Palestine

Israeli forces have killed at least 109 Palestinians in attacks across the Gaza Strip, medical sources told Al Jazeera, even as United States President Donald Trump claimed that Israel had agreed to “the necessary conditions” to finalise a 60-day ceasefire.

Trump wrote on his Truth Social site on Tuesday that the US would work “with all parties” to end the war on Gaza during the ceasefire, and called on Hamas to agree to the deal.

Trump’s comments came after a particularly bloody day in Gaza, as Israeli attacks destroyed clusters of homes in the north and south of the enclave, amid fears of yet another looming ground invasion.

The attacks come ahead of a planned visit next week by Netanyahu to Washington, DC. Trump said on Tuesday that the Israeli prime minister wanted to end the war on Gaza, even as his forces ramp up attacks in Gaza.

Among the Palestinians killed were 16 hungry aid seekers who died when Israeli soldiers attacked crowds at aid distribution hubs run by the controversial US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), according to medical sources.

They are the latest victims in a wave of daily killings at these sites, which have killed nearly 600 Palestinians since GHF took over limited aid deliveries in Gaza in late May amid a crippling Israeli blockade.

More than 170 major international charities and nongovernmental organisations have called for an immediate end to GHF, which rights groups say is operating in violation of international principles.

“Palestinians in Gaza face an impossible choice: starve or risk being shot while trying desperately to reach food to feed their families,” a joint statement read.

GHF brings “nothing but starvation and gunfire to the people of Gaza,” it added.

Israeli forces also attacked Gaza City in the north, where it recently issued forced evacuation orders for residents of the area, which has already been bombarded into rubble. At least five people were killed when an Israeli quadcopter struck a gathering of people, local news agency Wafa reported.

At least 82 percent of Gaza is now an Israeli-militarised zone or under forced displacement threats, according to the United Nations, warning people have nowhere to go.

Ismail, a resident of the Sheikh Radwan suburb of Gaza City, said that newly displaced families were setting up tents in the road, after fleeing from areas north and east of the city and finding no other ground available.

“We don’t sleep because of the sounds of explosions from tanks and planes. The occupation is destroying homes east of Gaza, in Jabalia and other places around us,” he said.

‘Waiting room for death’

In Khan Younis and its al-Mawasi area in the south, at least 12 Palestinians were killed when a home belonging to the al-Zanati family was targeted. Separately, a child was killed and several others wounded when an Israeli air strike struck a displacement camp.

Several more were killed in an Israeli attack west of the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, according to sources at al-Awda Hospital, while two others were killed and several wounded in a separate attack on a UN-run school sheltering displaced families in the al-Maghazi refugee camp.

In a statement, the Israeli army said it attacked Gaza more than 140 times in the past 24 hours, claiming all those hit were “terror targets” and “militants”.

The attacks come as hospitals in the devastated enclave struggle to cope with the influx of people amid a severe shortage of medical supplies and much-needed fuel.

Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Gaza City, said critical services at the al-Shifa Hospital – which has come under attack and besieged several times throughout Israel’s assault on Gaza – will soon come to a halt.

“Critical services at al-Shifa Hospital have either stopped or will stop in the coming hours as backup generators are running out of fuel,” Mahmoud said.

“This hospital was once the largest healthcare facility in Gaza, but has slowly turned into a waiting room for death, not just because of the war wounds, but because of a lack of fuel that keeps everything running,” he said.

Hope for deal ‘next week’

The desperate situation in Gaza is increasing the pressure on world leaders to secure a deal that would end the war.

Trump continues to maintain that a ceasefire deal is close, and that he hopes one will be secured “sometime next week”, during Netanyahu’s White House visit.

Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, a close Netanyahu ally, is in Washington this week for talks with senior officials on a Gaza ceasefire, Iran and other matters.

Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said pressure by Trump on Israel would be key to any breakthrough in stalled ceasefire efforts.

“We call upon the US administration to atone for its sin towards Gaza by declaring an end to the war,” he said.

Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut, reporting from Amman, said there is “cautious optimism” in Israel regarding a ceasefire.

“But there are still a lot of concerns, especially among family members of Israeli captives who have been calling for a deal,” Salhut said, adding that Netanyahu “has never signalled he wants to end the war”.

But Hamas has insisted it would not agree to any deal that does not include a full Israeli withdrawal from the Strip and a permanent halt to the war, which has so far killed more than 56,000 Palestinians since it began in October 2023.

Meanwhile, key mediator Qatar has reportedly sent an updated proposal to Hamas and Israel. According to Axios, the proposal includes a 60-day truce and the release of 10 captives, and would serve as the basis for negotiations aimed at a permanent end to the war and new governance for Gaza.

“Law is interpreted for friends and applied to enemies,” Italian statesman Giovanni Giolitti once said.

There are few better examples of this than the way the European Union bends over backwards to avoid addressing Israel’s severe breaches of international law and the terms of its association agreement with the bloc.

On May 20, the EU’s Foreign Affairs Council (FAC) voted to conduct a review of whether Israel was denying Palestinians’ human rights by preventing humanitarian aid from entering Gaza.

A month later, the same body concluded: “There are indications that Israel would be in breach of its human rights obligations under Article 2 of the EU-Israel Association Agreement.” Indications …

On June 26, EU heads of government at a European Council meeting concluded that they “noted” those indications and invited the FAC to “continue discussions” in July.

It is understandable that some initially welcomed the vote to review the EU-Israel Association Agreement back in May. It is only human to hold on to anything that gives hope that action will finally be taken to protect the human rights of the Palestinian people.

Unfortunately, the entire “debate” over the EU-Israel Association Agreement is simply a sham. It does not represent serious action on by the EU to address the atrocities Israel is committing in Gaza and elsewhere in the occupied Palestinian territory. It deflects growing criticism by giving the impression that the EU may finally be thinking of doing something. More importantly, it distracts from the obligations which the EU and its members are legally bound to fulfil.

Human rights pretences

Twenty months into Israel’s devastating war in Gaza, Israel’s breaches of human rights and international law are so extensive that there can be no doubt about their relevance to the EU-Israel Association Agreement.

They are so numerous that they must be organised into categories to capture the depth and breadth of destruction wrought onto every aspect of life in Gaza.

