I was born in Poonch (Kashmir) and now I live in Norway. I oppose war and violence and am a firm believer in the peaceful co-existence of all nations and peoples. In my academic work I have tried to espouse the cause of the weak and the oppressed in a world dominated by power politics, misleading propaganda and violations of basic human rights. I also believe that all conscious members of society have a moral duty to stand for and further the cause of peace and human rights throughout the world.
A meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, a long-time family friend of the Israeli leader, ended with an agreement that Israel will continue so-called “targeted strikes” in Gaza, Haaretz reported on Monday.
The reported agreement to allow Israel to
continue attacks in Gaza comes despite Kushner holding a meeting a day
earlier with Hamas officials, who said they were committed to the
disarmament plan announced by President Trump and the so-called “Board
of Peace.”
Later in the day, Kushner told Fox News
that the US wouldn’t “restrict Israel’s right to defend itself” and
that one purpose of the meeting was to “clarify what that means.” He
also described the disarmament deal as a “win-win” for Israel because
either Hamas disarms, or Hamas doesn’t “follow through” and then Israel
would have “a lot more support from the US and others to go and finish
the job.”
Also on Monday, President Trump said that Israel should “stop striking Gaza” because Hamas agreed to “lay down their weapons,” comments that Hamas welcomed,
though the results of the Kushner-Netanyahu meeting suggest Trump isn’t
serious about putting pressure on Israel to halt all of its attacks.
Kushner and Netanyahu were joined by the
Board of Peace’s top Gaza envoy, Bulgarian politician Nikolay Mladenov,
former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and US Ambassador to Israel
Mike Huckabee.
Kushner and Netanyahu speaking at the White House on September 29, 2025 (White House photo)
The Haaretz report said the
officials agreed to allow work to begin in Gaza on sanitation
infrastructure to prevent disease outbreaks and contamination of
groundwater and coastal waters, but broader reconstruction will still
not be allowed.
They also discussed a preliminary plan
that would involve Hamas handing over its weapons to a force led by
Jasper Jeffires, a US Army general who’s been designated as the
commander of the “International Stabilization Force,” which is supposed
to deploy to Gaza under President Trump’s plan.
But the Haaretz report said
Israeli officials expressed skepticism about the disarmament plan, and
Netanyahu and other Israeli officials have repeatedly rejected the
overall proposal. An Israeli official told The Guardian that there had been no breakthrough in the meeting and that Israel would continue to carry out operations in Gaza.
Israel’s attacks in Gaza since the
so-called ceasefire deal was signed in October 2025 have killed at least
1,265 Palestinians and wounded 4,198, according to the latest numbers released by Gaza’s Health Ministry. The ministry said that over the previous 48 hours, Israeli attacks have killed at least two Palestinians and injured 15.
Abbas Araghchi has accused Israel of
actively sabotaging diplomacy, describing the country as the primary
obstacle to a lasting ceasefire deal with the US, IRNA news agency
reports.
“The Zionist regime was and remains the
biggest opponent and obstacle to the implementation of the memorandum of
understanding. They made every effort to prevent such an agreement from
being reached, every effort to make this agreement fail, and every
effort to prevent it from being implemented,” he said.
Araghchi added that Trump’s demand for an
“unconditional surrender” from Iran failed to materialise, as Tehran
ultimately accepted a ceasefire and conducted negotiations with the US
on its own terms.
According to the report, Araghchi said
those who “sought an unconditional surrender, within a short time of the
war’s commencement, were begging for negotiations”.
“It was us who said we would not accept a
ceasefire and continued the war until we reached a point where they
accepted a ceasefire and negotiations on Iran’s terms,” he said.
Ben Gvir made the comments when discussing
the reduction in Israeli attacks in Gaza, though the IDF hasn’t fully
stopped its strikes and continues to violate the US-backed October 2025 ceasefire deal.
“It’s no secret, I disagree with the prime
minister,” Ben Gvir said on a podcast hosted by Rom Braslavski, who was
previously held captive in Gaza, according to The Associated Press.
Israeli
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir joins pro-settlement
Israelis on a march towards the Gaza Strip near Kibbutz Zikim and
Israel’s border with Gaza, in southern Israel, July 19, 2026.
