Israel Katz says the so-called ‘humanitarian city’ will be built on the ruins of Rafah
by Dave DeCamp, Antiwar. com, July 7, 2025
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has ordered the IDF to prepare a plan to establish a camp to concentrate the entire civilian population of Gaza on the ruins of the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
According to Haaretz, Katz said that once Palestinian civilians are pushed into what he is calling a โhumanitarian city,โ they will not be allowed to leave. The idea is to first transfer 600,000 civilians from the al-Mawasi tent camp on the coast in southern Gaza, followed by the rest of the civilian population.
Katz said that if conditions permit, the โcityโ could be built during a potential 60-day ceasefire, comments that will make Hamas less likely to agree to a temporary truce. The Israeli defense minister also said that during the ceasefire, Israel will maintain control of the โMorag Corridor,โ a strip of land between Rafah and Khan Younis.
Katz also suggested the camp can facilitate the governmentโs ultimate goal of ethnic cleansing, which it refers to as โvoluntary migration,โ telling reporters that Israel will implement โthe emigration plan, which will happen.โ
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has previously said that the goal of Israelโs current military operation, dubbed Gideonโs Chariots, is to create a concentration camp south of the Morag Corridor and pressure the civilians forced into it to leave.
โThe Gazan citizens will be concentrated in the south. They will be totally despairing, understanding that there is no hope and nothing to look for in Gaza, and will be looking for relocation to begin a new life in other places,โ Smotrich said in May.
Katzโs comments come after Reuters reported that the controversial US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) had proposed to the US government the idea of creating camps it called โHumanitarian Transit Areasโ inside Gaza or possibly outside Gaza.
The GHF plan describes the camps as โlarge-scaleโ and โvoluntaryโ places where the Palestinian population could โtemporarily reside, deradicalize, re-integrate and prepare to relocate if they wish to do so.โ
Katz said Israel is seeking โinternational partnersโ to manage the zone and that four aid distribution sites would be set up inside the camp, suggesting the GHF will be involved in the plan. GHF aid sites are secured by American security contractors, who have been credibly accused of using live ammunition and stun grenades to disperse crowds of hungry Palestinian civilians.
Gazaโs Health Ministry said on Thursday that Israeli forces killed at least 118 Palestinians and wounded 581 over the previous 24-hour period as heavy US-backed Israeli strikes continued across the Strip and Israeli troops continued to shoot people seeking aid.
Thursday marks the third day in a row that the Health Ministry reported a death toll of more than 100. Based on the ministryโs numbers, which studies have found are likely a significant undercount, Israeli forces killed 369 Palestinians over a 72 hours.
Israeli attacks on Thursday included massacres of children. According to The Associated Press, an overnight strike on tents sheltering displaced Palestinians killed 13 members of one family, including six children under the age of 12. Two children, including a six-year-old girl, were among eight people reported killed by an Israeli strike that hit near a stand selling falafel in central Gaza.
Mourners attend the funeral of Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks on a school sheltering displaced people at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, July 3, 2025 (IMAGO/APAimages via Reuters Connect)
An Israeli strike on a school sheltering displaced Palestinians in Gaza City killed 15 people. The breakdown of the casualties is unclear, but photos of the funeral for the victims at Al-Shifa Hospital show several tiny bodies wrapped in shrouds.
Medical sources told AP that five Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces along roads while attempting to reach distribution sites run by the US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), and another 40 were killed while waiting for UN aid trucks in various parts of Gaza.
The Health Ministry said that since the GHF began operating in Gaza at the end of May, 652 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid. The aid massacres have continued despite more attention on the issue following a report from Haaretz that revealed IDF troops had been given orders to fire on unarmed people near GHF sites.
The AP also reported that American contractors posted at the aid sites have also been using live ammunition and stun grenades to disperse civilians near the distribution sites. In at least one case, one of the contractors who spoke to AP said it appeared fire from the US contractors hit an unarmed Palestinian.
The revelations about the aid killings have not impacted US support for Israel or support for the aid mechanism that has proven to be deadly. The Trump administration recently announced it was providing $30 million to the GHF.
– She names 48 corporate actors, including arms manufacturers, banks, tech companies, energy giants, academic institutions, alleging they are directly linked to broader ‘economy of occupation’ sustaining Israeli actions
GENEVA
Israel is responsible for “one of the cruelest genocides in modern history,” the UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory said on Thursday, accusing Tel Aviv of weaponizing Gaza as a testing ground and calling for sweeping international action, including a full international arms embargo and the suspension of trade and investment ties.
