Ukrainian-British plot to steal MiG-31 thwarted – FSB
RT | November 11, 2025
The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) has said it foiled an elaborate Ukrainian-British plot to steal a MiG-31 fighter jet armed with a Kinzhal hypersonic ballistic missile.
According to the FSB, although Ukrainian agents unsuccessfully tried to persuade the pilots to defect, their actual goal was for the aircraft to be shot down in Romanian airspace, provoking an international incident with NATO. The agency said the operation was organized by Ukraine’s military intelligence service (HUR) in coordination with the UK’s MI6.
A MiG-31 pilot said he was contacted last year by a man introducing himself as Sergey Lugovsky, a researcher for the open-source investigative group Bellingcat, which has received funding from several Western governments. The pilot said Lugovsky initially sought consultations, later offering money for defection.
After the pilot declined, a Ukrainian agent using the name Aleksandr approached the aircraft’s navigator, offering $3 million and a foreign passport in exchange for directing the plane to fly over an air base near Constanta, Romania.
Kiev has previously offered money and assistance to defectors. In 2023, Russian Mi-8 pilot Maksim Kuzminov defected to Ukraine, landing his helicopter behind the front lines with the HUR’s help. Two of the other crew members, unaware of his plan, were killed upon landing. Kuzminov was assassinated a year later in Spain, where he was living under a new identity and with a Ukrainian passport.
In 2022, the FSB accused former Bellingcat investigator Christo Grozev, a Bulgarian-born journalist, of taking part in a failed Ukrainian attempt to recruit Russian military pilots. Grozev said he was embedded with Ukrainian intelligence officers as a documentary filmmaker and claimed that his text messages were forged.
EU talks of friendship while plotting coups – Georgian official
RT | November 10, 2025
European Union officials who publicly call themselves friends of Georgia are in fact working to destabilize the country, Tbilisi Mayor Kakha Kaladze told local media on Monday.
Kaladze, who also serves as secretary general of the ruling Georgian Dream party, said that some EU officials are pursuing hostile and deceitful policies toward the country while pretending to promote democracy.
“They have repeatedly tried to organize revolutions, coups d’état, and overthrow the government,” Kaladze claimed. “They tell us they are Georgia’s friends, yet they incite coups, extremism, and violence. That is not friendship or partnership.”
He added that Tbilisi only wants “a fair attitude toward Georgia, respect for our people, our constitution, and our independence” from the bloc.
Last month, the former soccer star won a new term in municipal elections that opposition forces claimed were rigged. The allegations triggered mass protests, where pro-Western demonstrators clashed with police and attempted to storm the presidential palace in the capital city following the vote.
Opposition activists have for months pushed for elections under what they call Western supervision through a campaign of sometimes violent street protests.
Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze denounced the latest unrest as part of a fifth Western-backed coup attempt in four years.
Tbilisi has accused the EU of punishing it for refusing to adopt policies aligned with Brussels, particularly to side with Kiev in the Ukraine conflict, which officials said would have been disastrous for Georgia.
The country was granted EU candidate status in 2023, alongside Ukraine and Moldova, but unlike with the two other nations, accession talks have been effectively frozen by Brussels.
Zelensky’s office accused of energy damage cover-up
RT | November 10, 2025
Vladimir Zelensky’s office forced a Ukrainian energy company to conceal the severity of damage to its facilities following recent Russian strikes, according to domestic media.
The controversy emerged after a wave of Russian missile and drone attacks last week that targeted what the Defense Ministry in Moscow described as military factories and facilities powering them. Kiev confirmed the scale of the assault but downplayed its long-term consequences.
The state-owned energy company Centrenergo, which operates two major thermal power plants in Ukraine, posted an emotional statement on Saturday admitting that the strikes had wiped out months of repair work and halted electricity generation entirely. The message was later replaced with a routine update claiming that restoration efforts are underway as quickly as possible.
According to Ukrainskaya Pravda, the retraction came after direct intervention from the government. “The [Zelensky] office called and scolded us, asking why we were spreading panic and giving a [propaganda] gift to the Russians,” a company insider told the outlet, which described the reaction as “hysterical.”
The Zelensky administration reportedly puts significant effort into avoiding negative publicity, particularly as Ukraine remains dependent on Western financial and military aid. Critics within the military have accused the government of prioritizing political narratives over battlefield realities, including preventing tactical withdrawals to preserve its message of steady resistance. Under martial law, Kiev exerts broad control over the country’s media landscape, which officials justify as necessary for national security.
Long-range strikes on Russian energy infrastructure with domestically-produced kamikaze drones has been a key component of Kiev’s military strategy. Zelensky has repeatedly pledged to cause blackouts in Moscow and other places to “bring the war” to the Russian people. Moscow says it is retaliating to the Ukrainian approach.
Whistleblower Biologist Says Pfizer Covered Up Her Exposure to Engineered Virus, Threatened Family
By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | November 7, 2025
Molecular biologist Becky McClain began raising safety concerns in 2000, soon after she started working in Pfizer’s Biosafety Level 2 lab in Connecticut.
