Israel-Gaza war
Subterms
More stories
- in US Politics
US judge blocks deportation of Palestinian activist detained by Ice
A judge has blocked the deportation of the prominent Palestinian activist who helped lead Columbia University’s protests against Israel over the war in Gaza. Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate student at Columbia University until this past December who holds permanent US residency, is being detained by US immigration authorities at a facility in Louisiana after his arrest, according to information from officials.A spokesperson for the US’s homeland security department – as well as the country’s top diplomat – confirmed the arrest. In a statement to the Associated Press, a homeland security department spokesperson, Tricia McLaughlin, said Khalil’s arrest was made to support Donald Trump’s presidential orders “prohibiting antisemitism”.The department alleged that Khalil’s activism constituted “activities aligned to Hamas”.Trump’s secretary of state, Marco Rubio, also confirmed the arrest, adding on X: “We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported.”Jesse M Furman, an Obama-appointed judge in New York’s southern district, announced the block in an order on Monday amid protests over Khalil’s arrest.Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries called on the department of homeland security on Monday evening to “produce facts and evidence of criminal activity”.“Absent evidence of a crime, such as providing material support for a terrorist organization, the actions undertaken by the Trump administration are wildly inconsistent with the United States constitution,” Jeffries’ statement read.Khalil served as lead negotiator for the Gaza solidarity encampment at Columbia University last spring. On Monday, an online tracker administered by the US’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) indicated he was at the LaSalle detention center near the central Louisiana community of Jena. The facility is operated by the private contractor GEO Group.According to Zeteo, which first reported on the arrest, Khalil’s attorneys did not immediately know where he was being detained. The same tracker showing Khalil in custody in Louisiana on Monday indicated on Sunday that he was at an immigration detention center in New Jersey.But when Khalil’s wife, a US citizen who is eight months pregnant, attempted to visit him at the New Jersey center, she was reportedly told he was not there.Khalil was detained by Ice agents despite having a green card and therefore being a permanent US resident. Khalil’s attorney said Ice agents hung up the phone during the detention when she asked if they had a warrant.“The Trump administration’s outrageous detention of Mahmoud is designed to instill terror in students speaking out for Palestinian freedom and immigrant communities,” said Jewish Voice for Peace in a statement on the arrest. “This is the fascist playbook. We all must fiercely reject it, and universities must start protecting its students.”Trump has vowed to target foreign students for deportations as well as “agitators” involved in protests on US college and university campuses. The second Trump administration has made a specific focus of Columbia University, recently announcing the cancellation of $400m in grants over claims the school isn’t doing enough to combat antisemitism.A Zionist activist group, Betar USA, claimed credit for releasing Khalil’s name to the Trump administration, praising his detention. The Anti-Defamation League has listed the group as a hate group – the only Jewish group on the list.“This blatantly unconstitutional act sends a deplorable message that freedom of speech is no longer protected in America,” Murad Awawdeh, president and chief executive of New York Immigration Coalition, said in a statement on Sunday afternoon.“Furthermore, Khalil and all people living in the United States are afforded due process.“A green card can only be revoked by an immigration judge, showing once again that the Trump administration is willing to ignore the law in order to instill fear and further its racist agenda. DHS must immediately release Khalil.”Abené Clayton contributed to this report More
- in US Politics
Trump calls arrest of Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil ‘first of many to come’
Donald Trump said on Monday that the arrest of a prominent Palestinian activist who helped lead Columbia University’s pro-Palestinian protests last year, was the “first arrest of many to come”.“We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump Administration will not tolerate it,” the US president wrote in a post on Truth Social.He added: “Many are not students, they are paid agitators. We will find, apprehend, and deport these terrorist sympathizers from our country – never to return again. If you support terrorism, including the slaughtering of innocent men, women, and children, your presence is contrary to our national and foreign policy interests, and you are not welcome here. We expect every one of America’s Colleges and Universities to comply.”The White House amplified Trump’s comments in a post on X reading “Shalom, Mahmoud”, using a Hebrew word for goodbye.Trump’s remarks come as over the weekend federal immigration authorities arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a permanent US resident with a green card who is a recent Columbia graduate, and took him into