“The situation in the occupied Palestinian territory is apocalyptic,” Francesca Albanese told the UN Human Rights Council, presenting her latest report. “In Gaza, Palestinians continue to endure suffering beyond imagination. Israel is responsible for one of the cruelest genocides in modern history.”
Albanese said official figures count over 200,000 Palestinians killed or injured, but leading health experts estimate “the true toll is far higher.” She denounced the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation โ Israel’s new aid mechanism in Gaza, with hundreds of associated deaths to date โ as “a death trap โ engineered to kill or force the flight of a starved, bombarded, emaciated population marked for.”
Profits from genocide
She grimly highlighted the economic gains made during the war, noting that in the past 20 months, arms companies have reaped huge profits by supplying Israel with weapons used to bombard Gaza.
“Arms companies have turned near-record profits by equipping Israel with cutting-edge weaponry to unleash 85,000 tons of explosives โ six times the power of Hiroshima โ to destroy Gaza,” she said.
The report also pointed to 213% gains on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange since October 2023, describing a stark contrast: “One people enriched, one people erased.”
Accusing Israel of using the war to “test new weapons, customized surveillance, lethal drones, (and) radar systems,” Albanese warned that Palestine’s defenselessness had made it “an ideal laboratory for the Israeli military-industrial complex.”
She named 48 corporate actors, including arms manufacturers, banks, tech companies, energy giants, and academic institutions, alleging that they are directly linked to a broader “economy of occupation” sustaining the Israeli state’s actions.
Among the most important firms mentioned in the report are Amazon, Microsoft, BNP Paribas, Booking, and Korean HD Hyundai, according to her report.
“Weapons and data systems brutalize and surveil Palestinians,” she said. “Colonies spread โfinanced by banks and insurers, powered by fossil fuels, and normalized by tourism platforms, supermarket chains, and academic institutions.”
Later in a press briefing in Geneva, Albanese said she had formally notified all companies named in her report, sharing with them “the facts that I found in violation of international law.”
She emphasized that her work went “beyond what has been done in other similar cases,” explaining: “For each of them, I have provided a detailed analysis, a case by case legal analysis, so where I found their nonconformity with international law translating into violation of the right of self-determination, other human rights violations and even war crimes or crimes against humanity, and to an extent, in which case it could be embroiled in the crime of genocide.”
According to Albanese, 18 companies responded to her findings, while the others did not. Of these 18, she said that “only a small number” engaged with her in good faith, while the rest denied their wrongdoings.
Referring to those in denial, she said: “They don’t understand international law clearly. They think that international law is there to make excuses.”
โResponsibility to abstainโ or cut ties with โeconomy of occupationโ
Under international law, she said, even a minimal connection to this system carries clear responsibility. “There is a prima facie responsibility on every state and corporate entity to completely abstain from or end their relationships with this economy of occupation.”
In a direct appeal to UN member states, Albanese called for bold steps: “Member states must impose a full arms embargo on Israel, suspend all trade agreements and investment relations, and enforce accountability, ensuring that corporate entities face legal consequences for their involvement in serious violations of international law.”
She also called on businesses to act, stressing: “Corporate entities must urgently cease all business activities and terminate relationships directly linked with, contributing to, and causing human rights violations and international crimes against the Palestinian people.”
Albanese said she no longer believed ignorance or ideology were sufficient explanations for global inaction. “In the face of genocide โ so visible, so livestreamed โ these explanations fall short.โ
She concluded with a call for civil society to play its part, saying: “Trade unions, lawyers, civil society groups, and ordinary citizens should encourage such behavioral change from the side of businesses and governments by pressing for boycotts, divestments, sanctions, and accountability. What comes next depends on all of us.”
At least one journalist was killed and another was injured
by Dave DeCamp, Antiwar. com, Jun 30, 2025
Medical sources told Al Jazeera on Monday that Israeli attacks killed at least 95 Palestinians in Gaza throughout the day as Israeli forces bombed a seaside cafe and gunned down more desperate people who were seeking aid.
According to the Palestinian news agency WAFA, an Israeli airstrike hit the Al-Baqa Cafe in Gaza City, killing 33 people and injuring 50 others. Among the dead was journalist Ismail Abu Hatab, bringing the total number of Palestinian journalists killed since October 7, 2023, to 227, according to WAFAโs count.
