Gaza Teaches Us That Only Some Lives Are Worth Talking About

By Sylvia Monkhouse

February 5, 2026

Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.

A Palestinian child is brought to Al Ahli Arab Hospital after an Israeli attack on Al-Nafaq district, in Gaza City, Gaza on August 25, 2024. [Dawoud Abo Alkas – Anadolu Agency]

Since the so-called ceasefire came into effect in Gaza, Israel has killed over 500 Palestinians. But these lives – according to western media and politicians – are not worth talking about.

You probably won’t have heard about Zaina, Menna and Maryam Al-Atbash. On Saturday, the remains of these young sisters were found on the street by their uncle. Aged between five and nine, they had been blown out of their Gaza City apartment by an Israeli airstrike. Their grandmother, Um Nael Al-Atbash, and aunt, nurse Islam Al-Atbash were also killed in the blast.

It’s unlikely too, that you will have read anything about siblings Jibril and Sham Abu Hadaid. On the same day the Al-Atbash sisters were blown to pieces, these little children were sleeping in their tent in Khan Younis when it too was struck, burning them alive. The attack killed seven members from three generations of the Abu Hadaid family.

And you definitely won’t know anything about the lives or identities of over 200 Palestinians whose graves were ransacked last week during an operation to retrieve a single Israeli body. For two days, the Israeli military mobilised tanks, drones and what locals described as “explosive robots” to recover the remains of Ran Gvili – an Israeli policeman killed more than two years ago. “They dug up about 200 graves,” Khamis al-Rifi, a journalist in Gaza, said. “They tested them one by one until they found the [Israeli] body.”

Ran Gvili’s story has been blasted all over western media. There are countless articles celebrating his life, complete with photographs and anecdotes from his family and friends. His remains were air-lifted to Israel for a dignified burial. The unearthed Palestinian bodies, on the other hand, were left “covered with sand by the bulldozers,” with “some still visible on the surface” al-Rifi said.

Four Palestinian civilians were also killed by Israeli fire as they attempted to check on the graves of their loved ones following the operation. Like the bodies dug up by bulldozers – and the thousands more buried under Gaza’s rubble – we don’t know their names or anything about them.

A hierarchy of worth

The message we’re being sold is clear. Some lives are worth talking about; others are worth nothing at all. 

Of course, this narrative is not new. For decades, wealthy white people from western countries have been afforded infinitely more worth than poor brown and black people from the global south. The livestreamed genocide in Gaza however, has laid this disparity bare.

Just compare the days of wall-to-wall coverage of the Bondi beach attack with reports of 32 Palestinians killed on Saturday. Israeli forces killed more than twice the number of people killed in Australia. But those Palestinian deaths during a so-called ceasefire didn’t even make the headlines.

Blocking communication channels

This erasure of Palestinian identity is no accident. Israel has done everything in its power to ensure the stories of Palestinians do not make it out of Gaza. Since October 2023, Israel has banned international media from entering the enclave, making it impossible to come close to reporting on the actual number of people killed, maimed, orphaned – let alone faithfully tell their stories. At the same time, it has systematically assassinated Gaza-based journalists.

At the beginning of the year, Israel revoked the licences of 37 life-saving aid groups – including Oxfam and Doctors without Borders (MSF) – ensuring they can no longer operate in the Palestinian territories. Beyond depriving Palestinians of vital aid, the move cuts off one of the last remaining channels through which the world can see what is happening in Gaza. MSF in particular have born witness to Palestinian suffering, sharing stories with western media and documenting some of the horrors they’ve witnessed in Gaza through published reports.

Israel’s refusal last week to renew UN spokesperson Olga Cherevko’s visa prompted UNRWA’s Director-General Philippe Lazzarini to state: “[this] follows a pattern of actively silencing aid workers…who are considered ‘too vocal’ about what they have seen on the ground”. These humanitarian partners, he added, “are being forced to make a choice between being the ‘voice of the voiceless’ or being permitted to do their work at all.”

Non-human by association

What’s also striking is that this effort to silence and dehumanise is applied to anyone who speaks up for Palestinians too.

UN special rapporteur for the Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, has described herself as a “non-person” since the US government imposed sanctions on her last year. The punishing sanctions – which came days after she published a report accusing western corporations of being complicit in Gaza’s genocide – have left her unable to use credit cards or book hotels or flights. Her assets in the US – including her bank account and apartment – have been frozen. “It’s important that people understand the extent…the United States, Israel and others would go to silence the voice of justice, the voice of human rights” Albanese said.

Greta Thunberg – once courted by world leaders and named person of the year by Time magazine in 2019 for her climate activism – has effectively been cancelled since raising her voice for Palestine. On her second attempt to reach Gaza via the Global Sumud Flotilla to deliver humanitarian aid, Thunberg was abducted by Israeli forces and taken to Ktzi’ot Prison. Here, according to various statements from Thunberg’s fellow passengers and her own testimony, she was tortured and sexually abused.

The story – shocking both for what happened and who it happened to – was met with strikingly little coverage in western media. There were no condemnations from the world leaders so eager to be photographed with Thunberg five years ago. No opinion pieces in the mainstream media calling for an investigation and demanding justice for Greta. Nothing at all from Time magazine.

And not a single mainstream media outlet reported the accusation of rape by German journalist Anna Liedtke – who was also onboard the flotilla. During an international conference, the 26-year-old described having been raped by Israeli guards after resisting a forced strip search while she was detained. But again, not a whisper from our politicians or media.

