Compilation of news reports – IAK staff
Two Palestinians were killed in Gaza on Wednesday, and five more bodies were recovered from under the rubble.
Israel carrying out ‘fastest starvation campaign in Gaza in modern history’: UN envoy
The UN special rapporteur on the right to food on Wednesday warned that Israel is carrying out an unprecedentedly rapid campaign of starvation in Gaza, calling it “the fastest in modern history.”
“How is Israel able to starve 2.3 million people so quickly and so completely?” Michael Fakhri asked in a joint press briefing alongside other UN special rapporteurs in Geneva. “This is the fastest starvation campaign in modern history,” Fakhri said.
As the entry of all humanitarian aid into Gaza is stopped by Israel, he said: “This is not a ceasefire by any definition. This is a slowing down of military violence, but … unfolding of death through starvation.”
Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on Palestine, told the briefing that even if the bombs and violence stop in Palestine today, “the genocide will continue because there are no ways to remedy the destruction” that has been made.
UN experts accuse Israel of genocidal acts and sexual violence in Gaza
Israel carried out “genocidal acts” against Palestinians by systematically destroying women’s healthcare facilities during the conflict in Gaza, and used sexual violence as a war strategy, United Nations experts said in a report on Thursday.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the report’s findings, saying they were biased and antisemitic.
The U.N. Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territories said, “Israeli authorities have destroyed in part the reproductive capacity of the Palestinians in Gaza as a group, including by imposing measures intended to prevent births, one of the categories of genocidal acts in the Rome Statute and the Genocide Convention.”
Those actions, in addition to a surge in maternity deaths due to restricted access to medical supplies, amounted to the crime against humanity of extermination, the commission said.
The report accused Israel’s security forces of using forced public stripping and sexual assault as part of their standard operating procedures to punish Palestinians following the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel in October 2023.
The report includes testimonies from Gazans as well as Palestinians from the West Bank, some of whom describe incidents where civilians were stripped of their clothing, sometimes without separation between men and women.
Israel has rejected the accusations. “The IDF (Israeli Defense Force) has concrete directives … and policies which unequivocally prohibit such misconduct”, the permanent mission to the UN in Geneva responded in a statement, adding that its review processes are in line with international standards.
NOTE: Israel’s self-investigations – on the rare occasions when they do take place – consistently whitewash its crimes and fail to appropriately punish the perpetrators.
Israel has a long track record of lying.
Israel Wants to Buy Thousands of Locally Made Suicide Drones
Israel’s Defense Ministry plans to purchase thousands of suicide drones for use by the Israeli army, as these drones have become one of the most effective weapons on modern battlefields in both Israel and Ukraine.
First-person view drones, commonly referred to as FPV drones, were originally developed for racing due to their exceptional speed and maneuverability. However, their use in the war in Ukraine has demonstrated their potential as precision-guided weapons.
These small drones, which cost between a few hundred to a few thousand dollars, can carry improvised explosives and crash into tanks and weapon systems worth millions of dollars (continue reading here).
Yemen reimposes Red Sea blockade on Israeli shipping as Gaza truce deal falters
The Yemeni Armed Forces (YAF) has reimposed a naval blockade on Israeli-linked ships in the Red Sea and other bodies of water.
In a statement released late on 11 March, the YAF pointed to negotiators’ inability to reopen the crossings and get aid into Gaza, and vowed to resume the ban on the passage of all Israeli ships in the designated operational area of the Red and Arabian Seas, as well as Bab al-Mandab and the Gulf of Aden.”
“Any Israeli ship attempting to violate this ban will be targeted in the declared area of operations. This ban will continue until the crossings to the Gaza Strip are reopened and aid and food and medicine supplies are allowed to enter,” it added.
‘Do whatever the hell you want’: Iranian president fires back against US threats
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian reaffirmed on 11 March Tehran’s position against negotiating with the US under threats and sanctions.
“We must have relationships with the world; we do not want to quarrel or fight with anyone, but we also will not bow down in humiliation before anyone,” the president said.
