Major Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems has reportedly shut down a U.K. facility after it was repeatedly targeted by Palestine Action activists, in a major victory for the group that was recently banned by the U.K. government. The Guardian reported on Saturday that one of the company’s Bristol facilities, in Aztec West, appears abandoned, with no staff other than a security guard…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Your home is not just a building. It is a space carefully crafted by your family — a place that witnessed your first steps, heard your whispers, and held your laughter and tears. It is the place where your childhood lives. Every room tells a tale. A nook holds old toys. There’s a window where the morning sun kissed your face, and the threshold you crossed thousands of times.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
In the Shuja’iyya neighborhood of Gaza, where the rubble of houses lies scattered like autumn leaves and it is difficult to distinguish the sound of human voices from the sound of explosions, the story of Muhammad Mushtaha began, a young man who experienced life and death in a single moment. Before Israel’s genocide, Muhammad Mushtaha was a sighted young man, full of life and dreams, walking through the narrow streets, laughing with his friends, planning a future he believed would be bright despite all the difficulties.
One day, Muhammad Mushtaha went out in search of food and aid for his family, accompanied by his friend. They were walking down a street that had become a death zone since the start of the war. Suddenly, a strike fell from the sky, killing his friend before his eyes, while Muhammad fell to the ground. The blow struck his head and eyes, and the light went out of his heart and soul. He could no longer see anything, but the pain was worse than the darkness: the pain of losing his sight, the pain of losing his security, the pain of losing the world as he knew it.
Amidst the rubble and smoke, Muhammad did not collapse. He crawled through the ruins, gathering all his remaining strength, until he reached Al-Shifa Hospital. There he received medical assistance, but he left the hospital without light in his eyes. Nevertheless, his heart did not succumb to despair. Every day was a challenge for him, a journey between death and life, between fear and hope.
Muhammad Mushtaha was not content to simply endure hunger and darkness; he decided to continue living. To love, to choose joy. He got married while blind, in a small ceremony attended by family and a few friends, where his wife’s hand held his to tell him that life was not over yet. The wedding was a cry in the face of war, a message that love is stronger than bullets, and that joy can be born in the heart of rubble.
Today, Muhammad is no longer just a young man who lost his sight, but a symbol of humanity and resilience. His story carries a message to anyone who thinks that war can destroy the spirit: light does not die, even if it is absent from the eye, and love is capable of illuminating the densest darkness. With every step Muhammad takes, with every laugh he shares, there is a victory over death, over despair, over everything that war wanted to steal from Gaza.
This story is not only about the loss of sight, but about the ability of the spirit to rise above it all, about a man who can find beauty and life amid destruction, about the joy that is born despite all the sorrow. Muhammad Mushtaha teaches us that life is stronger than war, that hope can sprout from the rubble, and that love can bring light back to a heart even when his eyes are darkened.
Featured image via the Canary
By Alaa Shamali
This post was originally published on Canary.
The street artist Banksy has unveiled a new piece at the Royal Courts of Justice in London. Looking at it, it’s clear he’s making a statement about the how the UK is increasingly using legal means to restrict the right to speak out. Fittingly, the powers-that-be immediately moved to hide his message from public view:
And this has just made it more powerful.
[Pic: Callum Parke/PA] pic.twitter.com/c39EDg3yKt
— Barry Malone (@malonebarry) September 8, 2025
Under Keir Starmer, Britain is increasingly keen to tell people what they shouldn’t do.
Don’t protest.
Don’t oppose the genocide.
Don’t even call it a genocide.
Don’t look at the Banksy.
For the love of god, don’t look at the Banksy!
Analysing the image above, it looks they initially duct-taped black plastic over the piece before erecting a mini-Berlin Wall in front of it. Clearly that wasn’t enough, as pedestrians might still be able to sense the raw, unfettered symbolism behind their fortifications. Covering all bases, they instructed two of their best men to stand guard and prevent anyone from sneaking a peak.
As the day goes by, we imagine they’ll add to the defences. Perhaps they’ll construct a gun tower or arrange for an RAF flyover. Probably they should build a moat around ground zero or just vaporise it with an orbital laser. If they don’t, the risk is that someone will see Banksy’s piece and think ‘maybe we shouldn’t be criminalising people for speaking out against war crimes‘.
That wall they erected is no doubt bringing back bad memories for Banksy who completed several pieces on Israel’s ‘Segregation Wall‘ in 2005.
Segregation Wall, Cisjordânia, do Banksy
pic.twitter.com/B9DkMjWbEP
— João Cordeiro (@ortoirlandes) December 31, 2023
Segregation Wall, Palestine 2005, Banksy pic.twitter.com/9aCDcJPjLR
— Lu ★
(@lu_mtrip) November 29, 2023
You shouldn’t think about Israel segregating the Palestinian people, though, because that might lead to more thoughts and feelings, and we can’t be having that.
You especially shouldn’t think about what Amnesty international called “Israel’s apartheid against Palestinians: a cruel system of domination and a crime against humanity”. Don’t think about how Israel subjected the Palestinians to decades of such conditions before October 7th either, or what you’d do if you found yourself in similar circumstances.
The picture of Banksy’s latest is taken from his Instagram. When I grabbed a copy for this piece, I made the mistake of looking at the comments, and was bemused that some have assumed the piece was about the wave of flag shagging that’s swept the nation:
Obviously, it wouldn’t make sense if the guy was holding an England flag, because no is being criminalised for holding an England flag. If some meathead happens to have a St George’s cross wrapped around his neck while he commits a racially-aggravated assault, the issue isn’t the flag; the issue is the racially aggravated assault.
And let’s get something else clear; up and down the country people have sprayed crosses and hung flags wherever they like, and the authorities have mostly just left them to it. Banksy made a statement about actual oppression, and before you could shake a gavel, it was wiped from existence.
Thankfully, plenty of people did understand what they were looking at:
New Banksy is fucking nail on the head
Free Palestine
— KNEECAP (@KNEECAPCEOL) September 8, 2025
Banksy’s new artwork at the Royal Courts of Justice is a judge striking a protester with his gavel with the CCTV turned away.
They've already hidden it. pic.twitter.com/Z8mxuBCAdB
— Mukhtar (@I_amMukhtar) September 8, 2025
Defend Our Juries, one of the groups behind the recent protests, also commented on Banksy’s latest:
Banksy's work of art on the Royal Courts powerfully depicts the brutality unleashed by Yvette Cooper on protestors by proscribing Palestine Action.
When the law is used as a tool to crush civil liberties, it does not extinguish dissent – it strengthens it.
: @CallumJParke pic.twitter.com/uHC0RXOv0p
— Defend Our Juries (@DefendourJuries) September 8, 2025
Clearly the days of the establishment treating Banksy like a national treasure are over. As he’s always spoke out against the establishment, that can only be a good thing
Featured image via Banksy
By Willem Moore
This post was originally published on Canary.
Spain’s prime minister Pedro Sánchez announced on Monday 8 September that his country has decided to adopt a series of immediate measures to pressure Israel and stop what he described as “genocide in Gaza,” stressing that previous efforts have failed to alleviate the suffering of the Palestinian people.
In a televised speech from the government headquarters in Madrid, Sanchez explained that the government had approved nine new measures, including closing Spain’s ports to Israeli ships carrying military equipment and closing airspace to aircraft transporting weapons or ammunition to Israel.
He also announced a ban on tankers supplying fuel to the Israeli army from docking in Spanish ports, as well as the preparation of a bill imposing an effective ban on arms exports to Tel Aviv.
Sánchez said that Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip do not fall within the scope of self-defense, but rather aim to “exterminate a defenseless people,” noting that the Israeli army is bombing hospitals and deliberately killing civilians through starvation.
