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War & Peace
New York Times Affirms Haaretz Report: Netanyahu Was Warned About Oct. 7
"Netanyahu not only has unleashed vicious crimes onto Palestinians, but he failed his own people."
Sep 25, 2026
As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned to Israel after using his United Nations speech "to repeat baseless lies meant to sanitize his genocide of Palestinians" in the Gaza Strip, The New York Times on Friday corroborated Haaretz's recent reporting that the Israeli leader was warned about the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack that resulted in the war.
Haaretz reported earlier this month that during a September 2023 phone call, United Arab Emirates President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan told Netanyahu about now-deceased Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar's plans "for a major event" targeting Israel.
Netanyahu not only denied receiving that notice but also sent a "warning letter," threatening to file a libel lawsuit against the Israeli newspaper and journalists Shlomi Eldar and Ruth Yuval. In response, Haaretz said that it stood by their work.
A trio of Times journalists backed up that exposé on Friday, reporting that "a person who said they had spoken with Sheikh Mohammed and another person who said they had been briefed by someone on the call between the two leaders told The New York Times that the Emirati leader had secretly reported to Mr. Netanyahu that Hamas was considering a major attack."
"The warning from the Emirati leader, however, never reached the leaders of Israel's security establishment, according to five former senior Israeli officials. Mr. Netanyahu gathered his security chiefs days later, on October 1, 2023, for a meeting about the situation in the Gaza Strip, and never mentioned the warning," reported the US-based paper, which reviewed meeting minutes.
The minutes show that Netanyahu "pushed back when some security officials said that Israel should consider military strikes against senior Hamas leaders in Gaza who were overseeing attacks against Israelis in the West Bank," and suggested such action "might sabotage the prospect of Saudi Arabia establishing diplomatic relations with Israel," according to the Times.
While the Emirati foreign ministry and Netanyahu's office did not respond to the Times' requests for comment, the paper also revealed that months after the reported September 2023 phone call, the UAE's president told then-Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns that "he had spoken to Mr. Netanyahu about a looming threat of violence in the West Bank or the Gaza Strip carried out by Hamas," according to someone familiar with that discussion. The paper's sources were granted anonymity.
The Times' reporting came just days after an Emirati source commented on the Haaretz article. As the Israeli paper detailed:
"UAE discusses security matters with other countries through the relevant entities, and does not discuss such details at the level of national leaders," the source told UAE state-owned newspaper The National. He did not deny that the two leaders spoke, nor did he refute Haaretz's report.
In 2024, the Financial Times reported that The National is owned by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE's vice president and the president's brother. It also reported that the site aligns with the government's position and practices self-censorship on issues deemed sensitive or problematic by the authorities.
Noting that Netanyahu reportedly declined to pass the warning along to his intelligence agencies, investigative journalist Eli Clifton, a co-founder and senior adviser at the US-based Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, asked: "Why? Did he welcome the attack as an opportunity to wage war?"
Mehdi Hasan, who founded the outlet Zeteo, similarly wrote "wonder why" on social media.
Journalist Zaid Jilani declared that "Netanyahu not only has unleashed vicious crimes onto Palestinians, but he failed his own people."
Israel's next parliamentary elections are scheduled for October 27.
Ryan Bohl, a senior Middle East and North Africa analyst at risk intelligence firm RANE, said that it is "as close to an October surprise as one gets in Israel. If I was a betting man, I'd be betting against Netanyahu being next PM."
Reminder that the Trump administration is trying to destroy the ICC in order to protect this man.www.nytimes.com/2026/09/25/w...
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— Brian Finucane (@bcfinucane.bsky.social) September 25, 2026 at 1:02 PM
In a series of decisions seen as signs that Netanyahu and his allies are worried about holding on to power, Israel's Central Elections Committee—which is chaired by a Supreme Court justice but dominated by members of the Knesset's governing coalition—just disqualified all Arab-majority political parties and multiple candidates, while rejecting similar petitions for right-wing parties.
Israel's Supreme Court is set to review those decisions next week, and may overturn some or all of them before the elections.
While Netanyahu's allies on the committee tried to bar potential challengers from running, the prime minister briefly traveled to New York City to speak at the UN General Assembly—despite being the subject of a 2024 International Criminal Court arrest warrant issued over Israel's decimation of Gaza, which human rights groups and scholars have denounced as genocide.
As Netanyahu claimed in his speech that "Israel didn't commit genocide," but rather "prevented genocide," at least hundreds of protesters filled New York's streets and argued that the Israeli leader "needs to be tried in The Hague."
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Israel’s US-Backed Assault on Gaza Has Created the ‘World’s Most Severe Economic Crisis on Record’: UN
"We have moved from development blocked to development reversed," said the UN official behind a new report.
Sep 25, 2026
Israel’s US-backed military assault on Gaza has not only caused mass death and destruction; it has also created “the world’s most severe economic crisis on record,” according to Pedro Manuel Moreno, the acting secretary-general of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.
Moreno presented a recent report at a press conference on Thursday showing that 92% of economic establishments in Gaza—including shops, factories, restaurants, and farms—have been damaged or destroyed since Israel launched its assault on the territory in October 2023 and reduced most of its infrastructure to rubble.
Less than 1.5% of cropland across the strip remained accessible and undamaged, while more than half of its hospitals and primary health clinics have been rendered nonfunctional.
Compared with 2022, Gaza’s main productive sectors have been almost entirely wiped out: Agricultural and industrial output were each down 94%, while construction was down 99% in 2025. With most of its economic capacity destroyed, unemployment in the exclave skyrocketed to 78% in 2025, while tremendous scarcity led prices to soar to 274% above 2022 levels.
Dropping to just 17% of its 2022 level, Gaza’s gross domestic product (GDP) per capita cratered to $212 in 2025, equivalent to about 58 cents per person per day.
