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War & Peace
'This Is Not a Ceasefire,' Doctors Without Borders Says of Gaza, 'It Is a Continuation of the Genocide'
"A ceasefire should ensure that hostilities are paused, weapons are silenced, and that people are safe from strikes across the strip."
Jul 28, 2026
Nearly 10 months into a "ceasefire" in the Gaza Strip, as Israel on Tuesday killed at least one Palestinian man with an airstrike on the Nuseirat refugee camp, Doctors Without Borders declared that "the wounds of war are not only unhealed—they are still being inflicted."
"This is not a ceasefire," said the medical charity, also known as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), in a statement. "It is a continuation of the genocide, calibrated to be violent enough to keep Palestinians suffering every day, yet silent enough to avoid stirring international outrage."
Israeli forces have killed more than 73,300 Palestinians in Gaza and wounded over 174,009 since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel—with global experts warning the true toll is likely far higher. Local authorities have documented at least 1,200 deaths and 3,900 injuries since the ceasefire was agreed to over nine months ago.
Experts with the United Nations and others around the world have denounced the Israeli assault and blockade as a genocide, and South Africa is leading a related case at the International Court of Justice. The International Criminal Court has also issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, over the mass slaughter.
Nearly all of Gaza's roughly 2 million survivors have been forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened. MSF said that "the destruction of homes has not stopped with the announcement of the ceasefire. Sudden and arbitrary orders for people to flee their homes and shelters continue to be used as a tool of psychological warfare by Israeli forces."
Rajaa Jendiya, who was widowed in the "flour massacres," is living in a tent at a school-turned-displacement camp with her children. She told Middle East Eye that she often takes them to the hospital because of illnesses.
"Inside and around the school, you often see sewage water overflowing, while rubbish accumulates, attracting flies and insects," Jendiya said. "These conditions become even worse with the heat, and many times my children have developed skin diseases."
In such makeshift shelters across Gaza, "scabies, respiratory infections, rat bites, and other diseases are rife," according to MSF.
Accessing healthcare has also become difficult in the coastal strip, as Israel has killed and detained Palestinian medical providers, and bombed civilian infrastructure such as hospitals, including in the months since the ceasefire deal was reached.
As MSF detailed Tuesday:
On July 16, an Israeli strike near an MSF clinic in Al-Mawasi sent four injured people to our teams. The following day, two apartment buildings housing our staff in Gaza City were struck without warning, trapping families inside as explosions shattered windows. In one building, rubble and bodies crashed into the lower-floor apartment of an MSF staff member.
The same day, MSF teams in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, treated 12 people—seven of whom were children—who were injured after Israeli forces struck a funeral in Al-Nuseirat. In total, this strike killed eight people and injured 20. Among those killed was the 21-year-old son of an MSF staff member. Our colleague got the news while working in another emergency room.
"These were not isolated incidents," the organization stressed, "but merely a snapshot of 48 hours in Gaza."
Israel has also limited the flow of food and medicine into the war-torn territory. Calling out the country for using humanitarian assistance "as an instrument of oppression," MSF emphasized that "the Israeli state has an obligation under international law to ensure Palestinians in Gaza have access to aid, regardless of political negotiations, military agreements, or conduct of hostilities."
Since October, when the Israel Defense Forces controlled about half of Gaza, the "yellow line" indicating IDF occupation has kept shifting, to push Palestinians into "an ever-shrinking area," MSF explained. "Today, almost 2 million Palestinians are confined to approximately 30% of the strip."
After speaking with residents in Deir al-Balah, Khan Younis, Rafah, and Gaza City's Zeitoun, Tuffah, and Shejaia neighborhoods, Reuters reported Tuesday that "Israeli forces have advanced the yellow block markers during the past 10 days, triggering new waves of displacement in areas already devastated by months of conflict."
While loading bags and mattresses onto a truck in Zeitoun, Assem Dawla told the news agency: "The whole war is displacement, displacement. You can't stay anywhere without [Israel] telling you, 'Get out of here, we want to come in.'"
Staying near the yellow line comes with risks. MSF said that "just this week, one mother told our teams that her 14-year-old son, who has Down syndrome, was shot five times by Israeli snipers near the yellow line while he was playing near his home."
"A ceasefire should ensure that hostilities are paused, weapons are silenced, and that people are safe from strikes across the strip," the group asserted. "Using it as a weapon of war and reinforcing the confinement to a fraction of Gaza cannot be justified."
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'Lindsey Liked War': Trump Laughs Off Graham's Giddiness Over Iran Onslaught
"He's never seen a war that he didn't like."
