Palestine’s Nelson Mandela: Marwan Barghouti
January 23, 2026
Photograph Source: Assopace
In the shadow of Israel’s sprawling prison system, more than 10,000 Palestinians languish in detention as of early 2026—men, women, and children branded “security threats” for resisting occupation. According to rights groups including Amnesty International, Addameer, and B’Tselem, the numbers have doubled since October 2023, with thousands held under administrative detention—no charges, no trial, renewable indefinitely. Among them are nearly 350 minors and dozens of women, subjected to torture, starvation, medical neglect, and routine beatings. These are not mere statistics; they are political prisoners, hostages in a system built to crush resistance and perpetuate apartheid.
At the heart of this injustice stands Marwan Barghouti, the most prominent and enduring symbol of Palestinian defiance. Imprisoned since 2002 and serving five life sentences plus 40 years for his role in the Second Intifada—a conviction he contests and whose trial violated international standards—Barghouti remains the Palestinian people’s most popular leader. Polls consistently rank him far ahead of Mahmoud Abbas or Hamas figures as the preferred successor to lead a unified Palestine. Yet Israel refuses his release. His name topped Hamas demands in cease fire and hostage negotiations, only to be vetoed by Israeli officials terrified of his unifying power.
Photograph by
Michael Leonardi
Often called the “Palestinian Mandela”, Barghouti evokes the South African icon who emerged from 27 years in prison to dismantle apartheid and forge reconciliation. Like Mandela, Barghouti has evolved behind bars into a voice for unity and pragmatic peace. From his cell, he co-authored the 2006 National Conciliation Document, signed by Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, PFLP, and DFLP leaders, endorsing a two-state solution based on 1967 borders and limiting resistance to occupied territories. He has repeatedly affirmed support for nonviolent struggle alongside armed resistance when necessary, but his prison writings emphasize national reconciliation as the path to liberation. “Unity, then liberty,” he has affirmed.
Recent months have intensified calls for his freedom. In late 2025, over 200 global cultural figures—including Margaret Atwood, Javier Bardem, and Sting—signed an open letter decrying his “violent mistreatment” and urging UN intervention. The Elders, a group of former world leaders, echoed this in October 2025, condemning his torture and solitary confinement while insisting his release would spur “peace, dignity, and security for both Israelis and Palestinians.” Even pragmatic Israeli voices, like former Mossad chief Efraim Halevy, have called him “probably the most sane and qualified person” to lead Palestinians toward compromise.
Many of these voices converged in Rome on January 21, 2026, at a powerful event in the Sala De Gasperi of the European Parliament offices. The presentation, led by Fadwa Barghouti—Marwan’s wife, lawyer, and tireless advocate—brought together a distinguished panel of powerful voices in cooperation with Assopace Palestina, the enduring organization led by Luisa Morgantini, whose decades-long dedication to Palestinian liberation made the gathering possible. The event was supported by Domenico “Mimmo” Lucano, the embattled current mayor of Riace renowned for his migrant solidarity work and now an MEP, along with other EU representatives. It launched and amplified the international campaign “Free Marwan Barghouti and All Palestinian Prisoners.”
Photograph by Matteo Nardone
Fadwa delivered a searing testimony on her husband’s condition—severe beatings that left him unconscious with broken ribs, prolonged solitary confinement since October 7, 2023, blocked family visits, and denied Red Cross access—while demanding urgent European intervention. Leoluca Orlando, who in 2014 became the first and only Italian mayor to grant Barghouti honorary citizenship in Palermo as a bold act of solidarity, reaffirmed that historic gesture as a stand for justice. Cecilia Strada brought the European dimension to the call for freedom and accountability, while the contributions of Yousef Salman, president of the Palestinian community of Rome, and Palestinian scholar and human rights activist Mohamed Allaham further deepened the discussion.
Fadwa Barghouti laid bare the grim reality facing Palestinians under occupation: “Within the context of international law, Palestinians don’t count. Palestinians are barely even given the right to survive—the West Bank situation is horrific and becoming worse by the day.” She further condemned the systematic denial of Palestinian agency, declaring: “Palestinians are experiencing a daily erosion and mockery of sovereignty.” In one of the most chilling moments, Fadwa recounted a direct encounter between her husband and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir: “Marwan has been in solitary confinement since October 7th. When Ben-Gvir visited Marwan’s cell he showed him an image of an electric chair and threatened that this is where he was going to be executed before the eyes of the world. Marwan responded that Gvir had become all grey and said ‘when are you going to mature as a politician to match your age?’ ‘There are still 8 million Palestinians living between the river and the sea, isn’t it time to sit down at a table and negotiate seriously for a just and lasting peace?'”
Fadwa also shared a recent update: just before her trip to Italy, an Israeli lawyer was finally able to meet with Marwan—marking one of the rare visits since October 7, 2023, as no family members or Palestinians other than fellow prisoners have been allowed to see him. The lawyer reported being amazed by Marwan’s strength and courage despite the ordeal. When asked if he wanted to file a complaint about prison conditions and the food (having lost around 12 kilos), Marwan responded that all the prisoners should be petitioned and only a joint complaint should be made. He said that his personal complaint was about access to books, as he is only allowed the three Abrahamic religious texts. Marwan is an avid reader who usually reads 8 books a month in three languages—English, French, and Arabic—reflecting an intellectual rich in culture, history, and political analysis.
