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Injured Palestinians, including children are brought to al-Ahli Baptist Hospital for medical treatment aftermath of Israeli attack on Gaza City, Gaza on July 16, 2025. [Dawoud Abo Alkas – Anadolu Agency]
During a session at the UN Security Council on Wednesday, the Executive Director of UNICEF, Catherine Russell, revealed alarming figures about the impact of the ongoing Israeli offensive on Gaza.
She confirmed that more than 17,000 children have been killed since the beginning of the war, at an average rate of 28 children each day– the equivalent of an entire classroom.” It is as if we are losing an entire classroom of pupils every single day for two years.”
“Children are not political actors. They do not start conflicts, and they are powerless to stop them. But they suffer greatly, and they wonder why the world has failed them,” she added.
Meanwhile, the UN Under-Secretary-General Mr Tom Fletcher warned that the health situation in Gaza has reached catastrophic levels.
“Only 17 of 36 hospitals and 63 of 170 primary healthcare centres are functioning, all only partially, even as mass casualties arrive daily,” he highlighted.
Fletcher indicated that half of all medical equipment has been damaged, with the ongoing fuel crisis remaining critical, despite its vital role in powering ambulances and other essential services.
Expressing concern over the alarming rates of child starvation in June, he revealed that “more than 5,800 girls and boys have been diagnosed as acutely malnourished.”
“Last week, amid this hunger crisis, children and women were killed in a strike while waiting for the food supplements to keep them alive,” he warned.
Ghassan Abu-Sittah and other health workers hold press conference after Israeli attacks on Gaza’s hospitals, October 2023. Source: Ghassan Abu-Sittah/X
A judge in a German court ruled that the ban on activity imposed on renowned Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah was unlawful.
The Palestine Congress in Berlin, which was organized in mid-April of last year, was violently shut down by the police on its first day, just minutes after it began. The pretext for this action, which was deemed unlawful by attorneys, was a live-stream of Palestinian historian Dr. Salman Abu Sitta.
His nephew, the doctor Ghassan Abu-Sittah, was banned from entering Germany on the morning of April 12, 2024. He had arrived on a flight from the UK, was detained and questioned for hours at Berlin airport, and then deported. He was also told that he was banned from practicing any political activities in Germany for the month of April, even from abroad. The organizers of the conference are taking legal action against the dissolution of the event, the trial of which is ongoing.
Witness to the genocide wins in Berlin
But Ghassan Abu-Sittah won a victory on Tuesday, July 15, at Berlin’s Administrative Court (Verwaltungsgericht). From the UK, the doctor had filed a lawsuit against the actions of the German authorities. The surgeon and rector of the University of Glasgow has worked as a doctor in a dozen war and crisis zones over the course of his life, including the Gaza Strip. Shortly after the genocide began in October 2023, he went there again as part of a “Doctors Without Borders” mission to provide aid at Al-Shifa Hospital. The hospital was repeatedly attacked and ultimately destroyed by the Israeli army in November 2023 and again in March/April 2024. Israeli forces massacred hundreds of doctors, patients, and refugees.
The court’s judge ruled that the ban on activity imposed on Abu-Sittah was unlawful. According to a spokeswoman for the court, there was no sufficient evidence that Abu-Sittah’s statements posed a threat to Germany’s constitutional order or public safety. In particular, the authorities were unable to produce any statements by the renowned doctor that referred positively to the Palestinian resistance’s “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation or even to possible war crimes committed by the Palestinian resistance. Even if such a danger had existed, a preventive ban on the doctor’s activities would have been disproportionate.
The spokesperson also pointed out that Abu-Sittah was heard as an eyewitness to the genocide in the International Criminal Court proceedings against Israeli government politicians, and was also announced as such at the Palestine Congress.
Racist repression
His lawyer, Alexander Gorki, explained on request: “The hearing showed that the ban on activities was unlawful from start to finish. What was to be sanctioned via the residency rights were opinions expressed by my client, who knew the situation on the ground in Gaza very well as a Palestinian and a doctor.” The court “put a stop to the abuse of immigration law”. However, the ruling will not prevent the immigration authorities from abusing their power in the future, warns the migration law expert. To counter this, “political pressure is needed”.
