Once again, the British state is exploiting anti-democratic terrorism measures to secure convictions of Palestine Action defendants who targeted an Israeli weapons plant. UK media is currently forbidden from reporting on the trial.
From October 5th, an eight-week-long trial of nine Palestine Action activists known as the Instro 10 will begin at London’s Old Bailey. The defendants are accused of criminal damage, burglary – trespass including criminal damage – and violent disorder.
In keeping with several recent cases brought against the activist collective, which the British state proscribed as a terrorist entity in July 2025, the jury and public are not allowed to know – and the British media is prohibited from reporting – that if activists are convicted of any offenses, they could be sentenced as terrorists.
Palestine Action is a direct action protest group which successfully forced four weapons plants run by the Israeli state-owned company Elbit Systems to close. In several cases, juries acquitted activists after they argued that the property damage they caused saved countless lives in the besieged Gaza Strip, where Israel stands accused of committing genocide. Having suffered millions in damage as it was repeatedly forced to cease production, Elbit and the British state began conspiring to crack down on the activists. This resulted in the effort to stack the legal deck against Palestine Action defendants.
This June, four activists received prison terms ranging from nearly five to over eight years due to the subsequently applied “terrorist connection” label. The judge prohibited the defendants from discussing their motives or arguing that their actions were intended to prevent far graver crimes being perpetrated by Elbit’s weapons.
By denying defendants particular legal defenses, British authorities are attempting to rubber-stamp convictions, and ramming through sentences that are far harsher than for criminal offenses. Had the Instro 10 been publicly charged with “terrorist” offenses, they would have had an opportunity to effectively argue their case properly in open court. But under the new, nakedly undemocratic rules, they are muzzled by judicial decree.
On June 17 2024, Palestine Action descended on the British headquarters of weapons factory Instro Precision, a subsidiary of Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems. Instro’s CEO is Dagan Yogev, an Israeli military veteran who was a major during Tel Aviv’s 2006 assault on Lebanon. After leaving the IDF, he worked in senior positions within Elbit’s Israeli headquarters. Instro produces targeting equipment which has been used in genocidal assaults on Gaza and Southern Lebanon.
Seven Palestine Action members broke into the factory, inflicting reportedly in excess of £1 million ($1.32 million) in damage. Two days later, an Instro Precision state export license to Israel was cancelled, perhaps due to the firm’s inability to fulfill the order in the wake of Palestine Action’s visit.
The seven activists responsible were arrested on-site, and released on bail within 24 hours. Counter-terror police were not involved at any stage. By this point too, not a single Palestine Action activist had been accused of terrorism, or charged under the Terrorism Act.
Unbeknownst to Palestine Action, a secret meeting occurred within 10 days of Instro Precision being struck, at which the Crown Prosecution Service discussed “the resource implications” of PA’s proscription as a terrorist organization with senior British counter-terror officers. In other words, prosecutors and police were weighing the potential financial windfall they would reap by designating Palestine Action as a terrorist group.
The Grayzone has reviewed heavily redacted records of the meeting. They contain powerpoint charts replete with a “threat matrix” indicating how citizen political activity is categorized by authorities as “high level aggravated activism,” or “terrorism.” The former activity is defined as activism involving “unlawful behaviour that has… a significant negative impact on UK businesses.”
In March 2025, around the time Britain’s Proscription Review Group met to determine whether Palestine Action should be proscribed as a terrorist group, British authorities brought charges against activists who targeted the Instro factory. Initially, they were accused of the same crimes as the Filton Six: aggravated burglary, criminal damage and violent disorder, with a “terrorist connection” covertly applied on the basis of serious property damage. But in July, when then-Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced PA’s proscription, she cited the Instro case as an example of “violence” perpetrated by the group.
Despite the highly politicized terror designation, a British court was forced to drop charges of aggravated burglary against the Instro 10, indicating that neither police nor prosecutors possessed any evidence Palestine Action intended to harm any person. Indeed, during its five years of operation, PA has conducted hundreds of direct actions without injuring a single person.
This August, as Palestine Action appealed its proscription in the UK, the administration of US President Donald Trump designated the group as a global “terrorist” threat. This appears to have been, at least in part, an effort to bolster the dubious case against the philanthropist and Palestine Action supporter Fergie Chambers, who faces extradition to the US from Spain for supporting “foreign terrorist organizations.”
From Washington to London, governments are stripping away their patina of liberal democracy to protect their relationship with Tel Aviv. Counter-terror legislation is now the weapon of choice in their war on citizens who seek to obstruct Israel’s genocide machine.
Israel’s pursuit of security increasingly rests on a destabilizing proposition: that its neighbours become less threatening when their capacity to exercise sovereignty is diminished. Since the Hamas-led attacks of October 7, 2023, this approach has become particularly visible across several distinct arenas. Military operations, territorial incursions and restrictions on political and economic autonomy suggest a conception of security dependent on keeping others vulnerable. The consequences extend beyond individual confrontations. When states cannot control their territory, rebuild institutions or protect their populations, the regional conditions necessary for durable security begin to erode.
The argument is not that Israel created every conflict in the Middle East. Authoritarian rule, sectarian violence, armed groups and competing regional interventions have all contributed to the region’s instability.
The question is whether the means Israel uses to pursue its own security deepen that instability. Repeatedly weakening neighbouring states and political communities may bring short-term military gains, but it can also erode their ability to contain violence and maintain order, making the region more dangerous—including for Israel itself.
This pattern can be understood as the denial of sovereignty. Sovereignty involves more than diplomatic recognition: it requires institutions capable of governing, providing services and exercising legitimate authority over the use of force. When these capacities are persistently degraded, formal independence becomes increasingly hollow.
The cases differ in their circumstances and severity, but together they reveal a troubling hierarchy: Israeli freedom of military action repeatedly takes precedence over other societies’ ability to govern and secure themselves.
Syria offers a particularly revealing example. Following the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December 2024, Israel launched extensive attacks against Syrian military infrastructure and moved into the separation zone established under the 1974 disengagement agreement. Israel justified the destruction of military assets as necessary to prevent advanced weapons from falling into extremist hands. Yet the targets included airfields, air-defence systems and naval facilities—capabilities relevant to the functioning of a state, whatever government eventually controls them.
The longer-term problem is that preventing a hypothetical future threat can obstruct the reconstruction of an already devastated country. Syria needs accountable security institutions capable of controlling territory, containing armed factions and protecting communities. Destroying military capabilities without a credible framework for rebuilding legitimate state authority risks leaving those functions unfulfilled. In July 2025, Israeli strikes on Damascus, including the defence ministry, further demonstrated Israel’s willingness to impose military limits on the new authorities.