Jul 28, 2026
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday recalled Lindsey Graham's warmongering ways ahead of the late Republican senator's funeral, while once again threatening to commit more atrocities in Iran if an agreement to stop the war he and Israel started there is not reached soon.
Trump phoned in to Fox News' "Fox and Friends" morning show to laud his "great friendship" with the senator from South Carolina, who died on July 11 at the age of 71. Previously unreleased video published over the weekend shows Graham jubilant over Trump's decision to attack Iran in February and saying the president "loves blowing stuff up."
The president told "Fox and Friends" hosts: "He was very much a hawk, as you would say, on Iran. Lindsey liked war, to be honest with you."
"I said, you're a nice guy, how can you like war so much?" the president added. "He was a guy that liked war. I jokingly say—and there's nothing funny about it—but he's never seen a war that he didn't like."
Trump on Lindsey Graham: "He's never seen a war that he didn't like. He was very much into that -- you know, for good reason. He felt that way, some other people feel that way." pic.twitter.com/YbAttT8h8s
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 28, 2026
Graham had pushed for attacking Iran since at least 2010, both for strategic and financial reasons; in March, he boasted that the United States was "gonna make a ton of money" from the war.
While Graham isn't the only Republican in Congress to make inflammatory comments about Iran—just over the weekend, Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana opined that "sometimes you have to kill a few chickens to scare the monkeys"—he was the most consistent cheerleader for continuing attacks on the Mideast nation.
Trump also discussed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to Washington, DC to attend Graham's funeral and make the case for continued war on Iran. Netanyahu is Trump's partner in the illegal war of choice, and is additionally wanted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Graham was accused of incitement to genocide for advocating the total destruction of Gaza.
Moving on during Tuesday's interview, Trump said that if the Iranian government does not agree to a deal to end the 150-day war, "then I go back and I finish the job."
Trump and Netanyahu have both been accused of sabotaging negotiations with Iran when agreements seemed nearly at hand.
The president again said he would destroy Iranian bridges and power plants if a deal is not reached soon, his latest in a string of war crime threats that has included an earlier genocidal vow to wipe out the "whole civilization" of Iran.
"I could take out most of their bridges in less than an hour," Trump claimed on Tuesday. "I could knock out the power plants within one day."
"I think of 91 million people without power, without the bridges," he said. "And there's always the desalination plants. And who am I hurting there? I'm hurting the people. So I'm not looking to do that, [but Iran] cannot have a nuclear weapon."
US and Israeli intelligence have said for decades—including during both Trump administrations—that Iran is not trying to develop nuclear weapons.
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House Democrat Unveils Bill to Cut Off Funding for Trump's Iran War
"As more of our servicemembers are killed in Iran, and energy prices continue to skyrocket here at home, Congress cannot sit on its hands."
Jul 28, 2026
A Democratic lawmaker in the US House of Representatives on Tuesday introduced legislation that would cut off funding for President Donald Trump's illegal war with Iran.
In announcing the "No Funds for Illegal Wars Act," Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.) said that it was time for the legislature to take the next steps to end the unlawful conflict Trump started in February without congressional authorization.
"As more of our servicemembers are killed in Iran, and energy prices continue to skyrocket here at home, Congress cannot sit on its hands. We have voted to end this illegal war not once, but twice—and we need to enforce the law."
Larson emphasized that his bill would not merely end funding for the illegal Iran war, which has cost tens of billions of dollars and thousands of lives. The legislation, the Connecticut Democrat said, would also “block Donald Trump or any future president from waging war without explicit approval from Congress, as both the Constitution and War Powers Act require.”
Larson last week joined Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY) in filing a resolution that would require House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to “initiate or intervene in litigation” to enforce the war powers resolution that passed in both chambers of Congress last month and compel the president to end the conflict.
Trump predicted that the Iran war would only last a few weeks when it began, but the conflict is now in its sixth month and the president last week said he was considering authorizing what he described as a "massive attack" on Iran that he vowed would be "bigger than ever before."
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UN Human Rights Official Says Israeli Strikes in Lebanon Could Amount to 'War Crimes'
“The trauma, frustration, and despair are palpable—but so too is the demand for justice, which I heard resoundingly," said Volker Türk after visiting Lebanon.
Jul 28, 2026
Pointing to the mass forced displacement of at least 1 million Lebanese people, the denial of returns, and the widespread destruction of homes and civilian infrastructure since the Israel Defense Forces began attacking the armed group Hezbollah in the regional conflict stemming from the Israeli-US war on Iran, the United Nations' top human rights official reported Monday that the assault on Lebanon could amount to "war crimes."
