Israels

At least 60,034 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since the war on Gaza erupted in October 2023, according to the enclave’s Ministry of Health.

The grim milestone was reached on Tuesday, with medical sources telling Al Jazeera that at least 62 Palestinians, including 19 aid seekers, have been killed since dawn, despite “pauses” in fighting to deliver essential humanitarian aid.

Local accounts indicate that Israel used booby-trapped robots, as well as tanks and drones, in what residents describe as one of the bloodiest nights in recent weeks, said Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza.

“This is a sign of a possible imminent Israeli ground manoeuvre, although Israel has not yet confirmed the objectives of the attack,” he said.

The latest attacks come as the “worst-case scenario of famine” is unfolding in Gaza, according to a new report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a global hunger monitoring system.

“Latest data indicates that famine thresholds have been reached for food consumption in most of the Gaza Strip and for acute malnutrition in Gaza City,” it said in the report.

“Amid relentless conflict, mass displacement, severely restricted humanitarian access, and the collapse of essential services, including healthcare, the crisis has reached an alarming and deadly turning point,” the IPC document added.

Food consumption has sharply deteriorated, with one in three individuals going without food for days at a time, it said.

Malnutrition rose rapidly in the first half of July, with more than 20,000 children being admitted for treatment for acute malnutrition between April and mid-July. More than 3,000 of them are severely malnourished.

The IPC alert comes against the backdrop of its latest analysis released in May, which projected that by September, the entire population of Gaza would face high levels of acute food shortages, with more than 500,000 people expected to be in a state of extreme food deprivation, starvation, and destitution, unless Israel lifts its blockade and stops its military campaign.

Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza and humanitarian blockade, which it lifted partially in March, continues to plunge the Palestinian territory into an increasingly dire malnutrition crisis as at least 147 people, including 88 children, have died from malnutrition since the start of the war, the Health Ministry said on Monday.

Starvation is affecting all sectors of the population, with Sima Bahous, the executive director of UN Women, saying one million women and girls in Gaza face the “unthinkable choice” of starving or risking their lives while searching for food.

“This horror must end,” Bahous said in a social media post, calling for unhindered access of humanitarian aid into the Strip, the release of captives and a permanent ceasefire.

Babies particularly affected

Medical staff at Gaza’s hospitals are seeing babies severely malnourished “without muscles and fat tissue, just the skin over the bone”, the director of paediatrics and maternity at Nasser Hospital, Ahmed al-Farra, told Al Jazeera.

The long-term consequences of malnutrition for babies, infants and children are severe as they are still developing their central nervous system during the first three years of their lives, said al-Farra.

Babies who have been malnourished will not have the required folic acid, B1 complex and polyunsaturated fatty acids that are essential for the composition of the central nervous system.

Al-Farrah said malnutrition can affect cognitive development in the future, make it hard for a child to read and write, and lead to depression and anxiety.

Tanya Haj Hassan, a doctor with the NGO Doctors Without Borders (MSF), explains that serious health risks remain even after food becomes available again.

“The reality is the problem doesn’t end when the food arrives … malnutrition impacts all aspects of the body’s function,” Hassan told Al Jazeera.

“All of the cells in your body are altered by this. In the intestines, the cells die. That results in issues with absorption, with bacteria. Your pancreas struggles; absorbing fats is difficult.

“Your heart cells become weak and thinned. The connections are impacted, the heart rate slows. These children often die of heart failure, even when they’re being refed,” she added.

“They also have life-threatening shifts in salts; these can also lead to fatal heart rhythms. They’re more prone to sepsis and shock,” the doctor said, in reference to oral rehydration salt solutions, which are usually administered to people suffering from malnutrition.

“[Patients can face] low blood pressure, skin lesions, hypothermia, fluid overload, infection, vitamin deficiencies that can affect vision and bone.”

Starvation in Gaza. An entire population deprived of food after months of Israel blocking vital supplies and waging relentless attacks.

Experts say the strategy means long-term damage for the health of Gaza’s people.

So what are the consequences of Israel’s actions?

Presenter: James Bays

Guests:

Dr Nick Maynard – Volunteer surgeon who worked in Gaza with Medical Aid for Palestinians

Dr Tanya Haj-Hassan – Paediatric intensive care doctor treating acute malnutrition in Gaza

Alex de Waal – Executive director at World Peace Foundation; author of Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine

On Monday, 28 countries, including the United Kingdom, Japan, and numerous European nations, issued a joint statement calling on Israel that the war on Gaza “must end now”, marking the latest example of intensifying criticism from Israel’s allies.

The joint statement, signed by the foreign ministers of these countries, condemned “the drip feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians, including children, seeking to meet their most basic needs of water and food”.

The statement comes as global pressure mounts on Israel over civilian casualties at aid sites, obstruction of humanitarian aid, and violations of international humanitarian law – as the occupied Palestinian territory simmers with starvation.

Israel’s war on Gaza has killed more than 59,000 people and wounded 140,000 since the October 7, 2023 attacks by Hamas, in which 1,139 people were killed and more than 200 were taken captive.

So, what does the joint statement say? Who are these countries? And how have Israel and its closest ally, the United States, reacted?

What did the statement say?

The joint statement said the countries are coming together “with a simple, urgent message: The war in Gaza must end now.”

