In a statement, the leaders of the UK, France, Germany and eight other European countries said troops from a “coalition of the willing” with US support could “assist in the regeneration of Ukraine’s forces, in securing Ukraine’s skies, and in supporting safer seas, including through operating inside Ukraine”.
Archiv: the Guardian (media)
‘We’re living in terror’: fears in southern Syria over Israel’s growing occupation
(December 9, 2025)
A year after Israeli forces entered southern Syria, crossing into a UN buffer zone and in some cases beyond, its occupation remains and the frequency of the Israeli military raids on towns is increasing. An Israeli incursion in the town of Beit Jinn at the end of November left at least 13 Syrians dead, including two children.
Residents say they have traded the tyranny of Assad for a military occupation. Checkpoints are now operated by Israelis, not Assad officers. Night-time raids and phone searches continue.
Israeli surveillance targets US and allies at joint base planning Gaza aid and security, say sources
(today)
The scale of intelligence gathering at the Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC) prompted the US commander of the base, Lt Gen Patrick Frank, to summon an Israeli counterpart for a meeting to tell him that “recording has to stop here”.
Staff and visitors from other countries have also raised concerns about Israel recording inside the CMCC. Some have been told to avoid sharing sensitive information because of the risk it could be collected and exploited.
The US military declined to comment when asked about Israeli surveillance activities. The Israeli military declined to comment on Frank’s demand to halt recording and noted that conversations inside the CMCC are unclassified.
Israel is a rogue nation. It should be removed from the United Nations
(October 15, 2024)
Over the past year, Israel has launched attacks on multiple countries and occupied territories: the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iran.
Yet countries and territories aside, Israel has also targeted one specific organization with a series of unprecedented rhetorical and violent attacks.
Yes, the United Nations. We have all witnessed Israel, in effect, declare war on the UN.
It’s not just Gaza. From the West Bank to Syria and Lebanon, Israel’s onslaught continues
(December 1, 2025)
Broken ceasefires, bombing, ground incursions and mounting deaths: Israeli imperialism is now expanding across the region
UK military equipment used by militia accused of genocide found in Sudan, UN told
(October 28, 2025)
British military equipment has been found on battlefields in Sudan, used by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group accused of genocide, according to documents seen by the UN security council.
(…)
Months after the UN security council first received material alleging that the UAE may have supplied British-made items to the RSF, new data indicates that the British government went on to approve further exports to the Gulf state for military equipment of the same type.
British engines made specifically for a type of UAE-manufactured armoured personnel carrier also appear to have been exported to the Emirates, despite evidence that the vehicles had been used in Libya and Yemen in defiance of UN arms embargos.
Egypt expected to lead global stabilisation force in Gaza, say diplomats
A European and US-backed UN security council motion to give a planned international stabilisation force robust powers to control security inside Gaza is being prepared, with the strong expectation that Egypt will lead it, diplomats have said.
The US is pressing for the force to have a UN mandate without being a fully fledged UN peacekeeping force and will operate with the kind of powers given to international troops operating in Haiti to combat armed gangs.
Turkey, Indonesia and Azerbaijan are also being billed alongside Egypt as the main troop contributors.
What issues are still to be resolved in the Gaza ceasefire deal?
“No one expects that the force would fight Hamas,” a western diplomat told the Financial Times. They argued that the mere presence of the force would make it harder for either side to resume the conflict even if it did “absolutely nothing”.
There are reasons for scepticism about whether the ISF could reliably prevent either side from acting, as illustrated by a recent grenade attack by an Israeli drone near UN peacekeepers in Lebanon. There may be wider lessons from that deployment. You might have a model similarly mandated to patrol and report on ceasefire violations. But in southern Lebanon, they have been pretty toothless.
Postwar Gaza authority potentially led by Tony Blair ‘would sideline Palestinians’
The draft for the so-called Gaza International Transitional Authority (Gita) puts substantial flesh on reporting of the ideas that Blair and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner are reported to have been circulating, including that Blair “wants” the role of running Gaza.
Palestinian critics who have seen the proposal – and who have long viewed Blair with suspicion – warned that Gita would be a “disaster” for Palestine, creating an alternative jurisdiction in Gaza to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.
Microsoft revokes cloud services from Israel’s Unit 8200, following +972 exposé
Microsoft has terminated the Israeli army’s access to technology it was using to store vast troves of intelligence on Palestinian civilians in the West Bank and Gaza, the tech giant informed Israel’s Defense Ministry in a letter late last week, according to the Guardian.
The decision followed an exposé last month by +972 Magazine, Local Call, and the Guardian revealing how Unit 8200, the Israeli army’s elite cyber warfare agency, was housing intercepted recordings of millions of mobile phone calls by Palestinians on Microsoft’s cloud platform, Azure, creating one of the world’s most intrusive collections of surveillance data over a single population group. According to the joint investigation, this data has been used over the past two years to plan lethal airstrikes in Gaza, as well as to arrest Palestinians in the West Bank.
