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.
The Israeli military has intensified its military operations across Gaza, the Palestinian news agency WAFA reported on Tuesday, citing its correspondents in the Strip, as the IDF continues its constant violations of the US-backed ceasefire deal.
The report said that the ramped-up
activity included the large-scale demolition of homes and civilian
infrastructure in the eastern and northeastern areas of the southern
city of Khan Younis. In the nearby city of Rafah, WAFA reported heavy artillery shelling and gunfire toward Khan Younis.
In Gaza City, the report said that
“Israeli forces detonated a booby-trapped robot loaded with a large
quantity of explosives, targeting homes in the Tuffah neighborhood in
the northeast of the city” and that there was also “heavy gunfire from
military vehicles” in the area and “sporadic explosions.”
Mourners
attend the funeral of Palestinian woman Diana Abu Daraz and her
one-year-old daughter, Sewar, who were killed in an Israeli strike on
tents, according to medics, outside Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, in
the southern Gaza Strip, June 30, 2026. REUTERS/Ramadan Abed
The news agency also reported that at least two people were killed by an Israeli airstrike near Khan Younis and multiple people were injured by Israeli attacks in Gaza City.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said in its daily update that it recorded the
Israeli killing of at least eight Palestinians and the injury of 26.
In recent days, Israeli forces have killed multiple children,
including a one-year-old girl who was killed alongside her mother in an
airstrike targeting a tent in southern Gaza. Palestinians held a
funeral for the child and her mother at the Nasser Hospital in Khan
Younis on Tuesday.
The escalation in Israeli attacks comes as
the IDF has been taking more territory in Gaza, a clear violation of
the ceasefire deal. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last month
that he ordered the Israeli military to take 70% of Gaza’s territory,
up from 60%, and Israeli military officials said last week that the IDF
has achieved that goal.
Since the so-called ceasefire deal was
signed, the Health Ministry has recorded the Israeli killing of 1,053
Palestinians and the injury of 3,406. “A number of victims are still
under the rubble and in the streets, as ambulance and civil defense
crews have been unable to reach them so far,” the ministry wrote on
Telegram.
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Israeli
soldiers deployed in Tulkarm refugee camp in the occupied West Bank
look on as displaced Palestinians granted temporary permits retrieve
belongings from their destroyed or heavily damaged homes on June 21,
2026. Photo by Aseel Mfarajeh.
JENIN, Occupied West Bank—It took Omar
Qalib more than a decade to finish his family’s three-story house in
Jouret al-Dahab, a neighborhood in the heart of the Jenin refugee camp. A
construction worker, he built it himself, brick by brick. But it was
worth it, he thought. The property fell within Area A, a zone within the
occupied West Bank where the Palestinian Authority nominally controls
both civil and security affairs.
But in January 2025, Qalib was forced from
his home, along with tens of thousands of other Palestinians, as Israel
launched a large-scale military operation dubbed “Iron Wall” targeting
refugee camps in Jenin, Tulkarm, and Nur Shams. More than 30,000
Palestinians were forced from their homes over the ensuing months, in
the largest displacement of Palestinians in the West Bank in a single
operation since the 1967 war.
After invading and occupying the camps in
February 2025, the Israeli military campaign flattened entire
neighborhoods, turning them into wastelands. Where narrow alleys once
ran between tall buildings so close they blocked the light, wide dirt
roads now cut through the heart of the camps, carved out by Israeli
military bulldozers.
As part of the campaign, the camps have
been cordoned off. Just to see what’s left of his home, Qalib needs a
permit from the Israeli military. Few Palestinians are able to obtain
them. And the permits only grant one-time, temporary access. Two weeks
ago, Qalib was one of the lucky few who obtained a permit to visit his
destroyed home.
“The house is gone,” said Qalib “My house and my son’s house. A whole life of work, gone.”
Qalib, 56, now shares two rooms with his
wife, two adult sons and their families, packed together in a dormitory
connected to the Arab American university in the city of Jenin. “I had a
whole family in that house,” he said. “Now we are all in two rooms
waiting for something we don’t know when will end.”