The statement underlined that the suffering of civilians in Gaza has reached “new depths” and that the Israeli government’s aid delivery model is “dangerous, fuels instability and deprives Gazans of human dignity”.

They called on the Israeli government to “comply with its obligations under international humanitarian law” and immediately lift restrictions on the flow of aid.

The group of countries also noted that the captives “cruelly held” by Hamas continue to “suffer terribly” and called for their immediate and unconditional release.

They said in the statement that a negotiated ceasefire offers “the best hope of bringing [the captives] home and ending the agony of their families”.

Demographic change, settler violence: What else did the countries say?

The countries criticised Israel’s plan to establish a concentration zone – Israel’s vision of relocating the entire Palestinian population into a fenced, heavily controlled zone built on the ruins of Rafah – as “completely unacceptable”.

“Permanent forced displacement is a violation of international humanitarian law,” the joint statement said.

The group of countries also marked its opposition to “any steps towards territorial or demographic change in the Occupied Palestinian Territories” and noted that the E1 settlement plan announced would divide a Palestinian state in two, “marking a flagrant breach of international law and critically [undermining] the two-state solution”.

They also called out that the “settlement building across the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, has accelerated while settler violence against Palestinians has soared. This must stop.”

Which countries signed the joint statement?

The joint statement was signed by the foreign ministers of a total of 28 countries:

Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK.

These governments, many of them allies of Israel, issued some of their strongest language yet, condemning the obstruction of aid in the occupied Palestinian territory.

Which of those countries recognise Palestine?

Out of these 28 countries from the joint statement, nine recognise the State of Palestine as a sovereign state.

Cyprus, Malta, and Poland recognised Palestine shortly after the Palestinian Declaration of Independence in 1988.

Iceland followed in 2011, and Sweden in 2014. Ireland, Norway, Slovenia, and Spain recognised Palestine in 2024.

How did Israel respond?

Oren Marmorstein, a spokesperson for the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, wrote on X that Israel rejects the joint statement published by the group of countries, “as it is disconnected from reality and sends the wrong message to Hamas”.

Israel further claimed that instead of agreeing to a ceasefire, “Hamas is busy running a campaign to spread lies about Israel” and deliberately acting to increase friction and harm to civilians who come to receive humanitarian aid.

The statement further said there is a “concrete proposal for a ceasefire deal” and Hamas “stubbornly refuses to accept it”.

What does Hamas say about the ceasefire?

The spokesperson of the military wing of Hamas said Israel was the one that rejected a ceasefire agreement to release all captives held in Gaza.

Qassam Brigades spokesperson Abu Obeida said in a prerecorded video, released on Friday, that the group had in recent months offered a “comprehensive deal” that would release all captives at once – but it was rejected by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right ministers.

“It has become clear to us that the government of the criminal Netanyahu has no real interest in the captives because they are soldiers,” he said, adding that Hamas favours a deal that guarantees an end to the war, a withdrawal of Israeli forces, and entry of humanitarian aid for besieged Palestinians.

Hamas is still holding 50 people in Gaza, about 20 of whom are believed to be alive.

What is Israel blocking from entering Gaza, claiming that Hamas can use it?

Israel continues to block the entry of essential humanitarian supplies into Gaza, claiming that Hamas could divert or repurpose them for military use.

Among the items withheld are: Baby formula, food, water filters, and medicines.

Medicine and medical supplies face blocks as part of Israel’s “dual-use” restrictions, where items like painkillers and dialysis equipment are held back, ostensibly for possible Hamas exploitation in military contexts.

Other medical equipment, such as oxygen cylinders, anaesthetics, and cancer medications, has been restricted.

Israeli authorities argue that some items, like certain chemicals or electronics, could have dual-use potential.

Aid groups report that the blanket denial of crucial medical items is pushing Gaza’s health system towards total collapse, and say that these restrictions are collective punishment and violations of international humanitarian law.

The countries also denounced Israel’s aid delivery model in Gaza, saying it ‘deprives Palestinians of human dignity’.

More than two dozen countries have called for an immediate end to the war on Gaza, saying that suffering there had “reached new depths” in the latest sign of allies’ sharpening language as Israel’s international isolation deepens.

The statement on Monday came after more than 21 months of fighting that have triggered catastrophic humanitarian conditions for Gaza’s more than two million residents.

Israeli allies the United Kingdom, France, Australia, Canada and 21 other countries, plus the European Union, said in a joint statement that the war “must end now”.

“The suffering of civilians in Gaza has reached new depths,” the signatories added, urging a negotiated ceasefire, the release of captives held by Palestinian fighters and the free flow of much-needed aid.

They condemned “the drip feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians, including children, seeking to meet their most basic needs of water and food”.

The UN and the Gaza Health Ministry have recorded 875 people killed in Gaza while trying to get food since late May, when Israel began easing a more than two-month total blockade.

“The Israeli government’s aid delivery model is dangerous, fuels instability and deprives Gazans of human dignity,” the countries said. “The Israeli government’s denial of essential humanitarian assistance to the civilian population is unacceptable. Israel must comply with its obligations under international humanitarian law.”

Al Jazeera’s Sonia Gallego, reporting from London, said that the statement was a significant escalation from Israel’s allies over its war on Gaza.

“This also reflects a broader consensus beyond Europe,” she said.

“European nations have condemned the situation in Gaza, and now you have foreign ministries – such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Japan – that put their names in this statement,” our correspondent said.

