To donate by check, phone, or other method, see our More Ways to Give page.
As corporate influence grows, independent journalism is more important than ever. If you value reporting that puts people and the planet first, please support Common Dreams this Giving Tuesday. We couldn't do it without you—thank you for keeping independent journalism alive.
A United Nations committee found Palestinian prisoners are regularly deprived of food and water and subjected to attacks by dogs, electrocution, and sexual abuse.
Reports of Israeli authorities torturing Palestinian prisoners have been publicized for years, with freed detainees describing frequent beatings, attacks by dogs, and rape and sexual abuse, and the United Nations Committee Against Torture now says Palestinians have been victimized by a "de facto state policy of organized and widespread torture."
Both Palestinian and Israeli rights groups gave reports to the committee on conditions in Israeli detention centers, detailing Israel's regular deprivation of food and water for detainees as well as the "severe beatings," electrocution, waterboarding. and sexual violence Israeli guards and other authorities perpetrate.
A state policy of torturing prisoners constitutes the crime of genocide under international law, the committee said.
Peter Vedel Kessing, a member of the committee and a senior researcher at the Danish Institute for Human Rights, told the BBC the panel was "deeply appalled" by the accounts they heard, and expressed concern about the lack of investigations and prosecutions following allegations of torture.
The de facto policy of torture in Israel's has "gravely intensified" since Israel began bombarding Gaza after a Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023, the report found. Despite a ceasefire that was agreed to in October, those retaliatory attacks against the exclave are continuing and still constitute a genocide, Amnesty International said this week.
Friday's UN report, said progressive Greek economist Yanis Varoufakis, provided the latest proof that "Israel's insidious war crimes have not subsided just because Trump succeeded in convincing Western public opinion that the genocide in Gaza has paused."
The UN committee found that at least 75 Palestinians have died in Israeli custody since the Gaza war began—an "abnormally high" death toll which "appears to have exclusively affected the Palestinian detainee population."
"To date, no state officials have been held responsible or accountable for such deaths," said the panel.
"Israel's insidious war crimes have not subsided just because Trump succeeded in convincing Western public opinion that the genocide in Gaza has paused."
The report comes nearly two weeks after the Israel-based rights group Physicians for Human Rights released an analysis showing that at least 98 Palestinian prisoners have died in Israeli custody since October 2023.
The UN committee noted that Israel's use of "administrative detention," in which roughly 3,474 Palestinians are currently being held without trial, has reached an "unprecedented" level in the last two years, with children among those who have been imprisoned without charges.
Child prisoners, some of whom are under the age of 12—despite 12 being the age of criminal responsibility in Israel—“have severe restrictions on family contact, may be held in solitary confinement, and do not have access to education, in violation of international standards," the report says.
The report was released the same day the UN Human Rights Office accused Israeli soldiers of carrying out a "summary execution" of two Palestinian men who were seen with their hands up—indicating surrender—in the West Bank.
The committee emphasized its "serious concern" that Israel has no "distinct offense criminalizing torture, and that its legislation allows public officials to be exempted from criminal culpability under the so-called 'necessity' defense when unlawful physical pressure is applied during interrogations."
The report was released days after Israel was one of just three countries—along with the US and Argentina—that voted against a UN General Assembly resolution against torture.
"Even if unenforced, Trump’s declaration functions as an improvised, extralegal no-fly zone created through fear, FAA warnings, and military pressure," said the anti-war group CodePink.
Policy experts and advocates on Saturday denounced President Donald Trump's claim that he had ordered the airspace above and around Venezuela "to be closed in its entirety"—an authority the US president does not have but that one analyst said signaled a "scorched earth" policy in the South American country and that others warned could portend imminent airstrikes.
Francisco Rodriguez, a senior research fellow at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, said that after months of escalating tensions driven by Trump's strikes on boats in the Caribbean and other aggressive actions, the US government was treating the Venezuelan people as "chess pieces."
“A country subject to air isolation is a country where medicine and essential supplies cannot enter, and whose citizens cannot travel even for emergency reasons," Rodriguez told Al Jazeera.
US strikes on vessels in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific have killed at least 83 people since early September, with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reportedly ordering US military officers to "kill everybody" on board when he directed the first strike. The administration claims it is conducting the strikes to stop drug trafficking from Venezuela, though US and international intelligence has shown the South American country is not involved in trafficking fentanyl to the US and serves as only a transit hub—but not a major production center—of cocaine.
