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Category: Palestine

  • ‘Whoever goes there dies’: Gaza ‘aid distribution’ sites are deathtraps

    Since May, the US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) has been posing as a lifeline for starving Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip. But with over 650 aid-seekers killed and thousands more wounded at the sites, and with Gaza continuing to starve, what purpose does the GHF actually serve? Almost every single international humanitarian organization—from The United Nations and Oxfam to Amnesty International—has condemned the GHF for weaponizing aid and using aid distribution sites as death traps. In this urgent, on-the-ground report, TRNN speaks with Palestinians in Gaza about the horrific truth of the GHF and its “aid distribution” operations.

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

    Transcript

    Mahmoud Jamil Warshagha: 

    When they ran out of targets in Gaza, they resorted to killing civilians trying to get aid. The Americans and the Israelis are setting a trap for us. 

    Mahmoud Jamil Warshagha: 

    Whoever goes there dies. Whether it’s the American point, Netzarim or Zikim.

    Islam Jalal Alza’nin: 

    Here’s the shot. Here—see? It went in through here and out from here. This isn’t aid. This is so they can kill the young men. 

    Narrator: 

    These images are from aid distribution sites set up by the Gaza Humanitarian foundation (GHF) since May 26, 2025. 

    The US and Israeli-backed GHF uses private military contractors to bypass UN systems which Israel claims are being exploited by Hamas. But with over 650 killed and thousands more wounded at the sites, and Gaza continuing to starve—what purpose does the GHF actually serve? 

    Mahmoud Jamil Warshagha has survived multiple GHF sites in his search for food.

    Mahmoud Jamil Warshagha: 

    The body parts landed on us. The body parts of these men fell on top of us in the ditch. The firing from the sniper, the quadcopter and from everywhere was all whistling right by us. We were trapped there for two hours, surrounded by gunfire. Whoever lifted their head was killed. There’s no hope. Raise your head like this and they’ll shoot you. The army was not acting like we were citizens going to get aid, they, no—they were ambushing civilians. To kill them. The people of Gaza are not able to access the American aid. This American aid is just a way for them to kill us conveniently. They are killing us at the aid sites. They’re not feeding us. 

    Islam Jalal Alza’nin: 

    My son was the kindest person in the world to me. Everyone loved him and respected him. He was a kind person. Everyone loved him. May God have mercy on you my son. Even his laugh was so unique. This is the bag he left with. Here is his blood on it. I kept it because his blood is on it, his scent. Here’s the shot—it came out of his back. Came in here and out here. God is sufficient for us, and the best protector—that’s it. He said: “They’re giving aid” I told him, “Don’t go, Muhammad. I don’t want you to go: we will eat sand, just don’t go.” He said: “I see my sisters hungry, can I not go? I’ll go, but I promise you I’ll be careful. I’ll keep my distance. When they hand out the aid I’ll run and grab food, but I will stay far from the Israelis and be careful. I’ll bring us a bag of flour.”

    I went outside and asked: “Where’s Muhammad?” People were coming up to me, telling me he was martyred. One woman grabbed me and said, “Say: May God have mercy on him.” I grabbed her and shook her violently. I said, “No, my son, don’t say that about him. My son promised he would come back.” I was so upset I tried to throw myself in front of a car. People held me back. I told them, “That’s it. I’m nothing. I am nothing without Muhammad.” He is my foundation. That’s it—if he’s not alive, then I don’t want to live. Life no longer has meaning for me. They held me and didn’t let me go to him or see him. 

    The next day I went to the hospital. They hadn’t buried him yet, I went to see his body. There were many bodies there—there were a lot of martyrs. A journalist there told me that it was her brother who had carried my son back. That there were so many dead and injured, but somehow God inspired him to pick my son’s body out of all the dead. “We put him on the board and came back with him.” He told me “don’t be upset that we put him on a wooden board.” This is a blessing from God. Here, look at his picture. His face is full of flour. He’s covered in flour. These people who are carrying him, none of them are his relatives. 

    Mahmoud Jamil Warshagha: 

    From the sign, when you get to the American checkpoint. That’s when terror sets in. There are no hills or anything to hide, you keep walking, you stop at the sign, then a quadcopter comes and it says: “You Arabs! You cattle!” in this manner. “In half an hour we will open the gate for you.” Then the ship and the quadcopter and the tank all start firing at you. They all fire at you. People start to crawl and slide. Some are injured, some are killed, no one cares. People want to eat. We’ve reached the stage where people’s brains are working only on how to eat and how to feed their children. They don’t want to warn us, they are just mocking us. My eyes saw bodies ripped apart. No one picks them up. No one picks them up. When we leave we bring them back with us. We find their bodies after three days, their blood drained. We take a board of wood and place some bodies on it and bring them back. 

    Narrator: 

    Almost every single international humanitarian organisation, including The UN, Oxfam, Amnesty and hundreds more – have condemned the GHF sites for weaponizing aid. But there are some who still claim that they are safe. Retired British Army officer Richard Kemp posted a video from one of the sites: 

    CLIP: “It’s all lies generated by Hamas” 

    Narrator: 

    But even as Kemp claims everyone is safe—the sound of gunshots can be heard in the background. 

    Mahmoud Jamil Warshagha: 

    Yes, the Americans, they have weapons. They have weapons. They’re wearing armour, armour, and each one is two metres tall, Holding M16 guns we’ve never seen before, And they have tanks, next to them protecting them. This is what we see when we get there. You leave—having survived the Israelis you then face the gangs on the road back. Who say: “Either I hit you or you give me your bag.” We live this scene every day. 

    Islam Jalal Alza’nin: 

    They were all young men, like my son. One of the boys killed with him was also 20. The martyrs were all youth, 18 or 20. Why did they go? Because they wanted to live. For bread. Not to fight. They had no weapons or anything. They’re going to get flour, and my son was carrying flour. The boys told me that he was carrying a bag of flour: I mean, how can you shoot someone carrying flour? He wasn’t carrying weapons or something to throw at the Israelis. 

    Narrator: 

    The weaponization of aid is not new. In 2006, Israel imposed a blockade on Gaza, controlling every calorie, every medical shipment and every fuel truck. Over the last two years Israel has routinely constricted entry of aid into Gaza, culminating in a complete blockade that lasted nearly 3 months. Today ‘Humanitarian corridors’ have become kill zones and ‘Distribution points’ have become opportunities for target practice. 

    A video released by Al Jazeera tells a story. A young man carries a bag of flour on his back, unarmed, unthreatening and yet… Just like Muhammad, he too ends his life covered in flour. 

    Islam Jalal Alza’nin: 

    It’s been two years, enough. We have nothing left in us. Enough suffering. There are no young people left. This is his grave. 

    Mahmoud Jamil Warshagha: 

    After my last attempt when I nearly died and the two people next to me died and I couldn’t do anything for them. I have sworn never to go back. If they really wanted to give us aid, they would come and distribute it to us. “Here, take your package and go.” But no, they’re treating us like cattle, we’re trampling, we’re trampling, crushing and killing each other inside, while they watch us from behind a fence, holding a gun, four or five metres away, watching what’s happening. 

    Mahmoud Jamil Warshagha: 

    Israelis don’t give warnings. The way they warn you is to kill 100 people in front of you. To warn you, they will kill 100 people in front of you. So they’re warning us with strikes? If a quadcopter drops a grenade on 30 or 40 people, is that how they warn us? If that’s a warning, how would it look if they wanted to kill? With an F16 they want to warn us? With a tank? As soon as the aid lorries arrive, the brother no longer knows his brother. There was one guy who got injured by shrapnel, when the aid arrived, his brother abandoned him to get food for his kids. He abandoned his brother. Even when he came back with the most basic thing, he would feed it to his sisters or to his mother, before he would eat. 

    Islam Jalal Alza’nin: 

    Him and his friends would buy something and they would say to him: “here’s your share” and he would put it aside for his sisters. He would see me depressed and sad and he would grab me and take me for a walk around. He would take his sisters, he was so kind to them. If he got angry at one of them, when they did something wrong, he would come back later and make up and explain to her. Everyone used to say, “he’s more mature than his age.” He’d taken on so much responsibility. No, he wasn’t afraid. Hunger forced him, against his will, to go. Seeing his sisters like that—hungry—forced him to go.

    This post was originally published on The Real News Network.

  • Slaying and Censoring the Journalists: The Murder of Anas al-Sharif

    “Assassination,” wrote George Bernard Shaw in The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet, “is the extreme form of censorship”. Such extremism visited Al Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif and his colleagues in Gaza City late on August 10. Resting in a tent located outside the main gate of Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital, he was killed alongside Al Jazeera correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh, camera operators Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal, and Moamen Aliwa, and freelance reporter Mohammed al-Khaldi.

    Palestinian journalist Wadi Abu al-Saud recalls the drone attack taking place at 11.22 pm. Having entered the tent opposite, he had raised his phone to make a call when an explosion occurred. “A piece of shrapnel hit my phone. I looked back and saw people burning in flames. I tried to extinguish them. Anas and the others had died instantly from the airstrike.” In two subsequent videos, al-Saud vows to “return to my life as a citizen. The truth has died and the coverage has ended.”

    IDF international spokesman Lt. Colonel Nadav Shoshani, straining verisimilitude, claimed that intelligence obtained prior to the strike proved that “Sharif was an active Hamas military wing operative at the time of his elimination”. The reporter must have been frightfully busy then, able to juggle his tasks with Al Jazeera, filing news bulletins while playing the ambitious militant. But distinctions are meaningless for Shoshani, who went on to accuse the slain journalist of receiving “a salary from the Hamas terror group and terrorist supporters, Al-Jazeera, at the same time.”

    Evidence is typically sketchy, but the Lieutenant Colonel was untroubled, as the “declassified portion of our intelligence on al-Sharif” was merely small relative to the whole picture. That picture, the IDF contends, revealed Sharif’s credentials as leader of a rocket-launching squad alongside membership of the Nukhba Force company in Hamas’s East Jabalia Battalion. This proved far from convincing to Muhammed Shehada, analyst at the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, who made the solid, pertinent observation that al-Sharif’s “entire daily routine was standing in front of a camera from morning to evening.”

    Particularly troubling in this killing is that the IDF seemed to be laying the groundwork for justified assassination last month, when army spokesman Avichai Adraee reshared a video on social media making the accusation that al-Sharif was a member of Hamas’s military wing.  This proved chilling for the United Nations special rapporteur on freedom of expression, Irene Khan. “Fears for al-Sharif’s safety are well-founded as there is growing evidence that journalists in Gaza have been targeted and killed by the Israeli army on the basis of unsubstantiated claims that they are Hamas terrorists.”

    The Committee to Protect Journalists was suitably perturbed by Adraee’s remarks to issue a demand last month that the “international community” protect al-Sharif. “This is not the first time Al-Sharif has been targeted by the Israeli military, but the danger to his life is now acute,” said CPJ Regional Director Sara Qudah. “Israel has killed at least six Al Jazeera journalists in Gaza during the war. These latest unfounded accusations represent an effort to manufacture consent to kill Al-Sharif.”

    The other journalists killed in the strike are not deemed worthy of mention by the IDF, affirming the tendency in Israeli military doctrine to kill those around the designated target as a perfectly tolerable practice. Again, the rulebook of international humanitarian war is discarded in favour of a normalised murderousness.

    The rulebook has also been abandoned regarding journalists working in Gaza, conforming to a pattern of indifference to distinctions between militants or civilians in Israel’s sanguinary targeting. By December 2023, the Committee to Protect Journalists was already declaring that the war in the Strip had been the deadliest ever recorded by the organisation for press members. (The number currently stands at over 190; the global total for 2020-23 was 165.)  “Israel is murdering the messengers,” concludes Qudah. “Israel wiped out an entire news crew. It has made no claims that any of the other journalists were terrorists. That’s murder. Plain and simple.”

