Middle East Press On: Pariah, Nakba, Killing, Torture, Famine: New Age Islam's Selection, 20 May 2025
By New Age Islam Edit Desk
20 May 2025
Is This The Beginning Of The End For Netanyahu?
Netanyahu Should Be An International Pariah
For Israelis, Acknowledging The Nakba Is A Necessary Step To Peace
Cheer Up, People Of Gaza! You’ll Get Killed On A Full Stomach
The Role Of Israeli Universities In The Killing And Torture Of Palestinians
Palestinians In The West Bank Still Have Time To Prevent A Second Nakba
Squandering Its Success In Lebanon: Israel’s Insistence On Holding Territory
Gaza Faces Catastrophic Famine
I'm Starving In Gaza. It's Like Being On Death Row Except There's No 'Last Meal' At The End
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Is This The Beginning Of The End For Netanyahu?
Dr. Ramzy Baroud
May 19, 2025
There was a time when Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to hold all the cards. The Palestinian Authority was largely passive, the West Bank was relatively calm, Israel’s diplomatic reach was expanding, and the US seemed ready to bend international law to accommodate Tel Aviv’s desire for complete control over Palestine.
The Israeli prime minister had also, at least in his own estimation, succeeded in subduing Gaza, the persistently defiant enclave that had for years struggled unsuccessfully to break the suffocating Israeli blockade.
Within Israel, Netanyahu had been celebrated as the nation’s longest-serving prime minister, a figure who promised not only longevity but also unprecedented prosperity. To mark this milestone, Netanyahu employed a visual prop: a map of the Middle East or, in his own words, “the New Middle East.”
This envisioned new Middle East, according to Netanyahu, was a unified green bloc, representing a future of “great blessings” under Israeli leadership.
Conspicuously absent from this map was Palestine — both historic Palestine, now Israel, and the Occupied Territories.
Netanyahu’s unveiling occurred at the UN General Assembly on Sept. 22, 2023. His supposedly triumphant address was sparsely attended and, among those present, enthusiasm was notably absent. This, however, seemed of little consequence to Netanyahu, his coalition of extremists or the broader Israeli public.
Historically, Israel has placed its reliance on the support of a select few nations that are considered, in its own calculus, to be of primary importance: Washington and a handful of European capitals.
Then came the Oct. 7 assault. Initially, Israel leveraged the Palestinian attack to garner Western and international support, both validating its existing policies and justifying its intended response. However, this sympathy rapidly dissipated as it became apparent that Israel’s response entailed a campaign of genocide, the extermination of the Palestinian people in Gaza and the ethnic cleansing of Gaza’s population and West Bank communities.
As images and footage of the devastating carnage in Gaza surfaced, anti-Israeli sentiment surged. Even Israel’s allies struggled to justify the deliberate killing of tens of thousands of innocent civilians, predominantly women and children.
Nations like the UK imposed partial arms embargoes on Israel, while France attempted a balancing act, calling for a ceasefire while suppressing domestic activists advocating for the same. The pro-Israel Western narrative has become increasingly incoherent and it remains deeply problematic.
The US, under President Joe Biden, initially maintained unwavering support. However, as Israel failed to achieve its perceived objectives, Biden’s public stance began to shift. He called for a ceasefire, though without demonstrating any tangible willingness to pressure Israel. Biden’s staunch support for Israel has been cited by many as a contributing factor to the Democratic Party’s losses in the 2024 elections.
Then, Donald Trump arrived. Netanyahu and his supporters, both in Israel and Washington, anticipated that Israel’s actions in Palestine and the wider region — Lebanon, Syria, etc. — would align with a broader strategic plan.
They believed Trump’s administration would be willing to escalate further. This escalation, they envisioned, would include military action against Iran, the displacement of Palestinians from Gaza, the fragmentation of Syria, the weakening of Yemen’s Houthis and more, without significant concessions.
Initially, Trump signaled a willingness to pursue this agenda: sending heavier bombs, issuing direct threats against Iran, intensifying operations against the Houthis and expressing interest in controlling Gaza and displacing its population.
However, Netanyahu's expectations yielded only unfulfilled promises. This raised the question: was Trump deliberately misleading Netanyahu or did evolving circumstances necessitate a reassessment of his initial plans?
The latter explanation appears more plausible. Efforts to intimidate Iran proved ineffective, leading to a series of diplomatic engagements between Tehran and Washington, first in Oman, then in Rome.
The Houthis demonstrated resilience, prompting the US to this month curtail its military campaigns in Yemen, specifically the so-called Operation Rough Rider. On Friday, a US official announced that the USS Harry S. Truman would withdraw from the region.
Notably, Hamas and Washington last week announced an agreement, independent of Israel, for the release of US-Israeli captive Edan Alexander.
The culmination occurred when Trump last week delivered a speech at a US-Saudi investment forum in Riyadh, in which he advocated for regional peace and prosperity, lifted sanctions on Syria and emphasized a diplomatic resolution with Iran.
Conspicuously absent from these regional shifts was Netanyahu and his strategic “vision.”
Netanyahu responded to these developments by intensifying military operations against Palestinian hospitals in Gaza, targeting patients within the Nasser and European hospitals. This action, targeting the most vulnerable, was interpreted as a message to Washington and Arab states that his objectives remained unchanged, regardless of the consequences.
The intensified Israeli military operations in Gaza are an attempt by Netanyahu to project strength amid perceived political vulnerability. This escalation has resulted in a sharp increase in Palestinian casualties and exacerbated food shortages, if not outright famine, for more than 2 million people.
It remains uncertain how long Netanyahu will remain in power, but his political standing has significantly deteriorated. He faces widespread domestic opposition and international condemnation. Even his primary ally, the US, has signaled a shift in its approach. This period may mark the beginning of the end for Netanyahu’s political career and, potentially, for the policies associated with his horrifically violent government.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2601325
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Netanyahu Should Be An International Pariah
Chris Doyle
May 19, 2025
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week accused French President Emmanuel Macron of spreading “blood libels” against Israel and standing “once again” with Hamas. All this came after Macron described Israel’s 10-week-old blockade of Gaza as “shameful.” Just what are the origins of the Netanyahu-Macron hostilities?
By any moral reckoning, Macron describing the horror of the Israeli blockade of Gaza as “shameful” was rather mild. “What the government of Benjamin Netanyahu is doing is unacceptable … there is no water, no medicine, the wounded cannot get out, the doctors cannot get in. What he is doing is shameful,” Macron said. Like British ministers, he has used the word “unacceptable,” but not “condemnation.” The “C” word is not allowed. Macron has yet to penalize Israel for its horrific blockade against 2.3 million Palestinian civilians, with the entire population at risk of famine.
Last October, Macron called for an end to the sale of arms to Israel that could be used in Gaza. “The priority is that we return to a political solution, that we stop supplying weapons to lead the fighting in Gaza,” he said. Netanyahu delivered a riposte via video message, exclaiming “what a disgrace.”
Macron argued that “Mr. Netanyahu must not forget that his country was created by a UN decision.” Back came Netanyahu: “A reminder to the president of France: It was not the UN resolution that established the state of Israel, but rather the victory achieved in the war of independence with the blood of heroic fighters, many of whom were Holocaust survivors — including from the Vichy regime in France.”
Franco-Israeli tempers frayed again in November, when armed Israeli police barged into a French-owned church compound, the Pater Noster on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, detaining two French consulate employees. A senior French diplomat had to give up his planned visit to the site.
