World’s largest pension fund demands Microsoft disclose its dealings with Israel
The Cradle | December 2, 2025
Norway’s $2-trillion sovereign wealth fund announced on 2 December that it is stepping up pressure on Microsoft over human rights concerns linked to the Israeli army’s actions in Gaza, backing a shareholder demand for greater transparency on the company’s global operations.
The sovereign wealth fund, the largest in the world, said it will vote in favor of a proposal calling on Microsoft to publish a report outlining human rights risks in countries where its products are used in contexts of “significant” rights abuses.
The proposal, submitted by the shareholder group EICO, will be presented at Microsoft’s annual general meeting on 5 December.
Its intervention follows reports that Microsoft’s software and cloud tools were deployed by the Israeli military in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, prompting renewed scrutiny of the company’s role in a war marked by widespread allegations of war crimes.
The fund said Microsoft must disclose how it identifies human rights dangers in sensitive markets, and explain whether its internal controls are effective. It stressed that boards cannot ignore the environmental and social impact of the products they approve.
Microsoft’s management has opposed the proposal and urged shareholders to vote it down.
Norway’s fund holds a 1.35 percent stake valued at $50 billion as of 30 June, making it Microsoft’s second-largest equity holding after Nvidia. LSEG data ranks the fund as Microsoft’s eighth-largest shareholder overall.
The fund also announced it will vote against CEO Satya Nadella’s reappointment as chair of the board, continuing its long-standing policy against one person holding both the CEO role and the board chair role.
It will oppose his compensation package as well, criticizing the scale of US executive pay and calling for remuneration to be weighted toward shares locked for five to 10 years regardless of whether executives step down or retire.
The “say-on-pay” vote is advisory and does not bind Microsoft’s leadership, even if a majority of shareholders oppose the package.
Norway’s fund, known for its ethical investment criteria, has previously rejected Elon Musk’s Tesla pay package and sold stakes in 13 Israeli companies on ethical grounds.
Its push at Microsoft highlights rising investor resistance to technology firms whose products are implicated in abuses, including those documented during Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
Investigations by +972 Magazine, Local Call, and The Guardian have detailed how Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure became embedded in Israeli military intelligence operations.
Leaked documents and interviews with current and former personnel show that Unit 8200 was granted a dedicated section of the Azure platform to store and analyze vast collections of intercepted Palestinian communications, a system intelligence officers say later informed airstrike planning in Gaza.
The reporting also describes mounting internal dissent at Microsoft, with employees accusing the company of supplying tools that enable Israel’s mass surveillance architecture.
Protests have pushed the company to open internal reviews, even as it denies its technology was used to identify targets. Documents cited by Bloomberg show Microsoft sought FBI assistance to track demonstrations by staff demanding the company sever its ties with Israel.
US tech giants to expand role in post-war Gaza strategy: Report
Press TV – December 2, 2025
A new report has revealed that US-based artificial intelligence firms Palantir and Dataminr are positioning themselves to take on a pivotal role in shaping the post-war security framework proposed for the Gaza Strip.
According to a report by the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine on Tuesday, the companies have been integrated into the newly established Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC), a US-run operational hub in the southern part of the occupied territories where Washington and Israeli officials are coordinating the implementation of President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan for Gaza.
An official seating chart reviewed by +972 indicates that a “Maven Field Service Representative” from Palantir, referencing their battlefield analytics platform Project Maven, is assigned to the CMCC.
The hub, situated approximately 20 kilometers from the northern Gaza boundary, was opened in mid-October and currently accommodates around 200 US military personnel.
Project Maven, for which Palantir recently secured a $10 billion Pentagon contract to upgrade, gathers intelligence from various sources such as satellites, drones, spy planes, intercepted communications, and online platforms, reorganizing it into an “AI-powered battlefield platform” aimed at expediting military decision-making, including lethal airstrikes.
Palantir executives have described the system as “optimizing the kill chain,” and it has been previously utilized in US operations in Yemen, Syria, and Iraq.
Palantir has also strengthened its partnerships with Israeli forces during the current war, following a strategic agreement signed in January 2024 to support “war-related missions,” and has expanded its recruiting in Tel Aviv, doubling the size of its office over the past two years.
