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People gather to commemorate Lebanese children who lost their lives in Israeli attacks during an event titled “The bloodiest September for children in Lebanon” at Martyrs’ Square in downtown Beirut, Lebanon, on September 23, 2026. [Houssam Shbaro – Anadolu Agency]
261 children have been killed and 1,056 injured in Israeli attacks on Lebanon since the escalation began in March, The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Wednesday, warning of the impact of the worsening crisis on the future of children and young people.
In a report titled An Enduring Nightmare, UNICEF said about 436 schools had been damaged or destroyed, putting nearly 100,000 children at risk of dropping out of education. It added that 86 teachers had been killed or injured.
UNICEF said the economic and humanitarian crisis was pushing more families into being unable to meet basic needs, with four in five families in Lebanon struggling to provide them.
The report said 22 per cent of surveyed families reported that their children had gone to bed hungry during the previous two weeks.
Meanwhile, 31 per cent of families said they had been unable to provide their children with necessary healthcare because they could not afford it.
UNICEF also warned of the psychological impact of the crisis on children, saying about 770,000 children in Lebanon had experienced psychological distress over the past six months.
UNICEF Representative in Lebanon Marcoluigi Corsi said children and young people were bearing burdens “no child should have to carry”, warning that if the crisis continued without urgent and sustained action, it could have long-term effects on an entire generation.
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during the 81st United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) at the UN Headquarters in New York, United States, on September 24, 2026. [Mehmet Eser – Anadolu Agency]
The Israeli occupation leadership has long been accustomed to staging bizarre spectacles on some of the world’s most prominent international platforms, but what Benjamin Netanyahu did during his latest appearance on 25th September 2026 surpassed all expectations. The leading suspect wanted by the International Criminal Court took to the podium to deliver his annual speech at the 81st session of the General Assembly carrying a Starlink satellite dish. He went so far as to display a piece of technological explosive equipment in full view of the world, appearing in the form of a handheld communications device.
This is not entirely new. Year after year, Netanyahu has become accustomed to performing his theatrical tricks on the platform of the United Nations General Assembly, bringing to New York each time propaganda boards, photographs and drawings accompanied by provocative and elaborate spectacles.
Yet, until September 2026, the world’s foremost international forum had never witnessed a Starlink satellite dish being displayed in this manner, nor had a representative of a member state dared to carry and boast about an apparent explosive device in full view.
The Israeli Prime Minister took to the podium holding up a Starlink satellite device, using it as a prop to divert attention from the international condemnation he had anticipated would once again empty the UN hall, as it had the previous year, with dozens of delegates walking out as he began speaking. This time, he appeared determined to pull more rabbits from his magic hat, drawing attention away from the embarrassment of addressing a largely empty hall while once again resorting to his familiar theatrical style, marked by arrogance and provocation.
The Israeli prime minister knows that this approach cannot convince a world that can see the reality on the ground.
The notorious war criminal is not primarily concerned with winning hearts and minds or appealing to the conscience of nations horrified by the atrocities of genocide, ethnic cleansing, occupation, settlement and arrogance.
Netanyahu sought to distract the world with an entirely different narrative centred on Iran’s restrictions on this satellite technology, in the hope of obscuring the reality witnessed by the entire world, while naturally ignoring the restrictions imposed by the occupation and genocide regime on Starlink in the Gaza Strip, for example.
One of the purposes of this theatrical appearance was to portray Israel’s most prominent official as an extremely confident speaker, still capable of creating events, setting the pace like a conductor and controlling the international narrative. This was essentially a domestic electoral speech, even though he was once again isolated as he addressed the General Assembly, whose seats were largely emptied in protest at his appearance, while the Israeli delegation busied itself giving him a standing ovation. What matters to Netanyahu is to appear once again in images that seize attention and dominate the headlines of the world’s media, through an extraordinary and striking scene featuring a Starlink satellite dish on the General Assembly platform. What a spectacle!
Over the years, Netanyahu has come to define a new Israeli approach to addressing the international community, characterised by excessive theatrics, arrogance, provocation and moralising, and far removed from the traditions of diplomatic dignity and measured language.
