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Gaza ceasefire is an illusion – starvation and killings still continuing


Martin Jay, Strategic Culture Foundation, Tue, 21 Oct 2025 , https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/10/21/gaza-ceasefire-is-an-illusion-starvation-and-killings-still-continuing/

Just how much of what we see in mainstream media about Gaza is the real story? Actually none of it is true as the bigger, darker game being played is all about preparing for a war with Iran.

How’s the so-called ceasefire holding up in Gaza? You might be forgiven for thinking that it is anything but a ceasefire but more of an illusion created by the U.S. and a deal which can be broken at any moment by Israel if and when it sees capital to be gained there. Indeed, if there is one thing Bibi Netanyahu is renowned for, it is breaking ceasefires and so it should come as little surprise that he recently did that, supposedly to attack Hamas fighters which Israel claimed were posing a threat.

Let’s be clear. The ceasefire is really all about boosting Trump’s credibility as a statesman and giving Netanyahu breathing space to re-equip his army, ahead of an inevitable war with Iran. It is anything but a peace deal with the Palestinians but more of a bluff which was really about giving Netanyahu a shot in the arm amongst voters as he gets the credit for bringing back the hostages. But what is the real story? What is behind all this and reports of ISIS fighters being shipped in to take on Hamas?

How’s the so-called ceasefire holding up in Gaza? You might be forgiven for thinking that it is anything but a ceasefire but more of an illusion created by the U.S. and a deal which can be broken at any moment by Israel if and when it sees capital to be gained there. Indeed, if there is one thing Bibi Netanyahu is renowned for, it is breaking ceasefires and so it should come as little surprise that he recently did that, supposedly to attack Hamas fighters which Israel claimed were posing a threat.

Let’s be clear. The ceasefire is really all about boosting Trump’s credibility as a statesman and giving Netanyahu breathing space to re-equip his army, ahead of an inevitable war with Iran. It is anything but a peace deal with the Palestinians but more of a bluff which was really about giving Netanyahu a shot in the arm amongst voters as he gets the credit for bringing back the hostages. But what is the real story? What is behind all this and reports of ISIS fighters being shipped in to take on Hamas?

The smooth media operator who is comfortable doing ‘pieces to camera’ like broadcast journalists stirred up controversy recently when he made a series of films of him standing in front of UN aid trucks driving past, supposedly heading for Gaza. Sara Wilkinson, a UK-based activist who is often in Gaza, claimed that the trucks were actually only moving in and out of a UN compound and that the whole stunt was dishonest.

My own personal experience with Fletcher is that he smeared my name in Lebanon in 2015 as a pathetic act of petulance following an interview I wrote up about him which, in places, revealed him to be at best a lame diplomat winging it, at worse misinformed and woefully ignorant of regional politics. His response was to defame me in front of a group of visiting MEPs which backfired as the hapless buffoon didn’t realize that I had worked in Brussels previously for a decade and most of the MEPs knew me (or knew of me) and respected my work. One of them even invited me for a working breakfast the next day and was shocked at how immature and vindictive he was.

World

Gaza ceasefire is an illusion – starvation and killings still continuing

Martin Jay

October 21, 2025

© Photo: Public domain

Just how much of what we see in mainstream media about Gaza is the real story? Actually none of it is true as the bigger, darker game being played is all about preparing for a war with Iran.

Join us on Telegram, Twitter, and VK.

Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su

How’s the so-called ceasefire holding up in Gaza? You might be forgiven for thinking that it is anything but a ceasefire but more of an illusion created by the U.S. and a deal which can be broken at any moment by Israel if and when it sees capital to be gained there. Indeed, if there is one thing Bibi Netanyahu is renowned for, it is breaking ceasefires and so it should come as little surprise that he recently did that, supposedly to attack Hamas fighters which Israel claimed were posing a threat.

Let’s be clear. The ceasefire is really all about boosting Trump’s credibility as a statesman and giving Netanyahu breathing space to re-equip his army, ahead of an inevitable war with Iran. It is anything but a peace deal with the Palestinians but more of a bluff which was really about giving Netanyahu a shot in the arm amongst voters as he gets the credit for bringing back the hostages. But what is the real story? What is behind all this and reports of ISIS fighters being shipped in to take on Hamas?

What we are witnessing is an illusion on a grand scale. Israel has not really stopped its military campaign against the Palestinians there and is still killing Gazans on a daily basis. It is also not feeding them as legacy media likes to assert but in reality the starvation policy is still in place. The West likes to create the narrative that the Gazans are getting fed now with aid shipments whereas in reality these trucks are not getting through. Tom Fletcher, a man comfortable in his role as someone who lies to the press in his previous role of British ambassador to Lebanon is the UN’s relief chief who claims that his operation is feeding one million Gazans a day? But can we believe the softly spoken former diplomat?

The smooth media operator who is comfortable doing ‘pieces to camera’ like broadcast journalists stirred up controversy recently when he made a series of films of him standing in front of UN aid trucks driving past, supposedly heading for Gaza. Sara Wilkinson, a UK-based activist who is often in Gaza, claimed that the trucks were actually only moving in and out of a UN compound and that the whole stunt was dishonest.

My own personal experience with Fletcher is that he smeared my name in Lebanon in 2015 as a pathetic act of petulance following an interview I wrote up about him which, in places, revealed him to be at best a lame diplomat winging it, at worse misinformed and woefully ignorant of regional politics. His response was to defame me in front of a group of visiting MEPs which backfired as the hapless buffoon didn’t realize that I had worked in Brussels previously for a decade and most of the MEPs knew me (or knew of me) and respected my work. One of them even invited me for a working breakfast the next day and was shocked at how immature and vindictive he was.

Fletcher is just all spin. He is hollow and has no substance and only made the news in Lebanon almost on a daily basis for being photographed with super models with bee sting lips and fake boobs while his podgy Irish wife stood behind him with eyes rolling. He is so vain that he gave a photoshoot to a local TimeOut magazine posing as James Bond in front of a British supercar and has a fabulous contempt for free speech. But of course he is a good communicator. He is the man to go to if you have a grand illusion to pull off for Israel as he will happily make that magician’s trick happen by misinforming the press and the greater public about what is the real story.

Gazans are not only still starving but according to a number of top analysts like Lawrence Wilkerson are still being killed at gunpoint (airstrikes) by Israel at feeding centres. So what exactly is the role of this UN body which Fletcher heads up?

The aid trucks are a huge deception conjured up to draw us away from not only a more nefarious, bloody plan which is about to kick off in Gaza but a bigger existential threat to the West and in particular America, which is coming Trump’s way. Like a moth being drawn to a flame, Netanyahu is preparing for war with Iran and this time it will be nuclear.

Some pundits wrongly pour over the subject of the power struggle between Israel and the U.S., with many pointing to the power of AIPAC within the deep state. It is a common idea that Israel completely controls Trump – a notion I sign up to. But we miss the point.