Three years later, after management failed to address the issues, McClain was exposed to a genetically modified lentivirus, engineered using gain-of-function technologies that made the virus more infectious and more pathogenic.
The exposure left her disabled, with symptoms including numbness, periodic paralysis, pain and other neurological problems. Doctors couldn’t diagnose or effectively treat her condition because Pfizer refused to disclose what she had been exposed to, citing “trade secrets.”
The incident launched McClain into a decade-long fight to understand her illness and obtain her exposure records so she could seek proper treatment. During her battle, she became a whistleblower, standing up to Pfizer’s threats against her and her family.
In her new book from Skyhorse Publishing, “Exposed: A Pfizer Scientist Battles Corruption, Lies, and Betrayal, and Becomes a Biohazard Whistleblower,” McClain recounts how she raised workplace safety concerns, suffered exposure to a dangerous virus, fought Pfizer for years in court, and resisted the company’s repeated attempts to silence her — ultimately winning a legal victory.
McClain refused to sign a gag order — even after Pfizer fired her, harassed her and threatened her — making her one of the few people who can share her story publicly.
In her book, McClain exposes corruption she says runs not just through Pfizer, but across the pharmaceutical industry and the agencies meant to hold it accountable — from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to the federal courts.
Consumer safety advocate Ralph Nader wrote in his foreword to the book:
“No general description of this book can convey the horror and details of what Becky McClain and her husband, Mark, endured at the hands of Pfizer, enabled over the years by collusion with government officials. Pre-verdict and post-verdict, this company employed thuggish retaliatory tactics, blacklisting, threats, harassments, wrongful discharges, coverups, and demands for total gag orders.
“Those tactics were designed to keep her case from flaring into a national demand for Congressional regulation in the form of rigorous biolab inspections and mandatory safety/health standards with teeth. Against this objective, Pfizer and the bioengineering industry are succeeding.”
‘If you document biosafety issues and or speak out about them, you’re out’
In an interview with The Defender, McClain said she noticed safety issues as soon as she started working in the lab.
“We had no break room, no safe break room. We had unsafe offices. We had improper biocontainment protocols using infectious agents,” she said. “And although the lab was unsafe, management made it worse by instilling a culture of fear for anyone who dared to raise safety issues.”
McClain said most scientists at the lab shared her concerns, but managers made it clear: “If you document biosafety issues and or speak out about them, you’re out.”
Scientists at the lab worked on genomic-altering biotechnologies, creating viruses capable of entering cells and changing their genomes, she said.
After multiple safety incidents — including one that left several scientists sick — McClain walked in one morning to find “a mess” on her personal workbench. A supervisor and an untrained scientist had left a dangerous experiment there overnight, without McClain’s knowledge.
A month later, the untrained scientist asked McClain if she knew anything about lentiviruses, a family of viruses that includes HIV and FIV (feline immunodeficiency virus).
By then, McClain was experiencing numbness on one side of her face, which a neurologist suggested might be the start of multiple sclerosis.
McClain realized she had likely been exposed to a modified lentivirus and asked the scientist to find out more about its safety. He returned “a little bit nervous” and told her the virus he had used on her bench was safe, indicating it wasn’t infectious to humans.
That conversation marked the beginning of McClain’s fight to obtain her exposure records. Pfizer refused to provide them, telling her that “trade secrets supersede your right to that information.”
As her condition worsened, McClain went on medical leave — and the company terminated her.
McClain was shocked because she had assumed worker rights would protect her. She said:
“I couldn’t get directed medical care for my illness, which was a mystery illness because these genetically engineered virus technologies were designed to cause new emerging diseases for use in laboratory research studies.
“So when I visited doctors, no one knew what was happening. They were all fearful and unable to explain my illness.
“My husband and I feared I was going to die. It eventually became very, very, very, very severe. It began with numbness on the left side of my face, then extreme left jaw pain, inflammation of my trigeminal nerve, headaches, spinal pain, then periodic paralysis.”
‘There’s no free speech for scientists’
McClain turned to OSHA for help, submitting documentation she had gathered that exposed egregious safety violations in the lab. OSHA refused to help her access her exposure records and didn’t even conduct a safety inspection of the lab.
“OSHA is a captured agency now,” McClain said. “They oversee approximately 24 different whistleblower laws under one roof, making it easy for the industry to control OSHA. It’s easy to capture. Place a corporate head to oversee OSHA, and you gain control of all the whistleblower laws and investigations.”
After OSHA declined to provide substantive help, McClain’s next step was clear. “The only legal remedy to get my exposure records was to file a civil whistleblower claim,” she said.
During the process, McClain met countless other scientists in similar situations.
“There’s no free speech for scientists,” she said. She cited examples of scientists being censored and smeared as “anti-vaxxers” during the COVID-19 pandemic, when “they were merely raising legitimate safety concerns.”
A recent investigation by The Defender found that OSHA told healthcare employers not to report employees adverse reactions to COVID-19 vaccines — but to continue reporting injuries caused by all other vaccines.