As horrifying as these revelations are, they offer only a glimpse into what it must be like to be a Palestinian living in the occupied territories. Following her assault in Israel, Greta Thunberg said: “If Israel, with the whole world watching, can treat a well-known, white person with a Swedish passport this way, just imagine what they do to Palestinians behind closed doors.”

Gagged and dehumanised, Palestinians have been stripped of their basic right to tell their stories. The media may have fallen silent, but those of us who still have a voice cannot. Please don’t stop talking about Gaza.Email

Sylvia Monkhouse

Sylvia Monkhouse is a freelance copy editor, writer, activist and mother.

Israel bulldozed Gaza war cemetery containing graves of British, Australian and allied soldiers

February 5, 2026 

Middle East Monitor

Graves of unknown soldiers at the Gaza War Cemetery [Wikipedia]

The graves of British, Australian and other allied soldiers killed during the First and Second World Wars have been destroyed by Israel in Gaza, satellite images and local testimony confirm.

The desecration occurred at the Gaza War Cemetery in Al-Tuffah, Gaza City, a site maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC), where over 3,000 Commonwealth servicemen are buried or commemorated.

New satellite images show systematic destruction in the cemetery’s southwestern section, where the graves of Australian soldiers were located.

Topsoil has been stripped, rows of gravestones removed, and a large earth berm now dominates the area, clearly shaped by heavy machinery. The destruction did not exist in March 2023 satellite records, but appears visibly in imagery from August and December, confirming the desecration occurred during Israel’s ground operations.

READ: 6 Gaza cemeteries destroyed by Israel, report reveals

This is not the first time the Gaza War Cemetery has sustained damage from Israeli military action. In a video published by the Britain-Palestine All-Party Parliamentary Group delegation visit to Gaza, MPs and observers describe visible damage to the cemetery from Israeli assaults.

Essam Jaradah, the cemetery’s former caretaker, told reporters:

“Two bulldozing operations took place. First around the perimeter, an olive grove was levelled. Later, just under 1,000 square metres inside the walls, including graves of Australian soldiers, were bulldozed. The area was used to build earth barriers.”

Israel has justified the act by claiming that the cemetery became an “active combat zone,” with the military claiming Hamas fighters were operating nearby and that it had no choice but to destroy part of the graveyard to protect troops.

Israel has used the same argument in Gaza to target hospitals, schools, mosques and churches in its ongoing genocide.

READ: No respite for the dead in Gaza

The claim has been met with outrage from heritage bodies and military historians. The Royal British Legion expressed “sadness” and called for the graves to be treated with the “utmost respect.”

A December statement by the CWGC acknowledged “extensive damage” to the cemetery, including to a memorial to the 54th (East Anglian) Division and Hindu, Muslim and Turkish sections.

Satellite images indicate the destruction is worse than reported, with entire sectors razed. Graves of more than 100 allied soldiers — predominantly Australians — killed in the Second World War have been obliterated. Sections containing British troops from WWI have also been flattened.

Despite a ceasefire declared in October, Israeli forces have pushed westward beyond the “yellow line” that now divides Gaza. Local residents report Israeli fire at civilians who approach the boundary. Over 500 Palestinians have been killed since the ceasefire, including children.

Professor Peter Stanley, a military historian at the University of NSW Canberra, noted:

“Australians have not forgotten the soldiers who served and died in Gaza. To see their graves bulldozed is deeply offensive.”

Mouin Rabbani on What’s Happening Now in Palestine

By Mouin Rabbani, David Swanson 

February 5, 2026

Source: Talk World Radio

This week on Talk World Radio we’re speaking about Western Asia with Mouin Rabbani. He is a Middle East analyst specializing in the Arab-Israeli conflict and Palestinian affairs. He is the co-editor of the book Aborted State? The UN Initiative and New Palestinian Junctures. He has written for numerous publications and regularly posts writing and videos on Substack.

Human Rights Watch Israel-Palestine Team Quits Over Blocked Report on Right of Return

“I have lost my faith in the integrity of how we do our work and our commitment to principled reporting on the facts and application of the law,” said resigning staffer Omar Shakir.


An elderly woman holds a key symbolizing the homes from which Palestinians fled or were expelled during the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948, during a rally along the border east of Khan Yunis in Gaza, Palestine, on May 1, 2023.
(Photo by Said Khatib/AFP via Getty Images

Brett Wilkins
Feb 03, 2026
COMMON DREAMS


Two Human Rights Watch employees—the group’s entire Israel-Palestine team—resigned after senior staffers blocked a report calling Israel’s denial of Palestinian refugees’ right of return to their homeland a crime against humanity.

Jewish Currents’ Alex Kane reported Tuesday that HRW Israel-Palestine team lead Omar Shakir and assistant researcher Milena Ansari are stepping down over leadership’s decision to nix the report, which was scheduled for release on December 4. Shakir wrote in his resignation email that one senior HRW leader informed him that calling Israel’s denial of Palestinian right of return would be seen as a call to “demographically extinguish the Jewishness of the Israeli state.”

“I have lost my faith in the integrity of how we do our work and our commitment to principled reporting on the facts and application of the law,” Shakir—who is also member of Jewish Currents’ advisory board—wrote in his resignation letter. “As such, I am no longer able to represent or work for Human Rights Watch.”

In an interview published Tuesday by Drop Site News, Shakir—who was deported from Israel in 2019 over his advocacy of Palestinian rights—said: “I’ve given every bit of myself to the work for a decade. I’ve defended the work in very, very difficult circumstances... The refugees I interviewed deserve to know why their stories aren’t being told.”



