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By India Today

US President Trump’s 28-point peace plan, delivered to his Ukrainian counterpart President Zelenskyy, outlines major concessions for Ukraine and has drawn strong criticism from European governments.

21 Nov 2025 – US President Donald Trump’s 28-point peace plan for Ukraine has been formally delivered to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, setting off a wave of political reaction across Europe and inside Kyiv.

The plan, developed with input from both Washington and Moscow, leans heavily in Russia’s favour by calling on Ukraine to give up territory, halt its NATO ambitions and accept several other concessions.

HERE IS THE FULL TEXT OF THE PEACE PLAN:

1. Ukraine’s sovereignty will be confirmed.

2. A comprehensive non-aggression agreement will be concluded between Russia, Ukraine and Europe. All ambiguities of the last 30 years will be considered settled.

3. It is expected that Russia will not invade neighboring countries and NATO will not expand further.

4. A dialogue will be held between Russia and NATO, mediated by the United States, to resolve all security issues and create conditions for de-escalation in order to ensure global security and increase opportunities for cooperation and future economic development.

5. Ukraine will receive reliable security guarantees.

A US official told Axios this would be an explicit security guarantee for Ukraine from the US, the first time that has officially been on the table during these talks, though the proposal does not offer further details on what it entails.

6. The size of the Ukrainian Armed Forces will be limited to 600,000 personnel. Note: Ukraine’s army currently includes 800,000-850,000 personnel, and included around 250,000 prior to the war, according to a Ukrainian official.

7. Ukraine agrees to enshrine in its constitution that it will not join NATO, and NATO agrees to include in its statutes a provision that Ukraine will not be admitted in the future.

8. NATO agrees not to station troops in Ukraine. Note: NATO countries including France and the U.K. have been working on separate proposals that would include small numbers of European troops on Ukrainian soil after the war. This plan appears to disregard that possibility.

9. European fighter jets will be stationed in Poland.

10. The US guarantee: The US will receive compensation for the guarantee; If Ukraine invades Russia, it will lose the guarantee;

If Russia invades Ukraine, in addition to a decisive coordinated military response, all global sanctions will be reinstated, recognition of the new territory and all other benefits of this deal will be revoked; If Ukraine launches a missile at Moscow or St. Petersburg without cause, the security guarantee will be deemed invalid.

11. Ukraine is eligible for EU membership and will receive short-term preferential access to the European market while this issue is being considered.

12. A powerful global package of measures to rebuild Ukraine, including but not limited to:

• The creation of a Ukraine Development Fund to invest in fast-growing industries, including technology, data centers, and artificial intelligence.
• The United States will cooperate with Ukraine to jointly rebuild, develop, modernize, and operate Ukraine’s gas infrastructure, including pipelines and storage facilities.
• Joint efforts to rehabilitate war-affected areas for the restoration, reconstruction and modernization of cities and residential areas.
• Infrastructure development.
• Extraction of minerals and natural resources.
• The World Bank will develop a special financing package to accelerate these efforts.

13. Russia will be reintegrated into the global economy:

• The lifting of sanctions will be discussed and agreed upon in stages and on a case-by-case basis.
• The United States will enter into a long-term economic cooperation agreement for mutual development in the areas of energy, natural resources, infrastructure, artificial intelligence, data centers, rare earth metal extraction projects in the Arctic, and other mutually beneficial corporate opportunities.
• Russia will be invited to rejoin the G8.

14. Frozen funds will be used as follows:

$100 billion in frozen Russian assets will be invested in US-led efforts to rebuild and invest in Ukraine;

The US will receive 50% of the profits from this venture. Europe will add $100 billion to increase the amount of investment available for Ukraine’s reconstruction. Frozen European funds will be unfrozen. The remainder of the frozen Russian funds will be invested in a separate US-Russian investment vehicle that will implement joint projects in specific areas. This fund will be aimed at strengthening relations and increasing common interests to create a strong incentive not to return to conflict.

15. A joint American-Russian working group on security issues will be established to promote and ensure compliance with all provisions of this agreement.

16. Russia will enshrine in law its policy of non-aggression towards Europe and Ukraine.

17. The United States and Russia will agree to extend the validity of treaties on the non-proliferation and control of nuclear weapons, including the START I Treaty.

Note: New START, the last major U.S.-Russia arms control treaty, is due to expire in February.

18. Ukraine agrees to be a non-nuclear state in accordance with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

19. The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant will be launched under the supervision of the IAEA, and the electricity produced will be distributed equally between Russia and Ukraine 50:50.

20. Both countries undertake to implement educational programs in schools and society aimed at promoting understanding and tolerance of different cultures and eliminating racism and prejudice:

Ukraine will adopt EU rules on religious tolerance and the protection of linguistic minorities.

Both countries will agree to abolish all discriminatory measures and guarantee the rights of Ukrainian and Russian media and education.

(Note: Similar ideas were incorporated into Trump’s 2020 Israel-Palestine peace plan).

All Nazi ideology and activities must be rejected and prohibited.

21. Territories:

• Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk will be recognized as de facto Russian, including by the United States.
• Kherson and Zaporizhzhia will be frozen along the line of contact, which will mean de facto recognition along the line of contact.
• Russia will relinquish other agreed territories it controls outside the five regions.
• Ukrainian forces will withdraw from the part of Donetsk Oblast that they currently control, and this withdrawal zone will be considered a neutral demilitarized buffer zone, internationally recognized as territory belonging to the Russian Federation. Russian forces will not enter this demilitarized zone.

22. After agreeing on future territorial arrangements, both the Russian Federation and Ukraine undertake not to change these arrangements by force. Any security guarantees will not apply in the event of a breach of this commitment.

23. Russia will not prevent Ukraine from using the Dnieper River for commercial activities, and agreements will be reached on the free transport of grain across the Black Sea.

24. A humanitarian committee will be established to resolve outstanding issues:

• All remaining prisoners and bodies will be exchanged on an ‘all for all’ basis.
• All civilian detainees and hostages will be returned, including children.
• A family reunification program will be implemented.
• Measures will be taken to alleviate the suffering of the victims of the conflict.

25. Ukraine will hold elections in 100 days.

26. All parties involved in this conflict will receive full amnesty for their actions during the war and agree not to make any claims or consider any complaints in the future.

27. This agreement will be legally binding. Its implementation will be monitored and guaranteed by the Peace Council, headed by President Donald J. Trump. Sanctions will be imposed for violations.

