NEW FROM FMEP
Accountability After Genocide and the Emerging Left-Right Consensus on Israel in America (New podcast episode)
FMEP Fellow Ahmed Moor speaks with Matt Duss, Executive Vice-President at the Center for International Policy and former foreign policy advisor to Senator Bernie Sanders. They discuss the Israeli genocide in Gaza and the new ceasefire; changes in public assessments of Israel’s standing in the U.S. and political relationships with Israel, including changing relationships with Israel among prominent Trump supporters as well as Bernie Sanders’s late recognition of genocide; and what accountability looks like for the genocide, including for members of the Biden administration.
The Starvation Regime and Plausible Deniability for War Crimes (New podcast episode)
FMEP Fellow Ahmed Moor speaks with human rights attorney Sari Bashi and policy expert Bushra Khalidi about the current state of humanitarian aid in Gaza, the bureaucracy of restrictions — including the stated purpose of restricting aid — and whether international law continues to carry meaning after two years of genocide.
FMEP Legislative Round-Up October 17, 2025 (Lara Friedman)
- Bills, Resolutions; 2. Lettersl 3. Hearings & Markups; 4. Selected Members on the Record; 5. Selected Media & Press releases/Statements
Settlement & Annexation Report: October 17, 2025 (Kristin McCarthy)
- Settlers Establish New Outpost to Encircle Umm Al Kheir, Court Pauses Move-In; 2. Eviction Date Looms for Six Families Facing Displacement from Homes in Silwan; 3. As The Olive Harvest Starts, Settler Terrorism Reaches New Heights; 4. Israeli Commitment Against West Bank Annexation is Not in Final Ceasefire Deal; 5. International Crisis Group Report: “Sovereignty in All but Name: Israel’s Quickening Annexation of the West Bank”; 6. Bonus Reads
GAZA
All living Israeli hostages freed and hundreds of Palestinian detainees and prisoners released as Trump leads Egypt summit (The Guardian 10/13/25)
“Egypt’s president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi held a meeting on Monday with the presidents of France and Turkey, and Qatar’s emir and others to help coordinate the implementation of the Gaza ceasefire and reconstruction efforts for the territory, according to a statement by the Egyptian president’s office. The meeting was held on the sidelines of an international summit in Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh to finalise an agreement aimed at ending the war in Gaza…A last-minute plan by Donald Trump to invite Benjamin Netanyahu to a multinational Gaza summit in Egypt had to be aborted after the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said he would not land his plane in Sharm el-Sheikh if the invitation stood…Two busloads of Palestinian detainees were transferred from Israeli prisons to Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, on Monday, where jubilant crowds awaited them. In total, 88 of the nearly 2,000 prisoners were sent to the West Bank, with the rest deported to Gaza, according to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Commission…Trump declared that the ceasefire agreement marks the end of Israel’s war on Gaza, as well as the end of the “age of terror and death”…Netanyahu said Trump is the greatest friend Israel has ever had. “Donald Trump is the greatest friend that the State of Israel has ever had in the White House,” he told the Knesset. “No American president has ever done more for the state of Israel, and as I said in Washington, it ain’t even close,” the Israeli prime minister said.” See also Release of Israeli hostages and Palestinian detainees: how the day unfolded (The Guardian 10/13/25); Blair, Kushner, Trump: who are the key people behind the Gaza ceasefire? (The Guardian 10/10/25);
Trump, in Egypt, signs Gaza peace deal, vows war ‘is over’ (Al Monitor 10/13/25);
“US President Donald Trump, along with the leaders of Egypt, Qatar and Turkey, signed a peace deal to end the war in the Gaza Strip during a ceremony in Egypt on Monday…Trump arrived in Sharm el-Sheikh earlier on Monday to co-chair, along with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the Gaza peace summit less than a week after Israel and Hamas agreed to proceed with the first phase of a 20-point Gaza peace plan that the US leader spearheaded last month, which includes a partial Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and a hostage-prisoner exchange. Shortly after the signing ceremony, Trump opened the summit, where dozens of world leaders convened to discuss efforts to advance the peace deal in Gaza, and he described the agreement as “historic” during his speech. “After years of suffering and bloodshed, the war in Gaza is over,” he claimed.” See also Trump and world leaders meet in Egypt on future of Gaza as Israel celebrates return of hostages (WaPo 10/13/25); Trump hails Gaza hostage deal in Knesset speech, vows to expand Abraham Accords (Al Monitor 10/13/25);
Hamas reasserts control on streets of Gaza, turning guns on its rivals (WaPo 10/15/25)
