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genocide
Israeli Documentary ‘NAZA’ Exposes 'System of Killing' in Gaza From Eyes of Secret Intelligence Unit
The directors of the film—which premiered at the Venice Film Festival—said they "felt the responsibility" to expose insider testimony about Israel's systematic mass killing of Palestinians.
Sep 10, 2026
A documentary film that premiered Thursday at the Venice Film Festival offers a rare inside account of Israel’s US-backed genocide in Gaza, with former members of a secret Israeli intelligence unit describing how they helped transform the mass killing of Palestinian civilians into a routine, bureaucratized affair.
NAZA, directed by Israeli filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, is based on interviews with 24 Israeli military and intelligence insiders, several of whom served in a secret unit that reported directly to the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"We really are looking at... a system of killing, which is mass killing [and] relies on mass surveillance," Abraham told reporters in Venice on Thursday. "We felt the responsibility as Israelis to use our position... to bring insider testimony into how the system looks like from the inside... And this is the film that we made."
Szor said that "a lot of these things are also, it's important to say... known because they've been documented by journalists, Palestinian journalists, in Gaza. It's footage that has been out there."
"But I think that we felt that there is still some sort of an importance to take those testimonies and put it in a film in a way that, of course, first of all, it's different to hear," she added. "The people who designed and operated those systems talk about it in front of a camera."
According to the film, one former member bluntly said that the unit's mission was to “thwart peace.”
However, Abraham and Szor said their purpose was not to expose a handful of rogue soldiers, but to examine the machinery and policies behind the violence.
The documentary’s title refers to an Israeli military acronym used to quantify the civilians expected to be killed in an attack—a chilling bureaucratic shorthand for people often referred to as collateral damage, or, in the so-called "War on Terror" still being waged by the United States 25 years after the September 11, 2001 attacks, "bugsplat."
The film’s sources describe artificial intelligence-assisted targeting, mass surveillance, and the hacking of mobile phones to identify alleged Hamas operatives, sometimes despite the known presence of family members and other civilians.
Israeli forces have operated under loosened rules of engagement that effectively permit the killing of an unlimited number of civilians when targeting even a single low-ranking Hamas member. The Israel Defense Forces utilizes cutting-edge AI technology to select targets at a far faster rate than humans alone could, and destroys them with weapons including 1,000- and 2,000-pound bombs—many supplied by the US.
The result has been the killing and wounding of more than 250,000 Palestinians since the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023. Most of the victims have been civilians, including more than 21,500 children killed and tens of thousands more disabled or wounded.
Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are wanted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza, including murder and forced starvation. Israel is facing an ongoing genocide case filed by South Africa at the International Court of Justice—also in The Hague—and formally supported by nearly 20 nations.
Abraham and Szor are best known internationally for co-directing with two others the film No Other Land, which chronicled ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the illegally occupied West Bank by Israeli settlers and soldiers. The film won the 2025 Academy Award for best documentary feature. No Other Land co-director, co-writer, and producer Hamdan Ballal, who is Palestinian, was brutally attacked by Israeli settlers and violently detained by IDF troops in March 2025, as Common Dreams reported at the time.
NAZA—which reportedly received a 25-minute standing ovation at its Venice premiere—is the sole documentary among the films competing for the festival's famed Golden Lion. It joins a growing body of recent films about the Gaza genocide.
American Doctor, directed by Poh Si Teng, follows US physicians working inside Gaza hospitals amid Israel's deliberate destruction of the strip's medical and healthcare systems.
Last year's The Voice of Hind Rajab offered a harrowing mix of acted scenes and the actual 70-minute audio recording of a 5-year-old Palestinian girl's desperate final phone call to Palestine Red Crescent Society personnel amid an Israeli massacre of her family as they were trapped in a car under tank fire.
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Corbyn Urges UK Government to Condemn Gaza Genocide After Israeli Settlement Trade Ban
"This is not merely a matter of semantics. This is a matter of international law."
Sep 08, 2026
Amid Israeli settlers and soldiers' unprecedented violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, Member of Parliament Jeremy Corbyn was among those arguing on Tuesday that the United Kingdom's new "sanctions on illegal settlements are welcome, but not enough," and calling on Prime Minister Andy Burnham to condemn Israel's war on the Gaza Strip as genocide.
On behalf of the UK's ruling Labour Party, Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband announced a ban on trade with illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank. He was joined by leaders from Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden, who confirmed "their intention to introduce national and/or support European restrictions" on trading with Israeli West Bank settlements.
Corbyn, a former Labour leader from Islington North who has since co-founded Your Party, declared that "Britain must end all arms sales, all military cooperation, and all forms of support that sustain Israel’s system of apartheid, occupation, and genocide."
In addition to speaking in Parliament on Tuesday, Corbyn wrote to Burnham that "for three years, we have witnessed the abominable destruction of human life in Gaza," where "Israel has killed at least 73,000 people, excluding an untold number of people lost under the rubble."
