With thousands now held without charge, lawyers say Israel is
signalling that no detainee is safe

Marwan Barghouti spends his days huddled in a cramped, dark, solitary cell, with no way to tend to his wounds, and a shoulder injury from being dragged with his hands cuffed behind his back.

Barghouti holds almost mythic status within Palestinian politics, seen as a figure whose potential to unify different factions has only grown during his 24 years in prison.

Continue reading...

💾

© Photograph: NurPhoto/Getty Images

💾

© Photograph: NurPhoto/Getty Images

The US military has begun moving aid ashore in Gaza, as the UN says truck convoys by land remain the most efficient way of getting aid in

Israel on Friday attacked South Africa’s case against it in the international court of justice as an “obscene exploitation” of the genocide convention, claiming it aimed not to protect Palestinian civilians but to defend Hamas militants.

Israel’s representatives told the court their country was fighting a war of self-defence it “did not want and did not start”. They said Israel had made “extraordinary” efforts to protect civilians, and had complied with orders from the court to let more aid into Gaza.

Continue reading...

💾

© Photograph: Israel Defense Forces/Reuters

💾

© Photograph: Israel Defense Forces/Reuters

Samantha Power says barely 100 trucks of aid a day enter Gaza, far less than 600 needed to address threat of famine

Humanitarian assistance has begun to arrive in Gaza along a US-made pier, but the US aid chief said the new sea corridor could not be a substitute for land crossings, and warned that deliveries of food and fuel entering Gaza had slowed to “dangerously low levels”.

The White House national security spokesperson, John Kirby, confirmed on Friday that truckloads of humanitarian aid, including food from the United Arab Emirates, sent by ship from Cyprus, had been unloaded on the Gaza coast and handed over to the control of the UN.

Continue reading...

💾

© Photograph: Reuters TV/Reuters

💾

© Photograph: Reuters TV/Reuters

War in Gaza, the Russian offensive in Kharkiv, protests in Georgia, the Northern lights and the Cannes Film Festival: the last seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists

Warning: this gallery contains images that some readers may find distressing

Continue reading...

💾

© Photograph: George Ivanchenko/Anadolu/Getty Images

💾

© Photograph: George Ivanchenko/Anadolu/Getty Images

Bodies of Amit Buskila and Itzhak Gelerenter also recovered from Gaza as Israel says 129 hostages remain in captivity

The bodies of three hostages kidnapped by Hamas, including the German-Israeli Shani Louk, have been retrieved from Gaza by the Israeli military, it announced.

The other two hostages were identified as Amit Buskila, 28, and Itzhak Gelerenter, 56, according to the military spokesperson Rear Adm Daniel Hagari, who said the three victims were taken to Gaza after being killed by Hamas at the Nova music festival.

Continue reading...

💾

© Photograph: Hostages Families Forum Headquarters/AP

💾

© Photograph: Hostages Families Forum Headquarters/AP

We can only address the politics of Israel/Palestine by recognising the suffering of both Jewish and Palestinian people, writes Lynne Segal. Plus a letter from Ron Mendel

It is indeed a tragic time for Jewish people, as Dave Rich argues (The 7 October Hamas attack opened a space – and antisemitism filled it. British Jews are living with the consequences, 16 May). He rightly insists on the extreme dangers of historic and continuing antisemitism, today rising and falling with the extremities of conflict in Israel/Palestine. Yet he fails to address the specific grief of thousands of Jews, observant and secular, who have like me worked for decades for peace, and an end to occupation and land grabs in Israel/Palestine.

Rich’s article was published the day after Nakba day: commemorating the catastrophe of 700,000 Palestinians forcibly dispossessed of their homes and sent into exile to enable the establishment of Israel in 1948. Jewish criticisms of Israel’s dispossession of Palestinians have always existed, but they tend to be immediately dismissed to allow only one narrative to be heard.

Continue reading...

💾

© Photograph: Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images

💾

© Photograph: Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images

New York University professor Nikhil Singh interviews the political scientist and longtime critic of Israel after his speech at Columbia University

How do the messages and slogans adopted by social movements matter? In the 1960s, one of the simplest and most powerful slogans of the African American civil rights movement was: “Freedom now!” With that slogan, the movement indicated that Black demands exceeded a narrow reading of legal rights and protections. At the same time, it tapped into one of the most powerful keywords in the American political lexicon in a way that was immediately legible to a large, popular audience.

