An Iranian government spokesperson, Fatemeh Mohajerani, has declared that the attacked “bridges and the Pasteur Institute are symbols of Iran’s scientific strength” in response to the latest US onslaught.

She added that they were “the product of a civilisation that spans thousands of years” and that “its depth is hard to grasp for those who speak the language of the ‘Stone Age.’”

“For a land that has lit the lamps of knowledge for centuries, these threats carry only one meaning: you can strike the infrastructure, but you will not touch the roots of a nation . . .

“Iran will rebuild and continue moving forward,” Mohajerani said.

This comes as the United States and Israel have escalated their attacks on civilian infrastructure in Iran, destroying a historical medical research facility, as well as a vital bridge connecting the capital to other regions in the country.

The illegal and unprovoked US-Israeli war of aggression on Iran has targeted and destroyed the Pasteur Institute of Iran, one of the country’s leading public health and research institutions, in a direct attack on civilian and scientific infrastructure in the country.

JUST IN:

US and Israel have targeted Iran’s B1 Bridge in Karaj again, the tallest bridge in the Middle East.

The renewed strike occurred while rescue and relief teams were assisting victims from the initial attack… See more pic.twitter.com/EojvvsPp9V

— Ayatollah Alireza Arafi (@Realarafi) April 2, 2026

In numbers — human cost of the war on Iran:

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Israel’s Parliament has approved a one-sided death penalty measure to execute Palestinians.

It is one of the most extreme laws in the nation’s history, and will exacerbate the far-right government’s illegal system of apartheid.

Some members of the Knesset, including ultranationalist National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, were seen wearing noose pins in the Knesset yesterday, and celebrating with champagne on live TV after the bill passed.

Ben-Gvir said hanging is “one of the options,” as is execution by the electric chair or euthanasia.

The law was passed with 62 votes to 48 in its final reading.

The bill drew international condemnation ahead of its passage, including from the European Union, UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, and Amnesty International. Human rights groups have vowed to challenge the bill in Israel’s Supreme Court.

The legislation, which has garnered broad public support in Israel, authorises executions for “terrorists” who kill “with the intent to deny the existence of the State of Israel,” according to Haaretz — effectively ensuring it won’t apply to any of the settlers who routinely murder Palestinians.

‘Confessions’ by torture
In military courts in the occupied West Bank, execution by hanging will now be the default punishment for terrorism. Only Palestinians are tried in these courts, and 96 percent of people are convicted, though cases are largely built on “confessions” extracted through torture.

The International Centre of Justice for Palestinians condemned the bill yesterday ahead of the vote as an “extreme escalation in Israel’s genocidal policies against Palestinians”.

“The progression of the legislation marks not just a profoundly unjust and illegal act of discrimination under international law, but a far more sinister escalation of Israel’s apartheid legal systems,” the center wrote.

Israeli Knesset death penalty for Palestinians.       Video: Al Jazeera

Israel is currently imprisoning about 9500 Palestinians, according to the human rights group B’Tselem, and about half of them are held under administrative detention.

According to the group, the Israel Prison Service has already started to prepare designated execution facilities.

B’Tselem on Sunday called the bill “another official killing mechanism” that will further normalise the slaughter of Palestinians, as Israel continues its genocide in Gaza and intensifies attacks in the occupied West Bank.

Human rights violation
“The death penalty is a total violation of the most basic human rights, primarily, the right to life,” B’Tselem wrote.

“Israel enforces a comprehensive policy of killing and oppression against the Palestinian people in all the territories it controls. The Death Penalty Law gives Israel’s apartheid regime yet another tool for advancing that policy.”

On top of Monday’s bill, the Knesset is also considering another death penalty measure to impose on alleged October 7, 2023, attackers.

According to Amnesty International, that bill would effectively expand the unilateral powers of military judges and eliminate judicial safeguards.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Despite differences in their political systems, all three governments follow an approach that prioritises “national morale” and “operational security” over press freedom and the flow of information.

This approach redefines the concept of fake news and extends its authority to managing public sentiment, making coverage more “positive” and “optimistic”.

