Just International

Israel Guilty of Extermination in Gaza, UN Report Finds

By Quds News Network

Gaza (Quds News Network)- Israel has committed the crime against humanity of extermination in Gaza, according to a damning new report by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry. The report states that Israeli forces systematically target civilians sheltering in schools, mosques, and cultural sites across the besieged territory.

The Commission also found that Israeli forces committed war crimes, including wilful killing and directing attacks at civilians, especially in educational and religious facilities. These attacks have devastated Gaza’s civilian life and infrastructure and amounted to a deliberate effort to erase Palestinian identity and future.

“We are seeing more and more indications that Israel is carrying out a concerted campaign to obliterate Palestinian life in Gaza,” said Navi Pillay, Chair of the Commission and former UN human rights chief.

he report found that Israel destroyed or damaged over 90% of Gaza’s school and university buildings and more than half of its religious and cultural sites. Hundreds of thousands of children have been denied access to education for nearly two years. The commission says this scale of destruction reflects intent to exterminate a protected group and deny them the means to survive and thrive.

Cultural Erasure and War Crimes

The Commission documented Israeli airstrikes, shelling, arson, and controlled demolitions that targeted education facilities. In several cases, Israeli soldiers filmed themselves mocking Palestinians before destroying schools. Such actions, it said, demonstrate intent to permanently destroy the Palestinian education system.

In attacking civilians sheltering in mosques and schools, Israel committed the crime of extermination under international law. While the destruction of cultural sites is not in itself genocidal, the report notes it may infer genocidal intent when combined with other actions aimed at destroying a population.

The report also confirms that Israeli forces used Gaza schools and universities for military purposes, including converting part of Al-Azhar University into a synagogue for soldiers.

The report strongly condemns Israel’s systematic and disproportionate attacks, which violated international law requiring distinction between civilian and military objects.

The report says Israel deliberately destroyed 10 major cultural and religious sites in Gaza with no military justification. Artefacts were looted or destroyed, and civilian heritage was erased. The Commission says this erasure of culture is part of a broader campaign to weaken Palestinian collective identity.

“The destruction of cultural and religious life harms not just the present generation but generations to come,” said Pillay. “It erodes Palestinians’ historical ties to the land.”

West Bank Also Targeted

The Commission also documented severe impacts on the education system in the occupied West Bank and the eastern part of Jerusalem. Over 806,000 students have faced harassment, school closures, and settler violence. Israeli authorities have done little to prevent or prosecute these attacks.

In the eastern part of Jerusalem, religious worship at Al-Aqsa Mosque has been heavily restricted. Israeli forces have carried out militarized raids and allowed increased access to Jewish settlers, triggering tension and eroding Palestinian religious freedoms.

The report will be formally presented to the UN Human Rights Council on June 17, 2025.

Israel, which withdrew from the Council in February, has previously accused it of bias. After the Commission’s March report accused Israel of committing genocidal acts by targeting Gaza’s reproductive healthcare system, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed the council as “anti-Semitic” and “irrelevant.”

But Navi Pillay said the findings are based on international legal standards and rigorous investigation.

“Children in Gaza have lost their childhood,” she said. “They live without education, without safety, and with no hope. This is not just war. This is extermination.”

11 June 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

Israel recruits local gangs and foreign mercenaries, turning aid distribution centres into mass slaughterhouse

By Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor 

Palestinian Territory – Israeli forces are employing a local armed gang involved in aid theft, along with foreign mercenaries from a US private security firm, to kill starving Palestinian civilians near food distribution centres in Rafah. These groups are also tasked with inciting chaos and contributing to the systematic destruction of essential services and livelihoods in the Gaza Strip.

Euro-Med Monitor’s field team documented Israeli forces, along with members of an armed gang they had formed, opening fire on hundreds of civilians attempting to reach an army-established aid distribution centre west of Rafah. Fourteen Palestinians have been killed so far, reflecting the role of these gangs as enforcers of a policy of mass killing.

Our team verified the testimonies of over 12 witnesses, several of whom were injured on Monday morning’s violence in the Al-Alam area west of Rafah, as civilians tried to obtain food aid.

According to witness testimonies, a crowd of starving civilians headed to the area after receiving news of an aid delivery. They were met by armoured four-wheel-drive military vehicles carrying armed men in uniforms bearing an insignia that included the words ‘Palestinian Counter-Terrorism Service’ along with a Palestinian flag. This uniform is specific to an armed gang formed by Yaser Abu Shabab, which operates in direct coordination with Israeli forces and controls certain areas.

Meanwhile, gang members ordered civilians to line up, then abruptly told them to disperse, claiming there would be no aid that day. Driven by hunger and desperation, the crowd continued toward the distribution centre, only to be met with a barrage of direct gunfire from the Israeli-commanded gang, resulting in civilian casualties. When the brother of one wounded man objected to the shooting, he was also shot at close range and likely killed on the spot.

As tensions escalated and the armed gang lost control, its members retreated toward Israeli military positions. Israeli forces then intervened, joining them in random and direct gunfire using military vehicles, quadcopters, and Apache helicopters. The assault forcibly dispersed the crowd, killed at least 14 civilians, and injured dozens more.

Euro-Med Monitor received credible information that a foreign mercenary employed by the US security company overseeing the aid distribution centre shot and killed a civilian. Tear gas was also repeatedly used to disperse aid seekers.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has explicitly acknowledged the formation of an armed tribal militia known as the ‘Abu Shabab Gang’ to carry out combat missions in the Gaza Strip. Our data indicates that this gang is also involved in looting aid, including UN trucks, through armed robberies conducted under the protection of Israeli quadcopters. The stolen goods are then transported to Israeli-controlled areas and sold at exorbitant prices.