The new joint statement called for an immediate ceasefire, saying countries are prepared to take action to support a political pathway to peace in the region.

Israel and Hamas have been engaged in ceasefire talks, but there appears to be no breakthrough, and it is not clear whether any truce would bring the war to a lasting halt. Netanyahu has repeatedly asserted that expanding Israel’s military operations in Gaza will pressure Hamas in negotiations.

Speaking to Parliament, British Foreign Secretary David Lammy thanked the United States, Qatar and Egypt for their diplomatic efforts to try to end the war.

“There is no military solution,” Lammy said. “The next ceasefire must be the last ceasefire.”

Israel launched the war on Gaza after Hamas led an attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing at least 1,129 people and taking 251 others captive. Fifty captives remain in Gaza, but fewer than half are thought to be alive.

Israel’s military offensive has killed more than 59,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, mostly women and children.

Israeli warplanes have struck Damascus – part of a wave of cross-border strikes that have put the region on edge.

Israel says the attacks are to protect the Druze minority in the southern city of Suwayda.

But Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa warns Israel is trying to sow conflict and division between the Syrian people – for its own benefit.

As part of a ceasefire agreed with Druze religious leaders, he’s ordered the withdrawal of government forces from Suwayda and promised to safeguard the Druze community.

But how will Israel’s intervention shape Syria’s future?

Presenter: Adrian Finighan

Guests:

Akiva Eldar – Author of Lords of the Land: The War for Israel’s Settlements in the Occupied Territories, 1967-2007

Gamal Mansour – Lecturer and political scientist at Toronto University

Stephen Zunes – Professor of politics at the University of San Francisco

On Wednesday afternoon, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a video message to his country’s Druze minority. He implored them not to cross into southwestern Syria to support Syrian Druze militiamen in their fight against local Bedouin and government forces in Suwayda.

And yet, as Netanyahu made the statement, his own forces were bombing the Syrian capital Damascus, hitting the country’s Ministry of Defence, and killing at least three people.

Netanyahu claimed that he had deployed Israel’s military might in the defence of the Druze.

“My brothers, the Druze citizens of Israel, the situation in Suweyda in southwestern Syria is very serious,” the principal architect of the 2018 nation-state law that’s been widely criticised for marginalising the Druze and other minorities said. “We are acting to save our Druze brothers and to eliminate the gangs of the regime,” he assured them, referring to the Syrian government.

Israel’s Druze

Sectarian tensions between the Druze and local Bedouins in Suweyda are longstanding. Meanwhile, attempts by the newly formed Syrian government, which took power after the fall of longtime dictator Bashar al-Assad in December, to assert control over the region have been frustrated in part by Israel’s repeated threats against the presence of the Syrian military near its border.

There are roughly 700,000 Druze in Syria. Another 150,000 Druze live in Israel, where, at least before the 2018 law emphasising only Jewish self-determination, many regarded themselves as bound by a “blood covenant” with their Jewish neighbours since 1948 and the founding of Israel at the expense of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who were ethnically cleansed in the Nakba. While some now feel like “second-class” citizens, the majority are still supportive of the Israeli state, where they serve in the military.

“The Israeli Druze see themselves as Druze, as Israelis, and as Arabs,” Rami Zeedan, an associate professor at the University of Kansas and the founder and editor-in-chief of Druze Studies Journal, said.

“Part of the identification with Israel is the feeling of both Jews and Druze being persecuted minorities,” he added. “Israeli Druze still feel that they have much more to gain from Israel compared to any other hypothetical future. As a cornerstone of this alliance is the protection of the Druze community.”

“The Israeli Druze are now trying to use that and urge the Israeli government to protect fellow Druze in Syria,” he said, explaining, in part, the justification for Israel’s strikes on Syria, where the Druze community has traditionally been anti-Israel, even as some leaders grow closer to Israel.

‘Pure opportunism’

But the reality is that Israel has long attacked Syria, even before the latest outbreak of violence involving the Druze in Suwayda.

Since the ousting of al-Assad after a 14-year war, Israel has struck Syria hundreds of times and invaded and occupied about 400 square kilometres (155sq miles) of its territory, excluding the western Golan Heights, which it has occupied since 1967.

Leading analysts within Israel suggest that these latest attacks may not have been entirely motivated by concern for the welfare of the Druze, so much as the personal and political aims of the Israeli government and its embattled prime minister.

“It’s pure opportunism,” Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli ambassador and consul general in New York, told Al Jazeera. “Of course, it’s nice to pretend that we’re helping our friends the Druze, in the same way as we never helped our other friends, the Kurds,” he said, referring to another regional ethnic group.

Pinkas sketched out a number of the motivations behind Israel’s recent strikes on Syria, from boosting Netanyahu’s newfound self-image as a wartime leader, to pushing back his corruption trial, to reinforcing the “delusion” that, over the previous 21 months, Israel has somehow managed to reshape the Middle East through military force alone.

“Lastly, he doesn’t want to see a unified Syria with a strong central government controlled by al-Sharaa,” Pinkas said. “He wants a weak central government dealing with areas controlled by the Kurds [in the north] and the Druze and Bedouin in the south.”

“Basically, if Syria remains un-unified, Israel can do what it wants in its south,” he added.

Netanyahu has repeatedly emphasised that Israel will only stand for a demilitarised Syria south of Damascus, including the region that encompasses Suwayda. This, in effect, creates a buffer zone for Israel, adding to the military reasoning for Israel’s actions in Syria.

