Trump fast-tracks another $300m in weapons to the Nazi entity

Posted by: John Phoenix

Trump fast-tracks another 0m in weapons to Israel – Gaza in limbo Day 10

Some 92 percent (436,000) of housing units in Gaza are destroyed or damaged, in addition to 80 percent of commercial facilities. Much of the damage was done by US-made bombs. (Mahmoud Isleem/Anadolu)

Trump fast-tracks another $300m in weapons to Israel – Gaza in limbo Day 10

Compilation of news reports – IAK staff

In yet more violations of the ceasefire terms set in January between Israel and Hamas, Israeli forces dropped a bomb from a drone in central Gaza on Monday, killing three brothers, and shot a woman to death in Rafah, in southern Gaza.

On Monday evening, the Israeli army also fired a missile at a Palestinian east of Rafah, killing him.

Five bodies were recovered from under rubble, and 16 wounded were admitted to hospitals in the last day. Many victims remain trapped under debris or on roads, inaccessible to rescue teams due to ongoing Israeli attacks.

Israeli forces also killed a Palestinian, Ahmad Fathi Ahmad Salah, 35, in the northern West Bank city of Jenin, when an Israeli military vehicle rammed his motorcycle.

NOTE: The 42-day ceasefire (“Phase One”) between Israel and Gaza ended on Saturday night, March 1, but Phase Two has not begun. Phase Two, which all parties agreed to in January, would include a permanent end to the war, the return of all remaining living Israeli hostages and a number of Palestinian prisoners, and the withdrawal of all Israeli troops from Gaza.

Israel’s blocking of food and aid deliveries worsens Gaza conditions

Israel’s blocking of goods going into Gaza has begun to take a toll on the Palestinian enclave, with some bakeries closing and officials warning of growing risks to the environment, including possible discharges of raw sewage into the sea, Reuters has reported.

The move is intended to pressure the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, to accept Israeli conditions for the ceasefire. It applies to food, medicine and fuel.

Nasser Al-Ajrami, head of the Gaza bakers’ union, told Reuters that six out of the 22 bakeries still able to operate in the enclave had already shut after they ran out of cooking gas.

“The remaining bakeries may close down in a week or so should they run out of diesel or flour, unless the crossing is reopened to allow the goods to flow,” he said. “The 22 bakeries were not enough to meet the needs of the people, with six of them shutting down now, that would increase the demand for bread and worsen the conditions.”

Israel has blocked the entry of food into the territory since last week in a worsening standoff over a ceasefire that has halted fighting for the past seven weeks. The move has led to a hike in prices of essential foods as well as of fuel, forcing many to ration the already meagre amount of food that they are able to get.

RELATED: Bakeries go dark in Gaza as Israel cuts off fuel to 2.1 million people

Tents atop rubble in Jabalia in northern Gaza, February 18, 2025. (OMAR AL-QATTAA/AFP via Getty Images.)

Trump admin fast-tracks $295m arms deal to Israel, bypassing congressional review

The US government has approved a $295 million arms deal with Israel, authorizing the sale of Caterpillar D9 bulldozers and related equipment. The deal was fast-tracked through an emergency authorization by the secretary of state, bypassing the standard Congressional review process.

The package includes D9R and D9T bulldozers, along with spare parts, maintenance and logistical support.

West Bank: Israel places Palestinian girl, 12, under house arrest – for writing in her notebook

After 4-day detention, Israeli court placed Palestinian child under one-month house arrest and fined her 3,000 shekels (about $800), the Palestinian Information Centre said.

Tuqa Ghazzawi was detained and held in custody for four days after occupation forces found slogans supporting the resistance written on her school notebooks.

The police also claimed the child had placed a paper on a police vehicle that read “We will win or die” and “Victory is from God and liberation is near.”

RELATED: Israel to approve 1,030 new settlement units in occupied Jerusalem

Israel sent tanks to Jenin on Feb. 23, the first time it has done so in the West Bank since the second intifada in 2002. (Jaafar Ashtiyeh/AFP/Getty Images)

Trump’s hostage envoy defends talks with Hamas, says US ‘not an agent of Israel’

US President Donald Trump’s hostage envoy Adam Boehler defended his direct negotiations with officials of the Palestinian group Hamas, emphasizing that the Trump administration is acting in America’s interests, not as an extension of Israeli policy.

“We’re the United States. We’re not an agent of Israel,”* Boehler told Israel’s Channel 12 on Sunday, responding to criticism from Israeli officials, who were reportedly caught off guard by the discussions.

Boehler’s talks, conducted alongside separate mediation efforts by Qatar and Egypt, primarily focused on securing the release of American hostages held in Gaza.

He expressed optimism about a potential breakthrough, saying: “You’ve got a real chance for some movement and seeing hostages home in the next few weeks.”

In an interview with KAN News, Boehler revealed that Hamas had proposed a five- to 10-year truce, during which it would disarm and withdraw from Gaza’s political leadership.

Despite his outreach, Boehler made clear his view of Hamas.

