Peace and Justice Post

MEM, May 7, 2026 at 2:55 pm

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez awards the Order of Civil Merit to UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, on 7 May 2026 [sanchezcastejon/X]

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez awarded on Thursday the Order of Civil Merit to UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, recognizing her work documenting violations of international law in the Gaza Strip, Anadolu reports.

Sanchez received Francesca Albanese in Madrid, where they discussed the situation in Palestine, the importance of international law and “the need for an immediate end to the violence and the building of a lasting peace based on dignity and humanity,” according to a government statement.

“Public responsibility also implies the moral obligation of not looking away,” Sanchez wrote on social media, praising Albanese as “a voice that upholds the conscience of the world.”

The Order of Civil Merit is one of Spain’s highest civilian honors and is awarded to Spanish and foreign citizens for extraordinary services benefiting the state or society.

Albanese, an Italian legal scholar, has served since 2022 as the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories. She has become one of the most prominent international voices criticizing Israel’s military operations in Gaza.

On Tuesday, Sanchez also sent a letter to the European Commission calling for the activation of the EU’s Blocking Statute to counter US sanctions imposed on Albanese as well as judges and prosecutors from the International Criminal Court.

READ: Spain urges EU to take steps to protect independence of ICC, UN, their actions to end Gaza genocide

“It’s like an international mafia — they want to silence everyone who demands an end to genocide, an end to the crimes,” Albanese told Spanish broadcaster RTVE, referring to the sanctions against her.

Also on Thursday, Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares criticized Israel’s continued detention of Spanish-Palestinian activist Saif Abukeshek, calling it “inadmissible and unacceptable.”

Jose Manuel Albares told the Spanish parliament that he summoned Israel’s top envoy in Spain on Wednesday to discuss the situation and had also spoken with Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar.

Albares said Abukeshek was “illegally” detained in international waters where Israel had “no jurisdiction” while traveling with a Gaza-bound humanitarian aid flotilla.

“Spain reacted without hesitation, with complete clarity and firmness, in response to violations of international law,” Albares said.​​​​​​​

Lawyers says two activists are being subjected to ‘psychological torture’ as their detention is extended for another week

Activist Thiago Avila, a member of the Global Sumud Flotilla seized by Israel in international waters, sits at a magistrate’s court hearing in Ashkelon, Israel, 3 May 2026 (Amir Cohen/Reuters)

By Mera Aladam

Published date: 5 May 2026 12:08 BST | Last update:21 hours 34 mins ago

Two activists seized by Israeli forces in international waters while en route to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza have been threatened with death or lengthy imprisonment, their lawyers said on Monday.

The legal centre Adalah, which represents Thiago Avila and Saif Abu Keshek, said the pair have been subjected to psychological abuse and held in solitary confinement since their capture last week.

On Tuesday, a court in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon extended their detention until Sunday.

Abu Keshek, a Spanish-Swedish national of Palestinian origin, and Avila, a Brazilian national, were detained late on Wednesday when Israeli naval forces raided a Gaza-bound aid flotilla in international waters off Greece.

They were taken to Israel and accused of assisting the enemy during wartime, contact with a foreign agent, membership of and providing services to a terrorist organisation, and transferring funds to such a group. Both deny the charges.

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Since their detention, the men have been held in cells under constant bright light, a practice intended to cause sleep deprivation and disorientation, according to Adalah. They are also blindfolded whenever taken out of their cells, including during medical examinations, which it described as a serious breach of medical ethics.

Global Sumud Flotilla: When states fail, humanity sets sail

Read More »

Avila reported being subjected to repeated interrogations lasting up to eight hours, during which he was allegedly threatened that they would be “killed” or “imprisoned for 100 years”.

He is also being held in very low temperatures, the group said. 

The two men, now in solitary confinement, have entered their sixth day of a hunger strike in protest at what legal experts have described as an unlawful seizure outside Israel’s territorial waters.

Lawyers Hadeel Abu Salih and Lubna Tuma of Adalah told the court the case was “flawed and unlawful”, arguing there is no legal basis for applying Israeli law to foreign nationals in international waters.

