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By Dr. Ramzy Baroud 

The killing of seven Palestinian journalists and media workers in Gaza on August 10 has prompted verbal condemnations, yet has inspired little to no substantive action. This has become the predictable and horrifying trajectory of the international community’s response to the ongoing Israeli genocide.

By eliminating Palestinian journalists like Anas al-Sharif and Mohammed Qraiqeh, Israel has made a sinister statement that the genocide will spare no one. According to the monitoring website Shireen.ps, Israel has killed nearly 270 journalists since October 2023.

More journalists are likely to die covering the genocide of their own people in Gaza, especially since Israel has manufactured a convenient and easily deployed narrative that every Gazan journalist is simply a “terrorist”. This is the same cruel logic offered by numerous Israeli officials in the past, including Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who declared that “an entire nation” in Gaza “is responsible” for not having rebelled against Hamas, effectively stating that there are no innocent people in Gaza.

This Israeli discourse, which dehumanizes entire populations based on a vicious logic, is frequently repeated by officials who fear no accountability. Even Israeli diplomats, whose job in theory is to improve their country’s image internationally, frequently engage in this brutal ritual. In comments made in January 2024, Israeli ambassador to the UK, Tzipi Hotovely, callously argued that “every school, every mosque, every second house has access to tunnels,” implying that all of Gaza is a valid military target.

This cruelty of language would be easily dismissed as mere rhetoric, except that Israel has, in fact, according to Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor reports, destroyed over 70% of Gaza’s infrastructure. 

While extremist language is often used by politicians around the world, it is rare for the extremism of the language to so precisely mirror the extremism of the action itself. This makes Israeli political discourse a uniquely dangerous phenomenon. 

There can be no military justification for the wholesale annihilation of an entire region. Yet again, the Israelis are not shying away from providing the political discourse that explains this unprecedented destruction. Former Knesset member Moshe Feiglin chillingly said, last May, that “Every child, every baby in Gaza is an enemy… not a single Gazan child will be left there.” 

But for the systematic destruction of a whole nation to succeed, it must include the deliberate targeting of its scientists, doctors, intellectuals, journalists, artists and poets. While children and women remain the largest categories of victims, many of those killed in deliberate assassinations appear to be targeted specifically to disorient Palestinian society, deprive it of societal leadership, and render the process of rebuilding Gaza impossible.

These figures powerfully illustrate this point: according to a report released by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, based on the latest satellite damage assessment conducted in July, 97% of Gaza’s educational facilities have been affected, with 91% in need of major repairs or full reconstruction. Additionally, hundreds of teachers and thousands of students have been killed.

But why is Israel so intent on killing those responsible for intellectual production? The answer is twofold: one unique to Gaza, and the other unique to the nature of Israel’s founding ideology, Zionism.

First, regarding Gaza: Since the Nakba in 1948, Palestinian society in Gaza has invested heavily in education, seeing it as a crucial tool for liberation and self-determination. Early footage shows classrooms being held in tents and open spaces, a testament to this community’s tenacious pursuit of knowledge. This focus on education transformed the Strip into a regional hub for intellectual and cultural production, despite poorly funded UNRWA schools. Israel’s campaign of destruction is a deliberate attempt to erase this generational achievement, a practice known as scholasticide, and Gaza is the most deliberate example of this horrific act.

Second, regarding Zionism: For many years, we were led to believe that Zionism was winning the intellectual war due to the cleverness and refinement of Israeli propaganda, or hasbara. The prevailing narrative, particularly in the Arab world, was that Palestinians and Arabs were simply no match for the savvy Israeli and pro-Israeli public relations machine in Western media. This created a sense of intellectual inferiority, masking the true reason for the imbalance.

Israel was able to “win” in mainstream media discourse due to the intentional marginalization and demonization of Palestinian and pro-Palestinian voices. The latter had no chance of fighting back simply because they were not allowed to, and were instead labeled as “terrorist sympathizers” and the like. Even the late, world-renowned Palestinian scholar Edward Said was called a “Nazi” by the extremist, now-banned Jewish Defense League, who went so far as to set the beloved professor’s university office on fire.

Gaza, however, represented a major problem. With foreign media forbidden from operating in the Strip per Israeli orders, the Gazan intellectual rose to the occasion and, in the course of two years, managed to reverse most of Zionism’s gains over the past century. This forced Israel into a desperate race against time to remove as many Palestinian journalists, intellectuals, academics, and even social media influencers from the scene as quickly as possible—thus, the war on the Palestinian thinker.

The Israeli logic, however, is destined to fail, as ideas are not tied to specific individuals, and resilience and resistance are a culture, not a job title. Gaza shall once more emerge, not only as the culturally thriving place it has always been, but as the cornerstone of a new liberation discourse that is set to inspire the globe regarding the power of intellect to stand firm, to fight for what is right, and to live with purpose for a higher cause.

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

24 August 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Quds News Network

Gaza (Quds News Network)- Israel has intensified its attacks on Gaza City, with residents describing a “night from hell” as Israeli forces push deeper into the area as part of a stated plan to occupy it and forcibly displace about one million people.

Local sources and residents described last night as a “night from hell,” marked by relentless Israeli bombardment, including quadcopter fire, tank shelling, Apache helicopter strikes and fire, and the detonation of booby-trapped robots in the al-Zaytoun neighborhood, Sabra, Jabalia, and Jabalia al-Nazla.

Gaza City Occupy Plan

Last week, Hamas agreed to a proposal by Qatari and Egyptian mediators for a 60-day ceasefire, which according to Qatar would see the release of half of the remaining captives in Gaza.

But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has apparently rejected this, saying he had instructed negotiations to begin only for the release of all remaining captives and an end to the war in Gaza on terms “acceptable to Israel”.

Once the temporary ceasefire begins, the proposal is for Hamas and Israel to begin negotiations on a permanent ceasefire that would include the return of the remaining captives.

However, mediators have been waiting for days for an official Israeli response to their latest ceasefire proposal.

Israel’s security cabinet two weeks ago approved plans to seize Gaza City, despite international condemnation from the United Nations and states.

The plan reportedly involves forcing around one million residents southwards before surrounding the city and launching incursions into residential areas, followed by an expansion into refugee camps in central Gaza.

On Thursday, Netanyahu said he will give final approval for the seizure of Gaza City despite talks for negotiations.

Speaking to soldiers near Gaza, Netanyahu said he was still set on approving plans for seizing Gaza City, the densely populated centre at the heart of the Palestinian enclave, forcibly displacing close to 1 million people and carrying out the systematic demolitions of Palestinian homes.

The wide-scale operation in Gaza City could start within days after Netanyahu grants final approval.

Israeli forces have already stepped up attacks there, and thousands of Palestinians have left their homes as Israeli tanks edged closer to Gaza City over the last 12 days.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) estimated that 90 percent of Gaza’s residents have been displaced, warning that shelters are deteriorating and any further displacement will worsen the catastrophic situation.

The Palestinian Ministry of Interior denounced Israel’s push to seize Gaza City as a “death sentence” for the more than one million people living there.

Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has reportedly ordered military chief Eyal Zamir to “besiege” Gaza City, saying anyone who doesn’t flee “can die of hunger or surrender.”

“We ordered you [to carry out] a quick operation. In my opinion, you can besiege them. Whoever doesn’t evacuate, don’t let them,” Smotrich said, according to Channel 12 news.

“No water, no electricity, they can die of hunger or surrender. This is what we want and your capable [of doing it].”

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz also warned last week that “soon, the gates of hell will open” and “Gaza City will become Rafah and Beit Hanoun.”

“Soon, the gates of hell will open” if Hamas does not agree to “Israel’s conditions for ending the war, primarily the release of all hostages and their disarmament,” Katz said.

“If they do not agree, Gaza [City], the capital of Hamas, will become Rafah and Beit Hanoon,” he added, referring to two cities in the Gaza Strip reduced to ruins during previous Israeli operations.

Anyone in Gaza City Who Doesn’t Flee ‘Can Die of Hunger or Surrender’: Smotrich

Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has reportedly ordered military chief Eyal Zamir to “besiege” Gaza City, saying anyone who doesn’t flee “can die of hunger or surrender.” This comes as Israeli forces push deeper into the city as part of a stated plan to occupy the area and forcibly displace around one million people.

