The Cradle | August 25, 2926
Jordanian intelligence officers arrested Ali Younes, a Jordanian-American journalist and Drop Site News correspondent, for allegedly “undermining the national security” of the Hashemite kingdom by sharing an article on social media that called for cutting US assistance to Amman.
Younes, a former Al Jazeera journalist, was detained upon his arrival at Queen Alia International Airport on 17 August, where he was held for questioning prior to being released with orders to appear before prosecutors in Amman.
Security officials told Younes and his lawyer that the case rests on his sharing of an article published in July by the American Conservative, which called on Washington to halt the billions of dollars it sends to the kingdom.
Prosecutors have classed the post as undermining Jordan’s national security, an offense that could put him behind bars for a year.
At a court hearing, prosecutors widened the file to include sedition and hate crimes, and barred Younes from leaving the country.
The article at the center of the case, headlined “Stop Sending Billions in US Aid to Jordan,” challenged the scale of Washington’s support for the monarchy and questioned why US citizens should bankroll King Abdullah.
Jordan has received $33.8 billion in US assistance over the past 75 years, with additional sums due under existing agreements.
Drop Site News has demanded that Jordanian authorities drop the charges and lift the travel ban on their colleague, and called on Washington to assist Younes as a US citizen against the accusations.
Across the Gulf and the wider region, the US war on Iran has been used as a pretext for domestic repression, with Bahrain, Kuwait, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar all turning cybercrime, counterterrorism, and nationality laws against their own populations.
Hundreds of citizens and residents have been detained over war-related speech, from filming strikes to expressing sympathy for Tehran, with penalties running to life imprisonment, mass revocations of nationality, and the expulsion of lawmakers from parliament.
In Kuwait, the Education Ministry stripped the country’s only Iranian private school of its license and ordered it closed on 6 August, telling parents to move their children elsewhere.
In Bahrain, activist Mohammad al‑Mousawi was arrested at a checkpoint and tortured to death in March after being accused of links to “secret Iranian cells,” with witnesses and medical evidence documenting beatings, cable whippings, and electrocution burns.
RT | August 24, 2026
Russian-Israeli historian Artyom Kirpichenok has been subjected to brutal treatment while in Shin Bet custody, including interrogations lasting up to 24 hours, sleep deprivation, prolonged handcuffing, and threats, according to his lawyer.
Kirpichenok, 51, disappeared on August 2 shortly after arriving at Ben Gurion Airport from Yerevan. His whereabouts remained unknown for nearly three weeks before his supporters revealed that he was being held at a detention facility in Petah Tikva.
His lawyer, Inna Lebedinskaya-Katz, was finally allowed to meet with him for around an hour on Sunday after repeatedly seeking access, according to Nika Dubrovsky, a Russian-born artist and writer campaigning for his release.
Citing Lebedinskaya-Katz, Dubrovsky said Kirpichenok has faced interrogation sessions lasting 18 to 24 hours while deprived of sleep. He is allegedly being kept handcuffed and hunched over on an iron stool fixed to the floor, with three or four interrogators standing behind him “shouting, threatening, and applying constant pressure.” He has also allegedly been threatened with life imprisonment.
Kirpichenok is in “tolerable physical condition” and has no immediate health complaints, but is “exhausted, tormented and deeply depressed,” Dubrovsky wrote on X on Monday.
”He understands that his friends have not abandoned him. He is holding on and sends his greetings to everyone,” she wrote. Kirpichenok also asked that no one come to Israel.
The allegations have not been independently verified. However, international human rights groups previously documented sleep deprivation and painful restraint during Shin Bet interrogations. Israel’s Supreme Court has ruled against deliberately using prolonged sleep deprivation to break suspects.
Kirpichenok is being held underground with the lights on around the clock and denied books and writing materials, Dubrovsky cited his lawyer as saying. A gag order remains in force, and the defense has yet to receive the case files or details of the accusations.
Kirpichenok, a dual Russian-Israeli citizen and Middle East expert, is known for criticizing Israel’s policies toward Iran and Palestine. Moscow sought information from the Israeli authorities following his disappearance and said it is closely monitoring the case.
Kirpichenok recently worked with media outlets and civic organizations in Türkiye and Iran and frequently traveled to Iran. Israeli citizens are generally prohibited from traveling to countries they are at war with. Dubrovsky, however, said the trips now appear to be of little interest to investigators.
Born in Russia, Kirpichenok moved to Israel in the 1990s, studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and served in the Israel Defense Forces before returning to Russia. He later became a vocal critic of the Israeli government and its military campaign in Gaza, describing Israel as a Western “colonial project” in his recent book ‘Israel: The Road to Catastrophe’.
The Israeli authorities have yet to publicly disclose any charges against him.
MEMO | August 24, 2026
Palestinians who say they escaped areas controlled by Israeli- backed armed militias east of the so-called Yellow Line in the Gaza Strip have recounted severe abuses, including extrajudicial killings, physical mistreatment, drug distribution and exploitation of civilians, according to testimonies collected by Quds Press.
