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.
Wide view of a large crowd holding a
banner reading Free Hussam Abu Safiya during a pro Palestine
demonstration in Paris Ile de France France on April 18, 2026.
(Photo by Djoudi Hamani/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images)
“The international community cannot remain
silent while a respected physician is reportedly subjected to harsh
conditions, denied adequate medical care, and isolated from the outside
world.”
A prominent human rights group on Friday sounded alarms upon learning that Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza, has been sent to solitary confinement.
As reported
by Haaretz, Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI) said it learned
on Thursday that Abu Safiya was moved to solitary confinement this week
without any explanation.
According to a report from The Palestine
Chronicle, an attorney representing Abu Safiya claimed that his client
was placed into solitary confinement in retaliation for appealing his
continued detention.
Abu Safiya was first taken into custody by
Israeli forces in December 2024 and has been held since then without
being charged with any criminal offenses.
In a Friday statement, the Council of
American-Islamic Relations said news of Abu Safiya’s solitary
confinement was “deeply disturbing” and raised “even more urgent
concerns about his welfare and basic human rights.”
“Congress must demand his immediate
release and insist that Israel end the arbitrary detention, abuse, and
mistreatment of Palestinian medical professionals and civilians,” CAIR
added. “The international community cannot remain silent while a
respected physician is reportedly subjected to harsh conditions, denied
adequate medical care, and isolated from the outside world without any
legal justification. Dr. Abu Safiya must be released immediately.”
PHRI has for months been raising concerns about Abu Safiya’s detention, long before he was transferred to solitary confinement.
While demanding the physician’s release in
April, for instance, PHRI said Abu Safiya was being held “in harsh
conditions, without access to medication or medical care, as his health
continues to deteriorate.”
A 2025 report from Amnesty International, which has also called for Abu Safiya’s release, said that the Gaza-based physician “was detained in the course of caring for his patients and carrying out his medical duties.”
Amnesty also noted that, prior to his
detention, Abu Safiya and other colleagues at the Kamal Adwan Hospital
had “provided human rights and humanitarian organizations with reliable
information about the health situation” in Gaza, which has been left devastated by years of Israeli attacks that have killed at least 72,000 Palestinians.
As Washington and Tehran edge
towards a ceasefire, the Israeli prime minister is determined to sink
it, believing any settlement that leaves Iran standing amounts to defeat
A protester holds a placard depicting
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a demonstration in
Milan on 21 May 2026 (Piero Cruciatti/AFP)
Israeli prime minister and indicted war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu does not adapt to imposed realities.
He tries to smash
them through brute force, permanent escalation and manufactured crises.
Throughout his career, war has been a favoured strategic instrument for
preserving Israeli supremacy and his own political survival.
Most recently, his priority is to prevent US President Donald Trump from signing a near-complete memorandum of understanding with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Should diplomacy prevail, he will deploy every political, military, diplomatic, media and lobbying tool to sabotage it.
His obsession with what he calls
“absolute victory” reflects a rigid doctrine that rejects compromise.
No settlement is acceptable to him unless it disarms Hamas and Islamic
Jihad in Gaza, dismantles Hezbollah in Lebanon, and ends in the neutralisation or destruction of the Iranian state itself.
His horizon extends well past temporary
ceasefires to the end of all resistance and a region restructured around
Israeli dominance under American protection.
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The wars across Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen
and Iran were never isolated confrontations. They are part of a single
offensive to establish “Greater Israel” and consolidate Israeli regional
hegemony.
Netanyahu knows these goals remain
unfulfilled despite vast destruction. Rather than prompting a rethink,
that failure has convinced him the problem is an insufficient application of force, not the objectives themselves.
For him, the war is far from over, and what force could not achieve yesterday becomes the target of wider escalation tomorrow.
Having already drawn
Trump into earlier confrontations with Iran, Netanyahu appears
convinced he can pull the lever again – this time aiming past a limited
strike for a decisive, total war that permanently shifts the regional
balance of power.
A divided home front
Trump faces a more complicated reality. He
may believe earlier confrontations weakened Iran and the axis of
resistance, but the political landscape is shifting fast at home and
abroad.
