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Category: israel

  • UN Declares Genocide In Gaza While 250 US Lawmakers Are In Israel

    On the same day the UN released its report, approximately 250 US state legislators, representing all 50 states and both parties, were in Israel for a “50 States, One Israel” conference sponsored by the Israeli government. The Jerusalem Post (9/15/25) characterized it as “the largest-ever delegation of US lawmakers” to Israel.

    According to ethics disclosures reported in the Boston Herald (9/14/25), Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Alan Silvia’s trip to Israel for the conference cost $6,500. The Herald said Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs would “reimburse, waive or pay for travel expenses, though it was unclear what portion of the costs the government planned to cover.”

    Quoting Rep. Ilana Rubel (D-Idaho), Boise State Public Radio (9/17/25) reported that no Idaho taxpayer funds were used to send any of five Idaho state legislatures to the conference.

    The post UN Declares Genocide In Gaza While 250 US Lawmakers Are In Israel appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Israel’s educide in Gaza sees academics forced to sleep in cemeteries with their children

    In the heart of a cemetery in Khan Yunis, Dr Raghad Hamad, an academic at Al-Aqsa University, lay on the cold ground with her family. She fled northern Gaza to escape Israel’s bombing, only to find herself among the graves, trying to turn a concrete wall into a shelter and the open sky into a roof that would protect her children from fear.

    She hugged her children and hid there trembling, as if she wanted to convince them that life is possible even in the presence of death. Her scene was not just a fleeting moment, but a painting that encapsulates deep human suffering, where the search for safety becomes a daily battle and the right to shelter becomes an unattainable dream.

    Gaza’s educide: life alongside death

    The cemetery was not just a place to sleep, but a harsh symbol of the paradox of Gaza. When the living find their only refuge among the dead, death itself becomes a refuge from a harsher life. The image of Raghad and her family among the gravestones has become a symbol of a life under siege, embracing death in order to survive.

    It is a moment where symbolism and reality merge, where the living become neighbors of the dead, and where death becomes more merciful than displacement in the open. This scene encapsulates the meaning of the place: Gaza, searching for life, finds itself forced to share it with the dead.

    University halls: now the graveyards of Gaza’s minds

    Raghad was not just a displaced person; she was a university professor with advanced degrees who had dedicated her life to building minds and graduating new generations. Today, she sits on the soil of cemeteries instead of university halls, and embraces her children instead of her students. The irony here is even more painful. The guardians of knowledge have become refugees searching for the most basic necessities of survival.

    This loss is not hers alone, but represents the collapse of an entire society. When the academic and medical elite are displaced, the future is shattered. Future generations are robbed of their right to education, health, and knowledge. The tragedy of Gaza does not stop at human beings, but extends to the loss of human knowledge, which is the cornerstone of any renaissance.

    A cry that sums up the story

    We found no home and no tent; all we have left are graves.

    With this short sentence, Raghad summed up her story. Her few words conveyed what dozens of reports could not: a muffled cry that sums up the journey of displacement and betrayal. It transformed her individual experience into a collective testimony to the magnitude of the tragedy.

    From lecture halls to graveyards, the distance between knowledge and death was reduced to a single moment. Here, the story needs no exaggeration or embellishment. It suffices to be told as it is, to serve as irrefutable evidence of the cruelty of war and silent testimony to the pain of an entire nation.

    Human knowledge buried under the rubble

    Dr. Raghad’s story does not stop at the borders of Gaza, but goes beyond them to pose a question to the world: how can knowledge live among the dead? When academia is displaced to the graveyards, the loss is not only to a besieged society, but to all of humanity, which sees human knowledge buried alive under the rubble.

    This is not just a story of displacement, but a mirror of the fate of minds in conflict zones. Raghad’s story has become a global cry against the death of education and the displacement of talent, and against a future stolen from the hands of children and students. It is a testimony that exposes the world’s silence and confronts it with the truth: Gaza is not only losing its homes, but also its minds.

    Feature image via Middle East Eye/Youtube.

    By Alaa Shamali

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • BREAKING: Spain joins the Hague Group to hold Israel accountable over Gaza

    Comprising 34 countries, Spain has announced its intention to join the international coalition to hold Israeli occupation accountable, known as the Hague Group.

    Spain to join the Hague Group

    The Spanish government has announced its accession to an international coalition of 34 countries, known as the Hague Group, led by South Africa and Colombia, to impose economic sanctions on the Israeli occupation and ensure it is held accountable for the massacres committed in the Gaza Strip.

    The decision came during the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, where Spain also announced its participation in the donor group tasked with financing the Palestinian Authority, alongside countries such as France and the United Kingdom.

    The new coalition’s program includes a series of measures, including:

    • Banning the export of military equipment to the Israeli occupation.
    • Preventing military shipments from passing through member states’ ports.
    • Terminating public contracts with institutions that support the occupation.
    • Demanding that Israel be held accountable before the International Court of Justice.
    • Imposing an oil embargo and additional punitive measures if the occupation continues to ignore the calls of the international community.

    This step comes in the context of mounting international pressure on Israel to ensure respect for international law and Palestinian rights, amid growing calls to end impunity for ongoing violations in the Gaza Strip.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Alaa Shamali

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Basque women’s basketball team Lointek Gernika refuses to play Israeli club

    Basque women’s basketball team Lointek Gernika has announced its refusal to play its scheduled Women’s Eurocup game against Israeli club Elitzur Ramla because of Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza.

    Lointek Gernika: taking a stand

    The Basque team beat Greece’s Pas Giannina in the cup on Wednesday by 94-61 (184-118 on aggregate) in the second leg of the Women’s Eurocup, securing a spot in the ’round robin’ stage where it is competing against Hungary’s NKA Universitas Pecs and Portugal’s Sportiva Azoris Hotels – and Elitzur Ramla.

    Lointek Gernika president Gerardo Candina told Radio Bilbao that the club is aware that governing body FIBA might punish Lointek for its principled action against the “brutal genocide in the Gaza Strip” but that the club will not be deterred:

    Let FIBA act as it has to act. We, for our part, will not play the game… We are absolutely against [the genocide] and I think everyone has to realize this.

    Picasso’s ‘Guernica’ (image: Wikimedia).

    Basque town Gernika is the subject of Pablo Picasso’s famous painting Guernica, which depicts the 1937 fascist bombing attack on the town and the horrors it inflicted on the town’s people, including a woman in agony as she holds her dead child in her arms. A year ago, the people of the town stood in heavy rain to form a giant Palestinian flag bodies in solidarity with the Palestinian people against Israel’s genocide:

    According to pro-Palestine groups, the refusal is the first of its kind by a European team and will hopefully trigger further refusals as sport’s governing bodies continue to drag their heels on banning Israeli clubs and making Israel the pariah it should be – and as fans of other Spanish basketball clubs are already demanding.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Skwawkbox

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Belfast Palestine activists joined by Lowkey as they face court once again

    Rappers, Palestine activism, and farcical British state repression seem to be inseparable this week. Not only were Kneecap in court facing absurd terror charges for waving a flag around, three activists for the direct action group BDS Belfast were facing a magistrate on accusations of criminal damage for stickering. The latter were supported in-person by the politically aware hip-hop artist Lowkey, who had been performing in Belfast the night before.

    The alleged damage relates to the campaigners placing stickers on Sodastream products in a west Belfast branch of Sainsbury’s. Sodastream – which is made in so-called Israel – features a claim on its packaging that states it is:

    produced by Arabs and Jews working side-by-side in peace and harmony.

    This blatantly misleading boast is now being challenged by the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP), who have worked in harmony with BDS Belfast to bring the matter to the attention of the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA), on the grounds that it is untrue, and therefore false advertising. The notion that Palestinians – described by Sodastream as “Arabs”, eliding their core identity – and Jews working in “harmony”, as an ongoing holocaust is perpetrated in Gaza, is clearly an absurd claim.

    Israeli-made Sodastream funds genocide yet it’s Belfast activists in court?

    The activists’ primary objection to the product, however, is that its sale funds the ongoing genocide, apartheid and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians every time proceeds are sent back to the Zionist pseudo-state.

    BDS Belfast have a stated aim of ceasing the sale of all ‘made in Israel’ products in Ireland, in much the same way import of apartheid South Africa goods were halted in 1987. This followed a refusal of Dunnes Stores workers in 1984 to handle anything produced under that racist regime, after they were directed to do so by their union IDATU. Unions in Ireland have sadly failed to issue similar instructions to workers today, despite an ongoing genocide and the likes of Desmond Tutu and Noam Chomsky having previously described Zionist apartheid as even worse than its South African predecessor.

