U.S. Appeals Court Upholds Hate Crime Charges Against the 3 Racists who Murdered Ahmaud Arbery

A federal appeals court upheld the hate crime convictions of three men who chased and killed Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Greg and Travis McMichael, along with William “Roddie” Bryan, were guilty of targeting Arbery because of his race, affirming the jury’s decision from 2022.

The three men are serving life sentences for murder after being convicted in a Georgia state court. [MORE]

Atlanta Cop Still Not Charged After Shooting Black Man 17 Times in the Back. Puppetician DA Fani Willis Doing Nothing after the Police Slaughter of Linton Blackwell, 6 Weeks Ago

ACCORDING TO THE FUNKTIONARY:

Quisling – the name for a traitor, coined in April, 1940, meaning one who is content to accept the yoke of the conqueror for the sake of being given office and trinkets, even against the feeling and expression of the conquered people, and moreover, prepared to use the force continuum against his/her own people to impose the conquerors decrees. (See: SNAGs)

From [HERE] An autopsy showed a Black Georgia police officer shot a black man 17 times in the back during a confrontation outside a bar.

The incident occurred shortly after 11:30 p.m. Oct. 12 outside Atlanta's 5 Paces Inn. According to Atlanta police, Officer Gerald Walker was working extra duty at the bar when he responded to a call about a "disruptive person."

Walker spotted the man, later identified as 44-year-old Linton "B-Green" Blackwell, trying to re-enter the bar from a back entrance. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said Blackwell started walking away from Walker and toward a parking lot. The cop saw Blackwell enter a car "before putting an item in the small of his back." Walker gave Blackwell "commands in reference to a gun" before opening fire, hitting him.

Paramedics pronounced Blackwell dead on scene. Cops recovered a firearm.

But Blackwell's friends and family are questioning whether the shooting was justified. Those concerns grew louder when an autopsy said Blackwell was hit 17 times in the back area, according to local NBC affiliate WXIA.

"I just couldn't believe it was 17 times in the back," Blackwell's friend and manager Timothy Coleman told the TV station. "There's not one shot in the front."

Coleman said he does not believe the shooting was justified.

"If he wasn't pointing a gun at you or doing anything, what does that have to do with shooting him in the back 17 times?" he said in an interview with WXIA. "That means he wasn't facing you. He wasn't a threat."

Walker needs to be charged with a crime, said Coleman.

"I want him locked up," Coleman emphasized. "Gerald Walker needs to be behind bars."

GBI is the lead agency investigating the case. Once it is done with the investigation, it will turn over the findings to the Fulton County District Attorney's Office for review. Prosecutors will determine whether the officer was justified in shooting Blackwell or should face criminal charges. The investigation is ongoing. [MORE]

Fani Willis is the district attorney of Fulton County, Georgia, which contains most of Atlanta, serving since 2021. On behalf of her white liberal masters, Willis aggressively investigated the 2020 presidential election in Georgia, which resulted in indictments against Donald Trump and 18 alleged co-conspirators on charges of racketeering and other crimes. She was subsequently dismissed from this case over concerns of impropriety and conflict of interest. Prior to her election, her most prominent case was her prosecution of the Atlanta Public Schools cheating scandal, in which she sought to incarcerate mostly Black teachers.  

SPACISM: No Place for NGHRS in a Majority Racist Country. Jury Acquits 3 White GA Cops who Tased Eurie Martin to Death, Under Arrest for Walking in a Rural Road w/No Sidewalk After Whites Called 911

ACCORDING TO FUNKTIONARY:

Spacism – racism white supremacy applied to geographical, cultural and geopolitical space; especially the consolidation and concentration of property ownership by Caucasians and Corporations in (or with) economic and political power. 2) urban removal. 3) gentrification. (See: Racism White Supremacy, Property, Capital Punishment & Monopoly Capitalism)

From [HERE] Three white Georgia sheriff’s deputies have been found not guilty of murder in the death of a Black man who raised a white homeowner’s suspicions by asking for a drink of water while walking through a small Georgia town.

After eight years and two trials, the jury verdicts late Thursday also cleared all three of aggravated assault. Scott was acquitted on all charges, but jurors deadlocked on charges of involuntary manslaughter and reckless conduct against Copeland and Howell. A mistrial in 2021 had ended in a deadlock on all counts.

