When Israel initiated plans to evict Palestinians from their homes in occupied East Jerusalem to make way for illegal settlers, millions of young people around the world got involved in a high-profile social media campaign to raise awareness.
Using the hashtag #SaveSheikhJarrah, more than 40 million people joined in, forming part of a wave of online organising that set the stage for a new era of pro-Palestine digital activism.
That trend continued as Israel launched its ongoing genocide in Gaza in October 2023 with activists dedicating their instagram feeds and TikTok reels to spreading awareness of Israeli atrocities.
But mounting censorship on social media, digital fatigue and a hunger for deeper forms of engagement, are forcing organisers to shift gears and adopt new modes of activism.
A joint statement by the Media Freedom Coalition — signed by 27 countries, including New Zealand — urged Israel to offer protection for journalists in Gaza “in light of the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe”.
“Journalists and media workers play an essential role in putting the spotlight on the devastating reality of war. Access to conflict zones is vital to carrying out this role effectively,” the statement said.
“We oppose all attempts to restrict press freedom and block entry to journalists during conflicts.
“We also strongly condemn all violence directed against journalists and media workers, especially the extremely high number of fatalities, arrests and detentions.
“We call on the Israeli authorities and all other parties to make every effort to ensure that media workers in Gaza, Israel, the West Bank and East Jerusalem — local and foreign alike — can conduct their work freely and safely.
“Deliberate targeting of journalists is unacceptable. International humanitarian law offers protection to civilian journalists during armed conflict. We call for all attacks against media workers to be investigated and for those responsible to be prosecuted in compliance with national and international law.”
It reiterated calls for an immediate ceasefire, and the unconditional release of remaining hostages, unhindered flow of humanitarian aid.
The statement also called for “a path towards a two-state solution, long-term peace and security”.
Other countries to sign the statement included: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Chile, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Norway, Portugal, Sierra Leone, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Ukraine.
The Media Freedom Coalition is a partnership of countries that advocates for media freedom around the world. New Zealand joined the coalition in March 2021.
New Zealand was not among the signatories of this statement, which was signed by the foreign ministers of the United Kingdom and 22 of its international partners — including Australia and Canada.
The statement called on Israel to reverse its decision.
“The decision by the Israeli Higher Planning Committee to approve plans for settlement construction in the E1 area, East of Jerusalem, is unacceptable and a violation of international law,” it said.
“Minister [Bezalel] Smotrich says this plan will make a two-state solution impossible by dividing any Palestinian state and restricting Palestinian access to Jerusalem. This brings no benefits to the Israeli people.
“Instead, it risks undermining security and fuels further violence and instability, taking us further away from peace.
“The government of Israel still has an opportunity to stop the E1 plan going any further. We encourage them to urgently retract this plan.”
The statement said “unilateral action” by the Israeli government undermined collective desire for security and prosperity in the Middle East.
“The Israeli government must stop settlement construction in line with UNSC Resolution 2334 and remove their restrictions on the finances of the Palestinian Authority.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to continue Israel’s conquest of and genocide in Gaza even if Hamas agreed to a ceasefire deal that would see the release of the rest of the Israeli captives being held in the Strip — just days after Hamas officials accepted the latest proposal by Qatari and Egyptian officials. In an interview with Sky News Australia, Netanyahu said “there…
New guidance from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) may make pro-Palestine activism a disqualifying factor for non-citizens who seek to live and work in the United States.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced on Tuesday that, effective immediately, when reviewing applications, the agency will consider “any involvement in anti-American or terrorist organizations, as well as the use of discretion in adjudication of certain benefit requests where evidence of antisemitic activity is present.” The applicant “bears the burden of proof to demonstrate that a favorable exercise of discretion is warranted,” the announcement states.
The USCIS defines benefits as those seeking immigrant status, non-immigrant status, refugee status, temporary protected status, employment authorization, and citizenship.
For months after Israel began its genocide in Gaza in October 2023, the Biden administration repeatedly lobbed baseless accusations of antisemitism and support for terrorism at pro-Palestine, anti-genocide activists. Soon after taking office, the Trump administration escalated attacks on these activists by abducting and imprisoning many of them, particularly those who were foreign-born. The new guidance appears to formalize and significantly expand the crackdown on the movement, potentially barring those who criticize Israel from living in the United States by equating such criticism with antisemitism.
“The ability to speak one’s mind is a core constitutional right and an indispensable American value,” Vera Eidelman, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, said in a statement to Truthout.
Earlier this year, the Trump administration abducted and attempted to deport Mahmoud Khalil, a green card holder, based on his pro-Palestine activism at Columbia University. He was jailed in Louisiana, hundreds of miles away from his home in New York City, for more than three months. During that time, his wife gave birth to their first son. Immigration officials denied his request to attend the birth.
Government officials falsely accused Khalil of antisemitism to justify deporting him. In a letter to the immigration court, Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote that Khalil’s “public actions and continued presence in the United States” undermine “U.S. policy to combat anti-Semitism around the world and in the United States, in addition to efforts to protect Jewish students from harassment and violence in the United States.” The letter was first published by TheAssociated Press.
In another case, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers abducted Tufts University doctoral student Rumeysa Ozturk for co-authoring an opinion piece for the student paper that called on the university to break ties with Israel. The Department of Homeland Security falsely claimed that she had “engaged in activities supportive of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization that relishes the killing of Americans.”
The agency also announced that it had “expanded the types of benefit requests that receive social media vetting, and reviews for anti-American activity will be added to that vetting. Anti-American activity will be an overwhelmingly negative factor in any discretionary analysis.”
“Anti-American” ideologies and activities have previously been detailed in a 1952 statute which prohibits the naturalization of any person who favors “totalitarian” forms of government, is a member of the Communist party, or advocates for the violent overthrow of the United States government. The law was adopted at the height of the government’s crusade against communists, known as the Red Scare.
“America’s benefits should not be given to those who despise the country and promote anti-American ideologies,” USCIS spokesman Matthew Tragesser said of the new policy guidelines. “U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is committed to implementing policies and procedures that root out anti-Americanism and supporting the enforcement of rigorous screening and vetting measures to the fullest extent possible.”
Denying immigrants benefits based on their speech is “a violation of the First Amendment,” Eidelman said in response to the guidelines.
Only 8% of Democrats support Israel’s “war in Gaza,” and almost two-thirds of Democrats—65%—believe that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, with only 8% disagreeing that they are. In response to this, Democratic leaders, with a long history of backing both the current genocide and Israel more broadly, are scrambling to hedge their support and create an image of not only being Very Concerned Humanitarians, but of politicians willing to stand up to Israel—in some vague and ill-defined capacity.
Their fake Israel criticisms have emerged to fill a very in-demand and urgent market: trick half-paying-attention liberals into thinking you’re not in lockstep supporting Israel and its horrific live-streamed genocide. To achieve this goal, electeds and liberal zionist organizations are fashioning criticisms that are, in effect, a limited hangout—issuing partial, or relatively low-stakes, criticisms to salvage the core features of zionism and the US’s military support for Israel. One can pin down four distinct, sometimes overlapping, genres of pseudo-criticisms as Democrats gear up for the midterms—and as top Democrats, eyeing a White House run, seek to position themselves as progressive.
Make Sure The Palestinian Kids Being Bombed Get 600 Calories A Day
This is by far the most popular talking point from pro-Israel Democrats who want to seem vaguely critical of Israel and Trump’s Gaza polices (after, to the person, saying nothing for almost six months) but who do not want run afoul of zionist pressure groups or the US military-industrial complex by challanging the basic premises of the so-called war on Hamas. Make Sure The Palestinian Kids Being Bombed Get 600 Calories A Day has emerged as a mainstay of cable news appearances and half-hearted social media posts by high-status liberals.
Continue bombing Palestinians, the argument goes, but while doing so, be sure to “flood Gaza with aid.” This was, and continues to be, the consensus liberal position and was, more or less, the position of the Biden White House for first 15 months of the genocide. It is also the only meaningful difference between Democrats and Republicans, albeit not as significant as its promoters want people to believe. Bomb Kids on 600 Calories A Day (D) is obviously preferable to Bomb Kids on an Empty Stomach (R), but it is still an objectively pro-genocide position. Indeed, organizations like Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and Doctors Without Borders determined Israel’s military campaign in Gaza was a genocide long before Trump decided to greenlight the added sadistic element of deliberate mass starvation in March 2025.
Continue bombing Palestinians, the argument goes, but while doing so, be sure to “flood Gaza with aid.”
Nevertheless, it remains the far-left flank of acceptable opinion on Gaza. and even to the extent that conditioning aid to Israel is turning into a more mainstream position (one vaguely endorsed by 2028 hopefuls Pritzker, Buttigieg, Shapiro, Gallego, and Klobuchar), it is expressly only as a means of “allowing in aid” to Gaza—not to stop the bombing and broader siege, as such. Once aid trucks are allowed back into Gaza, Israel’s campaign of killing, displacement, and maiming can continue as it was pre-Trump. This is fundamentally a critique premised on PR problems, “images of starving children makes us look bad,” not of the fundamental logic of Israel’s exterminationist aims and tactics.
The Wayward Friend
A variation on Biden’s “Bear Hug Strategy,” the Wayward Friend is a popular framing meant to look critical without the messiness of demanding the US cut off Israel’s campaign of nihilistic mass killing. Israel, we are led to believe, has no existential issues nor is it engaged in a project of displacement and extermination, but has simply fallen in with the wrong crowd and needs a nudge in the right direction. A recent high-profile example of this came from 2028 frontrunner Pete Buttigieg on the Pod Save America podcast. The former Transportation Secretary, responding to questions about his support for Israel and its destruction of Gaza, played the role of disappointed—but ultimately loyal—friend:
Buttigieg insisted it was a “friendship” in which American politicians should “try to guide them to a better place.” Which is a very strange posture given the almost universal consensus—from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Doctors Without Borders, and an increasing number genocide scholars—that Israel is committing a genocide. As one former Buttigieg ally correctly told Politco the next day, after the interview went viral for all the wrong reasons, “When your friend kills 60,000 people and starves an entire population for months at a time, shouldn’t the question be: Why the fuck am I friends with this guy?”
Despite being a a popular go-to posture since the beginning of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, it is seeing revived prominance in the most recent wave of feigned outrage over the genocide. Indeed, it exists within its own elaborate false epistemology, where selling weapons to and supporting Israel unconditionally was actually some type of savvy 15-dimensional chess to Change Israel From the Inside. If the US pulls its support of Israel (and Israel presumably calls the US’s bluff and chooses self-destruction over ending its genocide), the talking point goes, this would somehow drive Israel into the arms of some other country—Russia or China, take your pick. Never mind the fact that this makes no sense and Israel, by its officials’ own admission, could not operate without US weapons, munitions, and parts for more than a couple of weeks, and completely switching over their military would take years to implement, thus leaving Israel open to attack from Iran and Yemen. It’s a talking point as old as injustice itself. The idea that a country must continue doing Bad Thing X because if they don’t someone else will—aside from being the moral logic of a drug dealer hanging outside of a middle school—was popular during debates over the abolition of slavery in the 1780s. As Adam Hochschild wrote in his 2005 book about the British abolitionist movement, Bury the Chains, “If Britain were to give up the trade,” pro-slavey MPs asked, “wouldn’t France simply take over the business?” To which anti-slavery advocate William Wilberforce responded, “For those who argue thus may argue equally, that we may rob, murder, and commit any crime, which any one else would have committed, if we did not.”
Israel, we are led to believe, has no existential issues nor is it engaged in a project of displacement and extermination, but has simply fallen in with the wrong crowd and needs a nudge in the right direction.
