"I flew," said the boy who landed on the roof.
Catch up on Israel/Palestine in 12 Minutes
There’s a grim type of video that keeps coming out of Gaza. A Palestinian, often clutching the corpse of a loved one, stands in the wreckage of an Israeli airstrike, stares into the camera, and demands that we, the voyeurs, do something to stop the killing.
Last week’s footage of seven-year-old Ali Faraj almost fits the genre: he waves at the camera, bloodied and singed after a blast launched him and what was left of his family onto a rooftop, crying, signaling for help. But he’s too young for the kind of fury that comes from knowing the world has abandoned you. He just looks dazed, terrified. Like he’s wondering, What is happening?
On Friday, Haaretz offered an answer: The IDF had bombed Ali’s home and killed 15 of his relatives because his father, an employee of Gaza’s Finance Ministry, was inside. The strike, carried out while Ali was sitting on his father’s lap, was part of a campaign to eliminate Gaza’s civil leadership.
The next detail really got me: Faraj had been imprisoned early in the war and was released just two months ago as part of the last hostage swap.
This is, I suppose, just Israel staying on message: sabotage every truce, violate every ceasefire, even vow to kill your negotiating partners. Still, even for them, the audacity of assassinating someone freed in the last deal while ‘negotiating’ the next one managed to surprise me.
That was the backdrop as I read about an Israeli TV special featuring nine senior Biden officials who confirmed what was obvious from the start: The administration’s lies, cover-ups, and public humiliation were in service of a war it knew Israel had no intention of ending. Biden told Netanyahu he was “full of shit,” hung up on him, called him a manipulator—then turned to face the public and refused to show daylight. As the body count climbed and the excuses ran dry, the State Department even falsified a legal memo on humanitarian violations to keep the weapons flowing.
“God did the State of Israel a favor that Biden was the president during this period, because it could have been much worse,” former Israeli ambassador Michael Herzog said. “We fought for over a year, and the administration never came to us and said, ‘ceasefire now.’ It never did.”
Gaza
Israel’s Blockade Reaches Month Three
Gaza’s ICUs are swarming with flies, miscarriages and maternal deaths are soaring, and premature babies are dying—the incubators that could save them are stranded on aid trucks forbidden from crossing the border. (AP, The New Yorker)
The UN estimates 91 percent of the population is facing “food insecurity,” with most enduring “emergency” or “catastrophic” levels. Gaza’s government says 290,000 children may be “on the brink of death.” At least 57 have already died. (Al Jazeera)
More than 90% of Gaza’s farmland has been destroyed, 36 million chickens killed. Families are cooking over fires fueled by torn-up shoes. Another burned their beloved home library to survive: “Either we starve to death, or we fall into illiteracy.” (The New Arab, Al Jazeera)
The main desalination plant is down to 10% capacity, causing spikes in jaundice, diarrhea, and scabies. Deaths from treatable illnesses are skyrocketing. Dialysis patients are slowly dying of blood poisoning. (NY Times)
Israel says it will only allow in aid if its military controls distribution. Meanwhile, the IDF is reportedly backing gangs that loot the remaining aid and attacking police who try to intervene. (AP, Quds News Network)
Freedom Flotilla Attacked, Again
A drone struck a Gaza-bound ship carrying aid. Flight data shows an Israeli aircraft flying in the area hours earlier. A crew member said as they radioed for help, “someone impersonated them on the same channel saying help was no longer needed.” Malta, Greece, and Turkey warned they’ll seize the damaged ship if it tries to dock. (CNN, AP, Times of Israel)
In 2010, Israeli forces killed nine activists aboard an aid flotilla; Obama blocked an international investigation while Biden and Schumer defended the attack. (The Intercept)
52,495 Dead and Counting
Between April 20 and 26, Israeli forces killed 345 Palestinians—94% of them civilians, according to Euro-Med Monitor. This past week, an airstrike wiped out three generations of the al-Khour family. In Khan Younis, a drone struck a tent and killed six. A strike on a refugee camp killed at least three infants. (Drop Site News, Middle East Monitor, Al Jazeera)
In Custody
UNRWA says at least 50 detained staff, including doctors and teachers, have been tortured, coerced into false confessions, and used as human shields. (Guardian)
A 60-year-old man denied treatment for chronic illness became the 66th Palestinian prisoner to die in Israeli custody from torture or medical neglect since October 7. Sick detainees are shuffled between prisons to spread disease. Asaad al-Nsasrah, the lone survivor of March’s rescue worker massacre, was quietly released after 37 days. (Middle East Eye, Middle East Monitor)
No Greater Threat Than Peace
Israel rejected Hamas’s offer for a five-year truce in exchange for all remaining hostages. (Jerusalem Post)
“There are no more concessions that can be forced on Hamas,” an Egyptian official said. “The real crisis lies in the lack of Israeli-American will to end the war.” (Jerusalem Post)
Since breaking the March ceasefire, Israel has declared nearly 70% of Gaza as evacuation or military zones, carving the strip into isolated enclaves linked by corridors named after former settlements. Netanyahu asserted that the hostages are not the top priority, and that Israel will maintain indefinite control over Gaza. (Haaretz, Times of Israel, Middle East Eye)
My friend Afeef Nessouli visited a surviving bookshop in Gaza City:
Happy Birthday
The Hind Rajab Foundation named Lieutenant Colonel Beni Aharon as the commander responsible for Hind’s death and filed a war crimes complaint with the ICC. (Quds News Network)
Hind would have turned seven on Saturday.