Yousef Salman, president of the Palestinian community of Rome, spoke movingly of the universal demand behind the struggle: “Palestinians have never asked for the moon, we have only ever asked to be respected as human beings under the framework of international law and the charter of the United Nations.” This respect has never come.
Fadwa Barghouti closed with a message that resonated deeply: “If Palestinians achieve the justice and human dignity they deserve it won’t just be for Palestinians, but will be for all human beings struggling for dignity, freedom, justice and respect around the world. It will be a victory for all of humanity.” Her words gave renewed meaning to the saying “We are all Palestinians.”
Her testimony often left the room in stunned silence, exposing the raw intimidation and genocidal threats leveled at the man many see as Palestine’s future leader. Mimmo Lucano and Luisa Morgantini reinforced the call, emphasizing the need for Europe to act decisively against this erasure and to champion the release of Barghouti as a step toward justice and reconciliation. And Cecilia Strada, echoed the calls for an end to European complicity in Israeli crimes saying that she would continue to fight for an end to the hypocrisy of Europe in the context of international law.
On January 21st, 2026, all the leaders from Italy’s left opposition parties – the Green Left Alliance, the 5 star Movement and the Democratic Party– stood united in calling for Marwan Barghouti’s freedom as a symbol of Palestinian unification and justice—only to be painted by right-wing media as “standing with terrorists,” a familiar and constant smear tactic designed to delegitimize any solidarity with Palestinians and the constant strategy of the Zionist project.
Meanwhile, Israel’s far-right government, led by figures like Itamar Ben-Gvir, has only tightened the screws. Barghouti has endured severe beatings—as in September 2025 during a prison transfer—and prolonged solitary confinement. Family visits and Red Cross access are blocked, fueling fears for his life. Ben-Gvir has boasted of worsening conditions, while Netanyahu’s office quashed internal lobbying for his inclusion in exchanges. In recent weeks, Ben-Gvir has escalated his rhetoric to outright calls for executions of Palestinian prisoners, including by hanging. A Knesset bill advanced to its second and third readings in January 2026—introduced by his Otzma Yehudit party—explicitly mandates death by hanging for those convicted under military law, with Ben-Gvir celebrating progress by distributing sweets and wearing a golden noose pin. These proposals, condemned by International human rights groups as genocidal incitement, coincide with reports of over 110 prisoner deaths from torture and mistreatment under his watch since 2023.
This refusal of the Israeli state exposes the deeper truth: Barghouti threatens the status quo more than any militant. A Fatah stalwart with cross-faction credibility, he could bridge Gaza and the West Bank, sideline extremists, and negotiate from a position of authentic legitimacy. His release would force Israel to confront a Palestinian partner capable of ending the occupation through diplomacy which would force the world to seriuously confront its colonial and genocidal past. Instead, the regime clings to division, preferring a fractured enemy to a unified one while pushing the criminalization of dissent around the world.
In Italy, this repression is mirrored in a sharp escalation of state crackdowns on pro-Palestinian solidarity over the past few months. In December 2025, Italian authorities arrested nine people—including prominent Palestinian activist Mohammad Hannoun, president of the Palestinian Association in Italy—on suspicion of financing Hamas through charities, seizing millions in assets and sparking protests in Milan denouncing the operation as part of a broader “campaign of repression and criminalisation.” Earlier, in November 2025, Egyptian imam Mohamed Shahin in Turin faced arrest and deportation threats for his outspoken Gaza advocacy during rallies, prompting widespread demonstrations across cities like Turin, Milan, Genoa, Florence, and Naples. Police violence has intensified during mass protests, with clashes in Milan, Bologna, and Rome involving tear gas, water cannons, and arrests amid nationwide strikes and blockades in solidarity with Gaza. The Meloni government’s security decrees have further criminalized dissent, targeting road blockades and activism while deportations and visa restrictions hit migrants and organizers expressing Palestine solidarity. These measures, part of a wider European trend, aim to silence voices demanding justice—yet they have only fueled larger mobilizations, from general strikes to street actions in Rome, Milan, Bologna, and beyond.
Palestinians around the world have been inspired and given great hope by the scenes of millions in the streets across Italy and the world in a cry from below to end the genocide and create a just peace. As Fadwa repeated, “This movement of humanity and love gives us hope and renewed strength.”
Solidarity events continue to swell across Italy, demonstrating the movement’s readiness to pour into the streets again as long as the genocide persists. On January 19, 2026, the historic Teatro Bellini in Naples was sold out for a powerful Life For Gaza event, where hundreds gathered to hear and view testimonies, poetry, artistic presentations and music in solidarity with the besieged population. On January 20th the historic cinema Adriano in Roma was sold out for a documentary screening with Fadwa Barghouti in attendance. These cultural and political gatherings—from packed theaters to spontaneous demonstrations—reflect the enduring Palestinian sumud (steadfastness) and the continuing Italian refusal to accept the ongoing slaughter.
