The 49-minute film is available online in 17 languages. Two of its three creators are in the IDF; information on the funding for the film is yet to come.
‘The Israeli army made me choose between my prosthetic limb and wheelchair; I returned to Gaza without my limb.' Gaza faces severe shortages of components needed to manufacture prosthetic limbs.
At least one Palestinian was killed, and several others were wounded on Monday in Israeli attacks targeting al-Mawasi in southern Gaza, an area filled with sprawling tent encampments housing Palestinian families displaced by Israel’s genocidal war. The Anadolu Agency reported that an Israeli strike in al-Mawasi killed one Palestinian man and wounded four people, including […]
Israeli forces killed 4 Palestinians, including a 6-year-old, and injured others across the devastated Gaza Strip on Sunday in continuing reported violations of the ceasefire agreement
Pope Leo XIV has offered prayers for Gaza following the Israeli strike that killed two Christian women in the besieged Palestinian territory, according to Father Gabriel Romanelli, a priest at the Holy Family Catholic Church in Gaza City. Romanelli, who is from Argentina, said in a YouTube video that Leo wrote to him after the […]
The Israeli war machine never sleeps. Neither does the Israeli propaganda machine. Here is your daily accurate and concise summary of Palestine, Israel, and Palestine-adjacent news.
United Airlines has been sending military hardware to Israel on passenger flights, right under your feet.
A new report from the People’s Embargo for Palestine, the Palestinian Youth Movement, and others documents 2,761 shipments of military cargo to Israeli weapons manufacturers and military institutions, including Elbit Systems, Lockheed Martin Israel, Nevatim Airbase, and the Israeli Ministry of Defense. Belal Elsiesy, organizer with the PYM and the People’s Arms Embargo, joins Zoe Alexandra to break down the findings.
With cargo including F-35 bomb release units used to drop 2,000-pound bombs on Gaza, Merkava tank sights, and “hunter-killer” machine gunner sights destined for Elbit, Elsiesy argues civilian airports are a critical point of intervention. He also discusses what’s behind Elbit’s US rebrand as 26 Defense, how campaigns against Maersk and FedEx have targeted the weak links in Israel’s weapons supply chain, and why the airline’s silence on the #NoWeaponsOnUnited campaign is a good reason to act now.
Israeli forces killed at least 10 Palestinians in Gaza over the past three days, according to numbers from Gaza’s Health Ministry, as the IDF continues its constant violations of the US-backed ceasefire deal. In that same time, at least five Palestinians died of wounds sustained by previous Israeli attacks, and one body was recovered from […]
Florida lawyer Jalal Shehadeh is convinced that the warrantless seizure of his cell phone by federal agents at the Newark International Airport after he returned from Palestine this September was not random.
Shehadeh, a Miami-based attorney and Palestinian rights advocate, was held for several hours for a secondary inspection and had his phone seized by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) after he refused to allow federal agents to search it.
“It’s just a wildly invasive thing to do to somebody with no individualized justifiable basis to do it,” Shehadeh told Truthout.
He suspects federal authorities targeted him for his activism. The lawyer is involved in a legal complaint against a federal judge in Florida over the judge’s anti-Palestinian statements.
Shehadeh is one of several Palestinian rights advocates who have been detained and had their personal devices searched by CBP while returning to the U.S. from international travel since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza in October 2023.
Other similar cases include Amir Makled, a lawyer from the Detroit area who was representing University of Michigan students involved in pro-Palestine activism, journalist Max Blumenthal, and Osama Abu Irshaid, the executive director of American Muslims for Palestine (AMP).
Jenin Younes, president of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), which filed a legal motion earlier this week demanding the return of Shehadeh’s phone, said CBP appears to be escalating phone searches against opponents of President Donald Trump’s agenda.
“Common sense tells us that they are targeting people who have pro-Palestine views,” Younes told Truthout.
She stressed that the searches are illegal. The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects “persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.”
Younes said the “border exception” that allows searches to ensure that no illegal items are brought into the country should not apply to phones.
Younes, a civil liberties attorney, said the authors of the Constitution would have certainly opposed giving the government blanket authority to search people’s phones without cause.