Volker Türk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, spoke after a trip to Lebanon where he met with government representatives, local and international civil society groups, and people who have been forced to flee their homes due to the conflict, in which Israel is continuing to occupy parts of southern Lebanon and to attack residential neighborhoods despite a ceasefire that was brokered on June 26.
"The Israeli military continues to kill and injure people in Lebanon, with continued airstrikes and ground operations," said Türk. "My office has recorded large-scale violations of international humanitarian law, some possibly amounting to war crimes. Under certain circumstances, they may also constitute crimes under international law."
When Israel began retaliating against Hezbollah on March 2 for the group's attacks that had been in response to the war on Iran, the IDF issued "evacuation warnings to residents of more than 53 villages and densely populated areas in Lebanon and intensified airstrikes forced families across Lebanon to flee within minutes," according to the UN Refugee Agency.
Israeli officials have said they aim to model their operations in Lebanon on the destruction of Gaza over the past 32 months. The IDF has also established a self-declared "security zone," advancing six miles into Lebanon and taking control of about one-fifth of the country's territory, first ordering people in southern Lebanon to move north of the Litani River and then pushing past that point.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz recently boasted about the IDF's demolishing of 24 villages "that had existed for hundreds of years," saying: "The army systematically flattened the villages with bulldozers and explosives. 90% of the houses are gone. Between 15,000 and 20,000 homes have been destroyed.”
On Sunday the Lebanese military said Israeli forces were continuing shelling in the southern part of the country, preventing the military from taking control of the villages there as the agreement reached last month had stipulated.
Al Jazeera reported that residents of the town of Zawtar al-Gharbiya "had returned to homes of rubble" after having been displaced.
More than 4,300 people in Lebanon have been killed in Israeli attacks and more than 12,000 have been injured. More than 135 healthcare workers are among those who have been killed, Türk emphasized on Monday, as well as a number of journalists and media workers.
“I am struck by the widespread damage and compounded suffering that I have seen," Türk said. “The trauma, frustration, and despair are palpable—but so too is the demand for justice, which I heard resoundingly.”
The human rights official spoke about a victim he met during his visit to a school that had been repurposed as a shelter for about 1,000 people who'd fled violence. The man had lost his mother and brother in Israeli strikes on their residential building in Beirut, and was determined to seek justice and accountability.
“Even from this darkness, there is an opportunity. We are mobilizing in a way that we have not done before, through documenting [violations]," the man told Türk.
Türk also heard about how "ongoing demolitions have flattened homes, schools, healthcare facilities, water distribution networks, electricity infrastructure, places of worship, and agricultural land."
The official gave his assessment of Israel's destruction of Lebanon days after Israel and its top military funder, the US, attempted unsuccessfully to sink his nomination to serve a second term as the UN's human rights commissioner.
Türk has condemned Israel's US-backed destruction of Gaza, the war on Iran, and President Donald Trump's “abuse and denigration of migrants and refugees” in the US.
Despite the powerful countries' objections and attempts to delay the vote, UN member states on Friday voted 144-10, with 13 abstentions, to give Türk another four-year term.
“Human rights are the antidote to today’s turbulence and defeatism," said Türk after the vote. "I will give my all for the rights of everyone, everywhere."
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Five Months After US Bombing of Iranian Elementary School, Pentagon Still Hasn't Released Its Findings
"The White House and Pentagon have so far refused any accountability or transparency," said CNN host Jake Tapper.
Jul 28, 2026
Tuesday marks five months since the US carried out a deadly attack on the Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School in the city of Minab, Iran, which killed more than 150 schoolchildren along with over a dozen teachers.
The US Department of Defense (DOD), however, has yet to release the results of the investigation it said it was conducting on the strike.
In a Tuesday social media post, CNN host Jake Tapper highlighted the DOD's silence about the school attack, noting that "the White House and Pentagon have so far refused any accountability or transparency."
Tapper then posted a timeline of accumulated evidence that the US was responsible for the deadly strike, while also including a quote from Rachel VanLandingham, a retired official from the Judge Advocate General's Corps (JAG), who said "it's atrocious that we haven't had an acknowledgement, an explanation, and an apology yet" from the Pentagon.
Earlier this month, CNN reported that the investigation into the school bombing was essentially complete, and it found that US military commanders "bypassed warnings" indicating that their database of strike targets inside Iran was badly out of date shortly before authorizing the attack on the building.
Two of CNN’s sources said senior commanders ignored the warnings out of “expediency,” as they did not want to significantly delay providing target lists during the outset of the war, which Trump illegally launched in February without authorization from the US Congress.