REUTERS/Amir Cohen
“I think targeted assassinations should be
carried out in Gaza, taking down 30 to 40 every night. Not just those
who pose an immediate threat — there are people there who are not worthy
of life. They shouldn’t live. They’re not even people,” he added.
Ben Gvir, leader of the Jewish Power
party, is known as an outspoken proponent of the ethnic cleansing of
Gaza and the establishment of Jewish settlements in the Palestinian
territory, views that he reaffirmed in the podcast interview.
“I see all of Gaza as ours,” he said.
“Settlements not just in Gush Katif but throughout Gaza, encouraging as
much emigration as possible, sending them to their countries, and for
the terrorists, no emigration, nothing, just to kill them one by one.”
While often portrayed as a fringe figure,
Ben Gvir has significant influence in the government and holds a
powerful position, as he oversees police and prisons, where nearly 100
Palestinians have died since October 7, 2026, due to increasingly worse
conditions, which Ben Gvir has boasted about implementing. He is now pushing a plan to create crocodile-filled moats around Israeli prisons.
The state’s commitment to the murderous Netanyahu regime outstrips its dedication to preserving democracy at home
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz are pictured in Jerusalem on 7
December 2025 (Ariel Schalit/AFP)
Two events in Germany last month shed light on the country’s stance on international law and its own democracy.
On 20 July, the anniversary of a failed assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler, new German recruits were sworn in at the Bendlerblock,
which housed army headquarters during the Nazi period and was
simultaneously the centre of a resistance group led by Claus Schenk Graf
von Stauffenberg, whose members were executed at the site after their
failed coup.
In recent years, during speeches at the
ceremonies for new recruits, top German government officials have
praised democracy and emphasised the importance of the rule of law for
world peace and freedom. Yet praising the rule of law and taking it
seriously are not the same thing.
This year, recruits heard from German
intellectual Navid Kermani, one of the few public figures permitted to
appeal to the conscience of the country’s political elite at public
events.
Far from taking a radical position, he said:
“None other than the German chancellor has made a habit of downplaying
international law and glossing over violations of it whenever it seems
politically expedient… But the threat to wipe out an entire
civilisation, or the declared attack on a country’s civilian
infrastructure, are such blatant injustices that one need not be a
lawyer or consult one’s own conscience to recognise them.”
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That is undoubtedly true: German
Chancellor Friedrich Merz does not appear to care one bit about
international law, which the country has committed to upholding as a
lesson learned from its Nazi past.
Even before taking office, he declared that he would find ways to inviteIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was then already facing an International Criminal Court arrest warrant,
to Germany – regardless of the obligation under international law to
execute that warrant, should Netanyahu set foot on German soil.
This did not merely display a flagrant
disregard for international law and its institutions. It revealed the
chancellor’s readiness to dismantle the very foundations of democracy –
the separation of powers – in order to welcome the butcher of the Palestinian people.
‘Disastrous signal’
Kermani also hinted at the nexus of external and internal developments with regard to the Iran war: “When, of all people, a German chancellor – the only western leader to do so – defends the American president’s threat to wipe out
an entire civilisation, it is devastating not only for our reputation…
The trivialisation of international law from the highest levels also
sends a disastrous signal for our democracy.
“For if the rule of law erodes in our foreign relations, it won’t be long before it is also discredited at home.”
On 24 July, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul joined this unworthy spectacle when asked in an interview on a local satirical show: “Does international law, as admirable as it is, also come up against the limits of realpolitik?”
The minister answered: “Yes, if you’re
honest, yes. That’s true. But to be honest: that’s how legal systems
work. Think about yourself when you’re driving – have you always
followed the rules 100 percent of the time?… The law says that when
you’re driving in a built-up area, you’re only allowed to go 50. Still,
some people drive faster.”
Had he mentioned Palestine, even Kermani would likely have fallen victim to the guillotine of silencing
He continued: “And it’s the same with
international law. It’s basically the same thing. You have to deal with
it. Legal systems are there to provide guidance. But they’re never
followed 100 percent to the letter.”
The minister was serious, without the slightest hint of satire.
Equating international law with everyday
traffic rules is, of course, a shocking trivialisation and denigration
of it – though, given Germany’s silence on the annihilation of more than 70,000 Palestinians by Germany’s Israeli ally in Gaza, this comes as no surprise.