Pfizer launched ‘backdoor retaliation’ by targeting McClain’s husband
Throughout her long legal battle, Pfizer tried relentlessly to compel her to sign a gag order. She refused, knowing that signing would cost her the leverage she needed to access information about her exposure.
The company launched what McClain called “backdoor retaliation” by targeting her husband, who worked at the FDA in Connecticut.
“Two months before the trial, my husband was called into his office and told that if he didn’t make me settle with Pfizer, he’d be out of a job,” McClain said.
The threat terrified the couple, as McClain was extremely sick and they relied entirely on his income. “I thought Pfizer couldn’t have that kind of reach … my husband works for the government. But they did,” she said.
Her husband refused to force her to sign a gag order. After facing false accusations despite a spotless 18-year record as a commissioned officer, he left the FDA.
McClain eventually won her free speech whistleblower lawsuit in a 2010 jury trial, even though later revelations showed that the judge had financial conflicts of interest. She received 10 years of back pay — but no compensation for her exposure, illness or suffering.
Pfizer faced no obligation to remediate its safety program.
Although McClain never gained full access to her exposure records, she did obtain additional details about the virus, which she explains in her book.
Today, she publicly advocates for industry reform. She told The Defender there are several key issues she thinks need to be addressed. She said:
“First, is that all gag orders related to lab injuries and public health and safety concerns should be illegal. The public has a right to know about the dangers in these laboratories, especially in our post-pandemic environment.
“Then, OSHA needs to be revamped. It’s a captured agency.”
McClain added that OSHA can’t effectively oversee biotechnology because the agency doesn’t fully understand the serious and unique safety risks. She said the safety problems run through biotechnology research in academia, government and the private sector — each with its own set of regulations — and that the private sector faces the fewest rules.
“The bottom line is that we need better free speech and whistleblower protections for scientists, physicians, and injured workers,” McClain said. “No one should go through 10 years of hell just to have a safe workplace or to protect the public by standing up for professional standards.”
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
Ukraine slaughters civilians, then blames Russia – again
By Eva Bartlett | RT | November 5, 2025
A shocking video recently published on Russian media and in Telegram channels shows the last moments of two civilians before they were killed by Ukrainian drones in Kupyansk region east of the city of Kharkov.
The drone observed the first man, carrying a white flag – a universal sign for surrender, or in the case of civilians, that they pose no threat – before flying right at him, blowing him apart and injuring the dog walking beside him, who presumably died as well.
The second civilian, upon reaching the body of the first, crossed himself and walked on. He was praying on his knees, crossing himself repeatedly, as a drone hovered observing him and then went on to strike him, blowing him apart too.
Ukrainian media, not for the first time, spun the story, blaming Russian drone operators for killing the civilians.
Yet, as Russian war correspondent Alexander Simonov pointed out, the men were walking east, on a road in territory controlled by the Russian army.
“There are no targets for our drones on our rear roads. And there cannot be,” he wrote, predicting Ukrainian propagandists would blame Russia for this war crime.
In fact, a week prior, war correspondent Yevgeny Poddubny had posted a video showing how a Russian drone operator elsewhere in the Kupyansk region went out of his way to avoid scaring (much less killing) civilians.
“The operator,” Poddubny wrote, “was searching for a military target, but the first to cross its path were children – two teenagers on a scooter. In a second, the drone stops moving to avoid frightening the children. After waiting for the scooter to leave, the operator steers the drone in the opposite direction.”
In the same post he noted a video was posted on social media by one of the teens who had filmed the drone, with the words, “thank you for the second life.”
In September, RIA Novosti published a video of the Ukrainian army killing a woman with a drone in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) village of Shandrigolovo. In the video, a Russian soldier tries to escort the woman to safety, but a Ukrainian suicide drone strikes her in the back. Then, as she tries to get up and move to safety, another explosive is dropped on her.
Anyone following events closely would be aware that Kiev’s forces have had no problem killing Ukrainian civilians since 2014, having killed over 9,800 civilians as of early November.
Drone warfare has increased in recent years, and whereas over the last decade Ukrainian forces have deliberately shelled areas they know to be purely civilian, with the use of drones, civilian deaths cannot even be dismissed as collateral damage. They are precise and deliberate assassinations.
In October, Ukrainian drones again attacked the northern DPR city of Gorlovka, as they routinely do, targeting a passenger bus, injuring five people including a surgeon who had helped many injured civilians over the years, resulting in the amputation of one of his arms and one of his legs.
Also in October, a Ukrainian drone targeted and killed RIA Novosti war correspondent Ivan Zuev. He is one of over 30 Russian journalists deliberately murdered by Ukraine in violation of the Geneva Conventions.
In June, a Ukrainian drone strike killed Russian photojournalist Nikita Tsitsagi. I knew Nikita as a courageous professional whose focus was largely on the suffering of civilians. When he was murdered, he was preparing to do another report from St. Nicholas Monastery near Ugledar – a monastery heavily targeted by Ukrainian shelling over the years which still shelters civilians.
