#israeli-occupied-territories

In August 2024, it was reported that the Sheikh Radwan Lagoon had become polluted by sewage and stagnant rainwater as the result of the area's sanitation systems being damaged by the Gaza war. The lack of infrastructure had led to increase in water-born disease, including polio, hepatitis A, and cholera, and skin infections.[27][28][29] The United Nations established vaccination clinic in Sheikh Radwan in November 2024 to distribute the polio vaccine to Palestinian children. The clinic was bombed a few hours after opening, injuring two adults and four children.

The ceasefire agreement was announced on Oct. 10, two years after Hamas militants killed 1,200 and took 251 hostage in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, most of whom were returned in previous negotiations. Since then, Israeli troops have killed more than 70,700 Palestinians in Gaza, many of them women and children, and have displaced most of the enclave’s population. Health authorities in Palestine say Israel has violated the ceasefire multiple times, even daily, and at least 386 people have been killed in strikes by its military since Oct. 10. Israel, meanwhile, says three of its soldiers have died since the ceasefire began, and that it is responding to ceasefire violations by Hamas.

Saturday's attack happened on the Palestinian-controlled side of the so-called Yellow Line which has divided Gaza since an unstable US-led ceasefire came into effect on 10 October.

The current MOU, negotiated by the Obama administration and providing for Israel to receive $38 billion in weapons, expires in FY2028. According to recent media reports, initial negotiations began recently between US and Israeli officials for the next MOU, with Israel proposing that its term be extended to 20 years.

Israel is also reportedly seeking even greater annual appropriations of weapons than the $3.8 billion outlined in the current MOU, meaning that taxpayers could be on the hook for providing Israel with $76 billion of weapons at a bare minimum if the Trump administration accedes to Israel’s requests.

Ibrahim suffered double digit weight loss and developed scabies while in Israeli custody. The state department was involved in the case considering his American citizenship, which also prompted more than 100 US human rights, faith-based and civil rights organizations to demand his immediate release in August.

Last month, 27 Democratic members of Congress – including senators Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Chris Van Hollen – wrote to secretary of state Marco Rubio expressing “grave concern” over Ibrahim’s treatment and demanded the US act to secure his release.

Israel is the only country in the world that systematically prosecutes children in military courts, according to a 2013 Unicef report.

Between 2005 and 2010, 835 Palestinian minors aged 12 to 17 were tried on stone-throwing charges in military court, with only one acquitted, according to B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights organization.

Kadur stressed that countless other Palestinian children remain in similar circumstances.

“There are hundreds of children like Mohammed, unjustly trapped in an Israeli military prison, being subjected to Israel’s abuse and torture,” Kadur said. “No mother, father, parent, brother, sister, aunt, uncle or child should ever have to go through what Mohammed just went through.”

Since breaking the ceasefire agreement in March of 2025, the Israeli military has taken control of more than 75 percent of Gaza, trapping more than 2 million people into smaller and smaller areas of the decimated territory. There, the Israeli government is enforcing a policy of total starvation, barring even baby formula from entering Gaza. Hundreds have already starved to death. Massacres of Palestinians waiting for food aid have become a daily occurrence; the Israeli military has now killed over a thousand people at U.S.-backed food distribution sites.

WHY DIVEST

RISKS TO WASHINGTONIANS

Reducing exposure to companies that are complicit in these atrocities is not just a moral decision; it is also a financial decision. The fiduciary duty to steward pension funds should look at the risks for the funds over the next fifty years at at a minimum. The short term return on weapons and other companies who are complicit in genocide does not outweigh the serious risks involved in this long term investment. The WSIB is taking a major risk that could result in future losses.

Haha. I can’t wait for “Trump says Earth is flat. Wikipedia updates Earth article to agree.”

“The question is, why should the opinions of the largely impartial UN and human rights scholars be weighed equally to the obviously partisan opinions of commentators and governments?

“Wikipedia has never, ever treated all voices as equal, nor does policy demand we do. If we did, the Earth article would state that Earth’s shape is under debate. But we don’t do that because scholarly consensus is that Earth is roughly spherical. Instead, flat eartherism is presented as what it is: a fringe movement without scientific backing,” the editor wrote.

Experts including the International Association of Genocide Scholars, Amnesty International, B’Tselem, and a UN Human Rights Council commission led by former president of the Rwanda genocide international tribunal Navi Pillay, have all concluded that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.