The U.S. has once again vetoed a UN Security Council resolution that calls for a ceasefire and captive release in Gaza, just days after a UN human rights inquiry concluded that Israel is committing genocide and the official death toll tops 65,000 people. This is the sixth time that the U.S. has exercised its power to veto as one of the only five permanent members of the Security Council to…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
The UN Special Rapporteur on the right to water, Pedro Arrojo-Agudo, has warned that the forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza City constitutes “a new step in Israel’s war of extermination” that has been ongoing for 23 months.
He pointed out that Israel has deprived 1.7 million Palestinians of clean drinking water amid an unprecedented humanitarian crisis.
Arrojo-Agudo emphasised that the internationally recommended minimum consumption per person is 15 litres of water per day. Meanwhile citizens in Gaza have access to only 5 litres. This is one-third of the amount necessary for survival.
He added that Israel’s repeated targeting of water stations and destruction of infrastructure exacerbates the disaster.
He considered that “the use of drinking water as a weapon of war is a crime against humanity”. In particular, he warned that the continuation of this situation puts the legitimacy of international institutions at stake. This is particularly the case in light of the occupation’s continued impunity.
Arrojo-Agudo stressed that “silence on the crime of genocide in Gaza is a form of complicity”. Ultimately, he called for an immediate ceasefire, an end to Israel’s illegal occupation, and an embargo on arms exports to Israel.
In a related context, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) revealed the worsening malnutrition crisis among children in the Strip. The rate has risen from 8.3% in July to 13.5% in August.
OCHA’s update stated that there are “roughly 28,000 cases of acute malnutrition” among children under five. It detailed how this exceeded the:
combined total of malnutrition cases identified in the first six months of 2025 (about 23,000 cases).
The report noted that Gaza City has the highest rates, with nearly one in five children (19%) suffering from malnutrition. At the same time, the severest forms of malnutrition are affecting more than 23% of cases. This was up from 15% between January and June 2025. Crucially, this level of severe acute malnourishment directly threaten their lives.
Recent UN reports paint a grim picture of the situation in Gaza: water scarcity, widespread malnutrition, and continued bombing and displacement. According to UN experts, these cumulative crises confirm that civilians are paying the highest price in a war described as the most dangerous humanitarian crisis in recent decades.
It is all amid the international community’s inability to impose a ceasefire or hold those responsible for violations accountable.
Featured image via the Canary
By Alaa Shamali
This post was originally published on Canary.
In a report Amnesty International released Thursday 18 September 2025, the human rights organisation has accused countries, public institutions, and major companies around the world of enabling Israel to commit genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, and to entrench the apartheid regime and illegal occupation of the occupied Palestinian territory.
The organisation said that these entities profit from the violations by supplying weapons and technology. They do this through settlement projects, or by remaining silent and failing to hold Israel accountable.
Amnesty International’s secretary-general Agnès Callamard said:
The illegal occupation would not have lasted 57 years, the apartheid regime would not have been entrenched for decades, and the genocide in Gaza would not have continued for months on end, had it not been for the continuous flow of weapons and preferential trade relations. Human dignity is not a commodity. While Palestinian mothers and children are dying of hunger, arms and technology companies are reaping huge profits.
Significantly, the briefing singled out 15 companies Callamard condemned as:
responsible for sustaining a government that has engineered famine and mass killing of civilians and denied Palestinians fundamental rights for decades. Every economic sector, the vast majority of states, and many private entities have knowingly contributed to or benefited from Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and its brutal occupation and apartheid in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
Unsurprisingly, multiple major arms companies cropped up in Amnesty’s catalogue of shame. It included the following corporations profiting from the military industrial complex.
Boeing
The company has supplied Israel with bombs and guidance systems Israel uses in illegal airstrikes in Gaza. This includes for instance the Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM) and GBU-39 small-diameter bombs, which has killed dozens of civilians, including children.
Lockheed Martin
It provides supply and maintenance services for Israel’s fleet of F-16 and F-35 aircraft, the backbone of the Israeli Air Force bombing Gaza.
Elbit Systems
Infamously supplies drones, loitering munitions, and surveillance systems to the Israeli military. It is one of the main beneficiaries of Israel’s military operations.
Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI)
The firm supplies Israel with missile systems, drones, and military technologies the occupier has used in attacks on Gaza.
Amnesty’s briefing also named a number of technology and surveillance companies, highlighting how:
Many surveillance, AI, and cloud infrastructure companies supply equipment and services to Israel related to its surveillance of the Palestinian population and its security and military activities within the OPT.
Hikvision
It supplies Israel with video surveillance technology that supports the apartheid system against Palestinians. Notably, it identified that Israel uses the company’s biometric surveillance products, including facial recognition technology “extensively” to maintain its “continued domination and oppression” of Palestinians in the occupied territory.
Corsight
Corsight also develops facial recognition software used by the Israeli military in its attacks and security operations in Gaza. The briefing highlighted how the firm’s technology has “powered Israel’s surveillance operations in the Gaza Strip” since the start of its genocide.
Palantir Technologies
An American company specialising in artificial intelligence and data analysis, it provides the Israeli military and intelligence agencies with systems linked to military operations in Gaza.
Besides arms and technology companies, Amnesty drew up a list of other notably complicit corporations. Companies operating infrastructure and services across occupied Palestine featured heavily among the worst offenders.
Mekorot
The Israeli government water company manages water networks in the West Bank in a discriminatory manner that deprives Palestinians and serves settlements.
Construcciones E Oxicarril (CAF)
A Spanish company building the light rail project in Jerusalem that serves and expands settlements.
HD Hyundai
A South Korean company that provides heavy equipment used in the demolition of homes in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, as well as maintenance services.
Online travel companies were also among those Amnesty called out in no uncertain terms. These included the likes of Airbnb, Booking.com, Expedia, and TripAdvisor. Despite warnings, these companies continue to list illegal settlements in the West Bank and occupied Jerusalem, thereby contributing to their economic support.
Amnesty International said these companies represent just a “small sample” of a vast network of companies and industries that have profited from the occupation and apartheid.
Amnesty International called on companies to suspend all sales and contracts that support Israeli violations. Otherwise, it warned they face potential civil and criminal liability for complicity in international crimes. The organisation’s call included:
Callamard concluded by saying:
It is unacceptable for companies to profit from the death and suffering of Palestinians. The economic complicity that perpetuates the occupation and genocide must end immediately.
Featured image via the Canary
By Alaa Shamali
This post was originally published on Canary.
Two doctors went in front of a camera this morning to talk frankly about the brutality of life in Gaza under Israel’s occupation and starvation blockade – cruel even to the point of taking away baby formula they tried to bring with them. They describe the murder of colleagues, the dead still trapped in the ruins of the hospital and the constant attacks they face from helicopters, planes and drones – and they appeal for our help.
Comedian Jen Brister posted the video (Skwawkbox has added subtitles) and asked readers to help raise awareness:
PLEASE WATCH THEN SHARE THIS REEL
A brutal account of the cruel reality of what every medic is up against in Gaza right now. This reel was recorded just a couple of hours ago.
Featured image via author
By Skwawkbox
This post was originally published on Canary.
Established in 1950, Tulkarem refugee camp in the occupied West Bank became home to Palestinians driven from their native lands during the 1948 Nakba (“Catastrophe”), which saw over 700,000 people expelled in a campaign of ethnic cleansing to create Israel. Since January of 2025, the camp has been forcibly depopulated by Israel and largely destroyed as part of the IDF’s Operation Iron Wall, which has displaced over 40,000 Palestinians in West Bank refugee camps. In April 2024, before their forced displacement, TRNN was granted access to the Tulkarem refugee camp and spoke to residents about life and death in what was once one of the most densely populated camps in the West Bank.
Credits:
Narrator:
In April 2024, The Real News Network was granted access to the Tulkarem refugee camp in occupied Palestine. Israeli army raids would happen sporadically without much warning.
To capture these interviews, the crew slipped in and out, forced to leave multiple times by drones and the fear of incoming raids. We wanted to understand how decades of occupation had shaped the residents’ subconscious.
Established in 1950, it became home to Palestinians driven from their native lands during the Nakba, also known as the catastrophe, which saw over 700,000 expelled in a campaign of ethnic cleansing to create Israel.
The refugee camp is located within the city of Tulkarem, it’s one of the most densely populated camps in the West Bank, housing more than 27,000 registered refugees.
At every turn, Israel has added pressure, erasure and violence. The camp’s armed resistance had gone into hiding, but symbols of their influence were everywhere. Every person we spoke to had a traumatic story of what the army had done.
Mu’tasim ‘Abd E-Rraheem, Tulkarem refugee camp resident:
My friend Mus’ab was martyred on 11/14/2023. We were happily staying up late at night like any group of guys. Suddenly, the Israeli Army entered the camp. I was the last one standing among our group of three.
I see Mus’ab a lot in my dreams. Sometimes, I dreamed that we are both walking in the street. Mus’ab came from above, you get me? He was calling for me. He was saying: “You’re not in prison. What brought you up here to me?” He then asked me to take care of his little brother.
Well, surely when the camp is safe, life is great. But when there are raids, martyrs, prisoners, and wounded [people] every day, it’s horrible, especially since the entire camp shares a common ancestry.
Narrator:
Most people we spoke to say they were targeted despite having no ties to armed groups. Like this man who was hunted by a bomb drone.
