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Hamas calls for emergency Arab summit over alleged Gaza displacement plans

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This picture shows national flags of the Arab league countries. [Photo by KHALED DESOUKI/AFP via Getty Images]

Hamas has called on the Arab League to convene an emergency summit to address what it described as Israeli plans to displace Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, urging Arab states to adopt a unified political response.

In a statement issued on Wednesday, Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem said repeated Israeli statements about proposals concerning Gaza’s population reflected what he described as the seriousness of efforts to displace Palestinians from the territory.

Qassem argued that these plans are accompanied by military actions that, in his view, are destroying the conditions necessary for civilian life and forcing residents to leave the Strip.

He called on the Arab League to hold an emergency summit to coordinate a collective response.

According to Qassem, the issue extends beyond the Palestinian territories and poses a broader challenge to Arab national security.

He said any displacement of Palestinians from Gaza would directly affect the security interests of neighbouring Arab states, particularly Egypt.

The Hamas spokesperson urged Arab governments to move beyond statements of condemnation and adopt what he described as practical political and diplomatic measures to prevent any displacement of Gaza’s population.

He also called for efforts to end the war, halt Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip and lift the blockade on the territory.

Israel has repeatedly rejected accusations that it is pursuing a policy of forcibly displacing Gaza’s population, while international discussions continue over post-war governance and the future administration of the territory.

READ: Arab League says calls to end UNRWA’s role in Gaza lack legal basis

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Keir Starmer explains that UK is actively supporting Israel's genocidal expansion and repeats his previous quotation that he supports Zionism "without qualification". Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/
Keir Starmer explains that UK is actively supporting Israel’s genocidal expansion and repeats his previous quotation that he supports Zionism “without qualification”. Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/
Donald Trump explains why he established his Bored of Peace
Donald Trump explains why he established his Bored of Peace
Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says he wishes someone would lock him up, small Orca speaks bluntly.
Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says he wishes someone would lock him up, small Orca speaks bluntly.

Continue ReadingHamas calls for emergency Arab summit over alleged Gaza displacement plans

Colonial expansion is always accompanied by the international community’s unspoken consent

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A view of the destruction caused by Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7, 2023, as seen from Israel on July 02, 2026. [Mostafa Alkharouf – Anadolu Agency]

by Ramona Wadi  walzerscent

It takes little to ascertain that the reason for Israel’s genocide in Gaza was colonial expansion. Israel made no secret of it from the start, with talks about forced transfer and attempts to involve the international community in its war crimes. Settlement leaders were also very vocal about resettling in Gaza throughout the genocide and recently ridiculed the EU’s sanctions against Israeli settler leaders and organisations. The latter, unfortunately, is probably well placed ridicule as sanctions without decolonisation will not stop Israel’s colonial expansion, as Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich revealed this week.

Israeli media reported Smotrich stating that there are plans for three Israeli settlements awaiting approval by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. During a meeting with the mayor of Sderot Alon Davidi, Smotrich announced, “The Settlement Administration, under my leadership in the Defence Ministry, has completed its staff work, and we are ready to establish three settlements immediately once we receive the green light from the prime minister.”

Smotrich’s colonial reasoning follows earlier comments by several Israeli leaders that link settlements to Israeli security. The planned settlements are perceived as part of a plan that will provide a security buffer for Jewish settlers living on the border with Gaza.

Recently Netanyahu announced his instructions to the Israeli military to occupy 70 per cent of Gaza. Smotrich’s announced plan only reaffirms what the international community is so intent on denying – military occupation is setting the scene for Israel’s colonial expansion in Gaza.

Recently Israel also announced it was reviving its forced transfer plans for Palestinians in what remains of Gaza, opting for a rebranding now under the euphemism “plan for free movement”. According to Israeli media, the rebranding would persuade Palestinians in Gaza to comply, while also bringing foreign countries on board.

READ: The international community is not opposing Netanyahu’s threat

For Palestinians, forced transfer and a plan for free movement reek of the same colonial violence. There is no free movement when Palestinians are forced into 30 per cent of what remains in Gaza; indeed there has been no bigger show of coercion by Israel which forces Palestinians to leave, apart from the destruction of the genocide itself.

The impossibility of living without land is obvious, but offering a forced way out of Gaza is ethnic cleansing, not a free, individual decision.