CEO Alex Karp has defended the collaboration amid international concerns over war crimes, saying that the company was the first to be “completely anti-woke.”
Documents reviewed by +972 also reveal the involvement of Dataminr, a US surveillance company, in internal CMCC presentations.
Dataminr, which utilizes AI to scan and analyze global social-media streams in real time, promotes its platform as providing “event, threat, and risk intelligence,” and has established partnerships with X to provide governments and law-enforcement agencies, including the FBI, with extensive access to public social-media data.
Both companies are expected to shape the “Alternative Safe Communities” model proposed under the Trump plan, which suggests relocating Palestinian civilians into fenced, heavily monitored compounds controlled by US and Israeli forces.
Within these zones, systems enabled by Palantir and Dataminr would be used to track mobile phones, monitor online activity, analyze movement, and flag individuals classified by AI as security risks.
Critics and analysts argue that this arrangement mirrors the predictive surveillance already deployed in Gaza over the past two years, including the AI-driven Lavender system used by Israel to create kill lists of suspected Hamas affiliates, which included public-sector employees such as police and medical workers.
Human-rights observers caution that such technologies have contributed to the extensive targeting of Palestinian families during an ongoing genocide.
The integration of US tech companies into the CMCC underscores a privatized model of occupation, one that sidelines Palestinian participation while expanding the role of AI-enabled policing, according to analysts.
For technology firms, the war presents an opportunity to access vast datasets and conduct real-world testing for new military systems.
Additionally, for Israel, it offers a way to outsource parts of the occupation while maintaining extensive control over Gaza’s population.
French journalist groups file complaint over press freedom restrictions in Palestinian territories
MEMO | December 2, 2025
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and the National Journalists’ Union (SNJ) announced on Tuesday that they filed a complaint over restrictions on press freedom and alleged war crimes in the Palestinian territories, Anadolu reports.
The IFJ and SNJ said in a statement that they filed the complaint with Paris’s National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor on Nov. 26 against unknown parties, citing numerous testimonies from French journalists collected anonymously.
“The freedom to inform and to be informed, fundamental principles, must become a reality again in Gaza and the West Bank,” the organizations said, reiterating the need for action and the role of the French justice system.
They noted that the media lockdown of Gaza, an “unprecedented” blackout in the conflict, and the “ruthless repression” of Palestinian journalists, along with 225 killings verified by the IFJ, remain “at the heart of the complaint.”
The two organizations referred to French journalists’ descriptions of daily reality on the ground, marked by denial of access, threats, confiscation of equipment, occasional physical assaults, arbitrary detentions, and sometimes even manhunts.
Underlining that the complaint does not target any specific individual, the watchdogs stressed that the obstacles documented are carried out by military and police units, customs and administrative services, and private individuals, including settlers in the occupied territories.
“The risk of being killed is real, sometimes tangible, when you find yourself pursued by thirty armed settlers. These violations of journalists’ fundamental rights cannot go unpunished,” said Vanessa Ripoche and Julien Fleury, general secretaries of the SNJ.
The statement also underscored that the reported acts take place in occupied territories, which “prevents Israel from invoking state immunity” and “allows French courts to take action,” as the violations target French nationals and affect their fundamental freedoms.
“This is the first time that a legal action of this nature—based both on systematic obstruction of journalists’ work and on war crimes targeting media professionals—has been brought before a national court to protect French reporters in a conflict zone,” said Ines Davau and Louise El Yafi, lawyers for the IFJ and SNJ.
Hezbollah and Saudi Arabia’s uneasy détente
By Tamjid Kobaissy | The Cradle | December 2, 2025
In West Asia, where sectarian politics and external meddling collide with local power struggles, few rivalries have been as entrenched or as symbolically loaded as that between Hezbollah and Saudi Arabia.
For decades, it embodied the broader confrontation between Iran and the Persian Gulf kingdoms – a proxy war defined by ideology, oil, and shifting battlefronts. But today, under the weight of new regional calculations, rising Israeli belligerence, and the cracks in American hegemony, that once-intractable hostility is giving way to a more ambiguous and tactical coexistence.
