Friday, October 31, 2025

𝐎𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝟏𝟓𝟎 𝐰𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐛𝐨𝐲𝐜𝐨𝐭𝐭 𝐍𝐞𝐰 𝐘𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐓𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫 “𝐛𝐢𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐆𝐚𝐳𝐚 𝐜𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐠𝐞”

Middle East monitor, October 29, 2025 at 9:31 am

A vigil is held outside The New York Times headquarters in Manhattan, New York City, to honor Palestinian journalist Saleh Aljafarawi, who was killed in Gaza, on October 14, 2025. [Selçuk Acar - Anadolu Agency]

A vigil is held outside The New York Times headquarters in Manhattan, New York City, to honor Palestinian journalist Saleh Aljafarawi, who was killed in Gaza, on October 14, 2025. [Selçuk Acar – Anadolu Agency]

More than 150 writers who contribute to the American newspaper The New York Times have announced a boycott of its opinion section in protest against what they described as “biased coverage” of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the ongoing war on Gaza.

According to Middle East Eye, the writers decided to stop publishing in the paper over its reporting style on events in Gaza, saying their move was a response to the paper’s alignment with the Israeli narrative.

The writers called on The New York Times management to conduct “a review of anti-Palestinian bias and produce new editorial standards for Palestine coverage”. They also demanded that “The New York Times’ editorial board call for a US arms embargo on Israel.”

In a joint letter, the writers said: “Until The New York Times takes accountability for its biased coverage and commits to truthfully and ethically reporting on the US-Israeli war on Gaza, any putative ‘challenge’ to the newsroom or the editorial board in the form of a first-person essay is, in effect, permission to continue this malpractice.”

READ: Pro-Israel fellowship recruits NYT, CNN staff amid global backlash over Gaza genocide

They added: “Only by withholding our labor can we mount an effective challenge to the hegemonic authority that the Times has long used to launder the US and Israel’s lies.”

Among the signatories were several prominent American activists, artists, and politicians, including Rima Hassan; Chelsea Manning; Rashida Tlaib; Sally Rooney; Elia Suleiman; Greta Thunberg; Viet Than Nguyen; and Dave Zirin, according to Middle East Eye.

In their letter, the writers stated: “We owe it to the journalists and writers of Palestine to refuse complicity with the Times, and to demand that the paper account for its failures, such that it can never again manufacture consent for mass slaughter, torture, and displacement.

Thursday, October 30, 2025

Trump Gives Full Support to Israel’s Ceasefire-Violating Attacks That Killed 100+ Palestinians

US President Donald Trump gave his full support to Israel’s ceasefire-breaking strikes, which reportedly killed at least 104 Palestinians, including 40 children, while wounding another 253 people on Tuesday and into Wednesday.

Airstrikes devastated Gaza City, Khan Yunis, and refugee camps in central Gaza, hitting homes, tents, and the courtyard of a hospital, according to Middle East Eye, leaving many of the wounded in critical condition and many others trapped beneath rubble.

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The director of Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City described the situation as “catastrophic,” with two years of destruction and a punishing Israeli blockade of humanitarian aid having left the hospital with no medicine or medical supplies to treat the wounded.

In remarks aboard Air Force One on Wednesday, Trump said that Israel carried out the strikes after a 37-year-old Israeli soldier was reportedly killed by Hamas in southern Gaza.

“As I understand it, they took out an Israeli soldier,” Trump said. “So the Israelis hit back, and they should hit back. When that happens, they should hit back.” Trump described the carnage as “retribution” for the soldier’s death, for which Hamas has denied responsibility.

In addition to the soldier’s killing, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Tuesday’s strikes also came after Hamas returned only partial remains of an Israeli hostage, Ofir Tzarfati, who died in captivity after being abducted and taken to Gaza on October 7, 2023. Israel has claimed that Hamas attempted to “stage a false discovery” of the body for the international Red Cross “to create a false impression of efforts to locate the bodies”.

As part of the ceasefire agreement, Hamas has returned the living Israeli hostages and is also required to return the remains of those who died during the two years of Israeli bombardment. As of Monday, the remains of 16 hostages had been handed over, but 13 still remain, with Hamas saying it has struggled to locate them in the delapidated Gaza Strip, which has been largely reduced to rubble by Israel’s aerial campaign.

Chris Gunness, a former spokesperson for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), argued that the Trump deal was “set up to fail” using the provision requiring the return of captives’ remains.

