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By Mazin Qumsiyeh

13 Sep 2025 – The Gaza littoral – a narrow coastal corridor between Asqalan (Ashkelon) in the north and Rafah at the Egyptian border – occupies a strategic position on the coastal axis linking Africa and Western Asia (the Levant) and is often referred to historically as the Via Maris. Its geography made it a repeated meeting place for goods, peoples, and ideas and explains why archaeological and textual records show continuous human activity from the Chalcolithic/Early Bronze periods onward (de Miroschedji et al.; Tell es-Sakan excavations).

This study synthesizes major published finds and contemporary reporting to outline Gaza’s long-term contributions to Mediterranean and Near Eastern civilization. In the 1947 UN Partition plan, the strip was much larger than it is now (and being demolished). Estimates of 200,000 to as many as half a million perished in the past two years of Israeli onslaught on that land (3/4 women and children, and most of the residents are refugees from the Nakba of 1948-1950).

Recent archaeological work has shown that the Gaza littoral hosted urban settlements as early as 8,000 years ago. Excavations at Tell es-Sakan (discovered during construction work in 1998 and excavated by teams including de Miroschedji) reveal mud-brick urban deposits, storage contexts and evidence for a mixed agricultural-maritime economy during the Early Bronze Age. Such evidence indicates that Gaza’s coastal settlements were part of the emergent urban economies of southern Levant and were in contact with contemporaneous Egyptian administrative and economic activities. The Tell es-Sakan sequence places Gaza within the first waves of coastal urbanization in the eastern Mediterranean.

During the 2nd millennium BCE the Gaza littoral was integrated into the Canaanite network and repeatedly intersected with Egyptian imperial interests. Archaeological assemblages (imported pottery, architecture and small finds) and Egyptian texts show that southern Levantine coastal sites functioned as waystations and focal points for goods moving between the Nile, the Levantine interior and the Mediterranean. Excavation reports and regional syntheses emphasize Gaza’s position as part of coastal exchange networks during this period.

The Iron Age coastal transformation included the arrival (or intensification) of Aegean-influenced material culture in the southern Levant — the so-called Philistine phenomenon — of which Gaza was one of the principal polities in the Philistine pentapolis (Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron, Gath). Philistine pottery styles, new craft traditions and evidence for specialized workshops and maritime activities attest to cultural fusion between local Canaanite traditions and incoming Aegean elements. Although modern development has limited large-scale excavation directly inside some parts of Gaza City, comparative work from neighboring coastal sites and site surveys indicates Gaza’s role within this dynamic maritime and craft network.

From the Persian through the Hellenistic and Roman periods Gaza sustained major port facilities and urban morphology demonstrating integration into Mediterranean trade networks. Archaeologists have identified the ancient port installations often called Anthedon (sometimes identified with the Balakhiyya/Blakhiya/ Tell Iblakhiyya area north of Gaza) and Maiuma (the port quarter associated with Gaza) among the principal maritime facilities. Excavations and rescue archaeology, including Franco-Palestinian missions at Anthedon, and the 2023 discovery of a substantial Roman-era cemetery (with lead sarcophagi) near Jabaliya, testify to a complex, economically engaged society with elite burial practices and broad Mediterranean connections.

Byzantine churches (recorded on medieval maps such as the Madaba mosaic) and early Islamic administrative records show continuity of urban life and the adaptation of port and land networks and continued fluporsihing economy as well as peaceful coexistence of Christians and Muslims from 6th to 20th century AD. During the Mamluk periods coastal fortifications and administrative structures continued to emphasize the strategic importance of Gaza. Under Ottoman administration and into modernity Gaza functioned as a regional market center and waypoint for caravan and coastal traffic; travelers’ accounts and administrative records document a long continuity of agricultural production, market exchange, and civic life. Throughout its history this heroic strip of territory defeated mighty armies and inspired legendary victories while continuing to prosper [that is until this recent genocide which is not only unprecedented in the region but globally).

Recent decades have seen important archaeological discoveries (e.g., Tell es-Sakan publications, Anthedon excavations, the Roman-era Jabaliya cemetery) alongside increasing concern about threats to sites. Scholarly analyses and investigative reports emphasize the twin pressures of conflict, urban development, coastal erosion and inadequate heritage management on Gaza’s archaeological record. International teams and local scholars have collaborated in rescue excavations, but wartime destruction and damage to heritage structures have been reported (notably during the conflicts of 2023–2024), raising urgent ethical questions about documentation, local stewardship, and international responsibility for preservation and reconstruction.

Our own environmental studies in the area some using detailed satellite images/remote sensing show 1) rich biodiversity, 2) decimation of the tree cover and habitats (see Yin et al. 2025). Thus, there is devastation for both natural and cultural heritage of this rich area.

Gaza also enriched is with thousands of scholars and contributors to human civilization. Here are just a random selection:

Silvanus of Gaza (d. ~311 CE) – Early Christian bishop of Gaza who was martyred during the Diocletian persecution. He is remembered as one of the earliest Christian leaders in the region.

Aeneas of Gaza (~5th century) – Neo‑Platonic philosopher and Christian convert, associated with the Rhetorical School of Gaza. He wrote philosophical works that merged classical philosophy with Christian thought.

Dorotheus of Gaza (~500–560/580) – Monk and ascetic teacher near Gaza, author of spiritual discourses that influenced early Christian monasticism and ethical thought.

Sulayman al-Ghazzi (c. 940–1027) – A Christian bishop and poet in Fatimid Palestine, Sulayman al-Ghazzi was the first known Arab Christian poet to write religious verse in Arabic. His diwan (poetic anthology) offers insights into Christian life during the era of caliph al-Hakim.

Ibn Qudama (1147–1223) – A prominent Hanbali jurist and theologian, Ibn Qudama was born in Gaza and is renowned for his works on Islamic jurisprudence, including al-Mughni, a comprehensive legal encyclopedia.

Abu Bakr al-Nabulsi – A 17th-century Islamic scholar from Gaza, al-Nabulsi was known for his contributions to Islamic jurisprudence and theology, particularly within the Shafi’i school of thought.

Shady Alsuleiman – A contemporary Islamic scholar and imam, Alsuleiman is recognized for his work in Islamic education and community leadership, focusing on promoting understanding of Islamic teachings in modern contexts.

Ayman Hassouna – A Palestinian archaeologist and university lecturer, Hassouna has worked extensively on excavations in Gaza, including the Byzantine Church of Jabalia, contributing significantly to the understanding of Gaza’s ancient history.

Sufian Tayeh (1971–2023) – A physicist and educator, Tayeh served as the president of the Islamic University of Gaza. He was known for his work in physics and applied mathematics and was tragically killed in an Israeli airstrike in December 2023.

Mohammad Assaf (b. 1992) – Singer from the Gaza Strip who gained fame by winning Arab Idol, becoming a symbol of hope and cultural pride for Palestinians.

Dr. Refaat Alareer (1979–2023) – A Renaissance scholar from Gaza, Alareer was a professor and writer who contributed to academic and cultural discourse. He was killed during the 2023 conflict, leaving a legacy of intellectual engagement.

