EU and Ukraine to offer Trump ‘peace plan’ with no territorial concessions – Bloomberg
Rt.22 Oct 25, https://www.rt.com/news/626782-bloomberg-european-peace-proposal-ukraine/
Kiev’s European backers are planning to advance a condition Moscow has firmly rejected.
Ukraine and its European backers are finalizing a 12-point peace plan that would rule out territorial concessions to Russia, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter.
The proposal would reportedly establish a “peace board” chaired by US President Donald Trump to oversee its implementation. European officials could travel to the US this week to present the roadmap to Trump, Bloomberg reported.
According to the outlet, the plan includes a ceasefire along the current front lines, a prisoner swap, as well as “security guarantees” and fast-tracked EU accession for Ukraine. Russia and Ukraine would negotiate “the governance of occupied territories,” but neither Ukraine nor its European backers would recognize Russia’s new borders, Bloomberg cited its sources as saying.
Russia has listed recognition of its new borders as one of the crucial conditions for a lasting peace. Moscow has also demanded that Ukraine withdraw troops from parts of Russian territory it controls, halt mobilization, and stop receiving military aid from abroad.
Multiple US media outlets reported that Trump urged Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky to cede land to Russia during their meeting at the White House on Friday. The US president later noted that Russian troops already control nearly all of the Donbass region claimed by Ukraine. Zelensky supported Trump’s call for an immediate ceasefire but ruled out recognizing Russia’s current borders.
AUKUS proves why Australia is no longer a middle power with sovereignty and autonomy
If AUKUS is such a good deal for the Americans, why did Albanese fall over himself to talk it up in DC? It points towards a crisis of control.
Wanning Sun, Oct 24, 2025, https://www.crikey.com.au/2025/10/24/aukus-deal-united-states-america-australia-anthony-albanese-defence/?utm_campaign=daily&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter
Australian media coverage of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s meeting with US President Donald Trump was teetering on the brink of euphoria.
Emerging from the cabinet room where the meeting took place, the ABC’s reporter Jane Norman appeared breathless in her account of the big moment. Even Sally Sara, host of Radio National’s Breakfast, who is usually calm and is known to ask probing questions, seemed to have abandoned her cool. She pronounced: “Well, the bonds between the United States and Australia appear tighter than ever today.’
But our prime minister didn’t rest on his laurels, even after securing various assurances from Trump. Albanese seemed to feel he needed to further convince the Americans of our nation’s commitment to their nation. As he told a roomful of US Congress members: “We’ve already contributed a billion dollars to your industrial base; there’ll be a billion dollars on its way before Christmas.”
He went on to say there would be “a further billion dollars next year because … we want to uplift your industrial capacity. … We’ll be providing a capacity for maintenance of your subs from 2027 on top of the facilities that we have already in the West.” And just to ensure his audience understood his message, he added, “It will increase your capacity to forward project.”
In other words, he wanted to drive home that AU
When asked by Sara what securing a commitment from Trump meant, the ABC’s John Lyons said: “From America’s point of view, why wouldn’t you? When a country comes along and says we will pay you $380 billion to boost your manufacturing industry in America for submarines you may one day see, of course! America loves the deal.”
But Lyons didn’t mention that while the AUKUS contract commits the US to deliver eight nuclear-powered submarines to Australia by 2032, there’s a condition: under the US legislation, the president of the day can stop the transfer if the American government believes the sale could affect its undersea capabilities, thereby undermining the national interest. To put it plainly: Australia has no way of recovering its money, even if we end up with no submarines.
If AUKUS is such a good deal for the Americans, why does our prime minister feel the need to keep talking up AUKUS to them? KUS is really in America’s national interest.
Could the Albanese government be so desperate to secure a continuous commitment because it needs to convince Australian voters it is doing its utmost to persuade America to stay the course, so that their taxpayer money won’t go down the drain? Perhaps the government believes it can’t afford to let up on the PR surrounding AUKUS in both the US and Australia, even though it isn’t certain the submarines will eventually turn up, nor that they will deter Australia’s enemies?
Australia’s news media are prone to switch from pursuing a “public interest” mandate to a “national interest” mandate when covering foreign policy. For this reason, despite Trump’s assurances this week, they will doubtlessly continue to focus on the trope of “Is AUKUS on track or is it in trouble?” They are likely to keep ignoring or downplaying critical questions such as “What does Australia get out of the AUKUS deal?” and “Will the US submarines keep us safe?”
Both past and present Labor prime ministers, as well as foreign policymakers, like to describe Australia as a middle power. This self-description is consistent with our leaders’ rhetoric of what Australia does: that it is a good global citizen, that it seeks to maintain “the existing global rules-based order”, and that it believes in multilateralism.
Although middle powers have less global influence, they nevertheless exercise agency strategically in the emerging multipolar world as great powers contest the rules of order. They gain influence by mediating between great powers through what international relations theorists call “hedging”.
Such scholars believe that hedging enables middle powers to engage with competing great powers, while avoiding alignment that limits their autonomy. Through hedging, less powerful states preserve sovereignty in a context of uncertainty by balancing engagement and resistance. Our Asian neighbours, such as India, Indonesia and Singapore, do precisely that.
Despite our leaders’ rhetoric, signing up to AUKUS seems to signal that Australia has somewhat voluntarily relinquished its capacity as a middle power to practise effective hedging.
For instance, Sydney University’s James Curran believes AUKUS could mean the US would expect Australia to join them in a potential war with China over Taiwan:
Similarly, the Lowy Institute’s Sam Roggeveen argues that Australia’s deeper alignment with the US and the hosting of US bomber capabilities at Tindal and future nuclear-submarine infrastructure raises the likelihood of Australia becoming “an important target” in a conflict with China.
Neither of the major parties has ruled in or out the possibility that Australia would join the US in a potential war. But despite Defence Minister Richard Marles’ rebuttal of criticism from AUKUS critics over the issue of sovereignty, one thing is clear: unlike many Western European and Scandinavian middle powers, Australia’s constitution implies that decisions to engage in armed conflict are made by the executive government under prerogative powers, not by parliament as a whole.
In other words, the Parliament of Australia apparently has no power to stop Australia from going to war, even though it could be consulted.
It is for these reasons that Clinton Fernandes, in the Future Operations Research Group at UNSW Canberra, believes that “rules-based international order” is a “euphemism” for the US-led imperial order, and that Australia is really a “subimperial power upholding a US-led imperial order”.
