‘Utterly Unsustainable’: US Employer-Sponsored Healthcare Costs Set to Keep SurgingWhile Democratic leadership continues to oppose a Medicare for All system overwhelmingly favored by their party’s voters, progressives point to studies showing that such a program will save lives and money.
Members of National Nurses United rally with lawmakers to show their support for the Medicare fyor All Act in Upper Senate Park on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on April 29, 2025.
(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Brett Wilkins
Aug 20, 2026
COMMON DREAMS
US workers with employer-sponsored health insurance are expected to spend an average of $5,297 on healthcare this year, including premiums deducted from their paychecks, deductibles, and copayments, according to a new estimate from benefits consulting giant Aon reported Thursday by The Wall Street Journal.
That’s $388 more than last year, and the pain is expected to intensify in 2027. According to a survey conducted by WTW, another consultant, US employers anticipate their healthcare costs will soar 11.1% next year. That could be the steepest increase in more than two decades, and would mark the fifth consecutive year of rising employer healthcare costs.
As the Journal noted, expensive cancer treatments and widespread adoption of weight loss drugs are among the factors driving up spending—and costs. For workers, that means larger deductions from their paychecks, higher out-of-pocket costs, and, for some, abandoning insurance altogether.
“Employers are telling us that this is utterly unsustainable,” WTW population health leader Jeff Levin-Scherz told the Journal.
Jason Wilburn, co-owner of Paul Wissmach Glass Co. in Paden City, West Virginia—which employs 35 people—said that the company has endured double-digit premium increases every year since 2021, with healthcare costs now accounting for 5% of revenue. That’s a higher percentage than the company’s margin of profit.
To cope, Wissmach Glass Co. increased its biweekly payroll deduction from $40 to $50 per worker, even though the company is still paying about 90% of the total premium. The increase has resulted in some employees deciding to drop their coverage.
“It’s frustrating and sad,” Wilburn told the Journal. “Something’s got to change.”
Democrats cited the report in a statement Thursday, noting that President Donald Trump and Republicans “have spiked healthcare costs for millions of Americans.”
“First, they cut Medicaid by nearly $1 TRILLION—the largest cut to healthcare in history—to pay for tax cuts for the ultrarich,” the party said, referring to the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed by Trump last year. “Then, they refused to extend the enhanced Affordable Care Act premium tax credits, hiking premiums by an average of 58%.”
“Trump and Republicans’ cuts have already forced 3 million people to drop their coverage, with more expected to drop coverage in the coming months as premiums are expected to see another double-digit increase next year,” the Democrats’ statement continued. “More than half of Americans already could not reliably afford healthcare in 2025—a five-year low—and nearly 1 in 4 American workers report staying in unwanted jobs just to maintain consistent health insurance.”
“Donald Trump and Republicans’ endless cuts to healthcare have jacked up costs for millions of Americans,” Democratic National Committee spokesperson Jaelin O’Halloran said. “Everyday Americans are dipping even further into their savings and taking on record amounts of debt to afford a trip to the doctor’s office or lifesaving medicine—and Trump doesn’t care.”
“While Trump prioritizes his White House vanity projects and tax cuts for the rich, working families are pinching pennies to pay their medical bills or forgoing healthcare coverage because they can’t afford it—and they will hold Trump and Republicans accountable in November,” O’Halloran added, referring to the upcoming midterm elections.
While progressives have long argued that the solution lies in decoupling health insurance from employment, Democratic leaders remain loath to advocate Medicare for All or other universal healthcare options. Just this week, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) reaffirmed his opposition to Medicare for All, a position at odds with 90% of Democratic voters surveyed in a new CBS/YouGov poll.
As Common Dreams recently reported, a recent Yale University study found that Medicare for All—as proposed in legislation introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.)—would save over 114,000 lives annually and $1 trillion per year in US healthcare spending.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) cited that study in an interview on Sunday in which he refuted Jeffries’ stance.
“Medicare for All is arguably the most important priority,” Khanna said, calling for a vote on Sanders’ bill. “It would save money, and it would save lives.”
Man in Darth Vader Costume Praises Flock Cameras at City Council Meeting: ‘The Emperor Is a Fan’
“We must continue utilizing Flock technologies so that we can follow and surveil the rebel scum as they move from playground to playground, from playground to pool, from pool to gymnasium.”
A man dressed as Darth Vader speaks at a meeting of the San Diego City Council on August 19, 2026.
(Screenshot from a webcast by the City of San Diego)
Stephen Prager
Aug 20, 2026
COMMON DREAMS
Residents of San Diego are up in arms about Flock cameras. But for those seeking to keep tabs on “rebel scum,” the omnipotent surveillance technology has its uses.
That’s according to one Darth Vader, who took the podium during the public comment period at a Public Safety and Livable Neighborhoods Committee Meeting in the California city on Wednesday night to sing, or more accurately, bellow his praises for the company, whose automatic license-plate reading (ALPR) cameras are fast being installed around the nation.
“The emperor is a fan of Flock, and we must continue utilizing Flock technologies so that we can follow and surveil the rebel scum as they move from playground to playground, from playground to pool, from pool to gymnasium,” the person dressed as the infamous Star Wars villain said.
“Because we all know that the Flock cameras are not only following the license [plates]; they are following children. They are following children in parks and gymnasiums, and we need this,” the sith lord continued. “I need this so I can stalk my ex-girlfriend.”
There are more than 550 Flock cameras installed across the city of San Diego, according to a public database by the activist group DeFlock.
