President-elect Donald Trump speaks at the US Capitol Building in Washington, DC on 8 January, 2025 [Nathan Posner/Anadolu Agency]
An Israeli television channel has revealed that US President-elect Donald Trump sent a message to officials in Tel Aviv, urging Israel to avoid any “unnecessary” escalation and refrain from statements that could lead to regional conflicts, particularly during the transition period before his administration begins.
Channel 12 reported that Trump’s aides informed Israeli officials that the incoming US administration aims to achieve stability in the Middle East, focusing on fostering “peace” between Israel and Lebanon and maintaining the ongoing ceasefire.
In his discussions with Israeli officials, Trump emphasised that he had no intention of engaging in new wars during the early days of his presidency, as he intends to prioritise addressing domestic issues in the United States.
According to the channel, Trump has personally begun intervening in efforts to secure the release of Israeli captives held in the Gaza Strip. He has expressed significant interest in resolving this issue before officially taking office.
The report also mentioned that Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, Steven Witkoff, met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss the next steps. Following this meeting, it was decided that the heads of Mossad and the Israeli Security Agency (Shin Bet) would be sent to Qatar to engage in direct negotiations.
People gather for a funeral ceremony of Palestinian journalist Saed Sabri Abu Nabhan after he is fatally shot by an Israeli sniper while on duty in the Nuseirat Refugee Camp in the central Gaza Strip on January 11, 2025 [Ashraf Amra – Anadolu Agency]
A dramatic escape was cited by Israeli media as the reason that Yuval Vagdani, a soldier in the Israeli army, managed to escape justice in Brazil.
Vagdani was accused by a Palestinian advocacy legal group, the Hind Rajab Foundation, of carrying out well-documented crimes in Gaza. He is not the only Israeli soldier being pursued for similar crimes.
According to the Israeli Broadcasting Corporation (KAN), more than 50 Israeli soldiers are being pursued in countries ranging from South Africa to Sri Lanka to Sweden.
In one case, the Hind Rajab Foundation filed a complaint in a Swedish court against Boaz Ben David, an Israeli sniper from the 932 Battalion of the Israeli Nahal Brigade. He is also accused of committing war crimes in Gaza.
The Nahal Brigade has been at the heart of numerous war crimes in Gaza. Established in 1982, the brigade is notorious for its unhinged violence against Occupied Palestinians. Their role in the latest genocidal atrocities in the Strip has far exceeded their own dark legacy.
Even if these 50 individuals are apprehended and sentenced, the price exacted from the Israeli army pales in comparison to the crimes carried out.
Numbers, though helpful, are rarely enough to convey collective pain. The medical journal Lancet’s latest report is still worthy of reflection. Using a new data-collecting method called ‘capture–recapture analysis’, the report indicates that, by the first nine months of the war, between October 2023 and June 2024, 64,260 Palestinians have been killed.
Still, capturing and trying Israeli war criminals is not just about the fate of these individuals. It is about accountability—an absent term in the history of Israeli human rights violations, war crimes and recurring genocides against Palestinians.
The Israeli government understands that the issue now goes beyond individuals. It is about the loss of Israel’s historic status as a country that stands above the law.
As a result, the Israeli army announced that it decided not to publicly reveal the names of soldiers involved in the Gaza war and genocide, fearing prosecution in international courts.
However, this step is unlikely to make much difference for two reasons. First, numerous pieces of evidence against individual soldiers, whose identities are publicly known, have already been gathered or are available for future investigation. Second, much of the documentation of war crimes has been unwittingly produced by Israeli soldiers themselves.
Reassured about the lack of accountability, Israeli soldiers have taken countless pieces of footage showing the abuse and torture of Palestinians in Gaza. This self-indictment will likely serve as a major body of evidence in future trials.
All of this cannot be viewed separately from the ongoing investigation into the Israeli genocide in Gaza by the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Additionally, arrest warrants have been issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) against top Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Though these cases have moved slowly, they have set a precedent that even Israel is not immune to some measure of international accountability and justice.
Moreover, these cases have granted countries that are signatories to the ICC and ICJ the authority to investigate individual war crimes cases filed by human rights and legal advocacy groups.
Though the Hind Rajab Foundation is not the only group pursuing Israeli war criminals globally, the group’s name derives from a five-year-old Palestinian girl from Gaza who was murdered by the Israeli army in January 2024, along with her family. This tragedy and that particular name are a reminder that the innocent blood of Palestinians will not go in vain.
Though justice may be delayed, as long as there are pursuers, it will someday be attained.
