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United States President Donald Trump (R) hosts Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (L) in the White House in Washington DC., United States on February 04, 2025. [Avi Ohayon (GPO) /Handout – Anadolu Agency]
The Hebrew newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported that the comments made by Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, on Thursday evening were intended to convince US President Donald Trump that he is being persecuted during his trial, in order to push Trump to increase his efforts to grant him a pardon.
On Thursday evening, Netanyahu posted a video on his page on the platform X, speaking in English and claiming that his trial is political, began six years ago, and could continue for another four years.
In the video, he said: “It’s a political trial. They [the prosecutors] are not interested in justice; they are interested in getting me out of office.”
Netanyahu also tried to explain the reasons for his trial, claiming that the investigators told him they were looking into a suspicion of corruption related to two incidents. The first is that his son received a Bugs Bunny toy as a gift 29 years ago, and the second is that he accepted a cigar as a gift from a friend.
According to Yedioth Ahronoth, political sources said that “Netanyahu’s statements in English aim”to convince the American public that he is being persecuted.”
The paper added that Netanyahu is trying to “shape public opinion in the US and pressure President Trump to increase his actions” to grant him a pardon.
Commenting on this, Benny Gantz, the leader of the Blue and White Party, said that Netanyahu is placing his personal interest above the interest of the country.
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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.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 and Rachel Reeves discuss wasting money including David Lammy spending £1MILLION on private jets.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Palestinians held a solidarity demonstration with the participation of national and Islamic groups and local community leaders in support of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestinian refugees on November 4, 2025, in Khan Yunis, Gaza. [Abed Rahim Khatib – Anadolu Agency]
The UN General Assembly on Friday adopted a resolution to renew the mandate of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), Anadolu reports.
During a vote held at the General Assembly, the resolution received 151 votes in favor, 10 against, and 14 abstentions.
Welcoming the decision to renew its mandate, UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said on US social media company X that the decision “reflects the broad solidarity of people across the world with Palestine Refugees.”
“It is also an acknowledgement of the international community’s responsibility to support the humanitarian + human development needs of Palestinian refugees pending a just & lasting solution to their decades-long plight,” he said.
Lazzarini also urged that the decision “be translated into a genuine commitment & matching resources to ensure the mandate is fulfilled.”
UNRWA was established by the UN General Assembly more than 70 years ago to assist Palestinians who were forcibly displaced from their land.
The UN agency has been facing severe financial difficulties since Israel launched a defamation campaign against UNRWA, claiming that staff members were involved in the Oct. 7 attacks.
Despite UNRWA’s requests that the Israeli government provide information and evidence to back up the allegations, the agency has received no response. Following Israel’s accusations, several key donor nations, including the US, suspended or paused funding.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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.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.Vote Labour for Genocide.
Young Palestinian men create channels in the sand to direct the rain at a makeshift camp housing displaced Palestinians in Gaza City, Palestine, on November 25, 2025. (Photo by Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
“The design of these proposed cities mirrors the historical model of ghettos,” said the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, which said the US plans to cram 25,000 people into areas smaller than a square kilometer.
A prominent international human rights organization is warning that the United States’ plan for postwar Gaza will impose “unlawful collective imprisonment” on the Palestinian civilians who have survived two years of genocide.
In November, several news outlets reported on the Trump administration’s plan to carve Gaza in two: a so-called “green zone” controlled by Israel and a “red zone” controlled by the militant group Hamas.
The US would construct what it called “Alternative Safe Communities” for Palestinians to live in the Israeli-controlled portion of Gaza, which is over half of the territory under the current “ceasefire” agreement.
The New York Timesdescribed these communities as “compounds” of 20,000 to 25,000 people, where Israeli officials reportedly argued they should not be allowed to leave.
The initial reporting raised fears that the US and Israel were constructing what would amount to a “concentration camp,” where Palestinians would be forced to live in squalid conditions without freedom of movement.
On Wednesday, the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor released new details on how Palestinians, currently facing mass displacement from their homes in the portion of the strip not occupied by Israel, would be corralled into the green zone under the US proposal.
The Geneva-based group issued a stark warning about the plan, which it said carried “grave risks, including the effective displacement of Palestinians from their homes and the transformation of large parts of Gaza into closed military zones under the direct control of the Israeli army.”
