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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

By Quds News Network

Gaza (QNN)- Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, most of whom had already been forcibly displaced, have fled Gaza City to the south of the enclave, as Israel pushes on with its deadly ground invasion to occupy the city.

Rooted to Their Land

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

By Prof. Junaid S. Ahmad

The “War on Terror” is dead, and good riddance. It was a bloated production—half moral crusade, half arms expo—that flattened cities, installed a few puppet governments, and managed to convince Americans that airport security theater was the front line of civilization. But Washington has moved on to a new project, one even more cynical: the War on Statehood.

This latest hobby doesn’t bother pretending to build nations or liberate oppressed peoples. That was yesterday’s marketing. Today’s game is demolition: splintering Arab states, keeping them in permanent dysfunction, and crowning Israel the local sheriff—armed, dangerous, and hopelessly dependent on its sugar daddy in Washington.

Think of it less as strategy and more as vandalism with a press office.

Israel: McHegemon with Unlimited Refills

American officials never tire of declaring Israel the “dominant military power in the Middle East.” It sounds impressive, like an empire forged in steel. In reality, Israel is less a hegemon than a heavily subsidized franchise: McHegemon, with free refills and a loyalty card stamped at the Pentagon.

A genuine hegemon doesn’t need the U.S. to loan it airspace, satellites, and mid-air refueling just to keep its sorties going. Nor does it burn through missile stockpiles meant for Taiwan like a teenager emptying the family fridge. Israel is powerful the way a ventriloquist’s dummy is eloquent: only because someone else is moving its mouth.

Yet Arab capitals are expected to treat this franchise as untouchable. Even the wealthiest states, with their shiny skyscrapers and swaggering monarchs, now limit themselves to performative outrage. They issue indignant press statements by day and quietly pump aviation fuel into Israeli bombers by night. Their independence is little more than a stage prop—useful for calming the masses, but irrelevant when Washington calls.

The Doha Debacle: Bombing Your “Major Ally”

If one episode revealed this new doctrine in all its absurdity, it was Israel’s 9 September strike in Doha. Imagine it: Hamas officials, mid-ceasefire talks, sitting in the Qatari diplomatic quarter. Suddenly, Israeli bombs rain down, killing six, including a Qatari guard.

This wasn’t Gaza. This wasn’t Lebanon. This was Doha—the polished capital of a U.S.-designated “major non-NATO ally,” and home to America’s biggest airbase in the region.

Washington’s response was pure slapstick. Trump muttered that he was “unhappy,” then sheepishly admitted the U.S. had been informed beforehand. Qatar swears the Americans phoned as the bombs were already falling. That’s not a warning—that’s trolling.

The world gasped. Gulf states fumed. Turkey and Egypt condemned. Even Europe clutched its pearls. The UN called it a violation of territorial integrity. Israel’s ambassador in Washington then went on Fox News and cheerfully announced that if they missed their targets this time, they’d simply bomb Doha again. It was less diplomacy than a mafia protection racket.

So much for being a “major ally.” Qatar discovered that in Washington’s new hierarchy, your national authority is expendable if Israel feels like dropping ordnance in your living room.

Paralysis as Policy

Still think Doha was a one-off? Look at Lebanon and Syria, the lab rats of this experiment. These countries aren’t merely weak; they’ve been intentionally kneecapped. Israel bombs them at will. Sanctions crush their economies. Their infrastructures are held together with duct tape and prayer.

And here’s the kicker: that’s the point. Washington no longer wants decisive victories or reconstructed allies. It wants states stuck in permanent limbo: too busy with blackouts, food shortages, and collapsing currencies to push back against Israeli overflights.

The new policy isn’t domination by strength. It’s domination by induced weakness. Keep your neighbors paralyzed, and you’ll never have to negotiate with equals again.

Gaza: When the Mask Came Off

The October 2023 Hamas operation blew the mask clean off. In earlier years, Washington at least pretended to care about ceasefires. This time, it didn’t bother. The U.S. shipped weapons to Israel like Amazon Prime on steroids, fed it intelligence, and vetoed every ceasefire resolution at the UN. Diplomacy was pronounced dead on arrival.

