Category: israel

  • This article contains descriptions and embedded images of disturbing images of Palestinian people being abused by Israeli soldiers.

    Disturbing footage of Israeli abuse is being circulated on social media. This comes amidst shocking images that show Palestinian babies who have frozen to death. Such examples of Israeli brutality have been commonplace during the ongoing genocide, and indeed the history of settler colonial Israel.

    Of course, these graphic incidents are happening without commentary from Western media outlets, the United Nations, or other institutions who just last week rushed to release statements about the treatment of the bodies of a number of Israeli hostages.

    Last week at the Canary, we reported:

    No human body should be treated with indignity after death. Privacy and respect for the deceased and their loved ones form the basic standard of how bodies should be treated. However, this isn’t happening in isolation. Israel has spent the last year of its siege on Gaza, and indeed its entire history as a settler colonial entity, disrespecting Palestinian bodies with cruel and inhumane rituals.

    Mere days later the “cruel and inhumane rituals” we referred to were once again evident.

    Israel: disgusting behaviour

    Quds News Network shared a shocking image of an IDF soldier posing with his leg propped on a skull:

    The accompanying caption, shared by the soldier himself in Hebrew, reads:

    A pure soldier showcases the quality football that was made with hard work after prolonged fighting in the Whores’ Strip.

    IDF soldiers have a history of using social media to freely post images of them disrespecting and taunting the homes, belongings, and bodies of Palestinians they’ve slaughtered. This is what these soldiers are posting to their own social media – what on earth is happening behind closed doors?

    Journalist Hend Amry expressed a hope that the skull couldn’t be used to identify someone:

    And there it is – even if institutional bodies won’t admit it, that skull is a person. It belonged to a Palestinian person who was a whole universe. Last week, the world’s media went to great lengths to express sympathy and grief at the coffins of Israeli hostages – coffins, not bodies. Then, there was anguish that those coffins were ‘paraded’ at a ceremony where people who have lived their entire lives in a concentration camp had put up posters condemning the leader of their invaders.

    The indignity, violence, and horror of a person’s skull being posed with in such a manner is met with no such sympathy or grief from the world’s media.

    Harrowing

    Another harrowing clip on social media shows Israeli soldiers doing nothing while dogs eat the remains of a Palestinian lying on the ground:

    Throughout the ongoing genocide, starving cats and dogs have often been seen eating corpses. So many Palestinians have been killed with such fervour and destruction of infrastructure that unless locals rally to bury bodies, nothing much can be done. Given the obvious sustained brutality of Israel’s soldiers on display, it’s probably fair to say that nobody would have expected them to intervene. Nevertheless, to see them calmly turn away is still an affront to human dignity.

    It’s incidents like this that make it even harder to swallow grief-laden coverage about Israeli hostages. Anyone who’s paid the barest attention to the attempted ethnic cleansing of Palestine over the years knows that it never takes long for the next Israeli atrocity to make its way onto the internet only to be met with the silence of a complicit Western media.

    War crimes

    In yet another appalling incident, Middle East Eye have reported that:

    Israeli forces strapped explosives around the neck of an elderly Palestinian who used a walking stick and forced him to inspect areas used by Hamas before killing him and his wife.

    They quote an Israeli investigative news site, HaKom, who found that the man:

    was told that if he did not carry out the searches Israeli forces would detonate the explosives and “blow off his head”.

    An Israeli soldier is said to have told HaKom:

    That’s how he walked around with us for eight hours, even though he’s an 80-year-old man and even though he couldn’t run away from us. And that’s knowing that there’s a soldier behind him who can pull the rope at any second – and he’s done.

    As Middle East Eye concluded:

    While the extent and scale of such operations are unknown, the practice, which is illegal under both Israeli and international law, has repeatedly been used in Gaza.

    In what was an undoubtedly terrifying death for this Palestinian man, it once again displays the callousness repeatedly shown by numerous Israeli soldiers. It feels ridiculous to turn to international law at this point, when the international community has not only ignored the hell visited on Palestinians, but gone further to equip Israel’s torture.

    Grief is a political choice

    Any one of these horrific instances should be enough to stop the world’s media in its tracks and force a reckoning with Israel’s genocidal behaviour. However, none of these incidents is the first of its kind even over the past year, and certainly not in Palestinian history. Solidarity is a word often used in left-wing circles and feels an inadequate term to describe the grief and anguish that many of us do feel at seeing Palestinians demeaned and tortured even after death.

    Fuck mainstream Western media, and fuck anybody else who continues to turn away from this horror.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Maryam Jameela

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Max Blumenthal is an award-winning Jewish-American journalist who has long spoken out against Israel’s genocidal war crimes in occupied Palestine. And this week, he experienced “a strange and disconcerting questioning session” at Washington Dulles International Airport with someone who “identified himself as an officer with Customs and Border Protection”. This interaction, he insisted:

    felt like an act of political harassment, and seemed to signal an escalation against journalists and activists who’ve expressed antiwar, anti-Zionist views.

