Burkina Faso FM to Visit Russia for Bilateral Agreement Signing

By Al Mayadeen English

10 Feb 2026 22:34

Burkina Faso’s Foreign Minister Karamoko Jean-Marie Traore will visit Moscow on February 12–13 to sign foundational agreements on bilateral ties and launch a new intergovernmental commission with Russia.

Burkina Faso’s Foreign Minister, Karamoko Jean-Marie Traore, is set to visit Moscow from February 12 to 13 to sign key agreements aimed at strengthening bilateral relations with Russia, according to the Russian Embassy in Ouagadougou.

The visit will include the signing of an agreement outlining the foundations of bilateral relations between Burkina Faso and Russia, as well as the establishment of a new intergovernmental commission to oversee cooperation in various sectors.

“This will involve the signing of an agreement on the foundations of relations between Russia and Burkina Faso, as well as an agreement on the creation of an intergovernmental commission,” the embassy confirmed to RIA Novosti.

During his stay in Moscow, Traore is also expected to hold high-level meetings with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and representatives of the Russian Ministry of Economic Development, the embassy added.

The visit marks a significant step in expanding Russia’s diplomatic and economic engagement with Africa, particularly in the Sahel region across Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger. Russia has deployed over 1,000 contractors to Mali and maintains smaller forces in Burkina Faso and Niger.

US re-engages Sahel states as Russia preference takes over

The Sahel trio, over the past few years, expelled French forces and embraced Russian cooperation, aiming to achieve independence and sovereignty far from exploitative Western interference. 

The United States allegedly was unfazed by the increased Russian presence in the Sahel, host to the region’s vast mineral wealth, particularly Mali’s lithium, Niger’s uranium, and Burkina Faso’s gold. Niger’s junta recently seized control of its main uranium mine from French company Orano and is reportedly courting Russia as a new partner.

However, a recent report by the BBC indicated that the US has made a sharp turn in its West Africa policy, opting to re-engage with the military governments of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger. Re-engaging Sahel states primarily gives the US access to strategic minerals vital to energy security, defense, and the green transition.

As minerals replace oil as the core geopolitical asset, Washington is seeking to secure future supply chains amid growing competition with China and Russia, both of which have expanded their footprint in Sahel mining through security-for-resources deals.

Coups in Mali, Burkina Faso, and especially Niger exposed how quickly Western access to critical resources can unravel. Re-engagement reflects a shift away from counterterrorism toward resource and economic diplomacy, even if it means softening positions on military rule.

Ultimately, this is about stabilizing extraction rather than transforming governance, managing instability to keep minerals flowing, not addressing the structural causes of Sahelian crises.

Erik Prince Deployed Forces to Uvira in Congo Amid Rebel Clash

By Al Mayadeen English

10 Feb 2026 23:18

Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater, deployed forces and drones to help Congo’s army retake Uvira from M23 rebels near key critical mineral zones.

Erik Prince, the founder of the now-defunct private military company Blackwater and ally of US President Donald Trump, deployed contractors and drone units to assist the Democratic Republic of Congo’s military in securing the strategic city of Uvira, four individuals briefed on the operation told Reuters.

The AFC/M23 rebels, reportedly backed by Rwanda, briefly took control of Uvira in December, dealing a blow to ongoing US and Qatar-led peace negotiations. The rebels withdrew following US threats of retaliation.

The Erik Prince Congo operation was contracted by the Kinshasa government not only for security purposes but also to improve tax collection from the country’s vast natural resources. However, this marked the first known instance of Prince’s personnel engaging directly on the frontlines of the decades-long conflict.

Sources told Reuters that Prince’s team was deployed at the request of Congolese authorities to reinforce elite units attempting to retake Uvira. Following the operation, the contractors reportedly returned to their primary assignment: assisting with mineral revenue oversight.

“They needed help recapturing Uvira and pulled in every resource they could. Focus is back on the tax police project now,” one source told Reuters. Another source indicated that future frontline deployments could occur if requested by Kinshasa.

Drones and foreign advisers back Congo’s offensive

Prince’s personnel reportedly provided drone support to Congolese special operations and army units in Uvira and the South Kivu highlands. These operations coincided with involvement from Israeli advisers, who, according to a fifth source, were focused solely on training Congolese special forces battalions for day and night operations.

"Their mandate (the Israelis) is training only," the source told Reuters.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry and embassy in Luanda, which oversees relations with Congo, did not respond to requests for comment.

US interests and mineral access

A Congolese security official suggested to Reuters that the presence of US-linked contractors like Prince’s team could act as a deterrent to M23 rebels, who may avoid confronting such forces directly. The US, for its part, has offered to support peace efforts in exchange for access to critical minerals in Congo.

While it remains unclear whether Washington formally endorsed the operation, the mission to secure Uvira followed US demands for rebel withdrawal. The US State Department has denied holding any contracts with Prince or his firms.

“The operation is in line with the minerals-for-security deal,” the Congolese official told the news agency.

Ongoing violence and historical roots

Fighting in eastern Congo escalated in early 2025, as M23 rebels advanced through areas rich in tantalum, gold, lithium, and other strategic resources. Western governments and the United Nations have accused Rwanda of backing the group, though Kigali denies involvement.

Although Rwanda and Congo signed a US-brokered peace agreement in June last year, the AFC/M23 group was not part of the accord.

The conflict’s roots trace back to the aftermath of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, when Hutu militia fighters fled into Congo, pursued by Tutsi-led Rwandan forces. Kigali continues to deny deploying troops into Congolese territory.

Gustavo Petro Says Survived Suspected Assassination Attempt at Sea

By Al Mayadeen English

10 Feb 2026 23:24

Colombian President Gustavo Petro says he escaped an assassination attempt after his helicopter was diverted over security fears near the Caribbean coast.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro has claimed he narrowly escaped an assassination attempt during an official trip to the Caribbean coast, following months of warnings about threats allegedly posed by drug traffickers.

Petro reveals details of alleged assassination attempt

Speaking during a cabinet meeting broadcast live on national television Tuesday, President Petro described the events of the previous night when his helicopter was unable to land at its intended destination due to a reported security threat.

"We headed out to open sea for four hours and I arrived somewhere we weren't supposed to go, escaping from being killed," Petro said during the broadcast.

He did not name the individuals or groups allegedly behind the plot but suggested that an armed attack on his aircraft was imminent.

Helicopter diverted over security threat

According to the president, the aircraft was forced to remain airborne over the sea for several hours before being diverted to an undisclosed location.

Petro emphasized that those on board feared the aircraft would come under fire if it approached the original landing zone.

Background: rising tensions and political targeting

The reported attempt on Petro’s life comes at a time of increasing political pressure and regional instability.

Just weeks earlier, Petro had publicly rejected accusations linking him and Venezuelan leaders to drug trafficking. In a series of statements issued in early January, he condemned such claims as politically motivated defamation, asserting that Colombia’s court records show no evidence of his involvement in narcotics-related crimes over the past five decades.

He also condemned US military strikes on Venezuela, describing them as illegal and imperial, and warned of a return to militarized interventionism across Latin America.

Petro characterized the aggression as a broader effort to delegitimize independent regional leaders and movements, calling for unity and sovereignty among Latin American nations.

He further stated that many of the narratives targeting him were responses to his outspoken positions on Venezuela, Palestine, and US foreign policy. Petro argued that attempts to slander his name and leadership were part of a larger campaign to silence dissenting voices in the Global South.

Security concerns ahead of political developments

Petro’s survival of this suspected assassination attempt has renewed concerns over his personal security and the wider threats facing Latin American leaders who challenge established power dynamics.

Analysts suggest that tensions with both internal opposition and external actors may be contributing to an increasingly volatile political environment.

As of now, no suspects have been named, and Colombian security services have not provided additional information regarding the alleged plot.

Tanzania Opposition Leader Returns to Court for Treason Trial After Monthslong Delay

By EVELYNE MUSAMBI

1:37 PM EST, February 9, 2026

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Tanzania’s opposition leader charged with treason appeared in court for the first time in months on Monday, but the hearing was adjourned yet again after he opposed the prosecution’s plan to have secret witnesses appear in a special enclosed cell.

Opposition leader Tundu Lissu has been in prison for 10 months after he was arrested following an opposition rally in which he called for constitutional and electoral law reforms before last year’s disputed election.

Lissu, who is representing himself in the case, said the punishment for treason is death and that secret witnesses in enclosed cells pose a huge risk and are likely to result in an unjust outcome for the case.

