PRISONER MONITORS SAY THAT PALESTINIANS FROM GAZA ARE ‘ENDURING HELL’ IN ISRAELI CUSTODY

According To The Monitors, Several Detainees Showed Up To Lawyers’ Visits “Weeping And Terrorised”.

Palestinians seized from Gaza and placed in Israeli detention are enduring “the worst levels of torture and abuse” compared with other detainees, two prisoner rights monitors have said.

The Palestinian Prisoners’ Society (PPS) and the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees’ Affairs have published a report collecting testimonies of lawyers of prisoners that showcase ongoing “severe crimes”.

Titled “Enduring Hell: Gaza Detainees Face Severe Israeli Torture and Terror Behind Bars”, the report is based on accounts from Ramla prison and the Sde Teiman military camp. The testimonies from Ramla come specifically from the underground Rakevet section, where detainees are reportedly held in total isolation and subjected to psychological torture.

According to the monitors, several detainees appeared at meetings with their lawyers “weeping and terrorised”.

In one case, a prisoner appeared severely beaten and unable to express what happened to him, communicating only with his eyes.

“His case is not isolated; all detainees showed severe psychological distress, with fear dominating the entire lawyers’ visit,” the rights groups said. The Commission of Detainees and PPS note that all prisoners were subjected to beatings and threats before seeing their lawyers, with prison guards often forcing them to lie and say they were being kept in “excellent” conditions.

Meanwhile, lawyers are not allowed to share any information with the detainees regarding their relatives.

FINGER-BREAKING, ISOLATION AND STRESS POSITIONS

The latest testimonies reveal Palestinians from Gaza are enduring torture methods including finger-breaking, isolation, humiliation and being placed in stress positions for long periods.

“The interrogation period stands out as one of the clearest reflections of the level of torture and grave violations inflicted by interrogators against detainees abducted from occupied Gaza,” the report said.

‘I was beaten daily for 30 days straight. I currently suffer from torn chest muscles’

– Prisoner ‘AY’

According to the monitors, the detainees are only allowed in the yard for 20 minutes every other day, and denied sunlight for the rest of the time.

One prisoner, identified as AY, said he was held in a cell for a month “without knowing day from night”.

“They would strap me to a chair and then throw me to the ground while my hands and feet were bound. I was beaten daily for 30 days straight. I currently suffer from torn chest muscles and severe pain due to prolonged shackling of my arms behind my back,” he is quoted as saying.

Another detainee, identified as YD, described violent interrogation methods, where he was placed in a “disco” room – where detainees are psychologically abused through blaring music – and forced into stress positions.

“The beating was so violent that my handcuffs came off twice… Now I suffer from rib fractures and I can’t sleep. The torture also caused a tear in my left ear, vision impairment, and kidney pain,” he said.

Detainee AB recalled similar abuse, noting that during his interrogation he was placed in the “banana” stress position and beaten.

“The interrogators would grab my testicles and beat me on them, trying to pressure me into confessing,” AB added.

Several former detainees have told the United Nations and the media that they were routinely beaten on their genitals or other sensitive parts of their body.

After AB’s transfer to Ramla prison, guards broke his fingers.

“FAMINE” IN ISRAELI DETENTION

The monitors said all the testimonies confirmed that prisoners endured starvation, with one describing it as a “famine”.

Food portions are extremely small and often inedible, with the amount of food given to several prisoners sharing a cell less than a meal for one person.

“Most are experiencing severe weight loss, emaciation, and extreme exhaustion, along with worsening illnesses and health conditions,” the report said.

Additionally, diseases and infections continue to torment prisoners, with scabies becoming one of the most pressing health issues among detainees.

The two monitors stressed that the prison system’s deprivation of basic hygiene and medical care is exacerbating the spread of diseases.

ZIONISM IS EXACTLY WHAT IT DOES

Zionism Means Exactly What We See Before Us Today. Genocide. Ethnic Cleansing. Apartheid. Nonstop Violence And Abuse. That’s What Zionism Means. And Anti-Zionism Means Opposing These Things.

Israel apologists always attack anti-Zionists by saying “Zionism just means self-determination for Jews! If you hate Zionism then you hate Jews!”

No, that’s not what Zionism means. Zionism means exactly what we see before us today. Genocide. Ethnic cleansing. Apartheid. Nonstop violence and abuse. That’s what Zionism means. And anti-Zionism means opposing these things.

There is simply no argument to the contrary. This is indisputably what Zionism looks like. There is no other alternate reality iteration of Zionism you can point to where genocide, ethnic cleansing, apartheid and nonstop violence and abuse are not happening. This is the only way Zionism looks. The Zionist experiment has been run, and these are the results.