Domestically, a growing share of the public openly questions the wisdom of these wars. Recent polling shows support for prolonged Middle Eastern entanglements falling steeply, alongside deep scepticism of “forever wars” seen as serving foreign agendas rather than American interests.
This anti-interventionist sentiment has
crossed party lines and is fracturing Trump’s own coalition. Influential
voices around the Maga movement, including political commentators
Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Megyn Kelly and Joe Rogan, have
questioned policies that subordinate American blood and treasure to
Netanyahu’s agenda.
More Americans are asking why the US
should bear the economic, military and political costs of another
regional war for a foreign power, with vague aims and doubtful benefits
The campaign to unseat Congressman Thomas Massie and other non-interventionist conservatives who question pro-Israel policies reflects these tensions.
More Americans are asking why the US
should bear the economic, military and political costs of another
regional war for a foreign power, with vague aims and doubtful benefits.
These questions sharpen amid mounting economic strain. Energy markets remain vulnerable, and inflationary pressures are rising again.
Petrol prices have become a political landmine: reports in early May put
the national average near $4.50 a gallon, up sharply from the sub-$3
level before the war. Driven by energy costs and supply chain disruptions, inflation has accelerated, weakening consumer confidence and turning the economic mood toxic for the White House.
Trump knows foreign adventures cannot be
detached from domestic realities, and with the midterms approaching,
blunders carry immediate consequences. Both the House and the Senate are
within reach of Democratic majorities.
If he loses Congress, the rest of his
presidency will be paralysed, and the threat of impeachment will return
to the centre of Washington politics.
What Hormuz exposed
Internationally, the pressures are even more severe. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz transformed the strategic landscape.
Before the attacks intensified after 28
February, Hormuz was the vital maritime artery of global energy,
carrying about a fifth of the world’s oil flows and liquefied natural gas trade, with Qatar‘s LNG exports acutely exposed. Its disruption laid bare the vulnerability of the Arab Gulf states and the wider global economy.
As shipping routes faced chaos, insurance
premiums surged, energy markets reacted sharply and supply chains
buckled. More than that, it shattered decades of assumptions about
American power.
Iran has won the war. Trump and Netanyahu now face a reckoning
For generations, Washington had sold
itself as the indispensable guarantor of Gulf security and freedom of
navigation. Yet the crisis exposed the limits
of military superiority in the face of unforgiving geography, asymmetry
and political complexity. America could strike, bomb and threaten, but
it could not force Hormuz open without triggering a global economic
shockwave.
The military record is more revealing still. During the 39-day war, Iranian and allied strikes damaged at least 16 US military bases across eight countries, leaving several nearly unusable.
A Washington Post analysis
of satellite imagery found Iranian strikes damaged or destroyed at
least 228 structures and pieces of equipment at US bases across the
region: hangars, fuel depots, aircraft, radar networks, communications
gear and air-defence assets.
This marks a foundational shift. For decades, the US used its network of Gulf bases as instruments of deterrence
and intimidation, platforms to punish adversaries and shield allies.
The war showed these bases are now exposed targets, calling into
question the architecture of American regional dominance.
Strain on US missile defences compounded the crisis. Reports after the 39-day war indicated serious depletion of interceptor stocks, including Patriot, Thaad, Tomahawk and other missiles.
The Pentagon has warned
that rebuilding these inventories could take years, with some not
likely to be replenished until the decade’s end. That is a dangerous
vulnerability for a country that must also plan for confrontations with Russia and China. A war meant to project dominance instead exposed industrial and technological limits.
A strategic deadlock
Washington and Tel Aviv entered
with maximalist goals: force Iranian capitulation, dismantle its
nuclear infrastructure, end enrichment, seize its enriched uranium,
destroy the axis of resistance, and topple or fragment the Iranian
state.
None of these goals has been met. Iran did
not surrender, its government did not collapse and its regional
alliances, though under heavy pressure, were not eliminated. Iran and
its allies absorbed painful blows, but damage is not defeat: a state can
suffer heavy losses without surrendering its core objectives.
Robert Kagan, an establishment strategist, recently acknowledged
this gap between American ambitions and what military force can
actually achieve. His warning carries weight because it comes from the
heart of the interventionist establishment.