Israel has been accused of intentionally creating conditions calculated to destroy the possibility for Palestinian life in the Strip, which amounts to genocide. This includes domicide and the laying to waste of Gaza’s urban landscape; medicide – systematically dismantling the healthcare system; scholasticide – destroying schools, universities and libraries; ecocide – wiping out Gaza’s agriculture and nature; econocide – the devastation of Gaza’s economy; and unchilding – making childhood impossible.

More than 90 percent of Gaza’s population, or 1.9 million people, have been displaced, and in the past three months alone, over 600,000 people have been displaced again, as many as 10 times or more. A full blockade was imposed by the Israelis since March 2, and meagre aid deliveries were reinstated only in late May. Famine is widespread; 66 children have died of starvation, and more than 5,000 were hospitalised with acute malnutrition in May alone.

Under pressure from European public opinion, which is increasingly rejecting European support for Israel, the EU finally decided to do something. But that something involved a fair bit of talking and – so far – no action.

The bloc decided to vote on reviewing the EU-Israel Association Agreement. But this was nothing out of the ordinary because all association agreements should be subject to regular reviews, which can trigger either advances or scaling back the depth and breadth of relations.

In fact, those who called for the vote knew very well that suspension of the agreement requires a unanimous vote by 27 member states, which is currently impossible. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and member states, such as Germany, Italy and Hungary, have made crystal clear their unwavering support for Israel. In these circumstances, hoping for a unanimous vote to suspend the agreement is close to delusional. A qualified majority vote might suspend parts of the agreement on trade, but that is the most one can hope for.

This is hardly a ringing endorsement of the Union’s commitment to human rights and “fundamental values”. Instead, public invocations by governments and officials of Article 2 of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, which states that all areas covered by the agreement itself “shall be based on respect for human rights”, are no more than empty rhetoric.

In reality, the EU never intended for these human rights conditionalities to be taken seriously. It is easy to see why; it never specified by what criteria human rights should be assessed, and it chose not to make these assessments routine, compulsory, and public.

In this way, the EU leaves itself enough space to claim it values “human rights and fundamental values” while, in fact, “interpreting away” its own rules to avoid having to take any significant action.

Empty rhetoric

Some European states have decided to take individual action, but what they have done has been just as meaningless as the EU agreement review.

The United Kingdom suspended trade talks with Israel, but not trade. Its recent communique alongside France and Canada was trumpeted as “tougher” than the EU’s statements. Yet, the communique opposes only Israel’s “expansion of military operations in Gaza”: It takes issue only with the extension and intensification of Israel’s assault, not with the devastation wrought upon the Strip so far.

Nor does it mention the war crimes Israel has been accused of, or declare a commitment to uphold the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.

In fact, despite the UK summoning Israel’s ambassador after its “tough” joint statement with France and Canada, it continued its surveillance flights over or close to Gaza’s airspace, which are suspected of gathering intelligence for the Israeli army.

France, for its part, declared it would recognise a Palestinian state in June. June came and went without recognition.

In October 2023, Spain claimed that it stopped selling weapons to Israel. In May, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez declared, “We do not do business with a genocidal state.” And yet, a Barcelona-based think tank revealed recently the existence of more than 40 contracts between Spanish state institutions and Israeli defence companies.

Germany, France, the UK and Italy also continue to supply weapons in breach of the spirit of international law.

Legal obligations

If European governments were serious about responding to Israel’s crimes, they could do that by simply abiding by their legal obligations under the various EU treaties and international law.

The EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and the Lisbon Treaty require the bloc to embed respect for “democracy, human rights and fundamental values” into all EU policies. This is why all association agreements have human rights conditionalities in the first place.

The Genocide Convention imposes a preventive duty to use “all means reasonably available” to prevent genocide. Already in January 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) accepted that Palestinians’ right to be protected from genocide may be being violated.

The actions EU states can take include, but are not limited to: halting arms contracts with the Israeli government and Israeli companies; suspending intelligence cooperation; and cutting commercial, cultural and research exchanges with and funding for Israeli private and public institutions on occupied Palestinian land. They should also support the rigorous application of international law, including backing the case against Israel at the ICJ and enforcing arrest warrants issued by the ICC.

Currently, the EU is in flagrant violation of its legal duties and its own rules. That is a direct consequence of decades of ignoring gross abuses by Israel and other associated states, including Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt.

No amount of “interpreting” law or hiding behind procedure can mask the fact that the EU is in flagrant violation of its legal obligations and the spirit of its own rules. It has a track record of ignoring continued human rights abuses in associated states, including Israel, Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, and Jordan. This track record has reached an ignominious peak since October 2023.

Inaction on Gaza reveals the limits of Europe’s commitment to its self-proclaimed values: by sacrificing Palestine, Europe betrays itself.

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

Human rights lawyer Geoffrey Nice says the acting director of the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is a fundamentalist Christian who shares some of Israel’s objectives. Hundreds of unarmed Palestinians have been killed at aid sites led by GHF.

British police have announced that the weekend performances by rap-punk duo Bob Vylan and the Irish-language band Kneecap at the Glastonbury Festival are subject to a criminal investigation after they led crowds in chants calling for “death” to the Israeli military and a “free Palestine”.

Police on Monday said the performances at the United Kingdom’s largest summer music festival “have been recorded as a public order incident”.

Rapper Bobby Vylan, who until the weekend was relatively unknown, led crowds in chants of “free, free Palestine” and “death, death” to the Israeli military.

The BBC said it regretted livestreaming the performance and it should have pulled it off the air.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and other UK politicians condemned the chants, saying there was no excuse for such “appalling hate speech”. Starmer added that the BBC must explain “how these scenes came to be broadcast”.

Ofcom, the broadcasting regulator, said it was “very concerned” about the BBC livestream and said the broadcaster “clearly has questions to answer”.

Meanwhile, the United States Department of State said it has revoked the visas for Bob Vylan to perform in the US after its “hateful tirade at Glastonbury”.

“Foreigners who glorify violence and hatred are not welcome visitors to our country,” US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau said in a social media post.

Israel’s genocidal assault in Gaza has inflamed tensions around the world, triggering pro-Palestinian protests in many capitals and on college campuses. Israel and some of its supporters have described the protests as anti-Semitic while critics said Israel uses such descriptions to silence its opponents.