“We ordered you [to carry out] a quick operation. In my opinion, you can besiege them. Whoever doesn’t evacuate, don’t let them,” Smotrich said, according to Channel 12 news.

“No water, no electricity, they can die of hunger or surrender. This is what we want and your capable [of doing it].”

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz also warned last week that “soon, the gates of hell will open” and “Gaza City will become Rafah and Beit Hanoun.”

“Soon, the gates of hell will open” if Hamas does not agree to “Israel’s conditions for ending the war, primarily the release of all hostages and their disarmament,” Katz said.

“If they do not agree, Gaza [City], the capital of Hamas, will become Rafah and Beit Hanoon,” he added, referring to two cities in the Gaza Strip reduced to ruins during previous Israeli operations.

24 August 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Chris Hedges

Israel’s razing of Gaza is not only about ethnic cleansing. It is about the erasure of a people, a culture and a history that expose the lies used to justify the Israeli state.

As Israel ticks off its list of Nazi-like atrocities against the Palestinians, including mass starvation, it prepares for yet another – the demolition of Gaza City, one of the oldest cities on Earth. Heavy engineering equipment and gigantic armored bulldozers are tearing down hundreds of heavily damaged buildings. Cement trucks are churning out concrete to fill tunnels. Israeli tanks and fighter jets pummel neighborhoods to drive Palestinians who remain in the ruins of the city to the south.

It will take months to turn Gaza City into a parking lot. I have no doubt Israel will replicate the efficiency of the Nazi SS Gen. Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski, who oversaw the obliteration of Warsaw. He spent his final years in a prison cell. May history, at least in terms of this footnote, repeat itself.

As Israeli tanks advance, Palestinians are fleeing, with neighborhoods such as Sabra and Tuffah, cleansed of its inhabitants. There is little clean water and Israel plans to cut it off in northern Gaza. Food supplies are scarce or wildly overpriced. A bag of flour costs $22.00 a kilo, or your life. A report published Friday by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classifications (IPC) , the world’s leading authority on food insecurity, for the first time has confirmed a famine in Gaza City. It says more than 500,000 people in Gaza are facing “starvation, destitution and death”, with “catastrophic conditions” projected to expand to Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis next month. Nearly 300 people, including 112 children, have died from starvation.

European leaders, along with Joe Biden and Donald Trump, remind us of the real lesson of the Holocaust. It is not Never Again, but, We Do not Care. They are full partners in the genocide. Some wring their hands and say they are “appalled” or “saddened.” Some decry Israel’s orchestrated starvation. A few say they will declare a Palestinian state.

This is Kabuki theater — a way, when the genocide is over, for these Western leaders to insist they stood on the right side of history, even as they armed and funded the genocidal killers, while harassing, silencing or criminalizing those who decried the slaughter.

Israel speaks of occupying Gaza City. But this is a subterfuge. Gaza is not to be occupied. It is to be destroyed. Erased. Wiped off the face of the earth. There is to be nothing left but tons of debris that will be laboriously carted away. The moonscape, devoid of Palestinians of course, will provide the foundation for new Jewish colonies.

“Gaza will be entirely destroyed, civilians will be sent to…the south to a humanitarian zone without Hamas or terrorism, and from there they will start to leave in great numbers to third countries,” Israel’s Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich announced at a conference on increased Jewish settlement in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

All that was familiar to me when I lived in Gaza no longer exists. My office in the center of Gaza City. The Marna boarding house on Ahmed Abd el Aziz Street, where after a day’s work I would drink tea with the elderly woman who owned it, a refugee from Safad in northern Galilee. The coffee shops I frequented. The small cafes on the beach. Friends and colleagues, with few exceptions, are in exile, dead or, in most cases, have vanished, no doubt buried under mountains of debris. On my last visit to Marna House, I forgot to return the room key. Number 12. It was attached to a large plastic oval with the words “Marna House Gaza” on it. The key sits on my desk.

The imposing Qasr al-Basha fortress in Gaza’s Old City — built by Mamluk Sultan Baibars in the 13th century and known for its relief sculpture of two lions facing each other — is gone. So too is the Barquq Castle, or Qalʿat Barqūqa, a Mamluk-era fortified mosque constructed in 1387-1388, according to an inscription above the entrance gateway. Its ornate Arabic calligraphy by the main gate once read:

“In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, Most Merciful. The mosques of God shall establish regular prayers, and practice regular charity, and fear none except God.”

The Great Omari Mosque in Gaza City, the ancient Roman cemetery and the Commonwealth War Cemetery — where more than 3,000 British and commonwealth soldiers from World War I and World War II are buried — have been bombed, and destroyed, along with universities, archives, hospitals, mosques, churches, homes and apartment blocks. Anthedon Harbor, which dates to 1100 B.C. and once provided anchorage for Babylonian, Persian, Greek, Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman ships, lies in ruins.

I used to leave my shoes on a rack by the front door of the Great Omari Mosque, the largest and oldest mosque in Gaza, in the Daraj Quarter of the Old City. I washed my hands, face and feet at the common water taps, carrying out the ritual purification before prayer, known as wudhu. Inside the hushed interior with its blue-carpeted floor, the cacophony, noise, dust, fumes and frenetic pace of Gaza melted away.

The razing of Gaza is not only a crime against the Palestinian people. It is a crime against our cultural and historical heritage — an assault on memory. We cannot understand the present, especially when reporting on Palestinians and Israelis, if we do not understand the past.

History is a mortal threat to Israel. It exposes the violent imposition of a European colony in the Arab world. It reveals the ruthless campaign to de-Arabize an Arab country. It underscores the inherent racism towards Arabs, their culture and their traditions. It challenges the myth that, as former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak said, Zionists created, “a villa in the middle of a jungle.” It mocks the lie that Palestine is exclusively a Jewish homeland. It recalls centuries of Palestinian presence. And it highlights the alien culture of Zionism, implanted on stolen land.

When I covered the genocide in Bosnia, the Serbs blew up mosques, carted away the remains and forbade anyone to speak of the structures they had razed. The goal in Gaza is the same, to wipe out the past and replace it with myth, to mask Israeli crimes, including genocide.

The campaign of erasure banishes intellectual inquiry and stymies the dispassionate examination of history. It celebrates magical thinking. It allows Israelis to pretend the inherent violence that lies at the heart of the Zionist project, going back to the dispossession of Palestinian land in the 1920s and the larger campaigns of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948 and 1967, does not exist.

The Israeli government bans public commemorations of the Nakba, or catastrophe, a day of mourning for Palestinians who seek to remember the massacres and expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians carried out by Jewish terrorist militias in 1948 for this reason. Palestinians are even prevented from carrying their flag.

This denial of historical truth and historical identity permits Israelis to wallow in eternal victimhood. It sustains a morally blind nostalgia for an invented past. If Israelis confront these lies it threatens an existential crisis. It forces them to rethink who they are. Most prefer the comfort of illusion. The desire to believe is more powerful than the desire to see.

Erasure calcifies a society. It shuts down investigations by academics, journalists, historians, artists and intellectuals who seek to explore and examine the past and the present. Calcified societies wage a constant war against truth. Lies and dissimulation must be constantly renewed. Truth is dangerous. Once it is established it is indestructible.

As long as truth is hidden, as long as those who seek truth are silenced, it is impossible for a society to regenerate and reform itself. The Trump administration is in lock step with Israel. It too seeks to prioritize myth over reality. It too silences those who challenge the lies of the past and the lies of the present.

Calcified societies cannot communicate with anyone outside their incestious circles. They deny verifiable fact, the foundation on which rational dialogue takes place. This understanding lay at the heart of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Those who carried out the atrocities of the apartheid regime confessed their crimes in exchange for immunity. By doing so they gave the victims and the victimizers a common language, one rooted in historical truth. Only then was healing possible.

Israel is not only destroying Gaza. It is destroying itself.

Chris Hedges worked for nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent for The New York Times, National Public Radio and other news organizations in Latin America, the Middle East and the Balkans.