The repeated involvement of this armed gang is deeply alarming, as it deliberately opens fire on civilian crowds at aid distribution centres and along truck routes, resulting in deaths and injuries, including among women and children, in gruesome scenes that reveal Israel’s transformation of the hunger crisis into a systematic tool for mass killing.

Members of the US private security company operating within Israeli-imposed aid distribution centres in the Gaza Strip engage in combat operations against civilians and carry out field missions in direct coordination with the Israeli military, which provides them with weapons, equipment, and operational orders on the ground.

Given the nature of their role, their participation in hostilities outside their home countries and on behalf of a foreign military force may qualify them as ‘mercenaries’ under the 1989 International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries, which explicitly prohibits such involvement.

Additionally, the ‘Abu Shabab Gang’ is a local irregular armed force created by the Israeli army, operating under its direct supervision and receiving logistical and weapons support. The gang conducts security and field operations that help enforce control over the population, including dispersing crowds, blocking access to aid, and committing acts of violence and killings against civilians.

Although members of this group are residents of the Gaza Strip, the nature of their operational coordination with the Israeli army renders Israel legally responsible for their actions. As the occupying power, Israel is bound by the Fourth Geneva Convention to protect the civilian population and prevent its agents from committing violations against them.

The Israeli authorities’ authorisation of foreign actors, including private military contractors and local armed groups such as the ‘Abu Shabab Gang,’ to operate inside the Gaza Strip under their direct supervision or in coordination with them does not absolve Israel of legal responsibility; it reinforces and deepens it.

Under international humanitarian law, an occupying power remains responsible for all acts committed within territories under its effective control, whether by official forces or by irregular entities acting with its authorisation or with its explicit or tacit consent.

This responsibility extends to all serious violations committed by these actors, including extrajudicial killings, the deliberate denial of humanitarian aid, the use of starvation as a method of warfare, and the use of mercenaries in hostile acts against the civilian population. Furthermore, Israel’s authorisation of local groups to carry out security and combat missions against civilians, while providing them with weapons, air support, and coordinated movement, constitutes a dangerous pattern of violations for which Israel bears direct responsibility.

Israeli practices are not isolated violations, but part of a systematic policy aimed at dismantling the social structure of the Gaza Strip and expanding impunity by outsourcing violence to external and local actors. This calls for immediate action by the international community to ensure accountability for these grave and complex crimes.

An immediate and independent international investigation must be launched into the grave crimes committed by members of the ‘Abu Shabab Gang’ and foreign mercenaries working with the US private security company. Those involved must be prosecuted before the competent international judiciary or under national jurisdictions, whether through regional mandates or the principle of universal jurisdiction, given the severity of the crimes committed.

Euro-Med Monitor calls for the US security company to be added to the list of entities complicit in international crimes, and for a ban on its contracting with any international or governmental agency.

The Palestinian Authority must clearly and decisively state its position on the gang, which has repeatedly claimed coordination with parties within the Authority. A transparent internal investigation must be launched to examine any potential coordination between gang members and officials in the Authority, and legal action must be taken against anyone found to be involved in or complicit with violations against civilians.

All states, both individually and collectively, must fulfil their legal responsibilities by taking urgent action to stop the genocide in the Gaza Strip, through implementing effective measures to protect Palestinian civilians; ensuring Israel’s compliance with international law and the decisions of the International Court of Justice; preventing the implementation of the US-Israeli forced displacement plan; and holding Israel and its more powerful allies accountable for all crimes against the Palestinians in the Strip. The International Criminal Court must implement the arrest warrants for the Israeli Prime Minister and Minister of Defence at the earliest opportunity, in accordance with the principle that there is no immunity for international crimes.

The international community must also impose economic, diplomatic, and military sanctions on Israel and its allies, particularly the United States, for such grave violations of international law. These sanctions should include arms embargoes; a ban on the export and import of parts, software, and dual-use goods; an end to all political, financial, and military support; freezing the assets of officials involved in crimes against Palestinians and imposing travel bans on these officials; suspending the operations of Israeli and US military and security companies in international markets and freezing their assets; and suspending trade privileges and bilateral agreements that provide Israel and the US with economic benefits that enable their continued crimes against the Palestinian people.

Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor is a Geneva-based independent organization with regional offices across the MENA region and Europe

11 June 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

31 Starving People Killed in GHF Aid Distribution Point In Gaza

By Countercurrents Collective

Israeli forces killed 31 starved civilians and injured 200 more on Wednesday at an alleged ‘aid distribution point’ near the Israeli-created ‘Netzarim corridor’, according to medical sources in Gaza. Victims were waiting for food when troops opened fire, marking the latest massacre linked to operations run by the Israeli-American Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

Mahmoud Basal, spokesman for Gaza’s Civil Defence confirmed that 31 people were killed and about 200 people have also been wounded and taken to hospitals. He said that the casualties were a result of “Israeli tank and drone fire”.

Al Jazeera spoke to Jaber Al Hawjeri, a father of six who was near an aid distribution site in central Gaza’s so-called Netzarim Corridor when Israeli forces opened fire.

Desperate for food after running out of supplies, even bread, Al Hawjeri said people were “shot at” by what he believes were snipers or drones.

[https://twitter.com/QudsNen/status/1932697205128732740]

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“We went to face death for some humanitarian aid, but we were attacked and left without any food,” he said, adding that his nephew was among the wounded.

