'Welcome to the Oligarchy Era': Social Security Administration Switches Communications to Musk's X

"This flagrant conflict of interest stands to serve the interests of Elon Musk while the American people are robbed of fair access to THEIR Social Security Administration," said one former agency leader.


Elon Musk speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House on April 10, 2025 in Washington, D.C.
(Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)

Jessica Corbett
Apr 11, 2025
COMMON DREAMS


The Trump administration faced a fresh wave of criticism on Friday in response to reporting that the Social Security Administration is cutting its communications staff and will shift from using press releases to billionaire Elon Musk's social media platform X.

Musk, the richest person on Earth, is notably also the de facto leader of President Donald Trump's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which is leading the administration's effort to gut the federal bureaucracy—though the billionaire faces a rapidly approaching 130-day limit for how long he can serve as a "special government employee" under federal law.

"Elon Musk is forcing seniors onto X to learn about and get news about Social Security," Melanie D'Arrigo, executive director of the Campaign for New York Health, which advocates for universal healthcare, wrote on the platform Friday. "The only person this benefits is Elon Musk. Welcome to the oligarchy era."



Martin O'Malley, who led the agency during the Biden administration, also responded to the reporting on X, saying, "This flagrant conflict of interest stands to serve the interests of Elon Musk while the American people are robbed of fair access to THEIR Social Security Administration and the benefits they worked so hard to earn."

During a Thursday call with employees, SSA Midwest-West (MWW) Regional Commissioner Linda Kerr-Davis said that instead of making announcements via press releases or "Dear Colleague" letters, "the agency will be using X to communicate to the press and the public—formerly known as Twitter," according toFederal News Network. "This will become our communication mechanism."

"If you're used to getting press releases and Dear Colleague letters, you might want to subscribe to the official SSA X account, so you can stay up to date with agency news," Kerr-Davis told agency workers. "I know this probably sounds very foreign to you—it did to me as well—and not what we are used to, but we are in different times now."

Federal News Network also detailed her comments on reassigning workers to minimize the need for layoffs at the agency:
The reassignments will lead to major staffing cuts to regional offices. Kerr-Davis said the MWW regional office has about 550 employees now, but will only have about 70 employees under the new "skinny regional office" model.

"Won't losing subject-matter experts lead directly to fraud, waste, and abuse? Yes," Kerr-Davis told employees. "Things are going to break, and they're going to break fast. We know that, but hopefully we'll be able to get some support."

Kerr-Davis added that the reassignments will be a "welcome addition" for understaffed field offices. But in many cases, reassigned employees will work in less senior positions.

"I can only imagine how this shift might make them feel, after years of dedicated service in their prior roles. They are used to being experts in their field, and we're asking them to take on new responsibilities," she said. "For some, it's going back to work they used to do a long time ago, which may look very different."

Kerr-Davis' comments were also reported Friday by Wired, which noted that she did not respond to a request for comment. However, Liz Huston, a White House spokesperson, said: "This reporting is misleading. The Social Security Administration is actively communicating with beneficiaries and stakeholders."

"There has not been a reduction in workforce," Huston told Wired. "Rather, to improve the delivery of services, staff are being reassigned from regional offices to front-line help—allocating finite resources where they are most needed. President Trump will continue to always protect Social Security."

HuffPostpointed out Friday that "in recent weeks, queries to the SSA press line have produced responses from White House spokespeople instead of Social Security spokespeople."

The SSA has not published a press release on its website since March 27, but has been sharing updates on its X account, @SocialSecurity, in recent weeks—the latest post, from Wednesday, addresses the rollback of a planned identity verification policy and related phone service cuts.



American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees president Lee Saunders said in a Friday statement that "retirees, disabled individuals, and the millions of beneficiaries who rely on Social Security should not need an X account to receive updates on the program."

"Moving all Social Security communications to Elon Musk's personal social media platform is a blatant effort to gain more users and pad X's profits," the union leader charged. "This move should ring alarm bells everywhere. Social Security belongs to the hardworking taxpayers who have paid into the program, not an unelected billionaire like Musk."

"This administration has made their desire to gut and then privatize Social Security clear. Shuttering the program's regional offices and moving all communications to a single, unaccountable, insecure, for-profit social media company is just the next step in their scheme to enrich billionaires with our tax dollars," he added. "This is exactly why we need to keep Musk and his DOGE cronies out of the Social Security Administration, and we're not going to give up this fight."

AFSCME, the American Federation of Teachers, and the Alliance for Retired Americans are fighting DOGE's access to sensitive personal data at the SSA in federal court.

'Outrageous Abuse of Power': Trump Weaponizes Social Security for Deportation Spree

"Though Trump claimed he wouldn't cut benefits, he essentially is by diverting dedicated monies from their intended purpose of paying Social Security benefits to the immoral purpose of maliciously ruining lives."


A documented Cuban immigrant holds his son's legal paperwork in Denver, Colorado on February 18, 2025 after the latter was arrested by immigration officers.
(Photo: Jason Connolly/AFP via Getty Images)

Jake Johnson
Apr 11, 2025
COMMON DREAMS


The Trump administration this week reportedly classified thousands of immigrants living in the United States as dead in a Social Security database in an effort to force them out of the country, a scheme that was met with furious uproar from advocates and lawmakers.