If our “friend” is committing a genocide, the idea that we have to keep arming and funding said genocide without conditions indefinitely, lest this “friend” go somewhere else to help arm and fund the genocide, is almost a parody of self-serving sophistry. It’s a justification, as Wilberforce noted 250 years ago, that could be used to justify literally any crime. It’s not a clever insider strategy—it’s obvious post-facto ass-covering, jangling keys in front of liberals impressed by appeals to faux-Savvy Insiderism.
The One Bad Man Theory
As I laid out in my Substack two weeks ago, a popular deflection—even among more progressive, deeper critics of Israel such as Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Ro Khanna—is asserting that the primary driver of the mass death in Gaza isn’t US and Israeli elites, or the Israeli population, but One Bad Man: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. While perhaps poll testing better than criticisms of “Israel,” the One Bad Man Theory smuggles in the false premise that if only Israel could reform itself, and get rid of Netanyahu, they could effectively self-reform their way into a kinder-gentler “war on Hamas.”
But as I note in my piece, this is a convenient fiction. Polls show that
One April 2024 Pew Poll showed that only 4% of Jewish Israelis believe that Netanyahu has “gone too far” in Gaza, and 34% of Israelis (including Palestinian citizens of Israel, so the number is likely much higher) say he had “not gone far enough.” By that time, over 35,000 Palestinians had been killed.
The primary line of criticism from Netanyahu’s political opposition over the past few months, in addition to corruption charges totally unrelated to Gaza, is that Netanyahu refuses to expand the military draft to Israel’s ultra-orthodox communities. In April of this year, former Premier Naftali Bennett lambasted Netanyahu not for his backing of genocide, but his policy of “preventing the military enlistment of the ultra-Orthodox,” saying it was keeping Israel in a stalemate with Hamas in Gaza. “The stagnation in Gaza stems directly from government policy that deprives the IDF of the main tool required for victory: fighters,” said Bennett, who the Times Of Israel said was “widely seen as gunning to replace Netanyahu.”
A survey conducted by Professor Tamir Sorek of Pennsylvania State University and published in Haaretz in May found that 56% of Jewish Israelis supported the “transfer (forced expulsion) of Arab citizens of Israel to other countries.” Respondents were asked whether they agreed with the position that the IDF, “when conquering an enemy city, should act in a manner similar to the way the Israelites acted when they conquered Jericho under the leadership of Joshua, namely, to kill all its inhabitants.” Nearly half—47%—agreed.
According to another poll from the Israel Democracy Institute, conducted at the end of July, a vast majority of Israeli Jews—79%—say they are “not so troubled” or “not troubled at all” by the reports of famine and suffering among the Palestinian population in Gaza.
The work being done by the One Bad Man Theory—sometimes explicit, sometimes implicit—is promoting the idea that the West, and the US in particular, need not put significant pressure on Israel because Israel is somehow always about to reform itself. It’s true there is a movement, and broad nominal support, for “a hostage deal” within Israel, but the awkward reality is that most Israeli liberals want such a deal, then they want to go back to the genocide. Obscuring this central fact does nothing but buy Israel time. It blunts calls to stop sending arms and cut off Israel’s economy by giving liberal-leaning Americans the false impression that the genocide is the work of One Bad Man “dragging it out for political gain,” rather than the broad political consensus in Israel supported by both Netanyahu and his primary political rivals.
The Palestinian State Non Sequitur/Two-State Delusion
A timeless classic of the genre, appeals to support an alleged “Palestinian state,” remain the quintessence of meaningless liberal busywork, a superficially progressive way of backing an ongoing genocide while gesturing towards some liberatory or just future in a far-off time after Hamas has “been eliminated” (e.g. after the genocide). One may see the Israeli right melt down over recognition of Palestinian statehood, including recent threats to do so by the UK, Canada, and France, but this is mostly theater from ideological fanatics. Liberals know full well the utility of this posture, and understand that, as Felix Biederman put it, it’s little more than a “preemptive land acknowledgement.”
Then there’s the pesky reality that virtually no Western liberal supporting a “Palestinian state” ever defines what it means. In the rare case that they do, one gets some version of a state in name only—a “Palestine” divided into several noncontiguous territories, no armed defense, no bilateral treaties, total fidelity to Israeli-US security architecture and, of course, no real independence. When pressed for specifics, Western liberals can punt to an equally nebulous “peace process” where such matters, we are assured, would be sorted out. While this alleged process is supposedly sought, the ethnic cleansing of the West Bank and the genocide in Gaza can continue unabated and with the full backing of the liberal establishment. One can support continued arms sales to Israel and its manifestly unjust policies so long as there’s a vaguely aspirational Palestinian state thingamajig and a high-minded “process” to sort it all out—a far-off goal that has zero bearing on the actual facts on the ground.
The market for these fake criticisms of Israel cannot be overstated. As Israel’s genocide explicitly reaches the stage of full blown depopulation and mass starvation, Pro-Israel Democrats are going to create increasingly elaborate, convoluted and exotic workarounds to avoid supporting a full, unconditional arms embagro on Israel not just to “send a message of aid,” but to end its bombing and siege once and for all. There will be a buyer’s market for pseudo-criticisms, limited hangouts, non sequiturs, and increasingly dubious attempts to sell liberal voters on the “bear hug”‘ explanation for why they backed genocide nonstop for two years. Being able to identify these faux critiques will be essential not just to suss out empty busywork, but to push for accountability for ambitious Democrats who think they can just double speak and vibe their way past their support for the destruction of the Palestinian people in Gaza.
Israel’s military says it has established a foothold on the outskirts of Gaza City and is calling up an additional 60,000 reservists ahead of a full-scale invasion of Gaza’s largest urban area. This follows days of escalating airstrikes and artillery fire that have killed scores of Palestinians in one of the world’s most densely populated regions. Dr. Mimi Syed is an emergency medicine…
Human rights advocates and critics of the Trump administration are denouncing the US State Department’s firing of a top media relations official who reportedly recommended “expressing condolences” for journalists killed by Israeli forces in Gaza and drafted a statement articulating US government opposition to what amounts to ethnic cleansing in the besieged enclave.
An immediate UN Security Council vote to grant Palestine permanent membership in the UN next month would put an end to Israel’s zealous delusions of permanent control over Palestine. It cannot happen without US backing.
President Donald Trump wants a Nobel Peace Prize, and his efforts toward peace in Ukraine, if successful, could possibly help him earn one—but only if he also ends US complicity in the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Under Trump, as under former President Joe Biden, the US has served as Israel’s partner in mass murder, annexation, starvation, and the escalating torment of millions of Palestinians. The genocide can, and will, stop if Trump wills it. So far he has not.
Israel is committing genocide—everyone knows it, even its staunchest defenders. The Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem has recently made a poignant acknowledgment of “Our Genocide.” In Foreign Affairs, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew recently admitted that extremist parties in Netanyahu’s government openly aim to starve Palestinians in Gaza. Lew frames his piece as praise for the former Biden administration (and for himself) for their supposedly valiant efforts to prevent mass starvation by pressuring Israel to allow minimal food entry, while blaming Trump for easing that pressure.
Yet the actual importance of the piece is that an ardent Zionist insider certifies the genocidal agenda sustaining Netanyahu’s rule. Lew recounts that in the aftermath of October 7, Israelis frequently pledged that “not a drop of water, not a drop of milk, and not a drop of fuel will go from Israel to Gaza,” a stance that still shapes Israel’s cabinet policy. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) can use Lew’s article as confirmation of Israel’s genocidal intent.
The genocide in Gaza, coupled with the annexation in the West Bank, aims to fulfill the Likud vision of a Greater Israel that exercises territorial control between the Sea and Jordan. This will destroy any possibility of a Palestinian state, and any possibility of peace. Indeed, Bezalel Smotrich, the extremist minister of finance and minister in the ministry of defense, recently vowed to “permanently bury the idea of a Palestinian state” while the Knesset has recently called for annexation of the occupied West Bank.
The US aids and protects Israel every day in these horrific crimes against the Palestinian people. The US provides billions of dollars in military support, goes to war alongside Israel, and offers diplomatic cover for Israel’s crimes against humanity. The vacuous mantra that “Israel has the right to defend itself” is the US pat excuse for Israel’s mass murder and starvation of innocent civilians.
Generations of historians, psychologists, sociologists, philosophers, and inquiring minds will ask how the descendants and co‑religionists of the Jews murdered by Hitler’s genocidal regime came to become genocidaires. Two factors, deeply intertwined, come to the fore.
First, the Nazi Holocaust lent credence among Jews to the Zionist claim that only a state with overwhelming military power and ready to use it can protect the Jewish people. For these militarists, every Arab country opposed to Israel’s ongoing occupation of Palestine became a dire foe to be crushed by war. This is Netanyahu’s doctrine of violence, which was first unveiled in the Clean Break strategy, and which has produced nonstop Israeli mobilization and war, and a society now gripped by implacable hatred even of innocent women and children in Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria. Netanyahu has dragged the US into countless devastating and futile wars out of Netanyahu’s blindness to the reality that only diplomacy, not war, can achieve Israel’s security.
Second, this non-stop resort to violence reignited a dormant strain of Biblical Judaism, notably based on the Book of Joshua, which presents God’s covenant with Abraham as justification for genocides committed in conquering the Promised Land. Ancient zealotry of this kind, and the belief that God would redeem his chosen people through violence, fueled suicidal revolts against the Roman Empire between 66 and 135 AD. Whether the genocides in the Book of Joshua ever occurred (probably not ) is beside the point. For today’s zealots, the license to commit genocide is vivid, immediate, and biblically ordained.
Aware of the danger of self-destructive zealotry, the rabbis who shaped the Babylonian Talmud proscribed Jews from attempting to return en masse to the promised land (Ketubot 111a). They taught that Jews should live in their own communities and fulfill God’s commandments where they are, rather than seeking to recapture a land from which they had been exiled following decades of suicidal revolt.
Whatever the fundamental reasons for Israel’s murderous turn, Israel’s survival among nations is at risk today as it has become a pariah state. For the first time in history, Israel’s Western allies have repudiated Israel’s violent ways. France, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada have each pledged to formally recognize the State of Palestine at the upcoming UN General Assembly in September. These countries will finally join the will of the overwhelming global majority in recognizing that the two-state solution, enshrined in international law, is the true guarantor of peace.
The majority of the American people, are rightly revulsed by Israel’s brutality and are also turning their support massively to the Palestinian cause. In a new Reuters poll released today, 58% of Americans now believe that the UN should recognize the State of Palestine, against just 32% who oppose that. American politicians will surely note the change, at Israel’s peril, unless the two-state solution is rapidly implemented. (Logical arguments can also be given for a peaceful one-state, bi-national solution, but this alternative has essentially no backing among UN member states and no basis in the international law regarding the Israel-Palestine conflict that has developed over more than seven decades.)
This Israeli government will not change course on its own. Only the Trump administration can end the genocide through a comprehensive settlement agreed by the world’s nations at the UN Security Council and UN General Assembly. The solution is to stop the genocide, make peace, and salvage Israel’s standing in the world by creating a Palestinian state alongside Israel on the June 4, 1967 borders.
For decades, the entire Arab and Islamic world has supported the two-state solution, and advocated to normalize relations with Israel and guarantee security for the entire region. This solution is in full accordance with international law, and was again espoused clearly by the UN General Assembly in the NY Declaration last month at the conclusion of the United Nations High-Level International Conference on the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the Two-State Solution (July 29, 2025).
Trump has come to understand that to save Ukraine, he must force it to see reality: that NATO cannot expand to Ukraine as that would directly threaten Russia’s own security. In the same way, Trump must force Israel to see reality: that Israel cannot continue to rule over the Palestinian people, murder them, starve them, and ethnically cleanse them. The two-state solution thereby saves both Palestine and Israel.
