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United Nations |
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https://bdsmovement.net/news/The-Power-Of-BDS-Our-Impact-So-Far-In-2026
Despite the continuing unspeakable grief over the ongoing genocide against 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza, the seeds of our collective struggle are bearing fruit. The Palestinian people's miraculous sumud and popular resistance, combined with your sustained solidarity, has pushed Israel's settler-colonial apartheid regime into the deepest isolation of its 78-year history.
We are witnessing tangible proof that BDS is working—our movement, active in some 130 countries, is effectively changing policies, making complicit corporations pay a dear price, and building the international pressure that will ultimately bring justice.
The recent wave of sanctions, divestments, and boycott impacts demonstrates what happens when people of conscience refuse to be complicit in genocide. From Spain and Belgium to Indonesia and California, from academic halls to cultural institutions, from trade unions to city councils and beyond — we can see the concrete results of our pressure.
Below is just a sampling of the remarkable BDS impacts achieved in the first half of 2026 — proof that organizing strategically and acting collectively can bring us closer to ending Israel's genocide and dismantling its regime of settler-colonial apartheid.... READ MORE https://bdsmovement.net/news/The-Power-Of-BDS-Our-Impact-So-Far-In-2026
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(Bethlehem, 07 July 2026)
As the Israeli regime's genocide in Gaza continues, alongside the mass forcible displacement of Palestinians across the West Bank and the systematic destruction of UNRWA's headquarters in Jerusalem and hundreds of its installations. BADIL Resource Center and Global Palestinian Refugee Network categorically reject recent political remarks made by UNRWA Commissioner-General ad interim Chris Saunders at the UNRWA Pledging Conference suggesting that UNRWA's mandate should be subordinated to externally imposed political arrangements, including the so-called "Board of Peace", or that its responsibilities could be transferred to host countries or the Palestinian Authority.
At the very moment that the Israeli regime, with the support of the United States, is pursuing the dismantlement of UNRWA in violation of international law, there can be no accommodation of political projects designed to facilitate its replacement. UNRWA was established by General Assembly Resolution 302 because the international community failed to implement Palestinian refugees' rights under United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194. Its mandate therefore remains exclusively under the authority of the General Assembly until those rights—including return, restitution, compensation, and reparation—are fulfilled. It cannot be transferred, conditioned, or terminated through political arrangements.
Against this legal backdrop, the Commissioner-General ad interim's remarks that UNRWA is essential to the Board of Peace’s activities until its services can be transferred to the Palestinian Authority is deeply alarming. Likewise, Article 14 of the New York Declaration, which envisages transferring UNRWA's services to the Palestinian Authority within a two-State framework, unlawfully subordinates the Agency's mandate to a political settlement contrary to Resolution 194. UNRWA was established neither to facilitate state-building nor to administer political transitions, but because Palestinian refugees continue to be denied their internationally protected rights.
The Board of Peace has itself made its objective unmistakably clear:
"UNRWA has no place in the new Gaza. We are turning the page on the complex of perpetual aid dependency and conflict. The people of Gaza deserve better."
This statement removes any ambiguity. The Board of Peace is the institutional vehicle for implementing the so-called GREAT Plan. What began in 2025 as proposals for "Humanitarian Transit Areas" has now evolved into fenced "Humanitarian Shelters" in Rafah policed by foreign forces – while the Israeli military consolidates its colonial control over the remainder of Gaza. These proposals are not humanitarian measures but mechanisms for institutionalizing forcible transfer, replacing UNRWA with externally controlled profit-driven “aid”, and transforming refugee rights into systems of containment, surveillance, and permanent displacement.