“Hamas is a terrorist organization that has murdered thousands of innocent people. They are BY DEFINITION BAD people,” he wrote on X.

NOTE: The use of the word “terrorist” for a group that resists occupation and oppression is a political, not fact-based choice. In reality, international law supports the efforts of resistance groups against an occupying power, the UN extending that right to the point of armed resistance.

Hamas has clearly and openly stated that its enemy is not the Jewish people, but the supremacist ideology of Zionism – the ideology under which Israel dispossessed 750,000 Palestinian people and exiled them to Gaza and other locations.

* While Trump’s envoy is acting somewhat independently from Israel in these talks, overall Trump officials (and previously, Biden officials) do the bidding of Israel, including providing weapons and aid (in violation of US laws), providing diplomatic cover at the United Nations, prioritizing legislation that helps Israel, and taking actions that silence pro-Palestine advocacy.

Trump’s advisor receives Israeli settler leader advocating for West Bank annexation

US President Donald Trump’s adviser, Massad Boulos, met with the far-right head of the Israeli settler organization the Shomron Regional Council, Yossi Dagan; an advocate of annexing the occupied West Bank, Ynet News reported yesterday.

The site said the meeting took place at Boulos’s house in Washington, as settler leaders are holding a series of discussions in Washington to build coalitions in support of annexing the occupied West Bank and expanding illegal settlements there.

According to the site, Boulos expressed his gratitude and conveyed his appreciation “to the people of the West Bank through you. To my brothers and sisters in Israel and Lebanon, we look forward to peace and yearn for it, and with God’s help, we hope it will come soon.”

Dagan responded saying “the Creator has sent us to work together for the future of the Middle East and the world” and conveyed a message of appreciation to Trump.

Following Trump’s inauguration, Dagan established a Congressional caucus in Washington, which includes over 20 members of Congress, to promote annexation of the occupied West Bank.

According to Ynet, the caucus’s first initiative was a bill, introduced by Congresswoman Claudia Tenney, its chair, declaring that official US documents should no longer refer to the area as the “West Bank” but instead call it by its biblical name “Judea and Samaria”.

NOTE: Annexation – acquiring territory by force – is a flagrant violation of international law. As such it can have no effect on the legal status of the territory, which remains de jure occupied. In the context of the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), “annexation” means extending Israeli law to areas which are recognized as occupied and treating them as part of the territory of Israel.

In 1967, Israel unilaterally “annexed” East Jerusalem and included this part of the city, as well as the surrounding area of 64 square kilometers, within the boundaries of the Israeli municipality of Jerusalem. The new municipal boundaries covered an area of 70 square kilometers. The additional lands belonged to about 28 Palestinian villages from surrounding areas and was delineated along specific coordinates to ensure the inclusion of maximum land with a minimum number of Palestinians.

Israel’s “annexation” of East Jerusalem, which remains part of the OPT under international law, has been repeatedly condemned by the international community through various UN Security Council resolutions.

The “annexation” of the Golan Heights was specifically condemned by the UN Security Council in Resolution 497 (more here).

Jerusalem: Israel seizes loudspeakers from Al-Aqsa Mosque’s Qibli Prayer Hall

Israeli occupation forces yesterday stormed the Qibli Prayer Hall at Al-Aqsa Mosque, seized the loudspeakers, and then withdrew from the area, local sources cited by the Palestinian Media Centre said.

The occupation forces are preventing Palestinians from the occupied West Bank from entering occupied Jerusalem and praying at Al-Aqsa Mosque. They are only allowing Palestinian women over the age of 40 with a Palestinian identity card to enter the city.

Israel continues to impose restrictions on Palestinians who want to perform Friday prayers at Al-Aqsa Mosque in the Old City of East Jerusalem on February 28, 2025. ([Mostafa Alkharouf – Anadolu Agency])

Columbia complicit in Trump arrest of student leader Mahmoud Khalil

Update – A federal judge in New York issued a ruling on Monday afternoon that the government cannot deport Mahmoud Khalil “unless and until the Court orders otherwise.”

US District Judge Jesse M. Furman set a hearing for Wednesday, 12 March, on Khalil’s habeas corpus petition – a legal challenge to the lawfulness of his detention. Khalil remains in federal custody.

Original article – As of Monday morning, Mahmoud Khalil was being detained at a federal immigration facility in Louisiana.

The recent Columbia graduate was inside his university-owned apartment on Saturday night in New York City when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents entered and detained him, his attorney Amy Greer, told the Associated Press.

As he languishes in a cell far from his home and family, fellow students are denouncing Columbia’s silence and apparent complicity in his arrest.

On Sunday, the US Department of Homeland Security confirmed Khalil’s arrest, claiming it was for “activities aligned to Hamas.”

Khalil’s detention is the latest escalation in the Trump administration’s crackdown on supporters of Palestinian rights under the pretext of fighting “anti-Semitism” and support for “terrorism.”

Well-known and respected on campus, Khalil led negotiations between university officials and students during last year’s campus encampment protesting the Israeli genocide in Palestine and amid the ongoing crackdown.