In fact, the repressive authorities in Germany have been using all kinds of tricks and legal means for years to bypass the courts and exert pressure on the Palestinian solidarity movement and Palestinians in Germany: from expulsions and deportations, to bans on organizing, employment bans and the cancellation of welfare benefits. Migrants and refugees with a precarious status are particularly affected. Just two weeks ago, on the orders of a court, Musaab Abu Atta, a Palestinian refugee and political activist, was released from four months of custody. The public prosecutor’s office is trying to lock him up again because of an alleged “flight risk”, even though he has a fiancée and a job in Berlin. At the same time, there are indications that they want to deport him to Syria.
Leon Wystrychowski is a former member of the Palästina Solidarität Duisburg (Palestine Solidarity Duisburg, PSDU).
Grassroots immigrant rights activists challenge federal claims about the circumstances of the ICE raid that lead to the farmworker’s death
Jaime Alanís succumbed to injuries sustained amid an ICE raid at Glass House Farms, where he had labored for over a decade
On July 10, 2025, while being pursued by ICE agents during a violent raid at Glass House Farms in Camarillo, California, 57‑year‑old farmworker Jaime Alanís fell nearly 30 feet from a greenhouse roof and succumbed to his injuries two days later.
A devoted husband, father, and the sole breadwinner for his family, Alanís had labored at the farm for over a decade. On July 12, the worker became the first known casualty of the Trump administration’s intensified ICE raids.
His death ignited a fierce public outcry. While the Department of Homeland Security maintains he was not actively being chased and climbed the roof on his own accord, his family, as well as immigrant rights activists, contend he was fleeing from the violence of Trump’s ICE agents, who have terrorized immigrant communities across the country.
The Department of Homeland Security denies that Alanís was being pursued at all, although this does not explain why the worker ended up climbing 30 feet onto the roof of a greenhouse. DHS also claims that the raid resulted in the rescue of children from “potential exploitation, forced labor, and human trafficking.”
To some immigrant rights activists, Alanís’ death has become a poignant symbol of the human cost of aggressive immigration enforcement tactics, and the policies that make them possible.
On July 9, the US Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced that there would be “no amnesty” for undocumented farmworkers, and that the Trump administration is seeking a workforce composed entirely of those from the US. Rollins plans to accomplish this via automation and mobilizing the “34 million able-bodied adults in our Medicaid program.”
Trump has recently signed legislation that would create the first-ever federally mandated work requirements for those covered by Medicaid, the US’s public health insurance program. According to a May report by the healthcare policy group KFF, 92% of those on Medicaid under age 65 and not receiving SSI or SSDI benefits and not covered by Medicare, were either working full or part-time, or not working due to caregiving duties, illness or disability, or attending school.
Peoples Dispatch spoke to Ventura County activist Elaine Yompian, part of the immigrant rights coalition VC Defensa, for more on the fight for justice for Jaime Alanís and the millions of immigrant workers with targets on their backs.
“We understand that even though this wasn’t an immediate death, his injuries and the danger that he was put in is a direct result of the ICE operation and the brutality in which agents were conducting this raid,” Elaine told Peoples Dispatch. “We’re calling it the first murder that has happened in an ICE operation.”
Read the full interview here:
Peoples Dispatch: Can you describe what took place during the raid at Glass House Farms and the surrounding events?
Elaine Yompian: The same day as the raid, there was a huge protest that broke out in defense of the community. We kind of put out a call for people to immediately show up.
That’s been one of the key things that we’ve been doing, mobilizing people to take action wherever ICE is present so that their actions don’t go unnoticed or unchecked.
We didn’t know how big the raid was when it started. We put out a call for emergency mobilization to that location, and soon we saw that the National Guard was coming in. We kept making calls for people to just show up to declare that we wanted ICE out of the county, and away from our neighbors and family members.
We were there for over six hours, standing basically in front of the ICE agents, hoping that they wouldn’t pass, hoping that they wouldn’t take more people. Amid the chaos, we have heard of four US citizens that were taken, two of which were our volunteers, and one is a person that we know.
All four have been released so far. One of them was our volunteer, she’s a mother, and she was held for over 10 hours. She was beaten up, then taken to the hospital. And when she was taken to the hospital, we called for a protest there, for them to release her, and ICE agents actually tried to enter the hospital and were pushing the hospital staff to try to get in. A lot of the staff held their ground because of HIPAA compliances and everything, and the ICE had no warrants.