    In a statement, Al Jazeera Media Network described the killings as “yet another blatant and premeditated attack on press freedom.” The order to kill al-Sharif, “one of Gaza’s bravest journalists, and his colleagues, is a desperate attempt to silence the voices exposing the impending seizure and occupation of Gaza.”

    The murder of al-Sharif and his colleagues by Israeli forces constituted the effective wiping out of Al Jazeera’s team, one of the few able to offer consistent, unsmothered coverage about the IDF’s remorseless campaign in Gaza. Since the October 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas, Israel has prohibited foreign reporters from entering Gaza except under strict supervision by the Israeli military. Those accompanied by the IDF have been at the mercy of Israeli selectiveness as to where to go and barred from speaking to Palestinians.

    In a note to be published in the event of his death, al-Sharif stated that he “lived the pain in all its details”, tasting “grief and loss repeatedly”. This did not deter him from conveying “the truth as it is, without distortion or misrepresentation, hoping that God would witness those who remained silent, those who accepted our killing, and those who suffocated our very breaths.” He also reflected on what images of sheer barbarity had failed to do, with “the mangled bodies of our children and women” failing to move hearts or stop massacres.  In dying along with his colleagues, al-Sharif had been butchered in a climate of hyper-normalised violence, thinly veiled by the barbaric justifications of Israeli national security.

    The post Slaying and Censoring the Journalists: The Murder of Anas al-Sharif first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • A direct action group is taking up Palestine Action’s mantle against Israel’s F-35 suppliers

    On both 10 and 11 August, a direct action group called ‘DISMANTLE’ targeted two companies which enable Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people.

    DISMANTLE: a direct action group targets key supplier to Teledyne

    In the early hours of 10 August, the group targeted Stemmer Imaging of Tongham, Surrey. Stemmer are a key supplier to Teledyne, who supply the Israeli military with vital equipment, including parts for the F-35 jets, which are central to their offensive air capability.

    In a short video posted by the DISMANTLE group, an activist uses a traditional shepherd’s sling, as used in Palestine for centuries, to hurl projectiles at the Stemmer Imaging premises. DISMANTLE concluded with a short statement by demanding:

    Stemmer – cut ties with Teledyne.

    It signed off with:

    Together we can DISMANTLE the Zionist entity.

    Labour government taking its cues from Israel

    In September 2024, foreign secretary David Lammy announced that Britain would be suspending 30 Arms Licenses to Israel. He told MPs that:

    the assessment I have received finds that for certain UK arms exports to Israel there exists a clear risk that they might be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of International Humanitarian Law.

    However, the 30 arms licenses comprise less than 10% of the total export licenses relating to the Israeli military. Moreover, as business and trade secretary Jonathan Reynolds subsequently clarified, it would not affect the supply of F-35 parts, which the Israeli air force have continued to use in Gaza.

    American-owned Teledyne operates at six locations in Britain, and employs Lord Richard Dannatt as an adviser. In 2022, Lord Dannatt wrote to two government ministers, urging them to crackdown on activists who had targeted the Teledyne plant in Presteigne, Wales.

    The activists, linked to the currently proscribed group ‘Palestine Action’, were convicted of breaking into the plant, and causing £1m in damage.

    In court, the prosecution denied that Dannatt had sought to interfere in the case. However, he had written to the then home secretary Suella Braverman warning that:

    the threat from Palestine Action has more widespread implications for security and the economy within the United Kingdom.

    He said that he would be:

    very grateful to receive assurance that the threat from Palestine Action is fully recognised by our security services and appropriate action either planned or being taken.

    In 2024, the peer wrote to Dan Jarvis, Labour security minister, along similar lines. Dannatt is now facing conduct inquiries over two sets of allegations that he broke parliamentary rules prohibiting peers from lobbying.

    Caterpillar gets the DISMANTLE treatment

    Early on the morning of 11 August, the DISMANTLE group carried out a second action. This time it targeted the London offices of PwC, an auditing company used by Caterpillar. Activists painted the front of the plush building with slogans.

    Caterpillar make the huge D9 bulldozers, that Israel has used as a weapon of war for many years. The violent settler state first used armoured D9s in the Sinai war in 1956. These have become synonymous with the wholesale demolition of Palestinian homes, and entire villages. Israel has used the D9s extensively, in the same manner, in Lebanon, and throughout Gaza.

    In 2003, Israel crushed to death Rachel Corrie, a young American peace activist, who had gone to Gaza as part of the International Solidarity Movement with a Caterpillar D9. She was trying to prevent the destruction of Palestinian homes.

    Following its graffiti attack on PwC auditors, DISMANTLE issued a statement in which it said:

    This week Netenyahu announced his plans to occupy all of Gaza. The IDF will certainly use Caterpillar’s tools to attempt to do so.

    Caterpillar is deeply complicit – and so are any companies they work with. We call on PwC to stop working with Caterpillar.

    Featured image supplied

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Palestinians in Gaza City Fear More Displacement Under Israeli Occupation Plan

    The Israeli security cabinet approved a plan presented by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on August 8 to fully occupy the Gaza Strip and forcibly displace the residents of Gaza City from the north of the territory to the south. The news of the plan spread rapidly among those of us in Gaza, leaving us in a state of shock and despair. We had been following the updates in hopes of hearing…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • SKWAWKBOX just exposed Starmer and BBC complicity in Israel’s assassination of Al Jazeera journalists

    Independent media outlet SKWAWKBOX has spent over ten years holding the powerful and political to account. One perfect example is two articles he released on Tuesday 12 August, where it exposed not only Keir Starmer’s government’s complicity with Israel’s assassination of five Al Jazeera journalists – but also the BBC’s attempt to whitewash the Zionist entity’s war crimes.

    The BBC: laying cover for Israel

    Firstly, on a live news broadcast on Monday 11 August, the BBC posed what was a despicable question: is it “proportional” for Israel to kill five journalists when it was “only targeting one”?

    This chilling formulation, reported by SKWAWKBOX on 12 August, casts the killing of media workers as a matter of arithmetic rather than atrocity—a grotesque inversion of compassion.

    Such framing exposes the BBC’s deeper failings in its Gaza war coverage. A thorough analysis by the Centre for Media Monitoring, covering nearly a year of BBC reporting, highlighted a persistent pattern: the minimisation of Palestinian suffering, omissions of critical historical context, and a marked amplification of Israeli propaganda.

    This is reinforced by internal dissent: in July 2025, over 400 media professionals—including 121 currently with the BBC—signed a letter condemning what they described as institutional anti‑Palestinian racism and distortion driven by fear of being labelled “anti‑Israel”. 

    By couching the murder of journalists in the language of proportionality, the BBC not only dehumanises those who were killed, but also sanitises violence, turning a deliberate assault on press freedom into a cold mathematical debate. In an era where Gaza journalists are being systematically killed—many while clearly identifiable as press—the BBC’s framing is normalising such moral apathy.

    Then, SKWAWKBOX also took aim at the Labour Party government.

    Starmer: up to his neck in Israel’s war crimes

    As the Canary has documented, the RAF has conducted over 500 surveillance flights above Gaza since December 2023, cloaked in secrecy and ostensibly justified as efforts to locate Israeli hostages. 

    Yet the evidence is damning. A US‑contracted plane, leased by the MOD for these operations—ostensibly to compensate for a shortage of RAF Shadow R1 jets—was recently exposed after mistakenly revealing its flight path over Khan Younis.

    Intelligence gathered by these flights is “routinely shared” with Israeli forces, raising urgent questions about whether the UK is effectively aiding lethal operations—despite its performative rhetoric condemning Israel’s attacks.

    So, as SKWAWKBOX concluded:

    An outsourced spy plane operating for the UK from the RAF’s Akrotiri base in Cyprus was almost certainly operating over Gaza, despite attempts to hide its flight path, just thirty minutes before an Israeli airstrike that murdered six journalists in the early hours of yesterday morning.

    This duplicity is further underscored by the Starmer government’s refusal to release critical footage that could shed light on the killing of British aid workers, even though the RAF had recorded that very moment over Gaza. With civil liberties eroded at home and press freedom murdered abroad, the UK’s role resembles that of an enabler, not a neutral mediator.

    Disgraceful

    The Labour government’s posture is untenable: searing criticism in words, but enabling complicity in action. Its surveillance flights do not simply observe—they may well abet war crimes. Meanwhile, the BBC’s adoption of such detached, procedural language betrays its purported values of impartiality and humanity. In the face of real death, there is no proportion—only moral clarity.

    And overall, the UK state – via the Starmer government and its public service broadcaster – is entirely complicit in Israel’s war crimes. But as always, it is down to independent media like SKWAWKBOX to expose this.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • 45 US journalists are currently on a Israeli government-funded propaganda tour

    In a move that perfectly encapsulates the moral bankruptcy of both Israel’s public relations machine and much of the Western press, forty-five US journalists have descended on Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories—not to witness the devastation in Gaza, but to take part in a choreographed tour designed, funded, and controlled by the Israeli government.

    The delegation, lavishly hosted at Jerusalem’s King David Hotel, began their trip on 11 August via an audience with Israeli president Isaac Herzog:

    Then, the itinerary on 12 August includes a visit to the Nova Music Festival site, stops near the Gaza fence and so-called “aid entry points” (on the Israeli side) and meetings with the Israeli foreign minister, Speaker of the Knesset, prime minister, and Ambassador Huckabee:

    There will be no sight of bombed-out hospitals, no interviews with bereaved Palestinian families, no first-hand experience of the blockade’s crushing impact.

    Let’s be clear: this is not journalism. This is stage-managed propaganda, and the so-called “journalists” participating are, wittingly or not, acting as extensions of Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which is bankrolling the entire trip:

    Silencing the truth about Israel’s genocide in Gaza

    The hypocrisy is staggering. While this delegation is feted by Israeli officials, not a single international journalist has been allowed into Gaza since the war began.

    Israel continues to impose an absolute blockade on independent media access to the Strip, effectively controlling the narrative by denying the world a raw, unfiltered view of the destruction. This censorship is not incidental—it is strategic. By keeping reporters out, Israel ensures that the only imagery and testimony the global public receives is filtered through its military’s carefully vetted footage and statements.

    The result is a grotesque distortion of reality. As Israel kills or displaces tens of thousands of Palestinians, Western MSM presents the genocide as somehow abstract—stripped of its immediacy and reduced to bloodless euphemisms like “conflict” or “clashes.” This is not journalism in the public interest; it is information warfare.

    US journalists and their complicity with Israel

    The presence of these 45 US journalists on an Israeli government-funded junket raises profound ethical questions.

    Accepting an all-expenses-paid trip from Israel—accused by human rights organisations and UN officials of committing war crimes—should be a clear violation of journalistic independence. Yet these media outlets, many of which loudly proclaim their commitment to truth and accountability, appear content to let their reporters be shepherded through a Potemkin tour of Israel’s preferred talking points.

    This is not simply bias—it’s structural complicity. Western media has a long history of privileging Israeli narratives while marginalising Palestinian voices, often adopting the language of “security” and “self-defense” to justify military aggression. The Gaza junket is merely the latest, and most brazen, example.

    The cost of manufactured consent

    The damage goes far beyond one media tour.

    By participating in this charade, these US journalists help manufacture public consent for Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza. Every sanitised photo-op, every official quote unchallenged, helps launder a war in which civilians are paying the ultimate price.

    Meanwhile, Palestinian journalists—hundreds of whom Israel has assassinated—remain the primary source of truth, their work often dismissed or ignored by the same outlets now happily amplifying Israeli state messaging.

