‘Israel’ threatens to genocide Gaza if Hamas refuses disarmament
Al Mayadeen | February 16, 2026
Senior Israeli officials have threatened to renew the genocide in Gaza if Hamas does not disarm within a proposed 60-day period, although the Israeli occupation continues its attacks on the Strip daily, never adhering to the ceasefire agreement.
Cabinet Secretary Yossi Fuchs, a senior adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said that the occupation government intends to give Hamas two months to relinquish its arms. If it does not comply, the Israeli military would “complete the mission” in Gaza, he threatened.
The warnings came against the backdrop of the US-led “Board of Peace”, under which Washington dictated the 60-day deadline.
According to Fuchs, Hamas would be required to surrender all weapons, including small arms such as AK-47 rifles. He emphasized that the Israeli regime would evaluate the outcome at the end of the period.
Netanyahu also reiterated that disarmament must include small arms, claiming that such weapons were used during the October 7 operation. Israeli officials allege that tens of thousands of rifles remain in Gaza.
Reports in The New York Times suggested that a draft proposal discussed by US mediators could initially allow Hamas to retain some small arms while surrendering weapons deemed capable of striking “Israel”. The document is reportedly expected to be shared with the Palestinian Resistance in the coming weeks.
Devastation and aggression despite ceasefire
Despite the ceasefire agreement, officially effective as of October 11, 2025, the Israeli regime has maintained its occupation of vast areas across the Gaza Strip, and continues to attack the Palestinian territory’s infrastructure and civilians.
Since then, over 591 Palestinians, including women and children, have been killed, and more than 1,598 others have been injured.
Since October 7, 2023, more than 72,051 Palestinians have been killed, and over 171,706 have been injured, making the war on Gaza one of the most brutal in modern history. Many victims are still in dire need of treatment. However, hospitals across Gaza have been systematically targeted over the past three years, forcing operations to minimal function, sometimes to a halt.
Apple Just Bought A Sinister ‘Pre-Speech’ Tech Company Implicated In Genocide
By Nate Bear – ¡Do Not Panic! – February 15, 2026
Tech giant Apple has quietly paid nearly $2 billion for a ‘pre-speech’ tech company whose employees helped Israel commit genocide in Gaza.
And Apple has paid this money, the second-biggest deal in its history, for a company that doesn’t have a product, doesn’t have any revenues and whose website is a single page containing 15 words.
The company, Q.ai, is developing sensors which map the imperceptible movements of a human face to determine the words someone is thinking before they’re spoken.
They call it silent speech.
Or pre-speech.
And it’s exactly as sinister as you think it is.
Q.ai was founded by Aviad Maizels, Avi Barliya and Yonatan Wexler, all of whom honed their skills by testing technologies of apartheid on Palestinians. Maizels is a former commander of Unit 81, the IDF division which builds Israel’s offensive cyber weapons. Barliya, according to his LinkedIn, was an intelligence officer in the Israeli air force, while Wexler is a former Unit 8200 agent.
Apple’s genocide intake
In a blog post announcing the deal, Tom Hulme, an executive at Google Ventures, one of the company’s early investors, revealed that 30% of Q.ai’s more than 100 staff were called up to participate in the genocide of Gaza.
This admission means dozens of people implicated in genocidal acts who served under the political command of Yoav Gallant, an ICC indicted war criminal, are now Apple employees.
It should be a huge scandal. The biggest company in the US, one of the world’s most recognisable names, has folded into its staff dozens of people who served in a military during the period it committed genocide, according to all of the world’s most acclaimed rights experts.
But every single mainstream article which covered news of the deal, from Reuters to the FT, ignored this fact.
Mainstream coverage also ignored a number of other extremely cogent elements to the story, including the nature of the deal and the technology itself.
Apple has paid two billion dollars for something that barely appears to exist.
Q.ai’s website consists of just 15 words.
To find out exactly what the company does you have to look beyond the press releases to the patents Q.ai and its founders have filed.
And these patents read like plot lines from the bleakest dystopian futures.
Sensing silent speech
One filing details technology capable of “determining an emotional state of an individual based on facial skin micromovements.” The same filing says the technology could be used “to identify a user based on heart-rate and breathing-rate.” Another filing says Q.ai’s software “synthesises speech in response to words articulated silently by the test subject.”
Q.ai’s technology centres around silent speech.
This is the idea that before we vocalise words and move our mouths to emit sounds, our brain has already sent signals to muscles in our throat and face determining what we’re going to say. Q.ai claims to have invented infrared sensors that can pick up these pre-speech micro-movements.
One filing talks about a “sensing device configured to fit an ear of a user, with an optical sensing head which senses light reflected from the face and outputs a signal in response. Processing circuitry processes the signal to generate a speech output.”
Tech bloggers have suggested Apple has bought the company to enable non-verbal control of an iPhone and other devices via its airpod earphones or smart glasses. An annotated diagram included with the patent shows a person wearing glasses and an earpiece integrated with the technology.

Indeed Apple is no stranger to adopting the technologies of Israeli apartheid, and in fact the company is extremely familiar with Maizels himself.
In 2013, Apple bought Maizels’s first company, PrimeSense, a developer of 3D sensing technology. PrimeSense technology went on to become the foundation for Apple’s Face ID system on its newer iPhone and iPad models.
Nonetheless, two billion dollars for a non-existent technology and a three-year old company, is unprecedented. What isn’t unprecedented, however, is a US tech giant overpaying for an Israeli company.
Overpriced Israeli tech
Last year, Google bought Israeli cybersecurity Wiz for $32 billion, which, at 64 times Wiz’s annual sales, was widely seen as an inflated price and far in excess of the sales-to-valuation ratio for similar companies.
