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human rights watch
US-Ecuador Military Partnership Brings Torture, Deadly Drone Strikes, and Disappearances
“US-Ecuador cooperation on security has been too opaque and too dangerous for Ecuadorians," said a representative for Human Rights Watch.
Jul 21, 2026
Human rights advocates are urging Congress to investigate the deepening military relationship between the US and Ecuador, which they say has been marred by severe abuses against civilians, including torture, arbitrary detentions, unexplained drone strikes, and disappearances.
A report out Tuesday from Human Rights Watch documents how the Trump administration's cooperation with the right-wing government of Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa in response to organized crime in the country has been carried out under a veil of secrecy that has left few safeguards in place to protect human rights.
Dozens of victims, witnesses, lawyers, and others were interviewed for the report, which provides details about four incidents in which ordinary people were subject to abuse allegedly by Ecuadorian forces trained and armed by the United States as part of what the governments have called "Operation Total Extermination."
In one case—which was reported on by Common Dreams after being documented by local outlets in early March—Ecuadorian soldiers partnered with the US and stormed into the rural town of San Martín along the Colombian border in search of facilities owned by an armed group known as the Border Commandos.
Soldiers detained four dairy farmers without evidence of a crime and interrogated them for hours while beating, kicking, and striking them with rifle butts. One of the men said he was taken to the main house on the farm and waterboarded. According to the men, the soldiers doused the house with gasoline and set the property on fire.
Soldiers fired their weapons at another group of villagers who'd come to ask about the workers, which caused them to flee.
The four men were later taken to an unidentified military facility, where they said they were doused with water and electrocuted. Two of the men said soldiers pointed guns at them and threatened to kill them and cut off their fingers unless they confessed where they were keeping drugs and arms.
The men were released hours later without charges, and prosecutors said the soldiers failed to provide sufficient evidence to charge them. Human Rights Watch found they had no criminal records.
Days later, the military returned and dropped munitions on the remnants of the burned property and two others that had been abandoned. Human Rights Watch did not find evidence that the destroyed properties had any connection to armed criminal groups.
In a hearing before the US Senate Armed Services Committee, Gen. Francis L. Donovan described the operation as a "success" and said Ecuadorian forces had acted "professionally." The Trump administration has said US forces were "present" for the operation, but has not disclosed their role in the bombing of the houses or the torture of the farmworkers.
The Human Rights Watch report also details three attacks on fishing boats between January and March off the coast of the Galápagos Islands, which are possessed by Ecuador.
On January 20, the Fiorella disappeared along with eight crew members who remain missing more than six months later. Two surviving crew members, who'd left the main vessel to set fishing lines, said they suddenly lost contact with the ship while they were waiting to be picked up. As they searched for the vessel, they saw a "column of smoke" off in the distance, but no sign of the Fiorella.
They added that in the days before the ship went missing, they had seen what they thought were surveillance drones flying overhead as well as a gray patrol vessel flying an American flag nearby.
The families of the eight missing sailors have been demanding answers about their whereabouts for months with little response from the Ecuadorian government. The United Nations has issued urgent actions on behalf of the fishermen, calling on Ecuador to immediately search for them.
"The families of the eight individuals whose whereabouts are unknown fear that this is a case of enforced disappearance at the hands of the United States," said Ana Piquer, Americas director at Amnesty International, on Monday. "The US and Ecuadorian authorities must confirm or deny whether state agents from either country were involved, take all necessary steps to ascertain the fate and whereabouts of the victims, and provide reliable evidence showing what happened to them."
In March, two other boats—La Negra Francisca Duarte II and Don Maca—were hit with drones off the Galápagos. In both cases, the shipwrecked men were picked up by a blue and white ship by armed personnel wearing American military attire.
The fishermen were hooded, tied up, and in some cases beaten before being left on a hot metal deck for several hours without food, water, or adequate medical care.
Members of both crews said they saw the alleged US personnel destroy their fishing boats. They were then handed off to Salvadoran authorities and later sent back to Ecuador. Several of the men sustained serious injuries from the drone attacks, including severe burns, hearing loss, vision loss, broken and dislocated bones, and wounds from drone propellers.
Ecuadorian authorities have not confirmed that the attacks took place. According to the captain of La Negra Francisca Duarte II, and later an Ecuadorian port captain, Ecuadorian Coast Guard officers had boarded their ship for a routine inspection and found no evidence of illicit activity, just eight hours before the vessel was struck. No such inspections were reported aboard Don Maca.
The attacks closely resemble the ongoing campaign of extrajudicial boat bombings carried out by the United States, known as "Operation Southern Spear," in which at least 221 people have been killed across more than 60 attacks.
Though 13 of the survivors said they were detained by what appeared to be US personnel, the Department of Defense and Coast Guard denied involvement in all three attacks off the Galápagos.
“US-Ecuador cooperation on security has been too opaque and too dangerous for Ecuadorians,” said Juanita Goebertus, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. “Before more harm is done, the US Congress should demand real answers and effective safeguards.”
