Palestinians examine the remains of bulldozers hit by an Israeli army airstrike in Jabaliya, northern Gaza Strip, April 22, 2025
ISRAELI air strikes on the Gaza Strip have killed at least 14 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and also destroyed bulldozers and other heavy equipment that had been supplied by mediators to clear rubble.
Israel’s 18-month offensive against Hamas has destroyed vast areas of Gaza and the territory already had a shortage of heavy equipment to rescue people from the rubble left by Israeli strikes and to clear vital roads.
A local council in the Jabaliya area of northern Gaza said a strike had destroyed nine bulldozers provided by Egypt and Qatar, which helped broker the ceasefire that took hold in January. Israel ended the truce last month, renewing its bombardment and ground operations and sealing Gaza’s two million Palestinians off from all deliveries of essentials such as food, fuel and medical supplies.The strikes also destroyed a water tanker and a mobile generator provided by aid groups, along with a lorry used to pump sewage, the Jabaliya al-Nazla municipality said.
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/O74hZCKKdpAUK Foreign Minister David Lammy confirms that UK government and military are active participants in Israel’s genocides and that the F-35 parts that they suspended from supplying to Israel are instead simply diverted via the United States. He says see https://youtu.be/QILgUHrdWRE
This work by Middle East Monitor republished under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Some Israelis and foreign tourists arrive at Ben Gurion International Airport to leave the region, fearing an escalation of tensions and attacks that began early this morning on the Israeli-Lebanese border in Tel Aviv, Israel on August 25, 2024. [Nir Keidar – Anadolu Agency]
Israel has cancelled the entry visas of 27 left-wing French parliamentarians and officials just two days before their planned visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories, according to a statement released by the group on Sunday, as reported by France 24.
This development comes shortly after Israel barred two British Labour MPs from entering the country, and amid heightened diplomatic tensions following French President Emmanuel Macron’s announcement that France would soon recognise the State of Palestine. Macron has also urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address the worsening humanitarian conditions in Gaza during the ongoing conflict with Hamas.
Israel’s Ministry of the Interior stated that the cancellations were made under existing legislation, which authorises the denial of entry to individuals deemed to act against the interests of the state.
Seventeen members of the group, affiliated with France’s Ecologist and Communist parties, described the Israeli move as “collective punishment” and appealed to President Macron to take action.
In a joint statement, the group said they had received an official invitation from the French consulate in Jerusalem for a five-day mission intended to “enhance international cooperation and support a culture of peace.”
“Two days before our departure, Israeli authorities cancelled our entry visas, which had been granted a month earlier,” the statement read. “We want to understand what triggered this abrupt decision, which seems to be a form of collective punishment,” they added.
Original article by Alan Macleod republished from MPN under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 International License.
Google recently announced it would acquire Israeli-American cloud security firm Wiz for $32 billion. The price tag — 65 times Wiz’s annual revenue — has raised eyebrows and further solidified the close relationship between Google and the Israeli military.
In its press release, the Silicon Valley giant claimed that the purchase will “vastly improve how security is designed, operated and automated—providing an end-to-end security platform for customers, of all types and sizes, in the AI era.”
Yet it has also raised fears about the security of user data, particularly of those who oppose Israeli actions against its neighbors, given Unit 8200’s long history of using tech to spy on opponents, gather intelligence, and use that knowledge for extortion and blackmail.
Israel’s Global Spy Network
Wiz was established only five years ago, and all four co-founders — Yinon Costica, Assaf Rappaport, Ami Luttwak, and Roy Reznik — were leaders in Israel’s elite military intelligence unit, Unit 8200. Like many Israeli tech companies, Wiz is a direct outgrowth of the military intelligence outfit. A recent study found that almost fifty of its current employees are Unit 8200 veterans.
“That experience showed me the impact you can make when you combine great talent with amazing technology,” Rappaport said of his time in the military.
Former Unit 8200 agents, working hand-in-glove with the Israeli national security state, have gone on to produce many of the world’s most infamous malware and hacking tools.