"Productive capacity is wiped out while the entire population is displaced and condemned to multidimensional poverty," said UNCTAD's coordinator for assistance to the Palestinians, Mutasim Elagraa, who led work on the report. "By multidimensional poverty I mean not just income poverty; it's also a lack of proper shelter, a lack of access to basic services like health and education and sanitation."
"Before the onset of this crisis in October 2023, two out of three residents were poor," Elagraa continued. "Today, everyone in Gaza is multidimensionally poor."
These conditions have increased the territory's reliance on outside aid, which Israel has often blocked, leading UN experts and human rights organizations to accuse its leaders of using starvation and deprivation as "weapons of war."
The International Criminal Court has found reasonable grounds to believe that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who gave a defiant speech denying Israel's responsibility for genocide at the UN General Assembly Thursday—bears criminal responsibility for the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare.
The report estimates that $71.5 billion will be needed for recovery and reconstruction, as well as $35.2 billion in physical infrastructure damage and $22.7 billion in economic and social losses.
"Restoring the collapsed health system, rebuilding destroyed education infrastructure and other public infrastructure will need to go together while restoring productive capacity, employment, functioning markets and the ability for businesses to operate," Moreno said. "Peace cannot be built on a collapsed economy."
Though the report emphasizes how Israel's bombardment has brought near-apocalyptic conditions upon the strip, it notes that Gaza's economic deprivation dates back decades before the Hamas-led attack in October 2023, which was the catalyst for the unprecedented assault.
It noted that 59 years of Israeli occupation of Palestine had severely stunted its economic growth, particularly as it tightened its blockade of Gaza in the last two decades.
Previous UNCTAD analyses have shown that between 2006, a year before Israel began its land, air, and sea blockade of Gaza, and 2022, Gaza's real GDP per capita fell by 37% while its productive economy, including agriculture and manufacturing, was hollowed out by Israel's restrictions on movement and imports. Even before 2023, nearly half of Gaza's workforce was unemployed, roughly two-thirds lived in poverty, and 80% depended on international aid.
“The central message of this report we are talking about today is that about six decades of occupation have hollowed out the Palestinian economy and de-developed it,” Elagraa said. “We have moved from development blocked to development reversed, and now decades of human development that has been achieved in Gaza has been wiped out."
"Although the intensity of destruction is far more in Gaza" than in the West Bank, he said, the report showed the "destruction" to be "a dramatic escalation of a pattern that dates back to 1967 with the onset of occupation."
"The report," he said, "maintains that history did not start in October 2023."
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'Baseless Lies Meant to Sanitize His Genocide': Mamdani Hits Back After Netanyahu's Attacks During UN Speech
“No lie can change the fact that he remains the subject of an International Criminal Court arrest warrant alleging war crimes and crimes against humanity,” New York City's mayor said of the Israeli prime minister.
Sep 24, 2026
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani hit back Thursday after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took to the United Nations General Assembly podium to accuse him of supporting Hamas and making Jewish New Yorkers feel unsafe—remarks that came after delegates from scores of countries walked out of the chamber to protest the far-right fugitive's presence.
Refuting allegations that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza—where Israeli forces have killed more than 73,000 Palestinians, including more than 21,500 children, since the Hamas-led attack of October 2023—Netanyahu said, "To all those spreading these lies about my country and about our brave soldiers, whether they sit in this hall or in the office of the antisemitic mayor of New York City, I say this: Shame on you."
"Mr. Mamdani, since you were elected mayor of this city, many Jews no longer feel safe in New York," the prime minister claimed. "It’s no wonder... You falsely and repeatedly accuse Israel of genocide. Israel didn’t commit genocide. Israel prevented genocide. And that’s exactly what Mr. Mamdani’s Hamas buddies would have done to us had we not stopped them. They would have killed every last one of us."
Mamdani issued a statement later Thursday saying: “As he has done time and again, Prime Minister Netanyahu used his speech to repeat baseless lies meant to sanitize his genocide of Palestinians. Yet no lie can change the fact that he remains the subject of an International Criminal Court arrest warrant alleging war crimes and crimes against humanity."
Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former defense minister, are fugitives from the International Criminal Court, where they are accused of murder and forced starvation of Palestinians in Gaza. The ICC also issued arrest warrants for three Hamas leaders, but Israel assassinated them.
While neither Israel nor the United States is a party to the Rome Statute governing the ICC, the treaty states that people from nonsignatory states who commit alleged crimes in states that are party to the treaty—as Palestine is—can be arrested in third countries and subsequently tried by the court.
Mamdani has said that Netanyahu should be arrested and brought before the Hague-based tribunal for trial, but that he lacks the legal authority to apprehend the prime minister in New York.
The International Court of Justice—also located in The Hague, Netherlands—is currently processing a genocide case filed against Israel by South Africa and formally supported by nearly 20 nations. The case is based on what the ICJ called the plausibility that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. The court has issued a series of provisional orders for Israel to adhere to the Genocide Convention—orders that critics say Israel has simply ignored.
Last year, an independent UN commission of inquiry found that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza, a conclusion shared by the International Association of Genocide Scholars and other experts including many Israeli and diaspora Jewish academics, jurists, human rights campaigners, and others.
As Netanyahu prepared to deliver his UN speech Thursday, delegates from a reported 77 nations walked out of the chamber in protest.
"If there are any other moral cowards who haven’t yet left this hall—please do so now," the prime minister said. "Thank you very much."
While some observers applauded the display of solidarity with Palestinians, others expressed disgust that Netanyahu was allowed to address the world body and that he has not yet been brought to justice.
"The head of the genocidal Israeli apartheid regime, a fugitive indicted for crimes against humanity, was allowed to enter the US and to address the UNGA today, without arrest," said Craig Mokhiber, a former senior UN official who resigned in protest of what he described as the world body’s failure to stop Israel’s genocidal war.