An immediate UN Security Council vote to grant Palestine permanent membership in the UN next month would put an end to Israel’s zealous delusions of permanent control over Palestine, as well as its reckless territorial ambitions in Lebanon and Syria. The focus of the crisis would then shift to immediate and practical issues: how to disarm non-state actors within the framework of the new state and regional peace, how to enable mutual security for Israel and Palestine, how to empower the Palestinians to govern effectively, how to finance the reconstruction, and how to provide urgent humanitarian assistance to a starving population.
Trump can make this happen at the UN in September. The US, and only the US, has vetoed the permanent membership of Palestine in the UN. The other members of the UN Security Council have already signaled their support.
Peace in the Middle East is possible now—and there is no time to lose.
Amnesty International have collected testimony from starved Palestinians that paint a devastating picture of Israel’s manufactured famine. In their latest report, the rights group wrote that the latest testimony they’ve collected is consistent with their findings throughout Israel’s genocide. They wrote:
the deadly combination of hunger and disease is not an unfortunate byproduct of Israel’s military operations. It is the intended outcome of plans and policies that Israel has designed and implemented, over the past 22 months, to deliberately inflict on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction – which is part and parcel of Israel’s ongoing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
As the Canary has reported previously, expert after expert have designated Israel’s actions as genocidal. The evidence is extensive and well-documented. Even then, Amnesty International’s language is a stark departure from their reporting on other conflicts.
Senior Director for Research, Advocacy, Policy and Campaigns at Amnesty International, Erika Guevara-Rosas, said:
As Israeli authorities escalate their attacks on Gaza City and threaten to launch a full-scale ground invasion, the testimonies we have collected are far more than accounts of suffering, they are a searing indictment of an international system that has granted Israel a license to torment Palestinians with near-total impunity for decades.
Amnesty International takes Israel to task
Guevara-Rosas condemned Israel’s blockade, and singled out performative air drops for criticism:
To even begin reversing the devastating consequences of Israel’s inhumane policies and actions, which have made mass starvation a grim reality in Gaza, there must be an immediate, unconditional lifting of the blockade and a sustained ceasefire.
The impact of Israel’s blockade and its ongoing genocide on civilians, particularly on children, people with disabilities, those with chronic illnesses, older people and pregnant and breastfeeding women is catastrophic and cannot be undone by simply increasing the number of aid trucks or restoring performative, ineffective and dangerous airdrops of aid.
Several aid groups have singled out these “dangerous airdrops” as a “grotesque distraction” that won’t actually feed anyone at the level that is needed. Philippe Lazzarini, head of United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said:
Driving aid through is much easier, more effective, faster, cheaper & safer. It’s more dignified for the people of Gaza.
However, Israel has demonstrated that it is not interested in feeding Palestinians, much less in a dignified manner. The air drops satisfy the incredibly low standards of Western leaders, whilst also restricting aid for Palestinians. And, the scarcity of food means that what little aid is allowed to trickle in is dispersed extremely chaotically. NPR’s Aya Batrawy reported that pieces of bread are dropped down into the dirt for children to gather. One Palestinian onlooker tells her:
Is this how to bring aid to people who are hungry and tormented? The food is all sand. This isn’t how to bring aid to people. This is how to humiliate them.
As Guevara-Rosas concluded:
While millions around the world continue to take to the streets in protest and world leaders engage in rhetorical posturing, Israel’s deliberate and systematic campaign of starvation continues to inflict unbearable suffering on an entire population.
Designation of famine
Starvation is not something that can happen suddenly. While world leaders have rested on their rhetoric, the situation in Gaza remains between unchanged, and incomprehensibly worse. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) system determines whether the famine of threshold has been reached. Less than a month ago, they released an alert which read that:
The worst-case scenario of Famine is currently playing out in the Gaza Strip. Conflict and displacement have intensified, and access to food and other essential items and services has plummeted to unprecedented levels.
Mounting evidence shows that widespread starvation, malnutrition, and disease are driving a rise in hunger-related deaths. Latest data indicates that Famine thresholds have been reached for food consumption in most of the Gaza Strip and for acute malnutrition in Gaza City.
most of the food items are not ready-to-eat and require water and fuel to cook, which are largely unavailable.
Israel’s continued insistence that established and experienced aid organisations are blocked from delivering aid is yet another genocidal choice. This is a man-made famine which Israel is choosing to unleash on Palestinians.
Destruction of agriculture
Amnesty International also identify Israel purposely razing the agricultural capabilities that previously existed. They found that:
widespread scarcity of fresh and nutritious food is a result of both Israel’s suffocating blockade and its systematic destruction of food production sources, including large swathes of agricultural land, poultry and other livestock farms, during military operations, through shelling, bombardment or destruction by manually laid explosive.
And, an assessment carried out by the United Nations Satellite Centre (UNOSAT), and the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO):
found that 86% of Gaza’s permanent crop fields significantly declined in health and density, as a result of conflict-related activities, including razing, bombing, shelling and heavy machinery.
Human cost
Whilst these statistics provide a broad view of Israel’s starvation of Palestinians, the numbers do not portray the human cost that Palestinians have to suffer through. Amnesty International interviewed a number of people facing Israel’s starvation policies. S, a nurse displaced from Jabalia, cares for her two year old and seven month old. Amnesty report that:
She fled to save her children’s lives; it was a choice between displacement and death. She said that hunger became palpable by late April, compelling her to save the meagre food portions for her children while she remained hungry. Her supply of breastmilk began to be severely reduced at the end of April, and with no access to breast pumps and extremely limited access to maternal supplements, she stressed the physical and emotional pain of trying for hours to breastfeed her infant but “milk would just not come out.”
Her children cry themselves to sleep, faint with hunger. Her husband was injured while trying to get aid; her son would fall to the ground, weak with hunger. She told Amnesty:
I feel like I failed as a mother; your children’s hunger makes you feel like you are a bad mother.
And, the researchers found that the situation was equally dire no matter where they went:
Amnesty International’s interviews with displaced Palestinians across three IDP encampments in Gaza City revealed that the dire situation is uniform across the population. None of them had consumed any eggs, fish, meat, tomatoes, or cucumbers for at least a month; most had not had any such food for several months.
Amnesty says the world must stop patting Israel on the shoulder
Amnesty also identify that older people and the increasingly growing number of disabled people are further impacted by starvation. Abu Alaa, 62, described how his family have been surviving on small pieces of bread that they receive just once a week. Nahed, 66, saw people:
carrying bags of flour stained with the blood of those who had just been shot; even people I knew were almost unrecognizable. The experience of hunger and war has changed Gaza completely; it has changed our values.
Aziza, 75, told researchers that she wished to die:
I feel like I have become a burden on my family. When we were displaced, they had to push me on a wheelchair. With toilet queues extremely long in the camp where we stay, I need adult diapers, which are extremely expensive. I need medication for diabetes, blood pressure and a heart condition, and have had to take medicine which has expired. I always feel like these young children, they are the ones who deserve to live, my grandchildren. I feel like I’m a burden on them, on my son.
The lack of nutritious food is especially difficult to manage for people with diabetes. And what few medical professionals remain in Gaza found that starvation was overshadowing:
other health emergencies, particularly the alarming rise in infectious and waterborne diseases, meningitis, and Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS). He added that a severe shortage of antibiotics and the extreme load on his hospital, which is only partially functioning, have compounded what he described as an “invisible catastrophe.”
This doctor told Amnesty that people who were able to manage chronic conditions before the genocide, are struggling to survive, never mind find treatment. The lack of nutrition means that older people and disabled people, along with everyone else, are struggling to heal:
Wounds are taking significantly longer to heal, forcing moderately injured individuals to endure prolonged hospital stays because their bodies are too weak due to the lack of adequate food.
Guevara-Rosas concluded:
The world cannot continue to pat Israel on the shoulder for trickling in aid and viewing these cosmetic measures as a sufficient response to its calculated destruction of the life of Palestinians in Gaza
Dr. Munir Al-Barsh, Director General of the Ministry of Health in Gaza, revealed a tragic picture documenting the scale of the health disaster facing the sector as a result of Israel’s ongoing genocide and suffocating siege, stressing that children are the biggest victims.
Gaza: children are Israel’s biggest victims
In a briefing for journalists, Al-Barsh said that the health sector is facing a catastrophic collapse, with hospitals overflowing with wounded and sick people beyond their capacity, while the number of deaths and injuries is increasing daily.
The statistics around Israel’s catastrophic assault on children in Gaza are shocking:
28 children die every day due to the war.
18,854 children have been killed since the start of the aggression, and more than 40,000 have been injured.
266 deaths due to malnutrition, including 112 children and 3 adults in just 24 hours.
1.2 million children are threatened with starvation, and more than 1 million suffer from psychological trauma.
Every day 500 children receive treatment for malnutrition, and 4,912 children are waiting for urgent transfer for treatment abroad.
More than 7,065 children have serious injuries, including 4,000 who need urgent surgery.
Hospitals are collapsing and women are caught in the crossfire
Al-Barsh pointed out that Gaza’s Nasser Hospital, which has a capacity of 340 beds, receives more than 824 patients daily, which is three times its capacity.
He emphasized that women are also paying a heavy price for the war, with:
107,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women suffering from malnutrition.
60,000 women deprived of basic health care.
9,800 women killed since the start of the war, including 8,990 mothers.
21,000 women have been injured, including 350 cases of amputation.
A documented health genocide
Al-Barsh concluded by emphasizing that what is happening in Gaza is a health genocide documented by figures and facts, warning that the continuation of the war and the siege means further humanitarian collapse. He stressed that the only solution is to stop the war and lift the siege immediately.
In light of these shocking figures, it is clear that what children and women in Gaza are suffering is not merely a health crisis, but rather Israel’s systematic extermination of the next generation.
The health sector is collapsing, hospitals are overwhelmed, and the number of victims is increasing daily. Israel’s blockade and war pose a major obstacle to any rescue efforts, making the lifting of the blockade and the cessation of aggression an urgent priority to save lives.
For nearly two years now, we have been waiting for that moment when the dam bursts and the true horrific reality of the Gaza Holocaust comes crashing through into the mainstream. Yet every time an atrocity occurs that should fully open everyone’s eyes to the unfolding Holocaust, it becomes obfuscated. Our news media can be relied on to provide cover for Israel because they are deeply compromised at the highest levels. However, there are signs that the system of Israel apologetics is fragile. Zionist ideology has become rigid, and cracks are showing.
Until now, reality has been fighting an uphill battle against a very expensive campaign of propaganda using all of the sophistication and complexity of modern communications. Much of this seems to have been aimed at blunting and confusing opposition rather than winning converts to the cause of genocide and the hatred of Palestinians. By nature, this creates a building tension, a collective cognitive dissonance between the horrors we see and the bland mumbling concerns expressed by our politicians and pundits. The more expert they are in muting the natural alarm and outrage, the more pressure mounts.
I do not want to understate the capacity in the current media ecology for creating complacency and confusion. Still, the great weakness of pro-genocide voices is that they cannot take any criticism whatsoever. When UEFA put out a banner reading “Stop Killing Children – Stop Killing Civilians,” they were accused of “blood libel” by a wide range of Zionists. The highly respected journalist Stephen Pollard posted the sign “They might as well have gone the whole way and written ‘Fuck you, Jews’”. This sort of response may consolidate the siege mentality of their base, but it is not going to reflect well on them around the water cooler or in the pub. Most people tend to lack the nuanced understanding of antisemitic tropes that this hasbara effort relies on. In their vulgar ignorance, they are liable to think that if someone feels personally attacked by a sign saying “stop killing children”, they might have something to hide.
