The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation: an integral part of the U.S-Israeli program of ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza
Israel killed Aboud in Gaza today. He was only 3 years old. Israel dropped a bomb on him while he stood in line for food with other children.
Yet another massacre committed by Israel today (July 10, 2025) – this time the killing 16 civilians standing in line to get food, including 10 children. This genocide has been going on for almost 2 years now, but not a single sanction has been imposed by the EU on Israel. Not a single joint condemnation. This latest killing is the work of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), an Orwellian title for an American led organization committing massacres under the guise of humanitarian aid distribution.
The more learned about GHF, the shadier its record appears to be. GHF is a classic example of the weaponization of U.S. aid. Disturbing accounts have come to the surface about GHF It is implemented by American mercenaries specialized in killing where people are placed in the game square (which starts from the entrance to Nuseirat and ends before the bridge. Snipers shoot at anyone who stands or moves. More and more GHF appears as nothing less than an integral part of the U.S-Israeli program of ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza. It hasn’t taken long for many, even here in the USA soaked in U.S. propaganda, that GHF is a fraud meant to facilitate the ethnic cleansing of Gaza.
Disturbing accounts have been emerging about GHF’s nefarious activities. The aid stations have become death traps. Life has become unbearable. Gaza Palestinians cannot wait for the war to end. In what increasingly appears to be little more than whitewashing propaganda, GHF says that it has consistently shown compassionate engagement with the people of Gaza. But to the contrary it has been accused of using live ammunition and stun grenades as hungry Palestinians scramble for food, this according to accounts and videos obtained by the Associated Press
Far worse it has been accused of what amounts to torturing Palestinians trying to get food aid and killing many of them.
As a Gazan witness has related:
One of GHF’s aid distribution points is Wadi Gaza in the Central Gaza Strip. It is 1700 meters from the Gaza population center to the entrance of the food distribution camp. Crossing the entire length entails moving through a dangerous military zone; even ambulances are prohibited from entering.Any Palestinian entering is immediately targeted
Recently five trucks unloaded approximately 4500 packages for 100,000 people and this in an area that doesn’t exceed one acre. Try to conceive of what it is like to be there, the dangers involved. There are recent reports that people were arrested by Special Forces on the perimeter of the aid center; of course, their fate is unknown. But sadly, such journeys have always been failures due to overcrowding and lack of resources. I’m not exaggerating when I say there are about 100,000 people vying for 8000 food parcels.”
People have been trampled underfoot or suffocated. Unfortunately, no one helped them. Even Gazans seeking aid there have been dehumanized as they are so desperate; their only concern is to acquire a food package. In such situations people don’t care about the person on the ground who is injured or dead; there are a number of missing persons whose fate is still not known to their families.While waiting access to receiving food Palestinians seeking food aid must lay on the ground in order not to be killed. Those who stand up or even move receive the snipers’ bullet.When the signal is given to advance to the food stations at the central square, chaos ensues, as people race to the center square, in desperation, pushing and shoving others out of the way in their frantic race for survival. The amount of time permitted to receive food is extremely limited, perhaps twenty minutes before the time expires. Those remaining longer are shot; the wounded are left to die; no one helps them.
“I’ve only been able to get one food package from this center, only enough to last for one day. So I stopped going because I cannot get help; more than once people have died trying in the process. There is unethical stuff going on, (including by Palestinian mafia groups), themselves protected by the Israel Defense Force (IDF). It is not uncommon for these elements to rip open packages and through the contents on the ground so no one can use them. It’s frightening.
More and more GHF appears as nothing less than an integral part of the U.S-Israeli program of ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza.
(More detailed blog entries on GHF’s nefarious record will appear in the weeks to come.)
Trump did not “obliterate” Iran’s nuclear production but Iran gave Israel a good punch in the nose.
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(Note: I have repeatedly heard negative comments about Canada’s left website “GlobalResearch”. On occasion – not that it matters much – yes, something appears there that I take issue with. But for the most part, solid, well researched and often hard hitting stuff. If compared to New York Times, CNN, etc – it is far more useful, accurate. The information in the piece below corresponds with many serious analyses appearing over the last weeks).
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Did you know that it is illegal to post videos or photos of buildings that have been struck by Iranian missiles in Israel? In other words, if you publish photos of smoldering buildings, infrastructure or military bases, you will go to jail. This is how the government controls the narrative and convinces the public that they are winning a war they are actually losing. But don’t take my word for it; here’s a video clip of an Israeli newscaster explaining how government censorship is impacting the peoples’ ability to figure out what is going on:
CH13’s Raviv Drucker: We have to say there is a bit of an Iranian aspect to the way we report missile strikes on our side. I’m not talking about the Weizmann Institute, but there were alot of missile hits on IDF bases, on strategic sites, that we still don’t report about to this day. And there’s a clear reason for that, which everyone at home understands. But along that clear reason, it created a situation where people don’t realize how precise the Iranians were and how much damage they caused in many places. We just know about the Weizmann Institute; there are many places we don’t know about. See this.
Repeat: it created a situation where people don’t realize how precise the Iranians were and how much damage they caused in many places.
What can we glean from this statement: That Iran’s new generation of ballistic missiles are abundant, precise and lethal.
To his credit, the newscaster seems to think that ordinary people deserve to be told about these cutting-edge weapons so they can make informed decisions regarding their own safety. We agree with this view, but we also know that the heavily censored, state-controlled, agenda-driven media is not going to change the way it disseminates information. After all, the media’s objective is not to inform but to shape public opinion.
But we’re getting off-topic. What we want to show is that Israel did not agree to the ceasefire because it had achieved its strategic objectives, but because it was getting hammered and wanted to stop the bleeding. We make that judgement based on a shortlist of the key military, intelligence, industrial, energy, and R&D facilities that were struck by precision guided ballistic missiles that wreaked havoc across Israel.
Keep in mind, Operation True Promise III unleashed no less than 22 salvos of state-of-the-art ballistic missiles (many used for the first time) that delivered withering blows to a number of heavily fortified Israeli sites that were regarded as ‘the most protected military bases in the world.’ Iran’s missiles blew through Israel’s defenses like at every turn reducing their targets to twisted metal and broken blocks of cinder. (One weapons expert estimates that just 5 percent of Iran’s ballistic missiles were intercepted.) This is from an article at Press TV:
Iran destroyed the so-called “Israeli Pentagon”, the Kirya military-intelligence complex in central Tel Aviv, which is shown as a smoldering hulk in the few photos published on X. Despite being one of the most heavily fortified locations in the occupied territories, protected by a multilayered shield of Israeli and American defense systems, the complex was unable to repel the Iranian missile barrage in the very first phases of True Promise III….
In Haifa, a precision-guided Iranian missile struck a high-rise building housing branches of the Israeli ministry of interior affairs responsible for internal military coordination. The strike disrupted logistical networks and emergency response systems at the municipal level.Press TV
Iranian missiles also took-out the Aman military intelligence headquarters at the Glilot Mizrah Interchange, near Herzliya. Aman oversees elite spying units such as Unit 8200 (signals intelligence), Unit 504 (human intelligence), and Unit 9900 (geospatial intelligence). The compound also houses Mossad’s operational headquarters—the Israeli regime’s notorious foreign intelligence agency….
Iran also struck the ‘impregnable’ Nevatim Airbase in the Negev desert with over 30 ballistic missiles causing extensive damage that (of course) was not reported. Nevatim houses most of Israel’s F-15s and F-35s although we do not have an estimate of how many of those warplanes were destroyed. Here’s more from Press TV:
Other targeted airbases included Tel Nof and Ben Gurion near Tel Aviv, Ramat David near Haifa, Palmachim on the Mediterranean coast, and Ovda near Eilat.
Iranian missiles, including those used for the first time, targeted the command and control centers of the Israeli military and Mossad in both Tel Aviv and Haifa…..
On June 16, Iranian ballistic missiles hit the Bazan Oil Refinery in Haifa—the regime’s largest fuel processing center, which supplies around 60 percent of its gasoline, 65 percent of diesel, and over 50 percent of its kerosene.
The strikes caused significant damage, forcing the complete shutdown of the refinery and its subsidiaries. The Israeli energy minister later admitted the facility would need major reconstruction, estimating a partial restart no sooner than a month.
A nearby power plant was also damaged, triggering widespread blackouts across central regions of the occupied territories.
On June 23,Iranian missiles struck near a power station in Ashdod, triggering a powerful explosion and localized blackouts. Explosions and outages were also reported near Hadera, where Orot Rabin—Israel’s largest power plant—is located.
In addition, Iran directly targeted military-industrial sites involved in recent Israeli aggression. Chief among them was the Rafael Advanced Defense Systems complex north of Haifa—home to multiple factories and R&D buildings that produce key elements of Israel’s military hardware.
Rafael manufactures Iron Dome and David’s Sling missile interceptors, both of which have failed repeatedly in stopping Palestinian and Iranian missiles. It also produces cruise and guided missiles used in strikes against Iran, including Spice kits and Popeye, Rocks, Spike, and Matador missiles.
The Kiryat Gat Industrial Zone—a major center for microprocessor and high-tech military production—was also struck. Iranian strikes reportedly damaged key production lines vital to Israel’s drone and surveillance programs.
Further south, the Gav-Yam Negev Advanced Technologies Park near Beersheba, which hosts firms working in cyberwarfare, AI, and military tech, was not spared. Many of these companies collaborate closely with the Israeli military and the Mossad.
Another high-profile target was the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, south of Tel Aviv. Known for its military R&D and partnerships with Israeli military agencies, the institute suffered devastating damage to key laboratories. Members and professors of the institute confirmed the loss of years’ worth of research. The Weizmann Institute also plays a role in Israel’s clandestine nuclear program, with many of Dimona’s nuclear scientists having graduated from or taught at the institute. Press TV
Let’s summarize: In a little more than a week’s time, Iran struck or obliterated:
- The “Israeli Pentagon”, the Kirya military-intelligence complex
- The Weizmann Institute of Science which plays a role in Israel’s clandestine nuclear program
- The Aman military intelligence headquarters at the Glilot Mizrah Interchange, near Herzliya. Aman oversees elite spying units such as Unit 8200 (signals intelligence), Unit 504 (human intelligence), and Unit 9900 (geospatial intelligence).