The accounts describe tightly controlled areas where residents faced restrictions on movement and could leave only with authorization from militia members. Quds Press described the groups as receiving backing from the Israeli military.
One survivor, identified only as Ahmed, 31, said he escaped with his two brothers after eight months in an area controlled by a militia allegedly headed by Shawqi Abu Nassira.
Ahmed said that narcotics, including hashish and a substance he identified as “Rotana,” were widely distributed. He also said that people attempting to escape or refusing orders faced summary execution and accused militia members of abusing and exploiting children and girls.
Another survivor, identified as Abu Ramzi, said he was drawn into the area after responding to a social media advertisement offering street-cleaning work purportedly connected to international organizations.
According to his account, he and others were collected near Al-Samar roundabout, at the entrance to Gaza City’s Shuja’iyya neighbourhood, and transported east, where masked men took them to an interrogation facility he said was operated by the Israeli military.
Abu Ramzi alleged that interrogators sought detailed information about detainees’ relatives and people employed by Gaza’s governing authorities. He further added that detainees who hesitated to answer were subjected to physical abuse, including being struck on their fingers with a hammer.
He said that during a subsequent Israeli military movement toward the Yellow Line, militia members withdrew and Israeli forces ordered the detainees to assemble. According to his testimony, they were handcuffed and instructed to walk westward without looking back.
Separately, Al-Hares, a platform affiliated with Hamas-run security authorities in Gaza, has warned residents that armed groups operating in these areas allegedly use offers of food, cigarettes and employment to attract civilians. It accused the groups of seeking to use civilians to facilitate their movements and urged Palestinians to avoid them.
RT | August 22, 2026
Imagine you are a Chilean who’s lived in America – the so-called “Land of the Free” – for decades in peace and tranquility. Suddenly, one humid day in late October 2025, in your adopted home of Fort Myers, Florida, you are snatched in broad daylight then imprisoned by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.
Your capture remains completely unknown to the outside world until January the next year, when the US Department of Homeland Security names you among the “worst of worst criminal aliens” arrested by ICE to date. You are accused of committing “homicide” almost 50 years ago. Your incarceration makes international headlines, and comes as a personal shock. But not because you’re innocent.
You are no ordinary Chilean. You are Armando Fernandez Larios, a 76-year-old fascist intelligence veteran who in September 1976 helped assassinate former Chilean Defense Minister Orlando Letelier using a car bomb. An outspoken opponent of dictator Augusto Pinochet, Letelier fled Santiago a year after the September 1973 CIA coup that installed Pinochet in power.
What role precisely Fernandez Larios played in Letelier’s murder, which also took the life of his colleague Ronni Karpen Moffitt, is still not fully clear. He has told a variety of stories about what he knew, when he knew it, and what he did and did not do regarding the event. But Fernandez Larios was a key operative.
It seemed in 2025 ICE had gotten their man, in a huge win for immigration enforcement and international justice. But this March, Fernandez Larios was released from jail. Court documents obtained by the National Security Archive show he launched a legal action, accusing the US government of “breach of contract” by violating a plea deal he cut in 1987.
That agreement saw Fernandez Larios provide information to US prosecutors on Letelier’s assassination, in return for an extremely light prison sentence and promise the government “would neither seek to deport [him] to Chile nor to cooperate in his extradition to Chile.” Rather than let Fernandez Larios’ action go to court, ICE freed him. Presumably, he’s sunning himself in Fort Myers right now.
The CIA connection
A huge archive of declassified documents related to Letelier’s assassination analyzed by RT Investigates, including secret statements made to US officials by Fernandez Larios, sheds shocking light on the case. They show that in mid-1976, Fernandez Larios was tasked by Pinochet’s regime with obtaining fake passports and US visas to fly to Washington DC.
Fernandez Larios was joined by Michael Townley, Pinochet’s US-born lead hitman and CIA double agent. They secured visas from Chile’s US embassy, after claiming to be on a secret mission to meet with CIA deputy director Vernon Walters at Langley headquarters in Virginia. Fernandez Larios traveled to Washington first, to conduct surveillance on Letelier’s movements in advance of his assassination.
On September 9, 1976, 12 days before Letelier’s murder, Fernandez Larios met Townley in the lavatory of New York’s John F. Kennedy airport to provide him with a surveillance map, notes on Letelier’s home and office addresses, as well as cash for the operation. Townley then recruited members of the Cuban National Movement, to assist him in building, placing, and detonating the car bomb.
A militant anti-Fidel Castro Cuban exile group, CNM was founded by veterans of the CIA’s failed 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, and worked closely with the CIA. Experts at explosives, the bomb was planted without detection then detonated as Letelier, Moffitt and her husband Michael were driving to work in downtown DC. Michael was sole survivor of the bombing.
