Tuesday, November 4, 2025

Israeli forces intentionally targeted Palestinian farmers working in the few agricultural areas that had not yet been destroyed in Gaza, using airstrikes, direct gunfire, and repeated shelling. This turned farmlands into high-risk zones where the simple act of trying to secure food became a deadly gamble.

Euro-Med Monitor

@EuroMedHR

During more than 24 months of genocide, Israeli forces intentionally targeted Palestinian farmers working in the few agricultural areas that had not yet been destroyed in #Gaza, using airstrikes, direct gunfire, and repeated shelling. This turned farmlands into high-risk zones where the simple act of trying to secure food became a deadly gamble.

Ongoing bombings and ground incursions also prevented farmers from accessing lands that survived earlier destruction, while other areas remained unusable due to the lack of irrigation caused by power outages, the destruction of water wells, and severe fuel shortages needed to operate irrigation systems.

Available data reveals the enormous scale of destruction inflicted by #Israel on Gaza’s agricultural sector:

-> 1,218 agricultural wells were destroyed and rendered completely inoperative.

-> Planted vegetable areas shrank from 93,000 dunams to around 4,000 dunams only.

-> Over 85% of greenhouses were destroyed.

This amounts to the total collapse of Gaza’s food production system

https://x.com/EuroMedHR/status/1985512317979935016/photo/1

AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES & QUOTES IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine, or at least fair and just laws and policies]

Good morning, world… Come, let us tell you about Gaza: "The war hasn’t stopped—it has only changed its shape..." Sameh Ahmed

Good morning, world… Come, let us tell you about Gaza.

Sameh Ahmed

@PalPress24

Some think the war is over—that the bombing has stopped, and that Gaza is getting ready to catch its breath after two years of devastation. But the truth is: the war hasn’t stopped—it has only changed its shape.

Yes, the intensity has decreased, but the sounds of explosions are still heard every day.

Martyrs and the wounded continue to fall in silence.

Bombings, demolitions, and destruction are still taking place across nearly 50% of the Gaza Strip.

Winter is approaching… In Gaza, winter is not a dramatic scene—it’s a real nightmare. People live without shelter, without blankets, without heaters—without even a tent.

The Israeli occupation still prevents the entry of shelter materials, tents, and heating supplies. It allows, partially, the entry of some nuts and canned food—but bans eggs, meat, medicine, fuel, and even solar energy systems, which were the last hope for people to generate electricity.

The list is long—and filled with things beyond belief.

As for Rafah crossing, it has been closed for weeks. Behind it, 22,000 wounded and sick people wait for treatment that never comes— as if the world is silently waiting for them to die.

Has the war stopped? Maybe only in the news bulletins… But in Gaza, the war continues—slower this time, yet even more brutal, because it is crushing what little life remains in this place.

https://x.com/PalPress24/status/1985622244395974950/photo/1

NPR: Despite a ceasefire, Israel has demolished villages in southern Lebanon

Hussein Allawiyya in Maroun el Ras, Lebanon, on Sept. 26. He is a retired teacher who lost his home after the February ceasefire. Diego Ibarra Sánchez for NPR

November 3, 20255:00 AM ET

By Jane Arraf , Jawad Rizkallah

HULA, Lebanon — Israel's war with the militant group Hezbollah officially ended with a ceasefire last November. But Israel has continued since then to demolish hundreds of homes and critical civilian infrastructure in what residents see as an effort to not just prevent their return but erase their history.

In the village of Hula in southern Lebanon, a monument engraved with the names of almost 100 Lebanese killed here in 1948 just after the creation of the state of Israel lies covered in graffiti and smashed to pieces. While Lebanon is made up of a variety of religious groups, the majority in the south is Shia Muslim.

The black spray paint scrawled next to a Star of David bears the message in Hebrew "the only good Shia is a dead Shia."

Retired school teacher Abdul Aziz Chreim doesn't know what the Hebrew writing says, but says he knows the aim.

"The Israelis took over this entire village after the ceasefire and they wanted to make the point that 'we are here,' " he says. "They wanted vengeance."

The Israeli military, in response to an NPR query about the destruction, said it had reviewed the desecration of the monument and reinforced unspecified procedures to prevent similar occurrences in the future.

The graves included civilians killed in what became known as the Hula massacre, with two Israeli army officers tried in Israel for war crimes.

Chreim, 74, finds the names of his grandmother and grandfather among the broken pieces of marble before heading to the ruins of his home.