Judges said a decision on the objection would be delivered to the court on Wednesday.

Tanzania’s October 2025 election led to days of protests, the internet was shut down for days, hundreds of people were killed, and thousands of protesters were arrested.

The East African country, a largely peaceful nation, saw its first major wave of violence, which was blamed on foreigners by President Samia Suluhu, who won a second term with more than 97% of the vote, with no major opposition candidate in the running.

Suluhu apologized to diplomats for the internet shutdown and said it would never happen again. She then formed a commission of inquiry, which she said would champion reconciliation, but the main opposition party, Chadema, has been calling for justice for the families whose kin died in the protests.

Chadema deputy party leader, John Heche, on Monday called for the “unconditional release” of Lissu, alleging that Tanzanian authorities had proposed releasing him from prison on condition that he leave the country.

Lissu, whose party did not participate in the October election, has been protesting the slow judicial process, with his case yet to be determined despite his arrest in April 2025.

Last year, he told the court he would represent himself because of frustration with prison authorities, who he said were not allowing him to confer with his lawyers in private.

Lissu is the most visible of Tanzania’s fierce critics of the ruling CCM Party, which has been in power since independence. He survived an assassination attempt in 2017 and was in and out of exile until last year, when he campaigned for reforms ahead of the election.

Mali’s Junta Arrests Prominent Journalist for Criticizing Niger’s Military Leader, Rights Group Says

By BABA AHMED

3:34 PM EST, February 9, 2026

BAMAKO, Mali (AP) — Malian authorities arrested a prominent journalist for criticizing the leader of neighboring Niger, a rights group said Monday, as the military regime in the West African country increasingly curtails freedom of expression during a security crisis.

Youssouf Sissoko, editor-in-chief of the weekly newspaper L’Alternance, was arrested by police at his home in Bamako, Mali’s capital, on Feb. 5, Human Rights Watch said in a statement.

“The police took Sissoko before a cybercrime unit prosecutor, who charged him with spreading false information and insulting a foreign head of state, among other offenses, and ordered him held in pretrial custody,” the statement read.

The arrest followed the publication of an article in L’Alternance on Feb. 2 questioning accusations by Niger’s military ruler Gen. Abdourahamane Tchani that the presidents of France, Benin and Ivory Coast supported extremist groups that attacked an airport in the capital Niamey last month.

The attack was claimed by the Islamic State Sahel Province.

Mali, alongside neighboring Niger and Burkina Faso, have been wracked by coups in recent years and are now ruled by military leaders who took power by force, pledging to provide more security to citizens.

Since seizing power, the juntas have cut ties with France and other Western powers, created their own security alliance and turned to Russia for military support to fight extremist insurgencies.

The security situation in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso has worsened in recent times, analysts say, with a record number of attacks by Islamic extremists. Government forces have also been accused of killing civilians they suspect of collaborating with militants.

Meanwhile, the military leaders have cracked down on political dissent and journalists. In January 2025, Malian authorities banned the sale of the Pan-African magazine Jeune Afrique. Several French media outlets, including France24, TV5 Monde, and Radio France International, are also banned from broadcasting in Mali. Several opposition leaders have been imprisoned for criticizing the military regime.

“Sissoko’s arbitrary detention highlights the fragile state of independent media in a country fraught with repression and shrinking civic space. The authorities should immediately and unconditionally release Sissoko and drop all charges against him,” HRW said in its statement.

Opposition Grows in Congo Over US Mineral Deal

By SALEH MWANAMILONGO

1:53 PM EST, February 10, 2026

Opposition to a deal that would allow U.S. companies access to critical minerals in Congo is growing after Congo’s President Felix Tshisekedi returned from the U.S. minerals summit last week — with praises from U.S. President Donald Trump and U.S. lawmakers.

Tshisekedi has offered U.S. companies access to eastern Congo’s rich minerals — mostly untapped and estimated to be worth $24 trillion – as a bargaining chip for U.S. support to help fight off rebels and build critical infrastructure in the region where Rwanda-backed rebels seized major cities last year.

It comes as the Trump administration seeks to create a minerals trading bloc with its allies, in part to defend against China’s stranglehold on critical elements needed for everything from fighter jets to smartphones. China accounts for nearly 70% of the world’s rare earth mining and controls roughly 90% of global rare earths processing. It is also the most active player in Congo’s minerals sector.

Congo went seeking support and investment

On the sidelines of the Feb. 4 Critical Minerals Ministerial in Washington D.C., Tshisekedi led a Congolese delegation on strategic meetings with senior Trump administration officials and members of the Congress, mostly building on the strategic partnership agreement that both countries signed in December.

“We are open for business and we are serious about doing business the right way,” Tshisekedi told members of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce during a meeting last week.

Discussions with Congolese officials focused on reviewing a list of strategic assets submitted by Congo which will help determine investment opportunities for American companies, the U.S. State Department said last week.

The strategic partnership has been framed as securing supply chains for strategic minerals like cobalt, copper, lithium and coltan for the U.S. while Congo in return receives U.S. support for development of key infrastructure.

In Congo, however, analysts and residents say there are still no signs that U.S. involvement in the country’s minerals sector will help meet its most crucial need: permanent peace and stability particularly in the east where Rwanda-backed M23 rebels have seized territories a year ago.

The rebels also control vast territories rich in minerals, including the Rubaya coltan mine which produces around 15% of the world’s coltan and where at least 200 miners died recently after a part of it collapsed.

American companies, meanwhile, have long avoided Congo due in part to high levels of insecurity and corruption, a void long filled by Chinese companies.

“The battle between China and the United States for access to and control of strategic minerals will intensify concretely on Congolese soil,” said Josaphat Musamba, doctoral researcher studying conflict and development at Belgium’s Ghent University.

Opposition could hamper the implementation

In the capital of Kinshasa, opposition is growing against the mineral partnerships both from public figures and the civil society leaders, some of whom have accused the Congolese government of underselling the country’s vast mineral wealth.

A group of lawyers and human rights activists in Congo has filed a lawsuit arguing that the mineral partnership threatens Congo’s sovereignty.

“We are assuming our responsibility as Congolese citizens to protect the sovereignty of our country and preserve our heritage for future generations,” said Jean-Marie Kalonji, one of the lawyers.

Within the opposition, there is also the fear that the deal will mainly benefit Tshisekedi. Moïse Katumbi, the main opposition leader, has raised concerns about how it could be implemented given the security situation in the mineral-rich east, and has called for a national dialogue as a better approach to investors.

Archbishop Fulgence Muteba, who is president of the National Episcopal Conference of Congo (CENCO), likened the strategic partnership to “selling off the minerals of an entire nation to save a regime or a political system.”

“This clearly amounts to sacrificing the development of the population and confiscating the happiness of future generations,” the Catholic bishop said in December.

In the rebel-controlled territories, residents say they don’t see any major commitment by the U.S. to restoring peace and stability.

“We think this agreement will generate more conflict instead of actually providing solutions because the actors are not sincere,” said Christopher Muyisa, a youth activist.

For Tshisekedi and his government, “the immediate gain is primarily political: strategic recognition from Washington,” said Yvon Muya, a research associate at Canada’s University of Ottawa.

Rebels Linked to Islamic State Group Kill at Least 20 in DR Congo Village Attack, Army Says

Congolese Defense Forces soldiers and United Nation forces patrol the area of an attack near the town of Oicha, 30 kms (20 miles) from Beni, Democratic Republic of Congo, July 23, 2021. (AP Photo/Al-hadji Kudra Maliro, file)

By JEAN-YVES KAMALE

11:34 AM EST, February 9, 2026

KINSHASA, Congo (AP) — Rebels backed by the Islamic State group killed at least 20 people in an attack over the weekend on a village in eastern Congo, the military said Monday.

The attack by the Allied Democratic Forces, or ADF, took place early Saturday in the village of Mambimbi-Isigo in the Lubero territory of North Kivu province, military administrator Col. Alain Kiwewa Mitela told The Associated Press over the phone.

There was no immediate comment from the ADF.

The attack has caused a mass displacement of residents, aggravating an already dire humanitarian situation, Mitela said.

According to civil society activists in the area, the rebels first raided several farmers’ fields before attacking civilians with knives and firearms.

“This toll is still provisional because many civilians are missing,” Kinos Kitwa, head of civil society in Bapere, said. He criticized the small number of Congolese army troops in the area.

Armed groups, including the ADF and Rwanda-backed M23 rebels, have carried out several deadly attacks in eastern Congo. The ADF, which pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group in 2019, operates along the border with Uganda and often targets civilians.