It is also marked by a barrage of carefully crafted accusations against those bold enough to remind the world of rights, justice and international law, among them Zohran Mamdani, the mayor of the city that hosts the world’s foremost international forum.
Representatives of the occupation’s ‘diplomacy’ follow Netanyahu’s theatrical school in their public appearances. One of them is Ambassador Danny Danon, who appeared in a video strutting through the corridors of the General Assembly, accompanied by a camera phone carried by one of his aides, during an extraordinary episode of verbal harassment directed at the Iranian delegation. The troublemaker Danon also carried the same Starlink device and repeatedly urged the Iranian delegation to take it to Tehran. This blatant provocation is, in reality, designed to portray Israel’s internationally isolated position as self-confident, as though it still has something to say and something to initiate in full view of the world; as though it remains capable of lecturing others about values and freedom of expression, and of continuing to manufacture events and distract the world with sensational stories, as if no genocide had taken place in Gaza in full view of the world. Danon has not abandoned his style of arrogance and provocation, even towards international figures. He went so far as to call UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese a ‘witch’ after she presented her report to a General Assembly committee on the genocide in Gaza on 28th October 2025. Danon attacked Albanese at the time, saying: “Ms Albanese, you are a witch, and this report is another page in your spell book.”
There is nothing new in this. Representatives of ‘Israeli diplomacy’ have become accustomed to launching fierce verbal attacks against UN officials themselves, as former Israeli envoy Gilad Erdan did in his repeated attacks on UN Secretary-General António Guterres. He said, for example, that Guterres had “lost his moral compass” (November 2023), accused him of “blindness to terrorism” (January 2024), and went so far as to say: “The only one who should be blacklisted is the Secretary-General, who encourages terrorism, and whose decisions are driven by hatred of Israel” (June 2024).
The most significant international precedent brought by the Israeli leadership to the General Assembly platform during the 81st session, however, was the display and flaunting of a model of a deadly explosive device in full view of the world. The Israeli prime minister showcased one of his country’s achievements: the booby-trapping of communications devices and their transformation into tools for killing, maiming and injuring on a scale unprecedented in the world.
Netanyahu pulled a pager from his pocket and proudly displayed it, showcasing the lethal technological capabilities of Israel’s intelligence services, seemingly unconcerned by the fact that this particular device caused deaths, injuries, mutilation and terror among children and women on a large scale in Lebanon.
In his speech, Netanyahu sought to highlight the Israeli occupation leadership’s continued exploitation of available technologies for control, targeting, killing and destruction. This was essentially an ‘achievement’ message aimed primarily at the Israeli public. What the war criminal did not say was that humanity’s advances in technology, communications and software are being harnessed in a race to serve the occupation’s programme of control, domination, oppression, genocide and accelerating ethnic cleansing in Palestine. The international community has yet to fully confront the use of artificial intelligence to commit war crimes on an unprecedented scale. This is among the issues exposed by reports and testimonies, including the documentary film NAZA, made by two Israelis who recently received an honorary award at the Venice Film Festival and which provided detailed operational accounts of such practices.
The rounds of provocation and arrogance staged by Israeli occupation leaders in diplomatic corridors should not surprise the international community, so long as it continues to allow those who have trampled humanitarian conventions and international law underfoot to take to the world’s most prominent platforms and deliver theatrical speeches, rather than face international justice.
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A large group of Jewish and Muslim demonstrators carrying banners and Palestinian flags march from Bryant Park toward the United Nations headquarters to protest the policies of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump regarding the war in Gaza in New York, United States, on September 24, 2026. [Waleed Zein – Anadolu Agency]
To claim that Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza has fundamentally changed the internal politics of the United States and the wider world might be an overstatement. But what cannot be overstated is a simple fact: Israel and its policies no longer enjoy the virtually unlimited approval and support in the US that they once taken for granted. At both the local and national levels, support for Israel has weakened significantly, while across Europe, too, political attitudes toward Israel have changed in ways that would have been difficult to imagine just three years ago.