“Victims were all over the place … The situation is going from bad to worse. We have no hope at all.”

11 June 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

Palestine Resistance in action in Brussels

By Rima Najjar

Revolutionary resistance for Palestinian militants is both a practical strategy and an ideological commitment to ending occupation

In the Middle Ages, when most of the population was illiterate and couldn’t read the Bible, theatrical performances — especially Mystery Plays and Miracle Plays — were a keyway to teach biblical stories and moral lessons. These plays dramatized bible stories, making divine mysteries visible and understandable to ordinary people. They were the bible in action so to speak.

Medieval Mystery plays came to mind while I was watching the Ahrar Palestine Community theatrical performance at the Resistance Festival in Brussels on June 7. Through a short skit depicting Israeli violence against Palestinians and resistance by armed keffiyeh-masked actors in battle fatigue, Ahrar made the Palestine story vivid and memorable to the audience there.

“Ahrar” (أحرار) means “free people” or “liberators” in Arabic, a term often used in political or revolutionary contexts. The use of performance to highlight occupation, displacement, and national identity has long been part of grassroots cultural resistance in occupied Palestine. The Freedom Theatre in Jenin refugee camp, known for plays like Animal Farm (adapted to critique occupation) and “The Siege” (about the Church of Nativity siege in Bethlehem) and for training actors in resistance storytelling, has faced significant challenges, including arrests, raids, and the assassination of its co-founder, Juliano Mer-Khamis, a Palestinian actor and director who had an Israeli ID. (The other founder is Zakaria Zubeidi, former Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade leader who became an activist.)

In 2022–2023, Mustafa Sheta (theatre manager) and Jamal Abu Joas (actor) were arrested and held under administrative detention (i.e, they were imprisoned with no charges). The theatre continues operating (thanks to the international outcry) but is under severe restrictions.

I mention the experiences of The Freedom Theatre (the most prominent among three such theatres in occupied Palestine — the other two are Al-Kasaba and Al-Harah) in some detail here because of the parallels with the experiences of the annual Resistance Festival in Brussels in terms mixing art and politics to empower Palestinian identity and to spread the message of resistance. Though one is under occupation in Palestine and the other is in Europe, both face repression from Zionist perfidy with similar tactics of repression (alleged guilt by false association with militant Palestinian groups — the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, PFLP, in this case), and both need international grassroots support for protection from Israel and its allies.

The Ahrar Palestine’s performance in Bethlehem Place empowered young people’s Palestinian identity. Several clamored to be photographed with the actors playing militants — representing freedom fighters, not “terrorists”.

In one of the festival panels, Mohammad Khatib, EU coordinator of Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, had this to say:
 
 “We are holding this festival without permission from the municipality. This is the third year the mayor has refused to issue a permit for the festival. Instead, he recognizes it as a ‘tolerated protest.’”

A “tolerated protest” (or “manifestation tolérée” in French/Dutch) is a legal gray zone where authorities allow a demonstration to take place without officially authorizing it. This means that organizers do not have the full legal protections of a permitted event. However, police will not forcibly disperse the demonstration unless violence or major disruptions occur. Authorities may impose strict limits (e.g., on location, duration, or slogans such as “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”). If protesters violate these by deviating from the agreed route, for example, police can intervene. Unlike permitted protests, tolerated ones are more closely monitored, with a higher risk of intervention if things escalate. And since it’s not officially authorized, organizers could face fines or charges if laws are broken.

Brussels uses this status for the Resistance Festival to avoid outright bans, which could spark backlash. To the mayor, Palestine resistance implies endorsement of “incitement to violence against Israel,” and is politically unsavory, hence the “tolerated” status. Revolutionary resistance for Palestinian militants is both a practical strategy and an ideological commitment to ending occupation.

Khatib goes on to say, “… the mayor cannot forbid us to be present in our public spaces; we will be there protesting in Bethlehem Place every end of May beginning of June … we as Samidoun are attacked because we fight for Palestinian resistance. We did so before the 7 of October and we continue to do so after the 7 of Oct. We support the right of the Palestinian people to resist; as an organization, we are nonviolent, but we do not denounce people’s revolutionary resistance; we stand behind it; we support it by all means we can, because this is part of our duty. We stand with the resistance, but we know today it is not only Samidoun that stands with the resistance; tens of thousands of people have been marching and chanting “free Palestine from the river to the sea.”

Many of the Festival activities take place in Bethlehem Place (“Place Bethléem” in French, “Bethlehemplein” in Dutch). It is a public square located in the Marollen/Marolles neighborhood of Brussels and holds significant cultural and political importance for the Palestinian community there, as well as for activists and organizations advocating for Palestine.

The square was officially renamed “Bethlehem Place” in 1988, in a gesture of solidarity with the Palestinian people, particularly those in Bethlehem. The renaming coincided with the First Intifada reflecting Brussels’ leftist and pro-Palestinian political leanings at the time. Zionist groups and politicians have criticized the square’s name and symbolism, but it continues to stand as a rare example of a European public space explicitly dedicated to the Palestinian cause, making it a focal point for both celebration and protest.

Caption: Toufan Al-Aqsa soccer tournament at the Resistance festival on June 7. The names of the competing teams are Leila Khaled, Jabalia, Mohammad Sinwar, Rafah, Mohammad El-Deif and Gaza Stars.

Walking in this area of Brussels (the Marollen), it is easy to have a feel for the working-class people that have historically inhabited it. Nearby, one also finds leftist bookshops, social centers, and migrant-friendly spaces that align with the square’s solidarity ethos.

