When Israeli warplanes struckIran this week — violating Iranian sovereignty in a brazen act of aggression, killing scores of civilians alongside top military commanders and nuclear scientists and inviting Iran’s equally indiscriminate retaliatory strikes — Europe’s leaders didn’t condemn the attack.
They perversely endorsed it and condemned Iran for the attacks on its own territory.
The president of France Emmanuel Macron set the tone by condemning Iran’s “ongoing nuclear program” and reaffirming “Israel’s right to defend itself and secure its security.” President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen seemed to have spoken from the same script “reiterating Israel’s right to defend itself,” embellished by some generic platitudes about the need for restraint and de-escalation.
The German foreign ministry went a step further and actually “strongly condemned” Iran for “an indiscriminate attack on Israeli territory” — even before Tehran launched its missiles in response for Israel’s attack on its territory — while fully endorsing Israel’s actions.
This Orwellian rhetoric isn’t just incompetence or ignorance. It’s the culmination of years of European diplomatic malpractice that helped to manufacture this crisis — and exposed the “rules-based order” as a corpse. Europe’s double standards killed its credibility.
Europe’s stance on Ukraine invoked Article 2(4) of the U.N. Charter with political clarity: “All members shall refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity of any state.” Yet when Israel attacked Iran — with no legal basis for self-defense — Europe de-facto reframed aggression as virtue, and condoned it.
Europe’s moral and diplomatic collapse hasn’t gone unnoticed. Two globally respected voices delivered particularly damning verdicts. Mohamed ElBaradei, Nobel Laureate and former head of the U.N.’s atomic energy watchdog, offered a humiliating crash course in international law to the German foreign ministry.
Reacting to Berlin’s endorsement of Israel’s “targeted strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities” (never mind the hundreds of civilians killed in these strikes), El Baradei reminded it that such strikes are prohibited under the Geneva Conventions to which Germany is a party, and that the use of force in international relations “is generally prohibited in the UN Charter with the exception of the right of self-defense in the case of armed attack or upon authorization by the Security Council in the case of collective security action.”
For her part, Francesca Albanese, U.N. special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, reacting to Macron’s statement, commented that “on the day Israel, unprovoked, has attacked Iran, the president of a major European power, finally admits that in the Middle East, Israel, and only Israel, has the right to defend itself.”
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The message of the likes of El Baradei and Albanese is unequivocal: when Europe applauds Israel’s strike while condemning Russia’s invasion, it doesn’t uphold universal rules — it enforces its tribalist identity: “rules” only apply to adversaries, not friends. This is fatal to Europe’s pretense of moral authority — it has been well noticed in the Global South, but also among many European citizens too.
This pretense looks even more detached from reality given that the crisis in the Middle East erupted on fertile ground prepared by serial European failure. First it was the E3 (Britain, France, Germany) failure to uphold the JCPOA following the U.S. withdrawal under Donald Trump’s presidency in 2018. While the EU offered rhetorical support for the nuclear deal, it buckled to U.S. sanctions and refused to shield EU firms willing to engage with Iran. It let the JCPOA die, de-facto creating a vacuum for escalation.
Further, while mediators like Oman and Qatar brokered talks on a new nuclear deal between the U.S. and Iran, the EU pushed for an IAEA resolution censoring Iran days before Israel’s strike, torpedoing de-escalation and contributing to creating a more menacing, dangerous security environment, with the U.N. Security Council sanctions snapback and potential Iran’s withdrawal from the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) lurking in the background.
Each of these failures validated Tehran’s view that it is futile to negotiate with Europe. The E3/EU are now seen not just as a weak party unable to fulfil its commitments under the nuclear agreement, but also an actively destructive player undermining Iran’s security and regional stability.
European powers’ staggering descent into diplomatic irrelevance was starkly illustrated by Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi’s categorical rejection of his British counterpart David Lammy’s pleas to de-escalate. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine why Tehran should heed these calls when they come from parties it sees as actively colluding with the aggressors.
The likely fallout from Europe’s diplomatic self-sabotage is that it incinerated whatever residual trust it still had in Iran and the broader Global South. It all but guaranteed proliferation by giving Iranians — now not just the hardliners — a powerful incentive to seek nuclear weaponization, an outcome that could have been avoided had Europe engaged in serious, good faith talks with Iran on reviving the nuclear deal. Iran’s withdrawal from the NPT is no longer a merely theoretical possibility.
All of these developments dramatically increase the likelihood of blowback against European interests: a regional war in the Middle East means more uncontrolled migration, heightened risks of terrorism on European soil or against European interests in the region, and energy shocks if Iran delivers on its threats to block the Hormuz Straight, the world’s principal oil trade artery.
Absent an urgent but unlikely course correction, such as holding Israel accountable for its regional aggression, Europe’s decay will accelerate. When Brussels exempts allies from rules imposed on rivals, it doesn’t preserve peace — it signs its own geopolitical suicide note.
