The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) announced that Israel has destroyed or damaged more than 282,000 homes in the Gaza Strip during its ongoing genocide.
Israel has annihilated housing in Gaza
The agency said in a post on the X platform that these figures are based on data from the Humanitarian Shelter Mechanism (Global Shelter Cluster), which is jointly managed by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
UNRWA explained that the ongoing Israeli bombardment has left tens of thousands of Palestinian families homeless, forced to live in tents under harsh conditions, especially with winter approaching. The agency added that displaced families are living in cramped spaces, suffering from a lack of privacy and difficulty accessing basic services.
UNRWA confirmed that, in cooperation with partner humanitarian organisations, it continues to provide assistance and relief to displaced families to alleviate their suffering.
The ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel has been in place since 10 October, but Israel violates it on a daily basis, resulting in hundreds of Palestinian deaths and injuries, as well as restrictions on the entry of food, medical supplies and tents, amid a growing need for urgent shelter as winter approaches.
Given that the email is from Jeffrey Epstein and his brother, the Canary obviously needs to take this with a grain of salt. The wider internet, meanwhile, is free to believe what it likes:
Ask him if Putin has the photos of Trump blowing Bubba?
Besides the insinuation that Trump sucked off Clinton, the most interesting thing is the word ‘the’, because it implies the photos were something both men were aware of. Could this be because of an in-joke? Sure. But it’s certainly funnier to think otherwise.
Among those having a laugh, some are drawing attention to the name of Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’:
We should note that we’ve seen the video of Trump rubbing Clinton’s crotch at a sporting event, but it appears to be AI-generated based on these images:
It hasn’t been confirmed who ‘Bubba’ is; however, it is the nickname of former President Bill Clinton who had a decades long close relationship to both Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump. https://t.co/nN68eU0ZTEpic.twitter.com/mOD3sndICS
It’s wonderful that we have to spend so much time confirming photo realistic videos are real now – just fantastic.
On another note, a recent episode of the Dollop drew attention to Clinton’s philandering. A relevant point they covered is that while Clinton cheated on his wife pretty much constantly, he reportedly didn’t have full intercourse, preferring oral sex. If you’d like to know how much grimmer it gets on that front, you can watch the video below (or find the podcast here).
Diddyfied
Of course, some of the posts mocking the situation tip over into homophobia. This highlights an ever-present problem for the right, in that many right-wing politicians are themselves gay, and yet they’re happy to push a homophobic agenda to benefit themselves. Over the past few years, this has been more obvious than ever because of what happens to the gay dating app Grindr whenever the Republican National Convention takes place:
i know it’s innacurate to say all homophobes are secretly gay, but you gotta admit it’s pretty funny that the republican national conventions are so gay it consistently crashes grindr
Notably, we witnessed something similar recently – namely when people began to take the accusations against P Diddy more seriously when he was accused of having sex with men on top of all the alleged human trafficking and statutory rape.
More to come
We could see an even larger release of material from the Epstein vaults in the coming months. Will that dump include photos of current president Trump sucking off former president Clinton? We don’t know, but at this point nothing would surprise us.
An Australian author whose award-winning book about Israel’s military and surveillance industry has swept the world is scathing about a controversial Gaza transit company.
Antony Loewenstein, author of The Palestine Laboratory, a book about how Israel tests arms and surveillance technologies in the illegal occupation of Palestine, says the shadowy scheme carrying Palestinians to South Africa or other countries was waging “disaster capitalism”.
He said the Al-Majd Europe outfit that reportedly flew 153 people from Gaza to South Aftica could have been operating for weeks or months before being noticed.
The Palestine Laboratory author Antony Loewenstein in a previous Al Jazeera interview . . . “This is the concept of people making money out of other people’s misery.” Image: AJ screenshot APR
Commenting on this mysterious flight carrying people from Gaza that transited through Kenya’s capital Nairobi and ended up in South Africa, Loewenstein told Al Jazeera from Indonesia’s capital Jakarta that there had been rumours about companies making such flights.
He said such flights apparently “requires Israeli permission as well as other countries’ permissions”.
“South Africa was apparently the final destination, considering it is one of the most pro-Palestine countries on the planet,” he said.
Lowenstein said there were “no names or associations” on the “incredibly strange” company website, which “almost looks like it was created by AI”, calling what it does “disaster capitalism” – a theme of one of his earlier books.
‘Making money out of misery’
“This is the concept of people making money out of other people’s misery,” Loewenstein said.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Foreign Affairs Ministry has warned against groups exploiting Gaza’s humanitarian crisis for human trafficking in the wake of the mysterious arrival of 153 people from Gaza in South Africa this week.
The ministry warned that “companies and entities that mislead our people, incite them to deportation or displacement or engage in human trafficking and exploit their tragic and catastrophic humanitarian conditions will bear the legal consequences of their unlawful actions and will be subject to prosecution and accountability.”
In a statement, the ministry also urged Palestinian families in Gaza “to exercise caution and avoid falling prey to human trafficking networks, blood merchants, and displacement agents”.
The departure of people from Gaza to South Africa was closely coordinated with Israeli authorities.
Everything started with an advertised post from the Al-Majd Europe organisation promising to safely evacuate Palestinian families outside the Gaza Strip, so many Palestinians filled in their applications and were waiting for a call from the organisation.
The situation in Gaza has pushed Palestinians to pay whatever they could to leave the Strip.
‘They lost everything’
“They have lost everything. They lost their houses, and they believe that they do not have any future here,” an Al Jazeera reporter said.
The television channel also said Gazans who used the transit company were forced to pay up to US$5000 to enable them to cross the so-called “yellow line” and be driven from Karem Abu Salem crossing to Ramon airport in southern Israel.
This is a risky move because at least 200 Palestinians have been killed since the October ceasefire for crossing the yellow line. So the operation would have required Israeli military cooperation.
The Gazans were then flown to Nairobi in Kenyan on a Romanian aircraft and transferred to a flight to Johannesburg where border officials held them for 12 hours because they reportedly did not have Israeli exit stamps in their passports.
While Israeli forces shot and killed two Palestinian children in the town of Beit Ummar, north of Hebron in the occupied West Bank, the news broke in Aotearoa New Zealand that our government had been advised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) in September to recognise a Palestinian State now — before it was too late forever.
“The tide of international thinking on Palestinian statehood has shifted markedly . . . Israel’s actions are rapidly extinguishing any prospect of realising a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict,” the draft paper read.
“This leaves recognition of Palestine as the only viable option to maintain New Zealand’s long-standard support for a two-state solution.”
This is what Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters and Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour were told by MFAT, but these politicians had predetermined they were going to suck up hard to US President Donald Trump and Israel.
Seymour had to be served and so did Peters, as Luxon did their bidding again.
The way to do it with as little local public backlash and media attention was to say it was “complicated” to the press and the public, to be very secretive and let NZ First staff write a cabinet paper of their own — with a couple of options in it, and then bury the Cabinet outcomes until Peters announced it at the UN General Assembly.
The horror of a nation’s collective groan as Winston Peters read that speech still echoes over this naked complicity with genocide and colonisation, making most people feel wild and revolted, laced with the way they were being ignored and trampled on back here at home.
Disgusting business
The horror of Aotearoa aligning itself with this disgusting business sickens many but it was only The Post which published the news last night because as per usual this sort of thing is never really news in our newsrooms.
How many New Zealanders know how many Palestinians Israel have killed since the ceasefire thanks to our media?
The way New Zealand backed Israel over the two-state solution for Palestine has weak leadership stamped all over it — and that is galling but it’s gaslighting the nation to then boast of a win over a photo op with Trump.
New Zealand companies complicit with Israel’s genocide in Gaza were highlighted in today’s pro-Palestinian rally in Auckland. Image: Asia Pacific Report
Gerard Otto is a digital creator, satirist and independent commentator on politics and the media through his G News column and video reports. This article is an excerpt from a G News commentary and republished with permission.
“Political and ego manoeuvring” is happening behind the scenes at COP30 in Brazil, as Australia and Türkiye wrestle to host the United Nations climate event next year.
Pacific Islands Forum’s climate adviser Karlos Lee Moresi, who is at the talks in Belém, said the negotiations for who would host COP31 was tough.
“We have Australia with the Pacific very adamant that we need — not only do we want — we need to have a COP in the Pacific. The Türkiye position is they’re not giving up,” Moresi said.
“In all honesty, there’s a bit of political and ego manoeuvring happening behind the scenes.”
Moresi said he thought Türkiye was trying to influence European countries to host the event.
He said as a last resort, and if COP is hosted in Türkiye, the Pacific would want something from Türkiye in response.
“It is not something that we’re really entertaining actively as an option to put forward on the table for now.”
10 years since Paris
COP30 began in Belém on Monday. It has been 10 years since the landmark Paris Agreement was signed.
In his opening speech at the conference, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) executive secretary Simon Stiell said the science is clear, temperatures can be brought back down to 1.5C after any temporary overshoot.
“The emissions curve has been bent downwards because of what was agreed in halls like this, with governments legislating and markets responding, but I’m not sugarcoating it, we have so much more to go.”
The Pacific’s position throughout each COP — “1.5C to stay alive” — has not changed, along with improving access to climate finance.
Unique to this year’s summit is that it is the first time the world’s top court, the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion, can be used as a negotiating tool.
The advisory opinion found failing to protect people from the effects of climate change could violate international law.
“In the context of the phrase ‘everyone has an opinion’, but is it an informed opinion, what we are saying is the ICJ that’s in the highest court is the most informed opinion on this issue.”
Solutions for children
Save the Children New Zealand youth engagement coordinator Vira Paky said she wants to see different parties working together on solutions designed for children and young people.
“We know that children and young people are disproportionately affected by climate change and we want to be on the frontlines to advocate for children and youth voices to be considered.”
Faiesea Ah Chee, one of the youth delegates with Save the Children, wants climate finance to be more accessible for the Pacific.
“I’ve seen how severe weather impact has impacted us and how there’s a lack of funding to help with adaptation and mitigation projects back home in the islands. So, hoping to get a clear vision and understanding of where we can get access to all this climate finance,” Chee, who grew up in Samoa, said.
While world leaders are meeting, rescue workers in Papua New Guinea are scrambling to relocate about 300 people living on unstable earth.
Papua New Guinea’s Wabag MP office spokesperson Geno Muspak said they live around the site of a deadly landslide that flattened houses while people slept inside.
He said it is clear to him the climate crisis is to blame.
“As times are changing the weather is not good for us, especially for people who are living in the remote places,” Muspak said.
The pointy end of COP 30 is still a while off, with the conference running until the end of next week.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
OBITUARY:By Robert Luke Iroga, editor and publisher of Solomon Business Magazine
In June 2000, I travelled to Port Moresby for a journalism training course that changed my life in ways I did not expect. The workshop was about new technology—how to send large photo files by email, something that felt revolutionary at the time.
But the real lesson I gained was not about technology. It was about people. It was about meeting Bob Howarth.
Bob, our trainer from News Corp Australia, was a man whose presence filled the room. He was old school in his craft, yet he embraced the future with such excitement that it was impossible not to be inspired.
He was full of energy, full of stories, full of life. And above all, he was kind. Deeply kind. The sort of kindness that stays with you long after the conversation ends.
He had just returned from East Timor and knew what life was like in the developing world.
In just one week with him, we learned more than we could have imagined. It felt like every day stretched into a month because Bob poured so much of himself into teaching us. It was clear that he cared—not just about journalism, but about us, the young Pacific reporters standing at the start of our careers.
That week was the beginning of his love affair with the Pacific, and I feel proud to have been a small part of that story.
Before we closed the training, Bob called me aside. He gave me his email and said quietly,
“If anything dramatic happens in the Solomons, send me some photos.”
The Timor Post mourns journalist and media mentor Bob Howarth who died on Thursday aged 81. Image: Timor Post
I didn’t know then how soon that moment would come.
I returned home on Sunday, 4 June 2000. The very next morning, June 5th, as I was heading to work at The Solomon Star, Honiara fell into chaos.
The coup was unfolding. The city was under siege. I rushed to the office, helping colleagues capture the moment in words and images. And just as Bob had asked, I sent photos to him. Within hours, those images appeared on front pages across News Corp newspapers.
Bob wrote to me soon after, saying, “You’re truly the star of our course.”
That was Bob—always lifting others up, always encouraging, always giving more credit than he took.
From that week in PNG, we became more than just colleagues. We became friends—real friends. Over the years, whenever I travelled through Port Moresby, I would always reach out to him.
Sometimes we shared a drink, sometimes a long talk, sometimes just a warm hello from his home overlooking the harbour. But every time, it felt like reconnecting with someone who genuinely understood my journey.
Asia Pacific Report publisher David Robie’s tribute to Bob Howarth on Bob’s FB page.
Bob was the person I turned to for advice, for guidance, for perspective. He believed in me at a time when belief was the greatest gift anyone could offer. And he never stopped being that voice in my corner—whether I was working here in the Solomons or abroad.
This morning, I learned of his passing. And my heart sank.
It feels like losing a pillar. Like losing a chapter of my own story. Like losing someone whose kindness shaped the path I walked.
To his wife, his children, and all who loved him, I send my deepest condolences. Your husband, your father, your friend—he touched the Pacific in ways words can barely capture.
And he touched my life in a way I will never forget.
RIEP Bob. Thank you for seeing me when I was still finding my footing.
Thank you for believing in me. Thank you for being my friend.
Robert Luke Iroga is editor and publisher of Solomon Business Magazine and chair of the Pacific Freedom Forum. He wrote this tribute on his FB page and it is republished with permission.
During the siege of Sarajevo in the early 1990s, rich Italians paid to shoot civilians, prosecutors have heard. The so-called human safari was run by the Serbian military who besieged the city from surrounding hills. Journalist and novelist Ezio Gavazzeni has brought the allegations to Milanese public prosecutors this week.
The story centres on rich Italians and other nationalities who supposedly paid to kill innocents. The BBC reports there were different prices paid for killing men, women or children. An Instagram post by Warrior Women for Liberation said the individuals were far-right linked and paid up to £70,000 for the trips: Gavezzeni’s submission said the killers: “paid to be able to kill defenceless civilians”. The siege lasted from 1992-1996 — the longest siege of a capital city in history. Anna Paulina Luna said:
A US congresswoman has now pledged to track down Americans who may have taken part:
Regarding the alleged ‘murder tourism’ discussed below, I have opened an investigation into this matter and am in contact with the Bosnian Consulate as well as the Italian Embassy.
Evidence gathered by Gavazzeni, which includes the testimony of a Bosnian military intelligence officer, is now being examined by Italian counter-terrorism prosecutor Alessandro Gobbis.
The officer said he passed the information onto Italian intelligence in 1993. By 1994, the Italians said the issue had been handled and the practice stopped.
Luis Rubiales, the former president of the Spanish Football Federation — who assaulted one of his players live on TV — had eggs thrown at him by his own uncle at his book launch.
Le acaban de tirar tres huevos a Luis Rubiales en la presentación de su libro al grito de “sinvergüenza”.
This might be the most positive news story of the week
Luis Rubiales Convicted
The Spanish courts convicted Rubiales of sexual assault after he forcefully kissed Jenni Hermoso non-consensually during the medal ceremony of the 2023 World Cup.