The West Bank
Israel Killed an American Child
Haaretz confirmed that Israeli soldiers shot 14-year-old New Jersey native Amer Rabee 11 times after he allegedly threw stones that hit no one. Democratic Senators Cory Booker and Andy Kim have called on Trump to investigate; Trump, like Biden before him, has done no such thing. (Haaretz)
Theft in Plain Sight
On Monday, Israeli forces demolished a seven-floor residential building in Beit Ummar and a three-floor building in Za’tara. The next day, they invaded Masafer Yatta—abducting two Palestinians, seizing an excavator, and demolishing homes, a sheep pen, and a water well. Nearby, soldiers and settlers in military fatigues raided homes, smashed furniture, and stole thousands of shekels. (Mondoweiss, Middle East Monitor)
In Wadi al-Rakhim, armed settlers trampled crops, unleashed sheep on grain fields, and attacked farmers. Soldiers arrived and fist-bumped the assailants. Near Salfit, settlers assaulted a Palestinian farmer and destroyed his equipment while soldiers uprooted 4,000 olive trees. (+972 Magazine, Palestine Chronicle)
In the Jordan Valley, Israel is escalating its war on water: filling springs with cement, dismantling pipes, and demolishing wells. (Haaretz)
In East Jerusalem, Israel is shutting down six schools serving 800 children. Near Hebron, settlers raided a school for remote communities, vandalizing classrooms and looting supplies. (Middle East Monitor, Middle East Eye)
Standard Procedure
On Thursday, two Israeli reservists were injured by a roadside bomb near Beita. In response, the IDF sealed off the town, destroyed infrastructure, and shot and killed a 29-year-old man. (Times of Israel, Middle East Monitor)
The next day, Israeli forces killed a Palestinian man in the Balata refugee camp and confiscated his corpse. (The New Arab)
May Day in Palestine
Israel’s post-October 7 crackdown on the West Bank has triggered mass unemployment, depriving Palestinian workers of over $370 million in wages. (Middle East Eye)
Veteran Journalist Arrested
Israeli forces arrested prominent journalist Ali Samoudi, a longtime contributor to major Western outlets, accusing him without evidence of “ties to Islamic Jihad.” (BBC)
Think of the Jewish Grandmas
In a new BBC documentary, Louis Theroux returns to the West Bank after 14 years to find apartheid more entrenched and settler violence unchecked. He interviews Daniella Weiss, the extremist settler leader, who proudly brags about ethnically cleansing Gaza and the West Bank.
Settlers and soldiers raided the home of Hebron-based activist Issa Amro, who said it was retaliation for his role in the documentary. When I visited him last year, his home was torn apart from being ransacked the night before.
Israel
Whoopsies
Netanyahu’s wife, Sara, was accused of drinking 160 cases of champagne. (Times of Israel)
After Netanyahu cited 24 hostages still alive in Gaza, she mouthed “fewer,” triggering panic among their families. (CNN)
The Final Picture
Two IDF soldiers were killed in Gaza on Saturday, bringing the total to six since Israel violated the ceasefire in March. (Haaretz)
A missile launched by the Houthis—clearly chastened and diminished after months of U.S. strikes—struck near the Tel Aviv airport on Sunday. (NY Times)
IDF tanks now line the Gaza-Egypt border as Israel escalates airstrikes on Syria under the pretext of protecting its Druze population. In Lebanon, Israeli strikes have stirred fears among Palestinian refugees of another “war on the camps.” (BBC, Mondoweiss)
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich laid out the “final picture,” which he called the Israeli people’s “consensus”: Gaza emptied, Syria partitioned, Hezbollah crushed, Iran disarmed, some hostages returned home, and others to their graves. (Times of Israel)
On Saturday night, Israel announced it would mobilize thousands of reserves to intensify its war on Gaza. (NY Times)
LinkedIn Update
The Israeli officer who ordered the massacre of 15 aid workers in Rafah is now working as a mercenary in the DR Congo. (Al-Quds)
Beacon of Light
National Security Minister Ben Gvir, fresh off his charm offensive in the U.S., honored a border cop who ripped off a Palestinian woman’s hijab and choked her. It was proof of her “love for the land,” he said. (Times of Israel)
A mob stormed a Reform synagogue during an Israeli-Palestinian Memorial Day ceremony, throwing stones and fireworks and shouting “Death to Arabs.” Police were warned in advance but didn’t show up; a Likud politician called it “just the opening shot.” (Haaretz)
Netanyahu’s bodyguards now wear masks out of fear of arrests abroad. (The Jerusalem Post)
Bomb the Fires
Wildfires tore through central Israel and parts of the West Bank, prompting mass evacuations and calls for international help. Israel ignored the PA’s offer to send firefighting crews.