- Branches of the Israeli ministry of interior affairs responsible for internal military coordination
- The Mossad’s operational headquarters
- Israel’s most protected Nevatim Airbase (and the Tel Nof Airbase)
- Ben Gurion Airport (repeatedly) as well as Ramat David, Palmachim and Ovda near Eilat.
- The Command-and-Control Centers of the Israeli military and Mossad in both Tel Aviv and Haifa…..
- The Bazan Oil Refinery in Haifa—Israel’s largest fuel processing center
- A giant power station in Ashdod, triggering a powerful explosion and localized blackouts.
- The Rafael Advanced Defense Systems complex north of Haifa—home to multiple factories and R&D buildings that produce key elements of Israel’s military hardware
- The Kiryat Gat Industrial Zone—a major center for microprocessor and high-tech military production
- The Gav-Yam Negev Advanced Technologies Park near Beersheba, which hosts firms working in cyberwarfare, AI, and military tech.
Get the picture? In just 10 days (June 13 to June 23) the Iranian military meticulously destroyed a sizable portion of Israel’s most prestigious military, intelligence, industrial, energy, and R&D facilities across the country. (Have you read about any of this in the western media?) Had the war continued for another week or two, the Holy Land would have been reduced to a smoldering third world wasteland unfit for human habitation. In short, this was no normal ceasefire. This was a desperate capitulation by an overmatched contender who quickly realized he was punching ‘above his weight’. Here’s how Trump summed it up:
“Israel got hit really hard. Those ballistic missiles, boy, they took out a lot of buildings,” Trump told reporters at the NATO summit in The Hague on Wednesday. See this.
We should note that there is no formal agreement between Iran and Israel. (No signed document or explicit commitments) The ceasefire was brokered through back-channel diplomacy, primarily mediated by Qatar. A senior White House official and a diplomat briefed on the talks indicated that Israel agreed to halt strikes if Iran ceased its attacks,and Iran signaled compliance with these terms through Qatari mediation. Trump announced the ceasefire as a “complete and total ceasefire” to be phased in over 24 hours, although there have been numerous violations by both sides since the original deal was made on June 23. (Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi initially stated there was “no agreement” but indicated Iran would stop its response if Israel held up its end of the bargain.)
The problem, of course, is that the ceasefire is not going to hold because Israel and the US see the truce as merely a way to buy-time to regroup and prepare for the next round of hostilities. (The same as Minsk) Consider the comments of Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz who said the following on Saturday:
This doesn’t sound like a man who is looking for a ‘lasting peace’ or even a temporary end to the fighting. It sounds like someone who’s already settled on a strategy for resuming the hostilities and is merely waiting for the green light (from Bibi) to put the plan into motion.
But what might that plan be, after all, Israel was already employing its top-line military weaponry and advanced air-defense systems. What other tools do they have that could be used to produce a different outcome that the one they just experienced after just 12 days of conflict?
This is where is gets scary because Israel has only two options: Either it draws the United States deeper into the conflict (including the deploying of ground forces) or it ‘goes nuclear’. There is no third option. So, whatever Bibi and his generals have ‘up their sleeve’, it’s going to be of a different force and magnitude than what we saw during the last dust-up. Check out this baffling blurb from the Times of Israel‘s Saturday edition:
After the US strike on Iran earlier this week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump agreed on a rapid end to the war in Gaza and expansion of the Abraham Accords, Israel Hayom reports, citing “a source familiar with the conversation.”
According to the outlet, Trump and Netanyahu agreed in a phone call that the war in Gaza would end within two weeks. Four Arab states, including the UAE and Egypt, would jointly govern the Gaza Strip in place of Hamas. The terror group’s leadership would be exiled, and all hostages would be released.
However, Arab allies have repeatedly asserted that they will not take part in the postwar rehabilitation of Gaza absent Israeli acquiescence to the Palestinian Authority gaining a foothold in Gaza as part of a pathway to a future two-state solution, but Netanyahu has flatly rejected any PA role in the Strip….
Trump and Netanyahu were joined on the “euphoric” call late Monday night by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, says Israel Hayom….
Saudi Arabia and Syria would establish diplomatic ties with Israel, and other Arab and Muslim countries would follow suit…. Israel, for its part, would express its support for a future two-state solution, conditioned on reforms made by the Palestinian Authority.Meanwhile, the leaders agreed that Washington will recognize Israeli sovereignty in some parts of the West Bank. Times of Israel
People who follow events closely in the Middle East know that nothing in this article is true. There’s not going to be a rapid end to the war in Gaza, there’s not going to be a rapid expansion of the Abraham Accords, and there’s certainly not going to be Israeli support for a two-state solution.
So, what’s going on here, what is the point of this nonsensical propaganda that no one in their right mind is going to believe??
New York Times
Israeli Strikes Kill Civilians Across Iran
Israel has said it does not target Iranian civilians, but hundreds have died in the violence, among them a poet and her family, an equestrian and a graphic designer
Let’s answer that question with a hypothetical: Let’s say, some unexpected 9-11-type catastrophe was to take place in the next few weeks that had Iranian fingerprints all over it. And let’s say this false flag was destructive enough that the “usual suspects” on Capitol Hill and the MSM demanded that Trump take immediate action and bomb Iran. If that scenario were to unfold, then wouldn’t it better for Bibi and Trump to be able to point to their recent efforts for resolving the Gaza crisis? Wouldn’t they benefit from the perception (by the public) that they had been actively pursuing peace but were unexpectedly derailed by Iran’s actions?
Indeed, they would.
Of course, this is all just speculation; I don’t know what’s going to happen. But when you have hardliners like Katz, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and countless others in Netanyahu’s looneybin government who believe that Israel must “keep the sword raised” to ensure Iran does not recover its military capabilities (Smotrich), then a prudent person will prepare for the worst.
Keep in mind, a number of Israeli leaders have repeatedly stated that Netanyahu should “finish the job”, which is an intentionally vague term that refers to the use of a nuclear weapon.
In order to determine the probability of such an event, we must ask ourselves whether a government that justifies the killing and forced starvation of millions of women and children in their charge, has the moral scruples to oppose the use of the world’s most lethal weapon?
We should all be very worried that Netanyahu is going to do exactly what we would expect him to do.
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Ben Macintyre’s “The Spy and the Traitor”
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I don’t read – and other than John Le Carre – am not interested in spy novels, or their history. Boring stuff although it’s important to try to keep some tabs upon. But I did enjoy this book which I would classify as well written, high quality gray propaganda. Intellectually tantalizing I do admit. It did get me thinking about the spy mania of the 1980s – and it has all evolved in a dangerous way (Palantir and all that) more recently.
Just finished reading The Spy and The Traitor by Ben Macintyre, the story of KGB spy Oleg Gordievsky who changed sides, worked for M-16 – British Intelligence – and who was found dead at his London home earlier this year (2025). Frankly what drew me to reading it was the John Le Carre blurb on the cover “The best true spy novel I have ever read.” If John Le Carre recommends it, how could I not read it.
My main thought after finishing the book – found in a “Little Library” in our neighborhood of Northwest Denver – is the utter stupidity and uselessness of Cold War espionage, how much human creativity, brilliance, financial energy actually went into both sides of the Cold War spying on each other and how little such activities actually produced for the common good in either country or the world.
Furthermore on some level books like this which attempt to argue of the importance and intelligence and spying are nothing other than pretexts for increased military spending at this point.
I don’t read – and other than John Le Carre – am not interested in spy novels, or their history. Boring stuff although it’s important to try to keep some tabs upon. But I did enjoy this book which I would classify as well written, high quality gray propaganda. Although skewed – as such works almost always are – there are insights and occasional historical nuggets as well, all of which are hard to filter out and get to the bottom of. Intellectually tantalizing I do admit. It did get me thinking about the spy mania of the 1980s – and it has all evolved in a dangerous way (Palantir and all that) more recently.
The suggestion – the whole argument of the book: Gordievsky did what he did “out of principle” – ie, those who spy for the West are “good guys”, those who spy for the Soviet Union (and now Russia) are evil greedy types. More than a bit simplistic. The book contrasts Gordievsky’s spying (supposedly for “principled” reasons – his contempt for Soviet society – with that of U.S. C.I.A. spy Aldrich Ames vegetating for life in an Indiana prison. No doubt Ames was little more than a greedy skunk who earned more than $4 million turning over U.S. intelligence secrets to the Soviets and whose revelations made many heads rolls; Gordievsky’s was very nearly one of the.
Anyhow, main thought after finishing the book – found in a “Little Library” in our neighborhood of Northwest Denver – is the utter stupidity of Cold War espionage, how much human creativity, brilliance, financial energy actually went into both sides of the Cold War spying on each other and how little such activities actually produced for the common good in either country.
Just a bunch of sick fucking paranoids, my own sense being that the information gleaned – as in the case of Gordievsky – did little or nothing to affect the flow of history. That Gordievsky’s revelations had much to do with the end of the Cold War – and the U.S. Soviet steps a way from nuclear war (which justifies all this) is nonsense from where I’m sitting.
John Carre understood that neither side had a monopoly on principle, goodness and that in the end both the C.I.A. and K.G.B. (throw in here Mossad, M-16) are mirror images of one another. Just a bunch of mafias hiding under to the umbrella of patriotism. That Alrich Ames is little more than greedy unprincipled sort is true enough. Despite Macintyre’s white wash, Oleg Gordievsky was no better. Still, the book is worth the read. Ah and if you don’t want to take the time to read the book the NY Times obituary of Gordievsky is a decent summary of its content (and I suspect, the source of the article).
Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor
Israel continues depopulation efforts in Gaza through successive evacuation orders
02 Jul 2025
Displaced Palestinians move along the shore of Gaza city on Monday, 9 June 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Palestinian Territory – As part of an explicit and deliberate policy that relies on the systematic commission of various crimes, Israel continues to carry out the forced displacement of Gaza Strip residents.
Israel’s methods of forced displacement include widespread bombing, bulldozing, deliberate starvation, destruction of civilian infrastructure, and expulsion through firepower and evacuation orders. These practices have driven residents into an area comprising less than 15 per cent of the enclave, in apparent preparation for mass displacement beyond it.
Most of the Gaza Strip has been rendered devastated and uninhabitable, both now and in the future, which constitutes a continuation of the genocide carried out over the past 21 months.
