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Trump administration sued to disclose funding for controversial Gaza aid group

Press TV – August 21, 2025

An American legal advocacy organization has filed a lawsuit to seek the source of funding for the controversial US and Israeli-backed group delivering aid in the Gaza Strip.

The US-run Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a so-called humanitarian group set up to cater to the needs of the Palestinian people, has cost the lives of hundreds of Gazans, already ravaged by famine and genocide.

International aid experts have described GHF’s distribution points as “death traps, criticizing the relief group’s work model as “an insult to the humanitarian enterprise and standards.”

GHF spokesperson Chapin Fay told Channel 4 of the UK last week that Western European countries funded GHF, but that he would not reveal which countries did it.

On Wednesday, the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) filed a lawsuit to seek the source of GHF’s funding and its initial tens of millions of dollars paid as salaries and the travel expenses to its aid workers, who have been described as “mercenaries.”

The CCR was investigating the legality of GHF’s charter and demanding that its financial records be revealed under the Freedom of Information Act.

In its lawsuit, the CCR requested that Delaware’s Attorney General Kathy Jennings “investigate GHF and revoke its charter on grounds that it is illegally abusing its privileges with its complicity in war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.”

The New York-based firm said it filed its lawsuit against the Donald Trump administration for its failure to comply with its request.

The CCR said it aims to follow the money to find who is funding the failed aid operation.

“Today’s lawsuit seeks records that could shed light on not only the decision-making process… but also on the creation of GHF, its funding and how it plans to use” a US government grant, the CCR said.

“The Center for Constitutional Rights is particularly interested in information that could reveal whether the administration’s distribution of funds has any link to President Trump’s ‘Gaza Riviera’ plan, which would cleanse the area of Palestinians and redevelop it for investors,” the statement said.

Since GHF began its relief operations in southern Gaza in May, which have left over 1,000 Palestinians seeking food aid dead at its four distribution points across Gaza, its funding sources have been a secret.

US military contractors who staff GHF have also been seen in videos shooting at aid seekers – something former US special forces soldier Anthony Aguilar confirmed after leaving the organization.

“GHF, far from alleviating suffering in Gaza, is contributing to the forced displacement, killing and furtherance of genocide of Palestinians,” the CCR said.

GHF food aid distribution points “have become synonymous with scenes of chaos and carnage,” it added.

Meanwhile, human rights experts familiar with the matter say the word “humanitarian” in the title of the organization only serves to “add to Israel’s humanitarian camouflage.”

“Without clear accountability, the very idea of humanitarian relief may ultimately become a casualty of modern hybrid warfare,” they warned.

Analysts say the United States and the Israeli regime created GHF to bypass the United Nations’ central role in aid distribution in Gaza.

The UN has refused to cooperate with the US-Israeli program, calling it a militarized aid model that would result in the displacement of the Gaza people.

Since the Israeli regime launched its genocidal war in Gaza in October 2023, most of the population has been forced to relocate, some of them several times.

More than 62,122 people in Gaza, most of them women and children, have been killed during this time, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

August 21, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

London closing in on $2.7bn contract with Israeli firm to train 60,000 British troops per year

The Cradle | August 21, 2025

The British Ministry of Defence (MoD) is preparing to sign a $2.7-billion contract with Elbit Systems – Israel’s largest arms manufacturer – that would see the company train 60,000 British troops each year and be designated a “strategic partner,” according to a report by Private Eye.

The British branch of Elbit is competing against US firm Raytheon for the Army Collective Training Service contract. In February, the MoD reduced the shortlist to the two bidders.

If the contract is granted, Elbit would oversee a sweeping overhaul of British army instruction “through digitalisation, simulation, a different relationship with industry, and by changing how and where the military trains.”

This prospective contract follows revelations earlier this month that Elbit signed a $1.64-billion arms deal with Serbia to supply long-range precision rockets and other military systems.

Last month, Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur for Palestine, said that “for Israeli companies such as Elbit Systems … the ongoing genocide has been a profitable venture.”

Elbit supplies around 85 percent of Israel’s drones and ground-based hardware, directly fueling its war on Gaza.

Since 2023, Elbit’s British arm has managed the MoD’s Project Vulcan, a £57-million (around $74.1 million) program providing simulation-based training for tank crews. The new $2.7-billion agreement would mark a major escalation of that relationship.

In September, the government suspended 30 of 350 arms export licences to Israel after a review found a clear risk of British-made components being used in violations of humanitarian law.