During Friday’s raid, Israeli forces intercepted at least 21 Gaza-bound vessels and detained 175 activists, in what organisers from the Global Sumud Flotilla described as an act of “piracy”.

The boats were seized about 600 nautical miles from Gaza’s coast, near the Greek island of Crete.

Spain and Brazil issued a joint statement on Friday describing the detention of Avila and Abu Keshek as illegal.

April 29, 2026 benjamin netanyahu, civilian casualties, gaza, genocide, international law, Israel-Palestine, middle east, u.s. complicity, U.S. foreign policy, war crimes, wendy sherman

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Joshua Scheer

Former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman has delivered a rare rupture in official Washington’s script: accusing Israel of carrying out a genocide in Gaza—and acknowledging that the United States is not a bystander, but a participant in its outcome.

Speaking to Bloomberg, Sherman pointed directly to the policies of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, arguing they have driven the devastation in Gaza while fueling wider instability across the Middle East. This is not the language of ambiguity or “both sides”—it is an indictment from within the establishment itself.

More damning still, Sherman underscored the uncomfortable truth at the heart of U.S. foreign policy: Washington’s actions are inseparable from its alliance with Israel. That relationship, she suggested, is no longer politically or morally sustainable without serious reassessment.

Her comments carry unusual weight. Sherman is not an outsider—she helped shape U.S. diplomacy at the highest levels. And her warning comes as global outrage grows over the scale of destruction in Gaza and the mounting civilian toll.

According to Gaza health authorities, at least 817 Palestinians have been killed and 2,296 wounded in reported Israeli violations of a ceasefire agreement since it took effect—figures that continue to climb as the violence grinds on.

International pressure is now building to force a reckoning: calls are intensifying to condition U.S. support for Israel on adherence to international law. The question is no longer whether the world is watching—it’s whether Washington will finally be forced to see what it has helped make possible.

In the full interview, former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman—no outsider, but a career diplomat and reliable mouthpiece of empire—did not arrive at the word lightly. She is not a campus protester, not an antiwar dissident, not someone who has challenged the foundations of U.S. power. She is a lifelong architect and defender of it. That is precisely what makes her admission so jarring: Israel, she said, has “in essence created a genocide in Gaza,” and the United States helped pave the road that made it possible.

Let’s be clear—this is not an endorsement of Sherman’s worldview. She has spent decades advancing the very system now producing this devastation. But when even a figure so deeply embedded in that machinery begins to name what is happening, it signals something deeper than dissent—it signals rupture.

This is the moral collapse Washington keeps trying to launder as strategy. Gaza has been demolished, civilians slaughtered, hospitals and homes reduced to rubble, and still the political class hides behind euphemism while the dead pile up faster than the truth can be spoken. Sherman’s words matter not because she stands outside power, but because she doesn’t. They expose what official Washington already knows and refuses to confront: this is not an accident, not collateral damage, not a tragic excess of war. It is the destruction of a people—enabled, armed, and excused by the United States.

When a figure like that uses the word “genocide,” it punctures the careful language Washington relies on to avoid accountability. But it also reveals the limits of insider critique: naming the crime without challenging the structure that enables it. Her words expose a truth the political class already understands—that U.S. power is deeply entangled in this devastation—yet still stops short of confronting what that means. And that is the real indictment: not just what has been done, but how fully it has been absorbed into the logic of empire itself.

More from the interview

“Genocide” from inside the system
Sherman—no outsider—says Israel has “in essence created a genocide in Gaza,” and admits the U.S. helped create the conditions for it. U.S. power ≠ strategy
She warns Trump’s approach is “tactical” and impulsive, lacking any real long-term strategy—despite massive military escalation. Iran cannot be forced to surrender
The idea that Iran will simply capitulate is fantasy—its nuclear knowledge, regional ties, and strategic posture cannot be bombed away. War is weakening U.S. global dominance
Allies are drifting, trust is collapsing, and countries are turning toward China—accelerating a shift away from U.S. power. China and Russia are the real winners
The war strengthens China economically and geopolitically, while also giving it justification for its own future military actions. Strait of Hormuz = permanent leverage
Even after military strikes, Iran retains the ability to disrupt global trade—meaning the U.S. cannot fully control the situation. Negotiations are not about trust—only power
Sherman bluntly states diplomacy isn’t about trust but managing competing interests between adversaries. U.S. foreign policy built this crisis
She acknowledges decades of American decisions—from coups to wars—helped create today’s instability. Both parties share blame
Republicans and Democrats alike failed to create stability in the Middle East, with Iraq and failed diplomacy fueling long-term chaos. Even insiders are “angrier” now
Sherman admits growing anger and fear over the global cost—economic, political, and human—of current U.S. policy.

