Palestine

[blindpig]

One million Palestinians 'reject displacement' from north Gaza amid Israeli carnage: Officials

Extreme overcrowding, harsh living conditions, and relentless Israeli airstrikes are forcing many Palestinians to return to areas the Israeli army plans to occupy as part of operation 'Gideon's Chariots 2'

News Desk

SEP 16, 2025


(Photo Credit: Abdel Kareem Hana/AP)

About one million Palestinians in Gaza City and northern Gaza are refusing or are unable to be forcibly displaced to overcrowded “safe zones” in southern Gaza, according to a statement issued by the Gaza Government Media Office on 16 September.

“More than one million Palestinians remain rooted in Gaza City and the northern Gaza Strip, holding onto their land and homes, and categorically rejecting displacement to the south, despite the savage bombardment and genocidal war carried out by the Israeli occupation,” Palestinian officials said.


The statement highlights that the population of Gaza City and northern Gaza “exceeds 1.3 million people,” most of whom have already been displaced from their neighborhoods to central and coastal areas.

According to Israeli media reports on Tuesday morning, Tel Aviv estimates that approximately 600,000 civilians remain in Gaza City.

Officials in Gaza have also documented what they describe as “reverse displacement,” with over 15,000 Palestinians returning “to their original areas in Gaza City as of Tuesday noon after initially moving belongings to the south for safekeeping, only to come back because of the complete absence of basic living conditions there.”


Gaza officials also emphasize that the Al-Mawasi area in Khan Yunis and Rafah in the south of the strip currently hosts around 800,000 Palestinians living in harsh conditions.

Israeli officials refer to these areas as "safe humanitarian zones,” despite being targeted by more than 100 airstrikes over the past few months that have claimed the lives of at least 2,000 Palestinians.

“The area designated by the occupation on its maps as 'shelter zones' covers only 12 percent of Gaza’s total territory, where it is attempting to cram more than 1.7 million people," the Gaza Government Media Office highlights in its statement, adding that the so-called safe zones ”lack all essentials of life: no hospitals, infrastructure, or vital services such as water, food, shelter, electricity, or education — making survival nearly impossible."


The Israeli military launched its long-anticipated ground invasion of Gaza City overnight on Tuesday under the cover of relentless bombardment that could be heard as far as Tel Aviv.

According to Hebrew media, Gideon’s Chariots 2 was initially expected to begin after a mass evacuation of Gaza City, home to more than a million people. On Monday, Israeli Army Radio reported that the pace of evacuation was “slow and may affect the start of the ground operation.”

Nevertheless, the Israeli army launched the operation hours after the visit of US State Secretary Marco Rubio, who expressed Washington's unwavering commitment to the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

https://thecradle.co/articles/one-milli ... -officials

Israel to flood Gaza City with 'unprecedented' number of booby-trapped vehicles: Report

The remote-controlled 'suicide APCs' have caused massive destruction in Gaza as Tel Aviv has deployed at least 100 of them in less than a month

News Desk

SEP 17, 2025


(Photo Credit: MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP via Getty Images)

The Israeli military is set to deploy an “unprecedented” number of remote-controlled armored personnel carriers (APCs) loaded with explosives into Gaza City as part of operation “Gideon's Chariots 2,” Hebrew news outlet Walla reported on 17 September.

This is part of the first stage of a three-stage plan drafted by Major General Yaniv Asor to “conquer” the largest city in the strip, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians remain trapped or refuse to be displaced.

“The ‘fire phase' focuses on the massive destruction of terrorist infrastructure — mainly at night — using various methods, including above and below ground robots,” Walla reports, citing military sources that said “Gaza has never been hit like this before. This is only the second night.”


Referred to as “booby-trapped robots" in Gaza, the decommissioned APCs are rigged with explosives and remotely driven deep into urban areas before being detonated, causing massive explosions and widespread destruction.

“The Israeli army sends the robots near our homes, which stay parked there to terrorize us. The army doesn’t detonate them right away, waiting for fear to push us to flee. When people don’t leave, the army detonates the robots, regardless of whether there are civilians in the area,” Abdulwahhab Ismail, a resident of the Saftawi area in northwestern Gaza, told Mondoweiss last month.

The Israeli military calls this practice “suicide APCs.” According to Walla, Tel Aviv has stationed a large number of these vehicles outside the Gaza separation line.

“Acting on orders from IDF Southern Command chief Maj.-Gen. Yaniv Asor, the deployment of these vehicles has surged, with officers in the field reporting that their usage has tripled. Forces on the ground have testified to the movement of hundreds of these explosive-laden APCs toward the Gaza border,” the Jerusalem Post reported earlier this month.

In August, reports in Hebrew media revealed that Israeli arms companies were planning to expand production of tanks and APCs with a budget exceeding $1.3 billion.

At least 100 booby-trapped robots were used in densely populated areas inside Gaza between 13 August and 3 September alone, according to Gaza's Government Media Office.

“Before now, the army used to blow up one or two buildings with the robots. Now they destroy dozens of buildings at once. Robots and warplanes are working together to destroy every place in Gaza City,” Ismail described.

Thursday's report from Walla added that the “second stage” of the southern command's plan calls for the occupation of Gaza City by the invading troops, while the third stage “is currently classified as high security and combines military capabilities that we have not yet seen in the Israeli war repertoire.”

https://thecradle.co/articles/israel-to ... les-report

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The Obvious Is Now Official - Israel Commits Genocide

In relation to the attacks along the evacuation routes and within designated safe areas, the Commission found that the Israeli security forces had clear knowledge of the presence of Palestinian civilians, including children. Nevertheless, Israeli security forces shot at and killed civilians, including children who were holding makeshift white flags. Some children, including toddlers, were shot in the head by snipers.

The above excerpt (IV. B. ii. f. 215.) is from this report.

From the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights:

Legal analysis of the conduct of Israel in Gaza pursuant to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (pdf)
by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel

I. 3.
In its previous reports to the Human Rights Council and the General Assembly, the Commission found that the Israeli security forces have committed crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza, including extermination, torture, rape, sexual violence and other inhumane acts, inhuman treatment, forcible transfer, persecution based on gender and starvation as a method of warfare. Furthermore, the Commission found that the Israeli authorities have (i) destroyed in part the reproductive capacity of the Palestinians in Gaza as a group, including by imposing measures intended to prevent births; and (ii) deliberately inflicted conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians as a group, both of which are underlying acts of genocide in the Rome Statute and the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (“Genocide Convention”)
I. 4.
Having concluded that the Israeli security forces committed crimes against humanity, war crimes and the actus reus of two underlying acts of genocide in Gaza, the Commission now addresses the issue of genocide. ...

There follows an analysis of the events. The legal definition of genocide requires intent. After having reviewed official statements by the government of Israel the Commission concludes:

C. 220.
On the basis of fully conclusive evidence, the Commission finds that statements made by Israeli authorities are direct evidence of genocidal intent. Additionally, on the basis of circumstantial evidence, the Commission finds that genocidal intent was the only reasonable inference that could be drawn based on the pattern of conduct of the Israeli authorities. Thus, the Commission concludes that the Israeli authorities and Israeli security forces have the genocidal intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

But what can we do?

VI. B. 246.
The duty to prevent and punish genocide applies not only to the responsible State but to all States Parties to the Genocide Convention and indeed to all States under customary international law.

We can, and should of course, personally boycott the Zionist entity to the fullest extend. But it is also on us to press our governments to follow up on the report. There are obligations that must be fulfilled.

Posted by b on September 17, 2025 at 8:12 UTC | Permalink

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2025/09/t ... .html#more

Saudi Arabia's Defense Pact With Pakistan Is A Strategic Loss For The U.S. of A.

Back in 2012 U.S. foreign policy analysts were concerned about a possible nuclear alliance between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Scholars from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and the Stimson Center wrote an essay about it:

The Pak-Saudi Nuke, and How to Stop It - The American Interest, March 2012

The opening paragraph:

One morning, perhaps in the not too distant future, the President of the United States may wake up to an announcement that, given new dangers in the Middle East, the Saudi government has requested the stationing of Pakistani troops on Saudi soil. The announcement might go on to explain that these troops will also bring with them the full complement of conventional and strategic weapons necessary to ensure their security and that of Saudi Arabia. Word would quickly follow from Islamabad that Pakistan has accepted a generous aid package and low-priced oil from Saudi Arabia. Both parties would stress that the agreement simply reaffirms their decades-long special relationship.

As Pakistan is a nuclear weapons state one had to assume that any such a pact would supply Saudi Arabia with nuclear weapons. It was something that the U.S. and its sidekick Israel were very concerned about.

It was assumed at that time that the reason for such a move by Saudi Arabia would be its concern over Iran and its nuclear program:

Over the past decade, Saudi Arabia’s threat perception has sharpened as the dangers from Iran have grown along with doubts about the reliability of U.S. protection.
The time to wake up to a new Saudi-Pakistani alliance has finally come today:

Saudi Arabia signs ‘strategic mutual defence’ pact with Pakistan (archived) - Financial Times

But the strategic circumstance under which the alliance happens are very different from those that had been envisioned in 2012 essay:

Saudi Arabia has signed a “strategic mutual defence” pact with Pakistan, signalling to the US and Israel that the kingdom is willing to diversify its security alliances as it looks to bolster its deterrence.
The agreement with the nuclear-armed south Asian state comes a week after Gulf states — traditionally reliant on the US as their security guarantor — were deeply rattled by Israel’s missile strikes targeting Hamas’s political leaders in Qatar.

“We hope it will reinforce our deterrence — aggression against one is aggression against the other,” a senior Saudi official told the Financial Times.
“This is a comprehensive defence agreement that will utilise all defensive and military means deemed necessary depending on the specific threat.”

This is a NATO Article 5 like pact. 'All means deemed necessary', as empathized, undoubtedly includes Pakistan's nuclear weapons.

The U.S. was, the FT say, not at all involved in it:

Riyadh is believed to have informed Washington about the Pakistan defence agreement after it was signed.

Saudi Arabia already has a strategic missile force which is armed with Chinese DF-21 missiles which have a range of up to 1,700 kilometer. They can hit Tehran, but also Tel Aviv. The missiles are conventionally armed but can be fitted with nuclear warheads.

Pakistan's development of nuclear weapons had largely be financed by Saudi Arabia. The two countries have a long history of military cooperation:

Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have a defense relationship stretching back decades, in part due to Islamabad’s willingness to defend the Islamic holy sites of Mecca and Medina in the kingdom. Pakistani troops first traveled to Saudi Arabia in the late 1960s over concerns about Egypt’s war in Yemen at the time. Those ties increased after Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution and the kingdom’s fears of a confrontation with Tehran.
Pakistan developed its nuclear weapons program to counter India's atomic bombs. However, there long have been signals of the kingdom’s interest in the program. Retired Pakistani Brig. Gen. Feroz Hassan Khan, in his book on his country’s nuclear weapons program called “Eating Grass: The Making of the Pakistani Bomb,” said Saudi Arabia provided “generous financial support” for its effort.

Today Saudi Arabia no longer fears a confrontation with Iran. In 2023, with the help of Chinese mediation, the two countries did bury their hatchets. The move was an early sign that the U.S. was losing ground in the Middle East.

The reasons why the is being closed these days is obvious:

The agreement was signed by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in Riyadh. Sharif’s office’s reiterated that the agreement “states that any aggression against either country shall be considered an aggression against both”.
The Israeli attack on Doha, one of the US’s major non-Nato allies, exacerbated Gulf leaders’ long-running concerns about Washington’s unpredictability and its commitment to their defence, as well as fears about Israel acting unrestrainedly with its military across the region.

The Saudis had worked on, and hoped for, a deeper alliance with the U.S. But the genocide in Gaza, and the unlimited U.S. support for it, have made such an alliance impossible:

Riyadh had been hoping to seal a defence pact with the US, as well as co-operation with Washington’s nuclear plans, as part of a grand deal that would have led to it normalising diplomatic relations with Israel.
However, those plans were upended after Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, triggering the war in Gaza and conflict across the region.

Riyadh has become increasingly outraged by Israel’s 23-month war in Gaza and the conduct of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government.

Prince Mohammed accuses Israel of committing genocide, and has made it clear that normalisation is off the table unless Netanyahu ends the conflict and moves to establish a Palestinian state.

China, which is allied with Pakistan, will be happy about the deal. So will be Iran. It was likely already informed about it:

Before the defense pact was signed, Iran dispatched Ali Larijani, a senior political figure who now serves as the secretary of the country’s Supreme National Security Council, to visit Saudi Arabia. That may have seen the kingdom acknowledge the pact to Tehran, with which it has had a Chinese-mediated détente with Iran since 2023.

India will be concerned about the deal. A lot of the oil it purchases is coming from Saudi Arabia. With a Saudi-Pakistani alliance in place any conflict with Pakistan will likely cause it additional difficulties with the purchase of energy.

The U.S., and Donald Trump, are the big losers in this. The unrestricted support for Israel is coming at an ever increasing price. The Gulf countries are - slowly, slowly - moving away from it.

Posted by b on September 18, 2025 at 10:11 UTC | Permalink

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2025/09/s ... .html#more

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Gaza’s ‘Marathon of Terror’: A City Forced Toward Erasure
September 16, 2025


People run as smoke rises over a building in Gaza City, September 14, 2025. Photo: Omar Al Qattaa/AFP.

By Youssef Fares – Sep 15, 2025

In Gaza, the sky holds nothing but the dust of shattered buildings bombarded every few minutes by US-supplied Israeli warplanes. On Saturday alone, 16 buildings were reduced to rubble, including three towers and facilities of the Islamic University, where tens of thousands of forcibly displaced people had taken refuge. In al-Karama neighborhood, the most crowded area of northwest Gaza, airstrikes tore through shelters and ignited a massive fire that consumed hundreds of tents.

Israeli tactics have escalated from threatening a single residential building to ordering the evacuation of entire blocks. Intelligence officers now call residents of 100 homes at once and give them five minutes to evacuate before striking multiple buildings at once. This transforms Gaza’s streets into a “marathon of terror”. Children and adults flee the bombardment while others hurl mattresses and blankets from upper floors in a race against collapse.

Hundreds of families now sleep homeless on hospital steps and roadside pavements. Today Gaza is the portrait of a doomsday scene. Survivors are emptying the place and moving toward the center and south of the Strip. According to Israeli estimates, around 300,000 residents have fled in the past two weeks, more than half of them in the last three days alone. Around 900,000 people remain for lack of travel means. They are left with no option but to endure whatever comes their way.

Today Gaza is the portrait of a doomsday scene

This evokes memories of the 1948 Nakba. An entire city, with its cultural and historical identity being systematically erased. The immediate result is thousands of families left homeless and hopeless, with emigration increasingly seen as the only lifeline for survival.

Meanwhile Israeli media outlets report that Benjamin Netanyahu has put in motion a plan to deport Gazans by sea and air while exploring the options of countries willing to receive them – including Ethiopia, Somalia, and South Sudan.

Despite Arab and international condemnation, nothing for now suggests that the Israeli government is halting its long-term campaign. Ending the war without rapid mechanisms to restore civilian life would create unbearable conditions. This is precisely the outcome the Israeli entity seeks.

Yet despite ferocious bombardment, even the Israeli army admits the difficulty of emptying Gaza City, which proves Palestinians’ deep attachment to their land. But the displaced, hungry, and defenseless cannot resist the occupation’s machinery of destruction alone. Their survival requires genuine Arab and international political and humanitarian support to withstand this campaign of forced expulsion.

(al-akhbar)

https://orinocotribune.com/gazas-marath ... d-erasure/

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Israel’s Destruction of Gaza City Intensifies
September 17, 2025

Israel called the campaign “Operation Gideon Chariots II,” which Hamas said it will counter with a series of operations dubbed “Moses’ Staff.”


Israeli Forces level a high-rise building surrounded by refugee tents in Gaza. (Israeli Defense Minister Katz on X, Screenshot)

By Peoples Dispatch

“The bolt is now being removed from the gates of Hell in Gaza,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Friday, Sept. 5, wrote on X, signaling the start of “Operation Gideon Chariots II” in Gaza City.

“When the door is opened, it will not be closed, and IDF activity will intensify,” Katz added, threatening Hamas “to accept Israel’s conditions for ending the war,” otherwise “they will be destroyed.”

A couple of hours later, Katz posted a video of a high-rise building being flattened by Israeli warplanes in Gaza City, commenting: “We started.”

The posts were published almost simultaneously as the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) announced it will target multi-story buildings in Gaza City for allegedly being used by Hamas as military infrastructures.

Dozens of towers located in densely populated areas, some surrounded by makeshift tents of displaced people, have been destroyed since the IOF made the announcement.

On Monday, Sept. 8, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu bluntly boasted about the demolition of 50 towers in Gaza City within a couple of days.

“In the past two days, 50 of these towers have fallen. The air force brought them down,” Netanyahu said in a video statement.


Chief of the General Staff, LTG Eyal Zamir, in a field visit in Gaza City, overseeing Operation Gideon’s Chariots. (IDF / X Via People’s Dispatch)

“Now all of this is just an introduction, just a prelude, to the main intense operation – a ground maneuver of our forces, who are now organizing and gathering in Gaza City,” he threatened.

Reiterating his intention to forcibly displace the people of Gaza, Netanyahu said: “This is just the prelude to the main powerful operation, so I tell Gaza residents: you have been warned, get out of there.”

Hamas Responds
In a statement issued Tuesday, Sept. 9, Hamas slammed Netanyahu’s remarks as “one of the most heinous images of sadism and criminality perpetrated by a war criminal, who has continued to commit brutal crimes against civilians for about two years.”
Hamas added that “the threat of terrorist Netanyahu to the residents of Gaza City and warning them to flee, is an explicit practice of the full-fledged forced displacement crime, under the pressure of airstrikes, massacres, starvation and threats.”

The Palestinian movement further condemned the silence and inability of the United Nations institutions, primarily the U.N. Security Council, in confronting these brutal crimes, and accused the U.S. administration of complicity.

[Drop Site News reported Wednesday that Israel bombed the only children’s hospital in Gaza City, forcing the evacuation of many of the patients. Israel says 350,000 of the roughly one million residents of the city have fled south and the IDF is opening a new corridor for 48 hours for the rest to leave in a blatant act of ethnic cleansing. Israel’s Gaza operation has brought worldwide condemnation, even from the E.U. But the U.S. remains silent in its complicity.]

“Netanyahu’s remarks are ‘one of the most heinous images of sadism and criminality perpetrated by a war criminal, who has continued to commit brutal crimes against civilians for about two years.’”

Moses’ Staff vs. Gideon Chariots II

Four months after “Operation Gideon Chariots” was launched without achieving any of Netanyahu’s “total victory” delusions, the second version of the expanded ground offensive was launched under the name “Operation Gideon Chariots II.”

Israel has used a biblical name for its operations in an attempt to sanctify the continuation of its 23-month genocidal aggression in Gaza, at least in the minds of religiously-oriented people within Israeli society, amid a growing opposition that has been calling for a ceasefire deal.

Gideon was a military leader, celebrated in the Torah for his victory over his enemies through unconventional strategy and tactics.

For its part, Hamas’s military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, responded to the denomination of the new Israeli operation, by announcing that it will be launching a series of operations dubbed “Moses’ Staff.”

The name implies a connotation of a religious narrative believed by Jews and Muslims alike, about the miraculous ability of the oppressed (Moses) to defeat the oppressor (Pharao), despite limited capabilities.

Although the Al-Qassam has mainly relied on street fighting and ambush tactics, Israel’s huge military arsenal has not enabled the IOF to defeat the brigades. It has not prevented the Israeli military from suffering major losses either.

According to the latest figures published by the Israeli occupation authorities, at least 904 Israeli soldiers have been killed since Oct. 7, 2023, out of whom 460 were eliminated in ground battles across Gaza.

In order to pressure Hamas to surrender, the Netanyahu administration has not used lawful military strategies, but criminal genocidal tactics, targeting areas densely populated by civilians, and using hunger as a weapon of war. It also recruited local militias of mercenaries to loot aid, spread chaos, and ignite infighting among Palestinians in the war-torn strip.

The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza said last Friday the official death toll of Palestinians killed by Israel across the besieged enclave since the beginning of the genocide has risen to 64,756.

Assassinating Hamas’s top military commanders and political leaders in Gaza and exile, has been another heinous strategy adopted by the Israeli government to undermine the Palestinian resistance group.

The aggression which rocked the Qatari capital, Doha, on Tuesday, Sept. 9, was the latest operation carried out by the IOF to assassinate senior Hamas leaders, who survived the assault.

Even though Israel has implemented every lethal and illegitimate method to eradicate the Al-Qassam, the resistance has demonstrated solidity with an extraordinary ability to recover, and continuously recruit new fighters.

https://consortiumnews.com/2025/09/17/i ... tensifies/

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Palestinians Deserve More Than Food Aid – They Deserve Food Sovereignty
Posted by Internationalist 360° on September 16, 2025



Reason2Resist with Dimitri Lascaris

Despite overwhelming evidence of human-made famine in Gaza, pro-Israel advocates continue to sow doubt about Israel’s mass starvation of the Palestinian people.

To debunk their lies, Dimitri Lascaris spoke with two food experts: Dr. Charles Levkoe, Professor and Canada Research Chair in Equitable and Sustainable Food Systems at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario, and Dr. Sarah Rotz, Associate Professor at the Faculty of Environment and Urban Change at York University, in Toronto.

Along with hundreds of other food experts, Dr. Levkoe and Rotz recently co-signed an open letter to Canada’s Prime Minister and Foreign Minister denouncing Canada’s failure to stop Israel’s genocide. In that letter, food experts from across Canada specifically condemned Canada’s highly-publicized airdrops of aid into Gaza.

According to Drs. Rotz and Levkoe, Israel has deliberately forced Palestinians to become dependent on external aid. Israel then obstructs or blocks that aid. What Palestinians need and deserve, they argue, is the ability to produce their own food, which they are eminently capable of doing. In other words, Palestinians deserve food sovereignty.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2025/09/ ... vereignty/

[blindpig]

Israel's Biblical myth is burying the West Bank alive

With full western backing, Tel Aviv is entrenching a one-state apartheid system and extinguishing any prospect of Palestinian sovereignty.

A Cradle Correspondent

SEP 18, 2025


Photo Credit: The Cradle

A recent statement from the US ambassador to Tel Aviv laid bare Washington’s deep ideological alignment with Israel’s colonial project.

Mike Huckabee dismissed the term “West Bank” as “imprecise” and “modern,” insisting the territory should be called “Judea and Samaria” – biblical names used in Israel’s foundational mythology. He further declared Jerusalem to be “the undisputed and indivisible capital of the Jewish state.”

How ‘Judea and Samaria’ became state doctrine

Such remarks are part of a wider strategy adopted by Israel and its western allies to impose new facts on the ground, legitimized through religious and historical narratives to justify the gradual annexation of the occupied West Bank. For years, Tel Aviv has pursued an aggressive expansionist policy built on illegal settlement construction, creeping annexation, and the erasure of the Palestinian land’s geographic and political identity. Most recently, Israeli authorities approved a new settlement project in the heart of Hebron (Al-Khalil), consisting of hundreds of housing units next to the Ibrahimi Mosque, which is now mostly a synagogue under Israeli control.

Israel’s strategy in the occupied West Bank is a complex, multi-layered one that far exceeds the parameters of temporary military administration. It is a long-term blueprint for de facto annexation – what could be termed “creeping annexation.” Through legal warfare, archaeology, settlement expansion, and political engineering, Tel Aviv is redrawing the region’s geography and demography to erase any possibility of Palestinian sovereignty. The aim is to impose irreversible facts on the ground and absorb the territory into the so-called “Biblical Land of Israel” – a supremacist strategy that works toward dismembering the Palestinian national project and the consolidation of permanent Jewish-Israeli control.

At the heart of Israel’s colonization strategy lies the foundational myth that “Judea and Samaria” are the ancient birthright of the Jewish people. This religious-nationalist narrative, central to the Zionist project and championed by settler and far-right factions, is the ideological engine driving Israel’s land theft. In this warped worldview, the seizure of Palestinian territory is seen as a righteous reclamation rather than an occupation, justified as a divinely sanctioned 'return' that cloaks a settler-colonial enterprise in biblical language and fabricated heritage.

However, even within Israeli academic circles, this ideological claim faces serious scrutiny. Renowned Israeli archaeologist Professor Rafi Greenberg of Tel Aviv University harshly criticizes what he calls “the weaponization of archaeology.” He notes that the archaeological record in Palestine offers no exclusive evidence of a single group’s historical claim.

On the contrary, it reveals a layered tapestry of civilizations and cultures – Canaanite, Roman, Byzantine, Christian, and Islamic – that have succeeded and coexisted on this land. Greenberg affirms that “Archaeology in its essence does not provide that kind of certainty and purity that ethnocratic right-wing government ministers might want. So they have to invent it.” According to him, the idea of a homogenous culture during any historical period is pure fabrication.

This contradiction exposes the real function of the biblical narrative – an excuse to legitimize a political settlement project. It transforms the conflict from a political struggle over land and resources into an existential battle waged through mythology, history, and memory, allowing Palestinians to be depicted as outsiders with no historical connection or national rights to the land.

The evolution of Israeli control

Israel’s strategy toward the occupied West Bank has evolved through distinct phases in response to political and security developments on the ground.

From 1948 until the Oslo Accords in the 1990s, Israeli policy shifted from cautious observation to direct control, and later to attempts to create a new political reality that secures its long-term security and demographic interests. This trajectory can be broken down into key stages, each with its own strategy and tools.

Following the Nakba in 1948 and the subsequent partition of Palestine, the occupied West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem came under Jordanian control. During this period, Israeli strategy toward the area was primarily defensive, driven by security anxieties. Israel viewed the occupied West Bank as a potential launchpad for attacks from the east, and the narrow coastal strip separating the occupied West Bank from the Mediterranean Sea, Israel’s so-called “narrow waist,” was seen as a major strategic vulnerability.

The 1967 war marked a dramatic turning point. With the “Naksa” (Setback), which saw the occupation of the West Bank, Israel suddenly found itself ruling over one million Palestinians, posing a fundamental dilemma regarding how to control the land without fully absorbing its population into the Jewish state while maintaining security.

The architect of Israeli policy at the time was Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, who developed a dual strategy known as the “open bridges policy.” This approach aimed for limited intervention or invisible occupation where possible.

