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13-year-old Palestinian boy was killed after being shot in the back and left to bleed

Defense for Children Palestine | July 19, 2025

Israeli forces killed a 13-year-old Palestinian boy in Ya’bad village yesterday.

Amr Ali Ahmad Qabha, 13, was shot and killed around 6:30 p.m. on July 18 in the Palestinian village of Ya’bad, south of Jenin in the northern occupied West Bank, according to documentation collected by Defense for Children International – Palestine. Two military vehicles came from the Mevo Dotan settlement and military base, entered the village and took up positions in its northern area, where several soldiers exited their vehicles near the Patient’s Friends Society.

Amr was walking around a road near the Association, he unknowingly approached the group of Israeli soldiers stationed at the site. Due to the circular bend in the road, the soldiers did not initially see him, nor was he aware of their presence. As Amr turned back and attempted to take cover, the soldiers opened fire on him with live ammunition from a distance of 10 meters (33 feet) away, and he was struck with around seven bullets: three bullets in the back, one in the neck, one in the abdomen, one in the upper right thigh, and one in the groin.

“Systemic impunity creates an ultra permissive context where Israeli forces know no bounds and routinely shoot to kill Palestinian children in circumstances where there is no imminent threat to life,” said Ayed Abu Eqtaish, accountability program director at DCIP. “Unlawful killings of Palestinian children have become the norm as Israeli forces become increasingly empowered to use intentional lethal force in situations that are not justified. In short, these are war crimes with no consequence.”

Amr fell to the ground as Israeli soldiers advanced toward him, preventing anyone from reaching him, including medical staff and ambulance teams. As news of Amr’s injury quickly spread in the village, his father rushed directly to the scene. Despite the soldiers’ shouting and warning shots, he managed to reach and embrace Amr.

According to the father, Amr was still alive at that time, using hand gestures to plead for medical help, as he was unable to speak. Israeli soldiers handcuffed the father behind his back, severely beaten and forced to sit beside his bleeding child.

The soldiers continued to detain both father and son, blocking ambulance access for approximately 40 minutes. Only after the soldiers were certain Amr had died, they allowed the ambulance to approach and transport him to the Ya’bad Government Emergency Center and then transferred to Jenin Government Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.

Israeli forces have killed 33 Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank in 2025, according to documentation collected by DCIP.

207 Palestinian children have been killed by Israeli forces and settlers in the occupied West Bank since October 7, 2023, according to documentation collected by DCIP.

Israeli forces deliberately and systematically blocked paramedics and ambulances from reaching injured Palestinian children, according to documentation collected by DCIP. Israeli forces order Palestinian paramedics and ambulance drivers to leave the scene at gunpoint, fire live ammunition toward individuals to offer aid, and block roads and detain ambulance crews. In some cases, Israeli forces surround a bleeding child, preventing any medical care.

These acts of cruelty leave Palestinian children, injured by Israeli live fire, bleeding out on the ground, alone and in pain, with the intent to ensure death.

By preventing medical aid and ambulances to reach an injured child, Israel violates Article 6 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child as enshrined within it is every child’s inherent right to life. State parties to this treaty, such as Israel, must ensure to the maximum extent possible the survival and development of a child. The decisive act of preventing medical assistance to reach a child shot with live ammunition seems to indicate an intent to ensure to the maximum extent possible the death of that child.

July 19, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Bogota Summit launches Global South’s legal intifada against Israel and US impunity

By José Niño | The Cradle | July 17, 2025

From 15–16 July, Bogota became the unlikely capital of a global insurrection against western legal impunity. Over 30 countries – including key powers from the Global South and even some European states – gathered in the Colombian capital for the Hague Group Emergency Summit.

This was the most ambitious multilateral initiative yet to directly confront what participants unflinchingly termed Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and the broader culture of impunity that has shielded the occupation state since 1948.

From steadfast client to anti-imperial spearhead

That the summit was held in Colombia – a long-standing US vassal in Latin America – was not incidental. Once regarded as Washington’s most loyal client in the hemisphere, Colombia’s dramatic pivot under President Gustavo Petro represents the boldest regional defiance of US authority in decades.

Petro, who severed diplomatic ties with Tel Aviv in 2024, has placed Bogota on a collision course with the US over his unwavering opposition to the occupation state’s onslaught in Gaza.

Washington reacted predictably by issuing warnings to allies against the “weaponization of international law,” and sanctioning UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese for her “illegitimate and shameful efforts” to advance the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) prosecutions of Israeli and US officials. Bogota responded with direct defiance. In the run-up to the summit, Petro publicly backed Albanese, declaring that “the multilateral system of states cannot be destroyed,” in a thinly veiled rejection of US diktats.

Over 30 nations participated, including the eight founding members of the Hague Group – Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, Honduras, Malaysia, Namibia, Senegal, and South Africa, co-chaired by Colombia and South Africa. They were joined by more than 20 additional states spanning Latin America, Africa, Asia, and even Europe.

The participation of European countries such as Portugal and Spain was noteworthy. Both states only established full diplomatic relations with Israel in the latter part of the 20th century: Portugal in 1977 and Spain in 1986, emblematic of their historic caution over Israel’s contested legitimacy.

But since Tel Aviv’s genocidal war on Gaza began in late 2023, Madrid has adopted a string of punitive diplomatic moves.

Spain canceled a €6.6 million (around $7.2 million) ammunition purchase from an Israeli firm, scrapped a €285 million (around $310.7 million) anti-tank missile deal with the Spanish subsidiary of Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, banned Israeli weapons from port entry, formally recognized Palestinian statehood, and pushed to suspend the EU–Israel Association Agreement.

Though neither European state fully endorsed all of Bogota’s proposals, their participation and scathing denunciations of Israeli policy reflect a deeper fracture within Europe over Tel Aviv’s legitimacy and the cost of complicity.