Macron proposed recognizing an independent state of Palestine in April. This was hardly radical — 147 states had already done so. Yet, for Netanyahu, this represented a “huge prize for terror.” Few counter, as they should, that Hamas, which Netanyahu was clearly referring to, would not see an independent Palestinian state as a victory, but its rivals the Palestine Liberation Organization and Fatah would. It would reward those who have chosen to negotiate and not use force. The reality is that Netanyahu has always supported a “Greater Israel” ideology that claims all the land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan river as Israeli, as stated in the founding Likud charter.
Step into the fray, Yair Netanyahu, Bibi’s son, and darling of the Likud base. He responded to Macron on social media in a less-than-diplomatic manner. His father said that Yair was entitled to his “personal opinion,” but the tone was “unacceptable to me.”
But Netanyahu could not resist having a pop at France’s colonial record. “We will not accept moral preaching about establishing a Palestinian state that will endanger Israel’s existence from those who are opposed to giving independence to Corsica, New Caledonia, French Guyana and additional territories.” UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has been given fair warning of what is in store for him if London dares to join France in any recognition.
Macron is just the latest world leader to incur Netanyahu’s wrath. He is not even the first French president to fall out with him. In 2017, Nicolas Sarkozy was overheard telling US President Barack Obama: “I can’t stand him anymore, he’s a liar.” Obama retorted: “You may be sick of him, but me, I have to deal with him every day.” Netanyahu also ranted at President Francois Hollande for backing a “shameful” UNESCO resolution in 2016. Netanyahu has barely had a decent relationship of genuine trust with any world leader, even in the US. He was not trusted by Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Obama or Joe Biden.
All this highlights the very low bar for angering Netanyahu. Macron did not even call what Israel is doing a genocide. He has not called for the severing of relations with Israel or for it to be sanctioned.
But Netanyahu likes to have an enemy lined up in his crosshairs. He is the ultimate exponent of the blame game — of blaming everyone but himself. He wants Israelis to indulge in this bunker mentality, to fall for the line that everyone and everything is against Israel, Israelis and the Jews, from the UN, the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice to the papacy, nearly every state on Earth and human rights groups and aid agencies.
Yet most Israelis, along with nearly everyone else, knows that it is Netanyahu, his policies and his partners in crime in this extreme right-wing government that are despised. Even President Donald Trump, who most on the right in Israel saw as their hero, is not buying shares in Netanyahu.
The real question is why anyone is dealing with Netanyahu. Given his orchestration of the genocide in Gaza, war crimes and crimes against humanity, his use of genocidal language and the International Criminal Court arrest warrant against him, he should be a global pariah.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2601321
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For Israelis, Acknowledging The Nakba Is A Necessary Step To Peace
Yossi Mekelberg
May 19, 2025
Nations tend to be hesitant, mostly scared, to confront dark periods in their histories. One such dark period in the history of Israel is the war of 1948, which to it is a war of independence but to Palestinians it is the Nakba, or “Catastrophe,” the 77th anniversary of which they commemorated last week.
It can hardly be disputed that this war led to the mass displacement and dispossession of Palestinians: more than 700,000 of them became refugees in neighboring countries; there were many casualties on both sides; many Palestinian communities were destroyed; and Israel expanded its territory far beyond what UN Resolution 181, better known as the Partition Plan, allocated to it in 1947.
Why is it, then, that Israel will not acknowledge its part in causing the Nakba?
There is no single answer to this question, and the ones we have range from the psychological to the practical. Neither type of response from Israel can ever be satisfying, as they all deny justice and make a reconciliation of the two peoples impossible.
For the victims of the Nakba, the denial of their victimhood adds insult to injury. Psychologically, for Israelis to accept and internalize the fact that their soldiers were capable of inflicting unbearable pain on others, some of which was planned and not merely an aberration on the part of individuals, is almost unbearable in itself.
It is an even greater challenge for a people who, for centuries, suffered tremendous persecution themselves to accept that they, too, are capable of committing atrocities against others.
In practical terms, acknowledgment of even some responsibility for the Nakba is something that terrifies Israelis because it might imply an obligation of restitution, and especially of recognizing the universal right of return for Palestinian refugees to the places in which they resided before the war.
There might be a grain of truth to this but what is particularly shocking, especially considering Jewish history, is that so many Israelis are incapable of understanding the power of simply saying “sorry,” or of showing empathy so as to open the door to forgiveness.
Moreover, in the minds of most Israelis, admission of any responsibility for the Nakba would equate to acceptance that their country was born in sin, and leave open the question of Israel’s right to exist. There are certainly those who adopt this existential argument against Israel but they hardly represent the majority.
Israel was established based on a UN resolution, which provides it with international legitimacy, and those who question its right to exist undermine the other aspect of the Partition Plan, an independent Palestinian state, and therefore only prolong the conflict and, with it, the bloodshed.
In the same vein, when Israel refuses to consider, or at least obstructs, the path to a two-state solution, it undermines its own legitimacy and only prolongs the consequences of the wrongdoings committed during the Nakba.
Recognition of the suffering of Palestinians is about acknowledging awareness of the fact that there was suffering on both sides, and that by taking responsibility and expressing genuine sorrow the path to reconciliation is made easier.
Instead, despite the wealth of available documentation on the events of the Nakba, written, oral and photographic, Israel adheres to a narrative of its war of independence that exonerates it of any wrongdoing.
Until the 1980s, there was complete denial, even within Israeli academia, that Israel committed atrocities during the war of 1948. These actions included the expulsion of entire communities, in which 15,000 people lost their lives, and the uprooting of two-thirds of the Palestinian population from their homes and their relocation to neighboring countries, in addition to other forms of human rights abuses employed as ways of instilling fear into Palestinians to encourage them to leave.
By now, there is enough reliable evidence from official Israeli sources, including army archives and accounts from soldiers who participated in the war, of the official plans to drive Palestinians from their homes and out of the country.
Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, and the military establishment had two objectives in mind: to expand the new country’s territory beyond what was allocated to it under the Partition Plan and to change the demographic balance between Jews and Palestinians in the territory Israel would end up controlling.
For the nascent Israeli state, both these objectives were accomplished. It extended its sovereignty from the 55 percent of Mandatory Palestine allocated under the Partition Plan to 78 percent by the end of the 1948 war, with more than 700,000 being expelled. But this came at a horrendous price to many ordinary Palestinians as a result of the Nakba.
If Israelis were to realize and internalize their fundamental part in the suffering of Palestinians, they would be taking an important step toward finding a just solution to the conflict and a reconciliation between their peoples.
This would also entail recognition of the fact that the suffering of those who were dispossessed did not end 77 years ago, but has endured as an ongoing condition of statelessness; many still live in refugee camps, suffering from discrimination and, on more than one occasion, have been caught up in the internal strife of host countries.
The 1948 Palestinian refugees have grown to a population 5.9 million, comprising the surviving original refugees but mostly their descendants, who are registered with UNRWA, let alone those living under Israeli occupation — and in the case of those in Gaza, currently enduring a living hell.
Israelis might fear that acceptance even of partial responsibility for the Nakba would back them into a corner. On the other hand, they might find that it creates goodwill among most Palestinians. For too long, Israel has not only deprived Palestinians of their rights but of their history too. It has banned the rebuilding of devastated communities, it has changed place names from their original Arabic to Hebrew and it will not have an honest conversation about what happened in 1948.
Not everything can be rectified with the passage of time. And in the midst of the worst war between Israelis and Palestinians since 1948, recognition of the Nakba as part of a healing process seems a very remote possibility, given that so many fresh wounds, including the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza, are raw.
But this just makes the need to talk about the 1948 Nakba even more important, because a second Nakba is unfolding before our eyes, proving we have learned very little from the long history of this conflict.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2601316
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Cheer Up, People Of Gaza! You’ll Get Killed On A Full Stomach
Ahmed Al-Najjar
19 May 2025
I was always told as a child that breakfast is the most important meal. It gives you the energy to keep going the whole day. And so, in my family, we would regularly eat a scrumptious breakfast.
