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More than 1,200 Israeli academic leaders have written in an open letter to the head of Israeli academic institutions to “speak out” and take action to end the Gaza war.

The academics, who identify themselves as the Black Flag Action Group, claim that in Gaza since Israel began to violate the ceasefire in March. According to the authors, they were mostly civilians in the majority. The authors point out that the increasing number of people who have been killed by Israeli fire is a result of “intentional and openly stated Israeli government policy.”

The academics’ letter is just the latest in a growing number of open letters that Israel’s citizens have written in protest of the war. The academics’ letter, however, is unique in that it places Palestinian suffering at the center of its objections to the war in contrast to many other letters that have criticized the political motivations behind Israel’s most recent offensive or claimed that it puts Israel’s remaining captives in Gaza in danger.

We as academics acknowledge our own part in these crimes, the letter states. “Crimes against humanity are committed by human societies, not by governments alone.” Some do it directly with violence. Others do so by quieting and silencing voices in the halls of learning, as well as before and after the fact, and by defending the crimes. This silence-based mechanism prevents clearly discernible crimes from gaining access to the barriers to recognition.

It goes on to say that “this is a horrifying litany of war crimes and even crimes against humanity,” and that it is all our own fault.

The letter further states, “We cannot make up our minds that we did not know.” We have been oblivious too long. If we don’t call for a stop to the war right away, history won’t forgive us for the sake of the lives of innocent people and the safety of all of the people in this land.

The signatories to the open letter request that the Association of University Heads in Israel, the Board of Academic Public Colleges, and the protest group Academics for Israeli Democracy “assemble immediately mobilize the full weight of Israeli academia to put an end to the Israeli war in Gaza.”

In practice, that could entail organizing strike strikes, as previous universities had previously threatened to protest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ongoing campaign, which would begin in the first few months of 2023.

Why not the war, too, as we’re saying, but this is not any more or less significant than the judicial reforms? Raphael Greenberg, a professor at Tel Aviv University who signed the letter and who has been protesting the war in Gaza daily since December, said Greenberg.

He told Al Jazeera, “Academics must be active.”

Gaza’s destruction

More than 54, 000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 123, 000 have been wounded in Israel’s 19-month war against Gaza. It has displaced hundreds of thousands of people, often multiple times, and destroyed or damaged 92 percent of homes, according to the UN. The number of organized protests within Israel has been largely limited to the return of the captives taken in the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023.

According to Ayelet Ben-Yishai, a professor at the University of Haifa, “it’s been a cumulative process for some of us since October 7.” “For some, I would say that was the ceasefire’s expiration in March,” said one person. Many people thought that was a turning point, as well as witnessing the starvation that has been occurring in Gaza since.

Despite growing international condemnation, Israel’s continued assault on Gaza is receiving more and more negative press.

Around 1, 000 current and former air force pilots, who are typically regarded as a top class unit in the military, wrote an open letter in April in opposition to a war they claimed only served “political interests.” Many of the military’s open letters have been followed by objections to the war’s political motivations or that the renewed offensive in Gaza threatens the country’s remaining captives.

The academics’ open letter goes even further by criticizing Palestinians’ suffering, which many Israelis have rejected.

Ben-Yishai stated, “I understand that many people are opposed to the war for various reasons, but I welcome anyone who is opposed right now.”

We wanted to put Palestinian suffering at the center, even though it sounds hollow, I understand. We wanted to express our solidarity with Palestinians. She said that taking responsibility for what we are doing in Gaza and opening the eyes of people to it was another topic.

Palestinian compassion

Within Israel, the academics continue to perform poorly.

Israeli political analyst Nimrod Flaschenberg previously told Al Jazeera, citing the often low priority some in the antiwar movement place on protecting Palestinian lives. “There’s still an Israeli public taboo over showing any public sympathy for Palestinians,” he added.