On the humanitarian front, Spain’s prime minister confirmed that his country would increase its support for the people of Gaza by allocating additional aid and increasing its contribution to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) by €10 million.
He stressed that these steps are part of clear efforts to stop the genocide in Gaza and prosecute its perpetrators, in addition to strengthening support for the Palestinian people, who have been facing a continuous war since October 2023.
Since that date, Israel has been waging a widespread war on the Gaza Strip with US support, including bombing, killing, starvation, and forced displacement, ignoring international appeals and orders from the International Court of Justice.
According to the latest statistics from the Ministry of Health in Gaza, this war has resulted in the martyrdom of more than 64,000 Palestinians and the injury of 162,000 others, while 393 people, including 140 children, have died of starvation.
Featured image via the Canary
By Alaa Shamali
This post was originally published on Canary.
The eminent, truth-telling and humane Australian web medium Pearls & Irritations has published a responding Letter from me about total sanctions demanded against Apartheid Israel because of hundreds of thousands of Gaza Genocide deaths: Gideon Polya, “MSM under-count indigenous deaths in US wars,” 5 September 2025.
I have been researching and writing about Indigenous deaths in US Alliance wars for over 30 years since discovering the “forgotten” WW2 Bengali Holocaust in which 6-7 million Indians in British-ruled Bengal, Bihar, Odisha and Assam were deliberately starved to death for strategic reasons with food-denying Australian complicity. Indeed the 1942-1945 Bengal Famine was the first WW2 atrocity to have been described as a “holocaust”. Re the WW2 Bengali Holocaust and the WW2 Jewish Holocaust, my dear late wife Zareena née Lateef was Bengali and Bihari, and I am an anti-racist Jewish Hungarian-Australian.
I have published my findings about Indigenous deaths in US Alliance wars in a thousand articles and 9 huge books, but for the last 20 years Zionist and other gate-keepers have censored me in Australia. The core ethos of Humanity is Kindness and Truth. The key messages from the WW2 Holocaust, the WW2 Bengali Holocaust, all other WW2 holocausts (the Polish, Sinti and Roma, Soviet, European, and Chinese Holocausts), and indeed from all genocide and holocaust atrocities, are “zero tolerance for lying”, “zero tolerance for racism”, “bear witness” and “never again to anyone”. We must all bear witness and endlessly inform everyone we can – racist and lying MSM certainly won’t.
My Letter:
MSM under-count indigenous deaths in US wars
This is an extremely important article by John Menadue demanding total trade sanctions against Israel because of hundreds of thousands of Gaza deaths. Dr Zeina Jamaluddine and colleagues estimated that 64,260 Gazans died violently by day 269 of the Gaza massacre (30 June 2024) (The Lancet) and hence 136,000 Gazans died violently by day 569 (25 April 2025) with a “conservatively estimated” four times that number (544,000) dying from imposed deprivation for a shocking total of 680,000 deaths from violence and deprivation by 25 April 2025.
That is 28% of the pre-war Gaza population of 2.4 million, and 11 times the present mainstream media under-counted estimate of 62,000 deaths. Western mainstream media under-count indigenous deaths in US wars. Thus, in December 2011, the Australian ABC reported on Iraqi deaths: “The [US] withdrawal ends a war that left tens of thousands of Iraqis and nearly 4500 American soldiers dead.”
I estimated 2.7 million Iraqi deaths and seven million Afghan deaths from violence and war-imposed deprivation (Gideon Polya, US-imposed Post-9/11 Muslim Holocaust & Muslim Genocide, 398 pages, 2020). The Brown University Costs of War Project: “At least 4.5 million people have died in the post-9/11 [US] war zones.” Iraq has five million orphans – go figure.
Yours sincerely, Dr Gideon Polya, Melbourne.
The post Mass Media Under-count Indigenous Deaths in US wars first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
[Note: if you didn’t watch me and Nick Estes talking about the Book of Joshua on Red Nation, that discussion and the books therein – the Joshua Generation, Laying Down the Sword, and Canaanites, Cowboys, and Indians – might be good to check out before or after reading this one.]
This replaces the Geneva Convention
Human progress is over. We’re in the Book of Joshua genocidal timeline
The history of the next thousand years is being decided in our time. Will the species survive? Should it? We certainly won’t solve climate change if we can’t stop a genocide. We won’t be reviving nuclear non-proliferation with nuclear-armed states whose leaders quote genocidal passages of the bible and name their doctrines (“Samson Doctrine”, “Gideon’s Chariots”) after the book’s most violent plot points.
The changes happening go way beyond shifts in the locations of borders. We are far past the question of which corrupt ruling party will animalistically feed at the trough.
These are changes in religion, ideology, the basis of belief and how we decide what’s true and false.
The old world was one of a hypocritical liberal facade.
That world is gone.
You thought that science and technology were governed by a progressive spirit of open inquiry? Actually they are governed by ruthless, racist Darwinism.
This is science now
You thought that education, law, journalism and medicine were governed by professional standards and ethics about truth? In fact they are governed by insider-group corruption in which lying is as easy as breathing.
You thought that warfare was governed by the United Nations charter and UN resolutions with the force of law, with its doctrines on the responsibility of occupiers, the right of resistance? In reality, warfare is governed by the Torah and the Book of Joshua’s entreaty to wipe out the memory of Amalek – men, women, draft animals, and especially children.
You thought that the treatment of prisoners was specified in the Geneva Convention? The truth is, it is specified in religious texts on the treatment of slaves and in Hollywood tropes about how funny sexual violence is when committed against “criminals”.
He’s hiding nothing: he’s proud and he’s protected
It is sadder and sadder to watch people of conscience raised in the old system continuing to appeal to international law, screaming into the void that US / Israel actions are illegal.
They’re not illegal in the book that matters, my friends, and that book is the Book of Joshua, a book of massacre and genocide.
The world is ruled by elites educated in the Bible + Race Science
What you believe is what you were taught at an early age. That’s why, for all the neoliberal restructuring, for all the austerity of constant budget cutting and degradation of the student experience, education will never be completely privatized. Elites will never abandon the chance to propagandize students from an early age, even if they wouldn’t dare send their own kids to those schools. What they want (and what they have) is a situation where they control what kids are taught in public school and they control what their own kids are taught in private school. Their kids are to learn superiority. Yours are to learn their place.
Israeli academics wrote a study, Scenes from School Life, (in Hebrew) in 2014 (reported in Ha’aretz) going into schools and writing what they saw. The title of the Ha’aretz article: “Israeli teenagers: racist and proud of it.” Given how fast one rises through the ranks in the Israeli military, the teenage subjects of that book are likely in the middle- and upper echelons of the genocidal Israeli establishment. They learned a doctrine of their own ethnic supremacy and they learned to hate others – leftists, Arabs, and especially Palestinians.
Note the date: 2014
In Beverly Hills, the schools are flying the Israeli flag. North American educational institutions have adopted the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism. Kids whose parents take them to church are taught that God will bless them if they bless (the state of) Israel and will pull the plug if they don’t.
Outside of the West it’s much the same. Evangelical churches are everywhere in Latin America and Africa and their progenies march under the Israeli flag.
What’s nationalistic about a Brazilian politician flying the Israeli flag?
Muslim kids in Asia learn that there is an Ummah, a Muslim nation, of billions, but the educational network financed by Gulf monarchies teaches them that their true enemies are other Muslims.
The White Empire is a disciplined empire. It presents a united front to defend genocidal Israel. Western countries are willing to sacrifice honor, dignity, even handy underwater pipelines and cheap energy, for the greater genocidal good. Meanwhile those it rules like animals of burden are not united, but easily turned – until their turn comes to be slaughtered – against the enemies it selects.