Every morning Qalib heads out looking for
work as a day laborer, the principal breadwinner responsible for rent,
food, electricity, water, and transportation costs for an entire
household. Those costs have nearly doubled since they were displaced.
Both of Qalib’s sons were shot by Israeli
soldiers during the military invasion of the camp. One was left half
paralyzed, with damage to his kidney, spleen, and lung, and is unable to
work. His other son recovered from his injuries and is able to
physically work though he has been able to find a job since they left
their home, nearly a year and a half ago.
Recently, some Palestinians have been
granted limited access to enter their old neighborhoods, mainly to
scavenge in their destroyed or heavily damaged homes for items they left
behind. What they described to Drop Site are neighborhoods made
unrecognizable: men who spent their lives in these alleys wander in the
middle of emptied out dirt roads, looking for a mosque that used to mark
the turn, the building that used to anchor their route. The landmarks
are gone. Some cannot even locate where their own homes once stood.
The First Permanent Israeli Military Base in Area A Since Oslo
Alongside the large-scale destruction, the
Israeli military is engaged in unprecedented construction. In May, the
commander of Israel’s Central Command signed an order to seize land in
the city of Jenin, near the Jenin refugee camp, and construct a
permanent military base, according to documents first revealed by
Haaretz. It marked the first time since the Oslo Accords in 1993 that
the Israeli military has built a permanent post in Area A.
While the Israeli military has staged
regular incursions into cities and towns in Area A for years, despite it
technically being under Palestinian civil and security control, the
establishment of a permanent Israeli military base represents a major
shift. “The Area A designation was the foundational pillar of the
concept of Palestinian self-governance,” said Ibrahim Abras, a political
analyst and academic. “A permanent military base inside these areas
signals a shift in the nature of Israeli control, a gradual transition
from managing the conflict through temporary incursions to imposing a
long-term field presence that raises serious questions about the future
legal and political status of these areas.”
Putting a base in Jenin is “a mechanism
for reshaping control over the land,” said Ismat Mansour, a specialist
in Israeli affairs. “A permanent base near Jenin gives Israel far
greater leverage over the security and political landscape of the entire
region.”
Meanwhile, tens of thousands of
Palestinians in the West Bank remain displaced from their homes, with no
legal justification offered for blocking their return, according to ACRI,
the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, which has described the
situation as a systematic violation of the rights of an entire displaced
population.
In late March, the Israeli security cabinet secretly approved 34
settlements across the West Bank, including six of them that form a
ring around Jenin. It marked the largest number of settlements and
outposts approved by any Israeli government at one time.
“Many of the current settlements began as
military positions or outposts before being converted into permanent
civilian communities,” said Khalil Tufakji, a settlements expert who has
spent decades mapping the relationship between military infrastructure
and settlement expansion.
The pattern, said Tufakji, is not new.
“Reactivating evacuated outposts in the northern West Bank
simultaneously with a permanent military base demands a wider reading
about the future of the entire area.”
The establishment and fortification of new
Israeli settlements comes in parallel with the all but total
restriction of permits for Palestinians to return to their homes. To
enter a refugee camp a Palestinian was born in, grew up in, and
subsequently displaced from, now requires Israeli military
authorization. Palestinians who have managed to obtain a permit describe
it as a one-time authorization that comes with no guarantee it will be
granted again. The displacement has effectively become permanent.
Israeli
soldiers deployed in Tulkarm refugee camp in the occupied West Bank
look on as displaced Palestinians granted temporary permits retrieve
belongings from their destroyed or heavily damaged homes on June 21,
2026. Photo by Aseel Mfarajeh.
“When will we go back to our house?”
Um Faris, 42, left Nur Shams camp in January 2025 with her five children, each carrying a piece of home in their hands.
Faris, 17, carried a small bag with the
family’s documents. His mother warned him not to lose it no matter what.
The younger children each held onto something too: Ahmed, 14, keeps
photos of the camp on his phone and spends hours looking at them. Layan,
8, brought a small cloth doll, the last piece of her old room. She goes
to sleep every night holding it.
