Thursday, August 6, 2026

Deliberate attacks on civilians, which both journalists were, is a war crime. Israel has killed at least 15 journalists in Lebanon and 210 in Gaza since 2023, according to the UN human rights office. The reports also indicated that Israel delayed Lebanese ambulances from reaching Khalil and Faraj for hours – at one pointing dropping stun grenades on Lebanese Red Cross workers and firing on their ambulances.

Killing of Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil was a war crime, say rights groups. Photograph: Mohammed Zaatari/AP

Israeli strike that killed journalist in Lebanon was war crime, say rights groups

Investigation by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty and Legal Agenda shows Israel deliberately attacked Amal Khalil and colleague Zeinab Faraj knowing they were civilians

An Israeli strike that killed Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil and injured her colleague Zeinab Faraj in April was a war crime, three rights organisations said on Thursday.

Investigations from Human Rights Watch (HRW), Amnesty International and Legal Agenda showed that Israel deliberately and directly attacked Khalil and Faraj, with apparent knowledge that they were civilians. The organisations called for the attacks to be investigated as war crimes, while HRW called for states to halt arm sales to Israel and put targeted sanctions on Israeli officials responsible for ongoing crimes.

Deliberate attacks on civilians, which both journalists were, is a war crime. Israel has killed at least 15 journalists in Lebanon and 210 in Gaza since 2023, according to the UN human rights office.

The reports also indicated that Israel delayed Lebanese ambulances from reaching Khalil and Faraj for hours – at one pointing dropping stun grenades on Lebanese Red Cross workers and firing on their ambulances.

The delay in rescue might have led to Khalil’s death, as hospital reports indicate that she might have still been alive hours after an Israeli strike toppled a building on top of her and Faraj.

“The evidence is clear that the Israeli military knew, or should have, that Faraj and Khalil were civilians, but attacked them anyway, and then prevented paramedics from rescuing them for hours,” said Ramzi Kaiss, Lebanon researcher at Human Rights Watch.

Israel said it “regrets any harm caused to journalists,” and that the journalists were killed “as part of a series of events” during which two Hezbollah military operatives were killed. There was about two hours between the initial strike that killed the two men Israel said were in Hezbollah, and a second strike that targeted a building the journalists were sheltering in.

Amal Khalil was a 42-year-old journalist working for al-Akhbar, a Lebanese newspaper, while Zeinab Faraj was a 21-year-old freelance camerawoman and photojournalist. Both had been active in covering the war in Lebanon over the last three years.

On 22 April 2026, the pair drove to the village of al-Tiri, south Lebanon, to verify reports that Israeli troops had left the area.... READ MORE https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/06/israeli-strike-that-killed-journalist-in-lebanon-was-war-say-rights-groups

[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]

Shameful media blackout over another massacre of civilians in Gaza. Stop Israeli crimes and international complicity- from the River to the Sea [!!!!!!!!!]

Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt

@FranceskAlbs

https://x.com/FranceskAlbs/status/2085027885467750710

Mosab Abu Toha [Pulitzer Prize winner/ Author of Forest of Noise/ Founder of the Edward Said Public Library in Gaza]

@MosabAbuToha

(Remember when the MSNBC journalist asked me, “Why not humanize all?” Then please do exactly that. Cover this. Report on it. Tell these families’ stories. If this does not deserve sustained international coverage, what does?)

Today, a historic mass funeral in Gaza City laid to rest 112 Palestinian civilians from the Abu Sharia and Al-Hasayna families, making it the largest single-event funeral procession in Palestinian history. These victims were killed on November 22, 2023, during a devastating Israeli airstrike that completely leveled a densely populated residential block in al-Sabra neighborhood, claiming the lives of approximately 308 people in total. Because israeli intense military attacks and severe equipment shortages blocked emergency access to the site, the bodies remained trapped under the concrete rubble for over two and a half years. The collective burial finally took place at the Baptist Cemetery following an arduous, days-long recovery operation by the Gaza Civil Defense, drawing thousands of mourners to honor the victims, who included over 40 children and 30 women.

Now ask yourself this: if this had happened anywhere else in the world, would there have been live coverage from the scene? Would journalists from CNN, BBC, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, CBC, Sky News, France 24, or other major international outlets have been broadcasting this funeral to a global audience?

Surely, many a single victim elsewhere could command hours of international coverage. But sorry, the victims are Palestinians and the mainstream media does not even consider them human.

https://x.com/MosabAbuToha/status/2084623614020616602

Jewish Voice for Peace: Over the weekend, a premature fetus was recovered from the rubble after an Israeli airstrike killed its pregnant mother. In another strike, 4 people were killed in their car. These are just some of the scenes emerging from Gaza this weekend—losses no one should have to witness, especially when the victims are their own loved ones.