Note: This is the same general structure Trump proposed to govern the Gaza peace agreement.

28. Once all parties agree to this memorandum, the ceasefire will take effect immediately after both sides retreat to agreed points to begin implementation of the agreement.

24 November 2025

Source: transcend.org

By Ranjan Solomon

When police raided the Kashmir Times office in Srinagar this week, they did more than search the premises. They attempted to rewrite a story the state has long struggled to control: the story of Kashmir’s last surviving independent newspaper. The “recovery” of AK-47 cartridges and bullets from a decades-old newsroom was presented with official flourish, but the real intention behind the operation was unmistakable. The raid was a spectacle meant to delegitimise, criminalise, and ultimately silence an institution that has refused to surrender its independence.

For observers who understand Kashmir’s political landscape, the idea that a small, financially strained newspaper—surviving on legacy archives and outdated equipment—has suddenly become an ammunition hub is as implausible as it is convenient. This incident fits neatly into a familiar pattern: a press outlet that refuses to toe the line is made to appear suspicious; its credibility is attacked; and a narrative of “security threats” is deployed to justify coercive action. The raid on Kashmir Times is not an isolated police operation. It is the continuation of a larger, systematic attempt to erase the last functional spaces of independent journalism in Jammu & Kashmir.

A Newspaper That Refused to Die

Founded in 1954, Kashmir Times is one of the oldest English newspapers in the region. Over the decades, it has reported on human rights abuses, disappearances, custodial violence, crackdowns, and political repression—issues many larger outlets hesitated to touch. It has done so with limited resources but with unwavering editorial integrity. That commitment to uncomfortable truths made the paper a lifeline for Kashmiris and a thorn for those who wanted the Valley’s narrative sanitised.

After the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019, the newspaper faced a new form of suffocation. Government advertisements—the primary oxygen source for local media—were abruptly cut. The Jammu office was sealed without explanation. Its editor, Anuradha Bhasin, was harassed for challenging the communications blackout in court. Reporters faced police summons, surveillance, and travel restrictions. Despite this, Kashmir Times continued to publish—shrinking in size but not in courage.

To raid such an institution under the guise of finding bullets is not only improbable—it is an act of political theatre.

The Manufactured Suspicion

The police claim that “incriminating material” was found. But this phrase—repeated across FIRs in Kashmir—has become so elastic it can include documents, books, pendrives, or ordinary objects interpreted in extraordinary ways. The recovery of ammunition, asserted without independent verification, serves one purpose: to shift the narrative from press freedom to policing. It allows the state to imply that the newspaper is not a newspaper but a front for something darker.

This technique is not new. For years, journalists in Kashmir have been framed through vague allegations ranging from “anti-national activity” to “glorification of terrorism.” Many cases began with raids exactly like this one—doors forced open, equipment seized, decades of archives thrown into chaos, and a manufactured fog of suspicion hanging over the newsroom.

In this case, the ammunition appears at a moment when the government faces heightened scrutiny over its treatment of independent media. The timing and symbolism are too striking to ignore.

The Landscape of Fear

Journalism in Kashmir today operates under an ecosystem of fear. Reporters face UAPA charges. Others have had passports seized. Many have been repeatedly questioned about their stories, sources, and even social media posts. The chilling effect is visible: self-censorship has become a survival skill.

In this environment, publishing truth is no longer simply professional—it is an act of political bravery. A headline can invite interrogation; an investigative story can result in a police visit; a critical editorial can become evidence of sedition.

Kashmir Times is one of the few outlets that still insists on reporting without fear or favour. That is its primary fault line with the establishment.

Why the Raid Matters for India

It may be tempting for the rest of the country to dismiss this as a “Kashmir issue.” But what happens in Kashmir rarely stays in Kashmir. Techniques perfected in the Valley migrate to the national stage. Raids on newsrooms, police enquiries into reportage, digital surveillance of journalists, and the criminalisation of editorial independence are no longer distant possibilities—they are already visible across states.

Kashmir is the testing ground. India is the laboratory. When bullets are “found” in a Kashmiri newsroom today, a reporter in Delhi, Bengaluru, or Lucknow should understand what that signifies for their own future.

Press freedom is not lost in one dramatic moment; it erodes through a series of calibrated assaults—advertising pressure, raids, legal intimidation, and the reframing of journalists as suspects. By the time the attacks appear normal, the institution they target has already been hollowed out.

A War on Witnesses

The Indian state is not afraid of weapons in Kashmir—it has more than enough of its own. What it fears is witnesses. Kashmir Times has been a witness for 70 years. It has documented stories the state hoped would disappear and has given voice to the voiceless.

The raid is not about bullets. It is about erasing witnesses.

When a newspaper that has chronicled half a century of conflict is treated like a criminal enterprise, it signals not the strength of the state but its insecurity. A confident government does not fear reporting. A functional democracy does not weaponise searches. And a secure nation does not plant suspicion in a newsroom to avoid the burden of answering questions.

The Larger Meaning

The raid on Kashmir Times is an attack on journalism. It is an attack on truth. And it is an attack on the Indian public’s right to know.

Every Indian who believes in constitutional democracy—regardless of political preference—should be alarmed. Independent journalism is not a favour granted by the state; it is a democratic guarantee. When it is crushed in Kashmir, it is weakened everywhere.

Kashmir Times has refused to die. That is why it is under attack. And that is why it must be defended.

Ranjan Solomon is a political commentator

22 November 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Roger D. Harris

Washington is targeting the Venezuelan people in an escalating regime-change offensive, combining open military violence with an economic siege that has quietly claimed far more lives.

Most of the world looks on in disbelief at the now-routine murders on the high seas off Venezuela’s coast – serial killings that the newly minted War Department calls Operation Southern Spear.

On October 31, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk condemned the attacks, saying that the “mounting human costs are unacceptable.” The People’s Social Summit in Colombia (November 8-9) excoriated Washington. Four days later in Caracas, a meeting of jurists from 35 countries denounced the “homicidal rampage.” The Military Law Task Force of the National Lawyers Guild charged “egregious war crimes and violations of international human rights, maritime, and military law.”

Even The New York Times, an outlet that is not squeamish about US atrocities, described Washington’s flimsy drug-interdiction rationale as being “at odds with reality.”

The notion that the US – the world’s leading consumer of illegal narcotics, the major launderer of trafficking profits, and the cartels’ favored gun runner – is concerned about the drug plague is ludicrous.

