Smotrich Announces Major West Bank Settlement Expansion To ‘Bury the Idea of a Palestinian State’.
The planned construction appears to be a response to Western countries saying they will recognize a Palestinian state
by Dave DeCamp | August 14, 2025, https://news.antiwar.com/2025/08/14/smotrich-announces-major-west-bank-settlement-expansion-to-bury-the-idea-of-a-palestinian-state/
The Israeli government is moving forward with a plan for the massive expansion of illegal Jewish settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank that would cut off the northern part of the Palestinian territory from its southern regions, a plan Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said will “bury the idea of a Palestinian state.”
Smotrich, who also holds a position in the Defense Ministry that allows him to expand settlements, announced that he plans to approve the construction of 3,401 housing units for the controversial E1 settlement project, which has been frozen for decades due to international opposition.
“They will talk about a Palestinian dream, and we will continue to build a Jewish reality,” Smotrich said at a press conference at the site of the planned construction. “This reality is what will permanently bury the idea of a Palestinian state, because there is nothing to recognize and no one to recognize.”
In an earlier statement, Smotrich said, “After decades of international pressure and freezes, we are breaking conventions and connecting Ma’ale Adumim to Jerusalem. This is Zionism at its best – building, settling, and strengthening our sovereignty in the Land of Israel.”
The announcement appears to be Smotrich’s response to several Western countries, including the UK, France, Canada, and Australia, announcing plans to recognize a Palestinian state by September if certain conditions are met.
The Israeli settlement watchdog Peace Now said the Israeli government’s Higher Planning Council is set to hold a hearing next Wednesday, August 20, for the final approval of the settlement construction. The group said the hearing was scheduled at “record speed.”
“The E1 plan is deadly for the future of Israel and for any chance of achieving a peaceful two-state solution. We are standing at the edge of an abyss, and the government is driving us forward at full speed,” Peace Now said in a statement.
“There is a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and to the terrible war in Gaza — the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel — and it will ultimately come. The government’s annexation moves are taking us further away from this solution and guaranteeing many more years of bloodshed,” the group added.
The news was also strongly condemned by Palestinian officials. The presidency of the Palestinian National Council said the settlement expansion was a “systemic plan to steal land, Judaize it, and impose biblical and Talmudic facts on the conflict.”
‘A million calls an hour’: Israel using Microsoft cloud for mass surveillance of Palestine.
Aug 09, 2025 , Mikael Thalen (Tech Reporter), https://san.com/cc/a-million-calls-an-hour-israel-using-microsoft-cloud-for-mass-surveillance-of-palestine/
Summary
1 million an hour
Israel is reportedly collecting and storing as much as 1 million phone calls an hour from Palestine on Microsoft’s Azure cloud servers.
200 million hours
Since the partnership began between Microsoft and Israel in 2022, over 200 million hours of phone call audio has been captured as of July.
Used in war
The captured cell phone data from Gaza and the West Bank is reportedly being used for blackmail, detainments, arrests and airstrikes.
Full story
Israel’s military intelligence unit has been relying on Microsoft to conduct mass surveillance of phone calls from Palestine, according to a joint investigation by The Guardian, +972 Magazine and the Local Call. The operation, enabled by a customized and segregated environment on Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform, is reportedly capable of processing up to 1 million phone calls an hour.
The system launched in 2022 following a meeting the year prior between Yossi Sariel, then the commander of the intelligence agency known as Unit 8200, and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Leaked internal Microsoft documents as well as interviews with 11 sources, including Microsoft staff and Israeli intelligence officials, revealed that approximately 11,500 terabytes of data, equivalent to 200 million hours of audio, was stored on Microsoft servers in the Netherlands and Ireland as of July.
The captured data has reportedly been used to target Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank for blackmail, detention and arrest.
Arrests, detainments and airstrikes
“When they need to arrest someone and there isn’t a good enough reason to do so, that’s where they find the excuse,” a Unit 8200 source was quoted as saying.
Israel also dug through the data, according to the investigation, after carrying out airstrikes to find intelligence that could be cited as justification.
Captured phone calls are retained in the cloud for around one month. That time may be expanded to give Unit 8200 the ability to retrieve older telephone conversations involving people who become of interest, The Guardian said.
Microsoft denies knowledge
Microsoft said its CEO was not aware of the types of data that would be stored when he agreed to aid Unit 8200. An external review commissioned by Microsoft on the partnership, carried out earlier this year after the ties between the company and Israel were revealed, found no evidence that Azure was used to target or harm people in Palestine, the company said.
After the surveillance operation was uncovered, Microsoft again said that at no time was it “aware of the surveillance of civilians or collection of their cellphone conversations using Microsoft’s services, including through the external review it commissioned.”
Internal records on the 2021 meeting between Nadella and Sariel do not show that cell phone surveillance was mentioned. Instead, Sariel is said to have referred to “sensitive workloads” of secret data.