22 August 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Quds News Network

Gaza (Quds News Network)- A United Nations-backed global hunger monitor has officially declared a famine for the first time in Gaza City and its surrounding areas, as Israel continues to block aid from entering the war-torn enclave. Aid organizations and world leaders have accused Israel of using starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza.

According to the Integrated Food Phase Classification (IPC) on Friday, famine was taking place in Gaza City and surrounding areas, in an area home to around 500,000 displaced Palestinians, with the number due to rise to 641,000 by the end of September.

“After 22 months of relentless conflict, over half a million people in the Gaza Strip are facing catastrophic conditions, characterised by starvation, destitution and death,” the IPC briefing said.

Here’s how the world reacts to the IPC findings:

Palestine

Palestinian group Hamas called for an immediate end to the war and the lifting of the Israeli siege on the territory after the UN declared a famine in parts of Gaza.

In a statement, the group called for “immediate action by the UN and the security council to stop the war and lift the siege” and demanded that crossings be opened “without restrictions to allow the urgent and continuous entry of food, medicine, water and fuel”.

The group went on to say that the declaration by the UN has confirmed the “humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza and accused Israel of using starvation as a “tool of war”.

Gaza’s Government Media Office said the IPC report and comments from UN officials confirm that famine in Gaza is now “a proven fact” that may amount to war crimes.

The reality in Gaza is even more grave and catastrophic than depicted in the UN-backed report, the office said in a statement, calling on the international community to intervene.

It said Israel’s own data on allowing several dozen trucks of aid into Gaza on average during the past weeks show that the volume going in is much lower than what’s needed by the famine-stricken population in the enclave. The figures “incriminate, not exonerate” Israeli authorities, the office added.

The statement said the technical terms used in the IPC report indicate that famine is now “a fact that cannot be manipulated” by Israel or its allies, and that “any state or organisation that turns a blind eye to this crime becomes complicit in its continuation and falls under the scope of international law”.

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry said the IPC report “closed the door to interpretation and speculation regarding the occurrence of famine”.

“It has confirmed that what is required now, before it is too late, is the mobilisation of international influence in all its forms and dimensions to immediately halt the famine and the aggression against our people,” it said in a statement.

It also urged the UN Security Council and the international community “to address with utmost seriousness and concern” the contents of the report.

UN

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Gaza’s famine was a “man-made disaster, a moral indictment, and a failure of humanity itself”.

“Famine is not only about food; it is the deliberate collapse of the systems needed for human survival,” Guterres said. “People are starving. Children are dying. And those with the duty to act are failing.”

The UN chief said Israel, as the occupying power, has “unequivocal obligations” under international law, including the duty to ensure that food and medical supplies are made available to the population of Gaza.

Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN agency for Palestinians, UNRWA, has highlighted that “months of warnings have fallen on deaf ears”, but now that the famine is confirmed in Gaza City and the surrounding areas, it is “time for political will” to end it.

“We cannot allow this situation to continue with impunity,” he said. “No more excuses. The time for action is not tomorrow – it is now.”

The UN human rights chief Volker Turk said that the emergence of famine in northern Gaza is the “direct result of actions taken by the Israeli government” and added that deaths from starvation might amount to a war crime.

“The famine declared today in Gaza Governorate by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) is the direct result of actions taken by the Israeli government,” Turk said in a statement to reporters, referring to the IPC report.

“It is a war crime to use starvation as a method of warfare, and the resulting deaths may also amount to the war crime of willful killing,” he added.

The famine in Gaza should “haunt us all” and was entirely preventable had the United Nations not been systematically prevented from bringing in food, UN aid chief Tom Fletcher told reporters in the Swiss city of Geneva.

“It is a famine that we could have prevented if we had been allowed. Yet food stacks up at borders because of systematic obstruction by Israel.”

Amnesty International

“This famine is the direct consequence of Israel’s deliberate campaign of starvation in Gaza,” Erika Guevara Rosas, Amnesty’s senior director for research, advocacy, policy and campaigns, said in a statement.

She said the IPC’s famine declaration is “a scathing indictment of the failure of states to press Israel into ending its genocide in the occupied Gaza Strip”.

“The deliberate obstruction of humanitarian aid, the destruction of life-sustaining infrastructure, and the direct killings of civilians are a clear manifestation of how Israel is inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians in Gaza as part of its ongoing genocide,” she said.

“History will never forgive us for standing by as emaciated children die, while food remains just miles away, yet blocked by Israel.”

Red Cross

The International Committee of the Red Cross said Israel must meet the basic needs of Gaza’s civilians for food, water and medicine, following Friday’s “devastating and entirely foreseeable” IPC report.

“Under international humanitarian law, Israel, as the occupying power, must ensure that the basic needs of the civilian population in Gaza are met, using all the resources it has available,” the ICRC said in a statement, adding that the famine declaration “must serve as a catalyst for immediate and concrete action.”

Oxfam

Oxfam said the IPC’s declaration of a famine in Gaza City confirms what the charity and its partners have been witnessing for months, and has called for aid to be immediately allowed into the territory.

“The famine in Gaza is entirely driven by Israel’s near-total blockade on food and vital aid, the horrifying consequence of Israel’s violence, and its use of starvation as a weapon of war,” said Helen Stawski, policy lead at Oxfam GB, the global poverty-focused NGO’s British arm.

“Despite warnings in July that famine was imminent, Israel has continued to deprive Palestinians of food, denying almost every request from long-established humanitarian agencies, preventing them from delivering vital food and aid that could have stemmed hunger, malnutrition and disease.”

She said that Oxfam had more than $3.3m worth of aid, including high-calorie food packages, sitting in warehouses outside Gaza.

“Israeli authorities have rejected it all, at a time when it is needed more than ever,” she said.

CAIR

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said that Friday’s findings of famine in northern Gaza must push US President Donald Trump and the US Congress to end Washington’s unwavering support for Israel.

“This famine is not a natural disaster – it is the intended outcome of Israel’s brutal blockade, targeted destruction of food systems, and systematic obstruction of humanitarian aid. For months, international aid organizations have sounded the alarm,” CAIR wrote on X.

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia expressed concern after the IPC’s famine report and said that the worsening humanitarian conditions in Gaza “will remain a stain on the international community”.

The situation in Gaza “is a direct result of the absence of deterrence and accountability mechanisms for the repeated crimes of the Israeli occupation”, the Saudi Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

It urged that the UN Security Council “quickly intervene immediately to end the famine and stop the war of genocide and crimes committed by Israel against Palestine”.

Kuwait

Kuwait has denounced the “policy of starvation, oppression, and displacement” pursued by Israel against civilians in Gaza.

The country’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Israel’s policy is “in blatant violation of international law and international humanitarian law”, as well as UN Security Council resolutions and in disregard of relevant international legitimacy resolutions.

Kuwait also called on the international community and the Security Council to take action “to allow the urgent entry of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, to halt the genocide being perpetrated against the brotherly Palestinian people, and to hold the occupying power accountable for the crimes it commits against humanity”.

Gulf Cooperation Council

Secretary-General of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Jasem Mohamed Albudaiwi, stressed the need for immediate action by the international community to pressure Israel to open the crossings and allow the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza without restrictions.

In a statement on Friday, Albudaiwi pointed out that the official declaration of famine in the Gaza Strip by the IPC, which has reached catastrophic levels, “clearly reflects the dangerous, inhumane, and illegal starvation policies pursued by the Israeli occupation forces against the brotherly Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip”.

United Kingdom

The UK’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy condemned the famine in Gaza as a “moral outrage” and a “man-made catastrophe”, after it was declared by the IPC.

“The confirmation of famine in Gaza City and the surrounding neighbourhood is utterly horrifying and is wholly preventable,” Lammy said in a statement.

“The Israeli government’s refusal to allow sufficient aid into Gaza has caused this man-made catastrophe. This is a moral outrage.”

23 August 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Quds News Network

Gaza (Quds News Network)- Over 18,800 children are among the more than 62,000 Palestinians killed by Israel since the start of its genocide in Gaza nearly two years ago, amid warnings that no place is safe for children in the enclave with relentless bombardment, forced displacement, and starvation.

