40 Killed In Hamas Attacks In Israel

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx202zvygmlo

More than a third of MPs have signed a letter to Sir Keir Starmer calling for the UK to recognise a Palestinian state.

Some 220 MPs from nine political parties have backed the call, external - more than half of them Labour - arguing that UK recognition would send a "powerful" message and a vital step toward a two-state solution.

The letter piles pressure on the prime minister after France committed to recognising a Palestinian statehood within months.

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Most countries - about 139 in all - formally recognise a Palestinian state, although many European nations and the United States say they will only do so as part of moves towards a long-term resolution to the conflict.

Spain, Ireland and Norway formally took the step last year, hoping to exert diplomatic pressure to secure a ceasefire in Gaza.

GAZA: Senior IDF officials told The New York Times they never found proof that Hamas systematically stole humanitarian aid from the United Nations in Gaza – contradicting claims by the Netanyahu government that formed the basis for blocking aid deliveries for months.

According to two senior IDF officers and two other Israelis involved in the matter, the UN's aid distribution system, which Israel had criticized and sought to replace, was "largely effective in providing food to Gaza's desperate and hungry population."

The IDF told the Times it has "well-documented" instances of Hamas exploiting humanitarian aid to fund terrorism, but did not dispute the assessment that there was no evidence of routine theft from the UN.


Haaretz - 26 July 2025

What’s happening in Gaza is GENOCIDE….

Starmer the human rights defender be fuucked?

Let’s do this again.

Hamas are CUUNTS.

The Israeli Government are CUUNTS.

It’s too simple to be true.

YouGov poll (commissioned by Caabu) on UK public attitudes to Palestine-Israel (Gaza):

https://www.caabu.org/news/news/caab...-israel-latest

- 57% of total respondents are in favour of suspending UK arms exports to Israel, while only 18% of respondents oppose.

- Additionally on sanctions, 48% support a trade embargo on Israel, while 51% support tariffs and import restrictions, and 52% support financial sanctions on assets of individuals.

- 55% of respondents oppose Israel’s actions in Gaza, with only 18% supporting them. This is a considerable shift from February of this year where 46% of respondents opposed Israel’s actions in Gaza and 22% of respondents supported them.

- 43% of respondents said that they had a worse view of Israel since 7 October 2023, while 16% said that their view of Israel remained the same. Only 4% of respondents had a more favourable view.

- While 67% believe that there needs to be an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and 13% think there should be a ceasefire at some point when the time is right, only 3% of respondents think that there should not be a ceasefire in Gaza at all.

- 81% of respondents who opposed Israel’s actions in Gaza (55%) consider these actions to constitute a genocide.

(All figures, unless otherwise stated, are from YouGov Plc. Total sample size was 2,285 adults. Fieldwork was undertaken between 13th - 14th July 2025. The survey was carried out online. The figures have been weighted and are representative of all GB adults (aged 18+).

No surprise that the government are out of step with the public!

https://us18.campaign-archive.com/?e...&id=dc47b428da

Israeli human rights groups B'Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights – Israel each published reports concluding that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza as defined by international law, marking the first time that Israeli human rights groups have officially done so. The groups are now calling on the international community to take action against the Israeli government to stop these atrocities.

On Sunday evening, the American Jewish Committee became the first major mainstream Jewish American group to publicly address the starvation crisis in Gaza, saying in an official statement that it was "deeply concerned about worsening food insecurity in Gaza," and expressing "immense sorrow for the grave toll this war has taken on Palestinian civilians."

On Monday, the Reform movement in North America said that the Israeli government was "culpable" in the spread of hunger in the Strip. "No one should be unaffected by the pervasive hunger experienced by thousands of Gazans," the statement said, adding that "no one should spend the bulk of their time arguing technical definitions between starvation and pervasive hunger. The situation is dire, and it is deadly."

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jordi Culé

What’s happening in Gaza is GENOCIDE….

Starmer the human rights defender be fuucked?

Let’s do this again.

Hamas are CUUNTS.

The Israeli Government are CUUNTS.

It’s too simple to be true.

---

:thumbup:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...d-in-west-bank

Awdah Hathaleen, a Palestinian activist and journalist who helped make the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land, has been killed during an attack by Israeli settlers in the south Hebron hills.

The attack on Monday was captured on video, which appears to show an Israeli settler, Yinon Levi, who was put under sanctions by the US president, Joe Biden, then removed from the sanctions list by Donald Trump, firing his gun wildly at the time of the killing.