Microsoft blocks Israel’s use of its technology in mass surveillance of Palestinians
The decision to cut off Unit 8200’s ability to use some of its technology results directly from an investigation published by the Guardian last month. It revealed how Azure was being used to store and process the trove of Palestinian communications in a mass surveillance programme.
In a joint investigation with the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and the Hebrew-language outlet Local Call, the Guardian revealed how Microsoft and Unit 8200 had worked together on a plan to move large volumes of sensitive intelligence material into Azure.
Pedro Sánchez: Europe’s response to war in Gaza has been a failure
“What we’re now witnessing in Gaza is perhaps one of the darkest episodes of international relations in the 21st century, and in this regard what I have to say is that Spain has been very vocal within the EU and also within the international community,” he said. “Within the EU, what we have done so far is advocate to suspend the strategic partnership that the EU has with Israel.”
Microsoft storing Israeli intelligence trove used to attack Palestinians
Unit 8200, roughly equivalent in function to the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), has transferred audio files of millions of calls by Palestinians in the occupied territories onto Microsoft’s cloud computing platform, Azure, operationalizing what is likely one of the world’s largest and most intrusive collections of surveillance data over a single population group. This is according to interviews with 11 Microsoft and Israeli intelligence sources in addition to a cache of leaked internal Microsoft documents obtained by the Guardian.
In a meeting at Microsoft’s headquarters in Seattle in late 2021, the then-head of Unit 8200, Yossi Sariel, won the support of the tech giant’s CEO, Satya Nadella, to develop a customized and segregated area within Azure that has facilitated the army’s mass surveillance project. According to the sources, Sariel approached Microsoft because the scope of Israel’s intelligence on millions of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza is so vast that it cannot be stored on military servers alone.
Palestine Action isn’t a danger to British democracy – but Yvette Cooper is
(July 4, 2025)
No one can be trusted with power. Any government will oppress its people if not constantly and inventively challenged. And the task becomes ever-more urgent as new technologies of surveillance and control are developed.
The UK government is run by a former human rights lawyer. Its home secretary, Yvette Cooper, has expressed her admiration for the Suffragettes in parliament. Yet such credentials do nothing to defend us from attacks on our fundamental rights. With a huge majority, no formal constitutional checks and a ruthless, scarcely accountable governing machine, this administration is abusing its power to an even greater extent than its Conservative predecessors.
Armed police threatened to arrest Kent protester for holding Palestinian flag
Speaking to the Guardian, Murton said: “I don’t see how anything I was wearing, how anything I was displaying, anything I was saying, could be deemed as supportive of the proscribed group.
“It’s terrifying, I was standing there thinking, this is the most authority, authoritarian, dystopian experience I’ve had in this country, being told that I’m committing terrorist offences by two guys with firearms.
“I ended up giving my details, and I really resent the fact I had to do that because I don’t think that was lawful at all.”
‘Humanitarian city’ would be concentration camp for Palestinians, says former Israeli PM
“When they build a camp where they [plan to] ‘clean’ more than half of Gaza, then the inevitable understanding of the strategy of this [is that] it is not to save [Palestinians]. It is to deport them, to push them and to throw them away. There is no other understanding that I have, at least.”
Israeli human rights lawyers and scholars have described the plan as a blueprint for crimes against humanity and some have warned that if implemented, “under certain conditions it could amount to the crime of genocide”.
‘Gaza must be eliminated’: Israel’s airwaves are filled with pro-genocide propaganda
(June 27, 2025)
……………
– “Regarding what Boaz mentioned, in the first day or two, we should have killed 100,000 Gazans […] Only a few are possibly human there. Only a few are possibly human there. Over 90% are terrorists and are involved! Not uninvolved, there’s no such thing as uninvolved,” political commentator Danny Neuman said on journalist Boaz Golan’s show on 6 May 2024.
– “The destruction in Gaza gives me a good feeling. Gaza is in a state of annihilation. Many buildings no longer exist in the landscape. The destruction machine must keep working so it’s clear they have nowhere to return to. Despair as a work plan,” Yinon Magal said on the show The Patriots reading a tweet by a reservist soldier named Dvir Luger on 3 August 2024.
– “Gaza deserves death. The 2.6 million terrorists in Gaza deserve death! … Men, women, and children – in every way possible, we must simply carry out a Holocaust on them – yes, read that again – H-O-L-O-C-A-U-S-T! For me, gas chambers. Train cars. And other cruel forms of death for these Nazis. Without fear, without hesitation – simply crush, eradicate, slaughter, flatten, dismantle, smash, shatter …. Gaza deserves death. Let there be a Holocaust in Gaza,” said Elad Barashi, a TV producer affiliated with Channel 14, on 27 February 2025. in a post on X which was later deleted.
Is Qatargate a scandal too far even for Benjamin Netanyahu?
