#gaza

#gaza

With international media barred from freely reporting in the Strip, local journalists have risked their lives to document the unprecedented killing, destruction and displacement around them. Since October 7, 2023, more media workers have been killed in Gaza than in any modern conflict. Families have been torn apart, homes and offices destroyed, and reporters have been wounded, seen their families killed or have been killed themselves. This episode reveals the extraordinary playbook employed by Israel to threaten, intimidate, smear and target Palestinian journalists.

In a post to Truth Social Friday morning, Trump said he was giving Hamas a "last chance," or Hamas fighters would be "quickly extinguished." The deadline comes just days before the two-year anniversary of the conflict. "If this LAST CHANCE agreement is not reached, all HELL, like no one has ever seen before, will break out against Hamas," Trump wrote on Truth Social.

The National Students' Union organized Thursday's protests under the slogan "stop the genocide against the Palestinian people." Demonstrations, which took part in at least 39 cities and towns, varied in size from small groups to thousands who turned out in Barcelona and the capital Madrid, where students held banners with messages like "Stop Everything to Stop the Genocide," "All Eyes on the Global Sumud Flotilla," and "Free Palestine!"

Russia's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, a sovereign nation with 1994 security assurances from Russia, has killed or maimed tens of thousands of combatants and civilians. Efforts by President Donald Trump to end this war have failed, with an emboldened Vladimir Putin escalating hostilities in Ukraine, while the credibility of NATO, flying drones into Poland and Romania and recently violating Estonia's airspace.

Alia Zaki, a WFP communication consultant, tells The Art Newspaper that the idea for the exhibition came when colleagues saw one of Muhanna's works, painted on a WFP aid box, around a year ago. "At the time those parcels and the food that WFP was providing was more or less the only way that people in Gaza had access to food," says Zaki from Copenhagen, where the exhibition is currently showing.

President Donald Trump's 20-point plan for ending the war in Gaza reads more like a joint U.S.-Israeli diktat to Hamas. Almost every provision involving Israel, other than mutual prisoner releases, is left to that country's judgment and discretion. The plan even calls for Westerners to rule Gaza, perhaps for many years, with little to no genuine Palestinian input. Yet chances are strong that Hamas will accept this proposal, perhaps with a caveat to clarify some points.

The streets of Gaza no longer hum with the familiar sounds of everyday life. Since October 7, 2023, they have resonated with the sounds of destruction, followed by a silence so profound it feels almost physical-an absence that suffocates words before they can even form. Trapped within Gaza's crumbling walls, we live inside a storm in which language itself has broken down. Simply put, we are losing our very ability to speak. I don't mean that metaphorically. It's all too real.

Last week, as the Israeli military continued to annihilate the Gaza strip, a 24-hour general strike rocked the Italian peninsula. Demanding an end to Italy's complicity in the genocide, half a million people abandoned their workplaces, schools, and universities in over 80 cities across the country, inspired by a single slogan: " Blocchiamo tutto." ("Let's block everything.") The precise number of participants will remain a matter of contention, but the scale and efficacy of the September 22 strike exceeded all expectations.

The proposal envisions a temporary transitional governance of a technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee that would oversee the territory's affairs. But it does not detail how the panel will be formed or who will select its members. Moreover, the plan says that Trump and Toni Blair, the United Kingdom's former prime minister, would lead a board of peace that would supervise the governing committee. But the roadmap does not explain the nature of the relationship between this board and the Palestinian committee.

News of a ceasefire plan to bring Israel's two-year-long campaign of genocide in Gaza to an end has been gaining traction, according to reports, and is expected to feature when United States President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meet at the White House on Monday. Trump's 21-point plan would end Israel's war on Gaza, which has killed at least 66,055 people and wounded 168,346 since it began in October 2023. Thousands more are believed to be dead and trapped under the rubble.

But as most of the world rallied around Palestine in the first week of the UNGA, Israel killed at least 661 Palestinians in Gaza and pushed on unabated with its ground assault on Gaza City. Diplomats and analysts say rhetoric and diplomatic moves alone, including the recognition of a Palestinian state, are not enough to move the needle on the ground, or improve the situation of Palestinians under bombardment and occupation.

As I write this, Israel is razing Gaza City to the ground in the latest stage of what many respected international human rights organizations and scholars have called a genocide. There aren't as many images coming out of Gaza City as there should be because the Israeli military is still not allowing foreign reporters free access to Gaza and has murdered many of the journalists in the ground. In August, Al Jazeera's team in Gaza City were deliberately targeted by Israel.

Civilians in Gaza have sustained injuries of a type and on a scale more usually seen among professional soldiers involved in intense combat operations, research has found. A study published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) found that some types of wounds such as burns or injuries to legs were more common among civilians in Gaza than among US soldiers fighting in recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.