Ahmad Jamal Ahmad Ghanim, Tulkarem refugee camp resident:
It’s not my fault what happened to me.I was just going to work. I had nothing to do with the army, or being wanted, or anything of the sort. I was just going to work. I have to provide for this little girl. How would I do that? Through others’ charity? We just want to work.
I dream about how I was shot and hit. I don’t know… At night I wonder where is my arm. Where is… where is my arm? How would I hold my daughter? How would I work? How would I… How would I work or do anything? There is no… Without an arm or a leg, one cannot dream of work.
Narrator:
As Palestinians resist for their basic rights. Soldiers raid with futuristic weapons. Shooting for fun as if it’s a video game.
Nabeel Muhammad Abdallah ‘Amer, Tulkarem refugee camp resident:
So, our sons were around, three of them were standing [here], and probably three to four others were there, watching the three jeeps which were below. Now, there is this… Jeep that is equipped with AI-guided weapons. Once it detected the group of people standing here, it fired one bullet… It penetrated Nabeel’s head. He fell to the ground and the rest hid back.
One of the things I dreamed about while being imprisoned… Apparently, I was in a desert area. While I was asleep, I wasn’t able to see anything. One night… I woke up screaming. Shouting that we’re not in prison. That the situation we’re in has ceased to exist, and that Palestine is liberated.
Narrator:
Since January 2025, the camp has been forcibly depopulated of all its residents. Now much of it sits destroyed and is occupied as part of the IDF Operation Iron Wall, which has displaced over 40,000 Palestinians in West Bank refugee camps.
Residents are allowed back for just 20 minutes, to gather what personal items they can, before being forced out once again.
Nabeel Muhammad Abdallah ‘Amer, Tulkarem refugee camp resident:
When I actually woke up and found the barbed wire around me and our life was still under the tents and watchtowers… I fell back into a state of despair and psychological stress.
Closing text slides:
The Israeli army has largely destroyed Jenin, Tulkarem, and Nur Shams Refugee camps.
They remain depopulated.
Ever wondered how political stories are crafted from the ground up? Ross Domoney, the filmmaker behind this piece, invites filmmakers, journalists, and activists into his community newsletter, where he unpacks the art and strategy of impactful political storytelling. Sign up and read for free: https://www.shadowgraph.co
This post was originally published on The Real News Network.
Dictator-loving former UK prime minister and at-large war criminal Tony Blair has a green light to implement his postwar plans for Gaza. The Times of Israel reported Thursday 18 September that Blair has US president Donald Trump’s permission to lobby regional and global allies.
Multiple undisclosed sources told the paper Blair had been told to:
…rally regional and international stakeholders around the former UK prime minister’s proposal to establish a postwar transitional body to govern the Gaza Strip until it can be handed over to the Palestinian Authority.
The Times said Blair had started crafting the plan early in the genocide. It has since evolved into a fuller framework for “effectively ending the war”:
…as the Trump administration has reached the conclusion that agreement from major stakeholders regarding the body that will replace Hamas in Gaza is essential for securing a permanent ceasefire and hostage release deal.
Blair reportedly attended a White House policy session on the plans in late August 2025. The Times has seen a draft of the report:
Previous reporting has linked Blair to efforts aimed at displacing Palestinians from Gaza or at building a “Trump Riviera” in the Strip, but the former British premier’s actual proposal makes no mention of those ideas and even envisions the establishment of a “Property Rights Preservation Unit,” aimed at ensuring that any voluntary departure of Gazans does not compromise their right to return to the enclave or retain property ownership.
Trump’s son Jared Kushner attended the same meeting. Kushner previously touted Gaza as a potential real estate investment zone.
In March 2024, Kushner said:
Gaza’s waterfront property, it could be very valuable, if people would focus on building up livelihoods.
The Times cited an anonymous ‘US official’ who said:
This spring, Kushner commissioned the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI) — which was already engaged on the issue thanks to the former UK prime minister’s ties with Israeli, PA and Arab leaders — to come up with a postwar plan…
TBI has long served as a front for Blair’s ambitions and his regular (often unwelcome) public interventions. As the PM who led Britain into the illegal Iraq War, Blair is a pariah in his own country.
Along with the eternal stain that the disastrous invasion of Iraq left on his time in power, his domestic record speaks for itself. Because his government used token progressive policies to hide its true right-wing nature.
It abandoned and ignored working-class communities (along with Labour members and trade unions); continued financial deregulation to please wealthy elites; kick-started the privatisation of the NHS; propped up the very structures which created the capitalist crisis of 2007–2008; and lost five million voters between 1997 and 2010.
His government left people across Britain with a lack of trust in politics; and this helped to spark the disenchantment that fuelled the Brexit vote, with many people perceiving overwhelmingly that living standards had been deteriorating for decades.
But we’ll leave the final word to Maggie Thatcher, who once said her ‘greatest achievement’ was Blair’s New Labour.
Featured image via YouTube screenshot/Milken Institute
By Joe Glenton
This post was originally published on Canary.
The Israeli government has made a sinister change to its propaganda attacking the humanitarian ‘Global Sumud Flotilla’ of fifty-plus boats heading to Gaza with crucial supplies – almost certainly as a prelude to attacking it.
While the colonisers’ early smears against the convoy were dismissive, for example calling it a ‘selfie cruise’ as if its volunteers were just attention-seekers, the official narrative now uses smear-by-association to paint the convoy as ‘Hamas’ based on – shock of shocks – the resistance group calling for the world to support humanitarian aid reaching the people of Gaza whom Israel is starving to death:
Flotilla volunteers, who include many anti-genocide Jews, have seen through the scam and are, rightly, raising concerns about what it means:
The flotilla has now, however, been backed by sixteen governments, who have warned Israel against attacking it.
The governments of Turkey, Bangladesh, Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia, Ireland, Libya, Malaysia, the Maldives, Mexico, Pakistan, Qatar, Oman, Slovenia, South Africa, and Spain confirmed that their citizens are participating in the mission and warned of consequences if the ships come under attack or if participants are detained.
Featured image via YouTube screenshot/Al Jazeera English
By Skwawkbox
This post was originally published on Canary.
Israel’s crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza have long been known to include the mass murder and often torture of journalists, rescue workers – and health staff.
Dr Nick Maynard, a British volunteer surgeon who served repeatedly in Gaza, has given powerful testimony and evidence of Israel’s mass murder of doctors, nurses and patients – many of whom were killed with their hands cuffed behind their backs, with significant numbers showing clear signs of torture.
The horror is somehow even greater for Maynard’s clipped, professional manner as he related the awful evidence:
Israel is a terror state and the Starmer regime one of its chief and most knowing enablers.
Featured image via the Canary
By Skwawkbox
This post was originally published on Canary.
Irish choreographer Michael Keegan-Dolan, Artistic Director of Teaċ Daṁsa dance company, has issued a statement ending his association with London’s Sadler’s Wells Theatre because of its partnership with Barclays, which is a target of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement for its investments in Israel and Israel-linked companies.
In a powerful statement, Keegan-Dolan wrote:
Over the years, I have come to understand my work as a way of exploring what it means to be human and to be in relation with others. This understanding has led me to make a difficult but necessary decision.
I can no longer remain affiliated with Sadler’s Wells, particularly in light of the Theatre’s partnership with Barclays and the lack of meaningful institutional response to the concerns raised around it. Barclays’ connections to the arms trade and to an Israeli government engaged in grave human rights violations, most tragically in Gaza, are impossible to ignore.
As an Irish artist, this carries added weight. The legacy of colonial violence shapes how we see the world and our responsibility within it.
This decision follows extensive reflection and consultation with Sadler’s Wells leadership, the Teaċ Daṁsa board and team, my collaborators, and my conscience. I’m grateful for the respectful working relationship I’ve had with many at Sadler’s Wells over the years, and for the opportunities we’ve shared.
The performances of How to Be a Dancer in Seventy-Two Thousand Easy Lessons this week will be Teaċ Daṁsa’s final presentation of work at Sadler’s Wells. Unless there is a meaningful shift in position by the institution, The Only Tune, created in March 2020 and scheduled for November as part of a triple bill, will mark the end of my contribution as an Associate Artist.
As artists, we don’t get to choose the world we live in, but we do get to choose where we stand and how we respond.
I stand with those calling for justice, dignity, and peace for the Palestinian people.
Michael Keegan-Dolan
September 2025Sadler’s Wells Associate Artist, 2011–2025
Last year, famous French choreographer Maguy Marin accused Sadlers Wells of “censorship” after the theatre’s management stopped her reading out a statement on stage urging artists to raise awareness of Israel’s “ongoing genocidal acts” in Palestine.
Speaking to Arts Professional she said that she had planned to read out the statement at the end of each performance addressing the genocide and the west’s anti-Muslim prejudice and antisemitism – a pattern she had followed on the previous tour stop in France. But she said that the theatre’s artistic director asked her not to do so because it might ‘frighten and shock’ the audience.
Featured image via the Canary
By Skwawkbox
This post was originally published on Canary.
“We paid a lot of money for the war, so we need to decide how to divide the percentages of the land” – these are the words of self-described ‘fascist and homophobe’ Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich as he discussed how Israel and the US plan to divide up Gaza between themselves this week.
Speaking in Hebrew at a property conference, Smotrich added:
The Gaza Strip is becoming a real estate bonanza.