“Gaza is becoming a graveyard for children,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres as early as November 6, 2023.

On Tuesday, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said that no place is safe for children in the enclave. UN-run schools have become shelters for “hundreds of thousands of people” in Gaza amid constant Israeli bombardments that have levelled homes, UNRWA said.

Citing the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF, UNRWA noted that in the past five months of the war, since Israel violated a ceasefire deal and resumed its assault, “an average of over 540 children have been killed every month, per reports”.

[https://twitter.com/UNRWA/status/1957784210904621206]

[https://twitter.com/UNRWA/status/1958208748305989667]

According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, over 18,800 children have been killed in Israeli attacks since the start of the assault in October 2023.

122 children and infants have died due to malnutrition and starvation since the war began, as Israel continues to block aid from entering the enclave, including food, medicine, and fuel.

According to the Ministry in mid-July, more than 900 children were killed by Israel before their first birthday.

Many were killed in their beds. Others while playing. Some were buried before they learned to walk.

Palestinian children have been killed at a rate of more than one child per hour during the Israeli assault. “Consider that for a moment. A whole classroom of children was killed, every day for nearly two years,” UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell told the U.N. Security Council.

22 August 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Quds News Network

Gaza (Quds News Network)- Famine has been confirmed for the first time in Gaza City and its surrounding areas, according to the Integrated Food Phase Classification (IPC), the UN-backed global hunger monitor.

The UN-backed scale issued a report on Friday morning in which it said that famine was taking place in Gaza City and surrounding areas, in an area home to around 500,000 displaced Palestinians.

It has raised its classification for Gaza Governorate to Phase 5, the highest level, which is characterised by starvation, destitution and death.

The same classification is projected to be extended to Deir al-Balah in central Gaza and Khan Younis in the south by the end of September.

While the body had previously warned that famine was imminent across Gaza, it had stopped short of making a formal declaration.

Another 1.07 million people – or 54 percent of Gaza’s population – are classified as being under Phase 4, or “emergency” conditions, while 396,000 people (20 percent) are under Phase 3, or “crisis” conditions.

At least 132,000 children under five in Gaza are expected to suffer from acute malnutrition through next June, according to the latest IPC snapshot on the food security crisis in the territory.

That’s more than double the estimates from the IPC, the international system for monitoring world hunger and food security, in May.

This includes more than 41,000 severe cases of children at heightened risk of death.
The report said “large segments” of Gaza’s population were consuming diets “that fall extremely short in both nutritional quantity and quality”.

“Nutrition supplies for treating and preventing acute malnutrition are close to depletion due to entry restrictions, which may force health facilities to halt treatment,” it said.

Meanwhile, nearly 55,500 malnourished pregnant and breastfeeding women will require urgent nutrition responses, the body said.

It declares famine if three criteria are met: at least 20 percent of households face an extreme lack of food, at least 30 percent of children are suffering acute malnutrition, and two out of every 10,000 are dying each day due to “outright starvation”.

“After 22 months of relentless conflict, over half a million people in the Gaza Strip are facing catastrophic conditions, characterised by starvation, destitution and death,” the IPC briefing said.

Key Drivers of Famine in Gaza

The IPC report has identified four key drivers of the famine in Gaza.

These include the escalating Israeli assault, which has killed more than 62,000 people and injured 155,000, and the forced displacement, which has seen nearly 800,000 Palestinians forcibly displaced since mid-March.

The report said 1.9 million people – or 90 percent of the population – have been displaced multiple times since the start of the war, leaving most families living in unsafe, overcrowded conditions and others sleeping in the open.

Restricted access was another key factor, the report said, with access to both humanitarian and commercial supplies of food and other essential goods “critically restricted” since mid-March.

The report said a so-called “tactical pause” announced on July 27 had “failed to improve conditions as attacks continued throughout the Strip, including airstrikes, shelling, and shooting”.

Finally, the report said Gaza has experienced a “food system collapse” with more than 98 percent of the cropland in the territory damaged or inaccessible, livestock decimated, fishing banned, cash scarce and market prices unaffordable.

The UN human rights chief said that the emergence of famine in northern Gaza is the “direct result of actions taken by the Israeli government” and added that deaths from starvation might amount to a war crime.

“The famine declared today in Gaza Governorate by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) is the direct result of actions taken by the Israeli government,” Volker Turk said in a statement to reporters, referring to the IPC report.

“It is a war crime to use starvation as a method of warfare, and the resulting deaths may also amount to the war crime of willful killing,” he added.

The famine in Gaza should “haunt us all” and was entirely preventable had the United Nations not been systematically prevented from bringing in food, UN aid chief Tom Fletcher told reporters in the Swiss city of Geneva.

“It is a famine that we could have prevented if we had been allowed. Yet food stacks up at borders because of systematic obstruction by Israel.”

“No Famine in Gaza”

Israel’s Foreign Ministry has rejected the findings of the UN-backed food security report, claiming there was no famine in Gaza and that the findings were based on “Hamas lies”.

Starving Two Million Palestinians

At least 112 Palestinian children and infants among 271 people have died from malnutrition and starvation in Gaza, as Israel continues to block aid, including food, medicine, and fuel, from entering the enclave for five months, the Palestinian Health Ministry confirmed on Thursday.

On Monday, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) warned that as of July 2025, more than 320,000 children – the entire population under the age of five in Gaza – are at risk of acute malnutrition.

Families are surviving on the bare minimum of basic foods, with almost no dietary diversity, WFP said. The agency called for an immediate ceasefire to allow large-scale delivery of humanitarian aid.Stephane Dujarric, the spokesperson of United Nations chief Antonio Guterres, also warned that the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is “beyond catastrophic”. “Hunger-related deaths continue to be reported, including among children,” Dujarric told reporters.

He cited UN agencies as saying that the amounts of food entering Gaza are insufficient to meet the needs of the population amid the Israeli blockade.
Dujarric stressed that in order to prevent hunger-related deaths, “humanitarians must be able to deliver food at scale and consistently through all available crossings and routes to reach the population of 2.1 million people”.
UNICEF also warned that Gaza faces a grave risk of famine, with one in three people going days without food.

Over 100 humanitarian organizations, including Amnesty International, Doctors Without Borders (MSF), and Oxfam, said “mass starvation” is spreading across Gaza, with their colleagues in the enclave wasting away from hunger.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said Gaza City has been the area “worst-hit” by malnutrition in the Gaza Strip, with nearly one in five children under five there now acutely malnourished.

The WFP warned that thousands of Palestinians in Gaza are “on the verge of catastrophic hunger,” with one in three people in the enclave going days without food.

Health officials in Gaza issued a stark warning lately: Hundreds of severely emaciated Palestinians are on the verge of death, their bodies too weak to resist any longer.

The Director of Al-Shifa Hospital said hospitals are dealing with hundreds suffering from severe hunger and malnutrition. “We don’t have enough beds or medicine,” he said. “We’re seeing symptoms like memory loss, exhaustion, and collapse from extreme hunger.” He added: “We have 17,000 children suffering from severe malnutrition. This is a generation being starved to death.”

According to the Government Media Office in Gaza, over 650,000 children under the age of five face an imminent and severe risk of acute malnutrition in the coming weeks, out of a total of 1.1 million children in the Gaza Strip.

Currently, around 1.25 million people in Gaza are living under catastrophic hunger conditions, while 96% of the population is suffering from severe levels of food insecurity, including more than one million children, according to the Office.

UNRWA said, “The Israeli Authorities are starving civilians in Gaza. Among them are 1 million children.”

Jagan Chapagain, the secretary-general of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said Palestinians in Gaza face “an acute risk of famine”.

“No one should have to risk their life to get basic humanitarian assistance,” he said.

According to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification in July, two out of three famine thresholds for food consumption have been breached across most of Gaza, with acute malnutrition levels in Gaza City confirming aid agencies’ repeated warnings.

“Mounting evidence shows that widespread starvation, malnutrition, and disease are driving a rise in hunger-related deaths,” the IPC assessment maintained.