Laying the legal gauntlet

Central to the summit was a blistering legal and moral condemnation of Israel’s conduct in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. The Hague Group issued a detailed catalog of war crimes: the mass killing of over 57,000 civilians, the targeting of hospitals and schools, the weaponization of starvation and siege, and the deliberate use of forced displacement.

The apartheid state in the occupied West Bank, enforced through racial segregation, parallel legal systems, and land confiscations for settlements, was cited as a textbook violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention and, per the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) 2024 advisory opinion, a breach of international prohibitions against forced territorial acquisition and apartheid.

Francesca Albanese delivered the summit’s keynote, setting the tone with an uncompromising indictment:

“For too long, international law has been treated as optional – applied selectively to those perceived as weak, ignored by those acting as the powerful … That era must end.”

The ICC arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant – citing crimes such as starvation as a weapon, indiscriminate civilian targeting, and the murder of Palestinian non-combatants – were repeatedly invoked as a historic turning point.

The Resistance Axis of lawfare

The summit’s ethos was clearly to rupture the impunity enabled by the UN Security Council’s paralysis. The Hague Group, founded in January 2025, framed itself as the Global South’s corrective to a postwar order that protects violators so long as they are shielded by US power.

That paralysis, most attendees argued, was not accidental but structural: The P5 veto system ensures impunity for those, such as Israel and its allies.

Meeting in the San Carlos Palace, delegates from 12 states – Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, Indonesia, Iraq, Libya, Malaysia, Namibia, Nicaragua, Oman, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and South Africa – announced six binding measures. These included a full arms embargo on the occupation state, port bans for Israeli military vessels, contract reviews to terminate commercial complicity with the occupation, and firm support for domestic and international prosecution of Israeli officials.

These policies were anchored in the ICJ’s 2024 opinion declaring Israel’s occupation illegal and the UN General Assembly’s September 2024 resolution urging decisive global action within 12 months.

A global rift – but still an uphill battle

Despite the breakthrough, significant limitations remain. Only 12 states adopted the measures outright. Others were given until the UN General Assembly in September to sign on. Key powers, including China, withheld endorsement – despite supporting the initiative’s aims – likely due to economic entanglements with Israel, including port infrastructure investments.

Organizers acknowledged the uphill road ahead: absent broader UN uptake and stronger alignment from economic powers, Washington’s veto and European hesitation could neuter the Hague Group’s legal insurgency. But the coalition remains adamant that justice is no longer negotiable.

Colombian Vice Minister Mauricio Jaramillo Jassir captured the summit’s urgency:

“The Palestinian genocide threatens the entire international system … The participating states will not only reaffirm their commitment to opposing genocide, but also formulate concrete steps to move from words to collective action.”

A warning – and a promise

The Bogota summit was not just another international conference. It openly challenged the post-1945 legal fiction of a “rules-based order” – a system long exposed as a euphemism for western prerogative.

As South Africa’s International Relations Minister, Roland Lamola, asserted

“No country is above the law, and no crime will go unanswered.”

Yet the struggle remains unfinished. The Hague Group’s bold confrontation with Israeli impunity marks a decisive break, but the future of this legal uprising hinges on whether its momentum can breach the fortified walls of New York and The Hague, and whether powers like China, India, and Brazil shift from quiet endorsement to active alignment.

On 16 July, as thousands gathered in Plaza Bolivar in support, the message was unambiguous: either the era of impunity ends, or the legitimacy of the global order collapses with it.

July 17, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Iran: World bodies giving up legitimacy, ‘sense of mission’ to bullying, unilateralism

Press TV – July 17, 2025

Iran says the imposition of US sanctions targeting a UN-appointed human rights expert and the mass resignation of members of the UN Palestine inquiry show that the world bodies are no longer allowed to even record the truth.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei made the remarks in a post on his X account on Thursday after the US on July 9 announced punitive measures against Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, while all three members of the UN commission investigating crimes in the occupied Palestinian territories submitted their resignations on Monday.

In his post, Baghaei said the sanctions and the resignations should not be taken lightly as they are an “alarming sign of the erosion of the global legal and normative order.”

“International institutions are giving up their legitimacy, effectiveness, authority and ‘sense of mission’ to militant bullying & radical unilateralism,” the Iranian spokesperson wrote.

He said future generations would affirm that silence, indifference, and double standards in the face of grave injustices and wars led to the collapse of the world normative order.

Albanese, independent from the UN bureaucracy, operates under a UN Human Rights Council mandate. She has faced repeated smears and threats from Israeli officials and lobby groups for her accurate, evidence-based reporting on the situation in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

Despite growing political backlash, human rights defenders continue to raise the alarm over the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Gaza.

Since October 2023, the Israeli regime has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians—most of them civilians, women, and children—amid widespread destruction and blockade-induced starvation.

July 17, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

500+ Chemical Attacks: Russia Details Ukraine’s Use of Toxic and Poisonous Agents

Sputnik – 17.07.2025

Major General Alexey Rtishchev, head of the Russian Armed Forces’ Radiation, Chemical, and Biological Protection Troops, stated that more than 500 instances of Ukraine using chemical and toxic substances have been documented during the special military operation.

“Throughout the special military operation, over 500 cases have been recorded where the Ukrainian side employed riot control agents (chloroacetophenone, CS gas), as well as toxic substances with psychotropic (BZ) and general poisonous effects (cyanogen chloride, hydrogen cyanide),” Rtishchev said during a briefing on Ukraine’s and Western countries’ violations of the Chemical Weapons Convention.

“Since the beginning of 2025, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have been systematically using copter-type drones to drop containers filled with CS gas and improvised munitions containing chloropicrin on Russian military positions,” he added.

Kiev is planning a provocation involving the release of ammonia at a facility near Novotroitsk in the DPR, says Major General Alexey Rtishchev, head of the Russian Armed Forces’ Radiation, Chemical, and Biological Protection Troops. The goal is to accuse Russia of intentionally causing a man-made disaster.