In reality, Venezuela is essentially free of drug production and processing – no coca, no marijuana, and certainly no fentanyl – according to the authoritative United Nations World Drug Report 2025. The European Union’s assessment of global drug sources does not even mention Venezuela.

Most inconveniently for Mr. Trump, the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) 2025 National Drug Threat Assessment does not list Venezuela as a cocaine producer and only as a very minor transit country. Nor is Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro cited as a drug trafficker.

The State Department is designating the so called Cartel de los Soles, allegedly headed by Maduro, as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO), However, the entity is nowhere to be found in the DEA assessment for the simple reason that it does not exist.

Meanwhile, the body count from the killing spree is nearing one hundred, yet not an ounce of narcotics has been found. In contrast, the Venezuelan government has seized 64 tons. Clearly Washington’s intent is not drug interdiction but regime change.

Sanctions kill

As horrific as the slaughter by direct US military violence against Venezuela may be, a far greater contributor to excess deaths has received scant media attention. The toll from sanctions is well over a hundred-fold larger.

Sanctions are not an alternative to war but a way of waging war with a less overt means of violence – but deadly, nonetheless.

Sanctions, more properly called illegal unilateral coercive measures, are as lethal as the missiles Washington rains down on small boats in the southern Caribbean and the Pacific from Ecuador to Mexico.

Economists Mark Weisbrot and Jeffrey Sachs demonstrated that US sanctions imposed 2017-2018 drastically worsened Venezuela’s economic crisis and directly contributed to an estimated 40,000 excess deaths.

By 2020, former UN Special Rapporteur Alfred de Zayas estimated a death toll of over 100,000. An expert in international law, de Zayas argues that sanctions function as collective punishment, harming civilians rather than government officials.

Washington is now escalating its regime-change offensive – while maintaining the sanctions – precisely because Venezuelans have successfully resisted the punitive measures.

Sanctions disproportionately kill children

A peer-reviewed scientific report in The Lancet reveals that a disproportionate number of the sanction’s victims globally are children under the age of five. In fact, the study finds that more human life is extinguished by sanctions than by open warfare.

The SanctionsKill! Campaign describes itself as an activist project to expose the human cost of sanctions and what can be done to end them. They are inviting health workers to sign a letter to the US Congress and the executive branch to end these child-killing sanctions.

Drawing from The Lancet study, the health workers’ letter details how sanctions are particularly deadly for small children by:

•   Provoking increases in water-borne illnesses and diarrheal diseases

•   Causing low birth weight

•   Exacerbating hunger and malnutrition

•   Denying lifesaving cancer care and organ transplants

•   Obstructing access to and import of antibiotics and other common medicines

•   Hindering sanctioned countries from receiving assistance during natural disasters

Among the signatories are Margaret Flowers, MD, a pediatrician and long-time health reform advocate; professor emeritus Amy Hagopian, PhD, at the University of Washington and former chair, International Health Section, American Public Health Association; internist Nidal Jboor, co-founder of Doctors Against Genocide; and pediatrician Ana Malinow, National Single Payer leader.

Others include health policy professor Claudia Chaufan, MD and PhD, York University; child and adolescent psychiatrist Claire M. Cohen, MD, National Single Payer, PNHP; and Kate Sugarman, MD, Georgetown Law School and George Washington School of Medicine.

Their letter concludes that there is a clear consensus in the literature that broad unilateral economic sanctions have devastating health and humanitarian consequences for civilian populations: “This is a global public health crisis caused by US government policy. We implore you to fulfill your inescapable obligation to end it…Imposing such collective punishment on the innocent is morally reprehensible.”

Sanctions and slaughter

Blogger Caitlin Johnstone quips: “civilized nations kill with sanctions.” That the US kills by both sanctions and open military force does not prove her wrong. Rather, it demonstrates that today’s US empire is not civilized.

Because open warfare is more dramatic than unilateral coercive measures, there is a danger that child-killing sanctions are becoming normalized.

Indeed, this form of hybrid warfare by the US impacts roughly one-quarter of humanity. History shows – as in the case of the 1961 John F. Kennedy sanctions against Cuba – that once imposed, sanction regimes are politically difficult to end.

The campaign against unilateral coercive measures is as central to the struggle for peace as opposition to overt military aggression. Sanctions are not a benign substitute for war; they are an additional mechanism of lethal collective punishment.

PS: The health-workers’ letter will not be submitted until early 2026, so health professionals of all disciplines still have time to sign on.

Roger D. Harris is a founding member of the Venezuela Solidarity Network and is with the Task Force on the Americas and the SanctionsKill! Campaign.

22 November 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Rima Najjar

How Israel and the U.S. Keep Miscalculating Palestinian Power

Author’s note: For over a century, external powers have attempted to engineer Palestinian politics from above. This essay argues that U.S.–Israeli strategies consistently miscalculate Palestinian resilience, and that Trump’s plan is only the latest iteration of this failed logic.
 — -

At this point, it is hard not to wonder which phase of Trump’s Gaza–West Bank plan we are living through: forced demilitarization, territorial fragmentation, or the installation of a local administration under permanent Israeli security control. In practice, these stages have collapsed into one another.

On the surface, the plan appears to be advancing. Daily Israeli incursions into the West Bank — this morning Nablus, yesterday Jenin — reproduce the familiar cadence of control. “Ceasefires” are punctured almost nightly by Israeli violations, while the Palestinian death toll rises steadily, echoing the pattern before October 7.

Coverage has reverted to the routine architecture of domination: pre-dawn raids, checkpoint killings, mass arrests, and the relentless attrition of a people meant to remain “manageable.” Yet there is scant acknowledgment of the resistance that exposed the limits of Israeli and American power.

During the period between October 7 and the ceasefire, Arab media revealed something extraordinary amid devastation: Palestinian armed groups endured, administered, and repeatedly challenged an army backed by the full weight of U.S. power. Against every prediction, they survived for over a year. Has subjugation finally been achieved? Evidence suggests otherwise.
 — -

Hamas Re-emerges, Society Endures

After the 2025 ceasefires, Hamas officials and police returned to Gaza’s streets with remarkable speed: patrolling neighborhoods, distributing aid, reasserting authority, enforcing order — sometimes harshly through executions of alleged collaborators — and overseeing hostage exchanges. Reuters and The New York Times described Hamas as “swiftly reestablishing its hold” wherever Israeli troops withdrew — parading fighters, regulating commerce, even setting prices for essential goods.