What once was a significant achievement in
the wake of Nazism is now, for the German chancellor and his foreign
minister, nothing more than a commodity to be exploited for their own
self-interest. International law has become a pawn in the hands of
neoliberal western hubris.
In contrast, Kermani can see the situation clearly, and is firm in his stance against the US threat to send Iran “back to the Stone Ages where they belong”.
As he spoke this truth in the face of a US
president who has openly mulled destroying a civilisation dating back
millennia, and a German chancellor who has failed to take a stand
against such horrors, observers noted the pained expression on the face
of German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius, who was sitting behind
Kermani and had presumably expected a somewhat different speech.
Shameful complicity
But despite Kermani’s bold move to hold up
a mirror to the German government at this highly symbolic event, his
analysis was wrong in two respects: Iran is not the litmus test for
Germany’s international standing, nor do we need to fear a future
de-democratisation at home. It is already well underway.
The litmus test for Germany’s
international reputation was, and still is, its shameful complicity in
several ongoing crises: the genocide in Palestine, the spate of settler terrorism in the occupied West Bank, and the Zionist garrison state’s “total war” on Lebanon.
Germany’s UN defeat is a verdict on its complicity in genocide
Berlin’s backing for Israel in the current context has irrevocably ruined Germany’s international standing.
At the same time, as a result of Germany’s
neoliberal restructuring, processes of de-democratisation have been
ongoing for years.
The deliberate erosion of democracy has
paved the way not only for the selective application of international
law, but also for the restriction of fundamental rights within Germany
itself.
The German population is firmly against
their country’s participation in the extermination of the Palestinian
people. In a recent poll, 73 percent said they had a negative view of Israel, while 80 percent have rejected further weapons exports to Israel. Despite this, German arms export licenses to Israel have surged, enabling the state to continue committing war crimes.
While the German government’s blatant
disregard for the will of its own people already points to a process of
de-democratisation, this is exacerbated by domestic restrictions on
fundamental rights, including freedom of assembly, freedom of opinion and speech, and academic freedom, alongside violations of due process – all in the service of the Zionist slaughterers.
Silence is supposed to reign in Germany.
People are not supposed to know what the state is enabling the Zionists
to do in Palestine, nor that Israel’s ideology of white supremacy draws a
deeper commitment from Berlin than international law.
Had he mentioned Palestine, even Kermani would likely have fallen victim to the guillotine of silencing.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
Jurgen Mackert is Professor of Sociology
at the University of Potsdam, Germany. He was a temporary Professor for
the Structure of modern societies at the University of Erfurt, Germany
and a visiting professor for Political Sociology at Humboldt University
Berlin. His latest books include On Social Closure. Theorizing
Exclusion, Exploitation, and Elimination (Oxford University Press 2024).
Siedlerkolonialismus. Grundlagentexte und aktuelle Analysen (edited
with Ilan Pappe; Nomos 2024).
Israel’s
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has categorically rejected the US
disarmament roadmap for Gaza that President Donald Trump described as
“HISTORIC” and “monumental”.
Insisting that Israel will not
withdraw its armed forces until Hamas has completely disarmed, Netanyahu
made clear that the future he envisages for Gaza remains one emptied of
its Palestinian citizens through ethnic cleansing.
The Israeli
military’s three-year-long campaign has killed more than 73,300
Palestinians, at least two thirds of whom were women and children, while
an untold number have died from disease, malnutrition and lack of
medical treatment. Much of the 2.3 million population has been rendered
homeless.
Israel has transformed Gaza into a wasteland, destroying
agricultural land, water purification facilities, local markets,
communal food pantries, municipal infrastructure, roads, hospitals,
mosques, schools, universities and the social infrastructure on which
modern life depends. The remaining population has been made almost
entirely dependent on an aid infrastructure that Israel can turn on and
off at will to terrorise the Palestinians into submission.
President
Donald Trump listens as Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
speaks during an arrival at his Mar-a-Lago club, December 29, 2025, in
Palm Beach, Florida. [AP Photo/Alex Brandon]
Trump’s
plan for Gaza, signed amid much fanfare at Sharm el-Sheikh in October
2025, was never more than the official endorsement by Washington and its
European and Middle Eastern allies of an Israeli policy already in
operation—but with the US, not Israel, reaping the economic rewards of
the development of land seized. The arrangement would be partially
managed by some coalition of Arab powers to give it a more acceptable
face.
