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One Gaza Flotilla Boat Made It to Gaza—in Pieces
Gaza flotilla boats get their resilience from Palestinians.
Jun 05, 2026
Gaza flotilla boats have become like Palestinians. They, like Palestinians, have been attacked, beaten, partially destroyed, and thrown to the four winds by a brutal, violent Israeli government.
Some of the 2026 Gaza flotilla boats were purposefully damaged so severely by Israeli military forces that they sank, like Palestinians who are under the genocidal rubble of endless criminal Israeli bombings.
After two brutal interceptions in international waters in April and May 2026, many resilient Gaza flotilla boats have been found floating in a variety of places around the Mediterranean, just as Palestinians as refugees are found all over the world.
Flotilla boats been found adrift off the Turkish coast, some have been found off Crete, two have been found off Lebanon, one in Egypt, and several have been found near Cyprus.
Palestinians Welcome a Flotilla Boat to Gaza
In an allegory to Palestinian history with Palestinian homes bombed into pieces from Israeli government violence, one flotilla boat, the KASR-Sadabad, found its way home to Gaza where it washed ashore at the beach Mawasi Khan Younis… in pieces, where Palestinians lovingly welcomed the boat and pulled large pieces ashore.
For the first time since 2008, an international boat, although in pieces, reached the shores of Gaza.
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UN Expert Presents Shocking Allegations of Israeli Torture, Sexual Abuse of Palestinian Detainees
"The number and cruelty of allegations compiled portray gross disregard by Israel of its duty to treat all detainees humanely."
May 19, 2026
A United Nations expert on Tuesday delivered a report offering evidence of systemic torture, brutality, and sexual abuse of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli captivity.
Alice Jill Edwards, the UN special rapporteur on torture, said she had gathered substantial evidence of torture and sexual violence committed by Israeli authorities against Arab citizens of Israel as well as Palestinian detainees from Gaza and the West Bank.
After Hamas’ attack on October 7, 2023, Israel not only launched a military assault on Gaza but also introduced emergency detention measures that Edwards argued “exposed Palestinian detainees to torture, potentially unlawful deaths, incommunicado detention, and degrading conditions.”
Among other things, Edwards' report documents nine allegations of "rape, attempted rape, and threats of rape"; eleven allegations of "beatings, grabbing, electrocution, or mauling by dogs" of male detainees' genitals; 23 allegations of "beatings with weapons or other objects, kicking, and punching"; five allegations of electrocution by electric batons or other devices; and four allegations of forced kneeling for periods lasting up to a full day.
The report also notes that 94 Palestinians died in custody from October 2023 through August 2025, although it acknowledges that "a lack of transparency into the cause of these deaths makes it unclear which deaths are attributed to natural causes or unlawful conduct."
However, the report cites a review of 10 postmortem examinations of detainees who died in Israeli custody which found signs of physical abuse in five cases, and signs of bruising "consistent with beatings and use of restraints" in two cases.
"Findings also included multiple rib fractures, hemorrhages on the skin and near internal organs, and lacerations of intra-abdominal organs," the report adds. "One case documented intracranial hemorrhage resulting from a head injury apparently sustained during arrest."
Edwards said that the sheer volume of torture and abuse allegations documented in the report cannot be written off as the work of rogue actors.
"It is my view that the number and cruelty of allegations compiled portray gross disregard by Israel of its duty to treat all detainees humanely and without discrimination," she said, "and this has encouraged, tolerated, and condoned torture and ill-treatment, at times with support at ministerial and functional levels."
The descriptions of torture in Edwards' report echo recent reporting by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, who wrote that his interviews with Palestinian detainees revealed "a pattern of widespread Israeli sexual violence against men, woman, and even children—by soldiers, settlers, interrogators in the Shin Bet internal security agency and, above all, prison guards."
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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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