While welcoming Burnham's recent admission that Labour "got it wrong" and its "initial response to the treatment of Gaza caused huge hurt," Corbyn said that "it is extremely disappointing that these words have not translated into meaningful action."
"It has not gone unnoticed that, 50 days into your premiership, you have declined to call 'the treatment of Gaza' what it really is: a genocide," the MP stressed, noting that the term has long been used by scholars and human rights advocates globally. "This is not merely a matter of semantics. This is a matter of international law."
"Far from preventing genocide, the British government has facilitated genocide through ongoing military, economic, and political cooperation," Corbyn charged, pointing to his call for an independent public inquiry into the UK's complicity. "The question is not whether Labour got it wrong. The question is what your government will do now."
Corbyn asked Burnham to confirm if he will establish an inquiry, end all military cooperation with Israel, impose widespread sanctions, overturn the ban on the advocacy group Palestine Action, and support the work of the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice—the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister, and the ICJ has taken up South Africa's genocide case on the Israel Defense Forces' (IDF) conduct in Gaza.
As Corbyn pushed UK leaders to go further than the new trade ban—which is largely symbolic—the Israeli government responded to the sanctions by taking aim at a dozen people, including Corbyn and his Your Party co-founder, MP Zarah Sultana, barring them from entering Israel.
Israel also banned four Labour MPs—Diane Abbot, Richard Burgon, John McDonnell, and Naz Shah, as well as five members of the Green Party: Siân Berry, Ellie Chowns, Carla Denyer, Adrian Ramsay, and Hannah Spencer. The final person barred from Israel is Fahad Ansari, a lawyer who has represented Hamas' political wing in court in the UK, according to The Times of Israel.
Ansari replied on social media Tuesday that "I am neither British nor an MP but do take this as a badge of honor (although pretty sure I'm already a persona non grata in the apartheid state)."
Meanwhile, others in the United Kingdom and around the world joined Corbyn in framing the Labour government's sanctions as progress, while also emphasizing that, as the Corbyn-founded Peace & Justice Project put it, "they should only mark the start of the process in bringing about real peace and social justice for the Palestinian people, who have been subjected to decades of unimaginable subjugation, ethnic cleansing, and genocide."
"The UK government must commit to a full arms embargo on Israel, ending all forms of military cooperation with the IDF, and supporting the ICC arrest warrants against Benjamin Netanyahu and members of his Cabinet," the project declared, calling for the full implementation of recommendations from the Gaza Tribunal report from last year.
Describing the UK's "concrete action" and recognition of "Israel's unlawful occupation and ethnic cleansing" as "hugely welcome," Kerry Moscogiuri, Amnesty International UK's chief executive, noted that Miliband "promised a 'comprehensive reset' and today could be the sea change that is needed."
“Amid ethnic cleansing, genocide, and apartheid against Palestinians, today's measures are a genuine step towards accountability for Israel's repeated and flagrant violations of international law," she said. "The commitment to ban trade in settlement goods and some services, prohibit financing of settlements, refuse arms that contribute to the occupation, and support the genocide case before the International Court of Justice represents a significant change of course."
"For years, Amnesty has worked with members, partners and parliamentarians from across the political spectrum to press for meaningful change, and today shows that campaigning for human rights works," she added. "But today is not the end of the road. The test now is whether these commitments are properly implemented and enforced, and followed by the wider action needed to hold Israel accountable for its crimes and meet the UK's obligations under international law."
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'Appalling and Fundamentally Dishonest': Ruffalo Rejects Antisemitism Charges by Paramount Amid Merger Warning
"Now is the time to dive boldly into all these issues," said the Avengers actor and social justice activist, "not step back or concede."
Aug 23, 2026
Mark Ruffalo, the actor known worldwide for both his role as the Incredible Hulk in the Avengers movie franchise as well as his work as a dedicated humanitarian and voice for social justice, did not back down Saturday after his criticism of the pending merger between Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. was cast as antisemitic by executives at Paramount, largely owned by billionaire Larry Ellison and run by his son, David.
While Ruffalo has been outspoken in his opposition to the Paramount-Warner Bros. deal for months—warning like many other critics that further consolidation by such media behemoths will hurt consumers, squeeze workers in the entertainment industry, minimize the range of viewpoints and creativity available, and further entrench right-wing control of the nation's media system—what apparently sparked the accusation against him was the recent sharing of a years-old video clip of Paramount board member Safra Catz discussing “really profoundly scary technologies” that Oracle, which offers software and database services and the company upon which Larry Ellison built his vast wealth, provided to the Israeli military over recent years.
While the Instagram post Ruffalo shared has expired, the clip of Catz has been circulating on time for quite some time, seen as evidence of the close and well-documented ties that Oracle has had with the Israeli military:
“We have some really profoundly scary technology at Oracle, and we wanted to make sure that it was available for the effort.”