“With the support of Western handlers, the Kiev regime has not abandoned its long-developed barbaric tactic of warfare—the ‘chemical belt’ method, which involves placing and detonating containers with toxic chemicals in areas where Russian troops operate. Available evidence indicates preparations for another such provocation,” Rtishchev said during a briefing on Ukraine’s and Western countries’ violations of the Chemical Weapons Convention.

“On July 3, 2025, operational measures confirmed that Ukrainian Armed Forces personnel had installed antenna-mast equipment at a major ammonia distribution facility near the settlement of Novotroitsk. The plant is a first-class hazard facility, and if struck, it could release over 550 tons of liquid ammonia into the environment. The plan is to subsequently accuse our country of deliberately causing a man-made disaster and inflicting reputational damage,” Rtishchev added.

He presented the original letter from the deputy director of the Kiev-controlled “Ukrkhimtrans-ammiak” enterprise to the head of the regional military administration, confirming the placement of military equipment at the site.

“I remind you that using a high-risk facility for military purposes violates international humanitarian law,” the head of the Chemical, Biological, and Radiological Defense Troops emphasized.

According to the documents disclosed by Rtishchev, the incident concerns the village of Novotroitsk in the Kramatorsk district of the DPR.

Western countries will continue to use the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) as an instrument of political pressure on Russia, without taking into account objective facts, head of the Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Protection Troops of the Russian armed forces Major General Aleksei Rtishchev said on Thursday.

Last week, Dutch Defense Minister Ruben Brekelmans informed the country’s parliament that Russia, according to Dutch intelligence services, allegedly intensified the use of chemical weapons in Ukraine, which is a violation of the Convention on the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (CWC).

“It is obvious that the West will continue to use the OPCW as an instrument of political pressure on Russia, without taking into account objective facts. The Russian side will continue to work to counter this policy and to inform the world community about the violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention by the Kiev regime and its curators,” Rtishchev told a briefing.

The activities of the OPCW have become highly politicized due to pressure from Western states, which, at their whim, impose unilateral sanctions, make unfounded accusations against undesirable countries, and abuse the provisions of the Convention, the military said.

Additionally, the military said that Russia had recently asked the OPCW head to send a team of experts from the organization’s technical secretariat to Russia to assist in the investigation of Kiev’s crimes, as well as a draft agreement between Russia and the OPCW on organizing and conducting visits for the purpose of such assistance.

“This step is due to the fact that all previously presented documentary evidence and expert opinions have not received the proper response from the organization. About 40 verbal notes from the Permanent Mission of Russia to the OPCW still remain without a meaningful response. At the same time, unsubstantiated requests from the Ukrainian side receive immediate support from the bureaucratic structures of the OPCW with the involvement of accredited laboratories,” Rtishchev said.

Taking advantage of its preferences, Ukraine has repeatedly involved the OPCW technical secretariat in legitimizing incidents falsified by Ukrainian and Western intelligence services regarding the alleged use of chemical means of riot control by Russian military personnel on the line of combat contact, he added.

July 17, 2025 Posted by | War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Colombia must sever ties with NATO – president

RT | July 17, 2025

Colombia must cut ties with NATO as the leaders of the military bloc support “genocide” of Palestinians, President Gustavo Petro has declared.

Colombia, a traditional US ally in South America, became the first country in the region to obtain the status of NATO global partner in 2017. Petro, who took office in 2022 as Colombia’s first leftist president, severed diplomatic relations with Israel last year over what he describes as a genocide being carried out by the Israeli government against Palestinians.

”What do we do in NATO? If NATO’s top brass are for genocide, what are we doing there?” Petro said at a pro-Palestinian international conference in Bogota on Wednesday.

”Hasn’t the time come for another military alliance? Because how can we be with armies that drop bombs on children?” he added. “Those armies aren’t armies of freedom, they’re armies of darkness. We must have armies of light.”

Petro argued that NATO is a Cold War relic and asserted that nations like Colombia are treated as “half-members” within the US-led military bloc, granted symbolic partnerships but not full accession.

The two-day conference in Bogota hosted representatives from a dozen countries in the Global South. Attendees signed a joint declaration calling for economic sanctions and legal actions against Israel, including an arms embargo, restrictions on dual-use goods, port denials for vessels carrying cargo for Israeli forces, and support for international accountability for crimes allegedly committed in occupied territories.

Petro’s criticism reflects a break from Colombia’s historically warm relationship with Israel. The late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez once dubbed Colombia the “Israel of Latin America,” arguing it served a similar geopolitical role in the region.

Israel launched its military campaign in Gaza following a deadly raid led by the militant group Hamas in October 2023. The first independent study of casualties in Gaza, published last month, estimated the number of fatalities in the enclave at almost 84,000 by January 2025. Israel is currently pushing Palestinians to move to a “humanitarian city” that would purportedly be free of Hamas influence – which critics say is just a euphemism for a concentration camp.

July 17, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli-linked lawyer told ICC chief prosecutor: Drop Gaza case or be ‘destroyed’

MEMO | July 16, 2025

“They will destroy you and they will destroy the court,” an Israeli ICC lawyer connected to Benjamin Netanyahu warned Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan while urging him to drop the war crimes probe against the Israeli Prime Minister and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.

The warning was delivered during a private meeting in The Hague on 1 May by Nicholas Kaufman, a British-Israeli lawyer who currently defends former Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte at the ICC. According to an internal note seen by Middle East Eye, Kaufman told Khan he had spoken to Netanyahu’s legal adviser and had been “authorised” to propose a confidential solution to help the prosecutor “climb down the tree”, meaning to back away from the case discreetly.

Kaufman advised Khan to reclassify the case files as confidential so that Israel could respond to the allegations in private, rather than through public proceedings. But he also issued a warning: if Khan were to pursue further charges, such as for far-right Israeli ministers, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, “all options would be off the table.” He then added, “They will destroy you and they will destroy the court.”