At this price, however, Israel received a huge $5 billion tax windfall. At the time Zionists crowed it would help the country buy more warplanes and missiles to commit genocide.
The deal for Q.ai, while a lot smaller, will still generate significant tax income for Israel’s struggling economy.
And Israel is critical to Apple.
The company has a large R&D campus in the country, its second-biggest outside the US, into which large numbers of Unit 8200 and Unit 81 graduates are funnelled. Apple CEO Tim Cook is a devoted Zionist, has visited Israel on numerous occasions, and in 2018 received an award from Zionist lobby group the ADL for his efforts to censor anti-Israel speech. Apple has made good on that promise over the last two years, sacking staff for expressing pro-Palestine, anti-genocide views. Cook has never spoken about Gaza.
The price for a ghost company with a few patents, then, looks as much about politics as it does about technology.
That’s not to say Q.ai’s technology won’t be commercialised for consumer applications. It probably will be. And if the tech is realised, the implications for privacy and data collection are frightening.
As are the security state and military applications.
A pre-crime future
A few days after the Q.ai deal, the head of neurotechnology at Israel’s directorate of defense research and development, the country’s equivalent to the US’s DARPA programme, gave her first-ever interview to Israeli media. In the interview she referenced Q.ai and said the Israeli military is working on similar technology. The US has a DARPA project known as Silent Talk which is also working to develop pre-speech sensing and non-verbal control technologies.
Once the technology is developed, and pre-speech established as a legitimate biological human function, how far behind will pre-crime be?
Given the frenzied efforts we’ve seen to shut down and criminalise criticism of Israel under the guise of antisemitism, one can easily imagine a future of pre-speech sensing technology being rolled out to identify would-be critics of Israel. Or the US. Or Europe. Or imperialism in general.
You can imagine it now. “Based on our silent speech detector we have determined you were going to say something hateful or antisemitic or un-American and are therefore under arrest.”
The most dystopian technologies continue to flow out of Israel. And they continue to flow because Israel is empowered by the US and Europe to maintain a system of apartheid built upon invasive and authoritarian technologies of control.
It is therefore no surprise that the creators of Q.ai are veterans of Israel’s genocidal military security state, or that the largest company in the US sees these technologies as essential to its AI future.
And while this story may be no surprise, we should never get used to, and must resist, technologies of apartheid and genocide, and their creators, becoming embedded in our devices, our economies and our lives.
Israel’s new West Bank registration process declares Palestinian land ‘state property’
The Cradle | February 16, 2026
The Israeli government has approved a land registration process, which will allow Israel to claim territory in the occupied West Bank as “state property” if Palestinians cannot prove ownership, a move that has been described as “de facto annexation.”
Israel’s Broadcasting Corporation (KAN) reported that the proposal was submitted by Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, Justice Minister Yariv Levin, and Defense Minister Israel Katz.
“We are continuing the revolution of settlement and strengthening our hold across all parts of our land,” Smotrich said.
Katz called the move a vital security measure and an “appropriate response to illegal land registration processes promoted by the Palestinian Authority.”
Israel’s Foreign Ministry said the registration process will allow for “transparency” and will help resolve land disputes.
The bar for proving Palestinian land ownership is extremely high due to Israel’s restrictive legal system.
Palestinian claims of ownership are rarely granted. Many families rely on decades-old Ottoman documents, or have never had their land properly registered.
Similarly, Israel rarely grants building permits to Palestinians, allowing troops to demolish homes across the occupied West Bank. According to Israel’s Channel 14, Smotrich has established a paramilitary unit whose job is the destruction of Palestinian property.
The registration measures approved on Sunday were frozen in 1968.
Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas called the approval of the land registration process “de facto annexation.”
“The decision to classify West Bank land as state land under Israeli authority constitutes a direct threat to security and stability. The measure amounts to de facto annexation of occupied Palestinian territory and signals the beginning of the implementation of annexation plans aimed at entrenching the occupation through illegal settlement expansion,” the PA presidency said in a statement on Sunday.
Since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government came to power, it has been rapidly advancing plans to illegally annex the West Bank – occupied by Israel in 1967.
Israel’s security cabinet approved new measures on 8 February aimed at drastically overhauling the occupied West Bank’s legal and civil framework, allowing Tel Aviv to further expand illegal settlements and strengthen its grip on the territory.
Last year, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signed off on reviving the controversial E1 settlement project. The project aims to link Maale Adumim to occupied East Jerusalem, which is viewed as integral to a future Palestinian state.
Israel’s cabinet also voted in 2025 to take full responsibility for land registration in Area C of the occupied West Bank – an area comprising around 60 percent of the territory and home to the vast majority of Israeli settlements. That move was also described as a de facto annexation.
Two children killed in Palestinian Authority ambush in West Bank; Hamas slams attack as ‘black mark’
Press TV – February 16, 2026
Two children have been killed after Palestinian Authority (PA) forces opened fire on a vehicle carrying their father, a resistance fighter, in the town of Tamoun in the northeastern part of the occupied West Bank.
The three-year-old daughter of Samer Samara succumbed to her wounds on Sunday after being shot by the forces, Palestinian media outlets reported.
Her 16-year-old brother, Ali, was killed after being shot in the head. Their father was wounded and later abducted by PA forces.
According to the reports, the forces shot Samara in the legs before abducting him.
Local reports said units from the PA’s so-called Preventive Security Service and a special unit set up the ambush and fired heavy gunfire at the car during an operation to abduct Samara, who is wanted by Israeli occupation forces.
Following the killings, the youths of the town of Tamoun launched a demonstration and a general strike. Reports said the PA sent reinforcements to suppress the demonstration.
The Gaza Strip’s Hamas resistance movement condemned the atrocities, holding the Authority fully responsible for the consequences of targeting resistance fighters and killing children.