“Joint security operations against organized crime," Goebertus added, "should not become a cover for abuses."
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'A Human Rights Disaster': Groups Demand Closure of Trump's Largest Immigrant Detention Center
"The US government should shut it down, conduct independent investigations into all abuses and deaths in custody, and put an end to mass deportations and mandatory immigration detention."
Jul 15, 2026
The ACLU and Human Rights Watch on Wednesday released a joint report documenting abusive treatment of immigrants at the largest immigration detention facility in the US.
The groups' report focuses on Camp East Montana, located on Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, which can hold up to 5,000 detainees.
In total, the groups interviewed 71 detainees at the facility, along with four family members of detainees, and five legal service providers.
According to the report, people detained at Camp East Montana have suffered from "conditions of confinement that amounted to enforced disappearance, cruel, degrading and inhuman treatment, excessive use of force including one extrajudicial killing, life-threatening medical neglect, barriers to legal representation, and coercive third-country removals."
Detainees said that the camp's unsanitary conditions—which the report says include "overcrowded housing areas, bathrooms covered in feces and urine, and living quarters flooded with dirty water and dust"—have led them to develop infections and other health complications for which they have been regularly refused treatment.
One woman who spoke with investigators said that she is now at risk of permanent blindness after guards and nurses denied her request for emergency medical care, the report notes.
A Honduran immigrant identified as "Ismael M," who was detained at the camp for over five months, told investigators that conditions there were so terrible that he often had suicidal thoughts.
"I’ve gone a month without seeing the sun," said Ismael. "I am forced to live in filth... I have been taken from my family, from my home, and I know that no matter how long they keep me here, they will end up deporting me. I'm so afraid I will get killed once I am sent back. That is why I left."
Detainees also described regular beatings by guards at the facility.
A Cuban detainee identified as "Ricardo H" told investigators that he was beaten by guards simply for demanding to be fed.
"I didn’t get breakfast that day," Ricardo explained. "Our lunch is usually distributed at noon. By 1:30 pm the guards had not handed our meals out. Our meals were ready, the guards placed the food cart in front of us and were refusing to serve it. I protested verbally, I told them I was hungry and that I was human. I needed food. They ignored me so I kicked the metal door out of desperation."
This led to several officers opening his cell and beating him, he said.
"A lieutenant grabbed me by the shirt and slammed me to the ground," he said. "Six officers restrained me with my face down. I still have severe pain in my ear and in my right collarbone. They also stomped on my neck."
A Venezuelan detainee identified as "Armando G" said that he was beaten by guards after he went on hunger strike to protest food that he said was "not nourishing and was making us sick."
"I was tackled to the ground by seven guards," said Armando. "One of them was choking me, another pulled my hair and slammed my head on the ground. They were dragging me on the ground like a rag doll."
Angélica César, Aryeh Neier Fellow at Human Rights Watch and the ACLU, said the groups' report shows the camp is "a human rights disaster."
"The US government should shut it down," said César, "conduct independent investigations into all abuses and deaths in custody, and put an end to mass deportations and mandatory immigration detention."
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Report Details 'Human Rights Crisis' Wrought by Trump ICE Surge in Minnesota
“The federal government sent hordes of masked, armed agents to grab people off the street, whisk them away in shackles, and abuse those who sought to bear witness,” Human Rights Watch said of the deadly blitz.
Jun 18, 2026
Human Rights Watch on Thursday published a scathing report detailing how President Donald Trump "caused a human rights crisis" in Minnesota by ordering the deadly federal invasion of the Twin Cities in service of the administration's mass deportation agenda.
HRW called Operation Metro Surge, launched by Trump last December, "an unprecedented deployment of thousands of federal immigration agents and officers to the state of Minnesota," including members of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
"The Trump administration claimed that Operation Metro Surge was designed to keep Americans safe and often stated that it was targeting noncitizens with violent criminal histories," the report states. "But the operation itself caused significant harm, and nearly two out of three immigrants arrested by ICE during Operation Metro Surge had no prior US criminal history whatsoever."
At least three people have been killed in connection with the operation. ICE agent Jonathan Ross fatally shot Renée Good, a 37-year-old US citizen, in Minneapolis on January 7. A week later, 36-year-old Nicaraguan detainee Victor Manuel Díaz, who was arrested during the operation, became the third person to die at the notorious East Montana concentration camp in Texas. On January 24, CBP officer Raymundo Gutierrez and Border Patrol agent Jesus Ochoa shot and killed nurse Alex Pretti, 37, also in Minneapolis.
"Federal agents shot a third Minneapolis resident and pulled guns on dozens more," the report continues. "Agents also violently smashed car windows without justification, physically threw people to the ground who were not resisting arrest, and deployed chemical irritants and flash-bang grenades on dozens of occasions, sometimes at close range and without warning, resulting in injuries, including to journalists."
Furthermore, federal agents "unlawfully arrested and detained hundreds; engaged in racial profiling, harassment, and surveillance; and terrorized Minnesotans, chilling their rights to freedom of expression and assembly, and impacting their rights to education and health, among others," HRW said, adding that "residents faced further abuses when they collectively acted to protest, prevent, and stop these violations of their rights."