This policing signals several realities: local communities continue to recognize Hamas’s power; enough organizational structure survives to enforce rules; the movement’s command was battered, not broken.

Polling data underscores a paradox. While many Palestinians resent Hamas for authoritarianism and the destruction wrought by war, there is overwhelming rejection of unilateral disarmament imposed from outside. 
That opposition forms a bright line: no pacification on foreign terms, no surrender orchestrated in distant capitals. Simultaneously, distrust Fatah, the Palestinian Authority, runs deep, fueling a preference for technocratic or unity governments.

Here lies the core contradiction. Trump’s 2020 plan — like other U.S.-sponsored proposals — offers a “reformed” technocratic Palestinian administration, but only after disarmament Palestinians overwhelmingly reject. The governance model they prefer is dangled as a reward for capitulation.

Yet even when such administrations are installed — whether under figures like Mohammad Shtayyeh or other technocrats — they remain stripped of sovereignty, operating under the shadow of Israeli security primacy and donor dependency.

In practice, these governments cannot exercise independent authority over borders, resources, or security, making them administrative shells rather than sovereign institutions.

And while regional governments — Jordan, Egypt, the Gulf monarchies — have repeatedly aligned with U.S. and Israeli frameworks, their publics remain far more sympathetic to Palestinian rights. This disjuncture reinforces the theme: power is exercised from above, but legitimacy resides below.
 — -

The Historical Pattern of Subjugation And Reawakening

Hamas was never designed for day-to-day governance. Its identity is armed resistance, not bureaucracy. It was forced into administration only after its 2006 electoral victory triggered isolation, blockade, and rupture with Fatah — circumstances that pushed it into managing a besieged enclave it never intended to rule indefinitely.

Palestinian resistance has upended the central premise of U.S.–Israeli policy: that overwhelming force, diplomatic backing, and infrastructural destruction would quickly break both armed resistance and political cohesion. Instead, history shows otherwise:

The pattern is relentless. The British crushed the 1936–39 Revolt, exiled leaders, banned parties — Palestinian society reconstituted underground and fought in 1947–48. Jordan and Egypt suppressed the fedayeen — out of exile the PLO was born. Israel’s military occupation bred the First Intifada. Oslo’s “state-building” doubled settlements and detonated the Second Intifada, ending in Hamas’s electoral victory. The Gaza blockade entrenched Hamas. The 2023–25 war tried total decapitation — Hamas reappeared faster than Israel withdrew.

Each time the colonial power believes it has engineered the final generation of Palestinian submission. Each time the next cohort proves more unwilling than the last. Seen through this lens, Hamas’s re-emergence is not an aberration but the predictable outcome. — -

The Limits of Coercion

For fifteen straight months (October 2023 — January 2025), Palestinian factions fought under conditions no modern armed movement has ever survived: total siege, continuous bombardment, destruction of hospitals, universities, bakeries, communications blackouts, induced famine. Israel declared brigade after brigade “eliminated.” They reappeared. Commanders were assassinated; replacements stepped forward within days.

This was never just about tunnels or Iranian missiles. It was the sociological fact that Palestinian society — clan networks, neighborhood committees, shared refusal of surrender — is more resilient than the hierarchical structures Israel is designed to decapitate.

Western analysts still describe this as “Hamas resilience.” It is not. It is the resilience of a people whose collective identity and claim to land remain intact despite devastation. When belonging itself is the last possession, no amount of military destruction can extinguish the will to resist.
 — -

Conclusion: The Lesson Refused

The United States and Israel continue to believe that if they destroy enough, fragment enough, and install enough collaborators, the Palestinian national subject will dissolve. History keeps answering: it reconstitutes, often harder, more absolute, more exclusive than before.

Until the political conditions that generate armed resistance — occupation, siege, fragmentation, denial of sovereignty and return — are dismantled rather than managed, the next iteration is already growing in the rubble. The delusion of finality will be attempted again, with new technology, new administrators, new resolutions. And it will fail again.

Those who do not learn from history are destined to repeat it. The question is not whether Palestinians will endure — they already have — but what lesson the United States and Israel imagine they are learning. If the lesson drawn from a century of failed coercion is to double down on coercion, the cycle will reproduce itself. If the lesson they refuse to learn is that legitimacy cannot be manufactured at gunpoint, then the very forces they aim to eradicate will continue to endure — not because they are invincible, but because the political conditions that generate them remain untouched.

Rima Najjar is a Palestinian whose father’s side of the family comes from the forcibly depopulated village of Lifta on the western outskirts of Jerusalem and whose mother’s side of the family is from Ijzim, south of Haifa.

21 November 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Quds News Network

Gaza (QNN)- UNICEF warned on Friday that almost two children have been killed every day in Gaza since the ceasefire began. The agency says Israel’s attacks continue even though the agreement was meant to stop the killing.

Speaking in Geneva, UNICEF spokesperson Ricardo Pires said: “Since 11 October, while the ceasefire has been in effect, at least 67 children have been killed in conflict-related incidents in the Gaza Strip. Dozens more have been injured.” He said this means nearly two children lose their lives every day under a ceasefire that was supposed to protect them.

Pires stressed that every number represents a child whose life ended violently. “These are not statistics,” he said. Each child had a story, a family, and a future stolen.

UNICEF teams continue to witness unbearable scenes on the ground. Children sleep outdoors with amputated limbs. Others live as orphans in flooded, makeshift shelters. Many shake with fear and survive without dignity. Pires said: “I saw this myself in August. There is no safe place for them. The world cannot normalize their suffering.”

UNICEF expanded its operations, but the agency says the response still falls short. Pires said the UN could “do a lot more if the aid that is really needed was entering faster.”

With winter approaching, the risks for hundreds of thousands of displaced children continue to rise. Pires warned that “the stakes are incredibly high” because winter acts as a threat multiplier. Children have no heating, no insulation, and too few blankets. Respiratory infections rise. Contaminated water spreads diarrhea.

He described children “clambering over broken rubble barefoot,” a daily reminder of danger and deprivation.

“Too many children have already paid the highest price,” Pires said. “Too many are still paying it, even under a ceasefire. The world promised them it would stop and that we would protect them.” He ended with a call to action: “Now we must act like it.”

22 November 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Dr. Ahmed Bouzid

I obviously can’t say with certainty what kind of private advice President Barack Obama, AOC, Bernie Sanders and other DNC establishment consultants may have given New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani during the campaign or in the days after his victory, but I can make an educated guess.