The sweeping hypocrisy of Europe and the United States in the application of international law remains glaring. While Western capitals preach accountability and human rights in regards to Greenland and Ukraine, they arm Israel, veto UN resolutions, and remain silent on the daily killings in Gaza — especially after the so-called but non existant ceasefire. Palestinians continue to be murdered almost daily, including three journalists targeted and killed in a deliberate Israeli attack on January 21st. Donald Trump’s farcical “Board of Peace”—a collection of billionaire donors and hardline Zionists—has been trotted out as a supposed diplomatic breakthrough, yet it excludes Palestinians, offers no justice, no end to occupation, and no accountability for war crimes. It is theater, not peace.
The plight of Barghouti and thousands like him—arbitrarily detained, tortured and denied due process—mirrors the broader Palestinian condition under occupation. Their resilience is resistance, embodied in unbreakable sumud, and continuing to inspire global solidarity. As events like the Rome presentation led by Fadwa Barghouti and the sold-out Naples theater demonstrate, the demands are clear: first and foremost, stop the genocide; enforce international law and free the prisoners, starting with Marwan Barghouti. His freedom would not just end one family’s suffering; it could crack open the door to genuine peace.
Free Marwan Barghouti. Free them all. From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.
Michael Leonardi lives in Italy and can be reached at michaeleleonardi@gmail.com
After the Headlines Fade: Gaza, Abandoned While the Genocide Persists
Image by Ashraf Amra/Wikimediacommons, licensed via CC BY 3.0
A colleague, an editor at a widely read outlet that centered Gaza throughout the two-year genocide, recently voiced his frustration that Gaza is no longer a main focus in the news.
He hardly needed to say it. It is evident that Gaza has already been pushed to the margins of coverage — not only by mainstream Western media, long known for its structural bias in Israel’s favor, but also by outlets often described, accurately or not, as ‘pro-Palestine.’
At first glance, this retreat may appear routine. Gaza during the height of the genocide demanded constant attention; Gaza after the genocide, less so.
But this assumption collapses under scrutiny, because the genocide in Gaza has not ended.
According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, nearly 500 Palestinians have been killed and hundreds more wounded since the so-called ceasefire was declared in October 2025, despite repeated claims that large-scale massacres had ceased. These are not isolated incidents or “violations”; they are the continuation of the same lethal policies of the last two years.
Beyond the daily death toll lies devastation on an almost incomprehensible scale. More than 71,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 2023, with entire neighborhoods erased, infrastructure pulverized, and civilian life rendered nearly impossible.
To grasp the depth of Gaza’s crisis, one must confront a brutal reality: well over one million people remain displaced, living in tents and makeshift shelters that collapse under winter storms, floodwaters, or strong winds. Infants have frozen to death. Families are swept from one temporary refuge to another, trapped in a cycle of exposure and fear.
Beneath Gaza’s ruins lie thousands of bodies still buried under rubble, unreachable due to Israel’s destruction of heavy machinery, roads, and emergency services. Thousands more are believed to be buried in mass graves awaiting excavation and dignified burial.
Meanwhile, hundreds of bodies remain scattered in areas east of the so-called Yellow Line, a boundary claimed to separate military zones from Palestinian “safe areas.” Israel never respected this line. It was a fiction from the start, used to manufacture the appearance of restraint while violence continued everywhere.
From Israel’s perspective, the war has never truly stopped. Only Palestinians are expected to honor the ceasefire — compelled by fear that any response, however minimal, will be seized upon as justification for renewed mass killing, fully endorsed by the US administration and its Western allies.
The killing has merely slowed down. On January 15 alone, Israeli attacks killed 16 Palestinians, including women and children, across Gaza, despite the absence of any military confrontation. Yet as long as daily death tolls remain below the psychological threshold of mass slaughter — below 100 bodies a day — Gaza quietly slips from the headlines.
Today, more than two million Palestinians are confined to roughly 45 percent of Gaza’s already tiny 365 square kilometers, with only trickles of aid entering, no reliable access to clean water, and a health system barely functioning. Gaza’s economy is effectively annihilated. Even fishermen are either blocked entirely from the sea or restricted to less than one kilometer offshore, turning a centuries-old livelihood into a daily risk of death.
Education has been reduced to survival. Children study in tents or in partially destroyed buildings, as nearly every school and university in Gaza has been damaged or destroyed by Israeli bombardment.
Nor has Israel abandoned the rhetoric that laid the ideological groundwork for genocide. Senior Israeli officials continue to articulate visions of permanent devastation and ethnic cleansing — language that strips Palestinians of humanity while framing destruction as policy, a strategic necessity.
But why is Israel determined to keep Gaza suspended at the edge of collapse? Why does it obstruct stabilization and delay movement to the second phase of the ceasefire agreement?
The answer is blunt: Israel seeks to preserve the option of ethnic cleansing. Senior officials have openly advocated permanent occupation, demographic engineering, and the denial of Palestinian return to their destroyed areas east of the Yellow Line.
And the media?
For its part, Western media have begun rehabilitatingIsrael’s image, reinserting it into global narratives as if collective extermination never occurred. More troubling still, even parts of the so-called ‘pro-Palestine’ media appear to be moving on — as though genocide were a temporary assignment, rather than an ongoing moral emergency.
