Peace and Justice Post

From war crimes and genocide abroad to moral, constitutional, and debt crises at home: Why Congress must reject the NDAA’s U.S.-Israel military and intelligence merger.

by Dennis Kucinich | Jul 3, 2026

Against the horrific high- and low-tech butchery of Palestinians and Lebanese by Israeli ethno-nationalist psychopathic killers, this week there will be an effort in Congress to formally merge or integrate the military of Israel and the United States at the most advanced levels.

Section 219 (formerly Section 224) of the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act of 2027, provides for an unprecedented unification. The nearly $4 billion in the NDAA for Israel’s offensive efforts pales next to Israel having direct access to determining use of $1.5 trillion in annual military resources of the United States.

Money can be appropriated one year and withdrawn the next. Institutional integration is permanent.

Section 219 creates permanent mechanisms through which military planning, intelligence sharing, weapons development, procurement, research, artificial intelligence, and strategic coordination become increasingly intertwined between the United States and Israel.

It is a proposal to embed another nation’s military establishment within the long-term planning and strategic architecture of the United States government.

Our own government – House, Senate and Administration – is in moral collapse, placing overwhelming emphasis on militarism instead of adequately funding America – housing, education, food, health, safety, and retirement security. Americans are standing at freeway exits, begging for food, while our tax dollars flow to weapons manufacturers.

While carrying a national debt approaching $40 Trillion, the Administration is increasing spending for its newly dedicated Department of War by 67% to upwards of $1.5 TRILLION per year. Simultaneously, with more than 42 million Americans unable to feed themselves, the administration is cutting federal food programs.

The practical implications extend far beyond dollars. With NDAA Section 219, Congress the legislation would create enduring institutional relationships affecting how those extraordinary military resources are developed, coordinated, and potentially employed.

No Congress has ever before considered legislation of this nature with any foreign nation.

If the Administration’s “America First” claim were to mean anything, it must first mean that America’s Constitution comes first. It must mean that American families, farmers, workers, veterans, and children come first. Section 219 turns that claim into a farce.

Section 219 of the NDAA would cause the United States to become dependent upon Israel making decisions about war, peace, military strategy, intelligence, and U. S. national security. This is the consequence of permanent institutional integration.

One week ago, a UN Commission of Inquiry determined that Israeli security forces deliberately targeted and killed Palestinian children, sometimes as a game, torturing them, subjecting children to sexual violence resulting in “unprecedented death, injury and trauma.”

Since Oct. 7, 2023, the IDF has been instrumental in the deaths of as many as 800,000 Palestinians, including children, emergency health care workers, doctors, nurses, journalists, and educators.

UN investigators and human rights observers have documented the killing of Palestinian children and have accused Israeli forces of deliberately targeting the children of Gaza.

These findings are reinforced by dehumanizing statements from Israeli political figures who have portrayed Palestinian children as future terrorists, so children are targets.

Essential civilian infrastructure has been devastated. Water systems, hospitals, schools, electrical networks, and sanitation facilities have been damaged or destroyed, eacerbating a man-made, humanitarian catastrophe.

In the occupied West Bank, armed “settlers” have been widely reported to have attacked Palestinian communities, burned homes, uprooted olive groves and other crops, destroyed property, and killed livestock, further displacing civilian populations.

Israel has used starvation as a weapon, setting food as a trap and, gunning down Gazans as they rush desperately to feed themselves and their children. Water supplies have been poisoned, wells filled with cement.

Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon are testing ground sfor increasingly sophisticated military technologies, destroying entire villages with increasingly powerful munitions, and using precision, artificial intelligence-assisted targeting systems. Human rights organizations have raised serious concerns about the speed of targeting decisions, civilian casualty rates, and the implications of delegating life-and-death decisions to algorithmic systems.

White phosphorous and other weapons banned by international treaty are in use.

The conduct of the IDF has earned world-wide condemnation. Twenty-nine UN member states do not have diplomatic relations with Israel. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

The Israel newspaper Haaretz recently reported that the ICC prosecutor is also seeking arrest warrants for Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich: “Gaza must be destroyed entirely.” and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Givr, who has said: “All of Lebanon must burn.” Will these be our new partners? If so, the fundamental question becomes: Who are WE?

What is to be lost further in an Israel-U.S. military merger?

If the U.S. combines our military capabilities with the twisted occupation and expansionist ethic of Israel’s use of military technology against civilian populations, will it be long before our own government militarizes the high -tech surveillance infrastructure already in place to use state violence against our own citizens who protest abuse of basic rights?

The First Amendment has already been taken down on college campuses, and in cities and states where Israel critics are sanctioned.

U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) officials have trained in Israel. The lessons learned there have come to America in terms of deportation, detention, and in some cases, physical abuse, injury and death at the hands of ICE government agents.

Israel kills Arab children so they will not commit crimes in the future. Will Americans, as in the movie Minority Report be pitched into a dystopian world where predictive algorithms enable Israel-U.S. collaborators to hunt down, prosecute and even punish Americans for crimes not committed?

As a Member of Congress, I questioned Benjamin Netanyahu during a hearing which took place prior to the 2003 Congressional vote on going to war against Iraq. He admitted he wanted not only Iraq to be attacked by the United States, but also Libya and Iran. It is widely known that the Israeli Prime Minister pushed President Trump into the disastrous war against Iran.