Hollowed out by war

The attacks on Syria have the additional effect of sustaining the sense of crisis that has gripped Israeli society and sustained its government through numerous scandals since the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023, and the subsequent war on Gaza.

Israel has since attacked Lebanon, Iran, Yemen and Syria.

“It’s not that people are tired of war; it’s like they no longer even care. It’s ennui,” Israeli political analyst Ori Goldberg said of the public response to the latest attacks.

“War gives people energy and meaning, but it’s fleeting. People have even forgotten about the war with Iran,” he said, referring to the 12-day war in June that prompted global fears of regional escalation.

All the caveats and cautions that would normally precede military action had, Goldberg noted, been replaced by ever-fresh dangers requiring new escalations.

“It’s dangerous,” he said. “Israelis don’t care about the Druze. It’s just a new threat, a new front, and now there’s this tired, ‘OK, dude. Let’s do it [attitude]’.”

“War has hollowed us out.”

Francesca Albanese addresses delegates from 30 countries to discuss ways nations can try to stop Israel’s offensive.

The United Nations’s special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian Territories has said that it is time for nations around the world to take concrete actions to stop Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza.

Francesca Albanese spoke to delegates from 30 countries meeting in Colombia’s capital, Bogota, on Tuesday to discuss Israel’s brutal assault and ways nations can try to stop the offensive in the besieged enclave.

Many of the participating nations have described Israel’s war on Gaza as a genocide against the Palestinians.

More than 58,000 people have been killed since Israel launched the assault in October 2023, according to Palestinian health authorities. Israeli forces have also imposed several total blockades on the territory throughout the war, pushing Gaza’s 2.3 million residents to the brink of starvation.

“Each state must immediately review and suspend all ties with the State of Israel … and ensure its private sector does the same,” Albanese said. “The Israeli economy is structured to sustain the occupation that has now turned genocidal.”

The two-day conference organised by Colombia and South Africa is being attended mostly by developing nations, although Spain, Ireland and China have also sent delegates.

The conference is co-chaired by South Africa and Colombia, which last year suspended coal exports to Israeli power plants. It includes the participation of members of The Hague Group, a coalition of eight countries that earlier this year pledged to cut military ties with Israel and comply with an International Criminal Court arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

For decades, South Africa’s governing African National Congress party has compared Israel’s policies in Gaza and the West Bank with its own history of oppression under the harsh apartheid regime of white minority rule, which restricted most Black people to areas called “homelands”, before ending in 1994.

The gathering comes as the European Union weighs various measures against Israel, which include a ban on imports from illegal Israeli settlements, an arms embargo and individual sanctions against Israeli officials who are found to be blocking a peaceful solution to the conflict.

Colombian Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs Mauricio Jaramillo said on Monday that the nations participating in the Bogota meeting, which also include Qatar and Turkiye, will be discussing diplomatic and judicial measures to put more pressure on Israel to cease its attacks.

The Colombian official described Israel’s conduct in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank as an affront to the international order.

“This is not just about Palestine,” Jaramillo said in a news conference. “It is about defending international law and the right to self-determination.”

Special rapporteur Albanese’s comments echoed remarks she made earlier on Tuesday addressed to the EU. The bloc’s foreign ministers had been meeting in Brussels to discuss possible action against Israel.

In a series of posts on X, Albanese wrote that the EU is “legally bound” to suspend its association agreement with Israel, citing its obligations under international law.

Albanese said the EU is not only Israel’s top trading partner but also its top investment partner, nearly double the size of the US, and “trade with an economy inextricably tied to occupation, apartheid and genocide is complicity”.

Displaced Palestinians and several Israeli politicians alike slam the Israeli government’s plans for what it calls a “humanitarian city” in Rafah. Critics say forcing Palestinians into the zone would amount to a “concentration camp.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump meet again.

Their third meeting this year is taking place as ceasefire talks are ongoing in Doha.

While the official talks are being held privately, what has openly been discussed are post-war plans for Gaza, which appear to include forcibly displacing Palestinians.

And Netanyahu is nominating Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize.

What are Israel and the United States hoping to do with Gaza?

How does this affect a possible ceasefire?

And what were Netanyahu’s political ambitions for this visit?

Presenter: James Bays

Guests:

Curt Mills, executive director at The American Conservative magazine.

Yossi Mekelberg, senior consulting fellow at Chatham House.

Xavier Abu Eid, political analyst and former adviser to the chief negotiator of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

“For some, genocide is profitable.” UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese has issued a blistering report accusing major companies of profiting from Israel’s genocide in Gaza and its occupation of Palestinian land.

The United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) has released a new report mapping the corporations aiding Israel in the displacement of Palestinians and its genocidal war on Gaza, in breach of international law.

Francesca Albanese’s latest report, which is scheduled to be presented at a news conference in Geneva on Thursday, names 48 corporate actors, including United States tech giants Microsoft, Alphabet Inc. – Google’s parent company – and Amazon. A database of more than 1000 corporate entities was also put together as part of the investigation.

“[Israel’s] forever-occupation has become the ideal testing ground for arms manufacturers and Big Tech – providing significant supply and demand, little oversight, and zero accountability – while investors and private and public institutions profit freely,” the report said.