Without giving a full account of the myriad concerns raised by critics of AUKUS, let’s just say here that with AUKUS, Australia’s capacity to function as a true middle power — one that is confident of its sovereignty, autonomy and capacity to exercise agency to influence superpowers — seems gravely in doubt. And signing up to AUKUS may be another case study that supports Fendandes’s argument.
Wanning Sun, Contributor
Wanning Sun is a professor of media and cultural studies at the University of Technology, Sydney. She also serves as the deputy director of the UTS Australia-China Relations Institute. She is a fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities and a member of the Australian Research Council’s College of Experts (2020-23). She is best known in the field of China studies for her ethnography of rural-to-urban migration and social inequality in contemporary China. She writes about Chinese diaspora, diasporic Chinese media, and Australia-China relations.
The power (and fun) of protest!
New book, No To Nuclear, delivers serious anti-nuclear messages with a little fun as well.
Linda Pentz Gunter, Oct 23, 2025
On October 18, the people of the United States came out in record numbers to protest the presidency of Donald Trump and his unacceptable descent into dictatorship. No Kings day saw seven million people on US streets across the country, many in costume — whether the now ubiquitous inflatable frogs, Tyrannosauruses against Tyranny or your favorite ‘Aunt Tifa’.
In my forthcoming book, No To Nuclear. Why Nuclear Power Destroys Lives, Derails Climate Progress and Provokes War, I remind readers that the anti-nuclear movement, too, has delivered its share of street theatre along with an important message; end the Nuclear Age in all its forms.
My book will be published next March by Pluto Press but you are encouraged to pre-order your copies now using this form.
In it, I describe the defiance of French anti-nuclear activists in a country that has a long history of often colorful rebellion. Sometimes it’s human “owls” residing in trees under threat at a proposed nuclear waste site. Or stubborn goats, “hard-headed activists” proclaiming their “right to graze in peace” rather than see their pastures plowed up for another nuclear fuel pool at the La Hague reprocessing center. At every turn, the French deliver “considerable numbers, abundant creativity — and sometimes a lot of useful tractors as well.”
It’s a reminder that even though our task to eliminate nuclear power and nuclear weapons can sometimes — even often — feel insurmountable, it’s important to inspire and uplift, just as the millions who protested No Kings last weekend did to their own spirits and that of countless others.
No To Nuclear is intended to provide a chapter-by-chapter indictment of nuclear power (and its connection to nuclear weapons), debunking the mythology around both sectors. There is a lot of serious material in those 220-plus pages and it’s heavily focused on the persistent human right violations by every aspect of the nuclear complex. But I hope some of the stories will bring a smile, too, along with a hefty dose of optimism that we will win this one in the end.
If you’d like to set up a book event in person or online, please contact me at linda@beyondnuclear.org. Thank you! Linda Pentz Gunter
| Beyond Nuclear | 301-270-2209 | 7304 Carroll Ave, #182, Takoma Park, MD 20912 | www.beyondnuclear.org |
UN CLIMATE TALKS -Revealed: Only a third of national climate pledges support ‘transition away from fossil fuels’
Only around a third of the latest country climate pledges submitted to the
UN express support for the “transition away from fossil fuels”,
according to Carbon Brief analysis.
Several countries even have used their
2035 climate plans to commit to increasing the production or use of fossil
fuels, predominately gas, the analysis finds.
The first global stocktake of
progress to tackle climate change, agreed at the COP28 climate summit in
Dubai in 2023, calls on all countries to contribute to “transitioning
away from fossil fuels”. Countries were meant to explain how they are
implementing the outcomes of the global stocktake, including their
contribution to transitioning away from fossil fuels, in their latest
climate plans.
However, just 23 of the 63 plans submitted to the UN so far
express support for “transitioning away from fossil fuels”, or the
“phase out” or “phase down” of their use.
In addition, sixcountries, including Russia, Nigeria and Morocco, use their climate plans to commit to boosting gas production. Some two-thirds of countries have not yet announced or submitted their pledges, missing not only the UN deadline of 10 February, but also an extension to September. How to address the lack of sufficient action from countries with their latest plans is billed to be one of the major issues up for debate at the COP30 climate summit in Brazil next month.
Carbon Brief 22nd Oct 2025, https://www.carbonbrief.org/revealed-only-a-third-of-national-climate-pledges-support-transition-away-from-fossil-fuels/
Climate disasters in first half of 2025 costliest ever on record, research shows.
The first half of 2025 was the costliest on record for major disasters in
the US, driven by huge wildfires in Los Angeles and storms that battered
much of the rest of the country, according to a climate non-profit that has
resurrected work axed by Donald Trump’s administration that tracked the
biggest disasters.
In the first six months of this year, 14 separate
weather-related disasters that each caused at least $1bn in damage hit the US, the Climate Central group has calculated. In total, these events cost
$101bn in damages – lost homes, businesses, highways and other
infrastructure – a toll higher than any other first half of a year since
records on this began in 1980.
Guardian 22nd Oct 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/22/climate-disasters-2025-cost
UK Government planning for nuclear power in Scotland in anticipation of a Labour 2026 victory
A senior UK Government minister also says Scottish
independence would be a win for Vladimir Putin. The UK government could
soon start submitting planning applications for new nuclear power stations
in Scotland in anticipation of a Labour administration at Holyrood. A
senior government source said ministers do not want Scotland “to be left
behind” and suggested potential sites including Torness in East Lothian
were being actively considered.
A senior government source said that civil
nuclear companies see Scotland as “off limits” because of the SNP’s
stance on nuclear energy. However, they said: “The reality is planning
law is devolved and so that requires a change of government in Holyrood
next May to translate these possibilities but we are planning practical
changes on the ground because we don’t want Scotland to be left behind.”
Scottish Labour has high hopes of winning the 2026 Scottish Parliament
election and its leader Anas Sarwar has repeatedly lauded the benefits of
nuclear power. However the party has slipped back in the polls and is now
several percentage points behind the SNP, who are the current favourites to
win on polling day.
Scotsman 22nd Oct 2025, https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/uk-government-planning-for-nuclear-power-in-scotland-in-anticipation-of-a-labour-2026-victory-5369530
NRC: Individual fell into ‘reactor cavity’ at Palisades Nuclear Plant
The United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission said the person fell into the reactor cavity, ingested cavity water and was transported off-site.