“We’re elated,” Karen Scott said after her son Rhett was finally cleared. “Sorry for the Martin family, but we are just elated.”

Eurie Martin was a 58-year-old mentally ill African-American man that passed while in being detained on the evening of July 7, 2017.

Martin was walking along, or perhaps on, the road going from his home in Milledgeville toward Sandersville. In the settlement of Deepstep, Georgia, he asked Cyrus Harris, a local resident, for water. Harris called 911. 

The local district attorney had recused himself from the second trial, citing a conflict, and prosecution was passed to Don Kelley, the district attorney in Columbus. Pete Skandalakis, the executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council, said Friday that Kelley would have to decide whether to seek a third trial of Copeland and Howell on the involuntary manslaughter and reckless conduct charges.

Martin had been walking through the town of Deepstep in 95-degree heat in July 2017, taking a 30-mile (50-kilometer) journey to see his relatives for his birthday. Trial testimony showed he was under considerable stress from the heat, had a preexisting weakened heart and was dehydrated. He also had been treated for schizoaffective disorder, his family said. The trial was covered by Georgia Public Broadcasting and WMAZ.

The white homeowner who alerted authorities, Cyrus Harris Jr., testified about seeing Martin walk into his yard.

“He was a Black man, big guy,” Harris recalled. “He was a rough-looking character. He looked like he hadn’t had a bath in several days.”

Harris said he noticed Martin carried half a soda can in his hand.

“That’s when he told me he wanted some water. And I wasn’t going to go for that,” said Harris, who called 911.

While attempting to arrest and handcuff Martin, the deputies used Taser devices. Witnesses pointed out that two of the officers were obese.[2]

The three policemen were fired and charged with felony murder, involuntary manslaughter, false imprisonment, aggravated assault and reckless conduct. Medical testimony showed Martin had no drugs in his system.[2] The prosecution also produced witnesses that such a use of a Taser was not within the department's guidelines.[3]

Deputies ultimately pulled the triggers at least 15 times, sending current into Martin’s body for about a minute and a half in total. An autopsy by a Georgia Bureau of Investigation medical examiner concluded his death was a homicide. The Washington County sheriff fired all three of these men after Martin’s death

The deputies had to justify the use of Tasers. They first said that Martin physically threatened him. Without reasonable suspicion of a crime, Martin could legally resist being handcuffed.[4]

Deputies testified that Martin was walking on the road as they arrived, a crime that justified the arrest. The prosecution argued that it was a rural road with no sidewalk, and people commonly walked down the road.[5]

Eyewitnesses Lee Curtis Bentley and Susan Steele testified the lawmen did not give aid to Martin when he was restrained.[2] Which was later shown to be a lie. As video evidence shows at least one deputy as well as police officers and a first responder checking on him. 

The officer's defense initially claimed the killing was covered by Georgia's Stand Your Ground law. This was disallowed. They then maintained their actions were in fact within the Sheriff's Office guidelines and that they were not trained in those guidelines.

In his closing argument, defense attorney Shawn Merzlak said their use of force was reasonable.

“This case is not ‘poor Mr. Eurie Martin getting tased because he wanted water,’” Merzlak told jurors. “Police officers have a right to detain somebody if they suspect they have committed a crime.”

Prosecutor George Lipscomb closed by calling that rationale absurd.

“They want this to be the standard for your community: People killed for littering?” Lipscomb asked jurors. “People killed by walking in the street? Is that Washington County? Is this who you are?”

Never Expect Justice from White Jury: White OH Cop Acquitted in Murder of Pregnant Black Woman Ta’Kiya Young. Liar Cop Claimed to be Threatened by Slow Moving Car, in a County Run by Elite Liberals

UNREPRESENTATIVE JURIES NOT ONLY EXCLUDE AND MARGINALIZE COMMUNITIES OF COLOR, THEY ALSO PRODUCE WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS AND UNFAIR SENTENCES THAT DISPROPORTIONATELY BURDEN BLACK PEOPLE AND PEOPLE OF COLOR. OUR FAILURE TO REMEDY THIS LONGSTANDING PROBLEM OF RACIAL BIAS IMPERILS THE LEGITIMACY OF THE U.S. LEGAL SYSTEM.