“Companies are no longer merely implicated in occupation – they may be embedded in an economy of genocide,” it said, in a reference to Israel’s ongoing assault on the Gaza Strip. In an expert opinion last year, Albanese said there were “reasonable grounds” to believe Israel was committing genocide in the besieged Palestinian enclave.

The report stated that its findings illustrate “why Israel’s genocide continues”.

“Because it is lucrative for many,” it said.

What arms and tech companies were identified in the report?

Israel’s procurement of F-35 fighter jets is part of the world’s largest arms procurement programme, relying on at least 1,600 companies across eight nations. It is led by US-based Lockheed Martin, but F-35 components are constructed globally.

Italian manufacturer Leonardo S.p.A is listed as a main contributor in the military sector, while Japan’s FANUC Corporation provides robotic machinery for weapons production lines.

The tech sector, meanwhile, has enabled the collection, storage and governmental use of biometric data on Palestinians, “supporting Israel’s discriminatory permit regime”, the report said. Microsoft, Alphabet, and Amazon grant Israel “virtually government-wide access to their cloud and AI technologies”, enhancing its data processing and surveillance capacities.

The US tech company IBM has also been responsible for training military and intelligence personnel, as well as managing the central database of Israel’s Population, Immigration and Borders Authority (PIBA) that stores the biometric data of Palestinians, the report said.

It found US software platform Palantir Technologies expanded its support to the Israeli military since the start of the war on Gaza in October 2023. The report said there were “reasonable grounds” to believe the company provided automatic predictive policing technology used for automated decision-making in the battlefield, to process data and generate lists of targets including through artificial intelligence systems like “Lavender”, “Gospel” and “Where’s Daddy?”

What other companies are identified in the report?

The report also lists several companies developing civilian technologies that serve as “dual-use tools” for Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory.

These include Caterpillar, Leonardo-owned Rada Electronic Industries, South Korea’s HD Hyundai and Sweden’s Volvo Group, which provide heavy machinery for home demolitions and the development of illegal settlements in the West Bank.

Rental platforms Booking and Airbnb also aid illegal settlements by listing properties and hotel rooms in Israeli-occupied territory.

The report named the US’s Drummond Company and Switzerland’s Glencore as the primary suppliers of coal for electricity to Israel, originating primarily from Colombia.

In the agriculture sector, Chinese Bright Dairy & Food is a majority owner of Tnuva, Israel’s largest food conglomerate, which benefits from land seized from Palestinians in Israel’s illegal outposts. Netafim, a company providing drip irrigation technology that is 80-percent owned by Mexico’s Orbia Advance Corporation, provides infrastructure to exploit water resources in the occupied West Bank.

Treasury bonds have also played a critical role in funding the ongoing war on Gaza, according to the report, with some of the world’s largest banks, including France’s BNP Paribas and the UK’s Barclays, listed as having stepped in to allow Israel to contain the interest rate premium despite a credit downgrade.

Who are the main investors behind these companies?

The report identified US multinational investment companies BlackRock and Vanguard as the main investors behind several listed companies.

BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, is listed as the second largest institutional investor in Palantir (8.6 percent), Microsoft (7.8 percent), Amazon (6.6 percent), Alphabet (6.6 percent) and IBM (8.6 per cent), and the third largest in Lockheed Martin (7.2 percent) and Caterpillar (7.5 percent).

Vanguard, the world’s second-largest asset manager, is the largest institutional investor in Caterpillar (9.8 percent), Chevron (8.9 percent) and Palantir (9.1 percent), and the second largest in Lockheed Martin (9.2 percent) and Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems (2 percent).

Are companies profiting from dealing with Israel?

The report states that “colonial endeavours and their associated genocides have historically been driven and enabled by the corporate sector.” Israel’s expansion on Palestinian land is one example of “colonial racial capitalism”, where corporate entities profit from an illegal occupation.

Since Israel launched its war on Gaza in October 2023, “entities that previously enabled and profited from Palestinian elimination and erasure within the economy of occupation, instead of disengaging are now involved in the economy of genocide,” the report said.

For foreign arms companies, the war has been a lucrative venture. Israel’s military spending from 2023 to 2024 surged 65 percent, amounting to $46.5bn – one of the highest per capita worldwide.

Several entities listed on the exchange market – particularly in the arms, tech and infrastructure sectors – have seen their profits rise since October 2023. The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange also rose an unprecedented 179 percent, adding $157.9bn in market value.

Global insurance companies, including Allianz and AXA, invested large sums in shares and bonds linked to Israel’s occupation, the report said, partly as capital reserves but primarily to generate returns.

Booking and Airbnb also continue to profit from rentals in Israeli-occupied land. Airbnb briefly delisted properties on illegal settlements in 2018 but later reverted to donating profits from such listings to humanitarian causes, a practice the report referred to as “humanitarian-washing”.

Are private companies liable under international law?

According to Albanese’s report, yes. Corporate entities are under an obligation to avoid violating human rights through direct action or in their business partnerships.

States have the primary responsibility to ensure that corporate entities respect human rights and must prevent, investigate and punish abuses by private actors. However, corporations must respect human rights even if the state where they operate does not.

A company must therefore assess whether activities or relationships throughout its supply chain risk causing human rights violations or contributing to them, according to the report.

The failure to act in line with international law may result in criminal liability. Individual executives can be held criminally liable, including before international courts.

The report called on companies to divest from all activities linked to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory, which is illegal under international law.