A recently resurfaced video of former Oracle CEO Safra Catz has sparked outrage after she boasted about providing advanced technology to the Israeli army pic.twitter.com/r3gJWx9sTu
— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) August 15, 2026
In Ruffalo's post, in which he reportedly warned that the Ellisons were “powering some of the most destructive and inhuman forces in the world," he also made reference to the genocide in Gaza being carried out by the Israeli military as well as the apartheid under which Palestinians live in the Occupied West Bank.
"This merger has real consequences for real people, and for the entire country. Scrutinizing the Ellisons, including Oracle’s business built on data, surveillance technology and government contracts, and the serious threat to editorial freedom and the loss of a livelihood for thousands of families, is fair and necessary."
Noting Catz's comments in the video about Oracle, Ruffalo said, "This is the company that Larry Ellison is using to fund his son David’s Warner Bros acquisition." And the "really profoundly scary technologies" that Catz mentioned, he continued, "will most likely be merged into one of the largest media conglomerates in the world and one day used on you. Look how she revels in what we now have come to see as a genocide, which was built on an apartheid system of oppression powered by Oracle.”
In apparent reaction to Ruffalo's post, which Variety characterized as the actor going "scorched earth on Paramount-Warner Bros. merger," a spokesperson for Paramount issued a statement on Saturday saying that the company is "troubled when antisemitic tropes are invoked in purported service of a business dispute. Words like ‘genocide’ and ‘apartheid,’ applied to a corporate transaction, aren’t just wrong—they’re a bridge too far, and they cheapen the very real suffering those words are meant to describe. This doesn’t deserve a response in kind—and to be clear, we don’t tolerate prejudice of any kind, against anyone.”
But in response to these accusations of antisemitism on Saturday, Ruffalo issued a new post on social media. It reads in full:
The accusation that I am antisemitic is appalling and fundamentally dishonest. Criticizing the actions of the Israeli prime minister, a military technology contract or the executives who supply it is not the same as criticizing Jewish people. This critical and necessary dialogue is then dishonestly framed as being anti-Israel. To be clear, my views come from my own political convictions and should never be interpreted as hostility toward Jewish people, for whom I have deep love and respect. Everything I know about acting, activism and humanism has been profoundly shaped by the Jewish friends, colleagues and loved ones who have been integral and family throughout every point of my life.
This merger has real consequences for real people, and for the entire country. Scrutinizing the Ellisons, including Oracle’s business built on data, surveillance technology and government contracts, and the serious threat to editorial freedom and the loss of a livelihood for thousands of families, is fair and necessary. The $111 billion deal would hand one family control over CNN, HBO and Warner Bros., backed in part by foreign money whose influence on editorial decisions has never been fully explained to the public.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have called for serious national security review, and regulators still haven’t given the public a real answer. Until they do, the merger shouldn’t move forward. Now is the time to dive boldly into all these issues, not step back or concede.
Commentators on social media also came to Ruffalo's defense, calling Paramount's accusations nothing more than a smear against well-founded criticisms of Oracle's business model, the crimes of the Israeli government, and warnings about what powerful, right-wing billionaires like the Ellisons could do with what could become one of the largest media corporations on the planet.
"Despicable to call Ruffalo antisemitic," said John Abrams, an entertainment editor. "Hi, I’m Jewish. I will be the one to tell you when something is antisemitic, you dishonest clowns. It is not antisemitic to decry Israel’s crimes. In fact, it is our moral obligation—as Jews, and as human beings."
Journalist Mehdi Hassan called the accusations "truly cynical, shameless, and dangerous."
"The Israel crybully lobby will try, as they always do," wrote author and media critic Adam Johnson, "to make an example out of Ruffalo because he had the temerity and integrity to note the Ellisons’ open advocacy and financial support for a military every major human rights group on earth had determined committed genocide."
"My unsolicited advice," Johnson continued. "Don’t give these cynical assholes an inch. Don’t accept their 'antisemitism' shrieking as good faith."
Noting that "Ellison put out a press release EXPLICITLY BOASTING about how his Paramount purchase would be good for Israel and his financial support for the IDF," Johnson argued that somebody "cannot do this THEN CRY ANTISEMITISM when they are held responsible for the actions of the state and military they support."
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'Palestine Is Being Erased Before Our Eyes': 100 Former French, British Diplomats Say End Weapons Sales, Trade With Israel
The abuses by the Israeli government and military are "a stain on the conscience of humanity, requiring the UK and France to act."
Aug 23, 2026
While critics of the French and British governments say they are doing too little to confront the crimes and human rights violations of Israel against the Palestinian people, about 100 former diplomats of the two nations penned an open letter published over the weekend agreeing that much stronger actions must be taken to end the atrocities taking place in both the Gaza Strip and the Occupied West Bank.
Published in Le Monde on Saturday, the joint op-ed by the former UK and French ambassadors and foreign diplomats argues that because their two nations "played a decisive role in the shaping of the Middle East," it is incumbent upon them to "make common cause over the region's fundamental faultline: equal rights for Israelis and Palestinians"—a dynamic grossly lacking as Palestinians are starved and bombed in Gaza, with their rights endlessly under assault in the West Bank.