This is coming at a time when liberal Zionists are under pressure to be more critical of what is happening. Simply saying that you don’t like “Netanyahu and the current right-wing government of Israel” à la Bernie Sanders is not going to cut much ice. This situation creates the potential for an explosive end to pro-genocide apologism. For example, the amoeboid creature that, for some inexplicable reason, is currently the Prime Minister of Aotearoa, said that things were bad and that Netanyahu has “lost the plot”. This caused considerable brouhaha, yet in reality, he was adhering strictly to the liberal Zionist party line that this is all a Netanyahu problem of allowing Israel’s perfectly reasonable need to massacre at least some Palestinians after October 7 to go too far.
The amoeba in question was guilty only of using undiplomatic language to say exactly the thing that the US wants its pets to say, yet Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister responded angrily by suggesting that the greatest threat faced by Aotearoa is a possum. In contrast, Israel has to deal with a “jihadi death cult”. I personally would like for her to come to Christchurch and tell that to the survivors of the massacre committed by a fanatical, murderous, racist, Islamophobe just like her. I would like her to explain how she justifies labelling her enemies a “death cult” when the government she is part of has killed at least 500 Palestinian children for every Israeli child killed on October 7.
Racist double-standards aside, the reaction to the Prime Minister’s comment shows that some anti-Palestinian pro-genocide people cannot tolerate any deviation from a very narrow script. They are genuinely angry at the controlled opposition of Western leaders whose job is to gaslight people with their wildly understated reactions and tepid criticisms. This has been a great strength in the past, with liberal Zionists able to burnish their credibility with the condemnations from zealots, but reality is starting to intrude.
The currentfashionable liberal Zionist exit strategy from their past embrace of genocide is to become suddenly concerned over starving children and to reiterate that they have always been for a two-state solution, but is that a defensible position?
The best way I can illustrate the problem facing Zionists is with a hypothetical example featuring a true liberal’s liberal. Pete Buttigieg (a man, incidentally, who once took great personal umbrage at a random sign saying “don’t be a shitlib”) was interviewed on Pod Save America. Matt Lieb of theBad Hasbara podcast summarised his inauthentic rodent vibes on this occasion by dubbing him “Rat-GPT”, which seems reasonable.
On Pod Save America, Buttigieg, the former Mayor of South Bend (andfirst openly gay rodent to be US Transport Secretary) said that the US shouldn’t support things that are “unconscionable” and that “…[We are] Israel’s strongest ally and friend. You put your arm around your friend when there’s something like this going on and talk about what we’re prepared to do together.” The host’s reaction to this was not the nausea and rage that it should have provoked. He was as calm as if they were talking about a neighbour who was over-watering the houseplants but prickly about accepting advice. I do not know this Pod Save America guy from any other context. Still, I don’t need to because on the screen I can see two disgusting racists who would never use these words or maintain this casual chatting demeanour if the same atrocities were happening to a less demonised group.
Imagine, though, if Buttigieg had been pressed on the details of what is “unconscionable”.
We don’t live in a world where anyone that Buttigieg would agree to talk to would question why the starving of children is somehow worse than shooting them, burning them, and burying them alive. Nor would we expect any interviewer to contextualise the current starving children (that so troubles the liberal conscience) with the mountains and mountains of evidence that Israelis have targeted and killed children in systematic ways for many years. We might, however, see someone asking for specifics about what is “unconscionable”, and for the liberal Zionist, there is no right answer for that.
Clearly, if you say that Israel is deliberately starving children, you will be attacked violently for “blood libel”. In fact, if you don’t endorse the claim that starvation is all the fault of the Khamas jihadi death cult, you are clearly a self-hating Zionist, a Zionist-in-name-only, and an as-a-Zionist. A single sound-bite to the effect that Israel means to do all the terrible things it does is sufficient to send the Israel lobby money stampeding away from you and into the arms of the ratfuckers (which admittedly would be a fitting and amusing end for Buttigieg’s political career).
Liberal Zionists are trying to walk an impossible line. They want to condemn Israel in the abstract only, while avoiding any mention of what they are condemning so as not to bring down the wrath of AIPAC-on-high that will smite them with ineluctable finality and having smit move on. Whether it is from a media interrogation or from public pressure, some of them will be forced into breaking with the genocidal project. They will be rejected from the Israel supporters club because if you can’t handle the Jewish state at their mass-slaughtering holocaust worst, you don’t deserve them at their Western liberal yoga-loving gay-person-accepting settler-colonial apartheid slow-genocide creeping annexation best.
Wembley Stadium is booked in September for Brian Eno’s “Together for Palestine” one night and a Kneecap gig the next night. This is a sure sign that opposing genocide is becoming pretty mainstream all of a sudden. In these circumstances, we can truly hope that people like Rat-GPT will be forced to flee the sinking ship of the Jewish-supremacist state.
In the meantime, there is a lesson for humble believers in the Palestinian cause, even those not able to get Pete Buttigieg to agree to come on their podcast, because there are implications for the liberal Zionists, the philo-semitic apologists, the Israel exceptionalists, the casual racists, and the Islamophobes in our day-to-day lives. If you find someone wavering in their commitment to “Israel’s right to defend itself from Khamas,” encourage them to express what it is that they are concerned about in Israel’s behaviour. They have lived in an environment where, despite the real-world asymmetry, it is the crimes of Palestinians that have been emphasised and given the weight of emotion and essential meaning. Israel, for them, is only reacting. Once they start to see Israel go beyond any justification, even in the fantasy they have been immersed in, then they may start to think of Palestinian resistance as the justified response. The more they start to think about these things, the sooner they will realise that this is not an occasion for mild or partial criticisms. Some might even admit that they were wrong and it wasn’t all legitimate self-defence until some arbitrary time when they personally deigned to stop making excuses for the death and suffering in Gaza. Stranger things have happened.
Remember that things that can’t go on forever don’t. Palestine will be free.
A combination of mistakes, whether through ignorance or design, and significant omissions of fact have left the American public misinformed about why the Palestinians have gone to the United Nations and what they are trying to achieve.
The biggest error repeated across the media in hundreds of headlines and stories is that the Palestinians are seeking statehood at the U.N. In fact, Palestine is already legally a sovereign state and is seeking membership of the United Nations, not statehood. [It eventually opted for observer state status after the U.S. blocked membership.]
The United Nations does not grant or recognize statehood. Only states can recognize other states bilaterally.
The United Methodist Church (UMC) has announced that it will divest from the bonds of governments that are maintaining illegal military occupations.
Wespath, the church’s retirement-benefits agency, is now excluding investments in the bonds of Israel, Morocco and Turkey.
“With our framework, we took a step back,” said Wespath executive Andy Hendren told United Methodist News. “We wanted to do a more principled, holistic look at all sovereign debt, so it not only looks at military occupations like those identified in the resolution — those three. But there are other military occupations in the world that government should be held accountable for.”
“As United Methodists, our witness must align with our values,” Bishop Tracy S. Malone, Council of Bishops president, added.
Microsoft announced on 15 August that it has opened an independent review into the reported use of its Azure cloud technology by the Israeli military’s Unit 8200, following detailed investigations published by The Guardian, +972 Magazine, and Local Call.
The company updated a blog post originally published in May, saying it does not always have visibility into how clients deploy its software once installed on private servers and devices.
“Microsoft appreciates that The Guardian’s recent report raises additional and precise allegations that merit a full and urgent review,” the company said. It pledged to release its findings once the review, led by Covington & Burling LLP, is complete.
The advocacy and protest group Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa has condemned New Zealand’s “deliberate distraction” over sanctions against Israel and has vowed more protests against Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ “failed policy” on Gaza.
After the huge turnout of thousands in Palestine solidarity rallies across more than 20 locations in New Zealand last weekend, PSNA has announced it is joining an International Day of Action on September 6.
Rallies next weekend will have a focus on Israel’s targeted killing of journalists in Gaza.
PSNA co-chair John Minto said in a statement there was “an incredible show of marches and rallies throughout Aotearoa New Zealand for sanctions against Israel during the past weekend.”.
“But with [Foreign Minister] Peters obstinately running the Foreign Ministry, the government will ignore all expressions of public support for Palestinian rights.
“We’ll be back with even more people on the streets on the 6th.”
Shocking images
Minto said that number would have risen significantly in the past few weeks as people were seeing the shocking images of Israel’s widespread use of starvation as a weapon of war, especially against the children of Gaza.
“Around the world, governments are starting to respond to their people demanding sanctions on Israel to end the genocide.
A family rugged up against the rain and cold expressing their disappointment with New Zealand’s “weak” policy over the Gaza genocide last weekend. Image: Asia Pacific Report
“Yet, Winston Peters is most reluctant to even criticise Israel, let alone take any action.”
Minto said actions were vital otherwise Israel took no notice.
“We’ve seen Israel’s arrogant impunity in increasingly violent action and showing off its military capacity and intentions,” he said.
“Not a peep from our ministers over anything.
“Just on the Occupied West Bank, there are settlers freely shooting and lynching Palestinians.
New illegal settlement plans
“Israel’s Parliament has just voted to annex the West Bank, as plans are also announced for [an illegal] new settlement strategically designed to sever it irreparably into two parts.
“In Gaza, Israeli troops are reinvading Gaza City to ethnically cleanse a million people to the south and Israeli aircraft are still terror bombing a famine-devastated community.”
“That would mean an invasion of all of its neighbours and the extinction of at least Lebanon and Jordan, which in Israeli government eyes have no right to exist.”
The New Zealand government thought that it was “responding appropriately” by going through a process of considering recognition of a Palestinian state.
“That can only be seen as a deliberate distraction from a focus on sanctions,” Minto said.
“Back in 1947, New Zealand voted in the UN for a Palestinian state in part of Palestine.
“Recognition is token now, and it was token then, because the world stood aside and let Israel conquer all of Palestine, expel most of its people and impose an apartheid regime on those who managed to stay.”
Minto said the global movement in support of Palestinian rights would not be distracted.
Comprehensive sanctions were the only way to force an end to Israel’s genocide.
Australia slams Israeli PM
Meanwhile, Al Jazeera reports that Australia has hit back at Netanyahu after the Israeli leader branded the country’s prime minister “weak”, with an Australian minister accusing the Israeli leader of conflating strength with killing people.
In an interview with Australia’s national broadcaster ABC, Minister for Home Affairs Tony Burke said that strength was not measured “by how many people you can blow up or how many children you can leave hungry”.
Burke’s comments came after Netanyahu on Tuesday launched a blistering attack on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on social media, claiming he would be remembered by history as a “weak politician who betrayed Israel and abandoned Australia’s Jews”.
Speaking on the ABC’s Radio National Breakfast programme, Burke characterised Netanyahu’s broadside as part of Israel’s “lashing out” at countries that have moved to recognise a Palestinian state.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
Kneecap rapper Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, who performs under the stage name Mo Chara, has appeared in court. Hundreds of supporters greeted the band, as they emerged after a three hour hearing. Ó hAnnaidh is accused of displaying a flag that made reference to proscribed organisation, Hezbollah. However, Ó hAnnaidh has maintained that the criminal case levied against him is not the story: Palestine is.
Kneecap call for shift in focus
On social media, Kneecap called out the British government for aiding in an genocide, and insisted that Palestine is still the real story:
A massive GRMA to everyone who came out to support us as their carnival of distraction rolls on.
We will be back on September 26th for the Court to determine jurisdiction. We have set out why it does not.
We know, unfortunately, this story will end up in the media today while Israel commits genocide at the same time. We need to speak about Palestine.