Europe, predictably, played backup vocals. France solemnly declared its love for Palestinian statehood while simultaneously boosting arms sales to Israel to record levels. Hypocrisy is too gentle a word; this was active complicity delivered with a French accent.

Expansion, Marketed as Self-Defense

Iran has long warned that the Western project in West Asia is nakedly colonial. For years, Western analysts dismissed this as shrill paranoia. Then Netanyahu revived the dream of “Greater Israel” and openly embraced it. Washington and Brussels responded with a yawn. Suddenly, the “paranoid fantasy” looks suspiciously like official policy.

Meanwhile, Iran’s decision to arm regional resistance movements—framed as destabilizing by every Western pundit in a blazer—remains the only effective brake on Israel’s expansionist appetite. But thanks to Western PR spin, every Israeli bomb is branded “self-defense,” while every Arab bullet is called “terrorism.” It’s less journalism than marketing.

Bullseye, Not Collateral Damage

From Doha to Damascus, Gaza to Beirut, the pattern is unmistakable: independence itself has been reclassified as a threat. Strong governments are no longer useful partners; they’re inconvenient obstacles. The new American doctrine makes no secret of it: if you cannot be controlled, you will be broken.

At least colonialism had the decency to cloak itself in civilizing rhetoric. At least the War on Terror cloaked itself in counterterrorism jargon. Today’s policy dispenses with disguises. It openly declares that statehood is negotiable, self-determination is disposable, and allies are expendable.

Even Qatar—the trusted host of U.S. troops—learned that its autonomy was worth less than Israel’s desire to blow up a hotel meeting. If that’s how Washington treats friends, one shudders to think what’s in store for enemies.

A Template for Global Chaos

West Asia is just the beta version. If this works, expect Washington to export the model elsewhere. The logic is seductive: when your influence slips, don’t waste time with development projects or puppet governments. Smash the state. Fund some proxies. Stir crises until governance itself becomes impossible. Then sit back and call it “regional stability.”

This is empire stripped bare. Empire without the humanitarian fig leaf. Empire that treats chaos not as a risk but as a tool.

Conclusion: Demolition as Grand Strategy

The War on Terror was always a con, but at least it bothered to dress up. It mouthed clichés about democracy and held ribbon-cutting ceremonies for Potemkin parliaments. The new doctrine can’t be bothered. It seeks not to build but to break, not to stabilize but to scatter.

And here’s the delicious irony: the most powerful nation on earth now depends on deliberate dysfunction as its main instrument of influence. Its chosen enforcer, Israel, is less a regional hegemon than a perpetually subsidized intern—smashing Arab independence with borrowed tools, then running back to Washington for more.

Call it cynicism, call it desperation, but don’t call it strategy. Strategy implies coherence, foresight, achievable ends. What Washington has unleashed in West Asia is none of those things. It is demolition disguised as necessity.

And the punchline? National authority isn’t collateral damage anymore. It’s the bullseye. If West Asia is the testing ground, the rest of the world should consider itself on notice. In Washington’s new hobby of breaking things, every house is fair game.

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. 

16 September 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Phil Tottenham

Nine of us veterans arrived in Barcelona on August 27th. We were mostly strangers meeting for the first time, with a couple of exceptions.  We began to bond immediately – which was fairly easy considering our common bonds of being veterans sailing for peace. 

Two Marine veterans had served together with HMX-1, presidential helicopter. There are two combat veterans. And then there’s me. That’s all that’s left as of today, as four veterans have had to leave the boat for a variety of reasons, including the inherent delays associated with the historical size of the flotilla.

In Barcelona, our days were full of training protocols; preparing travel documentation and our “SOS videos” for our anticipated illegal kidnapping.  We also had time for bonding and we took advantage of the luxury of eating out. 