He was arrested later by Israeli police for questioning, though no charges have been filed against him.

The killing comes amid an increasing wave of settler and Israeli military violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. At least 1,009 Palestinians have been killed and more than 7,000 injured in the West Bank since October 2023.

We, Israelis dedicated to a peaceful future for our country and our Palestinian neighbours, write this with grave shame, in rage and in agony. Our country is starving the people of Gaza to death and contemplating the forced removal of millions of Palestinians from the Strip. The international community must impose crippling sanctions on Israel until it ends this brutal campaign and implements a permanent ceasefire.

Yuval Abraham Journalist; Academy Award recipient (2025)
Ra’anan Alexandrowicz Documentary film-maker; Sundance world cinema jury prize recipient (2012)
Udi Aloni Film-maker; Tribeca film festival best international narrative feature recipient (2016)
Liran Atzmor Documentary film-maker; Peabody Award recipient (2014)
Prof Tali Bitan University of Haifa
Michael Ben-Yair Former attorney general of Israel; former acting supreme court judge
Nir Bergman Screenwriter and film director; Ophir award recipient (2020)
Avraham Burg Former speaker of the Knesset; former head of the Jewish Agency
Peter Cole Poet and translator; MacArthur Fellow
Guy Davidi Documentary film-maker; International Emmy Award recipient (2013)
Ari Folman Screenwriter and film director; Golden Globe recipient (2009)
Shira Geffen Actor and screenwriter; Camera d’Or recipient (2007)
Prof Emeritus Amiram Goldblum Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Prof Oded Goldreich Weizmann Institute of Science; Israel prize recipient (2021)
Tamar Gozansky Former Knesset member
Prof Uri Hadar Tel Aviv University
Prof Moty Heiblum Wolf prize in physics recipient (2025)
Adina Hoffman Writer; Windham Campbell prize recipient (2013)
Eran Kolirin Screenwriter and film director; Ophir Award recipient (2021)
Nadav Lapid Screenwriter and film director; Golden Bear recipient (2019)
Alex Levac Israel prize recipient (2005)
Hagai Levi Television writer and director; Golden Globe recipient (2015)
Samuel Maoz Film director; Golden Lion recipient (2009)
Dr Adi Moreno Tel Aviv-Yafo Academic College
Prof Michal Na’aman Painter; Israel prize recipient (2014)
Ohad Naharin Choreographer; Israel prize recipient (2005)
Daniella Nowitz Cinematographer; Academy Award recipient (2023)
Prof Adi Ophir Tel Aviv University
Inbal Pinto Choreographer and dancer; Israeli ministry of culture award recipient (2011)
Aharon Shabtai Poet and translator; Israeli prime minister’s prize recipient (1993)
Eyal Weizman Architect; director of Forensic Architecture

The latest report from B'Tselem, the Israeli Human Rights Organisation based in Jerusalem, summarised by Jewish Voice for Labour:

B’Tselem’s July 2025 report is stark as it describes “our” genocide.

It is clear that the genocide in Gaza cannot be separated from the escalating violence, in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and within Israel.

It notes that ultimately, the same troops are operating in Gaza and in the other areas, under the same commanders and political leadership.

The regime as B’Tselem established in 2022 is one of Jewish supremacy whose formal foundations were laid in 1948.

“It has had a clear objective from the outset: to cement the supremacy of the Jewish group across the entire territory under Israeli control.”

And it has done so with the establishment of an (unacknowledged) apartheid regime “designed to cement the supremacy of one group through demographic engineering, separation, shaping public discourse, indoctrination, militarism, and of course — the use of force and violence.”

The Report concludes that:

“This is the time to act. This is the time to save those who have not yet been lost forever, and use every means available under international law to stop Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians.”

https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org...cles-for-you_1

Gaza - July 2025 - airstrikes and 'airdrops' in the same picture!

Attachment 6632


How sick is that?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jon1959

Gaza - July 2025 - airstrikes and 'airdrops' in the same picture!

Attachment 6632


How sick is that?

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Tough love???

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dorcus

Tough love???

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When continuing genocide meets a PR stunt.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jon1959

When continuing genocide meets a PR stunt.

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👍That's exactly it! 🙈🙉🙊

I lead a top Israeli human rights group. Our country is committing genocide - Yuli Novak.

The question keeps gnawing at me: Could this really be it? Could we be living through a genocide?