One might attempt to justify this neglect by pointing to crises elsewhere — Venezuela, Iran, Yemen, Syria, Greenland. But that argument collapses unless Gaza has truly emerged from catastrophe, though it has not.
Israel has succeeded, to a dangerous degree, in systematically dehumanizing Palestinians through mass killing. Once violence reaches genocidal proportions, lesser — yet still deadly — violence becomes normalized. The slow death of survivors becomes background noise.
This is how Palestinians are killed twice: first through genocide, and then through erasure — through silence, distraction, and the gradual withdrawal of attention from their ongoing collective suffering.
Palestine and its people must remain at the center of moral and political solidarity. This is not an act of charity, nor an expression of ideological alignment. It is the bare minimum owed to a population the world has already failed — and continues to fail — every single day.
Photograph Source: Assopace
In the shadow of Israel’s sprawling prison system, more than 10,000 Palestinians languish in detention as of early 2026—men, women, and children branded “security threats” for resisting occupation. According to rights groups including Amnesty International, Addameer, and B’Tselem, the numbers have doubled since October 2023, with thousands held under administrative detention—no charges, no trial, renewable indefinitely. Among them are nearly 350 minors and dozens of women, subjected to torture, starvation, medical neglect, and routine beatings. These are not mere statistics; they are political prisoners, hostages in a system built to crush resistance and perpetuate apartheid.
At the heart of this injustice stands Marwan Barghouti, the most prominent and enduring symbol of Palestinian defiance. Imprisoned since 2002 and serving five life sentences plus 40 years for his role in the Second Intifada—a conviction he contests and whose trial violated international standards—Barghouti remains the Palestinian people’s most popular leader. Polls consistently rank him far ahead of Mahmoud Abbas or Hamas figures as the preferred successor to lead a unified Palestine. Yet Israel refuses his release. His name topped Hamas demands in cease fire and hostage negotiations, only to be vetoed by Israeli officials terrified of his unifying power.
Photograph by
Michael Leonardi
Often called the “Palestinian Mandela”, Barghouti evokes the South African icon who emerged from 27 years in prison to dismantle apartheid and forge reconciliation. Like Mandela, Barghouti has evolved behind bars into a voice for unity and pragmatic peace. From his cell, he co-authored the 2006 National Conciliation Document, signed by Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, PFLP, and DFLP leaders, endorsing a two-state solution based on 1967 borders and limiting resistance to occupied territories. He has repeatedly affirmed support for nonviolent struggle alongside armed resistance when necessary, but his prison writings emphasize national reconciliation as the path to liberation. “Unity, then liberty,” he has affirmed.
Recent months have intensified calls for his freedom. In late 2025, over 200 global cultural figures—including Margaret Atwood, Javier Bardem, and Sting—signed an open letter decrying his “violent mistreatment” and urging UN intervention. The Elders, a group of former world leaders, echoed this in October 2025, condemning his torture and solitary confinement while insisting his release would spur “peace, dignity, and security for both Israelis and Palestinians.” Even pragmatic Israeli voices, like former Mossad chief Efraim Halevy, have called him “probably the most sane and qualified person” to lead Palestinians toward compromise.
Many of these voices converged in Rome on January 21, 2026, at a powerful event in the Sala De Gasperi of the European Parliament offices. The presentation, led by Fadwa Barghouti—Marwan’s wife, lawyer, and tireless advocate—brought together a distinguished panel of powerful voices in cooperation with Assopace Palestina, the enduring organization led by Luisa Morgantini, whose decades-long dedication to Palestinian liberation made the gathering possible. The event was supported by Domenico “Mimmo” Lucano, the embattled current mayor of Riace renowned for his migrant solidarity work and now an MEP, along with other EU representatives. It launched and amplified the international campaign “Free Marwan Barghouti and All Palestinian Prisoners.”
Photograph by Matteo Nardone
Fadwa delivered a searing testimony on her husband’s condition—severe beatings that left him unconscious with broken ribs, prolonged solitary confinement since October 7, 2023, blocked family visits, and denied Red Cross access—while demanding urgent European intervention. Leoluca Orlando, who in 2014 became the first and only Italian mayor to grant Barghouti honorary citizenship in Palermo as a bold act of solidarity, reaffirmed that historic gesture as a stand for justice. Cecilia Strada brought the European dimension to the call for freedom and accountability, while the contributions of Yousef Salman, president of the Palestinian community of Rome, and Palestinian scholar and human rights activist Mohamed Allaham further deepened the discussion.
Fadwa Barghouti laid bare the grim reality facing Palestinians under occupation: “Within the context of international law, Palestinians don’t count. Palestinians are barely even given the right to survive—the West Bank situation is horrific and becoming worse by the day.” She further condemned the systematic denial of Palestinian agency, declaring: “Palestinians are experiencing a daily erosion and mockery of sovereignty.” In one of the most chilling moments, Fadwa recounted a direct encounter between her husband and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir: “Marwan has been in solitary confinement since October 7th. When Ben-Gvir visited Marwan’s cell he showed him an image of an electric chair and threatened that this is where he was going to be executed before the eyes of the world. Marwan responded that Gvir had become all grey and said ‘when are you going to mature as a politician to match your age?’ ‘There are still 8 million Palestinians living between the river and the sea, isn’t it time to sit down at a table and negotiate seriously for a just and lasting peace?'”