The Israeli and Trump regimes – to be more accurate the Israeli-Trump regime – have long been discussing the US ‘Trump-Gaza plan’ to turn Gaza, after the extermination or expulsion of its rightful Palestinian owners, into a beach-front resort money-making project, a plan even accompanied by a deranged AI video posted by Trump to his social media.
Smotrich then admitted to potential investors that the so-called ‘war’ on Gaza has always been about clearing the strip so it can be rebuilt as a capitalist profit vehicle:
We paid a lot of money for the war, so we need to decide how to divide the percentages of the land in Gaza. The demolition phase is always the first phase of urban renewal. We did that, now we need to start building.
Trump’s plan was first developed for him by the same people who came up with the so-called ‘Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’ whose ‘aid’ stations have killed more than 2,000 desperate refugees seeking food and wounded more than 15,000 – a group of Israeli business people.
BCG, the consulting firm who financialised the plan, calculated that it would return to its backers four times the initial investment of $100 billion, according to the plan. The firm has since tried to distance itself from the plan, claiming to have sacked all the partners who approved it.
Smotrich should be in the Hague. No ifs, no buts.
Featured image via the Canary
By Skwawkbox
This post was originally published on Canary.
Holocaust survivor Stephen Kapos spoke at the Together for Palestine concert in Wembley Arena on Wednesday 17 September, and explains how his past means he has no choice but to remain absolutely committed to supporting the Palestinian people:
Thousands of Jewish people support Palestinian freedom and oppose Israel’s genocide, exposing the lie that all Jews support the colonising project. Kapos himself has been arrested by the Met Police for protesting against Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
Stephen Kapos will appear on Your Show in Liverpool at the end of this month alongside other anti-Zionist Jews in a series of three programmes. If you would like to support the show’s crowdfunder, you can do so here.
Featured image via the Canary
By Skwawkbox
This post was originally published on Canary.
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) has provided the federal government with the private information of more than 150 students, staff, and faculty.
The move comes in response to the Trump administration’s investigation into alleged campus antisemitism, which is widely viewed as a means to crack down on campus Palestine activism.
The Daily Californian reports that the school’s Office of Legal Affairs sent emails to those impacted on September 4.
“As part of its investigation, OCR required production of comprehensive documents, including files and reports related to alleged antisemitic incidents,” the email read.
The post UC Berkeley Hands Over Private Staff And Student Information For Trump’s ‘Antisemitism’ Probe appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
US public affairs giant SKDK has ended a $600,000 contract with the Israeli government that “promoted Israel’s perspective” about the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, according to POLITICO.
“SKDK stopped this work on Aug. 31 and has begun the process of de-registering,” a spokesperson for SKDK told the DC-based magazine, declining to comment on the reasons why the contract was cut short early, saying only that the work “had run its course.”
According to POLITICO, the contract between Tel Aviv and SKDK was expected to run until March 2026.
The announcement followed a report by Sludge on 15 September that said the firm was involved in a bot program to boost pro-Israel content online.
The post Top US Firm Ends Contract With Israel To Whitewash Gaza War Crimes appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
Activists from the anti-war group CODEPINK confronted US President Donald Trump and his cabinet at a restaurant in Washington, DC on September 9. The disruption made national headlines and (evidently) sent the Trump administration into a frenzy.
At the restaurant on September 9, peace activists got surprisingly close to Trump and cabinet members including Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, shouting “Free DC, free Palestine, Trump is the Hitler of our time!” Trump appeared to react with visible frustration as he gestured for his security to remove the protesters, saying “Get them out of here.”
The post Trump Targets CODEPINK After Public Confrontation appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
A powerful new documentary produced by Fault Lines on Al Jazeera English tells the story of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the Palestinian pediatrician and director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza whom Israel has detained with virtually no contact to the outside world for almost nine months. He became known to millions of people around the world for his regular video dispatches from inside…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Families in Gaza are being forced to live amongst garbage dumps after forced displacement from Israel. The Zionist regime have carried out attack after attack on residential areas, and people are left with nowhere else to go. Dozens of families, after a long displacement from the Al-Jalaa neighborhood through Al-Mawasi and Khan Yunis, were forced to set up temporary tents and live next to garbage dumps in the Al-Nuwairi area west of the Nuseirat camp in the southern Gaza Strip.
Adel Dalloul, whose family had to settle in a tent camp near Nuseirat said:
Flies are in our food.
If you try to sleep, flies, insects and cockroaches are all over you.
The forced evacuation orders issued by the occupation forces to citizens in the Gaza and northern Gaza territories required them to head to the Khan Yunis and central governorates. However, these areas are already overcrowded with hundreds of thousands of displaced persons. The overcrowded camps will only become more so.
These conditions reflect the occupation’s clear policy of forcibly displacing the population, targeting their homes and property with shelling, depriving civilians of the basic necessities of life and increasing their daily suffering.
Living in these difficult conditions exposes civilians to significant health risks, including the spread of skin diseases, rodents, and insects, as well as foul odors and a lack of health care and medicine. Local data confirms that the areas designated for shelter in the southern Gaza Strip do not provide even a basic standard of living.
In 2024, PBS reported:
The U.N. estimates nearly 70% of Gaza’s water and sanitation plants have been destroyed or damaged by Israel’s heavy bombardment. That includes all five of the territory’s wastewater treatment facilities, plus water desalination plants, sewage pumping stations, wells and reservoirs.
The employees who once managed municipal water and waste systems have been displaced, and some killed, officials say.
Whatever infrastructure existed to address such problems has been thoroughly destroyed by Israel. Such a policy is only further evidence of the totality of destruction that Israel is heedlessly headed for.
Featured image via the Canary
By Alaa Shamali
This post was originally published on Canary.
An extensive investigation from The New Humanitarian has revealed that Israeli forces have killed nearly 3000 Palestinians and injured about 20,000 others over the past 23 months while they were trying to obtain humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip.
The investigation, which was based on open sources, UN reports, and data from international organisations, showed that these attacks are not isolated or incidental, but rather part of a systematic military policy that uses starvation as a weapon of war, amounting to war crimes and crimes against humanity. Their writer, Riley Sparks, said:
these attacks are not an aberration. They represent the escalation of a deadly tactic that has been a key part of Israeli strategy – a tactic that has helped precipitate a famine, enable the now-routine slaughter of people trying to collect food and other essential supplies, and deny Palestinians the basic necessities required to sustain life in Gaza.
According to documented data, between January 2024 and early September 2025, the death toll reached approximately 2,957, with 19,866 wounded.
Between January and the end of July, nearly 200 direct attacks were recorded, killing 1,200 people and injuring 4,700.
Since May 2025, with the start of the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the numbers have jumped sharply, with around 2,300 Palestinians killed in just three months.
This toll represents about 4.6% of the total war casualties in Gaza and more than 12% of the injured, according to the Ministry of Health in the Strip.
The report demonstrates that what is happening cannot be considered mere “random events,” but rather a clear military policy. Israeli forces resort to firing and shelling gatherings of civilians seeking food and water as a means of crowd control. They use these attacks to drive the population into forced displacement, in addition to depriving them of the minimum necessities of daily life. According to the investigation, this pattern confirms that targeting civilians in Gaza is no longer a “side effect of war,” but rather an intentional tool within a long-term strategy.
This pattern, according to the investigation, confirms that targeting civilians in Gaza is no longer a “side effect of war,” but rather a deliberate tool within a long-term strategy.
Legal experts have described these practices as serious violations of international humanitarian law, considering them to be war crimes and crimes against humanity, and even genocide, given their use of starvation and intimidation as military tools.
The report also noted that Israel directly targeted journalists, killing at least 197 of them since the start of the war, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. However, the United Nations reports more than 240 deaths. This targeting has reduced field coverage and weakened documentation, while Israeli authorities continue to prevent international media from entering the Gaza Strip.
The newspaper emphasised that the database it published is based on strict criteria for verifying incidents, stressing that the figures announced are “conservative” and that the actual toll is higher.
It called for the database to be used as a tool to prosecute those responsible for the violations, as each documented attack could constitute a war crime. And, the overall pattern from the report reveals a strategy aimed at impoverishing and starving Palestinians and isolating them from the world.
The investigation shows that the killing of Palestinians while seeking aid is not the result of “mistakes on the ground,” as Israel claims. Instead, it is part of a systematic policy that escalates the humanitarian crisis and pushes Gaza’s population toward starvation and forced displacement, in flagrant violation of international law and human rights principles.
Featured image via YouTube screenshot/Al Jazeera English
By Alaa Shamali
This post was originally published on Canary.
The SanctionsKill campaign was formed in 2019 to raise awareness of the human cost of the “sanctions”—actually economic coercive measures—imposed by the United States and its allies on over 40 countries, in which one-third of humanity lives. Our coalition of grassroots activists has exposed the suffering and death caused to populations targeted with these measures, particularly among children, the elderly, and people with health conditions. We also strongly support the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement advanced by Palestinian civil society as a legitimate way for grassroots activists around the world to pressure the settler-colonial state of Israel to comply with international law and recognize the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination.
It is important to understand the distinction between BDS and imperialist economic coercive measures. While this includes legal differences, the most salient feature is that BDS is the peoples’ effort to end their governments’ complicity with Zionist colonial crimes, whereas US “sanctions” maintain imperialist hegemony by forcing countries to submit to US economic and political interests. The BDS movement comes from over a century of struggle for Palestinian liberation, with a global consensus of the world’s people that Zionist apartheid must end, while US-imposed “sanctions” are based on specious accusations of human rights violations to “continue the theft of wealth from the Global South, and preserve racial hierarchy in the international system.”