Call the White House and tell them you do not want any part of this disastrous war
by Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com, Jun 15, 2025
Sources familiar with the matter have told Antiwar.com Editorial Director Scott Horton that the Trump administration is poised to enter Israel’s aggressive war against Iran directly. US airstrikes on Iran could begin as soon as Monday. Please contact the White House by calling (202-456-7041) or sending an email. Tell them that you do not want the US to enter this disastrous war, which could lead to heavy American casualties at US bases across the Middle East. The US has supported the war by reportedly providing Israel with intelligence and helping intercept Iranian missiles and drones, but so far, there have been no direct US attacks on Iran. Iranian officials have warned that Tehran would hit US bases in the region in response to any US strikes. Axios reported on Saturday that Israel is urging the US to join the war since Israel lacks the bunker-busting bombs necessary to do serious damage to Iran’s Fordow plant, which is buried deep underground. An Israeli official told Axios that President Trump had previously suggested the US could strike Fordow. Trump himself said on Sunday that it was “possible” that the US would get directly involved in the war, which Israel launched early Friday morning with airstrikes across Iran. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu started the war under the pretext of preventing Iran from building a nuclear weapon. But it was the consensus of the US intelligence community that there was no evidence Iran was working toward a nuclear weapon, and Tehran made clear they were ready to make a deal with the US that would significantly lower uranium enrichment levels and increase oversight of its nuclear program in exchange for US sanctions relief. Ali Larijani, an aide to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has previously said that the one thing that would make Tehran reconsider its prohibition on the development of nuclear weapons would be a US or Israeli attack. “We are not moving towards (nuclear) weapons, but if you do something wrong in the Iranian nuclear issue, you will force Iran to move towards that because it has to defend itself,” Larijani said on April 1. “Iran does not want to do this, but … (it) will have no choice,” he added. “If at some point you (the US) move towards bombing by yourself or through Israel, you will force Iran to make a different decision.”
Published date: 14 June 2025 19:34 BST | Last update:9 hours 49 mins ago
The US and Israel altered Israel’s F-35 warplanes to extend their range without the need for refuelling or compromising on stealth to help Israel’s attack on Iran, Middle East Eye can reveal.
The modification is secret, but two US officials speaking to MEE on condition of anonymity confirmed that Israel did not use mid-air refuelling during its Friday attack on Iran or land their warplanes for refuelling at any nearby countries.
Instead, the US officials told MEE that Israel and the US modified the F-35’s system to carry additional fuel that did not impact the F-35’s stealth features. The Israeli designation for their version of the F-35s is called the F-35I Adir.
The F-35 is the only long-range stealth fighter in the world, and its features make it difficult for radar or infrared sensors to track it.
The scale of Israel’s Friday attack and the surprise nature of it mean the improvement is a sea change for the F-35, the US officials told MEE.
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The F-35s performance is going to be carefully studied by Middle Eastern countries looking to acquire them, as well as the US’s foes, China and Russia.
“This is a game changer. Israel had our cooperation on this modification,” one US defence official told MEE, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Both officials confirmed that Israel modified their F-35Is with US involvement.
Exclusive: US quietly sent hundreds of Hellfire missiles to Israel before Iran attack
One US official refused to share details on how the F-35 was altered to carry more fuel, but suggested an external feature was added.
The second US official said that Israel attached external drop tanks to the F-35s.
“It’s impressive. Period,” Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace expert at aerodynamic advisory told MEE when asked about the US officials’ statements.
Aboulafia said that the only option Israel had in place of not refuelling was to use drop tanks.
“The big challenge is devising the F-35s interface system with drop tanks that don’t compromise stealth. Not only do you have to design the fixtures, but some sort of in-line modification has to be done. The Israelis, with our cooperation, I assume, practically did surgery on an existing jet to make this modification.”
The F-35 has a publicly stated combat range of roughly 700 miles. The shortest distance between Israel and Iran is roughly 620 miles one way.
If mid-air refuelling wasn’t employed, then theoretically they could have used a US base in the Gulf or in Azerbaijan, but the officials MEE spoke to said land refuelling did not take place on any US bases in the region.
Azerbaijan today said it would not allow its airspace or territory to be utilised for launching attacks on Iran or any other country, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov said in a call with his Iranian counterpart Abbas Araqchi.
Reports have emerged in recent years that Israel was working on such a project.
In 2021, Israel’s Walla news reported that the Israeli Air Force was working on a drop tank for the F-35I Adirs. The report at the time said Israel could finish the modification in two years.
Adding a drop tank that carries extra fuel sounds easy, but it is extremely sensitive and difficult, US officials and experts say.
The F-35 contains radar-absorbent materials and its entire engineering is designed to avoid detection. Any change to the body could compromise those features.
One challenge noted by The Aviationist magazine in 2021 was that once the tank was dropped it could expose other parts of the aircraft to radar because the attachment points and fuel lines would not be covered by any Radar Absorbing Material (RAM).
The US officials MEE spoke with refused to share details about the F-35s closely guarded engineering.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said on Sunday that Israeli attacks killed at least 106 Palestinians and wounded 393 as Israeli forces continue to pound the Strip with airstrikes and shoot desperate Palestinians seeking aid.
The Health Ministry said that at least five Palestinians were killed and 123 were injured while seeking aid at distribution points run by the US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
According to The Cradle, at least one Palestinian was killed by Israeli gunfire at a distribution site at the Netzarim Corridor, which separates northern Gaza from the rest of the Strip. Four were reported killed when Israeli tanks, gunboats, and snipers opened fire near a site in the southern city of Rafah. Other reports said the death toll in Rafah rose to 13.