The goal is unified: to turn media into a state mouthpiece that tells only the official narrative of the war.

The Trump administration’s political pressure
In the US, media restrictions don’t appear as direct bans on journalism, as in more authoritarian systems. Instead, pressure comes through political and regulatory channels, alongside attempts to shape the war narrative against Iran.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr warned broadcasters they could lose their licences if they aired what he described as “false news” about the war.

In a post on X on March 14, Carr said stations airing “misleading” information had the opportunity “to correct course” before licence renewal. He added: “The law is clear: broadcast stations must operate in the public interest, or they will lose their licences.”

Later, President Donald Trump said he was extremely pleased to see Carr review licences of “corrupt” and “unpatriotic” news organisations because they “coordinate with Iran” and “should face treason charges”.

Regulatory pressure is accompanied by a political and media campaign to shape a specific image of the war.

Trump attacked major newspapers such as The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal for reports of damage to US military aircraft at a Saudi base, calling them “degenerate journalism” that wanted the country to “lose the war”.

This pressure has also extended to the military.

At a Pentagon press conference, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth accused the media of downplaying the success of the military campaign against Iran, criticised coverage of operations, suggested alternative headlines for television reports, and named CNN specifically, saying its performance would improve if ownership and management changed.

In an incident bordering on the absurd, The Washington Post reported that the Pentagon barred journalists from attending war briefings after Hegseth’s team objected to his appearance in previously taken photos, restricting access to Pentagon photographers.

Nevertheless, pressures did not start with the war on Iran.

In October 2025, the Department of War announced a new policy regulating journalists’ work inside the Pentagon, requiring official approval before publishing any information, even if it was not classified.

The Trump administration justified the restrictions as necessary for national security. Hegseth said access to the Pentagon was “a privilege, not a right,” while Trump argued the limits were needed because the press was “dishonest”.

Measures included removing dedicated offices for some media outlets and replacing them with shared facilities under a new rotation system.

Israel kills three Lebanese journalists                   Video: Al Jazeera

Israel’s approach
In Israel, media restrictions during war take a different form that is based on strict military censorship and obstructing journalists in the field, in addition to targeting media institutions in Iran and Lebanon.

This month, the Israeli military censor issued new instructions to foreign media limiting coverage of rocket attacks within Israel.

These included banning live broadcasts during sirens, forbidding filming missile interceptions or impact sites near security installations, and preventing the publication of exact impact locations or reposting videos from social media without prior approval.

Authorities justified the restrictions as a way to prevent opponents from using media coverage to “improve missile strike accuracy”.

Israeli forces detained CNN Türk reporter Emrah Cakmak and cameraman Khalil Kahraman during a live broadcast from Tel Aviv following an Iranian missile attack, confiscating their phones, camera, and microphone, and accessing a password-protected phone without permission.

The journalists stated that their equipment was not returned.

On the same day, Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Communications Minister Shlomo Karai announced stricter measures against foreign media violating military censorship instructions, adopting a policy of “zero tolerance”.

Authorities also detained Turkish journalists Ilyas Efe Ünal and Adam Metan while crossing from Egypt into Israel on March 4. Metan said they were interrogated for about six hours before being released.

The following day, Haifa municipal police attempted to remove international media teams covering war-related events, including CNN, Fox News, BBC, Anadolu Agency, and Al Arabiya, despite journalists following military censorship rules.

Days later, on March 8, Israeli police prevented Al Araby TV correspondent Abdelkader Abdel Halim from continuing coverage in Haifa, with an officer captured on video saying that “filming is prohibited in Haifa.”

Israeli strikes also targeted media institutions in Lebanon and Iran, and have killed five journalists in Lebanon in the past month — three of them (including a woman) just yesterday in a targeted assassination.

According to Reporters Without Borders, two-thirds of all journalists killed around the world last year were by Israel, mostly in Gaza.