The dilemma is the inability to translate
military superiority into a durable political order, however powerful
its forces remain.
It recalls the Suez crisis
of 1956, when Britain and France discovered that military victory could
not stop the collapse of their imperial power. The same limit now
confronts the US.
American threats and Trump’s ultimatums failed to produce Iranian submission because they lacked credibility. A threat works only when the adversary believes defiance will cost more than compliance.
For its part, Tehran had no reason to think concessions would buy safety.
It had watched Washington abandon the
nuclear agreement in 2018, expand sanctions during talks and carry out
assassinations and sabotage alongside the Zionist regime, even as talks
continued.
Iran, therefore, chose to expand the
battlefield, raise the cost of escalation, threaten global energy flows
and deny the US and Israel a clean victory. Its alternative to
capitulation was resistance under pain, and that transformed the
bargaining structure.
Washington and Tel Aviv wanted a one-sided
outcome in which Iran surrenders its nuclear assets, missiles and
regional influence for temporary, easily reversible sanctions relief.
Tehran knew that reversible relief is not security and refused to give
up its deterrence, thereby forcing a deadlock.
Neither side could impose its outcome
without paying a price it was unwilling to bear. The US could escalate,
but only by threatening the global economy, draining its stockpiles,
exposing its bases and widening domestic opposition.
Iran could endure and retaliate, but could
not defeat a superpower conventionally. Each constrained the other in
an unstable equilibrium.
Within that equilibrium, asymmetry favours
the defender. The US needs a visible, triumphant success to justify the
war to its public; Iran needs only to avoid defeat, keep its
sovereignty and deny the enemy its political aims. For a state facing
overwhelming force, survival with its agency intact is itself a victory.
Indeed, Netanyahu understands this threat
to his expansionist project – and he fears it. A negotiated ceasefire
would confirm a result Israel cannot accept, in which the war would end
not in its triumph but in Iran’s endurance.
An imperfect opening
The present negotiations, reportedly mediated by Pakistan and backed by several Arab and Islamic states, have produced a near-final framework.
At its core is the expansion of the
current truce into a multi-front suspension of hostilities for at least
60 days, Lebanon included. Driven by economic pressure, energy
instability and fear of a wider war disrupting events like the coming
World Cup in North America, Washington needs calm. This retreat,
therefore, is not a product of victory but of necessity.
Alongside the truce, a package of measures
aims to stabilise the region in the interim, including securing
navigation through the Strait of Hormuz, easing restrictions on Iranian
shipping, granting partial access to frozen Iranian assets, and
initiating talks on broader normalisation. Reports on financial compensation vary, with early figures ranging from $12bn to $24bn, though details remain fluid.
The framework signals that the US will concede several Iranian demands for regional stabilisation and the reopening of Hormuz
The nuclear
issue has been deferred. Rather than immediate dismantlement, the
framework relies on an Iranian commitment not to pursue weapons while
talks continue on enrichment levels and verification.
The framework signals that the US will concede several Iranian demands for regional stabilisation and the reopening of Hormuz.
For Netanyahu, this is intolerable, as it
gives Iran economic breathing room while leaving its missiles and
alliances intact, giving Tehran greater leverage in future talks.
This explains the intensity of his pressure on Trump, and why recent exchanges between the two have been described
as tense and uncharacteristically heated. He has opposed the diplomatic
drift, pressing instead for renewed escalation across Gaza and Lebanon.
The latest developments around Lebanon reinforce the point.
Trump has personally intervened to restrain Netanyahu
from launching a wider invasion of Lebanon, while speaking of an
impending ceasefire there – moves that reveal growing tensions beneath
the show of strategic unity.
The restraint followed Iran’s suspension
of negotiations and warnings that further escalation in Lebanon could
ignite northern Israel and widen the confrontation beyond Washington’s
control.
Faced with collapsing talks and a prolonged closure of Hormuz,
Trump moved to contain Netanyahu and head off a regional war that could
drag in the US. The episode offers an early glimpse of the competing
calculations now shaping American and Israeli policy.
Israel’s own military record reveals the
bind: despite vast destruction, it has failed to secure decisive
political outcomes. Gaza lies devastated – more than 76,000 Palestinians
killed and over 180,000 wounded – yet the violence has not produced
political closure.