“There were so many bodies under so much rubble,” Gunness said in an interview with AJ+. “There was so much confusion after two years of genocide. It was going to be very difficult for anybody to deliver the bodies and the captives given what has been going on. So Israel has a pretext to call off the plan, to reimpose the blockade, to restart the genocide if it wants to.”

After Tuesday’s deadly bombings, Israel said Wednesday it had “resumed” the ceasefire. But even before the attacks removed any doubt, the ceasefire appeared to be in name only. In a press release before the bombing began, the Gaza Media Office alleged that Israel had already committed 125 violations of the agreement.

Between October 11, when the ceasefire went into effect, and October 28, nearly 100 Palestinians were killed and over 300 wounded in near-daily attacks by Israel, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. This is despite the fact that the agreement stated explicitly that “all military operations, including aerial and artillery bombardment and targeting operations, will be suspended.”

Israel has also not abided by requirements that it allow the “immediate commencement of full entry of humanitarian aid.” In what it said was a response to Hamas’ failure to return hostage remains, Israel announced last week that it had closed the critical Rafah crossing, and just 15% of the aid called for in the plan has been allowed to enter Gaza, where 55,000 children are suffering from acute malnutrition according to a Lancet report released last week.

As bombs rained down on Gaza on Tuesday, Vice President JD Vance asserted that “the ceasefire is holding,” but that it “doesn’t mean that there aren’t going to be little skirmishes.”

The next day, Trump insisted that even after Israel’s colossal violation of the ceasefire, “nothing is going to jeopardize” the agreement, which he and many in the press have raced to portray as a historic victory for his legacy as a peacemaker.

But Mouin Rabbani, a fellow at the Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies, told Al Jazeera that even while claiming to respect the ceasefire, Israel was clearly looking for any excuse it could find to resume the state of war.

“Israel was unwilling to enter this agreement, was dragged into it by the United States, and has been seeking to erode it ever since,” Rabbani said.

He said he believes the US will not allow Israel to cross the “red line” of resuming “full-scale war,” but that “by showing indulgence for lesser infractions, we’re on a downward slope where Israel is able to erode the terms of the agreement with increasing violence, with increasing frequency, until there is nothing left.”

He noted that the US now has a military command center directly in Israel with the stated purpose of “monitoring” the ceasefire.

“Arab, Israeli, and international press reports have all referred to this as ‘Bibi-sitting,’ basically reflecting American concerns that Israel is going to unilaterally abrogate this agreement,” he said. “What this means is that the United States is now, to a much greater degree than previously, directly responsible for what happens in the Gaza Strip.”

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Wednesday, October 29, 2025

‘𝐀𝐩𝐩𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠’: 𝐈𝐬𝐫𝐚𝐞𝐥’𝐬 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐬 𝐤𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧 𝐆𝐚𝐳𝐚 𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐝 𝐛𝐲 𝐔𝐍 𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬 𝐛𝐨𝐬𝐬

Aljazeera, 29 Oct 2025
United Nations human rights chief Volker Turk has denounced Israel’s attack on Gaza and called on the international community to not waste this “opportunity for peace and a path towards a more just and secure future”.

“Reports that over 100 Palestinians were killed overnight in a wave of Israeli air strikes – mainly on residential buildings, IDP tents and schools across the Gaza Strip following the death of an Israeli soldier – are appalling,” he said in a statement.

“The laws of war are very clear on the paramount importance of protecting civilians and civilian infrastructure.”

Turk urged Israel to comply with its obligations under international humanitarian law and to be held accountable for any violations.

“It is distressing that these killings occurred just as the long-suffering population of Gaza started to feel there was hope that the unrelenting barrage of violence may be at an end,” he said.

Turk also called on all parties to the war to act in good faith and implement the ceasefire.

Name(s):	Hussam Idris Amer Abu Safiya
Status:	Detained
Year of birth:	1973
Profession:	Paediatrician; lead physician at MedGlobal; director of Kamal Adwan Hospital
Nationality:	Palestinian
Date of arrest:	December 28, 2024

In the early hours of December 28, 2024, Dr. Abu Safiya was arrested by Israeli forces during a military raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital. He was forcibly disappeared, subjected to torture, and detained without charges under Israel’s Unlawful Combatants Law. On October 16, 2025, Dr. Abu Safiya’s detention order was extended again for six months. Despite global calls by the UN and human rights organisations for his release, he remains arbitrarily detained.

Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya is a paediatrician, lead physician at MedGlobal, and director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza. Dr. Abu Safiya also used his social media to share updates on Israeli attacks on Kamal Adwan Hospital, and provide critical information on the assistance and material needed for the hospital to continue operating, to ensure medical care can be provided to his patients.

On the morning of December 27, 2024, Israeli military forces launched a military raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital, which forced the last major functioning hospital in northern Gaza out of service. Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya was summoned by the Israeli military, forced to evacuate most of his patients and staff, and arrested during the early hours of December 28.

For 45 days, Dr. Abu Safiya was held incommunicado, with no contact with his family or his legal counsel. When human rights organisation Physicians for Human Rights–Israel (PHRI) submitted an inquiry on January 2, 2025, the military denied of any record of his arrest. It was only three days later that they confirmed he was in fact in their custody, while still refusing to disclose his location.

On February 11, 2025, Dr. Abu Safiya was finally permitted a first visit from his lawyer, affiliated with Al Mezan Center for Human Rights (Al Mezan), at Ofer Prison.

During the visit, Dr. Abu Safiya described the psychological and physical torture be had been subjected to at the hands of Israeli authorities: he was stripped naked, shackled, beaten with batons, and forced to sit on gravel for hours. He endured prolonged interrogations lasting up to 13 consecutive days, electric shocks, chest blows, and threats involving family members. He lost 12 kilograms in less than two months, and was denied necessary medical care.

On February 12, 2025, the Commander of the Southern Command of the Israeli army issued an order to detain Dr. Abu Safiya as an “unlawful combatant” under the Unlawful Combatants Law. The following day, on February 13, 2025, the order was delivered to the Ashkelon Court and Dr. Abu Safiya’s lawyer. A hearing scheduled for that same day to consider the extension of Dr. Abu Safiya’s detention was cancelled after authorities invoked the Unlawful Combatants Law.

Previously, on January 9, 2025, the Magistrates’ Court of Ashkelon had extended Dr. Abu Safiya’s detention based on suspicions that he had committed offenses under the Israeli Penal Code. However, due to the prosecution’s failure to gather sufficient evidence to support an indictment, as required by the Israeli Criminal Procedure Law of 1996, Israeli authorities reverted to detaining him under the Unlawful Combatants Law.

According to his lawyers, Israeli authorities attempted to reclassify the matter as a criminal case to pursue a formal indictment. However, following a series of interrogations and episodes of severe torture intended to coerce Dr. Abu Safiya into confessions for use in court, Israeli authorities were still unable to establish any grounds for prosecution after more than 45 days in custody. As a result, his case was ultimately returned to its original classification under the Unlawful Combatants Law.

On March 20, 2025, one of Abu Safiya’s lawyers was granted a 17-minute visit in Ofer Prison. During the visit, Dr. Abu Safiya reportedly held that he had been severely beaten six times since the previous meeting with his lawyers 10 days prior. He reported that four of his ribs had been broken, that he suffered injuries to his eyes, including clearly visible bruising, and that he had been denied glasses for his poor eyesight. Regarding the conditions of detention, very little food was available to Dr. Abu Safiya and other detainees, the bathroom was only made available for one hour a week and for one minute per detainee, and there was only one towel for every five detainees.

On March 25, 2025, the Be’er Sheva (or Bir al-Sabi’) District Court, an Israeli civil court, reviewed and upheld the detention order issued on February 12, 2025 by the Commander of the Southern Command of the Israeli army against Dr. Abu Safiya, upholding his detention for another six months.

During the hearing, the Southern District Prosecutor submitted a secret file to the court, alleging that Dr. Abu Safiya poses a threat to the security of the State of Israel and has engaged in “hostile” activities. In response, Dr. Abu Safiya’s legal team asserted his innocence and held that he was solely performing medical and administrative duties at Kamal Adwan Hospital. The defence also requested access to the classified investigation materials; however, the prosecution refused, and the court upheld the refusal.

On April 30, 2025, MENA Rights Group petitioned the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention on behalf of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, urging them to rule his detention as arbitrary under international law, and to call on Israeli authorities to release him immediately.

On October 16, 2025, the Be’er Sheva (or Bir al-Sabi’) District Court extended the detention of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya for an additional six months. Dr. Abu Safiya's legal counsel attended the hearing in-person and challenged the lawfulness of his detention, noting the absence of any incriminating evidence and the lack of any formal charges against him. Dr. Abu Safiya joined the hearing via video call from his place of detention, in Ofer Prison.