However, export permits for F-35 parts, which are deployed directly in Gaza, were exempt from the freeze.

Private Eye said it asked the MoD whether it considered it appropriate to hand such a contract to a company so deeply involved in the Gaza war, but the ministry did not reply.

Elbit subsidiaries in the UK have been the main target of Palestine Action, which the government banned last month as a terrorist group.

August 21, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Netanyahu rejects Gaza deal, reviews plans to occupy Gaza City instead

Al Mayadeen | August 20, 2025

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has decided not to respond to the proposal recently approved by Hamas, despite efforts by mediators to push forward a deal.

US envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, has also distanced himself from the formula he initially supported, with reports noting that he no longer trusts the mediators.

Despite endless Israeli claims that Hamas was being unreasonable and not flexible throughout previous negotiation rounds, the Palestinian Resistance in Gaza had already agreed to the new proposal, which is nearly identical to the Witkoff paper previously proposed.

On Monday, Hamas and other Palestinian factions announced their approval of the proposal put forward by mediators from Egypt and Qatar.

Netanyahu to review new genocide phase

Instead of adhering to the demands of his people, who have been protesting against the resumption of the war in Gaza, Netanyahu is expected to arrive at the Southern Command on Thursday to approve military plans to occupy Gaza City.

“Negotiations will be held under heavy fire, and everything depends on reaching an agreement,” Israeli media said.

Meanwhile, the Israeli military spokesperson for the occupation army confirmed on Wednesday evening the launch of the second phase of “Operation Gideon’s Chariots (B)” aimed at occupying Gaza City.

According to the military spokesperson, the 162nd Division has begun operations from Jabalia in the northwest as part of a broader plan to tighten the siege on the city. The statement said the campaign may take an extended period, but could also be halted depending on political directives. It added that the maneuvers are being carried out by conscript units supported by 133,000 reserve soldiers.

At the same time, occupation authorities issued a statement to the settlers of the Gaza Envelope warning of the possibility of hearing heavy explosions and artillery fire “from now on.”

The operation is widely viewed as part of the broader ethnic cleansing plan against Gaza’s population, aiming to depopulate the city through siege, destruction, and forced displacement under the guise of military maneuvers.

August 20, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Israel dangles aid for South Sudan amid reports of Gaza expulsion talks

The Cradle | August 18, 2025

Israel’s Foreign Ministry announced on 18 August that it plans to provide “urgent” humanitarian assistance to South Sudan, following recent reports that Tel Aviv was engaged in efforts to expel Palestinians from Gaza to the east African nation.

Israel’s Agency for International Development Coordination “will provide urgent humanitarian assistance to vulnerable populations in the country” due to “the severe humanitarian crisis in South Sudan,” the Foreign Ministry said.

The aid will include medical supplies, water purification supplies, gloves and face masks, special hygiene kits, and food packages.

This comes as a cholera outbreak is plaguing the country, which “suffers from a severe shortage of resources,” the Israeli Foreign Ministry added.

IsraAID, an Israeli NGO operating in South Sudan, will also assist in the aid plan, the Foreign Ministry went on to say.

The visit comes as Israel is preparing to occupy Gaza City and forcibly displace hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he is committed to implementing an expulsion plan announced by US President Donald Trump at the start of the year, framed as a humanitarian initiative to “relocate” Palestinians to a safer place.

Trump said he would make Gaza the “Riviera of the Middle East.”

Israel and the US have reportedly been in contact with several countries as part of the effort to expel Gaza’s population.

Last week, several sources cited by AP said Israel is in talks with South Sudan about the potential relocation of Palestinians from Gaza to the East African country.

The sources said it is unclear how far the negotiations have advanced.

Following the report, South Sudan’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement on 13 August denying that it is engaged in negotiations with Israel to take Palestinians from Gaza, rejecting such claims as unfounded and not representative of the government’s position.

In February, Hebrew news outlet Channel 12 reported that Morocco, the Puntland State of Somalia, and the Republic of Somaliland are being considered as places to relocate Palestinians as part of Trump’s controversial plan.

Somalia and Somaliland denied these reports earlier this year – saying they received no such proposals.

According to a Wall Street Journal report, Israel has identified six countries to negotiate with regarding relocating Gaza residents, including Syria, Libya, Somaliland, and South Sudan. The report says the efforts are not going well, and that previous talks on the matter “didn’t make much progress.”

Syria and Libya have not responded to requests for comment.

Sources who spoke with NBC News earlier this year had said Trump is working on a plan to “permanently relocate” as many as one million Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to Libya.

