Board of Peace enables Israel to block desperately needed items to Gaza; Trump doesn't want trouble in West Bank – but won't do anything to stop it; not to mention $2.8B arms deal with Israel. Much more. Get caught up here.
An Israeli strike hit a vehicle in Gaza City on Thursday, killing at least one Palestinian, as the IDF continues its constant violations of the US-backed ceasefire deal. The Palestinian news agency WAFA reported that the car was hit south of Gaza City and the victim’s body was transferred by relatives to another vehicle, which […]
A government can face allegations over assistance to another military without its own troops conducting the attacks. Germany disputes the claims, and the court has not resolved its responsibility.
En janvier 2022, Raphaël Glucksmann saluait le vote reconnaissant « le génocide des Ouïghours ». Hier, face à Ségolène Royal, il refusait encore le mot pour Gaza. Entre les deux, une commission de l'ONU a conclu au génocide. Lui, non. Il faudrait savoir ce qui a changé : les faits, ou l'accusé.
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Le 20 janvier 2022, l'Assemblée nationale adopte une résolution qui « reconnaît » les violences infligées aux Ouïghours comme constitutives d'un génocide. Aucune juridiction n'a statué. Aucun organe des Nations unies n'a prononcé le mot. Raphaël Glucksmann, alors député européen, s'en félicite sur X : « Tous les groupes ont voté pour la résolution reconnaissant et condamnant le génocide des Ouïghours […] : c'est un message fort envoyé au régime chinois. » Le mot est posé, et il est applaudi.
Mars 2024. Le même homme, interrogé sur Gaza : « J'ai un emploi extrêmement précautionneux du terme génocide. » Il parle de carnage.
Septembre 2025. La commission d'enquête internationale indépendante mandatée par le Conseil des droits de l'homme conclut qu'Israël commet un génocide à Gaza. Elle retient quatre des cinq actes énumérés par la Convention de 1948 et nomme Netanyahou, Herzog et Gallant. Elle est présidée par Navi Pillay, ancienne présidente du Tribunal pénal international pour le Rwanda, ce qui ne manque pas de sel pour le coréalisateur de Tuez-les tous !.
Hier soir enfin, sur LCI, Ségolène Royal lui lance : « Si les mots sont importants, il faut reconnaître le génocide. » Il refuse. Crimes de guerre, crimes contre l'humanité, tout ce qu'on voudra — le mot, non.
Posons les deux dossiers côte à côte, sans rien y ajouter.
Xinjiang, janvier 2022 : pas de juge, pas de conclusion onusienne. Le rapport du Haut-Commissariat, publié sept mois plus tard, parlera de possibles crimes contre l'humanité — pas de génocide. Verdict Glucksmann : génocide, et bravo.
Gaza, septembre 2026 : une commission de l'ONU conclut au génocide, une procédure est pendante devant la Cour internationale de justice. Verdict Glucksmann : précaution.
Si le critère était le juge, les Ouïghours n'auraient pas eu droit au mot. Si c'était le poids des conclusions internationales, Gaza l'aurait obtenu la première. Si c'était l'ampleur des morts, la question ne se poserait même pas. Reste une variable, une seule, qui couvre les deux cas sans en laisser un de côté : l'identité de l'accusé. Contre Pékin, le mot circule librement. Contre un allié, il devient précautionneux.
Je ne sais pas ce qui se passe dans la conscience de M. Glucksmann, et je suppose qu'il est sincère dans les deux cas. Le tableau n'a pas besoin de ses intentions. Il suffit qu'on le lise.
L'intention, justement
La meilleure défense de Glucksmann tient en un mot, et c'est un mot de juriste : l'intention. Le génocide exige la preuve d'une volonté de détruire un groupe comme tel. Au Xinjiang, les camps et les stérilisations forcées documentaient une politique d'État ; à Gaza, il y a une guerre, un ennemi armé, un 7 octobre, et l'intention se discute. C'est un argument sérieux, et il mérite mieux qu'un haussement d'épaules.
Il a pourtant deux défauts. Le premier : c'est précisément sur l'intention que la commission Pillay s'est prononcée, en s'appuyant sur les déclarations publiques des dirigeants israéliens. On peut contester sa conclusion. On ne peut pas prétendre qu'elle n'a pas regardé. Le second : cette exigence probatoire, si scrupuleuse aujourd'hui, personne ne l'a vue à l'œuvre en 2022, quand il s'agissait d'applaudir un vote sans juge. La rigueur qui ne s'exerce que d'un côté n'est pas de la rigueur. C'est un tri.
