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‘Arms Embargo Now’: Israel Uses US Bombs to Kill 6 Palestinians and Wound 28 in Gaza Hospital Attack
“The patients in the department were all surgical patients waiting to undergo operations. The bombing happened at a time when they should have been asleep," said one doctor.
Nov 12, 2026
American-made bombs appeared to have been used in an Israeli strike on Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, Gaza on Thursday, in which at least six people, including a surgeon and at least one child, were killed and at least 28 more were injured.
Trevor Ball, an analyst with Armament Research Services, told The New York Times that Associated Press footage of the aftermath of the bombing showed two 250-pound precision-guided aerial bombs that were manufactured in the US.
"Arms embargo now," said Dylan Williams, vice president of government affairs for the Center for International Policy, in response to the latest attack on the hospital, which has been struck numerous times since Israel began attacking Gaza more than three years ago in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack.
The US has passed legislation providing Israel with at least $16.3 billion in direct military aid since October 2023, on top of the $3.8 billion the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) receive from the US annually, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.
Both the Trump and the Biden administrations have also vehemently defended Israel's attacks on Gaza even as they have targeted hospitals, journalists, aid workers, and children—repeating Israel's claims that medical facilities are used as military outposts by Hamas and are therefore legitimate targets, and that Israel is targeting the Palestinian group it labels a terrorist organization and is taking steps to protect civilians.
In the case of Nasser Hospital this week, Dr. Ayman Abu Ubaid, a surgical specialist who was wounded in the attack that occurred around midnight, told The Guardian that the IDF provided no warning that could have allowed staff to remove patients and medical providers from harm's way.
“The patients in the department were all surgical patients waiting to undergo operations. The bombing happened at a time when they should have been asleep," Abu Ubaid told The Guardian.
The doctor added that "the bombing caused thick smoke to fill the rooms and fires to break out, amid the groans of [the] wounded and people’s screams. There were many casualties and blood everywhere... Most of us sustained injuries to our limbs, as well as shrapnel wounds in different parts of our bodies.”
Hadja Lahbib, the European commissioner for equality, preparedness, and crisis management, emphasized that "hospitals are protected under international humanitarian law and must never be targets.
"Civilians must be protected," said Lahbib. "I urge a prompt, independent, and impartial investigation to ensure accountability."
Israel said it had targeted and struck Hamas commanders and fighters who were operating out of the hospital, but did not provide evidence.
One confirmed death was that of Dr. Rizk Abu Shaaira, 52, who was featured in the documentary film "American Doctor," working alongside physicians from the US who traveled to Gaza to provide medical aid.
"My colleague and friend Dr. Rizk Abu Shaaira was killed yesterday at work when Israel, backed by the US as always, bombed the surgical recovery room at Nasser Medical Complex," said Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, a trauma surgeon from California who was also featured in the film.
"Dr. Rizk's shocking murder is yet another reminder of why we must get control of our country," said Sidhwa. "Our government has no right to force us to subsidize the mass murder of doctors and children, not in Palestine and not anywhere."
Dr. Thaer Ahmad, a Palestinian-American emergency doctor, also paid tribute to the surgeon, saying he had been seen in the documentary "operating and serving his people."
"He lost his life doing that, he lost his life because he was doing that," said Ahmad.
Abu Shaaira died alongside a patient he had operated on, The Guardian reported.
A 13-year-old boy named Jihad Naeem Muhammad Abu Tilikh was also among those killed, according to the hospital.
Several floors of the hospital were heavily damaged, and part of the surgery department was destroyed. The radiology, laboratory, surgical operations, and inpatient surgical departments were forced to suspend operations.
Nasser Hospital was also struck in August 2025 in a double-tap strike that killed at least 20 people, including journalists and healthcare workers.
United Nations experts have accused Israel of "medicide" due to its destruction of about 90% of Gaza's health infrastructure, which has left just two hospitals operational. More than 1,700 healthcare workers in Gaza have been killed since October 2023.
More than 74,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks, including about 1,600 who have been killed since a ceasefire was reached in October 2025.
"How can this still be called a ceasefire?" said Philippe Lazzarini, former commissioner-general of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. "A real one is needed and overdue."
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UN Expert Calls on Nations to 'Send Humanitarian Vessels' to Break Israeli Siege of Gaza
Israel is blocking around 150,000 tents and other recovery supplies from entering flood-ravaged Gaza.
Nov 11, 2026
A leading United Nations human rights expert said nations must prepare to send ships to break Israel’s “siege” of Gaza as it continues to block humanitarian aid—including tents, shelter materials, and repair supplies—from entering the territory as its population is inundated by deadly floods.
"Israel must immediately open all Gaza crossings and let humanitarian aid in, starting with new tents and modular housing, clean water, nutrient-rich food, medicines," Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, wrote on social media Tuesday. "If... Israel still refuses, any principled leader would send humanitarian vessels to break the siege."