Some definitions and a bit of history can help to better understand the complementarity of BDS and SanctionsKill.
A definition of sanctions and their legality
The United Nations describes sanctions as restrictive measures imposed by the UN Security Council to enforce international law and maintain or restore peace and security, which may include “complete or partial interruption of economic, communications, or diplomatic relations.” Sanctions imposed unilaterally (without the UN Security Council) violate the UN Charter, and UN bodies are calling for the elimination of “unilateral coercive measures” such as those imposed by the US government. This global consensus is shown in the fact that for over 30 consecutive years, the UN General Assembly has voted almost unanimously to eliminate the US blockade of Cuba; the usual dissenting votes are only those of the US and Israel. Even UN Security Council sanctions are often manipulated by the US to impose collective punishment on civilians, in violation of the Geneva Conventions.
What is BDS and how does it work?
BDS for Palestine is but one expression of a national liberation struggle that has been ongoing since the first Zionist settlement was established in 1878. Evoking the Great Revolt of 1936-39, the decades-long Arab Boycott initiated in 1945, the 1975 UN resolution that declared “Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination,” the 1975 Organization of African Unity resolution that called for support of Palestine against “Zionist racist colonialism,” and the Intifadas, the international divestment movement started in 2000 and was relaunched as boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) in 2005. It derives inspiration from the Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM) of South Africa which led hundreds of thousands of ordinary citizens around the world to boycott goods from the Apartheid state from the 1950s to 1994. Students, churches, trade unions, and local groups pushed governments and businesses to divest. There was a cultural boycott and South Africa was banned from the Olympics and from FIFA competition between 1964 and 1992. “The strength of the international solidarity campaign was that it spoke directly to the ordinary citizen and challenged each one singly, and communities collectively, to take action.”1
UN sanctions were also imposed on South Africa (including an arms embargo undermined by Israel), and the country was suspended from the UN General Assembly from 1974 to 1994. By the 1980s individual countries, including the US, were imposing sanctions. However, it seems that the boycott movement was more impactful than official sanctions, causing a “privately induced financial crisis — the repercussions of which were substantially greater than any of the public sanctions that ensued.” BDS against apartheid South Africa was a complement to the most important factor in bringing down the apartheid regime—the resistance of Black South Africans on the ground, including armed struggle.
The movement for BDS against Israeli apartheid has been accelerating since the start of the livestreamed genocide in October of 2023. This grassroots movement led by Palestinians in Palestine and in the diaspora, is inspiring millions to boycott consumer goods made in Israel and demand that Israeli weapons and surveillance companies be removed from their local economies, governments, and pension funds. Similar to the AAM of South Africa, billions of dollars have now been divested from the Zionist economy. Campaigns such as “Apartheid Free Communities” have moved public discourse towards an acknowledgement of the unjust, racist treatment of the Palestinian people. Divestment is again the rallying cry of students demanding an end to their universities’ complicity in human rights abuses, and there is an academic and intellectual boycott and call to ban the Israeli settler-colonial state from the Olympics and FIFA competition.
While the genocide takes the form of forced starvation, the world’s people are sickened to see that governments and international organizations are incapable or unwilling to stop atrocities committed in plain sight. In response, many have taken matters into their own hands through boycott and divestment. And as in South Africa, BDS is a complement to the main struggle on the ground in Palestine.
The BDS movement says that boycott and divestment necessarily come before sanctions, in order to build “a crucial mass of people power to make policymakers fulfill their obligations under international law.” It is an effort to move toward binding UN Security Council sanctions to oblige Israel to comply with the many General Assembly resolutions and International Court of Justice rulings demanding an end to Israel’s apartheid and genocide.
How do US “sanctions” work?
In contrast, the unilateral coercive measures (“sanctions”) promoted by the US are not intended to uphold international law or support peace and security, but rather to deliberately impose collective punishment on civilian populations in order to bring about regime change. This was revealed in a 1960 memo by a US diplomat explaining that a blockade of Cuba would “bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.”2 The United States government imposes these measures on countries that try to develop economic or political systems independent of US domination. And given the US’ “exorbitant power to sanction” due to the dominant role of its dollar in international trade and banking transactions, these measures are very impactful.
Economic coercive measures punish populations by impacting global trade, thus making it hard to import food, fuel, medicines, and parts to maintain civilian infrastructure. One consequence is the inability to import chemicals and parts to maintain water supply systems, causing severe shortages of clean drinking water, leading to massive child deaths.
Even UN sanctions can be manipulated for imperialist purposes. As Doa Ali said in How to Kill an Entire Country, “Iraq is a case in point of how the US has captured the UN Security Council’s sanctioning capacity using it to impose its own ‘rules-based global order’ and further its imperialist interests, regardless of the human cost.” In 1990, after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and as the Soviet Union was collapsing, the US was able to engineer and oversee the imposition of severe UN sanctions on Iraq. These led to the deaths of over half a million Iraqi children from water-borne illnesses, vaccine-preventable diseases, and hunger—in a country that had achieved one of the highest per capita food production rates in the region. In the US-controlled committee that oversaw enforcement of the sanctions, the US ensured that “humanitarian exceptions” were denied and that “food itself was not considered a humanitarian necessity.”
US-promoted sanctions have killed over 100,000 Venezuelans since 2017, and 12% of child deaths in Palestine prior to October 2023 were from lack of clean drinking water due to the US-supported Israeli blockade. Further evidence that sanctions kill is the new report in the medical journal The Lancet which found that sanctions cause some 564,000 deaths annually—similar to global mortality from armed conflict—with 51% of the victims under age 5.
US-imposed coercive measures are based on extractive interests, dubious accusations of deficient democracy, and spurious charges of human rights violations, such as the allegation that Cuba is “trafficking” its doctors (they are actually proud participants in a renowned humanitarian project) and that Cuba is a State Sponsor of Terrorism (SSOT) because it hosted peace talks for Colombia. The SSOT allegation makes it extremely hard for a country to conduct any banking transactions, and together with the 63-year blockade, has caused a humanitarian crisis in Cuba. Such sanctions supposedly imposed to protect human rights are in fact the worst violators of human rights.
Conclusion
As hope grows for a Free Palestine sooner rather than later, it is time to lift the siege on Gaza that has been blocking desperately needed supplies since 2007. The “exorbitant sanctioning power of the US” on all the countries of the region – including Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Libya—will also end as these countries find alternative trade and financial arrangements, such as the BRICS, and a new multipolar order emerges.
The BDS movement to end Zionist violence, and the SanctionsKill campaign to abolish U.S. economic coercion, are not separate causes, but one movement for justice, sovereignty, and human dignity. Together they embody grassroots power against imperialist violence. They are people-led projects of hope and liberation, demanding a future free from the economic coercion that results in genocide, collective punishment, and colonial domination.
Differences between Imperialist Economic Coercive Measures
and Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions
| IMPERIALIST ECONOMIC COERCIVE MEASURES | BOYCOTT, DIVESTMENT, AND SANCTIONS |
| Seek to coerce other countries to succumb to US interests | Called for by the grassroots in the targeted country to end the world’s complicity with an apartheid settler-colonial regime
|
| Based on spurious accusations of human rights violations | Based on a consensus of the world’s people about grave human rights violations
|
| Cause as many deaths as armed conflict | Seeks to end deaths from Zionist genocide
|
| Illegal under international law if unilateral or if they impose collective punishment | A grassroots response to demand compliance with international law
|
| Produces net transfer of wealth from Global South, consolidating US/western capitalist hegemony | Seeks to end settler colonial, white supremacist Zionist project that upholds US/western capitalist hegemony
|
| A tool of US imperialism | Confronts US imperialism
|
| Undermines national sovereignty | Anti-colonialist movement for democratic-national liberation
|
| A project of death | A project of liberation and hope for the future |
ENDNOTES:
1 Z. Pallo Jordan, “Foreword” in International Brigade Against Apartheid, ed. Ronnie Kasrills, Jacana Media, 2021.
2 Mallory, Lester D. 1960. “Memorandum from the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs (Mallory),” US Department of State, Central Files, 737.00/4-660, in Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) 1958–1960, Volume VI, Cuba: (Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1991), p. 885.
This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
On 17 September, Jeremy Corbyn MP sent a letter to foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, calling out the government’s silence and inaction on Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people.
He focused on the fact that the United Nations (UN) published a report on 16 September recognising Israel’s actions as genocidal:
I am writing to you to demand an immediate statement on the recent UN report, which confirms that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza.
Corbyn went on:
The new report, published by the UN commission of Inquiry, says there are reasonable grounds to conclude that four of five genocidal acts defined under international law have been carried out. “It is clear”, the report states, “that there is an intent to destroy the Palestinians in Gaza through acts that meet the criteria set forth in the Genocide Convention”.
The word ‘genocide’ was coined by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish Jewish law professor who lost 49 family members in the Holocaust. Lemkin himself fled the Nazis and settled in the US, where he took a position at Duke University. Later, he worked on the preparation of the Nuremberg Trials. There, he successfully saw the inclusion of the word genocide in the indictment of Nazi leaders.