Khan and his wife, who was present at the meeting, both understood the words as a direct threat. Kaufman later denied issuing any threat and claimed he was acting on his own initiative, not on behalf of the Israeli government.

The case at the heart of this controversy concerns the ICC’s investigation into war crimes committed during Israel’s ongoing military assault on Gaza. On 20 May 2024, Khan formally applied for arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant for alleged crimes including the starvation of civilians and the targeting of protected populations. Six months later the court issued arrest warrants for the Israeli leaders.

This attempt at intimidation is not an isolated incident. It follows a pattern of pressure, threats and political interference aimed at protecting Israel from international accountability. In February, the US imposed personal sanctions on Khan, revoking his visa and freezing his assets. His family was also barred from entering the US. In June, four ICC judges who approved the arrest warrants were similarly sanctioned.

Shortly after the 1 May meeting with Kaufman, allegations of sexual misconduct were leaked to the media against Khan. While the ICC initially closed its investigation due to the lack of cooperation by the complainant, the allegations re-emerged in the press through anonymous sources, prompting a new probe. Khan has denied all allegations. Although the proximity of events has prompted speculation, there is said to be no evidence to suggest a connection between the allegations against Khan and his meeting with Kaufman.

These efforts mirror tactics used against Khan’s predecessor. Fatou Bensouda, the former ICC chief prosecutor, has publicly revealed that she too faced threats and surveillance when she began investigating Israeli war crimes. In an interview with The Guardian, she described “thug-style tactics” that included hacking, harassment of her family and threats that she would “pay the price” for her work.

Israel’s allies in the West have also played a key role in undermining the court’s independence. Then British Foreign Secretary David Cameron reportedly warned Khan in April 2024 that issuing arrest warrants against Israeli officials would be “like dropping a hydrogen bomb.” Around the same time, US Senator Lindsey Graham threatened ICC staff with further sanctions if they moved forward.

The ICC is not the only international body under fire. Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, has also been targeted. In July, the US imposed sanctions against her, citing her “direct engagement” with the ICC’s investigation into Israeli war crimes.

Albanese has faced sustained smear campaigns and death threats—part of what observers describe as a broader effort to silence those demanding accountability for Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Rights groups and UN experts have condemned the sanctions as an attack on the independence of international human rights mechanisms and a chilling warning to other officials who might support the ICC’s work.

July 16, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Zelensky threatens ‘long-range strikes’ in Russia

RT | July 14, 2025

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has threatened new strikes deep inside Russia, days after the US pledged to resume military aid to Kiev.

Zelensky made the remarks after a meeting with Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces Aleksandr Syrsky, and Chief of the General Staff Andrey Gnatov on Sunday.

“Our units will continue to destroy the occupiers and do everything possible to bring the war onto Russian territory. We are preparing our new long-range strikes,” Zelensky wrote on X.

He added that Ukraine is preparing for a visit by US presidential envoy Keith Kellogg and will “work with partners on arms deliveries and scaling up joint production of essential defense assets.”

Among its recent attacks far from the front line, Ukraine targeted military airfields housing strategic bombers in several Russian regions last month. Ukrainian drones and missiles also repeatedly struck apartment blocks and other civilian infrastructure. According to Moscow, Ukraine was responsible for the passenger train derailment on March 31, which left seven people dead.

The EU has allocated hundreds of billions of euros in recent months to expand its military-industrial complex and support Ukraine’s domestic armament production.

Berlin will provide Ukraine its first batch of long-range missiles financed by Germany in the coming weeks, Major General Christian Freuding, who oversees the coordination of the country’s military support for Kiev, has said.

US President Donald Trump said earlier this week that the Pentagon will resume deliveries to Kiev, following weeks of suspension, and reportedly considers approving a first new aid package since returning to office.

Russia has said that it views the use of foreign-supplied missiles as direct participation by Western states in the conflict and claimed that Ukrainian troops cannot operate sophisticated weapons systems on their own.

July 14, 2025 Posted by | Militarism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli Firm Tests Drone on Unarmed Palestinian in Gaza, Shares Footage on Twitter for Marketing

Quds News | July 13, 2025

Israeli weapons manufacturer Rafael Advanced Defense Systems used footage showing the killing of an unarmed Palestinian man in Gaza to market one of its combat drones.

The video, posted on Twitter, shows the moment an Israeli Spike Firefly drone strikes and kills an unarmed Palestinian man walking alone in northern Gaza. Rafael shared the footage with the caption:

“SPIKE FIREFLY: Proven Precision, Redefining the Tactical Edge.”

The post celebrated two years since the Firefly drone’s first use. It praised the loitering munition’s precision and performance in “difficult environments.” “Tested. Trusted. Tactical.” Rafael declared.

The video highlighted how Israel’s military-industrial complex profits from crimes against Palestinians, often documented and repackaged into advertising for global arms deals.

The Spike Firefly is a loitering munition, a drone that searches, identifies, and attacks targets with explosive payloads. It is part of the larger SPIKE missile family, which Rafael exports to dozens of countries.

Rafael, which is state-owned, has sold billions in weapons across Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Some of its largest customers include:

  • Greece: Signed a €370 million deal.
  • Finland: Purchased a system for €316 million.
  • Poland: Signed a $152 million deal, with partial local production.
  • Slovakia: Made multiple purchases totaling in the hundreds of millions.
  • Romania: Signed a $2.2 billion contract, along with a separate multimillion-dollar deal.
  • Czech Republic: Signed arms contracts and has ongoing plans for additional deals.
  • UAE: In negotiations for multi-system defense purchases.
  • Philippines: In talks to acquire air-defense technology.
  • Thailand: Partnered for local production of Israeli systems.
  • Azerbaijan: Acquired Israeli-made weapons and surveillance technology.
  • Singapore, Vietnam, Morocco: Use Israeli weapons in their arsenals.

Since October 2023, Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza has killed over 57,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children.

Israel and Rafael continue to promote their weapons as “battle-proven” based on their use against civilians in Gaza, a region under siege, starved, and cut off from the world.