This Sunday (June 8), pro-Palestine activists involved in the Resistance Festival postponed a planned panel discussion on revolutionary resistance to join hundreds of angry people protesting the police killing of an 11-year-old Moldovan boy called Fabian, who was riding an electric scooter in a park (on June 2nd) when a police vehicle chased and crashed into him causing his death. Demonstrators condemned police brutality, systemic racism in Belgian policing and demanded justice for Fabian.

I was among the protestors at the demonstration demanding justice for Fabian. At one point, a journalist approached me and asked why I had joined the march. Without going into the overlap between police violence in Europe, U.S., and Israeli violence in Palestine, without linking European police brutality to global systems of racism and colonialism, I simply explained that I was in Brussels to attend the Palestine Resistance Festival and that I was marching for Fabian because justice for Palestine is justice for everyone.

Note:  First published on Medium.

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.

10 June 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

“Mass Death Traps and Human Slaughterhouses”: A Timeline of Israeli Attacks on Starving Civilians at US-Backed GHF Aid Sites in Gaza

By Quds News Network

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, according to reports by human rights organisations who have accused it of using starvation as a weapon of war against Palestinains.

On May 27, the controversial US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) began its operations in the Gaza Strip, opening its first of four distribution points in Rafah in southern Gaza.

After more than 80 days of total blockade, starvation, and growing international outrage, limited aid has allegedly been distributed by the 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.

One in five people in Gaza currently face starvation due to the Israeli blockade of food and aid while 93 percent are experiencing acute food shortages, according to a UN-backed assessment released last month.

Through the GHF, Palestinians in Gaza would receive a “basic amount of food,” according to Jake Wood, who resigned as executive director of the foundation two days before the GHF started its operations. Wood said a statement that the group’s plans could not be consistent with the “humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence.”

“Herded Like Animals into Fenced-Off Pens”

Palestinians have also complained about the rush to secure packages inside the distribution centres and the failure of the guards to maintain order. The instructions given to Palestinians are reportedly confusing and contradictory.

Photos and videos circulated on social media at one of GHF’s distribution sites near the so-called Morag Corridor in Rafah showed large crowds lining up in front of metal fences topped with surveillance cameras.

Witnesses described a slow and tightly controlled entry process, with people funnelled through narrow fenced corridors that resembled cattle chutes. Once inside the distribution area, people were subjected to ID checks and eye scans to determine who was permitted to receive aid.

Former UNRWA spokesperson Chris Gunness criticized the Israeli-US aid distribution mechanism, saying it has turned Gaza into a “human abattoir”.

“Hundreds of civilians are herded like animals into fenced-off pens and are slaughtered like cattle in the process,” Gunness said.

“Human Slaughterhouses”

Moreover, since its operations in Gaza, over 130 starving aid seekers waiting for food aid near GHF distribution centres have been killed and 1000 others injured by Israeli forces within two weeks, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry on Monday.

At least nine others are still missing, the Ministry added.

In a statement, Gaza’s Government Media Office condemned the distribution sites as “human slaughterhouses” and “mass death traps”, accusing Israeli forces of luring desperate civilians to their deaths.

“These are war crimes and crimes against humanity,” the statement said, urging an independent international probe and an immediate suspension of GHF’s delivery model.

Here’s a timeline of Israeli attacks on Gaza aid seekers near the GHF’s sites:

  • Tuesday, May 27: 3 killed, 46 wounded, 7 missing in Rafah
  • Wednesday, May 28: 10 killed, 62 wounded in Rafah
  • Sunday, June 1: 35 killed, 200 wounded in Rafah; 1 killed and 32 wounded, 2 missing at the Gaza Valley Bridge
  • Monday, June 2: 26 killed, 92 wounded in Rafah
  • Tuesday, June 3: 27 killed, 90 wounded in Rafah
  • Friday, June 6: 8 killed, 61 wounded in Rafah
  • Sunday, June 8: 13 killed, 135 wounded in Rafah and near Gaza Valley Bridge

Pick a Lie, Any Lie

The Israeli military has, on at least four occasions, admitted to opening fire on aid seekers near GHF sites in Gaza, while offering multiple, often contradictory, stories in an effort to deny responsibility for the killing of desperate, starving civilians. Rather than providing clarity, each version has only deepened the confusion. This apparent attempt to evade accountability has drawn sharp criticism from human rights organizations and international observers.

In one account, the military claimed there were no casualties from the incident. However, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) confirmed that 21 bodies had been brought to its field hospital in Rafah.

Israel’s disinformation campaign has drawn comparisons to previous instances of misleading narratives, including efforts to justify attacks on UN schools, hospitals, and shelters in Gaza.

Observers warn that the spread of fake videos and constantly shifting stories cannot obscure the facts. “The massacre in Rafah is documented,” said Rami Abdu, director of the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor. “No amount of propaganda can whitewash a war crime.”

10 June 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

20 Starved Civilians Killed at ‘Aid Point’ as Massacres Continue in Israeli-US GHF Operations

By Quds News Network

Gaza (Quds News Network)- Israeli forces killed 20 starved civilians and injured dozens more on Tuesday at an alleged ‘aid distribution point’ near the Israeli-created ‘Netzarim corridor’, according to medical sources in Gaza. Victims were waiting for food when troops opened fire, marking the latest massacre linked to operations run by the Israeli-American Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

Senior official from the Gaza Medical Relief Society, Dr. Udai Dabbur, told Al Jazeera:
“Aid centers have become death traps. People are dying every day trying to reach food.”