The international community, however, is another matter altogether when it comes to ethnic cleansing and settlement expansion. Almost ten years ago, the UNSC approved Resolution 2334 which spares colonialism while taking issue with settlement expansion. To date, quarterly meetings discussing its implementation are still taking place, even though there is no implementation of Resolution 2334. Israel is up against nothing when it comes to the international community. It knows that settlement expansion in Gaza will be condemned but not stopped, as long as the international community can keep up appearances with briefings that are as bogus as the two-state paradigm itself.

The UN has created a brand of impunity which would force it to collapse on itself, were it to truly challenge Israel on war crimes and international law violations.

Meanwhile, in Gaza, Palestinians who survived are living the unliveable, stranded in a shrinking territory while Israel gambles with euphemisms and waits for its colonial triumph.

READ: The EU does not need to clarify its support for Israeli colonialism

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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Keir Starmer explains that UK is actively supporting Israel's genocidal expansion and repeats his previous quotation that he supports Zionism "without qualification". Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/
Keir Starmer explains that UK is actively supporting Israel’s genocidal expansion and repeats his previous quotation that he supports Zionism “without qualification”. Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/
Donald Trump explains why he established his Bored of Peace
Donald Trump explains why he established his Bored of Peace
Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says he wishes someone would lock him up, small Orca speaks bluntly.
Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says he wishes someone would lock him up, small Orca speaks bluntly.

Continue ReadingColonial expansion is always accompanied by the international community’s unspoken consent

EU hides secret Gaza files as UN says Israel is committing genocide

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A view of the destruction caused by Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7, 2023, as seen from Israel on June 02, 2026. [Mostafa Alkharouf – Anadolu Agency]

The European Commission is refusing to release 17 secret reports on EU-funded infrastructure in Gaza, which could reveal further evidence of Israel’s destruction of European-backed civilian projects and increase pressure on Brussels to confront whether its continued partnership with Israel violates the human rights obligations underpinning EU-Israel relations.

The refusal came on the same day that a UN inquiry said Israel continues to commit genocide in Gaza by deliberately targeting Palestinian children, raising questions over whether the EU is concealing evidence that could strengthen calls to suspend or review its v agreements with Israel.

According to EUobserver journalist Nikolaj Nielsen, the refusal was signed on 23 June by Michael Karnitschnig, acting head of the Commission department dealing with the Middle East. Nielsen had requested the documents under freedom of information rules in February, seeking reports covering EU-funded infrastructure projects in Gaza from 2020 to the end of 2023.

“We have examined whether there could be an overriding public interest in disclosure, but we have not been able to identify such an interest,” Karnitschnig wrote, according to EUobserver.

The claim is likely to provoke outrage. The documents relate to EU-funded infrastructure in Gaza, including solar panels, water desalination projects, renewable energy schemes and potentially other civilian facilities such as hospitals and schools. Many of these projects are believed to have been destroyed during Israel’s military assault on the besieged enclave.

Their disclosure could reveal not only the financial cost to European taxpayers but also the extent to which Israel has targeted or destroyed civilian infrastructure in Gaza. Such findings would increase pressure on Brussels to act under the human rights clauses which form the basis of EU cooperation with Israel, including the EU-Israel Association Agreement.

The Commission also invoked the protection of international relations as a reason for withholding the documents. EUobserver reported that some of the projects were either suspended or completed, with implementing partners including Germany’s KfW development bank, Oxfam Novib and WE WORLD.

Read: UN experts urge EU to suspend Israel trade agreement immediately

One project cited by the Commission reportedly sought to support water treatment in Khan Yunis, a city in southern Gaza which has suffered widespread devastation following Israel’s ground invasion.

The refusal has raised fresh questions about EU transparency and accountability, especially as EU taxpayers have funded many of the projects damaged or destroyed by Israel. EUobserver has separately estimated that Israel has bombed or bulldozed around €150 million worth of EU-funded buildings in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, without paying compensation.

Earlier this month, EU Commissioner Dubravka Šuica told members of the European Parliament that the bloc has requested Israel to return or compensate for EU-funded assets whenever they are demolished, dismantled or confiscated.

The Commission’s refusal to publish the reports came as UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel concluded that Israel continues to commit genocide and other atrocity crimes by deliberately targeting Palestinian children.

“Israeli authorities and security forces have deliberately targeted Palestinian children resulting in genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in the Gaza Strip and war crimes in the West Bank,” the UN report stated.

The UN Commission said the “deliberate targeting of children” forms one of the key elements establishing genocidal intent by Israeli authorities and security forces to destroy Palestinians, in whole or in part, in Gaza.

Srinivasan Muralidhar, chair of the Commission of Inquiry, said Palestinian children “have been deliberately targeted and killed by the Israeli security forces,” adding that even after the October 2025 ceasefire, children have continued to be killed and seriously injured.