A group of experts at the United Nations last week renewed calls for the US to release the findings of its probe into the school bombing, noting that the US has "obligations under international humanitarian law and international human rights law."
“Five months following the school bombing in Minab, the US and Israel have not made any findings public, raising valid questions regarding the impartiality, effectiveness and transparency of any investigation that may be underway,” they said. “Justice delayed is justice denied.”
Two weeks ago, a group of 25 Democratic US senators sent a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth pressing him to release the results of the Pentagon investigation and to submit to Congress a "prevention and remediation plan that identifies the specific corrective actions the Department will take to ensure this does not happen again."
"The United States military has a legal and moral obligation to take all feasible precautions to prevent civilian harm," the senators wrote. "When a U.S. strike kills civilians, the Department owes Congress, the American people, and the victims’ families a clear accounting of what happened and a credible plan to prevent future failures."
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'Stop All Military Aid': Sanders Condemns US Complicity in Israel's Decimation of Gaza
"We have funneled tens of billions of dollars in military aid to an Israeli government that has consistently violated international law and whose leader is a war criminal."
Jul 27, 2026
US Sen. Bernie Sanders on Sunday decried the ceaseless and horrific suffering that the Israeli military has inflicted on the population of the Gaza Strip with the assistance of American weapons, complicity that the Vermont senator called "shameful" and illegal under international law.
"We have funneled tens of billions of dollars in military aid to an Israeli government that has consistently violated international law and whose leader is a war criminal," wrote Sanders (I-Vt.), referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a fugitive from the International Criminal Court who is expected to travel to the US this week. "Enough is enough! Congress must listen to the American people. NO MORE US MILITARY AID TO ISRAEL."
Sanders, who has repeatedly tried to block Trump administration arms sales to Israel, noted that the Israeli military's genocidal assault on Gaza has continued during the so-called ceasefire agreement enacted last year, with Israeli forces aggressively extending their reach into the occupied Palestinian territory.
The Associated Press reported last week that "the Israeli military is quietly but quickly building a giant earthen barrier separating the over 50% of the Gaza Strip it controls from the rest of the territory, according to satellite imagery, further entrenching the division of the tiny Palestinian enclave."
"More than 23 kilometers (14 miles) have been constructed in recent months, running through Palestinian communities demolished by the military," AP observed. "That is equivalent to more than half the length of the coastal strip, which is some 40 kilometers (25 miles) long and 11 kilometers (7 miles) wide, and home to over 2 million Palestinians."
Sanders noted in his statement on Sunday that Israel "now controls an estimated 70% of Gaza, well beyond what they agreed to, and has built dozens of military outposts inside Gaza since the 'ceasefire' began."
"In the nine months since the 'ceasefire' was announced, Israel has killed at least 1,150 Palestinians, including a family of six last week," the senator wrote. "Now, as if to remove any doubt about their intentions, senior leaders of the Netanyahu government are moving to make the occupation permanent."
"The good news is that the American people are catching on," Sanders added. "More and more Americans—Democrats, Republicans and independents—are demanding that we stop all military aid to Israel and use our considerable leverage to end the suffering of the Palestinian people."
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Trump and Hegseth's Boat Strike Murder Spree Hasn't Slowed Cocaine Trafficking: DEA Analysis
"'Bombing boats' to stop drugs isn't just cruel and illegal—it's futile," said one expert.
Jul 27, 2026
An internal government analysis has revealed that President Donald Trump's campaign of strikes against alleged drug boats off the coasts of Latin America hasn't achieved its purported goal of diminishing the amount of cocaine being trafficked into the US.
The Washington Post reported on Monday that a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) analysis has concluded that the boat-bombing campaign, which many legal experts and human rights groups consider acts of murder, has not "reduced the amount of cocaine entering" the country.
"DEA analysts found the strikes had failed to affect the supply or price of cocaine in the United States," reported the Post, "and had led traffickers to diversify beyond go-fast boats and to avoid international waters, opting instead for larger boats and hemming close to coastlines, where US forces are less likely to open fire."
The Post added that US Department of Defense (DOD) officials last month gave a closed-door briefing toe members of Congress where they acknowledged the strikes had not reduced the purity of cocaine entering the US from Latin America.
In an interview with the Post, a DEA official said that drug cartels had several options in addition to smuggling contraband by boats and simply switched tactics to avoid being hit by US strikes, which so far have killed at least 221 people.
"When you squeeze the balloon on one side, it always expands on the other side," the official said. "They always find the weak spots and exploit them."