He added that the food portions at these sites are “very small” and “not enough to feed starving families.” Most injuries near the so-called ‘aid points’ are deadly. “People collapse from hunger in the streets,” he said. Over 76,000 children in Gaza are now registered as malnourished, with the real number likely much higher.

Medical sources confirmed that 36 people arrived at hospitals, including 20 starving civilians who were waiting for food aid.

The hunger crisis is worsening the health emergency. At least 41% of Gaza’s kidney failure patients have died due to a lack of treatment and medical supplies.

GHF Covers Israeli Attacks

The Government Media Office in Gaza issued a harsh statement on Monday, stating that the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) acts as a front for the Israeli army.

According to the statement, GHF has been responsible for over 130 civilian deaths and around 1,000 injuries in just two weeks. “GHF is not a humanitarian agency. It is run by Israeli and American officers and funded by the US government,” the statement said.

It added that GHF lures hungry civilians to military-controlled zones under the guise of distributing aid, where Israeli forces then open fire. At least nine Palestinians remain missing after heading to GHF distribution points.

Officials say GHF violates the core principles of humanitarian work:

  • Neutrality: GHF works alongside Israeli forces and follows their orders.
  • Independence: It receives funding and directives from foreign governments and the Israeli army.
  • Impartiality: It serves Israeli security agendas, not human needs.
  • Humanity: It contributes to civilian suffering, not relief.

The statement stressed that “Any group operating in Israeli-controlled ‘buffer zones’ with tanks and snipers is not humanitarian. It’s part of the killing machine.”

 The Government media office reported that from May 27 to June 9, GHF-operated centers caused at least 125 deaths, 736 injuries, and 9 missing persons. The office called them “slaughterhouses disguised as aid centers.”

It urged the international community to stop falling for GHF’s propaganda and to allow trusted UN agencies to bring in tens of thousands of aid trucks.

10 June 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

Observe June 17 as National Day of Solidarity with Palestine

Condemn Israeli Genocide in Gaza – Demand Change in India’s Stand

We strongly condemn the ongoing genocidal war being waged by the Israeli government against the Palestinian people in Gaza. For over twenty months now, Israel’s relentless bombardment and military aggression have killed more than 55,000 Palestinians – a vast majority of them women and children. Essential infrastructure, hospitals, schools, and refugee shelters have been deliberately targeted, pushing the people of Gaza into an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe. This is nothing short of genocide. Most inhumanely, Israel is even denying the entry of aid into Gaza.

We also condemn Israel’s attack on the humanitarian ship Madleen of the Freedom Flotilla Gaza in international waters. We urge the Indian government to demand the release of all detained international volunteers, ensure unhindered humanitarian aid to Gaza, and call for an immediate end to the inhuman siege.

Despite growing global outrage, including from the UN and the International Court of Justice, the Netanyahu government continues its brutal campaign with impunity, backed by the United States and a few of its allies. The recent attack on Rafah, displacing hundreds of thousands of already displaced Palestinians yet again, shows the Israeli government’s utter disregard for international law, human rights, and basic humanity. The latest instance of the Freedom Flotilla being hijacked from the international waters is evoking widespread protest.

It is deeply disturbing that the Government of India, instead of standing firmly with the Palestinian cause – which India has historically supported – has increasingly adopted a stance of equivocation and appeasement of the Israeli aggressor. This marks a shameful deviation from India’s long-standing foreign policy rooted in anti-colonial solidarity and support for national liberation movements.

We, the undersigned Left parties, call upon all peace-loving, democratic, and secular forces to join the National Day of Solidarity with Palestine on 17th June 2025 throughout the country. In Delhi, the demonstration will be held at Jantar Mantar, at 11.00 a.m on 17th June to:

Condemn the genocide and war crimes committed by the Israeli government.
Express solidarity with the people of Palestine in their just struggle for nationhood, dignity, and freedom.
Demand that the Government of India take a principled stand, consistent with our historical support to the Palestinian cause, and immediately stop all military and security cooperation with Israel.
We urge widespread participation in the solidarity demonstration to raise the voice of India’s people against genocide, apartheid, and occupation.

Signed by:

D. RAJA, General Secretary, Communist Party of India (CPI)
M.A. Baby, General Secretary, Communist Party of India (Marxist) – CPI(M)
Dipankar Bhattacharya, General Secretary, Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation – CPI(ML)
G. Devarajan, General Secretary, All India Forward Bloc (AIFB)
Manoj Bhattacharya, General Secretary, Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP)

10 June 2025

Pride, Propaganda, and the Nuclear Hangover in the Subcontinent

By Prof. Junaid S. Ahmad

More than a month has passed since the deadly terrorist attack in Pahalgam, deep in the restive terrain of Indian-occupied Kashmir. Yet, the region has not exhaled. That attack was the spark; the explosion was narrowly averted—this time. Fighter jets scrambled, missiles were mobilized, and once again the world held its breath as two nuclear-armed rivals, each armed with doomsday in their back pocket, flirted with mutual annihilation.

While the episode may have slipped from international headlines, its implications remain radioactive. South Asia is not a playground, though its leaders often behave like unruly children with grenades. If the world needed a reminder that nuclear deterrence is not a fail-safe, rationally managed insurance policy but a glorified gamble with apocalyptic stakes—this was it.

This wasn’t officially a war. But it was close enough to provoke real questions about the sanity—or lack thereof—guiding the region’s leadership, and the broader geopolitics that embolden them.

