Israel and Palestine

Israel Defeated As A Million Palestinians Return to Northern Gaza From Exile in the South

28.1.25

In my latest long read about Israel and Palestine, I celebrate, unreservedly, the triumph of the Palestinians over unimaginable adversity, as, via the terms of the ceasefire deal agreed on January 15, a million civilians began a “Great March of Return” from the south, where they had been exiled for up to 15 months, to their shattered homes in the north. This return, ending the four-month long “Generals’ Plan” for the erasure of northern Gaza, along with the withdrawal of Israeli soldiers from the Netzarim Corridor, which separates the north from the south, confirms the failure of Israel’s military aims, beyond its depraved determination to kill as many civilians as possible, demonstrating how every “war” — even one I describe as a “one-sided aerial pogrom lasting 15 months” — ends either with compromise, or with conquest and surrender, and with the compromises of the ceasefire deal clearly signalling the way forward, now that Israel’s seemingly endless genocidal fury has run its course. As Hamas officials once more begin to administer life in the Strip, I examine how the only way forward now is for Israel to drop its insistence that Hamas “can play no role” in Gaza’s post-war future, to recognize it as the administrative government, and to allow negotiations to proceed towards granting independence for Gaza via elections in which the Palestinian people themselves can decide who they want to represent them.

Gaza Hostage Exchanges: The 90 Freed Palestinian Women and Children Ignored by the Western Media

23.1.25

My analysis of the hostage releases that took place as part of the Gaza ceasefire deal on Sunday, when three young Israeli hostages were freed, in exchange for 90 Palestinian women and children. Predictably, the western media focused almost exclusively on the Israelis, reinforcing the notion, entrenched over the last 15 months, that Palestinian lives have no value to western politicians and the mainstream media. In fact, almost all of those released had never been charged with a crime, and many had only been seized and “disappeared” into Israel’s extensive prison network of brutal and fundamentally lawless prisons for Palestinians because of social media posts or taking part in protests, making them, in quite a fundamental manner, hostages as well. The west’s indifference not only fails to credit Palestinian women and children with stories worth recounting; it also fails to examine or hold Israel to account for a truly repulsive prison system in which over 10,000 Palestinians are currently held, many without charge or trial, and many others under “administrative detention”, which can be endlessly renewed every six months without any trial ever taking place. I also reiterate my hope that, because the hostage releases are phased over the next three months at least, Netanyahu cannot seriously contemplate resuming the genocide in Gaza that many still want, especially as the devastation in Gaza becomes ever more apparent, and, hopefully, as international bodies are allowed in to to assist with the enormous humanitarian requirements of the surviving population, and to begin the plans for its reconstruction.

No Return to Genocide As the Gaza Ceasefire Begins and the Extent of Israel’s Policy of Extermination Is Revealed

21.1.25

As the ceasefire in Gaza enters its third day, I report on what must be the almost unimaginable relief of Palestinians now that the relentless fear of sudden death has come to an end, but how they now face the new challenges of finding out whether or not their homes have survived, and searching for the remains of their loved ones, buried in the rubble or shot in the streets. While I hope that the release of hostages in stages over the next 18 weeks means that Israel cannot resume its deadly violence, I also note the vital return of humanitarian aid, but point out how it also needs to be accompanied by foreign support in rebuilding Gaza’s destroyed hospitals and healthcare system, and the almost unthinkable task of reconstruction in general — not just for its own sake, but also as another crucial obstacle to any attempts by Israel to think that it can resume the policies of extermination that it has been inflicting on Gaza for the last 15 months.

Dare We Hope That the Gaza Ceasefire Deal Will End the Horror of Israel’s Extermination of the Palestinian People?