The genociders’ only book is the bible, their only science is race science and their only language is total violence.
Reject it all: the lies of their old world and the depravity of their new one
The only possible starting point to defeat them is to reject every element of their world view and all of the objects they created to fool you.
Appeals to international law or courts, the UN, diplomatic channels, humanitarian rules, the human spirit or the transformative power of truth are, at this point, stupidity.
No matter how minimal, they will never grant your demands. No matter how sound, they will never be persuaded by your arguments. They rule. And they will never be overthrown by international law or nonviolence.
The fight for the future is not against a liberal ideology that doesn’t live up to its idealism.
It is a fight against an ideology – propagated in schools, church, the movies and TV – that combines the most genocidal books of the Bible with the most vicious genetic Darwinism. They believe they have every right to kill and enslave you. To bring about the future they want, they have to believe that.
You don’t.
The post You Don’t Have to Believe in Their Supremacy first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
At the end of July, US special forces veteran Lt Col Anthony Aguilar, who had been working as a contractor for the US-Israel run so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), came forward as a whistleblower and said that he had left GHF after seeing fellow contractors and IDF soldiers murdering civilians – including a boy known as ‘Abboud’. GHF denied Aguilar’s allegations as “categorically false” and claimed he was a “disgruntled employee who was terminated for misconduct”, which he denied.
Abundant video footage and reports from the United Nations and other humanitarian organisations have shown the almost-daily shooting of Palestinian civilians desperate for food at GHF ‘aid’ stations. Well over two thousand aid-seekers have been killed and more than fifteen thousand wounded.
Aguilar’s allegations gained significant international traction, in particular his account of meeting a young boy named Amir at a GHF station. Aguilar recounted Amir’s abject gratitude at receiving some food after walking around eight miles from his shelter to the station:
He puts out his hand, and so I beckoned him to come to me. I said, ‘Come here.’ And he reaches out and he holds my hand, and he kisses my hand and he says, ‘Shukran [Thank you].’
Moments later, Aguilar said, GHF mercenaries and Israeli troops fired tear gas to break up the crowd of aid-seekers and Amir ran to leave the camp. But he didn’t get far:
They’re shooting to control the population that’s along the Morag Corridor. And as they’re doing that, they’re shooting into this crowd… and Palestinians, civilians, human beings, are dropping to the ground, getting shot. And Amir was one of them. Amir walked 12km to get food, got nothing but scraps, thanked us for it and died.
Aguilar’s account immediately went viral, apparently a major public relations nightmare for the GHF and Israel. Al Jazeera ran a feature on it, interviewing a woman they said was the mother of the boy – whose real name they said was Abdul Rahim, known as ‘Abboud’ – and her family, who were demanding answers and trying to find his body.
Then, apparently eager to defuse the outrage, the GHF put out a video and photos that it claims show ‘Amir’ – they say his real name is Abdul Rahim, known as ‘Abboud’ – alive, well and happily standing with GHF operatives.
The GHF counter-claim was, of course, eagerly amplified by right-wing media and Israel’s army of apologists and propagandists. Israel immediately exploited the ‘revelation’ with a by now unsurprising claim that the “United Nations are misleading the world”.
But investigations by a senior journalist in the region tell a very different story – and neither possible side of it means what Israel and its apologists claim.
MENA Uncensored editor Leila Hatoum, based in Lebanon, believes that if the GHF claim that Amir is alive is true then it is part of a coordinated attempt by US and Israeli authorities to discredit reports of the mass murders at the ‘aid sites’. But she also reports that according to local sources in Gaza the boy in the GHF video is a different child and is in fact the son of an ‘Abu Shabab’ gang member.
Abu Shabab is the ISIS-linked, Israel-funded criminal gang in Gaza that has been filmed and photographed carrying arms around Israeli troops – something that would see resistance fighters killed in seconds – and whose attacks on aid convoys and aid-seekers have been used by Israel to claim that Israel is allowing adequate food into Gaza despite its blockade, but that ‘Khamas’ is stealing it.
Hatoum believes that the most likely explanation for the course of events is that the entire ‘Amir’ story was planted in order to discredit the journalists, aid agencies and United Nations who have exposed Israel’s crimes throughout the genocide – but that, if so, it has failed in its objective:
This is the story of how intelligence agencies, including the CIA and Mossad, have planted false narratives to damage the credibility of those exposing war crimes—and, in the process, cast doubt on documented atrocities and war crimes that are widely known to the public…
Aguilar was never a whistleblower. He revealed nothing that Palestinian survivors had not already been saying for months. While starving civilians in Gaza described GHF’s alleged role in distributing aid as a form of psychological and physical control, mainstream media largely ignored them.
Even after our team revealed GHF’s links to the CIA and Mossad back in February 2025—and raised concerns about its role in replacing USAID and UNRWA in Gaza—major news outlets remained silent. GHF was established as a fake aid group, offering the illusion of humanitarian support while causing civilians’ death. In Gaza, where more than 400,000 civilians have entered Stage 5 hunger—irreversible famine, according to top international NGOs—any hint of food is a lure. Palestinians risk their lives daily for even the smallest aid deliveries. Eventually, those who launched Aguilar to limelight, retracted the support. After two months of promoting him, they pivoted to discredit his story, thinking they had created an irreversible damage of eroding trust in many credible reports about the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza.
But they thought wrong!
Even if Aguilar’s story was false—even if Amir never existed—thousands of real stories remain: mutilated children, murdered pregnant women, and elderly victims of the Israeli occupation forces (IOF)’s bombardment, sniping and air strikes that used US and European-made missiles, bullets and weapons. All confirmed with solid evidence, eyewitness accounts, and NGOs’ reports.
The other possibility is that the ‘Amir’ account was true and that the GHF are parading a different child altogether, but is in reality the child of a member of a terrorist gang member funded by Israel who was chosen for his resemblance to a murdered boy. More recently, it has threatened International Criminal Court prosecutors in an attempt to thwart or reverse the court’s arrest warrants, after which it mounted a mass intimidation campaign against chief prosecutor Karim Khan and pro-Israel lawyers tried to persuade female colleagues to make sexual harassment allegations against him.
Israel has a long history of ‘false flag’ operations and other forms of misdirection to discredit opponents, provoke allies into action, or to try to achieve political and strategic aims, from the ‘Lavon affair‘ of the 1950 in which it bombed Jewish buildings in Egypt and tried to blame it on Muslim groups, to its air attack on the USS Liberty in 1967 to try to provoke the US into attacking Egypt, to the 1994 bombings in London blamed on Palestinian activists.
Neither possibility is the least out of character for the genocidal occupier or its US backers, “They lie and they lie and they lie and they lie and they lie”.
And neither changes the authenticity of reports by the UN and humanitarian groups of mass murders at so-called aid stations, nor of the abundant footage of shootings with tank and machine-gun fire and the shattered and shredded bodies of victims, many of them children.
Israel is a terror state.
Featured image and additional images via the Canary
By Skwawkbox
This post was originally published on Canary.
The tragic inheritance of the Shoah is that the victims of violence are often its next perpetrators.
This post was originally published on Dissent Magazine.
One of the most shocking moments of Israel’s genocide in Gaza so far was its murder of five-year-old Hind Rajab in January 2024. And a new film capturing her horrific story has just won second prize at the Venice Film Festival, following an unprecedented 23-minute standing ovation at its premiere. This importantly keeps Hind’s fatal ordeal in the spotlight. But it means nothing unless the world stops Israel from killing even more children in Gaza. The spotlight must become action.