In a statement, the group described what happened as a “serious crime” and a “black mark in the record of the security services that continue to overpower our people instead of protecting them.”
The movement warned that the policy could damage Palestinian internal cohesion and demanded accountability.
It called for “holding all those involved accountable, stopping the pursuit of wanted Palestinians, and releasing political detainees.”
The Committee of Families of Political Prisoners also condemned the shooting, describing it as the result of a “systematic policy targeting resistance fighters.”
It said the incident represented a “dangerous deviation” that placed security services in confrontation with the population rather than protecting them.
Human rights organizations say such incidents risk deepening internal tensions at a time when Palestinians in the West Bank also face ongoing Israeli military raids and settler violence, contributing to what observers describe as a climate of compounded insecurity for civilians.
Israeli army closes dozens of cases involving killing of Palestinians inside torture camps
The Cradle | February 13, 2026
The Israeli military has closed dozens of war-crimes investigations into its soldiers arising from the first two years of its genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, the Jerusalem Post reported on 8 February.
Publication of the details of the case closures was delayed by fears that doing so would ease the way for the International Criminal Court (ICC) to pursue war crimes charges against the soldiers.
Many of the closed cases relate to the deaths of as many as 98 Palestinian detainees from Gaza held in military detention facilities.
Torture and rape are common in Israeli detention centers, including Sde Teiman, where a 2024 leaked video showed the gang rape of a Palestinian detainee.
The arrest of the soldiers who carried out the rape was widely condemned by Israeli politicians and media commentators, who argued that rape was justified.
According to the Jerusalem Post, cases involving the deaths of detainees in custody constitute a “significant number” of about 100 criminal probes that the military’s legal division has opened into soldiers’ conduct.
However, the 100 cases where a probe has been opened make up just a “small proportion” of the roughly 3,000 cases of alleged war crimes for which a preliminary review took place.
Additional indictments may be filed in the Sdei Teiman cases, the Jerusalem Post added.
That Israel has closed many cases with no prosecutions undermines its argument that the ICC has no jurisdiction to prosecute its soldiers and politicians for war crimes.
Israel claims that it has a “robust, independent, and functioning” legal system capable of investigating any alleged wrongdoing. Therefore, according to the Complementary Principle, the ICC has no jurisdiction over its actions, Israel argues.
The Complementary Principle asserts that the ICC should complement national criminal systems, not replace them.
In November 2024, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant on war crimes charges, including using starvation as a weapon of war.
Israel and the US responded by issuing threats and imposing unilateral economic sanctions on the court’s judges.
Israel is also facing charges at a separate international court, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), that it is in breach of the Genocide Convention.
In March 2024, the ICJ issued a preliminary ruling requiring that Israel must take provisional measures to stop the possibility of perpetrating a genocide, including halting the military assault it was carrying out on the city of Rafah, allowing humanitarian aid to enter unhindered, and permitting a fact-finding team to enter the strip.
In December 2023, South Africa filed a case at the ICJ alleging Israel is carrying out a genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel’s response to the South Africa case, due on March 12, is still being prepared by its legal team. It will reportedly include a 1,000-page legal brief, along with 4,000 or more pages of exhibits.
The South African case covers Israel’s actions in Gaza between 2023 and 2024. Pretoria has not yet submitted a detailed attack on the Israeli military’s conduct in 2025. It is expected to do so this spring or summer.
Israel will likely be required to respond by the spring of 2027.
“There are concerns among Israeli lawyers about the genocide charges, not only due to exaggerated public statements made by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, but also resulting from statements made near the start of the war by more authoritative defense figures,” the Jerusalem Post reports.
Prime Minister Netanyahu, Defense Minister Gallant, Smotrich, Ben Gvir, and many other Israeli politicians have made multiple public statements urging the army to commit genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
According to the UN, genocide means any of the following acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group:
Killing members of the group; Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Jeffrey Epstein’s sinister shadow over West Asia
By Kit Klarenberg | Al Mayadeen | February 13, 2026
In late January, the US Department of Justice dumped millions of documents detailing the criminal activities of US oligarch and serial paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, including his vast rolodex of paedophilic celebrities, financiers, politicians and public figures. The tranche is so vast, independent journalists and researchers have barely scratched the surface yet. But preliminary investigations amply demonstrate Epstein was centrally enmeshed with multiple foreign spy agencies. First and foremost, the Zionist entity’s notorious Mossad. The horrors wrought on West Asia as a result are incalculable.
A recurrent phenomenon in the newly-released documents, emails and text messages is Epstein and his grand global nexus seeking to profit from Western-inflicted misery the world over. On March 18th 2014, in the Maidan coup’s immediate, violent aftermath, he emailed Ariane de Rothschild, a French banker and CEO of the Edmond de Rothschild Group since March 2023, due to her marrying into the famous, powerful Jewish family. Epstein was exhilarated. “Ukraine upheaval should provide many opportunites [sic],” he wrote.
De Rothschild was drained after a “very long day sitting on bank board,” but delighted to hear from her close friend. “Miss our talks and hope you’re well,” she gushed. “Will be at home tomorrow night, will you be free? And let’s discuss Ukraine.” The “opportunities” Epstein perceived in the shattered post-coup country, as it plunged into Western-sponsored civil war, ranged from an untapped reservoir of young girls and vulnerable women to pimp out to high-ranking ‘clients’, to pillaging the country’s vast resources.
In July 2011, Epstein emailed associate Greg Brown, declaring “the Libyans now are legit, but need real help,” adding “they must be careful there will be many claims on that money.” He was referring to Tripoli’s frozen overseas assets, seized by Western powers in March that year, after the country plunged into insurrectionary violence. Epstein fired off this missive right when NATO’s bombing of Libya graduated from striking government forces to actively supporting rebel advances, as foreign fighters closed in on the country’s capital.
