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The atrocities and the fury mount. Astoundingly, after a murderous thug shot a mother of three in the face in broad daylight - "He didn't kill her because he was scared, he killed her because she wasn't" - state terror has ramped up with more lies, goons, attacks on "gangs of wine moms," brutish agitprop literally echoing the Nazis'. So when mini-Bovino went to take a leak at a store, the people's wrath, a bittersweet splendor, erupted. Their/our edict: "Get the fuck out."
For now, Trump's America keeps getting scarier and uglier. He's threatened to (illegally) withdraw the US from the world’s most vital climate treaty and 65 other agencies doing useful work. He's trashing a once-thriving economy because he doesn't know how it works, scapegoating longtime Fed chair Jerome Powell, who's (startlingly fighting back, flipping off autoworkers, admiring non-existent ballrooms. After (illegally) killing over 100 Venezuelans and abducting their president - Chris Hedges: "Empires, when they are dying, worship the idol of war" - he called oil executives to a dementia-ridden meeting where in a reality check one brave skeptic argued Venezuela is historically "uninvestable." He ordered invasion plans for Greenland - wait what - that joint chiefs are resisting as "crazy and illegal": “It’s like dealing with a five-year-old.” And in a supreme irony overload, he's menacing U.S. protesters while warning Iran's killers of protesters they'll "pay a big price" and urging Iran's people to "take over your institutions." We can't even.
Meanwhile, in Minnesota, he's sending yet more thugs, persisting in calling Renée Good "a professional agitator" - Professional Agitators 'R Us! - and warning a besieged, traumatized community, "THE DAY OF RECKONING & RETRIBUTION IS COMING!" Up is down and MAGA minions dutifully follow suit. Tom Homan: "We've got to stop the hateful rhetoric. Saying this officer is a murderer is dangerous. It’s ridiculous. It’s just gonna infuriate people more." Newsmax and GOP Rep. Pete Sessions agree: Dems have to quiet their "rhetoric," cease "honking of horns," and stop "putting an iPhone on your face." "STOP THE MADNESS," shrieks David Marcus on Fox, blasting "organized gangs of wine moms" across the country - Wine Moms 'R Us! - using Antifa tactics to "harass and impede" ICE: "It's not civil disobedience. It isn’t even protest. It’s just crime." Here, Renée Good was "a trained member" of groups "executing missions that put law enforcement and the public in harm’s way," probably all part of "criminal conspiracies."
To support the insane narrative that the brazen murder of a mother of three in her car in public constitutes "an attack on our brave law enforcement," DHS released crude, "pathological," Goebbels-worthy propaganda that repeats the first day's lies and includes footage of when Good "weaponized her vehicle” by “speeding across the road" while failing to mention it was when "she had just been shot in the fucking face and her dead foot hit the pedal." No wonder the mindless carnage goes on. A thug leers to a cuffed protester she should've "learned her lesson," she asks what lesson, he snarls, "Why we killed that fucking bitch." And gangs of goons rampage door-to-door, barging into households of kids with guns and tasers ready. One brave, calm woman records it all, demands a warrant, barks get your hands off me, mocks how big and bad they are flashing a light in her face and sneers that, on the street, "You're all some pussies without that shit on your chest...Your mamas raised a bitch if you can wear that outfit proudly."
Last week both Illinois and Minnesota, and each state's targeted cities, filed federal lawsuits to end their invasions by thousands of armed, masked, violent goons racially harassing, terrorizing and assaulting their communities. The courts may yet halt the deadly mayhem; the regime sure as shit won't. In the wake of the DOJ's predictable, outlandish announcement they won't investigate Good's murder, multiple attorneys in the civil rights division - for decades "America’s last line of accountability when federal agents kill" - have resigned, the latest in a flood of departures totaling over 250, a 70% reduction. In their stead, the FBI seized control of the "investigation" after blocking local law enforcement's access to evidence. Kash's Keystone Cops are now looking into, not Jonathan Ross, but Good and her "possible connections to activist groups" - also, because there truly is no low, her widow's. "This isn’t a cover-up," said one former DOJ attorney. "It’s the end of civil rights enforcement as we've known it."
