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One year after the Israeli military assault on Gaza
Available for interviews: One year after Operation Protective Edge, Israel's military assault on Gaza, Jewish Voice for Peace members reflect on Jewish opposition to the war, and the growth of the movement for Palestinian freedom and equality.
WASHINGTON
Available for interviews: One year after Operation Protective Edge, Israel's military assault on Gaza, Jewish Voice for Peace members reflect on Jewish opposition to the war, and the growth of the movement for Palestinian freedom and equality.
Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) was the only major Jewish organization to unequivocally oppose the Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip during the summer of 2014. Between July 7th and August 26th, 2014, Israel's vastly disproportionate military campaign in Gaza killed over 2,250 Palestinians, including over 500 children and over 1400 civilians (73 Israelis also lost their lives, including 1 child and 6 civilians). In the coming weeks, Jewish Voice for Peace chapters across the country will hold memorial events to honor all the victims of last summer's violence.
Rabbi Brant Rosen is currently the midwest regional director of the American Friends Service Committee, and the co-chair of the JVP Rabbinical Council. He is the author of Wrestling in the Daylight, a Rabbi's Path to Palestine Solidarity to and the author of the blog Shalom Rav.
"On this one year anniversary of Israel's military assault on Gaza, we honor the memory of those who lost their lives by re-dedicating ourselves to justice. Israel's crushing blockade of Gaza still continues: homes have not been rebuilt, tens of thousands remain homeless, unemployed and lacking access to basic food, water and electricity resources. This is not a humanitarian crisis - this is politically instigated collective punishment of a population. We must certainly act to help those who are suffering in Gaza - but we must do more. The best way we can observe this tragic milestone is intensify our advocacy to pressure Israel to lift the blockade and pursue diplomacy over militarism."
Ariana Katz is a rabbinical student at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, youth educator, and organizer with JVP in Philadelphia.
"After the collapse of peace talks last spring, the assault on the people of Gaza last summer, and the recent re-election of the most right-wing government in Israeli history, it is clearer than ever that outside pressure will be needed to create change in Israel. More and more students, churches and especially young Jews, are turning to the nonviolent Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement as a way to take action for justice."
Cecilie Surasky is the deputy director of Jewish Voice for Peace. A videomaker, former newspaper columnist and talk radio host, Cecilie's analyses of Israel-Palestine politics have appeared in numerous media outlets around the world.
"There is no question that Israel is literally dividing the Jewish community, and that more and more young US Jews are actively opposing the Israeli government. This last year, JVP experienced the biggest growth in our history as new members found a political home to oppose Israel's destructive actions and reconnect with a Jewish community that stands for justice."
Last summer, Jewish Voice for Peace collaborated with activists, artists, celebrities and thought leaders to release a video expressing support for Palestinian freedom, equality and justice. The video, which The Nation magazine named "Most Valuable Video" of 2014, featured celebrities such as Chuck D, Jonathan Demme, Gloria Steinem, Wallace Shawn, Tony Kushner, Mira Nair, Roger Waters, Brian Eno, and others holding signs with the names and ages of Palestinian civilians killed by the Israeli military in Gaza.
This week also marks the 10 year anniversary of the call from Palestinian civil society for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel until it complies with international law. Jewish Voice for Peace has fully endorsed this call, and participates in campaigns that use nonviolent tactics to pressure Israel to change its policies towards Palestinians.
Jewish Voice for Peace is a national, grassroots organization inspired by Jewish tradition to work for a just and lasting peace according to principles of human rights, equality, and international law for all the people of Israel and Palestine. JVP has over 200,000 online supporters, over 70 chapters, a youth wing, a Rabbinic Council, an Artist Council, an Academic Advisory Council, and an Advisory Board made up of leading U.S. intellectuals and artists.
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8,000+ Italian Medical Professionals Sign Open Letter Decrying US Blockade of Cuba
"Italy is indebted to Cuba," the letter states. "Every day of silence has a cost in human lives."
Jun 10, 2026
As of Wednesday, more than 8,000 Italian medical and scientific professionals have signed an open letter acknowledging their indebtedness to Cuban doctors and condemning the tightening of the 65-year US embargo on Cuba by President Donald Trump as he threatens "take" the island.
"Over the decades, Cuba has built a health system that was considered an international model, capable of guaranteeing universal access to care even in limited resource conditions. Since 1963, more than 600,000 Cuban health workers have served in more than 160 countries, including Italy," states the letter addressed to Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Health Minister Orazio Schillaci.
"That system is currently in a state of collapse," the letter continues. "Survival in childhood cancers has fallen from 80% to 65% due to the lack of first-line drugs."
The publication notes that "96,000 people—almost 1% of the population—including 11,000 children are on the waiting list for surgery. If the situation does not change, the list could affect 160,000 patients by the end of 2026. Over 300 pediatric surgeries per week are compromised by shortages of drugs, oxygen, anesthetics, and consumables."