Brown excitedly responded, “there are already $80 billion in frozen funds/assets internationally,” and perhaps “three to four times this number in sovereign, stolen and misappropriated assets.” He was working with MI6 and Mossad veterans to “identify stolen assets and get them recovered.” If they could “identify/recover 5% to 10% of these monies and receive 10% to 25% as compensation,” the Anglo-Israeli private spying network could reap “billions of dollars”.
However, this paled in comparison to gains to be had once the Western-sponsored National Transitional Council unseated Libya’s longtime leader Muammar Gaddafi. “The real carrot is if we can become their go-to guys because they plan to spend at least $100 billion next year to rebuild their country and jumpstart the economy,” Brown salivated. He reminded Epstein the country was “rich”, with a small population but “the ninth largest crude oil & natural gas reserves on the planet.” Gaddafi was murdered by rebel forces that October.
‘Secret Weapon’
Numerous declassified materials amply indicate Epstein was a journeyman intelligence asset, with connections to several ostensibly separate spying agencies. Tellingly, some heavily redacted communications contain references to Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities (SCIF). These buildings are used by US intelligence and government agencies to exchange top secret information, and access requires the highest security clearance. In a secret January 2018 discussion with political strategist Steve Bannon, Epstein bragged that his sprawling New York mansion was “similar to a SCIF.”
Bannon was one of many right-wing figures Epstein courted. Another was Peter Thiel, the billionaire founder of shadowy data harvester Palantir. In June 2014, Epstein emailed to say he increasingly lent credence to Thiel’s “‘intentionality’ argument” – the proposal that the “mess” unfolding across the Arab and Muslim world over recent years was what then-US President Barack Obama “really wanted”. Epstein remarked, “we would have to admit a strategy brilliantly executed.” Thiel fired back:
“The ‘intentionality’ argument would center on making sure the US gets less involved with the rest of the world (I think that’s the ‘plan’). The more of a mess, with just lots of bad guys on different sides, the less we will do.”
Thiel was well-placed to know this was the Obama administration’s strategy. Birthed with seed funding from In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture capital arm, Palantir made vast sums serving as the War On Terror’s “Secret Weapon”. It was used to hunt “bad guys” at war with the US, and “Israel” – the key beneficiary of West Asia being set on fire during this period. Not coincidentally, the Zionist entity has for years employed a variety of Palantir products. Thiel commented in July 2024, the Gaza Holocaust well-underway:
“My bias is to defer to Israel.”
Accordingly, Epstein was clearly in the employ of both US and Israeli intelligence. In a February 2016 email exchange with Thiel, he declared, “as you probably know I represent the Rothschilds.” The banking dynasty was instrumental in “Israel’s” creation, funding construction of colonial settlements in Palestine from the late 1800s onwards. Epstein’s own ties to the Zionist entity were deep and coherent. From September 2010 to March 2019, he formally met with prominent Israeli politician and military veteran Ehud Barak over 60 times.
Barak was a repeat visitor to Epstein’s private island, Little St James. On at least one occasion, in January 2014, Barak visited with his wife, and specifically left his security detail behind. In June that year, Epstein arranged for Barak to meet Thiel. The Israeli politician was such a frequent guest at Epstein’s New York apartment on 301 East 66th Street, his staff referred to the lodgings internally as “301.”
‘Terrorism Financing’
In January, Barak sought to distance himself from Epstein, claiming he “deeply regret[s] having any association with him.” However, their bond was intimate, warm, and long-running. Epstein’s 2008 conviction for sex offences didn’t dim their connection, and come November 2018, Barak referred to Epstein as a “great friend” in discussions with Jabor Yousef Jassim Al Thani, a businessman and member of the Qatari royal family. An FBI investigation was opened into Epstein on June 12th 2018.
That same day, Epstein lodged an order for six 55 gallon drums of sulfuric acid, “with fuel and insurance charge for transport,” with now-defunct, Florida-based Gemini Seawater Systems. It would be unsurprising if he’d been tipped off about the Bureau probe. Someone within the FBI, or a foreign spying agency keeping a close eye on the agency, could’ve alerted him. Just as Epstein maintained ties between different foreign services, he enjoyed relations with high-ranking state figures the world over.
Jabor Yousef Jassim Al Thani was but one Gulf royal who the paedophile financier counted as a close confidante. Epstein was evidently considered a go-to figure when Qatar was seeking to communicate with “Israel”. In February 2010, Al Thani wrote to Epstein that the “Israeli operation… doesn’t help anyone.” He referred to the brazen assassination of Palestinian Resistance fighter Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai the previous month by Mossad. A day earlier, local authorities formally blamed Mossad for the killing, triggering a media firestorm.
In July 2017, following the UAE and Saudi Arabia leading Arab states in severing diplomatic relations with Qatar, and imposing a US-supported land, air and sea blockade on the monarchy in advance of a planned land invasion, Epstein wrote to Al Thani, offering him advice on how Dubai could rescue herself. “I think Qatar should stop kicking and arguing,” and make nice with the Zionist entity, he proposed. “Let the heat come down a bit.”
In reference to the monarchy’s support for Hamas, he suggested “Qatar needs to come out against terrorism,” as “the smell of terrorism financing will be around for years.” Epstein went on to reference Indian Prime Minister Modi’s recent international jaunt, where he’d met Trump in June, before becoming the first-ever Indian prime minister to visit the Zionist entity. Modi also snubbed the Palestinian Authority, eliciting condemnation from PA officials. Epstein reported:
“Modi took advice and danced and sang in Israel for the benefit of the US president [Donald Trump]. They had met a few weeks ago. IT WORKED!”
