"For me, as a Palestinian from Gaza who survived the ongoing genocide, when I look at the rubble of homes on Google Maps, I am not seeing only the remains of buildings, which from far look like a decaying wall. I am seeing the remains of people whose bodies were crushed beneath walls and ceilings they painted with their own hands. I see children’s toys. Books. Backpacks. Coloring pencils. An unfinished meal. Blankets. Shoes. Photo frames of grandparents whose grandchildren never met. An old key to a home in Yaffa or Haifa. I can also hear the last words of a broadcaster on the radio before the news occurred, before the radio was broken and the family crushed..." Mosab Abu Toha

 Mosab Abu Toha

@MosabAbuToha

 

For me, as a Palestinian from Gaza who survived the ongoing genocide, when I look at the rubble of homes on Google Maps, I am not seeing only the remains of buildings, which from far look like a decaying wall. 

 

I am seeing the remains of people whose bodies were crushed beneath walls and ceilings they painted with their own hands. 

 

I see children’s toys. Books. Backpacks. Coloring pencils. An unfinished meal. Blankets. Shoes. Photo frames of grandparents whose grandchildren never met. An old key to a home in Yaffa or Haifa. 

 

I can also hear the last words of a broadcaster on the radio before the news occurred, before the radio was broken and the family crushed. No breaking news there. No news at all.

Gaza 2026

Secret systems used by Israel in mass killings of Gaza civilians revealed in new film. Testimony from Israeli military insiders involved in surveillance and remote killings features in documentary produced by the Guardian

Emma Graham-Harrison in Jerusalem

Thu 10 Sep 2026

Testimony from 24 Israeli military insiders ​on the secret ​systems used in ​the war on Gaza​ has been revealed in a new documentary film about the mass killing of Palestinian civilians.

NAZA, a film from the Oscar-winning Israeli directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, was shown at the Venice international film festival on Thursday as the only documentary competing for its prestigious Golden Lion award.

The film’s title comes from an Israeli military acronym used euphemistically to refer to civilians expected to be killed in a military attack. Produced by the Guardian, it features extensive testimony from Israeli intelligence officers and soldiers involved in the surveillance and remote killing of Palestinian civilians.

Interviews were filmed at night on rooftops in Tel Aviv, on the condition of anonymity because of the risks involved in speaking publicly about Israel’s war activities. The appearance and voices of participants in the film were digitally altered to disguise their identities.

The interviewees detail the secret methods used by the Israeli military in Gaza, including AI-based systems built to identify large numbers of potential low-ranking Hamas targets, who were then bombed in their homes at night, in the knowledge attacks would also kill their families.

The Israeli military hacked into phones to identify the location of such targets, and covertly listened into conversations with their wives and children moments before they were all killed.

The film also features first-person accounts about the destruction of neighbourhoods where the Israeli military estimated that up to 25% of residents were still sheltering in their homes, the systematic burning of civilian homes, and the killing of civilians at a food distribution site.

Several interviewees worked in a secret intelligence unit that reports directly to the office of Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu; one said their mission was to “thwart peace”.

“We made this film out of a sense of obligation to use our position as Israeli film-makers and journalists to examine the systems behind the mass killing of Palestinian civilians for which our country is responsible,” Abraham and Szor said in their directors’ statement.

The directors stressed the film’s focus was not on “sporadic war crimes committed by rogue soldiers”. “It is on the orders themselves, the policies, the accepted practices, the language and logic that make those practices possible, and the people who operate within them,” they said. “The system and its cogs.”... READ MORE  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/10/secret-systems-used-by-israel-in-mass-killings-of-gaza-civilians-revealed-in-new-film

AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or 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 here, there- and everywhere]  

Crimson Thread: The new Israeli separation wall that cuts through the 'breadbasket of Palestine'... Israel's latest wall in the northern Jordan Valley is cutting Palestinian farmers off from their land, destroying crops and accelerating displacement

 

'The annexation process is taking place on the ground in full view of the entire world. It has been halted in the media, but it hasn't stopped on the ground'

- Mu'taz Bisharat, settlement expert

Palestinian farmers in the Jordan Valley have been forced to flee their lands, known as the 'breadbasket of Palestine', as Israel accelerates construction of another separation wall (Muhammad Ateeq/MEE)

By Muhammad Ateeq and Fayha Shalash in Atouf and Tubas, occupied West Bank

Published date: 25 June 2026

Khairallah Bani Odeh feels as if he's living in a giant prison.