July 13, 2025 Posted by | Militarism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Google helped Israel spread war propaganda to 45 million Europeans

By Alan MACLEOD | MintPress News | July 10, 2025

While it continues its conflict with its neighbors, Israel is fighting another war just as intensely, spending gigantic amounts of money bombarding Europe with messaging justifying their actions, and scaremongering Europeans that Iranian nuclear missiles will soon be turning their cities into rubble.

A MintPress study has found that, since it struck Iran on June 13, the Israeli Government Advertising Agency has paid for tens of millions of advertisements on YouTube alone. In clear breach of Google’s policies, these ads justify and lionize the attack as a necessary defense of Western civilization, and claim that Israel is carrying out “one of the largest humanitarian missions in the world” in Gaza.

The countries most targeted by this campaign include the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Germany, and Greece.

Information War

“A fanatical regime firing missiles at civilians, while racing towards nuclear weapons. While Iran deliberately targets cities, Israel acts with precision to dismantle this threat.” Thus starts one Israeli government ad that hundreds of thousands of YouTube viewers in Europe have been compelled to watch.

“Terror architects behind the elimination of Israel plan: eliminated. Israel targets only military and terror sites, not civilians. But the threat remains,” the voiceover continues, over ominous music and high-tech graphics. “We will finish the mission for our people, for humanity. Israel does what must be done,” it concludes.

“Iran’s ballistic missile program isn’t just a threat to Israel, it is a threat to Europe and the Western world,” another, seen by 1.5 million viewers in just three weeks, claims. “Iran is developing missiles with ranges of approximately 4000 km. That places Europe within the regime’s striking distance,” it adds, as graphics show virtually the entire continent turning blood red, signifying a nuclear attack. “This isn’t tomorrow’s threat. It is today’s reality. The threat posed by the Iranian regime must be stopped. Israel does what must be done.”

Ominous messages like these, translated into multiple languages, have reached tens of millions of people across Europe. Other Israeli government ads take a different tack, attempting to present Israel as a virtuous victim and an unwilling participant in war. As one commercial notes:

Imagine this: you are holding your newborn in a hospital room. Then the air raid sirens go off. Iran fires ballistic missiles at hospitals, at innocent Israelis. Patients, doctors, newborn babies: deliberately targeted. While Iran aims at families and children, Israel responds with precision, striking military sites. This is not a war of choice. Those who target civilians and hospitals become the target.”

The claims made in such videos are often highly questionable. For example, around 935 Iranians were killed in Israeli strikes, compared to just 28 Israelis, suggesting Israel is far less careful to avoid civilian deaths than its opponent. Indeed, since October 2023, Israel has repeatedly and deliberately targeted hospitals. The World Health Organization has documented at least 697 Israeli strikes on medical facilities.

Ninety-four percent of Gaza’s hospitals have been destroyed or damaged, and more than 1,400 medical personnel have been killed. This includes Dr. Adnan al-Bursh, head of orthopedics at al-Shifa Hospital, who was reportedly raped to death by Israeli prison guards. According to UNICEF, Israel has killed or injured over 50,000 Palestinian children. An American nurse who worked in Gaza told MintPress News that IDF soldiers regularly shoot boys in the genitals to prevent them from reproducing.

Despite this, Israeli advertising presents the country as the savior of the Palestinian people. One Ministry of Foreign Affairs video, set to epic, inspiring music, describes Israel as undertaking “One of the largest humanitarian operations in the world right now.” “This is what real aid looks like. Smiles don’t lie. Hamas does,” it concludes.

Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, called the commercial “scandalous” and directly challenged YouTube: “How can this be allowed?” The video has been translated into Italian, French, German, and Greek, and has been viewed by nearly seven million people on YouTube alone.

Transparently Inorganic

All referenced videos appear in the Google Ads Transparency Center as paid content from the Israeli Government Advertising Agency, and there is strong evidence that few, if any, of their millions of views are organic. The five versions of the “Gaza Humanitarian Aid” video, for example, collectively have only a few thousand “likes”—barely 1% of what would be generally expected of videos with this amount of views—and only two comments in total.

The difference between organic and paid content is clearer in videos that Israel has not promoted. Other videos on Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs YouTube channel receive only tens of views per day, not millions, which strongly suggests that close to 100% of their traffic is paid advertising.

The scale of this public relations operation is difficult to overstate. Even as the Israeli government hikes taxes and slashes domestic spending, its foreign PR budget has grown by more than 2,000%, the Foreign Ministry receiving $150 million more for public diplomacy.

Much of that money is evidently being spent on ads. In the past month, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs has uploaded videos that have topped 45 million views on YouTube alone. The countries most targeted include the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Germany, and Greece.

Greece is a particularly noteworthy case. Over the past 12 months, the Israeli government advertising agency has funded 65 separate YouTube ad campaigns targeting the country.

The Greek version of a recent ad—titled “An efficient system is in place, delivering aid where it’s needed”—presents Israel as a benevolent bringer of life to Gaza and has garnered over 1 million views in just four days, equivalent to nearly 10% of Greece’s entire population. The video currently has no comments and fewer than 3,000 likes.

The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs uploads its videos in English, French, German, Italian, and Greek. Countries that do not speak these languages—such as Slovakia, Denmark, and the Netherlands—are still targeted, though users there generally receive the English version.

Israel has avoided targeting nations whose governments have formally condemned its actions, such as Ireland or Spain, spending nothing to reach those populations. The Netanyahu administration, evidently, has decided to attempt to shore up support in allied countries, even as their populations increasingly turn against Israel.

While many of these figures might shock readers, this investigation only examined the advertising campaign of a single organization, the Israeli Government Advertising Agency, and on a single platform, YouTube. It does not include other Israeli government and non-governmental groups, nor the myriad organizations collectively comprising the pro-Israel lobby in the West.