The Trump administration has claimed it is engaged in an "armed conflict" with Venezuela, though Congress has not authorized any such conflict. Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have introduced war powers resolutions to stop Trump from conducting more attacks on boats and inside Venezuela, where the president has also authorized covert CIA operations and has threatened to launch strikes.
On Thursday, Trump said in a statement to US service members that the military could begin targeting suspected drug traffickers on land "very soon," before claiming the country's airspace was closed Saturday morning.
The US has also sent an aircraft carrier and 10,000 troops to the region in the largest US deployment to Latin America in decades.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) last week urged civilian aircraft to "exercise caution” when flying over Venezuela due to the “worsening security situation and heightened military activity in or around" the country.
That warning led six airlines to suspend flights to Venezuela, which in turn prompted President Nicolás Maduro's government to ban the companies, including Turkish Airlines, Spain’s Iberia, Portugal’s TAP, Colombia’s Avianca, Chile and Brazil’s LATAM, and Brazil’s GOL. Maduro accused the airlines of “joining the actions of state terrorism promoted by the United States government."
The anti-war group CodePink said Trump's claim about Venezuelan airspace represented "a dangerous escalation with no legal basis and enormous regional consequences."
"The United States has no authority to close another country’s airspace," said the group. "Under international law, only Venezuela can determine the status of its skies and enforcing a foreign no-fly zone without UN authorization or host-state consent would constitute an act of war. Even if unenforced, Trump’s declaration functions as an improvised, extralegal no-fly zone created through fear, FAA warnings, and military pressure."
Trump's actions in Venezuela in recent weeks—which come two years after the president explicitly said he wanted to take control of the country's vast oil reserves—"form a familiar pattern," said CodePink.
"Manufacture a crisis, then paint a sovereign government as a danger to US interests, and finally use the manufactured urgency to justify military measures that would otherwise be politically impossible," said the group. "Trying to 'close' the airspace of another country is an act of aggression. It risks flight disruptions, economic panic, and aviation accidents. It is also an attempt to isolate Venezuela without admitting that the US is imposing a de facto blockade. The people of Venezuela have lived with the consequences of Washington’s reckless interventions. They deserve peace, not another manufactured war."
"Diplomacy, not domination, remains the only path that respects international law and regional sovereignty," added CodePink. "Hands off Venezuela. Hands off Latin America."
Charles Samuel Shapiro, a former US ambassador to Venezuela, emphasized that Trump's latest move in what he claims is a battle against drug trafficking came a day after he announced a pardon for right-wing former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was convicted of working with drug traffickers.
“The whole drug trafficking thing is simply a pretext,” Shapiro told Al Jazeera. "If you look at the US government’s own reports, drugs coming into the United States from Venezuela are minimal, so declaring these people to be ‘narcoterrorists’—it makes no sense."
The president backed a right-wing candidate as he announced a pardon for former President Juan Orlando Hernández—despite his involvement with drug trafficking, which Trump claims he's fighting in Latin America.
The US Congressional Progressive Caucus on Friday accused President Donald Trump of "flagrantly interfering" in Honduras' upcoming presidential election after Trump announced his endorsement of right-wing candidate Nasry “Tito” Asfura and repeated threats he's made previously ahead of other electoral contests in which he sought to secure a conservative win.
On the social media platform X, Trump warned that only a victory for former Tegucigalpa Mayor Asfura and the National Party in Sunday's election will allow Honduras and the US to "fight the Narcocommunists, and bring needed aid to the people" of the Central American country.
He accused Asfura's opponents—former finance and defense minister Rixi Moncada of the left-wing Liberty and Refoundation (Libre) Party, which is now in power, and sportscaster Salvador Nasralla of the centrist Liberal Party—of being communists and said Nasralla is running as a spoiler in order to split the vote and weaken Asfura. He added that a loss for the right-wing candidate would allow Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro "and his Narcoterrorists [to] take over another country like they have taken over Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela."
The president also wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social, that "if [Asfura] doesn't win, the US will not be throwing good money after bad," repeating a comment he made during New York City's mayoral election in which he urged voters to reject progressive candidate Zohran Mamdani or risk losing federal aid for the city. Trump also offered Argentina a $40 billion bailout if voters elected his ally, Javier Milei, earlier this year.