Between 28 and 30 June, Israeli forces issued three new military orders demanding the evacuation of residents from large areas in the east and south of Gaza City, as well as parts of the northern Gaza Strip. These orders covered a large area of several square kilometres, forcibly displacing tens of thousands of civilians who were left trapped between continuous displacement, starvation, and relentless bombardment, with no safe refuge anywhere.
The latest orders bring the total number of evacuation orders or renewals issued by the Israeli army since 18 March, the date Israel backed out of the temporary ceasefire, to 51. These orders, coupled with expanding military incursions, are unlawful and have placed over 85 per cent of the Gaza Strip under direct military control or forced evacuation. This reflects a systematic erasure of the Palestinian presence and a clear intent to impose permanent demographic change in the area.
We fled Shuja’iyya while under bombardment. We walked for hours, not knowing where to go. Every place said to be safe is being bombed. There is nowhere to hide except under the open sky
Each of these orders has been issued without any military necessity or even the usual pretexts, such as rocket fire from the area. This indicates that Israel no longer seeks to justify its actions to the international community, and that displacement itself has become an open objective—one that is part of a deliberate policy of systematic uprooting and that constitutes a fully-fledged act of genocide.
Evacuation orders issued since last March have led to the renewed displacement of around one million people, most of whom have been forced to seek shelter in overcrowded or destroyed areas, or sleep in the streets and open spaces, amid widespread disease, severe shortages of water and food, and the collapse of basic services.
The Israeli army is conducting large-scale destruction in neighbourhoods it has invaded or ordered evacuated. These operations include airstrikes, bombing with explosive-laden robots, and widespread demolition and bulldozing of buildings and infrastructure, constituting one of the largest systematic erasures of cities and residential areas in the modern era.
In a testimony to Euro-Med Monitor, Mohammed Hillis, a resident of the Shuja’iyya neighbourhood in eastern Gaza City, said: “We fled Shuja’iyya while under bombardment. We walked for hours, not knowing where to go. Every place said to be safe is being bombed. There is nowhere to hide except under the open sky.”
In another testimony, Maram Abdel Aal, a resident of the Tuffah neighbourhood in eastern Gaza City, said: “We left the Tuffah neighbourhood under shelling and headed to western Gaza, only to find bombardment surrounding us. I moved to Al-Mawasi in Khan Yunis, but the shelling continued there as well. Entire families were killed in their tents. Not a single neighbouring family survived.”
Israeli forces continue to bomb areas where civilians are forced to flee, including schools, temporary shelters, and tents, carrying out mass killings that target displaced residents already suffering from bombardment and starvation. This constitutes a flagrant and deliberate violation of the most basic rules of international law. It confirms that forced displacement in Gaza is occurring not only under threat but within a deadly and inhumane environment designed to kill and cause suffering, indicating that displacement is being used as a tool in the ongoing genocide.
Five civilians, including a woman and two children, were killed and several others injured on Tuesday, 1 July, in Israeli airstrikes targeting the tents of displaced people in Al-Mawasi, west of Khan Yunis. This area has been designated safe by the Israeli army, underscoring a recurring pattern of deliberate and systematic targeting of civilians within displacement areas.
Israeli forces also killed 12 civilians, including women and children, most of them from the al-Hallaq family, by bombing a house in the Khan Yunis refugee camp in southern Gaza. This attack reflects the ongoing pattern of mass killings targeting Palestinian families.
Forced displacement is a war crime under the Rome Statute and a grave violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits the forcible transfer of civilians in occupied territories. It also constitutes a crime against humanity when carried out as part of a widespread or systematic attack targeting the civilian population.
The ongoing pattern of displacement in the Gaza Strip meets these criteria, as it is not limited to forced evacuations but is carried out under deadly and devastating conditions. When combined with the intent to partially destroy the Palestinian people by imposing life-threatening conditions, it also amounts to an act of genocide.
The pattern of forced evacuation orders, widespread killings, destruction, and the deliberate use of starvation are all integral parts of an Israeli plan clearly advancing toward its final objective: the mass expulsion of Palestinians from their land, particularly beyond the Gaza Strip.
This follows more than 20 months of genocidal crimes, including the killing and wounding of over 200,000 civilians, the destruction of entire towns, the near-total collapse of Gaza’s infrastructure, the eradication of basic living conditions, and systematic internal displacement. All of this has taken place within a broader effort to eliminate the Palestinian community as an entity and existence.
The forced displacement of Palestinians is a direct extension of Israel’s decades-long settler-colonial project, rooted in the erasure of Palestinian existence and the seizure of their land. What sets this phase apart is its unprecedented scale and severity, demonstrated by the comprehensive targeting of all 2.3 million residents of the Gaza Strip since 7 October 2023 through genocide and the denial of people’s most basic human rights. The conditions of extreme coercion and deprivation forced upon the Palestinian people represent a deliberate effort to push them out of their homeland, not by choice but as a condition for their very survival. This stands as one of the most blatant cases of planned mass displacement in modern history.
All states, both individually and collectively, must fulfil their legal responsibilities by taking urgent action to stop the genocide in the Gaza Strip, through implementing effective measures to protect Palestinian civilians; ensuring Israel’s compliance with international law and the decisions of the International Court of Justice; preventing the implementation of the US-Israeli forced displacement plan; and holding Israel and its more powerful allies accountable for all crimes against the Palestinians in the Strip. The International Criminal Court must implement the arrest warrants for the Israeli Prime Minister and Minister of Defence at the earliest opportunity, in accordance with the principle that there is no immunity for international crimes.
The international community must also impose economic, diplomatic, and military sanctions on Israel for its systematic and grave violations of international law. These sanctions should include an arms embargo; an end to all political, financial, and military support; freezing the assets of officials involved in crimes against Palestinians; imposing travel ban on these officials; suspending the operations of Israeli military and security industries companies in international markets; banning involved companies’ access to banking services; and suspending trade privileges and bilateral agreements that provide Israel with economic benefits that enable its continued crimes.
Countries with universal jurisdiction courts must issue arrest warrants for Israeli political and military leaders involved in the ongoing genocide and initiate legal proceedings, even with the accused in absentia, to fulfil their international legal obligation to prosecute serious crimes and combat impunity.
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Private U.S. contractors fire live ammunition at starving Palestinians
July 3, 2025 12:30 PM CDT BY JULIA FRANKEL AND SAM MEDNICK
This photo, provided by an American contractor on condition of anonymity because they were revealing their employers’ internal operations, shows a woman slumped over in a donkey cart after the contractor said she was hit in the head with part of a stun grenade at a food distribution site in Gaza run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in June 2025
“We have come here to get food for our families. We have nothing,” he recounted Palestinians telling him. “Why does the (Israeli) army shoot at us? Why do you shoot at us?”
BEERSHEBA, Israel (AP)—American contractors guarding aid distribution sites in Gaza are using live ammunition and stun grenades as hungry Palestinians scramble for food, according to accounts and videos obtained by The Associated Press.
Two U.S. contractors, speaking to the AP on condition of anonymity because they were revealing their employers’ internal operations, said they were coming forward because they were disturbed by what they considered dangerous and irresponsible practices. They said the security staff hired were often unqualified, unvetted, heavily armed, and seemed to have an open license to do whatever they wished.
They said their colleagues regularly lobbed stun grenades and pepper spray in the direction of the Palestinians. One contractor said bullets were fired in all directions—in the air, into the ground, and at times toward the Palestinians, recalling at least one instance where he thought someone had been hit.
“There are innocent people being hurt. Badly. Needlessly,” the contractor said.
He said American staff on the sites monitor those coming to seek food and document anyone considered “suspicious.” He said they share such information with the Israeli military.
Videos provided by one of the contractors and taken at the sites show hundreds of Palestinians crowded between metal gates, jostling for aid amid the sound of bullets, stun grenades, and the sting of pepper spray. Other videos include conversation between English-speaking men discussing how to disperse crowds and encouraging each other after bursts of gunfire.
The testimonies from the contractors—combined with the videos, internal reports, and text messages obtained by the AP—offer a rare glimpse inside the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the newly created, secretive American organization backed by Israel to feed the Gaza Strip’s population. Last month, the U.S. government pledged $30 million for the group to continue operations—the first known U.S. donation to the group, whose other funding sources remain opaque.
US Contractors say their colleagues are firing live ammunition as Palestinians seek food in Gaza.
Journalists have been unable to access the GHF sites, located in Israeli military-controlled zones. The AP cannot independently verify the contractors’ stories.
A spokesperson for Safe Reach Solutions, the logistics company subcontracted by GHF, told the AP that there have been no serious injuries at any of their sites to date. In scattered incidents, the company claimed, security professionals fired live rounds into the ground and away from civilians to get their attention. That happened in the early days at the “the height of desperation where crowd control measures were necessary for the safety and security of civilians,” the spokesperson said.
Aid operation is controversial
Gaza’s more than two million Palestinians are living through a catastrophic humanitarian crisis. Since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, setting off the 21-month war, Israel has bombarded and laid siege to the strip, leaving many teetering on the edge of famine, according to food security experts.
For 2 1/2 months before GHF’s opening in May, Israel blocked all food, water, and medicine from entering Gaza, claiming Hamas was stealing the aid being transported under a pre-existing system coordinated by the United Nations. It now wants GHF to replace that U.N. system. The U.N. says its Gaza aid operations do not involve armed guards
Over 57,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed since the war erupted, according to the territory’s Health Ministry.
GHF is an American organization, registered in Delaware and established in February to distribute humanitarian aid during the ongoing Gaza humanitarian crisis. Since the GHF sites began operating more than a month ago, Palestinians say Israeli troops open fire almost every day toward crowds on roads heading to the distribution points, through Israeli military zones. Several hundred people have been killed and hundreds more wounded, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry and witnesses.
In response, Israel’s military says it fires only warning shots and is investigating reports of civilian harm. It denies deliberately shooting at any innocent civilians and says it’s examining how to reduce “friction with the population” in the areas surrounding the distribution centers.
AP’s reporting for this article focuses on what is happening at the sites themselves. Palestinians arriving at the sites say they are caught between Israeli and American fire, said the contractor who shared videos with the AP.
“We have come here to get food for our families. We have nothing,” he recounted Palestinians telling him. “Why does the (Israeli) army shoot at us? Why do you shoot at us?”
A spokesperson for the GHF said there are people with a “vested interest” in seeing it fail and are willing to do or say almost anything to make that happen. The spokesperson said the team is composed of seasoned humanitarian, logistics, and security professionals with deep experience on the ground. The group says it has distributed the equivalent of more than 50 million meals in Gaza in its food boxes of staples.
