Fanatical Jewish settlers, who are under the protection of Israeli police, storm Al-Aqsa Mosque during third day of the Sukkot holiday in East Jerusalem, on October 09, 2025. [Gazi Samad – Anadolu Agency]
Groups of illegal Israeli settlers on Thursday stormed the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem under the protection of Israeli police, local sources said, Anadolu reports.
The official news agency Wafa, citing the sources, said the illegal settlers entered the compound in groups, carried out provocative tours and performed Talmudic rituals while heavily guarded by Israeli forces.
On Tuesday, the Jerusalem Governorate said that a total of 182 illegal Israeli settlers forced their way into the flashpoint site during morning and evening incursions and performed Talmudic rituals near the Dome of the Rock in the complex under the protection of Israeli police.
The governorate also noted that 778 foreign tourists also entered the mosque through a gate operated by the Israeli authorities.
According to official figures, 4,266 illegal settlers and around 15,000 foreign tourists accessed the mosque compound during November.
Al-Aqsa Mosque is the world’s third-holiest site for Muslims. Jews call the area Temple Mount, claiming it was the site of two Jewish temples in ancient times.
Israel occupied East Jerusalem, where Al-Aqsa is located, during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. It annexed the entire city in 1980 in a move never recognized by the international community.
Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Vote Labour for Genocide.
A sign is seen at the Microsoft headquarters on July 3, 2024 in Redmond, Washington [David Ryder/Getty Images]
Microsoft is facing mounting legal and ethical scrutiny for its alleged complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza. A coalition of legal and human rights organisations has issued a formal notice to the tech giant, accusing it of aiding and abetting war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, by knowingly providing technology used by the Israeli military in its ongoing assault on Gaza.
The letter, delivered on 2 December by groups including the Center for Constitutional Rights, Avaaz, GLAN (Global Legal Action Network), and the European Legal Support Center, places Microsoft and its senior executives on notice of their potential exposure to civil and criminal liability under international and domestic law.
“There exists a reasonable and credible basis to believe that Microsoft has, through its provision of technology and services to the Israeli military, played a direct role in Israel’s commission of grave crimes,” states the letter, which outlines how Microsoft’s cloud computing and AI services have been integrated into Israel’s mass surveillance and targeting apparatus.
The coalition highlights that Israel’s assault on Gaza has killed over 70,000 Palestinians since October 2023, with over 170,000 more injured. Infrastructure has been decimated, famine is spreading, and nearly the entire population of Gaza has been displaced. Despite this, Microsoft deepened its ties with Israel’s military, with internal documents showing a surge in cloud and AI service sales to Israeli units actively engaged in the genocidal campaign.
Among the most damning revelations is Microsoft’s work with Israel’s Unit 8200, a military intelligence unit responsible for mass surveillance of Palestinians. Microsoft engineers built a customised Azure cloud platform used to store over 11,500 terabytes of intercepted Palestinian phone calls and data, enabling the development of “kill lists” for airstrikes.
The tech giant also sold thousands of hours of engineering support to the Israeli Ministry of Defence, and its services powered key military units and applications such as the Ofek Unit, Mamram, Unit 81, and Al-Munaseq, all of which have supported Israel’s assault on Gaza.
“Israel’s genocide would be impossible without private Big Tech firms equipping the Israeli military with everything from cloud storage to surveillance technology,” said Bassel El-Rewini, Human Rights Fellow at Abolitionist Law Center. “Faced with an ever-growing body of evidence, implicated companies, including Microsoft, have no excuse for continuing their support to Israel and must be held accountable.”
The letter was issued days before Microsoft’s Annual General Meeting on 5 December, stressing the reputational and financial risks the company now faces. Shareholders are being urged to demand an end to the company’s entanglement with Israeli military operations.
“Microsoft’s services and technologies have been used to violate Palestinian human rights, and shareholders should be aware of just how much this opens up the company to legal liability,” said Eric Sype of 7amleh.
Critics argue that Microsoft has not only enabled Israeli war crimes, but profited from them. As journalist investigations and internal documents show, Microsoft’s sales to Israel’s military skyrocketed after October 2023. The company raced to offer discounts and expanded services while Israel escalated its campaign.
“The scale and speed of Israel’s genocide would have been impossible to execute without Microsoft’s intervention,” the letter concludes.
Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Vote Labour for Genocide.
A Palestinian man carries the shrouded body of Taim Al-Khawaja, an infant who died of hypothermia in the Shati refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, on December 12, 2025. (Photo by Hamza Qraiqea/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“Palestinian babies freeze to death as shelters and lifesaving humanitarian aid—located just a few miles away—for 1 million civilians is blocked by Israel,” noted one journalist.