August 18, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Hamas agrees to Gaza ceasefire proposal presented by mediators

Palestinian Information Center – August 18, 2025

GAZA – An official Hamas source said on Monday that the Movement delivered a positive response to an Egyptian-Qatari proposal for a 60-day ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

An informed Palestinian official also said, on condition of anonymity, that the proposal forms a framework for indirect negotiations over a permanent ceasefire between Hamas and Israel.

The response came after internal consultations held by Hamas with major Palestinian factions.

The source did not reveal details of the proposal, but other informed Palestinian sources reported that the proposal stipulates a prisoner exchange deal that includes the release of 10 living Israeli captives and 18 bodies in exchange for the release of 140 Palestinian prisoners serving life sentences and 60 others serving sentences of more than 15 years, as well as 1,500 from Gaza.

The sources explained that the new Egyptian-Qatari proposal includes a modification to the Israeli withdrawal lines from the Gaza Strip during the 60-day truce period, limiting them to a distance of 800 meters along the eastern, northern, and southern borders of the coastal enclave.

According to the proposal, discussions on a comprehensive agreement or permanent ceasefire will begin immediately once this truce takes effect

The proposal also includes the entry of urgent humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip immediately after the agreement enters into force, including fuel and water, and stipulates the rehabilitation of hospitals and bakeries, and the provision of rescue teams with rubble removal equipment.

The UN and its agencies, along with the Red Crescent and international organizations operating in the Gaza Strip, should be responsible for aid distribution.

Over the past two years, the Hamas leadership has accepted proposals for a ceasefire and the release of Israeli captives and Palestinian prisoners only for Israel to reject them and insist on continuing the war.

The major sticking point has been the duration of the ceasefire. Hamas wants a permanent end to the war, but Israel has been seeking a temporary truce that would allow it to resume its genocide and its destruction and displacement campaign in Gaza after its captives in the territory are released.

August 18, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel excluded from upcoming Bari trade fair in Italy

MEMO | August 17, 2025

Organizers of the upcoming Fiera del Levante, an annual international trade exhibition scheduled to take place in Italy’s Bari city from Sept. 13 to 21, have decided not to invite Israel due to concerns raised by the city mayor about the Gaza situation, local media reported on Sunday, Anadolu reports.

According to Italian news agency ANSA, the fair’s organizing body confirmed the decision, following an appeal by Bari Mayor Vito Leccese, who on July 1 had called “not to let Israel participate in the fair activities within the Bari exhibition district, both institutional and economic.”

“For a commonality of ethical and political views, the Nuova Fiera del Levante has from the outset expressed a clear distancing from the atrocities of the ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people and has supported, becoming its promoter, the initiative to propose the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize to the children of Gaza,” the fair organizer body said in a statement.

The note explained that the initiative, launched by the Latiano-based foundation L’isola che non c’e, seeks to nominate children in Gaza for the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize.

The fair described the proposal as “a moral appeal to the international community to recognize the right to peace and life for every child, everywhere in the world.”

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

Israel destroyed 400 homes in Gaza’s Zeitoun neighborhood: Euro-Med Monitor

Smoke rises as Palestinians flee after Israeli army conducts attacks over al-Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City, Gaza on August 6, 2025. [Khames Alrefi – Anadolu Agency]
MEMO | August 16, 2025

The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor on Saturday said that Israeli forces have destroyed some 400 homes in the Zeitoun neighborhood, east of Gaza City, over the past six days through aerial bombardment and the use of booby-trapped robots, Anadolu reports.

In a statement, the rights group said Israeli forces have been “leveling Zeitoun to the ground” since Aug. 11 as part of a large-scale military assault aimed at imposing full control over Gaza City and forcibly displacing its residents.

The monitor noted that “more than 90,000 Palestinians have fled the neighborhood under intense shelling.”

It added that Israeli forces have “deployed quadcopter drones to encircle residential blocks and force residents to evacuate at gunpoint, while advancing with ground units under heavy fire cover.”

The group stressed that the destruction of “nearly half of the homes in the Zeitoun neighborhood was not justified by any military necessity, as no armed clashes had been reported in the area recently.”

It said the “systematic use of robotic explosives and aerial strikes after residents were evacuated indicated the aim of the operation is not to achieve a legitimate military objective but rather the destruction of civilian life and forced displacement.”

The rights group said that the assault on Zeitoun, Gaza City’s largest neighborhood, falls within a “broader Israeli policy of genocide aimed at erasing Palestinian urban centers through mass destruction of homes, infrastructure, and essential services.”