Jewish Voice for Peace

@jvplive

Quote from @Tamer_Alnoaizy

Over the weekend, a premature fetus was recovered from the rubble after an Israeli airstrike killed its pregnant mother. In another strike, 4 people were killed in their car. These are just some of the scenes emerging from Gaza this weekend—losses no one should have to witness, especially when the victims are their own loved ones.

https://x.com/jvplive/status/2084646140696293619/photo/1

Palestinians in Gaza are already struggling each day for basic necessities while living under the constant threat of Israeli military attacks. They should not also have to endure the trauma of watching their loved ones suffer and die in unimaginable ways.

Today, Palestinians held a mass funeral for more than 100 members of two extended families killed in a single Israeli strike in 2023. Their bodies could not be recovered until now because of shortages of equipment and fuel. The funeral was held in the ruins of Gaza City's Al-Sabra neighborhood, where the families once lived.

Over the weekend, Israeli airstrikes killed at least 25 Palestinians. On Saturday, the strikes killed 7 people across Gaza. On Sunday, at least 18 Palestinians were killed by Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City where the unborn baby was recovered, as well as in Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis. An Israeli strike hit a car on Salah al-Din Road in central Gaza, killing four Palestinians.

Meanwhile, thousands of displaced Palestinians across Gaza are enduring an extreme heat wave in makeshift tents with little access to drinking water. More than 350,000 families remain without temporary shelter, while hundreds more are displaced each day as Israeli forces expand the areas under their control and restrict Palestinians' access.

Despite the Israeli government's so-called ceasefire, the death toll from Israeli attacks continues to rise. In July, 152 people were killed in Israeli attacks, the highest monthly death toll of 2026 according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

As Israeli military attacks continue, we refuse to look away. Tell Congress: vote NO on funding war.

FUND PEOPLE, NOT BOMBS

From jewishvoiceforpeace.org

Wednesday, August 5, 2026

How Biden Enabled Israel’s Aggression Toward Gaza—and Iran: Top officials from the previous Administration now express regret over their failure to rein in Netanyahu.

Jake Sullivan, Biden’s former national-security adviser, told me, “I will say straightforwardly—we should have put more pressure on Israel to take a different approach.”Photograph by Saher Alghorra / NYT / Redux

A Reporter at Large

How Biden Enabled Israel’s Aggression Toward Gaza—and Iran

Top officials from the previous Administration now express regret over their failure to rein in Netanyahu.

By David D. Kirkpatrick

July 20, 2026

On March 5, 2024, five months into the war in Gaza, Mirjana Spoljaric, the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, sent a confidential letter to President Joe Biden. Under the Geneva Conventions, the Red Cross holds a unique responsibility to counsel states about avoiding war crimes. In the letter, which I obtained from a former United States official, Spoljaric reminded Biden that the organization had condemned the “horrific” October 7th massacre of Israelis by Hamas, and remained “relentless” in pressing the group to release the hostages it had taken. But she was now appealing to Biden “with profound alarm” because Israel, which had been pummelling Gaza with heavy munitions since October, was ignoring the Red Cross as never before. “The way the hostilities are being conducted by Israel is incompatible” with the laws of armed conflict, she wrote, “particularly the obligations to protect civilians and distinguish between military targets and civilians or civilian infrastructure, to ensure dignified treatment of detainees and the dead, to protect medical installations and personnel, and to provide and enable access of humanitarian aid.”

Allowing the Red Cross to visit detainees during a war or an occupation is one of the brightest lines established by the Geneva Conventions. Yet, after October 7th, Israel, for perhaps the first time in its history, fully blocked the organization’s access to Palestinian detainees from Gaza and the West Bank, putting it in the company of pariah states such as North Korea and Eritrea; even the warring factions in Yemen allowed Red Cross visits. Spoljaric noted that humanitarian groups and journalists had reported a “massive surge” in the number of Palestinians in Israeli prisons. At least a thousand had been released back into Gaza, and many of them gave accounts of torture, even though the Israeli military had concluded that they were not Hamas fighters. The Times reported that one released detainee, a law student named Fadi Bakr, described being beaten so severely that his genitals turned blue and blood still appeared in his urine weeks later. He said that Israeli guards had played music so loudly that one of his ears bled. (An Israeli military spokesman told the Times that the captors followed “Israeli and international law” and played music at a “low volume,” to prevent detainees from coördinating.) But the Red Cross couldn’t address such allegations: Spoljaric said that Israel had suspended all “legal-operational dialogue.”