    If journalism is, as it claims, the first draft of history, then this junket represents an act of deliberate historical revisionism. Independent media is currently writing the truth about Gaza. But thanks to Israel’s blockade and Western corporate media’s moral collapse, much of its “coverage” will be remembered not as reporting, but as propaganda in its purest form.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • RSF calls for emergency UN Security Council meeting after targeted Israeli strike kills six media professionals

    Pacific Media Watch

    The Paris-based media freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has condemned the Israeli military’s “disgraceful tactic” to cover up war crimes in the wake of the killing of six journalists in Gaza on Sunday.

    It has called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to stop the massacre of journalists, RSF said in a statement.

    The August 10 Israeli strike killed six media professionals in Gaza, five of whom currently work or formerly worked for the Qatari television network Al Jazeera and one freelance journalist.

    The strike, which has been claimed by the Israeli army, targeted Al Jazeera reporter Anas al-Sharif, whom it accused, without providing solid evidence, of “terrorist affiliation”.

    RSF said the military had repeatedly used this tactic against journalists to cover up war crimes, while the army has already killed more than 200 media professionals.

    “RSF strongly condemns the killing of six media professionals by the Israeli army, once again carried out under the guise of terrorism charges against a journalist,” said RSF’s  director-general Thibaut Bruttin.

    “One of the most famous journalists in the Gaza Strip, Anas al-Sharif, was among those killed.

    “The Israeli army has killed more than 200 journalists since the start of the war. This massacre and Israel’s media blackout strategy, designed to conceal the crimes committed by its army for more than 21 months in the besieged and starving Palestinian enclave, must be stopped immediately.

    “The international community can no longer turn a blind eye and must react and put an end to this impunity.

    “RSF calls on the UN Security Council to meet urgently on the basis of Resolution 2222 of 2015 on the protection of journalists in times of armed conflict in order to stop this carnage.”

    Targeted strike on tent
    The Israeli army killed Al Jazeera reporter Anas al-Sharif in a targeted strike on a tent housing a group of journalists near al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza.

    The strike, claimed by Israeli authorities, also killed five other media professionals, including four working or having worked for Al Jazeera — correspondent Mohammed Qraiqea, video reporter Ibrahim al-Thaher, Mohamed Nofal, assistant cameraman and driver that day, and Moamen Aliwa, a freelance journalist who worked with Al Jazeera — as well as another freelance journalist, Mohammed al-Khaldi, creator of a YouTube news channel.

    The attack also wounded freelance reporters Mohammed Sobh, Mohammed Qita, and Ahmed al-Harazine.

    This attack, claimed by the Israeli army, replicates a tactic previously used against Al Jazeera journalists. On 31 July 2024, the Israeli army killed reporters Ismail al-Ghoul and Rami al-Rifi in a targeted strike, following a smear campaign against the former, who, like Anas al-Sharif, was accused of “terrorist affiliation”.

    Hamza al-Dahdouh, Mustafa Thuraya and Hossam Shabat, who also worked for the Qatari media outlet, are among the victims of this method denounced by RSF.

    As early as October 2024, RSF warned of an imminent attack on Anas al-Sharif following accusations by the Israeli army.

    The international community, led by the European Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States, ignored these warnings.

    Under Resolution 2222 of 2015 on the protection of journalists in armed conflict, the UN Security Council has a duty to convene urgently in response to this latest extrajudicial killing by the Israeli army.

    Since October 2023, RSF has filed four complaints with the International Criminal Court (ICC) requesting investigations into what it describes as war crimes committed by the Israeli army against journalists in Gaza.

    The New Zealand-based Pacific Media Watch collaborates with Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Saeb Jundiya: from Palestinian football hero to a mirror of Gaza’s suffering

    More than a decade ago, crowds would chant “Saeb Jundiya” whenever he appeared on the pitch wearing the Palestinian national team captain’s armband. He confidently directed his teammates, competed against continental teams, and stood in front of the cameras with the smile of a captain who knows the value of his jersey.

    Today, there are no cameras or crowds, just a long line of people waiting their turn to fill up gallons of drinking water. Between the past and the present, Jundiya’s life encapsulates the story of Gaza, besieged by Israel’s genocide and deprived of the basic necessities of life.

    Saeb Jundiya: an eventful sporting career

    Saeb Jundiya is not just a soccer player, but a symbol of Palestinian sport. He played for the Palestinian national team for many years and was one of its stalwart defenders. He led the team in official matches against major Asian teams and participated in international football forums, presenting a proud image of his country.

    After his retirement, he moved into coaching, supervising local Palestinian clubs and continuing his mission to serve football despite the difficult circumstances.

    From the pitch to water queues

    But war and siege have turned the equation upside down. In Gaza, football is no longer a source of income or even a stable activity. With the destruction of infrastructure and the suspension of sporting activities, Saeb Jundiya found himself forced to look for alternative sources of income to feed his children.

    Today, he spends hours of his day providing drinking water, moving between the few points that are still operating. It is a scene that sums up how a star of the pitch can become a citizen fighting for survival.

    Sports comparison: a gap between two worlds

    Around the world, football legends live a life of luxury after retirement, such as Zinedine Zidane, who spends his days between luxury villas and green fields, or Pep Guardiola, who earns millions coaching major clubs.

    Saeb Jundiya, former captain of his country’s national team, struggles to provide for his family’s basic needs. The difference is not in talent or dedication, but in geographical luck, a stable environment, and a sports infrastructure that guarantees athletes a decent life after retirement.

    An athlete in Gaza versus an athlete in the world

    A soccer coach in Europe may spend his day following his team’s training sessions, visiting sports centers, or planning for an upcoming match, while a Palestinian coach in Gaza plans how to obtain water, cooking gas, or enough food for his family for the coming days.

    Sport here is not a profession, but a dream threatened with extinction, and with every war, athletes are brought back to square one, trapped between the walls of harsh reality.

    Saeb Jundiya: a message beyond sports

    The story of Saeb Jundiya is not just the tale of a player who lost the spotlight of the stadium, but a mirror reflecting the reality of Gaza with all its contradictions: passion and love for life, but under a siege that stifles ambition.

    A football legend like Jundiya has the right to continue his life on the pitch, not in water queues, and the world has a duty to see his story as a call to support Palestinian athletes and protect their legacy.

    In the end, Saeb Jundiya remains a leader, even if his field today is different. He is leading the battle for survival in Gaza, just as he once led the Palestinian national team in the most difficult matches.

    Featured image supplied

    By Alaa Shamali

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Greens co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick barred from NZ Parliament for rest of week after fiery Gaza speech

    By Craig McCulloch, RNZ News acting political editor

    New Zealand Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick has been ejected from Parliament’s debating chamber and told to leave for the rest of the week after a fiery speech about the war in Gaza.

    The incident occured during an urgent debate this afternoon which was called after the coalition government’s announcement that it would come to a formal decision in September over whether to recognise the state of Palestine.

    As Swarbrick came to the end of her contribution, she challenged coalition MPs to back her member’s bill allowing New Zealand to apply sanctions on Israel “for its war crimes”.

    Green co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick asked to leave Parliament after Gaza speech   Video: Parliament TV

    “If we find six of 68 government MPs with a spine, we can stand on the right side of history,” Swarbrick said.

    Almost immediately, Speaker Gerry Brownlee condemned the remark as “completely unacceptable” and demanded she “withdraw it and apologise”.

    Swarbrick shot back a curt — “no” — prompting Brownlee to order her out of the chamber for the remainder of the week.

    “Happily,” Swarbrick said, as she rose to leave.

    Green Party whip Ricardo Menéndez March later stood to question the severity of punishment, saying Parliament’s rules suggested Swarbrick should be barred for no more than a day.

    Brownlee later clarified that Swarbrick could come back to the debating chamber on Wednesday, but only if she agreed to withdraw and apologise.

    “If she doesn’t, then she’ll be leaving the House again,” he said.

    “I’m not going to sit in this chair and tolerate a member standing on her feet . . .  and saying that other members of this House are spineless.”

    ‘What the hell is the point?’ — Swarbrick
    Speaking outside the debating chamber, Swarbrick described the ruling as “ridiculous” and the punishment excessive.

    “As far as the robust debate goes in that place, I think that was pretty mild in the context of the war crimes that are currently unfolding.”

    She drew a comparison with comments made by former prime minister Sir John Key in 2015 when he challenged the opposition to “get some guts”.

    Swarbrick said she was tired and angry at the massacre of human beings.

    “What the hell is the point of everything that we do if the people in my place, in my job don’t do their job?” she said.

    “If we allow other human beings to be just mercilessly slaughtered, to be shot while waiting for food aid, what hope is there for humanity?”

    Swarbrick was not the only MP to run afoul of the Speaker during today’s debate.

    Earlier, Labour MP Damien O’Connor was told to either exit the chamber or apologise after interjecting while Foreign Minister Winston Peters was speaking. O’Connor stood and left.

    Brownlee also demanded ACT MP Simon Court say sorry — which he did — after Court accused Swarbrick of “hallucinating outrage”.

    Government urges caution, opposition demands action
    In his speech, Court said any recognition of a Palestinian state must be conditional on all Israeli hostages being returned and Hamas being disarmed and dismantled.

    “Security must come before politics,” he said.

    No National MPs spoke during the urgent debate.

    Peters — who is also NZ First leader — told MPs the matter of Palestinian statehood was not a straightforward or clear-cut issue.

    “There are strong opinions on both sides,” he said. “That is why we are approaching this issue carefully, judiciously and calmly.”

    Peters also took umbrage with the opposition’s complaints, pointing out Labour never moved on the matter when it was in government.

    In a 10 minute speech, Labour foreign affairs spokesperson Peeni Henare said New Zealand was being left behind as the coalition walked into a “sunset of denial”.

    “How many more people will suffer and how many more people will die?”

    ‘Despicable’ justifications
    Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer told MPs it was “despicable” to hear the justifications for another month’s delay.

    “What will be left? Rubble? Martyred spirits? What is that you want to have left in a month’s time?” she said. “I have never been more ashamed to be in the House than I am today.”

    In her speech, Swarbrick told MPs libraries of evidence demonstrated that the events unfolding in Palestine were “ethnic cleansing… apartheid [and]… genocide”.

    “We are a laggard, we are an outlier,” she said. “We are one of the very few countries in the world who so far refuse to acknowledge the absolute bare minimum.”

    Earlier, during Parliament’s Question Time, ACT leader and Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour objected to Swarbrick having a Palestinian scarf, or keffiyeh, draped across her seat.

    “I invite you to consider what this House might look like if everybody who had an interest in a global conflict started adorning their seats with symbols of one side or another of a conflict,” he said.

    “I think that would bring the House into disrepute and no member should be allowed to do such a thing.”

    Brownlee said Seymour raised a good point, only for Swarbrick to then wrap the scarf around her neck.

    “Oh, here we go,” he said. “Well, stay warm. We’ll move on now.”

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Journalist Anas Al-Sharif’s Final Message Released After Israel Assassinates Him

    This is my will and my final message. If these words reach you, know that Israel has succeeded in killing me and silencing my voice. First, peace be upon you and Allah’s mercy and blessings.

    Allah knows I gave every effort and all my strength to be a support and a voice for my people, ever since I opened my eyes to life in the alleys and streets of the Jabalia refugee camp. My hope was that Allah would extend my life so I could return with my family and loved ones to our original town of occupied Asqalan (Al-Majdal). But Allah’s will came first, and His decree is final. I have lived through pain in all its details, tasted suffering and loss many times, yet I never once hesitated to convey the truth as it is, without distortion or falsification.

    The post Journalist Anas Al-Sharif’s Final Message Released After Israel Assassinates Him appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Norway’s Wealth Fund Divests From 11 of 61 Stakes in Israeli Companies

    Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the largest in the world, has divested from some Israeli companies after a newspaper uncovered the fund’s stake in an Israeli jet engine firm that provides parts for Israel’s military. The $2 trillion fund, owned by Norway’s government, announced on Monday that it has sold out its investments in 11 of 61 Israeli companies as of the first half of 2025.