Steven Bohner, October 22, 2025, https://www.wzzm13.com/article/news/local/nrc-individual-fell-into-reactor-cavity-palisades-nuclear-plant/69-8c68f69f-4b48-4869-b66a-f3b18e8c7bbb
COVERT, Mich. — The United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) said an individual fell into a “reactor cavity” at the Palisades Nuclear Plant in Covert, Mich.
The NRC said the incident happened on Oct. 21, around 9:30 a.m., when an individual fell into a reactor cavity at the plant. They said the individual ingested “some amount” of the cavity water, and was decontaminated by radiation protection personnel before being taken off-site to seek medical attention about nine hours later at 4:32 p.m.
The NRC report said the individual had “300 counts per minute detected in their hair,” and categorized the individual as “contaminated.” The report listed the incident as a non-emergency.
The reactor cavity is a space between the reactor vessel and a concrete shield surrounding the reactor, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Holtec International provided 13 ON YOUR SIDE with the following comment:
“While performing work inside the containment building, a Palisades contractor fell into a pool of water located above the reactor. The contractor was wearing all required personal protective equipment, including a life vest, which is standard when working near the pool without a barrier in place. The worker was promptly assisted from the water, evaluated, monitored, and decontaminated for removable contamination in accordance with established industry standards and safety procedures. Radiological assessments are ongoing and are expected to confirm exposure well below regulatory and administrative dose limits. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission was properly notified, and a review of human performance factors contributing to the incident is underway. The worker sustained minor injuries from their fall and has since returned to work.”
The Palisades Nuclear Plant is in the process of restarting its 800-megawatt reactor. Once restarted, Palisades would become the first nuclear power plant in the United States scheduled to restart its reactor after its fuel had been removed.
In July, the NRC approved a series of licensing and regulatory actions that are essential for the plant to restart, including allowing Holtec to load fuel into the reactor.
At the time of the incident, it is unclear if fuel was present in the reactor.
Gaza ceasefire is an illusion – starvation and killings still continuing
Martin Jay, Strategic Culture Foundation, Tue, 21 Oct 2025 , https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/10/21/gaza-ceasefire-is-an-illusion-starvation-and-killings-still-continuing/
Just how much of what we see in mainstream media about Gaza is the real story? Actually none of it is true as the bigger, darker game being played is all about preparing for a war with Iran.
How’s the so-called ceasefire holding up in Gaza? You might be forgiven for thinking that it is anything but a ceasefire but more of an illusion created by the U.S. and a deal which can be broken at any moment by Israel if and when it sees capital to be gained there. Indeed, if there is one thing Bibi Netanyahu is renowned for, it is breaking ceasefires and so it should come as little surprise that he recently did that, supposedly to attack Hamas fighters which Israel claimed were posing a threat.
Let’s be clear. The ceasefire is really all about boosting Trump’s credibility as a statesman and giving Netanyahu breathing space to re-equip his army, ahead of an inevitable war with Iran. It is anything but a peace deal with the Palestinians but more of a bluff which was really about giving Netanyahu a shot in the arm amongst voters as he gets the credit for bringing back the hostages. But what is the real story? What is behind all this and reports of ISIS fighters being shipped in to take on Hamas?
How’s the so-called ceasefire holding up in Gaza? You might be forgiven for thinking that it is anything but a ceasefire but more of an illusion created by the U.S. and a deal which can be broken at any moment by Israel if and when it sees capital to be gained there. Indeed, if there is one thing Bibi Netanyahu is renowned for, it is breaking ceasefires and so it should come as little surprise that he recently did that, supposedly to attack Hamas fighters which Israel claimed were posing a threat.
Let’s be clear. The ceasefire is really all about boosting Trump’s credibility as a statesman and giving Netanyahu breathing space to re-equip his army, ahead of an inevitable war with Iran. It is anything but a peace deal with the Palestinians but more of a bluff which was really about giving Netanyahu a shot in the arm amongst voters as he gets the credit for bringing back the hostages. But what is the real story? What is behind all this and reports of ISIS fighters being shipped in to take on Hamas?
The smooth media operator who is comfortable doing ‘pieces to camera’ like broadcast journalists stirred up controversy recently when he made a series of films of him standing in front of UN aid trucks driving past, supposedly heading for Gaza. Sara Wilkinson, a UK-based activist who is often in Gaza, claimed that the trucks were actually only moving in and out of a UN compound and that the whole stunt was dishonest.
My own personal experience with Fletcher is that he smeared my name in Lebanon in 2015 as a pathetic act of petulance following an interview I wrote up about him which, in places, revealed him to be at best a lame diplomat winging it, at worse misinformed and woefully ignorant of regional politics. His response was to defame me in front of a group of visiting MEPs which backfired as the hapless buffoon didn’t realize that I had worked in Brussels previously for a decade and most of the MEPs knew me (or knew of me) and respected my work. One of them even invited me for a working breakfast the next day and was shocked at how immature and vindictive he was.
World
Gaza ceasefire is an illusion – starvation and killings still continuing
October 21, 2025
© Photo: Public domain
Just how much of what we see in mainstream media about Gaza is the real story? Actually none of it is true as the bigger, darker game being played is all about preparing for a war with Iran.
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Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su
How’s the so-called ceasefire holding up in Gaza? You might be forgiven for thinking that it is anything but a ceasefire but more of an illusion created by the U.S. and a deal which can be broken at any moment by Israel if and when it sees capital to be gained there. Indeed, if there is one thing Bibi Netanyahu is renowned for, it is breaking ceasefires and so it should come as little surprise that he recently did that, supposedly to attack Hamas fighters which Israel claimed were posing a threat.
Let’s be clear. The ceasefire is really all about boosting Trump’s credibility as a statesman and giving Netanyahu breathing space to re-equip his army, ahead of an inevitable war with Iran. It is anything but a peace deal with the Palestinians but more of a bluff which was really about giving Netanyahu a shot in the arm amongst voters as he gets the credit for bringing back the hostages. But what is the real story? What is behind all this and reports of ISIS fighters being shipped in to take on Hamas?
What we are witnessing is an illusion on a grand scale. Israel has not really stopped its military campaign against the Palestinians there and is still killing Gazans on a daily basis. It is also not feeding them as legacy media likes to assert but in reality the starvation policy is still in place. The West likes to create the narrative that the Gazans are getting fed now with aid shipments whereas in reality these trucks are not getting through. Tom Fletcher, a man comfortable in his role as someone who lies to the press in his previous role of British ambassador to Lebanon is the UN’s relief chief who claims that his operation is feeding one million Gazans a day? But can we believe the softly spoken former diplomat?