My guess is that they counseled him to subside with the tumult, recede in the background, quietly focus heads-down on delivering something concrete (and do it fast) by working with the people who hold power, including the governor, his two senators, the congressional delegation, and especially Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

And so, not even one month into the transition and we’re already seeing the imprints of that advice.

Pointed case in point: Chi Ossé, a young Brooklyn councilmember known for his outspoken progressive stance and willingness to challenge the Democratic establishment, inspired and energized by Mamdani’s win, has emerged as a potential insurgent rival to Hakeem Jeffries in the coming 2026 Democratic primaries. Ossé, like Mamdani, is a Democratic Socialist, and just like Mamdani was back in the fall of 2024, he is a very long shot as things stand. Flush from his landslide victory, one would have thought that Mamdani would declare him his first official protege and would have declared that he would put all of his weight behind supporting him.

But according to both Politico and The Daily News, instead of siding with his fellow Democratic Socialist, Mamdani has “spoken to the Brooklyn lawmaker more than once to talk him out of running and has distanced himself from the effort” to mount that challenge. And when pressed about whether he supports Ossé, Mamdani has retreated to a tightly controlled line: “I ran to deliver on an affordability agenda, and that agenda continues to be my focus.” And behind closed doors, as reported by the Daily News, he has pleaded: “I believe that endorsing [Osse] makes it […] more difficult to deliver on the life-changing policies that more than 1 million New Yorkers voted for just two weeks ago.”

The establishment’s handlers could not have drafted a more compliant sentence.

The thing is that this is exactly the wrong thing to do at this moment, when the ambers of victory are still glowing.

If Mamdani wants to deliver on his promises to his constituents, he needs to take seriously the basic reality that is about to confront him. In order to govern, he needs to focus on building a governing power base strong enough to withstand establishment obstruction that is bound to be thrown on his path.

Doing this requires keeping his base united and energised, and the battle he has been waging going, while flexing his political muscle by helping elect and establish real allies and fellow mission travellers rather than count on domesticated figures who call their caution “strategic” but have mastered the art of protecting the very status quo that sustains their careers. In other words, Mamdani needs people who share his worldview, not those who, as rightly Ossé puts it, “have failed to deliver a vision that we can all believe in.”

And that means backing, nurturing, and multiplying insurgents, not abandoning them in the name of staying on good terms with the very establishment that never wanted him elected in the first place and does not wish him well.

Now imagine if Mamdani were not to shy away from Ossé’s challenge to Jeffries but instead embraced it as part of his governing strategy.

Imagine him helping build a campaign for Ossé that dethrones Jeffries or even comes close to unseating him. Either outcome would shift the balance of power, making it Jeffries who must stay in Mamdani’s good graces rather than the other way around. If Jeffries loses, he becomes a moot issue, replaced by a congressional ally, making Mamdani the de facto leader of the party, well positioned to run for congressional seat or the governorship in 2030. And if Jeffries wins by a narrow margin, he would still have every incentive to keep Mamdani close and perhaps even work to help re-elect him as mayor in 2029 or governor in 2030.

Beyond such calculations, if Mamdani were to signal early on and unmistakably that his mission is a principled one, that he will not be turned into a Cuomo-stripe horse trader, that he would rather fail while fighting Deep Gotham on behalf of his constituents and upholding the principles they elected him to defend than succeed by keeping the machinery of business as usual running, he would force the fundamental realignment he needs to advance the decisions the establishment will do everything in its power to resist. He would show that his election was not a ceremonial victory but the opening salvo of a project aimed at fundamentally changing the balance of power.

The worst thing that Mamdani could do now is behave as though the establishment’s cooperation is necessary for him to govern. It is not. The establishment’s obstruction is already guaranteed. What matters is whether he prepares the public to recognize that obstruction for what it is and ensures that they remain behind him, loud, engaged, and visible. Because his power comes from the people, not from political operatives who are intent on draining that power by urging him to cooperate with them, only for him to end up with neither real results nor a movement worthy of the name.

This is the moment for Mamdani to paint a clear picture: That the biggest obstacles to his agenda will not come from Republicans but from within his own party; that those obstacles can only be overcome by a movement strong enough to make obstruction politically dangerous; and that such a movement can only grow if he backs leaders who share his commitments, not those who have been absorbed and neutralized by the system.

If Mamdani imagines that he can deliver a couple of marquee promises while leaving the rest of the machinery intact, then he will prove to have been as naïve as his opponents accused him of being. The establishment is not afraid that he will govern modestly. They are afraid that he will govern boldly. They do not fear a mayor who passes a few programs here and there. What they fear is a bold mayor who inspires bold successors. Because, to state the obvious, their goal is not to help him succeed. Their goal is to ensure that he becomes a cautionary tale and a lesson to all would-be insurgents that the path to power ends in co-optation.

Keep in mind this tidbit, which may come as a surprise or even a shock if you were not aware: Just like New York Senator Chuck Schumer, Barack Obama never officially endorsed Zohran Mamdani, even when it was clear that he was going to win. Yes, Obama can claim that he doesn’t endorse local elections. But then again he did endorse Karen Bass in Los Angeles for her Mayoral race in 2022. So what’s the difference? The difference is that she is a dyed-in-the-wool establishment Democrat with a decade in Congress and a term as chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. Mamdani is not. Mamdani is not part of the Big Establishment Family.

And so what does this tell us?

This tells us that the only way to defeat the deeply embedded logic of an establishment that thinks that it is entitled to play chess and strategic pursuit with the will of the people, is to fight not as an isolated figure but as the tip of a spear. Let them try to obstruct him, not alone, but in full view, and against a mobilized, expanding movement, with the people visibly behind him, continually in the game, engaged, with their ranks swelling as the battle for their dignity rages on and as the ugly mask of a shaken establishment falls time and again with every confrontation. Let his opponents fight not just him but a generation rising behind him. That is how real power is built against an establishment that will not relinquish it without a bitter fight.

Dr. Ahmed Bouzid is an organizer, writer, technologist, and podcaster committed to challenging concentrated private power and revitalizing democracy.

21 November 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Dr. Ghassan Shahrour 

Introduction

World Children’s Day, celebrated each year on November 20, honors the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and serves as UNICEF’s global day of action. The 2025 theme, “My Day, My Rights,” is a reminder that every child everywhere has the right to safety, learning, health, and dignity. But in Gaza, children do not wake to their day—nor their rights. They wake to bombardment, hunger, and grief, in a world that has failed them at every turn.