In July 2024, the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion ruling that Israel’s continued presence in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem should come to an end “as rapidly as possible”. In light of this advisory opinion, the UN General Assembly demanded that Israel bring to an end its unlawful presence in the occupied Palestinian territory by September 2025.

Albanese’s report said the ICJ’s ruling “effectively qualifies the occupation as an act of aggression … Consequently, any dealings that support or sustain the occupation and its associated apparatus may amount to complicity in an international crime under the Rome Statute.

“States must not provide aid or assistance or enter into economic or trade dealings, and must take steps to prevent trade or investment relations that would assist in maintaining the illegal situation created by Israel in the oPt.”

In the predawn darkness of June 13, Israel launched a “preemptive” attack on Iran. Explosions rocked various parts of the country. Among the targets were nuclear sites at Natanz and Fordo, military bases, research labs, and senior military residences. By the end of the operation, Israel had killed at least 974 people while Iranian missile strikes in retaliation had killed 28 people in Israel.

Israel described its actions as anticipatory self-defence, claiming Iran was mere weeks away from producing a functional nuclear weapon. Yet intelligence assessment, including by Israeli ally, the United States, and reports by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) showed no evidence of Tehran pursuing a nuclear weapon. At the same time, Iranian diplomats were in talks with US counterparts for a possible new nuclear deal.

But beyond the military and geopolitical analysis, a serious ethical question looms: is it morally justifiable to launch such a devastating strike based not on what a state has done, but on what it might do in the future? What precedent does this set for the rest of the world? And who gets to decide when fear is enough to justify war?

A dangerous moral gamble

Ethicists and international lawyers draw a critical line between preemptive and preventive war. Pre-emption responds to an imminent threat – an immediate assault. Preventive war strikes against a possible future threat.

Only the former meets moral criteria rooted in the philosophical works of thinkers like Augustine and Aquinas, and reaffirmed by modern theorists like Michael Walzer — echoing the so-called Caroline formula, which permits preemptive force only when a threat is “instant, overwhelming, and leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation”.

Israel’s raid, however, fails this test. Iran’s nuclear capability was not weeks from completion. Diplomacy had not been exhausted. And the devastation risked — including radioactive fallout from centrifuge halls — far exceeded military necessity.

The law mirrors moral constraints. The UN Charter Article 2(4) bans the use of force, with the sole exception in Article 51, which permits self-defence after an armed attack. Israel’s invocation of anticipatory self-defence relies on contested legal custom, not accepted treaty law. UN experts have called Israel’s strike “a blatant act of aggression” violating jus cogens norms.

Such costly exceptions risk fracturing the international legal order. If one state can credibly claim pre-emption, others will too — from China reacting to patrols near Taiwan, to Pakistan reacting to perceived Indian posturing — undermining global stability.

Israel’s defenders respond that existential threats justify drastic action. Iran’s leaders have a history of hostile rhetoric towards Israel and have consistently backed armed groups like Hezbollah and Hamas. Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel recently argued that when a state’s existence is under threat, international law struggles to provide clear, actionable answers.

The historical scars are real. But philosophers warn that words, however hateful, do not equate to act. Rhetoric stands apart from action. If speech alone justified war, any nation could wage preemptive war based on hateful rhetoric. We risk entering a global “state of nature”, where every tense moment becomes cause for war.

Technology rewrites the rules

Technology tightens the squeeze on moral caution. The drones and F‑35s used in Rising Lion combined to paralyse Iran’s defences within minutes. Nations once could rely on time to debate, persuade, and document. Hypersonic missiles and AI-powered drones have eroded that window — delivering a stark choice: act fast or lose your chance.

These systems don’t just shorten decision time — they dissolve the traditional boundary between wartime and peacetime. As drone surveillance and autonomous systems become embedded in everyday geopolitics, war risks becoming the default condition, and peace the exception.

We begin to live not in a world of temporary crisis, but in what philosopher Giorgio Agamben calls a permanent state of exception — a condition where emergency justifies the suspension of norms, not occasionally but perpetually.

In such a world, the very idea that states must publicly justify acts of violence begins to erode. Tactical advantage, coined as “relative superiority”, leverages this compressed timeframe — but gains ground at a cost.

In an era where classified intelligence triggers near-instant reaction, ethical scrutiny retreats. Future first-move doctrines will reward speed over law, and surprise over proportion. If we lose the distinction between peace and war, we risk losing the principle that violence must always be justified — not assumed.

The path back to restraint

Without immediate course correction, the world risks a new norm: war before reason, fear before fact. The UN Charter depends on mutual trust that force remains exceptional. Every televised strike chips away at that trust, leading to arms races and reflexive attacks. To prevent this cascade of fear-driven conflict, several steps are essential.

There has to be transparent verification: Claims of “imminent threat” must be assessed by impartial entities — IAEA monitors, independent inquiry commissions — not buried inside secret dossiers.

Diplomacy must take precedence: Talks, backchannels, sabotage, sanctions — all must be demonstrably exhausted pre-strike. Not optionally, not retroactively.

There must be public assessment of civilian risk: Environmental and health experts must weigh in before military planners pull the trigger.

The media, academia, and public must insist that these thresholds are met — and keep governments accountable.