“Law enforcement can search shipping vessels coming into the Boston harbor to make sure that they don’t have contraband. That’s a totally different thing from searching the contents of people’s smartphones,” she said. “I don’t think the framers would have thought that you could read the papers of somebody coming into the country in their suitcase, and likewise, a smartphone, which has so much more personal information.”
The case of Shehadeh and other Palestinian rights supporters targeted for searches at the border has reignited the debate over the application of constitutional protections at ports of entry.
Shehadeh said that when he was stopped at Newark on September 17, CBP officers only conducted a “cursory” search on his bags because they did not appear to be interested in physical items.
“They are looking for our thoughts,” he said. “They’re looking to see what I’m thinking. They want to see who I’m messaging. They want to see what WhatsApp groups I am part of.”
The lawyer, who has Global Entry for expedited border crossing, said he was flagged by name for secondary inspection and led to a waiting room. He was asked general questions about his travels, work, and family before the agents asked to search his phone.
Shehadeh objected to allowing the officers to go through his device, citing the attorney-client privileged information on the phone. The agents kept him waiting and subjected him to another round of questioning as they took the case to a supervisor. As the clock ticked, the Florida-based lawyer missed his connecting flight to Miami.
Eventually, he was informed by an officer that CBP would take his phone and let him go. “I told them, ‘I just want to be very clear. I am not giving you permission, consent to search my phone, and I’m not giving any other arm of this agency or anybody else consent to search my phone,’” he said.
The cell phone still has not been returned.
Shehadeh told Truthout that if the goal of the episode were to deter his activism for Palestinian rights, it would not succeed.
“It will not move our advocacy work an inch. Literally, it will have no impact. If anything, it will fuel the importance of doing more of this work,” he told Truthout. “But when it comes to travel, I’m going to be much more careful about what my phone situation will be.”
The Trump administration has been cracking down on Palestinian rights activism, including through a deportation campaign targeting non-citizen students who participated in protests against the war on Gaza.
Shehadeh warned that the administration is creating a new norm of weakened constitutional rights that many people may take for granted.
“This search is a perfect example of that. Protection against search and seizure is one of those things that comes out of our Constitution that really empowers citizens to know you will not have government intrusion,” he said.
“What this administration is doing is chipping away at the rights of Americans — of all Americans. But sadly, Arabs, Muslims, and minorities tend to be the first victims of these abuses. But they’re certainly not going to be the last ones.”
Abu Irshaid of AMP said the government is turning border crossings into a “hunting ground for individuals it wishes to target” for political retaliation or to gather information about constitutional protected activity.
Abu Irshaid has sued the government, alleging that the repeated searches he has been subjected to at the airport, along with the seizure of his phone, amount to illegal discrimination.
A federal judge ruled in his favor in July, declaring that the government violated Abu Irshaid’s rights with the searches.
Some activists are pinning their hopes on a case before the Supreme Court, Anibowei v. Blanche, that could determine whether the Fourth Amendment applies to the electronic devices of U.S. citizens travelling internationally.
CBP argues that only a tiny fraction of travelers, less than one-half of one percent, are subjected to a device search. But official statistics show an uptick in such searches since Trump returned to the White House.
In 2024, federal officers inspected the devices of 47,047 travelers. The numbers increased to 55,318 last year. Of those inspections, 13,590 targeted U.S. citizens in 2025, compared to 10,541 a year earlier.
In January, CBP released a memorandum outlining its regulations and authorities around searching travelers’ personal devices. The document stressed that people at ports of entry have diminished privacy rights and that phone searches are essential “to identify and combat a wide range of illicit activities.”
A basic search, one where the officer goes through the phone manually, can be conducted “with or without suspicion.”
The bar is higher for carrying out an advanced search, which includes copying and analyzing the content of the phone through an external device. It requires “reasonable suspicion of activity in violation of the laws” enforced by CBP. But there appears to be a loophole. An advanced search can still be conducted “in the absence of individualized reasonable suspicion when there is a national security concern.”
The directive does not provide details on what constitutes a “national security concern” to enable an advanced search.
Officers can only search the device itself and may not access information stored remotely. That’s why they must disable the external connectivity of the phone, according to the memorandum.