They left a big house with a backyard and
now live in a small rented apartment with thin walls on the outskirts of
Tulkarm. Before being displaced, her husband worked in construction.
The road closures and movement restrictions ended that. Faris was forced
to drop out of school to find work; he has stopped talking about
finishing school and going to university. His younger siblings also
eventually dropped out because they were unable to attend classes as a
result of the severe restrictions on movement imposed by the Israeli
army.
Um Faris has documents proving ownership
of her home. But she does not have the permit to enter the area where it
once stood. She’s not sure what is even left of it. Every morning, her
youngest child asks the same question: “When will we go back to our
house?”
In Fahma, south of Jenin, 35-year-old
Ahmed lives in a rented house with his family. He declined to give his
last name for fear of Israeli retribution. Six of them share just two
rooms, a space half the size of the home they left in the Jenin camp.
The family shop that provided part of their household income is gone.
Lately rents have been rising, and humanitarian assistance is being
reduced. With no stable income, covering rent, food, and other household
expenses has become a daily struggle.
Ahmed keeps the key to his old house in
his pocket, hoping to return. On one of the rare occasions when he was
briefly granted access, Ahmed walked through the alleys he grew up in.
Or, he tried to. “I thought I knew every
stone,” he said. “But I felt like a stranger. The streets I had
memorized were gone. Buildings that had been fixed points in my memory
had disappeared. Entire neighborhoods looked like they had been erased.”
“The continued prevention of thousands of
Palestinians from returning to their camps for months creates a new
reality on the ground,” said Ashraf al-Akka, a political analyst. “The
social and economic fabric begins to break down gradually while physical
changes inside the emptied areas continue. The prolonged displacement
cannot be separated from broader Israeli policies aimed at reshaping
Palestinian geography in the West Bank.”
Worse yet, the periodic orders forcing
displacement show no signs of stopping. In Qalandia and other camps
across the West Bank, multiple residents told Drop Site that Israeli
soldiers used loudspeakers to blare out a chilling warning during raids:
“Prepare yourselves. What happened in Jenin and Tulkarm will happen to
you.”
This story was reported and produced in collaboration with Egab.
Addressing the Second Jewish Anti-Zionist
Congress, Ilan Pappé urged Jewish anti-Zionists to challenge Zionism
while advancing Palestinian liberation.
‘Universal Voice for Palestine’
DUBLIN – Opening his keynote address at
the Second Jewish Anti-Zionist Congress in Dublin, Israeli historian
Ilan Pappé admitted that, after more than four decades of activism, he
had often questioned whether a specifically Jewish anti-Zionist movement
was necessary at all.
After all, he reflected, the struggle for Palestine should never depend on religious or ethnic identity.
“What we need is a universal voice for
Palestine,” Pappé said during his address. “Who cares whether you are
Jewish, Muslim or Christian? If you are a human being with even a
modicum of decency, how can you remain indifferent to the suffering of
the Palestinian people?”
Yet, he acknowledged, recent political
developments had convinced him that a distinct Jewish anti-Zionist voice
remains indispensable—not because Jews bear greater moral
responsibility than others, but because Judaism continues to be invoked
to justify Israel’s policies and silence criticism of them.
Referring to the appointment of a
prominent pro-Israel lobbyist as chief adviser to Britain’s incoming
prime minister, Pappé argued that whether such lobbying networks possess
the extraordinary influence often attributed to them is almost
secondary. What matters politically, he said, is that governments
believe they do.
That perception, he argued, continues to
shape Western policy, where accusations of antisemitism are routinely
weaponized to shield Israel from accountability despite overwhelming
evidence documenting occupation, apartheid and genocide.
“This is abnormal,” Pappé said. “It is unjust. It is immoral.”
For that reason, he argued, Jewish
anti-Zionists carry a particular responsibility to dismantle the idea
that Zionism represents Judaism itself.
“If we fail to challenge the idea that
Zionism represents the only authentic expression of Judaism,” he warned,
“we should not be surprised if others eventually conclude that this is
what Judaism itself represents.”