The HRW report calls for an immediate end to abusive federal enforcement operations in Minnesota; independent investigations into alleged unlawful killings, racial profiling, arbitrary arrests, excessive force, and other rights violations; and full accountability for officials responsible.
“The federal government sent hordes of masked, armed agents to grab people off the street, whisk them away in shackles, and abuse those who sought to bear witness,” Reagan Williams, HRW's crisis and conflict researcher, said in a statement. “Minnesotans mobilized to protest, to document abuse, and to provide critical aid to one another. National-level action is needed to ensure accountability, end ongoing abuses, remedy the harm, and prevent another crisis of this scale.”
“Operation Metro Surge put the violent and abusive practices of these agencies on full display,” Williams added. “We have clear proof of how they operate when impunity prevails, and we need to urgently chart a new way forward through accountability and structural reforms that put an end to these abuses.”
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Human Rights Watch Calls Out 'Troubling Conditions' in Trump Health Aid Agreements With Africa
“After the sudden and devastating pullback from US assistance in 2025, governments are now being pressured to accept agreements with contingencies that jeopardize human rights."
Jun 08, 2026
The Trump administration is requiring African nations to agree to a series of "troubling conditions" to restore lifesaving health aid, according to a Human Rights Watch report on Monday.
The administration's abrupt shuttering of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) last year shut off billions of dollars and caused havoc across Africa's healthcare system, resulting in what public health models project could be hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths.
But under what has been dubbed the “America First” Global Health Strategy, the administration has negotiated secretive agreements with dozens of these countries to restore some of the funding. Most of them have been kept under lock and key by the US.
Those that have been made public have come with terms that Human Rights Watch said "raise concerns that health aid is being inappropriately leveraged to extract terms beneficial to the US in negotiations around natural resources and access to sensitive health data from recipient countries."
In March, a draft memorandum of understanding with the government of Zambia was revealed to have conditioned $1 billion for HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, and other disease prevention for millions of people, on the country's acceptance of a separate bilateral treaty that would have given US companies greater access to the country's minerals.
A leaked State Department memo, prepared for Secretary Marco Rubio, put the exploitative terms plainly: “We will only secure our priorities by demonstrating willingness to publicly take support away from Zambia on a massive scale.”
After the details of that agreement were met with backlash, the text of agreements with several other countries—Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, and Uganda—were suddenly removed from the State Department’s Freedom of Information Act Library.
A Human Rights Watch assessment of the agreements with those five countries—as well as agreements with Rwanda and Liberia that were leaked—revealed that in order to restore a portion of the more than $800 million collectively stripped from them by the US, they'd have to agree to several coercive measures that jeopardize the reproductive and privacy rights of their citizens.
“The agreements show the US intends to condition vital health assistance for millions of people on acquiescence to troubling conditions,” said Julia Bleckner, senior health researcher at Human Rights Watch. “After the sudden and devastating pullback from US assistance in 2025, governments are now being pressured to accept agreements with contingencies that jeopardize human rights.”
All seven of the agreements require the governments to provide the US with "broad access to data and information" to monitor compliance with the Helms Amendment, which forbids the use of US foreign assistance to pay for abortion care.
The agreements with Mozambique, Rwanda, and Liberia require them to provide “any data” requested by the US to ensure compliance with the amendment, while Uganda's permits the US to conduct unannounced spot checks of health facilities and clinics.
"By making a broad package of health aid contingent on broad and potentially invasive surveillance of Helms compliance, the agreement could encourage a more restrictive regulation of abortion than national law mandates and give rise to further violations of the right to healthcare,” says the report.
The agreements also give the US permission to directly audit clinics, laboratories, and health programs to ensure compliance with the conditions. Six of them require clinics to provide access to "any data" requested by the US at a sample of facilities it chooses.
Agreements with five countries also mandate that they share biological specimens taken from patients and associated information related to novel infectious diseases, which HRW described as part of an effort to undermine a global pathogen access and sharing system being created by the World Health Organization, from which Trump has removed the US.
HRW said in a news release:
The agreements raise serious concerns about use of people’s private health data, without clear limits, uniform safeguards, or meaningful protections for patient confidentiality, including in several countries with weak or absent domestic data protection laws. The agreements contain no prohibition on this data being shared with US pharmaceutical companies without patient consent.
“Governments negotiating health assistance agreements with the United States face difficult choices,” Bleckner said. “They should be wary of terms asking them to sign away their populations’ rights and push for the inclusion of civil society representatives and multilateral global health organizations like the Global Fund in deliberations.”
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ICE Sued Over 'Civil Rights Catastrophe' at West Texas Concentration Camp
“The conditions here in this ICE tent camp in a desert are inhumane and cruel," said one Cameroonian plaintiff in the suit. "No human being should ever have to go through this."