"This is my past that has been wiped out," he says. "My present has been wiped out. My future is lost..." ... READ MORE https://www.npr.org/2025/11/03/nx-s1-5566124/israel-south-lebanon-villages

Monday, November 3, 2025

Dear America- Israel has a right to exist, but Israel has no right to starve and displace the men, women and children of historic Palestine.

𝐅𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐮𝐬 𝐓𝐞𝐫𝐫𝐚𝐞 𝐒𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐭𝐚𝐞 ♱

letter I just sent to my elected leaders

Dear America,

I am a Christian, born and raised to love and to care for others.

As a Christian, and an American, I firmly object to the corporate greed and corruption that are destroying America's democracy.

Furthermore, as a Christian and an educated human being, I object to our elected leaders funding and arming Israeli bigotry and injustice with America's wealth and weaponry.

We give billions and billions of dollars to Israel annually, while many Americans can't afford to feed their own children.

As a Christian who has been married to a Muslim man for decades, a good man who treats me well and has worked hard to take care of our family, I also vehemently object to the bigotry and injustice being fomented here in America, and in Israel, against Arab Christians, Muslims, and Jews.

I grew up in the 1960s in an America when full equality and legal respect for Blacks was a new thing. I was very lucky because my mother, my church, and my school all promoted diversity- an end to segregation, and an end to racist hate and injustice. I went to school with all types of people, every religion and color, and we learned to get along. Diplomacy matters... and so does international law.

FYI Israel has been violating international law in multiple ways time and time again.

International law was created because of the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust. After WWII the United Nations & the Universal Declaration of Human Rights made it clear how to build a better future for all people.

Israel used international law to gain power, and Israel is now is actively sabotaging international law- especially UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. https://www.unrwa.org/unrwa-claims-versus-facts-2025

Israel's puppets in America's Congress have cut funds to UNRWA and to UNESCO. Meanwhile Israel's current cat's-paw Trump has cut U.S. aid projects internationally and also cut programs for America's children, while generously supplying the Zionist empire with oodles of lethal weaponry and political support.

Israel is not a Christmas Carol or the answer to a prayer: Israel is a heavily armed, home demolition, job destroying propaganda savvy killing machine.

Israel insists on arming bigotry and funding religious extremism. There are no borders to stop Israeli aggression and land grabs. Israel steals land and peace from indigenous Arabs, including Indigenous Christians in the land of Jesus Christ's birth.

Israel has a right to exist, but Israel has no right to starve and displace the men, women and children of historic Palestine.

Sincerely,

Anne Selden Annab

NOTES https://anniesnewletters.blogspot.com/search/label/Notes

‘Olives are everything for us’: West Bank farmers prevented from harvesting by settler violence... About 70% of town’s olives are inaccessible without risking a potentially fatal clash with Israeli settlers

The grim task of recovering thousands of bodies from the rubble of Gaza. Relatives and experts tell of the human and societal need to find and identify the dead, while images and data shed light on the scale of the job

‘We don’t feel safe’: after week of bombings, people in Gaza are losing faith in ceasefire- After initial enthusiasm, people fear ceasefire does not mean end to war but just less frequent, more unpredictable [ISRAELI] violence

Children attending UNRWA temporary learning spaces in Gaza express their joy at learning in person and their hope that it will last. While most schools have been damaged or still host displaced families, UNRWA was able to quickly re-open 38 new temporary learning spaces in Khan Younis between September and October 2025. This has more than doubled the number of children reached through in-person learning compared to August levels. All children should be able to go to school. #UNRWAworks

“International law is clear: States must neither aid nor assist in the internationally wrongful acts of others, and must prevent & punish international crimes." New report “Gaza Genocide: A Collective Crime"

"Families buried under rubble, hospitals struck, and deliberate starvation of an entire people are not isolated mistakes. They are the product of a system driven by power, sustained by impunity, and empowered by propaganda..." World leaders cannot claim to seek peace while enabling war and ignoring human suffering

"Admirers from UNICEF leaders to Hollywood actors have praised her for saying what many politicians won’t. Critics, meanwhile, accuse her of politicizing childhood. She doesn’t flinch. “I have to just remind myself that kids’ lives are more important than my reputation,”" Ms Rachel, Glamour magazine's Women of the Year

Another Palestinian journalist killed by ongoing ISraeli bombardment. Muhammed al-Miniarawi was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Nuseirat regfugee camp in the central Gaza Strip. October 29, 2025

"Imagine slashing SNAP, the program that helps children in the U.S. not go hungry- while sending billions in weapons to another country to kill other children" Ms Rachel for Littles

Let UNRWA aid in... Lifesaving UNRWA medicines are waiting at the border, denied entry into Gaza by the State of Israel.