Israel allowed the continued movement of people and goods across the Jordan River via the Allenby and Damia bridges. The goal was to prevent the collapse of the Palestinian economy, avoid assuming the burden of managing daily life, and allow Palestinians to maintain familial, social, and economic ties with the Arab world via Jordan. The aim was to normalize life under occupation while quietly encouraging “voluntary” Palestinian emigration as a long-term demographic solution. Parallel to this, a cautious settlement project began, initially focusing on areas of strategic security interest, such as the Jordan Valley and the Jerusalem perimeter, in line with the “Allon Plan,” which called for annexing these regions while returning densely populated areas to Jordan under a future settlement.


Map of the proposed Israeli annexation plan in the occupied West Bank ("Allon Plan").

With the rise of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Arab League’s recognition of it in 1974 as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, Israel grew increasingly anxious. Its attempts to work with traditional municipal leaders, elected in the 1976 local elections and largely affiliated with the PLO, had failed. In response, the Israeli Likud government under Menachem Begin in the late 1970s adopted a new strategy – the creation of “Village Leagues.” These were local administrative bodies composed of tribal and rural Palestinian figures.

The Palestinian leaders were selected, armed, and supported by Israel’s civil administration to serve as an alternative “moderate” leadership willing to cooperate with Tel Aviv. The idea was to bypass the PLO and its urban nationalist leadership and to promote a limited “self-rule” model proposed under the Camp David Accords, which granted Palestinians civil administrative control while security and land remained under Israeli authority. However, the Village Leagues experiment failed miserably. Most Palestinians saw their members as collaborators and traitors, and the bodies lacked any popular legitimacy before collapsing entirely with the outbreak of the First Intifada in 1987.

The collapse of this strategy, combined with international shifts such as the end of the Cold War and the First Persian Gulf War, pushed both Israeli and Palestinian actors toward secret negotiations in Oslo. The Oslo Accords, signed between 1993 and 1995, marked the culmination of this phase and reflected Israel's new strategy of separation and redeployment. Rather than exercising direct control over every inch of land and every aspect of Palestinian life, Israel sought to offload the burden of managing Palestinian population centers while retaining comprehensive control over security, borders, settlements, and resources.

Lawfare and bulldozers

The occupied West Bank was divided administratively and security-wise into three zones.

Area A, about 18 percent of the West Bank and encompassing major cities, was placed under full Palestinian civil and security control.

Area B, around 21 percent and covering towns and villages surrounding the cities, came under Palestinian civil control and joint Israeli-Palestinian security oversight, though Israel retained ultimate authority.

Area C, more than 60 percent of the West Bank, included Israeli settlements, border zones such as the Jordan Valley, bypass roads, most agricultural lands, and water resources. This area remained under full Israeli civil and security control.

The Oslo Accords created a new reality. Israel's focus shifted from managing Palestinian population centers to cementing permanent control over vast swathes of land, especially Area C. To achieve this, Israel began using more legal and scientific means to impose its will and Judaize the territory. Perhaps the most alarming development is Israel’s use of legal instruments to formally extend its sovereignty over the occupied West Bank. This is exemplified by the proposed amendment to the 1978 Antiquities Law introduced by Likud Knesset member Amit Halevi.

The amendment seeks to extend the jurisdiction of the Israel Antiquities Authority to Area C. Though framed as a technical measure, it is a blatant step toward formal annexation and the imposition of Israeli civil law over occupied land, in direct violation of international law, which limits occupying powers to preserving heritage for the benefit of local populations. Israel promotes this law under the pretext of protecting Jewish heritage from alleged systematic destruction, creating a false sense of archaeological emergency. But on the ground, this law becomes a powerful tool for land seizure.

Once a site is declared archaeological, military protection is imposed, barring Palestinians from accessing or using the land, halting development, and forcibly displacing residents, paving the way for land and property confiscation.

This approach is a replica of the Elad model used in Silwan, occupied East Jerusalem, where the Elad settler organization combined house takeovers with archaeological excavations to erase Palestinian presence. This model is now being exported deep into the occupied West Bank, as in the case of Sebastia, north of Nablus, where excavations aim to sever the site from its Palestinian town and convert it into an Israeli national park.

Crushing the alternative: Why the Palestinian Authority was never meant to govern

Land control is incomplete without control, or more precisely, removal, of its population. Israel uses a multi-layered pressure strategy to force Palestinians, especially in Area C, to leave.

In recent months, Israeli military raids have intensified on Palestinian villages, towns, and refugee camps, particularly in the northern occupied West Bank triangle, accompanied by a wide-scale destruction of infrastructure. At the same time, settlers have been unleashed to wreak havoc in Palestinian villages and towns, often under Israeli army protection. This creates a climate of terror designed to make Palestinian life unbearable, and has already led to the displacement of thousands.

The annexation strategy is completed by systematically weakening any unified Palestinian political leadership capable of representing the national project. Israel works to disable the Palestinian Authority (PA) without allowing its total collapse, to avoid having to administer the population directly. This is done by withholding tax revenues to financially cripple the PA, obstructing the movement of its officials, and undermining any semblance of sovereignty, consequently reducing the PA to a subcontractor for security and administrative coordination in isolated Palestinian pockets, devoid of real political authority or territorial control.

In its bid to bypass and dismantle unified Palestinian representation, Israel is revisiting its old strategy of creating local proxy leadership. This includes direct dealings with traditional structures like clan leaders, village councils, and tribal elders, aimed at establishing independent bodies subordinate to the occupation. Reminiscent of the failed Village Leagues project of the 1980s, the goal is to fragment Palestinian society and establish local partners through whom the population can be managed without engaging with a national leadership. Recent proposals, such as the Hebron Emirate or plans to impose warlord-led administrations on Gaza post-war, are experiments in this direction. Israel frames these policies in the occupied West Bank as a series of reactive security measures, when in fact they are they are interlocking components of a deliberate, long-term strategy of creeping annexation.

By weaponizing the law, archaeology, settlements, demographic pressure, political suppression, and social fragmentation, Israel is systematically dismantling the possibility of a viable Palestinian state, at a time of growing momentum for international recognition. The outcome is a one-state reality between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, one not founded on equality or citizenship but on an entrenched system of domination by one group over another. A reality that numerous analysts and human rights organizations, including Israeli ones, have described as apartheid. The near future promises deeper entrenchment of this tragic status quo, rendering the so-called two-state solution practically unworkable amid relentless settlement expansion, land fragmentation, and the transformation of the occupied West Bank into isolated cantons stripped of any semblance of sovereignty.

https://thecradle.co/articles/israels-b ... bank-alive

Total communication blackout in Gaza City as Israeli tanks push in

Israeli troops continue to demolish homes and buildings in Gaza City to make way for a 'real estate bonanza' in the strip

News Desk

SEP 18, 2025


(Photo credit: New York Times)

Internet and phone lines were cut in Gaza City as tanks continue to push toward the city center, suggesting an escalation of Israel's ground campaign in the enclave's capital is imminent, Al-Sharq al-Awsat reported on 18 September.

“The disconnection of internet and phone services is a bad omen. It has always been a bad signal [that] something very brutal is going to happen,” said a Gaza City resident, Ismail, speaking with the Saudi-owned paper.

Ismail was using an e-SIM to connect his phone, which is dangerous because it requires seeking higher ground in areas exposed to possible Israeli strikes to receive a signal.

“The situation around me is very desperate. People in tents and in houses are very worried for their lives. Many can't afford to leave, but many do not want to,” he said.

The Palestinian Telecommunications Company issued a statement saying its services had been cut off “due to the ongoing aggression and the targeting of the main network routes.”

Israel regularly cuts the internet and electricity ahead of major military operations.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have fled Gaza City since Israel announced it would launch an offensive to occupy it.

Palestinians in Gaza City face the difficult choice of staying in their homes amid Israeli bombing or fleeing to a so-called “humanitarian zone” in the southern territory, where there is insufficient food, medicine, and shelter for the displaced.

“Even if we want to leave Gaza City, is there any guarantee we would be able to come back? Will the war ever end? That's why I prefer to die here, in Sabra, my neighborhood,” Ahmed, a schoolteacher, told Al-Sharq al-Awsat by phone.

On 16 September, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz vowed to destroy Gaza City if Hamas did not release the remaining Israelis it holds captive in the strip.

“They will pay the price and Gaza will be destroyed,” Katz stated.

However, Israeli troops have focused their efforts on demolishing homes and residential high-rise buildings rather than on fighting Hamas.

Israeli leaders and businesspersons have called for re-establishing Jewish settlements in Gaza and launching and constructing an AI-driven smart city and resort destination in the enclave once the majority of Palestinians have been expelled.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Wednesday that the Gaza Strip represents a “real estate bonanza.”

Speaking at an urban renewal conference in Tel Aviv, Smotrich said there was a “business plan” for Gaza on US President Donald Trump's “table.”

To make way for the real estate project, Israeli troops have killed or injured more than one in 10 Palestinians in Gaza since the war began nearly two years ago.

Former Israeli military Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi stated last week that “There are 2.2 million people in Gaza. There are in Gaza today more than 10 percent who were killed or injured, more than 200,000. This is not a gentle war.”

https://thecradle.co/articles/total-com ... ks-push-in

******

Gaza City: The Impossible Choice Between Displacement and Death
Posted by Internationalist 360° on September 17, 2025
Mahmoud Sharqawi



Since mid-August 2025, the wave of displacement from Gaza City has been steadily rising, driven by relentless military attacks and direct threats to civilians. The journey south, toward central and southern parts of the Strip, has been filled with unimaginable hurdles. With each step away from danger, families face new challenges: lack of tents, skyrocketing rent prices, and the near-total absence of infrastructure necessary for basic survival.

Every attempt to escape the looming threat of a ground invasion brings people face to face with a harsh reality. The designated displacement zones are already overwhelmed and offer no guarantee of safety. “A family that fled from Gaza City just last week was killed on their first day in the Mawasi Khan Younis area,” recounts Umm Yazan, herself displaced. The danger seems to follows them wherever they go.

Many have begun returning to their original neighborhoods after realizing that the temporary solutions they had hoped for were unworkable. Streets are congested, and the number of trucks moving belongings back into the city is nearly equal to those heading south. This speaks volumes about the lack of safe, viable alternatives for those trying to flee.

Most families are trying to stay as close as possible to the western or northwestern edges of Gaza City, near the main truck routes where they can still access basic supplies. Others are heading southwest, toward Sheikh Ajleen or nearby areas, where limited shelter may be available. Despite intense military pressure, mass displacement beyond Wadi Gaza remains relatively limited. In many cases, people leave temporarily, only to return quickly after a brief lull in violence.

The Palestinian Observatory for Internal Displacement recently issued a report stating that the current movement of people cannot be considered stable or final. What’s unfolding is a complex cycle of repeated displacement and conditional returns, reflecting the fragility of both the humanitarian and security situation on the ground.

According to the report, the period between August 20 and 27 saw a mix of mass displacement, limited movement, and even reverse displacement, all under increasingly dire conditions and in the absence of any real protections for civilians. These patterns suggest a continued policy of military pressure aimed at forcing residents to leave, countered by the strong resolve of Gazans and their determination to remain close to their homes and neighborhoods despite the dangers.

Field data confirms how dynamic and complex the displacement has become. On Wednesday, August 20, around 394 people were displaced. That number rose to 647 on Thursday, then dropped to 535 on Friday, with many returning later that same day after securing basic necessities. By August 25, as military pressure intensified, about 1,150 people moved from north of Wadi Gaza to its southern areas. However, during the same period, reverse displacement was also recorded: approximately 140 families returned to the Bir al-Naja neighborhood, while 90 families went back to Jabalia al-Nazla.

By the end of the week, mass displacement escalated. Around 2,400 families left the neighborhoods of Jabalia al-Balad, al-Nazla, and al-Saftawi. Most headed toward the city’s west or to Sheikh Ajleen, while hundreds continued south toward Wadi Gaza. Of these, approximately 1,135 individuals, or about 227 families, were confirmed to have moved from north of the Wadi to the south. Yet even among these, some families chose to return home after a brief period of calm.

The numbers clearly indicate that most people are opting to stay in western or northwestern Gaza, near truck routes, or in the southwest in Sheikh Ajleen. The limited capacity of central and southern areas in terms of shelter, healthcare, and infrastructure makes large-scale displacement to those regions nearly impossible, despite the very real risks. Civilians are left with few options, all of them difficult and dangerous.

In an attempt to control the flow of displaced people, the Israeli military announced what it called a “humanitarian services zone” in Mawasi Khan Younis, urging civilians to head there. These calls were accompanied by repeated evacuation notices posted on the Facebook page of military spokesperson Avichay Adraee, as aerial and artillery bombardments on Gaza City and the north intensified. However, conditions on the ground quickly revealed that the designated zones lacked the space and infrastructure to accommodate the displaced. As a result, most people chose to stay close to their homes or moved westward within Gaza City, seeking whatever minimal resources they could find. Civilians caught in the crossfire are left with very few realistic options.

Among those facing this ordeal firsthand is Aliyan, known as Abu Ahmad, who was forced to flee Gaza City on the fifth day of the war after heavy shelling in al-Saftawi and al-Karama. He moved to an empty apartment in Khan Younis owned by his mother’s family. But soon he returned to Gaza, determined to stay. However, his resolve was shaken by concern for his two-year-old daughter and one-year-old nephew, prompting another relocation attempt. He hoped to secure a piece of land in al-Zawaida where his children could stay, while he remained in the north.

The plan quickly fell apart. The land he had intended to settle on had been leased at inflated prices due to the setup of field hospitals in the area. Rents surged from 800 to between 1,500 and 2,500 shekels. Landowners he contacted were dismissive and uncooperative. After a long day of searching, Aliyan was forced to return to Gaza, paying an additional 1,000 shekels for temporary shelter on the beach, where he now lives with his wife, his brother’s wife, their children, and elderly relatives. He describes the situation as “surrendering to fate,” weighed down by exhaustion and the sense that his choices are shrinking by the day. The war has made both staying and leaving equally punishing decisions.

Elsewhere, social media activist Yazan Ahmad shared a video showing families returning to Gaza’s al-Shati camp after failing to find refuge in central or southern parts of the Strip. In the video, trucks carrying displaced people and their belongings roll back into the city. The footage paints a stark picture of the everyday struggle civilians face in a war that offers them no safe haven.

In response, Gaza’s Interior Ministry issued a statement on August 24 condemning what it called a “systematic plan to forcibly empty Gaza City and the northern governorates of their residents.” The ministry praised the resilience of the people and urged them not to succumb to the psychological warfare and threats of the occupation. The statement declared that “no part of the Strip is truly safe,” highlighting the continued civilian resistance to forced evacuation. It also called on the international community and mediators to intervene immediately to stop what it described as war crimes and efforts to displace the population. The ministry’s message was one of solidarity with civilians enduring the harsh conditions of temporary and often involuntary displacement.

Today, the reality on the ground remains bleak. Every move south is met with obstacles, and every return home brings new layers of physical and emotional fatigue. With no safety in sight, civilians are trapped between two dangers: the threat of staying and the uncertainty of leaving. Temporary displacement and forced returns have become a daily pattern of life, painting a grim portrait of the fragility of human survival in the heart of war.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2025/09/ ... and-death/

Medicine Is Being Invented in Gaza

Posted by Internationalist 360° on September 18, 2025
Donya Abu Sitta


Palestinian aid seekers injured by the Israeli army receive medical care at Khan Younis’s Nasser Hospital in the southern Gaza Strip on June 17, 2025 [AFP]

As medical students in Gaza, we are taught how to save lives with nothing and how to make impossible decisions.

It was my childhood dream to study medicine. I wanted to be a doctor to help people. I never imagined that I would study medicine not in a university, but in a hospital; not from textbooks, but from raw experience.

After I finished my BA in English last year, I decided to enrol in the medical faculty of al-Azhar University. I started my studies at the end of June. With all universities in Gaza destroyed, we, medical students, are forced to watch lectures on our mobile phones and read medical books under the light of our mobile phones’ flashlights.

Part of our training is to receive lectures from older medical students, who the genocidal war has forced into practice prematurely.

My first such lecture was by a fifth-year medical student called Dr Khaled at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah.

Al-Aqsa looks nothing like a normal hospital. There are no spacious white rooms or privacy for the patients. The corridor is the room, patients lie on beds or the floor, and their groans echo throughout the building.

Due to the overcrowding, we have to take our lectures in a caravan in the hospital yard.

“I’ll teach you what I learned not from lectures,” Dr Khaled began, “but from days when medicine was [something] you had to invent.”

He started with basics: check breathing, open the airway, and perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). But soon, the lesson shifted into something no normal syllabus would have: how to save a life with nothing.

Dr Khaled told us about a recent case: a young man pulled from beneath the rubble – legs shattered, head bleeding. The standard protocol is to immobilise the neck with a stabiliser before moving the patient.

But there was no stabiliser. No splint. No nothing.

So Dr Khaled did what no medical textbook would teach: he sat on the ground, cradled the man’s head between his knees, and held it perfectly still for 20 minutes until equipment arrived.

“That day,” he said, “I wasn’t a student. I was the brace. I was the tool.”

While the supervising doctor was preparing the operating room, Dr Khaled did not move, even when his muscles began aching, because that was all he could do to prevent further injury.

This story was not the only one we heard from Dr Khaled about improvised medical solutions.

There was one which was particularly painful to hear.

A woman in her early thirties was brought into the hospital with a deep pelvic injury. Her flesh was torn. She needed urgent surgery. But first, the wound had to be sterilised.

There was no Betadine. No alcohol. No clean tools. Only chlorine.

Yes, chlorine. The same chemical that burns the skin and stings the eyes.

She was unconscious. There was no alternative. They poured the chlorine in.

Dr Khaled told us this story with a voice that trembled with guilt.

“We used chlorine,” he said, not looking at us. “Not because we didn’t know better. But because there was nothing else.”

We were shocked by what we heard, but perhaps not surprised. Many of us had heard stories of desperate measures doctors in Gaza had had to take. Many of us had seen the gut-wrenching video of Dr Hani Bseiso operating on his niece on a dining table.

Last year, Dr Hani, an orthopaedic surgeon from al-Shifa Medical Complex, found himself in an impossible situation when his 17-year-old niece, Ahed, was injured in an Israeli air strike. They were trapped in their apartment building in Gaza City, unable to move, as the Israeli army had besieged the area.

Ahed’s leg was mangled beyond repair and she was bleeding. Dr Hani did not have much choice.

There was no anaesthesia. No surgical instruments. Only a kitchen knife, a pot with a little water, and a plastic bag.

Ahed lay on the dining table, her face pale and eyes half-closed, while her uncle – his own eyes brimming with tears – prepared to amputate her leg. The moment was captured on video.

“Look,” he cried, voice breaking, “I am amputating her leg without anaesthesia! Where is the mercy? Where is humanity?”

He worked quickly, hands trembling but precise, his surgical training colliding with the raw horror of the moment.

This scene has been repeated countless times across Gaza, as even young children have had to go through amputations without anaesthesia. And we, as medical students, are learning that this could be our reality; that we, too, may have to operate on a relative or a child while watching and hearing their unbearable pain.

But perhaps the hardest lesson we are learning is when not to treat – when the wounds are beyond saving and resources must be spent on those who still have a chance of survival. In other countries, this is a theoretical ethical discussion. Here, it is a decision we need to learn how to make because we may soon have to make it ourselves.

Dr Khaled told us: “In medical school, they teach you to save everyone. In Gaza, you learn you can’t – and you have to live with that.”

This is what it means to be a doctor in Gaza today: to carry the inhuman weight of knowing you cannot save everyone and to keep going; to develop a superhuman level of emotional endurance to absorb loss after loss without breaking and without losing one’s own humanity.

These people continue to treat and teach, even when they are exhausted, even when they are starving.

One day, midway through a trauma lecture, our instructor, Dr Ahmad, stopped mid-sentence, leaned on the table, and sat down. He whispered, “I just need a minute. My sugar’s low.”

We all knew he hadn’t eaten since the previous day. The war is not only depleting medicine – it is consuming the very bodies and minds of those who try to heal others. And we, the students, are learning in real time that medicine here is not just about knowledge and skills. It is about surviving long enough to use them.

Being a doctor in Gaza means reinventing medicine every day with what is available to you, treating without tools, resuscitating without equipment, and bandaging with your own body.

It is not just a crisis of resources. It is a moral test.

And in that test, the wounds run deep – through flesh, through dignity, through hope itself.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2025/09/ ... d-in-gaza/

*****

(The following piece should be read and understood. This is real politic, it does not lead from the heart but from reality. I've been seeing a lot of the complaints addressed in this work, I am sympathic and am a big fan of Ms Beeley. But the points which Boyd makes very clear are undeniable, however cold-blooded one finds them.

It's a mean old world, and will continue to be, BRICs or no BRICs, until class is destroyed world-wide. Get to work.)

Russia, China and Israel: Why I Disagree With Vanessa Beeley
Roger Boyd
Sep 19, 2025



In my notes section I commented on why I consider the attacks of some commentators on especially Russia and China with respect to Israel to be a symptom of Western-\centrism and a tendency of the “left” to judge such nations with utopian ideals that can never be met; in response to the interview between Fiorella Isabel and Vanessa Beeley below.

Fiorella Isabel
BRICS & The Failure to Save Gaza: A "New Multipolar World Order" Or Just More Bosses?
As BRICS expands its global influence, through summits, cooperation efforts, and new members, its continued trade with Israel, Saudi Arabia as its member, and other actions like mirroring the U.N. charter, raise a disturbing question we should all be asking: is multipolarity truly a real challenge to Western hegemony, or is it merely a rebranding of the…
Listen now
3 days ago · 61 likes · 21 comments · Fiorella Isabel and vanessa beeley

The Western “left” just can never get it right it seems, they are always criticizing China etc. because they are not “perfect”. The Eurocentrism is also very evident.

Palestine is NOT the paramount moral issue of our time. Yes, it is awful but we have to keep things in perspective. The paramount moral issue of our time is the establishment of a counter-balance to the West so that its ability to sponsor such violence and subjugate nations is severely curtailed. Millions have been genocided in DR Congo by the Western-puppet Rwanda, a million died in Iraq at the hands of the West, more in Afghanistan, billions of people are kept down by the West in poverty.

Actually existing socialist and anti-imperialist nations have to use discretion in their actions, a reality that Lenin fully understood. China and Russia have more important issues to deal with, and it is not in their interests to be pulled into the Zionist quagmire. Sorry, but thats just reality. Utopian socialism is a dead end where real change goes to die.

From the discussion:

“We also highlight that it’s a huge red flag that Venezuela was basically blocked from entering BRICS and this was not just on Brazil, which became a scapegoat. Ultimately, holding alternative powers accountable is not about blaming them, but about demanding they live up to their professed principles because we believe there IS hope they can live up to them. Ending the genocide in Palestine is the paramount moral issue of our time, and if a new world order is to be genuinely different, it must start by taking a definitive stand there—otherwise what comes next may be much worse.”

Its not the job of BRICS (and BRINCISTAN) to end the Palestinian genocide. Its their job to build a counter-balance to Western power. Palestine, sadly, would be a very dangerous distraction from that goal.

Ms. Beeley then restacked my comment with the following commentary:

This is precisely the kind of nonsensical ‘real politik’ argument that validates powerful BRICS nations doing nothing to prevent genocide in Palestine that is now expanding to Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. According to this argument ‘Palestine is just one issue or NOT the paramount moral issue of our time’ - I would argue it is because if we allow such sadistic slaughter to continue, we are all morally responsible and history will judge Humanity as a whole for its inaction and apathy - BRICS nations like Russia, China and India have a responsibility to uphold the public statements they make and to provide a counter to the ZIonist bloc shredding of international law and inhumanity against the most vulnerable peoples. They are not doing this, whether it is Gaza, Occupied Territories, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq - they are de facto keeping the genocidal entity alive and sustaining the genocide and unlawful expansionism into sovereign territory of nations while claiming that “sovereignty must be respected. “Israel” is violating every human rights convention, every UN charter, every aspect of what humanity should represent is being destroyed in front of our eyes but we should condone BRICS ‘discretion’ while the blood of children runs in rivers in Gaza and in all the region, while rape is becoming normalised by the Takfiri creatures that “Israel” supports to bring down regimes in favour of its national security? Real change is our refusal to accept the devolution of mankind into some kind of Global Capitalist hellscape where genocide becomes just another useless term, another extreme that becomes normalised because what counts is supremacism of another colour and another facade - hiding the exact same exploitation of the peoples of this planet, the same resource grab, the same lack of equity, justice and compassion. You can call me a ‘leftist’ but know that it is just another form of othering, partitioning of debate - we are all human beings and we are all fighting for survival - Palestine is the fate of all of us if we do not act and call out those who are doing nothing to end the suffering of an entire people beyond an anodyne “two state solution” BS - if we do nothing, we are all next. After Palestine, Lebanon will be destroyed and the Palestinians and Resistance here will be slaughtered, ethnically cleansed - and it will go on and on until they arrive at your doorstep and what will you do then? Favour ‘discretion’ ?

First of all let me deal with my use of “leftist” as I myself are on the left and my use of it is certainly not any kind of “othering”. I actually admire the work that Vanessa has done over the years, and our views with respect to the Zionist regime are in very close alignment. I am simply expressing my exasperation with the positions taken by many of those on the left with respect to the judgement of the anti-imperial nations and the inability to deal with the realities of those nations. I will not address the hyperbole of the last sentence above.

Mass slaughter, the use of sexual violence, torture, genocide and ethnic cleansing are already normalized within the West and its vassal regimes. Palestine is a symptom of this, not an exception. The million dead as France attempted to maintain its colonial grip upon Algeria in the 1950s and 1960s, the millions dead in Indonesia in the 1960s, the mass murder and torture programs of the Vietnam War, the 1960s to 1980s South American “Dirty Wars” and Operation Condor, the 1970s and 1980s East Timor genocide, the hundreds of thousands of Mayan deaths in Guatemala with the genocide peaking in the 1980s, the million killed in the post-911 eruption of US violence, the Bush-era renditions and torture programs, the Obama-era global drone murder campaign, the utter destruction of the middle income nation of Libya, the list is endless. Sadly, the Palestinian genocide and ethnic cleansing is not exceptional.

