Trump’s sanctions against a UN human rights expert show free speech is dying: Francesca Albanese recommended ICC arrests and investigations over Gaza. Who will be the administration’s next target?

‘Trump’s retribution against Albanese should concern far more than those focused on Israel’s human rights record.’ Photograph: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images

Sandra L Babcock, Susan M Akram, Asli Bali, Thomas Becker and James Cavallaro

Tue 24 Mar 2026

We are North American university professors and human rights lawyers who teach, write, and speak about the human rights of people around the world, including Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank and Gaza. In a country that purports to value democracy and human rights, we never imagined that we could face civil penalties or imprisonment for our work. That sense of security has evaporated after the Trump administration issued a series of executive orders and memoranda that aim to stifle speech and demonize dissent – particularly when it comes to Israel’s crimes against Palestinians living in Gaza.

Let us be clear: the evidence that Israel has committed war crimes is overwhelming. Israel killed an estimated 20,000 children – including more than 1,000 babies – in two years of war. Israel used starvation and thirst as a war tactic, leading to widespread famine that indiscriminately targeted the civilian population. It kept civilians from accessing cancer treatment, neonatal and maternal care, and basic antibiotics and painkillers by blockading the delivery of medical equipment and medications. Israel destroyed Gaza’s entire healthcare system, including reproductive healthcare facilities and Gaza’s largest fertility clinic. Israel’s systematic attack on Gaza’s civilian population was accompanied by dehumanizing language by authorities at the highest levels of government comparing Palestinians to “‘human animals” and “children of darkness”.

In January 2024, the international court of justice ordered Israel to take “all measures within its power” to prevent acts of genocide. Israel ignored that order. Since then, leading international and Israeli human rights organizations and experts–including the International Association of Genocide Scholars, Amnesty International, B’Tselem, the UN commission of inquiry, and the authors of this essay – have concluded that Israel has committed genocide against the Palestinian people.

In May 2024 the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court sought arrest warrants for the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu; its defense minister, Yoav Gallant; and three leaders of Hamas.... READ MORE  https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/mar/24/trump-sanctions-un-human-rights-expert-free-speech

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Israel has crushed Unrwa in Gaza – and the rest of the world has done nothing " I bow out of my role for the organisation at a perilous time for the international law. There are consequences not just for Palestinians, but the wider Middle East" -Philippe Lazzarini

The damaged Gaza City HQ of Unrwa, 15 February, 2024. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Sat 21 Mar 2026 

This month I will conclude my tenure as the commissioner-general of Unrwa – the United Nations agency that has provided essential, public-like services to Palestinian refugees across the Middle East for more than 75 years. As the world struggles to emerge from the quagmire of Gaza and the US-Israeli war against Iran threatens to engulf the entire region, I am profoundly concerned about the future of Palestinian refugees and the multilateral system at large.

Having endured more than two years of relentless physical, political and legal attacks, most fiercely in Palestine, Unrwa has reached breaking point. The risks to Palestinians’ rights and the stability of the region are immense.

In December 2023, amid the escalating brutality of the war in Gaza, I wrote to the president of the UN general assembly that in my 35 years of working in complex emergencies, I had never had cause to report the killing of 130 personnel, nor to predict the killing of many more. I did not imagine then that the number of colleagues killed would triple – the death toll is now more than 390 – or that so many others would sustain life-changing injuries, or be arbitrarily detained and tortured.

Hundreds of Unrwa premises in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed. The parliament of Israel adopted legislation to end the agency’s presence in occupied East Jerusalem, including by forcibly shutting schools and health clinics, and cutting off the supply of water and electricity to our premises. The Unrwa headquarters in East Jerusalem was seized, looted and set on fire, with senior Israeli officials celebrating the destruction on site and online. A deputy mayor of Jerusalem even threatened to “annihilate and kill all members of Unrwa”.

It is incomprehensible that a UN entity has been allowed to be crushed as Unrwa has, in violation of international law, with total impunity... READ MORE  https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/mar/21/israel-crushed-unrwa-gaza-palestinians-middle-east

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"The war on journalists in Gaza continues Despite a supposed ‘ceasefire’, international journalists are still not freely allowed in Gaza and Palestinian journalists continue to be killed by Israel. Western journalists should be in uproar about this assault on press freedom. Instead the likes of CBS are simply parroting Israel’s talking points." Arwa Mahdawi

 The war on journalists in Gaza continues

Despite a supposed ‘ceasefire’, international journalists are still not freely allowed in Gaza and Palestinian journalists continue to be killed by Israel. Western journalists should be in uproar about this assault on press freedom. Instead the likes of CBS are simply parroting Israel’s talking points. 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jan/31/save-act-voting-arwa-mahdawi 

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CPJ calls on Israel to lift ban on foreign journalists and stop targeting broadcasters

New York, January 26, 2026—As Israel’s Supreme Court considers petitions on Monday challenging the ban on foreign journalists entering Gaza, the Israeli government has simultaneously doubled down on restrictions against foreign media operating inside Israel. The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on the Israeli authorities to immediately allow foreign journalists to freely enter and report from Gaza safely, and to end all restrictions on foreign media broadcasters operating in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory.