Fadwa also shared a recent update: just before her trip to Italy, an Israeli lawyer was finally able to meet with Marwan—marking one of the rare visits since October 7, 2023, as no family members or Palestinians other than fellow prisoners have been allowed to see him. The lawyer reported being amazed by Marwan’s strength and courage despite the ordeal. When asked if he wanted to file a complaint about prison conditions and the food (having lost around 12 kilos), Marwan responded that all the prisoners should be petitioned and only a joint complaint should be made. He said that his personal complaint was about access to books, as he is only allowed the three Abrahamic religious texts. Marwan is an avid reader who usually reads 8 books a month in three languages—English, French, and Arabic—reflecting an intellectual rich in culture, history, and political analysis.
Yousef Salman, president of the Palestinian community of Rome, spoke movingly of the universal demand behind the struggle: “Palestinians have never asked for the moon, we have only ever asked to be respected as human beings under the framework of international law and the charter of the United Nations.” This respect has never come.
Fadwa Barghouti closed with a message that resonated deeply: “If Palestinians achieve the justice and human dignity they deserve it won’t just be for Palestinians, but will be for all human beings struggling for dignity, freedom, justice and respect around the world. It will be a victory for all of humanity.” Her words gave renewed meaning to the saying “We are all Palestinians.”
Her testimony often left the room in stunned silence, exposing the raw intimidation and genocidal threats leveled at the man many see as Palestine’s future leader. Mimmo Lucano and Luisa Morgantini reinforced the call, emphasizing the need for Europe to act decisively against this erasure and to champion the release of Barghouti as a step toward justice and reconciliation. And Cecilia Strada, echoed the calls for an end to European complicity in Israeli crimes saying that she would continue to fight for an end to the hypocrisy of Europe in the context of international law.
On January 21st, 2026, all the leaders from Italy’s left opposition parties – the Green Left Alliance, the 5 star Movement and the Democratic Party– stood united in calling for Marwan Barghouti’s freedom as a symbol of Palestinian unification and justice—only to be painted by right-wing media as “standing with terrorists,” a familiar and constant smear tactic designed to delegitimize any solidarity with Palestinians and the constant strategy of the Zionist project.
Meanwhile, Israel’s far-right government, led by figures like Itamar Ben-Gvir, has only tightened the screws. Barghouti has endured severe beatings—as in September 2025 during a prison transfer—and prolonged solitary confinement. Family visits and Red Cross access are blocked, fueling fears for his life. Ben-Gvir has boasted of worsening conditions, while Netanyahu’s office quashed internal lobbying for his inclusion in exchanges. In recent weeks, Ben-Gvir has escalated his rhetoric to outright calls for executions of Palestinian prisoners, including by hanging. A Knesset bill advanced to its second and third readings in January 2026—introduced by his Otzma Yehudit party—explicitly mandates death by hanging for those convicted under military law, with Ben-Gvir celebrating progress by distributing sweets and wearing a golden noose pin. These proposals, condemned by International human rights groups as genocidal incitement, coincide with reports of over 110 prisoner deaths from torture and mistreatment under his watch since 2023.
This refusal of the Israeli state exposes the deeper truth: Barghouti threatens the status quo more than any militant. A Fatah stalwart with cross-faction credibility, he could bridge Gaza and the West Bank, sideline extremists, and negotiate from a position of authentic legitimacy. His release would force Israel to confront a Palestinian partner capable of ending the occupation through diplomacy which would force the world to seriuously confront its colonial and genocidal past. Instead, the regime clings to division, preferring a fractured enemy to a unified one while pushing the criminalization of dissent around the world.
In Italy, this repression is mirrored in a sharp escalation of state crackdowns on pro-Palestinian solidarity over the past few months. In December 2025, Italian authorities arrested nine people—including prominent Palestinian activist Mohammad Hannoun, president of the Palestinian Association in Italy—on suspicion of financing Hamas through charities, seizing millions in assets and sparking protests in Milan denouncing the operation as part of a broader “campaign of repression and criminalisation.” Earlier, in November 2025, Egyptian imam Mohamed Shahin in Turin faced arrest and deportation threats for his outspoken Gaza advocacy during rallies, prompting widespread demonstrations across cities like Turin, Milan, Genoa, Florence, and Naples. Police violence has intensified during mass protests, with clashes in Milan, Bologna, and Rome involving tear gas, water cannons, and arrests amid nationwide strikes and blockades in solidarity with Gaza. The Meloni government’s security decrees have further criminalized dissent, targeting road blockades and activism while deportations and visa restrictions hit migrants and organizers expressing Palestine solidarity. These measures, part of a wider European trend, aim to silence voices demanding justice—yet they have only fueled larger mobilizations, from general strikes to street actions in Rome, Milan, Bologna, and beyond.
Palestinians around the world have been inspired and given great hope by the scenes of millions in the streets across Italy and the world in a cry from below to end the genocide and create a just peace. As Fadwa repeated, “This movement of humanity and love gives us hope and renewed strength.”