This was a potentially lucrative prize. The 40-kilometer
Gaza coastline is estimated to have a $50 billion real estate and
tourism potential and to offer control of billions more in offshore
natural gas reserves. The scheme’s broader purpose was to facilitate
wider regional cooperation in the coming US-Israel war on Iran by
reducing the visibility of Israel’s increasingly unpopular war among the
restive populations of Washington’s despotic allies.
Israel’s
subsequent actions made clear that it never intended to accept a genuine
withdrawal, or external interference with its plans to control Gaza. In
December, Defence Minister Israel Katz declared that Israel “will never
leave all of Gaza”.
This position is endorsed by the cabinet and
shared by much of the political opposition. Gadi Eisenkot, a former
military chief of staff and Netanyahu’s principal challenger for the
premiership, served in Netanyahu’s cabinet during the first eight months
of the war and supported the wars in Lebanon and Iran; he too opposes
Trump’s Board of Peace deal.
Far
from implementing the Sharm el-Sheikh agreement, Israel has continued
almost daily attacks across Gaza, killing 1,300 Palestinians, while
expanding its territorial control from the 53 percent sanctioned under
the agreement to more than 70 percent.
The same strategy is being
pursued in the West Bank. Israel has presided over an expansion of
Jewish settlements and escalating settler violence against Palestinians
and their property, carried out with the support of the Israel Defence
Forces (IDF). The most recent provocation began on Sunday, when
settlers, who operate with near total impunity, blocked the road to the
homes of Palestinian families—including some who held US citizenship—in
Qusra, in Nablus province, and cut off their power and water supplies.
The
first Israeli soldiers who came to the site solidarized with the
settlers and prayed with them. On Wednesday, Israeli security forces
confronted a much larger group of settlers, using tear gas and stun
grenades in an attempt to dislodge them. Last month, settlers set fire
to a newly completed mosque.
These provocations are bound up with a
policy of de facto annexation led by far-right Finance Minister Bezalel
Smotrich, who has channelled ever more public money into the
settlements. Smotrich has declared that the next Israeli government
should push Palestinians to flee the area. He and National Security
Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir have also called for expanding Israeli borders
and establishing an Israeli military or civilian presence in parts of
Lebanon and Syria.
The consequences of this Greater Israel
offensive are stark. According to the UN, Israeli forces and settlers
have killed 76 Palestinians, including 18 children, in the West Bank
this year, while settler violence, demolitions and evictions have
displaced around 3,800 Palestinians, nearly half of them children.
US
ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee condemned the settlers as “criminal”
in a rare rebuke from a US official. But while the White House is
reportedly furious at the government’s failure to rein in the rampant
settler violence, Trump has so far remained publicly silent.
The
events follow weeks of increasingly frosty relations over disagreements
about the war in Iran. Netanyahu had hoped his meeting with Trump at the
White House last month would allow him to bolster his election chances
by parading his close relationship with the leader of the world’s most
powerful country. Instead, the low-profile meeting ended without a joint
statement to the media, with Netanyahu leaving through a side door.
Trump’s
proposal on Gaza was always likely to collide with Netanyahu’s
strategy. On July 30, his Board of Peace unveiled a plan for the second
phase of the Gaza agreement, based on a phased reciprocal process in
which Hamas would surrender its weapons as Israel withdrew from Gaza.
Hamas would hand over its weapons for storage under a US-backed
Palestinian technocratic administration supervised by the Board of
Peace. Hamas accepted the arrangement following pressure from Qatar,
Turkey and Egypt.
But an Israeli withdrawal is precisely what
Netanyahu cannot accept. He immediately authorised a wave of airstrikes
that killed 18 people, one of the deadliest days since the supposed
October ceasefire. The apparent aim was to provoke a militant response
from Hamas that could then be used to justify a return to full-scale
war.
Three
days after Trump’s announcement, following a “difficult” meeting with
Netanyahu in Jerusalem, the Board of Peace issued a “clarification”
requiring Hamas to complete its disarmament before Israel withdrew. Even
this concession was insufficient. On Sunday, August 9, facing mounting
opposition from far-right cabinet ministers who want to expel
Palestinians from Gaza and establish Israeli settlements there,
Netanyahu publicly rejected the plan.