By entering the names and Social Security numbers of roughly 6,000 immigrants into Social Security's "death master file," the administration has revoked their ability to legally work in the U.S. and receive benefits in a bid to get them to "self-deport," several news outlets reported Thursday.

"This is an outrageous abuse of power," Nancy Altman, president of the advocacy group Social Security Works, said in a statement. "It will not only create extreme hardship, but kill people. Imagine, in one Trump administration keystroke, losing your income, your health insurance, access to your bank account, your credit cards, your home, and more."

"If they get away with this, it would be no surprise if they then move on to marking their perceived enemies as dead—citizens and non-citizens alike," Altman added. "This is a total misuse of the dedicated revenue that workers contribute to Social Security, with every paycheck. Though Trump claimed he wouldn't cut benefits, he essentially is by diverting dedicated monies from their intended purpose of paying Social Security benefits to the immoral purpose of maliciously ruining lives."

"The Trump administration's weaponization of Social Security is shocking and unconscionable, and we expect House Republicans will remain silent."

The Washington Postreported that the classification of thousands of immigrants as "dead" came at the request of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who—in tandem with other administration officials—is trampling basic rights as she moves to carry out Trump's mass deportation agenda.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, called the Trump administration's scheme "utterly unprecedented" and warned that it "has the potential to cause immense problems for people."

"And it's also one with a HUGE potential for error," he wrote on social media. "If the data isn't perfect, people here legally might be effectively declared dead."

According to the Post, "among the people being targeted are immigrants who have bona fide Social Security numbers but have lost their legal status in the U.S., such as those who entered under one of the Biden administration's temporary work programs that have since ended."

"The immigrants' names were placed in the database following two memorandums of agreement signed Monday by Noem and Leland Dudek, the acting Social Security commissioner," the Post reported. "The memos authorize Social Security to place the immigrants in the death file for national security reasons and under the Social Security Act."

The New York Timesreported that the "initial names" added to Social Security's death file "are convicted criminals and 'suspected terrorists,'" according to internal administration documents, "but officials said the effort could broaden to include others in the country without authorization."

The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy estimates that undocumented immigrants paid roughly $26 billion in Social Security taxes in 2022.

Dudek, who has presided over a large-scale assault on the Social Security Administration (SSA) since Trump installed him to lead the agency in February, wrote in an email to staff that the "financial lives" of the immigrants added to the death file would be "terminated," according to the Times. SSA is also reportedly sharing sensitive personal information with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Dudek recently faced calls to resign after internal emails revealed that SSA terminated contracts with the state of Maine in what one Democratic lawmaker called "direct retaliation for statements made by Maine Governor Janet Mills that upset President Donald Trump."

The acting SSA leader's plans for the agency, including mass staffing cuts and field office closures that advocates say amount to benefit cuts, have drawn widespread outrage. The Timesreported earlier this week that "thousands of worried and frustrated recipients have thronged local field offices, asking why the phone lines are jammed, whether their local offices will be closed by Elon Musk's team of software engineers and technology executives, and whether they will lose their benefits."

"Waves of buyouts and early retirements have hobbled the staff at many local offices," the newspaper added, "and recipients say it has become harder to use the agency's website and phone systems, or even be seen in person."

Reps. John Larson (D-Conn.) and Richard Neal (D-Mass.) issued a joint statement Thursday condemning the Trump administration's latest weaponization of SSA as "digital murder" that "will make life exponentially harder for these victims, who could be effectively forced out of this country if their Social Security numbers are terminated."

"If they cancel the Social Security number of one person, where do they stop?" the lawmakers asked. "The Trump administration's weaponization of Social Security is shocking and unconscionable, and we expect House Republicans will remain silent. If you care about Social Security, you need to raise your voice because, despite what he says, Donald Trump and Elon Musk are the biggest threat to people and their earned benefits."

Take Back America From the Oligarchs

What we are witnessing is not just economic decline—it is a calculated transfer of power, wealth, and dignity from the people who built this country to the corporate and political class who believe they own it.

Demonstrators march during the nationwide "Hands Off!" protest against U.S. President Donald Trump and his adviser, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, in Houston, Texas, on April 5, 2025.
(Photo: Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP via Getty Images)

Kevin Fitzgerald
Apr 12, 2025

Common Dreams


America is not being lost. It's being taken.

Taken from the factory worker in Michigan whose job was shipped overseas. From the farmer in Indiana watching crops wither while markets close, subsidies disappear, and tariffs crush their bottom line. From the mother in Ohio who can't feed her children because her food stamps have been cut. From the young man in Kentucky forced to choose between insulin and rent. From the senior in Pennsylvania being told to drive to a Social Security office to collect their check—only to find their local office closed, and the nearest one hours away.

This isn't just mismanagement—it's betrayal.

We are not spectators. We are not statistics. We are the heart of this nation. And it's time we acted like it.

Major companies that were built by American labor—Ford, Caterpillar—are moving out. They're being driven out by a political agenda that's sent material costs soaring through reckless tariffs. To stay afloat, they chase cheaper labor overseas, leaving hollowed-out towns and broken families in their wake.

