According to new research by Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor (Euro-Med Monitor), over the past week, Israeli occupation forces have loaded up about 120 old armoured vehicles with large amounts of explosives, and detonated them in busy residential neighbourhoods of Gaza City.
Each blast is equivalent to the force of an earthquake measuring 3.7 on the Richter scale, not only shaking buildings which are several kilometres away from the blast centre and destroying homes, but also spreading fear and panic throughout the city.
Israel using boobytrapped remote robot vehicles to detonate devastating explosions
These boobytrapped robot vehicles, which are decommissioned US made M113 armoured personnel carriers – large military vehicles which were once used to carry soldiers – are each loaded with six or seven tonnes of explosives and remotely piloted through central residential neighbourhoods in Gaza City. There, they are directed to explode in locations which are carefully selected to maximise destruction.
Euro-Med Monitor has estimated that each robot can completely or partially destroy around 20 housing units, while the shockwaves of these detonations can destroy buildings within roughly 90 metres. They can cause cracks in buildings and damage windows hundreds of metres further away. Because Gaza’s buildings have been weakened by almost two years of continuous bombing, the damage from each blast is much worse than it would normally be.
This method of using boobytrapped vehicles on such a large scale is unprecedented in modern warfare, and is seen by Euro-Med Monitor as an attempt to forcibly displace Palestinians and eliminate their presence from Gaza.
The damage caused by each explosion is enormous, with the blasts producing shockwaves so powerful they can be heard up to 40 kilometers away, across southern Israel. Each explosion destroys or makes unsafe around 20 homes, leaving even more Palestinians fighting for survival – with no food, medical care, or shelter.
Boobytrapped robots ‘mercilessly’ wiping entire neighbourhoods ‘off the map’
Israel’s boobytrapped vehicles do not only cause physical destruction. Euro-Med Monitor says they are also used as a:
systematic tool of psychological terror, spreading extreme fear among civilians and coercively driving them to flee.
The powerful explosions are designed to break the spirit of the Palestinians by making them feel unsafe even in their own homes. A resident of the obliterated Zaitoun neighbourhood in southeastern Gaza City told the NGO:
For weeks we have barely managed to snatch a few minutes of restless sleep. Booby-trapped robots pound through the night, mercilessly tearing down homes and buildings, wiping entire residential neighbourhoods off the map.
International humanitarian law prohibits the use of weapons such as these boobytrapped vehicles, whose effects cannot be limited to military targets. These explosions affect homes and people indiscriminately, violating the rules of war, which aim to protect civilians. This use of force is a war crime, and when done systematically, as the Israeli occupation has done for the past 24 months, it rises to the level of crimes against humanity and genocide.
International leaders are still failing to act
The use of these boobytrapped vehicles by Israel was first documented during its incursion of Jabalia refugee camp in Northern Gaza, in May 2024. Since then, they have been used more and more across the Gaza Strip and, last week, the Israeli publication Walla, reported that the Israeli army had begun deploying an ‘unprecedented’ number of remote-controlled armored vehicles packed with explosives into Gaza City.
Despite this evidence of illegal and devastating tactics, the international community has failed to act, to stop Israel’s genocide, and hold the occupation accountable. Urgent international action is essential, right now, and Euro-Med Monitor is urging the UN General Assembly to use its emergency ‘Uniting for Peace’ resolution to call a special meeting aimed at sending peacekeepers to Gaza. These peacekeepers would protect civilians, allow humanitarian groups to deliver aid safely, and pressure Israel to stop its genocidal campaign against the population of Gaza. This intervention, necessary under international law, would challenge Israeli impunity and protect civilian lives amid escalating war crimes.
On 18 September 2024, the UN General Assembly (UNGA) set a 12-month deadline for Israel to end its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. This has now expired.
There is a UN convention for exactly this kind of horror: the convention for the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide. When will the world act on it?
Raji Sourani is the coordinator of the Palestinian legal team at the international criminal court (ICC)
Israel has committed and continues to commit genocide in Gaza. That is the conclusion of a UN commission report. Since the release of the report last week, Palestine has finally been recognised as an independent state by the UK and a number of other countries. In his announcement at the weekend, Keir Starmer called the death and destruction in Gaza “utterly intolerable”. This recognition comes too late and is still conditional, but has the UK government indeed now stopped tolerating Israel’s devastation of Gaza? Has anything changed for the people there who are being starved and bombed? Far from it.
Even as the UN publishes the findings of its independent commission, and a flag is raised outside the Palestinian mission in London, mass displacement and killing continues to take place in Gaza City as Israel attacks. As a lawyer who has spent my life believing in the rule of law, this makes me wonder: will Gaza’s destruction also bring with it the death of international law?
Raji Sourani is the director of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, the coordinator of the Palestinian legal team at the international criminal court (ICC) and a member of South Africa’s legal team in the genocide case against Israel at the international court of justice (ICJ).
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The Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah was released from jail on Tuesday, a day after President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi pardoned him and five other prisoners. The campaign for Abd el-Fattah’s release was led by his family, including his mother, who was admitted to hospital in London twice after going on hunger strikes trying to secure his release. The UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, is also known to have telephoned Sisi three times to lobby for Abd el-Fattah’s release
The Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah was released from jail on Tuesday, a day after President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi pardoned him and five other prisoners. The campaign for Abd el-Fattah’s release was led by his family, including his mother, who was admitted to hospital in London twice after going on hunger strikes trying to secure his release. The UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, is also known to have telephoned Sisi three times to lobby for Abd el-Fattah’s release
On 9 September 2025 UN experts called on authorities in Mali to disclose the fate and whereabouts of journalist and activist El Bachir Thiam, who disappeared four months ago.
“Mali must immediately and unconditionally release El Bachir Thiam and other victims of enforced disappearance, and cease the crackdown on civil society actors, human rights defenders, and political opponents or those perceived as such,” the experts said.
El Bachir Thiam is a journalist for the MaliActu website and a member of several civil society organisations and political movements, including the political party Yelema – Le Changement, led by former Prime Minister Moussa Mara, the Collectif Sirako, and a youth movement calling for a return to constitutional order, for which he serves as spokesperson and communications officer.
Thiam was allegedly kidnapped on 8 May 2025, in front of several witnesses in Kati town, by a group of at least five hooded and unidentified men suspected of being Malian intelligence agents – more specifically from the the Agence Nationale de la Sécurité d’Etat (ANSE) – or elements of the Bamako gendarmerie du Camp I, who were traveling in a gray TOYOTA V8 4×4 vehicle with tinted windows and no license plate. His relatives and colleagues reportedly searched for him in vain in police stations and gendarmeries of Bamako and Kati. Since then, Thiam’s fate and whereabouts have remained unknown.
“As time goes by, Thiam’s condition risks deteriorating further and will take a profound toll on his physical and psychological health,” the experts said.
On 17 July 2025, Thiam Mariam Dagnon, wife of El Bachir Thiam, filed a complaint for kidnapping and disappearance with the Public Prosecutor of the Kati Court of First Instance. Thiam’s alleged kidnapping and enforced disappearance took place in the context of peaceful protest movements initiated in early May 2025 by several political movements and parties, as well as civil society actors and organisations, following the adoption of draconian laws further restricting civic space by Malian transitional authorities in April 2025.
The experts stressed that Malian authorities are allegedly making increased use of enforced disappearance as a weapon to instill fear and silence civil society actors, human rights defenders, political opponents or those perceived as such.
“These actions have a pattern. The frequency of the practice, its organised nature and the methods used indicate a systematic character,” they said.
“Thiam’s case reflects the persistent and escalating pattern of human rights violations against members of opposition political parties, civil society organisations, journalists and human rights defenders in Mali,” the experts said, recalling that several mandate holders had expressed similar concerns in 2021, 2024 as well as in February, April and August 2025.
They noted that the situation has continued to further deteriorate, as illustrated by the signature or adoption of several draconian laws, including a presidential decree on 13 May which dissolved all political parties and “organisations of a political nature” in Mali.
The experts have written to the Government of Mali and will continue to closely monitor the situation.
At the 50 States, One Israel conference, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee told a delegation of more than 200 U.S. lawmakers that Israel is akin to the “wife” of the United States. “It may sound a little bit this afternoon as if I’m almost speaking on behalf of Israel rather than the U.S.,” Huckabee said in his comments last week, and then went on to explain the unique relationship…
The Trump administration says it will not comply with California’s new law barring law enforcement officials from wearing masks, which goes into effect next year. Over the last several months, masked immigration officers have abducted people from courthouses, their cars, on the street, and at their workplaces. On September 20, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed the No Secret Police Act…
Over forty years ago, I began discussions with leaders of major Jewish organizations, with synagogue Rabbis and their congregations, to organize the first Jewish organization dedicated to respond to world poverty, hunger and dehumanization. Eventually, and together with philanthropist Larry Phillips, I took a leap and founded American Jewish World Service (AJWS), stepping away from …
Writer, who has served six years for sharing a Facebook post, was given a presidential pardon
The British-Egyptian human rights activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah has been released from jail after serving six years for sharing a Facebook post.
Egypt’s president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, granted him his freedom after intensive lobbying by the UK government and pressure from Egypt’s national human rights council.
Although physical attacks against journalists are the most visible violations of press freedom, economic pressure is also a major, more insidious problem. The economic indicator on the RSF World Press Freedom Index now stands at an unprecedented, critical low as its decline continued in 2025. As a result, the global state of press freedom is now classified as a “difficult situation” for the first time in the history of the Index. See the Index
At a time when press freedom is experiencing a worrying decline in many parts of the world, a major — yet often underestimated — factor is seriously weakening the media: economic pressure. Much of this is due to ownership concentration, pressure from advertisers and financial backers, and public aid that is restricted, absent or allocated in an opaque manner. The data measured by the RSF Index’s economic indicator clearly shows that today’s news media are caught between preserving their editorial independence and ensuring their economic survival.
