Bethlehem has lit its Christmas tree for the first time since Israel began its genocide on Palestinians in Gaza, offering a rare moment of hope even as West Bank residents under occupation face severe economic hardships and ongoing Israeli assaults.
Australia cruised to an emphatic eight-wicket win over England in the day-night second Ashes Test in Brisbane on Sunday for an ominous 2-0 lead in the series.
The hosts chased down the paltry target of 65 in just 10 overs, captain Steve Smith pulling Gus Atkinson for a huge six over square leg for the winning runs.
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Although not as humiliating as the two-day loss in the first Test in Perth, England were comprehensively outplayed in Brisbane in every department.
Their batting, apart from that of Joe Root and Zak Crawley in the first innings and captain Ben Stokes and Will Jacks in the second, was just as rash as in Perth.
They gave their wickets away with poor strokes on the bouncy Gabba surface.
They also bowled poorly, pitching too short on the Gabba wicket and wasting the new pink ball, in stark contrast to an Australian attack missing spearheads Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood.
To make matters worse, England dropped five catches in the first innings, whereas Australia’s fielders caught everything that came their way.
Josh Inglis’s brilliant run-out of Stokes in the first innings changed the course of the match.
Australia now have a 2-0 lead in the five-Test series and are overwhelming favourites to retain the Ashes with matches in Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney to follow.
England were behind the game once they let Australia’s tail help the home side post 511 on Saturday, an overall lead of 177.
They then lost six second-innings wickets under lights to end the third day 134-6, still 43 runs behind the Australian total.
While many expected England to surrender meekly on Sunday, Stokes and all-rounder Jacks led a fighting rearguard action to ensure Australia had to bat a second time.
Stokes and Jacks defied the Australian pace attack on a fiercely hot day to edge their way past the initial deficit target and begin to set Australia something to chase.
England batting coach Marcus Trescothick said Saturday his batsmen would not change their aggressive approach, despite a clatter of wickets from poor shots.
But Stokes and Jacks did the exact opposite during the first session on Sunday.
They left balls they didn’t need to play and seemed happy to take their runs in singles rather than expansive boundary shots.
They scored just 28 runs in the first hour and passed the 43-run deficit 96 minutes into the session, scoring only 59 runs in the two hours.
The Australian bowlers, who ran rampant under lights on Saturday with the pink ball, were far more ineffective on Sunday, despite the wicket beginning to play some tricks.
The English offered only one chance when Scott Boland squared up Stokes, who got a thick edge over the slips cordon.
They continued to frustrate the Australians in the second session until just before the drinks break, Jacks got an edge to Michael Neser and Smith snared a breathtaking catch at slip, diving full length to his left and catching it low to the ground.
Neser struck again in the next over when Stokes nibbled at a ball outside the off-stump and got a fine edge to keeper Alex Carey to leave England 227-8, a lead of exactly 50.
Gus Atkinson, Brydon Carse and Jofra Archer offered no real resistance as Neser recorded career-best figures of 5-42 and Smith equalled Rahul Dravid on 210 outfield catches, three behind current record-holder Root.
Sixty-five was never going to be enough, and although Australia lost Travis Head and Marnus Labuschagne in the chase, Smith and Jake Weatherald guided the home side to an easy win in style.
The third test starts December 17 at the Adelaide Oval, with England needing a win to have any chance of reclaiming the Ashes. The fourth test starts Boxing Day at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, and Sydney will host the fifth test from January 4.
After being relentlessly decimated by bombs and starved of medical aid during Israel’s genocidal war, Gaza’s healthcare system remains on the brink of collapse despite nearly two months of a ceasefire.
Doctors in the war-ravaged, besieged enclave say they are struggling to save lives because Israel is not allowing the most essential medical supplies in. Sweets, mobile phones and even electric bicycles are permitted to enter, but antibiotics, IV solutions and surgical materials are banned.
“We are facing a situation in which 54 percent of essential medicines are unavailable, and 40 percent of the drugs for surgeries and emergency care – the very medications we rely on to treat the wounded – are missing,” Dr Munir al-Bursh, the director general of Gaza’s Ministry of Health, told Al Jazeera.
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The ministry describes the shortages as unprecedented, stating that Israel is allowing just five trucks carrying medical supplies into Gaza a week. Three trucks deliver supplies to international organisations such as the UN and its partners, and just two to government-run hospitals.
That number is a tiny fraction of the aid Israel is obligated to supply Gaza under the ceasefire agreement – affecting other areas of Palestinian lives.
Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza continues unabated, with some 600 violations of the ceasefire in the two months.
“At least 600 trucks should be entering the Gaza Strip every single day, but what is entering is very little,” said Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary, reporting from Gaza City.
“Cooking gas is only at 16 percent of what is needed; there is a shortage of shelters, tents, tarps and everything Palestinians need to shelter from the rain. We see Palestinians collecting wood, cartons and anything they can light up a fire with.”