At least 62 civilians have been killed since the beginning of the year by ADF fighters in the Beni and Lubero territories, according to the North Kivu Provincial Civil Society Coordination.

On Monday, U.N. peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix began a two-day official visit to eastern Congo, including Beni, which has been particularly affected by ADF attacks.

The ADF was formed by disparate small groups in Uganda in the late 1990s following discontent with President Yoweri Museveni. In 2002, following Ugandan military strikes, the group moved to neighboring Congo and has been blamed for the killings of thousands of civilians. In July 2025, the group carried out a series of attacks that killed more than 100 people.

Senegalese Police Arrest 14 Suspects in a Child Abuse Network Run by a French National

Senegal's national flag is seen in Dakar, Senegal, on May 12, 2023. (AP Photo/Leo Correa, File)

7:23 AM EST, February 9, 2026

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Senegalese police arrested 14 suspects in a criminal network allegedly run by a French citizen that sexually exploited children in the West African country.

The suspected ringleader and French national, Pierre Robert, was arrested in France last April, police said in a statement on Sunday. Police said the network had been operating since 2017.

The charges against the 14, all Senegalese nationals, include “child rape, pimping, acts against nature and the deliberate transmission of HIV,” the police said in a statement Sunday. The group allegedly forced boys to have unprotected sex, often with HIV positive men, and filmed them.

Four of the suspects are accused of acting as “sex trainers” and allegedly admitted carrying out the abuse in exchange for money transfers from Robert, according to the police.

It was not immediately clear how many children fell victim to the group.

The arrests, following a joint investigation involving Senegalese and French authorities, were carried out in coordinated raids at the suspects’ homes in Dakar and in Kaolack, about 200 kilometers (124 miles) southeast of the capital.

Senegal has strict laws against sexual abuse of children, with prison sentences raging from five to 10 years for offenses involving children under 16. But limited police resources, lack of staff and gaps in judicial follow-through have hampered enforcement of child protection laws, Human Rights Watch said in a 2018 report.

Passenger Plane in Somalia Overshoots the Runway into Shallow Seawater Near the Airport

By OMAR FARUK

2:21 PM EST, February 10, 2026

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — A passenger aircraft carrying 55 people overran the runway at Somalia’s main airport and ended up in shallow water at a nearby beach Tuesday during an emergency landing following a technical problem shortly after takeoff.

There were no injuries from the emergency landing at Mogadishu’s Aden Abdulle International Airport, and the 50 passengers and 5 crew members aboard the Starsky Aviation flight were safely evacuated, airline CEO Ahmed Nur said in a statement.

“The aircraft overran on the runway” before coming to a rest at on the shore of the Indian Ocean near the airport, Nur said, adding, “No injuries, no deaths.”

Transportation Minister Mohamed Farah Nuh said the rescue team managed to account for everyone aboard and that only the aircraft was damaged. He said the cause of the crash would be fully investigated.

The flight was bound for the northern city of Gaalkacyo when it developed a problem about 15 minutes after takeoff, Ahmed Moalim, director of Somalia’s Civil Aviation Authority, told local media. During the attempted landing, the aircraft veered off the runway and ended up at the shoreline, Moalim said.

Babies Are Among 53 Dead or Missing After a Migrant Boat Sinks off Libya, UN Says

This is a locator map for Libya with its capital, Tripoli. (AP Photo)

By SAMY MAGDY

8:08 AM EST, February 9, 2026

CAIRO (AP) — Two babies are among at least 53 people dead or missing after an inflatable migrant boat sank off Libya, the U.N. migration agency said on Monday, the latest tragedy on a dangerous route for those seeking a better life in Europe.

The U.N.’s International Organization for Migration said in a statement the boat with 55 African migrants on board departed Libya’s western town of Zawaiya shortly before midnight on Thursday. Around six hours later it began taking on water and capsized on Friday morning north of the town of Zuwara, the agency said.

Two Nigerian women survived the shipwreck and were rescued by Libyan authorities, IOM said. One of them said she lost her husband, while the other reported losing her two babies.

“Trafficking and smuggling networks continue to exploit migrants along the central Mediterranean route,” the U.N. agency said. These networks make profits through using “unseaworthy boats” to sail migrants from the chaos-stricken Libya to European shores, it added.

Libya has in recent years emerged as the dominant transit point for migrants fleeing war and poverty in Africa and the Middle East, even though the North African nation has plunged into chaos following a NATO-backed counter-revolution that toppled and killed longtime Revolutionary Pan-Africanist Moammar Gadhafi in 2011.

The number of migrants reported dead or missing in 2026 on the central Mediterranean route now stand at 484, according to the IOM’s missing migrants project. Last year saw more than 1,300 migrants dead or missing on that route, it said.

“These repeated incidents underscore the persistent and deadly risks faced by migrants and refugees attempting the dangerous crossing,” it said.

Human traffickers in recent years have benefited from the chaos in Libya, smuggling in migrants across the country’s lengthy borders, which it shares with six nations. The migrants are usually forced to sail on crowded, ill-equipped vessels, including rubber boats.

Those who are intercepted and returned to Libya are held in government-run detention centers rife with abuses, including forced labor, beatings, rapes and torture — practices that amount to crimes against humanity, according to U.N.-commissioned investigators.

The abuse often accompanies efforts to extort money from families of those held, before the migrants are allowed to leave Libya on traffickers’ boats.

Drought Leaves People Hungry in Kenya as Their Livestock Die

By RODNEY MUHUMUZA

7:50 PM EST, February 9, 2026

KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — Drought conditions have left over 2 million people facing hunger in parts of Kenya, with cattle-keeping communities in the northeast the hardest hit, according to the United Nations and others.

In recent weeks, images of emaciated livestock in the arid area near the Somali border have shocked many in a region that reels from the effects of climate change.

In recent years, rainy seasons have become shorter for some communities, exposing them to drought. Normally, animals are the first to die.

The livestock losses echo what happened between 2020 and 2023, when millions of animals died in the region that extends from Kenya into parts of Ethiopia and Somalia. At the time, a famine predicted for Somalia was averted by a surge in international aid.

Four consecutive wet seasons have failed in parts of the Horn of Africa, which juts into the Indian Ocean.

The wet season from October to December was one of the driest ever recorded, according to the U.N. health agency. Because the rains were brief, parts of eastern Kenya were the driest they have been during that season since 1981.

Some 10 counties in Kenya are experiencing drought conditions, according to the National Drought Management Authority.

The northeastern county of Mandera, bordering Somalia, has reached the “alarm” classification, which means critical water shortages have led to the death of livestock and the wasting of children.

The suffering extends into Somalia, Tanzania and even Uganda, where many are threatened by similar weather patterns and water shortages, the World Health Organization said in late January.

In southern Somalia, an assessment by the Islamic Relief aid group found “shocking food shortages as families flee the region’s worsening drought.”

In Somalia, long vulnerable to drought conditions, over 3 million people have left their homes, seeking shelter in camps for the internally displaced.

But support is not enough, with 70% of the internally displaced in the city of Baidoa surviving on one meal a day or less, Islamic Relief said in a statement, adding that children in the camps are “showing visible signs of malnutrition and wasting.”

Experts say much of what’s happening is due to climate change.

The Indian Ocean has become warmer, feeding some of the more destructive tropical storms in recent years. At the same time, drought conditions have become longer, more intense and more severe.

All of that is devastating for Africans whose economic mainstay is rain-fed agriculture, making them vulnerable to extreme weather. Many farmers say increasing temperatures deny livestock pasture and kill their crops.

Africa is particularly vulnerable to extreme weather events because it is less equipped to prepare for natural disasters. Despite contributing only 3% to 4% of global emissions, according to the U.N., the continent is one of the most exposed to the effects of climate change.

‘Where Do We Go from Here’? From Slave Revolts to Palestinian Resistance

February 7, 2026

Children in Gaza demanding an end to the Israeli siege. (Photo: Mahmoud Ajjour, The Palestine Chronicle)

By Benay Blend

Until the Empire falls, the pattern remains the same. In order for entities like the US and Israel to plunder targets for land and natural resources, they must render the resistance either barbaric and/or invisible.

On August 16, 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King delivered a speech before the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in which he honored the group’s achievements on the 10th anniversary of its founding.

In order to address his theme, “Where Do We Go from Here?” King spoke to the value of recognizing the current situation, a time in which there were many problems left to solve, some of which still exist today.

Despite these odds, King maintained that “first, we must massively assert our dignity and worth. We must stand up amid a system that still oppresses us and develop an unassailable and majestic sense of values. We must no longer be ashamed of being black.”