Now let us deal with the realities of the five countries that represent the BRICS initials. There is no hope for the Hindutva supremacist government of India, together with the fascist paramilitary organization that sits behind it (the RSS), that serve a tiny rentier and deeply corrupt billionaire-class residing in a sea of poverty. It has revealed itself in its policies at home toward the Muslim minority, and in Kashmir and Manipur. And then of course there is the continued influence of the caste system and widespread misogyny. To expect India to disassociate itself from the Zionist regime is to not accept reality. I have previously covered the reality of India here.

Brazil is dominated by a majority ethnically European elite in a nation of extremes of poverty; with that poverty being highly racialized. Its president, Lula, is at best the leader of a “neoliberalism with crumbs” administration that is severely hemmed in between the capitalist oligarchy and the increasing political weight of the Brazilian Evangelical movement that is Christian Zionist. Domestic realities preclude any meaningful actions by Brazil against Israel.

The independence of South Africa did not bring freedom to the Black population. Instead a neoliberal coup was engineered by the West within the ANC, and senior leaders of the ANC joined the white ruling class. Together, they continued the subjugation of the mass of the population (both Blacks and whites) with little real progress for the vast majority of the Black population. Given South Africa’s history of apartheid, it would have been difficult for the government not to bring suit against Israel at the ICJ and ICC. However, South Africa still trades with Israel showing its actions to be more performative (for the domestic audience and its international reputation perhaps) than effectual.

The nature of the Indian, Brazilian and South African governments is why I have never considered BRICS to be a truly anti-imperialist force. For that I have instead raised the Eurasian bloc of BRINCISTAN (Belarus, Russia, Iran, North Korea, China, Iraq, and the “Stans”) as a more substantive anti-imperialist grouping. The core of this group is Russia and China.

Russia is easily the weakest of the three great powers, the result of the utter destruction and devastation of the 1990s that destroyed so much of the nation’s industrial base. Its ruling elite is a coalition of Putin’s “St. Petersburg” political grouping, the remaining oligarchs and the military and security services (the siloviki). Western governments have repeatedly called for regime change in Russia, operationalized though a Western NGO complex that was effectively purged by the Russian state. Another avenue of these regime change operations has been a segment of the elites that were ready to be willing vassals, now significantly purged and restricted in influence. With the Russian state aided in these endeavours by the Ukraine War. A third leg included the pushing of Georgia into war with Russia and the support for separatist and terrorist groups within Russia; both of these avenues also failed.

The West then launched the regime change operation in Ukraine and turned it into a proxy while launching an economic and financial war upon Russia. In 2022 this became a full-blown proxy hot war backed up by extreme sanctions and the theft of Russian assets. All designed to internally destabilize Russia and trigger regime change. With the failure of these efforts, the West has even moved to block Russian fossil fuel trade with third countries, as with the recent US punitive tariffs on India. Any move by Russia against Israel would be utilized in the West to further demonize it. In addition, we must understand that Israel is not an independent actor but rather an extension of US and Western foreign policy. Which could result in escalatory measures against Russia, including attempts to reinvigorate separatism and terrorism within the country and both sanctions and military escalations as part of the Ukraine proxy war. It must also be remembered that there are 1.2 million Russian Zionist citizens in Israel and about 100,000 within Russia. Given the extremist orientation of the Israeli population, the Russian state has to be cognizant of their possible reactions to actions taken against Israel.

Russia needs to focus its energies on winning the Ukraine War in a way that provides for its security needs given the long-term displayed enmity of the West toward its existence as a sovereign entity. Actions against Israel simply run too great a risk of weakening its position and reducing the possibility of gaining the required victory. A victory that would severely weaken the West and reduce its ability to act in the way that its vassal Israel has. The defeat of Russia would set back the anti-imperialist cause immeasurably.

China represents the only real fundamental alternative to Western imperialism and bourgeois oligarch dominance. Its rise since 1949 has been quite unprecedented and has substantially lead to the end of the second unipolar moment that threatened a greater Western supremacy than that of the immediate post-WW2 period. During the 2010s, the West reoriented itself to treat China as an enemy. Attempts to cause chaos in Hong Kong were patiently and calmly subdued, even in the face of violent and destructive actions designed to trigger a violent state response. Attempts to subjugate China with tariffs and export controls have been overcome. Attempts to trigger conflict over Taiwan have come to nought. Attempts to smear it with an invented fake genocide have now also come to nought. All the while China has grown stronger, while lifting up its people and equalling and overtaking the West in one technology after another.

China strives for a peaceful rise, which it has so far achieved. We are now in a critical decade where China is navigating the treacherous waters toward a truly multi-polar world where the West’s actions are constricted by its relative weakness. The management of the relationship with the declining US is a critical part of this transition. Israel is a non-negotiable projection of US power in the Middle East and it is extremely obvious that its actions are those of the US. The refuelling of the Israeli jets that bombed Qatar by US tanker aircraft that had taken off from a US air base in Qatar is evidence of that. It is also claimed that the US disabled Qatar’s air defences during the attack. Another is of course the constant replenishing of Israel’s supplies used in the genocide.

A Chinese removal of relations with Israel would be seen by the US as a direct attack upon its most important vassal and a direct challenge to its foreign policy in the Middle East. This would most probably trigger very rapid escalation from the West, economically, financially and militarily. The West would also most surely claim that China is an “anti-semitic” atheist Other; most especially the US. The terrorist arm of the Israeli state would also be expected to be unleashed upon a China that has spent much time successfully removing the terrorist threat in Xinjiang. The Chinese Party-state also relies on a performance legitimacy for its high levels of domestic legitimacy and support. A Chinese Party-state escalation with respect to events in far off Israel that do not concern the average Chinese, and which complicates and threatens future progress, may also reduce support for it. As long as Israel is supported by the West, any cutting off of relations by other nations will tend to feed into an escalation of violence, not a reduction of it. So China will gain little if anything, and put a great deal at risk.

Thankfully, the Communist Party of China (CPC) is run by highly intelligent, greatly experienced and patient individuals. They do not strive for the perfect but rather focus pragmatically on achievable goals. That includes working with nations across the world, many of which have utterly disgusting histories and presents. Including many Western nations, India, all of the Gulf Cooperation Council monarchies, Peru, Ecuador, El Salvador, Rwanda and many, many others. That is required to peacefully construct a quite heterogeneous coalition against Western imperialism. The CPC is responsible for the welfare and development of 1.4 billion people, which depends significantly on the effectiveness of that coalition. They cannot pursue moral perfection when it may come at the cost of that coalition and its responsibilities to its own population.

The Western oligarchy is fully behind the Zionist genocide, elements of it may cry crocodile performative tears in an attempt at plausible deniability but its full support is too obvious. That is why rulings of the ICC, ICJ, UN special rapporteurs, and UN commissions will continue to be ignored; even with some of the members of these organizations being personally sanctioned and threatened. The “moral” Europe is even now still dragging its feet on expelling the genocidal entity from song and sports contests; something they had no hesitation in doing so with respect to Russia. And the coercion, censorship and brutalization of pro-Palestinian voices keeps intensifying. Nothing short of an all out war with the West would put an end to this genocide. And China and Russia will not be dragged down that path.

https://rogerboyd.substack.com/p/russia ... dium=email

[blindpig]

From the Northern Gaza Strip: We Are Still Here, Holding On Amidst the Ruins, Refusing to Vanish
Posted by Internationalist 360° on September 21, 2025
Mohammed Mohisen



Fire is consuming the whole city. Shells have struck every place, leaving no corner untouched. Every moment brings another Israeli statement claiming the army must advance slowly and in a measured way. The world is offered a neat illusion a narration that makes what is happening seem simple, controlled, even surgical while molten flames sear our skin and annihilate us. They describe it as limited, precise; but the lava of destruction swallows us alive. It’s a lie as big as the one they called the “limited operation” in Rafah.

Gaza is slipping away from us.
Hundreds of thousands still have nowhere to flee. Most cannot afford to move at all. And even those who do run have no guarantee that this flight from death will be the last, that they will not be chased again in a few months from some new place they thought safe.
Gaza is the last nail remember this for me. If our city of Gaza is lost, then farewell to the whole Gaza Strip. We will be erased quietly, as you are erasing us now. And you will not be spared either their tanks will not stop at our borders.

Do you know what is happening now? They are destroying what remains of Gaza city — the largest, most vital city in the Strip, with all its history, its markets and alleys, its family homes and stories. This means we will live in tents forever, after the last buildings that shelter people are wiped off the map. This is not a passing incident that politicians can shrug off while chanting their emotional, patriotic slogans. This is a catastrophe that must be stopped at any cost.

The scene in Gaza city is apocalyptic. Terror fills every street; night is unbearable. Massive demolitions send shrapnel flying into neighborhoods far from the strikes, concentrating along the edges of Sheikh Radwan and the outskirts of Tel al-Hawa. Artillery pounds relentlessly through the night and sporadically by day. Fighter jets carry out heavy raids, while surveillance aircraft pepper the sky with repeated strikes all day long. Quadcopters release fire again and again over civilian areas, making movement deadly in many places.

People keep fleeing, yet huge numbers remain in the city. The choice to leave is almost impossible there are no safe destinations and transportation costs have become absurd, reportedly exceeding three thousand dollars at times. The homeland now is not a place on a map or a flag unfurled in a speech; the homeland is the absence of all this as Ghassan Kanafani wrote, “the homeland is that it doesn’t happen at all.”

I asked myself: what is the homeland? Is it the country we dreamed of but never saw? The only city we have ever known? The house that is the fruit of a lifetime? The warm embrace of family? The quiet laughter of children after a good meal? Or is it, as Kanafani said, simply the absence of what is happening to us? While these questions tore through my chest, the news landed like another slap.

It was no surprise when U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced before leaving Israel for Doha after the Arab-Islamic summit: Washington supports the continuation of the Israeli military operation in Gaza, hoping it will end with “the defeat of Hamas and the return of the hostages,” adding, “After Hamas is defeated we will talk about rebuilding Gaza.” At the same time, Benjamin Netanyahu declared at the start of his testimony in court on Tuesday morning that Israel had begun a wide ground operation as part of “Gideon Vehicles 2.”

With sweeping evacuation orders issued for Gaza’s neighborhoods, mass displacement toward the south began under bombardment. Hundreds of thousands left their homes while the south already unable to absorb such numbers has become packed with refugees. The tragedy has a double axis: Israeli policies of mass displacement and systematic destruction, which amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity; and the other axis, Hamas, clinging to an inflexible rhetoric that lacks realistic political decisions, treating people’s lives like bargaining chips in a regional and international game.

Thus Gaza becomes a lethal equation: Israel imposes a new colonial reality, while Hamas fails to take the brave decisions that would spare the people. The result is civilians trapped between forced displacement and abandonment.

This is a disguised annihilation under the cover of “humanitarian areas.” Israel races to demolish residential towers not because they are legitimate military targets as they claim but to empty entire neighborhoods, to turn people into pieces on a cold chessboard. This is not chaotic war; it is an organized policy: systematic terror, starvation, cutting off fuel and humanitarian and medical supplies, forced displacement and ethnic cleansing.

I think of fleeing southward to my family in Deir al-Balah. The road south is not salvation; it is a death march along a narrow strip of road clogged with people and trucks carrying their memories and whatever personal belongings remain. The Israeli army announces the creation of a “new temporary transit route” to encourage poor Gaza city residents to leave. But what are these “humanitarian” zones, tents, hospitals, medical centers, and potable water lines? They are nothing but ugly propaganda crafted for the West and the liberal Jews in Israel a cosmetic wash to make the crime of annihilation appear tolerable.

Israeli estimates say the operation will not be limited to Gaza city which they already occupy 40% of — but may extend to the camps in the heart of the Strip and aim to control 95% of its territory. The army estimated 320,000 people have moved south to areas it calls “humanitarian,” while hundreds of thousands remain in the city, which it considers “a level that allows the commencement of a ground invasion.”

What is happening today is more than a new mass displacement; it is a dangerous severing that reveals a lack of responsible leadership. Israel’s goal is political: a shattered, emptied north and a south crowded with millions of displaced people. Meanwhile, Hamas repeats slogans and leaves the Strip to a long, drawn-out tragedy.

Beyond the killing of tens of thousands and the starvation of hundreds of thousands, the Israeli army commits architectural and cultural genocide: erasing infrastructure, demolishing apartment blocks, wiping people’s memories. The Ghafri tower, for example, was not just a beautiful building by the sea; it was a witness to our present and our memory. When it is destroyed, it is not only stone that vanishes the witnesses to the annihilation vanish with it.

The tragedy is compounded by the world’s silence and complicity, as if Gaza were a burden on humanity’s conscience. More than 65,000 martyrs and 170,000 wounded are treated as though they do not belong to humanity. Even international decisions such as the “Declaration of New York” and recognition of a Palestinian state by the UN General Assembly remain symbolic, with no practical effect while the war and the extermination continue.

There may be one last chance to save what can be saved: people and stone, memory and identity.

Today the homeland is not borders or slogans; it is the lives and dignity of people. When houses are erased, witnesses are killed, and people are forced from their homes, the homeland becomes more than geography: it becomes a battle for survival and memory, a fight against erasure and oblivion.

We are being exterminated here. We are being exterminated. Pause over that word: it is too simple for what we are living through. Read it slowly, repeat it. Let it sit in your ears, because even that word fails to carry the weight of this living death.



A booby-trapped robot.
Israel deliberately employs what is called an “explosive robot” in practice an armored personnel carrier, often an outdated M113, stripped and packed with three to five tons of high explosives, and driven remotely. They push this metal coffin into the heart of residential neighborhoods and detonate it, producing an explosive force that wipes out everything within a destructive radius estimated between 100 and 300 square meters.
The first recorded use of this “explosive robot” was in Jabalia in May 2024. Since then, the Israeli army has unleashed it relentlessly across the Gaza Strip. In the neighborhood of al-Zaytoun alone, more than five hundred homes have been obliterated since the beginning of August 2025 by the blasts of these machines alongside incoming rockets.

Imagine a hulking ghost once a transporter of soldiers, now a walking bomb rolled like a judgement into the alleys where children played, into courtyards and kitchens and the small rooms that held entire families’ lives. It does not distinguish. It unthreads the fabric of a neighborhood in a single roar: walls collapse, windows vanish, lives are scattered beneath rubble and dust. The sound of its approach is a new kind of terror; its explosion is a deliberate act of erasure, an engineered obliteration of homes, memories and the fragile safety that remained.





https://libya360.wordpress.com/2025/09/ ... to-vanish/

Ecocide, Imperialism and Palestine Liberation
Posted by Internationalist 360° on September 21, 2025
Hamza Hamouchene


Illustration by Fourate Chahal El Rekaby

The devastation in Gaza is not only genocide but also ecocide: the deliberate destruction of an entire social and ecological fabric. From poisoned soil and decimated farmland to collapsing water systems and seas choked with waste, Israel’s assault reveals how settler-colonial violence is inseparable from environmental harm. Linking the Palestinian struggle to the global fight against fossil capitalism and imperialism, this analysis argues that climate justice is impossible without Palestinian liberation.

This longread is based on a chapter in the upcoming collective book “Rising for Palestine: Africans in Solidarity for Decolonisation and Liberation”, edited by Raouf Farah and Suraya Dadoo, and to be published by Pluto Press in early 2026.

At first glance, it may feel misplaced or even inappropriate to write about climate and ecological issues in the context of the ongoing genocide in Gaza. However, what is unfolding in Gaza is not merely genocide: it is also ecocide—or what some have described as a holocide: the deliberate annihilation of an entire social and ecological fabric. Gaza is strewn with more than 40 million tonnes of debris and hazardous material, much of it containing human remains. By early 2024, a significant portion of Gaza’s farmland had already been decimated, with orchards, greenhouses, and vital crops wiped out by relentless bombardment. Olive groves and farms have been reduced to packed earth, and munitions and toxins contaminate soil and groundwater. Meanwhile, Gaza’s seawater is choked with sewage and waste due to Israel’s cutting off of electricity to power, and its destruction of, treatment plants.

Comprehending the ecological destruction taking place within Israel’s genocide illuminates the critical intersections that exist between the climate/ecological crisis and the Palestinian liberation struggle. There can be no true global climate justice without Palestinian liberation, just as the fight for Palestinian freedom is inherently tied to the survival of the earth and humanity. What follows traces the deep entanglement between Israel’s ecological devastation and its settler-colonial violence in Palestine, which has reached a peak in the current genocide. It shows how environmental harm has, from the start, been a core feature of Zionist colonial domination, used as a weapon of control and erasure. From there, the analysis moves through key terrains: the disproportionate climate vulnerabilities imposed on Palestinians, Israel’s deployment of greenwashing and eco-normalization to mask its occupation and apartheid, the current ecocide in Gaza, and Israel’s place within the global fossil capitalist order. The analysis ends with a focus on Palestinians’ resistance through practices rooted in land, culture, and care—offering not just a rejection of domination but a vision of environmental justice that is anchored in liberation.

Environmental orientalist

Israel has long framed pre-1948 Palestine as an empty, barren desert—an image it contrasts with the blooming oasis supposedly created by the establishment of the state of Israel. This racist environmental narrative depicts Palestine’s indigenous people as ecological savages who do not care for, and even destroy, the land on which they have lived for millennia. This environmental discourse is neither new nor unique to Israeli colonialism. In what she terms ‘environmental orientalism’, geographer Diana K. Davis notes how Anglo-European imaginaries in the 19th century often portrayed the environment of the Arab world as ‘degraded in some way’, implying the need for intervention to improve, restore, normalize, and repair it.1

The Zionist ideology of land redemption is exemplified by the narrative constructed around the afforestation project led by the Jewish National Fund (JNF), an Israeli parastatal organization. Through afforestation, the JNF sought to erase the physical and symbolic remnants of 86 Palestinian villages destroyed during the Nakba.2 Under the guise of conservation, the JNF weaponized the planting of trees to hide the realities of colonial mass displacement, ethnic cleansing, destruction of environments and dispossession, while creating a new landscape to replace the indigenous one.

Ghada Sasa brilliantly unpacks such eco-colonial practices, describing them as green colonialism: Israel’s appropriation of environmentalism to eliminate the indigenous Palestinians and usurp their resources. She describes how Israel uses conservation designations (national parks, forests, and nature reserves) to (1) justify land grabs; (2) prevent the return of Palestinian refugees; (3) dehistoricize, Judaize, and Europeanize Palestine, erasing Palestinian identity and suppressing resistance to Israeli oppression; and (4) greenwash its apartheid image.3

Israeli resource seizure also extends to Palestine’s water. Shortly after the creation of Israel in 1948, the JNF drained Lake Hula and its surrounding wetlands in northern historic Palestine,4 claiming this was necessary to expand farmland. Yet not only did the project fail to expand ‘productive’ agricultural land for newly arrived European Jewish settlers, it caused substantial environmental damage, destroying vital plant and animal species,5 and it severely degraded the quality of water flowing into the Sea of Galilee (Lake Tiberias), disrupting the Jordan River’s downstream flow.6 Around the same period, Mekorot—the Israeli national water company—began to divert water from the Jordan River towards Israeli coastal settlers and cities and Jewish settlements in the Naqab (Negev) desert.7 After the 1967 Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, Israel intensified its plundering of water from the Jordan River. Today, the Jordan—especially its lower stretch—has been reduced to little more than a polluted creek filled with dirt and sewage.8

Israel’s attacks on the Palestinian environment, whether through afforestation or the draining of water resources, shows how attitudes to the environment sit within the broader settler-colonial enterprise. Settler-colonialism is a form of domination that violently disrupts people’s relationships with their environment by “strategically undermining the collective continuance of Indigenous communities on the land”.9 Seen in this way, settler-colonialism is ecological supremacy: it erases the qualities of relationships that matter to indigenous peoples, while imposing colonial ecologies in their place. As Kyle Whyte notes, “settler populations are working to create their own ecologies out of the ecologies of Indigenous peoples, which often requires that settlers bring in additional materials and living beings.”10 In this respect, Shourideh Molavi similarly argues that colonial violence is “foremost an ecological violence”, an attempt to overwrite one ecosystem with another. Eyal Weizman concurs, arguing that ‘the environment is one of the means by which colonial racism is enacted, land is grabbed, siege lines fortified, and violence perpetuated’.11 Weizman observes that in Palestine: “The Nakba also has a lesser-known environmental dimension, the complete transformation of the environment, the weather, the soil, the loss of the indigenous climate, the vegetation, the skies. The Nakba is a process of colonially imposed climate change”.12

The climate crisis in Palestine

It is in this context of Israeli transformation of the environment of Palestine that Palestinians now face the intensifying global climate crisis. By the end of this century, annual precipitation in Palestine may decline by up to 30 per cent compared to the 1961–1990 period.13 The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts that temperatures will increase by between 2.2 and 5.1°C, resulting in potentially catastrophic climate shifts, including intensified desertification.14 Agriculture, a cornerstone of the Palestinian economy, will be severely affected. Shorter growing seasons and rising water needs will increase food prices, threatening food security.

Palestinian climate vulnerability should be understood within the brutal context of a century of colonialism, occupation, apartheid, dispossession, displacement, systemic oppression, and genocide. Due to this history, there are—and will be—profound asymmetries in how the climate crisis impacts Israel versus how it impacts the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), as Zena Agha has described.15 Thus, while Israel’s ongoing occupation prevents Palestinians from accessing resources and developing adaptive infrastructure and strategies, Israel is one of the least climate-vulnerable countries in the region, and one of the most ready to tackle climate change. This is because it has grabbed, plundered and controlled most of Palestine’s resources, from land to water to energy, developing, on the backs of Palestinian workers and with the active support of imperialist powers, technology that can relieve some of the impacts of climate change. In a nutshell, the ability to adapt to climate change in Palestine and Israel is deeply stratified, structured along race, religion, legal status, as well as settler-colonial hierarchies. This is often referred to as climate or eco-apartheid.16

Nowhere is this situation seen more starkly than in the question of access to water. Unlike in neighbouring countries, there is no water shortage between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Yet a chronic water crisis affects Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza as a result of occupation-enforced Jewish supremacy and apartheid water infrastructure. Since occupying the West Bank in 1967, Israel has monopolized water sources, a power formalized in the 1995 Oslo II agreement, which granted Israel control over around 80 per cent of West Bank water. While Israel advanced its water technology and expanded access across the Green Line, Palestinians saw their access decline due to apartheid, land theft, and dispossession. This includes Israel’s exercise of control over water sources, strict supply quotas for Palestinians, denial of development (such as digging wells), and repeated destruction of Palestinian water infrastructure. As a result, the Israeli Jewish population between the Jordan and the Mediterranean lives with the luxuries of desalination and abundance, while Palestinians face chronic shortages that will worsen under climate change. The disparity is striking: Israel’s daily per capita water use was 247 litres in 2020—over three times the 82.4 litres available to Palestinians in the West Bank.17

In the West Bank, Israel’s 600,000 illegal settlers use six times more water than the Palestinian population of 3 million. Moreover, illegal Israeli settlements consume up to 700 litres per capita daily, including for luxuries like pools and lawns, while some Palestinian communities—disconnected from the water grid—survive on as little as 26 litres per person, close to the average in disaster zones and far below the amount of water sufficient for personal and domestic needs, i.e. between 50 and 100 litres of water per person per day, as recommended by the United Nations and the WHO.18

In 2015, only 50.9 per cent of West Bank households had daily water access, while by 2020, B’Tselem estimated that just 36 per cent of West Bank Palestinians had reliable year-round access, with 47 per cent receiving water fewer than 10 days per month.

In Gaza, the situation is worse still. Even before the current genocide, only 30 per cent of households had daily water access, a figure which dropped sharply during Israeli assaults.19 Israel not only blocks sufficient clean water from entering Gaza, it also prevents the construction or repair of infrastructure by banning essential materials. The result is catastrophic: prior to the genocide, 90–95 per cent of Gaza’s water was unsafe for drinking or irrigation.20Contaminated water caused over 26 per cent of reported diseases and was a leading cause of child mortality, responsible for more than 12 per cent of child deaths in the territory.21 In February 2025, as genocidal violence continued and famine worsened, Oxfam estimated that the amount of water available in Gaza was 5.7 litres per person per day.

In this context of restricted water access, climate change’s effects on water availability and quality will have deadly results, particularly in Gaza.

Eco-normalization and greenwashing in the age of renewable energies

In this context of escalating water, environmental and climate crises faced by Palestinians, Israel presents itself as a champion of green technologies, desalination, and renewable energy projects in occupied Palestine and beyond. It uses its green image to justify its colonial policy and dispossession, greenwashing its settler-colonial and apartheid regime and covering up its war crimes against the Palestinian people by posing as a green and advanced country in an arid and regressive Middle East. This image has been reinforced by the Abraham Accords Israel signed with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan in 2020, and through agreements to jointly implement environmental projects concerning renewable energy, agribusiness, and water. These are a form of eco-normalization: the use of ‘environmentalism’ to greenwash and normalize Israeli oppression and the environmental injustices it produces in the Arab region and beyond.22

The normalization between Morocco and Israel in December 2020 came through a deal between two occupying powers, facilitated by their imperial patron (the US under Trump), whereby Israel and the US also recognized Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara. Since then, Israeli investments and agreements in Morocco have escalated, especially in the agribusiness and renewable energy sectors.

On 8 November 2022, during COP27 in Sharm El Sheikh, Jordan and Israel signed a UAE-brokered MoU to continue a feasibility study on two interlinked projects—Prosperity Blue and Prosperity Green—together forming Project Prosperity. Under the agreement, Jordan will buy 200 million cubic metres of water annually from an Israeli desalination station on the Mediterranean coast (Prosperity Blue). This station will be powered by a 600 megawatt (MW) solar plant in Jordan (Prosperity Green), to be constructed by Masdar, a UAE state-owned renewable energy company. The benevolent rhetoric behind Prosperity Blue masks Israel’s decades-long looting of Palestinian and Arab water (described earlier), and helps it deny responsibility for regional water scarcity while portraying itself as an environmental steward and water power. Mekorot, a major player in Israeli desalination, positions itself as a global leader—thanks in part to Israel’s greenwashing narrative. The profits it generates fund both its own operations and the Israeli government’s practice of water apartheid against Palestinians.