Journalist Alex Horton, one of the authors of the Post report, described the boat-bombing campaign as what happens "when you merge the failures of the war on terror and the failures of the war on drugs."
The Post's report on the effectiveness of boat strikes came days after the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) released a lengthy report that similarly found that the boat strikes' "impact on the trafficking of cocaine, the main drug flowing from South America, has been slight to non-existent."
Adam Isaacson, director of the Defense Oversight program at WOLA, explained the pointlessness of the boat-bombing spree in a Saturday social media post.
"All cocaine produced in a year could fit on just over 1% of a single container ship," Isaacson wrote. "Imagine that scattered worldwide across innumerable boats, planes, vehicles, and people. 'Bombing boats' to stop drugs isn't just cruel and illegal—it's futile."
Georgetown University Law School professor Marty Lederman noted in a Monday social media post that the boat-bombing spree would be unjustified even if it were successful at reducing the flow of cocaine into the US.
"Another reminder, since no one in Congress appears to care," wrote Lederman. "These strikes are a campaign of unlawful murders, and the administration hasn't offered any plausible argument to the contrary."
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'I Almost Cried': Previously Unseen Footage Shows Lindsey Graham Jubilant Over Iran War
"America is so much worse off listening to this warmonger's deranged fantasies."
Jul 27, 2026
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, who died earlier this month at the age of 71, was never quiet about his desire for a military assault on Iran.
But previously unreleased footage, filmed for a documentary that was in the works before the South Carolina lawmaker's death, shows Graham reacting with unrestrained jubilance to President Donald Trump's decision in late February to launch a large-scale attack on Iran, in coordination with the Israeli government.
"Look what we've done here," said a joyful Graham shortly after the US-Israeli bombing campaign began. "I almost cried. I mean, like, how long have we been pushing this?"
Graham, who has supported US military action against Iran for years, went on to say he "had his challenges" in advocating for the war, as "a lot of people" within the administration "didn't want to do it."
Tomorrow is Lindsey Graham's funeral.
Here is some previously unseen footage of his monstrous reaction to Trump starting the illegal war with Iran.
[laughing]
- We have done it!
[more laughter]
- I almost cried! [of happiness]
- How long have we pushed this? pic.twitter.com/Gcv6XxuKzM
— Trita Parsi (@tparsi) July 27, 2026
"The warmonger got his wish and the result has been a catastrophe," Brian Finucane, senior adviser to the US Program at the International Crisis Group, wrote in response to the footage, adding that it is "particularly outrageous for a US senator to lobby the president to violate the Constitution."
"Lindsey’s legacy will include the mass slaughter of Iranian children in a school at Minab on the opening day of the war," wrote Finucane.
Another moment captured by documentary filmmaker Alex Holder was an exchange in early March between Graham and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. As The Wall Street Journal noted in its report on the footage, Graham had "planned to travel to Florida" to "persuade President Trump to join Israel in the bombing of Hezbollah in Lebanon."
But Netanyahu—an International Criminal Court fugitive who is expected to travel to the US this week for Graham's funeral services—told Graham that "right now that's not in our interest."
“We’re concentrating right now on Iran,” Netanyahu told Graham in a March 4 phone call. “If we tell Hezbollah that we’re going all the way, we threaten them, but if we actually do it, then they have no reason not to go all the way against us."
The exchange was part of hundreds of hours of raw camera footage of Graham accumulated since 2023. "It provides an unvarnished look at Graham’s yearslong quest to topple the Iranian regime and the ways in which he persuaded Trump to strike, at times pushing for even more aggressive action than Netanyahu was prepared to take," the Journal noted.
In one clip, Graham predicted days into the US-Israeli assault that "in three to four weeks, we’re going to have them in a spot where they start losing control of some cities."
On March 4, a week into the illegal war with Iran, Lindsey Graham says that within 3-4 weeks, the Iranian government would lose control over some cities.
And by the end of that week, the Arab states would be more "openly" involved in the war, he predicts, suggesting that some… pic.twitter.com/rjTvjzjSrJ
— Trita Parsi (@tparsi) July 27, 2026
The war is now in its fifth month without a clear end in sight, and no Iranian cities have fallen.
"America is so much worse off listening to this warmonger's deranged fantasies," Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, wrote on social media.
Over the weekend, the US and Iran paused strikes to provide space for diplomatic talks following the collapse of an earlier ceasefire deal.
Estimates indicate that more than 3,500 Iranians have been killed by US-Israeli bombing since late February. At least 18 American servicemembers have been killed during the war, though there is considerable skepticism about that figure, given the Pentagon's lack of transparency and accounting maneuvers.