And while the person who embodied the dark lord has not yet been identified, the satirical performance gave voice to some of the well-documented ways that the technology has been used to create a nationwide panopticon that enables widespread warrantless spying.
One database published earlier this month by the Institute for Justice, a libertarian nonprofit law firm, found over 100 documented cases of police using the technology for “romantic stalking, wrongful stops and detentions, non-law enforcement use, and other types of misconduct.”
Vader was also not exaggerating about the use of Flock cameras to spy on children. As the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), an internet-focused civil liberties group, found, some school districts have enlisted cops to track families in order to root out “residency fraud” and prove that they live in the district.
“A search of ALPR data will show a lot more than whether a family lives within the right zone,” wrote Dave Maass, EFF’s director of investigations, and Rindala Alajaji, a legislative activist with the group. “Every time a plate is searched, it can reveal personal information about a family: when they go to the doctor, when they go to worship, when they go out at night, and where they travel on vacation. None of that is the school district’s business, and these searches are a huge invasion of privacy.”
Tlaib and Faith Leaders Decry Anti-Muslim ‘Crusade’ in Dearborn, Michigan Led by Capitol Insurrectionist“Our families do not deserve to be subjected to such hate and bigotry,” said Tlaib before thousands of self-described “Christian crusaders” descended upon the majority-Muslim city.
Police react as far-right provocateurJake Lang rips pages out of a Quran after addressing a meeting of the Dearborn City Council following an anti-Muslim demonstration he organized called the “Christian Crusade March” on August 18, 2026.
(Photo by Jeff Kowalsky/AFP via Getty Images)
Brett Wilkins
Aug 18, 2026
COMMON DREAMS
Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, clergy of various faiths, and state and local Democratic officials are among those condemning Tuesday’s far-right rally in Dearborn, Michigan as an intimidation campaign against the city’s Muslim community, and warning that the so-called “Christian Crusader March” is part of a broader resurgence of Islamophobic bigotry during President Donald Trump’s second term.
Thousands of anti-Muslim demonstrators, many of them traveling on motorcycles, descended upon Dearborn, a majority-Muslim suburb of Detroit, for the rally organized by racist provocateur Jake Lang and Detroit pastor Lorenzo Sewell. Video footage showed an overwhelmingly male crowd marching aggressively on Dearborn’s City Hall Complex.
Area residents also marched, with a large crowd chanting “Allahu akbar”—meaning “God is great” in Arabic—while chasing some of the outsiders down a street.
Tlaib (D-Mich.), whose district includes Dearborn and who is the only Palestinian American in Congress, warned Tuesday that the city of approximately 105,000 residents “is being targeted by Islamophobic white supremacists and Christian nationalists.”
“Islamophobic racists are yet again marching in Dearborn to terrorize a whole faith community,” Tlaib said in a statement. “Dearborn is a beautifully diverse place, home to a vibrant, loving Muslim community, and our families do not deserve to be subjected to such hate and bigotry.”
“Families are told to stay home for their own safety, unable to go back-to-school shopping, get groceries, or even walk outside,” she continued. “To all our Dearborn families and residents: I have your back. I wish I could take away this pain, but know that you are not alone.”
“To our interfaith community that’s standing in solidarity with their Muslim neighbors: Thank you for speaking out against this hatred. We need more of this love and compassion,” she said.
“More leaders, including local elected officials, must speak out, especially against the local instigators participating in the spread of hatred under the guise of faith,” Tlaib continued. “Their silence is complacent and normalizes fearmongering and racism. We know that targeting any community doesn’t allow any of us to be safe.”
“People of all faiths and of all backgrounds belong,” she added, “and deserve to practice their religion and celebrate their cultures freely without fear.”
Christian leaders joined Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud and Police Chief Issa Shahin for a press conference earlier to denounce the rally, emphasizing that the Islamophobes’ “crusader” rhetoric does not represent Christianity.
“To my residents, keep being you,” Hammoud said on social media. “Pray how you’ve always prayed. Keep providing for your families and showing up for your neighbors. We won’t let hate unravel this beautiful tapestry forged throughout generations, with countless hands, in the most noble of American traditions.”
Rev. Bob McCabe, pastor of the Church of the Divine Child, said during the press conference that “Dearborn is a place where people can love and draw close to each other and to worship freely. I’ve experienced that as a Christian, as a Catholic.”
Pastor Nathan Hayes of Solid Rock Church told viewers that “I’m asking that our community would come together and say, you know what, ignore the outside voices and just pay attention to the person who lives next to you because they care about you way more than these people who are driving in from other places.”
The Dearborn rally comes amid mounting renewed anti-Muslim hostility nationwide. The Associated Press reported last week that anti-Muslim rhetoric has surged alongside the historic US Senate campaign of Michigan Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, the first Muslim nominated by a major party for one of the state’s upper chamber seats. Trump and other Republican figures have portrayed Muslim public officials as national security threats, while anti-mosque campaigns have intensified in communities across the country.
The consequences are not merely rhetorical.
In May, a pair of teenagers opened fire at an Islamic center in San Diego, killing three people and further traumatizing a Muslim community already facing heightened threats.
In July, federal prosecutors charged Utah man Peter Larsen with a hate crime after alleging that he went to a shopping mall seeking Muslims to attack. Prosecutors say he asked employees whether they were Muslim before stabbing a Muslim man multiple times, including in the neck. The victim required several surgeries.