    ‘Big brother is watching’ people who vocally oppose war – like Max Blumenthal

    On 24 February, as Max Blumenthal returned from a personal trip to Nicaragua, the officer led him and his family “down a long hallway” for an interview with him in “a cavernous secondary screening room”. The agent mentioned catching a recent Blumenthal appearance on a programme with journalist and jurist Andrew Napolitano. Considering that “nearly all of my appearances on Napolitano’s program, Judging Freedom, have focused on Israel’s blood-soaked wars in Gaza, Lebanon and beyond throughout the past 16 months”, he said, it seemed entirely possible that the officer was “darkly signaling to me that Big Brother was watching”.

    In the interview room, the agent showed Blumenthal a list of names – mostly Muslim – and asked if he was familiar with them. He said no, but highlighted that “I would not have assisted the officer even if I had a personal connection with one of the names on the list” because:

    I’ve learned from activists and journalists who’ve experienced similar probing that federal agents often deploy inane or disingenuous questions to get their subject talking, then attempt to manipulate or entrap them so they can implicate them in a crime. In fact, the US Supreme Court has ruled that police are allowed to lie to elicit confessions from suspects.

    Blumenthal was soon free to go, but later discovered that one name on the list was “the birth name of our friend, Medea Benjamin, cofounder of Code Pink and one of the most widely recognized antiwar activists on the planet”.

    Escalating harassment, especially in servile ‘vassal states’ like the UK

    Max Blumenthal went on to say:

    I know of several antiwar activists who have had FBI agents appear at their doors over the past several months asking questions about Iran and individuals with Muslim or Arab names.

    And he added that:

    in European vassal states without the same free speech protections Americans enjoy, journalists like Ali Abunimah, Asa Winstanley, and Richard Medhurst have been subjected to police raids, imprisonment, and even criminal prosecution for the opinions they’ve expressed on Israel-Palestine.

    His Grayzone colleagues have also faced harassment. Kit Klarenberg, for example, has been “detained by British counter-terror cops and grilled for hours about his journalism on London’s machinations in Ukraine and beyond”. And Jeremy Loffredo “spent several days in an Israeli prison and was ordered to self-deport… for his journalism inside the country’s occupied frontiers”.

    He also mentioned Canadian activist Yves Engler, who has just spent five days in prison for calling out a pro-Israel activist and refusing to remain silent about the case. A “long-term critic of Canadian foreign policy and its military-industrial complex”, Engler said “I had to go to jail for five days to win the right to (publicly) criticise charges brought against me”. And he asserted that “the targeting of those opposing Israel’s crimes is just one of the innumerable ways that Canada has assisted in Palestinian dispossession”, stressing that:

    the battle against genocide and the battle for free speech are quite interconnected

    In the struggle for peace, we must defend free speech

    It’s not necessary to agree with everything the targets for state harassment say. But we absolutely must defend their right to say it. Because for years, billionaire warmongers, propagandists and lobbyists have been trying to silence critical voices with the help of servile, egocentric politicians. We saw it with the smear campaign against former UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and likeminded voices from 2015 onwards, and we have seen it throughout Israel’s genocidal escalation against the Palestinian people since 2023.

    Max Blumenthal highlighted the atrocious hypocrisy of Western states harassing anti-war voices while “Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu travels freely from Berlin to Washington DC despite an ICC warrant for his arrest”. And that’s unfortunately the world we live in today. To fight back and build a world of peace, we also need to unite against the suppression of free speech. That starts with spreading the word about the repression and intimidation that’s going on.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Ed Sykes

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Show Israel the Red Card is a new initiative from Celtic fans that has been adopted by other football fans the world over. Their social media profile reads:

    We are a campaign group based in Scotland, committed to the sporting and cultural boycotting of Israel and supporting a free Palestine.

    The action began at the Celtic v Bayern Munich game on the 12 February, where Celtic fans unveiled, alongside symbolic red cards, a banner that read:

    show Israel the red card.

    Leaflets circulated at the game read:

    At the start of the second half, please Show ‘Israel’ the Red Card to send a direct message to Uefa (Union of European Football Associations) and Fifa (International Federation of Association Football) to apply their respective statutes and suspend ‘Israel’ from competition.

    By doing so, you will not only be doing the right thing but you will be joining football fans of conscience and courage around the world who will be adopting the same message.

    Show Israel the Red Card

    Despite Israel’s continued genocide in Palestine, global footballing associations have allowed Israel to continue to participate in competitions. In May 2024, the Palestinian Football Association (PFA) called for a ban on Israel’s footballing participation. The International Federation of Association Football (FIFA), the governing body of international football, have repeatedly delayed a decision.

    This cowardly decision stands in stark contrast to Israel, as of November 2024, killing 344 Palestinian footballers. Maccabi Tel Aviv football fans went on a racist rampage in Amsterdam rife with anti-Arab slurs. In October 2024 Gaza football writer Abubaker Abed told Al Jazeera:

    More than 50 sports facilities have been reduced to rubble in Gaza, including nine out of 10 of Gaza’s stadiums. Almost every club has been destroyed in this war, while one stadium in Deir el-Balah has been turned into a shelter for thousands of displaced people.

    It is inconceivable that FIFA would allow any other nation to kill another nation’s footballers, destroy stadiums, and use threatening behaviour at games without any response. It’s a disgrace that, just like other institutions, they’ve equipped Israel in behaving with impunity.