However, genocide wasn’t yet a crime with an international legal definition. As such, Lemkin then campaigned for the recognition of genocide to be recognised as a crime internationally. The fruit of his labour was The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, aka the Genocide Convention. It came into force on 12 January 1951.
It’s under the Convention’s definition that the UN recognised Israel’s current genocide of the Palestinian people. Corbyn, in his letter, pressed the implications of the UN’s findings for the UK:
The UN report has significant implications for British ministers and officials. You will be aware of Britain’s legal obligations to prevent genocide. Article I of the Genocide Convention makes it very clear: “the Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and punish.”
Time and time again, we have reminded the government of its obligations to prevent genocide. Time and time again, our calls have mat with evasion, obfuscation and denial. Last week, your predecessor stated that the government “has not concluded that Israel is acting with [genocidal] intent”. This came after months of evasion and obfuscation regarding the government’s assessment of genocide. To this day, we still do not know what legal advice the government has received, or whether that advice has been made public.
The Genocide Convention is not merely a definition of the term. Its signatories – of which the UK is one – also undertook a duty to “prevent and punish” genocide. Over 800 lawyers, academics and former judges have already warned the UK government that its “actions to date have failed to meet those standards”.
As such, Mr Corbyn asked three key questions of the foreign secretary:
Please can you come to the House so that we can receive answers to the following questions:
- Does the government accept the findings of the UN report?
- Why is the government continuing to provide military support to a country that is committing genocide?
- What is the government doing to fulfil its obligations to prevent genocide?
We have run out of words to articulate the scale of suffering that is being inflicted upon the people of Gaza – and we are running out of time to save the Palestinian people from total, collective erasure.
Complicity in Genocide is punishable under the Convention, just as is genocide itself. Not only is the UK currently failing in its duty to prevent genocide, it is actively aiding Israel. Britain has trained, and continues to train, Israeli Defence Force soldiers in its defence colleges. UK firms have exported munitions and thousands of other military items to Israel, despite a ban which began in September.
Corbyn is right to ask his questions of his former party. Not only that, it is his moral duty – just as it is our duty to press the cowards of Labour to end their complicity in Israel’s genocide. It is a mark of how truly morally bankrupt Starmer’s party has become that they have, as yet, completely failed to respond to the UN’s report – let alone the multitude of glaring signs of genocide that preceded it.
Featured image via YouTube screenshot/LBC
This post was originally published on Canary.
Last night’s Together for Palestine fundraiser brought together powerful music and words of resistance. Amid Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, famous voices from different professions united in opposition. The event raised around £1.5m for Palestinian-led organisations.
Here are some highlights from the event.
There was a wide variety of musical performances at the event, from both younger and older artists. And one of the most beautiful was almost certainly Damon Albarn’s collaboration with the London Arab Orchestra, Omar Souleyman, and Yasiin Bey:
Damon Albarn’s and Gorillaz performances for Together for Palestine live pic.twitter.com/eun8Znw1NY
— sky
(@invislovebot) September 17, 2025
Gorillaz (@gorillaz) performing at the Brian Eno (@brianeno) organised, Together for Palestine, concert at Wembley Arena last night.#TogetherForPalestine pic.twitter.com/X5tCPcpJ1n
— Far Out Magazine (@FarOutMag) September 18, 2025
Solidarity: Gorillaz – Damascus feat. Omar Souleyman and Yasiin Bey at Together For Palestine. pic.twitter.com/CEZ1pPUccO
— Antifa_Ultras (@ultras_antifaa) September 18, 2025
Powerful performance from Paloma Faith at Together for Palestine event at Wembley.
pic.twitter.com/CHdXq6AfZp
— Earth Hippy
(@hippyygoat) September 17, 2025
Joining the huge names on the line-up, @rachelchinourir and @catburns joined forces at Together For Palestine, and broke out a touching duet of their collaborative track ‘Even’.#RachelChinouriri #CatBurns #TogetherForPalestine @T4Plive pic.twitter.com/P8IUxVgp7f
— NME (@NME) September 18, 2025
Some beautiful performances at TOGETHER FOR PALESTINE
+ https://t.co/wHtwYbflnV pic.twitter.com/zrHqqzrTgZ—
⁷ (@Bora_Flwr_Thrwr) September 17, 2025
High-profile figures also read out moving Palestinian poetry:
Legendary British musician Brian Eno, who helped organize and produce the Together for Palestine benefit concert, performs the poem “Oh Rascal Children of Gaza.”
Written by Palestinian poet Khaled Juma during Israel’s 2014 assault on Gaza, the poem mourns the 550 children killed… pic.twitter.com/wEWw15UYgZ
— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) September 17, 2025
This land, the lady of lands.
The motherland of beginnings, the motherland of all ends.
She was known as Palestine.
She forevermore will be known as Palestine.”— Actor Benedict Cumberbatch, reciting Mahmoud Darwish’s On This Land at… pic.twitter.com/mTMaml7mFv
— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) September 17, 2025
Actor Florence Pugh had a strong statement for all the people in positions of power who have remained silent during the Gaza genocide:
Silence in the face of such suffering is not neutrality. It is complicity.
— Florence Pugh Media (@FPDMedia) September 17, 2025
Others echoed this message too, calling out the inaction of famous artists around the world:
Nicola Coughlan speaks up at the "Together for Palestine" fundraiser:
"There are many artists that I love, and I know you love, that have hundreds of million of followers, and they’re saying nothing." pic.twitter.com/LuKMqqqbYR
— Film Updates (@FilmUpdates) September 17, 2025
Journalist Mehdi Hasan highlighted the bravery of Palestinian journalists whom Israel has killed at an unprecedented rate during its genocide:
“You can’t bomb the truth away”
My full speech at Wembley Arena tonight, in London, to 12,000 people at the Together for Palestine concert, paying tribute to murdered Palestinian journalists and their bravery, and calling out the silence and complicity of Western media. pic.twitter.com/OMxgaEwIpA
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) September 18, 2025
Footballer Eric Cantona called for Israel’s suspension from international football competitions:
At the Together 4 Palestine gig in London, Eric Cantona stood alongside ex-Palestinian player Mahmoud Sarsak, jailed 3 years by Israel, with a powerful reminder:
“FIFA and UEFA banned Russia 4 days after Ukraine. We’re 716 days into a genocide, and Israel still plays.” pic.twitter.com/8j2rynTHs2
— Leyla Hamed (@leylahamed) September 17, 2025
UN expert Francesca Albanese called on ordinary people to take action where governments have chosen not to:
“When governments betray the most basic human values, it is upon us to fix it. We, the people.”
Tonight, @FranceskAlbs, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, gave this powerful speech at the Together for Palestine concert. pic.twitter.com/znvxeUZkHM
— Amnesty UK (@AmnestyUK) September 17, 2025
Actor Richard Gere highlighted the key US role in the genocide, stressing that Donald Trump could stop it in one day if he chose to:
Richard Gere, speaking at OVO Arena Wembley in the UK: "Netanyahu has to go. And all the enablers have to go as well."
He added that he believes only one man—Donald Trump—can stop this genocide. pic.twitter.com/IGIBr2pZGF
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) September 18, 2025
Musician Saint Levant, meanwhile, highlighted that the genocide is just Israel’s most blatantly barbaric act, but is actually part of the decades-long oppression of Palestinian people:
Saint Levant addressed thousands at London's Wembley Arena, reminding the audience that the suffering in Gaza did not begin on October 7 but is rooted in decades of occupation and imperialism. pic.twitter.com/pXc9Qrl98e
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) September 18, 2025
Others echoed this same message, including the Palestine Solidarity Campaign’s Ben Jamal:
“History did not begin in October 7th”
Ben Jamal, Director of PSC, delivered an electrifying speech at tonight’s Together For Palestine concert at Wembley, London, representing a movement determined to resist Israel’s decades of oppression, colonization, and erasure. pic.twitter.com/YbcEqcP76v
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) September 17, 2025
Many more famous figures were also present, including Holocaust survivor Stephen Kapos. And they all spoke out in solidarity with the people suffering as a result of Israel’s heinous crimes in Gaza:
A Holocaust survivor explains why his past compels him to remain steadfast in his commitment to the Palestinian people at the “Together for Palestine” event, live at OVO Arena Wembley in the UK. pic.twitter.com/V3KoEHVEu7
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) September 17, 2025
pinkpantheress and charithra chandran’s speech at the together for palestine concert today
— pinkpantheress source (@pantheressluv) September 17, 2025
Victoria Rose, a doctor who served in Gaza, shares a message from a Gazan nurse colleague during the “Together for Palestine” event at OVO Arena Wembley in the UK. pic.twitter.com/QfQX38fO5u
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) September 17, 2025
Featured image via YouTube screenshot/Annie Lennox
By Ed Sykes
This post was originally published on Canary.
Israel has perpetrated a new massacre minutes ago, bombing a group of civilians, in the open air, at Gaza port:
By Skwawkbox
This post was originally published on Canary.
Israel has detained and deported two British MPs, in what is now becoming a routine. But far from returning the favour, the British government continues to be one of Israel’s most loyal international allies, allowing genocide-inciters and war criminals to walk freely in Britain.
The two Labour MPs are doctors, and had planned to observe the healthcare situation in the occupied West Bank of Palestine. Israeli occupation forces stopped them from entering and detained them before deporting them to Jordan. Israel had previously detained and deported two different Labour MPs back in April.