Artist Maverick Sabre was amongst the crowd supporting the band outside court and said:
I don’t think we can wait for a music industry to stand up and wait for validation and a pat on the back from them…I think we need to come together as a community of artists and maybe spur on bigger artists that have remained silent.
The Palestine Media Organisation pointed out the depravity of the government pursuing this charge against Kneecap, but not stopping the genocide:
The UK Labour government has put more effort into prosecuting Mo Chara, Kneecap than stopping Gaza genocide. pic.twitter.com/48aDDr1wku
An art installation outside the Magistrates Court made the point quite succinctly:
An art installation in the form of a road sign appeared outside Westminster Magistrates' Court in London today, as Kneecap's Mo Chara faced a hearing on fallacious terrorism charges linked to his support for Palestine and Lebanon. As Britain continues its participation in war… pic.twitter.com/SD8DPO3ZzA
Three months after Mo Chara was charged with offences of terrorism, the British government is not only staying silent about Israel’s genocide in Palestine, they’re actively assisting it. In spite of the government’s own suspension of certain arms export licenses, British firms have exported thousands of military items to Israel. Such is the uncertainty around exactly how much Britain is aiding Israel, that MP John McDonnell said:
The government has shrouded its arms supplies to Israel in secrecy. They must finally come clean in response to this extremely concerning evidence and halt all British arms exports to Israel to ensure no British-made weapons are used in Netanyahu’s new and terrifying plans to annex the Gaza Strip and ethnically cleanse the land.
However, the exact details of Britain’s involvement remain hidden by the government. On the other hand, the amount of time and attention to be afforded to a rap group holding a flag at a gig is apparently endless. The Palestine Action debacle is evidently calling into question the effectiveness of proscription laws. Clearly, there is no red line for the British government when it comes to Israel and the Zionist state’s impunity for genocide. But, when it comes to pensioners protesting a genocide or a rap group holding up a flag – causing no harm or terror to anyone – apparently that’s the red line.
It’s now more than a week since Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced his government had begun to formally consider New Zealand’s position on the recognition of a Palestinian state.
That leaves two weeks until the UN General Assembly convenes on September 9, where it is expected several key allies will change position and recognise Palestinian statehood.
Already in a minority of UN member states which don’t recognise a Palestinian state, New Zealand risks becoming more of an outlier if and when Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom make good on their recent pledges.
Luxon has said the decision is “complex”, but opposition parties certainly don’t see it that way. Labour leader Chris Hipkins says it’s “the right thing to do”, and Greens co-leader Chloë Swarbrick has called on government MPs to “grow a spine” (for which she was controversially ejected from the debating chamber).
Former Labour prime minister Helen Clark has also criticised the government for trailing behind its allies, and for appearing to put trade relations with the United States ahead of taking a moral stand over Israel’s actions in Gaza.
Certainly, those critics — including the many around the country who marched last weekend — are correct in implying New Zealand has missed several opportunities to show independent leadership on the issue.
The distraction factor While it has been open to New Zealand to recognise it as a state since Palestine declared its independence in 1988, there was an opportunity available in May last year when the Irish, Spanish and Norwegian governments took the step.
That month, New Zealand also joined 142 other states calling on the Security Council to admit Palestine as a full member of the UN. But in a subsequent statement, New Zealand said its vote should not be implied as recognising Palestinian statehood, a position I called “a kind of muddled, awkward fence-sitting”.
It is still not too late, however, for New Zealand to take a lead. In particular, the government could make a more straightforward statement on Palestinian statehood than its close allies.
The statements from Australia, Canada and the UK are filled with caveats, conditions and contingencies. None are straightforward expressions of solidarity with the Palestinian right of self-determination under international law.
As such, they present political and legal problems New Zealand could avoid.
Politically, this late wave of recognition by other countries risks becoming a distraction from the immediate starvation crisis in Gaza. As the independent Israeli journalist Gideon Levy and UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese have noted, these considered and careful diplomatic responses distract from the brutal truth on the ground.
This was also Chloë Swarbrick’s point during the snap debate in Parliament last week. Her private members bill, she noted, offers a more concrete alternative, by imposing sanctions and a trade embargo on Israel. (At present, it seems unlikely the government would support this.)
Beyond traditional allies Legally, the proposed recognitions of statehood are far from ideal because they place conditions on that recognition, including how a Palestinian state should be governed.
The UK has made recognition conditional on Israel not agreeing to a ceasefire and continuing to block humanitarian aid into Gaza. That is extremely problematic, given recognition could presumably be withdrawn if Israel agreed to those demands.
Such statements are not exercises in genuine solidarity with Palestinian self-determination, which is defined in UN Resolution 1514 (1960) as the right of peoples “to freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development”.
Having taken more time to consider its position, New Zealand could now articulate a more genuine statement of recognition that fulfils the legal obligation to respect and promote self-determination under international law.
A starting point would be to look beyond the small group of “traditional allies” to countries such as Ireland that have already formally recognised the State of Palestine. Importantly, Ireland acknowledged Palestinian “peaceful self-determination” (along with Israel’s), but did not express any other conditions or caveats.
New Zealand could also show leadership by joining with that wider group of allies to shape the coming General Assembly debate. The aim would be to shift the language from conditional recognition of Palestine toward a politically and legally more tenable position.
That would also sit comfortably with the country’s track record in other areas of international diplomacy — most notably the campaign to abolish nuclear weapons, where New Zealand has also taken a different approach to its traditional allies.
Where can we escape, when every corner is pervaded by death? My family and I look into each other’s eyes. We don’t say a word, but our anguished faces are all asking the same question: Do we flee to the south, where bombardment and killing never cease — where death only comes slower? Or do we remain in Gaza City Governorate, just before the Netzarim checkpoint, which has also become home to…
Israel is reviving a settlement plan that would annex a strategic tract of land east of Jerusalem and build 3,400 new housing units on top of it. Known as the E1 settlement project, the plan would effectively split the West Bank in two and “bury” any prospects of a Palestinian state, according to far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich in a statement last week.
The voice of five-year-old Abdullah Abu Zarqa was not just a passing cry in Gaza. When he spontaneously said, “I’m hungry,” he summed up the tragedy of an entire generation trapped between disease, hunger, and deprivation:
Today, Wednesday 20 August, Abdullah passed away in a hospital in the Turkish city of Adana, after his small body was unable to resist the disease that worsened with the interruption of treatment and the severe shortage of medicines in Gaza. He waited a long time for a chance to survive, but closed borders, blocked crossings, and harsh bureaucratic procedures all conspired against his short life.
The child who touched hearts
Abdullah was not famous, but he became a symbol of Gaza after his weak voice was heard in a short clip in which he said: “I’m hungry.”
His words spread like wildfire, touching millions of hearts and confronting the world with the stark reality: the children of Gaza are asking only for their right to life, bread, and medicine.
That innocent cry became a harsh mirror reflecting the world’s inability to protect its weakest links. The echo of a hungry child’s words became the headline of an entire nation’s tragedy, a voice that haunts the human conscience whenever it tries to look away from Gaza.
Abdullah’s death was not a natural event – it never is in Gaza
His death was not a natural event, but a direct result of Israel’s siege that turned the most basic rights into a daily struggle: food, medicine, and even hope. His treatment was delayed many times due to the closure of the crossings and the lack of resources in Gaza’s hospitals, before he was transferred to Turkey, where he arrived exhausted, and the medical equipment was unable to compensate for what he had lost.
This is not just Abdullah’s story, but the story of hundreds of children in Gaza who are silently struggling with death, waiting for a crossing permit or a dose of medicine that may never come. Israel’s siege of Gaza does not only kill with bombing, but also gradually steals life through hunger, disease, and a lack of prospects.
A symbol of childhood under Israeli siege
With Abdullah’s passing, the world loses another child from Gaza, but his cry will remain a testament to the crime. “I’m hungry” is no longer just words, but a humanitarian document condemning all those who remain silent and all those who leave children to face hunger and disease without protection.
Abdullah will remain in the collective memory as a small face that life did not give a chance to play, and as an eternal voice reminding us that childhood in Gaza lives under bombardment and deprivation. His name will remain a symbol of murdered innocence and proof that saving children is not a political choice, but a humanitarian duty.
In the Gaza Strip, tents for displaced persons turn into human ovens during the summer, with displaced families suffering from relentless heat and severe shortages of food and water amid Israel’s ongoing genocide.
More than 1.9 million people, or about 90% of the sector’s population, live in canvas tents that lack the basic necessities of life, which have reached tragic and suffocating conditions after they were forced to flee multiple times.
Displacement tents with heat that burns the body
The sun’s rays accumulate on the tents, turning them into human ovens that scorch children and older people alike. Older women bear a double burden: protecting their families and searching for basic necessities. Children wear heavy clothes unsuitable for summer, suffering under the heat of the sun, their skin showing signs of stress and deprivation.
Inside the tent, the smell of sweat mixes with dust and meager food. The floor is covered with dirt, and there is almost no ventilation. Water is almost non-existent, and the heat makes every movement inside the tent a struggle, whether to get water or to try to protect children from direct sunlight.
Women suffering from chronic diseases such as diabetes and high blood pressure find themselves unable to move easily, while men, mostly older ones, try to protect their families despite exhaustion and hunger. The small tents, which are no more than a few square meters in size, accommodate dozens of people, increasing the suffering and psychological and physical stress on all family members.
Life on the brink of collapse in Gaza
The daily reality of displaced people in tents can only be described as tragic. Children suffocate in the heat of the sun, suffer from hunger, and lack adequate clothing and blankets. Older people are physically breaking down, and women face double challenges: preparing meager meals, keeping children clean, and coping with the heat and hunger.
The night offers no respite either, as the cramped spaces inside the tents force families to sleep or sit in the open, with a continuing shortage of health and food supplies. The intense summer heat, combined with high humidity and restrictions on movement due to the war, make sleeping difficult and increase the suffering of older and disabled people, and children.
The UN report indicates that thousands of families have been displaced several times, losing any sense of security or stability. Heat, hunger, and disease have become part of their daily lives, while the disaster is exacerbated by the ongoing bombing and blockade imposed by the occupation on the Strip.
A never-ending humanitarian disaster
Since the beginning of the war, more than 62,000 people have been killed and more than 152,000 wounded by Israel, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Thousands of children suffer from malnutrition and a severe shortage of water, food, shelter, and health care. The summer heat makes the tents unbearable to stay in, with women, children, and older people being the most affected.
International organizations such as UNICEF and the World Food Programme have repeatedly warned that time is running out for a humanitarian response and that the continuing crisis could lead to the worst-case scenario of famine, especially in Gaza City. Aid agencies report that thousands of families are no longer able to meet their daily needs and that most of the population is living on the brink of survival.
In every tent, the smell of hunger mixes with heat, sweat, and dust. Young children cry incessantly, women struggle to maintain any semblance of cleanliness, and men try to keep up the spirits of their families, but reality leaves no room for hope.
Scenes from a harsh daily life in Gaza
In the corners of the tents, children are scorched by heat that exceeds their physical capabilities, seeking shade under any piece of cloth or worn-out tent. Older people lean on the ground, barely able to move.
Water is very scarce, and food is almost non-existent, making life inside the tents a daily struggle for survival. The floors are covered with dust, and the heat makes them like ovens. The hot air burns both skin and clothes. The summer heat, hunger, and disease combine to make life inside the tents an unbearable daily challenge.
The small tents turn into human ovens, and the displaced people live in a daily struggle for survival, amid ongoing war, food and water shortages, and relentless heat. Every day that passes there is a battle for survival, and the lives of the displaced people in Gaza have become a stark example of human suffering in times of war.
The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) and other grassroots organisations managed to disrupt the shooting several times. Apparently, all it takes is a bit of noise.