custody, reportedly acting on a state department order to revoke his green card.In his statement on Monday, Trump said that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) took Khalil into custody after his executive order and claimed, without evidence, that similar activists on college campuses are paid agitators, not students.Khalil, who grew up in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria, served as a lead negotiator for the Gaza solidarity encampment at Columbia University last year, mediating between protesters and university administrators.Khalil’s attorney said this weekend that the arrest took place on Saturday night, when Khalil was in his university-owned apartment building, just a few blocks from Columbia’s main campus in New York. Several Ice agents entered the building and took him into custody.According to emails obtained by Zeteo, Khalil appealed in an email to Columbia for protection one day before Ice entered his apartment, telling the university’s interim president that he was being subjected to a “dehumanizing doxxing campaign” led by Columbia affiliates.“I haven’t been able to sleep, fearing that Ice or a dangerous individual might come to my home,” he wrote to Katrina Armstrong on 7 March, according to Zeteo. “I urgently need legal support, and I urge you to intervene and provide the necessary protections to prevent further harm.”In a letter posted online Monday, Armstrong said that “rumors suggesting that any member of Columbia leadership requested the presence of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents on or near campus are false”.At first, it was reported that Khalil was taken to an immigration detention facility in New Jersey, but his wife said she could not locate him there.As of Monday morning, it appeared that he was now listed as being in Ice custody at La Salle detention facility in Louisiana.Free speech organizations, first amendment advocates and some New York City leaders expressed outrage in response to the unprecedented arrest and ongoing detainment of Khalil, calling it unconstitutional, “an egregious violation of the first amendment” and a “frightening weaponization of immigration law”.On Monday, a judge set a hearing for Wednesday in Manhattan federal court to consider Khalil’s challenge to his detention. More
- in US Politics
Ice arrests Palestinian activist who helped lead Columbia protests, lawyer says
A prominent Palestinian activist who helped lead Columbia University’s student encampment movement was arrested on Saturday night by federal immigration authorities who claimed they were acting on a state department order to revoke his green card, according to his attorney.Mahmoud Khalil was at his university-owned apartment, blocks from the private Ivy League university’s main campus in New York when several Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents entered the building and took him into custody, his attorney, Amy Greer, told the Associated Press.One of the agents told Greer by phone that they were executing a state department order to revoke Khalil’s student visa. Informed by the attorney that Khalil, who graduated last December, was in the United States as a permanent resident with a green card, the agent said they were revoking that too, according to the lawyer.The arrest comes as Donald Trump vows to deport foreign students and imprison “agitators” involved in protests against Israel’s war in Gaza.The administration has placed particular scrutiny on Columbia, announcing Friday that it would be cutting $400m in grants and contracts because of what the government describes as the elite school’s failure to squelch antisemitism on campus.The authorities declined to tell Khalil’s wife, who is eight months pregnant, why he was being detained, Greer said. Khalil has since been transferred to an immigration detention facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey.“We have not been able to get any more details about why he is being detained,” Greer told the AP. “This is a clear escalation. The administration is following through on its threats.”A spokesperson for Columbia said law enforcement agents must produce a warrant before entering university property. The spokesperson declined to say if the school had received a warrant for Khalil’s arrest.Messages seeking comment were left with the Department of State, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Ice.Khalil had become one of the most visible faces of the pro-Palestinian movement at Columbia. As students erected tents on campus last spring, Khalil was picked to serve as a negotiator on behalf of students and met frequently with university administrators.When classes resumed in September, he told the Associated Press that the protests would continue: “As long as Columbia continues to invest and to benefit from Israeli apartheid, the students will continue to resist.”An immigration court can revoke a green card but government departments do not have that power.Last week it was reported by Axios that Secretary of State Marco Rubio intends to revoke visas from foreign nationals who are deemed to support Hamas or other terrorist groups, using artificial intelligence (AI) to pick out individuals.Khalil was among several investigated by a newly-created university disciplinary committee – the Office of Institutional Equity – looking into students at the institution who have expressed criticism of Israel, according to records shared with the AP.In recent weeks, the committee has sent notices to dozens of students for activities ranging from sharing social media posts in support of Palestinian people to joining “unauthorized” protests.