Dr. Abu Safiya’s detention has been condemned by UN human rights experts, including the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, and the UN Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, as well as human rights organisations, including Amnesty International, among others.

The Unlawful Combatants Law strips Palestinian detainees of their rights protected under international law, and allows for their indefinite detention, without charge or trial. The text allows Israeli authorities to detain Palestinians on suspicions of being an “unlawful combatant”, which carries no legal status under international humanitarian law, on the basis of “secret evidence”, which neither the defence nor their lawyers have the right to access or challenge. The Israeli military is not required to issue a detention order for the first 45 days of detention, and detainees are denied access to a lawyer for up to 90 days.

Since October 2023, Israeli authorities have relied on the Unlawful Combatants Law to detain thousands of Palestinians, including hundreds of healthcare workers like Dr. Abu Safiya. Israel’s targeting of medical facilities and health care workers contributes to the decimation and collapse of Gaza’s healthcare system, which is a component of Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

Tuesday, October 28, 2025

As Israel devours the West Bank, Abbas rearranges the chairs on the deck of the Titanic

David Hearst

MME, 27 October 2025 17:54 GMT | Last update: 11 hours 3 mins ago

If Marwan Barghouti, or someone like him, does not assume control of Fatah very soon, Abbas will drag his party and every Palestinian institution down with him

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas walks on Downing Street to meet British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, in London, England, on 8 September 2025 (Reuters)

Nothing reveals the true nature of Zionism more clearly than the annual attacks of Israeli settlers during the olive harvest in the West Bank.

This year, they are particularly frenzied.

After two years of a genocidal war in Gaza, the brakes have truly come off their attempt to purge the countryside of its native population.

Almost as much as the Palestinian flag, the olive tree represents the symbol of ownership that one Palestinian generation hands down to another, and Israelis of all tribes are determined to erase it.

Afaf Abu Alia, a 53-year-old Palestinian mother who was beaten on the head in turns by Israeli settlers, said: "When they cut our olive trees, it felt like they were gouging out our eyes. The olive tree is so precious to us - like our own children."

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The pogroms against the Palestinians are pure ethnic aggression, designed solely to force them off their land. No "friend of Israel" can pretend otherwise.

There is nothing remotely "defensive" about this operation. Lynch mobs of settlers are on a manhunt for Palestinian prey.

This is how much of a myth Israel perpetrates when it claims to offer Jewish victims of antisemitism a safe haven. Nor can they claim that this naked aggression against unarmed Palestinians is the work of a fringe group of settlers and that the rest of Israel wants to live in peace with its Arabs.

The burning of cars, the beatings and the killings are a collective effort, and key to the concurrent legislative push for annexation.

No opposition to annexation

Apart from the settlers, and citizens who turn up with metal bars, there are soldiers who fire teargas and shoot at their victims; the border police who arrest the victims of the settlers and stop ambulances from recovering the bodies; the Shin Bet, as well as the Israeli prisons service, settlement security coordinators, the Israeli military liaison office, the courts, and of course, last week, the Knesset itself.

Amid Gaza's nightmare, a quiet genocide has been unfolding in the West Bank

The parliament passed a preliminary reading of two bills. The first applied Israeli sovereignty to all the settlements in the occupied West Bank. This was opposed by the ruling Likud party, although one member, Yuli Edelstein, broke ranks to cast the decisive vote.

Edelstein said that he supported the measure because "Israeli sovereignty in all parts of our homeland is the order of the day" and called on "all Zionist factions to vote in favour".

The other was a more limited bill proposed by the secular nationalist Avigdor Lieberman to annex the large settlement of Ma'ale Adumim, arguing the surest form of devouring the occupied West Bank was in salami slices.

"Ma'ale Adumim constitutes the broadest consensus in Israeli society. In terms of applying sovereignty, it is better to go for the broadest national consensus[such as] Ma'ale Adumim, Ariel, Gush Etzion and the Jordan Valley."

This bill, everyone in Europe and the US please note, got the support of the so-called opposition leaders Yair Lapid and Benny Gantz.

There is in fact no opposition to annexation. It enjoys bipartisan support.

Senior members of the cabinet, Justice Minister Yariv Levin and Defence Minister Israel Katz, have also endorsed annexation. Last summer, the Knesset overwhelmingly approved a non-binding motion in favour of applying Israeli sovereignty in the West Bank.

