Israel

WASHINGTON — President Trump is set to fete Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Tuesday when the de facto leader of Saudi Arabia makes his first White House visit since the 2018 killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents.

The U.S.-Saudi relationship had been sent into a tailspin by the operation targeting Khashoggi, a fierce critic of the kingdom, that U.S. intelligence agencies later determined Prince Mohammed likely directed the agents to carry out.

But seven years later, the dark clouds over the relationship have been cleared away. And Trump has tightened his embrace of the 40-year-old crown prince he views as an indispensable player in shaping the Middle East in the decades to come. Prince Mohammed, for his part, denies involvement in the killing of Khashoggi, a Saudi citizen and Virginia resident.

Khashoggi will likely be an afterthought as the two leaders unveil billions of dollars in deals and huddle with aides to discuss the tricky path ahead in a volatile Middle East. They’ll end their day with an evening White House soiree, organized by first lady Melania Trump, to honor the prince.

“They have been a great ally,” Trump said of the Saudis on the eve of the visit.

Rolling out the red carpet

Technically, it’s not a state visit, because the crown prince is not the head of state. But Prince Mohammed has taken charge of the day-to-day governing for his father, King Salman, 89, who has endured health problems in recent years.

Most foreign leaders who come to meet with Trump are driven up to the doors of the West Wing, where the president often greets them. But Prince Mohammed, accompanied by the Saudi prime minister, will be welcomed with an arrival ceremony on the South Lawn.

An Oval Office meeting and luncheon in the Cabinet Room will follow.

Trump will then see the crown prince off in the afternoon but he’s expected to return to the South Lawn, with the first lady, to welcome the crown prince when he returns for the evening East Room dinner.

In addition to White House pomp, the two nations are also planning an investment summit at the Kennedy Center on Wednesday that will include the heads of Salesforce, Qualcomm, Pfizer, the Cleveland Clinic, Chevron and Aramco, Saudi Arabia’s national oil and natural gas company, where even more deals with the Saudis could be announced.

Fighter jets and business deals

Ahead of Prince Mohammed’s arrival, Trump announced he has agreed to sell the Saudis F-35 fighter jets despite some concerns within the administration that the sale could lead to China gaining access to the U.S. technology behind the advanced weapon system.

Trump’s announcement is also surprising because some in the Republican administration have been wary about upsetting Israel’s qualitative military edge over its neighbors, especially at a time when Trump is depending on Israeli support for the success of his Gaza peace plan.

But the unexpected move comes at a moment when Trump is trying to nudge the Saudis toward normalizing relations with Israel.

The president in his first term had helped forge commercial and diplomatic ties between Israel and Bahrain, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates through an effort dubbed the Abraham Accords.

Trump sees expansion of the accords as essential to his broader efforts to build stability in the Middle East after the two-year Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

And getting Saudi Arabia — the largest Arab economy and the birthplace of Islam — to sign on would create an enormous domino effect, he argues. The president in recent weeks has even predicted that once Saudi Arabia signs on to the accords, “everybody” in the Arab world “goes in.”

But the Saudis have maintained that a clear path toward Palestinian statehood must first be established before normalizing relations with Israel can be considered. The Israelis, meanwhile, remain steadfastly opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state.

The U.N. Security Council on Monday approved a U.S. plan for Gaza that authorizes an international stabilization force to provide security in the devastated territory and envisions a possible future path to an independent Palestinian state.

Assurances on U.S. military support

The leaders certainly will have plenty to talk about including maintaining the fragile ceasefire in Gaza, mutual concerns about Iran’s malign behavior, and a brutal civil war in Sudan.

And the Saudis are looking to receive formal assurances from Trump defining the scope of U.S. military protection for the kingdom, even though anything not ratified by Congress can be undone by the next president.

Prince Mohammed, 40, who has stayed away from the West after the Khashoggi killing, is also looking to reestablish his position as a global player and a leader determined to diversify the Saudi economy away from oil by investing in sectors like mining, technology and tourism.

To that end, Saudi Arabia is expected to announce a multi-billion dollar investment in U.S. artificial intelligence infrastructure, and the two countries will lay out details about new cooperation in the civil nuclear energy sector, according to a senior Trump administration official who was not authorized to comment publicly ahead of the formal announcement.

A coalition of 11 human rights groups ahead of the crown prince’s visit called on the Trump administration to use its leverage to press Saudi authorities, who badly want to broaden its business and defense connections with the U.S., to make concrete commitments on human rights and press freedom during the visit.

The activists say Saudi authorities continue to harshly repress dissent, including by arresting human rights defenders, journalists, and political dissidents for criticism against the kingdom. Human rights organizations have also documented a surge in executions in Saudi Arabia that they connect to an effort to suppress internal dissent.

“Saudi Arabia’s crown prince is trying to rebrand himself as a global statesman, but the reality at home is mass repression, record numbers of executions, and zero tolerance for dissent,” Sarah Yager, Washington director at the group Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. “U.S. officials should be pressing for change, not posing for photos.”

Madhani writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Josh Boak and Darlene Superville contributed to this report.

Hamas says a UN Security Council resolution backing Trump’s Gaza plan fails to meet the political and humanitarian demands of Palestinians.

The UN Security Council has adopted the US’s 20-point Gaza ceasefire plan, approving an international stabilisation force and a ‘board of peace’ with extensive powers to oversee Gaza’s governance and reconstruction.

Montreal, Canada – Canadian human rights activists are demanding answers from their government after a former United Nations special rapporteur who investigated Israeli abuses against Palestinians was interrogated at the Canadian border on “national security” grounds.

Richard Falk, 95, was stopped at Toronto Pearson International Airport on Thursday and questioned for several hours. He said a security official told him that Canada had concerns that he and his wife, fellow legal scholar Hilal Elver, posed “a danger to the national security of Canada”.

The treatment of the couple has sparked anger and calls for an explanation from Ottawa.

“We need answers – and from the highest levels of government,” said Corey Balsam, national coordinator at Independent Jewish Voices-Canada, a group that supports Palestinian rights.

Despite the outcry, Canadian authorities have not publicly addressed the incident. But the office of Minister of Public Safety Gary Anandasangaree, who oversees the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), has acknowledged the case in a statement to Al Jazeera, saying he is seeking more information about what happened.