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • ‘Do not forget Gaza… and do not forget me’: Anas al-Sharif’s final message to the world before Israel killed him

    The following statement was written by Palestinian journalist Anas al-Sharif and published posthumously on his X account after al-Sharif was assassinated by Israeli forces on Sunday, August 10. “Sharif, one of Al Jazeera’s most recognisable faces in Gaza, was killed while inside a tent for journalists outside al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City on Sunday night,” The Guardian reports. “Seven people were killed in the attack, including the Al Jazeera correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh and the camera operators Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal and Moamen Aliwa, according to the Qatar-based broadcaster.”

    This is my will and my final message. If these words reach you, know that Israel has succeeded in killing me and silencing my voice. First, peace be upon you and Allah’s mercy and blessings.

    Allah knows I gave every effort and all my strength to be a support and a voice for my people, ever since I opened my eyes to life in the alleys and streets of the Jabalia refugee camp. My hope was that Allah would extend my life so I could return with my family and loved ones to our original town of occupied Asqalan (Al-Majdal). But Allah’s will came first, and His decree is final. I have lived through pain in all its details, tasted suffering and loss many times, yet I never once hesitated to convey the truth as it is, without distortion or falsification—so that Allah may bear witness against those who stayed silent, those who accepted our killing, those who choked our breath, and whose hearts were unmoved by the scattered remains of our children and women, doing nothing to stop the massacre that our people have faced for more than a year and a half.

    I entrust you with Palestine—the jewel in the crown of the Muslim world, the heartbeat of every free person in this world. I entrust you with its people, with its wronged and innocent children who never had the time to dream or live in safety and peace. Their pure bodies were crushed under thousands of tons of Israeli bombs and missiles, torn apart and scattered across the walls.

    I urge you not to let chains silence you, nor borders restrain you. Be bridges toward the liberation of the land and its people, until the sun of dignity and freedom rises over our stolen homeland. I entrust you to take care of my family. I entrust you with my beloved daughter Sham, the light of my eyes, whom I never got the chance to watch grow up as I had dreamed.

    I entrust you with my dear son Salah, whom I had wished to support and accompany through life until he grew strong enough to carry my burden and continue the mission.

    I entrust you with my beloved mother, whose blessed prayers brought me to where I am, whose supplications were my fortress and whose light guided my path. I pray that Allah grants her strength and rewards her on my behalf with the best of rewards.

    I also entrust you with my lifelong companion, my beloved wife, Umm Salah (Bayan), from whom the war separated me for many long days and months. Yet she remained faithful to our bond, steadfast as the trunk of an olive tree that does not bend—patient, trusting in Allah, and carrying the responsibility in my absence with all her strength and faith.

    I urge you to stand by them, to be their support after Allah Almighty. If I die, I die steadfast upon my principles. I testify before Allah that I am content with His decree, certain of meeting Him, and assured that what is with Allah is better and everlasting.

    O Allah, accept me among the martyrs, forgive my past and future sins, and make my blood a light that illuminates the path of freedom for my people and my family. Forgive me if I have fallen short, and pray for me with mercy, for I kept my promise and never changed or betrayed it.

    Do not forget Gaza… And do not forget me in your sincere prayers for forgiveness and acceptance.

    Anas Jamal Al-Sharif
    06.04.2025

    This post was originally published on The Real News Network.

  • Israel Using Children in Gaza as “Target Practice,” UK Doctor Says

    Israeli soldiers are using teenage boys near U.S.- and Israeli-backed “aid” sites in Gaza as “target practice,” according to a British doctor who recently provided care in the Palestinian territory. Nick Maynard, a consultant surgeon at Oxford University hospital, has said in recent interviews with Zeteo and other media that he and other doctors in Gaza have noted a pattern of injuries in…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Educational AI Risks Becoming an Authoritarian Vehicle for Thought Control

    Imagine you are a student in a U.S. public school classroom in the year 2030. You hear of this concept called “critical race theory” and want to learn more, so you ask your AI instructor to give you some information. It replies that it cannot tell you about this idea because it’s a dangerous and banned piece of information. You press further and the AI concedes: Okay, I’ll tell you about critical…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Israel Kills Famous Gaza Reporter Anas Al-Sharif in Targeted Strike

    The Israeli military killed five journalists in a targeted strike in Gaza on Sunday, including celebrated reporter Anas al-Sharif, who was hailed as the “voice” of Palestinians in Gaza. Israel struck the journalists’ tent outside of al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City Sunday evening. The journalists worked for Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera identified those killed as correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Bono fools no one with his ‘pompous, insincere’ message on Israel’s genocide in Gaza

    U2 singer Bono says that “uncertainty in the face of obvious complexity” long held him back from commenting on Israel’s crimes in Palestine. (It didn’t stop him taking Israel’s side, apparently.) But as more and more experts call the apartheid state’s assault on Gaza genocide, a ‘pompous, insincere’ message from Bono has impressed few.

    Back in 2023, human rights expert Craig Mokhiber called Gaza the “most clear-cut case of genocide I have seen in my career”. Legal expert Francesca Albanese, meanwhile, has set out just how straightforward the ‘Israel-Palestine conflict’ is, saying:

    There is an unlawful occupier [Israel], and an occupied people in perpetuity [Palestinians]. There is a state [Israel] that continues to advance what has the hallmark of settler-colonial practices, and it’s committing international crimes.

    And there were some good bits in Bono’s statement. They were just sprinkled lightly into a sandwich of Israeli propaganda.

    Bono: ‘calculated, man-made evil’

    Bono’s 10 August statement said:

    The images of starving children on the Gaza Strip brought me back to a working trip to a food station in Ethiopia my wife Ali and I made 40 years ago next month following U2’s participation in Live Aid 1985. Another man-made famine.

    He added:

    when the loss of non-combatant life en masse appears so calculated… especially the deaths of children, then ‘evil’ is not a hyperbolic adjective

    While he didn’t explicitly say ‘Israeli forces have manufactured famine and murdered civilians in a calculated manner’, his message implied that.

    He also clarified that Palestinian people:

    have for decades endured and continue to endure marginalization, oppression, occupation, and the systematic stealing of the land that is rightfully theirs.

    And he called out wanted war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu, stressing that:

    There is no justification for the brutality he and his far right government have inflicted on the Palestinian people… in Gaza… in the West Bank. And not just since October 7, well before it too… though the level of depravity and lawlessness we are seeing now feels like uncharted territory.

    Finally, he promised U2 would donate to Medical Aid For Palestinians.

    If he’d left it at that, it would have been a decent statement, recognising Israel’s brutality and depravity against Palestinians in a context of decades of oppression. But he didn’t. And it all went downhill from there.

    The propaganda sandwich

    Bono consistently treated Israelis as somehow more important than Palestinians. For example, he started his statement with a focus on 7 October 2023, and only got around to mentioning Israel starving Palestinian children in paragraph *five*. He also failed to mention the vast number of children Israel has slaughtered (over 18,000 – or around one child per hour for the last 22 months.)

    The singer then dropped in the controversial allegation of rape on 7 October, while failing to highlight the evidence of Israel systematically using rape as a weapon of war. And he said Palestinian fighters had “butchered” Israelis (a word he didn’t use for Israel’s murder of Palestinians) in order to “set a diabolical trap for Israel”. A trap. What about Israel’s brutal blockade of Gaza for many years before 2023? Or Israel’s longstanding general oppression of Palestinians? Or the gradual destruction of the peace process and ‘two-state solution’? Would they be traps too, pushing Palestinians to act? For Bono, apparently not.

    Perhaps most ridiculously and insultingly, Bono said 7 October sought to “sow the seeds for a global intifada that U2 had glimpsed at work in Paris during the Bataclan attack in 2015”. With the latter, he was referring to a terrorist attack that had little to do with Palestine and which Palestinian resistance leaders had openly condemned; but he still chose to use the word ‘intifada’, which is normally used in the context of the Palestinian struggle against Israeli occupation.

    For good measure, he added the allegation that “Hamas had deliberately positioned themselves under civilian targets”. But unsurprisingly, he was silent about Israel allowing civilians to live and party on the border of Gaza – “the world’s largest open-air prison” – and Israel’s systematic use of human shields.

    Still a cheerleader for Israel… just a bit less cheery

    Many people suggested remaining low key on the issue would have been better than what Bono came up with:

    Bono happily jumped into the ‘diabolical trap’ of a ‘both sides’ argument, masking the reality of Israel’s colonial oppression and Palestine’s anti-colonial resistance by underplaying Israeli power and overplaying Palestinians’. Israel has been unilaterally decimating Gaza with Western support for 22 months, but Bono still thinks “a cessation of hostilities on both sides” is the right message to put out.

    Maybe he should listen more to bandmate The Edge, who insisted that Israel’s “ethnic cleansing” and “colonial genocide” would never bring peace. Because as he rightly said:

    We know from our own experience in Ireland that peace is not made through dominance.
    Peace is made when people sit down with their opponents—when they recognise the equal dignity of all, even those they once feared or despised.

    There can be no peace without justice. No reconciliation without recognition. And no future unless we refuse to let the past be repeated.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Ed Sykes

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Palestine is a disability justice issue – so why are we not calling it that?

    Note: When we refer to ‘disabled people’ in this article, we mean the full spectrum of disability including physically disabled people, people with long-term conditions, people with lived experience of mental ill health, distress and trauma, people with learning difficulties and disabilities, and more. We use the term ‘disabled people’ as this is the more accepted term in the UK rather than ‘people with disabilities’.

    As the world finally begins to speak out about the genocide in Palestine, UK organisations led by disabled people remain largely quiet. We understand that this stance can be explained away with many reasonable justifications, given the context in which Deaf and Disabled People’s Organisations (DDPOs) currently work: typically UK-based, DDPOs are geographically organised and focus on local issues. Importantly, we, as disabled people, are also in the middle of an assault on our own right to life that has taken up a lot of finite energy.

    However, it is important to recognise that some of these same organisations did speak out about the situation in Ukraine. Meanwhile, the genocide in Palestine has been named a mass-disabling event, and has been one of the single-most significant breaches of the UNCRPD in living history. The Israeli army has been using deliberate disablement as a weapon of war and while their tactical decimation of Gaza’s healthcare system, withholding of medical aid and vital food supplies has a lethal impact on everyone in Gaza, the consequences on disabled people are exponential.

    Where’s the solidarity with Palestine from Deaf and Disabled People’s Organisations

    We are two people of colour who have been actively involved in the disabled people’s movement for a long time; we have worked in, and with DDPOs for over fifteen years respectively, one us is Palestinian, and both of us are Disabled.

    To us, it is especially disappointing to see that organisations who claim to uphold the principles of ‘Disability Justice’ have not only failed to recognise the importance of Palestine to their members, but have also failed to work to publicly recognise the disproportionate impact of the ongoing genocide on disabled Palestinians, as is happening in other sectors.

    As disabled people whose government is one of the most complicit in this genocide, it is incumbent upon us to step up our organising. As user-led organisations, it is time to start living the ten principles of Disability Justice: intersectionality, collective liberation, anti-capitalist politics, and cross-movement solidarity, to name just four.

    Even more importantly, it is time for our representative organisations to start doing the work that they have largely avoided – drawing explicit links between the genocide and apartheid in Palestine, and the roll-back of disabled people’s rights in the UK. We start a lot of that work in this article.

    The reality in Palestine

    In just six months between October 2023 and April 2024, the Israeli army dropped 70,000 tonnes of explosives on Gaza, which surpasses the number of bombs dropped on Dresden, Hamburg, and London throughout the entirety of WWII combined, although Gaza is a fraction of the size of London alone. The bombardment has hardly let up since, and to date 60,000 Palestinians have been reported killed, based on deaths recorded at hospitals only and not counting bodies beneath the rubble.

