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War & Peace
Israeli Military Kills Palestinian Baby and Wounds Parents in West Bank
"The murder of a 7-month-old baby by Israeli forces in the illegally occupied West Bank and an Israeli massacre at a wedding in Gaza are horrific crimes that should shock the conscience of every person," said a US-based group.
Jun 06, 2026
Gunfire from at least one Israeli soldier killed a 7-month-old Palestinian boy and injured his parents, who were traveling in their vehicle in the occupied West Bank on Friday, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
The Palestinian National Authority's WAFA reported that Sam Fahd Abu Haikal lived in Bethlehem with his mother and father, Fahd Abdul Aziz Abu Haikal, a lecturer at Bethlehem University. The family—which also included the baby's grandmother and 11-year-old sibling—intended to visit Hebron when they were struck by at least one bullet that left both parents with "moderate injuries" and ultimately killed the infant, who "succumbed on Friday evening to critical wounds."
As Reuters detailed:
The baby's grandmother said the family was driving near Checkpoint 17 when they saw Israeli military vehicles and soldiers in the distance and stopped the car. She said shots were then fired toward them, which they initially believed were warning shots.
"One bullet struck my grandson, traversed his face and crossed his head, striking his mother's cheek where it lodged," she said, adding that the bullet had also grazed the father's finger, and that the mother was in hospital.
A spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces told CBS News that soldiers "perceived a vehicle accelerating toward them" and responded by firing single shots, which injured three Palestinians who were evacuated for medical treatment. The spokesperson added that an initial inquiry "found that those injured were uninvolved civilians," and that the IDF "expresses deep sorrow for any harm caused to uninvolved individuals."
Fahd Abdul Aziz Abu Haikal told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that "the soldier was about 10 meters away from me. He saw me, he saw my wife, and the children. The car windows were not dark, it was daylight, and everything was clear. You can't say he didn't see that it was a family."
The father added that "this case must not be closed without an investigation and without accountability. At least I don't intend to give up."
The baby's death sparked a fresh wave of criticism against the IDF, which is widely accused of committing genocide against Palestinians in the wake of the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. The Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip has killed over 72,000 people.
Since October 2023, Israeli forces and settlers have also ramped up attacks in the illegally occupied West Bank, killing over 1,000 Palestinians, including at least 240 children, according to the United Nations.
In a Saturday statement, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States, condemned the baby's killing as well as a deadly Israeli attack on a wedding in Gaza.
"The murder of a 7-month-old baby by Israeli forces in the illegally occupied West Bank and an Israeli massacre at a wedding in Gaza are horrific crimes that should shock the conscience of every person," CAIR said. "No military force that repeatedly kills children, medical workers, journalists, and civilians—using American taxpayer-supplied weapons—should continue to enjoy impunity or the support of our own government."
"We call on our government and the international community to stop enabling these atrocities," the group said, "and to take concrete action to protect Palestinian civilians, end the occupation, and uphold international law."
This post was updated with a newly available photo and reporting from Haaretz.
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UN Agency Warns Trump's Illegal Iran War Pushing Millions Into Hunger
"The poorest families around the world, far from the center of the crisis, are being hit the hardest."
Jun 05, 2026
The United Nations World Food Program on Friday warned that President Donald Trump's illegal war with Iran is pushing millions of people across the world into hunger.
A report published by the WFP on Friday finds that the Iran war, which has resulted in the months-long closure of the Strait of Hormuz, is "generating significant spillovers, particularly through fuel, food price, and income shocks, and trade disruptions."
The impacts of the war are being felt most in some of the world's poorest countries, particularly those that rely on shipments from the Persian Gulf region for essential commodities.
The report projects that 2.3 million more people in Afghanistan will face severe hunger in 2026 due to the impact of the war, along with 2.5 million people in Somalia, and 1.3 million people in Sri Lanka.
"Extensive dependence on energy and food imports and external trade corridors has left the countries we studied exposed to the effects of the crisis," the report states. "In Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, and Somalia, impacts include supply chain disruptions and the pass through of higher global energy prices to domestic prices. Governments’ fiscal space is constrained by reduced revenue from falling import duties and the burden of high public debt."
The report also warns that the conflict is harming WFP's operational capabilities and its inability to provide relief to people suffering from hunger will only grow the longer the war continues.
"WFP estimates it will now serve 1.5 million fewer people that it originally planned to in 2026," the report explains. "If the conflict continues for six months, more than 9 million people could lose assistance, driven by a combination of higher operational costs and rising local food prices, which also increases the cost of cash-based assistance. In the meantime, funding for WFP operations have also decreased."