In April 2010, it was revealed that only days before Letelier was killed, a State Department warning due to be sent to Chile, against carrying out “the assassination of subversives, politicians and prominent figures,” was cancelled at the behest of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. His department had been extremely worried about Pinochet carrying out killings outside Chile.
“We are trying to head off a series of international murders that could do serious damage to the international status and reputation of the countries involved,” Kissinger had been informed by aides, but he was unmoved. A close confidante of Pinochet who’d personally assisted his bloodstained rise to power, did Kissinger know Letelier was due to be killed?
The coverup and polygraph test
In the aftermath of the assassination, Fernandez Larios participated in an extensive cover-up orchestrated by Chilean officials, including Pinochet himself. After being identified by the US media along with Townley as a lead suspect in Letelier’s murder, he deceived military investigators, gave false testimony to the Chilean Supreme Court, and lied to FBI and Justice Department investigators.
By 1985 though, Fernandez Larios was open to talking, having back-channel discussions with the US about testifying on Letelier’s assassination. In return for defecting and providing what he knew – or claimed to know – about the killing, and Pinochet’s intelligence operations generally, Fernandez Larios would receive extreme leniency, then be allowed to stay in the US, safe from extradition.
Fernandez Larios was debriefed by US officials in Santiago in mid-January 1987, then subjected to polygraph tests in Brazil. He consistently denied knowing his 1976 mission to Washington DC was an assassination plot. The lie detector results showed “consistent signs of deception in Fernandez’ disclaimers.” Under further debriefing, he finally admitted “his surveillance contributed to the death of Letelier and Moffitt.”
A late January 1987 State Department cable on what to do with Fernandez Larios however disregarded the polygraph tests, shockingly stating he was “not a murderer or party to a conspiracy to murder.” The memo judged his information on the Letelier-Moffitt case to be of “limited value”, but stated “foreign policy benefits” to providing him a generous plea deal were “substantial.”
In February 1987, Fernandez Larios pleaded guilty to being an “accessory after the fact” to Letelier’s assassination. Within just five months, a State Department legal advisor wrote to the US Parole Commission, praising Fernandez Larios’ “character” and “his willingness to come forward and pay his debt” over his role in the crime. He was paroled in autumn 1987.
The “Caravan of Death”
In keeping with “consistent signs of deception” when discussing his foreknowledge of Letelier’s assassination, Fernandez Larios also did not tell US officials about many violent atrocities he personally committed as a member of Pinochet’s elite military unit, the “Caravan of Death.”
Following Pinochet’s seizure of power this deadly Caravan flew around Chile kidnapping local officials who remained loyal to Salvador Allende, who died in contested circumstances during the coup. Approximately 72 dissidents were executed or “disappeared.” Fernandez Larios was identified by multiple witnesses as one of the most ruthless members of the military death squad.
After Pinochet’s fall in 1990, investigations into his regime’s many atrocities were opened in Chile. In several cases, substantial evidence against Fernandez Larios as a personal perpetrator of appalling crimes was found, leading to Santiago launching legal proceedings. In accordance with his plea deal though, Fernandez Larios remained at liberty in Florida.
It took until March 1999 for a civil suit to be launched against him in the US. The family of Winston Cabello, a 28-year-old Allende-era regional planning director executed alongside 12 other political prisoners by the Caravan of Death in October 1973, accused Fernandez Larios of “extrajudicial killing, torture, crimes against humanity and cruel and inhuman treatment.”
Numerous Chileans identified Fernandez Larios as a participant in the torture and executions of prisoners in multiple municipalities. One witnessed him personally slashing Cabello to death with a knife. The three-week trial ended in October 2003, Fernandez Larios found liable for extrajudicial killings, torture and crimes against humanity. Cabello’s family was awarded $4 million in damages.
That sum remains uncollected, and Fernandez Larios is once again a free man after his recent spell in prison, despite him truly being the “worst of the worst” captured by ICE. A strong case for his deportation to a country other than Chile remains. He has not been granted a special “snitch” visa protecting foreign informants from deportation.
Al Mayadeen | August 16, 2026
Israeli Police Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir openly called for intensified killings and permanent Israeli settlement across Gaza, saying “targeted killings should be carried out in Gaza” and advocating that “every night” 30 or 40 Palestinians should be killed.
He went further, declaring that “all of Gaza” should be “Israeli territory” with settlements throughout the Strip, while calling for Palestinians to be encouraged to leave and promising he’ll “turn the world upside down” to execute Palestinians.
“In my imagination, I see all of Gaza as ours, with settlements, not only in the Gush Katif area, but throughout Gaza. Encourage as much emigration as possible, send them back to their countries, and the terrorists? No emigration and no nothing kill them one by one,” Ben-Gvir said.