The directive gives officers the authority to seize a device and keep it even after the traveler leaves the airport, which is what happened to Shehadeh. According to the memorandum, CBP could effectively keep his phone indefinitely. The agency is allowed to hold on to the device for a period of five days, which can be extended by 15 days and subsequently by seven days in increments without specified limits.
As of Thursday, CBP has kept Shehadeh’s phone for 14 days, meaning the agency has applied at least one extension to its hold on the device.
In response to Truthout’s request for comment, a CBP spokesperson told Truthout that the likelihood of a search at a port of entry “remains exceedingly rare” but did not answer specific questions about Shehadeh’s case, including why the agency is still holding on to his phone.
“U.S. Customs and Border Protection has statutory authority to conduct border searches of electronic devices for all persons entering or departing the United States, regardless of citizenship, to enforce laws addressing terrorism, child exploitation, drug- and human-smuggling, visa fraud, and national security threats,” the CBP spokesperson said.
In the face of the U.S.’s ever-expanding definition of “national security threats,” which now seem to include lawyers, journalists, and activists who have advocated for the rights of Palestinians, are now living in fear that border stops are being used as a form of intimidation.
“What is most disturbing is that many of these aggressive government actions target activists whose only ‘offense’ is criticizing Israel’s violations against Palestinians,” Abu Irshaid told Truthout in a statement.
A Personal Connection
As a reporter, I try to stay out of the stories I am telling. But my personal experience with being stopped and searched after returning to the U.S. from international travel is too relevant for this article to withhold.
After returning to Dulles International Airport outside Washington, D.C. from a trip to Lebanon in February 2025, I was detained for nearly five hours and faced similar treatment as Shehadeh.
CBP officers asked me intrusive questions relating to my work as a journalist and political leanings in my family’s hometown in Lebanon, which had been targeted by Israeli bombardment in the war.
After a brief search of my bags, a CBP officer asked me to hand my phone and unlock it. I initially refused. The federal agent handed me a piece of paper stating that CBP has the lawful ability to search electronic devices. When I highlighted that the flyer reflects CBP policy, not the Constitution, the officer threatened to seize both my phone and computer indefinitely if I didn’t hand the phone in.
CBP took the phone after pressuring me to write down its passcode and kept me waiting for around two hours before handing it back — with a disclaimer that they couldn’t “process” it because the system was down. They eventually let me go. Throughout the hours-long ordeal, the officers did not allow me to contact my family member who was waiting to pick me up at the airport.
I have traveled outside the country twice since then and have been flagged for secondary inspection on the way back each time, albeit without a device search. At the advice of press freedom experts, now I travel internationally with an alternative phone that does not contain sensitive personal or professional information.
An update to Google Maps using satellite imagery has revealed the extent of devastation during the three-year Gaza war and the severity of the continuing humanitarian crisis faced by the territory’s 2.3 million inhabitants.
Since October 2023, no nation’s military has killed nearly as many journalists as Israel, a fact that often opens them up to considerable criticism. The IDF, aims to quell those concerns with a new round of official narrative that portrays nearly all the journalists they’ve killed as covert terrorists. The narrative includes a new webpage […]
Palestinians in Gaza City continued their mass funerals on Thursday, following the dozens of burials on Tuesday in the Nuseirat refugee camp. Today’s mass funeral saw another 105 victims of an Israeli attack buried in Martyrs Cemetery. The slain in this case were killed in a flurry of Israeli attacks on Yarmouk Square neighborhood on […]
Mercredi soir, sur le plateau de Quotidien, Bernard-Henri Lévy venait raconter sa vie. Il a fini par défendre Israël contre plusieurs chroniqueurs, et le ton est monté. On sait ce qu'il pense de Gaza : il le répète depuis deux ans et demi. Reste à comprendre pourquoi il y met tant de force. Ses propres textes donnent la réponse.