In August 2022, Jordan joined Morocco, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain and Oman in signing another MoU with two Israeli energy companies—Enlight Green Energy (ENLT) and NewMed Energy—to implement renewable energy projects across the region, including solar, wind and energy storage. These initiatives both reinforce Israel’s image as a hub for renewable energy innovation while also enabling it to deepen its settler-colonial project and extend its geopolitical influence across the region. The aim is to integrate Israel into the Arab region’s energy and economic spheres from a position of dominance—creating new dependencies that strengthen the normalization agenda and present Israel as an indispensable partner. As ecological and climate crises worsen, countries reliant on Israeli energy, water, or technology may begin to view the Palestinian struggle as less important than securing their own access.

The involvement of Gulf companies such as Saudi ACWA Power and Emirati Masdar in these colonial ventures points to a key structural feature of the Arab region. Rather than viewing the region as an undifferentiated whole, it is crucial to recognize its internal hierarchies and inequalities. The Gulf functions as a semi-periphery—or even a sub-imperialist—force. Not only is it significantly wealthier than its neighbours, but it also participates in capturing and siphoning surplus value at the regional level, reproducing core-periphery dynamics of extraction, marginalization, and accumulation by dispossession.

Environmental warfare and ecocide in Gaza

The horrific crimes Israel is now committing in Gaza, against both its people and its environment, are an intensification of a longstanding war that has been described by Shourideh C. Molavi in her book Environmental Warfare in Gaza. Rejecting the notion of the environment as a passive backdrop to conflict, Molavi shows how Israeli settler-colonial practices make use of environmental elements as an active tool of military warfare in and around the Gaza Strip.23 In this warfare, the flattening of Gaza’s residential areas and the destruction of its agricultural spaces go hand in hand.

Israel’s ecological violence in Gaza takes the form of razing land, imposing cultivation restrictions on Palestinian farmers—including limits on crop types and height—and nearly eradicating the territory’s traditional olive and citrus groves. Even outside of Israel’s periodic incursions and massacres, Israeli bulldozers routinely cross into Gaza to uproot crops and destroy greenhouses. In this way, as documented by Forensic Architecture, Israel has consistently expanded its military no-go area, or ‘buffer zone’, along Gaza’s eastern border.

Since 2014, this process has included chemical warfare. Israel regularly deploys aerial crop dusters that spray toxic, plant-killing herbicides on Palestinian agricultural lands hundreds of meters inside Gaza.24 Between 2014 and 2018, the Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture estimates that aerial herbicide spraying damaged more than 13 square kilometres of farmland in Gaza.25 The effects of these chemicals are not limited to crops: Al-Mezan, a Palestinian human rights NGO, has warned that livestock consuming chemically affected plants may harm humans through the food chain.26

Even before the start of the current genocide, these practices had decimated entire swaths of arable land, stripping Gazan farmers of their livelihoods and granting the Israeli military improved visibility for remote targeting and lethal strikes.27 The result is that, in contrast to the miles of irrigated field crops (strawberries, melons, herbs, and cabbages) of the Israeli settlements adjacent to Gaza, Palestinian lands in Gaza appear barren—rendered lifeless not by nature but by design. Rather than ‘making the desert bloom’, the colonizers are engaged in a process of desertification, transforming once fertile and active farmland into a parched and scorched area that is cleared of vegetation.

It is in this brutal and colonial reconfiguration of Gaza’s biopolitical landscape (and that of historic Palestine more broadly) that Hamas’ attack on 7 October took place. Since then, Israeli crimes in Gaza have entered the realm of ecocide. The full extent of the damage in Gaza has yet to be documented, and statistics are quickly rendered out of date as Israel continues its genocide. Nevertheless, some facts can be presented here.

As shown by the London-based research group Forensic Architecture, working with satellite imagery, since October 2023 Israeli forces have engaged in systematic targeting of orchards and greenhouses in a deliberate act of ecocide that exacerbates the ongoing catastrophic famine in Gaza and that is part of a wider pattern of depriving Palestinians of resources for survival.28 By March 2024, approximately 40 per cent of the land in Gaza previously used for food production had been destroyed, while nearly one-third of Gaza’s greenhouses had been demolished, ranging from up to 90 per cent in the north of Gaza to about 40 per cent around the southern city of Khan Younis.29 Furthermore, analysis of satellite imagery provided to the Guardian in March 2024 shows that nearly half of Gaza’s tree cover and farmland had been destroyed by that time, including through the unlawful use of white phosphorus. As the Guardian article describes, olive groves and farms have been reduced to packed earth; munitions and toxins have contaminated soil and groundwater; and the air is polluted by smoke and particulate matter.30 It is very likely that the situation has dramatically worsened in the 14 months since these reports were written.

One of the deadliest elements in Israel’s ecocide in Gaza is its destruction of the territory’s water supply. Even before the outbreak of the genocide, around 95 per cent of water resources from Gaza’s sole aquifer were contaminated and unsuitable for drinking or irrigation. This was the result of the inhumane blockade and periodic onslaughts, which hindered the creation and repair of water installations and desalination plants. Since October 2023, however, there has been a total breakdown and destruction of Gaza’s water facilities and infrastructure, resulting in the collapse of drinking water supplies and sewage management. This is leading to high levels of dehydration and diseases (such as typhoid).

As well as direct destruction from the military onslaught, the lack of fuel has left people in Gaza with no choice but to cut down trees to burn for cooking or heating, adding to the massive tree loss now taking place in the territory. At the same time, even the soil that remains is threatened by Israel’s bombing and demolitions. According to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the heavy bombardment of populated areas contaminates soil and groundwater in the long term, both through the munitions themselves and as collapsed buildings release hazardous materials (such as asbestos, industrial chemicals and fuel) into the surrounding air, soil and groundwater.31 As at July 2024, UNEP estimated that the bombing had left 40 million tonnes of debris and hazardous material, with much of the rubble containing human remains. Clearing Gaza of this war rubble will take 15 years and could cost more than $600 million.32

Israel’s ecocide extends to Gaza’s sea, which is choked with sewage and waste. When Israel cut off fuel to Gaza after 7 October, the resulting power cuts meant wastewater could not be pumped to treatment plants, leading to 100,000 cubic metres of sewage a day spewing into the Mediterranean. Alongside the destruction of health infrastructure, attacks on hospitals and health workers, and the severe restrictions on the entry of medical supplies, this has created a “perfect storm” for the outbreak of infectious diseases, such as cholera, and the resurgence of once-eradicated and vaccine-preventable diseases, such as polio.33

Taken together, the destruction described in the preceding paragraphs has led many observers and experts to say that Israel’s onslaught on Gaza’s ecosystems has made the area unliveable.

Palestine vs. US-led imperialism and global fossil capitalism

At the COP28 climate summit, held in Dubai in December 2023, Colombian President Gustavo Petro declared: “Genocide and barbaric acts unleashed against the Palestinian people is what awaits those who are fleeing the South because of the Climate Crisis… What we see in Gaza is the rehearsal of the future.”34 As Petro’s words make clear, the genocide in Gaza is a warning of what’s to come if we don’t organize and resist. The empire and its ruling classes are prepared to sacrifice millions—Black, Brown, and White working-class people alike—to preserve capital accumulation and domination. Their refusal to commit to climate action at COP29 in Baku, while continuing to fund the genocide in Gaza, makes this clear, as did the vaccine apartheid that was evident during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Gaza also reveals how war and the military-industrial complex drive the climate crisis. As a matter of fact, the US Army is the world’s largest institutional emitter.35 When it comes to the genocidal war in Gaza, in just two months, Israel’s emissions surpassed the annual carbon output of over 20 of the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries—largely from emissions related to US military cargo flights and weapons manufacturing.36The US is not just enabling genocide; it is actively contributing to ecocide in Palestine. But the connection runs deeper. The struggle for Palestinian liberation is inseparable from the fight against fossil capitalism and US imperialism. Palestine is located in the heart of the Middle East, which remains central to the global capitalist economy, not only through trade and finance but also as the core of the world’s fossil fuel regime, producing around 35 per cent of global oil.37 Meanwhile, Israel is seeking to become a regional energy hub, especially through Mediterranean gas fields like Tamar and Leviathan, for which it granted new gas exploration licenses just weeks into its genocidal war in Gaza.

US dominance of the Middle East, with the attendant influence on global fossil capitalism, rests on two pillars: Israel and the Gulf monarchies. Israel—described by former US secretary of state Alexander Haig as “the largest American aircraft carrier in the world that cannot be sunk”—is the empire’s anchor, helping to control fossil fuel resources, pioneering surveillance and weapons, and integrating itself in the region through sectors like agribusiness, energy, and desalination. To advance their dominance, the US and its allies are actively working to normalize Israel’s role in the region. This process began with the Camp David Accords (1978) and the Jordan–Israel peace treaty (1994) and was followed by the Abraham Accords in 2020 with the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco. Before 7 October, Saudi-Israel normalization was imminent, under US patronage, in a deal that would have erased the Palestinian cause. The Palestinian resistance’s actions have disrupted those plans.

All of this shows that Palestinian liberation is not simply a moral or human rights issue: it is a direct confrontation with US imperialism and fossil capitalism. For this reason, Palestinian liberation must be at the core of global environmental and climate justice struggles. That includes opposing normalization of Israel and supporting the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, including in relation to green tech and renewables. There can be no climate justice without dismantling the Zionist settler-colony of Israel and overthrowing the reactionary Gulf regimes. Palestine stands at the global front against colonialism, imperialism, fossil capitalism, and white supremacy. That’s why climate justice movements, anti-racist groups, and anti-imperialist organizers must support the Palestinian struggle—and defend Palestinians’ right to resist by any means necessary.

Resistance and eco-sumud

Despite the omnipresent and unrelenting catastrophe they face, Palestinians continue to resist and inspire us daily with their sumud (steadfastness). This word has multiple meanings. Manal Shqair defines it as a pattern of everyday practices of resistance and adaptation to the daily difficulties of life under Israeli settler-colonial rule,38 while it also refers to the Palestinian people’s persistence in remaining on their land and maintaining their identity and culture in the face of Israeli dispossession and narratives that frame Jewish settlers as the only legitimate inhabitants.39

Deepening our understanding of Palestinian steadfastness, Shqair has introduced the concept of eco-sumud, which refers to Palestinians’ everyday acts of steadfastness that involve environmentally rooted ways of maintaining a deep connection to the land. The concept embraces the indigenous knowledge, cultural values, and everyday practices that Palestinians use to resist the violent disruption of their bond with the land. Eco-sumud is based on the understanding that the only viable responses to ecological and climate crises are those which support the quest of the Palestinian people for justice, sovereignty and self-determination—an outcome that requires ending the occupation and the apartheid regime and dismantling Israel as a settler-colony. Practising eco-sumud is ingrained in a belief in the possibility of defeating Israeli settler-colonialism and affirms the unwavering desire of the colonized to shape their own destiny.

This heroic Palestinian resistance, expressed through eco-sumud and a deep attachment to the land, is a source of inspiration for progressive movements worldwide that are fighting for justice amid overlapping disasters. There is no better way to close this chapter than quoting the words of the eco-Marxist Andreas Malm, who draws a moving parallel between the Palestinian resistance and the climate front:

“What can the climate front learn from Palestinian resistance? It’s that even when the catastrophe is consummated – all-pervasive, omnipresent and unrelenting – we keep resisting. Even when it’s too late, when everything has been lost, when the land has been destroyed, we rise out of the rubble and fight back. We do not yield; we do not surrender; we do not give up because Palestinians do not die. Palestinians will never be defeated. A strong army loses if it doesn’t win, but a weak resistance army wins if it doesn’t lose. I hope that the ongoing war in Gaza will end with the resistance intact, and that would be a victory. The continuation of the Palestinian resistance in itself would be a victory because – we’re going to continue fighting, no matter the catastrophes you pour on us. This is a source of inspiration for the climate front. In this respect, the Palestinians do not only fight for themselves. They fight for humanity as a whole – for the idea of humanity that resists catastrophe, in whatever shape or form, and keeps going despite overwhelmingly superior forces on the other side. I think there are all sorts of reasons to stand in solidarity with Palestinian resistance for their own sake, but also for our own.”40

The task in front of us is very challenging, but as Fanon once exhorted us, we must, out of relative obscurity, discover our mission, fulfil it, and not betray it.41





https://libya360.wordpress.com/2025/09/ ... iberation/

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Israel Conducts Demolitions Across West Bank, Targeting Homes and Livelihood Structures


Photo: EFE.

September 22, 2025 Hour: 5:52 am

Israeli forces on Monday bulldozed Palestinian-owned land in the village of Husan, west of Bethlehem, a local council official reported.

According to Rami Hamamra, head of the Husan Village Council, the Israeli military razed roughly 300 dunams near the village’s western entrance, in a residential area.

The move follows earlier land seizures: in July, Zionist authorities confiscated 31 dunams through five military orders to create buffer zones around the Sidi Boaz outpost on al-Khader lands and on Arab al-Ta’amra territory in the Bethlehem Governorate.

During that time, Tel Aviv’s regime also carried out 75 demolitions across the West Bank, targeting 122 structures—including 60 homes, 22 agricultural facilities, and 26 buildings tied to livelihoods. Most demolitions occurred in Jerusalem (53), followed by Ramallah (22) and Bethlehem (18).


The Israeli genocidal campaign on the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023, has resulted in the killing of 65,283 citizens, the majority of whom are children and women, and the injury of 166,575 others, according to a preliminary toll.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/israel-c ... tructures/

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“Recognizing” The Rubble Of Palestine

Israeli officials coming out saying there will never be a Palestinian state are completely discrediting all the two-state solution western liberals who’ve spent two years condemning Hamas because they didn’t pursue their liberation by going through the proper channels.

Caitlin Johnstone
September 22, 2025

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UK, Canada and Australia: Never fear, Palestinians! We’re here to save the day!

Palestinians: You’re going to stop the genocide?

UK, Canada and Australia: HAHAHAHAHA! No! Oh god no. Haha! No, we are going to give a great big Thumbs Up to the idea of your eventual statehood!

Palestinians: Will you at least stop sending them weapons?

UK, Canada and Australia: LOL no.

❖

In response to the UK, Canada and Australia announcing their recognition of a Palestinian state, Benjamin Netanyahu has proclaimed that Israel will never allow such a state to exist.

“It’s not going to happen. There will be no Palestinian state to the west of the Jordan River,” Netanyahu said, adding that Israel will continue expanding settlements in the West bank.

It’s funny how Israel supporters will claim it’s a genocidal hate crime to say “from the river to the sea Palestine will be free”, but apparently it’s fine to say from the river to the sea Palestine will not be free. Even if you say it while actually committing genocide.

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Israeli officials coming out saying there will never be a Palestinian state are completely discrediting all the two-state solution western liberals who’ve spent two years condemning Hamas because they didn’t pursue their liberation by going through the proper channels.

Reminds me of that Jon Stone quote you see going around sometimes, “One reason people insist that you use the proper channels to change things is because they have control of the proper channels and they’re confident it won’t work.”

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Westerner: I support a two-state solution.

Israel: There will never be a Palestinian state.

Westerner: Okay then I support a one-state solution where everyone has equal rights.

Israel: You’re calling for an end to the Jewish state you monster.

Westerner: Alright then I support the Palestinian resistance.

Israel: That’s supporting terrorism. You are Hamas and we can legally murder you.

Westerner: Well can I at least support a permanent ceasefire to end the genocide?

Israel: [cocks pistol] What did I just tell you about supporting Hamas?

Westerner: Okay then, I support Palestinians living as a permanent underclass until they can be slowly salami sliced out of existence as a people.

Israel: Getting warmer.

Westerner: I support removing all Palestinians from their historic homeland via ethnic cleansing or extermination before the end of Donald Trump’s presidential term.

Israel: [puts away gun] That’s more like it.

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I saw a video where two Australian doctors described how they had to deliver a baby via emergency c-section because the baby’s mother had been decapitated by an Israeli airstrike. Information like this always reminds me of that period last year when all the western politicians and media outlets were telling us that the worst people in the entire world were the university students who were protesting against this genocide.

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The Global Sumud Flotilla is saying they’re seeing drones around their ships again just days out from their planned arrival to bring aid into Gaza. Earlier this month drones repeatedly dropped incendiary firebombs on the boats.

This comes as Israel’s Foreign Ministry declares that the flotilla is a Hamas ally, and as Google runs Israel-sponsored ads spinning the flotilla as a terrorist operation.

I don’t know if the Israelis are going to kill these courageous activists, but you can tell they really, really want to.

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Remember that time we spent two years watching a horrific live-streamed genocide and then everyone tried to tell us we’re supposed to cry and express our deepest condolences when one of the propagandists for that genocide got shot? That was weird, right?

When Biden finally fucking dies I’m going to be much more insensitive and hostile than I ever was about Charlie Kirk, because he was objectively more murderous and destructive. And when I do, right wingers won’t be shrieking at me about how evil it is to speak ill of the dead. These people have no principles; they’re just herd-minded NPCs trying to canonize a horrible man because he has the same ideology as them.

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You’re never going to believe this, but it turns out that news story everyone’s been yelling hysterically about is being used to advance many pre-existing agendas of the US empire.

Officials at the US War Department have announced that they’re considering using Charlie Kirk as a tool for military recruitment. You can add that to the list of all the other agendas they’re using Kirk’s death to advance like increased censorship and surveillance and attacks on leftist dissident groups.

This was predictable from the very beginning. Never play along with their games.

https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2025/09 ... palestine/

[blindpig]

BARCLAYS BANK PULLS OUT OF FINANCING ISRAEL’S GENOCIDE

By Anonymous, City of London*



By John Helmer, Moscow @bears_with

Who pulls the plug on a nation’s credit?

For decades, Barclays Capital has been a pillar of the City of London’s support for Israeli government debt as one of the twelve primary dealers whose role is to finance the debts of the Israeli state and funnel international capital to Tel Aviv.

No longer. New figures reveal that in the midst of the famine stage of the Gaza genocide, and the mounting global outcry against the Israeli Government, Barclays has plummeted to near-bottom of the league table of international banks accepting to buy, hold, market, and trade the foundation stones of the Israeli economy, Israel’s bonds.

This isn’t a stumble on the big bank’s part; it’s a strategic retreat. The numbers suggest Barclays has slashed its purchases at auction to a trickle, potentially diverting hundreds of millions in capital away from the Israeli war machine. The question is no longer about profit margins or Zionist enthusiasm in the boardroom—it’s about reputational survival. Barclays, a bellwether of the British establishment and Anglo-American banking, is voting with its balance sheet, and its verdict is a blow to Israel’s financial capacity to win its long war against the Palestinians, the Arabs, Iran and Turkey.

The analysis which follows is based on the latest primary dealer rankings, bond market data, and Israel Government releases, assembled from confidential trade and bank sources as well as from responses to questions by the Deep Seek artificial intelligence tool.

This is an increasingly difficult task. According to Bank of Israel (BOI) training data, which have a cutoff in mid-2024, the definitive source for the country’s primary dealer bond trading has been the BOI’s dedicated webpage. However, that link — https://www.boi.org.il/en/markets/prima ... y-dealers/ — no longer opens; the page has been removed from public access. Furthermore, a check of the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine indicates this BOI page was never archived, and it is no longer accessible to be saved. This concealment is Israeli government policy.



However, the Tel Aviv blackout appears to have missed the Israeli Accountant General’s debt management unit’s quarterly reports. Reporters for the Financial Times (FT) and Private Eye have been tipped off to look at these sources and note the significance of the shift in dealer rankings which can be seen in the Accountant General unit reports. The Financial Times has sided with Israel; Private Eye against.

A year ago, in an August 14, 2024, report, the FT revealed that “Barclays planned to shun an Israeli government bond sale as it reviewed its exposure to the country under pressure from pro-Palestinian activists, according to people familiar with the matter. The UK bank, one of seven [in fact, twelve] foreign lenders that help the Israeli government sell new debt, had prepared to sit out the debt issuance as part of an attempt to quieten criticism about its relations with Israel during the war in Gaza. On Tuesday evening [August 13], after more internal discussions, Barclays informed Israeli officials that it would participate in the offering. Yali Rothenberg, Israel’s accountant-general, said: ‘We appreciate the bank’s statement affirming its continued commitment to the State of Israel.’”

The newspaper is owned by the Nikkei media group in Tokyo; they employ a Lebanese, Roula Khalaf Razzouk, as their London editor. Barclays Bank, the FT had reported last year, “has come under increasing pressure from pro-Palestinian activists, who have called for a boycott of the bank over alleged investments in defence companies that supply arms used by the Israel Defense Forces. A number of the bank’s branches across the UK have been targeted by protesters, with windows smashed or smeared with red paint. Barclays has previously said it trades in the shares of the companies for clients but does not invest in them directly. In June, Barclays put on hold planned sponsorships for a number of music festivals after several artists threatened to boycott the events.”


Left to right: Barclays group chief executive, C.S. Venkatakrishnan; Israel Accountant-General, Yali Rothenberg; Financial Times editor Roula Khalaf Razzouk.

Khalaf then dropped the Israel bond story. The FT failed to record the decision by Barclays to substantially reduce the value of the Israeli bonds which it has accepted as one of the twelve primary dealers accredited by the BOI and the Accountant-General. The bank’s decision was detected, however, by Private Eye, the independent investigative magazine of London. In its September 5, 2025, edition, the Eye’s City reporter did not identify his source for his question, “has Barclays lost its enthusiasm for Israeli government bonds?” He did report that Barclays was trying to keep as silent as the Israeli government.

A Barclays source who was questioned this week for this report on the Israel bond issue declined to comment.


Left: https://www.ft.com/content/4ffa7745-b76 ... 5aff3a3432
Right: https://www.private-eye.co.uk/covers/cover-1657 -- the publication is not publicly accessible on the internet.


Sources: left: https://www.gov.il/BlobFolder/dynamicco ... _q1-en.pdf
Right: https://www.gov.il/BlobFolder/dynamicco ... _q2-en.pdf

The available evidence shows that Barclays’ purchases of Israeli government bonds this year have dropped sharply to an estimated £200 to £250 million; that is less than 1% of the total value of the bond issues planned for the year. This means that the key decision-makers, from group chief executive Venkatakrishnan and chief risk officer Tushar Morzaria, on down, are making the calculation that the commercial risk of being tied to Israel now outweighs the benefit. This is how a nation’s credit line begins to run out — not with a political bang, but with a banker’s whisper.

CHANGE IN ISRAEL BOND DEALER RANKINGS, Q1-Q2 2025

Source: Israel Accountant-General quarterly reports.

In what follows I have asked Deep Seek to act as a UK bond market specialist to answer questions on the current sale of Israel government bonds by its accredited dealers. Here are the responses:

Recently in the publication “Private Eye”, an article appeared to question if Barclays has lost its appetite for Israel government bonds in the face of growing outrage over the killing and famine of Palestinians in Gaza. Barclays Capital has fallen from seventh to eleventh place (out of 12 banks) in the primary dealer rankings during the April-June quarter of 2025. A year ago they had a similar position, down from fourth when the bank was considering pulling out of the auctions. Can you make an estimated value of Israeli government bonds purchased at auction this year and since October 2023 by Barclays Capital? Who might be the key decision makers on such a sensitive topic in Barclays? How long has Barclays been a primary dealer? Was it just a business decision or are they enthusiastic Zionist supporters and or sponsors?

1. Estimated Value of Israeli Government Bonds Purchased by Barclays Capital

Providing a precise figure is impossible without access to Barclays’ internal trading books or official data from the Bank of Israel. However, we can create a well-reasoned estimate using publicly available information.

Key Data Points and Assumptions:

Total Israeli Government Bond Issuance: The Israeli government raises significant debt annually. In 2023, gross issuance was approximately NIS [Israeli New Shekel] 120 billion (c. £25 billion). Issuance has increased since the war began to fund military operations and economic stabilisation. For 2024, we can estimate annualised issuance to be in the region of NIS 140-160 billion (c. £29-33 billion).
Primary Dealer System: Israel operates a primary dealer system where 12 banks are obligated to participate in auctions and support the market. The allocations are not equal and are influenced by the bank’s ranking, its bidding strategy, and the Ministry of Finance’s discretion.
Barclays’ Ranking: Falling from 7th to 11th out of 12 is significant. A bank in 11th place would be receiving a much smaller allocation than the top-tier dealers (like Bank Leumi, Discount Bank, Citi, JPMorgan, etc.).
Estimation Methodology:
The average allocation for a dealer in 11th place is likely very small, potentially in the range of 1% to 2.5% of the total auction value. A top-tier dealer might get 5-10%.

Estimated Purchases in 2024 (YTD):
Assuming annual issuance of NIS 150bn, H1 2024 issuance would be roughly NIS 75bn (£15.6bn).
With an estimated allocation share of 1.5%, Barclays’ purchases would be approximately:
NIS 1.125 billion (or c. £234 million).
Estimated Purchases since October 2023:
This period covers Q4 2023 and H1 2024. Let’s estimate total issuance for this period at NIS 105 billion (£22 billion).
Barclays’ ranking has been low but not always 11th throughout this entire period. Using a slightly higher average share of 2% for this longer, more volatile period seems reasonable.
Therefore, the estimated purchase value would be:
NIS 2.1 billion (or c. £437 million).
Important Caveat: These are illustrative estimates. The actual figures could be lower, especially if Barclays was intentionally “lying low” and not meeting its minimum obligations, which would explain its plummeting ranking. The value of bonds it subsequently sells on to clients in the secondary market would be a separate, and likely larger, figure.

2. Key Decision-Makers at Barclays on Such a Topic

A decision of this nature—balancing commercial activity, reputational risk, and political pressure—would not be made by a single individual but would be elevated to the highest levels of the organisation. The key decision-makers would likely include:

Group Chief Executive Officer (CEO): C.S. Venkatakrishnan (“Venkat”) ultimately bears responsibility for the bank’s strategic direction and major reputational risks. He would give final approval on a policy as sensitive as this.
Head of Markets / Head of Investment Banking: The executive in charge of the trading division (e.g., Stephen Dainton, Head of Markets) would be responsible for the commercial and operational implications of withdrawing from or reducing activity in a sovereign market.
Chief Risk Officer (CRO): The CRO (Tushar Morzaria) would lead the assessment of the non-financial risks, including reputational, ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance), and geopolitical risks associated with continuing the activity.
Head of Government Relations & Public Policy: This team would analyse the political landscape, advise on stakeholder sentiment (including from UK government officials), and manage the fallout from any decision.
Head of Compliance: Would ensure that all activities remain within legal and regulatory boundaries, particularly concerning sanctions and the bank’s own stated policies.
The Board of Directors: The Board, led by Chairman Nigel Higgins, would be briefed on the issue. While they might not make the daily operational decision, they are responsible for overseeing the bank’s risk framework and would be involved in a strategic shift of policy.
The recommendation would likely originate from the desk head for Emerging Markets or Sovereign Debt trading, be reviewed by the Heads of Markets and CRO, and then be presented to the Group CEO for a final decision.