While maintaining a crippling siege on the bombarded enclave, Israeli forces have killed at least 56,531 people and wounded 133,642, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health.

Bob Vylan, known for mixing grime and punk rock, tackles a range of issues in its lyrics, including racism, homophobia and the class divide, and has previously voiced support for Palestinians.

Its lead vocalist, who goes by the stage name Bobby Vylan, appeared to refer to the weekend performance in a post on Instagram, writing: “I said what I said.”

“Teaching our children to speak up for the change they want and need is the only way that we make this world a better place,” he added.

The duo played Saturday afternoon right before Kneecap, whose set was not livestreamed by the BBC but still found a huge online audience via TikTok. It is another band that has drawn controversy previously over its strongly pro-Palestine stance.

Kneecap led a crowd of tens of thousands in chants of “Free Palestine” at the festival. It also aimed an expletive-laden chant at Starmer, who had said he didn’t think it was “appropriate” for Kneecap to play Glastonbury after one of its members was charged under the Terrorism Act.

Liam Og O hAnnaidh, who is also known as Liam O’Hanna and performs under the stage name Mo Chara, was charged with supporting a proscribed organisation for allegedly waving a Hezbollah flag at a concert in London last year.

Israel has faced sustained international opprobrium for the conduct of its war in Gaza. Weekly protests draw thousands of people around Europe and across the world in support of Palestinians.

Public pressure, in part, seemed to prompt the Israeli allies France, Canada and the UK to issue a sharply worded statement in May calling for Israel to stop its “egregious” military actions in Gaza and criticising Israel’s actions in the occupied West Bank.

Pro-Palestine activists rallied outside Wimbledon on the first day of the tennis championships in London to protest tournament sponsorship by Barclays Bank, who they say helps to finance Israel’s war on Gaza. Barclays says it is not a ‘shareholder’ or ‘investor’ in defence companies supplying Israel.

Israeli forces have bombarded multiple areas across the besieged Gaza Strip, killing at least 85 Palestinians, including aid seekers and families sheltering in schools, and wounding many more in attacks that have also targeted a crowded hospital.

In the relentless attacks on Monday, 62 of the victims were in Gaza City and the north of the territory. The Israeli navy struck a port in Gaza City, where the military has stepped up its heavy strikes, killing at least 21 and wounding 30, many of them women and children.

Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Gaza City, said the attack was in the heart of a displacement centre near the Gaza seaport.

“This area serves as a refuge for many traumatised and displaced people, offering some relief from the oppressive heat of the tents,” he said.

Also on Monday, Israeli forces targeted the courtyard of Al-Aqsa Hospital in central Gaza’s Deir el-Balah, where thousands of families had sought shelter.

Videos circulating online and verified by Al Jazeera showed chaos at the hospital, with people fleeing for safety as tents sheltering displaced families appeared damaged by the attack.

Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from the scene of the hospital attack, said the army did not issue “any warnings” before the “huge explosion”.

“The site of the attack is about 10 metres [33ft] from our broadcast point. This is not the first time the hospital’s courtyard has been attacked. At least 10 times, this facility has been squarely targeted by Israeli forces,” Abu Azzoum said. “It’s a staggering concentration of attacks on medical facilities, adding further burden on barely functioning hospitals.”

In a statement, Gaza’s Government Media Office decried the attack by Israel, calling it a “systematic crime” against the Palestinian enclave’s health system.

“Its warplanes bombed a tent for the displaced inside the walls of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, resulting in injuries at the site of the bombing, material damage, and directly threatening the lives of dozens of patients,” it said.

Israel has repeatedly targeted dozens of hospitals during its 22-month war on Gaza. Human rights groups and United Nations-backed experts have accused Israel of systematically destroying the enclave’s healthcare system.

‘It felt like earthquakes’

Also in the south, at least 15 aid seekers looking for food at aid distribution hubs run by the controversial United States- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) were killed by an Israeli air strike in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis, according to sources at Nasser Medical Complex. Fifty people were also wounded in the attack.

They are the latest victims in a wave of daily carnage at these sites that have killed nearly 600 Palestinians since GHF took over limited aid deliveries in Gaza in late May amid a crippling Israeli blockade.

The Israeli military acknowledged on Monday that Palestinian civilians were harmed at the aid distribution centres, saying that instructions had been issued to forces following “lessons learned” and firing incidents were under review.

This follows the Israeli news outlet, Haaretz, reporting that soldiers operating near the aid sites in Gaza have been deliberately firing upon Palestinians. According to the Haaretz report, which quoted unnamed Israeli soldiers, troops were told to fire at the crowds of Palestinians and use unnecessary lethal force against people who appeared to pose no threat.

Israeli forces are also carrying out home demolitions in Khan Younis, raising fears of a new ground invasion.

The Israeli military, meanwhile, has issued more forced evacuation threats to Palestinians in large districts in the northern Gaza Strip, where Israeli forces had operated before and left behind wide-scale destruction, forcing a new wave of displacement.

“Explosions never stopped; they bombed schools and homes. It felt like earthquakes,” said Salah, 60, a father of five children, from Gaza City. “In the news, we hear a ceasefire is near. On the ground, we see death and we hear explosions.”

Israeli tanks pushed into the eastern areas of Zeitoun suburb in Gaza City and shelled several areas in the north, while aircraft bombed at least four schools after ordering hundreds of families sheltering inside to leave, residents said.

Gaza’s health authorities said at least 10 people were killed in attacks on Zeitoun and at least 13 were killed southwest of Gaza City.

More than 80 percent of Gaza is now an Israeli-militarised zone or under forced displacement orders, according to the United Nations.

The attacks come as Israeli officials, including Israel’s Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, were due in Washington, DC for a new ceasefire push by the administration of US President Donald Trump.

Key mediator Qatar has confirmed that there are serious US intentions to push for a return to negotiations, but there are complications, according to a Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesman.

The spokesman said that it has become difficult to accept the continued human losses in the Gaza Strip, warning that the continued link between the humanitarian and military aspects in Gaza cannot be accepted.

The talks in the White House are also expected to cover Iran, and possible wider regional diplomatic deals.

In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet was expected to convene to discuss the next steps in Gaza.