Lang served four years behind bars awaiting trial for alleged crimes, including attacking police officers with a baseball bat during the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol by Trump supporters seeking to overturn the 2020 presidential election. He was one of roughly 1,500 January 6 insurrectionists later pardoned by Trump.
He doesn’t only hate Muslims; despite being raised Jewish, Lang is rabidly antisemitic and also said that white people “will be replaced, and your children will be Black Muslims if you don’t stand up now”—and worse.
Lang was allowed to speak during Tuesday’s Dearborn City Council meeting.
“For three years straight, the number one name in the country of England for newborn babies is Muhammad,” he said, beginning a nearly four-minute tirade that was equal parts Muslim hate and pure fantasy.
“Tell me that white Christians are not being invaded,” he continued. “This is an invasion!”
“These people are trying to destroy us,” Lang argued without any evidence. The Muslims have not come here to assimilate. They have come here to steal the wealth of this land, to rape our women.“
“The Muslims are being used by the Democrats to instill socialism in America,” he asserted. “We know it.”
“You’re just using the Democrats, these woke liberal idiots, the women in New York, to gain power, and once the Muslims have power in this country, then they will start throwing the homosexuals off the roofs, just like they do in Palestine,” he falsely claimed.
“Our founding fathers gave this country to their posterity, white Christians, and they brought along with them their Black friends,” Lang said, apparently referring to the Africans they enslaved. “We will not allow these Third World mongrels to run roughshod over us without a fight. The body of Christ is one!”
“We have cruise ships, we have planes, we have trains, and we’re going to pack them out with all of the Arabs. You have to go home. We don’t want you here,” Lang continued.
“If you stand against Islam, you are my brother. If you are willing to stand up and take this country back, you are my brother. Join the crusades and extricate this filth from our country,” he concluded. “We will have our way! Come blood or sweat, we will have our way! This is a Christian land! Christ is king!”
Lang then began tearing up a Quran before being forcibly removed from the council chamber.
Some Democratic social media users—including many backing former Vice President Kamala Harris, whose complicity in Israel’s Gaza genocide is part of why she was narrowly defeated by Trump in Dearborn in the 2024 presidential election just four years after former President Joe Biden won the city by 20 points—said the city’s residents deserve what is happening to them.
However, elected Democrats—who have often been slow to condemn anti-Muslim bigotry—were quick to condemn the rally.
“The people of Dearborn are once again under attack from an out-of-state influencer looking for controversy,” US Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) said on social media. “[Mayor Hammoud], the police chief, and religious leaders of all faiths are again showing leadership and demonstrating that Michigan is united against hate and Islamophobia.”
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said in a statement that “Dearborn is home to one of the most vibrant communities in America.”
“Its residents are our friends and our neighbors,” the Democrat continued. “Today, a group of agitators is traveling to Dearborn for the sole purpose of intimidating that community and provoking a reaction. Their plan emboldens and contributes to dangerous behavior, and I am asking every person of goodwill to denounce it. Their hate has no place in Michigan.”
“My top priority is keeping Michiganders safe,” Whitmer added I’ve been in contact with Mayor Hammoud, and I echo Chief Shahin and local officials: Do not confront or engage with demonstrators. Together, we stand united against hate in all its forms.“
Book on Media Complicity in Gaza Genocide Pulled From ‘Lily-Livered Library’ in Australia
“Is the idea that nothing critical of Israel can ever stand?” asked one critic. “Because the lobby groups keep telling us there’s a difference between prejudice and criticism, but they keep acting like there’s not.”
This undated photo shows an exterior view of the Waverley Library in Bondi Junction in New South Wales, Australia.
(Photo by Waverly Council)
Brett Wilkins
Aug 18, 2026
COMMON DREAMS
A public library in metropolitan Sydney, Australia confirmed Tuesday that it removed a book critically examining Western media coverage of Israel’s annihilation of Gaza from its shelves, reportedly after a complaint that its prominent display was distressing to a survivor of last year’s mass shooting targeting a Hanukkah celebration in Bondi Beach.
How to Sell a Genocide: The Media’s Complicity in the Destruction of Gaza, by US journalist and media critic Adam Johnson, was pulled from Waverley Library in Bondi Junction and placed under review. JWire reported last week that the Waverley Council removed the book after a Bondi massacre survivor saw it displayed on the library’s “New Release/Hot Item” shelf.
However, Johnson said Tuesday on X that “British-Australia media keep buying this line that my book was pulled from the library after a ‘complaint from a Bondi attack survivor.’ We have no evidence this is true. This is simply the story they’re telling. Has anyone independently verified this chain of events?”
Johnson also noted that the Bondi massacre, in which two gunmen fatally shot 15 victims, “had nothing to do with Palestinians or Gaza.”
“There is ZERO link between the two, and it’s false [to] keep implying there was,” he added.
Johnson’s book, published in April by Pluto Press, argues that US corporate media have helped enable Israel’s devastation of Gaza through sanitizing Israeli actions, obscuring US responsibility, and dehumanizing Palestinians as Israeli forces killed and wounded hundreds of thousands of them in what United Nations experts, human rights groups, a South Africa-led case currently before the International Court of Justice, and many others call a genocide.
Johnson told The Guardian that critics “seem to be objecting largely based on the title using the word ‘genocide.’”
“But ‘genocide’ is not my word, or my finding,” he stressed. “The fact of genocide in Gaza is the overwhelming consensus of the human rights world, and it is a wholly mainstream opinion among those tasked with studying and determining such matters.”