Yes, it’s true that Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner will make billions in real estate deals in Gaza. The point though is that Trump will no longer have any cards to play if a war starts with Iran. He will be forced to join Israel with its Samsonesque suicide doctrine. The problem with a war with Iran is that it is unwinnable for Israel and more to the point, a disaster for Western hegemony. War with Iran, even if it were only with Iran, doesn’t favour Israel even backed by the U.S. But war with Iran goes beyond the country’s borders as since the Donald was reported to have directed U.S. attacks against Iran’s nuclear bunkers and since it was reported that they had severely damaged them, Saudi Arabia has signed a nuclear pact with Pakistan and both Russia and China are stepping up their military procurement for Iran.

Iran is no longer alone and the first U.S. bunker buster bombs have, if anything, conglomerated these regional powers’ support for Iran. Put bluntly, China simply cannot afford to have its economy threatened by Iran’s cheap oil being halted and Russia needs Iranian drones. To allow Israel, backed by the U.S., to go ahead with a nuclear strike on Iran poses such an existential threat to both Russia and China that is inconceivable that there will be no counter strike on Israel which has never been seen before, which might well mean the end of Israel as we know it. There are no good outcomes to Bibi’s plan to begin a war with Iran and Trump fears more than ever being dragged into it. Yet for the moment, the Gaza ceasefire can be seen for what it is. An illusion, rather like those marching bands and performing artists which come onto a soccer pitch during the half time break which you don’t pay too much attention to and Tom Fletcher is the effeminate wanker leading them spinning his gilt baton and his sparkling teeth.

October 24, 2025 Posted by | Israel, MIDDLE EAST, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Vaunted Trump Ceasefire? Israel has a genocidal Palestinian ethnic cleaning to complete

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL, 22 Oct 25, https://theaimn.net/vaunted-trump-ceasefire-faggedaboudit-israel-has-a-genocidal-palestinian-ethnic-cleaning-to-complete/#google_vignette

The tremendous support given to Trump’s second ceasefire in Israel’s genocide in Gaza ignores reality and history.

How quickly the Trump high-fivers forget Israel abandoned Trump’s first ceasefire that lasted from January 19 to March 18. During that time Israel continued to kill hundreds of Palestinians while restricting food, water and medicine. Then, with Trump’s bombs, they resumed their grotesque genocide further obliterating Gaza while killing tens of thousands more Palestinians.

The first ceasefire released 33 Israeli hostages, leaving 48 to languish as Israel returned to their first priority, ridding Gaza of its Palestinians not yet disappeared. It took nearly 7 months for pressure to build on Israel to agree to a second ceasefire to return remaining hostages, 20 living and 28 dead.

But like Ceasefire 1, Ceasefire 2 is just genocidal ethnic cleansing by subtler means. In the first 9 days, Israel’s military has killed or wounded nearly 400 Palestinians, while again restricting food, water and medicine. Israel still occupies over half of Gaza, establishing yellow lines forbidding Palestinians to cross.

On ceasefire day 10 Israel unleased massive air strikes across Gaza. In their most grotesque ceasefire violation, Israel bombed a vehicle that strayed across Israel’s yellow line, killing 11 family members including 3 women and 7 kids.

Was Trump outraged? Only at Hamas who he’s threatening to obliterate by giving Israel the green light to ‘finish the job.’

This should surprise no one with a moral conscience. Israel has been violating the ceasefire in Lebanon for nearly a year. During that time they’ve killed over 4,000 Lebanese, destroyed tens of thousands of homes and gobbled up 5 Lebanese areas.

That’s some ceasefire you negotiated Mr. Trump. All you accomplished is delay Israel’s one and only goal…bringing a Palestinian free Gaza into Greater Israel.

October 24, 2025 Posted by | Atrocities, Gaza, Israel, USA | Leave a comment

Gaza Officials Say Israel Has Violated Ceasefire 80 Times in First 10 Days

Israel carried out a bombardment on Sunday after two Israeli soldiers were apparently killed in an explosion.

By Sharon Zhang , Truthout, October 20, 2025, https://truthout.org/articles/gaza-officials-say-israel-has-violated-ceasefire-80-times-in-first-10-days/

srael has committed at least 80 violations of the ceasefire agreement since it began just 10 days ago, Palestinian officials have said, leaving hundreds of casualties as Israeli officials threaten to return to their extermination campaign now that the living Israeli captives have been returned.

In a statement on Sunday, the Gaza Government Media Office said that Israel had killed 97 Palestinians and injured over 230 amid the ceasefire. These violations show the Israeli government’s wish to break the agreement and return to its genocidal aggression, the office said.

“These violations ranged from direct fire against civilians to deliberate shelling and targeting, the use of simultaneous air strikes, and the arrest of a number of civilians,” it said, per Al Jazeera’s translation. “These practices reflect the occupation’s continued aggressive approach, its clear desire for escalation on the ground, and its constant thirst for blood and killing.”

This includes an attack on Friday in northern Gaza, in which Israel attacked a vehicle and killed 11 members of the same family, simply trying to return to their home. The attack killed seven children. Israel claimed that the vehicle had crossed a line of demarcation where Israeli forces are still deployed — an area that encompasses the majority of Gaza and that is not clearly marked by the military.

​​“They had crossed the so-called ‘yellow line’, an imaginary boundary mentioned by the Israeli army,” said Mahmoud Basal, Gaza Civil Defense spokesperson, per The Guardian. “I am certain the family couldn’t distinguish between the yellow and red lines because there are no actual physical markers on the ground.”

It also includes numerous violations on Sunday, during which Israel seemingly temporarily suspended the ceasefire agreement after two Israeli soldiers were killed in an explosion in Rafah. Israel blamed Hamas, saying that fighters fired an anti-tank and carried out a bombardment and said it would end all humanitarian aid delivery.

However, shortly after, Israeli officials said the ceasefire was back on and that it had resumed aid delivery. Officials did not give a reason, but Drop Site journalist Ryan Grim reported that the explosion actually happened when an Israeli settler ran over an unexploded ordnance.

“Soon after the explosion in Rafah, I’m told by a source familiar, the White House and Pentagon knew that the incident was caused by an Israeli settler bulldozer running over unexploded ordnance — contradicting [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s claim that Hamas had popped up from tunnels,” Grim wrote on social media.

“After Netanyahu said he was blocking all aid from entering Gaza in response, and unleashed a bombing campaign, the administration conveyed to Israel that they know what happened. Netanyahu then announced he would re-open the crossings in a few hours,” he went on.

Palestinian journalist Younis Tirawi also reported this, and further said that the Israeli government implemented a gag order to the media on the incident. Axios reporter Barak Ravid similarly said that Israeli officials said it was due to pressure from the Trump administration that the decision was turned back.