The smooth media operator who is comfortable doing ‘pieces to camera’ like broadcast journalists stirred up controversy recently when he made a series of films of him standing in front of UN aid trucks driving past, supposedly heading for Gaza. Sara Wilkinson, a UK-based activist who is often in Gaza, claimed that the trucks were actually only moving in and out of a UN compound and that the whole stunt was dishonest.
My own personal experience with Fletcher is that he smeared my name in Lebanon in 2015 as a pathetic act of petulance following an interview I wrote up about him which, in places, revealed him to be at best a lame diplomat winging it, at worse misinformed and woefully ignorant of regional politics. His response was to defame me in front of a group of visiting MEPs which backfired as the hapless buffoon didn’t realize that I had worked in Brussels previously for a decade and most of the MEPs knew me (or knew of me) and respected my work. One of them even invited me for a working breakfast the next day and was shocked at how immature and vindictive he was.
Fletcher is just all spin. He is hollow and has no substance and only made the news in Lebanon almost on a daily basis for being photographed with super models with bee sting lips and fake boobs while his podgy Irish wife stood behind him with eyes rolling. He is so vain that he gave a photoshoot to a local TimeOut magazine posing as James Bond in front of a British supercar and has a fabulous contempt for free speech. But of course he is a good communicator. He is the man to go to if you have a grand illusion to pull off for Israel as he will happily make that magician’s trick happen by misinforming the press and the greater public about what is the real story.
Gazans are not only still starving but according to a number of top analysts like Lawrence Wilkerson are still being killed at gunpoint (airstrikes) by Israel at feeding centres. So what exactly is the role of this UN body which Fletcher heads up?
The aid trucks are a huge deception conjured up to draw us away from not only a more nefarious, bloody plan which is about to kick off in Gaza but a bigger existential threat to the West and in particular America, which is coming Trump’s way. Like a moth being drawn to a flame, Netanyahu is preparing for war with Iran and this time it will be nuclear.
Some pundits wrongly pour over the subject of the power struggle between Israel and the U.S., with many pointing to the power of AIPAC within the deep state. It is a common idea that Israel completely controls Trump – a notion I sign up to. But we miss the point.
Yes, it’s true that Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner will make billions in real estate deals in Gaza. The point though is that Trump will no longer have any cards to play if a war starts with Iran. He will be forced to join Israel with its Samsonesque suicide doctrine. The problem with a war with Iran is that it is unwinnable for Israel and more to the point, a disaster for Western hegemony. War with Iran, even if it were only with Iran, doesn’t favour Israel even backed by the U.S. But war with Iran goes beyond the country’s borders as since the Donald was reported to have directed U.S. attacks against Iran’s nuclear bunkers and since it was reported that they had severely damaged them, Saudi Arabia has signed a nuclear pact with Pakistan and both Russia and China are stepping up their military procurement for Iran.
Iran is no longer alone and the first U.S. bunker buster bombs have, if anything, conglomerated these regional powers’ support for Iran. Put bluntly, China simply cannot afford to have its economy threatened by Iran’s cheap oil being halted and Russia needs Iranian drones. To allow Israel, backed by the U.S., to go ahead with a nuclear strike on Iran poses such an existential threat to both Russia and China that is inconceivable that there will be no counter strike on Israel which has never been seen before, which might well mean the end of Israel as we know it. There are no good outcomes to Bibi’s plan to begin a war with Iran and Trump fears more than ever being dragged into it. Yet for the moment, the Gaza ceasefire can be seen for what it is. An illusion, rather like those marching bands and performing artists which come onto a soccer pitch during the half time break which you don’t pay too much attention to and Tom Fletcher is the effeminate wanker leading them spinning his gilt baton and his sparkling teeth.
Vaunted Trump Ceasefire? Israel has a genocidal Palestinian ethnic cleaning to complete
Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL, 22 Oct 25, https://theaimn.net/vaunted-trump-ceasefire-faggedaboudit-israel-has-a-genocidal-palestinian-ethnic-cleaning-to-complete/#google_vignette
The tremendous support given to Trump’s second ceasefire in Israel’s genocide in Gaza ignores reality and history.
How quickly the Trump high-fivers forget Israel abandoned Trump’s first ceasefire that lasted from January 19 to March 18. During that time Israel continued to kill hundreds of Palestinians while restricting food, water and medicine. Then, with Trump’s bombs, they resumed their grotesque genocide further obliterating Gaza while killing tens of thousands more Palestinians.
The first ceasefire released 33 Israeli hostages, leaving 48 to languish as Israel returned to their first priority, ridding Gaza of its Palestinians not yet disappeared. It took nearly 7 months for pressure to build on Israel to agree to a second ceasefire to return remaining hostages, 20 living and 28 dead.
But like Ceasefire 1, Ceasefire 2 is just genocidal ethnic cleansing by subtler means. In the first 9 days, Israel’s military has killed or wounded nearly 400 Palestinians, while again restricting food, water and medicine. Israel still occupies over half of Gaza, establishing yellow lines forbidding Palestinians to cross.
On ceasefire day 10 Israel unleased massive air strikes across Gaza. In their most grotesque ceasefire violation, Israel bombed a vehicle that strayed across Israel’s yellow line, killing 11 family members including 3 women and 7 kids.
Was Trump outraged? Only at Hamas who he’s threatening to obliterate by giving Israel the green light to ‘finish the job.’
This should surprise no one with a moral conscience. Israel has been violating the ceasefire in Lebanon for nearly a year. During that time they’ve killed over 4,000 Lebanese, destroyed tens of thousands of homes and gobbled up 5 Lebanese areas.
That’s some ceasefire you negotiated Mr. Trump. All you accomplished is delay Israel’s one and only goal…bringing a Palestinian free Gaza into Greater Israel.
Gaza Officials Say Israel Has Violated Ceasefire 80 Times in First 10 Days
Israel carried out a bombardment on Sunday after two Israeli soldiers were apparently killed in an explosion.
By Sharon Zhang , Truthout, October 20, 2025, https://truthout.org/articles/gaza-officials-say-israel-has-violated-ceasefire-80-times-in-first-10-days/
srael has committed at least 80 violations of the ceasefire agreement since it began just 10 days ago, Palestinian officials have said, leaving hundreds of casualties as Israeli officials threaten to return to their extermination campaign now that the living Israeli captives have been returned.
In a statement on Sunday, the Gaza Government Media Office said that Israel had killed 97 Palestinians and injured over 230 amid the ceasefire. These violations show the Israeli government’s wish to break the agreement and return to its genocidal aggression, the office said.