Other documents, however, suggest Microsoft engineers in both the U.S. and Israel were aware that raw intelligence, such as audio files, would be stored in the cloud environment. Israel initially reached out to Microsoft after realizing its own internal servers were incapable of storing such vast amounts of data.
“You don’t have to be a genius to figure it out,” one source said. “You tell [Microsoft] we don’t have any more space on the servers, that it’s audio files. It’s pretty clear what it is.”
Numerous Israeli sources insisted that the mass-surveillance program had saved lives by detecting and thwarting attacks on civilians. The system, however, did not prevent the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack, which has been used to justify increased surveillance.
Alan Judd (Content Editor) contributed to this report.
Over 100 Children Have Died of Severe Hunger Amid Israeli Siege: Gaza Health Ministry.
“People are being starved, children are being killed, families have lost everything,” said the United Nations agency for Palestinian Refugees.
Brad Reed, Aug 11, 2025, https://www.commondreams.org/news/gaza-children-starvation-2673875979
The Gaza Health Ministry announced on Monday that more than 100 children in Gaza have died of severe hunger during Israel’s siege of the territory.
As Al Jazeera reported, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said that a total of 222 Palestinians have died from hunger during the siege, including 101 children. The vast majority of these deaths have come in just the last three weeks when the hunger crisis in Gaza started to garner international media attention, the ministry said.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East on Monday emphasized the direness of the situation in a statement calling for a cease-fire to allow more aid into Gaza.
“People are being starved, children are being killed,” the agency said. “Families have lost everything. Political will and leadership can stop an escalation and end the war. Every heartbeat counts.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has claimed that there is no starvation crisis in Gaza and has said such reports are part of a “fake” propaganda campaign waged by Israel’s enemies.
However, it isn’t just the Gaza Health Ministry warning of a hunger crisis in the region, as international charity Save the Children last week said that 43% of pregnant and breastfeeding women who showed up to its clinics in Gaza last month were malnourished, which represented a threefold increase since March, when the Israeli military imposed a total siege on the area.
The latest numbers about starvation in Gaza come as the Israeli government is pushing forward with a plan to fully invade and occupy Gaza, which experts have warned will only exacerbate the humanitarian crisis among its people.
“If these plans are implemented, they will likely trigger another calamity in Gaza, reverberating across the region and causing further forced displacement, killings, and destruction,” said Miroslav Jenca, the United Nations assistant secretary general, over the weekend.
Netanyahu’s Plan To Occupy Gaza Violates World Court Ruling That Israeli Occupation is Illegal.
August 12, 2025 By Marjorie Cohn ScheerPost, https://scheerpost.com/2025/08/12/netanyahus-plan-to-occupy-gaza-violates-world-court-ruling-that-israeli-occupation-is-illegal/
As the death toll of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip surpasses 61,000 and Israel continues to starve Gazans to death, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made clear that Israel plans to occupy all of Gaza. When asked in an August 7 appearance on Fox News whether Israel would “take control of all of Gaza,” Netanyahu replied, “We intend to.”
The Israeli Occupation Forces say they already control about 75 percent of Gaza. The remaining 25 percent includes Gaza City, Khan Younis, and many neighborhoods and refugee camps in central Gaza.
Israel’s occupation of Gaza flies in the face of the July 19 ruling of the International Court of Justice (ICJ, or World Court). In its landmark 83-page advisory opinion, the ICJ held, “The sustained abuse by Israel of its position as an occupying Power, through annexation and an assertion of permanent control over the Occupied Palestinian Territory and continued frustration of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, violates fundamental principles of international law and renders Israel’s presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory unlawful.”
During the proceedings at the ICJ, Israel had argued that because it withdrew its military forces from Gaza in 2005, it no longer occupied the Gaza Strip. But the World Court concluded that Israel continues to occupy Gaza because it exercises “effective control” of “the land, sea and air borders” and maintains “restrictions on movement of people and goods, collection of import and export taxes, and military control over the buffer zone.” The court noted that “This is even more so since 7 October 2023.”
Israel’s Security Cabinet Approves the Takeover of Gaza City
Netanyahu’s stated intention leaves no doubt that he aims to make Israel’s occupation of Gaza official. On August 8, in the first step toward executing that plan, the Israeli security cabinet authorized the takeover of Gaza City, the forcible displacement of the 1 million Palestinians taking refuge there, and their confinement in “camps.”
To eliminate media witnesses to its impending slaughter, Israeli Occupation Forces killed five Al Jazeera journalists near Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital on the evening of August 10. They included the beloved Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent Anas al-Sharif, who had reported widely from northern Gaza.
“The Israeli Government’s plan for a complete military takeover of the occupied Gaza strip must be immediately halted. It runs contrary to the ruling of the International Court of Justice that Israel must bring its occupation to an end as soon as possible, to the realisation of the agreed two-State solution and to the right of Palestinians to self-determination,” UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk stated on August 8. “On all evidence to date, this further escalation will result in more massive forced displacement, more killing, more unbearable suffering, senseless destruction and atrocity crimes.”