Ben-Gvir endorses executions of Palestinians in brutal ‘justice’ call
Ben-Gvir endorsed executions by hanging, repeatedly saying Palestinians “don’t deserve to live,” while admitting he was “glad things are bad for them” and arguing that “the death penalty” is the only path toward “justice”.
A rhetoric with grave human rights implications
The remarks represent a striking escalation in rhetoric from a senior Israeli minister, openly advocating killings, executions, and the permanent settlement of Gaza while describing Palestinians as people who “don’t deserve to live.”
Such statements raise grave concerns under international human rights and humanitarian law, which protect the right to life and prohibit arbitrary killing, collective punishment, and the forced displacement of civilians.
The United Nations has identified killings of civilians, collective punishment, incitement to violence, and the denial of essential resources as matters requiring investigation under international law.
Ben-Gvir’s Gaza agenda draws alarm over ethnic cleansing of Palestinians
Beyond their brutality, Ben-Gvir’s comments raise a fundamental question about the consequences of treating an entire civilian population as a target for punishment.
The call to make Gaza “Israeli territory” while encouraging Palestinians to leave, coupled with advocacy for repeated killings and executions, points to a vision in which Palestinians’ basic rights and protections are subordinated to territorial and political aims.
The remarks therefore go beyond inflammatory language, raising serious concerns about the lives of Palestinians under Israeli occupation and the extent to which such rhetoric can normalize the targeting, killing, and forced displacement of civilians.
By Shaimaa Eid | The Palestine Chronicle | August 3, 2026
With trembling hands, faltering words, an emaciated body, and a voice barely audible from the intensity of his pain, S.Th., 38, began recounting the brutal circumstances of his arrest.
What began as an attempt to flee Israeli bombardment through what Israel had designated a “safe corridor” during its ongoing genocide in Gaza ended with months of torture in Israeli interrogation facilities and the Negev Desert Prison.
“After nights of relentless bombardment around our home in Gaza City, my mother, my wife, and I decided to leave,” S.Th. told the Palestine Chronicle. “My wife was in critical condition after miscarrying because of the overwhelming fear and terror.”
The family walked toward Kuwait Roundabout before reaching the so-called safe corridor at the Netzarim checkpoint.
“What awaited us there,” he said, “was even more horrifying than the bombardment itself.”
“My mother leaned on my shoulder the entire way, and all of us held our ID cards high above our heads,” he recalled. “Without any warning, an Israeli officer emerged from behind a sand berm and called out in clear Arabic: ‘Hey, you with the ID who’s fanning your mother, come here.’”
At first, S.Th. was unsure the soldier was addressing him.
“I looked around to make sure he was talking to me,” he said. “Then the officer gestured for me to come behind the sand embankment.”
The moment he reached the soldiers, the man said, he was ordered to strip naked.
“They bound my hands and forced me to sit on sharp seashell-covered stones for three consecutive days.”
Used as Human Shields
For three days, S.Th. said he endured beatings with rifle butts and constant verbal abuse. He and a group of other young men were then forced to sit beneath the barrel of an Israeli tank, where they were used as human shields.
“The tank kept firing shells while we were directly beneath it,” he recalled. “After every single shot, we waited for our souls to leave our bodies, believing death had finally come.”
He never had the opportunity to say goodbye to his family.
“I never had the chance to say goodbye to my mother or my wife,” he said. “Anyone who stopped or even turned around risked being shot dead.”
As they walked in large groups, bodies lay scattered along both sides of the road.
“It was as if the occupation wanted to send us a clear message,” S.Th. said. “‘This is what happens to anyone who disobeys our orders.’”
His voice faltered as he described what happened next.
“They tied our hands and loaded us into the bucket of a bulldozer used to carry sand,” he said. “Then they covered us with a large tarpaulin. After driving only a short distance, they suddenly dumped us into a massive sand pit.”
The detainees believed they were about to be executed.
Instead, Israeli soldiers returned, gathered them again, and loaded them into a military vehicle. From conversations they overheard, they understood they were being transferred to an interrogation center.
“We had no idea where they were taking us,” S.Th. said. “When we arrived, I heard one of the soldiers say, ‘Zikim, Zikim,’ before signaling the driver to stop. At the time, we had no idea that a living hell awaited us there.”
‘A Living Hell’
Recalling his arrival at the facility, S.Th.’s hands began to shake.
“The moment we arrived, dozens of soldiers greeted us with savage beatings all over our bodies using metal batons and electric sticks,” he said. “They then forced us to remain kneeling for five consecutive days.”
During that period, he said, detainees survived on little more than a small piece of bread each day. “It was nowhere near enough to satisfy our hunger.”
According to S.Th., Israeli forces identify Palestinians attempting to cross the so-called “safe corridor” through an advanced facial-recognition system while they hold their identity cards above their heads.
“Those five days felt endless,” he recalled. “After that, they marched us away with our hands and feet shackled and our eyes blindfolded to a large barracks.”
The detainees, he said, were permitted to use the bathroom only once each day.