“National security safeguards are an integral part of our immigration and border-management framework and, while we cannot comment on specific cases, we are committed to ensuring that our border screening processes respect due process and international obligations,” Simon Lafortune, a spokesperson for Anandasangaree, told Al Jazeera in an email.

“To that end, Minister Anandasangaree has asked the CBSA to provide more specific details on how this particular incident occurred.”

Falk told Al Jazeera on Saturday that he and Elver were asked about their work on Israel, Gaza and genocide as well as about their participation in an event in Ottawa looking into Canada’s role in Israel’s war on Gaza, which a UN inquiry and numerous rights groups have described as a genocide.

After more than four hours of questioning, the pair – both US citizens – were allowed to enter Canada and take part in the Palestine Tribunal on Canadian Responsibility.

‘Patently ridiculous’

Alex Paterson, senior director of strategy and parliamentary affairs at the advocacy group Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, called the government’s treatment of the couple “patently ridiculous”.

“I think it just lays bare for everyone the reality that they wanted to hamper the tribunal’s work and try and keep Canadian complicity in Israel’s genocide … in the shadows,” Paterson told Al Jazeera on Monday.

He added that the Canadian government “has been trying to avoid questions of its complicity in arming the genocide, and that’s reason enough to do this”.

Since Israel’s war on Gaza began in October 2023, Canadian human rights advocates have been calling on the government to apply pressure on Israel, a longstanding ally, to end its attacks on the Palestinian enclave.

Those calls for concrete action from Canada have grown as Israel’s military assault and restrictions on aid have killed tens of thousands of people and pushed Gaza into a humanitarian crisis.

Last year, the Canadian government announced it was suspending some weapons export permits to Israel amid the atrocities in the territory.

Prime Minister Mark Carney, who took office in March, also voiced opposition to Israel’s blockade on aid to Gaza and a surge in Israeli military and settler violence in the occupied West Bank.

Meanwhile, along with several allies, Carney’s government recognised an independent Palestinian state in September.

But researchers and human rights advocates said loopholes in Canada’s arms export system have allowed Canadian-made weapons to continue to reach Israel, often via the United States.

They have also urged Canada to do more to stem continued Israeli attacks against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank and to support efforts to hold Israel accountable for serious abuses, including at the International Criminal Court.

‘Climate of governmental insecurity’

In his interview with Al Jazeera on Saturday, Falk, who served as UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory from 2008 to 2014, said he believed his interrogation was part of a wider push to silence those who speak the truth about what is happening in Gaza.

“It suggests a climate of governmental insecurity, I think, to try to clamp down on dissident voices,” he said.

Al Jazeera has contacted multiple relevant Canadian government agencies to ask whether Ottawa views the 95 year old as a threat to national security – and if so, why.

A CBSA spokesperson said in an email on Monday that the agency could not comment on specific cases, but stressed that “secondary inspections are part of the cross-border process”.

“It is important to note that travellers referred to secondary inspection are not being ‘detained,’” spokesperson Rebecca Purdy said.

“Foreign nationals seeking entry into Canada can be subjected to a secondary inspection by an officer to determine admissibility to Canada. In some instances, the inspection may take longer due to information being gathered through questioning.”

Global Affairs Canada, the Canadian foreign ministry, has not yet responded to a request for comment from Al Jazeera sent on Saturday.

Balsam of Independent Jewish Voices-Canada said treating someone like Falk as a security threat sends a message that “actually none of us are safe from the suppression of dissent and crackdown on voices that are critical of the Israeli regime“.

“We all deserve an answer and an explanation from the government as to this incident, which casts a chill for all Canadians that are speaking out about human rights in general and Palestine in particular,” he told Al Jazeera.

New attacks near Bethlehem and Hebron underscore intensifying Israeli violence in occupied Palestinian territory.

Israeli settlers have launched two major arson attacks on Palestinian villages near Bethlehem and Hebron amid a wave of rising violence by Israel in the occupied West Bank.

Dozens of settlers rampaged through the village of al-Jaba, located 10km (six miles) southwest of Bethlehem, on Monday, torching three Palestinian homes, one shack and three vehicles, according to Dhyab Masha‘la, the head of the local council.

Masha‘la told Palestinian news agency Wafa that the attackers caused extensive damage to the village, but that locals had managed to extinguish the flames. No casualties were reported.

Earlier on Monday, Wafa said settlers set fire to a home and two vehicles, and physically assaulted several civilians in Sa’ir town, northeast of Hebron, under the protection of Israeli forces.

The Israeli settlers beat the Palestinians with batons and sharp instruments, resulting in injuries to a number of women, with Israeli forces blocking fire engines and ambulances from reaching the scene, the agency reported.

Violence in the West Bank has broken new records this year, with settlers carrying out almost-daily attacks on Palestinians that have involved killings, beatings and the destruction of property, often under the protection of the Israeli military.

Last wek, settlers set a mosque ablaze in the village of Deir Istiya in the north of the West Bank.

The Palestinian Authority’s Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission says that Israeli forces and settlers carried out 2,350 attacks across the West Bank last month alone in an “ongoing cycle of terror”, which has been taking place in the shadow of the war in Gaza.

The violence is rarely prosecuted.

Referring to the attack on al-Jaba, an Israeli military spokesperson said security forces were “searching for those involved” after being deployed to the village following reports of “dozens of Israeli citizens” torching and vandalising houses and vehicles.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has overseen the rapid expansion of settlements, denounced Monday’s attack, calling the assailants a “small, extremist group” and signalling that he would convene cabinet ministers to address the problem.

Defence Minister Israel Katz said on X that the government would “not tolerate the attempts of a small group of violent and criminal anarchists who break the law to take the law into their own hands and tarnish the settler community”.

But his statement backed the continued expansion of illegal settlements on Palestinian land.

The government, Katz said, would “continue to develop and foster the settlement enterprise throughout Judea and Samaria”.

Last year, the International Court of Justice – the top United Nations tribunal – ruled that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank is illegal and called for removing Israeli settlements from the territory.

Settler violence has spiked as members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government push to formally annex the area, which has long operated under a system of apartheid, according to leading rights groups.

The United Nations’ human rights office warned in July that the settler violence was being carried out “with the acquiescence, support, and in some cases participation, of Israeli security forces”.