Most buildings in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed by Israel's genocidal three-year military assault. About 1.4 million people now live in makeshift shelters, including flimsy tents.
According to Gaza's Government Media Office, about 70,000 tents were flooded when heavy rains struck the territory over the weekend, leaving tens of thousands of displaced people without shelter, defenseless against the elements. At least four children and two women have died as a result of the flooding.
As The Guardian reported Wednesday, the storms have also damaged sanitation infrastructure, causing sewage to flow into families' tents. About 940,000 people in Gaza live in makeshift tent areas at risk of flooding.
“All our clothes were soaked. My kids are all sick, and I can’t afford to buy them more clothes,” said Raed Jamal, a displaced Palestinian. “Watching them suffering in the cold is heartbreaking.”
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), more than 150,000 tents are awaiting Israeli authorization to enter Gaza, even as humanitarian organizations warn that Israel's restrictions on shelter supplies are exacerbating the deadly flooding emergency.
On Monday, the International Rescue Committee said aid groups had only about 2,800 tents available, compared with roughly 121,000 that are needed. Meanwhile, no emergency shelter kits were available.
"People are exhausted and have spent days trying to secure tarpaulins and scoop water from the floor of tents," said Beckie Ryan, the humanitarian group CARE Palestine's interim country director. "For these families, most of whom have been displaced repeatedly, a flooded tent means losing their last protection against the elements as winter approaches. It also means the loss of essential belongings, including clothing, bedding, medication, documentation, and personal items."
"Israeli authorities must facilitate full, rapid, safe, and unhindered humanitarian access," she said. "This includes opening all crossings for humanitarian aid and facilitating the entry of shelter and construction materials and machinery."
Israel's restrictions on shelter materials are part of broader limits on humanitarian aid entering Gaza, with only one crossing for humanitarian cargo currently operational. Relief organizations say the closures have created bottlenecks that have delayed deliveries of food, medicine, and desperately needed shelter materials.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has denied responsibility for the conditions, blaming the militant group Hamas for allegedly diverting humanitarian aid for military use, a claim for which he provided no supporting evidence, according to The Associated Press.
His response came after some unusually pointed criticism from the US-led Gaza Board of Peace, which said Israel's restrictions had “exacerbated the consequences of a foreseeable humanitarian challenge.”
The crisis has also drawn pledges of action from foreign officials. Ed Miliband, the UK foreign secretary, said on Monday that the "humanitarian situation in Gaza is getting worse," adding that the British government would "not stand by" and "not rest until we bring an end to the intolerable suffering."
Albanese made her call for humanitarian vessels in direct response to Miliband's remarks, challenging world leaders to do more than condemn the worsening crisis.
Several governments have previously supported civilian efforts to break Israel's blockade—including Spain and Italy, which sent naval vessels to assist the activist-led Global Sumud Flotilla, which was intercepted by Israel last year. But no government has publicly committed to sending its own ships to force humanitarian aid through Israel's blockade.
Albanese and five other UN human rights experts made a similar appeal in May, saying that “states should take necessary action to prevent genocide and to support all efforts to deliver aid to the Palestinian population.”
Richard Burgon, a Labour member of the British Parliament, introduced a motion on Tuesday calling for his government to take more concrete action to compel Israel to allow in aid, which he said has received over 50 signatures.
He said, “Governments around the world should respond to the horrific scenes from flood-hit Gaza with a clear and coordinated message to Israel: We will impose sanctions on everyone responsible for blocking humanitarian aid from getting in.”
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US Taxpayer Coalition Urges ICC to Issue Arrest Warrants for Trump, Rubio Over Gaza Genocide
"Let us be clear: The genocide of the Palestinian people would not have been possible without the unwavering support of the United States."
Nov 11, 2026
A coalition of American taxpayers, including human rights lawyers and activists, formally submitted video footage, firsthand eyewitness accounts, and other evidence to the International Criminal Court on Wednesday, making the case that the tribunal should issue arrest warrants for US President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio for aiding Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza.
The evidence submission was organized by the Taxpayer Alliance Against Genocide (TAAG), which recently secured a preliminary court decision that blocked a Trump executive order sanctioning human rights groups and others who work with the ICC—an institution that the Trump administration is actively working to dismantle.
The 28-page document includes detailed accounts of Trump and Rubio's actions in support of the Israeli government's devastating and ongoing attacks on Gaza and the illegally occupied West Bank.
Trump, the submission states, "personally authorized and facilitated the release of approximately 1,800 previously withheld 2,000-pound MK-84 bombs" to the Israeli military and "rescinded West Bank sanctions on individuals and entities the United States had formally determined were involved in violence and dispossession."
"These acts of material assistance had a substantial effect on Israel’s ability to carry out military operations in Gaza and on the ability of sanctioned actors to continue violence in the West Bank," the document argues.