Le Courrier n'a pas besoin de trancher la qualification juridique de Gaza pour constater ceci : l'étalon a changé en cours de route, et personne n'a été prévenu.
Le plus inconfortable reste à dire, et il ne concerne pas seulement Glucksmann. Ceux qui trouvaient grotesque la résolution de 2022, et qui exigent aujourd'hui le mot pour Gaza, font exactement la même opération, en miroir. Chaque camp tient son registre : ici des génocides, là des carnages, ailleurs des « opérations ». Nous avons fait du terme le plus lourd du droit international un signe de reconnaissance entre gens du même bord. Qui l'emploie dit moins ce qu'il a vu que de quel côté il se tient.
Ce n'est pas nouveau, et c'est bien le problème. Mais d'un éditorialiste, on peut s'en accommoder. D'un candidat à la présidence de la République, non. Celui qui entrera à l'Élysée votera à l'ONU, signera des ventes d'armes, choisira ses silences au Conseil de sécurité. On sait désormais avec quel dictionnaire il le ferait.
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Un mot qu'on accorde selon l'accusé n'est plus une qualification. C'est une allégeance.
M. Glucksmann a bâti sa réputation sur l'idée que nommer les crimes est le premier devoir d'un homme libre. Il a raison. Il lui reste à nous expliquer pourquoi ce devoir, impérieux à Pékin, devient facultatif ailleurs.
Précautionneux, donc.
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Israeli forces launched attacks across Gaza on Wednesday, killing at least five Palestinians, according to reports from the Strip, as the IDF continues its constant violations of the US-backed ceasefire deal. Medical sources told Reuters that an Israeli airstrike hit a vehicle west of Khan Younis, killing two Palestinians, identified as Osama Abu Khater and […]
Hamas had negotiated with Israel for an end to the 17-year siege strangling Gaza, an increase in food entering Gaza, & release of Palestinian political prisoners. The Israeli army advised Netanyahu respond to these demands with an all-out attack on the Gaza. Al-Aqsa Flood was an attempt to preempt this attack.
Israel employs military technology capable of identifying specific individuals, tracking their movements, and striking them with precision, despite the clear civilian status of those targeted and their non-participation in hostilities or posing of any imminent threat to Israeli forces or others.
Israel's machinery of cruelty never rests. We've been tracking the news you need to know – concise, accurate, relevant, and with context that makes sense of it all
For the last several days, Israeli forces have blocked the main entrances and exits to the central West Bank governorate of Ramallah and Al-Bireh, further restricting Palestinian movement.
The punitive measure was taken after a Palestinian man carried out a shooting attack near the illegal settlement of Halamish, located to the northwest of Ramallah in the Occupied West Bank, on Sunday, September 20.
The attack resulted in the killing of an Israeli settler. The assailant was also injured and later identified as Qadri Samara (37). Samara was shot at by Israeli soldiers stationed at an army post near the site of the attack.
Although Samara managed to withdraw from the scene, later in the day Israeli forces carried out a raid at the HClinic Hospital in Ramallah and arrested him.
Following his arrest, the Israeli army also stormed Samara’s town of Biddu, northwest of Jerusalem, on Sunday evening, raiding his home and surrounding worshippers inside a mosque.
Ben-Gvir calls for implementation of death penalty law for the first time on Samara
In a security meeting held on Monday, September 21, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir called for the controversial death penalty law, mandated in March, to be used against Qadri Samara.
The law has faced widespread condemnation from international human rights groups for multiple reasons, mainly because it applies exclusively to Palestinians, while exempting Israelis convicted of the same offenses from the same penalty.
Both Israeli soldiers and illegal settlers have enjoyed total impunity despite murdering thousands of Palestinians over the past two decades in the occupied West Bank, a territory regarded under Palestinian jurisdiction in accordance with international law.
An Israeli strike hit Gaza City’s al-Tuffah neighborhood on Tuesday, killing at least two Palestinians, as the IDF continues daily attacks in the Strip in violation of the US-backed ceasefire deal. According to the Palestinian news agency WAFA, an Israeli drone hit a group of people near the Muscat school. In addition to the two […]
In Gaza, everyone is struggling to survive. For disabled people in Gaza, that struggle is multiplied. Rabab Nawfal and Suha Maqat, both wheelchair users, were champion athletes on Palestine’s national teams before Israel’s US-backed genocidal war. Two days before it began, they were playing qualifiers to represent Palestine abroad.