Israel has already been limiting aid into Gaza and refusing to open the Rafah border crossing, once the most important crossings for aid delivery. Officials accuse Hamas of violating its agreement to release Israeli captives’ bodies, but officials have said that it is impossible to retrieve all of the bodies as long as Israel continues blocking the entry of heavy equipment that can clear rubble.

Top Israeli ministers have been pushing for an end to the ceasefire. “Enough with the folding,” wrote Defense Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir on X on Sunday.

October 24, 2025 Posted by | Gaza, Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The Palestinian Authority may become a casualty of the Trump plan and the new Western consensus

Western support for a two-state solution was never intended to create Palestinian statehood — it was meant to justify the existence of the Palestinian Authority. Now that the Western consensus is shifting, so are thoughts about the need for the PA.

Monodoweiss, By Qassam Muaddi  October 17, 2025

Total and lasting “forever” peace. Not just for Palestine, but the entire Middle East.

That’s what U.S. President Donald Trump promised at the signing of the Gaza ceasefire deal in Egypt last week. One way the plan differs from previous incarnations of the “peace process” is that it abandons the framework of the two-state solution as the accepted way of resolving the Palestine question.

Historically, the U.S. model for integrating Israel into the region was the establishment of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in 1994 after the Oslo Accords, which was given limited governing responsibilities over the West Bank and Gaza with the nominal assumption that it would be the precursor to a Palestinian state.

Trump’s plan tries to bypass all of this, putting Gaza under the administration of a U.S.-led board of “peace” headed by Trump himself. The PA has no clear role in running the Strip — at least not according to Trump’s 20 points, which mentions that the PA would have to undergo a series of “reforms” that could, in some unspecified future, establish “a path” toward Palestinian self-determination. During the reconstruction phase, the West Bank and Gaza would be politically split.

Israel has made its rejection of a Palestinian state official policy. But it is also a matter of national consensus across the Israeli political spectrum, as recently articulated by Benny Gantz, a member of the opposition, in the New York Times. 

It goes back to well before October 7…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Since the beginning of Israel’s war on Gaza two years ago, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly insisted that the PA will have no role in governing the Strip in the future. Yet the calls by Ben-Gvir and the Israeli far right to abolish the PA altogether are not so easy to implement.

The PA runs civil affairs in the West Bank, responsibilities that would otherwise fall to Israel. It also sustains the image of a peace process on which most Western countries and the UN base their official positions, anchored in the rhetoric of a “two-state solution.”

But nominal Western support for a two-state solution was never meant to actually implement it. Rather, the function this support has ended up performing has been to maintain the political rationale for supporting the continued existence of the PA. The demands of the maximalist Israeli far right have placed this in jeopardy.

If Trump’s “peace” plan, if one can call it that, is to have a chance, it would need some European buy-in, especially in funding and bankrolling the so-called “reforms.” That puts it at odds with the maximalist Israeli position.

Last Monday, as the leaders of 20 countries met in Egypt’s Sharm al-Sheikh to sign the Gaza ceasefire deal, the President of the European Council, Antonio Costa, told the media that the EU would increase its aid to the PA by 1.6 billion euros. He added that European intervention will focus on humanitarian aid, police training, governance, border control, and PA reforms, to ensure that “in the future, Palestine will be a democratic state, free of terrorism.”

The new global consensus

The PA has already adopted a political platform that recognizes Israel, rejects armed resistance, and commits to security cooperation. But the PA is also part of a larger Palestinian political spectrum. Even if there aren’t elections, the PA is still bound to operate in relation to other Palestinian political forces. This sets a bare minimum “floor” that the PA is obliged to maintain, which is the rhetorical insistence on a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, and perhaps as an afterthought, paying some lip service to the right of return. Decades of Palestinian struggle since the Nakba have made it impossible for the PA to rhetorically sidestep this political ethos, even though it has done virtually everything on the ground to render it materially meaningless.

In other words, the PA cannot abandon its pretenses to being Palestinian and representing some notion of Palestinian nationhood.  This is what Palestinians fear the “reforms” are about — turning the PA into a self-governing and apolitical body shorn of any remnants of Palestinian national culture and memory………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. https://mondoweiss.net/2025/10/the-trump-plan-the-palestinian-authority-and-the-new-western-consensus/

October 24, 2025 Posted by | MIDDLE EAST, politics | Leave a comment

Why Tony Blair governing Gaza would result in more war crimes.

Soldiers who served under his command in Iraq got away with sexually assaulting prisoners, in scenes similar to Israel’s torture of Palestinians.

IRFAN CHOWDHURY, 8 October 2025, https://www.declassifieduk.org/why-tony-blair-governing-gaza-would-result-in-more-war-crimes/

Under US president Donald Trump’s new plan for Gaza, former British prime minister Tony Blair has been touted as having a senior role in governing Gaza, acting as a deputy to Trump himself. 

Aside from the obvious neo-colonial implications of this – Western Viceroys ruling over occupied Arabs, as opposed to those occupied Arabs being granted self-determination – Blair’s track record of human rights violations makes him deeply unsuitable for the job.

Blair made the decision in 2003 to join with the US in invading and occupying Iraq. Human Rights Watch has noted that “UK nationals committed abuses in Iraq after 2003 on a significant scale”.

Many of these abuses stemmed from policies that were implemented by Britain’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) under Blair’s leadership, wherein abusive interrogation techniques were authorised from above.

Under Blair’s MoD, ‘harshing’ was authorised – this constitutes a technique of psychological abuse wherein an interrogator screams into a detainee’s face, making implicit threats of violence and engaging in personal insults and vitriol.

‘Uncontrolled fury’

Justice Andrew Collins observed at the High Court in 2013: “There can be no doubt that the practices carried out under the guidelines then in place were unacceptable. The harsh technique included the following elements which could be deployed as the questioner considered necessary. 

“The shouting could be as loud as possible. There could be what was described as uncontrolled fury, shouting with cold menace and then developing, the questioner’s voice and actions showing psychotic tendencies, and there could be personal abuse.”

Sir William Gage, who chaired the Baha Mousa Inquiry in 2011, noted: “The teaching of the ‘harsh’ permitted insults not just of the performance of the captured prisoner but personal and abusive insults including racist and homophobic language.

“The ‘harsh’ was designed to show anger on the part of the questioner. It ran the risk of being a form of intimidation to coerce answers from prisoners. 

“It involved forms of threats which while in some senses indirect were designed to instil in prisoners a fear of what might happen to them, including physically.”

Footage published by The Guardian in 2010 of Iraqi detainees being harshed by British soldiers makes for harrowing viewing. 

Nicholas Mercer, who served as the British Army’s chief legal advisor in Iraq in 2003, has stated that in his view, harshing is a violation of the Geneva Conventions.

Sexually abusing prisoners

In 2005, under Blair’s MoD, training documents at the headquarters of the British Army’s Intelligence Corps in Chicksands encouraged interrogators to sexually humiliate detainees as a form of conditioning and for punitive purposes.