Conclusion: Early urbanization and administrative activities in Gaza contributed to the regional network of production, storage, and exchange that underpinned complex societies in the Near East. Acting as a coastal conduit, Gaza facilitated the transmission of commodities and material culture between Egypt and the broader Levantine-Mediterranean economy. Port infrastructure, long-distance maritime commerce, specialized fisheries and the movement of Mediterranean goods and ideas through Gaza contributed directly to the economic vitality and cultural pluralism of the region. Technological and stylistic exchange (ceramics, metallurgy, textile production, and ship-related crafts) that flowed through the Gaza littoral influenced craft traditions across the southern Levant and beyond.

The Gaza littoral’s long-term contributions to civilization are best understood as a combination of (1) geographical advantage (coastal route and hinterland productivity), (2) sustained maritime and land exchange networks that carried goods and ideas, (3) local craft and agricultural production that fed regional markets, and (4) repeated cultural contact zones that produced hybrid forms of material culture and religious life.

Gaza’s sustained role as a market, agricultural supplier, and transport hub helped to link inland and coastal economies for centuries, transmitting crops, commodities and cultural practices. This was an essential contribution to circum-Mediterranean coastal communities and over 30 countries have direct connections to Gaza. Gaza’s archaeological record informs broader historical narratives of Mediterranean connectivity. Preserving that record is necessary for reconstructing local histories that feed into global understandings of ancient economies, religions, and technologies and is an essential component of knowledge to shape a peaceful future that is not repeatedly marred by genocides and holocausts (due to colonialism, imperialism).

Mazin Qumsiyeh, associate professor of genetics and director of cytogenetic services at Yale University School of Medicine, is founder and president of the Holy Land Conservation Foundation and ex-president of the Middle East Genetics Association.

22 September 2025

Source: transcend.org

By Lorraine Mallinder 

18 Sep 2025 – The United States vetoed a crucial United Nations Security Council resolution demanding a ceasefire in Gaza, as Israel expanded its scorched-earth offensive on Gaza City.

The resolution, approved by 14 of the 15 members of the council on Thursday, called for an “immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire in Gaza respected by all parties”, the release of all captives held by Hamas and other groups, and a lifting of restrictions on humanitarian aid into Gaza.

Drafted by the council’s 10 elected members, the resolution went further than previous iterations to highlight what diplomats called the “catastrophic” humanitarian situation in Gaza after nearly two years of war in the Gaza Strip, which has killed at least 65,141 people, according to Palestinian health officials.

As expected, the United States vetoed the effort. “US opposition to this resolution will come as no surprise,” said Morgan Ortagus, US deputy special envoy to the Middle East.

“It fails to condemn Hamas or recognise Israel’s right to defend itself, and it wrongly legitimises the false narratives benefitting Hamas, which have sadly found currency in this council.”

Ortagus added that the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification’s official declaration of famine in the enclave last month had employed “flawed methodology”, hailing the work of the heavily militarised GHF hubs, where so many Palestinians have been killed while seeking food for their families.

After the vote, the Palestinian Ambassador to the United Nations Riyad Mansour said the US veto was “deeply regrettable” and had prevented “the Security Council from playing its rightful role in the face of these atrocities and to protect civilians in the face of genocide”

“Unfortunately, the Council remains silent at a great cost for its credibility and authority,” Mansour added. “This demonstrates that when it comes to atrocity crimes, the use of the veto should simply not be allowed.”

Algerian Ambassador to the UN Amar Bendjama also had strong words. “Palestinian brothers, Palestinian sisters, forgive us,” he said.

“Forgive us, because the world speaks of rights, but denies them to Palestinians. Forgive us because our efforts, our sincere efforts, shattered against this wall of rejection.”

The war in Gaza had, he noted, killed more than 18,000 children and 12,000 women, killed more than 1,400 doctors and nurses, and more than 250 journalists. Israel, he added, was “immune”, not because of international law, but because of the “bias of the international system”.

Meanwhile, the Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, said that Israel needed “no justification” for its war on Gaza. He thanked Ortagus for exercising the US veto.

Reporting from New York, James Bays, Al Jazeera’s diplomatic editor, said the vote was a “sombre” moment on the 80th anniversary of the United Nations, with many countries championing “multilateral diplomacy”, while the US insisted on taking an “America-first view of the world”.

“[It is] not a strong advocate … of the United Nations, cutting back much of the humanitarian funding to this organisation,” he said, noting how this had brought the organisation to one of the lowest points in its 80-year history.

‘Lost generation’

With its ground offensive on Gaza City, which started Tuesday, Israel appears to be intent on killing any hopes of a ceasefire.

The Israeli military, which has said multiple times that it wants to definitively crush Hamas, has not given a specific timeline for the offensive, though there are indications that it could take months.

On Tuesday, a team of independent experts commissioned by the UN Human Rights Council concluded that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, with the intent to “destroy” the Palestinians.

Before Thursday’s vote, Israel’s Danon had posted on X that the resolution would “not free the hostages nor bring security”.

Israel, he said, would “continue to fight Hamas and protect its citizens, even if the Security Council prefers to turn a blind eye to the terror”.

Danish Ambassador to the UN Christina Markus Lassen underlined the gravity of Israel’s man-made famine. “Desperate mothers are forced to boil leaves to feed their children, fathers search the rubble for sustenance,” she said.

“People are killed as they try to get food to survive. A generation risks being lost not only to war, but to hunger and despair.”

22 September 2025

Source: transcend.org

By Prof. Richard Falk

The Gaza Tribunal is a civil society initiative that seeks justice-driven outcomes to human wrongdoing that are not being addressed by national governments or international institutions. These tribunals offer the people of societies throughout the world an opportunity to express transnational objections to the most notorious international crimes and to encourage solidarity with the suffering and abuse of victims, regardless of nationality. Above all, a peoples tribunal seeks to draw attention to the enforcement, accountability, and complicity gaps in situations where severe failures of the established international order challenge deeply the moral conscience of humanity.

Recourse to a peoples’ tribunal of this character was first undertaken in the middle of the Vietnam War by two world famous intellectuals, Bertrand Russell and Jean-Paul Sartre. Its procedures and findings were dismissed at the time by governments and media as lacking the force of law that could only be achieved by recourse to national and international courts. Unlike standard judicial procedures peoples’ tribunals perform as partisan undertakings that do not pretend to be neutral and do not offer the accused party a fair process allowing for the presentation of defensive arguments by the alleged perpetrator of international crimes. In contrast, all proceedings before the ICJ or ICC project images of political and normative neutrality as integral to the credibility of their legal assessment of legal responsibility.

The Russell Tribunal and every subsequent peoples’ tribunal that has been established in the intervening 50 years has never purported to judge the guilt or innocence of the partes, but to legitimate opposition to certain patterns of behavior, to clarify and document the criminality of accused parties, and to encourage civil society activism as justified ‘enforcement’ of international law and morality from below. The central goal of this unauthorized process is to promote as objectively as possible the exposure of the constituents of abusive behavior on the part of the accused state(s) and setting forth action initiatives and policy recommendations directed at the membership of global civil society, as well as making judgments of the policies and practices of national governments and international institutions. Such civil society tribunals also encourage accountability for the main perpetrators and complicit actors, making a maximum effort to connect persuasively the crime to the alleged criminals.