“They blindfolded eight men accused of collaborating with Israel, made them kneel and executed them at point-blank range on a busy street in Gaza City…Hamas may have stopped fighting Israel, but it has launched a new, violent campaign to reassert control over local families and militias that had challenged its power during the past two years of war — including those who, according to the leaders of two clans, had received support from Israel. Whether by carrying out armed raids in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip or holding public executions farther north in Gaza City, Hamas is trying to send a clear message that, after months of hiding from Israeli fire, the militant group is back as the only visible authority inside the Gaza Strip, according to rival militia leaders, Palestinian officials and political analysts. Hamas’s enduring grip has significant implications for the future of Gaza and President Donald Trump’s peace plan. With Israel largely restrained from attacking Hamas under the ceasefire sponsored by Trump, the group is again ruling the streets, controlling what is left of civil administration and gaining leverage in the upcoming negotiations over whether and how it will disarm and who will rule Gaza.” See also Hamas deploys armed fighters and police across parts of Gaza (The Guardian 10/13/25);
Gaza aid still critically scarce, say agencies, as Israel delays convoys (The Guardian 10/17/25)
“Aid remains critically scarce in Gaza one week into the ceasefire, humanitarian agencies have warned, as Israel delays the entry of food convoys into the territory. The Israeli government and Hamas continue to trade blame over violations of the truce. The UN World Food Programme (WFP) said on Friday that it had brought about 560 tonnes of food a day on average into Gaza since the ceasefire began, but it was still below what was needed…As aid entry was delayed into the strip, Israel continued to fire on Palestinians. The Israeli army shelled a car which had crossed past the ceasefire line with Israel in the Zeytoun neighbourhood of Gaza, killing nine people. “They had crossed the so-called ‘yellow line’, an imaginary boundary mentioned by the Israeli army. I am certain the family couldn’t distinguish between the yellow and red lines because there are no actual physical markers on the ground,” said Mahmoud Basal, the spokesperson for the Gaza civil defence. The Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, said on Friday that the yellow line in Gaza will soon be physically marked.” See also Infectious diseases in Gaza ‘spiralling out of control’, says WHO (The Guardian 10/17/25); Israel won’t reopen Rafah crossing, will limit aid, to press Hamas for remaining slain hostages (TOI 10/14/25); Gaza deal’s secret humanitarian annex omits GHF, which isn’t poised for postwar role (TOI 10/14/25)
Israel and Hamas trade accusations as tensions rise over hostages’ remains (The Guardian 10/16/25)
“Israel accused Hamas of violating the ceasefire agreement by failing to return the remains of deceased hostages. On Monday, Hamas returned the last 20 surviving hostages but handed back only nine of 28 deceased captives, saying it would need specialist recovery equipment to retrieve the rest from the ruins of Gaza. US advisers working on the implementation of Donald Trump’s ceasefire deal, and the Red Cross, have said there are significant practical difficulties in recovering remains of hostages amid the devastation caused by Israel’s offensive during the past 24 months.” See also Body handed over by Hamas is not hostage, says Israel, as Palestinian dead ‘arrive back in cuffs’ (The Guardian 10/15/25); Israel warns U.S. Gaza deal could stall if Hamas won’t return hostage bodies (Axios 10/15/25);
Gaza’s Broken Politics (Mohammed Mhawish//New Yorker 10/14/25)
“Whatever fragile political system existed in Gaza has collapsed, along with the institutions that once gave public life its structure. Hamas, weakened militarily and decapitated by the assassinations of its leaders, faces isolation abroad and a diminished mandate at home. The Palestinian Authority, long discredited in the West Bank, has been absent in Gaza. Leftist factions survive as symbols rather than as real organizations. Independent political figures are scattered or silenced. After two years of war, Gaza has no functioning political body with the authority or legitimacy to shape what comes next. President Donald Trump’s Gaza plan is being sold as the answer…Strip away the framing, and the design is clear. Gaza is to be managed from the outside, without a locally elected government. The P.A. is told to make reforms—anti-corruption and fiscal-transparency measures, increased judicial independence, a path to elections—before it can even be considered for a role in Gaza’s governance. Hamas is removed from political life by decree. Core questions—borders, sovereignty, refugees—are deferred. In this architecture, Gaza becomes a security-first regime, where aid, reconstruction, and “transition” are subordinated to Israeli security metrics under the oversight of the U.S. and its partners. Palestinians are offered administration without authority. The occupation is dressed in managerial language. The danger is that this “temporary” system becomes permanent, sustained by donors, monitors, and memoranda.” See also Palestinian government unveils $67 billion, five-year plan for Gaza reconstruction (AA 10/16/25)
Gaza must decide its own political future — before the world does for us (Mahmoud Mushtaha//+972 Magazine 10/16/25)
“What unfolded in Sharm El-Sheikh was not an effort to bring real change for Palestinians, but rather another act of regional choreography — a vision of a Middle East built around Israeli and U.S. interests, not Palestinian rights. Based on what we know so far, U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan for Gaza, which he touts as one that will lead to “strong, durable, and everlasting peace,” will see Israel retain control of the Strip’s borders, airspace, and aid flows, with the very international actors who armed and financed its genocidal assault now acting as mediators and monitors of compliance…Now that the outlines of the ceasefire, however shadowy, are beginning to surface, and the question of who will govern Gaza becomes relevant again, Palestinians must take responsibility — not for what was done to us, but for how we forge a path toward dignity and sovereignty. The most urgent question is who will define the direction of our national movement.” See also “We may have survived physically, but we haven’t survived mentally.” (Drop Site 10/10/25)