Ansari said that “whatever justification” HRW leadership “had for pausing the report is not based on the law or facts.”

The resignations underscored tensions among HRW staffers over how to navigate a potential political minefield while conducting legal analysis and reporting of Israeli policies and practices in the illegally occupied Palestinian territories.

As Kane reported:
The resignations have roiled one of the most prominent human rights groups in the world just as HRW’s new executive director, Philippe Bolopion, begins his tenure. In a statement, HRW said that the report “raised complex and consequential issues. In our review process, we concluded that aspects of the research and the factual basis for our legal conclusions needed to be strengthened to meet Human Rights Watch’s high standards.” They said that “the publication of the report was paused pending further analysis and research,” and that the process was “ongoing.”

Kenneth Roth, a longtime former HRW executive director, defended the group’s decision to block the report, asserting on social media that Bolopion “was right to suspend a report using a novel and unsupported legal theory to contend that denying the right to return to a locale is a crime against humanity.”

However, Shakir countered that HRW “found in 2023 denial of a return to amount to a crime against humanity in Chagos.”

“This is based on [International Criminal Court] precedent,” he added. “Other reports echoed the analysis. Are you calling on HRW to retract a report for its first time ever, or it just different rules for Palestine?”





Polis Project founder Suchitra Vijayan said on X Tuesday that “the decision by Human Rights Watch’s leadership to pull a report on the right of return for Palestinian refugees, after it had cleared internal review, legal sign-off, and publication preparation, demands public reckoning.”

“This was not a draft in dispute and the explanation offered so far evades the central issue of ‘institutional independence’ in the face of political pressure,” added Vijayan, who is also a professor at Columbia and New York universities. “Why was the report stopped, and what does this decision signals for the future of its work and credibility on Palestine?”

Offering “solidarity to Omar and Milena” on social media, Medical Aid for Palestinians director of advocacy and campaigns Rohan Talbot said that “Palestinian rights are yet again exceptionalized, their suffering trivialized, and their pursuit of justice forestalled by people who care more about reputation and expediency than law and justice.”



Sarah Leah Whitson, HRW’s former Middle East and North Africa director and currently executive director at Democracy for the Arab World Now, told Drop Site News on Tuesday that “We have once again run into Human Rights Watch’s systemic ‘Israel Exception,’ with work critical of Israel subjected to exceptional review and arbitrary processes that no other country work faces.”

The modern state of Israel was established in 1948 largely through a more than decadelong campaign of terrorism against both the British occupiers of Palestine and Palestinian Arabs and the ethnic cleansing of the latter. More than 750,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homeland, sometimes via massacres or the threat thereof, in what Arabs call the Nakba, or catastrophe.

More than 400 Palestinian villages were destroyed or abandoned, and their denizens—some of whom still hold the keys to their stolen homes—have yet to return. Today, they and their descendants number more than 7 million, all of whom have been denied the right of return affirmed in United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194.

Many Palestinians and experts around the world argue that the Nakba never ended—a position that has gained attention over the past 28 months, as Israel has faced mounting allegations of genocide for a war that’s left more than 250,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing in the coastal strip and around 2 million people forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened.

Bolopion told Kane Tuesday that the controversy over the blocked report is “a genuine and good-faith disagreement among colleagues on complex legal and advocacy questions.”

“HRW remains committed to the right of return for all Palestinians, as has been our policy for many years,” he added.

Six Palestine Action protestors found not guilty over Elbit factory raid

Olivia Barber

Today

Left Foot Forward

Six of the Filton 24 protestors have been acquitted of all charges against them in "a huge victory for the movement"

A jury at Woolwich Crown Court has refused to convict six Palestine Action activists who broke into Israeli arms factory Elbit Systems on the outskirts of Bristol.

Charlotte Head, 29, Samuel Corner, 23, Leona Kamio, 30, Fatema Rajwani, 21, Zoe Rogers, 22, and Jordan Devlin, 31, were found not guilty of aggravated burglary yesterday.

The activists also faced charges of criminal damage and violent disorder, but the jury returned partial or no verdicts, meaning prosecutors will now have to decide whether to seek a second trial.

The six are the first of 24 activists, known collectively as the Filton 24, to go on trial.

The activists have spent 17 months in pre-trial detention, far exceeding the statutory limit of six months.

Elbit’s parent company supplies up to 85% of the land-based equipment and drones used by the Israeli army, according to the Database of Israeli Military and Security Export.

Judge Jeremy Johnson told the jury that the “situation in the middle east” and Elbit Systems operations were “not relevant” to the case, and excluded the evidence from the hearing.

Rajiv Menon KC, defence barrister for Charlotte Head, said that the Judge “No Elbit witness has been called. The security guards, you will remember, were not employed by Elbit directly. They were employed by another company.

“So Elbit remains in the shadows, hidden and protected, but not, ladies and gentlemen, in the corridors of power where no doubt they are welcomed, wined, and dined, whilst Charlotte and all the other co-accused in this case have been denied bail and have been locked up for 17 months.”

He added that by excluding the evidence on Elbit Systems “The consequence of that is that you do not know everything that the defendants knew about Elbit before each of them individually decided to take that major step of getting involved in the action against the factory in Filton.”

Naila Ahmed, Head of Campaigns at CAGE, said: “This acquittal is a huge victory for the movement and a powerful affirmation of jury independence and moral courage in the face of extraordinary political pressure.