WFP's analysis also expresses concerns about political instability caused by rising hunger, pointing to the increased number of anti-government demonstrations in recent months as a sign of "increasing popular discontent."
Jean-Martin Bauer, Director of WFP’s Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Service, noted that the current crisis was predicted to happen by WFP months ago, but that its warnings went unheeded.
“Early warnings only matter if the world acts on them,” said Bauer. "We warned that this crisis could push millions more people into hunger; now we are watching it happen in real time. In many cases, the poorest families around the world, far from the center of the crisis, are being hit the hardest."
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House Dems Join GOP to Help Advance Deeper US-Israeli Military Integration
"At a time when Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza... Congress should be cutting off military support—not integrating the US military and Israeli defense sector," said one critic.
Jun 04, 2026
A US congressional committee on Thursday rejected an amendment to strip a provision from next year's Pentagon funding bill aimed at deepening integration of the US and Israeli militaries under the guise of reducing aid.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) introduced an amendment to strike Section 224—which would establish a formal "United States–Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative"—from the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act. The proposed NDAA authorizes $1.15 trillion in baseline military spending, while the Trump administration’s full defense request seeks an unprecedented, debt-exploding $1.5 trillion in armed forces and related funding for the coming fiscal year.
Section 224 would require the US defense secretary to designate a Pentagon executive agent responsible for coordinating and expanding US-Israel defense technology cooperation.
In Thursday's voice vote, members of the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) from both parties rejected the amendment to remove Section 2024 from the NDAA, with only Khanna and Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) backing the measure.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza—has called Section 224 "my plan."
While proponents of Section 224 contend that the measure would reduce US taxpayer funding for Israel, Khanna argued that the provision amounts to a blank check for a country that most Americans oppose sending more aid to.
“The American people are tired of the arrogance and insolence of Prime Minister Netanyahu telling America what we should do," the congressman said Thursday while promoting his amendment. "The entire country of Israel has a GDP that is less than a single town in my district, yet somehow Netanyahu thinks he could tell the American people what we should do."
“I am for Team America," Khanna added. "I am for the interests of this country, and I believe that's what [President] Donald Trump ran on. That includes American interests against any foreign country. We should have American sovereignty and make it clear that we strike 224. If we want to give aid to Israel, if we want to sell them weapons, that should be a vote for the entire Congress.”
In a letter to Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-Ind.)—who is not on the HASC—Netanyahu said he is "heartened" by Section 224's plan to “develop a new Memorandum of Understanding with the United States government” that will reduce “US financial military assistance over the next decade” and replace it with “a new framework of joint defense cooperation, codevelopment, coproduction, and mutual investment."
The US has provided more than $20 billion in armed aid to Israel during the Biden and Trump administrations since Netanyahu launched the genocidal war on Gaza in retaliation for the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023. The current 10-year Memorandum of Understanding between the US and Israel, signed in 2016 during former President Barack Obama's tenure, provided Israel with $38 billion in US military aid and expires in 2028.
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.)—who has partnered with Khanna on introducing or supporting war powers resolutions aimed at curbing Trump's ability to wage unconstitutional wars in countries including Yemen, Venezuela, and Iran—said last month that if Section 224 made it out of committee, he would work with Khanna to "offer an amendment to strip it from the bill on the floor."
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) is urging Americans to contact their members of Congress to tell them to reject Section 224.
"This is not 'America First.' It is Israel First," ADC argues on its website. "The resolution language attached to this proposal gives it away: it expresses support for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s initiative to transition the US–Israel relationship toward mutual defense cooperation and joint economic investment. This language turns Congress into a vehicle for advancing Netanyahu’s agenda and asks the American people to treat it as their own national security policy."
"Section 224 would move US support for Israel away from the more transparent foreign aid framework and into a maze of Pentagon procurement, licensing, data-sharing, and backdoor deals that are harder for Congress, taxpayers, and future administrations to monitor, cap, condition, or unwind," the group continued. "Concerns of undefined 'network integration' and 'data fusion' should alarm every American who cares about sovereignty, privacy, civil liberties, and democratic oversight."
"At a time when Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, exporting surveillance technologies used against activists and journalists around the world, marketing military technology tested on Palestinians, and carrying out terrorist attacks as seen in the cell phone [bombings] in Lebanon, Congress should be cutting off military support—not integrating the US military and Israeli defense sector and making accountability harder than ever," ADC added.
In an opinion piece published this week by Common Dreams, Ben Freeman, director of the Democratizing Foreign Policy Program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, wrote that "lawmakers should reject Section 224 from the NDAA to avoid deep integration with Israel’s military at a time when a growing number of Americans oppose Israel’s actions in the region."