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Smotrich Demands More West Bank Ethnic Cleansing After Deadly Palestinian Resistance
Six people were killed as a Palestinian man disarmed and shot Israeli settlers raiding his village in the illegally occupied West Bank.
Jul 24, 2026
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday announced actions to tighten and accelerate the illegal occupation and colonization of the West Bank after a Palestinian defending his village from rampaging settlers fatally shot two Israelis—whose companions killed four Palestinians in response—while other members of Netanyahu's government called for more ethnic cleansing in Palestine.
Residents of Tell—located 3 miles southwest of Nablus and less than 2 miles from the illegal Israeli settlement of Havat Gilad—said settlers attacked homes on the outskirts of the town at around 8:30 on Friday morning.
According to The Times of Israel, a group of several dozen settlers invaded the village under the pretense of going on a hike. However, as the newspaper noted, Tell is located in an area of the occupied West Bank that is off limits to Israelis unless they obtain permission from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), which the military said they did not do.
Local Palestinian leader Essam Saifi told Reuters that settlers attacked the eastern part of Tell and tried to break into homes there. When residents emerged to confront the settlers, the intruders opened fire on them before leaving.
Backed by IDF troops, the settlers returned around half an hour later. Video recorded by one of the settlers shows an Israeli firing his gun in the air while his companions, who included minors, shout threats while other settlers stormed local residents' land. A Palestinian man snatched a long gun from a member of the Havat Gilad local security squad and shot him and an IDF major, mortally wounding both men.
Israelis returned fire, killing four Palestinians, including the shooter, and wounding four others. IDF commandos later raided a hospital in Nablus and seized two of the wounded Palestinians.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that "this massacre represents a renewed image of the ongoing Nakba to which our Palestinian people are subjected," a reference to the ethnic cleansing of more than 750,000 Arabs from Palestine by Zionist forces during the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948.
The ministry also condemned "the misleading narratives promoted by the Israeli occupation authorities... in a systematic attempt to turn the executioner into the victim, and to cover up the crimes of murder, field executions, massacres, and grave violations committed by the occupation forces and settler militias against the Palestinian people."
IDF troops subsequently locked down Tell and Nablus while deploying five additional companies to the area and canceling soldiers' weekend furloughs in preparation for imminent "extensive counterterrorism operational activity in the sector.”
Responding to the incident as well as two separate stabbings of Israelis in the West Bank on Thursday, Netanyahu convened a security consultation, which resulted in a joint statement with Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz announcing a tightening of the occupation and acceleration of the colonization of Palestine—both already illegal under international law.
The statement said Israel will demolish the family home of the Palestinian who shot the two Israelis, confiscate arms and revoke work permits of Palestinians in "villages acting as terrorist hubs," reinforce IDF units throughout the occupied territories, expedite the "legalization of farm outposts" and establish new ones, and increase apartheid checkpoints and road separations.
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich responded to the incident by calling for the destruction and "evacuation"—a term widely viewed as a euphemism for ethnic cleansing—of local Palestinians "for their own protection."
"This is our appropriate Zionist answer to terrorists and terrorism," Smotrich said.
"We will not normalize the erosion of deterrence and the brazenness of our enemies in recent weeks against the pioneers of settlement and the farms," Smotrich, who chairs the far-right Religious Zionism party, said on social media, "I demand that the IDF act with an iron fist against the village of the murderers and its surroundings and restore governance and deterrence."
Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who leads the far-right Jewish Power party, demanded the Palestinian shooter's town be obliterated like Beit Hanoun in Gaza, where Israeli forces have been waging a war that United Nations officials, legal and academic experts, and around 20 national governments have called a genocide.
"For every Jew murdered, the enemy must suffer the loss of land and homes," Ben-Gvir said. "This is the language spoken in the Middle East, and just as we spoke it in Gaza, it is time to speak it in [the West Bank] as well."
Yair Golan, who heads the opposition Democrats, accused Netanyahu and Katz of "a clear intent to set the area ablaze."
"Every escalation in the field endangers human lives—Israelis and Palestinians alike," he added.
David Zini, the head of Shin Bet, Israel's internal security and counterintelligence agency, urged the Israeli public “not to take the law into their own hands and to place their trust in the IDF and the Shin Bet, whose mission and duty this is.”
Many settlers rejected Zini's call and instead carried out revenge attacks on West Bank towns and villages, reportedly including Madama, Urif, Burin, Far'ata, Jit, Qabalan, Sarra, and others, resulting in multiple injuries.
Meanwhile, settlers mourned the killing of the two slain Israelis, 32-year-old Havat Gilad civil defense squad member Benayahu Mellet and 27-year-old IDF Maj. Yuval Ezra.