According to the letter:
In Gaza, two million Palestinians are kettled into 30% of their devastated land, hungry, lacking medicine and housing. Over 1,200 Palestinians have been killed since the so-called "ceasefire" of October 2025. In East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank, Palestinian house demolitions and rampant settler violence—with the connivance of the Israeli army and police—amount to ethnic cleansing. Palestine is being erased before our eyes.
This policy of occupation and destruction extends to Lebanon—where many villages have been razed—and Syria. It is a stain on the conscience of humanity, requiring the UK and France to act.
While human rights groups have steadfastly demanded accountability for Israel—including tougher sanctions, suspension of trade agreements, a halt to weapons transfers, and enforcement of rulings by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and proceedings at the International Criminal Court—for its ongoing criminal behavior against the Palestinians, European governments, the United States, and other Western allies have resisted such calls.
While noting that much can be done to help Palestine become "a fully functioning democratic nation," the letter from the former diplomats makes a call for seven specific actions designed to end Israeli impunity and bring the government back into compliance with international law. The policy recommendations directed at the UK and French governments are:
- Uphold the decisions of the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court;
- Suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement and the UK-Israel Trade and Partnership Agreement for breach of human rights provisions;
- Suspend arms transfers to and from Israel and all bilateral military cooperation;
- Insist on unrestricted aid access to Gaza, led by UNRWA, other UN agencies and international NGOs, with consequences for non-compliance; access too for journalists, diplomats and parliamentarians;
- Ban all trade with settlements, including goods, investment, insurance and other financial services;
- Warn potential bidders for the red-line "E1" area [east of Jerusalem, in the occupied territories] or other settlement financing/construction that their interests in and with our countries will suffer;
- Make it an offense for our citizens to buy property on stolen Palestinian land and remove charitable status from "charities" funding settlements.
Nicholas Hopton, a former UK ambassador to Iran, Qatar and Yemen and one of the letter's signatories, said the language they used was not invented by the diplomats themselves.
“The words are not our own,” Hopton explained to Al Jazeera. “They are taken from the international legal bodies, the UN, those who have been observing from a neutral position and with expertise.”
What's key to understand, said Peter Millett, a former British ambassador to Libya who also signed the letter, is that what the signatories are asking for "is action, not words."
Foreign ministers of the France and Britia "over the last few months and years have issued statements of criticism, of condemnation and so forth," Millett told Al-Jazeera, "but as the letter makes clear, this is the time now where we need to see action on trade, action on settlements, more support for aid to go into Gaza, and the ending of the arms trade.”
At the heart of the letter is the idea that world leaders, whether in Europe or elsewhere, must now act aggressively to bring the suffering of the Palestinians to an end and bring Israel's violations and abuses to a halt.
"These proposals reflect our shared values—international law and equal rights—which are in our interest," the letter concludes. "Where there is no law, none of us is safe."
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Van Jones Ripped for 'Absolutely Sickening' Remarks About Gaza Baby Starved by Israel
"The baby had a genetic issue AND was being starved by Israel AND the starvation exacerbated the condition," said journalist Ryan Grim.
Aug 20, 2026
In remarks condemned as "absolutely disgusting atrocity propaganda," US political analyst Van Jones used an image posted by Israeli actor and activist Noa Tishby in a bid to deny that Israel's annihilation and siege of Gaza—which fueled a famine officially declared by the world's top hunger authority—caused many Palestinian children to starve to death.
A video posted by Tishby on Instagram features Jones—who served as then-President Barack Obama's special adviser for green jobs—saying that "we now have this world where, when you see something on social media, you have to ask yourself the question, is this real?"
"The people who want to divide, who want to distract, who want to turn people against each other, have super weapons to do so now," he continued. "Somebody looks at their phone, they assume that what they're seeing is real. I think that's why we have to take a lot more seriously this information war."
"For instance... the picture that broke everybody's heart of the so-called starving baby turned out to not be a starving child," Jones said against a backdrop of a July 2025 New York Times article on the Gaza famine showing a woman cradling an emaciated child, while Tishby nodded approvingly.
"That child had a genetic issue. It was not being starved by Israel," Jones continued. "So when you have the mainstream media that is falling for propaganda or promoting propaganda and won't apologize, and then you have this fringe media that's massively bigger, it requires a different approach to the information war."
Yes, the child—18-month-old Mohammed Zakaria al-Mutawaq—"had pre-existing health problems affecting his brain and his muscle development." This is known because the authors of the Times article used that exact language while issuing a correction acknowledging their initial omission of the information.
As investigative journalist Ryan Grim noted on Thursday, "the baby had a genetic issue AND was being starved by Israel AND the starvation exacerbated the condition."
Starvation in Gaza is a fact acknowledged even by US President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee.
Trump, Vance, and Huckabee are not famine experts. But the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC)—the UN-aided top global authority on hunger crises—officially declared a Phase 5 famine in Gaza, the most serious category of starvation, in August 2025.