One training aid stated: “Get them naked. Keep them naked if they do not follow commands.” 

Another training aid encouraged the use of blindfolds in order to put pressure on detainees; harshing was also encouraged. 

During the same period, a training document at Chicksands explicitly stated that “Sexual frustration” was a vulnerability that interrogators were allowed to exploit in detainees. 

I have written about how between 2006 and 2007, evidence suggests that interrogators from the Intelligence Corps subjected detained Iraqi men to widespread sexual abuse at the Shaibah Logistics Base in southern Iraq.

Ian Cobain noted in regard to these training documents at Chicksands: “This material was created for the instruction of ‘tactical questioners’, who conduct initial interrogations of prisoners of war, as well as for the instruction of servicemen and women from all three branches of the armed forces who conduct ‘interrogation in depth’. 

“The material suggests not only that British military interrogators have employed techniques that may be in breach of the International Criminal Court Act, but that the MoD has spent a considerable amount of time and money training them to do just that.”

‘Misguided zeal’

Blair’s MoD also oversaw a near-total lack of accountability for even the most serious war crimes in Iraq.

After photographs emerged in 2005 showing British soldiers physically abusing Iraqi civilians, stripping them naked, and forcing them to simulate oral and anal sex at Camp Breadbasket in southern Iraq, none of the Iraqi victims were called to give evidence at the subsequent court martial proceedings. 

The Army Prosecuting Authority’s excuse for not calling the victims to give evidence is that it could not locate them – this is despite the fact that the Independent on Sunday was able to locate the victims and interview them.

None of the soldiers who were responsible for what the Judge Advocate described as “perhaps the worst of these offences” – namely, forcing detainees to simulate oral and anal sex – were prosecuted.

The images are reminiscent of what Israel has done to Palestinian detainees at its Sde Teiman camp in the Negev desert. 

Captain Dan Taylor, who issued the order for the detainees to be “worked hard” at Camp Breadbasket, was exonerated by the British Army before the court martial proceedings even began.

The military determined that while his order was “unlawful”, he had “acted with well-meaning and sincere but misguided zeal”. He was subsequently promoted from the rank of Captain to Major.

‘Unacceptable’

Similarly, in the 2003 case of Ahmed Jabbar Kareem Ali – a 15-year-old Iraqi boy who British soldiers beat and forced to enter a canal, where he drowned – the Royal Military Police’s Special Investigation Branch failed to conduct a proper investigation into the killing.

The MoD also massively delayed the court martial proceedings, which saw all of the soldiers being acquitted.

The court martial of the soldiers did not convene until 28 months after the incident – a delay which Brigadier Robert Aitken, who was commissioned to look into cases of detainee abuse, criticised as “unacceptable”.

These soldiers were all later deemed culpable for Ahmed’s death in a public judicial inquiry that took place in 2016, although some still dispute its findings. 

The European Court of Human Rights examined this case, and found that “the Special Investigation Branch was not, during the relevant period, operationally independent from the military chain of command”.

It added: “no explanation has been provided by the Government in respect of the long delay between the death and the court martial. 

“It appears that the delay seriously undermined the effectiveness of the investigation, not least because some of the soldiers accused of involvement in the incident were by then untraceable.”

The man who oversaw all these abuses – Tony Blair – should not be appointed to have any role in governing the people of Gaza; a people who have been subjected to a campaign of genocide, who are deeply traumatised, and who deserve to live with dignity and safety.

Most troubling is Trump’s stipulation that the people of Gaza must be “deradicalized” – if this “deradicalization” process is overseen by Blair, and involves a programme of detention and punishment, then it is virtually guaranteed that egregious human rights violations will occur.

This is not to mention that if anyone needs to be “deradicalized” in this conflict, it is the genocidal Israeli leadership and Israeli society who have perpetrated one of the gravest crimes in modern history in Gaza, as well as the likes of Blair himself – who appears to view the lives of Arabs as inferior to his own.

Irfan Chowdhury is a freelance writer and PhD student at the University of Brighton. His PhD is titled: ‘’How systematic were the British Army’s war crimes in Iraq between 2003 and 2009? An investigation into Britain’s abuse of underage Iraqi boys’. He has had articles published in Bella Caledonia, Iraq Now, Mondoweiss, Roar News, Peace News, Hastings In Focus, Interfere Journal, and Norman Finkelstein’s website.

October 22, 2025 Posted by | Atrocities, MIDDLE EAST | Leave a comment

Israel Launches Wave of Heavy Airstrikes Across Gaza, Killing at Least 45

Reports contradict Israel’s claim that its troops came under attack in Rafah on Sunday

by Dave DeCamp | October 19, 2025, https://news.antiwar.com/2025/10/19/israel-launches-wave-of-heavy-airstrikes-across-gaza-killing-at-least-21/

The Israeli military launched heavy airstrikes across Gaza on Sunday, killing at least 45 Palestinians, marking the deadliest day of Israeli attacks in the Strip since the ceasefire went into effect on October 10.

The IDF stepped up its attacks on Gaza after alleging its troops were attacked by Palestinian militants in Rafah, southern Gaza, though some reports indicate an explosion was caused by an Israeli vehicle running over an unexploded bomb.

Hamas denied responsibility for the incident in Rafah on Sunday, saying it hasn’t been in contact with its fighters in the area. “We confirm our full commitment to carrying out everything that was agreed, first and foremost the ceasefire in all areas of the Gaza Strip,” Hamas’s armed wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, said in a statement.

“We have no knowledge of any incidents or clashes taking place in the Rafah area, since these are red zones under occupation control, and contact with what remains of our groups there has been cut off since the war resumed in March of this year. We have no information on whether they have been killed or are still alive since that date,” al-Qassam added.

Israeli officials said later in the day that two IDF soldiers were killed in the attack. According to Haaretz, Israeli military officials said they thought militants fired on Israeli troops after exiting a tunnel, but other reports contradict the claim.

Curt Mills, the Executive Director of The American Conservative, wrote on X that a senior Trump administration official told him: “Hamas did nothing. Israeli tank hit an unexploded IED that has probably been there for months.”

Ryan Grim, a reporter for Drop Site News, reported something similar. “Soon after the explosion in Rafah, I’m told by a source familiar, the White House and Pentagon knew that the incident was caused by an Israeli settler bulldozer running over unexploded ordnance — contradicting Netanyahu’s claim that Hamas had popped up from tunnels,” he wrote on X.

“After Netanyahu said he was blocking all aid from entering Gaza in response, and unleashed a bombing campaign, the administration conveyed to Israel that they know what happened. Netanyahu then announced he would re-open the crossings in a few hours,” Grim added.

Israeli strikes on Sunday mainly targeted southern and central Gaza, and pictures and videos show that children were among the casualties. The latest reported bombing hit a tent sheltering displaced people near the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, killing at least six.