Solidarity events continue to swell across Italy, demonstrating the movement’s readiness to pour into the streets again as long as the genocide persists. On January 19, 2026, the historic Teatro Bellini in Naples was sold out for a powerful Life For Gaza event, where hundreds gathered to hear and view testimonies, poetry, artistic presentations and music in solidarity with the besieged population. On January 20th the historic cinema Adriano in Roma was sold out for a documentary screening with Fadwa Barghouti in attendance. These cultural and political gatherings—from packed theaters to spontaneous demonstrations—reflect the enduring Palestinian sumud (steadfastness) and the continuing Italian refusal to accept the ongoing slaughter.
The sweeping hypocrisy of Europe and the United States in the application of international law remains glaring. While Western capitals preach accountability and human rights in regards to Greenland and Ukraine, they arm Israel, veto UN resolutions, and remain silent on the daily killings in Gaza — especially after the so-called but non existant ceasefire. Palestinians continue to be murdered almost daily, including three journalists targeted and killed in a deliberate Israeli attack on January 21st. Donald Trump’s farcical “Board of Peace”—a collection of billionaire donors and hardline Zionists—has been trotted out as a supposed diplomatic breakthrough, yet it excludes Palestinians, offers no justice, no end to occupation, and no accountability for war crimes. It is theater, not peace.
The plight of Barghouti and thousands like him—arbitrarily detained, tortured and denied due process—mirrors the broader Palestinian condition under occupation. Their resilience is resistance, embodied in unbreakable sumud, and continuing to inspire global solidarity. As events like the Rome presentation led by Fadwa Barghouti and the sold-out Naples theater demonstrate, the demands are clear: first and foremost, stop the genocide; enforce international law and free the prisoners, starting with Marwan Barghouti. His freedom would not just end one family’s suffering; it could crack open the door to genuine peace.
Free Marwan Barghouti. Free them all. From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.
Michael Leonardi lives in Italy and can be reached at michaeleleonardi@gmail.com
After the Headlines Fade: Gaza, Abandoned While the Genocide Persists
A colleague, an editor at a widely read outlet that centered Gaza throughout the two-year genocide, recently voiced his frustration that Gaza is no longer a main focus in the news.
He hardly needed to say it. It is evident that Gaza has already been pushed to the margins of coverage — not only by mainstream Western media, long known for its structural bias in Israel’s favor, but also by outlets often described, accurately or not, as ‘pro-Palestine.’
At first glance, this retreat may appear routine. Gaza during the height of the genocide demanded constant attention; Gaza after the genocide, less so.
But this assumption collapses under scrutiny, because the genocide in Gaza has not ended.
According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, nearly 500 Palestinians have been killed and hundreds more wounded since the so-called ceasefire was declared in October 2025, despite repeated claims that large-scale massacres had ceased. These are not isolated incidents or “violations”; they are the continuation of the same lethal policies of the last two years.
Beyond the daily death toll lies devastation on an almost incomprehensible scale. More than 71,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 2023, with entire neighborhoods erased, infrastructure pulverized, and civilian life rendered nearly impossible.
To grasp the depth of Gaza’s crisis, one must confront a brutal reality: well over one million people remain displaced, living in tents and makeshift shelters that collapse under winter storms, floodwaters, or strong winds. Infants have frozen to death. Families are swept from one temporary refuge to another, trapped in a cycle of exposure and fear.
Beneath Gaza’s ruins lie thousands of bodies still buried under rubble, unreachable due to Israel’s destruction of heavy machinery, roads, and emergency services. Thousands more are believed to be buried in mass graves awaiting excavation and dignified burial.
Meanwhile, hundreds of bodies remain scattered in areas east of the so-called Yellow Line, a boundary claimed to separate military zones from Palestinian “safe areas.” Israel never respected this line. It was a fiction from the start, used to manufacture the appearance of restraint while violence continued everywhere.
From Israel’s perspective, the war has never truly stopped. Only Palestinians are expected to honor the ceasefire — compelled by fear that any response, however minimal, will be seized upon as justification for renewed mass killing, fully endorsed by the US administration and its Western allies.
The killing has merely slowed down. On January 15 alone, Israeli attacks killed 16 Palestinians, including women and children, across Gaza, despite the absence of any military confrontation. Yet as long as daily death tolls remain below the psychological threshold of mass slaughter — below 100 bodies a day — Gaza quietly slips from the headlines.
Today, more than two million Palestinians are confined to roughly 45 percent of Gaza’s already tiny 365 square kilometers, with only trickles of aid entering, no reliable access to clean water, and a health system barely functioning. Gaza’s economy is effectively annihilated. Even fishermen are either blocked entirely from the sea or restricted to less than one kilometer offshore, turning a centuries-old livelihood into a daily risk of death.
Education has been reduced to survival. Children study in tents or in partially destroyed buildings, as nearly every school and university in Gaza has been damaged or destroyed by Israeli bombardment.
Nor has Israel abandoned the rhetoric that laid the ideological groundwork for genocide. Senior Israeli officials continue to articulate visions of permanent devastation and ethnic cleansing — language that strips Palestinians of humanity while framing destruction as policy, a strategic necessity.
But why is Israel determined to keep Gaza suspended at the edge of collapse? Why does it obstruct stabilization and delay movement to the second phase of the ceasefire agreement?
