On January 1, 2026, Israel banned 37 international humanitarian aid organizations from operating in Gaza. Among those affected were Doctors Without Borders, Save the Children, Oxfam, Caritas, ActionAid, the International Rescue Committee, and World Vision. Bushra Khalidi, Oxfam’s policy lead in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, explains the underlying reasons behind Israel’s ban and its impact on Gaza’s population.

Jess and Jamal look back at 2025 and the turmoil in the Middle East. While global attention remained fixed on Gaza, Israel accelerated land seizures in the West Bank. The year saw a record number of new settlement approvals, alongside a sharp rise in settler violence.

Dr. Ezequiel Jimenez discusses his article published in Opinio Juris, “The 24th Session of the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute: Time to Act.” In the article, he explains that, given the ICC’s current state of polycrisis, it is imperative for member states of the Rome Statute to take concrete action to confront the Court’s existential challenges rather than continue the status quo of issuing ineffective resolutions.

Supported by Israeli security forces and enabled by government policies, settler violence has become a central component of the Israeli state’s strategy to forcibly displace Palestinian communities in the occupied territory. This approach aims to establish full Israeli control over the area and facilitate further settlement expansion, despite such settlements being illegal under international law. Photojournalist Oren Ziv has extensively reported on settler attacks across the West Bank. His documentation shows that since October 7, more than 50 rural Palestinian communities have been emptied after residents were compelled to flee amid escalating assaults, threats, and harassment by Israeli settlers—almost always carried out with the backing of the army and police. Oren is a photojournalist and reporter for Local Call and +972 Magazine, as well as a co-founder of the ActiveStills photography collective. His work has also appeared in Al Jazeera, Vice, Tablet, and other publications.

A March 2025 report by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry found that sexual violence by Israeli forces and settlers was extensive enough to be considered systematic. Dr. Samah Jabr, co-author of the paper "Torture as a Tool of Domination: The Logic Behind the Use of Torture Against Palestinians," discusses the long-term impact of sexual and gender-based violence used against Palestinians, especially children. Dr. Jabr is a world-renowned psychiatrist and writer who has spent more than twenty years practicing in the West Bank and Gaza. Her latest book is Radiance in Pain and Resilience.

After two years of relentless Israeli air and ground assaults on Gaza, much of the territory lies in ruins. Many of Gaza’s two million residents have been displaced and are struggling to secure basic necessities. Jaco Cilliers, the current Special Representative for the United Nations Development Programme’s Programme of Assistance to the Palestinian People (PAPP), outlines the vast scale of destruction in Gaza and the immense challenges involved in rebuilding even a semblance of normal life.

Jess and Jamal discuss the recent surge in Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, which have reached unprecedented levels. This escalation is marked by increased frequency, severity, and coordination—often occurring with the support or presence of Israeli security forces—and has led to casualties, widespread property destruction, and the displacement of numerous Palestinian communities. Recently, settlers have focused on preventing Palestinians from harvesting their olives, setting fires near churches and cemeteries, damaging olive groves, and harassing local residents.

The International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) has applied for a summons in the magistrate’s court in the United Kingdom in an initiative to prosecute a British citizen who they allege fought in the Israeli military against Palestine and Palestinians. It states that the individual was in breach of the UK’s Foreign Enlistment Act of 1870, which proscribes any British citizen from fighting in another country’s military against another country with which Britain is at peace. Jonathan Purcell, Head of Public Affairs and Communications for the ICJP elaborates on the case and the implications of what precedent a successful ruling could set.

Professor Liat Kozma explains that Israel has been systematically working to delegitimize and restrict international NGOs and human rights organizations operating with Palestinians in the occupied territories. One of the largest of these organizations, UNRWA, which has provided services in Gaza for many years, has been banned from operating in areas under Israeli control — including East Jerusalem, the occupied West Bank, and Gaza. Professor Kozma teaches in the Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies and holds the Harry Friedenwald Chair in the History of Medicine at the Hebrew University.

President Trump has named former British Prime Minister Tony Blair to the newly formed Board of Peace, which will oversee the reconstruction and governance of Gaza. Blair has reportedly been involved for months in developing proposals for Gaza’s postwar future. However, his controversial legacy—stemming from his role in the Iraq War and his limited success during eight years as the Middle East Quartet’s peace envoy—makes his selection a surprising one. Journalist Rayhan Uddin explains why.