Under President Xiomara Castro, the Libre Party's government has invested in hospitals and education, and has made strides in halting the privatization of the country's electricity system, Drop Site News reported. The poverty rate has also been reduced by about 13% since Castro took office in 2021, although, as the outlet reported, some rights advocates have criticized Castro's government for keeping "many of her predecessor’s militarized policies in place, despite her commitment to implement a more community-minded strategy."
Trump added in his social media post that he was issuing a pardon to former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who represented the National Party and is currently serving a 45-year prison sentence in the US after being convicted of working with drug traffickers who paid bribes to ensure more than 400 tons of cocaine were sent to the US. The pardon was announced as Trump continues his threats against Venezuela, which he has accused of trafficking drugs to the US.
CPC Deputy Chair Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Whip Jesús “Chuy” García (D-Ill.) called Trump's "smearing" of Asfura's opponents "completely unacceptable," and noted that the president has been joined by other congressional Republicans in making "wild, unsubstantiated allegations" regarding Honduras' election—including Rep. María Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.), who voiced "support for a military coup."
Salazar said recently that "16 years ago, the military saved its country from communism and today, they need to do the same thing," referring to the US-backed overthrow of democratically-elected President Manuel Zelaya.
“These Cold War-era threats and blatant interventions create hostile conditions for free and fair elections and must stop immediately," said Omar and García. "We also cannot tolerate premature declarations by prominent US politicians regarding the election results before ballots are fully counted. Attempts to delegitimize the vote based on who wins could be disastrous in light of the harmful history of US interference in modern Honduran politics."
The two progressive leaders were echoing concerns brought up by Honduran Vice Foreign Minister Gerardo Torres, who spoke at a gathering of left-wing leaders on Thursday in Tegucigalpa.
Torres warned that the Electoral Council could claim Nasry is winning "with an irreversible trend" before the actual winner of the wide-open race is clear on Sunday.
"Even Trump could congratulate him—and that’s when real trouble will erupt in this country,” said Torres.
The chaos that could result could lead election officials to "nullify the elections and hold new ones in six months, leaving Libre weakened and allowing the right to win," reported El País. Torres posited that this is the National Party's "strategy."
“The right wing cannot win on Sunday; that needs to be clear and repeated ad nauseam,” Torres said, urging advocates to promote Moncada's candidacy on social media and help mobilize voters to get to the polls early.
Omar and García noted that after Honduras' 2017 election, the Trump administration endorsed Hernández's reelection "despite evidence of fraud and the killing by his security forces of Hondurans who protested the results."
More than 20 people were killed in the aftermath of the disputed 2017 election
The two progressive leaders said that "Sunday’s elections are taking place at a critical moment, as the country aims to elect and transfer political power to a new leader for the first time outside of the context of the repressive post-coup regimes that persisted from 2009 to 2021."
"At a time of global democratic fragility, we must move beyond US bullying and political interference in Honduras’s sovereign affairs. We need a relationship based on mutual respect, including respect for the will of Honduran voters," said Omar and García.
Torres expressed hope that Trump's backing of Asfura will have the opposite effect that the US president intended, saying Trump's comments on social media were "a blow to the right; it hurts one of their candidates."
“If there was anyone who didn’t know there were elections in Honduras this Sunday, now everyone knows,” said Torres. “There are even people who went to look at a map to see where Honduras is and find out who Rixi Moncada is... It puts us in an important position, which creates a wonderful scenario, because Rixi’s victory will be more famous and important. We have no doubt about her victory."
Torres added that many conservative voters in Honduras are likely to reject the party formerly led by Hernández.
"These are right-wing people who opposed the narcostate, who stood with us in 2015 against [Hernández's] embezzlement of social security, and who know what those criminals are,” he said, referring to previous governments. “Trump can tweet all day and those people aren’t going to vote for the return of the conservatives."
José Mario López of the Jesuit Reflection, Research, and Communication Team in Honduras also told Drop Site News that the "red scare" tactics that the National and Liberal parties have joined Trump in using in the final weeks of the election are likely to have some sway with older people, but are "not expected to impact younger voters."
“It’s a discourse that doesn’t really land, in my view,” López told the outlet. “I think what can move votes is the economic issue, because historically one of the main problems identified in public opinion polls is unemployment and lack of economic opportunities.”