As for Rubio, "the evidence records State Department and [Defense Security Cooperation Agency] approvals of major arms sales to Israel after February 2025, including Hellfire missiles, munitions, guidance kits, fuses, munitions support, and large quantities of 2,000-pound bomb bodies and penetrator warheads."
"The [ICC] prosecutor should investigate whether Secretary Rubio approved or expedited the same categories of munitions whose prior use had generated known civilian harm and concerns about violations of international humanitarian law," the document states.
Seth Donnelly, a cofounder of TAAG, said at a press conference in The Hague on Wednesday, "We urge the office of the prosecutor to act quickly on this evidence."
"The evidence includes sworn affidavits from doctors who worked in Gaza, firsthand eyewitness accounts, whistleblower testimony, videos, and extensive documentation concerning US political, military, diplomatic, and financial support for Israel," said Donnelly.
Joining the delegation behind the ICC submission were human rights attorney Huwaida Arraf, Palestinian American author Susan Abulhawa, and Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, a trauma surgeon who has served in Gaza.
"American airplanes burning American jet fuel are dropping American bombs, which are guided by American guidance systems on targets that were picked largely by software developed in the United States," said Sidhwa. "I hope these attempts at reestablishing—or maybe establishing—the rule of law in the international system, these attempts to hold the powerful accountable, something that we unfortunately have failed to do in our own society, can be an effective resistance to the fascist forces that are spreading throughout the world now."
Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, applauded the delegation's submission, saying at Wednesday's press conference that "international law remains the last peaceful instrument we possess to confront injustice and pave the way forward."
"The legal tools are there. They are not the only ones, but they are peaceful tools," said Albanese. "What is missing is the political courage to use them. That political courage is [what] the Taxpayer Alliance Against Genocide is showing. And this is why today's gathering matters."
"The United States continues to arm Israel, protect those responsible for its crimes, and enable individuals and companies to profit from their commission," she added. "So let us be clear: The genocide of the Palestinian people would not have been possible without the unwavering support of the United States."
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150,000 Tents Wait Just Outside Gaza as Israel Blocks Shelter Aid For Flood-Ravaged Exclave
"This is not simply the result of bad weather," said a regional director at Save the Children. "This is a choice."
Nov 09, 2026
As severe floods ravage Gaza, Israel is continuing to block the entry of tents, repair materials, and mobile homes despite the aid provisions of the October 2025 “ceasefire” agreement.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported Monday that more than 150,000 tents are ready to be sent to Gaza, where it said more vacuum trucks and mobile dewatering pumps were urgently needed.
At least 70,000 tents were flooded in a single day this weekend. At least one infant reportedly drowned. A mother and her two children, along with three other children from the same family, were killed when a sandbank collapsed onto their tents.
“Over the weekend, while families slept, water flooded their tents and engulfed entire camps,” said Ahmad Alhendawi, Save the Children’s regional director for the Middle East and North Africa. “Children shivered in the bitter cold without winter clothing, and families lost the few belongings they had left. It is heartbreaking, and it was entirely foreseeable.”
“Israel is restricting access to shelter materials and has rendered 65% of Gaza off-limits. People have no safe place to go,” said Wassem Mushtaha, who leads Oxfam’s response in Gaza. The group has performed emergency maintenance on rainwater drainage networks and supplied tools for repairs.
He said that “urgent access is needed for spare parts, engine oil, pipes, and heavy machinery, in addition to shelter materials, to avoid more people being killed this winter.”
Most buildings in the territory were destroyed in Israel's genocidal war over the past three years. Of the Gaza residents who are living in makeshift shelters, according to Save the Children, about 1.2 million people, including over 560,000 children, are living in “critical or catastrophic” conditions, including flimsy tents and improvised structures that are often ill-equipped to handle the elements.
“Tents and tarpaulins are not the answer to Gaza’s winter,” said Jan Egeland, secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council. “They cannot withstand heavy rain and strong winds, and many are already worn out after months of use far beyond their intended lifespan.”
OCHA reported Friday that no emergency shelter kits were available in Gaza because Israeli authorities had rejected timber shipments.
“Palestinians have the right to receive the assistance they need,” Egeland said. “States must press Israeli authorities to uphold their obligations and facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid and essential materials. Palestinians must not face another winter without adequate shelter. They cannot wait.”
The ceasefire agreement called for 60,000 mobile homes and prefabricated shelters to be allowed into Gaza to house displaced families, but Israel has allowed almost none to enter.
“All the tents are now damaged, torn, and covered in mud,” said Jaber al-Kaseeh, a man in his 70s whose family was forced to flee their tent in central Gaza’s az-Zawayda area this weekend after floodwaters began rushing in.
“We urgently need tents, tarpaulins, plastic sheets, mattresses, blankets, and carpets to protect us from the difficult days ahead,” he told Al Jazeera.