The occasion for the conversation below was a speech that the political scientist Norman Finkelstein gave at the Columbia University encampment protesting Israel’s war in Gaza. Finkelstein challenged students to think of the kind of messaging that might broaden their audience and build their movement. He questioned the slogan “Palestine will be free, from the river to sea” as mostly ineffective for these purposes, due to how it inflames fears among Israel’s supporters and gives fuel to arguments that pro-Palestinian protests on US university campuses are antisemitic and even “genocidal”.

Continue reading...

💾

© Photograph: Katie Smith/Sipa USA via Alamy

💾

© Photograph: Katie Smith/Sipa USA via Alamy

Israel is appearing at international court of justice after South Africa asked it to urgently order end to assault on Rafah

Yemen’s Houthis said they downed a US MQ9 drone on Thursday evening over the south-eastern province of Maareb, the group’s military spokesperson said on Friday.

According to Reuters, the Iran-aligned group said they would release images and videos to support their claim and added that they had targeted the drone using a locally made surface to air missile.

Continue reading...

💾

© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

💾

© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

Lawyers urge international court of justice to issue urgent measures over assault on Gaza’s southernmost city

South Africa has asked the international court of justice (ICJ) to urgently order Israel to end its assault on Rafah, halt its military campaign across Gaza, and allow international investigators and journalists into the territory.

In a court hearing, lawyers for South Africa expanded a written request for judges to issue an emergency order to stop the offensive into Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city.

Continue reading...

💾

© Photograph: Nick Gammon/AFP/Getty Images

💾

© Photograph: Nick Gammon/AFP/Getty Images

ICRC is denied access to prisoners in what is said to be breach of Geneva conventions but critics say UK plan may weaken rule of law

Red Cross officials are to hold talks with the UK over a Foreign Office plan to visit Palestinian detainees held by Israel. Critics say this bypasses a duty on Israel under the Geneva conventions to give the Red Cross access to detainees.

Israel has suspended the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) from access to Palestinian detainees since the Hamas attack on 7 October, and says it will not rescind the policy until Hamas grants access to Israeli hostages.

Continue reading...

💾

© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

💾

© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

US officials insist American troops will not step foot in Gaza despite building the pier; seven troops also wounded in friendly fire incident

Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group says it has launched “more than 60” rockets at Israeli military positions in retaliation for overnight air strikes on the country’s east, AFP reports

Israel and Hamas ally Hezbollah have exchanged near-daily fire following the Palestinian group’s October 7 attack on southern Israel that sparked the war in Gaza, now in its eighth month.

Continue reading...

💾

© Photograph: US Navy/Reuters

💾

© Photograph: US Navy/Reuters

Israeli soldiers escorting convoy accused of doing nothing to stop widely condemned incident

Palestinian lorry drivers delivering aid to Gaza have described “barbaric” scenes after their vehicles were blocked and vandalised by Israeli settlers, preventing humanitarian supplies reaching the territory where much of the population face imminent starvation.

Drivers and contractors who were targeted on Monday at the Tarqumiya checkpoint in the occupied West Bank also said Israeli soldiers escorting the convoy did nothing to stop the attack.

Continue reading...

💾

© Photograph: Oren Ziv/AFP/Getty Images

💾

© Photograph: Oren Ziv/AFP/Getty Images

Yoav Gallant, who Benjamin Netanyahu tried to fire in 2023, says he will not allow Israeli rule of Gaza

A long-festering split at the heart of Israel’s war cabinet has burst into the open with the defence minister, Yoav Gallant, challenging the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to come up with plans for the “day after” the war in Gaza, and saying he would not permit any solution where Israeli military or civil governance were in the territory.

Gallant’s comments, immediately backed by his fellow minister Benny Gantz, plunged Israel’s leadership into a highly public row, in the midst of the Gaza conflict, calling into question Gallant’s future in the Israeli government and Netanyahu’s fractious coalition.

Continue reading...

💾

© Photograph: Israeli Army/AFP/Getty Images

💾

© Photograph: Israeli Army/AFP/Getty Images

Anger over Israel’s seizure of Palestinian side of crossing raises fears Cairo may downgrade relations

• Israel-Gaza war – live updates

Israel and Egypt are embroiled in a growing diplomatic row over the Rafah border crossing after Israel’s takeover of the Gaza side of the crossing, amid warnings Cairo may be planning to downgrade relations.