A second Palestinian infant and a young girl died of hypothermia in Gaza as heavy rains and flooding—whose effects are exacerbated by Israel’s genocidal annihilation and ongoing siege of the coastal strip—raised the death toll from Storm Byron to at least 16.
Taim Al-Khawaja—who was several months old—died in the Shati refugee camp in northern Gaza, while 9-year-old Hadeel al-Masri died in a shelter west of Gaza City, according to local officials. Their deaths follow that of Rahaf Abu Jazar, an 8-month-old who died Thursday of exposure after floodwaters inundated her family’s tent in Khan Younis.
At least five other people were killed when a building in Beit Lahia collapsed amid the storm, and two others were killed when a wall collapsed onto tents housing displaced Palestinians in the Remal neighorhood of Gaza City. According to Gaza’s Government Media Office (GMO), at least 13 buildings have collapsed and more than 27,000 tents have been destroyed or left uninhabitable by Byron’s winds, rain, and floodwater.
Palestinian babies freeze to death as shelters and life saving humanitarian aid-located just a few miles away-for 1million civilians is blocked by Israel. Israel deliberately creates horrific conditions of life, revealing its intent to physically destroy Palestinians as a people. pic.twitter.com/ACAUAGSWk3
While farmers in neighboring Israel welcomed the torrential rains, which delivered relief from drought conditions, the storm is devastating Palestinians already reeling and weakened from nearly 800 days of war and siege. Israel’s US-backed onslaught has left more than 250,000 Gazans dead, maimed, or missing and 2 million more starved, sickened, or displaced. Roughly 1.5 million Palestinians are currently living in tents or other makeshift shelters.
The recent hypothermia deaths evoked horrific memories of the past two winters in Gaza, when more than a dozen Palestinians—most of them infants and children—died from hypothermia caused by exposure. While many Israelis and their supporters abroad point to the relatively mild Mediterranean winters in an effort to deny these deaths, experts note that hypothermia can be deadly at temperatures over 60°F (15°C) in overexposed conditions such as those in Gaza.
Reporting from Gaza, Al Jazeera‘s Ibrahim al-Khalili said Friday that genocide-ravaged Gazans are now enduring “an added layer of suffering.”
“The tents are collapsing. The cold is unbearable. Basically, they don’t have anywhere to go. What is unfolding is devastating,” he said. “It’s not just a storm; it’s a new wave of displacement even after the war has stopped. Many people here told me that a new war has really begun after this flooding, and people are being forced to flee whatever fragile shelters they had.”
Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem on Friday called the recent exposure deaths a “continuation of the war of extermination.”
“The successive collapses of homes bombed during the war of extermination on the Gaza Strip, caused by the storm, and the resulting deaths, reflect the unprecedented scale of the humanitarian disaster left by this criminal Zionist war,” he said.
Jonathan Crickx, chief of communications for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), toldAgence France-Presse Friday that Gazans are also enduring “absolutely appalling hygiene and sanitary conditions.”
“There aren’t enough toilets; there are places—I saw some in Gaza City—where large pools of water are essentially open sewers right next to the displacement camps,” he added.
While the shaky two-month ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has somewhat eased the Israeli blockade on Gaza, the GMO said Friday that “the occupation continues to close crossings and prevent the entry of humanitarian aid and materials that could provide shelter.”
“This includes blocking the entry of 300,000 tents, prefabricated mobile homes, and caravans,” the agency added.
In a statement Friday, Doctors Without Borders Gaza emergency coordinator Caroline Seguin said that the charity is “very, very worried about the next month with the winter coming and the heavy rain.”
“Last year we saw a huge increase in respiratory infections for children, diarrhea as well, and of course all the wounded that are living inside the tents will have big difficulties to heal their wounds and will have probably an increase of infection for the wound of the wounded,” Seguin noted. “It’s near to be not possible to live in this conditions.”
Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.
A massive smoke and dust cloud rises after Israeli forces demolish several buildings in the Shujaiyya neighborhood located inside the so-called yellow zone in northern Gaza City, Gaza on December 9, 2025. (Photo by Khames Alrefi/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“The American public is demanding decisive action to end US complicity in the Israeli government’s war crimes by stopping the flow of weapons to Israel.”
Jewish Voice for Peace Action on Friday led a coalition of groups demanding that the Democratic Party stop providing arms to the Israeli government.