In this TRNN documentary report, they describe living through famine, fleeing bombardment in wheelchairs that no longer work, and asking for help that never comes. With 81% of Gaza’s roads damaged or destroyed and the UN documenting thousands of amputations, Israel is not only making life impossible for disabled Palestinians; it is creating a new generation of them.
Editor’s Note: This documentary report was filmed in Gaza City three weeks before the ceasefire in Gaza was shakily implemented beginning on October 10, 2025. Since the “ceasefire” began, Israeli forces have killed over 1,300 Palestinians, including 301 children, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.
Credits:
Producers: Belal Awad, Leo Erhardt
Videographers: Ruwaida Amer, Mahmoud Al Mashharawi
Video Editor: Leo Erhardt
Transcript
Suha Maqat, Palestinian Athlete:
I’m in a wheelchair—how am I going to escape?
Rabab Nawfal, Palestinian Athlete:
There were days when we ate animal food, bird food.
Suha Maqat, Palestinian Athlete:
I lost my eye. What more do you want?
Rabab Nawfal, Palestinian Athlete:
My dreams have been shattered.
Narrator:
In Gaza, everyone is struggling to survive. But for people with disabilities, that struggle is multiplied. Rabab Nawfal and Suha Maqat – both wheelchair users – were champion athletes before this war.
Rabab Nawfal, Palestinian Athlete:
I’m one of those people who didn’t go to the south. I lived through famine twice. I lived it twice. No one asked after me. There were days when we didn’t eat anything. There were days when we ate animal food, bird food. We ate everything—animals, birds. Even those things were expensive, and then they were cut off. The day they were cut off, we stopped eating anything.
Ramadan came during the famine. We didn’t eat anything. A long day passed, and we didn’t eat anything. We used to crave drinking water. We used to crave a piece of bread. We were hoping that the famine would never come back. But unfortunately, it did—and it’s still coming back.
We’ve suffered a lot in life. I was abandoned. No one took responsibility for me. My mother and father used to take care of me, but they left. These days, my brother takes care of me—and he is injured. My life is ruined. No one is with me. No one cares. And the one person standing by me is injured. He can barely carry his own family.
When we were displaced, he couldn’t help us. He wasn’t able. For people with disabilities like me, it’s been difficult to live through this war. Those who are not disabled can maybe manage their lives. They can move, walk long distances—but I can’t.
Suha Maqat, Palestinian Athlete:
The closest people to me abandoned me—they didn’t stand by me. They left me to fend for myself. I feel like I live in a forest with wolves and monsters. I can’t. I try to make things work,
but I can’t. I’m mentally exhausted. The circumstances of this war are incredibly difficult. Even the word displacement is difficult for the injured and disabled.
When we left, my brother was injured and my sister was in a bad state. Even though he was injured, he was pushing my sister, as I pushed myself along. I got stuck in the sand, and they wanted to bomb the building next to us. It was the most difficult moment. I said to myself, now I’m going to be killed. It was the hardest moment of my life.
I thought—how will I escape? How will I, in my wheelchair, escape? How am I going to get out? My brother was injured and couldn’t carry me. I thought, I’m done; there’s no life for me anymore. That’s it. I’m going to be killed.
Rabab Nawfal, Palestinian Athlete:
The hardest thing I’ve experienced in this war has been displacement. I woke up one day and saw the Israelis in front of us. I was all by myself. I rushed out, but I couldn’t continue. There was a lot of shelling, shooting, bombs. It was a miracle I got out alive. It happened again and again—the same scenario repeated a thousand times.
Narrator:
Both Suha and Rabab rely entirely on their wheelchairs to move. Without them, the most basic tasks become impossible. Israel’s blockade has meant that access to this crucial item has been cut off.
Even with functioning wheelchairs, with 81% of roads in Gaza now damaged or destroyed, access and movement is extremely limited.
Rabab Nawfal, Palestinian Athlete:
There are no wheelchairs in Gaza. And without a wheelchair, I can’t move. The wheelchair takes me to my medicine, my food, my drink—I need it for everything. Right now, my chair is broken. I’ve lost all means of life.