In a Joint Statement issued on August 9, more than 20 countries, joined by the League of Arab States and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, expressed “their strong condemnation and categorical rejection of Israel’s announcement of its intention to impose full military control over the Gaza Strip.” They wrote, “We consider this announcement a dangerous and unacceptable escalation, a flagrant violation of international law, and an attempt to entrench the illegal occupation and impose a fait accompli/facts on the ground by force, in contravention of international legitimacy.”
On August 10, the United Nations Security Council convened an emergency meeting at the request of the United Kingdom, Denmark, France, Greece, and Slovenia, who issued the following statement:
We condemn the Government of Israel’s decision to further expand its military operations in Gaza. This plan risks violating international humanitarian law. We call on Israel to urgently reverse this decision and not to implement it. And we reiterate that any attempts at annexation or of settlement extension violate international law … We call on both parties to secure an immediate and permanent ceasefire, the release of all the hostages, and to urgently advance efforts to achieve a two-state solution.
All UN member countries except Israel and the U.S. denounced Netanyahu’s occupation plan for Gaza at the Council meeting. For example, the representative from Somalia said the ICJ “was unequivocal” that Israel’s occupation, blockade, denial of humanitarian access, and actions constituting collective punishment in Gaza violate international law. Algeria’s representative strongly condemned the Israeli security cabinet’s decision to displace the entire population of Gaza City and northern Gaza and impose full military control of Gaza, stating that “these are war crimes, and those who draw their maps in blood must not walk in the shadow of impunity.” The delegate from Denmark invoked the ICJ’s ruling that any unilateral attempts to alter the demography or status of Gaza amounts to a clear violation of international law. China’s ambassador said the Council “must firmly oppose any attempt to occupy Gaza.”
The same day the Council met, Saudi Arabia issued a statement saying it “condemns in the strongest possible terms the decision of the Israeli occupation authorities to occupy the Gaza Strip and categorically condemns their persistence in committing crimes of starvation, brutal practices, and ethnic cleansing against the Palestinian people.”
Trump Gives Israel the Green Light to Occupy Gaza
“They’re talking about occupying areas that are packed with so many people,” said Mukhlis al-Masri, who was forced to leave his home in northern Gaza and is now in Khan Younis. He told The New York Times that “If they do that, there will be incalculable killing. The situation will be more dangerous than anyone can imagine.”
The United States tried to prevent the meeting of the Security Council, the body empowered by the UN Charter to maintain international peace and security. Although unable to thwart the meeting from taking place, the threat of a U.S. veto prevented the Council from considering a resolution.
Dorothy Shea, U.S. interim ambassador to the UN, charged that the Security Council meeting was “emblematic of the counterproductive role that far too many governments on this council and throughout the UN system have played on the issue.” Her comments demonstrate the U.S.’s consistent defiance of international law.
Donald Trump gave Israel the tacit green light to take over Gaza. “That’s going to be pretty much up to Israel,” he said when asked about Netanyahu’s plan.
The United States routinely provides Israel with diplomatic cover for its international crimes – not only in the Security Council, but also at the ICJ and the International Criminal Court. The ICC has charged Netanyahu with the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
And the U.S. also flouts its legal obligations by enabling – indeed, aiding and abetting – Israel’s genocide by providing millions of dollars in weapons used to massacre Palestinians.
The U.S. has the power to stop Netanyahu’s illegal and dangerous plan. “Unless the United States changes its stance, I think ultimately, Israel will continue with this plan,” warned Will Todman, chief of staff of the geopolitics and foreign policy department and a senior fellow in the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
That would be a disaster – for the people of Gaza and the region, the rule of law, and the integrity of the global community.
The West is in panic as Israel’s plan for ‘full control’ of Gaza heralds a new Nakba.
Netanyahu’s mass ethnic cleansing strategy pulls the rug out from under the West’s cherished pretext for supporting Israeli criminality: the fabled two-state solution
Jonathan Cook, Aug 14, 2025
If you thought western capitals were finally losing patience with Israel’s engineering of a famine in Gaza nearly two years into the genocide, you may be disappointed.
As ever, events have moved on – even if the extreme hunger and malnourishment of the two million people of Gaza have not abated.
Western leaders are now expressing “outrage”, as the media call it, at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to “take full control” of Gaza and “occupy” it. At some point in the future, Israel is apparently ready to hand the enclave over to outside forces unconnected to the Palestinian people.
The Israeli cabinet agreed last Friday on the first step: a takeover of Gaza City, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are huddled in the ruins, being starved to death. The city will be encircled, systematically depopulated and destroyed, with survivors presumably herded southwards to a “humanitarian city” – Israel’s new term for a concentration camp – where they will be penned up, awaiting death or expulsion.
At the weekend, foreign ministers from the UK, Germany, Italy, Australia and other western nations issued a joint statement decrying the move, warning it would “aggravate the catastrophic humanitarian situation, endanger the lives of the hostages, and further risk the mass displacement of civilians”.