To try to influence Hamas to release hostages, Spoljaric had appealed to Qatar and other patrons of the group; she now implored Biden to “bring about an immediate change” in Israel’s conduct. An appendix to the letter cited U.S. laws and Administration policies that prohibited the transferring of weapons likely to be used in war crimes, and Spoljaric urged Biden to withhold weapons “that should not be used in densely populated areas, in light of their devastating humanitarian impacts.” She warned Biden that failing to “uphold minimum standards of humanity” would be a “moral defeat” that “future generations are unlikely to forgive us for failing to avert.”

Two years after Spoljaric’s letter, President Donald J. Trump ordered the U.S. military to join Israel in attacking Iran. Some former senior officials in the Biden Administration told me that, in certain ways, the war in Iran was an extension of the Gaza conflict... READ MORE https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/07/27/how-biden-emboldened-israels-aggression-toward-gaza-and-iran

Washington’s imposition of sanctions and travel restrictions on the ICC Prosecutor, judges, and deputy prosecutors due to their work on cases involving US and Israeli officials is a blatant interference in the independence of international justice

The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. 7 March 2025. (Bence Árpási via Alamy)

"The United States should stop its efforts to dismantle the Court and lift any financial sanctions and travel restrictions imposed on its judges, prosecutors, and associates. EU member states and other allies need to work together to implement legal, financial, and technical strategies that protect the Court and its personnel from sanctions and political influence, so it can continue to utilise the necessary services and resources to fulfil its responsibilities."

Successive withdrawals, sanctions, and impunity for wanted individuals drive escalating campaign to undermine ICC

Geneva — The coordinated actions to dismantle the International Criminal Court (ICC) and hinder its jurisdiction are deeply troubling and signal a dangerous path forward. This trend has become apparent with Venezuela and Chad announcing plans to withdraw from the Rome Statute. This occurs alongside clear US incitement efforts against the Court, including sanctions on its officials, and the European state parties’ lack of substantial action on arrest warrants for Israeli officials.

These actions risk undermining the international criminal justice system and depriving victims of international crimes of one of the few remaining accountability mechanisms, thereby entrenching impunity for perpetrators and providing political and legal cover for ongoing grave violations of international law.

Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor expresses deep concern over the Chadian government’s announcement that it has begun the process of withdrawing from the ICC. This comes shortly after Venezuela notified the United Nations of its withdrawal, following similar notifications from Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso. These actions indicate a concerning trend of countries moving away from the Rome Statute, both within and outside Africa... READ MORE https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/7086/Successive-withdrawals,-sanctions,-and-impunity-for-wanted-individuals-drive-escalating-campaign-to-undermine-ICC

AI is a bubble. Everybody knows it’s a bubble. The market is running on magical thinking... The House of Ellison is on the Brink: Everything the world’s briefly richest man built is failing at once.

"Ellison’s devotion to Israel is the least hidden thing about him. He made the largest single gift in the history of Friends of the IDF; Netanyahu is a personal friend; as far back as 2015 he was privately vetting Marco Rubio for loyalty to Israel in emails with Israel’s UN ambassador. Since 2021 he has given or pledged £257 million to the Tony Blair Institute — and when the Guardian reported that institute staff had taken part in a project reimagining postwar Gaza as a “Trump Riviera,” the money trail behind the institute ran straight back to him. Weiss, the family’s pick for CBS, is known above all for her advocacy on the subject.

He is entitled to his cause. The empire has been a catastrophe for it. After thousands of film workers signed a pledge to boycott complicit institutions, Paramount stood publicly accused of maintaining a blacklist of talent who criticized Israel. His move on TikTok spawned a national campaign to take the platform back. Every property he adds attaches his politics to it, and audiences keep responding the same way: by leaving. The machine he built to protect the cause now generates evidence against it. He bought the microphone, and the room walked out...."

https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-house-of-ellison-is-on-the-brink

The House of Ellison is on the Brink

Everything the world’s briefly richest man built is failing at once.

Mike Brock

Jul 28, 2026

"UNRWA acts decisively whenever staff misconduct is identified, while all employees are regularly screened, trained and required to comply with UN standards... Israel receives the names of all UNRWA staff twice a year for security screening"... "Nobody has the infrastructure, the experience, the skillset or the staff to be able to do what we do now on behalf of Palestine refugees," Christian Saunders said. "That doesn't mean UNRWA needs to exist forever. As soon as there is a recognised Palestinian administration able to assume these responsibilities, UNRWA should hand over those services. Until then, we have a mandate and an obligation to ensure that Palestine refugees have access to these critical services."