They found him guilty in February 2025, ordered him to pay fines of more than €13,000, and banned him from being within 200 metres of Hermoso. Additionally, they banned him from FIFA, the world’s governing body for football, for three years.
Good shot
The convicted sex offender was launching his book in Madrid and had three eggs thrown at him — miraculously — by his own uncle. And at least one of the eggs hit him. What a legend.
His uncle also shouted ‘sinvergüenza’ — which translates to ‘shameless’.
Rubiales tried to chase after the man, but people in the crowd held him back.
According to the Guardian, the police stated that a Spanish man had been arrested but declined to confirm the family connection.
The Guardian also stated that:
Speaking on Spanish television this week Rubiales claimed he was the victim of a “sudden far-left movement” that created a “parallel reality” to capitalise on the issue surrounding his forced kiss on Hermoso.
Paying the price
What sort of world do we live in where publishers are letting convicted sex offenders publish books?
His book – ‘Matar a Rubiales’ – which translates to ‘Killing Rubiales’, could not be more poorly titled or inappropriate.
A man gets caught – literally, on live TV, in front of millions of people – sexually assaulting a woman. Yet, he still tries to play the victim and claim the public tried to kill his career. He created his own demise, and now he’s paying the price.
instead of running and protect himself, he ran and try to hit the attacker. yeah that tells you so much about what kinda person he is https://t.co/BjKO1dsAyT
A violent settler attack took place in the occupied West Bank town of Beita on 8 November. Masked colonial Zionist settlers attacked journalists, Red Crescent volunteers, activists, and Palestinian farmers. 15 people were injured, including five journalists.
A well-organised, sustained, and violent attack from far-right settlers
That morning, a large group of residents and international activists made their way to the mountain area of town. They aimed to aid and protect the Palestinian farmers while picking their olives. Also present were several journalists and paramedics. After some time, the group began to see movement amongst the trees.
Al Jazeera photojournalist Louy Alsaeed told the Canary around 40 masked Israeli settlers suddenly appeared, descending the mountain and surrounding the area. Their attack was coordinated, sustained, and violent, with clubs, sticks and rocks used as weapons.
Alsaeed: “I felt as if I was really close to death”
Alsaeed said:
I felt really close to death, for the first time in my life. They tried to catch us, and started throwing rocks at us from above. It was very difficult to escape from that mountainous area. I kept running, but every time I looked back, I saw someone trying to catch me. Many journalists fell while trying to escape. I was one of them. I fell with all my equipment. We expected problems, but not like this. They planned this very well. They hid behind trees, and then made themselves into groups and attacked us.
Al Jazeera correspondent Mohamad Alatrash has severe bruising and pain from escaping the attack. He says the attack was an:
exceptional and extremely violent incident, aimed at harming people in the area.
“We could see the hatred in the settlers’ eyes…”
Alatrash told the Canary:
I was born and raised in an area where settlers were only a short distance from my home. But what I witnessed in this attack was exceptional. We could see the hatred in the settler’s eyes, the extreme violence in their behaviour, and the clear intent to kill, through the brutal blows they directed at several people. Everyone in the area was thinking only about individual survival. We had no choice but to move towards a rough and steep wadi area.
Reuters photojournalist Raneen Sawafta had difficulty jumping down, and was surrounded, isolated, and repeatedly beaten. She suffered multiple fractures and fragmentation in her knee joint. Photojournalist Nael Buaytal also suffered fractures in the ankle as a result of jumping.
Alatrash said:
I could hear Raneen screaming loudly, and felt devastated I couldn’t help her. The settlers were only a few metres from me, as I was trying to jump and escape the mountain area. I was fully aware that if they managed to catch and surround me, they would kill me. I had no choice but to jump into the wadi.
Difficult times for farmers in the occupied West Bank
Many farmers in the occupied West Bank are unable to reach their land, because of violence from settlers and Israeli occupation forces (IOF). Until recently, the presence of activists, especially internationals, provided some protection for them, but not now. According to Alsaeed, settlers are stealing olives when farmers cannot get to their land. Israeli occupation forces (IOF) are also clamping down on activists who help farmers, prevented them from returning to Palestine at a later date.
But farmers continue persevering, despite the violence. Olive trees are deeply rooted in Palestinian heritage, culture and identity. The harvest is also relied on, economically, by 100,000 Palestinian families, and accounts for almost three quarters of the West Bank economy.
Evyatar settlement in Beita built on stolen Palestinian land
The settlers terrorising Beita live in Evyatar settlement, on Beita’s mountain. Founded in May 2021, Evyatar started as an unapproved outpost. It grew in size and, last year, was officially authorized as a new settlement. 16 acres of Palestinian land were declared ‘state land’ and seized for this settlement.
The settlers have recently erected a tent on the farmer’s land, the first step in gaining control of the area. Then they move in, restrict Palestinian access, and forcibly displace them. Eventually, these outposts are legalised, and expand into a settlement.
Beita has a long history of resistance against the occupation and Evyatar settlement. But protests have been met with extreme IOF violence. Since 2020, 18 demonstrators in Beita have been killed by the IOF, including American peace activist, Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, who they shot in the head. Thousands more have been injured. Children bear the brunt of this violence, and are receiving psychosocial support from the Norwegian Refugee Council.
Illegal settlers supported and protected by the IOF
Evyatar settlement was founded by the ultra nationalist Nachala Settlement Movement, set up by extremist settler leader Daniella Weiss. Weiss, a prominent far-right Israeli Orthodox Zionist, was symbolically sanctioned by the UK government earlier this year.
Alsaeed told the Canary:
No one can stop the settlers acting how they do. The problem is getting worse and worse because these attacks are under the protection of the soldiers and the government. I don’t think there is a solution.
13 year old is latest to be killed by violence in Beita
Beita has suffered repeated violent settler attacks during this olive harvest. Several weeks ago vehicles were set alight, and many Palestinians were injured. The IOF fired tear gas toward the Palestinians, which 13 year old Aysam Mualla inhaled. He suffered critical injuries, and died in hospital this week:
Violence against Palestinians in the West Bank is an everyday occurrence, and Palestinian journalists risk their lives to expose crimes the Israeli occupation commit. Alatrash says he still feels “intense fear about going to areas of confrontation”, as he knows he could be subjected to another similar attack.
Until the international community takes decisive action, the cycle of violence and dispossession will continue. But Alsaeed and Alatrash say they will continue to give a voice to Palestinian communities deeply affected by the violence.
As you’re no doubt aware, the global stock market is currently propped up by an ‘AI Bubble’. This means AI stocks are massively overvalued, and the situation may be worse than we knew:
Here's a massive scoop from Ed showing OpenAI has been lying about their revenue for years
The new revelations over the AI bubble can be summed up as follows:
Open AI’s services cost a lot more to run that we thought.
Open AI’s services make a lot less money that we thought.
Exclusive: Based on documents viewed by this newsletter, OpenAI spent over $12.4 billion on inference from 2024 to September 2025. As part of its Microsoft revenue share, it sent $493.8m in 2024/$865.8m Jan-Sep 2025, implying lower revenues than previously reported.www.wheresyoured.at/oai_docs/
We won’t get into specifics, but I can say the numbers aren’t quite right.
Reassuring, right?
The reason they asked Microsoft is because they’re joined at the hip with Open AI as a result of various deals. This is very common in the AI business, as this chart demonstrates:
This was supposed to be a chart that showed AI was *not* a bubble but it shows the exact opposite. This shows everyone is buying NVidia chips for a product(AI) that doesn’t have the sales to support, and Nvidia is using that demand to invest in companies so they….buy more chips pic.twitter.com/LRDF3REhaU
Altman claims his company is essential because they’re on a path towards creating a super intelligence which will solve all the world’s problems (that or kill us – he’s speculated on both). The problem is that his company may never invent any form of intelligence, because generative AI models aren’t ‘thinking’ engines; they’re probability generators which essentially function like super charged auto-text.
When AI tools generate text, images, or videos, they will inevitably get things wrong, or ‘hallucinate’. We may never be able to fix this problem because of the fundamental way these tools generate output, and this is why companies keep abandoning AI initiatives:
An M.I.T. study found that 95% of companies that had invested in A.I. tools were seeing zero return. It jibes with the emerging idea that generative A.I., “in its current incarnation, simply isn’t all it’s been cracked up to be,” @JohnCassidy writes. https://t.co/DD2C4FXfgz
I myself generally avoid using AI, but it seemed fitting to try it for this piece. For the image below, I asked various AI tools to make Altman’s head look like it was inflated – like a bubble – and this was the best I got:
This was the worst:
The big problem is that Open AI want to charge people $20-$200 a month for this garbage, and even then it might not be enough for them to turn a profit.
There is actually a reason for Donald Trump to support these companies, though, and it’s because the AI bubble is hiding wider problems in the US economy:
“US companies announced the most job cuts for any October in more than two decades”, Bloomberg reports.
153,074 jobs were lost, the most since 2003.
If it weren’t for the AI bubble, the US would be in deep recession. 80% of Americans already live in areas in recession.
Reutershas revealed that during 2024, the US gathered intelligence indicating that Israel discussed the possibility of sending Palestinian soldiers into tunnels in Gaza believed to contain explosives, raising questions about the use of civilians as human shields, which is prohibited under international law.
The information was shared with the White House and analysed by intelligence agencies in the final weeks of former President Joe Biden’s administration. Two former US officials, who asked not to be named, have now revealed the information sparked internal debate about how widespread the practice was and whether Israeli soldiers were acting on instructions from military commanders.
Israel uses human shields – and the US knows it
The sources did not specify whether the Palestinians referred to were prisoners or civilians, and it was unclear whether the Biden administration had discussed the information with the Israeli government. White House and CIA officials did not comment on the report.
The Israeli army said in a statement that:
The use of civilians as human shields is strictly prohibited, and they may not be forced to participate in military operations.
It added that the military police’s criminal investigation division is investigating suspicions of Palestinian involvement in military operations. The Israeli government did not respond to questions about whether it had discussed this information with the United States.
The report noted that media reports accuse Hamas of using civilians as human shields, particularly by deploying its fighters in civilian facilities such as hospitals, accusations that the movement has denied.
The new intelligence also included legal warnings from Israeli lawyers that there was evidence that could lead to war crimes charges. According to former US officials, senior US officials believed that the information supported concerns about possible war crimes, which could place the US under potential liability if Israel’s involvement was proven.
A number of football stars and human rights groups have sent an open letter to UEFA President Aleksander Čeferin, calling for “the immediate exclusion of Israel from European football” over what they described as “grave violations and war crimes against Palestinians”.
Game Over Israel
The letter, prepared by the organisation Game Over Israel and published on its Instagram account, was supported by several human rights organisations, including Athletes for Peace, the Gaza Tribunal, and the Hind Rajab Foundation.
It was signed by more than 70 players from around the world, most notably former French star Paul Pogba, Moroccan Hakim Ziyech, Spaniard Adama Traoré and Dutchman Anwar El Ghazi.
The letter begins:
Football does not belong to anyone; it belongs to everyone because it is part of our shared human heritage.
The signatories expressed “deep concern about the failure of the European Football Association to take a moral stance by excluding Israel from European competitions”, stressing that “tolerance of Israel threatens to undermine the spirit and human essence of the game.”
The letter also stressed that it is necessary for “UEFA to uphold its legal and moral responsibilities and immediately expel Israel from European football”, adding that:
no sporting or civilised arena should welcome a regime that commits genocide, apartheid and crimes against humanity.
The letter accused UEFA of facilitating Israel’s violations by allowing its teams to participate in and finance international competitions, calling for an immediate and comprehensive ban on them.
This move comes days after a ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement between Israel and Hamas came into effect on 10 October 2025, ending a two-year war on the Gaza Strip that resulted in — according to United Nations estimates — to the deaths of more than 69,000 Palestinians and the injury of some 170,000 others, most of them women and children, in addition to the destruction of about 90% of civilian infrastructure, with reconstruction costs estimated at $70 billion.
Palau’s leader says the world needs to be working toward reducing emissions and “not dropping targets”, in response to New Zealand slashing its methane reduction goals.
Last month, the New Zealand government announced it would cut biogenic methane reduction targets to 14-24 percent below 2017 levels by 2050. The previous target was a reduction of 24-47 percent.
Palauan President Surangel Whipps Jr, who is in Brazil for the annual United Nations climate change conference, COP30, said more work needed to go into finding solutions.
“[It’s] unfortunate because we all need to be working toward reduction, not dropping targets,” Whipps said.
“Countries struggle because it’s about making sure that their people have their jobs and maintain their industry. I can see the reason why maybe those targets were dropped, but that means we just need to work harder.”
Whipps said it probably meant the government needed to “step up” and help farmers reduce emissions.
Tuvalu’s climate minister also told RNZ Pacific he was disheartened by the new goal.
New Zealand Climate Minister Simon Watts previously told RNZ Pacific in a statement that methane reduction was limited by technology and the only alternative would have been to cut agriculture production.
“New Zealand has some of the most emissions-efficient farmers in the world, and we export to meet global demand,” Watts said.
“If we cut production to meet targets, we risk shifting production to countries who are not as emissions-efficient, which would add to global warming and have a greater impact on the Pacific.”
NZ ‘doesn’t care about Pacific’ – campaigner Pacific Islands Climate Action Network campaigner Sindra Sharma said she wanted to know what scientists Watts spoke with.
“I’d like to see what the data is behind New Zealand having the most emissions-efficient farmers. It blows my mind that that is something he would say.”
Sharma said it was especially disappointing given New Zealand was a member of the Pacific Islands Forum.
“I think the signal that sends is extremely harmful. It shows we don’t care about the Pacific.”
Speaking to RNZ Morning Report on Thursday, Watts said the country had not weakened its ambitions on climate change.
“We’ve actually delivered upon what has been asked of us. We’ve submitted our NDC (Nationally Determined Contributions) plan for 2035 on time,” he said.
“We’ve done what we believe is possible in the context of our unique circumstances.
“We’ve taken a position around ensuring that we are ambitious with balancing that with economic challenges.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
I sat in a cafe listening to one man telling another how to get more out of his workers — “his team”, kind of the way people talked about workhorses until some of us read Black Beauty and learned that sentient creatures have feelings, both animals and people.
I hope that people will wake up to the need to unite, to pull together. The best decluttering is decolonising.
Maybe Zohran Mamdani’s win is a sign that will herald a new era, an era when socialists can beat “the money men”. Maybe it’s time when we will all wake up to a different possibility. Maybe other values will be recognised.
Virtues do not come from wealth. Capital, capitalism (the key is in the word) is a system of exploitation. It was designed by merchants to make some rich and keep others poor. That’s the system.
Maybe you were not taught that? Of course you were not taught that. Think about it.
I listened to William Dalrymple being interviewed by Jack Tame last Sunday and I thought Jack — who I used to respect a lot before he failed to tackle genocide with Israel’s representative for genocide here in Aotearoa — I thought he, Jack, looked like a possum in the headlights when Dalrymple said that Donald Trump had a precursor in Benjamin Netanyahu and called genocide a genocide.
I like to think Jack and others like him (because I have been like them too) will learn to learn about the history of all people and not view history as an inevitable story of winners and losers.