GHF says that it has consistently shown compassionate engagement with the people of Gaza. If Israeli bombs and starvation don’t kill them, American bullets might. Palestinians seeking food aid now risk being shot by private U.S. contractors, as revealed by an insider. | AP
Throughout the war, aid distribution has been marred by chaos. Gangs have looted trucks of aid traveling to distribution centers, and mobs of desperate people have also offloaded trucks before they’ve reached their destination. Earlier this month, at least 51 Palestinians were killed and more than 200 wounded while waiting for the U.N. and commercial trucks to enter the territory, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry and a local hospital. Israel’s military acknowledged several casualties as soldiers opened fire on the approaching crowd and said authorities would investigate.
Videos, texts, internal reports document havoc at food sites
AP spoke to the two contractors for UG Solutions, an American outfit subcontracted to hire security personnel for the distribution sites. They said bullets, stun grenades, and pepper spray were used at nearly every distribution, even if there was no threat.
Videos of aid being dispensed at the sites seen by the AP appear to back up the frenetic scenes the contractors described. The footage was taken within the first two weeks of its distributions—about halfway into the operations.
In one video, what appear to be heavily armed American security contractors at one of the sites in Gaza discuss how to disperse Palestinians nearby. One is heard saying he has arranged for a “show of force” by Israeli tanks.
“I don’t want this to be too aggressive,” he adds, “because this is calming down.”
At that moment, bursts of gunfire erupt close by, at least 15 shots. “Whoo! Whoo!” one contractor yelps.
“I think you hit one,” one says.
Then comes a shout: “Hell, yeah, boy!”
The camera’s view is obscured by a large dirt mound.
The contractor who took the video told AP that he saw other contractors shooting in the direction of Palestinians who had just collected their food and were departing. The men shot both from a tower above the site and from atop the mound, he said. The shooting began because contractors wanted to disperse the crowd, he said, but it was unclear why they continued shooting as people were walking away.
The camera does not show who was shooting or what was being shot at. But the contractor who filmed it said he watched another contractor fire at the Palestinians and then saw a man about 60 yards (meters) away—in the same direction where the bullets were fired—drop to the ground.
This happened at the same time the men were heard talking—effectively egging each other on, he said.
In other videos furnished by the contractor, men in grey uniforms—colleagues, he said—can be seen trying to clear Palestinians who are squeezed into a narrow, fenced-in passage leading to one of the centers. The men fire pepper spray and throw stun grenades that detonate amid the crowd. The sound of gunfire can be heard. The contractor who took the video said the security personnel usually fire at the ground near the crowds or from nearby towers over their heads.
During a single distribution in June, contractors used 37 stun grenades, 27 rubber-and-smoke “scat shell” projectiles, and 60 cans of pepper spray, according to internal text communications shared with the AP.
That count does not include live ammunition, the contractor who provided the videos said.
One photo shared by that contractor shows a woman lying in a donkey cart after he said she was hit in the head with part of a stun grenade.
An internal report by Safe Reach Solutions, the logistics company subcontracted by GHF to run the sites, found that aid seekers were injured during 31% of the distributions that took place in a two-week period in June. The report did not specify the number of injuries or the cause. SRS told the AP the report refers to non-serious injuries.
More videos show frenzied scenes of Palestinians running to collect leftover food boxes at one site. Hundreds of young men crowd near low metal barriers, transferring food from boxes to bags while contractors on the other side of the barriers tell them to stay back.
Some Palestinians wince and cough from pepper spray. “You tasting that pepper spray? Yuck,” one man close to the camera can be heard saying in English.
SRS acknowledged that it’s dealing with large, hungry populations, but said the environment is secure, controlled, and ensures people can get the aid they need safely.
Verifying the videos with audio analysis
To confirm the footage is from the sites, AP geolocated the videos using aerial imagery. The AP also had the videos analyzed by two audio forensic experts who said they could identify live ammunition—including machine-gun fire—coming from the sites, in most cases within 50 to 60 meters of the camera’s microphone
In the video where the men are heard egging each other on, the echo and acoustics of the shots indicate they’re fired from a position close to the microphone, said Rob Maher, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Montana State University and an author and research expert in audio forensic analysis. Maher and the other analyst, Steven Beck, owner of Beck Audio Forensics, said there was no indication that the videos’ audio had been tampered with.
The analysts said that the bursts of gunfire and the pop sequences in some of the videos indicated that guns were panning in different directions and were not repeatedly aimed at a single target. They could not pinpoint exactly where the shots were coming from nor who was shooting.
GHF says the Israeli military is not deployed at the aid distribution sites. Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an army spokesman, said the army is not stationed at the sites or within their immediate proximity, especially during operating hours. He said they’re run by an American company and have their own security.
One of the contractors who had been on the sites said he’d never felt a real or perceived threat by Hamas there. SRS claims that Hamas has openly threatened its aid workers and civilians receiving aid. It did not specify where people were threatened.
American analysts and Israeli soldiers work side by side, contractors say
According to the contractor who took the videos, the Israeli army is leveraging the distribution system to access information.
Both contractors said that cameras monitor distributions at each site and that American analysts and Israeli soldiers sit in a control room where the footage is screened in real time. The control room, they said, is housed in a shipping container on the Israeli side of the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.
The contractor who took the videos said some cameras are equipped with facial recognition software. In live shots of the sites seen by the AP, some video streams are labeled “analytics”—those were the ones that had the facial recognition software, said the contractor.
If a person of interest is seen on camera—and their information is already in the system—their name and age pops up on the computer screen, said the contractor. Israeli soldiers watching the screens take notes and cross-check the analysts’ information with their own drone footage from the sites, he said.
The contractor said he did not know the source of the data in the facial recognition system. The AP could not independently verify his information.
An internal SRS report from June seen by the AP said that its intel team would circulate to staff a “POI Mugs Card,” that showed photos of Palestinians taken at the sites who were deemed persons of interest.
The contractor said he and other staff were told by SRS to photograph anyone who looked “out of place.” But the criteria were not specified, he said. The contractor said the photos were also added to the facial recognition database. He did not know what was done with the information.
SRS said accusations that it gathers intelligence are false and that it has never used biometrics. It said it coordinates movements with Israeli authorities, a requirement for any aid group in Gaza.
An Israeli security official who was not named in line with the army’s protocol, said there are no security screening systems developed or operated by the army within the aid sites.
It was a rushed rollout, the contractors say
The several hundred contractors hired by UG Solutions landed in Israel in mid-May, not long before the first GHF site opened on May 26.
The rollout was jumbled and lacked leadership, the two contractors told the AP. Some of the men had been recruited only days prior via email asking if they wanted to work in Gaza. Many had no combat experience and were not properly trained in offensive weapons, they said.
SRS did not provide the staff with draft rules of engagement until three days after distributions started, they said. The draft rules, seen by the AP, say deadly force may be used only under extreme necessity and non-lethal weapons may be used in an extreme situation on unarmed individuals who are physically violent.
SRS did not provide the staff with draft rules of engagement until three days after distributions started, they said. The draft rules, seen by the AP, say deadly force may be used only under extreme necessity and non-lethal weapons may be used in an extreme situation on unarmed individuals who are physically violent.
The Palestinians seen in the videos don’t appear to be physically aggressive. SRS says there have been occasional altercations at the sites between aid seekers, but none have involved its staff.
Each contractor was equipped with a pistol, stun grenades, tear gas, and an Israeli-made automatic rifle capable of firing dozens of rounds within seconds, said the contractor who took the videos.
In an email from May shared with the AP by a third party, one high-ranking contractor wrote to the head of UG Solutions and called the operation “amateur hour.” He wrote that the sites did not have enough staff or resources making them “not sustainable” and “not safe,” according to the email, seen by the AP.
The two contractors said none of the men in Israel working for UG Solutions were tested to see if they could handle a gun safely. One said the rushed rollout also meant not everyone could “zero” their weapon—adjust it to one’s personal specifications to ensure proper aim. Military experts say not zeroing a weapon poses a significant risk.
A spokesperson for UG Solutions, Drew O’Brien, said UG has an extensive recruiting and training process, including “a detailed application process, screening by experts, reference checks, background checks and weapons proficiency.” The group said it prides itself on repeated quality control checks once missions are underway.
O’Brien said the group was unaware of video showing gunfire from someone believed to be a UG Solutions contractor. He said he couldn’t comment on the allegations without seeing the videos.
The two contractors warned that if the organization continues as is, more lives will be at risk. “If operations continue in this manner, innocent aid seekers will continue to be needlessly injured,” said the contractor who took the videos. “And possibly killed.”
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Related Links:
GrayZone: Israeli Mossad named as funder of Gaz Humanitarian Foundation.
1
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On June 13, 2025 Israel launched a surprise attack against Iran, the goal of which was to overthrow the Iranian government. The attack targeted Iranian nuclear facilities, the country’s top military commanders (killing 29 top leaders), predicting that as a result of the ensuing chaos that the Iranian population would rise up and overthrow the government.
It was Washington’s goal to replace that government with one more amenable to U.S. and Israeli strategic interests. As Israel’s situation deteriorated with each Iranian missile hitting a strategic target in Israel, the Netanyahu government went begging to Washington to intervene military to prevent what was becoming a total rout. The Trump Administration responded with Operation Midnight Hammer
None of Washington’s or Tel Aviv’s strategic goals were met.
While Iran suffered widespread damage, Iran’s nuclear program remains, by most accounts in tact; the Trump Administration’s bombast that the program was entirely destroyed cannot be taken seriously. Yes, the “decapitation” of Iran’s military leadership was undoubtedly a serious blow; but this was not a repeat of the cell phone assassinations of Hezbollah’s leadership in Lebanon. The new Iranian military leadership stepped up almost seamlessly. The cyber-attack was repaired.
Within twelve hours after Israel initiated hostilities, the Iranian government absorbed the blow, and it turned its fire power on Israel. The results of Iran’s counterstrike were devastating for the Israeli state which had seriously underestimated Iran’s military stamina, the strength of the government in Teheran and the amount of public support the Islamic Republic enjoyed from the Iranian population,
Targeting/eliminating Iran’s nuclear energy program was always at best a secondary, if not tertiary goal, a ruse for what for decades has been a coordinated U.S.-Israeli goal of regime change in Iran. It didn’t work. The world – and the American public in particular – were led to believe a lie, that in recent weeks Iran has become close to developing a nuclear weapons and that if Iran’s nuclear program was not frozen in its tracks by a major military strike, Iran would soon be in possession of a nuclear bomb, thus changing the regional balance of power throughout the Middle East.