“The worst-case scenario of Famine is currently playing out in the Gaza Strip.”

“It’s clearly a disaster unfolding in front of our eyes, in front of our television screens,” said Ross Smith, UN World Food Programme (WFP) Director of Emergencies.

“This is not a warning, this is a call to action. This is unlike anything we have seen in this century,” he told journalists in Geneva.

The May IPC analysis on Gaza forecast that the entire population would likely experience high levels of acute food insecurity by the end of September, with 469,500 people projected to likely hit “catastrophic” levels.

Michael Fakhri, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, said: “Israel has built the most efficient starvation machine you can imagine. So while it’s always shocking to see people being starved, no one should act surprised. All the information has been out in the open since early 2024.”

“Israel is starving Gaza. It’s genocide. It’s a crime against humanity. It’s a war crime. I have been repeating it and repeating it and repeating it.”

Is Humanitarian Aid Reaching Gaza?

On March 2, Israel announced the closure of Gaza’s main crossings, cutting off food, medical and humanitarian supplies, worsening a humanitarian crisis for 2.3 million Palestinians, with human rights organizations accusing it of using starvation as a weapon of war against Palestinians.

After more than 80 days of total blockade, starvation, and growing international outrage, limited aid has allegedly been distributed by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a scandal-plagued organization backed by the US and Israel, created to bypass the UN’s established aid delivery infrastructure in the Gaza Strip.

Most humanitarian organisations, including the UN, have distanced themselves from GHF, arguing that the group violates humanitarian principles by restricting aid to south and central Gaza, requiring Palestinians to walk long distances to collect aid, and only providing limited aid, among other critiques. They have also said the model would increase forced displacement in Gaza.

Moreover, mass killings of aid seekers near and at GHF aid sites have become a grim daily reality amid chaotic scenes, as desperate Palestinians are given only a narrow window to rush for food and are targeted by Israeli forces and American mercenaries. Testimonies and evidence from US mercenaries working with GHF, as well as from Gaza civilians, reveal that aid seekers are being directly and deliberately targeted, despite posing no threat.

Palestinians in Gaza and the UN described these sites as “mass death traps” and “slaughterhouses”.

According to the UN human rights office, at least 859 people have been killed while seeking food near or at the GHF sites since the GHF began operating in late May. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said: “Most of these killings were committed by the Israeli military.”

More than 514 were also killed by Israeli forces along the routes of food convoys, OHCHR added.

Human Rights Watch stated that Israel’s killing of aid seekers at GHF sites amounts to war crimes.

With starvation across the Strip spreading, international outcry over images of emaciated children and increasing reports of hunger-related deaths pressured Israel to let more aid into the Gaza, the Israeli military announced a “tactical pause” in military activity in some areas of Gaza which it claimed would make it easier to send in UN convoys. However, attacks and killings have been reported across most of the Strip.

A UN worker said the “last minute” aid windows may not be enough to treat malnourished children.

The UN confirmed that Israel is still blocking food from reaching starving Palestinians with only a few trucks of aid having reached Gaza.

Last week, the WFP said it is not getting the necessary volumes of humanitarian assistance into Gaza despite Israel claiming it issued new measures to enable more supplies to enter the enclave.

“We have not gotten the authorisation, the permission to move in the volumes that we’ve requested,” Smith said.

Smith said the disaster unfolding in Gaza is “unlike anything we have seen in this century”, adding that it was reminiscent of famines seen in Ethiopia and Biafra, Nigeria, in the 20th century.

The Gaza Government Media Office and aid groups confirmed that only few aid trucks have entered the Gaza Strip since Israel announced on July 27 that it would allow the entry of aid, an average of just 84 trucks per day. This represents just 14% of the estimated 4,800 trucks required to meet minimum humanitarian needs.

It added that Gaza requires at least 600 aid and fuel trucks daily to provide for the essential needs of its health, public service, and food sectors.

The Office noted: “We confirm that there are more than 22,000 humanitarian aid trucks currently parked at the Gaza Strip crossing gates, most of which belong to UN and international organizations and various entities.”

“Engineering Starvation” in Gaza

Israel has deliberately engineered famine and chaos in Gaza, the Gaza Government Media Office said, as most of the aid trucks that entered Gaza were looted in a “systematic disorder fostered by the Israeli occupation”.

“What is happening in Gaza is a clear and deliberate model of how the Israeli occupation is consciously fostering chaos and engineering starvation,” the Media Office said, adding that aid is being intentionally prevented from reaching warehouses or intended recipients.

Gaza’s Ministry of Interior and National Security has also accused Israel of pursuing a policy of targeting its staff “carrying out their duty of securing aid trucks distributed by international organisations, preventing them from reaching those in need safely”.

It also accused Israeli forces of sponsoring “networks of thieves and thugs to seize control of aid trucks, depriving more than two million citizens of safe access and perpetuating famine in the Strip”.

“This is a blatant attempt by the occupation to absolve itself of legal responsibility for using starvation as a weapon in times of war,” the Ministry said in a statement.

This strategy forces Palestinians to travel long distances for aid, putting themselves at great risk, the statement read, adding that this has led to the “destruction of some of the aid supplies due to stampede and overcrowding”.

“Meanwhile, the occupation directly targets them and commits massacres, killing dozens daily near the routes leading to the entry of aid.”

22 August 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Prof. Ruel F. Pepa

The ongoing conflict in Ukraine has become one of the most defining and contentious geopolitical issues of our time.

Official narratives emphasize diplomacy, sovereignty, and the defense of democratic values. However, a deeper analysis suggests that the situation is far more complex, and the conventional approaches may be inadequate or even counterproductive.

At first glance, the war appears to be a straightforward struggle between Ukraine and Russia.

Yet, beneath the surface lies a broader geopolitical contest involving Western powers, notably the European Union (EU), NATO, and the United States particularly under the past Biden administration. The narrative promoted by Western media and policymakers often frames this as a fight for democracy and sovereignty. Still, evidence indicates that the real dynamic is a proxy war driven by strategic interests aimed at containing Russia’s influence and diminishing its regional power.

From this perspective, the current state of the conflict reveals that the Western-backed forces have already suffered significant setbacks. Despite extensive military aid, sanctions, and diplomatic pressure, the EU, NATO, and the US have failed to prevent Russia from consolidating its strategic objectives. The prolonged nature of the conflict, with its mounting economic and human costs, suggests that these powers are now engaged in a futile effort to subjugate Russia or weaken it to a point where it becomes manageable in an exercise that, in reality, has already resulted in their strategic defeat.

Given these realities, some analysts argue that the most pragmatic course of action is for Ukraine and its Western allies to acknowledge the reality of defeat and pursue a formal surrender. Such a move could open the door to stabilization, reconstruction, and the avoidance of further unnecessary bloodshed. The goal should shift from futile attempts at total victory to pragmatic peace-building, recognizing that prolonged warfare only exhausts resources, destabilizes the region, and risks broader escalation.

Diplomatic negotiations often led by the United States have increasingly appeared to be exercises in futility. Many of the demands put forward by Kyiv and its Western sponsors seem designed more to prolong the conflict than to resolve it.

These demands often include territorial concessions, military escalations, and economic sanctions that serve the interests of Western political and economic elites rather than the Ukrainian people or regional stability. Zelensky’s government, in this context, has sometimes been used as a pawn spouting demands that are not genuinely Ukrainian but are dictated by Western puppeteers seeking to sustain a proxy confrontation.

This dynamic raises questions about the true purpose of Western diplomacy. Are these negotiations genuinely aimed at peace, or are they a strategic distraction designed to buy time and stretch Russia’s military and economic endurance? Many argue that the West, especially under Biden, has a different agenda that seeks to weaken Russia’s regional influence, perhaps even to engineer regime change, rather than seek a realistic and sustainable peace.

Adding to this complexity is the divergence in US policies across different administrations. Under Donald Trump, US foreign policy appears more pragmatic and less confrontational, emphasizing strategic stability and avoiding unnecessary escalation. Conversely, the Biden administration adopted a more aggressive stance by arming Ukraine extensively, imposing sweeping sanctions, and actively supporting efforts to weaken Russia. These differing approaches have created a disjointed and inconsistent strategy, undermining diplomatic efforts and complicating any possibility of a peaceful resolution.