In recent days Egypt has announced it will no longer participate in allowing the transit of aid into Gaza and said it planned to join the genocide case brought by South Africa against Israel at the UN’s top court.

Continue reading...

💾

© Photograph: Israeli Army/AFP/Getty Images

💾

© Photograph: Israeli Army/AFP/Getty Images

A majority of Israel’s Jews today are not descended from Europe, but rather from Arab nations. To expect them to leave Israel is unprecedented, unrealistic and wrong

Though not a prevalent catchphrase in the student demonstrations, the slogan “Jews/Israelis go back to Europe” has garnered national, and even international, attention. This phrase, like the much more popular phrase “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” is troubling because it attempts to negate the existence of the Jewish state of Israel. The “Go back to Europe” chant also ignores the fact that the majority of Israelis today don’t come from European backgrounds.

Another slogan heard at rallies calls for ending the “75-year occupation”, pointing not to the occupation of the West Bank or Gaza, which dates back to 1967, but rather to the date when Israel was founded as a modern nation.

Jo-Ann Mort is co-author of Our Hearts Invented a Place: Can Kibbutzim Survive in Today’s Israel? She writes frequently about Israel for US, UK and Israeli publications.

Continue reading...

💾

© Photograph: Abir Sultan/EPA

💾

© Photograph: Abir Sultan/EPA

Source: securityboulevard.com – Author: Nathan Eddy An advanced persistent threat (APT) group backed by Iran has been stoking divisions within Israeli society for the past three years. It has been using generative AI deepfake tools and social media accounts to craft disinformation campaigns. According to research from Recorded Future’s Insikt Group, the group, known as […]

La entrada Emerald Divide Uses GenAI to Exploit Social, Political Divisions in Israel Using Disinformation – Source: securityboulevard.com se publicó primero en CISO2CISO.COM & CYBER SECURITY GROUP.

Bad actors are always ready to exploit political strife to their own ends. Right now, they’re doing so with the conflict in the Middle East. A holistic defense against influence networks requires collaboration between government, technology companies and security research organizations.

The post Emerald Divide Uses GenAI to Exploit Social, Political Divisions in Israel Using Disinformation appeared first on Security Boulevard.

South Africa's case against Israel over allegations of genocide before the international court of justice has raised a central question of international law: what is genocide and how do you prove it? It is one of three genocide cases being considered by the UN's world court, but since the genocide convention was approved in 1948, only three instances have been legally recognised as genocide. Josh Toussaint-Strauss looks back on these historical cases to find out why the crime is so much harder to prove than other atrocities, and what bearing this has on South Africa's case against Israel and future cases

• What is the genocide convention and how might it apply to the UK and Israel?

• ‘Famine is setting in’: UN court orders Israel to unblock Gaza food aid

Continue reading...

💾

© Photograph: Guardian Design

💾

© Photograph: Guardian Design

Hamas accepted ceasefire Arms pause

This is part of the ongoing thread on the war. https://www.metafilter.com/203321/Six-months-and-counting https://www.metafilter.com/203440/Protesting-for-Gaza-on-US-universities

The dismissals escalated longstanding tensions between company leaders and activist employees opposed to supplying technology to Israel’s government.

© Nathan Frandino/Reuters

An Iranian cyber group known as Handala has asserted the breaching of Israel's radars and taking down the Iron Dome missile defense systems.  The Handala hacker group, notorious for its targeting of Israeli interests, allegedly infiltrated Israel's radar defenses and inundated Israeli citizens with text messages, marking a large-scale cyber intrusion. The group claimed to have penetrated the radar systems, issuing a dire warning through 500,000 text messages dispatched to Israeli citizens, indicating a limited window for Israel to rectify the breached systems. [caption id="attachment_62898" align="alignnone" width="660"] Source: Falcon Feeds on X[/caption] Within this attack, the group also claimed that it hacked the Iron Dome missile defense systems. As part of the evidence of their intrusion, Handala has shared screenshots of the hacking of Israeli radars.