The best of these tribunals also develop a permanent archive that would offer objective interpretations of evidence, including survivor and expert witnessing, denying all claims of impunity. The resulting archive of such salient controversial occurrences has a potentiality to contribute positively to future citizen education about the events free from state propaganda, not papering over the crimes of the past but highlighting them. The Russell Tribunal inspired many subsequent efforts throughout the world. The organizers of such populist institutions are invariably motivated by sentiments of moral outrage and a politics of empathy for the victims of governmental behavior that is violative of international law, especially breaches of fundamental provisions of the UN Charter and widely shared ethical values. It should be noted that the geographic spread of such initiatives extends to every world civilization.

Each recourse to a peoples’ tribunal is quite naturally sensitive to the distinctive circumstances of the particular case. The Gaza Tribunal was formed in 1994 against this background, with a particular sensitivity to the urgency of reacting to genocide, ‘the crime of crimes.’ The context in which Israel’s policy toward the attack on October 7 unfolded, especially in its first 18 months enjoyed the geopolitical shielding and material support of the world’s leading liberal democracies, situated in Europe and North America, as well as Australia and New Zealand. This web of complicity with Israel’s genocide quite significantly included all important breakaway British colonies that turned out to be ‘the success stories’ of settler colonials, apartheid, and genocidal behavior.

Israel on its side also benefited from a self-censoring mainstream media that heavily filtered the daily spectacle of atrocities and accompanying dehumanizing language used by Israeli leaders to be objectively reported. To this day the media, world leaders, and even the top echelon of UN civil servants refrain from  endorsing any pro-Palestinian populist initiatives, and even from referring to Israel violence in Gaza as ‘genocide.’ There was almost no governmental and institutional opposition to Israel’s behavior in Gaza months passed. When South Africa made its historic submission to the ICJ in late 2023 dramatically charging that Israel was acting in Gaza in violation of the Genocide Convention of 1948 the international discourse became more critical of Israel, but still Western leaders and UN officials, let alone liberal critics of Israel in the US and Europe refuse to name the prolonged Gaza ordeal (spilling over to the West Bank) as genocide. These ‘safe’ crtics content themselves with being advocates of a Gaza ceasefire accompanied by the release of remaining hostages and language that includes the demonization of Hamas.

The Gaza Tribunal formed more than a year ago in response to months of failure by the UN and other political actors to expose and end the ongoing Palestinian ordeal in Gaza. This ordeal resulted from Israel and its supporters defiant disregard of international law and the majority views of the governments and peoples in the world. A defining instance of this defiance was the refusal to comply with the Interim Rulings of the ICJ in 2024 that went so far as to attach the word ‘plausible’ to allegations of genocide and to order Israel to stop interfering with the international delivery of humanitarian aid. One problem with waiting for the ICJ’s final judgment is that it is not expected for at least two years, and that seems too long to provide any meaningful relief to the Palestinians in Gaza, although it should become required reading for all future law students. The Gaza Tribunal plans its final session in Istanbul between October 23-26, which will include a verdict rendered by a Jury of Conscience and a reasoned judgment on the question of genocide and issues of accountability and complicity. But if Israel pays no attention to the ICJ or ICC what makes anyone other than an idealistic fool think it would pay attention to the findings and recommendations of the Gaza Tribunal.

Such cynical reactions miss the point, purpose, and goals of a peoples’ tribunal. In our case it takes for granted the refusal of Israel to give any attention other than words of derision to the Tribunal to avoid giving its actions a scintilla of credibility. Israel is smart enough not to engage with any critical judgment of it guilt by way of substance. For one thing, Israel’s counter-arguments would be so weak if they stuck to the substance that they would be more likely resort to accusations that the Gaza Tribunal is itself unlawful and biased, even viciously antisemitic. The primary audience for the Gaza Tribunal is transnational civil society, including the responsible independent voices in the media.

Its short-term goal is to legitimate allegations of genocide, a task made much easier in recent months by the meticulous reports of the UN Special Rapporteur, Francesca Albanese, and the release a week ago by the UN Commission of Inquiry on Gaza of its lengthy report that confirmed that Israel’s conduct in Gaza since October 7 violated the Genocide Convention in numerous respects. With such backing, an expected verdict along similar lines by our tribunal’s Jury of Conscience will undoubtedly add to the growing global consensus that Israel has become a pariah or rogue state. This negative branding makes it more politically feasible to insist that Israel needs the pressure of sanctions and boycotts to induce compliant behavior. Punitive costs must be imposed on Israel to improve prospects of curtailing present patterns of criminality that involve a denial of basic Palestinian rights, and also set forth future standards for accountability.

We appeal to all persons of global conscience to join us in this effort of the Gaza Tribunal to bring punitive justice to Israel and offer overdue restorative justice to the Palestinian people. We must not be silent or sit on our hands while the Palestinian tragedy is reaching such grotesque extremes, and vigilance will be vital even after the violence stops to prevent from the perpetrator of genocide to shape future arrangements. Here close to the site of the UN it is still time to enact bold and courageous responses within its framework of responsibilities and capabilities. Above all, it is legally possible for urgent UN action in the form of creative and committed invocations of the Uniting for Peace procedures and Responsibility to Protect norm. The Gaza Tribunal would welcome and ardently support these other kindred moves as initiatives that uphold the mission undertaken by the UN 80 years ago, and rekindle its promises to humanity with respect to peace, human rights, equitable development, and respect for international law.

Prof. Richard Falk is a member of the TRANSCEND Network, TRANSCEND Media Service Editorial Committee Member, Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University, Chair of Global Law, Faculty of Law, at Queen Mary University London, Research Associate the Orfalea Center of Global Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Fellow of the Tellus Institute.

22 September 2025

Source: transcend.org

By Hüseyin Vodinalı 

Netanyahu has become a hot potato. He attacks anyone who stands in his way.

He brought Trump to heel in the US with the Epstein files, and if Bibi had to spit in Donny’s mouth, Donny would almost say “Thanks to God!”

Israel commands, the US does. His attack on Qatar is clear proof of this. The attack, which completely destroyed Trump’s already crumbling credibility, was a complete trap.

Trump’s team summons Hamas leaders to a meeting, Israel receives information about the location and time (though it didn’t get it right; it only killed five insignificant people), and “Judas” countries like Jordan and Saudi Arabia open their airspace to Israeli aircraft. Even more tragically, the Israeli planes likely refueled with American tanker aircraft, departing from the Al Udeid base in Qatar.

This is one aspect of the situation, but the more important aspect is the geopolitical consequences of bombing a country like Qatar, a Rothschild satellite of the US. Qatar has paid a heavy price for its friendship with Zionism and must now look to new horizons.

If Qatar, already deeply unpopular in the Gulf Arab world, takes the risk, it could acquire the S-400 defense system from Russia to replace its outdated Patriot missile defense system. It could draw closer to the BRICS and the SCO.

This would cause the US to lose its closest non-NATO ally. In fact, Iran immediately intervened, along with Turkey, and sent a message of support to Qatar. Qatar is a small country, but it possesses some of the world’s richest natural gas reserves. The most important point here is that the attack on Qatar also carries a threatening message directed at Turkey.

The Turkish Armed Forces, which have been based in Qatar since 2015, provide training and consulting services to the Qatari army at the base, which was renamed the Qatari-Turkish Combined Joint Force Command in 2017.

The cooperation expanded further in 2024 with the addition of air and naval units. According to a statement from the Ministry of National Defense, Turkey has deployed six F-16 fighter jets and two patrol ships to Qatar.

In other words, Qatar is practically the next stop before Turkey.