That was in the past, of course. For weeks now, we have had hardly anything to eat. I myself have been dreaming of having a slice of cheese and a warm loaf of bread dipped in thyme and oil.
Instead, I start yet another day of genocide with a cup of tea and a tasteless, nearly expired “not-for-sale WFP fortified biscuit”, which I bought for $1.50.
I have been following the news recently and have started to feel that my wish for something other than a World Food Programme (WFP) biscuit may soon be fulfilled.
Apparently, the United States has grown tired of hearing Palestinians in Gaza say they are starving. So now, it has decided to end the hunger, or at least the annoying complaints about it.
And so, with unshakeable confidence and pride in its own ingenuity, the US government has announced a new mechanism for delivering food to Gaza. The “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation”, an extraordinary name now added to our genocide vocabulary of NGOs and charities, is supposedly set to restart food distribution by the end of May and hand out “300 million meals”. Israel, for its part, has volunteered to secure the “humanitarian” process, while maintaining its killing activities.
While this new feeding “mechanism” is being set up, the Israeli government, “under US pressure”, announced that it will let in “a basic quantity of food” in order to prevent “the development of a hunger crisis”, international media reported. The resumption will reportedly last only a week.
Here in Gaza, where the hunger crisis is already “well-developed”, we are hardly surprised by these announcements. We are well used to Israel – with foreign backing – turning on and off the “food button” as it pleases.
For years, we have been kept in a 365-square-kilometre prison, where our Israeli jailers control our food, rationing it so that we can never go too far beyond the level of survival. Long before this genocide, they openly declared to the world that they were keeping us on a diet, our calories carefully counted to ensure we did not die but just suffer. This was not a fleeting penalty; it was an official government policy.
Anyone driven by basic humanity who dared challenge the blockade from the outside was attacked, even killed.
Some say we should have been grateful that trucks were being allowed to enter at all. True, they were. But just as often, they weren’t, especially when we, the prisoners, were deemed to have misbehaved.
Countless times, I would find my neighbourhood bakery shut down because there was no cooking gas, or I would fail to find my favourite cheese because our jailers had decided it was a “dual-use” item and could not enter Gaza.
We were good at growing our own food, but we could not do much of that either because much of our fertile soil was near the prison fence, and hence out of reach. We loved fishing, but that too was closely monitored and restricted. Venture beyond the shore and you would get shot.
All of this humiliating, calculated blockade was taking place well before October 7, 2023.
After that day, the amount of food allowed into Gaza was drastically reduced. In the days that followed, I felt the shackles of the Israeli blockade on Gaza more tangible than ever, even though I had lived under it since I was born. For the first time, I found myself struggling to secure something as basic as bread. I remember thinking: surely the world will not allow this to last.
And yet here we are, 19 months later, 590 days in, the struggle has only gotten worse.
On March 2, Israel banned all food and other aid from entering Gaza. The situation since then has grown from bad to worse, leaving us nostalgic for previous phases of the crisis, when the suffering felt slightly more bearable.
A few weeks ago, for example, we could still have some tomatoes alongside our canned beans that rotted our stomachs. But now, vegetable vendors are nowhere to be found.
Bakeries have also closed, and flour has all but disappeared, leaving me wishing to re-experience the slight disgust at the sight of worms squirming through infested flour because it would mean my mother could make bread again. Now, finding non-expired fava beans is all I could realistically wish for.
I recognise that others still have it much worse than I do. For parents of young children, the struggle to find food is an agony.
Take my barber, for example. When I last went to him for a haircut two weeks ago, he looked exhausted.
“Can you imagine? I haven’t eaten bread in weeks. Whatever flour I manage to buy every few days, I save for my children. I eat just enough to survive, not to feel full. I just don’t understand why the world treats them like this. If we are not worthy of life in their eyes, then at least have mercy on our hungry children. It’s OK if they want to starve us — but not our children,” he told me.
This may seem like a cruel sacrifice, but it is what parenting has become here after 19 months of nonstop Israeli killing. Parents are consumed by fear, not just for their children’s safety, but for the possibility that their children might be bombed while hungry. This is the nightmare of every household and every tent-hold in Gaza.
In the few barely functioning hospitals, the landscape of famine is even more harrowing. Babies and children looking like skeletons lie on hospital beds; malnourished mothers sit by them.
It has become normal to see daily images of emaciated Palestinian children. We may ourselves be struggling to find food, but seeing them leaves our hearts shattered. We want to help. We think maybe a can of peas might make a difference. But what can peas do for an infant suffering from marasmus, for a child who looks like a fragile shell of skin and bones?
Meanwhile, the world sits in silence, watching Israel block aid and deliver bombs and asking questions in disbelief.
On May 7, the Israeli army bombed al-Wehda Street, one of the busiest in Gaza City. One missile hit an intersection full of street vendors, another – a functioning restaurant. At least 33 Palestinians were killed.
Images of a table with slices of pizza soaked in the blood of one of the victims appeared online. The scene of pizza in Gaza captivated world attention; the bloodbath did not. The world demanded answers: how can you be in a famine when you can order pizza?
Yes, there are vendors and restaurants amid genocidal famine. Vendors that sell a kilogramme of flour for $25 and a can of beans for $3. A restaurant where the smallest and most expensive pizza slice in the world is served — a piece of bad-quality dough, cheese, and the blood of those who craved it.
To this world, we are required to explain the presence of pizza in order to convince we are worthy of food. To this world, the outline of an abstract US plan to feed us sounds reasonable, all while tonnes of life-saving aid wait at the border crossings to be allowed in and distributed by already fully functional aid agencies.
We in Gaza have seen PR exercises masked as “humanitarian action” before. We remember the airdrops that were killing more people than they were feeding. We remember the $230m pier that barely got 500 truckfuls of aid into Gaza from the sea: a feat that could have been accomplished in half a day via an open land crossing.
We in Gaza are hungry, but we are no fools. We know that Israel can only starve and genocide us because the US allows it to. We know that stopping the genocide is not among Washington’s concerns. We know that we are hostages not just of Israel, but also of the US.
What haunts us isn’t just famine; it is also the fear of outsiders arriving under the guise of aid, only to start laying the foundations of colonisation. Even if the US plan is enforced and even if we are allowed to eat before Israel’s next bombing, I know my people will not be broken by the weaponisation of food.
Israel, the US, and the world should understand that we will not trade land for calories. We will liberate our homeland, even on an empty stomach.
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2025/5/19/cheer-up-people-of-gaza-youll-get-killed-on-a-full-stomach
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The Role Of Israeli Universities In The Killing And Torture Of Palestinians
May 19, 2025
Amidst the uproar of news pouring in about the genocide in Gaza, the news of the martyrdom of Shaima and her family in the Nuseirat area of the Gaza Strip passes as if nothing happened, as if she were just a number added to a list of numbers.
Shaima Akram Saidam achieved a 99.6% average in the 2023 general secondary school examination, which earned her the title of top student in the literary branch at the level of Palestine. After that, she enrolled in the Islamic University, majoring in English.
Who killed her? With what weapon? Where did the killer’s Zionist identity and ideology take shape? And with what justification? Perhaps these are questions that lead us to a place many overlook: Israeli universities, where the minds of the occupation army are honed. It is the place where many security and military apparatuses that monitor, kill, and torture Palestinians are developed. It is also the place where weapons, propaganda, and the justification for destruction are manufactured.
In fact, Israeli universities and research centers are one of the most important pillars of the Zionist movement and the Jewish state.