In a statement on Sunday night, the IDF said that it had “begun the renewed enforcement of the ceasefire,” signaling that its heavy bombardment was over. “The IDF will continue to uphold the ceasefire agreement and will respond firmly to any violation of it,” the IDF said.

Israel has repeatedly violated the truce by killing dozens of Palestinians over the past week. One strike on Friday hit a vehicle and killed 11 members of the same family, including seven young children and three women.

The IDF also warned all Palestinians to remain west of the so-called “yellow line,” the line IDF troops withdrew to when the ceasefire went into effect. Under the current arrangement, the IDF controls more than 50% of the Palestinian territory.

October 22, 2025 Posted by | Gaza, Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Trump: “Thank you so much, Bibi. Excellent work.”

Manlio Dinucci, Voltairenet.org, Sat, 18 Oct 2025, https://www.sott.net/article/502465-Trump-Thank-you-so-much-Bibi-Excellent-work

President Donald Trump,like all his predecessors, has continued the US policy of military support for Israel. But he has broken with the revisionist Zionists. Thus, he lavishly congratulated Benjamin Netanyahu, but forced him to accept his peace plan.

President Trump said in his speech to the Israeli parliament:

“I want to express my gratitude to a man of exceptional courage and patriotism. There is only one, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Bibi, please stand. You are a very popular man. You know why? Because you know how to win. Thank you so much, Bibi. Great job. I think, as you said, Bibi, peace is achieved through strength.

“And that’s really the point. The United States has the largest and most powerful military that the history of the world has ever seen. I can tell you, we have weapons that no one could have ever imagined. We produce the best weapons in the world, and we have an awful lot of them. And, frankly, we supplied many of them to Israel. Bibi kept calling me, ‘Can you get me this weapon? This one, and this one?'” Some I’d never heard of, Bibi, and yet I was the one producing them. But we would have gotten them for you. And they’re the best. You used them well. You need someone who knows how to use them, and you obviously used them very well. So well that Israel became strong and powerful, which in the end led to peace.”

Official data confirms that the United States has provided Israel with at least $21.7 billion in military aid since the start of the Gaza war on October 7, 2023. In addition, both the Biden and Trump administrations have agreements to sell Israel weapons and military services worth tens of billions of dollars more in the coming years. Between October 2023 and May 2025, Israel received 940 ships and cargo planes loaded with weapons from the United States, the Israeli Defense Minister said on May 27, 2025.

The Trump administration has accelerated the supply of weapons to Israel, including 2,000-pound bombs (about one ton) that Israel has used to destroy buildings, hospitals, water infrastructure, and other civilian targets in Gaza. In February 2025, the Trump administration’s State Department notified Congress of three arms sales to Israel: 35,529 Mk-84 and BLU 117 2,000-pound bombs and 4,000 I-2000 penetrator warheads for $2 billion; 5,000 1,000-pound bombs and JDAM guidance kits for $675 million; and Caterpillar D9 bulldozers for $295 million.

In March, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that since Trump took office on January 20, 2025, his administration has approved nearly $12 billion in major arms sales to Israel. Now, the Trump administration is planning new arms sales to Israel worth $6 billion. These include 30 AH-64 Apache helicopters worth $3.8 billion, nearly doubling Israel’s current fleet of military helicopters, and 3,250 assault vehicles costing $1.9 billion.

In addition, the United States has supplied significant arms to Israel, Germany, and Italy. Germany has provided frigates and catfish, ammunition, and military services. Italy has supplied helicopters and cannons for Israeli warships. Italy, moreover, produces components for the US F-35 fighter jet in Cameri (Piedmont), including for other countries that possess this fighter, including Israel, which also used it to bomb Gaza. Added to this is the fact that the Trapani-Birgi air base in Sicily will soon become the first international training center for US F-35 fighter pilots outside the United States. The new center will train pilots not only from Italy, but also from allied countries that use the F-35 fighter jet, including Israeli ones.

October 21, 2025 Posted by | Israel, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Israeli soldiers reveal thousands of tons of aid ‘buried, burned’ in Gaza as famine took over strip

Rights groups say Israel has been carrying out a ‘deliberate campaign of starvation’ in Gaza

News Desk, OCT 17, 2025, https://thecradle.co/articles-id/33742

Over the past two months, the Israeli army has buried or burned more than a thousand truckloads worth of humanitarian aid in Gaza, including food, medical supplies, and bottled water, amid the ongoing starvation of Palestinians in the strip, Israeli broadcaster Kan reported on 17 October.

“We buried everything in the ground, and we even burned some of the things,” said an army source. “Even today, there are thousands of packages waiting in the sun, and if they are not transferred to the Gaza Strip, we will be forced to destroy them too.”

The humanitarian aid, which had spoiled while standing for many weeks on the Palestinian side of the Kerem Shalom crossing, was allegedly not distributed because the mechanism to do so is not functioning.

“It simply doesn’t work,” the military source claimed to the Israeli broadcaster.

“The trucks are getting stuck, there’s a mechanism that doesn’t work, there’s a problem with the quality of the axles, and the coordination isn’t working either,” the source added.

“We have the largest grain warehouse in existence here. If the goods that are there today aren’t collected, we’ll evacuate and bury the equipment.”

The source also questioned the ability to drop aid into Gaza by air.

“There has already been such an attempt, and it was a complete failure, just like the port they built,” he said.

Throughout the two-year genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, Israel has armed and funded Palestinian gangs to loot humanitarian aid convoys, while blaming Hamas. 

On Friday, the UN reported that an average of 560 tons of food has entered Gaza daily since a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took effect last week, but deliveries have struggled to reach the north of the strip, including Gaza City, due to road closures and damage from past Israeli bombing.

The difficulty in delivering aid is raising concerns that famine conditions will persist in Gaza despite the current halt in the Israeli bombing.

“We’re still below what we need, but we’re getting there … The ceasefire has opened a narrow window of opportunity, and WFP is moving very quickly and swiftly to scale up food assistance,” stated UN World Food Programme(WFP) spokesperson Abeer Etefa while speaking with reporters in Geneva.

In August, Amnesty International warned that “Israel is carrying out a deliberate campaign of starvation in the occupied Gaza Strip, systematically destroying the health, well-being and social fabric of Palestinian life.”

“It is the intended outcome of plans and policies that Israel has designed and implemented, over the past 22 months, to deliberately inflict on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction – which is part and parcel of Israel’s ongoing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza,” the rights group added.

October 21, 2025 Posted by | Atrocities, Israel | Leave a comment

Gaza to become a tax-free ‘billionaire haven’ according to Jared Kushner and Zionist billionaires

Skwawkbox, 16 October 2025

Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, along with Epstein-linked Palantir boss Peter Thiel and pro-Israel Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison, plan to turn Gaza into a haven for billionaires. They plan to do so with a city of tax-free startups, with scattered server farms for cloud processing and artificial intelligence. That will supplement factories with cheap labour, and simple regulations will also smooth the way for “normalization with Saudi Arabia”, according to Israeli media outlet N12.