Suha Maqat, Palestinian Athlete:
As you can see, my chair is broken. I push myself in it, I fall off all the time, I cut and bruise my legs. If someone kind is around, then I can move. Otherwise, I can’t.
We requested wheelchairs, but it was no use. We asked and asked, and they said no. Rabab Nawfal, Palestinian Athlete:
My life before the war was very beautiful. I was a champion of Palestine’s disabled national team for strength games—basketball, tennis. I used to do all kinds of sports that suited my disability. I was a success story. I was a hero. These days, I feel worthless. Nothing in life. I can’t even get from here to there. I can’t move from here to there in a wheelchair. My life is
gone. There is no life.
These days, we only dream of having the most basic things: flour, water. The simplest things—we can’t get. Drinking water—we can’t get it.
Suha Maqat, Palestinian Athlete:
Suha before is different from Suha today. I used to be a champion of Palestine. Today, I’m nothing. Today, just a daughter who needs her mother—who needs her mother to help her.
Rabab Nawfal, Palestinian Athlete:
Two days before the war, we were playing qualifiers to represent Palestine internationally. But we didn’t manage it. On the day of the championship, the war erupted. So our dreams are gone. All our dreams are gone. My dreams have been shattered.
I wanted to raise my son. I wanted to raise him well and teach him. Before the war, I wanted to enroll him in karate. I wanted him to become something. I couldn’t. I wanted him to be into sports like me—to become a doctor. I wanted him to grow up and help me in the future. But my dreams were shattered. I couldn’t do any of it. I can’t do anything.
Narrator:
According to the UN 4,800 amputations of limbs had been documented since the beginning of the war. Ten children were losing one or both legs every day. Gaza had become home to the largest group of child amputees in modern history. Not only is Israel making the lives of existing disabled people impossible, it is also creating an entirely new generation of people with disabilities.
Suha Maqat, Palestinian Athlete:
Gaza has become a city of ghosts. There is no life in Gaza. As you can see—look at how people are living. On sand! How can people live on sand? How can they occupy Gaza? How?
We want peace of mind. We don’t want to lose any more loved ones. We’ve lost enough. Is it not enough that I lost my eye? What’s left? What more do you want? I lost my eye—what more do you want? What else should I lose? Nothing’s left. There’s nothing left in this world that I can lose. My family has left. I wish I could see my mother. See my father.
Rabab Nawfal, Palestinian Athlete:
Life has become unbearable. No matter how much I talk, I can’t describe what I am feeling or the life we are living. I used to be someone. Now I am nothing.
Champion athletes Rabab Nawfal and Suha Maqat, two of Gaza's disabled people now in broken wheelchairs, on famine, displacement, and being forgotten by the world.
Israeli attacks across Gaza on Monday killed at least four Palestinians, including an 11-year-old boy, as the IDF continues to frequently kill children as part of its constant violations of the October 2025 ceasefire deal. The boy, identified as Ismail al-Bardawil, died of his wounds sustained by Israeli tanks firing on tents in the al-Mawasi […]
Israeli attacks in Gaza have killed at least seven Palestinians and injured 38, according to numbers from Gaza’s Health Ministry, as the IDF continues its constant violations of the so-called ceasefire deal that was signed in October 2025. The Health Ministry said on Saturday that over the previous 48-hour period, the IDF had killed at […]
Health is always a prominent topic at Belgium’s ManiFiesta, a two-day festival organized by the Workers’ Party of Belgium (PTB) in the beginning of September. Discussions range from the organization of health services or workshops led by progressive health organizations like Medics for the People (MPLP-GVHV) and Viva Salud. This September, the program covered local priorities such as health coverage and hospital reform – along with Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza’s healthcare system and the threat of militarization across Europe.
Health workers should oppose rearmament
Addressing the question of why health workers should be concerned by Europe’s armament drive, Juliette Mattijsen of the People’s Health Movement (PHM), Nadja Rakowitz of the Association of Democratic Doctors (vdää*) in Germany, and Tim Joye of Medics for the People emphasized the different ways hospitals, health centers, and medical studies are being reshaped.
Not only are governments imposing cuts on health budgets to enable increased defense spending, as Mattijsen illustrated – some are structurally changing what the health system is supposed to be about.
