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Missiles launched by Iran in retaliation for US and Israeli attacks are seen over the skies of Jerusalem, on March 24, 2026. [Mostafa Alkharouf – Anadolu Agency]
A Defense Ministry’s spokesperson said most of Iran’s missile capabilities have been “unused” on the war with the US, Tasnim News reported Saturday.
Gen. Reza Talaei-Nik said Iran’s “significant portion of the missile capabilities remains unused,” according to the report by the semi-official news agency.
Arguing that Iranian forces maintained the upper hand throughout the conflict, he said, “Our forces maintained complete air superiority over the occupied territories of the Zionist (Israeli) territory, and a portion of our missile capabilities were utilized during the 40-day war.”
Regarding naval confrontations, he claimed that hostile warships repeatedly retreated hundreds of kilometers from the Sea of Oman in response to decisive actions by Iranian forces.
Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has been severely disrupted since the US and Israel initiated a war against Iran beginning Feb. 28, rattling global energy markets and raising fears of prolonged economic damage.
Nigel Farage 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 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 calls for help from NATO allies in securing the Strait of Hormuz despite saying on 7 March 2026 that they don’t need people to join wars after they’ve already won. He’s challenged with the claim that he lies as much as the IDF.
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Fatih Varol, attorney and Member of the Board of Directors of the Global Sumud Flotilla, is seen during an exclusive interview, where she evaluates the preparations of the Global Sumud Flotilla’s “2026 Spring Mission”, in Sicily, Italy, on April 24, 2026. [Barış Seçkin – Anadolu Agency]
Turkish activists participating in the Global Sumud Flotilla’s Spring 2026 Mission have reaffirmed their determination to break the blockade on Gaza and deliver humanitarian assistance, Anadolu reports.
Fatih Varol, a board member of the Global Sumud Flotilla, told Anadolu that the Turkish delegation is among the initiative’s most significant components.
“Turkiye has deep-rooted historical ties with Palestine. As a people, we feel the tragedy unfolding in Gaza much more profoundly. In this regard, both public support in Turkiye and the backing of Turkish civil society organizations are very strong,” he said.
Varol said the Turkish delegation has contributed not only to the fleet’s administration and coordination, but also to vessel preparations at Mediterranean ports through financial support.
He also noted that more than 10 lawmakers from both governing and opposition parties in Turkiye attended the Global Sumud Parliamentarians Congress in Brussels on April 22, forming the diplomatic arm of the mission.
According to Varol, lawmakers from around the world agreed during the meeting to raise calls in their respective parliaments to end the genocide in Gaza, lift the blockade on Palestine, ensure Israel complies with international law, and activate international criminal justice mechanisms.
He said the initiative would help increase international political pressure on Israel and grow through coordinated efforts aimed at paving the way for a freer world.
Gorkem Duru, another Turkish activist, said participants are preparing to sail toward Gaza as part of the 2026 mission, stressing that a “fake ceasefire” has not ended occupation, blockade, or violence.
“Last year, the Global Sumud Flotilla set sail. This year, despite the ceasefire, the blockade and occupation continue, so we are setting out again, stronger and more numerous, to break the blockade,” he said.
Duru added that final preparations are underway at Italy’s Augusta Port, while vessels departing from Barcelona have already arrived.
Activist Omer Aslan, known as the “Local John Wick” due to his resemblance to the character portrayed by Keanu Reeves, said he joined the mission out of humanitarian responsibility.
“While innocent babies and civilians in Gaza suffer oppression and violence, I could not live comfortably in my own country. I joined this peaceful humanitarian action to raise awareness both among my followers and globally,” he said.
Aslan said activists from across the world have joined the flotilla regardless of language, religion, or nationality, united by a common cause.
Flotilla’s Spring 2026 Mission
The Global Sumud Flotilla was created to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza, deliver humanitarian aid, and draw international attention to the situation in the enclave.
Created in 2025 by NGO representatives, activists and volunteers from various countries, the flotilla launched its second mission to Gaza.
Its Spring 2026 Mission departed from Barcelona on April 12 with around 70 vessels and nearly 1,000 participants from 70 countries, significantly larger than a previous mission in September 2025, which included 42 boats and 462 participants.
