Israel-Palestine conflict

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) opened its office in Palestine back in 1994. Its website, which is no longer available, used to boast that since then, it has “helped four million Palestinians lead healthier and more productive lives”.

Now that the agency has been shuttered by US President Donald Trump’s administration, it is pertinent to evaluate the claim that USAID was a force for good in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Undoubtedly, the shutdown of the agency has affected Palestinians, especially those benefitting from its funding for education and healthcare institutions. Humanitarian provision was also affected, with the World Food Programme, one of the main humanitarian actors in the occupied Palestinian territories, facing major disruptions.

While the short-term negative impact is apparent, the utility of USAID and other US funding becomes questionable when put in the larger political context of the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

As a researcher, I have been directly and indirectly involved in assessing USAID-funded programmes for years, and I have seen first-hand how they have contributed to maintaining Israeli occupation and colonisation. The US agency was far from “helping” Palestinians lead better lives, as it claimed.

A policy of pacification

USAID opened its West Bank and Gaza Strip office as part of the broader American effort to lead and shape the political settlement between Palestinians and Israelis initiated by the Oslo Accords of 1994.

The so-called “peace process” promised Palestinians an independent state on the lands occupied by Israel in 1967, with a final agreement supposed to be signed by 1999. Needless to say, such an agreement was never signed, as Israel never intended to conclude peace with the Palestinians and recognise their right to self-determination.

Instead, Oslo was used to cover up Israel’s relentless colonisation of the occupied Palestinian territories in the rhetoric of peace negotiations. The creation of the Palestinian Authority (PA) as a local governing body tasked with managing civil affairs for Palestinians in designated areas was part of this strategy.

While the official Palestinian leadership envisioned the PA as a transitional polity that would administer daily life until an independent state was established, it was ultimately designed and closely overseen by the US to function as a client regime, managing and controlling the occupied population.

To that end, the PA was obliged to engage in close coordination with Israeli security forces to suppress any form of resistance in the territories it managed. Its two main security bodies – the Intelligence Service and the Preventive Security – were set up to fulfil this duty.

While US intelligence agencies were tasked with supporting and training the Palestinian security apparatus – funnelling millions of dollars to it every year – USAID was tasked with supporting the civilian functions of the PA.

Between 1994 and 2018, USAID provided more than $5.2bn in aid to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. It funded infrastructure, health, and education initiatives, with the aim of winning public support for the peace negotiations.

A portion of its funding was funnelled through civil society organisations with two primary objectives: to depoliticise the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and to cultivate a network of civil society actors who would promote this agenda.

The depoliticisation framework treated the Palestinian issue as an economic and humanitarian matter. This approach addressed Palestinian economic and social problems in isolation — detached from their primary cause: Israeli occupation.

It also sought to delegitimise Palestinian resistance by portraying it as a source of instability and chaos rather than a political response to occupation.

To distribute its funding, USAID established a complex system of background checks, alongside an Orwellian set of conditions. The vetting extended beyond the individual to their extended family, the name of the place, and even the cultural context in which the funds would be used — none of which could be associated with resistance.

In this context, it is hardly surprising that USAID programmes often failed to improve the lives of ordinary Palestinians.

Normalisation through people-to-people programmes

A lot of USAID funding went into initiatives that sought to normalise Israeli colonisation by seeking to establish connections between Palestinians and Israelis. The premise was that the two people “can learn to live together”, which of course completely ignored the realities of apartheid and occupation.

One of the USAID-funded programmes I assessed was the Conflict Management and Mitigation (CMM) Program, promoted under USAID’s People-to-People Partnership framework. By 2018, CMM had allocated over $230m to different initiatives and was set to distribute another $250m by 2026.

The programme included projects targeting bereaved parents, farmers, and students to promote peacebuilding. One such project sought to foster cooperation between Palestinian and Israeli farmers through shared farming experiences.

During one focus group discussion, I spoke to a Palestinian farmer who explained that Palestinian olive oil production has been stagnating due to the Israeli occupation regime that restricted Palestinian farmers’ access to water and, in some cases, to their land. “These programmes,” he said, “don’t talk about these issues.”

When I asked why he participated, he explained that the project enabled him to obtain an Israeli travel permit — allowing him to work on Israeli farms and earn an income to survive.

The absurdity of this dynamic was striking: on paper, the programme spoke of fostering productive relationships between Palestinians and Israelis, building a shared, peaceful future where farmers become friends. In reality, however, Palestinian farmers signed so they could a travel permit and work on Israeli farms — many of which were established on confiscated Palestinian land. Participation in the programme did not resolve any of the problems the Palestinian farmers faced in olive farming – i.e., Israeli occupation policies.

Another USAID-funded programme I studied, Seeds of Peace, had the mission to bring together young people from conflict regions who had the potential to become future leaders in their countries. The programme’s central activity was a youth summer camp in an affluent area in the US state of Maine, where participants engaged in dialogue and leadership training.

The two largest participant groups were Israelis and Palestinians. While the Israeli Ministry of Education was responsible for selecting Israeli participants, the Seeds of Peace office in Ramallah oversaw the recruitment of Palestinian participants. Each participant benefitted from a heavily subsidised programme, with costs reaching up to $8,000 per person.

A closer look at participant lists over the years revealed a striking pattern: the sons and daughters of PA leaders and affluent families frequently appeared.

Curious about this pattern, I once asked a programme officer about it. The response was revealing: “In Palestinian society, leadership often passes to the children of high-ranking officials.”

This meant that the organisation’s —and by extension, the US’s – vision of political leadership in Palestine assumed that power in Palestinian politics is hereditary and therefore, US initiatives should focus on the sons and daughters of the current elite.

Political interference

Seeds of Peace was by far not the only programme that served to support PA cadres and their families. Some relatives of high-ranking officials have received preferential treatment in securing lucrative USAID contracts; others have led nonprofit organisations funded by the agency.

USAID has also been involved indirectly in the political scene in Palestine by supporting political actors favoured by Washington.

Between 2004 and 2006, it implemented an expansive democracy promotion programme in the Palestinian territories in the lead-up to the 2006 legislative elections. While there is no direct evidence of financial support for specific candidates or party lists, observers have noted that civil society organisations (CSOs) linked to Fatah or the Third Way candidates were recipients of USAID funding. In some cases, this support was channeled through organisations operating in unrelated sectors.

Despite substantial funding and political support, these groups failed to secure enough seats to prevent Hamas’s electoral victory. After Hamas took control of Gaza, USAID continued supporting Palestinian CSOs, in some cases dramatically increasing their funding.

USAID also supported the police force under the PA through rule of law programmes, although the bulk of funding for the PA’s repressive security apparatus has come through the CIA and the International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement (INCLE) of the US Department of State.

A more recent and stark example of problematic USAID involvement is the malfunctioning pier constructed by the US military in 2024 to facilitate aid delivery into Gaza, at a cost of $230m. The project was promoted as a humanitarian initiative and USAID was one of the organisations tasked with distributing the trickle of aid that came through it.

In reality, the pier served as a public relations stunt by the administration of former US President Joe Biden to obscure US complicity in Israel’s blockade of Gaza. It was also used by the Israeli military in an operation that resulted in the killing of more than 200 Palestinians, raising serious questions about the militarisation and misuse of aid infrastructure.

The pier farce is a good illustration of the US approach to providing aid to the Palestinians: it was never done in their best interest.