Meanwhile, politicians slash food assistance, threaten Social Security and Medicaid, and then have the audacity to tell us the economy is strong and it's in our best interest. They smile on TV while the working class suffers.

The elites in Washington tell us to be patient. To wait. That it's complicated. But we know what we see. Our communities are drying up. The jobs are gone. The wages are stagnant. Our groceries are more expensive. The promises are broken.

What we are witnessing is not just economic decline—it is a calculated transfer of power, wealth, and dignity from the people who built this country to the corporate and political class who believe they own it.
The Human Cost

Consider the typical of a lifelong resident of a small town in Ohio. A person who worked at the local manufacturing plant for over 20 years, a job that provided her family with stability and a sense of pride. When the plant closed due to outsourcing, she found herself unemployed, struggling to make ends meet. The ripple effect was felt throughout the community—local businesses shuttered, schools faced budget cuts, and the town's spirit diminished. Her story is not unique; it's a narrative echoed in countless towns across America.
The Illusion of Prosperity

Politicians tout stock market highs and corporate profits as indicators of economic health, but these metrics are detached from the reality most Americans face. While the wealthiest accumulate more, the average worker sees little improvement. The gig economy grows, offering precarious employment without benefits or security. The middle class shrinks as the dream of upward mobility becomes increasingly elusive.
A Call to Action

Enough.

We are not spectators. We are not statistics. We are the heart of this nation. And it's time we acted like it.
Rise Up.

Get off your knees. Don't just sit on the couch and watch it happen. Rise up! Use your voice. Post your grievances. Use social media. Call your representatives. Write letters. Talk to your neighbor. See what's happening. What they're doing isn't how a country should treat its people—and it damn sure isn't right.

Rise up by showing up. At the ballot box. At the school board. At the union hall. At the town meeting. Wherever decisions are made, do what you can. Your presence matters.

Rise up because this country wasn't built by the connected—it was built by the committed. By steelworkers and carpenters. Nurses and truck drivers. Teachers and veterans. People who worked with their hands, loved with their hearts, and built the greatest nation on Earth.
Reclaiming Our Future

It's time to take it back.

Take back our jobs. Demand fair trade policies that protect American workers and hold corporations accountable for outsourcing. Support local businesses and invest in community initiatives that foster economic resilience.

Take back our towns. Advocate for infrastructure projects that create jobs and improve our communities. Push for affordable housing and quality education that ensure a brighter future for the next generation.

Take back our dignity. Stand up against policies that favor the wealthy at the expense of the working class. Demand transparency and integrity from our leaders.

Take back our rights. Protect the social safety nets that safeguard our most vulnerable. Fight for healthcare, fair wages, and the right to organize.

And take back America.

We are many. Let them hear us. Let them know—we will not be silent.

To the politicians in power—the ones slashing our benefits, outsourcing our jobs, gutting our economy—then turning around and telling us it's for our own good... I've got one thing to say to you:

Don't piss on my leg and tell me it's rain.

Take Back America.

Video of Trump Bragging About Enriching His Billionaire Pals Draws Outrage

"Donald Trump in a nutshell: doing everything he can to make the ultra-rich even richer," said Sen. Elizabeth Warren. "We need to find out if Trump's tariff chaos was used as cover for insider trading."


U.S. President Donald Trump speaks as he signs executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House on April 9, 2025.
(Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Jake Johnson
Apr 11, 2025
COMMON DREAMS


A video clip of U.S. President Donald Trump openly boasting about enriching his billionaire friends is drawing outrage as the administration faces growing scrutiny for possible market manipulation and insider trading in the aftermath of his partial tariff pause.

"He made two-and-a-half billion today," Trump said in the Oval Office on Wednesday, just hours after announcing the pause, "and he made $900 million."

"That's not bad," the president added.

Trump was referring to wealth gains that investor Charles Schwab and businessman Roger Penske—both billionaires—notched during a historic stock market rally sparked by the president's decision to pump the brakes on massive tariffs he imposed on most countries across the globe. (Trump left in place a 10% universal tariff on imports.)

The market surge added over $300 billion to the collective wealth of the world's top billionaires in a matter of hours, according to Bloomberg. Shortly before announcing the tariff pause, Trump posted to his social media platform that it is a "great time to buy" stocks, prompting accusations of market manipulation.

Watch the Oval Office video:



"Donald Trump in a nutshell: doing everything he can to make the ultra-rich even richer," Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wrote Thursday in response to the clip. "We need to find out if Trump's tariff chaos was used as cover for insider trading."

Dean Baker, senior economist at the Center on Economic and Policy Research, wrote Thursday that it's not yet clear whether Trump tipped off any of his ultra-rich associates about the partial tariff pause ahead of time.

"But does anyone think that Trump would have any qualms about sharing such a secret?" Baker asked. "Does anyone think that the people around Trump would have any qualms about trading on the ultimate inside information? I leave that to your judgment."

On Thursday, a group of Democratic lawmakers led by Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) called on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate "possible insider trading and market manipulation violations that took place between Sunday, April 6, 2025, when U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent visited President Trump at his Florida resort, and Wednesday, April 9, 2025, when the president announced the pausing of the tariffs—and whether such unlawful activities are ongoing."