Perhaps the most well-known of these is Pegasus, spyware used by governments around the world to surveil and harass political opponents. These include India, Kazakhstan, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia, the latter of which used the tool to spy on Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi before he was assassinated by Saudi agents in Türkiye.
In total, more than 50,000 journalists, human rights defenders, diplomats, business leaders and politicians are known to have been secretly surveilled. That includes heads of state such as French President Emmanuel Macron, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan and Iraqi President Barham Salih. All Pegasus sales had to be approved by the Israeli government, which reportedly had access to the data Pegasus’ foreign customers were accruing.
Unit 8200 also spies on Americans. Whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed that the National Security Agency regularly shared the data and communications of U.S. citizens with the Israeli intelligence group. “I think that’s amazing…It’s one of the biggest abuses we’ve seen,” he said.
For the Israeli government, the utility of these private spying firms filled with former IDF intelligence figures is that it allows it some measure of plausible deniability when confronted with spying attacks. As Haaretz explained: “Who owns [these spying companies] isn’t clear, but their employees aren’t soldiers. Consequently, they may solve the army’s problem, even if the solution they provide is imperfect.”
Today, former Unit 8200 agents not only create much of the world’s spyware, but also the security features that claim to protect against unwanted surveillance. A MintPress investigation found that three of the six largest VPN companies in the world are owned and controlled by an Israeli company co-founded by a Unit 8200 veteran.
It is in Palestine, however, that Unit 8200 has been most active. The unit serves as the centerpiece of Israel’s hi-tech repressive state apparatus. Using gigantic amounts of data compiled on Palestinians by tracking their every move through facial recognition cameras, monitoring their calls, messages, emails and personal data, Unit 8200 has created a digital dragnet that it uses to snoop on, harass, and suppress Palestinians.
It compiles dossiers on virtually every Gaza resident, including their medical history, sex lives, and search histories, so that this information can be used for extortion or blackmail later. If, for example, an individual is cheating on their spouse, desperately needs a medical operation, or is secretly homosexual, this can be used as leverage to turn civilians into informants and spies for Israel.
One former Unit 8200 operative said that as part of his training, he was assigned to memorize different Arabic words for “gay” so that he could listen for them in phone conversations he was eavesdropping on.
Unit 8200 is also reportedly behind the even more controversial Project Lavender, a giant, AI-generated kill list of tens of thousands of Gazans that the IDF uses to target the densely populated strip’s civilian population.
Palestanian workers cross the Eyal checkpoint into Israel under the watchful eye of IDF cameras, January 10, 2021. Keren Manor | Activestills
Every Gazan (including children) is assigned a score of 1-100, based on their perceived proximity to Hamas. A wide range of characteristics will increase an individual’s score, including living or working in the same building or being in a WhatsApp group with a known or suspected Hamas member.
If a person’s number reaches a certain threshold, they are automatically added to a Unit 8200 kill list. This, one IDF commander explained, solved Israel’s perennial targeting “human bottleneck,” allowing them to carry out tens of thousands of strikes into Gaza during the first few weeks of the post-October 7 attack alone.
Unit 8200 is also widely reported to have carried out the Lebanon Pager Attack, exploding thousands of electronic devices at the same time, killing dozens and injuring thousands more. The operation was widely described, even by former CIA director Leon Panetta, as an act of terrorism.
This long history of violence, skulduggery, and spying raises troubling questions about whether a corporation founded and staffed by dozens of individuals from such an organization can be trusted with billions of users’ private and personal data.
Google’s Ties to Israeli Intelligence
Google’s purchase of Wiz deepens its already close ties to Unit 8200. In 2013, the tech giant acquired Waze, an online maps service founded by three Unit 8200 veterans, for $1.3 billion. It has also directly hired dozens of former spooks and spies to fill its ranks; a 2022 MintPress News investigation found at least 99 former Unit 8200 agents working at the Silicon Valley behemoth.
Among these figures is Gavriel Goidel, Head of Strategy and Operations for Google Research. Goidel joined Google in 2022 after a six-year career in military intelligence, during which he rose to become Head of Learning at Unit 8200. There, he led a large team of operatives who sifted through intelligence data to “understand patterns of hostile activists,” according to his own account.
