NEW FROM FMEP
Enduring devastation: “They redefined the human being in Gaza” (New Occupied Thoughts episode)
FMEP Fellow Peter Beinart speaks with Jaser Abu Mousa, a 2025 Yale Peace Fellow and past Program Officer working for the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) in Gaza. The two discuss life and death in Gaza on personal and collective levels. They look at Hamas, which Jaser calls a “symptom” of the problem of occupation; at how the past two-plus years of war have destroyed not only all the infrastructure needed for life in Gaza but also the social fabric, as starvation and deprivation have broken human bonds and relationships; and the ways in which Israel works to make Gaza unlivable. On a personal level, Jaser speaks of his experiences in Gaza, from the violence he witnessed as a child during the second Intifada to the devastation he experienced on and since October 7, 2023: his wife, Heba, and two of his children were killed by Israeli missiles in mid-October 2023; after two years of starvation and deprivation, his mother, sister, and sister’s children were killed in the war in July 2025; and his family suffered other losses, including the killing of a nephew in the beginning of the war, injuring of his father, and arrest, detention, and violence against his brother along with other medical workers. Navigating these unfathomable losses, Jaser points to his faith in God and religion as guides as he seeks to protect his living children and look towards the future. Finally, Jaser reflects on how he relates to Israelis and declares that “if I strip him from his right to tell his story, that does not make me more just, but will make me less human.”
Severed: Looking at Disability Justice, Palestinian rights, and Gaza (New Occupied Thoughts episode)
2025 FMEP Fellow Hilary Rantisi speaks with filmmaker and activist Jen Marlowe about the film Severed, which Jen directed. The film, released in late 2025, tells the story of Mohamad Saleh, a teenager from Gaza who has endured five major Israeli assaults, lost his home, close family members, his best friends, and—at the age of 12—his leg. Hilary and Jen discuss disablement, disability justice, and Gaza, which now has the largest cohort of child amputees in the world.
FMEP Legislative Round-Up February 6, 2026
- Bills, Resolutions; 2. Letters; 3. Hearings & Markups; 4. Selected Members on the Record; 5. Selected Media & Press releases/Statements
GAZA
A Ceasefire in Name Only (Mohammed Mhawish//The Nation 2/3/26)
“In October, Hamas and Israel signed a peace deal supposedly intended to stop two years of slaughter in Gaza. Since then, more than 420 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire—an average of about four people a day—in what international mediators continue to describe as a successful de-escalation. The distance between that official narrative and the facts on the ground reveals how the language of ceasefire has been repurposed: It no longer describes a pause in violence but rather a mechanism for managing it, sanitizing ongoing military force under the guise of restraint…The gap between war and peace has narrowed to a question of pace rather than principle—the same military control and displacement, with the same structural killing machine, just calibrated to a level that allows diplomatic progress to be claimed.” See also from The Nation’s 2/3/26 A Day for Gaza issue: “We Have Covered Events No Human Can Bear” (Ola Al Asi); The Street That Refuses to Die (Ali Skaik); A Catalog of Gaza’s Loss (Deema Hattab); My Sister’s Death Still Echoes Inside Me (Asmaa Dwaima); What Gaza’s Photographers Have Seen (Huda Skaik); How to Survive in a House Without Walls (Rasha Abou Jalal); What Edward Said Teaches Us About Gaza (Alaa Alqaisi); What Happens to the Educators When the Schools Have Been Destroyed? (Ismail Nofal); At the Doorstep of Tomorrow (Engy Abdelal);
Israeli strikes kill at least 21 in Gaza as Rafah patient crossings halted (The Guardian 2/4/26)
“Israeli tank shelling and airstrikes have killed at least 21 people, including six children and seven women, in Gaza, and Israel has halted the evacuation of patients through the Rafah border crossing just two days after it reopened…The strikes targeted Gaza City and Khan Younis. The Israeli military said it had fired on Gaza after a gunman shot at Israeli soldiers and seriously wounded a reservist. “While we were sleeping in our house, the tank shelled us and the shells hit our house, our children were martyred – my son was martyred, my brother’s son and daughter were martyred,” said Abu Mohamed Habouch at his children’s funeral.” See also Women, Children, and Medical Workers Among Over 20 Palestinians Killed in Surge of Israeli Attacks Across Gaza (Drop Site 2/4/26);
Children and police officers among at least 30 killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza (The Guardian 1/31/26)
“Israel has carried out some of its deadliest airstrikes on Gaza in months, killing at least 30 Palestinians, some of whom were sheltering in tent cities for displaced people. Despite a nominal ceasefire, the Israeli military struck a police station in the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood west of Gaza City on Saturday, killing 10 officers and detainees, the civil defence said. It indicated the death toll could rise as emergency responders searched for bodies. Another strike hit an apartment in Gaza City, killing three children and two women, while seven more people were killed when Israel bombed tents in Khan Younis, southern Gaza…The Israeli military said the attacks were carried out in response to an incident on Friday when eight armed men came out of a tunnel in Rafah, southern Gaza. The area is still under Israeli military control under the terms of the October ceasefire.”