“We keep hearing about tents and tarpaulins being distributed, but we have received nothing,” he added. “We had hoped the mobile homes and temporary housing units promised under the ceasefire deal would allow us to rest and return to a life of safety and peace. But it was all just words in the air. We have seen nothing.”
Over the past two winters in Gaza, dozens of people—among them at least 26 children, including newborns—have died from hypothermia due to a lack of adequate shelter.
“This is not simply the result of bad weather,” Alhendawi said. “Tents, shelter kits, and fuel are waiting at Gaza’s borders while children sleep in floodwater because the Israeli authorities are blocking their entry. This is a choice, and children are paying the price.”
“As the occupying power, Israel has a legal obligation to ensure civilians receive the supplies they need to survive,” he added. “Instead, it is depriving families of the most basic means to protect their children, and it must be held accountable for any child deaths that result.”
“Israel’s ongoing genocide has resulted in the near collapse of all functioning systems in Gaza,” Mushtaha said. “Governments must insist that Israel allows for unimpeded access to recovery and repair materials to restore essential infrastructure and ensure Palestinian-led reconstruction efforts across Gaza.”
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'End the Genocide': 200,000 March for Gaza in Amsterdam
"Too bad the US media can't find out about this," said one American critic recognizing that such displays of opposition to Israel's violent campaign of ethnic cleansing and forced displacement are rarely given much coverage.
Nov 08, 2026
An estimated 200,000 or more people—a sea of protesters dressed in red—marched and rallied in Amsterdam on Sunday to denounce Israel's ongoing genocide in Gaza, castigate the Dutch government and others in Europe for not doing enough to end the suffering and bloodshed after more than 3 years of US-back bombing, intentional starvation, and endless displacement in the world's largest open-air prison.
Organizers behind the "Red Line" rally—including The Rights Forum, Amnesty International Netherlands, Oxfam Novib, and others—celebrated the extraordinary turnout as they called for the Dutch government to do more to stop an Israeli government that "continues to kill, displace, and starve people in Gaza and the West Bank."
“What is happening there is inhumane,” said one protester, Mike van Dongen, who spoke to the Associated Press while he marched among the enormous crowd near the city's Museumplein. “As far as I’m concerned, [the Dutch authorities] are doing nothing. They don’t dare take any serious steps.”
As Al Jazeera reports, the protesters "called for tighter trade restrictions on Israel and a halt to all arms sales" to help bring an end to violence in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
Large crowds join Red Line Gaza protest in Amsterdam
Signs in the crowd read "Stop the Killing in Gaza," "End the Genocide," and "Free Palestine" as speakers at the rally demanded much tougher actions and global solidarity with those suffering in Gaza, including tens of thousands of people who lost their temporary tents and shelters over the weekend to rainstorms and flooding.
According to AP:
The campaign in Gaza has strained relations between the Netherlands and Israel. The Dutch foreign minister resigned last year after failing to secure new sanctions against Israel.
Since then, a new minority coalition government has taken power and introduced an import ban on products from Israeli settlements, which the Dutch government and most of the international community consider illegal — a move that provoked a diplomatic spat with Israel.
Agence France-Presse spoke with Steven Eisinger, a 33-year-old robotics engineer born in the United States who marched with a red scarf around his neck.
Eisinger, who is Jewish and has family living in Israel, said he wanted all arms shipments to Israel to end and that he attended the rally, according to AFP, "to voice his backing for Palestinians and his opposition to genocide."
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'Enough. Have Mercy on Us!' Suffering in Gaza Escalates as 70,000 Tents Destroyed by Floods
“We are poor people in Gaza," said one man whose family of our lost their makeshift home to the storm water. "We want to live. We do not want to die from the bombing or the cold."
Nov 07, 2026
The suffering of the people of Gaza went from horrific and beyond comprehension to something worse on Saturday after storm waters overnight destroyed tens of thousands of tents and flooded tens of thousands of people into further desperation, all while the US and Israeli governments continue to maintain a cruel blockade on life-saving supplies despite a fast-approaching winter and a military occupation with no end in sight.
"At least 70,000 tents have been flooded & blown away by the torrential downpour and tempestuous wind in Gaza since last night," reported Palestinian journalist Abubaker Abed, citing statements from health and media officials. "Families are shelterless. Food prices are soaring. Children are starving and shivering with cold. Caravans and mobile homes must enter Gaza now to avert this cataclysm."
Gaza’s Government Media Office on Saturday, holding Israel wholly responsible for the disaster, said initial losses from flooded and destroyed tents were estimated at $3 million and that dozens of walls of homes had collapsed, resulting in injuries, while the threat of broader building collapse remained a serious risk.
In a statement, Palestinian Health Minister Dr. Majed Abu Ramadan said, “What is happening in Gaza is not a passing winter crisis. I urgently call on the international community, the United Nations, and health, humanitarian, and relief organizations to intervene immediately to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of displaced people in the Gaza Strip, following the flooding of thousands of tents with rainwater and the absence of basic safe shelter conditions."