Trying to argue that Zionism doesn’t mean genocide, ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and nonstop violence and abuse is exactly the same as trying to argue that Nazism doesn’t mean all the things that happened when the Nazism experiment was run. Nazism means all the things that happened under Nazism. You can’t legitimately say “No, actually, Nazism just means a safe and prosperous homeland for the German people.” We’ve seen what Nazism looks like, and we’ve seen what Zionism looks like. To argue otherwise is to argue with reality.

It’s just so obnoxious how Israel supporters are like “Zionism means these nice things and nice words, so if you’re against Zionism you’re against the nice things and nice words!” No, that’s not how it works. You’re entitled to your own opinion, but not your own reality.

Israel is what it does. Zionism is what it does. You can’t separate them from their actions. The debate about the true nature of these things has been settled by the reality of what is happening.

It doesn’t matter if you believe Israel just wants to live in peace. It doesn’t matter if you believe Zionism is just the idea that Jews deserve self-determination. Reality says you’re wrong. Reality says Israel and Zionism mean nonstop violence and abuse. Reality says Israel and Zionism necessarily entail genocide, apartheid and ethnic cleansing. Because that’s the reality on the ground.

Them’s the facts. If you disagree with them, you are objectively wrong.

LEARN HOW PRO-PALESTINE YOUTH ARE RESPONDING TO ONLINE CENSORSHIP

Faced With Digital Fatigue And Heightened Surveillance, Gen Z And Millennial Organizers Are Turning To Zines, Posters, Stickers And Embroidery To Express Solidarity With Palestine.

When Israel initiated plans to evict Palestinians from their homes in occupied East Jerusalem to make way for illegal settlers, millions of young people around the world got involved in a high-profile social media campaign to raise awareness.

Using the hashtag #SaveSheikhJarrah, more than 40 million people joined in, forming part of a wave of online organizing that set the stage for a new era of pro-Palestine digital activism.

That trend continued as Israel launched its ongoing genocide in Gaza in October 2023 with activists dedicating their instagram feeds and TikTok reels to spreading awareness of Israeli atrocities.

But mounting censorship on social media, digital fatigue and a hunger for deeper forms of engagement, are forcing organizers to shift gears and adopt new modes of activism.

Many Gen Z and millennial activists are going analog, turning to tangible and material means of information sharing.

This buregoning shift allows them to overcome surveillance on social media platforms and lets them share their message directly with people in the “real world” in ways that feel more personal and engaging.

In south-east London, the Peckham Keffiyeh collective sells hand block–printed tote bags and scarves to raise funds for Gaza while spreading political messages.

Their latest design features the slogan “Make proscription unenforceable”, a reference to the UK’s crackdown on pro-Palestine direct action group Palestine Action.

The artwork includes drawings of police cars, a keffiyeh-print border, and images of balaclavas, a nod to Irish hip-hop group trio Kneecap, whose member Liam Og O hAnnaidh is facing terrorism charges in the UK after allegedly displaying a Hezbollah flag during a concert.

Elsewhere, Maqam Books, a nomadic community bookshop run by Mahmoud Masoud, brings rarely available Arabic and English titles on Palestine to pop-up art events and creative gatherings across the UK.

By curating literature often absent from mainstream bookstores, Masoud offers young audiences an entry point into Palestinian history, politics, and storytelling.

“SENSE OF PURPOSE”

“With social media, posting something will take you two seconds,” says Naiema, a student at University College London.

“But crafting something and putting in that extra effort makes you feel more connected to the cause. It gives me a sense of purpose, like I’m actually doing something rather than sitting around.”

Naiema incorporates analog forms of activism in several ways, from designing calligraphic posters and distributing leaflets to baking Palestine-themed cupcakes.

“Crafting something and putting in that extra effort makes you feel more connected to the cause. It gives me a sense of purpose”

– Naiema, student at UCL

In the second year of a degree in History and Politics, Naiema said social media often feels fleeting, with posts easily swiped past and forgotten.

In contrast, a leaflet or banner demands attention and engagement, confronting people in ways that are harder to ignore.

She cites the impact of stickers, which she frequently sees plastered across London’s public transport network and she displays on her own belongings.

“My laptop is completely covered in them,” she said. “I’ve had people approach me about my stickers, sometimes positive, sometimes negative. Regardless, it sparks a conversation.”

Naiema said she draws inspiration from her grandfather, who fought for Bangladesh’s liberation from Pakistan in 1971 and relied heavily on analog forms of resistance.

“It’s important not to stop using those older methods, because they were still very effective. Analog media is something that can’t be censored as easily as social media,” she said.

STIFLING ACTIVISM ONLINE

Through social media, Palestinians in Gaza, and their supporters across the globe, have challenged mainstream media narratives by documenting Israel’s brutality.

