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.
Lebanese
security officers gather at the site where an Israeli airstrike hit a
building in Dahiyeh, Beirut’s southern suburb, Lebanon, Sunday, June 7,
2026. [AP Photo/Hassan Ammar]
One hundred days ago, on February 28, the
United States and Israel launched an illegal war of aggression against
Iran. The war is being waged by the world’s most powerful imperialist
powers against a historically oppressed nation.
The resistance of the Iranian people,
notwithstanding the reactionary character of the clerical regime, is
politically legitimate and of a heroic character. The working class
internationally must defend Iran unconditionally against imperialist
subjugation.
The “negotiations” currently being carried
out by the Trump administration at gunpoint are a fraud. In an
interview this weekend, Trump declared that if Iran does not accept his
demands, “I’m going to blow the hell out of them.” Even if the Trump
administration agrees to a “ceasefire,” any agreement with the gangsters
in the White House will just be as meaningful as the “peace” deal in
2025 that set the stage for this year’s war.
On Sunday night, Israel attacked Tehran.
In Lebanon, the Israeli bombardment, escalating even amid the supposed
negotiations, has killed at least 3,593 people and driven over a million
from their homes—a toll that exceeds the 3,468 Iranians killed, among
them seven infants and 376 children, with more than 26,500 wounded.
In the course of the war, imperialism
plumbed new depths of barbarism. Trump’s threats to extinguish “a whole
civilization” and Hegseth’s vow to wage war with “no quarter, no mercy”
will go down in history as expressions of an oligarchy that has
abandoned all pretense to legality. The imperialist powers now wage wars
of oppression and subjugation in the open, with methods pioneered by
the Nazis.
Despite the brutal and murderous character
of the US-Israeli onslaught, however, imperialism has failed to achieve
a single one of its aims. It has not overthrown the Iranian government,
broken Iran’s military or seized control of the Strait of Hormuz.
The war has had two major effects: a
deepening of the global crisis of the capitalist system and an enormous
escalation of the global class struggle, not least within the United
States.
The US debacle in Iran has accelerated the
crisis of the US-led economic order. The European Central Bank reported
in June that central banks are fleeing US Treasury bonds for gold,
which has overtaken the euro to become the second-largest reserve
asset—27 percent of global reserves, up from 20 percent a year earlier.
The US national debt has passed $39 trillion.
It is the working class—in the United
States and internationally—that is bearing the cost of the war. The
closure of the Strait of Hormuz has driven gas at the pump up by more
than 50 percent, the price of staples like tomatoes by nearly 40 percent
and inflation to 3.8 percent, its highest since 2023.
Trump has seized on the war to intensify
his assault on social programs, declaring in April that “we’re fighting
wars” and that it is therefore “not possible for us to take care of day
care, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things.” The World Food
Programme warned that the war could push an additional 45 million people
into acute hunger, a record level, with the poorest, import-dependent
countries of Africa and Asia hit hardest.
In response to the surge in prices and the
escalating cost-of-living crisis, the working class has begun to fight
back. The past three months have seen a significant growth of
working-class struggle in the United States: the first strike on the
Long Island Rail Road in more than three decades; a three-week walkout
by 3,800 meatpacking workers at JBS in Greeley, Colorado, the first in
the industry in more than 40 years; strikes by teachers in California
and a statewide walkout in North Carolina; strikes by nurses in New
Orleans and California against unsafe staffing; a strike by graduate
students at Harvard University; and the rebellion now sweeping the auto
parts industry.
The class struggle is erupting
internationally—in the mass anti-government protests in Kenya, the
rebellion of tens of thousands of workers in the industrial suburbs of
Delhi and the hunger strike of coal miners in Turkey. In the first
quarter of 2026, eight European countries recorded 458 strikes, among
them national general strikes in Belgium and Italy, and regional general
strikes in Spain’s Andalusia and Basque Country. Argentina mounted a
national general strike against the Milei government in February, and
1.7 million government employees walked out across the Indian state of
Maharashtra.