“As long as the mind is enslaved,” he concluded, “the body can never be free.” King’s words are relevant today not only for the colonized but also for those who refuse to acknowledge the agency of such people to bring about their own liberation.

In a two-part documentary for PBS, Looking for Lincoln, historian Henry Louis Gates Jr. hosted an exploration of the myths surrounding Abraham Lincoln, the president credited with freeing the slaves at the close of the Civil War.

While Gates delved into his own ambivalence about the man who many consider to be racist yet progressive in his thinking over time, he seldom mentioned the role of enslaved men and women in freeing themselves from slavery.

Even before the onset of the war, black men and women revolted against their owners in a variety of ways—work stoppage, running away, buying their own freedom, and in some cases, armed revolt. During the conflict, black men served in the Union army while women worked as cooks for the military and sometimes as spies against the South.

“The issue is not Black people’s capacity to survive and succeed,” writes Prof. Kellie Carter Jackson. “It is White people’s ability to accept Black humanity and forfeit the myth of their supremacy.”

Throughout his odyssey, Gates argued that what is forgotten is just as important as what is remembered, particularly within the context of the Black experience. His admonition holds true for all historical journeys in which mainstream actors are privileged with a starring role.

After the Vietnam War, for example, commentators credited a variety of sources that brought the war to a close—student protests, working class opposition, peace movements within the military, and Henry Kissinger, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973 for his role, along with Vietnamese diplomat Le Duc Tho, in bringing about a ceasefire in Vietnam.

In “Lessons from the Vietnam War,” John Marciano analyzes several aspects of the conflict, including US war crimes, those who did and did not condemn it, and specific segments of the population who participated in the anti-war movement.

Significantly, Marciano rarely mentions North Vietnamese resistance as an important aspect of their victory. He concedes that the Vietnamese understood that their country was unified in their aspiration for independence and believed in their right to self-determination, but that information was contained in only one paragraph in his essay.

Until the Empire falls, the pattern remains the same. In order for entities like the United States and Israel to plunder targets for land and natural resources, they must render the resistance either barbaric and/or invisible.

Since October 7, “Palestinians have managed to reassert Palestinian agency,” claims journalist Ramzy Baroud, “including the legitimacy of all forms of resistance, as a winning strategy against Israeli colonialism and US-Western imperialism in the region.”

Nevertheless, numerous official statements tend to begin with an obligatory denunciation of Hamas before moving on to an admittedly overdue admission of Israel’s genocide.

In a statement issued on Oct. 7, 2024, Senator Bernie Sanders (Democrat-Vermont) noted that this date marked one year since the “horrific Hamas attack on Israel,” an event, he says, that murdered 1200 “innocent” men, women, and children.

“Yahya Sinwar and his Hamas accomplices are responsible for mass murder, the taking of hostages, and sexual violence,” continued Sanders. “They are war criminals. Nobody should forgive or forget those atrocities, which began this war.”

Not long after, Human Rights Watch repeated the same misinformation: Hamas had committed war crimes against an innocent population.

By February 7, 2025, there appeared clear documentation that Israel had issued through its Hannibal Directive an order to shoot and kill Israeli captives on Oct. 7th rather than have them taken by Hamas.

“Roughly 1,100 Israelis were killed,” explained Asa Winstanley. It remained unclear how many deaths were due to Israel’s order and how many were killed by Palestinians.

By February 2024, reports by the New York Times that Hamas had raped Israeli women and girls on Oct. 7 had also been debunked. Further information would follow as to the questionable sources that initiated the charge.

“From beheaded babies to a systematic mass rape campaign and everything in between,” Robert Inlakesh explains, “the lies espoused by genocide apologists have been numerous. What is even more shameless is that new lies continue to be created,” all within the service of “hoaxes” that are “inherently racist and play on orientalist myths” long used to justify “genocide and ethnic cleansing against the people of Gaza.”

When anti-colonial resistance is not ignored altogether, it is maligned in such a way as to warrant the displacement and erasure of indigenous people around the world.

Thus, while Senator Sanders finally admitted that “it is genocide” in a statement on December 17, 2025, he prefaced it with the obligatory description of Hamas as a “terrorist” organization, followed by a plea that Israel has a right to defend itself.

Under international law, a state cannot occupy a territory, then attack it on the assumption that it is a “foreign body” which presents a national security threat.

“Sanders chose to start his op-ed by essentially suggesting that ‘Hamas started it,’” writes Ahmad Ibsais. “This not only amounts to victim-blaming but also erases eight decades of pillage, plunder, and ethnic cleansing.”

In his speech quoted above, Martin Luther King asserted that “self-affirmation is the black man’s need, made compelling by the white man’s crimes against him.”

In “The Defeat of Israel and the Rebirth of Palestinian Agency,” journalist Ramzy Baroud affirms a similar refrain: “Palestinians have managed to reassert Palestinian agency, including the legitimacy of all forms of resistance, as a winning strategy against Israeli colonialism and US-Western imperialism in the region.”

Despite the machinations of official spokesmen and women, Palestinians in Gaza have won a significant victory, one that Baroud confirms “is a resounding triumph for the Palestinian people, their indomitable spirit, and their deeply rooted resistance that transcends faction, ideology, and politics.”

Self-affirmation enables self-determination. The former is a prerequisite for those who seek “human justice,” an attainment that requires the “determination of those who fight for it and aspire to achieve it”; the latter involves ignoring negotiations that seldom lead to peace in favor of employing all forms of resistance that ensure agency in the ongoing struggle for liberation.

Indonesia Prepares 8,000 Troops for Proposed Gaza ‘Stabilization Force’

February 10, 2026

President Prabowo Subianto of Indonesia is conditioning his country's participation in Trump's Board of Peace on Palestinian independence. (Photos: Anadolu, QNN. Design: Palestine Chronicle)

By Palestine Chronicle Staff  

Indonesia is preparing thousands of troops for a potential deployment to Gaza as part of a proposed international post-war security arrangement, linking Jakarta’s humanitarian-framed initiative to broader political negotiations surrounding US President Donald Trump’s Gaza plan and the emerging multinational “stabilization force.”

Key Developments

Indonesia is preparing between 5,000 and 8,000 troops for Gaza deployment.

Units expected to focus on engineering, medical, and reconstruction roles.

Plan linked to Trump’s international stabilization force proposal.

Israeli media reported preparations to host Indonesian troops in southern Gaza.

Indonesia conditions normalization with Israel on recognition of Palestinian statehood.

Indonesia Prepares Gaza Deployment

Indonesia’s army began preparations for a possible deployment of up to 8,000 personnel following a leadership meeting chaired by President Prabowo Subianto in Jakarta.

Army Chief of Staff Maruli Simanjuntak said the numbers and timeline remain under review pending coordination within the military command structure, according to an official Indonesian military statement released Monday.

Officials indicated the force would consist mainly of engineering and medical units, emphasizing humanitarian work and reconstruction rather than combat operations.

The British newspaper The Guardian reported that the deployment would support ceasefire implementation and post-war stabilization arrangements in Gaza.

‘International Stabilization Force’

The proposal is reportedly connected to a broader plan advanced by Washington to establish a temporary multinational force inside Gaza.

The framework envisions foreign troops assisting in training Palestinian police and supporting a transitional administration while Israel withdraws to agreed positions.

US-based news outlet Politico previously reported that Indonesia, Azerbaijan, and Pakistan were leading candidates to contribute troops to the force. US troops would not be deployed inside the enclave, with regional and Muslim-majority countries expected to provide personnel instead.

Israeli Media Reports and Disputes

Israeli public broadcaster Kan and Channel 12 reported that Israeli security officials had begun preliminary planning for the arrival of Indonesian forces in southern Gaza, particularly in areas between Rafah and Khan Yunis, as part of a proposed multinational stabilization deployment following the war.

The reports suggested the troops could be tasked with securing humanitarian corridors and assisting in civil administration arrangements in evacuated zones after Israeli troop redeployments.

Jakarta rejected the claims, saying no geographic deployment areas had been agreed upon and that Indonesia would only participate under a clear international legal mandate and guarantees for civilian protection.

The Australian newspaper, citing Indonesian defense sources, reported that officials in Jakarta were concerned about being drawn into an occupation-adjacent security role and emphasized the country would only join a mission formally approved through international mechanisms and acceptable to the Palestinians.

Prabowo’s Expanding Diplomatic Role

President Prabowo Subianto has increasingly sought a larger international security role for Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority country.