Experts say the escalating malfeasance and accompanying thuggery are the logical culmination of a longtime "culture of violence" within border control agencies. Ryan Goodman of Just Security describes a scathing 2013 report, commissioned but then buried, that specifically cites agents' proclivity for standing in front of blocked vehicles as a pretext to open fire on drivers attempting to flee a tense encounter. Thank God we don't see that anymore. Nor do we have to see Stephen Miller's nightmare vision of Dems in power making "every city into Mogadishu or Kabul or Port-au-Prince," complete with roaming convoys of masked, armed, hefty hoodlums snatching people off the streets, dragging them out of their cars, beating them up, kneeling on their necks (illegal under post-George-Floyd Minnesota law), and brutalizing them for unknown offenses until they go limp, fate unknown, like in this video by Ford Fischer last week. For MAGA, ICE proudly represents "the fearsome power of the American state." But don't call them fascists.
It was sick Greg Bovino's knee on that neck. Then he went on Sean Hannity's show to praise Jonathan Ross for shooting Renée Good three times in the face - "Hats off to that ICE agent" - because "a 4,000-pound missile is not something anyone wants to face." Hannity readily agreed it was "not even a close call...There is no ambiguity for anyone with eyes to see that (Good) had been taunting officers," which is not true, also definitely a death penalty offense. Later, Bovino claimed that 90% of the public "are happy to see us." Last week, a YouGov poll disagreed, finding a majority of Americans disapproved of the murderous job ICE is doing, and almost half support abolishing it entirely. That may be why, when Bovino went to take a piss last week at a Target in St. Paul, accompanied by a phalanx of surly stormtroopers with itchy trigger fingers and nervous cameras held aloft, they were met by pure, gut-level fury, and a crowd of we the people with no fucks left to give. More video from Ford Fischer of News2Share.
A handy transcript: "You’re a fucking bum. you’re a bitch. and if your wife’s got a problem, fuck her, too. you guys are all bitches. you can’t do shit to me. you can’t do a thing. get the fuck out of here. get the fuck out. nobody wants you here. right. get the fuck out. walk the fuck, you stupid bitches. get the fuck out of here. coward. you’re a fucking coward, bitch. you’re a fucking bitch. fuck you. hold on, babe, I’m on the phone with these bitch-ass niggas. get the fuck out of here. get the fuck out of here, you stupid bitches. you’re a fucking coward piece of shit. fuck you. and if you didn’t have a gun or a vest, I would beat the shit out of you. take that fucking badge off, and that fucking gun, and see what happens to you. you shut the fuck up, you’re not fucking tough. you’re a bitch and get the fuck out, you fucking pussy. you fucking bitch-ass white boys. I’ll fucking spit on you. fucking get out of here. get the fuck out. shut the fuck up. get the fuck out of here. get the fuck out of here. get the fuck out. nobody wants you here."
Among Minnesota's ICE victims was a Marine veteran who said she was following agents "at a safe distance" when they rammed the car, broke the window, dragged her out by the neck, slammed her face into the ground, tightly cuffed her and snarled, per their memo, "This is why we killed that lesbian bitch." Shaken, she told a reporter, "I took an oath, and they're spitting on it. They're Nazis. They're Gestapo. This isn't Germany." Not yet. But close, says James Fell's Sweary History: "Those who cannot remember the past need a history teacher who says 'fuck' a lot." When ICE Barbie, "this puppy-killing, plasticized bag of fascism" called Good a domestic terrorist, he notes, her podium read, "One of Ours, All of Yours" - the phrase Nazis used when the Resistance killed "murderous motherfucker" Reinhard Heydrich, and Nazis retaliated by killing thousands of Czechs and most of the village of Lidice, where they (wrongly) thought the assassins came from. Kill one of ours, we murder all of yours: "This is what DHS is threatening should people dare to resist the American Gestapo."