    However, in court seven at Laganside Courts, the magistrate ruled that a two week postponement was necessary, as no means were available for the Sainsbury’s witness – a member of staff at the Kennedy Centre branch of the supermarket chain – to appear anonymously. The witness had claimed that hiding her identity was essential to protect her from potential harassment. The activists have pointed out that they always emphasise that the blame for the presence of Zionist products lies with senior management, not rank and file staff.

    Any ruling against the group could have significant repercussions for similar actions across Britain. Stickering to raise consumer awareness of what exactly is being purchased has a noble history, with its use being another tool that activists deployed against the apartheidists in Pretoria, as South African fruit and veg was labelled by activists. Animal rights activists have routinely sought to raise awareness of the harms done by the factory farming industry through stickers on meat products in supermarkets.

    Protests against Zionist products sweep the world

    Outside court in Belfast, one of the accused – Martin Rafferty – spoke of the drawn-out nature of proceedings, estimating authorities had dragged him to the court nine times for this matter with still no ruling. He went on to say:

    We started doing this in Belfast, then it spread to Derry, then it spread to Strabane. Then it spread across the water, over to England, Scotland and Wales, and then it spread over to Europe. Now it’s throughout the world. They’re trying to make an example of us, they’re trying to intimidate people.

    This was reiterated by Lowkey, who said:

    What’s happening here is they’re trying to establish a precedent which will be used to beat others in different ways, and protect the flow of capital from the Zionist entity back and forth to places like this.

    He went on to perform an a cappella version of his song Long Live Palestine before the crowd of around 50 supporters.

    Also facing charges, Eoin Rua Davey pointed out how the “oppressive judicial system” trying the campaigners was a British court in a still occupied six counties, just as Palestine remains occupied by so-called Israel.

    Yasmary Perdomo, also accused, read a poem. One section lamented the failure to act by so many:

    The world does know
    Some speak up, some are silent
    Some people polish their ‘it’s complicated’ grin
    Some turn away
    Others that should know better, don’t do better.

    The final ruling is now expected on 9 October. It will be another litmus test for the fading British justice system, following the proscription of Palestine Action. That the state views a sticker on a box as a more concerning form of criminal damage than that done to Gaza ought to raise further alarm about the priorities of Britain’s ruling class, and its increasingly authoritarian means of enforcing them.

    Feature image via screengrab.

    By Robert Freeman

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • When cancer becomes good news amid Israel’s genocide in Gaza

    In Gaza, where the smell of gunpowder mixes with the moans of the sick and the cries of the displaced, writer and poet Amal Abu Assi penned one of the most brutal and painful testimonies of genocide, a testimony in which cancer of the body intersects with the cancer of occupation.

    Israel’s occupation and displacement: more cruel than cancer

    Amal Abu Assi said that the tumour that doctors had been warning her about for years had finally made itself known. But the shocking irony is that she did not feel the impact of this news as she did when she received the news of her forced displacement from northern Gaza to the south. There, amid the ruins of her dream and her home, she realised that illness might be easier on the heart than uprooting a person from their land.

    She wrote with pain:

    I understood the meaning of displacement very well when the news of my cancer was easier on my heart than the news that I had to move to the south, leaving my lofty dream standing alone in northern Gaza.

    Thus, she weighed illness on one side and displacement on the other, discovering that Israel’s occupation is more cruel than cancer, and that uprooting a person from their land and their dreams is more painful than removing a tumour from their body.

    Gaza: a city fighting death on more than one front

    Her words are not just a passing confession, but a mirror of the reality of an entire people being pushed into the open. Amal asks herself with painful sincerity: should she rejoice that her steps are now closer to heaven, bringing an end to this long tragedy? Or should she grieve because she does not yet know how many steps remain, nor when the door of life will close?

    Amal Abu Assi, whose body shares the pain of her bleeding land, sums up the tragedy of all Gazans: between the destruction of homes, the loss of dreams, and the absence of security, there is no longer any difference between death from a tumour inside or a shell outside.

    She concluded with a cry that every Gazan knows:

    Only those who have experienced the harshest degrees of oppression, grief, and injustice can understand this pain. Only the people of Gaza can understand this pain.

    It is the testimony of a woman, but it is also the testimony of a nation. Amal Abu Assi, with her exhausted body and full heart, presents a concentrated image of Gaza as a whole: a city fighting death on more than one front, insisting, despite the bleeding, to remain alive, witnessing, and resisting.

    Amal Abu Assi: a testimony that transcends the individual

    Amal Abu Assi’s story is not just a tale of a cancer patient in a genocide. It is a testimony of an entire nation, a testimony of the bleeding of the body and the bleeding of the land, of a woman whose body shares its pain with her city. She writes from the heart with the fire to document a complex human moment: a moment in which illness becomes a minor detail in the face of the loss of homes and dreams.

    With her sincere pain, Amal sums up the image of Gaza: a city clinging to life despite the rubble, hunger, cold, and disease. Her words do not belong only to a personal experience, but echo collectively for all those who have lost their homes, their dreams, and their security.

    Amal Abu Assi, writer and poet, no longer writes only literary texts, but also a testament to her homeland, an elegy to life, and a new statement of resilience.

    Featured image supplied

    By Alaa Shamali

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Three-quarters of Gaza’s children are suffering from malnutrition – with virtually no families left food secure

    New data released by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) shows that children in the Gaza Strip are facing “extremely dangerous” humanitarian conditions, with Israeli military operations continuing for the second consecutive year and an accompanying severe shortage of food, medicine, and psychological care.

    Growing hunger and widespread malnutrition among Gaza’s children, says IRC

    A rapid needs assessment, which covered 469 displaced families in Gaza City, Deir al-Balah, and parts of Khan Yunis, revealed that one in three children under the age of three had not eaten anything in the 24 hours prior to the survey.

    Nearly three-quarters of families with young children reported clear signs of malnutrition, while only 1% of families were classified as food secure.

    The report noted that families are forced to skip entire meals or reduce food portions, with an almost complete absence of protein, vegetables, and fresh fruit.

    Rise in injuries and amputations

    In parallel with the food crisis, the IRC has observed a 48% increase in child protection cases in recent weeks.

    The report stated that most injuries among children are caused by shrapnel, with a notable increase in amputations. It is estimated that there are around 4,000 children with amputated limbs in the Gaza Strip since the start of the genocide, which is the highest rate in the world relative to the population.

    Senior vice president for crisis, recovery and development at the IRC Kieran Donnelly said:

    These are children who have lost limbs, who wake up screaming from nightmares, who no longer feel safe even within their own families. Our teams are doing everything they can to support them, but without safe access and basic supplies, their recovery is at risk of stalling.

    The report noted that children who have lost family members show more severe psychological symptoms, including anxiety, nightmares, fear of being alone, and sudden outbursts of aggression.

    The organisation’s teams have also observed an increase in some children resorting to begging or child labour, while others cling to positive activities such as drawing and playing to mitigate the effects of trauma.

    Severe shortage of humanitarian services

    The IRC confirmed that prosthetics and rehabilitation are virtually non-existent in the sector, while psychological support for children is almost non-existent.

    The near-total blockade on humanitarian access also hinders the delivery of basic supplies, while safe spaces are overcrowded and the education system is on the verge of collapse due to worsening hunger and malnutrition.

    The committee concluded its report by calling for the opening of urgent and unconditional humanitarian corridors to allow access to food, healthcare, and protection for children, stressing that an immediate ceasefire remains a prerequisite for protecting them from further harm and ensuring the continuation of relief operations.

    Feature image via BBC News/YouTube.

    By Alaa Shamali

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Defend Our Juries just started pro-Palestine Action protest at Labour conference

    Around 100 people have been sitting down outside the Labour Party conference in Liverpool this Sunday 28 September, silently holding signs saying: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action”:

    Labour Party conference sees Palestine Action ban protest

    This simple action has led to the arrest of over 1,500 people since 5 July. The majority of arrests have been elderly protesters. It has included priests, vicars, healthcare workers, teachers, former magistrates and military personnel, and disabled people.

    If Merseyside Police decide to go ahead with mass arrests of peaceful protesters, it will be acutely embarrassing for the government on the first day of its conference. The mass protest is confronting MPs, cabinet members, as well as members and delegates at as they walk into conference with the consequences of the Labour’s unprecedented and widely condemned decision to outlaw a protest group as ‘terrorists’ for the first time in British history.

    Amnesty International who have issued an unprecedented urgent appeal to their members worldwide over the treatment of Defend Our Juries ‘Lift The Ban’ protesters, have written to the Merseyside Police and are in attendance as observers.