Germany, Israel’s most fervent backer in Europe and its second-biggest arms supplier, is apparently so dismayed that it has vowed to “suspend” – that is, delay – weapons shipments that have helped Israel to murder and maim hundreds of thousands of Palestinians over the past 22 months.
Netanyahu is not likely to be too perturbed. Doubtless, Washington will step in and pick up any slack for its main client state in the oil-rich Middle East.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu has once again shifted the West’s all-too-belated focus on the indisputable proof of Israel’s ongoing genocidal actions – evidenced by Gaza’s skeletal children – to an entirely different story.
Now, the front pages are all about the Israeli prime minister’s strategy in launching another “ground operation”, how much pushback he is getting from his military commanders, what the implications will be for the Israelis still held captive in the enclave, whether the Israeli army is now overstretched, and whether Hamas can ever be “defeated” and the enclave “demilitarised”.
We are returning once again to logistical analyses of the genocide – analyses whose premises ignore the genocide itself. Might that not be integral to Netanyahu’s strategy?
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. France and Britain’s recognition threat is not simply too late. It serves two other purposes.
Firstly, it provides a new alibi for inaction. There are plenty of far more effective ways for the West to halt Israel’s genocide. Western capitals could embargo arms sales, stop intelligence sharing, impose economic sanctions, sever ties with Israeli institutions, expel Israeli ambassadors, and downgrade diplomatic relations. They are choosing to do none of those things.
And secondly, recognition is designed to extract from the Palestinians “concessions” that will make them even more vulnerable to Israeli violence.
According to France’s foreign affairs minister, Jean-Noel Barrot: “Recognising a State of Palestine today means standing with the Palestinians who have chosen non-violence, who have renounced terrorism, and are prepared to recognise Israel.”
In other words, in the West’s view, the “good Palestinians” are those who recognise and lay down before the state committing genocide against them.
Western leaders have long envisioned a Palestinian state only on condition that it is demilitarised. Recognition this time is premised on Hamas agreeing to disarm and its departure from Gaza, leaving Abbas to take on the enclave and presumably continue the “sacred” mission of “cooperating” with a genocidal Israeli army.
As part of the price for recognition, all 22 members of the Arab League publicly condemned Hamas and demanded its removal from Gaza.
Boot on Gaza’s neck
How does all of this fit with Netanyahu’s “ground offensive”? Israel isn’t “taking over” Gaza, as he claims. Its boot has been on the enclave’s neck for decades.
While western capitals contemplate a two-state solution, Israel is preparing a final mass ethnic cleansing campaign in Gaza.
Starmer’s government, for one, knew this was coming. Flight data shows that the UK has been constantly operating surveillance missions over Gaza on Israel’s behalf from the Royal Air Force base Akrotiri on Cyprus. Downing Street has been following the enclave’s erasure step by step.
Netanyahu’s plan is to encircle, besiege and bomb the last remaining populated areas in northern and central Gaza, and drive Palestinians towards a giant holding pen – misnamed a “humanitarian city” – alongside the enclave’s short border with Egypt. Israel will then probably employ the same contractors it has been using elsewhere in Gaza to go street to street to bulldoze or blow up any surviving buildings.
The next stage, given the trajectory of the last two years, is not difficult to predict. Locked up in their dystopian “humanitarian city”, the people of Gaza will continue to be starved and bombed whenever Israel claims it has identified a Hamas fighter in their midst, until Egypt or other Arab states can be persuaded to take them in, as a further “humanitarian” gesture.
Then, the only matter to be settled will be what happens to the real estate: build some version of Trump’s gleaming “Riviera” scheme, or construct another tawdry patchwork of Jewish settlements of the kind envisioned by Netanyahu’s openly fascist allies, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir.
There is a well-established template to be drawn on, one that was used in 1948 during Israel’s violent creation. Palestinians were driven from their cities and villages, in what was then called Palestine, across the borders into neighbouring states. The new state of Israel, backed by western powers, then set about methodically destroying every home in those hundreds of villages.
Over subsequent years, they were landscaped either with forests or exclusive Jewish communities, often engaged in farming, to make Palestinian return impossible and stifle any memory of Israel’s crimes. Generations of western politicians, intellectuals and cultural figures have celebrated all of this.
Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and former Austrian President Heinz Fischer are among those who went to Israel in their youth to work on these farming communities. Most came back as emissaries for a Jewish state built on the ruins of a Palestinian homeland.
An emptied Gaza can be similarly re-landscaped. But it is much harder to imagine that this time the world will forget or forgive the crimes committed by Israel – or those who enabled them.
[Many thanks to Matthew Alford for the audio reading of this article.]https://jonathancook.substack.com/p/the-west-is-in-panic-as-israels-plan?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=476450&post_id=170880402&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=19l92&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Iran’s nuclear chief urges IAEA to condemn Israeli terrorism.
TEHRAN, Aug. 13 (MNA), https://en.mehrnews.com/news/235334/Nuclear-chief-urges-IAEA-to-condemn-Israeli-terrorism
– Vice President and Head of Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) said that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) should condemn the Israeli regime’s killing of Iranian nuclear scientists.