Gal Gadot has consistently acted as a cultural ambassador for Israel’s genocide. Despite this, the Met arrested five legitimate protesters.
We condemn the arrests of the five activists engaging in a legitimate protest at the filming sites of a new film starring Gal Gadot, who has consistently acted as a cultural ambassador for genocidal Israel. 1/4https://t.co/oQnaQafnfW
— Palestine Solidarity Campaign (@PSCupdates) May 29, 2025
As usual, the Met police were full of shit, claiming protestors disrupted the movie because Gadot was Israeli.
In recent weeks, protesters have disrupted the filming of a movie at locations across London. They have done so because an actress involved in the production is Israeli.
Earlier today, officers were deployed to the latest location and made five arrests.
Yes, Gadot may be Israeli. But the protests were because she once served in the Israel Defense Forces for two years. Previously, Reuters reported:
Gadot served the IDF for two years, a stint which included participation in the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war, which Lebanon gave as its reason for banning the “Wonder Woman” movie starring Gadot when it was released in 2017, the Washington Post
Gadot also recently claimed it was “unfair” that her movies were being boycotted because she supported Israel.
But there’s a difference between being Israeli and supporting a nation perpetuating violent settler colonial Zionism and working for a genocidal army.
BREAKING:
Gal Gadot cries: “They boycott my movies because I support Israel. It’s not fair.”
No, what’s unfair is war criminals like you being glorified on screen instead of dragged to court. pic.twitter.com/rGs70HRz5E
Scenes from the protest outside Gal Gadot’s Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony, which drew dozens of protesters from both pro-Palestine and pro-Israel camps. pic.twitter.com/yOydDt9l4o
Given that Gal Gadot even hosted screenings of an Israeli military propaganda film, which aimed to justify Israel’s genocidal actions against Palestinians, we should be boycotting and protesting against her films.
All you have to do is look at the difference between the way Israeli settlers continue to tyranniseNo Other Land Oscar winners, by attacking Masafer Yatta, and how Gadot is playing the victim like every dutiful Zionist does, to know it’s right that activists have taken a stand against her.
The U.S. State Department’s decision this weekend to halt all visitor visas for people from Gaza, which includes the medical-humanitarian visas that have brought injured children to American hospitals, will cost Palestinian lives. Officials say this process will be subject to a “full and thorough review”. For a child with infected burns or a deep trauma wound, a pause is a verdict on their life. The freeze did not arise from new intelligence or any novel identification of problems in the temporary visitor visa pathway. It followed a social-media panic with the circulation of mischaracterized videos of injured children arriving under the care of a U.S. nonprofit being labeled as a “security threat,” rhetoric amplified by political allies. The State Department then announced it was stopping visas while it re-examines procedures.
I unequivocally support Irish author Sally Rooney with all my heart and soul. The author risks imprisonment for donating funds from her books and the TV series based on Normal People to a Palestinian group.
Once again the United Kingdom tells Palestinians who they should support. Go figure.
In her opinion piece in The Irish Times last Saturday she said that:
“Activists who disrupt the flow of weapons to a genocidal regime may violate petty criminal statutes, but they uphold a far greater law and a more profound human imperative: to protect a people and culture from annihilation.”
Whenever the people resist or rebel they are deemed terrorists. That has been the case for indigenous people around the world from indigenous Americans to Indians in India to Aborigine and Māori, the Irish and the Scots, and the Welsh.
I went from being a “born-again” starry-eyed kibbutznik who believed in Zionism to a journalist who researched the facts and the hidden truths.
Those facts are revolting. Settler colonialism is revolting. Stealing homes is theft.
I kept in touch with some of my US-based Zionist kibbutznik mates. When I asked them to stop calling Palestinians animals, when I asked them not to say they had tails, when I asked them to stop the de-humanisation — the same de-humanisation that happened during the Nazi regime, they dumped me.
Zionism based on a myth
Jews who support genocide are antisemitic. They are also selfish and greedy. Zionists are the bully kids at school who take other kids toys and don’t want to share. They don’t play fair.
The notion of Zionism is based on a myth of the superiority of one group over another. It is religious nutterism and it is racism.
Empire is greed. Capitalism is greed. Settler colonialism involves extermination for those who resist giving up their land. Would you or I accept someone taking our homes, forcing us to leave our uneaten dinner on the table? Would you or I accept our kids being stolen, put in jail, raped, tortured.
Irish author Sally Rooney on why she supports Palestine Action and rejects the UK law banning this, and she argues that nation states have a duty not only to punish but also to prevent the commission of this “incomparably horrifying crime of genocide”. Image: Irish Times screenshot APR
The country was weird when I visited in 1982. It had just invaded Lebanon. Later that year it committed a genocide.
The Sabra and Shatila massacre was a mass murder of up to 3500 Palestinian refugees by Israel’s proxy militia, the Phalange, during Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982. The horrific slaughter prompted outrage and condemnation around the world, with the UN General Assembly condemning it as “an act of genocide”.
I had been primed for sunshine and olives, but the country gave me a chill. The toymaker I worked with was a socialist and he told me I should feel sorry for the Palestinians.
It isn’t normal for a country to be ruled by the militia. Gun-toting soldiers roamed the streets. But you need to defend yourself when you steal.
Paranoia from guilt
Paranoia is a consequence of a persecutor who fails to recognise their guilt. It happens when you steal. The paranoia happens when you close doors. When you don’t welcome the other — whose home you stole.
In 2014, soldiers of the IDF — a mercenary macho army — were charged with raping their own colleagues. Now footage of the rape of Palestinian men are celebrated on national television in Israel in front of live audiences. Any decent person would be disgusted by this.
The army under this Zionist madness has committed — and continues to commit — the crimes it lied about Palestinians committing. And yes, the big fat liar has even admitted its own lies. The bully in the playground really doesn’t care now, it does not have to persuade the world it is right, because it is supported, it has the power.
This isn’t the warped Wild West where puritans invented the scalping of women and children — the sins of colonisers are many — this is happening now. We can stand for the might of racism or we can stand against racist policies and regimes. We can stand against apartheid and genocide.
Indigenous people must have the right to live in their homeland. Casting them onto designated land then invading that land is wrong.
When Israelis are kidnapped they are called hostages. When Palestinians are kidnapped they are called prisoners. It’s racist. It’s cruel. It’s revolting that anyone would support this travesty.
Far far more Palestinians were killed in the year leading up to October 7, 2023, than Israelis killed that day (and we know now that some of those Israelis were killed by their own army, Israel has admitted it lied over and again about the murder of babies and rapes).
Ōtautahi author and journalist Saige England . . . “It isn’t normal for a country to be ruled by the militia. Gun-toting soldiers roamed the streets.” Image: Saige England
Mercenary macho army
So who does murder and rape? The IDF. The proud mercenary macho army.
Once upon a time, a Palestinian kid who threw a stone got a bullet between the eyes. Now they get a bullet for carrying water, for going back to the homeground that has been bombed to smithereens. Snipers enjoy taking them down.
Drones operated by human beings who have no conscience follow children, follow journalists, follow nurses, follow someone in a wheelchair, and blow them to dust.
This is a game for the IDF. I’m sure some feel bad about it but they have to go along with it because they lose privileges if they do not. This sick army run by a sick state includes soldiers who hold dual US and Israeli citizenship.
Earlier this year I met a couple of IDF soldiers on holidays from genocide, breezily ordering their lattes in a local cafe. I tried to engage with them, to garner some sense of compassion but they used “them” and “they” to talk about Palestinians.
They lumped all Palestinians into a de-humanised mass worth killing. They blamed indigenous people who lived under a regime of apartheid and who are now being exterminated, for the genocide.
The woman was even worse than the man. She loathed me the minute she saw my badge supporting the Palestinian Solidarity Network of Aoteara. Hate spat from her eyes.
Madness.
De-brainwashing
I saw that the only prospect for them to change might be a de-brainwashing programme. Show them the real facts they were never given, show them real Palestinians instead of figments of their imagination.
It occurred to me that it really was very tempting to take them home and offer them a different narrative. I asked them if they would listen, and they said no. If I had forced them to come with me I would have been, you know, a hostage-taker.
Israel is evidence that the victim can become the persecutor when they scapegoat indigenous people as the villain, when they hound them for crime of a holocaust they did not commit.
And I get it, a little. My Irish and French Huguenot ancestors were persecuted. I have to face the sad horrid fact that those persecuted people took other people’s land in New Zealand. The victims became the persecutor.
Oh they can say they did not know but they did know. They just did not look too hard at the dispossession of indigenous people.
I wrote my book The Seasonwife at the ripe young age of 63 to reveal some of the suppressed truths about colonisation and about the greed of Empire — a system where the rich exploit the poor to help themselves. I will continue to write novels about suppressed truths.
And I call down my Jewish ancestors who hid their Jewishness to avoid persecution. I have experienced antisemitism.
Experienced cancelling
But I have experienced cancelling, not by my publisher I hasten to add, but I know agencies and publishers in my country who tell authors to shut up about this genocide, who call those who speak up anti-semitic.
I have been cancelled by Zionist authors. I don’t have a publisher like that but I know those who do, I know agencies who pressure authors to be silent.
I call on other authors to follow Rooney’s example and for pity’s sake stop referencing Hamas. Learn the truth.
Benjamin Netanyahu refused to deal with any other Palestinian representative. Palestinians have the right to choose their own representatives but they were denied that right.
What is a terrorist army? The IDF which has created killing field after killing field. Not just this genocide, but the genocide in Lebanon in 1982.
I have been protesting against the massacre of Palestinians since 2014 and I wish I had been more vocal earlier. I wish I had left the country when the Phalangists were killed. I did go back and report from the West Bank but I feel now, that I did not do enough. I was pressured — as Western writers are — to support the wrongdoer, the persecutor, not the victim.
I will never do that again.
Change with learning
I do believe that with learning we can change, we can work towards a different, fairer system — a system based on fairness not exploitation.
I stand alongside indigenous people everywhere.
So I say again, that I support Sally Rooney and any author who has the guts to stand up to the pressure of oppressive regimes that deny the rights of people to resist oppression.
I have spent a decade proudly standing with Palestinians and I will never stop. I believe they will be granted the right to return to their land. It is not anyone else’s right to grant that, really, the right of return for those who were forced out, and their descendants, is long overdue.
And their forced exile is recent. Biblical myths don’t stack up. Far too often they are stacked to make other people fall down.
Perhaps if we had all stood up more than 100,000 Palestinians would still be alive, a third of those children, would still be running around, their voices like bells instead of death calls.
I support Palestinians with all my heart and soul.
Saige England is an award-winning journalist and author of The Seasonwife, a novel exploring the brutal impacts of colonisation. She is also a contributor to Asia Pacific Report.
This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on Aug. 19, 2025. It is shared here with permission.
Israeli forces continued bombing, shelling, and shooting civilians and systematically demolishing homes in Gaza City Tuesday as part of a US-backed plan to ethnically cleanse 1 million Palestinians from large parts of the embattled enclave so that Israel can reoccupy the coastal strip.
For more than a week, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) bombing and shelling have pounded areas including the Zeitoun and Sabra neighborhoods of Gaza City, destroying hundreds of homes and also targeting displacement shelters in a bid to force Palestinians to flee to southern parts of the coastal enclave.
According toAl Jazeera, there are approximately 11 displacement centers in Zeitoun, each housing 4,000-4,500 Palestinians, as much of Gaza City’s largest neighborhood had already been bombed and razed to the ground in order to create the Netzarim Corridor and “buffer zone.”
Gaza Civil Defense spokesperson Mahmoud Basal told the Egyptian news site Mada Masr that the IDF is deliberately bombing inhabited apartment towers, wiping out large portions of extended families.