“I have around 13 allegations against me, most of them are social media posts that I had nothing to do with,” Khalil said last week.After refusing to sign a non-disclosure agreement, Khalil said the university threatened to block him from graduating. But when he appealed the decision through a lawyer, they eventually backed down, Khalil said.“They just want to show Congress and rightwing politicians that they’re doing something, regardless of the stakes for students,” Khalil said. “It’s mainly an office to chill pro-Palestine speech.”Columbia students kick-started the tent encampment protests at their Manhattan campus last spring, with the idea catching on at dozens of campuses across the US. At Columbia and many other colleges, their academic administrations called in the relevant local police department and hundreds of students were arrested.“Targeting a student activist is an affront to the rights of Mahmoud Khalil and his family. This blatantly unconstitutional act sends a deplorable message that freedom of speech is no longer protected in America. Furthermore, Khalil and all people living in the United States are afforded due process. A green card can only be revoked by an immigration judge, showing once again that the Trump administration is willing to ignore the law in order to instill fear and further its racist agenda,” Murad Awawdeh, president and CEO of New York Immigration, Coalition said in a statement on Sunday afternoon.“DHS must immediately release Khalil,” he said. More
- in US Politics
The pink protest at Trump’s speech shows the Democrats aren’t coming to save us
Pretty (pathetic) in pinkHappy International Women’s Day (IWD), everyone! I’ve got some good news and some bad news to mark the occasion.The bad news is that a legally defined sexual predator is leading the most powerful country on earth and we’re seeing a global backlash against women’s rights. “[I]nstead of mainstreaming equal rights, we are seeing the mainstreaming of misogyny,” the UN secretary-general, António Guterres, said in his IWD message.The good news, for those of us in the US at least, is that the Democrats have a plan to deal with all this. Or rather, they have wardrobe concepts of a plan. On Tuesday night, Donald Trump addressed a joint session of Congress at the US Capitol. Some members from the Democratic Women’s Caucus (DWC), including Nancy Pelosi, decided to protest by … wait for it … wearing pink.“Pink is a color of power and protest,” the New Mexico representative Teresa Leger Fernández, chair of the DWC, told Time. “It’s time to rev up the opposition and come at Trump loud and clear.”The pink outfits may have been loud but the message the Democrats were sending was far from clear. They couldn’t even coordinate their colour-coordinating protest: some lawmakers turned up wearing pink while others wore blue and yellow to support Ukraine and others wore black because it was a somber occasion.Still, I’ll give the DWC their due: their embarrassing stunt seems to have garnered at least one – possibly two – fans. One MSNBC columnist, for example, wrote that the “embrace of such a traditionally feminine color [pink] by women with considerable political power makes a stunning example of subversive dressing”.For the most part, however, the general reaction appears to have been that this was yet another stunning example of how spineless and performative the Democrats are. Forget bringing a knife to a gunfight – these people are bringing pink blazers to a fight for democracy. To be fair, there were a few other attempts at protest beyond a pink palette: the Texas representative Al Green heckled the president (and was later censured by some of his colleagues for doing so) and a few Democrats left the room during Trump’s speech. Still, if this is the “opposition”, then we are all doomed.Not to mention: even the pink blazers seemed a little too extreme for certain factions of the Democratic party. House Democratic leadership reportedly urged members not to mount protests and to show restraint during Trump’s address. They also chose the Michigan senator Elissa Slotkin to give the Democratic response to Trump’s speech. While Slotkin tends to be described as a sensible centrist voice by a lot of the media, she’s very Trump-adjacent. Slotkin is one of the Democratic senators who has voted with Trump the most often and, last June, was one of the 42 Democrats to vote with the GOP to sanction the international criminal court (ICC) over its seeking of arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders for destroying Gaza. Human rights advocacy groups have warned that attacking the ICC like this undermines international law and the ability to prosecute or prevent human rights violations across the world. It speaks volumes about the US media and political class that a senator standing against international law can be called a centrist.This whole episode also speaks volumes about the Democrats’ plan for the future: it’s growing increasingly clear that, instead of actually growing a spine and fighting to improve people’s lives, the Democratic party seems to think the smartest thing to do is quietly move to the right and do nothing while the Trump administration