These academic institutions build Zionist identity and propaganda, contribute to weapons manufacturing, and work to institutionalize Israeli policies, entrenching apartheid, Israeli aggression, and violations of Palestinian rights through academic frameworks, research papers, and discussions among experts to find the most effective means to solidify the occupation, entrench settlements, marginalize and refute Palestinian identity, and train units of the army and intelligence in various specialties.
These Israeli institutions not only practice discrimination, oppression, and repression against Palestinians, but also against any individual, even if Jewish, who defends Palestinian rights and freedoms.
In light of these and other facts, the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) was established in 2004, with the aim of calling for a boycott of Israeli academic and cultural institutions due to their central role in the oppression and violation of Palestinian rights and freedoms.
The newly published book “Towers of Ivory and Steel: How Israeli Universities Deny Palestinian Freedom” by Maya Wind is a distinguished and important contribution in this context, aiming to prove the involvement of Israeli universities as a foundation and a major driving force behind violations of Palestinian rights and freedoms, and even considering the policies of Israeli universities as part of a system that entrenches Israel’s racist and settler policies.
The book centers around the question: “Are Israeli universities complicit in the violation of Palestinian rights?” (Page 16). She seeks to answer this question by revealing how Israeli universities are deeply intertwined with Israeli systems of oppression.
The researcher distinguishes herself in this context, as she states, by being a white Jewish Israeli citizen, which allowed her easy access to the archives and military libraries of the Israeli government. Thus, she was able to read official documents, memos, and political reports, as well as unpublished studies such as master’s theses and doctoral dissertations approved by Israeli universities. In addition to conducting interviews with Palestinian and Jewish students and academics working in Israeli universities.
The book consists of two parts, each with three chapters, in addition to an introduction, a conclusion, and a closing remark by Professor Robin D.G. Kelley.
Nadia Abu El-Haj from Columbia University introduces the book and reminds the reader that Israel is a settler-colonial nation-state founded on the expulsion of nearly 750,000 Palestinians from their land. It is a state built on organized ethnic cleansing. Therefore, Israel should not be described as a democratic state (Page 6).
Rather, the structure upon which the State of Israel was and continues to be built is a racist structure based on the denial and exclusion of non-Jews. For this reason, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International – in addition to the Israeli human rights organizations B’Tselem and Yesh Din – declared in 2021 and 2022 that Israel is an apartheid state.
In her introduction to the book, Nadia Abu El-Haj emphasizes that there is no “democratic Israel” that can be separated from the Palestinian issue. Israel is a settler-colonial state. Its founding commitments and actions, its deep-rooted Zionist political vision, and the workings of its institutions and even its liberal and non-liberal political parties alike, are racist and anti-democratic to the core.
This foundational racist and exclusionary structure of Israel explains the silence of the vast majority of Israeli academics, and even university administrations and presidents, where there is no institutional defense of academic freedom when it comes to Palestine.
The author Maya Wind reiterates these ideas in the book’s introduction, pointing out that university campuses throughout the territories under Israeli rule are not safe places for Palestinian students. These universities are not independent but rather an extension of the violence of the Israeli state and its repressive institutions. The writer emphasizes that the Israeli apartheid regime cannot be fully dismantled without recognizing it as a settler-colonial system.
Therefore, academic boycott is considered the fundamental step towards ending this colonialism. As this book illustrates, all eight Israeli universities operate directly in the service of the state and perform vital functions in supporting its policies, thereby constituting fundamental pillars of Israeli settler-colonialism.
The University in Service of the Israeli Government
For example, Israeli universities collaborate with Israeli weapons companies to research and develop technology used by the Israeli army and security services in the occupied Palestinian territories. This technology is later sold abroad as field-tested or “battle-proven.”
The author began the first part of the book, “Complicity”, by discussing “Expertise of Subjugation”, how Israeli academic disciplines developed to serve the Israeli government and the security state, and how they continue to provide material support for state projects. The author states that leading departments and professors in Israeli universities, across various disciplines, are intellectually and theoretically subject to the requirements of the Israeli state, as evidenced by the focus on three disciplines.
The first discipline: Archaeology. All Israeli universities conduct excavations at archaeological sites managed by Jewish settler organizations or regional settler councils. This academic discipline focuses on erasing Arab and Islamic history and is dedicated to expanding Jewish settlements and confiscating Palestinian lands.
For example, Israeli universities conduct excavations in Susya in the southern West Bank, thereby directly seizing these Palestinian areas.
Israeli archaeology also emerged ostensibly as an academic discipline to affirm a continuous ancient Jewish presence in Palestine. At the same time, archaeological research was used to erase any Palestinian and Arab claims or evidence of presence on this same land.
The author also mentions that these excavations constitute a direct violation of international laws and conventions. Despite this, Israeli archaeologists and universities continue to participate in excavation work throughout the Palestinian territories under the protection of the Israeli army. Thus, archaeology structurally facilitates Israel’s theft of Palestinian antiquities and lands and facilitates their ongoing illegal seizure.
The second discipline: Legal Studies. The author clarifies that Israel considers the occupied Palestinian territory its laboratory. Due to its illegal rule over the Palestinian people through military occupation for decades, it has developed a set of laws and legal interpretations to justify its permanent military regime.
Israel has established the legal infrastructure to justify extrajudicial killings, torture, and the deployment of what is considered disproportionate force against civilian populations, which amounts to war crimes. Maya Wind states that legal studies and the ethical philosophy upon which they are built were created to justify violations of Palestinian rights and freedoms.
The third discipline: Middle Eastern Studies. The researcher shows that with the establishment of Israel’s military government in the occupied Palestinian territories in 1967, opportunities for academic cooperation with the state were renewed. For example, Hebrew University professors Menachem Milson, Amnon Cohen, Moshe Sharon, and Moshe Maoz served as advisors on Arab affairs to the Israeli army and government (page. 48).
Milson also held the position of the first head of the Civil Administration, the Israeli military administration in the occupied Palestinian territories, and oversaw the forced closure of Birzeit University starting in 1981. Cohen, Sharon, and Maoz served with the rank of colonel and worked with the army throughout their academic careers.
Similarly, Middle Eastern Studies departments offer academic programs in regional expertise for active-duty soldiers in elite military units and courses specifically designed for security agencies. The Hebrew University offered a bachelor’s program in Middle Eastern Studies for the General Security Service (Shin Bet) as part of its staff training.
Thus, Israeli disciplines in the humanities and social sciences were mobilized to support Israeli settler-colonialism. Archaeology, legal studies, and Middle Eastern studies developed concurrently with and through the Israeli military occupation.
The author then moved on to study a number of Israeli universities, considering that “Universities: Settlement Outposts” were founded and designed to serve as strategic settlement outposts for the Israeli state project. The Hebrew University in occupied East Jerusalem; the University of Haifa in the Galilee; Ben-Gurion University in the Nagab; Ariel University in the West Bank: all these institutions constitute fundamental engines for “Judaization” projects in their respective areas.
The author states, for example, that in the period leading up to and during the 1948 war, students, faculty, and administrators at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem actively supported the Haganah military organization and treated the campus as a base, conducting military training and even storing weapons in university buildings.
The author also argues that for more than a century, Israeli universities have consistently worked to expand and entrench the borders of the Jewish state, the “Jewish sovereignty” over all historical Palestine.
These universities continue to actively and intensively play a central role in expanding settlement outposts on Palestinian lands, and their libraries are repositories of looted Palestinian books, as is the case with the Hebrew University library, which contains many Arabic books stolen from Palestinians.
The researcher moved on to the concept of “the scholarly security state,” showing how the development of Israeli universities was linked to the rise of Israeli military industries. These universities were designed as state-building institutions and were then mobilized to support Israel’s apparatuses of violence shortly after their establishment.
After the establishment of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 1918, the Zionist movement founded two additional institutions of higher education in Palestine: the Technion Institute in Haifa in 1925 and the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot in 1934.