Palestinian bodies returned by Israel show signs of torture and execution, say doctors (The Guardian 10/15/25)
“Many of the 90 bodies of Palestinians returned to Gaza by Israeli authorities under the ceasefire deal showed signs of torture and execution, including blindfolds, cuffed hands and bullet wounds in the head, according to doctors’ accounts. As part of the US-brokered truce, Hamas has handed over the bodies of some of the hostages who died during the course of the war, and Israel has transferred the bodies of two groups of 45 Palestinians killed during the fighting. The exchange was carried out through the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Doctors at Nasser hospital in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, which received the Palestinian bodies from the ICRC, said on Wednesday there was substantial evidence of beatings and summary executions, and that none of the bodies were identifiable…Farra added that the bodies had been handed over by the Israeli authorities with no identification, and the hospitals in Gaza, heavily bombed over the course of two years of war, had no means of doing DNA analysis.” See also ‘Locked up for 24 years’: release of Palestinian prisoners and detainees sparks joy and sorrow (The Guardian 10/13/25);
Why Is Trump Threatening to Let Netanyahu Restart the Gaza War? (Amir Tibon//Haaretz 10/17/25)
“In the four days since the release of the Israeli hostages from Gaza, U.S. President Donald Trump has twice implied that the war between Israel and Hamas could be renewed. First, Trump said in a television interview that Israel could send its forces back into Gaza immediately “if I said so.” A day later, he wrote in a social media post that if Hamas continues to “kill people in Gaza,” then “we will have no choice but to go in and kill them.” The president didn’t explain who exactly he meant by “we” and whether that implied that American troops would be sent to fight in the Gaza Strip. These statements contradict Trump’s triumphant celebrations earlier this week and his declarations that the war in Gaza is over and a new day has begun in the Middle East.” See also Trump says Hamas will be forced to disarm or ‘we will disarm them’ (The Guardian 10/14/25); Trump: ‘If Hamas continues to kill people … we will have no choice but to go in and kill them’ (JTA 10/17/25);
Israel’s last living hostages describe trauma of Hamas captivity (WaPo 10/17/25)
“Israeli hospitals are treating the former captives, freed this week as part of the ceasefire deal, according to protocols honed over two years of hostage releases…In addition to the living hostages, Hamas has released the remains of nine of the 28 deceased hostages. It says it has yet to locate the 19 others amid the rubble and the unexploded ordnance that now litter the Gaza Strip. Hamas’s unwillingness or inability to do so underscores how precarious the ceasefire agreement may be. For its part, Israel on Monday released 2,000 Palestinian detainees and prisoners, including 250 serving long sentences.” See also What to know about the 20 living hostages released by Hamas (Axios 10/13/25);
Returning to Shujaiya: Palestinians Are Going Back to Gaza City Despite Proximity of Israeli Troops (Abdel Qader Sabbah//Drop Site 10/16/25)
“Since the ceasefire went into effect on Friday, the Israeli military has killed at least 23 Palestinians in Gaza, at least five of them in one attack on Shujaiya on Tuesday. The Israeli military admitted to the killings, claiming a group of people approached its soldiers stationed there. That same day, the Israeli military spokesperson reiterated a warning to Palestinians not to approach certain areas in Gaza, including Shujaiya, Beit Hanoun, and Beit Lahia in the north, as well as locations in Khan Younis and Rafah in the south…Upwards of half a million Palestinians returned to the north following the ceasefire, according to Gaza’s Civil Defense, many of them to Gaza City. They returned to find much of the city in ruins. In Shujaiya—once one of the largest and most populous neighborhoods in Gaza City—every building has either been destroyed or heavily damaged. Despite the danger, a number of families have returned to the area, setting up makeshift tents on the rubble. Men, women, and children—many of them barefoot—walked the desolate streets carrying buckets, mattresses, and gas cylinders as they tried to build some sort of shelter.” See also My dream home lies in ruins. I will never forgive Israel, or the world (Ruwaida Amer//+972 Magazine 10/15/25); We Are Genocide Survivors. But Our War Is Far From Over. (Ali Skaik//The Nation 10/10/25)
A Memo in a Bunker, Intercepted Communications and Hamas’s Oct. 7 Plans (NYT 10/11/25)