As the Merz administration in Germany rushes to build Europe’s mightiest army, Rakowitz explained, it is tabling plans for underground hospitals and an overhaul of triage systems. The goal of these reforms is supposedly to ensure wounded soldiers – from a battlefield that still only exists in the imagination of regional politicians – are cared for swiftly and returned to combat as soon as possible. In Belgium, Joye added, plans are being circulated to introduce war medicine into medical school curricula, and professional congresses have made this their topic of choice.
If European governments have their way, the speakers warned, health systems in the region will increasingly lose their focus on patients and add further strain on service provision. To prevent this, the panel suggested, health workers themselves – nurses, doctors, dentists, and others – must mobilize and actively oppose this dangerous trend.
In Palestine, medics provide more than health care
At another panel hosted by Viva Salud, the focus shifted to Palestine. Gaza’s health services have been militarized by the Israeli occupation, which has turned health infrastructure and workers into direct targets.
Sama Jaber of the Awda Association and Hanne Bosselaers, a Medics for the People general practitioner who participated in the 2025 solidarity flotillas to Gaza, focused their interventions on the relevance of organizing and providing healthcare under occupation.
In Palestine, Jaber pointed out, the formation of medical practitioners is a collective feat. By persevering in their work during a genocide, health workers in Gaza are now giving back to the communities who accompanied them along the way. “Being a health worker in Palestine today means sharing genocide conditions, but also upholding the right to health,” she said.
For Bosselaers, the steadfastness of Palestinian comrades has been an inspiration since her first visits to Gaza approximately 15 years ago and the twinning process she supported with a health center in Beit Hanoun. Today, she emphasized, Israeli attacks have leveled Beit Hanoun to the ground – yet health workers have not given up their work.
Doctors and other health workers in Europe need to recognize this unbreakable spirit, Bosselaers said, and support their peers by joining movements at home. This should mean standing by Palestinians’ demands for liberation, she added, but also joining networks struggling against other forms of attack on healthcare: opposing commercialization, austerity, and militarization.
Call to support boycott, divestment and sanctions
Health workers around the world should direct their efforts into directly supporting the health system in Palestine, the panelists pointed out. This does not mean replacing hospitals with large international NGO operations or flying in and taking over, Bosselaers insisted, as is often seen in humanitarian medicine. Instead, she and Jaber suggested, the priority should be mobilizing against the occupation and campaigning for an end to Israel’s impunity.
In this, they echoed Palestinian physician and political leader Mustafa Barghouti, who addressed the panel through a video message. Barghouti invited health workers in Europe to stand firm in their support of Gaza, particularly by supporting boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaigns. By doing so, he said, they will also recognize the efforts of their peers in Palestine, who are doing more than healthcare today, “helping people persevere in their steadfastness.”
As the genocide continues, Barghouti insisted, health workers in occupied Palestine know their efforts are directed at supporting people in remaining on their land – starting from the most common health procedures. “If you help a woman safely deliver a baby,” he said, “you’re helping her stay in Palestine.”
People’s Health Dispatchis a monthly bulletin published by thePeople’s Health MovementandPeoples Dispatch. For more articles and to subscribe to People’s Health Dispatch, clickhere.
The lethal repercussions of Israel’s three-year genocidal aggression on Gaza continue to unfold. Aside from Israel’s ongoing military assaults after the nominal ceasefire deal, the humanitarian crisis inflicted by the genocide – affecting food, sanitation, medication, and shelter – has become another driver of persistent fatalities.
At least 21 Palestinians, including 12 children, died in the collapse of the Al-Saadah building in Gaza City on Wednesday, September 16, while 45 people were rescued from under the rubble.
According to media reports, the building, already damaged by Israeli airstrikes, was housing 100 displaced people, amid a deepening shelter crisis caused by Israel’s ongoing restrictions on reconstruction materials and humanitarian aid.
Hamas issued a statement, holding Israel “responsible for this disaster,” and affirming that “the building collapse represents a new chapter in the catastrophic humanitarian repercussions of the war.”
The Palestinian movement pointed out that the massive home and neighborhood destruction has forced thousands of displaced people to take refuge in ruined structures.
It further cautioned that the severe shortage in heavy machinery for clearing debris and conducting rescue operations endangers more lives.
Hamas also urged mediators, the US administration, and relevant international bodies to take immediate action to lift restrictions blocking the entry of necessary rescue equipment and vehicles, and to secure safe shelter for the displaced population.
