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‘A New Form of Genocide’: Gazans Feel Little Relief from Israeli Strangulation Since the Ceasefire.

 December 6, 2025 By Tareq S. Hajjaj Republished from Mondoweiss, https://scheerpost.com/2025/12/06/a-new-form-of-genocide-gazans-feel-little-relief-from-israeli-strangulation-since-the-ceasefire/

It’s been nearly two months since the ceasefire was reached in Gaza. Hopes were high among the 2 million Palestinians in the besieged Strip that not only would the Israeli bombings stop, but that everything they had been deprived of for the past two years – food, clean water, adequate medicine and healthcare – would flood into Gaza to ease their struggles. The hopes of regaining a fragment of the life they knew before the war, have dissipated, as the reality of a “new genocide” sets in.  

Though some aid has come into Gaza, and people have tried to restore some semblance of normalcy, the reality in Gaza is far from peacetime. Israeli bombs are still falling, people cannot return to their home, and sufficient food aid and medicines are still in short supply.  

The strain being felt by Gaza’s institutions, particularly its hospitals, and by ordinary Gazans, remains alarmingly close to wartime conditions. The Government Media Office in Gaza says that the humanitarian situation has not changed during or after the ceasefire, contrary to Israeli claims, and that the siege on Gaza has continued, with border crossings remaining effectively closed. What little goods do enter Gaza, the government says, does not meet “even the minimal needs of the population.” 

In the first month of the ceasefire, according to the UN, Israel rejected over 100 requests for the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza. Today, the World Food Programme says that dietary diversity remains low, and roughly 25 percent of households in Gaza are still reporting eating only one meal daily. 

Ismail al-Thawabteh, Director of the Government Media Office in Gaza, says Israel is trying to present a misleading image suggesting it allows the flow of goods. In reality, the amount entering Gaza does not exceed one-third of what was agreed upon in the humanitarian protocol of the ceasefire. “Instead of 600 trucks per day—the minimum needed to meet essential requirements—Israel permits only about 200 trucks, most of which carry limited-value commercial or aid items.”

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA) has reported that agencies are still required to coordinate all entry of humanitarian aid convoys with Israeli authorities. For reference, between the 12th and 18th of November, OCHA said humanitarian organizations coordinated 51 missions with the Israeli authorities. Of those 51 missions, just over half (27) were actually facilitated into Gaza; five were cancelled, 15 were impeded and four were denied. 

Palestinians in Gaza tell Mondoweiss that they are feeling “suffocated,” as authorities remain unable to resolve crises such as malnutrition, shortages of food and medicine, or provide even minimal protection against harsh weather conditions.

“This is a new form of genocide,” says Khalil al-Deqran, spokesperson for the Ministry of Health in Gaza. “The policy of refusing to allow in what is necessary for people’s survival mirrors what happened earlier, when food was withheld, and malnutrition was deliberately created.”

The Ministry of Health only receives about 25% of its basic needs, causing the condition of hospitals in Gaza, according to the spokesperson, to be “deplorable and difficult”, especially in winter, when large numbers of patients, particularly children, seek care. He notes that some pediatric wards are operating at five times their bed capacity, as children live in torn tents or on the streets, leading to widespread disease. “With Israel preventing the entry of shelter materials and reconstruction supplies, the health environment becomes even more dangerous, increasing mortality and the spread of illnesses.”

The Ministry of Health said that essential medications for chronic diseases such as hypertension, heart conditions, and diabetes, which affect 350,000 patients in Gaza, are still barred by Israel from entering the Strip. Infant formula also continues to be restricted, allowed only through a few traders and in minimal quantities. Israel also prevents the entry of critical hospital supplies, including electrical generators, lab equipment, imaging devices, incubators, intensive care units, and operating room equipment – all the essential supplies needed by Gaza’s already devastated hospitals to continue functioning. “The situation remains terrible and exceedingly difficult,” the spokesperson says. Israel has not committed to the humanitarian protocol, and what has been allowed in does not amount to a drop in the ocean of the health sector’s needs.”

“There are multiple cases of malnutrition across Gaza due to the lack of infant formula and the blocking of protein-rich foods such as meat, fish, eggs, and dairy. What enters today consists mainly of non-essential food items, which perpetuates malnutrition” the health ministry said. 

“The majority of the trucks Israel allows in carry low-nutritional-value items such as processed foods, chocolate, soft drinks, and snacks, as an attempt to evade humanitarian obligations while keeping the population in a state of absolute food deprivation,” al-Thawabteh said. 

According to al-Thawabteh, the Gaza Strip requires a consistent flow of essential goods: grains, flour, proteins, livestock, red and white meat, table eggs, nutritional supplements, shelter materials, construction supplies, agricultural inputs, and raw materials for local industries. He stresses that Israel treats these goods as “prohibited or heavily restricted items.”

By his measure, there have been no real improvements on the ground since the ceasefire. Instead, he says Gaza is witnessing a “deliberate engineering of a starvation policy,” in which Israel showcases images of aid trucks to appear compliant, while “in reality blocking essential supplies and rationing aid in ways that worsen the humanitarian crisis.” This behavior, he explains, “confirms that Israel uses the agreement as a political cover to prolong crises, not as a humanitarian or legal commitment toward civilians. The siege continues, restrictions continue, and the humanitarian infrastructure remains under immense pressure.”

‘The war is not over’ 

Ordinary families in Gaza are feeling the squeeze every day. Niveen al-Sharfa, a mother of five living in a tent in Gaza City, says nothing has changed since the ceasefire. Even when some goods are available in the markets, her family still cannot afford to buy them. “We expected that once the war ended and the ceasefire began, we would see reconstruction, open border crossings, improvements in hospitals, and the entry of winter essentials such as clothing, shelter, and other necessities. But none of this happened. We are still living in torn tents, and still far from our homes.”

Al-Sharfa recalls that during the war she lived in constant fear under bombardment, but says that even now she remains afraid of hearing at any moment that someone has been killed. “Nothing has changed… everything is the same,” she says.

Even those who experienced slight improvements in daily life after the ceasefire find their hopes diminished when looking at the broader picture. 

Amer al-Sultan was displaced from his home in the Jabalia Camp in northern Gaza. He says that life has changed “a little” after the ceasefire in terms of the availability of some food— though prices remain high — unlike during the height of the war, when famine pushed people to eat the leaves off of trees. “I expected to return to my home, but unfortunately, I did not. My home lies inside the yellow zone, and this makes me feel every day that the war has not ended.”

“The world thinks the war is over, but as long as there is an army inside the yellow zone, the war is not over. Just last night, we woke up to the sound of bombardment, explosions, and gunfire in those areas. How can we believe the war has ended when we sleep and wake to the sound of bombs?”

Nidaa al-Dahdouh, a mother of two, sees no sign that the war has ended as long as her children are not living normal lives. She wants to see them going to school, instead of waking up in the morning to collect firewood or to stand in long lines for food aid. “When the war ends, I will see my children getting ready in the morning to go to school wearing warm clothes,” she says. “But so far, they are still suffering in tents and the cold that comes with it.”

“We hoped for safety after the war, that we would return to our homes, and feel that the endless killing had stopped. But none of that happened. We hoped that basic goods would return to their normal prices, but that did not happen either. Yes, some items are available—like fish, for example—but the price is extremely high, and I cannot afford it. So for me, it is as if it does not exist at all.”