Eventually ICE agents did get in, apparently someone let them in, and then they took her again and she saw all kinds of really horrible things while in their custody. They tried to intimidate her, but eventually they released her with no charges.
The other US citizen that was detained, Jonathan Anthony Caravello, is a labor organizer and a volunteer of ours. He is math and philosophy professor at California State University, Channel Islands, and he was also taken and detained for several days. They released him recently.
Another US citizen who was detained is a US Army veteran, George Retes, who we met during the first raid that happened in June, and he was also detained and freed yesterday.
We stayed back at the site of the raid for a very long time, even after the agents had left, to help those who were hiding with farm workers, to get back to their cars or get back home.
After the raid, our hotline was getting back to back calls of families who were looking for their loved ones. We had a family search team, trying to find where they were taken, if they were taken, or if they were just missing – whether they had been detained or were still hiding somewhere, and we needed to go find them. We were doing all that work, as well as doing food distribution for families that have been affected.
With Jaime Alanís’ family in particular, we got in contact pretty quickly because the news reports were saying that he had died during the raid. The family was pretty upset that the media was saying that he had already passed away when he was still on life support.
When I spoke to his niece, who was his immediate family member in the US., her goal is to eventually sue the DHS for his murder.
PD:How does the violence deployed during the ICE raid in Camarillo compare to tactics used in other Trump-era ICE raids, such as militarization or arrests of noncriminals? How do these raids compare to raids under past administrations?
EY: Raids have always been a form of human torture. It’s always involved family separation, and the level of trauma and impact that it has on our communities has never really shifted, depending on whether it’s a Democratic president or a Republican president in office. It’s always been something that has caused incredible amounts of pain to the families and to the people being taken.
The use of force has also always been brutal. The conditions within detention centers have always been truly horrific. There’s no other word to describe them other than torture.
Now with Trump, it’s definitely intensified, we’re not going to deny that.
PD:DHS is justifying this raid by claiming that children were rescued from potential violations of child labor laws and human trafficking taking place at the farm. What is your response to this justification?
EY: It’s a common tactic for the US to claim that they’re doing this for the safety of the community, for the well-being of children. Let’s even say that the farm had conditions that DHS claims. However, these conditions are also caused by systems of injustice. The reason why so many people go into jobs that have these extreme amounts of physical labor for very low pay is a result of capitalist exploitation.
But the solution for that would never be a one time intervention on one farm in one county in the middle of California. That is not going to solve the larger issue.
So if the government wants to say we’re doing this because we were trying to protect children from working these conditions, the finger should be pointed right back at the government itself and the capitalist system, because that’s what’s causing these conditions and that’s what’s allowing for this to happen.
Luigi Borrelli during an action against arms tranfers via civilian transport hubs. Source: USB
Workers and activists rally in Brescia against company retaliation targeting trade unionist who resisted arms transfers through civilian airport
Workers from the trade union Unione Sindacale di Base (USB) and other anti-armament activists are protesting today in Brescia, Lombardy, against attempts to intimidate trade unionists who speak out and take action against the use of civilian transport hubs for arms deliveries. Ahead of the protest, USB’s Dario Filippini told Peoples Dispatch that the union expects a diverse range of groups to join the mobilization, building on a protest organized in June against an arms shipment via Montichiari Airport in Brescia.
At that time, long-time airport employee and trade unionist Luigi Borrelli raised concerns about the possible transfer of military goods through the airport, which, as Filippini points out, is intended for the transport of cargo such as mail, medicine, and food. Borrelli’s warning triggered an organized response and ultimately led to the cancellation of the flight. However, the airport operator, GDA Handling, retaliated by threatening Borrelli with dismissal for allegedly breaching confidentiality and “loyalty to the company.”
Filippini notes that this is not the first time GDA Handling has targeted Borrelli over his opposition to the airport’s apparent covert role in transporting military cargo. Since at least mid-2024, when he began raising concerns about suspicious packages moving through Montichiari, Borrelli has faced suspensions and fines – measures seemingly aimed at silencing him and deterring others.
“The obvious goal is to prevent any scrutiny of the repeated use of the airport for operations related to weapons deliveries to active war zones,” USB stated.