Media outlets in Israel have been talking about war with Turkey for some time now. The situation in Syria reveals its reality and its underlying foundation. Israel, of course, cannot openly engage in war with Turkey, but it will do everything in its power. May be Israel planning a new war on Cyprus. USA-Greece-Greek Cypriots on its side. 

Also It could start a proxy war in Syria using the YPG Kurdish forces. As a terrorist and genocidal state, it could easily deploy its proxies in Turkey, such as ISIS and the PKK. This is exactly what I’m waiting for. ISIS sent its first message from Izmir. A 16-year-old psychopathic child raided a police station and killed two police officers. The PKK, on ​​the other hand, is waiting for the negotiations to be overturned in the second peace process. They have made their preparations, armed themselves, and improved their skills in drone warfare.

Erdoğan’s coalition partner Devlet Bahçeli’s statement the other day strengthens the possibility that Turkey and Israel will soon fight in Syria.

The MHP leader said they cannot allow the YPG/SDF to “remain a security problem for Turkey.” US “Colonial Governor” Tom Barrack, however, rebuked Bahçeli, stating that the YPG are their allies and will have an autonomous structure in Syria.

Erdoğan has likely devised a political game plan, saying “if there is no peace, there will be war.”

Developments such as the continuous and rapid armament and the construction of shelters in 81 provinces indicate that we may soon enter a serious war. In such a situation, he believes the declaration of martial law (as if it doesn’t already exist) and the closure of the Y-CHP will be a tactic.

Israel, however, relies not only on the PKK and ISIS but also on the Greek Cypriot side. The news coming from the Greek Cypriot side are significant. It reported that Israel’s Barak MX air defense systems had been transferred from the port of Limassol. British bases in the Greek Cypriot side are already hosting Israel, and British spy planes are providing intelligence, along with the US, on Netanyahu’s genocide.

Netanyahu is deeply convinced that they will establish Erez Israel, or Greater Israel. This includes a Kurdistan established in Syria and Iraq, whose borders also encroach on Turkey and Iran. Bibi dreams of establishing a new hegemony in the Middle East with a Greater Israel and a Greater Kurdistan between the Euphrates and the Nile. That’s why he “managed” to attack six countries simultaneously in the last 10 days! The rest will surely follow.

Türkiye, on the other hand, seems to continue to seek help from its enemies (the US and the EU) and ignore its potential allies (Iran, for example). This will only make things worse, which are already going bad.

Before the 2017 referendum (which gave all power to the AKP Leader Erdoğan), I wrote at that time that a Saddam trap was being set for Turkey.

We’re getting there, step by step!

Hüseyin Vodinalı completed master’s degree (MA) in journalism and TV production at the New York Institute of Technology in the USA between 1992-94.

17 September 2025

Source: globalresearch.ca

By Rima Najjar 

I. The Refusal of Delay

Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories, is right: judgment of Israel’s atrocities cannot be deferred. History is not a sanctuary — it is a graveyard, and the living will not lie down in it. To defer justice to history is to abandon the living to annihilation and hope that memory will suffice. Albanese dismantles this deferral with precision: “I am not someone who says, ‘history will judge them’ — they will have to be judged before then.” Her refusal is not rhetorical flourish — it is a demand. A demand for immediacy, for moral reckoning in the present tense. Because history, if it ever arrives, will not be enough. And the living cannot afford to wait.

And yes, some will ask — what does it matter if Albanese speaks clearly, if the UN itself is structurally incapable of enforcement? What good is documentation when people are being killed and expelled in real time? But this framing misses the point. Albanese’s role is not to enact change through institutional power; it is to produce legal and rhetorical clarity within a system designed to obscure. Her reports do not liberate, but they do indict. They name apartheid, settler colonialism, and genocide — not as metaphors, but as legal realities. That naming reverberates. It arms movements, scholars, and survivors with language that refuses euphemism. It builds precedent. It unsettles the comfort of “both sides” diplomacy. And it legitimizes testimony from the ground in a forum that, for all its limitations, still shapes global discourse. To dismiss this as distraction is to misunderstand the mechanics of narrative warfare. Albanese’s work is not heroic for saying what we already know — it is necessary because she says it where silence is the norm.

• It refuses delay, euphemism, and diplomatic choreography
• It insists that justice must be rendered while the crime is still unfolding

To archive in real time is to indict in real time. It is to say, with Fanon and with Albanese: they must be judged before then. Because the present is not a waiting room — it is the courtroom. And the people are the judges.

II. The Lullaby of Accomplices

“History will judge,” they say. But history has not been a neutral witness. It has been a weapon of the victors, a ledger of conquest, a narrative shaped by those who hold the pen and the power.

History has been on the side of empire. It has canonized colonizers, sanitized massacres, and reframed resistance as chaos. The Nakba was not merely erased, it was overwritten. The Naksa was not just denied, it was reinterpreted as strategic necessity. From Algeria to Palestine, from Congo to Kashmir, the archive has often served the architecture of domination.

Frantz Fanon, in The Wretched of the Earth, exposes this asymmetry. He writes not of military might, but of the psychic and existential power of the oppressed — their capacity to rupture colonial order through refusal, rage, and revolutionary imagination. Fanon insists that the colonized are not passive victims but agents of historical transformation. Their power lies not in tanks or treaties, but in the will to reclaim narrative, land, and dignity.

This is the power that terrifies empire:

• The peasant who joins the liberation front
• The child who remembers the name of the village erased from the map
• The writer who refuses euphemism
• The mourner who testifies without permission

Fanon reminds us that the oppressed do not wait for history to vindicate them; they make history by refusing erasure. Their resistance is not deferred — it is immediate, embodied, and uncontainable.

And yet, the lullaby persists. It is sung by Washington, Brussels, London, Berlin — those who bankroll and arm Israel while pretending to mourn Palestinian dead. It is echoed by the United Nations, issuing statements while vetoes choke action. It is the chorus of liberal commentators who watch genocide unfold and assure us that someday the record will be corrected.

But the record is already being written — by the living, in real time, in blood and rubble and refusal. And it does not wait for the victors to lose their pen.

III. History’s Inadequacy

History does not rescue the starving child in Gaza. It does not rebuild bombed hospitals or pull families from the rubble of Khan Younis. It does not stop snipers from executing teenagers in Jenin. History is written after the bodies are buried — and more often than not, by the perpetrators.

Even when the oppressed win, their victories are neutered: rage polished into resilience, revolution reduced to reconciliation. Waiting for history is surrender.

We’ve waited before. The Nakba of 1948 — the mass expulsion and destruction of Palestinian life — was archived but never redressed. The Naksa of 1967 — the second wave of displacement and occupation — was documented but never reversed. Each catastrophe was recorded, debated, footnoted. But the dispossession continued. The settlements expanded. The siege deepened. And the world moved on.

These events were not aberrations, they were precedents. And the lesson they offer is brutal: history may remember, but it rarely rescues. It may mourn, but it does not intervene. The archive grows, but the injustice persists.

IV. The Present as Archive

This is not an archive of memory — it is an arsenal of indictment. Each record is not a relic but a weapon, forged in the present to pierce impunity before it calcifies.

The Palestinian cause is not merely just. It is unignorable. No person tethered to their humanity can witness the systematic destruction of Gaza — the detention of children, the starvation of civilians, the criminalization of testimony — and remain neutral. And yet neutrality is the global default. Obfuscation is policy. Containment is strategy.