In southern Lebanon, Hezbollah has reasserted
itself militarily and politically despite heavy blows, contesting
Israeli border moves and inflicting casualties over the past two months.
No amount of destruction has delivered the absolute victory the Zionist
regime craves.
The deeper illusion
Netanyahu is left with limited, dangerous
options. If he cannot block diplomacy outright, he will try to sabotage
its implementation. Lebanon remains
the active arena, where targeted escalation, assassinations or efforts
to spark internal instability could derail diplomatic momentum.
Netanyahu may calculate that fresh massacres in Gaza, an intensified siege or provocations around holy sites in the occupied West Bank could fracture the ceasefire, placing Trump under renewed pressure to realign with Israeli demands.
Suez was the death knell for the British empire. Hormuz may do the same for the US
Yet Trump’s continued rhetoric about normalisation under the Abraham Accords reveals a persistent disconnect from reality.
No meaningful path to broad Arab normalisation exists while the Palestinian question remains open.
The Arab Peace Initiative of 2002
conditioned normalisation on Palestinian statehood, and after Gaza, the
gap between rhetoric and reality has only widened.
The region stands at a perilous
crossroads. One path offers an imperfect diplomatic opening, the product
of mutual exhaustion and shifting leverage; the other leads to a wider
confrontation neither Washington nor Tel Aviv can control.
To assume Netanyahu will quietly accept a
deal that contradicts his core convictions is a dangerous illusion. But
the deeper illusion is the belief that brute force can indefinitely
preserve a regional order whose political, moral and strategic
foundations are crumbling.
Trapped between ideological obsession and
strategic failure, Netanyahu may yet make one last fatal gamble and
continue widening the war until the whole structure collapses with him.
Smoke
rises from an Israeli airstrike that hit Qlaileh village, as it seen
from the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanon, Tuesday, June 2, 2026. [AP
Photo/Mohammed Zaatari]
Israeli strikes killed at least four
people in Southern Lebanon on Friday, and the military ordered the
forced displacement of nine more towns and villages in the Sidon
district.
Hundreds of families fled Aanqoun, a
village already sheltering some 2,500 people displaced from earlier
attacks, after the army announced it would strike what it called
Hezbollah positions there and ordered residents out. Cars jammed the
roads toward Sidon as families searched for shelter.
The Lebanon strikes are an escalation of
the Israeli war, waged in coordination with the US-Israeli war against
Iran, that has killed at least 3,516 people and wounded 10,674 since
March 2, the Lebanese health ministry reported. The United Nations
counted at least 88 killed over the May 30-31 weekend, and Israeli
attacks killed at least eight on Tuesday, nine on Wednesday and four on
Thursday. Among the dead was a paramedic, one of more than 130 medics
killed since March.
On Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu declared the occupation of Southern Lebanon
permanent. Israel needs “security zones: separation and security areas
on the other side of the border,” he told mayors in Northern Israel.
“This is a fundamental change.”
While the US media remains focused on
“peace” negotiations between Trump and Iran, events in Lebanon, Gaza and
the West Bank make clear that any “ceasefire” is merely a cover for
ongoing mass killing.
On Wednesday the United States announced
that Israel and Lebanon had agreed to renew a ceasefire, one requiring
Hezbollah to halt all fire and pull its fighters back from Southern
Lebanon but demanding nothing of Israel’s occupying forces. Hours later,
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz declared that the army would not
withdraw, that hundreds of thousands of displaced Lebanese would not be
allowed home and that Israel retains “freedom of action, backed by the
United States, to strike in Beirut.” Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem
rejected the deal, telling Al-Manar television that ordering his
fighters to leave the south while under attack would mean “surrender,
defeat and achieving the enemy’s goals.”
A United Nations peacekeeper was killed near Marjayoun by mortar fire that Israel and Hezbollah each blamed on the other.
Israeli forces seized Beaufort Castle and
crossed the Litani River last week, pushing their occupation to about
2,000 square kilometers of Southern Lebanon, nearly one-fifth of the
country. The Israeli military, armed and backed by US President Donald
Trump, has turned the south into a free-fire zone.