The send-off from 10,000 beautiful people in Barcelona was such a heart-filling experience, it’s difficult to limit to words. Only to be outdone at Carthage by the compassionate people of Tunisia – a crowd of 20,000 from all over the country. And now in Bizerte, Tunisia, hundreds still remain on shore, allowing their support to be felt by just a glance.  

We need all hands on deck. This is not a drill. Humanity is literally at stake, in Gaza/Palestine and at home, in the states. As veterans, we’ve put our lives on the line for the Empire, it’s past time we do the same for humanity and ourselves. 

We have added a journalist from Mexico and one from Finland. We had also temporarily added another sailor to our crew, but his expertise was needed on another boat. He literally just left – change is constant, that’s for certain. We just got another participant from the Finnish delegation, so we are back at 12. So we’re set with our final manifest, we’re told. 

Our medic – who is an ex-pat living in Norway, was a combat medic in Ukraine and a musician/artist and former orthodox priest. 

Boat life is never dull and there’s seemingly always necessary chores to be done. From cooking to cleaning to sail/boat repairs to man overboard drills, drone and interdiction drills and multiple meetings a day. Being in port and on still waters makes boat life easier. But added chores like refilling our food, water and fuel supplies try to offset that advantage. 

For our first leg of the voyage, the seas were pretty rough; almost everyone was sea sick with exception of the captain. Three of us got IV’s in Carthage. I was treated in a Tunisian hospital and was told the government would foot the bill. 

We are leaving port today [Sunday, Sept. 14] at least the sailboats are. A Zionist-owned yacht bribed port officials yesterday and took the fuel we intended to use for our fleet. 

There are variations on how long it will take to get to Gaza – from 10-14 days. So likely the 24th – 28th.  

I’d like to add that this isn’t about us, but about our innocent human siblings being slaughtered in Gaza. And that’s exactly what we’re pleading for – ALL EYES ON GAZA as the Axis of Evil is expediting their ethnic cleansing that has been intensified these last two years on the tail end of 77 years of apartheid, occupation and murder. As veterans we know that the war machine runs on the deaths of innocent indigenous people all for the glory of the almighty dollar which is the only God the war pigs serve. 

We need all hands on deck. This is not a drill. Humanity is literally at stake, in Gaza/Palestine and at home, in the states. As veterans, we’ve put our lives on the line for the Empire, it’s past time we do the same for humanity and ourselves. 

“What do we want? Justice. When do we want it?  Now! And if we don’t get it.  SHUT IT DOWN.”  It’s not just a chant. It’s a creed. We shut the war machine down now, or we perish. 

There’s much more to relay and convey. I’ll be posting more content routinely to social media for this last leg and hopefully the seas will cooperate [check out veteransforpeace on Instagram].

All my best,

Phil Tottenham
9/15/2025

p.s. All the boats from Tunisia and Barcelona have met up and are setting sail for Gaza.  We will be meeting up with the fleets from Italy and Greece on our way.  We should be somewhere around 40 boats.

Phillip Tottenham, 47, is a Marine Corps veteran and Texan now living in Toledo, Ohio. He was a leader of the 40-day Veterans and Allies Fast for Gaza and is a member of the activist group Veterans For Peace. Phil reports regularly from the 46-foot sailboat, Ohwayla, whose passengers are primarily U.S. veterans. The boat is part of the Global Sumud Flotilla, described on its website as the largest civilian maritime mission organized to break Israel’s siege on Gaza. (“Sumud” is Arabic for determination and perseverance).

The humanitarian Gaza flotilla, made up of dozens of boats and scores of people from 44 countries, started in Barcelona on Aug. 31. It will be joined by boats from Sicily and Greece as it proceeds to Gaza, where it is expected to arrive between Sept. 24-28. Veterans For Peace joins many people around the globe who are calling on the United Nations and all individual nations to ensure the safe passage of the humanitarian aid flotilla and to finally put an end to Israel’s genocidal bombing (with U.S. bombs) and the deliberate starvation of the people of Gaza.