    Labour silencing solidarity with Palestinians amid its participation in genocide

    This mass action to challenge the Palestine Action ban and Labour’s complicity in Israel’s genocide comes after Labour officials shut down discussion on its policies regarding Palestine at conference. It refused to allow a single motion on Palestine. Party officials blocked all 30 of the motions on Palestine which Labour members put forward for debate.

    Even the former Labour leader Neil Kinnock, who has previously been a vocal supporter of Starmer, recently spoke out against the ban. He said Palestine Action are not terrorists and that the government has “blunted” terror laws by designating the protest group terrorists. In a split with Starmer, Kinnock said:

    I want effective action against terrorists, not against protestors.

    Polling reported by LabourList and the Telegraph showed over 70% of Labour members oppose the ban on Palestine Action. At its recent annual conference, the TUC unanimously passed a motion demanding the government lift the ban on Palestine Action. Not one of the 48 trade unions objected to the motion.

    Authoritarian abuse of the Terrorism Act

    When Jack Straw brought in the Terrorism Act 2000 he assured the House of Commons that it would never be used against a domestic protest group. The Labour Party have broken this promise.

    Many Labour Lords and MPs feel the government has misled them. They have called on ministers to rethink the “unsustainable and unworkable” and “authoritarian attack of the right to protest”. The New York Times has published the intelligence services assessment on Palestine Action. This undermines the government’s claims that the group poses a danger to the public. Lawyers have accused former home secretary Yvette Cooper of conducting “a cynical media campaign”.

    A spokesperson for Defend Our Juries said:

    We’ve come remind everyone that the Labour party is in breach of it’s duty to act to prevent genocide under international law. Instead it made the cowardly decision to ban the direct action group that was trying to prevent genocide.

    Labour members and trades unions are overwhelmingly against their party’s complicity in genocide and the ban on Palestine Action. Yet party officials have shut down all the debates that members wanted to have on these issues during their conference.

    Labour also reneged on Jack Straw’s promise that the Terrorism Act he introduced would never be used against a domestic protest group. This sets an alarmingly authroritarian precedent and unless the law is redrawn and the ban overturned, any group that this government or a future government does not like could be treated as terrorists.

    Instead of shutting down protest, it’s time the Labour Party took the responsibility to prevent genocide seriously and impose blanket sanctions on Israel including stopping the flow of arms from factories in this country.”

    Former Labour members and the public ‘deeply ashamed’ of government’s complicity

    Amongst those sitting today is Keith Hackett. Police recently told the 71-year old former Labour councillor he could legally display a poster in support of the proscribed Palestine Action group in his front window. Keith said:

    I’m risking arrest today under terrorism legislation because as a former Labour councillor in Liverpool I am deeply ashamed of how Labour are acting. If they want to start turning the party around and win back the support they have lost they need to stop their complicity in this genocide and end the ban on Palestine Action. They need to recognise that direct action has been a fundamental part of the gains that have been in the labour movement.”

    Tayo Aluko, 63, actor, writer, and singer from Liverpool who is sitting in protest today, said:

    This government, like all authoritarian regimes in modern times, wants to plant fear in the citizens so that it can continue to let their friends and paymasters get away with genocide. This is a time for bravery, as was shown by people who went before us, so that we can enjoy the freedoms we have today, which are now under threat. I feel I have no choice but to stand up and be counted.

    Protecting free speech and human rights? Only when it’s convenient

    The UN Commission of Inquiry found that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza on multiple counts. Yet the Labour government continues to say that:

    any formal determination as to whether genocide has occurred should be made following a judgment by a competent national or international court.

    As the UN Commission report noted:

    Since at least January 2024, when the International Court of Justice ordered its first provisional measures, all states… have been on notice of a serious risk that genocide was being or would be committed

    This thereby triggered the responsibility of states to prevent genocide under the Genocide Convention. The UK government has therefore been negligent of its obligations under the Geneva Convention to prevent and punish genocide.

    Prime minister Keir Starmer, in his recent press conference with US president Donald Trump, said:

    free speech, it’s one of the founding values of the United Kingdom and we protect it jealously and fiercely and always will.

    Anyone watching the state’s recent mass arrests under terrorism legislation of over 1,500 people for peacefully holding cardboard signs might find that difficult to swallow.

    Feature image supplied.

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Germany is shamelessly weaponising its Nazi past to justify support for genocidal Israel

    A new YouGov survey shows that most Germans now believe Israel is committing genocide. This view challenges their government’s decades long position of unconditional support for the Israeli occupation, which is rooted in Germany’s dark Nazi past but now weaponised to crush any dissent and justify complicity in mass atrocities.

    Israeli occupation’s right to ‘self-defense’: an obsession of German government

    After the horrors of the Holocaust, where six million Jews and five million ‘others’ – including disabled, Roma, and gays – were murdered, Germany vowed ‘never again’. But over the decades ‘never again’ has become a state doctrine that elevates Israel’s right to self defence and security above free speech, civil rights, and even human life in Gaza, evolving into what many see as a government obsession.

    In the aftermath of the Nazi holocaust, West Germany enshrined Israel’s security into national identity through the principle of Staatsräson, or ‘reason of state’ – meaning it is a top national priority deeply connected to Germany’s responsibility for its past crimes, and in the 1952 Reparations Agreement Germany agreed to pay billions in compensation to the newly established Israeli state. Eventual diplomatic relations in 1965 marked the start of the ‘special relationship’ between the two countries. This belief that defending Israel honours the memory of the Holocaust victims still drives much of Germany’s political agenda today.

    Unwavering support for Israel at the heart of Germany’s foreign policy

    This has meant that successive German governments have  placed the Israeli regime at the heart of their foreign policy. In 2008, Angela Merkel told the Israeli parliament that Israel’s right to exist is just as important to Germany as it is to Israel itself, and she called this support “fundamental and non-negotiable”. Most recently, chancellor Olaf Scholz and the current chancellor Friedrich Merz, who last week had a criminal complaint filed against him for aiding and abetting the Israeli occupation’s genocide in Gaza, have said the same. For many German leaders, supporting Israel is not just about history but supposedly about preventing past horrors from happening again, and they wrongly see Israel as a safeguard against those dangers.

    This unwavering support comes at a great cost to the freedom of those living in Germany who are shocked and disgusted about the ongoing genocide in Gaza and outraged about the Israeli occupation’s system of apartheid and land theft in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and take to the streets demanding change from the German government.

    Clampdown on anything pro-Palestine in Germany

    Things have become much worse since October 2023, with the country dramatically clamping down on pro-Palestinian activism and political expression. Authorities have equated dissent with antisemitism, banning demonstrations, and arresting protestors, including many for carrying Palestinian flags or chanting slogans such as “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”, labelling these actions as ‘terrorist support’.

    But this repressive environment extends beyond policing protests. Events, exhibitions, and awards have been cancelled over statements made by people who are critical about the Israeli occupation. This includes the barring of the UN’s Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, twice, from holding public events in Germany.

    In the case of Ali Abunimah, a Palestinian-American journalist and founder of the Electronic Intifada, the German government threatened him with fines and up to one year in prison for speaking at the ‘Palestine Conference in Exile’, via Zoom, accusing him of violating German laws. Despite a legal order banning him from participating, Abunimah gave the speech anyway.

    Anti-Zionist Jewish activists have also seen their bank accounts frozen, and the state has aggressively surveilled and harassed civil society groups that operate within the Palestinian solidarity movement.

    No funding for any organisations or projects critical of the occupation’s crimes

    In November, 2024, the German parliament also passed a controversial antisemitism resolution, known as Never Again Is Now: Protecting, Preserving and Strengthening Jewish Life, which mandates that authorities assess culture and scientific projects for ‘antisemitic content’ before granting funding. The resolution, which uses the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism – that anyone who criticises Israel is antisemitic – is meant to ensure that:

    no organizations or projects that spread antisemitism, question Israel’s right to exist, call for a boycott of Israel or actively support the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement receive financial support.

    But the real reason for this resolution is to silence critics of the Israeli occupation.

    Migration control has been transformed into a weapon of political repression, with foreign nationals who express Palestinian solidarity or criticise Israeli government policies continuing to face deportation or threatened with losing residency, with national security arguments masking political motives. This has raised serious human rights concerns not just about Germany’s treatment of these migrants but also about the erosion of freedom of expression and association, which end up marginalising Palestinians and Arab-Germans in society.

    Germany complicit in genocide

    Germany has been an accomplice to the occupation’s genocide in Gaza from the beginning, as it remains one of the Israeli occupation’s closest economic and military allies, and is the second largest arms exporter to the regime, after the US, with export licenses between 7 October 2023 and 13 May 2025 with individual export licenses for the final export of military equipment to Israel holding a total value of almost £425 million. This included firearms, ammunition, weapon parts, special equipment for the army and navy, electronic equipment, and special armored vehicles.

