Tag: israel

Israeli-U.S. Geoengineering Company ‘Stardust’ to Begin Blocking the Sun with Airborne Chemicals ‘As Soon as April’

Israeli-U.S. geoengineering company Stardust Solutions has announced a $60 million fundraising round for its efforts to block the sun by spraying particles into the atmosphere.

Stardust says they have created a powder that they promise “wouldn’t accumulate in humans or ecosystems, and can’t harm the ozone layer or create acid rain like the sulfur-rich particles from volcanoes.”

But it refuses to disclose what the particles are actually made of, rendering those promises meaningless without transparency, independent verification, or the public’s informed consent.

The startup will use the money to begin “controlled outdoor experiments” as soon as April, according to a POLITICO report that broke the news. “Those tests would release the company’s reflective particles inside a modified plane flying about 11 miles (18 kilometers) above sea level.”

Such technology is “thinly researched and mostly unregulated,” POLITICO notes.

It could even “disrupt global weather patterns and trigger geopolitical conflict.”

The investors were reportedly just “putting their trust in the concept,” instead of demanding proof that tampering in such a significant and dangerous way with sunlight won’t unleash irreversible atmospheric or geopolitical fallout.

More than 590 climate scientists and governance scholars now support a worldwide moratorium on such experiments involving the sun, and have called for an ‘International Non-Use Agreement on Solar Geoengineering.’

Nevertheless, Stardust has now raised a total of $75 million for its sun-blocking scheme.

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A Minefield in Gaza

After two years of unrelenting war, the world breathed a sigh of relief on October 9 as the first phase of Trump’s 20 point plan for Gaza went into effect. But, on October 13, while hostage release celebrations were taking place in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza, five children playing amid the rubble near Al-Shifa hospital were injured, two severely, when an unexploded ordinance (UXO) went off.

In December 2023, only two months into the war, the Wall Street Journal called Israel’s actions in Gaza the “most devastating urban warfare in the modern record”. By April 2024, Euromed estimated that Israel had dropped over 70,000 tons of explosives on the area, an amount exceeding all of the bombs dropped on London, Dresden, and Hamburg throughout World War II. This month, as the fragile ceasefire came into effect, the Gaza Government of Media office estimated the tonnage to be 200,000, the equivalent of thirteen Hiroshimas.

According to the UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS), around 5% to 10% of the munitions used by Israel in the war in Gaza failed to detonate on impact. But, the duds are far from innocuous. Like the anti-personnel and anti-tank landmines being used right now in Ukraine and Myanmar, the UXO lie in wait, seemingly innocuous, ready to kill or maim whoever, soldier or civilian, adult or child, is unfortunate enough to come upon them.

The first widespread use of landmines occurred during the American Civil War, when the Confederate army invented and instituted them as an affordable way to compensate for shortages of resources and manpower. An immediate debate arose on the ethics of their use.

In WWI, an extensive number of anti-tank landmines were laid by the Germans. When the Armistice Agreement was signed in 1918, it obligated Germany to provide the locations of the mines and assist in their removal.

In WWII, landmines were used heavily by both sides. After Germany lost the war, their POWs were forced by Allied troops to undertake the extensive and dangerous job of removing the mines. In Denmark, around 1,000 Germans, many of them mere teenagers, were either killed or maimed in the process.

1.5 million mines were laid during the 1967 war by Israeli, Jordanian, and Syrian forces. It wasn’t until 2011, following the tragedy of an 11-year-old Jewish-Israeli boy losing his leg after tripping a leftover mine while playing outside his home in the Golan Heights, that cleanup efforts began in earnest.

In 1992, Human Rights Watch and five other NGOs launched the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), and in 1997, the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction (known informally as the Ottawa or Mine Ban Treaty) was signed by 122 countries.

Today, 165 countries, more than three-quarters of the world’s states, are party to the convention. Jordan joined in 1998, and Palestine in 2017. Israel, however, insists that, due to security needs, they are unable to commit to a total ban on landmines.

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UN records 71 settler attacks in one week across occupied West Bank

Israeli settlers carried out 71 attacks against Palestinians across the occupied West Bank between 7 and 13 October, according to a UN report published on 16 October.