“They also deprived us of sleep by blasting deafening music through loudspeakers around the clock,” S.Th. said
Interrogation and Torture
Speaking quietly, S.Th. paused before describing the interrogations.
“All the way to the interrogation room, the soldiers kicked us repeatedly,” he said. “They dragged us along by our bound hands and forced us into painful stress positions until we were completely exhausted.”
Only then, he said, would the interrogating officer ask a single question: “Do you want to talk?”
According to S.Th., the interrogations focused largely on political affiliation.
“He accused me of things that had absolutely nothing to do with me,” he said. “When I denied them, he ordered that I be taken back to the torture room.”
There, he said, two soldiers subjected him to severe abuse. “They beat the most sensitive nerve centers in my body and struck my genitals.”
Sleep, S.Th. said, became almost impossible.
“Whenever I drifted off, a soldier standing behind me would repeatedly strike a metal sheet with a hammer while shouting, ‘Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.’”
Eventually, exhaustion overwhelmed him.
“I collapsed unconscious onto the ground,” he recalled. “A soldier lifted me from behind and immediately began kicking me with both feet to prevent me from resting or even taking a brief nap.”
Two weeks later, S.Th. was returned to the interrogating officer.
“He leaned over and whispered in my ear, ‘How was your visit? Was it a long one? If you had confessed from the beginning, you could have spared yourself all this suffering,’” he said.
The officer then repeated the same accusations and questions.
When the interrogation concluded, S.Th. said the interrogator wrote words on his back that he could not understand before soldiers returned him to a barracks holding dozens of detainees from Gaza.
“There we sat with our hands tied, forced to kneel from morning until evening without moving or even turning our heads,” he said. “We were given only ten minutes to eat our meals.”
Negev Prison
S.Th. said he was later transferred with approximately 50 other detainees to the Negev Desert Prison.
“As soon as we arrived, a large group of soldiers was waiting for us,” he recalled. “They beat us mercilessly before throwing us into freezing cells without blankets while we were dressed only in light clothing.”
Soldiers deliberately targeted the prisoners’ shackled hands during the beatings: “They concentrated their blows on our hands, which were already tightly bound in iron shackles.”
After nearly two months of torture and starvation in interrogation centers and later in Negev Prison, Israeli authorities released S.Th. and a group of detainees through the Kerem Abu Salem crossing.
They were subsequently transferred to a hospital for medical examinations and treatment.
Reflecting on his imprisonment, S.Th. said he and the other detainees endured severe physical and psychological torture throughout their detention.
He stressed that they had been arbitrarily detained, held for an extended period without charge, and never brought before a court.
– Shaimaa Eid is a Gaza-based writer. She contributed this article to the Palestine Chronicle.
Press TV – July 16, 2026
Pro-Palestinian German journalist Anna Liedtke says Israeli prison guards rape detainees with the systemic intention to “break” their will.
Anna Liedtke, 25, who in September had set sail for the Gaza Strip with the Freedom Flotilla Coalition vessel Conscience, was raped by Israeli prison guards during detention.
“There is no reason for me to be ashamed,” Liedtke said, in her first interview about a legal case filed against the perpetrators.
“It’s clear they want to break our will and silence us, making this so traumatic that we will never talk about Palestine again,” she said in an interview with The Guardian. “Whenever we are silent, they will do it to another person.”
In the meantime, Liedtke’s lawyers have filed a complaint, demanding Israeli authorities investigate the case. Israeli law defines any kind of non-consensual penetration as rape.
Liedtke’s lawyer, Muna Haddad, said her client wanted justice, and that she also aims to raise awareness about the Israelis’ response.
“It is Anna’s wish to seek justice and exhaust all avenues to hold the perpetrators of these acts accountable. We also want to raise awareness and see how the Israeli system responds when faced with our demand to open an investigation,” Haddad said.
“Sexual violence and rape are recurring violations that have been perpetrated against Palestinian prisoners,” Haddad pointed out, noting that the West’s blind support for Tel Aviv has given the Israeli prison guards impunity for sexualized violence and rape against international solidarity activists, as well.
The complaint, sent to the Israeli attorney general, the Israel prison service’s legal adviser, the department for the investigation of prison guards, and the commander of Givon prison, was a challenge to a “culture of impunity” for abuse of prisoners by Israeli forces, Haddad said.
After Liedtke revealed the matter in late December, two other Freedom Flotilla members spoke of sexualized violence performed on them by Israeli prison guards.
Vincenzo Fullone, an Italian journalist, revealed that “on three separate occasions, I was ordered to enter a small, specially arranged room where I was completely stripped and subjected to invasive and painful anal searches… During the third search, the pain became unbearable and was compounded by mockery, verbal abuse – including the words, ‘Don’t you like it, Hamas whore?’ – and the photographing of my body.”