    Though Chancellor Merz announced a partial halt to approving arms exports to Israel in August 2025, Germany has since implemented a more comprehensive freeze, with no new export licenses granted to Israel from that point through mid-September, effectively stopping new military deliveries that could be used in Gaza.

    But the government continues with existing contracts and broader defense ties remain, showing Germany’s ongoing commitment to Israel’s security. This limited embargo has increased criticism both in Germany and abroad, and highlights the widening gap between German public opinion, which points to an increased awareness and empathy for Palestinians – and largely condemns Israel’s actions as genocide, and official state policy.

    German government stance doesn’t represent public opinion

    According to the YouGov poll, only 19% of German voters expressed positive or somewhat positive views on Israel – marking a steep decline in recent months, while 62%, across all parties, believe Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. This shift shows there is growing anger over the Israeli occupation’s military actions, and disagreement with the German government’s absolute backing. A poll has also found that more than half of Germans support recognising a Palestinian state.

    Al Jazeera’s recent documentary Germany’s Israel Obsession shines a light on these tensions, while journalist Antony Loewenstein, draws on his own Jewish heritage, to explore how Germany’s overwhelming focus on combating antisemitism has been used to silence Palestinian solidarity, criminalise activists, and cancel cultural events.

    The result of this Israel obsession is that the space for open discussion and honest debate is getting smaller all the time, and risks Germany moving away from democracy and more towards authoritarianism – all while hiding behind the excuse of protecting its historical responsibility to the Jewish community.

    Feature image via AP Archive/Youtube.

    By Charlie Jaay

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • India is deeply enmeshed in Israel’s genocide in Gaza as a new trade deal shows

    A bilateral investment agreement was signed recently by India and Israel, with Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich even travelling to New Delhi for it.

    However, notably, Smotrich is banned from entering the UK for inciting violence in the West Bank. During the signing ceremony, Smotrich emphasised the need for greater collaboration between the two nations in the fields of cybersecurity, defence, innovation, and high-technology sectors.

    His Indian counterpart, Nirmala Sitharaman, expressed condolences for a terrorist attack in Israel that had occurred the same day, framing the two nations as united by a shared threat of terrorism.

    Israel and India trade deal: rooted in British colonial rule

    A new report titled Profit & Genocide, released on Thursday by India’s Centre for Financial Accountability (CFA), lays bare the depth of an alliance between the two nations.

    This partnership marks a significant shift for India, which was the first non-Arab country to recognise Palestine in 1988. That historic stance was rooted in a shared experience of British colonial rule. India only recognised Israel in 1992.

    The authors of the CFA report directly attributed its formation to the impetus provided by UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese’s work, From Economy of Occupation to Economy of Genocide. Albanese’s report named corporations like Microsoft, Alphabet, and Amazon for their direct complicity in the ongoing assault on Gaza. Building on this premise, the CFA charts out Indian capital flows that are central to what Albanese terms the “economy of genocide”.

    Indian capital in Israel: the ‘economy of genocide’

    Defence and technology sectors dominate Indian investments and joint ventures in Israel. The report lists Indian investments and joint ventures in Israel amounting to at least $5.2bn. Adani Group’s joint venture with Elbit Systems produces Hermes 900 drones, the very models used for surveillance and strikes in Gaza.

    Adani also holds a majority stake in the strategically vital Haifa Port. Another major player, the public sector entity Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) entered into three major missile system contracts with Israel Aerospace Industries between 2017 and 2018, collectively worth over $3.4bn.

    The Reliance conglomerate is also deeply involved, with investments including $25m in the Jerusalem Incubator in 2017 and funding for the tech firm Neolync, alongside an undisclosed joint venture with Rafael Advanced Defence Systems.

    Silencing criticism

    The publication of this report is an act of defiance, coming amidst a well-documented campaign by the Adani Group to suppress critical press through legal threats and the intimidation of Indian journalists.

    In the UK too, following Albanese’s report, 23 UK groups called for legal action against companies like BAE Systems, BP, JCB and Barclays for their role in n human rights violations against the Palestinian people.

    On the other hand, UK State and Institutions are embedded with Israel. The Canary previously reported London’s Science Museum even hosted a private cocktail event for the Adani Group. This highlights how money made from oppression abroad is still celebrated by powerful UK institutions, turning profit from suffering into something respectable at home.

    Israel’s surveillance industry grows

    A landmark $2bn deal in 2017 between Indian state with Israel’s NSO Group for the Pegasus spyware demonstrated how such commercial transactions are far from neutral as they have directly enabled political repression within India itself. The book, Incarcerations: BK-16 and the Search for Democracy in India, showed Indian Prime Minister Modi’s 2017 Israel visit coincided with Pegasus spyware attacks on Indian activists.

    Scholars like Achin Vanaik explain this India- Israel partnership is underpinned by a shared political narrative where Israeli technology and methods provide the tools for the “corporatisation process” in India.

    Domestically, the main opposition, the Indian National Congress (INC), has offered a feeble challenge, providing the Modi government with little resistance. In fact, it was a Congress government under Indira Gandhi that established India’s external intelligence agency, RAW, in 1968, partly modeled on the CIA, and soon after set-up secret ties with Israel’s Mossad.

    Furthermore, Gandhi’s declaration of the Emergency in 1975, a period of democratic subversion, helped create conditions for the rise of the Hindu nationalist movement that now fully embraces Israel.

    In contrast, India’s leftist parties, although flailing in the face of right-wing nationalism like their counterparts in the UK, have unequivocally condemned the “ongoing genocidal war” in a joint statement.

    The bigger picture: trade and corporate power

    This deepening Israel partnership is part of a broader pattern of India’s foreign economic policy, which has recently prioritised rapid free trade agreements (FTAs) with the EU and UK – deals that, like the alignment with Israel, are highly favourable to corporate interests above all else.

    UK-based campaign group Global Justice Now is concerned that the UK is pushing India to weaken its patent laws, jeopardising the production of low-cost generic medicines.

    India must stand up to this pressure, and also against UK pressure to drop its desired reforms of Investor-State Dispute Settlement provisions. Otherwise, there is a real risk of corporations being granted powers to sue both governments in secret tribunals.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Nandita Lal

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Water crisis and toxic waste: Israel is committing an ‘environmental genocide’ in Gaza as part of the erasure of Palestinian life

    While the world is preoccupied with scenes of human and urban destruction left behind by the Israeli siege on the Gaza Strip, another less discussed, but equally serious issue is emerging: environmental genocide.

    Israel committing ‘environmental genocide’ in Gaza

    In an article the Guardian published on 27 September, British writer George Monbiot described what Israel is doing in the Strip as “a double erasure of the Palestinian people and their land”, citing UN and environmental reports that reveal the extent of the systematic destruction of agriculture, water, and ecosystems.

    Before October 7 2023, Gaza produced enough vegetables and poultry to meet a significant portion of its demand for olives, fruits, and dairy products, with 40% of its land under cultivation. Today, according to a UN report, only 1.5% of agricultural land remains usable, which cannot feed more than two million besieged people.

    Monbiot pointed out that the occupying forces have deliberately bulldozed farms, destroyed greenhouses, sprayed fields with pesticides, and crushed the soil with continuous bombardment, attempting to justify this by claiming that the resistance is active within agricultural land.

    Water scarcity and worsening thirst

    Before the war, each person in Gaza had access to about 85 litres of water per day, the internationally recommended minimum. But by February 2025, the average had fallen to only 5.7 litres per person per day. The collapse of sewage treatment plants has led to the contamination of soil and groundwater and the leakage of pollutants into the coast.

    The occupation has also pumped seawater into the tunnels, exacerbating the salinity of the coastal aquifer and threatening its usability.

    Contaminated rubble, toxic materials, and destruction of olive trees

    According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the rubble from bombing and demolition covers Gaza at a rate of 107kg per square metre. This rubble contains a mixture of contaminated cement, ammunition remnants, and heavy metals such as lead, copper, and mercury, in addition to depleted uranium.

    Other reports document the use of white phosphorus, which exacerbates environmental pollution and leaves long-term health effects.

    Olives have always represented 14% of the Palestinian agricultural economy, in addition to their symbolic status in national identity. However, the occupation has destroyed hundreds of thousands of trees, depriving Palestinians of a major source of livelihood and a deeply-rooted cultural symbol.

    Global implications and systemic erasure

    Environmental agencies have estimated that the reconstruction of Gaza – if it takes place – will release carbon emissions equivalent to those of a medium-sized country. On a broader level, armies worldwide generate 5.5% of emissions, but remain exempt from climate commitments under the Paris Agreement as a result of pressure from military lobbies.