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Séquence extrêmement tendue dans Quotidien entre BHL, qui défend Israël, et plusieurs chroniqueurs dont Jean-Michel Apathie. pic.twitter.com/o0qL1nRyi2
Mercredi 30 septembre, Bernard-Henri Lévy était l'invité de Quotidien, sur TMC. Le bandeau annonçait : « BHL raconte sa vie ». Il venait présenter ses Mémoires provisoires, en librairie cette semaine. La conversation a quitté le livre pour Israël. Elle est devenue, écrit le journaliste qui en a diffusé l'extrait, « extrêmement tendue » entre l'invité, « qui défend Israël », et plusieurs chroniqueurs, dont Jean-Michel Aphatie. Deux minutes d'images, plus de quatre-vingt mille vues en moins d'une journée.
Il n'y a là aucune surprise. M. Lévy dit la même chose depuis mars 2024. Ce qui mérite qu'on s'y arrête, c'est la vigueur. Un homme de soixante-dix-sept ans, qui a passé sa vie à prononcer le mot « génocide » plus vite que tout le monde, met aujourd'hui la même énergie à l'interdire. Pourquoi ?
Je ne sonderai pas son cœur. Je n'en ai ni le moyen ni le goût. Je regarde ses textes, leurs dates, et ce que le mot lui coûterait s'il le prononçait. Cela suffit.
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Deux grands formats par jour. Les cinq plumes du Courrier. La série Sécession, le dimanche.
Le génocide n'est pas un superlatif. C'est un crime défini par un traité de 1948, que la France a signé. La définition tient en deux éléments. Des actes, d'abord, au nombre de cinq : tuer les membres d'un groupe, leur infliger des atteintes graves, les soumettre à des conditions de vie qui doivent entraîner leur destruction, empêcher les naissances, enlever les enfants. Une intention, ensuite : celle de détruire ce groupe, en tout ou en partie. Le traité ne dit rien de la vitesse. Il ne dit rien des avertissements donnés avant un bombardement.
Sur Gaza, trois instances ont conclu. Amnesty International, le 5 décembre 2024. L'association internationale des chercheurs spécialistes du génocide, en août 2025, par une résolution votée à 86 %. Une commission d'enquête des Nations unies, le 16 septembre 2025 : elle retient quatre des cinq actes du traité.
Reste le juge. La Cour internationale de justice, le tribunal des Nations unies qui tranche les litiges entre États, a été saisie par l'Afrique du Sud fin 2023. Elle a ordonné dès 2024 des mesures d'urgence, dont l'une porte sur la privation de nourriture. Elle n'a pas jugé le fond. D'après son dernier calendrier, Israël a jusqu'au 22 mai 2029 pour déposer ses dernières écritures. Il n'y aura donc pas d'arrêt avant 2029.
Voilà l'état du dossier. Israël conteste. Le juge n'a pas parlé. Trois instances sérieuses ont parlé.
Reprenez le traité. La première phrase parle d'avertissements : le texte n'en parle pas. La deuxième parle de durée : le texte n'en parle pas. La troisième contredit ce que la Cour a elle-même constaté en mars 2024, quand elle a ordonné à Israël de laisser entrer la nourriture. Aucune ne discute l'intention, qui est le seul point difficile du dossier. Ce sont des arguments de plateau. Ils portent à vingt heures. Ils ne pèsent rien devant un juge.
On me dira que M. Lévy a le droit d'attendre l'arrêt, et qu'en 2029 la Cour lui donnera peut-être raison. C'est exact. La question de droit est ouverte, et s'il disait « attendons les juges », je n'écrirais pas cette chronique. Mais il ne dit pas cela. En mai 2024, il déclarait l'accusation « infâme ». En novembre 2024, la Cour pénale internationale, l'autre tribunal de La Haye, celui qui juge les personnes, délivrait un mandat d'arrêt contre M. Nétanyahou. Il a demandé qu'on abolisse cette Cour. Vingt mois plus tôt, elle visait M. Poutine, et il applaudissait. On n'attend pas les juges quand on réclame leur suppression.
Ce que le mot lui coûterait
Je vois quatre raisons. Elles sont toutes écrites de sa main.
Il plaide pour une partie. M. Lévy défend Israël. Il l'écrit, il en a fait un livre en mars 2024, où on lit : « La mort des civils de Gaza n'est pas un massacre. C'est encore moins un génocide. » On a le droit de défendre un pays. On ne peut pas se présenter en même temps comme l'expert qui tranche. Un avocat est respectable. Personne ne lui demande de tenir aussi le greffe.