Winners are exploiters
The winners are exploiters and if we want to save the planet we need a massive game change.
The legacy of colonisation. Video: TVNZ Q&A
Look at the stats of the land that was taken for expansion and how that expansion was used to justify the extermination of one people to prop another people up. The stats, the real statistics show who was there before, show people lived on the land with the land and the waters.
Capitalism is a system of expansion and exploitation. It flourished for a while on slavery and it flourished for a while on settler colonialism, and it flourished for a while on keeping workers believing the story that they were working for greater glory when their take home pay did not equal the value of their labour.
And there is a difference between guilt and remorse. We can learn from the latter. The former, guilt, stagnates, it leads to defence and offence.
We need to recognise that we don’t need to prop up a dying system that flourishes on making some weak and others stronger.
We need to learn to change — those of us who were wrong can admit it and go forward differently. We can realise that they system was designed to make us fail to see the threads that connect all people. We can wake up now and smell the manure among the roses.
Good shit helps things grow, bad shit is toxic contaminated waste that turns things inwards, makes them gnarly.
Monsters are connected
Unfortunately, those who behave like monsters are connected not just to some of us but all of us.
We need to open our minds and our hearts to a different our value system. We need to decolonise our senses.
If you defend a bad system because right now you are one of the few on a decent pay scale then you are part of the problem. You are the problem. You have been conned. A system is only fair if it is fair for all people.
Learning history gives us a map said Dalrymple (author of The Golden Road which tells the story of how great India was BEFORE it was stolen by Britain — how that country gave the world numbers and so much more) and we need to learn how the map was drawn.
As someone who reads history to write history, I encourage us all to read widely and deeply and to research so that we do not stop thinking and analysing, and so we can tell wrong from right.
Do not be neutral about wrongs as some historians would suggest. It is more than OK to call a wrong a wrong. In fact it is vital. Take a new lens into viewing history, not the one the masters have given you.
We miss seeing the world if we look fail to think about who drew the map, how it was drawn up by men who carved up the world for the Empires intent on creating a golden age by enslaving most of the people to prop up those at the top.
World map’s curling edges
We need to look under the curling edges of the world map drawn up by the exploiter. We need to find find the stories of those who were exploited and who had been part of the creation story of this planet before they were exploited.
Those of us who are descendants of colonisers also — many of us — descend from those who were exploited.
The stories of British workhouses, of the system of exile via banishment, of the theft of women’s rights, of the extreme brutal forms of punishment, the stories of the way the top class pushed down and down on the people of the fields and forests and forced them to serve and serve, these real stories are less well known than the myths.
Myths like the story of King Arthur are better known.
Some myths have been created as a form of propaganda. We need to unpick the stories that were told to keep us stupid, to keep us ignorant.
It is time to stop following the trail of crumbs to Buckingham Palace, or at least to see where the trail really leads — to pedophiles who preyed on others, to predators — not just one but many, to people brilliant at reconstructing themselves — creating some fall guys and some good guys and making some people villains.
That story is a lie that protects and processes dysfunction.
Acting on the truth
Blaming one part of the system prevents us from realising and acting on the truth that the whole system is one of exploitation.
This was always a horror story disguised as a fairy story. One crown could save so many poor. The monarchy is not a family that produced one disfunctional person it is the disfunction.
It promotes the lie that one group of people deserve wealth because they are better than another. What a sick joke.
So let’s back away from societies made by men who want to profit from others and get back to nature.
Let’s look on nature as a sister or mother — a sister or mother you love.
Let’s look at the so called natural disasters like climate change. Look at how they have been created by “noble men” and “noble women” and ignoble ones as well. Disasters that can be averted, prevented.
Who suffers the most in a natural disaster? Not the rich.
How do we heal?
So how do we hope and how do we heal? We see the change. We be the change.
Personally, for my mental and physical health I’ve been sea bathing, dipping in the sea. I join a group of mainly women who all have stories, and who plunge into nature for release and relief, to relieve ourselves from the debris. Uniting in nature.
I’ve learned that every day is different. The sea is always changing. No two waves are the same and they all pull in the same direction.
We are part moon, part wave, part light, part darkness. We are the bounty and the beauty.
I do have hope that we will all unite for common good. Sharing on common ground. The word Common is so much better than Capital.
If you are working for the kind of people that are discussing how to get more out of you for less, then unite.
And if you know people who are being exploited in any way at all unite with them not the exploiter. Be the change.
By helping each other we save each other. And that includes helping our friend and exploited lover: Nature.
Saige England is an award-winning journalist and author of The Seasonwife, a novel exploring the brutal impacts of colonisation. She is also a contributor to Asia Pacific Report.
The reckoning has begun. Israel’s descent into fascism echoes what Hannah Arendt, Malcolm X, and Frantz Fanon witnessed in their own time — the empire’s violence returning home.
Now, almost 80 years after the massacres of 1948, can Israel withstand the inevitable? Is the end finally upon Israel?
Israel’s violence, Nicolas cautions, has come home to roost — producing the very totalitarian state Arendt warned against.
Homecoming
Arendt spoke of colonies as ‘laboratories of domination’ — spaces where the coloniser sharpens and expands its imperial toolkit beyond legal or moral constraint. These tools and practices, Arendt is likely to agree, are turning inward. In these laboratories, the coloniser perfected methods which circle back to Europe itself, sooner or later. The hallmarks of this playbook have been on public display since Israel’s establishment, institutionalising racism and weaponisation of the legislature to sustain its racist ethnostate.
Since its inception, Israel has been shaped by colonial violence. During the Nakba in 1947, Israeli armed forces massacred Palestinians — sparing not even children — and razed entire cities to the ground. Around 500 villages were destroyed during the founding years of the State of Israel. Forests were planted on their remains to hide they ever existed. And the story continues. Surely you’ve heard of Netanyahu?
In the words of Arendt:
Barbarism, once practiced on the periphery, will one day strike back at the centre.
Netanyahu, take note.
Israel’s boomerang moment
Israel never was and never will be a unique case. It’s another settler-colonial project which has failed to subjugate Palestinians into oblivion. The forces that sustain it — racism, militarism, and religious fanaticism — are those devouring the coloniser from within.
During the Gaza genocide, Israeli leaders and media figures called Palestinians “human animals” and framed its disproportionate response as a biblical war of “light versus darkness.” “Remember what Amalek did to you?” The butcher was heard saying.
Across the West Bank, settlers unleashed pogrom-like violence against Palestinians, largely protected by state forces loyal to far-right minister Itamar (in Arabic Himar) Ben-Gvir. The 2018 Nation-State Law legally enshrined Jewish supremacy, rendering Palestinians inside Israel as second-class citizens. In Arendt’s terms, Israel operates under a dual legal system — a formal apartheid.
Israel’s decision to arm thousands of extremist settlers has blurred the line between the military and ideological militias, ultimately losing control over the monster within.
As Nicolas points out, Israel’s war in Gaza is about much more than the wanton extermination of Palestinians. It erodes the ethical basis of Israeli society and pushes the state closer to the brink
Fanon: the coloniser dehumanised
Frantz Fanon, writing from the battlefields of French-mandated Algeria, described this psychological self-destruction in The Wretched of the Earth.
Colonialism, he wrote:
dehumanises the coloniser just as it dehumanises the colonised.
Violence, once a tool of domination, becomes an addiction. In Fanon’s words:
the coloniser becomes a creature of habit, intoxicated by power.
These words ring true decades on in the context of Israel’s militarised nationalism. The settler-colonial project has produced generations conditioned to see violence as normal, purity as virtue, and domination as destiny. And to think that Gen Z are wild.
While Arendt analysed the political structure of this decay, Fanon diagnosed its psychological wound.
Empire self-destructs
Israeli journalist Menachem Rahat, writing for HaMizrachi, a pro-Zionist outlet, warns of a historical pattern that he calls “the curse of the eighth decade.”
He notes that both previous Jewish sovereignties — the Davidic and Hasmonean kingdoms — collapsed around their eighth decade, not from external invasion but from internal division and moral rot.
The State of Israel, now in its eighth decade of life and about to celebrate its 75th birthday, is today closer than ever before to the danger of a fratricidal war, each man against his brother,
Rahat continues that they shouldn’t be worried about ‘Palestinian criminal gangs’ for the danger lies within.
Far more threatening and dangerous to our future is the division and polarisation within Israeli society.
It is a striking echo of Arendt’s imperial boomerang — the violence that defines a colonial power inevitably turns inward, and its founding myths unravel.
Arendt, Malcolm X, and Fanon, all warned that the empire falls not when the oppressed rise up, but when the coloniser cuts off its nose to spite its face. If Arendt’s prophecy holds, the colonial state cannot remain confined to its victims. Sooner or later, the machinery of dehumanisation turns inward.
Colonialism always comes home.
It’s coming home!
For Israel, that reckoning is underway — colonialism is coming home. As Malcolm X warned, the empire’s chickens always come home to roost.
The question is no longer if, but when. The passage of 80 years since this all began has not dulled international attention to Israeli transgressions. Support for Palestinians is louder than ever and the latest chapter of Israeli colonial violence in Gaza will not, and must not, be forgotten.
From rising global pressure, to growing condemnation from the International Court of Justice, is the outside world finally taking note? Is it enough to pierce through Israel’s colonial armour? Is God, the almighty, making a late comeback on Fergie time? All of the above?
Only one way to find out. Should I create a calendar invite?
The intent of the H-1B provisions is to help employers who cannot otherwise obtain needed business skills and abilities from the US workforce by authorising the temporary employment of qualified individuals who are not otherwise authorised to work in the United States.
A leftist criticism of the H1-B visa is that it’s used by companies to:
Pay migrant workers less (in turn suppressing wages for the wider workforce).
Get away with all sorts of labour abuses, because the H1-B employees are worried the government will revoke their conditional visas.
The MAGA critique will sometimes encompass the above, but also:
H1-B Scammers: Americans Are Losing Their Jobs To Indian Foreigners Who Have Cheated Their Way Through The Education System @HarrisonHSmithpic.twitter.com/hd4VeG7VGH
You may be unaware of this if you have the good sense to not log in to social media, but anti-Indian racism has become increasingly normalised among Trump’s base, as YouTuber The Kavernacle documented:
In the video at the top, the conversation plays out as follows:
Laura Ingraham:Does that mean the H-1B visa thing will not be a big priority for your administration? Because if you want to raise wages for American workers, you can’t flood the country with tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of foreign workers.
Donald Trump:Well, I agree, but you also do have to bring in talent.
Laura Ingraham:Well, we have plenty of talented people here.
Donald Trump:No, you don’t. No, you don’t.
Trump and his untalented supporters
“No, you don’t”, he says — you can see why this has gone down poorly with his allegedly untalented supporters.
The interview continued:
Laura Ingraham:We don’t have talented people here?
Donald Trump:No, you don’t have certain talents, and people have to learn. You can’t take people off an unemployment line and say, I’m going to put you into a factory where we’re going to make missiles.
Laura Ingraham:How did we ever do it before? When you or I were growing up?
Donald Trump:I’ll give you an example. In Georgia… they raided, because they wanted illegal immigrants out. They had people from South Korea that made batteries all their lives. You know, making batteries are very complicated. It’s not an easy thing. They’re very dangerous. A lot of explosions, a lot of problems. They had like 500 or 600 people, early stages, to make batteries, and to teach people how to do it. Well, they wanted them to get out of the country. You’re going to need that, Laura. I mean, I know you and I disagree on this. You can’t just say a country’s coming in, going to invest $10 billion to build a plant, and going to take people off an unemployment line who haven’t worked in five years, and they’re going to start making missiles. It doesn’t work that way.
Trump is vague on who deported the South Koreans because it was him:
BREAKING: South Korea is FURIOUS that Trump deported 450 Korean workers during an ICE raid of the Hyundai battery plant in GA.
The country invested over $1 TRILLION in U.S. factories – and now they’re questioning it all.
This situation demonstrates the problem that Mr America First has created for himself. His donors like H1-B visas, because it gives them access to a cheap workforce; his voters just want to deport people.
This is why Trump is receiving responses like the following:
This really pisses me off.
Not only is he putting Americans last. He is insulting them in the same breath.
The problem with reactionary politics is that it’s always a reaction to the current moment, and as such it becomes more and more extreme over time.
We’ve witnessed a similar thing in the UK; the right used migrants as a punching bag for years, and now elements of the base don’t just want less migration; they want the complete expulsion of the non-white population (what they call ‘remigration’):
Remigration is simply a return to normality.
We never needed mass migration.
What we are advocating for is not radical. The current situation is radical.
Trump and his administration have often talked as if they might ethnically cleanse America, but the reality is these capitalist crooks want a cheap labour force first and foremost. The risk now is that a genuine ideologue fills the vacuum which will be left when Trump leaves politics.
Greenpeace has heralded the Cook Islands delay on a decision over whether seabed mining can go ahead until at least 2032 as “evidence of the growing opposition” to the destructive industry in the Pacific.
Greenpeace Aotearoa campaigner Juressa Lee said the decision was “a win for the moana and the Pacific Peoples” and communities fighting against this emerging threat that would risk their way of life.
Resistance to seabed mining in the Cook Islands was strong and persistent, she said in a statement today.
“We are pleased to see that the government is feeling the pressure and acknowledging that a five-year exploration period is nothing more than tokenistic when it comes to understanding this industry’s impacts.
“There is no version of seabed mining that is sustainable or safe.
Lee said that alongside Greenpeace’s allies who wanted to protect the ocean for future generations, the environmental movement would continue to say “a loud and bold no to miners who want to strip the seafloor for their profit”.
The decision that companies wanting to mine in Cook Island waters would now have to apply for a five year extension to their exploration licences was announced today by the Seabed Minerals Authority, the government agency in charge of seabed mining in the Cook Islands.
Current licences expire in 2027.
Raising alarm for years
For years, multiple civil society groups in the Cook Islands have been raising the alarm about rushing into seabed mining.
Four protesters in kayaks met the ship, holding banners that read: “Don’t mine the moana”.
In September 2024, civil society groups came together to peacefully demonstrate community opposition to deep sea mining, with 150 people paddling out into Avarua port and floating a giant banner reading “Protect our ocean”.
Greenpeace is calling for a ban on deep sea mining.
“The current Cook Islands government is pushing seabed mining but we know that many people oppose this emerging industry that risks irreversible damage to ocean life,” said Lee.
“We’ve already seen evidence from a test mining site in the Atlantic Ocean that was mined in the 1970s and has never fully recovered.
Not be silenced
“Pacific Peoples will not be sidelined or silenced by corporations and powerful countries that continue to try and impose this new form of extractive colonialism where it is not wanted.
“Seabed mining is not welcome in the Cook Islands or the Pacific and we will resist.”
Seabed mining is an emerging extractive industry that has not yet started on a commercial scale anywhere in the world. Miners want to extract polymetallic nodules from the seafloor to extract metals.
Three companies — Moana Minerals Limited (a subsidiary of US company Ocean Minerals), Cobalt (CIC) Limited, and CIIC Seabed Resources Limited (a partnership between Cook Islands government and Belgian company GSR) — currently hold licences for seabed mining exploration in the Cook Island waters.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine Francesca Albanese talks to journalist Chris Hedges about her new report that examines how 60+ countries are complicit in Israel’s war crimes and crimes against humanity demonstrated to the world in a “livestreamed atrocity”.