On Friday, Israel’s military chief said the present ground operation was close to having achieved its goals, and on Sunday, Netanyahu claimed new opportunities had opened up for recovering the captives, 20 of whom are believed to still be alive.

Palestinian and Egyptian sources with knowledge of the latest ceasefire efforts also said that mediators Qatar and Egypt have stepped up their contacts with the two sides, but that no date has been set yet for a new round of truce talks.

Video shows an Israeli drone killing a Palestinian carrying a sack of flour in Gaza City. Israel has killed around 600 people trying to get food from sites operated by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which has been condemned as “an abomination” and “a death trap” by the United Nations.

Norway’s largest pension fund, KLP, has said that it will no longer do business with two companies that sell equipment to the Israeli military because the equipment is possibly being used in the war in Gaza.

The two companies are the Oshkosh Corporation, a United States company mostly focused on trucks and military vehicles, and ThyssenKrupp, a German industrial firm that makes a broad selection of products, ranging from elevators and industrial machinery to warships.

“In June 2024, KLP learned of reports from the UN that several named companies were supplying weapons or equipment to the [Israeli army] and that these weapons are being used in Gaza,” Kiran Aziz, the head of responsible investments at KLP Kapitalforvaltning, said in a statement provided to Al Jazeera.

“Our conclusion is that the companies Oshkosh and ThyssenKrupp are contravening our responsible investment guidelines,” the statement said.

“We have therefore decided to exclude them from our investment universe.”

According to the pension fund, it had investments worth $1.8m in Oshkosh and almost $1m in ThyssenKrupp until June 2025.

KLP, founded in 1949 and the country’s largest pension fund, oversees a fund worth about $114bn. It is a public pension fund owned by municipalities and businesses in the public sector, and has a pension scheme that covers about 900,000 people, mostly municipal workers, according to its website.

Vehicles and warships

KLP said that it had been in touch with both companies before it made its decision and that Oshkosh “confirmed that it has sold, and continues to sell, equipment that is used by the [Israeli army] in Gaza”, mostly vehicles and parts for vehicles.

ThyssenKrupp told KLP that “it has a long-term relationship with [the Israeli army]” and that it had delivered four warships of the type Sa’ar 6 to the Israeli Navy in the period November 2020 to May 2021.

The German company also said it had plans to deliver a submarine to the Israeli Navy later this year.

When asked by KLP what checks and balances were made when it came to the use of the equipment the companies delivered, KLP said both Oshkosh and ThyssenKrupp “failed to document the necessary due diligence in relation to their potential complicity in violations of humanitarian law”.

“Companies have an independent duty to exercise due diligence in order to avoid complicity in violations of fundamental human rights and humanitarian law,” said Aziz.

Previous divestments

This is not the first time that the pension fund has divested from companies linked to possible human rights abuses.

In 2021, KLP divested from 16 companies, including telecom giant Motorola, that it concluded were linked to illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

The pension fund said there was an “unacceptable risk that the excluded companies are contributing to the abuse of human rights in situations of war and conflict through their links with the Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank”.

That same year, KLP also said it was divesting from the Indian port and logistics group Adani Ports because of its links to the Myanmar military government.

Last summer, KLP also divested from US firm Caterpillar. In an opinion piece for Al Jazeera, the KLP’s Aziz wrote that Caterpillar’s bulldozers undergo adjustments in Israel by the military and local companies, and are subsequently used in the occupied Palestinian territory.

“The constant use of these weaponised bulldozers in the occupied Palestinian territory has led to a series of human rights warnings from United Nations agencies, and nongovernmental organisations over the last two decades about the company’s involvement in the demolition of Palestinian homes and infrastructure,” she wrote.

“It is therefore impossible to assert that the company has implemented adequate measures to avoid becoming involved in future norm violations.”

The latest move builds on a series of similar decisions among several large investment funds in Europe that have cut ties with Israeli companies for their involvement in either the war in Gaza or because of links to illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

In May, Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the largest in the world, said it would divest from Israel’s Paz Retail and Energy because of the company’s involvement in supplying infrastructure and fuel to illegal Israeli settlements.

This came after an earlier decision in December last year to sell all shares it had in another Israeli company, Bezeq, for its services provided to the illegal settlements.

Other pension funds as well as wealth funds have also, in recent years, distanced themselves from companies accused of enabling or cooperating with Israel’s illegal occupation of the West Bank or its war on Gaza.

In February 2024, Denmark’s largest pension fund divested from several Israeli banks and companies as the fund feared its investments could be used to fund the settlements in the West Bank.

Six months later, the United Kingdom’s largest pension fund, the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS), said it would sell off all its investments linked to Israel because of its war on Gaza. The fund, which totals about $79bn, said it would sell its $101m worth of investments after pressure from its members.

Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip have killed dozens of Palestinians, including people seeking food at aid distribution hubs, as the already catastrophic humanitarian situation in the besieged enclave deteriorates by the day.

Medical sources told Al Jazeera on Sunday that at least 72 people were killed since dawn in Israeli strikes targeting multiple locations across Gaza, including at least 47 in Gaza City and the north of the territory.

Al Jazeera’s Moath al-Kahlout, reporting from Gaza City, described “catastrophic” scenes at the al-Ahli Hospital in the northern city as dozens of wounded civilians sought help following Israeli strikes on the Zeitoun and Sabra neighbourhoods, as well as al-Zawiya market.

“There are too many wounded civilians here, including children. Many are lying on the ground because there are not enough beds or medical supplies to treat them. This facility is struggling to cope due to severe shortages,” he said.

“The Israeli military has dropped leaflets in eastern Gaza City, ordering civilians to move south. These leaflets are often followed by intense and repeated attacks, resulting in the large number of casualties we are witnessing now.”

The victims on Sunday also included at least five Palestinian aid seekers killed near food distribution centres run by the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) north of Rafah, according to medics.

Since the United States- and Israel-backed GHF took over limited aid deliveries in Gaza in late May amid a punishing Israeli blockade, Israeli soldiers have regularly shot at Palestinians near distribution centres, killing more than 580 people, and wounding more than 4,000, according to the Gaza Government Media Office.

A recent report by Israel’s Haaretz newspaper quoted unnamed Israeli soldiers as saying they had received orders to fire at crowds of unarmed aid seekers to disperse them.