“Guaranteeing freedom, independence and plurality in today’s media landscape requires stable and transparent financial conditions. Without economic independence, there can be no free press. When news media are financially strained, they are drawn into a race to attract audiences at the expense of quality reporting, and can fall prey to the oligarchs and public authorities who seek to exploit them. When journalists are impoverished, they no longer have the means to resist the enemies of the press — those who champion disinformation and propaganda. The media economy must urgently be restored to a state that is conducive to journalism and ensures the production of reliable information, which is inherently costly. Solutions exist and must be deployed on a large scale. The media’s financial independence is a necessary condition for ensuring free, trustworthy information that serves the public interest.” Anne Bocandé, RSF Editorial Director
Of the five main indicators that determine the World Press Freedom Index, the indicator measuring the financial conditions of journalism and economic pressure on the industry dragged down the world’s overall score in 2025.
The economic indicator in the 2025 RSF World Press Freedom Index is at its lowest point in history, and the global situation is now considered “difficult.”
For Noam Chomsky, the Thucydidean dictum ‘the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must’ is one of the most valid and important principles of international relations, which can be expressed in different ways.
In general, the principle implies that to keep the prevailing system of control exercised by those in power intact, it is necessary to make sure that none of the weak gets out of hand, meaning that they should all behave according to direction by the strong and not independently. They must follow orders because, if independent thinking and action are seen to work in one place, others might try to do the same, and the system of domination would unravel.
The Mafia Doctrine
Chomsky (2013) refers to his application of this principle to US foreign policy as ‘the Mafia Doctrine’:
In the Mafia system, if some small storekeeper decides not to pay protection money, the money may not mean anything to the godfather, but he’s not going to let him get away with it. And, in fact, he’s not just going to go in and send his goons to get the money; he’s also going to beat him to a pulp, because others have to understand that disobedience is not tolerated. In international affairs, that’s called “credibility.”
No need here to set out the many countries, and the wide variety of ways, in which the US has firmly established its ‘credibility’.
In this short essay, we argue that countries that belong to the US-led ‘mafia’ – and therefore owe fealty to the don in Washington DC (at present, Donald Trump) – will be subject to what we call ‘the Hotel California effect’.
Roles and Responsibilities of Gang Membership
As a member of a mafia gang (or family), your role is subordinate, ranked strictly according to how willing you are to do nasty jobs effectively and efficiently for the boss without question, or how much loot you can deliver, and your reliability in these respects.
There is no participative management; no possibility of a primus inter pares arrangement; not even any meaningful consultation.
The imperious and unreflectively self-assured and authoritarian current godfather in Washington DC would entertain none of these encroachments on his absolute power, no matter how grovelling or politely expressed a request for some decision-making involvement might be, even if it came from his underboss (sottocapo).
So, for example, following a recent visit to the UK by President Trump and his ‘royal’ treatment there, ‘the president’s chief-of-staff [Susie Wiles, was asked] how much difference the visit [would] make to Britain’s ability to influence US policy on trade, tariffs and international affairs. Her response was frank – “none at all”.’
What chance then lesser gang members like Australia?
Clearly, gang members must simply to do as they are told – ‘if the don gives you orders, the guy down below doesn’t kid around’ (Chomsky, 2011). The rules are straightforward. Obey. Be in awe of your don (Donald). And every time he says or does something, make sure that you are seen to participate enthusiastically in the phocine clapping and honking of approval.
But perhaps the most important part of your job is to extract ‘rents’ and to kill people who have done you no harm (or help others to kill them) – sometimes in very large numbers that include women and children.
The reasons for doing so have solely to do with disobedience. The pretexts given are usually silly and/or spurious.
But you cannot object to any of this or concern yourself with it.
Your duties can also include inflicting less than deadly harm on others, that is, harm that is not immediately lethal but frequently leads to that end over a longer period – a form of torture, like economic sanctions.
And then of course there is actual torture, which you are also expected to carry out as instructed.
It’s all illegal of course and the killings therefore amount to murder and crimes against humanity and sometimes genocide. Collective guilt of this sort strengthens the commitment of gang members.
You are also expected not to blab about any of this to anyone and to help cover it up and stop people from talking or complaining about it (not because the don pays any attention to the law, but because he doesn’t like the disrespect it implies). This ‘code of silence’ (omerta) – behaving as if nothing untoward ever happens – must never be broken, usually on pain of death.
You can see that the analogy with the US and its allies is not at all far-fetched. Examples are easy to come by and include Australia’s and the UK’s contributions to the invasion of Iraq (as members of the ‘Coalition of the Willing’), which resulted in the deaths of up to 2.4 million Iraqis; their contributions to the US-led invasion of Afghanistan where about 241,000 people were killed (mostly civilians); and the various types of support rendered by them to the US-backed genocide in Palestine.
The disobedience rule applies equally to gang members, friends and foes.
With respect to ‘rewards’, when, as a gang member, you do as you are told, you are allowed to get on with your life (always within very strictly defined limits) and from time-to-time crumbs from the master’s table might be bestowed upon you.
He might, for example, allow you to play golf with him at Mar-a-Lago (so long as you lose, pay the green fees, and buy the drinks); or purchase nuclear submarines from him at extortionist prices; or condescend to build his military bases all over your territory, some of which incorporate highly sophisticated eavesdropping devices that supply intelligence to countries unknown for nefarious purposes that are kept secret from you.
Other examples will come readily to mind.
And that’s the good news.
To reiterate, the trouble, though, with being a member of a mafia gang, particularly the biggest and baddest one around, is that disobedience by you is not tolerated either, perhaps even less than disobedience by non-gang members.
Other mortal sins include disloyalty, disrespect, and weakness.
All of which makes you wonder how many prime ministers and foreign ministers in how many ‘international community’ countries have lain awake at night worrying that they might have said or done something that could be taken to construe any of these things.
Having inflicted so much pain and suffering on countries that have broken the rules, they will know all too well what the don’s reactions to real or perceived transgressions by gang members will be.
So, for example, on questions of human rights, this means that even in your wildest dreams you would never say to the (richly deserving) US anything remotely like what you might say – for example – to China.
It also means of course that you cannot wake up one morning feeling bright and sparky in the refulgence of a new dawn and suddenly decide that ‘all this murder and mayhem are not for me, I’m out of here’ – that is, unless you are prepared to incur the Godfather’s wrath (note that the hypocrisy of a sudden change of heart would not matter as you have become inured to all of the double dealing).
The ‘Hotel California Effect’
‘We are all just prisoners here of our own device…You can check out any time you like but you can never leave’.
When it comes to discussions of Australian foreign policy, much of what is written seems to assume that the degree to which we should follow the US lead or do as we are told is a matter of choice.
The Mafia Doctrine that we have outlined clearly indicates that the ‘choices’ that Australian and other gang members can make about what are supposedly their own foreign affairs are highly circumscribed.
Accordingly, exhortations to our foreign minister and prime minister to ‘break a leg’ and make policy changes – such as ‘disengaging’ from the Godfather in Washington or ploughing a different furrow from the one he has told us to plough, in the Pacific or anywhere else – could well turn out to be (to mix my metaphors) much too close to the bone for comfort.
On 17 September 2025 Global Witness published its annual report , documenting killings and long-term disappearances of land and environmental defenders. 2024 shows continuing bad news.
Julia Francisco Martínez stands at the graveside of her husband Juan, a Honduran Indigenous defender who was found murdered in 2015. Giles Clarke / Global Witness
Every year, Global Witness works with partners to gather evidence, verify and document every time a land and environmental defender is killed or disappeared. Our methodology follows robust criteria, yet undocumented cases pose challenges when it comes to analysing data
Global Witness documents killings and long-term disappearances of land and environmental defenders globally. In partnership with over 30 local, national and regional organisations in more than 20 countries, we produce an annual report containing these figures, and we have done so since 2012.
Our methodology involves a year-long process of cross-referencing data from different sources to ensure its credibility. Over 2,200 killings or long-term disappearances of defenders appear in our database since 2012 – with 146 cases documented in 2024.
Every year, we maintain a database to keep a record of these crimes and create a comprehensive global picture of the systematic violence defenders face.
The data provides a snapshot of the underlying drivers behind reprisals and indicates how some defenders and their communities face increased risks. Exposing these trends is the first of many steps to ensure that defenders and their communities are protected and can exercise their rights without fearing for their lives.
Killings and disappearances documented between 2012 and 2024
2,253 defenders have been killed or disappeared since 2012 Global Witness
146 of these attacks occurred in 2024 Global Witness
The accompanying press release goes into considerable detail on the methodology used.
On 18 September 2025, ISHR said that analysis of revised 2026 budget proposal for UN80 reform points to disproportionate cuts to the chronically-underfunded human rights pillar. Together with peace and development, human rights constitutes one of the three key areas of action for the UN and thus should be adequately funded.
On 16 September 2025, the UN Secretary-General published its report revising its earlier proposal for the UN’s 2026 budget (known as ‘Revised estimates’ report). The International Service for Human Rights (ISHR) has analysed the revised budget and is deeply concerned about proposed cuts to an already chronically under-resourced human rights pillar. While demands on the human rights system do not cease to grow to address mounting global conflicts and crises, further cuts will significantly reduce effectiveness and efficiency, and its capacity to deliver on human rights protection to individuals and populations on the ground.