May 30, 2026
A group of legal advocacy groups on Friday sued US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agencies and officials over "inhumane" conditions at the country's largest concentration camp for immigrants detained during the Trump administration's mass deportation campaign.
The American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Texas, Texas Civil Rights Project, Human Rights Watch, and the law firm Farella Braun + Martel LLP filed suit against ICE, the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Defense, and associated officials, in the US District Court for the Western District of Texas in El Paso.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of four people seeking to represent a class action for all others held at Camp East Montana, a 60-acre facility located in the Chihuahuan Desert on the grounds of Fort Bliss, an Army base and the site of one of the concentration camps where Japanese Americans and Japanese nationals were imprisoned during World War II. Approximately 2,500 immigrants are being detained there.
Citing “a Civil Rights catastrophe,” a group of legal and civil rights organizations in Texas sued the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Friday over conditions at Camp East Montana in El Paso, the country’s largest immigration detention facility.More: substack.com/@shero/note/...
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— Amee Vanderpool (@girlsreallyrule.bsky.social) May 30, 2026 at 10:03 AM
The lawsuit documents accounts of what the ACLU called "horrific rights violations" at the facility, including:
- Severe medical neglect and disease outbreaks, including a months-long measles outbreak that infected at least 14 people;
- Violent uses of force by officers against detained immigrants and coercive threats of deportation;
- Excessive and arbitrary use of solitary confinement to punish people for requesting basic needs like medical care or hygiene;
- Inadequate and rancid food that have caused detained people to lose extreme amounts of weight;
- Exposure to dust storms through openings in tent walls that subjects people to respiratory disease; and
- Dangerous and unsanitary living conditions in the tent camp, among other rights violations.
“These conditions are longstanding, pervasive, and well-documented, and defendants’ continued inaction in the face of known risks shows their deliberate indifference—not mere negligence—to detainees’ constitutional rights,” the lawsuit states.
At least three detainees have died at Camp East Montana, including Geraldo Lunas Campos, a 55-year-old Cuban who, according to witnesses, died after being handcuffed and placed in a chokehold by guards. The El Paso County Medical Examiner's Office ruled Lunas Campos' death a homicide by asphyxia.
Detained immigrants have reported beatings and sexual abuse, medical neglect, hunger and insufficient food, and denial of access to attorneys at the facility.
“The conditions here in this ICE tent camp in a desert are inhumane and cruel. No human being should ever have to go through this," case plaintiff Gerald Akari Angye said in a statement Friday.
I have already experienced torture in my home country of Cameroon and I never thought I would experience such severely violent treatment by guards here in the United States of America," he continued. "I have been beaten here and even today, I still have a brace on my hands and wrist. I am in pain and I am scared to be here."
"No one deserves such cruel treatment," Akari Angye added. "We are all humans and deserve to be treated like it.”
Kyle Virgien, senior staff attorney at the ACLU’s National Prison Project, called Camp East Montana "nothing short of a civil rights catastrophe."
“Since the day it opened, the facility has repeatedly made headlines for horrific rights violations and even the deaths of three detained people, yet ICE has still evaded accountability for its conduct," Virgien added. "We’re suing to ensure that no other human being has to endure the inhumane treatment that the Trump administration has inflicted on our clients.”
Another case plaintiff, named in the suit as Navdeep, said, "It feels like we are just political pawns taken from our jobs and families and forced into a temporary tent that is not designed for human life."
“We could die here, and it feels like no one here would care," they continued. "With everything happening behind closed doors, I worry the people running this place might cover up the truth about a death or the other injustices that happen here."
"It’s important for people to know the truth of what is happening here," Navdeep added. "Being part of this lawsuit is important to me because many people are vulnerable or they become weak because of the conditions here. Even though we come from many different places, we are all human. I want to be a voice for everyone here.”
After receiving "numerous credible reports of torture, killing, and inhumane treatment" of detainees, 35 Democratic Texas state lawmakers earlier this year demand a probe into alleged abuses at Camp East Montana.
Democratic members of US Congress have also sounded the alarm over conditions at Camp East Montana. Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas) has also called out profiteering by the private contractors running the camp.
Amentum Services Inc. took over operations from Acquisition Logistics LLC earlier this year. The latter was never registered to operate in Texas and the former "has a history of health, safety, and other violations of federal law," according to the consumer advocacy watchdog Public Citizen.
The Trump administration is currently moving forward with a plan to convert industrial warehouses into more ICE concentration camps. The agency has already purchased or contracted for at least 11 warehouses in eight states as part of the $38 billion plan.
While some critics take exception to the concentration camp description, the ICE facilities fit the dictionary definition of the term. The US has a long history of operating concentration camps, with imprisoned peoples ranging from Indigenous tribes during the Trail of Tears and Long Walk to escaped and freed slaves—officially called "contraband" in the Civil War—to Filipinos, Okinawans, and Vietnamese during three different 20th century wars, to Japanese Americans and Japanese nationals during World War II.