Syria’s transitional authorities must themselves answer for abuses and protect minorities; state consolidation cannot justify repression. Nevertheless, externally imposed military vulnerability is no substitute for accountable governance.
A government expected to prevent threats from emerging within its territory must have the capacity to exercise authority there. Undermining that capacity can preserve the fragmentation through which armed groups survive.
Lebanon exposes a related contradiction. Hezbollah’s independent military power has long constrained the Lebanese state’s authority and its ability to determine questions of war and peace. Reducing that parallel authority could, under appropriate political arrangements, strengthen state sovereignty. But Israeli military action does not automatically transfer power from Hezbollah to the Lebanese government. Bombardment, displacement and violations of Lebanese territory can weaken the institutions expected to assume responsibility for national security.
The distinction is crucial: weakening an armed organization and strengthening a state are separate outcomes. In March 2026, UN Secretary-General António Guterres called both for respect for Lebanon’s sovereignty and for stronger support to its armed forces so that they could become the country’s sole military force. That combination identifies what repeated unilateral intervention overlooks: security requires an institutional successor capable of governing after military operations end.
Where that capacity remains inadequate, another cycle becomes possible. Armed groups invoke external attacks to justify retaining their weapons; the state struggles to establish authority; Israel cites the continuing armed presence to justify further intervention. Hezbollah bears responsibility for its own decisions, but Israeli policies can reinforce the conditions sustaining its claim that the Lebanese state cannot protect the population.
The attack on Doha on September 9, 2025 extended this logic into the diplomatic sphere. Qatar was mediating negotiations involving Israel and Hamas when Israel struck Hamas representatives on its territory. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights condemned the attack as a breach of international law and an assault on mediation. The significance exceeded the violation of Qatari sovereignty: even a state facilitating negotiations could find its territory treated as an extension of the battlefield.
Mediation depends on practical assurances that communication with an adversary will remain possible. Targeting interlocutors in a mediating country makes those assurances harder to provide. It raises the costs of hosting negotiations and can undermine channels needed for ceasefires, hostage releases and humanitarian arrangements. Military reach may expand while opportunities for a political settlement contract.
Israel’s recognition of Somaliland in December 2025 raises a different sovereignty question along the region’s Red Sea periphery. Somaliland has maintained separate institutions for decades, and its claim to recognition has its own history. Nevertheless, Israel’s recognition challenged Somalia’s internationally recognized territorial framework. The African Union rejected the move and warned that such recognition could undermine peace and stability.
Recognition is not equivalent to bombardment, and the cases should not be collapsed into a single legal category. Their connection is political: the territorial arrangements on which other governments rely become subject to unilateral decisions shaped by Israeli interests. In an already contested regional environment, such decisions risk adding another dispute to fragile processes of state consolidation.
The confrontation with Iran illustrates the danger of extending preventive military logic to a powerful regional adversary. On February 28, 2026, Guterres condemned the use of force by the United States and Israel against Iran and Iran’s subsequent retaliation across the region. He warned that these actions undermined international peace and security. The escalation demonstrated how efforts to eliminate threats militarily can expose additional countries to attack.
Iran’s support for armed groups and its own military conduct cannot be excluded from this assessment. Nevertheless, degrading an adversary’s capabilities does not necessarily resolve the political incentives driving confrontation. It may instead encourage dispersal, rearmament or greater reliance on asymmetric methods. Tactical destruction can coexist with a more dangerous strategic environment.
The Palestinian case represents the most profound expression of this problem because it concerns both collective self-government and the conditions of human survival. In the West Bank, withholding revenues owed to the Palestinian Authority weakens the institutions expected to administer daily life.
The World Bank documented how the suspension of transfers in 2025 intensified fiscal distress, reduced salary payments and placed pressure on essential services. These measures undermine the practical foundations of Palestinian self-government.
A political authority cannot provide credible governance indefinitely while lacking reliable access to its own revenues. Weakening public administration also weakens its legitimacy, potentially benefiting actors who argue that institutional politics offers no meaningful route to Palestinian rights. The resulting dysfunction can then be invoked as evidence that Palestinians are incapable of governing themselves. Restrictions on capacity thus risk producing the very incapacity used to justify continued control.
In Gaza, the destruction has reached beyond institutional viability. The devastation of housing, healthcare, water systems and livelihoods, compounded by restrictions on humanitarian access, has endangered the material conditions necessary for life. In August 2025, a joint statement by UN agencies confirmed famine in Gaza Governorate and described a crisis involving starvation and preventable deaths. The issue was no longer merely whether Palestinians could build a state, but whether civilians could survive.
Hence, in Gaza, the denial of sovereignty has escalated into a denial of survival. In September 2025, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry concluded that Israel had committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Earlier, on November 21, 2024, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu, finding reasonable grounds to believe that he bore criminal responsibility for the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution and other inhumane acts. These findings expose the devastating human consequences of denying a population access to the essentials of life. The systematic destruction of civilian infrastructure and deprivation of food, water and medical care undermine Palestinians’ ability to survive as a community in their homeland. Viewed through this analysis, the genocide identified by the UN commission represents the most extreme manifestation of denial: a progression from obstructing a people’s capacity to govern themselves to destroying the conditions necessary for their continued existence.
Taken together, these cases suggest a self-reinforcing cycle. Military intervention and institutional weakening can generate insecurity, displacement and political fragmentation. Those conditions create opportunities for armed actors, whose activities then provide further grounds for intervention. This is a causal risk, not an inevitable outcome of every operation. Its importance lies in the contradiction between immediate military advantage and the requirements of lasting security.
Breaking that cycle requires a different measure of success: whether policies leave behind institutions capable of governing, populations able to live securely and diplomatic arrangements that reduce incentives for violence. Protecting Israeli civilians and respecting neighbouring societies’ sovereignty are mutually reinforcing necessities.
A regional order built around one state’s freedom to intervene and everyone else’s enforced vulnerability cannot offer durable peace. By denying others the capacity to govern—and, in Gaza, devastating the conditions necessary to survive—Israel risks perpetuating the insecurity from which it seeks protection.
How successful is racial integration in Britain? The ultimate test, says James Hartwood, is living next door – which is when even small cultural differences are magnified to the max and tensions can boil over.
Palestine This Week | Middle East Monitor | September 30, 2026
This week’s MEMO review examines claims about Netanyahu’s advance knowledge of 7 October, his provocative UN speech and Israel’s sweeping West Bank closure. We discuss calls to free Marwan Barghouti, moves to bar Arab-led parties from Israeli elections, Trump’s rejection of Iran’s proposal and allegations of election interference involving Israeli firms.