On January 26, the Israeli government approved a 90-day extension to the ban on Qatar-based Al Jazeera and Beirut-based Al Mayadeen, under a 2024 law allowing the communications minister and prime minister to shut down offices, block websites, seize equipment, or shut down foreign broadcasters deemed a “security threat.” In December 2025, the Knesset extended this so-called “Al Jazeera Law” for two more years. 

The recent decision, promoted by Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir, consolidates powers that can silence independent reporting and intimidate foreign media, expanding the Israeli police’s authority to impose media bans, censorship, and surveillance... READ MORE https://cpj.org/2026/01/cpj-calls-on-israel-to-lift-ban-on-foreign-journalists-and-stop-targeting-broadcasters/

 

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'I'm afraid to go out and film': Journalists in Gaza fear they are being targeted by Israel

Saša Petricic

| CBC News | Posted: January 27, 2026 6:53 PM | Last Updated: January 27

They are the latest in a long list of Palestinian reporters killed in the Gaza war

The Committee to Protect Journalists calls the territory  "the deadliest place for journalists in recent history," deadlier than "any other conflict, anywhere else in the world," said the group’s Jodie Ginsberg.

• Besieged local reporters are still the only media with eyes on Gaza war

 https://www.cbc.ca/lite/story/9.7062255

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Bari Weiss’s CBS News Won’t Even Condemn Israel for Killing a CBS Contributor

Instead, the network’s new top anchor Tony Dokoupil peddles Israel’s talking points about it killing a Palestinian journalist. A CBS source calls it a ‘disgrace.’

https://zeteo.com/p/bari-weisss-cbs-news-israel-journalists-killed 

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"The deregistration of 37 INGOs undermines principled humanitarian action, endangers staff and communities, and compromises effective aid delivery." "Ensuring access to humanitarian aid is a legal obligation, not a discretionary choice.”

B'Tselem בצלם بتسيلم

@btselem

B’Tselem joins the Statement by 19 Israel-based human rights organizations on the deregistration of INGOs: 

“The deregistration of 37 INGOs undermines principled humanitarian action, endangers staff and communities, and compromises effective aid delivery." 

"Ensuring access to humanitarian aid is a legal obligation, not a discretionary choice.” 

 https://x.com/btselem/status/2006644225996173530

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Israel is waging a taxation assault on Jerusalem’s Christian presence, endangering its very survival: Patriarchs and Heads of The Churches in Jerusalem renew their condemnation of unjust foreclosure hearing against Armenian Patriarchate, urging immediate intervention.

Kegham Balian

@kbalian90

Jerusalemite Armenian 

https://x.com/SavetheArQ   The official page of the movement for the defense and preservation of the Armenian Quarter of Jerusalem  #Save_the_Arq

OCHA OPT (Palestine @ochaopt warns...

UN agencies and NGOs warn that without immediate action most international NGO partners could be de-registered by Israel in coming weeks

06 Aug 2025

Statement by the Humanitarian Country Team of the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT)*

United Nations agencies and NGOs call on Israeli authorities to rescind the requirement introduced on 9 March obliging international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to share sensitive personal information about their Palestinian employees or face termination of their humanitarian operations in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

Unless urgent action is taken, humanitarian organizations warn that most international NGO partners could be de-registered by 9 September or sooner – forcing them to withdraw all international staff and preventing them from providing critical, life-saving humanitarian assistance to Palestinians. This requirement is part of a set of new restrictive conditions for international NGOs which include potential consequences for public criticism of policies and practices of the Government of Israel.

Already, NGOs that are not registered under the new system are prohibited from sending any supplies to Gaza. In July this year, Israeli authorities rejected repeated requests by 29 NGOs to ship humanitarian aid to Gaza citing the organizations as “not authorized". This policy has already prevented the delivery of life-saving aid including medicine, food, and hygiene items. This most profoundly affects women, children, older people, and persons with disabilities, further aggravating the risk of being subjected to abuse and exploitation. 

International NGOs also provide critical support to Palestinian NGOs who rely on international partners for supplies, funding, and technical support. Without this cooperation, their operations will be severed, cutting off even more communities from food, medical care, shelter and critical protection services.  

Impeding NGOs from participating in the collective humanitarian response violates Israel’s obligations under international humanitarian law and comes at a time when we are receiving daily reports of death by starvation as Gaza faces famine conditions.

* The Humanitarian Country Team (HCT) is a strategic decision-making forum led by the Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory. It brings together heads of UN entities and over 200 NGOs – both international and local – all working on humanitarian affairs in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip under internationally agreed humanitarian principles.

https://www.ochaopt.org/content/un-agencies-and-ngos-warn-without-immediate-action-most-international-ngo-partners-could-be-de-registered

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