They have captured everything from Israel’s bombardment of designated safe zones to the kidnapping of doctors treating patients in hospitals.

But young activists are increasingly facing algorithmic shadow bans and the removal of pro-Palestinian content by major social media platforms.

The New York-based art collective, 8-Ball, reported that its fundraising campaigns for families in Gaza have been suppressed on Instagram.

In December 2023, Human Rights Watch released a 51-page report detailing how Meta’s content moderation policies on Instagram and Facebook have increasingly censored pro-Palestinian voices.

Meanwhile, TikTok has come under criticism for its July 2025 hiring of Erica Mindel, a former American State Department contractor and Israeli army instructor, to oversee hate-speech policies.

Responding to accusations of censorship, a Meta spokesperson said: “We have been public about the fact that we adopted a number of temporary product and policy measures in response to this conflict, and we also have broader policies on recommendability and demotion that can impact pages like this.

“We acknowledge we make mistakes, but any implication that we deliberately suppress a particular voice is unequivocally false.”

As part of its initiatives, 8-Ball has been distributing Palestine zines at fairs and running pro-Palestine zine-making workshops.

“Zines let you reach people directly, without algorithms, and it feels safer,” one volunteer, who requested anonymity, explained.

“Plus, they break out of social media’s echo chambers. You can bring them anywhere, leave them anonymously, and reach different age groups and communities. That kind of autonomy makes them powerful.”

DIY zines, small, self-published pamphlets that are easy to circulate, were popularised during the feminist movements of the 1980s and ’90s. They have since seen a strong resurgence within Palestinian activism

The volunteer attributed a renewed popularity in zines to a growing desire for community and tangible connection.

“Online, we’re overloaded with information – something profound followed instantly by something trivial. It’s hard to internalise. Analog slows things down.”

STATE-SPONSORED CENSORSHIP

Posting on social media has also become an particular source of anxiety for international students in America, many of whom have faced threats of deportation over their pro-Palestine activism since the Trump administration took office.

In June, the American State Department announced that all student visa applicants would be required to set their social media profiles to “public”.

“We’re under constant surveillance online,” another 8-Ball volunteer added.

“Every gesture is tracked: what you scroll past, how long you linger. Platforms like Instagram don’t have our best interests in mind, and relying on them as the primary source of information feels dangerous. They can be useful tools, but they shouldn’t be the only ones we use.”

According to scholars Alice Mattoni and Diego Ceccobelli, young activists are instead turning to face-to-face organizing as a way to secure greater privacy and evade surveillance.

Sharing physical space for meetings, they noted, has become a valued activity in itself.

Within these gatherings, the creation and circulation of physical media about Palestine is common.

Activists prepare banners and other art work for demonstrations and write the names of slain Palestinians for posters, a practice intended to counter desensitisation to the rising death toll in Gaza.

“Global crises feel overwhelming, but at the community level things feel more manageable. It might sound cheesy, but community and reciprocity go a long way in sustaining activism,” the 8-Ball volunteer said.

Gen Z and Millennial consumers have driven the resurgence of analog products in recent years, from vinyl, to film cameras to CDs.

ANALOG APPEAL

While once dismissed as nostalgia tied to retro trends in entertainment and fashion, researchers suggest this shift reflects the tactile appeal of analog objects, which foster deeper, more immersive, and emotionally fulfilling experiences than digital screens.

“I think young people like to have analog mementos of culturally significant events or moments, something they can hold on to and reflect on, as opposed to reading Instagram captions or insipid Instagram graphics,” said Jynann Ong, a member of Baesianz, a London-based collective that fosters cultural awareness and solidarity of Asian identities.

“Pamphlets, posters, leaflets, flyers, stickers, help young people feel like they are part of something. It is a reminder that they were there and stood up for something they believed in and had the courage, freedom, and energy to say something with their chest,” she added.

GAZA NEEDS OUR ANGER NOT OUR TEARS

This Isn’t Sad, It’s Enraging. Celebrities Are Finally Speaking Out About Gaza After Two Years Of Genocide, But There’s Been Something Off About It That Hasn’t Been Sitting Right.

A Palestinian named Maria Odeh Fakhouri made a great point on Instagram which put her finger on it:

Notice how celebrities speaking up now aren’t really all that angry. Their statements are about “heartbreak” and sadness.

They are modeling passivity to the masses as we enter into this next stage of societal awareness.

They communicate to their fans: be sad about genocide but ignore it for awhile first. And then start talking about how sad it is a couple of years later.

They are agents of colonial brainwashing.

Gaza doesn’t need our sadness, it needs out anger. It needs our rage. That’s the only appropriate response to a live-streamed genocide supported by your own government.