“That it makes some people upset is unfortunate, but reality is often upsetting,” he said. “This particular reality is especially upsetting... to the parents of the over 20,000 children killed by Israel in Gaza since October 2023.”
“Do Sydney officials plan on removing pro-Israel books from their libraries because it potentially upsets these community members?” Johnson added.
The Sydney dispute is hardly an isolated case of the silencing of pro-Palestine speech or criticism of Israel’s well-documented crimes against humanity and war crimes, for which alleged perpetrator Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is wanted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
In March, Adelaide University canceled a venue booking for a literary event featuring Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories. Organizers accused the university of bowing to political pressure.
In the United States, college campuses were the epicenter of suppression. New York University withheld a graduating student’s diploma after he condemned Israel’s actions in Gaza during his commencement speech. New York authorities also violently cracked down on NYU’s anti-genocide protests, and the school adopted a definition of antisemitism conflating anti-Zionism and hatred of Jews.
Seven miles uptown, Columbia University suspended its chapters of the nonviolent groups Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace.
George Washington University in Washington, DC banned a graduate from campus after she criticized the university’s ties to Israel, while earlier this year the University of Southern Maine withdrew its support for a Palestine conference because it was slated to include remote participation by Albanese. USM officials cited the dubious sanctions imposed on Albanese and her family by the Trump administration.
There has also been widespread censorship and suppression of pro-Palestine speech in countries including Canada, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom.
These incidents are indicative of a wider pattern documented by Irene Khan, the UN special rapporteur on freedom of expression, who in 2024 reported that courses, lectures, and panels on Palestine have been canceled and that institutions in Western Europe and North America have restricted books, art, scholarship, and speech concerning Israel and Palestine.
While some Jewish leaders and groups welcomed the removal of Johnson’s book from Waverley Library, others decried the censorship.
“Public libraries belong to all of us, and should host a range of views and topics, be they books about queer families or Israel’s widely condemned war crimes,” Bart Shteinman, an executive member of the progressive Jewish Council of Australia, told The Guardian. He also called the decision to pull the book “deeply alarming.”
One Palestinian account on Bluesky posted: “Is the idea that nothing critical of Israel can ever stand? Because the lobby groups keep telling us there’s a difference between prejudice and criticism, but they keep acting like there’s not.”
Another social media user, this one on X, lambasted what she called the “lily-livered library” for “pandering to the vile zealots who protect Israel, despite the evidence before our eyes.”
Rhonda Garad, a researcher at Monash University in Melbourne, bluntly said on X that “we’ve reached the book-burning stage of the fascist takeover.”
94% of Palestinians in Gaza Need Shelter, Basic Aid to ‘Live Safely and With Dignity’
Gaza is suffering from “a shelter crisis which runs far deeper than just physical damage.”
Palestinians struggle with flooding after heavy rain hits the Bureij Refugee Camp in Gaza City, Gaza on December 16, 2025.
(Photo by Moiz Salhi/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Julia Conley
Aug 20, 2026
COMMON DREAMS
It’s been 10 months since a ceasefire agreement was reached between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, but in addition to continued attacks on the exclave—in which more than 1,250 Palestinians have been killed since last October—households across Gaza are being endangered on a constant basis by “a shelter crisis which runs far deeper than just physical damage” to residential buildings, as the Norwegian Refugee Council said Thursday.
Ninety-four percent of the population—about 1.98 million people—are in need of shelter-related aid in order to “live safely and with dignity,” said the group, “including fuel, energy, and essential household items.”
The NRC and the International Organization for Migration lead the Palestine Shelter Cluster, which coordinates humanitarian aid focused on addressing shelter needs in Gaza and the West Bank. The organization’s new report, “Exposed on All Sides,” describes how funding shortfalls as well as Israel’s continued restrictions on shelter materials have left the vast majority of Palestinians in Gaza exposed to “serious health and safety risks.”
The Shelter Cluster assessed nearly 2,000 household interviews conducted between June 14-28 in accessible areas in northern Gaza, Gaza City, Deir al-Balah, and Khan Younis.
It categorized the households’ severity of needs on a scale of 1-5, with conditions assessed as minimal, stressed, crisis, critical, or catastrophic. More than 4 in 5 households were facing critical or catastrophic conditions, with the families struggling the most described as living in conditions “so poor they were considered a risk to life.” Just 12% of households were assessed as being in the least severe categories.
With Israel’s bombardment of Gaza damaging or destroying approximately 92% of residential buildings, nearly two-thirds of families interviewed by the Shelter Cluster were living in tents or other makeshift shelters that were meant to be temporary.
“Ten months after the October 2025 ceasefire, most families have lived more than a year in shelters that were never designed for long-term accommodation.”
More than half of those households had been living in the same tent for over a year, and more than half of the makeshift housing was in poor or very poor condition. More than 100,000 households are living in shelters with “major deterioration to flooring, walls, and frames,” said NRC.
With fuel both unaffordable and difficult to obtain, daily tasks were challenging for the families assessed by the Shelter Cluster. Eighty-four percent of households said their solutions for heating their homes were mostly or entirely ineffective. Nearly 50% of households said they had been burning plastic, tires, garbage, or cardboard in order to prepare food.
“Their use for meal preparation presents serious health risks from toxic smoke and food contamination,” reads the report.
Jehan Salim, national coordinator for the Shelter Cluster, emphasized that “a shelter is not adequate simply because it has four walls or a roof.”