Solidarity Begins by Listening
Although much of his address focused on
challenging dominant political narratives, Pappé repeatedly returned to a
simpler principle: solidarity begins by listening to Palestinians
rather than speaking for them.
“This Congress is devoted to action,” he
said, referring to its theme, From Words to Action. “Solidarity does not
consist of telling Palestinians what they need.”
Instead, he argued, Palestinians themselves must define the priorities of the international solidarity movement.
“Our role is to listen,” Pappé said,
expressing concern that even within progressive circles, authentic
Palestinian voices are still too often marginalized by what he described
as lingering colonial—and sometimes Islamophobic—assumptions.
“The stage belongs to Palestinians,” he
insisted, “not only to describe their suffering—but to articulate their
political vision.”
That responsibility, he argued, extends beyond immediate solidarity work.
Jewish anti-Zionists must also continue
dismantling two narratives that remain deeply entrenched across Western
societies: the claim that Zionism is the natural expression of Judaism,
and the assertion that anti-Zionism is inherently antisemitic.
Both, he said, require sustained historical education rather than political slogans.
Those conversations, he argued, must move
beyond audiences already sympathetic to Palestine and reach ordinary
people whose understanding of the conflict has largely been shaped by
decades of political mythmaking.
Europe’s Unfinished Reckoning
Moving beyond the present, Pappé devoted
much of his address to what he described as Europe’s unresolved
historical responsibility for Palestine.
The international order established after
the Second World War, he argued, presented itself as universal through
institutions such as the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights. Yet the people designing that order were almost
exclusively representatives of colonial powers, while the colonized
world remained absent from the conversation.
That omission, he suggested, became decisive when Europe confronted what it called “the Jewish question.”
“When those same leaders confronted what
they called ‘the Jewish question,’ almost none of them proposed the
obvious solution,” Pappé said. “Almost nobody said: ‘Let us invite
Europe’s Jews back into Europe.’”
Instead, he argued, European governments
embraced Zionist colonization in Palestine, transferring the
consequences of centuries of European antisemitism onto a people who
bore no responsibility for those crimes.
Germany, he said, occupies a central place in that history.
Contrary to the dominant postwar
narrative, Pappé argued that Germany “was not denazified” in any
meaningful political sense. Instead, he said, the country’s relationship
with Israel became a substitute for confronting the deeper structures
that had produced Nazism and antisemitism.
According to Pappé, postwar reparations
did more than compensate Holocaust survivors. They also helped build
Israel’s military establishment, while subsequent German political and
military support—including assistance that strengthened Israel’s
strategic capabilities—cemented a relationship that continues to shape
European policy today.
“This historical relationship still shapes
contemporary politics,” he said, arguing that Europe has “never fully
reckoned with the consequences of exporting its own historical crimes
onto the Palestinian people.”
For Pappé, acknowledging that history does
not mean imagining that Israeli Jews should somehow return to Europe.
Rather, it requires Europe to recognize that Palestinians paid the price
for crimes committed on another continent.
Recovering another forgotten history, he continued, is equally important.
Long before Zionism, Palestine formed part
of a broader Arab world in which Muslims, Christians and Jews lived
together despite inevitable tensions and inequalities.
“There was a Jewish presence in
Palestine,” Pappé recalled. “There were Arab Jews.” Almost nobody, he
said, believed that the future required an exclusively Jewish state.
That history of coexistence was fractured
by colonialism and Zionism, yet it remains one of the strongest
challenges to the ideological foundations of the Israeli state.
“Recovering the history of Arab Jewish
life,” he argued, “is one of the most powerful ways of dismantling
Zionist mythology,” because it demonstrates that coexistence existed
before colonialism intervened—and therefore can exist again.
Returning to the central theme of his
address, Pappé rejected the idea that nationalism or ethnic supremacy
could ever constitute a meaningful response to centuries of
antisemitism.
“The greatest response to antisemitism today,” he concluded, “is the decolonization of Palestine.”