"The crisis has its roots in a combination of factors that have progressively worsened," the letter continues. "The tightening of the economic embargo during the first Trump administration, Covid-19, and, since January 2026, the near-total blockade of energy supplies following the Venezuelan crisis have deprived the island of fuel, electricity, and access to international drug and medical device markets."
A report published in April by researchers at the Center for Economic Policy and Research confirmed an “unprecedented increase” in Cuba’s infant mortality rate, which soared 148% between 2018 and 2025.
Report co-author Joe Sammut said that “the blockade has had a particularly dire effect on Cuba’s healthcare infrastructure, with frequent power outages" exacerbated by the US oil blockade "interrupting the use of critical equipment for the treatment of patients, including incubators for premature babies, and ventilators to help sick newborns breathe."
The United Nations General Assembly has overwhelmingly condemned the broader US embargo—which Cuba’s government says has cost the island's economy more than $1 trillion over seven decades—33 times.
"The collapse of a health system is not just a local tragedy: It is a violation of fundamental human rights that requires a response from the global community, beyond any political assessment of the Cuban regime," the Italian letter argues.
"Italy cannot remain indifferent or silent, also because it is indebted to Cuba for the help received during the Covid-19 pandemic and for the current work of Cuban doctors in the Calabria Region to guarantee the functioning of the local health service," the publication adds.
The Trump administration has been pressuring Italy to curb its use of Cuban doctors, who are essential to Calabria's healthcare system.
"It is the duty of the global health community—doctors, researchers, institutions, scientific journals—but also of the civil community to act without ambiguity, in compliance with the fundamental principles of humanitarian law," the letter concludes. "Every day of silence has a cost in human lives."
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Israel to Blame for 56% of 22,600+ Civilians Killed by Explosive Weapons Globally Last Year
"What is particularly alarming is that this harm has become persistent across conflicts worldwide, risking the normalization of civilian suffering on a massive scale," said the report's lead author.
Jun 10, 2026
While the overall number of civilians killed by explosive weapons decreased by 21% last year, largely due to Israel scaling back attacks on the Gaza Strip and Lebanon in response to ceasefire deals, "the majority—56%—of all global civilian fatalities in 2025 could be attributed to Israeli armed forces, most of which occurred in Palestine," according to an annual report released Wednesday.
The report is the latest publication from the Explosive Weapons Monitor, a research initiative of the International Network of Explosive Weapons, whose members include nongovernmental organizations around the world such as Action on Armed Violence, Center for Civilians in Conflict, Human Rights Watch, Humanity & Inclusion (HI), PAX, and Save the Children.
Based on data from Armed Conflict Location & Event Data as well as Insecurity Insight, the monitor found that there were at least 22,616 civilian fatalities from explosive weapons across 65 countries and territories last year.
In addition to Lebanon and Palestine, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Iran, Iraq, Myanmar, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, and Yemen were "heavily impacted," the publication says. Countries' armed forces were responsible for the vast majority—85%—of all incidents that reportedly affected civilians or civilian infrastructure last year.
"The number of attacks in which explosive weapons affected humanitarian aid operations, aid workers, and camps increased by 52%," to 2,541, last year—and while they were documented in 17 countries and territories, "about 90% of all incidents were recorded in Palestine," the report notes.
Attacks on education increased by 64%, to 1,416; they occurred in 27 places, but were most common in Myanmar, Palestine, and Ukraine. The report also highlights continued attacks on healthcare facilities and workers (1,272 incidents in 22 places), and on food and water systems (1,082 incidents in 15 places).
"Every destroyed school, hospital, market, water system, or humanitarian convoy represents far more than damaged infrastructure—it represents opportunities lost, futures disrupted, and communities pushed further from recovery," said Alma Taslidžan, HI's disarmament advocacy manager, in a statement.
"Long after the explosions end, civilians continue to live with the consequences of disrupted healthcare, interrupted education, damaged livelihoods, and the daily challenge of rebuilding their lives," Taslidžan emphasized. "For many, the consequences of explosive weapons become part of everyday life and suffering for years to come."
Explore the report's data and view country-specific analysis in a new interactive dashboard:➡️ explosiveweaponsmonitor.org/global-figur...
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— Explosive Weapons Monitor (@weaponsmonitor.bsky.social) June 10, 2026 at 8:29 AM
The report argues that "it remains a critical humanitarian priority" to bring the 2022 Political Declaration on Strengthening the Protection of Civilians from the Humanitarian Consequences Arising From the Use of Explosive Weapons in Populated Areas into greater effect.
The publication also calls out eight countries—Cambodia, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, Somalia, South Korea, Turkey, and the United States—that endorsed the declaration but whose armed forces reportedly used explosive weapons that caused civilian harm in 2025.
"The devastating impact of explosive weapons on civilians is both foreseeable and preventable. Yet across numerous conflicts, their continued use has entrenched a pattern of civilian harm that is increasingly treated as routine rather than exceptional," said Katherine Young, the report's lead author and the monitor's research and monitoring manager, in a statement.