Grief itself becomes suspect. Survivors are interrogated, not consoled. Their mourning is reframed as incitement. Their memories are redacted before they can be archived.

The Zionist media apparatus — amplified by Western outlets, sanitized by diplomatic euphemisms — manufactures ambiguity where there is none. It reframes genocide as conflict, starvation as collateral, resistance as terrorism. It weaponizes language to flatten asymmetry, to erase context, to make the unbearable seem debatable.

But we know better. We have the records:

• Forensic evidence
• Satellite imagery
• Survivor testimonies
• Legal filings
• Burned schools, bombed hospitals, sanctioned human rights groups

This archive is not retrospective — it is insurgent. It is built in the present tense, against the machinery of erasure. And it carries the weight Fanon described in The Wretched of the Earth: the colonized subject does not wait for history to validate their humanity. They assert it through refusal, through documentation, through the reclamation of voice.

Fanon understood that the colonized are forced into a perpetual present — a present of surveillance, dispossession, and threat. But he also insisted that this present is the site of rupture. The oppressed do not inherit history; they interrupt it. They do not appeal to the future; they indict the now.

In Gaza, the archive is not a memorial-in-the-making — it is a weapon of resistance. Every image of rubble, every censored report, every smuggled testimony is a refusal to be buried in the footnotes of empire. It is what Fanon called the moment of becoming, when the colonized subject ceases to be an object of pity and becomes a force of reckoning.

This is the weight of the present:

• It demands action, not abstraction
• It refuses delay, euphemism, and diplomatic choreography
• It insists that justice must be rendered while the crime is still unfolding

To archive in real time is to indict in real time. It is to say, with Fanon and with Albanese: they must be judged before then. Because the present is not a waiting room — it is the courtroom. And the people are the judges.

V. Naming the Executioners

We do not wait. We indict.

We name the executioners: Israel, the Jewish settler state built on erasure. We name the enablers: the United States, Europe, Canada, Australia — the colonial bloc that arms and shields it.

We name the collaborators: Arab regimes that normalize with apartheid, trading Palestinian blood for diplomatic scraps.

They must be judged now — not by history, but by the living.

VI. Judgment Before History

To say they will have to be judged before then is to refuse the quiet violence of delay.

Accountability must pierce the present — while the crime is still unfolding — before impunity becomes irreversible.

Judgment takes place in multiple registers:

• In the streets where millions march
• In boycotts that choke profiteering
• In solidarity networks that break sieges
• In courts forced to confront their own paralysis
• In urgent petitions filed at The Hague
• In sanctions won against complicit states

The people are the court when institutions collapse into collaboration.

The archive built in real time — images of rubble, testimonies of survivors, evidence smuggled past censors — is not a memorial-in-the-making but the foundation of prosecution.

Justice is not the privilege of future historians — it is the duty of the living.

To wait is to abandon the living to annihilation.

To act is to judge.

And to judge now is the only way history will not become an epitaph of our failure, but a record of our refusal.

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.

17 September 2025

Source: globalresearch.ca

By Ahmed Adel 

European Union member countries will soon vote on the “Chat Control” law, which aims to end privacy when texting. Instead of a message going directly from sender to recipient, it will first be sent to a large database, where it will be thoroughly checked for eligibility. Essentially, this bill would require private providers of proprietary software to scan for anything they deem offensive or illegal. Many security experts argue that this would compromise the encryption algorithms currently protecting private messages from being read or viewed by anyone other than the intended recipient.

Since there is very little information available about what is technically envisioned for the implementation of this regulation, it appears to be more of an attempt to legalize post-hoc wiretapping schemes that already exist. For example, there was last year’s scandal involving the arrest of Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram, a messaging app renowned for its data protection and encryption. The arrest of Durov was intended to pressure him into providing French intelligence services with a so-called “back door,” or special access to those communications.

Corporations, fearing lawsuits and their own liability, insist that the current arrangement, which has existed informally since the beginning of social media, be legalized in some way. The problem is that this is now difficult to impose because, although the idea has no open technical issues, it entails several fundamental problems, particularly the normalization of mass wiretapping and the erosion of what little trust people have in corporations. Take, for example, Google, which introduced Gmail and boasted about the security of its email service, which humans never read. However, although humans do not read them, they are monitored by Artificial Intelligence.

There is little difference whether humans or AI is monitoring communication, as the effects are still devastating for privacy. No police or intelligence service has enough people to monitor such a volume of messages. Algorithms now do that, and when human control is replaced with algorithmic control, public speech becomes severely limited, destroying not only the possibility of freedom of speech but also that of normal communication. As human communication on social media has become increasingly difficult due to bots and AI, people are now turning to chat apps, such as Viber, Telegram, and WhatsApp.

Corporations recognize that they are losing money due to the decline in interest in public debate, which is precisely a result of totalitarian control. For this reason, the EU now wants to establish the same type of control over the private part of our communication. Many people have adopted a mechanical, robotic logic of thinking because they have been coerced into self-censorship. However, many people who are aware of this situation still consider it unacceptable that the EU wants control over our communication.

The EU is notorious for precisely this unanimity and the ease with which the vast majority of citizens accept any position that is current at that moment, such as accepting increasing electricity prices, vaccinations, illegal immigrants, and sanctions against Russia.

A large portion of humanity uses social media. Therefore, even under ideal circumstances, AI will inevitably make many terrible mistakes. It is impossible for hundreds of millions of people communicating in different languages, making jokes or being ironic, to be constantly flagged and then monitored.

At the same time, people will stop using platforms that deny them freedom of speech and thought. Just as people boycott newspapers and television stations that participated in fake news and disinformation, they will boycott platforms where their privacy is eroded.

These are all processes that are already underway, and the debate over Chat Control is more about legalizing and normalizing surveillance of the public than proposing something important or new to people.

Chat Control was first proposed in 2022 but was voted down in 2023. This latest version, put forward by Denmark, which currently holds the rotating presidency of the EU Council, would require chat services to allow AI-based message screening before encryption in an effort to detect the sharing of child abuse material.

To pass, the Chat Control bill needs at least 65% support of the EU population. Although France, Spain, and Italy support Chat Control, Germany became the key opposition because its population ensures the impossibility of reaching the needed 65%, even if Estonia, Greece, Romania, and Slovenia – the four undecided countries – choose to support the law, as it would only add up to roughly 59% of the total EU population. Although it is evident that EU technocrats and the leading countries of the bloc, with the exception of Germany, are desperate for Chat Control, it appears that this draconian bill will not pass at this stage.

Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

17 September 2025

Source: globalresearch.ca

By Joseph Bouchard

On September 2, the Trump administration shared footage purporting to show a US strike on a Venezuelan fishing boat. Even if we take the incident entirely at face value (and there are a lot of reasons to question the video itself)—the US Navy attacked a fishing boat off Venezuela, killing 11 people. On Monday, another strike was allegedly conducted on a boat, killing three people. The way the media has handled these strikes is an indictment of the state of American neoliberal reporting in a neofascist age.

Why hasn’t the mainstream media pressed the administration on these strikes being illegal and dangerous (and unpopular)? Why has no one in Washington considered the implications of calling a fishing boat carrying civilians a legitimate military target? Why isn’t the media calling the Venezuelan boat strike an abhorrent war crime at every turn?

It’s simple; they don’t care about defending the truth or holding the powerful accountable–they have no principles to stand on besides profit and access.