As the film’s success dominated headlines, Hind’s own mother was among the hundreds of thousands of people under brutal Israeli bombardment in Gaza City. She gave what she suspected could be a “last cry for help” amid this “living hell”, saying:
I am begging every influential person, every celebrity, every connection to save me… Tanks have surrounded our neighborhood. We must leave, but we have nowhere to go… I want to live. I want to protect my family. Please save us.
Kaouther Ben Hania, the Tunisian filmmaker behind The Voice of Hind Rajab, said she had immediately reached out to Hind’s mother, Wissam Hamada, after hearing “excerpts from Rajab’s calls for help”. She also contacted rescue workers including the Palestine Red Crescent Society. She explained how: “I listened, I cried, I wrote”. Western celebrities, such as children’s content creator Ms. Rachel, have also spoken to Hamada. But that hasn’t changed her fate or that of the people around her.
Hamada has said her daughter’s murder “is just one case among thousands”, adding:
I hope this film will help stop this destructive war and save the other children of Gaza,
Up to this point, she lamented:
The whole world has left us to die, to go hungry, to live in fear and to be forcibly displaced without doing anything.
After receiving her award, Ben Hania stressed that:
The voice of Hind is the voice of Gaza itself. A cry for rescue the entire world could hear, yet no one answered.
She added:
It is tragically the story of an entire people enduring genocide
She also shared some words from Hamada, who insisted:
there are many children still waiting for hope.
Ben Hania pleaded with the world to finally step up and act:
this story is not only about memory, it is about urgency. Hind’s mother, Wessam, and her little brother, Iyad, are still in Gaza. Their lives remain in danger, as do the lives of countless mothers, fathers and children who wake up every day under the same sky of fear, hunger, and bombardment. I urge the leaders of the world to save them.
The film industry has long faced accusations of silencing Palestinian stories, punishing workers who speak out, or merely offering supportive lip service to the people suffering. But right now, the industry has a new opportunity to truly honour Hind’s memory. It can and must use its wealth, platforms, and influence to challenge governments – particularly in the US, where the government has very much been a co-participant in Israel’s genocide. Real solidarity means action. It means using any privilege you may have to resist.
Hind’s voice – along with the silenced voices of many thousands of Palestinian children – doesn’t just ask us to remember. It demands action.
Featured image via the Canary
By Ed Sykes
This post was originally published on Canary.
In the Gaza Strip, access to the most basic daily services has become an elusive dream. Since the start of Israel’s genocide in October 2023, Gaza’s infrastructure has continued to collapse almost completely, leaving the population in direct confrontation with hunger, poverty, disease, and the constant fear of death. Schools, hospitals, and emergency centers have been reduced to rubble or rendered virtually unusable, and electricity, water, and sewage networks are either shut down or severely limited, making daily life a daily struggle for survival.
Hospitals, which are the last line of defense for the sick and wounded, suffer from acute shortages of medicines and medical supplies, and power cuts disrupt ventilators and vital emergency equipment. Mothers of sick children wander between medical centers, searching for a bed, medicine, or simply clean water, while their children remain vulnerable to preventable diseases. However, the occupation and ongoing bombardment make everything nearly impossible.
Water and sanitation networks, which have been severely damaged, increase the risk of disease outbreaks, including cholera and intestinal infections, while millions of residents are forced to rely on contaminated water to meet their daily needs. Limited electricity makes it difficult to operate pumps, and even obtaining water for drinking or cooking has become a daily challenge.
Destroyed neighborhoods and temporary camps housing displaced people offer only temporary shelter from the bombing, while lacking any health or educational facilities. Children and adults live in crowded tents, exposed to extreme cold or heat, while schools that could provide a safe haven have become targets for destruction or storage for displaced persons.
The blockade Israel has imposed since March on the sector’s crossings has made the situation even more tragic. Humanitarian aid shipments, which are already too few, are stolen or looted, adding to the suffering of the population and leaving them deprived of food, water, and medicine, amid growing epidemics and malnutrition that threaten the lives of thousands of children, pregnant women, and the sick.
With each passing day, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza worsens, as the lives of the population are fraught with death, hunger, poverty, and disease, while infrastructure remains destroyed, basic services are absent, and society is unable to resist these harsh conditions. Gaza today is not just a besieged territory, but an area of constant pain and deprivation, where survival has become the most brutal battle.
Featured image via the Canary
By Alaa Shamali
This post was originally published on Canary.
The Global Sumud Flotilla is advancing towards Gaza and is already sailing towards Tunisia, divided into two large groups. Both expeditions will meet in Tunisia at the end of the week, when they will be joined by another twenty boats in what the organizers consider to be the “largest humanitarian mission in solidarity with Palestine.”
Technical problems and bad weather have significantly delayed the flotilla’s schedule, which set sail on August 31 from Barcelona and has so far only been able to cover a handful of nautical miles. Harsh sea conditions forced several boats to be repaired, and after a particularly violent storm on Monday, September 1, the expedition was divided between the ports of Mahón (Menorca) and Barcelona.
The post Global Sumud Flotilla Advances Towards Tunisia Under ‘Harassment’ Of Surveillance Drones appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
Two United States military veterans, including a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) whistleblower, were arrested for interrupting a Senate Foreign Affairs Committee hearing. They said “the U.S. government is complicit” in the Israeli government’s genocide in Gaza and were quickly removed by U.S. Capitol police.
GHF whistleblower Anthony Aguilar stood up. “You have an obligation to the Constitution of the United States.” Former U.S. Army intelligence analyst Josephine Guilbeau also spoke up. “Israel is ethnically cleansing Gaza. They’re building a concentration camp!”
Senate Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman James Risch declared, “Off to jail,” and when he hear Guilbeau, “Someone else is anxious to go to jail.”
The post Gaza Aid Whistleblower Arrested For Interrupting Senate Hearing appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
The education sector in Gaza is entering one of its darkest periods in history, after the Israel turned schools into rubble, libraries into ashes, and classrooms into silence devoid of students’ laughter. Hundreds of thousands of children have been deprived of their natural right to education, while teachers’ faces have disappeared under the rubble of a war that targets both the present and the future.
The Canary reviewed the report issued by the Government Media Office, which paints a bleak picture of the current state of education in the sector, revealing the extent of the disaster left behind by the Israeli bombardment, which was not limited to the destruction of educational buildings, but extended to the assassination of students, teachers, and scholars, making this war a war on the future par excellence.
The figures reveal the scale of the tragedy: around 95% of schools were damaged to varying degrees, while Israel has completely destroyed 163 schools, universities, and educational institutions. Another 388 institutions were partially destroyed, leaving a profound impact on the infrastructure of the education sector and making its reconstruction an urgent humanitarian priority that cannot be postponed.
The aggression did not stop at stones, but also took young lives. More than 13,500 students have been killed since the outbreak of the war, in a scene that sums up the occupation’s direct targeting of Palestinian children. These children were not just numbers, but the energy of the future and the pillars of progress. Their absence has left a painful void in homes and schools and an unhealed wound in the conscience of society.
Israel’s ongoing aggression has deprived more than 785,000 students of continuing their education for the third consecutive year. This is more than previously-released figures showed. The educational process was forcibly halted, and with it the dreams of thousands of children and young people whose futures are now threatened with ruin. Depriving an entire generation of a safe educational environment means deepening the tragedy and imposing a tragic reality on Gaza’s present and future.
Educators and scientists have not been spared by the Israeli war machine. More than 830 teachers and educational staff who were carrying out their mission of education have been killed, along with more than 193 scientists, academics, and researchers. These are heavy losses that represent a systematic assassination of Palestinian talent and an attempt to paralyze the community’s capabilities and deprive it of its creative energies, which form the basis of any project for advancement and reconstruction.
Israel’s educational genocide in Gaza cannot be summed up in numbers and statistics, but is embodied in scenes of empty classrooms, torn school bags under the rubble, and dreams buried under the stones. It is a compound crime that confiscates the future as it has confiscated the present, turning future generations into victims of a never-ending war.