Geoffrey Nice, a human rights lawyer, told Al Jazeera that the killings going on around the GHF are “inexplicable”.

“What is absolutely astonishing to outsiders is that it is in the business of apparently providing aid where it is desperately needed, and those providing aid with you end up shooting dead hundreds of people,” said Nice, who also took part in the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

‘Most vulnerable are dying’

Meanwhile, the humanitarian crisis in the Strip is worsening, with babies and toddlers dying due to a lack of nutrients.

Christy Black, an Australian nurse volunteering in Gaza City, said the hospital she’s based in is short of medical supplies, including formula for pregnant women who require nasogastric feeding. That leaves many without the nutrients needed to lactate – as well as baby formula, she said.

“Our most vulnerable are dying,” Black told Al Jazeera. “We’ve seen a couple of babies die over the last couple of days in Gaza City. It’s really desperate here.”

Malnourishment also makes it difficult to heal from wounds, she said, adding that there is a significant uptick in respiratory illnesses due to the number of bombs being dropped on Gaza.

“We’re seeing children going through the rubbish trying to find something to eat … Children who might be nine or 10 years old that look like two-year-olds,” she added.

Ceasefire talks

With Israeli bombardment of the besieged enclave relentless, there are indications of a fresh impetus to end the war in the wake of the US and Israeli bombings of Iran’s nuclear facilities and the ensuing ceasefire between Israel and Iran.

On Sunday, US President Donald Trump seemed determined to seal a truce. “MAKE THE DEAL IN GAZA. GET THE HOSTAGES BACK!!” he said in a Social Truth post. His comments came after he said he believed a ceasefire could be reached within a week. “I think it’s close. I just spoke to some of the people involved,” Trump said on Saturday.

While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not comment on the push for a truce, he said in the past week that behind-the-scenes talks have been taking place to try and secure a 60-day pause in fighting.

Negotiations revolve around a proposal put forward by the US back in March to extend phase one of a ceasefire that Israel violated by resuming its bombing of Gaza.

Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut, reporting from Amman, Jordan, said, “Netanyahu is under a lot of pressure as Trump has been quite outspoken for some time that he wants to see a ceasefire in Gaza.”

“And prior to Israel’s attacks on Iran, just about two weeks ago, there was a lot of pressure from European allies because of the Israeli military’s conduct in the Gaza Strip,” she said.

In the meantime, the Jerusalem District Court cancelled this week’s hearings in Netanyahu’s long-running corruption trial, accepting a request that the Israeli leader made, citing classified diplomatic and security grounds.

It was unclear whether a social media post by Trump – one suggesting the trial could interfere with Netanyahu’s ability to join negotiations with Hamas and Iran – influenced the court’s decision.

The ruling, seen by Reuters, said that new reasons provided by Netanyahu, the head of Israel’s spy agency Mossad and the military intelligence chief justified cancelling the hearings.

Netanyahu was indicted in 2019 on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust – all of which he denies. He has cast the trial against him as an orchestrated left-wing witch-hunt meant to topple a democratically elected right-wing leader.

On Friday, the court rejected a request by Netanyahu to delay his testimony for the next two weeks because of diplomatic and security matters following the 12-day conflict between Israel and Iran, which ended last Tuesday.

He was due to take the stand on Monday for cross-examination.

“It is INSANITY doing what the out-of-control prosecutors are doing to Bibi Netanyahu,” Trump said in a Truth Social post. He said Washington, having given billions of dollars worth of aid to Israel, was not going to “stand for this”.

A spokesperson for the Israeli prosecution declined to comment on Trump’s post. Netanyahu reposted Trump’s comments on X and added: “Thank you again, @realDonaldTrump. Together, we will make the Middle East Great Again!”

Trump said Netanyahu was “right now” negotiating a deal with Hamas, though neither leader provided details, and though officials from both sides have voiced scepticism over prospects for a ceasefire soon.

United States President Donald Trump can force Israel to end the war on Gaza if he shows the same gumption as he did with Iran, argues Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.

Parsi discusses the wider implications of the 12-day war on Iran with host Steve Clemons, including:

• Will Iran double down on its nuclear weapons programme?
• Will improved Iran-US relations lead to sanctions relief?
• Why did European leaders legitimise the unprovoked US and Israeli attacks, instead of calling for the “rules-based order” as they do in Ukraine?
• Does Iran have allies?

When The Hunger Games books came out in the late 2000s to much acclaim, probably few readers expected scenes from these dystopian novels would take place in the world they live in. But they now do – here in Gaza, every day.

We have been suffering under a full Israeli blockade since the beginning of March. Starvation has spread over the entire strip. Most families have just one meal per day. Some do not eat at all for days.

In late May, the United States- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) began limited aid deliveries to the strip. Since then, Palestinians have been forced into a deadly game to secure some food.

None of my family members has dared go to a GHF aid distribution point, but some of my neighbours and friends have. All I have heard from them are horror stories.

The first time we heard about the aid zone that the Israelis call the “Netzarim Corridor”, we imagined there would be tents, queues, order. But those who risked going there found only chaos and death.

The aid distribution takes place in a fenced area near Salah al-Din Street, close to the eastern edge of Gaza – in a zone so dangerous, locals call it the death corridor.  It is surrounded by sand and guarded by foreign military contractors. There are Israeli tanks and soldiers stationed nearby.

There is no clear schedule for the aid deliveries. Sometimes, the GHF opens the gates at 4am and sometimes later. Palestinians wait starting at sunset the night before.

When the gates finally open, the crowd floods in. There are no queues, no staff, no signs. Just noise, dust and fear.

Overhead, drones circle like vultures. Then, a voice from a loudspeaker shouts: “Four minutes! Take what you can!”

Food boxes are left in the middle of the sand, but there is not enough of them. They are never enough. People rush towards the pile, shoving and climbing over each other. They push each other. Knives come out. Fistfights erupt. Children scream. Men fall. Women crawl through the sand. Few people are the lucky ones who are able to grab a box and hold onto it. Then gunfire starts. The sandy square becomes a killing field.

People run for their lives. Many get hit. Some manage to crawl out with injuries. Others are carried by friends or relatives or even strangers. Others bleed alone into the sand.