“Though they cannot get back the 17 months of their life taken from them unlawfully, they should all be compensated and the remaining 18 defendants of the Filton 24 should also be released on bail. This case was used to justify the ban against Palestine Action, a decision that should now be overturned.”

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward

Vindication’: UK Jury Clears Palestine Action Protesters Who Admitted to Elbit Break-In

“These verdicts are a huge blow to government ministers who have tried to portray Palestine Action as a violent group to justify banning it under badly drafted terrorism legislation,” said one campaigner.

From left to right: Palestine Action defendants Jordan Devlin, Leona Kamio, Charlotte Head, Fatema Rajwani, Zoe Rogers, and Samuel Corner pose for an undated photo.
(Photo by Palestine Action)

Brett Wilkins
Feb 04, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

In what one campaigner called a “huge blow” to the UK government’s efforts to crush Palestine Action, a London jury on Wednesday cleared six members of the direct action group of aggravated burglary—even after they admitted to breaking into and vandalizing an Israel-linked weapons facility.

Zoe Rogers, Fatema Zainab Rajwani, Charlotte Head, Samuel Corner, Leona Kamio, and Jordan Devlin—six of the so-called “Filton 24”—were found not guilty of aggravated burglary and criminal damage by a jury at Woolwich Crown Court after eight days of deliberation. Devlin, Rajwani, and Rogers were found not guilty of violent disorder, although verdicts were not reached for the three others on the charge.




Palestine Action Prison Hunger Strike Ends After UK Rejects Contract for Israeli Arms Firm



Global Intellectuals Voice Solidarity With Palestine Action Hunger Strikers ‘At Death’s Door’

Prosecutors alleged that the six activists drove a van like a “battering ram” to smash their way into the Elbit Systems UK research, development, and manufacturing facility in Bristol early on August 6, 2024 in a “meticulously organized” attack targeting the subsidiary of the Israeli arms firm Elbit Systems.




The defendants—who had been imprisoned on remand for 17 months—were also accused of using fire extinguishers to spray red paint throughout the facility and of using crowbars and hammers to break computers and other equipment.

The activists admitted to breaking into the facility, only disputing that the sledgehammers were offensive weapons and arguing that they were only meant to damage property.

After the verdicts were announced, the courtroom erupted in cheers and the six cleared activists hugged in the dock.

“These verdicts are a huge blow to government ministers who have tried to portray Palestine Action as a violent group to justify banning it under badly drafted terrorism legislation,” said a spokesperson for the group Defend Our Juries, which has organized numerous protests in support of Palestine Action.

“Despite government efforts to prejudice this trial, citing the allegations of violence to justify treating Palestine Action as ‘terrorists’, as if they were already proved, the jury which heard the evidence has refused to find the defendants guilty of anything, not even criminal damage,” the spokesperson added. “It shows how out of step this government is with public opinion, which is revulsed by the government and Elbit’s complicity in genocide.”

The jury failed to reach a verdict on an additional charge against Corner, who allegedly caused grievous bodily harm by hitting Police Sgt. Kate Evans in the back with a sledgehammer as she laid on the floor, fracturing her spine.

Journalist Adam Ramsay pointed out that Corner’s altercation with Evans “was widely used to justify the proscription of Palestine Action.”

“The fact that the jury, who heard the full story, didn’t convict him of a crime leaves the case for proscription in tatters,” Ramsay added.

Corner—and possibly other defendants—could face new trials on certain charges if the Crown Prosecution Service determines that there is a realistic chance of conviction and if further action serves the public interest.

Eighteen other alleged Palestine Action members are currently awaiting trials scheduled for later this year.

Numerous observers said the verdicts obliterate the government’s rationale for banning Palestine Action under the highly contentious Terrorism Act of 2000.

“I’m not sure people appreciate quite what a blow to [UK Prime Minister Keir] Starmer’s government the acquittal of the Palestine Action protestors is,” East Anglia Law School professor Paul Bernal said on Bluesky. “It both blows apart the whole proscription idea and demonstrates how out of touch they are.”

“This was a jury,” Bernal added. “Juries represent the public.”



Journalist Jonathan Cook noted that “the UK government pinned its case for declaring Palestine Action a terrorist organization largely on the trial of the so-called Filton Six, claiming they had proved the group to be violent. A jury today found none of them guilty of any of the charges.”

A declassified UK intelligence report published last September by the New York Times acknowledged that “the majority” of Palestine Action’s activities “would not be classified as terrorism” under the country’s highly contentious Terrorism Act of 2000.

In addition to the Filton break-in, Palestine Action’s direct action protests have also including spray-painting warplanes at a British military base and defacing US President Donald Trump’s Turnberry golf resort in Scotland—acts experts say do not constitute terrorism.

Britain’s Terrorism Act has long been condemned by civil liberties defenders, who decry the law’s “vague and overbroad” definition of terrorism, chilling effect on free speech and expression, invasive stop-and-search powers, pre-charge detention and control orders, sweeping surveillance and data collection, and other provisions.

According to rights groups, more than 2,700 people have been arrested during demonstrations of support for Palestine Action since the group’s proscription. Many of those arrested did nothing more than hold up signs reading: “I Oppose Genocide. I Support Palestine Action.”

Arrestees include many elders, including 83-year-old Rev. Sue Parfitt, who argued that “we cannot be bystanders” in the face of Israel’s US and UK-backed genocide in Gaza, which has left more than 250,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing; nearly 2 million people forcibly displaced; and hundreds of thousands starved by design.



