May, 06 2025, 05:30pm EDT
Jewish Voice for Peace Congratulates Mosab Abu Toha on Pulitzer Prize
Jewish Voice for Peace congratulates Palestinian poet and author Mosab Abu Toha on winning a Pulitzer Prize in journalism! On Saturday, May 3rd, Abu Toha spoke at JVP’s National Member Meeting to a crowd of 2,000 Jews.
“Every day,”Mosab Abu Toha said from the stage of the JVP National Member Meeting, “Israel kills a family, burns a baby, bombs a school shelter, a tent, a soup kitchen. Every day, we need to ask ourselves, ‘What did we do to stop this?’’ Israel commits these war crimes every day, and that is why we should do something every day.”
Stefanie Fox, Jewish Voice for Peace Executive Director:
“At a time when the Trump regime is threatening Palestine speech and anti-Palestinian groups are hounding Mosab, Jewish Voice for Peace was deeply honored to welcome Mosab to our National Member Meeting of 2,000 Jews in support of Palestinian liberation. Mosab’s commentary and poetry conveys the powerful resilience of Palestinians, the aching loss of a homeland and the unflinching bravery to look genocide in the eye and not turn away, but instead double down for a future of justice. Jewish Voice for Peace will always stand in solidarity with Mosab and his courageous work.”
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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Gaza Mourns Beloved Child Singer Hassan Ayyad, Killed in Israeli Airstrike
The 14-year-old boy was one of numerous children slain by Israeli bombing since Monday in what UNICEF has called "the most dangerous place in the world to be a child."
May 06, 2025
A famed 14-year-old singer was among scores of Palestinians killed by Israel Defense Forces airstrikes across the Gaza Strip since Monday as bombing and starvation fueled by Israel's ongoing siege continued to ravage the coastal enclave.
Hassan Ayyad—who was known for his songs about life and death in Gaza during Israel's genocidal assault and siege—was killed in an IDF airstrike on the Nuseirat refugee camp. Video shared widely on social media showed Ayyad singing in a haunting voice, sometimes accompanied by his father, Alaa Ayyad.
"The child who sang of death has now joined those he mourned."
"Gaza is dying, blind in the eyes of America," Ayyad intones in one clip. "With the warplanes, we tasted the flavor of death, an airstrike from land and sea. They blocked the crossings—people are dying from hunger. Bear witness, world, to what they've done."
Reacting to the boy's killing, Alaa Ayyad told Palestinian journalist Essa Syam that "Hassan was my heat, my soul, my son... my only son."
"What can I tell you about Hassan? Hassan is everything," Ayyad continued. "I ask everyone to pray for mercy for his soul."
Responding to Ayyad's killing, Gaza journalist Mahmoud Bassam wrote Monday on the social media site X that "Hassan was martyred moments ago in an Israeli airstrike, raising the death toll to over 60 since dawn."
"The child who sang of death has now joined those he mourned—his farewell was as noble as his words," Bassam added.
The Gaza Health Ministry said Tuesday that at least 22 people including numerous children were killed and more than 50 others wounded when Israeli airstrikes targeted a school-turned-shelter, this one in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza.n
"The Bureij massacre is a heinous war crime that requires the prosecution of the occupation's leaders in international courts as war criminals," Hamas, which rules Gaza and led the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, said in a statement.
More than 185,000 Palestinians have been killed, wounded, or left missing by Israel's 578-day assault and siege on Gaza. Most of the territory's more than 2 million inhabitants have also been forcibly displaced, often multiple times, while mass starvation is rampant due to Israel's tightened blockade.
Israeli officials said Monday that U.S. President Donald Trump does not object to Operation Gideon's Chariots, a full-scale invasion, conquest, and ethnic cleansing of the Gaza Strip that Israel is expected to launch after Trump visits the Middle East later this month.
On Tuesday, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said he envisions Gaza "entirely destroyed" and ethnically cleansed of its more than 2 million inhabitants.
The Gaza Health Ministry said Monday that Israeli forces have killed at least 16,278 children in Gaza since October 2023—a rate of one child killed every 40 minutes. The ministry said it has recorded 57 children who have died from malnutrition amid Israel's "complete siege" of Gaza, which has fueled mass starvation and illness and is part of an International Court of Justice genocide case against Israel led by South Africa.
Last year, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres added Israel to his so-called "List of Shame" of countries that kill and injure children during wars and other armed conflicts. This, after the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) called Gaza the "world's most dangerous place to be a child."
A 2024 survey of more than 500 Gazan children conducted by the Gaza-based Community Training Center for Crisis Management and supported by the War Child Alliance
found that nearly all children in the embattled Palestinian enclave believed their death was imminent—and nearly half said they wanted to die.
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Sanders Raises Alarm Over GOP Crypto Bill Designed to 'Enrich Trump and His Billionaire Backers'
"Congress is moving quickly to pass the GENIUS Act, which may make a bad situation much worse," said Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
May 06, 2025
As the Republican Senate majority leader plows ahead with a plan to hold a vote on a cryptocurrency bill, Sen. Bernie Sanders is planning a Wednesday conversation with industry experts regarding the proposed legislation, which his office warns would "enrich Trump and his billionaire backers."
The Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act would create a regulatory framework for a type of cryptocurrency called stablecoins. Sanders' (I-Vt.) office said in a Tuesday statement that the bill "threatens the stability of our financial system" and "makes it easier for President [Donald] Trump and his family to continue to engage in corrupt dealmaking enabled through their cryptocurrency, to the great benefit of themselves and their tech oligarch backers."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), another critic of the GENIUS Act, has argued it could facilitate illicit activity and provide little protection for consumer funds.
In February, the advocacy group Consumer Reports warned that the bill lacked consumer protections and could inadvertently allow large tech companies to enter the banking space, as in create currencies, without being subject to the same scrutiny that is applied to traditional banks.
"Under the Trump administration, we have seen a coordinated effort to boost the cryptocurrency industry to directly benefit President Trump and his oligarch allies," said Sanders on Tuesday. He also highlighted that Trump this week promoted a scheduled private dinner for the top holders of the $TRUMP meme coin, effectively soliciting purchases of the crypto token that now accounts for a substantial portion of his net worth.
Also, a stablecoin launched by Trump's World Liberty Financial crypto venture is going to be used by an investment firm backed by the government of Abu Dhabi to complete a $2 billion business deal, according to The New York Times.
"If that's not a troubling form of corruption, I don't know what is," said Sanders of the two cases.
The latest revelations regarding Trump and cryptocurrency appear to have diminished the GENIUS Act's chances of passage, according to The American Prospect.
The GENIUS Act had enjoyed support from a handful of Democratic senators, but a number of them backed off from supporting the bill in its current form over the weekend, writing in a statement that they wanted to see stronger provisions on anti-money laundering, national security, and other issues. "But reading between the lines, it was clearly the Trump corruption that soured them," the Prospect reported.
Sanders said that "in the face of this corruption, you might hope that Congress would step in to clamp down on corruption. Instead, Congress is moving quickly to pass the GENIUS Act, which may make a bad situation much worse."
Axiosreported Tuesday afternoon that Warren and another GENIUS Act critic, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), will introduce the End Crypto Corruption Act on Tuesday. The proposal would bar the president, vice president, members of Congress, and their immediate families from issuing digital assets, like stablecoins, perAxios.
Sanders' conversation will be with Sacha Haworth, the executive director of the Tech Oversight Project, a group aimed at reining in Big Tech, and Corey Frayer, the director of investor protection at the Consumer Federation of America, a consumer research and advocacy organization.
The conversation will be livestreamed on his Facebook, X, and YouTube, and through Act.tv.
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Pakistan Retaliates After Indian Missile Strikes Kill Child
"The world cannot afford a military confrontation between India and Pakistan," said a spokesperson for the United Nations secretary-general.
May 06, 2025
This is a developing story… Please check back for possible updates...
Pakistan retaliated after Indian missile strikes killed at least three people, including a child, and wounded a dozen others early Wednesday local time—further escalating tensions between the two nuclear-armed nations that have risen since last month's Kashmir massacre.
Karachi-based Geo Newsreported that "Pakistan shot down two Indian Air Force (IAF) jets early Wednesday in retaliatory strikes following Indian missile attacks on cities in Punjab and Azad Kashmir," which is administered by Pakistan.
Citing security sources, the outlet added that Pakistan's military also "destroyed an Indian Army brigade headquarters" and launched a missile strike that "wiped out an enemy post in the Dhundial sector of the Line of Control" in Kashmir.
Pakistan's Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, director general of Inter-Services Public Relations, said that "Pakistani armed forces are giving a befitting response to Indian aggression."
Before the retaliation, the Indian Ministry of Defense said in a statement that "India has launched Operation Sindoor, a precise and restrained response to the barbaric Pahalgam terror attack that claimed 26 lives, including one Nepali citizen."
India has blamed Pakistan for the April 22 attack in which armed militants killed tourists in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir, while the Pakistani government has called for a "neutral" probe.
The Indian ministry claimed Wednesday that "focused strikes were carried out on nine terrorist infrastructure sites in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir, targeting the roots of cross-border terror planning."
"Importantly, no Pakistani military facilities were hit, reflecting India's calibrated and nonescalatory approach," the ministry added. "This operation underscores India's resolve to hold perpetrators accountable while avoiding unnecessary provocation."
A spokesperson for United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said that the U.N. chief "is very concerned about the Indian military operations across the Line of Control and international border. He calls for maximum military restraint from both countries."
"The world cannot afford a military confrontation between India and Pakistan," the spokesperson added, according toReuters.
Guterres has repeatedly expressed concern about mounting tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbors since last month.
"Now is the time for maximum restraint and stepping back from the brink," he said Monday. "Make no mistake: A military solution is no solution. And I offer my good offices to both governments in the service of peace. The United Nations stands ready to support any initiative that promotes de-escalation, diplomacy, and a renewed commitment to peace."
Asked about the escalation at the White House, U.S. President Donald Trump said: "It's a shame... I just hope it ends very quickly."
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