implodes. I won’t caution against this strategy myself. Instead, I’ll let Harry Truman do it. Back in 1952, Truman said: “The people don’t want a phony Democrat. If it’s a choice between a genuine Republican, and a Republican in Democratic clothing, the people will choose the genuine article, every time.”Anyway, the upshot of all of this is that the Democrats are not coming to save us. We must save ourselves. That means organizing within our local communities and learning lessons from activists outside our communities. It means being careful not to normalize creeping authoritarianism and it means recognizing the urgency of the moment. The warning signs are flashing red: we need to respond with a hell of a lot more than a pink wardrobe.Make atomic bombings straight again!DEI Derangement Syndrome has reached such a fever-pitch in the US that a picture of the Enola Gay aircraft that dropped an atomic bomb on Japan has been flagged for deletion at the Pentagon. Apparently, it only got the job because it was Gay.Can a clitoris be trained to read braille?The Vagina Museum addressed this very important question on Bluesky.One in eight women killed by men in the UK are over 70A landmark report by the Femicide Census looks at the deaths of 2,000 women killed by men in the UK over the last 15 years and found that the abuse of older women hasn’t had as much attention as it should. “We have to ask why we see the use of sexual and sustained violence against elderly women who are unknown to the much younger men who kill them,” the co-founder of the Femicide Census told the Guardian. “The misogynistic intent in these killings is clear.”Bacterial vaginosis (BV) may be sexually transmitted, research findsWhile this new study is small, its findings are a big deal because BV is super common – affecting up to a third of reproductive-aged women – and has long been considered as a “woman’s issue”. Treating a male partner for it, however, may reduce its recurrence.How astronaut Amanda Nguyen survived rape to fight for other victimsAfter being assaulted at age 22, Nguyen got a hospital bill for $4,863.79 for her rape kit and all the tests and medication that went along with it. She was also informed that it was standard practice for her rape kit to be destroyed after six months. “The statute of limitations is 15 years because it recognises that trauma takes time to process,” Nguyen told the Guardian in an interview. “It allows a victim to revisit that justice. But destroying the rape kit after six months prevents a survivor from being able to access vital evidence.” After her traumatic experience, Nguyen successfully fought for the right not to have your rape kit destroyed until the statute of limitations has expired, and the right not to have to pay for it to be carried out.Female doctors outnumber male peers in UK for first timeIt’s a significant milestone in what has traditionally been a male-dominated profession.There’s an Israeli TikTok trend mocking the suffering of Palestinian childrenThis is one of those things that would be front page of the New York Times if it were directed at Israelis but is getting relatively little attention because of how normalized the dehumanization of Palestinians is. It’s also just the latest in a series of social media trends mocking Palestinian suffering.Florida opens criminal investigation into Tate brothers“These guys have themselves publicly admitted to participating in what very much appears to be soliciting, trafficking, preying upon women around the world,” the state attorney general said.The week in pawtriarchyJane Fonda, a committed activist, has always fought the good fight. But she’s also apparently fought wildlife. The actor’s son recently told a Netflix podcast that Fonda once “pushed a bear out of her bedroom”. While that phrase may mean different things to different people, in this instance it was quite literal. Fonda apparently scared off a bear who had entered her grandson’s room and was sniffing the crib. Too bad nobody was there to snap a photo of the escapade – it would have been a real Kodiak moment. More
- in US Politics
Trump administration cancels $400m in funds to Columbia University
The Donald Trump administration announced on Friday that it had canceled $400m in federal grants and contracts to Columbia University in New York because of what it alleges is the college’s repeated failure to protect students from antisemitic harassment.The announcement comes after Columbia set up a new disciplinary committee and initiated its own investigations into students critical of Israel and its war on Gaza after Hamas’s own attack on Israel. That move by the university has alarmed advocates of free speech.It also comes at a time of widespread backlash to American universities by the Trump administration and conservatives more broadly who see the higher education sector in the US as dominated by liberals and ripe for a rightwing attack on its influence.Linda McMahon, the Trump-appointed secretary of education, had warned on Monday that Columbia would lose federal funding if it did not take additional action to combat antisemitism on its campus.A statement issued on Friday by the Department of Justice, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Education, and the US General Services Administration, states: “These cancellations represent the first round of action and additional cancellations are expected to follow.”