Right-wingers launched an “intense and coordinated” disinformation campaign: Netanyahu falsely claimed 18 Palestinian arsonists had been arrested, his idiot son blamed the Israeli left, and a Knesset member called for airstrikes on nobody in particular. (Haaretz)
Security sources told Haaretz that settlers had set fire to Palestinian farmland. Drop Site reported the flames were fueled by hundreds of millions of flammable Aleppo pines planted by the Jewish National Fund atop erased Palestinian villages.
Shark News
Days after a man was eaten off Hadera’s coast, beachgoers waded in the same waters and threw dead fish at the feeding sharks. (Times of Israel)
The U.S.
America First
Texas Governor Greg Abbott threatened to cut off funding to San Marcos over a proposed city council resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. (MSNBC)
Actual Violence
The Illinois man who stabbed a 6-year-old Palestinian boy to death in 2023 was sentenced to 53 years.
The Golden State
California Democrats are backing a bill that would restrict how schools teach Palestine. (Intercept)
One year after a mob attacked a pro-Palestine encampment at UCLA with poles, fireworks, and a chemical spray as police stood by, students screened The Encampments to mark the anniversary. Police raided the event, confiscated their equipment, and arrested three students. (Daily Bruin)
LA’s City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto, who charged just one person for last year’s attack, is pursuing charges against 31 protesters who blocked a freeway to demand a ceasefire. (Forward)
Academic Obedience
While Harvard sues the Trump administration over a funding freeze and tax threats, two students outlined how the university has enacted much of Trump’s agenda on its own. (The Nation)
Harvard released two reports: one on antisemitism, the other on anti-Muslim bias. Corey Robin argues the Times distorted their release by elevating antisemitism as a singular moral crisis while reducing more alarming findings about Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism to student discomfort. (New York Times, The Intercept)
NYU’s law school has barred 31 students from campus buildings and threatened to block them from taking finals unless they agree to stop protesting. (Intercept)
The IHRA Definition
The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, now spreading across U.S. institutions, traces back to a decades-long effort to shield Israel from rising solidarity movements. The goal was never to protect Jewish people, but to criminalize anti-Zionism, reframe Palestine solidarity as hate, and build a legal weapon to crush resistance. (Mondoweiss)
Live From The Capitol
Senate Republicans added a carveout to the Antisemitism Awareness Act, which utilizes the IHRA definition, to protect Christian speech like “The Jews killed Jesus.” (Forward)
A halal shop replaced a Steak ‘n Shake in the congressional food court; Rep. Mike Collins of Georgia compared it to “the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem in the 7th century.” (Forward)
As Democratic Senator John Fetterman spiraled into a mental health crisis, he reportedly described Palestine as “a carton of sour milk” and said Israel should “Kill them all.” (NY Mag)
ICE, ICE
The same U.S.-built tech Israel used to jail Palestinians over Instagram posts is now fueling ICE raids and visa cancellations; the NYPD shared a Palestinian protester’s arrest record with ICE; Trump’s DOJ tried to force civil rights lawyers to provide ICE with the names of student protesters. (Intercept, NY Times, Times of Israel)
Mondoweiss reports that the rural Louisiana towns housing for-profit ICE prisons are the same places where white supremacy, prison profiteering, and state repression once powered the domestic slave trade.
“The Politics of Courage”
A judge granted bail to Columbia student activist Mohsen Mahdawi, who declared outside the courthouse: “I am saying it clear and loud to President Trump and his Cabinet: I am not afraid of you.”
Writing in New York Magazine, Sam Adler-Bell observed, “The young and vulnerable are risking their futures. Why aren’t their elders?”
The student activists, he wrote, have “been made to pay for staking the clear moral claim. It isn’t difficult to see why: Their courage ups the tempo, inspiring a volatile mix of urgency and shame. Courage accuses the cowardly, and many of us are cowards.”