Also in June, a Ukrainian drone targeted Russian NTV journalists filming in the extremely hard-hit village of Golmovsky, east of Gorlovka, killing cameraman Valery Kozhin and seriously injuring war correspondent Alexey Ivliyev.
These are by no means the only instances of Russian journalists and civilians targeted and killed or injured by Ukrainian drones. So, the notion that – as Ukrainian media have spun it – Russian drones targeted the two civilians fleeing towards the Russian military presence is not only illogical, it has been preceded by a long list of Ukrainian drone terrorism incidents and murders of civilians.
Aiden Minnis, a UK citizen fighting on the Russian side, told me, “They also routinely attack our evacuation teams the same way here. They don’t discriminate when they attack with drones. If civilians are walking towards Russian lines, they are perceived to be collaborators and will be hit.”
As for Ukrainian and Western media blaming Russia for Ukraine’s war crimes, the list is long: think Bucha, the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant, and the many instances of Western media using footage from Donbass cities targeted by Ukraine and depicting them as Ukrainian cities targeted by Russia.
Eva Bartlett is a Canadian independent journalist. She has spent years on the ground covering conflict zones in the Middle East, especially in Syria and Palestine (where she lived for nearly four years).
Report: UK smears Iran to justify ban on Palestine Action
Press TV – November 4, 2025
A leading British “PR consultancy” working for the Israeli regime’s top arms producer has been found culpable of fabricating and planting a false media narrative linking Palestine Action to Iran, in what appears to be a coordinated effort to justify the group’s eventual proscription.
According to British news magazine Private Eye, a “trusted witness” said Georgia Pickering, head of the London-based PR firm CMS Strategic, which represents Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems, boasted about planting a story in The Times alleging that the Islamic Republic was bankrolling the direct-action network.
The story appeared just days before the UK government moved to outlaw Palestine Action under its “terrorism” legislation in July.
The fabricated report, which claimed that the Home Office was probing Tehran’s alleged financial ties to the group, was later recycled by The Daily Mail and the GB News channel, amplifying suspicions and pressure against the movement.
However, when Private Eye reached out to the Home Office, officials said they did not recognize the claims, effectively disowning the narrative that had dominated headlines.
A spokesperson for Palestine Action dismissed the entire affair as “baseless” and “ridiculous”, while CMS Strategic publicly denied involvement in the article, despite Pickering’s private admission.
Further revelations highlighted that the smear campaign did not emerge in isolation.
Just two days before the story broke, the pro-Israeli lobby group We Believe in Israel claimed on social media that Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) was the “darker puppeteer” behind Palestine Action, despite offering no proof beyond vague references to “similar slogans.”
In the months leading up to the group’s ban, the same lobby orchestrated a “multi-front” campaign pushing for Palestine Action’s proscription, issuing two reports whose language was later echoed almost verbatim by Yvette Cooper, the then–home secretary, in her official statement outlawing the movement.
For years, Palestine Action has led a relentless grassroots campaign against Elbit Systems, targeting its factories and offices for producing weapons used by the Israeli regime in its assaults on Palestinians, including its war of genocide on the Gaza Strip that began in October 2023.
Lebanon Speaker Berri: Unlike ‘Israel’, Hezbollah Fully Complied with Ceasefire
Al-Manar | November 4, 2025
Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri affirmed on Tuesday that the Hezbollah resistance group fully complied with the ceasefire agreement with the Zionist entity, noting that ‘Israel’ had not done so.
Speaking from his residence at Ain Al-Tineh during a meeting with a delegation from the Union of Islamic Radio and Television Networks, Berri wondered: “When, where, and how has Israel ever respected a single clause of the ceasefire agreement?,” referring to continued Israeli attacks on Lebanon.
He noted that the Lebanese Army “deployed south of the Litani River with more than 9,000 soldiers and officers, fully capable of extending its presence to the internationally recognized border.”
The Lebanese speaker emphasized the importance of activating the ceasefire monitoring “mechanism” process, noting the possibility of seeking assistance from civilian and military experts when needed, as was done in delineating the Blue Line and the maritime border.
Berri revealed that US envoy Morgan Ortagus had discussed two issues during her recent visit, Israel’s claim of weapons flowing from Syria and the negotiation process.
“Both claims are false,” he said. “The US, which controls the skies through satellites and advanced surveillance, knows this well,” the speaker said in remarks carried by local media.
Moreover, Berri criticized “certain domestic voices that reject even mentioning the word ‘Resistance’ in political or media discourse,” wondering: “What country in the world denies the purest chapter of its own history?”
Regarding the electoral law, Berri stated: “We told everyone that if there are ideas for solutions, we have ours and are ready to discuss them — but do they really want a solution? The current law is in force, and elections must be held on time; otherwise, a political confrontation is inevitable.”
Addressing reports of normalization with the Israeli enemy, Speaker Berri voiced confidence that the Lebanese people “will say no.” In this context, he recalled remarks by late Lebanese jurist Abdallah Lahoud, who said that “the only sect that has no interest in peace or normalization with Israel are the Maronites — let alone the rest of Lebanon.”