Extremist settler Meir Ettinger eulogized Mellet on social media, saying that "he was never satisfied with recognized roads and fences, and strived continuously to conquer the region."
“Benayahu always insisted on not making a distinction between areas C and B," Ettinger added.
Under the moribund Oslo Accords, the West Bank is divided into Areas A, B, and C. Area A is under full Palestinian Authority control, while Area B is under mixed control and Area C is under full Israeli control.
Israeli efforts to expand West Bank settlement activity have accelerated dramatically since the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023. Attacks on West Bank Palestinians, including pogroms carried out by mobs of settlers protected and sometimes joined by Israeli troops, have killed at least 1,111 Palestinians—at least 243 of them children—since October 2023, according to the latest report published by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Israeli officials say 47 Israelis—including IDF troops, security personnel, and civilians—have been killed by Palestinian attacks over the same period.
According to the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, more than 620,000 Jews currently reside in over 130 settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. While Israel grants every Jew in the world the right to settle there, it has—against UN resolutions and international law—refused to allow the approximately 5 million Palestinian refugees alive today to return to their homeland.
B'Tselem is one of 20 Israeli human rights groups that on Friday issued an "urgent call to the international community to take immediate action to stop Israel's violence and prevent pogroms by settler militias and the Israeli army across the West Bank."
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World Famine Authorities Warn Most Gazans Still Suffering 'Crisis'-Level Hunger
"The October 2025 ceasefire has led to measurable gains in humanitarian access and overall conditions across the Gaza Strip. However, the situation remains deeply fragile."
Jul 23, 2026
Although the Gaza Strip is no longer officially enduring famine, a majority of Palestinians there are suffering "crisis or worse" levels of hunger in an emergency that is expected to worsen in the coming months if Israel's bombardment and siege—which many experts say is a key component of an ongoing genocide—continue.
The Integrated Phase Food Security Classification—which ranks food security levels on a scale of 1 to 5—on Thursday published an analysis showing that from mid-April to the end of June, more than 1.2 million people, or 59% of Gaza’s population, were experiencing IPC Phase 3 (crisis) or worse levels of food insecurity. This included about 212,000 people in IPC Phase 4 (emergency). All five Gaza governorates were classified as being in Phase 3.
"After two years of conflict, the October 2025 ceasefire has led to measurable gains in humanitarian access and overall conditions across the Gaza Strip," IPC said in a statement. "However, the situation remains deeply fragile, with civilians continuing to endure harsh conditions."
#Gaza Strip The Oct 2025 ceasefire has led to measurable gains in humanitarian access & conditions across the Gaza Strip, yet the situation remains deeply fragile. 1.4 million people are facing high levels of acute food insecurity through Dec 2026. More: www.ipcinfo.org/ipcinfo-webs...
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— The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (@theipcinfo.bsky.social) July 23, 2026 at 5:43 AM
This marks an improvement from a year ago, when a "worst-case scenario" was developing into a Phase 5 (catastrophe) famine that was formally declared by the IPC in August 2025. At least hundreds of Palestinians, many of them children, have died from malnutrition since Israel launched its US-backed war on Gaza in retaliation for the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023.
The IPC declared last December that while Gaza was no longer in a famine, the situation remained critical for the war-ravaged Palestinians there. The new IPC report warns that two-thirds of Gaza's population are projected to face Phase 3 crisis conditions by the end of the year.
The organization also said that 74,200 Palestinian children under the age of 5 in Gaza will likely need treatment for acute malnutrition through next April.
(Image by Integrated Phase Food Security Classification)
Responding to the new IPC data, United Nations Children's Fund Executive Director Catherine Russell said Thursday that “acute malnutrition has fallen, but many children are still going hungry, and some children may never fully recover from prolonged lack of proper nutrition."
"This progress shows that when humanitarian access improves and aid gets through, children can be pulled back from the brink," she added. "But it rests on a supplementary feeding program that doesn’t reach all children, and where funding is running out."
Israeli forces have killed or wounded more than 250,000 Palestinians since then, and forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened over 2 million others since then, resulting in worldwide allegations of genocide embodied in an International Court of Justice case filed by South Africa at the end of 2023 and now formally supported by nearly 20 nations.
Leading global famine experts accused Israel of deliberately starving Palestinians in Gaza. The International Criminal Court arrest warrants issued in late 2024 for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former defense minister who ordered the "complete siege" of Gaza, accuse the pair of crimes against humanity and war crimes, including murder and forced starvation.