INTERVIEW:The Chris Hedges Report
After two years of genocide, it is no longer possible to hide complicity in Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians. Entire countries and corporations are — according to multiple reports by UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine Francesca Albanese — either directly or indirectly involved in Israel’s economic proliferation.
In her latest report, Gaza Genocide: a collective crime, Albanese details the role 63 nations played in supporting Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians. She chronicles how countries like the United States, which directly funds and arms Israel, are a part of a vast global economic web.
This network includes dozens of other countries that contribute with seemingly minor components, such as warplane wheels.
Rejection of this system is imperative, Albanese says. These same technologies used to destroy the lives of Palestinians will inevitably be turned against the citizens of Israel’s funders.
“Palestine today is a metaphor of our life and where our life is going to go,” Albanese warns.
“Every worker today should draw a lesson from what’s happening to the Palestinians, because the large injustice system is connected and makes all of us connected to what’s happening there.”
The transcript: Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on Palestine, in her latest report, Gaza Genocide: a collective crime, calls out the role 63 nations have in sustaining the Israeli genocide. Albanese, who because of sanctions imposed on her by the Trump administration, had to address the UN General Assembly from the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation in Cape Town, South Africa, slams what she calls “decades of moral and political failure.”
“Through unlawful actions and deliberate omissions, too many states have harmed, founded and shielded Israel’s militarized apartheid, allowing its settler colonial enterprise to metastasize into genocide, the ultimate crime against the indigenous people of Palestine,” she told the UN.
The genocide, she notes, has diplomatic protection in international “fora meant to preserve peace,” military ties ranging from weapons sales to joint trainings that “fed the genocidal machinery,” the unchallenged weaponization of aid, and trade with entities like the European Union, which had sanctioned Russia over Ukraine yet continued doing business with Israel.
The 24-page report details how the “live-streamed atrocity” is facilitated by third states. She excoriates the United States for providing “diplomatic cover” for Israel, using its veto power at the UN Security Council seven times and controlling ceasefire negotiations. Other Western nations, the report noted, collaborate with abstentions, delays and watered-down draft resolutions, providing Israel with weapons, “even as the evidence of genocide … mounted.”
The report chastised the US Congress for passing a $26.4 billion arms package for Israel, although Israel was at the time threatening to invade Rafah in defiance of the Biden administration’s demand that Rafah be spared.
The report also condemns Germany, the second-largest arms exporter to Israel during the genocide, for weapons shipments that include everything from “frigates to torpedoes,” as well as the United Kingdom, which has allegedly flown more than 600 surveillance missions over Gaza since war broke out in October 2023.
At the same time, Arab states have not severed ties with Israel. Egypt, for example, maintained “significant security and economic relations with Israel, including energy cooperation and the closing of the Rafah crossing” during the war.
Francesca Albanese talks to Chris Hedges Video: The Chris Hedges Report
The Gaza genocide, the report states, “exposed an unprecedented chasm between peoples and their governments, betraying the trust on which global peace and security rest.” Her report coincides with the ceasefire that isn’t. More than 300 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed by Israel since the ceasefire was announced two weeks ago.
The first major ceasefire breach on October 19 led to Israeli air strikes that killed 100 Palestinians and wounded 150 others. Palestinians in Gaza continue to endure daily bombings that obliterate buildings and homes. Shelling and gunfire continue to kill and wound civilians, while drones continue to hover overhead broadcasting ominous threats.
Essential food items, humanitarian aid and medical supplies remain scarce because of the ongoing Israeli siege. And the Israeli army controls more than half of the Gaza Strip, shooting anyone, including families, who come too close to its invisible border known as the “yellow line”.
Joining me to discuss her report, the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the complicity of numerous states in sustaining the genocide in Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on Palestine.
Before we get into the report, let’s talk a little bit about what’s happening in Gaza. It’s just a complete disconnect between what is described by the international community, i.e. “a ceasefire”, the pace may have slowed down, but nothing’s changed.
FRANCESCA ALBANESE: Yes, thank you for having me, Chris. I do agree that it seems that there is a complete disconnect between reality and political discourse. Because after the ceasefire, the attention has been forced to shift from Gaza elsewhere.
I do believe, for example, that the increased attention to the catastrophic situation in Sudan, which has been such for years now, all of a sudden is due to the fact that there is a need for, especially from Western countries and the US, Israel and their acolytes to focus on a new emergency.
‘There is the pretence that there is peace, there is no need to protest anymore because finally, there is peace. There is no peace.’
There is the pretence that there is peace, there is no need to protest anymore because finally, there is peace. There is no peace. I mean, the Palestinians have not seen a day of peace because Israel has continued to fire, to use violence against the Palestinians in Gaza. Over 230 Palestinians have been killed since the ceasefire, 100 of them in one day in 24 hours, including 50 children.
And starvation continues. Yes, there has been an increase in the number of trucks, but far, far below what is needed with much confusion because it’s very hard to deliver aid. All the more, Israel maintains a control over 50 percent of the Gaza Strip while the entire Gaza population is amassed in small portions, guarded portions of the territory.
So there is no peace. Meanwhile, while the Security Council seems to be ready to approve a Security Council resolution that will create a non-acronistic form of tutelage, of trusteeship over Palestine, over Gaza, the West Bank is abandoned to the violence and the ethnic cleansing pushed by armed settlers and soldiers while Israel jails continue to fill up with bodies to torture of adults and children alike. This is the reality in the occupied Palestinian territory today and so it makes absolutely no sense where the political discourse is.
CHRIS HEDGES: Two issues about Gaza. One, of course, Israel has seized over 50% or occupies over 50 percent of Gaza. And as I understand it, they’re not allowing any reconstruction supplies, including cement, in.
FRANCESCA ALBANESE: This is also my understanding. They have allowed in food, water and some essential materials needed for hospitals, mainly camp hospitals, tents. But anything related to sustainability is prohibited.
There are many food items that are also prohibited because they are considered luxurious. And the question, Chris, is, and this is why I harbor so much frustration these days toward member states because in the case of genocide, you have heard yourself the argument, well, the recalcitrance of certain states to use the genocide framework saying — and it’s pure nonsense from a legal point of view — but saying, well, the International Court of Justice has not concluded that it’s genocide.
Well, it has concluded already that there is a risk of genocide two years ago, in January, 2024. But however, even when the court does conclude on something relevant like in July, 2024, that the occupation is illegal and must be dismantled totally and unconditionally, this should be the starting point of any peace related or forward-looking discussions.
Instead of deliberating how to force Israel to withdraw from the occupied Palestinian territory, member states continue to maintain dialogue with Israel as Israel has sovereignty over the territory. See, so it’s completely dystopic, the future they are leading Palestinians out of despair into.
But they are also forcing the popular movement, the global movement that has formed made of young people and workers to stop. Because look at what’s happening in France, in Italy, in Germany, in the UK — any kind of attempt at maintaining the light turned on Palestine from Gaza to the West Bank is assaulted. Protests, conferences, there is a very active assault on anything that concerns Palestine.
So this is why I’m saying we are far, far beyond the mismanagement of the lack of understanding, I mean the negligence in approaching the question of Palestine, it’s active complicity to sustain Israel in the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
CHRIS HEDGES: Which, as you point out in your report, has been true from the beginning despite a slight change in rhetoric recognising the two-state solution. The UK did this while only cutting back on shipments by 10 percent.
But I want to ask before we get into the report, what do you think Israel’s goal is? Is it just to slow-walk the genocide until it can resume it? Is it to create this appalling, uninhabitable, unlivable ghetto? What do you think Israel’s goal is?
FRANCESCA ALBANESE: I think that now more than ever it is impossible to separate and distinguish the goals of Israel from the goals of the United States. We tend to have a fragmented view of what happens, analysing for example the relationship between Lebanon and Israel, between Iran and Israel, or between Israel and the Palestinians.
‘One of the things that Palestine has made me realise is the meaning of “Greater Israel” because I do believe that what the current leadership in Israel has in mind and it’s supported by many willing or not in the Israeli society, many who are fine with the erasure of the Palestinians.’
In fact, do, I mean, one of the things that Palestine has made me realise is the meaning of “Greater Israel” because I do believe that what the current leadership in Israel has in mind and it’s supported by many willing or not in the Israeli society, many who are fine with the erasure of the Palestinians.
But there is this idea of Greater Israel and for a long time I have been among those who thought, who were wondering what it is, this “Greater Israel” because of course you look at the map by Israeli leaders in several occasions with this Greater Israel going from the Nile to the Euphrates and you say come on they cannot do that, they cannot occupy Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq.
But then everything changes when you look at it from a non-territorial border expansion perspective. And if you think that in fact domination can be exerted, established, other than by expanding the physical borders and through military occupation, but through domination and financial control, control from outside, power domination, you see that the Greater Israel project has already started and it’s very advanced.
Look at the annihilation of Iraq, Libya, Syria, Lebanon. So all those who were historically considered not friends of Israel have been annihilated. And the other Arab countries that remain either do not have the capacity to confront Israel and perish the thought they explored the idea of unity among them or with others. And the others are fine with it.
Ultimately, I think that Greater Israel is the quintessential explanation of the US imperialistic design in that part of the world for which the Palestinians remain a thorn in the side not just for Israel but for the imperialistic project itself because the Palestinians are still there resisting.
They don’t want to go, they don’t want to be tamed, they don’t want to be dominated so they are the last line, the last frontier of resistance, both physically and in the imagination. And therefore, you see, the fierceness against them has scaled up, with the US now getting ready with boots on the ground to get rid of them. This is my interpretation of the general design behind Israel-United States, where Israelis are going to pay a heavy price like many in the region, not just the Palestinians.
CHRIS HEDGES:So you see the imposition of American troops in Gaza as another step forward to the depopulation of Gaza.
FRANCESCA ALBANESE: Yes, yes, yes, I don’t trust any promise made to the Palestinians either by Israel or by the United States because what I’ve seen over the past two years shows me, demonstrates to all of us in fact, that they don’t care at all about the Palestinians. Otherwise, they would have seen their suffering.
‘The beginning of genocide has changed my perception of the world in a way, for me personally, it’s the end of an era of innocence when I really believed that the United Nations were a place where things could still be advanced in the pursuit of peace.’
It’s just not like people like us who can really divide their life. Is it pre-genocide? Does it happen to you as well? Are you talking of pre-genocide or after genocide? Because in fact, the beginning of genocide has changed my perception of the world in a way, for me personally, it’s the end of an era of innocence when I really believed that the United Nations were a place where things could still be advanced in the pursuit of peace.
Now I don’t think so, which doesn’t mean that I think that the UN is over, but in order not to be over, in order to make sense to the people, it is to be led by dignity, principles like dignity, equality and freedom for all. And we are absolutely far from that today.
CHRIS HEDGES: And what is it that brought you to this decision? Is it the acceptance of this faux ceasefire on the part of the UN, or was it before this moment?
FRANCESCA ALBANESE: No, it’s before. It’s before. It’s the fact that for two years most states, primarily in the West, but with the acquiescence of other states in the region have supported the Israeli mantra of “self-defence”.
Sorry, it was a mantra because again, self-defence has a very, I’m not saying that Israel had no right to protect itself. Of course Israel had suffered a ferocious attack on October 7. Some say similar to the attacks it had inflicted on the Palestinians. Others say more brutal, say less brutal. It doesn’t matter.
Israel suffered a horrible, violent attack. Israeli civilians suffered a horrible attack on October 7th. But hey, this didn’t give the possibility to Israel to invoke Article 51 of the UN Charter, meaning the right to wage a war.
This is not legal. And on this I can say I’m surprised by how conservative are member states when it comes to the interpretation of international law, except on this, in the sense that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has already set the limits of the right of invoking self-defence for member states.
And it can only be done against states where there is a concrete threat that the state will attack which is not the case here. So yes, Israel could defend itself, but not wage a war. And while the war was clearly identifiable more for its crimes than not its tendency to avoid crimes, member states have continued to say nothing and it was very extreme violence against the Palestinians in Gaza but also against the Palestinians in the West Bank. And for two years they’ve not used their power to stop it.
So I’m convinced that in order to have a political shift vis-à-vis Israel, there must be a political shift at the country level, because governments are completely subdued to the dictates of the US. Of course, if the US wanted, this would stop, but the US with this constellation of figures in the government is not going to stop.
And plus look at how the West in particular has contributed to dehumanise the Palestinians. Even today you hear people saying yes, Palestinians have been killed in these numbers because they’ve been used as human shields when the only evidence that they’ve been used as human shields is against Israel because Israel has used Palestinians as human shields in the West Bank and in Gaza alike.
You see Palestinians have returned to be wrapped into this colonial tropism of them being the savages, the barbarians, in a way, they have brought havoc upon themselves. This is the narrative that the West has used toward the Palestinians. And by doing that, it has created, they have created the fertile ground for Israel’s impunity.
CHRIS HEDGES: Let’s talk about the nations that you single out in your report that have continued to sustain the genocide, either through weapons shipments, but also the commercial interests. I think your previous report talked about the money that was being made off of the genocide. Just lay out the extent of that collaboration and to the extent that you can, the sums of money involved.
FRANCESCA ALBANESE: Yeah, yeah, let me start with introducing generally two components, the military component and the trade and investment ones, which are quite interrelated. And states have, in general, I name 62 states, primarily Western states, but with substantive collaboration of states from the Global South, global majority, including some Arab states.
So they have altogether ignored, obscured and somewhat even profited from Israel’s violations of international law through military and economic channels. So military cooperation through arms trades or intelligence sharing has fueled Israel’s war machine during the occupation, the illegal occupation, and especially during the genocide while the United States and Germany alone have provided about 90 percent of Israel’s arms export.
At least 26 states have supplied or facilitated the transfer of arms or components, while many others have continued to buy weapons tested on the Palestinians. And this is why in my previous report, the ones looking at the private sector, I was shocked to see how much the Israeli stock exchange had gone up during the genocide.
And this is particularly because of a growth in the military industry. On the other hand, there is the trade and investment sector. Both have sustained and profited from Israel’s economy. Think that between 2023, 2024, actually the end of 2022 and 2024, exports of electronics, pharmaceuticals, energy minerals and what is called the dual-use have totaled almost US$500 billion, helping Israel finance its military occupation.
Now one third of this trade is with the European Union while the rest is complemented by North American countries, the US and Canada, who have free trade agreements with Israel and several Arab states that have continued to deepen economic ties.
Only a few states have marginally reduced trade during the genocide, but in general the indirect commercial flows, including with states that have supposedly no diplomatic relations with Israel, have continued undisturbed.
It’s a very grim picture of the reality. But let me add just one extra element. I do believe that in many respects, the problem is ideological. As I said, there is a tendency to treat Ukraine, for example, vis-a-vis Russia, in a very different fashion than Palestine versus Israel. And this is why I think there is an element of Orientalism that accompanies also the tragedy of the Palestinian people.
CHRIS HEDGES:Talk a little bit about the kinds of weapons that have been shipped to Israel. These are, and we should be clear that, of course, the Palestinians do not have a conventional army, don’t have a navy, they don’t have an air force, they don’t have mechanized units, including tanks, they don’t have artillery, and yet the weapons shipments that are coming in are some of the most sophisticated armaments that are used in a conventional war.