Israeli rights group says Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya held in ‘harsh conditions’ without medication or treatment

Lina Altawell

28 April 2026

Istanbul

An Israeli court extended Tuesday the detention of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in the Gaza Strip, without filing charges against him, amid harsh conditions and denial of medical care, a rights group said.

Abu Safiya, a pediatric consultant, was detained on Dec. 27, 2024, when Israeli forces raided the hospital in the northern city of Beit Lahia, detaining him at gunpoint after the facility was destroyed and put out of service.

“The Beersheba District Court approved Tuesday morning the extension of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya’s detention under the Unlawful Combatants Law without filing any charges, and rejected the defense’s request for his immediate release,” Israel’s Physicians for Human Rights said in a statement.

The Unlawful Combatants Law allows Israeli authorities to detain Palestinians from Gaza for prolonged periods without trial.

Although the Beersheba court extended his detention for six months in October 2025, the group said authorities indicated that the latest extension is “indefinite.”

“The court upheld the detention despite arguments that detaining a doctor while performing his medical duties constitutes unlawful detention,” it said.

“Dr. Abu Safiya is currently held in Negev Prison under harsh conditions, without access to his medication or receiving medical treatment, despite the deterioration of his health,” the rights group warned.

Israel continues to detain Abu Safiya despite his repeated denial of engaging in any activity outside his professional medical role, disregarding calls from Israeli, Palestinian and international rights groups demanding his immediate release.

“Dr. Abu Safiya had been tirelessly running the hospital, providing essential care to children and bearing witness to the collapse of Gaza’s healthcare sector under Israel’s genocide.

He continued his work even after the tragic death of his own son during an Israeli airstrike. Like many health workers before him, he was detained while caring for his patients and carrying out his medical duties,” Amnesty International said in an earlier report.

With US support, Israel launched a genocidal war on Oct. 8, 2023, killing more than 72,000 Palestinians and injuring over 172,000, most of them women and children, since October 2023, and causing destruction to about 90% of civilian infrastructure.

Despite a ceasefire in place since Oct. 10, Israel has continued its actions through blockade and daily attacks, killing 818 Palestinians and injuring 2,301 others, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

Israel also continues to block the entry of agreed quantities of food, medicine, medical supplies and shelter materials into Gaza, where about 2.4 million Palestinians, including 1.5 million displaced, live in severe humanitarian conditions.

*Writing by Lina Altawell

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Rabbi Avraham Zarbiva operated a bulldozer in Gaza and has called for Israel to ‘flatten’ the Palestinian territory

by Dave DeCamp, Antiwar. com, April 22, 2026 at 4:52 pm ET | Gaza, Israel

During an independence day ceremony in Israel on Tuesday, the Israeli government honored an extremist rabbi known for bulldozing homes in Gaza and calling for Israel to “flatten” the Palestinian territory.
According to The Guardian, Rabbi Avraham Zarbiv was one of fourteen people chosen by the Israeli government for their “extraordinary contribution to society and the state” to light a torch at the ceremony.
Zarbiv serves as a rabbinical judge for an illegal Jewish settlement in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and an Israeli state ombudsman recently ruled that he violated ethical guidelines by expressing “extremist views,” which included his call to flatten Gaza and boasting about the destruction of civilian homes and the IDF’s mass killing of Palestinians.
“Israel, let me tell you, we have crushed them. There are tens of thousands of dead. The dogs and the cats ate them because no one collected them,” Zarbiv said in a TV interview last year. “Tens of thousands of families – they have not a piece of paper, no childhood photo, no IDs, they have nothing. No home, there is nothing. They come, they have no idea where their house is. It’s something unbelievable.”
Zarbiv became well known in Israel for posting videos of himself destroying homes in Gaza, and his name has become slang for destruction. “We’re here in Beit Hanoun attacking this cursed village until we finish it,” Zarbiv said in one of his videos, which was shared by the Israeli rights group B’Tselem. “All the way to victory, to settlement. We will not give up until this village is erased.”
B’Tselem strongly condemned the Israeli government’s move to honor Zarbiv. “Bestowing one of the highest civilian honors in Israel on a citizen who committed war crimes illustrates how deeply the dehumanization of Palestinians has taken root in the Israeli mainstream. It is yet another terrifying signal that genocide has officially become part of the national ethos,” the group said.