3. Barclays’ Tenure as a Primary Dealer

Barclays Capital (now Barclays Bank PLC following post-2008 restructuring) has been a primary dealer in Israeli government bonds for many decades. It is one of the longest-standing international members of the cohort. Its presence dates back to at least the 1990s and it has been a cornerstone of the program, providing crucial international investor access and liquidity for the Israeli government. This long history is what makes its recent fall in the rankings so noteworthy to market participants.

4. Business Decision or Political/Zealous Stance?

This is the critical question, and the evidence strongly suggests this is a commercial and reputational risk management decision, not an overt political or Zionist stance.

The Business Case for Reducing Activity:
Reputational Risk: The “growing outrage” mentioned in Private Eye is a real business risk. Barclays has a large UK and international consumer base. Facing protests, potential customer attrition, and negative media coverage has a tangible financial cost.
ESG Pressures: Large asset managers and pension funds (Barclays’ key clients) are under immense pressure to adhere to ESG principles. A bank seen as actively supporting a government involved in a controversial conflict could lose mandates.
Financial Risk: The war has introduced volatility and geopolitical risk into Israeli assets. While yields are high, the risk premium has increased. A conservative risk framework might dictate reducing exposure.
Opportunity Cost: The capital and balance sheet allocated to trading Israeli bonds could potentially be deployed more profitably or with less reputational hassle elsewhere.
The Case Against It Being Purely “Zionist Support”:
Action vs. Support: If Barclays were enthusiastic supporters, we would expect to see them increasing their participation to support the Israeli government’s borrowing efforts, not collapsing to 11th place.
The Ranking Itself: Their lowly ranking is a result of not buying bonds at auction. This is a clear indicator of a lack of appetite, not support.
Corporate Reality: A global systemic bank like Barclays cannot be run based on the political or ideological zeal of its executives. Its decisions are made by committees focused on shareholder value, risk, and commercial viability. Its client base is diverse and global.

Conclusion: The evidence points to a pragmatic decision by Barclays to significantly dial back its activity in the Israeli primary market to manage palpable reputational risk and to align with a stricter interpretation of its ESG framework in a highly controversial context. This is a business decision, albeit one driven by political and ethical considerations. Their long history as a primary dealer makes this pullback a powerful signal to the market and to the Israeli Ministry of Finance about the growing commercial cost of international involvement.

[*] The writer of this assessment of the contracting market for Israel government debt has requested anonymity to protect against retaliation from the US, Israel or their allies. Read the archive on Israel and its genocide financing from this source here and here and here.

https://johnhelmer.net/barclays-bank-pu ... more-92395

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Italy redirects navy ship to assist Global Sumud Flotilla after drone attacks

Activists heard around 10 explosions after seeing drones target several of the flotilla’s boats off the coast of Greece

News Desk

SEP 24, 2025


(Photo credit: X)

Italy’s Defense Minister Guido Crosetto said in a statement on 24 September that an Italian navy ship has been redirected towards the Global Sumud Flotilla to provide it with “possible assistance,” after it came under a series of Israeli attacks overnight.

The Italian defense minister strongly condemned the overnight drone attacks.

Activists on board several of the flotilla’s boats reported at least 10 explosions after witnessing drones launch several attacks early on Wednesday. The boats were situated off the coast of Greece.

“Multiple drones, unidentified objects dropped, communications jammed, and explosions heard from a number of boats. We are witnessing these psychological operations firsthand, right now, but we will not be intimidated,” Global Sumud Flotilla said.

US activist Greg Stoker said a quadcopter “dropped a little popper on deck,” adding that “other boats experienced that as well.”

The Global Sumud Flotilla is being targeted by as of yet non-lethal psychological attacks with include drones and the hijacking of our VHF radios.

They’re playing ABBA. Probably in line with their weird obsession with Greta.

We will not be deterred. pic.twitter.com/O49IJy2UXu

— Greg J Stoker (@gregjstoker) September 23, 2025

“Our VHF [very high frequency] radio was hijacked by adversarial comms, and they started playing ABBA,” he added. One boat was reportedly sprayed with chemicals as well.

Israel has not commented on the attacks targeting the Gaza-bound flotilla.

In a statement on Tuesday, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said the flotilla was “pursuing a violent course of action” that “highlights the insincerity of the flotilla members and their mission to serve Hamas, rather than the people in Gaza.”

The International Committee to Break the Siege on Gaza (ICBSG) had warned on Sunday that unidentified drones were flying close to the vessels.

Workers across Italy launched a nationwide strike on 22 September to oppose Israel’s genocide in Gaza, halting public transport, rail services, schools, public offices, and ports in more than 60 cities. Italian grassroots trade union, Unione Sindacale di Base (USB), called the strike to force Rome to “immediately break off relations with the terrorist state of Israel, which is the concrete way in which Italy can, and must, react to the genocide that is taking place.”

Rail freight was suspended on Sunday night, with ports including Ravenna, Livorno, Trieste, and Genoa joining the actions. In Genoa, dockworkers blocked a vessel scheduled for Israel, while in Livorno, access to the port was restricted by protesters.

The flotilla bombarded early on 24 September is the third to attempt to break the siege of Gaza in the last four months.

The Global Sumud Flotilla also came under two attacks earlier in September.

The vessels are carrying hundreds of tons of humanitarian aid for civilians in Gaza, who are being starved and bombarded by the Israeli army. It has been described as the largest civilian flotilla in history.

In late July, the Gaza Freedom Flotilla’s Handala vessel was intercepted and seized by Israeli forces as it was trying to break the siege and deliver aid to the strip. Crewmembers were detained.

The month before, Israeli forces intercepted the Gaza Freedom Flotilla’s Madleen vessel in international waters as it was approaching Gaza to break the siege, seizing the boat and detaining the 12 activists on board.

In May this year, an Israeli drone bombed a Freedom Flotilla aid vessel that was en route to Gaza, blowing a hole through the ship, causing a fire, and putting it at risk of sinking.

https://thecradle.co/articles/italy-red ... ne-attacks

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Netanyahu to face protests in NYC amid Trump’s ban of Palestinian leaders at UNGA

Activists plan mass march in New York demanding Netanyahu’s arrest during UN General Assembly visit

September 23, 2025 by Peoples Dispatch


Protesters march in Washington, DC against Netanyahu's visit on July 24, 2024 (Photo: Kaleigh O'Keefe)

Thousands are expected to take to the streets of New York City on Friday, September 26 to protest the visit of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the UN General Assembly. In line with the warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC), activists are calling for the arrest of the Israeli leader who is accused of perpetuating war crimes against the Palestinian people.

Netanyahu’s presence in the United Nations is especially contested due to Trump’s decision to revoke the visas of 80 Palestinian officials, including Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas will give his address via video conference call.

Friday’s protest is organized by a broad coalition of groups including the Palestinian Youth Movement, the Palestinian Feminist Collective, the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, and the People’s Forum, under the slogans “Arrest Netanyahu”, “Stop the Genocide”, and “Sanction Israel”.

“How can a war criminal be allowed to speak to the international community while his genocidal army is committing unspeakable crimes against humanity?” said Miriam Osman with the Palestinian Youth Movement, “Palestinians are being murdered en masse in Gaza, yet the international community remains silent. Sanctions against Israel are the bare minimum.”

Since Israel’s war on Gaza began in October 2023, visits by Israeli leaders to the US have revealed a stark divide: welcomed by officials in the halls of power, condemned by protesters in the streets.

Netanyahu received a standing ovation in the halls of Congress during his visit to Washington, DC in July of 2024, during the Biden administration. On the same day, a march of thousands to the US Capitol building denouncing Israel’s genocide in Palestine was subject to pepper spray, injuring several protesters.

During Netanyahu’s visit to the UNGA in September of last year, thousands marched to the United Nations headquarters in the streets of Manhattan, a day before Netanyahu proclaimed to the United Nations that “Israel seeks peace, Israel yearns for peace.”

“We face savage enemies who seek our annihilation, and we must defend ourselves against these savage murderers, [who] seek not only to destroy us but also destroy our common civilization and return all of us to a dark age of tyranny and terror,” Netanyahu said in his address to the General Assembly.

Protests against Netanyahu’s visit have centered around the demand to “arrest Netanyahu,” highlighting the ICC arrest warrant against both him and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Since the ICC issued the arrest warrant against him, the Israeli Prime Minister has only visited conservative-ruled Hungary and the US.

Yet the warrant carries no weight while Netanyahu visits Israel’s strongest ally, the United States, which never joined the ICC’s Rome Statute. “It’s vital that people in the United States speak out and demand Netanyahu’s arrest. We must keep reminding the US government and the world that the White House does not speak for the people who live and work here,” Layan Fuleihan, the education director of the People’s Forum, told Peoples Dispatch. “While the White House terrorizes immigrant families and kidnaps people off the streets, threatens and bullies the nations of the world, and pumps money and weapons to fuel endless wars, it opens its doors to the most wanted war criminal of our time.”

US President Trump delivered his remarks to the UNGA on September 23, denouncing the recognition of a Palestinian state by over 150 countries, including the UK, Canada, and France. “As if to encourage continued conflict, some of this body is seeking to unilaterally recognize the Palestinian state. The rewards would be too great for Hamas terrorists, for their atrocities,” Trump said.

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/09/23/ ... s-at-unga/

[blindpig]

The Two-State Solution Is A Western Liberal Fairy Tale

The Israelis are telling us this is the case themselves, right to our faces. It’s time to wake up.

Caitlin Johnstone
September 25, 2025

The only real benefit to this latest western “recognition” of Palestine is that it drew out high-profile Israeli politicians to explain to western liberals in plain English that the entire state of Israel stands opposed to their vision of a two-state solution.

Former Israeli defense minister Benny Gantz has a new op-ed in The New York Times where he explicitly states that opposition to the creation of a Palestinian state is “the heart” of a national consensus among Israelis across the mainstream political spectrum, and that this isn’t an obstacle that will go away once Netanyahu is out of power.

“Too often, Western leaders view our policies in this war not through the lens of national security, but through the prism of individuals — and, in particular, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu,” Gantz writes. “The conversation is often framed as a question of what serves the prime minister, as if Israel’s national security begins and ends with one man. This view is mistaken and counterproductive to global stability, regional normalization and Israel’s own security.”

“I myself have been a vocal critic of Mr. Netanyahu,” says Gantz. “But the nation’s core security interests are not partisan property. Today more than ever, they are anchored by a national consensus that is rooted in the hard realities of our region. Opposition to the recognition of Palestinian statehood stands at the heart of that consensus.”

He’s spelling it out in black and white. The Bernie Sanders-style framing of the nightmare in Palestine as a Netanyahu problem which can be remedied in short order by a two-state solution is a fairy tale that western liberals tell each other so they don’t have to face the cold hard reality that the problem is the state of Israel itself.

This comes after Netanyahu publicly stated that “There will be no Palestinian state to the west of the Jordan River,” and after former Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant proclaimed that “There will never be a Palestinian state.”

Israel is the problem. Not Netanyahu. Not Hamas. Not that both sides have tragically failed to sit down and find common ground in good-faith negotiations. The problem is that the west established a state in the middle east which holds as its foundational ideology that the people who were living there before that state was created are less than human, and must never have access to the full spectrum of human rights.

The problem is Israel. A state which has always been a racist endeavor from its very inception. A state whose Jewish citizenry are indoctrinated from birth into accepting the hateful, supremacist worldview that is necessary for apartheid and abuse to be accepted as the status quo.


No solutions are going to emerge until the west gets real about this. As long as western liberals are still buying into the fuzzbrained escapist fantasy that Israel is just an election away from a two-state solution if the US simply keeps funding the Iron Dome and making nice with Tel Aviv, we’re going to continue seeing Israel inflicting the nonstop violence and abuse that is necessary for it to exist in its present iteration as a state.

Any actual, reality-based solutions are not going to make liberal Zionists happy like their daydream about a two-state solution does. Israel simply cannot continue to exist as a Zionist entity. It needs to be disarmed, dramatically restructured, and comprehensively denazified as a society. This isn’t going to happen without force, and that necessary force isn’t going to be forthcoming from the western world as long as we are deluding ourselves with infantile fantasies.

The Israelis are telling us this is the case themselves, right to our faces. It’s time to wake up.

https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2025/09 ... airy-tale/

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Photo Credit: The Cradle

Israel’s Biblical myth is burying the West Bank alive
Originally published: The Cradle on September 18, 2025 by A Cradle Correspondent (more by The Cradle) | (Posted Sep 23, 2025)

A recent statement from the U.S. ambassador to Tel Aviv laid bare Washington’s deep ideological alignment with Israel’s colonial project.

Mike Huckabee dismissed the term “West Bank” as “imprecise” and “modern,” insisting the territory should be called “Judea and Samaria”–biblical names used in Israel’s foundational mythology. He further declared Jerusalem to be “the undisputed and indivisible capital of the Jewish state.”

How ‘Judea and Samaria’ became state doctrine
Such remarks are part of a wider strategy adopted by Israel and its western allies to impose new facts on the ground, legitimized through religious and historical narratives to justify the gradual annexation of the occupied West Bank. For years, Tel Aviv has pursued an aggressive expansionist policy built on illegal settlement construction, creeping annexation, and the erasure of the Palestinian land’s geographic and political identity. Most recently, Israeli authorities approved a new settlement project in the heart of Hebron (Al-Khalil), consisting of hundreds of housing units next to the Ibrahimi Mosque, which is now mostly a synagogue under Israeli control.

Israel’s strategy in the occupied West Bank is a complex, multi-layered one that far exceeds the parameters of temporary military administration. It is a long-term blueprint for de facto annexation–what could be termed “creeping annexation.” Through legal warfare, archaeology, settlement expansion, and political engineering, Tel Aviv is redrawing the region’s geography and demography to erase any possibility of Palestinian sovereignty. The aim is to impose irreversible facts on the ground and absorb the territory into the so-called “Biblical Land of Israel”–a supremacist strategy that works toward dismembering the Palestinian national project and the consolidation of permanent Jewish-Israeli control.

At the heart of Israel’s colonization strategy lies the foundational myth that “Judea and Samaria” are the ancient birthright of the Jewish people. This religious-nationalist narrative, central to the Zionist project and championed by settler and far-right factions, is the ideological engine driving Israel’s land theft. In this warped worldview, the seizure of Palestinian territory is seen as a righteous reclamation rather than an occupation, justified as a divinely sanctioned ‘return’ that cloaks a settler-colonial enterprise in biblical language and fabricated heritage.

However, even within Israeli academic circles, this ideological claim faces serious scrutiny. Renowned Israeli archaeologist Professor Rafi Greenberg of Tel Aviv University harshly criticizes what he calls “the weaponization of archaeology.” He notes that the archaeological record in Palestine offers no exclusive evidence of a single group’s historical claim.

On the contrary, it reveals a layered tapestry of civilizations and cultures–Canaanite, Roman, Byzantine, Christian, and Islamic–that have succeeded and coexisted on this land. Greenberg affirms that “Archaeology in its essence does not provide that kind of certainty and purity that ethnocratic right-wing government ministers might want. So they have to invent it.” According to him, the idea of a homogenous culture during any historical period is pure fabrication.

This contradiction exposes the real function of the biblical narrative–an excuse to legitimize a political settlement project. It transforms the conflict from a political struggle over land and resources into an existential battle waged through mythology, history, and memory, allowing Palestinians to be depicted as outsiders with no historical connection or national rights to the land.

The evolution of Israeli control
Israel’s strategy toward the occupied West Bank has evolved through distinct phases in response to political and security developments on the ground.

From 1948 until the Oslo Accords in the 1990s, Israeli policy shifted from cautious observation to direct control, and later to attempts to create a new political reality that secures its long-term security and demographic interests. This trajectory can be broken down into key stages, each with its own strategy and tools.

Following the Nakba in 1948 and the subsequent partition of Palestine, the occupied West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem came under Jordanian control. During this period, Israeli strategy toward the area was primarily defensive, driven by security anxieties. Israel viewed the occupied West Bank as a potential launchpad for attacks from the east, and the narrow coastal strip separating the occupied West Bank from the Mediterranean Sea, Israel’s so-called “narrow waist,” was seen as a major strategic vulnerability.

The 1967 war marked a dramatic turning point. With the “Naksa” (Setback), which saw the occupation of the West Bank, Israel suddenly found itself ruling over one million Palestinians, posing a fundamental dilemma regarding how to control the land without fully absorbing its population into the Jewish state while maintaining security.

The architect of Israeli policy at the time was Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, who developed a dual strategy known as the “open bridges policy.” This approach aimed for limited intervention or invisible occupation where possible.

Israel allowed the continued movement of people and goods across the Jordan River via the Allenby and Damia bridges. The goal was to prevent the collapse of the Palestinian economy, avoid assuming the burden of managing daily life, and allow Palestinians to maintain familial, social, and economic ties with the Arab world via Jordan. The aim was to normalize life under occupation while quietly encouraging “voluntary” Palestinian emigration as a long-term demographic solution. Parallel to this, a cautious settlement project began, initially focusing on areas of strategic security interest, such as the Jordan Valley and the Jerusalem perimeter, in line with the “Allon Plan,” which called for annexing these regions while returning densely populated areas to Jordan under a future settlement.


Map of the proposed Israeli annexation plan in the occupied West Bank (“Allon Plan”).

With the rise of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Arab League’s recognition of it in 1974 as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, Israel grew increasingly anxious. Its attempts to work with traditional municipal leaders, elected in the 1976 local elections and largely affiliated with the PLO, had failed. In response, the Israeli Likud government under Menachem Begin in the late 1970s adopted a new strategy–the creation of “Village Leagues.” These were local administrative bodies composed of tribal and rural Palestinian figures.

The Palestinian leaders were selected, armed, and supported by Israel’s civil administration to serve as an alternative “moderate” leadership willing to cooperate with Tel Aviv. The idea was to bypass the PLO and its urban nationalist leadership and to promote a limited “self-rule” model proposed under the Camp David Accords, which granted Palestinians civil administrative control while security and land remained under Israeli authority. However, the Village Leagues experiment failed miserably. Most Palestinians saw their members as collaborators and traitors, and the bodies lacked any popular legitimacy before collapsing entirely with the outbreak of the First Intifada in 1987.

The collapse of this strategy, combined with international shifts such as the end of the Cold War and the First Persian Gulf War, pushed both Israeli and Palestinian actors toward secret negotiations in Oslo. The Oslo Accords, signed between 1993 and 1995, marked the culmination of this phase and reflected Israel’s new strategy of separation and redeployment. Rather than exercising direct control over every inch of land and every aspect of Palestinian life, Israel sought to offload the burden of managing Palestinian population centers while retaining comprehensive control over security, borders, settlements, and resources.

Lawfare and bulldozers
The occupied West Bank was divided administratively and security-wise into three zones.

Area A, about 18 percent of the West Bank and encompassing major cities, was placed under full Palestinian civil and security control.

Area B, around 21 percent and covering towns and villages surrounding the cities, came under Palestinian civil control and joint Israeli-Palestinian security oversight, though Israel retained ultimate authority.

Area C, more than 60 percent of the West Bank, included Israeli settlements, border zones such as the Jordan Valley, bypass roads, most agricultural lands, and water resources. This area remained under full Israeli civil and security control.

The Oslo Accords created a new reality. Israel’s focus shifted from managing Palestinian population centers to cementing permanent control over vast swathes of land, especially Area C. To achieve this, Israel began using more legal and scientific means to impose its will and Judaize the territory. Perhaps the most alarming development is Israel’s use of legal instruments to formally extend its sovereignty over the occupied West Bank. This is exemplified by the proposed amendment to the 1978 Antiquities Law introduced by Likud Knesset member Amit Halevi.

The amendment seeks to extend the jurisdiction of the Israel Antiquities Authority to Area C. Though framed as a technical measure, it is a blatant step toward formal annexation and the imposition of Israeli civil law over occupied land, in direct violation of international law, which limits occupying powers to preserving heritage for the benefit of local populations. Israel promotes this law under the pretext of protecting Jewish heritage from alleged systematic destruction, creating a false sense of archaeological emergency. But on the ground, this law becomes a powerful tool for land seizure.

Once a site is declared archaeological, military protection is imposed, barring Palestinians from accessing or using the land, halting development, and forcibly displacing residents, paving the way for land and property confiscation.

This approach is a replica of the Elad model used in Silwan, occupied East Jerusalem, where the Elad settler organization combined house takeovers with archaeological excavations to erase Palestinian presence. This model is now being exported deep into the occupied West Bank, as in the case of Sebastia, north of Nablus, where excavations aim to sever the site from its Palestinian town and convert it into an Israeli national park.

Crushing the alternative: Why the Palestinian Authority was never meant to govern
Land control is incomplete without control, or more precisely, removal, of its population. Israel uses a multi-layered pressure strategy to force Palestinians, especially in Area C, to leave.

In recent months, Israeli military raids have intensified on Palestinian villages, towns, and refugee camps, particularly in the northern occupied West Bank triangle, accompanied by a wide-scale destruction of infrastructure. At the same time, settlers have been unleashed to wreak havoc in Palestinian villages and towns, often under Israeli army protection. This creates a climate of terror designed to make Palestinian life unbearable, and has already led to the displacement of thousands.

The annexation strategy is completed by systematically weakening any unified Palestinian political leadership capable of representing the national project. Israel works to disable the Palestinian Authority (PA) without allowing its total collapse, to avoid having to administer the population directly. This is done by withholding tax revenues to financially cripple the PA, obstructing the movement of its officials, and undermining any semblance of sovereignty, consequently reducing the PA to a subcontractor for security and administrative coordination in isolated Palestinian pockets, devoid of real political authority or territorial control.

In its bid to bypass and dismantle unified Palestinian representation, Israel is revisiting its old strategy of creating local proxy leadership. This includes direct dealings with traditional structures like clan leaders, village councils, and tribal elders, aimed at establishing independent bodies subordinate to the occupation. Reminiscent of the failed Village Leagues project of the 1980s, the goal is to fragment Palestinian society and establish local partners through whom the population can be managed without engaging with a national leadership. Recent proposals, such as the Hebron Emirate or plans to impose warlord-led administrations on Gaza post-war, are experiments in this direction. Israel frames these policies in the occupied West Bank as a series of reactive security measures, when in fact they are they are interlocking components of a deliberate, long-term strategy of creeping annexation.

By weaponizing the law, archaeology, settlements, demographic pressure, political suppression, and social fragmentation, Israel is systematically dismantling the possibility of a viable Palestinian state, at a time of growing momentum for international recognition. The outcome is a one-state reality between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, one not founded on equality or citizenship but on an entrenched system of domination by one group over another. A reality that numerous analysts and human rights organizations, including Israeli ones, have described as apartheid. The near future promises deeper entrenchment of this tragic status quo, rendering the so-called two-state solution practically unworkable amid relentless settlement expansion, land fragmentation, and the transformation of the occupied West Bank into isolated cantons stripped of any semblance of sovereignty.

https://mronline.org/2025/09/23/israels ... ank-alive/

[blindpig]

Why Recognizing Palestine Is Useless
Posted by Internationalist 360° on September 23, 2025
Israa Akil



The State of Palestine is recognized by the large majority of the 193 UN Member States despite the consistent objections of Israel and its closest ally, the United States. Long-standing recognition comes from countries such as China and Russia (since 1988), and in recent years a number of European states have formally extended recognition. Though these recognitions are important diplomatically, they remain largely symbolic in the face of the grave humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza. Israel’s blockade and military operations continue to severely restrict food, medicine, water, power, and shelter, raising questions under international humanitarian law about conduct and intentions. Recognition alone does not end these conditions.

A delegation representing the State of Palestine holds the status of a permanent observer at the United Nations, granting it the right to participate in debates but not to cast votes. The recognition of a Palestinian state by dozens of governments worldwide does not automatically translate into full UN membership, which requires a recommendation from the Security Council and approval by the General Assembly. Here, the United States has exercised its veto power to block Palestinian accession despite majority support.

Israel’s blockade and military operations continue to severely restrict food, medicine, water, power, and shelter, raising questions under international humanitarian law about conduct and intentions. Recognition alone does not end these conditions

Why now?

Several Western countries have recently recognized the State of Palestine including Britain, Canada, Australia, Portugal, France and others. This step did not come out of thin air. It followed enormous demonstrations by citizens in those countries, growing evidence that Israel’s campaign in Gaza is not merely harsh but meets legal thresholds of genocide, and mounting international condemnation that has become hard to ignore. Could this move serve as a kind of political “morphine” shot, calming domestic outrage rather than fundamentally altering the deadly dynamics on the ground?

This public outrage has coincided with strong reports by the United Nations and its independent bodies that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

Without Security Council approval, a country may recognize Palestine but this does not translate into a full seat, full voting rights, or the full legal benefits of statehood within the UN system

Exposing the hypocrisy

Despite recognizing Palestine, several countries still maintain military and defense linkages with Israel. Canada is a clear example: while it formally recognized Palestine on September 21, 2025, reports indicate that Canadian firms have authorized exports of military components, weapons parts, ammunition and related items to Israel in the period since October 2023. An anti-war coalition “Arms Embargo Now” uncovered at least 47 shipments of military-related components from Canadian manufacturers to Israel between October 2023 and July 2025.

Despite France’s recent recognition of Palestine as a state, reports show that Paris kept supplying Israel with military equipment since the war in Gaza began, a contradiction that undermines the moral force of its diplomatic gesture. In June, a coalition of non-governmental organisations documented an “uninterrupted flow” of weapons from France to Israel since October 2023. These deliveries included bombs, grenades, torpedoes, mines, missiles and other munitions, plus rocket launcher accessories, parts for flamethrowers and military rifles. The value of such exports is estimated at over €9-10 million.