Sadness and grief are for natural disasters. Cancer diagnoses. Terrible accidents. This is not something that has passively happened to the people of Gaza, it’s something that’s been done to them by other people, and the people who are doing it have names and faces. It’s not a tragedy, it’s a crime. A crime that is still currently being perpetrated and urgently needs to be stopped, by any means necessary.

The correct response is rage. Rage toward the people who are responsible for this mass atrocity. The officials of the Israeli government and all their western allies. Their apologists and propagandists in the mainstream press. The war profiteers who are benefiting from an active genocide. Individual members of the IDF. The hasbarists who swarm social media and pollute our information ecosystem with manipulation and lies.

Celebrities and influencers who urge us to weep for Gaza are pushing us into passivity and defeatism by urging us to treat this like an unavoidable tragedy that has already happened instead of an unforgivable atrocity that is still underway. This is power-serving propaganda, and it deserves nothing but scorn.

People often use anger in unwholesome ways in our society, but that doesn’t mean there’s not a healthy place for it. Every human emotion has healthy applications and unhealthy applications, and anger is no different. When someone is crossing a line which does harm to someone else, anger is an entirely appropriate and correct response in that moment, and when it’s applied consciously and with care it can yield very positive results. Sometimes people need to be pushed back to the other side of the line they are crossing with red hot heat.

Emotions are tools; they only become unhealthy when those tools are pointed at things other than their intended purpose. Anger at someone who made an innocent mistake. Delight in the suffering of others. Sadness and heartbreak in the face of monstrous injustice. These are emotions applied incorrectly.

Do not weep for Gaza. Rage for Gaza. Protest for Gaza. Take direct action for Gaza. Ruin people’s day for Gaza. Ruin people’s careers for Gaza. Don’t let the facilitators of this nightmare have a moment’s peace. Don’t let them go on with their lives like what they did was no big deal. This isn’t sad, it’s enraging. And it deserves a response of unmitigated forceful aggression.

AMERICAN SANCTIONS ON ICC JUDGES AND DEPUTY PROSECUTORS WERE REJECTED BY THE ICC

The International Criminal Court Calls Those Measures A “Flagrant Attack” On Judicial Independence And International Order.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) on Wednesday strongly rejected new American sanctions targeting four of its judges and deputy prosecutors, calling the measures an assault on judicial independence and the rules-based international order.

“The International Criminal Court deplores the announcement of new designations for sanctions by the US administration against ICC Judges Kimberly Prost (Canada), Judge Nicolas Guillou (France), Deputy Prosecutor Nazhat Shameem Khan (Fiji) and Deputy Prosecutor Mame Mandiaye Niang (Senegal),” the court said in a statement.

The additional designations follow the earlier designation of four other judges and the ICC prosecutor.

“These sanctions are a flagrant attack against the independence of an impartial judicial institution which operates under the mandate from 125 States Parties from all regions. They constitute also an affront against the Court’s States Parties, the rules-based international order and, above all, millions of innocent victims across the world,” it added.

The ICC stressed that it will continue fulfilling its mandate in strict accordance with its legal framework as adopted by the states parties and “without regard to any restriction, pressure or threat.”

It further urged governments to back the court’s mission, saying: “The Court calls upon States Parties and all those who share the values of humanity and the rule of law to provide firm and consistent support to the Court and its work carried out in the sole interest of victims of international crimes.”

The American regime sanctioned four ICC officials on Wednesday, including a judge who authorized the arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

Israel has killed more than 62,000 Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023, devastating the enclave, which faces famine. Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.

AMERICA WAS BETRAYED BY ISRAEL’S MAN INSIDE THE CIA

James Angleton Shaped The Relationship In Secrecy. Newly Files Shed Light On His Wanton Betrayal Of His Country To Assist Israel’s Theft Of American Nuclear Material And Global Spying Operations.

Veteran CIA counterintelligence chief James Angleton secretly oversaw a top-level spy ring involving Jewish émigrés and Israeli operatives without “any clearances” from Congress or Langley itself, according to recently declassified documents published as part of the Trump administration’s pledge to disclose all available information on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

The files provide a fresh and often disturbing look at a spy described by historian Jefferson Morley as “a leading architect of America’s strategic relationship with Israel,” detailing Angleton’s role in transforming the Mossad into a fearsome agency with global reach, while assisting Israel’s theft of American nuclear material and protecting Zionist terrorists.

Angleton established the Jewish emigre spying network in the aftermath of WWII, with the apparent goal of infiltrating the Soviet Union. But as the files show, the spymaster considered his “most important” task to be maintaining the supply of Jewish immigrants flowing from the Soviet Union towards the burgeoning Israeli state.