What is developing is neither an alliance nor even reconciliation. But for the first time, Hezbollah and Riyadh are probing the edges of a relationship long defined by zero-sum enmity. A pragmatic detente is emerging, shaped less by goodwill than by the shared urgency to contain spiraling instability across the region.
Tehran, Riyadh, and the long shadow of history
The long arc of the Hezbollah–Saudi confrontation is impossible to separate from Iran’s post-revolutionary clash with Riyadh. When Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini toppled the Shah in 1979 and declared the House of Saud a reactionary tool of western imperialism, the rupture was both ideological and strategic.
The Saudis responded by bankrolling Saddam Hussein’s devastating war against Tehran, and in 1987, relations cratered after Saudi security forces massacred Iranian pilgrims in Mecca. Khomeini’s message was scathing:
“Let the Saudi government be certain that America has branded it with an eternal stain of shame that will not be erased or cleansed until the Day of Judgment, not even with the waters of Zamzam or the River of Paradise.”
Decades later, the so-called Arab Spring of 2011 reopened the wound. While Tehran stood by its state allies in Damascus and Baghdad, Riyadh threw its weight behind opposition movements and fanned the flames of sectarian conflict.
In Yemen, the kingdom launched a military campaign against the Ansarallah movement and allied forces, which Tehran backed politically and diplomatically. After Saudi Arabia executed outspoken Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr in 2016, Iranian protesters stormed the Saudi embassy in Tehran, prompting Riyadh to sever diplomatic ties. The two regional powers would only resume relations as part of Chinese-backed mediation in 2023.
From Hariri’s abduction to assassination plots
Within this regional maelstrom, Hezbollah became a prime Saudi target. When the Lebanese resistance captured two Israeli soldiers on 12 July 2006, to secure the release of prisoners, Riyadh dismissed it as “uncalculated adventures” and held Hezbollah responsible for the fallout.
In Syria, Hezbollah’s deployment alongside former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s army placed it in direct opposition to Saudi-backed militants. In Yemen, the movement’s vocal support for the Ansarallah–led government in Sanaa triggered Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) sanctions and terrorist designations.
Matters escalated in 2017 when Saudi Arabia detained then-Lebanese prime minister Saad Hariri and coerced him into announcing his resignation on television from Riyadh. Late Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah slammed the move as an act of war against Lebanon. The situation de-escalated only after French mediation.
In a 2022 TV interview, Nasrallah revealed that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) was ready to authorize an Israeli plot to assassinate him, pending US approval.
Quiet channels, Iranian cover
The Beijing-brokered rapprochement between Tehran and Riyadh changed the regional tone but did not yield immediate dividends for Hezbollah. On the contrary, Saudi Arabia intensified its efforts to roll back Hezbollah’s influence in Beirut, especially following Israel’s October assault on Gaza and southern Lebanon.
Riyadh pressured Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam to implement the so-called “Barrack Paper,” aimed at politically sidelining Hezbollah and stripping its arms. Speaking to The Cradle, a well-informed political source reveals that the kingdom informed the former Lebanese army commander – now the country’s president – Joseph Aoun, that it would proceed with its plans even if they triggered civil war or fractured the military. The source describes this as emblematic of Riyadh’s short-term crisis management, mirroring Washington’s reactive regional strategy.
Despite this, signs of a tactical shift began to emerge. In September, Nasrallah’s successor, Sheikh Naim Qassem, publicly called for opening a “new chapter” in ties with Riyadh – an unprecedented gesture from the movement’s leadership. According to the same source, this was not a spontaneous statement.
During a visit to Beirut, Iranian national security official Ali Larijani reportedly recieved a message from Hezbollah to Riyadh expressing its openness to reconciliation. In a subsequent trip to the kingdom, Larijani presented the message to MbS.
While initially dismissed, it was later revisited, leading to discreet backchannel coordination directly overseen by Larijani himself.