16 September 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Quds News Network

Gaza (QNN)- An Israeli sniper serving in Gaza during the ongoing genocide confirmed forces are ordered to shoot starving aid seekers despite posing no threat. “I have no idea how many I have killed, a lot of children,” he said, adding “The officers don’t care if children die.”

In an interview with Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Yoni, an active-duty soldier in the Nahal Brigade, recounted an attack on children last May in Beit Lahiya where soldiers claimed two children were “terrorists.”

“Terrorists, terrorists!” one of the soldiers shouted. “We went into a frenzy, and I immediately got up with the Negev (a type of machine gun) and started spraying, firing hundreds of bullets. Then we stormed forward, and that’s when I realized it was a mistake,” he said.

“I saw two bodies of children, maybe eight years old, maybe ten, I have no idea,” Yoni recalled. “All blood, full of bullet marks. I knew it was all on me, that I did this. I wanted to throw up. A few minutes later, the company commander arrived and said coldly, like he wasn’t human, ‘They entered a kill zone. It’s their fault. That’s how it is in war.’”

Beni, a sniper in the Nahal, said there is an invisible line in front of aid seekers in northern Gaza when aid trucks arrive and begin unloading.

“A line that if they cross it, I can shoot them,” Beni said. “It’s like a cat-and-mouse game. They try to come from different directions, and I’m there with my sniper rifle, and the officers are yelling at me, ‘Take them down, take them down.’ I shoot 50 to 60 rounds a day. I stopped counting the Xs. I have no idea how many I’ve killed. A lot. Children.”

He said he was forced and threatened to shoot starving civilians seeking aid.

“The battalion commander was screaming on the radio, ‘Why aren’t you taking them down? They’re advancing toward us; it’s dangerous,’” he recounts, saying the officers “don’t care if children die, and they don’t care what it does to me mentally. To them, I’m just another tool.”

Beni now is reportedly trying to leave the army. “I don’t trust the officers, I don’t believe the government. I just want to leave the army and start my life.”

At least 859 Palestinians have been killed while attempting to obtain aid at the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) aid sites between May 27 and July 31, 2025, most by the Israeli military, according to the United Nations.

514 others have been killed by Israeli forces along the routes of food convoys.

Human Rights Watch said the “dire humanitarian situation is a direct result of Israel’s use of starvation of civilians as a weapon of war—a war crime —as well as Israel’s continued intentional deprivation of aid and basic services, ongoing actions that amount to the crime against humanity of extermination, and acts of genocide.”

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

Since GHF started operating aid sites in May, there have been reports on near-daily shootings by Israeli forces and US mercenaries at or near GHF sites, starving aid seekers in Gaza and former US mercenaries have spoken out about witnessing gunfire against Palestinian crowds.

15 September 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Quds News Network

Gaza (Quds News Network)- A United Nations inquiry has concluded that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, a landmark finding following nearly two years of bombardment, mass killings, forced displacement, aid blockade, and starvation.

The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory found that there was “circumstantial evidence” that led to their findings of genocidal intent.

The new report said there are reasonable grounds to conclude that four of the five genocidal acts defined under international law have been carried out since the start of the war in 2023: killing members of a group, causing them serious bodily and mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions calculated to destroy the group, and preventing births.

“The Commission concludes that the Israeli authorities and Israeli security forces have the genocidal intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip,” the report found.

The report also holds Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant responsible, among others, identifying them based on their statements and the orders that they’ve given.

However, Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs slammed the inquiry findings as “fake” in a post on X, and alleged that the report’s authors were “serving as Hamas proxies”.

The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory was established by the UN Human Rights Council in 2021 to investigate all violations of international humanitarian and human rights law.

The three-member expert panel is chaired by Navi Pillay, a South African former UN human rights chief who was president of the international tribunal on Rwanda’s genocide.

A number of international and Israeli human rights organisations, independent UN experts, and scholars have also labeled Israel’s war in Gaza genocide against Palestinians.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is meanwhile hearing a case brought by South Africa that accuses Israeli forces of genocide.

16 September 2025

Source: countercurrents.org