What is somehow (purposely?) unstated in the mainstream media, or at best underplayed, is the fact that, as Trita Parsi has pointed out that “two nuclear weapons states (U.S., Israel) have bombed a non-nuclear weapons state, Iran, without having been attacked. This will send shockwaves throughout the world, and more countries will conclude that they will need nuclear weapons to deter existing nuclear weapons states.”
While the hysteria created about the non-existent Iranian nuclear weapons program reached the height of shrillness, throughout this crisis there was virtually no mention of the fact that Israel has been developing an arsenal of nuclear weapons (with U.S., French and UK assistance), probably going back to the 1950s, that it has refused to join the United Nations based nuclear weapons monitoring program, the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA). Nor has it signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty aimed at preventing the spread of nuclear energy. Iran is a signatory to both.
2.
As noted above, the main goal of the U.S.-Israeli blitzkrieg on Iran was less about destroying Iran’s nuclear program and much more a well-planned, twice rehearsed plan to overthrow the Iranian government, regime change using Iran’s nuclear program as a ruse or pretext, failed. It was not a spontaneous decision made in the heat of battle based on phony Palantir analysis that Iran is about to have or already has a nuclear weapon as was shouted from the rooftops by both the U.S. and Israeli mainstream media.
Frankly Washington’s plans to overthrow the government of Iran have been in the cooker almost since just after the victory of the Islamic Republic in 1979. Operation Midnight Hammer is simply the latest variation on this theme. although with just a little research it is possible to uncover most of the U.S. plans at regime change in Iran that go back decades.
Although there are such plans even earlier, in 1996 already Netanyahu and then U.S. President Bill Clinton initiated “Operation Clear Break“. Operation Clear Break was a long-term plan to overthrow or partition the governments of seven countries: they were Libya, Iraq, Sudan, Syria, Lebanon, and Somalia. Last but not least on the list was Iran. The fact of the matter is this has been a long-term policy that has played out over more than thirty years, the overall consequences of which has resulted in the deepening destabilization of the entire Middle East region; herein lies the disaster that is U.S. Middle East policy.
Key players in this destabilization by what amounts to as an ultra-Zionist alliance of Lindsay Graham, Richard Blumenthal, Tom Cotton, the C, I.A., Mossad and others. With wars raging across North Africa, the Middle East, the Horn of Africa, an Israeli genocide Gazan Palestinians, and now add to this a war with Iran and a more accurate picture of Clear Break “accomplishments” comes to the fore.
Then in 2009 the Brookings Institute, along with the (Zionist) Saban Center, published “Which Path To Persia“, which detailed a long-term program to destabilize and overthrow the Iranian government (Islamic Republic).
Why even bring up these old foundation reports now in 2025?
There is good reason because it indicates that the pretext for the recent U.S.-Israeli major aggression against Iran is not a result of recent, patently false news that Iran is on the verge of developing nuclear weapons based upon the Palantir analysis more focused on projections that actual facts. In accepting Palantir’s analysis the Trump Administration rejected the National Intelligence Estimates (work of 16 U.S. intelligence organizations) that Iran has no program to develop nuclear weapons.
As Brian Berletic points out Which Path To Persia is nothing less than a blueprint for what different administrations (doesn’t matter if they are Democrat or Republican) have tried to implement since. As reported in the Israeli press, twice before actually implementing its bombing attacks on Iran’s nuclear sites, the U.S. and Israel did two previous trial runs.
Add to this the fact that preparing such strikes, which included a cyber-attack on Iranian anti-missile sites, transporting and assembling drones, identifying targets as a result of satellite and human intelligence, identifying the people (“targets” as they are called) to assassinate both among the military leadership and the country’s top nuclear scientists as well as building up the logistical base for such operations took a considerable amount of time – “months of planning“.
Weirdly (to my way of thinking anyway) the targeting of Iran’s nuclear energy plants was nothing less than a ruse for the overall goal of regime change. There was a clear pattern to the attack:
- decapitate the Iranian line commanders gathered at a meeting
- at the same time assassinate key Iranian nuclear scientists as well as their families and many other civilians who lived in the same apartment complex
- disabling air defenses in the central and western regions of Iran using electronic warfare
- (afterwards) apparently Israel also attempted to kill Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei
The attempt of this long planned combined offensive was to create such a shock to the body politic of Iran that the government would collapse. The sudden combined shock of decapitation, assassination and cyber warfare in one single strike combined with loss of air defense systems which were taken down – that all this would provoke a collapse of the state itself. The Iranian state would become paralyzed, the logic goes, the population would become demoralized and paralyzed; chaos would result, and the state would collapse.
There were several models for this:
- The Israelis were “impressed” with the Hezbollah cellphone assassination/decapitation campaign
- American neo-cons (Bolton and Co.) were very much taken with the collapse of the Assad government in Syria, the way that in response to sanctions and an intensive counterinsurgency campaign that Syria imploded, just fell apart.
Both the Israeli and U.S. neo-cons followed such logic and believed that Iran would just collapse like a house of cards on the first day. Not only did they anticipate such a result but further, they were counting on another “color revolution” to overthrow the Iranian government that would include “all of the usual elements” – car bombings, civil unrest, blowing up the state press and information services, so that the state would not be able to recuperate.
But the plan failed.
Iran was able to redress the cyber-attack on its missile defense system. The Iranian population, if anything, rose as one – or close to it – in defense of the Islamic Republic government. Then a few days later Iran launched its missile response to Israel, stunning the Israeli leadership, doing greater strategic damage to Israel than it has ever suffered in any previous war … and in the process, changing the balance of power in the Middle East and probably beyond.
More on that in the next part of this series.
They Don’t Want to Learn About the Middle East
Being canceled by my hometown library speaks to the incredible breadth of censorship faced by Middle East scholars, Alex Boodrookas writes.
By Alex Boodrookas. June 05, 2025
Being arrested by armed riot police on my own campus was not, somehow, the most jarring thing that has happened to me since the spring of 2024. More disturbing was the experience of being canceled by my hometown.
In June 2024, I was supposed to give the second of two lectures in a series entitled “History of the Middle East and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict” at the public library in San Anselmo, Calif., a leafy suburb of San Francisco best known as the longtime home of George Lucas.
I grew up in San Anselmo during the Sept. 11 era and vividly remember how stereotypes and misperceptions of the Middle East were used to justify war in Iraq and discrimination against Arabs and Muslims at home. I was shaped by the commonplace refrains of that moment, especially that Americans needed to learn more about the Middle East. So, I did. I learned Arabic and Farsi and spent years abroad living across the region. I earned a Ph.D. in Middle Eastern history and am now a professor at a public university in Colorado. I see teaching as a means of countering the misrepresentations that generate conflict.
But as the second lecture approached, I began receiving alarmed messages from the San Anselmo town librarian. She told me of a campaign to cancel the lecture so intense that discussions about how to respond involved the town’s elected officials, including the mayor. I was warned that “every word you utter tomorrow night will be scrutinized, dissected and used against you and the library” and that she had become “concerned for everyone’s well-being.” Just hours before it was scheduled to begin, the lecture was canceled.
I later learned more about what had transpired. At a subsequent town council meeting, the librarian described a campaign of harassment and intimidation that included “increasingly aggressive emails” and “coordinated in-person visits” so threatening that she felt that they undermined the safe working environment of library staff.
In Middle Eastern studies, such stories have become routine. A handful have received public attention—the instructor suspended for booking a room on behalf of a pro-Palestinian student organization, or the Jewish scholar of social movements investigated by Harvard University for supposed antisemitism. Professors have lost job offers or been fired. Even tenure is no protection. These well-publicized examples are accompanied by innumerable others which will likely never be known. In recent months, I have heard harrowing stories from colleagues: strangers showing up to classes and sitting menacingly in the back of the room; pressure groups contacting university administrators to demand that they be fired; visits from the FBI; a deluge of racist hate mail and death threats. It is no surprise that a recent survey of faculty in the field of Middle East Studies found that 98 percent of assistant professors self-censor when discussing Israel-Palestine.
Compared to the professors losing their jobs and the student demonstrators facing expulsion—and even deportation—my experience is insignificant. It is nothing compared to the scholasticide in Gaza, where Israeli forces have systematically demolished the educational infrastructure and killed untold numbers of academics and students. But the contrast between my anodyne actions and the backlash they have generated illustrates the remarkable breadth of the censorship that permeates American society. The mainstream discourse has been purged not just of Palestinian voices, but of scholarly ones. Most significantly, censorship at home justifies violence abroad. Americans are once again living in an alternate reality—with terribly real consequences.
On Oct. 7, 2023, it was clear that a deadly reprisal was coming. It was equally evident that no amount of force could free Israeli captives, let alone “defeat Hamas.” I contacted my university media office in hopes of providing valuable context. I had never given a TV interview before, so I spent hours preparing for a thoughtful discussion. Instead, I was asked if this was “Israel’s Pearl Harbor.”
Well, no, I explained. It was the tragic and predictable result of a so-called peace process that has, for 30 years and with U.S. complicity, done little more than provide cover for the expansion of Israeli settlements. Violence erupts when negotiation fails. Only by understanding why people turn to violence can we end it. I watched the story after it aired. Nearly the whole interview was cut.
I accepted or passed to colleagues all the interview requests that I received. But they soon dried up. Instead, I began receiving hate mail.
It quickly became clear that I had to take the initiative to engage with the public. I held a series of historical teach-ins on campus. The audience was attentive, but small. I reached out to a local school district where I had previously provided curriculum advice. I never heard back. I contacted my high school alma mater and offered to speak there. They were too afraid of backlash. I was eventually invited to speak at two libraries, including San Anselmo’s. Everyone else turned me down.
In April 2024, the Denver chapter of Students for a Democratic Society organized yet another protest in their campaign to pressure the University of Colorado to divest from companies complicit in the Israeli occupation. This event would be different. As one of the students spoke, others erected tents, launching what would become one of the longest-lasting encampments in the country.