The U.S. Senate just voted 47-51 against a bill introduced by the Senators Chris Van Hollen, Tim Kaine and Bernie Sanders which would have “forced Secretary of State Marco Rubio to submit to Congress, within 30 days, a report on what information is available about the killings of the nine US citizens, the status of US and Israeli investigations into the killings, the number of US citizens currently held in Israeli prisons, the treatment of Palestinian children in Israeli prisons, and a description of the steps the US government has taken to reduce violence in the West Bank.”
In other words, the Zionist occupied Senate voted against releasing information about Israel killing American citizens in order to protect Israel.
The bill would have forced Marco Rubio to release the information about nine US citizens who have been killed by settlers and Israeli security forces, including the late Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was killed by Israeli occupation forces while reporting in the West Bank in 2022, an intentional murder that was covered up by the Biden administration.
The Biden administration covered up for Israel, claiming that her murder was the “result of tragic circumstances during an IDF-led military operation against factions of Palestinian Islamic Jihad”.
But later, the whistleblower Colonel Steve Gabavics, who worked at the time for the Office of the U.S. Security Coordinator in Jerusalem and led the investigation into Shireen Abu Akleh, revealed that his team found she was intentionally targeted, but the U.S. covered it up to protect Israel.
In an interview with Democracy Now!, he noted, “We were able to disprove very quickly the assertion that there was a Palestinian gunman in front of Shireen Abu Akleh, that the IDF had shot at, and they had accidentally shot her instead… the indications of everything we read from the reports that we got from the IDF on their locations, and proximity to where the event happened, what we got from the investigation from the Palestinian Authority, and our investigation, to us it was very clear that the (IDF) individual in the vehicle who took the shot, would have had a clear line of sight and would have had visibility of Shireen Abu Akleh walking down the middle of the street for a period of time before he took the shots”.
But he revealed that the Biden administration covered up this information, saying, “After we had completed this we were on regular video calls, classified and unclassified with the state department … I indicated that the evidence to me indicated that there would have been enough if we actually built a criminal case to have enough information and facts to beyond a reasonable doubt, for a conviction at some level. We were pushing for the fact that they needed to formally admit the fact that it was not an accident, that a (Israeli) soldier killed Shireen Abu Akleh, that it was an intentional shooting, and unfortunately, that was not what came out … When the actual statement came out, that was absolutely not what I expected… I was shocked … all the data indicates the exact opposite, it was not fog of war… This was not what we had found”.
He added, “It all came down to not trying to anger the Israelis by holding them accountable for intentionally killing an American citizen”.
Yet again, AIPAC-bought members of the Senate want to continue the cover-up of the Israeli murder of American citizens in order not to anger Israel and its lobby.
When I first saw footage of Gaza doctor Munir al-Bursh and his family kneeling beside the white-shrouded body of his son, surrounded by mourners, I thought it was an old video. It was not.
My conclusion, however, was understandable. In December 2023, only months after the start of the Israeli genocide in Gaza, the al-Bursh family was targeted in an Israeli attack. Dr. Munir, director-general of Gaza’s Ministry of Health, was wounded. So were other members of his family. His daughter, Jinan, only 13, was killed.
That same day, Gaza’s beloved doctor was back at work, joining the many doctors across the Strip trying to save lives as Israel’s killing machine claimed them by the thousands.
Alas, the latest footage was not old footage resurfacing. It was a new coffin, a new funeral, another child buried by the same family. This time, the attack took place during what some in the media continue to call the ‘Gaza ceasefire.’
On September 19, an Israeli drone strike killed al-Bursh’s eldest son, Basir, outside a tent west of Jabaliya refugee camp.
“We were together side by side,” the grieving father recalled. Basir had warned him: “The Israelis are targeting both of us.” Moments later, his son stepped outside the tent and was killed.
One can be forgiven for confusing Gaza’s present with its recent past. The scenes emerging today are almost indistinguishable from those that preceded the so-called ceasefire of October 2025. The sequence repeats itself with terrible familiarity: Israeli strikes, shelling and sniping; Palestinians killed; the bereaved carrying their dead through Gaza’s destroyed streets, searching among the ruins for somewhere to bury them.
Al-Bursh’s story is part of this terrible continuum, but its significance extends beyond his personal loss. Throughout the genocide, he and other Palestinian doctors became Gaza’s de facto spokespeople. They counted the dead and wounded, documented hunger and destruction, and chronicled the collapse of the medical system from within its hospitals.
In the process, they became Gaza’s highest moral authority, more credible than politicians or self-proclaimed leaders.
And the world listened. Gaza’s doctors forged a bond with global civil society that no political institution could manufacture.
Perhaps that helps explain the staggering price Gaza’s medical community has been made to pay. According to the World Health Organization, more than 1,700 healthcare workers have been killed since 2023, amid at least 920 attacks on healthcare.
Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, like Dr. al-Bursh, became a symbol of that medical resistance. The director of Kamal Adwan Hospital remained at his post through siege and repeated Israeli attacks before Israeli forces detained him in December 2024. He remains imprisoned without charge or trial, amid reports from his lawyer of beatings and deteriorating health.
Dr. al-Bursh, meanwhile, remains steadfast despite repeated blows that would have broken many others. His wife, too, embodies sumud, the Palestinian tradition of steadfastness nurtured at home and passed from one generation to the next.
Even in the immediate aftermath of his son’s killing, al-Bursh continued warning about Gaza’s collapsing healthcare system. Indeed, hospitals have been forced to suspend scheduled surgeries and outpatient services, while severe shortages of fuel, medicines and equipment continue.
“The limited quantities of fuel reaching the enclave barely keep health facilities alive,” al-Bursh warned a day after his son’s murder.
His statement came as world leaders gathered thousands of miles away, in New York, for the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly.
And once again, Palestine echoed through speech after speech, though this time the language carried a new urgency.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez condemned “the genocide that Netanyahu continues to perpetrate in Gaza.” UN Secretary-General António Guterres described Israel’s mass extermination as involving “a scale of killing and destruction unlike anything I have witnessed” during his tenure. Even French President Emmanuel Macron called Gaza “a spectacle that shames us all,” asking: “What is our credibility worth if we remain inactive on Gaza?”
Then came Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Dozens of delegates walked out as he approached the podium, leaving row upon row of empty seats, while protests continued outside the UN. Netanyahu responded by calling those who departed “moral cowards.”
One might pause here and speak of tides turning, currents changing and a world slowly loosening the decades-long grip of Israel and its American benefactor.
But Gaza does not have the luxury of time. While the words reverberate through the halls of the United Nations, children are still killed in front of their families. Mass funerals remain part of Gaza’s daily rhythm.
Approximately 1.7 million people remain displaced, many under inadequate shelter, without sufficient clean water or sanitation. Hospitals remain crippled. And above this landscape of ruin, the drones still circle.