Troublingly, Epstein’s filial alliance with Ehud Barak overlapped with Barak serving as Tel Aviv’s security minister, raising the obvious question of whether Epstein in any way directly influenced Israeli policy during this time, or acted as an advocate and broker for the Zionist entity with other countries in West Asia and beyond. Barak solicited Epstein’s input with his public writing, including a draft of his book My Country, My Life: Fighting for Israel, Searching for Peace, which was released in May 2018.
That month, Barak’s wife emailed Epstein while visiting New York demanding an “urgent short meeting” between Epstein and her husband. One day later, Donald Trump withdrew from the Iranian nuclear agreement, in favour of a “maximum pressure” campaign. In July 2018, Barak’s private surveillance firm Toka broke cover publicly for the first time, announcing it had raised $12.5 million in seed funding from investors including venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.
Andreessen Horowitz invested in several ventures also backed by Jeffrey Epstein, including CoinBase. It is unknown whether Epstein invested in Toka, although his interest in such a company would be clear. The firm is stacked with former Israeli cyber spies, and has patented technology capable of locating security cameras and webcams, hacking into them, then altering their live feeds without trace. Such a resource removes any need for real-life individuals to oversee “honey trap” operations, and targets to take the bait.
French FM under fire over ‘false’ claims about UN rapporteur
RT | February 13, 2026
A lawyers association has filed a legal complaint against French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot over his accusations against UN Palestinian rights rapporteur Francesca Albanese regarding alleged remarks she made about Israel.
Barrot this week accused Albanese of labeling Israel a “common enemy of humanity” and called for her removal from the UN Human Rights Council. Albanese has rejected the allegations as “shameful and defamatory,” insisting that in her remarks made recently in Doha she was referring to “the system” enabling genocide in Palestine and not to the Israeli people or state.
On Thursday, the Association of Lawyers for the Respect of International Law (JURDI) filed a legal complaint against Barrot, saying that his statements represent “the dissemination of false information,” undermine the independence of UN mechanisms, and could constitute a criminal offence under French law.
Barrot’s calls for Albanese to step down were later echoed by German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul and Czech Foreign Minister Petr Macinka.
Amnesty International Secretary General Agnes Callamard defended Albanese’s “vital work,” cautioning against political pressure on independent UN experts.
The UN human rights office has also voiced concern. Spokesperson Marta Hurtado warned that judicial officials and rapporteurs are increasingly subjected to personal attacks and misinformation that distract from investigating serious human rights violations.
Albanese has previously labeled Israel’s war in Gaza a “genocide,” and called for a full arms embargo and suspension of trade agreements with the country. She has been sanctioned by the US and has faced mounting accusations of bias and anti-Semitism, which she denies.
Her mandate runs until 2028, and she is due to brief the Geneva-based council next month. While there is no precedent for removing a special rapporteur mid-term, some diplomats cited by Reuters say a motion could theoretically be proposed, though strong support for Palestinian rights within the body makes it unlikely to succeed.
Israel Wants ISIS-Linked Militias To Control Rafah Crossing — The New Order in Gaza
By Robert Inlakesh | The Palestine Chronicle | February 13, 2026
As the Gaza ceasefire moves through its early stages, the partial reopening of the Rafah Crossing has triggered a struggle over who will control Gaza’s border administration. After rejecting the deployment of Palestinian Authority security forces, Israel has instead backed armed proxy groups — some linked to extremist Salafist networks — assigning them security roles in the border area, where reports of abuse have already begun to surface.
Key Takeaways
- Israel rejected Palestinian Authority forces at Rafah and instead supported alternative armed militias.
- Several Israeli-backed militias reportedly emerged from criminal networks and extremist factions inside Gaza.
- Members of these groups have been deployed near the Rafah Crossing, where abuse allegations have been reported.
- International actors monitoring the crossing are now considering escorts for civilians due to safety concerns.
- The developments raise questions about the composition of future Gaza security structures under international plans.
Control of Rafah Crossing
After rejecting the notion of allowing professionally trained Palestinian Authority security forces to patrol the Rafah Crossing, between Egypt and Gaza, Israel is now using its ISIS-linked death squads to patrol the border area. As expected, rights abuses are already being reported.
The notion that Israel was backing ISIS-linked militias was once dubbed a fringe conspiracy theory. Today, Israel is not only overtly backing ISIS and Al-Qaeda linked militants, but it directly created and controls five such militant organizations.
Amid daily Israeli violations of the agreement, the Gaza ceasefire slowly progresses between its first two loosely defined phases; one such progression has been the partial opening of the Rafah Crossing. Under this opening, the border zone – that is still occupied by the Israeli military – has been the site of a limited passing of civilians in and out of the Gaza Strip.
There have therefore been discussions about who precisely will be deployed on the Palestinian side of the crossing to perform checks on those passing through the crossing. Initially, the Palestinian Authority (PA) – based in Ramallah – attempted to propose that its well-trained security forces handle this task and that they even deploy to Gaza in order to lead through a transitional phase.
Tel Aviv has flatly rejected any role being played in Gaza by the Palestinian Authority, fearing that this could strengthen the case for Palestinian statehood. Instead, the Israelis have poured millions into backing an alternative “security force”.
Formation of Proxy Militias
Israel’s five proxy militias are composed of criminals who escaped from Gaza’s jails after Israel bombed the entrances in late 2023, in addition to opportunist thugs and longtime members of hardline Salafist movements that were long repressed by the Hamas-led authority.
Starting with the militia, led by the now deceased Yasser Abu Shabab, calling itself the “Popular Forces” – despite being perhaps the most unpopular Palestinian group to have ever existed – did not begin as the anti-Hamas militant group they present themselves as today.
They were first empowered by the Israelis after they invaded and occupied the Rafah Crossing area, working under Tel Aviv’s order to seize humanitarian aid trucks and hoard the goods they stole from the people of Gaza. Then, Abu Shabab’s men, at a time when the people of Gaza were being starved, drip-fed these donated goods onto the black market to be sold at exorbitant prices.