There was no cause for panic. The encampment did not interfere with classes or even block the walkway around the quad. Instead, it became the kind of community space that is all too hard to build on a commuter campus. It hosted speakers, prayer meetings and craft circles. But as I left a faculty meeting the day after the start of the encampment, I sensed that something was wrong. I arrived on the quad to find a phalanx of armed riot police facing down a short row of students standing hand in hand on the lawn.
Fearing what would happen next, two colleagues and I joined the students and sat down, hoping to de-escalate the situation and avoid violence. The police surrounded us, preventing any escape. Then they were themselves surrounded by faculty, students and community members who were clearly outraged by their presence. We sat under the sun for nearly two hours as chaos swirled around us. The protesters cleared away the tents to demonstrate their compliance. It made no difference. Forty of us were arrested, zip-tied and jailed. I was charged with interference and trespassing. Others faced more serious charges. I was detained for more than 12 hours, until 3:00 in the morning.
The arrests backfired. When the police departed, the protesters returned, invigorated by an outpouring of community support. I visited the encampment regularly over the following weeks. When the threat of war with Iran loomed, I gave a talk about Iranian history. When the activists organized their own graduation, they invited me to give a commencement address. I spoke about their accomplishments: that they had taken real risks, made real sacrifices and faced real consequences in order to do what was right. The encampment became the place where I could speak most freely, on campus or off.
While the encampment came to an end in May, the prosecutions did not. The city offered me deferred prosecution, meaning that the matter would be dropped if I did not break the law for six months. I am not, to put it lightly, a seasoned lawbreaker, so the deal would have effectively made everything disappear. I turned it down. Accepting the offer would have prevented me from challenging the legality of the arrests, and I was determined to do what I could to prevent armed riot police from ever again suppressing a peaceful student demonstration. It was a matter of principle and precedent. A civil rights attorney agreed to represent me pro bono. I would fight the charges.
During my pretrial hearings, I learned more about the cancellation of my lecture in San Anselmo. A local ceasefire group served the town with a freedom of information request that yielded hundreds of pages of emails. Two days before the talk was scheduled, one local resident sent an “all hands on deck” email that called for a coordinated campaign against my lecture “in hopes of getting it canceled.” A less technologically savvy recipient forwarded the message on to the library, providing an inside view.
The denunciations presented a version of myself that I did not recognize. The letters relied on innuendo and misrepresentation. Many claimed that I was “pro-Hamas” or accused me of antisemitism, which they invariably conflated with criticism of Israeli policy. Several expressed concern about what I might say, rather than anything I have ever actually said, while others misquoted me. Fodder for the campaign came largely from media reports of my arrest and video of my commencement address, both taken out of context. One claimed that the talk was “a violation of multiple Federal and California Statutes.” Another claimed that I “seemed to promote ongoing violence”—the lawyerly use of the word “seemed” betraying the lack of evidence behind the accusation.
Perhaps the most popular claim was that I am biased, an activist rather than a scholar. My opponents seemed especially offended by my use of the word “genocide.” But genocide is not an epithet—it is an analytical term that represents the consensus in my field. A survey of Middle East studies scholars conducted in the weeks surrounding the talk found that 75 percent viewed Israeli actions in Gaza as either “genocide” or “major war crimes akin to genocide.”
I was most struck by how many people objected to the idea of contextualizing the Oct. 7 attack; one even called it “insulting.” But contextualization is not justification. Placing events in a wider frame is central to the study of history—indeed, it is why history matters. If violence is not explained by the twists and turns of events, it can only be understood as the product of intrinsic qualities—that certain people, or groups of people, are inherently violent or uncivilized. In the absence of context, bigotry reigns.
I did what I could to fight back against the censorship campaign. After reading the library emails, I reached out to journalists at several local news outlets to inform them about the incident. None followed up. The only report ever published was written by an independent journalist on Substack.
In the weeks leading up to my trial, I wrote an op-ed calling for the charges to be dropped. I noted that the protest was entirely peaceful until the police arrived. I asked how our students, especially our undocumented students or students of color, can feel safe on campus when the authorities respond to peaceful demonstrations by calling the police. I sent the article to a local paper. I never heard back. I sent it to a second. Then a third. None responded. It was never published.
In October, prosecutors dropped the charges against me. The official order of dismissal stated that they did not believe that they had a reasonable likelihood of conviction. I have now joined a civil lawsuit against the campus police in the hope that it will make the authorities think twice before turning to the police to arrest student demonstrators.
Scholars of the Middle East are caught in an inescapable bind. Activist spaces are the only ones left open to us, but we are dismissed as biased when we use them. We are invited to share our insights only if they are deemed uncontroversial by the self-appointed gatekeepers of the conventional wisdom. If we condemn—or even just name—the genocide unfolding before our eyes, we are deplatformed and silenced. The logic is circular and impenetrable. It is also poison to the body politic. It rests on a nonsensical conception of objectivity that privileges power over truth. This catch-22 is no novel creation of the new administration. The institutions most complicit in its creation are the pillars of society ostensibly dedicated to the pursuit of justice—the press, the courts and the academy itself. They have constricted the boundaries of respectable discourse until they fit comfortably within the Beltway consensus. Rather than confronting reality, they have become apologists for genocide and architects of the post-truth world. They have learned nothing from Iraq. Nor do they want to. They don’t want to learn about the Middle East.
Alex Boodrookas is an assistant professor of history at Metropolitan State University of Denver. The opinions expressed here are his own and do not represent those of his employer.
1.
Several days after the end, hopefully (or maybe not) of what Donald Trump refers to as the Twelve Day War, what the joint U.S-Israeli Bobbsey-Twin military aggression against Iran accomplished, has come more clearly into focus. No doubt Iran suffered greatly from the two U.S. and Israeli missile attacks. All the same, this joint attack on Iran was not, as claimed from the rooftops, so much about limiting Iran’s nuclear enrichment policy or stopping its non-existent drive to develop nuclear weapons.
More to the point it was an attempt at overthrowing the Iranian government through a blitzkrieg that failed.
That Benjamin Netanyahu just declared victory in the 12-day war is over the top.
The U.S.-Israeli attack was not the “knockout blow” that both the Trump Administration and Israel proclaimed. Iran itself recovered from the blitzkrieg within hours. Reports like CNN’s claim that “the myth of Iran’s invincibility has been shattered, and the fallout could be far-reaching” gets the situation “ass backwards”. Iran was able to inflict damage on Israel by its missile attacks but the main consequence the Zionist state suffered was to its invincibility.
The 2002-3 vilification of the Iraqi government was simply a pretext to overthrow Saddam Hussein. As is now well known, the US hysteria over non-existent weapons of mass destruction was a pretext for aggression. In the same vein, the so-called Iranian nuclear enrichment program is a red herring. Nor was the attack, as is also being peddled, a strategic defeat for Iran and a great military win for Israel. Instead, the myth of Israel’s invincibility was shattered.
As Max Blumenthal noted, “Iran penetrated Israel’s cultural psyche.” Iran absorbed the blow, regrouped and was able to return fire on Israel on a level the Zionist state has never experienced. Every day since, as the Israeli censorship is lifted, the world learns how seriously Israel was also physically damaged.
If anything, despite the damage done, Iran is politically stronger today, the country more united behind its government, its nuclear energy program much more secure out of IAEA (International Atomic Energy Association) control, its prestige throughout the Middle East is soaring (while Israel’s reputation is beyond salvation, its international bonds with Russia, China and the Global South as a whole strengthened.
Both the United States and the Israeli regime took political hits of their own.
While the U.S. media and government – well the Trump Administration and Trump in particular – along with Israel, claim to have achieved an overpowering military victory over Iran, nothing could be farther from the truth. If Israel didn’t “lose” the military confrontation, it certainly did “win” either. Israel was hit militarily as never before in its history, its role as a regional hegemon deflated to a great degree. Trump’s Operation Midnight Hammer was not so much a great military attack so much as it was Trump rescuing Israel from Iranian missile attacks.
The so called intended “knockout blow” has already backfired.
Also the frustration is growing between the United States and Israel; this tension is well articulated by Trita Parsi’s interview on “X:
Whether the Iranian program was obliterated (Trump) or severely damaged (Tehran), the real story is that Trump is looking for an exit because he does not want to be trapped by Israel into an endless war. Israel wanted the US to destroy much more than just the nuclear program.
That the Straits of Hormuz was not closed down was Iran’s big “concession” to the United States. It could have done so easily with the global consequences most of us are aware of. An underappreciated close call for Washington. It’s hard to deny the legitimacy of Danny Haiphong’s claim that the U.S. bombing of Iran was nothing other than another foreign policy blunder and a dangerous escalation by the Trump Administration.
Contrary to what Netanyahu claims, Israel has not achieved its two main goals.
In fact, it is that much more unlikely that it will be able to achieve them in the future. First, Israel – even with the help of the United States – has not ended Iran’s nuclear enrichment program, and attacking Iran makes Iran more likely, and not less likely, to obtain the nuclear weapon by Iran. Secondly, Despite an all out many sided blitzkrieg (to be discussed below) Israel was unable to overthrow the current government of Iran. Today the Iranian government has a stronger domestic base than prior to June 12, the day before the start of the Israeli bombing campaign.
Furthermore, Iranian missiles and drones have imposed a heavy punishment on Israel, which was short of air defense missiles and clearly lacked the determination to wage a war of wear, unlike Iranians.
2.
Much new information, insights about the U.S.-Israeli one-two missile punch against Iran over the past days since missile exchange ended, all interesting, all suggest a different way of viewing the recent military slugfest.
First point:
The White House knew, and knew prior to the attack, exactly when Israel would attack belies the Trump Administration lies (put forth by Secretary of State, Marco Rubio) was unaware that Israel would attack. Along with Trump Administration assurances that Iran would not be attacked so long as the negotiations continue Iran was lulled into lowering its guard. Israel’s surprise attack did catch Iran – and much of the rest of the world – off guard resulting in serious damage that Israel inflicted upon Iran in the attack’s early hours.
As Alastair Crooke pointed out Trump was presented with two contradictory sources of evidence regarding Iranian’s nuclear enrichment program. Trump chose to reject the analysis of his intelligence establishment and to base his subsequent order for U.S. bombers to attack Iran upon the Zionist influenced private software company, Palantir, that specializes in data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) platforms.