It is inevitable that as Israel’s aggression is maximally empowered, once placed inside the U.S. war-making establishment, the U.S. will be dragged into the Zionists’ expansionist designs on Iran, Turkey, Egypt and elsewhere. A greater Israel means a lesser United States. Congress, heavily influenced by the Israel lobby, is unable to reclaim its constitutionally based war power

Since the merger is to be voted on, this week, before America celebrates the 250^th anniversary of our Declaration of Independence, let us be reminded by Thomas Jefferson’s July 4, 1776 characterization of George III, King of Great Britain: “He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws….”

Our forefathers did not fight for freedom and for independence at Lexington and Concord, Bunker Hill, Trenton, Saratoga, and Yorktown, nor sacrifice American blood and treasure in battles in World War I and World War II to arrive at July 4, 2026, having willingly forfeited our sovereignty to a foreign nation, losing control of our future and putting in doubt “our lives, our fortunes, our sacred honor.”

Call your congressperson today and tell them to stand for America’s independence and vote for the Massie-Khanna Amendment to remove Section 219 from the NDAA.

United Nations Human Rights, 23 June 2026

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Press releases Sudan: Arbitrary detention, torture and enforced disappearances fueling civilian protection crisis, UN Fact-Finding Mission says

Press releases Palestinian civilians are victims of all sides, trapped between the mass atrocities of Israeli forces and settlers and the fear-based rule of Hamas

Press releases Joint Declaration on Sudan – Adopted by the Joint Fact-Finding Mission of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Human Rights Situation in the Sudan and the United Nations Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for the Sudan

GENEVA – Israeli authorities and security forces have deliberately targeted Palestinian children resulting in genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in the Gaza Strip and war crimes in the West Bank, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel said in a new report today.

The Commission, which concluded last year that Israel had committed genocide against the Palestinian group in the Gaza Strip, found that the intense scale and systematic nature of the Israeli military operations have continued – resulting in unprecedented death, injury and trauma of Palestinian children.

The Commission reiterates that the deliberate targeting of children is one of the key elements establishing genocidal intent of the Israeli authorities and security forces to destroy the Palestinian group, in whole or in part, in Gaza.

“The evidence shows that Palestinian children have been deliberately targeted and killed by the Israeli security forces,” said Srinivasan Muralidhar, Chair of the Commission. “Even after the October 2025 ceasefire, children continue to be killed and seriously injured, with continued disregard by Israel for the ceasefire and for the protection owed to Palestinian children under international law.”

Severe physical and mental injuries, mass trauma, orphanhood, separation, disability, repeated displacements, starvation, and the collapse of education and healthcare have erased childhood and will continue to affect children in Gaza throughout their lives.

Palestinian children have been arrested and subjected to torture and other severe forms of mistreatment in Israeli prisons and detention facilities, with no information on their whereabouts. Israeli security forces have also used sexual violence against children as part of the collective shaming and oppression, entrenched within a prolonged, ethnic, gendered, and intergenerational pattern of Israeli occupation and hostilities.

Israel’s targeting of neonatal and maternity care centers in Gaza have directly harmed the survival of newborns and Palestinians’ reproductive future, including rises in miscarriages, birth defects and lasting vulnerabilities among newborns, resulting in the destruction of Palestinian newborn life and the population’s continuity. Starvation imposed by Israel through blockade and siege have further caused the death of Palestinian children and severely impacted the health of many others, depriving them of essential nutrition and increasing disease risks amid reduced immunization, food insecurity and destroyed health services.

In parallel, the dismantling and destruction of orphanages and education facilities in Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, have obstructed children’s cognitive, social and emotional care and development and disrupted the foundations of Palestinian society.

“Even if the bombs and guns fall silent in Gaza and West Bank, Palestinian children will not simply recover overnight,” said Muralidhar. “The destruction of their health, education and development is irreversible.”

Palestinian children have suffered immense psychological harm, having been stripped of any sense of safety and future. Mental harm is an intergenerational condition, producing a distinctive “occupied psyche” in which the freedom to play, imagine, hope, and develop an identity has been eroded.

By targeting children, Israel is eroding the foundational structure of Palestinian society, weakening the demographic vitality, and overall capacity of the Palestinian people to sustain and exercise its right to determine its future as a people.

“The protection, care and survival of Palestinian children are inseparable from the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination,” said Muralidhar. “By targeting children, Israel is attacking the very capacity of the Palestinian people to exist and to determine their future.”

The Commission calls for Israel to cease committing violations and crimes against and affecting Palestinian children. The Commission further calls for the end of Israel’s continuing presence in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, in compliance with the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice.

The Commission has identified military units within the Israeli security forces responsible for killing and injuring of Palestinian children and makes recommendations to Israel and to all Member States to ensure accountability for such crimes.

The international community as a whole must uphold their international legal obligations and call for an end to the hostilities, for Israel to end its occupation and to prioritize accountability and access to justice for victims as an integral component of any political process, grounded in the meaningful participation of Palestinians, including children.

Read the full report in English.

ENDS

Background: The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel was established by the UN Human Rights Council on 27 May 2021 to “investigate, in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and in Israel, all alleged violations of international humanitarian law and all alleged violations and abuses of international human rights law leading up to and since 13 April 2021.” Resolution A/HRC/RES/S-30/1 further requested the commission of inquiry to “investigate all underlying root causes of recurrent tensions, instability and protraction of conflict, including systematic discrimination and repression based on national, ethnic, racial or religious identity.”