The report also accused Israeli authorities of arresting Palestinian children and subjecting them to torture and other forms of mistreatment in prisons and detention facilities. It further said Israeli security forces used sexual violence against children as part of a broader pattern of collective oppression under occupation.

Keir Starmer explains that UK is actively supporting Israel's genocidal expansion and repeats his previous quotation that he supports Zionism "without qualification". Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/
Keir Starmer explains that UK is actively supporting Israel’s genocidal expansion and repeats his previous quotation that he supports Zionism “without qualification”. Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/
Donald Trump explains why he established his Bored of Peace
Donald Trump explains why he established his Bored of Peace
Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says he wishes someone would lock him up, small Orca speaks bluntly.
Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says he wishes someone would lock him up, small Orca speaks bluntly.

Continue ReadingEU hides secret Gaza files as UN says Israel is committing genocide

Shocking figures: Iraqi official says more than $2tn stolen since 2003

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Iraqi security forces in Baghdad, Iraq.[Murtadha Al-Sudani/Anadolu Agency]

An Iraqi official has claimed that more than $2 trillion has been stolen from Iraq since 2003, describing the scale of corruption and illicit wealth as “beyond belief”.

Munir Haddad, legal adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister Ali Al-Zaidi, told the state-run Iraqi TV channel that the value of stolen public funds had exceeded $2 trillion since the 2003 US-led invasion.

Haddad said investigations into those arrested on corruption charges were continuing and that there were no final figures on the number of suspects, as daily raids and arrests were still being carried out.

He said key suspects had made detailed confessions that led security and judicial authorities to identify and arrest more individuals. Some suspects had attempted to flee Iraq or seek refuge in the Kurdistan Region, which he said had cooperated by handing over eight suspects so far.

Haddad added that the list of suspects includes senior current and former government officials, as well as members of parliament. He said the cases involve not only embezzlement but also unexplained wealth, investigated under Iraq’s “Where did you get this?” principle, with such cases legally classified as money laundering offences.

He said the assets uncovered in the possession of deputy ministers and other senior officials were “unbelievable”, citing one case in which the wife of a suspect purchased a property worth $5 million, an amount sufficient to build the largest villa in Paris or Amsterdam. He added that some officials were found to own more than 50 properties registered in their own names or those of their family members.

Haddad also said that trials of those accused of corruption would be held in public.

READ: The Green Zone Always Wins

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Keir Starmer explains that UK is actively supporting Israel's genocidal expansion and repeats his previous quotation that he supports Zionism "without qualification". Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/
Keir Starmer explains that UK is actively supporting Israel’s genocidal expansion and repeats his previous quotation that he supports Zionism “without qualification”. Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/
Donald Trump explains why he established his Bored of Peace
Donald Trump explains why he established his Bored of Peace
Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says he wishes someone would lock him up, small Orca speaks bluntly.
Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says he wishes someone would lock him up, small Orca speaks bluntly.

Continue ReadingShocking figures: Iraqi official says more than $2tn stolen since 2003

1,022 Babies Among 21,500+ Children Killed by Israel in 1,000 Days of Gaza Genocide

Article by Brett Wilkins republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Palestinians mourn an infant who was killed by an Israeli airstrike in Deir al-Balah on January 9, 2025. (Photo by Ali Jadallah/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“We could die at any moment. I hope the war stops for us,” said one 14-year-old Palestinian girl in Gaza. “I would like to live with love, peace, and an easy life.”

Over 21,500 children—1,022 of them babies—are among the more than 73,000 Palestinians killed by Israel since it launched the US-backed genocidal war on Gaza 1,000 days ago, including hundreds of minors slain since a one-way ceasefire took effect nine months ago, Gaza’s Government Media Office said Thursday.

In updated figures, the GMO said that at least 73,066 Palestinians have been killed since Israel began its war and siege on the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023. A separate analysis published in mid-April by UN Women found that at least 38,000 women and girls were killed between October 2023 and December 2025.

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The GMO said Thursday that at least 173,514 others—including more than 44,500 children—have been wounded, and 9,500 Palestinians are still missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the rubble of bombed-out buildings in the coastal strip, more than 90% of which has been destroyed and 80% of which is under Israeli control, according to officials.

(Source: Gaza Government Media Office)

More than 11,000 Gazan children have suffered what the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) called “life-changing injuries,” including as many as 4,000 amputations, many of them performed without anesthesia.