“To say to someone, ‘We give you orders to do this and that, and if you don’t do it, we will do this to you,’ is humiliating,” he went on to say. He also commented on the tense meeting recently between US President Donald Trump and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky. “What [Trump] did to that Zelensky is truly shameful.”
“We will die with dignity, but we will not live in disgrace. If negotiations are conducted with respect and based on mutual interests, we are willing to sit down and talk. However, the language of threats and force is absolutely unacceptable to us,” Pezeshkian stated.
“I personally will not sit with you, do whatever the hell you want,” he added, addressing Trump.
‘No one is expelling anyone from Gaza’: Trump backpedals from ethnic cleansing plan
US President Donald Trump declared on 12 March that Palestinians will not be “expelled” from Gaza, seemingly taking back threats he made earlier this year to ethnically cleanse the strip to build the “Riviera of the Middle East.”
“We are not expelling anyone from the Gaza Strip,” Trump told reporters ahead of his meeting with Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin.
Trump’s remarks stand in stark contrast with his 4 February statement alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in which he said, “The US will take over the Gaza Strip … I see it as a long-term ownership position,” stressing that the US and Israel “will flatten it; 1.8 million need to leave.”
Israel acknowledges possible forced use of civilians in Gaza military operations: CNN
The Israeli military is investigating soldiers’ use of Palestinian civilians as human shields during operations in Gaza, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) told CNN on Tuesday night.
This is the first time the military has acknowledged that there is “reasonable suspicion” to believe soldiers forced civilians to take part in military operations.
CNN has reported on Israeli soldiers forcing civilians in Gaza to enter potentially booby-trapped houses and tunnels in order to avoid putting troops in harm’s way.
“In several cases, the Military Police Criminal Investigation Division opened investigations after reasonable suspicion arose regarding the use of Palestinians for military missions during the operations,” the IDF said.
The military would not confirm how many investigations had been opened, nor who was being investigated.
“Those investigations are still ongoing, and accordingly, other details cannot be provided at this time,” the IDF said (continue reading here).
NOTE: While Israel’s use of Palestinians as human shields is apparently news to the mainstream media, independent media outlets have been reporting on the practice for years. Here are a few recent examples:
Israeli soldiers used an 80-year-old Gazan as a human shield. Then they killed him.
U.S. Media’s Doublespeak: Israelis Live in “Densely Populated Areas,” Palestinians Are “Human Shields”
Every accusation a confession: Israel and the double lie of ‘human shields’
Israeli army hits Gaza family, uses them as human shields, and runs over their mother.
What it’s like to be used as a human shield by the Israeli army
Israel’s ‘Human Shields’ Lie Has Been Conclusively, Irrefutably Debunked
The Attack on Mahmoud Khalil Is Straight Out of the “War on Terror” Playbook
Mahmoud Khalil did everything by the book. The 30-year-old Palestinian came to the United States to study, completed his master’s degree at an Ivy League school, married a U.S. citizen and obtained legal permanent residency.
Last year, as students across the country called on their universities to divest from Israel’s genocide in Gaza, Khalil led negotiations on behalf of the Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) coalition. Fellow students said he was patient and strategic in conversations with administrators, and he spoke tactfully in interviews with the media.
While elected officials decried student protesters for shielding their identities, Khalil often appeared unmasked, becoming a public face for CUAD’s demands.
These are the things that the Gaza solidarity movement’s critics have demanded from student protesters in order to win their respect. Khalil did them all. He exercised his constitutional right to free speech and has not been charged with any crime. And yet, on March 8, officers with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) showed up at Khalil’s home and arrested him anyway.
The agents told Khalil’s wife, who is eight months pregnant, that the State Department had revoked his student visa; when she informed them that he in fact holds a green card, the ICE officers said the State Department was canceling that instead.
Donald Trump made it clear that this moment was coming. He has repeatedly pledged to deport international students who participated in pro-Palestine protests, falsely casting the protesters as “pro-jihadist.” On Monday, Trump declared that Khalil’s case was “the first arrest of many to come.”