Tehran talks and guarded understandings
The Cradle’s source adds that since then, three indirect rounds of Hezbollah–Saudi talks have reportedly taken place in Tehran, each under Iranian facilitation. The first focused on political de-escalation, while the latter two addressed sensitive security files, signaling a mutual willingness to test limited cooperation.
One provisional understanding emerged: Saudi Arabia would ease pressure on Hezbollah in Lebanon and drop immediate demands to disarm the movement. In exchange, Riyadh asked Hezbollah to keep its weapons out of Syria – echoing a broader Gulf consensus – and assist Lebanese authorities in curbing drug smuggling networks.
In private, Riyadh reportedly acknowledges Hezbollah’s military resilience as a strategic buffer against Israel’s regional belligerence. The Persian Gulf states no longer trust Washington to shield them from Tel Aviv’s increasingly unilateral provocations – as was seen in the Israeli strikes on Doha in September. But Hezbollah’s dominance in Lebanon remains a challenge to Riyadh’s political influence.
Hezbollah, Saudi Arabia, and the Iranian umbrella
The Hezbollah–Saudi contacts are just one strand in a broader strategic dance between Riyadh and Tehran. According to The Cradle’s source, Saudi Arabia has assured Iran it will not join any Israeli or US-led war, nor allow its airspace to be used in such a scenario. In return, Tehran pledged not to target Saudi territory. These commitments are fragile, but significant.
The source also reveals that US President Donald Trump had authorized MbS to explore a direct channel with Iran, tasking him with brokering understandings on Yemen and beyond. Larijani conveyed Iran’s openness to dialogue, though not to nuclear concessions. MbS reportedly stressed to Trump that a working accord with Tehran was essential to regional stability.
In parallel, Lebanese MP Ali Hassan Khalil, a close advisor to Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, is expected to visit Saudi Arabia soon following meetings in Tehran. This suggests continued shuttle diplomacy across resistance, Iranian, and Saudi nodes.
Strategic divergence, tactical convergence
Still, no one should confuse these developments with a realignment. Rather than a reset, this is merely a tactical repositioning. For Riyadh, the old boycott model – applied to Lebanon between 2019 and 2021 – failed to dislodge Hezbollah or bolster pro-Saudi factions. Now, the kingdom is shifting to flexible engagement, partly to enable economic investments in Lebanon that require minimal cooperation with the dominant political force.
The pivot also serves Saudi Arabia’s desire to project itself as a capable mediator rather than a crude enforcer. The 7 October 2023 Operation Al-Aqsa Flood has tilted regional equations, while Israeli expansionism has become a destabilizing liability. A Hezbollah–Israel war would not stay confined to the Blue Line. Gulf cities, energy infrastructure, and fragile normalization deals would all be at risk.
From Hezbollah’s side, the outreach reflects both constraint and calculation. The resistance faces growing pressure: an intensified Israeli campaign, a stagnating Lebanese economy, and the need to preserve internal cohesion. A tactical truce with Riyadh offers breathing space, and possibly, a check against Gulf-backed meddling in Syria.
When Sheikh Naim Qassem declared that Hezbollah’s arms are pointed solely at Israel, it was also a signal to the Gulf: we are not your enemy.
The real enemy, for both sides, is the unpredictable nature of Israeli escalation. Riyadh fears being dragged into an Israeli-led regional war that it cannot control. Hezbollah fears encirclement through economic, political, and military pressure. Their interests may never align, but for now, they are no longer mutually exclusive.
US, Israel fear leak of tech secrets from unexploded bomb in Beirut
MEMO | December 1, 2025
US and Israeli officials have reportedly demanded the Lebanese government to urgently secure the transfer of an unexploded Israeli air bomb in the southern suburbs of Beirut to its possession, fearing it might fall into the hands of Russia or China and allow them access to its advanced military technology.
According to the Hebrew newspaper Ma’ariv, unnamed sources say the bomb is a smart glide munition, model GBU-39B, manufactured by the US firm Boeing, and was used by the Israeli Air Force in a strike targeting Hitham Ali Tabtaba’i — described as the chief of staff of Hezbollah — within the group’s stronghold in southern Beirut.