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Nigel Farage 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 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 calls for help from NATO allies in securing the Strait of Hormuz despite saying on 7 March 2026 that they don’t need people to join wars after they’ve already won. He’s challenged with the claim that he lies as much as the IDF.
A Palestinian family walks near a large yellow concrete block symbolizing the beginning of Israel’s post-ceasefire occupation zone in Gaza on November 21, 2025. (Photo by Saeed MMT Jaras/Anadolu via Getty Images)
One Palestinian American researcher warned that Israel is seeking “annexation without legal burden.”
Israel’s gradual advancement of its “yellow line” to occupy more territory in the Gaza Strip is fueling concerns that it is seeking to effectively annex and colonize the majority of the territory without any formal agreement.
The Guardian reported on Wednesday that Israel has been steadily pushing the truce line to take control of more Palestinian territory in the six months since a “ceasefire” was reached in October.
The yellow line drawn on the ceasefire maps had Israeli troops in control of about 53% of Gaza’s territory, cramming nearly 2 million displaced Palestinians into a territory less than half the size of the one they inhabited before.
But an analysis by Forensic Architecture shows Israel has unilaterally shifted the line westward over the past six months to the point where it controlled about 58% of the strip by December in an occupation zone that continues to grow.
(Graphic by The Guardian. Source: Planet Labs PBC, March 6, 2026.)
Palestinians living in Gaza reportedly woke up to learn that large yellow concrete blocks denoting the ceasefire line had suddenly moved and that they were now living in a free-fire area, where the Israeli military considers any Palestinian person or vehicle a legitimate target.
The Associated Press found in January that at least 77 Palestinians have been shot on sight when they’ve found themselves on the wrong side of the yellow line or even just near it, even though the line’s boundaries are ill-defined and fluid.
They are among more than 730 Palestinians who have been killed since the “ceasefire” began in October, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which has accused Israel of thousands of violations.
According to The Guardian, some displaced people, such as those who lived near the Salah al-Din road, which spans the length of Gaza from north to south, suddenly found themselves targeted by Israeli forces, who also began demolishing homes and other buildings and constructing new ones.
Though the yellow line was supposed to be set up as a temporary measure under US President Donald Trump’s “peace plan” for Gaza before control of the strip is transferred back to Palestinians, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) chief of staff Eyal Zamir described it as a “new border” with Gaza back in December, around the time it reportedly began to move.
Eyal Weizman, an Israeli architect and the head of Forensic Architecture’s research agency, recently wrote that the IDF appears to be turning this portion of Gaza into a permanent occupation zone.
The group found that seven new military outposts have been built along the yellow line, including one on what was once a cemetery.
While these areas began as “piles of earth and rubble” organized into crude enclosures, Weizman said that in recent months the roads leading to them have been asphalted, electricity poles have been erected, and buildings and communications towers have gone up inside the bases.
“The bases no longer appear to be the provisional arrangements that Trump’s ceasefire plan claims them to be, but permanent instruments of occupation,” he wrote. “The newly paved roads connect the bases to a matrix of control that is linked to Israel’s road network and communications grid.”
He noted that Israel’s illegal settler movement, which has several powerful representatives in the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has been “lobbying hard for the Israeli government to start constructing settlements within the vastly expanded buffer zone.”
Defense Minister Israel Katz said in December that Israel would “never leave Gaza” and spoke of plans to turn IDF military outposts into civilian settlements similar to those that have gradually taken over the West Bankthrough theviolentdisplacement of Palestinian residents.
Ahmad Ibsais, Palestinian American law student and author of the newsletter State of Siege, wrote for the Al-Shabaka Palestinian Policy Network that by drawing a yellow line, Israel is seeking to consolidate its control over Palestinian land without formally annexing it—in other words, “annexation without legal burden.”
“Borders are typically established through bilateral agreements, adjudication, or mutual recognition under international law,” he wrote. “By contrast, the so-called Yellow Line in Gaza functions as a de facto military demarcation associated with ceasefire arrangements and enforced through Israeli operational control.”
“It shapes civilian movement and territorial control without constituting a formally delimited boundary,” he continued. “In effect, it constitutes territorial theft with better branding, operationalizing US President Donald Trump’s plan for the continued colonization of Gaza.”
