EU foreign ministers have failed to agree on sanctions against Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, the bloc’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas says.
“Many member states have also proposed to sanction Minister Ben-Gvir, but no consensus on that was reached,” Kallas said.
It was April 10, 2024, during the Eid al-Fitr holiday, at the end of the holy month of Ramadan. The Gaza civil servant had been beaten, tortured, bound and forced to soil himself since his arrest by Israeli soldiers a month earlier.
The soldiers and their guard dogs surrounded him that day. “There were six soldiers on the right and six on the left,” he recalled. “They would ask your name. If you said ‘Muhammad’, they would say, ‘No, say your name is b****.’”
Al-Bakri said he was held with seven other prisoners. They were all stripped, blindfolded and handcuffed.
“We were raped after being stripped of our clothes,” he said. “We were shouting, ‘Oh Lord, oh God’, but they were just laughing and filming us.” Al-Bakri then echoed what several rights agencies have also reported – that guards also used dogs during the sexual abuse of prisoners. “The dogs were following commands from the officers to [attack] us,” he said.
“There was no mercy. We stayed in that state of sexual abuse and beatings for about 20 minutes to half an hour. Then they told us to get dressed and took us back to the prison.”
Lesley Groff, Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime assistant, denied knowledge of her former boss’s crimes in her transcribed interview with the House Oversight Committee on Tuesday, the latest witness to testify in the panel’s sprawling Epstein investigation.
“I never saw anything improper,” Groff told members of the committee, a source familiar with the matter told MS NOW.
Groff, who worked for Epstein for nearly 20 years until he was arrested in 2019 on sex trafficking charges, began her testimony before the Republican-led committee around 10 a.m. ET.
(May 27, 2026)
Yet proposals that skirt the edges of international law didn’t come out of nowhere. The U.S. under George W. Bush created legal mechanisms following the September 11th attacks to torture hundreds of people in CIA black sites and then at Guantanamo Bay. The Obama administration’s targeted drone strikes were assassinations by another name. The Biden administration further eroded international norms and subverted its own policies by financing Israel’s genocide in Gaza, in violation of the Leahy Law, which prohibits foreign military assistance to nations that violate human rights.
“Seems like Miller is sort of taking what he was already willing to do during the first term and then combining that with what Israel has been doing in the way it has just been completely ignoring any kind of international law, Geneva Conventions, any of it in its conduct in Gaza and Lebanon, to then influence U.S. foreign policy,” Annelle Sheline, a research fellow in the Middle East program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said in an interview.
In other words, Miller and the Trump administration have been able to steamroll what was left of international law; they just had to figure out how to do it.
Published annually by the UN, the list includes dozens of state and non-state groups credibly suspected of having engaged “systematically” in sexual violence in countries such as Sudan, Haiti, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar, Syria and Mali.
Last August, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned Israel and Russia of their possible inclusion on the list.
That vessel, the amphibious landing ship INS Nahshon, was built by Bollinger Mississippi Shipbuilding in Louisiana and was fully financed by the US government. GSF activists first became aware of what they now call the “torture boat” when it was used to detain members of the previous Gaza-bound flotilla, dozens of whom required medical attention for broken ribs, noses, and other injuries inflicted by Israeli forces.
This time, according to GSF, “detained humanitarians, doctors, and journalists were processed one by one through a darkened shipping container. Inside, groups of three to five soldiers systematically brutalized each person who came through the door while those waiting outside listened to the screams.”
May 24, 2026 INTERNATIONAL – As civilian participants from the Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF) begin landing in their respective home countries and some continue their recovery in Istanbul, the full, devastating scale of the violence executed by the israeli Occupation Forces (iOF) is being laid bare. Following the most recent unlawful interception of the flotilla in international waters on 18 May, newly emerging and harrowing testimonies confirm a coordinated campaign of systematic torture, severe physical and psychological trauma, and targeted gender-based and sexual violence.
(The violence reported in this release covers only the second of two illegal israeli interceptions that took place during the Spring 2026 flotilla mission; the first attack took place on 29 April off the coast of Crete, which also had numerous reports of sexual violence, rape and physical injuries including 35 people requiring medical care for broken noses, ribs and injuries from rubber bullets deployed by it iOF.)
(May 22, 2026)
In what is believed to be the US-built-and-funded INS Nahshon, detainees were “processed” one by one, and taken into darkened containers where groups of iOF commandos brutalised them one by one. Yassine Benjelloun, who had sailed on a previous flotilla mission and expected comparable treatment, described the moment of entry:
„He throws me in a container that is dark, and all of a sudden, I hear, “Welcome to israel. ” And I start getting hit, like first hit on the head, second hit in the ribs, then I fall, then they kick me. And I‘m hearing people screaming, and all of a sudden people stop screaming, and I don‘t see anything, and I don‘t know what‘s going to happen. “ — Yassine Benjelloun
Adrien Berthel, France, described being singled out for targeted humiliation and beating after iOF soldiers noticed he was wearing nail polish and made assumptions about his sexuality.
Veronica Otero, participant number 22 to board, witnessed the processing of nearly all 180 detainees across three days:
„I can say that all were in many ways abused, not one single person walking with nothing. Among them there were 36 fractures, many broken ribs, torso, shoulders, and back. People were in agony. People were not breathing [due to the broken ribs]. „— Veronica Otero
At least 12 sexual assaults have been documented on that vessel alone, including anal rape and forcible penetration by a handgun. iOF soldiers tased volunteers in the face, neck and body, the strikes multiplying with each new group brought in. Multiple volunteers report being photographed during strip searches and guards laughing throughout.