According to Angelton, his Jewish assets were responsible for 22,000 reports on the USSR, generating several intelligence masterstrokes. Chief among them was the publication of Soviet Prime Minister Nikita Kruschev’s famous 1956 secret speech denouncing Stalin, which the spymaster boasted “practically created revolutions in Hungary and Poland.” Elsewhere, Angleton bragged that his arrangement with Israel had produced “500 Polish intelligence officers who were Jewish” who “knew more about Polish intelligence than the Poles.”

Other passages appear to show Angleton taking credit for securing the “release” of several Zionist terrorists affiliated with the Irgun militia before they could be convicted for bombing the British embassy in Rome. Though the group had been captured by Italian authorities, the newly-disclosed files indicate the terror cell was freed on the orders of the CIA.

The information was originally divulged in 1975 to senators serving on the Church Committee, which probed widespread abuses by American intelligence in the decades prior. Congress was particularly interested in claims by New York Times foreign correspondent Tad Szulc, who testified under oath that Angleton had personally informed him that America provided technical information on nuclear devices to Israel in the late 1950s. The new documents show that Angleton was deceptive under questioning, and evaded questions on Israel’s nuclear espionage efforts on the record.

Additional unsealed FBI documents, which refer to Israel’s Mossad as Angleton’s “primary source” of information, confirm that the CIA’s head of counterintelligence relied heavily on Tel Aviv to solidify his position within the Agency – and also add to the growing body of evidence that Angleton may not have been operating with American interests in mind throughout his 21-year tenure.

Other newly declassified files from the FBI have shown that Angleton maintained a wildly lopsided relationship with the Bureau, which saw federal agents deferring to the CIA counterintelligence chief after they caught him surveilling the correspondence of huge numbers of Americans. The files show Angleton openly admitting he would have been fired if Langley caught wind of his leaks to the Bureau.

A side-by-side analysis of the now-unredacted Church Committee files compared with their previously-released versions from 2018 demonstrates that even after 70 years, Washington felt compelled to conceal details of its real relationship with Israel’s founders. Over a dozen references to “Israel,” “Tel Aviv,” or descriptions of figures as “Jewish,” which were scrubbed from the 2018 release, can now be viewed on the National Archives site.

The documents reveal that Angleton repeatedly lied to multiple Congressional bodies, including the Church Committee, which investigated CIA abuses, and the House Select Committee on Assassinations, which probed the murders of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. Angleton was similarly evasive when interrogated over Israel’s nuclear weapons program, and about CIA knowledge or complicity in the scheme.

Those documents also reveal that Angleton’s CIA counterintelligence staff ordered Lee Harvey Oswald’s removal from federal watchlists six weeks before Kennedy’s assassination, despite his classification as a high security risk. The surveillance of Oswald was personally overseen by a member of Angleton’s intelligence network of Jewish emigres, Reuben Efron, a CIA spy from Lithuania. Angleton had placed Efron in charge of an Agency program called HT/Lingual which intercepted and read correspondences between Oswald and his family.

Numerous historians have questioned why the CIA counterintelligence chief insisted for decades on personally overseeing what he described as the “Israeli account.” Though several off-the-record interactions remain impossible to parse, the documents show that when grilled about his “unusually close” connections to the Israeli Mossad, Angleton acknowledged forming an “arrangement” in which, “in most simplistic terms, [the Israelis] were informed that we would not work with them against the Arabs, [but] that we would work with them on Soviet bloc Intelligence and communism.”

FREEING ZIONIST TERRORISTS

One of the earliest instances of Angleton’s cooperation with Zionist elements came as Zionist militants embarked on a terrorist campaign to pressure the British colonial authorities to leave Mandate Palestine.

In October 1946, three months after they bombed the British administrative headquarters at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, members of the right-wing Irgun militia planted explosives in the British embassy in Rome in a failed bid to assassinate the UK’s ambassador to Italy.

According to Angleton, after the Irgun “blew up the British embassy in Rome” in 1946, the CIA intervened to ensure they escaped Italy without prosecution.

“We had the members of the group, and then we had the dilemma again as to whether we turned them over to the British authorities,” noted Angleton, who had served as counterintelligence chief for the Italian branch of the Office of Strategic Services, the CIA’s predecessor. “And we were in a position to make the decision one way or the other. And eventually we came down on the side of releasing them.”

A SECRET DEAL WITH THE MOSSAD

As Washington sought to manage the political ruptures caused by the creation of Israel, and monitor the wave of Soviet migrants pouring into the self-proclaimed Jewish state, Angleton framed his takeover of “the Israeli account” as a convenient way for American intelligence to kill two birds with one stone.