And as a leaked Israeli report, I think it was +972, provided, 83 percent of the people killed in Gaza are civilians.
FRANCISCA ALBANESE: Yes, yes. First of all, there are two things that are weapons, what is considered conventional weapons and dual-use. And both should have been suspended according to the decision of the International Court of Justice concerning Israel in the Nicaragua v. Germany case.
Meanwhile, there are two things: there is the transfer of weapons directly to Israel, and this includes aircraft, materials to compose the drones, because Israel doesn’t produce anything on its own, it requires components — artillery shells, for example, cannon ammunition, rifles, anti-tank missiles, bombs.
So these are all things that have been provided primarily by the United States. Germany, which is the second largest arms exporter to Israel has supplied a range of weapons from frigates to torpedoes.
And also, and then there is Italy, which has also provided spare parts for bombs and airplanes and the United Kingdom, who has played a key role in providing intelligence. And there is also the question of the UN. Not everything is easy to track because the United States have traveled … the United States are the prime provider of weapons, also because they are the assembler of the F-35 programme.
So there are 17 or 19 countries which cooperate and all of them say, well, you know, I mean, yes, I know that the F-35 is used in Israel, by Israel, but I only contribute to a small part. I only contribute to the wheels. I only contribute to the wings. I only provide these hooks or this engine.
Well, everything is assembled in the US and then sold or transferred or gifted to Israel. And it’s extremely problematic because this is why I say it’s a collective crime, because no one can assume the responsibility on their own but eventually all together they contribute to make this genocide implicating so many countries.
CHRIS HEDGES: So Francesca, Israel is the ninth largest arms exporter in the world. To what extent do those relationships have? I mean, I think one of the largest purchasers of Israeli drones is India. We’ve seen India shift its position vis-a-vis Palestine.
Historically, it’s always stood with the Palestinian people. That’s no longer true under [Narendra] Modi. To what extent do those ties affect the response by the 63 some states that you write about for collaborating with the genocide.
FRANCESCA ALBANESE: So let me first expand on this. Weapon and military technology sale is a core component of Israel’s economy. And since 2024, it has constituted one third of Israeli exports. And of course, there are two elements connected to this, is that these exports enhances Israel’s manufacturing capacity, but also horribly worsens the life of the Palestinians because Israeli military technology is tested on the Palestinians under occupation or other people under other Israeli related military activities.
Now, the fact that the arms export has increased of nearly 20 percent during the genocide, doubling toward Europe. And only the trade with Europe accounts for over 50 percent of Israeli military sales, selling to so many other countries, including in the Global South, the Asia and Pacific states in the Asia-Pacific region account for 23 percent of the purchase, with India being probably the major. But also 12 percent of the weapons tested on the Palestinians are purchased by Arab countries under the Abraham Accords. So what does it tell us?
It explains what you were hinting at in the question, the fact that this is also reflected in the political shift toward Israel that has been recorded at the General Assembly level. If you see how some African countries and Asian countries, including India, are behaving vis-a-vis Israel, it’s 180 degrees turn compared to where they were in the 1970s, 80s and 90s.
This is because on the one hand, Israel is embedded in the global economy, but also it’s a global economy that is veering toward ultra liberal, I mean, it’s following ultra-liberalist ideologies and therefore capital and wealth and accumulation of resources, including military power, comes first.
‘It’s very sad, but this is the reality . . . since the end of the Cold War that there has been an increasing globalisation of the system where the common denominator is force.’
It’s very sad, but this is the reality. And it’s important to know because this is a long, as I was hinting before, my sense is that this is a long term trajectory that didn’t start on October 7, 2023. I mean, probably since the end of the Cold War that there has been an increasing globalisation of the system where the common denominator is force.
I mean, there is this, not a common denominator, but the unifying factor for many is force, how the monopoly of force that comes with weapons, capital and algorithms. And yeah, this is where the world is going.
CHRIS HEDGES: Well, we’ve seen these weapons systems which of course are tested. They’re sold as bad. say the term is battle tested without naming the Palestinians, but they are sold to Greece to hold back migrants coming from North Africa. They are used along the border in the United States with Mexico.
And it’s not just that these weapons are “battle tested” on the Palestinians and we haven’t even spoken about these huge surveillance systems, but the very methods of control, the way they’re used are exported through military advisors.
FRANCESCA ALBANESE: Of course, because in fact, the Israeli population is made almost entirely of soldiers. Of course, there are those who do not enlist in the army for religious reasons or because they are contentious objectors, they’re a tiny minority. But the majority of the people of Israelis go through the army.
And then many of them transfer their know-how or what they have been doing into their next career steps. So the fact that Israel, as I was documenting in my previous report, Israel’s startup economy has a huge dark side to the fact that it’s connected to the military industry and to the surveillance industry.
There is a significant body of Israeli citizens who are going around providing advice, intelligence and training in the Global South both to mercenaries and states proper like Morocco. So there is an Israelisation and Palestinianisation of the international relations or rather of the relations between individuals and states.
And I think the interesting thing, this is why I’m saying Palestine is such a revealer, it’s because, as you say, eventually these tools of control and securitisation have concentrated in the hands of those who are fortifying borders at the expense of refugees and migrants.
So it’s really clear what’s happening here. There are oligarchs who are getting richer and richer and more and more protected in their fortresses where the state is providing the fertile ground to have it, but it’s not states that are benefiting from this inequality, because the majority of the people within states, look at the US, but also in Europe, are not benefiting from anything, in fact.
They’re victims. This is why you equally exploit it. This is why I’m saying it’s another degree of suffering, of course, than the Palestinians. But every worker today should draw a lesson from what’s happening to the Palestinians, because the large injustice system is connected and makes all of us connected to what’s happening there.
CHRIS HEDGES: Well, internally as well. I mean, with Sikh farmers who were protesting Modi were out on the roads, suddenly, over their heads were Israeli-made drones dropping tear gas canisters.
FRANCESCA ALBANESE: Yeah, exactly. Drones are one of the most exported devices from Israel’s technology and they are in use by Frontex to surveil the Mediterranean Sea, as you were saying, the US-Mexican border. But more and more, they’re getting into people’s lives.
Also look at the way certain technologies have been perfected across borders. I remember earlier this summer, this is very anecdotal, I’ve not done research on it, but I knew that we were seeing something quite and horribly revolutionary.
This year, this summer during the protests in Serbia, where students and ordinary citizens were taken to the streets against the government and have been protesting for one year now, people in Serbia. I saw the use of these sound weapons, oxygen-fed weapons.
So there are bombs that produce such a pain in the body who finds itself in the wave that it’s excruciating. And then of course people try to flee, but they also lose senses, et cetera. And I’ve seen this in Serbia.
And now I understand that it’s being used in Gaza as well, where the bomb doesn’t produce fire, it produces a movement of air that causes pain to the body and even to internal organs. It’s incredible. And these are weapons that have been perfected through testing here and there, and Serbia keeps on selling and buying military technology to and from Israel.
CHRIS HEDGES: I just want to close with, I mean, I think your reports, the last two reports in particular, show the complete failure on the part of governments as well as corporations to respond legally in terms of their legal obligations to the genocide. What do we do now? What must be done to quote Lenin?
How, because this, as you have pointed out repeatedly, really presages the complete breakdown of the rule of law. What as citizens must we do?
FRANCESCA ALBANESE: I think that we have passed the alarm area. I mean, we are really in a critical place and I sense it because instead of correcting itself, the system led by governments is accentuating its authoritarian traits. Think of the repressive measures that the UK government is taking against protesters, against civil society, against journalists standing in solidarity with Palestine, for justice in Palestine.
In France and in Italy at the same time, conferences academic freedom is shrinking and in the same days, conferences of reputable historians and military and legal experts have been cancelled owing to the pressure of the pro-genocide groups, pro-Israel groups in their respective countries. People, including in Germany, are being persecuted, including academics, for their own exercise of free speech.
This tells me that there is very little pretense that Western states, so-called liberal democracies, the most attached to this idea of democracy are ready to defend for real. So in this sense, it’s up to us citizens to be vigilant and to make sure that we do not buy products connected or services connected to the legality of the occupation, the apartheid and the genocide.
And there are various organisations that collect lists of companies and entities, including universities that are connected to this unlawful endeavor. BDS [Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions] is one, don’t buy into the occupation who profits profundo, but also students associations.
‘There is a need to speak about Palestine, to make choices about Palestine and not because everything needs to revolve around Palestine, but because Palestine today is a metaphor of our life and where our life is going to go is clearly evident in this.’
And this is something that has taught me, it’s very touching because it’s really the work of students, faculty members and staff that has mapped what each university does. And I think it gives the possibility to act, everyone in our own domain. Then of course there is a need to speak about Palestine, to make choices about Palestine and not because everything needs to revolve around Palestine, but because Palestine today is a metaphor of our life and where our life is going to go is clearly evident in this.
But also we need to make sure that businesses divest. Either through our purchase power, people have to step away and stop using platforms like Airbnb or Booking.com. I know that Amazon is very convenient, but guys, we might also return to buy books in libraries, ordering books through libraries.
Of course, not all of us can, but many do, many can. On the way to work, buy a book in a library, order a book in a bookstore. We need to reduce our reliance on the tools that have been used, that have been perfected through the slaughter of the Palestinians. And of course, make government accountable. There are lawyers, associations, and jurists who are taking government officials to court, businesses to court. But again, I do not think that there is one strategy that is going to be the winning one.
It’s the plurality of actions from a plurality of actors that is going to produce results and slow down the genocide and then help dismantle the occupation and the apartheid. It’s a long trajectory and the fight has just started.
CHRIS HEDGES: Thank you, Francesca, and I want to thank Thomas [Hedges], Diego [Ramos], Max [Jones] and Sofia [Menemenlis], who produced the show. You can find me at ChrisHedges.Substack.com
Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize–winning author and journalist who was a foreign correspondent for 15 years for The New York Times. This interview is republished from The Chris Hedges Report.
Timor-Leste Prime Minister Kay Rala Xanana Gusmão has paid tribute to the “courageous and determined” contribution of Australian journalist Robert Domm to the struggle of the Timorese people in gaining independence from Indonesia. He died last Friday.
Domm was remembered for meeting in secret with the then Timorese resistance leader Gusmão in an exclusive interview.
“The government and people of East Timor are deeply saddened by the passing of Robert Domm, whose courage and determination helped bring to the world the truth of our fight for self-determination,” Gusmão’s statement said.
“In September 1990, when few in the world were aware of the devastation in occupied East Timor, or that our campaign of resistance continued despite the terrible losses, Robert Domm made the perilous journey to our country and climbed Mount Bunaria to meet with me and the leadership from FALINTIL.
“He was the first foreign journalist in 15 years to have direct contact with the Resistance.
“Your interview with me, broadcast by the ABC Background Briefing programme, broke the silence involving Timor-Leste since 1975.
“He conveyed to the world the message that the Timorese struggle for self-determination and resistance against foreign military occupation was very much alive.
Merchant seaman
“Robert Domm visited East Timor in the 1970s, then under Portuguese colonial control, as a merchant seaman on a boat crossing between Darwin and Dili, transporting general cargo and fuel.
“He returned in 1989, when Indonesia allowed tourist entry for the first time since 1975.
“He returned in 1990, allegedly as a “tourist”, but was on a secret mission to interview me for the Australian Broadcasting Commission.
“Robert Domm’s journey to find me took extraordinary courage. His visit was organised by the Timorese resistance with, as he later recalled, “military precision”. He involved more than two hundred people from Timore who guided him through villages and checkpoints, running great risk for himself and the Timore people who helped him.
“He was a humble and gentle Australian who slept next to us on the grounds of Mount Bunaria, ate with us under the protection of the jungle and walked with our resistance soldiers as a comrade and a friend. I am deeply moved by your concern for the people of Timore.
He risked his own life to share our story. His report has given international recognition to the humanity and the resolve of our people.
“Following the broadcast, the Indonesian military carried out large-scale operations in our mountains and many of those who helped them lost their lives for our freedom.
Exposed complicity
“Robert continued to support East Timor after 1990. He spoke out against the occupation and exposed the complicity of governments that have remained mute. He was a co-author, with Mark Aarons, of East Timor: A Tragedy Created by the West, a work that deepened the international understanding of our suffering and our right to self-determination.
“He remained a friend and defender of East Timor long after the restoration of independence.
“In 2015, twenty-five years after his maiden voyage, Robert returned to East Timor to commemorate our historic encounter. Together, we walked to Mount Bunaria, in the municipality of Ainaro, to celebrate the occasion and remember the lives lost during our fight.
“The place of our meeting has been recognised as a place of historical importance.
“In recognition of his contribution, Robert Domm was awarded the Order of Timor-Leste in August 2014. This honour reflected our nation’s gratitude for its role in taking our struggle to the world. Robert’s contribution is part of our nation’s history.
“Robert’s soul now rests on Mount Matebian, next to his Timorese brothers and sisters.
“On behalf of the government and people of East Timor, we express our deepest condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of Robert Domm. His courage, decency and sense of justice will forever remain in the memory of our nation.”
Journalist Robert Domm with Timorese resistance leader Xanana Gusmão, now Prime Minister of Timor-Leste, in a jungle hideout in 1990. Image: via Joana Ruas
Timor-Leste Prime Minister Kay Rala Xanana Gusmão has paid tribute to the “courageous and determined” contribution of Australian journalist Robert Domm to the struggle of the Timorese people in gaining independence from Indonesia. He died last Friday.
Domm was remembered for meeting in secret with the then Timorese resistance leader Gusmão in an exclusive interview.
“The government and people of East Timor are deeply saddened by the passing of Robert Domm, whose courage and determination helped bring to the world the truth of our fight for self-determination,” Gusmão’s statement said.
“In September 1990, when few in the world were aware of the devastation in occupied East Timor, or that our campaign of resistance continued despite the terrible losses, Robert Domm made the perilous journey to our country and climbed Mount Bunaria to meet with me and the leadership from FALINTIL.
“He was the first foreign journalist in 15 years to have direct contact with the Resistance.
“Your interview with me, broadcast by the ABC Background Briefing programme, broke the silence involving Timor-Leste since 1975.
“He conveyed to the world the message that the Timorese struggle for self-determination and resistance against foreign military occupation was very much alive.
Merchant seaman
“Robert Domm visited East Timor in the 1970s, then under Portuguese colonial control, as a merchant seaman on a boat crossing between Darwin and Dili, transporting general cargo and fuel.
“He returned in 1989, when Indonesia allowed tourist entry for the first time since 1975.
“He returned in 1990, allegedly as a “tourist”, but was on a secret mission to interview me for the Australian Broadcasting Commission.
“Robert Domm’s journey to find me took extraordinary courage. His visit was organised by the Timorese resistance with, as he later recalled, “military precision”. He involved more than two hundred people from Timore who guided him through villages and checkpoints, running great risk for himself and the Timore people who helped him.
“He was a humble and gentle Australian who slept next to us on the grounds of Mount Bunaria, ate with us under the protection of the jungle and walked with our resistance soldiers as a comrade and a friend. I am deeply moved by your concern for the people of Timore.