“The computer held an image of a six-page memo, handwritten in Arabic, that the Israeli intelligence community believes was by his brother Yahya Sinwar, who as the powerful leader of Hamas in Gaza helped plot the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. Dated Aug. 24, 2022, it appears to be a directive from Mr. Sinwar with instructions for the assault, according to seven Israeli officials. The memo, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times, calls for fighters to target soldiers and civilian communities — as well as to broadcast the violent acts so as to evoke fear in Israelis and destabilize the country. Commanders then issued similar instructions on Oct. 7, according to hours of previously unreported communications between commanders and subordinates intercepted by Israel during the assault and shared with The Times. The Israeli officials say the memo shows that Mr. Sinwar wanted his fighters to target civilians from the outset, contradicting what the group’s leadership has publicly claimed.” See also Released Israeli hostages give accounts of torture, torment and extraordinary danger (The Guardian 10/14/25)
REGION//GLOBAL
Netanyahu powerless as Trump advances Gaza plan with Arab, PA forces (Al Monitor 10/17/25)
“The Trump administration is moving ahead with the second phase of its plan to end the two-year Gaza war by cobbling together an international force to disarm Hamas and protect Gaza’s 2 million Palestinian residents. But Israel is balking both at the idea of Arab and Muslim forces on its border and at the emerging involvement of the Palestinian Authority in the plan’s implementation. “Everything now depends on Trump,” a senior Israeli diplomatic source told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. “Never has war in the Middle East, peace, reconstruction, negotiations, a redrawing of the geopolitical map and tens of billions of dollars all depended on the mood of one man.” “If Trump wants to advance to Stage B of his plan, we will advance to Stage B. If he loses interest, we will not,” said the senior Israeli diplomatic source, adding that everything depends on the American president because Netanyahu will not say no to him, nor will the Turks, the Qataris or the Egyptians.” See also US CENTCOM hastens to rally international force to stabilize Gaza (Al Monitor 10/16/25); Turkey’s long-sought Gaza mediator role brings high risks and high rewards (Al Monitor 10/11/25); Trump claims Saudis told him ‘yesterday’ they’re willing to join Abraham Accords (TOI 10/17/25); Steve Witkoff predicts Abraham Accords will ‘seriously expand’ after Gaza ceasefire (JI 10/17/25);
Witkoff, Kushner on Israel’s strike on Qatar: ‘Trump felt like the Israelis were getting a little bit out of control’ (Ben Samuels//Haaretz 10/17/25)
“U.S. President Donald Trump’s officials who headed the cease-fire struck between Israel and Hamas earlier this month, special envoy Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, shared details on the deal with the 60 Minutes TV show on CBS News, in a preview to an episode set to air Sunday. Regarding Israel’s strike on Qatar in September, Witkoff said that both he and Kushner felt “a little bit betrayed.” Kushner said that he believes Trump “felt like the Israelis were getting a little bit out of control in what they were doing, and it was time to be very strong and stop them from doing things that he felt were not in their long-term interests,” after Israel struck Hamas leadership in Qatar in September, in the midst of discussions to secure a hostage release and cease-fire deal. Witkoff added that the strikes “had a metastasizing effect, because the Qataris were critical to the negotiation, as were the Egyptians and the Turks. We had lost the confidence of the Qataris. So Hamas went underground and it was very, very difficult to get to them.” On Qatar’s mediation with Hamas, Witkoff said that after the strikes, “It became very evident how important that was.”’ See also Did Qatari Money Drive Trump’s Push for Gaza Ceasefire? (The Intercept 10/11/25); Mediator in chief: how role of Qatar will be central to Gaza ceasefire holding (The Guardian 10/16/25);
Arab states expanded cooperation with Israeli military during Gaza war, files show (WaPo 10/11/25)
“Even as key Arab states condemned the war in the Gaza Strip, they quietly expanded security cooperation with the Israeli military, leaked U.S. documents reveal. Those military ties were thrown into crisis after Israel’s September airstrike in Qatar, but could now play a key role in overseeing the nascent ceasefire in Gaza. Over the past three years, facilitated by the United States, senior military officials from Israel and six Arab countries came together for planning meetings in Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan and Qatar…The documents show that the threat posed by Iran was the driving force behind the closer ties, which have been fostered by the U.S. military’s Central Command, known as Centcom.” See also These countries no longer arm Israel. It’s not making much difference. (WaPo 10/16/25)
What Israeli “Victory” Looks Like (Peter Beinart//Jewish Currents 10/14/25)
“Yes, the current agreement returns all the remaining hostages—an official war aim, and an achievement that Israelis value immensely. But Israel could have retrieved all the hostages much earlier, when more of them remained alive. “This deal could have been done a long time ago,” writes longtime Israeli hostage negotiator Gershon Baskin, “Hamas agreed to all of the same terms in September 2024.” Back then, Israel justified its refusal to accept such a deal because it claimed Hamas was not yet “demolished,” which Netanyahu had pledged to do after the October 7th attacks. But if demolishing Hamas means destroying its fighting force, that goal remains unfulfilled today. Israel has killed many Hamas leaders and fighters. But by slaughtering as many as 100,000 Palestinians in Gaza, it has also pushed more Palestinians in Gaza to take up arms…The