Dark echoes keep coming. In more Goebbels-worthy agit-prop, the Dept. of Labor just posted a bizarre musical photo montage captioned, "One Homeland. One People. One Heritage," which even X's AI chatbot Grok noted is just like the Nazi slogan, "Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Führer" - One People, One Realm, One Leader. Huh, said many: "Sounds familiar," "Sounds better in the original German," "I didn't have DOL dropping race-baiting propaganda with moody techno music on my 2026 Bingo card," "I remember this one from history books," "Can't wait for the sequel! Labor Creates Liberty!" and, "That 1930s retro energy really matches the new vibe." The video added, "Remember who you are, American." Rob Kelner responded, "I remember who I am. I am the grandchild of immigrants, in a nation that welcomed all four of my grandparents, dirt poor...fleeing tyranny." We have fallen so far, and lost so much. But some truths remain: "There is no world in which these are the good guys. None."
"Get it all on record now. Get the films. Get the witnesses. Because somewhere down the road of history, some bastard will get up and say that this never happened." - Dwight D. Eisenhower, Commander of the Allied Forces, on atrocities committed by the German Nazis.

The Trump administration this week made abrupt cuts to the top federal disaster response agency, even as US communities face increased threats from natural disasters caused by the global climate crisis.
Independent journalist Marisa Kabas reported on Wednesday that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) "has begun issuing termination notices" to staff at the agency's Cadre of On-Call Response and Recovery (CORE) that are effective as of January 2.
A FEMA staffer who spoke with Kabas described the terminations as "The New Year's Eve Massacre," and explained that "the driving force behind all CORE employees is supporting and enacting the mission of preparing for, responding to, and recovering from disasters."
A Thursday report from CNN added some additional details to Kabas' reporting, including that the decision to issue the layoffs was made by Acting Administrator Karen Evans, who was appointed to the role after former Acting Administrator David Richardson resigned in November.
One former FEMA official bluntly told CNN that the agency "can't do disaster response and recovery without CORE employees" that are being laid off by the administration.
The former FEMA official added that regional agency offices throughout the US "are almost entirely CORE staff, so the first FEMA people who are usually onsite won’t be there," which will mean that "states are on their own" when it comes to disaster response.
CNN also reported that there is anxiety among remaining FEMA staffers that these cuts could just be the start "of a larger effort" by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem "to shrink FEMA, potentially axing thousands of workers in the coming months who deploy during hurricanes, wildfires and other national emergencies."
President Donald Trump has been targeting FEMA for potential termination for nearly a year now, and he said shortly after being inaugurated last January that a goal in his second term would be "fundamentally reforming and overhauling FEMA or maybe getting rid of FEMA," while emphasizing that individual states should bear the cost of responding to natural disasters.
“I think, frankly, FEMA’s not good,” the president said. “I think when you have a problem like this, I think you want to go, and whether it’s a Democrat or Republican governor, you want to use your state to fix it and not waste time calling FEMA.”
The Trump administration's deep cuts to FEMA come as the intensity of natural disasters is only projected to increase thanks to climate change.
According to a report published on Tuesday by the Yale School of the Environment, 2025 was the second hottest on record and was only surpassed by the previous year.
"The last three years have been, by a wide margin, the hottest ever recorded," stressed the report. "Each of the last three years has measured more than 1.5°C warmer than preindustrial times, putting the world at least temporarily in breach of an international goal to limit warming below that level."
Jensen Huang, CEO of the tech behemoth Nvidia and the eighth-richest man in the world, said Tuesday that he is "perfectly fine" with a grassroots push in California to impose a one-time wealth tax on the state's billionaire residents.
In an interview with Bloomberg, Huang said that "we chose to live in Silicon Valley, and whatever taxes, I guess, they would like to apply, so be it"—a nonchalant response that diverges from the hysteria expressed by other members of his class in response to the proposed ballot initiative.