The attacks, many of them armed, resulted in the death of one man and the injury of 99 others, as documented by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Most of the settler assaults hit farming areas just as the olive harvest began, affecting 27 Palestinian villages, with nearly half of all reported attacks tied to the harvest that started on 9 October.

In the town of Deir Jarir in east Ramallah, Israeli settlers and military forces jointly opened fire on residents after settlers attacked Palestinian vehicles with stones, resulting in a 26-year-old man being shot dead, and two others being injured. 

The assault followed months of settler expansion in the area, including a new outpost and road connecting an Israeli military base to the village’s western entrance.

Two days later, settlers armed with rifles and sticks raided the village of Atara, also in the Ramallah governorate, attacking residents and opening fire on Palestinian vehicles. 

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To Media, Gaza Ceasefire Holds Despite Repeated Israeli Strikes

On October 10, a ceasefire was declared in the Gaza Strip, where more than 67,000 Palestinians were officially killed in just over two years of Israel’s United States-backed genocide. With an estimated 10,000 bodies still buried under the all-consuming rubble, and indirect deaths unaccounted for, this number is almost certainly a drastic underestimate. Shortly after the ceasefire took effect, US President Donald Trump pronounced the war in Gaza “over,” proclaiming that “at long last we have peace in the Middle East.”

In the ten days following the implementation of the ostensible truce, the Israeli military reportedly killed at least 97 Palestinians in Gaza and wounded 230, violating the ceasefire agreement no fewer than 80 times. One might have expected, then, to see a headline or two along the lines of, I dunno, “Israel violates ceasefire”—or maybe “So much for ‘peace’ in Gaza.”

No such headlines turned up in the Western corporate media—not that there weren’t some pretty spectacular violations to choose from. On October 17, for example, eleven members of the Abu Shaaban family, including seven children and three women, were blasted to bits in Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighborhood while attempting to reach their home. According to the Israelis, the family’s vehicle had trespassed over the so-called “yellow line,” the invisible boundary arbitrarily demarcating the more than 50 percent of Gazan territory still occupied by the genocidal army. 

Then on October 19, Israel bombed the living daylights out of central and southern Gaza and killed dozens after alleging a ceasefire violation by Hamas—an allegation that not even Trump found convincing, but that enabled such impressively passive headlines as “Strikes Hit Gaza After Truce Violations Alleged” (Guardian, 10/19/25). Once the carnage was complete, the BBC (10/19/25) assured readers that “Israel Says It Will Return to Ceasefire After Gaza Strikes.” For his part, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu informed the Knesset that the Israeli military had dropped 153 tons of bombs on Gaza during this particular, um, pause in the ceasefire.

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It Was Never a Gaza ‘War.’ The ‘Ceasefire’ Is a Lie Cut From the Same Cloth

Ceasefires stick because the two sides in a war have reached military stalemate – or because the incentives for each side in laying down their arms outweigh those of continuing the bloodshed.

None of this applies in Gaza.

The past two years in the enclave have been many things. But the one thing they have not been is a war, whatever western politicians and media wish us to believe.

Which means the current narrative of a “ceasefire” is as much a lie as the preceding narrative of a “Gaza war”.

The ceasefire is not “fragile”, as we keep being told. It is non-existent, as evidenced by Israel’s continual violations – from its soldiers continuing to shoot dead Palestinian civilians to it blocking promised aid.

So what is really going on?

To understand the “ceasefire” and US President Donald Trump’s even more deluded 20-point “peace plan“, we first need to make sense of what the earlier “war” rhetoric was used to conceal.

Over the past 24 months, we witnessed something deeply sinister.

We watched the indiscriminate slaughter of a largely civilian population, already under a 17-year siege, by Israel, a regional military goliath supported and armed by the global military goliath of the United States.

We watched the erasure of almost every home in Gaza – in what already amounted to a concentration camp for its people.

Families were forced into makeshift tents, as they had been when they were expelled decades ago at gunpoint from their lands in what is now Israel. But this time they have been exposed to a toxic brew of the rubble-dust of their former homes and the spent materials from many Hiroshimas-worth of bombs dropped on the enclave.