Within hours of these strikes breaking, major outlets were repeating the Trump administration’s line that this was a strike on a “drug boat.” According to this framing, the attacks were justified, necessary, and part of a broader war on drug trafficking. Virtually none of these outlets even entertained the obvious legal and ethical questions. Instead, they served as stenographers for the administration. This is not what an objective (not neutral) press in an advanced democracy does.

This is reminiscent of the Iraq War era, when corporate media parroted the Bush administration’s ludicrous arguments, paving the way for invasion and occupation that would kill at least 200,000, maim millions, and destroy American democracy further.

Legal experts across the spectrum have already stood up to say the killings were illegal. Ilya Somin, a professor at George Mason University’s conservative Antonin Scalia Law School, called the strike “unjust and illegal.” Jeremy Wildeman, an adjunct professor of international Affairs at Carleton University and fellow at the Human Rights Research and Education Centre in Ottawa, described it as “part of the dangerous and ongoing erosion of due process and the very basic principles of how we interact with each other in domestic and foreign affairs, regulated by accepted norms, rules, and laws, that the Trump administration has been pointedly hostile toward following and specifically undermining.”

Wildeman added that “this is definitely about regime change and domination.” Even the Atlantic Council hedged, acknowledging that the legality was at best murky and in some cases advancing arguments to justify it. Meanwhile, US Vice President JD Vance bluntly stated that he does not care if the strikes are war crimes at all.

The available evidence does suggest this was an outright criminal massacre. The first boat was, we now know thanks to Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), turning back to shore, not threatening US forces when it was fired upon. Those killed would be civilians. Even if they were transporting drugs, drug couriers are not lawful combatants. They are criminals under domestic law, not combatants in an armed conflict.

Due process was ignored. There was no trial, no arrest, no attempt at interdiction—just summary execution. And the strikes occurred in Venezuelan territorial waters, not in an international conflict zone. If another country did this, say Russia bombing a fishing boat in the Baltic, or China attacking smugglers near Taiwan, the Western media would have declared it a war crime the same day. Add this to the list of Western double standards in the international arena—we are seeing the destruction of the “liberal order” in real time.

These strikes are not a one-off. They fit into decades of US policy toward Venezuela, including economic sanctions, diplomatic isolation, and repeated regime change attempts. For 25 years, Washington has tried to topple the governments of Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro through economic sabotage, coups, and support for far-right opposition. The humanitarian toll of those sanctions has been devastating. They have themselves emboldened the repression brought about by the Maduro government, which has used America as a scapegoat, with reason, for all its faults.

Now, with this attack, we see a dangerous escalation from economic to military means. If the precedent is set that the US can strike targets inside Venezuela (this was in Venezuela’s national waters) with impunity, it opens the door to a broader military campaign. That is exactly what think tanks like the Center for Strategic and International Studies have been preparing for. One CSIS report, now deleted, explicitly laid out “options for regime change” in Venezuela, against the “Maduro narco-terrorist regime.”

So why is the media so unwilling to call this what it is? Major outlets fear losing access to government sources if they challenge the official narrative. They also simply don’t want to admit that America is committing crimes, and may not be the moral actors in every major geopolitical event, as they were taught throughout their lives. Going back to Noam Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent 101, corporate interests are also important, with companies like Exxon and Chevron having billions at stake in Venezuela’s oil fields (and a US-backed government running things in Caracas). US military action that destabilizes or topples Maduro could directly benefit those firms.

Many of the analysts quoted in media coverage are from think tanks funded by the defense industry or oil companies. They have an interest in exaggerating Venezuela’s threat and downplaying US abuses, to make the US intervention seem justified and good. And reporters too often repackage leaks from US intelligence agencies as fact, without independently verifying. A lot of the “analysis” on the strikes in mainstream news has been from the intelligence agencies, who have a direct incentive to lie and manipulate information in favor of regime change.

Even respected outlets have contributed to this dynamic. The New York Times and Wall Street Journal have both amplified the claim that Venezuela is a “narco-terrorist state.” That claim has been debunked by organizations like InSight Crime and the International Crisis Group, which show that while drugs transit Venezuela, it is hardly unique; Colombia and Mexico play a much larger role in global cocaine markets, yet they remain US allies.

Meanwhile, outlets like the Christian Science Monitor are pushing a narrative that “more Latin Americans welcome US intervention,” based on flimsy and cherry-picked anecdotes that, once again, helps the Trump administration lay the groundwork for more meddling and war. Would the Marines be greeted as liberators in Caracas? The hope is to expand the “War on Drugs” into the “War on Terror,” giving the US military more tools to intervene in Latin America, and then bringing repression to the home front (also called the Imperial Boomerang theory). In reality, the region is increasingly turning away from Washington’s militaristic and blusterous approach, seeking alternative frameworks to the failed War on Drugs.

Joseph Bouchard is a journalist and researcher from Québec covering security and democracy in Latin America.

17 September 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Azmat Ali

On 9 September, an Israeli airstrike in Doha killed six people, including a Qatari citizen, when jets struck a Hamas political office. This attack in a neutral state hosting ceasefire talks undermined diplomacy itself. Months earlier, on 13 June, Israeli strikes killed 950 inside Iran, including senior military personnel, expanding the violence into yet another sovereign state. These events show that Israeli aggression is no longer confined to Palestine but extends across the region.

For decades, Palestinians have endured wars, occupation, and blockade. Families have been torn apart, homes reduced to rubble, and children denied the basic right to safety. On 15 August 2025, famine (IPC Phase 5) was confirmed in Gaza Governorate. After 22 months of relentless conflict, more than half a million people face starvation, destitution, and death. A further 1.07 million (54%) are in Emergency (IPC Phase 4) and 396,000 (20%) in Crisis (IPC Phase 3). This is not a natural disaster but a man-made one, driven by blockade, bombardment, and deliberate attacks on civilians.

Inside Gaza the catastrophe is beyond words. More than two million people remain trapped in what has long been called the world’s largest “open-air prison.” Since October 2023, bombardments have killed over 64,000 people, many of them children. Entire families have been erased, hospitals and schools destroyed, mosques reduced to rubble. Restrictions on aid convoys, food, water, and electricity have deepened famine conditions. The United Nations and humanitarian organisations have warned repeatedly that this is not collateral damage but collective punishment. By legal definition, it constitutes genocide. The International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) has already declared Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide.

Killing civilians, starving millions, and destroying homes is not defence—it is genocide. Yet while global opinion increasingly recognises Palestinian suffering, powerful states remain complicit through silence or selective outrage. Human rights are defended elsewhere but denied to Palestinians. Gaza has become the ultimate test of the credibility of the international order.

For Muslims, Gaza is not only a humanitarian crisis but a test of conscience. The Qur’an permits resistance against oppression but forbids excess: “Do not exceed the limits. Allah does not like transgressors” (2:190-193). Verses such as 4:75 also call on believers to defend the oppressed. These teachings make clear that resistance, when oppression becomes unbearable, is both legitimate and necessary. To interpret them as demanding only passive patience is to distort their meaning.

Palestinians have long embodied this principle through sumud—steadfastness. Their resilience, both spiritual and physical, represents active defiance in the face of overwhelming odds. International law also recognises the right of peoples under occupation to resist, including through  means of struggle. United Nations resolutions, including Security Council 605 (1987), 607 (1988), and 608 (1988), reaffirm the legitimacy of struggles for independence and self-determination against colonial domination and foreign occupation. Palestinian resistance is therefore not terrorism, as often claimed, but a lawful and moral struggle against occupation.

