Two Israeli human rights groups accuse Israel of genocide in Gaza
July 30, 2025
Israel
In brief: “A pair of leading Israeli human rights groups has accused Israel of ‘committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza,’ becoming the first such organizations to make the claim. […] B’Tselem said in a major report released on Monday that it came to that ‘unequivocal conclusion’ after an ‘examination of Israel’s policy in the Gaza Strip and its horrific outcomes, together with statements by senior Israeli politicians and military commanders about the goals of the attack.’ […] A second Israeli group, Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI), announced it was joining B’Tselem in calling Israel’s actions in Gaza genocide. It published a separate legal and medical analysis documenting what it called ‘deliberate and systematic extermination of the health system in Gaza.’ […] ‘Many state leaders, particularly in Europe and the US have not only refrained from effective action to stop the genocide but enabled it – through statements affirming Israel’s ‘right to self-defense’ or active support, including the shipment of weapons and ammunition – which continued even after the International Court of Justice ruled that there was ‘plausible risk that Israel’s actions amount to genocidal acts,’ it stated.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/for-first-time-two-leading-israeli-human-rights-groups-accuse-israel-of-genocide-in-gaza/ar-AA1JqL4C?ocid=hpmsn
The Genocidal Partnership of Israel and the United States
July 29, 2025
U.S.-Israel
In brief: “For decades, countless U.S. officials have proclaimed that the bonds between the United States and Israel are unbreakable. Now, the ties that bind are laced with genocide. The two countries function as accomplices while methodical killing continues in Gaza, with both societies directly—and differently—making it all possible. […] The policies of Israel’s government are aligned with the attitudes of most Jewish Israelis. In a recent survey, three-quarters of them (and 64% of all Israelis) said they largely agreed with the statement that ‘there are no innocent people in Gaza’—nearly half of whom are children.”
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/u-s-israel-genocide
UN experts call for end to Israeli State and settler violence in the West Bank
25 July 2025
Geneva
In Brief: “UN experts* today expressed grave concern over systematic and ongoing violations by Israeli settlers and Israeli security forces against Palestinian peasants and rural workers in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.”
“*Special Rapporteurs/Independent Experts/Working Groups are independent human rights experts appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council.”
https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/07/un-experts-call-end-israeli-state-and-settler-violence-west-bank
Resala: A Message to the Destroyers – A Poem for Gaza.
In brief: "You who sought to destroy us / Have failed."
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/resala-a-message-to-the-destroyers-a-poem-for-gaza/
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an attempt to destroy a whole society
July 26, 2025
Gaza Strip
In brief: “The social breakdown that we are witnessing, the degrading of human beings, is not a byproduct of the harm that Israel is inflicting. That’s the central element of the crime: destroying Palestinian society. The government of Israel shows no indication that it cares in the slightest whether Palestinians live or die. It wants to avoid the stigma of being accused of starvation and genocide, and the GHF is its current alibi. Let’s not be fooled.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jul/26/israel-food-starvation-gaza-famine-aid
About Columbia University Apartheid Divest
New York City
In brief: “Columbia University Apartheid Divest is a coalition of student organizations that see Palestine as the vanguard for our collective liberation. We are a continuation of the Vietnam anti-war movement and the movement to divest from apartheid South Africa. We support freedom and justice for the Palestinian people, and for all people. We know that true collective safety will arise when everyone has access to clean air, clean water, food, housing, education, healthcare, freedom of movement, and dignity.
https://cuapartheiddivest.substack.com/about
Mass starvation spreading across Gaza, aid agencies warn, as Israeli government says it is not responsible – as it happened
Gaza, Palestine
In brief: “More than 100 aid agencies, including Doctors Without Borders, Save the Children and Oxfam, say ‘our colleagues and those we serve are wasting away’”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2025/jul/23/israel-gaza-war-aid-benjamin-netanyahu-hamas-middle-east-latest-news-updates
Is this Gaza’s ‘bomb the tracks’ moment?
July 25, 2025
In brief: “There is, of course, an entire spectrum of potential interventions that lie between ‘bombing the tracks,’ an arms embargo, and complete inaction. Hundreds of global and Palestinian human rights and civil society organizations recently called on countries around the world to join a humanitarian convoy, ‘dispatching official diplomatic missions — at the highest possible level — to accompany the aid trucks already waiting at the Rafah Crossing, and to enter Gaza alongside them.’”