Israel has also attempted to influence the debate on other platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. What is presented here is merely the thinnest slice of a much broader operation.

Israel and Silicon Valley

Some videos the Israeli government has released attempt to portray Israel in a positive light, but instead perpetuate racist stereotypes about Western civilization and its supposed superiority. In one ad, Benjamin Netanyahu states (emphasis added):

I want to assure the civilized world, we will not let the world’s most dangerous regime get the world’s most dangerous weapons. The increasing range of Iran’s ballistic missiles would bring that nuclear nightmare to the cities of Europe and eventually to America.”

Thus, the Israeli prime minister implies that Iran’s threat matters only if it endangers the so-called “civilized world,” that is, Europe and North America. “Never again is now. Today, Israel has shown that we have learned the lessons of history,” Netanyahu continues, directly comparing the 12-Day War (which Israel started) to the Holocaust. “When enemies vow to destroy you, believe them. When enemies build weapons of mass death, stop them. As the Bible teaches us, when someone comes to kill you, rise and act first.”

Google’s advertising rules explicitly prohibit commercials that “display shocking content or promote hatred, intolerance, discrimination, or violence.” Yet many of the ads described here explicitly justify Israeli aggression.

MintPress News contacted Google to ask how much the Israeli government’s advertising agency spent on ads, how many impressions those ads generated, whether the company had a response to Albanese’s comments, and whether the videos violated its policies.

Google did not answer the first three questions and reiterated that it has “strict ad policies that govern the types of ads we allow on our platform.” “These policies are publicly available, and we enforce them consistently and without bias. If we find ads that violate those policies, we swiftly remove them,” the company added, implying that it does not consider the ads a violation of its standards.

Few who have studied Google’s connections to the Israeli government will be surprised that the Silicon Valley giant grants enormous leeway to the Netanyahu administration. Former CEO Eric Schmidt is known as one of Israel’s most vocal supporters. Google has been financially invested in Israel since at least 2006, when it opened its first offices in Tel Aviv. In 2012, at a meeting with Netanyahu himself, Schmidt declared that “the decision to invest in Israel was one of the best that Google has ever made.”

Company co-founder Sergey Brin has also come to the defense of Israel, denouncing the United Nations as “transparently anti-Semitic” and telling Google staff that using the word “genocide” to describe Israeli actions in Gaza is “deeply offensive to many Jewish people who have suffered actual genocides.”

Earlier this year, with the Israeli economy in dire straits following its 18-month campaign against its neighbors, Schmidt’s company came to the rescue, injecting billions into Israel in a record-setting acquisition. Google purchased local cybersecurity firm Wiz for $32 billion. The monumental sum paid—equivalent to 65 times Wiz’s annual revenue and boosting the Israeli economy by 0.6%—left some analysts wondering if the deal had more to do with underwriting the Israeli economy than making a shrewd business investment.

It also raises questions about the safety of Google users’ most sensitive personal data, given that Wiz was founded and continues to be staffed by former Israeli spies from the intelligence group, Unit 8200.

Google has a long history of working closely with Israeli intelligence. A 2022 MintPress News investigation identified at least 99 former Unit 8200 agents employed by Google.

Among them is Gavriel Goidel, head of strategy and operations for Google Research. Goidel joined Google in 2022 after a six-year career in military intelligence, during which he rose to become Head of Learning at Unit 8200. There, he led a large team of operatives who sifted through intelligence data to “understand patterns of hostile activists,” according to his own account.

The Turning Tide

Google is far from the only tech giant recruiting Israeli spies to run their most politically sensitive departments. The same study found that hundreds of former Unit 8200 intelligence agents are employed at companies such as Meta (formerly Facebook), Microsoft, and Amazon. And a significant amount of what America reads about the Middle East is also written by ex-Israeli spies.

A MintPress investigation from earlier this year uncovered a network of Unit 8200 alums working in top newsrooms across America.

Wikipedia is another key theater of war for the Israeli state. A project overseen by future Prime Minister Naftali Bennett deployed thousands of young Israelis to monitor and edit the online encyclopedia, removing troublesome facts and framing articles more favorably in Israel’s favor. Those who made the most edits would receive rewards, including free hot air balloon rides.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has also launched a campaign to harass and intimidate American students, establishing a “task force” to carry out psychological operations aimed at, in its own words, “inflicting economic and employment consequences” against pro-Palestine protestors. While Foreign Minister Eli Cohen heads the task force, it stresses that its actions “should not have the signature of the State of Israel on it.”

Amid mounting criticism, the Israeli government has sought to turn the tide by inviting influencers for direct talks with Netanyahu. In April, the Israeli prime minister met face-to-face with conservative internet personalities, including Tim Pool; Dave Rubin; Sean Spicer; Bethany Mandel; David Harris Jr.; Jessica Krause; Seth Mandel; and Mollie Hemingway, where they discussed how best to sell war with Iran to Western publics, and how to counter anti-Zionist sentiment online.

Other social media personalities report having been offered large sums of money in exchange for a few words of support for Israel.

In terms of turning the tide of European public opinion, Israel has its work cut out for it. A recent YouGov survey found the country was widely reviled across the continent. More than 20 times as many Italians, for instance, hold “very unfavorable” (43%) views of Israel than “very favorable” ones (2%).

Even in Germany, where popular support for Israel is highest, only 21% said they hold favorable opinions of the state (including only 4% highly favorable), with 65% displaying open opposition (including 32% who strongly dislike it).

A massive plurality of Britons, meanwhile, agreed with the statement: “Israel treats the Palestinians like the Nazis treated the Jews.” Forty-eight percent answered in the affirmative, as opposed to just 13% who disagreed. This is despite European governments offering full-throated support to Israel, and even criminalizing pro-Palestine protests and persecuting journalists who oppose Western support for Tel Aviv.