Australian activist Surya McEwen said he “was stripped naked and sexually assaulted by Israeli officers while being held hostage. One held a gun to my head, angrily threatening that he would kill me, while the other yanked and pulled on my genitals, perversely and almost gleefully.”
He said Israeli soldiers dislocated his arm, forcing him to kneel with other flotilla members while the notorious Israeli national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir verbally abused them.
According to the Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights, Israeli forces employ sexualized violence against Palestinians.
The Center said that increasing systemic violence against Palestinians has continued for decades and includes “organized and systematic practice of sexual torture, including rape, forced stripping, forced filming, sexual assault using objects and dogs, in addition to deliberate psychological humiliation aimed at crushing human dignity and erasing individual identity entirely.”
Al Mayadeen | July 7, 2026
The United Nations’ special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, has sharply denounced the BBC after the broadcaster aired Israeli regime claims against detained Palestinian paediatrician Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya without challenge.
Reacting to a Monday segment in which BBC News relayed Israeli allegations that Abu Safiya was held over “suspected involvement in Hamas activities,” Albanese called the coverage “scandalous”, pointing to 18 months of arbitrary detention without charge, evidence, or trial and to torture documented by his lawyer, with injuries visible on his body.
She accused the network of amplifying unsubstantiated Israeli accusations against a detained doctor rather than reporting on his condition, describing it as characteristic of BBC journalism “in the time of genocide.”
Karishma Patel, who resigned from the BBC last October over its Gaza coverage, echoed the criticism, saying the broadcaster must stop repeating Israeli claims without flagging the absence of supporting evidence given how precarious Abu Safiya’s life remains.
Edinburgh University’s Nicola Perugini went further, arguing that the segment presented the Israeli military’s framing that razing hospitals and abusing doctors is justified because medical facilities supposedly shielded fighters, without any pushback from the reporter reading it.
Abu Safiya’s deteriorating condition
Abu Safiya, former director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, has been detained since Israeli occupation forces stormed the facility on December 27, 2024, forcing it out of operation despite it being the last functioning hospital in northern Gaza at the time, a raid that came after his son Ibrahim was killed in a strike on the hospital grounds.
More than 555 days into his detention, rights groups confirm that his situation is critical. Amnesty International issued an urgent appeal on July 5, warning that his life is in grave danger and noting that he has been held in solitary confinement since June 3 and denied adequate care for chronic conditions.
Detention upheld despite no charges
“Israel’s” Supreme Court upheld his latest detention order on June 16, extending his imprisonment under the “unlawful combatant” designation until at least October.
A July 2 visit by his lawyer, Nasser Odeh, documented fresh bruising around his head, eyes, and neck, difficulty breathing, and episodes of lost consciousness; Abu Safiya reportedly told Odeh he believes prison authorities intend to kill him.
His son Elyas said in a video message that his father can barely speak and that his face has been disfigured.
Physicians for Human Rights Israel called it among the most disturbing testimonies it has received since the war began.
Abu Safiya is one of at least 737 Palestinian medical workers detained since October 2023, a period in which more than 1,722 health workers have been martyred and nearly all of Gaza’s hospitals damaged or destroyed.
A pattern of bias
The episode fits a broader record of scrutiny facing the BBC over its coverage of the genocide in Gaza. A Centre for Media Monitoring study reviewing over 35,000 pieces of BBC content found Israeli deaths received 33 times more coverage per fatality than Palestinian deaths, with the word “massacre” applied 18 times more often to Israeli casualties and “murder” used 220 times for Israelis against a single instance for Palestinians.
More than 100 BBC staff signed a letter last year accusing the corporation of functioning as a government “mouthpiece”, citing insufficient scrutiny of Israeli statements and content they said resembled military public relations.
The broadcaster also shelved the documentary “Gaza: Doctors Under Attack” after initially approving it, a decision critics called emblematic of editorial self-censorship under political pressure, part of what commentators have termed the BBC’s deepening credibility crisis over its Gaza coverage.
By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | July 2, 2026
Whether Israelis will ever comprehend the irreparable damage inflicted upon their country’s reputation by their UN Ambassador, Danny Danon, is a moot point. The damage Israel has done to itself through its barbaric practices in occupied Palestine is simply impossible to overcome.
Danon, however, utilises a peculiar approach to defending Israel within international institutions: he relies on bullying, intimidation, and an overt attempt to silence anyone who dares to challenge the official Israeli narrative—particularly women leaders.
Yet, what makes his behaviour most outrageous is his deployment of these abrasive tactics to suppress an issue that demands the utmost sensitivity: the systemic use of sexual violence and human rights abuses against Palestinians.
The confrontation took place during a UN General Assembly session convened to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict. Senior UN officials were presenting harrowing findings documenting sexual violence against Palestinian detainees.
True to form, Danon refused to engage with the substance of the reports. For Israeli diplomacy, the enemy is never merely the armed adversary; it is the judge, the independent human rights observer, and the UN investigator whose sole mandate is to document violations of international law.
