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Netherlands, Iceland Join Genocide Case Against Israel at International Court of Justice
With the intervention of two more nations, 18 have now joined in support of the case, initially brought by South Africa.
Mar 12, 2026
The Netherlands and Iceland have joined the case before the International Court of Justice, accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza.
On Wednesday, both nations filed declarations under Article 63 of the ICJ statute, which allows parties to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide to intervene in cases involving the interpretation of that convention.
The case was filed in 2023 by South Africa, which cited numerous instances of Israeli leaders using genocidal rhetoric amid an onslaught of attacks against civilians.
Since October 2023, official estimates from the Gaza Ministry of Health have found that more than 72,000 people have been killed, though independent reviews have placed the death toll much higher.
Several independent humanitarian organizations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the Israel-based organization B'Tselem, have concurred with the intervening parties that Israel's conduct has constituted "genocide."
Article II of the 1948 Genocide Convention defines "genocide" as acts "committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group." Among these acts are killing, inflicting serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions of life to bring about their destruction, imposing measures to prevent births, or forcibly transferring their children to other groups.
In its filing before the ICJ, the Netherlands—home to The Hague, where the ICJ is located—argued that Israel's forcible displacement of more than 1 million civilians, killing of more than 20,000 children according to official estimates, and blocking humanitarian aid to use starvation as a weapon of war, are all acts that, when paired with statements from Israeli officials, imply genocidal intent.
The Dutch urged judges on the court to "take account of starvation or the deliberate withholding of humanitarian aid for the purpose of establishing specific intent, in particular when this occurs on the basis of a concerted plan of a consistent pattern of conduct.”
Iceland in particular emphasized Israel's conduct toward the children of Gaza, saying that "attacks on children, including killing and causing serious bodily or mental harm, require special scrutiny as they are particularly indicative of intent to destroy the group."
The pair of European nations brought the total of countries participating in the proceedings up to 18—among them are Belgium, Brazil, Belize, Colombia, Ireland, Mexico, Spain, and Turkey.
The United States, under the Trump administration, meanwhile, has cut off foreign aid to South Africa for its role in launching the case against Israel, which receives billions of dollars in US military assistance annually.
Iceland's intervention in the genocide case marks the first time it has participated in a substantive case before the ICJ, according to the Icelandic news outlet RÚV.
"With Iceland's participation in South Africa's case before the International Court of Justice, we are using our voice in support of international law and human rights," said its minister for foreign affairs, Þorgerður Katrín Gunnarsdóttir. "And we can be proud of that."
While its decisions are legally binding and could require Israel to cease violations of the Genocide Convention, the ICJ is not a criminal court.
However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant have each been issued arrest warrants as part of separate war crimes proceedings by the International Criminal Court (ICC), which have thus far not been enforced.
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250+ Groups Have Single Message: 'Not One More Penny' for 'Foolish, Destructive' Iran War
"Every penny wasted on bombing children and families in Iran would be better spent on healthcare and affordable housing in America."
Mar 12, 2026
On the heels of Pentagon officials privately telling Congress that just the first six days of President Donald Trump and Israel's assault on Iran cost Americans more than $11.3 billion, over 250 groups on Thursday collectively told lawmakers on Capitol Hill to "vote against any additional funding for Trump's unconstitutional war on Iran, including the reported supplemental appropriations bill that could provide $50 billion or more."
"By launching a war against Iran, Trump has violated the Constitution, defied international law, flouted the will of the American people, and has put millions of lives across the region at risk," wrote the coalition, led by the ACLU, MoveOn, Public Citizen, and Win Without War. Other signatories include Common Cause, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, Indivisible, Jewish Voice for Peace, National Nurses United, Oxfam America, and the Service Employees International Union.
"President Trump's illegal war has already shown the costs war imposes—American service members killed and injured, thousands of civilians killed in fighting, skyrocketing oil prices, a conflict spiraling over a dozen countries in unexpected ways, and more," noted Christopher Anders, director of the ACLU's Technology and Democracy Division.
In addition to the joint operation against Iran, Israel is bombing Lebanon and has again cut off the Gaza Strip from humanitarian aid. Iran has retaliated by targeting Gulf states that host US military bases.
The coalition warned Congress that "a vote for President Trump's Pentagon supplemental funding package would be a vote to commit the US even further to this crisis, which has already killed seven US service members and nearly 2,000 people from across the region, and which endangers the lives of many more."
The letter stresses that the US Constitution empowers only Congress to declare war. Despite this, a short list of Democrats and nearly all Republicans in the GOP-controlled Senate and House of Representatives have refused to advance war powers resolutions that would end Trump's war of choice in Iran.
"Waging a war of choice that costs an estimated $1 billion a day not only fails to address the economic squeeze and healthcare crisis facing working Americans, it also diverts federal funding that could otherwise be utilized," the letter argues. Sara Haghdoosti, chief of program for MoveOn Civic Action, declared that "every penny wasted on bombing children and families in Iran would be better spent on healthcare and affordable housing in America."