By Reuters

April 12, 2026

Summary

• About 30 boats due to set sail from Barcelona
• More vessels expected to join along way
• Israel denies withholding supplies for Gaza’s more than 2 million residents

MADRID, April 12 (Reuters) – A ​second flotilla carrying humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza was due to set ‌sail on Sunday from the Spanish port of Barcelona to try to break the Israeli blockade.

About 30 boats planned to leave the Mediterranean port city laden with medical aid and other supplies ​on the Global Sumud Flotilla, and more vessels are expected to join along ​the route towards Palestine.

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The Israeli military halted the roughly 40 boats ⁠assembled by the same organisation last October as they attempted to reach blockaded Gaza, ​arresting Swedish activist Greta Thunberg and more than 450 other participants.

MISSION TO ‘OPEN HUMANITARIAN CORRIDOR’

Israel, ​which controls all access to the Gaza Strip, denies withholding supplies for its more than 2 million residents. Yet Palestinians and international aid bodies say supplies reaching the territory are still insufficient, despite ​a ceasefire reached in October which included guarantees of increased aid.

Liam Cunningham, an ​actor who starred in the Game of Thrones television series who is supporting the flotilla but not ‌taking ⁠part, told Reuters: “Every kilogram of aid that is on these ships is a failure because all these people on these ships giving up their time to help their fellow human beings are doing what their governments are legally obliged to do.”

The World ​Health Organization has said ​that even during ⁠armed conflicts, states are obligated under international humanitarian law to ensure that people are able to reach medical care in safety.

“This is ​a mission that aims to open a humanitarian corridor so ​the aid ⁠delivery organisations can arrive,” Saif Abukeshak, a Palestinian activist and member of the flotilla’s organising committee, told Reuters.

Swiss and Spanish activists on last year’s flotilla said they were subjected to ⁠inhumane ​conditions during their detention by Israeli forces – an allegation ​that was rejected by an Israeli foreign ministry spokesperson.

Reporting by Graham Keeley; Additional reporting by Silvio Castellanos, ​Horaci Garcia, Nacho Doce, Albert Gea, Michele Spatari and Amy McConaghy; Editing by David Holmes

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk is seen at the UN Office in Geneva on September 16, 2025.

(Photo by Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images)

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said the new law “raises serious concerns about due process violations, is deeply discriminatory, and must be promptly repealed.”

Brett Wilkins, Common Dreams, Mar 31, 2026

The top United Nations human rights official was among those who on Tuesday urged Israel to repeal legislation it passed the previous day legalizing the hanging of Palestinians convicted of terrorism-related killing of Israelis—a law critics contend will not apply to Israelis who commit similar crimes.

The law passed by the Israeli Knesset states that Palestinians must be hanged within 90 days if convicted of nationalistic killings in a military court. While the legislation does not allow pardons, it gives judges discretionary power when it comes to sentencing Israeli citizens convicted of similar crimes, and observers say it’s highly unlikely that any jIsraeli would ever be hanged under the law.

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Advocates Demand Repeal of Israeli Death Penalty Law Explicitly Targeting Palestinians

Critics Warn of Mass Executions as Israel Advances Death Penalty Bill for Palestinians

Experts argue the 90-day provision and lack of appellate process are violations of international humanitarian law.