Last September, a panel of United Nations experts concluded that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague is currently reviewing a genocide case filed against Israel by South Africa.

The International Criminal Court (ICC), also located in the Dutch city, issued warrants in November 2024 for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes committed during the 27-month assault and siege on Gaza.

Numerous Palestine Action members and supporters have gone on a monthslong life-threatening hunger strike to protest the defendants’ imprisonment on remand and to demand a fair trial, lifting of the ban on Palestine Action, and closure of Elbit Systems’ UK facilities.

Late last month, Muhammad Umer Khalid, the last of the Palestine Action hunger strikers, began eating again after he was hospitalized with multiple organ failure.

Naila Ahmed, head of campaigns at CAGE International, said in a statement Wednesday that the Filton verdicts are “a powerful affirmation of jury independence and moral courage in the face of extraordinary political pressure.”

“Though they cannot get back the 17 months of their life taken from them unlawfully, they should all be compensated and the remaining 18 defendants of the Filton 24 should also be released on bail,” she added. “This case was used to justify the ban against Palestine Action, a decision that should now be overturned.”

‘Where Is the Ceasefire?’: Israel’s Bombing of Gaza Kills 23, Mostly Women and Children

It comes as nearly 20,000 Palestinians are being denied the ability to leave Gaza for medical treatment, in what activist Muhammad Shehada called “a slow-motion massacre.”


Mourners react following the death of Palestinians killed by an Israeli strike at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, on February 4, 2026.
(Photo by Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Stephen Prager
Feb 04, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

Israeli bombings across Gaza have killed at least 23 Palestinians since dawn on Wednesday, including at least two infants, according to hospital officials and other health authorities.

“Where is the ceasefire? Where are the mediators?” asked Dr. Mohamed Abu Salmiya, director of Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital, which received the bodies of 11 people—mostly from the same family—who were killed after Israeli soldiers fired upon a building in northern Gaza.


‘All Lies’: Gazans Say There’s No Ceasefire as Phase 2 Begins Amid Israeli Strikes



Israel said the attack was in retaliation after Hamas militants fired at an Israeli soldier, badly wounding him. The Associated Press reports that among the Palestinians killed were “two parents, their 10-day-old girl Wateen Khabbaz, her 5-month-old cousin, Mira Khabbaz, and the children’s grandmother.”

Another attack on a tent in the southern city of Khan Younis killed three more people: Nasser Hospital, which received the bodies, said they included a 12-year-old boy. Another strike killed five more people, including a paramedic named Hussein Hassan Hussein al-Semieri, who was on duty at the time.

A total of 38 Palestinians were wounded in the series of attacks, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

Since a “ceasefire” agreement went into effect on October 10 last year, the Gaza Government Media Office says Israel has committed at least 1,520 violations, killing at least 556 people—including 288 children, women, and elderly people—and wounding 1,500 others.

In comments to Al Jazeera, the Palestinian human rights advocate Muhammad Shehada said a ceasefire that is violated so consistently “is no ceasefire at all”.

“At most, [the deal] can be just described as some sort of mild diplomatic restraint,” Shehada said. “Whenever the world’s attention is elsewhere, Israel escalates dramatically.”

Since its genocidal war in Gaza began in October 2023, nearly 72,000 Palestinians have been killed and 171,000 injured, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, whose figures the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) recently conceded are accurate after more than two years of denial. Independent estimates suggest the true death toll is much higher.




Wednesday’s onslaught came as Israel began to slowly open the Rafah crossing—the main point of entry and exit from the strip—for those in severe need of medical attention to leave.

Gaza’s hospitals have been rendered largely inoperable by two years of relentless bombing and a lengthy blockade on medical supplies entering the strip, which has left more than half the population without medical treatment.

The World Health Organization said last week that 18,500 Palestinians are in need of medical treatment abroad, including hundreds in need of immediate treatment.

According to Egyptian officials, 50 patients were expected to enter through the crossing each day. However, on Monday, just five Palestinians were allowed to leave Gaza for treatment, followed by 16 on Tuesday, according to Al Jazeera reporters on the ground.

Around 4,000 of those awaiting treatment are children. According to health officials, one of them, 7-year-old Anwar al-Ashi, died of kidney failure on Wednesday while on a waitlist.

Meanwhile, those attempting to cross have been met with treatment described as “humiliating” by reporters who witnessed it. Israeli troops have subjected patients to strip searches and interrogations—some were blindfolded and had their hands tied.

“The Rafah crossing continues to be a cruel and severely restricted ‘passage’ of pain and humiliation,” said the Palestinian politician and activist Hana Ashrawi. “This continues to be a multifaceted war of aggression, based on the deliberate manipulation of the pain of a captive people.”

Salmiya said that at the rate Israel is allowing them to leave, “it will take about five years on average for all patients to be discharged.” He referred to Israel’s actions as “crisis management, not a solution to the crisis.”

On Tuesday, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres called for “the facilitation of rapid and unimpeded passage of humanitarian relief at scale—including through the Rafah crossing.”

He added that Israel’s recent suspension of dozens of aid organizations—including Doctors Without Borders, Oxfam, and Save the Children—defies humanitarian principles, undermines fragile progress, and worsens the suffering of civilians.“

Shehada, who said he and his family were eagerly awaiting the end of travel restrictions, told Al Jazeera that “Israel hollowed [it] out of any substance or meaning.” Instead, he said, “it’s basically a slow-motion massacre.”