Handful of sick and wounded Palestinians allowed through Rafah crossing on first day (The Guardian 2/2/26)
“A small number of sick and wounded Palestinians have begun crossing into Egypt to seek medical treatment after Israel permitted a limited reopening of the Palestinian territory’s Rafah border post as fragile diplomatic efforts to stabilise the conflict inch forward.” See also Palestinians Returning to Gaza Face Delays and Searches (NYT 2/3/26); Revealed: Israel bulldozed part of Gaza war cemetery containing allied graves (The Guardian 2/4/26)
With or without a ceasefire, Israel is still targeting Gaza’s journalists (Ibtisam Mahdi//+972 Magazine 2/3/26)
“Since October, we journalists in Gaza had hoped that the declaration of a ceasefire would finally give us space to catch our breath. We did not dare to dream of a permanent peace, but only to go out to work without minding every step as if walking through a minefield, and without saying goodbye to each other every morning as if it were the last time. We knew that over 250 of our colleagues had been killed by the Israeli army since October 2023. And we saw Israel continue to kill hundreds of civilians over the past three months, in clear violation of the ceasefire. Yet we had clung desperately to the belief that the end of the war meant an end to our systematic targeting. The killing of three more journalists on Jan. 21 shattered this belief.”
REGION//GLOBAL
Trump’s Imperial Fantasy Begins With Gaza (Peter Beinart 2/4/26)
“Like the West Bank, [Gaza is] a colonial possession, whose residents are subjects—but not citizens—of Israel. As a colony, it can’t forge normal relations with foreign powers, who might shield it from Israeli and American domination. Its weakness, which has long made it a “laboratory” for the Israeli military, is now making it a laboratory for Trump’s fantasies of imperial omnipotence. Only in a colony could the US establish governing institutions—an Executive Board and a Gaza Executive Board—that contain Trump cabinet members, Trump in-laws, and Israeli and American Jewish businessmen, and relegate Palestinians to a National Committee for the Administration of Gaza that performs only technical functions. Some commentators have suggested that Gaza is now under “international trusteeship.” But it’s worse than that. It’s under Trump’s individual trusteeship. The Board of Peace authorizes him and his cronies to plunder the Strip for personal gain. What is emerging in Gaza may resemble less Mandatory Palestine between 1917 and 1948, which was ruled by the British government, than the Congo between 1885 to 1908, which was the personal property of one man, King Leopold II of Belgium.” See also US contractor sent Gaza plan to White House that would secure 300% profits (The Guardian 2/2/26); Excludes Palestinians, eyes profit: Gazans view Trump’s Board of Peace with deep distrust (Al Monitor 1/31/26);
Jared Kushner’s “Plan” for Gaza Is an Abomination (Tariq Kenney-Shawa//The Nation 1/30/26)
“Kushner has never been shy about his support for Israel’s most extreme fantasies for Gaza—fantasies that begin with ethnic cleansing. But he also knows that a single, overt act of ethnic cleansing on the scale that many Israelis openly dream of might be too controversial to launder through Davos-speak—and that the prospect of a mass expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza in one fell swoop has already triggered international backlash that the architects of this project would rather avoid. So the Kushner plan is built around something more marketable, more reproducible at scale: attrition. Or, to put it another way, the fulfillment of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s reported order to close aides to “thin out” Gaza’s population. The euphemism Israel has been selling to the world is “voluntary migration,” as if Palestinians would suddenly wake up with wanderlust and decide it would be nice to leave their homeland forever for no other reason than restlessness. The reality, of course, is that Israel has turned Gaza into an unlivable graveyard so it could offer migration as the only remaining option for those who have lost everything.” See also ‘We’ll settle all over’: Far-right activists cross into Gaza, are caught by IDF (TOI 2/6/26);