Ma’ariv adds that although the bomb was used in the assassination attempt, it did not explode for reasons that remain unclear, and remained relatively intact at the scene of the attack. This has raised concern in Washington about the possibility that foreign powers — specifically Russia or China — could recover it and study its technology.
The report notes that the bomb carries a warhead “exceptionally powerful for its weight”, as well as guidance systems and technology not currently believed to be held by Moscow or Beijing — making its recovery a priority for the United States.
Four foreign activists injured by illegal Israeli settlers’ attack in occupied West Bank
Illegal settlers attack Palestinian farmers, journalists and foreign activists in Beita town of Nablus, West Bank on November 8, 2025. [Nedal Eshtayah – Anadolu Agency]
MEMO | November 30, 2025
The Israeli army launched a large-scale arrest campaign in the occupied West Bank as illegal settlers attacked foreign activists and Palestinians on Sunday, according to local sources, Anadolu reports.
Three Italian and one Canadian activists were injured by illegal Israeli settlers in Ein ad-Duyuk village of Jericho in the central West Bank, local sources told Anadolu.
The activists were hospitalized, as three of them sustained moderate injuries and the fourth was critically wounded.
Illegal settlers stormed a house in a Bedouin community where the foreign activists have been residing in solidarity with Palestinian residents for a few days, and assaulted them.
The attackers also attempted to steal the activists’ passports, phones, and belongings, in addition to property from the house, the sources said.
According to the official news agency Wafa, illegal Israeli settlers destroyed four vehicles belonging to Palestinians in eastern Salfit in the central West Bank.
A group of illegal Israeli settlers also raided the al-Masoudieh area in Nablus, vandalizing Palestinians’ properties.
According to the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, an official body, illegal Israeli settlers have carried out 766 attacks against Palestinians and their property in the occupied West Bank in October only.
Meanwhile, Israeli army forces detained four people in two Nablus villages on Sunday. One of the detainees was injured, the official news agency Wafa said, without providing more details on his condition.
Israeli army forces fired tear gas canisters towards locals in the al-Lubban al-Sharqiya town of Nablus, causing several people to suffer from suffocation.
Three people were detained in Ramallah during an Israeli army raid, while a young Palestinian was detained after being beaten by the soldiers in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of the occupied East Jerusalem.
Five others, including two ex-prisoners, were arrested in Bethlehem, in the southern West Bank, after their houses were searched by the Israeli forces. According to Palestinian figures, at least 55 Palestinians were detained by Israeli forces in military raids in the West Bank since Saturday.
In a landmark opinion last July, the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory illegal and called for the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Iran Army says Australia’s designation of IRGC serves US-Israeli interests
Press TV – November 30, 2025
The General Staff of Iran’s Armed Forces has strongly condemned Australia’s “unwise decision” to label the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) as a “state sponsor of terrorism.”
In a statement on Sunday, the Armed Forces said the unwise decision by the “dependent” Australian government against the IRGC is in line with the sinister goals of the arrogant system, led by the terrorist United States.
It added that the move aims to serve the terrorist Israeli regime’s interests in the continuation of oppression and crimes and has no meaning other than “baseless and spiteful” claims under the pressure of the US and Israel.
According to the statement, the move demonstrates a lack of proper understanding of international and global realities.
The Army, however, emphasized that such moves will strengthen the will of the heroic Iranian nation to boost its defense prowess and will result in nothing but greater support of Iranians and the free nations across the world for the Armed Forces, especially the powerful and anti-terrorism IRGC.
The Australian government listed the IRGC as a “state sponsor of terrorism” on Thursday over baseless accusations that the elite force had orchestrated attacks against Australia’s Jewish community.
In a statement released on Thursday, the Iranian Foreign Ministry strongly condemned the decision.
“The political move by the Australian government is a dangerous and criminal precedent, designed under the influence of the Zionist regime to divert public attention from the genocide in Gaza,” the ministry said.
Milei launches ‘Isaac Accords’ to expand Israeli influence in Latin America
The Cradle | November 29, 2025
Argentinian President Javier Milei formally launched the Isaac Accords on 29 November, a new initiative aimed at strengthening political, economic, and cultural cooperation between Israel and Latin America.