He told his cabinet: “Israel
rejects the 15-point document.” The Israel Defense Forces, he said,
“will not carry out any withdrawal until Hamas is disarmed”, which meant
the surrender of “all weapons”. He reiterated that no Palestinian state
would arise while he remained prime minister.
Accepting Trump’s
Gaza proposal would have exposed Netanyahu’s long-promised “total
victory” over Hamas and the Palestinians of Gaza as a fiction, while
enraging the far-right coalition partners on whom he depends to remain
in power after the October 27 elections. His Likud bloc is trailing in
the polls and his long-running corruption trial is at a critical point.
Netanyahu’s
position points to a strategy of permanent war—not only against the
Palestinians, but against Hezbollah in Lebanon, Syria and Iran. His
statement follows Israel’s de facto rejection of a US-brokered Lebanon
ceasefire and support for the continuation of the US-led war against
Iran.
Israel’s relentless war flows from the logic of the Zionist
state, founded on the expulsion and dispossession of 750,000
Palestinians in 1948 and the refusal to allow them or their descendants
to return to their homes. This established a political order dependent
upon permanent confrontation with its neighbours.
The Israeli
state has consequently built much of its political identity around the
narrative of a permanent existential threat. Any form of accommodation
between Washington and Tehran, however partial or temporary, would
fundamentally undermine that narrative.
Iran’s support for
Hezbollah and Hamas has made it a major obstacle to Israel’s regional
ambitions, while removing Iran as a regional power would facilitate
Israel’s attempt to complete the dispossession of the Palestinians and
establish unchallenged regional hegemony—described by Netanyahu as
“redrawing the map of the Middle East”. The Iranian threat has also
provided successive Israeli governments with a means of diverting
attention from domestic crises, deteriorating economic and social
conditions and deep political polarisation.
Israel has been able
to pursue this strategy because it can ultimately rely on Washington,
which provides it with $3.8 billion a year in military aid and treats it
as its principal regional proxy. What unites them, despite repeated
clashes, is a shared class interest in crushing any Palestinian, Arab
nationalist, Iranian or working-class challenge to their domination of
the world’s most strategically vital, oil-rich region—a domination that
Washington regards as essential to preparing for confrontation with
China.
There have been periodic tensions before between Tel Aviv
and Washington, as over the 2015 nuclear deal and now Gaza and the West
Bank. But these are tactical disputes within a fundamentally aligned
imperialist relationship.
Displaced Palestinians, including many
children, wait in long queues to receive hot meals distributed by a
charitable organization in Gaza City, Gaza on June 7, 2026.
(Photo by Moiz Salhi/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“What we are witnessing in Gaza is not a series of isolated shortages, it is a policy of attrition by design.”
The renowned humanitarian group Doctors
Without Borders said Wednesday that the Israeli government is still
restricting the entry of engine oil and generator parts to the Gaza Strip, imperiling life-saving hospital functions and other essential services in the decimated territory.
Doctors Without Borders, known internationally as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), noted that Gaza’s remaining healthcare system relies “almost entirely” on generators, “with most electricity cut by Israeli authorities and much of the electrical infrastructure destroyed.” The group said that in some Gaza
facilities, its teams barely have sufficient engine oil to last a month
and have been forced to “buy engine oil at the local market at
exorbitant prices.”
Filipe Ribeiro, MSF’s head of mission in Palestine, said that “what we are witnessing in Gaza is not a series of isolated shortages, it is a policy of attrition by design.”
“For more than two years, we have observed
Israel’s policies restricting the entry of supplies,” said Ribeiro.
“These policies do not merely delay aid; they dismantle the very systems
people rely on to survive.”
Israel’s continued restriction of supplies comes as the country’s military, which is armed by the United States,
keeps up its deadly bombing of the strip despite a purported ceasefire
deal that took effect in October 2025. Israeli attacks have killed more
than 1,200 people in Gaza since the start of the ceasefire agreement.