Between today and the next UN General Assembly lies an entire year—365 days in which those words can either acquire meaning or become yet another entry in the long archive of speeches on Palestine. However, there is time for rhetoric to become policy: for sanctions to be imposed, boycotts activated, meaningful aid delivered and those responsible for war crimes held accountable.
Until then, Dr. Munir al-Bursh and thousands of Gaza’s men and women will continue to hold the fort amid shattered hospitals, destroyed homes and an exhausted population.
Their resilience is extraordinary. But Gaza cannot be expected to endure simply because it has proved capable of enduring.
In New York, Palestine is spoken of from the podium. In Gaza, Palestinians are still being carried to their graves.
It is time to close the distance between words and action, once and for all.
In cooperation with the Centre for Palestine Studies at SOAS University London and Friends of Palestinian Universities, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) has released a new report, “Scholasticide and Genocide in Gaza: Assessment, Testimonial and Legal Analysis,” documenting Israel’s systematic destruction of Gaza’s educational system and examining how this policy forms an integral part of Israel’s ongoing three-year genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
The report demonstrates that Israel’s attacks on education in Gaza, including on UNRWA educational faciltiies and staff, go far beyond the destruction of schools and universities or the killing of Palestinian teachers. They constitute a comprehensive policy aimed at dismantling the educational, intellectual, social and cultural foundations necessary for the continued existence and development of Palestinian society.
Drawing on dozens of testimonies and affidavits collectd by PCHR field researchers and lawyers in Gaza, alongside PCHR’s extensive documentation, open-source material, United Nations reports, academic research and relevant international jurisprudence, the report identifies five interconnected patterns of scholasticide: the killing of students, teachers and academics; causing serious bodily and mental harm to them; destroying of educational facilities; obstructing the establishment alternative educational structures; and imposing genocidal conditions that prevent students from accessing education.
By July 2026, PCHR had documented the killing of approximately 20,051 students, more than 830 teachers and educational staff, and over 194 scholars, academics and researchers. Nearly the entire educational infrastructure in in Gaza has been extensively damaged or destroyed, while hundreds of thousands of students have endured prolonged interruption of their education amid displacement, starvation, bombardment, loss of family members, destruction of homes, lack of electricity and internet access, and the collapse of essential services.
PCHR’s report finds that certain acts committed within Israel’s campaign of scholasticide constitute genocidal acts under Article II of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, including killing members of the protected group, causing serious bodily or mental harm, and deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.
The report further highlights the long-term impact on Palestinian children and young Palestinians, including psychological harm, educational loss, diminished future opportunities and intergenerational trauma. Israel’s erasure of the educational infrastructure and broader civilian life in Gaza does not only constitute an attack on the rights of the present generation but also on the future generations.
Education has historically played a central role in sustaining Palestinian identity, knowledge, social cohesion and cultural continuity, particularly in the context of prolonged displacement and occupation. Israel’s destruction of universities, schools, libraries, academic records and cultural institutions therefore carries consequences far beyond the loss of physical infrastructure. It seeks to sever Palestinians from their history and intellectual life, diminish their capacity to rebuild their society, and deprive future generations of the means to learn, develop and participate fully in their community.
PCHR stresses that the destruction of Gaza’s education system did not begin on 7 October 2023. For decades, Palestinian schools, universities and educational institutions have been subjected to attacks, restrictions and destruction during successive Israeli military operations. The unprecedented scale of destruction since October 2023 however represents the culmination and intensification of this longstanding pattern.
PCHR calls on the international community, particularly States Parties to the Genocide Convention, to:
Take immediate and effective measures to bring Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza to an end, including its policy of scholasticide.
Ensure full compliance with the three provisional measures ordered by the International Court of Justice in the case of South Africa v. Israel.
Impose a comprehensive arms embargo on Israel and halt all military, financial and other assistance that may contribute to the commission of international crimes.
Support international accountability mechanisms, including the International Criminal Court, and ensure that those responsible for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity are investigated and prosecuted.
Take concrete measures to protect Palestinian students, teachers, academics and educational institutions and guarantee the restoration of the right to education in Gaza.
Provide sustained support for the reconstruction of Gaza’s schools, universities, libraries and educational infrastructure, while ensuring that reconstruction does not substitute for accountability.
Address the long-term psychological, educational and developmental consequences suffered by Palestinian children and young people and ensure their access to rehabilitation, mental-health support and inclusive education.
There is no running away from the fact that there are extremely troubling ideas throughout the Torah, Talmud, Mishneh Torah and Tanya.
Ideas like “choseness”, “promised land”, “return to Zion”, “building the temple”, “tikkun olam”… etc come from no other than Torah itself, soaked in supremacy, dominance aspiration, deception and mass-killing.
We can no longer hide our heads in the sand, pretending not to know, pretending not to see.
Jewish anti-Zionists should move on now, and use all their activism outside the Palestine solidarity movement, direct their work towards their people where serious discussions happen, plans are drawn, funds are raised, weapons are shipped and is genocide plotted and enacted. They should work with their own Jewish communities to try to get them out of the mess of supremacy and genocide they got themselves into.
Instead of wasting their time denying any links between Judaism and Zionism, instead of throwing their energy on controlling the Palestinian discourse, and instead of relentlessly monitoring us, Semite Palestinians lest we slip and “conflate Zionism with Judaism”or say something “antisemitic”, that may offend a Jew, Anti-Zionist Jews should change course and adopt a different role to play.
They should shift their activism within, try to effect change within their own Jewish communities who by vast majority are still supporting the Genocide with all their wealth, their leverage, all their influence and all their might.
They should leave us Palestinians to lead our Liberation Movement, and to narrate our authentic, untamed, unfiltered, unkosherised story without censoring, blacklisting, slandering or intimidation.
The future of the planet depends on the uprooting of Jewish supremacy, deception, hatred and violence from their ideology, and joining the human race as equals not as “chosen”.
Failing to confront the elephant in the room would end up in a World Nakba, like nothing we have ever seen before.
This is a WARNING, a mere WARNING of a brewing global disaster, I see in the horizon, and I am praying that together we would be able to prevent before it’s too late.
The BBC has been slammed after publishing a piece arguing that the popular "bare-looking" manicure trend is rooted in racism, classism and "white supremacy".
British police on Sunday arrested two demonstrators during a pro-Palestine protest outside the ruling Labour Party’s annual conference in Liverpool, Anadolu reports.
Protesters gathered outside the conference venue, with several holding homemade signs expressing support for Palestine Action, a group banned by the UK government.
Police officers moved to arrest an elderly man who was sitting beneath a tree, before making a second arrest involving a protester holding a sign supporting the banned group.
