Palestine today
Don’t say you didn't know
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli soldiers take over the home of a Palestinian family in Tulkarm, occupied West Bank. Photo: Israel’s GPO
In Tulkarm, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, late last week, made sure to post a picture of himself seated in the home of a Palestinian family who was thrown out of their home. On the walls of that home, the Israeli army put up the Israeli flag and the flag of the Israeli army brigade that took over the house. Netanyahu and his army generals casually sat on their living room furniture and made themselves at home in a place that is not their home, a place to which they were not invited and in which they do not belong.
This image is strikingly similar to the hundreds, if not thousands, of images that Israeli soldiers have proudly displayed over 15 months of genocide in Gaza, with Israeli soldiers making themselves at home in the homes of Palestinians from Gaza who have fled Israel’s bombs. (Not this is what the Zionists did in 1948 – stealing the homes of ethnically cleansed Palestinians)
Israeli sniper admits he stopped counting after killing 200 Palestinians in Gaza
An Israeli soldier, who says he has been haunted by his experiences as a sniper in the Gaza Strip, has admitted to having killed over 200 people during the genocidal war on the territory. In chilling confessions shared with an Israeli journalist, the soldier said he used to count the people he shot and killed during the war. He said he was receiving “good treatment” after being injured in Gaza, but he “will never be okay again.” "You have to understand, I was a sniper in Gaza. After 200, I stopped counting.” When asked if there were children among those he killed, he said, “Yes, there were children… there were children.” According to the Israeli soldier, there were snipers in Gaza who killed even more than 400 people.
“I know someone from a moshav near Sderot… he stopped counting after 400 kills.” According to Defense for Children International, Gaza medics have collected numerous cases of children being directly targeted by Israeli snipers with live ammunition. Doctors working in Gaza as volunteers have said the types and locations of the wounds and accounts of Palestinians who brought children for treatment led them to conclude that the victims were directly targeted by Israeli troops. Rights groups said Palestinian children and their families were targeted while taking refuge in shelters, or searching for food in residential areas in Gaza.
Amid global silence, Israel’s statements and aid blockade confirm intent to continue genocide
Israel’s decision to cut off all humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip until further notice is deeply concerning. This dangerous escalation exacerbates the ongoing humanitarian crisis and weaponises starvation as a tool of genocide. The decision coincides with increasingly inflammatory statements by Israeli officials, underscoring a deliberate intent to continue Israel’s crime of genocide by depriving Palestinians of their most basic needs and imposing conditions that threaten their survival. The Israeli government announced on Sunday a total blockade on humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, shutting all border crossings. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also publicly declared plans for “further consequences,” disregarding the dire humanitarian crisis affecting over two million people.
Humanitarian aid is a fundamental right of civilians under international humanitarian law, with no exceptions, and there is no legal justification for Israel to deny Palestinians access to essential aid. Israel is not only using humanitarian aid as a bargaining chip for political and military gain, but is also deliberately enforcing a policy of systematic starvation, creating life-threatening conditions designed to make survival in the Gaza Strip impossible.
Australia police dismiss genocidal threats by pro-Israeli
In a video that has resurfaced dating back to 1 April 2024, a man carrying an Israeli flag can be seen making genocidal threats against Palestinians. 'We are going to kill all of them, every last one, especially the little Arab sh**s,' he is heard saying, in reference to Palestinian children in Gaza. He was reported to the police following the incident in Belmont Australia. Police, however, dismissed the matter, stating they 'couldn’t do anything' because the man wasn’t a 'known scumbag', just someone with their 'knickers in a twist'. The incident has raised serious concerns about law enforcement’s handling of hate speech and threats of violence, particularly amidst a crackdown on pro-Palestine voices.
Organised crime not antisemitism behind explosives, graffiti: police
Police believe that one organised criminal mastermind was behind both the discovery of explosives in a caravan at Dural and multiple crimes directed at Sydney’s Jewish community, and that personal gain not antisemitism was the motive. Australian Federal Police revealed on Monday that the Dural explosives were not part of an intended mass casualty attack, but what Deputy Commissioner Krissy Barrett labelled a “fabricated plot” and part of a “criminal con job”. Barrett told reporters that investigators had concluded the threat was not genuine due to, among other things, how easily the caravan was found, that the explosives were within sight, and the absence of a detonator.
Antisemitism is not believed to be the motive for the plot but rather crime as a service – organised crime attempting to leverage tip-offs for personal gain such as a reduced sentence. “Put simply the plan was the following: organise for someone to buy a caravan, place it with explosives and written material of an antisemitic nature, leave it in a specific location and then once that happened, inform law enforcement about an impending terrorist attack against Jewish Australians,” Barrett said.
NSW Police Deputy Commissioner David Hudson said the Jewish community could take “some comfort” that “it’s not numerous people out there conducting” attacks, including graffiti in the Sydney’s eastern suburbs and on synagogues in Newtown and Allawah. Hudson said the motives for these crimes apparently directed at Jewish Australians were “exactly the same” as the Dural explosives. “It was about causing chaos within the community, causing threat … diverting police resources away from their day jobs to have them focus on matters that will allow them to engage in other criminal activity.”
Labor was warned its perceived ‘one-sided’ Israel support over Gaza raised social cohesion concerns
The home affairs department warned the government as early as November 2023 that its perceived one-sidedness in support of Israel during the Gaza conflict left Palestinian and Muslim Australians feeling “extremely angry” and “betrayed” , as well as concern about social cohesion, documents reveal. On the perception of the government at that time, the Department of Home Affairs told the minister that Palestinian and Muslim communities were “feeling extremely angry, hurt, and betrayed by the perceived one-sided government messaging and lack of support for Palestinians in Gaza, and for Australian communities”.