Mourners react during the funeral of a Palestinian killed, in what the Gaza health ministry says was Israeli fire near a distribution center in Rafah, at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, June 8, 2025. REUTERS/Hatem Khaled
According to Reuters, the Israeli military acknowledged that it opened fire on Palestinians near the site in Rafah, claiming its forces “had directed warning shots at a group that was moving towards soldiers and deemed a threat to them.”
The Health Ministry said that the total number of Palestinians killed en route to aid sites since the GHF began operating has reached 115, and another 1,100 have been injured.
Heavy Israeli airstrikes and shelling were also reported across Gaza. According to the Palestinian news agency WAFA, at least 31 Palestinians were killed by Israeli strikes, mainly in the southern cities of Rafah and Khan Younis, and in Gaza City and Jabalia in the north.
Also on Sunday, the Israeli military claimed that it had found and identified the body of Hamas leader Mohammed Sinwar, who it alleges was killed in a May 13 bombing outside the European Hospital in Khan Younis. Israel alleged that tunnels were underneath the facility, which Hamas has previously denied. Sinwar took over as Hamas’s leader following the killing of his brother, Yahya Sinwar, in October 2024.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said that since Israel resumed its genocidal war on March 18, at least 4,603 Palestinians have been killed, and 14,186 were injured. The numbers account for dead and wounded Palestinians brought to hospitals and morgues.
Since October 7, 2023, the ministry’s death toll has reached 54,880, and the number of wounded has climbed to 126,227, figures that don’t account for thousands missing and presumed dead under the rubble or indirect deaths caused by the Israeli siege.
Palestinians carry Reem Al-Akhras, who was killed while heading to an aid distribution hub, during her funeral in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Tuesday, June 3, 2025 [AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana]
In the week since Israel launched food distributions under the auspices of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), Israeli forces have turned the aid distributions into killing fields almost every day.
In a statement published Tuesday, the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor reported that over the past week, over 600 Palestinians have been killed or injured in Israeli attacks on crowds at the food distribution points.
Prior to the launch of the US-Israeli “aid” operation, humanitarian and human rights groups, including the UN, warned that the scheme was merely a means to lure Gaza’s remaining population to the south, where they could be trapped in concentration camps in preparation for the US-Israeli plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza by expelling its population.
It has since emerged that the purpose of the “aid” centers is even more sinister: they are launching points not only for indiscriminate massacres of aid-seekers, but for what appear to be targeted assassinations of members of the crowd. Rather than being a humanitarian lifeline, they are killing fields.
On Tuesday, Israeli forces carried out yet another massacre near an aid distribution site in Rafah, killing 27 people and injuring 90. On Monday, 3 people were killed and dozens were wounded in nearly the exact same circumstances. This followed a massacre on Sunday in which 30 people were killed and 170 were wounded.
In its report, the Euro-Med Monitor stated that, “According to testimonies and information collected by Euro-Med Monitor’s field researchers, Israeli army snipers deliberately targeted starving civilians with direct gunfire, mostly to the head, despite no apparent threat to Israeli forces.”
One survivor told the monitor, “At around 3:50 a.m. today, an Israeli quadcopter flew over and photographed the civilian crowd. Then, the army opened fire from a crane in the area. I personally carried three people who had been shot in the head. Most of the injuries were to the head. People came looking for food to ease their hunger, but they went back dead or wounded.”
In another testimony, A. B., 38, told the Euro-Med Monitor team, “Around 5:45 a.m., we managed to enter the center, and I was able to get an aid package. On my way out, I met a woman in her 40s who said she couldn’t continue forward and that she and her children were suffering from hunger and poverty. I gave her my package and returned to try to get another one, but there was nothing left. A quadcopter was overhead, broadcasting insulting remarks: ‘You animals, go away, the supply is out.’”
He continued, “As I was leaving and nearing the chute’s exit, I saw a child crying out loudly, ‘Mom, get up, Mom, get up.’ I went closer and found the woman I had given my package to lying in a pool of blood. She was dead,” he said. “A group of young men and I carried her outside and placed her in an ambulance. I accompanied her son to the hospital. On the way, along the sea road, I saw seven bodies lying on the side of the road.”
Aid-seekers attempting to access food are forced to wait in long lines before being subjected to facial recognition scans. The testimony presented by the Euro-Med Monitor could indicate that the ongoing massacres are not random killing sprees, but that the facial recognition scans are being used for targeted assassinations at the aid distribution sites.
On Wednesday, the United States vetoed a UN Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza – the fifth time it has done so. Fourteen other members of the Security Council voted for the ceasefire, which called the humanitarian situation in Gaza “catastrophic” and called for the lifting of restrictions on food aid.
“Israel has a right to defend itself, which includes defeating Hamas and ensuring they are never again in a position to threaten Israel,” said U.S. Ambassador Dorothy Sheato. “In this regard, any product that undermines our close ally Israel’s security is a non-starter.”
Sheato openly endorsed the so-called “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation,” declaring, “We instead urge the UN and NGOs to support the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation to help it safely deliver aid without being diverted by Hamas.” In an open embrace of the massacres as the GHF aid centers, she said the foundation is delivering aid “consistent with the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence.”
The UN vetoed a similarly worded UN Security Council resolution under the Biden administration, using essentially the same rationalization.
Riyad Monsour, Palestine’s representative to the UN, told the Security Council, “the engineered starvation that has brought an entire civilian population, 2 million people, among them 1 million children, to the edge of famine and then used aid to lure them and confine them to an extremely limited area of the Gaza Strip, clearly to facilitate their expulsion and annexation.”