We call upon the Secretary-General, UNRWA, Member States, and the United Nations system to ensure that UNRWA’s mandate remains under the exclusive authority of the General Assembly, in accordance with international law and General Assembly Resolution 194, and is not subject to political conditionality imposed by any external body, including the BoP:
Invoke the “Uniting for Peace” mechanism
We call upon the PLO, the Arab League, and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation to invoke the “Uniting for Peace” mechanism by convening an emergency special session of the General Assembly under Resolution 377, in order to recommend collective measures in response to ongoing violations of international law, obstruction of UN operations, and grave breaches of peremptory norms by the Israeli regime.
Article 6 of the UN Charter
We call upon Member States to initiate procedures under Article 6 of the UN Charter concerning the Israeli regime for persistent and grave violations of the Charter, and to ensure the immediate restoration of full, unhindered operational capacity of UNRWA across the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including Jerusalem, in accordance with General Assembly Resolution 302 (IV), with guaranteed protection for its facilities, personnel, and humanitarian operations.
Guarantee UNRWA’s mandate and operational access
We call upon member states and civil society to pressure to ensure UNRWA’s unrestricted access to Gaza and the occupied Palestinian territory, secure its facilities and personnel, and provide sustained, unconditional funding to enable the Agency to fulfil its mandate under UN General Assembly Resolutions 194 and 302 without political interference. https://badil.org/press-releases/16914.html
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| Amazing photo of a multigenerational Palestinian family’s olive picking in the occupied West Bank village of Duma. - Photo credit- Omar Dawabsheh |
Many people worldwide know that Israeli "settlements" usurp Palestinian land, rights and peace, so new language is rising up to make Israeli Settler-terrorists look less evil and cruel: "Farm" is Cottage-core camouflage for Israeli law breakers empowered by "The Jewish State" to aggressively terrorize, displace and destroy Palestinian families.
Palestinian shepherds have been grazing their flocks of sheep and goats for centuries throughout The Holy Land. Palestinians were free to move from place to place until Israel inserted laws, walls, and outposts to intentionally bully, oppress, and shove Palestinian men, women, and children into forced exile.
Culture vulture invading Israelis have taken homes, lanes, lands, trees, gardens and food- large and small Zionist looting includes (for instance) expropriating ancient and indigenous Palestinian recipes like hummus. Israeli chefs and food companies make money globally on Palestinian recipes, while Palestinians are pushed into abject poverty and accused of being antisemitic terrorists because they dare object. Now we get to see photos of Israeli Settler-terrorists surrounded by flocks of goats as if they are a picturesque pastoral element of the landscape that belongs there...THEY DON'T!
America should not be supporting or excusing Israeli violence and bigotry in any way shape or form- but our elected officials force us to fund and arm Israel no matter what. Even when it means undermining peace worldwide, as well as our own economy and infrastructure.
Rampant corporate and political greed and corruption are destroying the lives of countless men, women, and children here, there, and everywhere: Artificial Intelligence "AI" delusions plus paid propagandist pollute the internet which was once an Information Highway but is now a scam happy scramble to take as much money as possible from We-The-People.
Pushing all commerce online to "Save A Tree" ends up decimating numerous forests and fields for energy and water hungry Data Centers. CEOs and our elected leaders take huge profits while taxpayers are left with escalating losses, including the surging loss of land and water and electricity for hyperscale Data Centers.
America is being impoverished and undermined from inside as money
that should be spent on the people's needs (including preserving natural
resources and shoring up Social Security and health care) is instead
being spent on a massive war machine designed to create enemies by
destroying faraway people and communities: 'Epic Fury' bombing Gaza, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, and now Iran
teaches the world that neither Israel nor America can be trusted. WAR IS EPIC POLLUTION- and injustice.
VIOLENCE IS WRONG, rage inducing click bait is wrong, and so is
misinformation. Worldwide there are many good and decent people who are
Jewish and there are many good and decent people who are Muslims,
Christians...etc... and there are also many good and decent people who
want nothing at all to do with religion.
Religion should be private and personal, not a state funded project.
Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab
NOTES
https://anniesnewletters.blogspot.com/search/label/Notes
'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
"The United Nations is the only place on Earth where all the world's nations come together to discuss common problems and find shared solutions that benefit all of humanity. This intergovernmental organization born out of the ashes of the Second World War remains indispensable to the pursuit of world peace, justice, equality and sustainable development" https://www.un.org/en/
The right of refugees to return to homes and lands they were expelled from is an individual right and cannot be unilaterally abrogated by third parties. https://imeu.org/resources/resources/fact-sheet-palestinian-refugees-the-right-of-return-under-international-law/441
"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
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| Ilhan Karajeh inspects olive trees destroyed by Israeli settlers. Photograph: Quique Kierszenbaum/The Guardian |
The attack in Ein Arik came in the middle of the night and was aimed at the rudiments of life: the earth, water, roots and seedlings.
Ilham Karajeh awoke on Friday last week to find her family allotment raided and ruined. The thin black irrigation pipes had been sliced, grape vines cut and 70 young olive trees, the embodiment of the family’s aspirations for the future, had been uprooted.
On Sunday, Karajeh and her husband, Mohammed, were collecting the severed branches. “See – they are still wet with sap,” she cried out in horror at the cruelty of the act.
There was no doubt in this West Bank village about the perpetrators. Since a new settler outpost had been established last year on a neighbouring hill, violence has flowed down into the valleys in a gathering tide.
The outpost, which now calls itself Maoz Tzur, began with just a handful of Israeli settlers but they quickly set about seizing territory. Their first target was the Bedouin shepherd community on the surrounding hills and valleys. Then the pressure was turned up on the villagers. For more than a year they have been prevented from reaching family olive and citrus groves and springs on the hillsides to the south, nearest the new settler outpost. Those brave enough to venture in that direction were repeatedly attacked with clubs and stones.
The night attack on the Karajeh family’s small farm reflects an acceleration in the intimidation campaign around Ein Arik, extending northwards and up the slope towards the neighbouring village of Deir Ibzi. It is part of a surge of settler aggression across the West Bank driven by the febrile dynamics of Israeli politics.
Elections are looming. They must be held by the end of October at the latest and as things stand, Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right bloc is facing the prospect of defeat after more than three years of political domination. The radical settler elements in the coalition are scrambling to impose facts on the ground in the West Bank before the vote.
A landscape that has endured for centuries, of steep terraced hills, olive groves, vineyards, lemon trees planted around springs, and fields of herbs and vegetables in the valleys, is consequently being ripped apart at breakneck speed.
“These are going to be very tough months,” said Dror Etkes, the founder of Kerem Navot, an advocacy group dedicated to monitoring the unfolding land grab in the West Bank. “Firstly, it doesn’t look good for the current coalition, so there could be a new government. Secondly, all the attention is on the elections so the settlers can use this period to do whatever they want.”
Throughout 2025 and the first half of this year, the creeping de facto annexation of the West Bank has broken into a gallop, driven primarily by... READ MORE https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jul/08/palestinians-brace-as-israeli-settler-figures-in-coalition-seek-to-cement-west-bank-gains-before-election
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| Pope Leo presides over mass at Vatican City, 29 June 2026. Photograph: Maria Grazia Picciarella/Shutterstock |
This struggle for the soul of today’s newly adversarial world order has drawn in Islamic and Jewish religious leaders and thinkers as well as other Christian denominations. Sarah Mullally, the newly enthroned archbishop of Canterbury, defiantly urged “faithful resistance” to Israel’s expanding occupation when meeting Palestinian Christians in the West Bank last month. The international community had a “moral responsibility” to relieve profound suffering there and in Gaza, she wrote in a pastoral letter – and the time to act was now. Middle East conflicts were “symptomatic of a deeper political and spiritual crisis – an abandonment of international law and an increasing recurrence of military force”.
It’s not necessary to be a person of faith to value truth, justice and human decency" .... READ MORE https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jul/05/world-leaders-immorality-pope-leo-war-criminals-corporations-catholic-church
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