"Netanyahu insulted delegations, openly celebrated the regime’s many crimes, bragged about its terrorist pager attacks on Lebanon, repeated the regime’s debunked genocide propaganda, defended the illegal occupation of Palestine and Syria, lied incessantly, called violent, racist, illegal Zionist settlers 'peaceful' and 'honorable people,' labeled human rights defenders as 'antisemites,' even arrogantly attacked American citizens and officials for speaking out against the regime’s crimes," he continued.
"This violent psychopath cannot hide behind [US President Donald] Trump’s skirts forever," Mokhiber added. "He (and his collaborators) must be captured and brought to justice. And the UN must finally act to isolate the regime and hold it accountable. "
Referring to Netanyahu's address and Trump's threat on Tuesday to "annihilate" Iran during his rambling, lie-laden General Assembly speech, University of Colorado Law School associate professor Maryam Jamshidi said on social media, "Between Trump threatening Iran w/annihilation and Netanyahu bragging about Israel’s pager attacks, the UN podium has become a venue for promoting genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes."
Meanwhile, people took to the streets of New York to protest Netayahu's presence in the city, US complicity in Israeli crimes, and to show solidarity with Palestinians.
Hundreds of protesters gathered outside UN headquarters in Turtle Bay for a sit-in demonstration led by Jewish Voice for Peace. Demonstrators blocked roads while chanting slogans including, "Netanyahu you can't hide, you are wanted for genocide!"
As Common Dreams reported earlier Thursday, more than 100 demonstrators were arrested.
THEY’RE PUTTING THEM IN THE BUS!
Susan Sarandon Chelsea Manning, and MANY OTHER CELEBS ARRESTED at UN protest ahead of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's address! 👀
The 79-year-old actress – who has previously said she's been blacklisted over pro-Palestinian comments… pic.twitter.com/pvzuRGwGG4
— SANTINO (@TheRealSantino) September 24, 2026
Among those reportedly arrested were progressive congressional candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier; actors Susan Sarandon, Hannah Einbinder, and Cynthia Nixon; New York state Assemblymember Emily Gallagher (D-50); Democratic New York City Councilmembers Chi Ossé and Alexa Avilés; former Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning; and Palestinian American political activist Linda Sarsour.
"I will never, ever be silent," Sarsour said on Facebook. "I will never just accept the world as it is. I want history to record for future generations of Palestinians that we fought. At every turn. In every way. When it was easy and when it was hard."
"I want Palestinian girls in Gaza to see me in my hijab and my unapologetic Palestinian blood fighting for them to live FREE," she added. "This is bigger than all of us. Netanyahu is a war criminal and belongs in The Hague, not the United Nations."
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As Trump Threatens to 'Annihilate' Iran, Most Senate Republicans Still Refuse to Demand End to Illegal War
Sen. John Fetterman was the lone Democrat to vote against the resolution.
Sep 24, 2026
Even as some swing-state Republican US Senate candidates are suddenly calling for an end to President Donald Trump's unpopular and illegal war with Iran, the vast majority of elected GOP senators are voting to keep the conflict going.
A war powers resolution that would have compelled Trump to end the war he started more than six months ago was narrowly defeated in the US Senate on Thursday.
Just four Republicans—Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), and Thom Tillis (R-NC)—voted in favor of the resolution, which failed by a vote of 49-50. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) was the lone Democrat to vote against the resolution.
The Iran War, which Trump launched in February without congressional authorization, has led to a massive spike in energy prices, including record-high prices for diesel fuel.
As reported by NPR, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), who voted against Thursday's resolution, nonetheless acknowledged the economic toll the war is taking on Americans while speaking with reporters earlier this week.
"Everybody wants to see wars come to a conclusion," said the South Dakota Republican. "We are hopeful that the administration's efforts will lead to getting... the shipping lanes open and taking some of the pressure off of the American peoples' pocketbooks via a lower price at the pump for gasoline."
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), who led the war powers resolution in the US House of Representatives, decried the Senate's failure to pass it as "a slap in the face to the millions of American people who want this war to end."
"The Senate had the opportunity to send a clear message to this administration that they would not stand for another day of his war of choice," said Jayapal. "Instead, a majority of Senate Republicans acted as a cult party and stood by Trump’s unpopular and devastating war."
The Washington Democrat vowed that the House "will continue to pass these resolutions and demand an end to the war."
Cavan Kharrazian, senior policy adviser for Demand Progress, had a more optimistic take on the resolution's failure, arguing that the close vote count "shows that the tide continues to turn against this illegal war."
Kharrazian also noted that "Congress has already passed a legally binding war powers resolution directing him to remove US forces from the fighting," but the president "ignored it and kept waging a war that was illegal from day one."
During an unhinged speech before the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, Trump threatened to "annihilate" Iran by driving the country "into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness or generations."
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UK's New Israel Sanctions Haven't Actually Suspended Any Weapons Transfers
One anti-arms trade advocate said it showed the UK's new policy toward Israel was "nothing more than a soundbite designed to appease voters, whilst failing to deliver meaningful policy change."
Sep 24, 2026
Earlier this month, the UK government announced plans to cut off trade with Israel's illegal settlements in the West Bank—including weapons shipments.
But according to new disclosures made to Parliament, reported Thursday by Declassified UK, the sanctions regime has not actually led to any weapons licenses being suspended or revoked, validating warnings by some critics that the new Labour government's effort to cut ties with Israel's occupation was only skin-deep.
Back in 2024, as Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza was raging, then-Prime Minister Keir Starmer had suspended 30 out of approximately 350 arms export licenses to the country.
According to the UK-based Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), the UK has still approved at least £178 million ($235 million) worth of fixed-value military export licenses to Israel since October 2023—a figure that excludes exports authorized under open licenses, including much of Britain's contribution to the F-35 program.
UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband described the new restriction on arms export licenses as a “double lock against arms sales” to Israel under which the government would continue its existing suspensions and refuse applications for arms that "materially contribute to the occupation” of Palestine.
However, CAAT warned the following day that the policy, while welcome, "does not go far enough," and included several loopholes—including one that allowed the UK to continue supplying F-35 fighter jet parts to an international pool used by the Israeli military and another allowing Israel to potentially use military equipment exported there for use by third countries.