A white policeman has been acquitted of murdering a pregnant woman he fatally shot in a supermarket car park in Franklin County Ohio. (Franklin County hasn’t voted for a republican president since 1992.)\

The jurors consisted of four men and eight women and only one person of color. The four alternates are all women, including one person of color. [MORE]

Connor Grubb opened fire at Ta'Kiya Young as he and another officer told her to get out of a vehicle on suspicion of shoplifting alcohol on 24 August 2023.

Bodycam video shows her car rolling slowly towards Mr Grubb outside the Kroger store in a suburb of Columbus. In footage, she could be heard asking: "Are you going to shoot me?" 

An overwhelmingly white jury (11 of 12) unanimously found him not guilty of two counts of murder, two charges of felonious assault, and two counts involuntary manslaughter. Ms Young, 21, was around 25 weeks pregnant. Her unborn daughter also died.

Mr Grubb declined to testify at the trial, which featured 17 witnesses, the Columbus Dispatch reported.

Sean Walton, a lawyer representing the Young family, called the verdict "an American tragedy", the Associated Press reported.

Bodycam video of the incident showed police approaching Ms Young in her car, on suspicion she had shoplifted from a Kroger grocery store.

The video shows two officers speaking with Ms Young.

In the video, her vehicle appears to very very slowly drive toward an officer who then fires as he commands her to exit the car. The officer could have easily moved out the way.

At the time, Mr Grubb's attorney argued his client had reason to believe he might be hit by a moving vehicle.

Over the course of the trial this month, jurors were asked to consider whether it was reasonable for Mr Grubb to have shot Ms Young in the course of his duties as a police officer.

The defence argued in closing arguments that Mr Grubb's actions were "objectively reasonable".

"The reaction of his use of force wasn't prompted because of the theft from the store," said attorney Mark Collins, according to Spectrum News. 

"It was the car coming at him. It's just not that complicated, ladies and gentlemen."

Prosecutors, however, argued that his actions were unjustified.

"The state is not saying that the defendant woke up that morning and wanted to discharge his firearm," said county prosecutor Erin Claypoole. 

"The state is saying when he made that decision, it was not a reasonable one, which means it was not a justified shooting." [sounds like an aggressive effort by white prosecutors who are otherwise preoccupied with putting Black people in greater confinement - no matter how hard Blacks vote for them]

In addition to her unborn child, Ms Young had two young children at the time of her death.

"It's been agony, it's been like a whirlwind of hurt and pain," Nadine Young, Ms Young's grandmother, said last year. [MORE]

‘As a Matter of Fact, Justice Means “Just Us White Folks.” No Such Thing as Justice for Black People in this Country. Justice Can Only Be Random in a Racist System’ - H Rap Brown [RIP]

From [HERE] Iman Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin has returned to paradise. Al-Amin was born on October 4, 1943, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana as Hubert Gerold Brown. In the late 1960s, he emerged as an effective, militant organizer with the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, who became known as H. “Rap” Brown because of his incandescent loquaciousness and verbal dexterity. His voice was backed by a razor-sharp intellect and an uncompromised politics that linked the domestic struggles of African Americans with Vietnam, Cuba, and China. Local and federal law enforcement, including the FBI’s COINTELPRO, targeted Brown, leading to a decades-worth of false charges and unjust, political imprisonment. 

Al-Amin converted to Islam while serving a five-year sentence in Attica and, upon his release, became a respected faith leader in Atlanta’s West End community. Yet the police harassment did not end. In 2002, Al-Amin was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole, convicted on flimsy and contradictory evidence. Al-Amin passed away on November 23, 2025, at the age of 82 in the Federal Medical Center, Butner, North Carolina. A political prisoner, his death was hastened by the medical neglect of the state.

In 1969, as H. Rap Brown, Al-Amin published Die Nigger, Die! his political autobiography. [MORE]

Blight House Narrative Failing: So-Called "DC National Guard Shooter" Worked for the CIA, was Granted Asylum this Year. So-Called "Victims" Joined the Guard Yesterday in an Apparently Fake "Crisis"

From [HERE] The suspect in the shooting of two National Guard members in Washington, DC, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, worked for a CIA-backed “Zero Unit” known as the Kandahar Strike Force (KSF) or the “03” unit, which has been implicated in war crimes against Afghan civilians.