UNRWA, established in 1949, now serves around six million registered Palestine refugees, with approximately 2.6 million people currently receiving assistance across Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

UNRWA

@UNRWA

https://x.com/UNRWA/status/2084882200881766562

Every day, UNRWA delivers education, healthcare, relief and social services to millions of Palestine Refugees. We will continue to do so until a just and durable solution is found and we can hand over to empowered Palestinian Institutions.. #UNRWAworks Read the full article: chronicle.lu/category/polit

Luxembourg Reaffirms Long-Term Support for UNRWA's Humanitarian Mission

"..... Responding to a question about criticism from Luxembourg politicians who have accused UNRWA of being infiltrated by Hamas and alleged that Luxembourg's financial support benefits terrorism, Minister Bettel rejected the claims. He said Luxembourg had seen first-hand the projects it supports and continued to trust the agency. "To blame the whole organisation is really unacceptable," he said. "I trust UNRWA, and I will continue to trust UNRWA as long as there is no one able to replace it."

Christian Saunders also dismissed the allegations, describing them as "a smear campaign with a political end." He stressed that UNRWA acts decisively whenever staff misconduct is identified, while all employees are regularly screened, trained and required to comply with UN standards. He added that Israel receives the names of all UNRWA staff twice a year for security screening and "has the opportunity to raise concerns if it believes any staff member has links to a militant group or has committed a criminal act." "

https://www.chronicle.lu/category/politics/62440-luxembourg-reaffirms-long-term-support-for-unrwas-humanitarian-mission

Gaza remains unsafe for civilians as Israeli attacks continue, including on schools and canvas classrooms

UN News

Global perspective Human stories

https://news.un.org/en/story/2026/08/1168077

4 August 2026 Peace and Security

Gaza remains unsafe for civilians as Israeli attacks continue, including on schools and canvas classrooms, despite the October Israel-Hamas ceasefire that ended two years of war, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) warned on Tuesday.

Key points

In Gaza City, Israeli forces shot at a tented classroom on Tuesday, hitting a Palestinian sixth grader
In Beit Lahia, Israeli troops reportedly demolished homes and the last remaining school in a compound on Monday
In the West Bank, Israeli authorities demolished parts of a school in southern Hebron where more than 1,000 Palestinian residents shetering there face pressure to leave

“Today in Gaza City, our partners reported that a sixth-grade student was taken to the hospital after being hit by a bullet and injured in a tented classroom,” UN Deputy Spokesperson Farhan Haq said, highlighting a spate of school shootings and attacks in Occupied Palestinian Territory, from Gaza to the West Bank.

“We stress that under international humanitarian law, civilians and civilian infrastructure must be protected and should not be targeted,” he said.

“Learning spaces must remain safe and protected environments for both students and teachers.”

Homes, school razed

Following a war that left most of Gaza damaged or destroyed, UN partners are reporting fresh attacks on civilian infrastructure.

Mr. Haq said humanitarian partners had already mobilised support for those displaced after Israeli forces reportedly demolished homes and the last remaining school in what was previously a four-school compound in Beit Lahia as well as tents sheltering nearly a dozen families.

Israeli troops also placed new cement blocks nearby, marking a further expansion of restricted areas beyond the terms of the October ceasefire.

Since then, Israeli attacks have led to 1,209 fatalities and 3,943 injuries in Gaza.

West Bank demolitions

Across the occupied West Bank meanwhile, more than 80 Palestinian schools are currently subject to demolition or related orders, the UN Deputy Spokesperson said.

Israeli authorities demolished parts of a school in the Masafer Yatta area of southern Hebron, where more than 1,000 Palestinian residents are under pressure to leave, he said.

“So far this year, our education partners have reached more than 60,000 students in the West Bank through remedial and catch-up learning programmes,” Mr. Haq said.

Efforts have rehabilitated 30 schools, provided transportation assistance and other protective measures to more than 2,600 students and education personnel in high-risk areas and delivered education-specific cash assistance, psychosocial support and legal aid, Mr. Haq said.

He emphasised that funding remains critically low.

News Tracker: Past Stories on This Issue

Aerial view of a heavily damaged urban area with destroyed buildings and rubble. A few people and two cars are visible on a road amidst the destruction.

Israel violates Lebanese airspace, kills over two dozen in Gaza in weekend strikes

3 August 2026

Peace and Security

Israeli forces reportedly killed more than two dozen Palestinians in Gaza and violated Lebanese airspace more than 100 times over the weekend despite ongoing ceasefire agreements, UN agencies and peacekeepers said on Monday.

WFP workers in green vests distribute hot meals to families in Jabalyiah, Gaza, amidst the rubble of destroyed buildings.

Middle East: Civilian death toll climbs in Gaza, Lebanon and West Bank as UN chief demands ‘the fighting must stop’

31 July 2026