Outside Israel, millions already know the answer. But many of us here can’t – or won’t – say it aloud. Perhaps because the truth threatens to unmake everything we believed about who we are, and who we wanted to be. To name it is to admit that the future will require reckoning – not just with our leaders, but with ourselves. But the cost of refusing to see is even higher.

For Israelis of my generation, the word “genocide” was supposed to remain a nightmare from another planet. A word tethered to our grandparents’ photographs and the ghosts of European ghettoes, not to our own neighborhoods. We were the ones who asked, from a distance, about others: How could ordinary people go on with their lives while something like this happened? How could they let it happen? What would I have done in their place?

In a grotesque twist of history, that question now circles back to us.

For nearly two years, we’ve heard Israeli officials – politicians and generals alike – say out loud what they intend to do: to starve, flatten and erase Gaza. “We will eliminate them.” “We will make it uninhabitable.” “We will cut off food, water, electricity.” These weren’t slips of the tongue; they were the plan. And then, our military carried it out. By the textbook definition, this is genocide: the deliberate targeting of a population not for who they are as individuals, but because they belong to a group – an attack designed to destroy the group itself.

We told ourselves other stories to survive the horror, stories that kept guilt and grief at bay. We convinced ourselves that every child in Gaza was Hamas, every apartment a terrorist cell. We became, without noticing, those “ordinary people” who keep living their lives while “it” is happening.

I can still recall the first time reality cracked open for me. Two months into what I was still calling a “war”, three of my B’Tselem colleagues – Palestinian human rights workers we’d worked alongside for years – were trapped in Gaza with their families. They told me about relatives buried under rubble, about not being able to shield their children, about the paralyzing fear.

In the frantic efforts to extract them from Gaza, I learned something that has seared itself into my mind: at that moment, a living Palestinian in Gaza could be “ransomed” for roughly 20,000 shekels – the cost, at the time, of leaving. Children cost less. Life priced in cash, per head. These were not abstract statistics; these were people I knew. And that was when I understood: the rules had changed.

Since then, the surreal has become routine. Cities reduced to ash. Entire neighborhoods flattened. Families displaced, then displaced again. Tens of thousands killed. Mass starvation engineered, with aid trucks turned away or bombed. Parents feeding animal fodder to their children, some of whom die waiting for flour. Others are shot – unarmed civilians, gunned down for approaching food convoys.

The Israel lobby is coming for Miriam Margolyes again!

https://www.thecanary.co/trending/20...dmarsdn8syijsb

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...inian-activist

Israeli police have refused to release the body of Awdah Hathaleen, a Palestinian activist and journalist who helped make the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land, while the settler accused of killing him, Yinon Levi, has been released from custody.

Hathaleen was shot to death on Monday night during a confrontation between settlers driving a bulldozer in the village of Umm al-Khair in the occupied West Bank and residents of the town. A video appears to show Levi firing his gun wildly and then people screaming as Hathaleen, standing a distance away in the town centre, collapsed.

-

Israeli police said they would not release Hathaleen’s body until his family agreed to 10 conditions, including limiting the funeral to 15 people and burying his body outside his birth village, according to a lawyer representing the family.

“The idea is that the police want the funeral to be really small and quiet, so that it is like it never happened and nobody will come,” said Karin Wind, who has reviewed the conditions and is communicating with the police on behalf of the family.

According to a police document seen by the Guardian, police requested that no “signs calling for incitement” be displayed or “amplification” system used at the funeral, with the police requesting a deposit from the family to ensure they complied with conditions. The family refused to sign the document and its conditions.

https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...crime-genocide

Europe’s silence has allowed the genocide of Palestinians to continue unchecked – undermining all it stands for.

(Josep Borrell was the high representative of the EU for foreign affairs and security policy from 2019 to 2024).

If they survive Donald Trump’s attacks, the international courts will not deliver their final verdict for several years. But for all those who have ears to hear and eyes to see, there can be little doubt that the Israeli government is committing genocide in Gaza, slaughtering and starving civilians after systematically destroying all the infrastructure in the territory. In the meantime, settlers and the Israeli army are every day guilty of serious, massive and repeated violations of international law and international humanitarian law in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Those who do not act to stop this genocide and these violations of international law, even though they have the power to do so, are complicit in them. This is unfortunately the case with the leaders of the European Union and those of its member states, who refuse to sanction Israel even though the EU has a legal obligation to do so.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...-gaza-genocide

John Swinney has described for the first time Israel’s actions in Gaza as a “genocide”, with the Scottish first minister saying it was indisputable.