Lakanwal, 29, arrived in the US in September 2021 as part of a program called “Operation Allies Welcome,” which brought tens of thousands of Afghan nationals into the US during and after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, mainly people who worked with the US against the Taliban.

Lakanwal was granted asylum by the Trump administration earlier this year. His cooperation with the CIA has been confirmed by the spy agency’s director, John Ratcliffe, who said Lakanwal worked “with the US Government, including CIA, as a member of a partner force in Kandahar.”

The Zero Units worked under the National Directorate of Security (NDS), an intelligence service in the now-defunct US-backed Afghan government, formally known as the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.

A former Afghan general under the previous US-backed government told CBS News that the “03 unit, also known as The Kandahar Strike Force, was under the special forces directorate of NDS. They were the most active and professional forces, trained and equipped by the CIA. All their operations were conducted under the CIA command.”

Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported in 2019 that Afghan members of the Zero Units “have been responsible for extrajudicial executions and enforced disappearances, indiscriminate airstrikes, attacks on medical facilities, and other violations of international humanitarian law, or the laws of war.” [MORE]

The two National Guardsmen who were critically injured in Wednesday’s terrorist attack have been identified as a male, age 24, and a female, 20.

Clown US Attorney Jeanine Pirro identified both victims during a news conference this morning as Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and Andrew Wolfe, 24. Both members of the West Virginia National Guard had been sworn in just one day before they volunteered to serve in DC and were shot in the street. [MORE]

'Preciate Your Service NGHR.' Report Details the Overrepresentation of Military Veterans on Death Row and "the ​bat­tle­field-to-prison pipeline" for Soldiers (human resources—walking fodder)

ACCORDING TO FUNKTIONARY:

soldiers – tools (living human resources—walking fodder); corporate mercenaries used by the legistraitors, wordsymthologists, journalists, and politicians to impose the will of their Corporate masters and imperialistic soothsayers (i.e., CrimethInc.). “It is impossible to give the soldier a good education without making him a deserter. His natural foe is the government that drills him.” ~H.D. Thoreau. Anyone overstanding the real cost of war (not counting the costs of perpetrating it) and the fictitious nature of Corporate State and the real benefactors behind the scenes—has to become a conscientious objector or an enemy outpost in one’s own (controlled by another) mind. The ideologues of vanity manipulate the power-hungry purveyors of profit-motive insanity into perpetrating crimes against humanity. (See: GI Bill, Citizen DUPE, CABS, Class, Mass & Souldier)

TARGETING BLACK VETERANS. From [HERE] The Death Penalty Information Center has released new data and analysis about the treatment of military veterans accused of capital crimes. Forgotten Service, Lasting Wounds: Military Veterans and the Death Penaltyreveals that about 200 military veterans are currently sentenced to death nationwide and that one of every seven people executed in the modern death penalty era was a veteran.

“Our research shows that the military service of capital defendants is often minimized or forgotten, even when the experience has been life altering,” Robin M. Maher, Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Center said in a statement. “Veterans’ untreated physical and psychological wounds can result in serious addiction and behavior problems that juries should meaningfully understand before making life-or-death sentencing decisions. Unfortunately, that does not happen in too many death penalty cases.”

Indeed, researchers found that many of the 226 military veterans executed since 1972 were put to death without a jury ever hearing meaningful information about their service—even though the Supreme Court has recognized that military service can provide powerful evidence against imposing the death penalty.

Seven veterans have been executed so far this year, including Jeffrey Hutchinson, who suffered from the physical and psy­cho­log­i­cal haz­ards of mil­i­tary ser­vice, includ­ing Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, trau­mat­ic brain injury, and neu­ro­tox­in expo­sure, according to the report.

Researchers found that 40% of veterans sentenced to death had experienced addiction, compared to 11% of all veterans and 12% of the general public.

Veterans are overrepresented among people sentenced to death across the country—the data shows they make up about 10% of people facing execution while only 6% of the general public are veterans.

Of veterans who served in active combat, 66% fought in Vietnam, according to the report.

Three more veterans are scheduled for execution before the end of the year.