He previously stated Indonesia was ready to send up to 20,000 peacekeepers to Gaza or other conflict zones and participated in international talks on the enclave’s future.

Reuters news agency reported that Indonesia also joined Trump’s “Board of Peace,” reinforcing its diplomatic involvement in post-war planning.

Despite this engagement, Jakarta does not maintain diplomatic relations with Israel and has reiterated that normalization would only occur if Palestinian statehood is recognized.

Jenin and Tulkarm Refugees Fear Permanent Displacement – Again

Zena Al Tahhan 

The Electronic Intifada 

5 February 2026

A bulldozer demolishing homes with men watching

An Israeli military bulldozer demolishes a building in the Nur Shams refugee camp, east of Tulkarm in the occupied West Bank, on 31 December 2025.  Nidal EshtayehXinhua

Tens of thousands of Palestinians in the northern occupied West Bank are marking one year since their forcible expulsion from their homes in the refugee camps of Tulkarm, Nur Shams and Jenin.

The camps remain under military siege, and Israeli forces are still stationed inside.

When the assault on Jenin and Tulkarm began in January 2025, Israel Katz, the Israeli defense minister, said his troops would remain in the camps until the end of the year. Within weeks, some 40,000 people were driven from their homes, many at gunpoint – described as the largest mass expulsion since 1967.

As residents enter their second year of displacement – with no end to the operation in sight – grave legal, political and moral questions are being posed.

At the heart of this crisis is the severe and direct threat to the protected legal status of Palestine refugees, who, under United Nations Resolution 194, have a right to return to their original lands from which they were violently expelled during the creation of Israel as a settler-colonial state in 1948.

The Palestine refugee issue, the longest unresolved refugee crisis in the world, has now entered a new and dangerous phase, as the same families undergo displacement for a second time in 77 years in the West Bank as in Gaza.

The assault, which rights groups say constitutes war crimes and crimes against humanity, has gone far beyond displacement. Thousands of homes have been systematically demolished, entire neighborhoods flattened and civilian infrastructure destroyed.

Israeli occupation authorities have said that the rebuilding of demolished residential buildings will not be permitted, according to the Haifa-based Adalah rights group, which has represented residents in appeals against the demolition of their homes. This suggests a deliberate effort to permanently erase refugee camps as political and physical spaces and ensures that many refugees will have nothing to return to, even if the military assault were to end.

Alongside the military operations, the Israeli government is taking concrete steps to restrict and end the role of the UN agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA, an organization that was created in the aftermath of Israel’s establishment and consequent refugee crisis.

“What’s happening in the northern part of the West Bank is nothing but destruction of the three refugee camps in an Israeli effort to destroy not only UNRWA, but the whole right of Palestinian refugees to return to their original lands based on UN resolutions,” Palestinian political leader Mustafa Barghouti told The Electronic Intifada.

“Israel thinks that if they destroy a camp, they will destroy the right of return,” he continued. “Palestinian refugees, however, will never give up their right of return, no matter what happens.”

Over the past year, these refugee camps have been turned into ghost towns, devoid of life. Expelled residents stand on the surrounding hilltops, as close as they are allowed to get, watching Israeli soldiers occupy their camps, sleep in their homes and tear down their memories right before their eyes.

As displacement deepens and the world looks away, the question is no longer whether this crisis is temporary but whether the world will allow the permanent erasure of the protected status of Palestinian refugeehood by force.

“Existential issue”

Israel has taken a series of legal, administrative and operational steps that have significantly restricted UNRWA’s ability to operate over the past several years. These include legislation passed in late 2024 by the Israeli parliament, prohibiting UNRWA from operating inside Israel.

In January 2026, Israeli forces demolished part of UNRWA’s offices and facilities in occupied East Jerusalem. They also cut electricity to the agency’s facilities in the Qalandia refugee camp in Kufr Aqab and are threatening to shut down the camp’s training center, which offers vocational training to hundreds of young Palestinian students.

While the ban on UNRWA may not formally ban the agency’s activity in the West Bank and Gaza, it forbids any Israeli official contact with the agency and annuls agreements and arrangements that previously facilitated its work – including issuing visas to foreign employees. These measures have disrupted service delivery in education, healthcare and humanitarian assistance both in occupied Gaza and the West Bank.

For over a decade, UNRWA has functioned despite chronic underfunding. With the United States – historically the agency’s largest single donor – having intermittently suspended funding to UNRWA in recent years, the agency has reported budget shortfalls and service reductions affecting millions of registered Palestinian refugees.

“Palestinian refugee camps fall under the direct administrative responsibility of UNRWA,” Bashir Mataheen, the spokesperson for the Jenin city municipality, told The Electronic Intifada. “Today, UNRWA stands at a very dangerous crossroads, with clear service reductions and the threat of complete closure.”

This, he said, pointing to the besieged Jenin refugee camp behind him, is an “existential issue” for camp residents.

“The people of Jenin camp were displaced in 1948, and this is the second displacement, repeated in 2025. This is extremely dangerous and threatens their entire future.”

And, Mataheen warned, forcing UNRWA out or closed would have implications beyond the humanitarian dimension.

“It calls into question the political standing of these families and the future of their right of return. Once the international body that formally protects their refugee status is gone, that right is left without a clear framework or guarantee. There will be a serious political vacuum and crisis.”

On 21 December 2025, Philippe Lazzarini, the UNRWA commissioner-general said on his official X account that the “coordinated campaign to dismantle UNRWA has reached unseen levels” over the past two years.

“One major myth is that UNRWA maintains Palestine Refugees in a refugee limbo. The truth is that, wherever they are, refugees remain refugees in the absence of just and lasting political solutions to their plight,” he wrote.

“Dismantling UNRWA will not end the refugee status of Palestinians in the absence of a political solution.”

Political status

Israel launched its assault on the northern occupied West Bank on 21 January 2025, just two days after a second, ultimately doomed, ceasefire was announced in the still ongoing genocide in the occupied Gaza Strip. The timing underscored a shift in military focus rather than a de-escalation, and Israeli forces rapidly escalated its assaults across the West Bank.

The offensive, which started almost exactly a year ago, concentrated on the cities of Jenin and Tulkarm, where occupation forces carried out sustained raids, airstrikes and ground incursions, killing dozens of Palestinians and wounding many others. The assault involved the deployment of hundreds of ground troops, including special forces and snipers, alongside armed drones, surveillance aircraft, armored vehicles and tanks.

Residential neighborhoods and refugee camps were placed under siege, with widespread destruction of homes, roads and civilian infrastructure, marking the longest military assault in the area since the second intifada in the 2000s.

According to satellite images obtained by the UN, by May 2025 – less than six months after the start of the assault – some 43 percent of Jenin refugee camp was destroyed, as well as 35 percent of Nur Shams camp and 14 percent of Tulkarm camp.

“Not a single building in the Jenin refugee camp escaped damage. Preliminary statistics indicate that over 1,500 homes in the camp were fully destroyed,” Mataheen said.

“The losses to infrastructure, including electricity, water, sewage systems and road networks in the camp alone – has exceeded $320 million,” he continued.

“For residents, this is not merely a humanitarian and refugee crisis,” said Mataheen. “It is about the possible erasure of the political status they have maintained for close to eight decades.”

Zena Al Tahhan is an independent writer and TV reporter based in occupied Jerusalem.

Morgan McSweeney: Was the Man Running Britain and His Ties to Israel

Jody McIntyre 

The Electronic Intifada 

5 February 2026

Article written prior to the resignation of McSweeney over the weekend.

Keir Starmer’s chief of staff Morgan McSweeney is widely considered to be the power behind the British prime minister’s throne. But who are the powers behind McSweeney? Ben CawthraZUMA Press

Morgan McSweeney, the secretive Labour Party operative effectively running the British government, has been thrust into the spotlight in recent months.

As Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, McSweeney is said to hold immense influence over the direction of the country. Recent book The Fraud by investigative journalist Paul Holden, exposed many of McSweeney’s backroom dealings. The book has already led to two resignations at Number 10 Downing Street, the prime minister’s official residence and headquarters.

However, despite calls to step down, McSweeney himself seems invulnerable to pressure.

It is impossible to understand the slavish pro-Israeli stance adopted by Keir Starmer and the Labour Party in recent years without understanding McSweeney.

In November, Health Secretary Wes Streeting – a stalwart in the pressure group Labour Friends of Israel – said that “there wouldn’t be a Labour government without him.” Journalist George Eaton wrote that the current Labour cabinet “more than ever, is made in McSweeney’s image.”