Meanwhile, pre-positioned outside Gaza, UNRWA has enough food parcels for 1.1 million people, flour for 2.1 million individuals, and shelter supplies for up to 1.3 million people."

"Maybe you don’t believe that we’re still starving in Gaza. So far: no enough food no meat, no chicken, no eggs at all no medicine." Israel's broken promises... AID ENTERING GAZA DURING CEASEFIRE: ACTUAL vs AGREED

Genocide is not a matter of opinion: 300+ writers, scholars & public figures refuse to write for the New York Times Opinion section in a collective effort to hold the paper accountable for its role in the genocide in Gaza.

The Catholic Church of Maalul, Nazareth remains standing despite the village’s destruction in 1948 and the expulsion of its people. Today, Maalul is an Israeli military zone, but its original inhabitants visit the church on special occasions or to commemorate their history.

"Across Palestine, the olive trees are disappearing, burned, cut, and uprooted by Israeli settlers, often under military protection. In Gaza, tens of thousands of dunums of farmland have been leveled, destroying nearly a million olive trees, some that had stood for centuries. Families are attacked or blocked from reaching their groves, their livelihoods erased before their eyes. Yet every year, people still go to harvest, even among the ashes and stumps, to remember that the land is theirs. When the trees are gone, they still reach, as an act of resistance." Sliman Mansour of Palestine

Two photographs nearly identical, as if captured on the same day. One in black and white, the other in color. Yet between them stretches seventy-seven years. The first taken after the Nakba of 1948. The second after the Nakba of 2023..

"It is sad and painful that you come to these Holy Lands for an unholy purpose and that is to adhere to the [Israeli] occupation, its oppressive policies and practices against the Palestinian people" ... "How can a Christian ignore the suffering of the Palestinian people especially what happened during the two years in Gaza which was a War of Holocaust." Theodosios Atallah Hanna, Palestinian Archbishop of Sebastia from the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, in an open letter to US Vice President JD Vance

Foreign journalists are still not allowed in Gaza & Israeli Settlers nearly club a Palestinian woman to death in the West Bank ... Arwa Mahdawi

"What’s urgently needed now is a UN-sponsored international criminal tribunal for Gaza, modelled on those in former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. It should be empowered to examine all aspects of Israel’s and Hamas’s conduct of the war, especially their shared disregard for civilian lives and their killing, torture and mistreatment of hostages and detainees." Simon Tisdall in The Guardian

Israel’s parliament has passed a bill advancing the annexation of the occupied West Bank, a blatant violation of international law... & "Barely a mention in Western media." Assal Rad

“For 80 years, we have worked to forge peace, tackle poverty & hunger, advance human rights & build a more sustainable world – together.” On Friday's #UNDay, @antonioguterres urges people to unite & fulfil the extraordinary promise of the United Nations... The creation of @UN was the result of a global commitment to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war." 80 years later, the UN remains essential for advancing peace, prosperity & human rights. #UN80

The International Court of Justice opinion is clear: UNRWA must be allowed to deliver aid

ICJ orders Israel to allow aid into Gaza and says restrictions breached international obligations. UN’s top court also finds Israel failed to justify blocking Unrwa and other relief agencies

An estimated one million of Gaza’s 1.1 million olive trees have been destroyed. Prior to the genocide Gaza produced 50,000 tons of olives annually.

Jewish figures across the globe call on UN and world leaders to sanction Israel . Exclusive: In an open letter, Israeli ex-officials, artists and intellectuals say ‘unconscionable’ actions in Gaza amount to genocide.