Several prominent leftists in Parliament, including Your Party co-founders Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana, as well as Green Party leader Zack Polanski, said that the trade bans should ultimately be just a first step on the way to a full arms embargo.
On September 16, the UK's trade department acknowledged, following a question from MP Iqbal Mohamed, that "no additional licenses have been revoked or suspended since September 8," according to Declassified.
The department explained that this was "largely because licenses for items that might materially contribute to the occupation have already been suspended because of Israel’s conduct in the Gaza conflict."
Declassified called this into doubt, however:
The government insists that many of the extant licenses for Israel cover items that are for re-export to a third country or military-grade goods for civilian use such as body armor.
Yet fighter jet components are still being exported to global spares pools used by Israel, and UK-made trainer aircraft parts, which help to sustain the F-35 program, continue to flow directly to Tel Aviv.
When asked about trainer aircraft, the trade department told Parliament that such components “are not used in Gaza and… do not materially contribute to Israel’s illegal occupation.”
This is despite the Foreign Office previously acknowledging that Israel’s M-346 trainer aircraft are “used to train [Israeli Air Force] fast-jet pilots” and “facilitate the development of an offensive capacity.”
Dearbhla Minogue, a lawyer from Global Legal Action Network, which took the UK to court over arms exports to Israel in 2024, told the outlet that these revelations appear to indicate that there will be "no concrete consequences for Israel after this government recognized the likelihood of war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and what it terms Israeli terrorism."
"Successive governments have done everything in their power to continue aiding and abetting genocide and war crimes with deadly and devastating consequences," said Sam Perlo-Freeman, CAAT’s research coordinator. "The new so-called ‘double-lock’ on arms exports to Israel exemplifies this."
He added that it is "nothing more than a soundbite designed to appease voters, whilst failing to deliver meaningful policy change, and continuing to allow arms dealers to profit from Israel’s genocide in Gaza."
This news comes days after Prime Minister Andy Burnham also affirmed that the UK would provide military support—specifically “defensive” air-to-air refueling—to Saudi Arabia as it launches new strikes on Yemen’s Houthis.
A new CAAT report says the UK approved £464.8 million in military exports to Saudi Arabia in just the first quarter of 2026, with most of the value consisting of air-to-surface weapons.
The Saudi-led war against Yemen that lasted from 2015-22 killed an estimated 377,000 people from direct and indirect causes. During that time, CAAT found that the UK approved £7.1 billion ($9.4 billion) worth of military goods to Saudi Arabia.
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'Netanyahu Wanted for Genocide!' 100+ Arrested Outside UN Speech
"I want elected leaders here in this country to catch up to the American people," said actor and activist Cynthia Nixon, "who understand that what is happening in Gaza and Palestine is a war crime."
Sep 24, 2026
As she waited to be loaded into a police vehicle with several other pro-Palestinian protesters in New York City on Thursday, Democratic US House candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier said she was among hundreds of New Yorkers who had risked arrest "because we can't allow a war criminal to roam the streets of our city."
"He needs to be tried in The Hague," she added, speaking about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose arrival in the city for the United Nations General Assembly sparked the protest outside the UN headquarters.
Other politicians who joined the protest included Brad Lander, Chris Rabb of Pennsylvania, Melat Kiros of Colorado, and Adam Hamawy of New Jersey, while celebrities who have been outspoken supporters of Palestinian rights, including actors Hannah Einbinder, Susan Sarandon, Elliot Page, Cynthia Nixon, and writer Tony Kushner also joined the demonstration led by Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP).
"I'm here because I want to stop US complicity in the genocide that is happening in Gaza and the West Bank," said Nixon. "I want to stop us funding Israel, I want to block the bombs, and I want elected leaders here in this country to catch up to the American people and people everywhere around the globe who understand that what is happening in Gaza and Palestine is a war crime, it's unacceptable, and it's wrong, and history will judge them very harshly."
Mass anti-war sit-in outside Netanyahu's speech https://t.co/iKJas2TeBG
— Jewish Voice for Peace (@jvplive) September 24, 2026
The demonstrators blocked roads outside the UN headquarters, and The New York Daily News reported that more than 100 people were arrested.
“There’s an arrest warrant out for Benjamin Netanyahu for the war crimes he’s committing in Gaza," said Sumaya Awad, director of the New York-based Organizing for Adalah Justice Project. " Trump is refusing to arrest him so we’re taking to the streets to make it clear to our government, and to future generations who will look back on this moment, that we refuse to normalize genocide. We refuse to normalize sending billions to commit war crimes, meanwhile our own schools and hospitals here are underfunded."
The US has provided at least $17.9 billion in military aid to Israel since the country began its military campaign in Gaza—on top of $3.8 billion it provides annually.
But as Nixon noted, public approval for US funding of the Israel Defense Forces has plummeted in recent years. A Quinnipiac University poll last year found that 60% of Americans no longer support providing Israel with weapons and military funding.
Nixon was among many attendees who wore a T-shirt emblazoned with the words, "Fund People, Not Bombs." Protesters chanted, "Netanyahu, you can't hide, you are wanted for genocide!" and "Not another penny, not another dime, no more money for genocide!"
Netanyahu has been welcomed to the US multiple times since the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a warrant in November 2024 for his arrest, along with that of former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Hamas leader Mohammed Deif, who was killed several months later.
Netanyahu has been accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity for the military campaign his government has ordered in Gaza since October 2023, in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack—which, according to a report by Israeli newspaper Haaretz earlier this month, the prime minister was alerted about ahead of time by the United Arab Emirates.
In Gaza, Israeli forces have killed more than 73,000 Palestinians, decimated the vast majority of housing units, and bombed hospitals, schools, and refugee camps. According to testimony from IDF soldiers, commanders have explicitly allowed the mass killing of civilians.