Google is far from an outlier when it comes to hiring former Israeli spies to carry out its operations. Facebook, Microsoft, and Amazon have all hired a significant number of ex-Unit 8200 agents. Even TikTok, supposedly a hotbed of anti-Semitism, employs a considerable number of ex-spooks. Perhaps most surprisingly, a number of top U.S. media outlets, including CNN and Axios, have recruited former Unit 8200 spies and analysts to write and produce America’s news about the Middle East.
Google has invested heavily in Israel, first opening offices there in 2006. Longtime CEO Eric Schmidt is known to be a vocal supporter of the controversial state. In a 2012 meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he declared that “the decision to invest in Israel was one of the best that Google has ever made.”
But the Wiz deal is undoubtedly the company’s biggest Israeli investment yet. The all-cash acquisition represents a massive injection of money into Israel’s flailing and war-weary economy, equivalent to 0.6% of the country’s GDP. The money, the Israeli press excitedly reports, will allow the government to continue without enacting major austerity measures, reduce the nation’s deficit, and enable Israel to continue on a wartime footing for longer. As such, it represents a move critics say amounts to a financial intervention on behalf of Israel. Moreover, it also sends a message to the rest of the business world to invest in the country, boosting investor sentiment at a time when it is most needed.
The size of the deal also surprised many. The price is similar to that of the sale of JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo in 2008, Visa Europe in 2017, and Twitter in 2022. Yet Wiz is a new and relatively unknown company, raising questions about its valuation.
Ultimately, though, these considerations are secondary to the main issue that such a group will now be charged with providing security for the data of billions of users worldwide. Given Unit 8200’s role in monitoring and targeting the Palestinian population, many will be wondering if, going forward, Google products are at all safe to use.
Palestinians scramble to collect food during a charity distribution in the Jabalia Refugee Camp in the Gaza Strip, Palestine, on April 12, 2025. (Photo: Mahmoud Issa/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“Israel’s defense ministers can’t stop publicly confessing to war crimes,” said one U.S. journalist.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Wednesday that the U.S.-backed genocidal policy of blocking lifesaving humanitarian aid from entering the Gaza Strip will continue, and that Israel Defense Forces troops will remain in the embattled Palestinian enclave indefinitely.
“Israel’s policy is clear: No humanitarian aid will enter Gaza, and blocking this aid is one of the main pressure levers preventing Hamas from using it as a tool with the population,” Katz said. “No one is currently planning to allow any humanitarian aid into Gaza, and there are no preparations to enable such aid.”
Katz had initially said that Israel would eventually allow the resumption of humanitarian aid into Gaza, but later clarified his remarks following outrage from far-right members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
Israel's defense ministers can't stop publicly confessing to war crimes:
Israel Katz: "No humanitarian aid is about to enter Gaza and preventing humanitarian aid from entering Gaza is one of the main pressure levers preventing Hamas from using it against the population in Gaza." pic.twitter.com/hYFY8J2ZSb
Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s national security minister, warned against repeating what he called the “historic mistake” of letting any aid into Gaza, where a “complete siege” declared in response to the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023 has fueled widespread starvation, sickness, and other crises.
“It’s a shame we don’t learn from our mistakes. As long as our hostages are dying in the tunnels, there is no reason for a gram of food or aid to enter Gaza,” Ben-Gvir said on social media.
Israeli Culture Minister Miki Zohar also discussed the policy Wednesday, asserting that “the despicable murderers in Gaza deserve no humanitarian assistance from any civilian or military mechanism.”
“Only hellfire should be poured on the makers of terrorism until the last hostage returns from Gaza,” Zohar added.
Israeli media reported Wednesday that senior government security officials believe Gaza will run out of humanitarian supplies and food in about a month.
Legal experts say the siege is a war crime, and United Nations experts and human rights groups have called Israel’s blockade and use of starvation as a weapon of war acts of genocide.
