Week in Review

Please read, share, do the action alerts and register for our upcoming webinar, Fragile Crossings: Pathways, Barriers, and Cost of Pediatric Medical Evacuations from Gaza. We believe it is critical to stay informed, especially when Israel is engaged in illegal wars, committing multiple war crimes in Gaza and Lebanon, (and Iran) and when suppression and resistance are rising in the US. We understand this is a lot of information, but there is A LOT going on which is not being covered in much of the media. Use this knowledge to forge your activism!

Another really terrible-for-reproductive-autonomy decision made by the less than Supreme Court.

Short video on abduction to two flotilla activists being held illegal by Israeli authorities.

Soaked in Blood: Powerful documentary on the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and the murder of young men seeking food by the Israeli military.

The New School’s suspension of funding for its Hillel chapter, following findings by the Undergraduate Student Senate (USS) committee that Hillel had activities linked to violations of international law by Israel’s genocidal armed forces, is a welcome change.

I had no idea:

The USS committee report states in part:

“The clearest and most direct evidence of material ties between Hillel at The New School and foreign military activity is the Hillel on Base (HOB) program, described on Hillel at Baruch’s official website as follows: ‘HOB (Hillel on Base) is a 7-day trip to Israel with all your best friends! Volunteer on an IDF (Israeli Defense Force) base in Southern Israel, wear IDF uniform, give back to the community on base, and explore Israel!’ It is further described as ‘a 10-day trip to Israel volunteering on an IDF (Israeli Defense Force) base. It is a once in a lifetime opportunity to help support Israel during this time…You will… be on an IDF base in IDF uniform and alongside soldiers”…

Excellent webinar which clearly describes Palantir and its foray into health care: Briefing launch: The risks of Palantir in the NHS.

My friend, Iyad Burnat, activist and organizer from Bil’in, sent me the following message. The village of Bil’in has been engaged in a long struggle against the Israeli apartheid wall built on the land of the village. Please support this effort.

A ROVING REAL ESTATE expo for land sales in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories held an event at a New York synagogue, drawing a rebuke from Mayor Zohran Mamdani over the potential for land sales that violate international law.

The Great Israeli Real Estate Event — a showcase that advertises its services in helping people in the United States, Canada, and the U.K. purchase land in Israel and the West Bank — hosted the event at Park East Synagogue in Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

Israel has used access to water as a weapon against Gazans, systematically depriving people of water in a campaign of collective punishment, according to a new report released by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). Israeli authorities’ repeated weaponization of water is part of a recurrent, systematic, and cumulative pattern. “Palestinians have been injured and killed simply trying to access water. …This deprivation, combined with dire living conditions, extreme overcrowding, and a collapsed health system, create a perfect storm for the spread of diseases.”

Humanity & Inclusion UK warned that Gaza’s amputation crisis will continue to worsen as Israel continues to restrict medical supplies. WHO estimates that between 5-6,000 people have had amputations since the 10/10/2025 ceasefire, yet only 9 prosthetists are operating in Gaza. Israel has blocked Humanity & Inclusion UK from bringing humanitarian supplies and prosthetics into Gaza since 02/2025.

An estimated 1.1 million children in Gaza now need mental health and psychosocial support, as a growing number lose their ability to speak due to trauma and injuries from Israeli attacks.

Palestinian families in Gaza are living in overcrowded tents and makeshift shelters, surrounded by waste and debris, with limited access to safe water and sanitation services. Among the widespread and severe environmental health hazards that result from the conditions, the United Nations reported this month, is a proliferation of rodents as well as cockroaches, flies, and other pests, contributing to disease transmission. In a rapid assessment of more than 1,600 displacement sites across Gaza this month, the UN found that, in over 80% of them, rodents and pests were frequently visible, affecting 1.45 million people. Practically all of the affected families reported skin infections, including scabies, lice and bedbugs, with more than 70,000 cases recorded so far in 2026.

As of 12/2025, OCHA documented 925 movement obstacles that permanently or intermittently restrict the movement of 3.4 million Palestinians across the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. This is 43% more than the annual average of 647 movement obstacles in the preceding 20 years. The rising restrictions on movement are crushing all levels of society from economics to agriculture to education to healthcare.

In recent months, IOF soldiers have arrested dozens of West Bank Palestinians – many blindfolded, beaten and then released without explanation.

Israeli military published a map showing a newly-established “Yellow Line” line inside Lebanon where its troops were deployed. The map named more than 50 southern villages to which residents should not return. The deployment line runs 5-10 km deep along the border into Lebanon. Israel also ordered residents to stay away from the area of the Litani River. Lebanon is the new Gaza. The army’s plan, dubbed “Operation Silver Plow,” reportedly assigns units quotas for homes destroyed, with contractors paid per building destroyed. They must report “how many homes [they] destroyed” each day, a soldier said. There’s no logic to this.” “The only mission is to continue the destruction,” one officer said. Another added: “It isn’t terrorist infrastructure; we’re destroying everything.” Jewish settler groups like Uri Tzafon are eager to build in southern Lebanon.‍

Physicians for Human Rights–Israel petitioned Israel’s High Court to release 14 detained Gaza doctors, arguing they are being held without charge while they are urgently needed in Gaza where the medical system is collapsing.

In a sign of the massive change sweeping US politics, Jewish liberal Zionist advocacy group J Street has declared its support for phasing out direct U.S. military aid to Israel. The shift is a huge one for a mainstream, avowedly pro-Israel group with close ties to the Democratic Party, and a further sign that ending military aid has become the consensus position in the Democratic electorate.

British Foreign Office closed the unit tracking breaches of international humanitarian law by Israel in Gaza and Lebanon, citing budget cuts. The shutdown ends funding for the Conflict and Security Monitoring Project, run by the Centre for Information Resilience, which operated the world’s largest open-source monitoring system for human rights incidents across Israel, Palestine, and Lebanon. The closure means the Foreign Office will lose access to a database of 26,000 verified incidents in the Middle East.

Since 92NY canceled Viet Thanh Nguyen’s event in October 2023 over his support for Palestine, many writers and artists of conscience have withdrawn from scheduled events and refused invitations to appear on the stages of 92NY’s Center for Culture and Arts.

These artists did not allow their names to be used to launder the Center’s reputation, and others should follow their example and seek out alternative venues across New York City that host poets, novelists, journalists, musicians, actors, and dancers.

This stage and venue are tainted by 92NY’s actions throughout the genocide — like canceling its entire literary season over a single writer’s opposition to the genocide in Gaza, firing employees for wearing and displaying symbols with support for Palestine, or hosting events with Israeli politicians and military officials and other public figures who justify the genocide, dehumanize Palestinians, and call for war on Iran and Lebanon.

92NY’s Center for Culture and Arts calendar has featured an extraordinary number of war criminals, genocide apologists, corrupt billionaires, police commissioners, and right-wing pundits promoting US aggression abroad.

Law professor Kimberlé Crenshaw on her new memoir, Backtalk and the latest (less than) Supreme Court decision gutting the Voting Rights Act - smart talk about “the need for us to talk back, the need for us to use some of the tools, the concepts like critical race theory and intersectionality...”

“So if anything, we have to hope that this moment is a wake-up call. There’s no pivoting our way out of it. There’s no “unsaying the thing that needs to be said” way out of it. The only thing we have right now is to fight our way out of it. Hopefully the bell has been rung.”