The United Nations humanitarian office
reported more than a million people driven from their homes and 1.24
million, nearly a quarter of the population, going hungry.
In Gaza, Netanyahu said last week that
Israel holds 60 percent of the strip, up from 50, and that he has
ordered the army to take more. “First of all, 70,” he said, as the crowd
shouted “100!”
Under the October 2025 ceasefire built on
Trump’s 20-point plan, Israeli forces were to pull back behind a
so-called yellow line; instead, they have pushed past it.
The Gaza health ministry has counted 929
Palestinians killed and 2,811 wounded in the seven months since the
truce took effect. Katz announced May 27 that the “voluntary emigration”
plan to empty Gaza of its people would proceed “at the right timing and
in the right manner.”
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich
has demanded the army “prepare immediately for the full conquest of the
Gaza Strip” and build Jewish settlements on it. Rights groups call the
emigration scheme a plan for ethnic cleansing.
In the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces
shot and killed a seven-month-old Palestinian baby near Hebron on Friday
and wounded his parents.
The escalations in Lebanon and Palestine
take place amid a deepening crisis over the US-Israeli war on Iran. The
war has failed to achieve its aims. On February 28, the US and Israel
launched a surprise attack that killed much of the Iranian leadership,
including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and as many as ten other senior
officials. This failed to bring about the collapse of the regime;
Khamenei’s son Mojtaba was installed within days, and no uprising came.Available from Mehring BooksThe struggle against imperialism and for workers’ power in IranA pamphlet by Keith Jones
The US then moved to strangle Iran with a
naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, but this effort has likewise
failed to force Tehran to terms. More than three months on, 13 US
service members are dead, and the fighting drags on with no end in
sight.
The reported differences between Trump and
Netanyahu are a falling-out among thieves over that failure. Axios
reported June 1 that Trump called Netanyahu “crazy” over the Lebanon
escalation, adding, “You’d be in prison if it weren’t for me” and
“Everybody hates Israel because of this.” Trump confirmed the call June
3, saying he was “a little bit perturbed” but that he likes Netanyahu
and had told him, “we’ve got to stop this.”
Despite the “ceasefire” talks, the US is
regularly attacking Iran. This week US forces struck Iranian radar sites
after shooting down four Iranian drones over the Strait of Hormuz,
which the US is blockading. Trump extended the ceasefire indefinitely
and said the blockade would hold until negotiations end “one way or the
other.”
The Democratic Party shares the war’s
aims. On Thursday the House defeated a War Powers resolution by
Democratic Representatives Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Delia Ramirez
of Illinois to remove US forces from the war in Lebanon, 324-92.
Ninety-one Democrats voted for it; 117 voted against, and the only
Republican in favor was Thomas Massie.
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries,
Minority Whip Katherine Clark and Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar led the
opposition. In a joint statement, they declared: “We stand with the
Lebanese people, the government of Lebanon, and the Lebanese Armed
Forces in their efforts to live peacefully and defeat Hezbollah, a
violent terrorist organization that is a sworn enemy of the United
States.”
The statement exposes the real policy of
the Democratic Party. Despite its tactical criticisms of the Trump
administration, it backs the administration’s basic aim of subjugating
the Middle East.
Whatever “deal” Trump strikes with
Tehran—if such an agreement is even possible—Lebanon and Gaza show its
content in advance. Katz will not leave the south; Netanyahu intends to
take the rest of Gaza and the displaced of both will not be allowed
home. An agreement with this administration means continued slaughter
and plunder, signed and dated.
Amnesty International’s Agnes Callamard
has called on Israel to release Dr Hussam Abu Safia, the director of
Gaza’s Kamal Adwan hospital, following reports that he was moved to
solitary confinement in Israel’s Nafha prison.
“Why oh why such cruelty?” Callamard said in a post on X.
“Why oh why those with the power to hold Israel authorities accountable for their cruelty failing over and over?” she asked.
“Dr Hussam Abu Safia should be with his
loved ones, and caring for the many many people in need of his skills.
The last place where he should be is solitary confinement,” she added.
US President Donald Trump speaks to the press in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on June 3, 2026.