Even the statement from the Likud party, which dismissed the two bills as political trolling designed to embarrass the government on the day US Vice President JD Vance was in town, blurted out what was really going on.

"We strengthen settlement every day with actions, budgets, construction, industry, and not with words. True sovereignty will be achieved by... creating the political conditions appropriate for the recognition of our sovereignty, as was done in the Golan Heights and in Jerusalem."

Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister and de facto colonial governor of the West Bank, was unfazed by US President Donald Trump's rejection of annexation.

Trump had warned that Israel would lose the support of the US "completely" if it annexed the West Bank, and it "would not happen" as it would break the commitments he gave to Arab leaders.

Smotrich, who should no longer be considered a religious Zionist outlier or extremist, but the voice of the driving force of Israeli politics, said it was only a matter of time before Trump would come around, just as he did by recognising Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.

A bitter harvest

It's only the start of this year's olive harvest, which continues until December, but already the pogroms have had a dramatic effect.

With or without Likud denials or Trump's threats, the Smotrich plan is firmly underway. Possibly not at the speed with which he wants it carried out, but the destination can no longer be in doubt

The Palestinian Colonisation and Wall Resistance Commission documented 158 settler attacks since the start of the olive harvest, which runs from October to late December, carried out under the protection of the Israeli army.

Palestine usually produces between 17,000 and 22,000 tonnes of olives, but this season it is expected to fall to just 7,000 tonnes, the lowest in decades.

Since the start of the year, 10,000 trees have been burned or uprooted, on which roughly half of the Palestinian population depend. But it's the land the trees are on which are Smotrich's real target.

Key to his plan to annex 82 percent of the occupied West Bank is the principle of "the maximum land with the minimum Arabs".

The pogroms have already cleared Palestinians off one-fifth of the land they still cling to.

Olive trees cover some 550,000 dunams (around 136,000 acres) of farmland out of a total of 1.2 million dunams. In the past two years, Israeli army and settler violence have prevented farmers from accessing 110,000 dunams of their land.

So with or without Likud denials or Trump's threats, the Smotrich plan is firmly underway. Possibly not at the speed with which he wants it carried out, but the destination can no longer be in doubt.

Abbas succession

If you are sitting in Ramallah, Smotrich represents an existential threat to whoever takes over from the ageing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, although this is no longer in any doubt after the decree he issued on Sunday.

Responding to speculation that Abbas's arch Fatah rival, Marwan Barghouti, might be let out of Israeli prison after over 20 years, and that Trump was seriously considering pleas from Barghouti's wife, Fadwa, Abbas issued a decree which shuts the door on any rival or indeed any election.

Who is Marwan Barghouti and why won't Israel release him?

The decree stated that if he could no longer fulfil his duties as president, the position would be filled "temporarily" - always a suspicious word in the Middle East - by Hussein al-Sheikh, the deputy chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organisation's (PLO) executive committee.

Sheikh, who is Israel's primary contact over civilian matters in the West Bank, has been vetted and approved by both Tel Aviv and Washington.

At the last available poll, only 18.9 percent of Palestinians supported his appointment as vice chairman. In a straight context, Sheikh would be blown away by Barghouti.

But polls are irrelevant to the president, who has not allowed an election to take place for 21 years and who has shut down the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), which has been dormant, after the last vote in 2006 gave Hamas 74 of the 132 seats, while the ruling Fatah got just 45.

Abbas's closure of parliament is another reason for Sunday's decree. Basic Law decrees that an incapacitated president is supposed to be replaced by the speaker of the Legislative Council.

Now he is not.

All this is business as usual for Abbas. It is as if the genocide in Gaza never took place, and an existential attack on the Palestinian Authority (PA) is not happening either.

The PA responded to the genocide in Gaza with silence. It is pursuing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes in the International Criminal Court.

But Israel's attempt to exterminate Gaza has not even produced a dent in Abbas's policy of excluding Hamas from a unity government of any form. On the contrary, it has only confirmed it.

Other Fatah grandees who appear at international gatherings are careful to accompany declarations that Hamas must be disarmed in Gaza with carefully worded acknowledgements that it must, at some level, be involved in the process of finding a new leader.

Like Netanyahu, whose proudest lifetime achievement has been to kill a Palestinian State at birth, Abbas's proudest boast has been to cling to power, 21 years after he effectively lost it

But not Abbas, who clearly thinks the resistance groups are a bigger threat to his authority than Israel currently is.