Several Lebanese media outlets were hit during Israel’s raids, including Sawt Al-Farah radio in Tyre, Al Nour radio, and Al Manar TV in Haret Hreik in Beirut’s southern suburbs. And in a separate strike, Saksakiyah media centre in southern Lebanon was also targeted.

In Iran, strikes hit the state-run Radio Dezful offices in Khuzestan, the headquarters of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting in Tehran, a communications centre near the building, as well as the Kurdistan Network TV building in Sanandaj, and the reformist newspaper Sazandegi in Tehran.

Iran’s internet shutdown
If the US uses regulatory tools and Israel relies on military censorship and field restrictions, Iran’s model is based on direct control of information flow. Hours after the US-Israeli aggression began, authorities cut the nationwide internet.

Journalists said the outage hampered communication with sources, sending reports and photos, and verifying field information, while a limited number of users, including state media, retained restricted access through a government-controlled “white internet”.

As the war continued, Tehran tightened legal restrictions on media coverage.

The judiciary criminalised filming or covering US or Israeli strikes in Iran, considering the publication of such material as potential “evidence of cooperation with an enemy“.

Confrontations escalated with calls to target opposition media.

The Tabnak website published an article urging the armed forces to target Iran International TV and suggesting taking action against the channel’s offices and the homes of some staff.

Security agencies carried out a series of arrests in several provinces for sending photos and information about strikes to foreign media, including Iran International, classified by Iran as a “terrorist channel”.

Majdoline Al-Shammouri is a writer based in Beirut. This article was translated from Arabic by Afrah Almatwari and was first published by The New Arab here.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The Middle East is in flames. Britain is being dragged into an illegal war, the aims of which are entirely unclear, reports Richard Sanders of Double Down News.

“It’s a war of choice, and the man who chose it is Benjamin Netanyahu. Why, yet again, is the West dancing to Israel’s tune?

“I’ve made a number of videos exposing Israeli crimes. This one is different. It’s directed at conservatives and people generally who support the state of Israel.

“I believe our indulgence of Israel is not just morally wrong. It’s against the interests of the US and the UK and ultimately against the interests of Israel itself.

“It is leading us all to disaster. Palestine is the place you come thundering, crashing into the buffers, the limits of the Western liberal moral imagination.

“The tragedy and complexity of Israel is that it’s both a product of the most unspeakable racism and a cause of it. Zionism was born from the suffering of Jewish people in Europe, culminating in the Holocaust, from a desire for a safe haven, a territory where Jews would for once be the hosts and not the eternal guests.

“It was framed as a return to a historic biblical homeland. and for its supporters. These two factors give it an entirely different complexion morally from other enterprises where predominantly European populations have settled far-flung parts of the world.

Dispossession and subjugation
“There’s no doubt that the Zionist dream has enormous emotional power. The problem, of course, is the other side of the equation, the people. It was inflicted upon the Palestinians whose experience of dispossession and subjugation was no different from that of countless other peoples subjected to European colonialism.

“In fact, arguably, it’s been considerably worse than many, precisely because of the licence and indulgence granted to the Israeli state.

“Let’s lay out the bold, indisputable facts. In 1948, more than 80 percent of the Palestinian population of what became Israel fled their homes. Now, if you want to believe this was not an act of deliberate ethnic cleansing, fine.

“What’s undeniable is that they were never allowed to return. In 1947, they were there. In 1949, they were not. The granting of the vote to that small fragment of the Palestinian population that remained provided a democratic fig leaf for the new state, one that was blown away once the Israelis occupied Gaza and the West Bank in 1967.

The End of Israel                                     Documentary: Double Down News

“There Palestinians have no right to vote for the political entity, the state of Israel that controls their lives. Jewish settlers, on the other hand, occupying the same territory do.

“Even in East Jerusalem, which as far as the Israeli government is concerned has been formally annexed to Israel, Palestinians cannot vote. Political rights depend upon ethnicity. That is not democracy.

“Israel is and has always been a state whose defining feature is that it’s structured to ensure the domination of one ethnicity over another. What else does the term a Jewish state mean?