“My Day, My Rights”: A Theme Gaza’s Children Cannot Live

The theme asks children worldwide to imagine what their day should look like: a morning free of fear, a school to learn in, a safe place to play, and adults who protect their rights. But a 12‑year‑old girl in Rafah told UNICEF staff: “My day is running… running from explosions, running to find water, running to search for my brother.”

How can Gaza’s children claim their day when every hour is a struggle for survival? How can they assert their rights when even the right to life is not guaranteed?

A Humanitarian Emergency that Destroys Childhood

Since October 2023, the scale of suffering in Gaza has been catastrophic. International agencies—including UNICEF, WHO, and UN OCHA—have documented the following:

• More than 19,000 children killed, with tens of thousands injured.
• Over 56,000 children orphaned, many losing entire families in a single airstrike.
• Nearly 2 million displaced, with children forming the majority in overcrowded shelters or makeshift tents.
• Repeated bombing of schools, hospitals, and clinics, stripping children of safe spaces to learn or heal.
• A sustained blockade of food, medicine, electricity, and humanitarian aid, causing widespread malnutrition and preventable deaths.

Humanitarian workers describe children too weak to cry, infants dying in collapsed neonatal units, and schoolchildren carrying their notebooks through rubble—hoping learning may still be possible one day.

This is not only the destruction of buildings. It is the destruction of childhood itself.

Listening to Children: Their Day, Their Pain

The 2025 theme urges adults to listen directly to children. And when we listen to Gaza’s children, this is what they tell us:

• “I want bread. Only bread.”
• “I miss my toys.”
• “I want my mother back.”
• “Why did they bomb my school?”
• “I’m afraid to sleep because bombs come at night.”

These are not political statements. They are the universal expressions of children whose basic rights have been denied.

One boy was found clutching his school notebook in the rubble, its pages covered in dust. He told aid workers: “I want to keep learning, even if my school is gone.” This image captures the resilience of Gaza’s children—and the cruelty of a world that denies them their rights.

And among them are children with disabilities, who suffer doubly. A 9‑year‑old boy, injured in an airstrike and now using crutches, told a relief worker: “I cannot run when the bombs fall. I just wait and pray.” His words remind us that children with disabilities are not only more vulnerable in war, but also more invisible in its aftermath.

A Lifetime of Advocacy for Children’s Rights

My work over decades has centered on the protection and empowerment of children:

• In 2016, my publication “Stop Violence Against Deaf Children…Toward a Community-Based Approach” addressed the vulnerability of children with disabilities.
• In my 2022 World Children’s Day article, I warned of the impact of war on Ukrainian children and invoked the UN’s Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non‑Violence for the Children of the World.
• Through Child‑to‑Child initiatives, I have long emphasized children’s capacity to contribute to health, peace, and community well‑being.

These experiences affirm that children’s rights are universal, indivisible, and non‑negotiable—whether the child is in Damascus, Kyiv, or Gaza.

Accountability and Enforcement of International Humanitarian Law

For Gaza’s children, rights will remain abstract unless the world enforces the laws designed to protect them.

Human rights organizations—including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch—have documented grave violations of international humanitarian law, including:

• Attacks on schools, hospitals, and shelters, all protected under the Geneva Conventions.
• Sieges that block food, water, and medical aid, which constitute collective punishment.
• Indiscriminate and disproportionate strikes in densely populated civilian areas.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child guarantees the right to life, education, health, and protection from violence. Gaza’s children have been denied every one of these rights.

Accountability must include:

1. Independent international investigations into violations of humanitarian law.
2. Prosecution of grave breaches, including attacks on civilian infrastructure.
3. Enforcement mechanisms—not only resolutions—by the UN and state parties.
4. Mandatory humanitarian access, guaranteed and monitored internationally.
5. Reconstruction of schools, hospitals, and homes with child‑centered and disability‑inclusive plans, ensuring accessibility for all children.

Without accountability, violations repeat. Without enforcement, rights remain theory.

A Call to Conscience

World Children’s Day is not a celebration for Gaza’s children—it is a global test of conscience. If we honor the theme “My Day, My Rights,” then:

• Their day must be free from bombardment.
• Their rights must be enforced—not admired from afar.
• Their future must matter more than geopolitical calculations.

The international community cannot light blue monuments or issue symbolic statements while ignoring the children trapped under rubble and siege.

Closing Reflection

Every child deserves a day of safety, learning, love, and joy. But Gaza’s children wake to fear, hunger, and loss. On this World Children’s Day, let us truly listen to their silenced voices—including those of disabled and injured children—and act with the urgency, accountability, and humanity that their rights demand.

References

• UNICEF Situation Reports on Gaza, 2024
• UN OCHA Humanitarian Updates, 2024–2025
• WHO Emergency Health Reports, 2025
• Amnesty International Investigations, 2024–2025
• Human Rights Watch Reports, 2024–2025
• UN Human Rights Council Statements on Gaza Blockade, 2024

Dr. Ghassan Shahrour is a medical doctor, writer, and human rights advocate specializing in health, disability, and disarmament.

21 November 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Dr. Ramzy Baroud

The so-called Gaza ceasefire was not a genuine cessation of hostility, but a strategic, cynical shift in the Israeli genocide and ongoing campaign of destruction.

Starting on October 10, the first day of the announced ceasefire, Israel transitioned tactics: moving from indiscriminate aerial bombardment to the calculated, engineered demolishing of homes and vital infrastructure. Satellite images, corroborated by almost hourly media and ground reports, confirmed this methodical change.

As direct combat forces seemingly withdrew to the adjacent “Gaza envelope” region, a new vanguard of Israeli soldiers advanced into the area east of the so-called Yellow Line, to systematically dismantle whatever semblance of life, rootedness, and civilization remained standing following the Israeli genocide. Between October 10 and November 2, Israel demolished 1,500 buildings, utilizing its specialized military engineering units.

The ceasefire agreement divided Gaza into two halves: one west of the Yellow Line, where the survivors of the Israeli genocide were confined, and a larger one, east of the line, where the Israeli army maintained an active military presence and continued to operate with impunity.

If Israel truly harbored the intention of, indeed, evacuating the area following the agreed-upon second phase of the ceasefire, it would not be actively pursuing the systematic, structural destruction of this already devastated region. Clearly, Israel’s motives are far more insidious, centered on rendering the region perpetually uninhabitable.