The article – which, interestingly, does not seem to appear on the site’s English-search version – says that:

The huge economic project of rebuilding Gaza after the war is already attracting interest from countries, billionaires and former leaders [and] from Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who aspires to establish Al centers in the Strip, to foreign investors looking for enabling regulation.

Experts predict [that] the development initiatives could serve as leverage to promote normalization with Saudi Arabia, also through Kushner’s involvement, but the road there is still fraught with political and security obstacles.

It notes that Ellison is ready to put $350 million into the plan, which is in line with Trump’s notorious and unlawful ‘Gaza riviera‘ ethnic cleansing plan and fascist Israeli ministers’ Gaza ‘real estate bonanza’.

October 20, 2025 Posted by | Atrocities, Gaza, Israel | Leave a comment

Iran says restrictions on nuclear programme ‘terminated’ as deal expires

Iran also expresses commitment to diplomacy as landmark 10-year nuclear deal with Western powers officially ends

By News Agencies, 18 Oct 202518 Oct 2025, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/10/18/iran-says-restrictions-on-nuclear-programme-terminated-as-deal-expires

Iran has said it is no longer bound by restrictions on its nuclear programme as a landmark 10-year deal between it and world powers expired, though Tehran reiterated its “commitment to diplomacy”.

From now on, “all of the provisions [of the 2015 deal], including the restrictions on the Iranian nuclear programme and the related mechanisms are considered terminated,” Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement on Saturday, the day of the pact’s expiration.

“Iran firmly expresses its commitment to diplomacy,” it added.

The deal’s “termination day” was set for exactly 10 years after the adoption of resolution 2231, enshrined by the United Nations Security Council.

Officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the agreement between Iran and China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States saw the lifting of international sanctions against Iran in exchange for restrictions on its nuclear programme.

But Washington unilaterally left the deal in 2018 during President Donald Trump’s first term in office and reinstated sanctions. Tehran then began stepping up its nuclear programme.

Talks to revive the agreement have failed so far, and in August, the UK, Germany and France triggered the so-called “snapback” process, leading to the re-imposition of the UN sanctions.

“Termination day is relatively meaningless due to snapback,” Arms Control Association expert Kelsey Davenport told the AFP news agency.

Ali Vaez, the International Crisis Group’s Iran project director, told AFP that while the nuclear deal had been “lifeless” for years, the snapback had “officially buried” the agreement, with “its sorry fate continuing to cast a shadow over the future”.

Western powers and Israel have long accused Iran of seeking to acquire nuclear weapons, a claim Tehran denies.

Neither US intelligence nor the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said they found any evidence this year that Iran was pursuing atomic weapons.

Nuclear talks between Iran and world powers are currently deadlocked.

“Iran remains sceptical of the utility of engaging with the US given its history with President Trump, while Washington still seeks a maximalist deal,” Vaez told AFP.

On Monday, Trump said he wanted a peace deal with Iran, but stressed the ball was in Tehran’s court.

Tehran has repeatedly said it remains open to diplomacy with the US, provided Washington offers guarantees against military action during any potential talks.

The US joined Israel in striking Iran during a 12-day war in June, which hit nuclear sites, but also killed more than 1,000 Iranians, including hundreds of civilians, and caused billions of dollars in damage.

Angered that the IAEA did not condemn the attacks and accusing the agency of “double standards”, President Masoud Pezeshkian signed a law in early July suspending all cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog and prompting inspectors to leave the country.

For its part, the IAEA has described its inability to verify Iran’s nuclear stockpile since the start of the war “a matter of serious concern”.

The three European powers last week announced they will seek to restart talks to find a “comprehensive, durable and verifiable agreement”.

Iranian top diplomat Abbas Araghchi said during an interview last week that Tehran does “not see any reason to negotiate” with the Europeans, given they triggered the snapback mechanism.

October 20, 2025 Posted by | Iran, politics international | Leave a comment

Fascist Israeli minister Smotrich calls Gaza genocide a “real estate bonanza”

Oops, your real motives are showing

Skwawkbox by Skwawkbox, 19 September 2025, https://www.thecanary.co/skwawkbox/2025/09/19/smotrich-gaza/

“We paid a lot of money for the war, so we need to decide how to divide the percentages of the land” – these are the words of self-described ‘fascist and homophobe’ Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich as he discussed how Israel and the US plan to divide up Gaza between themselves this week.

“We paid a lot of money for the war, so we need to decide how to divide the percentages of the land” – these are the words of self-described ‘fascist and homophobe’ Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich as he discussed how Israel and the US plan to divide up Gaza between themselves this week.


Smotrich: Gaza is a ‘real estate bonanza’

Speaking in Hebrew at a property conference, Smotrich added:

The Gaza Strip is becoming a real estate bonanza.

The Israeli and Trump regimes – to be more accurate the Israeli-Trump regime – have long been discussing the US ‘Trump-Gaza plan’ to turn Gaza, after the extermination or expulsion of its rightful Palestinian owners, into a beach-front resort money-making project, a plan even accompanied by a deranged AI video posted by Trump to his social media.


We paid a lot of money for the war, so we need to decide how to divide the percentages of the land in Gaza. The demolition phase is always the first phase of urban renewal. We did that, now we need to start building.

Trump’s plan was first developed for him by the same people who came up with the so-called ‘Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’ whose ‘aid’ stations have killed more than 2,000 desperate refugees seeking food and wounded more than 15,000 –  a group of Israeli business people.

BCG, the consulting firm who financialised the plan, calculated that it would return to its backers four times the initial investment of $100 billion, according to the plan. The firm has since tried to distance itself from the plan, claiming to have sacked all the partners who approved it.

Smotrich should be in the Hague. No ifs, no buts.

October 20, 2025 Posted by | Atrocities, Gaza, Israel | Leave a comment

They Said The Massacres Would Stop When The Hostages Were Released. They Haven’t Stopped.

Caitlin Johnstone, Oct 18, 2025,https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/they-said-the-massacres-would-stop?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=176485051&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

Last year I banged out an angry rant about the way Israel supporters would yell “release the hostages!” at anyone who talked about the latest massacre of Palestinian civilians, saying Hamas was to blame for the killing because of their refusal to release the Israeli captives, and that it would all stop once the hostages are free. I’m remembering that essay today because the hostages are free, but the massacres are continuing.

On Friday Israel reportedly blew up a vehicle carrying a Palestinian family of eleven people, including seven children. The IDF gave its usual excuse for the massacre: the civilians were deemed to have crossed an invisible line into a forbidden zone which made the Israeli soldiers feel unsafe. They did this exact same thing constantly during the last “ceasefire” as well.