Acknowledging Palestinian sovereignty is increasingly seen as a necessary—but not sufficient—step toward a just resolution of the conflict, particularly among those who also call for an end to what they view as Israeli impunity. Human rights attorney and activist Stanley Cohen argues that countries recognizing Palestinian statehood should also be barred from aiding or abetting Israel in actions against Palestinian civilians.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long opposed Palestinian independence, and he recently reaffirmed that there will be no Palestinian state as long as he remains in office. He also vowed to take retaliatory measures as a second wave of recognitions is expected at a U.N. summit in New York this week. Around 10 additional countries—including the UK, France, Canada, Australia, and Portugal—are set to join the 147 U.N. member states that already recognize Palestine as a sovereign nation. Jess and Jamal discuss these unfolding events.

The 80th United Nations General Assembly’s High-Level Week begins on September 22, bringing together heads of state to deliver speeches and set the policy agenda for the year ahead. The prospect of several major Western powers—such as the United Kingdom, France, Australia, and Canada—formally recognizing Palestinian statehood has drawn significant media attention. At the same time, it has prompted warnings of serious consequences from both U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Dr. Ardi Imseis, Professor of International Law at Queen’s University in Canada and legal counsel to the State of Palestine in its case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), offers insight into the potential impact of this recognition and what developments might unfold at the UN in the coming weeks.

Can a Gaza reconstruction that excludes Palestinian heritage, silences their participation, and denies their suffering truly succeed? Journalist and analyst Sean Mathews argues the 'Gaza Riviera' is doomed to fail.

In addition to the United States, several key European governments continue to provide intelligence and arms to the Israeli military—support that enables the ongoing genocide in Gaza and obstructs the path toward a political solution. Germany is among these governments, and its complicity is particularly striking given its own history of genocides in the 20th century. In a recent article for Middle East Eye titled “As Gaza becomes a death camp, German complicity reveals the West’s racist biopolitics,” Dr. Jürgen Mackert analyzes how this ideology determines who is deemed worthy of life and resources, and who is not. Dr. Mackert is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Potsdam, Germany, and the author of several works. His most recent book, On Social Closure: Theorizing Exclusion, Exploitation, and Elimination, explores the mechanisms by which societies create and enforce boundaries of belonging.

Ian Williams, President of the Foreign Press Association, discusses the targeting of Palestinian journalists in Gaza. Williams, who is also an author, writer, and broadcaster, highlighted the silence of western journalists and the growing toll on Palestinian media workers in the besieged territory. Israel has systematically targeted and killed Palestinian journalists in Gaza for nearly two years. Since October 2023, more than 270 journalists and media workers have been killed. In the most recent incident, the Israeli military killed six journalists who had been sheltering in a tent used by media staff in Gaza City. Among those killed was 28-year-old Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif, along with other members of the network’s team reporting from Gaza.

The number of international human rights organizations, genocide scholars, public officials, and UN representatives making this assertion continues to grow. Now, two well-respected Israeli human rights groups have released reports concluding that Israel is committing genocide. One is B’Tselem, the Israeli Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories. The other, Physicians for Human Rights Israel, issued a report titled "Destruction of Conditions of Life: A Health Analysis of the Gaza Genocide," which focuses on the dismantling of Gaza’s healthcare and other life-sustaining systems. Aseel Aburass, Director of the Occupied Territories Department at Physicians for Human Rights Israel, discussed the findings that led to the report’s genocide determination.

Alex de Waal, Executive Director of the World Peace Foundation at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, discusses the growing evidence of famine and widespread starvation in Gaza. Famine is officially confirmed when three core thresholds are breached: a drastic decline in food consumption, high levels of acute malnutrition, and deaths caused by starvation. However, gathering reliable data on malnutrition and starvation-related deaths is extremely difficult due to the collapse of health systems, according to a joint alert from the UN World Food Programme (WFP) and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

Jess and Jamal discuss the worsening starvation crisis in Gaza, where over 100,000 children under the age of two—including 40,000 infants—are at imminent risk of mass death due to the total absence of infant formula and nutritional supplements. Earlier, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) warned that child malnutrition among children under five in Gaza doubled between March and June, a result of the ongoing blockade imposed by Israeli forces.

Former Professor of Political Sociology at the University of Bristol, David Miller, discusses the British Parliament’s vote to ban Palestine Action, a civil disobedience and direct action protest group. He also addresses a private prosecution brought against him by the Campaign Against Antisemitism, which alleges that he “used X to send messages of a menacing character.”