Last week, Jens Laerke, a spokesperson for the UN’s humanitarian office, told reporters in a briefing that “One hundred percent of the population is at risk of famine,” and that Gaza is the “hungriest place on earth.”
He added that Israel’s ongoing blockade of humanitarian aid into Gaza has made the UN’s efforts to feed the population “one of the most obstructed aid operations, not only in the world today but in recent history.”
On Wednesday, UNICEF spokesperson James Elder said in a statement that he is “shocked” by the extent of malnutrition in Gaza, saying, “I’m seeing teenage boys in tears, showing me their ribs.”
He condemned Israel’s daily massacres of aid-seekers, saying, “Imagine knowing there’d be a massacre, but being so desperate to feed your family that you still go.”
Gaza’s health ministry said Wednesday that 95 Palestinians had been killed in the last 24-hour period and that 440 had been injured. Its official Gaza death toll has risen to 54,607 killed with 125,341 injured since October 7, 2023.
Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg speaks surrounded by other participants in the latest Freedom Flotilla Coalition effort to deliver shipborne aid to Gaza, during a June 1, 2025 press conference in Catania, Italy.
(Photo: Fabrizio Villa/Getty Images)
“No matter how dangerous this mission is, it’s nowhere near as dangerous as the silence of the entire world in the face of the live-streamed genocide,” said climate activist Greta Thunberg, who is aboard the Madleen.
A dozen Palestine defenders including climate campaigner Greta Thunberg and a French lawmaker set sail from Sicily on Sunday aboard a boat carrying humanitarian aid for the people of Gaza, many of whom are starving amid Israel’s ongoing U.S.-backed genocidal assault and siege and decadeslong naval blockade of the coastal enclave.
The Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) said it launched the sailboat Madleen—named after Gaza’s first and only known fisherwoman—from Catania, Italy at 4:00 pm local time Sunday “in direct defiance of Israel’s illegal and genocidal blockade.”
“Madleen symbolizes the unyielding spirit of Palestinian resilience and the growing global resistance to Israel’s use of collective punishment and deliberate starvation policies,” FFC said in a statement Sunday. “The ship is carrying urgently needed supplies for the people of Gaza, including baby formula, flour, rice, diapers, women’s sanitary products, water desalination kits, medical supplies, crutches, and children’s prosthetics.”
The international volunteers aboard Madleen include Thunberg, French Member of European Parliament Rima Hassan, German refugee advocate and FFC steering committee member Yasemin Acar, Brazilian FFC steering committee member Thiago Ávila, Al Jazeera reporter Omar Fayad, French doctor Baptiste Andre, French journalist Yanis M’Hamdi, Turkish engineer Şuayb Ordu, and crew members Mark Van Rennes, Reva Seifert Viard, Pascal Maurieras, and Sergio Toribio.
“I am aboard Madleen because silence is not neutrality—it is complicity,” said Hassan, who is banned from entering Israel due to her outspoken support for Palestinian rights. “The Palestinian people in Gaza are being starved and slaughtered, and the world watches. This ship is not just carrying aid, it is carrying a demand: End the blockade. End the genocide.”
Thunberg said that “we are seeing a systematic starvation of 2 million people. The world cannot be silent bystanders, Every single one of us has a moral obligation to do everything we can to fight for a free Palestine.”
The Madleen‘s launch came a month after the Conscience, another FCC aid vessel traveling in international waters off Malta, was attacked twice, presumably by Israeli forces. No one was harmed in what FFC said was a drone strike on the ship. However, the activists were forced to abort their humanitarian mission. Israel has not commented on the incident.
Madleen also set sail nearly 15 years to the day after Israeli forces raided a Gaza Freedom Flotilla convoy carrying humanitarian aid to the besieged people of Gaza. The attack—which also came in international waters—left nine people including Turkish-American teenager Furkan Doğan dead.
FFC said Sunday that the “unarmed and nonviolent” mission “poses no threat” and “sails in full accordance with international law. Any attack or interference will be a deliberate, unlawful assault on civilians.”
Those aboard the Madleen said they were aware of the dangers they faced. Israel has killed numerous Western activists and journalists who document its human rights violations over the years, and just last month Israeli troops opened fire on a group of international diplomats visiting the illegally occupied West Bank two days after three involved countries issued an ultimatum to stop annihilating Gaza.
“We are doing this because, no matter what odds we are against, we have to keep trying,” a tearful Thunberg said during a Sunday press conference. “Because the moment we stop trying is when we lose our humanity.”
“And no matter how dangerous this mission is, it’s nowhere near as dangerous as the silence of the entire world in the face of the live-streamed genocide,” she added.
Some Israelis and their supporters took to social media to wish harm upon the activists. In the United States, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) alluded to past Israeli attacks on Gaza aid flotillas in a social media post saying, “Hope Greta and her friends can swim!”
Israel strongly refutes allegations that it is committing genocide in Gaza. South Africa has filed, and dozens of nations support, a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
The International Criminal Court, also located in the Dutch city, has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former defense minister, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, including extermination and starvation as a weapon of war, in Gaza.
Officials in Gaza say that more than 192,000 Palestinians have been killed or injured since Israel launched its assault and siege following the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023, a figure that includes at least 14,000 people who are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath rubble and hundreds of mostly children who have died from acute malnutrition and lack of medical care.