In my polemic last year I argued that the slaughter we were seeing in Gaza plainly had nothing to do with pushing for the release of Israeli hostages, and that even if it did it would still be barbaric to massacre children until your enemies caved in to your demands.

But two years of genocide have made it clear that the Israeli military was never killing Palestinian civilians in order to push for the release of hostages or force Hamas to cave in to their demands. The Israeli military kills Palestinian civilians in order to kill Palestinian civilians. The killing is the goal, and it always has been.

We see this illustrated over and over again, in all sorts of ways. Israel apologists always argued that the only reason the IDF had destroyed Gaza’s healthcare system with nonstop hospital attacks was because Hamas was using those hospitals as secret military bases. But then multiple independent reports from western doctors in Gaza confirmed that Israeli forces had been entering the hospitals after attacking them and systematically destroying individual pieces of medical equipment one by one in order to make them unusable. Hamas wasn’t the target in those hospital attacks, the hospitals themselves were the target.

And now we are seeing the “Israel is killing people because Hamas has Israeli hostages” narrative debunked in exactly the same way the “Israel keeps bombing hospitals because there are Hamas bases in all of them” narrative was. The hostages are free, but the massacres continue.

None of which will surprise anyone who was paying attention these last two years. Israel’s genocidal intent has been on full display every minute of every day, and it continues to be even during this joke of a “ceasefire” where the genocide was theoretically supposed to be on pause for a little while.

October 19, 2025 Posted by | Atrocities, Gaza, Israel | Leave a comment

Israel Returns Palestinian Prisoners’ Bodies With ‘Signs of Torture, Mutilation, and Execution’

An unknown number of Palestinians abducted by Israel died or were killed while in custody; living former prisoners have described horrific and sometimes deadly torture.

Brett Wilkins, 16 Oct 25, https://www.commondreams.org/news/palestinian-prisoners-tortured

Israel on Wednesday returned the bodies of dozens of Palestinians abducted during the Gaza genocide showing “signs of torture, mutilation, and execution,” as one US-based news site reported—a description consistent with the testimonies of former prisoners held by the Israeli forces over the past two years.

So far, Israel has returned 90 bodies, with more expected to be handed over soon, as part ofo the ceasefire agreement reached with Hamas last week. The Gaza Health Ministry’s forensic team said that some of the bodies were blindfolded and bound, and bore signs of torture similar to those seen on many of the living Palestinian prisoners freed by Israel on Monday.

Some of the dead prisoners appeared to be victims of field executions—a war crime Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops have allegedly committed against men, women, and children alike.

Furthermore, Israel’s obliteration of Gaza’s healthcare and medical infrastructure is making it difficult for Palestinian forensic personnel to identify the bodies returned by Israel, which are in various states of decomposition.

“The horrific scenes visible on the bodies of the martyrs returned by the occupation, bearing marks of torture, abuse, and field executions, clearly reveal the criminal and fascist nature of the occupation army and the moral and human decadence this entity has reached,” Hamas said in a statement.

“We call upon international rights groups, foremost among them the [United Nations] and [its] Human Rights Council, to document these atrocious crimes, open an urgent and comprehensive investigation into them, and bring the occupation leaders to trial before relevant international courts, as they are responsible for committing unprecedented crimes against humanity in our modern history,” the statement added.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder and forced starvation. The International Court of Justice is also weighing an ongoing genocide case against Israel filed by South Africa and supported by around two dozen nations.

Although warned by their Israeli captors against speaking out, Palestinians freed from Israeli imprisonment this week described being held in a “slaughterhouse” rife with torture and abuse, including beatings, electrocution, and being shot with rubber-coated steel bullets.

Palestinians imprisoned by Israeli forces—including children—have described being raped and sexually assaulted by male and female soldiers, electrocuted, mauled by dogs, soaked with cold water, denied food and water, deprived of sleep, and blasted with loud music. Dozens of detainees have died in Israeli custody, including one who died after allegedly being sodomized with an electric baton. IDF officers allegedly brought Israeli civilians into detention centers and allowed them to watch and film Palestinian prisoners being tortured.

Israeli physicians who served at the notorious Sde Teiman torture prison also described widespread severe injuries caused by 24-hour shackling of hands and feet that sometimes required amputations.

Hamas’ treatment of the Israelis it abducted during the October 7, 2023 attack is more complicated, with some freed captives saying they suffered torture and other abuse while others—especially those released early during the war—said they were treated relatively well. An Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldier captured after the rest of his tank crew were killed said that although he was tortured, his captors granted his request for religious materials including a Torah. One woman even pushed back against Israeli media lies claiming she was wounded by her captors, when in fact it was an Israeli airstrike that injured her.

So far, Hamas has returned the bodies of nine Israeli and other hostages. Israel is calling on Hamas to “make all necessary efforts” to find and hand over the bodies of 21 remaining dead hostages still unaccounted for.

October 18, 2025 Posted by | Atrocities, Israel | Leave a comment

The 9,100 Palestinians left behind in Israeli prisons after the ‘peace’ deal

As world leaders celebrate the release of Israeli captives, over 9,000 Palestinian prisoners still face torture, hunger, and isolation behind bars. Half of them are held by Israel without charge or trial.

Mondoweiss, By Qassam Muaddi  October 15, 2025

As the leaders of 20 countries gathered in Egypt’s Sharm al-Sheikh to celebrate the ceasefire, mainstream media celebrated the release of the remaining 20 living Israeli captives in Gaza. After reuniting with their families, the captives described the harsh conditions in which they were held. Meanwhile, 1,968 Palestinians were released from Israeli prisons, 88 of whom were released in the West Bank, 154 were deported to Egypt, and the rest were released in the Gaza Strip. Most of them were abducted by Israeli forces inside Gaza over the past two years. Of the total number of prisoners released, 250 had been serving life sentences for charges related to armed activity.

But over 9,100 Palestinians continue to be held in Israeli prisons. Some 3,544 of them are held under the Israeli system of “administrative detention,” which allows Israel to imprison Palestinians for up to six months without charge or trial. According to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club, none of the released prisoners in Monday’s swap were administrative detainees.

Administrative detention orders are ratified by an Israeli military court, and the six-month period of imprisonment can be renewed indefinitely based on a “secret file” that neither the detainees nor their lawyers can access. Consecutive renewals have led many Palestinians to serve up to two years under this system, never having been given due process.

Administrative detainees represent the largest category of Palestinians in Israeli prisons, says Ayah Shreiteh, the spokesperson of the Prisoners’ Club. 

Shreiteh added that around 1,000 Palestinians have been arrested and held without trial, without even an administrative detention order. Many of them have spent months behind bars.

As for those who have been sentenced based on clear charges, the majority of sentences are for belonging to political organizations and unions, participating in protests, or throwing stones. Since October 2023, however, Shreiteh points out that the most common conviction has been over “incitement,” a charge that covers anything from a social media post to delivering public speeches, and even to raising the flags of Palestinian political factions in public.