“The other side of the Israeli problem was that you had thousands coming from the Soviet Union and you had the Soviets making use of the immigration for the purpose of sending illegal agents into the West and breaking down all the travel control, identifications and so on. And so there was both a security problem and a political problem.”

To manage these “problems,” the American regime and Israelis brokered a deal involving the secret exchange of “papers and signals, communications intelligence, [and] the other products of intelligence action,” Angleton stated. The spy chief claimed the only records of the 1951 arrangement held by the American side would be in the possession of the Agency, and admitted America’s Congress had been left in the dark, telling senators, “I don’t think there were any clearances obtained from the Hill.”

Asked by one legislator how it was “possible for succeeding directors of the intelligence agency to understand what the agreements were between” America and Israeli intelligence, Angleton responded: “Very simple. They saw the production to begin with. And they met with directors or the head of Israeli intelligence. And they met with Ambassadors and prime ministers. And they were very much involved.”

GAZA’S DEAD FROM STARVATION ARE THE RESPONSIBILITY OF ISRAEL

Despite IDF ‘Examinations,’ There Is Not Enough Food In The Gaza Strip. Aid Does Not Reach The Weakest Members Of The Society Due To Israel’s Genocidal Intent.

The Israel Defense Forces public relations apparatus officially stated last week that according to an examination they conducted, there is no hunger in Gaza.

Anyone reading the headlines touting their claims might assume that the IDF entered Gaza and analyzed the situation of the besieged population. This is obviously not the case. However, this is indeed what the IDF should now do: Conduct a thorough examination of the hunger situation in Gaza, especially in areas where fundamental difficulties in obtaining information about the population’s condition exist, in order to enable effective aid distribution.

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel approached the IDF with this demand once receiving reports on the scope of the disaster. Despite claiming otherwise, nothing was done. Those who did conduct thorough examinations are independent and experienced professional organizations, such as the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), and they determined that Gaza is already suffering from severe hunger.

The IDF, instead, surveyed the growing list of the dead published by Gaza’s Ministry of Health. According to this data, at least 170 people died in the Gaza Strip since the beginning of July from causes related to malnutrition. The IDF then published headlines stating that in many of the cases those who died were suffering from pre-existing conditions.

Indeed, death from malnutrition can be related to a variety of social and physical risk factors and vulnerabilities, including pre-existing medical conditions that hunger exacerbates to the point of death. In Gaza, the risk of malnutrition can also be related to extreme poverty, physical weakness that precludes searching for food, being in areas that the army cut off from other areas, and more. Though these individuals may be at-risk, they likely would not have died now had they received basic food and healthcare in minimal quantities. Are their lives worth less than healthy people?

Let us be clear: In the Gaza Strip there is not enough food. The food that exists is not varied and nutritious, and is not available to the weakest populations. It is not available in sufficient quantities to the sick and disabled, it is not available to pregnant and nursing women, and to women and girls in general. It is not available to children who have been orphaned or left to care for themselves. It is not available in areas such as the north and Rafah, that the army disconnected from the rest of the Strip via military corridors.

For about ninety days after the end of the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, from early March to late May, no aid entered Gaza. Amid far-reaching restrictions on movement throughout Gaza, with 80-90 percent of the area defined as military territory or prohibited combat zones, aid barely reached these areas. Hundreds of community kitchens and distribution points in populated neighborhoods and within refugee camps were forced to stop operating, and UN agencies and their NGO partners were also paralyzed.

Instead, the Gaza Humanitarian Fund began operating four distribution points, condemned and disavowed from the outset by experienced humanitarian professionals operating in Gaza and around the world, because it was known to be dangerous and undermined every possible humanitarian principle (safe, accessible, equal distribution of aid independent of political identification).

The results were indeed catastrophic, even more than could have been imagined. Distribution points opened irregularly, creating anxiety and uncertainty. On days when the stations did open, they were accessible mainly to young men who could walk to them and carry aid home on their backs. The system was inaccessible to women, pregnant and nursing mothers, unaccompanied children, the sick and the disabled.

The starving masses who stormed distribution points created chaos, and only the strong came out with aid. Women and girls generally feared to going to these centers due to the violence and chaos, and relatively few took the risk. Moreover, regular reports and documentation showed aid seekers being shot, killing hundreds. This remains true today with large numbers of people storming aid trucks or food airdrops.

The chaos created in Gaza, the hunger, the shortage and the uncertainty, are all contributing factors to the fact that aid does not reach the weakest. All Israelis are responsible for this situation.

As many experts on malnutrition have testified in recent days, those suffering from acute malnutrition in Gaza need special treatment such as intravenous feeding or specialized nutritional supplements alongside relentless monitoring. None of these items is entering Gaza in sufficient quantities. Hospitals continue to collapse, and some are at double or triple capacity.