    Monbiot believes that the goal of this destruction is not only to kill Palestinians, but also to make their land uninhabitable. Palestinian environmental researcher Mazen Qumsiyeh echoes this, arguing that:

    The environmental degradation in Gaza is not an accident, but a deliberate policy aimed at breaking the resilience of the Palestinian people on their land.

    Feature image via Associated Press/Youtube.

    By Alaa Shamali

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • “It’s a genocide”: Celebrities for Palestine project video onto Starmer’s conference venue

    The ‘Celebrities for Palestine’ group transmitted a video onto the entrance of Keir Starmer’s Labour party conference for hours last night, telling the ‘Zionist without qualification’ PM to stop enabling Israel’s genocide:

    Labour conference reminded of its complicity with Israel’s genocide

    So far, Starmer’s government continues to refuse to acknowledge the clear fact that United Nations experts, genocide scholars and human rights groups – and even some Israeli media – have all concluded, that Israel is committing genocide and other war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

    The genocidal occupation regime has murdered approaching 700,000 people so far, overwhelmingly children, but admitting it’s genocide would oblige Starmer under international law to act to end it, of face trial in the Hague.

    His woeful conference is a good place to remind him.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Skwawkbox

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • More evidence emerges of Israel’s ‘serious and alarming’ abuse of Dr Abu Safiya

    Since his arbitrary detention by Israeli occupation forces in December 2024, the health and wellbeing of Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, the esteemed pediatrician and director of Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital, have significantly deteriorated amid reports of abuse, neglect, and inhumane conditions in Israeli custody.

    Dr Abu Safiya’s condition: ‘serious and alarming’

    Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI), who were given rare permission to visit Abu Safiya on 25 September in Israel’s Ofer Prison, say a “serious and alarming” picture has emerged, of medical neglect of the doctor. He has lost nearly 25 kilograms, suffers from untreated scabies, and shows signs of severe malnutrition and exhaustion.

    There are also reports of repeated torture, including beatings and electric shocks, alongside denial of essential medical care despite suffering from heart problems. Basic hygiene and sanitation are non existent, with Abu Safiya prevented from showering, or changing his clothing, including his underwear. Before yesterdays visit, he had not changed his clothes since his arrest in December.

    Abu Safiya refused to abandon his patients and colleagues

    For over two decades, Abu Safiya dedicated his life to pediatric care in northern Gaza, eventually becoming the head of the crucial Kamal Adwan Hospital. Located in North Gaza, Kamal Adwan was one of the last functioning hospitals in the region, providing vital care to Palestinians in the northern Gaza Strip. Dr Abu Safiya refused repeated orders from Israeli forces to evacuate the hospital, realising that his patients – many children – had nowhere else to turn.

    Despite personal loss, including the killing of his son in an Israeli drone strike in October 2024, and injuries he sustained during bombing of the hospital, Abu Safiya continued to provide medical care, refusing to abandon his patients. He became known for documenting the siege on the hospital via social media, appealing publicly to the international community to intervene and prevent what he described as a genocidal assault on Gaza’s health infrastructure.

    Detained under the Unlawful Combatants Law

    On 27 December 2024, Israeli forces stormed Kamal Adwan Hospital, forcibly evacuating more than 350 patients and staff, including over 180 medical workers, and family members. They then set fire to the hospital, putting it completely out of service and leaving northern Gaza residents without essential healthcare services. Among those detained was Dr Abu Safiya.

    For weeks, his location and condition were unknown to everyone, despite urgent appeals by human rights organizations. The Israeli military classified him under the controversial Unlawful Combatants Law, allowing indefinite detention without charge or trial, stripping detainees of basic legal protections. His first visit by a lawyer occurred on 11 February 2025, 47 days after his capture.

    Violations of the laws of war

    Abu Safiya’s continued detention without charge, and documented abuse and medical neglect, is a serious violation of international humanitarian and human rights law.

    Medical personnel, facilities, and patients must be protected and allowed to operate without discrimination or interference during conflicts, yet there is a systematic pattern by the Israeli occupation of targeting them, in direct breach of medical neutrality and the Geneva Conventions.

    Human rights organisations including Amnesty International, Front Line Defenders, Physicians for Human Rights Israel, and others have been urgently calling for Abu Safiya’s immediate and unconditional release.

    But Abu Safiya’s case is not isolated. Since the start of this genocide, according to the Gaza Government Media Office, more than 1,670 medical personnel have been martyred by the Israeli occupation, and more than 360 arrested, many without formal charges or access to legal representation.

    Call to action for Dr Abu Safiya’s urgent release

    This systematic targeting of health professionals is a serious breach of international law and an attempt to dismantle Gaza’s healthcare system and inflict the most harm possible to Palestinians. But, it has continued unabated because the international community has never held the Israeli occupation to account for any of its multitude of war crimes and crimes against humanity against the Palestinian people. The time to act is now.

    Write to Israeli occupation authorities demanding the release Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya and all other arbitrarily detained Palestinian health workers, using Amnesty International’s letter template.

    For more information about Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, watch Al Jazeera’s: The Disappearance of Dr Abu Safiya.

    Feature image via Al Jazeera English/Youtube.

    By Charlie Jaay

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Israeli PM Gets A New York Welcome Outside The United Nations

    As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to a half-empty room at the UN General Assembly, thousands of protesters were gathered in Times Square to condemn his presence in New York City.

    Netanyahu was issued an arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in November 2024, on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly committed in Gaza since October 2023.

    All members of the ICC, which includes the United States, are legally obliged to enforce the warrants, though Hungary, an Israeli ally, has officially begun the process of withdrawal from the ICC.

    The Israeli prime minister gave a combative speech to a nearly empty UN General Assembly hall on Friday, where he portrayed himself as the standard-bearer of mainstream Israel in rejecting the creation of a Palestinian state and denouncing Israel’s genocide in Gaza as “a joke”.

    The post Israeli PM Gets A New York Welcome Outside The United Nations appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Gustavo Petro Calls for UN to Be Moved After Trump Revokes His Visa

    The Trump administration on Friday revoked left-wing Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s visa after he spoke to crowds of protesters in New York City, urging US soldiers not to point their guns at innocent civilians and to disobey the orders of US President Donald Trump. The US State Department wrote on social media on Friday that Petro had “urged US soldiers to disobey orders and incite…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • George and Gayatri Galloway latest to be detained under counter-terror laws

    Counter-terror cops detained George Galloway and his wife Gayatri at Gatwick Airport on Saturday 27 September, in the latest crackdown on anti-genocide speech.

    George and Gayatri Galloway: held under counter-terror laws

    George Galloway has been a consistent and fierce critic of the Zionist regime in Israel. In 2014, he was attacked by a far-right Zionist in London. Over the years, his position on Israel has made him a target of mainstream politicians and the Zionist lobby. But now, it seems that Galloway has been caught up in the current state crackdown on pro-Palestinian voices.

    The Workers Party of which he founded put out a statement at 4:30pm on 27 September. It said:

    At 11am we were informed by police officers in Gatwick that our party leader George Galloway and his wife have been detained at the airport…

    The police agreed that they would pass a message to our comrades from us and pass back a reply from them.

    Despite repeated attempts to gather further information, and despite repeated calls to the police, we have no further information on their wellbeing, nor on the observation of their Rights.

    There is no information on charges or alleged offences. Therefore we may conclude this is politically motivated intimidation.

    We call on all supporters and friends to amplify this message and demand the IMMEDIATE RELEASE of our leaders.

    Skwawkbox noted that:

    Galloway and his wife were detained by police at Gatwick airport incommunicado – despite a police promise to party workers to pass a message to him and obtain a wellbeing update – almost certainly under Keir Starmer’s abuse of anti-terror laws to arrest, harass and seize the devices of anti-genocide journalists and activists.

    It is unclear why Galloway and his wife were detailed, although they were on their way back from Moscow.

    The Met Police said:

    We can confirm that on Saturday, counter-terrorism officers at Gatwick airport stopped a man in his 70s and a woman in her 40s under schedule 3 of the Counter Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019.

    Neither of them were arrested and they were allowed on their way.

    State oppression

    George Galloway joins a growing list of pro-Palestine, anti-Zionist voices that the state has targeted.

    As the Canary previously reported, on 17 May 2023 six cops also detained Grayzone journalist Kit Klarenberg – again under counter-terror laws, but this time the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act (2019). This seemingly was due to Klarenberg’s work at the Grayzone, which is an anti-imperialist outlet. Also in 2023, cops similarly detained Craig Murray.

    Journalists Richard Medhurst and Sarah Wilkinson have also been targeted – as has Ali Abunimah of the Electronic Intifada. And all this is against the backdrop of the state’s repression of Palestine Action – and therefore, be default, Defend Our Juries.