Pursuing alleged Israeli war criminals in international and national courts is just the start of a process of accountability that will last many years. With every case, Israel will learn that the decades-long US vetoes and blind Western protection and support will no longer suffice.
It was the West’s shameless shielding of Israel throughout the years that allowed Israeli leaders to behave as they saw fit for Israel’s so-called national security—even if it meant the very extermination of the Palestinian people, as is the case today in Gaza.
Still, Western governments, including the US and Britain, continue to treat wanted Israelis as sanctified heroes—not war criminals. This goes beyond accusations of double standards. It is the highest immorality and disregard for international law.
Things need to change; in fact, they are already changing.
Since the start of the Israeli war on Gaza, Tel Aviv has already learned many difficult lessons. For example, its army is no longer “invincible”, its economy is relatively small and highly dependent, and its political system is fragile. In times of crisis, it is barely operable.
It is time for Israel to learn yet another lesson: that the age of accountability has begun. Dancing around the corpses of dead Palestinians in Gaza is no longer an amusing social media post, as Israeli soldiers once thought.
Palestine Coalition statement in response to Met Police ban – 13 January 2025
Last week, the Metropolitan Police publicly confirmed its intention to prevent our planned protest at the BBC on Saturday 18 January, by imposing an exclusion order banning Palestine solidarity protestors from entering the area surrounding the BBC throughout the day. We will not be silenced.
Since the Police announced their imposing of orders to prevent a protest at the BBC, nearly 200 MPs, trade union and civil society leaders and groups including Amnesty International UK and Akiko Hart, Director of Liberty, Holocaust survivors and their descendants, lawyers, journalists and prominent cultural figures have spoken out in support of the right to protest. Today, they have been joined by over 700 members of the Jewish community.
In recent weeks, Israel has intensified its genocide against the Palestinian people – including massacres of civilians sheltering in so-called ‘safe zones’ and the destruction of the last remaining medical facilities in the north of Gaza. Our marches reflect the overwhelming outrage felt by those who have witnessed these atrocities for more than a year alongside the ongoing complicity of the British government.
Recent investigations have exposed widespread anger amongst BBC staff at the skewed nature of its coverage, and its consistent failure to adhere to its own editorial standards, including by dehumanising Palestinians and obscuring the truth of Israel’s crimes against them. It is entirely unacceptable for the Metropolitan Police to abuse public order powers to shield the BBC from democratic scrutiny.
Contrary to the excuse offered by the police – that they have taken this action to prevent potential disruption to a nearby synagogue – the closest synagogue to the BBC is not even on the route of the march. As the Metropolitan Police have acknowledged, there has never been any threat to a synagogue attached to any of our marches. In fact, every march has been joined by thousands of Jewish people – many in an organised Jewish bloc.
We are calling on all those who support an immediate ceasefire and an end to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, as well as everyone who believes in the democratic right to protest, to join us in London at 12 noon on Saturday 18 January. We will assemble in Whitehall, which will allow us to form up in massive numbers, and we will march in an orderly fashion towards the BBC. We call on the Metropolitan Police to drop these repressive restrictions and accept our right to demonstrate at the BBC.
Image of Alphabeti Spagetti by Steven Feather, Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has today launched its first strategic market status (SMS) investigation under the new digital markets competition regime which came into force on 1 January 2025. The investigation will assess Google’s position in search and search advertising services and how this impacts consumers and businesses including advertisers, news publishers, and rival search engines.
Google’s search services are a gateway through which millions of people and businesses access and navigate the internet. In the UK, Google accounts for more than 90% of all general search queries, and more than 200,000 UK advertisers use Google’s search advertising.
Special counsel Jack Smith said he believed there was sufficient evidence to convict Trump over his attempts to overturn the 2020 election result. Photograph: The Washington Post/Getty Images
Report by Jack Smith says evidence ‘was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction’ had Trump not won re-election in 2024
Donald Trump would have been convicted of crimes over his failed attempt to cling to power in 2020 but for his victory in last year’s US presidential election, according to the special counsel who investigated him.
Jack Smith’s report detailing his team’s findings about Trump’s efforts to subvert democracy was released by the justice department early on Tuesday.
After the insurrection at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, Smith was appointed as special counsel to investigate Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. His investigation culminated in a detailed report submitted to the attorney general, Merrick Garland.
In it, Smith asserts that he believes the evidence would have been sufficient to convict Trump in a trial if his success in the 2024 election had not made it impossible for the prosecution to continue.