Tareq S. Hajjaj is the Gaza Correspondent for Mondoweiss and a member of the Palestinian Writers Union. Follow him on Twitter/X at @Tareqshajjaj.

December 8, 2025 Posted by | Atrocities, Gaza, health | Leave a comment

Gaza Denied the Right to Heal: Ceasefire Fails, New ‘Green-Zone’ Plan Threatens Modern Ghettos and Collective Imprisonment

 December 4, 2025, By: Joshua Scheer, https://scheerpost.com/2025/12/04/gaza-denied-the-right-to-heal-ceasefire-fails-new-green-zone-plan-threatens-modern-ghettos-and-collective-imprisonment/

Anew report from Euro‑Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor warns that a proposed postwar plan for Gaza Strip — backed by United States government and Israeli government officials — could amount to “unlawful collective imprisonment” of Palestinian civilians.

The report finds that “this plan entrenches long-term illegal control and the forcible de facto annexation of territory. It imposes unlawful collective imprisonment on the civilian population, in clear violation of international law and the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination.”

The report adds, “Entry and exit would be permitted only through security screening, effectively converting these sites into overcrowded detention camps that impose severe restrictions on residents’ freedom of movement and daily life.”

Euro-Med, along with anyone with eyes, ears and a heart would think that the proposed design “mirrors the historical model of ghettos,”

What is being reported demonstrates a clearly coercive environment: Palestinians displaced by war would effectively be forced into the “green-zone” communes by the denial of basic services — housing, safety, food, water — unless they relocate.

Even more troubling: once inside, residents reportedly would face severe restrictions on their freedom of movement, daily life, and access to services, raising grave concerns over human rights, forced displacement and long-term structural confinement.

This story demands our attention. After Gaza has been brutally assaulted with genocidal intent, it is now being reshaped in a way that entrenches segregation, displacement and total control. Not much less could be expected from a modern apartheid state that has been allowed to do whatever it has wanted for 77 years.

For more, here is a tweet from Ramy Abdul, Chairman EuroMedHR, detailing their report and a map in which they make it clear: “Gaza’s Yellow Line: Where Genocide is Internationally Acceptable”

The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor @EuroMedHR has obtained alarming details about a U.S.–Israeli plan—supported by several Western and Arab states and institutions—that aims to turn Gaza into a forced ghetto, a massive detention zone, and a site of land annexation and resource Show more

More on this from The Nation: in an article published two days ago, Gaza writer Hassan Abo Qamar describes the so-called “ceasefire” as changing nothing — Gaza remains a prison, and its people continue to endure unrelenting hardship.

“The world calls this ‘peace,’ yet in reality ‘peace’ here does not mean the end of anything; hunger, fear, and death remain, while the occupation continues to strangle Gaza through crossings, restrictions, and deliberate obstruction of recovery.”

“The truth is simple: Gaza has been denied the right to heal.”

There is no way to end this article or post it without acknowledging what we see every day: Nothing has changed, and the Israelis are still killing. I end with this video for those following today’s events, including Al Jazeera’s reporting on today’s violations of the ceasefire, in which five people — including children — were killed. Once again, the ceasefire has not stopped the ongoing genocide. And now, with this new plan to create modern ghettos, the Israelis are leaning further into the playbook of the Third Reich.

December 7, 2025 Posted by | Atrocities, Gaza, Israel | Leave a comment

How Israeli-Linked Operatives and Firms Are Embedded in U.S. Cyber Systems.

 December 5, 2025 , By: Joshua Scheer, https://scheerpost.com/2025/12/05/how-israeli-linked-operatives-and-firms-are-embedded-in-u-s-cyber-systems/

The Substack report, “Former Israeli Spies Now Overseeing US Government Cybersecurity” by Nate Bear (¡Do Not Panic!), is well worth reading. It uncovers that a firm with deep roots in Israeli military intelligence is now managing critical cybersecurity infrastructure for more than 70 U.S. federal agencies — including the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Treasury, Transportation, Energy, Agriculture and Health.

The company, Axonius, was founded by former operatives from Israel’s intelligence unit Unit 8200. Its platform centralizes data from all IT tools used by agencies — giving “visibility and control over all types and number of devices.” This means administrators in Tel Aviv can theoretically track device usage, logins, website access, and can even disable devices or accounts for millions of U.S. federal employees.

While Axonius pitches itself as a tool to unify and strengthen federal cybersecurity, the investigation argues that the massive scale of its deployment — combined with its leadership’s intelligence background — raises serious national security and privacy concerns.

Because much of the company’s engineering and software development is run out of Tel Aviv — and many of its employees are former Israeli spies — critics say the United States has, in effect, outsourced federal level cybersecurity to a foreign intelligence‑linked firm.

Whether Axonius has acted, or plans to act, maliciously remains unclear. But the story highlights how deeply embedded Israeli‑linked cyber intelligence infrastructure may now be across U.S. government systems — something many see as a troubling precedent.

While dystopian in nature, it is a must-read and a must-deal-with report, as we have been exposing what is happening in Gaza. The relentless nature of Israeli surveillance is an unbearable nightmare. You should also read Gaza journalist Mohammed R. Mhawish’s 16-month investigation — “Watched, Tracked, and Targeted in Gaza” — into what is happening in Gaza now, focusing on the surveillance state. Both are must-reads.

This is not a new development. Obviously, thanks to the work of these journalists, I was inspired and did a basic search to find out about the relationship between Israel and United States spy connections, and I found this from 12 years ago, with The Guardian reporting: “The National Security Agency (NSA) has a secret agreement with the Israeli intelligence agency Israeli Sigint National Unit (ISNU) — established in principle in March 2009 — that allows the NSA to share raw, unfiltered intercepted communications with Israel,” and “The sharing of raw, pre‑minimization intelligence contradicts previous government assurances of ‘robust safeguards’ to protect Americans’ privacy.”

So needless to say, this isn’t the first — or the last — time these countries have worked together. What’s striking is how public it seems now, and it’s clear their privacy concerns for Americans aren’t what they once were.

However, as we will see, the relationship is also riddled with a double‑dealing, spy‑vs‑spy aspect that bears remembering. This is also covered in Nate’s Substack report and in a clip below with former CIA agent John Kiriakou, both discussing the distrust Mossad has for our intelligence agencies — and the ongoing issue of stealing technology and spying on the United States.

That distrust has played out a number of times, with Israel being accused or caught spying on the United States. One time was during the Obama Iran talks, with the Wall Street Journal’s shocking report about Israel spying, quoting a senior U.S. official: “It is one thing for the U.S. and Israel to spy on each other. It is another thing for Israel to steal U.S. secrets and play them back to U.S. legislators to undermine U.S. diplomacy.”

Or being accused of planting devices by the White House in 2019 to spy on Donald Trump, or now just hanging out and having secret meetings — like U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee did when he met convicted spy Jonathan Pollard at the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem in July of this year.

For those who forget Pollard, a former U.S. Navy intelligence officer, he was sentenced to life in prison for stealing classified U.S. material and sharing it with Israel. He served 30 years before being granted parole under President Obama in 2015 and moved to Israel in 2020.