He risked his own life to share our story. His report has given international recognition to the humanity and the resolve of our people.
“Following the broadcast, the Indonesian military carried out large-scale operations in our mountains and many of those who helped them lost their lives for our freedom.
Exposed complicity
“Robert continued to support East Timor after 1990. He spoke out against the occupation and exposed the complicity of governments that have remained mute. He was a co-author, with Mark Aarons, of East Timor: A Tragedy Created by the West, a work that deepened the international understanding of our suffering and our right to self-determination.
“He remained a friend and defender of East Timor long after the restoration of independence.
“In 2015, twenty-five years after his maiden voyage, Robert returned to East Timor to commemorate our historic encounter. Together, we walked to Mount Bunaria, in the municipality of Ainaro, to celebrate the occasion and remember the lives lost during our fight.
“The place of our meeting has been recognised as a place of historical importance.
“In recognition of his contribution, Robert Domm was awarded the Order of Timor-Leste in August 2014. This honour reflected our nation’s gratitude for its role in taking our struggle to the world. Robert’s contribution is part of our nation’s history.
“Robert’s soul now rests on Mount Matebian, next to his Timorese brothers and sisters.
“On behalf of the government and people of East Timor, we express our deepest condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of Robert Domm. His courage, decency and sense of justice will forever remain in the memory of our nation.”
Journalist Robert Domm with Timorese resistance leader Xanana Gusmão, now Prime Minister of Timor-Leste, in a jungle hideout in 1990. Image: via Joana Ruas
French Minister for Overseas Naïma Moutchou’s first visit to New Caledonia is marked by marathon political talks and growing concerns about the French Pacific territory’s deteriorating economic situation.
Moutchou arrived on Monday on a visit scheduled to last until tomorrow.
With a backdrop of political uncertainty and the economic consequences of the May 2024 riots, she has been meeting with a large panel of political and economic stakeholders over concerns about New Caledonia’s future.
French Overseas Minister Naïma Moutchou . . . growing concerns about the French territory’s economy and political future. Image: APR File
On Monday, she met a group of about 40 political, business and economic leaders.
All of them voiced their concerns about New Caledonia’s short-term future and what they term as a “lack of visibility” and fear about what 2026 could hold.
Some of these fears are related to a lack of financial support necessary for a proper recovery of the local economy, which was devastated by the 2024 riots and caused damages of over 2 billion euros (NZ$4 million) with an estimated drop of the local GDP by 13.5 percent, the destruction of hundreds of businesses and the subsequent loss of tens of thousands of jobs.
The French government last year unlocked a special loan of 1 billion euros, but it will now have to be reimbursed and has created a huge debt for the French Pacific archipelago.
Huge loan issue
A vast majority of economic and political leaders now seem to agree that the huge loan granted in 2024 should be converted into a non-refundable grant.
New Caledonia’s indebtedness rate, as a result, soared to 360 percent for debts that will have to be refunded as early as 2026, at a high interest rate of 4.54 percent.
“The urgency is about finding jobs for those 12,000 people who have lost their jobs”, employers’ association MEDEF-NC vice president Bertrand Courte told reporters after the meeting.
“We need to kick-start the economy with large-scale works and only the French State can do it”, he said, echoing a feeling of disappointment.
The fears are further compounded by looming deadlines such as the local retirement scheme, which is threatening to collapse.
A special scheme to assist the unemployed, which was extended from 2024, is also to come to an end in December 2025. There are pleas to extend it once again at least until June 2026.
“We do understand that now, from France’s point of view, it’s a give and take situation”, said Medium and Small Businesses president Christophe Dantieux.
Public spending cuts
“[France] will only give if we make more efforts in terms of reforms. But there have already been quite a few efforts made in 2025, especially 15 percent cuts on public spending, but it looks like it’s not enough.”
One of the scheduled large-scale projects was the construction of a new prison, which was announced in 2023 but has not started.
On the macro-economic scale, New Caledonia is also facing several crucial challenges.
Huge losses in terms of tax collection have been estimated to a staggering US$600 million, as well as a deficit of some US$500 million in public accounts.
Another obstacle to boosting investments or re-investments, since the 2024 riots, was that most insurance companies are continuing to exclude a “riots risk” clause in their new policies.
On the French national level, the much-disputed 2026 Budget for Overseas is scheduled to take place starting November 18 and this also includes threats such as the intention to scrap tax exemption benefits for French companies intending to invest in France’s overseas territories, including New Caledonia.
“There is an economic, financial and budget urgency”, New Caledonia government President Alcide Ponga said following the minister’s meeting with the whole Cabinet.
“The minister is well aware that our budget situation is catastrophic and she intends to help us”, Congress (Parliament) President Veylma Falaeo said after her meeting with Moutchou.
Yohann Lecourieux, mayor of the city of Dumbéa (near the capital Nouméa), also provided a telling example of the current hardships faced by the population: “Eight hundred of our students no longer eat in our schools’ canteens simply because the families can no longer afford to pay.”
Political talks: no immediate outcome On Tuesday, Moutchou focused on political talks with all parties on the local chessboard, one after the other.
The major challenge was to resume political discussions after one of the major components of the pro-independence movement, the FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front), mainly dominated by historic Union Calédonienne, decided to withdraw from a proposed consensual project signed in July 2025 in Bougival (in the outskirts of Paris) after a week-long session of intense talks fostered by Moutchou predecessor, Manuel Valls.
The Bougival text was proposing to create a “State of New Caledonia”, as well as a New Caledonian nationality and transfer of key powers (such as foreign affairs) from France.
Since FLNKS denounced its negotiators’ signatures, all of New Caledonia’s other parties have committed to defend the Bougival text, while at the same time urging FLNKS to come back to the table and possibly submit their desired modifications.
Since she was appointed to the sensitive portfolio last month, Moutchou, in Paris repeated that she did not intend to “do without” FLNKS, as long as FLNKS did not intend to “do without the other (parties)”.
Moutchou also said her approach was “listen first and then reply”.
Following a two-hour meeting on Tuesday between Moutchou and the FLNKS delegation, it maintained its stance and commitment to “sincere dialogue” based on a “clear discussion and negotiation method”.
‘We will not change course’ – FLNKS “We will not change course. This is a first contact to remind of the defiance and loss of trust from FLNKS with the [French] State since December 2021,” FLNKS spokesperson Dominique Fochi said.
He said the FLNKS still “wishes out of the French Republic’s fold in order to create solid ties with countries of the region or even with France”.
Saying the Bougival text was a “lure of independence”, FLNKS had previously also posed a pre-requirement that future negotiations should be held in New Caledonia and placed under the auspices of the United Nations, in a spirit of decolonisation.
Late October 2025, both Houses of the French Parliament endorsed, for the third time, that New Caledonia’s crucial provincial local elections (scheduled to be held before December 2025) should now take place no later than June 2026.
The postponement was validated by France’s Constitutional Council on November 6.
This was specifically designed to allow more time for political talks to produce a consensual agreement on New Caledonia’s political future, possibly a continuation or refining (by way of amendments) of the Bougival text.
Pro-France parties On the side of parties who want New Caledonia to remain part of France (and are opposed to independence), Les Loyalistes leader and Southern Province President Sonia Backès, said she and other pro-France parties also remained open to further discussions.
“But we’ve already made a lot of concessions in the Bougival agreement”, she said.
“[Moutchou] now has understood that New Caledonia is out of breath and that we now have to move forward, especially politically”, Rassemblement-LR leader Virginie Ruffenach said after talks with the French minister.
“We can no longer procrastinate, or else New Caledonia will not recover if we don’t have an agreement that carries prospects for all of our territory’s population,” Ruffenach said.
“We are still hopeful that, by the end of this week, we can move forward and find a way… But this cannot be the theory of chaos that’s being imposed on us.”
The ‘moderate’ pro-independence parties Two former pillars of FLNKS, now described as “moderates” within the pro-independence movement, the PALIKA (Kanak Liberation Party) and UPM (Progressist Union in Melanesia), who have distanced themselves from FLNKS since August 2024, after the riots, are now staunch supporters of the Bougival project.
“We are committed to (the Bougival) accord… Our militants said some improvements could be made. That’s what we told the minister and she said yes”, UNI Congress caucus president Jean-Pierre Djaïwé told local media after discussions with Moutchou.
He said those possible amendments could touch on the short-term handing over of a number of powers by France, but that this should not affect the Bougival project’s fragile “general balance”.
They say the text, although not perfect because it is a compromise, still makes full sovereignty achievable.
PALIKA held its important annual congress over the weekend and says it will announce its main outcomes later this week.
A strong faction within PALIKA is currently pushing for the “moderate” line (as opposed to the hard-line FLNKS) to be pursued and therefore a formal divorce with FLNKS should be made official.
On the “pro-Bougival” side, currently re-grouping all pro-France parties and the pro-independence moderates PALIKA and UPM, grouped into a “UNI” (Union Nationale pour l’Indépendance) caucus at the local Congress, some of the mooted possible future options could be to place all bets on the local referendum to be held early 2026 and its possible outcome pronouncing a vast majority for the July 2025 text.
They believe, based on the current party representation at the Congress, that this Bougival text could gather between 60 and 80 percent of local support.
Another party, Wallisian-based Eveil Océanien and its vice-president Milakulo Tukumuli told public broadcaster NC la 1ère on Sunday another option could be to just “agree to disagree” and base the rest of future developments on the outcomes of New Caledonia’s provincial elections.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
As winter creeps into Gaza with its cold arrival, thousands of displaced people are enduring new chapters of suffering inside tattered tents that offer no protection from the wind or rain. After a long summer whose heat almost melted them, they now face the rainy season exposed, without cover or a floor to protect children from drowning in the mud.
In the camps stretching from the north to the south of the Gaza Strip, the fear of drowning is renewed every evening. The rain, which was once a harbinger of life, has now become a constant source of fear.
Um Mahmoud, displaced from the Zeitoun neighborhood in Gaza, told the Canary:
Our tent is torn at the sides. We put pieces of nylon over it, but the wind comes in from everywhere. With the first rain, we don’t know where we will go or how we will protect the children.
Despite repeated promises to allow the entry of relief supplies and new tents, the occupation continues to prevent their entry through the crossings, leaving families who lost their homes in the last war to face their fate in tattered tarpaulins and with water seeping into their children’s bodies.
Gaza winter: the siege exacerbates the suffering.
According to UNRWA and human rights sources, the Israeli occupation prevents the entry of tents, basic aid, and cooking gas into the Gaza Strip, despite the dire humanitarian need.
More than 1.5 million displaced people are living without adequate shelter, their tents deteriorating due to the long summer heat and frequent winds, increasing the risk of drowning and disease as winter approaches.
The Government Media Office in Gaza indicates that the restrictions on the entry of relief supplies constitute collective punishment, violating the rights of civilians under the Geneva Conventions, at a time when the camps desperately need blankets, new tents, utensils, and clothing to meet basic needs.
According to UNRWA, aid entering Gaza since the ceasefire has reached only 28% of the required amount, deepening the humanitarian needs gap and leaving thousands of displaced people without protection from the winter cold and heavy rains.
A Cry from the Camps
Abu Ahmed, displaced from the northern Gaza Strip, told the Canary:
We fear every cloud that passes overhead. This time, the rain isn’t a blessing, but a fear of drowning and freezing cold. Our tent is dilapidated, and we have no alternative.
Humanitarian organisations are calling on the international community to pressure the Israeli occupation to open the crossings and allow the immediate entry of tents and basic shelter materials, in anticipation of a potential humanitarian catastrophe with the onset of winter.
In Gaza this year, winter brings not its usual blessings, but rather knocks on the doors of worn-out tents laden with fear and hunger. Thousands of families await delayed warmth and shelter before the rains turn into a disaster.
As winter approaches, Gaza’s tattered tents remain the last refuge for the displaced, and the youngest children bear the brunt of the cold, rain, and hunger. Every day that passes without the arrival of essential aid exacerbates the suffering of families and turns winter into a test of survival.
The message is clear: life in Gaza is not just about survival, but a constant struggle for the most basic necessities. The international community must act now before the coming rains become an unstoppable humanitarian catastrophe.
Riyasa, a young southern Lebanese girl living in Beit Leif — a small town near the border with Israel — says her life has completely changed since the last war between both sides. Her usual strolls near the forest have become more of a risk than a leisure activity, not because of wild animals, but because of Israeli war drones constantly buzzing over her head and over the heads of residents of the South in general. Israeli violations have now become the norm.
The Israeli violations of the ceasefire with Lebanon — which ended a 66-day full-scale war following nearly a year of mutual bombardments that began on October 8, 2023 — have become “a norm” for the Arab state. What changed in recent months is the gradual escalation Israel has carried out against Hezbollah personnel, civilians, and infrastructure, and even public workers. These violations left 140 civilians dead and 398 injured, with 2,950 violations recorded according to Information International, an independent regional research firm based in Beirut.
Israeli violations never stop
Following the 2006 war between Israel and Lebanon, a UN-brokered ceasefire under Resolution 1701 was meant to prevent further hostilities and maintain stability along the Lebanese-Israeli border. But in practice, the agreement has been repeatedly violated — primarily by Israel — through near-daily overflights, artillery fire, and cross-border attacks. Since October 2023, these violations have intensified in parallel with the Gaza war, as Israel justifies its strikes as “targeting Hezbollah positions.” Yet many of these attacks have hit civilian areas, farmland, and small villages across South Lebanon, displacing thousands of residents and destroying infrastructure. While the Lebanese Army and the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) have documented hundreds of breaches, the international response remains muted, leaving border communities to bear the brunt of an undeclared war that is steadily eroding what remains of the ceasefire.
Riyasa told the Canary:
We feel death is near since the drones are directly over our village. We barely go out, and if we go hunting, we return early because Israel might think we’re building something against it and could target us. If the drone is close, I don’t go out, I don’t go to the gym, I tell my siblings to come back home — our friends as well — because Israel targets whoever it wants with no accountability. The drone’s sound has become a synonym for death. Every time it’s near and going faster, we sense death is closer. We got used to the sound; when it speeds up, it means it’s targeting someone — whether it’s you or someone near you.
From her house, she can hear the constant Israeli bombardment and gunfire toward Aita al-Shaab, a border town that overlooks several Israeli outposts, where the IDF casually enters the empty town and blows up what remains of civilian structures about 1.5 km inside Lebanese territory. She also hears the distant airstrikes on other towns in southern Lebanon, where Israel claims it is targeting “Hezbollah activity and infrastructure” — yet without providing evidence.
Largest post-war attack
One such attack targeted excavator dealerships in Msayleh (60 km from the Israeli border) in the largest post-war attack. The strikes completed destroyed 6 excavator dealerships at 4 am on October 11, wiping out over 300 machines. The IDF claimed Hezbollah was using the equipment to “rebuild the areas it was operating in,” but Lebanese MP Kassem Hashem said that day:
This is a massacre of people’s livelihoods. Israel is only aiming to make southern Lebanon an uninhabitable area.
So why does Israel continue to violate the ceasefire, conducting airstrikes and destroying civilian structures?