The contradictions that are driving
imperialism to war are also driving the working class into struggle. The
growth of the class struggle springs from the same crisis that produces
the war. Out of that crisis emerges the only social force capable of
putting an end to it. War and social revolution are two sides of the
same historical process.
Enormous and growing opposition is
developing in the United States and throughout the world to the
US–Israeli war of aggression against Iran and to the broader drive
toward war, austerity and dictatorship. But opposition, left to itself,
is dissipated and diverted. It must be armed with a program, perspective
and leadership.
The fight against war cannot be waged
through appeals to the governments and parties that are waging it. In
the US, the Democratic Party greeted the murder of Iran’s leaders with
cheers and financed Trump’s military budget. The European imperialist
powers have backed the war and politically justified it, while pouring
€800 billion into rearmament as they escalate the proxy war against
Russia, which they arm and direct.
Opposition to imperialism requires
developing struggles of workers in the United States, Europe and across
the world—against war, austerity and dictatorship—into a conscious
political movement armed with a socialist program. To put an end to war
and barbarism, the capitalist system must be abolished.
This is the perspective of the Socialist
Equality Party and the International Committee of the Fourth
International. We call on every worker and young person who opposes this
war to take it up and to build the revolutionary leadership the working
class needs.
Published date: 6 June 2026 19:49 BST | Last update:21 hours 49 mins ago
The Pentagon has raised Israel’s
counterintelligence threat level to its highest category, amid growing
alarm that Washington’s supposed closest Middle East ally is
intensifying efforts to spy on senior US officials.
The warning, reported by NBC News and The
New York Times on Saturday, exposes behind the scenes tensions in a
relationship Washington often treats as untouchable.
The Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency
recently issued the new assessment as tensions grow between the Trump
administration and Israel over the Israeli-US war on Iran.
US officials told NBC that the DIA posted an internal message raising Israel’s threat level to “critical”.
The designation signals alarm inside the
Pentagon that Israel is working to monitor top US officials and obtain
information about internal Trump administration deliberations on wars
across the Middle East.
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The New York Times reported that US
intelligence has focused on Israeli efforts to eavesdrop on senior
officials, including Steve Witkoff, Trump’s top negotiator, Elbridge A
Colby, the Pentagon’s top policy official, and Michael P DiMino IV, one
of Colby’s main deputies.
Colby has in the past called for a “reset” on the US relationship with Israel.
Israel’s counterintelligence threat level
now stands higher than that of any other US ally and even higher than
some adversarial states, the Times reported.
One senior official described Israel’s
intelligence collection against top US officials during the second Trump
administration as “unhinged”.
‘Critical threat’
The DIA assessment includes a seven-page
document and a chart, one US official told NBC. The document says
Israel’s ability to conduct human espionage and technical collection has
reached a “critical level” and lists specific incidents that sharpened
US concern.
Current and former US officials told NBC that Israel’s recent activity has moved far beyond routine espionage between allies.
Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard suggests Egypt and Turkey are next targets for war
The warning comes as Israel pushes for
deeper military integration with the United States. A provision before
Congress would bind the US and Israeli militaries more closely on
weapons research, production and technology – a move expected to benefit
Israel heavily.
The Pentagon’s assessment could now
complicate efforts to expand war planning between US Central Command and
Israel, especially if officials restrict the information shared with
Israeli officers.
Since a ceasefire took effect in early
April, Trump has pursued diplomacy with Iran to end the war the US and
Israel launched on 28 February. Israel has openly pushed for Washington
to restart the war.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has
pressed for renewed bombing of Iran and clashed with Trump, who has
urged him to scale back attacks on Lebanon.
The episode revives a long-running concern
in Washington. In the 1980s, US Navy intelligence analyst Jonathan
Pollard spent 30 years in prison after selling suitcases of top-secret
documents to Israel.
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.