‘Elephant in the room’
“This is the elephant in the room. the simple, blindingly obvious, undeniable fact that the Western political media class has decided that we must never mention or acknowledge, despite the fact that all of the world’s leading human rights organisations, including the Israeli NGO B’Tselem, have denounced Israel as an apartheid state.

“Now scour the history of the modern world. No people has ever resigned itself to being second class citizens in their own country. Spend just 10 minutes at a checkpoint in the West Bank and you get it.

“The disfiguring dehumanisation, the humiliation of elderly men and women forced to stand in the sun for hours waiting for 18-year-olds to search them.

“The brutalisation of young men in particular, the daily control of rage that is the lot of every Palestinian. It is simply emotionally, psychologically intolerable.”

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: An Israeli court has closed an investigation into the death of Walid Ahmad, a 17-year-old from the occupied West Bank who died in an Israeli jail six months after he was arrested, held without charges and accused of throwing stones at Israeli soldiers.

An autopsy showed Ahmad likely starved to death after suffering extreme weight loss, muscle wasting and untreated scabies. Human rights groups say nearly 100 Palestinians have died in Israeli jails since October 2023.

Meanwhile, local and international media outlets report Israeli forces recently tortured a Palestinian toddler in Gaza to coerce a confession from his father.

According to reports from Palestine TV, Al Jazeera and others, the child’s father, Osama Abu Nassar, was detained near the al-Maghazi refugee camp after he came under fire from Israeli soldiers.

He was forced to approach an Israeli checkpoint, where he was separated from his 18-month-old son, stripped naked and forced to watch as soldiers used a cigarette to burn one of the toddler’s legs while using a nail to puncture the other.

AMY GOODMAN: This comes as a new UN report warns Israel is systematically torturing Palestinians on a scale that “suggests collective vengeance and destructive intent”.The report, titled “Torture and Genocide”, was written by Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory.

In July, the Trump administration imposed sanctions on her over her report naming dozens of companies she says are profiting from Israeli occupation and genocide in Gaza. Amnesty International blasted the sanctions as a “shameless and transparent attack on the fundamental principles of international justice”. Francesca Albanese’s new book is When the World Sleeps: Stories, Words and Wounds of Palestine. She joins us from Geneva, Switzerland.

Francesca, thank you so much for being with us. Why don’t you lay out what you found in your new report, “Torture and Genocide,” that you just presented at the U.N. Human Rights Council?

Torture and Genocide — a new UN report.     Video: Democracy Now!

Transcript

FRANCESCA ALBANESE: Thank you. Thank you, Amy and Nermeen.

I’ve been investigating genocide for over two years now. So, five out of eight reports I’ve produced for the United Nations focus on genocide, acts of genocide, the context in which a genocide happens, why the genocide is not stopped, the layers of complicity from states and private companies, which is the reason why also I’m sanctioned by the United States, against which now my 13-year-old daughter, who’s an American citizen, is the only one to take action suing the Trump administration.

But of all the investigations I’ve carried out, this has been absolutely the most excruciating, that led me to say that Israel uses torture in a systematic and widespread fashion, intentionally and sadistically, to break the spirit of the Palestinians, not just as individuals, but as a people, considering the scale and intensity of torture.

And I monitored torture behind bars, collecting hundreds, hundreds of testimonies, directly and from Palestinian and Israeli human rights organizations, but also analyzing what experts call torturous environment, meaning the cumulative impact of all the practices, of all the crimes that Israel has massively inflicted on the Palestinians — again, beyond the torture, sodomisation, raping in jail, the enforced disappearance, which is touching 4000 people.

This is new. This is a new crime, including for Israel, toward the Palestinians. But also starvation, constant forced displacement, not just in Gaza, but in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and home demolition, the fear of being always threatened with death or other crimes, it creates a torturous environment for the Palestinians, which is an essential element of genocide.

And it is genocide.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Francesca, if you could elaborate on this point that you’ve just made and that you make in the report, namely, that torture has effectively become state policy for Israel since October 2023? So, what are the kinds of transformations you’ve seen, both in terms of Israeli security personnel, as well as settlers, against the Palestinians?