"It never crossed my mind once," Huang said of the tax proposal.
If the proposed 5% levy on billionaire wealth makes it onto the November ballot and California voters approve it, Huang would face an estimated $8 billion tax bill—a tiny slice of his $165 billion net worth. Those subject to the tax would have the option of paying the full amount owed all at once or over a period of five years.
"'Who cares' is absolutely the appropriate reaction," said Matt Bruenig, founder of the People's Policy Project, a left-wing think tank. "It means nothing to him. David Sacks types look like the biggest babies in the world."
Bruenig was referring to the White House cryptocurrency czar who left California for Texas at the end of 2025 in an apparent effort to avoid the possible billionaire tax, which would apply to anyone living in California as of January 1, 2026.
“As a response to socialism, Miami will replace NYC as the finance capital and Austin will replace SF as the tech capital,” Sacks declared in a social media post last week.
"Frontline caregivers are glad to hear that, much like the overwhelming majority of billionaires, Mr. Huang will not be uprooting his life or business to make an ideological point over a 1% per year fix to a problem that Congress created."
The proposed one-time tax on California's roughly 200 billionaires would raise an estimated $100 billion in revenue, funds that would be set aside for the state's healthcare system, food assistance, and education.
Organizers are pursuing the tax in direct response to unprecedented Medicaid cuts enacted by US President Donald Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress over the summer.
Suzanne Jimenez, chief of staff of Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West and the lead sponsor of the ballot initiative, welcomed Huang's response to the proposed tax in a statement late Tuesday.
"We agree with Jensen Huang that California has a tremendous talent pool of workers uniquely qualified to continue moving many industries forward, including within the tech sector and beyond," said Jimenez. "This initiative will ensure the $100 billion healthcare funding crisis created by [the Trump-GOP legislation] in July is fixed, so that all of those workers can access emergency rooms and vital healthcare in California."
"Frontline caregivers are glad to hear that, much like the overwhelming majority of billionaires, Mr. Huang will not be uprooting his life or business to make an ideological point over a 1% per year fix to a problem that Congress created last July—and that California will unite to solve this November," Jimenez added.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom vowed Monday to stop a proposed tax on the state's richest people, drawing condemnation from progressives who argue that the expected 2028 presidential hopeful's literal and figurative friendship with billionaires has no place in a Democratic Party that must center working class people and issues to win.
Last month, the Service Employees International Union—United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW) led the introduction of the California Billionaire Tax Act (CBTA), a state ballot initiative that would impose a one-time 5% tax on the wealth of roughly 200 billionaires "to protect healthcare, keep hospitals and emergency rooms open, and prevent millions of Californians from losing coverage" amid historic cuts to social safety programs by congressional Republicans and the Trump administration.
Supporters are currently collecting the 900,000 signatures needed for the CBTA to qualify for California's 2026 ballot. Meanwhile, billionaires including venture capitalist Peter Thiel and Google co-founder Sergey Brin are among those fighting the proposal.
Public opinion polling in recent years has shown that around three-quarters of all California voters, and over 9 in 10 Democrats, back a billionaire wealth tax. So do unions, social and economic justice groups, progressive economists, and congressional lawmakers including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.)—another possible presidential aspirant whose support for the CBTA incensed Thiel and other Silicon Valley billionaires like Larry Page and Elon Musk.
However, Newsom finds himself aligned with Thiel—a seven-figure supporter of President Donald Trump's presidential campaigns—in opposing the proposed tax.
“This will be defeated—there’s no question in my mind,” Newsom said of the CBTA in a Tuesday interview with the New York Times. “I’ll do what I have to do to protect the state."
Two headlines preview the 2028 Democratic presidential primary -- and perfectly reflect the big divide inside the Democratic Party. On one side are those fighting billionaires, on the other side are those who are owned by billionaires.