To see that change in Europe just consider the new position taken by the United Kingdom toward Israel, particularly over the occupied West Bank. In earlier September, Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband accused Israeli settler terrorists of perpetrating ethnic cleansing against Palestinians and announced new measures targeting Israel’s settlement enterprise, including sanctions and a ban on imports. Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who just two months before taking office, apologized for Labour’s initial response to the war on Gaza for being too slow to respond to Israel’s genocide. He has said Britain must put more pressure on the Israeli government and consider further sanctions. These are not the positions Britain was taking just a few years ago.
In America it is even more evident that Israel is losing the support it once enjoyed. It would have been unthinkable just three years ago that large sections of the American public would challenge their government’s traditionally unconditional support for Israel.
Opinion polls are showing a trend of negative opinion toward Israel. Last July, an Economist/YouGov poll found that 47 percent of Americans believed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was guilty of war crimes in Gaza, while 43 percent said Israel was committing genocide against Palestinians. Nearly half, 49 percent, said the US should arrest Netanyahu if he entered the country. Even more strikingly, a February 2026 Gallup poll found that 41 percent of Americans sympathized more with Palestinians in the Middle East conflict. From 2001 through 2025, Israelis had consistently enjoyed a double-digit advantage on this measure. In 2026, for the first time in Gallup’s long-running series, Palestinians moved ahead of Israelis in Americans’ sympathies.
The change is visible beyond polling booths and political rallies.
On September 24, Oscar-winning actress Susan Sarandon and Emmy-winning actress Hannah Einbinder were among more than 100 people arrested in New York during a protest against Netanyahu outside the United Nations, where demonstrators demanded an end to U.S. arms supplies to Israel.
Hollywood star Mark Ruffalo was among more than 1,800 actors, entertainers and producers, including Nicolas Gage and Emma Stone, who signed a pledge to boycott Israeli film institutions over the war. What was once largely confined to the margins of American political debate has consequently become part of mainstream public discourse.
Politically speaking, the shift is becoming increasingly visible at the grassroots level and in electoral contests across the US. One of the clearest examples is the rise of Zohran Mamdani, who defeated former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic mayoral primary before going on to win the general election. Cuomo had made support for Israel one of the central issues of his campaign, while Mamdani was an outspoken critic of Israel’s conduct in Gaza and a supporter of Palestinian rights, going as far as to threaten to have Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrested if he came to New York. The ability of a candidate with such positions to win in New York — home to the largest Jewish population outside Israel — was itself politically significant. It indicates even Jewish people are not supporting Israeli actions.
The same shift is visible in the growing difficulty faced by AIPAC, the most powerful pro-Israel lobby in the United States, and its affiliated groups in some Democratic primaries.
In Michigan, AIPAC and its affiliated groups spent nearly $30 million backing pro Israel Representative, Haley Stevens, against progressive candidate Abdul El-Sayed, a vocal critic of U.S. military aid to Israel. El-Sayed nevertheless won the Democratic Senate primary on August 4 by about 48.5% of the vote.
The November midterm elections will provide a much broader test of whether this change in public opinion is beginning to translate into electoral politics.
Furthermore, the shift has also begun to show itself inside Congress in ways that would have been extremely difficult to imagine only a few years ago. On July 15, the House of Representatives voted on an amendment that would have cut $3.3 billion in military aid to Israel from a broader national security spending bill. True the amendment failed but 103 Democrats and one Republican voted in favour of the cut. In other words, more than half of all House Democrats backed an effort to cut military aid to Israel — an extraordinary departure from the traditionally strong bipartisan support for Israel in Congress. The vote is significant because of the number of lawmakers prepared to break with the established position on U.S. military support for Israel. With the November midterm elections approaching, such a vote provides another indication that the political debate over Israel and U.S. support for it is no longer confined to the margins of American politics.