The government has also blocked humanitarian aid, leading to the starvation of hundreds of people, including at least 130 children. Amnesty International said last year that Netanyahu's government had used starvation as a "weapon of war," and the group is one of numerous human rights organizations that have called the assault on Gaza a genocide.
Netanyahu has joined US politicians in accusing critics of the Israeli government of "antisemitism," but JVP noted that a majority of people who took part in Thursday's protests were "Jewish New Yorkers, joined by Palestinian, Lebanese, and Iranian New Yorkers, including parents, teachers, nurses, grandmothers, and descendants of Holocaust survivors who were determined to raise their voices as Netanyahu roamed free in the streets of New York City."
Stefanie Fox, executive director of JVP, noted that "as we protest, the Israeli military expands its genocide in Gaza and destruction across the region," while "we are living through the crushing conditions of expanding fascism here in the US."
"But this is a movement that refuses to give up, and we know we can end this," said Fox. "From the streets of NYC to the halls of Congress we will be relentless in our demands to stop arming Israel."
Inside the UN headquarters, a number of delegations walked out of the room as Netanyahu began addressing the General Assembly on Wednesday afternoon—leading to jeers from the prime minister, who called the leaders "moral cowards" for objecting to the presence of an accused war criminal at the UN.
By continuing to back Israel, said Utah state Sen. Nate Blouin (D-13), "The US is very much not in step with the rest of the world."
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Macklemore Announces 'Free Palestine Tour' With Dates in Paris, London, and Dublin
"When the billionaire class can decide which voices are allowed on stage and which ones are too dangerous to hear, everyone should be paying attention."
Sep 24, 2026
Rapper Macklemore on Thursday revealed a new phase in his campaign to raise awareness of the plight of Palestinians.
Macklemore, whose pro-Palestinian statements got him removed as a supporting act for fellow musician Ed Sheeran’s stadium tour, announced a series of live shows aimed at raising money for organizations that provide aid to Palestinian civilians suffering under Israeli military occupation and assault.
Several other opening acts for Sheeran subsequently quit the tour in solidarity with Macklemore.
"What happened to me is bigger than one artist or one stage," Macklemore wrote. "When the billionaire class can decide which voices are allowed on stage and which ones are too dangerous to hear, everyone should be paying attention. So we're going on tour. All proceeds will benefit organizations supporting the Palestinian people and movement."
The "Free Palestine Tour" so far has concerts scheduled in London, Dublin, and Paris, and Macklemore said that additional musical guests would be revealed at a later date.
Earlier this month, Macklemore pledged to donate $1 million to six organizations who were aiding Palestinians: HEAL Palestine, Gaza Soup Kitchen, Medical Aid for Palestinians, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), and American Near East Refugee Aid.
Those groups will also be beneficiaries of the upcoming tour, as will organizations such as Jewish Voice for Peace and the Institute for Middle East Understanding.
Rachel Griffin Accurso, the YouTube star and child educator known popularly as Ms. Rachel, last week pledged to match Macklemore's $1 million donation to Palestinian aid groups, and encouraged "every wealthy white celebrity to match it and speak out against the genocide in Gaza."
“Over 20,000 precious Palestinian children have been killed and children continue to be killed every day,” Ms. Rachel said. “We have a moral obligation to use our privilege and platforms to protect children and human rights.”
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NAZA Filmmakers to Make Film Available for Free Online Amid Israel's Smear Campaign
"It is the duty of every citizen whose government commits crimes to know, and of every soldier who witnessed them to tell."
Sep 24, 2026
Israeli journalists and filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor are determined to ensure that their documentary, NAZA, has the farthest reach possible even as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government accuses them of "blood libel" for interviewing soldiers who described the Israeli military's mass killing of civilians, and threatens to revoke their citizenship for making the film.
Abraham said Thursday morning on social media that he, Szor, and The Guardian, which produced the film, had decided to make NAZA accessible "online for free, without any time limit, so that every person can watch it and the soldiers' testimonies," starting in November.
Until then, the filmmakers are approaching movie theaters in Israel and offering the film "at no cost, in the hope that it will be screened in the country" as it is distributed worldwide.
Commentators in Israel have criticized Abraham and Szor for not making the film free, said journalist Ryan Grim, and theaters are now "being dared to follow through on their bluff and screen it."
The film builds on reporting Abraham has done since the beginning of Israel's current assault on Gaza, which started in 2023 in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack. In NAZA, as well as in investigative reports for the Israeli news outlets +972 Magazine and Local Call, Abraham has extensively covered the Israel Defense Forces' rules of engagement in Gaza, including its use of artificial intelligence for targeting and the IDF policy of allowing the killing of more than 100 Palestinian civilians for every Hamas commander killed.
The film's title refers to the IDF's term for the number of civilians commanders expected to be killed in a particular strike.
" Journalism is not betrayal. Criticism is not betrayal."
NAZA received a record-breaking standing ovation and the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival this month, and the film will premiere in North America at the New York Film Festival this Saturday, with a theatrical release beginning four days later. A wider release in the US is scheduled for October 9, and 50 other countries and territories are also expected to release the film.
While the film has been widely acclaimed, Abraham noted that at home in Israel, "many incorrect things were said about us and about the film in the past week."
Officials have accused the filmmakers, who interviewed 24 military and intelligence officers for the film, of lying about the IDF's practices in Gaza.
Netanyahu, who is facing legislative elections next month, said after the film's release at the Venice Film Festival that he would introduce a bill to revoke the citizenship of Israelis who defame the IDF. Eyal Zamir, chief of staff at the IDF, said military lawyers were considering legal action against Abraham and Szor.
Protesters outside Szor's family home could be heard chanting, "Death sentence for traitors" one evening, and the Committee to Protect Journalists noted that the call for violence "followed days of increasingly hostile public rhetoric targeting the filmmakers, which underscores the risks created when government officials publicly target journalists."
The offices of +972 Magazine and Local Call were also reportedly broken into.