The International Court of Justice—which is weighing a genocide case against Israel—last March issued a provisional order to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza. Many critics say Israel has ignored the directive.
Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who ordered the siege, are also fugitives from the International Criminal Court, which last year issued warrants to arrest the pair for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the siege.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, which advocates for people kidnapped by Hamas during the October 7 attack, on Wednesday accused the Netanyahu government of “choosing to seize territory over hostages.”
“The time has come to stop the false promises and slogans. It is impossible to continue the war and at the same time release all the hostages,” the group added, echoing the growing anti-war sentiment among Israeli troops and the general public.
Human rights groups around the world have condemned Israel’s blockade of Gaza. On Wednesday, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières called on the Israeli government to “immediately lift the inhumane and deadly siege on Gaza, protect the lives of Palestinians and humanitarian and medical personnel, and for all parties to restore and sustain the cease-fire” that Israel unilaterally broke last month.
Amande Bazerolle, the medical group’s emergency coordinator in Gaza, said in a statement that “Gaza has been turned into a mass grave of Palestinians and those coming to their assistance.”
“We are witnessing in real time the destruction and forced displacement of the entire population in Gaza,” Bazerolle added. “With nowhere safe for Palestinians or those trying to help them, the humanitarian response is severely struggling under the weight of insecurity and critical supply shortages, leaving people with few, if any, options for accessing care.”
Mothers in Gaza, like Hanadi, are salvaging edible bits from mouldy bread to feed their children.
The lack of aid for over a month is having horrific effects on families.
UNICEF continues to call on parties to reinstate the ceasefire and allow the entry of humanitarian aid. pic.twitter.com/8OHSEJuhQC
Katz also said Wednesday that Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops would remain in so-called security zones in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria for an indefinite period.
“Unlike in the past, the IDF is not evacuating areas that have been cleared and seized,” and “will remain in the security zones as a buffer between the enemy and [Israeli] communities in any temporary or permanent situation in Gaza—as in Lebanon and Syria,” Katz said.
Earlier this month, Katz said Israel will be “seizing large areas that will be added to the security zones of the state of Israel for the protection of fighting forces and the settlements,” a reference to plans by far-right members of Netanyahu’s government for the ethnic cleansing and Israeli recolonization of Gaza.
Israeli soldiers have blown the whistle on alleged war crimes committed by IDF troops in what some call the “kill zone” along the border with Israel, including indiscriminate killing and wholesale deliberate destruction of civilian infrastructure.
Recent reporting has also revealed the IDF is planning to take as much as 20% of Gaza, including the entire depopulated city of Rafah. U.S. President Donald Trump has also proposed an American takeover of Gaza, the expulsion of its Palestinians, and the development of the “Riviera of the Middle East” in the coastal strip.
Almost all of Gaza’s more than 2 million people have been forcibly displaced by Israel’s onslaught, some of them multiple times. The 558-day assault has left more than 180,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing in Gaza, according officials there.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.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/O74hZCKKdpA
Alaa Manoun, who is seven months pregnant, is rescued from her family’s home after it was struck by an Israeli army attack that killed at least seven people, including her mother, daughter, and husband, in Jabalia al-Balad, Gaza City, April 13, 2025
HAMAS will free its Israeli hostages if an end to the Gaza war is guaranteed, a senior official from the resistance group said today.
Taher al-Nunu said: “We are ready to release all Israeli captives in exchange for a serious prisoner swap deal, an end to the war, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip and the entry of humanitarian aid.”
Hamas is taking part in negotiations in Cairo with mediators from Egypt and Qatar – directed by the United States – to broker a ceasefire deal in Gaza.
But Mr Nunu accused Israel of obstructing progress towards a ceasefire.
He said: “The issue is not the number of captives but rather that the occupation is reneging on its commitments, blocking the implementation of the ceasefire agreement and continuing the war.
“Hamas has therefore stressed the need for guarantees to compel the occupation [Israel] to uphold the agreement.”
Palestinians examine the remains of bulldozers hit by an Israeli army airstrike in Jabaliya, northern Gaza Strip, April 22, 2025