“Families need to be able to sleep, cook, wash, and keep their children safe inside it,” said Salim. “Ten months after the October 2025 ceasefire, most families have lived more than a year in shelters that were never designed for long-term accommodation. The materials needed to repair homes, restore basic services, and provide improved shelters are still not entering Gaza at anything close to the scale required.”
Only 1 in 10 households received shelter materials or basic household assistance in the month prior to the survey, and the Shelter Cluster’s partners in Gaza reported “very limited in-country stocks of tents, blankets, or mattresses” in June.
“The entry of shelter materials and equipment also remains constrained by strict and frequently changing entry restrictions. Long advance-notification requirements, repackaging rules, repeated submission processes, and unpredictable approvals can delay or prevent supplies from reaching Gaza, keeping available stocks low and limiting the quality and scale of the response,” reads the report.
Israel’s “dual-use” restrictions—which claim that everyday items for basic household needs could also be used for violent purposes by Hamas—have contributed to the chronically low supply of “fuel, solar energy equipment, construction and repair materials, heavy machinery, and debris-clearance equipment,” said the Shelter Cluster.
“People remain in appalling conditions because Israeli restrictions are preventing even the most basic housing materials from entering Gaza,” said Jan Egeland, secretary general of the NRC. “Without a rapid procurement of and access for materials, the coming winter will be catastrophic. Israel must lift its restrictions and allow for predictable entry of shelter materials.”
The European Union, United Nations, and World Bank’s Gaza Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment (RDNA) report earlier this year found that $26.3 billion was required in the first 18 months following the ceasefire deal to restore essential services, rebuild infrastructure, and support Gaza’s economic recovery. An estimated $71 billion will be needed over the next decade.
In May, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported that its 2026 flash appeal for $4 billion was only 12% funded.
“Funding levels must be increased,” said Egeland, “so that Palestinians families can get out of decaying temporary shelters and into something that provides more protection from the elements.”
IDF Condemned for Refusal to Probe Deadly Attacks on Doctors Without Borders, World Central Kitchen Staff
“This is not justice,” said the healthcare charity. “Two years of silence, followed by closures that raise more questions than they answer, is unacceptable.”
A building belonging to the medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) was targeted by Israeli tank fire in the al-Mawasi area, west of Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on February 21, 2024.
(Photo by Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
The international healthcare charity Médecins Sans Frontières on Thursday joined the humanitarian group World Central Kitchen in demanding that an “impartial investigative body” examine deadly Israeli attacks on its staffers in Gaza, following the Israeli military’s announcement that it was closing the cases without opening a criminal investigation.
MSF, also known in English as Doctors Without Borders, noted that the decision by the Israeli military advocate general (MAG) did “not come as a surprise” and was “the predictable output of a military apparatus investigating itself.”
The Israel Defense Forces and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, said the France-based organization, have proven themselves “unwilling to respond to the extent of violations that may amount to war crimes emerging from Gaza,” with Israeli officials continuing to insist that the IDF has been targeting Hamas with its bombardment of Gaza—despite the fact that the death toll of more than 73,000 Palestinians includes at least 22,000 women and 20,000 children and that healthcare facilities, schools, and at least 92% of residential buildings have been destroyed or damaged in attacks.
In addition, said MSF, 15 staff members of the healthcare organization have been killed by Israeli forces since they began bombarding Gaza in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack in October 2023, including two who were killed in multiple attacks on an aid convoy in Gaza City in November 2023 and two who were killed in a strike on an MSF shelter in Khan Younis in February 2024.
“There is no military objective that justifies the wholesale sacrifice of civilians. And there is no internal military review that can substitute for genuine, independent, and impartial accountability.”
MSF submitted those cases to the MAG for review, but along with an attack that killed seven World Central Kitchen (WCK) aid workers in April 2024, the military said there was no suspicion of criminal conduct in the assaults on MSF workers.
“This is not justice,” said MSF. “Two years of silence, followed by closures that raise more questions than they answer, is unacceptable.”
“MSF staff and their family members are dead. Their names are known,” the group continued. “Their locations were shared. Their vehicles were identified. We have always maintained that all elements point to a clear responsibility of the Israeli army for the deadly attacks. And yet, those responsible for their deaths have declined to pursue any criminal investigation.”
The decision by the MAG makes clear, said the group, that “there is no prospect of accountability within the Israeli legal system for the killing of our staff, just as there has been no accountability for Israel’s ongoing genocide against Palestinians.”
Following the MAG’s announcement on Wednesday, World Central Kitchen issued a statement condemning Israel’s “account of the deaths of our seven colleagues on April 1, 2024.”
“We fundamentally disagree with their decision about criminal investigations into the IDF airstrikes that killed our team,” said WCK. “There has never been any excuse or justification for the attacks, and there is nothing in this account that does so. The decision is inconsistent with the full truth and deeply offensive.”
Israeli authorities did not issue a warning to WCK before it attacked the aid organization’s convoy, which was traveling through what was supposed to be a deconflicted zone when it was struck.
“At the time of the lethal attacks, the IDF knew that our team in Gaza was unarmed and posing a threat to nobody. It had full visual clarity on our clearly marked humanitarian vehicles during the extended, multiple airstrikes. It knew our team’s movements, identities, and activities in advance,” said WCK. “We continue to demand truth and justice for our team and their families. We continue to demand an independent commission to investigate the airstrikes because the IDF cannot credibly investigate its own conduct. And we continue to grieve the loss of our friends.”