Aside from leveling infrastructure, Israel is also carrying out a continuous campaign of airstrikes and naval attacks, relentlessly targeting Rafah and Khan Yunis in the south. Later, and with greater intensity, Israel also began carrying out attacks in areas that were, in theory, meant to be under the control of Gazans.

According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, 260 Palestinians have been killed and 632 wounded since the commencement of the so-called ceasefire.

In practice, this ceasefire amounts to a one-sided truce, where Israel can carry out a relentless, low-grade war on Gaza, while Palestinians are systematically denied the right to respond or defend themselves. Gaza is thus condemned to relive the same tragic cycle of violent history: a defenseless, impoverished region trapped under the boot of Israel’s military calculations, which consistently operate outside the periphery of international law.

Before the existence of Israel atop the ruins of historic Palestine in 1948, the demarcation of Gaza’s borders was not driven by military calculations. The Gaza region, one of the world’s most ancient civilizations, was always seamlessly incorporated into a larger geographical socio-economic space.

Before the British named it the Gaza District (1920-1948), the Ottomans considered it a sub-district (Kaza) within the larger Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem – the Jerusalem Independent District.

But even the British designation of Gaza did not isolate it from the rest of the Palestinian geography, as the borders of the new district reached Al-Majdal (today’s Ashkelon) in the north, Bir al-Saba’ (Beersheba) in the east, and the Rafah line at the Egyptian border.

Following the 1949 Armistice Agreements, which codified the post-Nakba lines, the collective torment of Gaza, as illustrated in its shrinking boundaries, began in earnest. The expansive Gaza District was brutally reduced to the Gaza Strip, a mere 1.3 percent of the overall size of historic Palestine. Its population, due to the Nakba, had explosively grown with over 200,000 desperate refugees who, along with several generations of their descendants, have been trapped and confined in this tiny strip of land for over 77 years.

When Israel permanently occupied Gaza in June 1967, the lines separating it from the rest of the Palestinian and Arab geography became an integral, permanent part of Gaza itself. Soon after its occupation of the Strip, Israel began restricting the movement of Palestinians further, sectionalizing Gaza into several regions. The size and location of these internal lines were largely determined by two paramount motives: to fragment Palestinian society to ensure its subjugation, and to create military ‘buffer zones’ around Israeli military encampments and illegal settlements.

Between 1967 and Israel’s so-called ‘disengagement’ from Gaza, Israel had built 21 illegal settlements and numerous military corridors and checkpoints, effectively bisecting the Strip and confiscating nearly 40 percent of its land mass.

Following the redeployment, Israel retained absolute, unilateral control over Gaza’s borders, sea access, airspace, and even the population registry. Additionally, Israel created another internal border within Gaza, a heavily fortified “buffer zone” snaking across the northern and eastern borders. This new area has witnessed the cold-blooded killing of hundreds of unarmed protesters and the wounding of thousands who dared to approach what was often referred to as the “kill zone.”

Even the Gaza sea was effectively outlawed. Fishermen were inhumanely confined to tiny spaces, at times less than three nautical miles, while simultaneously surrounded by the Israeli navy, which routinely shot fishermen, sank boats, and detained crews at will.

Gaza’s new Yellow Line is but the latest, most egregious military demarcation in a long, cruel history of lines intended to make the lives of the Palestinians impossible. The current line, however, is worse than any before it, as it completely suffocates the displaced population in a fully destroyed area, without functioning hospitals and with only trickles of life-saving aid.

For Palestinians, who have been battling confinements and fragmentation for generations, this new arrangement is the intolerable and inevitable culmination of their protracted, multi-generational dispossession.

If Israel believes it can impose the new demarcation of Gaza as a new status quo, the next few months will prove this conviction devastatingly wrong. Tel Aviv has simply recreated a much worse, inherently unstable version of the violent reality that existed before October 7 and the genocide. Even those not fully familiar with the deep, painful history of Gaza must realize that sustaining the Yellow Line of Gaza is nothing more than a dangerous, bloody illusion.

Dr. Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of six books.

21 November 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies

On November 17th, 2025, the UN Security Council passed a resolution to endorse President Trump’s plan for Gaza, including a transitional government headed by Trump himself and an International Stabilization Force (ISF) that is expected, among other tasks, to disarm Hamas, a task that Israel has failed to do through two years of genocide and mass destruction.

The ISF will be tasked with securing the borders in a way that confines Palestinians, stabilizing Gaza’s security environment by suppressing resistance, demilitarizing Gaza while leaving the Israeli regime untouched, and training the Palestinian police to control the population. Yes, the force is also mandated to “protect civilians” and assist humanitarian aid. But under U.S. supervision, can anyone honestly expect it to restrain Israel when Israel simply refuses to comply—as we see with the current so-called “ceasefire”?

Hamas and other factions in Gaza have issued a joint statement that unequivocally rejects Trump’s plan and the Security Council resolution, saying it “will turn into a type of imposed guardianship or administration – reproducing a reality that restricts the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination and to managing their own affairs.”

As for the foreign military force, the Hamas statement says, “Assigning the international force with tasks and roles inside the Gaza Strip, including disarming the resistance, strips it of its neutrality, and turns it into a party to the conflict in favor of the occupation.”

The joint statement reserves its strongest condemnation for the Arab rulers who support Trump’s plan, calling their support “a form of deep international partnership in the war of extermination waged by the occupation against our people.”

Trump has claimed that all sides agreed to his peace plan, but Hamas only agreed to the first stage of it, which involved returning the remaining Israeli prisoners in Gaza to Israel under a permanent ceasefire and resumption of humanitarian aid that Israel has still not complied with.

Hamas always said clearly that it has no authority to negotiate over other parts of Trump’s plan, since they involve the future government of all of Palestine and require the input of many different groups in Gaza and the other occupied territories. Hamas said it would only disarm once a Palestinian state is fully established, at which time it will hand over its weapons to the new armed forces of the state of Palestine.

In October, a number of countries told U.S. officials that they would consider sending their troops to participate in the proposed International Stabilization Force in Gaza. They included Egypt, Indonesia, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Malaysia and Pakistan, as well as Australia, Canada and Cyprus.

On the other hand, Jordan, Qatar and Saudi Arabia have all rejected sending troops to join the ISF. Azerbaijan has said it could only send troops once all fighting has ended, and Egypt has flip-flopped on taking part. As it became clear that Trump and his “peace board” might order the ISF to use force to disarm Hamas fighters, the UAE said its forces would not take part either.