‘The UN’s human rights pillar has historically received significantly less funds than development and peace and security, accounting for just 7% of the UN regular budget and less than 1% of UN’s total expenditure. Any cuts to it would result in minimal savings but have significant and disproportionate adverse consequences for the rights of people around the world – Phil Lynch, ISHR Executive Director
In recent years, a liquidity crisis fuelled by the late or non-payments of dues by the US and China had already prompted High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk to suspend the delivery of reports, workshops and other activities mandated by the Human Rights Council (HRC). The HRC has also reduced the length of its sessions, limiting space for States, experts and civil society to address some of the world’s most pressing rights issues and crises.
Additional cuts to the human rights pillar would further undermine the ability of the UN’s human rights bodies to continue to investigate atrocity crimes such as in Gaza, Myanmar and the Democratic Republic of Congo, to support victims and human rights defenders, to assist States in improving their human rights policies, and to develop global human rights standards that protect us all.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stressed the cuts are ‘carefully calibrated’ and ensure balance between the UN’s three pillars (peace and security, development, and human rights). Yet, the proposed cuts to the budget of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) of around 15% run much deeper than the 2026 proposed budget on development (targeted for around 12% cut) and peace and security (targeted for a 13% cut, excluding peacekeeping operations).
Like a three-legged stool, if the human rights pillar is cut to the extent proposed then not only will it collapse, but the whole system will topple.
ISHR is campaigning for the UN80 Initiative to be more than a simple accounting overhaul for the UN, centred only on cost-cutting. On July 21, ISHR and 16 civil society organisations signed an open letter to the Secretary-General and High Commissioner Türk with concrete recommendations and proposals to ensure that the UN human rights system is streamlined, strengthened and sustainable, guided by the aim of support human rights defenders, providing justice to victims and ensuring accountability for rights abuses.
The cuts will next be reviewed by a UN budgetary committee traditionally hostile to human rights funding, whose conclusions will serve as a basis for States to negotiate.
For more information, please contact: Raphael Viana David, ISHR, Programme Manager r.vianadavid@ishr.ch
The US Department of Agriculture will stop conducting its annual food insecurity survey, in a bid to stave off criticism of the Trump administration’s aid cuts.
In 2023, over 47 million Americans in the US faced some sort of food insecurity, three million more than the previous year.
But amid federal cuts in nutritional aid and concerns about a further rise in hunger, the US Department of Agriculture has announced that it will stop conducting this survey, making the forthcoming 2024 report the last of its kind.
“These redundant, costly, politicised and extraneous studies do nothing more than fearmonger,” the USDA said. However, experts have raised concerns about the timing and implications of the decision, which was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
The survey is the central tool for determining Americans’ ability to access food, and its removal will make it harder to analyse the true impact of President Donald Trump’s cuts to vital food assistance programmes amid rising inflation.
USDA slammed for explanation of decision to end food insecurity survey
Courtesy: USDA
The USDA’s household food security reports have been published every year since the mid-1990s, beginning under the Clinton administration as a means to support the increase of eligibility for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and benefit allotments.
The latest report designated 11.2 million households as having low food security in 2023, meaning they obtained enough food to avoid disrupting their diets or reducing consumption by eating less varied diets, receiving food stamps, or going to food banks. This was higher than the 10.2 million figure from 2022.
Meanwhile, 6.8 million households (5% of the total, representing 12.2 million adults) were adjudged to have very low food security. It meant that their normal eating patterns were disrupted and food intake was reduced at times due to a lack of sufficient income or other resources for food.
Overall, 7.2 million children lived in food-insecure households, while nearly 850,000 (or 1.2% of the total child population) lived in homes with very low food security.
The nationwide survey is widely used by federal, state and local lawmakers to make funding decisions for food assistance initiatives and evaluate how well they work.
But the USDA attacked the study’s findings as “subjective, liberal fodder”, calling them “rife with inaccuracies, wrong metrics, zero accountability, and a massive drive for bigger and larger government programmes”.
“Trends in the prevalence of food insecurity have remained virtually unchanged, regardless of an over 87% increase in SNAP spending between 2019-23,” the department said.
In response, Elaine Waxman, a food insecurity measurement expert at think tank the Urban Institute, told the New York Times: “In no way does that reflect the view of anybody who works with the data. That is completely a pretext for eliminating data that can point out problems.”
Climate change and federal aid cuts drive up food insecurity
Courtesy: USDA
SNAP, formerly the Food Stamp Program, is a federal nutritional initiative for low-income families. It supplements the grocery budgets of food-insecure households, so they can afford nutritious food that’s essential to health and wellbeing.
Around 12% of the population, or 41.7 million Americans, benefit from the programme, which has been credited by researchers as being “successful in reducing food insecurity”. And with hunger sharply increasing after years of gradual decline – thanks to inflation and the end of pandemic aid initiatives – food stamps are becoming more significant than ever.
Food banks have continued to witness more visits nationwide, with reports suggesting that this is the case even as immigrants are staying away out of concerns that their information could be shared or the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) may detain them.
Climate change has pushed grocery prices to unprecedented highs, with some commodities – like beef and eggs – recording never-before-seen prices. However, the Trump administration has erased any mentions of climate change from the USDA website, a new low for climate denial, while shutting the scientific research arm of the Environmental Protection Agency.
All-time US consumer price index for beef | Courtesy: Bureau of Labor Statistics
Meanwhile, the Republican government’s controversial budget bill, passed in July, has cut SNAP funding by around 20%, totalling $187B through to 2034, the largest reductions in the programme’s history. This is estimated to affect four million Americans (or 10% of those enrolled in the initiative), who will lose some or all of the aid.
The move has been heavily criticised, and experts argue that the scrapping of the food insecurity survey is a way to deflect from scrutiny.
Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, Lindsey Smith Taillie, nutrition professor at the University of North Carolina Gillings, said: “I think the only reason why you wouldn’t measure it is if you were planning to cut food assistance, because it basically allows you to pretend like we don’t have this food insecurity problem.”
Colleen Heflin, a professor at Syracuse University who has been studying the data since its inception, added: “Not having this measure for 2025 is particularly troubling, given the current rise in inflation and deterioration of labour market conditions, two conditions known to increase food insecurity.”
Human rights group says hundreds of skeletons found exposed or buried just below ground during research into killings of civilians
Hundreds of bodies could have been buried at a mass grave discovered in Egypt’s Sinai province by human rights campaigners.
Bodies lying on the surface and others buried barely 30cm below were found at a burial site near a military outpost by the Sinai Foundation for Human Rights.
On September 20, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) – an arm of the Israel’s Defense Ministry responsible for implementing government policies – accused Hamas of directly firing at UN teams via social media. They were preparing a new route for aid trucks from the Israel-Gaza Kerem Shalom crossing to the so called ‘humanitarian zone’ in the south of the Gaza Strip.
Israel’s COGAT making baseless smears on social media – nothing new
COGAT claimed the supposed new road is:
part of the humanitarian component of Operation Gideon’s Chariots II.
It was scheduled to open in a few days, to increase the number of aid trucks providing:
food, medical supplies, tents and shelter equipment for families who fled Gaza City and moved south for safety.
Once the gunmen supposedly forced the UN out, they were then said to have used a stolen UN vehicle to erect a sand barricade to prevent future aid deliveries.
Ghassan Alian, head of COGAT, who has played a role in the occupation’s atrocities in Gaza and said, in 2023, that “human animals must be treated as such”, took to social media saying:
Hamas proves again and again it has no interest in the welfare of Gaza’s residents…..Even when Israel works with the UN and international groups to expand humanitarian aid, Hamas desperately tries to sabotage it.
Alian vowed that Israel would:
not allow Hamas to create false narratives of a crisis in Gaza.
As evidence of Hamas firing at UN teams, COGAT published the following photograph:
This supposed incident was reported by Israeli publication Ynet, with the headline: Hamas fires on UN team, steals baby formula in Gaza: ‘Trying to create crisis narrative’.
Systematic misinformation campaign
In response to these accusations, Hamas issued a statement of its own, denying the allegations against it, claiming they are:
entirely baseless and are part of a systematic campaign of misinformation aimed at distorting the facts and reversing the narrative.
It said it holds the Israeli occupation:
fully responsible for obstructing humanitarian work and manufacturing security chaos.
Hamas has long been calling for the full, unhindered access of UN agencies such as UNRWA, to carry out their duties, but instead, the Israeli occupation continues to obstruct aid deliveries, imposes severe restrictions on the work of the UN, bombs its facilities and warehouses, and deliberately targets humanitarian workers.
Multiple reports and investigations, including from Amnesty International, indicate that the Israeli occupation, not Hamas, deliberately uses starvation as a weapon of war against Palestinians in Gaza. Not only does it control and restrict humanitarian aid, and “routinely opens fire on starving Palestinian civilians”, but the occupation is also intentionally bringing about social collapse, by supporting and protecting armed criminal gangs which create chaos and insecurity by looting aid warehouses and attacking convoys.
This results in food being diverted from starving Palestinians, and resold in the markets at prices beyond the reach of almost all of the population, fueling violence and corruption. At the same time, the Israeli occupation prevents and targets government security personnel when they attempt to protect these convoys.
While analysis of aid theft incidents reported between 2023 and 2025 found no credible evidence that Hamas was systematically stealing or diverting humanitarian aid, Ynet’s accusation that Hamas was ‘trying to create a crisis narrative’, is yet another example of the occupation’s denial of famine and food scarcity in Gaza, a false narrative which the occupation has supported by extensive propaganda efforts.