That, he argued, requires dismantling
Zionism “as a colonial political project” while allowing Palestinians to
live as free people “on their own land.”
(The Palestine Chronicle)
– Romana Rubeo is an Italian writer
and the managing editor of The Palestine Chronicle. Her articles
appeared in many online newspapers and academic journals. She holds a
Master’s Degree in Foreign Languages and Literature and specializes in
audio-visual and journalism translation.
Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna on Sunday reiterated his position that new bombings of Iran by the US military
over the weekend are a direct violation of a War Powers Resolution
passed by Congress earlier this month and said legal action was in the
works to challenge the president’s ability to carry on with the
unprovoked war he first launched alongside Israel in February.
“These strikes are a blatant violation of the War Powers Resolution that we passed,” Khanna said in a social media
post Saturday after Trump acknowledged strikes on numerous Iranian
targets. “Trump must stop this war now—or we will take him to court to
compel him to do so.”
In a Saturday statement on
his Truth Social platform, Trump said the US had “struck Iranian
missile and drone storage locations, and coastal radar sites, for
violating the Cease Fire Agreement, AGAIN!”
“It is very possible that they will never
learn!” the president exclaimed. “There may come a point when we are no
longer able to be reasonable, and will be forced to militarily complete
the job that we very successfully started. If that happens, the Islamic
Republic of Iran will no longer exist!”
The latest direct exchange of
hostilities—that began with US bombings of Iranian targets Friday and
included Iran targeting US allies in Bahrain and Kuwait on Sunday—come over lingering disagreements about how vessels will or will not pass through the Strait of Hormuz.
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“Congress passed the first War Powers
Resolution in history, legally compeling an end to war on Iran,” the
anti-war group Just Foreign Policy said
following Friday’s strikes. “This means Trump’s strikes today are an
unprecedented Constitutional violation **Trump must be taken to court**
to honor the American people’s demand that we exit this war — NOW.”
Iran Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said
Sunday that “interference in [the Strait], any attempt to establish new
or separate arrangements from those currently being carried out by the
Islamic Republic of Iran, will only lead to further complications, delay
the reopening of the strait of Hormuz, and increase the level of
tension.”
Araghchi called for a regional agreement
to settle the issue of passage through the Strait, but indicated the US
should have no role in determining the outcome of the settlement. On
Saturday, the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) said that the
US—“whose very nature is characterized by breaking commitments and
violating agreements”—was guilty of firing on coastal targets but that
such attacks would not deter the Iranian military from exerting control
over the Strait.
“Henceforth,” said the IRGC, “vessels found to be in violation will be dealt with more firmly than before.”
On June 23, a 50-48 vote in the Senate saw
a war powers resolution pass the upper chamber after the House also
passed a similar resolution on June 3 to bring an end to the war started
by the US and Israel on February 28. But as Khanna explained Sunday,
speaking with journalist David Sirota, these votes have not been enough
to curb the president’s actions.
NEW:
Congress just passed resolutions to block Trump from continuing the
Iran War. The resolutions carry the force of law under the text of the
1973 War Powers Act. Now, @RoKhanna tells me he is working to organize lawmakers to bring an historic court case to enforce the law. pic.twitter.com/IBH7dbKcxG — David Sirota (@davidsirota) June 28, 2026
Asked by Sirota what he would be doing to
compel Trump to adhere to the congressional opposition to Trump’s
ongoing aggression against Iran, Khanna said, “we should go to court.”
Noting that former Republican Congressman Tom Campbell, back in 1999, had taken former President Bill Clinton to court for violating a War Powers Resolution during the US-backed NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, Khanna said he is preparing to follow a similar course.
“This is something that we should try to
enforce,” Khanna said. “And I’m working with my colleagues to see how we
can get a group to take this case to the courts.”
The Iranian-led Axis of Resistance has used its joint power in order to successfully confront all the challenges before it.
The goal of the war on Iran was to pave
the way towards “Greater Israel” and total US-Israeli dominance through
achieving regime change, yet the outcome of the war may have just buried
this project forever.