“For too long, Columbia has abandoned that obligation to Jewish students studying on its campus,” McMahon said in the statement.The statement also refers to ongoing “illegal protests” on college and university campuses, a phrase Trump has used to refer to some student protests, though what makes these illegal remains unclear.Columbia was central to campus protests that broke out across the US over Gaza last spring. Pro-Palestinian demonstrators set up an encampment there in April and inspired a wave of similar protests in many other colleges.The first amendment to the US constitution protects the rights of people to “peacefully assemble” and to petition the government for a “redress of grievances”.The extent that pro-Palestinian demonstrations on campuses can be considered antisemitic is still debated across political and academic spheres. Republican lawmakers viewed the protests as antisemitic, despite the fact many protesters denied the accusations or were Jewish themselves.Trump has threatened college students with imprisonment and deportation on Tuesday on his Truth Social platform, writing: “Agitators will be imprisoned/or permanently sent back to the country from which they came. American students will be permanently expelled or, depending on the crime, arrested.”A Columbia University spokesperson wrote in a statement to the Columbia Spectator, that it was “reviewing the announcement from the federal agencies and [pledged] to work with the federal government to restore Columbia’s federal funding”.“We take Columbia’s legal obligations seriously and understand how serious this announcement is and are committed to combatting antisemitism and ensuring the safety and wellbeing of our students, faculty, and staff,” the spokesperson wrote.It is not immediately clear what contracts or grants would be cut under the directive. Columbia University currently holds more than $5bn in federal grant commitments, the GSA statement said.Katherine Franke, a retired legal scholar and former professor at Columbia Law School told the Guardian how she was “pushed out” of her role in January because of her pro-Palestinian activism. She had been with Columbia for 25 years.Franke says that the university was told “unless we as faculty and students take a pro-Israeli position, it [the university] will be sanctioned. And at the same time, the university is now committing itself to something it’s calling institutional neutrality.”She says that though not all the grants were cut, the Trump administration did “cut a significant part of them, and the important research that’s being done with those grants will stop”.Franke is highly critical of the way Columbia is responding to the threats from Trump, believing the institution could have done more to protect students, faculty and the pivotal role the university plays in a democracy.“If you grovel before a bully, it just emboldens the bully, and the bully has now become an authoritarian government with the capacity to act on a level that was unthinkable for us a couple of years ago,” she said.Columbia is one of five colleges currently under the new federal investigation, and it is one of 10 being visited by a taskforce in response to allegations of antisemitism. Others under investigation include the University of California, Berkeley; the University of Minnesota; Northwestern University; and Portland State University. More
- in US Politics
US holds direct talks with Hamas in break from decades-old precedent
The White House is holding direct talks with Hamas over the return of the Israeli hostages held since 7 October, breaking decades of precedent by engaging with the militant group without intermediaries.Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said on Wednesday that officials had held “ongoing talks and discussions” with Hamas officials, as the Trump administration has vowed to return all of the Israeli hostages held in Gaza amid a shaky ceasefire deal.Leavitt told reporters that Israel had been consulted on the talks and that the US special envoy Adam Boehler “does have the authority to talk to anyone” when “American lives are at stake”.Hamas members confirmed the reports, saying there had been two direct meetings between US officials and Hamas in Doha, the Qatari capital, in recent days.“Several communications took place between Hamas and various American communication channels, the latest being with a US envoy and discussed the issue of Israeli prisoners who hold American citizenship, both the living and the deceased,” a Hamas official told AFP.Israel said it had conveyed its position on direct talks with Hamas, Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said late on Wednesday, offering no further details.“Israel has expressed to the United States its position regarding direct talks with Hamas,” the statement from the prime minister’s office said.