"We made the film to spark a public discussion about the government's actions in Gaza, the killing of more than 73,000 people, most of them civilians, the normalization of a war of extermination, of the notion that 'there are no uninvolved,'" said Abraham.
"Journalism is not betrayal. Criticism is not betrayal," he continued. "It is the duty of every citizen whose government commits crimes to know, and of every soldier who witnessed them to tell. There are thousands of such soldiers walking around here, who will watch the film and recognize what is described in it personally: the killing of unarmed people crossing an imaginary line, the [NAZA] approvals in the hundreds, the systematic attacks on family homes, the burning and physical destruction of Gaza, murder and shooting at hungry people in food distribution centers, and other crimes that have no justification."
Ali Abunimah, director of Electronic Intifada, said the filmmakers should have made the film free for viewers "from the start."
He also called for Abraham and Szor to "turn over any and all evidence they have that could lead to the arrest and punishment of perpetrators of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide to the International Criminal Court," which has a warrant out for the arrest of Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
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Senate Democrats Push Sanctions Over E1 Settlement Construction in Israeli-Occupied West Bank
"Benjamin Netanyahu's disgraceful policy of expanding West Bank settlements crosses a clear red line and makes Palestinian statehood and lasting peace even more difficult."
Sep 23, 2026
Nineteen US Senate Democrats on Wednesday introduced a bill to sanction people or companies that facilitate the construction of Israeli settlements in the E1 area east of Jerusalem in the West Bank, which would split the illegally occupied Palestinian territory in two.
"The E1 settlement project is a move towards de facto annexation of the West Bank, and those who choose to facilitate settlement construction should understand that they risk losing access to the US financial system," said Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who is leading the legislation with Sens. Chris Coons (D-Del.), Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).
"The United States must use all diplomatic and economic tools available to counter rapid settlement expansion and extremist settler violence in the West Bank, spiraling trends that will only undermine the prospect of lasting peace for Israelis and Palestinians," she argued.
Critics of the plan to build 3,401 housing units in the E1 area—and recent unprecedented violence by Israeli settlers and soldiers toward Palestinians in the West Bank—have pressured governments across the globe to respond with sanctions. In the face of such pressure, UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said earlier this month that the E1 plan was designed to "make the two-state solution unviable."
Within the next nine months, Miliband pledged, the United Kingdom's Labour government will "take action against specific companies and individuals who provide services such as construction, infrastructure, financing, or real estate for settlement expansion," and penalize “those who finance or facilitate illegal settlements."
The United Kingdom, France, and Canada have joined forces to ban imports of goods and some services from illegal Israeli settlements. Their foreign ministers also partnered with those from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden for a joint statement in which they said the situation in the West Bank is "rapidly deteriorating amid unprecedented levels of settler violence and settlement expansion, including the unacceptable decision to publish tenders for the E1 settlement project."
The foreign ministers confirmed their "intention to introduce national and/or support European restrictions on trade in goods with settlements which are illegal under international law, or that they are actively considering these and other measures, in accordance with their national procedures."
In the United States on Wednesday, Wyden took aim at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who is heading to New York City this week for the United Nations General Assembly, which has sparked fresh calls for his arrest in accordance with an International Criminal Court warrant issued over his government's genocidal war on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
"Benjamin Netanyahu's disgraceful policy of expanding West Bank settlements crosses a clear red line and makes Palestinian statehood and lasting peace even more difficult," said Wyden. "The United States must stand up against Netanyahu's campaign of violence and aggression against Palestinian civilians and sanction individuals and companies that are complicit in this unlawful action."
Under both Republican President Donald Trump and his Democratic predecessor, former President Joe Biden, the US has given Israel billions of dollars in military support, despite the ongoing slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
As the Trump administration pushes a proposed $2.8 billion transfer of 40,000 2,000-pound bombs to Israel—weapons Israeli forces have dropped on civilians in Gaza and Lebanon—polling commissioned by the magazine Liberal Currents and released Monday by the Center for Strategic Politics shows that Americans want Trump and Biden officials held accountable for the genocide.
Although a growing number of lawmakers have joined scholars and rights advocates around the world in condemning Israel's war on Gaza since the October 2023 Hamas-led attack as a genocide, Congress hasn't taken any concrete action to limit military aid to Israel.
The bill unveiled Wednesday is similarly unlikely to go anywhere—even though, as Gallego noted, "for decades, Democrats and Republicans alike have pushed for a two-state solution," and the Israeli construction would "threaten a viable Palestinian state."
"It's a step in the wrong direction," Gallego said of the settlement plan. "This legislation sends a clear message to Prime Minister Netanyahu: The United States stands firmly behind a two-state solution as the only path to real peace and security for all."
Coons—a "staunch" longtime supporter of Israel—pointed out that "for decades, American presidents from both parties have warned successive Israeli governments that construction in E1 threatened the viability of a Palestinian state and was unacceptable to the United States."
However, even if Democrats win back control of the Senate, or perhaps both congressional chambers, in November's midterm elections, there appears to be little appetite within the Trump administration to do or say anything about the E1 plan.
After the European nations' moves earlier this month, Politico highlighted that "the White House's approach to US allies hitting Israeli settlers with sanctions comes down to this: Say as little as possible and let it happen."
Still, according to Coons, "as Palestinian civilians face a campaign of devastation and fear from violent extremist settlers, the United States must send a strong message that this behavior is unacceptable and that it remains committed to freedom, security, prosperity and self-determination for all Israelis and Palestinians."
The bill is backed by the liberal Zionist organization J Street, whose president, Jeremy Ben-Ami, also pointed to previous administrations treating E1 construction "as a clear red line because of the devastating blow it would deal to the possibility of a negotiated resolution to the conflict," and called Trump's failure to enforce that same standard "shameful."
"We applaud Sen. Coons, Warren, Wyden, and Gallego for taking a clear stand to preserve the possibility of peace and long-term security for Israelis and Palestinians," said Ben-Ami, whose group opposes broad boycotts of Israel.