Hezbollah’s unprecedented comeback,
combined with Iran’s impressive performance, has shifted the balance of
power so dramatically that the Israelis are being cut back to size.
From the outset of the attack on Iran, it
was clear that the goal was to overthrow the Islamic Republic and, by
default, achieve the “total victory” across “seven fronts” that Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been pledging to reach for over
two years. Very quickly, Iran’s military response, followed by its
carefully calibrated strategy involving its regional allies, threw the
goal of regime change into the meat grinder.
In a recent opinion poll conducted by the
Israeli public, roughly 92% of the population said they believe that
Iran has emerged as the winner of the war. When we compare this to the
various opinion polls conducted following Israel’s initial 12-day war in
June of 2025, the outcome couldn’t be more stark. The majority of
Israelis not only supported the war on Iran last year, but were also
satisfied with the way it was managed.
This time around, Iran is using the threat
of continued hostilities and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz as its
weapons to secure a victory that has become a political nightmare for
the Israelis.
Under the current Memorandum of
Understanding (MoU), the US has ceded to Iran on countless points–
Tehran will rake in billions in fees collected from those transiting the
Strait of Hormuz, it will get its frozen assets, have all the sanctions
lifted, and even get access to a $300 billion reconstruction fund.
If these pledges were to be met by the
United States, then Iran would be able to thrive economically for the
first time since its Islamic Revolution in 1979. However, the economic
benefits are not even the biggest achievement.
While the Israelis managed to ride on the
wave of delusion, in using their blows dealt to Hezbollah back in 2024
as evidence of a historic victory against the Iranian-led Axis of
Resistance, this narrative has now collapsed. Iran’s Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has managed over the past months to
effectively deter Israeli actions inside Lebanon through the threat of
force. Even if the Israelis seek to challenge this, it has for now
successfully achieved a deterrence equation whereby Tel Aviv fears
bombing the Lebanese Capital.
On the ground, Hezbollah has managed to
deal devastating blows to the Israeli military, dragging it deep into
southern Lebanon and using asymmetric warfare tactics that have left the
Israeli public disgusted with its leadership and led to a loss of
confidence in the army’s ability to defend the northern settlements.
A reality that has now started to set in,
as Israel repeatedly fails to capture areas such as the Ali Al-Taher
Hills, instead resorting to figuring out a method that will allow them
to extract the charred remains of their soldiers, trapped inside
destroyed tanks that still remain inside Hezbollah-controlled territory.
The Iranian-led Axis of Resistance has
used its joint power in order to successfully confront all the
challenges before it. This includes the coordination with Yemen’s
Ansarallah to close the Bab al-Mandab Strait to Israeli shipping, even
threatening to blockade it completely in the event of the war escalating
once again.
Arab Gulf States have also taken notice of
the changes in regional power dynamics, with the neighboring nations
attempting to repair their relations with Tehran. This even appears to
be including the UAE, which was actively bombing Iran only months ago.
Now the model of Oman, which remained somewhat neutral – some may say
they leaned towards Iran – during the conflict, appears to be the most
favorable one amongst the GCC States.
Israel had hoped that the war would
collapse, or at the very least severely weaken the Iranian State, which
would lead to all of the Arab States lining up to normalize and build
closer relations with it. Instead, this war appears to be deterring
future normalisation efforts.
The Greater Israel Project, of expanding
the borders of the Israeli regime, depended upon the collapse of the
Iranian-led Axis of Resistance, or at the very least its weakening. The
only real option that could help Israel survive today is securing a
Two-State Solution, but even that could lead to internal chaos because
of how radicalized Israeli society has become.
The Two-State Solution is the pro-Israel
outcome. The only other option is that they continue to fight endless
wars they cannot win, until they reach the point of total collapse,
whether that be at the hands of resistance forces or their own public.
Any sane nation would see the writing on the wall and embrace diplomacy,
but we are not dealing with a sane nation.
– Robert Inlakesh is a journalist,
writer, and documentary filmmaker. He focuses on the Middle East,
specializing in Palestine. He contributed this article to The Palestine
Chronicle.