The Hebrew University was the Zionist movement’s first comprehensive university dedicated to research and teaching across disciplines; the Technion was designed to be a center for engineering; while the Weizmann Institute was committed to scientific research for state-building (page 88).
The researcher shows how Israeli universities and research centers serve as an academic arm of the Israeli security state. Institutes and universities serve the state through research and policy recommendations that aim not only to maintain Israeli military rule but also to undermine the Palestinian rights movement on the international stage.
For example, the daily work of soldiers in the Israeli Military Intelligence violates Palestinian human rights, as stipulated in international law and the Geneva Conventions. Many soldiers who graduated from specially designed graduate programs at the Hebrew University serve in Unit 8200, the largest and most central unit of Military Intelligence.
Unit 8200 is the army’s central collection unit, responsible for gathering all intelligence communications, including phone calls, text messages, and emails. The author concludes the chapter by emphasizing that far from striving to become civilian institutions, Israeli universities continue to expand their operations not only as military training bases but also as weapons laboratories for the state.
The second part of the book, titled “Repression,” begins with the author addressing the idea of “epistemic occupation” and explaining how Israeli universities systematically prevent critical academic research, teaching, and discussion of Israeli settler-colonialism, military occupation, and apartheid.
The author mentions the expanding list of topics prohibited in Israeli universities with the increasing influence and political power of the extreme right over the past two decades. Recently, any criticism of the army or Israeli soldiers has become taboo in Israeli universities.
For example, Maya Wind explains that the University of Haifa has two deep-rooted traditions in Israeli academia: erasing the production of Palestinian academic knowledge and undermining evidence-based research that reveals the crimes of the Israeli state (page 119).
Israeli universities have allied with far-right groups and the Israeli government to restrict and monitor research and discourse related to the Nakba, for example. By extension, critical study of Israeli occupation, apartheid, and settler-colonialism is described as prohibited.
Consequently, fundamental critical discussions have been excluded from Israeli academia, as Israeli universities define research and discussion about the historical and ongoing violence of the Israeli state as “illegitimate.” Thus, they deprive faculty and students not only of academic freedom but also of the opportunity to discuss and intervene in current and future injustices.
The author then moves on to the topic of the siege imposed on Palestinian students and revealed the restrictions imposed on the rights of Palestinian students to study, express themselves, and protest in Israeli universities.
She reveals how university administrations constantly restrict the presence of Palestinian students on their campuses and how they cooperate with the Israeli government to deprive Palestinian students, especially active students, of basic academic freedoms. The author asserts that since enrolling in Israeli higher education, Palestinian students have been subjected to criminalization, surveillance, and targeting by their universities in collusion with the state.
Academic freedom in Israeli higher education does not apply to Palestinian students. University administrations have long shown themselves to be subordinate to the state, cooperating with it to protect it from criticism and accountability for its military occupation and apartheid regime. The government imposes increasing censorship on any discussion of the Nakba and the radical injustice practiced by the State of Israel, whether against Palestinians under military rule in the occupied Palestinian territories or those it considers its citizens.
In the end, the author clarifies the academic complicity with the state against Palestinians, and that there is currently no movement in Israeli universities calling for severing ties with the Israeli army and the Israeli security state due to their repeated violations of the inalienable Palestinian right to education and other human rights.
Even progressive organizations working in Israeli universities – such as “the Joint Democratic Initiative” or “Academia for Equality,” which includes Jewish Israeli and Palestinian (citizen) faculty and students – largely fail to meet the demands of Palestinian universities. These activist groups have so far refused to endorse Palestinian calls for holding Israeli universities accountable for their complicity in Israel’s violations of international law.
Israel considers Palestinians armed with education who challenge the apartheid regime without hesitation a threat. Therefore, Palestinian students are subjected to disciplinary hearings, interrogations, and arrests in Israeli universities, in addition to kidnappings, torture, military arrests, and even killings in Palestinian universities. Israeli universities are fundamental pillars of this system.
They not only conduct research, train, and collaborate with Israeli security forces that maintain the military occupation, but also work alongside the Israeli government to suppress Palestinian students in their universities.
Ultimately, Israeli universities have played a direct role in the Israeli state’s suppression of Palestinian student movements for liberation – and in depriving Palestinians of academic freedom – for more than seventy-five years.
In the book’s conclusion, the author emphasizes that Israel established and built Israeli higher education institutions on Palestinian land and designed these institutions to be tools for Jewish settlement expansion and the displacement of Palestinians, founded on the approach of land-grab universities.
Israeli universities not only actively participate in the Israeli state’s violence against Palestinians but also contribute their resources, research, and scholarships to maintain, defend, and justify this oppression. In the end, the author calls for a boycott of Israeli universities and insists that there is no academic freedom until it is applied to all.
In his concluding remarks, Professor Robin D.G. Kelley of the University of California affirms that the aim of the boycott is to end the occupation, dismantle the apartheid regime, respect the rights of Palestinian refugees as stipulated by the United Nations, expand civil rights to include everyone, end military arrests, repeated incursions and surveillance of Palestinian institutions, and the deliberate disruption of the educational process.
The Israeli apartheid regime would not have lasted without the massive financial support, political legitimacy, and legal protection provided by the United States. The annual military funding of $3.8 billion (and Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. military aid in history) contributes to funding ongoing state violence, repression, and inequality without the slightest accountability (Page 189).
Thus, Professor Kelley mentions that the Israeli apartheid regime could not have persisted without liberal silence in America. He perfectly utters that “The truth is, there will never be genuine academic freedom in the region without a free Palestine, and there cannot be a free Palestine so long as universities are under occupation or remain bastions of Zionism and settler colonialism.
And as long as the majority of Israeli intellectuals remain silent or fail to grasp that their own freedom is bound up with the freedom of Palestine, we will continue to boycott Israeli institutions. Silence = Complicity” (page 192).
This book is superb, a very informative and well-argued, a detailed historical documentation of the complicity of all Israeli universities and research centers, without exception, in the Israeli apartheid system. Indeed, they are one of the most important arms of the state in justifying its policies that violate international standards and international laws.
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/the-role-of-israeli-universities-in-the-killing-and-torture-of-palestinians/
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Palestinians In The West Bank Still Have Time To Prevent A Second Nakba
By Yisrael Medad
May 20, 2025
You may think you know what Nakba means. But do you? Do you know the meaning it was really originally intended to convey?
Did those who gathered at Tel Aviv University’s Entin Square last week, when several dozen Arab and left-wing Israeli students held a Nakba memorial ceremony, know?
The term “nakba” was first used politically by the Syrian, Constantin Zureiq. A Greek Orthodox Christian, he saw Arab society as stagnant and lacking the fundamental tool of rational thought.
His view was that Arab civilization was in a crisis and that the “Arab personality” had changed, leading to a weakened people suffering from cultural backwardness. Interestingly enough, another pillar of Arab nationalism, George Antonius, author of The Arab Awakening, was an Eastern Orthodox Christian.
In August 1948, Zureiq’s Meaning of the Disaster appeared, in which he employed the term “nakba.” It criticized the Arab states that declared war on Zionism.
He himself was a counselor to the Syrian Legation of the United States in 1945 and acted as a Syrian delegate to the United Nations in 1946, and so, not only was he an engaged intellectual but also an on-the-spot witness to Arab anti-Zionist maneuvers and statements.
Even though the tide of the war was only just altering in Israel’s favor over the summer, and its publication date was still very early in Israel’s eventual victory, the realization that the Arabs had made, yet again, another bad choice was apparent to Zureiq.
He viewed the aggressive Arab states as being “impotent” and that they had “turn[ed] on their heels” before Zionism. Moreover, he was perturbed that “dispersion has become the lot of the Arabs rather than of the Jews.”