Last week, in a rare public rebuke, Israeli President Isaac Herzog and army chief Eyal Zamir condemned the burgeoning settler attacks.

For Palestinians, the olive harvest is both an essential source of income and a treasured cultural tradition. Each year, families gather beneath the groves to pick olives, press oil, and celebrate a connection to the land that spans generations. But this season has seen increasing attacks from settlers and Israeli troops, damaging or uprooting thousands of trees. With tens of thousands relying on olives for their livelihoods, each loss carries economic and emotional weight. This episode examines the harvest as a means of livelihood, a celebration, and a form of resistance.

Presenter: Stefanie Dekker

Guests:
Sami Huraini – Palestinian activist
Sarah Sharif – Palestinian American food blogger

The Security Council is set to vote on a US resolution detailing the long-awaited Gaza stabilisation force.

Israeli authorities have been systematically abusing Palestinian prisoners with impunity, according to PHRI.

The number of Palestinians that have died in Israeli detention facilities has surged amid the war in Gaza, according to a report issued by a human rights group.

At least 94 Palestinian deaths have been documented since October 2023, the report published on Monday by Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI) said.

The report is just the latest accusation regarding Israel’s jails, in which critics say thousands of Palestinians taken from Gaza and the occupied West Bank are routinely abused.

The nonprofit organisation expressed “grave concerns that the actual number of Palestinians who have died in Israeli custody is significantly higher, particularly among those detained from Gaza”.

It said Israeli authorities have consistently failed to hold those responsible for the deaths to account.

Of the 94 deaths that the report documents, 68 were from the Gaza Strip, while 26 were from the West Bank or held Israeli citizenship.

Israeli military prisons were responsible for at least 52 of the deaths. The remaining 42 were documented in facilities run by the Israel Prison Service (IPS).

Amid the war, Israeli soldiers have detained thousands of people from across Gaza. PHRI’s report asserts that they are now effectively “disappeared”.

The Israeli authorities have stopped sharing detainee information with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and barred all access to detention sites.

PHRI called those moves a “direct breach of both international and domestic law”.

Israel also refuses to acknowledge that it is holding many Palestinian prisoners, or that some have died in custody, leaving families in the dark for prolonged periods.

Some families found out about the death of their loved ones from Israeli media reports.

PHRI pointed at the case of Dr Hussam Abu Safia, the renowned director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza, for whom Israeli authorities claimed for days that they had “no indication of the individual’s arrest or detention”.

Israel continues to hold the doctor, who was taken from the hospital in December, despite an international outcry. His lawyer asserts that he has been subjected to torture and humiliation.

Deaths of Palestinians in Israeli custody have been recorded in almost all major IPS facilities, including Ktzi’ot Prison, Megiddo, Nitzan and Ofer, as well as military camps and bases, including the notorious Sde Teiman, the report says.

Physical violence, including bruising, rib fractures, internal organ damage and intracranial haemorrhage, has been a leading cause of death, followed by chronic medical neglect or denial and severe malnutrition.

“Given the grave conditions faced by Palestinians in Israeli incarceration facilities, and in light of Israel’s policies of enforced disappearance, systematic killing, and institutionalized cover-ups, PHRI calls for an independent international investigation into the deaths of Palestinians in Israeli custody,” the NGO said.

Bundled into vehicle with blacked-out windows, British journalist recounts detainment in US due to Palestinian support.

British journalist Sami Hamdi, who says he was held illegally for more than two weeks by United States immigration authorities for his pro-Palestinian commentary, has described his detention as “like something from the movies”.

In an interview with Al Jazeera, Hamdi accused the US Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) of using “loopholes” to abuse people, and he directed attention towards the plight of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli detention.

The 35-year-old British citizen was stopped at San Francisco International Airport in California on October 26 midway through a speaking tour discussing Israel’s war on Gaza.

Hamdi said Laura Loomer and other right-wing activists and allies of President Donald Trump created the grounds for his arrest by posting his lectures and calling for his visa to be revoked.

Homeland Security Department authorities stopped Hamdi at the airport and told him his visa had been revoked. However, they refused to allow him to immediately leave the US by flying to London instead of his planned domestic flight.

“And then four other ICE agents appeared out of nowhere,” he told Al Jazeera. “They surrounded me, and then they escorted me outside of the airport where a black car with tinted windows was waiting for me. They told me, ‘Get in the car.’”

He was given a few moments to use his phone after insisting on his legal rights as a United Kingdom citizen, which he used to contact the Council on American-Islamic Relations. The civil rights group agreed to help him get legal representation and inform his family of his detention.

After three car rides in handcuffs, he arrived at an ICE detention facility and was checked in with a number of other people of various ethnicities.

He later discovered through a lawyer that he was being held in Golden State Annex in McFarland, California, in what he labelled “a very politically motivated manoeuvre”.

Hamdi said he and 20 other men were held in a small cell with no facilities. Inmates repeatedly had their cases delayed through bureaucracy, he said.

One Latino man named Antonio whose wife and children are US citizens had been in detention for 10 months without charge, Hamdi said.

“This is the tragedy. You have these people who are illegally detained, who shouldn’t be there longer than six months, according to all habeas corpus rules, but who stay there longer because of bureaucratic loopholes,” said the journalist, who returned to London on Thursday.

ICE agents were “particularly aggressive” and most displayed “little sympathy for the people they were dealing with”, Hamdi said. They appeared to feel that they could act with “impunity”, he continued.

The journalist noted that while his case has received much attention, he believes it is important to remember that thousands of Palestinians remain incarcerated in Israeli military prisons in appalling conditions.

“It’s important to note that arbitrary detention for the sake of expression of freedom of speech isn’t something that’s under threat just in America or in the UK.”

The Israeli military has killed at least three Palestinians in Gaza, as the coastal enclave reeled from heavy rains flooding shoddy makeshift tents housing thousands who have been denied adequate shelter owing to Israel’s continued throttling of aid supplies.

A source at Nasser Medical Complex told Al Jazeera on Sunday that three people had been killed after Israel bombed east of Khan Younis in southern Gaza. That same day, Israel also struck Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighbourhood and areas close to the southern city of Rafah.

Reporting from Gaza City, Al Jazeera’s Ibrahim al-Khalili said the Israeli army was still targeting locations inside the so-called yellow line, which demarcates where troops have withdrawn as part of the ceasefire.