The National Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, another signatory, has previously highlighted that the war's estimated daily price tag could cover the daily costs of federal nutrition assistance for more than 40 million Americans, as well as daily Medicaid costs for the roughly 16 million people expected to lose health coverage due to the 2025 GOP budget package.
The US Department of Defense has never passed an audit, and as the letter points out, "the Pentagon budget already now totals more than $1 trillion, after the extra $150 billion the agency received in the tax and budget reconciliation bill."
New: We joined 250+ national organizations urging Congress to reject any more funding for President Trump's reckless and illegal war on Iran. Congress must listen to the American people and invest our tax
s towards the urgent needs of our communities, not more disastrous war.
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— FCNL (@fcnl.bsky.social) March 12, 2026 at 4:00 PM
"The $50 billion that the administration reportedly seeks for a new Pentagon supplemental," the letter says, "would be enough to restore food assistance for 4 million Americans that was taken away in the tax and budget reconciliation bill, establish universal pre-K education, and pay for the annual construction of more than 100,000 units of housing, among other possible priorities."
"The choice before Congress is whether it will choose to prevent this unconstitutional war from dragging out and potentially escalating or enabling dangerous and deadly protracted conflict," the coalition concluded. "We urge you to refuse funding for this illegal war that Congress never authorized and a majority of the American people oppose."
According to Shayna Lewis, deputy director of Win Without War, "It's outrageous that Trump is even asking for more money to spend on bombs when his spiraling war is killing civilians abroad and driving up prices for everyone at home, all with no end in sight."
"Congress," Lewis said, "should tell Trump clearly: not one more penny for this foolish, destructive war."
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Named for Daniel Ellsberg, Tlaib Proposal Would Protect Whistleblowers and Journalists
"With whistleblowers, journalists, and civil liberties under significant attack and government decision-making shrouded in increasing secrecy, reining in the abuses of the Espionage Act could not be more urgent.”
Mar 12, 2026
Warning that the Espionage Act has been used to "persecute and criminalize" dissenters, journalists, and whistleblowers numerous times since it was passed into law, US Rep. Rashida Tlaib on Thursday introduced the Daniel Ellsberg Press Freedom and Whistleblower Protection Act to "rein in" the 109-year-old law.
The proposal is named for the military analyst-turned-activist who disclosed decades of deception by the US government regarding Vietnam when he leaked the Pentagon Papers to the press in 1971—an act that led the government to charge Ellsberg with espionage, conspiracy, and other crimes before the case was thrown out over the Nixon administration's misconduct.
In the cases of Ellsberg, former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, and other journalists and whistleblowers, "Espionage Act prosecutions have been used to silence dissent and undermine government transparency and are a clear violation of the First Amendment and the fundamental right to due process," said Tlaib (D-Mich.).
“Alerting the public to government wrongdoing is not a crime,” said the congresswoman. “The Espionage Act has been abused by administrations of both parties to target whistleblowers and journalists for sharing critically important information with the public. With whistleblowers, journalists, and civil liberties under significant attack and government decision-making shrouded in increasing secrecy, reining in the abuses of the Espionage Act could not be more urgent.”
Tlaib noted that in addition to past administrations using the Espionage Act to prosecute media sources and whistleblowers who alerted the public about mass surveillance, torture, drone assassinations, and war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, the FBI raided the home of a Washington Post reporter in January in connection to the prosecution of a government whistleblower.
The proposed legislation would limit the scope of the Espionage Act to foreign agents and government employees who have a legal duty to protect classified information—prohibiting the use of the law to prosecute publishers, journalists, or members of the public.
It would also increase due process standards and safeguards for whistleblowers who disclose government wrongdoing, war crimes, or abuses of power to the public. The legislation would create and affirmative public interest defense and require the government to prove that a whistleblower acted with the specific intent of harming the US or aiding a foreign power.
Under the Daniel Ellsberg Press Freedom and Whistleblower Protection Act, said Jenna Leventoff, senior policy counsel for the ACLU, "the government could no longer abuse [the Espionage Act] to silence those sharing information that is beneficial to the public."
“For too long the Espionage Act has been used to persecute and silence whistleblowers, journalists and publishers,” said Leventoff. “But journalism is not a crime—it is a First Amendment protected activity that protects our democracy by allowing the public to hold our nation’s leaders to account."
The Espionage Act was originally passed to crack down on those who spread information that could interfere with the war effort during World War I, and "from its inception," said Chip Gibbons, policy director at Defending Rights and Dissent, "the law has been used to stifle public debate and has become the go to weapon against whistleblowers and now journalists."
"Public servants who witness egregious crimes like torture, mass surveillance of Americans, or the killing of civilians, and seek to alert the American people about them are whistleblowers," said Gibbons. "Yet, using the Espionage Act the government prosecutes them as though they were spies. And with the government going further and prosecuting a journalist under the Espionage Act, the threat not just to press freedom, but to our very democracy, posed by this antiquated law is growing. Rep. Tlaib’s bill is desperately needed as it is well past time to bring the Espionage Act in line with the First Amendment.”