But as Kiriakou says in the clip, they don’t trust that we give them the best of our technology. So they work both sides and always in their own interest. After Nate’s report, they might not need to steal it anymore. But based on their pattern already in our history, they won’t stop their spy‑vs‑spy activities.

See below the Kirakou video [on original] for another video about the Mike Huckabee story with The Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal and Aaron Mate discuss the scandalous—and still unpunished—secret meeting between U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee and one of the most notorious Israeli spies, Jonathan Pollard, who handed vast troves of U.S. secrets to his handlers in Tel Aviv and now proudly identifies as an “Israel Firster.”

December 7, 2025 Posted by | Israel, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Israel Is Quietly Expanding Its Occupation of Gaza Under Cover of “Ceasefire”

For us here in Gaza, this “ceasefire” is a fiction. The bombing has continued as Israel moves its Yellow Line.

By Dalia Abu Ramadan , Truthout, December 4, 2025

I keep asking myself: How can the world believe Israel’s claim that a “ceasefire” is still in place?

The occupation has convinced the world that the bloodshed in Gaza has stopped, while in reality families are still being erased from the civil registry in absolute silence. The world is quiet — perhaps simply because something called a “ceasefire” was announced?

What the world does not see is that, day after day, the Israeli military expands its control inside Gaza. It advances slowly, swallowing a street, a neighborhood, an entire area — quietly redrawing the map while the world celebrates a fabricated calm. The war has not stopped; it has only changed form: from bombing to quiet expansion, from airstrikes to a creeping occupation.

The world also fails to see how Gaza is being flooded with a deceptive illusion of normalcy: sweets, chocolates, and new electronics are allowed in, as if people here crave luxury — while the essentials like meat, eggs, and medicine continue to be blocked.

Imagine that the simplest necessities of life have become rare treasures, and when they do appear, they are sold at outrageous prices. Traders raise prices on essentials like medicines and meat to unbearable levels because the supply is so scarce.

How can the occupation deceive the world so easily? And how can the world swallow this lie while the occupation expands before everyone’s eyes?

The night of November 19, 2025, was one of the hardest nights I have ever lived through. I woke in terror as the explosions shook the ground beneath my body, certain for a moment that the war had returned and the ceasefire had collapsed entirely.

The scene felt identical to the night the second truce ended on March 18, 2025 — those same violent blasts ripping us from our sleep and planting questions in our minds: What is happening? Has the war begun again?

We stepped outside to see what was happening and asked our neighbor, Marwan Al-Namra. He told us, “This isn’t a new war … just a few hours under fire, and then Israel will announce — like always — the return of the ceasefire.”

Although our neighborhood of Al-Rimal itself wasn’t bombed that night, the strikes that hit Al-Zaytoun (two kilometers away) and Al-Shujaiya (five kilometers away) were so close and so powerful that they felt as if they were exploding right behind me. The walls shook violently with every blast……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

So, the question stands: What is the occupation trying to achieve by expanding its borders under the guise of a “ceasefire”?

……………………………………………………………. The picture became even clearer when the Government Media Office announced that the Israeli army had shifted the locations of the yellow markers, extending the zone it controls in eastern Gaza City by an additional 300 meters into the neighborhoods of Al-Shujaiya and Al-Tuffah.

The Israeli occupation never stops —  bombardment, displacement, and full-scale extermination are still occurring, wiping entire families off the civil registry. This is what happened to the Abu Shawish family, erased at dawn on November 22, 2025, as if they were nothing more than numbers added to the ever-growing tally of the dead. What pains me most is the world’s insistence on describing this situation as a “ceasefire” while the bombing, the killing, and the destruction continue without pause.

What kind of ceasefire is this, when the fire never truly stops?

Today, we keep moving forward, even as fear clings to us and the possibility of war returning hangs over every moment. We send my little brother Zaid to school, and my sister Farah is preparing to register at the university after the announcement that Gaza’s universities will soon resume in-person classes instead of online learning.

We are holding onto life with everything we have — even when life itself lets go of us.

Despite the siege, the scarcity, and the constant threat around us, we hold on to our lessons, our dreams, and the hope of a life beyond the rubble. We study, we rebuild, and we push forward, determined to carve out a future from beneath the ruins — simply because we refuse to break. https://truthout.org/articles/israel-is-quietly-expanding-its-occupation-of-gaza-under-cover-of-ceasefire/?utm_source=Truthout&utm_campaign=97a3ae2e4e-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2025_12_04_09_21&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bbb541a1db-97a3ae2e4e-650192793

December 6, 2025 Posted by | Gaza, Israel, PERSONAL STORIES, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Israeli army shells east of Gaza Strip, detonates buildings despite ceasefire.

November 30, 2025 , https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20251130-israeli-army-shells-east-of-gaza-strip-detonates-buildings-despite-ceasefire/

The Israeli army carried out airstrikes and home demolitions in the military-controlled yellow zone across the Gaza Strip early Sunday, Anadolu reports.

Israeli aircraft struck several areas in Rafah, while naval vessels fired shells toward the city’s coastline, local sources and witnesses told Anadolu.

Israel’s military vehicles stationed near the Morag Axis, norx`theast of Rafah, conducted sweeping operations and heavy gunfire in the area.

Israeli artillery shelled eastern Khan Younis, and helicopters launched fire on buildings amid home detonations in the area, according to witnesses.

An Israeli airstrike hit east of Al-Bureij refugee camp in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, an Anadolu correspondent said.

In the northern Gaza Strip, the Israeli strikes targeted eastern Gaza City, and intense gunfire from Israeli helicopters was reported from eastern Jabalia.

There were no immediate reports of casualties.

Israel continues to violate the ceasefire agreement it signed with the Palestinian group Hamas, having committed nearly 500 violations and killed 354 Palestinians since Oct. 10, according to the Gaza government figures.

Since October 2023, the Israeli army has killed more than 70,000 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, and injured nearly 171,000 people in the over two-year war that has left much of the enclave in ruins.

December 6, 2025 Posted by | Gaza, Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Microsoft Faces Reckoning for Assisting Israel’s Genocide in Gaza.

The tech giant could face legal liability for aiding and abetting “atrocity crimes” in Palestine, legal groups say.

By Mike Ludwig , Truthout, December 3, 2025

head of its annual shareholders meeting on December 5, Microsoft is coming under mounting pressure to reconsider its relationship with the Israeli military, which has used the tech giant’s products to carry out the genocide in Gaza and ethnic cleansing of the West Bank.

In an open letter to the company released on Tuesday, December 2, an international coalition of legal aid groups said Microsoft and its executives potentially face legal liability for “aiding and abetting … atrocity crimes” committed by the Israeli military against Palestinian civilians.

“Over the last few months, it has become exceedingly clear that Microsoft’s services and technologies have been used to violate Palestinian human rights, and shareholders should be aware of just how much this opens up the company to legal liability,” said Eric Sype, U.S. national organizer at 7amleh–The Arab Center for Social Media Advancement, in a statement on December 2.

Microsoft provides “major services” to other Israeli ground, air, and naval forces despite widespread agreement among experts that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, according to the legal aid groups. The letter lists multiple examples, including Mamram, the Israeli military’s central computing system and “weapons platform” that assisted the assault on Gaza with AI support and cloud services. Microsoft provided “rapid support” to Mamram during the initial months of the genocide to keep systems from crashing, according to the letter.