Al-Khalili said the situation was “going from bad to worse” for families living near the yellow line, as the military continued to “demolish residential buildings” and “spread panic” while they contended with heavy rains flooding makeshift shelters.

The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said that 13,000 families in Gaza whose homes were destroyed during two years of indiscriminate Israeli bombardment are now exposed to freezing temperatures and flooding in woefully inadequate shelters.

UN data shows that more than 80 percent of all buildings and housing units in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed since the start of the war. But Israel continues to block the entry of tents and mobile homes into the enclave despite the ceasefire, which was meant to unleash a flow of aid to stricken residents.

Tamara Alrifai, UNRWA’s director of communications, said Israel had placed limitations on what could enter the enclave, banning certain items deemed to be of dual use that could potentially be used for military purposes. “Israel … would take out many items that are extremely needed, especially in this winter situation,” she said.

“UNRWA is under double the amount of scrutiny and restrictions than other agencies despite being the largest agency there,” Alrifai said, adding that the UN agency has enough supplies to fill 6,000 aid trucks from its warehouses in Egypt and Jordan.

‘Submerged’

Reporting from Gaza City, Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud said: “It’s been raining for two days and people are telling us that everything has started to leak. Many of these displacement camps are at a different elevation to surrounding areas, allowing water to run in from all sides. Some areas are completely submerged.”

“For people sheltering inside bombed-out buildings, everything is leaking, and there is a risk that with the heavy rains, the buildings could collapse. People who set up tents near the coast are at risk of strong tides washing away their tents,” he said.

Abdulrahman Asaliyah, a displaced Palestinian in the city, told Al Jazeera: “All the tents have been flooded, people’s mattresses, their food, their water, their clothes. Everything has been soaked. We are calling for help for new tents that can at least protect people from the winter cold.”

Caroline Seguin, Gaza emergency coordinator at Doctors Without Borders (known by its French acronym, MSF), said that many people were awakened by the floods and were afraid to go back to sleep. “In Gaza, it is a luxury to spend the night in a dry place,” she told Al Jazeera.

Seguin said Israel was still putting up barriers to much-needed aid entering the enclave. Bringing in supplies, including tents and medication, was still “very complicated”, she said, requiring “even more administrative processes” from the Israeli side.

Netanyahu unsure about truce duration

Since the start of the ceasefire agreement last month, at least 266 people have been killed and 635 wounded by Israeli attacks, adding to a grim toll now approaching 70,000 deaths.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his cabinet on Sunday that he did not know how long the Gaza ceasefire would hold, adding that Israel was still expecting the remains of three captives to be returned by Hamas.

Hamas’s military wing, the Qassam Brigades, has been undertaking efforts with the Red Cross to locate the remains of captives under mountains of rubble left behind by Israeli bombardment.

Netanyahu also said that his opposition to a Palestinian state had “not changed one bit”, one day before the UN Security Council votes on a United States-drafted resolution mentioning a “credible pathway” to Palestinian statehood that would mandate an international stabilisation force in Gaza.

Meanwhile, Israeli violence in the occupied West Bank continued unabated, with raids on two camps that left two young Palestinians dead.

Soldiers shot Jadallah Jihad Jumaa Jadallah, a 15-year-old ninth-grade student, as they raided the Far’a camp, located south of the city of Tubas in the West Bank, preventing paramedics from assisting him, according to Palestinian news agency Wafa.

Separately, the military also killed Hassan Sharkasi during a raid on the Askar refugee camp east of Nablus, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent.

Israel is engaged in a last-ditch bid to change the wording of a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution on the next phase of United States President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan that was recently amended to mention a “credible pathway” to Palestinian statehood.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his cabinet on Sunday that his opposition to a Palestinian state had “not changed one bit”, one day before the UNSC votes on the US-drafted resolution, which would mandate a transitional administration and an international stabilisation force (ISF) in Gaza.

Israeli public broadcaster Kan reported on Sunday that Netanyahu’s government was engaged in a last-minute diplomatic push to alter the draft resolution, which the US had changed to include more defined language about Palestinian self-determination under pressure from Arab and Muslim countries expected to contribute troops to the ISF.

The draft now says that “conditions may be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood” after reforms to the Palestinian Authority are “faithfully carried out and Gaza redevelopment has advanced”.

There has been criticism that Palestinian voices and aspirations have been sidelined in the whole spectacle of Trump’s Gaza plan from its launch, which came with the US president’s customary fanfare.

Later on Sunday, Hamas and other Palestinian resistance factions called on Algeria – a non-permanent member of the UNSC – to reject the plan for stabilisation forces to be deployed in Gaza.

In a statement, the resistance factions called the efforts “a new attempt to impose another form of occupation on our land and people, and to legitimise foreign trusteeship”.

“We direct a sincere and fraternal appeal to the Algerian Republic, government and people, to continue adhering to its principled positions supporting Palestine, and its steadfast rejection of any projects targeting Gaza’s identity and our people’s right to self-determination,” the statement added.

On Friday, a joint statement with eight countries – Qatar, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Pakistan, Jordan and Turkiye – urged “swift adoption” of the draft resolution by the 15-member UNSC. Potential contributors to the force have indicated that a UN mandate is essential for their participation.

Israel has already said it will not accept Turkiye, a key Gaza ceasefire mediator, having any role on the ground.

Turkiye has maintained staunch criticism of Israeli actions in Gaza over the past two years and recently issued arrest warrants for genocide against Netanyahu and other senior officials.

Ahead of Monday’s crucial vote, which is expected to garner the nine votes needed to pass, with the likely abstention of Russia and China, Netanyahu confidants and officials from the Foreign Ministry were said to be engaged in intensive talks with their US counterparts, according to the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation (Kan).

Netanyahu under pressure

A far-right walkout over the ceasefire plan, in which Trump has heavily invested his own prestige, could bring down Netanyahu’s right-wing government well before the next election, which must be held by October 2026.

On Sunday, Israeli government officials lined up to express their opposition to any proposals backing a Palestinian state.

“Israel’s policy is clear: no Palestinian state will be established,” Defence Minister Israel Katz wrote on X.

He was followed by Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, who said on X that his country would “not agree to the establishment of a Palestinian terror state in the heart of the Land of Israel”.