Al-Jazeera reports:
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), about 950,000 displaced people in Gaza are living in areas exposed to flooding. Low-lying locations and sites near the coast are particularly vulnerable, with more than 400,000 people living in areas considered at high risk of flooding.
About 44,000 Palestinians are living in structurally unsafe buildings, while more than 4,000 buildings across the territory are estimated to require full or partial demolition due to damage caused by Israeli air strikes. About 294,250 families need shelter assistance ahead of winter, but the available supplies cover only 18 percent of their needs.
Ramadan further warned of "a catastrophic deterioration in health and environmental conditions, alongside growing risks of the spread of diseases and epidemics" if an emergency response was not rapidly and comprehensively deployed.
Video footage and eyewitness accounts offered a heartbreaking picture of those hit by the floods.
“We woke up and found ourselves surrounded by water," a man named Mansour al-Sakni, 33, told the Middle East Eye. "The children were crying. I did not know what to do, and I started crying too."
“We stood inside the tarpaulin shelter waiting for the rain to stop so we could try to push the water out of the room,” he said. “We are poor people in Gaza. We want to live. We do not want to die from the bombing or the cold. Enough. Have mercy on us.”
According to NBC News:
The territory’s civil defence service said it had received 1,500 distress calls from displaced residents. Three abandoned houses collapsed without causing injuries, it added.
At a tent encampment in Gaza City, some people tried to repair their tents, while others used sand to reinforce them and prevent water from entering. Some were busy getting their children out of flooded tents.
Olfat Magdoub, a Gaza resident, tried in vain to sweep water away from her tent.
“This is the first day of rain, and of course we are already flooded. What will happen if it rains again the next day? This is only the first day and we’re already overwhelmed,” said the woman.
“Two weeks ago when it rained, I swear to God, I spent four days sleeping on blankets spread on the floor because the rainwater had flooded the bedding. Same now, the mattresses are wet so we sleep on the ground.”
While the flooding devastated the people and families trapped by the blockade of life-saving aid and shelter, fresh ire was pointed at the US government for refusing to rebuke the Israeli government for its wanton disregard for human life and suffering.
On the ground in Gaza, the anguish of Palestinians, including children, was on display in videos of the devastation and ongoing catastrophe posted to social media:
🚨 CATASTROPHIC SCENES IN GAZA RIGHT NOW.Heavy rainfall is flooding displaced Palestinians’ tents, leaving families exposed to the harsh winter with no alternative shelter.This is their fourth winter since Israel destroyed their homes and continues to block essential materials from entering Gaza.
— Gaza Notifications (@gazanotice) November 7, 2026
"How long are we supposed to live like this?" declares the young boy featured in the video. "I swear I don't know what to do. Have mercy on us for God's sake! For the sake of God, have mercy on us!"
Rain is worsening the suffering of Gaza’s children as water pours into homes damaged by Israeli bombardment, soaking bedding and clothes. With no shelter repair materials or tarpaulins available, families are left unable to protect their children from the flooding. https://t.co/OzVMGHzssI
— Government Communication Center (@pal_gcc_en) November 7, 2026
Children are particularly impacted by the rainwater and vulnerable to the increasingly dangerous conditions imposed by the floods
The image of a little girl in Gaza standing in the rain captures a stark, painful contrast: the innocence of childhood set against the harsh reality of life in Gaza. 🍉 The winter rain has transformed the scene into a tableau that blends spontaneous, childlike joy with profound human suffering. Our tattered tents—and everything we own—have been completely submerged today. 🥹💔 Please, speak about us; be our voice to the world. Please share, or leave a comment—even just a dot—to help boost this post. Thank you, from Gaza.
— Sondos Gaza 🍉🇵🇸 (@SondosMurtaja) November 7, 2026
"What remains of Gaza’s homes is collapsing under heavy rain, amid the ongoing genocide and deafening silence," said Ramy Abdul, chairman of the human rights group Euro-Med Monitor.
"For the fourth consecutive year," Abdul added, "Gaza remains under a suffocating Israeli siege that prevents even the recovery of victims’ bodies from beneath the rubble."
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'Kafkaesque': London Cops Allow 'I Support Genocide' Sign, Arrest 320 Palestine Action Protesters
"You can't make this up," said one critic, who noted that in the UK, "you can openly cheer for mass murder, but you can't protest against it."
Nov 02, 2026
British police on Saturday arrested 325 people outside the US Embassy in London—almost all of them supporters of the banned peace group Palestine Action—while allowing at least one demonstrator to hold a sign reading "I support genocide."
Metropolitan Police said 320 of the people arrested at the demonstration organized by the group Defend Our Juries were apprehended for showing support for a proscribed group under the Terrorism Act. Many of those taken into custody were holding placards reading, "I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action."