FRANCESCA ALBANESE: Yeah, I have to say that what I’ve investigated is something on which even the United Nations Committee Against Torture and the United Nations Independent Commission of Inquiry on Israel/Palestine had shed light already, the fact that Israel, after October 7, has massively used torture to punish the Palestinians vindictively.

In fact, the concept of torture has become a state policy is something that the Committee Against Torture found out recently.

I have zoomed in: What does it mean, and where does it come from? Surely, one of the main engineers or architects of this, what’s been called — what he has called the “prison revolution,” is Itamar Ben-Gvir, was — immediately after October 7, has declared that the Palestinians in jail will not be afforded luxury treatment or five-star treatment anymore, as if it was a five-star hotel, what the Israeli prison system afforded Palestinians before October 7.

By the way, in 2023, in July 2023, I produced a report showing how widespread and systemic was the arbitrary treatment of Palestinian detainees, so, just to give a context.

But the conditions have become more and more brutal, and intentionally so. What does it mean? Palestinians have routinely been abducted — I mean, detained without charge or trial. They’ve been arrested, because Palestinians, if they were specific professionals, like journalists and doctors or headed medical personnel, all the more.

Seventeen hundred Palestinian healthcare personnel have been killed. Hundreds remain in jail. And they have been shackled, blindfolded, beaten, humiliated, stripped naked, photographed, filmed, exposed to Israeli civilians, including settlers, coming in to document and to film, to participate into this orgy of depravity, of how a person can be humiliated.

But the most painful, excruciating thing — and I’ve read some of the testimonies — is how Palestinian women and men have been sodomised, have been raped, with bottles, with knives, with metal rods. Even the prisoner who was sodomised through — was raped with a knife, brought to the hospital.

Five Israeli officials were identified and pressed charged against, and now the charges have been dropped. And the person who leaked the video from within the military apparatus is under house arrest on top of it.

So, not only that I’ve documented the vindictiveness toward the Palestinians, the humiliation, the continuous abuses against them in jail, really to break their spirit once and for all as a people, but also the fact that there has been almost something celebratory against the mistreatment of Palestinians in jail among the society.

The legislative power, the Knesset, has been discussing the right to rape Palestinians, and so other members of the executive. The judiciary has not looked into it. And as I said, even those who were found, caught on video, committing this crime were released.

AMY GOODMAN: Francesca, in this last 30 seconds, what are you calling for?

FRANCESCA ALBANESE: Oh, for justice. Justice. Israel must be stopped, because, Amy, I can’t even use the past tense. As we speak, there are still over 9000 Palestinian hostages, hostages to an unlawful occupation in Israeli jail.

The only thing this — International Court of Justice has spoken. Israel must withdraw the occupation, the troops, the colonies. And the exploitation of Palestinian resources must end.

Meanwhile, the settlers continue to terrorise people. Very few Israelis are engaged against this. So member states must intervene, cut ties and stop weapons transfers to Israel once and for all, and bring the perpetrators to justice.

AMY GOODMAN: Francesco Albanese, we thank you so much for being with us, UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory. We’ll link to your report, “Torture and Genocide,” and have you back on to talk about your book.

Republished from Democracy Now! under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Democrats in Congress have sounded the alarm over US President Donald Trump pledging to commit more war crimes in Iran after he traded threats to energy infrastructure with the Iranian government, with the Republican declaring Saturday that he would take out the country’s power plants unless it reopened the Strait of Hormuz to all traffic.

Just a day after Trump claimed that “we are getting very close to meeting our objectives as we consider winding down our great Military efforts in the Middle East with respect to the Terrorist Regime of Iran,” in a post that remains pinned to the top of his Truth Social profile, the president took to the platform with a clear threat on Saturday night.

“If Iran doesn’t FULLY OPEN, WITHOUT THREAT, the Strait of Hormuz, within 48 HOURS from this exact point in time, the United States of America will hit and obliterate their various POWER PLANTS, STARTING WITH THE BIGGEST ONE FIRST!” Trump said.