Swinney became the second leader of a UK nation to use the term “genocide” in relation to the attacks by the Israel Defense Forces on Palestinians in Gaza after Sinn Féin’s Michelle O’Neill did so last month.

https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...ties-hospitals

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2x5eyl676o

The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) has accused Israeli forces of attacking its headquarters in Gaza, killing one worker and injuring three others.

The humanitarian organisation said the attack "sparked a fire in the building" in the early hours of Sunday morning.

Describing the overnight attack on the facility in the southern city of Khan Younis as "deliberate", the Red Crescent said its HQ's location is "well known" to the Israeli military and is "clearly marked with the protective red emblem".

https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org...cles-for-you_1

It is about humanity and not antisemitism - Sun 3 Aug 2025

JVL Introduction:

Here Avrum Burg expresses some of our frustration that the Israeli government and its unwavering and uncritical supporters continue to allege antisemitism as the motivation for criticising what Israel is doing in Gaza.

It no longer works: “Opposing Israel’s actions today is a moral obligation,” says Burg, “And it is not antisemitism. It is love of humanity.”.

More importantly, he shows the similarity in thinking between Zionists and Antisemites both of which want to exceptionalise Jews, negatively or totally positive.

For Burg the real division is not between Jews and non-Jews but between those who believe in equality and those who do not. Hence Israel is linked to those advocating white supremacy rather than to those who advocate democracy.

Burg was a Labor member of the Knesset and at one time its Speaker and has held other important positions such as Chair of the Jewish Agency for Israel, a leading Zionist institution.

His powerful plea for Israel to change direction, The Holocaust is Over; We Must Rise from Its Ashes, was published in 2010.

About ten years ago, he left Labor and joined Hadash, the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crr2dwn7q40o

Western leaders have condemned videos of emaciated Israeli hostages filmed by their captors in Gaza, with the Red Cross calling for access to all remaining in captivity.

UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy said "images of hostages being paraded for propaganda are sickening" and they must be released "unconditionally".

The calls come after the Palestinian Islamic Jihad published video of Rom Braslavski, thin and crying, on Thursday, and Hamas released footage of an emaciated Evyatar David on Saturday.

Israeli leaders accused Hamas of starving hostages.

Hamas's armed wing denied it intentionally starves prisoners, saying hostages eat what their fighters and people eat amid a hunger crisis in Gaza.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crkznje8nz8o

A group of some 600 retired Israeli security officials, including former heads of intelligence agencies, have written to US President Donald Trump to pressure Israel to immediately end the war in Gaza.

"It is our professional judgement that Hamas no longer poses a strategic threat to Israel," the officials said.

"Your credibility with the vast majority of Israelis augments your ability to steer Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu and his government in the right direction: End the war, return the hostages, stop the suffering," they wrote.

Their appeal comes amid reports that Netanyahu is pushing to expand military operations in Gaza as indirect ceasefire talks with Hamas have stalled.

Israel launched a devastating war in Gaza following Hamas's attack in southern Israel on 7 October 2023 in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken into Gaza as hostages.

More than 60,000 people have been killed as a result of Israel's military campaign in Gaza since then, the Hamas-run health ministry says.

The territory is also experiencing mass deprivation as a result of heavy restrictions imposed by Israel on what is allowed into Gaza. The ministry says 180 people, including 93 children, have died from malnutrition since the start of the war.

UN-backed agencies have said the "worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out" in Gaza.

https://youtu.be/krTrimRqeYA?si=RNtX7hNhvjaeuBpj

https://www.msf.org/ghf-run-food-dis...trated-killing

Jerusalem – An analysis of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) medical data, patients’ testimonies, and first-hand medical witnessing at two MSF clinics in Gaza, Palestine, point to both targeted and indiscriminate violence by Israeli forces and private American contractors against starved Palestinians at food distribution sites run by the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

MSF calls for the immediate dismantling of the GHF scheme; the restoration of the UN-coordinated aid delivery mechanism; and calls on governments, especially the United States, as well as private donors to suspend all financial and political support for the GHF, whose sites are essentially death traps.

A new MSF report, This is not aid. This is orchestrated killing, documents the horrors witnessed by MSF staff at two clinics that regularly received mass influxes of casualties following violence at sites run by the GHF, an Israeli-US proxy that has militarised food distribution. Between 7 June and 24 July 2025, 1,380 casualties, including 28 dead, were received at MSF’s Al-Mawasi and Al-Attar clinics in southern Gaza, located near the GHF-run distribution sites.