Tlaib noted that before his death in 2023, Ellsberg expressed public support for the reforms the congresswoman had proposed, when she introduced them as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act.
“For half a century, starting with my own prosecution, no whistleblower charged with violating the Espionage Act of 1917 has had, or could have, a fair trial," said Ellsberg in 2022. "These long-overdue amendments would remedy that injustice, protect the First Amendment freedom of the press, and encourage vitally needed truth-telling.”
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Fears of ‘Cataclysmic’ Refugee Crisis Grow as 3.2 Million Iranians Already Displaced by US-Israeli War
"If this evolves into a long-term war, and particularly if internal conflict emerges in Iran, the humanitarian consequences could worsen dramatically," said the president of Refugees International.
Mar 12, 2026
In less than two weeks, the US-Israeli war in Iran has caused a displacement crisis that Refugees International warns is "on course for cataclysmic civilian harm, displacement, and humanitarian need," amid repeated strikes on civilian sites and infrastructure.
As many as 3.2 million people are estimated to be temporarily displaced inside Iran, according to a report released Thursday by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Most of those who've been forced to flee their homes have been in Tehran and other urban centers, where US and Israeli airstrikes have been the heaviest, the report said.
Since the war was launched on February 28, Iranian authorities and humanitarian groups have reported widespread attacks on civilian areas and infrastructure by US and Israeli forces.
The Iranian Red Crescent Society reported on Wednesday that nearly 20,000 civilian buildings, including at least 16,000 residential units, have been affected by strikes, along with 77 healthcare facilities and 65 schools.
About 200 children in Iran are among approximately 1,300 killed and 9,000 injured in less than two weeks of war, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), which cited figures from national authorities.
"The war launched by the United States and Israel against Iran has been characterized by multiple strikes on civilian sites and infrastructure by all sides, often with flagrant disregard for civilian safety," said Jeremy Konyndyk, the president of Refugees International, on Wednesday. "The United States/Israeli coalition has struck numerous civilian sites in Iran, and the Iranian military has struck multiple civilian sites in Israel and in multiple Gulf countries."
"These attacks on civilians have already caused hundreds of needless deaths and displaced hundreds of thousands of people," he added. "The humanitarian impact could expand exponentially if this develops into a prolonged war."
The deadliest single attack on civilians has been the bombing of the Minab elementary school in southern Iran on the first day of the war, where at least 175 people, mostly girls ages 7-12, were massacred. Preliminary findings of an investigation by the Pentagon reportedly indicate that the United States was responsible for the attack. Konyndyk said it was "likely the largest number of child casualties in a single US military attack since the My Lai massacre in Vietnam in 1968."
"But the Minab strike is far from the only strike on civilian sites. US and Israeli attacks have struck other schools, multiple medical facilities, numerous residential areas, and a water desalination plant. Iranian attacks have also struck civilian targets and infrastructure, including a desalination plant and urban residential areas," Kondynyk said. "All such sites are protected under international humanitarian law (IHL), raising the serious prospect that these strikes could constitute war crimes."
He added that "It is difficult to regard the pattern of US strikes on civilian sites as mere tragic accidents when the United States has systematically removed many of the safeguards that once helped prevent harm to civilians."
He condemned comments by US Secretary Pete Hegseth dismissing the "stupid rules of engagement" and his closure of a Pentagon office tasked with preventing civilian harm in order to maximize "lethality," according to a recent investigation by ProPublica.
Hegseth emphasized last week that the United States was not planning to take in a, "new wave of Middle Eastern refugees” that might be forced to flee the region by continued attacks on Iran and other countries.
The Trump administration has let in virtually zero refugees from anywhere in the world since October, with the exception of white South Africans.
There are already around 25 million people living in the Middle East who are considered refugees, internally displaced, or had recently been returned after being displaced.
The defense secretary has said countries in the region are "capable" of handling the new influx of potentially millions more displaced people, even as the US has drastically reduced funds for international organizations that administer humanitarian aid and refugee resettlement.
There are more than 1.65 million refugees living in Iran, around 750,000 of whom are from Afghanistan. Kondynyk noted that many of them already "have limited access to their rights or safe passage and already face rights violations and scapegoating by the Iranian state."
More than 800,000 people in Lebanon have been forced to flee their homes this month, according to Lebanese authorities, following Israeli orders clearing over 100 villages in the south and outside Beirut.
Meanwhile, the vast majority of Gaza's nearly 2 million people still remain displaced after more than two years of genocidal war waged by Israel, which destroyed most civilian infrastructure, according to the International Organization for Migration.
"If this evolves into a long-term war, and particularly if internal conflict emerges in Iran, the humanitarian consequences could worsen dramatically," Kondynyk said. "A prolonged conflict risks creating displacement and humanitarian crises on a massive scale, even as US cuts have kneecapped the global humanitarian system built to respond to such crises."
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