“Germany’s concentration camps didn’t start as instruments of mass murder, and neither have ours; both started as facilities for people the government’s leader said were a problem," talk show host and author Thom Hartmann wrote earlier this year for Common Dreams. "And that’s exactly what ICE is building now. History isn’t whispering its warning: It’s shouting.”
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World Cup or Global Spectacle of Repression?
The US and FIFA have turned the world’s greatest football celebration into a human rights crisis.
May 23, 2026
The 2026 World Cup was supposed to be a symbol of global unity, cultural diversity, and a shared celebration among nations; an event that would place football beyond politics, borders, and ideology. Yet the closer we move toward the start of the tournament, another image is taking shape: one that speaks not of football’s excitement, but of the heavy shadow of securitization, anti-immigrant hostility, discrimination, and a crisis of human rights legitimacy. Human Rights Watch’s recent warning that the 2026 World Cup could turn into a “human rights disaster” is not merely a publicity-driven statement; it is a sign of a deep rupture between the West’s moral claims and the political reality of the United States today.
The 2026 World Cup is set to be jointly hosted by the US, Canada, and Mexico; three countries presented in FIFA’s official publicity as symbols of “multiculturalism,” “freedom,” and “diversity.” In practice, however, the tournament will be held in an environment shaped by hard-line immigration policies, the securitized atmosphere following President Donald Trump’s return, the rise of far-right currents, and intensifying cultural wars—an environment that displays a very different face of these countries.
The remarks by Minky Worden, director of Global Initiatives at Human Rights Watch, are highly significant because she points to an issue that FIFA and the US are trying to sidestep: the possible role of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the security environment of the World Cup. The central concern is not merely the presence of immigration officers in stadiums; the issue is that the World Cup may become a platform for normalizing harsh immigration policies and securitized control. In a country where images of migrant detentions, mass deportations, family separations, and violent treatment of asylum-seekers have repeatedly made headlines in recent years, it is only natural that many human rights activists would be concerned about the psychological and social safety of migrants, Muslims, Latinos, and even foreign fans.
The reality is that the US today is no longer able to preserve the uncontested image of the “land of freedom” as it did in the 1990s, or even during the Obama era. Trump’s return, the intensification of domestic polarization, and the radicalization of the political atmosphere have pushed the United States into a stage in which “security” has prevailed over “freedom” more than ever before. The 2026 World Cup will be held precisely in such an atmosphere: one in which football is not merely a sporting event, but part of the US' internal political and identity struggle.
Perhaps the greatest danger for US and FIFA is precisely this: that the world may remember the 2026 World Cup not for its goals and matches, but for images of migrant detentions, a police-state atmosphere, culture wars, and human rights contradictions.
One of the most important dimensions of the crisis is the issue of the “culture war,” a concept Worden also references. Today in the US, issues such as migrants’ rights, LGBTQ+ rights, race, religion, and cultural identity have become the main battlefield of political confrontation. Under such conditions, the World Cup can no longer claim that “sport is separate from politics.” On the contrary, the tournament is likely to become a stage for displaying these very ideological fractures.
This issue is especially significant when it comes to LGBTQ+ rights. The fact that only the city of Atlanta has referred in its official programs to support for LGBTQ+ rights shows that even among the US host cities, there is no clear consensus on human rights standards. This comes as FIFA has repeatedly claimed in recent years that it has made human rights one of its strategic principles. The glaring contradiction lies here: An institution that took positions on minority rights in Qatar is now acting with greater caution and silence in the face of potential human rights crises in the US.
At this point, the main issue is no longer only the US; it is the crisis of FIFA’s own legitimacy. FIFA has tried for years to present itself as an institution above politics, but the reality is that global football has long since become part of the structure of power and geopolitical interests. The granting of the so-called “peace prize” to Trump, at a time when his immigration and security policies face widespread global criticism, became so controversial precisely for this reason. Critics believe FIFA is less concerned with human rights than with preserving its relations with the political and economic powers of the host countries.
This crisis is not merely a moral issue; it is directly tied to the future credibility of international institutions. If FIFA remains silent in the face of discriminatory policies, a securitized environment, and civil restrictions, how can it continue to claim that it defends universal values? Are human rights standards applied only to non-Western countries? And if human rights violations in the US are ignored, does the very concept of the “universality” of human rights not fall into crisis?
The US itself, meanwhile, faces a profound contradiction. For decades, Washington has used human rights as a tool for producing global legitimacy and has pressured many of its rivals through this very discourse. But now, the same country that accused others of violating freedoms is facing warnings from human rights organizations about its treatment of migrants, minorities, and its internal security environment. This development is a sign of the erosion of American soft power—power that was once Washington’s most important instrument of global influence.
From this perspective, the 2026 World Cup is not merely a sporting event; it is a test of the gap between the US' official narrative and its domestic reality. If the tournament is accompanied by an intensely securitized atmosphere, the control of migrants, discriminatory treatment, or the suppression of protests, the image of the US that forms in the minds of millions of global viewers will be very different from the traditional narrative of a “free American society.” In the age of social media, even one violent encounter around the stadiums could turn into a global crisis for the credibility of both the US and FIFA.