Around 2 million Gazans have also been forcibly displaced, often multiple times, amid Israel’s campaign to starve, conquer, indefinitely occupy, ethnically cleanse, and possibly recolonize the coastal strip.
Each side accuses the other of thwarting cease-fire efforts. On Saturday, U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff rejected what he called Hamas’ “totally unacceptable” proposal for a truce in which 10 living and 18 dead Israeli hostages would be exchanged for an unspecified number of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
Former Israeli peace negotiator Daniel Levy toldDemocracy Now! on Monday that a cease-fire proposal mediated by Witkoff is “a bad deal for the Palestinians that will allow Israel to continue its ethnic cleansing of Gaza” and “walks back the commitment for a permanent cease-fire, Israeli withdrawal, and allowing in of humanitarian aid.”
Without law enforcement, Palestinians’ lives, homes and property are left vulnerable, and they soon realize the only way they can protect themselves and their possessions is to leaveS
The war in Gaza, the public attention that is focused on the hostages and their abandonment, the stormy debates for and against population transfer and deliberate starvation as well as the question of how many tens of thousands – including children – must die for Israel to be shocked out of its actions: All these, plus the roiling domestic politics, create ideal conditions for settlers’ quiet and systematic expulsion of Palestinians from Area C of the West Bank, which is under exclusive Israeli control.
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After the war began, the settlers developed a new method for displacing Palestinian communities: They establish settlement outposts adjacent to them and immediately begin to assault their residents, steal their livestock and restrict their movements.
In the absence of law enforcement, the Palestinians’ lives, homes and property are left vulnerable. They quickly realize that the only way they can protect themselves and their possessions is to leave.
According to the data of Kerem Navot, an Israeli nonprofit that monitors land-use policy in the West Bank, since the war began around 60 Palestinian communities have been expelled from Area C (Hagar Shezaf, Hebrew Haaretz, Friday).
The latest victim of this method is the Ramallah-area Bedouin village al-Mughayyir. Its residents have lived there for some 40 years, but it took settlers less than a week to expel them.
They have been subjected to harassment for two years, but the outpost established last week set off a dramatic escalation that led to its displacement.
In this case, there was no need for a violent attack: A threat sufficed, since residents knew well what had happened to other villages that failed to heed the threats.
The new outpost is less than 100 meters (yards) from one of the village homes. The IDF and Civil Administration did not act to remove it or to protect the Palestinian residents, who fled from their homes in fear. This is quiet expulsion, under the watchful but silent eyes of the state and the military.
The “hilltop youth” do not act alone. The settlement enterprise is a terrifying apparatus with the power not only to build outposts and expel communities but also to elect representatives to the Knesset and place them in the cabinet.
MK Tzvi Succot has already been spotted in the new outpost. A petition submitted to the High Court of Justice demanded temporary relief: moving the outpost 3 kilometers (almost 2 miles) from the village and conducting regular patrols.
The state was asked to explain its failure to take action against the expulsion attempt. Justice Yosef Elron ruled against the requested temporary measures and gave the state until May 29 to respond. The court, then, is a party to the Palestinians’ abandonment.
The occupying power is responsible for protecting the people living under occupation. The army and the Civil Administration must act immediately to remove the settlers, protect the Palestinians and prevent the next expulsion.
In the absence of such action, it is clear that the Israeli establishment is a party to the expulsion. Israel cannot continue to ignore its obligations under international law and agreements to which it is a signatory.
The above article is Haaretz’s lead editorial, as published in the Hebrew and English newspapers in Israel.
Palestinians inspect a house destroyed by an Israeli airstrike in Deir al-Balah, Gaza, on Wednesday, May 21, 2025. [AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana]
On Sunday, the Israeli military announced a plan to occupy three-quarters of the Gaza Strip. The entire remaining Palestinian population, estimated at around 2 million people, would be forced into an area of just 35 square miles.
The plan is the practical implementation of “Operation Gideon’s Chariots,” which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has described as the “concluding moves” of the onslaught in Gaza.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) stated that it currently controls 44 percent of the Gaza Strip and plans to expand that control to 75 percent within two months.
The IDF announced plans to establish three “humanitarian zones”—i.e., concentration camps—located along the southern coast, in Gaza City in the north and near Nuseirat in central Gaza.
The IDF stated that its operational focus will shift from targeting individual Hamas fighters to seizing territory and forcibly displacing the Palestinian population.
In a statement on the mass displacement plan, the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor wrote:
Israeli forces have issued at least 35 evacuation orders in the Gaza Strip since January of this year, affecting over one million people. These orders compound the harm caused by those issued prior to January, which had already resulted in much of the population being displaced. Israel is now intensifying efforts to confine residents to a narrow area along the southern coast—an apparent prelude to expulsion from the Strip, in line with the “Trump Plan” recently adopted by Netanyahu as a condition for ending military operations in the enclave.
This weekend’s announcement by the IDF coincides with the launch of the US-Israeli “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation,” which is set to begin distributing food and humanitarian supplies on Monday.
International humanitarian aid agencies have condemned the organization, which the US and Israel aim to use to replace the existing humanitarian network by distributing starvation rations to pre-vetted individuals using facial recognition technology.