Forced to leave his lands in the village of Atouf in the northern Jordan Valley, he relocated to the town of Tammoun, south of Tubas, after a combination of settler attacks, water shortages and sweeping Israeli land grabs made life unbearable.

Like many Palestinians in the northern Jordan Valley, Bani Odeh relied on sheepherding and farming for his livelihood.

But since Israel began construction on a new separation wall and road that will cut through the Buqe'aa Plain, large areas of land have been swallowed up, reshaping daily life for residents.

Israel has named the project "Crimson Thread". It involves the construction of a 22-kilometre-long and 50-meter-wide separation wall and accompanying road along the eastern lands of Tubas.

The project will leave large parts of the Buqe'aa Plain and eastern Atouf behind the road and wall, making it impossible for farmers and shepherds to access their agricultural land and grazing areas.

Bani Odeh told Middle East Eye that when construction began, Israeli settlers used bulldozers to destroy water lines supplying hundreds of hectares of farmland in the plain, causing crop damage and leaving livestock without water.

For many families, it was the final push to leave.

"They cut off our water supply, so I had to buy water from neighboring villages for the livestock. I used to walk long distances to fetch water. Then they burned the barley and made our lives unbearable, so we were forced to leave," he added.

Dozens of families, including Bani Odeh's, depended on livestock farming in Atouf, while hundreds more relied on agriculture across the plain. Residents say both sources of income have been devastated by the new project.

Three months after leaving Atouf, Bani Odeh says he still feels trapped. He struggles to find grazing land for his livestock and dreams of returning home every day.

Crops left to wither

Local estimates indicate that more than 20,000 dunams (2000 hectares) are threatened by drought or damage because of water shortages.

Many families in Atouf and Ras al-Ahmar depend on livestock farming. As pastureland shrinks and access to water becomes more limited, farmers fear declining livestock numbers and rising production costs.

Anis Bisharat once carefully tended fields of melons, okra, cucumbers and zucchini. But after water lines were cut, his crops began to wither as irrigation became impossible, resulting in significant losses.

"In addition to the water cut, they closed the road we used to reach the plain. Now we have to travel twice the distance and pay twice the fuel cost," ... READ MORE https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/crimson-thread-israel-separation-wall-cuts-through-palestine-west-bank

  [AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes or watch videos) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine] 

"It was like being given the choice between suicide or being murdered" Palestinians forced to demolish own homes to make way for Israeli theme park. Residents of al-Bustan district told to make way for Kings Garden, with knocking down own houses cheaper option

‘This is something bitter,’ said Jalal al-Tawil as his family’s home was demolished. Photograph: Quique Kierszenbaum/The Guardian

Julian Borger, Quique Kierszenbaum and Sufian Taha in Jerusalem

Sat 16 May 2026 03.00 EDT

 

At the bottom of a steep and densely populated valley just below Jerusalem’s old city walls, the earth has been shaken in recent weeks by jackhammers and bulldozers.

These have been the sounds of Jerusalem for decades as the Israeli state has relentlessly sought to stamp a uniformly Jewish identity on to the occupied east of the city, while erasing its Palestinian character.

Typically it is workers for the state and municipality at the wheel of the bulldozers, but in the al-Bustan neighbourhood, in the shadow of the 11th-century al-Aqsa mosque, the clamour is from a more recent development.

It is the sound of Palestinians demolishing their own family homes.

Al-Bustan: red dots mark homes already demolished and green those with existing demolition orders.

“This is something really hard. This is something bitter,” Jalal al-Tawil said as he watched a tractor he had hired, with a front loader at the front and jackhammer at the back, rip apart the last remnants of the house his father had built, which in turn had been on the site of his grandparents’ home.

By Wednesday morning, most of the walls had been brought down to their foundations and the rubble pushed into a single pile. Al-Tawil left the thick knotty root of a 35-year-old grapevine until last.

“It used to provide grapes for all of al-Bustan,” he said. The spring vine leaves had already sprouted along the trellis above him, but he was resigned to the fact they would never again bear fruit.... READ MORE   https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/16/palestinians-demolish-family-homes-jerusalem-kings-garden-theme-park

  [AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes or watch videos) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine]  

‘The loss of education is the loss of the future itself’: Gaza’s children and teachers on two years without school With 97% of schools destroyed or damaged, 600,000 children have just begun their third year out of formal education. Three students and a teacher share their stories – and their hopes

‘I miss feeling normal’

Sarah al-Sharif, nine, Gaza City- Sarah's home and school were destroyed in the war

"I was seven when the war began. That morning on 7 October, I was sitting in my classroom, learning maths. I remember holding my pencil tightly when the first explosion shook the school. My heart felt like it stopped.