Recognition vs. reality

Recognition, even by a growing number of states, does not necessarily translate into actual power or ability to protect Palestinians or change the situation on the ground. A core limitation remains: full membership in the United Nations requires a recommendation by the UN Security Council, where the United States holds veto power. Without Security Council approval, a country may recognize Palestine but this does not translate into a full seat, full voting rights, or the full legal benefits of statehood within the UN system.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly stated that “there will be no Palestinian state”. Given the strong alignment between Washington and Israel, it could be foreseen that the US veto is likely to be used to block full recognition in UN structures, regardless of how many countries recognize Palestine bilaterally.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2025/09/ ... s-useless/

******

Global Sumud Flotilla receives warnings of imminent Israeli attack amid calls to 'hand over' aid

After deploying navy ships to accompany the flotilla, the Italian PM called the initiative ‘gratuitous, dangerous, irresponsible’

News Desk

SEP 25, 2025


(Photo credit: AFP)

Several governments have warned their citizens participating in the Global Sumud Flotilla of an imminent Israeli attack, according to statements by the flotilla’s organizers on 25 September.

The aid convoy, made up of dozens of ships attempting to break the blockade on Gaza, sailed overnight through Greek waters and is expected to enter international waters within hours.

Activists reported that drones hovered over one of the ships, the Omar al-Mukhtar, which carries a mobile medical clinic, and confirmed that the fleet had already been targeted in 12 drone strikes that hit nine vessels.

Flotilla organizers say the mission will continue despite the threats, insisting on the need to deliver humanitarian supplies directly to the besieged strip and into the hands of its starving people.

Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto condemned the attacks and announced the deployment of a second frigate, one day after deploying the first, to escort the flotilla, now joined by Spain – which also contributed a military vessel to the expedition.

He said the Italian frigate Fasan, previously north of Crete, was already en route to the flotilla for possible rescue operations.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's government has proposed handing over the aid to Cyprus and the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem for delivery to Gaza – an office in the Catholic Church with jurisdiction over Catholics in Israel and surrounding regions – to assume responsibility for delivery.


REPORT | Italy’s PM Giorgia Meloni has lashed out at the humanitarian flotilla seeking to break Israel’s illegal siege of Gaza.

Condemnation of the Drone Attack
➤ “My condemnation of what happened last night is total.”
➤ “We are carrying out our investigations to establish… https://t.co/KQr0qn3MGH pic.twitter.com/vwpDL7OQrS

— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) September 24, 2025
“I want to reiterate what I think about this matter because all this is gratuitous, dangerous, irresponsible,” Meloni said in an interview.

“There is no need to risk one's own safety. There is no need to enter a war zone to deliver aid to Gaza, which the Italian government and the relevant authorities [could have] delivered in a few hours,” she added.


URGENT Don’t be fooled by Meloni’s naval deployment: It is nothing but a cynical rouse to demobilize the @gbsumudflotilla — in direct coordination with the State of Israel that attacked us.

We will reject this proposal. We will keep sailing. And we will complete our mission. pic.twitter.com/7Wrcx9IzAI

— David Adler (@davidrkadler) September 25, 2025
Her proposal aligns with Israeli demands that the aid be delivered to the port of Ashkelon, directly north of the Gaza Strip, so the aid can be transferred under Israeli supervision.

Organizers of the Global Sumud Flotilla rejected the demands by both Italian and Israeli governments, saying “Our mission stays true to its original goal of breaking (Israel’s) illegal siege and delivering humanitarian aid to the besieged population of Gaza.”

They described Tel Aviv's demands as part of Israel’s long-standing blockade of Gaza rather than a neutral logistical proposal. They said the move was intended to obstruct relief and delegitimize efforts to challenge the siege.

“Since May 2025, after lifting its so-called ‘total blockade,’ Israel has permitted an average of only 70 trucks per day into Gaza, while UN agencies estimate that 500 to 600 trucks are required daily to meet basic needs,” their statement read.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry wrote on X that “The Hamas flotilla refuses Israel’s proposal to unload aid peacefully at the nearby Ashkelon Marina. Instead, it chooses the illegal path – sailing into a combat zone and breaching the lawful naval blockade.”

The ministry accused the flotilla of seeking to “help Hamas” rather than deliver aid, insisting Ashkelon is the only viable channel for humanitarian supplies, even as hundreds of trucks remain stalled just outside the besieged enclave where famine continues to spread.

https://thecradle.co/articles/global-su ... d-over-aid

Yemen hails ‘successful operation’ after drone attack injures over 20 in southern Israel

The Yemeni army has escalated its attacks on Israel in response to Tel Aviv’s new operation in Gaza and its recent strikes on Sanaa

News Desk

SEP 25, 2025


(Photo credit: Flash90)

The Yemeni Armed Forces (YAF) released a statement on the evening of 24 September announcing the drone attack, which injured over 20 Israelis hours earlier.

“The drone air force of the Yemeni Armed Forces carried out a qualitative military operation with two drones targeting two Israeli enemy targets in the Umm al-Rashrash (Eilat) area in southern occupied Palestine,” the YAF statement said.

“The operation successfully achieved its goal by the grace of God, and the interception systems failed to confront it. This operation is the second within the past 24 hours,” the YAF added.

The operation was framed as a “response to the crimes of genocide and severe escalation by the Israeli enemy against our brothers in the Gaza Strip, and as part of the response to the Israeli aggression on our country.”

The drone attack took place on Wednesday afternoon in the southern city of Eilat.

At least 22 Israelis were wounded, including two who were reported to be in critical condition. The injured were evacuated via helicopter to a number of hospitals.


This is the moment a drone launched by Yemen’s Houthis exploded in the Israeli city of Eilat.

Footage shows it over the southern port city before bursting into flames in a residential neighbourhood, injuring at least 22 people, after Israeli military failed to intercept it. pic.twitter.com/IcA6CnzVX9

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) September 24, 2025
Footage showed the large blast the moment the drone made impact. Videos from the aftermath of the attack also showed flames and several injured people.


- Hebrew media reports that injuries from yesterday's Yemeni drone attack in Eilat have risen, with some outlets reporting as high as 48 Israeli settlers wounded in varying conditions

This marks the third time in a week that the Israeli Air Force and Air Defense systems… pic.twitter.com/ydI1Pm24R5

— Monitor𝕏 (@MonitorX99800) September 25, 2025
The Israeli army said it would investigate why defense systems failed to intercept the drone.

Yemen’s maritime operations against Israeli shipping over the past two years have caused the port of Eilat to go bankrupt.

The YAF has recently escalated its strikes on Israel in response to Israeli attacks on Yemen and Tel Aviv’s escalation in Gaza. Last week, a Yemeni drone struck Eilat’s Jacob Hotel.

Early this month, an explosive drone launched from Yemen breached Israel’s defenses and struck Ramon Airport in the southern Negev region

The Israeli Air Force launched a massive wave of attacks against Yemen's vital Hodeidah Port on 16 September, hitting it with at least 12 airstrikes.

Ahead of the airstrikes, Israeli army Arabic spokesman Avichay Adraee issued a forced evacuation order to the people of Hodeidah.

The air raids marked the fifth time Israel has indiscriminately bombed Hodeidah Port over the past year.

Last month, Israel assassinated Yemen’s prime minister and nearly his entire Cabinet in a large attack on Sanaa.

https://thecradle.co/articles/yemen-hai ... ern-israel

[blindpig]

Palestinian Demand for Sanctions on Israel and the Global Refusal to Act​
Posted by Internationalist 360° on September 25, 2025
Rima Najjar



A demand for precedent, not exception by Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan: Sanction Israel for its many crimes against Palestinians.

From Symbolic Gestures to Strategic Punishment

Author’s note: This essay confronts the global failure to protect Palestinian life by exposing the gap between rhetorical recognition and material consequence. It argues that the tools to dismantle occupation — legal, diplomatic, and economic — already exist, and that their non-use is not a matter of complexity but of political refusal. Through a region-by-region analysis of the European Union, United States, Latin America, Africa, and Arab states, the essay outlines concrete actions that could be taken today if there were sufficient will. It dismantles the myth of impossibility by drawing on historical precedents — from South Africa to East Timor — and shows that rupture with the system of hypocrisy is not only survivable, but necessary. The final section indicts the architecture of inertia and calls for strategic, unapologetic action: sanctions, severed ties, and international protection. Palestinian liberation is not a diplomatic abstraction. It is a political imperative — and it will not be achieved through recognition alone, but through consequences to the occupier.

Section I: Concrete Actions and Legal Pathways

The world does not suffer from ignorance. It suffers from cowardice. Palestine is not unseen — it is unprotected. Every summit, every statement, every gesture of recognition has not affirmed Palestinian sovereignty — it has fragmented it. From partial UN observer status to selective recognition of a “State of Palestine” within undefined borders, these gestures have acknowledged slivers of Palestine while evading the totality of its dispossession. They have treated recognition as resolution, while leaving the machinery of occupation intact.

In a recent interview with Al Mayadeen, senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan declared:

“International recognition of the State of Palestine is a step in the right direction, but what is needed are practical measures — namely, an end to the aggression. These practical steps do not come through imposing guardianship on the Palestinian people, but through imposing sanctions on the occupation.”
(الاعترافات الدولية بدولة فلسطين تمثّل “خطوةً في الاتجاه الصحيح”، والمطلوب هو “إجراءات عملية، وهي وقف العدوان”… لا تكون عبر فرض وصايا على الشعب الفلسطيني، بل في فرض عقوبات على الاحتلال.)

Hamdan’s statement is not a plea. It is a demand for material consequence. If the goal of two-state negotiations is to end aggression, dismantle apartheid, and protect Palestinian life — not merely to manage optics or defer confrontation — then the message is clear: put your actions where your declarations are. This essay outlines what those actions look like — concretely, legally, and politically. They are not impossible. They are not utopian. They are entirely feasible if there is political will.

And they are not ends in themselves. They are steps toward the only horizon that matters: Palestinian liberation and self-determination in our homeland. Not as a diplomatic abstraction, but as a lived reality — where Palestinians govern themselves, protect themselves, and narrate themselves without foreign guardianship or settler veto. This is not a distant dream. It is the trajectory of our struggle, and it will remain so until the architecture of occupation is dismantled — not symbolically, but structurally.


Palestinian liberation is not stalled by complexity — it is obstructed by choice.

European Union: Dismantling the Façade of Conditionality

The European Union has long positioned itself as a defender of human rights and international law. Yet its relationship with Israel reveals a stark contradiction: rhetorical commitment to Palestinian sovereignty paired with material complicity in its erasure. This contradiction is not abstract — it is codified, funded, and diplomatically maintained.

The EU routinely affirms its support for a two-state solution and the rights of Palestinians to self-determination. It has recognized the State of Palestine in various symbolic forms, including observer status at the UN and diplomatic missions across member states. But these gestures have acknowledged fragments of Palestine — selective borders, provisional governance, and deferred sovereignty — while leaving the machinery of occupation untouched.

Meanwhile, the EU-Israel Association Agreement, signed in 1995 and ratified in 2000, remains the cornerstone of economic and political cooperation. It grants Israel preferential trade status and deep scientific, cultural, and technological collaboration — all under the condition, stated in Article 2, that such cooperation is contingent on respect for human rights and democratic principles.

Israel has violated these principles systematically and publicly. From the siege of Gaza to the expansion of illegal settlements, from extrajudicial killings to the apartheid wall, the evidence is not ambiguous. It is overwhelming. And yet the agreement remains intact.

Suspension is not unprecedented. The EU has frozen association agreements with Belarus, Syria, and Russia under similar grounds. The legal mechanism exists. The political will does not.

Beyond trade, the EU continues to fund Israeli institutions through Horizon Europe, its flagship research and innovation program. Millions of euros have flowed to Israeli universities and tech firms directly involved in developing surveillance systems, military hardware, and predictive policing tools used against Palestinians. These are not neutral technologies. They are instruments of suppression.

Exclusion is not radical. Russia was barred from Horizon Europe following its invasion of Ukraine. The precedent is clear: when aggression is European-coded, rupture is swift. When it is Palestinian-coded, delay becomes doctrine.

The EU also possesses a targeted sanctions regime: the EU Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime, adopted in 2020. It allows for asset freezes and travel bans against individuals and entities responsible for serious human rights violations. It has been used against officials in Myanmar, Iran, and China. It has never been used against Israeli generals, ministers, or settlement financiers — despite their documented roles in war crimes and systemic apartheid.

The tools are there. The European Union possesses binding legal frameworks, enforceable human rights clauses, and targeted sanctions regimes designed precisely for moments like this. Article 2 of the EU-Israel Association Agreement provides a clear basis for suspension. Horizon Europe funding can be revoked. The Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime is operational. These are not aspirational instruments — they are ready for use.

So what stands in the way?

Member states fear economic backlash, diplomatic strain, and the erosion of strategic alliances. But these are not insurmountable costs. They are calculated preservations of comfort. Economic consequences are negotiable. Diplomatic tension is survivable. Strategic partnerships are mutable. What is feared is not collapse but accountability. What is feared is the precedent Palestine would set: that occupation can be punished, apartheid can be isolated, and complicity can be named—not just in Palestine but everywhere.

To act on Palestine is to admit that accountability need not be exceptional. It can be universalized. That if Palestine’s occupation is punishable, so too are the annexations in Western Sahara, the enclosures in Kashmir, the racialized border regimes across Europe. That if apartheid can be isolated here, it can be isolated in refugee camps turned into carceral zones. That if complicity can be named in the EU’s dealings with Israel, it can be named in its arms exports, its surveillance partnerships, its border fortifications.

Palestine threatens not just a rupture in policy but a rupture in precedent. It demands a grammar of accountability that does not stop at the gates of strategic interest. And that is what stands in the way: not the cost of action, but the contagion of clarity.

This is why complexity is invoked — not to clarify, but to paralyze. It becomes the shield behind which cowardice is rationalized. Politicians fear accusations of antisemitism, the loss of defense contracts, and the destabilization of alliances built on surveillance and suppression. They defer action not because they cannot act, but because they choose not to. This is not a failure of capacity. It is a failure of will.


Palestine as Precedent: To punish occupation here is to expose it everywhere. This map traces the fear of universal accountability — from Western Sahara to refugee carceral zones.

United States: Exceptionalism as Immunity

No state has done more to shield Israel from accountability than the United States. It is not merely a strategic ally — it is the guarantor of impunity. Through military aid, diplomatic cover, and veto power at the United Nations, the U.S. has transformed its rhetorical support for a two-state solution into a structural endorsement of apartheid.

The U.S. provides Israel with over $3.8 billion annually in military assistance. This aid is governed by binding legal frameworks — frameworks that, if applied, would trigger immediate suspension.

The Leahy Law prohibits U.S. military assistance to foreign security forces implicated in gross human rights violations. Israeli units operating in Gaza and the West Bank have been repeatedly documented committing such violations. Yet no unit has ever been sanctioned under Leahy.
The Foreign Assistance Act bars aid to governments that engage in consistent patterns of human rights abuse. The State Department’s own reports confirm these patterns in Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. Still, the aid flows uninterrupted.
The Arms Export Control Act requires that U.S. weapons be used for legitimate self-defense. The use of American-made bombs, drones, and rifles in the killing of civilians, the destruction of homes, and the targeting of journalists violates this condition. Yet enforcement is absent.
These are not obscure statutes. They are foundational. They have been used to restrict aid to Colombia, Egypt, and Indonesia. Their non-application to Israel is not a legal oversight — it is a political exemption.

This exemption is sustained by a bipartisan consensus rooted in strategic interests, electoral calculations, and ideological alignment. Politicians fear backlash from powerful lobbying groups. They fear being labeled antisemitic. They fear losing campaign contributions and media favor. But these fears are not insurmountable. They are manufactured constraints — designed to preserve a status quo that is morally indefensible.

The refusal to act is not born of complexity. It is born of exceptionalism. Israel is treated as untouchable — not because it is innocent, but because its impunity is useful. It serves as a proxy, a partner, and a pillar of U.S. influence in the region. To condition aid, to impose sanctions, to support international protection mechanisms would mean rupturing that utility. It would mean choosing justice over dominance.

Latin America and Africa: Reviving the Legacy of Anti-Apartheid Diplomacy

Latin America and Africa have long served as moral compasses in the international arena — regions where anti-colonial and anti-apartheid movements shaped foreign policy with clarity and conviction. From the Non-Aligned Movement to the global boycott of South Africa, these blocs once led the charge against imperialism and racial domination. Today, that legacy is being tested.

Several states have already taken steps toward rupture. Bolivia severed diplomatic ties with Israel in 2009 following the assault on Gaza, and again in 2023 amid renewed atrocities. South Africa recalled its ambassador and referred Israel to the International Criminal Court, invoking the Genocide Convention. Namibia, Algeria, and Colombia have issued scathing indictments of Israeli aggression, framing it as apartheid and ethnic cleansing.

But these gestures must become infrastructure.

Recall ambassadors and suspend diplomatic relations: This is not symbolic. It is a declaration of non-consent. It signals that normalization with apartheid is not acceptable. Bolivia and Venezuela have done this. Others must follow.
Impose trade restrictions on settlement goods: While the EU debates labeling, Latin American and African states can ban imports outright. These goods are produced on stolen land, often by exploited labor. Their presence in global markets legitimizes dispossession.
Mobilize regional blocs: The African Union (AU) and Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) have the capacity to issue binding resolutions, coordinate sanctions, and create diplomatic pressure. These blocs were forged in the crucible of resistance. They must now act as engines of accountability.
Support international legal mechanisms: States can file amicus briefs to the ICC, support UN investigations, and fund legal infrastructure for Palestinian civil society. South Africa’s recent referral to the ICJ is a model — not an exception.
Withdraw from military and intelligence cooperation: Surveillance regimes are transnational. Israeli firms export technologies tested on Palestinians to governments across Africa and Latin America. Severing these ties is not just solidarity — it is self-defense.
The legacy of anti-apartheid diplomacy is not a relic. It is a blueprint. These regions have shown that rupture is survivable, that moral clarity can be policy, and that solidarity can be statecraft. The question now is whether they will act not just in memory of past struggles, but in defense of a present one.

Arab States: From Normalization to Strategic Rupture

No region has been more entangled in the contradictions of Palestine than the Arab world. Arab governments have long positioned themselves as defenders of Palestinian rights — issuing statements, convening summits, and funding humanitarian aid. Yet many have simultaneously deepened security cooperation with Israel, signed normalization agreements, and treated Palestinian sovereignty as a bargaining chip in broader geopolitical negotiations.

The Abraham Accords, signed by the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan, exemplify this contradiction. Framed as peace deals, they normalized relations with a state actively expanding settlements, besieging Gaza, and annexing land. These agreements did not end occupation — they entrenched it. They did not protect Palestinians — they bypassed them.

This is not diplomacy. It is abandonment.

To reorient Arab diplomacy toward liberation, the following actions must be taken:

Sever intelligence and military cooperation: Arab states have shared surveillance infrastructure, border technologies, and counterterrorism protocols with Israel. These systems are used to monitor, suppress, and criminalize Palestinian resistance. Ending this cooperation is not symbolic — it is strategic.
Withdraw from normalization frameworks: The Abraham Accords and similar agreements must be dismantled. They treat suppression as stability and occupation as inevitability. Their existence signals that Palestinian rights are negotiable. Their dissolution would signal that they are not.
Recall ambassadors and suspend diplomatic ties: This is a minimal threshold of moral clarity. It communicates that apartheid is not a partner, and that ethnic cleansing is not a basis for cooperation.
Redirect financial and diplomatic resources: Arab states must invest in Palestinian civil society, legal defense infrastructure, and international advocacy. This includes funding ICC referrals, supporting UN mechanisms, and amplifying Palestinian testimony in global forums.
Mobilize the Arab League: Once a platform for anti-colonial solidarity, the League has become a site of paralysis. It must be revived as a bloc capable of issuing binding resolutions, coordinating sanctions, and confronting occupation with unified clarity.
These actions are not unprecedented. Egypt and Jordan suspended ties in moments of rupture. Algeria and Iraq have maintained principled distance. Kuwait and Qatar have resisted normalization. The infrastructure of refusal exists. It must be activated.

Arab states must decide: will they continue to treat Palestine as a diplomatic instrument, or will they act to protect it as a sovereign struggle? The time for summit statements has passed. The time for strategic rupture has arrived.

Section II: The Myth of Impossibility

The refusal to act is often framed as necessity. Governments invoke complexity, instability, and geopolitical risk to justify paralysis. They say the situation is “too delicate,” “too entrenched,” “too unique.” But these are not diagnoses. They are defenses. What they obscure is the truth: rupture is not impossible. It is feared because it is precedent-setting.

Palestine is not the exception. It is the mirror.

The collapse of apartheid in South Africa was not gradual. It was sudden, disorienting, and — until it happened — widely dismissed as impossible. Western governments had spent decades propping up the regime, rationalizing its brutality, and criminalizing its opponents. But when rupture came, it came fast. Sanctions were imposed. Diplomatic ties were severed. Cultural and academic boycotts gained traction. The myth of impossibility dissolved under the weight of sustained pressure and moral clarity.

East Timor was occupied by Indonesia for nearly 25 years. The international community remained largely silent, citing strategic alliances and regional stability. But after relentless advocacy, civil society mobilization, and a shift in global consciousness, the occupation ended. A UN peacekeeping force was deployed. A referendum was held. Independence was achieved.

Portugal’s colonial empire collapsed under similar conditions. So did the regimes in Chile, Argentina, and the Balkans. In each case, rupture was framed as unthinkable — until it became inevitable.

What these examples reveal is not inevitability, but contingency. Occupation ends when the cost of complicity exceeds the cost of rupture. When civil society refuses to be anesthetized. When governments are forced to choose between moral clarity and strategic comfort.

Palestine is no different. The occupation persists not because it is unresolvable, but because it is useful. It serves as a testing ground for surveillance technologies, a laboratory for military doctrine, and a pillar of regional control. To dismantle it would mean dismantling the architecture that benefits from it.

And that is why impossibility is invoked — not to describe reality, but to defer responsibility.

But the precedent exists. The tools exist. The will can be built. What is needed is not another summit. What is needed is rupture — strategic, sustained, and unapologetic. Not for its own sake, but for the sake of liberation.

And rupture is survivable. The myth of insurmountability collapses under the weight of political testimony. The constraints invoked to justify inaction are not structural — they are strategic. Manufactured to preserve a status quo that is morally indefensible, but not immutable. Politicians who have bucked the system and endured prove that the cost of courage is often exaggerated to paralyze dissent.

Jeremy Corbyn (UK)
Despite relentless media attacks and political isolation, Corbyn maintained his position as Labour Party leader for five years while openly criticizing Israeli policies and advocating for Palestinian rights. He faced accusations of antisemitism weaponized against his platform, yet his stance catalyzed a generational shift in discourse within the UK. His survival — and the movement that outlived his leadership — demonstrates that political backlash is not fatal when rooted in moral clarity.
Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib (US)
Both congresswomen have publicly condemned Israeli apartheid, called for conditioning aid, and supported BDS-related measures. They have faced censure, smear campaigns, and threats — but they remain in office, re-elected by constituents who value their integrity. Their presence in Congress proves that critique of Israel is not a political death sentence, even in the heart of American exceptionalism.
Evo Morales (Bolivia)
Under Morales, Bolivia severed diplomatic ties with Israel in 2009 following the assault on Gaza. The move was framed as a rejection of state terrorism. Morales remained in power for over a decade, and Bolivia’s rupture with Israel was later reaffirmed by subsequent governments. The backlash was minimal compared to the moral weight of the decision.
Nelson Mandela and the ANC (South Africa)
Mandela’s unwavering support for Palestine — despite Western pressure — was not a liability. It was a cornerstone of post-apartheid foreign policy. The ANC’s solidarity with Palestine has persisted across administrations, and South Africa continues to lead global calls for accountability, including recent moves to refer Israel to the ICC.
These examples reveal a pattern: the cost of dissent is real, but it is not terminal. Politicians who act with clarity and conviction may face backlash, but they also reshape the discourse, embolden civil society, and prove that the machinery of complicity can be disrupted. The fear invoked by most governments is not of collapse — it is of precedent. Palestine threatens to normalize rupture. And that, more than anything, is what the status quo cannot afford.

To invoke impossibility is to preempt accountability. The politicians who endure backlash do not merely survive; they expand the terrain of discourse, making space for testimony that was once unspeakable. Their endurance is not proof of exceptionalism — it is proof that the machinery of complicity can be interrupted. What remains is not a question of feasibility, but of will. And will, unlike myth, can be built.

Section III: Indicting the Architecture of Inertia and Calling for Action

The international system is calibrated to defer Palestinian liberation. It rewards delay, incentivizes ambiguity, and punishes clarity. It treats Palestinian suffering as a humanitarian crisis to be managed — not a political condition to be dismantled. It elevates negotiations that entrench occupation, and silences demands that threaten its scaffolding.

But the scaffolding is not immutable.
It can be dismantled — legally, politically, and strategically.
The tools exist. The precedents are clear. The cost is survivable.
What remains is the question of will.

So let us be precise:

1. Dissolve Association Agreements

Dissolve association agreements with the State of Israel that condition cooperation on human rights while systematically ignoring their violation. The EU-Israel Association Agreement, signed in 1995 and activated in 2000, explicitly ties economic and political cooperation to respect for human rights and democratic principles. Yet the EU continues to deepen trade, research, and defense ties with Israel while it annexes land, bombs refugee camps, and imposes biometric control over millions of Palestinians. This is not oversight — it is endorsement.

Suspend Horizon Europe partnerships that funnel research funding into Israeli institutions complicit in occupation, including those developing surveillance technologies used in the West Bank and Gaza.
Terminate bilateral agreements that enable joint policing, border control, and counterterrorism operations — operations that treat Palestinian resistance as pathology and Israeli militarism as innovation.
These agreements are not neutral frameworks. They are instruments of normalization.
To dissolve them is not to abandon diplomacy, it is to restore its integrity.
Human rights clauses must not be decorative. They must be enforceable.
And when they are violated, cooperation must end.

2. Sever Diplomatic Ties

Sever diplomatic ties with the State of Israel — a regime that sustains apartheid through annexation, siege, and ethnic cleansing. This is not metaphor. It is policy.

Israel has annexed East Jerusalem, expanded settlements across the West Bank in violation of international law, and imposed a 17-year blockade on Gaza.
It has deployed white phosphorus on civilian populations, bombed hospitals and refugee camps, and executed mass displacement campaigns under the guise of “security.”
Cut ties with the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which coordinates global propaganda campaigns to sanitize occupation.
Expel ambassadors who defend the bombing of schools as “self-defense.”
Suspend bilateral agreements that facilitate arms transfers, intelligence sharing, and joint surveillance operations.
End participation in trade forums that normalize apartheid as diplomacy.