MSF stressed that Israel’s decision to “close” the cases of the attacks “must be understood in their proper context: In Gaza, tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed. Healthcare facilities have been destroyed. Humanitarian convoys have been struck. Journalists, medical personnel, UN personnel, and aid workers have been killed in numbers unprecedented in any recent conflict.”
“MSF reaffirms what we have stated since the beginning of this violence: There is no military objective that justifies the wholesale sacrifice of civilians,” said the group. “And there is no internal military review that can substitute for genuine, independent, and impartial accountability.”
“To our colleagues we have lost,” MSF added, “and to the countless civilians and humanitarian workers who have perished in Gaza: We will not let your deaths be filed away as procedural inevitabilities. You deserved protection. You deserve justice.”
Drone Attacks Drove Record-Breaking Violence Against Aid Workers in 2025: UN
A majority of aid workers who were killed last year died in attacks in Gaza, despite a ceasefire that was reached last October.
Eight civil defense and Palestinian Red Crescent members who were killed in an attack by the Israeli army on an ambulance and fire truck were brought to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, Gaza on March 30, 2025.
(Photo by Abdallah F.S. Alattar/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Julia Conley
Aug 19, 2026
COMMON DREAMS
“The technology may change, but the laws of war do not,” said the United Nations’ top humanitarian official on Wednesday as the international community marked World Humanitarian Day—and a record number of violent attacks against aid workers in 2025, with the expanded use of drones partially driving the increased threat to workers’ safety.
According to the Aid Worker Security Database and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 907 aid workers were killed, injured, or kidnapped last year.
Nearly 300 more were detained or arrested, said OCHA.
The number of humanitarians who were killed dropped slightly from the previous year, down to 350 from 387. But the death toll was the second highest ever recorded, and a majority of those killed—186—were attacked in Gaza, despite a “ceasefire” agreement that was reached last October.
More than two-thirds of those killed in Gaza were victims of aerial bombardment.
OCHA noted that “cheap and adaptable armed drones are putting lethal capabilities into more hands,” with armies now able to wage more explosive attacks from afar and reach “deeper into towns and cities.”
The prevalence of armed drones has been linked to 80% of civilian deaths in Sudan in the first four months of this year, while in Colombia, weaponized drone attacks quadrupled between 2024-25.
As the technology of war changes, said OCHA, “our humanity must not... Civilians, including humanitarians, must be protected.”
One aid worker was killed in March in the Democratic Republic of Congo when a drone struck a residential building, while four humanitarian convoys were attacked by drones in a single week in May in Ukraine.
“Weaponized drones have become the new face of an old danger: the deliberate or reckless destruction of civilian life,” said Tom Fletcher, the UN humanitarian chief.
“But just calling it out will not protect the next aid worker,” Fletcher added. “States must uphold international humanitarian law and use every tool to protect civilians and our colleagues. And for those who break the rules, there must be real consequences.”
So far in 2026, 82 aid workers have already been killed, while 322 have been injured and 235 have been kidnapped.
“On World Humanitarian Day, we honor humanitarian workers everywhere, and the courage and sacrifices they make every day to help others,” said the global humanitarian group Oxfam. “We stand in solidarity with our staff and partners on the frontlines, often working at immense personal risk, and urge governments to uphold their obligations to protect them.”
‘Bloodthirsty Psychopath’ Ben-Gvir Touts Viewing Booths at Gallows for Palestinians
The vice president of the European Parliament condemned what she described as “a horrific spectacle that turns the death penalty into a show.”
Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir visits the construction site of a gallows being built to hang Palestinians convicted of killing Israelis, at a secret location in central Israel, on August 18, 2026.
(Photo by Itamar Ben-Gvir/screenshot)
Brett Wilkins
Aug 20, 2026
COMMON DREMS
Still drawing international censure for his genocidal call to kill dozens of Gazans daily, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir faced fresh condemnation Thursday after visiting the construction site of a gallows where Palestinians convicted of killing Israelis are set to be hanged to death, with select Israelis gathering as spectators.
Ben-Gvir, leader of the far-right Jewish Power party, posted a video to social media in which he gloats about the construction of gallows, which is being built in an undisclosed location in central Israel.
“I promised to worsen the conditions of terrorists in prisons—we kept it,” Ben-Gvir says in the video. “I promised to pass the Death Penalty for Terrorists law—we did. And now the death row and hanging facility are also starting to take shape.”
The law to which Ben-Gvir referred was passed in March by the Knesset—Israel’s parliament—and took effect the following month. The legislation changes the rules governing Israeli military courts in the illegally occupied West Bank so that the death penalty effectively applies only to Palestinians who kill Israelis.
Far-right Knesset members, including Ben-Gvir, wore noose-shaped lapel pins to show their support for the legislation. Ben-Gvir also handed out sweets to Knesset colleagues after the bill passed its first reading.
Ben-Gvir said the execution site would include viewing booths where victims’ families could watch executions, describing this as something customary in various countries and specifically citing the United States as an example.
“Terrorists deserve only one thing—death by hanging,” said Ben-Gvir, who in 2007 was convicted by an Israeli court of inciting racism and supporting a terrorist organization, whose leader he has openly honored.
Abdullah al-Zaghari, head of the Palestinian Prisoner Society, urged “effective international action” in response to Ben-Gvir’s comments. Al-Zaghari told Anadolu that the minister’s visit to the gallows site was part of the “continued determination of the Israeli occupation system” to codify incitement against Palestinians.