    In encouraging others to join their protest, a statement from a group of Celtic fans read:

    We call on football fans around the world who value life, humanity, dignity, freedom, peace and justice to be courageous and to use your platform to stand against the crimes of Israel and stand with Palestine. You can make a stand by adopting to show Israel the red card and by flying the flag of Palestine.

    Football is an incredibly powerful tool. If the football world unites to isolate Israel, then other arenas will inevitably follow this example. It is time for both UEFA and FIFA to practice the values which they preach: equality, respect and human rights.

    Growing movement

    Fans have responded with gusto, with supporters around the world joining the Show Israel the Red Card movement. Drop Site News reported that:

    The “Show Israel the Red Card” movement, sparked by Celtic’s Green Brigade, has rapidly spread across 72 teams in 25 countries and six continents. Fans are unfurling banners, displaying red cards, and waving Palestinian flags to protest Israel’s genocidal actions in Gaza.

    In Spain, Osasuna fans joined together to show Israel the red card:

    Malaysian fans did the same:

    In Sevilla, Spain fans showed out in force:

    Fiery scenes in Chile:

    Celtic fan collective, North Curve Celtic, shared news of protests that show Israel the red card in Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia:

    Quds News Network showed more images including from France and Greece:

    Cork City fans unfurled their own banner:

    Cultural boycott

    Just as a cultural boycott became a growing movement during South African apartheid, there is clearly a similar need for a cultural boycott of apartheid Israel. Institutions like FIFA have repeatedly shown themselves to be cowards who will not act unless forced to by fans – if even then. The more people who can boycott anything coming out of Israel the better – these football fans via Show Israel the Red Card are showing more backbone than the most powerful people and institutions in the world.

    As Omar Al Akkad’s new book states: one day, everyone will always have been against this.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Maryam Jameela

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Senior doctors and surgeons describe the torture, starvation, humiliation and denial of medical care they endured while being held without charge

    Many days I was tied to a chair in the interrogation room for maybe 15 hours. I was not allowed to sleep or eat or drink. They tied my arms to the chair very painfully and when they were beating me they would put their hands or legs on my chest to bend my back.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • The recent announcement by U.S. President Donald Trump that he wanted to take over the Gaza Strip, remove its Palestinian citizens and establish a “Riviera for the Middle East” has been rightly condemned as “ethnic cleansing” by sane voices around the world.

    Standing alongside a smirking Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a man with a long history of crushing any hope of Palestinian self-determination, Trump expressed a long-held dream of the Israeli Right, emptying Palestinians from Palestine. It’s a position that’s supported today by a majority of Israel’s Jewish population.

    The post The Global Spread Of Palestine’s Agony appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • In the early days of his presidency, Donald Trump announced he would be “fighting anti-Semitism” on college campuses by prosecuting and revoking visas for certain students deemed to be “Hamas sympathizers.” In a fact sheet accompanying an executive order with “measures to combat anti-Semitism,” Trump threatens students: “Come 2025, we will find you, and we will deport you.” The order itself states that the Department of Education will seek to familiarize institutions of higher education with these goals, so that universities may “monitor for and report activities by alien students and staff relevant to those grounds and for ensuring that such reports about aliens lead … to investigations and, if warranted, actions to remove such aliens.”

    The post Campus Police Using Israeli Spy Tech To Crack Down On Students appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • On Tuesday 25 February, activists from Palestine Action once again parked up outside the Elbit Systems HQ at Aztec West 600, Bristol. We say ‘parked up’. They, of course, blockaded the factory to stop its complicity with Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

    Arriving with a truck full of manure, Palestine Action blocked the only entrance into the British Headquarters of Israel’s biggest weapons firm. The activists then secured the vehicle, before locking-on inside, effectively shutting down Elbit HQ. According to Israeli media, Elbit provides up to 80% of the Israeli military’s land based military equipment and 85% of its killer drones. It supplies huge numbers of munitions and missiles – including the so-called ‘Iron Sting’, developed and deployed for the first time in the Gaza genocide, in which the deadly technology produced by Elbit has played a central role.

    The post Palestine Action Just Shut Down Elbit For The Sixteenth Time appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) has moved to block President Donald Trump’s proposed $8.5 billion weapons transfer to Israel as Israeli forces have repeatedly violated the ceasefire agreement in Gaza and Trump is pushing a plan for the permanent forced expulsion of all Palestinians in the Strip. Last week, Sanders introduced four Joint Resolutions of Disapproval (JRDs) aimed at blocking the…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • A non-profit organisation has urged the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate former US president Joe Biden for fuelling Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. And it has highlighted the role of current president Donald Trump too.

    Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) isn’t exactly a radical organisation, having previously received ample corporate funding. But it has made the bold decision to submit a 172-page request to the ICC which calls for accountability for Biden, along with his secretary of state Antony Blinken and secretary of defense Lloyd Austin.

    It documents Washington’s $17.9bn weapons transfers, intelligence support, and political protection for Israel’s genocidal war crimes. And it claims Biden administration officials did so in full knowledge of their ally’s crimes.