Only toward the end of 2024 did the Israelis begin giving Abu Shabab’s aid looters a facelift and using their contact with Western mainstream media to whitewash the crimes of these groups, selling them instead as an organic force fighting against Hamas. Corporate media outlets collaborated with the Israelis in presenting these gangsters as representing the opinions of the silent majority of Gazans.
In reality, these groups were infamous among Palestinians who saw them for what they truly were. These militias were collaborating with the Israeli military and intelligence to steal aid, helping to create societal strains amidst a coordinated and deliberate campaign of mass starvation.
These militants are not only extremist terrorists, whom Hamas had long cracked down upon, some belonging to groups that had carried out suicide bombings and other deadly attacks on Palestinians civilians, they are also convicted drug traffickers, murderers, and some stand accused of sexual violence.
In other words, Israel sought out the most despicable and criminal elements of Gaza’s population, pouring millions of dollars and weapons into terrorist militias. Many of them subscribe to a hardline Salafist doctrine, which justifies their criminal actions by allowing them to make Takfir (to declare they are non-Muslim) against the majority of Gaza’s population and even accuse them of Shirk (idol worship).
For example, leading figures within the Israeli-backed militias have attacked Hamas for siding with Iran, as the Salafists deem the Islamic Republic to be non-Muslim due to its Shia faith.
Deployment and Reported Abuses
Last Monday, the head of the ISIS-linked “Popular Forces” Ghassan Duhine announced through the Hebrew media that his Israeli-backed forces would be playing “an important security role regarding entry and exit through the Rafah crossing”.
Days later, reports that these death squads had been deployed at Israeli-controlled checkpoints emerged, alongside accounts of abuse. One woman, whose identity was concealed, informed the BBC that the collaborator militants told her that they could help her travel to Europe if she collaborated with them.
The woman’s hands were then bound, as the ISIS-linked militants insulted and physically assaulted her. In addition to this, she testified to having been tripsearched alongside three other women.
As a result of such reports, the European Union, which has its own monitors who are active at the Rafah Crossing, later stated it would consider sending its own people to escort Palestinians to the Israeli checkpoint in order to avoid such cases in the future.
Other reports emerged, some of which were also covered by the BBC, which suggested that the personal items of Palestinian travelers were confiscated by the EU’s officials. A woman named Rabia remarked that “They took perfumes, accessories, make-up, cigarettes, headphones – everything, they didn’t leave anything with us”.
International Oversight
All of this is being carried out under the watchful eye of the International Community, as are the daily Israeli ceasefire violations that have led to the mass murder of nearly 600 Palestinians in Gaza since October 10, 2025, when the ceasefire began. The Civil Military Coordination Center (CMCC), led by the US and Israeli militaries, is made up of over 20 different countries, which watch on as Israel demolishes civilian homes, funnels millions into ISIS-linked militias, and murders civilians.
There are also now questions about the future planned “Palestinian security forces” that are vaguely mentioned in the US’s plans for Gaza, with some speculating that the five Israeli-backed groups will make up a significant portion of that planned force.
In other words, the international community is permitting ISIS-linked militants with a diverse array of criminal convictions – who have a history of committing torture, executions, armed robbery, and raids on hospitals, all under Israel’s guidance – to play “security roles” in Gaza, all so that Palestinians are robbed of any sign of future statehood.
– Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. He focuses on the Middle East, specializing in Palestine. He contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle.
UK High Court rules Palestine Action ban unlawful
Al Mayadeen | February 13, 2026
The UK High Court ruled on Friday that the government’s proscription of Palestine Action under the Terrorism Act was unlawful.
On Friday, three judges led by Dame Victoria Sharp, president of the King’s Bench Division, concluded that the decision to ban the group was unlawful. However, the ban will remain temporarily in place to allow the government time to appeal.
From July 5 last year, membership of or public support for Palestine Action became a criminal offence punishable by up to 14 years in prison. The group had been placed on the list of proscribed organisations, categorizing it alongside internationally recognized armed groups.
The court upheld the challenge on two of four grounds. Judges found that the proscription represented “a very significant interference” with the rights to freedom of speech, peaceful assembly, and association. They also ruled that Yvette Cooper’s decision was inconsistent with her own stated policy.
Sharp described Palestine Action as an organisation “that promotes its political cause through criminality and encouragement of criminality”, but continued, “The court considered that the proscription of Palestine Action was disproportionate. A very small number of Palestine Action’s activities amounted to acts of terrorism within the definition of section 1 of the 2000 Act.”
“For these, and for Palestine Action’s other criminal activities, the general criminal law remains available. The nature and scale of Palestine Action’s activities falling within the definition of terrorism had not yet reached the level, scale, and persistence to warrant proscription,” Sharp added.
Legal and political repercussions
The judgment marks the first time an organisation banned under the Terrorism Act has successfully challenged its proscription in court.
According to the campaign group Defend Our Juries, more than 2,700 people have been arrested since the ban took effect, most under section 13 of the Terrorism Act. More than 500 individuals, including clergy, pensioners, and military veterans, have been charged.
If the proscription order is ultimately quashed, the charges could be dropped. For now, those charged remain in legal uncertainty while the ban stays in force pending appeal.
Government to appeal decision
Current home secretary Shabana Mahmood said she would challenge the ruling.
Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori described the decision as a “monumental victory” and said the ban was based on property damage rather than violence against individuals.
“We were banned because Palestine Action’s disruption of Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer, Elbit Systems, cost the corporation millions of pounds in profits and to lose out on multibillion-pound contracts.
“We’ve used the same tactics as direct action organisations throughout history, including anti-war groups Keir Starmer defended in court, and the government acknowledged in these legal proceedings that this ban was based on property damage, not violence against people.