“These violations ranged from direct fire against civilians to deliberate shelling and targeting, the use of simultaneous air strikes, and the arrest of a number of civilians,” it said, per Al Jazeera’s translation. “These practices reflect the occupation’s continued aggressive approach, its clear desire for escalation on the ground, and its constant thirst for blood and killing.”
This includes an attack on Friday in northern Gaza, in which Israel attacked a vehicle and killed 11 members of the same family, simply trying to return to their home. The attack killed seven children. Israel claimed that the vehicle had crossed a line of demarcation where Israeli forces are still deployed — an area that encompasses the majority of Gaza and that is not clearly marked by the military.
“They had crossed the so-called ‘yellow line’, an imaginary boundary mentioned by the Israeli army,” said Mahmoud Basal, Gaza Civil Defense spokesperson, per The Guardian. “I am certain the family couldn’t distinguish between the yellow and red lines because there are no actual physical markers on the ground.”
It also includes numerous violations on Sunday, during which Israel seemingly temporarily suspended the ceasefire agreement after two Israeli soldiers were killed in an explosion in Rafah. Israel blamed Hamas, saying that fighters fired an anti-tank and carried out a bombardment and said it would end all humanitarian aid delivery.
However, shortly after, Israeli officials said the ceasefire was back on and that it had resumed aid delivery. Officials did not give a reason, but Drop Site journalist Ryan Grim reported that the explosion actually happened when an Israeli settler ran over an unexploded ordnance.
“Soon after the explosion in Rafah, I’m told by a source familiar, the White House and Pentagon knew that the incident was caused by an Israeli settler bulldozer running over unexploded ordnance — contradicting [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s claim that Hamas had popped up from tunnels,” Grim wrote on social media.
“After Netanyahu said he was blocking all aid from entering Gaza in response, and unleashed a bombing campaign, the administration conveyed to Israel that they know what happened. Netanyahu then announced he would re-open the crossings in a few hours,” he went on.
Palestinian journalist Younis Tirawi also reported this, and further said that the Israeli government implemented a gag order to the media on the incident. Axios reporter Barak Ravid similarly said that Israeli officials said it was due to pressure from the Trump administration that the decision was turned back.
Israel has already been limiting aid into Gaza and refusing to open the Rafah border crossing, once the most important crossings for aid delivery. Officials accuse Hamas of violating its agreement to release Israeli captives’ bodies, but officials have said that it is impossible to retrieve all of the bodies as long as Israel continues blocking the entry of heavy equipment that can clear rubble.
Top Israeli ministers have been pushing for an end to the ceasefire. “Enough with the folding,” wrote Defense Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir on X on Sunday.
A Genuinely Just Transition: Kill Off Sizewell C – Shaft Reform UK
the insanity of Labour’s nuclear obsession
Jonathon Porritt. 23 Oct 25,
https://jonathonporritt.com/just-transition-uk-sizewell-c-reform/
I’ve been more than a little mean about Ed Miliband in my last two blogs – which is somewhat ungenerous given that he would appear to be the last sensible, caring person standing in this misbegotten Labour Government.
So, let me big him up for a bit!
Last Saturday, he gave what is probably his most important speech since becoming Secretary of State at DESNZ – on what (in my opinion) is probably the single most important policy area within the sprawling DESNZ portfolio: the green economy, skills, energy efficiency, retrofit etc.
He was unveiling details of the Government’s latest scheme to create an extra 400,000 ‘green jobs’ over the course of the next few years. Thirty one skilled trades have been identified as priority areas, with HVAC (heating and ventilation engineers) and plumbing at the top of the list, with carpenters, electricians and welders next in line.
The Government won’t just be targeting those particular skills, but those who they hope will end up in the new jobs: school leavers, NEETS, veterans, ex-offenders – and those exiting the once safe embrace of fossil fuel jobs (the package includes a designated fund of £20 million to upskill workers from the oil and gas industries). Miliband indicated that any companies benefiting from Government money will have to demonstrate the contribution they can make to those goals.
There wasn’t anything like enough in the speech about ramping up the current retrofitting programmes to reduce still chronic levels of fuel poverty here in the UK, let alone about opportunities to support energy efficiency schemes across the economy – including the highly effective SALIX scheme which is allocated a miserly £32 million a year.
As we all need to keep reminding people, overall energy consumption here in the UK has actually declined by a massive 28% over the last 20 years – one of the reasons why our greenhouse gas emissions have declined by 40% during that time. As the indefatigable Andrew Warren points out:
“There is no good reason why this trend should not continue. There are still approaching nine million homes on the gas network running gas-guzzling boilers, and many of these could readily switch to electric heating. There are still some fifteen million homes with grossly inadequate insulation. And still a majority without energy efficient glazing”.
So let’s hope we hear more about these critical areas in the future. But for the time being, let’s celebrate what looks like Labour’s most substantive attempt yet to set about a genuinely ‘just transition’ away from fossil fuels.
And that’s why Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves should go on backing Ed Miliband every step of this politically contested way! The two of them still seem to have not the first idea of how to combat the surging success of Reform UK in the polls – other than to claim (pretty idiotically) that they will deliver Nigel Farage’s agenda in a rather nicer and less aggressive way.
By contrast, Miliband gets the true threat from Reform to Labour. His interview on Sunday with Laura Kunzberg was splendidly combative, providing Labour with its strongest strapline yet: that Reform UK “is waging war on jobs”.
“Obviously, this is a massive fight with Reform. Reformers say they will wage war on clean energy. Well, that’s waging war on these jobs….. it’s all part of its attempt at a culture war, but I actually think they’re out of tune with the British people because I think people recognise that we need the jobs from clean energy”.
If I wasn’t somewhat suspicious of the whole idea of ‘eco-populism’, I’d say this is a very clear signal of Miliband taking the fight directly to the climate-denying neanderthals in both Reform and Badenoch’s Tory party – and, in the process, reminding Zack Polanski, the Green Party’s new leader, that he shouldn’t expect to command this territory unchallenged!
Which is precisely why my blog yesterday – about the insanity of Labour’s nuclear obsession – highlighted the scale of the challenge Ed Miliband faces. This whole ‘green economy’ commitment has been allocated £880 million in the DESNZ budget – 50% of what Sizewell C will get in direct subsidy! And that’s before we all start paying through the nose for Sizewell C on our electricity bills. It’s abundantly clear that this newly unveiled strategy is going to need a whole lot more backing than that.