#BetterTogether: The United Nations... "Together, we promote peace & security, advance sustainable development & protect human rights. By uniting nations, we turn shared goals into collective action." LET UNRWA AID IN: "UNRWA has the reach, network, and trust to deliver lifesaving aid directly to people in need"

"In September, 2023—just before October 7th—the United Nations published a report about a spike in Israeli ethnic cleansing of Palestinian communities in the West Bank. During the past two years, we’ve seen the situation in the West Bank get even worse. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been pushed out of refugee camps. And dozens of Palestinian pastoral communities have been wiped off the map. Their inhabitants have been forced off their land by a combination of settlers and the Army, which are often indistinguishable from each other. So when we’re talking about ethnic cleansing, or an Israeli desire for ethnic cleansing, we shouldn’t talk about it purely in this future hypothetical way. It’s happening on a smaller scale every day." Isaac Chotiner

"There are now, as the historian Rashid Khalidi has put it, “two peoples in Palestine, irrespective of how they came into being”, and their “mutual acceptance can only be based on complete equality of rights”. If that sounds utopian, it is largely because of the decay of political leadership in both Israel and Palestine. Whatever happens with the Trump plan, no amount of bulldozer diplomacy or external governance will alter that." Kenan Malik

Humanitarian principles & UNRWA

UNRWA has the reach, network, and trust to deliver lifesaving aid directly to people in need across Gaza. To meet urgent needs, let UNRWA bring in its aid to Gaza at scale. Let them do their job.

"This is a UN vehicle entering Gaza today. It looks like a scene in a dystopian movie." Assal Rad

‘One of the oldest urban centres on the planet’: Gaza’s rich history in ruins. The territory’s ancient heritage has too often been ignored. As we mourn incalculable human losses, learning about its past can help us better understand the present- William Dalrymple in The Guardian

Dear America- The vast majority of Americans are not wealthy & the taxes that We The People pay are being diverted into funding religious bigotry and terror via Israel's cruel war on the native non-Jewish men, women, and children of historic Palestine. HAMAS cruelty and stupidity echoes Zionist cruelty and stupidity and on and on it goes. Neither approach will build peace or security.

The weapons industry and a global war machine- AND INJUSTICE- burgeon with American tax payer funds.

Violence is a problem- not the answer.

STOP THE SIEGE- stop funding crazy cruel Israeli schemes & the forced displacement, imprisonment, starvation, torture, and killing of human beings in Gaza and Palestine

"Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world..." https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights

‘Olives are everything for us’: West Bank farmers prevented from harvesting by settler violence... About 70% of town’s olives are inaccessible without risking a potentially fatal clash with Israeli settlers

Mahmud Hassan, the mayor of As-Sawiya, pointing to inaccessible olive groves. Photograph: Jason Burke/The Guardian

Jason Burke and Sufian Taha in As-Sawiya

Mon 3 Nov 2025 05.53 EST

Around As-Sawiya, rolling hills covered in fields and orchards rise to a horizon sharp against a pristine blue sky. It is a stunning view. But look closer and it becomes clear why the few thousand residents of this small town in the north of the Israeli-occupied West Bank say they are under siege – and why the olives are still heavy on the trees two weeks after the official date of the beginning of the annual harvest.

From the highest point in As-Sawiya, Mahmud Hassan, the mayor, points out the olive orchards on the other side of the highway below the town. They lie on land owned by local families but are now impossible to reach without risking a potentially fatal clash with Israeli settlers who live in settlements around the town, or with Israeli security forces, he says. In all, about 70% of the town’s olives are currently inaccessible.

“Our olives are everything for us: the backbone of our economy, in our homes, on our tables, in our culture. These last years have brought nothing but misery to us,” says Hassan, 68.

The situation is the same across much of the West Bank. Since the beginning of October, the Palestinian Farmers’ Union (PFU) has logged more than 50 incidents of violence or destruction.

The UN has recorded more: 86 olive harvest-related settler attacks resulting in casualties, property damage or both, including several incidents reported in the days before the official start of the season on 9 October. More than 3,000 trees and saplings have been damaged and 112 Palestinians injured, including 50 by settlers.

“Incidents entailed attacks on farmers inside or on their way to olive groves, theft of crops and harvesting equipment, and vandalism of olive trees,” the UN said. “In total, 50 villages and towns have been affected,” an increase on last year’s harvest when there were 80 incidents in 48 villages and towns that led to the injury of 50 Palestinians.

Records kept by the PFU show incidents of violence have soared fourfold, from three or four daily before the war in Gaza. The most recent attacks are “not random, but deliberate efforts to undermine Palestinian rural life”, the PFU said in a statement.

The Israeli settlers in the West Bank are supported by far-right ministers, part of the country’s ruling coalition, the most rightwing in Israel’s history. Last month, a bill introduced by far-right lawmakers applying Israeli law to the West Bank, a move tantamount to annexation... READ MORE https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/03/olives-settler-violence-west-bank-farmers

The grim task of recovering thousands of bodies from the rubble of Gaza. Relatives and experts tell of the human and societal need to find and identify the dead, while images and data shed light on the scale of the job

News story in The Guardian

By Lorenzo Tondo in Jerusalem and Seham Tantesh in Gaza. Graphics by Ana Lucía González Paz, Lucy Swan and Paul Scruton

Sun 2 Nov 2025 06.15 EST

It has been described as one of the most gruelling recovery efforts in modern warfare.

