genocide

The Caucasus

‘Trump Corridor’ through Armenia under ‘peace’ deal

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan of Armenia and President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan signed a joint declaration at the White House, with Donald Trump boasting that the US-brokered deal ends decades of conflict between the Caucasus neighbors. Critically, the agreement calls for a new transport corridor across Armenian territory, linking Azerbaijan to its exclave of Nakhchivan, which lies between Armenia and the borders with Turkey and Iran. The corridor is to be named the “Trump Route for International Peace & Prosperity,” and Armenia has granted the United States the right to manage it for 99 years. US companies will have exclusive development rights on the corridor throughout this period. (Map: Peter Hermes Furian/Shutterstock via The Conversation)

Palestine

Netanyahu seeks re-occupation of Gaza: reports

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly told his ministers that he will seek cabinet approval for a plan to fully occupy the Gaza Strip. According to reports in the Israeli media, several ministers said Netanyahu used the term “occupation of the Strip” in private conversations describing his plan. One anonymous official was quoted as saying: “The die is cast—we are going for a full occupation of the Gaza Strip.” Referring to IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, who is said to oppose such plans, the official added: “If the chief of staff doesn’t agree, he should resign.” These reports come as more than a dozen former senior Israeli security officials issued a joint video message with a call to end the war in Gaza, arguing that it has become damaging to Israel’s own national interests. (Photo: Jaber Jehad Badwan via Wikimedia Commons)

Palestine

UN decries ‘weaponized hunger’ in Gaza —again

Several United Nations agencies condemned the use of starvation as a weapon of war, as malnutrition rates in Gaza spike under Israeli siege. During the UN Food Systems Summit Stocktake taking place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Secretary-General António Guterres stressed: “Hunger fuels instability and undermines peace. We must never accept hunger as a weapon of war.” Guterres’ statement follows Israel’s decision to permit a one-week scale-up of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, where famine conditions now prevail. UN agencies welcomed the easing of aid restrictions and so-called “humanitarian pauses” in the ongoing bombardment; however, as emphasized by UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher: “This is progress, but vast amounts of aid are needed to stave off famine and a catastrophic health crisis.” (Photo: Maan News Agency)

Syria

Syria: revolution on the razor’s edge

The investigation by the Syrian transition government into the March violence against the Alawites in Latakia province has been submitted—but the full findings have not been made public, and it apparently exonerates the government of involvement. Meanwhile southern Suwayda province has seen a perhaps even deadlier eruption of violence—this time pitting Druze against Bedouin, with the role of the government similarly the source of much contestation (and fodder for Internet partisans). And a Damascus protest against the violence and for co-existence was attacked by goons. Amid all this, Israel is militarily intervening, the government looks to Turkey for military aid, and both the US and Russia still have forces on the ground—treating the country as a Greet Power chessboard. In Episode 288 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg warns that the Syrian Revolution is poised on a razor’s edge, ready to descend into ethno-sectarian war and authoritarianism unless political space can be kept open for the secular-democratic civil resistance that began the revolution 14 years ago. (Image: Banners read “Syrians must not shed Syrian blood” and “We reject Israeli aggression against Syria.” Credit: The Syria Campaign via Facebook)

Syria

Syria: Israel intervenes amid Druze-Bedouin fighting

Days of clashes between Bedouin tribes and local fighters in the predominantly Druze city of Suwayda in southern Syria left some 300 dead before a ceasefire was brokered by the government. Amid the fighting, Israeli warplanes bombed Syrian government tanks as they advanced on Suwayda, and also struck military targets around Damascus. Some 1,000 Israeli Druze also amassed on the Purple Line, separating Israeli-controlled and Syrian-controlled territory in the Golan Heights, saying they were prepared to cross over to protect their brethren in Suwayda. IDF Brig. Gen. (res.) Amal As’ad, a prominent member of Israel’s Druze community, accused Syrian transitional president Ahmed al-Sharaa of seeking to “eliminate the Druze,” and criticized Israel for seeking peace with Damascus even amid the attacks. (Map: Google)

Palestine

Podcast: Orwell in Gaza

Amid starvation and horrifically escalating atrocities in Gaza, Israel announces plans to build a giant concentration camp on the ruins of Rafah, an evident preparation for forced “transfer” of the Palestinian population from the Strip entirely—an idea Trump enthusiastically embraces. On the West Bank, amid growing settler attacks, more Palestinian land is enclosed behind separation walls built to protect Israeli settlements. Amid all this, Benjamin Netanyahu (wanted for war crimes by the ICC) meets with Trump in Washington to openly discuss the “transfer” plan—and announces that he has nominated the American president for the Nobel Peace Prize. In Episode 286 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg argues that Trump could in fact get get the Nobel prize while facilitating genocide in Gaza and instating a mass detention state in the US—a fitting inauguration of the fascist world order. (Photo: Jaber Jehad Badwan via Wikimedia Commons)