Nevertheless, trade unions and other organizations argue that Borrelli’s actions are legally sound and morally justified. The Italian Constitution clearly states that the Republic “repudiates war,” which raises questions about the legitimacy of transporting arms to countries engaged in conflict. There are also practical implications for workers, Filippini points out: “If you’ve been hired to handle mail or food, why should you suddenly be expected to handle weapons?” he asks. “If arms have to be handled in the first place, wouldn’t soldiers be better placed to do that?” he adds, noting the proximity of Ghedi Air Base.
In several cases across Europe, workers have refused to handle military shipments destined for Israel during its ongoing genocide in Gaza, including over health and safety concerns. As an elected workers’ representative, Borrelli echoed similar concerns when he publicly denounced military transports through Montichiari. But this appears to matter little to Italian authorities or airport management.
Instead, broader efforts to discredit and constrain workers taking industrial action against the arms trade have emerged. Some official interpretations have even said arms were “essential goods,” thereby potentially limiting workers’ ability to legally strike over such shipments. Giorgio Cremaschi of the left political party Potere al Popolo described this as a form of militarization of labor, where “workers at ports, railways, airports, and throughout logistics become de facto soldiers, carriers of arms.”
USB and Potere al Popolo have called for resistance to these efforts and for the protection of workers’ rights – both to strike and to speak out against war. “We are convinced that strike, disobedience, collective action, and individual refusal by working men and women can be the most effective forms of nonviolent resistance,” reads a statement issued by dozens of trade unionists, legal scholars, and academics ahead of the protest in Brescia. “Such actions can stop the warmongers and the madness of rearmament, allowing the Republic, founded on labor, to repudiate war and consign it to history.”
“This is about going beyond the slogan ‘not in my name’ and declaring through concrete acts: ‘not with my hands, not with my knowledge, not with my labor,’” the statement adds.
Reflecting this approach, the mobilizations in Brescia are contributing to a growing movement among transport and logistics workers in the region who are standing up against Europe’s armament agenda, Filippini says. These efforts have earned solidarity from workers’ organizations abroad. Among them is Greece’s All-Workers Militant Front (PAME), which stated: “The persecution and the threat of dismissal against trade unionist Luigi Borrelli is an attack on the unions that resist the plans and the wars of the imperialist, that fight for peace between peoples.”
As solidarity with Borrelli continues, USB and its allies remain committed to expanding the campaign against the arms trade and defending workers’ right to conscientiously object to participating in weapons transfers. “Wars should be boycotted,” Potere al Popolo wrote in a statement of support. “Blocking arms shipments is not only legitimate: it is an act of justice and democracy.”
Heavily armed police repress anti-mining protests in Las Naves on June 26. Photo: CONAIE
In June, the police harshly repressed demonstrators opposing the third-largest mining project in the country. Several social movements have denounced links between the mining company and the president’s family.
Ecuador is a country that has developed a strong consciousness for environmental conservation throughout its history. Its constitution, approved in 2008, was a pioneer in the world in granting rights to nature. In 2021, more than 80% of the inhabitants of Cuenca, Ecuador’s third-largest city, voted in favor of banning mining there. In 2023, in a popular consultation, the Ecuadorian people demanded that the oil in the Amazonian Yasuní National Park be left in the ground.
The inhabitants of the country’s capital, Quito, also voted against the exploration and exploitation of metallic minerals in the Andean Chocó area. Mention should also be made of the numerous struggles that Indigenous peoples have waged for decades against the destruction of nature by large mining and oil companies.
Curimining and allegations of links with the Noboa family
The latest episode in this anti-mining legacy took place three weeks ago in the canton of Las Naves, Bolivar Province. The company Curimining S.A., following an agreement with the right-wing government of Daniel Noboa, announced that it would begin its activities in June with the construction of the El Domo mine, which aims to extract gold, silver, and zinc.
According to the announcement, the company will invest USD 292 million over a 22-month period and will offer royalties of more than USD 370 million, thus becoming the third-largest mine in the country, behind Fruta del Norte and Mirador.
One of the most controversial issues of the start of mining operations is that, according to several social organizations, including the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), one of the major shareholders of Curmining S.A. is the Nobis Group, a powerful conglomerate of companies dominated mainly by the family of the current president of the country. Given this, several social leaders have stressed that the operating permits were granted to favor the economic group to which the Noboa family belongs.