https://www.972mag.com/gaza-genocide-global-intervention-holocaust/
Columbia University Deal With The Trump Administration
July 25, 2025
Columbia University
In brief: “The Trump administration’s landmark settlement with Columbia University threatens the institution’s independence and academic freedom, higher education experts say. Many warn that the agreement marks a threat not only to higher education, but also to democracy at large. […] The agreement, announced Wednesday, comes after Columbia faced months of intense pressure from the White House to address alleged antisemitism on campus and agree to a number of demands. It’s the latest example of how this administration is pushing the boundaries of its authority to secure changes that conservatives have long sought in higher ed. In the end, Columbiad agreed to comply with the government’s extensive demands while forking over more than $200 million to unlock $400 million in federal grants.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/government/politics-elections/2025/07/25/columbia-settlement-offers-warning-higher-ed
Columbia University Bows To The Trump Administration
July 22, 2025
New York City
In brief: “Columbia University announced disciplinary action Tuesday against students who participated in a pro-Palestinian demonstration inside the Ivy League school’s main library before final exams in May and an encampment during alumni weekend last year. […] A student activist group said nearly 80 students were told they have been suspended for one to three years or expelled. The sanctions issued by a university judicial board also include probation and degree revocations, Columbia said in a statement. […] The action comes as the Manhattan university is negotiating with President Donald Trump's administration to restore $400 million in federal funding it has withheld from the Ivy League school over its handling of student protests against the war in Gaza. The administration pulled the funding, canceling grants and contracts, in March because of what it described as the university's failure to squelch antisemitism on campus during the Israel-Hamas war that began in October 2023.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/columbia-university-says-it-has-suspended-and-expelled-students-who-participated-in-protests/ar-AA1J6e9Q?ocid=hpmsn
Revealed: Harvard publisher cancels entire journal issue on Palestine shortly before publication
July 22, 2025
Cambridge, Massachusetts
In brief: “… the cancellation of an entire issue of an academic journal, which has not been previously reported, is a remarkable new development in a mounting list of examples on censorship of pro-Palestinian speech.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/revealed-harvard-publisher-cancels-entire-journal-issue-on-palestine-shortly-before-publication/ar-AA1J3LKV?ocid=hpmsn
Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory
15 July 2025
In brief: “The UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the OPT (Occupied Palestinian Territories) has concluded that since 7 October 2023 Israel has committed at least three of the constitutive acts of genocide in Gaza, and that statements made by high-level Israeli military and government officials are evidence of genocidal intent. In response to the case brought by South Africa against Israel for allegations of genocide against the Palestinian people, since January 2024 the International Court of Justice (‘ICJ’) has issued three binding sets of provisional measures that list urgent measures the Israeli authorities must take to prevent genocide and allow necessary aid to enter Gaza. Israel has consistently defied these provisional measures orders and its obligations as an occupying power under International Humanitarian Law (IHL). The UN Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories also determined that Israel’s warfare in Gaza is consistent with the characteristics of genocide. […] Across twenty months Israel has subjected Palestinians in Gaza to genocidal acts, including killings, causing serious bodily or mental harm and deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about their destruction. The rhetoric of Israeli authorities, coupled with the conduct in Gaza have reflected, beyond military objectives, an accompanying intent to destroy a substantial part of the Palestinian population. Israel’s ongoing military assault on the Occupied West Bank – resembling its conduct in Gaza – has heightened the risk of further atrocity crimes against Palestinians. […] Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, an occupying power is prohibited from transferring parts of its civilian population into occupied territory, also known as ‘settler implantation.’ Seizures and demolitions of Palestinian and Bedouin land and property leave communities at risk of forced evictions, arbitrary displacement and forcible transfer. Israel’s permanent occupation endangers the cultural existence of the Palestinian people and violates their right to self-determination.
https://www.globalr2p.org/countries/israel-and-the-occupied-palestinian-territory/
U.S. citizen among 2 Palestinians killed by settlers in Israeli-occupied West Bank, health officials say
July 12, 2025
West Bank
In brief: “A Palestinian American man was beaten to death by settlers in the Israeli-occupied West Bank overnight and another man was shot dead, the Palestinian Health Ministry said in a statement. […] Sayfollah Musallet, a 20-year-old U.S. citizen also known as Saif, was severely beaten on Friday evening in Sinjil, north of Ramallah, the ministry said. Hussein Al-Shalabi, 23, was shot in the chest. […] Musallet's family, from Tampa, Fla., said in a statement that medics tried to reach him for three hours before his brother managed to carry him to an ambulance, but he died before reaching the before reaching the hospital.”
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/palestinian-american-killed-israel-1.7583717
Israel’s new border defense strategy: AI sensors, killer drones, smartwatch tracking
Israel
In brief: “Israeli company ESC BAZ, based in Lod, has been tasked with integrating its advanced systems along Israel's borders with the Gaza Strip, Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt, as border security has become one of Israel's most challenging issues. […] Recently, the National Security Council tasked ESC BAZ with developing a defense solution for the eastern border with Jordan, which faces threats from smugglers, Palestinian terrorists, and operatives linked to Iranian-backed networks. […] ESC BAZ has developed, manufactured, and sold its solution to over twenty countries, including military forces, defense ministries, and infrastructure companies. This cutting-edge technology may also be integrated into IDF operations.”
https://www.jpost.com/defense-and-tech/article-862130
Why Academic Scholarship On Israel And Palestine Threatens Western Elites
June 18, 2025
U.S. - Europe
In brief: “There is no respected scholar of the Middle East today in the western academy who would deny Israel's massive expulsion of the Palestinians in 1948 and 1967. […] Equally, no academic expert could deny that Zionism was always a European settler-colonial movement allied with the imperialist countries or that Zionism had always espoused racist views of the Palestinians and cooperated with other settler colonies extending from South Africa to French Algeria and beyond. […] And no scholar today could earnestly question that the Israeli state is an institutionally racist and Jewish supremacist state - enshrined in law - or deny the history of Zionist terrorism in the region, let alone the turmoil and violence Israel has visited on the entire Middle East since its establishment in 1948.