Heavy Israeli air strikes have hit a home in Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighbourhood, where shrapnel from another attack wounded a child. Israel’s military is intensifying its bombardment following its plan to take over Gaza City and forcibly displace Palestinians south.
On Tuesday, an IDF strike on the Hosary family home reportedly killed at least 28 people. Although many victims remain trapped in the rubble, rescuing them is impossible, according to Civil Defense officials, as Israeli forces are targeting people who attempt to do so.
“We are terrified because most of the airstrikes on homes came without warning,” Zeitoun resident Shady Mohamed told Mada Masr. “The bombardment is everywhere around us.”
In addition to massive bombs and artillery shells—many of them supplied by the United States—the IDF is using snipers and quadcopter drones armed with machine guns and explosives to target and forcibly expel Palestinian civilians from Zeitoun and other areas.
“The situation was terrifying,” Zeitoun resident Sahar L. told Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor after fleeing. “I clutched my daughter as we walked over shattered glass and rubble, surrounded by smoke, flames, and explosions everywhere. I ran without knowing where to go. God help us. Enough, world, enough.”
"… the military levelling buildings in controlled demolitions in multiple parts of Gaza city.. Israel destroyed 450 buildings in the Zeitoun neighbourhood of Gaza city in the last 9 days alone. That's almost 50 buildings destroyed every day. Its a colossal level of destruction"
The tactic isn’t new—in 1948, Jewish militias used massacres and the threat thereof to terrorize Arabs into fleeing Palestine as it was conquered by the nascent state of Israel during what Palestinians call the Nakba, or “catastrophe.”
Current-day Israeli political and military leaders have called for a new Nakba, including former Gen. IDF Aharon Haliva, who recently said that for every Israeli killed during the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023, “50 Palestinians must die,” and it doesn’t matter “if they’re children.”
Amid relentless IDF attacks, residents of northern and central Gaza are being pushed southward into the al-Mawasi area of Khan Younis, where hundreds of thousands of forcibly displaced people are being confined in an 11-square-mile area.
Among the dozens of Palestinians reportedly killed across Gaza within the past 24 hours are at least five people—including two children—who died of malnutrition amid what Amnesty International on Monday called a “deliberate campaign” of weaponized starvation caused largely by Israel’s blockade on food, medicine, and other vital supplies. At least 266 Palestinians, including 122 children, have starved to death in Gaza since October 2023, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
IDF tanks and armored vehicles have faced sustained resistance as they attempt to achieve the objectives of Operation Gideon’s Chariots, a US-backed plan to conquer and indefinitely occupy Gaza, ethnically cleanse its Palestinian residents, and open the strip for possible Israeli resettlement. US President Donald Trump has said that he wants to transform Gaza into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”
Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Gaza City has prompted renewed calls for international action.
“The widespread destruction in Zeitoun… is part of a deliberate Israeli policy: completing a campaign of genocide and erasing Palestinian urban life through the total destruction of homes, infrastructure, and access to basic livelihoods,” Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor said Sunday.
“The international community, including the United Nations and global legal bodies, must intervene urgently to halt the massacres, protect civilians, and hold Israeli leaders accountable for these heinous crimes against the civilian population,” the Geneva-based group added.
The other Hague-based international tribunal, the International Criminal Court (ICC), last year issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant—who ordered the “complete siege” on Gaza—for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes including murder and forced starvation.
Israel’s 683-day assault and siege on Gaza has left at least 62,064 Palestinians dead, most of them women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Experts say the actual death toll is probably much higher, as thousands of people are missing and believed dead and buried beneath rubble. More than 156,500 Palestinians have also been wounded in Gaza.
Under tremendous domestic and international pressure, Israel said Tuesday that it would respond by Friday to a new ceasefire proposal approved by Hamas under which around half of the 20 remaining living Israeli and other hostages and bodies of some who were killed on October 7 or after would be released in a phased exchange deal. In return, approximately 150 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons would be freed.
Journalists like Anas al-Sharif who report the truth in Gaza to the world and are targeted by Israel deserve protection, not just sympathy.
COMMENTARY:By Sara Qudah
During the past 22 months in Gaza, the pattern has become unbearable yet tragically predictable: A journalist reports about civilians; killed or starved, shares footage of a hospital corridor, shelters bombed out, schools and homes destroyed, and then they are silenced.
Killed.
At the Committee to Protect Journalists we documented that 2024 was the deadliest year for journalists, with an unprecedented number of those killed by Israel reporting from Gaza while covering Israel’s military operations.
That trend did not end; it continued instead in 2025, making this war by far the deadliest for the press in history.
When a journalist is killed in a besieged war city, the loss is no longer personal. It is institutional, it is the loss of eyes and ears on the ground: a loss of verification, context, and witness.
Journalists are the ones who turn statistics into stories. They give names to numbers and faces to headlines. They make distant realities real for the rest of the world, and provide windows into the truth and doors into other worlds.
That is why the killing of Anas al-Sharif last week reverberates so loudly, not just as a tragic loss of one life, but as a silencing of many stories that will now never be told.
Not just reporting Anas al-Sharif was not just reporting from Gaza, he was filling a vital void. When international journalists couldn’t access the Strip, his work for Al Jazeera helped the world understand what was happening.
On August 10, 2025, an airstrike hit a tent near al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City where journalists had gathered. Al-Sharif and several of his colleagues were killed.
The strike — its method, its targets, and its aftermath – wasn’t isolated. It fits a pattern CPJ and other press freedom organisations have tracked for months: in Gaza, journalists are facing not just the incidental risks of war, but repeated, targeted threats.
And so far, there has been no accountability.
The Israeli military framed its action differently: officials alleged that al-Sharif was affiliated with Hamas and that the attack was aimed at a legitimate threat. But so far, the evidence presented publicly failed to meet the test of independent witnesses; no public evidence has met the basic standard of independent verification.
UN experts and press freedom groups have called for transparent investigations, warning of the danger in labelling journalists as combatants without clear, verifiable proof.
In the turmoil of war, there’s a dangerous tendency to accept official narratives too quickly, too uncritically. That’s exactly how truth gets lost.
Immediate chilling effect
The repercussions of silencing reporters in a besieged territory are far-reaching. There is the immediate chilling effect: journalists who stay risk death; those who leave — if they even can — leave behind untold stories.
Second, when local journalists are killed, international media have no choice but to rely increasingly on official statements or third-party briefings for coverage, many with obvious biases and blind spots.
And third, the families of victims and the communities they represented are denied both justice and memory.
Al-Sharif’s camera recorded funerals and destroyed homes, bore witness to lives cut short. His death leaves those images without a voice, pointing now only into silence.
We also need to name the power dynamics at play. When an enormously powerful state with overwhelming military capability acts inside a densely populated area, the vast majority of casualties will be civilians — those who cannot leave — and local reporters, who cannot shelter.
This is not a neutral law of physics; it is the to-be-anticipated result of how this war waged in a space where journalists will not be able to go into shelter.
We have repeatedly documented that journalists killed in this war are Palestinian — not international correspondents. The most vulnerable witnesses, those most essential to documenting it, are also the most vulnerable to being killed.
So what should the international community and the world leaders do beyond offering condolences?
Demand independent investigation
For starters, they must demand an immediate, independent investigation. Not just routine military reviews, but real accountability — gathering evidence, preserving witness testimony, and treating each death with the seriousness it deserves.
Accountability cannot be a diplomatic nicety; it must be a forensic process with witnesses and evidence.
Additionally, journalists must be protected as civilians. That’s not optional. Under international law, reporters who aren’t taking part in the fighting are civilians — period.
That is an obligation not a choice. And when safety isn’t possible, we must get them out. Evacuate them. Save their lives. And in doing so, allow others in — international reporters who can continue telling the story.
We are past the time for neutrality. The use of language like “conflict”, “collateral damage”, or “civilian casualties” cannot be used to deflect responsibility, especially when the victims are people whose only “crime” was documenting human suffering.
When the world loses journalists like Anas al-Sharif, it loses more than just one voice. We lose a crucial balance of power and access to truth; it fails to maintain the ability to understand what’s happening on the ground. And future generations lose the memory — the record — of what took place here.
Stand up for facts
The international press community, human rights organisations, and diplomatic actors need to stand up. Not just for investigations, but for facts. Families in Gaza deserve more than empty statements. They deserve the truth about who was killed, and why. So does every person reading this from afar.
And the journalists still risking everything to report from inside Gaza deserve more than sympathy. They deserve protection.
The killing of journalists — like those from Al Jazeera — isn’t just devastating on a human level. It’s a direct attack on journalism itself. When a state can murder reporters without consequence, it sends a message to the entire world: telling the truth might cost you your life.
I write this as someone who believes that journalism is, above all, a moral act. It’s about bearing witness. It’s about insisting that lives under siege are still lives that matter, still worth seeing.
Silencing a journalist doesn’t just stop a story — it erases a lifetime of effort to bring others into view.
The murder of al-Sharif isn’t just another tragedy. It’s an assault on truth itself, in a place where truth is desperately needed. If we let this keep happening, we’re not just losing lives — we’re losing the last honest witnesses in a world ruled by force.
And that’s something we can’t afford to give up.
Sara Qudah is the regional director for Middle East and North Africa of the Committee to Protect Journalists. Sara on LinkedIn: Sara Qudah
It is a curious feeling to see a government, let alone any politician, suddenly find their banished backbones and retired principles. The spine, on being discovered, adds a certain structural integrity to arguments otherwise lacking force and credibility. The recent spat between Israel and Australia suggests that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s often insecure and often overly cautious administration is starting to show some muscle and certitude.
The cancellation of Simcha Rothman’s visa by the Albanese government was something of a minor revelation. Rothman is a member of Mafdal-Religious Zionism, a party led by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich that has made its position on Palestinians unmistakably clear. (Smotrich became the subject of sanctions by Australia along with Canada, New Zealand, Norway, and the United Kingdom in June for “inciting violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.”) As a certain garden variety shrub of hate, he decries countries for not taking in Palestinians as part of an approved ethnic cleansing program, accusing them of “aiding and abetting a terrorist organisation using them as human shields”. In an interview with Australia’s national broadcaster, Rothman made his primary colour position clear: “I think the government of Australia needs to decide, do they want to be on the side of Hamas, or do they want to be on the side of Israel?”
The letter of revocation stated that he would be engaged in events that would “promote his controversial views and ideologies, which may lead to fostering division in the community”. Being in Australia “would or might be a risk to the good order of the Australian community or a segment of the Australian community, namely, the Islamic population”.
Adduced examples of demerit included arguments that Palestinian children were not perishing from hunger in the Gaza Strip, that those children, in any case, were enemies of the Israeli state, along with the notion that the two-state solution had “poisoned the minds of the entire world”. The nature of such “inflammatory statements” might, were Rothman to enter Australia licensed by the government, “encourage others to feel emboldened to voice any anti-Islamic sentiments, if not to take action to give effect to that prejudice”.
Far from engaging these reasons, Rothman’s enchantingly shrunken worldview was clear in its chiselled simplicity: Australia was behaving undemocratically, its government falsely claiming to argue against “hate and division” despite permitting protestors “to shout on the streets calls for genocide of the Jewish people.”
Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar was quick in response, revoking the residency visas of Australia’s diplomatic representatives responsible for affairs concerning the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah. “I also instructed the Israeli Embassy in Canberra to carefully examine any official Australian visa application for entry to Israel,” Sa’ar fumed on X.