“Banning Palestine Action was always about appeasing pro-Israel lobby groups and weapons manufacturers, and nothing to do with terrorism … Today’s landmark ruling is a victory for freedom for all, and I urge the government to respect the court’s decision and bring this injustice to an end without further delay.”
The case is likely to intensify debate in the United Kingdom over the balance between national security powers and civil liberties.
Villains of Judea: Haim Saban
Left, Right, it doesn’t matter. Only Israel matters to Haim Saban.
José Niño Unfiltered | February 11, 2026
Most mega-donors buy influence quietly. Jewish oligarch Haim Saban prefers to explain exactly how it works.
The question came from the stage at the 10th annual Israeli-American Council National Summit, held in Hollywood, Florida in January 2026. Shawn Evenhaim, the IAC’s board chairman emeritus, turned to the two most powerful Jewish, pro-Israel megadonors in American politics and asked them, simply, how they gain influence over politicians.
Miriam Adelson declined to answer, saying she wanted to “be truthful” but “there are so many things I don’t want to talk about.”
Haim Saban had no such reluctance.
“It’s a system that we did not create,” he said. “It’s a legal system and we just play within the system. Those who give more have more access and those who give less have less access. It’s simple math. Trust me.”
Moments earlier, when asked whether Jewish community influence in the United States was weakening, Saban dismissed the anxiety with characteristic confidence. “I can tell you,” he told the 3,500 assembled Israeli-Americans, “that my influence is not weakening.”
To understand why Saban could say that with a shrug, you must go back to where he started.
Haim Saban was born on October 15, 1944, in Alexandria, Egypt. In 1956, amid anti-Jewish hostility following the Suez Crisis, the Saban family fled Egypt and immigrated to Israel, settling in a rough Tel Aviv neighborhood where they shared a communal bathroom, as Saban frequently recounts, “with a hooker and her pimp.” A school principal told the young Saban he was “not cut out for academic studies.” He served in the Israel Defense Forces during both the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War.
In 1966, he became bassist for the Israeli rock band The Lions of Judah despite not knowing how to play bass, conditioning his work booking their gigs on becoming their musician. The band signed with Polydor and appeared on the BBC, but money ran dry. By the early 1970s, Saban had relocated to France, where he and partner Shuki Levy built a niche creating theme music for American TV shows broadcast overseas, providing the music free while retaining the rights.
The business generated 15 gold and platinum records and $10 million annually within seven years. But the empire rested on a fault line. A 1998 Hollywood Reporter investigation revealed that Saban had not actually composed all 3,700 works credited to his name. Ten composers threatened legal action, and Saban quietly settled out of court.
Saban moved to Los Angeles in 1983 and founded Saban Entertainment in 1988. His breakthrough came after eight years of failed pitches when Fox agreed to buy his Americanized adaptation of a Japanese children’s show. The result was Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, which debuted in 1993 and generated over $6 billion in toy sales.
The franchise’s success came with costs. In 1998, the Screen Actors Guild declared Saban Entertainment “unfair to performers” and accused the company of “economic exploitation of children,” ordering members not to work for his shows. Power Rangers was produced non-union, with child actors denied residuals and subjected to hazardous conditions. In 2001, Fox Family Worldwide sold to The Walt Disney Company for $5.3 billion.
In 2003, Saban led a consortium acquiring a controlling stake in ProSiebenSat.1 Media, Germany’s largest commercial television company. He reportedly received the call confirming the deal while standing in the Dachau crematorium with his son. The consortium sold its stake in 2007 for roughly three times what they paid.
In 2006, Saban Capital Group led a consortium acquiring Univision Communications, the largest Spanish-language broadcaster in the United States, for approximately $13.7 billion. It sold in 2020 for around $800 million for a 64% stake, making the investment one of the most expensive failures in media history.
What Saban lost in money, he appeared to gain when it came to consolidating pro-Zionist narratives In Spanish-speaking media. Critics at Al Jazeera noted that Univision’s 2011 documentary “La Amenaza Iraní” (The Iranian Threat), examining Iran’s alleged ties to Latin American governments, “regurgitate[d] all the pro-war right’s by now familiar talking points about nefarious Islamists acting in concert with leftist Bolivarians to bring Terror to the US’ doorstep.” It was screened for English-speaking audiences at the Hudson Institute, a neoconservative Washington think tank that routinely pushes a hardline Zionist agenda. The SourceWatch project characterized Univision’s channels as having “been used to broadcast pro-Israeli propaganda” under Saban’s ownership.
The Univision-Clinton entanglement deepened the scrutiny. A 2014 early childhood initiative between Univision and the Clinton Foundation featured Hillary Clinton’s face in five of seven promotional slides on Univision’s website. When the network later reported on allegations that foundation donations had influenced Clinton as Secretary of State, Univision did not disclose its own foundation partnership.
Across both business and politics, Saban operated under a single guiding principle: advancing what he believed to be in Israel’s best interests. “I’m a one-issue guy,” he said publicly, “and my issue is Israel.”
His three-pronged strategy, outlined at his own Saban Forum, is to fund political campaigns, bankroll think tanks, and control media. He gave the Democratic National Committee a single gift of $7 million in 2002, at the time the largest donation in DNC history. His total giving to Clinton causes exceeded $27 million, including a $13 million founding grant to establish the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings, then the largest donation in Brookings history. He recruited Martin Indyk, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel and former AIPAC deputy research director, to run it.
He funds the Saban National Political Leadership Training Seminar through AIPAC, providing up to 300 college students with pro-Israel advocacy training annually. He was an early donor to the IAC beginning in 2008, briefly partnered with Sheldon Adelson on Campus Maccabees, an anti-BDS initiative, from 2013 to 2015, then quietly pulled out to preserve his standing with Clinton.