The US Must Stop Asphyxiating Cuba Now

Cuba should not be treated as a political chess piece to demonstrate US economic and military might.


People paticipate in a rally against the US embargo in Santa Clara, Cuba on April 25, 2021.
(Photo by Joaquin Hernandez/Xinhua via Getty)

A. Shallal
Feb 05, 2026

Common Dreams


Since the Cuban Revolution overthrew a US-backed dictatorship and asserted national independence, Cuba has remained in the United States’ crosshairs. The country has endured nearly 600 assassination attempts against its leadership, along with countless covert and overt operations aimed at destabilizing its government. For more than six decades, the US has also imposed an economic embargo explicitly designed to bring about regime change.

By any honest measure, this policy has failed. What it has succeeded in doing is fostering deep resentment toward the United States, not only in Cuba, but across much of the world, while inflicting immense suffering on ordinary Cubans.
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Basic necessities such as food, paint, printing paper, baby formula, syringes, and other lifesaving supplies, including vaccines and cancer treatment drugs, are either restricted by the embargo or priced far beyond most people’s reach. A simple walk through Havana tells the story: crumbling infrastructure, uncollected trash, and growing numbers of people gathering near tourist areas, hands outstretched in desperation.

Fuel shortages are widespread, inflation is at historic highs, and a sharp decline in tourism, Cuba’s primary economic lifeline, has made daily life nearly unbearable for many.

It is time for the United States to respect Cuba’s sovereignty and lift the embargo and accompanying sanctions.

In response, the Cuban government has expanded the private sector, legalized small- and medium-sized enterprises, decentralized food production, and opened its markets to limited foreign investment, all while attempting to maintain the core socialist principles of the revolution. It has also reduced reliance on fossil fuels, slowly shifting to solar energy. In 2025, renewable energy accounted for more than 10% of Cuba’s energy consumption, an increase from 3% the year before.

Yet these measures alone cannot offset the outsize impact of US policy and the blockade, which has been dramatically tightened in recent months. The latest effort to cut off of nearly all oil shipments to the island has led to daily blackouts and deepened human suffering.

It is time for the United States to respect Cuba’s sovereignty and lift the embargo and accompanying sanctions. They are a cruel and inhumane form of collective punishment that disproportionately harms the most vulnerable. These sanctions, without legitimate justification, have restricted travel for Americans, made remittances far more difficult, and unjustly placed Cuba on the State Sponsor of Terrorism list. That designation effectively cuts the country off from the global banking system, making even basic international transactions nearly impossible. The absurdity is stark: Cuban biotechnology produced five globally used Covid-19 vaccines, while the US embargo restricted Cuba’s ability to purchase syringes to administer them.

Cuba should not be treated as a political chess piece to demonstrate US economic and military might. It is a proud nation of nearly 11 million people who want nothing more than to be good neighbors. It is time for the United States to end its asphyxiation of Cuba and allow the Cuban people to determine their own future, a future free from US interference, coercion, and perpetual threat.

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.


A. Shallal
A. Shallal is the founder and CEO of Busboys and Poets.
Full Bio >

To Stand Against US Aggression, the World Must Rise for Cuba

The latest escalation of the US blockade against Cuba — in the form of an executive order authorizing punitive tariffs on any country that dares supply oil to the island—is a cruel and criminal act of economic warfare that will bring nothing but starvation, deprivation, and despair to its people.


Cuban soldiers take part in the Torchlight March on the 173rd anniversary of National Hero Jose Marti (a leader of Cuba’s independence from Spain and founder of the Cuban Revolutionary Party) in Havana on January 27, 2026. Thousands of Cubans, mostly young people, marched in Havana on January 27 night in protest against US threats against the Caribbean island during the traditional ‘torchlight march’.
(Photo by Adalberto Roque / AFP via Getty Images)

Cabinet of the Progressive International
Feb 04, 2026

Common Dreams

We will not mince words. The ‘policy’ of the Trump administration is a total siege: a modern mechanism for collective punishment designed to strangle life itself by cutting off fuel for hospitals, schools, water, transport, and food distribution.

Cuba already faces severe fuel shortages, with blackouts stretching daily and essential services collapsing under the weight of sanctions and depleted imports. Cuba’s remaining oil stocks could run out in mere weeks, threatening the lives of millions who have done nothing to justify this escalation.
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This is the culmination of a long-standing strategy articulated in US law — from the expansive embargo codified by the Helms–Burton Act in the 1990s to the Cuban Assets Control Regulations first enforced in the 1960s — that openly sought to apply “maximum pressure” to force political transformation in Havana and defeat a vanguard in the struggle against the US’s hemispheric domination.

Now, with this new Executive Order, the logic of siege has reached its apotheosis: sanction not only Cuba but every nation that dares show solidarity, effectively demanding that sovereign states choose between the interests of their own people and the dictates of an empire.

Cuba stood with oppressed peoples globally — from defeating apartheid in South Africa to sending doctors to the frontlines of epidemics — and now it is our time to act with audacity, moral courage, and collective force.

Already Mexico — Cuba’s last significant oil lifeline — has been pressed into uncertainty, warned that continued support could trigger tariffs on its economy. In doing so, Trump has revealed so-called ‘secondary sanctions’ as the empire’s principal weapon against international solidarity.

Trump has been clear: this siege is but a springboard toward regime change. It is the same strategic blueprint that saw Venezuela’s sovereignty undermined, its oil lifelines severed, its people plunged into crisis while the world stood by in lethargy.