Milei announced the initiative following a meeting with Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, who visited Buenos Aires on Saturday as part of a regional diplomatic tour.
The Isaac Accords are being promoted in partnership with Washington and are modeled after the Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between Israel and several Arab countries, including the UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco.
Milei said Argentina would serve as a “pioneer” alongside the US to promote the new framework to other Latin American countries, including Uruguay, Panama, and Costa Rica.
Foreign Minister Gideon Saar praised Milei’s love of Judaism and Israel as “sincere, powerful, and moving.”
Before the meeting began, Milei recited the “Shehecheyanu,” a traditional Jewish blessing, and placed a kippah on his head.
“When the president saw me place the kippah on my head to make the blessing, he immediately placed on his own head the kippah he keeps in his office,” Saar wrote.
After his election, Milei “transformed Argentina from a critic of Israel to one of its staunchest supporters,” according to the Times of Israel, including announcing plans to move its embassy to occupied Jerusalem.
Though Milei was raised Catholic, he has stated he will convert to Judaism once he leaves office.
Argentine officials said that possible joint projects with Israel in the fields of technology, security, and economic development are already under consideration.
Argentina’s Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno is scheduled to travel to Israel in February for additional talks to advance the initiative.
Since coming to power, Milei has opened Argentina’s economy to exploitation by foreign investors, including by evicting Mapuche tribes from their lands in the southern Patagonia region.
Foreign corporations with major investments in the Argentine Patagonia include the Israeli firm Mekorot, the Italian firm Benetton, and investment companies from the UAE, among others.
The Suez Canal is open again: the weird reason the global shipping industry doesn’t want to use it
Inside China Business | November 28, 2025
Houthi rebels have announced they will no longer attack shipping transiting the Red Sea and Suez Canal, though they are monitoring the situation in Gaza closely.
Global shippers can again pass through the Suez Canal, saving thousands of miles and up to two weeks of sailing time.
But the industry is in no rush to go back to the shorter routing. Doing so would be the equivalent of adding another 10% to global container capacity, or two million TEU’s.
In 2024, ocean shippers boomed, earning record revenues and profits. But this year freight rates have collapsed, and are forecast to fall further next year. Industry-wide use of the Suez will squeeze margins even more.
Closing scene, Dongting Lake Bridge, Yueyang, Hunan
Resources and links: Freightwaves, Houthi Red Sea stand down: ‘Seismic’ impact on shipping https://www.freightwaves.com/news/hou…
NBC, Yemen’s Houthi rebels signal that they’ve stopped attacks on Israel and Red Sea shipping https://www.nbcnews.com/world/middle-…
Reuters, Hapag-Lloyd pledges to address costs as nine-month profit drops 50% https://www.reuters.com/business/hapa…
Reuters, Hapag-Lloyd CEO says return to Suez route not yet in sight but looking closely https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-…
Houthi Halted Red Sea Attacks But Carriers Not Ready to Return Shipping to Suez Canal https://www.universalcargo.com/houthi…
Second US Navy jet is lost at sea from Truman aircraft carrier https://edition.cnn.com/2025/05/06/po…
U.S. Navy lost a $67 million fighter jet at sea after it fell off an aircraft carrier https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/…
In 15 months, the Navy fired more air defense missiles than it did in the last 30 year https://taskandpurpose.com/news/navy-…
US missile depletion from Houthi, Israel conflicts may shock you https://responsiblestatecraft.org/mis…
Search for survivors after Houthis sink second Red Sea cargo ship in a week https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c30…
Israeli occupation aided looters attacking Gaza aid convoys: Report
Al Mayadeen | November 29, 2025
A French historian who spent more than a month in the Gaza Strip says he witnessed “utterly convincing” evidence that the Israeli occupation played a role in attacks on aid convoys during the height of the war.
Jean-Pierre Filiu, a professor of Middle East studies at Sciences Po in Paris, entered Gaza in December and was hosted by an international humanitarian organization in the coastal area of al-Mawasi. While foreign media and independent observers were barred from the enclave by the Israeli occupation, Filiu managed to avoid strict vetting procedures and documented what he described as orchestrated chaos around lifesaving aid deliveries.
