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 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 Mondereported 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.”
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators hold banners and signs as they protest outside the Microsoft Build conference at the Seattle Convention Center in Seattle, Washington on May 19, 2025.
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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.
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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Major protests have been held in London and other cities against the ban on Palestine Action. (Dinendra Haria / ZUMA Press)
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.
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.”
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.
Palestinian-Spanish activist Saif Abukeshek (centre) a member of the Global Sumud Flotilla, is escorted by prison service guards to a hearing at the District Court in Ashkelon, Israel, on Sunday, May 3, 20
A PALESTINE solidarity activist deported from Israel today has vowed to keep mobilising “for a free Palestine.”
Saif Abu Keshek, a Spanish-Swedish dual national, and Thiago Avila of Brazil’s deportation was announced by the Israeli Foreign Ministry.
Mr Abu Keshek posted a defiant video following his arrival in Athens, Greece, pointing out that his comrades were still sailing with the Global Sumud Flotilla determined to get aid into Gaza.
“Mobilise in every corner of the world, on land and at sea, for a free Palestine,” he urged.
Israel attacked the flotilla in international waters near Greece on April 30, kidnapping 175 people but only taking Mr Abu Keshek and Mr Avila back to Israel for interrogation.
They both reported ill treatment by Israeli authorities — Mr Avila that he was beaten unconscious, while Mr Abu Keshek was reportedly forced to lie face down blindfolded on the boat all the way to Israel.
In his video, Mr Abu Keshek drew attention to the thousands of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, over 3,000 of whom are in “administrative detention,” having never been tried. These military orders can be renewed indefinitely.
“I am sure that the treatment I faced is nothing compared to the suffering they are going through,” he said.
Human rights and prisoner advocacy groups have accused Israel of systematic abuse of prisoners, including rape and setting dogs on them.
In March, Israel dropped charges against five soldiers accused of sodomising a Palestinian prisoner with a “sharp object.”
Footage of the notorious incident was leaked by former Israeli military advocate-general Major General Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, resulting in her resignation and disgrace.
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.
“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)
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
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.
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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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Palestinian-Spanish activist Saif Abukeshek (centre) a member of the Global Sumud Flotilla, is escorted by prison service guards to a hearing at the District Court in Ashkelon, Israel, on Sunday, May 3, 20![Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez awards the Order of Civil Merit to UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, on 7 May 2026 [sanchezcastejon/X]](https://i0.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/pedro-sanchez-francesca-albanese-award.jpeg.webp?fit=920%2C615&ssl=1)
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