Trump deal may not destroy or disarm Hamas, but it will likely fragment Gaza, forcing the Palestinians living there into smaller and less habitable enclaves and leaving more territory in Israel’s hands. For Israel, that’s a dramatic step forward…While the new Trump deal does not propose mass expulsion from Gaza, it furthers that goal by ratifying Israel’s takeover of much of the Strip…Meanwhile, the 60% of Gaza without Israeli troops will likely remain an extremely grim place. It is almost totally destroyed: Israel has razed 90% of Gaza’s homes and 80% of its farmland. The Strip now contains 17,000 unaccompanied children…Even with additional aid, it may be difficult to provide enough food…under the Trump deal, most of Gaza’s farmland will be in Israel’s hands.” See also The Uncomfortable Truth About Netanyahu’s ‘Victory’ (Shira Efron//NYT 10/12/25);
Starmer condemns ‘wrong decision’ to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from Aston Villa game (The Guardian 10/16/25)
“Fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv will not be allowed to attend the Europa League match at Aston Villa on 6 November owing to safety concerns. West Midlands police said it had classified the fixture as “high risk” based on “current intelligence and previous incidents, including violent clashes and hate crime offences that occurred during the 2024 Uefa Europa League match between Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv in Amsterdam”…The move was condemned by the prime minister, Keir Starmer, who said: “This is the wrong decision. We will not tolerate antisemitism on our streets.”
RIVER TO THE SEA
Israel’s hostage protest movement finally prevails — against its government (Oren Ziv//+972 Magazine 10/14/25)
“The mood in Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square on Monday morning was one of total jubilation as tens of thousands gathered to watch a live broadcast of 20 Israelis returning home from captivity in Gaza. Many of those in the crowd had participated in protests in the same square over the past two years, which gave it its name. This was the moment they had fought for and dreamed about for so long…Protests in support of a hostage deal, led by the families of hostages themselves, have been a constant feature of Israel’s wartime landscape, their numbers and intensity waxing and waning with developments in Gaza…While gratitude for the Israeli government for finally agreeing to a complete hostage deal was in short supply, appreciation for the Trump administration has been ubiquitous ever since the agreement was announced last week. Many of those celebrating on Monday arrived with American flags, while some came dressed up as Trump. The prevailing sentiment was that without U.S. intervention, Netanyahu would have continued dragging out the war indefinitely.” See also After ‘Horrors,’ Israeli Hostages Taste Freedom and Savor Family Reunions (NYT 10/17/25); Handcuffed, caged, thrown in a pit: Hostages’ families describe two years of hell (TOI 10/15/25);
At Hostage Square, Witkoff and Kushner Gave Israelis What Their Own Leaders Won’t: Empathy (Haaretz 10/12/25)
“Representing Donald Trump at Tel Aviv’s Hostage Square on Saturday evening, special envoy Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump were received with a warm embrace, while the mere mention of Netanyahu led to resounding boos. Perhaps it needs to be asked why the hostage families feel that the U.S. cares for and listens to them more than the Israeli government.”
The Israel-Gaza War Always Had an Unacknowledged Third Front (Andrew Ross//NYT 10/15/25)
“Under the hostage-prisoner exchange agreement of the cease-fire plan, Israel released about 2,000 prisoners and detainees this week. They represent only a small fraction of the total number of Palestinians held in Israeli facilities. The vast majority are being left to rot. In the West Bank and Jerusalem, far from Hamas-controlled Gaza, more than 19,000 Palestinians were swept up since Oct. 7, according to the Palestinian Prisoners Society. Some were released, but as of early October, more than 11,000 Palestinians were still locked up in Israeli prisons, almost a third of them under “administrative detention,” without charges or a trial. Some people were arrested for nothing more than messages they posted on social media. Thousands of Gazans were also held in Israeli military detention, many as “unlawful combatants,” without any legal process. Their numbers are difficult to verify, though a recent investigation by The Guardian, +972 Magazine and Local Call found that as few as one in four of them had been classified as fighters even in Israel’s own military databases. The U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, echoing reports by Amnesty International and B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights organization, documented testimony by Palestinians who said that while incarcerated they have been subject to beatings, torture, rape and extreme deprivation…Legal experts and scholars will decide whether the alleged torture, denial of adequate food and death in these prisons meet the criteria to be termed genocide according to international law. There can be no doubt, however, that Israel’s war on prisoners was the third front in its assault on Gaza and the West Bank, and it involves possible crimes under the Geneva Conventions that have gone largely unseen by anyone but the victims. These prisoners, too, are hostages to the conflict, and they, too, deserve justice.” See also ‘Cruellest forms of torture’: freed Palestinians describe horrors of Israeli jail (The Guardian 10/14/25); Israel frees some Gaza medical staff, but a prominent hospital chief remains imprisoned (AP 10/15/25); Calls grow for release of Gaza’s Dr Hussam Abu Safia after ceasefire deal (Al Jazeera 10/13/25); Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti assaulted by Israeli prison guards, son says (The Guardian 10/15/25)