Meanwhile, video posted to social media showed a Met officer allowing a woman to hold a sign with the deliberately provocative message, "I support genocide, I oppose Palestine Action."
It was the largest mass arrest of Palestine Action supporters since Prime Minister Andy Burnham took office following the resignation of former Prime Minister Keir Starmer—both members of the Labour Party.
"The Kafkaesque UK laws adopted under the Starmer [government] to appease Israel are such that you'll get arrested for terrorism if you hold a sign saying, 'I support Palestine Action.' But if you hold a sign saying 'I support genocide, I oppose Palestine Action,' then you'll be fine," said Trita Parsi, the executive vice president of the US-based Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.
The arrested protesters are charged under Section 13 of the Terrorism Act 2000, which carries a punishment of six months' imprisonment for carrying the signs.
Among those arrested Saturday were 94-year-old human rights lawyer Margaret Owen, who was also apprehended outside September's Labour Party conference in Liverpool for holding a sign supporting Palestine Action. According to reporting, Owen is Jewish.
"This is truly dystopian," UK Green Party Leader Zack Polanski said in response to Owen's arrest Saturday. "Not in our name."
"Israel killed eight people, including a child, in Gaza this weekend as they continue their genocide," Polanski noted in a separate social media post on Monday. "After a weekend of arresting pensioners for protesting against this horror, Labour has [put] Israel far above serving our local communities."
More than 250,000 Palestinians have been killed or wounded by Israeli forces since the Hamas-led attack of October 2023. That figure includes over 74,000 Palestinians killed, including upward of 21,500 children.
Undaunted, Owen was reportedly arrested again on Monday along with other members and supporters of the peace group No More Bloody Wars, who blocked an entrance to Royal Air Force-Lakenheath, a military base used by the US Air Force.
Rev. Bill White, 72—who also held a sign at Saturday's protest reading, "I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action"—told The Guardian that he had "hoped for better" from Burnham's government.
“This is the right thing to do," White said of the protest. "There’s a bad law, and it is wrong to criminalize people that are trying to prevent genocide,” he added. “How can I not be here?”
A spokesperson for Defend Our Juries said Saturday that the "overzealous response outside the US Embassy today only serves to further expose how far authorities in the UK will go to appease American interests."
"Israel’s war crimes that have caused death and injury to thousands could not happen without the US’ approval," the spokesperson added.
Saturday's crackdown came as Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori prepared to challenge the ban before the UK Supreme Court starting on Wednesday. The lower High Court found the proscription unlawful in February, finding violations involving the government's own policy and free expression protections. The Court of Appeal overturned that decision in June, prompting Ammori's appeal.
The Palestine Action ban took effect in July 2025 after members of the group damaged warplanes on the Royal Air Force base at Brize Norton.
On Monday, members of another UK direct action group, People Against Genocide, broke into a factory in Tring, Hertfordshire owned by the Texas-based arms manufacturer Ultra Intelligence and Communications—which reportedly supplies UAV Tactical Systems, a subsidiary of Israeli weapons-maker Elbit Systems—and smashed equipment with hammers. Three people were reportedly arrested.
According to Novara Media, Monday's action "was timed to coincide with the 109th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, a statement issued by the British government in 1917 that is widely seen as laying the foundation for the colonization and ethnic cleansing of Palestine."
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UN Rights Office Says Gaza Expulsion 'Nightmare' Worsens as Israel Expands Occupation
“Those displaced before the announcement of a ceasefire have little to no prospect of return to the areas they fled."
Oct 30, 2026
Israel's expanding military occupation of Gaza is accelerating the forced displacement of Palestinians, with the United Nations human rights office warning Friday that an already catastrophic humanitarian situation is further deteriorating as Israeli forces seize more territory and squeeze Gaza's population into an ever-shrinking area.
"Concerns of ethnic cleansing in Gaza endure as Israeli forces continue to push Palestinians into an ever-smaller fraction of the territory, causing recurrent displacement while destroying the remaining civilian infrastructure and attacking displacement sites," the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said in a new report.
The publication details the displacement crisis as a worsening "nightmare," documenting how Israel's expanding control, military operations, and restrictions on Palestinian movement are undermining any prospect of a return home for hundreds of thousands of people uprooted during the genocidal assault on the territory, now in its fourth year.
"Palestinians in Gaza are surrounded by Israeli forces from all sides that continue to push them inwards with the stated aim of increasing the Israeli military deployment area to 70% of Gaza’s territory," the report continues.
"The relentless contraction of space available to civilians comes with new displacement drivers in areas adjacent to Israeli forces’ deployment lines, commonly known as the 'yellow line,'" OHCHR added.