North Africa

Mass graves found at Libya detention centers

The United Nations is demanding an urgent investigation after several mass graves were discovered at detention sites in Libya. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said: “Our worst held fears are being confirmed: dozens of bodies have been discovered at these sites, along with the discovery of suspected instruments of torture and abuse, and potential evidence of extrajudicial killings.” About 80 bodies, some of them partially charred, were found at sites around Tripoli used for detention of migrants by a semi-official militia, the Stabilization Support Apparatus (SSA). The SSA leader, who went by the nom de guerre Gheniwa, was killed last month in an apparent purge of potentially disloyal elements by the Tripoli government, and his detention sites taken over. Türk called for the sites to be immediately “sealed off” and for Libyan authorities to conduct “prompt, independent, impartial and transparent investigations.” (Photo: Alessio Romenzi/UNICEF via UN News)

Planet Watch

Podcast: in defense of dissident minorities

Amid the massive war crimes committed by Russia in Ukraine and Israel in Gaza, there are dissident Russians and dissident Israelis who are courageously protesting, and resisting the consolidation of a pro-genocide consensus. Recent violent and deadly attacks on perceived Israeli or pro-Israel human targets in the US meanwhile point to the dangers of the notion of collective guilt. In Episode 281 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg urges that dissident minorities must not be dismissed as irrelevant, but encouraged and offered solidarity. (Photo via Novaya Gazeta)

Palestine

Gaza: aid agencies reject Israel’s ‘humanitarian’ plan

Amid growing warnings of starvation, the Israeli military allowed humanitarian aid into Gaza for the first time in more than 11 weeks. The first trucks were permitted to pass through the Kerem Shalom crossing after the UK, France and Canada threatened to sanction Israel if it did not allow in assistance. UN Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs Tom Fletcher welcomed the move, but said it was a “drop in the ocean of what is urgently needed.” In an open letter issued the same day the first trucks were allowed in, nearly a dozen international aid and human rights groups warned that a US-backed organization set up to take over aid distribution in Gaza is “a dangerous, politicized sham.” They charged that the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) has been launched without Palestinian involvement, while the population in Gaza remains under siege. (Photo: Maan News Agency)

Afghanistan

Afghans out; Afrikaners in

Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem announced the termination of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Afghans, saying that the “conditions in Afghanistan” no longer warrant continuing the program. Afghanistan is experiencing a dire human rights crisis under renewed Taliban rule. Human Rights Watch has reported that individuals who have links with the previous Afghan government’s security forces (or the US-led force that backed it) face violent reprisals such as extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, arbitrary detention and torture. Meanwhile, nearly 60 white South Africans were admitted into the US as part of Trump’s resettlement program for Afrikaners who say they fear persecution. Trump, who has otherwise virtually shut down the US asylum program, said that a “genocide” against “white farmers” is taking place in South Africa. Bill Frelick, head of the Refugee & Migrants Rights Division at Human Rights Watch, responded that Trump’s claim “is not actually supported from any of the information that we have seen.” (Photo: USMC Staff Sgt. Victor Mancilla/CentComPublic Affairs via Wikimedia Commons)

Palestine

Israeli cabinet approves ‘conquest’ of Gaza

The Israeli government unveiled a new military plan for the Gaza Strip, an operation forebodingly dubbed “Gideon’s Chariots” after an Old Testament conqueror. Approved unanimously by the security cabinet, the plan calls for the “conquering of Gaza” and retaining the territory indefinitely, an official said. The plan also includes concentrating the Palestinian civilian population in a “sterile area” in the south of the Strip. The official said Israel will give Hamas until the end of US President Donald Trump’s upcoming trip to the Middle East to agree to a hostage deal. Otherwise, “Operation Gideon’s Chariots will begin with great force and will not end until all its objectives are achieved.” The military is already calling up tens of thousands of reservists in preparation for the new operation. (Photo: Jaber Jehad Badwan via Wikimedia Commons)

Syria

Israel escalates Syria strikes —in name of protecting Druze

Syrian Druze leader Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri accused the interim government of carrying out a “genocidal attack” on his community following two days of sectarian violence that left 100 dead. Clashes broke out in the Damascus suburbs of Jaramana and Sahnaya, and armed residents began to mobilize in the Druze-majority southern city of Suwayda before a truce was reached. But by then Israel had escalated its military intervention in Syria, launching air-strikes on targets around Damascus. In a statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the IDF had “struck an extremist group” that was killing members of the Druze community. This is presumably a reference to the now ostensibly disbanded Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the leading faction in the forces that took power in Syria and formed the transition government late last year. It is unclear who launched the attacks that sparked the fighting, which were condemned by the interim government. (Map: PCL)