In this context, some analysts contend that diplomatic efforts are a distraction i.e., an exercise that delays inevitable military decisions and prolongs suffering. From this viewpoint, Russia should pursue a no-holds-barred military campaign to decisively defeat Ukrainian resistance and eliminate any possibility of future conflict. Such an approach would serve as a stark lesson to Western warmongers and their allies demonstrating that their efforts to contain and weaken Russia have failed.

Critics of Western policies argue that the demonization of Russia and Vladimir Putin has been exaggerated, often driven by propaganda and geopolitical ambitions rather than objective realities. They see the Western powers, NATO, and the EU as the true troublemakers composed of small-time players whose reckless actions threaten regional and global stability. The ongoing conflict, they claim, is rooted in Western arrogance and a desire for dominance rather than genuine concern for Ukrainian sovereignty.

In their view, the ultimate solution to the crisis is for Russia to achieve an unconditional victory by forcing the Western powers to accept their strategic defeat. This would entail Russia securing its objectives in Ukraine and establishing a stable, neutral buffer zone free from NATO influence. Such a resolution, while controversial, could bring peace by ending Western interference and restoring a balance of power that has been absent since the Cold War.

The argument for this approach hinges on the belief that lasting peace can only be achieved when the root causes of conflict are addressed decisively. A victory for Russia, in this sense, would not be a matter of conquest but a recognition of geopolitical realities which is an acknowledgment that the West’s attempts to dominate or destabilize Russia have failed. It would serve as a warning to other potential aggressors and a lesson in the limits of Western power projection.

In conclusion, the current trajectory of the Ukraine conflict demands a radical reassessment. The Western narrative of endless diplomacy and military escalation may serve short-term political interests but risks long-term instability and suffering. The most effective path to peace, albeit a controversial one, is to recognize that the conflict’s resolution lies in Russia’s strategic victory. An unconditional surrender by the EU, NATO, and the US to Russia’s terms could finally end the cycle of confrontation, restore regional stability, and establish a new geopolitical equilibrium based on mutual respect and sovereignty.

While this perspective challenges mainstream narratives, it underscores the importance of honest, pragmatic diplomacy rooted in reality rather than illusion.

Only through such a profound shift can lasting peace be achieved in Europe, ensuring that the terrible toll of this conflict does not continue to escalate indefinitely.

Prof. Ruel F. Pepa is a Filipino philosopher based in Madrid, Spain. A retired academic (Associate Professor IV), he taught Philosophy and Social Sciences for more than fifteen years at Trinity University of Asia, an Anglican university in the Philippines. 

21 August 2025

Source: globalresearch.ca

By Prof. Engr. Zamir Ahmed Awan

When Donald Trump entered the White House in 2017, many in New Delhi saw an opportunity.

Trump’s brash personality, transactional diplomacy, and open embrace of populist politics looked compatible with Narendra Modi’s own style. Both men branded themselves as strong nationalists, unafraid of political correctness, and eager to project toughness on the global stage.

The “Howdy Modi” event in Houston in 2019, where Modi endorsed Trump before a massive diaspora crowd, symbolized this apparent closeness. Trump, in turn, visited India in 2020 and was greeted with stadiums full of cheering Indians. On the surface, it seemed like a partnership of equals, rooted in personal chemistry and strategic convergence.

But beneath the optics, the Modi–Trump relationship exposed the deep contradictions in U.S.–India ties. Modi was not a partner who delivered on promises. He used America’s goodwill for his own political and economic gains, but offered little in return. Trump, despite his willingness to court Modi, left the presidency with little to show in terms of real concessions from India. The episode demonstrated, once again, that India is not a reliable friend for America—nor for any other partner.

Overplaying the Friendship

Trump hoped to leverage Modi’s popularity among the Indian-American community to secure electoral dividends. Modi, aware of Trump’s vanity and hunger for public displays of loyalty, overplayed his hand. By offering personal endorsements and extravagant receptions, Modi gave Trump the illusion of a special relationship. But this was nothing more than theater.

On substantive issues, India stood firm on its own narrow interests. Modi secured defense deals, favorable treatment in strategic dialogues, and political support against Pakistan. Yet when it came to American demands, India resisted. Trade concessions? Denied. Strategic alignment against China? Limited. Market access for U.S. goods? Minimal. Trump soon realized that Modi’s promises were more rhetoric than reality.

The Trade Disputes

One of Trump’s central campaign themes was correcting trade imbalances. He repeatedly targeted countries that ran large surpluses with the United States, and India was no exception. In fact, the U.S. trade deficit with India hovered around $25–30 billion annually during Trump’s tenure.

Trump removed India from the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) in 2019, citing unfair practices. Washington demanded greater access for American agricultural goods, medical devices, and technology firms. India stonewalled. Despite Trump’s repeated attempts to negotiate a trade deal, none was achieved.

Here lay the contradiction: Modi marketed himself as Trump’s close ally, but on the issue most important to Trump—trade fairness—he refused to compromise. Instead, India continued to protect its domestic markets while expanding its exports to the United States. In other words, Modi used Trump’s goodwill without giving anything in return.

Divergence on China

Another sharp difference emerged in strategy toward China. Trump adopted an openly confrontational stance against Beijing—whether on trade wars, technology restrictions, or Indo-Pacific security. He expected India to align more decisively with Washington’s containment agenda.

Modi, however, was cautious. While India clashed militarily with China in Ladakh in 2020, New Delhi still avoided becoming a full American proxy. India maintained trade relations with China and resisted joining any formal military alliance. For Trump, this was frustrating. He had imagined India as a frontline partner against China, but Modi preferred strategic ambiguity, extracting benefits from both sides.

This opportunism revealed India’s true foreign policy approach: to take as much as possible from the United States, but never to commit fully.

Defense Deals: Who Benefited?

Trump often boasted about selling billions of dollars’ worth of American weapons to India. Indeed, U.S. defense companies profited. But the broader question is: who benefited strategically?

India diversified its defense purchases, continuing to buy advanced systems from Russia, including the controversial S-400 missile system, despite American objections. Modi secured American technology without abandoning Moscow. Washington had hoped for India’s loyalty, but got only selective cooperation.

This demonstrated that Modi’s “friendship” with Trump was not rooted in trust or reliability—it was transactional, opportunistic, and always tilted in India’s favor.

Human Rights and Silence

Trump’s administration often turned a blind eye to Modi’s domestic policies—the abrogation of Kashmir’s special status, the crackdown on dissent, the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), and the rise of Hindu majoritarian politics. Modi counted on Trump’s silence, and he got it.

But what did the U.S. gain in return? Nothing. Modi did not support American initiatives at the United Nations. He did not open India’s markets. He did not take Trump’s side on global disputes. All the U.S. got was Modi’s rhetoric, carefully crafted to stroke Trump’s ego.

This silence damaged America’s image as a defender of democratic values, while strengthening Modi domestically. Once again, Modi used America for his own political survival.

The Illusion of Strategic Convergence

For years, analysts in Washington have spoken of a “natural alliance” between the U.S. and India, based on shared democratic values and common concerns about China. But the Modi–Trump years revealed how shallow this narrative truly is.

India’s democracy is increasingly illiberal. Its foreign policy is not aligned with Washington but with its own short-term gains. India wants American technology, capital, and political cover, but it does not want to shoulder burdens or make sacrifices.

Trump, who prided himself on being a dealmaker, discovered that Modi was a master of over-cleverness. India pocketed the benefits and gave nothing of substance in return.

Lessons for America

From a Pakistani perspective, the Modi–Trump episode carries important lessons for the United States. Washington must realize that India is not a dependable partner. It is an opportunist, constantly shifting positions, and unwilling to act on shared commitments.

If Trump was overplayed by Modi, future American leaders must be more cautious. Instead of granting India privileges and exemptions, the U.S. should demand reciprocity. Instead of ignoring India’s domestic authoritarianism, Washington must acknowledge that Modi’s India is not the democratic beacon it claims to be.