Soon after, my father came to take me home. I never saw that classroom again. My school is gone for ever. The Israeli army surrounded it, attacked the people sheltering inside and destroyed it completely. My home was also bombed – all these places are nothing but ashes now."

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/oct/19/education-gaza-children-teachers-two-years-without-school

Thaslima Begum

Sun 19 Oct 2025 

‘We don’t want pity, we want action’

Juwayriya Adwan, 12, al-Mawasi, Khan Younis

It has been two years since I was last inside a real classroom. Two years since I heard the morning bell at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, sat at my desk and raised my hand during my favourite class. Sometimes I still vividly remember the sounds and smells: chalk dust, pencil shavings, laughter echoing down the halls. But my school no longer exists; it was bombed by the Israelis soon after the war began. My books were burned, and some of my friends killed.

I was in fifth grade on 7 October: the last day I went to school. That morning, air raid sirens screamed through the corridors. Some children cried, others held hands tightly. Our teacher tried to calm us, but even her voice trembled. I remember wishing for a normal day; lessons, recess, a poem recital. Instead, that day became the last page of my old life.

Now I live with my parents, two brothers and sister in a crowded shelter in al-Mawasi, Khan Younis. The tent walls flap in the wind, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We queue for water and food. Electricity is a dream and privacy doesn’t exist. Hope feels fragile.

At night, I look up at the stars through the holes of my tent and wonder if my friends see the same sky. Some message me when they can, saying they miss school and have kept their old notebooks; like treasures from a lost world. I feel guilty because I’ve lost all of mine.

I once dreamed of becoming a teacher to help Gaza’s children learn, even when life was hard. Now I dream of being a journalist – to write, to speak and to show the world what it means to be a child in Gaza. I want to tell our stories of fear and hunger, but also courage. Because even here, amid death and ruins, our voices refuse to be silent. 

When there’s some ... READ MORE   https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/oct/19/education-gaza-children-teachers-two-years-without-school

AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD 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]    

‘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

The bombed-out Great Mosque of Gaza, once a crusader church, in January 2024. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

William Dalrymple

Fri 17 Oct 2025

"As a ceasefire brings a measure of peace to the Dresden-like hellscape that Gaza has become, it is time to take stock of all that has been lost. The human cost of what the UN commission of inquiry recognises as a genocide is of course incalculable, but fewer are aware of how much rich history and archaeology has also been destroyed in these horrific months. This is bolstered by the widespread assumption that Gaza was little more than a huge refugee camp built on a recently settled portion of desert. That is quite wrong. In reality Gaza it is one of the oldest urban centres on the planet.

Golda Meir famously declared that “there was no such thing as Palestinians”, but the reality is very different. Palestine is actually one of humanity’s oldest toponyms, and records of a people named after it are as old as literacy itself. Palestine was an established name for the coast between Egypt and Phoenicia since at least the second millennium BCE: the ancient Egyptian texts refer to “Peleset” from about 1450BCE, Assyrians inscriptions to the “Palashtu” c800BCE, and Herodotus c480BCE to “Παλαιστίνη” (Palaistinē). This was all brought home to me as I worked, with my co-presenter Anita Anand, on a 12-part series on Gaza’s history for the Empire podcast.

Gaza was first referenced as a strategic prize in an Egyptian inscription of Thutmose III in the 15th century BCE, where it is referred to as Ghazzati. It is also one of the most fought-over and contested spaces: for more than 4,000 years this area has been an ethnically mixed crossroads, linking Africa with Asia, and the desert with the Mediterranean. It has also been a crucial strategic and economic hub: an often incredibly rich and prosperous port from which the spices, incense, perfumes and wines of western Asia were exported to Greece and Rome, the end of the caravan route from Arabia via Petra. As well as a fortress guarding the strategically crucial route leading from the eastern Mediterranean coastline to Egypt.

Travellers who visited Gaza over the centuries have often remarked on the fecundity of its vegetation and the diversity of its agriculture, both of which are the products of its underground waters and the Mediterranean climate. It is this that enabled Gaza to grow the excellent grapes that for many centuries were made into a much celebrated sweet wine, the Château d’Yquem of the classical world. An exhibition of the salvaged antiquities of Gaza currently showing at the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris opens with a fabulous display of the distinctive “torpedo jars” in which the Gazans exported their wine. As late as the sixth century AD, these amphorae were reaching both Merovingian France and Anglo-Saxon England..." READ MORE   https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/oct/17/one-of-the-oldest-urban-centres-on-the-planet-gazas-rich-history-in-ruins

 AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD 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]   

Empire: The History of Gaza, PODCAST presented by William Dalrymple and Anita Anand, is available online https://www.playpodcast.net/podcast/empire/

Dear America- Please do not let this tragic situation became a reason for more people to be treated more unequally, with more Palestinians and Palestinian Americans being doxed, destroyed, and displaced.