Which is why Miliband has a very strong signal to send to Rachel Reeves: kill off Sizewell C – shaft Reform.
The Palestinian Authority may become a casualty of the Trump plan and the new Western consensus
Western support for a two-state solution was never intended to create Palestinian statehood — it was meant to justify the existence of the Palestinian Authority. Now that the Western consensus is shifting, so are thoughts about the need for the PA.
Monodoweiss, By Qassam Muaddi October 17, 2025
Total and lasting “forever” peace. Not just for Palestine, but the entire Middle East.
That’s what U.S. President Donald Trump promised at the signing of the Gaza ceasefire deal in Egypt last week. One way the plan differs from previous incarnations of the “peace process” is that it abandons the framework of the two-state solution as the accepted way of resolving the Palestine question.
Historically, the U.S. model for integrating Israel into the region was the establishment of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in 1994 after the Oslo Accords, which was given limited governing responsibilities over the West Bank and Gaza with the nominal assumption that it would be the precursor to a Palestinian state.
Trump’s plan tries to bypass all of this, putting Gaza under the administration of a U.S.-led board of “peace” headed by Trump himself. The PA has no clear role in running the Strip — at least not according to Trump’s 20 points, which mentions that the PA would have to undergo a series of “reforms” that could, in some unspecified future, establish “a path” toward Palestinian self-determination. During the reconstruction phase, the West Bank and Gaza would be politically split.
Israel has made its rejection of a Palestinian state official policy. But it is also a matter of national consensus across the Israeli political spectrum, as recently articulated by Benny Gantz, a member of the opposition, in the New York Times.
It goes back to well before October 7…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Since the beginning of Israel’s war on Gaza two years ago, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly insisted that the PA will have no role in governing the Strip in the future. Yet the calls by Ben-Gvir and the Israeli far right to abolish the PA altogether are not so easy to implement.
The PA runs civil affairs in the West Bank, responsibilities that would otherwise fall to Israel. It also sustains the image of a peace process on which most Western countries and the UN base their official positions, anchored in the rhetoric of a “two-state solution.”
But nominal Western support for a two-state solution was never meant to actually implement it. Rather, the function this support has ended up performing has been to maintain the political rationale for supporting the continued existence of the PA. The demands of the maximalist Israeli far right have placed this in jeopardy.
If Trump’s “peace” plan, if one can call it that, is to have a chance, it would need some European buy-in, especially in funding and bankrolling the so-called “reforms.” That puts it at odds with the maximalist Israeli position.
Last Monday, as the leaders of 20 countries met in Egypt’s Sharm al-Sheikh to sign the Gaza ceasefire deal, the President of the European Council, Antonio Costa, told the media that the EU would increase its aid to the PA by 1.6 billion euros. He added that European intervention will focus on humanitarian aid, police training, governance, border control, and PA reforms, to ensure that “in the future, Palestine will be a democratic state, free of terrorism.”
The new global consensus
The PA has already adopted a political platform that recognizes Israel, rejects armed resistance, and commits to security cooperation. But the PA is also part of a larger Palestinian political spectrum. Even if there aren’t elections, the PA is still bound to operate in relation to other Palestinian political forces. This sets a bare minimum “floor” that the PA is obliged to maintain, which is the rhetorical insistence on a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, and perhaps as an afterthought, paying some lip service to the right of return. Decades of Palestinian struggle since the Nakba have made it impossible for the PA to rhetorically sidestep this political ethos, even though it has done virtually everything on the ground to render it materially meaningless.
In other words, the PA cannot abandon its pretenses to being Palestinian and representing some notion of Palestinian nationhood. This is what Palestinians fear the “reforms” are about — turning the PA into a self-governing and apolitical body shorn of any remnants of Palestinian national culture and memory………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. https://mondoweiss.net/2025/10/the-trump-plan-the-palestinian-authority-and-the-new-western-consensus/
Why Tony Blair governing Gaza would result in more war crimes.
Soldiers who served under his command in Iraq got away with sexually assaulting prisoners, in scenes similar to Israel’s torture of Palestinians.
IRFAN CHOWDHURY, 8 October 2025, https://www.declassifieduk.org/why-tony-blair-governing-gaza-would-result-in-more-war-crimes/
Under US president Donald Trump’s new plan for Gaza, former British prime minister Tony Blair has been touted as having a senior role in governing Gaza, acting as a deputy to Trump himself.
Aside from the obvious neo-colonial implications of this – Western Viceroys ruling over occupied Arabs, as opposed to those occupied Arabs being granted self-determination – Blair’s track record of human rights violations makes him deeply unsuitable for the job.
Blair made the decision in 2003 to join with the US in invading and occupying Iraq. Human Rights Watch has noted that “UK nationals committed abuses in Iraq after 2003 on a significant scale”.
Many of these abuses stemmed from policies that were implemented by Britain’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) under Blair’s leadership, wherein abusive interrogation techniques were authorised from above.
Under Blair’s MoD, ‘harshing’ was authorised – this constitutes a technique of psychological abuse wherein an interrogator screams into a detainee’s face, making implicit threats of violence and engaging in personal insults and vitriol.
‘Uncontrolled fury’
Justice Andrew Collins observed at the High Court in 2013: “There can be no doubt that the practices carried out under the guidelines then in place were unacceptable. The harsh technique included the following elements which could be deployed as the questioner considered necessary.
“The shouting could be as loud as possible. There could be what was described as uncontrolled fury, shouting with cold menace and then developing, the questioner’s voice and actions showing psychotic tendencies, and there could be personal abuse.”
Sir William Gage, who chaired the Baha Mousa Inquiry in 2011, noted: “The teaching of the ‘harsh’ permitted insults not just of the performance of the captured prisoner but personal and abusive insults including racist and homophobic language.
“The ‘harsh’ was designed to show anger on the part of the questioner. It ran the risk of being a form of intimidation to coerce answers from prisoners.
“It involved forms of threats which while in some senses indirect were designed to instil in prisoners a fear of what might happen to them, including physically.”
Footage published by The Guardian in 2010 of Iraqi detainees being harshed by British soldiers makes for harrowing viewing.
Nicholas Mercer, who served as the British Army’s chief legal advisor in Iraq in 2003, has stated that in his view, harshing is a violation of the Geneva Conventions.
Sexually abusing prisoners
In 2005, under Blair’s MoD, training documents at the headquarters of the British Army’s Intelligence Corps in Chicksands encouraged interrogators to sexually humiliate detainees as a form of conditioning and for punitive purposes.