Donald the Hawk, Donald the Dove
The U.S. bombed a detention center in Yemen, killing 68 African migrants. In another strike on civilians, it likely used coordinates from an anonymous Twitter user with a stuffed dog avatar. She later apologized and promised she would “strive to do better.” (NY Times, Drop Site)
Trump is dismantling the office of the U.S. Security Coordinator, a role that helps prevent clashes between Israel and the PA. (Forward)
Finally, Trump fired National Security Adviser Michael Waltz following his coordination with Netanyahu on potential strikes against Iran. (Good for him!) (Washington Post)
[Curb Your Enthusiasm Theme]
A $60 million Super Hornet fighter jet fell off an aircraft carrier and sank into the sea. (BBC)
The Rest of the World
First Week of ICJ Hearings
At the Hague, dozens of countries declared that Israel cannot legally starve the people of Gaza—a stance too bold for the U.S., and one that Israel called antisemitic. Legal scholars say the ruling, expected months from now, will be narrow and non-binding, like the last one Israel ignored. (Al Jazeera)
Germany <3 Israel
A protester in Germany was convicted of incitement for holding a sign that read, “Have we learned nothing from the Holocaust?” (Zeteo)
Nathan Fielder revealed that Paramount+ quietly pulled a Nathan for You episode satirizing Holocaust denial after its Germany division ruled that “anything that touches on antisemitism” was too sensitive post–October 7.
A Jacobin story traces the roots of Germany’s bizarre obsession with Israel, arguing that postwar West Germany didn’t back Israel out of guilt but as a means of image rehabilitation. (Jacobin)
The Arab World
Sai Englert writes, “In the midst of despair over Gaza, a regional struggle for freedom is brewing.” Dockworkers in Morocco blocked a weapons shipment to Israel. Public outrage in Jordan and Egypt is threatening the regimes that normalized ties with Tel Aviv.
He quotes the late Palestinian Marxist leader, George Habash: “The road to Jerusalem runs through the capitals of the Arab world.” (Middle East Eye)
The Israeli Playbook
After gunmen killed 26 Indian tourists, right-wingers called for “Israel-style” retaliation—flattening Kashmir and adopting occupation tactics. (Middle East Eye)
If this resonated, consider sharing it and clicking the heart button.
And if you’d like to support my work, you can pledge $8/month—you won’t be charged unless I turn on a paywall in the future.
A question for the comment section: Given U.S. and Israeli leadership’s total indifference to mass death and public pressure, what do you think is left to do that might still matter? (Please don’t self-incriminate or get my Substack banned.)
– Jasper
Thank you for this compilation, I see and appreciate the labor that went into it, particularly in providing context and summaries. Your captions and notes of sarcasm help me feel less insane.
As for your question, everyone needs to be pushing themselves just past their comfort zone to reclaim their humanity and integrity in this moment. And then rinsing and repeating, once the comfort zone is a bit wider. It’s easier to do that when we’re doing it together.
The language of never again has proven hollow. I studied linguistics, and I think a lot about how language distorts reality. The facts are all there, but how we frame language shapes what we see. People aren't human shields - they're human beings struggling to survive. There is no such thing as a targeted air strike when most of Gaza's infrastructure has been destroyed.
I’m not interested in debating the facts with people, but I am trying to ask better questions to expose cracks in logic and the distortions. So if someone shrugs off mass starvation b/c they believe Hamas is stealing food, I'd ask them if they then accept the outcome of that - the starvation of 2 million people.
Most people don’t want to sound cruel, so they hide behind language. We have the power of language to expose these cracks.
It reminds me about what happened in Srebrenica in '95 & the days leading up to the mass slaughter of over 8,000. The lying, the distortions, confusion, all meant to deflect attention from what had already been planned - a massacre hiding in plain sight. Except what's happening in Gaza is on a much more massive scale.
What haunts me now is how slow this genocide has gotten. Massacres shock & slowness dulls the senses. Deliberate starvation is slow but methodical, & it destroys every single layer of life. And to what end? So when it's time for post-conflict 'rebuilding' we can hold international conferences & use Gaza as a moral lesson for the world? Again? There are no preventative structures in place to stop this from happening in the first place. Just like Bosnia & Srebrenica - endless conferences & seminars. Memorials instead of prevention.
It's why continuing to name what is happening is vital - sustained attention on the truth b/c they are doing whatever they can to distort.
So regarding the question - what’s left is interruption. It has to hit their pockets. Hard and at once. One example - Dockworkers refusing to load weapons shipments. But it has to happen on a global, massive scale. Coordinated and organized. I have no idea how this is done.