This is a war whose potential devastation could eclipse all previous wars and armed conflicts in the region. The kind of destruction witnessed in Iraq, Libya, and Syria now looms over Iran. Meanwhile, only a short distance away, the destruction caused by the Pakistan–Afghanistan conflict continues unabated.
Since the ceasefire was signed, more than 449 Palestinians have been killed. Israel has breached the terms of the ceasefire at least 969 times.
Protests have grown over the past five days despite severe state repression, with reports of police using live ammunition against demonstrators, raiding people’s homes and kidnapping them off the streets.
Governments that truly wish to support the Palestinian cause must begin by recognizing the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination — before recognizing a hypothetical state, and without designating the Ramallah PA, which is rejected by most Palestinians, as the model for the state they call for.
Unimpeded, a daily process continues to exterminate more and more of the 2.1 million Palestinian people who remain in Gaza – bombing and shooting civilians while blocking all but a pittance of the food and medicine needed to sustain life.
While the resumption of aid was touted as a lifeline, its scope remains grossly insufficient. According to the UN, Gaza needs 600-800 trucks of aid daily to meet basic needs. But yesterday, the first day of the new system, only 73 trucks entered the Strip along with three airdrops whose total payload was equivalent to only two additional trucks.
Overall, at least 59,029 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza since October 2023, most of them women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. More than 142,000 others have been wounded, and at least 14,000 more are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of bombed buildings.
One of the ironies of the irrational belief in Trump’s peaceful intentions is that delusional commentators still portray him as having imposed “peace” with Iran on Netanyahu, despite his decision to participate in the aggression against that country, thus complementing the war waged by the Zionist state.
A fundamentalist, grafted, illegitimate, and imperialist thug-state like Israel can never be a liberator of the Iranian people, nor does it have any right to intervene in or launch “pre-emptive strikes” on any country in the region.
International law was never just about justice. It’s always been about managing global power. Its rules, exceptions and institutions are built around the interests of dominant states. There’s no law separate from politics, only laws that serve certain political agendas.
OCHA has reported that 92% of infants and pregnant and breastfeeding mothers are not meeting their nutrient requirements, while the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) released a statement Friday warning that malnutrition among children is on the rise across the enclave.
There are two conspicuous myths about the Gaza ceasefire that went into effect last Sunday: that it was due to Trump’s pressure on Netanyahu, and that it was a victory achieved by Hamas.
It’s easy to see why this agreement has been greeted with a very cautious optimism by the Palestinians. Any respite from the horrors of the past year is welcome. It’s an extraordinary tribute to the legendary resilience of the Palestinian people that they have survived this holocaust at all.
In its desire to convince the United States and Israel of its ability to quell the Palestinian people, which necessarily implies an imitation of what the Zionist state does, the Ramallah PA has gone so far, while waging war on the Jenin camp at the same time that the Zionist forces were waging war on the Jabalia camp in the Gaza Strip, as to decide to ban the Al Jazeera TV network on its territory, similar to Israel’s ban of the same a few months ago.
The regime was saturated with corruption, patronage, and inefficiency. It had almost no support outside of the Alawite community, the grouping which the Assads belonged to. Even there, the support was often motivated by fear of the alternatives and being blamed by guilt by association for Assad’s crimes.
