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Israeli forces demolish a three-story Palestinian-owned house citing the lack of the building permit, in the town of Tarqumiya, northwest of Hebron, West Bank on February 1, 2026. [Wisam Hashlamoun – Anadolu Agency]
Hundreds of former EU and member state ministers, ambassadors and senior officials have called on the European Union to take “robust and sustained action” to increase pressure on Israel and end “unremitting violations of international law” in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, Anadolu reports.
In a joint statement released Monday and co-signed by 404 former officials, the group urged the EU and its members to move beyond condemnatory statements and adopt concrete measures, including suspending the EU-Israel Association Agreement and halting all military support to Israel.
“A robust approach based on the EU’s founding values and principles will be essential to reestablish the Union’s reputation as a force for peace and good in our time,” the statement said.
The signatories warned that the humanitarian and security situation in Gaza continues to deteriorate despite the launch of an international peace initiative, pointing to ongoing Israeli military operations, restrictions on humanitarian aid, and the targeting of civilians and aid workers.
According to the statement, around 500 Palestinians, including more than 100 children, have been killed in Gaza during the first phase of the ceasefire reached last October, bringing the total death toll since the start of Israel’s military campaign to over 71,000, the vast majority civilians.
The former officials also condemned Israel’s continued restrictions on humanitarian access, calling for the full and permanent opening of the Rafah border crossing and an end to what they described as the misuse of “dual-use” policies to block aid deliveries.
They strongly criticized Israel’s decision to deregister dozens of international NGOs operating in Gaza, warning that such measures undermine lifesaving assistance and violate UN humanitarian principles.
The statement also denounced Israel’s actions against the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), including the destruction of its West Bank field office in East Jerusalem, calling the campaign against the agency “a flagrant contempt” of recent International Court of Justice (ICJ) advisory opinions.
In the occupied West Bank, the signatories highlighted a sharp increase in Israeli settlement activity, noting that plans for more than 47,000 housing units were advanced in 2025—an 81% rise compared to the previous year—despite international rulings declaring settlements illegal.
Calling for accountability, the group urged the EU to desist from joining the recently announced “Board of Peace,” arguing that its composition and governance risk undermining the role of the UN and international law.
“It is high time for the EU and its member states to take robust and sustained action to reverse the disastrous situation currently afflicting the Palestinian people, notably in Gaza but also in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem,” Sven Kuhn von Burgsdorff, a retired EU official and former ambassador to the occupied Palestinian territory, told Anadolu.
“To increase pressure on Israel, alliances with like-minded partners in the OECD and the Global South, and notably in the Middle East, have to be built and strengthened,” he said, stressing the need to protect Palestinians’ “inalienable right to political self-determination and a life in peace, security and dignity.”
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAKeir 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.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.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
A Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) doctor is seen at Nasser Hospital as patients face difficulties accessing care due to inadequate health services in Khan Yunis, Gaza on January 15, 2026. [Abed Rahim Khatib – Anadolu Agency]
The Spanish government on Monday condemned the Israeli decision to ban the activities of the medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in the Gaza Strip, Anadolu reports.
“The Spanish Government condemns the decision by the Israeli authorities to impose a halt on the activities of Medecins Sans Frontieres, which are essential to alleviating the dramatic health situation of the Gazan population in the Gaza Strip,” the Foreign Ministry announced in a written statement.
The statement reiterated that international humanitarian NGOs, like MSF, provide “irreplaceable assistance” in life-saving services across Gaza and the West Bank.
“The work of MSF in Gaza, as well as that of all humanitarian organizations in the field of health, is essential in addressing the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Strip, providing vital assistance to the Palestinian population in Gaza who are subjected to unbearable violence,” it added.
The Spanish government also urged Tel Aviv to reverse the decision, saying it “seriously undermines the most basic moral principles,” and reminded Israel of its obligation to comply with international humanitarian law and to reduce the suffering of all human beings.
Israel on Sunday banned the activities of the medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in the Gaza Strip and ordered the organization to leave the enclave by Feb. 28.
Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs, which oversees dealings with humanitarian organizations operating in Gaza and the West Bank, said the decision was taken after the charity refused to submit its staff lists to Tel Aviv.
MSF is one of the largest humanitarian organizations operating in Gaza, and halting its activities is expected to cause severe damage to the already scarce medical services available in the enclave.
Israel’s two-year war on Gaza has killed nearly 71,800 Palestinians and wounded more than 171,400. The assault has destroyed roughly 90% of the civilian infrastructure in Gaza, with UN estimates placing reconstruction costs at about $70 billion.