Far-right firebrand and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir called the Palestinian identity an “invention”.

Hardline Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a major backer of Israel’s settler movement who has been sanctioned by a number of countries for “incitement of violence” against Palestinians, urged Netanyahu to take action.

“Formulate immediately an appropriate and decisive response that will make it clear to the entire world – no Palestinian state will ever arise on the lands of our homeland,” he said on X.

Russia’s rival resolution

The UNSC resolution would give the UN’s blessing to the second phase of Trump’s 20-point plan, which brought about a ceasefire after two years of genocidal war that has killed nearly 70,000 Palestinians.

The ceasefire came into effect on October 10, although it has been repeatedly breached by Israel with near-daily attacks that have killed hundreds of people.

There has been plenty of jockeying ahead of the vote.

Meanwhile, Russia is circulating its own resolution to rival the US version, offering stronger language on Palestinian statehood and stressing that the occupied West Bank and Gaza must be joined as a contiguous state under the Palestinian Authority.

In a statement, Russia’s UN mission said that its objective was to “to amend the US concept and bring it into conformity” with previous UNSC decisions.

“We would like to stress that our document does not contradict the American initiative,” said the statement. “On the contrary, it notes the tireless efforts by the mediators – the United States, Qatar, Egypt, and Turkiye – without which the long-awaited ceasefire and the release of hostages and detainees would have been impossible.”

Chief investigator declines to say how many arrested; some were identified by videos on social media.

Syria has arrested members of the country’s security and military services as part of a probe into sectarian violence in the southern province of Suwayda earlier this year that left hundreds dead.

Judge Hatem Naasan, head of a committee investigating the eruption of violence in Suwayda in July, said that members of security services and the military “who were proven to have committed violations” based on findings and videos posted online had been detained.

“Videos posted on social media clearly showed faces, and they were detained by the authorities concerned,” Naasan said, adding that security personnel were detained by the Interior Ministry while members of the military are being held by the Defence Ministry.

Videos that surfaced online had shown armed men killing Druze civilians kneeling in public squares and shaving the moustaches off elderly men in an act of humiliation.

Naasan did not specify how many arrests were made. Nor did he announce a death toll, saying this would come in the final report that is expected by the end of the year.

He acknowledged that “some foreign fighters randomly and individually entered the city of Suwayda”, saying that some had been detained and questioned. He stated that none of them were members of the Syrian armed or security forces.

Fighting broke out in the Druze-majority province after a Druze truck driver was abducted on a public highway, drawing in Bedouin tribal fighters from other parts of the country.

Government forces were deployed to restore order, but were accused of siding with the Bedouins. Hundreds of civilians, mostly Druze, were killed, many by government fighters.

A ceasefire was established after a week of violence.

Claiming that it was protecting the Druze, Israel also intervened, launching dozens of air attacks on government forces in Suwayda and even striking the Syrian Ministry of Defence headquarters in the centre of the capital Damascus.

Israel has carried out hundreds of air strikes around the country since the end of the 54-year al-Assad dynasty in December, mainly targeting, it says, assets of the Syrian army, but also carrying out incursions.

After the acts of violence in July, many in Suwayda now want some form of autonomy in a federal system. A smaller group is calling for total partition.

President Ahmed al-Sharaa has been painstakingly trying to usher Syria back into the international fold, with notable successes. In September, he was the first Syrian leader to address the United Nations General Assembly in six decades, and he was invited to the White House on Monday for a second meeting with United States President Donald Trump.

Al-Sharaa, who wants to unify his war-ravaged nation and end its decades of international isolation, was the first-ever Syrian leader to visit the White House since the country’s independence in 1946.

Both the US and European Union have dropped sanctions against Syria, and major Gulf Arab investment is giving the war-devastated nation a critical economic lifeline.

But al-Sharaa’s quest for national unity after a 14-year ruinous civil war still faces major internal and external challenges ahead.

Earlier this week, a flight carrying 153 Palestinians from Gaza landed in South Africa without documentation. The passengers were stuck on the plane for 12 hours before the South African authorities, who claimed they had not been informed by Israelis about the deportation flight, allowed them to disembark on humanitarian grounds.

The Palestinians on board had paid between $1,500 and $5,000 to a company called Al-Majd Europe to leave Gaza. The operation is run by a few Palestinians on the ground in coordination with the Israeli occupation authorities. At least two other such flights had already been made since June this year.

This is the latest scheme Israel is deploying to depopulate Gaza – a longstanding goal of its apartheid regime that goes back to the early 20th century.

Since the beginning of the Zionist movement, Palestinians have been perceived as a demographic obstacle to establishing a Jewish state. In the late 19th century, Theodor Herzl, one of the founding fathers of Zionism, wrote that the displacement of Arabs from Palestine must be part of the Zionist plan, suggesting that poor populations could be moved across borders and deprived of employment opportunities in a quiet and cautious manner.

In 1938, David Ben-Gurion, a key Zionist leader who would later become Israel’s first prime minister, made clear he supported forced “relocation” and saw nothing “immoral” in it. Part of this vision was carried out 10 years later during the Nakba of 1948, when more than 700,000 Palestinians were forced out of their homes in what Israeli historian Benny Morris has called “necessary” ethnic cleansing.

After 1948, Israel continued efforts to displace Palestinians. In the 1950s, tens of thousands of Palestinians and Palestinian Bedouins were forcibly transferred from the Naqab (Negev) desert to the Sinai Peninsula or Gaza, which was under Egyptian administration at that time.

After the June 1967 war, when Israel occupied Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, it adopted a strategy of what it called “voluntary migration”. The idea was to create harsh living conditions to pressure residents to leave, including demolishing homes and reducing employment opportunities.

In parallel, “emigration offices” were established in the refugee camps of Gaza to encourage people who have lost any hope of return to their homes to leave in exchange for money and travel arrangements. Israel also encouraged Palestinians to go work abroad, especially in the Gulf.  The price Palestinians had to pay for leaving was never being allowed to come back.

After October 7, 2023, Israel saw another chance to carry out its plan of ethnically cleansing Gaza – this time through genocide and forced expulsion. It thought it had the necessary international sympathy and diplomatic capital to carry out such an atrocity, as statements by various Israeli officials, such as ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, show. They even came up with the so-called “General’s Plan” to fully depopulate northern Gaza.