Meanwhile, the Gaza-based Ministry of Public Works and Housing warned that roughly 3,000 buildings across the war-ravaged enclave are currently deemed dangerous or at risk of collapse, which in turn poses a significant threat to thousands of inhabitants.
Le Washington Post a révélé le 15 septembre 2026 un projet de vente d'armement des États-Unis à Israël d'un montant d'environ 2,8 milliards de dollars. Il porte sur 40 000 bombes d'une tonne — 20 000 MK-84 et 20 000 BLU-117, variantes pénétrantes — auxquelles s'ajoutent 20 000 ogives I-2000. L'opération serait financée pour l'essentiel par le Foreign Military Financing, mécanisme par lequel le Trésor américain fournit à Israël les fonds servant à acheter du matériel américain. Il s'agirait de la plus importante vente de munitions de ce calibre depuis plusieurs années.
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Le régime applicable est la section 36 de l'Arms Export Control Act (22 U.S.C. § 2776). Toute vente d'armement à Israël supérieure à cent millions de dollars doit être notifiée au Congrès quinze jours avant sa conclusion. Le texte autorise le président à écarter ce délai en informant le Congrès qu'« une urgence existe ». La procédure a déjà été employée sous l'administration actuelle : le secrétaire d'État a signé en 2025 une déclaration de ce type pour accélérer la livraison d'environ quatre milliards de dollars de munitions, puis pour une vente de plus de vingt mille bombes évaluée à quelque six cent cinquante millions.
La Cour internationale de justice en a fixé le standard dans son arrêt Bosnie-Herzégovine c. Serbie-et-Monténégro du 26 février 2007. Une assistance ne peut être qualifiée de complicité que si l'auteur de cette assistance a agi en connaissance de l'intention spécifique — le dolus specialis, l'intention de détruire un groupe comme tel — de l'auteur principal. La fourniture de moyens, même massive, ne suffit donc pas : il faut établir un état de connaissance portant sur l'intention d'autrui. Aucune juridiction internationale n'a à ce jour retenu cette qualification contre un État fournisseur d'armement.
L'obligation de prévenir, distincte et moins exigeante
L'article premier de la même convention impose aux États de prévenir le génocide. La Cour a précisé, dans le même arrêt de 2007, qu'il s'agit d'une obligation de comportement et non de résultat. Elle naît dès l'instant où un État apprend, ou aurait normalement dû apprendre, l'existence d'un risque sérieux de commission d'un génocide. Elle lui impose alors de mettre en œuvre les moyens raisonnablement à sa disposition susceptibles d'y contribuer.
La commission d'enquête internationale indépendante du Conseil des droits de l'homme des Nations unies a conclu, dans son rapport du 16 septembre 2025, qu'un génocide était commis dans la bande de Gaza, retenant quatre des cinq actes énumérés par la convention. Elle a recommandé aux États membres de cesser les transferts d'armes susceptibles de servir à la commission d'actes génocidaires. Une commission d'enquête n'est pas une juridiction et ses conclusions n'ont pas d'autorité de chose jugée. Elles sont en revanche publiques et datées, ce qui les rend opposables sur le terrain de la connaissance du risque.
La qualification de complicité suppose une preuve que nul n'a encore rapportée devant une juridiction internationale. Celle de manquement à l'obligation de prévenir repose sur un critère de connaissance dont le point de départ est documenté. Les deux fondements coexistent dans les écritures déposées à La Haye. Leur examen au fond n'est pas attendu avant la fin de la décennie.
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At the end of August, at the Silverbird Cinema in the Accra Mall in Ghana, two Israeli feature films were screened alongside Ghanaian student productions.
For the second year running, the seats for this Israeli film festival were empty. Ordinary Ghanaians declined the Israeli Embassy’s films, and a peaceful demonstration outside held placards for Palestine and against the continued killing of civilians in Gaza.
There is another screen Ghanaians must refuse to look away from, protestors asserted. The screens on which we have watched Gaza reduced to rubble, families displaced again and again, hospitals and schools destroyed, and children carried from the wreckage of a war that, despite the ceasefire announced in October 2025, has not stopped killing them.
However, something else walked through the doors of the film festival: schoolchildren. In uniform. On a Sunday.