Like Netanyahu, whose proudest lifetime achievement has been to kill a Palestinian state at birth, Abbas's proudest boast has been to cling to power, 21 years after he effectively lost it.

The contradictions between marginalising Hamas, reforming the PA to be even more subservient to Israel and its occupation than it already is, and achieving the aspirations of the Palestinian people for a sovereign state on the borders of 1967, are fully contained in the internal Saudi foreign ministry report, which was leaked to Middle East Eye.

Saudi Arabia said Hamas has an "impact on obstructing peace efforts and deepening divisions" and therefore should be sidelined.

Written in Arabic, this paper was presumably for distribution to fellow Arab delegates at the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

Smotrich laughed at Saudi Arabia's attempts to bargain normalisation for a Palestinian state. "Keep riding your camels in the Saudi desert. We'll continue to develop our economy, society and state with all the great things we know how to do."

What next?

Barghouti himself remains an unknown factor. Whether he still retains the power he once had to lead both the Palestinian national liberation struggle and make Israel take him seriously as a negotiator remains to be seen, if he is ever released.

The Future of the Occupation: What now for Palestine after Gaza?

In the past, Israel has simply assassinated leaders like Yasser Arafat - widely assumed today to have been poisoned - who tried and failed to do both.

There is every reason why Israel would assassinate Barghouti in or out of prison, if he ever became a serious challenger for power in Ramallah.

But if Barghouti, or someone like him, does not assume control of Fatah very soon, Abbas will drag his party and every Palestinian institution - the PA, the PLC and the PLO - down with him. Is this very real prospect really in the interests of those in Fatah who are currently keeping their heads down?

Hamas and the resistance groups have every chance of outliving Abbas and continuing in Gaza, in the West Bank and the diaspora.

All that is left for Abbas to do is to rearrange the chairs on the deck of the Titanic. Even he has to see that.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.

David Hearst is co-founder and editor-in-chief of Middle East Eye. He is a commentator and speaker on the region and analyst on Saudi Arabia. He was the Guardian's foreign leader writer, and was correspondent in Russia, Europe, and Belfast. He joined the Guardian from The Scotsman, where he was education correspondent.

US Army Colonel Found the IDF Intentionally Killed Palestinian American Journalist in 2022

Despite the findings, the Biden administration claimed the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh was unintentional

by Dave DeCamp | October 27, 2025 at 4:14 pm ET | Israel, Palestine

A retired US Army colonel who was involved in the investigation into the Israeli military killing of Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh has revealed that he found the shooting was intentional shortly after she was killed.

Abu Akleh, a veteran Al Jazeera reporter and a Christian, was killed by the Israeli military while reporting on an IDF raid in the Jenin refugee camp in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on May 11, 2022. She was shot in the head while wearing a vest clearly marked with the word “PRESS.”

“My findings were beyond a reasonable doubt that this was an intentional killing of Shireen Abu Akleh,” Col. Steve Gabavics told Zeteo reporter Mehdi Hasan. Gabavics affirmed that he came to the conclusion within 10 days of Abu Akleh’s killing.

People light candles during a vigil in memory of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was killed during an Israeli raid, outside the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, May 16, 2022. REUTERS/Mussa Qawasma

Despite Gabavics’ findings, the Biden administration’s State Department claimed in a statement issued on July 4, 2022, that the shooting was unintentional and the result of “tragic circumstances.”

Gabavics told Hasan that his boss at the time, Lt. Gen. Michael R. Fenzel, who led the US Security Coordinator liaison office for Israel, took the word of an Israeli general over his findings. Gabavics said that Gen. Yehuda Fox, the head of Israel’s Central Command at the time, told Fenzel that an Israeli soldier may have killed Abu Akleh, but that it was an “accident, that it was a matter of tragic circumstances,” the same language used in the Biden administration’s statement.

“So the US general takes the word of a foreign general over his own officer, who he sent to investigate?” Hasan asked Gabavics, to which he answered in the affirmative.

Gabovics at the US base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 2018 (National Guard photo by Sgt. Amber Peck)

Gabavics first shared his story as an anonymous source for a Zeteo documentary titled “Who Killed Shireen?” He revealed his identity in an interview with The New York Times on Monday and said he came forward because of his frustration with the case.