Dr. Leila Nicola, a political analyst, told the Canary that there are:
many intersecting goals behind Israel’s daily attacks on the South — such as putting pressure on Hezbollah and the Lebanese government through escalation, and forcing Beirut into direct peace negotiations with Israel, which would amount to official recognition of the state. In addition, Israel seeks a security arrangement that gives it the upper hand in southern Lebanon while preventing Hezbollah from regaining strength — a goal it could not achieve through its previous wars or during its occupation of Lebanon (1982–2000).
Nicola added:
At this point, no one knows if things will escalate into a full-scale war in the coming months. For now, we remain in a status quo — an escalation short of full war. Hezbollah will not give Israel a pretext to expand its aggression, and Israel won’t launch a ground invasion since it has tried that before with limited success. Instead, it will continue this low-cost war that hurts Hezbollah and Lebanon economically, socially, and militarily — until it gets an American green light for a full-scale war. For now, the U.S. administration seems content with the pressure Israel’s campaign, alongside its economic and political pressure, is exerting on Lebanon.
Israeli violations — ‘We feel life has stopped’
In the town of Kfarshouba, on the eastern side of the border, Dima shares her frustration with the Canary:
We can’t reach our farms, especially the olive fields — people couldn’t harvest their crops because of the Israeli attacks. Everything changed since the ceasefire,” she adds, half-jokingly, “Death is near? We feel life has stopped. Of course, we fear war might break out again — drones are always above us, and gunfire from Israeli outposts has become more frequent.
Meanwhile in central South Lebanon, Zeinab, a nurse working in Bint Jbeil — known as the capital of resistance and liberation — expresses her disappointment at the lack of media and international attention:
It’s like there has to be a huge incident for anyone to notice us. Very few media outlets cover what’s happening here, and most treat it as if it’s a daily norm. Our lives have changed — there’s no sense of security in town anymore. No one trusts the situation, or Israel.
UNIFIL spokesperson Dany Ghafari told the Canary:
Israel still takes control of several points on the Lebanese side of the border, which is a violation of the 1701 agreement. We hand reports to the security council concerning this.
Shockingly, Ghafari said that:
We also have observed since 27th of November more than 7000 aerial violations, and more than 1400 on-ground violations by the Israeli military.
For those who remain in the South, every explosion is a reminder that the ceasefire exists only on paper — and that Lebanon’s borderlands are once again paying the price for Israeli violations the world refuses to see.
Riyasa, a young southern Lebanese girl living in Beit Leif — a small town near the border with Israel — says her life has completely changed since the last war between both sides. Her usual strolls near the forest have become more of a risk than a leisure activity, not because of wild animals, but because of Israeli war drones constantly buzzing over her head and over the heads of residents of the South in general. Israeli violations have now become the norm.
The Israeli violations of the ceasefire with Lebanon — which ended a 66-day full-scale war following nearly a year of mutual bombardments that began on October 8, 2023 — have become “a norm” for the Arab state. What changed in recent months is the gradual escalation Israel has carried out against Hezbollah personnel, civilians, and infrastructure, and even public workers. These violations left 140 civilians dead and 398 injured, with 2,950 violations recorded according to Information International, an independent regional research firm based in Beirut.
Israeli violations never stop
Following the 2006 war between Israel and Lebanon, a UN-brokered ceasefire under Resolution 1701 was meant to prevent further hostilities and maintain stability along the Lebanese-Israeli border. But in practice, the agreement has been repeatedly violated — primarily by Israel — through near-daily overflights, artillery fire, and cross-border attacks. Since October 2023, these violations have intensified in parallel with the Gaza war, as Israel justifies its strikes as “targeting Hezbollah positions.” Yet many of these attacks have hit civilian areas, farmland, and small villages across South Lebanon, displacing thousands of residents and destroying infrastructure. While the Lebanese Army and the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) have documented hundreds of breaches, the international response remains muted, leaving border communities to bear the brunt of an undeclared war that is steadily eroding what remains of the ceasefire.
Riyasa told the Canary:
We feel death is near since the drones are directly over our village. We barely go out, and if we go hunting, we return early because Israel might think we’re building something against it and could target us. If the drone is close, I don’t go out, I don’t go to the gym, I tell my siblings to come back home — our friends as well — because Israel targets whoever it wants with no accountability. The drone’s sound has become a synonym for death. Every time it’s near and going faster, we sense death is closer. We got used to the sound; when it speeds up, it means it’s targeting someone — whether it’s you or someone near you.
From her house, she can hear the constant Israeli bombardment and gunfire toward Aita al-Shaab, a border town that overlooks several Israeli outposts, where the IDF casually enters the empty town and blows up what remains of civilian structures about 1.5 km inside Lebanese territory. She also hears the distant airstrikes on other towns in southern Lebanon, where Israel claims it is targeting “Hezbollah activity and infrastructure” — yet without providing evidence.
Largest post-war attack
One such attack targeted excavator dealerships in Msayleh (60 km from the Israeli border) in the largest post-war attack. The strikes completed destroyed 6 excavator dealerships at 4 am on October 11, wiping out over 300 machines. The IDF claimed Hezbollah was using the equipment to “rebuild the areas it was operating in,” but Lebanese MP Kassem Hashem said that day:
This is a massacre of people’s livelihoods. Israel is only aiming to make southern Lebanon an uninhabitable area.
So why does Israel continue to violate the ceasefire, conducting airstrikes and destroying civilian structures?
Dr. Leila Nicola, a political analyst, told the Canary that there are:
many intersecting goals behind Israel’s daily attacks on the South — such as putting pressure on Hezbollah and the Lebanese government through escalation, and forcing Beirut into direct peace negotiations with Israel, which would amount to official recognition of the state. In addition, Israel seeks a security arrangement that gives it the upper hand in southern Lebanon while preventing Hezbollah from regaining strength — a goal it could not achieve through its previous wars or during its occupation of Lebanon (1982–2000).
Nicola added:
At this point, no one knows if things will escalate into a full-scale war in the coming months. For now, we remain in a status quo — an escalation short of full war. Hezbollah will not give Israel a pretext to expand its aggression, and Israel won’t launch a ground invasion since it has tried that before with limited success. Instead, it will continue this low-cost war that hurts Hezbollah and Lebanon economically, socially, and militarily — until it gets an American green light for a full-scale war. For now, the U.S. administration seems content with the pressure Israel’s campaign, alongside its economic and political pressure, is exerting on Lebanon.
Israeli violations — ‘We feel life has stopped’
In the town of Kfarshouba, on the eastern side of the border, Dima shares her frustration with the Canary:
We can’t reach our farms, especially the olive fields — people couldn’t harvest their crops because of the Israeli attacks. Everything changed since the ceasefire,” she adds, half-jokingly, “Death is near? We feel life has stopped. Of course, we fear war might break out again — drones are always above us, and gunfire from Israeli outposts has become more frequent.
Meanwhile in central South Lebanon, Zeinab, a nurse working in Bint Jbeil — known as the capital of resistance and liberation — expresses her disappointment at the lack of media and international attention:
It’s like there has to be a huge incident for anyone to notice us. Very few media outlets cover what’s happening here, and most treat it as if it’s a daily norm. Our lives have changed — there’s no sense of security in town anymore. No one trusts the situation, or Israel.
UNIFIL spokesperson Dany Ghafari told the Canary:
Israel still takes control of several points on the Lebanese side of the border, which is a violation of the 1701 agreement. We hand reports to the security council concerning this.
Shockingly, Ghafari said that:
We also have observed since 27th of November more than 7000 aerial violations, and more than 1400 on-ground violations by the Israeli military.
For those who remain in the South, every explosion is a reminder that the ceasefire exists only on paper — and that Lebanon’s borderlands are once again paying the price for Israeli violations the world refuses to see.
The BBC‘s anti-Palestinian propaganda during Israel’s genocide in Gaza has been appalling — one telling example came when it dropped a piece about British and Palestinian children sharing poetry ‘for impartiality’ reasons. The BBC Gaza coverage sinks to a new low.
We spoke to the project coordinator behind the collaboration to find out more.
Showcasing the humanity of Gaza’s children
The latest pro-Israel coup at the BBC is the culmination of longstanding efforts to further compromise its already dismal reporting on the illegalsettler-colonialoccupation of Palestine. But its decision to drop a piece showing the humanity of Gaza’s children exemplifies how the BBC has consistently prioritised Israeli lives over Palestinian lives.
In early 2025, the Hands Up Project brought British children together with children from Gaza via a poetry event. The educational charity seeks to connect children around the world through
online interaction, drama, and storytelling — and recently organised an event at a primary school in Dartington, Devon.
Hands Up had previously arranged an international poetry competition, which later became a book – Moon tell me truth – including the poems and illustrations of 9-to-15-year-old children from Palestine, India, Argentina, and Spain. An exhibition of the collection then toured the UK.
Dartington primary offered to host the exhibition. But as Hands Up coordinator Nick Bilbrough told us, the school had insisted on the event being purely cultural rather than political. Considering the fact that “it’s been really difficult to get any of our work into UK schools”, he said, the tough decision was made to remove a couple of poems that explicitly mentioned Palestine. This made it possible for the work of other Palestinian children to enter the school.
Soon after, local BBC journalists expressed interest. Bilbrough asked if they wanted to come to the school and “do an interview with me there, and with the teacher, and some of the kids”. He said “they loved that idea”. So they got all of the necessary permissions and then sent someone along to film.
Weeks of silence followed, until a BBC editor finally confirmed the broadcaster had dropped the story.
So why might BBC bosses have stepped in?
Bilbrough explained:
We did a live link-up with one of the young poets, Nada, who at that time was still in Gaza. She’s got three poems in the book. The kids at Dartington primary interviewed her. And I had a really lovely chat with her about why she writes poetry, and what it’s like to be a poet in Gaza.
He added that:
The kids were blown away by her – very inspired by her.
The children in Britain also “read out some of the poems that they’d written, inspired by the poetry of the children of Gaza”.
The BBC reporter got lots of content, and “obviously didn’t want to make it political in any way”. But as Bilbrough said:
All the kids know, even though the BBC‘s trying to keep it all quiet or doing their best to, what’s going on in Gaza. And responding to the question ‘What was it like to meet a poet from Gaza?’ they were saying things like ‘Wow, it’s amazing that, even though Israel is bombing them really badly, she’s able to write such beautiful poetry’.
So considering the longstanding pro-Israel bias at the BBC, it’s understandable that it wouldn’t want to green-light that kind of clear, factual statement specifically. But as Bilbrough stressed:
There was enough footage for them to show. I wasn’t talking about anything political, nor was the teacher. We were all just talking about the value of writing poetry in a difficult situation, and how inspirational the poems are.
He also argued that Nada’s efforts alone should have been reason enough to show at least a short report on the event:
Nada had gone out of her way. At that time, she was still in Gaza. She subsequently managed to get out. At considerable risk to herself, she had to go somewhere where she could do the Zoom link and it was quite risky for her to do that.
Indeed, the reporter suggested the piece may be “out by the end of the week” on local news programme BBC Spotlight. But the higher-ups clearly had a problem with that.
Below is a short clip that Bilbrough had recorded himself:
BBC Gaza coverage — when impartiality during a genocide becomes complicity
Many days came and went with no news. And then, weeks later, a BBC editor sent Bilbrough an email (which the Canary has seen), saying “some key people [have] been away” and “it’s taken time to fully understand what happened”. But the crux of the message was to inform him that:
After reviewing everything, we’ve decided not to proceed with the piece.
The explanation was that:
Every story we run is carefully considered, balancing editorial considerations, news value, and audience interest, while also being assessed in the context of what else is in the news at the time. In this case, it became clear that to meet our editorial standards, we would need to provide significantly more context to ensure due impartiality, which would be challenging within the scope of the piece.
Did they think poetry from Israeli bomber pilots was necessary to balance the story out? We’ll never know.
But as Bilbrough said, there was clearly more than enough material for the BBC to, at the very least, put out a dry 30-second report with a couple of quotes about the importance of children from around the world sharing poetry and sharing their humanity. That was apparently not something BBC editors wanted, though. Bilbrough added:
I just think they don’t want to show this human side of the children of Gaza.
That wouldn’t be surprising. Because this is just one instance of many where the BBC selectively humanises people according to whether the British state sees them as worthy or unworthy victims (depending on whether Britain’s adversaries or allies are to blame). One report earlier in the year, for example, showed that Israelis who died had got 33 times more BBC coverage, despite Israeli occupation forces killing at least 34 times more Palestinians. In short, it’s hard to argue that the BBC has even sought to be ‘impartial’ during the genocide. Instead, it has unapologetically taken Israel’s side.
This is the humanity of Gaza’s children that BBC bosses have actively sought to silence or minimise in the last two years, with the excuse of ‘impartiality’.
Israeli soldiers have revealed that Palestinian civilians were killed inside Gaza in a free-for-all at the wish of army officers amid a collapse of legal and military norms during Tel Aviv’s two-year brutal war on the besieged enclave, reports Anadolu Ajensi.
“If you want to shoot without restraint, you can,” Daniel, the commander of an Israeli tank unit, said in a documentary, Breaking Ranks: Inside Israel’s War, set to be aired in the UK on ITV on Monday.
The Israeli army has killed more than 69,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and wounded over 170,000 in Gaza and left the enclave uninhabitable since October 2023.
Israeli soldiers, some of whom spoke on condition of anonymity, said Palestinian civilians were used as human shields during the conflict, The Guardianreported.
Captain Yotam Vilk, an armored corps officer, said soldiers did not apply the long-standing army standard of firing only when a target had the “means, intent and ability” to cause harm.
“There’s no such thing as ‘means, intent and ability’ in Gaza,” he said. “It’s just suspicion – someone walking where it’s not allowed.”
Another soldier, identified only as Eli, said: “Life and death isn’t determined by procedures or opening fire regulations. It’s the conscience of the commander on the ground that decides.”
‘Hanging laundry’
Eli recounted an officer ordering a tank to demolish a building where a man was just “hanging laundry,” resulting in multiple deaths and injuries.
The documentary also presents detailed accounts of Israeli soldiers opening fire unprovoked on civilians running toward food handouts at militarized aid distribution points operated by the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
Film maker talks about Israeli ‘shoot to kill’ policies in Gaza Video: LBC
A contractor identified only as Sam, who worked at GHF sites, said he saw Israeli soldiers shooting two unarmed men running to get aid.
“You could just see two soldiers run after them,” he recalled. “They drop onto their knees and they just take two shots, and you could just see . . . two heads snap backwards and just drop.”
Sam also described a tank destroying “a normal car . . . just four normal people sat inside it.”
According to UN figures, at least 944 Palestinian civilians have been killed by Israeli fire near such aid points.
Extremist rhetoric
The film also highlights the spread of extremist rhetoric inside Israel, including statements from rabbis and politicians depicting all Palestinians as legitimate targets after the October 7 events.
“You hear that all the time, so you start to believe it,” Daniel said.
Rabbi Avraham Zarbiv, who served more than 500 days in Gaza, defended large-scale home demolitions by the Israeli army in Gaza.
“Everything there is one big terrorist infrastructure . . . We changed the conduct of an entire army.”
In September, a UN commission concluded that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza, where a ceasefire came into force on October 10 after two years of Israeli bombardment.