“Every day for the past 1,000 days, the world has failed 1 million children in Gaza by not intervening to stop the killing and maiming of children,” Ahmad Ahendawi, regional director at the charity Save the Children, said Thursday. “As their young, fragile bodies were blown to bits and pieces by bombs and missiles, the world sold those same weapons to the government of Israel [and]… continued trade agreements with the government of Israel.”

Early in the war, UNICEF called Gaza “the world’s most dangerous place to be a child.”

Classified Israel Defense Forces (IDF) data leaked last August suggested that 5 in 6 Palestinians, or 83%, killed during the war’s first 19 months were civilians. Experts attribute the high civilian death toll to Israel’s use of artificial intelligence in target selection, its dropping of 1,000- and 2,000-pound bombs—many of them supplied by the US—in densely populated urban zones, and relaxed rules of engagement allowing for an unlimited number of noncombatant casualties in airstrikes targeting a single Hamas operative, no matter how low-ranking.

Last month, a United Nations commission of inquiry found that 30% of those killed by Israel in Gaza have been minors, and that “the deliberate targeting of children is one of the key elements establishing genocidal intent of the Israeli authorities and security forces to destroy the Palestinian group, in whole or in part, in Gaza.”

The commission, which separately concluded that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, used language consistent with Article II of the Genocide Convention, the international treaty against which Israel’s actions are being weighed by the International Court of Justice in The Hague. In December 2023, South Africa filed a genocide case against Israel at the ICJ that is now formally backed by around 20 nations.

IDF troops have admitted to witnessing alleged war crimes, including indiscriminate murder of women and children. Doctors and other international volunteers who worked in Gaza’s besieged hospitals during the genocide have reported the apparently deliberate targeting of Palestinian civilians, including children shot in the head and chest by Israeli snipers.

Palestinian survivors and witnesses have also accused IDF troops of summarily executing women and children.

“Every day for the past 1,000 days, the world has failed 1 million children in Gaza.”

The new GMO figures note 460 deaths from malnutrition—164 of them children—and 28 Palestinians, mostly children, who perished from hypothermia in camps housing many of the approximately 2 million people forcibly displaced by the war.

According to figures published last month by UNICEF, more than 1,000 Palestinians, including at least 265 children, have been killed by Israeli bombs and bullets since the October 2025 ceasefire took effect. UNICEF called the purported truce a “cruel and deadly illusion.”

All this in retaliation for the Hamas-led attack in which approximately 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals were killed—some by so-called “friendly fire” and under the fratricidal Hannibal Directive—and 251 others abducted.

In the aftermath of the deadliest attack on Israel in its 75-year history, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, including murder and forced starvation—exhorted Israelis to “remember what Amalek has done to you.”

According to the Hebrew Bible, the nation of Amalek was an ancient archenemy of the Israelites whose total extermination—“man and woman, infant and suckling”—was commanded by the Abrahamic deity figure God.

Numerous Israeli leaders made similarly genocidal statements, including Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who asserted that there are no innocent people in Gaza, former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant—who is also wanted by the ICC for ordering the “complete siege” of Gaza blamed for fueling deadly famine and disease—and the influential far-right politician Moshe Feiglin.

“Every child in Gaza is the enemy,” Feiglin said last year. “We need to occupy Gaza and settle it, and not a single Gazan child will be left there.”

According to the new GMO figures, 39,022 families in Gaza have suffered Israeli massacres, with more than 2,700 families entirely wiped out and another 6,020 left with only a single surviving member. More than 58,800 children have been orphaned, including 2,700 who lost both parents, while 26,370 women are now widows.

In 2024, Save the Children published a report detailing how Israel’s onslaught has caused the “complete psychological destruction” of Gazan children. A subsequent study found that nearly all children in the embattled Palestinian enclave believed that their deaths were imminent—and nearly half of them said they wanted to die.

“We could die at any moment. I hope the war stops for us,” a 14-year-old girl identified as Amani told Save the Children in a report published Thursday.

“I hope the war stops so that I can continue my education in Gaza and live my rights as a human like any girl in other countries,” she added. “I would like to live with love, peace, and an easy life.”

Article by Brett Wilkins republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Keir Starmer explains that UK is actively supporting Israel's genocidal expansion and repeats his previous quotation that he supports Zionism "without qualification". Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/
Keir Starmer explains that UK is actively supporting Israel’s genocidal expansion and repeats his previous quotation that he supports Zionism “without qualification”. Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/
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.
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.
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.
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.
Continue Reading1,022 Babies Among 21,500+ Children Killed by Israel in 1,000 Days of Gaza Genocide