It urged the international community, including the UN and legal institutions, to “act urgently to stop the attacks, protect civilians, and hold Israeli leaders accountable.”

The group also called for the enforcement of International Criminal Court arrest warrants issued against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

The latest Israeli military campaign began on Aug. 11, following a government-approved plan to gradually reoccupy Gaza, starting with Gaza City.

Witnesses reported widespread home demolitions using robotic devices, artillery fire, indiscriminate shooting, and forced displacement.

Israel has killed nearly 61,900 Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023. The military campaign has devastated the enclave and brought it to the verge of famine.

Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.

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

Media Office: Israel blocks 430 food items from entering Gaza

Press TV – August 12, 2025

Gaza Government Media Office says Israel is still blocking the entry of more than 430 food items into the territory, despite allowing some aid trucks through last month under international pressure.

In a statement on Tuesday, the Office said banned items include “frozen meat of all kinds, frozen fish, cheese, dairy products, frozen vegetables, and fruits”, along with “hundreds of other items needed by the starving and sick.”

The statement claimed the partial easing announced on July 27, 2025, has not lifted broad restrictions on food and other essential goods.

It added that Israel has targeted food sources in the Gaza Strip, not only by preventing aid but also by deliberately bombing 44 food banks, resulting in the deaths of dozens of workers, and attacking 57 food distribution centers.

Media Office has accused COGAT, the Israeli military body reporting on aid deliveries into the enclave, of “a pathetic attempt to cover up an internationally documented crime, the systematic starvation of the population of the Gaza Strip.”

According to a report published by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) on July 29, 2025, “the worst-case scenario” of Famine is currently playing out in the Gaza Strip. War and displacement have intensified, and access to food and other essential items and services has plummeted to unprecedented levels.

“Between May and July 2025, the proportion of households experiencing extreme hunger has doubled. The food consumption threshold for Famine (IPC Phase 5) has already been passed for most areas of the Gaza Strip,” the report said.

At the same time, food consumption has sharply deteriorated, the report stressed, adding that one in three individuals is going without food for days at a time.

Meanwhile, Israeli forces and foreign military contractors continue to open indiscriminate fire on people seeking aid at so-called “distribution centers” operated by the Israel-US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

Nearly 1,500 people have been killed and more than 4000 injured while seeking food. At least 900 people have been killed near or inside GHF centers since the beginning of GHF’s operations in late May 2025.

GHF centers are especially difficult to access for the most vulnerable members of the population, such as children, women, older persons, and persons with disabilities.

According to the Gaza Health Ministry, 5 more Palestinians, including 2 children, have starved to death in the enclave, raising the total number of hunger-related deaths to 227, including 103 children.

Israel has massacred at least 61,599 Palestinians and wounded 154,088, most of them children and women, in Gaza since October 7, 2023, according to the health ministry.

August 12, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

How Western media aids Israel’s genocide and targeted killing of journalists in Gaza

Israel and the end of The Times

By Marzieh Hashemi | Press TV | August 12, 2025

Never in the history of mankind have human beings witnessed a genocide in real time, in the way we are watching what is unfolding in Gaza today.

We have seen people being sniped, hospitals being bulldozed, refugees in tents being burned alive, the starvation of the population, and so much more, on our screens.

Most of what we are witnessing is due to the tireless and courageous commitment of Palestinian journalists in Gaza who know that they can be killed at any time by the regime, but despite this, continue to show us the reality of what’s happening on the ground in Gaza.

It is an extremely difficult job for them; however, the streaming of videos and providing live coverage have finally helped change the narrative on Palestine and its occupation globally.

Before this latest round of genocide, no matter the type of brutality and oppression that Palestinians endured, they would be confronted with comments such as “Israel has the right to defend itself” or “the Israelis have no choice because of Hamas’ missiles raining down upon the innocent Israeli population.”

But now, the greatest fear of the Israeli regime is coming to fruition.  Zionists are losing control of the narrative. The truth has been seeping out, one war crime after another. People around the world have awakened and many no longer believe in the hasbara version of events.

The child-murdering regime tried to prevent this from happening. Thus, from the very beginning of this latest round of genocidal war against the Palestinian people, international journalists were not allowed by the Israeli regime to enter Gaza.

The regime gave the excuse of protecting the journalists’ safety, but the reality is that it did not want the real story of what is happening in Gaza to be exposed.