U.S. approves almost $16 billion in arms sales to Israel and Saudi Arabia (WaPo 1/31/26)
“The United States on Friday approved arms sales worth close to $6.7 billion for Israel and $9 billion for Saudi Arabia, deals that come as the Middle East remains on edge with President Donald Trump weighing military strikes on Iran. The sales were approved by the State Department, according to news releases published through the Defense Department. Congress has been notified of the approvals, according to the releases. But Rep. Gregory W. Meeks (New York), the ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the Trump administration had sidestepped the committee review process for significant arms sales for the transactions involving Israel.” See also US-Iran nuclear talks conclude in Oman, with another round said planned for coming days (TOI 2/6/26);
Marwan Barghouti, ‘Palestine’s Mandela’, to publish book from prison (The Guardian 2/3/26)
“A collection of writings by the imprisoned Palestinian political leader Marwan Barghouti will be published in November, bringing together prison letters, interviews, personal material and documents from the last three decades of Barghouti’s political life and incarceration…His book, Unbroken: In Pursuit of Freedom for Palestine, will be published by Penguin on 5 November this year, the publisher has told the Guardian…The forthcoming book will assemble private letters to Barghouti’s family written from prison, correspondence with public figures, press interviews, public statements, historical documents and photographs, alongside extracts from his book 1,000 Days in Solitary Confinement, which until now has been available only in Arabic.”
France issues arrest warrants against 2 right-wing French-Israeli activists for ‘complicity in genocide’ (JTA 2/2/26)
“France has issued arrest warrants for two French-Israeli activists for “complicity in genocide,” a charge that stemmed from the pair allegedly blocking humanitarian aid from entering the Gaza Strip. The arrest warrants were issued in July against Nili Kupfer-Naouri, the president of the organization Israel Is Forever, and Rachel Touitou, an activist with the organization Tsav 9, a right-wing Israeli group that was sanctioned by the United States in June 2024 for destroying humanitarian aid for Gaza.” See also Prominent British LGBTQ activist arrested for carrying ‘globalize the intifada’ sign in London (JTA 2/2/26);
Researchers at Human Rights Watch Resign Over Blocked Report on Palestinian Refugee Return (Alex Kane//Jewish Currents 2/3/26)
“Two Human Rights Watch (HRW) employees who make up the organization’s entire Israel and Palestine team are stepping down from their positions after leadership blocked a report that deems Israel’s denial of Palestinian refugees’ right of return a “crime against humanity.” In separate resignation letters obtained by Jewish Currents, Omar Shakir, who has headed the team for nearly the last decade, and Milena Ansari, the team’s assistant researcher, said leadership’s decision to pull the report before its scheduled publication on December 4th broke from HRW’s customary approval processes and was evidence that the organization was putting fear of political backlash over a commitment to international law. “I have lost my faith in the integrity of how we do our work and our commitment to principled reporting on the facts and application of the law,” wrote Shakir in his resignation letter. “As such, I am no longer able to represent or work for Human Rights Watch.” The resignations have roiled one of the most prominent human-rights groups in the world just as HRW’s new executive director, Philippe Bolopion, begins his tenure. In a statement, HRW said that the report “raised complex and consequential issues. In our review process, we concluded that aspects of the research and the factual basis for our legal conclusions needed to be strengthened to meet Human Rights Watch’s high standards.” They said that “the publication of the report was paused pending further analysis and research,” and that the process was “ongoing.”’