The IPC lifted Gaza’s famine designation in December 2025, citing improved—but still highly restricted—access to humanitarian aid in the exclave following a nominal ceasefire agreement reached two months earlier. However, the IPC recently published an analysis showing that from mid-April to the end of June, more than 1.2 million people, or 59% of Gaza’s population, were experiencing Phase 3 (crisis) or worse levels of food insecurity. This included about 212,000 people in Phase 4 (emergency).
United Nations officials and other hunger experts started sounding the alarm on looming starvation in Gaza in the weeks after Israel began annihilating the strip in retaliation for the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023. Since then, at least 461 people in Gaza have died from malnutrition-related causes, including 157 children, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Numerous people who deny that Israeli forces have killed or wounded a quarter million Palestinians in Gaza or that Israel is committing genocide there—a conclusion reached by numerous UN officials, scholars, jurists, rights groups, and the approximately 20 nations that formally joined South Africa’s pending genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice—are the same ones who have denied not only the Gaza famine, but that anyone was ever starving there.
Many Israeli and diaspora Jewish scholars, human rights defenders, and others—including some of the world's foremost Holocaust experts—say Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
Tishby—a former Israeli special envoy for combating antisemitism and delegitimization of Israel—has described Palestinian solidarity activism as a “psychosis of a moral higher ground,” characterized some organizations as fundamentally interested in taking down Israel, and argued that pro-Palestinian organizations should be banned.
She and Jones have both denied the genocide and famine in Gaza, even in the face of International Criminal Court arrest warrants targeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes, including murder and forced starvation.
Last year, while the Gaza famine was still occurring, Jones apologized for aspersing "dead Gaza baby" images as a "disinformation campaign," calling his remarks "insensitive and hurtful."
“The suffering of the people of Gaza—especially the children—is not a punch line," he said. "I’m deeply sorry it came across that way. What’s happening to children in Gaza is heartbreaking."
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'Bloodthirsty Psychopath' Ben-Gvir Touts Viewing Booths at Gallows for Palestinians
The vice president of the European Parliament condemned what she described as "a horrific spectacle that turns the death penalty into a show."
Aug 20, 2026
Still drawing international censure for his genocidal call to kill dozens of Gazans daily, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir faced fresh condemnation Thursday after visiting the construction site of a gallows where Palestinians convicted of killing Israelis are set to be hanged to death, with select Israelis gathering as spectators.
Ben-Gvir, leader of the far-right Jewish Power party, posted a video to social media in which he gloats about the construction of gallows, which is being built in an undisclosed location in central Israel.
“I promised to worsen the conditions of terrorists in prisons—we kept it,” Ben-Gvir says in the video. “I promised to pass the Death Penalty for Terrorists law—we did. And now the death row and hanging facility are also starting to take shape.”
The law to which Ben-Gvir referred was passed in March by the Knesset—Israel's parliament—and took effect the following month. The legislation changes the rules governing Israeli military courts in the illegally occupied West Bank so that the death penalty effectively applies only to Palestinians who kill Israelis.
Far-right Knesset members, including Ben-Gvir, wore noose-shaped lapel pins to show their support for the legislation. Ben-Gvir also handed out sweets to Knesset colleagues after the bill passed its first reading.
Ben-Gvir said the execution site would include viewing booths where victims’ families could watch executions, describing this as something customary in various countries and specifically citing the United States as an example.
"Terrorists deserve only one thing—death by hanging," said Ben-Gvir, who in 2007 was convicted by an Israeli court of inciting racism and supporting a terrorist organization, whose leader he has openly honored.
Abdullah al-Zaghari, head of the Palestinian Prisoner Society, urged “effective international action” in response to Ben-Gvir's comments. Al-Zaghari told Anadolu that the minister's visit to the gallows site was part of the “continued determination of the Israeli occupation system” to codify incitement against Palestinians.
Leftist Israeli Knesset lawmaker Ofer Cassif excoriated Ben-Gvir's actions.
"This criminal thug—a sympathizer of murderers of Palestinians, a supporter of terror, and a pathological racist—is also hopelessly infantile," Cassif told The New Arab on Wednesday. "Soon we will oust him from the government, and next, throw him behind bars."
European Parliament Vice President Pina Picierno accused Ben-Gvir of staging "a horrific spectacle that turns the death penalty into a show."
The liberal US pro-Israel group J Street asked on X, "Are we supposed to believe, as some in the Jewish establishment would like us to, that Ben-Gvir’s words somehow tell us nothing about the country he helps govern?"
"He is Israel’s national security minister, and he is now celebrating a facility built to execute Palestinians while Jewish extremists are excluded from the law," the group added. "As the old saying goes: When someone tells you who they are, believe them. When a government gives someone this much power, we have to reckon honestly with the agenda they are pushing."
Ben-Gvir—who is under sanctions and banned from countries including Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Norway, and the United Kingdom for inciting violence against Palestinians in the West Bank—was still being denounced on Wednesday for advocating the daily mass killing of Palestinians, including civilians, in Gaza amid a nearly three-year war that United Nations experts, human rights groups, a South Africa-led case currently before the International Court of Justice, and many others call a genocide.