The first was the National Intelligence Estimate of 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, presented by National Security Advisor, Tulsi Gabbard, which concluded that Iran is nowhere near building a nuclear weapon and that there is no Iranian program to build such weapons. Gabbard presented this conclusion to Congress and to President Trump in March of this year (2025).
However, Trump chose to reject the N.I.E. conclusions and instead relied on the Palantir take, that, to the contrary, Iran is intensifying its nuclear program and had to be stopped. Given both the Trump and Biden Administration’s long held plans to attack Iran, Trump’s explanation for the urgent need to attack is entirely fallacious and deceptive, a smoke screen for an entirely different reason for the attacks: regime change. No surprise here.
In line with the growing role of Palantier and other tech companies in defense, the U.S. military has just named four tech leaders to the rank of lieutenant colonel: Shayam Sankar, CTO of Palantir (Peter Thiel’s company), Andrew Bosworth, CTO of Meta (Mark Zuckerberg’s company), Kevin Weil, chief production officer at OpenAI, and Bob McGrew, former research director at OpenAI (the company by Sam Altman).
As Sami Ben Ghardaia, founder (and I think still publisher) of the Tunisian human rights bulletin Nawaat.org noted:
Looks like these men will be working on “targeted projects to help guide rapid, evolving technological solutions to complex problems.” A sentence that means absolutely nothing, because it’s clearly just a way to give these companies access to top secret information without having to go through stringent background checks.These tech billionaires compile lists of the most sensitive information: tax, medical, bank accounts, social security numbers, immigration status, and more. This administration allows them to build the infrastructure of techno-feudalism. Authoritarianism in the form of data and surveillance.
Second Point: (To be continued)
Outside the confines of the U.S. of A. and certain misguided European countries, respect for Iran in the world is soaring, nothing less.
As a result of the recent U.S. Israeli aggression against Iran – and the failure of those two strikes to accomplish their goal of regime change in Iran – a striking global public opinion shift is underway. Iran has withstood a LONG PREPARED U.S.-ISRAELI attempt on regime change, the kind that over the years has led to the overthrowing of governments in Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Afghanistan, Libya. Pretty much the same formula was applied to Iran. It has, so far, withstood the blow, and in fact, although bruised, it has come out of this military exchange more united and stronger.
I doubt Iranians rising prestige and influence will be undone, neither by those who outright vilify Iran and those equate it as some evil government on a par with Israel, the U.S.A. etc.
Decades of Western propaganda against Iran are collapsing. Perhaps not yet here in the US of A but elsewhere, around the world, people are beginning to look at Iran, not with fear and suspicion—but with awe, respect, and admiration.
And that’s a fact.
By the way, one of the unstated – or understated – goals of this aggression by the U.S.-Israeli Bobbsey twins is to complicate or, if possible, seriously disrupt the Chinese “Belt and Road Initiative” a good deal of which passes through Iran to Europe and the Middle East. That too has failed, at least for the moment.
Cheers!
Another Useless Weapon (like Nukes) – the Bunker Buster. Will the U.S. Use It Against Iran? Will It “Work?”.
In 2017 the United States (it was during Trump’s first term) detonated what is referred to as “a bunker buster bomb,” GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP), in Afghanistan. It is with this monster bomb that Washington is threatening to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities. Although the Defense Department stated that a number of people were killed in that Afghan blast, it was more of “a demonstration bomb” … ie, if “You” don’t agree with “us” we’ll drop this killer bomb on you. What I do remember is that its fire power was close to the bombs dropped at Hiroshima and Nagasaki as mentioned in the clip below.This clip comes from a video entitled “World Leaders Panic As Trump Pulls Suspicious Move” the full video it is taken from is found here
Some friends are wondering about the Iranian response … some of whom want to be the first to comment on Israel’s recent attack on Iran which was, in essence, nothing short of a declaration of war. They suggest that the fact that Iran has of yet (Friday, June 13 at 2:30pm Mountain States Time) responded to the Israeli harsh strikes is a sign of weakness.
Could be but I doubt it.
As someone who has FOR DECADES supported negotiated solutions (and still do) that would normalize or start to normalize U.S.-Iranian relations, I openly supported the current negotiations, regardless of how minimal the gains from them might be on the principle that a lousy negotiated agreement is better than intensifying war plans.
I’ll take the lousy agreement over war anytime.
Unfortunately, what Israel did last night – the scope and extent of its attack on Iran was more aggressive than anything it’s done till now had a number of now obvious goals, among them:
1. to put more pressure on the Trump Administration to engage Iran militarily hoping that Iran would “over react”
2. End any pretense of working for a negotiated settlement over Iran’s nuclear program and the reduction or end of the sanction’s regime
3. a blatant attempt at regime change, not much different that the cell phone murders against Hezbollah’s leaders, that is, to decapitate the Iranian leadership and induce chaos that would lead to an uprising and the overthrow of the current government. Like all the noise about Iraq’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction, the hysteria about Iran’s nuclear program is a meaningless diversion – there is no way, the U.S. or Israel, can destroy it.
The goal is the overthrow of the current government, the last of the seven countries the U.S. intended to overthrow as a part of Operation Clear Break which targeted seven countries for imperialist destruction: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Sudan, Somalia, Libya and last but not least Iran.
I doubt Iran will take the U.S.-Israeli bait although the response will be strong; The current negotiations were NEVER about improving U.S.-Iranian relations but were little more than a ruse to buy time so that the plans for the Israeli attack could be finalized. Although the attack did accomplish some of its goals (assassinations of some high-level Iranians) the idea that as a result the government will collapse, is, from where I’m sitting, utter nonsense, the typical racist stereotyping that underestimates non-white adversaries.
I am not a betting man. In high school I got into a fight with a close friend over a poker game (he accused me of cheating) and promised myself I would never gamble again – and haven’t – but I’d bet dollars to donuts (and at my age, frankly I’m more interested in the donuts than the dollars) that the Iranian response will come and it will have a kind of intensity that the Israeli’s and the U.S. have never seen before. I do not write these words “with pleasure” or some kind of satisfaction. There will be a lot more blood spilled and I have to wonder if the conflict will not spiral out of control. Dunno. Hope not, but fear so.
Newsweek, you know, that “radical left” news source to the right of Hillary Clinton, ran the piece below. It speaks of Iran opening “the gates of hell”. Rhetoric? I doubt it.
No war with Iran!
End the Gaza genocide!
Cut all aid to Israel, a genocidal state!
For a nuclear weapons free Middle East!
Rather than bloating it, cut the f-ing military budget,
June 12, 2025. Israel Attacked Iran opening a dangerous can of worms … Initial reports say a residential area was hit.
Israel Launches Strikes on Iran
In its desperation – wounded beast syndrome – Israel launched an air attack on Iran. Initial reports are that a residential area was hit. No word yet on how the Iranians will respond. Trump Administration in a statement by Marco Rubio claims the US was not involved … not a credible statement but tomorrow we’ll know more.
Rubio’s disingenuous statement below.
Internet shut down in Gaza may be part of a larger scenario – Trump ordered personnel evacuation across Middle East as Israel may be about to attack Iran.Remembering Chester McQueary and Melinda Dell Fitting: Keeping Project Rulison’s Memory Alive
Chester McQueary – September 10, 2019
On September 10, 1969 on a remote spot on the north side of Grand Mesa in a town – actually not even a village – called Rulison between Rifle and Grand Junction just s. of I-70, the Department of Energy, in its usual lack of wisdom and in conjunction with a Texas energy company whose name I have forgotten, detonated an underground nuclear bomb in an effort to create an underground cavity into which natural gas would flow. That gas would be sold commercially. At least that was the plan.
Fracking with nuclear weapons. That is what it was, plain and simple. Project Rulison was a test blast – one of three, the first in nw New Mexico, then Project Rulison, and then a third referred to as “Rio Blanco” also in Colorado on a deserted road between Rifle and Meeker. The stated goal of these blasts was to denotate more than 200 nukes in the coal fields of southern Wyoming, but the plans were, mercifully, killed by Jimmy Carter in 1979, during his presidency.
There was an effort from the then peace movement in Colorado to get the blast cancelled. It included a group of (mostly) students from the University of Colorado Boulder, Colorado State University in Ft. Collins, and some folk on the Auraria Campus in Denver, to stop the blast. That effort was spearheaded by two people – Chester McQueary, a working-class gay beekeeper and one Margaret Puls who hailed from Salida Colorado, a long time friend with whom I lost track.
Although there were 30-40 of us that engaged in the protest within a mile of ground zero, given the indefinite timeframe of the blast, only two protesters were at the sight when the blast occurred (on the date above). One was Chester, the other was one Melinda Dell Fitting, both of whom survived the blast but were lifted off the ground from the shaking earth it triggered.
Fifty years later, on September 10, 2019, four of us who participated in the Project Rulison protest went back to the site of the blast to commemorate our effort to stop it. We also held one of the most interesting meetings I have ever attended with members of the surrounding communities who were present at the time. Over the years that followed Chester, and I did what we could to keep the memory of Project Rulison – and our resistance to the project – alive. I so enjoyed working with him on this.
Last month, within days of one another, Chester McQueary and Melinda Dell Fitting died, Chester in Ft. Collins of prostate cancer and Melinda Dell seemingly of some kind of stroke outside of Baltimore. In honor of them both, and with those who might be interested, it is my goal in the years left me to me, to keep the memories of Chester McQueary and Melinda Dell Fitting alive.
I can do no less for the memory of these lifelong friends – campaneros and campaneras – and of Project Rulison. Should you want to join me in this project, let me know.