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAKeir 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.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.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Hadja Lahbib, the member of the European Commission responsible for Equality, Preparedness, and Crisis Management attends the meeting of the foreign ministers of European Union (EU) member states held in Brussels, Belgium on December 15, 2025. [Dursun Aydemir – Anadolu Agency]
The European Union condemned on Sunday repeated Israeli ceasefire violations in Gaza and called for full respect for international humanitarian law.
Hadja Lahbib, the European commissioner for equality, preparedness, and crisis management, condemned Israel’s repeated violations of the ceasefire and its ongoing strikes in the Gaza Strip.
“We condemn the repeated violations of the ceasefire in Gaza, where hundreds of Palestinians were killed and injured by Israeli strikes over the weekend,” Lahbib said in a statement shared on US social media company X.
Lahbib stressed that international humanitarian law must be upheld and that civilians must be protected everywhere and at all times.
Despite the ceasefire, Israel has continued its attacks, killing 524 people and injuring 1,360 others since Oct. 10, 2025, according to Gaza’s media office.
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAKeir 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.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.
Cuban President and First Secretary Miguel Diaz-Canel is seen in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on July 7, 2025, and US President Donald Trump boards Air Force One at Haneda Airport in Tokyo on October 29, 2025. (Photo by Mauro Pimentel and Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)
The White House accused Cuba of supporting terrorist groups as the Trump administration cut off much of the island’s energy supply and threatened countries with tariffs if they continue to send Cuba oil.
Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday said the country is open to expanding “bilateral cooperation” with the US, following President Donald Trump’s comments that the White House is “going to make a deal with Cuba”—but diplomatic officials emphasized that they vehemently reject Trump’s recent accusations that they harbor terrorists and pose an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to the US.
“Cuba categorically declares that it does not harbor, support, finance, or permit terrorist or extremist organizations,” said the ministry.
The statement was released days after the White House issued an executive order to address what it called threats that Cuba poses to the US, threatening to impose new tariffs on countries that sell oil to Cuba.
Trump’s invasion of Venezuela—which had been the top energy supplier to Cuba—and his push to take control of the South American country’s oil has left Cuba’s economy struggling with a virtual energy blockade and rolling blackouts. The US has also been pressuring Mexico to stop supplying energy to the island nation, prompting fears of a potential humanitarian crisis.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Millersaid last month that the US has the right to take over any country if doing so furthers its interests, and said the Trump administration should “secure our interests unapologetically in our hemisphere.”
In the executive order last week, the president made sweeping accusations against Cuba, claiming that it provides support for countries including Russia and China—though the Trump administration has also sought improved relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping—and offering no evidence for the allegation that it also supports Hamas and Hezbollah.
The Cuban storytelling platform Belly of the Beast called the accusation “laughable, if it weren’t so serious,” and spoke to some of the hundreds of Palestinian medical students who are studying to be doctors at the Latin American School of Medicine and other institutions.
“The vast majority of Palestinians in Cuba are medical students,” said Ihab Masri, who is studying there alongside students from about 100 other countries. “Trump is a person who says he stopped 10 or 12 wars… a person who not only justifies but also denies the genocide in Gaza that they commit and have committed. You can’t trust someone like that.”
In his attempt to block oil shipments to Cuba, Donald Trump now claims the country is a safe haven for Hamas and Hezbollah, without presenting any evidence. Cubans say it’s complete nonsense. The real story? Hundreds of Palestinian students training to be doctors in Havana. pic.twitter.com/3X24dhF6mN — Belly of the Beast (@bellybeastcuba) February 1, 2026
Trump’s executive order also accused Cuba of spreading “its communist ideas, policies, and practices around the Western Hemisphere, threatening the foreign policy of the United States.”
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday emphasized that “Cuba does not host foreign military or intelligence bases and rejects the characterization that it is a threat to the security of the United States. Nor has it supported any hostile activity against that country, nor will it allow its territory to be used against another nation.”
The US has maintained a trade embargo on Cuba for more than six decades and has had hostile relations with the country since the communist revolution gave rise to the late President Fidel Castro and overthrew authoritarian leader Fulgencio Batista, who was backed by the US.
US Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García (D-Ill.) warned that Trump’s “latest economic assault against the island is designed to cause a humanitarian collapse, deepening our collective punishment of the Cuban people and forcing more migration.”
“Cuba poses no threat to the United States, but that’s not the point. Trump is manufacturing an excuse for cruelty and regime change,” added the congressman, while Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) denounced Trump’s executive order as “pure cruelty” that could “kill countless innocent Cubans.”
This Executive Order will kill countless innocent Cubans. I am horrified by the Trump Administration's attempt to strangle an entire people. Homes, schools, hospitals without power. Children without food or medicine. Cuba poses no threat to the US. This is pure cruelty. https://t.co/C28fHUmbW9
Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said last week that Trump’s threat against countries that continue to supply energy “reveals the fascist, criminal, and genocidal nature of a clique that has hijacked the interests of the American people for purely personal ends.”