While a federal judge has stayed Khalil’s deportation, the Columbia graduate’s illegal arrest is a chilling milestone in the Trump administration’s draconian crackdown on dissent.
I [writer Schuyler Mitchell] emphasize Khalil’s mainstream respectability here, not because I believe there’s one single “right” way to protest, but because it underscores what human rights advocates have been warning about for decades: The systematic erosion of constitutional protections in the wake of 9/11 has always been a threat to everyone’s civil liberties, not just those engaged in acts of mass violence (continue reading here).
REPORTER: What about the president’s plan to expel Palestinians out of Gaza?
TRUMP: Nobody is expelling any Palestinians. Who are you with?
REPORTER: I’m with Voice of America, sir.
TRUMP: Oh, no wonder. pic.twitter.com/SfosOKDnv6
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 12, 2025
MORE NEWS:
The Intercept: Dems for Some Reason Expect Trump to Follow the Law on Detention of Mahmoud Khalil
IMEMC Daily Reports
STATISTICS OCTOBER 7, 2023 – MARCH 12, 2025 (ongoing count):
- At least 49,399 Palestinians killed, 119,816 injured – including:
- at least 48,467 killed in Gaza (~14,550 children)
- at least 932 killed in the West Bank (~186 children)
- at least 111,913 injured in Gaza
- at least 7,903 injured in the West Bank
According to Palestinian authorities, at least 137 people have been killed in Israeli attacks, and Israel has committed approximately 962 ceasefire violations since the ceasefire came into force in November.
WAR STATISTICS OCTOBER 7, 2023 (Hamas attack) – JANUARY 22, 2025 (Ceasefire):
Palestinian death toll from October 7, 2023 – January 19, 2025: at least 48,143 – including at least 47,283 in Gaza (~20,600 children), and 916 in the West Bank (~183 children). Palestinian injuries: at least 118,472 – including at least 111,629 in Gaza, and 7,000 in the West Bank.
Thousands of those killed in Gaza have yet to be identified, and an estimated 11,000 more are still buried under rubble.
Reported Israeli death toll from October 7, 2023 – January 19, 2025: ~1,616 (or 1,590) – including ~1,139 on October 7, 2023 (~36 children), 436 (or 405) military forces since the ground invasion began in Gaza, 46 military and civilians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Israel.
NOTE: It is unknown at this time how many of the deaths and injuries of Israelis on October 7 were caused by Israeli soldiers.
- Human rights reports on Israel-Palestine (regularly updated)
- Meet the Washington Post’s Leading Apologist for Israeli Genocide
- Media Obscure Message of Oscar-Winning Documentary No Other Land
- Israel is arbitrarily jailing Palestinian children in record numbers. This must stop.
- Israeli torture: Urinating on Palestinian prisoners, burying them alive and beating the sick
- Israel left a “gift of death” in my home
- Israel’s still killing Israeli hostages with the Hannibal directive – but now in Gaza itself
- How Israel partisans skewed the California election for Democratic Party delegates
- Israel is building a ChatGPT-like tool weaponizing surveillance of Palestinians
- Israel’s War Decimated Gaza’s Farmlands and Killed Most of its Livestock
- Israeli forces issue administrative detention order against youngest Palestinian child on record
- Class action lawsuit against California Congress members over Gaza genocide goes international
- Israel threatens a second Nakba, yet denies the first ever happened
- As Freed Palestinians Describe Torture, Trump OKs $3 Billion Arms Package for Israel
- The Oscar-winner Israel partisans blocked Americans from seeing
- BBC & Guardian Editors Held Private Meetings With Israeli General
- Israel’s bombing of Gaza caused untold environmental damage − can it recover?
- Netanyahu only ever saw the hostages as his path back to genocide
- Hamas explained why it attacked Israel on October 7, 2023
- Palestinian Prisoners: Harrowing Reports Of Systemic Torture – 2 articles