Israel’s hostility to Labour MPs comes in spite of the strong influence the pro-Israel lobby has in Keir Starmer’s government. Despite overwhelming global consensus, Starmer has been a consistent genocide-denier.
And the MPs Israel targeted most recently, Peter Prinsley and Simon Opher, are hardly radicals. Opher continues to praise Starmer, and Prinsley has happily linked up with pro-Israel lobby groups. But Opher in particular has expressed concern about Israel’s crimes. And following his deportation, he said it was ethically unsound for the government to keep supporting the apartheid state:
'Supporting a regime that's doing this sort of stuff is just not ethically sound'
Stroud Labour MP Dr Simon Opher was one of two MPs denied entry to Israel while attempting to visit health workers in West Bank
He says the government should go further, ban all arms trade with… pic.twitter.com/1QMRURnHwc
— ITV News West Country (@itvwestcountry) September 17, 2025
Sources in the West Bank have said healthcare is “on the verge of collapse” there, Opher said after his recent deportation. And Israel is clearly “very sensitive” about that, suggesting it wants to hide that situation from the world:
"You have to wonder why they stopped us going in. The only conclusion I can come to is they're not proud of what's happening to healthcare in the West Bank."
Labour MP Simon Opher was barred from Israel for trying to witness the plight of Palestinian healthcare workers. pic.twitter.com/KR8cxLY5pC
— PoliticsJOE (@PoliticsJOE_UK) September 17, 2025
When Israel has allowed British MPs to enter the West Bank in recent months, it has only served to expose the worsening humanitarian crisis Israel is engineering in the occupied Palestinian territory as the world’s attention focuses on the genocide in Gaza. So it’s unsurprising that Israel wants to limit scrutiny of its crimes as much as possible.
Allowing foreign delegations to observe the occupation has long been part of Israel’s attempt to portray itself as a democracy. But in reality, it’s an ethnocracy – an apartheid state that privileges one group of people over another. And that’s all too apparent when you look not just at Israel but at the territories it has occupied illegally since at least 1967. If Israel wants the world to see it as a democracy, it either has to end its longstanding occupation of Palestine, or give everyone under its rule equal rights – neither of which seems likely.
Britain’s leaders, meanwhile, allow this barbarism to continue. While Israel prevents British MPs from observing its crimes, the UK government allows Israeli criminals to come and go freely. This is because Britain is not free. It’s a junior partner to US imperialism, which is the enforcer of a global billionaire class. And Israel’s brutal occupation is very much part of that system’s interests. But with every massacre and cover-up, the mask is slipping, and the world is increasingly seeing this corrupt system for what it is.
Featured image via the Canary
By Ed Sykes
This post was originally published on Canary.
Britain’s biggest trade union Unison is using Israeli and Israel-linked providers for key internal service provision, insiders have told the Canary.
This is despite support for Palestinian rights and opposition to genocide being official union policy, as decided by members.
One of Europe’s biggest trade unions, Unison has 1.3 million members across the public and private sectors. The union supports progressive causes at home and abroad. It even produced a handbook on Palestine rights in 2021.
Its current leadership have repeatedly and publicly condemned Israel’s crimes, endorsed BDS, and backed Palestinian statehood.
Unison’s website says the organisation fights to defend trade union and human rights “wherever they are under attack”.
Yet, courageous insiders at Unison have shown the Canary evidence of what one called “complicity in the ongoing Israeli genocide”.
Some of the evidence we were directed to is open source. But the Canary has also seen documents which appear to confirm Unison is still using Israeli and Israeli-linked firms for services like insurance, human resources, and travel procurement from genocide-linked firms.
Two of the companies are global insurance giants with links to Israeli arms firm Elbit Systems. The others are Israeli-owned companies with corporate headquarters inside Israel.
A year ago, one of these firms publicly stated its “unequivocal” support the apartheid regime.
The whistleblowers believe that the union membership have a right to know about any potential genocide links. They hope Unison and other unions will ensure they align with the Boycotts, Divestments and Sanction (BDS) campaign.
One insider, who asked not to be named, said that because Unison is currently electing a new General Secretary this issue could become critical:
These revelations should shame Unison. Would-be leaders must commit to immediately cut all ties with Israel and the arms trade if they are to ask for members’ trust and confidence.
They added:
Questions need to be answered as to who is responsible for these contracts. I’m sure this will affect the chances of a second term for the current General Secretary, under who’s watch this has been allowed to continue.
The insider told the Canary:
I want to see Unison – the largest trade union in the UK – held to account for it’s funding of the arms trade & breaking of its own position on Palestine, including its’ Boycott Divestment & Sanction statement.
Without the actions of these brave insiders, the membership would be none the wiser.
The whistleblower said:
We should be able to hold trade unions to the highest standards of integrity and democracy. Yet here we have Unison- the largest union in the nation, funding the genocide they have publicly condemned, in direct betrayal of the membership they claim to hold sovereign.
Just this week, current General Secretary Christina McAnea has spoken to the Trade Union Council [TUC] conference of the need for the government to intervene urgently in Gaza… the hypocrisy of this when her union continues in financial relationships with companies who are funding the genocide is sickening.
The union offers it’s members cheap insurance through a UK firm called LV.com. In 2020, insurance giant Allianz completed the purchase of LV.com. Allianz in turn insures Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems.
As the Canary has reported, Elbit provides up to “85% of Israel’s killer drone fleet and land-based equipment, as well as missiles, munitions and digital warfare”.
Elbit’s quadcopter drones are “routinely used to massacre Palestinians in Gaza”
The Canary has also seen internal documents linking Unison with insurance firm Zurich. These suggest the union is using Zurich for services including “employer’s liability insurance”.
By insuring arms and military equipment firms who are taking part in Israel’s military action, Zurich are also implicated in Israeli crimes. Both Zurich and Allianz were named in an major 2025 report titled ‘Ensuring Destruction’.
The study examines how these powerful firms are cashing in on Israel’s attack on Gaza. You can read our analysis of that report here.
The whistleblower told the Canary that Unison also still uses monday.com, an Israeli-owned ‘cloud based platform’, for some of its HR provision. monday.com has its head office in Tel Aviv.
One Irish organisation has already stopped using monday.com under pressure from their staff over genocide links. In January 2025, the Resident’s Tenancy Board (RTB), an Irish rental watchdog, decided not to renew a contract with Monday.com after “internal anger” from staff.
RTB maintains it stopped using monday.com was for business reasons. However in 2025 Irish publication The Journal claimed:
Staff were told that the contract with Monday will cease in May and would not be renewed.
The issue has an ongoing one for management. The Journal learned that the RTB had to quell internal anger after the RTB processed a payment for the global software firm for further use of the software.
A year ago – long after international law courts levelled charges of genocide against the apartheid state’s leadership – monday.com posted on Linkedin:
We unequivocally stand with Israel and its people as the country endures one of the most difficult moments in its history.
Additionally, our sources say Unison uses the Israeli-owned travel management firm Atriis for some of its travel procurement. Atriis is also headquartered in Israel
The Canary has been given screenshots and a a link to an internal webpage used to book travel through Atriis, which describes its service as “a content-centric corporate online booking platform“.
Two other Unison insiders confirmed that to their knowledge these services were still in use.
One of these sources also said that the union membership did not know the full extent of these Israeli links and wouldn’t be happy if they did:
I think many would be shocked given the footage they see coming out of Gaza everyday.
Large sections of the rank-and-file Unison membership are vocally committed to Palestinian rights and self-determination. As a result, various commitments have been incorporated into union policy over the years.
The Canary asked our first source if it was possible this could have been accidentally overlooked:
In my experience, Unison is incredibly inefficient, and layers of bureaucracy and chronic under-staffing inhibit any meaningful reform.
I would like to believe that these contracts are an oversight, but the repeated motions from members against such procurement demand a response and there can be no excuse for action not being taken.
As recently as 8 September, Unison leaders were speaking at Palestine solidarity events at the Trade Union Congress (TUC) conference in Brighton:
UNISON general secretary Christina McAnea speaking at Solidarity with Palestine fringe at #TUC25 pic.twitter.com/mr0BHFrqeN
— UNISON – UK's largest union (@unisontheunion) September 8, 2025
McAnea spoke about Palestine alongside other trade union leaders:
At a packed meeting @The_TUC Brighton, trade union leaders lined up to condemn Israel's genocide & apartheid, & to pledge union support to end Israel’s regime of oppression against Palestinians. With Paul Nowak, Eddie Dempsey @RMTunion, Christina McAnea @Unison, Jo Grady @ucu &… pic.twitter.com/Lcd2oKAsVA
— Palestine Solidarity Campaign (@PSCupdates) September 8, 2025
Unison’s X account also praised a “powerful” speech by Palestinian trade unionist leader Shaher Saed:
Powerful speech at #TUC25 by Shaher Saed, the general secretary of the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions
“Our spirit won’t be broken by starvation or genocide”
Watch: https://t.co/2qXBoGuQQCAn honour to meet him on the UNISON standorthw pic.twitter.com/7qpJqPB0Il
— UNISON – UK's largest union (@unisontheunion) September 10, 2025
And Unison’s International Lead Lis Snape called for Palestinian human and trade union rights to be respected:
UNISON AGS Liz Snape speaking as International lead for the TUC general council at #TUC25 calling for respect for human rights and labour rights in Palestine. pic.twitter.com/WOaLeIRkdM
— UNISON – UK's largest union (@unisontheunion) September 10, 2025
In December 2021, Unison even published a guide for members titled ‘Talking about Palestinians Rights‘.