According to OHCHR:
Over the past two weeks, the UN Human Rights Office... has documented the westward expansion of Israeli military deployment areas triggering new displacement of Palestinians in Al-Shujaiyeh, Gaza City, and in eastern Al-Bureij, eastern Deir-al-Balah, and eastern Al-Maghazi, Middle Gaza. In Al-Shujaiyeh, Israeli forces’ westward push came with at least two Israeli attacks reported on displacement encampments, and detonations of the few buildings left standing in the area, with the reported use of explosive robots.
According to reports... an Israeli drone dropped munitions on tents sheltering displaced families at Al-Shujaiyeh junction near the so-called yellow line on October 25, setting tents on fire... The Palestinian Ministry of Public Works and Housing in Gaza said the fire displaced 200 families comprising 800 people, most of them women, children, and elderly persons.
All told, nearly 2 million Palestinians have been forcibly displaced during Israel's genocidal retaliation for the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023—most of them multiple times.
“The nightmare of displacement in Gaza is both acute and chronic,” Ajith Sunghay, who heads OHCHR's Palestine division. “Those displaced before the announcement of a ceasefire have little to no prospect of return to the areas they fled, most of which are inaccessible because they fall beyond the so-called yellow line. And they continue to be displaced again and again.”
That's apparently Israel's plan. Israeli authorities have stated that they intend to expand their military deployment to encompass 70% of Gaza's territory. To keep Gazans from returning home, Israeli forces have apparently been treating the area beyond the yellow line as a "kill zone," shooting any man, woman, or child who crosses the invisible boundary.
A United Nations-mandated commission of inquiry on Monday issued a report accusing Israel of crimes against humanity in the occupied Palestinian territories—including extermination, rape, and torture—while also affirming that Israel’s genocide continues in Gaza, despite the nominal yearlong ceasefire.
“There must be an end to this suffering," Sunghay stressed Friday. "This is the fourth year of displacement for most Palestinians in Gaza, the fourth winter in tents too flimsy to withstand the rain, and they are still under fire through it all. Let this be the last.”
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Beyond Netanyahu: What Israel’s Election Means for Palestinians
We won't be fooled by those who posture as less extreme than the Netanyahu government, but still aim to crush the right of Palestinian freedom.
Oct 30, 2026
In the past, many Palestinians and Arabs followed Israeli elections closely.
They did so not because they entertained illusions that a Zionist leader would deliver peace and justice, dismantle the occupation or remove illegal settlements. Rather, they feared that some Israeli leaders were worse than others. They hoped to avert the worst-case scenario.
Over time, however, that distinction gave way to the belief that all Israeli leaders were essentially the same. This is not pessimism. It is experience.
Consider, for example, the expansion of illegal Jewish settlements during the Oslo peace process under Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
Between 1992 and 1995, the number of Israeli settlers in the West Bank, excluding East Jerusalem, increased from 111,673 to 140,235 - a rise of more than 25 percent, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, drawing on Israeli statistical records.
The same pattern continued under the Labor government of Ehud Barak.
Within his first six months, Barak’s government issued tenders for 3,196 settlement housing units, exceeding the annual average under his right-wing predecessor, Benjamin Netanyahu.
When Naftali Bennett formed a coalition government in June 2021 that included the Arab party Ra’am, settlement expansion continued unabated.
According to Peace Now, the Bennett–Lapid government advanced plans for 7,292 settlement housing units during its first year, a 26-percent increase over the annual average recorded under previous Netanyahu governments.
The settlements are themselves a driving force behind the occupation. They require land, and therefore land confiscation; protection, and therefore an expanded military presence; water, roads and infrastructure, and therefore the appropriation of Palestinian resources. Together, these elements deepen dispossession and generate further Israeli violence.
According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the West Bank contained 645 Israeli settlement sites, outposts and other occupation installations by the end of 2025, including 350 settlement outposts.
The Palestinian Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission reported that Israeli authorities targeted approximately 29,335 dunums of Palestinian land through declarations of so-called “state land” between October 2023 and August 2026—one of the largest waves of such land appropriation since Oslo.
By September 2026, the Commission had also documented the advancement or consideration of plans for more than 18,000 additional settlement housing units across the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem.
Alongside this expansion is the violence unfolding across the West Bank.
By the end of 2023, the West Bank had experienced its deadliest year for Palestinians since the UN began systematically recording casualties in 2005.
The Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission documented 23,827 attacks by Israeli forces and settlers against Palestinians and their property during 2025 alone. In the first seven months of 2026, settler attacks increased by 63 percent compared with the corresponding period of the previous year.
Typically, this violence, carried out by the Israeli occupation army and armed illegal settlers, is contextualized within the ongoing genocide in Gaza. But violence in the West Bank also serves another purpose beyond collective punishment: the confiscation of Palestinian orchards, the annexation of land, the expansion of settlements and the crushing of Palestinian resistance, including nonviolent opposition to this colonial enterprise.
Any Israeli candidate in the October 27 elections who supports settlement expansion does so with full knowledge of its consequences: further dispossession, military occupation, annexation and violence.