Multimillion pound campaign attempts to stop criticism from Western countries
Recently launching a campaign on social media to discredit UN famine reports and humanitarian organisations, the occupation has denied there is any famine in Gaza, showing a video with busy restaurants and markets full of fruit and vegetables with the message:
There is no famine in Gaza. Any other claim is a lie.
This is part of a million pound effort involving Google, YouTube, X, and others, in which the Israeli occupation denies the UN’s famine declarations in Gaza, and its own involvement in crimes against humanity and war crimes taking place in the Gaza Strip.
The video – which does not reflect the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza, where hundreds of thousands face severe malnutrition and food insecurity – along with other advertisements, have reached millions through paid promotion, and aimed to counter international criticism in parts of Europe and North America. But the goods shown in the images are unaffordable for the vast majority of Gazans, most of whom either have no money, or are struggling hugely in a situation where withdrawal fees can reach 50% and banknotes are often refused by businesses.
Shameless Israel social media campaign to deny reality of its continued war crimes
This social media campaign is being used by Israel to deny the lived reality which it has intentionally created, of the mass starvation of the civilian population, brought on through blockades and military force, while it openly advocates the cutting off of food and water to Gaza.
The so called ‘humanitarian safe zone’ in the south has been bombed more than 100 times, and has no essential services, hygiene facilities, water or food supplies. According to human rights organisations, the displacement of Palestinians into this area amounts to forcible transfer, with the aim of eventually ethnically cleansing Gaza of its Palestinian population.
Between October 7 2023 and September 10 2025, 540 aid workers were killed by Israeli occupation forces in Gaza, including 373 UN staff and team members, making this genocide in Gaza the most deadly conflict ever for UN staff. As of September 20 2025, 65,208 Palestinians have been killed and 166,271 injured.
Microsoft has recently announced a record-setting £22bn investment in the UK, aimed at developing artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructures and expanding cloud computing capabilities. Central to their plan is constructing the UK’s largest AI supercomputer facility in Essex. There are currently around 6000 employees of Microsoft in the UK, across AI research labs, technical operations, and software development teams, and this funding is expected to create thousands of highly skilled new jobs. Clients of Microsoft’s UK services include Barclays, NHS, Vodafone, the London Stock Exchange, and the UK Met Office, all integrating AI to transform their operational effectiveness.
But beneath this technological ambition lies a far darker story – Microsoft’s deep and ongoing collaboration with the Israeli military, implicating it in grave human rights abuses, including war crimes and acts of genocide inflicted on Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
Microsoft complicit in occupation and genocide
Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, released a landmark report earlier this year, titled From Economy of Occupation to Economy of Genocide. The document uncovers the troubling reality that multinational corporations, including Microsoft, materially contribute to sustaining Israel’s settler-colonial and apartheid regime, and defines an “economy of genocide”, underlining how certain companies provide the necessary technological infrastructure, AI capabilities, and other services that enable Israel to conduct forced evictions, mass killings, and precise surveillance on Palestinian civilians.
Albanese’s findings explicitly named Microsoft as a major enabler, and claimed that its technologies are integral to the continuation of crimes that violate international law – including unlawful settlements, military operations causing immense civilian suffering, and systemic repression.
Israel using Microsoft mass surveillance and automated targeting algorithms against Palestinians
Microsoft’s relationship with Israel has long roots, but its involvement with the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) deepened significantly after a 2021 meeting between CEO Satya Nadella and the commander of Israel’s elite Unit 8200 which conducts wide-scale signals intelligence and cyber warfare. After this meeting, Microsoft created a dedicated, segregated area within its Azure cloud platform for exclusive use by Israeli military intelligence.
According to leaked internal documents and multiple insider sources, this cloud environment was designed to handle unprecedented volumes of intercepted Palestinian data. It provides near-limitless storage, enhanced security protocols, and advanced AI tools to mine and process intelligence for military operations. Since early 2022, the Israeli military intelligence has stored millions of Palestinian phone calls on Microsoft’s Azure servers daily. These intercepted conversations, from Gaza and the West Bank, amount to over 200 million recorded hours, as of August 2025.
Directly informing lethal military decisions
Microsoft’s engineers have collaborated closely with Israeli military units, developing encryption and cybersecurity mechanisms to secure this surveillance infrastructure. The intelligence gained is not just collected for data analysis, but directly informs lethal military decisions. The IDF uses this data to plan targeted airstrikes, raids, and detentions, leading to massive civilian casualties. Many of the neighbourhoods under attack have been densely populated with residential buildings, schools, and hospitals, drawing accusations of war crimes and violations of international humanitarian law.
Microsoft provides artificial intelligence algorithms, including access to OpenAI’s GPT-4 via Azure, rapidly sifting through and interpreting data for what Israeli intelligence calls ‘target banks’ – databases of individuals or locations tagged for potential military action. The use of AI-driven tools transforms the time-intensive intelligence gathering process into near-real-time analysis, allowing fast and often indiscriminate targeting.
This AI-assisted warfare raises unprecedented ethical concerns about algorithmic decision-making in life-and-death situations and has been linked to operations that have decimated large swathes of civilian infrastructure and led to thousands of unnecessary deaths.
Integration in repression and prison systems
Beyond military applications, Microsoft technology is embedded in Israeli systems which enforce apartheid policies, including biometric controls, checkpoint monitoring, and surveillance infrastructure limiting Palestinians’ freedom of movement and expression.
Microsoft also supports surveillance and control technologies tied to Israeli prisons known for routinely engaging in torture and other inhumane treatments of Palestinian detainees.
Microsoft says no evidence has emerged of deliberate misuse of its technology to target or harm individuals, and publicly distances itself from allegations of wrongdoing, claiming internal audits have shown compliance with its policies and international human rights standards. But insider leaks reveal an awareness across the company regarding the military implications of their work. Internal emails describe the partnership with Israeli military intelligence as ‘critical’ to Microsoft’s growth plans.
The UK’s complicity and legal obligations
Starmer officially welcomed Microsoft’s £22bn investment as a technological ‘game-changer’, stressing the job creation aspect and AI leadership in the UK economy, but has failed to address Microsoft’s active role in the occupation. This raises serious legal and moral issues because, according to international legal frameworks including the 1948 Genocide Convention and rulings by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), states have a duty to stop genocide and must do everything they can to prevent genocide.
The ICJ, in 2024, concluded that Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories, and its security policies, are unlawful, and ordered all states, including the UK, to refrain from facilitating these actions, including via corporate partnerships. The UK’s encouragement of Microsoft’s expansion, while neglecting these responsibilities, makes it complicit, yet again, in continued atrocities in the West Bank, and genocide in Gaza.
The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement says “Microsoft is perhaps the most complicit tech company in Israel’s illegal apartheid regime and ongoing genocide against 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza” and has stepped up its efforts against the corporation, highlighting its role in enabling the Israeli military’s surveillance and lethal operations through Azure and AI technologies. BDS has called for a global boycott of Microsoft’s gaming division, and for customers to cancel subscriptions, avoid purchasing any Microsoft gaming products, and pressure institutional divestments from the tech giant.
Holding Microsoft to account
Microsoft is facing growing global scrutiny for its involvement in Israeli crimes against Palestinians, and protests have escalated, drawing attention and helping to raise awareness about the company’s complicity. Activists are demanding Microsoft cut all ties with the Israeli military, halt sales of AI-enabled surveillance technologies used in the occupation, and pay reparations to affected Palestinian communities.
Microsoft’s use of its technologies in facilitating the Israeli occupation and its genocide in Gaza, exposes a growing ethical dilemma – one where innovation and oppression coexist, and internationally recognised rights are trampled on under the guise of technological progress.
Profits must never come at the expense of human rights. Technology should uplift and protect lives – not be used to surveil, oppress, or kill. Until Microsoft is held accountable for how its tools enable harm against Palestinians, the UK should not strike any trade deals or investments that effectively give a green light to this complicity.
This is not just about business or jobs, but about the values we decide to uphold. The UK must demand transparency, responsibility, and respect for human dignity from powerful tech firms like Microsoft. Anything less, and our government risks becoming even more complicit in injustice than it already is.
In another deadly massacre against displaced families during Israel’s genocide, around 25 members of the Dughmush family were killed, after multiple airstrikes flattened a residential block in Al-Sabra area of Southern Gaza City last night, while residents were asleep.
Palestinian doctor Ashraf Mohammad Abu Mohsen, along with his wife and children were also killed in the same strike.
Israel commits another deadly massacre as it makes situation in Gaza City ‘catastrophic’
This attack comes as Fares Afanah, director of emergency and medical services in north Gaza, described the situation in Gaza City as catastrophic on Saturday, saying Israeli occupation forces had bombed four inhabited buildings in the Al-Sabra area without warning, killing at least least 17 people and injuring more than 30.
Ambulance crews transported the victims to Al-Shifa Medical Complex, while many remain missing under the rubble.
Afanah said the military had escalated their attacks in the Al-Sabra, Tel al-Hawa, and Al-Shati neighbourhoods, and emergency teams had worked flat out to evacuate the dead and wounded, despite constant danger.
Israeli occupation forces (IOF) said it is intensifying fighting in the Gaza Strip, with tanks now invading deeper into Gaza City.
The Palestinian Prisoner’s Society has released a briefing following extensive legal visits to several Israeli prisons, exposing a grim and escalating reality for Palestinian political prisoners.
Lawyers who visited Naqab, Megiddo, Ramla, Ofer, Shatta, Gilboa, and Damon prisons documented testimonies from men, women, and children. Their accounts point to systematic abuse, deliberate medical neglect, degrading conditions, and an unprecedented rise in detainee numbers since Israel’s genocide in Gaza began.