The new scheme for forcing Palestinians out of Gaza fits well into this historical pattern. What distinguishes it, however, is that Palestinians are made to pay for their own forced displacement and their desperation is exploited by Palestinian collaborators who seek to make easy profit. This, of course, is meant to further the financial depletion of the Palestinian population and create more internal fissures and tensions.

This scheme, like previous ones, also has the central feature of denying Palestinians return. None of the passengers on the plane received Israeli exit stamps on their passports, which was the reason the South African authorities struggled with the admission process. Having no legal record of leaving the Israeli-occupied territory of Gaza means these people are automatically classified as illegal migrants and have no possibility of returning.

It is important here to clarify why Israel is allowing these flights to take place while impeding the evacuation of ill and injured Palestinians and students accepted in foreign universities. These exits of patients and students would be legal, and they imply the right to return – something Israel does not want to allow.

That there are Palestinians willing to fall for this flight scheme is unsurprising. Two years of genocide have driven the people of Gaza to unimaginable desperation. There are that many Gaza residents who would willingly board those planes. And yet, Israel cannot fly us all to South Africa.

Through decades of Zionist occupation, Palestinians have persevered. Palestinian steadfastness in the face of wars, sieges, home raids, demolitions, land theft, and economic subjugation confirms that the Palestinian land is not merely a place to live, but a symbol of identity and history that people are not willing to give up.

In the past two years, Israel has destroyed the lives and homes of two million Palestinians. And even that has failed to kill the Palestinian spirit and drive to hold onto the Palestinian land. The Palestinians are not flying out; we are here to stay.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.

Foreign minister says Iran has not been enriching uranium at any of its sites since Israel and the US bombed them.

Tehran, Iran – Iranian authorities maintain that the United States and its allies are set on a forceful approach over the country’s nuclear programme, so negotiations appear far off.

The administration of US President Donald Trump has left no room for talks by repeatedly presenting “maximalist demands”, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Sunday at a news conference in Tehran.

“The current approach of the US government in no way shows readiness for an equal and fair negotiation to secure mutual interests,” he said on the sidelines of the state-organised Tehran Dialogue Forum, which diplomats and envoys from across the region attended.

Iranian officials said they have been receiving messages from neighbouring countries that are trying to mediate and keep the peace. A letter from Araghchi was also delivered to Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani on Sunday that deals with Iran, the ceasefire in Gaza and other issues, according to Iranian media.

Araghchi said communication channels remain open with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as well. Iran’s envoy to Vienna, where the nuclear watchdog is based, was joined on Friday by counterparts from China and Russia in a meeting with the representatives of the United Nations agency.

“There’s no enrichment right now because our nuclear enrichment facilities have been attacked,” the foreign minister said at the news conference. “Our message is clear: Iran’s right for peaceful use of nuclear energy, including enrichment, is undeniable, and we will continue to exercise it.”

Last week, the latest IAEA confidential report on Iran’s nuclear programme was leaked to Western media, which reported that the UN agency has not been able to verify Iran’s stockpile of 60 percent-enriched uranium since its facilities were bombed and severely damaged by the US and Israel in June.

The IAEA said it needed “long overdue” inspections of seven of the sites targeted during the war, including Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan.

Iran has granted the IAEA access to the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant and the Tehran Research Reactor but has said security and safety conditions have not been met for inspections at other facilities as the high-enriched uranium stays buried.

Another resolution?

Iranian officials signalled over the weekend that three European powers – France, the United Kingdom and Germany – which were part of the country’s now-defunct 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, may be mobilising to introduce another Iran-focused resolution to the IAEA’s board.

Iran responded to several previous censure resolutions with escalations in uranium enrichment, and Israel launched its June attacks on Iran a day after the IAEA passed a European-tabled resolution that found Tehran noncompliant with its nuclear safeguards commitments.

Speaking to reporters in Tehran on Sunday, the deputy for international and legal affairs in Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Kazem Gharibabadi, said Iran “reserves the right to reconsider its approaches” if a new resolution moves through.

He said the three European countries’ effort was a US-backed move to reinstate UN sanctions against Iran despite strong opposition from China and Russia last month and it “eliminated them from the field of dialogue and diplomacy with Iran”.

“Another resolution will bear no additional pressure on Iran, but the message it will send shows that collaboration and coordination are not important to them,” Gharibabadi said.

Iran’s nuclear programme chief, Mohammad Eslami, also slammed the West and the IAEA, telling reporters on Sunday that the UN agency is being used for political purposes, which “enforces double standards and a law of the jungle that must be stopped”.

“The attacks on Iran’s facilities were unprecedented. It was the first time that nuclear facilities under agency supervision were attacked, which meant a violation of international law, but the IAEA did not condemn the attacks,” Eslami said.

Iran’s military commanders continue to signal defiance as well. Defence Minister Amir Hatami told a meeting of lawmakers on Sunday that armed forces have been “sparing no moment in improving defence capabilities” after the 12-day war with Israel.

Tensions remain high in the region after the war with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on Saturday confirming that it seized a Cyprus-registered tanker that transited through the Strait of Hormuz.

In the quiet of his Ramallah studio in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian artist Nabil Anani works diligently on artworks deeply rooted in a movement he helped create during the political tumult of the late 1980s.

Cofounded in 1987 by Anani and fellow artists Sliman Mansour, Vera Tamari and Tayseer Barakat, the New Visions art movement focused on using local natural materials while eschewing Israeli supplies as a form of cultural resistance. The movement prioritised self-sufficiency at a time of deep political upheaval across occupied Palestine.

“[New Visions] emerged as a response to the conditions of the Intifada,” Anani said. “Ideas like boycott and self-reliance inspired a shift in our artistic practice at the time.”

Each of the founding members chose to work with a specific material, developing new artistic styles that fit the spirit of the time. The idea caught on, and many exhibitions followed locally, regionally and internationally.

Nearly four decades later, the principles of New Visions – self-sufficiency, resistance and creation despite scarcity – continue to shape a new generation of Palestinian artists for whom making art is both an expression and an act of survival.

Anani, now 82, and the other founding members are helping keep the movement’s legacy alive.

Why ‘New Visions’?

“We called it New Visions because, at its core, the movement embraced experimentation, especially through the use of local materials,” Anani said, noting how he had discovered the richness of sheepskins, their textures and tones and began integrating them into his art in evocative ways.