    Studies looking at the true number of Palestinians killed such as this Lancet model estimates death count to be at 186,000. A study published via Harvard Dataverse, as well as a separate calculation, predict that the number of dead Palestinians could be more than 400,000. This is in addition to the many thousands that have been wounded, and nearly all 2.1 million people in Gaza being displaced. In the occupied West Bank, Palestinians experience apartheid, displacement, and increasingly, murders by Israeli settlers and the Israeli army, many of whom, even when caught on video, are released. Since October 2023, over 1,000 Palestinians in the West Bank have been killed, 200 of them children.

    The famine is no accident

    It also feels important to say that Gazans are not experiencing an accidental famine; they are being forcibly starved by Israel. The BBC reported that there are 6,000 trucks of aid waiting to enter Gaza – each carrying an estimated 20 tonnes of life-saving aid.

    There is not one part of Gazan society that hasn’t suffered – read more from OCHA here.

    Since as early as November 2023, it has felt clear to us that the Israeli army has been committing war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, and given the mounting evidence, this seems to be the only reasonable conclusion to draw. Genocide scholars and international law experts agree with this conclusion.

    Impact on disabled Palestinians

    For many of us born or raised in the West, living through a war or conflict feels incomprehensible, especially if we are disabled. While many of us face barriers in our everyday lives to access the same rights as our non-disabled counterparts, these conditions are especially exacerbated in times of war and conflict.

    Disabled people are usually the first to be harmed and often suffer more complex consequences in these times. The situation in Gaza is so catastrophic that it feels perverse to talk about gradations of inequality; and yet we must try and find a way to name the disabled experience.

    OHCHR reports that disabled Palestinians are at a higher risk of dying, becoming injured, or acquiring further impairments. International law protects disabled people in armed conflict, but there have been myriad reports and evidence presented by UN agencies and human rights-based organisations which evidence the innumerable ways in which the Israeli government and Israeli armed forces have repeatedly failed to meet their obligations to disabled people under international law.

    Israel demolishes everything disabled people need to live

    In Gaza, if you can’t hear the bombers overhead, or if you can’t move around independently, then it becomes much harder to find a place of safety. The lack of accessible advance warning on bombardment (if given at all) and no accessible evacuation routes puts disabled people at great risk, with many disabled people, alongside their families who refused to leave them, having been killed in their homes due to these failures.

    While displacement is often a significant civilian experience in conflict zones, in Gaza, this has been unprecedented, with 90% of the population being displaced, some as many as 20 times, and 92% of buildings having been damaged or destroyed – let us remind you here that targeting civilian infrastructure is illegal under international law. In a report from Human Rights Watch on the experience of disabled Palestinian children, Ghazal, a 14-year-old disabled girl told us:

    From the day the war broke out, they destroyed what was inside us. They demolished my house and my room, which held all my memories. They took everything that helped me to live, like my devices, my boot and my wheelchair. How can I go back to how I was without all this?

    As Ghazal told us: for disabled people, with the destruction of their homes also goes all familiarity, coping mechanisms, wellness, and life-saving routines and aids. We know as disabled people that where we keep our equipment, how we take our medication, the food we have access to and the strict rules by which we need to live become impossible amidst the complete chaos of continued forced displacement or bombed-out homes.

    Stories we must honour

    Alongside these realities are some incredibly harrowing personal stories of disabled people intentionally targeted by the Israeli army. Some of us may remember the story of Mohammed Bhar, diagnosed with Downs Syndrome and Autism. Information from Islamic Relief told us that:

    Mohammad, 24, was killed during Israel’s recent attack on the Shujaiya neighbourhood of Gaza City, where he and his family lived. Mohammad’s mother, Nabila, told Islamic Relief that Israeli soldiers forced their way into the family’s home and the military dog started mauling a terrified Mohammad, tearing at his body as he screamed in agony and pleaded for the attack to stop. With Mohammad severely bleeding, the Israeli soldiers moved him to another room on his own, despite the fact that his illness meant his family was usually with him for support at all times. The soldiers refused to allow Mohammad’s mother or sister to enter the room to comfort him or bring him water, and shortly afterwards forced the women to leave the house at gunpoint while he was still alive. Mohammad was left alone in the dark room, critically wounded, scared and thirsty, until he died. His body was only recovered a week later when the Israeli military withdrew and his family and neighbours were able to rush to the house to find his remains

    Or there’s the horrific case of Ali Jouda, who is a seventy-six-year-old man from Gaza who has late-stage Dementia. Ali went missing in May 2024, and his family believed him to be killed. They have since discovered that Ali is in prison, kidnapped without charge by the Israeli army who refused to release him because he was unable to identify himself. A member of his family told us:

    We have had a solicitor go to the prison to identify him and confirm he has dementia. The IOF said they would release him within the next lot of prisoners. That was 3 months ago and several prisoners have been released since.

    One of many stories carrying a universe of meaning

    They went on to explain that:

    My mother-in-law has lived her entire life witnessing extreme Israeli abuse and torture. She knows first-hand what they are capable of and knows her beloved is in their hands. They have lived their entire life together, and while he has late-stage dementia, he has never forgotten her. People from that generation have accepted they will die in Gaza, they just want to be able to die together.

    Early on in this genocide, they were forced at gunpoint to leave their home in Gaza City, and after being moved around, and ended up in Dier al-Balah. The only things Ali could remember at that time were his Mosque and his home, both of which had been razed to the ground. He was constantly saying he wanted to go home, and it was very difficult for the family to find a way to explain to him that it wasn’t possible.

    Imagine how difficult it would be to try and keep someone safe who has no understanding of what is happening when the slightest wrong move can have you killed. Of course they were all watching Ali very closely, but when you are also having to watch out for bombs, and snipers, and the chance to grab some desperately needed food or water, it’s not easy to also keep down a fully grown man with a strong personality.

    I imagine he went looking for his home, or maybe more likely his mosque; he would have had no idea that he could no longer cross certain lines or walk freely through the Gaza Strip. The family searched for him for months, and were repeatedly shot at, so we had to convince them to stop for their own safety. They spent months accepting that he might be dead – imagine mentally going through all of that, and then finding out he was alive and was being tortured for not having the ability to remember who he is.

    Ali’s story is unfortunately one of many.

    While each Palestinian person’s individual story carries within it a whole universe of meaning which we must honour, we must also talk about the systemic impact of the actions of the Israeli government. When we talk about mass starvation, blockades of vital medical supplies, of blocking life-saving aid and medical evacuations, we don’t often hear Disability Justice mentioned. But the truth is, these are all Disability Justice issues – and it is our belief that Israeli military policy in Gaza systematically targets disabled people, while also making disablement a weapon of war.

    Deliberate disablement of Palestinians

    Palestinians have experienced disablement en masse as the Israeli army continues its bombardment – the use of explosive weaponry in densely populated civilian areas result in fractures, peripheral nerve injuries, amputations, spinal cord injuries, traumatic brain injuries, crush injuries and burns, with gunshot wounds also common. The collapse of the healthcare system, impact of continued starvation and the ongoing siege mean that many injuries sustained lead to complications and disease – leading to further disablement or suffering caused by complications. Again, these are not just the unfortunate consequence of war. Civilian homes are targeted, medical care has been decimated, and even the artificial limb factory in Gaza was bombed by Israel. Save the Children estimated that during 2024, every day in Gaza, 15 children were left with life-long impairments. This is alongside the classroom of children that are estimated to be killed daily.

    It is well-documented that the Israeli army has long been carrying out the deliberate maiming and disablement of Palestinians. Between 2007 – 2017, the rate of disabled people grew by 50%, while during the peaceful protests that became known as ‘the Great March of Return’ in 2018, a call for Israel to lift it’s illegal 11-year blockade of Gaza, 200 people were killed. In addition, 29,000 people were injured in one year, many shot by snipers in the knees.

    The largest number of child amputees in recorded history

    Amnesty International suggest that the Israeli army was already “intentionally trying to inflict life-changing injuries” on Palestinians, reporting that military experts show that the Israeli army were using high-velocity weapons designed to cause maximum damage to peaceful Palestinian protestors between 2018-2019.

    More recently, since October 2023, there are more child amputees in Gaza than anywhere in the world, with UNICEF estimating between 3,000-4,000 child amputees alone, and many of them having undergone amputations without anaesthesia due to Israel’s intentional blockade of Gaza, a reality that has haunted us for months.

    This is the largest cohort of child amputees in recorded history; many of them have more than one missing limb and all of them will need medical care and repeated operations as their bodies grow. Small numbers have made it to other countries for medical care, but the UK has refused to take in injured children from Gaza, other than those privately funded by Project Pure Hope, though this is reportedly set to change.

    Systemic torture causes mass disablement

    B’Tselem, a well-respected Israeli human rights organisation, recently released a report Welcome to Hell which documents physical and psychological abuse, absence and denial of medical treatment, and starvation in Israeli prisons and “network of torture camps”. Systematic torture causes disablement, poor conditions, and denied access to healthcare causes disablement.

    Keeping disabled Palestinians, as in the case of Ali Jouda, in detention causes untold terror and suffering. The Israeli Prison Service reports that they hold over 9,000 Palestinians including 113 children, but reports on ‘blacksite’ detention centres potentially increase the figure by hundreds.

    It feels impossible to find the right words to honour the fortitude of Palestinians, but it is important not to ignore the life-changing impact of the occupation and genocide on the mental health of Palestinians. A 2020 study found that half of the children in Gaza already had PTSD due to the impact of living through Israel’s occupation, and now the IRC reports that there are 17,000 unaccompanied children in Gaza, who have lost entire families, or have been separated from their parents, each one carrying their own story of trauma and loss.

    We wonder if Amir, the young boy who walked 12km barefoot just to find food, before being fatally shot at a ‘Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’ aid distribution site was one of them? Those 17,000 are not a statistic, each of them fiercely and beautifully human as any of the children we hold dear.

    Entrenched trauma from ritual humiliation and collective punishment

    Doctor Samah Jabr, chair of the Palestinian ministry of health’s mental health unit told us that trauma in Palestine is so deep, so entrenched, and so inseparable from the ritual humiliation and collective punishment meted out against Palestinians by the Israeli occupation, that it forces us to re-think Western approaches to mental health altogether.

    Doctor Gabor Maté confirmed that:

    the truth is, the Palestinians have been oppressed and suppressed and murdered and controlled and dispossessed for decades. That’s just the truth. There’s no post-traumatic stress disorder here, because the trauma is never post.

    When Gaza is rebuilt for Gazans, it will have to be the most accessible place on Earth, in every way.

    Starvation as disablement

    Currently, many more Palestinians in the besieged Gaza strip are dying from starvation due to an Israeli blockade of all food, medicines, water, and fuel. While the most recent blockade has been the most serious, disabled people in Gaza have been dying from malnutrition, and lack of access to specialist food, treatment, and aid for months. Some readers may remember the distressing images of Fadi who nearly starved to death due to the lack of specialist food available to meet his needs. Some commentators tried to justify and excuse his starvation because of his underlying health condition, as if disabled people are somehow less valuable.

    Today, the forced starvation has been described as a disaster and “unlike anything we have seen in this century” according to the World Food Programme. By December 2023, Gazans accounted for 80% of all people in the world experiencing catastrophic hunger, though global starvation statistics have changed dramatically, with millions facing humanitarian crisis in Sudan and Congo.

    Starving to death has been described by an emergency doctor working in Gaza as one of the most:

    undignified and barbaric ways to kill…it is intended to be protracted and maximise suffering.