It is true that some impoverished Palestinians may be affected by the shutdown of USAID operations in the West Bank and Gaza. However, it is unlikely to decisively alter the situation on the ground. The cutoff of aid will have a more dramatic impact on the US strategy of leveraging Palestinian civil society organisations to promote a pacification agenda and perpetuate empty rhetoric about peace.

In this regard, the shuttering of USAID could give an opportunity for the Palestinian civil society to reconsider its engagement with US government donors in light of its moral obligations to the Palestinian people. Millions poured into pacification clearly did not work; it is time for a new approach that actually serves the interests of the Palestinians.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

The entire Strip, with a population of two million people, may be on the brink of famine as the World Food Programme runs out of supplies.

At least 13 Palestinians have been killed since dawn and dozens of others buried under the rubble of a building destroyed in an Israeli air attack on Gaza City.

Four victims, at least, were killed in a strike on a home in the city’s Sabra neighbourhood on Saturday, with the residents forced to dig the ground with their bare hands to reach people buried in the debris.

Mahmoud Basal, spokesman for Gaza’s civil defence agency, said a lack of rescue equipment has prevented emergency workers from reaching those buried underneath the collapsed building bombed by Israel before dawn.

“Our crews cannot reach them because of the lack of the necessary machinery,” he told the AFP news agency.

Earlier this week, Israeli aircraft destroyed 40 engineering vehicles the civil defence teams were using to remove heavy debris during rescue operations.

Israeli air raids also hit other parts of the Strip on Saturday, including al-Mawasi and Khan Younis, as the besieged territory faces impending mass starvation amid an ongoing genocide.

After 18 months of the Israeli military invasion that has killed more than 51,000 Palestinians, the situation in Gaza “is probably the worst” it has been, the United Nations warned.

The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) on Friday said the entire Strip, with a population of two million people, may be on the brink of famine and aid kitchens are “expected to fully run out of food in the coming days”.

Israel’s ongoing blockade has meant no food, fuel or medicine has entered Gaza for two months. For many Palestinians in Gaza, community kitchens were their only source of nutrition after Israeli forces destroyed almost all food production facilities.

WFP has appealed to the international community to put pressure on Israel to lift the blockade, saying more than 116,000 metric tonnes of food assistance – enough to feed one million people for up to four months – are already positioned for delivery “as soon as borders reopen”.

Reporting from Deir el-Balah on Saturday, Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum said the humanitarian crisis in the besieged territory “has reached a very unprecedented breaking point”.

“Civilians are really struggling to cope with this crisis,” he said.

Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA, said the crisis was “man-made”.

Michael Fakhri, UN rapporteur on the right to food, said Israel is “executing this starvation campaign with no repercussions”.

The World Health Organization said the situation was no different for medical supplies, with WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus pleading on X for the aid blockade to end.

At least 2,062 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel resumed its deadly campaign against Hamas on March 18, and more than 50,000 since October 7, 2023. Hamas’s attack on Israel killed 1,218 people, mostly civilians.

The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), under pressure to appoint a second-in-command to its ageing leader, Mahmoud Abbas, created a vice president position after meeting with senior officials on April 24.

Abbas, who is also president of the Palestinian Authority (PA), promised during an emergency Arab summit in early March that the position would be created. Yet it remains unclear who will eventually fill the post.

The aim is to prevent a power struggle after Abbas vacates his post – a scenario that Israel could exploit to cause the collapse of the PA, fully annexe the occupied West Bank and ethnically cleanse Gaza, experts told Al Jazeera.

Yet Dianna Buttu, a former legal adviser to the PLO, believes creating a vice president post in the PA will not avert a power struggle once Abbas is gone – rather, it could exacerbate conflict.

“The more fragmented the PA becomes, the more it will create a power vacuum … and that vacuum will be filled by external actors and mainly by the Americans and Israelis,” she warned.

Legitimacy crisis

Abbas, 89, assumed control of the PLO and PA after Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat died in November 2004 and has ruled without a popular mandate since dissolving parliament in 2007.

His Fatah party dominates the PA and PLO. The long-defunct parliament has faded away, and critics have slammed Abbas for seeming to undermine attempts to hold elections that could revive it.

In the absence of parliament, the PLO controls the succession, a task Abbas has postponed, including by decreeing last year that Rawhi Fattouh, head of the Palestinian National Council, would become interim president if the position became vacant suddenly until elections are held.

“Abbas has put this off out of fear that if he brought anyone forward, then they would be a rival,” said Khaled Elgindy, a visiting scholar at Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies.

The PA was created by the Oslo Peace Accords, signed by Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1993 and 1995.

Tasked with governing the West Bank and Gaza until a Palestinian state was created alongside Israel, the PA lost credibility among Palestinians as Israel’s occupation became more violent and oppressive, and land grabs for Israeli settlements continued.

Since Oslo, the population of settlements, illegal under international law, built on Palestinian land has risen from about 200,000 to more than 750,000.

In 2007, a violent split with Hamas in Gaza constrained the PA’s authority to the parts of the occupied West Bank that it had some limited control over.

The PA did manage to become the de facto Palestinian representative on the international stage, replacing the PLO.

But at home, Abbas’s popularity slipped as people’s suffering increased and the PA continued its security coordination with Israel, which was outlined in the Oslo Accords.

The PA is also seen to have failed to protect Palestinians from Israeli troops and settlers while using its authority to crack down on civil activists and opponents.

This has resulted in a situation in which whoever he appoints, “Abbas’s handpicked successor probably won’t win people over”, Elgindy told Al Jazeera.

The name suggested most often is Abbas’s close confidant and secretary-general of the PLO Executive Committee, Hussein al-Sheikh.

Al-Sheikh also heads the PA’s General Authority for Civil Affairs, which issues the Israeli-approved permits that enable a few Palestinians to navigate the movement restrictions Israel has implemented in the occupied West Bank.

Human rights groups and the International Court of Justice – the highest legal body in the world – see Israel’s movement restrictions against Palestinians as apartheid.

Sheikh’s long-standing relationship with the Israeli authorities has led critics to accuse him of acting as a liaison for the occupation.

“Nobody likes him [among Palestinians],” said Omar Rahman, an expert on Israel-Palestine with the Middle East Council for Global Affairs. “[Al-Sheikh] is tainted by his relationship to Israel and perceptions [that he is embroiled in] massive corruption.”

External pressure

The pressure on Abbas regarding succession has ebbed and flowed over the years, intensifying over recent months as Arab states push him to appoint a successor to prevent the PA from dissolving into chaos, analysts told Al Jazeera.

Egypt is particularly eager to ensure succession, according to Rahman.

In March, Egypt called and hosted an Arab League summit, during which it unveiled its reconstruction plan for Gaza to counter United States President Donald Trump’s proposal to ethnically cleanse Gaza and turn it into a “Middle East Riviera”.

Egypt was mentioned as one of the countries where Palestinians could be “moved to”, an idea it firmly rejected and countered with its reconstruction plan.

The proposal included creating a Palestinian technocratic administration, supervised by the PA, to oversee the reconstruction of the devastated enclave without displacing anyone.

The path to PA administration of Gaza is not at all clear, however, as both Hamas and Israel object to it – Hamas because it administers Gaza currently, while Israel has panned the PA as ineffective.