A spokesperson for Defend Our Juries, which organized the protest, said it had hoped the new prime minister, Andy Burnham, “would do the sensible thing and bin the ban on Palestine Action given the weight of public pressure to do so and the escalating amount of resources required in enforcing it.”
Nearly 74,000 Palestinians have been killed and over 175,000 others wounded in Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza since 2023. The offensive has also destroyed around 90% of the enclave’s infrastructure.
Despite a ceasefire that took effect last October, the Israeli army has continued daily attacks in Gaza, killing over 1,400 Palestinians and injuring around 5,000 others, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
In November 2024, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip.
Mauritius on Saturday refused landing clearance for a scheduled flight from Israel, forcing its cancellation after efforts to secure approval failed, Israeli media reported, Anadolu reports.
The Ynet news website said the Air Seychelles flight was due to depart Israel for Mauritius but was called off after authorities did not grant permission for it to land.
Spirit World Productions, the Israeli tour operator behind the trip, said the flight had received approvals several months earlier.
The company said it had been informed that the refusal was based on “political and diplomatic considerations.”
Mauritian authorities have yet to comment on the decision.
Separately, sources familiar with the matter told Israel’s Channel 12 that the refusal was linked to absence of the Mauritius delegation during this week’s address by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the UN General Assembly.
Spirit World Productions said it was working with Air Seychelles and authorities on arrangements for affected passengers.
Israeli Finance Minister and settler leader Bezalel Smotrich has called on Israel to “go to war” in the occupied Palestinian West Bank and “do there what we did in Gaza,” Israeli media reported on 27 September.
“I certainly have solutions” to the situation in the West Bank, he said. “I think we need to go to war in Judea and Samaria, to do there what we did in Gaza, to dismantle the Palestinian Authority, which is a terror authority.”
The Religious Zionism Party leader also called on Israel to annex the areas of southern Lebanon and Gaza occupied by Israeli troops.
“I would very much like to annex at least up to the Yellow Line in Gaza and up to the Litani [River] in Lebanon,” he says.
As part of its genocide of Palestinians since 2023, Israel has occupied an estimated 70 percent of Gaza, which is divided by a yellow line demarcating areas under direct Israeli occupation from those remaining under Hamas control.
Israel has also occupied territory in Lebanon amounting to 7 percent of the entire country.
Israel carries out demolition campaigns in both, seeking to wipe out any trace of Palestinian and Lebanese villages and cities already largely destroyed by Israeli bombing.
Smotrich made the comments after he was asked on a podcast how to advance Israel’s project in the West Bank amid Palestinian resistance.
Israel has accelerated its construction of illegal Jewish settlements and outposts in the West Bank this year, including in the E1 settlement.
E1 is designed to cut the West Bank in half and separate it from occupied East Jerusalem, making the establishment of a territorially contiguous Palestinian state impossible.
At the same time, Jewish settlers enjoying protection of the army regularly carry out violent pogrom-style attacks on Palestinian villages in hopes of forcing Palestinians to abandon their homes and agricultural lands.
In response, Palestinians have carried out several car ramming and shooting operations targeting Jewish settlers in recent weeks.
Smotrich also repeated his call to dismantle the Palestinian Authority (PA), which provides civil administration to parts of the West Bank, including the Palestinian cities such as Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin and Bethlehem.
The PA was established following the Oslo Accords in 1993 to serve as an interim government until the establishment of a Palestinian state.
However, the PA has in practice served as an arm of the Israeli occupation, assisting the Israeli military in suppressing Palestinian resistance.
Smotrich has previously called on Israel to annex more than 80 percent of the West Bank, which Israel conquered in 1967.
Since then, Israel has established some 160 Jewish settlements and 360 outposts, housing more than 700,000 Jewish settlers as part of a long-term campaign to colonize and Judaize the Palestinian territories.
In his campaign for next month’s Knesset election, Smotrich has touted the expansion of Israeli settlements under the current coalition government, which includes Smotrich, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.
As head of the Likud Party, Netanyahu is seeking his seventh term as prime minister. Ben Gvir leads a religious nationalist party, Jewish Power, known for its extremism and calls for violence against Palestinians.
Meanwhile, Israeli authorities decided to impose a week-long “comprehensive closure” on the occupied West Bank, closing crossings to the territory until Saturday for the Jewish religious holiday of Sukkot.
The order will prevent Palestinians with work permits from entering Israel and Jewish settlements to go to their jobs.
Local sources told the Wafa News Agency that the entrance gate to Turmus Ayya, north of Ramallah, was closed and residents were “harassed.”
Wafa also reported that entrances to Aboud, Nabi Saleh, Atara and Taybeh were closed, while military checkpoints were set up at the entrances to Yabroud and Ein Sinyah.
Ireland’s preparations for Sunday’s Nations League match against “Israel” have been thrown into uncertainty after goalkeeper Gavin Bazunu reportedly told teammates that he did not want to participate in the fixture, prompting further discussions within the squad.
The players missed their scheduled training session and press conference in Debrecen, Hungary, as they held lengthy meetings over whether individual players should proceed with the match.
The Ireland squad was due to train at the Nagyerdei Stadium in Debrecen and hold a press conference ahead of Sunday’s Nations League encounter.
Instead, the players remained at their hotel for discussions with head coach Heimir Hallgrímsson and his coaching staff. They had earlier met with Football Association of Ireland (FAI) CEO David Courell.
The scheduled press conference was postponed with only 19 minutes’ notice. Irish and Israeli media had already assembled at the stadium when Irish journalists were informed that the event could be delayed by up to two hours.
The UEFA match delegate was also informed of the delay but was reportedly not given a reason. The team ultimately did not arrive for the scheduled training session.
The disruption followed an initial squad meeting on Friday intended to establish the players’ position on the “Israel” fixture and discuss whether they would stage a protest.
According to reports, a collective boycott was not initially the purpose of the meeting. During the discussions, however, Bazunu indicated that he did not want to participate in the match, with other players subsequently considering whether to join him.
The extent of opposition within the squad remains unclear, and no final collective decision had been announced at the time of reporting.
The developments mark a significant escalation in the controversy surrounding Ireland’s Nations League meetings with “Israel”.
Earlier this week, Ireland captain Dara O’Shea said the squad intended to fulfill the two fixtures, while any decision over a separate protest was to be discussed following Ireland’s opening Nations League match against Kosovo.
The position has since become less certain following the latest internal discussions.
Hallgrímsson had previously acknowledged that Ireland’s players did not share identical views or the same intensity of feeling regarding the “Israel” fixtures. He also said that he would respect a player’s decision if an individual did not want to take part.