„I was illegally kidnapped by Israel – like 425 other people.“
„Handcuffs on my hands and feet. Dragged me. When I couldn‘t walk, they dragged me on the ground.“
„They hit us. Hurt all of us a lot. Handcuffs so tight my hands lost feeling.“
„They laughed all the time. Super sadistic.“
„Took off my shirt. Took pictures. Mistreated us all night long.“
Then she delivered her message to the world:
„Shame on you. Shame on all of you. Shame on every government that keeps trading with Israel. My government is complicit. Europe is complicit. The whole world is complicit.“
Those genocidal maniacs RAPED humanitarian activist trying to take food and medicine to children in Gaza! And the worst is that even this they escalate to much worse forms with the 9000 Palestinians in israeli dungeons (almost 400 children)!
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He confirms the horrific reality that Arabic and non-white captives were beaten much worse.
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Catriona Graham was one of hundreds of activists who were detained by Israel this week while trying to deliver aid to Palestinians in Gaza by boat.
Israel‘s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir later posted a video showing himself taunting the activists as they kneeled with their hands tied behind their backs.
[May 21, 2026] The Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) confirms that international volunteers abducted by Israeli forces during the unlawful interception of civilian vessels in international waters have now been released and deported. Two Korean nationals were deported to South Korea, one participant was deported to Egypt, two to Jordan, one Israeli citizen was released inside the country, and the remaining 422 participants were transferred to Istanbul aboard three Turkish Airlines flights arranged by the Turkish government.
While we are relieved that participants are no longer in Israeli custody, we reject any attempt to portray the abuse and degrading treatment witnessed by the world over recent days as isolated misconduct or the actions of extremist officials. The brutality broadcast across social media — including deliberate humiliation, threats, physical violence, degrading treatment, and openly dehumanizing rhetoric directed at unarmed civilians — is not an aberration. It is a manifestation of the same system of settler-colonial violence and impunity that Palestinians have endured for decades while being denied their most basic human rights.
Six countries with citizens among the participants — Italy, France, Canada, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Spain — summoned their respective Israeli ambassadors following the video. Others, including Britain, Germany, Ireland and Portugal, offered condemnation of how the activists were treated.
Several European countries on Wednesday condemned Israel’s assault on activists aboard the Global Sumud Flotilla, following the interception of the vessel in international waters and the detention of its participants, describing their treatment as horrific, shocking and appalling.
The condemnations came after Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir published a video showing dozens of activists kneeling with their hands tied inside the port of Ashdod.
Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir sparked outrage after confronting detained flotilla activists at Ashdod Port following Israel’s interception of Gaza-bound vessels. Viral footage showed heated exchanges between Ben-Gvir and pro-Palestine protesters, triggering political backlash and fresh diplomatic tensions.
International outcry was sparked after video showed Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir taunting flotilla activists at the Port of Ashdod who were detained in international waters after attempting to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza.
(May 19, 2026)
The 428 abducted flotilla participants are currently unaccounted for. They have had no contact with legal counsel. They have been denied consular access. Their families have not been informed of their whereabouts.
We call on their governments and world leaders to demand their immediate and unconditional release and to ensure their right to consular and legal access without further delay.
Their detention is an extension of the same system that has kept nearly 10,000 Palestinian political prisoners and hostages held under an even more brutal architecture of confinement, coercion, and colonial violence. What has already been documented is not aberration. It is a pattern. Testimonies from flotilla participants released after the previous interception earlier this month, describe torture, physical assault, and sexual violence.
Independent rights organizations, including Save the Children, have documented that more than half of the Palestinian children detained by israel report sexual abuse, sexualized violence, and systematic torture. This pattern of sexual violence is systematically operating without interruption.
Gaza and the West Bank are where that structure is most illustrative. They are where weapons are tested, surveillance systems refined, and techniques of enclosure normalized before being exported into policing regimes, border infrastructures, prison systems, and governance models across the world.
Gasoline accounts for a shrinking share of household budgets, but its political power can still make or break a presidency.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today called on Congress and the Trump administration to take immediate action after a New York Times report detailed horrifying allegations of widespread sexual abuse, rape, torture, and humiliation of Palestinians held in Israeli detention facilities.
(May 11, 2026)
I‘ve spent some time reporting on widespread rape and other sexual violence of Palestinian male and female prisoners by Israeli authorities, and the article is now published. The assault victims were warned not to give speak of what they endured — they were sometimes told they would be killed or raped if they gave interviews — but they found the courage to do so. One man described being raped three times in a single day in Israeli prison, the third time after he tried to protest. A young woman said the guards would come in at the beginning of each shift and strip her naked and abuse her. Another reported that she was shown photos of herself being raped and warned they would be released unless she cooperated with Israeli intelligence. Even three children who had been detained told me they had been sexually abused. Look, whatever our position on the Middle East, we should be able to agree on being anti-rape. Sexual assaults were horrific when Israeli women were targeted on Oct. 7, and they‘re equally horrific when Israeli authorities use them against Palestinians day after day after day. We should be able to find common ground in opposing rape. Here‘s a gift link to the article:
The article in question, “The Silence That Meets the Rape of Palestinians,” by Nicholas Kristof, recounts the stories of 14 Palestinians who experienced sexual violence at the hands of Israeli soldiers and settlers. A majority of the interviews discuss sexual violence inflicted by soldiers and interrogators on Palestinians in Israeli detention, but others speak of attacks by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank — attacks that are “increasingly protect[ed]” by the Israeli military, according to Kristof. The interviews are reinforced by testimony from Israeli and international human rights organizations, and demonstrate that sexual violence is systemic, used on a daily basis against Palestinians, and effectively Israeli state policy.