The total occupation of Gaza, the transfer of the population to concentration camps and the monopolization of food distribution by the US and Israeli militaries is the essential prelude to their plan for the forcible displacement of the remaining Palestinian population.
On Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly said for the first time that the displacement of the Palestinian population from Gaza is an official objective of Israel’s war effort.
Israel, Netanyahu declared in a press conference, “is ready to end the war, under clear conditions that … we carry out the Trump plan. A plan that is so correct and so revolutionary.”
In February, US President Trump declared, “The US will take over the Gaza Strip. … We’ll own it.” He said the US will “level it out” and that other countries will “build various domains that will ultimately be occupied by the 1.8 million Palestinians living in Gaza.”
Last week, NBC News reported that the United States is in negotiations with Syria and Libya, whose governments it helped to overthrow in Islamist insurgencies, to accept the Palestinian people who are being displaced from Gaza.
Earlier this month, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich spelled out the government’s plan: Within a year, Gaza will be completely destroyed, civilians will be pushed into a “humanitarian zone” in the south, and from there, they will begin leaving en masse for third countries.
In a report published Saturday, the Washington Post explained that the so-called “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation” was created by a “group of former US intelligence and defense officials and business executives, working in close consultation with Israel.”
According to the Post, it will
hire armed private contractors to provide logistics and security for a handful of aid distribution hubs to be built in southern Gaza. Under the arrangement, which would replace existing aid distribution networks coordinated by the United Nations, Palestinian civilians would have to travel to the hubs and submit to identity checks to receive rations from nongovernmental organizations.
The Post reported on internal planning documents by the “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation” that anticipated its operations being compared to “concentration camps with biometrics” or being similar to “Blackwater, a former US mercenary firm implicated in violence against civilians in Iraq.”
Gaza’s entire remaining population is on the brink of famine, after Israel blocked nearly all food, fuel and electricity from entering the enclave since March.
Israel is also continuing its daily massacres of civilians, including journalists, doctors and humanitarian workers. On Friday, an Israeli airstrike killed at least seven children of Alaa al-Najjar, a pediatrician at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.
On Sunday, Israeli airstrikes killed at least 30 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip. Among the dead was journalist Hassan Majdi Abu Warda, bringing the number of Palestinian journalists killed since October 2023 to 220.
Also Sunday, the International Committee of the Red Cross said in a statement that two of its staff members, Ibrahim Eid and Ahmad Abu Hilal, had been killed in an Israeli attack in Khan Younis.
Israeli attacks also killed Ashraf Abu Nar, the operations director of Gaza’s civil defense, and his wife, in a strike on their home in Nuseirat.
To date, 53,900 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed by Israeli attacks since October 7, 2023, with hundreds of thousands wounded.
In a statement Sunday, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said that 950 children have been killed by Israeli attacks over the past two months. “Children in Gaza are enduring unimaginable suffering,” UNRWA said in a post on X. “They are starving, displaced, and exposed to indiscriminate attacks.”
People watch as smoke billows following an Israeli strike in Jabalia, Gaza on May 25, 2025.
(Photo: Bashar Taleb/AFP via Getty Images)
“These are not isolated accounts; they point to a systemic failure and a horrifying moral collapse,” said the executive director of Breaking the Silence.
Israeli soldiers have “systematically” used Palestinians as human shields during the 19-month assault on the Gaza Strip, The Associated Press reported Saturday, citing Palestinian civilians and members of the Israel Defense Forces who described engaging in the practice that is banned under international humanitarian law.
“Orders often came from the top, and at times nearly every platoon used a Palestinian to clear locations,” APreported, citing the account of an unnamed Israeli officer.
One Palestinian man, Ayman Abu Hamadan, said Israeli soldiers dressed him in army fatigues, attached a camera to his forehead, and forced him to enter homes to ensure they were clear of bombs and militants. Abu Hamadan said he was passed from unit to unit for over two weeks.
“Soldiers stood behind him and, once it was clear, entered the buildings to damage or destroy them, he said,” AP reported. “He spent each night bound in a dark room, only to wake up and do it again.”
Nadav Weiman, executive director of Breaking the Silence—an anti-occupation group founded by former Israeli soldiers—told AP that “these are not isolated accounts; they point to a systemic failure and a horrifying moral collapse.”
Israeli officials frequently justify attacks on homes, hospitals, and other civilian infrastructure by alleging that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilian population as human shields. But Israeli forces have long been accused of using detained Palestinians as human shields, both during and prior to the current assault on Gaza.
According to the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, “Over the years, the military practiced an official policy of using Palestinians as human shields, ordering them to carry out military activities that put their lives in jeopardy: Palestinians were forced to remove suspicious objects from roads, tell other Palestinians to come out and surrender themselves, physically shield soldiers while they fired, and more.”
“In most cases, no one was held accountable,” the group said.
Earlier this year, an anonymous Israeli officer wrote in a column for Haaretz that “in Gaza, human shields are used by Israeli soldiers at least six times a day.”
“Today, almost every platoon keeps a ‘shawish,’ and no infantry force enters a house before a ‘shawish’ clears it,” the officer wrote. “This means there are four ‘shawishes’ in a company, twelve in a battalion, and at least 36 in a brigade. We operate a sub-army of slaves.”
In response to AP‘s reporting, the IDF told the Jerusalem Post that it would only investigate the claims in the story “if further details are provided.”