Yet resistance cannot be confined to the battlefield. It must extend into politics and diplomacy. Protests and charity drives matter but are not enough. The occupation is structural, and so must be the response. The two-state solution, though battered, remains the most widely recognised framework for peace: an independent Palestinian state, based on 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital. Without sovereignty, Palestinians remain trapped in dispossession and apartheid. The alternative is permanent occupation and eventual erasure.

Muslim states must act not only as donors but as political actors. Diplomatic pressure must be applied at the United Nations, the International Criminal Court, and all global forums. Economic tools—boycotts, divestment, and sanctions—remain powerful non-violent means to hold Israel accountable. Civil society worldwide should also reject normalisation that erases Palestinian suffering. The Abraham Accords and similar deals cannot be accepted if they come at the cost of Palestinian sovereignty.

Faith, too, demands action. To pray for Gaza while remaining passive misunderstands the link between divine mercy and human responsibility. Mercy becomes real when believers mobilise their voices, resources, and pressure against tyranny.

The attacks in Gaza, the strike in Qatar, the escalation into Iran, and the famine consuming Palestinian lives must all be seen as parts of the same policy of destruction. The obligation is clear: resist, organise, and demand justice.

Gaza today is not only a wound on Palestine but on the conscience of the world. It challenges us to decide whether we will accept an international order where a people can be starved, bombed, and erased with impunity. For Muslims, the answer cannot be rhetoric alone. It must be solidarity expressed through action, rooted in faith and in the universal demand for justice.

To stand with Gaza is not simply to oppose occupation. It is to affirm life, dignity, and the right of a people to be free. If Muslims can unite in this cause, Gaza will not remain only a symbol of suffering but also of resistance, resilience, and the struggle for justice. The way forward is uncompromising: end the occupation, stop the genocide, and establish an independent Palestinian state. Anything less is betrayal—of faith, of humanity, and of Gaza’s children who still dream of freedom.

Azmat Ali is a student at the School of Language, Literature and Culture Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

17 September 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Stan Cox

The Palestinian armed resistance has defended Gaza for almost two years now, successfully preventing Israel from expelling two million people from their homeland. But, outgunned as they are by Israel’s technology and its unlimited supply of war matériel from the United States, the resistance fighters now need the world’s help—and soon—to drive out the Israeli occupation forces and end the genocide. There’s a realistic mechanism to make that happen under United Nations auspices, so a growing global movement is now demanding that the UN get off its butt and come to Gaza’s rescue.

Palestine’s Armed Resistance Hasn’t Let Israel “Finish the Job”

At this stage of the Gaza genocide, the Israelis’ ostensible goals are (a) to free the captives who remain in Gaza, all of whom are soldiers (that is, prisoners of war) and (b) to “destroy Hamas.” But its leaders have repeatedly made clear their true intentions: to nix all ceasefire proposals as they proceed to completely empty the Gaza Strip of its Palestinian population through some combination of mass killing and expulsion.

To “destroy Hamas,” as they put it, the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) would have to fight the organization’s armed wing—the Al Qassam Brigades—and its allied resistance groups in person, on their turf. Instead, out of cowardice, the Israelis have largely avoided direct engagement, instead turning all their firepower on Gaza’s civilian population and its infrastructure for sustaining life and health.  

When Israeli troops have dared to enter Gaza and tried to occupy the camps and cities (instead of just bombing them into rubble), the resistance forces have inflicted heavy casualties on them and destroyed or disabled large numbers of their tanks, armored personnel carriers, and bulldozers. As recently as September 15, the Israeli military’s chief of staff admitted to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a cabinet meeting that “even after the operation to capture Gaza City, Hamas will not be defeated militarily and administratively.”

In all ceasefire negotiations, Israel has demanded that the resistance forces, whom they have failed to defeat militarily, must nevertheless surrender and be disarmed. All the while, in other venues, Zionist leaders are declaring their intention to continue bombing, shooting, and starving Palestinian civilians as part of a campaign to drive them south, herd them into concentration camps near the border with Egypt, and from there, forcibly remove them to various countries in Africa and Asia—in Zionist leaders’ terms, to “finish the job.”

That phase of the genocide would be much further advanced today had there been no armed Palestinian resistance doggedly thwarting IOF troops’ attempts to capture and hold large areas of Gaza. If the resistance forces were now to give up that struggle, IOF efforts to slaughter, starve, imprison, and expel Gaza’s civilian population could and would shift into overdrive. As the Electronic Intifada’s Ali Abunimah has starkly put it, Western governments can demand that the resistance give up their weapons “till the cows come home,” but “they’re not going to, because they know that would ensure the ‘Final Solution’” for the people of Gaza. (at 2 hr 38 min)

UN General Assembly to the Rescue?

While Palestine’s national liberation forces have succeeded in foiling the IOF’s attempts to steal and depopulate Gaza, the fighters don’t have the resources required to drive out a large, genocidal army, lavishly supplied with US weaponry, or to keep Israelis off their land and out of their airspace, let alone break the 18-year-long siege of the territory. But if enough nations, ones that are not complicit in the genocide, join forces, they could stop it.

When a genocide is in progress, nations have a duty under international law to try to stop it. So far, Yemen’s de facto government, Ansar Allah, with its missile attacks on Israeli ships, military installations, and airports, is the only one taking its duty to intervene in this genocide seriously. Although the Yemeni people are paying a heavy price for their humanitarian intervention, their solidarity with Palestine has grown even stronger.

One such ally, of course, is not enough to end the genocide. The Palestinian people need a large international armed force to converge on Gaza by air, sea, and land, to join the resistance fighters in protecting the civilian population and putting an end to the genocide. And, as luck would have it, there’s a little-known, decades-old mechanism for doing just that: UN General Assembly Resolution 377 (V), adopted in 1950 under the title “Uniting for Peace.”

Uniting for Peace authorizes the General Assembly to request that its member nations intervene in cases of military aggression when the Security Council fails to act (which the council always does when it comes to Israel, thanks to the US veto). By a two-thirds majority, the General Assembly (in which each member nation has one vote and there are no vetoes) can pass a resolution enabling the formation and deployment of a multinational military force to come to Gaza’s rescue.

And that might just happen. Spurred by a clamor from global civil society, the UN may consider an armed-intervention resolution this month, during the 80^th Session of the General Assembly in New York City.

A Uniting for Peace resolution can kick off a joint effort among nations to take any of a range of actions, such as imposing sweeping sanctions and military embargoes against Israel or even expelling it from the UN. Most importantly, the 1950 resolution authorized the General Assembly to make “appropriate recommendations to Members for collective measures, including in the case of a breach of the peace or act of aggression the use of armed force when necessary, to maintain or restore international peace and security.”

Experts urge that stopping the genocide requires adopting a resolution that mandates the deployment, at Palestine’s request, of a multinational protection force to Gaza. These troops would be empowered to “protect civilians, open entry points via land and sea, [and] facilitate humanitarian aid,” along with forcing Israel’s complete withdrawal from Gaza’s territory, coastal waters, and airspace, while preserving evidence of its war crimes, crimes against humanity, apartheid, and genocide.