The department said community members were traumatised by the conflict, distressed about the welfare of those in Gaza, and felt that “statements from senior leaders are undoing previous progress on improving social cohesion”. Communities had called for “more balanced statements from the government” amid fear about increased Islamophobia and hate speech, the department advised, and the response to the funding announcement had been lukewarm.
Extent of systematic torture, atrocities endured by Palestinians in Israeli prisons is shocking
The physical and mental health conditions of the Palestinian detainees and prisoners released during the seventh round of the ceasefire exchange agreement between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip are shocking. Israel’s release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and detainees, who arrived in the Gaza Strip recently in exceptionally poor health, illustrates its ongoing use of torture to terrorise and persecute prisoners and detainees and break their will until the very end of their detention. The effects of torture were clearly evident, with the emaciated bodies of the released individuals reflecting the severity of systematic crimes and inhumane treatment that exceed all legal and moral bounds.
The repeated release of such visibly unhealthy individuals from Israeli prisons reveals that the heinous torture and wilful medical neglect they endure have escalated to appalling levels. Euro-Med Monitor notes that the atrocities occurring in these prisons are among the worst violations recorded by human rights organisations worldwide.
Israeli forces again storm prominent Palestinian bookshop in Jerusalem
Forces damaged the Educational Bookshop, seized books and shut the library down illegally, one month after a previous raid that was widely condemned. Israeli forces stormed the Educational Bookshop near the Old City in occupied East Jerusalem on Tuesday. Local reports said they detained Imad Muna, the Palestinian owner of the library situated in Salahuddin Street, close to Al-Aqsa Mosque, and took him for questioning. Nasser Awda, a lawyer representing Muna, told the Arab48 news outlet that Israeli forces caused significant damage to the library's contents, seized several books, took the premises' keys and shut the place down without any judicial order or legal justification. This assault comes a month after the Israeli police's previous storming of two of the three branches of the Educational Bookshop, on 10 February.
West Bank Bedouin community says Israeli settlers stole hundreds of sheep
Armed Israeli settlers stole hundreds of sheep from a Bedouin community in the Jordan Valley, say local residents, in one of the largest recent incidents in which Bedouins in the area have reported being attacked and harassed, Reuters has reported. Such attacks in the area have increased since the Gaza genocide began in October 2023, but witnesses said that the scale of Friday’s incident near Ein Al-Auja, north of Jericho in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, went far beyond anything witnessed previously. “This was the biggest one there has been,” said Hani Zayed, a resident of the community, who said that he had 70 sheep stolen in the settlers’ attack. After years of experience in dealing with local law enforcement, the idea of appealing to the police to help elicited nothing more than a shrug.
“The police don’t do anything, they have never helped us in anything. If you tell them the settler is taking your sheep, they’ll ask ‘Are you sure it’s yours?’,” he explained. Local residents said about 1,500 sheep and goats were taken by settlers, who drove the animals from the village under the eyes of police and soldiers or loaded them onto pickup trucks. For many Bedouin herders, the loss of a flock means the loss of any way of earning a livelihood. Like many other Palestinians, the semi-nomadic herders in Ein Al-Auja believe that the larger goal is to force them from the land to allow a full takeover and illegal annexation by Israel.
‘Weaponising anti-Semitism’? US Targets 60 universities with funding cuts amid campus crackdown
In what critics describe as the weaponisation of anti-Semitism to wage an ideological war on higher education using Jewish fear as cover, the US government has warned 60 universities and colleges that they could face cuts to federal funding over allegations of failing to protect Jewish students from anti-Semitic harassment. The move follows an increase in tensions on campuses across the country, with universities such as Columbia, Harvard, Yale and Berkeley among those under scrutiny over allegations of anti-Semitism.
The funding threat comes shortly after the administration of President Donald Trump announced it would cut approximately $400 million in federal grants to Columbia University, citing its “continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.” Columbia has been a focal point of pro-Palestinian protests, with demonstrators criticising Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza. Over the weekend, federal agents arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian graduate student at Columbia. Khalil, a prominent organiser of campus protests, was accused of “activities aligned with Hamas,” a claim repeated by Trump administration officials, including the president himself. Critics have strongly condemned the funding threats and arrests, arguing that they are part of a broader right-wing attack on higher education.
UK police officer: You can protest for Israel, not Palestine
WATCH: A London Metropolitan police officer told demonstrators in London yesterday they could be arrested for protesting in support of Palestine and that they should vacate Westminster. When asked whether they could stay if they were protesting in support of Israel, the officer answered, 'yes'. Social media users criticised the officer's statements as discriminatory and in violation of freedom of speech. The incident took place after a pro-Palestine activist scaled Big Ben in London, where he remained for nearly 17 hours as he called out the UK's crackdown and arrests of pro-Palestine activists and the suppression of freedom of speech.
Think Israel Is Bad? Wait Until You See Its Society!
Israeli society isn’t just celebrating the genocide in Gaza—they’re actively participating in it. In this video, we examine how Israeli society is reacting to what the International Court of Justice has ruled as a plausible genocide. From school trips to watch starving Palestinian children, to night boat tours admiring the destruction, to physically blocking humanitarian aid so more children starve—this is not just complicity; this is active participation. And that raises a dark moral question: Who is more evil—the Israeli government committing genocide, or the Israeli society enabling it? Before we wrap up, we also answer a historical question: Which American president had the courage to tell Israel it was committing a holocaust? The answer might surprise you.