Ireland’s match against “Israel” is scheduled for Sunday, September 27, at the Nagyerdei Stadium in Debrecen.
FAI faces pressure over ‘Israel’ games
The latest dispute follows months of controversy over the FAI’s decision to proceed with the fixtures.
In July, an FAI motion endorsing the fulfillment of the Nations League matches against “Israel” passed by 68% to 32%. The association had argued that failing to fulfill the fixtures could expose Irish football to sporting and financial consequences.
The FAI has also acknowledged the strength of public opposition to the fixtures. In September, CEO David Courell said the organization was in a “really difficult position,” arguing that UEFA’s failure to take action over “Israel’s” participation had left the FAI with limited options.
The controversy has extended beyond the football establishment. More than 160 Irish athletes have signed an open letter urging the national team to refuse to participate in the “Israel” fixtures, while protests have been held outside the team’s hotel.
Israeli settler gangs are using drones to terrorize Palestinians across the occupied West Bank, harassing families and guiding armed raids that have killed Palestinians, TheNew Arab(TNA)reported on 25 September.
“When herders left their homes in the morning, the drones would pursue and shadow them; if they approached certain areas, settlers would gather to attack and drive them away. Eventually, the drones began monitoring residents inside their homes around the clock, and there was nothing anyone could do to stop them,” Rabie Abu Naim, a displaced resident of Al-Khalayel, east of Ramallah, told TNA.
Settlers later rigged the drones with speakers blaring abuse and orders to leave, and drones were also used to drop tear gas on targeted communities, as violent assaults wounded many until terrified families fled, the report said.
Abu Naim also pointed to the killing of a boy and a young man in Al-Mughayyir days ago, saying drones “played a major role” in a raid that began with a drone tracking a flock of sheep, after which settlers moved in to steal the animals while shielded by the Israeli army, which “killed the two victims in cold blood during the incident.”
In Mikhmas, shepherd Mohammed Abu Siyam told TNA that settlers sent a drone after his 19-year-old son, Nasrallah, and other young men searching for livestock stolen from the village in February.
With the drone watching their every move, armed illegal settlers lay in wait for the young men, then opened fire, killing Nasrallah and wounding others.
Another Palestinian living in Hajjah, near Qalqilya, told TNA that settler drones fly so close to village homes that families fear the machines will crash through their windows, leaving residents under constant watch and feeling that “privacy is non-existent, and everyone feels constantly threatened.”
Illegal Israeli settlement councils have recently begun arming settlers with drones to film, scout, and watch the areas around outposts, building on earlier Israeli funding that equipped outposts with drones as part of a so-called security package.
Palestinians, meanwhile, are barred from owning drones even for their work, and the Israeli army has arrested numerous Palestinian photojournalists over the past three years for having them, citing a military order that has banned Palestinians from possessing the devices since 2017.
Israeli occupation forces have also raided toy shops across West Bank cities dozens of times, confiscating every drone on the shelves, including those made for children, and threatening shop owners with arrest if they sell them.
In May, OCHA documented settlers using drones to chase residents of Arab al-Mleihat, a community since emptied.
Salah al-Khawaja of the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission told TNA that the constant surveillance of Palestinian homes can become “an additional factor driving families to leave the areas where they live.”
Geneva – The Israeli military continues to use armed quadcopter drones to carry out deliberate killings of Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip. Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor has documented the killing of at least 60 civilians by gunfire from these drones or by munitions dropped by them since the ceasefire took effect on 10 October 2025 through early September 2026.
The repeated occurrence of these incidents after the ceasefire, and the targeting of children, displaced people, farmers, shepherds, and people returning to check on their homes, reveals a continuing pattern of the deliberate killing of Palestinian civilians, in which 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.
Quadcopters are small, multi-rotor tactical drones, some systems of which can be operated by a single soldier. They can be equipped with daytime and thermal cameras, target-identification and tracking systems, and weapon stabilization systems. Depending on the mission, some models can also be fitted with 5.56mm and 7.62mm weapons or 40mm explosive munitions, enabling the operator to closely monitor individuals, track their movements, and then fire at them or drop munitions toward them with a high degree of accuracy.
These technical capabilities give the operator the ability to observe the targeted person, verify their identity, and track their movements before opening fire. This greatly narrows the margin for error in target identification and heightens the obligation to refrain from an attack when the civilian nature of the target becomes apparent or when there is any doubt as to their status. The repeated killing of children, displaced people, farmers, and shepherds by direct gunfire or munitions dropped from these drones, despite their clear civilian status and absence of any direct participation in hostilities or imminent threat, therefore provides, taken together, strong evidence that civilians themselves were intentionally selected as targets of attack, rather than being killed as a result of mistaken identification or accidentally struck. Such attacks are prohibited in themselves and cannot be justified by military necessity or subjected to a proportionality assessment, since a direct attack against a civilian is prohibited from the outset and cannot be made lawful by invoking military necessity or the rules of proportionality.
The data Euro-Med Monitor has collected shows that at least 60 civilians have been killed in attacks carried out by quadcopters since the ceasefire, while Gaza’s Ministry of Health reported that the total number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces during the same period had reached 1,368 as of the date of the statement.
Field monitoring revealed three main patterns in the use of these drones. The first involved precise and direct gunfire against individuals whom the operator could see and distinguish; the second involved dropping explosive munitions on civilian gatherings and tents housing displaced people; and the third involved using these drones to impose fire control over areas adjacent to what is known as the “Yellow Line,” by targeting civilians as they attempted to reach their homes and lands or carry out their work there.
Under the first pattern, Euro-Med Monitor’s field team documented the killing of 12-year-old Abdullah Nour Saeed Dawas on the evening of 11 April 2026, after a quadcopter opened direct fire on displaced people in the vicinity of Abu Hussein Schools and Al-Fakhoura Health Centre in Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip. It also documented the killing of 26-year-old Fatima Al-Zahra Ramzi Ahmed Al-Ma’ni by fire from the same type of drone east of Deir al-Balah on 21 May 2026. It further documented the killing of 62-year-old Nidal Eid Salmi Abu Halib on 11 October 2025, after an Israeli quadcopter opened direct fire on him while he was heading to inspect his family’s home in Al-Qarara, northeast of Khan Younis.
Under the second pattern, Euro-Med Monitor documented the killing of at least three civilians on 6 December 2025 after a quadcopter dropped an explosive munition on a group of civilians near Al-Atatra roundabout in Beit Lahia. It also documented the killing of Fadi Adel Khalif on 20 February 2026 after an Israeli drone dropped a bomb on his tent in the northern Gaza Strip, and the killing of 52-year-old Inaam Abdullah Al-Attar on 17 July 2026 after a bomb was dropped near Abu Tammam School in Beit Lahia.