We watched a captive population being starved for months on end, in what amounted to, on the most generous view, an undisguised policy of collective punishment – a crime against humanity for which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is being pursued by the International Criminal Court.

Hundreds of thousands of children in Gaza have been physically damaged, in addition to their psychological trauma, by a malnourishment that has altered their DNA – damage that will most likely be passed on to future generations.

We watched Gaza’s hospitals being systematically dismantled, one by one, until the entire health sector was hollowed out, unable to deal with either the flood of wounded or the growing tide of malnourished children.

We watched large-scale ethnic cleansing operations, in which families – or what was left of them – were driven out of “kill zones” into areas Israel termed “safe zones”, only for those safe zones to quickly turn, undeclared, into new kill zones.

And as Trump stepped up the pressure for a “ceasefire”, we watched Israel unleash an orgy of violence, destroying as much of Gaza City as it could before the deadline arrived to stop.

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Israeli Scramble for Gaza’s Gas Reserves

As the Second Intifada was about to begin in September 2000, PLO leader Yassir Arafat celebrated a natural gas discovery in a fishing vessel about 30 kilometers off the Gaza Strip. “This will provide a solid foundation for our economy, for establishing an independent state with holy Jerusalem as its capital,” Arafat said.

Efforts to undermine this hope that could have done much to foster the Gazan economy have gone in tandem with the crumbling of the peace process.

Gaza catastrophe is (also? mainly?) about natural gas

Ever since the late 1990s, the Eastern Mediterranean has become highly attractive to energy interests, with major fields like Israel’s Leviathan (600 billion cubic meters, bcm), Egypt’s Zohr (850 bcm), and the Gaza Marine field (28–30 bcm).

Relative to Israel’s Leviathan, which generates $10 billion annually in export revenue, or Egypt’s Zohr field, which meets 40% of Egypt’s gas demand, the Gaza Marine field has lower output. However, it could have a transformative impact on Gaza’s economy and Palestinian living standards.

Located 30 km offshore from the Strip, the Gaza Marine field was discovered in 2000 by British BG and the Palestinian Consolidated Contractors Company (CCC). It was expected to develop revenue at $4 billion.

Let’s put things into context: In 2023, Gaza’s GDP amounted to less than $18 billion. And today, after Israeli decimation, it is barely $350 million. So the field represents a lifeline to Gazans and a great opportunity to overcome chronic energy shortages in Gaza, which remains highly dependent on foreign aid.

With its natural gas industry, Egypt was to serve as the onshore hub and transit point for the gas. The British BG Group was to finance the development and operations in return for 90 percent of the revenues. The Palestinian Authority (PA) would receive just 10 percent, plus access to adequate gas to meet their needs.

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Thousands of Orthodox Jews rally in New York to protest change in Israel’s military draft rules

Thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews packed the streets and sidewalks for blocks around the Israeli consulate in New York City on Sunday to protest issues including a potential end of an exemption for religious students from compulsory service in Israel’s military.

The protest at the consulate, a block from the United Nations campus in Manhattan, illustrated the complex relationship between Israel and segments of the large population of very religious Jews in New York and its suburbs.

The two influential, and often rival, grand rebbes of the Satmar community both called on adherents to participate in the demonstration. The Central Rabbinical Congress of the U.S.A. and Canada, a consortium of Orthodox Jewish groups, said it helped organize the protest.

It comes after Israel’s Supreme Court last year ordered the government to begin drafting ultra-Orthodox Jewish men into the military. There had been a longstanding enlistment exemption – dating to the founding of Israel in 1948.

The ultra-Orthodox worry that mandatory enlistment will impact adherents’ ties to their faith. But many Jewish Israelis have argued that an exemption is unfair. Rifts over the issue have deepened since the start of the war in Gaza.

Rabbi Moishe Indig, a Satmar community leader, said he’s not sure organizers expected so many people to show up but he said he felt urgency building around the issue.

He said he was appreciative of the governments in New York and the U.S. “for giving us the freedom and liberty to be able to live free and have our children go to school and study and learn the Torah.”