People living with chronic illnesses are bearing the burden of such restrictions.
Naif Musbah, 68, who lives in the Nuseirat refugee camp, has colon cancer – and the supplies he needs to be treated are not available.
“I need colostomy bases and bags so I can attach them to the stomach and the device in order to be able to pass stools. They are not available, nor are the bases, and we end up soiling ourselves. The situation is extremely difficult. There’s also no gauze, cold packs, adhesive tape, gloves or disinfectant solution – nothing,” Musbah told Al Jazeera.
With no way to manage his condition, the sick Palestinian man says he feels as if the war has robbed him of his dignity.
Meanwhile, doctors have been improvising with what little they have left, while the families of patients search for simple items to make the lives of their loved ones easier – items, they say, that should not be this hard to find.
During Israel’s genocidal war – which has spanned more than two years – nearly all of Gaza’s hospitals and healthcare facilities were attacked, with at least 125 health facilities damaged, including 34 hospitals.
Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah said he had been “thrown under the bus” as he tore into the club over his treatment and signalled a potential exit, after watching from the bench as they were held to a 3-3 Premier League draw with Leeds United on Saturday.
In his incendiary post-match comments, the 33-year-old Egyptian lashed out at the club and coach Arne Slot, telling journalists he felt he had been scapegoated for their poor start to the season and suggesting that he may not have long left at Anfield.
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“I’m very, very disappointed to be fair. I have done so much for this club, everybody can see that during the years and especially last season,” Salah told reporters in the post-match mixed zone, before taking aim at the club’s leadership.
“I don’t know, it seems like the club is throwing me under the bus. That’s how I felt it, how I feel it.
“I think it’s very clear that someone wants me to get all the blame. The club promised me in the summer, a lot of promises and nothing so far.”
The Egyptian, who signed a two-year contract extension in April, has become an iconic figure in an eight-year spell at Liverpool in which he won two Premier League titles and scored 250 goals in all competitions for the club.
Yet after an indifferent start to the season, he has begun the last three matches on the bench, playing only 45 minutes.
Liverpool visit Inter Milan in the Champions League on Tuesday before hosting Brighton & Hove Albion on Saturday, two games that may herald the end of Salah’s time on Merseyside.
“I called my mum and dad yesterday, I told them to come to Brighton game, it doesn’t matter if I play or not. I’m going to enjoy it. We’ll see what’s going to happen, but in my head, I’m going to enjoy that game, if I play it or not, if I’m on the bench or not,” Salah, who is going to the Africa Cup of Nations with Egypt on December 15, said.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen now, so I’m just going to be in Anfield, say goodbye to the fans (before) going to Africa Cup (of Nations), because I don’t know what’s going to happen when I’m there.”
Speaking after the draw, Slot said he had left Salah on the bench because he felt the team needed something different.
“We were 2-0 up, we were 3-2 up. At that moment in time, it was more about controlling the game, and we didn’t need a goal at that moment in time,” he said.
“Normally, when you need a goal, like last week against Sunderland, I brought Mo on. We needed different players like Wataru (Endo) when we needed to bring the win over the line; he (Endo) gave everything.
“We have to accept the situation we are in. The short-term future of Mo is that he is going to the Africa Cup of Nations, but before that we play Inter Milan,” he concluded.
Salah scored 34 goals and had 18 assists in 52 games across all competitions as Liverpool won the Premier League last season, but with his side floundering, he has managed five goals and three assists in 19 games in the current campaign.
The forward indicated that his relationship with Slot had broken down completely.
“I had a good relationship with the manager, and all of a sudden we don’t have any relationship. I don’t know why, it seems to me, how I see it, someone doesn’t want me in the club,” he said.
Since joining Liverpool from AS Roma in 2017, Salah has become the club’s third-highest scorer behind Ian Rush and Roger Hunt.
“I don’t think I’m the problem. I have done so much for this club with the respect I want to get,” he said. “And I don’t have to go every day fighting for my position because I’ve earned it.”
There’s an old saying in Urdu: Zaroorat ijaad ki maa hai (necessity is the mother of all inventions). I would often hear it as a child growing up in Pakistan.
I’ve always been fascinated by how some phrases leap across languages without losing their truth.
You see, survival has a universal dialect, and here, behind the castle walls of New Jersey State Prison (NJSP), necessity isn’t just a mother, it’s a warden, a foreman, and a constant whisper in your ear.
Like the chains and hooks once used for corporal punishment in the basement of the “Warden’s House” at NJSP, prison labour is a relic of another time. It is a system that still smells faintly of chain gangs and sweat-soaked fields.
Here at NJSP, we work because we’re told to, for pennies on the dollar.
According to the Prison Policy Initiative (PPI), a non-profit that researches mass criminalisation in the US, prisoners can earn as little as $0.86 per day, with those in skilled work – like plumbers, electricians and clerks – making barely a few dollars per day.