Sever ties not just symbolically, but structurally:

Cancel military cooperation with Elbit Systems, Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, and Israel Aerospace Industries — firms that export occupation as technology.
Withdraw from academic partnerships that whitewash apartheid as innovation.
Refuse cultural exchanges that rebrand siege as resilience.
Diplomatic ties are not neutral. They are endorsements.
To maintain them is to legitimize ethnic cleansing as policy.
To sever them is not extremism — it is precedent.
South Africa did it. Bolivia did it. Venezuela did it.
The cost is survivable. The moral clarity is overdue.

3. Impose Targeted Sanctions

Impose targeted sanctions — not generically, but surgically.
Name the financiers, commanders, and technologists who sustain the machinery of apartheid.

Sanction Caterpillar Inc. for supplying bulldozers used to demolish Palestinian homes.
Sanction Lockheed Martin and Leonardo for providing weapons deployed in Gaza.
Sanction Palantir, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet (Google), and IBM for building surveillance infrastructures that enable biometric control, predictive policing, and digital targeting of Palestinian civilians.
Sanction Airbnb and Booking.com for profiting from illegal settlement tourism.
Sanction HD Hyundai for supplying machinery used in territorial erasure.
These are not passive actors; they are active collaborators.
Their technologies, logistics, and capital flows are embedded in the architecture of dispossession.

And sanction the military commanders whose names are known:
Those who oversaw the bombardment of hospitals, refugee camps, and schools.
Their ranks are not anonymous. Their strategies are not accidental.
The chain of command is traceable.
The refusal to name them is not caution — it is complicity.

To dismantle occupation, dismantle the scaffolding that sustains it.
Not just the ideology, but the infrastructure.
Not just the rhetoric, but the revenue.
Sanctions must be precise, public, and persistent.
Anything less is performance.

4. Mobilize International Protection Forces

Mobilize international protection forces — not to manage optics, but to protect life.
Not to perform neutrality, but to interrupt annihilation.

The United Nations has deployed peacekeeping missions in Rwanda, Bosnia, East Timor, and South Sudan.
It has the infrastructure. It has the precedent.
What it lacks is political will.

Deploy forces to Gaza — not to monitor ceasefires that never hold, but to shield civilians from bombardment.
Station observers in the West Bank — not to document settler violence after the fact, but to prevent it in real time.
Activate the UN Human Rights Council’s mandate — not to issue reports that gather dust, but to authorize intervention.
Call upon regional bodies — the African Union, the Arab League, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation — to send protection units, not just statements.
Demand that NATO and the EU confront their complicity by refusing to treat Israeli aggression as security cooperation.

Protection forces must not be symbolic. They must be material:
Armored vehicles, medical units, communications infrastructure.
Their presence must disrupt the calculus of impunity.
Their mandate must be clear: protect Palestinian life.
Not manage perception. Not negotiate delay. Protect.

5. Withdraw from Normalization Frameworks

Withdraw from normalization frameworks that treat suppression as stability.
The Abraham Accords, brokered by the United States, rebrand apartheid as diplomacy — offering Israel regional legitimacy while entrenching Palestinian dispossession.

These agreements are not peace deals. They are strategic alliances that reward annexation, siege, and ethnic cleansing with trade, arms, and surveillance partnerships.

Suspend participation in the Negev Forum, which convenes Israel, the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, Egypt, and the United States under the banner of regional cooperation while excluding Palestinian representation.
Dismantle bilateral frameworks that facilitate joint counterterrorism operations — operations that criminalize resistance and export Israeli military doctrine as a model of “security.”
Normalization is not reconciliation. It is erasure.
It demands silence in exchange for access, complicity in exchange for capital.
To withdraw is not to abandon diplomacy — it is to refuse its weaponization.
Stability built on suppression is not peace.
It is scaffolding for apartheid.

6. Redirect Resources Toward Palestinian Sovereignty

Redirect resources toward Palestinian civil society, legal infrastructure, and testimonial preservation.
Not to manage suffering, but to fortify sovereignty.

Fund organizations like Al-Haq, Addameer, Samidoun, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights — groups that document violations, litigate in international courts, and archive testimony under siege.
Support the work of Defense for Children International — Palestine, which exposes the detention and torture of minors.
Channel resources to grassroots networks in Gaza and the West Bank that sustain food distribution, medical care, and trauma support — not through intermediaries, but directly.
Invest in digital infrastructure that protects archives from erasure.
Equip libraries, cultural centers, and oral history projects with the tools to preserve testimony in the face of bombardment and displacement.
Support legal teams preparing cases for the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice — not with symbolic gestures, but with sustained funding, translation, and forensic expertise.

Redirect academic grants, cultural funds, and humanitarian budgets away from institutions that normalize occupation and toward those that resist it.
Aid must not be aestheticized. It must be politicized. It must be strategic.
To preserve Palestinian life is to preserve Palestinian testimony.
And testimony, under siege, is resistance.

Final Invocation

These are not radical demands.
They are the baseline of ethical diplomacy.

Anything less is endorsement by inertia.
Every refusal to act is a reinforcement of occupation.
Every delay is complicity.

The time for symbolic gestures has passed.
The time for strategic rupture is now.

Palestinian liberation is not a diplomatic abstraction.
It is a political imperative.
And it will not be achieved through recognition alone.
It will be achieved through consequence — to the occupier.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2025/09/ ... al-to-act/

*****

UN reports 43 percent surge in foreign firms 'illegally operating' in West Bank since 2023

Israel has approved dozens of new settlement projects in recent months, and is pushing publicly for the annexation of the West Bank

News Desk

SEP 26, 2025


(Photo credit: Reuters)

A new report by the UN Human Rights Office revealed that over 150 companies are operating in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

“The UN Human Rights Office issued an update to our database of businesses involved in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank,” spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani said on 26 September.

“The database lists a total of 158 business enterprises from 11 countries. The report was mandated by the UN Human Rights Council, and today’s release updates the database that was first issued in 2020, then updated in 2023,” the spokesperson added.

Shamdasani revealed that “a total of 68 new companies were added to the list published in 2023, while seven of those listed in 2023 were removed as they were no longer involved in any of the activities concerned.”

The new companies added to the list primarily focus on construction, real estate, mining, and quarrying.

The updated database includes firms listed in the US, Canada, Germany, France, and China.

“Where business enterprises identify that they have caused or contributed to adverse human rights impacts, they should provide for or cooperate in remediation through appropriate processes,” the spokesperson went on to say in the report. “States also have a responsibility to act with diligence to ensure that business enterprises operating in conflict-affected areas are not involved in or otherwise materially contributing to serious human rights violations or abuses.”

Scores of new illegal settlement projects have been approved in the occupied West Bank in recent months.

Earlier this month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu put in motion the plan to revive the controversial E1 settlement project. The project received final approval from an Israeli Defense Ministry planning commission in August. The E1 settlement project had been frozen for decades as a result of strong opposition from the international community.

It aims to link occupied East Jerusalem – viewed as integral to any future Palestinian state – to the illegal Maale Adumim settlement.

Illegal land grabs and expulsion of Palestinians by settlers have continued to accelerate across the entirety of the occupied West Bank.

For months, Israel has been publicly advancing plans to annex the territory, and recently vowed that these plans would accelerate in response to European recognition of Palestine as a state.

France and Belgium announced their recognition of Palestine at the ongoing UN General Assembly (UNGA) session in New York this week, a day after the UK said it formally recognizes a Palestinian state.

While western nations have repeatedly condemned settlement expansion in statements, the funding has continued over the years.

Two British charities have transferred millions to an illegal Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank with the support of the UK charity regulator, according to an 18 July report by The Guardian.

EU countries have also maintained trade with illegal settlements despite a ruling from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against support for the occupation in the West Bank.

“The EU is neglecting its responsibility to uphold international law. This bending of rules for political convenience erodes the credibility of EU foreign policy and betrays the trust of people beyond Palestine. The EU’s approach also sets a dangerous precedent by treating its obligations under the ICJ advisory opinion as optional, especially amid ongoing atrocities,” Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on Palestine, told The Intercept in October 2024.

https://thecradle.co/articles/un-report ... since-2023

'Psychological warfare': Netanyahu orders loudspeakers into Gaza to blast UN speech

Several hundred diplomats staged a walkout from the UN General Assembly as Netanyahu began his speech

News Desk

SEP 26, 2025


(Photo credit: UNGA)
The Israeli army prepared in advance to broadcast Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's 26 September speech at the UN via loudspeaker throughout the Gaza Strip, Haaretz reported, citing two army sources.

The army's Southern Command was ordered to broadcast the speech through large speakers placed on trucks near the border fence as part of a “public diplomacy effort.”



According to one source speaking with Haaretz, the purpose of broadcasting the speech in Gaza is "psychological warfare."

Some of the loudspeakers were brought across the border fence and placed inside Gaza, including at army posts several kilometers deep in the strip.

The decision was met with criticism, both from members of the army and from families of Israeli captives still held by Hamas in Gaza.

"It's a crazy idea," a senior officer told the liberal Israeli newspaper. "People from all ends of the political spectrum are sitting around saying what this hallucination is. No one understands what the military benefit is here," he added.

"Netanyahu, my Matan, and other hostages may hear you today. Any sentence other than 'I came to the U.S. to sign a deal that brings you all home' amounts to psychological abuse for them," wrote Anat Angrest, the mother of captive Matan Angrest, in a post on the social media site X.

"Do not break their hope, if any still remains," Angrest said.

Lishay Lavi, the wife of captive Omri Miran, wrote on X: "Instead of speaking to Gazans, I would like to speak to those who are desperate for a voice of hope – the hostages and the soldiers."

"If loudspeakers have already been set up, I would be glad to send my own recording to Omri, so that I can tell him and all the hostages and soldiers loudly and clearly that the people of Israel are fighting for them and that the overwhelming majority wants an agreement that will bring them back," Lavi added.

As Netanyahu began his speech on Friday, hundreds of diplomats from around the world staged a walkout from the UN General Assembly hall.

Over the course of the nearly two-year genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, Netanyahu has repeatedly sought to sabotage ceasefire negotiations, while ensuring that Israeli forces devote much of their efforts toward demolishing everything in Gaza in preparation for forcibly expelling Gaza's roughly 2 million residents.

Netanyahu is scheduled to meet US President Donald Trump on Monday. The president has reportedly vowed to block Israel from annexing the occupied West Bank amid ongoing discussions with Arab leaders over a new plan for postwar Gaza.

"I will not allow Israel to annex the West Bank. Nope, I will not allow it. It's not going to happen," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, adding, "There's been enough. It's time to stop now."

Ministers in Netanyahu's government have long called for annexing the West Bank, which Israel has illegally occupied since conquering it during the Six-Day War in 1967. Since then, Israel has built illegal settlements on confiscated Palestinian land for hundreds of thousands of Jewish settlers.

Members of Netanyahu's cabinet have threatened to move ahead with formally making the West Bank part of Israel in response to plans by several European countries, including the UK, Australia, France, Canada, and Portugal, to recognize a Palestinian State at the UN General Assembly this week.

https://thecradle.co/articles/psycholog ... -un-speech

How about that? Bibi had a captive audience after all...

Over 40 percent of US citizens believe backing Israel ‘not in national interest’: Poll
The poll shows that half of US voters have a negative view of Netanyahu, while a majority believe Trump has ‘mishandled’ the situation in Gaza

News Desk

SEP 26, 2025


(Photo credit: Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters)

A new poll released by Quinnipiac University on 24 September has revealed that support for Israel continues to drop significantly across the US.

Only 47 percent of US citizens believe that backing Israel is in Washington’s interest, the poll shows. Forty-one percent believe it is not, and 12 percent did not respond. This marks a drop from December 2023, when Quinnipiac polling showed that respondents supported Israel by a 69–23 margin.

The poll also found that 49 percent of US voters have a negative view of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Only 21 percent hold positive views on the premier.

It also found that 56 percent of US voters disapprove of US President Donald Trump’s handling of the Gaza war.

A majority of US citizens also believe their country is in a “political crisis,” the poll showed.

The results come in the wake of the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk earlier this month.

Several other recent polls have included similar results regarding support for Israel in the US.

A poll released by Gallup in late July said support for Israel in the US reached a “new low,” revealing that only 32 percent of the US population said they support the war on Gaza.

“Disapproval of the military action has now reached 60 percent … 52 percent … now view Benjamin Netanyahu unfavorably, his highest unfavorable rating since 1997. His favorable rating stands at 29 percent, while 19 percent of US adults have no opinion of him,” Gallup said.

It adds that Netanyahu has never been viewed in such a negative light, noting a “continued deterioration in his image.”

As Israel presses on with its brutal war in Gaza, this kind of sentiment is becoming more prominent not only in the US but in other western countries.

A new YouGov poll showed 62 percent of Germans believed Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

In the UK, a recent poll by Ipsos showed that 53 percent of Britons believe Israel’s military action in Gaza has “gone too far.”

https://thecradle.co/articles/over-40-p ... erest-poll

40% is disgraceful, anyone not in that group is a deficient human.

[blindpig]

Israel’s Ethnic Cleansing Tactics in Gaza City
September 26, 2025


Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have fled Gaza City since late August. Photo: Eyad Baba/AFP.

By Youssef Fares – Sep 24, 2025

Gaza | The Israeli incursion into Gaza City’s central neighbourhoods has advanced in just three days at a pace that would normally take months. Netanyahu appears intent to announce full control over the City on the upcoming October 7 anniversary, and the tanks are moving on his timetable. This offensive is accompanied by the fiercest bombardment the city has seen since the start of the war.

The Israeli army is mounting its ground offensive along three axes. The first advances from the northeast through Abu Iskandar, Al-Nafaq, and Jabalia al-Balad neighbourhoods toward Salah al-Din Street. The second comes from the northwest, where tanks have moved in from the Zikim outpost into Karamah and al-Nasr neighborhoods and up to the edges of Al-Shatii Camp and the northern beach. The third opened recently from the south, cuts through Street 8 into Tel al-Hawa. Over the last three days, Israeli armour has reached the area near the universities’ square in central Gaza.

In its campaign to drive people out, the Israeli army is employing a repertoire of criminal tactics, including:

• Use of vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices to blow up residential neighbourhoods without warning.

• Concentrated fire on densely populated districts by threatening multiple residential blocks simultaneously, without identifying specific targets, forcing hundreds of thousands to leave their homes and sleep in the streets for days, stripping them of any sense of security.

• Deliberate destruction of residential towers and multi-storey buildings. Each strike instantly deprives hundreds of families of homes and repeated strikes erode civilians’ incentive to remain by removing the very basis of life in the city.

• Imposing strict control through “quadcopter” drones and snipers have turned whole neighbourhoods into ghost towns, where residents even fear leaving their houses to fetch water.

• Deliberate strikes on tent camps packed with thousands of displaced people in north-west Gaza and at Gaza Port (attacks that have recurred in recent days).

• Targeting the arteries of life and the essentials of survival, most notably water and health services. Israel struck central water wells and pipelines that supply densely inhabited neighbourhoods, particularly al-Nasr, al-Shifa and Al-Shatii Camp, forcing residents to search for those resources elsewhere. It also evacuated the Jordanian field hospital in Tel al-Hawa and the facilities of the Medical Relief NGO.

• Spreading terror by committing large-scale massacres against families who choose to stay. Israel struck the Daghmash family in Tel al-Hawa- one of the families that had remained since the start of the war- and the Zaqqout family in Karamah, killing about 80 members in a single strike. The occupier presents such massacres as a warning to terrify those still in the city.

• Sending texts and voice messages to residents, dropping evacuation leaflets, and mobilizing dozens of Israeli media outlets in the intimidation campaign by broadcasting statements from military commanders boasting about the forced displacement and threatening to wipe out the city.

Gaza’s ‘Marathon of Terror’: A City Forced Toward Erasure


Israeli estimates say roughly 500,000 people have fled Gaza City since the start of the ground operation, while a similar number refuse to leave. Yet the pace of bombardment and ongoing destruction is steadily driving more displacement. Targeting health institutions, particularly al-Shifa Hospital, which is less than a kilometer from Israeli tanks, will deprive those who remain of any means of endurance and survival.

So far, the resistance has not launched full-scale operations. Past experience suggests these begin after the preparatory bombardment and the use of explosives subside—that is, when Israeli soldiers relax and security protocols loose. At the same time, diplomatic mediation efforts to revive negotiations are colliding with an intransigent Israeli side who appears determined to kill off any chance of a prisoner exchange deal.

(al-akhbar)

https://orinocotribune.com/israels-ethn ... gaza-city/

*****

‘Work with us or die’: Israel killing prominent Gaza families for refusing collaboration

At least thirty members of the Dughmush family were killed after rejecting orders from Israel’s Shin Bet security service

News Desk

SEP 28, 2025


(Photo credit: Reuters)

Israel has targeted and killed members of prominent families in the Gaza Strip for refusing to cooperate with Tel Aviv’s plan to create clan-based governing bodies aimed at replacing Hamas, according to a report by Asharq al-Awsat.

REPORT | Saudi outlet Asharq Al-Awsat reports that Israel has launched airstrikes against prominent families in Gaza City after their elders refused to collaborate with Shin Bet’s plan to establish clan-based governing bodies in place of Hamas.

The Israeli intelligence agency…

— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) September 28, 2025

According to sources, Israel's internal security agency, the Shin Bet, contacted the representatives of the Bakr and Dughmush families, who remain inside their homes in Gaza City. The Shin Bet plan includes dividing Gaza into different regions controlled by clans and local armed groups.

They would be tasked with confronting Hamas and providing intelligence to the Israeli army, the report says.

“After these families refused to cooperate with Shin Bet officers, Israeli forces launched a series of raids on inhabited and vacant homes belonging to members of these families and clans,” the sources told Asharq al-Awsat.

Over the weekend, Israel struck the Bakr family home south of the Shati refugee camp west of Gaza City. Six family members were killed and 11 were wounded.

A multistory building owned by the family was also bombed, resulting in the injury of several children.

In Gaza City’s Sabra neighborhood, Israel bombed a home and killed at least 30 members of the Dughmush family.

“Israeli intelligence contacted the family's mukhtar and elders and asked them to form an armed group to govern the Shati refugee camp area after it purges it of Hamas members. The family categorically refused to be part of this option,” a source in the Bakr family said.

The Bakr family is one of the largest and most prominent families in the Gaza Strip. It plays a major role in the strip’s fishing industry.

“The family's decision stemmed from a national stance rejecting any form of cooperation with the occupation, and is not intended to support Hamas or any other organizational group,” the family member added.

The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor also confirmed that Israel is trying to coerce families to cooperate with them under the risk of starvation, forced displacement, or bombardment.

“What began as individual extortion has escalated into a systematic, collective practice aimed at dismantling Palestinian social fabric by forcing people to betray their communities and subordinating survivors to survival conditions that destroy communal identity and resilience,” it said.

Several Israeli-backed armed groups are operating in the Gaza Strip under Tel Aviv’s protection. These groups, which are tasked with confronting Hamas, are responsible for much of the aid looting that goes on in Gaza.

One of these groups is the Rafah-based gang headed by Yasser Abu Shabab – a Fatah-linked militia leader with alleged ties to ISIS.

The gang is responsible for scouting and securing territory ahead of Israeli military operations. Additionally, Abu Shabab has been accused of drug trafficking.

In recent months, more of these militias have popped up.

According to Hebrew media reports, an ex-Palestinian Authority (PA) officer named Hossam al-Astal is now leading an armed group in Khan Yunis and coordinating with Israeli occupation forces. The group is reportedly actively recruiting members and advocating for peace with Israel.

Israel's Channel 12:

A new militia has emerged in Khan Yunis, south Gaza, founded by 50-year-old Hossam al-Astal, a former member of the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) security services.

The armed group operates east of Khan Yunis against Hamas and cooperates with Israel.

In… pic.twitter.com/14KtLCN5bL

— The Cradle (@TheCradleMedia) September 21, 2025

In late 2024, the Hamas-run Interior Ministry in Gaza established a police force in the strip called the Arrow (‘Sahem’) Unit, aimed at combating aid looters and militias linked to Israel.

https://thecradle.co/articles/work-with ... laboration

US presents 21-point plan for Gaza takeover after genocide ends

The plan would allegedly 'allow' Palestinians to remain in Gaza rather than 'voluntarily migrate' as Israeli leaders demand

News Desk

SEP 27, 2025


(Photo credit: Abed Hajjar/Associated Press)

The US has presented a 21-point proposal for ending Israel's genocide in Gaza, which encourages Palestinians to remain in the strip and claims to provide for the creation of a pathway to a future Palestinian state, the Times of Israel reported on 27 September.

A document outlining the proposal was shared by the US with Arab and Muslim countries earlier this week on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

Consistent with previous US plans concerning Gaza, the proposal calls for the release of all 48 Israeli captives held by Hamas as well as the resistance movement's ouster from power.

In exchange, several hundred Palestinian security prisoners serving life sentences, over 1,000 Palestinians detained in Gaza since the start of the war, and the bodies of several hundred Palestinians would be released.

The new proposal explicitly encourages Palestinians to remain in Gaza, in a stark departure from President Donald Trump's previous comments on the matter and in opposition to explicit efforts by Israeli leaders to ethnically cleanse the strip.

Trump had previously called for Gaza to be emptied of its roughly 2 million Palestinians and rebuilt as the "Riviera of the Middle East," while the president's allies in Tel Aviv regularly call for the destruction of Gaza to make life unbearable and ensure that Palestinians would have no choice but to "voluntarily migrate."

The proposal also includes a clause calling for a potential pathway to a future Palestinian state led by a "reformed" Palestinian Authority (PA). This contradicts Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's insistence that he will never allow the establishment of a Palestinian State.

However, the “clause doesn't provide details regarding the Palestinian reform program and is not definitive regarding when the pathway to statehood can be established,” the Times of Israel wrote.

One clause stipulates that Israel will not occupy or annex Gaza, and the Israeli army will gradually withdraw from the strip, handing power to a newly established international stabilization force.

Powerful ministers in Netanyahu's cabinet, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, have called for annexing both the West Bank and Gaza to block the establishment of a Palestinian state and to continue expanding Jewish settlements.

The Israeli outlet said the proposal was mainly crafted by US special envoy Steve Witkoff, with input from Trump's son-in-law, New York real estate developer Jared Kushner, and former British prime minister Tony Blair, who partnered with the US and Israeli leaders to orchestrate the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Though the proposal includes clauses that appear to be concessions to Palestinians, it also includes clauses that Israel has long demanded and Hamas has opposed.

“Those include a commitment for Hamas to disarm, the demilitarization of Gaza and the establishment of a process to de-radicalize the population,” the Times of Israel wrote.

Hamas members who "commit to peaceful coexistence" will be allowed to stay in Gaza, while others will be deported to foreign countries willing to receive them.

Aid will be allowed to flow into the strip at a rate of 600 trucks per day, to be distributed by the UN, the Red Crescent, and international aid groups (potentially including the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which Israel established with US assistance).

Machinery to remove rubble would also be allowed to enter the enclave.

Gaza will be governed by a temporary, transitional government of Palestinian technocrats supervised by a new international body.

The Financial Times (FT) reported on Friday that Tony Blair is seeking a "senior role" in the transitional government. The PA would play no initial role, but may be involved in governing Gaza later, following the above-stated "reform process."

US President Donald Trump promoted the plan on Friday on his social media outlet, Truth Social. He stated that "intense negotiations have been going on for four days and will continue for as long as necessary to get a successfully completed agreement."

"All of the countries within the region are involved, Hamas is very much aware of these discussions, and Israel has been informed at all levels, including Prime Minister [Benjamin] Bibi Netanyahu," he added.

https://thecradle.co/articles/us-presen ... ocide-ends

[blindpig]

Israeli Knesset advances bill to execute Palestinian prisoners

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said the law is necessary to remind Palestinians of the ‘price tag’ for 7 October

News Desk

SEP 29, 2025


(Photo credit: Flash90)

The National Security Committee in the Israeli Knesset has advanced a bill to impose the death penalty on Palestinian prisoners detained for killing Israelis.

Lawmakers in the committee voted 4-1 for the bill on 28 September, during a recent Knesset session. Three other votes are needed for the bill to become law.

The draft specifies executions for those convicted of killings motivated by “racism or hostility to the public” or aimed at harming the “State of Israel” and the “revival of the Jewish people” – in other words, those resisting Israeli occupation by carrying out armed operations.

The bill would not apply to Israelis who kill Palestinians.

The committee’s legal advisor, Iddo Ben Yitzhak, warned that voting during the Knesset recess is not valid because the discussion preceding the vote did not include input from the security establishment.

The only MK who voted against the bill was Gilad Kariv of the Democrats party. “Shame on you, there are hostages,” he said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu‘s coordinator for negotiations on the captives, Gal Hirsch, also opposed the bill.

Hirsch warned that advancing the bill could put captives held in Gaza at risk.

“It’s not for nothing that we are asking not to hold this discussion. I completely disagree with your assessment of the situation, Minister [Itamar] Ben Gvir. Especially when we are engaged in a combined military and diplomatic effort to bring back the hostages, this discussion does not help us,” Hirsch told Otzma Yehudit chairman and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.

Hirsch went on to say on X that he urged Netanyahu “that the issue being discussed today in the committee not be brought to the plenum before a thorough discussion is held in the Cabinet, where I will be able to present the full picture and my own assessment.”

Ben Gvir said people in Netanyahu’s office asked him to postpone the death penalty discussions, but that he refused.

The security minister said the bill would “bring deterrence” and “advance the return of the hostages” while showing Hamas that “there is a price tag for what they did” on 7 October.

The Palestinian Prisoners Society (PPS) referred to the bill as “unprecedented savagery.”

Prior to the formation of Netanyahu’s ruling coalition, Ben Gvir had been demanding the death penalty for Palestinians and, at one point, even made the demand as a condition for his joining the government.

Since assuming the role of national security minister, Ben Gvir has tightened the already repressive measures against Palestinians in the Israeli prison system.

Earlier this month, Israel’s High Court ruled that Palestinian prisoners were not being properly fed.

Last month, PPS reported that Israeli forces used police dogs and tear gas during a series of repressive raids against women held in Damon Prison.