In the face of this tragic reality, saving education in Gaza remains an urgent humanitarian and moral duty that requires international intervention to rebuild what has been destroyed and guarantee children’s right to education. Education is not a luxury, but the foundation for the survival and continuity of society, and any neglect in supporting it means condemning future generations of Palestinians to a new catastrophe.
By Alaa Shamali
This post was originally published on Canary.
Israel’s war of extermination in Gaza is about to enter its third year, with children remaining the most prominent victims after more than 700 days. According to a report issued by the Government Media Office, which the Canary has seen, the figures reveal the extent of the direct and deliberate targeting of children by the Israeli occupation forces.
Since the outbreak of the aggression, 19,424 children have been killed, equivalent to 30% of the total number of martyrs, including 450 children who were born during the war and killed in it, in addition to 1,009 children who died before reaching their first birthday, in a scene that sums up the tragedy of Palestinian childhood.
The causes of death were not limited to bombing, as 134 children died of starvation and malnutrition, while 14 children died of severe cold inside tents, in extremely harsh humanitarian conditions that were repeated throughout two years of war.
A further 864 children suffered injuries that led to the amputation of limbs as a result of the raids, while 5,200 children are in need of urgent medical evacuation to save their lives, amid the complete collapse of the besieged health sector, which lacks even the most basic resources.
The war has left 65,320 orphans, while 40,000 infants face starvation due to a lack of baby formula, and another 650,000 children are at risk of death from malnutrition, reflecting the scale of the humanitarian disaster threatening an entire generation.
The children of Gaza are caught between death, hunger, and cold. The numbers of victims are not just statistics, but innocent faces and stolen dreams, as the international community is unable to stop these systematic violations.
Featured image via the Canary
By Alaa Shamali
This post was originally published on Canary.
About 30 armed, far-right colonial Israeli settlers raided the Southern West Bank village of Khallet al-Daba, in Masafer Yatta, on Thursday night, assaulting and injuring Palestinians with sticks, knives, and pepper spray – even attacking a three-month-old baby with it.
Residents reported that at least 13 Palestinians were wounded, including a three month old baby who was pepper sprayed, two elders, children and women:
According to WAFA, the Palestinian news agency, residents of Khallet al-Daba again had their homes raided, and were injured by settlers earlier this week:
Since the start of the genocide in Gaza, in October 2023, settler violence has become systematic in the West Bank. Attacks on Palestinians have reached an all time high, with more than 430 recorded attacks in August alone. The situation has been compounded by Trump’s lifting of sanctions on more than 30 Israeli settler groups and entities, imposed by the Biden administration, soon after he came into office.
Settlers act with total impunity, and absolutely no accountability, and are protected by the occupation’s army and funded by the Israeli regime. Their actions aim to not only damage Palestinian land and homes, but also to harass, intimidate and terrorise Palestinians, forcing them off their land, so colonial settlements can be built there instead.
All settlements and settlers are illegal under international law.
Featured image and additional images/video supplied
By Charlie Jaay
This post was originally published on Canary.
Most New Yorkers are not aware that companies contributing to Israel’s genocide in Gaza operate in their backyard. That is, unless they happen to walk, bike, or drive down Flushing Avenue outside the Brooklyn Navy Yard on a Wednesday afternoon, as I did a month ago—in which case, they are absolutely aware.
The campaign Demilitarize Brooklyn Navy Yard (DBNY) organizes weekly noise demos and pickets, demanding the eviction of two companies from the city-owned industrial park on the East River, where 550 businesses are located. Protestors bang drums, blare airhorns, picket, chalk sidewalks, fold zines, and hand out flyers reading: “MEET YOUR NEIGHBORS, EASY AERIAL & CRYE PRECISION, LOCAL WEAPONS MANUFACTURERS IN OUR BACKYARDS.”
The post Brooklyn Activists And Residents Are Banding Together Against Genocide appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
Israeli arms producer Elbit Systems closed its site in Bristol, UK, after years of protests by Palestine Action, The Guardian reported on 6 September.
The facility at the Aztec West business park appeared deserted when the daily visited this week, with only a security guard present outside.
Elbit Systems UK, a subsidiary of Israel’s largest arms manufacturer, has leased the site since 2019 under a contract running until 2029. The company did not comment on the status of the facility.
The site had been the focus of repeated protests, including one on 1 July, just days before the UK government banned Palestine Action under the 2000 Terrorism Act.
The post Israeli Arms Maker Shuts Site After Sustained Anti-Genocide Protests appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
More than 425 people have been arrested at the largest demonstration yet opposing the proscription of Palestine Action. Defend Our Juries, who organised the demonstrations, said there were 1,500 sign-holders in Parliament Square on Saturday at a fresh protest in London against the ban. At the previous major demonstration last month, 532 people were arrested for taking part. Participants gathered in Parliament Square by 1pm, many holding signs that read: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.” At just after 9pm, the Metropolitan police said it had made more than 425 arrests. The Met’s deputy assistant commissioner, Claire Smart, who led the operation, said: “In carrying out their duties today, our officers have been punched, kicked, spat on and had objects thrown at them by protesters.
The post More Than 425 Arrested As Protesters Defy Ban On Palestine Action In London appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
It would have been easy for the small team of student journalists at the University of Texas Dallas to just crash. Administrators had been throwing obstacles in front of them since October 7. But the students forged a new path. A path riddled with craters, bumps, and sometimes stars. And as for administrators…
University administrators are not competent. They are career bureaucrats. … They’re not there because they are the best in their field. They’re there because they had good political maneuverings to get into their position. … They’re there because they make the school look good sometimes. So if there is pressure on you, it’s not because they know the law. It’s not because you did something wrong. …They will do their violations and they will move on. You’re just another student to them unless you stand up for yourself. And I think we really show that you can stand up for yourself and be successful.
The post How Administrators Failed To Stop The Presses At The University Of Texas appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
Most New Yorkers are not aware that companies contributing to Israel’s genocide in Gaza operate in their backyard. That is, unless they happen to walk, bike, or drive down Flushing Avenue outside the Brooklyn Navy Yard on a Wednesday afternoon, as I did a month ago — in which case, they are absolutely aware. The campaign Demilitarize Brooklyn Navy Yard (DBNY) organizes weekly noise demos and…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Politics makes strange bedfellows. This is especially true in New York, where Donald Trump seems ready to support almost anyone in an effort to defeat Zohran Mamdani. While Zohran’s opponents include the “Never Trump” Republican Curtis Silwa, the Democratic heir Andrew Cuomo, and the unpopular incumbent Eric Adams, Trump sees all of these candidates as better alternatives. Most obviously, Zohran Mamdani is a committed socialist who will oppose the interests of wealthy businessmen, such as Donald Trump. However, the mainstream media has largely ignored another reason why Trump might desperately want Mamdani to lose: Israel.
Simply put, Zohran Mamdani is a threat to the Zionist consensus in America. The idea that all US politicians, no matter if you are a MAGA Republican or a progressive Democrat, must swear allegiance to Israel faced little challenge in the US until Israel began slaughtering innocent Palestinian civilians. Now, only 32% of Americans support Israel’s genocidal military actions in Gaza. Nevertheless, the Democratic establishment in New York is so disconnected from the average voter that every Democratic candidate besides Mamdani promised to travel to Israel if they were elected mayor. Mamdani’s message of staying in New York as mayor to work for New Yorkers has attracted broad support. He has even been able to score a 17-point lead with Jewish voters. Mamdani’s success has alarmed the political establishment, which is why figures like Andrew Cuomo and Eric Adams have been promoted as candidates to block his momentum.