An Algerian citizen of Palestinian origin and a legal permanent resident of the United States, Khalil’s green card is supposed to afford him all the constitutional free speech protections enjoyed by US citizens (continue reading here).

RELATED: Campus Police Are Using Israeli Spy Tech to Crack Down on Student Protest

If Trump Can Deport Mahmoud Khalil, Freedom of Speech Is Dead

Mahmoud Khalil, a recent Columbia University graduate and green card holder, was an active participant in a political movement on his campus. The political movement called for the university to divest from arms companies and from a state deemed by the International Court of Justice to plausibly be committing genocide. Khalil has not been charged with a crime, let alone convicted. His role in the movement was that of negotiator and mediator with the school’s administration — that is, engaging in speech.

But Khalil is Palestinian, and the movement in question is for Palestinian freedom and against Israel’s eliminationist assault on Gaza. So, as of Saturday night, Khalil, a legal permanent resident, is being held without charge at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, detention center. His attorney and his wife — a U.S. citizen who is eight months pregnant — were unable to find Khalil in the sprawling ICE carceral system for over 24 hours.

On Saturday night, Department of Homeland Security agents descended on Khalil’s apartment, a Columbia University-owned property near the school’s Manhattan campus. Khalil called his attorney, Amy Greer, who spoke with the agents on the phone. First, they reportedly said they were acting on State Department orders to revoke the graduate’s student visa.

The attorney told them that Khalil has a green card, which Khalil’s wife produced as proof. Then, according to reports, the agent told Greer that they were revoking Khalil’s green card. The agents threatened Khalil’s pregnant wife with arrest too, and then took her husband away (continue reading here).

NOTE: Pro-Israel organizations consistently work to silence Palestine advocacy on campus – a free speech violation. One strategy they use is to pressure universities to officially adopt the IHRA “definition” of antisemitism, which defines legitimate criticism of Israel as antisemitic. Other strategies include blocking prestigious appointments of and events with supporters of Palestinian rights, threatening to withhold major donations, and more.

Typically, any move by university administration that defies the standard pro-Israel position is followed by an apology like the one Sonoma State University’s president Mike Lee issued – an apology that recognizes only the sentiments of pro-Israel students and ignoring the actual issues of free speech and divestment from Israel.

Pro-Palestine demonstrations on college campuses have overall been peaceful and non-confrontational, and have notably included a significant number of Jewish students. When there has been violence, it has come from pro-Israel counter-protesters and police.

The silencing of pro-Palestine campus protest violates students’ and professors’ rights to free speech.

It is also notable that pro-Israel orgs regularly sponsor trips to Israel for influencers and the influence-able – trips that invariably provide a whitewashed view of Israel and no exposure to the Palestinian narrative, and by withholding the truth, “buy” new Israel partisans.

Pro-Palestinian protesters gather outside Columbia University Campus in New York City to protest against the former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, New York, US, 4 March 2025. (Getty)

The fabricated panic over antisemitism in the U.S. medical community conceals an attack on Palestinians

A January 2025 report prepared by the UCLA Task Force on Anti-Palestinian, Anti-Arab, and Anti-Muslim Racism offers a sobering picture of the growing suppression of speech and actions in medical schools and hospitals where there is support for Palestinian human rights and criticism of the genocidal assault on Gaza and the West Bank.

The report reviews data from UCLA where over 24 medical students, residents, and faculty in the David Geffen School of Medicine (DGSOM) experienced intense targeting, gaslighting, harassment, doxxing, death threats, and job loss from both inside and outside the medical school in well-organized campaigns to suppress freedom of speech and to uphold the IHRA definition of antisemitism.

The IHRA definition, which is highly contested in academic and progressive circles, defines antisemitism with the usual anti-Jewish tropes but then lists examples that are various forms of criticism of Israel and Israeli policies. These social media attacks quickly rose to the attention of high-level administrators, the media, and ultimately the U.S. Congress, threatening the targets’ mental and physical safety.

UCLA courses on Structural Racism and Health Equity (SRHE) and Global Health, as well as classes on race and health inequities, were all vulnerable to attacks, particularly if they focused on Palestinian human rights. This repression and retaliation extended to other academic inquiries on racial justice, health inequities, and DEI initiatives and often targeted women of color. People were confronted in response to social media posts as well as for curricula, protests, statements, and buttons, and lectures were illegally recorded and weaponized (continue reading here).

RELATED: How Israel twists antisemitism claims to project its own crimes onto Palestinians

MORE NEWS:

Anadolu Agency: Devastated by Israel, Palestinian team saves centuries-old manuscripts from ruined Gaza’s Omari Mosque library

Middle East Monitor: 75% of Israelis say Netanyahu should take responsibility for 7 October attack and resign

Palestine Chronicle: Growing Calls for IAEA to Inspect Israel’s Nuclear Facilities

IMEMC Daily Reports

STATISTICS OCTOBER 7, 2023 – MARCH 10, 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

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.https://israelpalestinetimeline.org/death-chart-650px/Hover over each bar for exact numbers. Source: IsraelPalestineTimeline.org

Kathryn Shihadah