The answer is blunt: Israel seeks to preserve the option of ethnic cleansing. Senior officials have openly advocated permanent occupation, demographic engineering, and the denial of Palestinian return to their destroyed areas east of the Yellow Line.
And the media?
For its part, Western media have begun rehabilitatingIsrael’s image, reinserting it into global narratives as if collective extermination never occurred. More troubling still, even parts of the so-called ‘pro-Palestine’ media appear to be moving on — as though genocide were a temporary assignment, rather than an ongoing moral emergency.
One might attempt to justify this neglect by pointing to crises elsewhere — Venezuela, Iran, Yemen, Syria, Greenland. But that argument collapses unless Gaza has truly emerged from catastrophe, though it has not.
Israel has succeeded, to a dangerous degree, in systematically dehumanizing Palestinians through mass killing. Once violence reaches genocidal proportions, lesser — yet still deadly — violence becomes normalized. The slow death of survivors becomes background noise.
This is how Palestinians are killed twice: first through genocide, and then through erasure — through silence, distraction, and the gradual withdrawal of attention from their ongoing collective suffering.
Palestine and its people must remain at the center of moral and political solidarity. This is not an act of charity, nor an expression of ideological alignment. It is the bare minimum owed to a population the world has already failed — and continues to fail — every single day.
Can Trump Demilitarize Gaza With Night
Raids and Death Squads?
At the opening ceremony for Donald Trump’s so-called Board of Peace in Davos, Jared Kushner unveiled glossy images of his vision for a “new Gaza”: shining apartment towers, luxury developments, and sweeping views of the Mediterranean. There were no Palestinians at the ceremony—and none on the Board of Peace itself. In Kushner’s fantasy, Palestinians appear only as an absence, buried beneath the rubble of the real Gaza.
But how, exactly, are Palestinians to be “demilitarized” and pacified to make way for this Riviera of the Middle East? The assassination of Gaza’s Khan Younis police chief in a drive-by shooting this January offers a chilling clue. It was not an isolated act of lawlessness, but an ominous signal of what lies ahead. As Israeli-backed Palestinian militias openly take credit for targeted killings, the United States is reviving a familiar, deadly—and thoroughly discredited—playbook from Iraq and Afghanistan, in which death squads, night raids, and “kill or capture” missions are cynically repackaged as stabilization and peace.
Gaza is now being positioned as the next laboratory for this model, under the banner of Donald Trump’s so-called “peace plan,” with consequences that history has already shown to be catastrophic.
That strategy was laid bare on January 12th, 2026, when Lieutenant-Colonel Mahmoud al-Astal, the police chief of Khan Younis in Gaza, was assassinated by a death squad based in the Israeli-occupied part of Gaza beyond the “yellow line.” A militia leader known as Abu Safin immediately took credit for the killing, which he said was ordered by Shin Beit, Israel’s anti-Palestinian spy agency.
Another Israeli-backed militia, reputedly linked to ISIS, killed a well-known Gaza journalist, Saleh Al-Jafarawi, in October. That militia’s leader, Yasser Abu Shabab, was disowned by his family for running a pro-Israel death squad and was killed on November 4th, reportedly by one of his own gang.
These Israeli-run death squad operations follow a similar pattern to the targeted killings of Iraqi civil society leaders as resistance grew to the hostile U.S. military occupation of Iraq in 2003 and 2004. But as they did in Iraq and Afghanistan, these targeted killings are likely to grow into a much more systematic and widespread use of death squads and military “kill or capture” night raids in the next phase of Trump’s “peace” plan.
President Trump has announced that the so-called “International Stabilization Force” (ISF) in Gaza will be under the command of U.S. Major General Jasper Jeffers, who was, until recently, the head of U.S. Special Operations Command. Jeffers is a veteran of “special operations” in Afghanistan and Iraq, where the U.S. occupation responded to widespread armed resistance with death squad operations, thousands of airstrikes, and night raids by special operations forces that peaked at over a thousand night raids per month in Afghanistan by 2011.
But like Israel’s Palestinian death squads during the first stage of Trump’s “peace” plan, the U.S. mass killing machines in Afghanistan and Iraq began on a smaller scale.
For an article in the New Statesman, published on March 15, 2004, British journalist Stephen Grey investigated the assassination of Abdul-Latif al-Mayah, the director of the Baghdad Centre for Human Rights and the fourth professor from al-Mustansariya University to be killed. Professor al-Mayah was dragged out of his car on his way to work, shot 20 times, and left dead in the street. A senior U.S. military spokesman blamed his death on “the guerrillas,” and told Grey, “Silencing urban professionals… works against everything we’re trying to do here.”
On further investigation, Grey discovered that it was forces within the occupation government, not the resistance, that killed Professor Al-Mayah. An Iraqi police officer eventually told him, “Dr. Abdul-Latif was becoming more and more popular because he spoke for people on the street here… There are political parties in this city who are systematically killing people. They are politicians that are backed by the Americans and who arrived in Iraq from exile with a list of their enemies. I’ve seen these lists. They are killing people one by one.”