Once such a resolution is passed, the UN Secretary-General is required to invite member nations to contribute troops, equipment, and supplies to the military force, which must then be quickly assembled and deployed.

Prevailing Against US-Israel Obstruction

Craig Mokhiber, a former senior UN official who resigned in October of 2023 while warning that genocide was coming to Gaza, is one of the most prominent advocates for a UN resolution to deploy an armed protection force. In a Middle East Eye article last month, he stressed that the genocide being wrought by Israel “requires intervention, the State of Palestine has invited intervention, and Palestinian civil society has appealed for intervention.” A multinational military force, he wrote, is necessary to help the Palestinian people out of this immediate crisis. But in the longer run, he added, “genocide (and apartheid) will only end through resistance against the Israeli regime, the steadfastness of the Palestinian people, the solidarity of the rest of the world, and the isolation, weakening, defeat, and dismantling of the Israeli regime.” 

Mokhiber is optimistic that the resolution can get ‘Yes’ votes from the required two-thirds of General Assembly members. However, he warns,

The U.S. and the Israeli regime will use every available carrot and stick to try to prevent the securing of the necessary two-thirds majority, seeking to water down the text, and bribing and threatening states to vote no, to abstain, or to be absent for the vote. The current lawless government in Washington may even threaten sanctions on behalf of the Israeli regime, as it has already done vis-à-vis the International Criminal Court and the UN’s Special Rapporteur. And they are likely to try to obstruct the protection force itself, once mandated.

Mokhiber doesn’t say so explicitly, but it seems to me that any US-Israeli attempt to “obstruct the protection force” could include a range of actions that might well lead to direct armed conflict with the protection force.

Alfred de Zayas, a former UN Independent Expert on International Order, explained in a recent CounterPunch article why “Israel has no authority, no sovereignty, and no rights in Gaza or in the West Bank,” while UN-approved troops would be in Gaza legally at the request of Palestine. But the occupiers have broken every other international law they’ve encountered, so it would be no surprise if they were to attack the UN’s protection force, which, I presume, would be authorized to fight back in defense of themselves and the civilian population.

I haven’t seen anything in the various calls for a Uniting for Peace resolution regarding specific actions the protection force would be allowed to take. Mokhiber has said that the troops would be dispatched to protect Palestinians, not attack Israelis. It seems to me, though, that if they’re to carry their protective mission, UN troops must be authorized to enforce a no-fly zone over Gaza and shoot down Israeli (or US!) aircraft that violate it.

I’m way out on a limb at this point, but if a no-fly zone is not permissible, I think it should be. As the Palestinian resistance has shown, the IOF are effective fighters only when they’re in the cockpit of a fighter-bomber or sitting safely back at their home base controlling a drone. They’re no good at fighting on terra firma. With a no-fly zone in place, therefore, the multinational force could be highly effective in protecting Gaza’s civilian population, pushing out the Israelis, and helping bring a surge of humanitarian aid, other supplies, and infrastructure into the territory.

I’ve felt a little more optimistic that IOF troops can be purged from Gaza without setting off full-blown armed conflict since hearing Craig Mokhiber discuss prospects for a protection force on The Electronic Intifada’s livestream of September 11. He cautioned that with the General Assembly session starting soon in New York and the many possibilities being discussed, the creation and deployment of a protection force is far from guaranteed. But, he imagined, “if a force made up [hypothetically] of Spanish, Irish, Slovenian, South African, Namibian, Kenyan, Malaysian, and Indonesian contingents sailing under a UN flag” approaches Gaza, it is “not obvious that Israel would be in a position to attack such a force.” And if Israeli forces do attack the UN troops, he added, even more nations might be inspired to join the intervention.

Whatever the chances that an armed protection force can be successfully assembled and deployed, Mokhiber concluded, civil society around the world must demand as loudly as possible that the UN establish and deploy an armed protection force for Gaza.

“If we ask for it and they don’t do it,” he said, “it’s their sin. If we don’t ask for it, it’s our sin.”

Stan Cox is the author of The Path to a Livable Future: A New Politics to Fight Climate Change, Racism, and the Next Pandemic, The Green New Deal and Beyond: Ending the Climate Emergency While We Still Can, and the current In Real Time climate series at City Lights Books.

17 September 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Quds News Network

Gaza (QNN)- Despite repeated Israeli forced displacement threats and relentless bombardment, Gaza’s Government Media Office confirmed on Tuesday that more than one million Palestinians in the north of the enclave remain “rooted” to their land.

The Office said out of 1.3 million people in Gaza City and towns to its north, about 190,000 have fled to the south while 15,000 returned to the north due to the dire conditions in the areas that the Israeli military had designated as “safe zones”.

The local authorities noted that Israel has been regularly attacking Rafah and al-Mawasi near Khan Younis, where it told people to flee.

“These areas completely lack the basic necessities of life, with no hospitals, no infrastructure, and no essential services such as water, food, shelter, electricity or education, making living there almost impossible,” the Office said in a statement.

This area amounts to no more than 12 percent of the total area of the Gaza Strip, it added, noting Israeli occupation is “trying to forcibly confine over 1.7 million people within this limited space, as part of a broader plan to establish what are effectively ‘concentration camps.’”

“This is part of a systematic policy of forced displacement aimed at emptying northern Gaza and Gaza City of their residents, a clear war crime and a crime against humanity, in blatant violation of international law and international humanitarian law.”

Israeli forces have intensified their attacks on Gaza City as part of plans to occupy it, with Palestinians fleeing amid relentless bombardment and dire humanitarian conditions.

What’s Happening?

Thousands of Palestinians are being forcibly displaced each day by Israel’s ongoing, indiscriminate bombing of Gaza City, which is killing dozens of civilians daily.

Families are fleeing south, following Israeli threats to head to the so-called ‘safe zone’ of al-Mawasi, an area that is overcrowded and has been repeatedly targeted by Israeli forces.

According to local sources on the ground, Gaza City is being systematically emptied, building by building, family by family.

Sources added that Israeli forces have intensified their attacks on the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood, as well as the Shati and Remal, destroying dozens of residential buildings and shelters.

Gaza’s Government Media Office said on Sunday Israel has carried out “systematic bombing of towers, residential buildings, schools and civilian institutions with the aim of extermination and forced displacement” as its offensive on Gaza City continues.

“While it claims to be targeting the resistance, the field realities prove beyond doubt that the occupation deliberately and according to a clear methodology bombs schools, mosques, hospitals and medical centres, destroys towers and residential buildings, destroys displaced persons’ tents, and targets the headquarters of various institutions including international institutions working in the humanitarian field,” it said in a statement.

Civil Defense spokesperson Mahmoud Basal said, “What is falling on Gaza is not just missiles, but barrels of fire and destructive volcanic lava that burn the land and everything on it.”

This comes amid Israeli plans to occupy Gaza City and ethnically cleansing the northern city of its residents by forcibly displacing them.

Heavy bombardment pounded the city, and forces began moving in from the outskirts after weeks of deadly strikes.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed the launch of “a powerful operation in Gaza” that began on Tuesday, dubbed Gideon’s Chariots 2.

The deadly assault on Gaza City was met with celebration in Israel, as Defense Minister Israel Katz said that “Gaza [City] is burning.”

The offensive began the same day that independent experts commissioned by the United Nations Human Rights Council confirmed that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

17 September 2025

Source: countercurrents.org