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In remarks in the Oval Office on
Wednesday, President Donald Trump stated that in the Middle East, “a
ceasefire is when you’re shooting in a more moderate manner.”
“A ceasefire there is much different than
in other parts of the world,” Trump said, in response to a question by a
reporter about his definition of a ceasefire.
“In that part of the world, a ceasefire is
when you’re shooting in a more moderate manner,” he went on, excusing
his own failure to bring an end to his unprovoked war on Iran.
Trump has muddied the waters about the
meaning of the term “ceasefire” in the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran,
claiming for weeks that the April 8 ceasefire is intact despite
blockading Iran and conducting so-called “self defense” strikes on the
country. Iran also bombed Kuwait on Wednesday – though Trump was
seemingly nonchalant about the attack in his Oval Office comments,
saying that it was in retaliation for U.S. strikes over the previous
day.
Trump’s comments also serve as
justification for Israel’s repeated violations of its so-called
ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon, which have come to be seen as one-sided.
Despite Trump calling the vote “unpatriotic,” nearly 7 in 10 Americans back ending the war in Iran as soon as possible. By Chris Walker , Truthout
June 4, 2026
In the year after Israel’s 2024 ceasefire
with Hezbollah, UNIFIL, the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon, said that
Israel violated the ceasefire more than 10,000 times. And Israel
repeatedly takes advantage of ceasefires to put pressure on Lebanon and
the U.S. through mass strikes – like on April 8, when Israel killed 357
people in Lebanon to make a point that Lebanon could not be part of the
agreement with Iran.
Al Jazeera noted on June 1 that Israel violated the October 2025 ceasefire agreement in Gaza over 3,000 times, on a near-daily basis. These attacks have killed at least 932 Palestinians.
In both Lebanon and in Gaza, residents repeatedlyask, “Where is the ceasefire?”
Later, Trump repeated the sentiment,
saying, “That’s a very volatile part of the world, probably the most
volatile part of the world. The people are volatile, the leadership [as
well].” This is an excuse that Israel has also used to justify its
brutality across the region.
But the region is largely volatile as a
result of imperialist intervention — led by the U.S., and with the help
of Israel, which has played the role of the U.S.’s watchdog in the
Middle East since 1967.
During his remarks in the Oval Office on
Wednesday, Trump stated that the issue of Lebanon should be separate
from a deal with Iran – which is what Israel has demanded, and Iran has
repeatedly pushed back on.
Trump also said that he spoke with
Hezbollah leaders. “We actually spoke with Hezbollah for the first time
ever,” he said. “We didn’t know they spoke,” he added, continuing with
his racist commentary on the region. Trump reportedly called both
Hezbollah leaders and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on
Tuesday to push for a de-escalation after Israel expanded its occupation
of southern Lebanon and threatened to resume bombing Beirut.
Although Lebanon and Israel both agreed to
renew their “ceasefire” on Thursday, this was done without the
participation of Hezbollah, and is contingent on Hezbollah removing its
fighters from the south – which is under Israeli occupation and has
faced continuous bombardment since March. The U.S. and Israel have
pressured factions of the Lebanese government to turn on Hezbollah over
the past year.
But after this announcement on Thursday,
Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz said that Israel will remain in
southern Lebanon. Israel continued its airstrikes on both southern
Lebanon and the Bekaa valley region.
Israel has attacked three hospitals in southern Lebanon over the past few days.
Rima Majed, professor of sociology at the
American University of Beirut, condemned Israel’s repeated escalations
in Lebanon in comments to Truthout earlier this week.
“We now live in a world where ceasefire
means that Israel can continue bombing, and that we can keep reaching
ceasefire agreements within ceasefire agreements without all of this
meaning any real protection for people,” she said.
Israel’s genocidal finance
minister holds significant authority over the West Bank Civil
Administration, allowing him to expand illegal settlements freely
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced
a new and major illegal settlement project in the occupied West Bank on
3 June, which aims to see the construction of around 2,000 houses on
Palestinian land.
According to the minister, 1,006 housing units will be in a new settlement near the occupied holy city of Jerusalem.
Over 920 are planned near occupied Nablus
and another 234 near the city of Hebron. “We are continuing to build the
Land of Israel in practice,” Smotrich said.
