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9 Palestinian prisoners released by Israeli forces are transferred to Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital via International Committee of the Red Cross, in Deir al Balah, Gaza on February 03, 2026. [Screengrab/AA]
Israel released nine more Palestinians, including a woman, from the Gaza Strip after months of unlawful detention on Tuesday, Anadolu reports.
The freed captives were transported by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central city of Deir al-Balah for medical examinations.
Speaking to reporters, ICRC spokesperson in Gaza Emani Nauk said the organization has been unable to access Palestinians held in Israeli prisons since October 2023, and called for information on the fate and whereabouts of all captives, as well as renewed access to detention facilities.
Palestinians previously released from Israeli detention have shown signs of abuse, severe malnutrition and injuries consistent with torture, according to medical staff and human rights organizations.
The releases are part of sporadic Israeli actions involving Palestinians detained from Gaza who were held for months in Israeli prisons in the absence of minimum humanitarian standards, according to documented testimonies from former detainees and rights organizations.
Former detainees have said many of those released suffer from malnutrition and injuries caused by severe physical abuse during detention.
According to the Palestinian Commission of Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner Society, Israel has killed more than 100 prisoners and detainees since the start of the Gaza genocide, with the identities of 87 announced, while dozens of detainees from Gaza who died in custody had been subjected to enforced disappearance.
Palestinian, Israeli and international reports have repeatedly warned of the torture of Palestinians in Israeli prisons, including severe beatings, medical neglect, starvation and sexual assault.
Recently released Palestinian detainees have also reported systematic torture and cases of rape, appearing emaciated, with some showing symptoms of mental illness due to abuse.
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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/O74hZCKKdpAKeir 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.
Cuban President and First Secretary Miguel Diaz-Canel is seen in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on July 7, 2025, and US President Donald Trump boards Air Force One at Haneda Airport in Tokyo on October 29, 2025. (Photo by Mauro Pimentel and Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)
The White House accused Cuba of supporting terrorist groups as the Trump administration cut off much of the island’s energy supply and threatened countries with tariffs if they continue to send Cuba oil.
Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday said the country is open to expanding “bilateral cooperation” with the US, following President Donald Trump’s comments that the White House is “going to make a deal with Cuba”—but diplomatic officials emphasized that they vehemently reject Trump’s recent accusations that they harbor terrorists and pose an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to the US.
“Cuba categorically declares that it does not harbor, support, finance, or permit terrorist or extremist organizations,” said the ministry.
The statement was released days after the White House issued an executive order to address what it called threats that Cuba poses to the US, threatening to impose new tariffs on countries that sell oil to Cuba.
Trump’s invasion of Venezuela—which had been the top energy supplier to Cuba—and his push to take control of the South American country’s oil has left Cuba’s economy struggling with a virtual energy blockade and rolling blackouts. The US has also been pressuring Mexico to stop supplying energy to the island nation, prompting fears of a potential humanitarian crisis.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Millersaid last month that the US has the right to take over any country if doing so furthers its interests, and said the Trump administration should “secure our interests unapologetically in our hemisphere.”
In the executive order last week, the president made sweeping accusations against Cuba, claiming that it provides support for countries including Russia and China—though the Trump administration has also sought improved relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping—and offering no evidence for the allegation that it also supports Hamas and Hezbollah.
The Cuban storytelling platform Belly of the Beast called the accusation “laughable, if it weren’t so serious,” and spoke to some of the hundreds of Palestinian medical students who are studying to be doctors at the Latin American School of Medicine and other institutions.
“The vast majority of Palestinians in Cuba are medical students,” said Ihab Masri, who is studying there alongside students from about 100 other countries. “Trump is a person who says he stopped 10 or 12 wars… a person who not only justifies but also denies the genocide in Gaza that they commit and have committed. You can’t trust someone like that.”
In his attempt to block oil shipments to Cuba, Donald Trump now claims the country is a safe haven for Hamas and Hezbollah, without presenting any evidence. Cubans say it’s complete nonsense. The real story? Hundreds of Palestinian students training to be doctors in Havana. pic.twitter.com/3X24dhF6mN — Belly of the Beast (@bellybeastcuba) February 1, 2026
Trump’s executive order also accused Cuba of spreading “its communist ideas, policies, and practices around the Western Hemisphere, threatening the foreign policy of the United States.”
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday emphasized that “Cuba does not host foreign military or intelligence bases and rejects the characterization that it is a threat to the security of the United States. Nor has it supported any hostile activity against that country, nor will it allow its territory to be used against another nation.”
The US has maintained a trade embargo on Cuba for more than six decades and has had hostile relations with the country since the communist revolution gave rise to the late President Fidel Castro and overthrew authoritarian leader Fulgencio Batista, who was backed by the US.
US Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García (D-Ill.) warned that Trump’s “latest economic assault against the island is designed to cause a humanitarian collapse, deepening our collective punishment of the Cuban people and forcing more migration.”
“Cuba poses no threat to the United States, but that’s not the point. Trump is manufacturing an excuse for cruelty and regime change,” added the congressman, while Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) denounced Trump’s executive order as “pure cruelty” that could “kill countless innocent Cubans.”
This Executive Order will kill countless innocent Cubans. I am horrified by the Trump Administration's attempt to strangle an entire people. Homes, schools, hospitals without power. Children without food or medicine. Cuba poses no threat to the US. This is pure cruelty. https://t.co/C28fHUmbW9
Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said last week that Trump’s threat against countries that continue to supply energy “reveals the fascist, criminal, and genocidal nature of a clique that has hijacked the interests of the American people for purely personal ends.”
On Monday, the global organization Progressive International joined Cuban officials in denouncing Trump’s executive order as a “cruel and criminal act of economic warfare that will bring nothing but starvation, deprivation, and despair to [Cuba’s] people.”
“With this new executive order, the logic of siege has reached its apotheosis: Sanction not only Cuba but every nation that dares show solidarity, effectively demanding that sovereign states choose between the interests of their own people and the dictates of an empire,” said the Cabinet of Progressive International.
The group called on the international community to “coordinate diplomatic resistance, demand that governments refuse to enforce secondary tariffs, and amplify Cuban voices against this assault on international law, human dignity, and basic human rights.”
“History will judge those who saw this moment and turned away. Cuba stood with oppressed peoples globally—from defeating apartheid in South Africa to sending doctors to the frontlines of epidemics—and now it is our time to act with audacity, moral courage, and collective force,” said Progressive International.“
“Stand with the Cuban people now,” the group added. “Stand against this siege, this economic assault, this unfolding humanitarian disaster; join together in the provision of key supplies to the island, from medicine to food to fuel for its people; and stand for the right of all nations to self-determination and human dignity, or be complicit in its destruction.”
Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.
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A protest held as part of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People in Ramallah, West Bank on November 30, 2025. [Issam Rimawi – Anadolu Agency]
The Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem released a report on Tuesday documenting widespread and systematic abuses against Palestinians held in Israeli detention centres, including torture, starvation, sexual violence, denial of medical care, and deaths in custody.
According to the report, Israeli detention facilities operate as a coordinated network of what B’Tselem characterised as “torture camps,” where detainees are subjected to severe physical and psychological abuse under inhumane conditions. Testimonies collected by the organisation describe prolonged beatings, humiliation, extreme overcrowding, deliberate starvation, medical neglect, and, in some cases, sexual violence. Several former detainees reported experiencing such abuses personally or witnessing them being inflicted on others.
B’Tselem said it has documented at least 84 cases of Palestinians who died in Israeli custody since October 2023, including one minor. Of those who died, 50 were from the Gaza Strip, 31 from the occupied West Bank, and three were Palestinian citizens of Israel. The organisation added that, as of January 2025, Israeli authorities were still withholding the bodies of 80 of the deceased prisoners and refusing to return them to their families.
The report noted that these figures represent only cases that could be independently verified, warning that the actual number of deaths in detention may be higher.
Commenting on the findings, B’Tselem Executive Director Yuli Novak said Israeli detention centres had become part of a “planned and widespread attack” against Palestinian society. She argued that the abuse of detainees forms part of a broader policy aimed at dismantling Palestinian social and political life, linking the detention practices to the ongoing war in Gaza and what she described as ethnic cleansing in the West Bank.
Novak criticised the international community for what she called continued inaction, saying that the absence of accountability for Israel has contributed to the persistence of torture, repression, and other grave violations against Palestinians.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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/O74hZCKKdpAKeir 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.
Palestinian children receive medical treatment at the Friends of Patients Hospital in Gaza City, Gaza on December 2, 2025. (Photo by Hamza Z. H. Qraiqea/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Israel has not allowed the agreed-upon number of medical aid trucks into Gaza under October’s ceasefire deal, and has yet to give approval to thousands of people on waiting lists to receive treatment elsewhere.
With the Israeli military having violated its “ceasefire” agreement with Hamas at least 875 times since it was finalized in October, and aid groups warning that everyone in Gazaremains at risk of starvation, the exclave’s healthcare system desperately needs to treat people impacted by the ongoing humanitarian disaster—but medical experts there warn Israel’s blockade has left many hospitals barely functioning.