The guide states [authors bold]:
UNISON supports Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), as a practical way to force the Israeli government to end its repression of the Palestinian people and contribute towards the building of peace. This means taking a targeted approach to BDS in order to maximise our impact.
We support the TUC policy of campaigning for a boycott of goods from illegal Israeli settlements and divestment from companies who profit from the illegal Israeli occupation.
The guide shows that Unison has a clear understanding of the fascistic character of Israeli apartheid and occupation [authors bold]:
The issue of Palestine is often portrayed as a highly complex dispute over a contested area of land. In reality, the central issue is the military occupation, which has continued to violate the rights of the Palestinian people and international law since the land was taken by the Israeli government during the 1967 war.
On 30 July 2025, the Unison leadership backed the UK government’s position on Palestinian statehood.
General Secretary Christina McAnea said:
Recognition of the state of Palestine is a critical step towards bringing peace to the region, ending the illegal occupation and respecting basic human rights.
McAnea made it clear that the situation in Gaza was extremely bad, acknowledging the risk of famine (now a frightening reality) and the wholesale, deliberate destruction of healthcare infrastructure:
The situation in Gaza has never been more critical, with UN warnings of famine and people dying of hunger. Healthcare and other public services in Gaza have been devastated. Almost all the territory is under displacement orders or within a militarised zone.
A unison document titled ‘2025 National Delegate Conference Decisions‘ affirms the union membership’s desire for a just settlement for both Palestinians and Israelis [authors bold]:
Conference recognises that the demand for a contiguous, viable Palestinian state alongside a safe and secure state of Israel is central to UNISON’s position on Palestine. The demand is fundamental to securing human and workers’ rights for the Palestinian people, including the right to decent work and quality public services.
The conference document emphasises Unison’s commitment to BDS:
Conference notes existing UNISON policy in support of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement and the excellent work done across UNISON branches and regions. On many occasions we have reaffirmed our commitment to the BDS movement.
The ‘Conference Decisions’ document recognises the need for accountability through, for example, strengthening Unison’s “ethical procurement procedures”.
The document explicitly recognises “illegal occupation, apartheid and genocide” as the reality on the ground [author’s bold]:
Conference agrees that to ensure that we are not funding companies linked to arms manufacture, dual use goods or any companies profiting from illegal occupation, apartheid or genocide, we must strengthen and resource our ethical procurement procedures across the union.
The insiders said they hoped that by bringing the union’s “complicity” to public attention, Unison and other UK trade unions will audit their organisations for any links to Israeli apartheid, occupation and genocide.
Unison were approached for comment, acknowledged the Canary’s request, but failed to respond.
Featured image via the Canary
By Joe Glenton
This post was originally published on Canary.
Spain’s officials have hinted that their country may withdraw from the 2026 World Cup, which will be hosted by the United States, Canada, and Mexico, if the Israeli national team participates in the tournament.
The Spanish newspaper Marca reported that Patxi López, spokesperson for the Socialist Group in the Spanish Parliament, left the door open to a possible withdrawal in protest against what he described as genocide in Gaza, stressing that the vast majority of Spanish society cannot tolerate the daily scenes of killing and destruction in the Strip.
López explained that seeing children killed, people targeted while searching for food, and cities destroyed for the interests of wealthy individuals constitutes violations that cannot be tolerated. He added that the Spanish people refuse to be complicit and are taking to the streets to protest, especially when Israeli teams funded by supporters of Netanyahu’s government roam the country’s streets.
He stressed that Israeli society must see the world’s position on the actions of its government, emphasizing that Spain may ban Israeli teams from participating in all sporting events, including the 2026 World Cup qualifiers, if the relevant sports authorities do not take clear action.
Lopez called for Israel to be excluded from international competitions, as was previously done with Russia, warning that Spain’s withdrawal could become a reality if Israeli teams continue to participate without accountability.
The tournament is being held for the first time in three countries, with European champions Spain occupying a leading position in the qualifiers after two wins from two games, while Israel is seeking to secure at least a place in the World Cup qualifying play-offs.
This escalation comes in the context of the ongoing Israeli invasion of Gaza and the accompanying widespread popular protests in Spain, such as those seen at the La Vuelta cycling race, objecting to the participation of Israeli teams and demanding an end to financial and political support for them.
Featured image via the Canary
By Alaa Shamali
This post was originally published on Canary.
Israel committed a horrific massacre yesterday, 17 September 2025, targeting forcibly displaced Palestinian civilians near to Al-Shifa Hospital, as they were evacuating Gaza City.
At least 15 people have been killed, including Palestinian journalist Alaa Al-Sawalhi, a cameraman for Al-Quds Al-Youm channel.
Women and children were among those killed.
A press release issued by Hamas on Wednesday evening calls the targeting of these innocent civilians:
a full-fledged war crime that exposes the brutality of this entity in attacking civilians even at moments of displacement.
This massacre, along with all the other atrocities that happened yesterday – including the targeting, by Israeli occupation forces, of two Palestinian civilians near the Red Crescent in Tel Al-Air, south of Gaza City – came only one day after a UN commission confirmed that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
Between 12am and 9.20pm on 17 September, the total number of Palestinians killed by the occupation was 86.
By Charlie Jaay
This post was originally published on Canary.
The Israeli government has gone fully ballistic and threatened the funding of Israel’s own national film awards, the ‘Ophirs’, after a film about a Palestinian boy – The Sea – won the ‘Best Feature Film’ prize.
Rattled culture minister Miki Zohar posted on X that the award for The Sea was a ‘slap in the face’, describing the awards as a ‘pathetic ceremony’ and threatening to defund it from next year:
There is no greater slap in the face of Israeli citizens than the embarrassing and detached annual Ophir awards ceremony. Starting with the 2026 budget, this pathetic ceremony will no longer be funded by taxpayers’ money. Under my watch, Israeli citizens will not pay from their pockets for a ceremony that spits in the faces of our heroic soldiers.
The Sea is a Hebrew-language film about a 12-year-old Palestinian boy who goes through dangers to see the sea when Israeli soldiers refuse to let him travel with his classmates on the school bus. In a further ‘slap in the face’ for Zohar and his genocidal colleagues, the win means the film has also been selected as Israel’s entry for ‘Best International Film’ at the next Oscars.
Adding to the Zionist pain, Muhammad Gazawi, who plays the film’s hero Khaled, also won the Ophir for best actor, while his co-star Khalifa Natour won best supporting actor.
The Association for Civil Rights in Israel says it is investigating whether the culture ministry has the authority to withdraw the ceremony’s funding. This is not the first time Zohar has suffered ‘butthurt’ over a winning Palestinian film: last year he complained that Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land was “sabotage against the state of Israel”. Boo hoo.
Receiving the award, The Sea’s Palestinian producer Baher Agbariya said:
This film was born from love for humanity and cinema, and its message is one – the right of every child to live and dream in peace, without siege, without fear, and without war.
Many participants in the ceremony made protests against Israel’s genocide in Gaza, particularly the occupation’s mass murder of children.
Featured image via the Canary
By Skwawkbox
This post was originally published on Canary.
Award-winning Scottish screenwriter Paul Laverty has spoken out after the Procurator Fiscal – Scotland’s public prosecutor – contacted him at the last moment to inform him that Laverty’s prosecution under the Terrorism Act 2000, part of Keir Starmer’s ‘lawfare’ war on anti-genocide and pro-Palestine speech and protest, was cancelled.
But it might be brought back.
Paul Laverty, 68, who has a consistent record of siding with the oppressed, said:
In the last hour I have just received a hand delivered note from the Procurator Fiscal’s office cancelling my court appearance for tomorrow morning, where I intended to plead not guilty to a charge under section 13 of the Terrorism Act 2000 for wearing a t shirt with the words “Genocide in Palestine. Time to Take Action.” I am told that the charge is still pending and a final decision will taken later.
Yesterday, the 16th Sept, yet another detailed report from the UN Commission concludes that Israel is committing Genocide. It states “There is nowhere that the people of Gaza can escape slaughter.” Nowhere! It proves what Israeli Finance Minister Smotrich has said as he taunts the world with “This has no precedent and nobody is stopping us.”
This evening, at the very same time as the biggest incursion yet into Gaza kills more by the minute, the British establishment in the shape of the Crown and the UK government prostitute themselves, grovelling before the Chief Enabler of Genocide, Donald Trump. They bow before his crass vulgarity, greed and impunity. Tonight, they will have a glittering banquet in Windsor Castle, with a fly by of the RAF, the same RAF that now flies over Gaza and provides intelligence to the IDF.
Trump, and no doubt the company executives who accompany him, including Microsoft, will gorge themselves as the racist thugs with the contract to provide the misnamed humanitarian aid in Gaza, execute a percentage of the starving each day as they scramble for flour. Microsoft have just signed billion dollar plus deal with the IDF to support them in their tech capacity to subjugate the Palestinians.What a spectacle of collusion and moral collapse. Corporate power, greed and collusion with Death are manifested in the soaring worth of the Tel Aviv Stockmarket. Please take a look at the detailed report by the UN which has published its findings in a report called “From the Economy of Occupation, to the economy of Genocide.”
It is hard to find the words in the face of this nauseating barbarism. Perhaps we have to look to the Bard once again, William Shakespeare, in his play King Lear.