As Truthout has reported, products provided by Big Tech are so integral to Israel’s brutal occupation of Palestine that the mass killings and near-total destruction of infrastructure in Gaza are often described as “the first AI-powered genocide.”

By providing technology services to the Israeli government, Microsoft has exposed both the company and its leadership to “wide-ranging criminal and civil legal liability” both internationally and within domestic courts in the United States and European Union, the legal aid groups say.

“The EU dimension is devastatingly critical here — significant infrastructure powering Israel’s military targeting is hosted and processed in Europe, including by Microsoft,” …………………………………………………………………………… https://truthout.org/articles/microsoft-faces-reckoning-for-assisting-israels-genocide-in-gaza/?utm_source=Truthout&utm_campaign=19a0adacba-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2025_12_03_10_02_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bbb541a1db-0614adc67f-650192793

December 6, 2025 Posted by | Israel, Legal | Leave a comment

International tribunal finds Israel guilty of genocide, ecocide, and the forced starvation of the Palestinians in Gaza.

Mondoweiss, By Marianne Dhenin  November 27, 2025

The International People’s Tribunal on Palestine held in Barcelona presented striking evidence of Israel’s forced starvation of the Palestinian people and the deliberate destruction of food security in Gaza.

The International People’s Tribunal on Palestine convened on November 22 and 23 in Barcelona. The event brought together organizers, human rights advocates, and legal experts and offered a platform for survivors of the ongoing assault on Gaza to present evidence of Israel’s international crimes. After two days of testimony, jurors returned their verdict: Israel, the United States, and other Western powers are guilty of the crimes of genocide, ecocide, and the forced starvation of the Palestinian people.

“The mass killings, deliberate starvation, systematic destruction of civilian infrastructure, environmental devastation, and the targeting of hospitals, shelters, schools, and places of refuge were carried out as a matter of state policy, and with full knowledge of their fatal consequences,” said head juror Ceren Uysal, reading from the verdict as the tribunal closed.

Hosted by the International League of Peoples’ Struggle, International People’s Front, and People’s Coalition of Food Sovereignty (PCFS), the tribunal offered a quasi-judicial platform for advocates and survivors of Israel’s ongoing genocide to present evidence and legal arguments related to the crimes committed against the Palestinian people. It follows in a tradition of popular forums seeking justice and accountability where institutions have failed to provide it, including previous tribunals on recent crimes in Gaza.

It came as Israel continues to commit violence in Palestine. Israel has violated the U.S.-brokered ceasefire in effect since October 10, 2025, at least 497 times, killing more than 340 people, according to the Gaza Government Media Office. On November 17, the United Nations Security Council endorsed President Donald Trump’s plan for an international force that he will lead to oversee the continued occupation of Gaza, drawing condemnation from legal experts and rights groups, who argue the plan violates Palestine’s right to self-determination and will fail to protect Palestinians.

Against this backdrop, the International People’s Tribunal repudiated the status quo. It offered striking evidence for Israel’s guilt, particularly for the forced starvation of the Palestinian people and the undermining of their food security. “The strategy of using food as a weapon has been going on for a long time in Palestine and Lebanon, but now it is intensified,” Razan Zuayter, PCFS global co-chairperson, told Mondoweiss. Zuayter also chairs the Arab Group for the Protection of Nature (APN), which endorsed the tribunal.

Over the course of the two-day event, more than a dozen witnesses made this case. Farmers testified that Israeli forces had razed their lands, uprooting trees, killing livestock, and blackening the soil. One witness, who testified anonymously for fear of reprisal, described an attack Israeli forces committed on their land in May 2024. “A group of bulldozers and tanks attacked our area and destroyed a set of chicken farms for meat and egg production,” they said. “The stench of death and foul odors spread throughout the place, forcing us to flee.”

Musheir El Farra wept on the stand on November 23, recounting Israeli attacks on his hometown of Khan Younis that killed more than 200 members of his extended family. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. https://mondoweiss.net/2025/11/international-tribunal-finds-israel-guilty-of-genocide-ecocide-and-the-forced-starvation-of-the-palestinians-in-gaza/

December 5, 2025 Posted by | Atrocities, Gaza, Israel, Legal | Leave a comment

Iran reiterates demand for US accountability for its role in Israeli aggression in June.

The US joined the 12-day long Israeli aggression against Iran in June, targeting three of its nuclear sites in Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan

November 29, 2025 by Abdul Rahman, https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/11/29/iran-reiterates-demand-for-us-accountability-for-its-role-in-israeli-aggression-in-june/

Iran’s permanent representative to the United Nations, Amir Saeid Iravani, on Thursday November 27, wrote a letter to the UN Security Council announcing Iran’s intentions to seek US accountability for its role in Israeli aggression on Iran in June this year.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran once again reiterates its call on the UN Secretary General and the Security Council to take appropriate measures, consistent with their responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security, to ensure accountability of both the US and the Israeli regime for” their grave violations of international laws, the letter reportedly says.

Iran has already written two such letters to the UN secretary general and the UN Security Council in the past as well. Thursday’s letter follows public recognition by the US Air Force on Wednesday of their role in Israeli aggression on Iran in June.

On June 22, during the 12-day Israeli war against Iran, US fighter jets accompanied B-2 bombers in the so-called Operation Midnight Hammer and bombed three Iranian nuclear sites of Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan.

Though the US claimed the attack damaged Iran’s nuclear capacities, it was widely reported that the attack failed to achieve its real objective.

Iran has denied it ever wants to develop nuclear weapons. However, it asserts its right to have nuclear enrichment as a signatory of the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

The US-Israeli attacks were in complete violation of Iranian sovereignty under the provisions of the UN Charter, International humanitarian law, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) protocols and the NPT, Iran has claimed.

The Israeli and US acts of aggression were “directed against the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Islamic Republic of Iran, in blatant violation of article 2 (4) of the UN Charter. This aggression included deliberate attacks against civilians and civilian objects” Iran claims and demands accountability and compensation for the same.

“The US is under an obligation to make full reparation for the injuries caused by the said violations against Iran and its citizens, including any material moral damage. This includes an obligation to make restitution and compensate for the damage caused thereby, under established international law,” Iravani’s letter says.

June war

Apart from financial compensation Iran has also sought “individual criminal responsibility of any US officials and individuals in grave breaches of international humanitarian law, including for the crime of aggression,” during the June war.

On June 13, Israel began a bombing campaign against several Iranian cities and nuclear facilities accusing it of developing nuclear weapons. The Israeli strikes which went on for 12 days, killed over a thousand people including some of the country’s prominent scientists and top military officials.

Iran denied Israeli allegations and retaliated to its aggression with long range missiles causing damage in Tel Aviv and several other cities. Scores of Israelis were also killed in Iranian retaliations.

The US joined the Israeli bombings in Iran. On June 22, its B-2 bombers targeted three of Iran’s nuclear sites in an attempt to destroy its alleged capacity to build nuclear bombs.

In a discussion in the Security Council on June 22, the US defended its attacks on Iranian nuclear sites claiming it was part of its “mutual security arrangements” with Israel.

