Tag: israel

World’s Largest Sovereign Wealth Fund Divests From Caterpillar Over IDF Rights Abuses

In the latest demonstration of growing Western opposition to Israel’s devastating campaign in Gaza, the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund on Monday announced it is divesting from Caterpillar, over concerns that the Israel Defense Forces are using Caterpillar bulldozers to violate human rights. Norway’s $2 trillion wealth fund — which springs from the country’s oil wealth — held a 1.17% stake in the Texas-headquartered company, valued at $2.1 billion as of June 30. 

While Caterpillar’s products are classified as “construction” equipment, the IDF regularly uses massive, armored Caterpillar D-9 bulldozers to destroy homes and other civilian infrastructure — not only in Gaza, but the occupied West Bank as well.

Sovereign wealth funds are rare among the world’s democracies. In Norway, divestment decisions are largely driven by the recommendations of an independent ethics council established by the Finance Ministry. After evaluating Caterpillar, the Council on Ethics reported: 

“There is an unacceptable risk that Caterpillar is contributing to serious violation of the rights of individuals in situations of war or conflict… Bulldozers manufactured by Caterpillar are being used by Israeli authorities in the widespread unlawful destruction of Palestinian property...There is no doubt that Caterpillar’s products are being used to commit extensive and systematic violations of international humanitarian law. The company has also not implemented any measures to prevent such use.”

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Israel Targets Yemen’s Capital With Massive Strikes Near Presidential Complex, Missile Bases

Israel’s military conducted airstrikes on Yemen’s Houthi-controlled capital, Sanaa, on Sunday, targeting high-profile sites in a significant escalation of hostilities.

The strikes hit areas near the presidential palace, the Asar and Hizaz power plants, and Houthi facilities suspected of housing artillery, including ballistic missiles, according to regional reports.

The operation was a direct response to recent Houthi attacks on Israel, including projectile launches on Friday, a military source told the Jerusalem Post. While Israel has previously targeted Houthi infrastructure, its strikes have largely focused on the strategic port city of Hodeida, a critical economic and military hub. The shift to Sanaa signals a broader and more aggressive approach to the conflict.

At least two people were killed and five others injured, Al Masirah, a Houthi-affiliated media outlet reported, according to Al Jazeera.

“The attacks were carried out in response to repeated attacks by the Houthi terrorist regime against the state of Israel and its citizens, including the launch of surface-to-surface missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles towards the country’s territory,” the Israeli military said in a statement.

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Palestinian Boys Allege Sexual Assault, Torture by Israeli Jailers

Palestinian teenagers kidnapped and imprisoned by Israeli occupation forces during the genocidal war on Gaza accused their jailers of torturing and sexually assaulting them in a report published Saturday by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

“They took me from the aid distribution site and transferred me to a hospital in Rafah, where I was interrogated for an hour,” one 16-year-old boy identified by his first name Sami, who was abducted on June 29, told ABC. “They stripped me and conducted a body search. Then, they loaded me into a jeep and transported me to a prison in Israel.”

“During the interrogations, they tortured us – handcuffing us, beating us with sticks, and using electric shocks,” the teen continued. “They did countless things to break us.”

“I was tortured for a week until I lost all sense of time and awareness,” Sami said. “They put me in a one-square-meter cell, where I spent the entire week. I never saw daylight, never stepped outside. They only came to deliver food.”

“They asked if I knew anyone from Hamas, and whether I had crossed over on October 7,” Sami recounted. “They kept pressing me about who I knew and who I had seen. I told them I was just walking down the street – I didn’t know anything.”

“They would beat me. Each person that talked to me would beat me,” the teen alleged. “I was handcuffed, blindfolded, and they put electricity in my legs.”

Mahmoud, age 17, said that his Israeli abductors “began hurling insults, cursing at us, and accusing us of being with Hamas.”

“They stripped us of our clothes and took us to Kerem Shalom, completely naked, with nothing,” he continued. “There, the beatings and torture began.”

“The Israeli women soldiers beat us. They stripped us and ‘played’ here, and here, and there,” Mahmoud said, indicating his genitals. “They beat us with sticks. Got on us while we were lying on the ground. We were handcuffed like that and naked.”

Mahmoud said his captors wanted to humiliate him and other teenage boys in custody, accusing the troops of taking nude photos of them and sending female soldiers to mock and touch his body – an especially shameful ordeal for Muslims.

“When I was released from prison, I had a breakdown,” Mahmoud said. “I felt mentally exhausted and deeply disgusted. What I witnessed – no one should ever have to see.”

“I was tortured, we are children,” he added. “What have we done?”

ABC published photographs showing signs of torture on the teens’ bodies, including from shackling.

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The War on Truth: Why Are Palestinian Journalists Being Systematically Erased?

The killing of seven Palestinian journalists and media workers in Gaza on August 10 has prompted verbal condemnations, yet has inspired little to no substantive action. This has become the predictable and horrifying trajectory of the international community’s response to the ongoing Israeli genocide.