Students from Achimota School and Accra Girls Senior High School, two of Ghana’s most prominent public secondary schools, were brought into an embassy-sponsored event at the center of a serious political controversy. Those of us who were there saw them. We have photographs and videos. The question Ghana must now answer is not about cinema. It is about who sent our children, and why.
The 2025 Israeli Film Festival
Last year, the Embassy staged a week-long Israeli Film Festival at the same venue and called it an exercise in “dialogue and mutual understanding.” Nearly 400 Ghanaian organizations, student movements, trade unions, faith communities, civil-society groups, signed one statement calling for a boycott. Protesters gathered outside. Sponsors pulled out. The Embassy still declared the event a success.
The veteran editor Kwesi Pratt Jnr., who joined the picket, recalled what that “success” looked like a year ago for the “Alhaji and Alhaji” program:
“This is the first time in my life that I’ve seen 400 organizations come together to sign one statement calling for a boycott of the film festival. I joined the picket at the Silverbird Cinema, and a few, very, very few, prominent Ghanaians, including Afenyo-Markin, attended in spite of the protest. But it was a fiasco. The room was empty. Ghanaians rejected the film festival completely.”
So the Embassy returned smaller: two Israeli films on a single Sunday, free entry, free popcorn, raffle prizes, and an invitation aimed squarely at young people. When adults again refused to fill the room, uniformed students appeared. If Ghanaian adults will not lend legitimacy to this event, should Ghanaian children be made to supply it?
The timing makes it harder to dismiss as a routine outing.
President John Dramani Mahama has publicly described what is happening in Gaza as genocide. The Israeli Ambassador to Ghana has publicly rejected that position and defended his government’s conduct. He is entitled to make his case, but he is a guest of a sovereign state, not the author of its policy.
Against that backdrop, the presence of uniformed students inside an embassy program, days after this very public disagreement, demands an accounting. Pratt put the question bluntly:
“At the time that the ambassador was attacking our president, some authorities in our secondary schools decided to side with [the embassy]. What judgment was exercised by the school authorities when they agreed to bus their students to this film festival? What were they expecting? What checks did they do on the quality of the films?”
Ghanaian activists picket the Israeli Film Festival. Photo via PATV
Those are the right questions, and they are not rhetorical. They have not yet been answered and there has been no investigation.
What the students deserve
None of this is an accusation against the children. They may have had little understanding of the political purpose around the event. The responsibility belongs to the adults who placed them there.
Ghana rejected the Israeli film festival not because cinema or cultural exchange is evil. Not because Israeli artists have no right to make films. The rejection is not an attack on Jewish people. Antisemitism is hatred and must also be rejected.
The problem is that this festival is not an example of artists meeting freely across borders. It is an Israeli Embassy-backed initiative staged while the Palestinian people continue to pay with their lives. Amid the killing of civilians and the destruction of Palestinian life, the use of state diplomacy to manufacture an appearance of normality while those questions remain unresolved is nothing less than political soft power.
Ghanaian children are not diplomatic props, and Ghanaian schools must never become extensions of a foreign embassy. Teach them, yes. Teach them the Holocaust, the Nakba, occupation and international law, and give them the evidence to think critically. That is education. Busing uniformed children into a controversial embassy function, and letting their presence become evidence of Ghanaian acceptance, is the opposite.
That is why the demand is simple, and now directed at the Ministry of Education and the Ghana Education Service: did you know? If yes, explain. If not, investigate. And if any official bypassed procedure or abused authority to place schoolchildren inside a foreign government’s public-relations exercise, hold them accountable.
Ghana’s revolutionary legacy
There is a longer tradition at stake. Ghana is the country from which Kwame Nkrumah declared that our independence was meaningless unless linked with the total liberation of Africa. Africa understands what cultural normalization is for: domination has rarely arrived only with rifles. It seeks respectability, the reception, the festival, the partnership, until oppression becomes a disagreement to be discussed politely while business continues.
Palestine poses that old question to the African conscience once more. And a small part of the answer is being written by who walks into a cinema in Accra Mall, and who is made to walk in.
For the second year, the empty seats have spoken. Now Ghana’s own institutions must speak. Our children deserve education, not enlistment. And a sovereign state deserves to decide, in the light of its own conscience, what its schools lend themselves to.
Stay away. Let the empty seats speak, for the Palestinian child who will never again enter a classroom, and for the proposition that human life is worth more than diplomatic image-building.
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