“Dialogue and talking to people around the world to do the best interests of the American people is something that the president has proven, is what he believes is good-faith effort to do what’s right for the American people,” Leavitt said.Axios first reported the “secret talks” with Hamas, citing two sources with direct knowledge of meetings held in Doha, Qatar, in recent weeks.The outlet called the talks “unprecedented”, noting that the US had never before engaged with Hamas and that it had declared the group a terrorist organisation in 1997.Fifty-nine hostages are still held by Hamas, though Israeli intelligence believes that only 22 are still alive.Five Americans are believed to still be held by Hamas, one of whom, 21-year-old Edan Alexander, is believed to still be alive.Under the terms of the hostages-for-ceasefire deal, which went into effect on 19 January, Hamas was expected to release hostages weekly in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.After six weeks, Israel and Hamas were expected to enter a second stage of the negotiations, which would make the ceasefire permanent and secure the release of the remaining hostages.But those talks have not progressed and the White House’s decision to engage directly with Hamas appears to be targeted to meet Trump’s goals of securing the release of all hostages held in Gaza.Trump has warned that unless they are released, there will be “hell to pay” in the region, in what appeared to be a threat directed specifically at Hamas.But Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff has also pressured Netanyahu to push forward with the negotiations, and was crucial in convincing the Israeli prime minister to sign the original ceasefire deal that went into effect in January.Boehler is tasked with securing the release of Americans who have been “wrongfully detained” by governments or other groups around the world. But it remains unclear whether he is discussing the release of these hostages as part of a longer-term truce, which would mark a significant increase in his authority and indicate that the US could be going around Israel to negotiate an end to the war.Witkoff, the Trump envoy who negotiated the earlier ceasefire and has now been tasked with negotiations with Russia as well, was set to travel to Doha earlier this week to meet the Qatari prime minister about the ceasefire negotiations but “canceled the trip on Tuesday night after he saw there was no progress from Hamas’ side”, a US official told Axios.Trump has broken with Biden administration strategies for resolving the war in Gaza, giving increasing military backing to Israel and suggesting that millions of Palestinians should be forcibly deported to other countries because the Israeli onslaught has made it unsafe to live there. More
- in US Politics
Trump invites freed Israeli hostage to White House
Freed Israeli hostage Eli Sharabi has been invited to Washington to meet Donald Trump this week, his brother told Israeli media on Sunday.Sharabi, who was released from Gaza after 16 months in captivity, expects to meet Trump with other freed hostages on Tuesday, after the US president watched him describe the severe hunger and violence he endured on Israeli television.Excerpts from Sharabi’s moving interview on Israel’s Channel 12 “were shown to Trump, with English subtitles, and he was shocked once again, but also expressed great sympathy for those who survived captivity”, his brother Sharon said, according to a translation from the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.Israeli advocacy groups, including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), have posted subtitled versions of the interview online.When Sharabi and two other hostages, Or Levy and Ohad Ben Ami, were released on 8 February alongside after nearly 500 days in captivity, their physical condition outraged Israelis, and Trump. Sharabi was at home in Be’eri kibbutz with his British-born wife and their two teenage daughters when Hamas attacked on 7 October 2023.In the Israeli television interview , Sharabi recalled being tied up, losing consciousness and experiencing extreme hunger.“I remember not being able to fall asleep because of the pain,” he said. “The ropes are already digging into your flesh, and every movement makes you want to scream.”Sharabi’s brother said the freed hostage is flying to the US aboard a plane provided by Miriam Adelson, the Israeli-American widow of casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and a major Trump donor.“Tomorrow morning, we’re boarding the plane with Mrs Adelson’s kind help. We’ll arrive to see Trump and explain to him up close the urgency of continuing the first stage or beginning the second stage – it doesn’t really matter,” Sharon Sharabi said, referring to the tenuous ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas.During the 7 October attack, after the armed group kidnapped Sharabi from his home, they shot the family dog, locked his wife Lianne and their daughters in a safe room, and set it on fire, according to Lianne’s parents, who spoke to the BBC. Sharabi only learned that his wife and daughters had been killed that day after his release.Sharabi’s other brother, Yossi, was also taken hostage that day. He died early last year in Gaza, Israel’s military said, when the Israeli army bombed a building near where he was being held.The Trump administration continues to support Israel amid the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. On Friday, it approved a nearly $3bn arms sale to Israel, bypassing congressional review to supply more 2,000lb bombs used in the war against Hamas.Following Benjamin Netanyahu’s announcement of a blockade on humanitarian aid to Gaza on Sunday, the White House said it “supports” Israel’s decision.At a demonstration in Tel Aviv on Sunday, the families of Israelis still being held in Gaza urged their government to stop violating the ceasefire/hostage deal that puts the lives of their loved ones at further risk. More