In the meantime, the more important point is that football is no longer merely a tool of entertainment as it once was. Today, the World Cup is part of the competition of narratives and the war of images. Countries try to use this event to display their stability, legitimacy, and cultural appeal. But if the US cannot manage the contradiction between its human rights slogans and the reality of its domestic politics, the 2026 World Cup may become a symbol of crisis in the very values the West has claimed for decades to defend.
Perhaps the greatest danger for US and FIFA is precisely this: that the world may remember the 2026 World Cup not for its goals and matches, but for images of migrant detentions, a police-state atmosphere, culture wars, and human rights contradictions. In that case, this tournament will not merely be a failed sporting event; it will become a symbol of an era in which even the greatest celebration of world football could not conceal the rupture between power, politics, and human rights.
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Trump's 'Board of Peace' Has Only Brought More Death and Suffering to Gaza, Says Rights Group
“The plan was supposed to bring relief. Instead, Palestinians in Gaza are still hungry, still cannot reach medical care, and civilians are still being killed."
May 20, 2026
Six months in, US President Donald Trump's so-called "Board of Peace" has failed to deliver on its promise of a "secure and prosperous future" for Palestinians in Gaza, who are still being killed, maimed, and deprived of food and other crucial supplies by Israel's ongoing genocide.
"The humanitarian infrastructure sustaining life in Gaza remains in peril over six months after the ceasefire agreement in October 2025," Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday.
"As the Board of Peace prepares to brief the United Nations Security Council on May 21 on its newly-issued six-month progress report, Israeli authorities are undermining humanitarian lifelines," HRW continued.
"Continuing Israeli attacks have killed at least 856 Palestinians and wounded 2,463 others, according to Gaza Health Ministry," the group said.
"Aid volumes remain far below required levels and critical humanitarian access routes have been repeatedly obstructed, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)," HRW noted.
HRW continued:
In its May 15 report, the Board of Peace said that aid distributed by UN agencies and partners increased by over 70% during the reporting period compared to pre-ceasefire levels, and that "basic food needs have been stabilized for the first time since 2023." The Board's headline figures leave out that aid volumes have fallen since early 2026, have not recovered to where they were before the US and Israel-Iran war began in late February, and have never reached the minimum the UN says is needed. Four UN agencies warned in December 2025 that famine, pushed back only weeks earlier through the ceasefire, could rapidly return without sustained access and supplies.
“The plan was supposed to bring relief. Instead, Palestinians in Gaza are still hungry, still cannot reach medical care, and civilians are still being killed,” HRW Middle East deputy director Adam Coogle said in a statement. “Whatever the Board of Peace tells the Security Council, that is what life looks like six months in.”
HRW said that while "commercial trucks have started entering Gaza again in larger numbers," total aid deliveries—which were dramatically curtailed following the launch of the illegal US-Israeli war of choice on Iran—are "far short of what Gaza’s population needs."
Furthermore, "none of Gaza’s 37 hospitals were fully operational, and only 19 were even partially functioning, according to OCHA."
"Over 43,000 people have suffered life-changing injuries, 1 in 4 of them children, and more than 50,000 need long-term rehabilitation care, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates," HRW said. "No rehabilitation facility is fully running. Israeli delays in approving specialized surgical equipment are limiting complex care, and at least 46% of essential medicines are out of stock, according to WHO."
"According to the Gaza Health Ministry, more than 1,400 patients have died waiting for medical evacuation since the Rafah crossing was seized in May 2024, and over 18,500 patients, including 4,000 children, still await evacuation," the publication reported.
"Israeli restrictions on bringing in generators, engine oil, and spare parts are causing breakdowns across healthcare, sanitation, debris removal, and humanitarian work," HRW said.
"Rodents and insects are spreading across displacement camps, and skin infections and other diseases are on the rise, OCHA reported," the publication noted. "UN agencies and aid groups working on water and sanitation warn that severe shortages of lubricant oil and spare parts are causing generators to fail."
Israeli forces are still killing and wounding humanitarian workers in Gaza.
"As of late April, OCHA had recorded the killing of at least 593 aid workers in Gaza since October 2023, including 8 since the ceasefire," HRW said.
Funding pledges have also fallen far short of what's needed.
"At the Board of Peace’s inaugural meeting in February, 10 Board member states and observers pledged a total of $17 billion for reconstruction against UN estimates of $70 billion needed," HRW said. "As of April, the Board had received less than $1 billion of the pledged amount, with only three contributors having delivered funds, according to Reuters."
“When the Board of Peace briefs the Security Council, members should weigh what they hear against what UN agencies are reporting from the ground,” Coogle said. “No spin can hide the fact that aid is not entering at the needed scale, patients do not have access to adequate medical care, and crossings to Gaza remain limited.”
The HRW report came a day after the UN Human Rights Office urged Israel to prevent further "acts of genocide" in Gaza, while raising concerns about escalating "ethnic cleansing" in the illegally occupied West Bank of Palestine.
