ROGUE NATION(S)

Israel becomes first nation to recognize Somaliland

Roshni Majumdar 

DW with Reuters, AFP

26/12/2025 

Israel has become the world's first country to recognize Somaliland, which proclaimed independence from Somalia in 1991, as a sovereign nation.

Somaliland has its own flag (seen here) and passport, even though no country except Israel recognizes it

Image: Solomon Muche/DW

⁠Israel ‍has recognized ⁠Somaliland, a breakaway region of Somalia, as an "independent and sovereign state," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday.

"Together with Foreign Minister Sa'ar and the President of the Republic of Somaliland, we signed a joint and mutual declaration," Netanyahu posted to X.

"This declaration is in the spirit of the Abraham Accords, signed at the initiative of President Trump," he said.

In doing so, Israel becomes the first country to recognize the breakaway region.

What to know about Somaliland

Somaliland broke ties with Somalia in 1991, and the region has sought international recognition as an independent state since then.

But no foreign government recognized its sovereignty until this afternoon.

Still, Somaliland remains more stable than Somalia, and some analysts say that the breakaway state has a strong case for independence.

In recent years, Somaliland has struck major power investment deals with foreign powers, including Ethiopia and United Arab Emirates, raising tensions with Somalia.

Somalis face a complete travel ban into the US under the Trump administration.

Somalia and Somaliland: Here are the differences and issues 01:51

Israel to seek immediate cooperation with Somaliland in agriculture, economy

Netanyahu said Israel would seek immediate cooperation with Somaliland in agriculture, health, technology and economy.

Netanyahu congratulated Somaliland's president, Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi, praised his leadership and invited him to visit Israel.

Somaliland's president came to power last year and has since sought international recognition of the self-declared republic

Image: Monicah Mwangi/REUTERS

Somaliland welcomes Israeli recognition

Somaliland President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi said in a statement that the breakaway state would join the Abraham Accords, calling it a step toward regional and global peace.

He said Somaliland was committed to building partnerships, boosting mutual prosperity and promoting stability across the Middle East and Africa.

Somaliland's Ministry of Foreign Affairs posted to X: "Somaliland's moment has arrived."

What to know about Abraham Accords and why that matters

The Abraham Accords are US President Donald Trump's signature foreign policy achievement from his first term.

The set of deals to normalize relations between Israel and other Arab nations was considered a big step toward peace in the Middle East region at the time.

There have been some success stories with Israel having normalized relations with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and others. But progress has stalled.

Trump hopes to expand the number of countries that sign the accords that bring mutual economic and security benefits during his second term.

Foreign ministers of Egypt, Somalia and Turkey condemn Israeli recognition of Somaliland

Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty said he held phone calls with his counterparts from Somalia, Turkey and Djibouti to discuss what they described as dangerous developments in the Horn of Africa following Israel's announcement.

The ministers condemned Israel’s recognition of Somaliland, reaffirmed their full support for Somalia’s unity and territorial integrity, and warned that recognizing breakaway regions poses a threat to international peace and security, Egypt's foreign ministry said.

"This initiative by Israel, which aligns with its expansionist policy and its efforts to do everything to prevent the recognition of a Palestinian state, constitutes overt interference in Somalia's domestic affairs," the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Edited by: Dmytro Hubenko

Israel Becomes First Nation to Recognize Somaliland—But Still Rejects Palestine

One foreign policy analyst said that Israel views Somaliland as a “strategic location as a launch pad for strikes on Yemen and potentially a place to forcibly ‘relocate’ Palestinians to.”


Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signs an official recognition of the Republic of Somaliland as an independent state on December 26, 2025.
(Photo from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on social media)

Stephen Prager
Dec 26, 2025

COMMON DREAMS

Israel became the first nation to recognize Somaliland as a sovereign state on Friday, a move that was met with criticism from international observers who questioned its continued unwillingness to recognize a Palestinian state.

Somaliland, a breakaway region in the north of Somalia that is home to more than 6 million people, declared independence in 1991, but until now, no United Nations member states have recognized its claim

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described his government’s recognition of the territory as being “in the spirit of the Abraham Accords,” a deal brokered by US President Donald Trump for Israel to normalize relations with some of its Arab neighbors, which has itself been accused of disregarding the issue of Palestinian sovereignty.

Speaking over a video call with Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi, the president of Somaliland, Netanyahu said he was signing “Israel’s official recognition of Somaliland and its right of self-determination,” calling the friendship between the two nations “seminal and historic.”



In a statement, Abdullahi said Israel’s recognition “represents a milestone in Somaliland’s long-standing pursuit of international legitimacy, reaffirming its historical, legal, and moral entitlement to statehood.”

However, a report from the Guardian suggested that Israel’s recognition of Somaliland has less to do with the self-determination of its people than with Israel’s military interests. It cited a November report from a prominent Israeli think tank, which argued that Somaliland could be used as a base of military operations against Yemen’s Houthis.

Somaliland, located in the horn of Africa just south of the Arabian Peninsula, already hosts an air base that the United Arab Emirates has used to conduct operations against the Yemeni militant group, which—until a “ceasefire” agreement was reached in October—launched regular attacks on Israel and its vessels in the Red Sea in what it said was an effort to pressure it to stop its genocidal military campaign in Gaza.

Egypt and Turkey condemned Israel’s agreement with Somaliland, saying, “This initiative by Israel, which aligns with its expansionist policy and its efforts to do everything to prevent the recognition of a Palestinian state, constitutes overt interference in Somalia’s domestic affairs.”

Foreign ministers for the two nations joined those of Somalia and neighboring Djibouti on a call following the development, where they called for the continued unity of Somalia as an institution and condemned Israel’s efforts “to displace the Palestinian people from their land.”

Adil Haque, a professor at Rutgers Law School, pointed out on social media that, in August, Netanyahu met with Somaliland’s leadership “offering recognition in exchange for helping Israel to illegally deport Palestinians from Gaza.”

Somaliland was one of many nations reportedly approached by Israel to warehouse Palestinians exiled from the strip permanently—others included Indonesia, Uganda, South Sudan, and Libya.



Following reports at the time that Somalia was also in consideration, its president, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, responded that “the idea of removing Palestine from their own land and putting them into another, other people’s land—I don’t see that that’s a solution at all.”

A senior Israeli official who spoke on condition of anonymity with Israel’s Channel 12 reportedly agreed that Netanyahu’s recognition of Somaliland undermines his repeated assertions that there will never be a Palestinian state. As the Times of Israel summarized: “The official... points out that while Israel is the first country to grant recognition to Somaliland, the rest of the world considers the breakaway region an integral part of Somalia.”

Tariq Kenney-Shawa, a fellow at the Palestinian Policy Network and a producer at AJ+, said: “To state the obvious, Israel wouldn’t recognize anyone unless there was something in it for them. Israel doesn’t give a shit about Somaliland apart from its strategic location as a launch pad for strikes on Yemen and potentially a place to forcibly ‘relocate’ Palestinians to.”

New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com › ... › middleeast › israel-recognize-somaliland.html

Israel Recognizes Somaliland, Drawing International Rebukes

5 hours ago · The development carries potential benefits for both sides but still faces stiff international opposition, 34 years after the region broke away from Somalia.

1. BBC

   https://www.bbc.co.uk › news › articles

   Israel recognises Somaliland as independent state, Netanyahu says

   8 hours ago · Israel has become the first country to formally recognise Somalia's breakaway region of Somaliland as an independent nation. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said Israel intended to …

2. 

   The Guardian

   https://www.theguardian.com › world › dec › israel-first-country-to-recognise...

   Israel becomes first country to recognise Somaliland as sovereign state

   8 hours ago · Israel has become the first country to recognise Somaliland as a sovereign state, a breakthrough in its quest for international recognition since it declared independence from Somalia …

3. 

   Bloomberg

   https://www.bloomberg.com › news › articles › israel-seals...

   Netanyahu and Somaliland President Sign Deal Marking Red Sea ...

   9 hours ago · Israel became the first country to recognize Somaliland, a breakaway region of Somalia, giving it a new partner on the strategic Red Sea coast.

4. 

   National Post

   https://nationalpost.com › ... › israel-netanyahu-somaliland

   Netanyahu signs deal for Israel to recognize Somaliland statehood ...

For Me, a Jew, a Painful Truth: Israel Is a Perpetual Crime Against Humanity Masquerading as a Nation

Repentance and reparations — not hasbara — is the only way forward

by Phil Rockstroh / December 26th, 2025

I hold joint US/German citizenship due to the historical fact that my maternal family was stripped of their German citizenship by The Reich Citizenship act attendant to Nazi imposed Nuremberg Laws enacted in 1935. Subsequently, as the Third Reich consolidated power, by means of legalized state criminality, my family’s business interests and personal property were stolen by the Nazis. My grandfather was arrested, imprisoned in Sachsenhausen concentration camp and my mother and her sister were dispatched to the UK on a Kindertransport.

On the surface German society evinces the artifice of repentance due to its reprehensible history in regard to its anti-semitic compulsions. Yet the act is surface level, is mercenary at best — but, is, in essence, a bait and switch gambit . Withal, by means of the ruse of protecting Jews, Germans are permitted to make acceptable their seething Islamophobia. Germans do not respect Jews; they possess a bigotry-rancid regard for people of the Islamic faith. By the canard of protecting Jews, German authorities can suppress, for example, pro-Palestinian viewpoints and public displays as being anti-Semitic.

State tributes to Anne Frank can act as cover for German complicity in the wholesale slaughter of Palestinian children by the tens of thousands. The old demons of White Christian supremacy have not been banished from the Germanic psyche but have shape-shifted. The cultural architects of death camps can act as enablers of Israel’s perpetual Nakba.

Therefore, the image of Anne Frank donning a Keffiyeh resonates with a heart-shattering truth: The cultural contagions responsible for genocide shift with the winds of history yet rise from the same odious soil. The (Big) lie of the mind: the outsider others within a dominant culture present danger — not state-sanctioned xenophobia seething within any given society.

A brawl among ideological blowhards.

There is a raging, right-wing ideological family feud, in progress, between hate-rancid, Third Reich-adjacent Zionists and their Christian-Zionists enablers, a schism has opened pitting the two aforementioned groups — who simply hate people of the Islamic faith and all other ethnic and outsider groups — and Christian-nationalists i.e., on-the-nose Nazis, those who include Jewish people in their deranged mental sphere of xenophobic animus.

All of the above agree that outsider others should be rounded up by jackboots-for-brains ICE brownshirts. But the primary group believes Jews should be excluded from the dragnet and purge. Caveat: Christian Zionists believe that Lord Jesus is going to return to this sin-sullied earth and personally purge Jewish people down into subterranean lakes of eternal fire.

As amusing as it is to watch the spectacle of these two ideological scorpions grapple in a pit, inflicting each other with their soul-paralyzing toxins, history instructs, as a general rule, the more noxious, vehement haters tend to emerge victorious.

We are well past the (tanking) United States republic’s analog to the Weimar Republic; we are witnessing the Republican Party’s Night Of The Long Knives.

As an anti-Zionist Jewish person, I’m compelled to ask my Zionist brethren, how did they ever believe it was possible for Jewish people to be welcome participants in the White supremacy klavern.

Is there a place of refuge?

Perhaps there would be a refuge somewhere on earth for us Jews if we make a sincere and massive amends to the Palestinian people as well as to Israel’s perpetually under assault neighbors, then the establishment of a Right Of Return for ethnically cleansed Palestinians and their heirs, including full and generous reparations for their years of exile and suffering.

Our last, best chance as a people, is the establishment of a bigotry-free, genuinely democratic Palestine, stretching from the river to the sea.

As a Jewish person, all too often nowadays, I feel buffeted by inner torment by thoughts as to what consequences will be wrought by the abominable actions of Israel.

The Zionist state has revealed to the world — a painful to me truth — that I had apprehended long before the October 7 open-air prison breakout by members of Hamas and then Israel’s grotesquely disproportionate response by the uniformed thugs of the IDF that took the form of the war crime of massive collective punishment upon the men, women and children of Gaza: Israel has been, since its inception, a perpetual crime against humanity masquerading as a nation. To compound the tragedy, by means of collusion, all too many of my fellow Jews, lost in a wilderness of denial, by rote, parrot the hasbara lies disseminated by Israel’s army of propagandists.

Going forward… how?

Judaism as defined by Zionism is a train-wreck, morally and ethically. Going forward, how will it even be possible to regain our moral footing and reestablish a relationship with the world based on the universality of human equity and the mandate that justice must prevail…without Israeli political and military leaders facing trial before a war crimes tribunal. We Jews are too small in number to thrive in a globally connected world not ruled by an abiding moral center.

The Zionist catastrophe should serve as an object lesson on the peril — the blood-drenched folly — of insisting truth is what we say it is — even if we have to enforce our notion of it by brutal force and compulsive lying e.g., “genocide is self-defense; “we [i.e., Israelis] are not perpetrating ethnic cleansing because there are not an actual people known as the Palestinians.” (Yet, somehow, hyper-militarized Israelis are in grave and constant peril from these people they claim do not exist.)

Following Jewish mythos, allow me to put it this way: King David — (Israel) in the form of the agendas of the Zionist state — has schemed and condemned Uriah the Hittite to death a hundred thousand times over. The betrayal of our moral covenant is breached by means of hundreds of morally reprehensible acts per day — a soul-defying disfigurement of Judaism that has been contrived and twisted into the abominable form of the Zionist state. Appropriating the lexicon of the ancient book, repentance is our only path forward.

A dispatch to the Zionist trolls who swarm to my page and inflict its pixel precincts with exhausted copy and paste Hasbara misinformation and outright confabulation.

Regarding the belligerently ignorant trolls who snarl, I have betrayed Judaism for condemning genocide, I reply: If the Messiah arrived and commanded Israel and its apologists to repent they would call the Messiah a kapo.

(The term “kapo” is a vehement Jewish rebuke, an appellation referring to Jewish prisoners in Nazi concentration camps designated to act as the ears, eyes and arm of power of the SS in regard to aiding in the brutal control of the daily existence of their fellow inmates. The invective is a term designating an act of unforgivable betrayal insofar as acting as a collaborator with a mortal enemy of Jews.)

In my view, the son of a survivor of The Shoah, the dismal and deranged trajectory, via from Europe to the Zionist state, from proceeding from victims of genocide to the perpetrators of the abomination is a betrayal of Judaism.

Clearing the record for belligerently Zionist trolls and willfully obtuse Zionist true believers:

First, the rape stories on Oct 7 have been debunked (although the hasbara-contrived fictions have not, on a widespread basis, been retracted in mainstream Western media outlets).

The verifiable rapes, in reality, were perpetrated in IDF torture camps. Zionists thugs even staged a riot and prison break-in to free the accused prison guard rapists. Next, a government whistleblower, a former IDF military lawyer, Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, attempting to expose the subject, was arrested for speaking to the press.



Moreover, the babies incinerated in ovens stories have also been revealed to be an utter fabrication. But what is a heart-wrenching, mortifying fact — an unforgivable war crime the world witnessed — is the wholesale slaughter of an estimated 40,000 infants, toddlers, and children by IDF launched attacks and by starvation, by design, as inflicted by the Zionist regime.

Accordingly, in no manner, is there any justification, regardless of the October 7 attacks, for massive collective punishment to be inflicted on the people of Gaza. By international law, collective punishment is a war crime — and yes, the uniformed thugs of the IDF‘s actions in Gaza, according to an overwhelming consensus of the scholars on the subject, was indeed a genocide.

To those who deny Israel’s perpetual crimes against humanity: its perpetration of genocide upon the people of Gaza; its unwarranted aggression against its neighboring countries; the existence of torture prisons; and the ethnic cleansing transpiring in the West Bank by religious zealot lunatics (with the backing and full consent of the Zionist regime) — I ask this question, do you remember the exact moment that your soul died or did it rot away slowly and was blown away and scattered by the reprehensible winds borne of your denial?

King David Confronted by the Prophet Gad, Flemish artist, unknown

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Phil Rockstroh is a poet, lyricist, and essayist. His poems, short fiction, poetry and essays have been published in numerous print publications and anthologies; his political essays have been widely posted on the progressive/left side of the internet.  Read other articles by Phil, or visit Phil's website.

Israeli Police Release Settler Filmed Running ATV Over Praying Palestinian in West Bank

A group of Israeli military veterans called his punishment “just a slap on the wrist” and “state-backed impunity for state-backed terror.”


An Israeli soldier was filmed running over a praying Palestinian man with his ATV outside the village of Deir Jarir, outside Ramallah in the West Bank, on December 25, 2025.
(Screenshot from video posted by Nurit Yohanan/Times of Israel)

Stephen Prager
Dec 26, 2025
COMMON DREAMS

Israeli police have released a soldier from custody after he was filmed running his vehicle over a Palestinian man who was praying outside the city of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.

A silent video of the incident, which both Israeli and Palestinian outlets reported on Thursday, shows an Israeli settler with a rifle slung over his back driving his all-terrain vehicle (ATV) toward a 23-year-old Palestinian man as he knelt in prayer on the roadside.

After barrelling over the man, the settler shouted something in his direction and backed up, then gestured for him to move.

The settler then turned his ATV around, got off, and shouted something at a Palestinian taxi driver. The injured Palestinian man then stood up, approaching the cab. The settler again shooed him off before hopping back on the ATV and speeding away.



Majdi Abu Mokho, the father of the Palestinian man, said his son now has pain in both legs after he was struck.

Mokho told Agence France-Presse: “The assailant is a known settler. He set up an outpost near the village, and with other settlers he comes to graze his livestock, blocks the road, and provokes the residents.”

He also said the settler blinded him with pepper spray after hitting his son, though this is not shown in the video.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) identified the driver as an Israeli reserve soldier with one of its regional defense units. These battalions have dramatically expanded in recent years with backing from Israel’s right-wing government, which contains many officials at the center of the settler movement.

Breaking the Silence, a group of Israeli military veterans critical of the occupation of Palestine, has referred to the regional defense units—which have been responsible for many other attacks on Palestinian civilians in the West Bank—as “no more than settler militias in uniform.”

The IDF said the soldier’s weapon has been confiscated and that he’s been suspended due to the “severity of the incident,” which the IDF said it was investigating. The IDF has not released the soldier’s name.

An initial probe found that the same settler had opened fire in the village of Deir Jarir, north of Ramallah, earlier that same day, in an incident that resulted in a young Palestinian man being injured by gunfire.

During that altercation, which was also caught on film, a group of masked settlers was seen hurling rocks at the village’s entrance. According to Palestinian sources who spoke with the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, the targets of the attack were villagers who were grazing their cattle near their homes.

In another video, a masked man—who the IDF identified as the same reservist responsible for the ATV attack—is seen firing his weapon in the direction of the camera. The IDF said that by opening fire inside the village while in civilian clothes, the soldier had committed a “serious breach of his authority.”



According to the Times of Israel, Israeli police released the settler reservist from custody on Friday. He has been placed under house arrest for five days and is banned from approaching Deir Jarir, where the incident occurred, or from contacting anyone else connected with the case.

The violent incident is the latest in a year that has seen a record number of attacks by Israeli settlers and soldiers against Palestinian villagers.

According to official figures, Israeli forces and illegal settlers have killed at least 1,130 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, injured nearly 11,000, and detained around 21,000, since October 2023, when Israel launched its two-year genocide in Gaza following Hamas’ attack.

On the same day as the ATV attack, Israeli police announced that they had arrested five Israeli settlers over their alleged involvement in an ambush against a Palestinian home, which resulted in “moderate injuries to the face and head” of an eight-month-old Palestinian girl, according to the Palestinian news agency WAFA.

While the IDF says it is investigating the ATV attack along with local police, attacks by Israeli settlers are often treated with leniency.

In January 2025, the Israeli watchdog group Yesh Din reported that across more than 1,700 reports of religious or politically motivated hate crimes committed by Israelis against Palestinians in the West Bank over the past two decades, nearly 94% of them were closed without any indictment being filed, and only 3% resulted in a conviction.

Although there has been a documented rise in killings by Israeli settlers since October 2023, not a single one of those cases has resulted in an indictment, and only about a quarter have resulted in investigations by Israeli authorities.

Critics found the punishment of the reservist to be similarly lackluster and the latest example of settlers’ immunity from justice.

“Israeli reserve soldier intentionally runs over Palestinian praying on the side of the road,” said Rabbi David Mivasair, an activist with the Canadian group Independent Jewish Voices. “His punishment: his weapon was taken away, and he was suspended from the reserves... nothing more.”

Breaking the Silence called the punishment “just a slap on the wrist” and “state-backed impunity for state-backed terror.”

Others noted that nearly 8,000 Palestinians are currently being held in Israeli prisons indefinitely without trial, including in Israel’s “administrative detention” system, which allows them to be confined based on secret evidence that they and their lawyers cannot see.

Israel has justified it as a measure to prevent terrorism. However, in January, the government banned Israeli settlers from being held under those same administrative detention orders, with Defense Minister Israel Katz saying the goal was “to convey a clear message of strengthening and encouraging the settlements.”

Ihab Hassan, a Palestinian human rights activist, said of the ATV attack: “Had the victim been Israeli and the attacker Palestinian, the sentence would be life in prison. That is why it is called apartheid.”

Following the attack, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) reiterated its calls for the US Congress to stop sending military aid to the Israeli government.

“This shocking and dehumanizing act is yet another example of the unchecked violence and abuse Palestinians face daily under Israel’s illegal occupation,” the group said. “Brazenly running over a man while he prays is enabled by a system that grants near-total impunity to illegal settlers. The Trump administration must end its silence and take concrete steps to hold the Israeli government accountable for these ongoing human rights abuses.”

‘Free Them All’: One Year After Dr. Abu Safiya Abducted, Israel Urged to Release Gaza Health Workers

“We won’t forget him nor the 360+ health workers Israel has abducted from Gaza since October 2023,” said CodePink.


Healthcare workers and allies rally to demand the release of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya and all Palestinian healthcare workers held in Israeli jails, in New York City, on January 6, 2025.
(Photo by Mostafa Bassim/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Brett Wilkins
Dec 26, 2025
COMMON DREAMS

Ahead of Saturday’s one-year anniversary of Israel abducting Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya from the Gaza hospital he ran, advocates demanded the release the scores of health workers still imprisoned by Israeli occupation forces.

“One year ago, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya was abducted by the Israeli military along with dozens of other medical staff during a horrific raid on the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza,” Dr. Yipeng Ge, a member of Doctors Against Genocide, said Friday on social media. “Free Hussam Abu Safiya. Free them all.”

Activist Petra Schurenhofer said on X: “It’s been a year since Israel abducted and illegally detained Dr Hussam Abu Safiya. And since then he has been languishing in an Israeli jail, being subjected to cruel and inhumane treatment. Don’t forget him. And don’t stop calling for his release.”

Abu Safiya, the 52-year-old director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, was seized on December 27, 2024 as Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops continued their yearlong siege and raids on the facility in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza. The IDF claimed without evidence that Kamal Adwan—the last major functioning hospital in northern Gaza at the time—was a Hamas command center.

During a previous Israeli attack on Kamal Adwan, Abu Safiya’s 15-year-old son was killed in a drone strike. Abu Safiya was seriously wounded in a separate drone attack that left six pieces of shrapnel in his leg.

After his capture, Abu Safiya was first jailed at the notorious Sde Teiman prison in Israel’s Negev Desert—where dozens of detainees have died and where torture, rape, and other abuses have been reported—and then Ofer Prison in the illegally occupied West Bank.

Abu Safiya said he has endured torture by his captors—including beatings with batons and electric shocks—and suffered severe weight loss, broken ribs, and other injuries, for which he was allegedly denied adequate medical care.



Israeli authorities deny these accusations. However, there have been many documented and otherwise credible reports of health and medical workers being tortured by Israeli forces—sometimes fatally, as in the case of Dr. Adnan al-Bursh, who headed the orthopedic department at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.

According to Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, al-Bursh was “likely raped to death,” a fate allegedly suffered by multiple Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.

Abu Safiya remains in Israeli custody, despite having not been charged with any crimes. Israeli courts have extended his detention multiple times under so-called “unlawful combatant” legal provisions.

In January, Abu Safiya’s mother died of a heart attack that MedGlobal, the Illinois-based nonprofit for which Abu Safiya worked as lead Gaza physician, attributed to “severe sadness” over her son’s plight.

According to United Nations agencies and other experts, Israeli forces have destroyed or damaged nearly all of Gaza’s hospitals in hundreds of attacks since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. More than 1,500 Palestinian health workers have been killed.

Last year, an independent United Nations commission found that “Israel has perpetrated a concerted policy to destroy Gaza’s healthcare system as part of a broader assault on Gaza, committing war crimes and the crime against humanity of extermination with relentless and deliberate attacks on medical personnel and facilities.”

Israel is currently facing an ongoing genocide case filed by South Africa at the International Court of Justice. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes including murder and forced starvation.

Albina Abu Safiya, the imprisoned doctor’s wife, pleaded last week: “Save my husband before it is too late. His only ‘crime’ was saving the wounded and tending to the wounds of children.”

Newsmax segment accuses Turning Point event of pushing 'Third Reich' ideology

CHRISTIAN NATIONALISTS ARE NAZIS

David Edwards
December 26, 2025 

RAW STORY

Newsmax/screen grab


Israeli combat veteran Benjamin Anthony noted that several former Fox News hosts and other MAGA influencers have become defenders of white supremacists like Nick Fuentes.

During a Friday interview on Newsmax, host John Huddy pointed out that anti-Semitic rhetoric was common at the recent Turning Point USA AmFest event.

"We need to recognize that the Republican Party is going to have a fight within itself for its identity," Anthony remarked. "There are a number of problems that I saw at AmFest. Firstly, you'll have noted that Steve Bannon and other speakers removed the phrase 'Judeo' from the phrase 'Judeo-Christian values.' They're now talking about Christendom and Christianizing America."

"And I, as a Jewish listener, who's a huge fan of America, don't find a place for myself in a philosophy that eliminates and it raises deliberately the word Judeo," he continued. "Secondly, it was very troubling that Megyn Kelly said that the right would reign supreme, if not for the schism within the party. And then she went on to identify that the sole schism and most significant schism was actually the subject of Israel."

"I think that that's stigmatizing the subject of Israel in a way that's completely unforgivable."

Anthony observed that Bannon had called one Jewish conservative "a cancer."

"This is the lingo of disease spreading that, quite frankly, we heard during the Third Reich," he remarked, singling out Bannon, Kelly, and Tucker Carlson. "And I think that after dealing with those three, it's important to note that Carlson is the progenitor and the propagator of some of the worst canards imaginable."

"It's anti-Semitic," Huddy agreed. "Same with Nick Fuentes. So, while Tucker, you know, he's not backing down on this, he recently told a crowd that anti-Semites have a right to a platform for their hate speech because they have, quote, a soul. No, they don't, not when they're spewing lies, fabrications, and hate. I don't think they do, and I think they should be called out."

"My question is, you know, and it's a question a lot of people have asked, what happened to Tucker?" the host wondered. "But what do you think? Why do you think this has happened with guys like him and Megan Kelly?"

"With regard to Tucker Carlson, I'm not in a position to psychologically evaluate anyone, far from it," Anthony replied. "I also believe that as someone who was dismissed from Fox News, he's gone into a crisis of faith. And oftentimes when you find people in a crisis of faith, that's an abrupt response to some unimaginable events in their life, that they cleave to faith in a fanatical sense that is largely unfounded, not sophisticated, and fails to really comprehend the tenets of the faith, the tenets that brought you to say, for example, what you just said."

"And I think that, quite frankly, he, as is often the case, among weak-minded individuals, looks around for someone to blame other than himself," he added. "And what does he say? Rupert Murdoch carries the water for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. I'm now going to attack Benjamin Netanyahu, the Jewish state, and yes, the Jewish people. Look, we all see through what he's doing. It is anti-Semitism. It's Jew hatred, and it's the worst canards that we can possibly imagine."

"And I believe his next step, in addition to saying that we are killing Christians in the Middle East falsely and that we are the purveyors of usury, something he said just a couple of weeks ago. His next thing will be to say that the Jewish people are the spreaders of disease."

New battleships named after Trump are 'bomb magnets' — and will never sail: expert

Thomas Kika
December 26, 2025 

COMMON DREAMS


U.S. President Donald Trump attends a press conference, as he makes an announcement about the Navy's "Golden Fleet" at Mar-a-lago in Palm Beach, Florida, U.S., December 22, 2025. REUTERS/Jessica Koscielniak

Donald Trump's much-hyped new battleship fleet, named after himself, "will never sail," a group of experts told CNBC in a new report, owing to the outdated design that will make them a "bomb magnet" in a real conflict.

Earlier this week, the president unveiled a new "Trump-class" of US Navy battleships, which he touted as "some of the most lethal surface warfare ships" and "the fastest, the biggest, and by far, 100 times more powerful than any battleship ever built." Despite his enthusiasm from Trump about maintaining "American military supremacy," CNBC on Friday noted the "glaring problem" putting them at odds with reality: "battleships have been obsolete for decades."

"The last was built more than 80 years ago, and the U.S. Navy retired the last Iowa-class ships nearly 30 years ago," CNBC explained. "Once symbols of naval might with their massive guns, battleships have long since been eclipsed by aircraft carriers and modern destroyers armed with long-range missiles."

The outlet conceded that Trump's labeling of these new ships with the outdated model name could be a "misnomer," and the actual ships might be more in line with modern sensibilities. Speaking to several experts about the ships, however, CNBC found that the "Trump-class" fleet is still out of step with naval realities, with Mark Cancian, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, arguing that they "would take too long to design, cost far too much and run counter to the Navy’s current strategy of distributed firepower."

"A future administration will cancel the program before the first ship hits the water," Cancian said, also adding that "there is little need for said discussion because this ship will never sail."

Bernard Loo, senior fellow at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, dismissed the ships as "more of a prestige project" than anything practical. For comparison, he cited the story of Japan’s World War II super-battleships Yamato and Musashi: heavily armed battleships that were the largest ever built. Despite their power, they were sunk by more versatile and fleet-footed aircraft launched from carrier ships before they saw significant use.

If deployed, Loo suggested that "Trump-class" battleships would meet the same "bomb magnet" fate.

"The size and the prestige value of it all make it an even more tempting target, potentially for your adversary," he said.

Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, suggested that, like with many of Trump's odd decisions, he might be operating with a reverence for symbols of power over realities, and might have a view of American naval supremacy based on the 1980s, the last time that the US recommissioned WWII-era battleships to counter the Soviet Union.

  

 

Chaos as Trump crackdown triggers massive nursing home crisis: 'I'm expecting the worst'

Daniel Hampton
December 26, 2025 
RAW STORY


Donald Trump in the Oval Office. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque


A staffing crisis looms for nursing homes as the Trump administration's crackdown on immigration eliminates work authorization for immigrant employees who care for vulnerable seniors.

At a Miami facility, more than a third of one facility's workforce — mostly immigrants from Haiti — have already lost their jobs, Notus reported Friday.

“Sincerely, I’m expecting the worst,” Anne-Mercie Blot, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Haiti and certified nursing assistant, told the outlet

Beginning Feb. 3, more than 330,000 Haitians stand to lose their work permits, triggering a mass exodus across the elder-care sector.

“We don’t know after that how many patients they’re gonna add to the load that we have to take care of,” Blot said.

The Trump administration has systematically dismantled immigrant work programs in addition to escalating deportations.

Rob Liebreich, CEO of Goodwin Living in northern Virginia and Washington, D.C., let go of 14 migrants who had their work permits stripped. Sixty more employees face an uncertain future over their permanent legal status.

“It’s been very challenging to stay current with all the changes that our team members are having to face, and obviously they’re wanting to focus on their work and service to older adults,” he said. “And at the same time, there’s a lot of confusion and a lot of shifts and changes and, unfortunately, ultimately a lot of fear.”

The timing couldn't be worse. America's 65-and-older population has exploded, and immigrants comprise about a fifth of nursing assistants and over 40 percent of home-health aides.

“It’s a demographic ticking time bomb,” Madeline Zavodny, an economics professor at the University of North Florida, told the outlet. “Unless policies change, we’re not going to have as big of a labor supply of this group of immigrants who are providing really needed work.”

Texas care operator Adam Lampert warned that losing 20 percent of his workforce would necessitate price hikes and worse service.

“These are people that are handling your grandmother, your grandfather, your aunt, your uncle; these people have to go through background checks,” he said. “We know where they come from. They have to have their papers.”

HAS FAMILY TV FLASHBACK TO 1967

'Get some help': Stephen Miller faces new backlash as Xmas film sparks anti-immigrant rant

David Edwards
December 26, 2025 

RAW STORY

White House adviser Stephen Miller doesn't seem to be able to spend time with his family at Christmas without obsessing over deporting immigrants

"Watched the Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra Family Christmas (1967) with my kids," Miller wrote in a post on Friday, the day after Christmas. "Imagine watching that and thinking America needed infinity migrants from the third world."

While many responses were supportive of Miller, he also faced a lot of backlash for linking the Christmas movie to his desire to deport immigrants.

"Damn, can't even spend quality time with his kids without doing this weird s---," Amanda Moore wrote.

"Frank Sinatra was the son of an Italian immigrant from Sicily," Joe Calvello noted. "Frank embraced his Italian roots and culture, and in turn, made Italian culture part of American culture."

"Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra, icons of 'classic America,' were literally sons of Italian immigrants. Dean didn't speak English until school," Mike Young observed. "So maybe the lesson of the special is: America works when we stop acting like it's a museum."

"You have mental issues if you watch Christmas movies and all you can think about is your hatred of immigrants," Zaid Jilani asserted.

"And I heard him exclaim as he rode out of sight, 'Merry Christmas to all, and to all a White Ethnostate,'" Iowa Jones "jabbed.

Another commenter had a simple message for Miller: "Get some help."

‘Horrible Racist’ Stephen Miller Slammed for Using Classic TV Christmas Special to Bash Immigrants

“Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra would hate Stephen Miller and his politics,” said one critic in response to Miller.


White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller looks on during a law enforcement roundtable in the State Dining Room of the White House on October 23, 2025 in Washington, DC.
(Photo by Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)

Brad Reed
Dec 26, 2025
COMMON DREAMS

Top Trump White House aide Stephen Miller on Friday elicited disgust after he said that a beloved Christmas television special reminded him of his own personal animus toward immigrants.

Miller, often seen as the architect of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation policy, revealed in a post on X that he and his children had just watched “Christmas with The Martins and The Sinatras,” a one-off 1967 TV holiday special that featured singers Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra.

Miller then quickly pivoted from that to once again bash immigrants who come to the US.

“Imagine watching that,” Miller wrote, “and thinking America needed infinity migrants from the third world.”

As Rolling Stone politics reporter Nikki McCann Ramírez pointed out in response, both Martin and Sinatra both had parents who were first-generation Italian immigrants.


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“Dean Martin was born Dino Paul Crocetti and gave himself a stage name because of braindead xenophobes like Stephen,” McCann Ramírez observed. “Sinatra was also a child of Italian immigrants. Imagine watching them and thinking immigrants didn’t build the culture you fetishize today.”

A similar point was made by civil rights attorney Sherrilyn Ifill in a post on Bluesky.

“Imagine watching Sinatra, son of Dolly and Antonini born in Genoa and Sicily, respectively,” she wrote, “and Martin, son of Gaetano and Angela, born in Montesilvano, Italy and Ohio respectively... and crusading against the value of children of immigrants to the US.”

Journalist and author Jeff Yang added some historical context to Miller’s remarks by noting that Italian immigrants in the early and middle decades of the 20th century faced many of the same stereotypes that Miller and his political allies ascribe to immigrants from Latin America.

“A reminder,” Yang wrote, while also posting old cartoons that featured racist depictions of Italians, “that Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra’s parents emigrated here during a period when Italians were considered to be a genetically inferior and criminal-minded underclass that Stephen Miller’s racist predecessors said should be excluded from America.”

Yang added that Frank Sinatra’s mother “ran an underground free abortion clinic, chained herself to a fence to fight for women’s suffrage, and was an extremely influential organizer for the Democratic Party.”

Princeton University historian Kevin Kruse promoted Yang’s thread that demonstrated Miller’s apparent ignorance of Dean and Sinatra’s family histories, and said it showed the Trump adviser is “a horrible racist in the sense that he is actually not that good at being racist.”

Tim Wise, a senior fellow at the African American Policy Forum, managed to find an upside to Miller’s holiday-themed anti-immigrant rant.

“The one silver lining in all this sickness is that one day your children will despise you as much as most of America already does,” he commented.

Film producer Franklin Leonard was even more succinct in his response to Miller.

“Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra would hate Stephen Miller and his politics,” he wrote.

Trump Border Patrol commander uncorks wild 12-hour Christmas Day social media rampage

Daniel Hampton
December 26, 2025 
RAW STORY

USBP Chief Patrol Agent of the El Centro sector, Greg Bovino, walks in the Cicero neighborhood during an immigration raid, after U.S. President Donald Trump ordered increased federal law enforcement presence to assist in crime prevention, in Chicago, Illinois, U.S., October 22, 2025. REUTERS/Jim Vondruska

A top immigration enforcement official for President Donald Trump's administration spent Christmas melting down in a lengthy social media rampage.

Rather than celebrate the Christian holiday, a fuming Gregory Bovino, Trump's Border Patrol commander, opted instead to unleash dozens of posts over a 12-hour span, flooding X with posts fixated on immigration enforcement and attacking political opponents, The Daily Beast reported Friday.

"Posting more than three dozen times in 12 hours, he began his salvo before lunch by blaming Rep. Mike Levin for 'creat[ing] sanctuaries,' sniping at the California Democrat: 'Luckily we have patriots who put US Citizens and LEGAL immigrants over your lawlessness,'" the report said.

Bovino also took aim at Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), boasting about "massive deportations of illegal aliens" in her state.

"Ilan, more to come - Merry Christmas and God bless you on Christ’s birthday," he railed. "MERRY CHRISTMAS and may American exceptionalism continue!!!!"

He also directed obsequious Christmas wishes toward White House immigration czar Stephen Miller and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth—neither of whom bothered responding.

Between the political attacks, Bovino engaged in petty conflicts with ordinary X users, questioning his tactics. He even responded with a laugh emoji to an AI-generated image depicting him in women's clothing.

'Unlike anything!' Trump unveils ostentatious upgrades to MAGA-fied Kennedy Center

David Edwards
December 26, 2025 

RAW STORY


Donald Trump, Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (Photos by Yuri Gripas, Elizabeth Frantz for Reuters)


President Donald Trump unveiled possible renovations to the former Kennedy Center, promising they would be "unlike anything ever done or seen before."

In a Friday post on Truth Social, Trump shared photos of what appeared to be marble slabs.

"Potential Marble armrests for the seating at The Trump Kennedy Center," the president's caption said. "Unlike anything ever done or seen before!"

Trump also shared photos of his renovations to the White House's Palm Room, which appeared to feature a marble floor.

The president's name was recently added to the Kennedy Center by a board that he installed. Experts have said that the board lacked the legal authority to change the building's name.

 

'He doesn't care about you': Trump ripped for proposing marble armrests at Kennedy Center

U.S. President Donald Trump gestures during a breakfast with Republican Senators at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S. November 5, 2025. REUTERS Kevin Lamarque

Adam Lynch

December 26, 2025

ALTERNET

After bolting his name over the name of the president for which it memorializes, President Donald Trump now plans to replace armrests at the Kennedy Center with slabs of rock.

“Potential Marble armrests for the seating at The Trump Kennedy Center. Unlike anything ever done or seen before!” Trump announced on Truth Social on Friday.

In a December 18 post on X, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote that a board for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. "just voted unanimously to rename the Kennedy Center to the Trump-Kennedy Center, while critics say the name change is premature.

Social media reacted just as harshly to news of “rock seats” as the earlier name change, however.

“It will match the rocks in his head,” said one commenter on X.

“Americans are struggling to keep food on the table while Trump is spending your money on wasteful vanity projects,” posted Sen. Andy Kim (D-N.J.). “He doesn’t care about you.”

“While you're struggling to pay the bills, Trump is bragging about slapping marble armrests on chairs at the Kennedy Center,” echoed another critic. “Crickets from reporters of course.”

Other critics, like Rep. Lori Trahan (D-Mass.) chief of staff Mark McDevitt, used X to harp on Trump’s disconnectedness with ailing American voters. “Ah yes. The reason for the season. Marble armrests for him, no healthcare and higher grocery + utility costs for everyone else.”

“The man wants to be first-lady but instead finds himself constantly burdened by the responsibilities of governing as President,” said Chamber of Progress Economic Analysis Director Tahra Hoops on X.