Mapped the IDF's newly declared "Forward Defense Zone" in south Lebanon. Its maritime boundary fully absorbs Lebanon's Qana gas field, whose exploration rights were explicitly guaranteed under the 2022 US-brokered maritime border agreement.
Israel declared a similar yellow line about 5-10 kilometers into Lebanese territory, giving the IDF effective control over around 55 towns and villages. The military has reduced many homes and entire villages south of this line to rubble in what Katz has described as a “Gaza model” being applied to Lebanon.
Assistant editor Maya Rosen recently wrote for Jewish Currents that the policy of conquering and settling Lebanon has become “mainstream” in Israeli politics and enjoys broad public support.
Ahmad Baydoun, an architect and open-source intelligence researcher at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, has warned that with this land grab, Israel was seeking to take control of the valuable Qana Gas Field, which is estimated to be capable of producing between $20 billion-$40 billion worth of natural gas exports for Israel. In 2022, a maritime agreement brokered by the US established that control of the field belonged to Lebanon.
Like in Gaza, the Israeli military has forbidden the more than 600,000 Lebanese inhabitants of villages below the line or within a newly established “buffer zone” from returning indefinitely. Katz has said they’ll be allowed to return once the “safety and security of the residents of the north [of Israel] is ensured.”
Given that Israeli settler groups have already begun mapping out new settlements and advertising plots of land for sale in southern Lebanon, Weizman said Katz was making what is by design “an impossible demand” meant to entrench the land grab.
“This exemplifies the circular logic of Zionist settler-colonialism: settlements are built to mark and protect the state’s border, but that makes them vulnerable to attack, and so a buffer zone is established to protect them,” he said. “Afterward, this buffer zone is itself settled to mark and protect the newly expanded borders, at which point another buffer zone becomes necessary.”
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.Donald Trump sings and dances, says that it’s fun to kill everyone …
Raed Abu al-Hummus, head of the Palestinian Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs. Photo: Aseel Saleh
The prominent Palestinian official underlined the role of popular movements over the globe in mobilizing support to Palestinian prisoners within an internationalist framework.
For over five decades, Palestinians have observed Palestinian Prisoner’s Day on April 17 as a national day to honor the thousands of Palestinian political detainees held in Israeli occupation prisons, highlight their struggle, and demand their freedom.
In commemoration of the day, which is considered by Palestinians as a sacred occasion of patriotism and loyalty, Peoples Dispatch spoke to Mr. Raed Abu al-Hummus, head of the Palestinian Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs.
Abu al-Hummus, who is also a freed Palestinian prisoner, assumed his new position in the commission with the rank of minister in February 2025, amid highly challenging political and security circumstances.
On the one hand, the restrictions imposed by the Israeli occupation authorities as part of the crackdown on the Palestinian Prisoners’ Movement has made the work of the commission formidable.
On the other hand, the appointment of Abu al-Hummus came immediately following the Palestinian Authority’s decision to cut the stipends of many Palestinian prisoners, under pressure by the United States and the European Union. This in turn, has further burdened the commission, while dealing with the prisoners and their families.
Moreover, the commission has been abandoned by the concerned international human rights organizations, above all the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which seem to have complied with Israel’s arbitrary measures.
Abu al-Hummus, however, confirmed that the staff of the commission work with a high level of dedication and devotion, and deal with prisoners and their families with great protectiveness and understanding.
“Most of our staff are freed prisoners, who consider the issue of prisoners a personal humanitarian concern not a career,” he argued.
A silent genocide
Underscoring the intense suffering of Palestinian political detainees held in Israeli prisons after October 7, Abu al-Hummus said that while the Israeli genocide was in full swing and live-streamed in Gaza, another silent genocide began inside Israeli prisons and has continued till the moment.
The senior Palestinian official noted that severe torture, deliberate medical neglect, and starvation led to the death of at least 89 Palestinian prisoners inside Israeli jails since October, 2023.
“This is a record-breaking toll in the history of the Palestinian Prisoners’ Movement,” he asserted, adding that the commission also received information about other unidentified fatalities among the detainees, who are kept inside morgues under the administration of the Israel Prisons Service (known as Shabas).