By eliminating Palestinian journalists like Anas al-Sharif and Mohammed Qraiqeh, Israel has made a sinister statement that the genocide will spare no one. According to the monitoring website Shireen.ps, Israel has killed nearly 270 journalists since October 2023.

More journalists are likely to die covering the genocide of their own people in Gaza, especially since Israel has manufactured a convenient and easily deployed narrative that every Gazan journalist is simply a “terrorist”. This is the same cruel logic offered by numerous Israeli officials in the past, including Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who declared that “an entire nation” in Gaza “is responsible” for not having rebelled against Hamas, effectively stating that there are no innocent people in Gaza.

This Israeli discourse, which dehumanizes entire populations based on a vicious logic, is frequently repeated by officials who fear no accountability. Even Israeli diplomats, whose job in theory is to improve their country’s image internationally, frequently engage in this brutal ritual. In comments made in January 2024, Israeli ambassador to the UK, Tzipi Hotovely, callously argued that “every school, every mosque, every second house has access to tunnels,” implying that all of Gaza is a valid military target.

This cruelty of language would be easily dismissed as mere rhetoric, except that Israel has, in fact, according to Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor reports, destroyed over 70% of Gaza’s infrastructure.

While extremist language is often used by politicians around the world, it is rare for the extremism of the language to so precisely mirror the extremism of the action itself. This makes Israeli political discourse a uniquely dangerous phenomenon.

There can be no military justification for the wholesale annihilation of an entire region. Yet again, the Israelis are not shying away from providing the political discourse that explains this unprecedented destruction. Former Knesset member Moshe Feiglin chillingly said, last May, that “Every child, every baby in Gaza is an enemy… not a single Gazan child will be left there.”

But for the systematic destruction of a whole nation to succeed, it must include the deliberate targeting of its scientists, doctors, intellectuals, journalists, artists and poets. While children and women remain the largest categories of victims, many of those killed in deliberate assassinations appear to be targeted specifically to disorient Palestinian society, deprive it of societal leadership, and render the process of rebuilding Gaza impossible.

These figures powerfully illustrate this point: according to a report released by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, based on the latest satellite damage assessment conducted in July, 97% of Gaza’s educational facilities have been affected, with 91% in need of major repairs or full reconstruction. Additionally, hundreds of teachers and thousands of students have been killed.

But why is Israel so intent on killing those responsible for intellectual production? The answer is twofold: one unique to Gaza, and the other unique to the nature of Israel’s founding ideology, Zionism.

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Israel destroyed Gaza’s water plants. Now a deadly condition is spreading like wildfire

From the grey rubble of Gaza’s bombed water treatment plants, a rare and deadly paralytic disease has emerged that has brought a new crisis to a region already devastated by starvation and illness.

An unprecedented surge in acute flaccid paralysis (AFP) – a condition which causes a rapid onset of muscle weakness and paralysis – has seen 110 people diagnosed in the past three months. In previous years, Gaza saw just one or two cases of AFP per year.

The symptoms occur when the body’s immune system is triggered by certain viruses, in some cases causing it to attack its own nervous system. In Gaza, the rapid spread of water-borne infectious diseases has led to a striking rise in AFP cases.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) and Dr Ahmed al-Farra, head of paediatrics at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, told The Independent thatIsrael’s destruction of Gaza’s vital water treatment plants is largely responsible for the spread of these diseases.

“To see 110 cases, this is incredible. This is an outbreak, it is alarming for us to see that number,” Dr Farra said, describing the situation as “one of the most challenging” medical incidents Gaza has seen since 2023.

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Israeli military uproots thousands of Palestinian olive trees in West Bank

The Israeli military has destroyed about 3,000 olive trees in a village near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, the head of the local council says, as Palestinians face a continued wave of violence across the territory in the shadow of Israel’s war on Gaza.

The Israeli military issued an order to uproot olive trees in a 0.27sq-km (0.1sq-mile) area in al-Mughayyir, a village of about 4,000 residents northeast of Ramallah.

The army justified the measure by saying the trees posed a “security threat” to a main Israeli settlement road that runs through the village’s lands.

The destruction was carried out as al-Mughayyir has been under lockdown since Thursday after an Israeli settler said he was shot at in the area.

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More than a dozen people killed in Israeli strikes on hospital in southern Gaza, including journalists, officials say

More than a dozen Palestinians were killed in a pair of Israeli strikes on a hospital in southern Gaza, according to the Nasser Medical Complex, including journalists from multiple outlets.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health said at least 20 people were killed in the attack on Monday, with many more injured.

Israel carried out back-to-back strikes on the hospital in Khan Younis separated by only a matter of minutes, the ministry said. The “double-tap” hits killed journalists, health workers, and emergency response crews who had rushed to the scene after the initial attack, the Nasser Hospital said.