“Before October 7, the detention conditions of Palestinian prisoners had already been deteriorating,” Shreiteh noted. Then everything changed. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

After October 7, things got dramatically worse, Ansari says. Both verbal and physical violence increased against Palestinian detainees to the point that violence was used during all phases of detention, starting from the moment of arrest. “But the most noticeable change after October 7 has been the complete isolation of Palestinian prisoners, with the ban of family visitation,” she said. “This is still ongoing.” …………………………………………………………………………………………

Palestinian prisoners have been largely absent from mainstream media since before October 7, appearing only in the context of prisoner swaps last January and last week. However, the day before October 7, human rights groups reported that a total of 5,000 Palestinians were in Israeli jails — at the time, it was considered a record that had not been met in several years, including 1,300 administrative detainees. Over the past two years, that record-breaking prison population doubled.

Mass captivity as a phenomenon is foreign to Israelis, but for Palestinians, it has been normalized over decades. According to human rights reports, at least 1 million Palestinians have experienced Israeli detention since 1967. Yet after October 7, the Israeli captives became the only talking point for Western politicians and the mainstream media, while Palestinian prisoners remained invisible. 

On Monday, Donald Trump celebrated his vaunted “forever” peace after the signing of the ceasefire deal in Egypt. Now that the Israeli captives have been released, the 9,100 Palestinians languishing in Israel’s dungeons can continue to be forgotten. https://mondoweiss.net/2025/10/the-9100-palestinians-left-behind-in-israeli-prisons-after-the-peace-deal/

October 18, 2025 Posted by | civil liberties, Israel | Leave a comment

Israel Tortured And Sexually Humiliated Greta Thunberg.

Caitlin Johnstone, Oct 16, 2025, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/israel-tortured-and-sexually-humiliated?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=176291910&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

In an interview with Swedish paper Aftonbladet, Greta Thunberg has corroborated earlier eyewitness reports that she and her fellow Global Sumud Flotilla activists were subjected to monstrous abuses by Israeli officials after being abducted from their boats carrying aid for Palestinians in Gaza.

Here are some excerpts (quotes from Thunberg are italicized, quotes from Aftonbladet are in bold):

“They grab me, pull me to the ground, and throw an Israeli flag over me.”

“They dragged me to the opposite side from where the others were sitting, and I had the flag around me the whole time. They hit and kicked me.”

“They moved me very brutally to a corner that I was turned towards. ‘A special place for a special lady’, they said. And then they had learned ‘Lilla hora’ (Little whore) and ‘Hora Greta’ (Whore Greta) in Swedish, which they repeated all the time.”

In the corner where Greta was sitting, the police placed a flag. “The flag was placed so that it would touch me. When it fluttered and touched me, they shouted ‘Don’t touch the flag’ and kicked me in the side. After a while, my hands were tied with cable ties, very tightly. A bunch of guards lined up to take selfies with me while I was sitting like that.”

“They were thrown to the ground and beaten. But I could only see it out of the corner of my eye, because every time I lifted my head from the ground, I was kicked by the guard standing next to me.”

Greta was then taken into a building to be searched and undressed. “The guards have no empathy or humanity, and they keep taking selfies with me. There’s a lot I don’t remember. So much is happening at once. You’re in shock. You’re in pain, but you go into a state of trying to stay calm.”

Outside, she was forced to take off her clothes again, she says. “It was mockery, rough handling, and everything was filmed. Everything they do is extremely violent.”

“It was so hot, like 40 degrees. We begged the whole time: Can we have water? Can we have water? In the end, we screamed. The guards walked in front of the bars the whole time, laughing and holding up their water bottles. They threw the bottles with water in them into the trash cans in front of us.”

“When people fainted, we banged on the cages and asked for a doctor. Then the guards came and said, ‘We’re going to gas you.’ It was standard for them to say that.”

“This shows that if Israel, with the whole world watching, can treat a well-known, white person with a Swedish passport this way, just imagine what they do to Palestinians behind closed doors.”

Thunberg told Aftonbladet that the Swedish government greatly downplayed the abuse she and her fellow Sumud Flotilla activists suffered, and wouldn’t even bring them water:

“We were together and told them about the treatment we received. About the lack of food, water, about the abuse. The torture. We showed them the physical injuries we had — bruises and scratches. We gave them all our contact details — I gave them my father’s number and the number of our contact in the organization. We were clear: everything we say now must be released to the media.”

“They didn’t do anything, they just said: ’Our job is to listen to you. We are here and you are entitled to consular support.’”

“We said over and over again: we need water. And they saw that the guards had water bottles. The embassy staff said: ’We’ll make a note of that.’ One of us, Vincent, said: ’Next time we meet you, you must bring water.’”

Then it took two days before the embassy staff showed up again.

“They didn’t bring any water, except for a small bottle of their own that was half empty. Vincent, who was in the worst shape, got to drink it. We kept asking the guards, ‘Can we have some water?’ but they just walked around with their water bottles and didn’t answer.”

“I said, ‘Are you going to leave us like this? If you leave now, they will beat us up.’ But they just kept walking.”

When Aftonbladet compares emails sent by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to relatives, with what the captives describe telling embassy staff, it becomes clear that the seriousness of the situation has been downplayed.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs describes the scene at the port, where Greta Thunberg was beaten for hours, as follows: “She told us about harsh treatment and that she had been sitting on a hard surface for a long time.”

On Saturday, several media outlets published testimonies that Greta had been subjected to torture.

Aftonbladet has spoken to three other members of the flotilla who largely confirm what Greta Thunberg says and who have all experienced various types of abuse and humiliation. We have also spoken to relatives. Everyone is highly critical of how the Swedish embassy staff acted.

Thunberg’s statements are not just in alignment with eyewitnesses who said these things were done to her, but with statements from the Israeli government itself.

Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said last month that Sumud activists must be treated as terrorists in order to “create a clear deterrent” from future flotilla activism, declaring that “Anyone who chooses to collaborate with Hamas and support terrorism will meet a firm and unyielding response from Israel.”

“We will not allow individuals who support terrorism to live in comfort. They will face the full consequences of their actions,” Ben-Gvir said at the time.

After the flotilla activists were abducted by the IDF, Ben-Gvir filmed himself taunting them and calling them “terrorists” and said he “was proud that we treat ‘flotilla activists’ as terror supporters.”

Israel, needless to say, has an extensively documented record of torturing and raping individuals who’ve been given the “terrorist” label by the regime.

So what Thunberg is describing would be Israel doing what it said it was going to do in order to send a message and deter future efforts to feed starving Palestinians — perhaps singling out the most high-profile activist on the flotilla for special abuse in order to really drive the point home.

Israel is so evil it’s actually hard to wrap your mind around it.

October 18, 2025 Posted by | Atrocities, Israel, Sweden | Leave a comment

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