Meanwhile, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) research shows that many states pay between $0.15 and $0.52 per hour for cleaning and maintenance jobs, such as sanitation work, with some states paying prisoners nothing at all.
The Department of Corrections budget runs in the billions, but prisoners can work every day of the year and still only make enough to choose between soap or soup when ordering from the commissary.
According to the PPI, prisons collect approximately $2.9bn annually from sales at the commissary and prisoners’ phone calls. Meanwhile, an investigation in The Appeal, a publication focusing on the US legal system, found that commissary prices are often five times higher than prices outside prison, with markups soaring as high as 600 percent for something like a denture container.
With costs like these, prisoners have had to create a second economy just to survive inside. We call it the “hustle” – not in the Wall Street sense, but in the purest form of making something out of nothing.
I met “Jack”, who works in a pantry, a man who prefers to keep his real name to himself for fear of reprisals. His job at the prison involves preparing meals for fellow prisoners. He works 365 days a year with no holidays, no sick time, and each month is paid a little over $100 into his prison account.
Jack doesn’t get money from his family on the outside. Most prisoners don’t. In fact, many actually support their loved ones outside through their prison hustles.
Jack stitches survival together with a needle and thread. He hems khakis, tapers shirts, and mends shoes for stamps. This prison currency is bought through the commissary or traded among prisoners as hard currency for buying and selling. One book has 10 stamps and costs about $8 in the commissary, but can cost more when traded between prisoners.
Two books of stamps get you a tailored “set” (pants and a shirt or two shirts), and it’s four stamps (about $3) to raise your pant cuffs above the ankles, a popular request among Muslim brothers here. Jack won’t say how much he earns a month, but it’s more than what he makes prepping meals.
Water is his biggest expense. “The tap water here burns my stomach,” he told me. “Tastes like metal.”
He buys a case of 24, 16oz (470ml) bottles of water for $6 (about eight stamps). Only three cases are allowed per inmate at a time, and we can only order from the commissary twice a month. He tries to ration, but when he runs out – or water isn’t available at the commissary – he needs to fork out more money to buy bottles from other prisoners who sell at higher prices.
“The funny thing,” he said, not smiling, “is that they [the prison] give the officers water filters.”
On another tier, Josh runs what you might call a corner store without a corner. He sells and trades food for a profit – chili pouches or blocks of cheese from the commissary, peppers smuggled out of the kitchen. The commissary may run out of items or place limits on how many prisoners can buy, so the prisoners go to Josh. But they also go to him for other things – staplers for legal work, shoes, or cash. They trade prison stamps for their purchase. The exchange rate and prices fluctuate depending on supply and demand, but there’s always a profit. A pack of 24 cookies bought at the commissary for $4 may sell for anywhere between $5 and $12. It’s often more profitable to sell loose cookies.
Josh’s system is pure street business. He buys in bulk from the kitchen workers who steal small quantities from the pantries, and when a prisoner makes an order, he smuggles the item to them immediately – usually via a “unit runner”. He sells with a markup, and offers credit at higher rates.
“It’s a cat-and-mouse game,” Josh explained. “The trick is to never keep anything in your cell. Too many haters.”
The “haters” might snitch, and get Josh in trouble. Sometimes, snitching itself is a hustle where police recruit a prisoner to spy and provide them with food, which they, in turn, sell.
Josh’s hustle lets him buy gifts for his children and cancer awareness T-shirts for his recovering mother, and keeps his phone account alive so he can speak to them.
And then there’s 52-year-old Martin Robles, who can fix anything. I call him “Mr Fix It”. He can do it all: fans, electronics, clothing. In the summer, when fans burn out, he bypasses the fuse (which often breaks due to power fluctuations) for the price of two books of stamps. “You have to spend money to make money,” he said, explaining the cost of oil, glue, and sandpaper – the tools of his trade. He didn’t want to reveal how much he makes, but he is sought after in prison. He says his hustle isn’t about survival so much as keeping his hands busy and his dignity intact.
Each of these men works in the official prison economy, and then works again in the shadow one. In both, they are underpaid, undersupplied, and overwatched. The hustle isn’t about greed. It’s about staying alive, staying connected, and, sometimes, sending a birthday gift to a goddaughter to remind her, and more importantly, yourself, that you still exist beyond these walls.
In here, we don’t have much. What we do have is time, pressure and the kind of hunger that sharpens the mind. So we make do. We turn scraps into tools, boredom into ritual. Behind these walls, necessity will keep birthing inventions. And the hustles will keep turning, one quiet transaction at a time.
This is the second story in a three-part series on how prisoners are taking on the US justice system through law, prison hustles and hard-won education.
Read the first story here: How I’m fighting the US prison system from the inside
Tariq MaQbool is a prisoner at New Jersey State Prison (NJSP), where he has been held since 2005. He is a contributor to various publications, including Al Jazeera English, where he has written about the trauma of solitary confinement (he has spent a total of more than two years in isolation) and what it means to be a Muslim prisoner inside a US prison.