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Category: War

Genocide has become a spectacle as Israeli soldiers and U.S. contractors murder starving Palestinians

Genocide has become a spectacle as Israeli soldiers and U.S. contractors murder starving Palestinians

  A former US veteran who was employed at a food distribution site in Gaza has accused members of the Israel Defence Forces and American colleagues of deliberately targeting and killing unarmed Palestinian civilians. Lieutenant-Colonel Anthony Aguilar, a former special forces veteran, was recruited to work for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a joint Israeli-US scheme replacing the United Nations food distribution operation in Gaza. He has told the BBC he witnessed the IDF shooting at the crowds of Palestinians, firing…

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‘We are starving’

‘We are starving’

Ruwaida Amer writes: I am so hungry. I’ve never meant those words in the way I do now. They carry a kind of humiliation that I can’t fully describe. Every moment, I find myself wishing: If only this were just a nightmare. If only I could wake up and it would all be over. Since last May, after I was forced to flee my home and take shelter with relatives in Khan Younis refugee camp, I’ve heard those same words…

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Israel’s claim that Hamas stole aid was baseless, while UN system was effective, senior military officials reveal

Israel’s claim that Hamas stole aid was baseless, while UN system was effective, senior military officials reveal

The New York Times reports: For nearly two years, Israel has accused Hamas of stealing aid provided by the United Nations and other international organizations. The government has used that claim as its main rationale for restricting food from entering Gaza. But the Israeli military never found proof that the Palestinian militant group had systematically stolen aid from the United Nations, the biggest supplier of emergency assistance to Gaza for most of the war, according to two senior Israeli military…

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Israeli minister says his government is ‘rushing toward Gaza being wiped out’

Israeli minister says his government is ‘rushing toward Gaza being wiped out’

The New York Times reports: Amid rising starvation in the Gaza Strip, an Israeli government minister said on Thursday that Israel had no duty to alleviate hunger in the territory and was seeking to expel its population. Amichay Eliyahu, a far-right lawmaker who leads Israel’s Heritage Ministry, said in a radio interview that “there is no nation that feeds its enemies,” adding that “the British didn’t feed the Nazis, nor did the Americans feed the Japanese, nor do the Russians…

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As starvation grips Gaza, skeletal children fill hospital wards

As starvation grips Gaza, skeletal children fill hospital wards

The Guardian reports: Mohammed’s skeletal arms stick out of a romper with a grinning emoji-face and the slogan “smiley boy”, which in a Gaza hospital reads as a cruel joke. He spends much of the day crying from hunger, or gnawing at his own emaciated fingers. At seven months old, he weighs barely 4kg (9lbs) and this is the second time he has been admitted for treatment. His face is gaunt, his limbs little more than bones covered in baggy…

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IDF assassinated a cardiologist ‘because he is a human, he is someone kind, and everyone in Gaza knew him’

IDF assassinated a cardiologist ‘because he is a human, he is someone kind, and everyone in Gaza knew him’

Clayton Dalton writes: Five months ago, when I was on a medical mission in northern Gaza, a Palestinian cardiologist named Marwan Sultan showed me what was left of the Indonesian Hospital, a hundred-bed facility that had been shelled and raided by Israeli forces. The building was riddled with shrapnel scars; its hallways were dark and cluttered with debris, and a cold wind blew through broken windows. Sultan, who directed the facility, was wearing a long white coat, a necktie, and…

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Less than a quarter of Americans say Israeli military actions in Gaza are fully justified, poll finds

Less than a quarter of Americans say Israeli military actions in Gaza are fully justified, poll finds

CNN reports: Americans are increasingly skeptical of Israeli actions in Gaza, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS that also finds rising sentiment that the US should pull back on military aid to Israel. Only 23% of Americans say Israel’s actions have been fully justified, a 27-point drop from a October 2023 poll taken shortly after Hamas’ October 7 attacks. Another 27% now say those actions have been partially justified and 22% say that they have not been…

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Marjorie Taylor Greene votes alongside Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar to cut funding for Israel

Marjorie Taylor Greene votes alongside Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar to cut funding for Israel

Middle East Eye reports: Hardline America Firster and staunch Trump supporter Marjorie Taylor Greene voted alongside progressive Democrat Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar to strip Israel of $500m in US funding, hours after it bombed the Holy Family Catholic Church in Gaza. The House of Representatives, however, rejected in a 422-6 vote on Thursday, to cut funding for the Israeli Cooperative Program – an agreement through which the US provides Israel with $500m to boost its missile programmes. It…