However, Iran rejected the US claims calling the attacks a violation of its territorial integrity and US obligations under the UN Charter and other international law. It announced its right to retaliate against and seek remuneration from the US.

Iran retaliated to the US strikes by launching strikes on its military base in Qatar a day after.

A ceasefire was announced by the president Donald Trump on Monday, June 23, and officially agreed upon on June 24, which marked the end of military hostilities.

On several occasions since June, Iran has criticized the UN Security Council for its selective criticisms and its failure to uphold its basic duty to maintain world peace and security.

Iran has noted how when it comes to Israel and the US, the UN fails to hold them accountable for their repeated violations of its charter and other international laws.

December 5, 2025 Posted by | Iran, politics international | Leave a comment

A Ceasefire in Name Only: Gaza’s Prolonged Purgatory

2 December 2025 Dr Binoy Kampmark, https://theaimn.net/a-ceasefire-in-name-only-gazas-prolonged-purgatory/

A ceasefire can be a strange thing. The assumption, generally speaking, is that the parties to it restrain themselves for a period of time, ordering their forces and disciplining their charges from straying. But straying happens, transgressions inevitable. Some are genuine enough: silly misunderstandings, hot headed confusion, a fear that the other side has broken it. Room for error, and a degree of death and injury, is crudely permitted.

In the case of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire, transgressions have become the lingua franca of the parties, though Israel remains, by far, the perpetrator par excellence. The latter’s departures from the agreement have been so vicious as to prompt the observation that they are pursuing a mutilated reading of the agreement, essentially a “reduce fire.” The deaths of 347 Palestinians in Gaza since October 10, including 136 children, do not point to cooling restraint.

On October 28, at least 104 Palestinians were slaughtered in a single day. This might have suggested a breach so serious as to suggest a repudiation. Not so, claimed Qatari Prime Minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman Al Thani. “Fortunately,” he told a US audience, “I think the main parties – both of them [Israel and Hamas] – are acknowledging that the ceasefire should hold and they should stick to the agreement.”

What is becoming apparent is that the ceasefire has led to a state of affairs where Israeli forces have been permitted enormous latitude in the way it inflicts violence on local Gazans. The UN Women’s Chief of Humanitarian Action, Sofia Calltorp, reveals how Gazan women told her “again and again: there may be a ceasefire, but the war is not over. The attacks are fewer, but the killings continue.” Agnès Callmard, Secretary General of Amnesty International, goes so far as to declare that the ceasefire has created “a dangerous illusion that life in Gaza is returning to normal.” What has in fact happened is a mere reduction of “the scale of [Israel’s] attacks” and the meagre allowance of humanitarian aid into the Strip.

In a briefing note released on November 27, the organisation is adamant that “Israeli authorities are still committing genocide against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip, by continuing to deliberately inflict conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction.” Expulsions continue, prosecutions of alleged atrocities and war crimes by Israeli forces non-existent. The means to build the crucial infrastructure required to sustain life is being hampered, while unexploded ordnance, contaminated rubble and sewage, remain unaddressed.

Structural realities have also intruded. The Israeli Defense Forces remain in control of over 58% of Gaza. According to a clutch of special rapporteurs and experts in the employ of the United Nations, including Francesca Albanese, Ben Saul and Irene Khan, 40 active Israeli sites continue to operate “beyond the agreed withdrawal line, in clear breach of the ceasefire terms.” They also warn that the UN Security Council resolution authorising the deployment of an International Stabilisation Force (ISF), with Egypt and Israel coordinating border matters alongside a spanking new Palestinian trained police force “risks replicating – if not aggravating – the model of security coordination that has entrenched Israel’s settler-colonial apartheid regime in the West Bank.”

Humanitarian assistance remains at a painful trickle, an obscene state of affairs given the levelling devastation wrought by the war (85% of water and sanitation facilities were damaged or destroyed; likewise 92% of homes). The charity Oxfam does not spare any details in what is needed: “The most pressing needs include food and healthcare and shelter, as well as water, sanitation and hygiene services (WASH) including menstrual products and waste management services.” While some food and goods have become more available in local markets, they remain prohibitively expensive for Gaza’s residents.

Between October 10 and 21, seventeen international non-government organisations had essential aid shipments for Gaza, including water, food, tents, and medical supplies, blocked, with Israeli authorities claiming they were not authorised to do so. Some 99 requests by international NGOs to deliver aid were rejected, along with six requests from UN agencies. “This includes,” stated Oxfam last month, “agencies that continue to have long-standing INGO registration with Palestinian and Israeli authorities and are legally permitted to operate by the latter while new registration processes are ongoing.”

A system of brutality, practised, insistent, even casual, has been entrenched against those in Gaza and, increasingly, the West Bank. The summary execution of two men in Jenin by Israeli soldiers after their surrender was lauded by Israel’s National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, who thought the killings the very thing “expected of them.” Implicit is the suggestion that Palestinians are required to behave in specific, tolerated ways: humbly submit to their apparently generous oppressors, suffer ceaseless purgatorial deprivation and accept a ceasefire in name only.

December 4, 2025 Posted by | Atrocities, Gaza, Israel | Leave a comment

Outrage after footage of Israeli soldiers executing two Palestinians in Jenin goes viral.

Human rights organizations call the killing of two unarmed Palestinians in Jenin by Israeli soldiers an “extrajudicial execution.”

By Qassam Muaddi  November 28, 2025, https://mondoweiss.net/2025/11/outrage-after-footage-of-israeli-soldiers-executing-two-palestinians-in-jenin-goes-viral/

The killing of two unarmed Palestinians by Israeli soldiers in the northern West Bank city of Jenin has provoked international outrage after video footage of the incident went viral on Friday. Credited to the local Palestine TV station, the footage shows two young Palestinian men surrendering to Israeli soldiers and lying on the ground in front of a garage under soldiers’ instructions. They then appear to be directed by the soldiers to go back inside the garage, where one of the troops is seen aiming and shooting at him as he lies on the ground.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health identified the victims as Muntaser Billah Abdallah, 26, and Yousef Asaasah, 37. The Palestinian Foreign Ministry condemned the killing in a statement, calling it “a war crime” and a case of “extrajudicial killing.”

The Israeli army and border police said in a joint statement on Friday that Israeli troops “operated to apprehend wanted individuals” allegedly affiliated with a resistance network in the Jenin area, and that after they exited, “fire was directed toward the suspects.”

Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, under whose jurisdiction the border police operates, voiced his “total support” for the Israeli soldiers in question, asserting that they “acted exactly as expected of them: terrorists must die.”

The footage has drawn widespread condemnation from rights groups, with Israeli human rights group B’Tselem stating that “the execution documented today is the result of an accelerated dehumanization process of Palestinians” and calling on the international community to “put an end to Israel’s impunity.”

The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights condemned the killings, saying in a statement that “killings of Palestinians by Israeli security forces and settlers in the occupied West Bank have been surging, without accountability, even in the rare cases where investigations are announced.”

A pattern of extrajudicial execution

While the latest killing in Jenin was caught on video, Palestinians have remarked that it is not an isolated incident. In 2022, the Palestinian Human Rights Association documented 38 cases of the arbitrary killing of Palestinians by Israeli forces between August 1 and November 4. Yet the number of Palestinians killed in the West Bank has sharply risen since October 2023, with at least 1,030 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces or settlers in the past two years in the West Bank.