U.S. secretly deporting Palestinians to West Bank in coordination with Israel (Ghousoon Bisharat & Ben Reiff//+972 Magazine 2/5/26)
“The United States is quietly deporting Palestinians arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to the occupied West Bank by private jet, with two such flights taking place in coordination with the Israeli authorities since the beginning of this year — part of a secretive and politically sensitive operation revealed through a joint investigation by +972 Magazine and The Guardian…After arriving at Ben Gurion Airport, the men were put in a vehicle with an armed Israeli police officer and released at a military checkpoint outside the Palestinian town of Ni’lin in the West Bank…According to people familiar with the details, the eight men deported on the initial flight, which was first reported by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, are residents of West Bank towns and cities including Bethlehem, Hebron, Silwad, Ramun, Bir Nabala, and Al-Ram. Some of them have held green cards, and several have wives, children, and other close family members in the United States. Some had been detained in ICE facilities for weeks; at least one was held for over a year.” See also Revealed: Private jet owned by Trump friend used by ICE to deport Palestinians to West Bank (The Guardian 2/5/26)
RIVER TO THE SEA
The Future of the West Bank: Settler Takeover and Annexation (Fathi Nimer//Al Shabaka 2/3/26)
“Since the beginning of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza in October 2023, land seizure in the West Bank has shifted from creeping settler encroachment to a vicious military-backed campaign of territorial theft. This commentary shows how the Israeli regime’s land appropriation policy in the West Bank, once justified through bureaucratic-legal land seizure orders, has now increasingly shifted toward direct settler takeovers. This shift does not indicate a change in objectives but rather an escalation of existing settlement expansion mechanisms, signaling the growing power and influence of the settler movement over Israeli policy.” See also In Four Minutes, Israeli Settlers Descended From the Hills and Burned Down an Entire West Bank Bedouin Community (Haaretz 2/6/26); For Six Hours, Israeli Settlers Rampaged Two West Bank Villages – While Soldiers Looked On (Haaretz 2/4/26); Settlers reportedly assault minor while accompanied by IDF troops who arrest local man (TOI 2/4/26); Aiding and Abetting Jewish Rioters in the West Bank (Ehud Olmert//Haaretz 2/6/26);
Former Israeli Defense Minister: Israel’s ideology of ‘Jewish supremacy’ resembles Nazi race theory (Mondoweiss 2/4/26)
“In the late 1980s, Israeli philosopher Yeshayahu Leibowitz made the controversial warning that the 1967 occupation risked turning Israelis into “Judeo-Nazis.” Leibowitz recently found a surprising supporter for this opinion – Former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon. On Friday, Ya’alon tweeted that “Yeshayahu Leibowitz was right, and I was wrong”. This was no benign reference – it referred directly to the late professor Leibowitz’s “warnings… concerning the process of bestialization towards us becoming ‘Judeo-Nazis’…”. Ya’alon says that the “ideology of ‘Jewish supremacy’” has become “dominant in the government of Israel”, and that it “is reminiscent of the Nazi race theory”…Here then is the full text of what Ya’alon shared on social media (my translation from Hebrew) – I have added numerous links to the many condensed references in his tweet: “Last Tuesday evening I participated in a ceremony marking the International Holocaust Remembrance Day. When I got home, I got a message about Jewish pogromists who are attacking Palestinians in the southern Hebron mountains, stealing their flock and burning their possessions. ‘You can’t compare!’… after ambulances, who tried to get to the place, were delayed by the Jewish terrorists, three Palestinians were evacuated to the hospital, where one of them suffered a fracture to the skull. ‘No event can be compared to the Holocaust, which our people were subject to!’…”
‘A violation of our history’: Palestinian uproar over Israel’s plan to seize historic West Bank site (The Guardian 2/2/26)
“Residents of Sebastia say heritage project is pretext for massive land grab and expansion of Jewish settlements”
A Hamas Hostage’s Secret Ordeal (2/3/26)
“Guy Gilboa-Dalal says he was sexually abused by one of his captors in the tunnels of Gaza and threatened with death if he said anything.”
Shin Bet chief’s brother charged with ‘assisting enemy’ over cigarette smuggling in Gaza (The Guardian 2/5/26)
“The brother of Israel’s internal security chief has been charged with “assisting the enemy in wartime” for his alleged role in a smuggling network taking cigarettes and other goods into Gaza during an Israeli blockade of the occupied Palestinian territory. Bezalel Zini was one of more than 10 people charged in relation to the alleged network. His brother, David Zini, is the head of the Shin Bet, the domestic intelligence agency.”