Speaking outside the Democratic National Committee’s Winter Meeting in Los Angeles, Jewish Voice for Peace Action (JVP Action) held a press conference calling on Democrats to oppose all future weapons shipments to Israel, whose years-long assault on Gaza has, according to one estimate, killed more than 100,000 Palestinian people.
While carrying banners that read, “Stop Arming Israel,” speakers at the press conference also called on Democrats to reject money from the American Israeli Political Action Committee (AIPAC), which has consistently funded primary challenges against left-wing critics of Israel.
JVP Action was joined at the press conference by representatives from Health Care 4 US (HC4US), Progressive Democrats of America, the Council on American-Islamic Relations Action (CAIR Action), and the United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) Board of Directors.
Estee Chandler, founder of the Los Angeles chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace, warned Democrats at the press conference that they risked falling out of touch with public opinion if they continued to support giving weapons to Israel.
“The polls are clear,” Chandler said. “The American public is demanding decisive action to end US complicity in the Israeli government’s war crimes by stopping the flow of weapons to Israel, and the Democratic Party refusing to heed that call will continue to come at their own peril.”
The press conference came a day after the progressive advocacy group RootsAction and journalist Christopher D. Cook released an “autopsy” report of the Democratic Party’s crushing 2024 losses, finding that the party’s support for Israel’s assault on Gaza contributed to last year’s election results.
Chandler also called on Democrats to get behind the Block the Bombs Act, which currently has 58 sponsors, and which she said “would block the transfer of the worst offensive weapons from being sent to Israel, including bombs, tank rounds, and artillery shells that are US-supplied and have been involved in the mass killing of Palestinian civilians and the grossest violations of international law in Gaza.”
Although there has technically been a ceasefire in place in Gaza since October, Israeli forces have continued to conduct deadly military operations in the enclave that have killed hundreds of civilians, including dozens of children.
Ricardo Pires, a spokesperson for the United Nations Children’s Fund, said last month that the number of deaths in Gaza in recent weeks has been “staggering” given that they’ve happened “during an agreed ceasefire.”
Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.
US President Donald Trump ‘dances’ to music after speaking at the Mount Airy Casino Resort in Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania, Decembe 9, 2025
EVERYBODY gets it except Keir Starmer. Labour MPs, including those traditionally on the right, are clear that the basis for Britain’s alliance with the USA is collapsing.
The new US national security document — itself dismissive of Britain — is a manifesto for the advance of far-right and fascistic forces across Europe.
As Liam Byrne MP told the Commons, the strategy is saturated with far-right tropes from the 1930s. “The language of the US national security strategy was deeply regrettable and, frankly, it was not hard to see the rhymes with some extreme right-wing tropes that date back to the 1930s,” he said.
And Matt Western MP, chair of the joint committee on national security strategy, said the Commons “should be under no illusion, the United States consensus that has led the Western world since the second world war appears shattered.
“The prospect of United States interference in the democratic politics of Europe is chilling. Given certain UK dependencies on the United States, this leaves the United Kingdom especially vulnerable,” he added.
They are right. Alongside pursuing untrammelled hegemony through aggression in the western hemisphere, while seeking to pressure China economically, plunder Africa and centre the Middle East around Israel and the reactionary Gulf dictatorships, the Trump administration wants to impose its own far-right agenda on Europe.
And, as Washington’s strategy makes clear, it is willing to back far-right parties like Britain’s Reform UK in order to bring the continent into line, rhetoric about respect for national sovereignty notwithstanding.
This is a menace to democracy, an interference in our internal political affairs and a brazen plan to leverage the immense power of the US to gain advantage over its nominal “allies.”
Yet Starmer and the rest of the government profess that there is nothing to see here, that it is all business as usual. Hypocritically, they even praise Trump for “working for peace,” when Starmer is actually working might and main to obstruct the US push to end the war in Ukraine.
It seems that the government simply cannot acknowledge the enormity of what is happening, since the entire strategy of the British state has pivoted for the last 80 years on the purported ”special relationship” with Washington.
Indeed, there are core functions which might seize up without US support, so deeply embedded has Washington become in the British state.
Yet the global drive towards a 21st-century form of far-right authoritarianism, now powered from Washington, demands a clear rupture with Trump and all his works.
Starmer’s mealy-mouthed evasions demean our democracy and only invite further pressure from over the Atlantic. Trump should be called out as the proto-fascist he is, and the US told that it can rely on British support for its adventures no longer.
Enough with the fawning. It is time to stand up for democracy.
US President Donald Trump ‘dances’ to music after speaking at the Mount Airy Casino Resort in Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania, Decembe 9, 2025