GENEVA – Israeli
authorities and security forces have deliberately targeted Palestinian
children resulting in genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes
in the Gaza Strip and war crimes in the West Bank, the UN Independent
International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian
Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel said in a new report today.
The Commission, which concluded last
year that Israel had committed genocide against the Palestinian group
in the Gaza Strip, found that the intense scale and systematic nature of
the Israeli military operations have continued – resulting in
unprecedented death, injury and trauma of Palestinian children.
The Commission reiterates that the
deliberate targeting of children is one of the key elements establishing
genocidal intent of the Israeli authorities and security forces to
destroy the Palestinian group, in whole or in part, in Gaza.
“The evidence shows that Palestinian
children have been deliberately targeted and killed by the Israeli
security forces,” said Srinivasan Muralidhar, Chair of the Commission.
“Even after the October 2025 ceasefire, children continue to be killed
and seriously injured, with continued disregard by Israel for the
ceasefire and for the protection owed to Palestinian children under
international law.”
Severe physical and mental injuries, mass
trauma, orphanhood, separation, disability, repeated displacements,
starvation, and the collapse of education and healthcare have erased
childhood and will continue to affect children in Gaza throughout their
lives.
Palestinian children have been arrested
and subjected to torture and other severe forms of mistreatment in
Israeli prisons and detention facilities, with no information on their
whereabouts. Israeli security forces have also used sexual violence
against children as part of the collective shaming and oppression,
entrenched within a prolonged, ethnic, gendered, and intergenerational
pattern of Israeli occupation and hostilities.
Israel’s targeting of neonatal and
maternity care centers in Gaza have directly harmed the survival of
newborns and Palestinians’ reproductive future, including rises in
miscarriages, birth defects and lasting vulnerabilities among newborns,
resulting in the destruction of Palestinian newborn life and the
population’s continuity. Starvation imposed by Israel through blockade
and siege have further caused the death of Palestinian children and
severely impacted the health of many others, depriving them of essential
nutrition and increasing disease risks amid reduced immunization, food
insecurity and destroyed health services.
In parallel, the dismantling and
destruction of orphanages and education facilities in Gaza and the West
Bank, including East Jerusalem, have obstructed children’s cognitive,
social and emotional care and development and disrupted the foundations
of Palestinian society.
“Even if the bombs and guns fall silent in
Gaza and West Bank, Palestinian children will not simply recover
overnight,” said Muralidhar. “The destruction of their health, education
and development is irreversible.”
Palestinian children have suffered immense
psychological harm, having been stripped of any sense of safety and
future. Mental harm is an intergenerational condition, producing a
distinctive “occupied psyche” in which the freedom to play, imagine,
hope, and develop an identity has been eroded.
By targeting children, Israel is eroding
the foundational structure of Palestinian society, weakening the
demographic vitality, and overall capacity of the Palestinian people to
sustain and exercise its right to determine its future as a people.
“The protection, care and survival of
Palestinian children are inseparable from the Palestinian people’s right
to self-determination,” said Muralidhar. “By targeting children, Israel
is attacking the very capacity of the Palestinian people to exist and
to determine their future.”
The Commission calls for Israel to cease
committing violations and crimes against and affecting Palestinian
children. The Commission further calls for the end of Israel’s
continuing presence in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem,
in compliance with the advisory opinion of the International Court of
Justice.
The Commission has identified military
units within the Israeli security forces responsible for killing and
injuring of Palestinian children and makes recommendations to Israel and
to all Member States to ensure accountability for such crimes.
The international community as a whole
must uphold their international legal obligations and call for an end to
the hostilities, for Israel to end its occupation and to prioritize
accountability and access to justice for victims as an integral
component of any political process, grounded in the meaningful
participation of Palestinians, including children.
Background:The
UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied
Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel was established by the UN Human Rights Council
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Rajiv Menon, a leading British
civil rights barrister, again faces contempt proceedings over his
closing speech in trial of pro-Palestine activists, reports Dania Akkad.