Netanyahu Suggests Other Officials to Blame for Oct. 7 Failings (NYT 2/6/26)
“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has repeatedly refused to take direct responsibility for the security and intelligence failings that occurred on his watch in the lead-up to the Hamas-led attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, the bloodiest day in the country’s history. On Thursday, Mr. Netanyahu indicated that he had no intention of changing course, releasing a 55-page document that appeared to direct the blame onto others, including top security and political officials.” See also Netanyahu Releases Selective, Redacted Security Cabinet Records in Bid to Shift Oct. 7 Responsibility to Defense Establishment (Haaretz 2/6/26);
In Hebron’s hyper-militarized Old City, a Palestinian cinema opens its doors (Basel Adra//+972 Magazine 2/2/26)
“The city’s first movie theater in nearly a century is defying Israeli movement restrictions and settler attacks to screen political films for locals and activists.”
U.S. SCENE
Pentagon Makes Largest Known Arms Purchase from Israel — For Banned Cluster Weapons (Dan Glaun//The Intercept 2/6/26)
“The Department of Defense has quietly signed a $210 million deal to buy advanced cluster shells from one of Israel’s state-owned arms companies, marking unusually large new commitments to a class of weapons and an Israeli defense establishment both widely condemned for their indiscriminate killing of civilians. The deal, signed in September and not previously reported, is the department’s largest contract to purchase weapons from an Israeli company in available records, according to an online federal database that covers the last 18 years. In a reversal of the more commonly seen direction for weapons transfers between the countries — in which the U.S. sends its weapons to Israel — the U.S. will pay the Israeli weapons firm Tomer over a period of three years to produce a new 155mm munition. The shells are designed to replace decades-old and often defective cluster shells that left live explosives scattered across Vietnam, Laos, Iraq, and other nations.”
AIPAC Donors Fail to Elect Last-Minute New Jersey House Pick (Akela Lacy 2/4/26)
“Update: February 6, 2026: As of Friday, the Democratic primary in New Jersey’s 11th district is too close to call between organizer Analilia Mejia and former Rep. Tom Malinowski. Former Lieutenant Governor Tahesha Way trails in a distant third. This story details pro-Israel contributions to Way’s campaign ahead of the election…The lobby [including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, its super PAC, and Democratic Majority for Israel] is known for spending against progressives and the most vocal critics of the state of Israel, but in New Jersey, [this lobby] appears to be backing one moderate to pick off another. Yet more pro-Israel money in the race comes at the expense of Tom Malinowski, who is no progressive on Israel policy but nevertheless has become the subject of AIPAC ire — marking a reversal for the group, which supported him in 2022.” See also AIPAC Targets a Former Ally in 2026’s First Fight Over the Future of pro-Israel U.S. Politics (Haaretz 2/4/26); How AIPAC Could Help Elect The Next Member Of The Squad (HuffPo 2/5/26); AIPAC Coordinates Donors in Illinois House Primaries (Drop Site 2/6/26);
Prosecutors charge Capital Jewish Museum shooter with terrorism (The Forward 2/5/26)
“Federal prosecutors added two terrorism charges to the indictment against Elias Rodriguez, the Chicago man accused of killing two Israeli embassy employees outside a networking event held at the Capital Jewish Museum last May. The new indictment, filed on Wednesday, claims that Rodriguez murdered Yaron Lischinsky, 30, and Sarah Milgrim, 26, with the intent to both influence government policy through “intimidation” and that he sought to “coerce a significant portion of the civilian population” of the United States…Rodriguez, 31, who prosecutors say flew from Chicago to carry out the attack, allegedly shot Lischinsky and Milgrim repeatedly after they left a Jewish young professionals reception at the museum, hosted by the American Jewish Committee. He then entered the museum and shouted, “I did it for Palestine, I did it for Gaza.” While prosecutors previously charged Rodriguez with national origin-based hate crimes, they have focused on the political dimension of the attack and the indictment quotes at length from social media posts and a manifesto that law enforcement sources attribute to Rodriguez.”