RichCraft: Who Really Owns America? The Banks, the Billionaires, and the Deep State

“The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don’t. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything… It’s called the American Dream, ‘cause you have to be asleep to believe it.”—George Carlin

From [HERE] As President Trump floats the idea of 50-year mortgages, Americans are being sold a new version of the American Dream—one that can never truly be owned, only leased from the banks, billionaires, and private equity landlords who profit from our permanent state of debt.

Which begs the question: who owns America?

Is it the government? The politicians? The corporations? The foreign investors? The American people?

While the Deep State keeps the nation divided and distracted by circus politics, America is literally being bought and sold right out from under us.

Consider the facts.

Homeownership—the cornerstone of middle-class stability—is being transformed into a lifetime rental agreement. Cars, homes, and even college degrees have become indentured commodities in a debt-driven economy where the average American family serves as collateral for Wall Street’s profits.

This is not accidental.

It’s the natural evolution of an economy built to enrich the few at the expense of the many.

The American Dream has been repackaged as a subscription service—an illusion of ownership propped up by 0% down payments, predatory interest rates, and fine print that lasts a lifetime.

What used to be called “buying” is now simply renting from the future. [MORE]

2 Studies Link Poverty, Debt to Early Death for Americans

Poverty and indebtedness increase a person's risk of dying young, a pair of new studies say.

People with poverty-level family income or increasing debt levels during early adulthood have higher odds of premature death, two studies published in the November issue of The Lancet Public Health suggest.

Further, the more time spent in poverty or with increasing levels of debt, the higher the risk of early death, results showed.

"Greater cumulative exposure to poverty across emerging and established adulthood is associated with a greater risk for premature mortality," senior researcher Adina Zeki Al Hazzouri, an associate professor of epidemiology at Columbia Mailman School of Public Health, said in a news release. [MORE]

Trump's Pentagon Name Change could Cost Up to $2 Billion

President Donald Trump’s directive to change the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War could cost as much as $2 billion, according to six people with knowledge of the potential cost.

The name change, which must be approved by Congress, would require replacing thousands of signs, placards, letterheads and badges, as well as any other items at U.S. military sites around the world that feature the Department of Defense name, according to two senior Republican congressional staffers, two senior Democratic congressional staffers and two other people briefed on the potential cost.

New department letterhead and signage alone could cost about $1 billion, according to the four senior congressional staffers and one of the people briefed on the potential cost. [MORE]

US Business-as-Usual as Trump Bombs the Poorest Country on Earth (Somalia)

From [HERE] Hardly reported in the Western media is the blitzkrieg being conducted by the Trump administration on Somalia, the easternmost country on the African continent, and one of the world’s poorest.

Donald Trump began his presidency in January 2025, declaring himself a peacemaker to end all U.S. overseas wars. He even thinks he deserves a Nobel Peace Prize despite ordering a massive aerial bombardment of Iran earlier this year and launching the ongoing aggression against Venezuela, including blowing up dozens of civilian boats off the Latin American coast.

But perhaps the biggest anomaly in Trump’s peace posturing is the U.S. airstrikes in Somalia. Last week, the country was bombed for the 90th time this year, according to reporting in antiwar.com. Trump’s secret war in Somalia is not being reported by the mainstream media. No surprise there, given the Western media’s longtime shameful role of covering up for U.S. illegal aggression. Nor is the Pentagon providing any data on casualties.

To put the scale of this military involvement into perspective, 90 bombing raids on Somalia during 10 months of Trump’s second presidency compare with a total of 51 airstrikes on Somalia under Biden in four years and 48 under Obama in eight years. (Of course, a separate question is: what gives any U.S. president the right to bomb the impoverished African country in the first place?)

The only other country bombed as intensively is Yemen, the Arabian Peninsula nation located north of Somalia, across the Gulf of Aden. In two months during Trump’s second presidency, the number of Yemenis killed by U.S. airstrikes – over 200 – was almost as many as had been recorded in the previous 20 years of American bombardment, according to an airwars.org study. Trump’s bombing of Yemen stopped after a ceasefire was called in June 2025. (Separately, a U.S.-backed Saudi war on Yemen from 2015 killed tens of thousands.)