In fact, not a single country has so far committed to join the force, while Israel has said it would not allow Turkish forces to enter Gaza, and claims the right to approve or refuse any country’s participation. Israel has also been escalating its ceasefire violations since the Security Council resolution was passed, a sure way to deter countries from joining the ISF.

Hamas and the resistance groups are not alone in rejecting Trump’s plan. Al Jazeera asked people in Gaza City for comments, and they were just as critical. “I completely reject this decision,” said Moamen Abdul-Malek. “Our people … are able to rule ourselves. We don’t need forces from Arab or foreign countries to rule us. We are the people of this country, and we will bear responsibility for it.”

Another man in Gaza City told Al Jazeera that the plan violates the Palestinians’ right to armed resistance. “It would strip the resistance of its weapons,” said Mohammed Hamdan, “despite the fact that resistance is a legitimate right of peoples under occupation.”

And Sanaa Mahmoud Kaheel said she doesn’t trust Trump, who previously threatened to ethnically cleanse Gaza and steal its land to build a U.S.-Israeli beach resort. “Things will be unclear with the international forces, and we do not know what might happen tomorrow or the day after tomorrow with them being in Gaza,” she said. “This could help Trump tighten his grip on Gaza and work towards establishing a ‘riviera’ there, as he himself said before. Nothing is guaranteed.”

The Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy (PIPD), based in Al-Bireh in the West Bank, rejects the false choice that the United States has presented to the world: “either accept their plan with all its flaws and non-guarantees, or accept going back to a live-streamed genocide.”

Instead, PIPD and the global Palestinian solidarity movement are working to end the Israeli occupation and the impunity that sustains it, and to hold Israel accountable for its illegal occupation and crimes against humanity. On its Global Accountability Map, PIPD charts the progress of “concrete and approved actions by governments, local authorities, civil society, the private sector, courts and academia to hold Israeli colonial entities and interests accountable.”

More and more of the world is supporting the Palestinian struggle and the movement to hold Israel accountable for its decades of illegal occupation and ever-escalating international crimes. While the U.S. uses its veto to corrupt the UN Security Council, people and governments have come together to hold Israel accountable in the UN General Assembly, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Instead of passively accepting subservience to the Security Council, the General Assembly asked the ICJ to rule on the legality of the Israeli occupation and its legal consequences, and the ICJ ruled in 2024 that the occupation is illegal and must therefore be ended as quickly as possible.

Instead of making further demands on the occupation’s long-suffering victims, as the U.S.-controlled Security Council does in its Trump plan resolution, the ICJ and the General Assembly have flipped the U.S. script to make demands on the perpetrator, Israel, including the demand, in September 2024, that Israel must end the occupation within a year.

The ICJ issued a new ruling on October 22, 2025, that Israel must allow all humanitarian aid into Gaza and allow UNRWA (UN Relief & Works Agency) to reenter Gaza and do its work there without obstruction.

The UN General Assembly can and should respond to Israel’s failure to comply with any of these rulings and resolutions by meeting in an Emergency Special Session to organize a UN-backed arms embargo, trade boycott and other steps to enforce them, until Israel ends its illegal occupation and starts complying with international law and UN resolutions.

More and more countries are cutting trade and military ties with Israel, and 157 countries now recognize Palestine as an independent nation with the same rights as others. People in many countries are rising up to protest Israel’s genocide and occupation, and to boycott Israeli products and companies that are complicit in its crimes.

The Israeli and U.S. governments are feeling the pinch. If the world was passively accepting Israel’s genocide in Gaza, Trump would not have felt compelled to conjure up his fake peace plan. It is a victory for people of conscience everywhere that he felt he had to try to change the narrative. So this is not the time to give up on the real solutions to this crisis: justice and freedom for Palestine, and accountability for Israel.

We shall see in the coming days whether the corrupt governments that hope to profit from the genocide in Gaza will send their own troops to fight the Palestinian Resistance and perpetuate the Israeli occupation. Are they really ready to sacrifice their own young people’s blood to mix with the blood of innocent Palestinians in the rubble of Gaza?

We hope that they will instead make common cause with the people of Gaza and insist that Israel must comply with the demands of the ICJ and the UN General Assembly and immediately end its obscene, decades-long, illegal occupation of Palestine.

Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies are the authors of War In Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict, now in a revised, updated 2nd edition.

21 November 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Quds News Network

Gaza (QNN)- Israel expanded the so-called “yellow zone” in eastern Gaza by more than 300 meters on Wednesday. The expansion came quietly and without warning. Israeli tanks entered the area and trapped dozens of families who live in the eastern neighborhoods of Gaza City.

Residents say tanks blocked their exit routes in Al-Shaaf, Al-Nazzaz, and Baghdad streets. The army then pushed the yellow concrete markers deeper into Gaza’s neighborhoods. The move widened the zone that Israel controls under the Trump plan.

The fate of many trapped families remains unknown. Heavy shelling hit the area during and after the expansion. Local sources say the situation grows more dangerous by the hour.

The Government Media Office says Israeli forces feel emboldened. “The silence of the mediators and guarantors encourages Israel to continue these crimes and violations of the ceasefire,” the office said in a statement.

This followed a deadly attack on Gaza City and Khan Younis yesterdayz That attack killed 34 Palestinians, including at least 17 children and women. The victims included a wiped-out family, a father and his three children, and several couples. Dozens more suffered injuries, many in critical condition.

The Government Media Office called the latest incursion a “blatant violation” of the ceasefire. It says Israel has carried out nearly 400 violations since the ceasefire began. These attacks killed more than 300 Palestinians and injured hundreds more.

Officials warn that the ongoing violations worsen the humanitarian crisis. Gaza’s remaining livable areas keep shrinking as Israeli forces expand control zones and carry out new strikes. Meanwhile, the US continues to focus on disarming resistance factions.

The statement sharply criticizes the mediators and guarantors of the ceasefire. It says their silence allows Israel to intensify its actions.

The office demanded stronger action from all parties involved in the agreement. It specifically called on US President Donald Trump to “do his duty” and force Israel to respect the ceasefire and humanitarian protocol.

Officials say the world must stop ignoring Israel’s actions. They warn that the humanitarian fallout will grow unless mediators intervene now.

21 November 2025

Source: countercurrents.org