Disease and deprivation in Naqab Prison
Naqab Prison, in the south of the country, is one of the largest detention centres, holding thousands of Palestinians. It has become both a laboratory of repression and an epicentre of disease. More than 20 detainees were visited there, with most suffering from scabies infections, often recurring despite previous treatment.
Prisoners reported a severe shortage of basic necessities such as clean clothing, with some not allowed to change their clothes for six months, and also said they are denied cleaning products, while electricity and light are frequently cut off for long stretches. Even the right to shower is weaponised – since it is only permitted during ‘break time’ in the prison yard, guards can ensure prisoners remain unwashed simply by denying them yard time.
The testimonies described cell life plagued by itching and rashes left untreated, pain met with mockery instead of medicine, and food so contaminated it often carried bird droppings, rotten vegetables, or even soap residue. Yet detainees said they had no choice but to eat it. Medical staff, who should provide care, use humiliation as a tool of punishment instead.
Adding to this, violent raids by Israeli occupation forces (IOF) ‘suppression units’ have sharply increased in frequency and brutality since 7 October 2023. In Naqab, the notorious ‘Keter Unit’ carried out a particularly violent raid on 10 September, hurling stun grenades and firing rubber-coated bullets that wounded at least one prisoner. Strip searches and demeaning treatment accompany these assaults, with even detainees brought to meet lawyers facing beatings out of sight of cameras.
Neglect and abuse of Palestinian prisoners across other prisons
In Megiddo Prison, untreated injuries, chronic pain, and worsening infections dominate testimonies. Prisoners with fractured bones or severe wounds said they were left without proper medical attention or even basic painkillers. Raids occur every two to three weeks, usually at dawn or the dead of night, when prisoners are most vulnerable. Dogs, stun guns, batons, and verbal abuse accompany these crackdowns, leaving many injured. Skin diseases such as boils, fungal infections, and eczema continue to spread, highlighting the dire shortage of clothing and hygiene supplies.
Ofer Prison tells a similar story but with an even darker twist. Here, medical neglect extends indiscriminately to children. Over 210 Palestinian children are currently held in Ofer, many infected with scabies and other untreated illnesses.
At Damon Prison, women detainees face compounded layers of abuse. Testimonies describe suffocating humidity, widespread insects, food supplies unfit for consumption, and increasing restrictions on outdoor time. They endure raids, strip searches, and physical assaults. Feminine hygiene needs are deliberately denied, despite cases of prisoners suffering from illnesses and psychological distress that worsen under these conditions.
Weekly raids by suppression units also dominate life in Shatta and Gilboa prisons, where guards deploy electric stun guns and police dogs. In the Ramla Prison Clinic, the very place meant to care for the gravely ill, conditions are described as even more alarming. All prisoners there suffer chronic diseases, yet treatment is virtually absent. The scabies outbreak has even spread here, with ten detainees in isolation out of the 22 in the unit.
Highest number of prisoners since 2000
What emerges from these prisons is not only a pattern of humiliation and neglect but one of control, designed to break Palestinian prisoners. As of early September 2025, more than 11,100 Palestinians are held in Israeli prisons – the highest figure since the Second Intifada in 2000. This number excludes those languishing in military camps run directly by the occupation’s army.
Included within this total are 53 women, among them two from Gaza, and at least 400 children. The surge in administrative detention – prisoners held without charge or trial – has reached almost 3,580 in the West Bank, while more than 2,660 detainees from Gaza have been classified as ‘unlawful combatants’, a category that also extends to Arab detainees from Lebanon and Syria.
Practices inflicted on Palestinian prisoners are ‘direct extension of the genocide’
According to the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society, the conditions in these prisons cannot be seen in isolation from the broader reality of genocide and ethnic cleansing. Torture, starvation, disease, and humiliation have become extensions of the Israeli occupation’s aggression in Gaza.
The organisation’s calls to the international community is this:
The crimes committed have reached a level that words cannot adequately describe. What is taking place constitutes part of a broader process of ethnic cleansing and erasure, and the practices inflicted on prisoners and detainees are a direct extension of the genocide. The continued international silence in the face of these crimes is an affront to all of humanity, and the consequences of this war will reach everyone who used helplessness as an excuse to evade responsibility.
Special Units of the Israeli Prison Service: instruments of torture and control
According to Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, prison raids by Israeli Occupation Forces ‘Special Units’, or ‘Suppression Units’ are extremely violent and give way to a host of abuses and human rights violations. They serve as one method of collective punishment, torture, and ill-treatment of Palestinian prisoners and detainees, with the occupation systematically exploiting any excuse to deploy its special forces into prisons to attack and harass the Palestinian prisoners and detainees.
Back in 2020, Addameer described the attacks in Israeli prisons which it documented:
Special forces shackle the prisoners, often physically assaulting them without any regard to their medical conditions and using tear gas and pepper spray, along with a plethora of other tactics to further abuse them. More often than not, the prisoners report sustaining grave injuries due to the brutality of the attacks.
These Suppression Units are heavily armed and trained in combat skills, and represent the hardline enforcement arm of the Israeli Prison Service (IPS), playing a central role in managing supposed ‘unrest’ and ‘security threats’ inside Israeli occupation prisons.
The Keter Unit is a special guard unit stationed at Naqab Prison, and is one of the main Suppression Units, focuses on enforcing discipline through forceful interventions within the prison, often involved in cell raids and transfer operations. After 7 October, the Keter Unit’s presence inside Naqab Prison has became almost daily, and its members use excessive force on the prisoners during the raids.
Addameer documented a group of prisoners who were abused and had their ribs broken by the Keret Unit, which is also responsible for beating to death prisoner Thaer Abu Asab, in November 2023.
When Dr. Mimi Syed returned from her first volunteer trip to Gaza in the summer of 2024, she started flipping through her notes and came to a shocking conclusion: In one month, the ER physician had treated at least 18 children with gunshots to the head or chest. And that’s only the patients she had time to make a note of.
“They were children under the age of 12,” she says. “That’s something I saw every single day, multiple times a day, for the whole four weeks that I was there.”
Syed’s not the only one. Other physicians who’ve worked in Gaza report seeing similar cases on a regular basis, suggesting a disturbing pattern. The doctors allege that members of the Israeli military may be deliberately targeting children.
This week on Reveal, in partnership with Al Jazeera’s Fault Lines, we follow Syed from Gaza to the halls of Congress and the United Nations, as she joins a movement of doctors appealing to US and international policymakers to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
This is an update of an episode that originally aired in May 2025.
Amnesty International is calling on economic actors to “pull the plug” on the economy supporting Israel’s genocide and apartheid in Palestine, naming 15 companies, including U.S. surveillance firm Palantir, acting as major backers. In a report published Thursday, the human rights groups named a litany of actions that governments, companies, and other groups must take to eliminate the…
The UN Special Rapporteur on the right to water, Pedro Arrojo-Agudo, has warned that the forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza City constitutes “a new step in Israel’s war of extermination” that has been ongoing for 23 months.
He pointed out that Israel has deprived 1.7 million Palestinians of clean drinking water amid an unprecedented humanitarian crisis.
Israel using water as a weapon of extermination
Arrojo-Agudo emphasised that the internationally recommended minimum consumption per person is 15 litres of water per day. Meanwhile citizens in Gaza have access to only 5 litres. This is one-third of the amount necessary for survival.
He added that Israel’s repeated targeting of water stations and destruction of infrastructure exacerbates the disaster.
He considered that “the use of drinking water as a weapon of war is a crime against humanity”. In particular, he warned that the continuation of this situation puts the legitimacy of international institutions at stake. This is particularly the case in light of the occupation’s continued impunity.
Arrojo-Agudo stressed that “silence on the crime of genocide in Gaza is a form of complicity”. Ultimately, he called for an immediate ceasefire, an end to Israel’s illegal occupation, and an embargo on arms exports to Israel.
Starving Gaza’s children
In a related context, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) revealed the worsening malnutrition crisis among children in the Strip. The rate has risen from 8.3% in July to 13.5% in August.
OCHA’s update stated that there are “roughly 28,000 cases of acute malnutrition” among children under five. It detailed how this exceeded the:
combined total of malnutrition cases identified in the first six months of 2025 (about 23,000 cases).
The report noted that Gaza City has the highest rates, with nearly one in five children (19%) suffering from malnutrition. At the same time, the severest forms of malnutrition are affecting more than 23% of cases. This was up from 15% between January and June 2025. Crucially, this level of severe acute malnourishment directly threaten their lives.
Recent UN reports paint a grim picture of the situation in Gaza: water scarcity, widespread malnutrition, and continued bombing and displacement. According to UN experts, these cumulative crises confirm that civilians are paying the highest price in a war described as the most dangerous humanitarian crisis in recent decades.
It is all amid the international community’s inability to impose a ceasefire or hold those responsible for violations accountable.
In a report Amnesty International released Thursday 18 September 2025, the human rights organisation has accused countries, public institutions, and major companies around the world of enabling Israel to commit genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, and to entrench the apartheid regime and illegal occupation of the occupied Palestinian territory.
Amnesty International report: countries and companies are propping up Israel’s genocide in Gaza
The organisation said that these entities profit from the violations by supplying weapons and technology. They do this through settlement projects, or by remaining silent and failing to hold Israel accountable.
The illegal occupation would not have lasted 57 years, the apartheid regime would not have been entrenched for decades, and the genocide in Gaza would not have continued for months on end, had it not been for the continuous flow of weapons and preferential trade relations. Human dignity is not a commodity. While Palestinian mothers and children are dying of hunger, arms and technology companies are reaping huge profits.