Both Cuomo and Adams are Democrats who have held prominent positions in New York politics, yet neither could secure the endorsement of the Democratic Party. On the one hand, the DOJ says Andrew Cuomo has sexually harassed 13 women, and on the other, Eric Adams is perceived as being too close to Trump. However, Eric Adams is currently polling last, and many, including the President, see him as a spoiler candidate. Because of this, Trump is attempting the “RFK Jr. approach,” i.e., offering Eric Adams a position in his administration in exchange for his withdrawal from the race. Currently, the media has reported that the Trump Administration is considering Adams for the position of Ambassador to Saudi Arabia. While Adams has denied that he is dropping out of the race, RFK Jr. also claimed that he would never drop out and endorse Trump before, eventually, doing just that. The ambassadorship gambit makes sense once you understand what’s really at stake for Trump: the survival of the pro-Israel consensus.
Donald Trump is afraid. He has recently openly lamented the fact that the Israel lobby has lost its nearly complete control over Congress, and for good reason. Donald Trump has tied his presidency to Israel, and he is now sinking with the ship. From low approval ratings to many in MAGA criticizing his administration’s Epstein cover-up, Donald Trump needs Israel to win and on Israel’s terms. Trump needs to be able to justify his slavish support for Netanyahu to his own supporters and to the public at large. One of the worst disasters for Trump financially and politically would be the rise of an anti-Zionist leftist in America’s biggest city. Mamdani’s substantial prospect of victory lingers as a specter of anti-capitalism and anti-Zionism over many Zionist businessmen with interests in New York City. Two of these individuals happen to be President Trump and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff. While most Americans are aware that Donald Trump has over a billion dollars’ worth of real estate, with much of it located in New York, few are aware that Steve Witkoff, responsible for much of the behind-the-scenes negotiations with the Netanyahu government, also owns millions of dollars’ worth of New York City real estate. For Trump and Witkoff, politics and business are inextricably linked, which is why a Mamdani victory would be seen as a sign of weakness.
Ultimately, a Mamdani victory would signal to the world (and to Trump’s Zionist backers) that he is unable to control the narrative regarding Israel in his country. Such an outcome is worse than a Democrat or liberal-leaning independent winning the New York mayoralty. It would embolden anti-capitalist and, more dangerously for the establishment, anti-Zionist movements. This would prove that even the wealthiest and most powerful figures cannot dictate outcomes in America’s biggest cities. It would challenge the unspoken rule that American politicians must bow to the interests of Israel over their own constituents. For Trump, for businessmen like Witkoff, and for the political establishment, a Mamdani win would be a warning shot: the old levers of influence no longer work, and the voters, not lobbyists of AIPAC or Big Business, now decide.
The post The Real Reason Trump Wants to Reshape the NYC Mayoral Race first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
On 4 September 2025, the United States Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced sanctions against three of the most prominent Palestinian human rights organizations: Al Haq, Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR).
They were added to OFAC’s Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List, a significant economic tool that freezes all assets the groups may have within US jurisdiction and prohibits US persons and organisations from engaging with them financially or otherwise.
This move marks a harsh escalation in Washington’s campaign against Palestinian civil society actors who cooperate with international justice mechanisms, especially the International Criminal Court (ICC).
It also shows the US administration is not only complicit in Israel’s war crimes by providing weapons, but also by providing the political and legal cover for these practices.
Amnesty International told the Canary that:
The Trump administration’s decision to impose sanctions against these three human rights organisations is a ‘deeply troubling and shameful assault on human rights and the global pursuit of justice’, and starkly exposes his administration’s ‘deliberate efforts to dismantle the very foundation of international justice and shield Israel from accountability for its crimes.
Erika Guevara-Rosas is Amnesty International’s Senior Director for Research, Advocacy, Policy and Campaigns. She told us:
These organisations carry out vital and courageous work, meticulously documenting human rights violations under the most horrifying conditions. They have steadfastly continued to do so in the face of war, genocide, and the oppressive reality of Israel’s apartheid regime, as well as malicious attempts to discredit their findings and cripple their funding with spurious terrorism accusations. They are the voice of Palestinian victims, amplifying stories of human suffering and injustice that would otherwise remain unheard.
Their work is indispensable for achieving justice and accountability for decades of atrocities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel. This appalling move constitutes a brazen attack on the entire Palestinian human rights movement, and a callous attempt to fracture and weaken the whole global human rights community.
It seeks to deny victims of human rights violations and atrocity crimes any prospect for truth, justice and reparations. The international community stands at a critical juncture. The very institutions founded to safeguard human rights and uphold international law, including the International Criminal Court, are grappling with existential threats.
Amnesty International expresses its solidarity and support to these organisations and calls on the global human rights movement to push back against this despicable decision. States must unequivocally oppose this flagrant assault on Palestinian civil society organisations and the communities they represent, for the sake of our shared humanity and the future of human rights worldwide.
The United States – together with Israel – has repeatedly rejected the jurisdiction and legitimacy of the ICC, arguing strongly against investigations targeting its nationals or allies, as both countries are not parties to the Rome Statute.
It has justified the sanctions by accusing these NGOs, which are based in Ramallah and Gaza, of being involved in the ICC investigations into Israeli war crimes in Gaza, which have issued arrest warrants, in 2024, for Netanyahu, and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over their conduct in the genocide in Gaza, saying that each bears criminal responsibility for the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare, and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.
The ICC also found reasonable grounds to believe both Netanyahu and Gallant bear criminal responsibility for the war crime of intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population.
Executive Order 14203, signed in February 2025, allows authorization of these sanctions blocking assets and visa restrictions on those supporting ICC investigations against US or allied nationals – such as Israel – without their consent, and enables the targeting of not only ICC officials but also those who ‘support or facilitate’ ICC activities deemed detrimental to US foreign policy, largely in response to the ICC arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant.
This has allowed Trump, since February, to sanction the International Criminal Court (ICC), ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan, and four ICC personnel involved in investigations or arrest warrants targeting US or Israeli nationals: Judges Kimberly Prost (Canada), Nicolas Guillou (France), and prosecutors Nazhat Shameem Khan (Fiji) and Mame Mandiaye Niang (Senegal).
The designation of Al Haq, Al Mezan, and PCHR reflects a new level of pressure, expanding beyond ICC judges and prosecutors to civil society organizations.
According to OFAC’s own announcement, these Palestinian rights groups were designated for their ‘direct engagement with and support for the ICC to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute nationals of the United States or Israel without the consent of those governments’. This implies that their activities—ranging from expert legal advocacy, submission of evidence, and cooperation with international investigations—constitute ‘material support’ to what the US regards as illegitimate international judicial proceedings.
Al Haq, established in 1979 in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, has gained international recognition for its work on monitoring human rights atrocities under occupation.
Al Mezan likewise, founded in Gaza in 1999, has produced detailed reports documenting abuses and human rights violations. PCHR, founded in 1995, has provided legal assistance, documentation, and coordinated with international human rights and legal bodies.
Together, these organizations have been instrumental in advocating for accountability, participating actively in ICC communications, and working to bring purported breaches of international law before global judicial forums.
The applied sanctions restrict all financial and operational capabilities connected to these bodies within the reach of US law. Assets held or controlled in the US are immediately frozen, and US citizens and companies are barred from providing any goods, services, or financial support without explicit exemption by OFAC.
Although these are US sanctions, their extraterritorial effects are often robust because the global financial system is heavily interlinked with US regulatory frameworks. Many international banks, donors, and funding agencies comply with OFAC to avoid secondary sanctions, resulting in an effective global embargo for the organisations on essential funding and partnership mechanisms.