Florida bill seeks to ban use of ‘West Bank’ in schools and state agencies (The Guardian 2/4/26)
“Florida legislators are pushing to pass legislation that would ban the use of the term “West Bank” in K-12 public schools and state agencies, including public colleges and universities, and mandate use of the term “Judea and Samaria”. The West Bank is the internationally recognized term for the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory west of the Jordan River that was seized from Jordan by Israel in 1967. The rightwing Israeli government refers to the area as “Judea and Samaria” in reference to the biblical kingdoms of ancient Israel as part of broader efforts to bolster historical and religious claims to the land. The international community, on the other hand, broadly recognizes the West Bank as occupied land that must be part of a future Palestinian state. The term “Judea and Samaria” has been embraced by many US Republicans since the first Trump administration, including the former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who Donald Trump appointed as ambassador to Israel last year. Arkansas became the first US state to mandate replacing references to the “West Bank” in state institutions with “Judea and Samaria” in April last year. Similar bills have been proposed in the US Congress but have not come up for vote…If the Florida legislation passes,, state agencies, including universities and colleges, would be prohibited from using the term “West Bank” in any official state government materials, and would require any new instructional or school library materials in K-12 public schools to comply with the new law and use the term “Judea and Samaria”.”
Most US Jews do not identify as ‘Zionists,’ even when they support Israel, JFNA survey finds (JTA 2/5/26)
“Only one-third of American Jews say they identify as Zionist, even as nearly nine in 10 say they support Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish and Democratic state, according to a new survey conducted by Jewish Federations of North America. The findings of the survey reveal that American Jews do not have a mutually agreed-upon definition of Zionism — with those identifying as anti-Zionist and those identifying as Zionist ascribing sharply different meanings to the term. For example, about 80% of anti-Zionist Jews say “supporting whatever actions Israel takes” is a tenet of Zionism, while only about 15% of self-identified Zionists share the belief, according to the survey…Respondents were also quizzed on what views they believed constituted “a part of Zionist beliefs.” Among Jews, 36% said Zionism only meant “the right of the Jewish people to have a Jewish state.” More than one in four Jewish respondents said they thought Zionists were expected to be “supporting whatever action Israel takes,” and 35% said Zionism meant “believing Israel has a right to the West Bank and Gaza Strip.” Smaller numbers of Jews indicated that they thought “believing Palestinians are a made-up population” and “believing Jews are superior to Palestinians” were also core Zionist tenets.”
In Gaza, an ‘apocalyptic wasteland’ foretold (Ishaan Tharoor//WaPo 2/2/26)
“In February 2024, U.S. diplomats drafted a grim warning for then-President Joe Biden and his top national security officials. The Israeli military campaign in the Gaza Strip, triggered a few months before by the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel by militant group Hamas, was so devastating and destructive that northern Gaza had turned into an “apocalyptic wasteland” with “catastrophic human needs.” Food, clean drinking water and medicine were already scarce as Israeli bombardments flattened sections of the embattled territory. The cable, compiled by USAID officials with connections to United Nations agencies and humanitarian organizations, cited eyewitness accounts of scattered human remains and dead bodies left to rot in the broken streets. The details of this particular cable were reported this past week by Reuters. It was one of five such missives sent in early 2024, charting the rapidly deteriorating state of the humanitarian situation in Gaza. According to Reuters, the cable warning of a “wasteland” was suppressed by then-U.S. ambassador Jack Lew and his deputy, “because they believed it lacked balance.” The cables did not reach top officials in the Biden White House responsible for crafting U.S. policy regarding Gaza at the time, according to the news agency. The incident illustrates the tensions within the Biden administration over its support of the Israeli war effort against Hamas, which killed about 1,200 people in its attack on southern Israel and abducted hundreds of hostages…Seen two years later, the cable reported by Reuters is a small footnote of history.” See also U.S. Envoys Refused to Report “Apocalyptic” Conditions in Gaza. Exclusive Photos Show the Reality They Suppressed (Drop Site 2/2/26);
Homeland Security is targeting Americans with this secretive legal weapon (WaPo 2/3/26)
“For many Americans, the anonymous ICE officer, masked and armed, represents Homeland Security’s most intimidating instrument, but the agency often targets people in a far more secretive way. Homeland Security is not required to share how many administrative subpoenas it issues each year, but tech experts and former agency staff estimate it’s well into the thousands, if not tens of thousands. Because the legal demands are not subject to independent review, they can take just minutes to write up and, former staff say, officials throughout the agency, even in mid-level roles, have been given the authority to approve them. In March, Homeland Security issued two administrative subpoenas to Columbia University for information on a student it sought to deport after she took part in pro-Palestinian protests. In July, the agency demanded broad employment records from Harvard University with what the school’s attorneys described as “unprecedented administrative subpoenas.”’ See also Republican senator in Louisiana launches probe into Mamdani’s reversal of Israel executive orders (NY Jewish Week 2/5/26); Mamdani taps leader of progressive Zionist group to helm Office to Combat Antisemitism (JTA 2/4/26);