“Tis the times’ plague, when madmen lead the blind.”
Paul Laverty, Edinburgh 17th of Sept ’25.
Featured image via the Canary
By Skwawkbox
This post was originally published on Canary.
Sick Israeli ‘social media comedian‘-wannabe Neti Flinker has posted a disgusting video mocking Palestinians starving under Israel’s criminal blockade of food and medicines.
Neti Flinker made the vile clip to advertise a burger restaurant in an illegal West Bank settlement.
Journalist @ireallyhateyou1948, who found and posted the ad, warned viewers,
If you’re prone to nausea, better have a puke bag ready.
Featured image via screengrab
By Skwawkbox
This post was originally published on Canary.
Social media footage has shown soldiers from the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) throwing their psychiatric medications on the table of a parliamentary committee meeting, during its discussion on ways to combat the increasing suicide rate among the military, while shouting:
We are mentally ill, and our friends are committing suicide.
View this post on Instagram
Earlier this week, the Times of Israel also reported that of the 20,000 wounded soldiers which the occupation’s Defense Ministry’s Rehabilitation Department has treated since October 2023, more than half are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health conditions.
But it should come as no surprise that these soldiers are suffering from psychological issues. How can their minds be healthy when they blow children to pieces, shoot starving civilians who are looking for food, flatten entire neighbourhoods and destroy people’s homes – while they boast freely on the internet, knowing there will be no accountability for their war crimes?
These soldiers are responsible for a never-ending cycle of violence against Palestinian civilians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza, and without them there would be no occupation, no genocide which was confirmed by the United Nations Commission yesterday.
Colonel Richard Kemp, head of the charity UK Friends of the Association for the Wellbeing of Israel’s Soldiers (UK-AWIS) – the UK branch of AWIS, an Israeli organisation managed by the Israel Defense Forces – has called the IDF “the world’s most moral army”. He described Israel as “a decent country with Western values, run on democratic principles” which “has never started a war” and said:
the IDF does more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare.
Colonel Kemp is obviously deluded, as are the 76% of Israelis who either fully or partially agreed with the suggestion that:
there are no innocent people in Gaza.
There has been a persistent pattern of violence throughout the history of the IDF, from its formation to the present day. Before 1948, there were three underground Zionist paramilitary groups – the Haganah, Irgun, and Lehi. These groups had contentious and often violent histories, and were regarded by many as terrorist organizations due to their use of bombings, assassinations, and attacks against both British authorities and the Palestinian population during the British Mandate period.
After Israel became a state, these three militias unified and formed the IDF, and their leaders formed Israel’s government, became politicians, ambassadors and prime ministers. Israel is now a militarised state, structured around its army.
Professor Haim Bresheeth is a filmmaker, photographer, Jewish activist, and author of An Army Like No Other: How the Israel Defense Forces Made a Nation. In his book, Bresheeth writes about the IDF and its central role in shaping Israeli society and the modern Israeli state.
According to Bresheeth, the IDF has become the most influential institution in Israel, impacting every aspect of civilian life and policy. He claims that an ethos of perpetual military readiness has made peace seem not only unachievable but even undesirable to much of Israeli society.
Bresheeth told the Canary:
The prevalence of suicide and deep trauma amongst IDF soldiers, ones who do not even understand their problems as the result of the crimes they committed during the genocide in Gaza, is overwhelming. The anger and violence they use is not just evidence of their attitudes as IDF soldiers, but also of the deep trauma they are in. The soldiers who are NOT traumatised are even worse – they have no problem with murdering civilians in huge numbers.
The complainants are in the Knesset because their conditions are not treated by the system. If they themselves are traumatised, think of the trauma of the real victims – the Palestinians in Gaza – murdered, badly maimed, constantly under fire, starvation, lack of water, medicine, housing, hospitals, schools, universities – any modern facilities in this terrible killing field called Gaza! Call for an end of the genocide and an end of the Zionist state!”
Although official suicide data from the Israeli occupation forces are only published yearly, we know that five Israeli soldiers took their own lives in July 2025 alone, while in 2024, 21 soldiers died by suicide – the highest annual toll in over a decade, while in 2023, the figure stood at 17.
Featured image via the Canary
By Charlie Jaay
This post was originally published on Canary.
Yet another blistering addition to the ghoulish accounts of cruelty regarding the ongoing actions of Israel in Gaza made its appearance on September 16. It came in the form of a report by the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, a lashing publication finding Israel guilty of committing genocide on the Strip. Of the five elements outlined in the 1948 Genocide Convention, Israel was found guilty of four. (The state’s interest in transferring Palestinian children from one group to another is yet to show itself.)
The relevant acts outlined in the report include instances of killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, the deliberate infliction of conditions of life calculated to bring about physical destruction, and imposing measures intended to prevent births, all conducted with the specific intent to destroy the Palestinian people as a group. “Today we witness in real time how the promise of ‘never again’ is broken and tested in the eyes of the world,” said the Commission’s chair Navi Pillay in a press conference following the report’s release.
This report finds itself in the adhesive if gruesome company of such publications as Amnesty International’s December 2024 effort, You Feel Like You are Subhuman to the August 2025 conclusions of the International Association of Genocide Scholars. The Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Palestinian territories, occupied since 1967, Francesca Albanese, has also been admirably busy drumming up interest in the links between genocide and starvation. Such bountiful material has yet to convince the Israeli authorities to pause their efforts in Gaza, now culminating in the systematic destruction of Gaza City and the displacement of its population.
The Commission authors, all sound and weighty figures of international jurisprudence, also found that Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant “incited the commission of genocide and that Israeli authorities have failed to take action against them to punish this incitement.” More broadly, Israel’s political and military leaders responsible for prosecuting the war strategy “are ultimately responsible for the commission of the underlying acts of genocide by members of the Israeli security forces”, with such leaders being “agents of the State of Israel”.
The mental state for establishing genocide had been established by relevant statements made by members of the Israeli authorities. In addition to this, there was “circumstantial evidence of genocidal intent and that genocidal intent was the only reasonable inference that could be drawn from the totality of the evidence.” Israeli authorities and security forces “had and continue to have the genocidal intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.”
The Commission also makes various recommendations, including the obvious one of ending the commission of genocide and Israel’s compliance with the three provisional orders of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) made in January, March and May last year; the immediate implementation of a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and conclusion of military operations in the occupied Palestinian territory that entail genocidal acts; the restoration of the United Nations aid model, unimpeded; and the investigation and punishment of acts of genocide and incitement to genocide against the Palestinians in the Strip.
Pointed words are also reserved for the international community, among them that all Member States pull their weight in insuring the prevention of genocidal acts in the Strip, cease the transfer of arms and equipment to Israel or third parties “where there is reason to suspect their use in military operations that have involved or could involve the commission of genocide”, ensure that corporations and individuals within their territories and jurisdiction are not part of the genocidal program, and facilitate necessary investigations and prosecutive proceedings against the State of Israel and corporations and individuals regarding genocide, its facilitation and incitement.
The Commission arose in 2021, when it was established by the UN Human Rights Council to investigate alleged violations of international law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and in Israel. The September report makes much of three previous reports issued by the COI, and three papers relevant to international law violations committed by all the parties to the conflict.
To have reached findings of genocidal intent is a tall order indeed. The mental threshold needed to satisfy genocidal intent is a dizzyingly high bar to meet. The ICJ, even as it considers Israel’s own actions in Gaza at the litigious prodding of South Africa, has shown itself reluctant to identify the destructive intent (dolus specialis) against an identifiable group as protected by the UN Genocide Convention. In the Bosnia v Serbia case, Serbia was not found to be responsible for the commission of genocide, but for its failure in preventing it with respect to the killings of over 7,000 Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica in July 1995. The Court imposed a giddy standard of proof: that the pattern of acts in destroying the identifiable group should “have to be such that it could only point to the existence of such intent”. It was a standard criticised by Judge Awn Al-Khasawneh in his dissenting opinion, feeling that such acts as “population transfers” and “evidence of massive killings systematically targeting the Bosnian Muslims” evidenced obvious genocidal intent.
In 2015, the ICJ also found that neither Serbia or Croatia had committed acts of genocide against each other’s populations during the disintegration of Yugoslavia, despite killings and the infliction of serious bodily or mental harm to both groups by virtue of them being members of an ethnic group.
Judge Antônio Augusto Cançado Trindade, in his dissenting opinion in Croatia v Serbia, proffers a salutary observation: “perpetrators of genocide will almost always allege that they were in armed conflict, and their actions were taken ‘pursuant to an ongoing military conflict’; yet, ‘genocide may be a means for achieving military objectives just as readily as military conflict may be a means for instigating a genocidal plan”.
There is certainly much to draw upon, be it the Commission’s findings, or the excoriating report by UN Special Rapporteur Albanese. The latter tartly exposes the misuse of international humanitarian law as an instrument of Israeli advancement, making a mockery of aid to the very people the state seeks to dislocate, kill and humble.
The response from Israel is also instructive in terms of how that state fits within the law of nations, which it has sought to reinterpret with postmodern elasticity. A statement from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs makes short work of the report as “distorted” and “false”, accusing the authors as “Hamas proxies, notorious for their antisemitic positions” and demanding the “immediate abolition of this Commission of Inquiry.” That would be all too convenient.
The post Clear Conclusions: A UN Commission Finds Israel Responsible for Genocide in Gaza first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
(@wakeuppalestine)