He paid tribute to the memory of the martyrs of the media, the nuclear martyrs, and the recent imposed war.
“A number of institutions affiliated with the Zionist regime pretend that the attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities was an act in the interest of the security of humanity. These narratives are so skillfully reflected that uninformed people believe them, and today we expect the media to stand strong and firmly against the combined war of the enemies of this land and reflect the correct narrative,” he said.
“Israel is neither a member of the NPT nor a member of the safeguards, but it has influence in the International Atomic Energy Agency and with this influence it exploits the confidential information of countries. With the support of the United States, they are carrying out evil actions in the region,” he added.
Eslami noted that during the 12-day war, a number of centers registered under the Agency’s continuous surveillance, which were monitored by 130 inspectors, were repeatedly attacked using missiles and various projectiles.
“The Americans had been planning an attack on our facilities for a long time. This is despite the fact that none of the official institutions have submitted a report on Iran’s non-compliance or deviation from the safeguards in recent years,” Eslami further stressed.
He emphasized, “A fabricated and fake case has been formed by the Zionist regime, and the accusations and excuses are nothing more than an attempt to stop Iran’s peaceful nuclear program. If their claims were true, they should have provided clear evidence. These fake statements are only a cover to prevent the progress of the Iranian nation.”
“Such double standards and efforts to prevent Iran from entering advanced scientific fields are the same hegemonic system that, at huge costs, is trying to deprive our nation of nuclear technology and other modern technologies. This approach is a tangible manifestation of their identity; the same crimes they are committing in Palestine today.”
Germany’s Merz to Israel’s Netanyahu: ‘No more genocide weapons for you.’
Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL , 12 Aug 25
Germany, conductor of the worst genocide in the 20th century, is pushing back against Israel, conductor of the worst genocide this century.
German Chancellor Merz halted all offensive weapons sales to Israel in a vailed understatement, “The even harsher military action by the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip, approved by the Israeli Cabinet last night, makes it increasingly difficult for the German government to see how these goals will be achieved. Under these circumstances, the German government will not authorize any exports of military equipment that could be used in the Gaza Strip until further notice.”
Given that Israel, with near total US complicity, is determined to eliminate all 2,300,000 Palestinians from Gaza’s 139 square miles to expand Greater Israel, its unlikely German weapons exports will ever resume.
Germany’s principled action is not insignificant in the effort to cripple Israel’s destruction of the Palestinian people. That’s because Germany accounts for 30% of Israel’s grisly genocide arsenal. Sadly, the US accounts for 69% of the remaining 70%. The Trump administration is so ecstatic about Israel clearing out the remaining 2 million or so Palestinians not yet murdered, that it may simply increase its grotesque weaponizing of the genocide to make up the slack.
Americans should contemplate that would equate with America supplying Nazi Germany with the Zyklon B gas to eliminate European Jewry and other Nazi undesirables in WWII.
Trump can fuel Israel’s genocide because not a single member of the Trump administration dare call US policy genocide. Nor does a single member mainstream media. Congress is a teensy better with just 10 of 535 congresspersons having the moral clarity to charge Israel with the G word.
Until Trump channels Germany’s Merz and tells Netanyahu, ‘No more genocide weapons for you’, the genocide will continue till all 2,300,000 Palestinians in Gaza are dead and gone.
Cowardly Israeli Murder of 5 Journalists, including Anas al-Sharif, Smearing them as Hamas
Note that firing a rocket at a tent known to be inhabited by unarmed civilian journalists is an act of cowardice and is the sort of thing for which German and Japanese officers were tried at Nuremberg.
Informed Comment, Juan Cole, 08/11/2025, https://www.juancole.com/2025/08/cowardly-journalists-including.html
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Israeli state by now has a long and sanguinary history of murdering writers and journalists in cold blood. In 1972, Israeli commandos murdered novelist, painter and short story writer Ghassan Kanafani in Beirut with a car bomb — the weapon of choice for terrorists ever since — killing his niece Lamis as well. Kanafani’s crime was to be an effective voice of the 1948 Palestinian Nakba or catastrophic expulsion from their homeland by the militant Zionist settler-colonialists and then by the newly formed Israeli army. Anyone who hasn’t read his Men in the Sun has a hole in their knowledge of the issue.
On May 11, 2022, an Israeli sniper was ordered to murder American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. The powerful Israeli propaganda machine (which is not different than that of Vladimir Putin or Donald Trump, and the effectiveness of which is plummeting) initially asserted that Palestinians had killed her. Then it “might” have been an Israeli sniper. Then it was an Israeli sniper but it was an unfortunate accident. If that was the case, why did Israeli authorities disrupt even her funeral (she was a Greek Catholic)? Her crime was to report on the Israeli slow colonization of the Palestinian West Bank for 17 years for Al Jazeera. As a careful journalist, she became a trusted narrator of what was being done to the occupied Palestinians. She was eliminated, rubbed out, whacked, by the Israeli army, deliberately and calculatedly, which lied about the hit job.
