May 24, 2021: Belarus Hijacks Airline to Abduct Journalist; Gaza Sees Rise in Covid Cases; Biden Gives Haitians Protected Status

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TODAY'S HEADLINES:
The far-right dictator of Belarus used a fighter jet and a fake bomb threat to force down a civilian airliner flying over his country, allowing him to arrest a journalist and dissident who was on board.
Meanwhile, Israel’s violence against Gaza is still having ripple effects after a ceasefire, as health officials report hospitals overwhelmed with wounded civilians are now also facing a surge in coronavirus cases.
And lastly, the Biden Administration finally granted Temporary Protected Status to thousands of Haitian immigrants living in the U.S., shielding them from deportation back to a country that is dealing with both a political crisis and a brutal COVID epidemic.
THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:
Belarus’ dictator Aleksandr Lukashenko carried out a shocking abduction of a journalist on Sunday, using a fighter jet and a faked bomb plot to force down a civilian airliner carrying the dissident and then arresting him on the ground.
On Sunday, dissident journalist Roman Protasevich was on a Ryanair flight from Greece to Vilnius, Poland, where he has been living in exile. Protasevich is the 26-year-old former editor of NEXTA, a channel on the Telegram app that has become one of Belarus’s largest opposition media companies.
The flight passed through Belarussian airspace, at which point Belarussian air traffic control claimed that there was a bomb threat aboard. Lukashenko then used that as pretext to personally order Mig-29 fighter jet up to force the plane to land in Minsk, although it was by that time far closer to its destination of Vilnius, according to the BBC.
After seven hours on the tarmac in Minsk, the flight eventually made it to Vilnius. But Protasevich was not aboard, as he had been abducted by Belarussian agents when the plane was forced to land. One passenger on the flight told AFP quote:
“He was not screaming, but it was clear that he was very much afraid. It looked like if the window had been open, he would have jumped out of it.” Protasevich reportedly told other passengers that he was facing the death penalty.
Lukashenko has, in recent months, brutally repressed protests against his authoritarian rule, but has been staunchly defended by the Russian government and faced little to no consequences for his policies. European governments and the U.S. have strongly denounced the shocking hijacking, but it’s unclear what concrete action they can or actually will take -- prior sanctions on the Lukashenko regime have clearly done little to dampen his brazen authoritarianism.
Gaza Sees Rise in Covid Cases
Israel agreed to stop its outright bombardment of the Gaza strip on Friday, but the aftershocks of its brutal campaign of violence are still shaking the captive population there.
According to the Washington Post, Gaza’s hospitals are starting to experience a new wave of COVID cases, as Israel’s bombardment forced many residents into close-packed bomb shelters.
Those cases are in addition to the 1,900 people who were injured directly by Israel’s bombing. To make matters worse, the Post reports that an airstrike destroyed the only lab in Gaza that was doing PCR tests for COVID.
All of this is even more outrageous when you consider the disparities between Israel and Gaza’s access to the vaccine. Outside of the strip, Israel has conducted one of the most successful vaccination campaigns in the world. But inside Gaza, only 2 percent of the population has been vaccinated. Much of this shortage is in thanks in part to the Israeli blockade that stops medical supplies getting through to people there.
Even before the recent bombardment, Gaza’s ICUs were completely swamped. The country has only 60 ICU beds for a population of almost 2 million.
The International Red Cross said that damage inflicted by Israel during the conflict cut water supplies in Gaza by 40 percent and had cut power to 700,000 Gazans at one point or another.
Lest we...