The tally also reveals that the Shabas has already begun to execute Palestinian prisoners by implementing slow killing methods, even before the unlawful bill that mandates the execution of Palestinian prisoners by hanging was endorsed by the Israeli Knesset last month.
Israeli rights groups and lawmakers file petition to overturn the death penalty bill
Regarding the death penalty bill, Abu al-Hummus clarified that it has not entered into force yet, because it is still under review by Israel’s Supreme Court, after a number of Arab lawmakers in the Israeli Knesset and legal rights group Adalah had filed petitions to overturn the law.
The law targets up to 117 prisoners, serving life sentences, but it would not be applied retroactively to Palestinian prisoners currently held in Israeli jails, according to Adalah Director Hassan Jabareen
Yet, Abu al-Hummus speculates that the Israeli government is pushing towards making the law applicable to the special forces of Al-Qassam’s Brigades (known as Al-Nukba), for their role in the October 7 attacks, maybe through legal loopholes.
Challenges facing the Palestinian Commission of Detainees and ex-Detainees affairs
The Palestinian minister explained how the mechanisms and dynamics of the commission’s work after October 7, are different from what was in place prior to that.
Before becoming the head of the Palestinian Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs, Abu al-Hummus was the liaison officer in charge of coordinating the communications between the commission and the prisons, as well as with the ICRC. From his unique vantage point, he has seen how the situation has transformed since October 7.
After October 7, the commission has faced numerous difficulties while attempting to get information about the conditions of the prisoners, particularly those who died inside the prison.
The commission has 65 lawyers who handle their responsibilities in all Israeli military courts and prisons, and submit requests to visit prisoners continuously. Yet, the sheer number of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails and the heavy restrictions imposed by the Israeli authorities, have made these fundamental tasks next to impossible.
Many of the commission’s lawyers were banned from conducting visits on the pretext that they had obtained details from some prisoners more than they were allowed to, or for writing down notes on their hands during the visits.
Moreover, the lawyers were not allowed to conduct any visit for over five and a half months following October 7, because Israel had declared a state of emergency that included detention facilities.
The lawyers were later given the permission for visits, but the challenges have not stopped there as the earliest appointment for each visit was one month and a half after the request was submitted.
When the lawyers arrive at the gates of the prisons, a state of emergency is declared until the prisoners reach the room, where they would meet their lawyers.
In many cases, lawyers are kept for two or three hours without being able to see the prisoners, whom they are supposed to meet. In this case, the Shabas record the visits as if they were conducted, so the prisoners lose the opportunity of meeting their lawyers till the next visit.
The Shabas have used another pressure method when it comes to lawyers’ visits. When prisoners are allowed to have visits, they are tortured from the moment they are taken out from their prison cell until they reach the visiting room.
During the harrowing journey, they are blindfolded, restrained with legcuffs and handcuffs, and dragged in the passageways in spaces where cameras are not installed.
As a result, some prisoners have passed on a message to their lawyers not to return in order to avoid being tortured.
The international community proved to be a facade for the global imperialist capitalist system, says Abu al-Hummus
Abu al-Hummus slammed the international community for its inaction and complete silence towards the Israeli occupation’s flagrant violations against the Palestinian people, in general, and the prisoners, in particular, which have become more evident in the aftermath of Israel’s genocidal aggression on Gaza.
“The last couple of years have exposed the international community and its organizations that proved to be a facade for capitalism and imperialism. They only serve this system, which the United States has led through a unipolar world order,” he asserted.
“These organizations that pretend to be advocating and safeguarding human rights, only serve the global imperialist capitalist system from which they have basically emanated,” the prominent Palestinian official added.
Abu al-Hummus revealed that the ICRC has not paid the needed efforts to locate Palestinians, who were kidnapped by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) from Gaza and subjected to forced disappearance.
“The Palestinian Commission for Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs has taken this task upon itself, and used untraditional methods such as reaching out to Israeli sources of information to locate the whereabouts of the Palestinian hostages, and get as much information as possible about their conditions,” he stated.
Abu al-Hummus counts on popular movements across the globe to save Palestinian prisoners
In spite of his deep disappointment in these organizations, Abu al-Hummus counts on the influence of popular solidarity movements across the globe to bring about change and hopefully liberation for the Palestinian people.