“The Right of Juries” plaque outside of Old Bailey, UK, 2016. (Paul Clarke, Flickr, Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 2.0)
A leading British civil
rights barrister faces contempt proceedings once again after a judge
decided to refer allegations against him for a second time.
The original proceedings brought against Rajiv Menon KC were thrown out last month for procedural reasons.
But on June 22, Justice Jeremy Johnson
ruled that Menon’s case met the necessary “threshold conditions” to
proceed and that it was in the public interest to do so.
He said the case should be referred to a judge who can “deal with the matter expeditiously.”
“I stress that nothing in this judgement decides that Mr. Menon has acted in contempt of court,” Johnson wrote.
“My findings do not bind the presiding
judge. The presiding judge will only institute contempt proceedings if
they consider that it is the appropriate and justified step.”
Garden Court Chambers, where Menon has
practised for three decades, said on Monday that the proceedings brought
against Rajiv were unprecedented and have “sent shock waves through the
legal profession.”
“The impact of these proceedings is
already being felt by the criminal defence community, especially
juniors, with concerns that public confidence in the independence of the
Bar and the integrity of our system of justice will be damaged.”
Menon has more than 30 years’ experience spanning high-profile cases such as Stephen Lawrence, Hillsborough and Grenfell.
The Defend Our Juries protest against the
proscription of Palestine Action in London on Sept. 6, 2025.
(indigonolan /Flickr/ Wikimedia Commons/CC BY 4.0)
How We Got Here
Menon is accused of violating Johnson’s
orders in his closing statement in the trial of six Palestinian Action
activists who broke into an Israeli-owned arms factory near Bristol in
2024.
The judge had warned defence barristers
not to tell the jury that they could reach a verdict according to their
conscience, a principle known as jury equity.
In his closing speech, Menon, who
represented one of the activists, told the jury about the Bushell case, a
landmark ruling from 1670 which established the independence of juries.
He read from a plaque at the Old Bailey commemorating the jury in that case, saying,
“it established the right of juries to give their verdict according to their convictions.”
In February, the jury acquitted all of the activists of aggravated burglary but failed to reach a verdict on several other charges.
The Crown Prosecution Service sought a retrial while Johnson filed the original contempt of court complaint against Menon.
In May, four of the defendants – Charlotte
Head, Samuel Corner, Leona Kamio and Fatema Rajwani – were found guilty
of criminal damage. Corner was also convicted of grievous bodily harm
without intent.
Two others, Zoe Rogers and Jordan Devlin, were found not guilty of criminal damage.
It then emerged, as reporting restrictions
were lifted, that the four activists faced being sentenced as
terrorists even though the jury had not been informed of that
possibility.
?? ?? Four Palestine Action Activists Sentenced as ‘Terrorists’ in UK Legal First
Four activists who raided an Elbit Systems
arms factory near Bristol in 2024 were sentenced as “terrorists” Friday
at Woolwich Crown Court, in what supporters said is the first time UK
protesters… pic.twitter.com/gC4MvAXfz4
In a marathon court hearing on June 12, Johnson ruled first
that the four would indeed be sentenced as terrorists and then handed
down a combined total of more than 25 years in prison.
Meanwhile, three court of appeal judges had ruled that the contempt proceedings levelled against Menon were unlawful.
They said that Johnson could decide
whether to refer the complaint to another High Court judge, the Attorney
General, to the Bar Standards Board or take no further step.
Now Johnson has made his ruling, it will be up to the new judge to decide whether contempt proceedings continue.
Garden Chambers said it was awaiting the
outcome of “this already protracted process” and would continue to
support Menon “through this difficult time.”
Kirsty Brimelow KC, Chair of the Bar
Council which represents barristers in England and Wales, has previously
said the contempt proceedings against Menon “risk a chilling effect on
the profession” and called it a “troubling episode.”
Dania Akkad is an investigative
journalist. She has won awards for her reporting on women’s rights in
the Middle East, Saudi Arabian dissidents and California’s lettuce
industry. She served most recently as senior investigations editor at
Middle East Eye.
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