    For those who don’t die of starvation itself, bodily shutdown will make them more susceptible to disease. And those survive this horror do not survive without consequence. As the Bengal famine taught us, bodies that have adapted to starvation produce far-reaching, intergenerational consequences on long-term health and disablement in future generations, as well as our own.

    Systemic targeting of disabled people

    There is increasing evidence of the systemic targeting of journalists, healthcare workers, teachers, and children, but very few people have spoken about the blockade and systematic targeting of the healthcare system in Gaza as a deliberate assault on the right to life of disabled Palestinians.

    Let us be clear – the decimation of a healthcare system is a Disability Justice issue.

    Since October 2023, the World Health Organisation has recorded 697 attacks on healthcare in Gaza, reporting that at least 94% of all hospitals are damaged or destroyed as of 22 May 2025, and only 6% of Gaza’s health infrastructure is functional. Hospitals and healthcare workers are protected under international law, making it illegal to attack them, and yet OCHA have confirmed that 1400 healthcare workers have been killed.

    The documentary ‘Doctors Under Attack’ aired on Channel 4 after being banned from airing on the BBC, shows how healthcare workers and their families have been intentionally, systematically murdered, kidnapped and held at Israeli detention ‘blacksites’.

    In 2020, Human Rights Watch reported that over a decade of Israeli restrictions on Gaza, including access to assistive devices, inadequate access to electricity to power devices and aids, harms disabled people in Palestine. It has become increasingly clear that this is not just an unfortunate consequence of war but that disabled Palestinians are particularly targeted alongside other groups.

    Israel’s intentional siege, which includes electricity and running water, means that life-saving medical equipment (if salvaged from the wreckage) could not run anyway, while medical equipment and essential medicines, including insulin, are also blocked from entering Gaza.

    Why this matters for disabled people in the UK

    There is a very basic argument to be made here, that as global citizens, as human beings, we should care about the fate of Palestinians. Moreover, solidarity doesn’t need to be conditional or transactional. We know that many of our colleagues who work in DDPOs care deeply. What we are calling for is a shift in the politics and leadership of disabled-led organisations at an institutional level to recognise that what is happening in Palestine is a Disability Justice issue, relevant to our organisations for all the reasons (and many more) outlined above.

    The disabled peoples’ movement emerged from a deep understanding that societies in which human rights are accepted as conditional are almost always the first to diminish the rights of disabled people. Collective liberation of all who face dehumanisation is essential to the shared survival of all of us who deviate from the ‘norm’.

    The fates of those of us who are forced to live on the margins – who face state-sanctioned violence merely for existing – must understand that Palestine is currently the most important frontier on which our shared fight against oppression and dehumanisation is fought. We’ve already experienced examples of harassment of disabled people in the UK by supporters of the genocide. Recently, GB News aired a discussion about starving or even shooting Disabled benefits claimants.

    The rallying cry ‘Welfare not Warfare’ is not enough alone

    When Francesca Albanese, UN Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, speaks out against genocide and faces sanctions from the USA over naming literal war criminals – what credibility is left when the UN speaks out about crimes against disabled people in the UK? When the UN system is undermined by governmental disregard for international law and is prevented from doing its work, then it can no longer speak on anyone’s behalf.

    In recent years the UN has made important interventions for disabled people in the UK, such as finding that the government was guilty of “grave and systematic violations” of disabled people’s rights. More recently, the UN raised concerns about the impact of planned changes to Universal Credit. So our fates are deeply intertwined, because the culture of dehumanisation, the degradation of legal protections, the de-sensitisation to suffering – is coming for all of us.

    We see already in the UK that the right to protest, so critical to many of the gains by the disabled people’s movement over the years, is being rolled back and that direct action is being conflated with terrorism. We know that improvements to our rights don’t come from policy briefs and sanitised disagreement alone, and that direct action forms an important part of bringing about change and upholding people’s rights.

    The reality is that today, the protest tactics of the Disability Action Network would be outlawed by the government, and this reality undermines all our rights. These connections are even more literal and visceral when we understand that the UK government is deeply implicated in aiding and abetting the genocide.

    Solidarity with Palestine is central to the work of disability politics

    The government has prioritised spending on warmongering and instead proposed yet more dramatic cuts to the welfare state after years of austerity, a link that the Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) and allies’ campaign ‘welfare not warfare’ perfectly captures.

    In the UK, many passionate disabled people have been speaking out and visibly protesting against the genocide because they have understood that this is a Disability Justice, and grave human rights issue. However, at an institutional level, apart from an early solidarity statement from Disability Rights UK (DRUK), which was one of the first to be made by any UK-charity, most of our representative organisations have chosen to remain in complicit silence.

    Maybe they’re worried about what the Charity Commission or their funders might say, or they’re worried about the future of their service delivery. However, speaking out for disabled Palestinians, advocating for support of the UN, and maintaining a deep clarity in the leadership of our organisations, whether we usually speak out about international issues or not, is absolutely central to the work of disability politics and is integral to all our missions to achieve justice for all disabled people.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Lyla Adwan-Kamara and Aman Ahluwalia-Hinrichs

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Chris Smalls’s Gaza Mission Part of Long History of Black-Palestinian Solidarity

    “Black and Brown [people] always stood together in struggles from the beginning of time,” said Christian Smalls, explaining his pro-Palestinian activism. The Amazon Labor Union leader spoke to me on July 24, 2025, from the Handala, a ship bound for Gaza bearing medical supplies and baby formula. “Palestinians, they are right in our communities. They are our brothers and sisters…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Israel assassinates ‘voice of Gaza,’ Al Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif

    This story originally appeared in Mondoweiss on Aug. 11, 2025. It is shared here with permission.

    The Israeli army assassinated Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif and several of his colleagues on Sunday in a targeted airstrike on a journalists’ tent outside al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. The strike has effectively wiped out the entire staff of Al Jazeera in Gaza City, claiming the lives of one child and six journalists, including Al Jazeera correspondent Muhammad Qreiqeh.

    Widely celebrated as the “voice of Gaza,” al-Sharif’s assassination comes after months of incitement against him and puts an end to his coverage ahead of an expected Israeli invasion of Gaza City. The Israeli army has reportedly given Gaza City residents until October 7 to evacuate, when the Israeli army plans to invade northern Gaza as part of its stated plan of conquering the entire Strip.

    Al-Sharif and Qreiqeh each have two children. Both stayed behind in northern Gaza as their families fled south when Israel forcibly displaced the population at the beginning of the genocide in late 2023.

    Shortly after the airstrike that killed al-Sharif and his colleagues, the Israeli army released a statement claiming that al-Sharif was a member of Hamas and was responsible for “rocket attacks” on Israeli civilians and soldiers.

    The Israeli army claimed that “intelligence and documents from Gaza” allegedly “proved he was a Hamas operative.” 

    In October 2024, the Israeli army published the names of al-Sharif and five other journalists who it claimed were Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad fighters. One of those journalists, Drop Site contributor and Al Jazeera Mubasher correspondent Hossam Shabat, was assassinated on March 24, 2025. Another journalist on the “hit list” was Anas al-Sharif.

    Israel has killed 238 journalists in Gaza since the start of the genocide, the Gaza Government Media Office said in a statement on Monday. 

    “The targeting of journalists and media institutions is a full-fledged war crime that aims to silence the truth and erase evidence of the genocide,” the Media Office added, asserting that the latest assassination of al-Sharif is “a prelude” to the Israeli plan to carry out massacres in Gaza City.

    Relatives and colleagues of the Al Jazeera correspondents Anas al-Sharif and Mohamed Qraiqea, photojournalists Ibrahim Dahir and Moumin Alaywa, and assistant photojournalist Mohammed Noufal, mourn during the funeral ceremony on August 11, 2025 in Gaza City, Gaza. Photo by Yousef Al Zanoon/Anadolu via Getty Images

    ‘Their bodies burned alive’

    The killing of al-Sharif and Qreiqeh has led to the outpouring of widespread anger and grief among Palestinians and journalists in Gaza, who consider the assassination a direct message to all other journalists in the Strip. 

    Muhammad Qeqa, a journalist who witnessed the killing of his colleagues, stands in front of the tent while the blood is still on the ground. He tells Mondoweiss that he is not only a witness to the incident; he is a part of it. 

    “My feet are barely holding me up from what I witnessed,” he said. “So far, I can’t believe that I survived. I’m a part of this massacre.”  

    Qeqa was only 4 meters away from the tent when it was bombed. He was inside his tent right next to the one belonging to Al Jazeera. “I saw Anas’s body flying out of the tent as the bomb hit. I stepped away, because the fire was unbearable. Then I came back quickly to find Muhammad and Anas’s bodies burning alive.” 

     “I was documenting the incident, but at some point, I needed to rescue my colleagues. I put my phone away and tried to rescue Muhammad Qreiqeh, whose lower body was on fire. We pulled him out of the tent, but it was too late,” Qeqa said. 

    “This is a crime against us all as journalists in Gaza. Anas was our voice,” Qeqa continued. “History will not bring back anyone like him who carried his soul on his palm despite Israel’s threats against him and his family.” 

    Israeli incitement against al-Sharif

    In previous interviews for Anas Al-Sherif, he was clearly saying that there is an Israeli incitement campaign against him led by the Arabic Language Israeli spokesperson  Avichay Adraee and some fake accounts on social media. But he was not hesitating to stop his duty. 

    “Since October, 2023, there has been an Israeli campaign against me to stop my coverage of the news in northern Gaza,” al-Sharif said in an interview published online. 

    “I did not respond to these threats and kept fulfilling my duty,” he continued. “The army attempted to assassinate me several times, but by God’s grace,  I managed to survive. But the Israeli army kept carrying out its threats, bombing my home on December 11, 2023, killing my father.”

    Al-Sharif also confirmed that his family had received threatening calls on three separate occasions from the Israeli army to deter him from continuing coverage. “Despite these threats, I always consider my work as my duty, to convey the voices and the suffering of my people.”

    Al-Sharif’s last will and testament

    Aware that he would remain a target of the Israeli army, al-Sharif wrote his last will and testament in advance. It was published on his social media accounts following his assassination. Below are his final words:

    “This is my will and my final message. If these words reach you, know that Israel has succeeded in killing me and silencing my voice. First, peace be upon you and Allah’s mercy and blessings.

    Allah knows I gave every effort and all my strength to be a support and a voice for my people, ever since I opened my eyes to life in the alleys and streets of the Jabalia refugee camp. My hope was that Allah would extend my life so I could return with my family and loved ones to our original town of occupied Asqalan (Al-Majdal). But Allah’s will came first, and His decree is final. I have lived through pain in all its details, tasted suffering and loss many times, yet I never once hesitated to convey the truth as it is, without distortion or falsification—so that Allah may bear witness against those who stayed silent, those who accepted our killing, those who choked our breath, and whose hearts were unmoved by the scattered remains of our children and women, doing nothing to stop the massacre that our people have faced for more than a year and a half.

    I entrust you with Palestine—the jewel in the crown of the Muslim world, the heartbeat of every free person in this world. I entrust you with its people, with its wronged and innocent children who never had the time to dream or live in safety and peace. Their pure bodies were crushed under thousands of tons of Israeli bombs and missiles, torn apart and scattered across the walls.

    I urge you not to let chains silence you, nor borders restrain you. Be bridges toward the liberation of the land and its people, until the sun of dignity and freedom rises over our stolen homeland.”

    This post was originally published on The Real News Network.

  • Why Israel’s assassination of Al Jazeera’s Anas al-Sharif and crew threatens all journalists

    By David Robie, convenor of Pacific Media Watch

    I never knew Anas al-Sharif personally. But somehow he seemed to be part of our whānau.

    We watched so many of his reports from Gaza that it just appeared he would be always around keeping us up-to-date on the horrifying events in the besieged enclave.