No Winners in a Nuclear Firestorm

Let us first dispense with the nationalist pageantry that follows every skirmish between India and Pakistan. There are no victors when nuclear states collide. This is not a cricket match where bragging rights are exchanged over biryani and Bollywood memes. It is a potential extinction-level event. The myth that one side can decisively “win” a war against the other is not just dangerous—it is delusional. In such a conflict, “victory” is synonymous with vaporization.

Nuclear war is the only war where the “first strike” is also the “last mistake.” Both India and Pakistan have built narratives of strength around their capacity to deter one another, but those narratives assume their leaders are rational, stable, and immune to populist bloodlust. If recent history is any guide, that’s a deeply hazardous assumption.

Kashmir: The Forgotten Epicenter

Amid all the saber-rattling, missile-counting, and testosterone-soaked monologues from news anchors on both sides of the border, the most important reality—the brutalized lives of Kashmiris—vanishes into the fog of war games. It’s a remarkable trick of geopolitical distraction: the occupied become a footnote, the oppressed rendered invisible. Kashmir, the powder keg at the center of this madness, is not just a disputed territory—it is a living, bleeding reminder of unfulfilled promises and colonial leftovers. While Delhi and Islamabad perform their ritualistic chest-thumping, the people of Kashmir remain locked under surveillance, silenced by curfews, and suffocated by a military presence so pervasive it would make apartheid strategists blush. The right to self-determination, so casually championed in Western capitals when convenient, finds no champions here. Like the Palestinians, Kashmiris are expected to endure occupation quietly, their resistance mislabeled as ‘terrorism,’ their pain dismissed as background noise. In the nuclear theatre of South Asia, they are not even cast as actors—merely collateral set dressing for a show they never auditioned for.

India’s Sub-Imperial Delusions

India, for all its economic swagger and Western endorsements, remains a sub-imperial power largely punching itself in the face. The notion that aligning with American hegemony has elevated its regional standing grows increasingly farcical. As a subservient junior partner in Washington’s Indo-Pacific strategy, India plays sidekick to a declining empire, all while its internal fractures deepen.

Domestically, the country is a simmering pot of sectarianism and authoritarianism. Internationally, India has learned that buying Western military tech and mimicking Washington’s rhetoric doesn’t guarantee strategic supremacy. What good is a billion-dollar weapons cache if it cannot prevent a border incursion or a humiliating drone interception? Sub-imperialism may earn you applause in think tank panels, but on the battlefield, reality is a far less generous evaluator.

The Modi government’s chest-thumping in the wake of the Pahalgam attack, amplified by India’s hyper-nationalist media, was revealing. This wasn’t policy—it was performance art. A volatile cocktail of wounded pride and Hindutva paranoia turned the threat of war into spectacle. And spectacle into potential catastrophe.

Rational Actors Don’t Start Fires with Gasoline

Following Pakistan’s successful deterrence and its calibrated military response, a comforting narrative began circulating: that deterrence had worked, that tensions would now cool, that the worst was over. This is the lullaby of rational-choice theorists who still believe men with nuclear buttons act like emotionless chess players—immune to ego, history, and political pressure.

But we’ve seen this movie before. And in South Asia, the villains never die—they just get re-elected.

India is a wounded tiger at present—its pride bruised, its media frenzied, and its ruling class under immense pressure to perform strength. That makes it more dangerous, not less. When regimes derive their legitimacy from dominance, any sign of parity becomes intolerable. The urge to “hit back harder” next time—to reassert superiority—lurks ominously in the background. This wasn’t an ending, merely an intermission.

Western Arms, Brown Battlefields

Let us not forget the role of the great powers—the true puppet masters of this regional tragedy. For decades, South Asia has been a profitable theater for arms dealers, military contractors, and imperial strategists. Washington, in particular, has played both sides with a brazenness that would make a colonial viceroy blush. It preaches peace while selling India advanced military systems, lectures Pakistan about democracy while greenlighting Israeli spyware for New Delhi.

To the architects of global power, hundreds of millions of brown lives are nothing more than collateral calculus. Testing drones, radar jammers, and missile shields in Gaza was bad enough. But testing them in South Asia? Even better. Low-cost, high-reward. What better terrain to experiment in than among “superfluous” populations already deemed burdens on the global order?

The U.S. military-industrial complex doesn’t care whether Delhi or Islamabad survives. It only cares that both keep buying.

Chinese Tech, Pakistani Pride

One of the most consequential takeaways from this latest pseudo-conflict was the effectiveness of Chinese military technology. Under combat conditions, Pakistan’s Chinese-supplied radar and missile systems held their own, even outpacing some of India’s more expensive Western hardware.

This sent quiet shockwaves through Western capitals. For the first time, Chinese military exports weren’t just affordable—they were battle-tested. The implications are immense. It’s a shift not just in the Indo-Pak balance, but in the global arms market. A credible Chinese alternative is now firmly in the mix.

Predictably, Pakistan’s military elite rushed to take credit. Army Chief Asim Munir strutted like a peacock, casting himself as the mastermind behind Pakistan’s restraint and control. He even indulged in the farcical fantasy of self-appointing as “Field Marshal.” It would be amusing if it weren’t so tragic.

The reality is far less flattering. Pakistan’s deterrence held not because of Munir’s strategic genius, but thanks to the engineers—Pakistani and Chinese—who built dependable systems, and the disciplined air force officers who operated them. The generals, as ever, are more adept at plotting domestic coups than defending borders.