The popular organization of Las Naves and its neighbors
In early 2025, upon learning that Las Naves would become the epicenter of one of the largest mining operations in the country, hundreds of residents of the sector began to organize and demand that mining activities not be carried out on their land. They argue that mining operations endanger their water sources, which are not only indispensable for sustaining their fundamental economic activity (agriculture and livestock) but also for their daily consumption.
At the end of June 2025, major protests and mobilizations took place in Las Naves, involving not only the inhabitants of the area but also farmers from neighboring areas such as Ventanas, Echandía, San Luis de Pambil, Quimsaloma, and Pangua. The protesters argued that the consequences of the mining project could damage the environment and the thousands of families living there.
The National Anti-Mining Front, a social organization active in the struggle against mining, said in a statement: “Precincts, communities, associations, water boards, cocoa producers, ranchers, nurseries, traders and citizens in general mobilized in a single force to denounce the invasion of the mining company Curimining in the upper area of the canton, putting at risk the water sources where rivers are born that supply thousands of peasant families who are engaged in agriculture, livestock and tourism. Today, the people of Las Naves, but also Ventanas, Echandia, and San Luis de Pambil, Quimsaloma, Pangua, we said in one voice of resistance, MINING WILL NOT HAPPEN.”
The repression
This is not the first time that the residents of Las Naves have protested against mining. In July 2023, the government repressed the protests against the granting of the license to the company. In 2025, the presidency decided to repeat the script and protect Curmining’s interests, and opted for repression of the protesters. For several days, there were intense confrontations between farmers and traders in the area with specialized units of the National Police. Several videos show various protesters who were injured after the actions of the gendarmes.
On June 26, CONAIE reported on X: “Day 3 of repression in Las Naves. Heavily armed policemen from the Unit for the Maintenance of Order once again entered the La Union, Las Naves, by order of the mining company Curmining S.A., whose shareholder is the Nobis Group, linked to the family of President Daniel Noboa. The Government prioritizes the use of public force to protect the interests of a foreign company, criminalizing communities that defend water, territory, and their peasant economy.”
What is behind the events in Las Naves?
To better understand the situation, Peoples Dispatch spoke with Pamela Viteri, political scientist, lawyer, and left-wing militant, who affirmed that there was more behind what happened in Las Naves than what the official story says: “Behind it are the interests of the mining companies and the State that supports them. The Curimining mining company (Salazar Resources and Silvercorp) wants to impose the Curipamba – El Domo project by force, and the government, through police force and persecution, protects those interests. All this happens because mining is a business for the elites and for the politicians who are in power, such as President Noboa himself, who has very clear links with the sector, and specifically, in this concession.”
On the future of the anti-mining struggle in Las Naves, Viteri said, “The struggle is not over, it is still going on. The people have resisted strongly: there have been two points of resistance, caravans, and massive mobilizations. Although the police have brutally repressed, injuring protestors and carrying out arrests, the communities have not given up. Judicially, the protection actions were rejected, but the communities have appealed … The people continue to defend the water and the territory. Right now, there is tense resistance in the territory. They have not allowed all the machines they would like to enter, and that is thanks to the popular struggle … for more than a month and a half.”
When Viteri was asked about the broader meaning of the anti-mining struggle in Ecuador, she said: “What we are facing is not just a mining company, it is an entire extractivist model that despises peasant life, water, and the sovereignty of the peoples. A mode of accumulation that only serves the great interests of capital and that can only be sustained through blood, repression, and jail.”
“The future consists of staying organized, adding more strength, and not letting go of the territory. If we don’t stand firm, these companies will sweep us away. But the struggle of Las Naves has already transcended: now it is seen as an example throughout the country. The future lies in continuing to articulate with other anti-mining struggles, strengthening the organization, putting legal and social pressure, and not allowing us to be divided or bought. If the company and the State continue to violate rights, we will continue to resist. This struggle will not end until the mining company withdraws from the territory and the government looks for and listens to economic alternatives. The present and the future are anti-mining,” concluded Viteri.
![Injured Palestinians, including children are brought to al-Ahli Baptist Hospital for medical treatment aftermath of Israeli attack on Gaza City, Gaza on July 16, 2025. [Dawoud Abo Alkas - Anadolu Agency]](https://i0.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/AA-20250716-38579326-38579324-ISRAELI_ATTACK_ON_GAZA_LEAVES_MULTIPLE_CASUALTIES-1-1.jpg?fit=920%2C613&ssl=1)