The killing of the two Palestinians in Jenin comes two days after the Israeli army announced the launch of a new wide-scale military operation in the northern West Bank, which began with a large raid into Tubas. The operation comes almost a year after Israel’s previous “Iron Wall” offensive in the northern West Bank, during which Israeli forces displaced over 40,000 Palestinians from their homes in refugee camps in Jenin and Tulkarem.

Jenin city and its adjacent refugee camp have been at the center of Israeli military raids since late 2021, as it became the center of Palestinian armed resistance groups such as the Jenin Brigade. After October 2023, Israel launched a protracted military campaign to dismantle them.

December 4, 2025 Posted by | civil liberties, Israel | Leave a comment

UN Condemns ‘Brazen’ Israeli Killing of Surrendering Palestinians in West Bank

A UN official decried the incident as “yet another apparent summary execution” by Israeli forces.

Brad Reed, Nov 28, 2025, https://www.commondreams.org/news/israel-kills-surrendering-palestinians

The United Nations on Friday accused Israeli security forces of carrying out a “brazen” killing of two Palestinian men who were seen surrendering in video footage.

The footage, which was first aired by the Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation and reposted on X by Drop Site, shows two Palestinian men exiting with their hands raised from a building in the West Bank city of Jenin that had been surrounded by Israeli forces.

The two men then crawled out of the building entrance and knelt down with their hands still raised before apparently being instructed by Israeli forces to go back toward the entrance of the building. The two men did so, and were then shot dead by at least one Israeli officer.

According to France 24, United Nations rights office spokesman Jeremy Laurence told reporters on Friday that the incident was “yet another apparent summary execution” by Israeli forces.

“We are appalled at the brazen killing by Israeli border police yesterday of two Palestinian men in Jenin,” he emphasized.

Laurence added that UN rights chief Volker Turk was demanding “independent, prompt, and effective investigations into the killings of Palestinians,” and for those involved in the killings to “be held fully to account.”

The Palestinian Authority, which identified the two men killed by Israeli officers as 37-year-old Yussef Ali Asa’sa and 26-year-old Al-Muntasir Billah Mahmud Abdullah, accused Israeli forces of carrying out “brutal” executions that amounted to a “war crime.”

In a joint statement, Israeli police and the military said that the “incident is under review by the commanders on the ground, and will be transferred to the relevant professional bodies,” and they claimed that the two men killed were “wanted individuals who had carried out terror activities, including hurling explosives and firing at security forces.”

Despite pledges for a review of the incident, BBC reports that Israeli national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has already given a thumbs-up to officers’ actions and he responded to footage of the incident by saying, “Terrorists must die.”

December 2, 2025 Posted by | Atrocities, Israel | Leave a comment

How Zionism was sold to the world

Harriet Malinowitz’s new book, “Selling Israel: Zionism, Propaganda, and the Uses of Hasbara,” reveals how Israeli propaganda and public relations promoted Zionism while concealing Palestinian oppression and dispossession. 

Mondoweiss, By Eleanor J. Bader  November 29, 2025 

There are a number of pressing questions at the heart of Harriet Malinowitz’s newly released book, Selling Israel: Zionism, Propaganda, and the Uses of Hasbara. “How could what was initially a small group of Eastern European Jewish thinkers and activists convince the Jews of the world to agree that they were all one ‘people’ undergoing one shared threat with one shared path to salvation – as well as a shared imperative to seek it?” she asks. “How could they convince the rest of the world to include them in the family of nations? And how could they convince all involved – including themselves – that their project of liberation was a benign and noble one to which they were entitled, producing no casualties or collateral damage?” 

The answers to these queries are at the crux of Selling Israel, and the book not only systematically examines them, but dives into how hasbara – globally enacted but Israeli government-instigated propaganda and public relations efforts– has been used to boost Zionism, diminish the perception of Palestinian oppression, and promote the fallacy that the 78- year-old country began as a land without people. 

The exhaustively researched work was touted by Publisher’s Weekly as “an impressive and meticulous challenge to established narratives.”

Malinowitz spoke to reporter Eleanor J. Bader about herself, her research, and her findings shortly after the book’s publication.

Malinowitz………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… During my own time on a kibbutz, there were Palestinian men working in the fields not far from the kibbutz members and international volunteers, but when we were all called in for a break in the “breakfast hut,” I saw that they simply kept working. I also met and drank tea with Palestinian merchants in the “shuk,” or Arab market, in Old Jerusalem, so I realized that what I’d been told about everyone in Israel being Jewish was untrue. I was told they were “Israeli Arabs” – without any coherent explanation. This left me completely baffled. Still, I was sure that I must be the one who wasn’t getting something…………………………

……………………….. I read Lenni Brenner’s 1983 book, Zionism in the Age of Dictators, which talked about Zionist complicity with Nazis. That provided another jolt.

I knew just enough to be excited by the first Intifada in 1987. But by the time of the second Intifada in 2002, people had cell phones and I could hear gunfire in Jenin via Democracy Now! on the radio. There were now blogs and listservs which carried information in new ways. But I was still naïve enough to be astounded that Israel refused to let a UN fact-finding team into the area.

This was a real turning point for me……………………………….

…………………………………… when I returned to the U.S., I plunged into research on the history of Palestine and of Zionism and eventually merged those interests with my research on propaganda, already well underway. I soon knew that I wanted to write a book on Zionism and propaganda, but it took me twenty years to complete the project!

Bader: The idea that God promised Israel to the Jews is largely unchallenged. Why is this?

Malinowitz: I think people are afraid to mess with other people’s religious beliefs, particularly where God is concerned. Plus, a lot of people believe the claim! 

Bader: You write that Israelis rarely invoked the Nazi Holocaust before the 1960s because it was felt that the loss of six million Jews seemed like a sign of weakness, as if they’d gone to their deaths “like sheep to the slaughter.”  Yet you also note that the genocide was seen by David Ben-Gurion to be a ‘beneficial disaster.’ Can you elaborate?

Malinowitz: I was shocked by how disparaged survivors of the Holocaust were in the country’s early years, as if they were a stain on Israeli masculinity that had to be expunged. Later, though, there was an ideological shift; the Israeli military reassured the world that they were strong, determined, and capable of fighting back if attacked, but at the same time the Holocaust could be invoked as a reminder of their perpetual victimhood, justifying all their exploits in the name of averting another genocide against the Jewish people.  Similarly, the Holocaust has been used strategically when it serves international fundraising or is needed to garner empathy for Israel as an allegedly beleaguered nation. 

Bader: Zionism was mostly promoted by Ashkenazi Jews who put forward the idea that there is one unified Jewish people. How did that idea spread?

Malinowitz: Zionism started out as an idea hatched by Eastern and Central European Jews, emerging in response to their own dire situation in the late nineteenth century. ………….For me, the claim that Israel represents all Jewish people is a fallacy. I, for one, was never consulted about this!