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— David Sirota (@davidsirota.com) January 13, 2026 at 6:45 AM
Newsom—who has close personal, business, or political ties with billionaires including the Getty family, GAP co-founder Doris Fisher, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, and Siebel Systems co-founder and cousin-by-marriage Tom Siebel—said he is against the CBTA because it could stifle California's world-leading technological innovation and drive away businesses and wealthy individuals.
"The impacts are very real—not just substantive economic impacts in terms of the revenue, but start-ups, the indirect impacts of … people questioning long term-commitments," Newsom told Politico Monday. “That’s not what we need right now, at a time of so much uncertainty."
Not all plutocrats oppose a billionaire wealth tax. Benioff, Warren Buffet, Abigail Disney, Bill Gates, Jensen Huang, Chris Hughes, and George Soros have all advocated higher taxes on the ultrarich.
Huang, CEO of tech titan Nvidia and one of the 10 richest people on the planet, said last week that he is "perfectly fine" with the CBTA.
Gavin Newsom has terrible political instincts. Cozying up to racists like Charlie Kirk. Attacking trans kids. Defending billionaires. When left to his own devices he always picks the wrong path.
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— Oliver Willis (@owillis.bsky.social) January 13, 2026 at 4:53 AM
Responding to Newsom's opposition to the CBTA, Progressive Mass political director Jonathan Cohn said on Bluesky: "Gavin Newsom wants a future for the Democratic Party that consists of sucking up to conservative billionaires. That's a path destined for losses."
Civil rights attorney and professor Alejandra Caraballo also took to Bluesky, writing, "Another reason I'm never Newsom. He's a billionaires' errand boy beholden to them."
Progressive organizer Jonathan Rosenblum asked on X, "Which side are you on?"
"Gavin Newsom is on the side of the billionaires, not the millions of working people who stand to lose healthcare because of the Trump cuts," Rosenblum added. "Shamefully typical of the Democratic establishment."
The Democratic senator who organized a video warning members of the military against obeying illegal orders given by President Donald Trump said that she is being investigated by federal prosecutors.
In an interview with the New York Times published Tuesday, Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) said that the office of Jeanine Pirro, the US attorney for the District of Columbia, had sent an email to the Senate’s sergeant-at-arms requesting to speak with either Slotkin or her private counsel.
Slotkin called the investigation being conducted by Pirro's office an attempt at intimidating her from speaking out against the Trump administration.
"Facts matter little, but the threat matters quite a bit," said Slotkin, a former CIA intelligence analyst and official at the US Department of Defense. "The threat of legal action; the threat to your family; the threat to your staff; the threat to you."
The Times report noted that it's unclear what potential crime Slotkin is being investigated for, and a spokesperson for Pirro's office declined to confirm the existence of the probe.
However, Slotkin has been under fire from Trump and his allies for several weeks after she organized a video with fellow Democratic lawmakers in which they reminded US military service members that they should not obey any illegal orders given by the president.
"We want to speak directly to members of the military and the intelligence community," Slotkin wrote in a November social media post promoting the Democrats' video. "The American people need you to stand up for our laws and our Constitution. Don’t give up the ship."
Trump reacted to the video with rage, accusing Slotkin and other Democrats who appeared in the video of engaging in "SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!"
In a social media post Thursday, Michigan Law School professor Barb McQuade argued that any investigation into Slotkin centering on the video about unlawful orders would be flatly unlawful.
"DOJ policy forbids investigations based solely on First Amendment protected activity," McQuade explained.
Slotkin is not the only Trump nemesis facing legal pressure, as it was revealed on Sunday that Pirro's office has also opened a criminal probe into Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, who has been frequently targeted by Trump for his refusal to obey the president's demands to more aggressively cut US interest rates.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that Trump last week berated dozens of US attorneys, including Pirro, and accused them of being "weak" and too slow in launching criminal probes of his political enemies.