Le mot l'obligerait. Voilà trente ans qu'il enseigne que ce mot commande d'agir. Pour le Darfour, en 2007, il parlait du « premier génocide du XXIe siècle » et suggérait d'aider ceux qui défendaient les populations les armes à la main. Pour la Libye, en 2011, il plaidait la force auprès de Nicolas Sarkozy. S'il prononçait le mot pour Gaza, sa propre doctrine lui dicterait la suite : sanctions, embargo sur les armes, peut-être davantage, contre le pays qu'il défend. Il ne le peut pas. Il faut donc que le mot soit faux.
Son titre de témoin est en jeu. Son argument d'autorité tient en une phrase : « J'ai vu des génocides (Srebrenica, Darfour). » J'ai travaillé sur le Soudan dans ces années-là. Nous avions sur nos bureaux le rapport de la commission d'enquête des Nations unies, rendu en janvier 2005 : Khartoum commettait des crimes de masse, mais ne menait pas une politique de génocide. M. Lévy a écrit le contraire deux ans plus tard, sans attendre personne.
Quant au Rwanda, mon directeur de la publication a fait relire ses chroniques du Point pour le printemps 1994. Le génocide des Tutsi commence le 7 avril. Du 9 avril au 11 juin, neuf chroniques : pas une ligne. La première mention date du 18 juin, dix semaines après le début des massacres. Il faisait alors campagne pour Sarajevo. Son site assure aujourd'hui qu'il fut « parmi les tout premiers » à prendre la mesure de l'événement.
Or les spécialistes du génocide disent oui à 86 %, et lui dit non. L'un des deux se trompe. S'il leur donne raison, il n'est plus l'homme qui sait reconnaître un génocide. Il devient un écrivain parmi d'autres, qui s'est trompé sur le plus grave.
Il est allé trop loin pour reculer. Un livre, puis « infâme », puis une cour à abolir, puis l'ONU déclarée « morte » pour n'avoir pas soutenu Israël. Chaque phrase rend la suivante obligatoire. Celui qui a écrit tout cela ne peut plus dire en 2029 « je m'étais trompé » sans défaire trente ans de sermons. C'est, je crois, pourquoi le ton monte.
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Un dernier fait montre comment il choisit. En novembre 2025, M. Lévy écrit du Soudan : « Au Darfour, c'est un génocide, un vrai. » Trois mois plus tard, une mission d'enquête des Nations unies relève à El-Fasher, la grande ville du Darfour tombée aux mains des paramilitaires, les « signes distinctifs d'un génocide ». Il avait donc raison cette fois, et je le lui accorde volontiers.
Mais regardez qui le confirme : les Nations unies. La même organisation, par une autre commission, dit la même chose de Gaza. On ne peut pas citer l'ONU à Khartoum et la déclarer morte à Gaza. Il y aurait donc de vrais génocides, ceux qu'il reconnaît, et de faux, ceux que reconnaissent les commissions quand elles le gênent. C'est une justice à un seul juge.
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Je ne demande pas qu'on fasse taire M. Lévy. Je demande trois choses, et elles sont simples.
Aux rédactions : qu'on cesse de l'inviter comme l'arbitre du mot « génocide ». Sur ce dossier, il est l'avocat d'une partie. Qu'on le présente ainsi, et qu'on lui oppose le texte du traité plutôt que de l'indignation.
Au lecteur : un test, ce soir, en dix minutes. Ouvrez l'article II de la Convention de 1948. Cinq actes, une intention. Relisez les trois phrases citées plus haut et cherchez laquelle répond au texte. Vous n'en trouverez pas. Refaites le test avec le prochain invité, quel que soit son camp.
À ceux qui nous gouvernent : la France a signé ce traité, et son article premier l'engage à prévenir, pas seulement à punir. La Cour a rendu trois ordonnances en 2024. Qu'on nous dise, par écrit, ce que Paris a fait pour qu'elles soient respectées.
L'arrêt viendra en 2029, ou plus tard. D'ici là, il existe un texte de 1948, et il se lit en dix minutes.
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