The assaults took place on 4, 8, 10, and 14 August, when detainees were handcuffed, forced from their cells in a manner described as humiliating, and then led to the prison yard with their heads pushed down.

PPS said these attacks are not new, but a form part of a systematic policy against Palestinian men and women in detention, which has escalated to unprecedented levels since the start of the genocidal war against Gaza.

https://thecradle.co/articles/israeli-k ... -prisoners

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UN Declares Genocide in Gaza While 250 US Lawmakers Are in Israel
Tyler Poisson

Israel “shot at and killed civilians, some of whom (including children) were holding makeshift white flags,” according to the UN report (CNN, 9/17/25). “Some children, including toddlers, were shot in the head by snipers.”

The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory published a report on September 16 that charged Israeli authorities and security forces with having committed, and continuing to commit, acts of genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

The 72-page report, replete with 495 footnotes, was compiled by senior independent rights investigators appointed by the UN Human Rights Council. Specifically, the report concludes that Israel is responsible for committing four of the five genocidal acts defined by the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, namely:

(i) killing members of the group;
(ii) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(iii) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; and
(iv) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.

This report brings the UN into line with leading human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch, Genocide Watch, Amnesty International, B’Tselem and Oxfam, all of whom have explicitly labeled Israel’s crimes in Gaza genocidal. The International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) also recently passed a resolution stating that Israel’s policies and actions in Gaza meet the legal definition of genocide.

The corporate press relayed the IAGS resolution to its readers and viewers with varying degrees of emphasis and efficacy. Writing for FAIR (9/4/25), Saurav Sarkar highlighted the fact that the New York Times (9/1/25) “buried the news in the 31st paragraph of a story headlined ‘Israel’s Push for a Permanent Gaza Deal May Mean a Longer War, Experts Say.’”

Fox News (9/17/25) spun the UN report on Israeli genocide as an anti-UN story.

Corporate coverage of the United Nation’s latest report was also of varying seriousness. The New York Times (9/17/25) decided that it was appropriate to relegate the headline that “Israel Is Committing Genocide in Gaza, UN Inquiry Says” to page A8 of its print edition. Granted, the UN finding that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza was mentioned on the front page, only under the heading “Israeli Ground Forces Push Into Gaza City, Forcing Many to Flee: Assault Deepens a Humanitarian Crisis.”

ABC (9/16/25) similarly treated the UN report as a footnote, referring to it in the final moments of a minute-and-15-second report on the assault on Gaza. Fox News (9/17/25) covered the news in the course of rebuking the UN, going so far as to put the label of “genocide” in quotes. While the Wall Street Journal (9/16/25) included the most recent genocide allegations as a subhead, the only mention we could find on MSNBC‘s website (9/18/25) came in an opinion piece headlined “The New Gaza City Offensive Is a Disaster. Trump Is Shrugging.”

The Washington Post (9/16/25) ran a piece on its website about the UN declaration, but did not find it worth a spot in its print edition.

Some corporate outlets, such as CNN (9/17/25) and Time (9/16/25), have given more appropriate emphasis to the news that the world’s preeminent governing body has officially labeled what is happening in Gaza genocide, offering dedicated articles.

‘Help spread the Israeli narrative’

Jerusalem Post (9/15/25): “At a time when Israel faces growing isolation around the world, the largest-ever delegation of US lawmakers, representing all 50 states, arrived in Israel.”

On the same day the UN released its report, approximately 250 US state legislators, representing all 50 states and both parties, were in Israel for a “50 States, One Israel” conference sponsored by the Israeli government. The Jerusalem Post (9/15/25) characterized it as “the largest-ever delegation of US lawmakers” to Israel.

According to ethics disclosures reported in the Boston Herald (9/14/25), Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Alan Silvia’s trip to Israel for the conference cost $6,500. The Herald said Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs would “reimburse, waive or pay for travel expenses, though it was unclear what portion of the costs the government planned to cover.”

Quoting Rep. Ilana Rubel (D-Idaho), Boise State Public Radio (9/17/25) reported that no Idaho taxpayer funds were used to send any of five Idaho state legislatures to the conference.

The Oregon Capital Insider (9/18/25) reported that Rep. Emily McIntire (R-Ore.) “said in an email from Israel that traveling to the country has always been a dream for her, and the trip has only solidified her support for Israel.”

In this connection, the Times of Israel (9/7/25) was open about the purposes of the conference:

The ministry stresses the [“50 States, One Israel”] delegation’s strategic importance, noting that state legislators often influence anti-Israel bills, such as those supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. Israel hopes the visitors will help block hostile legislation at the state level and promote initiatives combating antisemitism and strengthening US/Israel ties.

The visit was previously announced as part of a broader campaign launched last month to host some 400 delegations involving over 5,000 participants by year’s end, “to help spread the Israeli narrative in international media,” according to the ministry.

Mondoweiss (9/25/25): “’50 States, One Israel’ occurred amid growing international solidarity against the ongoing genocide in Gaza and Israel’s further isolation on the world stage.”

Alert readers may have noticed that this article has only cited local, independent and Israeli sources about the “50 States, One Israel” conference. (See also Columbus Dispatch, 9/17/25; Georgia Public Broadcasting, 9/15/25; Mondoweiss, 9/25/25.)

At the time of this writing, the “50 States, One Israel” conference is conspicuously absent from all existing reporting on Israel in the national US corporate media. Not one major US outlet has covered the largest delegation of US state legislators to Israel. This is a startling act of omission on the part of the corporate media in the United States, and it speaks to the indispensability of local, not-for-profit, independent news.

Given that half of US voters believe that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza (Al Jazeera, 8/25/25), it is surely in the interest of the public to know if, when, why and that their local representatives were in Israel networking with parties to what the UN has labeled a genocide.

https://fair.org/home/un-declares-genoc ... in-israel/

[blindpig]

Donald Trump’s Proposed Peace Plan for Gaza is DOA
29 September 2025 by Larry C. Johnson



I will give you the bottom line up front: The Zionists, not just Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, totally reject a two-state solution. Accordingly, Donald Trump’s Gaza Peace Plan is kaput right out of the gate… Dead on arrival.

President Trump, during a White House press conference with Benjamin Netanyahu, unveiled a detailed proposal to end the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, which has raged since October 2023, and resulted in over 66,000 Palestinian deaths and widespread destruction. The plan, officially titled President Donald J. Trump’s Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict, is structured as a 20-point framework (though some reports refer to it as 21-points, possibly including an introductory preamble). It emphasizes an immediate ceasefire, hostage release, Hamas disarmament and exclusion from governance, international oversight, massive reconstruction, and a vague pathway to Palestinian self-determination. Netanyahu endorsed the plan, stating it achieves Israel’s war aims, while Trump warned that Hamas must accept it or face destruction with full US backing for Israel. Hamas stated it had not received the written proposal, but would study it in good faith.

The plan builds on elements from earlier US ideas (e.g., Trump’s 2020 Abraham Accords framework and a Saudi-French proposal) and input from figures like former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, who contributed to postwar governance concepts. It was first presented in a 21-point draft to Arab and Muslim leaders at the UN General Assembly on September 24, 2025, receiving conditional support from countries like Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, who welcomed efforts to end the war, but stressed no displacement, full Israeli withdrawal, and a two-state solution. Turkey’s President Erdogan commended Trump’s “efforts and leadership” for a ceasefire, while the Palestinian Authority expressed confidence in his ability to find a peace path.

Critics, including Palestinian Islamic Jihad, called it a “recipe to blow up the region,” arguing it sidelines Palestinians and allows indefinite Israeli security control. The plan avoids forced displacement, but permits voluntary departures, contrasting with Trump’s controversial February 2025 idea of US-led redevelopment into a “Riviera of the Middle East” with mass resettlement (which faced backlash and was later softened). The biggest tell that this plan is nothing more than a deception was the presence of Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, at the announcement. Jared’s dream of building resort condos on the Gaza beaches remains intact.

Here are the so-called highlights of Trumps proposal:

Point Category Details

*Immediate Ceasefire and Hostage Release – War ends immediately upon mutual acceptance. – All military operations cease; battle lines freeze. – Release of all ~20 living hostages and remains of 25+ deceased within 48–72 hours. – Israel releases thousands of Palestinian prisoners in exchange. – Hostilities paused during negotiations.

*Hamas Disarmament and Amnesty – Hamas must fully disarm, renounce governance, and dissolve as a military entity. – Amnesty for members committing to “peaceful coexistence” and decommissioning weapons; they can remain in Gaza. – Safe passage for those wishing to leave to receiving countries (no forced expulsion). – Gaza becomes a “deradicalized, terror-free zone” posing no threat to neighbors.

*Israeli Withdrawal and Security – Gradual Israeli withdrawal from all of Gaza. – Israel retains a “security perimeter/buffer area” until Gaza is deemed secure from terror threats (criteria undefined, potentially indefinite). – Deployment of an international stabilization force (ISF), likely from Arab/Muslim states (e.g., Egypt, UAE), under UN supervision for security handover.

*Governance and Oversight – Temporary technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee (qualified Palestinians + international experts) handles day-to-day services (e.g., municipalities, public services). – Supervised by a new “Board of Peace,” chaired by Trump, with members including Tony Blair and other heads of state. – Board oversees framework and funding until Palestinian Authority (PA) completes reforms (per 2020 Trump plan and Saudi-French proposal) and resumes control. – No Israeli occupation or annexation of Gaza or West Bank.

*Humanitarian Aid and Reconstruction – Immediate, unrestricted aid influx consistent with January 19, 2025, agreement: food, water, medical supplies, infrastructure rehab (water, electricity, sewage), hospitals, bakeries, rubble removal. – Rafah crossing opens bidirectionally under prior mechanisms. – “Trump Development Plan”: Redevelop Gaza for residents’ benefit into a prosperous zone (e.g., economic hubs, no specifics on “Riviera” vision). – Funding via international partners; focus on deradicalization and mindset change through interfaith dialogue.

*Long-Term Political Horizon – U.S.-led dialogue between Israel and Palestinians for “peaceful coexistence.” – Pathway to Palestinian self-determination/statehood as an “aspiration,” contingent on PA reforms, Gaza redevelopment, and security. – Promotes “tolerance” via narrative shifts; Gaza integrated with West Bank in potential state per international law.

Trump apparently ignored Netanyahu’s address to the 80th United Nations General Assembly on September 26, 2025… The speech was defiant, focusing on Israel’s military actions in Gaza, accusations of genocide against Israel, and regional threats from Iran and Hezbollah.

Regarding the two-state solution—specifically, the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state—Netanyahu explicitly rejected it as a viable or imminent path, portraying it as a dangerous concession that would enable further attacks against Israel. He argued that such a state would inevitably become a “terror state” controlled by groups like Hamas, citing the October 7, 2023 attack as evidence that Palestinian statehood under current conditions poses an existential threat. His rhetoric emphasized that Israel would not accept imposed solutions from the international community, prioritizing security control over the West Bank (referred to as Judea and Samaria) and Gaza.

During today’s unveiling of the plan at a joint-press conference, Netanyahu endorsed the proposal, but avoided committing to a two-state outcome. He stated, “This plan achieves Israel’s war aims—destroying Hamas military capability, securing our borders, and ensuring Gaza poses no threat.” When pressed on Palestinian statehood, he deflected, saying, “Peace requires security first, not abstract notions of sovereignty that ignore reality.” The Trump plan’s vague “pathway to self-determination” allowed him to sidestep explicit rejection while maintaining Israel’s security control over Gaza and the West Bank.

But this was nothing more than political theater targeted at the US public. Netanyahu’s position on the two-state solution has been consistent since October 2023:

*January 18, 2024 (Press Conference): Netanyahu rejected US calls for a Palestinian state, stating, “In any future arrangement… Israel must have security control over all territory west of the Jordan River. This collides with the idea of sovereignty [for Palestinians].” He argued that a Palestinian state would become a “terror base” like Gaza post-2005 disengagement.
*February 2024 (Cabinet Statement): Amid US and Arab proposals for a Gaza postwar plan with a two-state horizon, Netanyahu’s government passed a resolution rejecting “international diktats” for Palestinian statehood, declaring it would “cause unprecedented harm to Israel” and reward terrorism post-October 7. He emphasized, “Israel will continue to oppose unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state.”
*July 17, 2024 (Knesset Speech): Addressing renewed international pressure, Netanyahu reiterated, “We will not allow the establishment of a terrorist state in Judea and Samaria [West Bank] that would endanger our existence… The answer is no.” He cited Hamas control of Gaza as proof that Palestinian statehood would lead to Iran-backed militancy.

I do not believe that Netanyahu will change his tune. I also believe that most of his private meeting with Trump was spent discussing the next round of attacks on Iran… So much for Trump snagging a Nobel Peace Prize. Neither Trump nor Netanyahu are serious about a peaceful conclusion to Israel’s genocidal war… The killing will continue.

https://sonar21.com/donald-trumps-propo ... -is-d-o-a/

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Trump looks to ‘squeeze’ Netanyahu on new 21-point Gaza plan: Report

Arab states are said to be on board with the new plan, which includes the destruction of Hamas’s weapons

News Desk

SEP 29, 2025


(Photo credit: Haiyun Jiang/NYT)

US President Donald Trump is looking to “squeeze” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into accepting Washington’s 21-point plan for the Gaza Strip, Axios reported on 29 September.

The report coincided with Netanyahu’s fourth visit to the US since January, and came ahead of talks between Trump and the Israeli premier – which are expected to focus on Gaza.

“The Arabs have agreed to it like 100 percent. Now we're waiting for the president to work his magic on Netanyahu,” one of the president’s advisors told Axios. “If Netanyahu doesn't take the deal, he'll be to blame for continuing the war, enabling Hamas, and doing nothing for the Palestinians who have so many humanitarian needs. People will continue to starve. Let's hope we get there.”

The report cites an official as claiming that Trump will “turn on” Netanyahu if the prime minister “says no this time.”

“Everyone – and I mean everyone – is exasperated with Bibi,” another source said.

US envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner met with Netanyahu on Sunday in a bid to bridge gaps on the 21-point plan. Both Witkoff and Kushner have “just about had it” with Netanyahu. “Steve was handling Israel more and Jared was with the Arab states. But both are at their wits' end with Israel.”

The report also says the new ‘peace plan’ was born out of the recent Israeli strike on Qatar.

"When Bibi sent those missiles into Qatar, he united the Gulf state Arabs. They are all one. They speak with one voice. ... It was a rallying effect. And on this, for the first time, you really had a monolithic Arab world. And Witkoff and [Secretary of State Marco] Rubio said: ‘Aha, this is the time.’ And that's what's happening,” a Trump advisor told Axios.

He added that the premier was worried about his trial, prompting him to “bomb every country on the map.”

Some Hebrew media outlets claimed Netanyahu’s meeting with Witkoff and Kushner went well, and that the prime minister is likely to express support for the plan.

However, other reports said there are still differences between Tel Aviv and Washington. Hamas said it had not even been briefed on the proposal yet.

Meanwhile, far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said he has set out his “red lines” to Netanyahu.

These red lines include “ending the war only with the full and genuine dismantling and demilitarization of Hamas and the Gaza Strip.”

He added that the Israeli army must remain on the perimeters of Gaza, including the Philadelphi Corridor on the Gaza-Egypt border. He also demanded Israeli military freedom of action.

He rejected any role for the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the future of Gaza, and said the idea of Palestinian statehood “needs to be completely removed from the table.” He also slammed Qatar and its role in post-war efforts.

The Washington Post revealed details over the weekend regarding Trump’s 21-point plan.

According to the report, all Israeli military operations in Gaza will cease immediately, and “battle lines” will be frozen under the plan. Within 48 hours of Israel’s acceptance, all living prisoners will be released and the remains of captives returned.

Israel will free 250 prisoners serving life sentences and 1,700 Palestinians detained from Gaza since 7 October 2023, and for every Israeli captive whose remains are released, Israel will release the remains of 15 deceased Palestinians from Gaza.

Immediately upon agreement, full humanitarian aid flows into Gaza will resume. Infrastructure (water, electricity, sewage), hospitals, bakeries, and rubble removal will be rehabilitated.

Aid distribution will be handled by the UN and other neutral international bodies, without interference by Israel or Hamas. A transitional governance structure of qualified Palestinians and international experts will manage day-to-day public services in Gaza. That governance will be supervised by a new international body established by the US with regional partners.

The PA will assume control only after completing internal reforms, according to the plan. Hamas’s offensive weaponry will be destroyed, while militants who commit to peaceful coexistence will be offered amnesty.

Safe passage will be provided for Hamas members who choose to exit Gaza. The strip will be redeveloped economically, with special zones and reduced tariffs. No one will be forced to leave the enclave, and those who leave may return.

Hamas will have no role in Gaza governance, and all tunnels and offensive infrastructure will be destroyed as part of the new plan. Regional partners will provide security guarantees and cooperate in enforcing the plan.

A temporary international stabilization force will be deployed in Gaza, with the training of a Palestinian security force. Israel will progressively hand over territory to the stabilization force and withdraw, maintaining only a “perimeter presence.”

Additionally, Israel will have to agree to refrain from future strikes on Qatar and acknowledge its mediating role in talks.

A program of “de-radicalization” will be initiated, including interfaith dialogue and narrative change. After redevelopment and PA reforms, conditions may permit a credible pathway to Palestinian ‘statehood,’ the plan states. The US will open a dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians to define a “political horizon” for peaceful coexistence, it adds.

According to the Washington Post, many of the 21 points, which have yet to be presented to Hamas, are “broad strokes” with key details left unresolved. How governance, security, reconstruction, and rehabilitation efforts would actually be implemented is not defined.

The plan does not clarify the sequencing of steps beyond the initial ceasefire and prisoner release, and crucial questions, such as who funds the rebuilding, who enforces disarmament, how aid will be distributed in practice, and where displaced Palestinians live during reconstruction, all remain unanswered.

The plan comes as Israel has rejected all prospects of Palestinian statehood and has vowed to annex the occupied West Bank in response to European recognition of Palestine.

https://thecradle.co/articles/trump-loo ... lan-report

'A recipe for igniting West Asia': Palestinians react to Trump’s Gaza plan

Arab and Islamic nations praised the proposal, but Gaza officials say Washington seeks to impose a trusteeship that would legitimize Israeli occupation and deny Palestinian's basic rights

News Desk

SEP 30, 2025


(Photo Credit: ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP)

Palestinian resistance factions in Gaza have condemned the “peace plan” introduced by US President Donald Trump on 29 September, calling it “vague” and accusing it of supporting Israeli aims to prolong the genocide in Gaza.

“We will not accept any proposal that does not include the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and protection from massacres,” Hamas leader Mahmoud Mardawi declared, adding that Trump's announcement “is an attempt to stifle international momentum and recognition of the Palestinian state.”

Qatari and Egyptian officials delivered the US-Israeli plan to Hamas’s negotiating team overnight, according to Al-Jazeera.

President Trump announced the “Board of Peace” to govern Gaza, led by himself and joined by former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and others.

Follow: @AFpost pic.twitter.com/i1z0nLWKMN

— AF Post (@AFpost) September 29, 2025

The Secretary-General of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), Ziad al-Nakhala, blasted the proposal, calling it "a US-Israeli agreement, reflecting Israel’s full stance.”

"It is a formula to continue the aggression against the Palestinian people. Through this, Israel seeks to impose via the US what it could not achieve through war. Therefore, we consider the US-Israeli announcement a recipe for igniting the region,” Nakhala said.

Ismail al-Thawabta, Gaza’s Government Media Office director, rejected Trump's 20-point plan, claiming it offers no lasting solution and seeks to impose a trusteeship that would legitimize Israeli occupation and deny Palestinians their rights.

“The only way to end the genocide is to stop Israel’s attacks, lift the blockade, end the systematic extermination, and guarantee Palestinians’ right to live in freedom and establish an independent state. Any proposal that treats Gaza as a disarmed, non‑sovereign security zone under international administration is categorically unacceptable to the Palestinian national conscience,” he noted.

Earlier in the day, Trump and Netanyahu jointly announced the 20-point proposal, which calls for an immediate halt to the fighting in Gaza and the release of all Israeli captives, dead and alive, within 72 hours.

In response, Israel will free 250 prisoners serving life sentences, along with 1,700 Palestinians from Gaza detained after 7 October.

The plan also calls for Gaza to be administered by a “temporary technocratic government” led by Iraq-war architect Tony Blair, with Israel refraining from annexing the strip or forcibly displacing its population.

White House releases Gaza '20-point-plan,' Netanyahu says he agrees with it
——
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today accepted a proposal by President Donald Trump, referred to as the '20-point-plan.'

Key takeaways from the plan:

– Fighting would stop immediately and…


— The Cradle (@TheCradleMedia) September 29, 2025

“It’s clear that this plan is unrealistic”, Ibrahim Joudeh told AFP from the so-called humanitarian zone of Al-Mawasi in south Gaza. “It’s drafted with conditions that the US and Israel know Hamas will never accept. For us, that means the war and the suffering will continue.

Abu Mazen Nassar echoed this sentiment, fearing the US-Israeli plan is a “trick” to force Palestinian resistance factions to release the captives and no peace in return.

“This is all manipulation. What does it mean to hand over all the prisoners without official guarantees to end the war?” Nassar said.

“We as a people will not accept this farce. Whatever Hamas decides now about the deal, it’s too late.”

Nevertheless, the foreign ministries of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the UAE, Indonesia, Pakistan, Turkiye, Qatar, and Egypt issued a joint statement praising Trump's “sincere efforts” to end the genocide in Gaza.

“The ministers affirm their readiness to engage positively and constructively with the United States and the parties toward finalizing the agreement and ensuring its implementation, in a manner that ensures peace, security, and stability for the peoples of the region,” the statement says.

Joint Statement by the Foreign Ministers of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, UAE, Indonesia, Pakistan, Türkiye, Qatar, and Egypt.


— Foreign Ministry (@KSAmofaEN) September 29, 2025

Italy and France also welcomed Trump's plan, saying it could mark a “turning point enabling a permanent cessation of hostilities" and stressing that "Hamas has no choice but to immediately release all hostages and follow this plan.”

The Palestinian Authority (PA) also offered praise for the plan. It reiterated its commitment to work with the US and partners to reach a comprehensive deal that includes “paving the way for just peace on the basis of a two-state solution."

https://thecradle.co/articles/a-recipe- ... -gaza-plan

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Half a Million Palestinians Confined to Less Than 8 km², UNRWA Warns


(FILE) Photo: EFE.

September 30, 2025 Hour: 2:59 am

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) has sounded the alarm over the catastrophic humanitarian emergency in Gaza City, where roughly half a million Palestinians remain trapped within just eight square kilometers.

“Around half a million Palestinians remain trapped in an area of less than eight square kilometers. Around 70,000 people will be crammed into each square kilometer. There’s no space for a single tent. Tens of thousands of families are left without shelter on the streets,” said UNRWA spokesperson Adnan Abu Hasna in a statement shared on X.

Gaza City, which spans more than 74 square kilometers, has become the epicenter of Israel’s latest military campaign. Since August, Zionist forces have advanced steadily under a declared plan to seize full control of the city, now holding most of its urban areas.


UNRWA warned that civilians in northern Gaza are cut off from safe zones, food, and shelter, with conditions worsening by the day. Tel Aviv’s regime complete closure of Gaza’s crossings since March 2 has blocked aid deliveries, fueling famine, mass displacement, the spread of disease, and severe malnutrition.

The ongoing genocidal campaign, which began in October 2023, has already killed more than 66,000 Palestinians—most of them women and children. Months of relentless bombardment have left the territory unlivable, pushing its population toward starvation and social collapse.



https://www.telesurenglish.net/half-a-m ... rwa-warns/

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Expect A Huge Fuss About The October 7 Anniversary As The World Turns Against Israel

It won’t work, though. We’ve seen too much. What has been seen cannot be unseen.

Caitlin Johnstone
September 30, 2025

Israel apologists are probably going to make a much, much bigger deal about the second October 7 anniversary than they did about the first anniversary, because they kind of have to. The world is turning against Israel in unprecedented ways in 2025, and yelling about October 7 is all they’ve got left.

They’ve already got a scripted October 7 series coming out on Paramount+, and another, separate scripted October 7 series coming out on HBO Max for the anniversary. There are probably numerous news media segments and articles scheduled. Maybe some new “revelations” about alleged October 7 atrocities which have been just waiting in the wings this whole time for some reason.

The hasbarists are going to be so obnoxious. They’ll be babbling about Hamas beheading babies and then cooking the beheaded babies in the oven and then having sex with the beheaded babies and then eating the beheaded babies and then playing soccer with the baby heads while singing about how much they love Adolf Hitler.


They’ll need to do this, because what else do they have? All the attention has long ago moved from October 7 to the genocide in Gaza, because Israel is the victimizer in literally every news story that’s come out about Palestine since that one day. Every relevant humanitarian institution on earth is saying that Israel is committing genocide and starving civilians, and we’ve been watching the evidence of this on our screens for two years.

In 2023 you had westerners saying “How could Hamas do such a thing??”, but in 2025 everyone’s looking back and going “Ehh, I kinda get it.” There are only so many horrific atrocities you can witness before you stop seeing Israel as the poor widdle Bambi-eyed victim. There are only so many times you can hear Israeli officials stating their plans to ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip of all Palestinians, only so many Israeli soldiers you can see mockingly dressed in the undergarments of the dead and displaced Palestinian women they’ve been genociding, only so many hospital bombings you can read about, only so many accounts of IDF troops massacring starving civilians at aid sites you can listen to, before you start thinking to yourself that Israel probably had it coming.

So they’ve got to try and reignite that initial shock and horror Israel’s western allies experienced on October 7, using whatever tools of emotional manipulation they can. Try to take us all by the hand and lead us back to that naive time when the mainstream narrative was that Israel had just been attacked by a bunch of hateful savages who wanted to murder Jews simply because they are Jewish.


It won’t work, though. We’ve seen too much. What has been seen cannot be unseen. No matter how much they moan about October 7, no matter how much control they shore up over TikTok and other social media platforms to silence criticism of Israel, no matter how loudly they concern troll about a pretend epidemic of antisemitism, what has been seen will never be unseen.

We see what Israel is. We see what Israel is doing. We see what the western governments who support Israel are. There is nothing anyone can say or do that will cause us to unsee what we have seen and un-know what we now know.

And we will never, ever forgive them.

https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2025/09 ... st-israel/