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Holocaust scholar Omer Bartov: Yes, Israel is engaged in a genocide in Gaza

Holocaust scholar Omer Bartov: Yes, Israel is engaged in a genocide in Gaza

  We speak with leading Israeli American historian Omer Bartov about his latest essay for The New York Times, headlined “I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It.” Bartov cites the United Nations definition of “genocide,” which includes an intent to destroy a group of people that makes it impossible for the group to reconstitute itself. “This is precisely what Israel is trying to do,” he says. “Israel is trying to concentrate the population of Gaza in…

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Israel and the U.S. are no longer pretending they support a two-state solution

Israel and the U.S. are no longer pretending they support a two-state solution

  For decades, the U.S. has officially held the position that it has supported a “two-state solution” that would create a Palestinian state alongside Israel. But after the Oslo Accords, little to no progress was made towards that goal, and the U.S. constantly condoned Israel’s actions that made that goal a more distant possibility – supporting it with military and financial aid. Today, under Trump, the U.S. is supporting Israel during its plans to ethnically cleanse Gaza and annex the…

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ICC lawyer linked to Netanyahu advisor warned Khan to drop war crimes probe or be ‘destroyed’

ICC lawyer linked to Netanyahu advisor warned Khan to drop war crimes probe or be ‘destroyed’

  Middle East Eye reports: The British chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court was warned in May that if arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant were not withdrawn, he and the ICC would be “destroyed”. The warning was delivered to Karim Khan by Nicholas Kaufman, a British-Israeli defence lawyer at the court who told Khan he had spoken to Netanyahu’s legal advisor and, according to a note of the meeting lodged…

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Trump’s response to being humiliated by Putin

Trump’s response to being humiliated by Putin

Jonathan Lemire writes: President Donald Trump is finally taking the fight to Vladimir Putin. Sort of. For now. Trump’s deference to Russia’s authoritarian leader has been one of the most enduring geopolitical subplots of the past decade. But his frustration with Putin has grown. Last week, the president said the United States was taking “a lot of bullshit” from Putin. Today, he authorized a significant shipment of U.S. defensive weapons to Ukraine via NATO and threatened Russia with new tariffs…

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How Netanyahu prolonged the war on Gaza so that he could remain in power

How Netanyahu prolonged the war on Gaza so that he could remain in power

The New York Times reports: Six months into the war in the Gaza Strip, Benjamin Netanyahu was preparing to bring it to a halt. Negotiations were underway for an extended cease-fire with Hamas, and he was ready to agree to a compromise. He had dispatched an envoy to convey Israel’s new position to the Egyptian mediators. Now, at a meeting at the Ministry of Defense in Tel Aviv, he needed to get his cabinet onboard. He had kept the plan…

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No life without water: How Israel’s actions in Gaza echo other genocides

No life without water: How Israel’s actions in Gaza echo other genocides

Mark Zeitoun, Laurence Boisson de Chazournes, Ghassan Abu-Sittah, Danilo Türk, and Reem Abu Shomar write: Of all the many forms of deprivation imposed on Palestinians, Israel’s strategic control and denial of water stand out as particularly insidious. Taken alongside the denial of entry of life-saving aid, dismantlement of medical services, and imposed hunger, Israel’s long-term disruption of water services in Gaza redefines the limits of acceptable suffering of civilians. This weaponization of water echoes historical genocides and threatens to normalize violations of humanitarian standards. Depriving…

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Trump finally realizes that ‘Putin is playing him and the United States for fools’

Trump finally realizes that ‘Putin is playing him and the United States for fools’

Susan B Glasser writes: Donald Trump finally called “bullshit” on Vladimir Putin this week, though nobody seems to quite know what it means. One explanation, and perhaps the best one, is that Trump, belatedly, recognized what has long been apparent to the rest of us: that Putin has been playing him, pretending to talk peace while escalating Russia’s war of aggression on Ukraine. On Monday, Trump announced that he was “not happy with President Putin at all” and overruled his…

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Why Europe doesn’t trust Trump’s latest Ukraine reversal

Why Europe doesn’t trust Trump’s latest Ukraine reversal

Politico reports: Ukraine’s allies in Europe are finally hearing the tough-on-Russia message they’d been hoping for from President Donald Trump. But they don’t trust it. Across European capitals, there’s a feeling of whiplash over the administration’s recent Ukraine policy reversals and confusion about who is calling the shots at the Pentagon. As a result, governments are preparing for multiple scenarios — making it difficult to design any Ukraine strategy while Trump’s foreign policy appears to change at a whim. Trump…

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