The Phantom of Imran Khan

While the generals preened, one man remained locked in a prison cell: Imran Khan. The wildly popular former Prime Minister, incarcerated on ridiculous charges, still casts a long shadow over Pakistan’s political landscape. His absence is not merely political—it is symbolic.

The message to the public is clear: loyalty to the military trumps public mandate. The message to the rank-and-file within the armed forces is worse: your service means little unless it aligns with elite interests.

This contradiction is unsustainable. Many in the military, offended by Khan’s treatment and disgusted by elite corruption, now view the top brass with suspicion, if not outright disdain. The chasm between soldier and general is widening—and no number of medals can plaster over that decay.

Toward Real Liberation

The only real victory awaiting Indians and Pakistanis alike lies not in missiles or dogfights, but in dismantling the internal tyrannies that keep both nations locked in cycles of fear, war, and dependency.

For India, that means rejecting the fascist Hindutva project and building a genuinely pluralist democracy before authoritarianism becomes permanent. For Pakistan, it means breaking the totalitarian grip of the military and dynastic mafias masquerading as governance.

For both, it means finally completing the project that began in 1947: true decolonization.

Decolonization is not merely about lowering a foreign flag. It is about rejecting the imperial operating system—one that teaches you to fear your neighbor more than your overlords, to worship Western power while loathing your own, to exchange your sovereignty for IMF loans and American weapons.

True sovereignty lies not in nuclear arsenals but in justice, dignity, and democracy.

The Final Lesson

This latest near-war was more than a border incident—it was a historical tremor. It served as a warning, not only to Delhi and Islamabad but to all of South Asia. As long as India and Pakistan remain trapped in the logic of empire—one fueled by Hindutva exceptionalism, the other by military feudalism—the region will continue to be a loaded gun aimed at its own temple.

The only escape lies in mutual reckoning. Not through grandiose gestures or naïve utopianism, but through a ruthless confrontation with internal decay and external manipulation. Until then, every ceasefire is but an intermission, every de-escalation a pause in the countdown.

And in the shadows, the arms dealers keep smiling.

Prof. Junaid S. Ahmad teaches Law, Religion, and Global Politics and is the Director of the Center for the Study of Islam and Decolonization (CSID), Islamabad, Pakistan.

7 June 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

Don’t Fund the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation: It’s a Genocidal Smokescreen

By Medea Benjamin

GHF has never been about delivering aid. It’s about using the illusion of aid to control the population of Gaza—and to give cover to war crimes.

Recent reports say that US AID is considering giving $500 million to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF)—an “aid” initiative launched at Israel’s request. At first glance, that might sound like a generous effort to help desperate Palestinians in Gaza. But peel back even one layer, and you’ll find a deadly political scheme masquerading as humanitarian relief.

This is not about helping hungry people. It’s about controlling them, displacing them, and starving them into submission.

Let’s start with some basics. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is not a humanitarian organization. It’s a US- and Israeli-backed scheme run by people with no track record in neutral aid work. Its first director, Jake Wood, resigned on May 25, saying the organization failed to uphold humanitarian principles. Then the Boston Consulting Group, which had secretly helped design GHF’s aid operations, pulled out and apologized to staff who were furious about the firm’s complicity in a system that enabled forced displacement and sidelined trusted UN agencies.

GHF brand new director is Johnnie Moore, an American evangelical PR executive best known for helping Donald Trump recognize Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem and push the US embassy move there—a move that only fanned the flames of conflict.

GHF’s entire premise is rooted in deception. It was launched with Israeli government oversight, without transparency, without independence, and—critically—without the participation of the United Nations or any respected humanitarian agencies. In fact, the UN has refused to have anything to do with it. So have groups like Doctors Without Borders, the Red Cross, and the World Food Programme, whose leaders have warned in no uncertain terms that GHF’s model militarizes aid, violates humanitarian norms, and places Palestinian lives at even greater risk.

GHF has never been about delivering aid. It’s about using the illusion of aid to control the population of Gaza—and to give cover to war crimes.

People in Gaza are starving because Israel wants them to. There are thousands of aid trucks, many loaded with supplies from the United Nations, that—for months—have been blocked from entering Gaza. They contain food, water, medicine, shelter materials—the lifeblood of a besieged civilian population. But instead of letting them through, the US and Israel are pushing their own version of aid: a privatized, militarized operation. Armed US contractors working with the GHF are reportedly earning up to $1,100 per day, along with a $10,000 signing bonus.

The GHF plan is to make aid available only in the south, forcibly displacing people from the north—driving them toward the Egyptian border, where many fear a permanent expulsion is being engineered.

From the very start of GHF’s operations, with the opening of two distribution sites in southern Gaza on May 26, the chaos turned deadly, with the Israeli military shooting at hungry people seeking food. In its short time of operation, nearly 100 Palestinians have been killed and hundreds more wounded. These are not tragic accidents—they are predictable outcomes of militarizing aid.

Let’s also address the fear-mongering claim that when the UN was in charge of aid delivery, food was being stolen by Hamas. There is no credible evidence of this and Cindy McCain, head of the World Food Programme, has publicly refuted this allegation, saying that trucks have been looted by hungry, desperate people.

The real threat to aid integrity isn’t Hamas—it’s the blockade itself, which has created an artificial scarcity and fueled black markets, desperation, and chaos..

To truly help the people of Gaza, here’s what needs to happen:

  • Shut down GHF and reject all militarized aid schemes.
  • Restore full US funding to UNRWA and the World Food Programme—trusted, experienced agencies that know how to do this work.
  • Demand that Israel end the blockade. Let aid trucks in—UN trucks, Red Cross trucks, WFP trucks. Flood the strip with food, medicines, tents.
  • Demand an immediate ceasefire to stop the killing and create space for meaningful relief and political solutions.