During those seven weeks, our teams treated 71 children for gunshot wounds, 25 of whom were under the age of 15. Faced with no alternatives to find food, starved families frequently send teenage boys into this lethal environment, as they are often the only males in the household physically able to make the journey.

Patients have also included a 12-year-old boy hit by a bullet that had passed all the way through his abdomen, and five young girls, one of whom was only 8 years old and suffered a gunshot wound to her chest.

“Children shot in the chest while reaching for food. People crushed or suffocated in stampedes. Entire crowds gunned down at distribution points,” says Raquel Ayora, MSF General Director. “In MSF’s nearly 54 years of operations, rarely have we seen such levels of systematic violence against unarmed civilians.”

“The GHF distribution sites masquerading as ‘aid’ have morphed into a laboratory of cruelty,” says Ayora. “This must stop now.”

An initial analysis of the gunshot wounds among patients arriving at the Al-Mawasi clinic found that 11 per cent of the gunshot injuries were to the head and neck, while 19 per cent were to areas covering the chest, abdomen, and back. By contrast, people arriving from the Khan Younis Distribution Centre were far more likely to arrive with gunshot wounds to the lower limbs. The distinct patterns and anatomical precision of these injuries strongly suggests the intentional targeting of people within and around the distribution sites, rather than accidental or indiscriminate fire.

“We’re being slaughtered. I’ve been injured maybe 10 times,” says Mohammed Riad Tabasi, a patient who was treated at the MSF Al-Mawasi clinic. “I saw it with my own eyes, about 20 corpses around me. All of them shot in the head, in the stomach.”

In May, Israeli authorities sought to dismantle the UN-led humanitarian response and replace it with a militarised food distribution scheme operated by GHF. All four GHF-run distribution sites are in areas under full Israeli military control, and “secured” by private American armed contractors.

The GHF has been touted by the Israeli and US governments as an “innovative solution” – a supposed answer to their unproven claims of aid diversion in Gaza and unfounded accusations of UN failure. The sites are nothing but a deadly scheme, institutionalising the Israeli authorities’ starvation policy of Gaza that started on 2 March, with the full siege they imposed on the Strip as part of their ongoing genocidal campaign.

The way this scheme operates attempts to strip people of their dignity. Over the seven weeks, MSF teams treated 196 patients with injuries following chaotic scrambles at the GHF distribution sites. Patients included a five-year-old boy with severe head injuries and a woman who died of asphyxiation, likely caused by the suffocating crush of a crowd.

People who manage to secure any food rations at the sites often face the risk of violent looting and theft of aid by other starved people. Our medical teams were required to add a new acronym to their patient registry: BBO – Beaten By Others. This refers to people injured either in the crush of the crowd or by being beaten and robbed of their supplies immediately after receiving them. It is dehumanisation by design.

“On 1 August, the same day the US special envoy to the Middle East visited GHF sites, 15-year-old Mahmoud Jamal Al-Attar was killed around the Al-Shakoush GHF site while trying to get food,” says Aitor Zabalgogeazkoa, MSF emergency coordinator in Gaza. “He arrived at the MSF Al-Mawasi clinic after being shot in the chest.”

“We treat only a fraction of the total number of people killed and injured at these sites. There is no other way to describe the murder of children as anything but intentional,” says Zabalgogeazkoa. “Despite the condemnations and calls for dismantling it, the global inaction to stop GHF is baffling.”

Between 27 July – 2 August, 186 people with wounds from gunshots, shrapnel or assault and stabbing were treated in MSF’s Al-Mawasi or Al-Attar clinics after being wounded at GHF sites. Two of them died. On 3 August MSF clinics received three more wounded people, one who had been shot in the neck and two with shots to the head.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...israeli-attack

A footballer known as the “Palestinian Pelé” has been killed in an Israeli attack in southern Gaza, according to the Palestine Football Association (PFA).

Suleiman al-Obeid was killed on Wednesday when Israeli forces attacked civilians waiting for humanitarian aid, the PFA said.

‘‘During his long career, al-Obeid, 41, scored more than 100 goals, making him one of the brightest stars of Palestinian football,” it said.

Born in Gaza on 24 March 1984, Obeid began his footballing career with Khadamat al-Shati, later playing for Markaz Shabab al-Am’ari in the occupied West Bank, and Gaza Sport. A fixture in the Palestinian national side after his debut in 2007, Obeid gained 24 caps and scored twice, the PFA said, most memorably with a scissor-kick against Yemen during the 2010 West Asian Football Federation championship.