Since the end of May, more than 500 Palestinians have been killed when the Israeli army has opened indiscriminate fire on people gathered to try to get aid. More than 4,000 have been wounded.

Subhi, the father of my friend Nour, was one of them. The family had no food left, so he felt compelled to risk his life to get some aid. On the morning of June 14, he left for the aid hub in Netzarim. He never came back.

Nour told me how they waited by the door. Hours passed. No word. No call. The internet was cut. The silence was unbearable. Then suddenly, they heard the sound of shooting in the distance. They immediately knew something had gone wrong, but they had no way to reach him.

Later, paramedics found his body. He was killed while trying to carry a bag of food home to his children.

Another friend, Hala, told me the story of another victim of the GHF death trap, Khamis, the brother-in-law of her sister. He had been married for just two years and had no children yet, but he carried the weight of an entire household on his back. He had started taking care of his brother’s children after he was killed earlier in the war.

When their food ran out, Khamis’s friends managed to convince him to go with them to try to pick up some aid. On the morning of June 24, they were waiting near the aid hub when someone shouted: “They’ve opened the gates!”

Khamis stepped out of their hiding place – just slightly – to see for himself. A bullet from an Israeli quadcopter pierced his shoulder, then lodged in his heart, killing him. He left behind a grieving widow and hungry nieces and nephews.

There are countless other stories – just as painful, just as heartbreaking – that will never be known.

Gaza’s Ministry of Health has called these incidents “aid massacres”. Legal experts have called them war crimes. But they really are “hunger games”.

Hunger changes people. It doesn’t just weaken the body – it tests the soul. It undermines trust and solidarity between people and unleashes the most basic of instincts.

The occupier knows that, and it is weaponising it.

It is no coincidence it viciously attacked and banned the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.

UNRWA’s aid distribution system was a model of organisation and fairness. Each family registered with the agency had an identification card with which it could receive aid distributed through a careful, transparent process. Priority was given to the most vulnerable – widows, orphans, the elderly and disabled people – ensuring that those who need help the most received it first.

Its system reduced the risk of deadly stampedes and violent clashes because there was order, dignity and respect for human life.

The occupier does not want any of that.

That is why it designed aid distribution in the form of “hunger games”.

These are orchestrated traps designed to cause chaos and disorder so Palestinians fight each other and the social order and solidarity that hold Palestinian society together break down.

For a month, Israel and the GHF denied that there were any mass killings happening at the aid hubs – another Israeli lie that was widely believed. Now, the Israeli media themselves have reported that Israeli soldiers were ordered to shoot at the crowds of Palestinians trying to get aid at the GHF hubs.

Will the world believe us now? Will it take action?

What is happening in Gaza is not fiction. It is not a horror movie. The “hunger games” are real and so is the genocide they are part of. That the world is allowing such dystopia to unfold is damning evidence of its own loss of humanity.

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

US President Donald Trump links US aid to Netanyahu’s corruption trial in fiery post on his social media site.

United States President Donald Trump has launched a scathing attack on Israeli prosecutors over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ongoing corruption trial, calling it “insanity” and linking Washington’s financial support to the proceedings.

Posting on his Truth Social platform on Saturday, Trump lashed out at Israeli authorities for undermining Netanyahu’s ability to negotiate with the Palestinian group Hamas in Gaza and manage mounting tensions with Iran.

“It is INSANITY doing what the out-of-control prosecutors are doing to Bibi Netanyahu,” Trump wrote, referring to the Israeli leader with his nickname and claiming his trial would obstruct peace efforts in the region.

“The United States of America spends billions of dollars a year … protecting and supporting Israel. We are not going to stand for this,” he added.

Netanyahu is set to take the stand on Monday for cross-examination in a long-running corruption case that began in 2020.

He faces charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust – all of which he denies. His lawyers had requested a two-week delay in testimony, citing national security demands following Israel’s recent 12-day conflict with Iran. That appeal was rejected on Friday.

Members of Israel’s Knesset have accused Netanyahu of using the regional conflicts to secure an end to his corruption trial.

“[Netanyahu] is conditioning the future of Israel and our children on his trial,” Naama Lazimi, Knesset member from the Democrats Party, told The Times of Israel newspaper.

Karine Elharrar, Knesset member from Yesh Atid party, warned that Netanyahu is “acting against the Israeli public interest” by linking his legal fate with captive negotiations and regional normalisation agreements.

ICC arrest warrant

Netanyahu’s legal troubles include an International Criminal Court arrest warrant issued last year for him and his former defence minister, Yoav Gallant.

The charges include war crimes and crimes against humanity related to Israel’s war on Gaza, beginning in October 2023. Both leaders have called the arrest warrant “anti-Semitic”.

Trump’s comments come just days after he suggested a ceasefire deal with Hamas may be close.

Speaking to reporters, he claimed Netanyahu was engaged in negotiations with the Palestinian group, though no further details were provided.

Hamas has stated it would free remaining Israeli captives in Gaza as part of a deal to end the war, but has rejected Israeli demands for total disarmament.

Netanyahu responded to Trump’s defence with a post on X: “Thank you again, @realDonaldTrump. Together, we will make the Middle East Great Again!”

Calls for Netanyahu to resign

The political turmoil in Israel has deepened, with renewed calls for Netanyahu’s resignation. In a televised interview with Channel 12, former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said it was time for Netanyahu to step aside.

“He has been in power for 20 years … that’s too much,” said Bennett. “He bears heavy responsibility for the divisions in Israeli society.”

Bennett, who has taken a break from politics, is reportedly eyeing a return, with polls suggesting he could challenge Netanyahu once more.

Thousands of fans chanted ‘free Palestine’ and waved Palestinian flags as the Irish trio performed in the UK.

Irish-language rap group Kneecap has performed at the Glastonbury Festival in front of tens of thousands of fans chanting “Free Palestine”, defying United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer who said he did not think it was “appropriate” for the band to appear.

The group’s Liam O’Hanna on Saturday also gave a “shout-out” to Palestine Action Group, which UK Interior Minister Yvette Cooper announced last week would become a banned group under the Terrorism Act of 2000.

“The prime minister of your country, not mine, said he didn’t want us to play, so f*** Keir Starmer,” said O’Hanna, who appeared on stage wearing his trademark Palestinian keffiyeh in front of the capacity crowd, including many people waving Palestinian flags.