Stéphane Dujarric, spokesperson for United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, said Wednesday—which was World Humanitarian Day—that Ben-Gvir's "remarks are appalling, they're outrageous, they're dehumanizing, they're dangerous, and we condemn them unequivocally."
A spokesperson for German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Wednesday in Berlin that Merz "strongly condemns Minister Ben-Gvir's inhumane statements, which violate international law—they are unacceptable."
"As the occupying power, Israel must treat Palestinians with dignity, protect their property, and ensure public administration and humanitarian aid," the spokesperson added.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot called Ben-Gvir's remarks "unbearable and inhumane," adding that "further sanctions could be imposed, and all options are on the table."
In the United States, actor and activist Mark Ruffalo said Thursday on Bluesky that "Ben-Gvir is a bloodthirsty psychopath, war criminal, and one of Israel’s beloved genocidal leaders."
"America and the world should be sanctioning, divesting, and boycotting Israel in every way until this apartheid regime falls," he added.
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Israel-Funded Hanover Institute Seemingly Has One Goal: Propagandize to the AI Chat Bots
The fake think tank has churned out over 100 reports since it started publishing on August 6. So what are they really up to?
Aug 17, 2026
At a glance, the Hanover Institute for Public Policy looks like a new think tank dedicated to Israel/Palestine. The organization churns out think-tank style reports on questions such as “Does AIPAC Use ‘Dark Money in Elections?” and “Is Israel Carrying out a Deliberate Campaign of Starvation in Gaza?”
But the Hanover Institute is not a real think tank. None of the reports have bylines. A small disclaimer at the bottom of the webpage notes that the organization was created on behalf of the Israeli Government Advertising Agency by Piro, Inc, a firm co-founded by Daniel Rosenberg, the producer of Spike Lee’s “Inside Man.”
The Hanover Institute’s reports — all of which are about Israel and Palestine — appear to be part of an Israeli effort to influence chatbots. The institute’s “data reports” have footnotes and tables of contents, and they present arguments in a neutral tone, helping them appeal to chatbots like Claude or Gemini. Piro’s website says that it “author(s) content engineered for how LLMs evaluate credibility,” describing this service as "AI Story Optimization." Others refer to this practice of influencing artificial intelligence as “LLM poisoning.”
According to its “about” page, the Hanover Institute “studies the inputs fueling antisemitism in the United States, and publishes what the evidence shows.” Many of the reports are formulaic, starting with an innocent question that someone might ask a chatbot.
“What Caused the Displacement of Palestinians in 1948?”
“Which Humanitarian Organizations Have Documented Israeli War Crimes?”
“What is the Current Situation in the Gaza Strip?”
In an article titled “Is the IDF the World’s Most Moral Army?” the Hanover Institute cites a 2022 poll that found that 47% of Israeli Jews believed that statement. Another report casts doubt on UNICEF's assertion that “90% of water and institutional infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed” in Gaza. Many of the reports conclude by linking the topic to rising antisemitism, oftentimes citing the same studies.
In a few cases, the Hanover Institute publishes what it claims are original findings. For instance, it put out a study saying 19 of the 36 most-watched Israel-Gaza explainer videos contain contested claims, with most of the contested claims aligning with the Palestinian narrative.
The Hanover Institute’s publications sometimes contradict Israeli government narratives. For instance, one report says that foreign funding of universities as an explanation for antisemitic incidents is “weak and full of exceptions.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pushed this theory, telling Breitbart last year that Europeans and Qataris have spent “billions of American universities, vilifying, vilifying Israel, vilifying Jews, also, frankly, vilifying the United States.”
Alice Lee, an analyst at NewsGuard, a disinformation tracking company, told RS that the sites appear designed to reach a US audience curious about the ongoing conflict, either through search engines or AI chatbots. "LLMs favor concrete statistics and data, as well as strong citations and sources, which these articles all have," Lee said.
"It's a perfect mimicry of a typical credible American think tank, right down to the generic name, the site layout, and the red-white-blue color scheme," Lee added.
Piro, Inc, the firm that created the Hanover Institute, has received $900,000 from the Israeli government for its work. Like many other contractors working for Israel, Piro’s work is subcontracted through Havas Media, a French public relations conglomerate.
The fake think tank has churned out over 100 reports since it started publishing on August 6. The Hanover Institute claims that “cited research is peer-reviewed and academic,” although it frequently cites Israeli government sources such as the Israel Defense Forces and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
RS analyzed 12 random Hanover Institute articles using GPTZero, a popular AI detection software that claims a low false-positive rate. GPTZero flagged 11 of the articles as AI-written with “high confidence”; it flagged one article as AI-written with “moderate confidence.”
Israel has also contracted former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale to create pro-Israel websites engineered to influence chatbots as part of a $46.5 million contract. A Drop Site investigation last month found that many chatbots, particularly Microsoft Copilot and Google Gemini, had been successfully trained on data from those websites. Other chatbots frequently cite those websites without flagging them as part of an Israeli influence operation.