Melinda Dell Fitting holding Molly Prince. She was Molly’s god mother
Scott Ritter: The Lesson of the Killdeer
Killdeer. Clear Creek Valley Park. S. Adams County, Colorado. January 6, 2017
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(For the images associated with this entry, click on the title just below. Have much respect for Scott Ritter, the breath of his knowledge and the effort he has made to normalize U.S.-Russian relations at a time they are close to a breaking point. His understanding of the U.S./NATO war in Ukraine against Russia, the mechanics of the Gaza genocide and much else is impressive. He is, to my mind, “a must read” or given how things go these days “a must watched video”. One can find his commentaries all over social media and they are worth watching, listening to. However, this particular post is about a walk in a nearby park and a killdeer family nesting nearby. I often see killdeer, have run across their eggs and have personally experienced the protective behavior of killdeer parents to their eggs and Ritter describes here. Like this piece a lot. RJP)
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Heartbreak and Hope: The Lesson of the Killdeer How my interaction with a pair of birds taught me one of life’s most important lessons SCOTT RITTER. JUNE 3, 2025 A mother Killdeer tends to her eggs I spend hours every day pouring through news reports and analysis of events transpiring around the world. Often, the information that comes across my desk represents the worst that humans can do to one another—war, famine, death, and destruction dominate the headlines. At times the negativity and sorrow these stories generate can become overwhelming. This is why I look forward to my morning walks with my dogs—it provides a much-needed opportunity to recharge my life batteries with the “good stuff”. Every morning before the work day begins, my wife, Marina, and I load our four dogs—two Pomeranians (Maverick and Iceman), a Chihuahua (Machismo) and a mixed breed Shephard named Teegan—into our car and head to a local park where we can enjoy a stroll outdoors, surrounded by nature, while the dogs can roam and explore free of the constraints of a leash. The Ritter dogs at the park: (left to right) Machismo, Iceman, Maverick and Teegan The park is blessed with an extravaganza of flora and fauna native to upstate New York—we have crossed paths with deer, fox, skunks, rabbits, snakes, squirrels and chipmunks. It is also a favorite place for local Ornithologists to sharpen their birdwatching skills, as the park is home to numerous birds native to the region: American Bald Eagles, Red-Tailed Hawks, Ospreys and Great Horned Owls fly overhead, looking for prey, while Mallard, Wood Ducks, Green-Winged Teals, and Canadian Geese make their home along the banks and in the waters of the Normans Kill Creek. And all around us one can see Robins, Starlings, Sparrows, Cardinals, Red-Wing Blackbirds, Woodcocks, Crows and numerous other species of birds—including the Killdeer. The Killdeer is a large Plover which makes its nest in short vegetation where the female can lay her clutch, usually comprised of four to six beige eggs with dark markings. Albany is known for its cold weather, meaning that the Killdeer tend to delay laying their eggs until well into May, once the temperatures start to warm up. I always know when it is nesting time for the Killdeer because of the loud and active interaction the birds have with my dogs, who invariably come close to the eggs of a nesting pair, prompting a display of the various techniques the Killdeer use to distract potential predators and lure them away from the nest and its eggs. Because of the cold temperatures this year, I didn’t experience the Killdeer’s repertoire of distractions and noise until last week when, for the first time this year, my four dogs encountered the shrill cry of a male Killdeer and he simulated a broken-wing, dragging one appendage on the ground while crying out in simulated pain. It worked like a champ—all four dogs took off after the “injured bird”, only to discover that he was miraculously healed at the last moment, taking to the air to lead my four miscreants even further from the territory where his mate was tending to her eggs. I scanned the field to my left, looking for the mother bird, only to be startled myself as I approached her nest, which was situated just off the edge of the gravel path which constituted the park’s perimeter. The mother bird immediately spread her wings, exposing the orange feathers underneath, catching my attention before shrieking and running off. I looked down at me feet and saw what she was desperately trying to protect—her four perfectly formed eggs, sitting exposed in the short grass. The four Killdeer eggs I immediately walked away, only to notice that the father bird, having led my dogs away from the nest, had returned, summoned by the shrill cry of his mate, and began rushing at me to catch my attention. I carefully moved away from the eggs, and headed up the path, calling for my dogs to join me. I looked back to see the mother had returned to her nest, where she nestled herself over the eggs, continuing the incubation of her charges. Later, as I made my way down the hill, I did my best to distract my dogs away from the nest, situated as it was so close to the trail. But I needed not to have fretted—the mother and father Killdeer worked their distraction magic, ensuring that all four dogs were lured away from the nest. The next day Marina and I once again transported the dogs to the park, and once again we were confronted by the Killdeer nesting pair, who entertained us with their antics as we walked past their exposed and vulnerable nesting site. We weren’t the only dog owners to frequent the park—at any moment, there could be a half dozen owners and their dogs taking the scenic walk around the premises. This meant the Killdeer pair were working overtime to protect their eggs. The Killdeer mother on her eggs, next to the gravel path I made a point of mentioning the nest to the other dog owners I came across, to alert them to the precarious location of the nest. To my surprise and joy I found that most of them were aware of the nest and took similar precautions to avoid any tragic encounters between their pets and the eggs. This past Saturday the weather took a turn for the worse, with the temperature falling into the low 40’s and the sky opening, unleashing a torrential rain. Normally my wife and I would stay home, not wanting either we or the dogs to become soaking wet and miserable. But I was drawn to the park out of concern for the Killdeer pair and their eggs. The morning proved to be as miserable as we had thought it would be—even the dogs were not enthusiastic about getting out of the dry car and venturing out into the pouring rain. But I was on a mission, and I threw the hood of my rain jacket over my head and made my way up the gravel path, only to be rewarded by the shrill cry of the father as he tried to get my attention, and the plaintive look of the mother, soaking wet, as she sat on her clutch shielding them from the elements. The mother Killdeer, in the rain, protecting her eggs Marina and I had a busy day ahead of us, trying to take care of all the little things associated with owning a home that are shunted to the side during the hustle and bustle of the work week. But as busy as we were, I just couldn’t get the mother killdeer out of my mind. The nest was so exposed, and I worried about her precious eggs, knowing that she and her mate would need to watch over them for nearly three more weeks before they would hatch. I watched the rain form into rivulets of rushing water around my neighborhood and had visions of the Killdeer nest being swept away by the water. Come Sunday morning I awoke with more energy than usual, anxious to get to the park and check on “my” Killdeer and “our” eggs. I let the dogs out of the car and awaited the frantic cries of the father Killdeer as he engaged them to distract them away from the nest. All I heard was silence. My heart was in my throat as I approached the nesting area, scanning the ground for some sign of life. And there she was, the mother bird, still nestled on her eggs. She looked at me, and let out a little peep, letting me know I was getting too close. It was the most beautiful sound in the world. The mother Killdeer chirps out a warning Marina and I discussed the Killdeer nest and brainstormed about what we could do to protect it. One idea was to place plow marker flags around the periphery of the nest to draw attention to the fact that there was a nest located next to the path. I figured that would cause someone to pause and buy time for the Killdeer pair to make their presence known. I decided that I would pace off the site and determine how many markers I would need before heading off to the local hardware store to buy them. Monday morning came in sunny and warm, a much-needed break from the cold, wet weather that had plagued us for the past two weeks. I drove up to the spot where we normally parked our car, well below the stretch of field where the Killdeer nest was situated and let the dogs out. Immediately I sensed something was wrong. The dogs had made their way up the hill, toward the nest, and there was no sound at all from the Killdeer pair. And as my eyes tracked the movement of my dogs, I suddenly realized that I wouldn’t have to worry about buying marker flags for the nest anymore. Parked in the field, just off the edge of the gravel path, was a large yellow earthmover. Across the path was a natural gas pipeline maintenance facility. Back in April the City of Albany had granted the operator of this facility an easement on property adjacent to the park for the purpose of replacing a section of pipeline. The earthmover was part of the equipment being brought in to accomplish this work. The earthmover and the destroyed nesting ground As I traced the route it took to cross the gravel path to where it was now parked, I saw that it had driven directly over the Killdeer nest. All I could think about was the loyal mother Killdeer, who had remained on her clutch of eggs during the torrential rainstorm. Who had stared me down the next day, refusing to leave her eggs unattended. I made my way to where they nest used to be, digging through the mud thrown up by the large rubber wheels of the earthmover, looking for any evidence of the mother bird or her eggs. There was nothing. I was struck by a deep, profound sense of sadness and anger. At a time when the headlines proclaimed more death and destruction in Russia, Ukraine, and Gaza, the Killdeer pair and their eggs had become a beacon of light in an otherwise dark and dreary world. I wanted those eggs to hatch and bring forth life, proving again the miracle of God’s vision when he created this world that we humans were trying so hard to destroy. I needed those eggs to hatch. And now they were gone. I called to my dogs, and headed back to my car, my day no longer brimming with the joy that the Killdeer had injected into my life. My two Pomeranians, Maverick and Iceman, were in their typical fashion, lagging. I turned my attention to them, calling out their names, when I realized they were chasing something. It was the father Killdeer. I walked toward where my two dogs were chasing after the father when I heard a peep to my right. I looked, and it was the mother. She had flown in to join the father in moving my dogs away from a stretch of field, further removed from the path, they had apparently marked out as their territory. As relieved as I was to see that both were alive, my spirit was crushed at the thought of them going through the motions of protecting a nest that no longer existed. Filled with a sense of profound sadness, I took it upon myself to read up about Killdeer, so that I might better understand why they had put the nest where they did. The circle of life is something that I am very familiar with, and I fully comprehend that life is fragile, and can be extinguished in a blink of an eye, especially for those animals and birds who live in the wild. I wanted to know why they remained near the site of their destroyed nest. Could birds mourn the loss of their eggs? I knew it was foolish to project human emotions on the Killdeer pair, but I was searching for some meaning in what had happened in the field this very morning. The mother Killdeer protecting her former nesting area My research led me to a passage which explained that while a Killdeer breeding pair would normally only produce one clutch of eggs per breeding season, if their first clutch were to be eaten or otherwise destroyed early in the breeding season, then the Killdeer would often lay a second clutch of eggs. This explained the behavior of the Killdeer pair—they weren’t defending a ghost nest but rather staking their claim to a new nesting site. If things went well, in a week or so I should expect to be confronted with a father Killdeer perfectly executing the broken-wing technique to draw my dogs away from the area of the field where the mother Killdeer sat watch on her eggs, incubating them until the moment the miracle of life brought forth the next generation of chirping, fleeting, flying beauties. Life, given its finite nature, is about the inevitability of heartbreak—ashes to ashes, dust to dust. But even as death waits on the horizon for us all, it is the miracle of life that gives us both hope for the future and a reason to go on, regardless of the obstacles placed in our way. We march forward, each day leading to an inescapable destiny, driven not by the despair of our impending doom, but rather the joy of the gift of life we have been given. Life isn’t fair. And it often results in tragedy. But the act of living, of going through the motions of life, is what brings joy into this world. Keep striving. Never give up. No matter what life throws at you.. This is the lesson of the Killdeer. And it is one I will take forward for the rest of my days. © 2025 Scott Ritter 45 Dover Drive, Delmar, New York, 12054 |
View from the Left Bank: Rob Prince's Blog 