On Monday, the global organization Progressive International joined Cuban officials in denouncing Trump’s executive order as a “cruel and criminal act of economic warfare that will bring nothing but starvation, deprivation, and despair to [Cuba’s] people.”
“With this new executive order, the logic of siege has reached its apotheosis: Sanction not only Cuba but every nation that dares show solidarity, effectively demanding that sovereign states choose between the interests of their own people and the dictates of an empire,” said the Cabinet of Progressive International.
The group called on the international community to “coordinate diplomatic resistance, demand that governments refuse to enforce secondary tariffs, and amplify Cuban voices against this assault on international law, human dignity, and basic human rights.”
“History will judge those who saw this moment and turned away. Cuba stood with oppressed peoples globally—from defeating apartheid in South Africa to sending doctors to the frontlines of epidemics—and now it is our time to act with audacity, moral courage, and collective force,” said Progressive International.“
“Stand with the Cuban people now,” the group added. “Stand against this siege, this economic assault, this unfolding humanitarian disaster; join together in the provision of key supplies to the island, from medicine to food to fuel for its people; and stand for the right of all nations to self-determination and human dignity, or be complicit in its destruction.”
Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.
There was a time, not terribly long ago, when the right claimed that the big social media companies weren’t just skewed to the left in terms of moderation, but that they were actually acting in the direct interests of the Democratic administration (House Judiciary Committee, 5/1/24).
When right-wing billionaire Elon Musk bought Twitter, eventually rebranding it as X, the right believed that he’d show the world that the popular site was a tool of the Democratic agenda (New Yorker, 1/11/23). The move increased Musk’s profile as a conservative crusader against social progress and economic populism before his brief stint as President Donald Trump’s federal jobs hatchet man in 2025 (Roosevelt Institute, 5/29/25).
Before a forced sale by its Beijing-based parent company, TikTok was attacked by both Democrats and Republicans because of its ownership, with both sides claiming that this not only gave the Chinese government the ability to spy on Americans, but also to skew political discourse away from Washington’s interests (FAIR.org, 11/13/23, 5/8/24, 1/3/25).
At Meta, founder Mark Zuckerberg quickly tried to distance his company from the notion that it acted in tandem with the Biden administration. Politico (8/26/24) reported:
Mark Zuckerberg says he regrets that Meta bowed to Biden administration pressure to censor content, saying in a letter that the interference was “wrong,” and he plans to push back if it happens again.
Zuckerberg told podcaster Joe Rogan (Joe Rogan Experience, 1/10/25) that the Biden administration had been “calling up the guys on our team and yelling at them and cursing and threatening repercussions if we don’t take down things that are true.” He asserted that Meta, and especially Facebook, “had gone too far in complying with such requests, and acknowledged that he and others at the company wrongly bought into the idea” (Axios, 1/10/25).
Meta ‘in bed with the regime’
ICE List founder Dominick Skinner (Daily Beast, 1/27/26): “I don’t believe that it’s somehow an accident that a company so deeply ingrained in this regime is suddenly blocking a website that actively fights against it.”
If you took these claims at face value, you would expect that we would have a more neutral and less government-controlled social media in 2026. Instead, we have a social media oligarchy that is now working directly in the interests of the Trump administration’s national police state.
X converted from a free-wheeling social media site into a 24-hour online MAGA rally (Guardian, 1/4/25; NBC News, 2/16/25) a long time ago. But there are new developments involving other platforms. All of Meta’s social media sites—Facebook, Instagram and Threads—are blocking access to ICE List, a website that lists names of Homeland Security agents (Wired, 1/27/26).
Politico (1/27/26) reported that the website’s founder, Dominick Skinner, “questioned Meta’s policy against posting links to websites that contained people’s personal information.” Politico said he added “that Meta’s platforms had no issues with posting people-finder websites such as White Pages that shared individuals’ phone numbers and family members.”
I believe that Mark Zuckerberg is in bed with the regime. He was sitting behind Trump at the inauguration. His algorithms have worked to shape people into right-wing followers.
“Meta donated to the Trump Ballroom,” he pointed out—which is also true of other tech firms such as Amazon, Microsoft and Google (Fortune, 10/26/25).
TikTok now free to censor?
“We have to fight with the weapons that apply to the battlefield in which we engage, and the most important ones are social media,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told pro-Israel influencers last September (Al Jazeera, 1/29/26). “The most important purchase that is going on right now is…TikTok.”