A panel of UN human rights experts found last year that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza. South Africa filed a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice that's now backed by nearly 20 nations.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder and forced starvation. The ICC is also reportedly seeking to arrest Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich over the illegal settler colonization and ethnic cleansing of the West Bank.
More than 250,000 Palestinians have been killed or wounded in Gaza since the Hamas-led attack of October 2023. Nearly all of the coastal strip's approximately 2.1 million people have also been forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened during that period. Through it all, the Biden and Trump administrations have provided Israel with more than $20 billion in armed aid and diplomatic cover, including vetoes of several UN Security Council ceasefire resolutions.
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Lebanese Doctors Warn Israel Is Inflicting Gaza-Style Devastation on Their Healthcare System
“There’s a new kind of brazenness in declaring an intent to commit unlawful attacks,” said a researcher for Human Rights Watch. “It appears impunity has emboldened the Israeli military."
Apr 06, 2026
Doctors in Lebanon are warning that the Israeli military appears to be waging a campaign of deliberate destruction on their country's healthcare system.
In an interview with The Associated Press published Monday, Sidon-based surgeon Dr. Mohammed Ziara, who previously worked in Gaza City, said that he believes Israel is trying to inflict the same kind of damage on the Lebanese healthcare system that it inflicted in Gaza, when it regularly bombed hospitals and other healthcare facilities.
“I’ve lived this before,” Ziara told the AP, referring to Israel's attack on Gaza that has killed more than 70,000 Palestinians. "I cannot go back to Gaza now. But I can be here, in Lebanon."
The AP noted that Israel is justifying bombings of Lebanese hospitals by claiming that Hezbollah is using them as headquarters for storing weapons and plotting attacks. Israel made the same claims about Hamas militants being stationed in Gaza hospitals.
"Israel has increasingly targeted Lebanese first responders and medical centers, forcing several hospitals to evacuate," the AP reported.
Human Rights Watch researcher Ramzi Kaiss told the AP that, while Israel has launched attacks on Lebanon before, the country now seems even more willing to attack civilian infrastructure than in the past.
“There’s a new kind of brazenness in declaring an intent to commit unlawful attacks,” Kaiss explained. “It appears impunity has emboldened the Israeli military."
Human rights activists for the last several weeks have been trying to draw attention to Israel's attacks on Lebanese healthcare.
Kristine Beckerle, deputy regional director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International, said in March that Israel is using "the same deadly playbook it used in 2024 in Lebanon to kill dozens of health workers and devastate healthcare services."
Beckerle also slammed Israel's justifications for bombing healthcare infrastructure.
"Throwing out accusations claiming that healthcare facilities and ambulances are being used for military purposes without providing any evidence," Beckerle said, "does not justify treating hospitals, medical facilities or medical transport as battlefields or treating doctors and paramedics as targets. Under international humanitarian law parties to a conflict must ensure to distinguish between military objectives and civilian objects."
Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch, recently flagged reports from Lebanese healthcare workers who "say Israeli bombing has deliberately targeted medical workers and facilities in southern Lebanon" in "a systematic effort to make the area unlivable."
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Rights Groups Demand EU Suspend Trade Deal With Israel Over 'Appalling' Death Penalty Law
A political group in the European Parliament and dozens of human rights groups have called for suspending the EU-Israel Association Agreement.
Apr 02, 2026
Global criticism has mounted since Israeli lawmakers approved a death penalty law targeting Palestinians earlier this week, including fresh calls for the European Union to suspend a key political and trade deal, the EU-Israel Association Agreement.
On Thursday, 31 groups, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Oxfam, said in a joint statement that "we are appalled by the Israeli Knesset's decision to approve a bill that makes death penalty effectively mandatory in the West Bank and which will de facto apply exclusively to Palestinians."
The coalition also specifically put pressure on the EU, noting that the bloc "has consistently held that capital punishment is cruel, inhuman, and incompatible with human dignity under all circumstances," and that the Israeli law violates "the right to life and protections enshrined in international humanitarian and human rights law, such as the Fourth Geneva Convention, the Hague Regulations, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the Convention Against Torture."
"Diplomatic engagement by the EU and its member states urging Israel to reverse course has so far proven ineffective. This appalling development occurs amid an ongoing manmade humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, which a UN Commission of Inquiry, multiple Palestinian, Israeli, and international organizations, and independent experts have characterized as constituting genocide, and against the backdrop of an accelerating de facto annexation of the West Bank," the coalition wrote, pointing to the July 2024 advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice. "The adoption of the death penalty law is thus part of a pattern of discriminatory policies and practices against Palestinians."
The coalition continued:
In furtherance of these policies, Israel has already crossed established EU red lines: the advancement of settlement construction in the E1 area, which breaks the territorial contiguity of the West Bank, with the intent to prevent a future Palestinian state; the ban on [the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East] and attacks on its facilities, including schools and clinics built and run with EU contributions; the expulsion of international NGOs through restrictive registration procedures; forced evictions of Palestinian residents in East Jerusalem; forced displacement of tens of thousands of Palestinians and widespread demolitions of Palestinian homes and infrastructure in the West Bank, including EU-funded projects; persistent impunity for abuses by Israeli security forces and state-backed settler violence; reports of widespread and systemic torture and mistreatment of Palestinian prisoners; restrictions on religious freedoms; attacks on journalists; and denial of access to EU officials.