The difference between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, and politicians presented as less extreme, is often one of language, strategy and timing.
Former Israeli military chief and Yashar party leader Gadi Eisenkot, for example, openly supports the expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, despite his reputation as a more ‘moderate’ alternative to Netanyahu.
What, then, about Gaza?
Who among Israel’s leading political figures is promising to end the genocide, lift the siege, ensure unrestricted humanitarian aid, restrain the army or investigate violations of international law? None.
Israeli media have spent the past three years reporting on major disagreements between the government, military establishment, intelligence agencies and political opposition over what should happen in Gaza.
Yet, Eisenkot has pledged to end Hamas’ rule in Gaza within 18 months of taking office, whether through the Trump framework or through continued war.
For his part, opposition leader and former Prime Minister Yair Lapid has proposed placing Gaza under Egyptian administration for 15 years, effectively shifting responsibility for Israel’s actions onto Arab states.
Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, meanwhile, supports continued Israeli military control until Palestinian groups are disarmed.
The disagreement, therefore, is often over how Israel should achieve its objectives, rather than whether those objectives should change.
Other major disagreements primarily concern Israeli society: the conscription of ultra-Orthodox Jews, judicial reform, accountability for the failures of October 7.
But these disputes should not be confused with the questions that matter most to Palestinians.
If Netanyahu succeeds in forming another right-wing coalition, the policies of occupation, settlement expansion and military confrontation will continue, potentially with renewed momentum.
If Israel produces a broader coalition, its members may reach compromises over judicial reform, conscription and other domestic disputes. The occupation, however, is unlikely to become the central point of disagreement.
More troubling still, even a government leaning toward the center-left might succeed in presenting Israel to the international community as a country ready to move beyond the image it acquired during three years of genocide, without fundamentally changing its conduct on the ground.
The international community must therefore remain vigilant. It cannot allow a future Israeli government to present itself as a peacemaker, or sell the illusion of a newly reformed Israel, while continuing to invest in settlements, occupation, war and genocide.
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'Who Will Bomb Me Next?': As Israel Awaits Election Results, Palestinians Brace for the Worst—No Matter Who Wins
"Israeli policy will stay the same," said one woman in a Gaza refugee camp. "It's the policy that the Israeli state was founded on."
Oct 29, 2026
As Israelis await the results of this week's elections with a sense of uncertainty, Palestinians are certain of one thing—that their suffering will continue regardless of who emerges victorious.
"We don't care about their elections in any way. Gaza is in the same state. Their elections change nothing here," one elderly Palestinian woman told The Specter on Wednesday from a refugee camp in the obliterated strip, where three years of US-backed Israeli genocide have left 250,000 people dead or wounded, nearly 2 million inhabitants displaced, and the territory in ruins.
A younger woman in the camp told the outlet that "things in Gaza won't change, and they will get worse" if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is reelected.
"The first thing he'll do is pick up where he left off, displacing Palestinians from the occupied West Bank... and from the Gaza Strip," she continued.
If former lawmaker and ex-Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot wins, "things may unfold a little differently," she predicted, but Israeli policy will stay the same. It's the policy the Israeli state was founded on."
Like Netanyahu, Eisenkot emphatically rejects Palestinian statehood, calling the two-state solution “a mistake" and "delusional," given the October 2023 attack led by the militant resistance group Hamas—whose animus was fueled by over a century of Zionist usurpation.
With around 90% of ballots counted as of Thursday, Israeli media projected that Netanyahu’s right-wing and ultra-Orthodox allies would capture 53 seats in the 120-member Knesset, compared with 48 for the opposition led by Eisenkot.
The Knesset has 120 seats, so 61 are needed for a parliamentary majority. The candidates' shortfall means either side would likely need support from Arab parties to emerge victorious—a prospect rejected by many Jewish political leaders.
Netanyahu would remain caretaker prime minister throughout any negotiations to form a new coalition.
Palestinian American fashion designer Alana Hadid—the half-sister of models Gigi and Bella Hadid—said in a video posted to social media that "it's important for people to understand that the intention of an election in Israel to make you think that there will be change. And of course, there will be some change in that there will be a different brand of Zionism."
"Zionism is universal across Israelis," she added, "so whoever wins this election, the change will be in name only."
Haaretz, Israel's oldest daily newspaper, on Thursday published an article in which Gazans mostly shrugged off the Israeli elections.
"Honestly, I don't feel anything about the results. As someone from Gaza, I'm just waiting to see who will bomb me next—the right or the left," a young man named Mahmoud said. "In the end, the bad will go, and the worse will come. They're two sides of the same coin, and both support your killing as a Gazan."
"I think people in Gaza will be happy to see Netanyahu fall, not because of Eisenkot, of course, but because they experienced Netanyahu and saw what he did," he added. "They hope Eisenkot will deal with Gaza differently, or that there will be some relief. But, as I said, even though the two are against each other, both want you killed."
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