Preemptive war may, in rare cases, be morally justified — for instance, missiles poised on launchpads, fleets crossing redlines. But that bar is high by design. Israel’s strike on Iran wasn’t preventive, it was launched not against an unfolding attack but against a feared possibility.  Institutionalising that fear as grounds for war is an invitation to perpetual conflict.

If we abandon caution in the name of fear, we abandon the shared moral and legal boundaries that hold humanity together. Just war tradition demands we never view those who may harm us as mere threats — but rather as human beings, each worthy of careful consideration.

The Iran–Israel war is more than military drama. It is a test: will the world still hold the line between justified self-defence and unbridled aggression? If the answer is no, then fear will not just kill soldiers. It will kill the fragile hope that restraint can keep us alive.

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

Video shows the aftermath of a deadly Israeli strike on Evin Prison in Tehran, that killed at least 71 people, including visiting women and children. The prison, known for holding political prisoners, was hit just a day before a ceasefire ended 12 days of fighting initiated by Israeli strikes.

Direct US involvement in Israel’s unprovoked attack on Iran was a dangerous decision, argues Vali Nasr, professor of international affairs and Middle East history at Johns Hopkins University.

Hours before a ceasefire between the US, Israel and Iran was announced, Nasr told host Steve Clemons that “the US doesn’t have a regime change option in Iran” and should be wary of humiliating Tehran, which would lead to long-term consequences.

Nasr argues that the 12-Day War was meant to establish Israel’s dominance as the premier Middle East power, backed by Washington, with no room for challengers.

On Friday, June 13, when Israeli missiles began raining down on Tehran, Shamsi was reminded once again just how vulnerable she and her family are.

The 34-year-old Afghan mother of two was working at her sewing job in north Tehran. In a state of panic and fear, she rushed back home to find her daughters, aged five and seven, huddled beneath a table in horror.

Shamsi fled Taliban rule in Afghanistan just a year ago, hoping Iran would offer safety. Now, undocumented and terrified, she finds herself caught in yet another dangerous situation – this time with no shelter, no status, and no way out.

“I escaped the Taliban but bombs were raining over our heads here,” Shamsi told Al Jazeera from her home in northern Tehran, asking to be referred to by her first name only, for security reasons. “We came here for safety, but we didn’t know where to go.”

Shamsi, a former activist in Afghanistan, and her husband, a former soldier in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan before the Taliban returned to power in 2021, fled to Iran on a temporary visa, fearful of reprisals from the Taliban over their work. But they have been unable to renew their visas because of the cost and the requirement to exit Iran and re-enter through Taliban-controlled Afghanistan – a journey that would likely be too dangerous.

Life in Iran has not been easy. Without legal residency, Shamsi has no protection at work, no bank account, and no access to aid. “There was no help from Iranians, or from any international organisation,” she said.

Internet blackouts in Tehran have made it hard to find information or contact family.

“Without a driver’s licence, we can’t move around. Every crossroad in Tehran is heavily inspected by police,” she said, noting that they managed to get around restrictions to buy food before Israel began bombing, but once that started it became much harder.

Iran hosts an estimated 3.5 million refugees and people in refugee-like situations, including some 750,000 registered Afghans. But more than 2.6 million are undocumented individuals. Since the Taliban’s return to power and the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, thousands of Afghans, including activists, journalists, former soldiers, and other vulnerable people, have crossed into Iran seeking refuge.

Tehran province alone reportedly hosts 1.5 million Afghan refugees – the majority of them undocumented – and as Israel targeted sites in and around the capital, attacking civilian and military locations during the 12-day conflict, many Afghans were starkly reminded of their extreme vulnerability – unprotected and unable to access emergency assistance, or even reliable information during air raids as the internet was shut down for large periods of time.

While many fled Tehran for the north of Iran, Afghan refugees like Shamsi and her family had nowhere to go.

On the night of June 22, an explosion shook her neighbourhood, breaking the windows of the family’s apartment. “I was awake until 3am, and just an hour after I fell asleep, another blast woke me up,” she said.

An entire residential apartment was levelled near her building. “I prepared a bag with my children’s main items to be ready if something happens to our building.”

The June 23 ceasefire brokered by Qatar and the US came as a huge relief, but now there are other problems: Shamsi’s family is almost out of money. Her employer, who used to pay her in cash, has left the city and won’t answer her calls. “He’s disappeared,” she said. “When I [previously] asked for my unpaid wages, he just said: ‘You’re an Afghan migrant, get out, out, out.’”

The human cost of conflict

For all Afghans trapped in Iran – both those forced to flee and those who stayed in their homes – the 12-day conflict with Israel has sharply reawakened feelings of trauma and displacement.

Furthermore, according to the Iranian health authorities, three Afghan migrants – identified as Hafiz Bostani, Abdulwali and Habibullah Jamshidi – were among the 610 people killed in the recent strikes.

On June 18, 18-year-old Afghan labourer Abdulwali was killed and several others were injured in an Israeli strike on their construction site in the Tehranpars area of Tehran. According to the victim’s father, Abdulwali left his studies in Afghanistan about six months ago to work in Iran to feed his family. In a video widely shared by Abdulwali’s friends, his colleagues at the construction site can be heard calling to him to leave the building as loud explosions echo in the background.

Other Afghans are still missing since the Israeli strikes. Hakimi, an elderly Afghan man from Takhar province in Afghanistan, told Al Jazeera that he hadn’t heard from three of his grandsons in Iran for four days. “They were stuck inside a construction site in central Tehran with no food,” he said.