The settlements will “strengthen our hold
on the land, reinforce Israel’s security, and establish clear facts on
the ground that prevent the creation of an Arab terror state in the
heart of the country.”
Smotrich holds significant authority over Israel’s Civil Administration in the occupied territory.
In the summer of 2023, around six months
after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government came to
power, significant portions of the Civil Administration in the West
Bank – an Israeli military body – were placed under Smotrich’s authority.
This gave the minister free rein to swiftly expand illegal settlements.
Smotrich’s announcement on Wednesday comes
as Tel Aviv is also moving to seize private Palestinian land around an
archeological site in the occupied West Bank.
The Civil Administration announced on 2
June that it has started to expropriate 320 dunams (about 80 acres) of
land for the “preservation and development” of the Herodium – a massive
fortress complex built between 23 and 15 BC.
“[The expropriation] is being advanced in
accordance with the law, following comprehensive professional
assessments conducted by the Civil Administration’s Staff Officer for
Archaeology and Staff Officer for Nature Reserves,” the administration
said in a statement.
“Their findings pointed to an urgent need
to regulate the area and promote preservation efforts at the site in
order to prevent damage to archaeological remains of unique historical
and cultural significance,” it added.
Since Netanyahu’s government took office
in late 2022, Israeli authorities have accelerated plans for the de
facto annexation of the occupied West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem.
In February, the Israeli government
approved a land registration process allowing Israel to claim territory
in the occupied West Bank as “state property” if Palestinians cannot
prove ownership.
A few weeks later, dozens of new illegal settlements were approved.
Middle East Eye (MEE) released
an investigation in May detailing the “New Nakba” that has escalated
against the Palestinian communities of occupied East Jerusalem since 7
October 2023.
According to the investigation, 20,000
Palestinian-owned homes are currently under Israeli demolition orders
across occupied East Jerusalem.
Israel is also moving forward with plans to steal large amounts of Palestinian-owned property near Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Tel Aviv is openly working to establish
continuity between illegal settlements in order to solidify its control
over the West Bank and the city of Jerusalem, and block any prospect of
Palestinian statehood.
Israel was supposed to fully withdraw its
troops from Gaza as part of the ceasefire signed in October. Instead of
pulling back, Israeli forces are quietly cementing permanent, heavily
fortified military posts across the besieged enclave, according to
satellite imagery analysed by Al Jazeera.
An investigation by Al Jazeera’s Open
Source Unit, analysing satellite data up to May 2026, has identified 40
distinct Israeli military outposts entrenched within Gaza. Crucially,
the analysis proves that eight of these bases were constructed entirely
from scratch after the October 2025 truce went into effect, with one
site still undergoing active construction.
(Al Jazeera)
This physical entrenchment mirrors the
increasingly overt territorial ambitions of Israel’s leadership.
Speaking at a recent conference, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
confirmed directives to permanently seize the vast majority of the Strip.
Israeli forces have pulled back to the “Yellow Line”, which refers to the buffer and military zones comprising some 60 percent of the enclave’s territory.
“We are currently squeezing Hamas; we now
control 60 percent of the territory,” Netanyahu stated, before
addressing a crowd member who shouted for complete annexation: “Let’s go
step by step. First of all, 70. Let’s start with that.”
Desecration and new constructions
The satellite analysis exposes a
systematic effort to build a sustainable, long-term military
infrastructure rather than temporary observation posts.
The newly established installations are
strategically dispersed: Two in northern Gaza, two in the central
region, one east of the Netzarim Corridor, and three in the southern
city of Khan Younis.
In one of the most glaring examples of
this spatial takeover, Israeli forces established a new military base
directly atop the ruins of the Eastern Cemetery in Khan Younis.
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Satellite images show that engineering
works on the bulldozed burial ground began in November 2025. By May 18,
2026, the site was fully equipped with vehicle staging areas and
repetitive structures, likely used for troop housing and operational
meetings.
A similar pattern of rapid militarisation
is visible in northern Gaza. In Beit Lahiya, an area that appeared
completely clear in October 2025 photos, satellite imagery captured the
sudden onset of engineering works by mid-November.
(Photo credit: Reuters)