“It is deeply disappointing that this bill has been approved by the Knesset,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said Tuesday. “It is patently inconsistent with Israel’s international law obligations, including in relation to the right to life. It raises serious concerns about due process violations, is deeply discriminatory, and must be promptly repealed.”

“The death penalty is profoundly difficult to reconcile with human dignity, and it raises the unacceptable risk of executing innocent people,” he added. “Its application in a discriminatory manner would constitute an additional, particularly egregious violation of international law. Its application to residents of the occupied Palestinian territory would constitute a war crime.”

While proponents of the law—some of whom, like Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, celebrated its passage—say they believe it will deter Palestinians from killing Israelis, studies in the United States, the only Western democracy that actively executes people, have repeatedly shown that the death penalty is not a deterrent to crime.

Palestinians and their defenders have also warned that the law could open the door to mass executions, including of anyone found to have killed Israelis during the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack, for which Israel retaliated with an ongoing assault and siege that has left more than 250,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing.

“Trials for crimes related to October 7 are supremely important, but they must not be anchored in discrimination,” said Türk. “All victims are entitled to equal protection of the law, and all perpetrators must be held accountable without discrimination.”

Other human rights defenders also condemned the new Israeli law and called for its repeal.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DWhZyVAFI_F/embed/captioned/?cr=1&v=4&wp=1403&rd=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org&rp=%2Fnews%2Fun-israel-death-penalty#%7B%22ci%22%3A0%2C%22os%22%3A171967%7D

“The Israeli parliament’s adoption of a racist law authorizing the hanging of Palestinian prisoners is the very definition of apartheid,” the Washington, DC-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said in a statement Tuesday. “Even the South African apartheid government never adopted a death penalty law so explicitly racist.”

Taking aim at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza—CAIR continued, “The Netanyahu regime is completely out of control because our nation continues to bankroll its crimes, from the de facto annexation of the West Bank to the genocide in Gaza, to the ethnic cleansing of southern Lebanon, to the occupation of Syria, to the illegal war with Iran that it triggered, to the closure of Christian and Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem.”

“Congress is not just failing to act, it is actively advancing more military support while treating that US taxpayer funding as automatic, even as these abuses escalate,” the group added. “Every member of Congress—especially Democratic leaders of the House and Senate—must condemn these crimes, including the racist execution law, and announce their opposition to any further military funding for the Israeli apartheid regime.”

A 2024 ruling by the International Court of Justice in The Hague—where Israel is also facing a genocide case brought by South Africa in response to the US-backed war on Gaza—affirmed that the Israeli occupation of Palestine is an illegal form of apartheid that must be ended.

More than 9,500 Palestinians are currently locked up in Israeli prisons, including 350 children and 73 women, according to advocacy groups. Palestinian and Israeli human rights defenders say detainees face torture, starvation, and medical neglect behind bars, causing many deaths.

Former prisoners as well as Israeli staff and medical personnel say they have witnessed torture at prisons including Sde Teiman, the most infamous of Israel’s lockups, with victims ranging from children to the elderly.

Israeli physicians who worked at Sde Teiman described widespread serious injuries caused by 24-hour shackling of hands and feet that sometimes required amputations. Palestinians taken by Israeli forces recounted rapes and sexually assaults by male and female soldiers, electrocution, maulings by dogs, denial of food and water, sleep deprivation, and other torture.

The World Council of Churches’ new campaign called “From Condemnation to Consequences” aims to pressure governments to hold Israel accountable for its deepening occupation of the West Bank and its accelerated program of genocide and ethnic cleansing.

By Jeff Wright, Mondoweiss, March 11, 2026

Scenes showing the widespread destruction of buildings and infrastructure caused by Israeli attacks during the Gaza genocide in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip. February 22, 2026. (Photo: Omar Ashtawy/APA Images)

Last week, the World Council of Churches (WCC), headquartered in Geneva, launched a month-long campaign titled “From Condemnation to Consequences.” The program calls its member churches—clergy leaders and lay alike—to hold Israel accountable for its failure to fulfill its obligations under international law.

George Sahhar, Advocacy Officer in the Jerusalem Liaison Office of the World Council of Churches, tells Mondoweiss. “When attention is focused on the war in the Middle East, we want the world to see that human rights violations by Israel against Palestinians continue, and that annexation is ongoing and deepened.” 