"When explosive weapons are used in populated areas, civilians suffer," Young stressed. "What is particularly alarming is that this harm has become persistent across conflicts worldwide, risking the normalization of civilian suffering on a massive scale."
The release of the report comes amid renewed Israeli attacks on Lebanon—which intensified after the United States and Israel launched an illegal war on Iran in February, and have continued despite a new ceasefire agreed to in April—as well as on Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
"This weekend, eight children were reported killed and a further 17 injured in five different locations in the Gaza Strip, while in the West Bank, a 7-month-old boy died after being shot by Israeli forces in the Tel Rumeida area of Hebron," said Edouard Beigbeder, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, on Wednesday.
"We cannot let this become the new normal—children losing their lives to violence should cause global outrage and must be condemned at every level," he continued. "UNICEF calls on the Israeli authorities to take decisive action to protect all Palestinian children. Authorities must ensure transparent, credible, and robust investigations, as well as accountability whenever children are killed or maimed."
Since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, Israeli forces have slaughtered at least 72,991 Palestinians in Gaza—an assault widely condemned as genocide. That includes 981 people killed since the ceasefire reached last October, according to local health officials. Israeli attacks on Lebanon have left thousands more dead, including at least 3,666 since early March, per the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health.
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Israel Escalating Ethnic Cleansing in West Bank 'Before the Eyes of the Entire World': Amnesty
"This is not the work of rogue actors," said the human rights group's secretary general. "What we are witnessing is deliberate, state-led annexation."
Jun 10, 2026
The international community is allowing the Israeli government to carry out an explicit policy of "ethnic cleansing" against Palestinians in the West Bank that is rapidly accelerating, according to a report out Wednesday from Amnesty International.
The human rights group said the world must intervene to stop what it described as a campaign of forcible displacement, rampant state-backed violence by Israeli settlers, demolitions of Palestinian homes, and tightening restrictions on Palestinian access to land and water.
Using United Nations data, Amnesty determined that at least 117 predominantly Bedouin and herding communities faced full or partial displacement between January 2023 and April 2026, with about 45 communities totally depopulated.
Nearly 6,000 people were forced from their homes during that time, roughly 17% of the Palestinian population in the Israeli-controlled Area C's Bedouin and herding communities.
Amnesty found that Israeli authorities demolished more than 3,400 Palestinian homes and structures in Area C during that time, displacing more than 3,000 Palestinians.
The group describes this systematic displacement as explicit Israeli state policy. The government advanced plans for more than 50,000 settler housing units from 2023-25 and authorized 102 new settlements by April 2026, the largest number ever approved by an Israeli government.
This has coincided with a dramatic increase in violence by armed Israeli settlers, who have set fire to homes and farmlands, vandalized schools and agricultural equipment, cut electricity lines and dumped water tanks, and beaten and killed Palestinian residents.
The UN's Office on the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs calculated that four settler attacks have occurred per day on average in the roughly two years following October 7, 2023, and have only grown more frequent this year, particularly after Israel and the US's joint attack on Iran, which was followed by an invasion of Lebanon that has also entailed mass destruction of homes and the forced displacement of over a million residents.
In several documented cases, armed settler attackers have been escorted or accompanied by Israeli soldiers, who have at times taken part in the destruction.
“Over the past three and a half years, Israeli authorities have accelerated a state-sponsored campaign of ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, uprooting, dispossessing, and forcibly transferring Palestinian communities," said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s secretary general.
"This is not the work of rogue actors or what the international community has repeatedly labeled as extremist settlers, organizations or one or two ministers," she said. "What we are witnessing is deliberate, state-led annexation, in complete violation of international law unfolding before the eyes of the entire world."
The report comes just a day after a group of Western nations—including the UK, Canada, France, Australia, New Zealand, and Norway—announced coordinated sanctions against Israeli individuals and organizations accused of financing and enabling settler violence in the West Bank.
However, Amnesty argued that these measures were too narrow.
"These limited measures are woefully insufficient to address the state campaign of ethnic cleansing and the systemic violations that have been rapidly increasing before the eyes of the international community,” Callamard said.
She said states, "particularly those with influence over Israel," including the US, the UK, Germany, Italy, and other European Union and Arab States, needed to "ban all trade, investment, and any form of cooperation or financial assistance that contribute to Israel’s unlawful occupation, system of apartheid, and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians."
Callamard added that states "must impose targeted sanctions, including travel bans and asset freezes, against Israeli officials directly implicated in these acts." She included Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and far-right settler politicians like Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, as well as settlers who have allegedly committed acts of murder, like Yinon Levi, who was filmed last year shooting and killing human rights activist Awda al-Hathaleen and was released from custody after a day.
Callamard said, "Without accountability, Palestinian communities across the West Bank will vanish before our eyes."
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