For media queries, please contact: Todd Pitman, Media Adviser for the UN Human Rights Council’s Investigative Bodies: todd.pitman@un.org / +41766911761; or Pascal sim, Human Rights Council Media Officer: simp@un.org.

Israel has killed over 20,000 Palestinian children since 7 October 2023. The UN has detailed instances of torture, rape and murder in a landmark report

Wounded children wait for medical care at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on 25 May 2026 (AFP)

By Sondos Asem

Published date: 25 June 2026 13:23 BST | Last update:19 hours 50 mins ago

Israeli forces deliberately targeted Palestinian children as a central element of their genocide in Gaza, the UN’s top investigative body on Palestine and Israel concluded this week.

The finding comes in an 88-page report examining the full scope of harm inflicted on children since 7 October 2023, from precision shootings by snipers and drones to torture in detention, reproductive violence and the destruction of schools and hospitals.

“The evidence shows that Palestinian children have been deliberately targeted and killed by the Israeli security forces,” said Srinivasan Muralidhar, chair of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and Israel.

“Even after the October 2025 ceasefire, children continue to be killed and seriously injured, with continued disregard by Israel for the ceasefire and for the protection owed to Palestinian children under international law,” the Indian lawyer and judge said.

The commission, which previously concluded that Israel bore responsibility for genocide in Gaza, found that children were targeted in two ways: directly, through precision weapons including quadcopters and sniper rifles, and indirectly, through the systematic destruction of the conditions necessary for their survival.

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It named specific Israeli military units responsible for killings and urged the International Criminal Court (ICC) to prioritise crimes against children in its ongoing investigation.

Below, we highlight the report’s key findings.

At least 20,179 children killed

Between the Hamas-led attack of 7 October 2023 and 7 October 2025, Israeli military operations killed at least 20,179 children and wounded 44,143 others in Gaza, representing 30 percent of those killed and 26 percent of those injured.

Children under five accounted for at least 5,031 of the deaths, including 1,029 under the age of one and around 420 newborns.

A further 5,160 children are estimated to be buried under rubble.

The commission noted that the true figure is certainly higher, as many deaths went unrecorded.

Children shot in a deliberate pattern

The commission investigated and documented a consistent pattern of Israeli forces deliberately targeting children using precision weapons.

Seventeen medical practitioners who worked across different hospitals in Gaza described treating large numbers of children with single gunshot wounds to the head and upper body, fired by Israeli snipers or quadcopters.

One doctor said the pattern suggested Israeli soldiers were “deliberately shooting teenage boys in a game of target practice”.

The commission forensically analysed 15 out of 17 cases brought by doctors. In 12 of those cases, the wounds were consistent with a single gunshot.

Among the specific cases documented:

On 29 January 2024, Israeli forces shot and killed five-year-old girl Hind Rajab in Tal al-Hawa, Gaza City, along with six of her family members. 

When two Palestinian Red Crescent paramedics drove to rescue her, Israeli forces shelled their ambulance and killed them too. The commission concluded the 401st Brigade of the 162nd Division deliberately shot the family and obstructed the medical rescue.

On 24 January 2024, Israeli soldiers shot dead a 15-year-old boy in Khan Younis while he held a white flag, stepping out of his family home following an Israeli evacuation order. When his 20-year-old brother ran to help him, Israeli soldiers shot him too. The commission found the 98th Division was operating in the area and concluded the shooting was deliberate.

An Israeli quadcopter operator shot a 10-day-old baby boy in the head while his mother was breastfeeding

On 12 April 2024, an Israeli quadcopter operator shot a 10-day-old baby boy in the head while his mother was breastfeeding him inside a tent in Nuseirat camp. The baby survived but now suffers from seizures. The commission concluded the operator had a clear view inside the tent before firing.

On 24 August 2024, an Israeli quadcopter operator shot a four-year-old girl in the head while she was eating with her family in their tent in Khan Younis. She survived but her left side was paralysed. The commission concluded she was deliberately targeted.

On 10 December 2024, an Israeli sniper shot an eight-year-old boy in the buttock while he was playing outside in the Bureij refugee camp. The bullet lodged in his abdomen wall. Surgeons removed a 3cm bullet. The commission found the 99th Division was operating in the area and assessed the boy was hit by an Israeli sniper rifle.

Children shot at food distribution sites

From May 2025, Israeli soldiers shot children at or near Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) aid sites.

Several doctors told the commission they treated children with gunshot wounds sustained there.

A GHF truck driver who spent seven weeks in Gaza told investigators he witnessed two teenagers shot in the head by Israeli soldiers while sprinting away. One soldier was overheard remarking that “fingers are light on the trigger”.

Children killed after ceasefire

The October 2025 ceasefire did not stop Israeli forces from killing children. The commission documented more than 100 children killed and hundreds more wounded in the weeks that followed.

Israeli forces redeployed to a newly established demarcation line inside Gaza known as the yellow line, shooting civilians including children who crossed it while trying to return to their homes or collect firewood.

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On 29 November 2025, Israeli forces from the Kfir Brigade fired a drone strike that killed two brothers aged nine and ten near Bani Suheila in southern Gaza while they were gathering firewood for their wheelchair-bound father.

Israeli forces claimed the boys were suspects crossing the yellow line. The commission found the claim baseless: the boys were more than 300 metres from Israeli soldiers, were visibly children collecting wood, and the drone operator had an unobstructed view of them before firing.