Another journalist, Bayan Abu Sultan, was wounded in the attack, and photos and videos of the aftermath show her standing outside the cafe covered in blood. Ali Abu Ateila, a survivor of the airstrike, told The Associated Press that the cafe was struck when it was crowded with women and children.
Journalist Bayan Abu Sultan, after the Israeli airstrike on the Al-Baqa Cafe in western Gaza City on June 30, 2025 (Majdi Fathi via Reuters Connect)
โWithout a warning, all of a sudden, a warplane hit the place, shaking it like an earthquake,โ Ateila said. The cafe was one of the few businesses that continued to operate in Gaza and was frequently crowded as Palestinians went there to charge their phones and use the internet.
The AP also reported that at least 22 people were killed by Israeli fire while attempting to get aid in different areas of Gaza. The Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis said it received 11 bodies of Palestinians who were killed while returning from an aid site operated by the US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) in the area. Another Palestinian was killed near an aid site in Rafah.
Gazaโs Health Ministry said that another 10 people were killed at a UN warehouse in northern Gaza. The latest aid-related killings come after a report from the Israeli newspaper Haaretz revealed that Israeli troops are being ordered to fire on unarmed Palestinians attempting to reach GHF distribution sites to drive them away or disperse them, even though they pose no threat.
Israeli forces also launched heavy attacks on the Zeitoun neighborhood in Gaza City on Monday, with residents reporting that the IDF bombed four schools that were sheltering displaced people, and at least 10 Palestinians were killed in the area. โExplosions never stopped; they bombed schools and homes. It felt like earthquakes,โ Salah, a 60-year-old father of five children from Gaza City, told Reuters. โIn the news we hear a ceasefire is near, on the ground, we see death and we hear explosions.โ
The genocidaires of the past gave no food packets; they only killed. Trump and Netanyahu do both at once.
Palestinians inspect the damage at a school used as a shelter by displaced residents that was hit by Israeli military strike and killed at least 36 people, in Gaza City, on Monday, May 26, 2025. Photo: AP/PTI
You just may have noticed that a new ingenious modality of mass murder has been in operation in Gaza.
Call it game-hunting, safari style.
Recall how when some royals used to be taken on a tiger shoot, a bait would be tied to a tree so a big cat could be drawn to it for the dignitaryโs convenient aim.
So now, dangerously famished Palestinian children, women, old folk on spindly legs are got the better of by being drawn to the bait where ostensibly benevolent patrons are ready to hand out food packets.
As soon as they rush to the bait, the guns blaze. As most are eliminated, some manage to grab a packet or two, proving to the world how the scheme remains such a success at both ends โ some get to eat, salving the qualms of those upset at being accused of allowing genocide, others swell the ranks of the dead, facilitating the grand project of ethnic cleansing.
When did the world see so clever a two-timing enterprise?
The genocidaires of the past gave no food packets; they only killed. Trump and Netanyahu do both at once. What could be smarter? And how could anyone object, not that anyone is objecting.
You see, the killings in Gaza are game-hunting; in Ukraine it is people who get killed.
Which brings home another sad reality: Curse me if you will, but as a true follower of the Sanatan Dharma, I have been having trouble reconciling Dharma with ethical indifference to the mass murder of a whole innocent population.
Nothing is closer in exclusionary genius to Hindutva than Zionism
I am unable to swallow the trick that my noble nationโs so-noble government played in the United Nations General Assembly.
Where 149 countries voted in favour of demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and the resumption of humanitarian aid operated by the United Nations, Naya Bharat abstained from voting.
Perhaps we were setting up an example of how to eat the cake and have it too: after all, nothing is closer in exclusionary genius to Hindutva than Zionism, and nobody more consequential for ensuring Viksit Bharat than Trump, Musk, the Pentagon, Silicon Valley etc.
So, at one canny stroke of turning our face away from genocide, we accomplished the feat of not annoying either of our pals, not knowing how badly this Trump fellow would behave subsequently.
But these are risks great governments have to take in the larger national interest. After all, as Vishwa Guru, the worst we can do is to take sides.
Then, did we not also abandon our so-close friends in the SCO by abstaining there as well when the organisation to which India belongs issued a statement condemning Israel for attacking Iran?
Nobody may thus accuse us of inconsistency in our extraordinary foreign policy towards the comity of nations.
Now that I am arguing the case, I say mea culpa for not being able to square these cunning decisions with my Sanatana Dharma.
So, give me time and I will follow the leader whose finesse in these matters I have thus far been too incapable of absorbing.