On Tuesday, the director-general of Gaza’s Ministry of Health, Munir al-Barsh, told Al Jazeera that the healthcare system is suffering from “widespread shortages of medicines and medical supplies, particularly surgical consumables needed to perform operations.”
The situation is “tragic and horrific,” al-Barsh told the outlet.
After Israeli attacks on nearly all of Gaza’s healthcare facilities during the war, 34 hospitals and 125 other health centers have been badly damaged. The health system has lost about 1,700 medical professionals who were killed by the Israel Defense Forces, and at least 80 doctors and other providers have been detained by Israel since 2023.
About 70% of the aid trucks that Israel has allowed into Gaza since October have carried food; the other 30% have brought in a variety of medical equipment, shelter supplies, tents, clothings, and other items. Israel is failing to allow in the agreed-upon number of medical aid trucks, Al Jazeera reported.
Earlier this month, al-Barsh toldAl Jazeera that the medical supplies allowed in remain limited, with “antibiotics, IV solutions, and surgical materials” banned.
“We are facing a situation in which 54% of essential medicines are unavailable, and 40% of the drugs for surgeries and emergency care—the very medications we rely on to treat the wounded—are missing,” al-Barsh said.
Dr. Alaa Helles, director of pharmaceutical care at the Ministry of Health, also said Sunday that 52% of medications on an “essential list” were “zero stock.”
Director of Pharmaceutical Care at the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, Dr. Alaa Helles, says there is a severe shortage of vital medications in Gaza. The highest it has been in two years. Israel is not allowing medicine into Gaza. pic.twitter.com/VuySKCAtkf
On Tuesday, al-Barsh added that three-quarters of the total supplies needed in hospitals are unavailable, while power outages and shortages of generators are making it nearly impossible for healthcare workers to help critically injured and ill people.
He said Israel must open border crossings both to allow more supplies in and to permit the transport of thousands of people who are on long waiting lists to receive treatment outside of Gaza.
Nearly 20,000 Palestinians in Gaza are on the lists, including 18,500 who have received approval from the World Health Organization but have yet to be referred by Israeli authorities for security approval. About 3,700 of those on waiting lists are in critical condition and about 4,300 are children, Al Jazeera reported.
Al-Barsh told the outlet that at least 1,156 patients have died while waiting for security clearance from Israel.
The director-general’s comments came a day after the United Nations issued a similar warning about the thousands of people waiting for treatment outside of Gaza and the “destruction of health infrastructure” in the exclave.
The destruction of health infrastructure and severe shortages are exacerbating #Gaza’s health crisis. @WHO says more than 1,000 patients have died while waiting for medical evacuation from the enclave since July 2024. pic.twitter.com/8rbfhWsJeU
“My daughter is ill and suffers from kidney failure,” a mother named Balqees Abu Ajwa told the UN News Center. “The crossings are closed and medical supplies are scarce. The medical equipment that could help my daughter stay alive is not available. My daughter has been in this condition for 20 days. She is exhausted.”
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/O74hZCKKdpAKeir 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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American teenager Mohammed Ibrahim [AJEnglish/X]
American teenager Mohammed Ibrahim has been released nine months after Israeli forces detained him during a nighttime raid in the occupied West Bank, according to statements shared Thursday by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Anadolu reports.
Sixteen-year-old Ibrahim was arrested on Feb. 16 when Israeli forces reportedly entered his family’s home in al-Mazra’a ash-Sharqiya in the occupied West Bank.
His family said that Ibrahim was subjected to beatings, starvation, and other mistreatment while held in an Israeli military prison.
“Mohammed should have spent this year studying for his learner’s permit and enjoying time with his family—not locked in a military prison, beaten, starved, and terrified. His release is cause for celebration, but it must also be a turning point. The U.S. cannot continue providing unchecked support to a government that tortures American children,” said CAIR Florida on US social media company X.
While CAIR National welcomed his release, they emphasized the importance of taking action to prevent such treatment of a teenager.
“Mohammed’s homecoming is a blessing, but it does not erase the torture and suffering he endured,” it said, adding: “The U.S. government has a responsibility to investigate Israel’s abuse of an American citizen and ensure that no other child—American or Palestinian—is subjected to the same treatment.”
His uncle, Zeyad Kadur, in a statement, said the family is relieved after months of fear.
“Words can’t describe the immense relief we have as a family right now, to have Mohammed in his parents’ arms,” he said, adding that they are focused on securing medical care after “Israel’s abuse and inhumane conditions for months.”
Urging the “American government to protect our families,” Kadur said: “Mohammed was forced to spend his 16th birthday unjustly imprisoned by Israel, separated from the people who love him. Now that Mohammed is with his family, we can finally wish him a happy birthday.”
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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.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/O74hZCKKdpAOrcas 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.