While the eyes of the world are on Gaza, Israeli settlers in the West Bank still behave with impunity (Israeli Knesset Member Ofer Cassif//The Guardian 10/16/25)
“Nowhere is the deceit more clear than in the occupied West Bank. There, the words of peace are but a weak and distant voice, but the horrifying sounds of settler violence and terror still echo loudly. More than 30 occurrences of settler violence against Palestinians have been documented since the announcement of Trump’s 20-point plan at the end of September, including physical assaults, theft of agricultural produce and torching of vehicles and property. The rise of settler terrorism is not coincidental. This period marks the start of the harvest seasons. More than a vital economic event, it is an important social and national moment that exhibits endurance under occupation. Precisely for these reasons, year after year settlers target Palestinians during this precious time…In the occupied West Bank, settler terrorism is nothing but a tool by the government to pursue de-facto annexation.” See also At This West Bank Checkpoint, ‘It’s Not Just Movement That’s Blocked. It’s Time Itself’ (Haaretz 10/13/25); Bureaucratic Antics for Three West Bank Villages Show How an Israeli Annexation Began Long Ago (Amira Hass//Haaretz 10/12/25); I Held Up This Sign at the Knesset as a Mirror of Truth – to Trump and the Public (MK Ofer Cassif//Haaretz 10/16/25);
U.S. SCENE
US non-profits ‘lock arms’ amid Trump’s menacing of George Soros: ‘We will not be intimidated’ (The Guardian 10/17/25)
“The US justice department has reportedly instructed US attorneys to come up with plans to investigate OSF as efforts to attack the left accelerate following the killing of the rightwing commentator Charlie Kirk…The menacing of Soros comes as part of Trump’s wider agenda to defeat progressive non-profits. This month, sources told Reuters that the US president plans to deploy the nation’s counter-terrorism apparatus – including intelligence agencies, the justice department, the Internal Revenue Service and the treasury department – against some leftwing groups it claims are backing political violence…The justice department’s instructions to US attorneys to investigate OSF reportedly cited as evidence a report by Capital Research Center, a rightwing group monitoring the funding of liberal non-profits. The group’s head admitted to the New York Times this month that the paper does not include evidence that the Soros network had committed any crime. The group has since quietly updated the report, changing its title from claiming OSF funds “pro-terror groups” to claiming it funds “extremism”. The 72-page report, which claims Open Society Foundations gave more than $80m to what it calls “pro-terror” groups, lists dozens of organizations, including some of the most prominent Palestinian-rights groups in the US and abroad…It lists some of the leading groups in the Palestine solidarity movement in the US, like Jewish Voice for Peace, the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, and the Center for Constitutional Rights…Still, [Women Donors Network president & CEO Leena] Barakat cautioned: “The Palestinian movement – they are our canaries. What they test on the Palestinian movement are strategies that will eventually impact all other movements.”’ See also The Anti-Soros Strategy at the Heart of Trump’s War on Progressive Nonprofits (Alex Kane//Jewish Currents 10/15/25)
A Test Now for Israel: Can It Repair Its Ties to Americans? (NYT 10/12/25)
“Israel’s reputation in the United States is in tatters, and not only on college campuses or among progressives. For the first time since it began asking Americans about their sympathies in 1998, a New York Times poll last month found that slightly more voters sided with the Palestinians than with Israelis. American Jews, long Israel’s strongest domestic backers, have turned sharply critical of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing government over the Gaza conflict. A majority believe Israel has committed war crimes as it has killed tens of thousands of civilians and restricted food aid, and four in 10 believe it is guilty of genocide, a new Washington Post survey found — a charge Israel denies. The shift has created new incentives for even moderate Democrats in Congress to get tough on Israel, including by curtailing U.S. military aid. The damage is also increasingly bipartisan. Despite Republican efforts to identify their party with Israel and to tag Democrats as providing aid and comfort to its enemies, younger evangelical Christians are breaking with their parents on the issue, seeing Israel as an oppressor rather than as a victim. And the breakup extends beyond evangelicals…Shibley Telhami, a pollster and scholar of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the University of Maryland, argues that it’s too late. “We now have a paradigmatic Gaza generation like we had a Vietnam generation and a Pearl Harbor generation,” he said. “There’s this growing sense among people that what they’re witnessing is genocide in real time, amplified by new media, which we didn’t have in Vietnam. It’s a new generation where Israel is seen as a villain. And I don’t think that’s likely to go away.”’