The reporting came as Israel continued with its large-scale ground offensive and aerial assault in Gaza, where the entire population is facing a dire hunger crisis due to Israel’s monthslong siege.
On Sunday, according toReuters, “Israeli military strikes killed at least 23 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip… including a local journalist and a senior rescue service official.”
Hours earlier, an Israeli strike on a home in Khan Younis killed nine children of a Nasser Hospital pediatrician and badly injured her husband while she was at work.
“Targeting families in the still-standing buildings: distinguishable sadistic pattern of the new phase of the genocide,” Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, wrote in response to the deadly strike.
As Israel’s global isolation grows, Berlin deepens its alliance with Tel Aviv – criminalising dissent, rewarding lobby groups, and eroding rights in the name of fighting antisemitism
A pro-Palestine activist is led away by police officers during a demonstration against Israel’s war on Gaza at the Free University of Berlin, Germany, on 7 May 2024 (Tobias Schwarz/AFP)
On 28 March, the Zionist German Jewish weekly Judische Allgemeine Zeitung happily announced that Tel Aviv would become Berlin’s newest twin city, with all factions of the Berlin House of Representatives agreeing to the decision.
A few days later, Der Tagesspiegel, one of Berlin’s so-called “quality newspapers,” declared that “the two metropolises have a lot in common”.
What an abysmal disgrace: the representatives of the self-proclaimed parties of the “democratic centre” in the Berlin House of Representatives – Christian Democrats, Social Democrats, and Greens – have decided, together with the “Left” and the fascist Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), to move even closer to the genocidal butchers in Tel Aviv.
They do so even as large parts of the world are gradually distancing themselves from this regime.
Choosing a twin city is far more than a symbolic act, especially when that city is the capital of a state ruled by war criminals responsible for an ongoing genocide.
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Such a decision reflects common interests and values that supposedly bind the cities and their populations together.
And the ones on display in this partnership are telling: while one side commits genocide, the other supports, promotes, and finances it; while one carries out ethnic cleansing, the other feigns ignorance; while one deliberately targets children, journalists, and medical personnel, the other looks away and prattles on about human rights; while one starves a people to death, the other merely shrugs.
This list is far from complete, but it is already one of the most repulsive imaginable. Berlin and Tel Aviv, as the German press rightly points out, do indeed have a lot in common.
Historical amnesia
The decision by Berlin’s representatives sends a clear message to the world about what the German capital now stands for – and marks an unprecedented act of historical amnesia.
The government of a city that was under siege decades ago, and continues to invoke that experience as central to its collective memory, has now switched sides.
A city that remembers its own siege should have named Gaza City as its twin – not the capital of those enforcing one
Berlin is aligning itself with the capital of a country that has not only besieged the Gaza Strip for 17 years and created the largest prison on earth and put Palestinians “on a diet” – but has also been committing genocide for more than 18 months – a campaign fully supported by the people of Tel Aviv.
If the experience of siege were truly as significant and defining for Berlin as its politicians so often claim, with great solemnity, then there would have been only one natural and fitting twin city: Gaza City.
Unlike Gaza, however, Berlin found help when it was besieged after the Second World War. Western countries sent “raisin bombers” and supplied the trapped enclave with food, and they were not prevented from doing so by the Soviet Union – in stark contrast to the criminal starvation of Gaza’s civilian population by the settler-colonial regime in Tel Aviv.
In order to live up to their historical experience and responsibility, Berlin’s representatives should have sent “raisin bombers” to Gaza on 8 October 2023, instead of making themselves accomplices to genocide. They should not have wasted a single thought on becoming partners with the perpetrator capital.
Zionist influence
Berlin’s choice of Israel’s capital city underscores how deeply German politicians have, in recent years, allowed the Zionist lobby to shape the city’s political agenda.
In a manner incompatible with the rule of law, it now takes only the suspicion that an event or statement might be deemed antisemitic, according to the Zionist-driven IHRA definition, for the machinery of state repression to lurch into action.
From smear campaigns and police raids to the prosecution of activists and the criminalisation of humanitarian solidarity, every demonstration in support of Palestinian rights is met with brutal suppression by Berlin’s militarised riot police.
The Zionist lobby, as in other countries, does not seek to address the root causes of antisemitism. Instead, it weaponises the charge in order to pressure the German state into punishing anti-Zionist speech.
Following its electoral victory, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), submitted a “minor interpellation” to the federal government titled “Political Neutrality of State-funded Organisations”.
It consisted of over 500 questions targeting civil society organisations critical of Israel’s genocide, with the aim of stripping them of funding and charitable status if they do not conform to what the Christian Democrats define as “political neutrality.”
Unsurprisingly, the Christian parties did not include a single Zionist lobby organisation in their interpellation, even though these groups are anything but “politically neutral”.
On the contrary, they operate as propaganda arms for the Zionist cause and Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people in ways that are openly hostile to democratic principles and the defence of universalist ideals.
But perhaps more revealing is the fact that, two years ago, taxpayer funding for one of the Zionist lobby groups was almost doubled, reaching an annual total of 23 million euros ($25m).
Another openly Zionist organisation is also financially supported by the Ministry of the Interior – even though, once again, an organisation that openly represents and defends a racist ideology can hardly be considered “politically neutral.”
So what, exactly, is its public benefit?