Above all, America must recognize that its core interests in South Asia do not fully align with India’s. While the U.S. seeks global leadership and responsibility-sharing, India seeks self-interest and advantage without accountability.

A Divergence of Interests

The so-called U.S.–India “partnership of the century” is, in reality, a relationship of divergences.

• On trade, India protects its markets while exploiting America’s.
• On defense, India buys selectively and hedges with Russia.
• On China, India avoids full confrontation, preferring strategic ambiguity.
• On values, India drifts toward majoritarianism while using American silence to entrench its agenda.

These contradictions cannot sustain a reliable friendship. Modi’s opportunism may have dazzled Trump for a time, but the reality is clear: India is not a sincere ally.

The Illusion Shattered

Trump wanted to be seen as a peacemaker, a dealmaker, and a global leader. Modi offered him crowds, slogans, and handshakes. But when the dust settled, Trump realized he had been played. America gave much—defense deals, political support, diplomatic cover—while India gave little in return.

For Pakistan, this outcome is not surprising. India has always projected over-cleverness in its dealings, presenting itself as indispensable while contributing little to global stability. The Modi–Trump years are simply another example of India’s opportunistic diplomacy.

As the world reassesses alliances in the era of shifting power, the United States must ask: is India a partner worth trusting, or merely a player exploiting American generosity? The answer, as Trump’s experience shows, leans toward the latter.

Prof. Engr. Zamir Ahmed Awan, Founding Chair GSRRA, Sinologist, Diplomat, Editor, Analyst, Advisor, Consultant, Researcher at Global South Economic and Trade Cooperation Research Center, and Non-Resident Fellow of CCG. (E-mail: awanzamir@yahoo.com).

21 August 2025

Source: globalresearch.ca

By Helena Glass

As President Trump attempts to sway Zelenskyy and the European leaders on a Peace Deal, he is sending war troops to Venezuela. As a result, 1.4 million militia military have been ordered to stand ready. The supposed purpose is the accusation that Nicolas Maduro is directly in control of the drug cartels – particularly those sending Fentanyl into the US. In reality, Trump is the new CIA and coups are their forte. Trump wants Juan Guaido.

Whether Maduro is legitimate or not, should be of no consequence to the US. Given our own corrupt elections, we have no ground to stand on in interfering with other countries – many of which have corrupt elections as well. 

Guaido was a student activist during the Chavez presidency and became a founding member of the political party, Popular Will. A progressive, socialist ideology, Popular Will was funded by the International Republican Institute (IRI) and the International Democrat Institute (IDI). Both Institutes are subsets of National Endowment For Democracy the hard left Soros Global Coup Makers with which President Trump is now in complete alignment.

Damon Wilson is the current CEO and President. His focus is globalization, enlarging NATO, and collapsing Russia under the illusion of ‘democracy’. The same NED which recently brought Victoria Nuland onto their Board of Directors. 

In other words, Guaido was a Deep State project of NED and President Trump is once again on board with the Matrix. Maduro is correct in his appraisal of Guaido as a puppet guilty of treason. NED works extensively in Ukraine and Moldova, the source and the secondary source for all grain train transport feed for the European trafficking cartel. That feed being children and organs. While calling both China and Russia ‘authoritarian’ states which still need to be successfully ‘couped’. Leaving open once again the potential for Trump to play a hard court left turn on the Ukraine peace deal through Zelenskyy.

The concept that Maduro represents the Venezuelan gangs is about discreditation without evidence in order to validate a military takeover. It is no more realistic than accusing El Salvador’s President, Bukele, of representing the gangs. In actuality, the Deep State is active and operational via President Trump. And coups are ongoing.

The Cartel of the Suns is a Venezuelan military junta. The Sun’s phenomenon began when Colombian drugs began to enter into Venezuela from corrupt border units and the “rot moved its way up the ranks“.  But the Colombian Cartel is run by the CIA, so we now have the CIA fighting for control of the trafficking in Venezuela with Trump’s assistance. 

The allegations against the Venezuelan military actually arose when Chavez was president in the 1990s. The source of much of the ‘information’ regarding the military connections to the cartel came from Vice News. Vice News was used as the main source of allegations against Syria’s Assad, Iran’s Ayatollah, as well as the Israel-Palestinian genocide – Vice is pro-Israel.

In 2023, Vice News filed for bankruptcy and was bought by Soros Fund Management, Monroe Capital and Fortress Investment Group. Full circle.

Today, Trump sent three warships to patrol the waters outside of Venezuela with 4,000 military personnel onboard. A clear threat to Venezuela’s sovereignty and against international law. The primary source of Fentanyl, as I have reiterated before, is TEVA Pharma right here in America.

As the political fallout strikes keep pummeling Netanyahu, Trump decided to enter the fray by claiming Netanyahu is a ‘war hero’ – and then adding, he is also a war hero – unacknowledged. Neither man wears a uniform. Neither participate in any combat. The message of self-adulation is clearly on par with moralistic nihilism. And the tenuity of the Ukraine deal becomes ever more unstable with Trump demanding the next meeting to be sans Trump. When it fails, he will be absolved.

Striking Venezuela may involve their oil platforms. 

Currently, in addition to Venezuela operating off the coast, En-Italy, Repsol-Spanish and Chevron-American are tapping the oil reserves of Venezuela which are declared the largest proven reserves in the world. That would  be the rationale for the coup.

Helena Glass is Former CPA & Series 7, with emphasis in Real Estate and Financial Planning. Two brains in one: former Bronze Sculpter and Danseuse. She is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

21 August 2025

Source: globalresearch.ca

By Kurt Nimmo

The Trump administration, through its attorney general Pam Bondi, announced on August 7 it has doubled a reward—from $25 million to $50 million—for information leading to the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. According to the administration, Maduro is in cahoots with drug cartels, specifically Cártel de los Soles (Cartel of the Suns). 

Bondi accused Maduro of heading up one of the world’s most notorious drug trafficking operations. She said his alleged involvement in the drug trade is a threat to the national security of the United States. Trump’s AG said Maduro utilizes “foreign terrorist and criminal organizations,” including the Tren de Aragua gang, the Mexican Sinaloa Cartel, in addition to Cartel of the Suns, to traffic cocaine in the United States.

“He is one of the largest narco-traffickers in the world and a threat to our national security. Therefore, we’ve doubled his reward to $50 million,” Bondi said in a video posted on X. 

While there is little compelling evidence of Maduro’s involvement in the drug trade, it is known that the Venezuelan National Guard and military began to buy, store, transfer and distribute cocaine in the mid-2000s. Prior to direct involvement, the Venezuelan military extorted narcos in the transfer of drug shipments.

“According to InSight Crime, a theory as to what may have motivated this move is that Colombian narcos began to pay the military in drugs rather than cash. This forced the Venezuelans to seek markets of their own,” writes intelligence analyst Javier Sutil Toledano. 

Venezuela might not have become involved in the drug trade if not for the multi-billion-dollar Plan Colombia security program signed with the United States. Billed as an anti-narcotics effort, the real purpose of the plan was to eradicate guerrilla movements aligned against corporate petroleum and mining activities. Colombia Plan maintained a close relationship with death squads and organized paramilitary forces, notes Noam Chomsky. 

Plan Colombia’s war on guerrilla movements forced FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia) to move operations to the border with Venezuela and corrupt officials became involved in the drug trade. The narrative claims FARC is a major distributor of cocaine. This is, however, an exaggeration.

“In standard US terminology, the FARC forces are ‘narcoguerrillas,’ a useful concept as a cover for counterinsurgency,” writes Chomsky. “It is agreed—and FARC leaders say—that they rely for funding on coca production, which they tax, as they tax other businesses.” 

Klaus Nyholm, at the time head of the UN Drug Control Program, believes “the guerrillas are something different from the traffickers,” while Andean drug specialist Ricardo Vargas argues the guerrillas were “primarily focused on taxation of illicit crops,” not trafficking. Moreover, FARC called for “a development plan for the peasants” that would “allow eradication of coca on the basis of alternative crops.” Vargas added that Colombian peasants grow cocoa plants “because of the crisis in the agricultural sector of Latin American countries, escalated by the general economic crisis in the region,” a crisis exacerbated by neoliberal trade policies. 