Leftist Israeli Knesset lawmaker Ofer Cassif excoriated Ben-Gvir’s actions.
“This criminal thug—a sympathizer of murderers of Palestinians, a supporter of terror, and a pathological racist—is also hopelessly infantile,” Cassif told The New Arab on Wednesday. “Soon we will oust him from the government, and next, throw him behind bars.”
European Parliament Vice President Pina Picierno accused Ben-Gvir of staging “a horrific spectacle that turns the death penalty into a show.”
The liberal US pro-Israel group J Street asked on X, “Are we supposed to believe, as some in the Jewish establishment would like us to, that Ben-Gvir’s words somehow tell us nothing about the country he helps govern?”
“He is Israel’s national security minister, and he is now celebrating a facility built to execute Palestinians while Jewish extremists are excluded from the law,” the group added. “As the old saying goes: When someone tells you who they are, believe them. When a government gives someone this much power, we have to reckon honestly with the agenda they are pushing.”
Ben-Gvir—who is under sanctions and banned from countries including Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Norway, and the United Kingdom for inciting violence against Palestinians in the West Bank—was still being denounced on Wednesday for advocating the daily mass killing of Palestinians, including civilians, in Gaza amid a nearly three-year war that United Nations experts, human rights groups, a South Africa-led case currently before the International Court of Justice, and many others call a genocide.
Stéphane Dujarric, spokesperson for United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, said Wednesday—which was World Humanitarian Day—that Ben-Gvir’s “remarks are appalling, they’re outrageous, they’re dehumanizing, they’re dangerous, and we condemn them unequivocally.”
A spokesperson for German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Wednesday in Berlin that Merz “strongly condemns Minister Ben-Gvir’s inhumane statements, which violate international law—they are unacceptable.”
“As the occupying power, Israel must treat Palestinians with dignity, protect their property, and ensure public administration and humanitarian aid,” the spokesperson added.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot called Ben-Gvir’s remarks “unbearable and inhumane,” adding that “further sanctions could be imposed, and all options are on the table.”
In the United States, actor and activist Mark Ruffalo said Thursday on Bluesky that “Ben-Gvir is a bloodthirsty psychopath, war criminal, and one of Israel’s beloved genocidal leaders.”
“America and the world should be sanctioning, divesting, and boycotting Israel in every way until this apartheid regime falls,” he added.
Fresh Calls for Sanctions as Canadian, European Governments Decry Israel’s E1 Settlement Plan
“If you want to ‘target sanctions at those who participate in illegal settlement expansion,’ you’re going to have to sanction the entire Israeli government, so we look forward to seeing that.”
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich holds a map of an area known as E1 in the occupied West Bank on August 14, 2025.
(Photo by Menahem Kahana/AFP via Getty Images)
Jessica Corbett
Aug 20, 2026
COMMON DREAMS
As the Canadian and several European governments on Thursday denounced Israel’s latest move to divide the illegally occupied West Bank with its E1 settlement project, the critical countries faced fresh calls to actually respond with sanctions.
When the Israeli government last August approved a plan to build 3,401 housing units for settlers in the E1 area east of Jerusalem, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich proclaimed that the proposal “buries the idea of a Palestinian state,” a comment that came as his country was nearly two years into a military operation in the Gaza Strip globally condemned as genocide.
Bedouin Palestinians who live in the area and Israeli peace groups are challenging the E1 plan in court, but that didn’t deter the Ministry of Construction and Housing from issuing a tender to build seven residential compounds with 1,234 units on Wednesday. Contractors can submit bids until October 19, a week before Israel’s October 27 parliamentary election. Criticism was swift.
The Israeli watchdog group Peace Now said that “this is a last-minute maneuver that is part of the scorched-earth policy the government is pursuing at the end of its term to secure long years of conflict and bloodshed for Israel. Building in E1 will ruin the possibility of reaching an end to the conflict and a peace arrangement based on two states. The government is trying to sign contracts with contractors before the elections so that it will be much harder for the next government to cancel the construction.”
Sarah Sanbar, acting Israel and Palestine researcher at the US-based organization Human Rights Watch (HRW), stressed that “the E1 project isn’t just housing; it’s erasure of Palestinians, their homes, and their livelihoods... Israel cannot be allowed to alter ‘facts on the ground’ and entrench apartheid with impunity.”
“Behind housing units in E1 are Palestinian families facing displacement. Companies bidding to build those houses are bidding on complicity in a war crime,” Sanbar said. “Other countries have a duty to prevent companies under their jurisdiction from profiting off illegal settlement construction.”
J Street, a liberal Zionist group also based in the United States, called for immediate action from the White House and Congress, which have long given Israel billions of dollars a year in military aid, even as the death tolls have soared in Gaza and the West Bank, where Israel Defense Forces troops are often accused of refusing to stop or even enabling settler violence against Palestinians.
“The E1 project would build an Israeli city in the heart of the West Bank—territory that should form the core of a future Palestinian state. It would also sever East Jerusalem and other major Palestinian population centers from one another, further restricting Palestinian movement,” J Street noted. “Combined with this government’s approval of more than 100 new settlements and its support for hundreds of new outposts across the West Bank, the E1 tender can only be understood as a key part of a systematic effort to undermine the viability of Palestinian statehood.”
The United Kingdom’s foreign secretary, Ed Miliband, on Wednesday put out a lengthy statement declaring the publication of the tender as “an unacceptable and destructive act,” and that “settlement expansion and attempts to create irreversible divisions on the ground threaten peace, security, and the prospects for a viable Palestinian state.”