The making of the Nakba
Nakba, thus, was an internal failure factor of the Arabs, a disaster of their own making, an implosion. Zureiq was not as critical of the situation that had evolved as of the built-in weakness of the Arabs and their inability to properly deal with the diplomatic and military situations they got themselves involved in.
But, in line with their cultural tendency of claiming victimization and of having a lack of self-agency, by never taking responsibility for their actions, the idea of Nakba became rather what the Jews and Zionists did to them and not what they did to themselves.
In 1947, the leaders of the local Arabs residing in the region designated by the League of Nations for the reconstituted Jewish homeland – following the 1922 partition that created Transjordan – rejected a third partition plan proposed by the United Nations. The second partition plan had previously been offered in 1937 by the Peel Commission.
By November 30, 1947, Arabs were shooting at Jewish vehicles on the roads. They then ignored several UN Security Council calls for a cessation of hostilities.
By war’s end, the full magnitude of the Arabs’ error was such a political, diplomatic, military, and social debacle that – as Jonathan Sacerdoti has put it – they had to make their Nakba a sacred humiliation out of a theological reading of history.
Alternative perspective on the Nakba
History itself can be read as theological. Jews do it. However, we Jews usually blame ourselves, foremost, anyway, for our failures, usually through our sinning. The Nakba, however, is read not as an Arab failure but is assigned to the Jews and/or Zionists, as well as to conspiracy theories.
What results from such a paradigm is that losers never feel they need to correct themselves, as the blame is not on them but on someone else. When the 1967 war erupted, triggered by PLO cross-border terror attacks on Israeli civilians following the 1940-1956 period of the Fedayeen attacks, once again, Nakba memories were revived.
This time, though, with the voting power leverage at the United Nations of Arab-Muslim states, it became enshrined as an intersectional instrument of the ultimate ‘it’s-not-our-fault’ apology. From there, it moved into university classrooms.
Essentially, those marking Nakba Day do so as if all the conflict, suffering, displacements, injuries, and deaths have nothing to do with the actions and decisions of the Arabs, but rather that the responsibility rests solely with the Zionists.
This is a corruption of the historical record, perverted mainly by an ideological framework based on the spurious claim of Zionism being a “settler-colonialism.”
The peoples who came out of the Arabian Peninsula in the 7th century, charged up with a new religion, conquered, occupied, and suppressed the lands and peoples of the Near East, North Africa, Southern Europe, and beyond.
They also colonized the land of Judea, and while foreign occupiers came and went, among them the Romans, Muslims, Crusaders, and Ottomans, the Jewish people, along with their Jewish character and identity, remained. The idea of a historic Jewish homeland persisted.
In the 20th century, the unwillingness of local Arabs to accept this reality led them to make irrational and self-defeating decisions. This led to the first Nakba.
Since 1993 and the Oslo Accords, they have not learned to alter their faults. They are aware of a possible repeat of history but seem determined to re-trigger it.
“Can Palestinians Escape the ‘Diplomatic Bermuda Triangle’ Trapping Them in Helplessness?” was the headline of a column by Jack Khoury in Haaretz on May 18. They are not helpless.
The chosen policy of the Arabs of the Palestine Mandate and of contemporary times has been wrong, self-defeating, and – in adopting anti-Jewish terror – immoral. Yet, they continue to persist in their error. Nakba I was one result. The destruction of much of Gaza is another.
The Palestinians of the West Bank still can alter course and prevent Nakba II. They can accept and recognize the reality of a Jewish national identity, halt incitement, and desist from terror.
It is possible no matter how improbable. Their future will be better, so very better. And so will the future of the Jews.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-854567
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Squandering Its Success In Lebanon: Israel’s Insistence On Holding Territory
By Dan Perry
May 20, 2025
In wars, as in politics, timing is everything. Victory often comes not with a parade, but with a quiet opportunity – a chance to consolidate gains, close the chapter, and pivot to long-term strategic advantage. History is replete with examples of nations that failed to recognize this moment. Today, Israel risks joining their ranks.
Since the October 7, 2023, massacre by Hamas, Israel’s stated objectives in Gaza have been clear: dismantle Hamas, recover hostages, and secure the country from future attacks. And while Hamas has not been fully eliminated, Israel has dealt it a crushing blow.
Most of the group’s battalions have been dismantled. Much of its tunnel network has been destroyed. The Israeli military operates at will in most of Gaza, and the group’s leaders are in hiding.
Had Israel paused and pivoted months ago – after weakening Hamas and securing a partial hostage deal – it could have built on this military success to pursue a historic regional opportunity. A normalization agreement with Saudi Arabia was within reach.
Reports suggest that Riyadh was ready to condition recognition on an end to the war and the resumption of talks on Palestinian statehood, something that would have been transformative both diplomatically and for Israel’s global standing.
Israel might also have begun the gradual process of reintroducing the Palestinian Authority to govern Gaza. Israeli critics of the PA often lump it together with Hamas, but this is a false equivalence. The PA is flawed, but it is a recognized international entity that cooperates with Israel on security and aspires to coexistence.
A year ago, with US backing and Arab incentives, Israel could have paved the way for a post-Hamas Gaza administered by the PA. Instead, by insisting on total victory and refusing to articulate a viable postwar vision, Israel now finds itself trapped in a war with no clear exit.
But the clearest and most alarming case of Israel failing to “take the win” is unfolding not in Gaza, but in Lebanon.
Political breakthrough in Lebanon
For about a year after October 7, Hezbollah had launched near-daily attacks across Israel’s northern border. But Israel’s massive counteroffensive of last summer and fall decimated the group, took out the bulk of its rocket threat, and reshaped the deterrence equation, enabling Lebanon to begin reasserting its sovereignty.
The result has been a political breakthrough: Lebanon’s parliament, after years of paralysis, elected a president. The new head of state, former army commander Joseph Aoun, is a centrist figure with strong ties to the West. The prime minister has stated unequivocally that the government is committed to the full implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, including the disarmament of Hezbollah and the deployment of the Lebanese army in the south.
These are monumental developments. For the first time in years, the Lebanese state is asserting itself against the dominance of Hezbollah. And yet, Israel’s response has been strangely self-defeating.
Despite agreeing to a ceasefire, Israel is holding on to five small points of territory inside Lebanon – positions that have little military significance but sufficient symbolic value to cause damage. This decision is undermining Lebanon’s fragile political progress and handing Hezbollah a gift-wrapped propaganda victory.
I recently shared a panel in London on the future of the Middle East at the Young Presidents’ Organization’s Geopolitics Summit, with Lebanon’s Ambassador to the UK, Rami Mortada, who was personally involved in drafting Resolution 1701 and remains deeply engaged in efforts to stabilize the border. Speaking on the sidelines, he voiced the frustration many in Lebanon’s new leadership feel.
“Israel’s insistence on holding on to occupation of Lebanese territories and striking throughout Lebanese territory makes no sense whatsoever,” he told me. “We are all watching in confusion and despair. We finally have a president and a government who have clearly stated that they are committed to transitioning toward state a monopoly of the use of force, and have fully deployed the Lebanese army south of the Litani River, where it became the sole guarantor of security. Israel’s actions achieve nothing beyond strengthening the opposite narrative.
“This is causing trouble for the government because the situation is delicate. We cannot understand why they won’t simply respect the terms of the ceasefire concluded last November and allow for the state to assert itself and for internal dynamics to unfold. This is a win for regional security no one should overlook or undermine.”
That question – why can’t they take the win? – echoes not just from Lebanon but from anyone who sees a moment of opportunity slipping away.