    The organisation insisted that the ICC should investigate Biden, Blinken and Austin for:

    their accessorial roles in aiding and abetting, as well as intentionally contributing to, Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza

    DAWN doesn’t try to cosy up to Trump either, clearly stating that Trump’s obstruction of justice via sanctions against the ICC prosecutor, along with proposals to ethnically cleanse Gaza, also constitute potential war crimes. Its advocacy director Raed Jarrar stressed that:

    Trump isn’t just obstructing justice; he’s trying to burn down the courthouse to prevent anyone from holding Israeli criminals accountable.

    The ICC has “solid grounds to investigate”

    In DAWN’s press release, it asserted that:

    there are solid grounds to investigate Joe Biden, Antony Blinken and Lloyd Austin for complicity in Israel’s crimes.

    It added that:

    Not only did Biden, Blinken and Secretary Austin ignore and justify the overwhelming evidence of Israel’s grotesque and deliberate crimes, overruling their own staff recommendations to halt weapons transfers to Israel, they doubled down by providing Israel with unconditional military and political support to ensure it could carry out its atrocities.

    They were, in short, “aware of how their assistance would be used to commit crimes”.

    DAWN also clarified that:

    Israel could not have committed without U.S. military and political support.

    In particular, the group said:

    Their public support, justifying Israeli atrocities, helped ensure popular sympathy for Israeli war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.

    Investigating US officials, meanwhile, would send the message that “no one is above the law“.

    DAWN submitted its 172-page communication on 19 January 2025.

    Featured image supplied

    By Ed Sykes

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • On Tuesday 25 February, activists from Palestine Action once again parked up outside the Elbit Systems HQ at Aztec West 600, Bristol. We say ‘parked up’. They, of course, blockaded the factory to stop its complicity with Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

    Palestine Action: back to Bristol again

    Arriving with a truck full of manure, Palestine Action blocked the only entrance into the British Headquarters of Israel’s biggest weapons firm. The activists then secured the vehicle, before locking-on inside, effectively shutting down Elbit HQ:

    Whilst capturing the action, an independent press certified photographer was wrongfully arrested at the scene.

    According to Israeli media, Elbit provides up to 80% of the Israeli military’s land based military equipment and 85% of its killer drones. It supplies huge numbers of munitions and missiles – including the so-called ‘Iron Sting’, developed and deployed for the first time in the Gaza genocide, in which the deadly technology produced by Elbit has played a central role.

    The Bristol HQ acts as a logistics hub for the weapons firm, from where its British operations are directed and controlled.

    Palestine Action first shut down the Israeli weapons HQ on 13 April 2021, with a rooftop occupation. Its campaign against the site has been as relentless as our campaign to kick Elbit out of Britain, with blockades, rooftop occupations, property damage, and paint attacks. In addition, actions took place on 2 November 202115 May 2022, 16 May 2022, 31 October 2023, 7 November 2023, 13 November 2023, 18 January 2024, 14 February 2024, 20 March 2024, 2 May 2024, 24 June 2024, 15 July 2024, 16 July 2024, and the 12 November 2024.

    Ridding British soil of Elbit 

    Today’s blockade takes place at a time when the British state is increasingly employing Draconian tactics against anti-Genocide protestors, which extends to the misuse of so-called ‘anti-terrorism’ legislation, and the imprisonment without trial of 20 Palestine Action members. These include 18 people arrested, and remanded in custody, accused of attacks upon Ebit’s second Bristol site at Filton. Some of the Filton 18 have been imprisoned since August 2024.

    A spokesperson for Palestine Action said:

    Despite a supposed ceasefire, Israel continues to kill Palestinian and Lebanese civilians, to destroy civilian infrastructure, and to imprison and torture men, women, and children. Britain is entirely complicit, having aided, abetted, armed, and lied for the Zionist state since its inception, and throughout the Gaza Genocide.

    Palestine Action are committed to ridding British soil of the weapons makers making fat profits from the murder of Palestinians. Direct Action is our proven tactic, and we will not be intimidated. We will shut Elbit down.

    Featured image/video via Palestine Action

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Electronic Intifada executive director Ali Abunimah is taking legal action in Switzerland over his violent and unjustified arrest there last month. And he has revealed that:

    the files my lawyers have obtained so far through the legal process prove that Switzerland’s federal police and intelligence service had already determined that I posed no threat whatsoever to the country’s “internal or external” security before authorities ordered my violent arrest, unlawful detention and expulsion.

    The Swiss authorities already faced demands for “an apology and reparations” after its highly controversial political decision to detain the anti-genocide journalist. But now, his fundraising page states that his legal team has:

    filed an appeal against my unlawful detention, and we are preparing strong legal action against other violations of my basic rights and the right to free speech.

    They believe that:

    Swiss authorities violated the laws and constitution of Switzerland and fundamental rights enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights, to which Switzerland is a signatory.

    And as Abunimah insists:

    This attack on my personal liberty, the rights to free expression and association, and the freedom of the press cannot be allowed to stand.

    Ali Abunimah: political policing on behalf of genocidal war criminals

    Ali Abunimah is clear that his opposition to the genocide Israel has been carrying out against the Palestinian people is the key reason for his unwarranted detention:

    Swiss authorities violated my fundamental human rights, just to prevent me from speaking the truth about the crimes being perpetrated against the Palestinian people by a state that stands accused of genocide before the International Court of Justice.