As negotiations over the fragile Gaza ceasefire continue, Palestinians have started to dig through 61m tonnes of debris, 20 times more than the combined mass of all debris generated by conflicts since 2008. Underneath, at least 10,000 people are thought to be buried.

The Guardian spoke with several families in Gaza desperately searching for the bodies of their missing relatives, as well as members of the Palestinian civil defence, a branch of the security services responsible for emergency services and rescue operations. Photos, video footage and data shed light on the scale of the task ahead.

Widespread destruction across the Gaza Strip has generated more than 61m tonnes of debris

77% of the Gaza Strip’s road network has been blocked, damaged or destroyed

8m tonnes of debris is potentially hazardous

... Still buried a year on

On 29 October 2024, the five-storey house in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza, where Aya Abu Nasr’s extended family lived collapsed after an Israeli airstrike.

“Most of my family members had been staying on the ground and first floors,” said Nasr, 26. “I lost five of my siblings – two brothers and three sisters – along with all their families. More than 100 members of my extended family died in that strike, and about 50 of them are still under the rubble to this day, a full year later.”.... READ MORE https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/02/the-grim-task-of-recovering-thousands-of-bodies-from-the-rubble-of-gaza

Sunday, November 2, 2025

‘We don’t feel safe’: after week of bombings, people in Gaza are losing faith in ceasefire- After initial enthusiasm, people fear ceasefire does not mean end to war but just less frequent, more unpredictable [ISRAELI] violence

In Gaza the normal staples of childhood – play and learning – have been overtaken by the grim logistics of survival. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

In The Guardian

by Seham Tantesh in Gaza and William Christou in Beirut

Sat 1 Nov 2025

Ameen al-Zein, like many in Gaza, was overjoyed by the news of the ceasefire. It was a rare moment of relief after years of fear and loss. On Tuesday night he gave an interview to a local NGO urging people to return to their homes in northern Gaza now that fighting had stopped. Just half an hour later, Zein was dead, killed in an Israeli bombing on the school where he had been sheltering in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza.

He died without being able to fulfil his vow to his wife that they would return to Beit Lahia and pitch a tent over the rubble, eager to be home even if their house was no longer there.

“When the most recent truce was announced, Abu Luay felt so happy and relieved,” said his wife, Maryam, using a family name for him. “He told me that finally the bloodshed would stop and people could live in peace. Sadly, that feeling didn’t last. Israel violated the ceasefire again.”

Zein was one of 115 people killed and 352 injured during 24 hours of Israeli bombardment of Gaza this week, according to the Gaza health ministry. The strikes came after Hamas returned body parts of a hostage whose remains Israeli troops had recovered two years before, and Palestinian militants attacked Israeli troops in southern Gaza.

It was the deadliest day in Gaza since the ceasefire was put in place on 10 October and one of the deadliest days in the whole of the two-year war.

The bombings were just the latest in a series of Israeli violations of the three-week-long ceasefire in Gaza. After the initial enthusiasm over the ceasefire announcement, worry has set in among the people of Gaza. They are fearful that the ceasefire does not mean an end to the war but just less frequent and more random bursts of violence they are unable to predict. That randomness makes their own futures hard to imagine, much less to plan... READ MORE https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/01/gaza-ceasefire-bombings-people-losing-faith

Thursday, October 30, 2025

Children attending UNRWA temporary learning spaces in Gaza express their joy at learning in person and their hope that it will last. While most schools have been damaged or still host displaced families, UNRWA was able to quickly re-open 38 new temporary learning spaces in Khan Younis between September and October 2025. This has more than doubled the number of children reached through in-person learning compared to August levels. All children should be able to go to school. #UNRWAworks

UNRWA

@UNRWA

Children attending UNRWA temporary learning spaces in #Gaza express their joy at learning in person and their hope that it will last.

While most schools have been damaged or still host displaced families, UNRWA was able to quickly re-open 38 new temporary learning spaces in Khan Younis between September and October 2025.

This has more than doubled the number of children reached through in-person learning compared to August levels.

All children should be able to go to school.

#UNRWAworks

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