In addition to the four lead sponsors, the bill is co-sponsored by Democratic Sens. Michael Bennet (Colo.), Tammy Duckworth (Ill.), Martin Heinrich (NM), Tim Kaine (Va.), Mark Kelly (Ariz.), Andy Kim (NJ), Jeff Merkley (Ore.), Chris Murphy (Conn.), Patty Murray (Wash.), Jack Reed (RI), Brian Schatz (Hawaii), Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Elissa Slotkin (Mich.), Chris Van Hollen (Md.), and Peter Welch (Vt.).
Khaled Elgindy, a senior research fellow in the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft's Middle East program and adjunct instructor at Georgetown University's Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, offered some criticism of the bill.
"The 'individuals or groups' enabling E1 is called the Israeli [government]," Elgindy wrote on social media. "This looks like another attempt by D's to look like they're doing something without actually doing something."
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With 'Blood-Soaked War Criminal' Set to Land in Mamdani's NYC, Calls Grow to Arrest Netanyahu
The mayor has said New York can’t enforce the ICC warrant against Israel’s prime minister, but one human rights lawyer argued it’s “not the only tool available to the US when it comes to holding Netanyahu accountable.”
Sep 23, 2026
As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepares to land in New York for a speech at the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday, calls are once again mounting for the accused war criminal to be arrested.
While campaigning last year, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani pledged that if the prime minister ever set foot in his city, he'd find himself in handcuffs, pursuant to an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant, which accused him of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, where Israel's genocidal military assault has killed nearly 74,000 people, including more than 21,000 children.
After becoming mayor, Mamdani backed off the pledge earlier this summer, stating that New York lacked the “independent legal authority” to detain him under the ICC warrant. However, he said Netanyahu should still be "arrested and tried" by the federal government.
In the days leading up to his visit to New York, which is expected to be brief, Netanyahu indicated he planned to address the mayor during his General Assembly speech, falsely accusing him of supporting Hamas and inciting riots against Jewish New Yorkers.
“I'm coming to the UN,” the prime minister said. “I'm going to tell the truth about our heroic soldiers, and I'm going to tell the truth about you."
Mamdani hit back during a CNN interview on Tuesday: "I have been clear about the way that I see the world. And I always owe New Yorkers that honesty. And when it comes to Benjamin Netanyahu, I have described him as I believe him to be: a war criminal and an architect of a horrific genocide of the Palestinian people."
Of the ICC warrant, he reiterated that it was "something that should be honored, because what we want to see... is a faith in our politics, a faith in accountability."
In July, a YouGov poll found that 49% of Americans believed the US government should arrest Netanyahu under the warrant, 27% said it should not, and 23% were unsure.
President Donald Trump stated earlier this summer that Netanyahu “will not be arrested, in any way, shape, or form" while visiting the US. His administration's position, as stated in a February 2025 executive order, is that Netanyahu can't be arrested. The ICC, it says, “has no jurisdiction over the United States or Israel” because, unlike most other nations, neither is a party to the Rome Statute, which created the court.
Jake Romm, a legal adviser for the Hind Rajab Foundation—a group named after a 5-year-old Palestinian girl killed by Israeli forces—argued Tuesday in The Nation that even if the ICC warrant can't be enforced on US soil, it "is not the only tool available to the US when it comes to holding Netanyahu accountable."
Romm noted the existence of "two robust federal criminal statutes," the War Crimes Act and the Genocide Statute, which he said incorporate "important international instruments into US law"—the Geneva Convention governing the laws of war and the Genocide Convention, respectively.
He wrote that both of these laws give the US jurisdiction over alleged war criminals “regardless of where the crimes have been committed” when the suspect is physically present in the US, or the crimes were committed against US nationals.
Romm acknowledged that Netanyahu is shielded from arrest during his official UN visit and that sitting heads of government generally enjoy immunity from national courts, but argued that those protections do not eliminate the United States' underlying authority to prosecute him under federal war crimes and genocide laws.
"The United States has the ability to arrest Netanyahu for crimes under US law and to prosecute him in US courts," Romm wrote. "I stress this not because I believe that an administration that has, at every turn, deepened its complicity in Israel’s crimes will suddenly change. I stress the US’s ability and obligation to arrest Netanyahu—and all Israeli perpetrators of the genocides in Palestine and southern Lebanon—in order to make one thing clear: Every day that Netanyahu remains free is a day that the US has allowed him to remain free."
It's not just the United States that has allowed Netanyahu to travel freely despite the warrant. Emma Fourreau, a French member of the European Parliament, accused her nation's government—which is obligated to arrest Netanyahu under the Rome Statute—of having "trample[d] on international law" by giving his aircraft clearance to pass through its airspace en route to New York.
Craig Mokhiber, a former senior UN human rights official who resigned in 2023 while accusing Israel of carrying out a “textbook genocide” in Gaza, said the fact that Netanyahu would be showing up at the UN unencumbered, even while being "universally despised, and blocked from travel to most countries on the planet," was a "stain" on the entire institution.
"He will even be allowed to enter UN premises and to address the [General Assembly], received as a VIP rather than the blood-soaked war criminal that he is," Mokhiber said on social media, describing it as one of many failures of the institution to respond to Israel's actions in Gaza.
He noted that the General Assembly had not stripped Israel of its credentials as it did with apartheid-era South Africa, that the UN Security Council had endorsed the Trump-led "Board of Peace" proposal to govern postwar Gaza, and that Secretary-General António Guterres had declined to use the word "genocide" to describe Israel's conduct, even while other top UN experts had.
"The genocidaires are not just walking among us, they are ruling over us. They are trying to normalize genocide and apartheid," Mokhiber said. "We, in our millions, must act to denormalize these scourges, to hold the perpetrators and accomplices accountable, and to ensure they never have a moment’s peace until justice prevails."