    The Electronic Intifada has reported that “official documents” show Swiss authorities actually “rejected a request” to stop Abunimah coming to the country. An assessment from the federal police (Fedpol) said the journalist’s posts on X were “protected by freedom of speech”. However:

    this decision was hastily overturned, possibly due to political interference.

    It added that, according to Swiss newspaper Tages-Anzeiger:

    email correspondence between an airport police officer and the Zurich immigration authorities suggests that pressure may have come from a senior pro-Israel Zurich politician.

    That politician was apparently Mario Fehr, a man who spread lies about Abunimah following his arrest, has spoken at pro-Israel events, and has a record of pro-Israel fanaticism.

    We must resist Western attacks on “free speech, independent journalism, and protest”

    Anti-genocide journalists have faced persecution in Britain too, including Richard Medhurst, Asa Winstanley, and Sarah Wilkinson. And other reporters have faced surveillance and cyberattacks. This is perhaps no surprise from a country that tortured WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for over a decade. As the Canary reported in 2024:

    Assange spent most of the last 14 years either holed up in the Ecuadoran embassy in London to avoid arrest, or locked up at Belmarsh Prison. He was released under a plea bargain in June, after serving a sentence for publishing hundreds of thousands of confidential US government documents.

    Addressing the Council of Europe rights body, Assange said:

    I am not free today because the system worked. I am free today after years of incarceration because I pleaded guilty to journalism.

    The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), meanwhile, said Assange’s persecution had a “chilling effect on human rights”.

    Today, meanwhile, the British state is holding dozens of non-violent political prisoners from Palestine Action and Just Stop Oil, in the service of genocidal and ecocidal corporate interests.

    Ali Abunimah, however, still has faith that “Switzerland’s independent judiciary is capable of delivering justice”. And he highlights the importance of that happening, saying:

    If authorities can throw me in prison to stop an educational event about Palestine, they can do it to anyone for any reason — effectively canceling free speech, independent journalism and protest.

    You can support his crowdfunding efforts here.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Ed Sykes

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Healthcare workers are protected under international law yet hundreds were detained during the war. Now, some of Gaza’s most senior doctors have spoken of the violence and abuse they say they faced

    Dr Issam Abu Ajwa was in the middle of performing emergency surgery on a patient with a severe abdominal injury at al-Ahli Arab hospital in central Gaza when the soldiers came for him.

    “I asked them what they were doing coming into the operating theatre,” he says. “One of the soldiers pointed at me and said: ‘Are you Dr Issam Abu Ajwa?’ I said: ‘Yes, that’s me.’ And then the beating began.”

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Ever since the October 7 attack on Israel, there was one Israeli family that became the focus of apologists as so-called proof of Hamas being “human animals” in order to legitimize the Israeli genocide. That family is the Bibas family.

    Its four members, father Yarden, mother Shiri, and the two small children, 4-year-old Ariel and 9-month-old Kfir, were taken hostage on October 7 at kibbutz Nir Oz. The mother and two children were reportedly held separately from the father by the Mujahideen Brigades (an offshoot of the mainstream Fatah movement). In late November 2023, Hamas claimed that the mother and the two children had been killed together with their captors under Israeli bombing, and offered to hand over their bodies.

    The post There Is No Evidence Hamas Killed Members Of The Bibas Family appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • For the first time ever, a US-based organization has formally asked the International Criminal Court to investigate a former US president for possible complicity in war crimes and crimes against humanity.

    The 172-page request submitted by the Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) alleges several figures – including former President Biden, former Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin – aided and abetted Israeli war crimes in Gaza.

    “This case might face political pushback, but that doesn’t change the message it sends: impunity isn’t a given. If the rule of law is supposed to mean anything, it has to apply across the board – not just to our enemies, but to our friends, and yes, to ourselves,” war crimes prosecutor and DAWN board member Reed Brody told Zeteo.

    The post ICC Asked To Investigate Biden And Blinken Over War Crimes Allegations appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Tomorrow, the Montreal police will arrest me for posting to social media against Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

    Today, I received a phone call from a Montreal police officer by the last name of Crivello. She asked me to come to a downtown police station where I will be charged for harassment and indecent communication. Crivello said a complaint was submitted against me months ago by a legal firm on behalf of racist media personality Dahlia Kurtz. Crivello said I had described Kurtz as a “genocide” supporter and “fascist” on Twitter. Guilty as charged.

    The post Yves Engler: ‘I’m Being Charged For Responding To Anti-Palestinian Hate’ appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • In the early days of his presidency, Donald Trump announced he would be “fighting anti-Semitism” on college campuses by prosecuting and revoking visas for certain students deemed to be “Hamas sympathizers.” In a fact sheet accompanying an executive order with “measures to combat anti-Semitism,” Trump threatens students: “Come 2025, we will find you, and we will deport you.” The order itself states…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • A U.S. group has filed a request urging the International Criminal Court (ICC) to open an investigation into President Joe Biden and key members of his administration for their role in “aiding and abetting” Israel’s alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. In a sprawling 172-page report, Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) laid out extensive evidence of complicity in Israel’…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Israel has deployed tanks to the occupied West Bank, further intensifying the assault that has forcibly displaced tens of thousands of Palestinians as Israeli officials are vowing a “prolonged” operation in the area. In raids on Sunday and Monday, Israel sent tanks into Jenin as part of its “Operation Iron Wall” campaign launched last month. This is the first time Israel has deployed tanks…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.