On reconstruction and southern resilience, Berri said, “The most important battle today is the battle of steadfastness and remaining on our land, despite the daily killing and destruction by the Israeli occupation forces.”
On trial at The Hague: Germany accused of misleading the World Court
By Leon Wystrychowski | MEMO | November 3, 2025
In April 2024, Nicaragua took Germany to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, accusing Berlin of “violating international law for decades” through large-scale arms sales to Israel and thereby upholding the illegal occupation and apartheid regime in Palestine. The immediate trigger for the case was the genocide in the Gaza Strip, for which Israel itself is also being tried before the ICJ.
Following October 2023, Germany’s arms exports to Israel surged by more than 900 per cent. In 2022, the Federal Republic supplied weapons worth 32 million euros; between 7 October and the end of December 2023 alone, it delivered arms worth 323.2 million euros. This made Germany the second most important arms supplier to the Zionist state after the United States. By mid-May 2025, that figure had climbed to more than 485 million euros. In addition to these commercial exports, there were also donations from the Bundeswehr (the German army) to the IDF.
Germany under pressure
Although no verdict has yet been reached, Nicaragua’s lawsuit has already had an effect: over the course of the year, the number of weapons delivered by Germany to Israel dropped sharply, without any official explanation. Some commentators suggested that this was connected to the ICJ proceedings and that the then-ruling coalition of Social Democrats, Greens and Liberals – despite its staunchly pro-Israel stance – appeared to fear potential legal consequences.
In August 2025, the newly elected conservative-led government, equally unwavering in its pro-Israel stance, announced that it would no longer deliver weapons to Israel “that could be used in Gaza.” It soon became clear, however, that this merely meant no new export licenses would be granted, while previously approved arms shipments remained unaffected. For example, Israel’s navy, despite its role in the illegal blockade of Gaza, continued to receive warships and submarines from Germany. Yet here too, alongside Palestinian resistance, the increasingly visible Israeli crimes in Gaza, and mass protests on German streets, Nicaragua’s pressure was also being felt.
New revelations
In response to the lawsuit, Germany told the ICJ in April 2024 that in 2023 it had not delivered any weapons of war to Israel, but only “medical supplies and helmets” from Bundeswehr stocks. However, documents from the Ministry of Defense now cast doubt on the completeness of that statement. This was reported in a joint investigation by the US-based outlet Drop Site News and Germany’s liberal Stern magazine.
According to the report, in a statement submitted to a court at the end of January 2025, the German Ministry of Defense admitted that its declaration regarding Bundeswehr deliveries to the IDF had been coordinated with Israel. The ministry argued before the court that it could not disclose information on so-called “state-to-state transfers” for reasons of “contractually agreed confidentiality,” as doing so could severely damage mutual trust between Germany and Israel. In another communication, the ministry also acknowledged that “detailed information” had “not been disclosed in the proceedings before the ICJ.”
Such alleged false statements by German officials before the world’s highest court are unlikely to go down well with its judges. The case not only undermines Germany’s credibility but also suggests that those responsible know what they have done – and that they are indeed afraid of being held accountable.
Not A Ceasefire: The International Community Takes Over the Gaza Genocide
By Robert Inlakesh | The Palestine Chronicle | November 1, 2025
Israel is not actually implementing the ceasefire; instead, it is taking a break from some of the more taxing combat missions in Gaza and toning down its bombing, something that it has done at different periods during the genocide.
Calling what is currently taking place in the Gaza Strip a ceasefire is, by definition, incorrect. Israel has not ceased fire; instead, it has continued its military operations while reducing the intensity of the fighting. Meanwhile, the so-called “International Community” is working on a conspiracy to step forward and take command of the genocide.
Since the ceasefire was said to have gone into effect, the Israelis have violated every commitment they had pledged to adhere to. Despite this, we are still being informed through the corporate media that the war is allegedly over.
In order to draw conclusions about what is currently underway, it is important to first establish the facts, which can lead to a thorough analysis of what is transpiring on the ground.
Ceasefire Violations Expose Israel’s True Agendas
Before addressing violations, it is integral to any analysis of Gaza’s current predicament to make mention of the so-called “Civil-Military Coordination Center” (CMCC) established shortly after the October 8 agreement was inked.
The CMCC is supposed to be the committee that monitors and helps to enforce the ceasefire agreement. Although it was initially said that setting up the CMCC would take at least 17 days, within the first 5 days of the ceasefire agreement, it was up and running.
Instantly, 14 countries and over 20 non-governmental organizations joined the CMCC, with others joining in later. Although it may appear to be a project with a positive goal, it has been a complete and total failure through and through.
On October 19, the Israelis killed 44 Palestinians after their own forces ran over an unexploded ordinance, which they subsequently blamed on Hamas. The Associated Press (AP) reported that day that Israel had not violated the ceasefire, but had posed a “test” to it.