In 2013, it was reported that FARC, while in the process of demobilization, was taken over piecemeal by the Gaitanistas (Autodefensas Gaitanistas de Colombia, aka Clan del Golfo), described as a rightwing Colombian neo-paramilitary group and the largest drug cartel in Colombia. It is believed the group is comprised of either reservists or retired professional soldiers. Colombian General Leonardo Alfonso Barrero Gordillo worked with Clan del Golfo and its paramilitary groups, according to human rights organizations. 

“Although Maduro was not among the early Venezuelan officials tied to narco-trafficking during the previous Hugo Chávez presidency, a federal indictment filed in New York shows his rise through the ranks of the Cartel of the Suns,” claims the Miami Herald.

The news outlet mentions an indictment that claims Maduro and the cartel aimed “to flood the United States with cocaine and inflict the drug’s harmful and addictive effects on users in this country.”

CIA Runs Cocaine to Fund Black Ops

The Trump administration is less interested in the “harmful and addictive effects” of cocaine on Americans than the ongoing US effort to overthrow the United Socialist Party of Venezuela and destroy  the Bolivarian Revolution initially led by the late  former President Hugo Chávez. If Trump and crew were sincerely interested in stopping the importation of cocaine, they would turn their attention to the Central Intelligence Agency.

Joël van der Reijden, an independent Dutch researcher, believes CIA involvement in the drug trade is one of the most important covered up conspiracies of all time. The CIA inherited the drug business from Service de Documentation Extérieure et de Contre-Espionnage (SDECE), a now defunct French intelligence agency. The operation was “upscaled” with heroin in Vietnam and later a similar template was used in South America with cocaine. It is said US intelligence was involved in drug trafficking with Cosa Nostra (the Sicilian Mafia) before the establishment of the CIA in 1947. The Southeast Asian “Golden Triangle” of heroin production and distribution included early CIA notables, including Frank Wisner, Paul Helliwell, Claire Chennault, William Pawley, and Tommy Corcoran. 

In the 1980s, the CIA oversaw Nicaraguan Contra arms and cocaine trafficking. The operation was revealed when American commercial airline pilot Barry Seal was investigated for working with the Medellin Cartel in Colombia. Seal had a relationship with the CIA.

“Barry Seal was a veteran of both the drug trade and the intelligence business,” write Jeffrey St. Clair and Alexander Cockburn. “Seal’s first contact with the CIA came in the 1960s while he served as a pilot for the US Army’s Special Forces division. He left the army in 1965 to become, at the age of twenty-six, a pilot for TransWorld Airlines, and it’s apparent that Seal continued his relationship with the Agency during his employment with the airline.”

According to van der Reijden,

“it is virtually certain that both [George H.W.] Bush and [Bill] Clinton, the latter as governor of Arkansas, were shielding Seal’s operations from law enforcement… the  [CIA director] Casey-Bush-North alliance destroyed the DEA’s operation aimed at bringing down the entire Medellin Cartel when they decided to leak the Contra sting operation of their asset Barry Seal to the media,” thus allowing Reagan to accuse the Sandinista government of drug trafficking and force Congress to end the ban on US military aid to the Contras. 

CIA cocaine distribution in the United States was exposed in the 1990s by journalist Gary Webb in a three-part series published by the Mercury News. The newspaper series documented how profits from the sale of crack cocaine in Los Angeles in the 1980s was siphoned to the Contras, the CIA mercenary army attempting to overthrow the Sandinista government. 

Additionally, in 1993 the Justice Department investigated “allegations that officers of a special Venezuelan anti-drug unit funded by the CIA smuggled more than 2,000 pounds of cocaine into the United States with the knowledge of CIA officials,” The New York Times reported.

“CIA ties to international drug trafficking date to the Korean War. In 1949, two of Chiang Kai-shek’s defeated generals, Li Wen Huan and Tuan Shi Wen, marched their Third and Fifth Route armies, with families and livestock, across the mountains to northern Burma. Once installed, the peasant soldiers began cultivating the crop they knew best, the opium poppy.”

Panama Invasion Redux?

In December, 1989, President George H.W. Bush ordered the US military to invade Panama City. The invasion was codenamed Operation Just Cause, and the supposed just cause was the arrest of Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega, a long time CIA asset, on drug trafficking charges. Noriega received protection from DEA investigations due to his “special relationship with the CIA” (see Cockburn and St. Clair, Whiteout: the CIA, Drugs, and the Press, 1998). He was instrumental the effort to launder drug money while also receiving financial support from drug dealers. According to Gary Webb (Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion, 1999), Noriega was involved in the CIA effort to smuggle cocaine into the United States. 

After Noriega was exposed in The New York Times as a participant in the Iran-Contra scandal, Reagan tried to have the Panamanian leader step down, but he refused to do so. The notorious Elliot Abrams and the Pentagon agitated for an invasion of Panama. Reagan declined, afraid it would hurt the upcoming Bush presidential campaign. However, after his successor assumed office, the plan to get rid of the exposed CIA asset Manuel Noriega became more urgent, especially after the press called George H.W. Bush a “wimp” for not going after Noriega. The new president was berated after he called for hunting down major drug dealers and then not acting on Noriega. 

27,684 US troops and over 300 aircraft invaded on December 20. Explosions and fire ripped through the heavily populated El Chorrillo neighborhood in downtown Panama City.

“El Chorrillo was invaded, destroyed, burned, and desecrated on that fateful day,” writes Argelis Wesley. “Thousands fled barefoot and terrified, many watched as their homes collapsed under the flames and disappeared in the chaos. Others witnessed point-blank executions and the violation of fundamental rights. Some chose to leave the place they had called home since birth.”

She writes that years later,

“we still do not know how many people died or how many bodies were buried in mass graves. Nor do we fully understand how this brutal incident affected the mental health and well-being of El Chorrillo’s generations, from children to adults.”

On January 3, 1990, Noriega surrendered to US forces. He was convicted of drug trafficking, racketeering, and money laundering, and sentenced to 40 years in prison. He was subsequently extradited to France, and then back to Panama, where he died during surgery to remove a brain tumor. 

The invasion of Panama was sold to the American people as protection of its citizens abroad (Reagan used this as well during the invasion of Grenada), “restoring democracy,” and installing a friendly government in Panama. The objective of taking out an “off the reservation” asset is rarely mentioned. 

On August 8, President Trump ordered the Pentagon to prepare options for attacking drug cartels now designated as terrorist groups.

“President Trump’s top priority is protecting the homeland, which is why he took the bold step to designate several cartels and gangs as foreign terrorist organizations,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly told ABC News.

This might be considered little more than Trumpian bluster if not for the fact Trump seriously considered attacking Venezuela during his previous term. In August, 2018, during a discussion on imposing sanctions on Venezuela,

“Trump turned to his top aides and asked an unsettling question: With a fast unraveling Venezuela threatening regional security, why can’t the U.S. just simply invade the troubled country?” reported the Associated Press. National security adviser H.R. McMaster dissuaded Trump of the idea. 

During his second term, Trump has become more belligerent and irrational. He violated constitutional and international law when he bombed Iran’s nuclear sites. In his previous term, Trump assassinated the respected commander of Iran’s Quds Force, Qasem Soleimani, while the military officer was on a peace mission. His administration bombed Yemen on several occasions. It has provided a genocidal state with advanced munitions to kill Palestinians, more than the Biden administration sent. 

Considering the level criticism leveled at Trump for his campaign promise reversals, including ending forever war, and the threat of the Epstein scandal refusing to fade into the background, it is a possibility Trump will send troops to Venezuela to abduct Nicolás Maduro as a “terrorist” drug trafficker. Venezuela has long prepared for an invasion by the United States.  The National Bolivarian Militia is a force comprised of civilian volunteers and was founded by Chávez in 2008 to support the country’s armed forces, Newsweek reported.

Kurt Nimmo is a journalist, author, and geopolitical analyst, New Mexico, United States. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

21 August 2025

Source: globalresearch.ca