In 2002, Tamari, now 80, started planting ceramic olive trees for every real one an Israeli settler burned down to form a sculptural installation called Tale of a Tree. Later, she layered watercolours over ceramic pieces, mediums that usually do not mix, defying the usual limits of each material, and melded in elements of family photos, local landscapes and politics.

Sixty-six-year-old Barakat, meanwhile, created his own pigments and then began burning forms into wood, transforming surface damage into a visual language.

“Other artists began to embrace earth, leather, natural dyes – even the brokenness of materials as part of the story,” Mansour, 78, said, adding that he had personally reached a kind of “dead end” with his work before the New Visions movement emerged, spending years creating works centred around national symbols and identity that had started to feel repetitive.

“This was different. I remember being anxious at first, worried about the cracks in the clay I was using,” he said, referring to his use of mud. “But, in time, I saw the symbolism in those cracks. They carried something honest and powerful.”

In 2006, the group helped create the International Academy of Art Palestine in Ramallah, which was open for 10 years before being integrated into Birzeit University as the Faculty of Art, Music and Design. The academy’s main goal was to help artists transition from older ways of thinking to more contemporary approaches, particularly by using local and diverse materials.

“A new generation emerged from this, raised on these ideas, and went on to hold numerous exhibitions, both locally and internationally, all influenced by the New Visions movement,” Anani said.

A legacy maintained but tested

The work of Lara Salous, a 36-year-old Palestinian artist and designer based in Ramallah, echoes the founding principles of the movement.

“I am inspired by [the movement’s] collective mission. My insistence on using local materials comes from my belief that we must liberate and decolonise our economy.”

“We need to rely on our natural resources and production, go back to the land, boycott Israeli products and support our local industries,” Salous said.

Through Woolwoman, her social enterprise, Salous works with local materials and a community of shepherds, wool weavers and carpenters to create contemporary furniture, like wool and loom chairs, inspired by ancient Bedouin techniques.

But challenges like the increasing number of roadblocks and escalating settler violence against Palestinian Bedouin communities, who rely on sheep grazing as a basic source of income, have made working and living as an artist in the West Bank increasingly difficult.

“I collaborate with shepherds and women who spin wool in al-Auja and Masafer Yatta,” said Salous, referring to two rural West Bank areas facing intense pressure from occupation and settlement expansion.

“These communities face daily confrontations with Israeli settlers who often target their sheep, prevent grazing, cut off water sources like the al-Auja Spring, demolish wells and even steal livestock,” she added.

In July, the Reuters news agency reported an incident in the West Bank’s Jordan Valley, where settlers killed 117 sheep and stole hundreds of others in an overnight attack on one such community.

Such danger leaves Palestinian women who depend on Woolwoman for their livelihoods vulnerable. Several female weavers working with Salous and supporting her enterprise have become their families’ sole breadwinners, especially after their spouses lost jobs due to Israeli work permit bans following the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, and the start of the Gaza war.

Visiting the communities where these wool suppliers live has become nearly impossible for Salous, who fears attacks by Israeli settlers.

Meanwhile, her collaborators must often prioritise their own safety and the protection of their villages, which disrupts their ability to produce wool to sustain their livelihoods.

As a result, the designer has faced delays and supply chain issues, making completing and selling her works increasingly difficult.

Anani faces similar challenges in procuring hides.

“Even in cities like Ramallah or Bethlehem, where the situation might be slightly more stable, there are serious difficulties, especially in accessing materials and moving around,” he said.

“I work with sheepskin, but getting it from Hebron is extremely difficult due to roadblocks and movement restrictions.”

Creating vs surviving

In Gaza, Hussein al-Jerjawi, an 18-year-old artist from the Remal neighbourhood of Gaza City, is also inspired by the New Visions movement’s legacy and meaning, noting that Mansour’s “style in expressing the [conditions of the occupation]” has inspired him.

Due to a lack of materials like canvases, which are scarce and expensive, al-Jerjawi has repurposed flour bags distributed by the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) as canvases for creating his artwork, using wall paint or simple pens and pencils to create portraits of the world around him.

In July, however, the artist said flour bags were no longer available due to Israel’s blockade of food and aid into the Gaza Strip.

“There are no flour bags in Gaza, but I’m still considering buying empty bags to complete my drawings,” he said.

Gaza-born artist Hazem Harb, who now lives in Dubai, also credits the New Visions movement as a constant source of inspiration throughout his decades-long career.

“The New Visions movement encourages artists to push boundaries and challenge conventional forms, and I strive to embody this spirit in my work,” he said while noting that it has been challenging to source the materials from Gaza that he needs for his work.

“The ongoing occupation often disrupts supply chains, making it difficult to obtain the necessary materials for my work. I often relied on local resources and found objects, creatively repurposing materials to convey my message.”

Anani, who said the conditions in Gaza make it nearly impossible to access local material, added that many artists are struggling but still strive to make art with whatever they can.

“I believe artists [in Gaza] are using whatever’s available – burned objects, sand, basic things from their environment,” Anani said.

“Still, they are continuing to create in simple ways that reflect this harsh moment.”

Former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad says Israel has violated the Gaza ceasefire deal and genocidal violence against Palestinians must stop for progress to be made.

Entity called Al-Majd Europe taking families on buses out of Gaza to Israel’s Ramon Airport – and then to unknown destinations.

A Palestinian man who says he left Gaza through a shadowy organisation that has landed 153 people in South Africa without documentation describes the process set up to encourage more Palestinians to leave the devastated enclave.

The man, whose identity remains anonymous due to security concerns, told Al Jazeera there was “strong coordination” between the Al-Majd Europe group and the Israeli army on such displacements.

He said the process seemed “routine” and included a thorough search of personal belongings before he was put on a bus that moved through southern Gaza’s Israeli-controlled Karem Abu Salem crossing (which Israelis call Kerem Shalom) into southern Israel and the Ramon Airport.

At Ramon, “since there is no recognition by [Israel] of a Palestinian state, they did not stamp our passports,” the Palestinian man said.

A Romanian aircraft took the group to Kenya, a transit country. He said there appeared to be some coordination between Al-Majd Europe and the Kenyan authorities.