    As Skwawkbox said:

    The Starmer regime’s ever-escalating war on free speech, protest rights and resistance to Israeli genocide and apartheid has kicked up another notch, with the forcible detention of a rival party leader. If there was any room for doubt that fascism is here in the UK, it just disappeared.

    George Galloway and Gayatri’s detention will not be the last time the state targets anti-Zionist voices – and it may not be the last time it targets the Galloways, either.

    Featured image via the Canary

    Additional reporting via Skwawkbox

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • 30,000 march in Liverpool for Gaza and against Starmer – video and images

    Around 30,000 people massed in Liverpool this afternoon to march from the city’s Lime Street station to the Labour party’s waterfront conference venue in support of the Palestinian people against genocide – and against genocide-enabler Keir Starmer.

    Liverpool: against Starmer, against the Labour conference, against genocide

    The atmosphere was loud and proud, but entirely peaceful – with the local police force barely in evidence – as a mass gathering of all creeds, colours and ages joined against the UK government’s collaboration in Israel’s Holocaust of extermination and cruelty in Gaza, in a march whose front was far out of sight before the tail end even started moving off its St George’s Plateau starting point:

    The boisterous gathering was a far cry from the arrival – usually solitary, rarely even in dribs and drabs – of the stony-faced suits arriving for Labour’s conference.

    The party had arranged a ‘zero-emissions shuttle’ to take conference attendees to the venue but it’s a good thing the bus was zero-emissions, otherwise the carbon per passenger of the usually empty eco-bus would have been horrendous.

    Featured image and additional images/video via the Canary

    By Skwawkbox

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Wanted war criminal running terrorist state boasts of Nazi terror tactic against Gaza civilians

    Wanted Israeli war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu has boasted of forcing hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza to listen to his genocidal speech at the UN on Friday – a speech that was booed and which prompted a mass walk-out of delegates. Somehow, it seems unlikely that those bits were transmitted.

    Netanyahu: disgusting

    Netanyahu posted about his regime’s hacking of mobile phones in Gaza to force his victims to listen to his psychopathic droning:

    And in case anyone didn’t have a phone, the occupation parked lorry-mounted speakers to blare it out over Gaza:

    The Canary’s Charlie Jaay spoke with people inside Gaza. She noted that:

    According to Israeli occupation forces, speakers were placed inside the Gaza Strip on trucks and cranes, and not along the Israel-Gaza border, as Netanyahu had previously claimed.

    The military said nine loudspeaker systems were brought into Gaza as part of an ‘influence campaign’ aimed at Palestinian civilians in Gaza and also Hamas, aiming to transmit Netanyahu’s message in both Hebrew and English, a tactic both of psychological warfare and media outreach intended to influence public opinion inside Gaza.

    All-too familiar

    If this scene seems somehow chillingly familiar, it’s because it is: the Nazis frequently blared music, propaganda and Hitler’s or Himmler’s speeches across the camps in which they concentrated and killed their victims as a form of psychological torture. As the Holocaust Music memorial website notes:

    Music from radio broadcasts or record players was played over loudspeakers installed in some camps. In addition to propaganda speeches, military marches and ‘German’ music, in 1933-1934 the guards at Dachau played Richard Wagner’s music in order to ‘re-educate’ political opponents. At Buchenwald, established in 1937, loudspeakers broadcast nightly concerts from German radio, depriving prisoners of sleep. Additionally, march music was played to drown out the sounds of executions…

    …From the outset, Nazi camp commanders made deliberate use of music to mentally break the prisoners and to rob them of their dignity and cultural identity…

    Music from radio broadcasts or record players was played over loudspeakers installed in some camps.. In addition to propaganda speeches.

    Netanyahu was actively boasting of behaving like the Nazis. Not that this is a new phenomenon, of course. The whole genocide in Gaza has been a Holocaust inflicted by a state that believes it is ethnically and genetically superior to the victims it slaughters in their hundreds of thousands, with additional cruelty shown to children instead of mercy.

    Featured image via the Canary

    Additional reporting by Charlie Jaay

    By Skwawkbox

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Microsoft Revokes Cloud Services From Israel’s Unit 8200

    Microsoft has terminated the Israeli army’s access to technology it was using to store vast troves of intelligence on Palestinian civilians in the West Bank and Gaza, the tech giant informed Israel’s Defense Ministry in a letter late last week, according to the Guardian.

    The decision followed an exposé last month by +972 Magazine, Local Call, and the Guardian revealing how Unit 8200, the Israeli army’s elite cyber warfare agency, was housing intercepted recordings of millions of mobile phone calls by Palestinians on Microsoft’s cloud platform, Azure, creating one of the world’s most intrusive collections of surveillance data over a single population group. According to the joint investigation, this data has been used over the past two years to plan lethal airstrikes in Gaza, as well as to arrest Palestinians in the West Bank.

    The post Microsoft Revokes Cloud Services From Israel’s Unit 8200 appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • VIDEO: dozens of UN delegates walk out in disgust as Netanyahu speaks

    Dozens of delegates have walked out of the United Nations General Assembly as wanted Israeli war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu started to address the gathering:

    Many delegates also booed Netanyahu as they left the room in protest, whilst others started applauding those leaving. The Assembly chair banged his gavel, repeatedly calling for “order in the hall”.

    Israel’s ambassador said afterward that he was aware of the walk-out and tried to claim it was organised by the Palestinian – surprisingly, he did not call all of those who walked out “Khamas”. Netanyahu’s speech, which comes after several European nations formally recognised Palestinian statehood, was a web of blatant lies.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Skwawkbox

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • On International Day of Solidarity with Palestinian Journalists, 250 cameras fell silent in Gaza

    Today marks the International Day of Solidarity with Palestinian Journalists, at a time when the Gaza Strip is experiencing one of the bloodiest periods for journalists and media professionals. The number of martyrs has risen to more than 250 journalists since the start of the Israeli aggression nearly two years ago, according to the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate.

    Silencing the truth

    Observers agree that the targeting of journalists in Gaza is ‘systematic’, as the attacks have not been limited to field reporters and photographers. They have also affected media institutions, press headquarters and even the homes of journalists and their families. This onslaught has made Gaza the most dangerous place in the world for journalists today.

    International human rights organisations have confirmed that the killing of such a large number of journalists in such a short period of time is unprecedented and constitutes a war crime that must be investigated. Despite repeated condemnations, no practical measures have yet been taken to protect Palestinian journalists or hold the perpetrators accountable for their crimes.

    A profession fraught with death

    Despite these dangers, journalists in Gaza continue to carry out their professional and ethical mission. They steadfastly document in sound, images, audio, and more the bombing, starvation and destruction suffered by civilians. Many of them work with limited resources, without protective equipment or technical facilities, but they remain committed to their mission of bringing the truth to the world.

    Although the number of journalists killed in Gaza has exceeded that of any previous conflict, international organisations concerned with press freedom continue to issue only formal statements of condemnation, without taking any practical steps to stop the targeting or hold those responsible to account. This silence, in the view of many, is not only a failure, but also complicity that allows the killing of journalists and the silencing of the truth to continue.

    In contrast, Palestinian journalists continue their work, defying death, hunger and siege, to remain witnesses to what is happening in Gaza and a voice for their people before the world. As they bury their colleagues one after another, they find only their pens and cameras as weapons in an unequal battle, whose slogan is that the truth alone is what the occupation fears and what the world ignores.

    Featured image via YouTube screenshot/Al Jazeera English

    By Alaa Shamali

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Netanyahu’s UN speech contained at least eight blatant lies

    The Government Media Office in the Gaza Strip accused the Prime Minister of the Israeli occupation, internationally wanted war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu, of promoting a series of lies and fallacies during his speech to the UN General Assembly on Friday 26 September, asserting that it was nothing more than “misleading rhetoric” aimed at justifying war crimes and genocide against the Palestinian people.

    Netanyahu’s lies during his UN speech

    The Gaza Government explained that Netanyahu relied on eight major lies alongside dozens of false claims, highlighting the most prominent of them as follows:

    1. The issue of prisoners: He claimed that his government “has not forgotten the hostages,” when in fact its policies of killing, destruction, and displacement put the lives of prisoners in direct danger.

    2. International support after October 7: He claimed that “many leaders supported Israel,” but later acknowledged that this support had declined, while in reality the majority of countries reject genocide and are close to recognizing the rights of the Palestinians.

    3. Alleged Islamic pressure: He attributed the decline in international support to “pressure from radical Islamists,” but the truth is that public opinion has exposed the falsity of his narrative, prompting several countries to correct their course and recognize Palestine.