Abbas appears to have gone on the offensive, delivering angry broadsides against Hamas during the meetings and blaming the group for allowing the continuation of Israel’s genocide in Gaza by not handing over captives and disarming.

However, many Arab states blame Abbas for failing to reconcile his Fatah faction with Hamas, making them eager to see a change of guard in the PA, according to Tahani Mustafa, an expert on Palestinian internal politics with the International Crisis Group

Since 2007, Fatah and Hamas have signed several agreements to heal their divisions after the fighting that split the Palestinian national movement.

“I think there has been a lot of frustration [among Arab states] that [Abbas] has been more of a spoiler and obstacle to trying to get a united Palestinian front, which has given Israel a pretext to continue doing what it has been doing in Gaza,” Mustafa told Al Jazeera.

Can a vice president revive the PA?

Instead of creating a new political post, Buttu believes Abbas should hold elections for Fatah, the PLO and the PA.

The last time voting was held was just before the conflict between Hamas and Fatah in 2006. Hamas won a huge majority in those legislative elections.

The choice to create a new vice president post, she fears, won’t solve the legitimacy crisis or power vacuum once Abbas is gone, given what she described as Abbas’s lack of political will to revive Palestinian institutions.

“In typical fashion, Abbas is doing the bare minimum to get [Arab states] off his back,” she told Al Jazeera.

Elections, she acknowledged, could prove technically difficult due to Israel’s devastating war and genocide in Gaza as well as its violence and movement restrictions in the West Bank.

However, she said Palestinians could still find ways to vote, perhaps through an online portal or process.

“Inside Fatah itself, there is a lot of pushback on this appointment of a vice president. They are all saying there should be elections instead,” Buttu told Al Jazeera.

“[Abbas] is putting a Band-Aid on a wound so open that it requires surgery,” she said.

At least 59 people, including children, have been killed in a barrage of Israeli attacks across the besieged Gaza Strip, medical sources told Al Jazeera.

Rescue teams and medics in the enclave said at least 12 people belonging to the same family were among those killed on Thursday when their home in northern Gaza’s Jabalia was targeted.

Six members of another family – a couple and their four children – were killed when an air strike levelled their home in Gaza City, the civil defence said in a statement.

Ahmed Arar, a first responder in Gaza City, said there were “large quantities of body parts and remains”, including those of many children, after the attack.

“There are only hands, legs, and heads. They are all severed and torn,” Arar told Al Jazeera.

Another 10 people were killed and several others wounded in a strike on a former police station in the Jabalia area of northern Gaza, according to a statement from the Indonesian Hospital, where the casualties were taken.

“Everyone started running and screaming, not knowing what to do from the horror and severity of the bombing,” 23-year-old Abdel Qader Sabah, from Jabalia, said of the attack that hit the station that is located near a market.

Israel’s military said it struck what it described as a Hamas “command and control centre” in the Jabalia area, without clarifying if it was targeting the police station. The army has previously used similar justifications in attacks that hit hospitals and numerous shelters housing displaced Palestinian families.

At least 26 people were killed in other Israeli attacks across the territory, according to medics and the civil defence agency.

Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Deir el-Balah, said there is “an ongoing surge in the rate of Israeli attacks on the entire Gaza Strip”.

He said that civil defence crews are still working to dig through the rubble at the scene of the latest attack in Jabalia.

He cited one rescue worker as saying many of the victims have sustained burn wounds.

‘Larger’ offensive?

Israel resumed its military assault on the Gaza Strip on March 18, ending a two-month ceasefire that had brought a temporary halt to fighting in the blockaded territory.

The military is continuing to seal vital border crossings for the eighth week in a row, denying the entry of much-needed humanitarian aid, including medical supplies and fuel, worsening an already deep humanitarian crisis amid relentless bombardment.

Israel’s army chief, visiting troops in Gaza on Thursday, threatened a “larger” offensive if captives seized in the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, are not freed.

“If we do not see progress in the return of the hostages in the near future, we will expand our activities to a larger and more significant operation,” Eyal Zamir said.

The Israeli military, meanwhile, ordered Palestinians living in the northern areas of Beit Hanoon and Sheikh Zeid to evacuate in advance of an attack.

The United Nations has warned that Israel’s expanding evacuation orders across Gaza are resulting in the “forcible transfer” of people into ever-shrinking areas.

Aid agencies estimate that the vast majority of Gaza’s 2.4 million residents have been displaced at least once since the war began.

Also on Thursday, the Gaza Health Ministry said the Durra Children’s Hospital in Gaza City had become nonoperational, a day after an Israeli strike hit the upper part of the building, damaging the intensive care unit and destroying the facility’s solar power panel system.

Gaza’s health system has been devastated by Israel’s 18-month-old military campaign, putting many of the territory’s hospitals out of action, killing medics, and reducing crucial supplies.

Efforts by key mediators Qatar and Egypt, backed by the United States, have so far failed to produce a lasting ceasefire.

Since Israel resumed its assault, at least 1,978 people have been killed in Gaza, raising the overall death toll to at least 51,355 since October 2023, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

The military said Thursday that Israeli tank fire killed a UN worker in the central Gaza city of Deir el-Balah last month, according to an investigation’s initial findings.

It had initially denied operating in the area where a Bulgarian employee of the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) was killed on March 19.

The findings come after the military on Sunday reported on a separate probe into the killing of 15 Palestinian emergency workers in Gaza.

It finally admitted that operational failures led to their deaths, and said a field commander would be dismissed.

Yale University has become the latest top institution in the United States to ban a pro-Palestine group, this time for protests against a visit by far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

Ben-Gvir’s stop near the university in New Haven, Connecticut, on Wednesday sparked outrage as protesters criticised the minister’s support for surging attacks on Gaza, and most recently, his calls to bomb “food and aid depots” in the Palestinian territory.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Raed Jarrar, the advocacy director at Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), described the university’s silence about Ben-Gvir, who has “openly called for genocide”, and its subsequent crackdown on protesters “not just a moral contradiction – it’s a moral and legal failure”.

The demonstrations began on Tuesday night when protesters gathered on campus and began setting up tents at a short-lived encampment. While lasting just a few hours, the scene was similar to encampment protests that swept across US universities last year, often prompting crackdowns and policy changes from administrators.

The next day, Yale said in a statement that the encampment had violated its policies related to the use of outdoor spaces and students who had been warned or punished in previous incidents would face “immediate disciplinary action”.

It added that the university was investigating “concerns … about disturbing anti-Semitic conduct at the gathering” without providing any details.

The administration also said the student organisation Yalies4Palestine would lose its official status for sending “out calls over social media for others to join the event” and for later taking credit for the event.

In a statement to the student newspaper, the Yale Daily News, a group of pro-Palestine protesters denied the event was affiliated with or planned by any group.

The protests then continued on Wednesday night when Ben-Gvir arrived for a speech at the Shabtai, a private Jewish society that describes itself as “based at Yale University” although it is not formally affiliated with or located at a property owned by the university.

Ben-Gvir briefly taunted the protesters with what his office told CNN was a “victory sign” gesture as he was met with chants of “shame on you”, according to video of the event.

His office later said a water bottle had been thrown at him from the crowd, which included students and nonstudents, and he was unharmed.

‘Attacking students … won’t save Yale’

Yale’s latest punishment for pro-Palestine protesters comes during a wider pressure campaign on top universities by the administration of President Donald Trump.