Significantly, the briefing singled out 15 companies Callamard condemned as:
responsible for sustaining a government that has engineered famine and mass killing of civilians and denied Palestinians fundamental rights for decades. Every economic sector, the vast majority of states, and many private entities have knowingly contributed to or benefited from Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and its brutal occupation and apartheid in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
Corporations ‘contributing to Israel’s unlawful occupation’
Unsurprisingly, multiple major arms companies cropped up in Amnesty’s catalogue of shame. It included the following corporations profiting from the military industrial complex.
Boeing
The company has supplied Israel with bombs and guidance systems Israel uses in illegal airstrikes in Gaza. This includes for instance the Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM) and GBU-39 small-diameter bombs, which has killed dozens of civilians, including children.
Lockheed Martin
It provides supply and maintenance services for Israel’s fleet of F-16 and F-35 aircraft, the backbone of the Israeli Air Force bombing Gaza.
Elbit Systems
Infamously supplies drones, loitering munitions, and surveillance systems to the Israeli military. It is one of the main beneficiaries of Israel’s military operations.
Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI)
The firm supplies Israel with missile systems, drones, and military technologies the occupier has used in attacks on Gaza.
Technology and surveillance companies complicit in genocide
Amnesty’s briefing also named a number of technology and surveillance companies, highlighting how:
Many surveillance, AI, and cloud infrastructure companies supply equipment and services to Israel related to its surveillance of the Palestinian population and its security and military activities within the OPT.
Hikvision
It supplies Israel with video surveillance technology that supports the apartheid system against Palestinians. Notably, it identified that Israel uses the company’s biometric surveillance products, including facial recognition technology “extensively” to maintain its “continued domination and oppression” of Palestinians in the occupied territory.
Corsight
Corsight also develops facial recognition software used by the Israeli military in its attacks and security operations in Gaza. The briefing highlighted how the firm’s technology has “powered Israel’s surveillance operations in the Gaza Strip” since the start of its genocide.
Palantir Technologies
An American company specialising in artificial intelligence and data analysis, it provides the Israeli military and intelligence agencies with systems linked to military operations in Gaza.
Infrastructure and services companies wrapped up in apartheid
Besides arms and technology companies, Amnesty drew up a list of other notably complicit corporations. Companies operating infrastructure and services across occupied Palestine featured heavily among the worst offenders.
Mekorot
The Israeli government water company manages water networks in the West Bank in a discriminatory manner that deprives Palestinians and serves settlements.
Construcciones E Oxicarril (CAF)
A Spanish company building the light rail project in Jerusalem that serves and expands settlements.
HD Hyundai
A South Korean company that provides heavy equipment used in the demolition of homes in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, as well as maintenance services.
Online travel companies were also among those Amnesty called out in no uncertain terms. These included the likes of Airbnb, Booking.com, Expedia, and TripAdvisor. Despite warnings, these companies continue to list illegal settlements in the West Bank and occupied Jerusalem, thereby contributing to their economic support.
Amnesty International said these companies represent just a “small sample” of a vast network of companies and industries that have profited from the occupation and apartheid.
Urgent calls to suspend all ties to Israel
Amnesty International called on companies to suspend all sales and contracts that support Israeli violations. Otherwise, it warned they face potential civil and criminal liability for complicity in international crimes. The organisation’s call included:
Imposing a comprehensive ban on arms, security, military, and technological equipment destined for Israel.
Halting investments and purchases from implicated companies.
Preventing these companies from participating in exhibitions, contracts, and government grants.
Imposing sanctions such as asset freezes and travel bans on those involved.
Callamard concluded by saying:
It is unacceptable for companies to profit from the death and suffering of Palestinians. The economic complicity that perpetuates the occupation and genocide must end immediately.
Columbia University has officially opened the application process for the 2026–2027 Human Rights Advocates Program (HRAP), a globally recognized initiative that supports human rights defenders from around the world.
The program provides a unique opportunity for experienced human rights advocates to enhance their knowledge, strengthen their networks, and build critical skills through academic and professional development in New York City.
A Legacy of Supporting Human Rights Defenders
Established in 1989, the Human Rights Advocates Program has a long-standing history of empowering frontline activists. Over the years, HRAP has become a vital platform for practitioners working in some of the most challenging and marginalized communities worldwide.
By leveraging the vast academic and institutional resources available at Columbia University and within New York City—home to a dense network of international organizations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs)—HRAP provides advocates with a transformative experience that amplifies their voices and accelerates the impact of their work.
Program Structure and Opportunities
Participants in HRAP engage in a comprehensive program that combines academic study, skill-building workshops, mentoring, and networking. The curriculum is designed to be both rigorous and practical, offering a space for reflection and growth.
Advocates attend seminars specifically tailored to the challenges and strategies of the human rights field. They also have the opportunity to enroll in courses across Columbia University’s schools and departments, further enriching their understanding of legal, political, social, and economic issues related to their advocacy work.
One of the key features of the program is the series of workshops led by staff from leading human rights organizations. These sessions cover topics such as advocacy strategies, digital security, media engagement, organizational development, and fundraising. Participants also attend meetings with policymakers, funders, academics, and fellow advocates, fostering long-term professional relationships and collaborative opportunities. Mentoring is another cornerstone of the program, offering one-on-one guidance from experienced professionals who help participants refine their goals and campaign strategies.
Since its inception, more than 350 human rights advocates from over 100 countries have completed the program.
Application Process and Deadline
Applicants interested in joining the 2026–2027 cohort are encouraged to visit the official HRAP Admissions page for detailed information on eligibility criteria, application requirements, and program expectations.
The selection process is competitive and seeks individuals with a strong track record of human rights advocacy, demonstrated leadership potential, and a clear vision for how participation in HRAP will advance their work.
The deadline to apply is Monday, December 1, 2025. Late applications will not be considered, so prospective participants are advised to begin the process early to ensure all required materials are submitted on time.
On Friday 19 September, groups standing in solidarity with the Congolese people against blood minerals, human rights abuses, and genocide will bring dissent and disruption to Apple’s front door. Coinciding with the company’s release day for the new iPhone 17, Stand For Congo UK, Friends of the Congo, and other groups, will pitch up outside the Apple Store on Regents Street in London.
Together, they will call on the public to boycott Apple. And crucially, they’re asking the public to join them in resisting exploitation in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
DRC’s critical mineral scramble: a colonial cocktail of human rights abuses and conflict
The DRC is the world’s largest producer of cobalt – containing more than half the world’s reserves of the critical mineral. In 2024, the DRC produced 220,000 metric tons of cobalt, accounting for approximately 84% of global production.
It’s also a major producer of coltan, the main ore of tantalum, as well as tin, and tungsten ores. Notably, these three together make up the so-called ‘3T’ minerals – prized for their use in electronic devices like computers and mobile phones. The DRC generates at least 40% of the world’s supply of the key tantalum ore, and significant amounts of the other two minerals.
As a result, the DRC has been at the centre of big companies’ global scramble to plunder these mineral resources. The result has been the fueling of violence and genocide in central African country. Armed groups have fought over mines and natural resources to fund their operations. They’ve left a harrowing trail of death and destruction in their wake.
As the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre has detailed:
The DRC government, civil society and UN experts report that large quantities of tin, tungsten, and tantalum (known as the 3T minerals) exported from Rwanda as “conflict-free” in fact originate in conflict-affected areas of the DRC and are illegally smuggled across the border. This trade is reportedly linked to the financing of armed groups and serious human rights abuses amid the ongoing conflict between the government and the M23 rebel group, allegedly backed by Rwanda, for control over the mineral-rich Kivu provinces.
Toxic pollution decimating Congolese communities
What’s more, alongside violent land-grabs for these conflict minerals, the mining itself is threatening the lives and livelihoods of local communities.
In 2024, non-profit RAID released a damning report on the devastating toxic pollution toll cobalt mining was having on communities and the environment in the DRC. It has contributed to staggering levels of gynecological and reproductive health problems for women and girls in communities living nearby to the world’s largest cobalt mines. Plummeting crop yields had decimated people’s incomes. The confluence of medical care costs and falling incomes had led to ever declining living standards. Communities have scrabbled to afford food, education costs, and healthcare as a result.
Meanwhile, mining companies are exploiting Congolese mine workers with paltry pay amid dangerous working conditions. A separate report RAID and Kolwezi-based Centre d’Aide Juridico-Judiciaire (CAJJ) put out in June highlighted companies paying workers well below living wage. It noted how this was leaving them:
unable to afford food or education for their children
It also underscored the unsafe working conditions, with workers describing:
being placed in highly dangerous situations, such as climbing scaffolding without a safety harness or being exposed to toxic substances, but said they refrain from speaking out for fear of losing their jobs.
And tech companies like Apple are complicit actors in this corporate colonial cocktail of abuse.
Apple: awash with lawsuits for conflict mineral complicity
In 2019, 13 Congolese families named Apple among a series of companies in a lawsuit over forced child labour in DRC cobalt mines. Their children had died or suffered severe injuries working in the dangerous conditions at UK mining company Glencore and Chinese cobalt firm Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt’s mining operations. The companies supplied its critical minerals to Apple and other tech firms like Google, Tesla, Microsoft, and Dell. Ultimately, a US court dismissed the case in 2021. And, in March 2024, the court of appeal refused to hold the companies to account.
However, in December 2024, Apple was under fire again for its sourcing of conflict minerals. This time, the DRC filed criminal charges against the tech giant in France and Belgium. But in February 2025, a Paris prosecutor also dropped this case. The DRC’s justice minister is planning to appeal.