"This unprecedented level of US-Israeli military integration stands in stark contrast to the traditional aid model of defense cooperation, in which Israel already stood out as the top recipient of US military assistance," Freeman said.
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'Burning Entire Families to Death as They Slept' in Gaza, Israel Kill Count Nears 1,000 Since Ceasefire
As Israel ratchets up its attacks and conquers more territory in Gaza despite a ceasefire, May was the deadliest month for Palestinians there in 2026.
Jun 04, 2026
Five members of the same Palestinian family were killed in a burning building after Israel bombed four residential apartment buildings in Gaza City on Thursday morning. Eight months after the October “ceasefire” began, the death toll from continued Israeli attacks is rapidly approaching 1,000.
A single nine-year-old girl, identified as Hala Hassan Rabah Labad by local reports, survived the strike on an apartment on Intelligence Street in northwestern Gaza and was taken to the hospital. Five members of her family—her father, mother, and three siblings—were all killed.
Nine people were killed in total and dozens more wounded in other strikes on residential buildings throughout the night, according to medical sources who told the Anadolu Agency that bodies arrived at Al-Shifa Hospital—some dismembered and others severely burned.
Other attacks were reported on Al-Salam Tower in Tel al-Hawa, the Mahna family home near Al-Qouqa Roundabout in Al-Shati refugee camp, and a residential apartment in the Abu al-Amin and Abu Iskandar area of Sheikh Radwan.
Local journalists reported that many of the targeted buildings were sheltering displaced families.
One resident recorded video of a burning building near her home and posted it to social media.
"Israel bombed the house next to me at 2 am," she said. "People are burning alive and screaming."
Rescue workers are still reportedly picking through the rubble and have been deployed across multiple locations, according to journalists on the ground, who described the series of attacks as a “major massacre.”
"We were woken up by the strike at 2:30 am. We found pieces of flesh, and people were sleeping. They say the war is over, but the war is not over," Khalil Batran, a neighbor of the deceased family, told Reuters. "There is no safety in Gaza... Every day, they fire at us from there and strike us with missiles. It's futile."
The Israeli military has not commented on the strikes as of Thursday morning.
According to the Gaza Health Ministry, Thursday’s strikes bring the number of Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks up to 947 since a so-called ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was reached in October. Nearly 3,000 other Palestinians have been wounded.
The Gaza Government Media Office has accused Israel of violating the ceasefire more than 3,000 times through the targeting of civilians, the destruction of entire residential blocks, repeated gunfire, and incursions into residential areas, as well as restrictions on humanitarian aid entering the strip.
Since Israel’s genocidal military campaign in Gaza began in October 2023, nearly 73,000 people have been killed, according to official figures from the Gaza Health Ministry, though independent analyses suggest the true death toll could be much higher.
As Israel fortifies and expands its military control of the strip, with leaders including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledging to push forward and conquer more territory, May was the deadliest month for Gaza thus far in 2026, with 119 Palestinians killed.
In recent weeks, Israeli strikes on tent encampments have killed multiple other children, including a 6-year-old girl and an 8-year-old boy.
Thursday’s attacks come a day after Israel continued to bomb several sites in Lebanon despite the announcement of a US-brokered ceasefire, which has not yet gone into effect. During a previous truce, Israel launched numerous attacks, demolished villages, and ordered the forced evacuation of civilians in Lebanon, in clear violation of the agreement. Israeli attacks during that ceasefire period killed more than 600 people, according to the World Health Organization.
In Gaza, Israel has justified continued attacks and deeper encroachment into Gaza by saying that Hamas has failed to "fully disarm." But while that is part of a framework laid out by US President Donald Trump's Board of Peace, Drop Site News journalist Jeremy Scahill points out that it was not part of the deal agreed to in October.
“Netanyahu has a PhD in violating ceasefires,” said Scahill on SkyNews Wednesday. “The term ‘ceasefire’ has been used as a surrender cudgel against the Palestinians in Gaza.”
“The Palestinians signed a deal with Israel. Israel has violated it every day, killed 1,000 Palestinians, has moved deeper into Gaza. They say, ‘Hamas agreed to disarm.’ Hamas never signed a disarmament agreement,” he continued. “Now the so-called 'Board of Peace' is demanding that the Palestinians surrender their liberation cause as a condition for Netanyahu to abide by the terms that he signed.”
"They signed a ceasefire with Hamas," he said. "Not with the children in tents that they continue to burn alive."
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