During a webinar introducing the March 4-31 campaign, Kenneth Mtata, WCC Program Director for Life, Justice and Peace, said, “[O]ur campaign needs to remain focused on the commitments that the churches have made together, with all their partners, to see how we move from the statements and condemnation of the occupation and annexation of Palestine, and to try to translate this into concrete changes and transformation.”

“When attention is focused on the war in the Middle East, we want the world to see that human rights violations by Israel against Palestinians continue, and that annexation is ongoing and deepened.” George Sahhar, Advocacy Officer in the Jerusalem Liaison Office of the World Council of Churches

In short, the World Council of Churches, comprised of 356 member churches representing more than half a billion Christians around the globe, has acknowledged that offering “thoughts and prayers” alone is not enough to address Israel’s decades-long occupation and its accelerated program of genocide and ethnic cleansing.

In an alert to be published by Kairos Palestine later this month, Dalia Qumsieh, human rights lawyer and Founder/Director of Balasan Initiative for Human Rights, insists, “Churches are called to realize their power and leverage in action, with a full understanding that statements don’t stop bulldozers, condemnations don’t restore stolen lands and resources, and prayers alone cannot restore families who were uprooted from their ancestral lands. Only solid action will.”

The WCC’s appeal to members in the pews—“reach out to your elected officials [and] your faith leaders to call for renewed efforts for a just and sustainable resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict”—is an implied acknowledgement that with few exceptions heads of church around the globe have not yet responded to the pleas of Palestinian Christians to stand with them in solidarity, to act with courage and conviction in naming the realities that Palestinians are suffering: genocide, ethnic cleansing, and settler violence. 

The campaign, organized by the WCC’s Ecumenical Accompaniment Program in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI), grounds its advocacy in decisive finding by the WCC (such as this) and the International Court of Justice’s provisional findings regarding Israel’s violations of international law and the responsibility of states to prevent genocide and to punish states committing genocide.

“We call on states, churches, and international institutions,” campaign material reads, “to impose consequences for violations of international law, including targeted sanctions, divestment, and arms embargoes. Full support must be given to the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice, and UN mechanisms both regarding investigations of crimes on all sides as well as initiatives towards a just peace for Palestinians and Israelis.”

Campaign resources include stories from the field, factsheets, and talking points to prepare people to approach decision- and policy-makers with a clear explanation of the legal framework and explicit asks. 

Peter Makari, Global Relations Minister related to the Middle East and Europe for the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and the United Church of Christ, tells Mondoweiss, “After over two years of genocide, renewed U.S. and global efforts are needed to press our elected officials who support and enable Israel’s many years of denial of Palestinian rights. The consequence of a lack of accountability has resulted in devastating consequences for Palestinian lives and rights.”

In a further move, the World Council of Churches sent a delegate to the People’s Congress for The Hague Group meeting in Amsterdam last week. The group focused on widening the work of civil society to insist that states meet their legal obligation to end Israel’s program of genocide: instituting sanctions, closing ports to weapons, ending corporate and institutional complicity, and furthering accountability across courts, contracts, campuses and communities.

“The People’s Congress is an important space for civil society to collectively design its defense of international law and human dignity,” said WCC’s Mtata. “Churches and people of faith have an obligation to stand in solidarity with the suffering and resist impunity. Our presence here is part of a broader commitment to justice, accountability and, hopefully, to a just and peaceful coexistence of Palestinians and Israelis.”

While civil society organizations in the U.S. are bringing people out into the streets in the tens of thousands to resist the current administration, to advocate for Palestinians and, now, to end the U.S./Israeli war on Iran, it remains to be seen if this nascent program of the WCC moves an increasing number of church leaders and grassroots Christians to name the realities Palestinians are suffering and to make their voices heard.

It’s not official policy but Israeli leaders are allowing new ‘facts on the ground’

Analysis | Middle East

Paul R. Pillar, Mar 03, 2026

Israel’s new war with Iran coupled with slaughter in the Gaza Strip — where Israeli military operations have killed more than 600 Palestinians since a “ceasefire” supposedly went into effect last October, adding to the tens of thousands killed during the previous two years — has diverted attention from events in the West Bank.