Now on Sunday comes the news that the Israeli army assassinated five journalists, one of them lead Al Jazeera reporter Anas al-Sharif, 28, who had become known as the “voice of Gaza,” watched by millions throughout the world. The Israeli military fired a rocket at the tent he and four other journalists were sheltering in near the al-Shifa’ Hospital in Gaza City.
They join 178 journalists killed by the Israeli military in Gaza. Most of these killings appear to have been deliberate.
Russia appears to have killed 18 journalists in the field since February 2022. It has killed other journalists, but they were fighting in the Ukrainian military as soldiers and so weren’t killed qua journalists. The Ukraine War is pretty vicious and Putin’s minions are ruthless. But they’ve only rubbed out 18 practicing journalists, versus 178 for Israel. This is not to mention that Ukraine has a population of 37 million, while Gaza’s at least used to be 2.2 million. So killing 178 journalists in Gaza would be like killing nearly 3,000 journalists in Ukraine.
Note that firing a rocket at a tent known to be inhabited by unarmed civilian journalists is an act of cowardice and is the sort of thing for which German and Japanese officers were tried at Nuremberg.
The Israeli propaganda charges against al-Sharif, that he was an active-duty Hamas commando in charge of firing rockets at Israel, would be laughable if they weren’t so sinister in a Kim Jong Un sort of way. We saw al-Sharif all day every day huddling in Gaza, undernourished, staring into the camera and reporting. Is he Superman, to sneak off and fire a rocket between screen appearances and intensive news gathering?
Al-Sharif had prerecorded a statement for this eventuality, which was released on Sunday: By Anas Al-Sharif / X August 11, 2025, https://scheerpost.com/2025/08/11/anas-al-sharifs-final-message/
Tehran faults UN nuclear watchdog over response to Israeli, US attacks
12 Aug 25, https://www.iranintl.com/en/202508110446
Iran on Monday criticized the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for what it called a failure to act over Israeli and US attacks in June after talks in Tehran with the UN nuclear watchdog’s deputy director general earlier in the day.
“The Islamic Republic expressed its objection to the failure of the agency to fulfill its responsibilities regarding the Israeli and US attack and raised its demands for correcting the agency’s improper processes,” deputy foreign minister Kazem Gharibabadi said.
Gharibabadi’s remarks came following a meeting with IAEA deputy director general Massimo Aparo, who was in Tehran for a brief trip on Monday. The visit marked the highest-level meeting between the IAEA and Iran since the attacks on Iranian nuclear sites badly frayed ties.
Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi had stressed earlier that the visit would not involve nuclear inspections but rather dialogue with the agency.
In June, Iran’s parliament approved a bill to suspend the country’s cooperation with the IAEA, a day after a ceasefire with Israel.
The bill, passed with 221 votes in favor, none against, and one abstention out of 223 members present, and bars the UN nuclear watchdog’s inspectors from accessing Iran’s nuclear facilities.
At the time, Iran also accused IAEA chief Rafael Grossi of bias and failing to condemn the attacks.
On July 4, Grossi said that the agency’s team of inspectors had departed Iran to return to its headquarters in Vienna after the new law barred cooperation with the IAEA.
Israel launched a surprise military campaign on June 13 targeting military and nuclear sites, killing hundreds of military personnel, nuclear scientists and civilians.
Iran responded with missile strikes that killed 31 civilians and one off-duty soldier, according to official figures published by the Israeli government.
The Islamic Republic says 1,062 people were also killed by Israel during the 12-day conflict, including 786 military personnel and 276 civilians.
On June 22, the US carried out airstrikes on Iran’s key nuclear sites at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan.
The full extent of the damage remains unclear but President Donald Trump has repeatedly said that the strikes “obliterated” the country’s nuclear program.
Slaying and Censoring the Journalists: The Murder of Anas al-Sharif
12 August 2025 Dr Binoy Kampmark, Australian Independent Media
“Assassination,” wrote George Bernard Shaw in The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet, “is the extreme form of censorship.” Such extremism visited Al Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif and his colleagues in Gaza City late on August 10. Resting in a tent located outside the main gate of Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital, he was killed alongside Al Jazeera correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh, camera operators Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal and Moamen Aliwa, and freelance reporter Mohammed al-Khaldi.
Palestinian journalist Wadi Abu al-Saud recalls the drone attack taking place at 11.22pm. Having entered the tent opposite, he had raised his phone to make a call when an explosion occurred. “A piece of shrapnel hit my phone. I looked back and saw people burning in flames. I tried to extinguish them. Anas and the others had died instantly from the airstrike.” In two subsequent videos, al-Saud vows to “return to my life as a citizen. The truth has died and the coverage has ended.”…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
The murder of al-Sharif and his colleagues by Israeli forces constituted the effective wiping out of Al Jazeera’s team, one of the few able to offer consistent, unsmothered coverage about the IDF’s remorseless campaign in Gaza. Since the October 7, 2023 attacks by Hamas, Israel has prohibited foreign reporters from entering Gaza except under strict invigilation by the Israeli military. Those accompanied by the IDF have been at the mercy of Israeli selectiveness as to where to go and barred from speaking to Palestinians. ………………………………………………. https://theaimn.net/slaying-and-censoring-the-journalists-the-murder-of-anas-al-sharif/
UN nuclear watchdog official to visit Iran in a bid to improve ties but no inspections planned
The deputy head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog will visit Iran in
a bid to rekindle soured ties, the Islamic Republic’s foreign minister said
Sunday. There will be no inspection of Iran’s nuclear facilities during the
visit by the International Atomic Energy Agency scheduled for Monday,
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said. The visit would be the first
following Israel and Iran’s 12-day war in June, when some of its key
nuclear facilities were struck.