Notably, Saban played a behind-the-scenes role in the Abraham Accords, advising UAE Ambassador Yousef Al Otaiba to publish an op-ed warning against Israeli annexation of the West Bank, helping him place and translate it into Hebrew, and privately urging UAE Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed to normalize relations with Israel. Jared Kushner credited that op-ed as a catalyst for the normalization talks.
As mentioned before, Saban is a flexible strategist when it comes to dealing with Left and the Right. He has forged close ties with Ariel Sharon, who moved him in a more hawkish direction on security matters. “History proved that Sharon was right and I was wrong,” Saban has said. “In matters relating to security, that moved me to the right. Very far to the right.”
When Saban decided in 2014 that Obama might strike a bad deal with Iran, he did not mince words at the Israeli American Council. “I would bomb the living daylights out of these sons of bitches.” Despite being a reliable donor to the Democratic Party, Saban has shown a willingness to attack people in the party who deviate from the Zionist consensus. He labeled DNC chair candidate Keith Ellison “clearly an anti-Semite.” When Joe Biden conditioned weapons shipments to Israel in 2024, Saban sent an angry email calling it a “bad,,,bad,,,bad,,,decision” and arguing there were “more Jewish voters, who care about Israel, than Muslim voters that care about Hamas.”
Saban’s fierce advocacy for Israel is inseparable from his identity. Haim Saban currently holds dual Israeli-American citizenship. The Jerusalem Post ranked him number one on its list of the 50 Most Influential Jews in 2016. Israeli TV host Dana Weiss once called him “our rich uncle.”
In Saban’s political universe, the traditional left-right spectrum is little more than a convenient vehicle—to be boarded or abandoned depending on which direction best serves the project of Israeli dominance in the Middle East.
Germany demands UN Rapporteur Albanese resign, joining France

Al Mayadeen | February 12, 2026
Germany has called for the resignation of UN Special Rapporteur for the Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese, following remarks she made about the Israeli occupation regime during a forum organized by the Al Jazeera network in Doha.
German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said on Thursday that Albanese was no longer fit to continue in her mandate, citing what he described as repeated inappropriate statements.
“I respect the UN system of independent rapporteurs. However, Ms Albanese has made numerous inappropriate remarks in the past. I condemn her recent statements about Israel. She is untenable in her position,” Wadephul wrote on X.
Germany calls for Albanese’s resignation one day after France issued a similar demand, escalating diplomatic pressure on the UN official.
France calls for Albanese’s resignation
On Wednesday, France formally urged Albanese to step down over the same remarks.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told lawmakers: “France unreservedly condemns the outrageous and reprehensible remarks made by Ms Francesca Albanese, which are directed not at the Israeli government, whose policies may be criticised, but at Israel as a people and as a nation, which is absolutely unacceptable,” arguing that the comments went beyond criticism of Israeli government policies and instead targeted “Israel” as a state and people.
Albanese’s Remarks at the Forum
Speaking via videoconference at the Doha forum on Saturday, Albanese criticized what she described as global complicity in the war on Gaza.
“The fact that instead of stopping Israel, most of the world has armed, given Israel political excuses, political sheltering, economic and financial support is a challenge. The fact that most of the media in the Western world has been amplifying the pro-apartheid genocidal narrative is a challenge. And here also lies the opportunity. Because if international law has been stabbed in the heart, it is also true that never before has the global community seen the challenges that we all face. We who do not control large amounts of financial capital, algorithms, and weapons now see that we, as humanity, have a common enemy, and that freedoms, the respect of fundamental freedoms, are the last peaceful avenue, the last peaceful toolbox that we have to regain our freedom.”
Following the controversy, Albanese posted the full video of her speech on X, writing:
“My full AJ Forum speech last week: the common enemy of humanity is THE SYSTEM that has enabled the genocide in Palestine, including the financial capital that funds it, the algorithms that obscure it and the weapons that enable it.”
Albanese has denied that her remarks described “Israel” as the “common enemy of humanity.”
In an interview with France 24, she denounced what she called “completely false accusations” and “manipulation” of her words.
“I have never, ever, ever said ‘Israel is the common enemy of humanity’,” Albanese told the broadcaster.
She contended that her comments were being misrepresented and maintained that she was referring to broader systemic structures enabling violations of international law in Gaza.
Mounting Diplomatic Pressure on the UN Mandate
The coordinated calls from Germany and France add to a growing campaign of political pressure surrounding Albanese’s mandate as UN special rapporteur for the Palestinian territories.
Her tenure has increasingly drawn opposition from Western governments, particularly following her reports on Gaza and her calls for accountability mechanisms, including action at the International Criminal Court. The US sanctions imposed in July 2025 marked an unprecedented step against a UN mandate holder and signaled Washington’s direct challenge to her work.
Hamas official says Netanyahu joining ‘peace council’ is a farce
MEMO | February 12, 2026
Osama Hamdan, a leader in the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), said on Wednesday that the joining of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court, to the so-called “Peace Council” represents “the farce of the era.”
In remarks broadcast by Al Jazeera, Hamdan said the movement had not received from mediators any draft or official proposals concerning the weapons of the resistance.
He stressed that Hamas has not officially adopted any decision regarding freezing its weapons, and that its national position is firm in considering resistance a legitimate right as long as the occupation exists.
Hamdan stressed that the Palestinian people reject any form of external guardianship and cannot accept international forces replacing the Israeli army inside the Gaza Strip.
He added that the movement had contacted the Indonesian government and made clear that the role of any international force should be limited to deployment along the borders of the Gaza Strip to separate it from the occupation.
He said that any international stabilisation force, if established, should work to prevent attacks against the Palestinian people, in line with the plan proposed by US President Donald Trump.