Thus, the primary responsibility of showing the reality on the ground fell on the backs of Palestinian journalists, whom the Israeli regime continues to try to control, discredit or silence.

Due to this, the deliberate targeting of Palestinian journalists by the regime has been ruthless and has intensified with time.

The cold-blooded assassinations of journalists have been taken to a whole new level in Gaza. Journalists have never been targeted in the way they are today.

As of the writing of this article, 242 journalists have been killed in Gaza, with the latest five murders taking place just on Sunday night. A tent housing Al Jazeera journalists was deliberately targeted by the regime, killing all five members of the crew. Israel has taken responsibility for the assassinations, saying that the tent housed a “Hamas cell.”

This is the action of a regime to which Western powers have given impunity. Israel is not sanctioned due to killing babies in incubators. It is not even held accountable for starving a whole population of people. It is not pressured in any way.

Thus, during the last 22 months, we have seen the targeting of journalists expand throughout the region, including the occupied West Bank, Lebanon and Iran, where the main news building of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB)  was targeted, killing three people.

Why? Because it can. It is not held accountable. If any condemnations are made, they are simply some verbal jargon on the international level, resulting in no consequences for the regime to stop its illegal actions.

Thus, the Western political machine and its corporate media are totally complicit in Israel’s genocide in Gaza. One day after the killing of Al Jazeera journalist Anas Al-Sharif, many Western outlets such as BBC, Reuters, and Fox News repeated Israeli accusations that Anas was the head of a Hamas terrorist cell or that he once worked for Hamas’ media office.

Instead of showing its outrage at the targeting of fellow journalists, the BBC, which prides itself on being the largest broadcast corporation in the world, simply repeated Israeli hasbara.

This is the reason 238 journalists have been killed in Gaza over the past 22 months and their colleagues in Western countries have done nothing about it or have instead magnified the lies of the Zionist regime. These so-called journalists are toeing the line of the Zionists.

Why haven’t the BBC, Reuters, New York Times or other media entities called Israel out for preventing them from sending journalists to Gaza?

Why try to demonize the messenger who has just been assassinated, unless you too, like the Israeli regime, want to keep the message from getting out?

Is the exposure of the real narrative of Palestine and Israel fatal for you too? You are all complicit in genocide and your efforts to stifle the truth are too late, as too many people have awakened.

The narrative has changed. Increasingly more people are realizing that Palestine was not a land without a people, as they had been taught, nor had Palestinians agreed upon their land being taken.

There was a Nakba that has never ended and all parties complicit in it are being exposed, as the world awakens and shows its disdain for genocide and its supporters.

Marzieh Hashemi is a US-born, Iran-based journalist, commentator and documentary filmmaker.

August 12, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, War Crimes | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel’s army formed special intel unit to ‘justify killing’ of hundreds of Gaza journalists

The Cradle | August 12, 2025

Israeli investigative journalist Yuval Abraham said on 11 August that Israel’s military intelligence created a special unit aimed specifically at justifying attacks in Gaza, including the killing of journalists.

His comments came after an Israeli strike assassinated Al Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif and the outlet’s entire Gaza City crew.

“After 7 October, a team called the ‘Legitimization Cell’ was established in AMAN,” Abraham said, referring to the Israeli military intelligence directorate, which includes Unit 8200.

“Intelligence personnel searched for information to provide ‘legitimization’ for the army’s actions in Gaza, failed Hamas launches, use of human shields, exploitation of the civilian population. A primary mission … was to find Gazan journalists who could be portrayed in the media as Hamas operatives in disguise,” the journalist added.

Abraham confirmed that the goal was to “whitewash the killing of all other journalists” by creating doubt, adding that “entire days were invested in this matter, and they found nothing.”

“I think Israel killed Anas al-Sharif simply because he was a journalist. And for the same reason, international media is prevented from entering Gaza: So that the crimes are seen less,” he went on to say.

Sharif and five other journalists in Al Jazeera’s Gaza City crew were killed on 10 August in an Israeli airstrike on their media tent at Al-Shifa Hospital.

The assassinations brought the number of Palestinian journalists killed by Israel since the start of the war up to 238.

Sharif had been covering Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza since it started in October 2023. Israel accused him of being a Hamas operative responsible for rocket attacks.

In October last year, Israel published documents which it claimed were proof of Sharif’s affiliation with Hamas’s Qassam Brigades and its East Jabalia battalion.

The documents also listed Hossam Shabat, an Al Jazeera reporter accused of Hamas ties, who was killed in an Israeli strike in March.