The starvation in Gaza is not a logistical failure. It is Israel’s political choice. And GHF is not a lifeline. It is a lie. It is complicity. It is diabolical. And US taxpayers should not be forced to fund it.

Medea Benjamin is the cofounder of CODEPINK for Peace, and the author of several books, including Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran. She contributed this article to the Palestine Chronicle.

8 June 2025

Source: palestinechronicle.com

Only Way to Defeat Israeli Fascism: Ilan Pappé on Global Justice

By Ilan Pappé

I still believe that this ruthlessness and unprecedented cruelty is a manifestation that we are at the end of the worst chapter in the modern history of Palestine. 

If people want to know what Trump’s latest insane and hallucinating discourse on Gaza produced in Israel, all they need to do is learn Hebrew or ask someone who knows Hebrew to translate for them the discourse in Israeli politics and media.  

“Of course, nobody wants the cruel people of Gaza, and I am not talking about Hamas, but the whole people of Gaza; this is why Jordan and Egypt reject the fantastic proposal by Trump,” explained the leading commentator on Arab affairs on Israel’s main channel during prime news time on February 6, 2025.  

I wonder whether the Nazis even used such discourse about the Jews. 

Every possible human, humane, and moral boundary has now been transcended in the public domain in Israel. 

Everything is permissible when you talk about the Palestinians in general and the people of Gaza in particular. This is not talking about them as animals anymore—this is far worse. 

They are depicted as the worst kind of humanity in the new discourse, which absolves Israel of any crime against them. The politicians talk like this, the main media legitimizes it, and the rabbis in the synagogues—institutions that are more populated by Israeli Jews than ever before—are preaching genocide of the Palestinians without shame or inhibition.  

This is all in preparation for the next stages of the genocide. The lull in the genocide is not because the world has put an end to it. It stopped because Trump wanted the hostages to be released for his own self-image and then allow the Israelis to do what they want.  

If we stopped building encampments, if we stopped seeing millions of people demonstrating for Palestine, we would be mistaken. This is not over. The insane nation of Israel now has in its midst more people and politicians who are willing to go the whole way in completing the genocide than those who are against it—if any at all.   

I still believe that this ruthlessness and unprecedented cruelty is a manifestation that we are at the end of the worst chapter in the modern history of Palestine. 

In fact, I am even more confident that, like in post-Nazi Germany, a larger number of Israeli Jews than I first hoped for will awaken and feel remorse and guilt for their silence in the face of the next phases in the elimination of Palestine as an idea, people and country.

But for the time being, this is a desperate call not to be dormant or complacent because of the ceasefire. Trump reignited all the dark forces in Israel with his planned—or whimsical, it does not matter—expunging of the people of Gaza and turning the land into an American Riviera bonanza.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jM3_HP1aUE]

Yes, European governments, including the British one, condemned the idea, which is commendable. So they show some humanity after all. It is not enough, and they fail to see the wider implications not only of their present inaction but also of their complicity in the genocide since 7 October 2023.  

It is the time of optical illusions. Leaders like the fanatic Naftali Bennett are now leading the polls in Israel, and yes, he might defeat Netanyahu, but he does not offer any more humane approach to the millions of Palestinians under Israeli rule, still regarded as a problem that can only be solved by destruction and elimination. Domestic Israeli politics have nothing to do with Israel’s consensual attitude and policies toward the Palestinians.  

The mainstream Western press—not to mention Israel’s loyal allies, from the Jewish Chronicle, the mouthpiece of fanatic Israel in the UK, to Fox News in the US—are providing the international coverage that allows Israel to get away with this discourse and planning. 

The 41 languages in which the BBC broadcasts are all speaking the same language: dehumanizing the Palestinians and providing immunity for Israel and its policies.  

We still have to believe that, in the long run, as horrific as this unfolding scenario is, it is the prelude to a much better future. We also have to believe that this prelude can and should be shortened to a minimum. 

I have no magic wand for such an urgent turn of events—but we are not alone, so let us put our minds and efforts beyond factionalism and disunity and find an even better way, on top of the amazing work we have done as a solidarity movement, to prevent the next phases in the elimination of Palestine as an idea, a people, and a country.  

One thing is certain: Palestinian resistance and resilience are still the best guarantees that these demonic plans will not fully materialize. But the price could be very high and may be avoided. 

This is a moment where we are desperate for Palestinian leadership and orientation, and it is not there yet. But there are hopeful manifestations of unity, as our editor Ramzy Baroud has recently described for us. It is not sufficient, but it builds hope for the near future.  

There is still time to wake up the Global North—if not its rulers, then its more conscientious politicians; if not the mainstream media, then the alternative ones. We have the right to demand much more from the Global South, encouraged by the example of Colombia, and ask: Where are Malaysia and Indonesia? Where is Pakistan? 

This is about global justice as much as it is about Palestine, and this is also about decolonizing the world at large, not just Palestine, so that global unity can jointly face the formidable challenges that can only be encountered together—from global warming to world poverty and life-seeking movements of millions of people from north to south.

This is the only way to defeat populism, fascism, and racism, of which so many of us—and in particular, the Palestinians—are still victims to this very day.

(The Palestine Chronicle)

 Ilan Pappé is a professor at the University of Exeter. He was formerly a senior lecturer in political science at the University of Haifa.

7 February 2025

Source: palestinechronicle.com