Israel: An Idea That No Longer Makes Sense
June 13, 2025
Israel-Palestine
In brief: “People who support Israel, no matter what it does, tend to hang their hats on a series of familiar arguments. Israel, they say, is the only place Jews can live in security. Critics of Israel want to eliminate Israel. The abolition of Israel would render Israeli Jews homeless (‘ethnic cleansing’), or they would be killed (‘genocide’). Therefore, anyone who criticizes Israel — any anti-Zionist, anyone appalled by Israel's oppression of the Palestinians — is, by definition, antisemitic.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/israel-an-idea-that-no-longer-makes-sense/ar-AA1GGhXy?ocid=hpmsn
Infinite License
Gaza City, Palestine
March 10, 2025
In brief: “On January 12, 1904, the Herero people of German Southwest Africa—today’s Namibia—launched a series of attacks on scattered German farms in the territory. The Herero, a pastoral group of about 80,000, depended on their vast cattle herds for their economic, social, and cultural life, but the German settlers who had begun to arrive in the late nineteenth century increasingly encroached on their grazing lands. […] The rebels destroyed many of the farms and killed more than a hundred settlers, mostly sparing women and children. For the settlers the rebellion served as a final proof of the need to eradicate the Herero, whom they described as ‘baboons.’ Unable to restore order, the German governor appealed to Berlin, which sent some 10,000 soldiers. By August they had crushed the Herero fighters. In October the German commander, Lieutenant General Lothar von Trotha, issued what has come to be known as his Vernichtungsbefehl ('extermination order') to those who remained: ‘The Herero are German subjects no longer. They have killed, stolen, cut off the ears and other parts of the body of wounded soldiers, and now are too cowardly to want to fight any longer…. The Herero nation must now leave the country. If it refuses, I shall compel it to do so with the big cannon. Any Herero found inside the German frontier, with or without a gun or cattle, will be executed. I shall spare neither women nor children.”
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2025/04/24/infinite-license-the-world-after-gaza/
Counting the Dead in Gaza
July 20, 2024
Gaza Strip
In brief: "By June 19, 2024, 37 396 people had been killed in the Gaza Strip since the attack by Hamas and the Israeli invasion in October, 2023, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, as reported by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The Ministry's figures have been contested by the Israeli authorities, although they have been accepted as accurate by Israeli intelligence services, the UN, and WHO. These data are supported by independent analyses, comparing changes in the number of deaths of UN Relief and Works Agency ('UNRWA') staff with those reported by the Ministry, which found claims of data fabrication implausible. [...] Collecting data is becoming increasingly difficult for the Gaza Health Ministry due to the destruction of much of the infrastructure. The Ministry has had to augment its usual reporting, based on people dying in its hospitals or brought in dead, with information from reliable media sources and first responders. This change has inevitably degraded the detailed data recorded previously. Consequently, the Gaza Health Ministry now reports separately the number of unidentified bodies among the total death toll. As of May 10, 2024, 30% of the 35 091 deaths were unidentified."
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)01169-3/fulltext
Counting the Dead in Gaza
July 5, 2025
Gaza Strip
In brief: "Seventy Palestinians were killed and 332 injured in ongoing Israeli bombings and air strikes across the Gaza Strip in the last 24 hours, the Gaza Health Ministry said. [...] That took to 57,338 the death toll from the Israeli aggression which began on October 7, 2023, and the total number of injuries soared to 135,957, it said on Saturday in the latest update of casualties. [...] Many victims remained under the rubble of targeted buildings or on roads, inaccessible by ambulances and civil defense crews."
https://www.msn.com/en-ae/public-safety-and-emergencies/health-and-safety-alerts/gaza-health-ministry-70-killed-in-24-hours-war-toll-to-57-338/ar-AA1I1zdU
Counting the Dead in Gaza
July 4, 2025
Gaza
In brief: "The Gaza Ministry of Health has reported a continued rise in casualties amid ongoing Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip. As of July 4, 2025, hospitals in Gaza have received 138 martyrs and 452 wounded within the past 24 hours. Since the start of the conflict on October 7, 2023, the total death toll has reached 57,268 Palestinians, with 135,625 injured. Additionally, since the ceasefire violation and renewed hostilities beginning March 18, 2025, there have been 6,710 deaths and 23,584 injuries. Recent daily casualty figures have fluctuated, with hospitals receiving between 28 and 142 martyrs and several hundred injured each day. The ongoing violence has resulted in a cumulative humanitarian toll exceeding 57,000 fatalities and over 135,000 injuries in Gaza since October 2023."
https://deepnewz.com/middle-east/gaza-health-ministry-138-martyrs-452-wounded-24-hours-total-57268-dead-135625-8802b0d8