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Israel’s Untold Environmental Genocide

On September 23rd, the UN published a little-noticed report highlighting a barely-acknowledged facet of the 21st century Holocaust in Gaza. Namely, the Zionist entity’s genocide is wreaking a devastating environmental toll not merely on occupied Palestine, but West Asia more widely – including Israel. The damage is incalculable, with air, food sources, soil, and water widely polluted, to a fatal extent. Recovery may take decades, if at all. In the meantime, Gaza’s remaining population will suffer the cost – in many cases, with their lives.

In June 2024, the UN issued a preliminary assessment on the Gaza genocide’s “environmental impact”. It found the Zionist entity’s barbarous aggression had “exerted a profound impact” on “people in Gaza and the natural systems on which they depend.” Due to “security constraints” – namely, Israel’s continuing assault – the UN was unable “to assess the full extent of environment [sic] damage.” Nonetheless, the body was able to collate information indicating “the scale of degradation is immense,” and has “worsened significantly” since October 7th.

For example, Tel Aviv’s 21st century Holocaust has “significantly degraded water infrastructure leading to severely limited, low-quality water supply to the population.” The UN finds this “is contributing to numerous adverse health outcomes, including a continuous surge in infectious diseases.” Groundwater contamination is rampant, with catastrophic implications “for environmental and human health.” None of Gaza’s wastewater treatment facilities are operational, while “heavy destruction of piped systems, and increasing use of cesspits for sanitation, have increased contamination of the aquifer, marine and coastal areas.”

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A Warning from Lebanon

In not quite one year since the ceasefire deal in Lebanon, Israel has broken the ceasefire 4,600 times. It has killed hundreds of people, including infants, demolished tens of thousands of homes and annexed five areas of Lebanon. It was supposed to withdraw completely.

This situation is being replicated in detail in Gaza. In particular, the ceasefire in Lebanon is “guaranteed” by the USA and France and overseen by an international committee referred to as “the Mechanism”. The “Mechanism” is chaired by the USA. Accordingly the guarantors have refused to acknowledge a single breach of the ceasefire because the US-controlled “Mechanism” calls them counter-terrorist operations aimed at disarming Hezbollah.

The United Nations defers to “the Mechanism” and thus to the USA, and the presence of UN peacekeeping troops in Southern Lebanon is therefore useless. Lebanon is now under control of the US/Israeli puppet administration of General Aoun and effectively being run by US Special Envoy Tom Barrack.

Barrack stated that the borders of Israel and Syria are meaningless and that “Israel will go where they want, when they want, and do what they want to protect the Israelis and their border to make sure on October 7th it never happens again”. This is from the “guarantor” of the Lebanese ceasefire agreement.

There can be no doubt that Trump’s US-chaired “Board of Peace” for Gaza will take exactly the same line as “the Mechanism” in Lebanon. It is axiomatic that Israel will never honor any agreement. They never have.

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New wave of Israeli army, settler violence hits occupied West Bank

Israeli occupation forces caused large-scale destruction in the occupied West Bank city of Tubas overnight, as part of military operations which coincided with an escalation of settler violence against Palestinians across the territory.

Footage released after the Israeli army’s withdrawal on 19 October showed the aftermath of the hours-long assault, which came after resistance fighters targeted an Israeli force with an explosive over the weekend. 

Thirty military vehicles, two bulldozers, and infantry troops took part in the attack on Tubas, according to the governor.

The Israeli army was carrying out a raid in the city on Saturday evening when fighters from the Tubas Brigade of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) movement’s Quds Brigades targeted troops with an explosive device. 

The Tubas Brigade said it injured soldiers and witnessed rescue teams arriving at the site to evacuate casualties. 

In a statement, the Israeli army said two soldiers were injured and taken to hospital. 

Reinforcements invaded the city shortly after, carrying out an hours-long assault including the destruction of infrastructure and extensive search operations. 

As the army withdrew from Tubas on Sunday morning, Israeli occupation forces carried out other violent attacks and incursions in the West Bank. 

One Palestinian, Majed Muhammad Dawoud, was shot multiple times and killed by the Israeli army in Nablus’s Al-Ain camp. 

Meanwhile, Israeli settlers backed by troops burned vehicles and attacked Palestinian farmers picking olives in Ramallah and Nablus. 

Video footage showed an Israeli settler attacking and injuring an elderly Palestinian woman with a stick during the attack on the olive pickers.

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