The third pattern involved the use of quadcopters to impose fire control over areas adjacent to the “Yellow Line” and target civilians as they attempted to reach their lands and sources of livelihood. Euro-Med Monitor documented the killing of 42-year-old shepherd Raafat Adel Ibrahim Barika by fire from a drone of this type in the Al-Shakoush area near the “Yellow Line,” northwest of Rafah, on 22 May 2026. It also documented the killing of farmer Hamouda Fayeq Al-Attar on 29 August 2026 while he was working on his land east of Al-Masdar village, coinciding with the Israeli forces’ advance along the line in the area.
Children were among the victims of this precision weapon. Euro-Med Monitor’s field documentation is consistent, in terms of pattern, with the findings of a multidisciplinary report published by the Costs of War project at Brown University’s Watson Institute on 17 June 2026. The report was based on 18 cases involving children who were killed or wounded by gunfire that was examined and documented by a physician who participated in preparing the report during her work in Gaza Strip hospitals between August and September 2024. Witnesses who brought the children to hospital reported that quadcopters were responsible for the gunfire in 90 percent of the cases, while most wounds were caused by single, small-calibre bullets that struck the head, neck, chest, or abdomen.
The report presented five detailed cases supported, in each instance, by X-ray images or diagrams based on clinical photographs and witness testimonies. One case involved a seven-year-old child who was wounded inside an area designated as humanitarian while playing in the street, with no one else in the surrounding area being struck by gunfire. Medical, imaging, and ballistic analysis in three cases concluded that the entry angles and trajectories of the bullets were from above, consistent with gunfire originating from a drone. Although these incidents occurred in 2024, these findings are consistent with the pattern documented by Euro-Med Monitor at a later stage and constitute strong evidence of the use of precise, targeted gunfire directly and deliberately against children.
Euro-Med Monitor documented the circumstances of a child’s injury that resulted in permanent mobility impairment after he was directly shot by a quadcopter, providing additional evidence that Israeli forces deliberately used these drones to kill and inflict serious harm without any justification.
In testimony to Euro-Med Monitor’s team, the father of 11-year-old Amir Mohammed Khalil Shaath, a resident of Qizan Rashwan south of Khan Younis who was displaced to an area near Al-Sikka, adjacent to the Yellow Line, described what happened, saying: “On that day, 12 August 2026, I received a text message inviting them to collect a food parcel, so I went with my son Amir to the designated warehouse in the afternoon. On our way back on foot to our residential area in Al-Sikka neighbourhood, at around 5 p.m., we came under random and intense gunfire from a quadcopter flying at low altitude between abandoned residential buildings. This was followed by the dropping of an explosive bomb, which caused a violent explosion and sent shrapnel flying. Metal fragments became lodged in my son Amir’s skull and thigh, causing fractures and severe damage to the skull bones, and he lost consciousness for a long period as a result. He was taken to Nasser Hospital, where doctors said that if he had arrived a few minutes later, he would have died from internal bleeding in the brain. Medical teams managed to control the bleeding, but the fragments lodged in his skull could not be removed with the locally available capabilities. The child sustained a permanent mobility impairment, losing the ability to walk or stand. Medical teams declared that the available local treatment options had been exhausted and recommended that he travel abroad for treatment to remove the fragments lodged in his skull.”
The operator’s ability to clearly see the targeted person, distinguish their status, and track their movement before opening fire, and then strike them with a single bullet or guided munition, effectively eliminates the pretext of mistaken target identification, particularly when the target is a child, farmer, or shepherd carrying no weapon and posing no threat. This demonstrates that these civilians were not struck accidentally, but were deliberately selected as targets of attack.
Targeting these civilians establishes the intent to kill them and constitutes wilful killing and direct attacks against civilians, both of which are war crimes. Because such conduct occurs as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against the civilian population in Gaza, with knowledge of that attack, it also constitutes the crime against humanity of murder. Within the context of Israel’s commission of genocide, it falls under the material act of killing members of the protected Palestinian group and, alongside the other acts, policies, and statements, constitutes additional evidence of the specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza as a substantial part of the Palestinian group.
Euro-Med Monitor calls on the international community, particularly states parties to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, to take immediate and coordinated action to halt all international crimes being committed by Israel against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, foremost among them the crime of genocide in its various acts and means of implementation, including the deliberate killing of civilians using armed quadcopters. We call on these states to employ all available political, economic, diplomatic, and legal means to fulfil their obligation to prevent genocide and ensure respect for international humanitarian law, and to refrain from providing any support or assistance that contributes to the continuation of these crimes.
Euro-Med Monitor also calls on states, the United Nations, and international investigative mechanisms to take urgent measures to ensure the preservation and acquisition of all evidence related to these attacks, including drone camera recordings, flight and positioning data, firing records, the types of munitions used, mission orders, rules of engagement, and targeting data, as well as the names of operators and commanders who ordered or authorised the attacks, and to prevent the destruction, alteration, or concealment of such evidence.
We further urge the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to include the use of armed quadcopters in the ongoing investigation into the Situation in Palestine and to investigate the individual criminal responsibility of operators and those who issued or authorised targeting orders, as well as the responsibility of commanders who knew or should have known that these crimes were being committed and failed to take the necessary measures to prevent them or punish those responsible.
Euro-Med Monitor also calls on the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel to investigate these incidents as a systematic pattern of deliberate killings and to identify the types of drones and munitions used, their manufacturers and suppliers, and the relevant supply chains, and to request all related recordings, digital data, and military orders.
We also call on states to impose an immediate and comprehensive ban on the export, transfer, re-export, or financing of armed drones to Israel, including their components, munitions, sensors, targeting and tracking software, maintenance services, training, technical upgrades, spare parts, and brokering, as well as to suspend existing licences and contracts and halt all forms of military and security cooperation that could contribute to or facilitate the commission of these crimes.
Euro-Med Monitor also calls on manufacturers and suppliers to halt any direct or indirect support that could enable such uses, trace the components of their systems, preserve sales, end-user, maintenance, and upgrade records, and fully cooperate with international investigative mechanisms.
Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor also urges states to investigate individuals suspected of responsibility for these crimes and prosecute them before their national courts where jurisdiction exists, including on the basis of universal jurisdiction; impose targeted sanctions on officials and entities involved in these crimes; work to ensure access for international investigators and forensic experts to the Gaza Strip; protect witnesses and survivors; and guarantee victims and their families the right to truth, justice, and full reparation.
Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs Kazem Gharibabadi has said NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte’s admission that some 5,000 sorties were flown from European bases in support of US military aggression against Iran proves that Europe formed part of the infrastructure of that aggression.