    Although he actually worked for Al Jazeera Arabic, the 28-year-old was probably the best known Palestinian journalist in the Strip and many of his stories were translated into English.

    It is yet another despicable act by the Israeli military to assassinate him and four of his colleagues on the eve of launching their new mass crime to seize and demolish Gaza City with a population of about one million as part of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s pledge to occupy the whole of Gaza.

    In many ways the bravery of al-Sharif — he had warned several times that he was being targeted — was the embodiment of the Palestinian courage under fire when UNESCO awarded the 2024 World Press Freedom Award collectively to the Gazan journalists.

    But it wasn’t enough just to “murder” him and his colleagues — as the Al Jazeera channel proclaimed in red banner television headlines — Israel attempted unsuccessfully to try to smear him in death as a “Hamas platoon leader” without a shred of evidence.

    The drone attack late on Sunday night hit a journalists’ work tent near the main gate of Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital, killing seven people. Among those killed beside al-Sharif were fellow Al Jazeera correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh and camera operators Ibrahim Zaher, Moamen Aliwa and Mohammed Noufal.

    Call for UNSC emergency session
    Al Jazeera later said a sixth journalist, freelancer Mohammad al-Khaldi, was also killed in the strike. Reporters Without Borders said three more journalists had been wounded and called for a UN Security Council emergency session to discuss journalist safety.

    In a statement, the Qatar-based Al Jazeera Media Network condemned in “the strongest terms” the killing of its media staff in “yet another blatant and premeditated attack on press freedom”, noting that the Israeli occupation force had “admitted to their crimes”.

    “This attack comes amid the catastrophic consequences of the ongoing Israeli assault on Gaza, which has seen the relentless slaughter of civilians, forced starvation, and the obliteration of entire communities,” Al Jazeera said.

    “Anas and his colleagues were among the last remaining voices from within Gaza, providing the world with unfiltered, on-the-ground coverage of the devastating realities endured by its people.”

    Five Al Jazeera journalists killed in Gaza by Israel’s “psychopathic liar” — Marwan Bishara Video: Al Jazeera

    Ironically, the killings came hours after Netanyahu told media he had decided to “allow” some foreign journalists into the Gaza Strip.

    “In fact, we have decided, and I’ve ordered, directed the military, to bring in foreign journalists, more foreign journalists,” Netanyahu told a news conference in Jerusalem.

    Israeli authorities have in the past barred any foreign media from entering the Gaza Strip, while it has been deliberately targeting and killing local Palestinian journalists.

    Other attacks on Al Jazeera
    The deadly strike on Anas al-Sharif and his four colleagues is not the first attack on Al Jazeera journalists in Gaza since the start of Israel’s current war on the Palestinian territory in October 2023

    Israeli forces have previously killed five Al Jazeera journalists: Samer Abudaqa, Ismael al-Ghoul, Ahmed al-Louh, Hossam Shabat and Hamza Dahdouh, son of Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief, Wael Dahdouh, as well as many of the family members of Al Jazeera journalists.

    The Israeli military has been systematically killing journalists, photographers and local media workers in the Gaza Strip since the start of the war in an attempt to silence their reports.

    The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has verified the killing of at least 186 journalists since October 7, 2023. At least 90 journalists have been imprisoned by Israel.

    But some media freedom groups put the casualty figure even higher. The Government Media Office in Gaza, for example, reports that 242 journalists have been killed.

    The Israeli military have frequently accused journalists of being “terrorists” without evidence.

    According to Muhammad Shehada, a writer and analyst from Gaza, Anas al-Sharif was a “loved by everyone, by his entire community”.

    ‘Enormous influence’
    “He’s held enormous influence there, and that’s precisely why Israel murdered him.

    Shehada told Al Jazeera he had “looked into the allegations” that Israel produced, trying to smear him as a Hamas militant, adding that “the allegations were completely contradictory.” He added:

    “There’s zero evidence that al-Sharif took part in any hostilities, in any armed actions, aided or abetted any kind of these hostilities. None at all. His entire daily routine was standing in front of a camera from morning to evening.”

    An early Instagram report of the killing of the Gazan journalists
    An early Instagram report of the killing of the Gazan journalists . . . later updated to five Al Jazeera staff and a sixth journalist. Image: AJ

    Reporting from Amman, Jordan, because Israel banned Al Jazeera from reporting from inside Israeli territory and the occupied West Bank, Hoda Abdel-Hamid said: “When you read the statement issued by the Israeli army, which was well prepared before all this happened, it’s almost as if it is bragging about it.”

    It had been alleged by Israel that Anas al-Sharif was a member of the military wing of Hamas, and the army claimed that it had found documents in Gaza that proved their point.

    “It includes some links to content that anyone could have printed,” she said. “This has been going on for a few weeks, ever since Anas started reporting on the starvation in Gaza, and he had such a huge impact on the Arab world.

    “Immediately after, a spokesman for the Israeli army in Arabic… posted a video on social media, accusing al-Sharif of being a Hamas member and threatening him.”

    ‘Knew he was at serious risk’
    Abdel-Hamid said she had been going through his X feed.

    “He knew his life was at serious risk, and he repeatedly wrote that he was just a journalist, and he wanted his message to be spread widely, because he thought that was a way to protect him.”

    Posted on his X account in case he was killed was his “last will” and final message. He wrote in part:

    “I entrust you with Palestine — the jewel in the crown of the Muslim world, the heartbeat of every free person in this world. I entrust you with its people, with its wronged and innocent children who never had the time to dream or live in safety and peace.

    “Their pure bodies were crushed under thousands of tons of Israeli bombs and missiles, torn apart and scattered across the walls.

    “I urge you not to let chains silence you, nor borders restrain you. Be bridges toward the liberation of the land and its people, until the sun of dignity and freedom rises over our stolen homeland . . . “

    Jodie Ginsberg, chief executive for the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), said that last October Israel had accused al-Sharif and “a number of other journalists of being terrorists without providing any credible proof”.

    “We warned back then that this felt to us like a precursor to justify assassination, and, of course, last month… we saw again, a repeated smear campaign”, she told Al Jazeera.

    “This is not solely about Anas al-Sharif, this is part of a pattern that we have seen from Israel… going back decades, in which it kills journalists.”

    Accusations repeated
    Al-Sharif had warned last month about the starvation facing journalists — “and we saw then the accusations repeated.

    “Of course, now we are seeing a new offensive, plans for a new offensive, in Gaza, the kind of thing that Anas has been reporting on for the best part of three years.”

    The medical director of al-Shifa Hospital said that Israel had killed the journalists to prevent coverage of atrocities it intended to carry out in its Gaza City seizure.

    “The [Israeli] occupation is preparing for a major massacre in Gaza, but this time without sound or image,” Dr Mohammed Abu Salmiya told Turkiye’s Anadolu news agency.

    “It wants to kill and displace the largest number of Palestinians in Gaza City but this time in the absence of the voice of Anas, Mohamed, Al Jazeera and all satellite channels.”

    Assassinated Gazan journalist Anas al-Sharif
    Assassinated Gazan journalist Anas al-Sharif . . . “killed to prevent coverage of atrocities” Israel intends to carry out in its Gaza City seizure. Image: AJ screenshot APR

    ‘Fabrications don’t wash’
    Al Jazeera’s senior analyst Marwan Bishara warned that “Israel’s lies” about al-Sharif endangered journalists everywhere, saying that the “best response to the killing of our colleagues is by continuing to do what we do”.

    “I want to correct one thing [about Western media reports], and I need our viewers and readers around the world to pay attention:

    “It doesn’t matter whether what Israel said about al-Sharif is correct or not.

    “It’s an absolute fabrication. It’s wrong. But it doesn’t matter.

    “Because if every American journalist who served in Iraq and Afghanistan would have been killed because there’s a suspicion that they worked for the CIA; if every French and British journalist would be killed because they work for the MI5 or something like that, then I think there will be no Western journalists working in the Middle East.

    “It’s not OK to kill a journalist in a tent of journalists because you accuse him of something.

    “If you accuse him of something, you take him to court, you make a complaint, you follow certain procedures, with the network, with the [International Federation of Journalists], and so on and so forth.

    “You don’t kill a journalist who has been doing their job for months on, day in, day out, night and day, and claim later that they work for Hamas.

    “That doesn’t wash.

    “It’s wrong, it’s a lie, it’s a fabrication as usual, but this psychopathic liar should not get away with killing a journalist and simply attaching an accusation to it.

    “It doesn’t wash, because otherwise, every single Western journalist covering a war that a Western government is involved in is going to be a target.

    “Why?

    “Because Israel has done it.”

    In January 2024, three months into the war, I wrote an article for Declassified Australia about “Silencing the messenger” when I made the point that while “Israel killed journalists, the West merely censored them”.

    I wrote that it was time for journalists to take a moral stand for truth and justice, and although I expected a strong response, the feedback was merely tepid. It was as if Western journalists did not comprehend the enormity of the Gaza crisis facing the world.

    It is shameful that New Zealand journalists and media groups have not come out in the past 22 months with strong denunciations of Israel’s war on both journalists and truth – and the genocide against Palestinians.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Anas Al-Sharif: Gaza loses the eyes that conveyed its tragedy to the world

    Anas Al-Sharif grew up in the heart of Gaza, where days are measured by the number of endless battles. He was not born with a camera in his hands, but he came into life amid billowing smoke, scattered ruins, and the sounds of the radio repeating the names of the martyrs at the break of dawn each new day.

    Anas Al-Sharif: more than a reporter

    He grew up in the Jabalia refugee camp, aware that every house had a tragic story of bombing and that every street carried the memory of those who had lost their lives. He studied radio and television, but his path did not lead him to quiet offices, but to muddy streets, where he had to convey the sounds of explosions and tears to the world, whatever the cost.

    Anas Al-Sharif was not just a reporter conveying cold news, but a messenger of truth from Gaza to the world. He knew that the camera could be a reason for him to be targeted, but he believed that the lens was the most powerful weapon to break the wall of silence. He climbed rooftops, searched for internet signals in the corners of hospitals, and cut through destroyed streets to film hungry children and mothers searching for bread amid the rubble.

    The occupation did not hide its hatred for him, as he faced continuous incitement and smear campaigns, and accusations were levelled against him to justify his assassination, until the tragic Sunday when occupation aircraft bombed the journalists’ tent near Al-Shifa Hospital, killing Anas and his colleagues, leaving the cameras hanging in the void and silence.

    Hours before his martyrdom, he spoke on screen about children slowly dying of hunger. He did not realize that his next image would be on the news, but this time without sound, with a headline that summed it all up: “Anas Al-Sharif martyred.”

    A witness to genocide

    With his execution at the hands of Israel, Gaza has lost more than a journalist; it has lost a witness who carried its pain on his shoulders, and a bridge connecting its alleys to the eyes of the world. His reports remain in the archives, but they are not mere media material; they are fragments of the spirit of a city that continues to struggle for life.

    Anas Al-Sharif became a martyr, but he remained a witness to the genocide, the hunger of children, mothers searching through rubble for bread crumbs, displaced people walking on muddy roads under rain and shelling, the bodies of innocents in cold hospital corridors, and the sound of houses collapsing stone by stone, amid a global silence that ignores it all as if it were a passing scene.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Alaa Shamali

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Al Jazeera journalist Anas Al-Sharif said Israel would execute him. And they just have.

    The following article contains graphic images some readers may find distressing

    Last night the Israeli occupation murdered five Al Jazeera journalists and two others in their tent outside Gaza’s largest hospital Al Shifa:

    The drone strike was a deliberate, targeted attack, which led to the murder of Al Jazeera Arabic correspondents Anas Al-Sharif and Mohammed Qreiqea, camera operators Ibrahim Thaher, Mohammed Noufal and Moamen Aliwa, and journalist Mohammed Al-Khalidi, and one other person:

    Shortly after the strike, Al Jazeera English correspondent Hani Mahmoud reported hearing a massive explosion at the time, which lit up the sky.