  • This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Israel’s IDF shot 10-year-old Palestinian boy Saddam Rajab in the West Bank while he was on the phone to his mum. After the IDF obstructed his journey to the hospital, his injuries eventually killed him:

    On the CCTV footage aired on Sky News, you can hear Saddam screaming in pain and struggling to move after an Israeli soldier shot him in the back. A whole two minutes later, you can see his father – who is on crutches – reaching him:

    His father said they called an ambulance. He tried to join his son but before he knew it, 20-30 IDF soldiers showed up and detained him for nearly an hour.

    The IDF stopped and searched two separate ambulances carrying Saddam to hospitals. This meant he lost critical time when he should have been in the hospital. He didn’t regain consciousness and died two weeks later.

    As usual, the IDF say they are ‘investigating’ Saddam’s case. We all know what that means:

    Saddam Rajab: just another number

    The IDF have murdered more Palestinian children than we can even count. Over the weekend we saw the outcry from Hamas returning the Bibas family’s bodies to Israel. Obviously, and let us make this clear – no child dying or being killed in any circumstances is OK, ever.

    However, when we compare the outcry from the deaths of two Israeli children to the tens of thousands of Palestinian children that Israel have brutally murdered over the last 16 months – there is no comparison. Much of the western media have systematically ignored and denied the devastation. In some cases, they’ve even attempted to minimise it.

    Now, because two white children were killed – the whole of the West is up in arms:

    What ceasefire?

    The murder of Saddam Rajab comes in the middle of a supposed ceasefire:

    Since the Gaza ceasefire came into force, the IDF have intensified their attacks in the West Bank. Only two days into the ceasefire agreement, Israel launched Operation Iron Wall. This is a military offensive which is so far targeting the northern West Bank. So far, 40,000 people have been displaced from their homes:

    Sky News footage shows a bulldozer destroying homes in the Tulkarm refugee camp, West Bank. The IDF have also carried out door-to-door raids and air strikes:

    Of course, this is not the first ceasefire violation from Israel. Officials in Gaza have reported over 350 violations so far. This includes airstrikes by both fighter jets and drones, direct shootings and drone strikes. Additionally, there have been several Israeli incursions into border areas east of the Gaza Strip.

    Israel and its mouthpiece Western media have dehumanised Palestinians to such a disgusting degree that the brutal cold-blooded murder of a Palestinian child in the West Bank barely even registers – if at all – in the press and political establishment.

    Israel has killed more than 17,000 children in Gaza, but there’s been no real outrage or outpourings of grief from politicians and media in the West. All while Israel try to propagandise the treatment of the Bibas children as an catalyst for more murderous annexation and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank.

    Saddam Rajab’s death is an unconscionable act of murder. But to the Western genocide and settler colonial apologists, his life doesn’t matter, because he was brown and Palestinian. After the wave of anger over the Bibas family this past week, it doesn’t get much clearer than that.

    Feature image via the Canary

    By HG

    This post was originally published on Canary.


  • This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Seg2 mariam west bank raid 1

    Israel has sent tanks into the occupied West Bank for the first time in 20 years, as the Israeli military escalates its offensive that has already displaced 40,000 Palestinians. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Palestinians living in the Jenin, Tulkarm and Nur Shams refugee camps will not be allowed to return to their homes. On Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the occupied West Bank and was photographed holding a meeting inside a Palestinian home that had been seized by the Israeli military. On Saturday, Israeli forces fatally shot two Palestinian children — one 12, the other 13 — in separate incidents. “What we are seeing is an intensified campaign aimed at annexation of the West Bank,” says Mariam Barghouti, Palestinian writer and journalist based in Ramallah.


    This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • The last few years have seen Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s invasion of Gaza. Both invading forces stand accused of war crimes, and the costs in terms of human lives and spending have been enormous. While neither conflict is settling in a fashion which is equitable for the invaded parties, it does seem like both conflicts are coming to a close. Strange, then, that the British political and media class – specifically the BBC – have chosen this moment to tell us that now is the time to increase our ‘defence’ spending:

    In other words, defence contractors have gotten used to the extra income they made from arming Ukraine and Israel, and they don’t want the gravy train to end.

    The BBC bubble

    On Sunday 23 February, Laura Kuenssberg interviewed Labour Party education secretary Bridget Phillipson. The fact that Kuenssberg questioned Phillipson on defence spending and the armed forces rather than education tells you a lot about the ideology of the psychopaths at our national broadcaster. It’s important to understand, though, that while some described this exchange as a ‘grilling’, what’s far more disturbing is how closely aligned the BBC and Labour are:

    In a clip the BBC felt worthy of sharing, Kuenssberg said:

    And many of, people who work in this world, many of your political rivals, other people even like the boss of NATO, would say it’s also urgent that countries like Britain right now commit to spend more money, potentially a lot more money on defence.