“Britain will not stand back and accept the destruction of the two-state solution,” he pledged. “In the coming weeks we will set out a comprehensive set of measures to respond to Israeli government policies, protect the viability of the Palestinian state, target sanctions at those who participate in illegal settlement expansion, and support a just and lasting peace for Israelis and Palestinians.”
While Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar and Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir responded to Milliband with hostility, Kenneth Roth, a senior fellow at Yale University and former longtime leader of HRW, said it is “nice to see this.”
Welcoming the “strong words from Britain objecting to Israel’s continuing settlement expansion,” Roth wondered, “Will the UK refer these war crimes (Art. 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention) to the International Criminal Court for prosecution?”
Zarah Sultana, a member of the UK Parliament for Coventry South who co-founded Your Party with former Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn, responded on social media with a jab at her country’s Labour leadership: “Stop selling them arms then, Ed.”
Rohan Talbot, director of advocacy and campaigns at the British charity Medical Aid for Palestinians, told Miliband, “If you want to ‘target sanctions at those who participate in illegal settlement expansion,’ you’re going to have to sanction the entire Israeli government, so we look forward to seeing that.”
On Thursday, the office of UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham announced that he joined leaders from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Norway for a joint statement slamming the tender for the E1 settlement project as “unacceptable” and all Israeli settlements in the West Bank as illegal under international law, as “reaffirmed by the United Nations Security Council.”
“At a time of grave instability in the West Bank with unprecedented levels of violence by settlers against civilians, and serious restrictions on the Palestinian economy, this decision is even more concerning,” the coalition said, urging the Israeli government to “retract these plans immediately” and businesses to “not consider bidding for construction tenders.”
Businesses considering bids “should be aware of legal and reputational consequences including the risk of involving themselves in serious breaches of international law,” the seven governments said. “We reiterate our commitment to a comprehensive, just and lasting peace based on the two-state solution. We will continue to act in its interest.”
Replying on social media, Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East said that “Israel will not back down from its ‘doomsday’ E1 settlement expansion until there are real consequences. If countries like Canada are serious, they must immediately impose sanctions against any person, organization, or company involved in this war crime.”
Netanyahu Government ‘Actively Enabling’ Deadly Settler Rampages in West Bank: Report
“Settlers shoot, attack, and expel Palestinians from their land, and the state provides the weapons, the legal cover, and the budget to do it.”
Jewish settlers argue with Palestinian farmers harvesting olives in Ramallah, West Bank on October 29, 2025.
(Photo by Issam Rimawi/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Jake Johnson
Aug 20, 2026
COMMON DREAMS
Intensifying violence by government-backed Israeli settlers in the illegally occupied West Bank is fueling the mass displacement and erasure of entire Palestinian communities, according to a report published Thursday by Human Rights Watch.
HRW pointed with alarm to United Nations data showing that the average number of settler attacks per day in the West Bank has risen to the highest level on record as the far-right Israeli government, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, continues to expand settlements in open defiance of international law.
The leading human rights group’s new report estimates that Israeli settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank has “fully or partially displaced 107 communities,” comprised of nearly 6,000 Palestinians, since January 2023. The escalating displacement in the West Bank comes amid Israel’s ongoing genocidal assault on the Gaza Strip.
“The Israeli government and the settlers share the same goal of maximum land and minimum Palestinians, with the authorities not only failing to stop settler violence, but actively enabling it,” Sarah Sanbar, acting Israel and Palestine researcher at HRW, said in a statement. “Settlers shoot, attack, and expel Palestinians from their land, and the state provides the weapons, the legal cover, and the budget to do it.”
HRW’s report was released days after the Israeli government published a new tender for the construction of more than 1,200 housing units in the West Bank. The anti-occupation group Peace Now noted that the bidding period for companies to build the units closes a week before Israel’s elections.
“Building in E1 will ruin the possibility of reaching an end to the conflict and a peace arrangement based on two states,” said Peace Now. “The government is trying to sign contracts with contractors before the elections so that it will be much harder for the next government to cancel the construction.”
HRW warned that companies seeking a role in constructing the new housing units are “bidding on complicity in a war crime.”
“The impunity Israeli authorities accord settlers stems directly from the free pass Israel’s allies and donors have granted it.”
For its report on settler violence, HRW interviewed 20 witnesses and reviewed video footage of attacks, which have included physical assaults, sexual violence, property destruction, theft, and killings—often carried out alongside Israeli soldiers. HRW noted that Israel’s National Security Ministry has “formed civilian ‘rapid response squads’ in settlements” and given them “special policing powers, uniforms, and weapons.”
“I have known war in this region for all my life, but never like this,” said Um Muhammad Muammar, a 72-year-old resident of Qaryut whose two sons were killed by Israeli settlers. “My sons’ children are now fatherless; their wives are now widows. What more can we say?”
With the support of Israel’s government, settlers have established 65 new outposts in the West Bank this year alone. “Israeli organizations Kerem Navot and PeaceNow reported in July that these outposts currently effectively control more than 1 million dunams (100,000 hectares) of land—approximately 18% of the West Bank—four times what they controlled before the current government took office,” HRW observed.
“The impunity Israeli authorities accord settlers stems directly from the free pass Israel’s allies and donors have granted it,” said Sanbar. “Accountability starts with the settlers committing crimes but doesn’t end there. Israel and the governments that give it a blank check share responsibility and should be held to account.”