Like many members of their public, Israeli and US officials under both the Biden and Trump administrations initially denied that Israel was starving Gazans. However, Israeli officials warned in private that Gaza was facing starvation, while US President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and other administration figures have acknowledged that Palestinians were starving to death in the strip. That did not stop them from continuing to give billions of dollars in US armed aid to Israel.
In response to the new IPC report, acting United Nations World Food Program Executive Director Carl Skau said that “there is progress on food security in Gaza, but it is fragile and can easily be reversed."
"The overall humanitarian situation remains brutal: Families lack water, sanitation, and medicine," Skau added. "We need sustained access, funding, and stability so people of Gaza can begin recovery.”
The heads of various United Nations agencies concurred that a lasting peace—which Israel is not allowing as it continues bombing and besieging Gaza despite a nominal nine-month ceasefire—is imperative for that recovery.
“Food security in Gaza cannot recover unless local food production starts again and farmers, herders, fishers, and other producers can rebuild their livelihoods,” UN Food and Agriculture Organization Director-General Qu Dongyu said on Thursday. “Producers need access to farmland and the sea, and to seeds, tools, livestock supplies, and other agricultural inputs, as well as technical support."
"Restrictions on agricultural imports and humanitarian supplies must be lifted," Qu added. "Without these essentials, food production, and security will remain a pressing situation."
The IPC said that "recent gains remain fragile," and that "advancing peace plans is essential to support recovery, enable the safe return of displaced populations, and help households rebuild their livelihoods."
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As Trump Ignores War Powers Votes, Groups Urge Congress to Sue to End Illegal Iran Assault
"Congress has already directed the removal of US armed forces under the War Powers Act, and the president must comply."
Jul 23, 2026
The US House of Representatives on Thursday passed a new war powers resolution aimed at forcing President Donald Trump to halt his illegal war with Iran without congressional authorization.
But with Trump showing every indication that he plans to escalate his unlawful assault on Iran despite lawmakers’ repeated expressions of disapproval, a large coalition of organizations is urging Congress to take more aggressive steps to end the war.
In a letter sent to members of Congress, the groups—including civil liberties, human rights, good governance, faith-based, anti-war, Iranian-American, veteran, and military family organizations—said that it was time to take the administration to court to "reaffirm Congress’s constitutional prerogatives" over the power to declare war.
The groups noted that the US Constitution explicitly gives the legislative branch war declaration powers, adding that the 1973 War Powers Act reasserted congressional control over decisions to commit American armed forces to combat in the wake of the Vietnam War.
Given that the Trump administration has blown off past war powers resolutions, the groups said, members of Congress should team up with "experienced constitutional litigators" to enforce the law.
"This may include helping to identify appropriate plaintiffs," the groups explained, "advancing House and Senate resolutions to explicitly authorize congressional litigation over the unlawful Iran War, or, in the House, calling for a vote of the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group to authorize litigation."
The groups also urged lawmakers to deny Trump's request for an additional $87.6 billion in supplemental war funding and then enact legislation "to bar the administration from using funds to continue" the war.
"Congress has already directed the removal of US armed forces under the War Powers Act, and the president must comply," the groups concluded. "Our democracy, the American people, and particularly US servicemembers deserve a Congress that will fight for the rule of law and an end to the unauthorized Iran war."
Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), ranking member of the House Foreign Relations Committee, indicated while talking with reporters outside the US Capitol on Thursday that he was prepared to take legal action to enforce the will of Congress to end the war.
"We should be suing the administration for not following the... privileged resolution that was passed in both the House and the Senate," said Meeks. "When we get back next week, I'm going to force a vote on that, so that we can now go to the courts and sue the administration for not following the will of Congress."
.@RepGregoryMeeks (D-NY) says he will try to sue the Trump administration for not adhering to the Iran war powers resolution: "We can now go to the courts and sue the administration for not following the will of Congress." pic.twitter.com/F3EV5QwwSS
— CSPAN (@cspan) July 23, 2026
Shortly after Meeks' remarks to reporters, the New York Democrat filed a resolution that would require House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to "initiate or intervene in litigation" to enforce the war powers resolution.
In an interview with Axios published Thursday, Trump said that he was "close" to making a decision on whether to authorize what he described as a "massive attack" on Iran that he vowed would be "bigger than ever before."
Cavan Kharrazian, senior policy adviser at Demand Progress, which co-led the coalition letter, accused Trump of "insulting Congress, the Constitution, and the American people" with his defiance.
“Congress already voted to reassert its constitutional role as the arbiter of war," said Kharrazian, "now they must follow through by using every single tool they have to ensure that the president complies with the law."
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