    Wow – shocking that the head of NATOan organisation which exists solely to encircle Russia with an ever-growing web of expensive military bases – would want more money. Here’s what NATO boss Mark Rutte had to say in December 2024:

    Russia is preparing for long-term confrontation, with Ukraine and with us. We are not ready for what is coming our way in four to five years… It is time to shift to a wartime mindset, and turbocharge our defence production and defence spending.

    As of 2024, Russia had about 1.3 million active soldiers, about 2 millions reserve forces, and 250,000 paramilitary units. Statista shows how this compared to Ukraine:

    Recent statistics reported by the BBC estimate that:

    the true number of Russian military deaths could range from 146,194 to 211,169. If one adds estimated losses from DPR and LPR forces, the total number of Russian-aligned fatalities may range from 167,194 to 234,669.

    This means Russia has probably lost something like 10% of its ‘Russian-aligned’ fighting forces. And that’s not to mention the financial cost, with Reuters reporting US claims in February 2024 that:

    Russia has probably spent up to $211 billion in equipping, deploying and maintaining its troops for operations in Ukraine and Moscow has lost more than $10 billion in canceled or postponed arms sales

    It’s worth noting that despite the above, recent reports show that Russia’s economy has been more resilient than some analysts initially predicted. It’s also worth noting that these human and financial costs are the result of Russia engaging a singular enemy. Now let’s have a look at NATO.

    The NATO forces

    The following comparison from Statista compares NATO’s military capabilities with Russia’s as of 2024:

    Spread across its 32 member countries, NATO has around twice as many military personnel as Russia. Importantly, it also has more than five times as many aircraft.

    Now let’s look back at what NATO boss Mark Rutte had to say:

    We are not ready for what is coming our way in four to five years

    We aren’t?

    Because it looks like we’re more than ready. Unless you know something we don’t, like perhaps every Russian soldier will gain the ability to split into two like amoeba.

    But forgetting all that, there’s also the glowing-green megaton elephant in the room that nobody seems to be talking about.

    Nuclear NATO

    Is everyone forgetting what the word ‘deterrent’ means in ‘nuclear deterrent’? Because our understanding is that we have a nuclear deterrent to deter other nuclear powers from going to war with us. And we know we’re not imagining that, because this is what the UK government has to say:

    The purpose of nuclear deterrence is to preserve peace, prevent coercion and deter aggression. Potential aggressors know that the costs of attacking the UK, or our NATO allies, could far outweigh any benefit they could hope to achieve. This deters states from using their nuclear weapons against us or carrying out the most extreme threats to our national security.

    That’s weird, because over the past few years there have been many instances of British military bigwigs telling us that war with Russia is possible, such as general Roly Walker in 2024:

    BBC

    So what’s going on here?

    Is the British military going rogue, and announcing to Russia and the rest of the world that we will forego using our nuclear deterrent for no apparent gain?

    Or are military bigwigs like Mark Rutte and Roly Walker simply exaggerating the threats we face to secure more funding?

    We’d lean towards the latter, because exaggerating the threats we face to secure more funding is literally the job of every military boss – at least it is under the Western neoliberal order, anyway.

    This isn’t a new phenomenon; it’s simply one which persists, because there is zero pushback from journalists or politicians. It’s a topic Lewis Page covered in his 2006 book Lions, Donkeys and Dinosaurs, with an Independent review noting at the time:

    The high offices of the police, the medical profession and the universities have fallen under ever more scrutiny and suspicion in recent years, but the media has largely ignored the Ministry of Defence. If the former naval officer Lewis Page has his way, all this is set to change.

    The formal naval officer did not have his way unfortunately, and military bigwigs are still able to spew nonsense unchecked in the establishment safe space that is the British media.

    Labour responds to the BBC

    In the Kuenssberg interview, this is how Phillipson responded:

    the defence secretary has also been clear that alongside increased spending, there has to be better spending. There is far too much waste, poor procurement, and bad decisions that are being made. So alongside extra investment, there has to be that programme of reform that John Healy, the defence secretary, has set out.

    So Labour’s plan is to increase military spending while cutting down on military waste. It’s hard to see how they’ll achieve this given that most military spending is waste by design, whether it be preparing for a land war with Russia we’ll never have or this long, long list of failed projects published by Declassified.

    Another important thing to remember is that we don’t simply exaggerate the threats we face; we also create new ones, and then we waste more money ‘countering’ them.

    The axis of defence spending opportunities

    In 2022, NPR published a piece giving some context to the shifting relationship between NATO and Russia. It reported in the piece:

    The question: Should NATO, the mutual defense pact formed in the wake of World War II that has long served to represent Western interests and counter Russia’s influence in Europe, expand eastward?

    NATO’s founding articles declare that any European country that is able to meet the alliance’s criteria for membership can join. This includes Ukraine. The U.S. and its allies in Europe have repeatedly said they are committed to that “open-door” policy.

    But in the words of Russian President Vladimir Putin, NATO’s eastward march represents decades of broken promises from the West to Moscow.

    “You promised us in the 1990s that [NATO] would not move an inch to the East. You cheated us shamelessly,” Putin said at a news conference in December.