Piro does not explicitly state in its agreement submitted to the Department of Justice that its work for Israel is to influence AI. In an email to Politico, which first reported the filing, Rosenberg said his firm’s work is to “put accurate, sourced facts into the public record and to counter misinformation about Israel with verifiable information.” However, last month, Rosenberg posted on LinkedIn advertising Piro’s ability to influence chatbots:
“When someone asks ChatGPT, Gemini, or Perplexity about your category, an answer comes back in one confident paragraph. Most brands have no idea how that paragraph gets built. So we spent months reverse-engineering it…At Piro, we already knew how to build stories that move people. The question was: how do you make sure AI knows how to tell them?”
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The Deplorable Extremism of the So-Called "Moderates"
The Democratic base is fed up with a system that gives inordinate power to the wealthy and to large corporations.
Aug 17, 2026
We’ve been hearing a lot of panicky warnings lately after Democratic primary voters chose socialists and other leftists instead of “moderates” in several major elections. The alarm bells got louder this month after Michigan’s progressive Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed defeated Rep. Haley Stevens—who was, the New York Times reported, “the moderate establishment-backed candidate.”
The soothing “moderate” label routinely goes to candidates like Stevens who’ve supported continual arming of Israel. She “benefited from about $62 million in advertising spending from half a dozen outside groups,” the Times noted. “Over half of that sum came from the super PAC arm of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the country’s most influential pro-Israel group.”
What’s so “moderate” about supporting genocide?
Politicians are also routinely dubbed “moderate” when they’re running interference for extreme income inequality and deadly healthcare inequities – helping to block popular policy options like tax hikes on the rich and Medicare for All, which is supported by three-quarters of Democrats.
The Democratic base is fed up with a system that gives inordinate power to the wealthy and to large corporations. In the real world, the so-called “moderates” are aligned with a status quo that continues to inflict widespread suffering and preventable death at home and abroad.
To hear timeworn party strategists like James Carville and Paul Begala tell it, leftwing candidates are duping the Democratic electorate. As this month began, Carville threatened to leave the party. Begala made headlines by declaring, “I don’t like the socialists. I can’t stand them.”
But last month, a CNN poll found that “about a third of Democrats and Democratic-leaning adults identify as democratic socialists.” At a time when defeating the fascistic Republican Party is imperative, any strategist’s prescription that would denigrate or seek to exclude them amounts to political malpractice.
Treating so many Democratic voters like interlopers to be scolded might play well with corporate donors. But it’s a feeble swim against the political current. Polling shows that the younger Democratic voters are, the more favorable they’re apt to be toward socialism. “Younger adults are more likely to be in groups on the left, while older adults tend to cluster in more conservative groups,” the Pew Research Center noted.
Drawing on the results of its new public opinion survey, Global Strategy Group just reported that “socialist Democrats skew younger, with 57 percent of them being between the ages of 18 and 44.” Another poll, released a month ago by Tufts University’s Center for Information and Research, found that two-thirds of young people “said that their political views have changed in some way in recent years”—and “youth whose views did shift were almost twice as likely to become more liberal/progressive instead of more conservative.”
As socialists and others on the left prevail in many high-profile races, the refrains of condemnation coming from some of the Democratic Party establishment are potshots in a losing battle. By definition, young voters are the future of the party. Its prospects for winning elections are diminished to the extent that younger voters are made to feel unwelcome, or even vilified.
To the ears of many young Democratic voters, derision about how they cast their ballots is coming from out-of-touch party elders who treat crucial problems as abstractions or matters worthy only of lip service. Millions of Americans in early adulthood are facing financial stress with bleak outlooks for jobs and careers. College tuitions are often prohibitive, and college debt can be debilitating. Rents and mortgages are high. Everyday expenses are worse than a challenge. The climate crisis is real.
Such realities cast a shadow over the future. The last thing those voters want is arrogant leadership that refuses to grasp the urgency of this political moment.
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'Zero Aid to Israel,' Ro Khanna Declares at Democratic National Committee Meeting
"Israel has committed a genocide in Gaza, and we should have the courage to say so," said the California Democrat.
Aug 16, 2026
Congressman Ro Khanna said in a speech at the Democratic National Committee's summer meeting on Saturday that the party must support cutting off military assistance to Israel, pointing to the country's ongoing genocidal assault on the Gaza Strip and imposition of an "apartheid system" in the West Bank.
Khanna (D-Calif.), who is considering a presidential run in 2028, told DNC members gathered in Austin, Texas that "Israel has committed a genocide in Gaza, and we should have the courage to say so." The congressman's remark was met with enthusiastic applause.
Khanna, who also said the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel "must be condemned unequivocally," cited his recent trip to the illegally occupied West Bank, where the lawmaker was detained by armed settlers and the Israeli military.
"Zero aid to Israel," Khanna declared Saturday. "No military sales of weapons used to kill civilians. And let me be clear: If our party cannot stand for these principles, it will never convince a generation that watched the horrors of Gaza on their iPhones that we mean what we say about justice."