Daily Mail 10th Aug 2025. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/ap/article-14987939/UN-nuclear-watchdog-official-visit-Iran-bid-improve-ties-no-inspections-planned.html
As Netanyahu moves toward full takeover of Gaza, Israel faces a crisis of international credibility.
Amin Saikal, Emeritus Professor of Middle Eastern Studies, Australian National University; August 8, 2025, https://theconversation.com/as-netanyahu-moves-toward-full-takeover-of-gaza-israel-faces-a-crisis-of-international-credibility-262864?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=The%20Weekender%20-%209th%20August%202025&utm_content=The%20Weekender%20-%209th%20August%202025+CID_dc9bf3f4639a81244082d3b9e6f24b5b&utm_source=campaign_monitor&utm_term=As%20Netanyahu%20moves%20toward%20full%20takeover%20of%20Gaza%20Israel%20faces%20a%20crisis%20of%20international%20credibility
For all its claims of being a democracy that adheres to international law and the rules of war, Israel’s global reputation is in tatters.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s latest plan for a full military takeover of Gaza, along with the expanding starvation crisis in the strip and Israel’s repressive measures in the West Bank, underline the country’s predicament.
Notwithstanding US support, the Jewish state faces a crisis of international credibility, from which it may not be able to recover for a long time.
According to a recent Pew poll, the international view of Israel is now more negative than positive. The majority of those polled in early 2025 in countries such as the Netherlands (78%), Japan (79%), Spain (75%), Australia (74%), Turkey (93%) and Sweden (75%) said they have an unfavourable view of Israel.
The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Israel’s former defence minister, Yoav Gallant, on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Many international law experts, genocide scholars and human rights groups have also accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza.
Israel’s traditional supporters have also harshly criticised the Netanyahu government’s actions, from both inside and outside the country. These include former prime ministers Ehud Olmert and Ehud Barak, the Israeli literary giant David Grossman, and Masorti Judaism Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg and Rabbi Delphine Horvilleur.
In addition, hundreds of retired Israeli security officials have appealed to US President Donald Trump to push Netanyahu to end the war.
Israel’s global partners distancing themselves
With images of starving children in Gaza dominating the news in recent weeks, many of Israel’s friends in the Western alliance have similarly reached the point at which they can no longer tolerate its policy actions.
In a major shift in global opinion, France announced it would recognise Palestinian statehood in September. The United Kingdom and Canada vowed to follow suit. Even Germany has now begun the process for recognition. And Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has indicated his country’s recognition of Palestine was only a matter of time.
Spain and Sweden have called for the suspension of the European Union’s trade agreement with Israel, while the Netherlands has officially labelled Israel a “security threat”, citing attempts to influence Dutch public opinion.
Israel and the US have rejected all these accusations and moves. The momentum against Israel in the international community, however, has left it with the US as its only major global supporter.
Israel’s sovereignty, security and prosperity now ride on the back of America’s continued support. Without US assistance, in particular its billions of dollars worth of arms exports, Israel would have struggled to maintain its devastating Gaza campaign or repressive occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
Yet, despite Trump’s deep commitment to Israel, many in the US electorate are seriously questioning the depth of Netanyahu’s influence in Washington and the value of US aid to Israel.
According to a Gallup poll in March, fewer than half of Americans are sympathetic toward Israel.
This discontent has also been voiced by some of Trump’s MAGA ideologues and devotees, such as political strategist Steve Bannon and congressional hardliner Marjorie Taylor Greene. Even Trump publicly questioned Netanyahu on his claim there was no starvation in Gaza.
Israelis have dim view of two-state solution
Many Israelis would like to see the back of Netanyahu and his extremist right-wing ruling cohort, especially given his failure to secure the release of all the hostages from Hamas.
Many want the war to end, too. Recent polling by Israel’s Channel 12 found that 74% of Israelis back a deal to end the war in exchange for the release of the remaining hostages held by Hamas.
However, a majority of Israelis maintain a dim view of a future Palestinian state.
One poll commissioned by a US academic showed 82% of Jewish Israeli respondents backed the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza. And a Pew poll in early 2025 showed that just 16% of Jewish Israelis believe peaceful coexistence with a Palestinian state is possible, the lowest percentage since the pollsters began asking the question in 2013.