To give the CMCC the benefit of the doubt, one could plausibly argue that behind closed doors, its member countries and NGOs may have exerted pressure on the Israelis following this event.
However, on October 28, the Israelis decided to mass murder 104 Palestinians in Gaza, around half of whom were women and children. For all intents and purposes, this day was a return to the scale of destruction that was present throughout the genocide.
In this instance, did any nation or NGO withdraw from the CMCC in protest? Was there a coordinated effort to impose consequences on the Israelis for their actions?
If one sought to give the benefit of the doubt even in this scenario, arguing perhaps that the CMCC may be playing the role of simply ensuring the ceasefire doesn’t totally collapse, this still makes no sense. This is because part of the ceasefire is the issues of reconstruction, aid entry, Israeli withdrawal, the cessation of military operations, and stopping the killing.
On every issue concerning the Palestinian civilian population, the CMCC has not only failed, but the committee itself has watched on and is fully aware of what is occurring on the ground. In addition to this, the CMCC multi-national hub is based in southern Israel and is therefore not on neutral grounds; it is there with Israeli permission and, no doubt, a level of supervision.
When it comes to the entrance of humanitarian aid into Gaza, an average of around 90 trucks were permitted entry by the Israelis in the first few weeks of the ceasefire. According to the agreement, Israel had pledged to allow for 400 trucks to enter per day for the first five days, agreeing to unlimited amounts of aid flowing through after this.
The minimum required to meet Gaza’s needs is 600 trucks per day. On this issue, there is no other conclusion that can be drawn other than to accuse the CMCC of complicity or that it is a failure. If it is a failure, then the natural follow-up question becomes: Why is the committee growing, and there are no solid measures being taken to hold Israel to account? Or, at the very least, why is nobody resigning from the role in protest?
Next, we have the issue of reconstruction. According to Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, they are backing a scheme whereby reconstruction will not take place in areas where Hamas is still based. In other words, they will implement an Israeli proposed scheme, as initially reported upon in Axios News, to use reconstruction funds to build only behind what is known as the ‘Yellow Line’.
The Yellow Line is the zone demarcating the areas controlled by Hamas and Israel. The Israelis were supposed to withdraw to this line and remain only in 53% of Gaza. Instead, they quickly violated this portion of the agreement and are operating hundreds of meters beyond this point, as verified by satellite imagery. Israel is in reality occupying up to 58% of the territory.
Inside the territory the Israelis occupy directly, they are continuing their daily demolition operations against the remaining Palestinian civilian infrastructure there. This is a flagrant violation of the ceasefire, which is evident through Israeli soldiers posting videos of themselves destroying homes on social media. Again, where is the CMCC in all of this, let alone on the question of the daily killing of civilians and bombings?
Under Donald Trump’s 20-point plan, he seeks disarmament of the Palestinian factions. If you look at the rest of the nations involved in the so-called monitoring and enforcement effort, they all voted in favor of the New York Declaration’s proposal for a Two-State model and ceasefire. The UN General Assembly vote reflected an agreement on disarming and drowning out non-State actors.
So why then are the CMCC nations not sounding the alarm over Israel’s continued military backing for four separate ISIS-linked militia groups operating behind the Yellow Line? These forces cannot take over Gaza and are hated amongst the entire population, who were not only subjected to their indiscriminate violence, in addition to the looting of their homes, businesses, and hospitals.
These militias actively receive orders from the Israeli Shin Bet and army; they are also responsible for looting the majority of the aid trucks heading into Gaza since May of 2024, under Israeli protection and monitoring.
Nothing is being said about how to combat these gangs, composed of Salafist militants who are affiliated with ISIS and Al-Qaeda, along with bans on convicted murderers and drug dealers. On the part of Western media, the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post have even published op-eds, purported to have been written by the ISIS-linked militia members themselves.
Yet, when it comes to holding Hamas to account and achieving the portions of the agreement that benefit Israel, the CMCC is ready to play ball and take action. As a measure to ensure the ceasefire is being enforced, Egypt sent teams of specialists into Gaza to help search under the rubble for the bodies of dead Israeli captives. The US has also sent hundreds of troops as “advisors” and deployed reconnaissance drones over Gaza.
All of this alone demonstrates that only the Israeli side is being prioritized, while Palestinians are not only killed on a daily basis by direct fire, but through deprivation of essential medicine and goods, in addition to the refusal to allow the sick and injured to leave for treatment.
The ‘Ceasefire’ Agenda is Now Becoming Clear
What is currently happening is that Israel is being allowed to take a glorified pause from its full-scale military operations that it had previously committed itself to in Gaza. In an interview for Israel’s Hebrew-language Channel 14 News, the plot is discussed by Reserve Brigadier General Amir Avivi.
Avivi argues that behind what is labeled a “temporary calm”, there are many complex political and security moves being taken by both the Israeli and US governments. “Trump and Netanyahu are working simultaneously on the international force, in which there will be no Qataris or Turks, and also on regional peace agreements. Because everything is intertwined in this, everything is slower. It is being done step by step”, he stated.