From Long Island to the Baltics: Drop Site Investigation Reveals New Details About Canary Mission’s Operations (Jaqueline Sweet//Drop Site 10/16/25)
“Drop Site uncovered new information about individuals, donor networks, and businesses helping Canary Mission, a pro-Israel organization serving the U.S.’s deportation and repression efforts…When Canary Mission began “doxxing” people for expressing pro-Palestine views a decade ago, the shadowy group mostly found traction among pro-Israel advocates who lobbied, with mixed success, to put a blacklist into effect. The group’s dossiers on activists and students led to firings, harassment, and death threats against its targets. Canary Mission has since risen to become an influential organ in President Donald Trump’s deportation machine, and its accumulated dossiers are now used by U.S. federal authorities and have led to immigration arrests of students.”
PERSPECTIVES//LONG READS
A ceasefire must not stall Israel’s growing isolation (Ahmed Moor//+972 Magazine 10/15/25)
“The overwhelming majority of Israelis who support the actions of their army and government seem unaware of the depth of people’s outrage and grief in response to the genocide. They do not yet understand the scale of the inevitable reckoning that awaits, or the meaning of the word “indelible,” and that memory is long and generational…after two years of genocide, and with awareness of Israel’s apartheid reality at unprecedented levels, global momentum for an arms embargo, sanctions, and cultural boycott has approached a tipping point. In the United States, the momentum for cutting off military aid to Israel has been driven in part by anger over the suppression of speech by people who prioritize Israeli interests over those of American citizens. Growing numbers on both the political left and right are increasingly resentful of this censorship — and of being made to underwrite the genocide. For a Democratic party in crisis, active resistance to the Israel lobby is beginning to look like a winning electoral strategy. Across Europe, Israel is more isolated than it has ever been…Perhaps most importantly, Jewish supremacy in Palestine — the core tenet of Zionism — is increasingly regarded as illegitimate across the globe. It is far too early to declare that the Zionist era in Palestine is over, but October 2025 portends a different future. If the genocide has rendered Gaza uninhabitable for Palestinians, it has also made the world newly inhospitable to Zionism…Israelis will not end the occupation and apartheid on their own. Therefore, individual countries must sever economic ties with Israel and Israeli companies wherever possible. States that recognize universal jurisdiction should support the effort to prosecute reservists and conscripts who participated in the genocide. Sanctions must also target the government and its cabinet ministers, along with the nightly commentators who incite mass murder.” See also The Myths of Camp David (Ahmed Moor interviews Robert Malley//The Nation 10/14/25); Boycotting Israel has gone mainstream: ‘We’ve never seen such traction before’ (The Guardian 10/11/25);
What Trump’s Peace Deal Really Means for Gaza (Diana Buttu and Daniel J. Wakin//NYT 10/15/25)
“What does President Trump’s peace deal between Israel and Hamas mean for Palestinians in the region? On this episode, the Opinion editor Dan Wakin interviews Diana Buttu, a former adviser to the Palestine Liberation Organization, about her concerns over the agreement and what it really means for Palestinians. “My fear is that in this agreement, we’re just going to go back to the way it was before,” she says. “It’s just going to be yet another papering over the harm that has been caused by these decades of occupation.”’
Can Palestinians Trust Donald Trump? (Omar Rahman//FP 10/10/25)
“While it is a positive that the people of Gaza will not have to wait out a long negotiation process to get some desperate reprieve, the durability of the cease-fire is questionable. And even if a broader agreement is somehow reached, Netanyahu may decide somewhere along the process of implementation that it serves his interests to abandon the deal and either resume his military campaign or find some other arrangement suitable to his interests. Underlying all of this, however, is a simple notion that makes even the phased negotiation and implementation structure irrelevant: Every concession made by Hamas is irreversible, while every concession made by Israel can be undone. For example, if Israel withdraws its military from Gaza one day, it can reenter the next; if it releases 1,000 Palestinian prisoners today, it can rearrest them tomorrow. On the other hand, once Hamas frees Israeli hostages, they are gone for good. If it decides to give up its weapons, a mechanism may be put in place to recover them if Israel reneges on the deal, but it will be hard-pressed to do so in practice. For Hamas, this underlying dilemma makes the guarantor of the agreement absolutely pivotal. Enter the less-than-reliable Trump. Although Hamas officials recently claimed that the group trusts the president to uphold the deal, this couldn’t be further from the truth—and with good reason.”