The Israeli PM will have to call on his talent for self-preservation in the face of questions about how a foreign power viewed as an enemy was able to infiltrate the highest levels of his government
European-led Ukraine air protection plan could halt Russian missile attacks
It is understood Sky Shield has been drawn up by former RAF planners working in conjunction with Ukraine’s armed forces, and it has been canvassed before European defence ministries. However, there has been no real appetite from European leaders to sanction patrols of Ukrainian skies while the war is ongoing.
Those involved believe the pace of events in the last week means that ideas about protecting some of Ukraine’s airspace can now get a fresh hearing, though the plan also serves to highlight how important and efficient air protection would be as part of providing security guarantees to Kyiv in the event of a ceasefire.
Israel is a rogue nation. It should be removed from the United Nations
(October 15, 2024)
One rogue nation cannot declare war on the UN itself and continue to get away with it
Israel is a rogue nation. It should be removed from the United Nations
(October 15, 2024)
One rogue nation cannot declare war on the UN itself and continue to get away with it
Israel is a rogue nation. It should be removed from the United Nations
(October 15, 2024)
One rogue nation cannot declare war on the UN itself and continue to get away with it
I was suspended from Israel’s Knesset for highlighting the tyranny of Netanyahu. Help us to oppose him
(November 29, 2024)
I am not alone in opposing his tyranny. The consistent political opposition inside Israel itself, made up of democratic Jews and Arab citizens, finds the notion of democracy in Israel under Netanyahu absurd too. Democracy in Israel never really existed, owing to the state of Israel’s definition as an ethnic concept, antithetical to political egalitarianism.
A state that under its basic laws declares one group politically superior to the other cannot be regarded as a democracy, but as an ethnocracy. Since its formation, Israel has been pursuing discriminatory policies towards its own Palestinian citizens in all spheres of life – housing, employment, welfare and education. Even the supposed Israeli bill of rights, the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty, doesn’t dare to mention the right to equality.
Israel is a rogue nation. It should be removed from the United Nations
(October 15, 2024)
One rogue nation cannot declare war on the UN itself and continue to get away with it
Israel is a rogue nation. It should be removed from the United Nations
(October 15, 2024)
One rogue nation cannot declare war on the UN itself and continue to get away with it
Spying, hacking and intimidation: Israel’s nine-year ‘war’ on the ICC exposed
(May 28, 2024)
Thanks to their comprehensive access to Palestinian telecoms infrastructure, the sources said, intelligence operatives could capture the calls without installing spyware on the ICC official’s devices.
“If Fatou Bensouda spoke to any person in the West Bank or Gaza, then that phone call would enter [intercept] systems,” one source said. Another said there was no hesitation internally over spying on the prosecutor, adding: “With Bensouda, she’s black and African, so who cares?”
The surveillance system did not capture calls between ICC officials and anyone outside Palestine. However, multiple sources said the system required the active selection of the overseas phone numbers of ICC officials whose calls Israeli intelligence agencies decided to listen to.
According to one Israeli source, a large whiteboard in an Israeli intelligence department contained the names of about 60 people under surveillance – half of them Palestinians and half from other countries, including UN officials and ICC personnel.
In The Hague, Bensouda and her senior staff were alerted by security advisers and via diplomatic channels that Israel was monitoring their work.
Strafgerichtshof: Bedrohte der Mossad die Chefanklägerin und ihre Familie?
(May 28, 2024)
Die Haftbefehle für Benjamin Netanyahu und Yoav Gallant, die der internationale Strafgerichtshof (IStGH) letzte Woche ausgeschrieben hatte, beziehen sich zwar auf Verbrechen, die die israelische Führung während des neuen Gaza-Krieges begangen haben soll, die Untersuchungen begannen aber bereits 2015.
Damals eröffnete die damalige Chefanklägerin des Internationalen Strafgerichtshofs, Fatou Bensouda, die Überprüfung von Vorwürfen gegen Einzelpersonen im Gazastreifen, im Westjordanland und in Ostjerusalem.
Revealed: Israeli spy chief ‘threatened’ ICC prosecutor over war crimes inquiry
(May 28, 2024)
The former head of the Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, allegedly threatened a chief prosecutor of the international criminal court in a series of secret meetings in which he tried to pressure her into abandoning a war crimes investigation, the Guardian can reveal.
Yossi Cohen’s covert contacts with the ICC’s then prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, took place in the years leading up to her decision to open a formal investigation into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in occupied Palestinian territories.
That investigation, launched in 2021, culminated last week when Bensouda’s successor, Karim Khan, announced that he was seeking an arrest warrant for the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, over the country’s conduct in its war in Gaza.
(…)
After the surprise meeting with Kabila and Bensouda in New York, Cohen repeatedly phoned the chief prosecutor and sought meetings with her, three sources recalled. According to two people familiar with the situation, at one stage Bensouda asked Cohen how he had obtained her phone number, to which he replied: “Did you forget what I do for a living?”
Israel is a rogue nation. It should be removed from the United Nations
(October 15, 2024)
One rogue nation cannot declare war on the UN itself and continue to get away with it