One training aid stated: “Get them naked. Keep them naked if they do not follow commands.”
Another training aid encouraged the use of blindfolds in order to put pressure on detainees; harshing was also encouraged.
During the same period, a training document at Chicksands explicitly stated that “Sexual frustration” was a vulnerability that interrogators were allowed to exploit in detainees.
I have written about how between 2006 and 2007, evidence suggests that interrogators from the Intelligence Corps subjected detained Iraqi men to widespread sexual abuse at the Shaibah Logistics Base in southern Iraq.
Ian Cobain noted in regard to these training documents at Chicksands: “This material was created for the instruction of ‘tactical questioners’, who conduct initial interrogations of prisoners of war, as well as for the instruction of servicemen and women from all three branches of the armed forces who conduct ‘interrogation in depth’.
“The material suggests not only that British military interrogators have employed techniques that may be in breach of the International Criminal Court Act, but that the MoD has spent a considerable amount of time and money training them to do just that.”
‘Misguided zeal’
Blair’s MoD also oversaw a near-total lack of accountability for even the most serious war crimes in Iraq.
After photographs emerged in 2005 showing British soldiers physically abusing Iraqi civilians, stripping them naked, and forcing them to simulate oral and anal sex at Camp Breadbasket in southern Iraq, none of the Iraqi victims were called to give evidence at the subsequent court martial proceedings.
The Army Prosecuting Authority’s excuse for not calling the victims to give evidence is that it could not locate them – this is despite the fact that the Independent on Sunday was able to locate the victims and interview them.
None of the soldiers who were responsible for what the Judge Advocate described as “perhaps the worst of these offences” – namely, forcing detainees to simulate oral and anal sex – were prosecuted.
The images are reminiscent of what Israel has done to Palestinian detainees at its Sde Teiman camp in the Negev desert.
Captain Dan Taylor, who issued the order for the detainees to be “worked hard” at Camp Breadbasket, was exonerated by the British Army before the court martial proceedings even began.
The military determined that while his order was “unlawful”, he had “acted with well-meaning and sincere but misguided zeal”. He was subsequently promoted from the rank of Captain to Major.
‘Unacceptable’
Similarly, in the 2003 case of Ahmed Jabbar Kareem Ali – a 15-year-old Iraqi boy who British soldiers beat and forced to enter a canal, where he drowned – the Royal Military Police’s Special Investigation Branch failed to conduct a proper investigation into the killing.
The MoD also massively delayed the court martial proceedings, which saw all of the soldiers being acquitted.
The court martial of the soldiers did not convene until 28 months after the incident – a delay which Brigadier Robert Aitken, who was commissioned to look into cases of detainee abuse, criticised as “unacceptable”.
These soldiers were all later deemed culpable for Ahmed’s death in a public judicial inquiry that took place in 2016, although some still dispute its findings.
The European Court of Human Rights examined this case, and found that “the Special Investigation Branch was not, during the relevant period, operationally independent from the military chain of command”.
It added: “no explanation has been provided by the Government in respect of the long delay between the death and the court martial.
“It appears that the delay seriously undermined the effectiveness of the investigation, not least because some of the soldiers accused of involvement in the incident were by then untraceable.”
The man who oversaw all these abuses – Tony Blair – should not be appointed to have any role in governing the people of Gaza; a people who have been subjected to a campaign of genocide, who are deeply traumatised, and who deserve to live with dignity and safety.
Most troubling is Trump’s stipulation that the people of Gaza must be “deradicalized” – if this “deradicalization” process is overseen by Blair, and involves a programme of detention and punishment, then it is virtually guaranteed that egregious human rights violations will occur.
This is not to mention that if anyone needs to be “deradicalized” in this conflict, it is the genocidal Israeli leadership and Israeli society who have perpetrated one of the gravest crimes in modern history in Gaza, as well as the likes of Blair himself – who appears to view the lives of Arabs as inferior to his own.
Irfan Chowdhury is a freelance writer and PhD student at the University of Brighton. His PhD is titled: ‘’How systematic were the British Army’s war crimes in Iraq between 2003 and 2009? An investigation into Britain’s abuse of underage Iraqi boys’. He has had articles published in Bella Caledonia, Iraq Now, Mondoweiss, Roar News, Peace News, Hastings In Focus, Interfere Journal, and Norman Finkelstein’s website.
‘You and the Atom Bomb’: how George Orwell’s 1945 essay predicted the Cold War and nuclear proliferation
October 20, 2025, Ibrahim Al-Marashi, Adjunct Professor, IE School of Humanities, IE University; California State University San Marcos, https://theconversation.com/you-and-the-atom-bomb-how-george-orwells-1945-essay-predicted-the-cold-war-and-nuclear-proliferation-267708
August 2025 marked the 80th anniversary of the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Just a month after the attacks, on 19 October 1945, George Orwell published an essay in the London Tribune, entitled “You and the Atom Bomb”. In it, he surmised what if “the great nations make a tacit agreement never to use the atomic bomb against one another?” He wrote that what would emerge is a “peace that is no peace”, and “a permanent state of ‘cold war’”, introducing an enduring metaphor that would define geopolitics for decades.
In the essay, Orwell also predicted nuclear proliferation: “The bomb is fantastically expensive and that its manufacture demands an enormous industrial effort, such as only three or four countries in the world are capable of making.” Indeed, all five permanent members of the Security Council of the United Nations (UN), which was also established 80 years ago, have now obtained “the bomb”, the USSR being the second in 1949.
Since then, its threat has shaped and justified global conflict. Both Iraq and Iran have been accused of seeking the bomb, but instead of diplomatic non-proliferation, the US and Israel have, in both cases, used armed force to prevent these nations from obtaining nuclear weapons.
One of the reasons the UN approved the 1991 Gulf War was the existence of intelligence that Iraq had a nuclear weapons program. In 2003, the US and UK attempted to get the UN to approve a similar war to dismantle Iraq’s alleged nuclear weapons – based on flawed intelligence that had been plagiarised from my very own University of Oxford thesis.
In June 2025, Israel attacked Iran for allegedly seeking a nuclear weapon, also on the basis of “intelligence” reports. The world held its breath during the ensuing 12-day war, which could all too easily have escalated into nuclear conflict.
Today, artificial intelligence (AI) may allow a nation or terrorist group to build an atomic bomb in ways that Orwell’s contemporaries – the likes of Einstein and Oppenheimer – could have never envisioned.