………………………………………………………………Malinowitz: Doubt can be a powerful weapon. There is a template that was developed by the tobacco industry that Zionists, climate and Holocaust deniers, Armenian genocide deniers, and others have used. The idea is there are competing narratives and both should be equally considered – rather than examining their credibility. This was why it took so long to convince the public that smoking caused cancer – because industry operatives challenged scientific expertise with their own “research,” leaving people thinking that the jury was still out and they might as well go on smoking until there was a clear and present danger. It’s been the same with Nakba denial. If the Zionists didn’t really force the Palestinians out in 1948, then they bear no responsibility for the refugees, right?

Bader: The idea that Israel is essential to Jewish survival has long been accepted as true. Why did alternatives to Zionism fail to gain traction?

…………………………………………………………………….., Zionists pushed the idea of Israel as the only solution t0 antisemitism, the only way Jews could be safe. …

…………………………………………………………………………..https://mondoweiss.net/2025/11/how-zionism-was-sold-to-the-world/

December 2, 2025 Posted by | Israel, media, resources - print | Leave a comment

Israel is violating all its ceasefire agreements and escalating on all fronts

Israel is using existing ceasefire agreements to establish new realities on the ground, projecting itself as the regional hegemon by launching attacks on Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and the West Bank.

By Qassam Muaddi and Mondoweiss Palestine Bureau  November 28, 2025, https://mondoweiss.net/2025/11/israel-is-violating-all-its-ceasefire-agreements-and-escalating-on-all-fronts/

The war that Israel allegedly fought on “seven fronts” a year ago is supposed to be over. But Israel is now escalating on all fronts to achieve what it could not during the war, launching strikes and military incursions across Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and the West Bank.

In Gaza, Israeli airstrikes killed over 20 Palestinians in a single day last Sunday as home demolitions have continued throughout the week; in Lebanon, Israel assassinated Hezbollah’s chief of staff, Hassan Ali Tabtabai; in the West Bank, the Israeli army has launched a wide-ranging military operation concentrated around the towns and villages of the northern Tubas governorate; and in Syria just this morning, Israel launched missile and artillery strikes in the southern Damascus countryside, killing 13 Syrians.

All of this takes place as Israel is nominally party to two ceasefires, respectively with Hezbollah and Hamas. Israel’s violation of both has become routine and has escalated significantly in recent weeks.

In Gaza, local sources tell Mondoweiss that a new status quo has emerged in which Israel continues to seize the opportunity to assassinate Hamas leaders in Gaza while claiming its actions are in response to an alleged “violation” on the part of Hamas. Israeli forces have also conducted dozens of demolitions of Palestinian buildings over the week, accompanied by shelling in eastern Gaza City, Rafah, and Khan Younis. Last Sunday, Israeli airstrikes killed over 20 Palestinians in a single day, and on the Tuesday before that, the Israeli army killed 33 Palestinians in a single night. 

In all cases, the military either claims that Palestinian fighters trapped in Rafah and surrounded by Israeli forces allegedly violated the ceasefire, or it claims that Palestinian fighters approached the yellow line demarcating the area from which Israeli forces had withdrawn since the ceasefire came into effect last October.


But Israeli forces have been shooting at Palestinians near the yellow line indiscriminately, many of them trying to return to their homes in the area. The line remains invisible to most Gaza residents and can only be identified by the yellow concrete blocks Israeli forces have placed across various points, supposedly demarcating the ceasefire withdrawal borders, which effectively cut Gaza in half. The Israeli army also dropped leaflets over Palestinian encampments west of the yellow line, warning them that anyone who approaches the virtual border will expose themselves to danger.

Through these policies, the Israeli army is entrenching Gaza’s de facto division into two areas, one controlled by Hamas and the other controlled by the Israeli army. Even though this state of affairs is supposed to be temporary and linked to the “first phase” of the ceasefire, the deliberate ambiguity of the deal’s terms and the lack of an implementation mechanism make it easy for Israel to declare that Hamas is in violation of the terms — and hence refuse to withdraw further from Gaza. The effect this has had is to force almost all of the Strip’s population into less than half of its already overcrowded territory.

Meanwhile, in the West Bank, Israeli forces have launched a wide-scale military operation in the northern West Bank concentrated around the so-called “pentagon of villages” — Tubas, Tammun, Aqaba, Tayasir, and Wadi al-Fara — which the Israeli intelligence establishment considers a “hotbed” of resistance activity. Ostensibly to root out resistance in the Tubas district, local residents told Mondoweiss that the real reason for the military invasion is to thin out the population in the area, laying the groundwork for land confiscation and settlement building.

In Lebanon, the international peacekeeping forces — UNIFIL — reported last week that Israeli forces had committed around 10,000 violations of the ceasefire deal with Lebanon, including 2,500 land incursions and 7,500 airspace violations, since entering into its ceasefire with Hezbollah a year ago in November 2024. The Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot also reported that the Israeli army has conducted 1,200 land raids into 21 Lebanese villages over the past year.

These violations escalated significantly over recent weeks, culminating in the strike that killed Hezbollah chief of staff Tabtabai on Sunday, who is considered the highest-ranking Hezbollah member to be targeted since the ceasefire began. Following the assassination, Israel put its forces near Lebanon’s border on alert, as Hezbollah officials insinuated the possibility of a response. This series of escalations now threatens to blow up the Lebanon ceasefire.

Using ceasefires to establish realities on the ground

Both ceasefire deals in Lebanon and Gaza were only made possible after long months of mediation, in which Hezbollah and Hamas each eventually accepted terms that allowed Israel to maintain forces in their territories, without any practical guarantees that the ceasefires would be sustainable.

Yet Israel is using these truces to establish new realities on the ground, entrenching its occupation of parts of Gaza and southern Lebanon while asserting its military dominance on the regional stage. This projection of control aims to impose Israel’s vision for a “new Middle East” and a new status quo that recognizes Israel as the uncontested hegemon.

This can be gleaned in Israel’s active escalation in Syria, where Israel has tried to counter the expansion of Turkey’s influence in the country.

Israeli forces continue to position themselves in Syrian territory while conducting land raids in cities such as Quneitra and its surroundings. Last Monday, official Syrian TV reported that Israeli forces “bulldozed extensive farming areas” in the Syrian village of Breiqa in the southern part of the country. Meanwhile, on Thursday, Syrian media outlets reported that Israeli fighter jets flew over several Syrian governorates, and on the following day, an Israeli force invaded the Syrian town of Beit Jinn. When the force was reportedly uncovered, clashes between the Israeli force and Syrians reportedly led to the injury of two Israeli soldiers. According to Syrian state TV, Israeli shelling and strikes led to the killing of 13 Syrians, including at least two children.

Israeli strikes across Syrian territory have continued to become more flagrant over recent weeks, while previous strikes in Damascus in July aimed to strengthen Druze separatist elements in Suwayda. The reality on the ground Israel hopes to create is one of regional fragmentation.

In Gaza, this is manifesting in the recently declared plan to build “alternative safe communities” that would make up a “new Gaza” in the part of the Strip under Israeli control, which appears to have received U.S. backing. Earlier in July, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz had stated that Israel would create a “humanitarian city” built over the flattened remains of Rafah, which was supposedly meant to house 600,000 Palestinians and would be used as a pathway for Palestinians to “voluntarily migrate” out of Gaza, a plan that was characterized by UN officials and human rights experts as a “concentration camp.” 