None of the passengers knew which country they would end up in, he said, adding that there were at least three people coordinating from inside Gaza while several Palestinian citizens of Israel carried out the rest of the network communication from outside the enclave.

Initially, there was an online registration, followed by a screening process. The man said he paid $6,000 to get himself and two family members out of Gaza.

“The payments are made through bank applications to the accounts of individual persons, not to an institution,” he said.

The first group he knew about left Gaza for Indonesia in June while the transfer of a second group to an unknown location was delayed before it received a call to leave in August.

The Palestinians on board Friday’s flight to South Africa were made to pay $1,500 to $5,000 per person to leave Gaza. They were allowed to bring only a phone, some money and a backpack.

Mysterious operation

Al-Majd Europe has been moving people using unofficial channels facilitated by the Israeli military. It has been demanding payments from Palestinians to leave Gaza. But it is unclear who is behind its operations.

The group claims it was founded in 2010 in Germany, but its website was registered only this year. The website shows images generated by artificial intelligence of its executives with no credible contact details. The website provides no office location, which is in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of occupied East Jerusalem.

Al Jazeera spoke to another Palestinian man who identified himself only as Omar in WhatsApp text messages. He said an Al-Majd Europe representative told him a passport and a birth certificate would be required to be accepted for a flight and there would be an initial charge of $2,500 per person as a down payment.

Omar, however, said his request for a transfer out of Gaza was rejected by the representative because the group did not accept solo travellers.

Speaking from az-Zawayda in central Gaza, Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary said Palestinians in Gaza have been hearing more about the operation and some are driven to consider it due to the “unbearable living situation” after two years of Israeli bombardments and ground operations.

“The education system in Gaza has also collapsed, so some Palestinians feel there is no future for them and their children,” she said.

The Israeli military acknowledged “facilitating” transfers of Palestinians out of Gaza, which is part of the “voluntary departure” policy for Palestinians that is backed by Israel and the United States.

The Israeli army established a unit in March to further encourage and facilitate this policy after obtaining approval from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet.

Montreal, Canada – A former United Nations special rapporteur who investigated Israeli abuses against Palestinians says he was interrogated by Canadian authorities on “national security” grounds as he travelled to Canada this week to attend a Gaza-related event.

Richard Falk, an international law expert from the United States, told Al Jazeera that he was questioned at Toronto Pearson international airport on Thursday alongside his wife, fellow legal scholar Hilal Elver.

“A security person came and said, ‘We’ve detained you both because we’re concerned that you pose a national security threat to Canada,’” Falk, 95, said on Saturday in an interview from Ottawa, the Canadian capital. “It was my first experience of this sort – ever – in my life.”

Falk and Elver – both US citizens – were travelling to Ottawa to take part in the Palestine Tribunal on Canadian Responsibility when they were held for questioning.

The tribunal brought together international human rights and legal experts on Friday and Saturday to examine the Canadian government’s role in Israel’s two-year bombardment of the Gaza Strip, which a UN inquiry and numerous rights groups have described as a genocide.

Falk said he and his wife were held for questioning for more than four hours and asked about their work on Israel and Gaza, and on issues of genocide in general. “[There was] nothing particularly aggressive about his questioning,” he said. “It felt sort of random and disorganised.”

But Falk said he believes the interrogation is part of a global push to “punish those who endeavour to tell the truth about what is happening” in the world, including in Gaza.

“It suggests a climate of governmental insecurity, I think, to try to clamp down on dissident voices,” he added.

Canadian senator ‘appalled’

Asked about Falk’s experience, the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), which manages the country’s border crossings, told Al Jazeera that it cannot comment on specific cases due to privacy regulations.

The CBSA’s role “is to assess the security risk and admissibility of persons coming to Canada”, spokesperson Rebecca Purdy said in an email. “This process may include primary interviews and secondary examinations,” she said.

“This means that all travellers, foreign nationals and those who enter Canada by right, may be referred for secondary inspection – this is a normal part of the cross-border process and should not be viewed as any indication of wrongdoing.”

Global Affairs Canada, the Canadian foreign ministry, did not immediately respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment on Falk’s allegation that his interrogation is part of a broader, global crackdown on opposition to Israel’s Gaza war.

Canadian Senator Yuen Pau Woo, a supporter of the Palestine Tribunal, said he was “appalled” that two international law and human rights experts were questioned in Canada “on the grounds that they might pose a national security threat”.

“We know they were here to attend the Palestine Tribunal. We know they have been outspoken in documenting and publicising the horrors inflicted on Gaza by Israel, and advocating for justice,” Woo told Al Jazeera in an interview on Saturday afternoon.

“If those are the factums for their detention, then it suggests that the Canadian government considers these acts of seeking justice for Palestine to be national security threats – and I’d like to know why.”

Enabling Israel’s war

Like other Western countries, Canada has been under growing pressure to cut off its longstanding support for Israel as the Israeli military assault on Gaza killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and plunged the coastal territory into a humanitarian crisis.

Ottawa announced in 2024 that it was suspending weapons permits to its ally as pressure mounted over the war.

But researchers and human rights advocates say loopholes in Canada’s arms export system have allowed Canadian-made weapons to continue to reach Israel, often via the United States.

Rights groups have also called on the Canadian government to do more to support efforts to ensure that Israel is held accountable for abuses against Palestinians in Gaza, including war crimes.

“This violence is not in the past tense; the bombs have not stopped falling,” Rachel Small, the Canada organiser for the antiwar group World Beyond War, said during the Palestine Tribunal’s closing day on Saturday.

“And none of that violence, none of Israel’s genocide … [would be] possible without the flow of weapons from the United States, from Europe, and yes, from Canada,” Small said.

At least 260 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza since a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas came into effect last month, according to health authorities in the besieged coastal enclave.

Palestinians also continue to reel from a lack of adequate food, water, medicine and shelter supplies as Israel maintains strict curbs on humanitarian aid deliveries.

Against that backdrop, Falk told Al Jazeera on Saturday that “it’s more important than ever … to expose the reality of what’s happening” on the ground in Gaza.

“There’s this whole false sense that the genocide is over,” he said. “[But Israel] is carrying out the genocidal project in a less aggressive way, or a less intense way. It’s what some have called the incremental genocide.”

Israeli air raids have taken place in southern Gaza as well as Gaza City; one young Palestinian killed in occupied West Bank raid.