Some of these schemes may be kept private from the public eye, yet enough of them have been exposed piece by piece, enabling us to be able to put together an educated analysis of what is really going on.
For example, the International Security Force (ISF), which the Trump administration has been advocating for, was exposed by Vice President JD Vance himself when he explicitly stated that they would be tasked with disarming Hamas.
The ISF plan is still incredibly vague in terms of how it would be actually implemented, yet it should be noted that projects like the failed American floating aid pier and the PMC-led Gaza Humanitarian Foundations (GHF) were rolled out without thorough planning, resulting in mass death and destruction.
What we do know about the ISF is that everything it does will have to receive approvals from the Israeli military and operate within its framework. So immediately, it is a pro-Israel force that is not impartial, and we know from what’s been reported upon that the US and Israel are adamant that the ISF will not act as a Gaza version of UNIFIL in southern Lebanon.
Israel is also clear that no Qatari or Turkish forces will be deployed as part of this ISF. A number of unnamed Arab nations have reportedly withdrawn their pledges to commit forces to the ISF, also reportedly leading to the US approaching more East Asian nations to replace them. The main concern is the lack of clear direction for the force, the precarious security situation, and that these soldiers will likely be forced to fight Hamas.
The ISF, in other words, is an international regime change force that is planned to be an invading army, tasked with carrying out Israel’s dirty work. Interestingly, however, the likes of Israeli Reserve Brigadier General Avivi believe that the scheme will not work and that instead the Israelis will be forced to return to attacking Hamas.
Avivi himself mentions that the pause is being used by the Israeli army to repair its tanks and that “the Chief of Staff has long asked the government for time to work on the tanks, on the tools. After two years of fighting, the tools are worn out. They want to refresh the forces, consolidate the defense line.”
With or without the ISF regime change force, the Israelis are still working on a range of different plans for the Gaza Strip. As mentioned above, Israel’s military operations behind the Yellow Line have not stopped, and this territory is being reinforced with security equipment and cement blocks to demarcate the zones.
What Tel Aviv is seeking is to create two separate Gazas. One, which will be under the de facto rule of Hamas and the Palestinian resistance, and the other, which is under Israeli occupation and also the ISIS-linked militias it uses as proxies. So far, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is the only known outside entity to have thrown its weight behind these ISIS-linked gangs; however, they were used to coordinate with the GHF mercenaries.
Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff appear to have given Israel’s Two-Gazas Solution the green light, making it clear that no reconstruction will happen except in the territory controlled by Israel and its ISIS-linked proxies.
The only problem that the Israelis face with this strategy is that all of Gaza’s civilian population are along the coast in the areas controlled by the Palestinian resistance, and they will not move willingly. The only civilians living in the Israeli-controlled territory are some family members of the aid looting militia collaborators.
Therefore, the Israeli military is proposing a range of solutions to cleanse the population and force them into this “new Gaza” zone. One of those proposals involves aid distribution, in particular the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which was the privatized machine implicated in the mass murder of over 1,000 civilians, who were lured to the distribution sites and picked off by snipers for sport.
Israel’s idea is to continue restricting the aid from entering areas where Gaza’s civilian population lives. They may eventually shut off all aid, or slowly reduce it if their strategy begins working. On the other side of the Yellow Line will be aid distribution points run by the GHF, which the people will be forced to go to in order to simply survive. This project has not been fully mapped out as of now, but all the reports point to this being the case.
Another part of this displacement project, which has been openly discussed in the media, as mentioned above, is that Palestinians will be offered to live in areas where some reconstruction is happening, sites that will be concentration camps.
The alternatives will be for the civilian population of Gaza to stay in the areas controlled by Hamas and to starve, or continue living in tents with less than the bare necessities.
If we look back at different phases of the genocide, this plan mirrors aspects of a number of similar schemes, all of which failed. For example, the GHF was supposed to result in a herding of the civilian population into a gated concentration camp facility that was being constructed in Rafah, over which the ISIS-linked gangs would be its de facto rulers.
There was also the infamous “General’s Plan”, drafted by former Israeli General Giora Eiland. This scheme was the goal that the Israeli military set out to complete in late 2024 and up until the January 2025 ceasefire agreement, which they later broke. To summarise it, they sought to ethnically cleanse the entire civilian population from the north of Gaza, in an attempt to isolate Hamas inside the area and surround it.
Threats were made in late 2024 to some 400,000 civilians that if they did not flee, they would all be considered combatants and were going to be targeted as such. It failed and militarily made no sense either, yet this was openly the plan at the time.
If we look at the evidence, the Israelis are now using this period of time in order to regroup, perhaps also to re-direct military attention to Lebanon also, while also seeking to find solutions to eliminate the civilian population. As they understand that ethnic cleansing will not be allowed in the form of a stampede into Egypt, the strategy is to ultimately create a situation under which the population will languish and slowly be forced to flee.
The Implications
What has happened is that the Israelis are being granted international supervision under the guise of a ceasefire. They are retrieving all their captives, dead and alive, which will take political pressure off of them, while they receive a break and praise from leaderships around the world for “ending the war”.