We cannot repeat that failure. The international community was too slow to prevent the bombardment of Caracas; we must not be passive while the groundwork is laid for similar violence against the people of Cuba.

If Cuba is to survive as an independent nation it will be because of the continued resilience and vitality of its revolutionary project — and the solidarity of movements and nations around the world defying empire and rising to challenge this injustice.

We must organize community support networks, coordinate diplomatic resistance, demand that governments refuse to enforce secondary tariffs, and amplify Cuban voices against this assault on international law, human dignity, and basic human rights.

Those efforts, both from within and beyond the Progressive International, must accelerate — today. History will judge those who saw this moment and turned away. Cuba stood with oppressed peoples globally — from defeating apartheid in South Africa to sending doctors to the frontlines of epidemics — and now it is our time to act with audacity, moral courage, and collective force.

Stand with the Cuban people now; stand against this siege, this economic assault, this unfolding humanitarian disaster; join together in the provision of key supplies to the island, from medicine to food to fuel for its people; and stand for the right of all nations to self-determination and human dignity, or be complicit in its destruction.


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Cabinet of the Progressive International

The Cabinet of the Progressive International is the executive body of the Progressive International, launched in 2020 with a mission to unite, organize, and mobilize the world’s progressive forces. The body is comprised of eight members of the Council and two representatives from the Secretariat.
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TACO 

Trump skipping Super Bowl because he's afraid of getting booed: report

President Donald Trump at Super Bowl LIX on February 9, 2025

 (Official White House Photo by Daniel Torok / Flickr)

Carl Gibson

February 03, 2026  

ALTERNET

President Donald Trump won't be in attendance at the biggest sporting event in the United States this year. And according to a new report, he's skipping out over fears that he may be booed by tens of thousands of people.

On Tuesday, Zeteo's Asawin Suebsaeng and Andrew Perez reported that one unnamed White House official feared Trump would get booed "big league" at Super Bowl LX in Santa Clara, California (the home stadium of the San Francisco 49ers). Suebsaeng and Perez wrote that Trump's advisors feared a wave of boos at the Super Bowl "would instantly create a wealth of viral video clips and media coverage that administration officials would prefer to avoid."

"[Booing is] another thing we don’t want right now," one Trump advisor anonymously confided to Zeteo.

The president has also reportedly complained that this year's Super Bowl is too "woke." He is particularly upset about Grammy-winning artist Bad Bunny headlining this year's halftime show, and rock band Green Day (whose frontman, Billie Joe Armstrong, is an outspoken critic of Trump) also performing.

"There was a time when the Super Bowl was neutral territory for presidents. That line has blurred – even disappeared," former Fox News host Eric Bolling told Zeteo. "In today’s politically polarized America, location can matter more than the event itself. This looks like a strategic decision, not a snub or a controversy."

Suebsaeng and Perez noted that Trump's polling has slid noticeably downward since his mixed reception of cheers and boos at last year's Super Bowl in New Orleans, Louisiana. The president was also met with both applause and jeers last month in Miami, Florida when he attended the College Football Playoff championship game between the University of Indiana and the University of Miami. And when Trump attended a regular season NFL game between the Detroit Lions and the Washington Commanders, the crowd could be heard viciously booing him for several minutes.

Trump reportedly being sensitive about negative crowd response may also stem from an appearance last year at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. In June of 2025, both the president and First Lady Melania Trump were booed loudly after they made an appearance on opening night of the musical "Les Miserables," which is about a populist rebellion against a tyrannical king.

MAGA's Super Bowl halftime show will likely be a 'slow-motion train wreck': music editor

Robert Ritchie, known as Kid Rock, testifies on the cost of concert tickets before a Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee Consumer Protection, Technology, and Data Privacy Subcommittee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., January 28, 2026. REUTERS/Nathan Howard

Adam Lynch

February 04, 2026  

ALTERNET

Phoenix New Times Music Editor Amy Young says far-right Turning Point USA was “groping” for artists to fill its so-called “All-American” halftime show, designed to counter the “darker-skinned” Bad Bunny Super Bowl halftime show on Sunday.

“Announcing a big ol’ cynical show is one thing. It’s a very different task, however, to find artists who want to be the face of such a stunt,” said Young, adding that the organization finally settled on “Detroit’s claim of shame, Robert Ritchie, better known as Kid Rock.”

“No one is particularly shocked to see Confederate-flag-waving Kid Rock lead this charge,” said Young. “Opening for the rapper-turned-country-rocker that night will be another country artist, Brantley Gilbert, and then another country artist, Gabby Barrett, and, wait, we’re seeing a theme, right? Next up … um, country artist, Lee Brice.”

“… [I]f you find yourself asking ‘who?’ a couple of times, you might be residing at Camp You’re Not Alone, where TVs will be blaring the sets by actually popular, equally American musical acts Green Day and Bad Bunny,” Young added.

Young pointed out that TPUSA didn’t care when the National Football League hosted a legion of foreigners including British quartet Coldplay, Barbados citizen Rihanna, Canadian sensation The Weeknd, or Ireland’s U2. But when the it announced the appearance of Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, a.k.a. Bad Bunny, the MAGA’s backlash was ferocious. Bad Bunny raps primarily in Spanish, which “monolingual MAGA” apparently considers “a threat to ‘mericuh,” said Young.

It doesn’t matter that the 56 million Americans who speak Spanish make the United States the world’s second-largest Spanish-speaking country after Mexico. Nor does it apparently matter that Bad Bunny is a U.S. citizen.