What has changed in the US is not simply the intensity of criticism of Israel, but the political space in which it now operates. What was once largely treated as a settled pro-Israel bipartisan consensus is increasingly being challenged by voters, activists, candidates and members of Congress. The shift is visible in opinion polls, in the streets, in Democratic primaries and even on the floor of the House of Representatives. None of this means that support for Israel has disappeared from American politics; it plainly has not. But the political consensus surrounding it is no longer what it was. The November midterm elections will show whether this change in public opinion and political activism has become a lasting force in American electoral politics or just a temporary shift.
Whatever the outcome of the midterms, however, it will be difficult for Israel to return to the position it once occupied in American public life — as a state that could count on being treated by much of American public opinion and the political establishment as virtually beyond criticism.
It will be interesting to watch whether Democrats on the left who make it into the next Congress will use foreign policy, including U.S. support for Israel, as an issue in their dealings with pro-Israel Democrats and Republicans, including the president himself.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.
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Ed Miliband claims that he and Andy Burnham have reformulated Blair’s triangulation strategy. Their new formulation entails acknowledging that they were wrong on Israel and Palestine but entails doing absolutely nothing about it and continuing exactly the same policies hoping that you’re too stupid to notice.UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham admits to blatently lying and engaging in deception to become leader of the UK Labour Party and Prime Minister.
Margaret, 94, holds a sign outside Labour party conference, 27 September 2026. Harriet Williamson/Novara Media
But pensioners keep being arrested.
Ed Miliband has admitted that millions of Brits outraged by the oppression of Palestinians were “right”, speaking the day after dozens of peaceful pro-Palestine protesters were arrested outside the Labour party conference.
Miliband used his conference speech in Liverpool on Monday to say to those “moved by the plight of the Palestinian people”: “We hear you. You were right.” His words received loud, sustained applause from the audience.
…
Corbyn told Novara Media that Miliband is “right to vindicate those who spoke up for Palestine” but highlighted that “people are still being arrested for doing exactly that, including people outside the very conference hall in which he made that speech.”
…
Protesters, including pensioners, disabled people and a Church of England priest, held paper signs that read: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.” Merseyside police confirmed they had arrested 82 people on suspicion of wearing or carrying an article supporting a proscribed organisation.
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Four Palestinians were killed and several others, including children, were injured in Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip on Tuesday amid daily violations of a ceasefire agreement in effect since Oct. 10, 2025.
A medical source at Al-Shifa Hospital told Anadolu that the bodies of two Palestinians and several injured people, including children, were brought to the hospital after an Israeli airstrike targeted an apartment in the Al-Nasr neighborhood west of Gaza City.
According to an Anadolu correspondent, the strike targeted an apartment in the Al-Batoul building, killing two Palestinians and injuring several others, including children.
Witnesses said an Israeli suicide drone carried out the strike after hovering over the area shortly before the attack.
The strike caused panic among residents and sparked a fire in the apartment, which was completely destroyed, they said.
Local sources identified the two Palestinians killed in the strike as Izz al-Din al-Beik and Muhannad Abu Foul.
In a joint statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz claimed that al-Beik was a commander of Hamas’ northern Gaza brigade.
There was no immediate comment on the Israeli claim.
In central Gaza, a Palestinian was killed by Israeli army gunfire on Salah al-Din Street east of Deir al-Balah, according to a medical source.
Another Palestinian was killed in an Israeli strike targeting a group of people near the Al-Fakhoura clinic in the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip.
Meanwhile, the Israeli army carried out a major demolition operation targeting buildings inside areas under its control east of Deir al-Balah, according to witnesses and local sources.
Israeli violations of the ceasefire agreement have killed 1,422 Palestinians and injured 4,996 others, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry on Tuesday.
Since Oct. 8, 2023, Israel’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians and injured over 175,000 others, while around 90% of the enclave’s infrastructure has been destroyed.
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Ed Miliband claims that he and Andy Burnham have reformulated Blair’s triangulation strategy. Their new formulation entails acknowledging that they were wrong on Israel and Palestine but entails doing absolutely nothing about it and continuing exactly the same policies hoping that you’re too stupid to notice.UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham admits to blatently lying and engaging in deception to become leader of the UK Labour Party and Prime Minister.