Making better political choices
History offers many cautionary tales. After defeating France in 1940, Hitler could have consolidated his dominance in Europe. Instead, he overreached in Britain and Russia, triggering his own downfall.
In 1967, Israel stunned the world with its Six Day War victory – but rather than seeking peace, it entrenched an occupation that continues to haunt it. In Vietnam, the US had weakened the Viet Cong by 1968 but escalated anyway, losing public support and the war.
Today, Israel has military superiority and international backing. But its leadership is behaving as if it were 2006 again – pursuing maximalist goals, ignoring regional shifts, and dismissing the delicate balance that allows moderate Arab governments to work with it.
Hezbollah thrives on the perception that only it can defend Lebanon from Israeli aggression. When Israel disregards ceasefires and clings to slivers of land, it validates this claim. It weakens the very government now committed to disarming Hezbollah; perhaps the best chance in years to achieve what Israel has long demanded.
The alternative path is clear: Israel should immediately withdraw from the disputed Lebanese positions and support international guarantees for a strengthened Lebanese army presence in the south. It should work with the US, France, and Arab partners to build a framework for stability that includes Hezbollah’s disarmament over time.
In Gaza, it should pivot to a political process that includes the PA and Arab support for reconstruction – without illusions, but with strategy.
War, like politics, is not just about what you destroy, but what you build after. Israel has the rare chance to secure its borders, integrate regionally, and shift the dynamics with both Palestinians and Arab states. But first, it must recognize that the moment has come to stop, recalibrate – and for God’s sake, know when to fold ’em and take a win.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-854545
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Gaza Faces Catastrophic Famine
By Dr. Abdulmajed Al-Aloul
May 19, 2025
The Gaza Strip is currently experiencing one of the worst humanitarian crises of modern times. The tragedy of hunger has reached unbearable levels, and the cries of those in need go unheard. While the occupying state enjoys abundant food supplies and the world lives in comfort, children in Gaza are dying of hunger. Most of the population is facing severe shortages of food and water amid a total blockade lasting over two months, with a complete loss of security and shelter.
Hunger in Gaza: A crisis long in the making
Even before the war broke out in October 2023, the Gaza Strip was already suffering under the weight of blockade, unemployment, and poverty. According to a United Nations analysis, more than 68 per cent of households in Gaza experienced varying degrees of food insecurity, relying heavily on food assistance. By the end of 2022, the overall poverty rate had reached approximately 61 per cent, while unemployment stood at 45 per cent.
In contrast, the occupying state enjoys sufficient food resources and high food safety, supported by domestic production and diverse imports, with virtually no hunger rates reported. Globally, the average hunger rate was below 9.2 per cent, and in Arab countries, it did not exceed 14 per cent. This places Gaza’s pre-war hunger levels among the highest in the world.
The crisis is largely a result of the blockade imposed by the occupying power since 2007, which banned numerous items classified as “dual use,” including fertilizers, animal feed, and agricultural supplies. Although Israel controls the border crossings, essential food items—such as flour, vegetables, and dairy products were allowed only in limited quantities. As a result, the people of Gaza received only what was minimally available under strict import restrictions.
Targeting Food Sources: A Warning of Imminent Catastrophe
With the outbreak of war in October 2023, Gaza witnessed a devastating collapse of its agricultural, livestock, and fisheries sectors. A UN analysis of satellite imagery revealed that 75 per cent of agricultural land, 11,293 out of 15,053 hectares, was burned or destroyed. Livestock losses exceeded 96 per cent of all animals and poultry. More than three-quarters of Gaza’s olive and fruit orchards were also obliterated.
This massive destruction effectively wiped-out local food production, which had previously met 40 per cent of Gaza’s food demand. That production is now nearly nonexistent. Water and irrigation infrastructure were also severely damaged; wells ceased functioning and energy systems collapsed due to fuel shortages. The agricultural sector is now on the brink of total collapse, with people sifting through the ruins in the darkness in search of any fertilizers or seeds.
Beyond this, the occupying forces deliberately targeted 37 food aid distribution centers, 26 community kitchens providing hot meals, and multiple humanitarian aid trucks carrying food supplies. These attacks came in addition to repeated full closures of the crossings during the war, with the current closure being the longest, now exceeding two months.
In addition to direct destruction, the war forced the shutdown of bakeries and food warehouses. By the end of March 2025, the World Food Programme (WFP) announced that all its supported bakeries had ceased operations due to the lack of gas and flour. Food prices skyrocketed, with flour prices reaching 500 per cent to 700 per cent above pre-war levels. Meanwhile, thousands of food aid trucks remain stuck at the borders, denied entry into Gaza.
An Unprecedented Famine: Claiming Lives
The Gaza Strip is on the verge of a full-scale famine catastrophe. Humanitarian workers report that no areas in Gaza remain food-secure, describing the situation as reaching Phase 4 (Famine Emergency) or even Phase 5 (Famine Catastrophe). A formal declaration of famine is expected imminently, especially after the World Food Programme (WFP) announced the complete depletion of its food stocks in Gaza as of April 25, 2025. Food prices soared to record levels, increasing by 400 per cent to 2,612 per cent, with the price of a single loaf of bread rising 15 times above its pre-siege rate. Livelihoods collapsed entirely. As a result of the worsening hunger and lack of access to baby formula, 57 hunger-related deaths, 53 of them children have been documented by the health sector. Severe malnutrition is widespread among children, pregnant and lactating women, the elderly, and people with disabilities. On 4 May, 2025, the Government Media Office in Gaza reported that over 3,500 children under the age of five are at imminent risk of death due to starvation. Additionally, 1.1 million children are deprived of the minimum daily food needed for survival, and over 70,000 children have been hospitalised with acute malnutrition. If left unaddressed, the human toll from this famine could surpass that of the crises in Somalia, Yemen, and South Sudan.
Starvation Is Not a Weapon or a Tool of War
International norms clearly prohibit the use of starvation as a method of warfare or as a means to achieve military objectives. It is classified as a war crime and a crime against humanity. The Fourth Geneva Convention explicitly forbids states from “using hunger as a weapon” or as a form of punishment. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has affirmed in its indictments that intentionally starving civilians by depriving them of essential means of survival is prosecutable under war crimes. International law further states that “inflicting suffering on civilians through the denial of food” constitutes a grave international offense.
In practice, multiple bodies are working to hold the perpetrators accountable. The ICC has opened an investigation and issued arrest warrants for the Israeli prime minister and former minister of defence for their involvement in war crimes, including “denial of food to civilians.” The UN has also established a commission of inquiry and appointed an international fact-finding mission to monitor violations in Gaza, with the crime of “starvation of civilians” prominently featured in their human rights reports. Despite these measures, the occupying power continues to use starvation as a weapon of war, emboldened by the United States’ repeated use of its veto power at the UN Security Council, which effectively shields and encourages continued violations against civilians.
Practical steps to save Gaza from famine
International pressure and advocacy: Coordinated international pressure is urgently needed to issue binding resolutions that ensure the immediate opening of border crossings and the implementation of measures to protect civilians. The UN Human Rights Council must continue to follow up on the crisis and intensify investigations. The UN General Assembly should activate the UN Charter to formally recognize the starvation of civilians as a crime against humanity. The International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) must accelerate their legal proceedings. International organizations, particularly the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the Arab League, must adopt strong positions to hold the occupying power and its leaders accountable in international forums. Additionally, increased pressure from civil society and the global public is essential to compel decision-makers to confront this human tragedy.
Emergency measures within Gaza: Immediate action is required to repair and operate water wells and desalination plants using available solar panels. Bakeries must be restored, and attention should be given to seasonal and household farming, including around displacement tents, to support food self-sufficiency. The remaining fuel should be allocated to operate bakeries and prepare meals. Food distribution must be coordinated more effectively to ensure fairness, curb monopolistic practices, and reduce inflation. Purchasing systems based on digital platforms and foreign currency exchanges should be encouraged to facilitate food access without excessive transaction costs.