As also recalled by the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Kallas in her statement... the EU-Israel Association Agreement establishes respect for democratic principles as an essential element of EU-Israel relations. A review conducted by the EU in June 2025 based on Article 2 of the agreement found Israel in breach of its human rights obligations for serious abuses against Palestinians and violations of the laws of war, both in Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
When the bloc refused to halt the trade deal over Gaza last year, Amnesty International secretary general Agnès Callamard called the decision "a cruel and unlawful betrayal—of the European project and vision, predicated on upholding international law and fighting authoritarian practices, of the European Union's own rules, and of the human rights of Palestinians."
The coalition concluded Thursday: "Nine months on, the time for action is long overdue. The European Union must uphold its stated principles and legal obligations by finally suspending, as a minimum immediate measure, the trade component of the EU-Israel Association Agreement and adopting other measures."
One political group in the European Parliament, the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D Group), also expressed "deep concern following the Israeli Knesset's approval of legislation introducing the death penalty for Palestinians convicted of terrorism," and put pressure on the European Council, which is made up of the bloc's heads of state or government.
"The S&D Group is calling on the European Council to urgently suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement in light of Israel's continuous and grave violations of Article 2 of the Agreement on human rights, which is central to the partnership," the group said in a Tuesday statement, the day after the law passed.
Yannis Maniatis, S&D Group vice president for foreign affairs, said that "reintroducing the death penalty is a step back into the past and yet another blow to the values that underpin our partnership with Israel. We cannot and will not remain silent."
"When a partner repeatedly ignores the warnings from its friends and civil society alike, there must be consequences," added Maniatis, a Greek politician. "It is high time the Council suspended the EU-Israel Association Agreement. The time to act is now."
The S&D Group's statement came not only after the death penalty law's passage but also amid a European citizens' initiative collecting signatures to demand the suspension in response to Israel's "unprecedented level of killing and injury of civilians, a large-scale displacement of population, and the systematic destruction of hospitals and medical facilities" in the Gaza Strip. So far, over 645,000 people from EU member states, of the necessary 1 million, have signed on to that call.
The Council of the European Union—which is composed of national ministers from each member state—this week issued a statement reiterating the EU's "principled position against the death penalty in all cases and in all circumstances," condemning the Israeli law as "a grave regression," and highlighting deep concerns about its "de facto discriminatory character."
"Consistent with our global efforts towards universal abolition of the death penalty, the EU urges Israel to abide by its previous principled position and with its obligations under international law, as well as its commitment to democratic principles, as reflected also in the provisions of the EU-Israel Association Agreement," the council said.
However, there have been no signals from EU leadership about progress toward suspending the agreement in light of the law's passage.
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With Nearly 50 Boats Attacked, US Strikes Highlight ‘Pattern of Unlawful Use of Lethal Force’: Human Rights Watch
"When unlawful force is repeated over time, it risks becoming normalized."
Mar 31, 2026
The Trump administration's most recent attack on a boat in the Caribbean, which killed four people last week, "highlights a sustained pattern of unlawful use of lethal force outside any context of armed conflict, amounting to extrajudicial executions," Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday.
The US military announced last Wednesday that it had conducted its 47th attack on boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. The Trump administration has presented little evidence for its claim that the targeted boats have been engaged in trafficking drugs to the United States. At least 163 people have been killed in these attacks since September 2025, all of them without trial.
Human Rights Watch is part of a chorus of international organizations and observers that have condemned the boat bombing campaign as acts of murder in flagrant violation of international law.
“These strikes aren’t one-off incidents, they’re part of a pattern of using military force where the law does not permit it, over and over again,” said Sarah Yager, Washington director at Human Rights Watch. “The fact that these strikes have faded from public attention does not make these violations any less grave or unlawful.”
The organization noted that there is no ongoing military conflict in the Caribbean or eastern Pacific that would make those traveling by boat legitimate targets.
And while the US government has provided scant evidence that those it has killed were trafficking drugs, Human Rights Watch said that even if evidence of drug trafficking existed, suspected criminals are still not lawful targets of lethal force unless they pose an imminent threat to the lives of others.
The boat strikes have continued in the background as President Donald Trump has launched attacks against Venezuela and Iran, both of which international organizations have described as acts of aggression that violate the laws of war.
Trump has also enacted a crippling economic blockade of Cuba with the explicit goal of toppling its government so the US can "take" the island, and has previously threatened to use economic leverage or the US military to forcibly annex Greenland.
“When unlawful force is repeated over time, it risks becoming normalized,” Yager said. “That’s dangerous because it opens the door to using lethal force whenever and wherever a government wishes and without constraints.”
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