The Israeli government, headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has rejected a US-backed plan for Hamas disarmament in exchange for Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
Earlier this week, a group of United Nations experts condemned
Israel’s recent “strikes on hospitals and shelters, the killing of
police officers and UN-contracted staff, attacks on fishers, and
abductions and abuses by armed groups reportedly collaborating with the
Israeli military, as well as the killing of humanitarian workers, who through their work protecting and promoting fundamental human rights, are human rights defenders.”
“These restrictions have become
increasingly far-reaching, also preventing the entry of routine items
ranging from ointments for skin diseases to rubber seals needed for
medical sterilization equipment.”
According to MSF, Israel’s sustained attacks and obstruction of supplies “extend far beyond hospitals.”
“Without engine oil, all transport services could stop, including much-needed water
trucks during the peak of summer heat, ambulances, buses transporting
medical staff to work, and trucks delivering humanitarian supplies,” the
group said. “Bakeries and flour mills also rely on generators, meaning
food production could also be affected.”
MSF characterized Israel’s continued obstruction of engine oil and spare generator parts as “one piece of a larger pattern of structural violence imposed by Israeli authorities to intentionally restrict access to vital services and supplies as part of the ongoing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.”
“These restrictions have become
increasingly far-reaching, also preventing the entry of routine items
ranging from ointments for skin diseases to rubber seals needed for
medical sterilization equipment,” the group said. “The shortages now
impact virtually every aspect of life in Gaza, leaving hospitals and
humanitarian organizations without basic supplies.”
Ribeiro said in a statement that “the
items change, but the logic remains the same: reducing people to
conditions in which life becomes untenable, and dignity is
systematically stripped away through the denial of the most ordinary,
most essential goods.”
“This is not bureaucracy,” he added. “It is a deliberate effort to make existence itself impossible.”
Recent reports indicate
a serious mutiny situation aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln. Seven U.S.
Navy personnel have possibly been killed and several others injured in a
violent clash among the crew, highlighting growing unrest and morale
issues during an extended deployment.
Worried families vented their anxieties
about loved ones onboard the Lincoln at an emotional town hall meeting
with navy leaders in San Diego last Thursday, Stars and Stripes reported.
One spouse among the 200 or so family members said that her husband had
texted her that day saying “he hopes he doesn’t wake up tomorrow”.
A woman at the meeting told acting navy
secretary, Hung Cao that the navy had “broken trust between us and the
leadership”, the paper reported. The Navy Times gave details of
thwarted suicide attempts onboard the aircraft carrier during the
current deployment. Annabelle Loma told the outlet that her husband had
tried to jump overboard after his spell at sea kept being extended.
“He’s scared. He thinks he’ll get a dishonorable discharge, and just
because he was burnt out his 13-year career is ruined, just like that,”
she said.
Bonnie York, whose stepson is aboard the Lincoln, told MS NOW she
had been told a doctor or therapist on the ship warned the crew needed
to reach port before people started “losing their minds.” She voted for
Trump—and partly because he promised not to start any new wars. She no
longer believes the country is safer for it. “You’ve essentially
stranded them out there,” she said of the crew.
Seven US Navy personnel have
reportedly been killed and several others wounded in a violent clash
aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, as growing unrest among the carrier’s
crew has exposed mounting pressure inside the US military amid a
prolonged deployment.
The incident erupted after an adviser to
US Central Command (CENTCOM) chief Brad Cooper boarded the carrier to
address mounting complaints from crew members following protests by
their families over the ship’s prolonged deployment, according to Tasnim News Agency,
citing an informed military source. The adviser was reportedly met with
boos and had water bottles thrown at him while addressing a gathering
of personnel. The confrontation subsequently escalated into a fight
among crew members involving knives and other bladed weapons, leaving
seven personnel dead and several others wounded, according to the
source.
Pistol Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, dismissed the accounts as “more fake news”.
Deployment Context
The USS Abraham Lincoln has been deployed
for over 260 days, which is a modern-era record for a U.S. aircraft
carrier. This prolonged deployment has led to significant stress and
mental health challenges among the crew
Conditions and Morale
Reports from military families describe
poor living conditions, including food shortages and inadequate
facilities, contributing to the deteriorating morale.
Response and Claims
In addition to internal conflicts, there
are external tensions, with Iran claiming to have attacked the carrier,
although U.S. officials have denied these allegations.
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