"Among his grievances with prosecutors, Trump complained that the Justice Department hadn’t yet brought a case against one of his most prominent Democratic adversaries, Sen. Adam Schiff of California," the Journal reported.
President Donald Trump has threatened to launch military strikes against Iran, purportedly to help anti-government protesters who are demanding change amid an economic crisis.
However, Middle East Eye spoke with some of the Iranian demonstrators and found they had little appetite for interference from either the US or Israel.
A 39-year-old protester from Tehran, who identified only as Sara, said that Israel's record of bombing countries in the region made her suspicious of any offer that its government would make to help the Iranian protest movement.
"Over the past one or two years, Israel has attacked almost every country in the region," she said. "They want the entire region to be in chaos while they remain safe."
Sara also emphasized that "we want regime change, but we do not want our country to be destroyed."
A 28-year-old demonstrator named Reza also expressed skepticism of Israel and US offers to help even while stating his fierce opposition to the Iranian government.
"On one side, this government has shown that it is not capable of reform and knows nothing but repression," he said. "On the other side, there are Trump and Netanyahu, both of whom are war criminals."
The Middle East Eye report noted that Trump, unlike past presidents, has not even offered a pretense of wanting to bring democracy to Iran to justify military action and has instead stated his desire to seize foreign nations' resources, such as when he declared that the US would take control of petroleum production in Venezuela after the US military abducted President Nicolás Maduro.
Jamal Abdi, president of the National Iranian American Council, earlier this month expressed solidarity with the Iranian protesters while also warning Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to butt out.
"The outbreak of protests in Iran over the past week has been led by Iranians suffering under tremendous economic pressure and repression," said Abdi. "It is the Iranian people’s movement and they deserve to be heard, not President Trump or Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, who cannot and should not try to speak for them. President Trump’s decision to insert himself and threaten military intervention at this moment is profoundly reckless. It distracts from the legitimate grievances of Iranians and risks being exploited to justify a more violent government crackdown."
The Iranian government has responded to the protests with violence and mass arrests of demonstrators, and the government has blacked out internet access for its citizens.
The exact death toll resulting from the Iranian government's crackdown is not known, although the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency estimated as of Monday night that more than 500 people had been killed, while an unnamed Iranian official told Reuters on Tuesday that 2,000 people had been killed so far, including Iranian security forces.
"Trump is once again using lies, racism, and xenophobia to block entire groups of people from coming and contributing to this country," said Rep. Pramila Jayapal.
The US State Department announced one of the Trump administration's most far-reaching efforts to restrict immigration to the country on Wednesday, saying on social media that it will pause processing of all immigrant visas from 75 countries and claiming people from those nations often receive public benefits after arriving in the US.
"The freeze will remain active until the US can ensure that new immigrants will not extract wealth from the American people," reads the statement.
The countries represent more than one-third of the 193 countries on the planet and include Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Laos, Somalia, and Sudan.
The announcement comes as the administration is seeking to expand the definition of what constitutes a "public charge"—people who are likely to utilize public benefits.
President Donald Trump and his top advisers have long been fixated on the claim that immigrants and refugees overuse social services, and the White House has particularly been focused on the use of public programs by Somali immigrants following a fraud scandal in Minnesota.
Last year, the libertarian Cato Institute published a study showing that despite Trump's claims, native-born Americans consume more public benefits than immigrants on average per capita.
Immigrants used 21% fewer welfare and public benefits than Americans born in the US, the study found.
"Trump is once again using lies, racism, and xenophobia to block entire groups of people from coming and contributing to this country," said Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.).
Late last year, the administration proposed a rule that would direct immigration officers to consider whether an immigrant would use programs such as Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and free and reduced-cost school lunches when deciding whether to grant them entry to the US.
A number of observers noted Wednesday that the State Department announced the visa processing freeze months before the US is set to host the World Cup—and 15 of the 42 teams that have already qualified for the soccer tournament are reportedly from countries impacted by the new policy.