“When we read the history of other peoples, we remember that the demonstrations, which swept through the streets of France, contributed to the liberation of Algeria, while mass protests in the United States pushed towards ending the US war on Vietnam,” he maintained.
“It is now the time for the Palestinian people to be liberated with the support of people of conscience around the globe, by bolstering cooperation within an internationalist framework,” Abu al-Hummus continued.
It is a heavy price that we will pay while standing tall, Abu al-Hummus affirms
Abu al-Hummus concluded with a tone of defiance and pride, saying: “The brutality the Palestinian Prisoners’ Movement has endured at the hands of the Israeli occupation, is a heavy price that our people have paid for choosing resistance.”
“Despite all the atrocities, we will pay this price while standing tall. We will never bow, and we will never abandon our prisoners alone in their struggle. We will spare no effort to improve their conditions, until we free them all,” Abu al-Hummus reaffirmed.
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.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.
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Labour Together logo
Explosive revelations suggest that Labour Together, the think tank closely associated with former Downing Street Chief of Staff Morgan McSweeney, now has an ex-IDF soldier in its leadership. The details were uncovered by parliamentary candidate and campaigner Jody McIntyre, who pointed to earlier reporting describing Labour peer Jonathan Kestenbaum as a former Israeli soldier.
Labour Together remains one of the most politically sensitive organisations in the Starmer orbit: the Guardian has described it as closely linked to McSweeney and central to reshaping Labour after the Corbyn period.
McIntyre, who has made a series of exclusive revelations about Labour and its pro-Israel networks, pointed to a 2010 Jewish Chronicle article describing Kestenbaum-nominated to the House of Lords by the Labour Party leadership in 2010- as “an ex-IDF soldier” and a holder of the Israeli army’s “outstanding soldier award”.
In November 2010, a single paragraph in the Jewish Chronicle described Jonathan Kestenbaum as “an ex-IDF soldier [and] holder of the Israel army’s ‘outstanding soldier award’”.
The same Jewish Chronicle piece is still available online, but according to McIntyre this history is absent from much of Kestenbaum’s recent public profile. “What, I wonder, will they make of the arrival in their midst of an ex-IDF soldier, a holder of the Israel army’s “outstanding soldier award”? said the article commenting on Kestenbaum’s appointment to the House of Lords.
McIntyre also drew attention to Kestenbaum’s links to Bnei Akiva, a religious Zionist youth movement whose UK branch says it promotes “a religious Zionist worldview” and seeks to play an active role in the development of the state of Israel.
The revelations fit a broader pattern about the Starmer project’s links to pro-Israel networks. In September last year, McIntyre’s investigation into Morgan McSweeney, reporting that the prime minister’s former chief of staff had, in his youth, lived on Sarid, a Zionist settlement built on the ruins of the Palestinian village of Ikhneifis.
That same report said Labour Together secretly accepted more than £730,000 (around $930,000) in undeclared donations between 2017 and 2020, and linked part of that funding to businessman Trevor Chinn, a longtime backer of Labour Friends of Israel and Conservative Friends of Israel.
Labour under Keir Starmer has faced questions over support from donors linked to apartheid-era South Africa and pro-Israel lobbying circles. A 2023 report described Labour’s then new megadonor, Gary Lubner, as a pro-Israel businessman whose family company had profited from South African apartheid. Lubner denied the allegations, but the findings added to concerns about the political and financial networks surrounding Starmer’s leadership.
Labour also faced controversy in 2021 over its recruitment of Assaf Kaplan, a former Israeli military intelligence officer from Unit 8200, into a sensitive “social listening” role. Unit 8200 is Israel’s signals intelligence division, often compared to the US National Security Agency and Britain’s GCHQ.
Unit 8200 has long been dogged by allegations over its surveillance of Palestinians. In 2014, 43 reserve soldiers from the unit publicly accused it of collecting private information on Palestinians not for security purposes, but to facilitate political persecution, coercion and recruitment of informants.
Lawyers challenging Kaplan’s appointment argued that Labour had placed someone linked to such a unit in a role involving political monitoring inside a major British party.
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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.