His talent on the pitch earned him the nickname of “the Palestinian Pelé” – a nod to the legendary Brazilian widely hailed as one of the greatest players of all time.

His death adds to a growing toll of athletes lost in Gaza since the war began, with at least 662 sportspeople and their relatives reported to have been killed.

“The number of footballers killed or who died from starvation has reached 421, including 103 children,” the PFA said.

Obeid is survived by his wife and five children.

According to the PFA, 288 sports facilities have been damaged or reduced to rubble across Gaza and the West Bank, from stadiums and training grounds to gyms and clubhouses. The vast majority, 268, were in Gaza, while 20 were in the West Bank, with about half serving football directly.

Among the sites hit was the PFA’s headquarters in Gaza, struck during an Israeli air raid.

Taken a while for the MSM to find this story and decide to run it.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics...raeli-military

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jon1959

Taken a while for the MSM to find this story and decide to run it.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics...raeli-military

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Another example here.

https://x.com/kahlissee/status/1953791600917713249?s=61

JVL Introduction

This is a howl of outrage and passionate plea from Avrum Burg, former head of the Jewish Agency and speaker of the Israeli Knesset.

It is a call for Jews to take sides, to speak against the zealots, by appealing to the International Court of Justice:

“In our appeal, we shall declare: We will not allow the State of Israel, which systematically inflicts violence upon a civilian population, to speak in our name. We will not allow Judaism to be a cover for crimes. This is not a rejection of our people it is a defense of its soul. Not destruction but repair.”


https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org...cles-for-you_1

JVL Introduction

This is Brant Rosen’s cautious welcome to the growing number of Jewish leaders who are speaking out against what is being done to Gaza. His concerns are less than that they are rather late to the struggle because coming late is better than not coming at all, but rather does the attention push Palestinians’ voices further into the background and what is the focus of their protest. As a Jewish organisation fighting for peace and justice for Palestinians, how to better raise Palestinian voices is a question for us all. However, a major issue is this failure to “join up the dots” and to put the blame only on this government in Israel as though the Nakba and Occupation under previous Israeli governments are somehow irrelevant and as if this barbarity is an aberration rather than a more extreme version of what has gone before.

It is good that it is becoming too much even for advocates for Israel but we note something similar to what Brant Rosen has observed in this approach from “Top Jewish Philanthropists” whose concern seems to be motivated by the damaging impact of the genocide on world Jewry more than the Palestinian people.


https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org...cles-for-you_1

What is it with senior American politicians called Mike?

In Trump's first term it was Mike Pence (Vice President) and Mike Pompeo (Secretary of State) - both evangelical Christians, Christian Zionists and uber supporters of ethnic cleansing to achieve 'biblical borders' for an expanded Israel (annexing Palestine and parts of surrounding countries).

In Trump's second term it is Mike Johnson (Speaker of the House) and Mike Huckabee (US Ambassador to Israel) doing the same and talking about 'real estate deals' between a god and his chosen people written in an old book!

Not sure Huckabee can decide whether he's working for Trump or Netanyahu, Smotrich and Ben-Gvir:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...r-gaza-dresden

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ceqyyrp3yq9o

Quote:

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Originally Posted by the other bob wilson

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ceqyyrp3yq9o

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https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...m-darkest-hour

As the world witnesses the horrors unfolding in Gaza, a related tragedy continues with chilling regularity: the systematic targeting and killing of journalists. Just as the Gaza journalistic community thought matters could not get any worse, Benjamin Netanyahu’s brutal occupying forces carried out yet another cold-blooded murder on Sunday, this time of the Al Jazeera journalists Anas al-Sharif and Mohammed Qraiqea, along with videographers Ibrahim Thaher, Mohammed Nofal and their colleagues. They were sheltering in a media tent near al-Shifa hospital, and were killed by a direct strike.

The Israeli war machine, accelerating its stated goal of occupying Gaza, showed no restraint in targeting journalists, in violation of international conventions. So far in this war it has killed 238 of us. The war on Gaza has become the deadliest conflict for journalists and media workers in living memory, with 2024 recording the highest number of journalists killed, the vast majority at the hands of Israeli forces. The systematic targeting and elimination of journalists is not merely a local or regional tragedy; it is a catastrophic breach of international norms regarding the protection of journalists in conflict zones, signalling a global collapse of the moral responsibility in safeguarding those who risk everything to shed light on the realities of war.

