushing forward.

The circular does not say how much passengers who disregard the regulations could be fined, but Turkish media reports have said fines of up to $70 will be imposed.

“Despite announcements informing passengers of the rules, many are standing up before the
aircraft reaches its parking positions and before the seat belt sign is turned off,” the aviation authority noted.

“This behavior compromises the safety of passengers and baggage, disregards the satisfaction and exit priority of other travelers,” it said.

There have been no immediate reports confirming that the newly introduced fines are being enforced.

Turkiye is a popular travel destination, drawing millions of tourists every year.


UK sends trade envoy to Israel after suspending talks

Updated 28 May 2025
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UK sends trade envoy to Israel after suspending talks

  • Lord Ian Austin, who is the UK government’s trade envoy to Israel, was welcomed to Haifa, just days after Foreign Secretary David Lammy paused negotiations
  • Lord Austin: Trade with Israel provides many thousands of good jobs in the UK and brings people together in the great multicultural democracy that is Israel

LONDON: In a somewhat unlikely turn of events, a British trade envoy has visited Israel to “promote trade” between the two countries — a week after the UK suspended relevant talks.

Lord Ian Austin, who is the UK government’s trade envoy to Israel, was welcomed to Haifa on Monday, just days after Foreign Secretary David Lammy paused negotiations.

The British Embassy in Israel said that Lord Austin had visited a number of projects — such as the Customs Scanning Center, Haifa Bayport, and the Haifa-Nazareth Light Rail project — to “witness co-operation at every stop.”

“Trade with Israel provides many thousands of good jobs in the UK and brings people together in the great multicultural democracy that is Israel,” Lord Austin said.

Last Tuesday, the government confirmed it was suspending its trade negotiations with Israel in the wake of an accelerated military offensive in Gaza and the country’s decision to limit the amount of aid allowed into the Palestinian territory.

Mr Lammy told the Commons that Israel’s actions were “egregious” and amounted to a “dark new phase in this conflict.”

But despite the suspension of any new trade talks with Israel, No. 10 has insisted that the UK still has a trading relationship with the country.

A spokesperson for the prime minister said: “We have always had a trading relationship, but are pausing any new ones.”

The UK has sanctioned a number of individuals and groups in the West Bank, which it said have been linked with acts of violence against Palestinians — including Daniella Weiss, a leading settler activist who was the subject of Louis Theroux’s recent documentary, “The Settlers.”

Writing for Politics Home, Lord Austin said: “It is in our national interest, and the decision this week by the government to pause negotiations on a new Free Trade Agreement does not change that.

“The situation in Gaza is terrible, as it is in all wars, and the quickest way to get the aid in and save lives is for Hamas to stop fighting and release the hostages. That would end the conflict immediately.”

A government spokesperson said: “We suspended talks with Israel on a new FTA because it is not possible to advance discussions with a Netanyahu government pursuing such egregious policies in Gaza and the West Bank.

“Lord Austin is in Israel this week in his capacity as trade envoy to maintain our relationship with Israeli businesses.”


Netanyahu says Hamas Gaza chief Mohammed Sinwar has been killed

Hamas Gaza chief Mohammad Sinwar. (Screenshot)
Updated 57 sec ago
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Netanyahu says Hamas Gaza chief Mohammed Sinwar has been killed

  • Mohammad Sinwar was elevated to the top ranks of the Palestinian militant group last year after Israel killed his brother Yahya in combat

JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that Israel had killed Hamas Gaza chief Mohammad Sinwar, one of its most wanted targets and the younger brother of the deceased group’s leader, Yahya Sinwar.
Mohammad Sinwar had been the target of an Israeli strike on a hospital in southern Gaza earlier this month and Netanyahu said on May 21 that it was was likely he had been killed.
“We eliminated Mohammad Deif, (Ismail) Haniyeh, Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Sinwar,” Netanyahu said, confirming the death to the Israeli parliament, known as the Knesset.
“In the last two days we have been in a dramatic turn toward a complete defeat of Hamas,” he said, adding that Israel was also “taking control of food distribution,” a reference to a new aid distribution system in Gaza managed by a US-backed group.
Hamas has yet to confirm his death Sinwar’s death.
Sinwar was elevated to the top ranks of the Palestinian militant group last year after Israel killed his brother Yahya in combat.
Yahya Sinwar masterminded the October 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the war, now in its 20th month, and was later named the overall leader of the group after Israel killed his predecessor Ismail Haniyeh in Iran. 


UAE summons Israeli ambassador over ‘provocative practices in Jerusalem’

Updated 28 May 2025
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UAE summons Israeli ambassador over ‘provocative practices in Jerusalem’

  • The ministry strongly condemned what it described as arbitrary practices

DUBAI: The UAE’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation summoned the Israeli ambassador on Wednesday to protest what it called “shameful and offensive violations” against Palestinians in the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque and Jerusalem’s Islamic Quarter.

The ministry strongly condemned what it described as arbitrary practices, calling them a serious provocation against Muslims and a blatant violation of the sanctity of the Holy City. It warned that repeated attacks by Israeli extremists, accompanied by incitement to hatred and violence, amount to a systematic campaign that threatens not only Palestinians but regional and international stability.

The UAE urged the Israeli government to take full responsibility for the actions of its officials and settlers, hold perpetrators accountable—including ministers—and prevent the exploitation of Jerusalem to advance agendas of violence and extremism. It warned that failure to act would be seen as tacit approval, fueling hatred and instability.

The statement reaffirmed support for Jordan’s custodianship of Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem and stressed the need to respect the authority of the Jerusalem Endowments Administration.

The UAE reiterated its rejection of any practices that violate international law and called for full protection of religious sites, emphasizing the importance of preserving the city’s status quo and its symbolism of peaceful coexistence.