    The article carried a map showing the members who joined before 1992 and those who joined after:

    What’s the relevance of 1992?

    1992 was a year after the Soviet Union ended, and the beginning of the new relationship between the US and the Russian Federation. Boris Yeltsin, Russia’s then-leader, was described at the time as a Western “stooge who followed IMF and World Bank advice”. How easy it would have been for the West to treat Russia as just another victim of neoliberal extraction policies; instead, NATO continued to expand eastward as if the Cold War never ended, and this made the rise of a figure like Vladimir Putin more and more likely.

    This isn’t to say Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was justified; it is to say that it wasn’t unexpected. Hostility, it turns out, breeds further hostility. There are many such cases, with examples from recent history including ISIS rising from the ashes of the Iraq war, and Iranian politicians taking a more hardline stance after the US branded them part of the Axis of Evil. Few in the West know that Iranian politicians and citizens responded sympathetically to American losses following 9/11, and of course they wouldn’t, because that narrative wouldn’t support further defence spending.

    The military industrial complex, Labour, and the BBC

    In his 1961 farewell address, US president Dwight Eisenhower warned of the “military-industrial complex”. As he described it, this was a system in which the arms industry and political sphere became so entwined that they pursued war solely for their mutual enrichment. Sadly, this is the world we all now inhabit. It’s why president Joe Biden and his NATO allies turned down peace talks with Russia; it’s also why this same group refused to use their influence to stop Israel committing a genocide.

    The total acceptance of military-industrial complex dogma is beyond apparent in the interview between Kuenssberg and Phillipson. Ignore the fact that our military ambitions only seem to make the world more dangerous – war is profit, and profit is the only thing that matters in the neoliberal world order:

    Featured image via the BBC

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • On January 15, Dancers for Palestine, and Theater Workers for a Ceasefire, and Amplify Palestine sent the following email to the President and Artistic Director of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, requesting a response by January 31. BAM leadership did not respond.

    The signatory organizations and individuals join the call for BAM to respect the BDS picket line by refusing to program Batsheva and other complicit organizations. We recognize that it is as important as ever to escalate pressure for the support of Palestinian liberation, given ongoing violations of the ceasefire in Gaza, the escalating violence in the West Bank, and the continued military occupation and Apartheid system of discrimination.

    The post Brooklyn Academy Of Music: Drop Batsheva Dance Company appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Hundreds of thousands gathered in the Lebanese capital on 23 February to take part in the funeral of the late Secretary-General of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, and his short-lived successor, Hashem Safieddine.

    Mourners started to gather at the Camille Chamoun Sports City stadium in Beirut from the early hours of Sunday. Local estimates suggest that around 1.4 million people, including visitors from nearly 80 nations, united to pay their respects to the Lebanese resistance leaders killed by Israel.

    “Today, we say farewell to an exceptional, historical leader, a national, Arab, and Islamic figure who has become a symbol of freedom for oppressed people worldwide,” Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem told the sea of people.

    The post Massive Crowd Bids Farewell To Hezbollah Leader Hassan Nasrallah appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • The fragile Gaza cease-fire between Israel and Hamas was thrown into uncertainty Sunday after the Israeli government announced it would not immediately move forward with what would have been the largest single-day release of Palestinian prisoners since the truce was agreed to in January. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that Israeli forces “are prepared to resume intense…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Palestinian Territories — Israel has banned the United Nations agency mandated to support Palestinian refugees and designated it a terrorist organization. The United Nations UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has vowed to continue its humanitarian work until unable to do so, despite the ban and having at least 258 staff members killed by Israel and over 650 attacks on their buildings.

    In October 2024, Israel passed legislation banning UNRWA. The new law went into effect on January 30, 2025, and prohibits UNRWA from operating in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem.

    The post UNRWA Vows To Help Palestinians Despite Israeli Ban, Deadly Attacks appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Even though a ceasefire started just over a month ago, Israel is still working to make Gaza unlivable. On Monday, the Gaza Government Media Office stated that only 30% of the supplies that were supposed to enter the strip in accordance with the ceasefire agreement have been let in. According to the agreement, Israel is supposed to let in 600 trucks of aid per day, including 50 trucks of fuel…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Surgeons who worked in Gaza fear disease, malnutrition and eradication of healthcare will reverberate for decades

    British doctors who worked in Gaza during the war have issued dire predictions over the long-term health of Palestinian civillians, warning that large numbers will continue to die.

    The prevalence of infectious disease and multiple health problems linked to malnutrition, alongside the destruction of hospitals and killing of medical experts, meant mortality rates among Palestinians in Gaza would remain high after the cessation of Israeli shelling.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Over 60,000 weapon parts have been transported to Israel via Zaragoza airport in northern Spain since the start of the US–Israeli genocide of Palestinians in October 2023, according to an investigation by Progressive International (PI), the Palestinian Youth Movement, and the American Friends Service Committee.

    “The evidence indicates that these flights continue to this day,” investigators told elDiario.es, adding that the shipments include “parts and accessories for artillery, rifles, rocket/grenade launchers and machine guns” and “parts and accessories for revolvers and pistols.”

    The post Spain ‘Major Transit Port’ For Weapons Shipments To Israel appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.