Somalia and Yemen – 19 and 42 million population, respectively – are ranked among the poorest 10 countries on Earth. [MORE]

Justice Dept Asserts Frivolous Basis for Trump's Murders of Civilians on Private Boats in the Caribbean who Posed No Imminent Threat to the US and Other Means to Stop Boats were Reasonably Available

From [HERE] In 2003 the U.S. Justice Department’s Office of Legal Council (OLC) issued a memo which declared the use of torture in ‘authorized military interrogations’ as legal when done under the ‘president’s constitutional authority to direct a war’.

The memo was widely condemned. The Obama administration withdrew it but refrained from prosecuting the torturers which had used it as cover.

The Trump administration now issued a comparable OLC memo to justify its wanton killing of alleged drug smugglers at sea.

Starting in September the Trump administration announced 19 strikes on boats in the Caribbean which have killed at least 76 seafarers. Most of them were random poor people:

One was a fisherman struggling to eke out a living on $100 a month. Another was a career criminal. A third was a former military cadet. And a fourth was a down-on-his-luck bus driver.

The men had little in common beyond their Venezuelan seaside hometowns and the fact all four were among the more than 60 people killed since early September when the U.S. military began attacking boats that the Trump administration alleges were smuggling drugs.

The argument of the new OLC memo is even more frivolous (archived) than the torturous reasoning of the former one:

The opinion, which runs nearly 50 pages, also argues that the United States is in a “non-international armed conflict” waged under the president’s Article II authorities, a core element to the analysis that the strikes are permissible under domestic law.

The armed-conflict argument, which was also made in a notice to Congress from the administration last month, is fleshed out in more detail by the OLC. The opinion also states that drug cartels are selling drugs to finance a campaign of violence and extortion, according to four people.

That assertion, which runs counter to the conventional wisdom that traffickers use violence to protect their drug business, appears to be part of the effort to shoehorn the fight against cartels into a law-of-war framework, analysts said.

The true purpose of drug cartels is obviously to make money. There is no evidence that any drug cartel ever has been or is in business because it wanted to create violence.

By framing the military campaign as a war, the administration is able to argue that murder statutes do not apply, said Sarah Harrison, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group and a former Pentagon lawyer. “If the U.S. is at war, then it would be lawful to use lethal force as a first resort,” she said. The president, she argued, “is fabricating a war so that he can get around the restrictions on lethal force during peacetime, like murder statutes.”

There is nobody internationally who will accept such a stupid argument as justification for blowing up random boats at sea. [MORE] and [MORE]

'They Arrived in Hell': Venezuelans Deported by US to El Salvador Tortured, Sexually Abused

Venezuelan migrants sent by the United States to El Salvador were "tortured" and subjected to sexual violence and other abuses in the mega-prison where they were held for four months, human rights groups have alleged.

The report, "They Arrived in Hell", was published by Human Rights Watch and Cristosal, a Central American NGO, on Wednesday.

It documents the transfer of 252 Venezuelans to the CECOT facility in March and early April.

The migrants were accused, without evidence, of belonging to the Tren de Aragua gang.

Their transfer came from an agreement between US President Donald Trump and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele involving the payment of millions of dollars.

After interviewing 40 of the Venezuelan detainees and 150 others linked to the cases, Human Rights Watch says the abuses were not isolated but systematic. [MORE]

IsrAlien Authorities Have Destroyed More Than 1,500 buildings in Gaza Since the Cease-Slaughter

Israel has destroyed more than 1,500 buildings in areas of Gaza that have remained under its control since the ceasefire with Hamas started on 10 October, satellite images reviewed by BBC Verify show.

The new photos - the latest of which was taken on 8 November - show that entire neighbourhoods controlled by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have been levelled in less than a month, apparently through demolitions.

The actual number of destroyed buildings could be significantly higher, with satellite imagery for some areas being unavailable for BBC Verify's assessment.

Some experts have argued that the demolitions may violate the terms of the ceasefire brokered by the US, Egypt, Qatar and Turkey. But an IDF spokesperson told BBC Verify that it was acting "in accordance with the ceasefire framework".