Last month, Sharif warned that the Israeli army “has launched a campaign of threats and incitement against me because of my work as a journalist with Al Jazeera,” adding, “I, Anas al-Sharif, am a journalist with no political affiliations. My only mission is to report the truth from the ground – as it is, without bias. At a time when a deadly famine is ravaging Gaza, speaking the truth has become, in the eyes of the occupation, a threat.”

August 12, 2025 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

‘Heartbreaking’: UK paramedic recounts horrors inside Gaza hospitals

Press TV – August 10, 2025

A British paramedic has described “heartbreaking” scenes inside Gaza’s overwhelmed hospitals, where children arrive with life-threatening injuries and entire families are wiped out by Israel’s genocidal war.

Sam Sears, who spent three weeks in Gaza with the UK-based medical charity UK-Med, said the field hospitals were a “conveyor belt of carnage,” packed with patients suffering blast, shrapnel, and gunshot wounds.

Just a few days into his deployment, Sears was sent into a mass casualty incident where two children, aged nine and 11, were killed from blast injuries.

“It was particularly heartbreaking putting a child in a body bag, seeing their face for the last time, then moving them out [of] the way so we could treat more people,” said Sears.

The veteran medic — who has served in Ukraine, Rwanda, Turkey, and Sierra Leone — said Gaza was far worse than anything he had experienced before.

He treated children who had lost entire families, teenagers with life-changing wounds, and newborns suffering severe malnutrition.

He recalled one boy, about eight years old, who was “lifeless behind the eyes” after an explosion killed his whole family.

Sears returned to the UK on July 31 but said the images of Gaza’s children will haunt him forever.

“The people of Gaza don’t get to leave,” he said. “They have no escape from the hunger, the fear, the trauma. They need more than our sympathy — they need our action.”

He called for a sustained ceasefire, not a fragile truce, to end Israel’s hostilities permanently, protect civilians and health workers, and allow unrestricted delivery of food, fuel, and medical supplies into the besieged territory.

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

UN rapporteur calls on European football body to expel Israel from competitions

Press TV – August 10, 2025

The UN special rapporteur for human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories has called on the European football governing body (UEFA) to expel Israel from competitions over its war crimes and crimes against humanity in the besieged Gaza Strip.

Francesca Albanese’s call came following UEFA’s farewell to a former Palestinian player, Suleiman al-Obeid, whom it called the “Palestinian Pelé.”

“Let’s make sport apartheid and genocide free. One ball, one kick at a time,” Francesca Albanese said on her X account on Sunday.

“Time to expel its killers from competitions, @UEFA,” the UN rapporteur said.

Al-Obaid, a former Palestine national team player, was killed earlier this month in an Israeli strike targeting civilians waiting for humanitarian aid in southern Gaza.

Suleiman Ahmed Zaid al-Obaid, the former captain of the Palestinian national football team (Photo via social media)

He left behind his wife and five children.

Obaid is seen as one of the brightest stars in Palestinian football history. He played 24 official matches for the national team.

He also represented the national team during the 2012 Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Challenge Cup qualification and 2014 World Cup qualifying games.

Obeid’s death has sparked widespread outrage across the world, with people urging the international community and the football fraternity in particular to break their silence over the ongoing genocide.

Palestinian footballers have been directly targeted in Israel’s assault on Gaza.

In a statement released on July 29, 2025, the Palestinian Olympic Committee (POC) reported that in July alone, the Israeli regime killed 40 Palestinian athletes in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

More than 800 athletes have been killed in Gaza since the start of Israel’s genocidal war on Oct. 7, 2023, as the sports community continues to suffer under bombardment, famine, and the collapse of infrastructure.

Last month, the International Federation of Muaythai Associations (IFMA) announced an urgent policy change regarding Israeli representation at its events.

This came following the killing of a young Palestinian teenager athlete and peace ambassador, Ammar Hamayel, by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank.

Hamayel, 13 years old, was a Thai boxing champion, dreaming of representing Palestine on the world stage. But like many other Palestinian children, his dream was silenced by Israeli bullets.

The IFMA back then said in a statement that the decision represents a peaceful yet firm protest against actions that “endanger children and violate the core values of global sport”.

In May, Spain was reportedly spearheading a coordinated initiative aimed at persuading the European Union to eliminate Israel from all continental sports competitions over its genocidal war on Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip.

Calls to exclude Israel from international sports events have indeed increased recently due to its relentless aggression against Gaza.

August 10, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

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