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U.N. official says he saw Israeli troops kill 2 Palestinians fishing off Gaza coast
Two men fishing in the waters off the coast of the Gaza Strip were killed Wednesday by Israeli troops firing at them with automatic weapons, James Elder, the global spokesperson for the United Nations’ children’s agency UNICEF, told CBS News.
Elder said he was in a truck attempting to deliver food and medical supplies for 10,000 children in northern Gaza when his team was stopped at an Israeli checkpoint. From his position, he said he could see about 10 men fishing with a single net in knee-deep water.
“I was standing outside the vehicle and suddenly saw a tank coming and then firing, and saw those two men seek to run from their fishing spot and then hit the sand,” Elder said.
Elder said he heard the sound of an automatic weapon coming from near the tank before the men fell. He said his group eventually made contact with the military and that some of the fishermen who fled the shooting were able to return to the beach to retrieve the bodies of those who were killed.
“I don’t know if they were brothers or friends. I just saw those people carrying their dead friends or relatives, obviously in tears,” Elder told CBS News.
Asked if the men in the water had shown any signs of hostility toward Israeli forces, he told CBS News: “They were fishermen. They were fishing.”
When asked about the incident, which Elder first reported in an Instagram post, the Israel Defense Forces asked for an exact location and said it was looking into the claim.
Elder said he and his team were prevented from delivering their aid shipment and forced to turn back that day.
“We spent about eight or nine hours at military checkpoints. In the end, our truck, despite all the approvals, was denied access and returned … Yes, we will try again. Obviously, we’ll try again. But this is consistent with the denials that we and many other agencies have experienced,” Elder said.
Israel has previously said that it allows hundreds of trucks carrying aid to enter Gaza daily, and the Israeli government has blamed the U.N. for failing to distribute it.
Elder, who has visited the Gaza Strip repeatedly since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas, told CBS News the violence he’s witnessed over the past several days has increased to levels he saw shortly after the conflict was sparked by Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack.
“It felt again like Day 1 of the war,” he said. “Walking in this hospital, absolutely heaving with people, children, little, you know, 3-year-olds, 7-year-olds with these grotesque wounds of war, head injuries, and the burns … And children are on the floor. They’re on makeshift stretchers. They’re on beds. There’s just not the capacity. Gaza has seen the systematic devastation of its health care system, so at a time when children are so woefully, wildly under attack from the skies, but also from malnutrition on the ground, we’ve never needed more health care and we’ve never had less.”
CBS News’ Chris Livesay and Erin Lyall contributed to this report.
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters says workers at seven Amazon facilities will begin a strike Thursday morning in an effort by the union to pressure the e-commerce giant for a labor agreement during a key shopping period.
The Teamsters say the workers, who authorized walkouts in the past few days, are joining the picket line after Amazon ignored a Dec. 15 deadline the union set for contract negotiations. Amazon says it doesn’t expect any impact on its operations during what the union calls the largest strike against the company in U.S. history.
The Teamsters say they represent nearly 10,000 workers at 10 Amazon facilities, a small portion of the 1.5 million people Amazon employs in its warehouses and corporate offices.
Amazon is ranked No. 2 on the Fortune 500 list of the nation’s largest companies.
At a warehouse in the New York City borough of Staten Island, thousands of workers who voted for the Amazon Labor Union in 2022 and have since affiliated with the Teamsters. At the other facilities, employees – including many delivery drivers – have unionized with them by demonstrating majority support but without holding government-administered elections.
The strikes happening Thursday are taking place at an Amazon warehouse in San Francisco and six delivery stations in southern California, New York City, Atlanta and the Chicago suburb of Skokie, Illinois, according to the union’s announcement. Amazon workers at the other facilities are “prepared to join” them, the union said.
“Amazon is pushing its workers closer to the picket line by failing to show them the respect they have earned,” Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien said in a statement.
“If your package is delayed during the holidays, you can blame Amazon’s insatiable greed. We gave Amazon a clear deadline to come to the table and do right by our members. They ignored it,” he said.
The Seattle-based online retailer has been seeking to re-do the election that led to the union victory at the warehouse on Staten Island, which the Teamsters now represent. In the process, the company has filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the National Labor Relations Board.
Meanwhile, Amazon says the delivery drivers, which the Teamsters have organized for more than a year, aren’t its employees. Under its business model, the drivers work for third-party businesses, called Delivery Service Partners, who drop off millions of packages to customers everyday.
“For more than a year now, the Teamsters have continued to intentionally mislead the public – claiming that they represent ‘thousands of Amazon employees and drivers’. They don’t, and this is another attempt to push a false narrative,” Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel said in a statement. “The truth is that the Teamsters have actively threatened, intimidated, and attempted to coerce Amazon employees and third-party drivers to join them, which is illegal and is the subject of multiple pending unfair labor practice charges against the union.“
The Teamsters have argued Amazon essentially controls everything the drivers do and should be classified as an employer.
Some U.S. labor regulators have sided with the union in filings made before the NLRB. In September, Amazon boosted pay for the drivers amid the growing pressure.
NEW YORK — The Teamsters union is launching a strike against Amazon at numerous locations across the country, including in Maspeth, Queens.
The Teamsters are calling it the largest strike against Amazon in United States history, and it’s set to begin at 6 a.m. Thursday. In addition to New York City, workers will be joining picket lines in Atlanta, Southern California, San Francisco and Illinois.
In a video announcement released Wednesday night, workers voiced their frustrations.
“Us being strike ready means we’re fed up, and Amazon is clearly ignoring us and we want to be heard,” one worker says in the video.
“It’s really exciting. We’re taking steps for ourselves to win better conditions, better benefits, better wages,” another worker in the video says.
The union says it represents about 10,000 Amazon employees and that Amazon ignored a deadline to come to the table and negotiate. The $2 trillion company doesn’t pay employees enough to make ends meet, the union asserts.
At the height of the holiday season, many are wondering what this means for packages currently in transit.
Teamsters President Sean O’Brien said, “If your package is delayed during the holidays, you can blame Amazon’s insatiable greed.”
Amazon says Teamsters are misleading the public
An Amazon spokesperson says the Teamsters are misleading the public and do not represent any Amazon employees, despite any claims.
“The truth is that the Teamsters have actively threatened, intimidated, and attempted to coerce Amazon employees and third-party drivers to join them, which is illegal and is the subject of multiple pending unfair labor practice charges against the union,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
An Amazon representative says the company doesn’t expect operations to be impacted.
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