US President Donald Trump's 20 point peace plan for Gaza - the basis for the ceasefire - stated "all military operations, including aerial and artillery bombardment, will be suspended". He has since repeatedly stated that "the war is over". [MORE]

There Have Only Been 3 Criminal Indictments Against Israeli Soldiers for War Crimes During Gaza Genocide

In the 18-month period between when Israel launched its genocidal assault on Gaza in October 2023 through to March 2025—during which Israel killed over 50,300 Palestinians, the majority of them women, children, and the elderly—the Israeli military filed just three criminal indictments for all Gaza-related offenses, according to six responses to freedom of information requests reviewed by Drop Site that were filed by Israeli human rights group Yesh Din between January 2024 and April 2025. Only one of the indictments resulted in a conviction, while the two other cases are still pending.

The files show that when cases enter the system, they remain there indefinitely under review with no visible endpoint. Investigations are opened very rarely, and they almost never conclude. The system is designed as a smokescreen, human rights groups argue, to give the impression of due process while allowing Israeli soldiers to commit crimes against Palestinians with blanket impunity. [MORE]

'Israel' Sent Palestinians into Explosive Tunnels

US intelligence collected last year reportedly captured Israeli officials discussing incidents in which Palestinians were sent into Gaza tunnels that Israeli forces suspected might contain explosives, Reuters reported, citing two former US officials familiar with the matter.

The scheme has also been widely deployed during raids on the West Bank.

The intelligence was shared with the White House and examined by the US intelligence community during the final weeks of former President Joe Biden’s administration. International law prohibits the use of civilians as shields during military operations.

Officials within the Biden administration had long expressed concern over media reports suggesting Israeli soldiers were using Palestinians to shield themselves in Gaza.

The new intelligence reportedly provided Washington with its own confirmation on the issue, which had not been previously reported. [MORE]

“Shoot Without Restraint”: Israeli Soldiers Describe a Free-For-All in Gaza Genocide, With Civilians Killed at Officers’ Whim

Israeli soldiers have described a complete breakdown of order and legal restraint in Gaza, where Palestinian civilians were killed during the genocide at the whim of individual officers.

According to testimony in the TV documentary Breaking Ranks: Inside Israel’s War, due to be broadcast in the UK on ITV on Monday evening and reported by The Guardian, all Israeli soldiers pointed to the evaporation of the official code of conduct concerning civilians.

“If you want to shoot without restraint, you can,” Daniel, the commander of an Israeli occupation forces tank unit, says.

The soldiers confirmed the military’s routine use of human shields, contradicting official denials, and gave details of Israeli troops opening fire unprovoked on civilians seeking food handouts at aid distribution centers run by the infamous US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). [MORE]

“The Rape Lasted About 10 Minutes”: Released Palestinian Detainees Describe “Organized and Systematic” Sexual Torture in Israeli Prisons

From [HERE] Recently released Palestinian detainees who were abducted from the Gaza Strip by Israeli forces have described an “organized and systematic practice of sexual torture,” including rape and sexual assault with objects and dogs, as well as deliberate psychological humiliation, part of a growing series of reports of sexual abuse in Israeli prisons.

In a new report by the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) depending on testimonies from a number of Palestinian detainees from Gaza who were abducted by Israeli forces during the genocide in Gaza and recently released from Israeli prisons and detention camps, the accounts reveal an “organized and systematic practice of sexual torture.”

This include rape, forced stripping, forced filming, sexual assault using objects and dogs, in addition to deliberate psychological humiliation aimed at “crushing human dignity and erasing individual identity entirely.”

PCHR has affirmed that the “harrowing” testimonies do not reflect isolated incidents but “constitute a systematic policy practiced in the context of the ongoing crime of genocide against more than two million people.”

The PCHR noted that the arrests, including women, were carried out without any legal justification other than the victims being residents of the Gaza Strip, as part of a policy of “collective punishment designed to humiliate Palestinians and inflict maximum psychological and physical harm on them.”

N.A., a 42-year-old Palestinian woman, was arrested at an Israeli checkpoint in northern Gaza in November 2024. She reported to the PCHR that she was repeatedly raped, beaten, electrocuted, verbally abused, stripped, and filmed by Israeli soldiers during her detention. She remained in these conditions for several days before being moved to another room.

“The rape lasted about 10 minutes. After that, they left me for an hour in the same position, with my hands cuffed to the bed with metal handcuffs, my face on the bed, my feet on the floor, and I was completely naked,” she said, adding “I wished for death every moment.”

These accounts confirm long-reported and well-documented incidents of sexual abuse and rape by Israeli soldiers against Palestinian detainees.