    Anas Al-Sharif – ‘The Voice of Gaza’

    28-year-old Anas Al-Sharif was one of the most prominent journalists in Gaza, relentlessly reporting on the unfolding genocide, especially in the North of Gaza. He was the voice of Gaza- a household name and hugely trusted by everyone.

    The occupation launched a long-running smear campaign against him, in 2023, accusing him – with zero evidence – of belonging to the military wing of Hamas, and he experienced death threats. Less than two weeks ago, the Canary reported on IOF spokesperson, Avichay Adraee’s false accusations against Al-Sharif, which led the journalist to accurately predict that this campaign against him was a precursor to his assassination.

    Yet, Al-Sharif refused to stop working, reporting to audiences worldwide, from day one of the genocide. Yesterday, just before his murder, he talked about the ongoing campaign of starvation, and posted this on X:

    Palestinian journalists are Gaza’s truth-tellers

    The occupation has barred foreign journalists from entering the Strip, so Gaza’s reporters are the eyes and ears of the world. Over the last 22 months they have drawn our attention to the Israeli occupation’s many war crimes and are succeeding in changing public opinion about this pariah state, by showing us the truth about the situation on the ground. Without them we would know nothing, and this is exactly the reason why journalists are being targeted: to suppress the occupation’s critics.

    Shortly after Anas Al-Sharif’s murder, Avichay Adraee’s X post read:

    Anas Al-Sharif was not a journalist, but rather a Hamas member working under the cover of a journalist. He belonged to Hamas in thought and action, as internal Hamas documents unequivocally revealed Anas’s affiliation with Hamas’s military ranks until he suddenly appeared after the October 7 massacre with the title of journalist.

    This is part of a pattern by the occupation, justifying the intimidation or killing of someone by claiming they are linked to Hamas, and then fabricating the so called ‘proof’.

    Mohammad Shehada, a Palestinian Analyst and writer from Gaza, told Al Jazeera last night, that the targeting of the most active journalists in Gaza, such as Al-Sharif, serves three main purposes for the occupation.  Not only would their murder create a full blackout of what is coming ahead- the total annihilation of Gaza City and the completion of the genocide, but it would intimidate, and therefore stop other journalists working, while also serving to destroy valuable evidence. Shehada described Al-Sharif as ‘a gatekeeper to a huge amount of information, which would have been incriminating in front of a tribunal.

    All countries complicit in this genocide are responsible for these murders

    According to the Government Media Office in Gaza, this massacre brings the total number of journalists murdered by Israel, since the start of this genocide, to 239. The office says ‘it holds the Israeli occupation, the US administration, and all countries complicit in the genocide fully responsible for these systematic crimes against journalists and media workers in the Gaza Strip’ and renewed its call on international organisations to intervene.

    Anas Al-Sharif’s will and final message have been published on X, and includes the following words:

    If these words reach you, know that Israel has succeeded in killing me and silencing my voice… I entrust you with Palestine—the jewel in the crown of the Muslim world, the heartbeat of every free person in this world. I entrust you with its people, with its wronged and innocent children who never had the time to dream or live in safety and peace. Their pure bodies were crushed under thousands of tons of Israeli bombs and missiles, torn apart and scattered across the walls… If I die, I die steadfast upon my principles… Do not forget Gaza… And do not forget me…

    Featured image and additional images supplied

    By Charlie Jaay

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • PSNA calls on Luxon to end ‘support’ for Israel as Australia plans backing for Palestine state

    Asia Pacific Report

    A leading advocacy group supporting Palerstine has called on the government to follow Germany’s lead and suspend New Zealand military support for Israel to continue its mass killing and mass starvation of Palestinians in Gaza.

    Germany and New Zealand were two of the countries to sign a letter yesterday condemning Israel’s plans to extend its war to Gaza City, displacing another million Palestinians.

    However, one of the other signatories, Australia, announced that it would go a step further by moving to recognise a state of Palestine at the UN General Assembly next month.

    Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Australia would work with the international community to make recognition a reality.

    “I have said it publicly and I said it directly to Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu: the situation in Gaza has gone beyond the world’s worst fears,” he said.

    “Far too many innocent lives have been lost. The Israeli government continues to defy international law and deny sufficient aid, food and water to desperate people, including children.”

    The decision rides on a condition that the Palestinian resistance group Hamas plays no role in its future governance.

    Letter condemns Israel
    New Zealand joined Australia, United Kingdom, Germany and Italy in signing a letter that said:

    “The plans that the government of Israel has announced risk violating international humanitarian law. Any attempts at annexation or of settlement extension violate international law.

    It will aggravate the catastrophic humanitarian situation, endanger the lives of the hostages, and further risk the mass displacement of civilians.”

    PSNA co-chair John Minto said in a statement that Israel had a long history of ignoring outside opinion because they never included accountabilities.

    “However, Germany has followed its condemnation with action. New Zealand needs to do the same,” he said.

    Minto says New Zealand should:

    • End approval for Rakon to export crystal oscillators to the US which are used in guided bombs sent to Israel for bombing Gaza;
    • Ban all Rocket Lab launches from Mahia which are used for Israel reconnaissance in Gaza; and
    • Launch an investigation by the Inspector-General of Security and Intelligence into the sharing of intelligence with the US and Israel which can be used for targeting Palestinians.

    “New Zealanders expect our government to end its empty condemnations of Israel and act to sanction this rogue, genocidal state,” Minto said.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Another Gaza injustice. Israel targets Anas in Al Jazeera media crew of 5

    COMMENTARY: By Saige England

    Another truth-teller targeted and killed in Gaza. I wish the journalists — some of whom I taught to master the skills of journalism, would look at this travesty and call it what it is: a genocide.

    I wish they would remember that journalists have a code of ethics, I wish they would remember to serve the people and not despotic governments.

    Good journalists are truth seekers and truth tellers.

    Like this man, Al Jazeera’s Anas al-Sharif, targeted, murdered for revealing the truth that tens of thousands of children, women, and men are regarded as the enemy by a country that wants to take their land and expand.

    His Al Jazeera crew of five were wiped out yesterday.

    In 1982, I asked an Israeli what he thought of the (then) invasion into Lebanon. He replled that if the government in Tel Aviv had its way and some Israelis were not against invasion, the army would have invaded Turkey. Look at what has happened now.

    Massacre after massacre
    Far more Palestinians were killed in the year leading up to October 7, 2023, than Israelis killed on that day. Palestinians have faced massacre after massacre ever since the Nakba in 1948.

    They experience apartheid, they experience exile, they are not allowed to call Palestine their homeland, but it is their homeland.

    Britain swooped into that country and appropriated a religious myth that dated back thousands of years, but being anti anti semitism means ensuring that people are comfortable in their own land, it does not mean booting one people out to make a home for yourself.

    Settler colonisation continues to perpetuate the worst injustice. It just dealt another blow. Starving children and a good man, a truth teller, killed in cold blood.

    Saige England is an Aotearoa New Zealand journalist, author, and poet, member of the Palestinian Solidarity Network of Aotearoa (PSNA), and a contributor to Asia Pacific Report. This commentary was first published on England’s social media.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • CPJ condemns Israeli killing of Gaza journalist Anas al-Sharif and video crew of four

    Pacific Media Watch

    The Committee to Protect Journalists has made a statement today that it is appalled to learn of the killing of an Al Jazeera media crew of five, including journalists Anas Al-Sharif, Mohammed Qreiqeh, camera operators Ibrahim Zaher and Mohammed Noufal, and Moamen Aliwa by Israeli forces in Gaza.

    The journalists were killed in an attack on a tent used by media near Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City during a targeted Israeli bombardment, according to Al Jazeera which has described the killings as “murders”.

    In a statement announcing the killing of Al-Sharif, Israel’s military accused the journalist of heading a Hamas cell and of “advancing rocket attacks against Israeli civilians and [Israeli] troops”.

    Israel has a longstanding, documented pattern of accusing journalists of being terrorists without providing any credible proof.

    “Israel’s pattern of labeling journalists as militants without providing credible evidence raises serious questions about its intent and respect for press freedom,” said CPJ regional director Sara Qudah.

    “Journalists are civilians and must never be targeted. Those responsible for these killings must be held accountable.”

    Al-Sharif had been one of Al Jazeera’s best-known reporters in Gaza since the start of the war and one of several journalists whom Israel had previously alleged were members of Hamas without providing evidence.

    Reported on starvation
    Most recently, Al-Sharif had reported on the starvation that he and his colleagues were experiencing because of Israel’s refusal to allow sufficient food aid into Gaza.

    In a July 24 video, Avichay Adraee, an Israel Defence Forces spokesperson, accused Al-Sharif of having been a member of Hamas’s military wing, Al-Qassam, since 2013 and working during the war “for the most criminal and offensive channel”, apparently referring to Al Jazeera Arabic.

    Al-Sharif told CPJ in July: “Adraee’s campaign is not only a media threat or an image destruction — it is a real-life threat.”

    He said: “All of this is happening because my coverage of the crimes of the Israeli occupation in the Gaza Strip harms them and damages their image in the world.

    “They accuse me of being a terrorist because the occupation wants to assassinate me morally.”

    The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression, Irene Khan, said she was “deeply alarmed by repeated threats and accusations of the Israeli army” against al-Sharif.

    Since the start of the Israel-Gaza war on October 7, 2023, CPJ has documented 186 journalists having been killed. At least 178 of those journalists are Palestinians killed by Israel.

    However, other sources and media freedom groups put the death toll even higher. Al Jazeera reports the death toll as “more than 200” and the Gaza Media Office has documented 142 journalists.

    UNESCO awarded its 2024 World Press Freedom Prize to the Palestinian journalists of Gaza.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Israel’s Government Issues ‘Death Sentence’ To Remaining Captives

    In June 2024, after Israel’s army slaughtered over 200 civilians in Gaza’s Nuseirat Refugee Camp, including several execution style killings to extricate a hostage, Noa Argamani, the Al-Qassam Brigades announced a new policy: if Israel soldiers came too close to areas where captives were held, the prisoners would lose their lives. Israel’s refusal to heed this policy led to the killing of Hersh Goldberg-Polin and five others just over two months later.

    Now, in a fit of desperation, after failing to force the hand of Hamas through imposed famine and previous campaigns of military pressure, Israel’s security cabinet has approved plans to ethnically cleanse the whole of Gaza City and occupy urban areas where captives might be located.

    The post Israel’s Government Issues ‘Death Sentence’ To Remaining Captives appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Palestinians Displaced in West Bank by Israeli Settlers Ask: Where Can We Go?

    Mu’arrajat is one of the many Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank that have been demolished or forcibly displaced by Israeli settlers in the last year. Aliya Milhat, a Palestinian journalist and activist, lived in Mu’arrajat with her family until they were forcibly displaced in March. “My family and I were forced out under gun threats [sic], along with all the families of the…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Why Palestine is a labor issue


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Leaked Transcript Confirms Netanyahu Chose to Starve Gaza as a Method of War

    Israel decided to starve the people of Gaza as a strategy of war and in order to sabotage the ceasefire deal, according to Israeli cabinet meeting minutes leaked on Wednesday to Israel’s Channel 13. The document purports to show that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused multiple proposals that would have secured the release of the remaining Israeli captives during the ceasefire…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Members of Educators Union Say Its Capitulation to ADL Betrays Workers, Students

    On July 5, the highest deliberative body of the country’s largest union, the National Education Association (NEA), voted at their 2025 Representative Assembly to call on the NEA to “not use, endorse, or publicize any materials from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), such as its curricular materials or its statistics. NEA will not participate in ADL programs or publicize ADL professional development…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.