PERSPECTIVES//LONG READS
No Child Deserves to Die Like My Daughter (Wesam Hamada//NYT 1/29/26)
“On Jan. 29, [2024] we had to flee again. After Hind got into a car with six family members, the car was shot at. Everyone in the car except Hind was killed. Hearing my daughter trapped, begging for my help, was a kind of pain no mother should experience. As I spoke to her, Palestine Red Crescent Society workers were also on the phone with her at their base. They knew exactly where she was. Before I lost contact with her, an ambulance was minutes away. Minutes. They had tried to get permission from Israeli authorities to rescue her earlier, but it took about three hours to receive the green light. When an ambulance finally was dispatched and got close to Hind, it was fired on and the two paramedics on board were killed. Nearly two weeks later, Hind was found dead in the car. Israeli forces have said the ambulance didn’t need their permission, and that they had not been in the area. But multiple investigations determined that they were present and likely killed Hind and our other family members…No child deserves to die like Hind did, just as no child should live under the constant threat of bombardment, starvation and displacement. My daughter was just one among tens of thousands of Palestinian children in Gaza whose stories ended before they began. At least 20,000 children have been killed since October 2023. Twenty thousand futures erased…Protecting the children in Gaza must mean real protection. For a start, it means a cease-fire that actually saves lives, not one that exists only on paper; more than 100 children have been killed since the cease-fire officially began. It means stopping the bombing, and the international flow of weapons to a regime that clearly seeks to crush our spirit and erase us. It means opening more medical corridors and allowing more food in. It means ensuring accountability, not only for Hind’s death but for those of the thousands of children whose lives were stolen.”
A Day for Gaza (The Nation 2/3/26)
“Gaza has been suspended in a bloody limbo for months. Despite the much-hyped ceasefire between Israel and Hamas—declared on October 10, 2025—peace has not arrived in the Gaza Strip. The bombings have continued, killing at least 509 people; hunger persists; aid trickles in rather than flows; and Israel remains in control of nearly 60 percent of the terrain. Hundreds of thousands of people continue to live in threadbare tents. Meanwhile, US promises of a “technocratic governance” mask a colonial project bestowed on a people with no say. The ceasefire has bred apathy among us—and disinterest from a press that was already turning away. According to a recent study by the media watch group FAIR, US media coverage of Gaza has fallen to its lowest three-month average since the genocide began two-and-a-half years ago. The message is clear: There’s nothing to see here. The Nation disagrees. We believe the story of Gaza remains as essential as it was on October 9, 2025, and that those who live in its ruins are the best ones to tell it. So today, February 3, we are turning our website over to Gaza and its people in an initiative we are calling “A Day for Gaza.” There will be no work shared that is not about Gaza, and no pieces published that are not written by people who are in or from Gaza.”
Things that should never be extinguished (Hanady Hathaleen & Kate Greenberg//Vashti 1/30/26)
“This Wednesday, 28 January, marked six months since an Israeli settler murdered Palestinian activist, teacher, and community leader Awdah Hathaleen, as Awdah defended his home village of Umm al-Khair. Since that day, the small agricultural community has faced relentless raids and arrests by the Israeli military, threats of large-scale home demolitions, the expansion of a settler outpost in the middle of their land, and the denial of any semblance of justice for Awdah’s murder by Israeli courts — all while trying to grieve. Adjacent villages have been dealing with their own daily avalanches of physical violence. On Tuesday night, 27 January, settlers launched a coordinated pogrom across three communities in the Masafer Yatta region: Khirbet al-Fakhit, Khirbet Halawe, and Khirbet al-Tabban. Bales of hay were set alight, before hordes of settlers armed with clubs entered residents’ homes, inflicting serious injuries including a fracture to a man’s skull. It is crucial to highlight the way that settlers and the state are working in conjunction to ethnically cleanse the West Bank; that afternoon, Israeli military forces had already raided Khirbet al-Fakhit, filling up the village’s water wells with cement…Not unlike a musical instrument that has been broken in half and estranged from its own music, the following untitled prose poem by Hanady Hathaleen, Awdah’s widow, is an amalgamation of two fragments of her writing…With Hanady’s support, I [Kate] have translated the poem from her original Arabic.” See also IDF, police stop Tu B’Shvat coexistence olive-tree planting in beleaguered Palestinian hamlet (TOI 2/2/26)
Steadfast resistance under occupation from Minneapolis to Palestine (Rae Abileah and Rabbi Cat Zavis//Waging Nonviolence 2/4/26)
“Two images, from opposite sides of the world, are seared into our minds: Five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos in his blue knit bunny hat, carrying his Spiderman backpack, being snatched from the streets and detained by ICE. Five-year-old Hind Rajab’s voice, tiny and terrified, crying out for help from the car as her family members’ dead bodies lay next to her and the Israeli forces bear down upon her…These are not isolated tragedies. They are the logic of state terror, from Minnesota to Gaza City…As Ashkenazi Jews, our minds do not only go to Palestine. We are haunted by our own histories: families hiding in Berlin to avoid deportation, people abducted in the night, neighbors punished for offering shelter. The eerie familiarity is impossible to ignore.”