Gaza is not the only place where journalists are under siege. Threats, intimidation and murderous violence against journalists are on the rise. However, what differentiates Israeli crimes is the impunity with which the occupation forces murder journalists and the indifference shown by leaders of the so-called free world. What is especially shocking is when some media organisations repeat the Israeli regime’s false allegations against targeted journalists without verification.

By any measure, it is the most dangerous time to be a journalist in recent history. Reporters are threatened, harassed and killed merely for fulfilling their public duty of bearing witness and reporting the truth. Worldwide, the dangers faced by journalists in conflict zones have intensified. In 2023, a journalist or media worker was killed, on average, every four days. In 2024, this grim statistic worsened to once every three days, most of those by Israeli forces. The journalists in Gaza are not parachuted-in international correspondents but local journalists – those who know the land, the people and the stories best. These journalists are not just reporting on Gaza’s tragedy; they are living it.

This surge in violence against journalists is neither accidental nor isolated. It is part of a broader, deeply worrying trend: the systematic silencing of the media, often orchestrated by autocrats and regimes who seek to conceal their crimes in darkness. This should horrify us all. It is an assault not only on individual reporters but on the entire global public’s right to know, to understand the depth of human suffering, and to hold the powerful to account.

'Israel is wiping out the witnesses' - Editorial:

Anas al-Sharif knew that far from offering protection amid the slaughter in Gaza, his press credentials further endangered him. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) warned last month of acute danger to the 28-year-old’s life as the Israel Defense Forces stepped up online attacks on him. These were not merely smears, but a death threat in response to his coverage, the Al Jazeera reporter said. And now he is dead, one of five media workers killed in an airstrike on Sunday.

The CPJ says that more than 180 Palestinian journalists and media workers have been killed in almost two years of war – more than the number who have died globally in the previous three years. This does not merely reflect Gaza’s vast death toll – 61,599, most of them women and children, according to the health ministry and many more if independent experts are correct. Nor does it merely reflect the courage shown by reporters, photographers, camera operators and others in a war zone. The CPJ says 26 of the reporters were targeted.

Israeli officials have bragged of killing Mr Sharif, whom they have claimed was the head of a Hamas terrorist cell, planning rocket attacks against Israeli civilians. Mr Sharif and Al Jazeera had already denied this. It would surely be hard for such a prominent figure to combine reporting with command of such a unit. The documents offered up by Israel as evidence end two years before the war began, and were reportedly screen grabs of electronic spreadsheets, not independently verified.

Israeli officials have repeatedly offered wildly misleading and rapidly shifting accounts of events, including the killing of paramedics in Gaza this spring. In 2022, an IDF general reportedly told American officials within hours that one of its soldiers had probably shot dead the acclaimed Palestinian-American Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in the occupied West Bank – but Israeli officials insisted publicly that Palestinian militants were to blame. No justification has even been attempted for the deaths of Mr Sharif’s colleagues.

Mr Sharif’s 90-year-old father was killed in an airstrike on their home in late 2023, after Israeli military officials called the journalist telling him to stop reporting and leave Gaza. Israeli claims that he was a Hamas fighter resurfaced last month after his emotional reporting on starvation went viral. He was killed as outrage mounted over Gaza’s famine and shortly after Israel announced its plan to launch a ground offensive in Gaza City, which would only deepen the catastrophe and is reportedly opposed by many in the military too. The deaths of the Al Jazeera team in the city ensure few are left to bear witness to what unfolds. International correspondents are unable to enter Gaza except on escorted military trips during which they cannot speak to Palestinians.

Sheltered by the US, Israel’s government appears unmoved as international public opinion turns against it and even staunch allies blench at the horrors of Gaza. The Al Jazeera killings have been widely and rightly condemned. The Reporters sans Frontières group has also urged the international criminal court to investigate the treatment of media workers.

“If these words reach you, know that Israel has succeeded in killing me and silencing my voice,” Mr Sharif wrote in a posthumously published statement. Deliberately targeting journalists is a war crime: an assault not only on the person, but on truth itself. Yet it cannot disguise Israel’s other atrocities. Rather, it adds to the charge sheet against its leaders.

https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...-the-witnesses

Mass murder of journalists in Gaza (and the West Bank), with indifference or collusion from Western governments and influential parts of the Western mass media (especially German and American):

https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...urnalists-gaza

https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...anas-al-sharif


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-U2rIQCBZvI&t=3s

Israeli airstrikes on Tehran’s Evin prison in June killed scores of detainees, visitors and staff in what Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called an “apparent war crime”. Iranian authorities have since subjected survivors to abuse, enforced disappearances and inhumane detention conditions, the rights group said.