A State Department official told Politico that the pause is not expected to directly affect tourist visa processing, but the outlet reported that "individuals could still face difficulties if their countries are subject to other Trump travel bans and restrictions."
The US embassies in Haiti and Iran both posted warnings about visa restrictions on their websites.
"The US should lose hosting rights," said Etan Nechin of Haaretz. "This is a travesty."
"Needs in Gaza exceed far beyond the aid and reconstruction materials Israel is allowing in and the situation will worsen if Israel’s collective punishment and illegal blockade continues," said one water utility official.
Along with continuing its killing of Palestinians in Gaza and its destruction of civilian infrastructure more than three months after a "ceasefire" deal was reached, the Israeli government is violating the agreement by continuing to block humanitarian aid from entering the exclave—making it impossible for aid groups to ensure people there have adequate water as extreme weather makes the problem even worse.
As 100 days since the ceasefire agreement were marked Wednesday, international aid group Oxfam described the work it's been doing to try to restore water wells and other crucial infrastructure, but warned that Israel's decision to block 37 humanitarian organizations—including two Oxfam chapters—has made it difficult to provide Palestinians with a sustainable water supply.
As aid flows have continued to be restricted by Israel, Oxfam workers have been working "around the clock with experts from local partner organizations, to restore vital water wells—even sifting through rubble to salvage and repurpose damaged materials, including sheet metal," the group said.
They've managed to restore wells in Gaza City and Khan Younis and are now providing at least 156,000 residents with water, but parts of Gaza "remain inaccessible and construction costs have also doubled, due to the lack of materials being allowed in," said Oxfam.
“We did not just re-open these wells," said Wassem Mushtaha, Gaza response lead for Oxfam. "We have been solving a moving puzzle under the siege and restrictions to make the wells operational—salvaging parts, repurposing equipment, and paying inflated prices to get critical components, all while trying to keep our teams safe."
Mushtaha emphasized that Oxfam has over $2 million worth of "aid and water and sanitation equipment ready to enter Gaza," but Israeli authorities have repeatedly refused to allow the materials to enter since March 2025.
Oxfam has managed to reach more than 1.3 million people in Gaza with assistance since October 2023, when Israel began bombarding the exclave and blocking humanitarian relief in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack, but 1.1 million people are still in "urgent need of assistance in the harsh winter conditions," which have included freezing temperatures and intense polar winds in recent days.
That storm killed at least seven children, and United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) spokesperson James Elder emphasized Wednesday that they died because the "man-made shortage" of food and medicine had left them defenseless against the conditions.
“We are talking about layers upon layers of rejection [of aid],” Elder told Al Jazeera.
A recent survey by Oxfam found that despite the ceasefire agreement, 87% of people in Khan Younis and Gaza City still had no access to basic essentials and 89% were depending on unsustainable water trucking "to get just the bare minimum level of water needed to survive."
A Palestinian refugee named Nahla told the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East that "water decides everything. How much we drink, how we cook, how we clean our children."
More than 80% of water networks, pumping stations, main lines, tanks, and wells have been destroyed, and of Gaza's three water desalination plants, just one is operational.
Damage to sewer systems has caused overflow which is compounded by flooding, raising the risk of the spread of diseases. Eighty-four percent of households reported members of their families had suffered from outbreaks of disease in recent weeks.
"Yet basic equipment like water pumps, sandbags, and construction materials such as timber and plywood needed to reinforce shelters and drainage are delayed or rejected under 'dual-use' restrictions and bureaucratic clearance processes," Oxfam said, with Israeli authorities claiming the materials can't enter Gaza because they could feasibly be used as weapons.
Monther Shoblaq, director general of the Coastal Municipalities Water Utility, one of Oxfam's partners, commended the group's staff for "going to such lengths to bring water access to those who need it so desperately," and noted that "the equipment needed is just across the border, blocked from entry."