This indicates that not only the Israeli state, but also its electorate, has moved to the extreme of the political spectrum in relation to acknowledging the right of the Palestinians to an independent state of their own.
Under international pressure, Netanyahu has expediently allowed a little more humanitarian aid to flow into Gaza. However, his new plan for a full military takeover of Gaza indicates he is not prepared to change course in the war, as long as US support remains steady.
His government is bent on eliminating Hamas and potentially depopulating and annexing Gaza, followed possibly by the West Bank. Such a move would render the idea of a two-state solution totally defunct.
To stop this happening, Washington needs to align with the rest of the global community. Otherwise, an unrestrained and isolated Israel will only widen the rift between the US and its traditional allies in a highly polarised world.
Israel Assassinates More Journalists To Hide Its Planned War Crimes.
Caitlin Johnstone, Aug 11, 2025
Ahead of a planned Israeli assault on Gaza City which UN officials warn will further exacerbate death and suffering for the Palestinian people, Israel has chosen to assassinate five Al Jazeera journalists who’ve been stationed there. Among those killed was Anas al-Sharif, one of the most high-profile surviving reporters in Gaza.
The IDF is of course claiming that al-Sharif was Hamas, because that’s what they always do. They’ve been murdering a historically unprecedented number of journalists and defending their systematic effort to blind the world to their actions in Gaza by claiming that every journalist they kill is Hamas. The journalists are Hamas, the hospitals are Hamas, the UN is Hamas, the peace activists are Hamas, the demonstrations are Hamas, telling the truth is Hamas, human empathy is Hamas, objective reality is Hamas. It’s all Hamas.
That Israel would feel the need to draw attention to its depravity with this targeted strike at this time shows it has some very ugly intentions for Gaza City that it doesn’t want the world to see.
One of the many plot holes in Israel’s claim that it can’t let foreign journalists into Gaza because it’s not safe is that there are now huge areas which have been completely captured and controlled by the IDF. That’s where the GHF sites are, which is where journalists are most sorely needed right now.
It’s not like it’s 2023/2024 and journalists would need to follow Israeli forces into Gaza City to document gun battles with Hamas or take their crews through areas where the IDF could be carrying out air strikes. They could safely just set up their cameras at aid distribution sites and document what’s happening.
The only reason this hasn’t occurred is because Israel doesn’t want the world to see what it’s doing at those aid distribution sites. There is absolutely no other explanation.
British police arrested 522 people for holding signs saying “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action” in response to their government banning the activist group as a terrorist organization. Nearly half of those arrested were over sixty years old.
When I was young and naive I thought terrorism looks like someone detonating a car bomb or crashing planes into skyscrapers. Now that I’m mature and educated I know that terrorism actually looks like an elderly woman holding a sign saying people should be allowed to oppose genocide.
This is a society that has gone stark raving insane.
U2 frontman Bono has finally issued a statement calling for peace in Gaza two years into a genocide, and however bad you expected it to be I guarantee it’s worse.
He works his way through pretty much every pro-genocide Israeli talking point while pretending to care about Palestinians. He spends paragraphs on October 7, mentions the word “Hamas” 14 times, falsely claims “Hamas are using starvation as a weapon in the war,” says “Hamas had deliberately positioned themselves under civilian targets, having tunneled their way from school to mosque to hospital,” babbles about the 1988 Hamas charter while ignoring its 2017 revisions, blames the whole thing on Netanyahu, and of course mentions “Israel’s right to exist.”
I seriously think he hit every major hasbara talking point. I don’t think he missed a single one. It’s genocide propaganda disguised as humanitarianism. Bono is a piece of shit.
I judge the character of Jewish people based on how much they oppose the genocide in Gaza. This is also how I judge the character of anyone who is not Jewish.
As soon as someone says they support Israel for religious reasons, you can dismiss anything they say in defense of Israel’s actions, because you know they’ll tell any lie and promote any kind of propaganda in order to advance their religious mission. They’re not engaging the subject to share facts and communicate, they’re engaging it to obtain promised rewards in the afterlife and please an invisible deity. They’ll say whatever they need to say in order to make this happen.
Think about it. If you sincerely held the religious belief that Israel needs to be supported no matter what in order to fulfill some kind of prophecy, or that if you don’t promote the interests of Israel you’ll be tortured for eternity in Hell, or that Actual Metaphysical Yahweh has commanded that helping Israel is the single most important thing in the world, would you not say whatever you need to say and promote whatever narratives you need to promote in order to help make that happen? Of course you would. It’s not about facts and truth for such people, it’s about getting into Heaven and bringing back Jesus and stuff.
The instant someone admits to supporting Israel for religious reasons, there’s no reason to believe anything else they say. Because you know they’ll say things they don’t really know to be true and pretend to believe things they don’t really believe in order to do what they’ve been told is the most important thing they can possibly do with their lives. It’s impossible to have a truth-based conversation with such a person.
1 This Month
of the week– Nuclear Reactor Information Task Force
14 May – online event From Bombs to Data Centres: the Face of Nuclear Colonialism
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