Predictably, Apple has repeatedly refuted that it sources these critical minerals from companies committing human rights abuses. In its Conflict Minerals Report 2024, the company said that:
In response to reports of escalating regional conflict, as well as smuggling and illegal taxation, in June 2024 Apple issued a notification to its suppliers to cease the sourcing, directly or indirectly, of 3TG for Apple parts and products from the DRC and Rwanda.
However, big tech companies like Apple consistently fail to properly map and monitor their supply chains for rights breaches. In 2022, research and campaign group Global Witness unveiled that Apple was relying on a supply chain due diligence scheme that militias in the DRC were using to launder conflict minerals. The DRC’s lawyers have also argued that while its decision was welcome, it would need to be:
verified on the ground with facts and figures to support them.
Stand up for the Congo against Apple’s sales ‘stained with blood’ on iPhone 17 launch day
In September 2024, protest group Apples Against Apartheid spearheaded a global day of action against the iPhone 16’s release.
Now, as the company prepares its next major product release, campaign groups will stand up to Apple once more:
You can join the Boycott Apple campaign in London at Apple’s Regent Street store from 5pm on Friday 19 September as the iPhone 17 is launched. Stand For Congo and its partners are calling for people to “take a stand” against the company to:
expose their complicity in human rights abuses.
Vitally, the boycott seeks to disrupt:
their sales, built on the backs of Congolese people and stained with their blood.
Janine Jackson interviewed CEPR’s Alex Main about Trump’s Venezuelan boat assault for the September 12, 2025, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.
Janine Jackson: The US military struck a small boat in the southern Caribbean September 2, killing 11 people. The next day, the New York Timestold readers, “Pentagon officials were still working Wednesday on what legal authority they would tell the public was used to back up the extraordinary strike in international waters.”
As telling and concerning as that is, it seems it might’ve been generous in posing it as a question to be asked. In an online exchange, Vice President JD Vance declared that “killing cartel members who poison our fellow citizens is the highest and best use of our military.” And when someone pointed out that killing the citizens of another nation who are civilians, without any due process, is called a war crime, Vance replied, “I don’t give a shit what you call it.”
It does matter what things are called, how they relate to the law as we understand it, and how such an act is responded to. We’re joined now by Alex Main, director of international policy at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. Welcome back to CounterSpin, Alex Main.
Alex Main: Thank you, Janine. Great to be with you.
JJ: Reporting on this strike is full of qualifiers. Politicosays it was “against an alleged drug vessel leaving Venezuela, which President Donald Trump said was aimed at the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua group, killing 11 suspected traffickers.” But as the story gets told and retold, qualifiers morph into facts, and it becomes a matter of how else should we kill narco terrorists, if not in international waters?
And you want to say, “Wait, wait, wait. No. We have to first properly understand the events themselves.” So before we get to the pretenses behind it, the uses sure to be made of it, what do we actually know about this strike attack on a boat, that killed 11 people last week?
AM: Yeah, excellent question, and one that still needs to be figured out. And I’m really glad you bring up the fact that from the outset, so much of the media really took at face value what the Trump administration said about this boat and its occupants and its origin, and didn’t really seem to question this idea that they were all drug traffickers, that they might be associated with the Tren de Aragua. And we can talk more about the Tren de Aragua, which is a very nebulous sort of organization indeed.
And there was no effort whatsoever made, at least initially, to try to identify who the victims were, who were these 11 people that were shot in a small boat, that was clearly not a military boat of any kind. There was no indication that these individuals were armed, and all we know about them is what we see from aerial footage that was proudly posted by President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio—just shows this grainy footage of a small boat, with what looks like people inside, and then a big flash of light, and that suggests that the boat was blown up.
And that’s really all we had. But, again, you immediately saw a lot of the media just go along with the narrative that was put out there by the Trump administration, and that itself is very problematic.
And to this day, I haven’t seen, really, any sort of major media, certainly from the US, make any sort of effort to try to identify the victims. The most I’ve seen in that regard has been from local media in Venezuela, where it seems that a small village, where there does seem to be drug trafficking, they had lost eight people from that village, and other people from neighboring villages. I mean, this sort of remains hearsay, but this is the most that I’ve really seen in terms of any kind of documentation. But I haven’t really seen any journalists investigate this, in any depth. And that doesn’t seem to be a priority.
JJ: Yeah, it doesn’t seem to be the priority, because it’s already being thrown into a number of narratives that were preexisting. So let’s put it in some context: If we call it a murder, that’s one thing. If we call it a military attack, well, those terms are going to affect your understanding. But we do know that it exists in a context of US bullying, essentially, of Venezuela and of President Maduro. I mean, that’s the way it’s going to be sold.
AM: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that’s the two pieces of this, really. On the one hand, you have what appears to be the next stage of an ongoing drug war—a forever war, really, that the Trump administration has wholeheartedly subscribed to, as have prior administrations for decades now. But where, to date at least, we hadn’t seen such an overt, extrajudicial killing that had taken place by the US military, and publicly, proudly displayed, as it has been—without, as you mentioned, any sort of legal justification to this date.
And you do have a number of members of Congress that have been asking the Trump administration to explain what the legal grounds are for blowing up these people that didn’t seem to pose any kind of threat to the United States. They were in the south Caribbean, to begin with, hundreds of miles away from the coast of the US, and seemingly headed for the island of Trinidad, which is one of the islands of the Caribbean that’s really the furthest from the coast of the United States. So how could it be plausibly depicted as some kind of a threat? But the administration just hasn’t bothered providing a justification. And, of course, no Republicans, with the notable exception of Sen. Rand Paul, have tried to take the administration to task about that.
JJ: I’m going to bring us back to this expansion of “war on terror” in a second. But in your statement from CEPR, you referred to a massacre in Honduras that had resonance here that seemed to be a kind of referent. Can you just tell us a little bit about that, and why it made sense for you to connect these things?
AM: Absolutely. So Honduras is one of the countries that we’ve followed closely for many years at CEPR, where we monitor the impact of US policy throughout Latin America. And I think it’s fair to say that Honduras is one of the countries where the US has had perhaps the most negative impact, along with Venezuela, along with Cuba and a few others. But over the past 15 years or so, certainly with the coup in 2009 that was really enabled by the US, where the US allowed that coup, an overt military coup against the democratically elected leader, to be successful.
And then, following that, you really had many years of what a lot of Hondurans refer to as a “narco dictatorship,” enormous repression that was going on, an extreme militarization of the country, under the right-wing authoritarian governments that remained in place, really thanks to fraudulent elections, particularly in 2017, that ended up being endorsed by successive US administrations.
But in 2012, you had collaboration, if you want to call it that, a joint operation involving heavily militarized US DEA agents and a heavily militarized, supposedly elite Honduran police force. And together they carried out an operation in a remote part of Honduras with an Afro-Indigenous population, and had what they called a successful operation in which they killed some drug traffickers that had attacked them during the operation. That’s the narrative that they pushed out after the operation took place back in 2012.
But then locals, first of all, were reporting very different things, from what they’d seen on the ground during the operation. And I, along with colleagues who work on Honduras, Annie Bird, Karen Spring, we visited the village of Ahuas, and we interviewed many, many people, and we interviewed also local security officials, and put together a very different picture of what had happened.
And that involved, first of all, an operation that was led, directed, by the DEA, whereas the DEA had always presented it as a Honduran operation, where they were playing a secondary role. That, first of all. And then, secondly, it became increasingly clear that they had not been attacked in any way, that they shot innocent bystanders, really, that were on a boat that had nothing to do with drug trafficking, that happened to be on the river at that time, and that was perceived as a threat, and then was shot up.
And then it turned out afterwards, and there was a subsequent inspector general review from both Department of State and Department of Justice inspector generals, which confirmed that the DEA had actually given orders to fire on this boat, where four innocent villagers were killed, others badly injured, a really huge tragedy in this small community in a remote part of Honduras.
And a completely false narrative had been sold by the DEA to the media, to the US Congress. They lied outright about what happened. And, again, this inspector general review—which took years to come out, thanks to all the stonewalling that came from the DEA and the State Department during those years—well, that did finally confirm what we heard from people on the ground during our investigation, which was that the DEA was entirely responsible for this mission, and ultimately responsible for the deaths of these innocent people, who were shot up with a machine gun, essentially.
And we’re seeing such big parallels now. In fact, it’s just been revealed that the video, that was heavily edited and was then posted by President Trump and by Secretary Rubio, that editing, what it didn’t show—according to sources, apparently within the military, that spoke to the New York Times—is that the boat was shot at repeatedly. The boat had turned around, and headed in the other direction. So if it wasn’t bad enough that this boat had been shot up without any clear justification, it’s becoming clear that the boat had actually turned away and was heading in the opposite direction, thereby not posing, really, any kind of threat whatsoever, if ever it had posed a threat.
JJ: I maintain that when reporters took the expression “war on terror” out of quotation marks, something important was lost. We have laws against drug trafficking, against drug dealing, and even against drug use, and they just don’t include killing people without judge or jury. That’s why we call them “laws.”
This action, along with other actions we could talk about, seems to be a further step in this ever fungible rationale. Now we’re going to call crime, or drug crime, “terrorism,” and make it subject to the actions that unleashes. This seems to be, just in terms of public information and public understanding, a further creep of this very nebulous and concerning framework.
AM: Absolutely. And, of course, what we saw last Tuesday, with these extrajudicial killings, is very reminiscent of what we’ve been seeing in the Middle East for a while, with the drone warfare—if you want to call it that; I would say more drone assassinations—that have been carried out.