The ICC described the sanctions as intimidation tactics designed to undermine international justice. In a joint statement, the three NGOs condemned the sanctions as ‘cowardly, immoral, illegal, and undemocratic’, asserting that the designations aim to silence those documenting oppression and abuses against Palestinians.
The statement said:
These measures in times of live genocide against our People, is a cowardly, immoral, illegal and undemocratic act..Only states with complete disregard to international law and our shared humanity can take such heinous measures against human rights organisations working to end a genocide.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio argues that the sanctions are necessary to preserve US sovereignty and safeguard troops and allies, notably Israel, from what they see as an ‘illegitimate’ and politically motivated judicial overreach. Washington maintains that international courts, including the ICC, must not be allowed to assert authority over non-member states’ personnel without explicit consent – a position underpinned legally by Executive Order 14203.
The sanctions against these three Palestinian NGOs come three months after the US sanctioned Addameer – a Palestinian prisoner support organisation – amid a broader US crackdown targeting entities and persons alleged to support what the US and Israel deem terrorist organisations. The US has also sanctioned UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Francesca Albanese, because of their efforts to advocate for accountability for crimes committed against Palestinians.
At the same time, the US government announced that it has lifted sanctions previously imposed on Israeli settler groups accused of perpetrating violence in the West Bank, further solidifying the US-Israel alliance and highlighting the starkly divergent approaches to groups on opposing sides of the conflict.
For the affected Palestinian NGOs, these sanctions jeopardize decades of painstaking work.
Their documentation of human rights abuses underpins numerous UN inquiries, international legal processes, and advocacy campaigns. Their fieldwork frequently exposes violations of international humanitarian law, providing critical evidence and testimonies that otherwise might remain unrecorded.
As Israel’s genocide continues in Gaza, and the occupation’s violence and land theft continue at an unprecedented rate in the West Bank, the elimination or severe curtailment of these NGOs’ ability to operate risks creating a vacuum in accountability and humanitarian response precisely when it is most needed.
The OFAC sanctions against Al Haq, Al Mezan, and PCHR underscore an urgent and deepening rift across international justice, human rights, and geopolitics. While the United States frames these measures as defence of sovereignty and protection of its allies, the designations threaten to undermine vital instruments of accountability for grave human rights abuses.
Featured image via the Canary
By Charlie Jaay
This post was originally published on Canary.
Yesterday, Friday 5 September, marked 700 days of the Israel’s genocide in Gaza and, to mark this day, the Ramallah-based Palestinian Prisoner’s Society issued a briefing, highlighting the key facts and figures surrounding the issue of Palestinian political prisoners in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, where the total number of arrests recorded has exceeded 19,000. This includes those who remain in detention as well as those who were later released. As of 5 September, there are 11,100 political detainees in Israeli occupation prisons, which does not include arrests in Gaza, estimated to be in the thousands.
Women: The total number of arrests recorded among women since the beginning of the genocide has exceeded 585 cases. As of September 5, the number is 49. This figure does not include women arrested directly from Gaza, who are estimated to be in the dozens.
Children: The number of arrests recorded among children in the occupied West Bank is no less than 1550. There are currently 400 children in Israeli prisons.
Martyred detainees: 77 Palestinian prisoners have been killed in the Israeli occupation’s custody since the start of the genocide. This figure includes only those who have been identified, with dozens of others killed and subject to enforced disappearances, particularly from Gaza. Among the 77 killed are 46 people who were arrested from Gaza.
The bodies of 74 of the 77 identified martyred prisoners are still held by the occupation. They are among a total of 85 identified martyred prisoners whose bodies are withheld by the occupation.
Administrative detainees: There are currently 3577 Palestinian who are in prison under administrative detention in the West Bank, meaning they are held indefinitely, without trial or charge.
Since the start of the genocide, there has been no clear estimate of the number of Palestinians arrested in Gaza and held in the occupation’s prisons and military camps. The only available figure is that which has been declared by the Israeli prison administration, which classifies 2662 detainees as ‘unlawful combatants’, all of whom are held without trial or charge. Human rights institutions have been unable to document the total number of arrests from Gaza, due to the crime of enforced disappearance imposed by the occupation. Their number is estimated to be in the thousands.
Featured image via the Canary
By Charlie Jaay
This post was originally published on Canary.
700 hundred days of Israel’s war on Gaza have left deep scars on people and daily life. Amidst destruction, fear, and hunger, residents struggle to survive as their suffering grows and each day becomes more cruel. This report highlights the most prominent features of life under war, from stolen childhoods to human resilience amid the rubble.
700 days of war… Life hanging on the edge of survival
People live as if they are on a thin thread separating them from death. There is no certainty about tomorrow, no safety at night or during the day, only a heavy wait that consumes souls.
700 days of war… Childhood withers at the threshold of the tent
Gaza’s children have lost their joy, and the tent has become their home, school, and playground. Their games have turned into long silences and broken dreams.
700 days of war between delayed death and delayed life
People are stuck between bombardment and dreams of a delayed life. Time has stopped here; death is not complete, and life is not lived as it should be.
700 days of war… and the pain grows as much as the children grow without childhood
The children of Gaza are growing up quickly because of the war, sleeping to the sound of explosions and carrying the burden of displacement instead of playing. The pain in their hearts grows as their bodies grow.
700 days of war… and the people of Gaza are judged simply for wanting to live.
The right to life has become a crime. People are besieged for seeking sustenance and condemned for wanting to survive, in 700 days of continuous suffering.
700 days of war… and the wound is deeper than words can describe.
Words are powerless to describe the pain, for the wound is too great to be told and too heavy to be borne. There are wounds that cannot be seen, but they bleed in silence.
700 days of war… and the survivors are alive with exhausted bodies.
The survivors are weighed down by hunger, fear, and memories of loss. Survival here does not mean safety, but living on the edge of hope.
700 days of war… and bread is a never-ending battle
A loaf of bread has become a daily battle under siege and bombardment, as if hunger has become a weapon that haunts people every day.
700 days of war… and homes are turning into silent graves
Homes have become ruins that tell stories of endless loss, their walls bearing the silence of the dead and memories of loss.
700 days of war… and hunger besieges empty tables
The tables are empty and food is hard to come by, and hunger has become a daily battle for all children, women, and men.
700 days of war… and children’s dreams are buried under the rubble
Dreams have become stones weighing down their shoulders. Every explosion destroys a part of the future, and every day buries more childhood hopes.
700 days of war… and the sky is filled with the smoke of death
The sky is no longer blue, but gray with smoke and airstrikes. Every cloud carries a story of fear, and every breeze carries the smell of ashes.
700 days of war… and the world watches in suspicious silence
Despite the ongoing suffering, the world remains a spectator. International silence has become part of the siege and the pain.
700 days of war… and schools with no students
Schools are empty of life. The desks are empty, the books are covered in dust, and children are hiding from death instead of studying.
700 days of war… and the night is a mirror of constant terror
The night is a continuation of the horror, the sounds of explosions replace the silence, and the stars disappear behind clouds of smoke.
Featured image via the Canary
By Alaa Shamali
This post was originally published on Canary.
This story originally appeared in Mondoweiss on Sept. 04, 2025. It is shared here with permission.
More than 80 percent of the occupied West Bank would become part of Israel, according to a new annexation proposal drafted by Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Monday.
The hardline Minister presented a map showing all of the West Bank as a part of Israel, including Bethlehem, the Jordan Valley, and the entire Palestinian countryside, while only six Palestinian cities — Jenin, Tulkarem, Nablus, Jericho, Ramallah, and Hebron — were marked as isolated ghettoes. Smotrich said that if the Palestinian Authority (PA) opposes his plan, Israel would “uproot it like it did with Hamas.” Smotrich also called on Netanyahu to implement his proposal if he wished to “enter history as a great leader.”