All he knows is that they retreated to the basement of the unfinished apartment building they were working on when they heard the sound of bombs, he explained. The shops nearby were closed, and their Iranian employer has fled the city without paying wages.

Even if they have survived, he added, they are undocumented. “If they get out, they will get deported by police,” Hakimi said.

From one danger zone to another

During the conflict, UN Special Rapporteur Richard Bennett urged all parties to protect Afghan migrants in Iran, warning of serious risks to their safety and calling for immediate humanitarian safeguards.

Afghan activist Laila Forugh Mohammadi, who now lives outside the country, is using social media to raise awareness about the dire conditions Afghans are facing in Iran. “People can’t move, can’t speak,” she said. “Most have no legal documents, and that puts them in a dangerous position where they can’t even retrieve unpaid wages from fleeing employers.”

She also flagged that amid the Iran-Israel conflict, there is no government body supporting Afghans. “There’s no bureaucracy to process their situation. We dreaded an escalation in the violence between Iran and Israel for the safety of our people,” she said.

In the end, those who did manage to evacuate from the most dangerous areas in Iran mostly did so with the help of Afghan organisations.

The Afghan Women Activists’ Coordinating Body (AWACB), part of the European Organisation for Integration, helped hundreds of women – many of whom fled the Taliban because of their activist work – and their families to flee. They relocated from high-risk areas like Tehran, Isfahan and Qom – the sites of key nuclear facilities which Israel and the US both targeted – to safer cities such as Mashhad in the northeast of the country. The group also helped with communicating with families in Afghanistan during the ongoing internet blackouts in Iran.

“Our capacity is limited. We can only support official members of AWACB,” said Dr Patoni Teichmann, the group’s founder, speaking to Al Jazeera before the ceasefire. “We have evacuated 103 women out of our existing 450 members, most of whom are Afghan women’s rights activists and protesters who rallied against the women’s education ban and fled Afghanistan.”

‘I can’t go back to the Taliban’

Iran recently announced plans to deport up to two million undocumented Afghans, but during the 12-day conflict, some took the decision to move back anyway despite the dangers and hardships they may face there.

World Vision Afghanistan reported that, throughout the 12-day war, approximately 7,000 Afghans were crossing daily from Iran into Afghanistan via the Islam Qala border in Herat. “People are arriving with only the clothes on their backs,” said Mark Cal, a field representative. “They’re traumatised, confused, and returning to a homeland still in economic and social freefall.”

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has voiced grave concerns about the deteriorating humanitarian situation for Afghans in Iran, adding that it is monitoring reports that people are on the move within Iran and that some are leaving for neighbouring countries.

Even as Israeli strikes came to a halt, tensions remain high, and the number of Afghans fleeing Iran is expected to rise.

But for many, there is nowhere left to go.

Back in northern Tehran, Shamsi sits beside her daughter watching an Iranian news channel. “We came here for safety,” she says softly. Asked what she would do if the situation worsens, Shamsi doesn’t hesitate: “I will stay here with my family. I can’t go back to the Taliban.”

This piece was published in collaboration with Egab.

Katz says Israel has ‘green light’ from US to attack Iran again if Tehran makes ‘progress’ with its nuclear programme.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz has said that his country wanted to kill Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during the recent 12-day war between the two sides that ended this week with a ceasefire.

Katz said on Thursday that Israel would not have needed permission from the United States to kill Khamenei, appearing to refute previous media reports that Washington vetoed the assassination.

“We wanted to eliminate Khamenei, but there was no operational opportunity,” said Katz in an interview with Israel’s Channel 13.

Katz claimed that Khamenei knew an attempt on his life was on the cards, and went “underground to very great depths”, breaking off contact with commanders who replaced Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps leaders assassinated in the first wave of Israeli strikes.

Khamenei released video messages during the war, and there is no evidence to confirm that he was cut off from his generals.

Killing Khamenei would have been a major escalation in the conflict. Besides being the de facto head of state in Iran, the supreme leader is a top spiritual authority for millions of Shia Muslims across the world.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump had both suggested at various times that the war could spark regime change, the latter posting on social media last Sunday that the conflict could “MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN”.

Katz’s comments came amid conflicting reports on the extent of destruction wrought on Iran’s nuclear capability, primarily as a result of the US bombing of sites at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan. Khamenei said on Thursday that the US had “exaggerated” the impact of strikes.

The Israeli defence minister said that his country has a “green light” from Trump to launch another attack on Iran if it were deemed to be making “progress” with its nuclear programme.

“I do not see a situation where Iran will restore the nuclear facilities after the attack,” he said.

For his part, Netanyahu said on Thursday that the outcome of the war presented a “window of opportunity” for further formal diplomatic agreements with Arab states.

The conflict ended with a US-brokered ceasefire after Iran responded to the US strikes with a missile attack on Qatar’s Al Udeid Air Base, which houses US troops.

“We have fought with determination against Iran and achieved a great victory. This victory opens the path to dramatically enlarge the peace accords,” Netanyahu said in a video address, in an apparent reference to the Abraham Accords, which established official ties between Israel and several Arab countries in 2020.

Iran also declared victory after the war, saying that it thwarted the Israeli objectives – namely ending Tehran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programmes – and managed to force Netanyahu to end the assault with the missile strikes that left widespread destruction in Israel.