In this apoplectic reaction, no one seemed to recall that Australia had already revoked the visa of a former Israeli justice minister, Ayelet Shaked, at the end of October last year over what Australia’s Home Minister Tony Burke described as “concerns she would threaten social cohesion”. Shaked had been slated to attend events organised by the Australia Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC). Admittedly, she was a former politician rather than a sitting member of the Israeli parliament.
In an interview with the Erin Molan Show, an otherwise underwhelming program, Sa’ar recapitulated his cranky position. “This is the opposite of what should be done,” he objected. “Instead of battling antisemitism in Australia, the Australian government is doing the opposite – they are fuelling it.”
The Palestinian Authority surprised nobody in calling the measure to cancel visas “illegal and in violation of the Geneva Conventions, international law, the United Nations resolutions, which do not grant the occupying power such authority.” The statement went on to stress “that such actions reflect Israeli arrogance and a state of political imbalance, and will only strengthen Australia’s and other countries’ determination to uphold international law, the two-state solution, and recognition of the State of Palestine as the path to peace.”
Australia’s foreign minister, Penny Wong, also thought this all a bit much. Calling the decision to cancel the visas of Australia’s diplomats in the West Bank an “unjustified reaction” to Canberra’s decision to recognise Palestine, Wong felt confident enough to retort that the Israeli decision had been foolish. “At a time when dialogue and diplomacy are needed more than ever, the Netanyahu Government is isolating Israel and undermining international efforts towards peace and a two-state solution.”
This messiness was appropriately crowned by that grand figure of demagoguery himself, the Israeli Prime Minister. “History will remember Albanese for what he is: A weak politician who betrayed Israel and abandoned Australia’s Jews,” came the scornful blast from the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Israeli PM is certainly not wrong about Albanese being weak, but mistaken about what he has been weak about. Most intriguingly, Albanese has found some courage on this front, albeit the sort of courage fortified by allies. But that’s something.
Zarah Sultana has come at swinging at the depressingly inevitable accusations of anti-Semitism. As the Canary’s Joe Glenton reported just yesterday, Sultana had an incredibly frank interview where she set out her assessment of the Jeremy Corbyn years, and what needs to change.
As right-wing media began their attempts to spin her remarks, she was refreshingly abrupt on her own social media:
It’s a renowned tactic of Israeli propaganda to accuse those objecting to the fascism of Zionism as actually being anti-Semitic. However, Sultana quickly nipped that shit in the bud:
The fact that Oliver Kamm, an Oxford-educated journalist for The Times has since deleted his tweet accusing Sultana of anti-Semitism speaks volumes.
Zarah Sultana stands firm
It would appear that Zarah Sultana’s direct approach is stopping the smears in their tracks. Journalist Asa Winstanley praised the route one approach:
This is a historically important tweet.
Members of the “Your Party” initiative — the refugees of Corbynism — have been crying out for this sort of combative approach for years. https://t.co/VsK4Rvew1A
As disgraceful as this statistic around Zarah Sultana is, it is also something that is a testament to the rot of British colonialism.
The 1917 Balfour Declaration is widely seen as one of the primary facilitators of the 1948 Nakba where Palestinians were ethnically cleansed. And, the declaration has been a vital step in the creation of the Zionist state of Israel. As Al Jazeera’s Zena Al Tahhan explains:
Earlier drafts of the document used the phrase “the reconstitution of Palestine as a Jewish State”, but that was later changed.
In a meeting with Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann in 1922, however, Arthur Balfour and then-Prime Minister David Lloyd George reportedly said the Balfour Declaration “always meant an eventual Jewish state”.
Britain’s role in the creation of the contemporary genocidal Zionist state of Israel is central. The claim, then, that to oppose Zionism is to be anti-Semitic is not only empty rhetoric, it is profoundly ignorant and wrong-headed.
In fact, Arthur Balfour, the architect of the declaration, was what Muhannad Hariri of the The Electronic Intifadacalled:
an unapologetic anti-Semite.
Hariri explains:
In 1905, he [Balfour] supported laws to restrict migration into Britain – laws that were largely anti-Jewish in focus. Once he met Weizmann, however, Balfour felt that Zionist plans for a home in the Middle East might nicely cohere with British interests both domestically – to keep Jewish people out of Britain – and internationally – as the English sought to keep the French far from their colonial territories.
By turning Palestine into a home for Jewish people after world war two, Balfour:
understood that Britain’s interests coincided with those of the Zionist party on the question of establishing a state in Palestine.
His aim was not to keep Jewish people safe or protected; his aim was to keep them away from Britain.
Face your front
In this context, Zarah Sultana’s comments are even braver than they first appear. The criticism of a media establishment who parrot Zionist propaganda are insultingly ignorant. But, they’re more than that. They’re an extension of a foundationally British relationship to Zionism that weaponises Jewish identity as strategic political leverage: never actually for the benefit of Jewish communities.
Sultana’s approach is a breath of fresh air. And, it’s a stark contrast to the reticence and politeness of the last Corbyn era. Corbyn’s apparent unwillingness to confront the smears of antisemitism was a product of a belief in the establishment. The idea that eventually, truth will prevail. Sultana, evidently, as a woman of colour who faces sexism and misogyny every day knows better because she’s had to know better.
Nothing will teach you the harsh lessons about how truth is immaterial to the corporate media quicker than the raw reality of living in a sickening swirl of racism and misogyny.
Why the recognition of the State of Palestine by Australia is an important development. Meanwhile, New Zealand still dithers. This article unpacks the hypocrisy in the debate.
ANALYSIS:By Paul Heywood-Smith
The recognition of the State of Palestine by Australia, leading, it is hoped, to full UN member state status, is an important development.
What has followed is a remarkable demonstration of ignorance and/or submission to the Zionist lobby.
Rewarding Hamas Let us consider aspects of the response. One aspect is that recognising Palestine is rewarding the resistance organisation Hamas.
There are a number of issues involved here. The first issue is that Hamas is branded as a “terrorist organisation”. So much is said, apparently, by eight nations compared to the overwhelming majority of UN recognised states which do not so regard it.
That was Hamas’s objective when it fought the election against Fatah in 2006.
As an aside, it now results in the lie that it is ridiculous that the Albanese government would recognise Palestine as part of a two-state solution when Hamas rejects a two-state solution. This is just yet another attempt to demonise Hamas.
Hamas leaders have repeatedly said they would accept a two-state solution. It has only recently done so again.
On 23 July last, when Hamas responded to a US draft ceasefire framework the Hamas official, Basem Naim, affirmed Hamas’s publicly stated pledge that it would give up power in Gaza and support a two-state solution on the pre-1967 borders with East Jerusalem as the capital of an independent Palestine.
These are the very borders stipulated by international law — see hereunder.
The Palestinians constituting Hamas are residents of an illegally occupied territory. International law affords to them the right to resist: Geneva Conventions I-IV, 1949.
The hypocrisy associated with the demonisation of Hamas is massive. Much is made of hostages having been taken on 7 October 2023 — a war crime according to international law. Those militants who took the hostages might be forgiven for thinking that it was minimal compared with the seven years of non-compliance with Security Council Resolution (SCR) 2334 calling for the end of occupation and removal of settlements.
The events of October 7 are, in any event, shrouded in doubt. This follows from Israel’s suppression of evidence concerning what happened. What we do know is that the Israel Defence Force (IDF) received orders to shell Israeli homes and even their own bases on October 7.
In addition, the Hannibal Directive justified IDF slaughter of Israelis potentially being taken as hostages. It is also accepted that allegations of rape and beheading of babies by Hamas militants were false. The disinformation put out by Israel, and Israel’s refusal to allow journalists on site, or to interview participants, make it impossible to form any clear or credible understanding of what happened on October 7.
It is accepted that Hamas militants attacked three Israeli military bases, no doubt with the intention that those bases should withdraw from their positions relative to Gazan territory. Such action can be understood as consistent with an occupied citizenry resisting such illegal occupation.
Compounding the uncertainty over October 7 is the continuing conjecture, leakage, of information suggesting that the IDF had advance warning of the proposed Hamas attack but chose, for other purposes, to take no action. These uncertainties are never adverted to by our press which repeatedly attributes responsibility for all Israeli deaths on the day to the actions of Hamas militants, which actions are presented as an “abomination, barbarity”. Refer generally to P&I, November 5, 2023 (Stuart Rees) Expose and dismiss the domination Israeli narrative; P&I, January 4, 2024 Israeli general killed Israelis on 7 October and then lied about it.
The third issue, the major hypocrisy, is that Hamas is being rewarded. Consider the position of Israel. Israel is, and has been, illegally occupying Palestinian territory since 1967. This is undisputed according to international law as articulated in the following instruments:
1967 – SCR 242;
2004 – the ICJ decision concerning The Wall;
Dec. 2016 – SCR 2334, not vetoed by Obama, recognising the illegal occupation and calling for its end; and
2024 – the Advisory Opinion of the ICJ of 19 July.
Israel has done nothing to comply with any of these instruments. It is set on a programme of gradual acquisition.
The result is that now there are illegal settlements all over the West Bank and East Jerusalem. When Israel is told: the West Bank and East Jerusalem are to be part of a Palestinian state, it will scream, “But large parts are occupied by Jewish Israelis!” These are “facts on the ground”.
Supporters of Israel ignore the fact that occupation by settlers occurred in the full knowledge that international law branded such occupation as illegal. If the settlements are considered as a “done deal”, that would be rewarding knowingly illegal conduct — some might say, Israeli terrorism.
So that there can be no doubt about the import of the position it is appropriate to specify the critical parts of SCR 2334:
The Security Council
Reaffirms that the establishment by Israel of settlements in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, has no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law and a major obstacle to the achievement of the two-State solution and a just, lasting and comprehensive peace;
Reiterates its demand that Israel immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, and that it fully respect all of its legal obligations in this regard;
Underlines that it will not recognise any changes to the 4 June 1967 lines, including with regard to Jerusalem, other than those agreed by the parties through negotiations;
Stresses that the cessation of all Israeli settlement activities is essential for salvaging the two-State solution, and calls for affirmative steps to be taken immediately to reverse the negative trends on the ground that are imperilling the two-State solution;.
Following the ICJ Advisory Opinion of July 19, the UN General Assembly in adopting the same set 17 September 2025 as the deadline for a complete Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territory.
Negotiated settlement And when Israel now says, “Recognition now is going to prevent a negotiated settlement”, it is ignoring the fact that in the six, 12, 20 months, two, three, four years until such negotiated settlement occurs, many more settlements would have been commenced, which of course, are more “facts on the ground”.
Then we have the response of the Coalition, which demonstrates how irrelevant the Opposition is in today’s Australia. That response is that the recognition will inhibit a negotiated settlement between Israel and Palestinians.
The Coalition, however, says nothing about the fact that the Israeli government has repeatedly stated that there will never be a Palestinian State. Indeed, Israel has legislated to that effect and is moreover periodically purporting to annex Palestinian land.
So how does the Coalition believe that a negotiated settlement will come about? Well, one way, over which Israel may have no say, is for Palestine to become a full member State of the UN. One UN member state cannot occupy the land of another.
Failure of our press to ask any question of pro-Israel interviewees about the end of occupation is a disgrace.
Next challenge Now for the next challenge — to bring about the end of occupation. Israel will not accede readily. Sanctions must be the first step. Such sanctions must be immediate, concrete and crippling.
They must result in the immediate suspension of trade. That can be the first step.
Watch this space.
Paul Heywood-Smith is an Adelaide SC (senior counsel) of some 20 years. He was the initial chairperson of the Australian Friends of Palestine Association, an incorporated association registered in South Australia in 2004. He is the author of The Case for Palestine, The Perspective of an Australian Observer (Wakefield Press, 2014). This article was first published by Pearls & Irritations and is republished with permission.
(@SilentlySirs) 