In a post on X on Thursday evening, Gharibabadi wrote that the NATO chief’s remarks demonstrated Europe’s role in enabling the illegal US campaign.
“Governments that placed their territory at the disposal of the United States cannot evade their responsibility,” he said. “This participation will not go unanswered.”
Rutte has repeatedly acknowledged that thousands of US military flights, between 4,000 and 5,000, departed from bases in Europe during the US-Israeli war of aggression against the Islamic Republic, which began on 28 February.
He described Europe as a “platform of power projection” without which Washington could not have conducted the operation.
Countries including Italy, Romania, the United Kingdom, France and Germany were cited in connection with the use of bases, airspace, tankers and logistics.
Iran has consistently described the US-Israeli assault as an unprovoked act of aggression in flagrant violation of the UN Charter and international law.
Tehran has stressed that providing territory, bases or infrastructure to an aggressor state itself constitutes participation in the act of aggression, as recognized under United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3314.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi separately warned European officials in New York of the severe and long-term consequences of facilitating and supporting US and Israeli war crimes, both in Gaza and against Iran. He noted that submitting to a bully never satisfies that bully.
Nurse Amy Gallagher was forced out of an NHS training course for refusing to relinquish her belief in colour-blind meritocracy. It's time, she says, for the courts to intervene and end this woke campaign of victimisation.
A US federal court dismissed the lawsuit against the Palestine Chronicle and its editor, Dr. Ramzy Baroud, after the three plaintiffs asked to withdraw it.
Almog Meir Jan filed the case in July 2024. Shlomi Ziv and Andrey Kozlov joined an amended complaint the following year. The suit sought to link the Chronicle to their captivity in Gaza through its publication of reports by Palestinian journalist Abdallah Aljamal.
The Chronicle rejected the accusations throughout the proceedings. The plaintiffs moved to withdraw their case in July, and US District Judge Tiffany Cartwright granted the request on September 15. The court record closed the case after more than two years of litigation.
“After a struggle of over 2 years, we have won a big victory. We have beaten back a calculated attempt to chill the free speech of some of the most critical voices of the Palestinian people — The Palestine Chronicle and Ramzy Baroud. I have been so proud and honored to represent these clients and am happy for the outcome,” Attorney Dan Kovalik said.
“Still, we must remain vigilant for the inevitable attacks to come against people whose only ‘crime’ is advocating for the lives and rights of the Palestinian people. We are fully prepared for this ongoing struggle,” Kovalik added.
For his part, Baroud welcomed the outcome but said that the case “should have been thrown out from the start.”
“It was initially dismissed, only to be refiled and treated as though the accusations had any legitimacy, despite there not being a single piece of evidence to prove any wrongdoing on our part,” he said.
A Gaza Journalist at the Center of the Case
The lawsuit grew out of an Israeli massacre in central Gaza in June 2024. Israeli occupation forces freed four captives during the operation, which also killed hundreds of Palestinians.
Among those killed was Abdallah Aljamal, a Palestinian journalist who had contributed reports to the Palestine Chronicle. His wife, father and neighbors were also killed. After the raid, Israeli officials alleged that three of the captives had been held in Aljamal’s home.
The three former captives later sued the Chronicle and Baroud. They alleged that the outlet had aided their captivity by publishing Aljamal’s work and paying him for it. The Chronicle denied paying Aljamal and rejected any suggestion that publishing his reports, which were also widely disseminated in both Arabic and English, connected the outlet to the captives’ detention.
Aljamal had filed many reports during the first six months of the war. Baroud said the value of that work lay in its attention to Palestinians whose experiences rarely reached an international audience.
“When Abdallah was sending articles, what I liked about his work is that he spoke to ordinary people,” Baroud said in an earlier interview with journalist Rachel Blevins.
“(We) did not want political commentary; we already have analysts. We wanted the voices of people you never hear from. That’s all,” he added.
In the same interview, Kovalik challenged the allegation that the Chronicle had financed Aljamal’s activities. “The claim is that the Palestine Chronicle paid a journalist, and somehow that money was used to hold hostages. It’s not true. There’s no evidence,” he said.
For the Chronicle, the case put an ordinary editorial decision—publishing firsthand reports from Gaza—at the center of an accusation of wrongdoing. It also forced a small newsroom to defend its work in court while continuing to cover the genocide facing the people and journalists on whom that work depended.
“The saddest aspect of all this is that the victims once again became the accused,” Baroud said in his latest statement. “Some of us have lost hundreds of family members, relatives, friends, neighbors and colleagues, only to find ourselves having to defend against entirely politically and ideologically motivated accusations.”
Israeli authorities have repeatedly accused Palestinian journalists killed or targeted in Gaza of ties to Hamas. The Committee to Protect Journalists has documented a pattern of labeling journalists as “terrorists” without substantiated evidence, while Reporters Without Borders has reported smear campaigns against Gaza’s journalists. Those allegations should be assessed on evidence, rather than treated as established facts because they come from the army that targeted them.
According to the International Federation of Journalists, at least 240 Palestinian journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza as of September 2026. The federation described the toll as “the greatest massacre of journalists in the history of modern journalism”.
A Silver Lining
Baroud reflected on the people who helped the Chronicle through the case.
“There is a silver lining. This case made us stronger. Dan Kovalik and his team fought with extraordinary dedication on our behalf, while countless readers and intellectuals stood by us.
“Throughout it all, we refused to let the case slow us down. We expanded our coverage and our network, sharpened our journalism and emerged more resilient and more committed than ever to telling Palestinian stories.”
The Palestine Chronicle dedicated the outcome to its readers, solidarity activists, intellectuals, independent journalists and all those who stood beside it and defended the right of Palestinians to tell their own stories.
– Romana Rubeo is an Italian writer and the managing editor of The Palestine Chronicle.
Earlier this year, the US Supreme Court heard an appeal from death row inmate Terry Pitchford, who was denied relief by the Mississippi Supreme Court after his attorneys claimed Black people were illegally struck from his jury. Investigative reporter Hannah McAlilly delves into the case, and into the wider problem of racial prejudice in the selection of juries in Mississippi:
A prosecutor struck a Black woman for having “red dyed hair” and in another, a prosecutor struck a Black man because he had “a ponytail, a sort of strange hair design.” That prosecutor told the judge he was concerned the juror might identify too closely with the defendant, who also was of a similar age. “Both have unusual hair styles,” the prosecutor said.
Prosecutors struck Black jurors who, they said, seemed angry, irritated or inattentive. A Black woman was struck because the prosecutor didn’t like her “vibe.” Another, who worked a night shift before showing up to jury selection, was struck for being “fidgety” and looking “angry.” Another was struck because she “frowned a lot.”
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