But the man who preferred to operate in the shadows for many years has now had his cover blown.

The mainstream media’s focus has been how he illegally hid donations to Labour Together, while he was director of that organization, the one that was credited with propelling Keir Starmer into leadership of the party.

Yet most journalists have missed – either deliberately or negligently – a key thread of the McSweeney story: his historic relationship with pro-Israeli lobbyists, politicians and financiers.

This story starts before McSweeney even joined Labour.

Photo shows the entrance to a kibbutz

McSweeney spent a brief but formative period of his youth volunteering on an Israeli settlement, Kibbutz Sarid. (Facebook)

As a teenager in 1994, he dropped out of university and went to stay in Sarid, a kibbutz (Jewish colony) originally established on stolen Palestinian land in 1926. It seems apparent that this was a formative experience for the young McSweeney, but little is written about his time in the north of occupied historic Palestine.

One exception to that rule is Patrick Maguire and Gabriel Pogrund’s account of Starmer’s rise to power, Get In. In that book, the journalists from London paper The Times report that “in a factory built by Czech Jews at Sarid, nine miles from Nazareth, the lazy teenager learned to work. He built saw-cutters and grinding wheels. He returned to London not just with a tan but a work ethic.”

According to The Jerusalem Post, in that kibbutz and the surrounding Jezreel Valley, McSweeney would have become “closely acquainted with the Hashomer Hatzair,” a Zionist settler organization founded in Austria-Hungary in 1913.

According to Israeli general Moshe Dayan, in his infamous 1969 speech about depopulated Palestinian villages no longer existing due to Jewish colonization, “Sarid [arose] in the place of Haneifs … There is not one place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population.”

Who did McSweeney stay with during his Israeli sojourn? Who did he meet?

While researching this article, a former Labour volunteer, “Simon,” contacted me and spoke on condition of anonymity. Simon claimed that McSweeney was deliberately inserted into the party and later became Keir Starmer’s “handler,” presenting compromising material to keep him “in line.”

Starmer has arguably gone further than any previous Labour leader in pushing an extreme pro-Israeli narrative in the British political sphere, once announcing that he supports “Zionism without qualification.”

Undated photo released by the US Department of Justice in December 2025 shows Morgan McSweeney’s mentor Peter Mandelson celebrating the birthday of convicted pedophile and Israeli intelligence asset Jeffrey Epstein.

To understand the danger of Starmer, we need to understand McSweeney.

He joined the Labour Party in 1997, and in 2001 was set to work on “Excalibur,” a database established by influential Labour planner Peter Mandelson, who was in many ways the architect of Tony Blair’s infamous “New Labour” project to remodel the party in the neoliberal image.

According to a contemporary BBC News report, the Excalibur database “rivalled MI5” – Britain’s domestic spy agency – “in the information it held on anybody and everybody, friend or foe,” and Mandelson’s headquarters “became synonymous with spin-doctory and control-freakery.”

McSweeney’s relationship with his mentor would endure. He was reportedly “very insistent” on Mandelson’s appointment as British ambassador to the US in 2024.

McSweeney then tried to delay Mandelson’s ultimate sacking in September 2025.

Mandelson was eventually fired after revelations about his close friendship with convicted pedophile and suspected Israeli intelligence asset Jeffrey Epstein. Emails released by the US Congress show that Mandelson called Epstein “my best pal” and that Epstein referred to Mandelson fondly as “Petie.”

John McTernan, an adviser to Tony Blair when he was Britain’s prime minister, once praised McSweeney as “the new Peter Mandelson.”

In a seemingly inexplicable move that embarrassed even his staunchest supporters, Starmer is alleged to have effectively overruled British security services in promoting Mandelson, despite overwhelming evidence of his close friendship with Epstein.

Was Starmer acting on the orders of McSweeney in appointing Mandelson?

Is the subordinate actually the handler, as my whistleblower claims? And if so, who is McSweeney managing the prime minister on behalf of?

Israel lobbyists

McSweeney cut his political teeth campaigning for Steve Reed in the Lambeth local authority elections of 2006.

Reed, now Starmer’s housing minister, is a veteran supporter of Labour Friends of Israel, an opaque lobby group which refuses to reveal its funders and has close links to the Israeli embassy in London. As previously reported by The Electronic Intifada, in 2020 Reed secretly met influential Israel lobby financier Trevor Chinn and five other Israel lobbyists, giving the group a series of pledges and setting up “a regular channel of communication.”

McSweeney’s next political challenge came in East London in between 2008 and 2010, when he worked on public relations for right-wing, pro-Israel lawmaker Margaret Hodge, helping her to retain the parliamentary seat for Barking, against a challenge from the insurgent far-right British National Party.

This campaign was bolstered by Hope Not Hate, a supposedly anti-racist group which in fact aids Zionism – Israel’s state ideology – and has shadowy ties to Britain’s intelligence agencies. Previous employees at Hope Not Hate include Ruth Smeeth a former lawmaker who has been active in Labour Friends of Israel, Jemma Levene, a blogger for The Times of Israel, and Liron Velleman a pro-Israeli activist and former policy officer for the Jewish Labour Movement, another lobby group. (In 2024, Velleman was forced to resign as a North London councillor under mysterious circumstances. Then last year he pleaded guilty to a series of sex offences against a 13-year-old girl.)

A group of people posing for the camera

McSweeney led an election campaign for “committed Zionist” Margaret Hodge (center, in light blue) who later took part in this January 2024 ”solidarity” visit to Israel — at the height of its genocide in Gaza. (LFI/X)

McSweeney’s former team in Barking and Dagenham gave an early indication of his political philosophy. Among them was David Evans, future Labour general secretary under Starmer.

Evans is reportedly a “fierce critic of anti-Zionism” and was later responsible for booting former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn out of the party.

Evans was subsequently rewarded by Starmer with a lifetime appointment to the House of Lords, Britain’s unelected upper chamber.

Hodge, a self-described “committed Zionist,” is also known for her role in allegedly covering up a child sexual abuse ring which had infiltrated care homes in Islington, a London neighborhood, between the 1960s and 1990s. Under her leadership, the local authority in Islington was found to have ignored the complaints of victims.

Hodge herself in 2003 attempted to discredit one survivor who spoke out, but was soon forced to apologize for her smear campaign against him under threat of a libel suit. As recently as 2024, Hodge claimed her failings were the result of being badly advised – yet she still refuses to name those who allegedly advised her to ignore the complaints.

During the Gaza genocide, in January 2024, Hodge took part in a propaganda trip paid for by Labour Friends of Israel. She met Israeli president Isaac Herzog, who infamously claimed that there are no innocent civilians in Gaza, a statement cited by South Africa in its case against Israel in the International Court of Justice for the crime of genocide.

As with Evans, Starmer rewarded Hodge for her services with a life peerage nomination.

“Protect Trevor Chinn”

McSweeney’s next outing was in 2015, when he reportedly “masterminded” Liz Kendall’s doomed Labour leadership campaign. Evidently, even McSweeney’s political genius has its limits: in a stunning victory, Jeremy Corbyn won the leadership and Kendall came last with 4.5 percent of the membership vote.

In November 2023, as the Gaza genocide unfolded, Labour Friends of Israel supporter Kendall was asked whether the Labour Party would condemn Israeli use of white phosphorus, an incendiary weapon, the use of which is heavily restricted by international law.

“I think it would be unwise when we are not on the ground to comment,” she replied.

But the reason McSweeney has been ejected from his self-imposed cocoon and propelled into infamy in recent months stems from 2017, when he became director of a company called “Labour Together Ltd.”

As has now been widely reported, McSweeney failed to report almost a million dollars’ worth of donations to Labour Together, who were later fined for breaking UK electoral law more than 20 times. A regulator accepted McSweeney’s questionable explanation that this failure was an accidental oversight, meaning the fine was relatively low – just over $19,000.

However, many journalists reporting on the scandal have failed to examine who was funding Labour Together.

McSweeney is reported to have concealed the donations, at least partially, “to protect Trevor Chinn, Labour Together’s great benefactor.”

Arguably the British pro-Israel lobby’s most important financial backer, Chinn has personally bankrolled both Conservative and Labour Friends of Israel.

In 2024, he was awarded for “service to the state of Israel” by génocidaire Isaac Herzog. Indeed in 2013 Chinn stated that he had “spent my entire life working for Israel,” so his loyalties are no secret.

Not only did Chinn fund McSweeney’s Labour Together operation, but when McSweeney became a director of the organization in 2017, Chinn was already on the board himself.