That diversion is fine with those intent on cementing Israeli control there and continuing the subjugation or displacement of the 3.8 million Palestinians who live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Among the measures that Israel has taken toward that objective during the past few months is legislation in the Knesset making it easier for Israelis to purchase land in the West Bank. More recent actions by the Israeli cabinet have furthered that same goal as well as extending Israeli control over certain holy sites and portions of the West Bank that, according to the Oslo Accords of 1993, the Palestinian Authority is supposed to administer.

At least as significant in creating facts on the ground has been violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinian residents. That violence has surged since the beginning of the assault on the Gaza Strip, with the perpetrators evidently taking advantage of the diversion of international attention to Gaza and now Iran. The increase in violence continues. Nearly 700 Palestinians were displaced by settler violence and intimidation this past January — the highest monthly figure since the Gaza offensive began in October 2023.

The Israeli government is an accessory to the settler violence. It has done little to discourage it and more often condones it. Units of the Israeli Defense Forces have even participated in it.

The Israeli activity in the West Bank is illegal and recognized as such by most of the international community. It is a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention on the protection of civilian populations. By settling its own citizens in Palestinian territory that Israel conquered in a war that it initiated in 1967, it is especially violating Article 49 of that convention, which expressly prohibits the transfer of any of the conquering nation’s civilian population to the territory it occupies.

The United States, through multiple administrations of both parties, has paid lip service to the concept of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict while doing little to impede Israeli actions in the West Bank that have been putting that solution out of reach. The Trump administration has carried these tendencies even farther. The administration’s posture is personified by the U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, an outspoken Christian Zionist whose statements appear designed less to uphold U.S. interests in the face of Israeli actions than to support religious rationales for Israeli expansionism.

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In a further move along this line, the embassy that Huckabee heads announced last week that it will start opening “pop-up” consular offices in Israeli settlements in the West Bank. This move can be seen as part of the same policy that during Trump’s first term saw the closing of a U.S. consulate in Jerusalem that had long been one of the chief channels for U.S. relations with the Palestinians.

Notwithstanding the administration’s assertion that last week’s announcement does not represent a policy change, delighted Israeli officials and dismayed Palestinians each saw it as a significant statement that bestows a U.S. stamp of legitimacy on the settlements. It would be difficult to justify the move as merely a matter of administrative convenience. The first settlement to receive one of the pop-up consulates is only eight miles from the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, where consular services already are available.

The administration says it opposes Israeli annexation of the West Bank. The White House said so just last month. But that opposition refers only to formal, openly declared annexation. What matters more is the de facto annexation that has been going on for years. The administration policy toward that is not opposition but instead a condoning of it and, as the move regarding the consulates illustrates, active support for it.

Although some of the most extreme Israeli figures, such as Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, have called for formal annexation of most of the West Bank, the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in no hurry to make such a declaration because it is getting almost everything it wants from the de facto annexation. A formal declaration would make it more difficult for that government to deflect international criticism of its actions in the West Bank. It would no longer be able to string along the international community with the fiction of a possible two-state solution and instead would have to defend its apartheid policies within what it says itself are its national boundaries.

With moves such as the opening of consulates in the settlements, the United States is associating itself ever more closely with the Israeli expansionist project and its inhumane treatment of the Palestinians. This is contrary to U.S interests, partly because it puts the United States ever more conspicuously on the wrong side of legality, morality, and international opinion.

Moreover, oppressed Palestinians will not forever be submissive. The long history of this conflict has already seen two intifadas, which have taken violent as well as nonviolent forms, and there could be more. The conflict will continue to be a prime source of instability in the Middle East. Besides inhibiting any U.S. effort to “pivot” away from the region, the close association of the United States with the oppressive policies of Israel makes the United States more of a target for terrorism or other reprisals.

Paul R. Pillar

Paul R. Pillar is Non-resident Senior Fellow at the Center for Security Studies of Georgetown University and a non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. He is also an Associate Fellow of the Geneva Center for Security Policy.