On 10 December 2025, Israeli soldiers shot a 16-year-old boy from Jabalia camp and an Israeli tank then ran over his body.

213 children killed in West Bank

Israeli forces killed 213 Palestinian children in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, between 7 October 2023 and 20 October 2025. The commission found that Israeli forces systematically targeted boys there as a distinct group, labelling them as “terrorists” or “future terrorists”.

On 25 January 2025, soldiers from the Israeli Menashe Brigade shot a two-year-old girl in the back of the head while she was having dinner with her family in south Jenin. She died immediately and is the youngest child killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank since 7 October 2023.

On 28 January 2025, soldiers from the Israeli Ephraim Brigade shot a 10-year-old boy at his father’s house during a military incursion in Tulkarm.

CCTV footage showed the boy was unarmed. Israeli soldiers delayed the ambulance taking him to hospital for 30 minutes. One soldier told the boy’s father: “I am the one who shot your son. God willing, he will die.” The boy died of his wounds on 7 February 2025.

‘I am the one who shot your son. God willing, he will die’

– Israeli Ephraim Brigade soldier

On 16 November 2025, soldiers from the Israeli Paratrooper Battalion, operating under the Menashe Brigade, shot a 14-year-old boy during a military raid on the Al-Faraa refugee camp in Tubas.

Israeli soldiers then left him bleeding on the ground for 45 minutes while standing around him. One soldier filmed him on his phone while another placed a stone next to him, in what the commission assessed was an attempt to frame the shooting as a response to stone throwing. Israeli soldiers also pointed gun laser sights at the heads of paramedics to prevent them from reaching the boy, who died.

Israeli authorities withheld his body.

Settlers attacked and abducted children

In the first half of 2025, Israeli settlers carried out more than 1,000 attacks across 230 Palestinian communities.

In April 2025, two settlers abducted two siblings under five years old at knifepoint while they were playing outside their home, dragged them to an olive grove and tied them to a tree.

In August 2024, armed settlers abducted two 15-year-old boys herding cattle, beat them, blindfolded them, stripped them, and sexually assaulted them. A settler urinated on one of the boys and fractured his leg.

Children tortured and sexually abused 

Israeli forces have detained over 1,655 children in the West Bank since 7 October 2023, 600 of them in 2025 alone.

As of 31 December 2025, 51 percent of child detainees were held under administrative detention, meaning imprisonment without charge, a record number.

Israeli soldiers subjected the detained children to beatings, blindfolding, handcuffing, stress positions on gravel, and terror by dogs from the moment of arrest. Israeli prison authorities denied children food, water and medical care. 

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One 15-year-old boy held at the Sde Teiman facility told the commission he was the only child among 70 adults in his cell. Israeli soldiers entered the cell with dogs and ordered detainees to lie on their stomachs before releasing the animals on them. He described his 23 days there as “the worst days of my life”.

Another 15-year-old, detained during mass arrests in Gaza in December 2023, told the commission that Israeli interrogators electrocuted him through a needle inserted into his shoulder, denied him food and water, and forced him into painful positions for up to 12 hours at a time over 54 days before releasing him at the Kerem Shalom crossing with no medical care and no means of reaching his family.

The commission also received testimony that Israeli prison guards raped boys in detention and subjected them to other forms of sexual violence as a systematic component of the detention regime.

On 22 March 2025, a 17-year-old boy from Ramallah died in Megiddo Prison, the commission said. Israeli prison authorities had been aware since December 2024 that he was suffering from head trauma, inadequate food and severe weight loss, but failed to provide proper care.

A post-mortem found he died from severe prolonged malnutrition. Israeli authorities withheld his body from his family for months. The commission found that Israeli prison authorities caused his death and that it amounted to the war crimes of torture, inhuman treatment and wilful killing.

Hospitals and neonatal units destroyed

Israeli forces attacked and forced the closure of all three major paediatric hospitals in Gaza within the first two months of hostilities.

Before October 2023, Gaza had 178 incubators across eight neonatal intensive care units. Israeli attacks and the siege reduced that number to 54 by November 2024. Medical staff described placing three or four infants in a single incubator.

At Al-Nasr Paediatric Hospital, Israeli forces cut electricity and prevented staff from evacuating patients, giving them only 30 minutes to leave. When a ceasefire allowed access weeks later, investigators found four babies decomposing in the neonatal unit, still attached to defunct life-support machines. 

At least 15 newborns died of preventable hypothermia between December 2024 and February 2025 as a direct result of conditions imposed by the Israeli siege.

Israel’s blockade and attacks on reproductive healthcare caused miscarriage rates to increase by up to 300 percent after October 2023.

By October 2024, women in Gaza were three times more likely to die in childbirth than before the war.

By March 2026, 70 percent of newborns were classified as premature or underweight.

Schools bombed, demolished and occupied

Israeli forces directly hit 459 of Gaza’s 564 school buildings between 7 October 2023 and October 2025.

Over 97 percent of schools were damaged or destroyed.

‘In my childhood, I’ve always dreamed of blowing up my school. Today I’m blowing up a school. Wow’

– Israeli soldier

Children in Gaza have missed three full school years, and more than 668,000 school-age children were denied access to formal education.

Israeli soldiers filmed themselves demolishing schools and posted the videos online. In one video, a soldier says before blowing up a school: “In my childhood, I’ve always dreamed of blowing up my school. Today I’m blowing up a school. Wow.”

In another, a soldier mocks Palestinian students, saying they will “not be engineers any more”.

The commission found that Israeli forces from the 252nd Division carried out controlled demolitions of at least two UN schools in Beit Hanoun in November 2023.

Israeli forces also seized schools and used them as military bases, weapons stores and barracks.

In the West Bank, Israeli authorities issued demolition orders against 85 schools. Israeli forces raided and expelled more than 550 children from three UN schools in Shu’fat Camp in May 2025.

Siege starved children and brought back polio

By October 2025, Unicef reported 151 child deaths from malnutrition caused by Israel’s siege and blockade. July 2025 was the deadliest month, with 24 children under five dying from malnutrition.

Israel’s blockade also halted a fourth round of polio vaccinations for 600,000 children planned for April 2025. Polio returned to Gaza in August 2024 after 25 years of eradication. It was confirmed in a 10-month-old baby who, a year later, was still unable to stand or move his legs.

Soldiers destroyed children’s belongings

The commission documented at least 35 instances of Israeli soldiers filming themselves in Palestinian homes, schools and public spaces destroying or mocking children’s toys, trophies and belongings, and posting the footage online.

In one video, an Israeli soldier rides a child’s wooden toy horse in a wrecked apartment. In another, Israeli soldiers hang a teddy bear by its neck from a tank barrel.

The commission concluded these acts were not isolated but reflected a deliberate culture of dehumanisation across different units and time periods, with no disciplinary action taken by Israeli military commanders.

The legal findings

The commission concluded on reasonable grounds that Israeli authorities and security forces have continued to commit genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza, and war crimes in the West Bank.

On genocide, the commission found that Israeli forces’ deliberate targeting of children is one of the key elements establishing genocidal intent. Children embody the biological and social continuity of the Palestinian group. The commission found that Israeli forces killed children, caused them serious bodily and mental harm, and deliberately imposed conditions of life calculated to destroy them as part of the broader Palestinian group in Gaza.

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On crimes against humanity, the commission found that Israeli forces’ killings and maiming of children amount to extermination and murder. Their mistreatment of children in detention amounts to torture and other inhumane acts. 

On war crimes, the commission found wilful killing, torture and inhuman treatment, sexual violence, intentional attacks on civilian objects including hospitals, schools and orphanages, and the use of starvation as a method of warfare.

The commission named specific Israeli military units responsible for killings in individual cases and called for accountability for those with command responsibility. Israel did not respond to any of the commission’s 13 requests for information or access.

Wide view of a large crowd holding a banner reading Free Hussam Abu Safiya during a pro Palestine demonstration in Paris Ile de France France on April 18, 2026.

(Photo by Djoudi Hamani/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images)

“The international community cannot remain silent while a respected physician is reportedly subjected to harsh conditions, denied adequate medical care, and isolated from the outside world.”

Brad Reed

Common Dreams, Jun 05, 2026

A prominent human rights group on Friday sounded alarms upon learning that Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza, has been sent to solitary confinement.

As reported by Haaretz, Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI) said it learned on Thursday that Abu Safiya was moved to solitary confinement this week without any explanation.

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According to a report from The Palestine Chronicle, an attorney representing Abu Safiya claimed that his client was placed into solitary confinement in retaliation for appealing his continued detention.

Abu Safiya was first taken into custody by Israeli forces in December 2024 and has been held since then without being charged with any criminal offenses.

In a Friday statement, the Council of American-Islamic Relations said news of Abu Safiya’s solitary confinement was “deeply disturbing” and raised “even more urgent concerns about his welfare and basic human rights.”

“Congress must demand his immediate release and insist that Israel end the arbitrary detention, abuse, and mistreatment of Palestinian medical professionals and civilians,” CAIR added. “The international community cannot remain silent while a respected physician is reportedly subjected to harsh conditions, denied adequate medical care, and isolated from the outside world without any legal justification. Dr. Abu Safiya must be released immediately.”

PHRI has for months been raising concerns about Abu Safiya’s detention, long before he was transferred to solitary confinement.

While demanding the physician’s release in April, for instance, PHRI said Abu Safiya was being held “in harsh conditions, without access to medication or medical care, as his health continues to deteriorate.”

A 2025 report from Amnesty International, which has also called for Abu Safiya’s release, said that the Gaza-based physician “was detained in the course of caring for his patients and carrying out his medical duties.”

Amnesty also noted that, prior to his detention, Abu Safiya and other colleagues at the Kamal Adwan Hospital had “provided human rights and humanitarian organizations with reliable information about the health situation” in Gaza, which has been left devastated by years of Israeli attacks that have killed at least 72,000 Palestinians.

An investigation by Al Jazeera’s Open Source Unit has identified 40 distinct Israeli military outposts entrenched within Gaza.

By Al Jazeera Staff

Published On 3 Jun 2026

Israel was supposed to fully withdraw its troops from Gaza as part of the ceasefire signed in October. Instead of pulling back, Israeli forces are quietly cementing permanent, heavily fortified military posts across the besieged enclave, according to satellite imagery analysed by Al Jazeera.

An investigation by Al Jazeera’s Open Source Unit, analysing satellite data up to May 2026, has identified 40 distinct Israeli military outposts entrenched within Gaza. Crucially, the analysis proves that eight of these bases were constructed entirely from scratch after the October 2025 truce went into effect, with one site still undergoing active construction.

This physical entrenchment mirrors the increasingly overt territorial ambitions of Israel’s leadership. Speaking at a recent conference, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed directives to permanently seize the vast majority of the Strip.

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Israeli forces have pulled back to the “Yellow Line”, which refers to the buffer and military zones comprising some 60 percent of the enclave’s territory.

“We are currently squeezing Hamas; we now control 60 percent of the territory,” Netanyahu stated, before addressing a crowd member who shouted for complete annexation: “Let’s go step by step. First of all, 70. Let’s start with that.”

Desecration and new constructions

The satellite analysis exposes a systematic effort to build a sustainable, long-term military infrastructure rather than temporary observation posts.

The newly established installations are strategically dispersed: Two in northern Gaza, two in the central region, one east of the Netzarim Corridor, and three in the southern city of Khan Younis.

In one of the most glaring examples of this spatial takeover, Israeli forces established a new military base directly atop the ruins of the Eastern Cemetery in Khan Younis.

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Satellite images show that engineering works on the bulldozed burial ground began in November 2025. By May 18, 2026, the site was fully equipped with vehicle staging areas and repetitive structures, likely used for troop housing and operational meetings.

A similar pattern of rapid militarisation is visible in northern Gaza. In Beit Lahiya, an area that appeared completely clear in October 2025 photos, satellite imagery captured the sudden onset of engineering works by mid-November.

Dozens of countries that ratified the Genocide Convention still supplied arms to Israel even after the ICJ issued a provisional ruling that Israel was likely committing genocide in Gaza

News Desk, The Cradle,

MAY 23, 2026

(Photo credit: Palestinian Center for Human Rights)

An Al-Jazeera investigation published on 23 May revealed that military-grade products from at least 51 countries and self-governing territories kept entering Israel even after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued a provisional ruling over the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

In January 2024, the UN’s top court ordered Israel to take all measures to prevent genocidal acts in Gaza. By then, Israel’s brutal bombing of Gaza had killed more than 26,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children.

However, countries across the globe continued to provide weapons and military assistance to the Israeli military, the Al-Jazeera report found.

Using Israeli Tax Authority (ITA) import data, customs records, and freedom of information requests, the Al-Jazeera investigation found the military-related goods were shipped to Israel from countries across Europe, Asia, North America, and South America, including from many that have signed the genocide convention.

In some cases, the military supplies originated from countries that had publicly imposed arms embargoes on Israel or had at least partially suspended arms supplies to the country.

According to the ITA data, Israeli arms imports increased after the ICJ ruling, in particular munitions imports.

The five biggest military suppliers to Israel—namely the US, India, Romania, Taiwan, and the Czech Republic—all boosted their shipments of military equipment to Tel Aviv following the ruling.

ITA data showed that 2,603 consignments of military-related goods valued at $885 million were sent to Israel between October 2023 and October 2025. Of those, $805 million worth came after the January 2024 ruling.

The consignments included ammunition, explosive munitions, weapons parts, and armored vehicle components.

According to Stephen Humphreys, professor of international law at the London School of Economics, there was “ample evidence that countries arming Israel may be complicit in international crimes, including war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

“The most recent ‘ceasefire’ did not change this,” stated Gerhard Kemp, a professor of criminal law at the University of the West of England.

Since the ceasefire reached in October 2025, Israel has continued killing Palestinian civilians in Gaza and creating conditions of life that could destroy the group in whole or in part, Kemp said.

This indicates that states still have an obligation to stop supporting Israel’s war on Palestinians in Gaza, which has now killed at least 72,000 people. Tens of thousands more remain buried under the rubble of buildings Israel has bombed.

“Some states have a very narrow understanding of the duty to prevent genocide and are waiting for a judicial determination that there is a genocide in Gaza,” Kemp said. “But the ICJ will likely take several years to make such a determination. The better view is to look at domestic legal obligations … and international legal obligations and legal tools triggered by available evidence.”

Though the ICJ has not issued its final ruling, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory published a report in September 2025 concluding that Israel “committed a genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza.”

The UN report asserts that “states are obliged to take steps to ensure the prevention of conduct that may amount to an act of genocide … including the transfer of weapons that are used or likely to be used by Israel to commit genocidal acts.”

MEM, May 22, 2026 at 3:44 pm

Prefabricated houses installed by illegal Israeli settlers are seen under the protection of the Israeli army in the village of Umm al-Khair, located in the Masafer Yatta region south of Hebron in West Bank, Palestine on May 20, 2026. [Wisam Hashlamoun – Anadolu Agency]

Israel is clearing Palestinians from the illegally occupied West Bank village by village, using state-backed settler violence to drive communities from their land and prepare the ground for mass expulsion, a veteran Israeli columnist has warned.

Writing in Israeli outlet Yedioth Ahronoth, Nahum Barnea said the violence of the so-called “hilltop youth” is not random lawlessness, but part of a state-backed project to remove Palestinians from their land. He described them as “an armed militia that is working for the government, with its authorisation and funding.”

The aim, wrote Barnea, is to empty outlying Palestinian areas, force the rural population into cities, trigger economic collapse and lawlessness and then present expulsion as the final outcome.

“The current plan aims to achieve a solution in stages: to empty the outlying areas of residents in the first stage and then, in the second stage, to force the entire rural population into the cities, where they will live as displaced persons” Barnea said. “The economy will collapse, followed by the collapse of law and order, and then, when chaos peaks, the solution will arrive: expulsion”.

Barnea’s article, translated and shared online, described what he called a “scorched earth” policy in the occupied Palestinian territories. He said the Netanyahu government is violating Israel’s international commitments across multiple fronts, including the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and the Oslo framework.

“The government isn’t merely running roughshod; it has a vision,” said Barnea. “The pogroms are the cover story that decent-minded folks tell themselves so they can sleep at night.  

Israeli soldiers are divided between those who take part in attacks, Barnea explained and those who watch from the side and those who fear acting against settlers.

READ: UN reports nearly 50 illegal Israeli occupier attacks across West Bank in 1 week

He also accused police of failing to intervene or investigate. “Ben Gvir’s spirit hovers over them,” he wrote, referring to far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, whose ministry oversees the police.

Barnea linked this campaign to a broader political project. He argued that the old plan of dividing the West Bank through settlement blocs has been replaced by a more direct strategy: emptying Palestinian rural areas, concentrating Palestinians in cities, allowing conditions to collapse and then moving towards transfer.

His warning echoes findings by Israeli rights groups. Yesh Din and Physicians for Human Rights Israel said last year that the Israeli government was sponsoring settler violence in order to displace Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. The groups said the state was responsible for the war crime of forcible transfer, committed with the support of state agents or citizens.

UN experts and human rights bodies have also warned that settlement expansion and settler attacks are driving mass displacement. In March the UN warned of “ethnic cleansing” in the occupied West Bank after 36,000 Palestinians were displaced, amid a sharp rise in settler violence and Israeli military operations.

The West Bank warning comes as Israel is accused of pursuing the same objective in Gaza through even more extreme means: genocide, mass destruction, starvation and forced displacement. While settlers and state-backed militias drive Palestinians from rural land in the West Bank, Israel has destroyed much of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure, forced Palestinians into shrinking zones and promoted plans for their “voluntary migration” abroad.

That policy was reportedly been given an official channel through Caroline Glick, Netanyahu’s international affairs adviser. Netanyahu tasked Glick with advancing plans to relocate Palestinians from Gaza, including reported contacts with Somaliland and the Democratic Republic of Congo. 

“The plan was supposed to bring relief. Instead, Palestinians in Gaza are still hungry, still cannot reach medical care, and civilians are still being killed.”

by Brett Wilkins | May 21, 2026

Six months in, US President Donald Trump’s so-called “Board of Peace” has failed to deliver on its promise of a “secure and prosperous future” for Palestinians in Gaza, who are still being killed, maimed, and deprived of food and other crucial supplies by Israel’s ongoing genocide.

“The humanitarian infrastructure sustaining life in Gaza remains in peril over six months after the ceasefire agreement in October 2025,” Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday.

“As the Board of Peace prepares to brief the United Nations Security Council on May 21 on its newly-issued six-month progress report, Israeli authorities are undermining humanitarian lifelines,” HRW continued.

“Continuing Israeli attacks have killed at least 856 Palestinians and wounded 2,463 others, according to Gaza Health Ministry,” the group said.

“Aid volumes remain far below required levels and critical humanitarian access routes have been repeatedly obstructed, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA),” HRW noted.

HRW continued:

In its May 15 report, the Board of Peace said that aid distributed by UN agencies and partners increased by over 70% during the reporting period compared to pre-ceasefire levels, and that “basic food needs have been stabilized for the first time since 2023.” The Board’s headline figures leave out that aid volumes have fallen since early 2026, have not recovered to where they were before the US and Israel-Iran war began in late February, and have never reached the minimum the UN says is needed. Four UN agencies warned in December 2025 that famine, pushed back only weeks earlier through the ceasefire, could rapidly return without sustained access and supplies.

“The plan was supposed to bring relief. Instead, Palestinians in Gaza are still hungry, still cannot reach medical care, and civilians are still being killed,” HRW Middle East deputy director Adam Coogle said in a statement. “Whatever the Board of Peace tells the Security Council, that is what life looks like six months in.”

HRW said that while “commercial trucks have started entering Gaza again in larger numbers,” total aid deliveries – which were dramatically curtailed following the launch of the illegal US-Israeli war of choice on Iran – are “far short of what Gaza’s population needs.”

Furthermore, “none of Gaza’s 37 hospitals were fully operational, and only 19 were even partially functioning, according to OCHA.”

“Over 43,000 people have suffered life-changing injuries, 1 in 4 of them children, and more than 50,000 need long-term rehabilitation care, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates,” HRW said. “No rehabilitation facility is fully running. Israeli delays in approving specialized surgical equipment are limiting complex care, and at least 46% of essential medicines are out of stock, according to WHO.”

“According to the Gaza Health Ministry, more than 1,400 patients have died waiting for medical evacuation since the Rafah crossing was seized in May 2024, and over 18,500 patients, including 4,000 children, still await evacuation,“ the publication reported.

“Israeli restrictions on bringing in generators, engine oil, and spare parts are causing breakdowns across healthcare, sanitation, debris removal, and humanitarian work,” HRW said.

“Rodents and insects are spreading across displacement camps, and skin infections and other diseases are on the rise, OCHA reported,” the publication noted. “UN agencies and aid groups working on water and sanitation warn that severe shortages of lubricant oil and spare parts are causing generators to fail.”

Israeli forces are still killing and wounding humanitarian workers in Gaza.

“As of late April, OCHA had recorded the killing of at least 593 aid workers in Gaza since October 2023, including 8 since the ceasefire,” HRW said.

Funding pledges have also fallen far short of what’s needed.

“At the Board of Peace’s inaugural meeting in February, 10 Board member states and observers pledged a total of $17 billion for reconstruction against UN estimates of $70 billion needed,” HRW said. “As of April, the Board had received less than $1 billion of the pledged amount, with only three contributors having delivered funds, according to Reuters.”

“When the Board of Peace briefs the Security Council, members should weigh what they hear against what UN agencies are reporting from the ground,” Coogle said. “No spin can hide the fact that aid is not entering at the needed scale, patients do not have access to adequate medical care, and crossings to Gaza remain limited.”

The HRW report came a day after the UN Human Rights Office urged Israel to prevent further “acts of genocide” in Gaza, while raising concerns about escalating “ethnic cleansing” in the illegally occupied West Bank of Palestine.

A panel of UN human rights experts found last year that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza. South Africa filed a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice that’s now backed by nearly 20 nations.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder and forced starvation. The ICC is also reportedly seeking to arrest Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich over the illegal settler colonization and ethnic cleansing of the West Bank.

More than 250,000 Palestinians have been killed or wounded in Gaza since the Hamas-led attack of October 2023. Nearly all of the coastal strip’s approximately 2.1 million people have also been forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened during that period. Through it all, the Biden and Trump administrations have provided Israel with more than $20 billion in armed aid and diplomatic cover, including vetoes of several UN Security Council ceasefire resolutions.

Ben Gvir’s video of bound flotilla activists showed Israel without the mask.

By Yara Hawari

Co-director of Al-Shabaka, the Palestinian Policy Network.

Published On 21 May 2026

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Israel’s Ben-Gvir publishes video taunting detained flotilla activists

This week, Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s national security minister, posted a video on social media of himself taunting flotilla activists held by Israeli forces.

In one clip, a handcuffed activist shouts “Free Palestine” as Ben-Gvir strolls past. She is immediately seized by the hair and shoved to the ground by security personnel. Ben-Gvir looks on, gleeful. In another, dozens of detainees are shown bound and kneeling with their foreheads to the floor, forced into stress positions as the Israeli regime’s national anthem blares from a loudspeaker. Ben-Gvir waves a large Israeli flag and bellows at them: “Welcome to Israel – we are in charge here.”

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Ben-Gvir knows he can do this and face no serious consequences. Why would he think otherwise? His country has just got away with a genocide livestreamed to a global audience.

There have been condemnations, though, notably, from governments whose citizens happen to be among the detained. Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, called the footage “unacceptable” and a violation of human dignity. Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sanchez, declared that he would not tolerate the mistreatment of his country’s citizens and announced that he would push at the European Union level for sanctions against Ben-Gvir specifically, having already banned him from entering Spain. Even the United States ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, said Ben-Gvir had “betrayed the dignity of his nation”.

But, however genuine the outrage, sanctioning Ben-Gvir targets just one cog in a far larger genocidal machine. It is the same tactic European states have deployed when confronted with illegal settlement-building in the occupied West Bank: Sanctioning a handful of violent settlers while leaving untouched the state structure that plans, funds and protects the settlement enterprise. The gesture creates the appearance of consequences without threatening the system that produces them.

This is not accountability. It is the international community drawing a line just far enough from its own complicity to feel clean. Ben-Gvir did not build the prisons, order the systematic torture within them, or impose the blockade that the flotilla was trying to break. He is one minister in a government that has carried out a genocide with the material and diplomatic support of many of the very Western states now lining up to denounce him. Removing him from the equation changes nothing. The prisons remain. The blockade remains. And the genocide continues.

The video has also struck a nerve inside Israel. Netanyahu publicly rebuked Ben-Gvir, saying his conduct was “not in line with Israel’s values and norms”. Foreign Minister Gideon Saar addressed him directly on X: “You knowingly caused harm to our state in this disgraceful display – and not for the first time.” Saar added that Ben-Gvir had “undone tremendous, professional, and successful efforts made by so many people”. For Saar and Netanyahu, the problem is not what Ben-Gvir is doing; it is that he is showing it so brazenly. The concern is optics – that a video made visible, to a European audience and with European citizens in it, what has long been standard practice towards Palestinians.

And what the video shows is not aberrant. More than 9,600 Palestinians are currently held in the Israeli regime’s detention facilities. Of these, more than 3,500 are held under administrative detention, imprisoned indefinitely without charge or trial. Among the detainees are hundreds of children. Prisoners are subjected to systematic starvation, beatings, denial of medical care, and sexual violence ranging from forced stripping to rape. At least 84 Palestinian prisoners have died in Israeli custody since October 2023 as a result of torture, starvation and medical neglect. Nearly every Palestinian household has a loved one who has been imprisoned at some point – an experience that reverberates across generations and leaves deep scars on families and communities long after release.

Saar ended his post to Ben-Gvir by insisting that this is “not the face of Israel”. He is wrong. This is the face of Israel. It is violent. It is ugly. And it is cruel.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

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• Yara HawariCo-director of Al-Shabaka, the Palestinian Policy Network.Yara Hawari is the co-director of Al-Shabaka, the Palestinian Policy Network. She previously served as the Palestine policy fellow and senior analyst. Yara completed her PhD in Middle East Politics at the University of Exeter, where she taught various undergraduate courses and continues to be an honorary research fellow. In addition to her academic work, which focused on indigenous studies and oral history, she is a frequent political commentator writing for various media outlets.

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