Trump’s post came after Ali Mousavi, the Iranian representative to the International Maritime Organisation, told the Chinese news agency Xinhua on Friday that the Strait of Hormuz — the waterway between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman that is a key shipping route, including for fossil fuels — remains open to all vessels not linked to “Iran’s enemies.”

It also followed the Israeli military — which is bombing Iran alongside the United States — suggesting that the US was responsible for a Saturday attack on Iran’s uranium enrichment complex in Natanz.

According to The Associated Press, with his new threat, Trump “may have meant the Bushehr nuclear power plant, Iran’s biggest, which was already hit last week, or Damavand, a natural gas plant near Tehran, Iran’s capital.”

Responding to Trump’s Saturday post, US Representative Don Beyer (D-Va.) said: “It’s important not to shy away from candidly discussing the president’s increasingly erratic behaviour. His worsening instability is a clear and growing threat, not only to the American people but to the world.”

Trump has no plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, so he is threatening to attack Iran’s civil power plants. This would be an attack on civilians. This is what Putin is doing in Ukraine. This would be a war crime. End this war in Iran.

— Ed Markey (@SenMarkey) March 22, 2026

Hell-bent on destruction
Representative Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.) was similarly critical  over Trump’s pledge “From ‘help is on the way’ for Iranian protestors to threatening war crimes against an entire population. The United States is being run by a maniacal tyrant hell-bent on destroying this country and the world along with it.”

Other critics also pointed out that Article 56 of the Geneva Convention states in part that “works or installations containing dangerous forces, namely dams, dykes, and nuclear electrical generating stations, shall not be made the object of attack, even where these objects are military objectives, if such attack may cause the release of dangerous forces and consequent severe losses among the civilian population.”

The AP reported that after that strike on the Natanz complex, “Iranian missiles struck two communities in southern Israel late Saturday, leaving buildings shattered and dozens injured in dual attacks not far from Israel’s main nuclear research center.”

“Israel’s military said it was not able to intercept missiles that hit the southern cities of Dimona and Arad, the largest near the centre in Israel’s sparsely populated Negev desert,” according to the news agency. “It was the first time Iranian missiles penetrated Israel’s air defence systems in the area around the nuclear site.”

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Speaker of Iran’s Parliament, said on X on Saturday that “if the Israeli regime is unable to intercept missiles in the heavily protected Dimona area, it is, operationally, a sign of entering a new phase of the battle… Israel’s skies are defenseless.”

After Trump’s threat, the Speaker added on Sunday that “immediately after the power plants and infrastructure in our country are targeted, the critical infrastructure, energy infrastructure, and oil facilities throughout the region will be considered legitimate targets and will be irreversibly destroyed, and the price of oil will remain high for a long time.”

Jessica Corbett is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams. This article is republished under Creative Commons.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

As we continue to look at the US and Israel war on Iran and Israel’s attacks on Lebanon, we go now to Jerusalem, where we’re joined by Orly Noy. She’s an Iranian Israeli political activist and editor of the Hebrew-language news site Local Call.

She is also the chair of B’Tselem’s executive board. Her new piece for The New York Review of Books is headlined “Longing for My Tehran.”

Orly, welcome back to Democracy Now! If you could talk about this piece you’ve written and why you chose to write it now, “Longing for My Tehran”?

ORLY NOY: Yeah. I mean, as you can imagine, it’s been a very emotional time since the beginning of the war, not just because we are constantly running in and out of shelters, but because this time, the footage of the bombing that I grew accustomed to seeing for over two years from the genocide in Gaza was now coming from my homeland — from my hometown, Tehran, the city where I was born and grew up in.

The cries of people were in Farsi this time, which was — which hit, you know, much closer to my heart. And for me as a writer, as someone whose main tools to understand the world are words, I started writing mainly in order to make some sense of this madness, first of all, to myself.

And then I was asked to publish something, so I sent this. But this was really an attempt to, you know, bring some sense into this chaos that is now our lives here.