A few months later, retired Colonel James Steele, a veteran of the Phoenix program in Vietnam, the U.S. war in El Salvador and the Iran-Contra scandal, arrived in Iraq to oversee the recruitment and training of new Special Police Commandos (SPC), who were then unleashed as death squads in Mosul, Baghdad and other cities, under command of the Iraqi Interior Ministry.
Steven Casteel, who ran the Iraqi Interior Ministry after the U.S. invasion, was the former intelligence chief for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency in Latin America, where he worked with the Los Pepes death squad to hunt down and kill Pepe Escobar, the leader of the Medellin drug cartel.
In Iraq, Steele and Casteel both reported directly to U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte, another veteran of U.S. covert operations in Vietnam and Latin America.
Just as John Negroponte, James Steele, and Steven Casteel brought the methods they learned and used in Vietnam and Latin America to Iraq, Jasper Jeffers brings his training and experience from Iraq and Afghanistan to Gaza, and will clearly bring other special operations and CIA officers with similar backgrounds into the leadership of the so-called International Stabilization Force (ISF).
The ISF, as described in Trump’s “Peace Plan,” is supposed to be an international force that would provide security, support a new Palestinian police force, and oversee the demilitarization and redevelopment of the Gaza Strip. But the Arab and Muslim countries that originally showed an interest in contributing forces to the ISF all changed their minds once they understood that this would not be a peacekeeping mission, but a force to hunt down and “disarm” Hamas and impose a new form of foreign occupation in Gaza.
Turkey wants to send troops, but so far, Israel has objected, and the other countries that have expressed interest, such as Indonesia, say there is no clear mandate or rules of engagement. And what Muslim country will send forces to Gaza while Israel controls over half of the territory and moves the “Yellow Line” even deeper into Gaza?
Even if some Arab and Muslim countries are persuaded to join the ISF, the most difficult and politically explosive job of actually destroying Hamas will most likely be in the hands of the U.S. and Israeli Special Ops commanders, the mercenaries they bring in, and the death squads they recruit.
We can expect to see General Jeffers and his team provide more training and direction to Palestinians already collaborating with Israel in death squad operations, and try to recruit more militia members from current and former Palestinian Authority security forces in the West Bank and from the Palestinian diaspora.
CIA and JSOC (Joint Special Operations Command) officers with experience in death squad operations in Iraq and Afghanistan are likely to oversee these operations from the shadows, using the same “disguised, quiet, media-free approach” that senior U.S. military officers hailed as a success in Central America as they adapted it to the “war on terror” and the “war on drugs.”
For political reasons, Jeffers will probably use JSOC officers mainly for training and planning, and employ private military contractors to conduct night raids and other combat operations. Along with the huge expansion of U.S. and allied special operations forces in recent U.S. wars, there has been a proliferation of for-profit military contractors that employ former special operations officers from U.S. and allied countries as unaccountable mercenaries.
These privatized forces have already been deployed in Gaza, notably by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Its food distribution sites became death traps for desperate, hungry people forced to risk their lives just to try to feed their families. Israeli forces and mercenaries killed at least a thousand people at and around these sites.
The tens of thousands of Americans and others who took part in night raids in Iraq or Afghanistan and special operations in other U.S. wars have created a huge pool of experienced assassins and shock troops that Jeffers can draw on, with for-profit military and “security” firms serving as cut-outs to shield decision-makers from accountability. More routine functions, such as manning checkpoints, can be delegated to other ISF forces, military police veterans, and less specialized mercenaries.
The appointment of General Jeffers to command Trump’s ISF, and Israel’s formation and deployment of Palestinian death squads during the first phase of Trump’s phony peace plan, should be all the red flags the world needs to see what is coming—and to categorically reject Trump’s obscene plan before it goes any further.
Like Bush and Blair planning the invasion of Iraq in 2003, Trump is planning to systematically violate the UN Charter, the Geneva Conventions, and especially the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention, which guarantees protection for civilians in war zones or under military occupation.
Tony Blair’s role in Trump’s plan is further evidence that the plan has nothing to do with peace and everything to do with the Western imperialism that keeps rearing its ugly head around the world, and which has bedevilled Palestine for more than a century.
Appointing Blair to any role in governing Gaza ignores not only his role in U.S. and British aggression against Iraq, but also his lead role in the U.K. and EU’s decision, in 2003, to abandon earlier efforts to bring Palestinian factions together in the interest of Palestinian unity. Instead, they adopted a militarized, “counterinsurgency” strategy toward Hamas and other Palestinian resistance groups. Blair’s failed policy helped pave the way for Hamas’s election victory in 2006, and for the endless, U.S.-backed Israeli violence against Gaza ever since.
It is perhaps no wonder that Trump and Blair see eye to eye on Palestine, as they share the same ignorance, egotism, and inhumanity, and the same disdain for international law. But the savage methods used by U.S. special operations forces and U.S.-trained death squads to kill hundreds of thousands of people in Afghanistan and Iraq only fueled broader resistance, which ultimately drove U.S occupation forces out of both countries.
The same tactics will lead to the same failure in Gaza. But unleashing such horrific violence on the already desperate, starving, unhoused, captive people of Gaza is a policy of such gratuitous barbarity and injustice that it should compel the whole world to come together to put a stop to it.
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