While former President Joe Biden was seen as endorsing crackdowns on pro-Palestine protests, which he broadly described in April last year as “anti-Semitic”, the Trump administration has escalated the response.

Using claims of “anti-Semitism”, the Trump administration has sought to deport noncitizen pro-Palestine university protesters and has frozen or threatened to freeze federal funding for several top institutions, including Columbia University in New York and Harvard University in Massachusetts, if they do not agree to a series of policy changes.

Throughout the protest movement, organisers have repeatedly challenged the notion that such demonstrations are anti-Semitic, noting the regular involvement of Jewish students and disavowing rare instances of anti-Jewish statements made at often publicly open demonstrations.

In their statement carried by the student newspaper, pro-Palestine protesters at Yale accused administrators of coming down particularly harshly to avoid recourse from the Trump administration.

“Attacking students and alienating community members didn’t save Harvard or Columbia. It won’t save Yale,” they said.

Yale did not reply to Al Jazeera’s request for comment on whether concerns about a Trump administration response informed its disciplinary actions or if it had any response to Ben-Gvir’s visit.

For her part, Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general of the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, responded to a video on X showing protesters refusing to break a human chain to allow a student to pass through their ranks on campus.

The post claimed: “Jewish students aren’t allowed to walk through Yale’s campus anymore!”

Dhillon wrote that her office is “tracking the concerning activities at Yale, and is in touch with affected students”.

While critics said heavy-handed responses to pro-Palestine protesters have become commonplace in the US, some observers said the dissonance on display at Yale has been particularly striking.

Ben-Gvir was convicted in 2008 by an Israeli court of inciting racism and supporting a “terrorist” organisation, the founded Kach group, which supported the annexation and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian territories.

He has called for a no-holds-barred military operation in Gaza, where UN experts already say Israel is committing “genocidal acts”.

He has appealed for Israel to commit what would constitute war crimes under international law in Gaza. Most recently, he posted on X that he told “senior Republican officials” at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida that Israel should bomb “food and aid depots”.

‘Deepest contradiction’

Eman Abdelhadi, a sociologist at the University of Chicago, said Yale’s silence regarding Ben-Gvir speaking at an organisation that claims to be based at the university “exposes the deepest contradictions in our society and in these institutions that are supposed to be dedicated towards truth seeking and critical thought”.

“[Ben-Gvir] faces no red line,” she said. “But the people protesting can face severe consequences.”

“This is a moment where universities are fighting for their lives and trying to argue to the American public that they are worth saving in the face of Trump’s onslaught,” she said. “And yet they show no moral courage.”

Israel’s latest war on Gaza is killing civilians at four times the rate of previous conflicts there. Experts say it’s likely not an accident, suggesting that Israeli forces are choosing to use the most powerful weapons available to deliberately maximise death and destruction.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas says keeping the captives provides Israel with justification for its attacks on Gaza.

Hamas has condemned remarks made by Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas, who urged the Palestinian group ruling Gaza to release Israeli captives and lay down arms.

Senior Hamas official Basem Naim said on Thursday that Abbas’s remarks made a day earlier were “insulting”.

“Abbas repeatedly and suspiciously lays the blame for the crimes of the occupation and its ongoing aggression on our people,” he said.

Abbas on Wednesday urged Hamas to free all captives, saying keeping them provided Israel with “excuses” to attack Gaza.

“Hamas has given the criminal occupation excuses to commit its crimes in the Gaza Strip, the most prominent being the holding of hostages,” Abbas said at a meeting in Ramallah, the PA’s seat in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

“I’m the one paying the price, our people are paying the price, not Israel. My brother, just hand them over.”

“Every day there are deaths,” Abbas said. “You sons of dogs, hand over what you have and get us out of this” ordeal, he added, levelling a harsh Arabic epithet at Hamas.

Long rift

There have been deep political and ideological divisions between Abbas’s Fatah party and Hamas for nearly 20 years.

Abbas and the PA have often accused Hamas of undermining Palestinian unity, while Hamas has criticised the former for collaborating with Israel and cracking down on West Bank dissent.

The Palestinian Mujahideen Movement, which split from Abbas’s Fatah in the 2000s, issued a statement on Telegram on Wednesday condemning Abbas’s remarks.

“We strongly condemn the offensive statements made by President Abbas during the Central Council meeting regarding the resistance and our people’s resistance fighters, disregarding the sacrifices and struggle of our people and ignoring the suffering and ongoing sacrifices of the prisoners,” read the statement.

“We condemn the PA leadership’s continued pursuit of this discourse, which criminalizes the resistance and absolves the occupation of its ongoing crimes against our people for decades, especially the genocidal war against Gaza, the annexation and Judaization of the West Bank and Jerusalem, and the severe suffering endured by our valiant prisoners.”

The movement also called on Abbas to issue an apology for his remarks.

“We call on the President of the Palestinian Authority to apologize for this offensive speech and reverse all steps that reinforce division and align with Zionist will. We call on him to return to the embrace of the people and their choices and to cease pursuing the absurd path of surrender and compromise.”

Since Israel’s campaign in Gaza resumed on March 18, at least 1,928 people have been killed in Gaza, bringing the total death toll since the war erupted to at least 51,305, according to the enclave’s Ministry of Health.

Talks on a new ceasefire have so far been fruitless, and a Hamas delegation is in Cairo for renewed negotiations with Egyptian and Qatari mediators.

Many women and children among 13 killed in the latest Israeli aerial attacks across Gaza.

Israel has maintained an eight-week blockade on food, medicine and aid entering Gaza, while continuing aerial attacks on homes and tent shelters – deepening what the United Nations describes as the war’s “worst humanitarian crisis”.

Overnight and early Thursday morning, at least 13 people were killed in Israeli attacks, according to Al Jazeera correspondents. Among the dead were three children in a tent near Nuseirat in central Gaza, and a woman and four children in a home in Gaza City.

Also reportedly killed in a recent attack was local journalist Saeed Abu Hassanein, whose death adds to at least 232 slain reporters in Gaza during the war.

“The Gaza Strip is witnessing a clear military escalation and a soaring humanitarian crisis,” reported Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum from central Gaza’s Deir el-Balah. He noted that rescuers, with much of their equipment damaged or destroyed, are increasingly struggling to reach victims trapped under wreckage.

The communication centre of the Palestinian Authority, which governs the occupied West Bank, said there was “no pause”, “no mercy”, “no humanity” to Israel’s attacks.

The statement accompanied video footage showing an Israeli tank moving through the apparent remains of the Shaboura refugee camp in southern Gaza.

“In Shaboura refugee camp, as in every other corner in Gaza, the devastation never ends,” the centre said.

‘Dismantling’ Palestinian life

Gaza’s humanitarian crisis is compounded by Israel’s continued aid blockade, which the acting head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has described as a seeming “deliberate dismantling of Palestinian life”.

“The Gaza Strip is now likely facing the worst humanitarian crisis in the 18 months since the escalation of hostilities in October 2023,” said OCHA in its latest situation update on April 23.

Gaza’s Ministry of Health highlighted the “dangerous and catastrophic” toll on women and children facing malnutrition, with many lacking adequate food, drinking water and baby formula.

Israel’s continued refusal to let aid into Gaza defies a World Court order dating back to May 2024 for it to urgently facilitate aid into the enclave to prevent famine and starvation.