The TikTok deal is now final, with its Chinese former parent company, ByteDance, holding about a fifth of the network, with a major bulk controlled by tech giant Oracle, Silver Lake and the Abu Dhabi investment firm MGX (Reuters, 1/23/26). The sale was celebrated as a win against Chinese infiltration into the US media market, but the Washington Post editorial board (1/23/26) believed this wasn’t good enough:
ByteDance will maintain ownership of TikTok’s coveted algorithm and license it to the spinoff. The announcement emphasizes that the algorithm’s recommendations will be stored in Oracle’s US cloud system but also that the two companies will retain “global product interoperability,” with ByteDance maintaining control over e-commerce and marketing. That sounds like much less of a breakup than Congress intended.
FAIR (3/14/24, 9/27/24, 1/3/25) has long been skeptical of the US government move to force the sale of TikTok, as it was often based on dubious claims about data mining, and awash with McCarthyist fearmongering. Worse, Oracle’s co-founder is Larry Ellison, another right-wing tech billionaire (FAIR.org, 9/19/25; All Things Considered, 10/6/25), making the TikTok sale eerily reminiscent of the Musk takeover of Twitter.
Right after the deal was finalized, “users were raising concerns that the company is ‘censoring’ videos, including ones critical of President Donald Trump, ICE or mentions of Jeffrey Epstein,” AP (1/27/26) reported. “The complaints were enough for California Gov. Gavin Newsom to announce…that he is launching a review into whether TikTok is violating state law by censoring Trump-critical content.”
It reportedly wasn’t just censorship about ICE and Epstein. “Award-winning Palestinian journalist Bisan Owda has said she has been permanently banned from TikTok,” Al Jazeera (1/29/26) said, “days after the social media platform was acquired by new investors in the United States.”
Cripple social media to crush protests
Apple pulled an ICE alert app from its online store as “defamatory, discriminatory or mean-spirited content.” CNN (10/3/25) noted: “Apple and its CEO Tim Cook have in recent months sought to strengthen the company’s relationship with the White House, amid policy changes from Trump that could threaten its business.”
Wealthy capitalists buy social media companies for the same reason they buy newspapers and radio stations: They want to use media to sway the political discussion toward policies that meet their economic and political interests. Musk taking over Twitter isn’t much different from Amazon titan Jeff Bezos taking over the Washington Post and turning its opinion section into a right-wing propaganda machine (Golden Hour, 9/15/25; New Republic, 11/3/25; Press Watch, 12/12/25; FAIR.org, 1/22/25, 1/28/25) and putting its news operation on life support (The Hill, 1/27/26).
But given growing street resistance to the state terror perpetrated by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol in cities around the US, these reports about social media blackouts are alarming, reminiscent of reports out of Turkey (Reuters, 9/8/25) and Iran (New York Times, 1/25/26).
With Zuckerberg, Musk and Ellison all showing their allegiance to the administration in various ways, this is all just more evidence that regime-adjacent social media are working in the interests of Trump’s authoritarian ambitions. And this has been brewing for some time. A few months ago, CNN (10/3/25) reported, Apple “removed ICEBlock and similar apps that allow people to alert others nearby about sightings of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in their area,” after receiving “a request from the US Department of Justice.” The Electronic Frontier Foundation (11/20/25) sued the DoJ and Department of Homeland Security over this and similar instances of platforms removing “apps that document immigration enforcement activities in communities throughout the country.”
‘A really troubling thing‘
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (1/27/26) commended the news social media platform UpScrolled “for pledging to protect the free flow of ideas on its platform, including both support for and opposition to the Israeli government’s human rights abuses.”
In an interview with FAIR, EFF senior counsel David Greene said there are several problems at play. One is that
there’s still a great deal of concentration in the direct-publishing social media space, so any decision that gets made by Meta or YouTube or TikTok is going to affect a ton of people who use their services to get their information.
But there is also tremendous pressure by the government to keep immigration enforcement, and all the expanded policing around mass deportations, in the shadows by keeping agents’ identities anonymous. “That’s a really, really troubling thing,” he said.
Greene also stressed that “if Meta or TikTok are doing this just to curry favor with the administration, or because they ideologically agree with it, that’s not illegal; they have a First Amendment right to curate their sites.”
Illegal, no, but still a critical problem. We aren’t looking at a totalitarian form of speech control, where the state and ruling party directly control various forms of media. Rather, we have a clan of oligarchs aligning themselves with authoritarian government goals because they benefit from being close to the regime.
While many activists have shown dismay at these developments, others have said the challenges inspire hope. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (1/27/26) said in a statement that “young people censored on TikTok have no intention of giving up their activism,” as they have “have repeatedly shown that they will not allow politicians, corporations or colleges to censor their speech.”
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Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.