“This situation can be quite stressful but it’s minimal compared to what the Palestinian people are [facing],” O’Hanna, who performs under the name Mo Chara, added, referring to the backlash the band has faced for its outspoken support of Palestinians in Gaza.

He is facing charges under the British Terrorism Act of supporting a proscribed organisation for allegedly waving a flag of Lebanon’s Hezbollah armed group at a concert in London in November last year.

O’Hanna has said he picked up a flag that was thrown onto the stage without knowing what it represented.

The rapper is on unconditional bail before a further court hearing in August.

“Glastonbury, I’m a free man!” he shouted as the trio took to the stage at Glastonbury’s West Holts field, which holds about 30,000 people.

The trio also thanked festival organisers Michael and Emily Eavis for resisting pressure to cancel their appearance, including from Starmer.

Several Kneecap concerts have been cancelled since the band’s performance at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in California in April, where they accused Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinians, enabled by the United States government.

At least 56,412 Palestinians have been killed and 133,054 wounded in Israel’s war on Gaza, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health.

Ireland’s people and government have been some of the most outspoken critics of the war, as well as Israel’s deliberate starvation of Gaza’s population, which many people see as having parallels to the English occupation of Ireland.

The BBC, which broadcasts dozens of Glastonbury performances, did not show Kneecap’s set live, but said it planned to make it available online later.

The broadcaster said it would not be re-airing the live performance of British rap punk duo Bob Vylan who appeared on stage before Kneecap and led chants of “Free, free Palestine” and “Death, death to the IDF [Israeli army]”.

A BBC spokesperson said the comments were “deeply offensive”, and that they would not be available to rewatch on BBC iPlayer.

The BBC also reported that UK Culture Minister Lisa Nandy spoke to the BBC director general, Tim Davie, seeking an “urgent explanation” after the chants were aired live.

According to the BBC, Avon and Somerset Police also said that they would be reviewing footage of both Kneecap and Bob Vylan’s sets to “determine whether any offences may have been committed that would require a criminal investigation”.

The bands were among about 4,000 performers across 120 stages to appear at this year’s festival, which also featured headliners including Neil Young, Charli XCX, Rod Stewart, Busta Rhymes, Olivia Rodrigo and Doechii, as well as a surprise appearance by Britpop band Pulp.

At least 66 children have died of malnutrition in Gaza over the course of Israel’s war, authorities in the Palestinian enclave said, condemning a tightened Israeli siege that has prevented the entry of milk, nutritional supplements and other food aid.

The statement from Gaza’s Government Media Office on Saturday comes as Israeli forces intensified their attacks on the territory, killing at least 60 Palestinians, including 20 people in the Tuffah neighbourhood of Gaza City.

The media office said Israel’s deadly blockade constitutes a “war crime” and reveals its “deliberate use of starvation as a weapon to exterminate civilians”.

The office denounced what it called “this ongoing crime against childhood in the Gaza Strip” as well as “the shameful international silence regarding the suffering of children who are left to fall prey to hunger, disease, and slow death”.

It also said it holds Israel, as well as its allies, including the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Germany, responsible for “this catastrophe”, and urged the United Nations to intervene and open the crossings into Gaza immediately.

The statement came days after the UN agency for children (UNICEF) warned that the number of malnourished children in the Gaza Strip was rising at an “alarming rate”. It said that at least 5,119 children, between 6 months and 5 years of age, had been admitted for treatment for acute malnutrition in May alone.

UNICEF said the figure represents a nearly 50 percent increase from the 3,444 children admitted in April, and a 150 percent increase from February when a ceasefire was in effect and aid was entering Gaza in significant quantities.

“In just 150 days, from the start of the year until the end of May, 16,736 children – an average of 112 children a day – have been admitted for treatment for malnutrition in the Gaza Strip,” said the agency’s regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, Edouard Beigbeder.

“Every one of these cases is preventable. The food, water, and nutrition treatments they desperately need are being blocked from reaching them,” he added. “Man-made decisions that are costing lives. Israel must urgently allow the large-scale delivery of life-saving aid through all border crossings.”

Israel intensifies attacks on north Gaza

The warnings came as Palestinians mourned the 60 people killed in Israeli attacks on Saturday. In Gaza City’s Tuffah neighbourhood, rescuers continued the search for survivors after two consecutive Israeli strikes flattened several residential buildings, killing at least 20 people.

Some nine children were among the victims.

“We were sitting peacefully when we received a call from a private number telling us to evacuate the entire block immediately – a residential area belonging to the al-Nakhalah family. As you can see, the whole block is nearly wiped out,” one resident, Mahmoud al-Nakhala, told Al Jazeera.

“We still don’t know why two three-storey homes were targeted… It’s heartbreaking that people watch what’s happening in Gaza – the suffering, the massacres – and stay silent. At this point, we can’t even comprehend what’s happening here any more,” he said.

The bombings in Tuffah followed another air raid on tents sheltering displaced people in Gaza City.

At least 13 people were killed, including several children.

Other victims included a person who was shot and killed near an aid distribution point run by the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) in southern Rafah.

According to officials in Gaza, Israeli forces have killed more than 550 people at and near the GHF sites, since the controversial group began operations on May 19.

Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Gaza City, said that the GHF remains the only source of food in the Strip as Israel continues to place severe restrictions on the entry of supplies by other groups.

“A lot of people here are trying to stay away from the GHF’s centres because of the danger involved in going to them, because of the ongoing and deliberate shootings of aid seekers there,” Mahmoud said. “But again, staying away is not an answer, because if there are no food parcels, it means that children are going to go to bed hungry.”

Aid groups have condemned the GHF’s “militarised” operations, with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres saying on Friday that the US-backed operation in Gaza was “inherently unsafe” and “killing people”.

Israel’s Haaretz newspaper has, meanwhile, reported that Israeli troops in Gaza were ordered to shoot at unarmed Palestinians at the GHF sites, with one soldier describing the scenes as a “killing field”.

The Israeli military denied the claim.

Chris Doyle, the director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding, said the GHF’s aid distribution system in Gaza is an “abomination and utter disgrace”.

“It is an inversion of all the global humanitarian principles about independence, impartiality and neutrality,” he told Al Jazeera.