The government of Israel is spending millions of dollars daily on gigantic advertising campaigns aimed at turning the tide of public opinion. To that end, it is developing a PR network as sophisticated as the advanced weapons systems it uses on its neighbors. On YouTube alone, its paid advertising, translated into five languages, has reached at least 45 million people in the past month. Whether this strategy will ultimately prove effective remains unclear. After all, it is difficult to convince the public to support a genocide.

July 13, 2025 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Apartment block destroyed by Ukrainian airstrike – Russian governor

RT | July 11, 2025

A five-story residential building collapsed after being hit in a Ukrainian air strike, the governor of Russia’s Kherson Region, Vladimir Saldo, said. Ukraine’s forces are attacking the area with drones to prevent rescue teams from helping people trapped under the rubble, according to the local authorities.

The building was located in the town of Aleshki, about seven kilometers from the Dnieper River, which separates Russian and the Ukrainian forces in the area.

“The enemy has hit a residential building in Aleshki in an airstrike,” Saldo told Russian media, including TASS and Ria Novosti. “The building has collapsed. Civilians are trapped underneath.”

The exact number of people affected remains unclear, as Ukrainian troops are preventing emergency services from reaching the site with drone attacks, regional authorities said.

Kiev’s forces have been regularly launching attacks against various Russian regions bordering Ukraine, often hitting civilian targets. A Ukrainian drone struck a public beach in the city of Kursk as people gathered to celebrate the Day of Family, Love, and Fidelity, a holiday celebrated on July 8. The strike killed four civilians, including a five-year-old boy.

Last week, four people were killed in a Ukrainian strike on the city of Donetsk. Ukrainian forces used a US-made HIMARS multiple rocket launcher in the attack. Another woman was severely wounded and three others sustained moderate injuries, according to the local authorities.

Last month, the Russian Foreign Ministry accused Kiev of deliberately committing atrocities against civilians in Donbass, including mass killings of elderly people and drone strikes on residential homes.

“It is a deliberate policy that has already been elevated to the level of state doctrine,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at the time.

July 11, 2025 Posted by | War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Punished for the truth: US sanctions UN official for exposing Israeli atrocities, Washington’s complicity

Press TV – July 9, 2025

The United States has decided to impose sanctions on a noted and outspoken UN rights official over her outright criticism and exposure of the Israeli regime’s acts of deadly aggression and Washington’s unstinting support for the atrocities.

In a social media post on Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he had decided to impose punitive measures against Francesa Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories.

Rubio accused Albanese of having tried to prompt the International Criminal Court (ICC) to issue arrest warrants against Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the regime’s former minister for military affairs Yoav Gallant.

The tribunal issued the warrants last November over the duo’s war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip, where the regime has been waging a strongly-US-supported war of genocide since October 2023.

Prior to the court’s issuance of the warrants, Albanese had authored a landmark report to the UN Human Rights Council, stating that the regime’s military operations in Gaza displayed “prima facie evidence of an intention to systematically destroy Palestinians as a group.” The atrocities, she had added, effectively indicated genocide under the UN’s Genocide Convention.

The run-up to authorization of the warrants also saw her propose that the UN consider suspending the regime’s membership for its deadly violations.

She has consistently used the term genocide in multiple reports, including by condemning the regime for carrying out one of “the cruelest genocides in modern history,” and declaring Gaza a “laboratory” for Israeli weapons.

During a UN session last month, she urged a full arms embargo, plus sanctions and divestment against state and corporate supporters of the regime.

She specifically named scores of companies, including Lockheed Martin, Palantir, Caterpillar, Volvo, BNP Paribas, Barclays, Pimco, and Vanguard, denouncing them for facilitating an “economy of genocide”

Rubio further claimed that Albanese had been trying to instigate punitive action by the court against American officials and companies, calling the alleged efforts “illegitimate and shameful.”

“Albanese’s campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel will no longer be tolerated,” he added.

The American official, meanwhile, vowed that Washington would keep standing by the regime in its “right to self-defense.”

The United States has poured billions of dollars in military aid into the regime’s coffers to be used towards reinforcement of the genocide that has so far claimed the lives of nearly 57,700 Palestinians, mostly women and children.

Washington has also been lending the genocide unwavering political support by shielding Tel Aviv against punitive UN action.

July 10, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Net Zero: The Mystery of the Falling Fertility

By Tomas Furst | Brownstone Institute | July 8, 2025

In January 2022, the number of children born in the Czech Republic suddenly decreased by about 10%. By the end of 2022, it had become clear that this was a signal: All the monthly numbers of newborns were mysteriously low.

In April 2023, I wrote a piece for a Czech investigative platform InFakta and suggested that this unexpected phenomenon might be connected to the aggressive vaccination campaign that had started approximately 9 months before the drop in natality. Denik N – a Czech equivalent of the New York Times – immediately came forward with a “devastating takedown” of my article, labeled me a liar and claimed that the pattern can be explained by demographics: There were fewer women in the population and they were getting older.

To compare fertility across countries (and time), the so-called Total Fertility Rate (TFR) is used. Roughly speaking, it is the average number of children that are born to a woman over her lifetime. TFR is independent of the number of women and of their age structure. Figure 1 below shows the evolution of TFR in several European countries between 2001 and 2023. I selected countries that experienced a similar drop in TFR in 2022 as the Czech Republic.

Figure 1. The evolution of Total Fertility Rate in selected European countries between 2000 and 2023. The data corresponding to a particular year are plotted at the end of the column representing that year.

So, by the end of 2023, the following two points were clear:

  1. The drop in natality in the Czech Republic in 2022 could not be explained by demographic factors. Total fertility rate – which is independent of the number of women and their age structure – dropped sharply in 2022 and has been decreasing ever since. The data for 2024 show that the Czech TFR has decreased further to 1.37.
  1. Many other European countries experienced the same dramatic and unexpected decrease in fertility that started at the beginning of 2022. I have selected some of them for Figure 1 but there are more: The Netherlands, Norway, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Sweden. On the other hand, there are some countries that do not show a sudden drop in TFR, but rather a steady decline over a longer period (e.g. Belgium, France, UK, Greece, or Italy). Notable exceptions are Bulgaria, Spain, and Portugal where fertility has increased (albeit from very low numbers). The Human Fertility Project database has all the numbers.