Israel’s national security minister says he met with ‘senior Republican Party’ officials at US President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.

Far-right Israeli minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has claimed that top US Republican lawmakers support bombing “food and aid depots” in Gaza.

The statement, made in a social media post on Wednesday, came after the Israeli national security minister said he had met with “senior Republican Party officials at [US President Donald] Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate” in Florida in the United States.

“They expressed support for my very clear position on how to act in Gaza and that the food and aid depots should be bombed in order to create military and political pressure to bring our hostages home safely,” Ben-Gvir posted on X in Hebrew.

The US president was not at the event, according to his public schedule.

Ben-Gvir’s post did not specify which Republicans were in attendance. However, Ben-Gvir’s office told Israeli media that Republican Congressman Tom Emmer, considered to be the third-highest-ranking member of the US House of Representatives, was among the lawmakers present.

The Times of Israel and the Jewish News Syndicate were among the news outlets that cited Ben-Gvir’s office in reporting Emmer’s presence, which also appeared to be confirmed by video of the event.

The congressman has been one of the leading voices in the US Congress supporting Israel amid the war in Gaza, and has regularly said that Hamas, and not Israel, was to blame for the high rate of civilian deaths in the Palestinian enclave.

A spokesman for Emmer did not reply to a request for comment from Al Jazeera regarding the Mar-a-Lago visit and whether the congressman supported Ben-Gvir’s position on attacking food and aid sites.

To date, the Health Ministry in Gaza has said at least 51,300 Palestinians have been killed since the war began in the wake of the October 7 attack by Hamas on southern Israel, during which at least 1,139 people were killed.

Israeli attacks, aid block continue

Ben-Gvir has been one of the leading voices in Israel calling for the escalation of Israel’s assault on Gaza.

A resident of an illegal Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank, he has called for the resettlement of Gaza and glowingly endorsed Trump’s plan to forcibly displace residents of the Palestinian enclave.

He initially resigned from the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in January, in opposition to a temporary ceasefire deal.

Before rejoining the government in March, he called for Israel to cut off electricity and water and to bomb aid depots in Gaza as a six-week pause in fighting reached its end.

Israeli attacks have continued after military operations resumed on March 18, with 1,928 Palestinians killed since then.

While Trump had vowed to end the war upon taking office, a lasting ceasefire agreement has remained elusive.

Meanwhile, France, Germany and the United Kingdom condemned on Wednesday the ongoing Israeli blocking of aid, food and medicine entering Gaza.

They called the actions “intolerable”.

Since Israel resumed its war on Gaza in March, it has quietly removed the Al Mawasi safe zone from its maps. Despite this, Israel is continuing to force Palestinians to move to the area as it carves up more of Gaza. Soraya Lennie explains what’s going on.

If you doubted the old chestnut that politics can be a “fickle business,” the leader of Canada’s Conservative Party, Pierre Poilievre, would like to have a word.

For several happy months, a succession of polls confirmed that Poilievre appeared poised to become the country’s next prime minister with a staggering plurality to boot.

Impatient voters had, on the whole, soured on Canada’s spent prime minister, Justin Trudeau, worried about the ever-rising costs of living, from groceries to homes.

Poilievre and his shadow cabinet exploited the prevailing zeitgeist and seemed destined to wrest power from an exhausted Liberal Party that faced a blunt and bracing political reckoning.

Then, Donald Trump returned to the White House, threatening to turn Canada into the fractured union’s 51st state.

The political terrain and stakes shifted like a sudden, disorienting earthquake. Fretting Liberals capitalised on the opening by ditching Trudeau and electing a new leader, former banker Mark Carney as a “serious” antidote to Trump.

With election day on the horizon, Liberal fortunes have made a stunning volte-face. Once trailing far behind like a wounded racehorse limping to the finish line, the party has edged slightly ahead.

But Carney and cocksure company should remember that other old chestnut that, beyond taxes, there are no guarantees in life or politics.

Some polls reveal a tightening contest, with one having Conservatives retaking the lead.

And while the subject dominating the short campaign has been the existential danger that a former continental confederate poses to Canada’s sovereignty, for many concerned Canadians, the state-sponsored genocide devouring Palestine and Palestinians with such ruthless and inhumane efficiency is the defining issue of these awful times.

Those same concerned and motivated Canadians have made it plain that genocide is on the ballot and Canada’s established political parties are obliged to take note, or they will suffer the inevitable and harsh consequences.

Last week in Ottawa, scores of Canadians demonstrated their resolve to hold Canada’s political leaders to stiff account if they continue to deny that Israel is guilty of genocide and refuse to put tangible pressure on Tel Aviv to end the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

“We are here in Ottawa,” a concerned Canadian said, “to demand a two-way arms embargo … and to say to all politicians that if you do not endorse a two-way arms embargo, you will not get a single vote from any of our communities.”

That concerned Canadian is, of course, not alone.

They have been joined by thousands of like-minded Canadians who have invested time, money and energy to mobilise Arab and Muslim voters throughout Canada to exercise their agency and franchise on April 28 in solidarity with their besieged brothers and sisters in Palestine.

Large nationwide and energised grassroots movements, including #ElectPalestine, MuslimsVote and Vote Palestine, are seized with the overarching imperative to fix the fate of Palestine and Palestinians at the epicentre of Canada’s political dialogue.

Their “voices” must finally be heard and attended to.

The predictable cultural condescension – quick, election-time visits to mosques and cliche-ridden rhetoric meant to convey tissue-thin “sympathy” for the “sad” plight of Palestinians – has lost what remained of its vacuous currency.

Instead, powerful constituencies are demanding that Canada’s “major” political parties recalibrate fundamentally and unequivocally their longstanding backing for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – an indicted war criminal – and reject outright his oft-repeated, and international law-desecrating aim to reduce Palestine to dust and memory.

The crusade gathering momentum in Canada is reminiscent of the “Uncommitted” cause engineered by Arab and Muslim citizens during the 2024 US presidential election, who warned the Democratic Party and its standard bearer, Kamala Harris, that they risked losing votes in crucial swing states by continuing to arm and offer diplomatic cover to Netanyahu.

Harris failed to heed the urgent alarm and, as a result, forfeited the presidency to mollify Israel, its evangelical supporters in the United States and Netanyahu’s grotesque strategic aims.

Her reward?

An emboldened Netanyahu has embraced Trump like a brother-in-genocidal-arms.

The Democratic Party may or may not have learned an instructive lesson that may or may not influence its slavish Israel-coddling in 2028.

We will, in due course, see.

Meanwhile, Carney and Poilievre have been busy mimicking Harris’s scoffing at the pressing preoccupations of Arab and Muslim voters and their allies among the broader Canadian public.

Poilievre is a crude, irredeemable honorary Zionist zealot, describing mass pro-Palestinian protests as “hate marches”.

For his cavalier part, Carney was confronted at a rally in Ontario earlier this month by a concerned Canadian who asked the prime minister, “Why are you sending weapons to Israel via the US to kill our families?”

Carney’s response: silence.

The prime minister and his handlers ought to know that Arab and Muslim Canadians will play a decisive role in the election outcome and could determine whether or not the new parliament features a majority government.

Arab and Muslim voters make up a sizeable part of the electorate in 90 ridings – electoral districts – across Canada, and, of that figure, could tip the scales in more than 40 seats.