State repression
On 19 February 2025, Berlin’s mayor Kai Wegner (CDU) deliberately pressured the president of Freie Universität (FU), Gunter M Ziegler, on behalf of the Zionist lobby to cancel an event with Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
As Forschung & Lehre reported, it was not only the mayor who exerted pressure on university’s president.
Two Zionist groups – that are anything but “politically neutral” – were also involved. Ziegler ultimately bowed to this illegitimate encroachment on the university’s autonomy and cancelled the event.
On 4 April, the right-wing Die Welt newspaper launched another smear campaign against Albanese, echoing official Israeli propaganda in advance of a UN vote on her reappointment.
The paper quoted German politicians, including Jurgen Hardt of the CDU – a staunch Zionist advocate – who parroted Israeli military lies with shameless disregard for truth or decency.
As if that were not enough, Berlin crossed a new threshold on 1 April with a Trump-like move: announcing the deportation of three EU citizens and one US citizen simply for participating in pro-Gaza demonstrations.
These individuals had committed no crime. But in Berlin, freedom of expression is already too much to tolerate, especially when exercised to defend Palestinian rights.
This sends an unambiguous warning: anyone who demands justice for Palestinians is now a target of state repression.
If the courts fail to halt this descent into authoritarianism, German citizens could soon face prison for criticising Israeli war crimes, while non-citizens will simply be deported. All will be punished not for violence or incitement, but for defending the wrong people in the eyes of the political establishment.
Institutional assault
After German parliamentarians unanimously adopted the IHRA definition of antisemitism in 2017, the real consequences of this move for German democracy became clear in light of the ongoing Zionist genocide of the Palestinian people.
Two decisive resolutions passed in November 2024 and January 2025 dramatically changed German society and paved the way for even greater Zionist influence.
Germany’s support for Israel’s far-right alliance shatters its ‘denazified’ facade
The first Zionist-led attack on German democracy came in November with the adoption of the resolution “Never again is now: Protecting, preserving and strengthening Jewish life in Germany”.
Its passage enables the German government to intervene in social life as a matter of principle – to defame anyone, Jew or non-Jew, as an antisemite and to punish those who raise their voices against the Zionist settler-colonial-apartheid regime and its war crimes.
The second attack followed on 28 January with the resolution “Antisemitism and hostility towards Israel in schools and universities”. It was passed hastily, largely unnoticed by the public, after the end of the government and during the election campaign.
The resolution amounts to a brazen assault on the autonomy of universities and the freedom of research and teaching. Under the guise of concern over a purported rise in antisemitism at schools and universities, the charge is being weaponised to silence critical academics and students.
At a federal press conference following its adoption, German professors expressed outrage that the resolution had been drafted without the usual consultation of antisemitism experts or academic bodies.
They also criticised the fact that the drafters had ignored the objections of the German Rectors’ Conference (HRK), which had already rejected a similar proposal in autumn 2024 over legal concerns. According to one professor, it was not even clear who had authored the resolution.
The resolution is a brazen assault on academic freedom, weaponising antisemitism to silence critical voices in schools and universities
Presumably, however, the driving force is not difficult to identify. Given the resolution’s explicitly Zionist agenda – threatening students and academics who take a stand against the regime and its genocide – one need only look to current and former parliamentarians who are behind the resolution.
Volker Beck, a former Green MP, is president of the German-Israeli Society. Mathias Stein, a former MP from the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and a member of the parliamentary group behind the resolution, is one of its vice presidents.
Other current and former Bundestag members, including Marcus Faber (FDP), Lisa Badum (Greens) and Jurgen Hardt (CDU/CSU), also serve as vice presidents of the German-Israeli Society.
It is hardly surprising that academic expertise and historical accuracy were of no interest when this resolution was drafted. German parliamentarians have proven either unable or unwilling to recognise its true intent.
Rather than defending democratic rights or resisting Zionist encroachment, they have become willing accomplices to its sweeping “land grab” – one that dismantles Germany’s institutions and democracy itself.
New fascism
Once hailed as “poor but sexy,” Berlin attracted young people from around the world, along with the global cultural elite and influential scientists. That era is over.
For Germany’s political class, supporting Israel’s genocide is naked self-interest
Today, Berlin has turned to the democracy-destroying weaponisation of antisemitism, laying an axe to freedom of opinion, thought, research and teaching.
The right to criticise Israel for what it is – a genocidal, white supremacist settler colony carrying out ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, threatening Palestinians with Israeli citizenship, and endangering civilian populations across the region – is under active assault.
Through its partnership with Tel Aviv, Berlin is becoming a safe haven for Zionist supremacists and racists, for Israeli soldiers who have committed war crimes in Gaza, and for wanted officials from the Israeli government – all under the pretext of protecting Jewish life.
Instead of upholding international law or defending civil liberties, Berlin’s so-called “democratic centre” is paving the way for an emerging new fascism.
Welcome to Berlin, the capital of Zionist repression.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
Jurgen Mackert is Professor of Sociology at the University of Potsdam, Germany. He was a temporary Professor for the Structure of modern societies at the University of Erfurt, Germany and a visiting professor for Political Sociology at Humboldt University Berlin. His latest books include On Social Closure. Theorizing Exclusion, Exploitation, and Elimination (Oxford University Press 2024). Siedlerkolonialismus. Grundlagentexte und aktuelle Analysen (edited with Ilan Pappe; Nomos 2024).
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