Report from Jerusalem.                   Video: Democracy Now!

AMY GOODMAN: Orly, you have talked about the majority of Israelis supporting the war at the moment. But there is opposition. Can you talk about the Israeli objective, and at the same time this threat to turn Iran into Gaza and this increasing violence against Palestinians in the West Bank?

ORLY NOY: Yeah, so, there is — I mean, like every circle of violence that Israel initiates, mostly against Palestinians, there is always a margin of protest and of objection. It’s not small, but it exists.

This time, any attempt — the very few attempts to protest against the war were brutally crushed and dispersed by the Israeli police, which have now become almost entirely — almost like the private militia of the Minister for Homeland Security, the Kahanist Itamar Ben-Gvir.

It is not against the law. It is not illegal to protest. Still it is not illegal to protest in Israel against the war. But trying to please the Kahanist minister, the police very brutally dispersed these protests almost immediately after they began.

In the West Bank, the situation is beyond — I mean, it’s terrifying beyond anything that words can express. You mentioned in your opening the execution of the four members of the Bani Odeh family, including the two parents and two very young kids, in the village of Tammun.

We published yesterday a heartbreaking, really disturbing, one of the most disturbing pieces I’ve edited in my entire career as a journalist, where in one of the villages in the north of the Jordan Valley, settlers gathered the entire inhabitants of this Palestinian little village in one tent and tormented them brutally, hit them, severely sexually abused one of the Palestinian men, and all the while forcing the children to watch them as they torture the older members of the community.

These things have turned into almost daily events. Palestinians are now really — I mean, you know, up until now, our worry was about the ethnic cleansing of the West Bank. Now it is just about executing Palestinians, both by the army and by the settlers.

This is the reality now. They are just executing Palestinians in broad daylight, and nothing is being done about it.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, I’m afraid, Orly, we’re going to have to leave it there. Thank you so much for joining us. Orly Noy is an Iranian Israeli political activist and editor of the Hebrew-language news site Local Call. She’s also the chair of B’Tselem’s executive board. Her new piece, which we’ll link to, in The New York Review of Books is headlined “Longing for My Tehran.”

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The United States and Fiji have filed separate declarations of intervention in South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), alleging the country is committing genocide in Gaza.

While the US explicitly rejects the allegation that Israel is committing genocide, Fiji raises issues about how the 1948 Genocide Convention should be interpreted.

The 34-page Fiji declaration was filed on March 12 and is signed by Ambassador Ilaitia Tamata, Fiji’s Permanent Representative of Fiji to the United Nations and other international organisations in Geneva, reports The Fiji Times.

In the declaration, Fiji said it was exercising its right under Article 63(2) of the ICJ Statute to intervene as a party to the Convention, arguing that the case raises important questions about how it should be interpreted.

The filing confirms that Fiji has appointed its Permanent Representative to Israel, Ambassador Filipo Tarakinikini, as agent for the proceedings.

The Fiji filing was made alongside separate interventions by Namibia and Hungary, according to a press release issued by the court on Friday, reports Middle East Eye.

All four states submitted declarations under Article 63 of the ICJ statute, which allows countries that are parties to a treaty under dispute to intervene in order to present their interpretation of that treaty.

Iceland, Netherlands also file
Earlier on Thursday, Iceland and the Netherlands also filed declarations under Article 63.

South Africa filed the case in December 2023, accusing Israel of breaching the Genocide Convention through its military campaign in Gaza following the Hamas-led attacks of  October 7 that year.

Pretoria argues that Israel’s conduct — including mass killings, destruction of infrastructure and the imposition of conditions of life threatening the survival of Palestinians in Gaza — amounts to genocide.

Israel denies the accusation and claims its war is justified by considerations of self-defence.

The US submission on Thursday stands out among most interventions for directly defending Israel against the accusation brought by South Africa. Taking sides in a case is highly unconventional under Article 63 submissions.

“It’s very unusual for an intervening state (US) to use language like that,” explained Professor Gerhard Kemp, a scholar of international law.