His eyewitness account, A Historian in Gaza, was published in French in May and released in English this month.
According to Filiu, Israeli occupation forces repeatedly struck security units guarding humanitarian convoys. The attacks, he writes, enabled looters to seize large quantities of food and supplies intended for Palestinians facing famine conditions.
UN agencies at the time warned that law and order in Gaza had collapsed after occupation forces deliberately targeted police officers who escorted aid convoys. The Israeli occupation labels Gaza’s police as part of Hamas, which has run the territory since 2007.
‘Quadcopters supporting the looters’
Filiu recounts an incident near where he was staying in the so-called “humanitarian zone” of al-Mawasi. After weeks of attacks on convoys by desperate civilians, local gangs, and militias, humanitarian officials tested a new route to try to prevent looting.
Sixty-six trucks carrying flour and hygiene kits set out from Karem Abu Salem, before turning north up the main coastal road. Hamas arranged protective escorts with armed members of powerful local families. The convoy then came under attack.
“It was one night, and I was… a few hundred metres away. And it was very clear that Israeli quadcopters were supporting the looters in attacking the local security [teams],” Filiu writes.
He says occupation forces killed “two local notables as they sat in their car, armed and ready to protect the convoy,” and that twenty trucks were subsequently robbed. Aid officials considered the loss of one-third of the convoy a grim improvement compared with earlier raids that looted nearly everything.
Filiu says the occupation’s strategy was to undermine both Hamas and the UN, while enabling allied looters to either redistribute aid to expand their influence or sell it for profit.
Israeli officials rejected his account. A military spokesperson claimed the targeted vehicle carried “armed terrorists” planning to steal aid for Hamas. The spokesperson said the occupation “will continue to act in accordance with international law to enable and facilitate the transfer of humanitarian aid.”
Filiu’s reporting echoes internal UN concerns. A confidential memo from the time described the occupation’s “passive, if not active benevolence” toward gangs involved in looting.
He also alleges that Israeli forces bombed a newly established aid route promoted by the World Food Programme which was attempting to stop looting hotspots. He told The Guardian it was a “deliberate attempt to put it out of action.”
Despite denials, Netanyahu has acknowledged that “Israel” supported the Popular Forces, an anti-Hamas militia that, according to aid officials, included many of the looters.
Gaza “erased, annihilated’
Filiu, who has visited Gaza for decades, said he was stunned at the scale of destruction left by the Israeli occupation’s offensive, launched after Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7, 2023. That attack killed about 1,200 people and saw 250 taken hostage.
The Israeli regime’s assault killed nearly 70,000 Palestinians and reduced much of Gaza to ruins. “Anything that stood before … has been ‘erased, annihilated, ’” he said.
Filiu warned that the war has set a precedent for a future “post-UN world” devoid of legal and humanitarian limits. “It’s a laboratory of a post-Geneva convention world, of a post-declaration of human rights world … and this world is very scary because it’s not even rational. It’s just ferocious.”
Gaza ‘stabilization force’ fails to launch as nations unwilling to commit troops: Report
The Cradle | November 29, 2025
The White House is having difficulty launching its so-called Gaza International Stabilization Force (ISF), as countries that previously expressed willingness to deploy troops to the project now seek to distance themselves from it, according to a 29 November report in the Washington Post.
The ISF “is struggling to get off the ground as countries considered likely to contribute soldiers have grown wary” over concerns their soldiers may be required to use force against Palestinians.
Indonesia had stated it would send 20,000 peacekeeping troops. However, officials in Jakarta speaking with the US news outlet said they now plan to provide a much smaller contingent of about 1,200.
Azerbaijan has also reneged on a previous commitment to provide troops. Baku will only send troops if there is a complete halt to fighting, Reuters reported earlier this month.
US President Donald Trump’s plan for Gaza envisioned meaningful troop contributions from Arab states, including the UAE, Bahrain, and Qatar. But after expressing early interest, none have committed to participating.