"Agencies are having to resort to salvaging materials from the rubble of bombed water infrastructure and the remains of people’s homes, repurposing parts, and paying inflated prices," said Shoblaq. "This is the direct result of Israeli restrictions, last-resort measures forced by siege conditions."
"Needs in Gaza exceed far beyond the aid and reconstruction materials Israel is allowing in and the situation will worsen if Israel’s collective punishment and illegal blockade continues," Shoblaq added. "Water deprivation is just one of the many human rights violations Israel has undertaken with impunity. Oxfam and other organizations who have operated in Gaza for decades must be allowed to respond at the scale."
More than 440 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes since the so-called "ceasefire" began, and more than 2,500 residential buildings have been destroyed.
Since 2021, top Wall Street banks have committed more than $124 billion in investments to the nine companies set to profit most from the toppling of Venezuela's government.
As oil industry giants are being set up to profit from President Donald Trump's invasion of Venezuela, a new analysis shows the ample backing those companies have received from Wall Street's top financial institutions.
Last week, Bloomberg reported that stock traders and tycoons were "pouncing" after Trump's kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro earlier this month, after having pressured the Trump administration to "create a more favorable business environment in Venezuela."
A dataset compiled by the international environmental advocacy group Stand.earth shows the extent to which these interests are intertwined.
Stand.earth found that since 2021, banks—including JPMorgan Chase, HSBC, TD, RBC, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America—have committed more than $124 billion in investments to the nine companies set to profit most from the toppling of Venezuela's government.
More than a third of that financing, $42 billion, came in 2025 alone, when Trump launched his aggressive campaign against Venezuela.

Among the companies expected to profit most immediately are refiners like Valero, PBF Energy, Citgo, and Phillips 66, which have large operations on the Gulf Coast that can process the heavy crude Venezuela is known to produce. These four companies have received $41 billion from major banks over the past five years.
Chevron, which also operates many heavy-crude facilities, benefits from being the only US company that operated in Venezuela under the Maduro regime, where it exported more than 140,000 barrels of oil per day last quarter.
At a White House gathering with top oil executives on Friday, the company's vice chair, Mark Nelson, told Trump the company could double its exports "effective immediately."
According to Jason Gabelman, an analyst at TD Cowen, the company could increase its annual cash flow by $400 million to $700 million as a result of Trump's takeover of Venezuelan oil resources.
Chevron was also by far the number-one recipient of investments in 2025, with more than $11 billion in total coming from the banks listed in the report—including $1.78 billion from Barclays, another $1.78 billion from Bank of America, and $1.32 billion from Citigroup.
According to Bloomberg, just weeks before Maduro's removal, analysts at Citigroup predicted 60% gains on the nation's more than $60 billion in bonds if he were replaced.
Even ExxonMobil, whose CEO Darren Woods dumped cold water on Trump's calls to set up operations in Venezuela on Friday, calling the nation "uninvestable," potentially has something major to gain from Maduro's overthrow.
Exxon and ConocoPhillips each have outstanding arbitration cases against Venezuela over the government's 2007 nationalization of oil assets, which could award them $20 billion and $12 billion, respectively.
The report found that in 2025, ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips received a combined total of more than $12.8 billion in investment from major financial institutions, which vastly exceeded that from previous years.
Data on these staggering investments comes as oil companies face increased scrutiny surrounding possible foreknowledge of Trump's attack on Venezuela.
Last week, US Senate Democrats launched a formal investigation into “communications between major US oil and oilfield services companies and the Trump administration surrounding last week’s military action in Venezuela and efforts to exploit Venezuelan oil resources.”
Richard Brooks, Stand.earth's climate finance director, said the role of the financial institutions underwriting those oil companies should not be overlooked either.
"Without financial support from big banks and investors, the likes of Chevron, Exxon, ConocoPhillips, and Valero would not have the power that they do to start wars, overthrow governments, or slow the pace of climate action," he said. "Banks and investors need to choose if they are on the side of peace, or of warmongering oil companies.”