Humanitarian missions are refused permission to enter and operate, and movement restrictions remain in place except for limited, insufficient humanitarian corridors that Israel agreed to open only after extensive international criticism.

There is no one who can assess the extent of the need and no one who can ensure that treatment reaches those who need it most – except, that is, the IDF. The Israeli army must stop the fighting, remove movement restrictions, conduct an assessment of the severity and scope of the humanitarian catastrophe and allow all who need it to access immediate treatment.

AMERICAN’S SHOULD KNOW THAT TRUMP CAN END THE NIGHTMARE IN GAZA – THE ISRAELIS DO

It’s So Revealing How Israelis Keep Begging Trump To End The Killing In Gaza, Because They Understand That The American President Has The Power To Force Israel To Stop.

It seems like Israelis understand this far better than Americans do.

Six former Israeli hostages and the widow of a slain hostage have released a video pleading with President Trump in English to support a comprehensive deal to make peace in Gaza so that the remaining hostages can be freed.

“You have the power to make history, to be the president of peace, the one who ended the war, ended the suffering, and brought every hostage home, including my little brother,” implores one of the hostages.

“President Trump, please act now before it’s too late for them, too,” pleads the widow.

This is not the first time Israelis have begged Trump to force an end to the slaughter. Earlier this month more than 600 former senior Israeli security officials from Mossad and Shin Bet sent Trump a letter urging him to compel Netanyahu to make peace in Gaza. They did this because they understand something that many Americans do not: that the American president has always had the power to end the Gaza holocaust.

It’s crazy how many times we have encountered Americans saying that this is “Israel’s war” and there’s nothing the president can do to end it. It was mostly Democrats doing this back when Biden was president and many were slamming Genocide Joe for continuing this mass atrocity, and now that Trump is in office it’s his supporters who show up in our comments section white knighting for the president.

“It’s not our war and we should stay out of it,” they sometimes claim, mistakenly thinking that critics of the American regime backed genocide are asking for some kind of American intervention.

But the call isn’t for the American regime to intervene, it’s for the American regime to stop intervening. To end the American interventionism that has been underway for two years. The Gaza holocaust can be ended by the American regime simply ceasing to add wood to the fire.

Israeli military insiders have been saying again and again that the onslaught in Gaza would not be possible without American support.

A senior Israeli air force official told Haaretz last year that “without the Americans’ supply of weapons to the Israel Defense Forces, especially the air force, Israel would have had a hard time sustaining its war for more than a few months.”

In November 2023 retired Israeli Major General Yitzhak Brick told Jewish News Syndicate that, “All of our missiles, the ammunition, the precision-guided bombs, all the airplanes and bombs, it’s all from the US. The minute they turn off the tap, you can’t keep fighting. You have no capability. … Everyone understands that we can’t fight this war without the United States. Period.”

Former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert wrote the following last year:

“The entire Israel Air Force relies completely on American aircraft: fighter planes, transport planes, refueler planes and helicopters. All of Israel’s air power is based on the American commitment to defend Israel. We have no other reliable source for essential supplies of equipment, munitions and advanced weapons that Israel cannot manufacture on its own. In recent months, hundreds of American transport planes have landed at IAF bases carrying thousands of tons of advanced, vital military equipment and munitions.”

The Israelis clearly understand that they’ve been entirely dependent on the American regime for the IDF’s acts of butchery in Gaza this entire time, and they clearly understand that the American president has the ability to turn off the tap whenever he wants.

And now they are begging the president to do so with increasing urgency, because it’s been made clear to them that their own government isn’t going to stop until it is forced to stop. They can’t stop the gunman, so they’re turning to the man who’s feeding him the ammo.

It would be good if Americans understood this as well. Trump is committing genocide in Gaza, just as surely as Netanyahu is, and he could end it at any time. The fact that he still has not chosen to do so makes him one of the most evil people on earth.

GAZA JOURNALISTS FEAR BEING TARGETING BY ISRAEL: “WILL I MAKE IT BACK ALIVE?”

After Israel’s Attack On A Tent Housing Journalists In Gaza City, Palestinians Say Press Vests Now Feel Like A Target.

Palestinian journalists have long known Gaza to be the most dangerous place on earth for media workers, but Israel’s latest attack on a tent housing journalists in Gaza City has left many reeling from shock and fear.

Four Al Jazeera staff were among seven people killed in an Israeli drone strike outside al-Shifa Hospital on August 10th. The Israeli military has admitted to deliberately targeting the tent after making unsubstantiated accusations that one of those killed, Al Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif, was a member of Hamas.

Israeli attacks in Gaza have killed at least 238 media workers since October 2023, according to Gaza’s Government Media Office. This toll is higher than that of World Wars I and II, the Vietnam War, the war in Afghanistan and the Yugoslavia wars combined.