On the same day as Smotrich’s presentation, Israeli forces arrested the mayor of Hebron, Tayseer Abu Sneineh. Hebron is the largest Palestinian city in the West Bank and is home to 800,000 Palestinians. Some 500 messianic Israeli settlers have been imposing their presence in the city’s old town since the 1980s, and Abu Sneineh is known for his role in a Fatah cell that planned and carried out the shooting of six Israeli and Jewish settlers in the city’s old town in 1980, locally known as the “Dabuya Operation.” After his initial arrest, Abu Sneineh was later released in a prisoner swap in 1983 alongside other members of the cell.
Abu Sneineh’s arrest came days after Israeli media outlets reported that Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was considering the establishment of a tribal “emirate” in Hebron, separate from the Palestinian Authority, which first surfaced in the pages of the Wall Street Journal last July.
Local Palestinian media speculated as to whether Abu Sneineh’s arrest was possibly a prelude to removing potential sources of local opposition to annexation, especially given Abu Sneineh’s background and his status as a consequential local nationalist figure in Hebron.
These events, in addition to a number of other developments in the lead-up to the Smotrich proposal, have catapulted the issue of Israel’s potential annexation of the West Bank to the top of the Israeli government’s agenda, and have left millions of Palestinians in the West Bank unsure of their future.
The Israeli cabinet met last Sunday for the second time in two weeks to discuss options for the annexation of parts of the West Bank. It was followed by a meeting between Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio last week, in which Saar informed Rubio of Israel’s intention to “impose Israeli sovereignty” on the Palestinian territory, according to the Israeli news site, Walla.
Meanwhile, Israel has been engaging in a show of force against the PA by launching several raids on major West Bank cities that make up Area A under the Oslo Accords, which comprise about 18% of the West Bank and are supposed to be under PA jurisdiction. The Israeli army launched the largest military raid in years on Ramallah last week, occupying the city center of the PA’s de facto capital with hundreds of troops accompanied by Israeli media crews for over three hours. The very next day, the Israeli army launched a similar raid in Nablus, the second most important PA center of power.
Although Israel claims that its latest moves to annex the West Bank are a response to the announcement by several European states that they intend to recognize Palestine as a state, Israel’s annexation of the West Bank has been years in the making.
In 2019, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged during his election campaign to annex the Jordan Valley. The first Trump administration allegedly stopped Israel twice, in January and June of 2020, from formally announcing annexation.
However, the same Trump administration announced its “Deal of the Century” plan in 2020, which included the annexation of most of the West Bank, including all of the Jordan Valley. Trump also recognized Israel’s sovereignty over illegal settlements in the West Bank, the occupied Syrian Golan heights, and over all of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Palestinians overwhelmingly rejected it.
Israel’s current plan of annexation is based on Smotrich’s 2015 “decisive plan,” which aims to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state and expel Palestinians through encouraging so-called “voluntary migration.” Smotrich also said that Palestinians in the West Bank would either submit to Israeli sovreignty, leave the country, or “be dealt with” by Israeli forces. After October 7, Smotrich said that the annexation of the West Bank should be Israel’s response to the Hamas attack. He later said that Israel’s expulsion of half of Gaza’s population would “set a precedent” to do the same in the West Bank.
Over the past two years, Smotrich has been leading a campaign of financial strangulation against the PA, pirating Palestinian customs money that Israel collects on the PA’s behalf as per the Oslo Accords. Smotrich has also periodically threatened to ban Israeli banks from dealing with Palestinian banks, and in the meantime has compelled Israeli banks to limit the amount of cash that Palestinian banks can transfer to Israeli banks.
Both of the above measured have forced the PA into an ongoing financial crisis, unable to pay public functionaries, medics, teachers, and security staff their full monthly salaries for months on end. And if Smotrich goes through with actually banning all financial dealings between Israeli and Palestinian banks, it would spell total financial collapse in the West Bank, threatening the PA’s very existence.
Weakening the PA to this level is meant to obviate its need for Palestinians and to pave the way for annexation. And Smotrich is just the face of this recent push to isolate and besiege the PA — he is one of many Israeli ministers key to the continuity of Netanyahu’s government, including Itamar Ben-Gvir, Amichai Elyahu, and Orit Strock, all of whom represent the religious right and control the majority in the Israeli Knesset.
The Knesset has also been laying the legal grounds for the West Bank’s annexation for years. In 2018, the Knesset passed the Israeli Nation State Law, which states that the only right to self-determination between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean sea belongs to the Jewish people. In July of last year, the Knesset passed a bill rejecting the establishment of a Palestinian state anywhere between the river and the sea, and a year later — last July — the Knesset passed a bill enabling the annexation of the West Bank.
The prelude to the official annexation of the Palestinian territory isn’t limited to Israeli measures, but also includes what are so far symbolic U.S. moves underwriting Israel’s intentions. As European states, including France, the UK, and Belgium, announce plans to recognize a Palestinian state during the UN General Assembly later this month, the U.S., for its part, revoked visas for Palestinian officials, including the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, set to attend the General Assembly. The move was followed by Washington’s decision to stop issuing visas to any Palestinian passport holders.
In essence, this means that the U.S. is implicitly supporting Israel’s plans to erase the possibility of a Palestinian state and extending Israel’s control over all Palestinian territories.
Although Smotrich’s most recent plan has been described as “maximalist,” the general orientation of Israeli lawmakers, even the “pragmatic” opposition represented by Yair Lapid and Benny Gantz, does not oppose annexation in any meaningful sense. The main differences that do exist between Israelis is not over annexation per se, but over its extent.
The less “maximalist” Israeli lawmakers either call for the annexation of all Israeli settlements, the annexation of Area C (which makes up over 60% of the West Bank), or the annexation of the Jordan Valley. But all those versions would deprive Palestinians of any meaningful geographic continuity, control over natural resources and borders, or prospects for future population growth. In essence, the entire Israeli political class is deadset on making a Palestinian state an impossibility. This is the range of political currents the U.S. is picking between to support.
Ultimately, the U.S. will be the one to decide whether official annexation as a whole will move forward. Axios quoted two unnamed U.S. officials that it was “unlikely” Trump would support such a move. But even if Washington halts the de jure annexation of the West Bank, it will most likely offer an “alternative” that would solidify de facto annexation.
This post was originally published on The Real News Network.
Political prisoner T. Hoxha is dying.
She is on her 18th day of hunger strike in HMP Peterborough in protest of the prison’s politically-targeted abuses. One of the Filton 24 detained indefinitely under the UK’s “Terrorism Act” while awaiting trial next spring, Hoxha is alleged to have participated in the heroic dismantling of an Elbit Systems weapons factory, causing €1 million in damages.
Over two weeks into her strike, Hoxha’s loved ones report that her physical and mental health is deteriorating fast, her hair is falling out, her jaw is in pain, and her brain fog is worsening, while the prison neglects her medical care. Supporters on the outside are organizing a call-in campaign to demand the prison administration give her electrolyte sachets and meet her demands.
The post Pro-Palestine Political Prisoners On Hunger Strike Are Dying appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
As the Israeli army launches the first phase of its latest military operation in Gaza City — aimed at fully occupying the area and displacing its roughly 1 million residents to the south — the city has descended into unending hell. Night after night, relentless and terrifying explosions rob us of sleep. Entire neighborhoods are being invaded and demolished, forcing families to flee toward an…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
The U.S. State Department is facing heavy criticism after it announced on Thursday it is imposing sanctions on three major Palestinian human rights groups over their participation in the International Criminal Court’s case (ICC) against top Israeli officials. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced he’s adding Al-Haq, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, and the Palestinian Centre for Human…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