Handala Hacker Group Claims Large-Scale Cyberattack on Israel

[caption id="attachment_62890" align="alignnone" width="1280"] Source: YourOpinion on X[/caption] Handala's cyberattack on Israel has been multifaceted, extending beyond the cyberattacks on the radar systems and the Iron Dome missile defense systems. Rada Electronics, a defense technology firm aligned with Israel's interests, reportedly fell victim to Handala's incursion, with leaked dashboard images purportedly confirming the breach.  The Cyber Express has reached out to Rada Electronics to verify the claims of this cyberattack. However, at the time of writing this, no official statement or response has been received. Furthermore, a service provider responsible for Israeli customer alerts and Israel's Cyber Security College allegedly experienced sizable data breaches, amounting to terabytes of compromised information. [caption id="attachment_62903" align="alignnone" width="484"] Source: Source: Falcon Feeds on X[/caption] The group's expression has been brazen, with messages explicitly targeting Israeli entities affiliated with the 8200 unit, emphasizing their vulnerability despite their purported expertise in cybersecurity. Such provocations serve to intensify the ongoing cyber conflict between Iran and Israel, with Handala positioning itself as a supporter challenging Israel's digital defenses. The Handala hacker group recently came into the spotlight as it represented support for Palestine against Israel. The threatening messages to Israeli citizens further show their intent to sow discord and undermine public confidence in Israel's security. Previously, the group claimed a cyberattack on the Viber instant messaging service, breaching and stealing over 740 GB of data from the company's servers. The group seems to be influenced by or based on the Palestinian resistance cartoon character Handala.

Who is the Handala Hacker Group?

Being a pro-Palestian group, the hackers behind the group took inspiration from Handala, a significant national emblem of the Palestinian people. The character of Handala was created by political cartoonist Naji al-Ali in 1969 and assumed its current form in 1973.  It embodies the spirit of Palestinian identity and resistance, often depicted in al-Ali's cartoons. Named after the Citrullus colocynthis plant native to Palestine, Handala symbolizes resilience, with deep roots and a bitter fruit that regrows when cut. Since al-Ali's assassination in 1987, Handala has remained a powerful symbol of Palestinian identity, prominently displayed on walls and buildings in the West Bank, Gaza, and Palestinian refugee camps. It has also gained traction as a tattoo and jewelry motif and has been adopted by movements like Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, and the Iranian Green Movement — now the Handala hacker group. Handala's iconic posture, with its back turned and hands clasped behind reflects a rejection of imposed solutions and solidarity with the marginalized. The character, perpetually ten years old, signifies al-Ali's age when he left Palestine, embodying the hope of returning to a homeland.  Moreover, the inspired hacker group, similarly, claimed many such attacks to retain its identity as a supporter for Palestine. Although official Israeli sources have yet to confirm Handala's claims, security experts within Israel have expressed apprehension regarding the plausibility of Iranian cyberattacks targeting critical national infrastructure. 

Iran Attacks Israel With Missiles and Drones

The recent surge of drones and missiles directed towards Israel overnight on April 14 has raised a phase of tension and confrontation in the Middle East. Iran's attack on Israel, purportedly in retaliation to a suspected Israeli strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus earlier this month, marks an escalation in the longstanding discord between the two nations. Iran's attack, comprising over 300 projectiles including drones and ballistic missiles, targeted various locations in Israel, albeit with minimal impact due to interception by Israeli defense systems. The Nevatim airbase was among the sites reportedly hit, allegedly in response to Israel's earlier strike on the Iranian consulate, reported The Times of Israel. Despite causing only minor structural damage, the attack highlights Iran's retaliatory position.  The airstrike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, attributed to Israel, resulted in casualties including high-ranking Iranian officials, prompting vows of retribution from Iranian leadership. The ensuing regional instability has prompted concerns of a broader conflict, prompting calls from Israel's allies to prioritize de-escalation. Israel has responded defensively, emphasizing its successful interception of the majority of incoming projectiles while urging preparedness for any scenario. However, calls for restraint and de-escalation from Western allies, including the United States, highlights the urgency of avoiding further conflict. The immediate response from Israel's War Cabinet remains pending, with discussions ongoing regarding the timing and scope of potential retaliatory measures. Iran, on the other hand, has warned of retaliation should Israel pursue further attacks on its interests, suggesting a potential escalation of hostilities.  Media Disclaimer: This report is based on internal and external research obtained through various means. The information provided is for reference purposes only, and users bear full responsibility for their reliance on it. The Cyber Express assumes no liability for the accuracy or consequences of using this information.

The experimental effort, which has not been disclosed, is being used to conduct mass surveillance of Palestinians in Gaza, according to military officials and others.

© Agence France-Presse — Getty Images