External preparations for border reopening: Efforts must be made to stockpile non-perishable food items and develop solutions for preserving perishable goods through canning and drying. Emergency agricultural kits should be prepared including seeds, tools, fertilizers, and livestock feed—to support immediate resumption of food production once the borders reopen. Immediate logistical plans must also be developed to deliver thousands of containers carrying food supplies, power generation systems, and spare parts for water extraction, purification, and delivery infrastructure.
Preliminary plan to end hunger: In alignment with the global Sustainable Development Goal to end hunger, a post-emergency recovery plan must be developed. This plan should focus on seed distribution, land rehabilitation, restoration of agricultural facilities, reconstruction of greenhouses, excavation of irrigation channels, repair of wells, and provision of fertilizers and farming equipment. It should also prioritize the regeneration of lost livestock and the establishment of agricultural incubators to reclaim farmland, rebuild livestock resources, and support both existing and new farmers.
The crisis in Gaza is not a temporary conflict, it is a real test of the global moral conscience. Every day without a solution means more suffering and the loss of innocent lives. As UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini stated: “Humanity in Gaza is going through its darkest hour.” Time is not on the side of the victims. The world must act now before it is too late.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20250519-gaza-faces-catastrophic-famine/
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I'm Starving In Gaza. It's Like Being On Death Row Except There's No 'Last Meal' At The End
19 May, 2025
The sights and smells of famine linger once more over the Gaza Strip. The World Food Programme (WFP) has announced it has run out of food to distribute in Gaza, leaving two million people starving. Bakeries have been shut for over a month. The pangs of hunger rumble across our bellies; the situation bleaker than ever.
The border crossing has been closed since March 2. For over two months, no humanitarian aid, food, or commercial supplies have entered Gaza — the longest that Gaza has ever faced.
Gaza's food system has entirely collapsed. Seventy-five percent of Gaza's food crop has been damaged by Israel. What little food that is available is often priced far beyond the reach of most families, many of whom are displaced, unemployed, or in perpetual mourning.
Today, a bag of flour costs $415. One kilogramme of rice costs $14 while one kilogramme of sugar costs $25. Most vegetables cost between $6 and $8, and other vegetables like potatoes cost $11. Most, however, can't even afford to buy one potato, let alone a kilo.
Yesterday's decision by the Israeli authorities to allow a "basic" amount of food into Gaza to help prevent "famine" is, as usual, based on saving their skin instead of any consideration for Gazans themselves. Clearly, the rift between Trump and Netanyahu is real enough for Israel to send overtures to their overlords to give them the green light to exterminate. The leaked map plan of Israel's designs for Gaza is just passing proof of this.
Meanwhile, on the ground itself, malnutrition is rapidly becoming the norm. Cases of severe acute malnutrition have been recorded, signalling the approach of famine. For most in Gaza, survival has become a desperate battle against hunger and hopelessness.
Every morning we struggle to light a fire using wood, with some burning what's left of their homes and their furniture to keep warm or prepare a cup of tea for breakfast, accompanied by a spoonful a zaatar — one of our final reminders of our life before the genocide. With food so scarce, children and young people stand in long lines to collect some water, then walk around aimlessly in search of firewood.
Our main meal, if we can afford it, is usually eaten at night and consists of simple foodstuffs, things that I'm sure you all have stocked in abundance in your kitchen: rice, pasta, soup, or canned goods. In Gaza, this is luxury. Most days, we survive on drinking water.
We crave to smell the scent of freshly baked bread from bakeries and the smell of grilled meats wafting over from restaurants. We crave to eat eggs and drink fresh juices, sweets, and candy. We think of these things all day, every day. Sometimes, when we're hungry, we look back at our photo albums on our phones to see what we used to eat before the genocide started. We crave the taste of life itself.
The people of Gaza can barely stand on their own two feet, literally. We feel dizzy all the time and cannot focus. Despite the famine, we do our jobs. Doctors treat patients. Journalists tell Gaza's story. Recently a Palestinian man died of hunger while searching for food for his children. It's our responsibility to tell this. It's The New Arab's to make sure this news reaches the world.
Gaza doesn't count calories, it counts casualties
The famine unfolding in Gaza is exacting a devastating toll on the most vulnerable: children and postpartum mothers. Newborns, who depend on proper nourishment in their earliest days, face the highest risks.
With food supplies critically low, many mothers are unable to produce enough breast milk, leaving their infants dangerously exposed to malnutrition and disease. In this dire context, even something as basic as a bottle of milk has become a matter of life or death.
The crisis doesn’t spare the mothers either. Already weakened by childbirth, they are being pushed to the brink by hunger, unable to heal or care for their babies. This catastrophic food shortage is not only threatening lives today; it’s casting a long shadow over Gaza’s future, jeopardising the health and survival of an entire generation.
"Israel is inflicting a man-made and politically motivated famine in Gaza as its total siege nears its eighth week," said UNRWA. And yet the international community has done nothing.
Political disputes, security concerns, and logistical bottlenecks have delayed aid delivery. Attempts to open humanitarian corridors have proven criminally insufficient. 3000 trucks of food and medicine are waiting at the border, but Israel has blocked them all.
What is unfolding in Gaza is not simply a food shortage; it's famine driven by genocide, politics, and neglect. To date, the number of Gazans who've starved to death is 57, most of them children. It's a battle every hour of the day to stay alive.
Previously, before the temporary "ceasefire" in January, starvation had been limited to North Gaza. Now it stretches from north to south. Israel is doing this to exterminate all traces of Palestinian life.
On May 7, the Israeli occupation carried out a massacre in Gaza City’s Al-Rimal neighbourhood. An airstrike hit Al-Tilandi Restaurant, killing at least 30 people and injuring over 150. Among the dead was journalist Yahya Sobeih, who had celebrated his newborn daughter’s birthday just hours earlier. That same day, another strike hit the bustling Palmyra intersection, targeting a crowded market.
Since the beginning of this war, at least 221 journalists have been killed. The toll on civilians is immeasurable. The dead weren’t just statistics, they were parents and children, neighbours and workers, all struggling to survive starvation.
A father, a mother, and their son were killed while simply walking home. A young boy trying to support his family by selling coffee was among the victims. He used to pass through our neighbourhood every day, carrying a thermos and offering warm cups to those who could afford them. Now, only the bloodstains remain.
A worker at Al-Tilandi recounted a haunting moment before the strike. Two young women were ordering pizza. One hesitated at the price, and the other said, “It’s okay, even if it’s expensive. Let’s fulfil our dreams before we die.” One of them didn’t survive. A photo later circulated online: the pizza, stained with blood, lay next to a pair of elegant eyeglasses. Only one slice was missing. “I hope she ate it,” the worker said. “I hope her dream came true before she died.”
May 7 was a day of horror, a day that turned a restaurant into a graveyard, a coffee cart into a coffin, and a simple meal into a final wish. These moments, so ordinary, so human, were shattered in an instant. In Gaza, even the smallest attempts at normalcy are marked for destruction. The occupation has made clear that no place is safe, not even a table set with pizza, not even a child's thermos of coffee.
Israel is using starvation against the people of Gaza as a weapon of war. I wonder how many will die before the world wakes up? How many pizzas will be stained with blood? Or will the grumbling bellies of Gaza fall silent, finally relieved of their hunger as they embrace death?
https://www.newarab.com/opinion/starving-gaza-death-row-except-theres-no-last-meal
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URL: https://www.newageislam.com/middle-east-press/pariah-nakba-killing-torture-famine/d/135586
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