This became a very big thing during the Obama administration in Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Somalia; people were targeted with no sort of due process. Civilians were killed in the process, all in the name of the “war on terror” and under the AUMF, the Authorization of Use of Military Force, from 2001 after 9/11, all part of this big “war on terror.”
And now we’re seeing a similar sort of incident taking place in the Caribbean, but there isn’t even an AUMF in this case. Not that it was justified in the Middle East, but they attempted a legal justification; in this case, there is no attempt.
The only thing that we’ve seen from the Trump administration so far is a letter to Congress, basically affirming that this fell within Article Two powers of the president to defend the country against imminent attack. As if this little boat in the south of the Caribbean, hundreds of miles from the US—they couldn’t even reach the shore of the US—was somehow an imminent threat to the US.
And then things started to really heat up, I would say, when, at the end of July, the Department of the Treasury announced that the Cartel de los Soles is also a specially designated global terrorist organization.
Now, the Cartel de los Soles is sort of nonexistent in terms of the global drug trade. There’s no indication that they’re really involved in any sort of major drug trafficking. There’s no actual indication that they really exist.
What you have is, basically, this accusation that senior military officials in the Venezuelan government have been involved in drug trafficking, much as you see in many countries, really around Latin America and even other parts of the world, corrupt officials that are paid off by drug traffickers to allow them to ship their drugs through the country, outside of the country, to turn a blind eye to drug-trafficking activities. That’s really the extent of it.
And based on that, the Trump administration has created this monster. They depict the Cartel de los Soles as a major transnational cartel, with Maduro at the top, pulling the strings. There’s absolutely zero evidence of this.
And then, on top of that, they have increased the bounty on Maduro’s head, information leading to his arrest, to $50 million. And then, of course, the beginning of August, there was this announcement of a major deployment of US military assets in the south Caribbean to deal with the “narco-terrorist threat.”
So they’ve been setting the stage for this boat attack for a while. Apparently they want to do more of this. That’s certainly what Rubio has said, and Trump has said: There’s more where this came from.
JJ: And all the murk around it, and disinformation and misinformation and lack of information—all of that plays a role, particularly as media allow it to slip and slide: “accused of being,” “actually are.” And then, of course, well, are there drug dealers in countries whose regimes the US doesn’t want to overthrow? Like, why are we looking for the keys under the lamppost? There are a whole lot of questions that are not being asked, big-picture questions about this, that would tie this—“extrajudicial” is a very generous word—killing of people to just the simple desire of this administration to have a new president of Venezuela. And yet we as readers, as news consumers, we’re supposed to see these as separate news events.
AM: That’s right. I mean, this is just the latest chapter in the many, many attempts to bring about regime change in Venezuela from the US. It goes all the way back to at least 2002, when the George W. Bush administration supported a coup against the democratically elected government of Hugo Chávez, at the time, that was overturned, essentially thanks to a popular rebellion against the military coup.
But ever since then, there have been all sorts of attempts. And of course the last big one was in 2019, when then Senator Marco Rubio worked with National Security Advisor John Bolton to come up with this plan to support a parallel government in Venezuela, that of Juan Guaido, from the hardline opposition in Venezuela, to declare him president with very little legal basis, if any, and then to overtly push for a coup to take place.
And it went quite far. And at the time, it looked like they might actually be successful in getting at least a part of the Venezuelan military to rebel against the government.
Had that happened, I think we would’ve seen a real bloodbath, and probably a prolonged civil conflict in Venezuela, certainly in no one’s interest, no matter what you think of Maduro, certainly not in the interest of the people of Venezuela, and not in the interests of the US or any other country in the region that would suffer the consequences of a major war in Venezuela.
But that’s what happened. And the media went along with the narrative back then as well. And it’s been a recurrent problem on Venezuela. Facts don’t seem to really matter. For a long time, Venezuela was depicted as a dictatorship, despite the fact that you had transparent, competitive elections there. That was not the case of the last election, in 2024, and we can talk about that.
But the circumstances, as well, are of a country that’s been under siege by the US, through extremely potent sanctions that have been in place, well, for a very long time. But the particularly potent sanctions came into place under Trump in 2017, during the first administration, again, pushed by then-Sen. Marco Rubio and others, and then really hardened during this last attempt of regime change in 2019, to the point that it really devastated the economy of Venezuela, contributed to massive outmigration of millions of Venezuelans, including many, many to the US, due to the real economic collapse of that country. The economy was in bad shape to begin with. But there’s no doubt at all that the US sanctions really made the situation exponentially worse. Basically the worst depression that we’ve ever seen in the region’s history in a country that’s not at war.
And so that’s the reality of what’s happened in Venezuela, and it’s one that’s really not described, at least not correctly, in the media.
And we see the crisis in Venezuela. There is an ongoing economic crisis, there’s a political crisis, and the US’s role in that is generally never really talked about by the media. Only occasionally on the margins, maybe at the end of the article, they might mention that there are these very hard-hitting sanctions that have destroyed the economy. Though they’re unlikely to mention that they’ve destroyed the economy.
JJ: Right. And this strike is not going to necessarily play the role that we might hope, in terms of complicating that understanding of the US role in Venezuela.
Just finally, we understand we’re in medias res. It’s September 11; we’re just learning what we can learn. But what would you be looking for reporters, in terms of basic questions, in terms of bigger questions? What would you hope from US journalism at this point?
Alex Main: “I would’ve hoped by now that more US journalists would report on the fact that the US is at the brink of war with Venezuela.”
AM: I would’ve hoped by now that more US journalists would report on the fact that the US is at the brink of war with Venezuela, basically through enormous provocation, amassing these warships close to the Venezuelan coast.
More recently, they’ve brought in some F-35 stealth fighters that have never been used for counter-narcotics operations, that have been used for major military operations. They’re now based in Puerto Rico.
And, of course, this strike against the boat, with all the rhetoric accompanying it, the rhetoric directed at Maduro and his so-called “cartel,” certainly is pushing things in the direction of a direct conflict with Venezuela. And there is an anticipation among many, certainly in Venezuela, that the US is soon going to be carrying out strikes in Venezuela. They’re now well-equipped to do that, with these fighters based in Puerto Rico.
On the Venezuelan side, they’re preparing, basically, for a US invasion. They’ve militarized the entire coast at this point. They are mobilizing the militias.
And around the region, there are real fears that this is going to blow up. And not necessarily because of an existing plan to strike Venezuela, although many think that there is a plan. But simply because when you deal with this kind of brinkmanship, anything can happen.
Last week, Venezuela, as a response to the strike on the boat that came from Venezuela, with presumably Venezuelan citizens on it, did a flyover with a couple of F-16s over some US Navy ships. And this was, of course, very poorly received by the Trump administration. And the Department of Defense put out a very strong statement, very threatening towards Maduro, referring to the country’s government as a “cartel.”
And, again, we’re in the context of this “war on cartels,” this “war on narco-terrorists,” where, according to the Trump administration, the narco-terrorists are running Venezuela today. So, obviously, this creates real fear that things could escalate even more, and that there could be some sort of incident that sets off a direct military conflict with Venezuela. And that would have absolutely terrible consequences for the region, and ultimately for the US as well.
JJ: We’ve been speaking with Alex Main. He’s director of international policy at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, and you can follow their work online at CEPR.net. Alex Main, thank you very much for joining us this week on CounterSpin.
A powerful new documentary produced by Fault Lines on Al Jazeera English tells the story of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the Palestinian pediatrician and director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza whom Israel has detained with virtually no contact to the outside world for almost nine months. He became known to millions of people around the world for his regular video dispatches from inside…
The former lawyer was outspoken about China’s response to the Covid pandemic
A Chinese citizen journalist who was previously jailed after reporting from the frontlines of the Covid-19 outbreak in Wuhan is set to face trial for the second time, according to human rights activists and media freedom groups.
Zhang Zhan, who was released from prison in May 2024 after serving four years behind bars, is expected to face trial once again for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”, a catch-all term used to target government critics, at 9am on Friday at the Shanghai Pudong New Area people’s court.
A skilled and persuasive human rights lawyer who fought for civil liberties in the face of over-reaching anti-terror law
As a leading authority on counter-terror legislation, Conor Gearty was incensed at the way anti-terror laws are so often enacted to stifle debate and intimidate protest.
The Labour government’s banning of Palestine Action, he argued, was “preposterous”. He told a podcast for Prospect magazine that the then home secretary, Yvette Cooper, had fallen back on the “usual claim they make in a tight corner”, that “‘you have no idea what I know’ … They calculated the ban would produce not much of a reaction.”
WARNING: THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS GRAPHIC VIDEO SOME READERS MAY FIND DISTRESSING
Israel committed a horrific massacre yesterday, 17 September 2025, targeting forcibly displaced Palestinian civilians near to Al-Shifa Hospital, as they were evacuating Gaza City.
At least 15 people have been killed, including Palestinian journalist Alaa Al-Sawalhi, a cameraman for Al-Quds Al-Youm channel.
Women and children were among those killed.
Israel committing ‘full-fledged’ war crimes in full view
A press release issued by Hamas on Wednesday evening calls the targeting of these innocent civilians:
a full-fledged war crime that exposes the brutality of this entity in attacking civilians even at moments of displacement.
This massacre, along with all the other atrocities that happened yesterday – including the targeting, by Israeli occupation forces, of two Palestinian civilians near the Red Crescent in Tel Al-Air, south of Gaza City – came only one day after a UN commission confirmed that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
Between 12am and 9.20pm on 17 September, the total number of Palestinians killed by the occupation was 86.