17.1.25

My report about the ceasefire deal for Gaza, which was announced on January 15, and which will begin to be implemented on Sunday (January 19), the day before Donald Trump’s inauguration. I examine how Trump, via his envoy Steve Witkoff, seems to have played a central role, to fulfil his intention of starting his presidency as the “hero” who stopped the war and secured the release of Israeli hostages, the first of whom will be freed as his presidency begins. This would seem to unmistakably show up President Biden and Antony Blinken for their own failures to have ever stood up to Netanyahu, especially as the ceasefire deal is almost identical to one that could — and should — have been implemented eight long months ago. While I have no hopes that Trump, surrounded by rabidly enthusiastic supporters of Israel, will bring peace to the Palestinians, with the most likely scenario being that violence will be ramped up in the West Bank, I’m unwilling to declare that the ceasefire will be broken by Netanyahu after the first of its three phases, as some are discussing, because Hamas has only agreed to free hostages over all three phases of the deal, and the release of hostages is so important within Israel itself that any backsliding could be politically fatal. I also hope that the ceasefire will last because international organizations and observers will have to be allowed into Gaza in significant numbers, and, in addition, because of a creeping war fatigue in the Israeli military, exacerbated by the pursuit of soldiers in courts around the world, following on from the ripples of accountability created by the issuing of arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant in November.

Plumbing the Depths of Human Depravity: 450 Days of Extermination in Gaza

29.12.24

My latest long read, marking 450 days of Israel’s genocidal assault on the Gaza Strip, in which I review the horrors of the last 15 months, bringing the story up to date with the recent abduction of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, who has since disappeared into Israel’s prisons for Palestinians, where 50 prisoners have been killed since October 7, 2023, including three doctors. I also analyze the grotesque lies peddled by Israel throughout this time, dismissing 75 years of its systematic oppression of the Palestinian people, analyze in depth the deficiencies in its claims to be “targeting Hamas”, and note how, despite no one being able to stop Israel, a noose is tightening around Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister Yoav Gallant, via the repercussions from the ICC’s recent arrest warrant for both men for war crimes and crimes against humanity, as well as various other opinions and reports concluding that Israel is engaged in a genocide in Gaza.

Podcast: I Discuss the Shameful State of the World, and Resistance and Hope in 2025 with Andy Bungay for Riverside Radio

22.12.24

My latest interview with Andy Bungay, recorded for his Riverside Radio show in London as part on an ongoing series of monthly interviews, and made available here as a stand-alone podcast. In a freewheeling 80-minute discussion, we focused on some of the many profoundly dispiriting events dominating our lives as 2024 draws to a close — the imminent return as the US president of Donald Trump, the ongoing genocidal carnage being inflicted by Israel on the trapped Palestinian civilian population of the Gaza Strip, and the growing menace of catastrophic climate change. All are thoroughly depressing topics, of course, but our conversation was threaded through with resistance and hope, based on my assessment that societal tipping points may arrive unexpectedly when we are failed so persistently by our leaders, whichever political party they represent, as is very clearly the case right now.

Is Hope Still Alive on the Anniversaries of the Genocide and Torture Conventions, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?

10.12.24

My analysis of the significance of December 9 and 10, as the dates when the Genocide Convention and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights were adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1948. December 10 also marks the 40th anniversary of the adoption of the UN Convention Against Torture, and December 9 the 10th anniversary of publication of the executive summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s groundbreaking report about the CIA’s post-9/11 torture program. In a world of increasing chaos and depravity, in which it can appear that the mechanisms put in place after the Second World War no longer have any meaning, I argue that, in fact, efforts to prosecute individuals for genocide, and for war crimes and crimes against humanity, initially by UN-backed courts, and, since 2002, by the International Criminal Court, shouldn’t be dismissed, as demonstrated by the recent arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant. I also celebrate the importance of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, particularly on generations of young people, assess the significance of the Senate torture report, and note how both the US and Israel remain in the spotlight for the torture and abuse in their prisons — at Guantánamo, and in Israel’s prisons for Palestinians. I also note how the sands of time can shift swiftly, as has just happened in Syria, where Bashar al-Assad has fallen, and his almost indescribably monstrous prisons have suddenly been liberated.