United Nations Headquarters NYC sculpture Knotted Gun, by Fredrik Reuterswärd, titled 'Non Violence' no explanation necessary

Dear America,

So very shocking to see the pictures and hear the news about our Pennsylvania Governor's Mansion being attacked and set on fire. That must have been a terrifying time for Gov. Shapiro and his family.

I suspect it was attempted murder, and thank heavens he and his family are safe.

I don't think racist hate was the motive.  I think it was mental illness... Please do not let this tragic situation became a reason for more people to be treated more unequally, with more Palestinians and Palestinian Americans being doxed, destroyed, and displaced.

Racist hate is evil and wrong.  Universally wrong. Doesn't matter who or where racist hate happens: Israeli, Palestinian, American- we are all born equal, although we don't all grown up in a world that treats us as equals.

Violence and war only make the world more insecure and dangerous. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was carefully written and adopted in 1948 in response to the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust.  It is the basis for international law and enlightenment.  

Did you know that between 1947 and 1949, Zionist military forces attacked major Palestinian cities and destroyed 530 Palestinian villages. Many Palestinians were killed in a series of mass atrocities, and many many more were forcibly displaced. We did not have cell phones and social media then but we do now, and we know that Israel continues to violently destroy Palestinian homes and lives.

Please don't add fuel to that fire.

Sincerely,

Anne Selden Annab

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

Let's use the best tool we have: EDUCATION against ignorance, prejudice, hatred, genocide

More journalists have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza than in most major wars combined.

Gaza’s endangered heritage: 5,000 years of history at risk amid conflict

"This is what life is like in Gaza. The children aren’t being raised to hate. They’re being raised to be afraid. Afraid of being seen. Afraid of being heard. Not because of anything they or their families did, but because of the constant fear and violence brought by the Israeli military. This fear is shaping their lives. It’s leaving deep, invisible wounds that will take years—if not generations—to heal." Hani Almadhoun

Red Cross chief says Gaza is 'hell on earth' as Israeli assault continues... "No state, no party to a conflict... can be exempt from the obligation not to commit war crimes, not to commit genocide, not to commit ethnic cleansing,"

“If Mahmoud can be targeted in this way, simply for speaking out for Palestinians and exercising his constitutionally protected right to free speech, this can happen to anyone over any issue the Trump administration dislikes. We will continue working tirelessly until Mahmoud is free and rightfully returned home to his family and community.”

"“Peace needs bridges, not walls and military checkpoints.” But what we see today is more military barriers, more oppression in the West Bank, and the movement between cities and governorates has become a journey fraught with danger. Remove the military checkpoints. Tear down the apartheid walls that separate one human being from another" Atallah Hanna Archbishop of Sebastia Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem

Israel’s war on Palestinian political life in Jerusalem- by Daoud Kuttab: If Israel truly seeks peace and coexistence, it must begin by recognizing the rights of Palestinians to exist, organize and thrive. That includes respect for international law, the protection of educational and religious institutions, and allowing Palestinians the freedom to engage in normal political and civil life. The international community, in particular Israel’s allies, must also take note: Silence in the face of these violations is complicity. As Israel continues to claim the mantle of democracy, its actions in East Jerusalem tell another story, one of exclusion, repression and systematic erasure.

What is happening is, quite simply, annihilation. Yet our politicians keep funding it and media outlets normalize it. Gaza is a ‘killing field’ where people are being starved. How long will the world tolerate this? Arwa Mahdawi in The Guardian ... "If the western media did cover every public incitement to genocide made by Israeli politicians and thought leaders, then there would be no space to cover anything else."

"Not only is Palestine on the cross but so too are its inhabitants. The people of Palestine have been occupied, crushed, and oppressed by one empire after the other... It is tough to see one's country as a perpetual battlefield, to see it divided and torn apart. It is enervating to feel that one's country and people are occupied not by an equal but by an empire. Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb, Pastor in Bethlehem, Palestine

Palm Sunday in Gaza: Israel bombs Episcopal Hospital: Anglican Ahli Arab Hospital. One previously injured Palestinian child with a head injury dies during rushed evacuation process.

"These are not birds - they are the scattered remains of our brothers, flying through the skies of their occupied land." This is how Egyptian artist Abdullah Wagih described his artwork, in reference to the scene.