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In Defiant UN Speech, Iranian President Says US and Israel Are the Real Terrorists
Masoud Pezeshkian delivered his address after the president of the United States—which one progressive commentator called "the world's biggest terrorist"—again threatened to "annihilate" Iran.
Sep 23, 2026
Iran's president used his address to the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday to turn Washington's decades-old assertion that his country is the world's leading terrorist state on its head by accusing the US—which has killed and wounded tens of thousands of Iranians during President Donald Trump's illegal war of choice—of terrorism against Iranians.
“The United States president described us as terrorists,” Masoud Pezeshkian told world leaders gathered in New York, referring to President Donald Trump’s speech there the previous day. “We have been the victims of terrorism.”
Pezeshkian held up photographs of some of the 120 children massacred when the US bombed the Shajareh Tayyebeh Primary School in Minab during the opening hours of the US-Israeli war in February, an attack that killed over 150 people in total and was called a likely war crime by UN experts last week.
"You see these children?” he said. “These children perished under bombs with weapons used by the United States and Israel. They were innocent.”
“Those who are terrorists, and train and protect terrorists, describe us as such," the president continued. "We have only defended ourselves. We are not terrorists."
As Pezeshkian continued, the US representative attending the session got up and walked out. This, a day after Trump again threatened to "annihilate" the entire country of Iran—comments interpreted by many observers to mean nuclear war.
"Our innocent people have been the targets of cowardly attacks and aggression imposed upon our country," the Iranian president said. "America and Israel attacked us equipped with the latest technology and weapons systems, and our people stood steadfast. Yes, they did hit us, but we did not bend the knee. We did not bow our head."
"They came into surrounding territories... and targeted our universities, our healthcare centers, our schools, our hospitals, our infrastructure, all of it against international law," Pezeshkian continued.
He also noted that Israel "targets any neighborhood in any city in any province" and "commits assassinations like a true terrorist."
The Iranian president stressed that "for the past two centuries, Iran has not attacked any country," even as Washington helped overthrow Iran's reformist government in the 1950s, restoring a brutal monarchy and, later, supported actual US-designated terrorists who had carried out deadly attacks against not only Iranians but also US officials. The US also shot down an Iranian commercial airliner—an attack deemed an accident, for which then-President George HW Bush refused to apologize.
Pezeshkian also said that Israel is "committing genocide" in Gaza, where officials say that more than 250,000 Palestinians have been killed or wounded; 2 million have been forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened; and the majority of the strip destroyed since October 2023.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to address the UN General Assembly on Thursday, despite an International Criminal Court arrest warrant for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza.
The United States and Iran have designated all or parts of each other's armed forces as terrorist organizations. Both countries have long histories of supporting militant groups which often act as proxies.
The US and Israel—often alone or nearly so on the world stage—deny all the allegations against them. Trump and senior members of his administration even initially claimed that Iran bombed the Minab school, even as the evidence of US culpability grew too damning to deny.
The back-and-forth allegations of terrorism highlight a larger question raised by Pezeshkian’s speech: Who gets to define terrorism when the world's most powerful military is involved? Do the more technologically sophisticated arsenals of the US and Israel—which include 2,000-pound bombs and artificial intelligence systems capable of selecting targets far faster than any human—legitimize their users' violence, even if they're killing more people than their enemy, and exponentially so?
Under 18 US Code § 2331(5), terrorism is defined as "acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any state appearing to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, influence the policy of government by intimidation or coercion, or affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping."
By that definition, say many critics of US policy and practice, the United States is a terrorist state. And not just any terrorist, progressive political commentator Kyle Kulinski contended in a new essay published by Current Affairs, but rather "the world's biggest terrorist."
Kulinski's piece addressed the controversy surrounding leftist streamer Hasan Piker, who argued that the United States has caused extraordinary amounts of terror around the world under successive presidents regardless of party, and should be judged by the same standards Washington applies to organizations such as al-Qaeda, many of whose fighters had received US funding and arms to fight the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s before they turned on their erstwhile benefactors in response to Washington's own militant imperialism.
Kulinski pointed to the Minab school strike, the US bombing of a wedding in Iran, its support for Israel during the Gaza genocide, the illegal attacks on boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean—which UN experts this week said could amount to crimes against humanity—and the abduction of President Nicolás Maduro during January's invasion of Venezuela, which is one of 10 countries attacked during the two terms of Trump, who campaigned for reelection as the "peace president."
"And do you think it began with Trump? Bad news for you. The architect of the Great Society, the great Democrat [former President]Lyndon Johnson, was napalming little Vietnamese girls long before Trump was blowing up Iranian elementary schools," Kulinski wrote.
Johnson's Democratic predecessor, John F. Kennedy, "began a massive terror campaign against Cuba, designed specifically to hurt civilians in order to bring political change—textbook terrorism."
Subsequently, he continued, then-President Barack Obama "was bombing hospitals and weddings long before Trump. He talked about how good he was at killing people, including a teenage American citizen he took out with a drone, and he helped Saudi Arabia commit war crimes in Yemen."
Recently, Kulinski wrote, former President Joe Biden "was sending constant weapons to Israel during the deadliest parts of Israel’s genocide."
"The record of US-supported terrorism is long," he said. "We helped the Indonesian government massacre half a million communists. We helped the Contras terrorize Nicaragua. We even helped Saddam Hussein use chemical weapons on Iran."
Kulinski noted that former President George W. Bush, "possibly the worst terrorist of our age, caused maybe half a million deaths in Iraq with his totally illegal war. He made Osama bin Laden look like an amateur. And now he has a new book of paintings coming out. They’re portraits of political prisoners. I’m guessing it probably won’t include all the people he tortured for years in Guantánamo."
"The truth needs to matter," Kulinski concluded. "In defamation cases, truth is always a defense. The US is the biggest, baddest bully on the block. We do not care about international law, human rights, the Constitution, or justice. How are we supposed to change anything for the better if we can’t acknowledge the most obvious things in the world?"
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