In that same month, a Reuters report revealed that the U.S.-run and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) — so-called “aid” sites meant to replace the UN’s aid distribution system, but where thousands of Palestinians were gunned down in what were described by Gazans as “death traps” — had drafted plans to create so-called “Humanitarian Transit Areas” meant to facilitate the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza. The GHF was itself the “brainchild” of Israeli officials, the New York Times reported last May.

Now that plans for a “new Gaza” have surfaced as part of the Trump-backed ceasefire framework, new reports have begun to emerge that UG Solutions, the U.S. military subcontractor that provided security for the GHF, is now recruiting for a new deployment in Gaza to run ten to 15 more aid sites during the ceasefire.

All these developments take place as Israel attempts to continue to advance its goals. In Lebanon and Syria, it is to establish itself as a regional hegemon, and in Gaza, it is to achieve during the ceasefire what it could not achieve during the war — the ethnic cleansing of Gaza under the rubric of “voluntary migration.”

December 2, 2025 Posted by | Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Amnesty: So-Called Gaza ‘Ceasefire’ becoming Smokescreen for continued Israeli Genocide

Juan Cole11/28/2025, https://www.juancole.com/2025/11/ceasefire-smokescreen-continued.html

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Amnesty International concludes that, over a month after a ceasefire was agreed upon in Gaza and all living Israeli hostages were returned, the Israeli authorities continue to pursue the textbook definition of genocide “by continuing to deliberately inflict conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction.” Moreover, Israeli leaders continue openly to affirm that this course of action is intentional on their parts.

Dan Steinbock here at Informed Comment recently made a similar argument, calling what the Israelis are doing “ecocide.”

The Secretary General of Amnesty International, Agnes Calmard, observed that “Palestinians remain held within less than half of the territory of Gaza, in the areas least capable of supporting life, with humanitarian aid still severely restricted.” Amnesty says that the Israeli military continues to occupy on the order of 55% of the Gaza Strip. There has been no move to rehabilitate the farmland that has been deliberately destroyed by the Israelis over two years or rebuild livestock. The Israelis routinely shoot at Palestinian fishing boats, preventing them from harvesting protein from the sea. The report concludes, “Palestinians are left virtually totally deprived of independent access to forms of sustenance.”

Ms. Calmard warned that: “The ceasefire risks creating a dangerous illusion that life in Gaza is returning to normal. But while Israeli authorities and forces have reduced the scale of their attacks and allowed limited amounts of humanitarian aid into Gaza, the world must not be fooled. Israel’s genocide is not over.”

Amnesty observes that Israeli fighter pilots and troops have killed about 350 people in Gaza since the so-called ceasefire was trumpeted on October 9. Moreover, Israelis are deliberately obstructing the process of rebuilding “life-sustaining infrastructure.” This cruel behavior is also illegal, directly violating “multiple orders from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for Israel to ensure that Palestinians have access to humanitarian supplies.”

Let me just say that Israeli authorities agreed as part of the ceasefire to allow 600 trucks of food and other aid into Gaza daily. It is only allowing in about 200 trucks per day, only a third of what was pledged. As a result, the World Food Program says it is only able to reach about 100,000 households with food parcels and wheat, and even then it can only get them 75% of full rations. Its target is 320,000 households or 1.6 million needy people.

Again, this is me speaking: These limitations are not natural. They are the result of deliberate Israeli policies. Israeli troops at checkpoints are deliberately slow-rolling the entry of aid into Gaza on orders from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his extreme-right cabinet. They are restricting overall humanitarian throughput, creating “major bottlenecks, including de-prioritization of humanitarian cargo, low offloading rates, scanning capacity, and suspended

December 1, 2025 Posted by | Atrocities, Gaza, Israel | Leave a comment

Israel is violating ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon, and Trump is allowing it

Mitchell Plitnick, Mondoweiss, Thu, 27 Nov 2025 

In recent days, Israel has dramatically escalated its violations of the ceasefire in both Gaza and Lebanon, which have been met with utter silence from the United States. Could this mean a return to the full-scale atrocities of the past two years?

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the word “ceasefire” means: “a suspension of active hostilities.” The so-called “kids’ definition” is: “a temporary stopping of warfare.” That all seems clear enough.

But Israel’s definition differs significantly. They understand “ceasefire” to mean: “they cease, we fire.”

This is not news to Palestinians, Lebanese, or any of Israel’s neighbors. Much like how Israel and its supporters like to say that there was “peace” before October 7, 2023, questions of violence are always defined not by whether there is shooting or bombing but by whether Israelis are getting hit with those bullets and bombs.

When the United States imposed or brokered ceasefires between Israel and Hamas and Hezbollah, it was well understood by all that Washington would have to keep Israel on a tight leash for the agreements to hold. It was not hard to anticipate that the attention to that task would not be sustainable under Donald Trump.

Recent events have proven that to be true. Israel has never held to either ceasefire, of course. But in recent days, it has dramatically escalated its violations in both Gaza and Lebanon, and these violations have been met with utter silence from the United States.

Are we about to see a return to the full-scale atrocities in Gaza and Lebanon that became so sickeningly familiar these past two years? And why did the U.S. go to the trouble of brokering these ceasefire agreements if they were just going to let Israel destroy them so flagrantly and easily?

Above all, what is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu trying to achieve, as he seems to be calling all the shots, directly or indirectly?

Israel’s aims

Israel’s goals are clear enough: endless war.

After the United Nations Security Council shamefully voted to endorse Donald Trump’s colonialist plan to impose conditions on the Palestinians as the price for stopping Israel’s full-scale genocide in Gaza, Netanyahu reactednot like a leader who had gotten what he wanted, but like a man who just saw a development he needed to prevent.

He said in a series of posts on X:

“Israel extends its hand in peace and prosperity to all of our neighbors” and calls on neighboring countries to “join us in expelling Hamas and its supporters from the region.”

Expulsion of Hamaswas not part ofTrump’s plan or the Security Council’s resolution. Netanyahu obviously added this to prick Hamas, add fuel to his efforts to undermine the Trump plan, and to toss a bone to his right flank.

Israel had never heeded the ceasefire to begin with. More than 340 overwhelmingly non-combatant Palestinians have been killed since the ceasefire was put in place, and over 15,000 more structures in Gaza have been destroyed, just as flooding, overflowing sewage, rains, and the cold weather of approaching winter start to hit the already battered population.

In just the past few days, though, Israel has killed more than 60 Palestinians in Gaza, a sign of escalation. It is no coincidence that this uptick comes on the heels of Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman’s (MBS) visit to Washington where he once again insisted, much to Trump’s annoyance, that if Donald Trump wanted to see a normalization deal between his kingdom and Israel, there would need to be a clear, committed path to a Palestinian state with a timeline. Whether MBS was sincere about that or not, Netanyahu has no intention of making even the slightest gesture in that direction, and the escalation in Gaza was, at least in part, his response to that part of the Trump-MBS confab.

Israel’s justifications for its attacks on Palestinians are threadbare and reflect how little Washington cares…………………………………………………………………………………………………………. https://www.sott.net/article/503226-Israel-is-violating-ceasefires-in-Gaza-and-Lebanon-and-Trump-is-allowing-it

December 1, 2025 Posted by | Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

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