As a career-long numbers man, Carney surely understands that dismissing or alienating that many Canadians, in that many ridings, only invites disappointment and possible peril.

A recent public opinion poll commissioned by the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) offers Carney a template for how he can win over Canadians who intend to vote with Gaza and the West Bank top of their minds and souls.

More than half of Canadians support a ban on weapons exports to Israel. Even more tellingly, almost 50 percent want that ban expanded into a full-blown, two-way embargo.

These are not trivial findings. They represent a clear, growing consensus among Canadians who are tired of moral evasions from their leaders.

So far, Carney has been content to hedge and adopt Canada’s so-called “balanced” approach. But hedging will no longer suffice; nor will calculated complicity.

Muslim and Arab voters have watched in despair as Canada’s political elites, through their silence and inaction, subscribed to the humanitarian catastrophe being waged against innocents in the shattered remnants of Palestine.

Today, 56 percent of Canadians say that Canada should recognise the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant – and 70 percent of Liberal voters agree.

Carney needs to do much more than endorse the loophole-laden arms embargo that Foreign Minister Melanie Joly announced in March.

If he is serious about justice, Carney has to support a two-way ban, stand with and by the ICC, and insist that Canada will not be a haven for alleged war criminals.

Anything less, and Carney will have treated Arab and Muslim Canadians with the signature disdain of his predecessors – even when the polling, for once, is squarely on their side.

Carney still has time to do the right thing, at the right moment, for the right reasons.

I suspect that the prime minister will squander the opportunity. Mark Carney is bound, like Kamala Harris, to pay a lasting and stinging price.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance. 

A child burns to death following the attack on school-turned-shelter in Gaza City.

At least 10 people have been killed in an Israeli attack that sparked a fire at a school sheltering displaced people in Gaza City, including one child who was burned to death in the blaze.

The Palestinian Civil Defence said its emergency workers recovered 10 bodies early on Wednesday morning after the attack on the school, where forcibly displaced people had taken shelter. A large number of people were also injured, it said in a post on the Telegram messaging platform.

“Children are being burned while they sleep in the tents of the displaced,” Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif wrote on social media after the attack.

“There are no safe areas, and no survivors of this genocide. Gaza City and its northern areas have been subjected to heavy Israeli shelling and artillery fire for hours,” he said.

Video footage shared on social media after the attack on the school-turned-shelter showed flames engulfing tent structures and canvas covering melting onto the remains of burning chairs and what appeared to be a bed frame.

Several civilians burned to death after Israeli forces targeted displacement tents inside Yafa School, east of Gaza City. pic.twitter.com/ABNRWdFjSf

— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) April 23, 2025

The civil defence also issued an urgent appeal for assistance from the International Committee of the Red Cross to help rescue people trapped under the rubble following Israel’s bombing of two homes in Gaza City’s Tuffah neighbourhood.

“Trapped people are calling for help to rescue them from under the rubble of homes,” the civil defence said in a statement, adding that emergency workers were unable to reach the area because it was too dangerous, as the area is designated a “no-go” zone by Israeli forces.

Our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic and local Palestinian media also reported that a child was among two people killed on Wednesday morning in an Israeli attack on tent shelters in northern Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp.

One person was also reported killed and several injured in an Israeli drone attack on tent shelters in the so-called al-Mawasi “safe zone”, south of Khan Younis in southern Gaza.

Intense Israeli artillery fire and air attacks were reported across the Strip in the early hours of the morning.

Gaza City, Palestine – For 72-year-old Kamal Anton, Pope Francis was a source of comfort and support.

Kamal has had to shelter since the start of the war in the same Catholic church compound in Gaza City – the Holy Family Church – that his wife and daughter were shot and killed by an Israeli sniper in.

That was in December 2023, two months after the start of Israel’s war. Anton and the more than two million Palestinians in Gaza have often felt abandoned in the 18 months of conflict, in which more than 50,000 Palestinians have been killed, with hope of an end to the war still feeling remote.

But the late pope, who died aged 88 in the Vatican City on Monday after a battle with illness, was in constant contact with Gaza’s small Christian community. Before his illness, he held calls every evening with those sheltering at the church, and continued to reach out, on a less regular basis, even after he fell ill.

Kamal remembered his most recent call on Saturday, just two days before his death. Pope Francis was greeting the members of the church for Easter.

“During his call, he prayed for peace and resilience for us in Gaza,” Kamal said. “He never forgot the word ‘peace’ in any of his calls with us throughout the war. His support included all of us – Christians and Muslims alike. He prayed daily for our safety.”

Palestinian defender

A deep sense of grief and sorrow permeates the Holy Family Church, where approximately 550 displaced Palestinian Christians continue to seek shelter.

Israel has attacked the church and its neighbouring school several times during the war, including a July 2024 attack in which four people were killed. Another church, St Porphyrios Greek Orthodox Church, has also been bombed.

But the Holy Family Church is still a refuge. People gather inside the church every day, piano music accompanies hymns during prayer, and people greet Father Gabriel Romanelli. He’s the parish priest, an Argentinian who came to Gaza to lead the church 15 years ago.

After the death of the pope, those in the church have largely dressed in black, the colour of mourning.

The loss of the leader of their church was a solemn enough event, but Palestinian Christians know they have also lost one of their greatest defenders – a world leader who has long backed the Palestinian cause, and has earned the anger of Israel on a number of occasions for his defence of Palestinians.

In his final public speech delivered on his behalf on Easter, Francis called for peace in Gaza and urged the warring sides to “agree to a ceasefire, release the hostages, and provide aid to a starving people longing for a peaceful future”.

Father Romanelli told Al Jazeera that the loss of Pope Francis was a tragedy for Christians around the world, and particularly in Gaza.

He recalled that Saturday phone call with the pope.

“He said he was praying for us, supporting us, and thanked us for our prayers,” Romanelli said. “People at the church waited for his call daily. He would speak to the children and reassure them. He was deeply human and incredibly supportive, especially during the war.”

Catastrophe

Kamal noted that support from Pope Francis was also material, in the form of aid arriving in Gaza until Israel blocked all entry of goods into Gaza in March, just before it unilaterally broke a ceasefire.

“Everyone in Gaza knows how much the Vatican supported us,” Kamal said. “We always shared that aid with our Muslim neighbours too.”

Kamal’s fellow Palestinian Christian, 74-year-old Maher Terzi, is also in mourning.

Maher, who has been displaced since the first week of the war, had just sat in the mourning hall when he spoke to Al Jazeera.

“He gave us strength,” Maher said. “He told us not to be afraid, that he was with us and would never abandon us, no matter what.”

“He encouraged us to hold on to our land, and promised to help us rebuild our destroyed homes,” Maher added. “His death is a catastrophe and a shock for us during such a difficult time.”

Mahmoud Khalil’s wife Noor Abdalla accuses US government of trying to silence pro-Palestinian activism.

Mahmoud Khalil, the pro-Palestinian activist who has been detained in the United States pending his deportation, has missed the birth of his son after being refused temporary release to attend the birth, his wife has said.

Noor Abdalla said on Monday that she gave birth to the couple’s first child in New York without Khalil present after US Immigration and Customs Enforcement made the “purposeful decision” to make her family suffer.

“My son and I should not be navigating his first days on earth without Mahmoud,” Abdalla, a US citizen, said in a statement.

“ICE and the Trump administration have stolen these precious moments from our family in an attempt to silence Mahmoud’s support for Palestinian freedom.”