The immediate target of Danon’s wrath was Pramila Patten, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict. Instead of reflecting on the grim findings, Danon demanded Patten’s resignation. He accused her and the broader international community of harbouring an “obsession” with targeting Israel.
When Vanessa Frazier, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, attempted to intervene on a point of order per established protocol, Danon unleashed a vitriolic verbal assault. Refusing to yield, he shouted over her, ordering her to “be quiet” and drowning out the chamber with his outbursts. “Shame on you. You are part of this obsession,” Danon bellowed.
While such unruly behaviour should have resulted in Danon’s immediate removal from the chamber, the diplomatic asymmetry of the UN prevailed. It was Frazier who found herself trying to de-escalate, politely clarifying that her procedural request was “not personal.” Danon shot back with typical defiance: “You will not be allowed to bully us.”
Herein lies the supreme irony of Israel’s diplomatic relationship with the UN and international law. Israel stands as one of the most egregious, serial violators of international law in modern history—a decades-long pattern of behaviour left unpunished by Western vetoes, which ultimately emboldened it to carry out an ongoing genocide in Gaza. Yet, Israeli officials persistently claim the mantle of the ultimate victim, alleging they are the targets of antisemitism, unfair bias, and now, “bullying” by the very institutions they defy.
But the mountain of evidence cannot be shouted away. According to an extensive report issued by Patten’s office, there are verified patterns of systemic abuse, sexual degradation, and psychological torture weaponised against Palestinian men, women, and children in Israeli detention camps like Sde Teiman.
The weight of this evidence reached such an undeniable threshold that the UN Secretary-General’s office formally added Israel to the global ‘List of Shame’—the blacklist of states committing grave violations against children in armed conflict.
None of this exposure is enough to convince Danon or the broader Israeli political establishment that Israel does not possess a sovereign right to violate international law. In their view, merely pointing out these crimes constitutes an act of aggression.
This systemic denial extends to every facet of the conflict. A comprehensive UN investigation recently concluded that Israel has deliberately targeted Palestinian children in Gaza as a core component of its military campaign.
The numbers are staggering: Between 7 October 2023, and 7 October 2025, an estimated 20,179 Palestinian children were killed—about 30 percent of all Palestinian deaths.
“The evidence shows that Palestinian children have been deliberately targeted and killed by the Israeli security forces,” stated commission chair Srinivasan Muralidhar, noting that Israeli authorities have systematically continued to commit the crime of genocide.
While these findings provide another layer of ironclad legal proof regarding genocidal intent, the true significance of the report lies in its exposure of the rationale behind targeting youth. Typically, the disproportionate slaughter of children and women is dismissed by Western apologists as “collateral damage”. The UN inquiry shattered this defense, offering a far more consequential conclusion: the targeting of Gaza’s children is part of a calculated strategy to destroy the biological continuity and future existence of the Palestinian people in Gaza.
As Muralidhar bluntly summarized: “By targeting children, Israel is attacking the very capacity of the Palestinian people to exist.”
It remains a profound disappointment that the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice—often swift to indict war crimes committed elsewhere—continue to move at a glacial pace regarding Israel.
Tragically, the catastrophe continues unabated because there is still no meaningful international mechanism willing to enforce sanctions or employ genuine pressure to halt it.
This is precisely why Danny Danon wants the world to be quiet. His outbursts are not merely directed at UN diplomats; they are directed at global civil society, ordinary citizens, and anyone refusing to look away. Israel demands absolute silence while Palestinians are starved, raped, and murdered. According to its twisted logic, committing these atrocities is an inherent right, and objecting to them is an act of malice.
If this logic is allowed to prevail, it becomes the blueprint for every future aggressor who wishes to kill, rape, and starve a population for geopolitical gain. Palestinians and Lebanese are already forced to inhabit this dystopian reality. Our collective responsibility is clear: we must refuse to be quiet. We must speak out, ensuring our voices drown out the shouts of Danon and his peers, so that murder and systemic violence are never normalised as tools of military necessity.
Palestinian Information Center – June 9, 2026
GAZA – Gaza’s health ministry has denounced the arrest of seven Palestinian Red Crescent paramedics by the Israeli occupation forces on Tuesday morning while they were carrying out their humanitarian duties in the Gaza Strip.
The incident occurred as the medical team was passing through a military checkpoint set up by Israeli forces on Salahuddin road, the main artery connecting central and southern Gaza.
The health ministry explained that the arrests took place while the paramedics were carrying out their usual humanitarian duties of rescuing the wounded and transporting patients.
The ministry noted that the seven paramedics were detained and subjected to harsh on-site interrogations before five were later released, adding that two of them remain in custody at an undisclosed location.
The ministry called for immediate international intervention to secure the release of the remaining paramedics and guarantee their safety.