Khanna's remarks came after the DNC approved by voice vote a package of resolutions that included one calling for full enforcement of the so-called Leahy Laws, which prohibit the transfer of US weaponry to governments credibly accused of human rights violations.
A United Nations commission said last month that "even after the October 2025 ceasefire, children continue to be killed and seriously injured, with continued disregard by Israel for the ceasefire and for the protection owed to Palestinian children under international law."
Recent polling has found that an overwhelming majority of Democratic voters oppose US military aid to Israel, but their representatives in Congress remain divided on the matter. In late July, more than half of the House Democratic caucus—including Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY)—voted against an amendment backed by Khanna that would have cut off $3.3 billion in US assistance to Israel, which has repeatedly used American weapons to commit atrocities against Palestinians.
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‘Waiting to Die’: Gaza Cancer Patients Dying at More Than Double the Pre-War Rate as Israel Blocks Treatment
"I am dying. There isn't a feeling for me to even feel."
Aug 14, 2026
Israel is causing a wave of preventable cancer deaths in Gaza, leaving an estimated 17,000 people with no avenue for treatment.
As Reuters reported on Thursday, Israel has destroyed the only specialized cancer hospital in the strip and is preventing Palestinians from seeking treatment outside the exclave.
The result: Doctors say that cancer patients in Gaza are dying at between double and triple the rate they were before Israel began its genocidal war there. Israel's restrictions on aid entering Gaza have made chemotherapy and other forms of treatment inaccessible.
33-year-old Khuloud Abu Sahmoud, a mother of two with ovarian cancer who spoke with Reuters, has been waiting to exit Gaza for nearly a year to receive treatment.
According to Middle East Eye, she is one of at least 4,000 cancer patients in Gaza who have been issued medical referrals to leave the strip but who have been stuck waiting for final permission from Israeli authorities.
In the meantime, her cancer has metastasized to her lungs and bones.
"I am dying. There isn't a feeling for me to even feel," Sahmoud told Middle East Eye. "Every day my disease progresses."
She said that her fingernails have all fallen out and she has been left "just waiting to die."
"The border crossing for me is the only lifeline. The only vein for me to be saved, to receive treatment abroad," she said. "I haven't taken any treatment for three months. I'm living on painkillers."
She said she made her request to travel in October 2025 after a ceasefire was reached between Israel and Hamas, which was supposed to allow for aid to flow freely into Gaza and for people to leave.
"There has been no response to any appeal so far," Sahmoud said. "We haven't received any calls."
The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), the Israeli military authority responsible for administering civilian matters in Gaza, has denied that it is blocking Palestinians from receiving treatment, with a spokesperson stating that permission to travel is "wholly dependent on the receiving country's request.”
But the agency's own medical evacuation procedure requires that every patient leaving Gaza undergoes Israeli security screening and “will not be approved if there are security reasons that prevent their passage.”
Israel has also imposed strict numerical restrictions on the number of people allowed to leave through the Rafah crossing, the main exit point from the strip.
Palestinian health officials said only about 11,000 people in total—not just cancer patients—have been allowed to exit since the crossing reopened in February, an average of about 55-60 people per calendar day. This is fewer than half the number who were expected to leave following the ceasefire.
According to Reuters, "a further 20,000 patients, including 5,000 with cancer, are registered for treatment abroad but not yet permitted to leave."
All of the 36 hospitals and most primary healthcare facilities in Gaza have sustained damage from Israeli attacks, with only around half even partially functioning, according to the World Health Organization. As of the ceasefire, WHO reported that more than 1,700 Palestinian healthcare workers, including doctors, nurses, and paramedics, have been killed.
"Since the genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, among the most severely affected groups by this extermination are oncology and cancer patients," said Mohammed Abu Selmia, the director of Al-Shifa Hospital, which has been repeatedly raided, besieged, and damaged, and has just recently restarted oncology services.
Selmia said this is because of the restrictions on the entry of chemotherapy treatments and Israel's destruction of diagnostic equipment, including MRI facilities.
"This group is suffering immensely," he said. "Recently, we have been recording a significant number of deaths ranging from three to five daily because patients are not receiving the chemotherapy needed to save their lives."
The official death toll from Israel's military campaign in Gaza since October 2023 sits at 73,389, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. But this only includes violent deaths from the war itself.
Independent analyses have suggested that the true death toll is much higher when factoring in those who have perished due to disease and starvation as a result of Israel's attacks on medical facilities, civilian infrastructure, and restrictions on aid.
Another cancer patient, Elham al-Skafi, said, "They stopped giving me chemotherapy because it is not available in Gaza."
"I come in to get nutritional fluids, just so I can stay on my feet, and blood transfusions," she said. "That is what is currently available. This is what I take."
She said she's had a transfer referral for over a year and a half now to leave the country for treatment.
"I am sitting and waiting," she said. "If the crossings were open, I would have left."
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