The retired US colonel, who was a career military policeman and served 30 years, told the Times that he and his colleagues were “flabbergasted” by the Biden administration’s statement on Abu Akhleh’s killing and the fact that the State Department avoided calling it intentional “continued to be on my conscience nonstop.”

“The favoritism is always toward the Israelis. Very little of that goes to the Palestinians,” Gabavics said.

Monday, October 27, 2025

My Home, My Home!

My Home, My Home!
New York Cesar Chelala
My home, I want to come back to my home
I don’t care how broken it stands;
I just want a single wall
and I will rebuild it, says the old man,
a grandfather of three sons, five grandchildren
“I want to restart my family,” he pleads
--he doesn’t know, he cannot know—
that both his house and his family
no longer exist.
He sits by the roadside,
on a rock beneath a silent sky,
and weeps.
Exhausted, he curls into sleep,
a small bag --all his belongings--
clutched to his chest.
Yet he is a man of resolve.
He will go back and start all over again,
but he will have to do it alone,
the last survivor
of a vanished home.
So many dreams crushed,
so many lives that are no more.

Cesar
Chelala, a New York writer, is a co-winner of an Overseas Press Club of
America award, and two national journalism awards from Argentina. Illustration by Paola Bilancieri

Saturday, October 25, 2025

𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐨 𝐑𝐮𝐛𝐢𝐨 𝐈𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐋𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐔𝐒 𝐎𝐟𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐓𝐨 𝐀𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐈𝐬𝐫𝐚𝐞𝐥 𝐟𝐨𝐫 ‘𝐁𝐢𝐛𝐢-𝐒𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠’

According to Haaretz, the US expects to be notified before Israel launches any major airstrikes in Gaza

by Dave DeCamp, Antiwar. com, October 23, 2025 at 8:47 pm ET

Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrived in Israel on Thursday, making him the fourth Trump administration official to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week and push for Israel to comply with the Gaza ceasefire deal, which Israeli media is referring to as “Bibi-sitting.”

“[T]he President has made this a top priority, I think as evidenced by the fact that both Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were here for much of the week … and the Vice President just left,” Rubio told reporters after meeting with Netanyahu.

“I’m here now today because this is a priority. It’s a very important achievement, but there’s more work to be done and bigger achievements that lie ahead. And so we’re here to work on that, and we feel very positive and confident that we’re going to get there despite substantial obstacles,” he added.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio shakes hands with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu following their meeting at the Prime Minister’s office in Jerusalem, October 23, 2025. Fadel Senna/Pool via REUTERS

The New York Times reported on Wednesday that, according to several Trump officials, there is concern within the administration that Netanyahu may quit the ceasefire deal and that the strategy is for senior US officials to prevent him from restarting the full-scale bombing campaign in Gaza.

Israel has been violating the deal by not allowing a sufficient number of aid trucks to enter Gaza, and it has continued attacks on Palestinians, killing at least 89 since the ceasefire went into effect, including one over the past day, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The US appears to be tolerating the current situation but wants to prevent Israel from launching major airstrikes on Gaza, like the attacks that were seen this past Sunday.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on Thursday that the US expects to be notified in advance before the IDF “conducts any exceptional military strikes in the Gaza Strip, including airstrikes.”

The report said: “Israeli defense sources say that the Americans are not yet presenting this as a demand for a green light from them before any military action. But, in practice, they are making it very clear that they will not tolerate any more Israeli surprises that would jeopardize the cease-fire.”

Thursday, October 23, 2025

Gaza truce plan insufficient against 'genocide': UN's Albanese

Johannesburg (AFP) – UN rights expert Francesca Albanese on Wednesday criticised a US-brokered ceasefire plan in Gaza as insufficient to address what she called a "genocide" of the Palestinian people by the United States and Israel.

RFI.Fr, 22/10/2025

2 min

Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, was in South Africa ahead of her delivery of the Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture © WIKUS DE WET / AFP

A fragile truce is in place as part of a deal to end two years of the Israel-Hamas war, which also involves the recovery of hostages, delivery of more aid to Gaza and eventual rebuilding of the devastated Palestinian territory.

The plan is "absolutely inadequate and it doesn't comply with international law", said Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories.

There needed to be commitment to "ending the occupation, ending exploitation of Palestinian resources, ending colonisation", Albanese told reporters.

Israeli troops currently control around half of the coastal Palestinian territory.