Your tax dollars at work
By Kevin Barrett | American Free Press | June 5, 2026
On May 18, Israeli commandos attacked 54 civilian boats carrying food and medical supplies to Gaza. The boats were near Cypress, nearly 300 miles from Gaza, in international waters.
The Israelis fired at the boats and kidnapped 428 unarmed humanitarian activists. Those people were never charged with any crime. How could they be? When kidnapped, they were exercising their right to sail in international waters. It was the Israelis who were committing the crime of maritime piracy, which carries a penalty of 20 years’ imprisonment.
But piracy and kidnapping were just the initial crimes. Sexual assault, rape, and torture followed. It began almost as soon as the Israeli pirates boarded the victims’ boats. According to Dropsite News, “The flotilla says at least 12 sexual assaults were documented aboard the vessel alone, including anal rape and forcible penetration with a handgun.”
The kidnapping victims were subjected to sadistic sexual abuse in the form of strip-searches accompanied by sexual taunting and groping. Many were raped. Participants described “rubber bullets fired at close range, tasers used on the face and upper body, stun grenades thrown into groups of detainees (and) prolonged stress positions under permanent bright light.” The activists were brutally beaten, emerging with “broken ribs (and) fractures to the torso, shoulders, and back.”
The kidnappers took their victims to the Israeli port of Ashdod for “further beatings, sexual humiliation, prolonged interrogations, and torture.” Israel responded to the media outcry and formal diplomatic protests from twelve governments, including Spain and Italy, by having extremist minister Itamar Ben-Gvir film himself participating in the abuse of the kidnapped civilians. After Ben-Gvir proudly posted his torture selfies on social media, even the US, UK, and Canada protested. Facing universal condemnation, the Israelis finally released their victims four days after the kidnapping, sending most of them on deportation flights to Turkey.
The kidnapped and tortured activists pointed out that the four days of hell they experienced were nothing compared to what Palestinian prisoners endure every single day. They called attention to the fact that Israel is currently imprisoning more than 400 Palestinian children, and that almost three-quarters of the children kidnapped by Israel report experiencing sexual violence or abuse.
Israel’s crimes against the flotilla activists were shocking but not surprising. Israel, after all, is a nation that trains dogs to rape prisoners, as reported by The New York Times. It is a nation with a “right to rape” movement that makes national heroes of prison guards who sodomize people to death. In his article “Israel Is the Global Rape Capital” Elias Akleh describes how “Sadistic sexual rape seems to be an endemic character of the whole Israeli society, making Israel the rape capital of the world, where sexual abuse and rape are not restricted against Palestinians only, but against Jewish Israeli girls in general.”
In 2011 psychologist Avigail Moor of Tel-Hai College conducted a scientific poll on whether it’s okay to rape your acquaintances. She found that 61% of Israeli men and 41% of women did not consider forced sex with an acquaintance to be rape.
All of this is just the proverbial tip of an iceberg of evidence that Israel is a nation of sadistic sex criminals. Depraved, violent, sadistic sexual abuse is even part of Israeli Orthodox Jewish religious rituals, as reported by the Jerusalem Post (6/3/2025). Social media is full of pictures posted by Israeli soldiers who murder Palestinian women, dress up in their victims’ bras and underwear, and take selfies.
In relatively normal societies, it is estimated that two per cent or less of the population consists of clinical psychopaths, while 98% are non-psychopathic. Among the Israeli Jewish population, it seems, that ratio is reversed. Polls show that the vast majority of Israeli Jews support the genocide of Gaza, which has featured the murders of tens of thousands of innocent women and children, most of whom have been slowly crushed to death beneath the rubble of their own houses.
None of these crimes could happen without the roughly ten trillion dollars of support Israel has received from American taxpayers. That money has been bestowed on the Dog Rape Nation by our politicians, who are bribed or blackmailed by Israeli agents like Jeffrey Epstein, himself a shining example of Jewish-Israeli sexual psychopathy.
Epstein described himself as “Donald (Trump’s) closest friend for ten years.” But it gets worse. In his 20s, Trump was the protegé of Jewish-Zionist gangster Roy Cohn, a sadistic homosexual pedophile who, according to journalist Anthony Summers, ran an Epstein-style blackmail operation that filmed powerful men, including J. Edgar Hoover, abusing little boys.
And it isn’t just Trump. Our whole political class is compromised. Just look at how they vote on Israel-related issues.
The USA desperately needs a serious, French Revolution style housecleaning.
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Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
ICC | December 2005
When the House of Commons was debating how much to increase the time limit for detention without trial the question of torture came up. Officially this was limited to the nice considerations of whether it was all right to send people to places where torture is used and whether Britain can use information collected by the use of torture in other countries. This discussion gave an impression of democratic Britain as the home of civilised behaviour where the very idea of torture is repugnant to our legislators – unlike, say, the US with its secret CIA jails… In reality, the British state has a long history of using and developing a whole range of torture techniques. … continue
Aletho News If Americans Knew No Tricks Zone
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