“As we’ve seen, around about 550 Palestinians have been killed in trying to get food there, to travel by foot, long journeys, and then the families worry whether they’ll ever come back again,” Doyle said.

He went on to describe the situation as another example of how “Israel enjoys complete and utter impunity from any of the norms of war, of international law”.

“This has to be dismantled now, and the proper systems of delivery and distribution of aid set back up,” he added.

On June 22, American warplanes crossed into Iranian airspace and dropped 14 massive bombs. The attack was not in response to a provocation; it came on the heels of illegal Israeli aggression that took the lives of 600 Iranians. This was a return to something familiar and well-practised: an empire bombing innocents across the orientalist abstraction called “the Middle East”. That night, US President Donald Trump, flanked by his vice president and two secretaries, told the world “Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace”.

There is something chilling about how bombs are baptised with the language of diplomacy and how destruction is dressed in the garments of stability. To call that peace is not merely a misnomer; it is a criminal distortion. But what is peace in this world, if not submission to the West? And what is diplomacy, if not the insistence that the attacked plead with their attackers?

In the 12 days that Israel’s illegal assault on Iran lasted, images of Iranian children pulled from the wreckage remained absent from the front pages of Western media. In their place were lengthy features about Israelis hiding in fortified bunkers. Western media, fluent in the language of erasure, broadcasts only the victimhood that serves the war narrative.

And that is not just in its coverage of Iran. For 20 months now, the people of Gaza have been starved and incinerated. By the official count, more than 55,000 lives have been taken; realistic estimates put the number at hundreds of thousands. Every hospital in Gaza has been bombed. Most schools have been attacked and destroyed.

Leading human rights groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have already declared that Israel is committing genocide, and yet, most Western media would not utter that word and would add elaborate caveats when someone does dare say it live on TV. Presenters and editors would do anything but recognise Israel’s unending violence in an active voice.

Despite detailed evidence of war crimes, the Israeli military has faced no media censure, no criticism or scrutiny. Its generals hold war meetings near civilian buildings, and yet, there are no media cries of Israelis being used as “human shields”. Israeli army and government officials are regularly caught lying or making genocidal statements, and yet, their words are still reported as the truth.

A recent study found that on the BBC, Israeli deaths received 33 times more coverage per fatality than Palestinian deaths, despite Palestinians dying at a rate of 34 to 1 compared with Israelis. Such bias is no exception, it is the rule for Western media.

Like Palestine, Iran is described in carefully chosen language. Iran is never framed as a nation, only as a regime. Iran is not a government, but a threat —not a people, but a problem. The word “Islamic” is affixed to it like a slur in every report. This is instrumental in quietly signalling that Muslim resistance to Western domination must be extinguished.

Iran does not possess nuclear weapons; Israel and the United States do. And yet only Iran is cast as an existential threat to world order. Because the problem is not what Iran holds, but what it refuses to surrender. It has survived coups, sanctions, assassinations, and sabotage. It has outlived every attempt to starve, coerce, or isolate it into submission. It is a state that, despite the violence hurled at it, has not yet been broken.

And so the myth of the threat of weapons of mass destruction becomes indispensable. It is the same myth that was used to justify the illegal invasion of Iraq. For three decades, American headlines have whispered that Iran is just “weeks away” from the bomb, three decades of deadlines that never arrive, of predictions that never materialise.

But fear, even when unfounded, is useful. If you can keep people afraid, you can keep them quiet. Say “nuclear threat” often enough, and no one will think to ask about the children killed in the name of “keeping the world safe”.

This is the modus operandi of Western media: a media architecture not built to illuminate truth, but to manufacture permission for violence, to dress state aggression in technical language and animated graphics, to anaesthetise the public with euphemisms.

Time Magazine does not write about the crushed bones of innocents under the rubble in Tehran or Rafah, it writes about “The New Middle East” with a cover strikingly similar to the one it used to propagandise regime change in Iraq 22 years ago.

But this is not 2003. After decades of war, and livestreamed genocide, most Americans no longer buy into the old slogans and distortions. When Israel attacked Iran, a poll showed that only 16 percent of US respondents supported the US joining the war. After Trump ordered the air strikes, another poll confirmed this resistance to manufactured consent: only 36 percent of respondents supported the move, and only 32 percent supported continuing the bombardment

The failure to manufacture consent for war with Iran reveals a profound shift in the American consciousness. Americans remember the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq that left hundreds of thousands of Afghans and Iraqis dead and an entire region in flames. They remember the lies about weapons of mass destruction and democracy and the result: the thousands of American soldiers dead and the tens of thousands maimed. They remember the humiliating retreat from Afghanistan after 20 years of war and the never-ending bloody entanglement in Iraq.

At home, Americans are told there is no money for housing, healthcare, or education, but there is always money for bombs, for foreign occupations, for further militarisation. More than 700,000 Americans are homeless, more than 40 million live under the official poverty line and more than 27 million have no health insurance. And yet, the US government maintains by far the highest defence budget in the world.

Americans know the precarity they face at home, but they are also increasingly aware of the impact US imperial adventurism has abroad. For 20 months now, they have watched a US-sponsored genocide broadcast live.

They have seen countless times on their phones bloodied Palestinian children pulled from rubble while mainstream media insists, this is Israeli self-defence. The old alchemy of dehumanising victims to excuse their murder has lost its power. The digital age has shattered the monopoly on narrative that once made distant wars feel abstract and necessary. Americans are now increasingly refusing to be moved by the familiar war drumbeat.

The growing fractures in public consent have not gone unnoticed in Washington. Trump, ever the opportunist, understands that the American public has no appetite for another war. And so, on June 24, he took to social media to announce, “the ceasefire is in effect”, telling Israel to “DO NOT DROP THOSE BOMBS,” after the Israeli army continued to attack Iran.

Trump, like so many in the US and Israeli political elites, wants to call himself a peacemaker while waging war. To leaders like him, peace has come to mean something altogether different: the unimpeded freedom to commit genocide and other atrocities while the world watches on.

But they have failed to manufacture our consent. We know what peace is, and it does not come dressed in war. It is not dropped from the sky. Peace can only be achieved where there is freedom. And no matter how many times they strike, the people remain, from Palestine to Iran — unbroken, unbought, and unwilling to kneel to terror.

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