“The willful misunderstanding of the fact that Puerto Ricans are indeed U.S. citizens demonstrates once again that MAGA acolytes interpret history and the law about as faithfully as they interpret the New Testament,” said Young. “From jump, Turning Point USA has had its milky sheets in a twist about the choice of Bad Bunny. The slow-motion train wreck it’s running this week is reminiscent of alleged comedian Tony Hinchcliffe describing Puerto Rico as a ‘floating island of garbage’ at a Trump rally, a full-speed train wreck.”

“You may be wondering how to watch this soon-to-be-failed-attempt at a ratings grab. Well, you can probably track down that information yourself, if you’re morbidly curious,” Young said. “Usually we like to provide viewing information. In this case, we genuinely DGAF.”

KULTURE WARS

Trump's shutting of the Kennedy Center has nothing to do with the Kennedy Center

(REUTERS)

Terry H. Schwadron

February 03, 2026   

ALTERNET

If the game's not going your way, kick over the table.

That's seems the message from Donald Trump's untimely announcement shutting the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts for two years of construction suddenly needed to turn a "tired, broken, and dilapidated Center," into "the finest Performing Arts Facility of its kind."

Once again, tone-deaf Trump doesn't understand that the arts are what happens inside the building, not the building itself. Obviously strung by the succession of performers, artists and groups that are abandoning the center because of Trump's egotistical nonsense of renaming everything for himself and for policies that the artists detest, Trump would rather shut the place than hear the criticism.

He's upsetting the apple cart. Maybe some renovations were needed, but not shutdown. Apart from all else, it is interfering with long-laid plans by performing companies now forced into hurried new arrangements.

If he could have done so, he would likely have shut down the Grammys telecast, which provided a platform for some of popular music's biggest names to lambaste Trump's deportation policies. As it was, he threatened to sue emcee Trevor Noah over a single joke. Punitive lawsuits are his familiar alternative to shutdowns.

Trump has disdain for artists and performers who don't put admiration of him at the forefront of their work. To avoid public criticism by Superbowl halftime performer Bad Bunny, Trump is skipping a trip to the game, another example of kicking over the table.

Putting his name on the building no more has made him a champion of the arts than beheading Venezuela's leadership makes him a promoter of would-be democracy in South America. Closing the hall and building new marble statuary will not promote the arts in America any more than pimping the propagandistic ego-film honoring First Lady Melania will leave the documentary film world richer for anything but putting billionaire bribery on display.

Trump fashions himself a cultural trend-setter as well as master strategic thinker and, strangely, a brilliant military leader who can simply point at a map and cause bombs to fall without sending in a soldier to follow up.

His overly egoistic plans for an ever-growing gilded ballroom and now a massively oversized Arch of Triumph ripoff that will dwarf the Lincoln Memorial belie a tastelessness that smacks as much of inappropriateness as it does of artistic merit. Trump's gaudy makeover of the Oval Office is a match with the creation of a presidential walkway that mocks his political opponents in the name of rewriting history as Trump-centric.

It would be one thing, of course, if the inappropriateness is only about seeing Sylvester Stallone as a fine actor and Kid Rock and Nicki Minaj as the nation's top musical talents. Only Trump thinks his jerkiness on stage passes as dance.

But for Trump, the arts are only a tool for political and business promotion, a potential shield against criticism. Ridding the center of any audience interested in hearing themes reflecting diversity has gone right along with cutting federal supports for public broadcasting or for limiting the national endowments for arts and humanities to themes that Make Trump's America Great.

Trump can't hear criticism, whether from artists and performers or from huge gatherings in sub-zero Minneapolis demanding that he rethink random deportations and deployment of anonymized, camo-clad personal armies as a national, daily obsession.

On our city streets, in our courtrooms and in the hapless Congress, Trump is kicking over the tables of law, precedent, and history. If the 2020 election did not turn out his way, there must have been no 2020 election. If Jan. 6, 2021, ended poorly, Trump was simply going to remake it, eradicating it as he did with the East Wing of the White House or the Rose Garden.

Shutting the Kennedy Center – the Trump Kennedy Center – is merely the latest table overturned. Tariffs, deportations, international affairs are all the same in this Trump White House: If you have the power and the money, do want you makes you feel good, not what creates good.

ANTICHRIST SPEAKS

Trump turns National Prayer Breakfast into partisan hit on Democrats of faith

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C., U.S., February 5, 2026. REUTERS/Al Drago

David Badash

February 05, 2026

ALTERNET

After being introduced as the “Greatest of All Time,” President Donald Trump used his speech at the National Prayer Breakfast to launch a partisan attack on Democrats.

“I don’t know how a person of faith can vote for a Democrat,” he told the largely conservative Christian audience. “I really don’t.”

“And I know we have some here today, and I don’t know why they’re here, because they certainly don’t give us their vote,” he complained.

Trump then turned his sights onto voter ID.

“I certainly know that we’re not gonna be convincing them to vote for a little thing called voter ID,” the president said of Democrats.

“It polls at 97 percent,” he alleged. “And even the Democrats, the people, the voters, are at 82 percent for voter ID, but the leaders don’t want to approve it.”

“It’s polling at over 90 percent,” he claimed.

According to the Pew Research Center, majorities of both parties support voter ID, with an average of 81 percent.

Trump then attacked Democrats, alleging, “they cheat.”

He also praised himself, saying, “I’ve done more for religion than any other president,” and declared, “not too many presidents have done too much for religion.”

“They want to be neutral or against. You know, the Democrats are against” religion, he charged.