“Entry and exit would be permitted only through security screening, effectively converting these sites into overcrowded detention camps that impose severe restrictions on residents’ freedom of movement and daily life.”
Euro-Med’s report explains that the transfer of Palestinians would be carried out using “various pressure tactics.”
“This is done by creating a coercive environment in the red zone and making access to relative protection and basic services conditional on relocating to designated areas within the green zone, following extensive security screening and vetting,” the report says. “This removes any genuine element of consent and places the process squarely within the scope of forced displacement prohibited under international humanitarian law.”
It also provides new details on the conditions Palestinians would be subject to once they’ve arrived: “The plan includes the establishment of ‘cities’ of prefabricated container homes (caravans) in the green zone, each housing around 25,000 people within an area of no more than one square kilometer and enclosed by walls and checkpoints.”
This means these Palestinian cantons would be over three times as densely populated as the Tel Aviv District, the most crowded in Israel, which has about 8,130 people per square kilometer.
“Entry and exit would be permitted only through security screening, effectively converting these sites into overcrowded detention camps that impose severe restrictions on residents’ freedom of movement and daily life,” the report continues.
This is not the first proposal to use the promise of safety to lure Palestinians into an enclosed space without the right to leave.
Earlier this year, following US President Donald Trump’s call for the people of Palestine to be forcibly removed from the Gaza Strip, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz proposed the creation of a massive “humanitarian city” built on the ruins of Rafah that would be used as part of an “emigration plan” for hundreds of thousands of displaced people.
Under that plan, Palestinians would have been given “security screenings” and once inside would not be allowed to leave. Humanitarian organizations, including those inside Israel, roundly condemned the plan as essentially a “concentration camp.”
Euro-Med said that the design laid out in the new US plan “mirrors the historical model of ghettos, in which colonial and racist regimes confined specific groups to sealed areas surrounded by walls and guard posts, with movement and resources controlled externally, as seen in Europe during World War II and in other colonial contexts.”
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.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.Vote Labour for Genocide.
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.Vote Labour for Genocide.
CLAMPDOWN: People take part in a demonstration at Parliament Square
THE Palestine Action hunger strike is on track to become the largest since the 1981 Irish republican protest led by Bobby Sands, yet campaigners say it has faced a “mainstream media blackout.”
So far, seven prisoners have refused food — some for as long as four weeks — with more expected to join.
They are among 33 prisoners who are locked away without trial, over alleged involvement in non-violent actions aimed at blockading arms supply to Israel.
The hunger strikers’ demands are clear. They want Israel’s largest weapons company, Elbit Systems, to cease operating in Britain for good.
They want the ban on Palestine Action, currently designated a terror group, to be lifted. And they are demanding immediate bail and a fair trial — basic democratic rights that should already be guaranteed.
Francesca Nadin, a spokesperson for Prisoners for Palestine, spoke to the Morning Star about their struggle.
Nadin herself was in prison on remand last year, over actions at a Teledyne weapons factory and a Barclays branch in Leeds.
“The fact is that for the charges that they have, which is property damage, people are never usually kept on remand,” she says.
“It’s clear to me that the process is the punishment.”
Four of the strikers — Qesser Zuhrah, Heba Muraisi, Teuta Hoxha and Kamran Ahmed — have been held on remand since last November, far exceeding the six-month pre-trial custody limit.
They are part of the “Filton 24” — inmates held in connection to an action in which activists reportedly drove a repurposed prison van into an Elbit manufacturing hub and dismantled equipment inside.
Qesser, who hasn’t eaten for over four weeks, now feels close to collapse, campaigners report, while Heba, who has also gone more than a month without food is severely fatigued and is finding it increasingly difficult to hold water down.
Teuta and Kamran, who haven’t eaten for 26 and 25 days, were both recently hospitalised.
“As you can imagine now, they’re all very weak”, Nadin says.
“It’s getting to the point of serious deterioration. We are just prepared for something very serious to happen any moment now.”
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.Palestine Action joke that appeared in the UK satirical magazine ‘Private Eye’.
CLAMPDOWN: People take part in a demonstration at Parliament Square