As well as bankrolling the think tank, Chinn also personally bankrolled Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner, Rachel Reeves, Bridget Phillipson, Lisa Nandy, Wes Streeting and David Lammy – who would all go on to take leading roles in the Labour government elected in July 2024.

Pro-Israel funders

While McSweeney was ensuring his influence over Labour’s candidate selection, Chinn was gaining the ear of the future prime minister and cabinet.

Another funder of Labour Together was Gary Lubner, who has also donated more than $8 million to the central party since 2022 and financed many of their new batch of MPs, including Labour Friends of Israel vice-chairs Damian Egan and Mike Tapp, as well as Justice Secretary David Lammy. But Lubner also funded the election campaign of Morgan McSweeney’s wife, Imogen Walker, who was conveniently selected for a safe seat in Scotland and elected in 2024.

Epstein’s friend Peter Mandelson also helped fundraise for Walker.

McSweeney’s influence is also widely credited with the candidacy of veteran Israel lobbyist Luke Akehurst in Durham, a city with which he had no apparent connection prior to the general election in 2024. Once described by Israeli embassy spy Shai Masot as “one of the best” in Labour, Akehurst was chosen for the seat “after a secretive selection process excluding members of the North Durham constituency party.”

Incredibly, Akehurst was himself a member of the Labour National Executive Committee that was in charge of vetting candidates.

A 2024 prospective parliamentary candidate for Labour in London, Sara (not her real name) contacted me with her own experience of being dragged before a three-person panel consisting of Akehurst, Sharma Tatler and Anu Prashar.

“I was given five minutes notice and then told I wasn’t suitable, with no right to appeal,” she told me.

Who specifically gave the undeclared donations Labour Together was fined for has not been made public. But leaked emails revealed that McSweeney was advised to explain the hidden donations as an “admin error” by the long-standing Labour Party lawyer Gerald Shamash.

Shamash previously threatened to sue anti-Zionist writer Tony Greenstein on behalf of both the Labour Party and Scott Horner, a Labour official who got a local branch discussion on sanctions against Israel banned in 2021.

Once again rewarding his loyalists, Starmer made Shamash a life peer.

McSweeney’s Labour Together board also included Lisa Nandy, today Britain’s culture secretary. Nandy reportedly “demanded to know why no one at the BBC has lost their job” after the broadcast of Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone, a documentary to which the Israel lobby objected, claiming it was too sympathetic to Palestinians.

The BBC subsequently pulled the program.

Nandy has also received tens of thousands of pounds from Israel lobbyists Stuart Roden and Trevor Chinn.

Ideological Zionists

McSweeney’s supporters are also a reflection of his ideology. Proud Zionist and Conservative peer Michael Gove, who recently wrote that the genocidal Israeli military should receive the Nobel Peace Prize, has praised McSweeney as “a fighter ruthless in identifying the real enemy.”

Last year, McSweeney successfully lobbied for Australian press baron Rupert Murdoch, a close friend of war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu, to be invited to the state banquet being put on for Donald Trump’s UK visit. McSweeney and Murdoch sat next to each other at the dinner.

Starmer’s “recognition” of Palestine as a state is a smokescreen – McSweeney is running the government.

Recent polls have rated Starmer as the most unpopular British prime minister in history. An enduring image of this serial failure will be his infamous radio interview when, in a response to a question about the cutting off of electricity and water to the entire population of Gaza, he said that “Israel has that right.”

But as always, McSweeney was operating behind the scenes. As the Gaza genocide commenced, and some dared to express disagreement with Starmer’s horrific comments, he messaged colleagues: “We can be stronger … We need to make it more about [Hamas].”

McSweeney may have been lionized by party insiders in the past as “the savior of the Labour Party” who “pulled us out of the mire.” But neither his career-long devotion to the Zionist cause nor his Mandelson-inspired political dark arts seem sufficient in saving Starmer from the political scrapheap.

Starmer’s downfall is now a matter of when, rather than if. But perhaps the real question is: how long can McSweeney remain ensconced in Number 10?

Jody McIntyre is an investigative journalist whose work can be found at jodymcintyre.substack.com. He stood at the 2024 UK general election, receiving over 10,000 votes.

German Media Ignores Allegations that Israel Raped German Journalist

Jara Nassar 

The Electronic Intifada 

6 February 2026

Two women hug in a crowd

An activist with the Freedom Flotilla is embraced on her arrival in Berlin on 7 October 2025. Activists have alleged that they were sexually assaulted and subject to humiliating and abusive treatment while in Israeli detention.  Michael UkasDPA

In late December, German journalist and activist Anna Liedtke publicly alleged that she was raped by female Israeli prison guards while in Israeli imprisonment.

Liedtke, a member of the women’s organization Zora, which has faced German state repression due to statements supporting the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, was speaking at a conference in solidarity with political prisoners in Paris on 21 December.

In late September, she had set sail for Gaza with the Freedom Flotilla Coalition vessel Conscience. The Conscience carried about 100 journalists and medical staff. The passengers belonged to two of the professions most under attack by the Israeli military in Gaza.

Just like the other several dozen boats aiming to break the nearly two-decades-long Israeli siege on the Gaza Strip, the Conscience was intercepted in international waters by the Israeli navy – which sources much of its material from German weapons manufacturers — and the crew was forcibly brought to Israel, in violation of international law.

Once in Ashdod port, the members were subjected to humiliating treatment by Israeli forces as well as physical and psychological abuse. Liedtke, 25, was brought to Ketziot prison, named a “torture camp” in the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem’s 2024 report “Welcome to Hell.”

Liedtke reports severe mistreatment at the hands of Israeli forces.

She and her fellow crew members had hands and feet shackled, were blindfolded, verbally abused when trying to communicate with each other, and held for five days without access to clean drinking water, she recalled in a podcast from late October. She also witnessed violent physical abuse of other prisoners from her prison cell: “I heard the barking of a dog and then his screams.”

While in prison, the crew members were subjected to repeated strip searches, clearly intended to humiliate prisoners.

“Prisoners were dragged by the hair and laughed at during strip searches,” Liedtke said.

While female flotilla members were nominally searched by female prison guards, male prison guards had every opportunity to watch. Liedtke recalls a female crew member screaming that they were “touching my breasts!”

Systemic pattern of abuse

It was during one of these strip searches that Liedtke reports having been raped by female prison guards.

On 10 October 2025, the crew members were transferred from Ketziot prison to the Givon deportation prison. According to Liedtke, the rape happened during the transfer and because she resisted yet another strip search.

Since Liedtke’s statements in late December, two further Freedom Flotilla members have come forward with allegations of sexualized violence by Israeli prison guards.

Italian journalist Vincenzo Fullone is quoted in a press release by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition saying that “on three separate occasions, I was ordered to enter a small, specially arranged room where I was completely stripped and subjected to invasive and painful anal searches… During the third search, the pain became unbearable and was compounded by mockery, verbal abuse – including the words, ‘Don’t you like it, Hamas whore?’ – and the photographing of my body.”

Surya McEwen, an activist from Australia, states that he “was stripped naked and sexually assaulted by Israeli officers while being held hostage. One held a gun to my head, angrily threatening that he would kill me, while the other yanked and pulled on my genitals, perversely and almost gleefully.”

McEwen had previously alleged that Israeli soldiers had dislocated his arm and that he had been forced to kneel with other flotilla members while Itamar Ben-Gvir, the Israeli national security minister, verbally abused them.

Israel has employed sexualized violence against Palestinians for decades. This includes “organized and systematic practice of sexual torture, including rape, forced stripping, forced filming, sexual assault using objects and dogs, in addition to deliberate psychological humiliation aimed at crushing human dignity and erasing individual identity entirely,” according to a recent report by the Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights.

Humiliation appears to be a deliberate goal throughout the reports, going back to the Orientalist trope that Arab men are particularly vulnerable to sexual humiliation and “only understand force.”

This trope was also at play in the widespread propagation of claims that Hamas systematically raped Israeli women on 7 October. Despite many of these claims – along with the atrocity propaganda of beheaded babies – being thoroughly debunked, Western mainstream media outlets have yet to reckon with their role in instrumentalizing sexualized violence to justify the genocide in Gaza.

Just the first victim

The German government and German media have remained silent on the alleged rape of a German citizen. Not a single state media outlet has reported on Liedtke’s case, and Zora confirms that no press representatives other than this reporter have reached out.

“Israel may torture Palestinians daily and now has a free pass to abuse our activists as well,” a spokesperson for the Freedom Flotilla’s German delegation told The Electronic Intifada.