    4. War on terror: He described the aggression against Gaza as a “war on terror,” while statistics indicate that 94% of the martyrs are civilians, including more than 30,000 children and women, and that 90% of the infrastructure has been destroyed.

    5. Forced displacement: He accused the resistance of preventing residents from leaving, but in the same speech he spoke of the displacement of 700,000 Palestinians, a contradiction that exposes his claims.

    6. Exoneration of the occupation from genocide: He said that “Israel did not seek genocide because it asked civilians to leave,” while his forces dropped more than 200,000 tons of explosives on residential neighborhoods and wiped out thousands of families entirely.

    7. Humanitarian aid: He claimed that the occupation provides food to civilians, while in reality his forces committed massacres against the hungry at aid distribution points, killing, injuring, and kidnapping thousands of civilians.

    8. Recognition of the Palestinian state: It considered that the recognition of Palestine by new countries “encourages the killing of Jews,” but recognition is a legal and moral entitlement that has been delayed for more than seven decades.

    Ongoing war crimes by Israel

    The media office stressed that these lies “will not change the established facts,” affirming that the occupation is committing war crimes and crimes against humanity and is practicing genocide as defined by international law.

    It also held the Israeli occupation and the US administration fully responsible for the “catastrophic reality” in the Gaza Strip, reiterating its demands for:

    • An immediate end to the genocide and aggression.
    • Complete withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
    • The urgent opening of crossings to allow food and medicine to enter.
    • Completion of steps to recognize the Palestinian state and end the occupation.

    The office concluded its statement by emphasizing that the world has become more aware and conscious of the nature of the colonial occupation based on lies and misinformation, and that the moment to correct historical mistakes is imminent through practical steps to end the occupation and achieve Palestinian rights.

    Hamas responds to Netanyahu’s UN speech

    The Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) affirmed that the speech of war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court, before the UN General Assembly came in an atmosphere of isolation after the majority of the world’s countries boycotted his speech, leaving him to address only himself and a few of his supporters.

    The movement said in a press statement that allowing Netanyahu to take the podium at the United Nations to talk about justice and rights was a “major paradox,” stressing that he violates these values daily through crimes of genocide, displacement, and systematic starvation against the people of Gaza.

    It added that Netanyahu’s repeated lies and denial of internationally documented crimes “will not change the established facts,” considering that his propaganda about October 7 “has collapsed in the face of global public opinion and is no longer promoted except by him and a few of his supporters,” and that his use of the term “anti-Semitism” has become “a worn-out excuse to reject international positions condemning his aggression.”

    Hamas held Netanyahu fully responsible for the continued suffering of Israeli prisoners, asserting that his intransigence and reneging on previous agreements, as well as his failed attempts to assassinate the negotiating delegation, are what are hindering any settlement, and that his brutal bombardment and massacres of civilians are threatening the lives of his prisoners.

    A “false cover”

    The movement also described the occupation’s justifications for continuing to target civilians in Gaza as “a false cover to conceal war crimes and crimes against humanity,” stressing that its resistance “is directed solely against the occupation until the Palestinian people achieve their full right to self-determination.”

    Hamas stressed that Netanyahu’s announcement about controlling Gaza and installing a “puppet government” there “will not come true,” and that the Palestinian people have proven their resilience and rejection of all forms of guardianship and subordination.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Alaa Shamali

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Breaking: flotilla insiders believe UEFA to announce BAN of Israeli clubs from European competition

    European football bosses UEFA have decided that they WILL ban clubs hailing from genocidal apartheid Israel from participating in European competitions. The move has come despite pressure from US president Donald Trump. The news comes according to crew members of the Gaza-bound humanitarian flotilla with connections inside the organisation.

    After heavy pressure from Trump’s envoys, UEFA had originally decided to ignore demands from the United Nations Office for Human Rights, Qatar, The Italian Football Coaches’ Association and others to kick Israel out because of its genocide in Gaza, blatant contempt for humanity and international law and the openly racist and violent behaviour of its fans. However, after further backlash from fans, players and international coaches, UEFA has apparently u-turned and an announcement is expected soon.

    As usual, Israel wanted to have its cake and eat it: Zionists claim Palestine is theirs because they are the original West Asian owners of it, but also want to be treated as European when it comes to sport and music. Now it appears they’ve hit a roadblock.

    Featured image via YouTube screenshot/UEFA

    By Skwawkbox

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Israel Issues New Evacuation Orders in Gaza City as Ground Forces Push Deeper

    Israel’s military has issued new evacuation orders for neighborhoods of Gaza City as Israeli ground forces pushed deeper into the Gaza Strip’s largest urban area. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have already fled Gaza City for overcrowded areas further south, as Israeli forces systematically flatten much of the city. Meanwhile, Israeli bombardment continues to kill dozens of Palestinians…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Ridiculous terror charges against Irish rappers Kneecap dropped

    A judge at Woolwich Crown Court has today dismissed charges against Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh – better known by his Kneecap stage name Mo Chara. The move comes after technical failures in how the prosecution brought the case forward. The matter was in relation to the alleged brandishing of a flag representing the so-called terror group Hezbollah, proscribed by the actual terrorists that run the British state.

    In Woolwich Crown Court this morning, Chief Magistrate Paul Goldspring ended the exercise in time-wasting and profligate use of public funds by saying:

    I find that these proceedings were not instituted in the correct form, lacking the necessary DPP (Director of Public Prosecutions) and AG (Attorney General) consent within the six-month statutory time limit.

    Kneecap go free

    The dismissal stems from the attorney general Richard Hermer neglecting to grant permission for the case to proceed against the Irish rapper following police informing him of the trumped up charge on May 21. The procedural failing ultimately led Goldspring to rule that his court had “no jurisdiction to try the charge.”

    Speaking outside court to a throng of supporters, Liam Óg thanked his legal team (which included Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh, who represented South Africa in their ICJ genocide case against so-called Israel) and went on to say:

    This entire process was never about me, never about any threat to the public and never about “terrorism”, a word used by your government to discredit people you oppress.
    It was always about Gaza.
    About what happens if you dare to speak up.
    As people from Ireland we know oppression, colonialism, famine and genocide.
    We have suffered and still suffer under “your empire”.
    Your attempts to silence us have failed, because we are right, and you are wrong.
    We will not be silent.
    We said we would fight you in your court and we would win.
    We have.
    If anyone on this planet is guilty of terrorism, it is the British state.
    Free Palestine!
    Tiocfaidh ár lá [Our time will come].”
    Darragh Mackin, one of the solicitors representing Liam Óg, then commented:
    History will be kind to Kneecap, and to Palestine, because they are writing it.  The reality is that the British government have nothing in their entire arsenal that can break the spirit of a West Belfast rap group.

    Charges have affected Kneecap’s ability to tour

    The confected charges have acted as an impediment to the band’s ability to perform abroad. Genocide enthusiasts in the Canadian government are the latest pack of criminals to attempt to conceal their own misdeeds through cracking down on the musicians.  In a previous case, Nazi-holocaust revisionist Victor Orban also threw stones inside a glass house, and banned the group from his despotic jurisdiction for their non-existent anti-Semitism.  Such crackdowns impose real costs on bands, where touring is a vital source of income in an era of artist-gouging subscription services.

    The performative attacks from this rogues’ gallery came in spite of the climbdown the group sadly embarked upon when media pressure mounted following publicity around their prior actions. In an April statement, the group said:

    Let us be unequivocal: we do not, and have never, supported Hamas or Hezbollah.

    Targeting of civilians

    The ‘Party of God’, as Hezbollah translates, have been one of the few entities attempting to meaningfully hold the Zionist regime to account for their mass murder in Gaza and beyond.  In response, they have been met with a brutal response from the butchers in West Jerusalem as they’ve proceeded to kill 1000s of innocent Lebanese people. This includes use of the ‘Dahiya doctrine‘, an overt policy calling for:

    the use of massive, disproportionate force and the deliberate targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure.

    First used in Lebanon in 2006, the criminal practice has reached its tragic current peak in the holocaust perpetrated against the civilian population in Gaza.  It was also seen in action during the illegal assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, with the obliteration of the entire surrounding area and all life within it.  The British government’s own article on Hezbollah, found on its list of proscribed groups, blurs the line between the group’s armed wing and its civilian departments, saying:

    The group in its entirety is assessed to be concerned in terrorism.

    This kind of framing has helped to legitimise the kind of indiscriminate attacks the Zionist entity has launched against the south of Lebanon as a whole, where Hezbollah essentially functions as a state within a state, providing many essential social services.