“I will continue to fight every day for Mahmoud to come home to us,” Abdalla added.

“I know when Mahmoud is freed, he will show our son how to be brave, thoughtful, and compassionate, just like his dad.”

ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Khalil, a graduate student at Columbia University who played a prominent role in last year’s campus protests against Israel’s war in Gaza, was detained by immigration authorities on March 8 as part of US President Donald Trump’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian activism.

The Trump administration is seeking to deport Khalil, who is being detained at an ICE facility in Louisiana, claiming that his advocacy has undermined US efforts to “combat anti-Semitism” and “protect Jewish students from harassment and violence”.

Khalil, who is a permanent US resident, has denied engaging in anti-Semitism.

An immigration judge in Louisiana earlier this month ruled that the Trump administration could proceed with deportation proceedings against Khalil, finding that the government had “established by clear and convincing evidence that he is removable”.

Khalil’s lawyers have said they will appeal the decision.

The Israeli army has described its killing of 15 emergency workers in Gaza and burying them and their vehicles as a “professional error”.

The bodies of 14 humanitarian workers were found in a mass grave along with their crushed vehicles a week after coming under Israeli fire in late March. One body had been found a few days before.

The army said it had “shrouded” the bodies with cloth and sand to protect them until humanitarian organisations could retrieve them.

Israel had blocked access to the site for days, later insisting it was not an attempt to cover up the attack.

Here’s what to know about the attack, Israel’s claims and how the investigation stacks up against other evidence:

What happened to the emergency workers and vehicles in Gaza?

• March 23: About 4am (01:00 GMT), a Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) ambulance was dispatched to join an earlier one helping people injured in an Israeli air strike in Rafah’s al-Hashaashin area.
• Contact was lost with it, and the first ambulance went back out to find it about 5am. The paramedics radioed back that they could see casualties on the ground on the way to Tal as-Sultan, another area in southern Gaza.
• Two more ambulances were dispatched along with a firetruck and other emergency vehicles. They came under Israeli gunfire for more than five minutes. Minutes later, soldiers also fired at a United Nations car that stopped at the scene. The PRCS lost contact with its team.
• March 24: The Israeli military blocked access to the site of the attacks.
• March 27-28: United Nations and Palestinian officials gain limited access to the area, recovering the vehicles and bodies of a Gaza Civil Defence member.
• March 30: The bodies of five Civil Defence responders, a UN employee and eight PRCS workers are found in a shallow grave. A ninth PRCS worker, Assaad al-Nassasra, is being held by Israel, PRCS confirmed later. In total, Israel killed 15 emergency workers in the attack.

What did video evidence show?

A video found on the phone of slain paramedic Rifaat Radwan shows the team’s final moments.

The video, filmed from inside one of the last two ambulances to head out, shows a firetruck and ambulances driving ahead through the night.

All vehicles were clearly identified with emergency lights flashing.

The vehicles stopped when they see an ambulance and bodies by the roadside, and first responders in reflective uniforms exit the vehicles. Moments later, intense gunfire erupts.

As the gunfire continues, Radwan can be heard asking his mother for forgiveness and reciting the Islamic declaration of faith, the Shahada, before he dies.

What did the Israeli investigation say?

After a review, the Israeli military described the killings as “professional failures” and a “misunderstanding”. Nobody has been charged.

It dismissed a deputy commander for “providing an incomplete report” and reprimanded a commanding officer.

Major General Yoav Har-Even, who conducted the review, said two responders were killed in an initial incident, 12 people were killed in a second shooting and another person was killed in a third incident.

“The fire in the first two incidents resulted from an operational misunderstanding by the troops, who believed they faced a tangible threat from enemy forces. The third incident involved a breach of orders during a combat setting,” the military statement said.

Troops bulldozed over the bodies and their mangled vehicles, but the investigation said that was not an attempt to conceal the attack.

The Military Advocate General’s Corps, meant to be an independent body under Israel’s attorney general and Supreme Court, can now decide whether to file civil charges.

How did Israel explain shooting the ambulances?

The investigative report said soldiers did not recognise the ambulances due to “poor night visibility” and because flashing lights are less visible on night-vision drones and goggles.

It also blamed the now-dismissed deputy commander, saying he mistakenly thought the ambulance was being used by Hamas and opened fire first.

Israel has tried to justify previous attacks on protected entities by saying Hamas hides among civilians and uses ambulances to carry out operations.

Har-Even told reporters that one of the humanitarian workers at the scene was questioned over suspected Hamas links. The man, Munther Abed, was released the next day.

Before the video of the attack was found, Israel’s military had said the ambulances had been “advancing suspiciously” towards its soldiers “without headlights or emergency signals”.

How did Israel explain shooting uniformed medics?

The first responders were “in their uniforms, still wearing gloves” when they were killed, said Jonathan Whittall, the head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the Palestinian territory.

Gaza Civil Defence spokesperson Mahmoud Bassal said several team members were found with their hands and feet bound and bullet wounds to the head and torso, indicating they were executed at close range after being identified as humanitarian workers.

Without offering proof, the Israeli investigative report said six of those killed were “Hamas members” although no Palestinian fighters were reported found in the mass grave.

Har-Even told reporters that no paramedic was armed and no weapons were found in any vehicle.

An Israeli military official said the bodies had been covered “in sand and cloth” to preserve them until their retrieval could be coordinated with international organisations.

The army also said it has found “no evidence to support claims of execution” and “such claims are blood libels and false accusations against [Israeli] soldiers”.

How thoroughly does Israel investigate itself?

Human rights groups and international legal experts said Israel’s self-reviews often lack independence and transparency.

Israel said it reviews its military’s conduct through internal probes led by its military advocate general, who decides whether to pursue criminal investigations.

But the military has a track record of denying wrongdoing, contradicting itself or blaming low-ranking individuals without broader repercussions for the armed forces.

In 2022, it claimed Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was killed by Palestinian fire until several media investigations debunked that. Israel later admitted it may have shot her “accidentally” but ruled out a criminal probe.

In January, the International Criminal Court’s top prosecutor defended seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, citing Israel’s failure to genuinely investigate allegations of war crimes.

How have critics responded?

The PRCS and the Israeli rights organisation Breaking the Silence have rejected the findings of the Israeli probe.

“It is incomprehensible why the occupation soldiers buried the bodies of the paramedics,” PRCS President Younis al-Khatib told Al Araby TV.

He said evidence such as the video proved “the falsehood of the occupation’s narrative”, adding that the Israeli army communicated with the paramedics before killing them.

Pope Francis died today at the age of 88 following a prolonged illness. Just yesterday, in his Easter Sunday address in Saint Peter’s Square in Vatican City, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church chose to express his “closeness to the sufferings of Christians in Palestine and Israel, and to all the Israeli people and the Palestinian people”.

He went on to state that he was “think[ing] of the people of Gaza, and its Christian community in particular, where the terrible conflict continues to cause death and destruction and to create a dramatic and deplorable humanitarian situation” – a toned-down reference, of course, to Israel’s ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip, which has officially killed more than 51,200 Palestinians since October 2023.

Concluding the pope’s thoughts on this particular “terrible conflict” was an “appeal to the warring parties: call a ceasefire, release the hostages and come to the aid of a starving people that aspires to a future of peace!”