However, the war isn’t over, and this is something that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu explicitly stated in a public address, in Hebrew, at the start of the ceasefire agreement. The difference now is that the governments of dozens of Arab, Muslim Majority, and Western nations are directly implicated in the ongoing genocide against the people of Gaza.
As I wrote for the Palestine Chronicle, at the beginning of the ceasefire, Phase two of the agreement will not fully go into effect, as there are fundamental disagreements between the Israelis and Palestinian resistance on the question of disarmament and Palestinian self-determination. Instead, it is more likely that we will remain in limbo at a prolonged Phase Once pause, the length of which is impossible to accurately determine.
Israel is not actually implementing the ceasefire; instead, it is taking a break from some of the more taxing combat missions in Gaza and toning down its bombing, something that it has done at different periods during the genocide when there was no ceasefire in place. Its demolition operations were always the bulk of the Israeli military operations during the war, because their goal has never been to destroy Hamas; it has been about destroying Gaza and its people, hence it is called a genocide.
The genocide really has little to do with Hamas as a group. Because even if Hamas were to be defeated, another resistance force would pop up to replace it, and the cycle would start once again. The Israelis are genocidal lunatics, but they aren’t stupid; they know full well that their national project’s success necessitates the total elimination of not only the Palestinian people, but also their mere national identity.
A multi-national coalition is now directly aiding in that project to eradicate the Palestinian identity and its cause for national liberation. This was also what the Saudi-French “New York Declaration” that was voted upon at the United Nations was all about, which I have written about here too, as is the Trump-Netanyahu so-called “peace plan”.
If these nations that are endorsing and are directly involved in the implementation of the Trump plan were truly genuine about seeking a “Two-State solution”, as their votes cast at the United Nations General Assembly this September suggested, then why go along with this project that has stated its opposition to “Two-States” from the outset?
It’s very simple, it is because they want the Palestinian cause gone. This is what the New York Declaration was. This is what the Saudi-French initiative outlined. It wasn’t a proposal for a State of Palestine. Why? Because they explicitly asserted that the “State” they seek must be the only completely disarmed nation on earth, it should also not have control over its own textbooks and is not allowed to have its own independent political parties; all of them must be banned, and only the Western-approved and funded corrupt politicians they choose are allowed into office.
This was the “State” they proposed. It provided no solid answers or conclusions on the “final status issues”, certainly nothing to offer to the Palestinian diaspora, no reparations paid by Israel, and no consequences for Israel, other than it would have to give up its pledge to parts of Gaza and the West Bank. Now look at what these nations have signed up for: Trump’s plan that doesn’t even offer this, that seeks to offer less than his 2020 “Deal of the Century” that is pretty close in its details to this Saudi-French proposal.
So what now, you may ask? Well, the Palestinian Authority (PA) has set forth Israeli stooge Hussein al-Sheikh to be its next unelected quasi-dictator and is attempting to leech whatever it can off of the Trump plan, sucking up to Saudi Arabia and every Arab regime it can for more scraps so that it can run its corrupt administration whose only function is to serve Israeli security coordination.
Unfortunately, this PA has swallowed the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), hollowing out what was once an influential organization that now occupies the role of the State of Palestine at the UN. The PA represents nobody but its employees, and despite the best attempts of all the Palestinian political parties, including factions within the ruling Fatah Party itself, they continue to insist upon division. So, on the political front, until this US-EU-funded entity dies, there is little chance of unity, meaning a comprehensive political solution is, for now, off the cards.
On the Israeli side, they are scheming to try and ethnically cleanse Gaza, and as has been mentioned are not implementing the ceasefire; they even gave Hamas an impossible-to-fulfill ultimatum regarding withdrawing fighters hiding in tunnels from behind the Yellow Line. It was proven that Hamas cannot communicate with most of them, many of whom don’t even know there is a ceasefire. So this is just one of many excuses for Israel to ramp up its death and destruction.
When the Israeli-US scheme for Gaza eventually fails, after inflicting all the suffering that it will on the civilian population, they will then have to go to Plan B, restarting the full-scale genocide once again.
The picture now really depends upon what happens on the other fronts of this ongoing regional war and whether the likes of Hezbollah and Iran can dramatically change the picture. As for the Arab masses, there is always some possibility they could rise, but after two years of genocide and them living their lives as if nothing is happening, not a whole lot should be expected from them.
As I have written to conclude most of my analysis pieces over the past two years, this war is regional and will be fought until one side is decisively defeated. Therefore, either the Israelis succeed at exterminating a segment of the Palestinian population, ethnically cleansing the others, and placing the rest in concentration camps, or Israel is crushed. There are no other options.
Unless the Israelis are strategically defeated, the US, European, Arab and Muslim Majority nations collaborating with it, will back it in its Greater Israel Project until the end. These governments are now more involved than they were before and play their role with the taxes paid to them by their own people, selling their populations the lie that they are working towards peace.