This data pattern is so amazing and unexpected that even the mainstream media in Europe cannot avoid the problem completely. From time to time, talking heads with many academic titles appear and push one of the politically correct narratives: It’s Putin! (Spoiler alert: The war started in February 2022; however, children not born in 2022 were not conceived in 2021). It’s the inflation caused by Putin! (Sorry, that was even later). It’s the demographics! (Nope, see above, TFR is independent of the demographics).

Thus, the “v” word keeps creeping back into people’s minds and the Web’s Wild West is ripe with speculation. We decided not to speculate but to wrestle some more data from the Czech government. For many months, we were trying to acquire the number of newborns in each month, broken down by age and vaccination status of the mother. The post-socialist health-care system of our country is a double-edged sword: On one hand, the state collects much more data about citizens than an American would believe. On the other hand, we have an equivalent of the FOIA, and we are not afraid to use it. After many months of fruitless correspondence with the authorities, we turned to Jitka Chalankova – a Czech Ron Johnson in skirts – who finally managed to obtain an invaluable data sheet.

To my knowledge, the datasheet (now publicly available with an English translation here) is the only officially released dataset containing a breakdown of newborns by the Covid-19 vaccination status of the mother. We requested much more detailed data, but this is all we got. The data contains the number of births per month between January 2021 and December 2023 given by women (aged 18-39) who were vaccinated, i.e., had received at least one Covid vaccine dose by the date of delivery, and by women who were unvaccinated, i.e., had not received any dose of any Covid vaccine by the date of delivery.

Furthermore, the numbers of births per month by women vaccinated by one or more doses during pregnancy were provided. This enabled us to estimate the number of women who were vaccinated before conception. Then, we used open data on the Czech population structure by age, and open data on Covid vaccination by day, sex, and age.

Combining these three datasets, we were able to estimate the rates of successful conceptions (i.e., conceptions that led to births nine months later) by preconception vaccination status of the mother. Those interested in the technical details of the procedure may read Methods in the newly released paper. It is worth mentioning that the paper had been rejected without review in six high-ranking scientific journals. In Figure 2, we reprint the main finding of our analysis.

Figure 2A. Histogram showing the percentage of women in the Czech Republic aged 18–39 years who were vaccinated with at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine by the end of the respective month. Figure 2B. Estimates of the number of successful conceptions (SCs) per 1,000 women aged 18–39 years according to their pre-conception Covid vaccination status. The blue-shaded areas in Figure 1B show the intervals between the lower and upper estimates of the true SC rates for women vaccinated (dark blue) and unvaccinated (light blue) before conception.

Figure 2 reveals several interesting patterns that I list here in order of importance:

  1. Vaccinated women conceived about a third fewer children than would be expected from their share of the population. Unvaccinated women conceived at about the same rate as all women before the pandemic. Thus, a strong association between Covid vaccination status and successful conceptions has been established.
  2. In the second half of 2021, there was a peak in the rate of conceptions of the unvaccinated (and a corresponding trough in the vaccinated). This points to rather intelligent behavior of Czech women, who – contrary to the official advice – probably avoided vaccination if they wanted to get pregnant. This concentrated the pregnancies in the unvaccinated group and produced the peak.
  3. In the first half of 2021, there was significant uncertainty in the estimates of the conception rates. The lower estimate of the conception rate in the vaccinated was produced by assuming that all women vaccinated (by at least one dose) during pregnancy were unvaccinated before conception. This was almost certainly true in the first half of 2021 because the vaccines were not available prior to 2021. The upper estimate was produced by assuming that all women vaccinated (by at least one dose) during pregnancy also received at least one dose before conception. This was probably closer to the truth in the second part of 2021. Thus, we think that the true conception rates for the vaccinated start close to the lower bound in early 2021 and end close to the upper bound in early 2022. Once again, we would like to be much more precise, but we have to work with what we have got.

Now that the association between Covid-19 vaccination and lower rates of conception has been established, the one important question looms: Is this association causal? In other words, did the Covid-19 vaccines really prevent women from getting pregnant?

The guardians of the official narrative brush off our findings and say that the difference is easily explained by confounding: The vaccinated tend to be older, more educated, city-dwelling, more climate change aware…you name it. That all may well be true, but in early 2022, the TFR of the whole population dropped sharply and has been decreasing ever since.

So, something must have happened in the spring of 2021. Had the population of women just spontaneously separated into two groups – rednecks who wanted kids and didn’t want the jab, and city slickers who didn’t want kids and wanted the jab – the fertility rate of the unvaccinated would indeed be much higher than that of the vaccinated. In that respect, such a selection bias could explain the observed pattern. However, had this been true, the total TFR of the whole population would have remained constant.

But this is not what happened. For some reason, the TFR of the whole population jumped down in January 2022 and has been decreasing ever since. And we have just shown that, for some reason, this decrease in fertility affected only the vaccinated. So, if you want to argue that a mysterious factor X is responsible for the drop in fertility, you will have to explain (1) why the factor affected only the vaccinated, and (2) why it started affecting them at about the time of vaccination. That is a tall order. Mr. Occam and I both think that X = the vaccine is the simplest explanation.

What really puzzles me is the continuation of the trend. If the vaccines really prevented conception, shouldn’t the effect have been transient? It’s been more than three years since the mass vaccination event, but fertility rates still keep falling. If this trend continues for another five years, we may as well stop arguing about pensions, defense spending, healthcare reform, and education – because we are done.

We are in the middle of what may be the biggest fertility crisis in the history of mankind. The reason for the collapse in fertility is not known. The governments of many European countries have the data that would unlock the mystery. Yet, it seems that no one wants to know.

July 9, 2025 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, War Crimes | | Leave a comment

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