To be sure, Pope Francis opted to deploy language that does not adequately reflect the horrors currently being unleashed upon Gaza. For one thing, a genocide is not a “conflict”; nor are Israeli genocidaires and Palestinian victims of genocide equal “warring parties”.

That said, the pope deserves praise for utilising what would be his final platform to call for a ceasefire in Gaza – at a time when the world appears all too content to allow the mass slaughter of Palestinians to proceed indefinitely.

Though he did not pinpoint who precisely is to blame for the fact that there are now “starving people” in need of aid, this is naturally a reference to Israel’s decision in early March to cut off all humanitarian aid deliveries to the Gaza Strip – a move amounting to enforced starvation and a war crime.

Pope Francis’s call for a ceasefire yesterday came just a month after Israel’s definitive annihilation of the existing ceasefire that ostensibly took effect in January, which the Israeli military had already taken the opportunity to violate at every turn.

Between Israel’s termination of the ceasefire on March 18 and April 9, the United Nations found that, in at least 36 separate Israeli air strikes on Gaza, women and children were the only fatalities.

As much as the starving people may “aspire to a future of peace”, then, it’s difficult to aspire to any future at all when you’re being actively exterminated by an army that enjoys the full bipartisan support of the reigning global superpower, the United States of America.

Incidentally, Pope Francis’s final day on Earth also included a brief meeting with said superpower’s second-in-command: US Vice President JD Vance. The encounter came after the head of the Catholic Church openly and repeatedly criticised US President Donald Trump’s administration and its maniacal deportation schemes. In a February address, he noted that its immigration policies were causing a “major crisis” that “damages the dignity of men and women”.

Pope Francis made a nod to the plight of people on the move in his Easter address as well: “How much contempt is stirred up at times towards the vulnerable, the marginalised, and migrants!”

He went on to reiterate his desire “to renew our hope that peace is possible”.

Unfortunately, however, contempt and dehumanisation are pillars of a hopeless global system – led by the United States – that prioritises elite tyranny and profit over any semblance of human decency. Whether it’s the arms industry making bank off of Israel’s genocide in Gaza or the US making life hell for the undocumented folks on whose labour the country’s own economy depends, institutionalised contempt is good for business.

This Easter week, the “hope that peace is possible” was entirely out of the question for Palestinian Christians in Gaza, the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and Jerusalem – the very place Jesus was crucified, according to the Bible.

In the Gaza Strip, Christians gathered in fear on Easter Sunday at Gaza City’s Church of Saint Porphyrius, which was bombed in October 2023 shortly after the start of the genocide. The attack killed at least 18 displaced Palestinians who were sheltering there, including Christians.

In the West Bank and Jerusalem, Israeli officials thwarted access to holy sites for numerous members of the Christian community, which has suffered increasing attacks by Jewish settlers and other forms of state-backed persecution.

Only approximately 6,000 West Bank Palestinians received permits from Israel to attend Easter services this year at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in occupied East Jerusalem, which was predictably militarised for the occasion.

As Al Jazeera noted, “even the representative of the Vatican in Palestine was denied entry into the church”.

A day later, the earthly representative of the Roman Catholic Church itself passed on to other realms. Among his parting appeals was the call for a ceasefire in Gaza. Will anyone listen?

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

A day before Easter, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a temporary ceasefire for the Christian holiday. Like other Russian promises, this one was broken too. Ukrainian media reported Russian drone attacks, shelling and firefights across the front lines. Ukrainian civilians were also targeted.

This ceasefire that wasn’t came on the tail of another one: a 30-day ceasefire that was supposed to cover energy infrastructure. That was violated at least 30 times, per Ukrainian media reports.

Throughout this time, United States President Donald Trump has continued to maintain that peace could be achieved. Even after his own Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned that the US could walk away from its mediator role because of lack of progress, the president still showed optimism that a deal was possible.

On Easter Sunday, Trump wrote on Truth Social: “Hopefully Russia and Ukraine will make a deal this week.”

A week earlier, Russia struck the Ukrainian city of Sumy with ballistic missiles. The death toll from the attack reached 34 people, including two children, with more than a dozen injured. Even this bloody attack did not sway the US president, who called it “a mistake”.

It is by now clear that three months into his presidency, Trump is failing dramatically in Ukraine. He must now realise that bold promises are easier made than fulfilled. He has not ended the war in 24 hours and will not do so in 100 days either, as he has promised.

Under his leadership, Washington’s mediating drive appears stalled and its strategy unclear. A president who prides himself on deal-making and strength now stands indecisive and ineffective.

If this continues, Trump risks failing twice: once as a negotiator and again as an ally. His current approach is not only weakening the role of the US in the world but also emboldening Russia to continue its aggression.

Despite the Trump administration’s outreach to the Kremlin, it has received nothing more than empty rhetoric and broken promises for ceasefires.

Putin’s stance hasn’t changed: He demands recognition of Russia’s claim to Crimea and four Ukrainian regions the Russian army partially occupies, no NATO membership for Kyiv and a limit on the size of its army. He has also openly called for regime change in the country, demanding elections during the war.

Putin feels he’s negotiating from a position of strength and refuses to compromise. Trump currently lacks the leverage to make him reconsider, and so his strategy is to pressure Ukraine into capitulating to Russia. He is making the situation worse with his policies on military aid for Ukraine.

After initially halting the transfer of weapons and munitions and intelligence sharing with Ukraine, Trump partially reversed his stance. He allowed military assistance approved by the administration of his predecessor President Joe Biden to resume, but he has refused to consider a new package once the current one comes to an end.

His administration still has several billion dollars available for drawdown, which could be allocated for further security support to Ukraine, but Trump has not signalled he is willing to approve it.

That means Ukraine will soon face a situation in which key munitions stocks run out. Russia knows this, and it is using negotiations with the US to buy time.

While it is waiting for the Ukrainian army to run out of vital supplies, Moscow has also initiated a large troop mobilisation. The call-up of 160,000 new conscripts marks a significant escalation. Ukrainian commanders have warned that major offensives could begin within weeks across multiple fronts.

Putin’s aim is to use the Trump administration’s self-professed “peace-making” ambitions to his advantage. His strategy is to drag out ceasefire negotiations until US military aid runs out and the Russian army is able to advance far enough into Ukrainian territory to force Kyiv into capitulation.

For Ukraine, defeat is not an option. The nation is still standing and will continue fighting because its freedom and independence are at stake. Even if Trump puts more pressure on Kyiv to consider a bad “peace deal” with Russia in which it makes all the concessions Putin wants, no Ukrainian leader would sign it because that would mean political ruin.

Europe, for all its hesitations and internal divisions, has little choice now but to become a full-fledged ally of Kyiv. Europeans know Russia would not stop at Ukraine, and the threat is existential for them as well. The Kremlin is already preparing the Russian population through a large-scale propaganda campaign that a “great war” with NATO countries is necessary.

In the face of this threat, European countries are looking to rearm, and for this, they need time. This means that Ukraine’s war of liberation will continue for years, with or without US involvement.

Meanwhile, the US under its current course will sink deeper into domestic crises, consumed by the aftershocks of self-isolation and haunted by costly decisions in a world it no longer leads. This will be what Trump leaves behind: a legacy not of resolution but of retreat.

If he does not change course, history will remember him not as a strong leader who brought peace but as a boastful, naive man who made promises he could not fulfil.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.