Will Israelis One Day Say of Their Country’s Atrocities in Gaza, ‘I Was Always Against It’? (Amira Hass//Haaretz 10/15/25)
“Optimists say that, ultimately, Israelis will grasp the scope of the atrocity they committed in the Gaza Strip. The truth will seep into their consciousness. The old videos of infants who were blown to bits by our bombs will at some point reach Israelis’ hearts and pierce them…At some point, the optimists say, Israelis will stop saying, “They deserved it, because of October 7. They attacked.” The numbers will stop being abstractions and “Who believes Hamas.” The readers will grasp that more than 20,000 children were killed – a third of all the dead – at our hands. More than 44,000 children were wounded – a quarter of all the wounded. They will realize that they abetted and supported a war of annihilation against a people and did not defeat a vicious armed organization…The daughters of decorated pilots will ask whether they dropped a proportionate bomb that killed a hundred civilians for one mid-level Hamas commander. Why didn’t you refuse? The daughter will sob…People are not born cruel; they become such. The cruelty of Palestinians towards Israelis is covered extensively in our media, articles and close-ups. It developed in response and resistance to our foreign and hostile rule. Our cruelty, that of Israeli society, is getting ever more sophisticated with the aim of protecting our spoils: the land and the water and the freedoms from which we expelled the Palestinians. The optimists believe that there is a road back. How lucky they are, the optimists.” See also Israel’s Policy of Separation Perpetuates Hamas (Amira Hass//Haaretz 10/17/25)
Be sure of this: many of the horrors the west allowed in Gaza will come closer to home (Owen Jones//The Guardian 10/14/25)
“t’s clear what Israel’s western-facilitated genocide has done to Gaza. But what has it done to us? Palestinians are the “canaries in a coalmine”, the Palestinian analyst Muhammad Shehada tells me. “We’re screaming of a major warning of what’s about to come your way. When you have a media-political class that’s relishing, delighting in the murder of our children, do you think they’re going to care about yours?”…What will boomerang back to the west from the killing fields of Gaza? Every genocide requires the total dehumanisation of its victims, and Palestinians are no exception…But this dehumanisation goes beyond its most violent expressions. There has been no pretence that a Palestinian life has even a fraction of the worth of an Israeli life. Look at what has been normalised. Hospitals bombed and destroyed, with more than 1,700 health workers killed. Civilians massacred while sheltering in schools. More than 2,600 starving Palestinians gunned down trying to collect food since May. Teenagers shot in different parts of the body “like a game of target practice”, as British surgeon Dr Nick Maynard testified…We could go on, but these are all horrors that are among humanity’s darkest moments. That they were facilitated by western governments, and cheered on or simply tolerated by western media outlets, will have profound consequences. So will the fact that westerners who protested against this wanton barbarism were demonised, sacked, deplatformed, beaten by police officers, arrested, and menaced with deportation. So too will the destruction of whatever remained of an “international order”, torpedoed to protect Israel from accountability, as was the case when international criminal court judges were sanctioned by the US after it issued arrest warrants against Israeli leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
Life in Gaza may go from utter hell to mere nightmare. What happens now? (Hussein Agha and Robert Malley//The Guardian 10/14/25)
“Israel seldom has enjoyed such unrivalled regional military dominance and has never been more isolated. The Palestinians have rarely benefited from such widespread support, and their national movement hardly ever been more adrift. Neither side managed to convert the tremendous assets they accumulated into tangible political gains. It took an American president unbound by traditional domestic constraints, immune to laws of political gravity, willing to break with convention, engage with Hamas and tackle Israel, to get this done and provide the parties with what they could accept.”
Her Optimism Has Won Her Some of the Most Powerful Enemies in the World (M. Gessen//NYT 10/16/25)
“[Francesca] Albanese became a hometown hero after the White House branded her an enemy, which it did because of her work, over the past three years, as the United Nations special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories. In the course of that work, she has pursued strategies that are as legally ambitious as they are politically risky. She has documented human rights abuses, as her predecessors did. She infuriated some of her allies by condemning the Hamas violence of Oct. 7, 2023, then caused a storm when she leaped onto social media to contest a boilerplate statement by the president of France that framed the violence as antisemitic. Perhaps most explosively, she has called out the corporations, including some of the largest in the United States, that enable and benefit from human rights abuses, and which are likely to continue to do so, regardless of the cease-fire.”
PODCAST: Rethinking Palestinian public opinion (+972 Magazine 10/9/25)
“In this episode of The +972 Podcast, we speak with Zayne Abudaka, co-founder and senior fellow at the Institute for Social and Economic Progress in Ramallah. An economist and entrepreneur, Abudaka leads the institute’s efforts to collect and analyze Palestinian public opinion in the West Bank and Gaza, adapting polling methods throughout the war to reach Palestinians under extraordinarily difficult conditions. Among other issues, Abudaka discusses his team’s recent findings on Palestinians’ attitudes toward party politics, armed resistance, the two-state paradigm, and the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Movement. He also explains how dominant polling practices often flatten or outright distort Palestinian perspectives, and how Israel and the international media have cynically used public opinion data — especially about how Gazans view Hamas’ actions on October 7 — to justify the ongoing genocide.”
Forty-Eight Hours in Israeli Captivity (Emily Wilder//Jewish Currents 10/14/25)
“A journalist captured on a flotilla mission recounts treatment at the hands of the Israeli navy, border police, and prison guards.”