Dr. Mohammad Saqer, a Nasser Hospital spokesman and head of nursing, said that five journalists and four health workers had died.

The journalists killed include Mohammad Salama, a cameraman from Al Jazeera, Hussam Al-Masri who was a contractor for Reuters, and Mariam Abu Dagga, who has worked with the Associated Press (AP) and other outlets throughout the war. Moath Abu Taha, a freelance journalist, was also killed, the hospital added.

The Israeli attacks hit a balcony on the hospital used by reporters for an elevated view of Khan Younis.

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Why it took Palestinians starving for many to finally admit Israel is committing genocide in Gaza 

As anyone who studies the crime of crimes knows, genocide is a process not an event. For some NGOs, politicians, and other public figures, concluding that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians has also been a “process.” It has taken months, at times nearly two years, for some to admit that Israel has violated the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

One factor has been decisive in prompting these admissions. That factor is “starvation,” namely, Israel’s deliberate starvation of 2.1 million Palestinians who inhabit this tiny, densely packed strip of land.

Israel intensified its long-standing use of starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza immediately following October 7, 2023. Nearly twenty-three months later, Israel’s starvation project has brought widespread and sustained famine to the Strip, with over 200 people, including over 100 children, dying of starvation since October 7. 61% of those deaths have occurred since July 20, 2025. Deaths related to malnutrition and malnutrition-related disease are significantly higher.

But why has starvation been so pivotal as compared to Israel’s other horrors, which have brought even more death and destruction to Gaza? Ironically, it is the dehumanization of the Palestinian people, which continues to prevent some from acknowledging the genocide even until now, that explains why starvation has played such a decisive role in naming Israel’s actions.

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What Is JewBelong’s Deal?

I’m sure you’ve seen the hot-pink billboards. Failing that, you may have seen the hot-pink Instagram posts.

In case you haven’t: On top of a bright-pink background, white letters spell out phrases like, “This year, we didn’t need the Grinch to steal Christmas. The Hamas kids did that for him.” Or, “When your parents said ‘find yourself’ in college, they didn’t mean to find your inner terrorist.” They range from cliché but harmless—“Anyone who hates Jews clearly hasn’t tried my Bubby’s brisket”—to a bit menacing, with one since-deleted post reading, “Trust Me. If Israel Wanted to Commit Genocide in Gaza, It Could.” When I went to their website for this piece, I was greeted with a pink pop-up with white lettering that said, “We’re just 75 years since the gas chambers. So no, a billboard calling out Jewish hate isn’t an overreaction.” OK!

The Instagram graphics, like their physical billboard counterparts, are the work of JewBelong. The nonprofit—founded by Archie Gottesman and Stacy Stuart, who worked together penning eye-catching ad campaigns for Manhattan Mini Storage—has existed for several years. As Fast Company reported in 2015, the organization hoped it would “take some of the stress and complexity out of Jewish life.” In the article, the two founders called their program Marketing Jewru, but by the next year, it was JewBelong.

“Let’s face it, Judaism can be a little/lot intimidating,” their website reads:

JewBelong is out to change that by helping you find the joy, meaning and relevance that Judaism has to offer. Our explanations and meaningful rituals are just the beginning. We exist for Jewish people, for people who aren’t Jewish but are part of a Jewish community, for anyone who has felt like a Jewish outsider, and especially for Disengaged Jews (DJs for short). That’s literally why our name/tagline is JewBelong: for when you feel you don’t! 

On its face, making Jewish life more accessible and welcoming is fairly unobjectionable (though there are certainly Jewish individuals who would object to the idea). And having a website that simply offers explanations of Jewish holidays isn’t harming anyone, and could even serve as a useful resource. (Other websites like My Jewish Learning do the same thing, albeit with less snark.)

From the start, though, two contradictions were baked into JewBelong’s mission.

The first is the question of why some Jews don’t feel they belong in a broader community of Jews, be it locally or globally. In 2015, Gottesman blamed Judaism’s marketing. Is that the issue? In 2016, writing in Haaretz, Rokhl Kafrissen suggested that the actual issues were the costs of raising children at all and in particular to having Jewish education and experiences (the ninth of JewBelong’s “New Ten Commandments” is to send children to Jewish summer camp and Hebrew school).

Kafrissen also points to Jewish philanthropists’ focus (and money spent) on fighting intermarriage and supporting Jewish continuity—traditionally understood as Jews marrying, giving birth to, and raising other Jews—instead of funding Jewish education. To that group, Kafrissen argues, ignorance about Judaism is all right so long as Jews marry and raise other Jews. (“Jewish grandchildren” is the second of JewBelong’s New Ten Commandments). To this, I would add that I have never interviewed a Jewish person who said they were checked out—excuse me, “disengaged”—because of marketing. But I have spoken to more than I can count who were treated as though they did not, in fact, belong because they were the product of intermarriage, or because they themselves were intermarried. And I doubt any of them would have felt like a bright billboard telling them they belong was an antidote to that.

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