Novels and the Cold War
In 1949, just four years after You and the Atom Bomb, Orwell’s novel 1984 was published. It is a dystopian novel that foreshadows the Cold War he had predicted in 1945, with three fictional geopolitical blocs – Oceania (North America and Britain), Eurasia (USSR and Europe), and Eastasia (China and its neighbours) – forming a series of ever-shifting alliances to control the “Disputed territories.”
The novel was prescient – it written before the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato) and the Warsaw Pact, and before terms such as the “First”, “Second” and “Third World” had taken root.
However, it was his contemporary, WWII British Naval Intelligence officer Ian Fleming, who used the novel to predict a different facet of 21st century power dynamics. In his wildly successful James Bond novels (and their even more popular film adaptations), the greatest threat to global security is not national governments like the USSR, but super-powerful individual actors, such as criminal mastermind Ernst Stavro Blofeld and the scientist Dr No.
In recent decades, Fleming’s vision of concentrated individual power as the nexus of geopolitical threat has materialised time and time again. In 2001, Osama bin Laden ushered in the 20-year Global War on Terror. Media mogul Rupert Murdoch holds inordinate power over international politics, swaying elections and major votes like the 2016 Brexit vote. It was Elon Musk, not NASA, who created a space program and provided internet to Ukraine after the 2022 Russian invasion, giving SpaceX power not seen since the days of the British East India Company.
Atomic AI and dirty bombs
The path to obtaining a nuclear weapon has not changed much since Hiroshima, though AI might make it easier for states that seek atomic bombs. Advances in AI may also make it easier for a terrorist group to produce and detonate a conventional explosive combined with radioactive material, causing psychological and economic disruption, otherwise known as a “dirty bomb”.
Orwell’s writing exposes the hypocrisy of this term, as he forces us to ask whether it means that regular nuclear weapons are, by default, “clean bombs”. Nevertheless, for all the fear of an improvised, terrorist dirty bomb attack, the dirtiest are those covered with depleted uranium (DU), which are widely used by Western military forces.
DU was initially produced 80 years ago as a “waste” by-product of uranium enrichment during the Manhattan Project. Its scientists discovered that it could be used to create armour-piercing weapons.
These were used by the US and UK during both the 1991 Gulf War and 2003 Iraq War. They still contaminate the soil, leading to cancer, birth defects, and other illnesses. Today, Ukraine not only suffers from the continuing fallout of Chernobyl – both it and Russia have been using these weapons since 2022.
Fake news in 1945
While AI has supercharged what we typically think of as Orwellian – surveillance states like those depicted in 1984 – Orwell also wrote about how technology allowed for misinformation. In 1944, he questioned fake reports of non-existent German air raids over Britain which were broadcast on Nazi radio, and highlighted their value as propaganda in the event of a potential German victory.
Today, 80 years on, the same thing is still happening. In June 2025, during the 12-Day War between Israel and Iran, AI-fabricated deepfake videos showed nuclear mushroom clouds detonating over destroyed Iranian atomic facilities.
Some argue today that the Cold War between Washington and Moscow never ended, giving Orwell’s metaphor an enduring legacy. Nevertheless, US writer and political commentator Walter Lippman is generally credited for inventing the term in 1947, proving Orwell’s assertion from the novel 1984: “He who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past.”
Israel Launches Wave of Heavy Airstrikes Across Gaza, Killing at Least 45
Reports contradict Israel’s claim that its troops came under attack in Rafah on Sunday
by Dave DeCamp | October 19, 2025, https://news.antiwar.com/2025/10/19/israel-launches-wave-of-heavy-airstrikes-across-gaza-killing-at-least-21/
The Israeli military launched heavy airstrikes across Gaza on Sunday, killing at least 45 Palestinians, marking the deadliest day of Israeli attacks in the Strip since the ceasefire went into effect on October 10.
The IDF stepped up its attacks on Gaza after alleging its troops were attacked by Palestinian militants in Rafah, southern Gaza, though some reports indicate an explosion was caused by an Israeli vehicle running over an unexploded bomb.
Hamas denied responsibility for the incident in Rafah on Sunday, saying it hasn’t been in contact with its fighters in the area. “We confirm our full commitment to carrying out everything that was agreed, first and foremost the ceasefire in all areas of the Gaza Strip,” Hamas’s armed wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, said in a statement.
“We have no knowledge of any incidents or clashes taking place in the Rafah area, since these are red zones under occupation control, and contact with what remains of our groups there has been cut off since the war resumed in March of this year. We have no information on whether they have been killed or are still alive since that date,” al-Qassam added.
Israeli officials said later in the day that two IDF soldiers were killed in the attack. According to Haaretz, Israeli military officials said they thought militants fired on Israeli troops after exiting a tunnel, but other reports contradict the claim.
Curt Mills, the Executive Director of The American Conservative, wrote on X that a senior Trump administration official told him: “Hamas did nothing. Israeli tank hit an unexploded IED that has probably been there for months.”
Ryan Grim, a reporter for Drop Site News, reported something similar. “Soon after the explosion in Rafah, I’m told by a source familiar, the White House and Pentagon knew that the incident was caused by an Israeli settler bulldozer running over unexploded ordnance — contradicting Netanyahu’s claim that Hamas had popped up from tunnels,” he wrote on X.
“After Netanyahu said he was blocking all aid from entering Gaza in response, and unleashed a bombing campaign, the administration conveyed to Israel that they know what happened. Netanyahu then announced he would re-open the crossings in a few hours,” Grim added.
Israeli strikes on Sunday mainly targeted southern and central Gaza, and pictures and videos show that children were among the casualties. The latest reported bombing hit a tent sheltering displaced people near the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, killing at least six.
In a statement on Sunday night, the IDF said that it had “begun the renewed enforcement of the ceasefire,” signaling that its heavy bombardment was over. “The IDF will continue to uphold the ceasefire agreement and will respond firmly to any violation of it,” the IDF said.
Israel has repeatedly violated the truce by killing dozens of Palestinians over the past week. One strike on Friday hit a vehicle and killed 11 members of the same family, including seven young children and three women.
The IDF also warned all Palestinians to remain west of the so-called “yellow line,” the line IDF troops withdrew to when the ceasefire went into effect. Under the current arrangement, the IDF controls more than 50% of the Palestinian territory.
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PLEASE OPPOSE HR 8255 AND S.3639 – bills would accelerate satellite deployment, with no environmental review or safeguards – https://ncstd5li.quorum.us/campaign/169331/
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