“A month ago, things were in a better place,” one regional official with knowledge of the issue stated.
Trump’s plan for post-war Gaza rests on the ability of an international force to occupy the strip and was endorsed by a UN Security Council resolution on 17 November.
However, because the resolution gave the force the mandate to “demilitarize” the Gaza Strip, many countries are resisting participation.
They say their troops could be required to disarm Hamas on Israel’s behalf. This would require killing Palestinians and possibly cast their forces as co-perpetrators in Israel’s genocide in front of the world.
Some officers are “really hesitant” to participate, one Indonesian official said.
“They want the international stabilizing force to come into Gaza and restore, quote unquote, law and order and disarm any resistance,” a senior official in Indonesia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. “So that’s the problem. Nobody wants to do that.”
Participation would also put their soldiers in harm’s way, whether from Hamas or the ongoing Israeli airstrikes, which regularly kill Palestinians despite the alleged ceasefire that took effect in October.
Sources familiar with the plan told the Washington Post that the White House plans to man the force with between 15,000 and 20,000 foreign troops, divided into three brigades to be deployed in early 2026.
However, details have not been finalized, which has led to additional hesitancy among potential participating nations.
“Commitments are being considered. No one is going to send troops from their country without understanding the specifics of the mission,” the official said.
Efforts to establish the so-called “Board of Peace,” a committee of Palestinian technocrats taking orders directly from the White House to deal with the day-to-day administration of the enclave, have also stalled.
“We thought, with the Security Council resolution, within 48 to 72 hours, the Board of Peace would be announced,” another person familiar with the plan told The Post. “But nothing, not even informally.”
No other members of the Board of Peace have yet been named.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stated that the Israeli army will disarm Hamas if foreign countries are unwilling to do so for them.
“All indicators show that indeed no countries are willing to take on this responsibility, and that understanding is sinking in both in Israel and in the US,” said Ofer Guterman, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Tel Aviv.
“Bottom line: It’s unlikely that the ISF, if it’s established at all, will lead to Gaza’s demilitarization,” he added.
Tamara Kharroub, Deputy Executive Director and Senior Fellow of the Arab Center in Washington, DC, described the Trump plan as “Permanent Palestinian subjugation and neocolonial rule dressed up as peace.”
“There are no guarantees or binding mechanisms or clarity around what constitutes reform or demilitarization and around who determines what they are. The plan ultimately gives Israel a blank check to prolong its presence in Gaza, fully reoccupy it, or resume its genocidal war,” Kharroub wrote.
Global movement to Gaza to stage pro-Palestine protests in 13 cities
Al Mayadeen | November 28, 2025
The Global Movement to Gaza announced coordinated protests across 13 major cities on November 29 to mark the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. The rallies aim to denounce Western support for “Israel’s” ongoing genocide in Gaza, now entering its third year.
Protests will take place in Berlin, Rome, Paris, Barcelona, Madrid, Oslo, Vienna, Warsaw, Luxembourg, Cape Town, Washington, DC, Mexico City, and São Paulo.
Organizers say the coordinated actions are designed to expose the complicity of European and North American governments in “Israel’s” war on Gaza. The movement accuses these states of enabling the genocide through arms exports, political backing, and economic ties.
In a statement, the movement issued a list of demands for European Union and national leaders:
- Immediate suspension of the EU-“Israel” Association Agreement;
- An arms embargo and an end to military cooperation with “Israel”;
- Targeted sanctions on “Israeli” officials responsible for war crimes and genocide;
- A halt to all academic, cultural, and sporting institutional ties;
- Alignment of EU foreign policy with international human rights and humanitarian law.
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From the Archives
Why Saudi Ties to 9/11 Mean U.S. Ties to 9/11
By Kevin Ryan | Dig Within | September 27, 2015
Media interest in Saudi Arabian connections to the crimes of 9/11 has centered on calls for the release of the 28 missing pages from the Joint Congressional Inquiry’s report. However, those calls focus on the question of hijacker financing and omit the most interesting links between the 9/11 attacks and Saudi Arabia—links that implicate powerful people in the United States. Here are twenty examples. … continue
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