"Insider trading by federal officials and their friends or family is not only a breach of trust of the American people, but erodes the integrity of government institutions and raises concerns about corruption and fairness in the political system," the lawmakers wrote. "There should be zero tolerance for this kind of corruption in our society, let alone from those we entrust to lead us in the public sphere."

'Dystopian' Trump Plan for Massive Expansion of ICE Detention Centers Exposed

"This expansion is a disastrous waste of billions of taxpayer dollars that will only line the coffers of the private prison industry," said one ACLU attorney.



This February 7, 2025 photo shows the entrance to the CoreCivic Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego.
(Photo: Carlos Moreno/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Brett Wilkins
Apr 11, 2025
COMMON DREAMS


The ACLU on Friday revealed new details about the Trump administration's plans to expand Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers in 10 states across the nation, with private prison corporations—whose share prices soared after the election of President Donald Trump—seeking to run at least a half dozen proposed ICE facilities.

The documents, obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request, "signal a massive expansion of ICE detention capacity—including at facilities notorious for misconduct and abuse—which echo reports earlier this week that the Trump administration has sought proposals for up to $45 billion to expand immigrant detention," ACLU said.

"The discovery also comes on the heels of a 'strategic sourcing vehicle' released by ICE earlier this month, which called for government contractors to submit proposals for immigration detention and related services," the group added.

The more than 250 pages of documents obtained by the ACLU "include information regarding facility capacity, history of facility use, available local transport, proximity to local hospitals, immigration courts, and transport, as well as access to local consulates and pro bono legal services."

"Specifically, the documents reveal that Geo Group, Inc. (GEO) and CoreCivic submitted proposals for a variety of facilities not currently in use by ICE," ACLU said.

These include:McFarland Detention Center in McFarland, California;
California City Correctional Center in California City, California;
North Lake Correctional Center in Baldwin, Michigan;
Midwest Regional Reception Center in Leavenworth, Kansas;
Lea County Detention Center in Hobbs, New Mexico; and
South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas.

GEO, CoreCivic, and Management Training Corporation (MTC) "also sought to renew contracts at current ICE detention facilities" in California, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, and Washington, according to the files.

"The documents received provide important details regarding what we have long feared—a massive expansion of ICE detention facilities nationwide in an effort to further the Trump administration's dystopian plans to deport our immigrant neighbors and loved ones," said Eunice Cho, senior staff attorney at the ACLU's National Prison Project.

"This expansion is a disastrous waste of billions of taxpayer dollars that will only line the coffers of the private prison industry," Cho added.

Indeed, GEO shares have nearly doubled in value since Trump's election, while CoreCivic stock is up 57% over the same period.

Unlike state prisons or country and local jails, which are accountable to oversight agencies, privately operated ICE detention centers are not subject to state regulation or inspection. And although Department of Homeland Security detainees are not convicted criminals and ICE detention centers are not technically prisons, the facilities are plagued by a history of abuse, often sexual in nature, and sometimes deadly.

During Trump's first term, groups including the ACLU sounded the alarm on the record number of detainee deaths in ICE custody, and scandals—including the separation of children from their parents or guardians and forced sterilization of numerous women at an ICE facility in Georgia—sparked widespread outrage and calls for reform from immigrant rights defenders.

However, abuses continued into the administration of former President Joe Biden, including "medical neglect, preventable deaths, punitive use of solitary confinement, lack of due process, obstructed access to legal counsel, and discriminatory and racist treatment," according to a 2024 report published by the National Immigrant Justice Center. Biden also broke a campaign promise to stop holding federal prisoners and immigration detainees in private prisons.

Since Trump took office in January after being elected on a promise to carry out the largest deportation campaign in U.S. history, fresh reports of ICE detainee abuse and poor detention conditions have been reported. These include alleged denial of medical care, insufficient access to feminine hygiene products, and rotten food at the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Basile, Louisiana, where Tufts University Ph.D. student and Palestine defender Rümeysa Öztürk is being held without charge.

Canada Tory leader echoes Trump, vows to 'deport' pro-Palestinian protesters over 'antisemitism'

Poilievre, echoing Trump, decried pro-Palestinian protesters during his campaign rally, accusing them of 'contributing to the worsening of hate crimes'.

ISLAMOPHOBIA  

ANTI PALESTINIAN ANTI ARAB ANTI MUSLIM DISCRIMINATION IS A HATE CRIME TOO

The New Arab Staff & Agencies
13 April, 2025


Pierre Poilievre has threatened to deport pro-Palestinian foreigners over 'hate crimes' [Getty/file photo]   

FASCIST BANNER FOR TORY ELECTION CAMPAIGN


Conservative Canadian leader Pierre Poilievre on the campaign trail Saturday vowed to "deport foreigners" from the country for criminal hatemongering, accusing pro-Palestinian protestors' "hate marches" for contributing to a "spike in antisemitism".

Poilievre was campaigning in an Ottawa electoral district contested by Liberal leader and Prime Minister Mark Carney, who this week drew the ire of his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu over remarks on the war in Gaza, seemingly acknowledging the ongoing genocide in the Palestinian territory.

"We will bring in tougher laws to target vandalism, hate marches that break laws (and) violent attacks based on ethnicity and religion," Poilievre told reporters.

"Anyone who is here on a visitor visa who carries out law-breaking will be deported from this country," he added, words echoing messaging from the administration of US President Donald Trump, which has deported pro-Palestinian student protesters.

Poilievre has in the past sought to distance himself from Trump, whose economic attacks and threats to annex the United States' northern neighbour have outraged the Canadian electorate.

The Canadian conservative decried pro-Palestinian protests, claiming they were contributing to a worsening situation with regard to hate crimes.

Pro-Palestinian encampments at universities and marches that sprung up in response to Israel's conduct of the deadly war in Gaza have been mostly peaceful but police have in some cases charged protestors.

On Tuesday, Carney was heckled at a rally by a protestor who shouted that Israel was perpetrating a genocide in Gaza.

Carney responded by highlighting Canada's restrictions on some arms shipments to Israel, to which Netanyahu responded on X: "Instead of supporting Israel, a democracy fighting a just war with just means against the barbarians of Hamas, he attacks the only Jewish state."

Carney later clarified that he did not hear the word genocide and called for "every effort to establish a ceasefire in Gaza."

Netanyahu slams Canada PM over comment on Gaza genocide, arms embargo

 Gaza medic missing in Israeli ambulance attack 'forcibly abducted': Red Crescent

AFP , Sunday 13 Apr 2025

The Palestine Red Crescent Society said Sunday that a medic who had been missing since an Israeli attack on ambulances in Gaza was "forcibly abducted" by troops and is being held by Israeli authorities.

This frame grab shows a Red Crescent ambulance with its emergency lights flashing as it drives toward a fire truck and other ambulances in Rafah in the northern Gaza Strip, according to the PRCS. AFPShare

FacebookXWhatsAppTelegramLinkedIn

Related

 Palestine Red Crescent says Israeli troops shot Gaza crew 'with intent to kill'

 Video shows last moments for Gaza aid workers killed by Israel: Red Crescent

 Palestinian Red Crescent recover bodies of 15 rescuers killed by Israeli forces

"We have been informed by the International Committee of the Red Cross that medic Asaad al-Nsasrah is being held by the Israeli occupation authorities," the PRCS said in a statement.

"His fate had remained unknown since he was targeted along with other PRCS medics in Rafah," it said, referring to the attack that left 15 medics and rescuers dead.

"We call on the international community to pressure the occupation authorities to immediately release our colleague, medic Asaad, who was forcibly abducted while carrying out his humanitarian duties," the PRCS said.

"He and his colleagues came under heavy gunfire, which led to the killing of eight of them -- a grave violation of international humanitarian law."

The Palestine Red Crescent Society said on Monday that 15 medics and rescuers killed by Israeli forces last month in Gaza were shot in the upper body with "intent to kill."

The killings occurred in the southern Gaza Strip on 23 March, days into a renewed Israeli war on Gaza, and have since sparked international condemnation.

Eight staff members from the Red Crescent, six from the Gaza civil defence agency and one employee of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees were killed in the attack, according to the UN humanitarian office OCHA and Palestinian rescuers.

Their bodies were found buried near the site of the shooting in the Tal al-Sultan area of Rafah city, in what OCHA described as a mass grave.

The team was ambushed while responding to distress calls from Palestinians in an area near Rafah that had been struck by an Israeli air strike, the PRCS had said.

The Israeli attack appears to have occurred in two phases that morning.

One of the victims of the attack, medic Rifaat Radwan, captured video and audio of the second assault, which targeted his convoy of ambulances and a firetruck, before he was killed.

An Israeli military official told journalists that the soldiers who fired at the ambulances "thought they had an encounter with terrorists".

But Radwan's video, released by the Red Crescent, contradicted this account.

The footage from the phone found on Radwan's body shows ambulances moving with their headlights and emergency lights clearly switched on, while the military official had said that the lights on the vehicles were off.

In its 17-month-old war on Gaza, Israel has deliberately struck civilian targets such as schools, hospitals, ambulances, displaced shelters, journalists, and humanitarian workers, killing and wounding thousands.

Standing at the site of the massacre during a 30 March search mission, Jonathan Whittall, head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the Palestinian territories, described how "the ambulances were hit one by one as they advanced, as they entered into Rafah."

The sole survivor, medic Mundhir Abed, witnessed the first attack.

Abed was in the back of the first ambulance to reach the scene of the airstrike in Rafah's Hashashin district when it came under heavy Israeli fire, according to a report in the Guardian.

"The ambulance's lights were clearly on, and the Red Crescent logo was visible as we headed to the scene," the 27-year-old PRCS volunteer said.

"From the moment the shooting began, I immediately took cover on the floor of the ambulance. I didn't hear anything from my colleagues, except for the sounds of their last moments, hearing them take their last breath," Abed said.

"Suddenly, everything went quiet. The ambulance came to a stop, and the lights went out," he added, noting that he was then detained, beaten by the soldiers, and later released.

"It's a day I'll never forget because of the torment I witnessed and lived through," he told AFP.

*This story was edited by Ahram Online.

Dozens of Israeli Airstrikes in Recent Weeks Killed 'Only Women and Children'

"The international community... must end its silence and inaction as the Palestinian people face mass destruction, torture, forced starvation, slaughter, and ethnic cleansing," wrote one advocacy group.


A girl sits by the rubble outside the Sabah family building that was hit by Israeli air strikes in Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on April 8, 2025.
(Photo: Eyad Baba/AFP via Getty Images)

Eloise Goldsmith
Apr 11, 2025
COMMON DREAMS

The United Nations announced Friday that dozens of strikes carried out by the Israeli military in Gaza in recent weeks only killed women and children as it issued a stark warning about Israel's blockade of essential aid.

"Between 18 March and 9 April 2025, there were some 224 incidents of Israeli strikes on residential buildings and tents for internally displaced people," said Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, according to press briefing notes.

"In some 36 strikes about which the U.N. Human Rights Office corroborated information, the fatalities recorded so far were only women and children," she said.

In response to reports of the strikes that exclusively killed women and children, the Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization the Council on American-Islamic Relations said in a Friday statement that "the intentional mass slaughter of women and children further exposes the genocidal intent of the far-right Israeli government."

"The international community—and our own government—must end its silence and inaction as the Palestinian people face mass destruction, torture, forced starvation, slaughter, and ethnic cleansing," according to the group.

According to Shamdasani, Israel's increasing issuance of evacuation orders, which she called tantamount to displacement orders, have forced Palestinians in Gaza into "ever shrinking spaces where they have little or no access to lifesaving services, including water, food, and shelter, and where they continue to be subject to attacks."

Israel shattered a shaky, two-month long cease-fire deal when it resumed strikes on Gaza on March 18. Not long after strikes resumed, local health officials in Gaza announced that the death toll of Israel's deadly campaign on the enclave had surpassed 50,000 people.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health said on Friday that the death toll since March 18 has reached over 1,540 people.

Israel also has imposed a blockade of humanitarian aid into Gaza, leading a top official with the U.N. Children's Fund to warn in mid-March that children in Gaza are "living without the very basics they need to survive—yet again."

Shamdasani said Friday that Israel's closure of crossings into Gaza, which has prevented food, medicine, and other essentials from entering the enclave, is now in its sixth week.

"Israeli officials have made statements suggesting that the entry of humanitarian aid is directly linked to the release of hostages, raising serious concerns about collective punishment and the use of starvation of the civilian population as a method of war, both of which constitute crimes under international law," she said.

What's more, she said, "in light of the cumulative impact of Israeli forces' conduct in Gaza, the office is seriously concerned that Israel appears to be inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life increasingly incompatible with their continued existence as a group in Gaza."

Israel kills children routinely in West Bank

Tamara Nassar

 9 April 2025

ELECTRONIC INTAFADA

A Palestinian child of the village of Jinba, two days after a large-scale attack conducted by Israeli settlers and soldiers, Masafer Yatta, southern West Bank, 30 March 2025. Yahel GazitActiveStills

Israel is subjecting Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank to a campaign of systematic ethnic cleansing, a human rights group has said.

Since the beginning of the year, Israel has killed 20 children in the West Bank.

In the latest case – on Sunday – Israeli soldiers shot three Palestinian children, including two with American citizenship – in the town of Turmusaya. One of the three died as a result.

The town’s mayor said the three boys were picking green almonds from a field near Route 60 – a highway used by Israeli settlers that crosses the West Bank.

Palestinian American Amer Rabee, 14, was killed by Israeli fire.

Israeli soldiers shot his 15-year-old friend Ayoub Jabar, also an American citizen, and he was placed in intensive care following the attack. Their friend Abdulrahman Shihada, 15, was hospitalized as well.

The Israeli army called the three children “terrorists” in a post on X that shows a few seconds of grainy footage that allegedly captures the moment they were shot. The Israeli army did not even try to claim that the boys had thrown anything other than rocks.

Israeli soldiers “identified three terrorists who hurled rocks toward the highway, thus endangering civilians driving,” the army stated.

“The soldiers opened fire toward the terrorists who were endangering civilians, eliminating one terrorist and hitting two additional terrorists.”

The 10-second footage shows three figures near a field, one of whom appears to throw something.

Amer’s father said the “video is not accurate” and contains no evidence that his son had even thrown rocks.

“There were six bullets in his body, two in his heart, two in his shoulder, and two in his face,” Amer’s father told a reporter with the French news agency AFP.
US citizenship provides no protection

Amer had grown up in the United States and moved to the occupied West Bank as a child. He was planning on moving back to the US after he completed his high school studies, where four of his siblings live.

The Washington Post said he was buried next to Omar Qateen, a Palestinian American who was shot and killed by Israeli police in 2023. Qateen was 27.

Many Palestinian Americans live in the town of Turmusaya. But their US citizenship doesn’t protect them from Israeli attacks, killings and encroachments on their land, or settler pogroms.

“The US embassy turns a blind eye,” Amer’s father told AFP.

“Many attendees at the funeral were US citizens, but residents also said they were angry at the US government for providing Israel with arms and political support, and attempts to displace them from their homes,” The Washington Post reported.

The US State Department apparently accepted Israel’s version of the killing.

“We acknowledge the IDF [Israeli military] initial statement that expressed that this incident occurred during a counter-terrorism operation and that Israel is investigating,” the State Department told the AFP.

The State Department made no further comment supposedly “out of respect for the privacy of the family.”

US administrations have repeatedly looked away following the killing of American citizens by the Israeli army and accepted Israel’s version of events without conducting their own investigations – even in the cases of children, students, activists and high profile journalists.
Shot in the chest

Also this month, the Israeli army shot and killed 16-year-old Omar Amer Zyoud in the northern West Bank.

An Israeli soldier in a heavily armored military vehicle shot Omar from a distance of about 80 meters (262 feet) on 2 April, according to Defense for Children International - Palestine.

He was near a school by the entrance of the Palestinian town of Silat al-Harithiya, northwest of Jenin. Omar was allegedly throwing stones and “explosive devices” alongside other youth at two military vehicles.

The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem recently reported that “neither stones nor improvised explosives cause significant harm to the armored vehicles in which the forces are transported.”

Omar was shot in the chest by the Israeli military. When two Palestinians tried to approach the child to aid him, including another child, Israeli forces shot at them as well, wounding both.

“Israeli soldiers continue targeting children with deadly force with no accountability because world leaders allow them to act without consequence,” said Ayed Abu Eqtaish, accountability program director at DCIP.
“Routine”

Israel’s killing of children has become “routine” in the West Bank, B’Tselem said.

“Palestinian children in the northern occupied West Bank, particularly Jenin, are enduring a systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing at the hands of Israeli forces,” DCIP recently said.

This is part of what B’Tselem is calling the “Gaza Doctrine” – the army’s replication of tactics it used during the Gaza genocide in the West Bank.

B’Tselem cited airstrikes, mass displacements and wanton killings as manifestations of this “Gazaification” of the West Bank.

But another element appears to be the routine killing of children.

“Since the war in Gaza broke out, Israel has loosened its restrictions on the use of lethal force in the West Bank, deploying an increasingly deadly open-fire policy,” B’Tselem said.

The number of children killed in the West Bank since 7 October 2023 – over 190 – is many times higher than the yearly average over the previous decade.

Soldiers are encouraged by a loose policy where lethal fire is permitted in “real and immediate” life-threatening situations, B’Tselem said.

But the level of such supposed threats are determined by soldiers in the field, who can retroactively claim danger without evidence or any root in reality. This approach has been repeatedly rubber-stamped by Israeli court rulings.

“In some cases, the military deliberately creates situations in which it can claim legal justification for shooting,” B’Tselem added.

“Focusing on the exact moment the trigger is pulled allows the military to evade responsibility, even when minors are involved.”

For example, soldiers would shoot at Palestinians before they even cast a stone, but rather as they are supposedly getting ready to. This would supposedly “‘catch them in the act’ in order to shoot with supposed ‘legal justification,’ instead of trying to arrest them or remove them with non-lethal measures and prevent the killing [of a teenager],” B’Tselem added.

Loose policy is also backed up by little to no accountability against soldiers who kill children.

“The probability of an Israeli soldier facing prosecution for killing Palestinians is just 0.4 percent,” the Israeli watchdog Yesh Din reported in February.

Israel’s wonton killing of children in the West Bank is a symptom of its systematic killing of children in Gaza since 7 October 2023.

Since the start of its genocide, Israel has killed some 17,500 children in Gaza.

That’s more than one child every hour for nearly 550 days.

It’s an “undeniable pattern,” Josh Rushing, the Emmy Award-winning senior correspondent for Fault Lines, told The Electronic Intifada livestream, about Israel’s deliberate killing of children in Gaza. Rushing was speaking about the Al Jazeera program’s new documentary “Kids Under Fire” – featuring testimonies by foreign doctors who treated injuries of children in the Gaza Strip.

The Palestinian Authority has become irrelevant

COMPRADOUR KAPOS FOR THE OCCUPATION

Omar Karmi

Power Suits 

10 April 2025

ELECTRONIC INTAFADA

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, addresses the World Urban Forum in Cairo on 4 November, 2024. Thaer GanaimAPA images

Towards the end of March, a “leaked” document about the “day after” in Gaza supposedly from the Palestinian Authority’s General Intelligence Service made the rounds of various online chat fora.

The document purports to be a list of measures the security forces would take in Gaza if it assumes responsibility for the devastated coastal strip of land.

These include a commitment to “gather information” on the Hamas leadership and “control rooms” in order to “completely dismantle” the movement; a commitment to establish security arrangements that “meet Israel’s security needs”; and the establishment of a “transitional” Palestinian administration for Gaza under the “supervision” of PA forces and “regional and American” forces.

In return for all this, the PA is – per the document – asking simply for an Israeli commitment to “change course” in the West Bank.

And in order to set the stage, it calls for the activation of “media cells” and activists on social media to launch “funded campaigns” against Hamas rule, focusing on the living conditions and humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

So far, so nefarious.

That the document was supposed to have emanated from Palestinian intelligence, led by Majed Faraj, only added to the intrigue: Was it deliberately leaked, and if so, why?

To embarrass the PA? To send a message to the PA’s western and Arab backers?

To weaken Faraj, as candidates position themselves to replace Mahmoud Abbas, the nearly 90-year-old PA leader? To strengthen him?

Was the document even real? The stamp does not look authentic, said one former PA official on condition of anonymity.

“Such agencies don’t write,” said another current official, also anonymously.
What remains

One phrase certainly sticks out, if merely for its unusual candor. In the first paragraph, the unknown author asserts that the listed measures are crucial for the PA to avoid “losing what remains of its legitimacy.”

But if that phrase perhaps fatally undermines any claims of authenticity for the document – why include it? – it also very precisely zeroes in on what’s at stake for the PA itself.

What indeed remains of the PA’s legitimacy?

Legitimacy as what? And legitimacy in whose eyes?

The last public opinion poll from the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research – usually published quarterly – is from September 2024. It is presumably not easy to do serious research in Gaza where 1.9 million people are displaced into tents and temporary shelters with barely any connectivity.

But if legitimacy is based on the popularity of a political leadership, a quick glance over that September poll and the preceding 12 months back to September 2023, paints a very clear picture: In a straight presidential election run-off with then-Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar (Israel had assassinated former leader Ismail Haniyeh, who featured in previous polls), Abbas would struggle to get into double figures, garnering just 13 percent of respondents’ support last September.

Throw imprisoned Fatah rival Marwan Barghouti – who consistently polls as the most popular Palestinian political leader – into the mix, and Abbas is firmly in single digit territory at just 6 percent.

His Fatah faction doesn’t fare much better. Having enjoyed a slim majority in parliamentary voting intentions in September 2023, Hamas polls as the comfortable victor in every poll taken since, most recently enjoying an 11 percentage point lead in September 2024.

But then, neither Abbas, Majed Faraj, Hussein Sheikh, the secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), and Abbas’ heir apparent, or their loyalists in Fatah need worry about elections. The last parliamentary vote was in 2006 (Hamas won) and the last presidential elections were a full 20 years ago, in 2005, when Abbas ran unopposed by any Hamas candidate.
Delusional

Having evaded elections and lost any semblance of popular support, the nearly 18-year-old Palestinian division also undercuts any claim to political consensus behind PA rule.

Division has not only undermined the PA’s legitimacy, it has undermined foreign relations for the PLO, nominally in charge of foreign affairs as the “sole legitimate representative” of the Palestinian people, but under the same leadership.

As long as the PLO continues to keep Hamas and other factions at arm’s length, the PLO can not present itself as truly representative, fatally weakening its international status.

It is a self-inflicted wound that Israel has aggravated to the fullest over the years to avoid engaging in any kind of negotiations process, further weakening the PA/PLO in the process.

There have been multiple attempts at reconciliation. All have failed.

The most recent attempt resulted in the Beijing Declaration in July last year. But the ink was hardly dry on the paper before Fatah officials began briefing against it, telling the Israeli daily Haaretz, for instance, that the declaration would not result in any concrete measures and that implementation in any case depended on external factors, including the positions of the US, Israel and Arab countries.

This may have irritated Beijing, which for a spell looked like it might make a welcome entry into Middle East peacemaking efforts. And rejecting Chinese mediation would be a gigantic strategic mistake for the PLO, which is almost entirely reliant on the same western actors that have stood solidly behind Israel’s genocide.

It has been obvious to most observers for decades that Palestinians can expect little help from the so-called guarantors of an international order Washington and European countries have been all too happy to set aside for Israel.

Yet this still seems to be the sole, delusional strategy of the PA/PLO leadership.
Irrelevant

Hamas continues to engage US, Egyptian and Qatari mediators over a ceasefire in Gaza.

In Cairo, meanwhile, Jordan’s King Abdullah and Egypt’s Abdulfattah al-Sisi held a summit Monday with French President Emmanuel Macron to discuss Gaza’s future.

In February, the leaders of seven Arab countries met in Riyadh to discuss a viable response to US President Donald Trump’s surreal, reality-shorn “vision” for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza.

Absent in all this? The PA/PLO.

It is a damning indictment of how irrelevant its leadership has become.

The only agency the PA has shown over the past 19 months has been to turn its guns on its own people, notably in Jenin, where it is still acting on Israel’s behalf to deadly effect.

To look away from the ethics of such decision-making is difficult. But even the logic is patently flawed.

There is no appeasing Israel, which has made no secret of its aims to annex the West Bank and depopulate Gaza.

There is also no point in appealing to Israel’s western allies, who long ago granted Israel the favor of sharing the financial burden of its occupation. The EU, broadly, pays for budget support and capacity building; the US pays for security.
Curtains

Abbas has not been idle over the past two months. Security chiefs have “been retired” and new ones appointed.

Rumors swirl that Faraj is next in line for the chop, leaving Hussein Sheikh the most likely candidate for the newly created vice presidency post and the most likely successor to the 89-year-old Abbas.

He has even granted an amnesty for former Fatah members who had been expelled in the past, potentially paving the way for a return of erstwhile Gaza strongman, Muhammad Dahlan, now close to the leadership of the United Arab Emirates.

But this is merely the political equivalent of ironing the curtains while the house is on fire.

What remains of the PA’s legitimacy, to address the leaked/hoax intelligence document, is the same as what remains of the PLO’s relevance: Nothing.

And that will not change unless there is a leadership willing to break with the failed policies of the past and capable of unifying Palestinian efforts – in Palestine and elsewhere – to resist Israel’s attempt to erase the Palestinian people.

Omar Karmi's blog