The world has allowed Israel to utilize brutal violence against Palestinians for decades. October 2023 only served to spike this violence.

The deliberate murder of internationals such as Rachel Corrie or Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, while drawing a modicum of protest from Western governments, has not led to any substantial changes in the West’s continued support for Israeli apartheid and genocide.

It is therefore no surprise that Israeli impunity for sexualized violence and rape extends to international solidarity activists as well.

“What happened to us is only the tip of the iceberg,” Liedtke said.

Vincenzo Fullone said he is “still unable to find peace because if they were willing to do this to me, I can’t imagine what they’ve done – and continue to do – to the Palestinians under their complete control.”

Whose dignity and whose pain matters? The silence of Western governments provides a clear answer: not Palestinians, and increasingly, not anyone in solidarity with them.

In her first public disclosure of her experience, the video of which has since gone viral online while being ignored by German media, Liedtke speaks with a clear and steady voice. It only breaks towards the end.

“I will not stop fighting for justice and the end of violence until every woman is free and has received justice.”

What does justice mean for her?

“Justice is the end of Zionism,” she said.

Jara Nassar is a Lebanese-German journalist, artist and community organizer based in Berlin.

The Toxic Legacy of Genocide

Islam Elhabil 

The Electronic Intifada 

8 February 2026

Palestinian adults and children sort through garbage at a landfill north of Khan Younis with tents in the background

Displaced Palestinians at a landfill north of Khan Younis looking for plastic or paper to light a fire for cooking, 13 December 2025. Abed Rahim KhatibDPA via ZUMA Press

Before the genocidal war, daily life in Gaza included an informal but functional plastic collection system. A waste collector moved through neighborhoods using a donkey-drawn cart, calling for residents to sell plastic and scrap materials.

This activity was not only a source of income, but also an integral part of local solid waste management practices.

Households commonly separated plastic waste at the source, sorting larger plastic items such as cups, plates, toys and plastic appliances. These materials were stored and later collected by the waste collector, who transported them from one street to another.

The process provided livelihood support while simultaneously contributing to environmental protection by reducing plastic accumulation in public spaces. It created income-generating opportunities by reducing plastic accumulation in streets and directing part of the waste into limited recycling pathways, depending on available facilities and technical capacity, thereby supporting basic environmental protection and public health under blockade conditions.

Following the genocide that began in October 2023, this system collapsed, leaving plastic waste uncollected and accumulating in the environment, where it increasingly releases pollutants into air, water and human bodies.

The destruction caused by Israel extends beyond physical infrastructure. It disrupts established material management systems and reshapes the relationship between society and waste, resulting in a highly polluted environment with limited or no alternatives for mitigation, generating global consequences that extend beyond Gaza and pose broader environmental risks to the surrounding region.

After Israel cut off fuel and electricity supplies on 9 October 2023, fuel has become largely inaccessible, forcing thousands of Palestinians to confront an urgent and ongoing energy shortage.

Burning plastic to survive

As the destruction continued over months and available firewood – including salvaged doors and household materials – was progressively depleted, displaced families increasingly resorted to emergency alternatives, the most hazardous of which was burning plastic for cooking and heating.

The conversion of plastic into fuel – as is sporadically and dangerously done in Gaza under the duress of the Israeli blockade and genocide – involves a sequential process that begins with collecting plastic from different locations and sorting it by type, a task made extremely difficult under conditions of war and severe resource scarcity.

The plastic is then cut into small pieces and fed into a specialized iron furnace heated to high temperatures ranging from 400 to 600 degrees Celsius in a process commonly referred to as plastic pyrolysis, during which the material melts, vaporizes and passes through pipes as gas into a water-based cooling system, where it condenses back into a liquid. This liquid is then extracted as diesel-like fuel, while heavy residues remain and are repeatedly reprocessed in the same furnace through additional thermal cycles until a purity level of approximately 80 percent is achieved.

The entire process typically requires between eight and 10 hours, depending on the quantity and type of plastic used.

Alarmingly, and far more commonly, plastic burning occurs both in improvised clay ovens in poorly ventilated, confined spaces and as direct open burning inside displacement camps, where residents are forced to burn plastic, paper and similar waste. In both cases, the plastic can provide fuel for cooking and warmth.

This forced practice poses significant health risks, particularly to women and children, as women are typically responsible for cooking near these ovens while children remain in close proximity. Burning plastic releases dense smoke and toxic emissions inside tents, contributing to a rise in respiratory diseases, most notably asthma and pulmonary infections, especially among children, elderly people and women.

These emissions constitute a direct public health threat, effectively turning displacement tents from temporary shelters into concentrated sources of air pollution, where populations are exposed simultaneously to disease, hunger and ongoing military violence.

Burning plastic in open areas is a highly toxic process that does not merely generate smoke, but fundamentally alters ambient air quality through the release of hazardous pollutants. In enclosed settings such as displacement tents, where ventilation is extremely limited, smoke accumulates rapidly and is inhaled by people who are particularly vulnerable in these conditions.

Exposure in these conditions does not typically result in acute, isolated health events, but rather in cumulative and long-term respiratory and systemic health effects.

Environmental studies have repeatedly indicated that open residential burning of plastic waste is a major source of air pollution.

The resulting fine particulate matter is well known for its ability to penetrate deep into the respiratory system. In contexts where formal waste collection is absent, as in Gaza, open plastic burning becomes a diffuse yet significant source of air pollution, substantially increasing health risks and transforming displacement shelters into poorly ventilated environments with chronic exposure to harmful emissions.

Microplastic maelstrom

Beyond gaseous pollutants and visible smoke, plastic burning accelerates the physical and chemical breakdown of plastic materials into microplastic and nanoplastic particles. During combustion, plastic melts and partially burns, then deposits on surrounding surfaces. Upon cooling and mechanical fragmentation, it disintegrates into microscopic particles that are not visible to the naked eye.

Microscopic and spectroscopic analyses have shown that these particles retain the chemical signatures of the original plastic polymers, indicating environmental persistence and biological toxicity.

Microplastics can remain suspended in the air, damaging plants, or settle on bedding, clothing and food, leading to their repeated inhalation and ingestion. As a result, displacement tents become chronic accumulation sites for airborne microplastics, introducing an additional, largely invisible layer of pollution that poses long-term risks to respiratory health through inhalation and persistent exposure.

Military bombardment plays a central role in transforming plastic into a large-scale environmental hazard. The destruction of homes, shops, factories and warehouses generates not only concrete debris, but also substantial quantities of damaged and partially burned plastic materials, including pipes, cables, insulation, furniture and electrical equipment.

Under exposure to heat, sunlight, mechanical abrasion and repeated burning, these materials progressively degrade into microplastic particles and toxic combustion by-products that infiltrate soil, water resources and food systems.

With the collapse of formal waste management systems, plastic waste accumulates in streets, around displacement shelters and in agricultural lands due to the absence of regular collection or safe disposal sites. At the same time, severe fuel shortages and the lack of access to conventional cooking and heating sources all force residents to seek alternative energy options.

Numerous informal dumping and burning areas have consequently emerged near displaced populations.

Humanitarian aid, while essential for survival, inadvertently feeds this cycle, as plastic-packaged food and water rapidly become unmanaged waste or fuel for burning, creating a structural contradiction in which immediate survival practices intensify long-term environmental contamination and health risks.

Children represent the most vulnerable group within this exposure pathway. They grow up in environments saturated with burned plastic residues, play near plastic waste and consume food and water stored in containers reused repeatedly under unsafe conditions.

Their developing bodies are subjected to chronic exposure to pollutants at a time when laboratory facilities, environmental monitoring systems and medical treatment capacities have been severely damaged or rendered inaccessible.

In this context, plastic pollution becomes biologically embedded through prolonged exposure. Genocide, then, effectively functions as an uncontrolled system for the production and accumulation of plastic-related contamination.

Even after the cessation of hostilities, plastic-derived pollutants are expected to persist in soil, groundwater and the food chain, continuing to affect human health long after physical reconstruction begins.

Discussing the reconstruction of Gaza without addressing plastic contamination therefore neglects a critical environmental and public health dimension. Debris management is not solely an engineering challenge, but a chemical and environmental one that requires structured strategies for plastic waste treatment and remediation.

Without such interventions, reconstruction efforts risk reestablishing communities on contaminated land, embedding the toxic legacy of war into the rebuilt environment.

Islam Elhabil is an engineer from Gaza and a Malaysia-based microplastics specialist.