HRW’s investigation, based on satellite imagery, videos and witness accounts, found the 23 June Israeli airstrikes destroyed visitation halls, prison wards, the central kitchen, the medical clinic and administrative offices. No evident military targets were identified in the facility, which held more than 1,500 prisoners at the time, many of whom had been jailed for peaceful activism.

“Israel’s strikes on Evin prison on June 23 killed and injured scores of civilians without any evident military target in violation of the laws of war and is an apparent war crime,” said Michael Page, deputy Middle East director at HRW. “The Israeli attack placed at grave risk the already precarious lives of Evin’s prisoners, many of them wrongfully detained dissidents and activists.”

At least 80 people died in the attack, which occurred during visiting hours, when public areas were at their busiest. HRW described the strike as unlawfully indiscriminate. Israeli officials have called Evin a “symbol of oppression” but have provided no evidence of military use.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...hran-war-crime

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...e-palestinians

Microsoft has launched an “urgent” external inquiry into allegations Israel’s military surveillance agency has used the company’s technology to facilitate the mass surveillance of Palestinians.

The company said on Friday the formal review was in response to a Guardian investigation that revealed how the Unit 8200 spy agency has relied on Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform to store a vast collection of everyday Palestinian mobile phone calls.

The joint investigation with the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and the Hebrew-language outlet Local Call found Unit 8200 made use of a customised and segregated area within Azure to store recordings of millions of calls made daily in Gaza and the West Bank.

In a statement, Microsoft said “using Azure for the storage of data files of phone calls obtained through broad or mass surveillance of civilians in Gaza and the West Bank” would be prohibited by its terms of service.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/...estinian-state

Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich says he will approve thousands of housing units in a highly controversial and long-delayed illegal settlement project in the occupied West Bank, saying the move “buries the idea of a Palestinian state”.

Smotrich on Thursday said he would approve tenders to build more than 3,000 homes in the E1 area settlement project that would connect Jerusalem and the existing illegal Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim, located several kilometres to the east.

“This reality finally buries the idea of a Palestinian state, because there is nothing to recognise and no one to recognise,” he said. “Anyone in the world who tries today to recognise a Palestinian state will receive an answer from us on the ground,” he said.

The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs called the new settlement plan an extension of crimes of genocide, displacement and annexation, and an echo of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statements regarding what he called “Greater Israel”.

In a statement before the announcement, Smotrich, who is also a minister in Israel’s Ministry of Defence with broad responsibility for approving settlements in the occupied West Bank, hailed the project as “Zionism at its best”.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckgdzxpkdd7o

Israeli far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has said plans to build more than 3,000 homes in a controversial settlement project in the occupied West Bank will "bury the idea of a Palestinian state".

The so-called E1 project between Jerusalem and the Maale Adumim settlement has been frozen for decades amid fierce opposition internationally. Building there would effectively cut off the West Bank from occupied East Jerusalem.

Smotrich said it would thwart the idea of a Palestinian state "because there is nothing to recognise and no one to recognise".

Settlements are considered illegal under international law and form one of the most contentious issues between Israel and the Palestinians.

About 700,000 settlers live in approximately 160 settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, according to the Israeli anti-settlement group Peace Now. It is land Palestinians seek for a future independent state.

"After decades of international pressure and freezes, we are breaking conventions and connecting Maale Adumim to Jerusalem," Smotrich said.

"This is Zionism at its best - building, settling and strengthening our sovereignty in the Land of Israel."

It follows declarations in recent days by a growing number of countries of their intention to recognise a Palestinian state in coming months, which Israel has denounced.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cqxg3xg8xyyo

New footage shared on social media shows the far-right Israeli minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, taunting the most prominent Palestinian prisoner, Marwan Barghouti, in his cell.

The Palestinian Authority has condemned the video. Its Vice-President Hussein al-Sheikh described it as "the epitome of psychological, moral and physical terrorism."

The 13-second-long video clip, external is the first time that Barghouti has been publicly seen in years. He appears aged and gaunt.

An average of 420 children were admitted to hospitals in Gaza per day in July due to acute malnutrition, compared to a daily average of 112 from the beginning of the year until mid-June, according to a report published Thursday by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

https://us18.campaign-archive.com/?e...&id=9ceeaea768