    Judicial charade that obscured Britain’s participation in genocide

    The trial against the Kneecap member is just one strand of a massive effort on the part of Britain’s political class to attack those peacefully attempting to prevent the worst crime imaginable, as the British state continues to participate in it.

    From the start of the Zionist pseudo-state’s assault on Gaza, Royal Air Force (RAF) planes have:

    flown near-daily from RAF Akrotiri, Britain’s sprawling airbase on Cyprus, for almost the entire duration of Israel’s assault on Gaza

    sharing this intelligence with Netanyahu’s murderous regime.  A new US plane which took off from Akrotiri flew for “three hours over Khan Younis”, with Israeli airstrikes killing civilians in the area the following day.

    F35 parts continue to be produced within British jurisdiction, before being sent into a global pool, ultimately ending up in the jets used by the Zionist entity to murder innocents across West Asia.

    Furthermore, the practice of training Israeli soldiers at British army bases has continued, and number 10 has recently rolled out the red carpet for war criminal Isaac Herzog. Israeli Genocide Forces (IGF) soldiers with British passports have been allowed to return from contributing to the Gaza holocaust, with no action yet taken.

    In the face of such overwhelming criminality, it shouldn’t take a technicality to halt proceedings against the likes of Mo Chara. Such charges ought not to be brought in the first place; rather it should be the likes of Starmer and Lammy that find themselves before a judge in The Hague.

    Featured image via YouTube screenshot/Sky News

    By Robert Freeman

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Microsoft Blocks Israeli Spy Agency From Using Its Cloud Platform, Azure

    Microsoft has blocked the Israeli army’s access to technology it was using to store data on Palestinian civilians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank after an investigation conducted by the Guardian, +972 Magazine and Local Call exposed the practice. The investigation, published in August, revealed that Unit 8200, the Israeli military’s cyberwarfare agency, had been intercepting millions of…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • ‘We have experienced every kind of oppression’: Gaza’s children speak

    For the last two years, Israel’s US-backed genocide has destroyed every facet of normal life in the Gaza Strip. While Palestinians cling to hope that they will live to see the end of the war, the incalculable trauma inflicted on Gaza’s children will leave permanent scars. “In these two years, we have experienced every kind of oppression,” 13-year-old Abdelrahman Bashir Jundia tells TRNN. “From living in tents, to refugee centers that are not fit for living in at all… We have suffered torture, torture, and more torture.” In this on-the-ground report, TRNN speaks with children in Gaza about how the war has forever changed their lives.

    Producers: Belal Awad, Leo Erhardt
    Videographers: Ruwaida Amer, Mahmoud Al Mashharawi
    Video Editor: Leo Erhardt

    Transcript

    ABDELRAHMAN BASHIR JUNDIA – 13 YEARS OLD: 

    In these two years, we have experienced every kind of oppression: From displacement, to living in tents, to refugee centers that are not fit for living in at all. We have endured every form of oppression, from relying on soup kitchens, and depending on water stations, and the water trucks that arrive. We have suffered torture, torture and more torture. I’m Abderahman Bashir Jundiya, I’m 13 years old, in the 8th grade. During the war, I took on the role of an electrical engineer. I started working with electrical appliances that I didn’t know much about before. The war taught me these things. Electrical equipment: we opened a charging station. Electrical equipment, inverters, chargers, [inaudible], fans, batteries, electrical panels, things like that. Before the war, I used to be bigger, but since the war, I’ve lost a lot of weight due to hunger and lack of nutrition. Before the war, my blood was healthy. Now, I have anemia, because of a lack of vitamins and iron. Before the war, we had healthy food, we had buildings and electricity, we had schools—my right to health and education was guaranteed. Now, we’ve been deprived of all of that. 

    UM ALAA JUNDIYA – ABDELRAHMAN’S MOTHER: 

    They used to be calm—very calm. Honestly, after the war started, it felt like all the children became aggressive. All of them, including my son, Abderahman. He’s become really aggressive, and it’s the same with all the children. Every time I speak to other moms, they say: “My child wasn’t like this before the war.” “I don’t know what’s happened to my child since the war.” “My child used to be calm and relaxed.” And it’s true—I knew these kids. They were calm kids. Now, they say, “My child is very aggressive.” They cause trouble; if anyone speaks to them outside, they immediately start fighting. What should I do? Even when I try to tell him to come meditate or recite the Quran, he refuses. 

    ABDELRAHMAN BASHIR JUNDIA – 13 YEARS OLD: 

    Before, water and food were always in our homes. Water used to come to our doorstep or be stored in tanks above our houses. Now, we have to collect water and go from soup kitchen to soup kitchen. When the water truck arrives, we run to get drinking water. All of this was available before the war, but now it’s gone. This exhausts us physically, and all the kids are suffering the same way I am. Nowadays, when I feel hungry, I try to distract myself sleeping or playing. I feel like I want to escape how I feel, through sleep or play. 

    UM ALAA JUNDIYA – ABDELRAHMAN’S MOTHER: 

    Every mom I meet says the same thing about her child: Why? Because all their dreams have been destroyed. Their neighborhoods are in ruins, and they live in tents. Their lives now revolve around soup kitchen—water—soup kitchen—water. It’s either, “I need to get water,” or, “The soup kitchen is here!” Even when we were in the south, there were some tent schools. The kids would go there, but as soon as the soup kitchen arrived, they’d run out of class while the teacher was talking to get food. The teacher would turn around and find the classroom empty. This has become their entire life. They’ll receive a qualification in chasing after water and soup kitchens.

    ABDELRAHMAN BASHIR JUNDIA – 13 YEARS OLD: 

    Before the war, my friends and I used to meet up at the mosque, in our homes, at the playground, at school—but now, all of that has been cut off. We only see each other occasionally while evacuating, getting water, or at the soup kitchens. Some have been killed, and others have survived, but we can’t reach them. I miss them more and more, because I was really attached to them before the war. Now, we’ve lost them suddenly. Some were martyred—may God rest their souls—and for the others, we pray for their safety. My dream is to live in safety—me and the children. To have a home, to live securely. My right to health, my right to education. To live like any other child in the world: and be able to go to school. To have all the rights that every child deserves. 

    UM ALAA JUNDIYA – ABDELRAHMAN’S MOTHER: 

    I want to provide everything for my children, but I can’t—I’m out of options, as they say. The grief in my heart—my heart is being torn apart, and my tears never stop falling. My tears say it all. Once, my child Abderahman and I were looking at the phone, and we saw a video of a chef cooking a feast—delicious food, meats, and other dishes. He turned to me and said, “Oh my God, if I die and go to heaven, will I get to eat food like this?” I said, “No, you’ll find even better than this!” Because the wonders of heaven are beyond our imagination. He put his head down and went to sleep. The next day, he woke up and said: “Mom, seriously, will I get food like this in heaven?” We just have to be patient, and we’ll find this in this world and the next, God willing. My heart is breaking—I despair for my child and all the children. You hear all of them saying, “I’m hungry, give me food! I’m hungry, give me food!” But there’s nothing we can do.

    This post was originally published on The Real News Network.

  • Texas Judge Overrules Jury to Send Anti-Genocide Activist to Jail for Graffiti

    The artist Banksy recently drew a mural at the Royal Courts of Justice in London depicting a judge in a traditional wig and a black robe, thrashing an unarmed protester with his gavel. The protester is lying on the ground in a defensive position, with one hand raised, while the other hand holds up a blank sign splattered with blood — the only red in the otherwise black-and-white mural.

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Delegates Protest Netanyahu’s UN Speech With a Mass Walkout

    Dozens of delegates in the United Nations General Assembly walked out in protest on Friday as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepared to deliver an address. Video posted on X by Axios reporter Barak Ravid showed United Nations delegates from multiple countries standing up from their seats and exiting the chamber as Netanyahu took to the podium and prepared to deliver his address.

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Spain indicates it will NOT stop Israeli attacks on humanitarian flotilla

    The navy frigate sent by Spain to accompany the humanitarian Global Sumud Flotilla of around fifty volunteer-crewed vessels taking aid to Gaza is unlikely to intervene to prevent any attacks by Israel on the fleet, which Israel has bombed and harassed nightly since its arrival in the Mediterranean.

    Spanish PM Pedro Sánchez has instead said that the vessel will ‘assist’ – which appears not to mean any military resistance to Israeli attacks – and “carry out any rescue”:

    Italy has given similar indications, even asking the flotilla to surrender the aid and discontinue its voyage to Gaza, which the volunteers have refused to do. The presence of the navy ships has become little more than political theatre useless to prevent Israel’s attacks when they inevitably become more deadly as the flotilla approaches the Gaza coastline.

    Shameful and inexcusable.

    By Skwawkbox

    This post was originally published on Canary.