A Welcome Ceasefire in Lebanon, But No End to Gaza’s Genocidal Agony

29.11.24

My report about the welcome ceasefire in Lebanon, hopefully bringing to an end Israel’s campaign of terror, which began two months ago with its pager attacks, and its assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, and which has continued with tactics drawn from its 14-month assault on Gaza — devastating attacks on residential areas in Beirut and elsewhere, attacks on hospitals and ambulances, using false claims of Hezbollah involvement, and the forced evacuation and complete destruction of villages in the south. Sadly, as I note, the ceasefire has had absolutely no impact on Israel’s ongoing genocidal assault on Gaza, where, predictably, the non-stop atrocities of the last 14 months have continued, despite the arrest warrants issued last week by the International Criminal Court for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. Instead, just today, it has been reported that Avi Dichter, Israel’s minister for food security and a member of the Israeli security cabinet, has said that the Israeli military will “remain in Gaza for years”, even though he had no suggestions for how the almost entirely displaced population of over two million people, reduced to the barest subsistence-level survival, would be provided for, made no mention of reconstruction plans, and had nothing to offer regarding Gaza’s future governance, except for an insistence that Hamas would have no role in it.

Israel’s Collective Genocidal Sickness, the West’s Complicity, and the Messianic Colonialism Behind It All

26.11.24

In my latest article about Israel’s seemingly unending assault on the Gaza Strip and its people, I focus on what, to me, has always been the most disturbing aspect of Israel’s actions, and of the west’s largely unquestioning support — the widespread desire for the complete extermination of the Palestinian people. The trigger for my article was a video posted by the Israeli anti-genocide activist B.M., of the mother of a young woman killed on October 7, claiming, at a Knesset meeting, that there are “no uninvolved” in Gaza, and stating that “all of them have blood on their hands, all of them are guilty, and all of them need to be annihilated.” I examine how psychically disturbed it is to argue that 2.3 million people deserve to be killed for the death of one person, but note how widespread this sentiment is in Israel as a whole, and I identify its origins in the multi-generational entrenchment of persistent fear in the mentality of European settler-colonial projects, of which Israel is, fundamentally, the last in a long and bloody history of settler-colonial horrors, with added messianic fanaticism and a violently self-pitying obsession with portraying itself as history’s only victim. I also ask how the western powers who have fully supported Israel since last October can continue to do so when the supposed ally to whom they consistently pledge “ironclad” support is so extraordinarily genocidal, obsessed with the extermination of an entire people in a way that not even the US was in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, and I try to untangle the mix of Holocaust guilt, manipulation by prominent pro-Israeli individuals and organizations, and the baleful resuscitation of western settler-colonial history that underpins it all.

An Extraordinary Day for International Justice: ICC Issues Arrest Warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant for War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity

21.11.24

My report about the extraordinarily welcome news that the International Criminal Court (ICC) has today issued arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, for war crimes and crimes against humanity. For the last 14 months, blow after blow has rained down on international accountability, and the very foundations of, and viability of international humanitarian law, as shown by Israel’s impunity in launching a process of extermination in northern Gaza nearly two months ago, after a year of non-stop genocidal assaults on the whole of the Gaza Strip, in the ever-growing archive of compelling, but largely ignored reports by UN experts, and, just yesterday, by the US’s veto of a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire. Today’s announcement, however, finally restores the credibility of mechanisms designed to ensure that no political leaders can get away with claiming that the rules don’t apply to them, and that they can endlessly indulge in war crimes and crimes against humanity against a trapped, besieged and starved civilian population that they have been persistently trying to exterminate. As Israel and the US, predictably, rail against the issuing of the arrest warrants, the rest of the west’s leaders, who have fully supported Israel, and the mainstream media who have done the same, ought to be quaking with fear today, as they recognize, I hope, that, as I describe it, “all their efforts to pretend that Israel, uniquely in history, has been entitled to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity with complete impunity, have, all along, been legally indefensible.”

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Andy Worthington

Investigative journalist, author, campaigner, commentator and public speaker. Recognized as an authority on Guantánamo and the “war on terror.” Co-founder, Close Guantánamo and We Stand With Shaker, singer/songwriter (The Four Fathers).
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