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United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food Michael Fakhri, at the United Nations Office in Geneva, Switzerland on March 08, 2024 [Muhammet Ikbal Arslan/Anadolu via Getty Images]
The UN special rapporteur on the right to food warned today that Israel is carrying out an unprecedentedly rapid campaign of starvation in Gaza, calling it “the fastest in modern history.”
“How is Israel able to starve 2.3 million people so quickly and so completely?” Michael Fakhri asked in a joint press briefing alongside other UN special rapporteurs in Geneva.
“This is the fastest starvation campaign in modern history,” Fakhri said.
As the entry of all humanitarian aid into Gaza is stopped by Israel, he said:
This is not a ceasefire by any definition. This is a slowing down of military violence, but … unfolding of death through starvation.
Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, told the briefing that even if the bombs and violence stop in Palestine today, “the genocide will continue because there are no ways to remedy the destruction” that has been made.
Albanese also warned that “the genocidal violence is leaking out in the West Bank,” saying the violence is now “as acute as ever.”
“I don’t know how many warnings the international community will need,” she said, adding: “We will miss human rights very much when they are no longer able to protect us.”
Ben Saul, the UN special rapporteur on protection of human rights, for his part, said that he denounces US President Donald Trump’s Gaza relocation plan, saying: “It would shatter the most fundamental rules of international order and the United Nations Charter since 1945.”
“It’s manifestly illegal to invade and annex foreign territory by force, to forcibly deport its population and to deprive the Palestinian people of their right to self-determination,” Saul said, underlining that any plan for the day after must be based on the popular will of the Palestinian people, including under any Arab proposal.
He also condemned Israel’s “continuing illegal military provocation in the wider region.”
RAF fighter jets have taken part in joint bombing exercises over western Asia with the US Central Command (CENTCOM) and F-15 and F-35 fighters of the Israeli air force, believed to be preparation for attacks on Iran.
The 4 March exercise – the third in two weeks – involved giant US B-52H ‘Stratofortress’ bombers that took off from Fairford RAF base in England and conducted the exercise in CENTCOM’s ‘area of responsibility’, which comprises the ‘Middle East’ and parts of southern Asia.
The latest exercise follows a live-weapon drop on 20 February that the US military said involved B-52s conducting “multiple missions over the Arabian Peninsula and Red Sea”. With typically Orwellian language, the Pentagon said that these missions ‘promote security and stability’ in the region. In the past twelve months the US has used the B-52s, along with B-1 and B-2 bombers, to bomb Iraq, Syria and Yemen.
A screenshot from footage showing Palestine Action Activists outside Allianz Commercial offices in London, March 10, 2025
CAMPAIGNERS targeted the offices of insurance giant Allianz in the City of London today over the firm’s complicity in the Gaza genocide.
Palestine Action activists scaled the premises’ main entrance and doused it in red paint, rebuking the firm for insuring and investing in Elbit Systems, Israel’s biggest weapons manufacturer.
A spokesperson for Palestine Action said: “By providing insurance, Allianz is directly enabling the production of Israeli weapons in Britain which are ‘battle-tested’ on Palestinians.
…
Today also saw the launch of the Boycott Bloody Insurance campaign, with a groundbreaking report showing how major global insurers actively enable Israel’s ongoing assault on Palestinians.
The report, Ensuring Genocide: The Insurance Industry and Israel’s War Machine, reveals that insurers including Allianz, Aviva, AXA, Zurich, and RSA collectively invested over $1.7 billion (£1.3bn) in companies supplying military equipment used by Israel since October 7 2023.
“Insurance giants claim to protect communities, but they’re funnelling our money into war, exploitation, and violence,” said Monika Nielsen, lead researcher at the new campaign, which “demands accountability from insurers profiting from human suffering.”
Mahmoud Khalil was pictured speaking to the press during a briefing organized by pro-Palestinian protesters at Columbia University on June 1, 2024. (Photo: Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“Arresting and threatening to deport students because of their participation in political protest is the kind of action one ordinarily associates with the world’s most repressive regimes.”
Civil rights organizations, legal experts, and lawmakers were among the chorus voicing alarm Sunday and into Monday over the dire implications of the Trump administration’s brazen arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian rights organizer who helped lead Columbia University student protests against Israel’s assault on Gaza.
“The Trump administration’s outrageous detention of Mahmoud is designed to instill terror in students speaking out for Palestinian freedom and immigrant communities,” said Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), which has helped organize nationwide demonstrations against Israel’s catastrophic war on the Palestinian enclave.
“This is the fascist playbook,” the group added. “We all must fiercely reject it, and universities must start protecting its students.”
Khalil, a permanent U.S. resident with a green card, was arrested on Saturday by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents who stormed his university-owned apartment in Manhattan. Khalil’s attorney told The Associated Press that the ICE agents also threatened to arrest his pregnant wife, an American citizen.
As of Monday morning, Khalil—an Algerian citizen of Palestinian origin—was being held in an ICE facility in Louisiana, and the Trump administration is moving to revoke his green card.
While the State Department CAN revoke *visas* with very little legal process involved, stripping someone of a green card is done by DHS (not the State Department) and requires filing formal charges alleging a violation of immigration law and a removal hearing in front of an immigration judge.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees ICE, said Sunday that Khalil’s arrest was carried out “in support of President Trump’s executive orders prohibiting antisemitism.”
But JVP and other advocacy groups warned that the administration’s purported crackdown on antisemitism is a pretext for a dangerous assault on civil liberties, including those of Palestinian rights advocates.
“We are not fooled by the Trump administration’s claims that this blatantly unconstitutional and authoritarian attack is somehow in the name of Jewish safety,” said JVP. “Deporting anti-war students who are trying to end genocide and silencing political speech endangers all of us. We will not be divided.”
“The unlawful detention of Mr. Khalil reeks of McCarthyism. It’s clear that the Trump administration is selectively punishing Mr. Khalil for expressing views that aren’t MAGA-approved.”
Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, said in a statement that “arresting and threatening to deport students because of their participation in political protest is the kind of action one ordinarily associates with the world’s most repressive regimes.”
“It’s genuinely shocking that this appears to be what’s going on right here,” Jaffer added. “Universities must recognize that these actions pose an existential threat to academic life itself. They must make clear, through action, that they will not sit on the sidelines as the Trump administration terrorizes students and faculty alike and runs roughshod over individual rights and the rule of law.”
Khalil’s arrest came days after Trump threatened to imprison students engaged in what he described as “illegal protests.” AP reported that “Khalil’s arrest is the first publicly known deportation effort under Trump’s promised crackdown on students who joined protests against the war in Gaza that swept college campuses last spring.”
Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement Sunday that “the Trump administration’s detention of Mahmoud Khalil—a green card holder studying in this country legally—is targeted, retaliatory, and an extreme attack on his First Amendment rights.”
“The unlawful detention of Mr. Khalil reeks of McCarthyism. It’s clear that the Trump administration is selectively punishing Mr. Khalil for expressing views that aren’t MAGA-approved—which is a frightening escalation of Trump’s crackdown on pro-Palestine speech, and an aggressive abuse of immigration law,” Lieberman added. “Ripping a student from their home, challenging their immigration status, and detaining them solely based on political viewpoint will chill student speech and advocacy across campus. Political speech should never be a basis of punishment, or lead to deportation.”
Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