Al Jazeera correspondent Hani Mahmoud said, “Press vests and helmets, once considered a shield, now feel like a target.”

“The fear is constant — and justified,” Mahmoud said. “Every assignment is accompanied by the same unspoken question: Will [I] make it back alive?”

The American based Committee to Protect Journalists has been among several organisations denouncing Israel’s longstanding pattern of accusing journalists of being “terrorists” without credible proof.

“It is no coincidence that the smears against al-Sharif — who has reported night and day for Al Jazeera since the start of the war — surfaced every time he reported on a major development in the war, most recently the starvation brought about by Israel’s refusal to allow sufficient aid into the territory,” CPJ Regional Director Sara Qudah said in the aftermath of Israel’s attack.

In light of Israel’s systematic targeting of journalists, media workers in Gaza are forced to make difficult choices.

“As a mother and a journalist, I go through this mental dissonance almost daily, whether to go to work or stay with my daughters and being afraid of the random shelling of the Israeli occupation army,” Palestinian journalist Sally Thabet said.

Across the street from the ruins of the School of Media Studies at al-Quds Open University in Gaza City, where he used to teach, Hussein Saad has been recovering from an injury he sustained while running to safety.

“The deliberate targeting of Palestinian journalists has a strong effect on the disappearance of the Palestinian story and the disappearance of the media narrative,” he said. Saad argued the Strip was witnessing “the disappearance of the truth”.

While journalists report on mass killings, human suffering and starvation, they also cope with their own losses and deprivation. Photographer and correspondent Amer al-Sultan said hunger was a major challenge.

“I used to go to work, and when I didn’t find anything to eat, I would just drink water,” he said. “I did this for two days. I had to live for two or three days on water. This is one of the most difficult challenges we face amid this war against our people: starvation.”

Journalist and film director Hassan Abu Dan said reporters “live in conditions that are more difficult than the mind can imagine.”

“You live in a tent. You drink water that is not good for drinking. You eat unhealthy food … We are all, as journalists, confused. There is a part of our lives that has been ruined and gone far away,” he said.

Mahmoud said that despite the psychological trauma and the personal risks, Palestinian journalists continue to do their jobs, “driven by a belief that documenting the truth is not just a profession, but a duty to their people and history”.

ISRAELI WAR CRIMES IN GAZA WERE OMITTED FROM AMERICA’S “HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT”

Following Alterations, This Year’s Report Scales Back The Scrutiny Of America’s Allies While Intensifying False Claims Against Its Rivals.

The American State Department on August 12threleased its key annual report on global human rights abuses, but notably omitted many of the violations committed by its allies and partners.

Covering the previous year’s events, the 2024 State Department Human Rights Report was significantly shortened and stripped of many sections compared to past editions.

Notably, the report was issued months later than it was supposed to, after President Donald Trump’s appointees drastically altered an earlier draft to align with “America First” values, according to government officials who spoke under the condition of anonymity.

The report’s approach to individual countries varied sharply, with some American allies facing mild criticism, others spared from any major scrutiny, and adversaries subjected to extensive condemnation – a pattern critics say reflects political selectivity.

Israel’s section was far shorter than in the 2023 edition, omitting last year’s executive summary language that said Israel’s war in Gaza had killed tens of thousands, injured many more, displaced the vast majority of Palestinians in the enclave, and caused a severe humanitarian crisis.

Allegations of torture of Palestinian detainees by security agencies and police, as well as any mention of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ongoing trial for bribery, fraud, and breach of trust, were also removed.

What remains after the alterations is a brief reference to arbitrary arrests and killings, alongside a note that the authorities had taken “credible steps” to identify those responsible, and an entry that refers to Hamas and Hezbollah only in a sparse section on reports of war crimes.

The report delivers mild criticism of some European states, accusing the UK, Germany, and France of imposing “serious restrictions” on freedom of expression.

It applies far harsher language to rivals, citing Russia for the death of opposition figure Aleksey Navalny in a prison known for harsh conditions and alleged torture, extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, and war crimes in Ukraine, including deportations of civilians and children and the use of forced labor.

The China section repeats earlier findings of genocide and crimes against humanity against predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and other minorities, and says Beijing took no credible steps to identify or punish those responsible.

Amanda Klesing of Amnesty International warned that the report sends a “chilling message” that Washington will overlook abuses when they serve its political agenda.

“With the release of the State Department’s Human Rights Report, it is clear that the Trump Administration has engaged in a very selective documentation of human rights abuses in certain countries,” Klesing said.

“We have criticized past reports when warranted, but have never seen reports quite like this,” she added.

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