“I feel like they’ve destroyed all my pride in being an Israeli — in being an IDF (army) officer,” Daniel says in the programme. “All that’s left is shame.”
Israeli Minister Haskel speaks to RNZ on Pacific visit Video: RNZ
“It was an important message for our people and it was a great opportunity for me to thank them in person and to see how we can strengthen our friendship.”
The countries were “strategic allies” who worked together in the areas of agriculture, water technology and cybersecurity, Haskel said.
She pointed to the agricultural industry in PNG.
“They used to import almost all of their products, vegetables, fruits,” she said.
Agricultural help
“There are a few Israeli companies that went into the industry, developing a lot of the agricultural aspect of it to the point where all of the products they’re eating are local and they’re even exporting some of these products.”
Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka (left) and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on 17 September 2025. Image: RNZ Pacific/Fiji govt
Israeli farms there had also helped with the growth of the local dairy industry, she said.
“This is part of the collaboration that we want to do,” she said. “I came with a delegation of businessmen coming from those industries to see how can continue and develop it, it’s a win-win situation.”
Also while in Fiji, Haskel signed a memorandum of understanding on cybersecurity.
She said that came after three hacking attacks on the Fiji government’s system.
“[The MOU] starts a dialogue between our cybersecurity agency and between the proper agencies in Fiji as well,” she said.
Cybersecurity experience
““This is something that they’re starting to build, we’ve got a lot of experience with it and I think the dialogue can give them and lot of advice and also to connect them to quite a few Israeli companies.”
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel . . . “We have a lot of cybersecurity systems so it’s a start of a building of a relationship.” Image: RNZ/Nick Monro
A representative from Israeli defence and security company Elbit was among the delegation.
“They have a lot of cybersecurity systems so it’s a start of a building of a relationship,” Haskel said.
Israel’s relationships with PNG and Fiji had been going for many decades, and were not about the amount of aid given, she said.
“Israel is not a major economic power that has a lot of money to spend, especially during times of war,” she said.
“It’s not about the amount of money that we can invest but the quality and the things and how it affects the people.”
Commitments honoured
Asked about aid projects that had been cancelled, Haskel said Israel had honoured any commitments it made. It was not responsible for changes to United States policy that had seen trilateral agreements cut, she said.
“There were many projects that were committed in many different countries, together Israel and the Americans, some are continuing and some are cancelled,” she said.
“This is part of [US President Donald] Trump’s policy. We can’t predict that.”
Haskel also met with people from indigenous, Christian and farming communities while in Fiji and PNG and she said Israel is also hoping to become and observer of the Pacific Islands Forum next year.
The PNG government said it continued to regard Israel as a valuable partner in advancing shared development goals.
Meanwhile, Fiji’s government said the “historic” visit between the nations would foster continued cooperation, innovation and friendship.
‘Strategic step’
Prime Minister Rabuka said the cybersecurity agreement was “a strategic step forward to strengthen Fiji’s security framework and promote deeper cooperation across sectors”.
Oliver Nobetau, a Papuan development expert at the Australian Lowy Institute, told RNZ Pacific that Israel wanted to lock in UN support for the future.
“I think they have demonstrated their support, but also may have an ability to sort of sway between votes,” he said.
“We’ve seen it, between the switching from recognition from China to Taiwan. And this can be another instance now where they can be persuaded to vote in a different way.”
On aid, Nobetau said there would now be a hope that Israel increased its aid to the region.
“I would say there’s an expectation on Israel to carry on or fill in that funding gap,” she said.
“The question now falls on the Pacific governments themselves, if this is something that’s worth pursuing . . . they would prefer, if the USA are now is out of the picture, if Israel can continue to fill that.”
Nobetau expected Israel to look at bringing its military and intelligence services closer to the Pacific.
“From what I recall, when I was working with the government, there were institutional exchanges with the Mossad: internal capabilities to collect intelligence is something that’s that’s needed within Pacific countries,” he said.
“So I think that could be another area as well.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Pacific nations are at the world’s biggest climate talks making the familiar plea to keep global warming under 1.5C to stay alive, as scientists say the world will now certainly surpass the limit — at least temporarily.
At the opening of the COP30 climate summit in Belém Brazil, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres made the same call that Pacific nations have for years.
“Let us be clear, the 1.5-degree limit is a red line for humanity. It must be kept within reach and scientists also tell us that this is still possible,” Guterres said.
“If we act now at speed and scale, we can make the overshoot as small, as short and as safe as possible.”
The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) confirmed in its State of the Climate update that greenhouse gas emissions, which are heating the planet, have risen to a record high, with 2025 being on track to be the second or third warmest year on record.
“It will be virtually impossible to limit global warming to 1.5C in the next few years without temporarily overshooting this target,” WMO secretary-general Celeste Saulo said.
“But the science is equally clear that it’s still entirely possible and essential to bring temperatures back down to 1.5C by the end of the century.”
Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG) climate justice campaigner India Logan-Riley said the world was now in “deeply unstable territory” with the “very existence” of some Pacific communities now at risk.
COP31 – a Pacific COP? As this COP starts, there is still uncertainty over where COP31 in 2026 will be hosted.
Both Australia — in conjunction with the Pacific — and Türkiye have bid to host the event.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has written twice to his counterpart looking for a compromise to break the deadlock.
Palau’s President Surangel Whipps Jr, who is in Belém, said it was important for Australia to be successful in its bid.
“We’re here in Brazil and the Amazon, and the focus next year needs to be a ‘Blue COP’, we need to focus on the oceans,” President Whipps said.
“One of the things I always tell people is, in some countries they only face droughts, or they may face a storm but in the Pacific we suffer from all of them; sea-level rise, storms, droughts, extreme heat.
“Other people, they can’t relate or they think it may be unreal.”
One of those people, US President Donald Trump, told the UN last month the climate crisis is “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world”.
Palau has a particularly close relationship with the US as one of the Compact of Free Association (COFA) nations. The agreement gives the US military access to Palau, which in return is given financial assistance and for Palauans the right to work in the US.
Whipps said Trump’s comments were unfortunate, and more reason for COP to come to the Pacific.
“I would invite President Trump to come to the Pacific. He should visit Tuvalu, and he should visit Kiribati and Marshall Islands.”
Palau’s President Surangel Whipps Jr, who is in Belém . . . the renewable energy transition “gives us energy independence”. Image: UN Photo
100% renewable Pacific
The Pacific is aiming to be the first region in the world to be completely reliant on renewable energy, a campaign which being led by Whipps.
“Leading the energy transition not only helps the planet by reducing our carbon footprint, but also gives us energy independence, [it] allows us to create jobs locally, and it keeps the money circulating.”
Whipps wants Palau to be running completely off renewable energy by 2032.
Meanwhile, the UN emissions gap report shows the world is on track for 2.3C to 2.5C global warming, if nations stick to Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).
However, it is an improvement from last year’s report, which predicted 2.6C to 2.8C of warming.
Pacific Islands Climate Action Network (PICAN) policy advisor Sindra Sharma said the report laid bare the fact that global ambition is nowhere near where it needs to be.
“[The new forecast] still is quite unacceptable for vulnerable communities and small island states in particular, because we’ll feel the effects the fastest with crossing anywhere beyond 1.5 even 1.51 it’s going to have significant implications.
“We’ve always had all the solutions to be able to do so and it’s just a lack of political will. It’s a choice that’s being made consistently and that choice is going to affect every single one on this earth.”
Sharma is hopeful there will be positive outcomes at this year’s COP, despite ongoing geopolitical tensions, which are in part driven by it being hosted close to the Amazon Rainforest — often referred to as the lungs of the earth — and marking 10 years since the Paris Agreement was signed.
It is also the first time Pacific nations have confirmation from the world’s top court that failing to protect people from the effects of climate change could violate international law.
“The advisory opinion that we have now is the first time that we’re going into COP with this kind of legal clarity and the legal clarity is telling us that there’s due diligence in terms of limiting warming to 1.5C.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
The Freedoms Committee of the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate says the Israeli occupation forces have killed 44 Palestinian journalists inside displacement tents in the Gaza Strip.
The committee said that these journalists were among 254 media workers who had been killed since the beginning of the Israeli assault on Gaza in October 2023 until the end of October 2025, reports Middle East Monitor.
According to the report, the attacks were systematic, targeting displacement tents located around hospitals and UNRWA shelters, in addition to direct sniper shootings inside displacement areas.
It added that the victims were working for local and international media outlets, and most of them were killed while covering the humanitarian situation in the displacement camps.
The syndicate affirmed that such targeting reflects a deliberate attempt to silence the Palestinian press and prevent the truth from reaching the world.
It also stressed the need to hold the Israeli occupation accountable for its crimes against journalists and to ensure international protection for media crews working in Gaza.
Israel’s audiovisual media bill ‘a nail in coffin of editorial independence’
Meanwhile, the Paris-based media freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has sounded the alarm following the first reading of a bill sponsored by Israel’s Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi that would strengthen the executive branch’s control over the audiovisual media, despite opposition from the Attorney General and the Union of Journalists in Israel.
The bill includes measures that RSF condemned a year ago.
Although the rest of the legislative process is likely to be difficult, Israel’s Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, has managed to get a foot in the door. On the evening of November 3, around midnight, his media broadcasting bill was adopted after its first reading, as part of a voting pact with ultra-Orthodox MPs.
The bill calls for the creation of a Broadcast Media Authority largely composed of members appointed by the Communications Minister himself. His ministry would also be entrusted with calculating television audiences, a measure approved by the Ministerial Committee for Legislation a year ago that was condemned by RSF.
Legal and legislative barriers are already being put in place in response to this attempt to strengthen the Israeli government’s control over the media landscape.
Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara, who is responsible for advising the government on legislative matters, is opposed to the bill, which has been deemed unconstitutional by the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament.
Two petitions against the bill have also been filed with the Supreme Court. One was submitted by the Union of Journalists in Israel, which represents around 3000 media professionals. The other was instigated by the NGO Hatzlacha (meaning “success” in Hebrew), which promotes social justice.
“This first reading vote is the first nail in the coffin of broadcast media’s editorial independence in Israel,” said RSF editorial director Anne Bocandé.
“Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi is openly attacking a pillar of democracy. Against a backdrop of war and an upcoming election campaign, Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is seeking to silence voices that are critical of the far-right coalition in power.
“RSF reiterates the warning it issued a year ago: these legislative attacks will have lasting, negative consequences on Israel’s media landscape.”
Incorporating the ‘Al Jazeera’ ban on foreign broadcasters into common law In parallel with his legislative attack on the editorial independence of the country’s broadcast media, Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi is also continuing his battle against international broadcasters operating in Israel.
Although his so-called “Al Jazeera law” — which allowed Israeli authorities to shut down any foreign broadcasters perceived as undermining national security and was condemned by RSF in April 2024 — expired on October 27 with the end of the state of emergency, the minister informed the National Security Council — which is attached to the Ministry of National Security — that he now intended to turn the measure into common law.
After the missile exchanges between Israel and Iran in June 2024, the Prime Minister’s party had already attempted to amend the “Al Jazeera law” in an attempt to give additional powers to the Minister of Communications to stop the broadcasting of foreign channels in the country.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.
A shocking new investigation has uncovered the existence of a secret Israeli underground prison known as ‘Rakefet’ (Zahrat al-Siklamin). Here, almost a hundred Palestinians from the Gaza Strip are being held in conditions described as harsh and inhumane. They live in complete isolation from daylight, deprived of adequate food, and any contact with their families or the outside world.
Israel secret underground prison
The Guardian reported that among those detained are a Palestinian nurse who was arrested at his workplace while wearing his medical uniform, and an 18-year-old man who worked selling food, both of whom have been detained for months without charge or trial.
Lawyers from the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI), who represent the two men, said they were transferred to the lower complex of Rakefet Prison in January and spoke of repeated beatings and violence consistent with patterns of torture documented in other Israeli detention centres. The Guardian reported that:
Rakefet prison was opened in the early 1980s to house a handful of the most dangerous organised crime figures in Israel but closed a few years later on the grounds that it was inhumane. The far-right security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, ordered it back into service after the 7 October attacks in 2023.
Underground detention conditions: constant darkness, torture, and stifling air
Official data obtained by PCATI shows that the prison, which was designed to hold only 15 people in solitary confinement, currently holds around 100 detainees.
The Guardian found that detainees live in cells with no windows or ventilation, with three to four people in each cell, and often feel suffocated and short of breath. Mattresses are removed at 4 a.m. and returned late at night, forcing detainees to sit all day on cold metal frames. Prisoners are only allowed into a cramped underground exercise yard with no natural light for five minutes every two days.
Detainees reported being beaten, trampled on, and attacked by dogs with iron muzzles. Many reported the denial of medical care, and a severe lack of food – barely enough to survive.
After arrest, the court “approves” the detention in a perfunctory manner: the detainee appears only as a face on a soldier’s phone screen, and the judge tells him, “You are detained until the end of the war,” without inquiring about his circumstances or conditions of detention. Such a process reflects a blatant abdication of the judiciary’s basic responsibility to oversee prisons and the conditions of those held in them—oversight that is essential, especially when all other monitoring is absent, as is the case in these prisons.
‘they are talking about civilians, not fighters,’ noting that one of them was a young man who worked as a food vendor and was arrested at a roadblock.
Lawyer Saja Mashirqi Bransi, who visited the prison with Abdu, said that the detained nurse had not seen sunlight since 21 January and that he asked her at the beginning of the meeting, “Where am I? Why am I here?| because he had not been told the name of the prison.
‘Deliberate humiliation’ under the eyes of the guards
The two lawyers described their trip to the prison as ‘a descent into hell.’
Masked and heavily armed guards led them down a dirty staircase littered with dead insects to the visiting rooms, where even the privacy of the lawyers was violated by surveillance cameras inside the meeting rooms.
‘If these are the conditions in the lawyers’ room, what must the conditions in the cells be like?’ said Abdo. ‘We found the answer when we saw the detainees, handcuffed, heads bowed, forced to bend over.’
Tal Steiner, executive director of PCATI, confirmed that the conditions of detention in Rakefet are oppressive and harsh to the point of being life-threatening, adding that the absence of daylight makes existence extremely difficult:
It’s very hard to remain intact when you are held in such oppressive and difficult conditions.
Steiner said these practices constitute “a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law,” noting that “detention in darkness underground is one of the most severe forms of psychological and physical torture that can be inflicted on a human being.”
Official silence and mutual accusations
The Israel Prison Service (IPS) refused to respond to the Guardian’s findings, issuing only a statement saying that it:
operates in accordance with the law and under official supervision.
According to official data, around 1,000 Palestinian detainees remain in Israeli custody in similar conditions, despite the release of 250 convicted prisoners and 1,700 detainees from Gaza during the truce agreement in mid-October.
Confidential Israeli documents confirm that the majority of detainees are civilians, raising serious legal and humanitarian questions about the legality of these arbitrary arrests.
The investigation concluded with a striking testimony from lawyer Saja Misherqi Baransi, who said that when she spoke to one of the detainees, they pleaded with her:
(real angel) (@oncloud_e) 
(@punishedmother) 
Alatrash said:
BREAKING: South Korea is FURIOUS that Trump deported 450 Korean workers during an ICE raid of the Hyundai battery plant in GA.
(@cilviastrat) 