“States normally stick to the legal issues, which can even be helpful for both sides. But terms like ‘false’ or ‘wrong’ don’t really move the needle,” he told Middle East Eye.

“They are probably aimed at a different audience.”

US argues genocide claim ‘false’
In its declaration, Washington argues that allegations that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza are “false” and urges the court to apply a strict legal threshold when determining genocidal intent.

It says, uncontroversially, that genocide can only be established where there is clear proof of specific intent to destroy a protected group.

Israel’s genocide in Gaza: Whatever happened to South Africa’s case at the ICJ?

That intent should only be inferred when it is the only reasonable explanation for the conduct in question, it says.

The submission argues that the ICJ must be fully convinced before determining an act is genocide, due to the exceptional gravity of the crime. It also says civilian casualties and destruction during armed conflict do not by themselves prove genocidal intent.

“The United States submits that the Court should maintain its standard for inferring intent. Lowering the standard risks broadening the application of the term ‘genocide’ such that it no longer carries its original weight and meaning, and invites attempts to misuse the Genocide Convention as a gateway for bringing extraneous disputes before the Court,” the US claimed.

Hungary and Fiji’s submissions similarly advance legal arguments that align closely with Israel’s position in the case.

Narrow interpretation
Hungary’s declaration calls for a narrow interpretation of genocide and emphasises that civilian casualties and destruction during armed conflict do not in themselves demonstrate genocidal intent.

Fiji’s intervention likewise urges the court to apply an extremely high evidentiary threshold for genocide, and cautions against relying heavily on reports by international organisations or non-governmental groups when assessing allegations.

By contrast, Namibia’s declaration focuses on a broader interpretation of the Genocide Convention and emphasises how genocidal intent may be inferred from patterns of conduct and cumulative evidence.

Namibia argues that acts such as the denial of humanitarian aid, repeated displacement and deprivation of basic necessities could fall within the Convention’s prohibition on deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of a protected group.

Its submission also stresses that genocide can be committed through omissions, including a refusal to allow or facilitate life-saving humanitarian assistance to civilians under a state’s control.

Third-state interventions
The new filings add to a rapidly expanding list of states seeking to intervene in the proceedings.

Since April 2024, similar interventions have been submitted by Colombia, Libya, Mexico, Palestine, Spain, Turkey, Chile, the Maldives, Bolivia, Ireland, Cuba, Belize, Brazil, the Comoros, Belgium and Paraguay in support of the South African argument.

Palestine and Belize have also sought to intervene under Article 62 of the court’s statute, which allows states to apply to participate in proceedings if they believe they have a legal interest that could be affected by the court’s decision.

Under Article 63, intervening states do not become parties to the dispute. Instead, they are permitted to present their interpretation of the treaty at issue — in this case the 1948 Genocide Convention.

The interpretation adopted by the court in its eventual judgment will also be binding on those states.

The case has become one of the most closely watched disputes ever heard by the ICJ and has drawn an unusually large number of third-state interventions, which have reached 22.

The court has already ordered Israel in legally binding provisional measures to take steps to prevent acts that could violate the Genocide Convention and to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza.

Israel ignores court orders
Israel has repeatedly ignored the orders.

A final ruling on whether Israel has breached the Convention is expected in 2028. But it could take longer, depending on the length of hearings and the two parties’ adherence to deadlines.

On Thursday, Israel was scheduled to submit its counter-memorial, or arguments in response to South Africa’s accusations, after several deadline extensions by the court.

The court has yet to announce that Israel has filed its evidence, however.

During its devastating onslaught, Israel has so far killed more than 74,000 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them women and children. It has also destroyed most of the enclave’s homes, hospitals, schools and other infrastructure, rendering it largely uninhabitable for its 2.3 million civilians.

A UN commission of inquiry concluded last September that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza since 7 October 2023.

The UN report’s authors, including legal experts Navi Pillay and Chris Sidoti, told Middle East Eye that the report used evidence and a similar methodology in its analysis to that which will be used by the ICJ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz