Peace and Justice Post

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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Several nations said they were summoning Israeli ambassadors in response

by Dave DeCamp | May 20, 2026 at 3:59 pm ET | Gaza, Israel

Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir on Wednesday sparked global outrage by posting a video showing the mockery and abuse of activists who were abducted by Israeli forces while attempting to bring aid to the besieged Gaza Strip via boat as part of the Global Sumud Flotilla.

The video, posted on X, shows Ben Gvir taunting the activists as they’re detained with their hands tied behind their backs and on their knees facing the floor. At one point in the video, the Israeli national anthem can be heard playing while activists are detained face down on what appears to be an Israeli vessel.

Several nations responded by summoning Israeli ambassadors to their capitals, including Italy, France, the Netherlands, and Canada, Al Jazeera reported.

“The images of the Israeli minister Ben Gvir are unacceptable. It is inadmissible that these demonstrators, including many Italian citizens, are subjected to this treatment that violates human dignity,” Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said in a post on X.

“The Italian Government is immediately taking, at the highest institutional levels, all necessary steps to secure the immediate release of the Italian citizens involved,” Meloni wrote, adding that Rome demanded an apology from Israel and would summon the Israeli ambassador to Italy.

Jean-Noel Barrot, the foreign minister of France, said on X that the French government didn’t support the flotilla but that the French activists involved “must be treated with respect and released as quickly as possible” and that Paris was summoning the Israeli ambassador to “express our indignation and obtain explanations.”

Ben Gvir’s video went too far even for some members of the Israeli government, including Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, who said that Ben Gvir “knowingly caused harm to our State in this disgraceful display.”

According to the Global Sumud Flotilla, 50 boats have been recently intercepted by Israeli forces, and 428 activists from all over the world have been taken captive in Israel.

Ahead of Wednesday’s incident, the US sanctioned four activists involved in the Global Sumud Flotilla. The US has not taken any action or imposed any consequences on Israel for continuing attacks on Gaza, maintaining restrictions on aid, and taking additional territory in the Strip, all violations of the President Trump-backed ceasefire deal signed in October 2025.

The Hague-based court previously issued warrants for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former War Minister Yoav Gallant

News Desk, The Cradle, MAY 17, 2026

(Photo credit: Getty Images)

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued secret arrest warrants for three Israeli politicians and two military officials, Haaretz reported on 17 May, citing diplomatic sources.

The timing of their issuance is unknown. The ICC has often issued arrest warrants in secret, publicly announcing them only later to enable a possible arrest of the suspect.

Israel’s Foreign Affairs Ministry and State Attorney’s Office do not respond immediately to requests for comment.

The Hague-based court issued arrest warrants against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former War Minister Yoav Gallant in November 2024.

ICC prosecutor Karim Khan requested that ICC judges issue the arrest warrants in May 2024, alleging that Netanyahu and Gallant were responsible for war crimes committed by the Israeli military in Gaza.

Netanyahu and Gallant bear criminal responsibility for the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts, according to the ICC prosecutor.

In response to the issuance of the arrest warrants, the US and Israel carried out a campaign to pressure the ICC to prevent and cancel the arrest warrants issued against the Israeli leaders, Le Monde reported in August 2025.

The campaign, which targeted the ICC chief prosecutor Khan, began in March 2024 after he announced his intention to seek the indictment of Netanyahu and Gallant.

In response, the Israeli prime minister launched a campaign to use “all means” to stop the prosecutor with the help of his allies in London, Washington, and Berlin.

At the end of April 2024, a staff member at the ICC accused Khan of sexual assault.

A source speaking to Le Monde said the allegations were part of an effort to “get rid of the prosecutor” and “hijack the process” of arrest warrants.

In October 2024, while the judges were still determining whether to issue the arrest warrants, a mysterious account named “ICC Leaks” appeared on the social network site X.

The account publicized the allegations of sexual assault made against Karim Khan internally at the ICC the previous May. 

The ICC finally issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant on 21 November 2024.

In February 2025, Chief Prosecutor Khan was placed under sanctions by the US.

Netanyahu applauded the move, calling the court “anti-Semitic and corrupt.”

Khan continued to work on two other indictments against Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir and Israeli Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich.

However, Khan has been on temporary leave since 16 May 2025, pending the outcome of the investigation into the sexual misconduct allegations, which he strenuously denies.

During its genocide in Gaza, Israel has killed more than 72,000 Palestinians, the majority women and children, while destroying most of the strip.

Jewish settlers insist they will colonize Gaza, as they are colonizing the occupied West Bank.

“We are here on the way to new Jewish communities in Gaza,” settler leader Daniella Weiss stated in an interview at the border of the strip in late April.

“The 2 million or whatever number of Arabs, Gazans, who live here will not live in Gaza,” Weiss added. “It can take a week, it can take maybe a few months. They will not live here.”

Microsoft continues “to supply cloud and AI arms to the Israeli military,” activists pointed out.

By Shireen Akram-Boshar , Truthout Published May 13, 2026

Support justice-driven, accurate and transparent news — make a quick donation to Truthout today! 

Microsoft’s Israel subsidiary has announced that its general manager, Alon Haimovich, will be stepping down from his position on May 31, after an investigation into the subsidiary’s collaboration with the Israeli military.

Microsoft ordered an inquiry into its Israel subsidiary last year after a joint investigation by The Guardian, Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine, and Hebrew-language outlet Local Call revealed the Israeli military’s extensive use of Microsoft’s Azure platform for surveillance.

The Israeli military, it was found, used Microsoft’s Azure cloud-based system to store millions of daily phone calls made by Palestinians, enabling it to capture a much larger pool of everyday Palestinian communication than possible on military servers. According to +972 Magazine, this has created “what is likely one of the world’s largest and most intrusive collections of surveillance data over a single population group.” This has in turn shaped the Israeli military’s operations in both Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

Though Microsoft claimed its leadership was unaware of how the Azure cloud system would be used, leaked documents revealed that Israel’s military surveillance gave specific instructions for its vision of a project that would store “A million [Palestinian] calls an hour.”

The Israeli military’s Unit 8200 — an intelligence unit comparable to the U.S.’s National Security Agency — had approached Microsoft’s CEO in 2021 to work with Microsoft’s Azure to create a specific database for its mass surveillance of Palestinians.

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Microsoft Faces Reckoning for Assisting Israel’s Genocide in Gaza

The tech giant could face legal liability for aiding and abetting “atrocity crimes” in Palestine, legal groups say. By Mike Ludwig , Truthout

December 3, 2025

Israeli military sources said that intelligence from the phone calls was then used to identify bombing targets in Gaza, and that the military’s use of Azure had increased during the course of the genocide in Gaza. Initially, the Israeli military had focused its use of the Azure cloud platform on the West Bank, creating a network of surveillance used to assist in the Israeli occupation’s domination there.

Microsoft’s inquiry has concluded, according to The Guardian, and has resulted in Microsoft Israel’s general manager, Haimovich, leaving the company.

Several other managers of Microsoft Israel have also left their positions amidst the inquiry.

Though it has not laid out its full findings, Microsoft’s inquiry concluded that the Israeli military intelligence unit violated Microsoft’s terms of service, which prohibit the use of its technology to facilitate mass surveillance. Microsoft then ended Unit 8200’s ability to access its cloud services and AI used to support its surveillance project.

Beyond the Azure cloud system, Microsoft is used in all major infrastructure in the Israeli military system.

In a statement sent to Truthout upon the news that Microsoft Israel’s general manager would be departing, No Azure for Apartheid, an activist group that is part of a broader movement of tech organizers, said the decision “comes at the heels of relentless pressure from our campaign” as well as that of other activists.

“Microsoft has tried to quietly say goodbye to war criminal Alon Haimovich, who oversaw the development of Azure tools for the Israeli military which helped accelerate the first AI-powered genocide,” the group said.

Contrary to claims that Microsoft’s leadership did not know how the technology would be used, No Azure for Apartheid asserts that Haimovich worked closely with Microsoft’s CEO, Satya Nadella.

“Microsoft workers who continue to speak up about those war crimes are arrested, prosecuted, brutalized, fired and sanctioned,” the statement continues.

The statement also claims that Microsoft’s investigations have not stopped it from “continuing to supply cloud and AI arms to the Israeli military” and that the group “refuse[s] to allow Microsoft to scapegoat one or a handful of individuals to wipe its hands clean of its complicity in genocide.” Microsoft, they said, must “end this collusion and cut off all ties with the Israeli military and government immediately.”

Hossam Nasr, an organizer with No Azure for Apartheid and a former tech worker fired by Microsoft for speaking out against the company’s complicity with Israel’s military, told Truthout:

Over the course of the genocide, we’ve come to learn how deeply embedded Microsoft is within the Israeli military ecosystem. Microsoft supplies cloud, AI, computing, storage and advanced AI models to the Israeli military to be used not just by Unit 8200 but also Mamram, Ofek, and specific naval, air and ground units in the Israeli military. Microsoft has a footprint in all major military infrastructures in Israel.

Following a relentless campaign waged by No Azure for Apartheid — which included a worker petition signed by over 2000 employees, disruptions at key events, and an encampment and sit-in at the president’s office last summer — Microsoft became the first U.S. tech company to end some of its contracts with the Israeli military in September 2025, Nasr said. But although the company stopped selling some of its cloud and AI services to Unit 8200, “the vast majority of their contracts with the Israeli military remain intact.”

Microsoft continues to be a partner in not only Israel’s genocide in Gaza, but in the war on Iran and Israel’s war on southern Lebanon, Nasr said.

“This gives us even more fuel and motivation to continue our organizing. We’re not going to stop until all our demands are met — until Microsoft ends all of its contracts with the Israeli military.”

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about:blank This article is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), and you are free to share and republish under the terms of the license.

Shireen Akram-Boshar

Shireen Akram-Boshar is a socialist writer, editor and Middle East/North Africa solidarity activist.

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Jon Cink The Electronic Intifada 11 May 2026

On 13 February, the UK’s High Court of Justice ruled that the proscription of Palestine Action was unlawful.

Palestine Action was added to the list of proscribed organizations in July 2025, a move initiated by the then Home Secretary Yvette Cooper and passed by Britain’s Parliament.

In February, a panel of three senior judges allowed the challenge brought by Huda Ammori, co-founder of Palestine Action, on two grounds.

First, the pathway to reach the decision to proscribe was not in line with the Home Office’s own policy. Second, a crucial ruling held that the ban under the Terrorism Act interfered with the fundamental rights of free expression and free assembly.

Yet the group remains banned, pending the outcome of the British government’s appeal.

The government’s challenge to the February ruling was heard by the Court of Appeal in late April. The verdict in the appeal case is expected within the coming weeks.

Paying no mind to the proscription, people from all walks of life have continued to show their opposition to the UK’s role in the ongoing genocide of Palestinians and in imperial violence throughout the Middle East. It’s clear beyond any doubt that Westminster failed at halting autonomous resistance or popular support for Palestine Action.

Direct action is a political strategy with little regard for established pathways to change when operating within a political environment that fails to prioritize human life over the interests of global finance and a decaying imperial order. Direct action is a weapon of the people.

As I write this, I am currently incarcerated in the UK, accused of being connected to an action at Brize Norton which saw two people enter a Royal Air Force base and spray paint on Voyager aircrafts which were being used to refuel British spy planes. The spy planes had regularly been seen above Gaza during Israel’s genocidal campaign, and have more recently been used to support US-Israeli attacks on Iran and Israeli attacks on Lebanon.

Yvette Cooper responded to the action at Brize Norton by announcing proscription. My co-defendants and I were arrested by counterterrorism police.

We were held completely incommunicado for the first 48 hours. Now, we all await trial in prison.

We have already spent approximately 10 months on remand (in pre-trial detention) and face additional time if not granted bail. Under most circumstances, the limit on detention in police custody is 24 hours and imprisonment without conviction should not exceed six months.

Moreover, being imprisoned under the Terrorism Act subjects us to further surveillance and security measures while in prison. A Muslim co-defendant of mine, held in the Wormwood Scrubs prison, has recently been visited by counterterrorism officers and instructed not to speak Arabic or practice Islam outside of his cell.

We are all subjected to legislation that is on paper the same. In reality, our treatment differs based in part on our proximity to contemporary stereotypes of terrorism.

These stereotypes, created through mainstream media and the entertainment industry, are directly linked to the state’s ability to disregard its subjects’ claims to rights, seemingly celebrated in liberal democracies.

Freedom to practice one’s religion is one of those rights.

Terror of occupation

Contemporary domestic counterterrorism powers deliberately lack many of the safeguards that, however imperfect, exist under most other encounters with the state. I am being subjected to this firsthand.

Globally, the so-called war on terror green-lighted torture and prolonged imprisonment of innocent people without any judicial oversight in places like Guantanamo or US-run black sites.

Terrorism, defined as the use of “terror” to advance a political or ideological cause, leaves out the reality that the colonizer or Western soldiers’ acts of terror are considered perfectly justified, no matter how brutal.

For the colonized, any attempts at survival are quickly designated as acts of terrorism, regardless of the actual means of resistance. From First Nations on the American continent through Algeria to Ireland and Palestine, labeling occupied people as terrorists is an attempt to strip them of their right to govern themselves and govern their land.

Palestinian children understand the meaning of terrorism far better than Shabana Mahmood, the current home secretary, or Yvette Cooper ever could. They live through the terror of occupation day in, day out.

The decision to proscribe cannot be viewed as an isolated instance of state repression. Countering so-called terrorism, with all its material consequences, has been deployed to stifle dissent throughout history.

The meaning of terrorism has always been deliberately vague and often manipulated to fit the given ruling class and its ideological interests. The designation of Palestine Action as a terrorist organization was not an error in an otherwise well-designed system.

It might have been an escalation, but nevertheless it was one that is in line with the historical utilization of a broad range of counterinsurgency tactics against effective political movements.

So while resistance to genocide and occupation never relied on permission from the courts, the ruling of Palestine Action’s proscription as unlawful is extremely significant nonetheless. It is the first successful legal challenge to a group’s proscription since the current counterterrorism powers came into force at the start of the century.

The court ruling from 13 February isn’t only a massive victory for the freedom of speech and right to protest in the UK. It challenges the state’s hegemony on deploying counterterrorism powers as a tool to manufacture a climate of fear, to distract, to justify invasion or genocide and in our case, attempt to make us into a deterrent.

The past 10 months have seen a sharp rise in public critiques of counterterrorism powers, especially in the context of political repression.

That has been made possible in no small way thanks to the campaign organized by Defend Our Juries and thanks to continuing resistance on the streets, on the top of weapons factories, and within prisons.

I reject the label of “terrorist.” I reject it only insofar as this rejection leads to the naming of terror experienced by millions in this country and globally – lack of social care, poverty, homelessness, brutal border policies and imperial wars.

State-sanctioned terrorism is policy-driven and deliberate terror, aimed at protecting the ideology of free market capitalism. I witness the effects of state-sanctioned terrorism daily through the stories and the fears of many women held behind the same walls as me.

I reject the label of “terrorist” as a way to reject the notion that all life isn’t equal.

I believe that we will ultimately see the unlawful proscription of Palestine Action completely lifted. However, we have a duty to keep up the struggle against the strategic deployment of counterterrorism powers at large beyond this moment.

Something that seems unavoidable at a time of increased imperial violence enacted by the US and the Zionist regime, whose leaders, yet again, rely on the excuse of fighting terrorism to justify their attacks on sovereign countries, all the while instilling terror themselves.

Jon Cink is in pre-trial detention after being arrested for allegedly breaking into Brize Norton, Britain’s largest airforce base, and helping to decommission two warplanes suspected of being used in the Gaza genocide.

Palestinians were seen walking in Gaza City with the belongings they could carry on October 10, 2025.

(Photo by Ali Jadallah/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“Israeli officials who ordered unlawful destruction, collective punishment, or acts of genocide must be held accountable.”

Jake Johnson

May 12, 2026

Amnesty International released a report Tuesday detailing the Israeli military’s leveling of more than a dozen high-rise residential and commercial buildings in the Gaza Strip late last year, attacks that the leading human rights organization said must be investigated as “war crimes of wanton destruction and collective punishment.”

The new report cites “celebratory and gleeful” comments from Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz as evidence that there was no plausible military objective for Israel’s destruction of at least 13 multistory residential and commercial buildings in Gaza City between September and October 2025. In one mid-September social media post, Katz boasted that Israeli bombs sent one Gaza university “soaring to the heavens.”

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Amnesty, which has called Israel’s assault on Gaza a genocide, notes that the Fourth Geneva Convention bars occupying powers from engaging in collective punishment and property destruction “except where such destruction is rendered absolutely necessary by military operations.”

“In the month preceding the so-called ceasefire in October 2025, Israel expanded and escalated its relentless assault on Gaza City, causing one of the worst waves of mass displacement during the genocide,” said Erika Guevara Rosas, Amnesty’s senior director for research, advocacy, policy, and campaigns. “A key pattern of this assault was the deliberate destruction, through aerial bombardment, of multi-story civilian buildings, leveling the homes of thousands of civilians, and destroying makeshift camps in their vicinity.”

“All the available evidence indicates that Israel’s destruction of these 13 high-rise buildings was not ‘rendered absolutely necessary by military operations’ and as such must be investigated as war crimes,” she added.

“”Our children are sick from the rain and cold. It is especially difficult to raise a baby in such disastrous conditions. We lack everything.“

Amnesty said that satellite imagery, interviews with residents displaced by Israel’s large-scale destruction of Gaza buildings, and verified video footage revealed “a chilling pattern of deliberate destruction of the civilian structures by Israeli forces without requisite military necessity.” A 32-year-old IT engineer told the group that his family, including three children, is now living in a tent in southern Gaza after Israel bombed the 10-story Al-Najm building in Gaza City.

“Our children are sick from the rain and cold,” the man said. “It is especially difficult to raise a baby in such disastrous conditions. We lack everything. My other children, a six-year-old girl and a seven-year-old boy, are traumatized; we had to run away from home and they saw it bombed into rubble in front of their eyes. They don’t understand and I can’t explain it to them.”

The United Nations has estimated that Israeli attacks have damaged or destroyed more than 80% of structures in the Gaza Strip since October 2023, when Israel’s assault began in response to a deadly Hamas-led attack.

“The widespread destruction of life-sustaining infrastructure, including homes, either through bombardment or demolitions with explosives, combined with Israel’s ongoing restrictions on the entry of shelter material into Gaza and the prohibition on the return to the areas east of the yellow line, have inflicted catastrophic suffering on Gaza’s population,” said Guevara Rosas. “Israel must allow immediate, unfettered access to indispensable aid and goods, including shelter material.”

“Israeli officials who ordered unlawful destruction, collective punishment, or acts of genocide must be held accountable,” she added.