"It's not a war, it's a genocide where there is a determination to destroy a people as such," said Albanese, who is mandated by the United Nations but does not speak on its behalf.

UN investigators and several human rights groups, among them Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, accuse Israel of committing genocide in Gaza,

Israel has denied that charge as "distorted and false", while accusing the authors of antisemitism.

'Genocidal apartheid state'

Albanese was in South Africa -- which has laid a case of genocide against Israel at the International Court of Justice -- to deliver the annual Nelson Mandela Lecture on October 25.

Under US sanctions since July for her outspoken criticism of Israel, she will also present her next report to the United Nations from South Africa in the coming days.

In a first version of that report, published on the UN website, Albanese calls the Western support for Israel during the war with Hamas "the culmination of a long history of complicity".

"Even as the genocidal violence became visible, states, mostly Western ones, have provided, and continue to provide, Israel with military, diplomatic, economic and ideological support," Albanese wrote.

For helping Israel, which she brands a "genocidal apartheid state", the UN rapporteur argues allied countries "could and should be held liable for aiding, assisting or jointly participating in internationally wrongful acts".

"The United States and Israel are leading not just the genocide in Gaza," Albanese told Wednesday's press conference.

"They are leading to the erosion, the collapse of the multilateral system, threatening everyone who tries to advance justice and accountability," she charged, mentioning four ICC judges also under US sanctions.

Renewed discussions over the past months about a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict have "been a pretence of doing something while the emergency was to discuss ... how we stop the genocide", she said.

Those "who still have ties with Israel, diplomatic, but especially economic, political and military ties, are all responsible in some measure", she said.

Wednesday, October 22, 2025

𝐓𝐫𝐮𝐦𝐩 𝐂𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐦𝐬 𝐌𝐢𝐝𝐝𝐥𝐞 𝐄𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐖𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐓𝐨 𝐒𝐞𝐧𝐝 𝐓𝐫𝐨𝐨𝐩𝐬 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐆𝐚𝐳𝐚 𝐓𝐨 𝐅𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐇𝐚𝐦𝐚𝐬

According to a report from The New York Times, the opposite is true, as regional countries are hesitant to send a peacekeeping force into Gaza

by Dave DeCamp, Antiwar. com, October 21, 2025 at 6:22 pm ET

President Trump claimed on Tuesday that many of the US’s allies in the Middle East are willing to send a force into Gaza to fight Hamas, a claim that came as The New York Times reported that regional countries are hesitant to be part of a peacekeeping force in Gaza over fears of potential clashes with Hamas.

“Numerous of our NOW GREAT ALLIES in the Middle East, and areas surrounding the Middle East, have explicitly and strongly, with great enthusiasm, informed me that they would welcome the opportunity, at my request, to go into GAZA with a heavy force and “straighten our Hamas” if Hamas continues to act badly, in violation of their agreement with us,” the president wrote on Truth Social.

While Trump claims Hamas has been violating the ceasefire, he has been silent on Israeli violations, which include continued attacks in Gaza and restrictions on aid entering the Strip.
President Donald Trump poses with the signed agreement at a world leaders’ summit on ending the Gaza war in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, October 13, 2025. Yoan Valat/Pool via REUTERS

“The love and spirit for the Middle East has not been seen like this in a thousand years! It is a beautiful thing to behold! I told these countries, and Israel, “NOT YET!” There is still hope that Hamas will do what is right. If they do not, an end to Hamas will be FAST, FURIOUS, & BRUTAL!” Trump said in his post.

The president didn’t mention any countries that were willing to send troops to fight Hamas, but thanked Indonesia in his post for its willingness to be involved in the ceasefire process. “Also, I would like to thank the great and powerful country of Indonesia, and its wonderful leader, for all of the help they have shown and given to the Middle East, and to the U.S.A. TO EVERYONE, thank you for your attention to this matter!” he said.

The New York Times report said that representatives of countries that are expected to be a part of a future peacekeeping force in Gaza have said privately that they will not commit troops until there is more clarity on what they’re expected to do. Their main concern is that they don’t want their troops to be expected to fight Hamas on Israel’s behalf.

The Times report said that recent discussions on the potential for deploying troops to Gaza have included Egypt, Indonesia, Turkey, and Azerbaijan. Israel has expressed opposition to the idea of a Turkish presence. Vice President JD Vance was asked about Israel’s position on the potential of Turkish troops being sent to Gaza and said the US wouldn’t “force” anything on Israel.

Nasir Khan blog