In the meanwhile, the Mecca/Medina Islamic world more than matches us in their brand of sagacious cynicism towards the game-hunt in Gaza.
As to the fussy International Criminal Court, their warrant of arrest against the conqueror of Palestine and the elimination of innocents remains a residual pinprick from a queasy but defeated world that no longer exists.
Why these judges and prosecutors in the Hague should be receiving either the worldโs attention or their salaries from honest tax-payers is a conundrum that may also be up for resolution should Trump and Netanyahu go from strength to strength, should the grand nations of Europe continue to behave with customary sophistication, and should rising stars like Narendra Modi show the way to moral fusspots whose understanding of great events and great ideas remains atavistic.
So help us god, and so may the Palestinian lambs-to-the-slaughter know that they serve a noble and mighty purpose in their canonical sacrifice.
Badri Raina taught at Delhi University.
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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-35โs 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 Israelโs 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 USโs foes, China and Russia.
โThis is a game changer. Israel had our cooperation on this modification,โ 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.
โItโs impressive. Period,โ 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.
โThe big challenge is devising the F-35s interface system with drop tanks that donโt 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.โ
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, Israelโs 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.
Gazaโs 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 โhad directed warning shots at a group that was moving towards soldiers and deemed a threat to them.โ
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 Hamasโs leader following the killing of his brother, Yahya Sinwar, in October 2024.
Gazaโs 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 ministryโs death toll has reached 54,880, and the number of wounded has climbed to 126,227, figures that donโt 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 โaidโ operation, humanitarian and human rights groups, including the UN, warned that the scheme was merely a means to lure Gazaโs 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 โaidโ 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, โAccording to testimonies and information collected by Euro-Med Monitorโs field researchers, Israeli army snipers deliberately targeted starving civilians with direct gunfire, mostly to the head, despite no apparent threat to Israeli forces.โ
One survivor told the monitor, โAt 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.โ
In another testimony, A. B., 38, told the Euro-Med Monitor team, โAround 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 couldnโt 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: โYou animals, go away, the supply is out.โโ
He continued, โAs I was leaving and nearing the chuteโs exit, I saw a child crying out loudly, โMom, get up, Mom, get up.โ I went closer and found the woman I had given my package to lying in a pool of blood. She was dead,โ he said. โA 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.โ
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 โ 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 โcatastrophicโ and called for the lifting of restrictions on food aid.
โIsrael has a right to defend itself, which includes defeating Hamas and ensuring they are never again in a position to threaten Israel,โ said U.S. Ambassador Dorothy Sheato. โIn this regard, any product that undermines our close ally Israelโs security is a non-starter.โ
Sheato openly endorsed the so-called โGaza Humanitarian Foundation,โ declaring, โWe instead urge the UN and NGOs to support the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation to help it safely deliver aid without being diverted by Hamas.โ In an open embrace of the massacres as the GHF aid centers, she said the foundation is delivering aid โconsistent with the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence.โ
The UN vetoed a similarly worded UN Security Council resolution under the Biden administration, using essentially the same rationalization.
Riyad Monsour, Palestineโs representative to the UN, told the Security Council, โthe 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.โ
Last week, Jens Laerke, a spokesperson for the UNโs humanitarian office, told reporters in a briefing that โOne hundred percent of the population is at risk of famine,โ and that Gaza is the โhungriest place on earth.โ
He added that Israelโs ongoing blockade of humanitarian aid into Gaza has made the UNโs efforts to feed the population โone of the most obstructed aid operations, not only in the world today but in recent history.โ
On Wednesday, UNICEF spokesperson James Elder said in a statement that he is โshockedโ by the extent of malnutrition in Gaza, saying, โIโm seeing teenage boys in tears, showing me their ribs.โ
He condemned Israelโs daily massacres of aid-seekers, saying, โImagine knowing thereโd be a massacre, but being so desperate to feed your family that you still go.โ
Gazaโs 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 Madleenโnamed after Gaza’s first and only known fisherwomanโfrom 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 รvila, Al Jazeera reporter Omar Fayad, French doctor Baptiste Andre, French journalist Yanis M’Hamdi, Turkish engineer ลuayb Ordu, and crew members Mark Van Rennes, Reva Seifert Viard, Pascal Maurieras, and Sergio Toribio.
“I am aboard Madleen because silence is not neutralityโit 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 attackโwhich also came in international watersโleft nine people including Turkish-American teenager Furkan Doฤan 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 โ including children โ 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.
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