"The skies of Gaza tonight. Those aren’t streetlights. Those aren’t stars. Those are bombs carrying death and destruction." Dr. Omar Suleiman

Before & After

Buying Time for Genocide ...

This is what genocide looks like: Israel has dropped almost 80,000 tons of explosives - this means that Israel has dropped ~36 kilograms of explosives on Gaza for every man, woman, and child. Each red dot shows a bombed place in Gaza.

"If your God demands you shred kids & execute people trying to rescue them, then maybe you should seek a new God!"

9th Station of the Cross JERUSALEM – Jesus falls the third time

No War Please 

"We urge you to reconsider your stance and retract this endorsement. We need the Church’s voice to stand with justice and truth, not with narratives that conceal suffering and excuse oppression.

We need to bring to life the values and principles of the UN Charter in every corner of the world

For over 75 years Palestine Refugees have endured loss and hardship- UNWRA- Until there is a just solution to their plight, a world where Palestine refugees thrive: Families newly displaced by the escalation in northern Gaza, including Beit Lahia and Beit Hanoun, are facing dire conditions. With limited food and water, some of them now live in makeshift tents on the main street near the UNRWA Gaza main compound. #CeasefireNow

Don’t just blame Trump [and Republicans] – Democrats paved the way for this campus crackdow. Both parties are responsible for the mess facing Columbia and other institutions

Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac  2025 book tour USA 'Christ In The Rubble' ... Now more than ever, we need to talk about the American Church's role in what is happening in your country and ours, as we all are waking up to terrible news day after day.

Jewish Yale faculty sign letter denouncing attacks on pro-Palestine dissenters: The statement, which rejected “cynical” claims of antisemitism, urged universities across the U.S. to resist federal actions like the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil and to protect university members’ right to free speech.

"Hossam Shabat and Mohammad Mansour were the latest Palestinian journalists to be assassinated in Gaza. Responsibility for their killings rests in part on their Western colleagues who have failed to accurately cover Israel's genocidal assault. "

Sands of Sorrow. 1950 Dorothy Thompson speaks out about the people of Palestine... Palestine Diary "In spit of the efforts made in the documentary to bring attention to the humanitarian issues, it falls short of representing what these refugees needed most, their unquestionable right of return to their homes and towns, not a temporarily humanitarian relief while the Zionist settlers were colonizing and taking over the refugees' towns, farms and homes, and changing the geography and history books."

Dorothy Thompson: The journalist who warned us about Hitler... "There is a great quote, which she makes at the end of her life," says Walther. "She says, 'I had to speak out about this' — meaning attacks on Palestinian civilians — 'for the same reason I had to speak out about Hitler. But my Zionist friends do not seem to understand the universality of simple moral principles.' "

"The Holocaust did not start with gas chambers. This hatred gradually developed from words, stereotypes, and prejudice through legal exclusion, dehumanisation and escalatin violence" Memorial and Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau

"I have always believed that my duty is not only to liberate myself from the oppressor, but also to liberate my oppressors from their hatred and fear." ... I Am a Political Prisoner. A letter dictated by Mahmoud Khalil over the phone from ICE detention in Louisiana. Mahmoud Khalil March 18, 2025

From USS Liberty to Rachel Corrie: Israel’s Attacks on U.S. You Probably Didn’t Know About - Israel’s violent history with US citizens reveals a shocking pattern of attacks and impunity.

Dear America- Life is not a video game. These are real human beings and American made weaponry has been creating a Holocaust with The Rule of Lawlessness in the Holy Land.

Taxpayers' money should not be shoring up greed, corporate corruption, injustice, and war.

Please, let Golden Rule thinking and the rule of fair and just laws guide US all towards a better way forward.

State sponsored violence is not the way to convince vulnerable people to veer away from arming religious tyranny and terrorism.

Hate crimes are escalating here in America with people primed by to think, say and do horrible things...

Slavery, Segregation and Forced Displacement are wrong. Wrong then and wrong now

"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

“Far too many states are enabling the genocide of the Palestinians, while turning also repressive toward their own citizens. This is both revolting and scary. We must stop it now.” —UN Special Rapporteur, Francesca Albanese

After 15 months, the body of 8-year-old Ola Saleh Farwana was recovered, tragically buried under the rubble of her home in Gaza, destroyed in an Israeli airstrike on the night of October 13, 2023

After 15 months, the body of 8-year-old Ola Saleh Farwana was recovered, tragically buried under the rubble of her home in Gaza, destroyed in an Israeli airstrike.