The legal fight to open Gaza to foreign press has failed. It’s time to change course (Amos Brison//+972 Magazine 2/6/26)
“For over two years, the Foreign Press Association (FPA) has been battling Israel’s government in the Supreme Court over its sweeping ban on the independent entry of foreign journalists into the Gaza Strip. Throughout that time, the Israeli government has not wavered from its position — and the court has proven unwilling to force its hand…Rather than changing its approach, the FPA continues to play by the rules and defer to the Supreme Court, despite there being no indication that it will ever force the government’s hand. In doing so, the FPA not only fails to achieve its goal of lifting the ban on press access to Gaza, but also helps legitimize the external perception of a good-faith “judicial review” — a cornerstone of Israel’s self-professed liberal democracy.”
Why a Palestinian protest in Tel Aviv exposed the limits of Israeli solidarity (Samah Watad//+972 Magazine 2/4/26)
“We were standing in the middle of Tel Aviv on Saturday night, during one of the largest protests that Palestinian citizens of Israel have held in recent memory: a mass demonstration — described by local commentators as “historic” — against the organized crime that has been tearing through our communities with impunity. Tens of thousands of people (organizers estimated as many as 100,000) had come to demand the most basic and urgent right to live without fear.
And yet, at that moment, the protest’s central contradiction surfaced. Even here, at a march against our own deaths and abandonment by the government, naming ourselves as Palestinians felt disruptive, something in need of correction. People had driven for hours from the Galilee in the north and the Naqab in the south to make their voices heard in the heart of the Israeli metropolis. They came with the knowledge that this government is more comfortable watching Palestinians kill one another than taking responsibility for dismantling the crime networks operating freely in our towns. The presence of bereaved families made that indifference impossible to ignore, at least for those who were there. These were parents, siblings, and children whose lives had been shattered by violence, who still chose to stand in public and demand accountability…And yet, despite the magnitude of the demonstration, and the noteworthy presence of as many as 20,000 Jewish Israelis (according to organizers), it barely registered in mainstream Israeli media. The country’s major outlets reduced the event to brief, dismissive segments.”
Now that Israel has admitted the Gaza death toll is accurate, don’t let apologists move the goalposts (Ben Reiff//The Guardian 2/3/26)
“Israel’s official and unofficial spokespeople are in damage control mode after a senior military official admitted last week that Israel accepts the death toll published by Gaza’s health ministry, which currently stands at more than 70,000. This comes after two years in which Israel and its supporters took every opportunity to disparage and dismiss the health ministry’s figures, arguing that they were overblown or fabricated by Hamas…In truth, the reliability of the official death toll should never have been in doubt. For one thing, the UN has independently verified the accuracy of the health ministry’s figures after each of Israel’s previous bombardments of Gaza going back to 2008. For another, the data published by the health ministry since 7 October is extremely detailed: it includes a full name, date of birth, gender and ID number for all victims whose deaths were confirmed either by hospital morgues or by their relatives. Naturally, mistakes were made amid the intensity of an Israeli onslaught that virtually destroyed Gaza’s entire health system, but these were remarkably few and promptly rectified…”