Itamar Ben-Gvir, the country’s far-right national security minister, staged a march by nationalist youth through Jerusalem’s old quarter on Sunday that directly mocked the dead children of Gaza while physically attacking anyone thought to be Palestinian.

Following heavy bombardments of its neighbor and aerial exchanges in the past week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov claims that Russia has suggested a new round of direct talks with Ukraine in Turkiye’s Istanbul on Monday in order to secure a long-term ceasefire.

In a statement released on Wednesday, Lavrov stated, “We hope that all those who are sincerely, and not just in words, interested in the success of the peace process will support holding a new round of direct Russian-Ukrainian negotiations in Istanbul.”

Kyiv has not responded right away.

The proposal came after a rare meeting between Russian and Ukrainian officials in Istanbul on May 16; this was the first direct contact since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

The talks ended with the exchange of 1, 000 war prisoners, but Ukraine and its Western allies still have a pressing need for a ceasefire. Moscow has urged that certain conditions be met before military operations can resume.

The delegation leader of Russia, Vladimir Medinsky, announced on Telegram that he had gotten in touch with Rustem Umerov, the country’s defense minister, to set up a meeting.

We are ready to begin an important, substantive discussion of each of the package agreement’s points on a potential ceasefire, Medinsky said, adding that he anticipated a response from Ukraine.

Before the next round of negotiations, Russian Foreign Affairs spokesperson Maria Zakharova claimed both parties had agreed to work together to create their own proposals outlining the “modalities of settlement and ceasefire.”

Word war

Donald Trump, the president of the United States, is currently under increasing pressure. He made the suggestion that Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, might be putting a stop to the peace process in his Wednesday speech.

Trump said, “We’re going to find out whether or not he is tapping us along,” and if so, we’ll say something different. This could include imposing more sanctions on Moscow, as Ukraine’s European allies have recently done.

Trump appeared to be “not sufficiently informed about what is actually happening in the Ukrainian-Russian confrontation,” according to Yuri Ushakov, a Kremlin aide in the foreign policy world.

Trump said he was reluctant to impose new sanctions on Moscow because he worried they might thwart the fragile ceasefire efforts. He has previously expressed doubts about the efficacy of sanctions.

He told reporters in the Oval Office, “I don’t want to screw it up if I think I’m close to getting a deal.”

Trump claimed on Tuesday that if Putin had not intervened, “really bad” things might have already happened to Russia.

After Moscow launched its largest aerial assault of the conflict against Ukraine, killing at least 13 people, Donald Trump lambasted Putin and called him “absolutely crazy.” It was a remark of Vladimir Putin that was uncommon.

Putin and Trump spoke via phone on May 19 to say that Moscow was prepared to work together on a memorandum for a pending peace agreement, but he had previously resisted moving toward an end to the conflict.

Long-range missiles to be developed jointly by Germany and Ukraine

In addition, Germany and Ukraine announced plans to work together to develop long-range missiles as part of their growing defense cooperation.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz spoke at a joint press conference in Berlin with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday, saying that “our defence ministers will sign a memorandum of understanding today regarding the procurement of Ukrainian-made long-range weapons systems.”

No range restrictions will apply, he added, allowing Ukraine to fully defend itself against military targets outside of its own country.

Two days prior, Merz had announced that Ukraine’s Western allies had lifted the weapons-supplying restrictions that they had placed on Kyiv.

Zelenskyy claimed that the leaders had also agreed to work together to build and expand new manufacturing facilities in Ukraine.

Avelo Airlines, a struggling, Houston, Texas-based budget carrier, has faced weeks of backlash after taking a contract with the United States government to use its planes to deport migrants, the first commercial airline to do so.

Avelo, which started the deportation flights in mid-May, defended the move in an April 3 letter to employees, saying its partnership with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency is “too valuable not to pursue”.

Founded in 2021, the airline has been in financial turmoil and was projected to have only about $2m in cash on hand by June, the trade publication Airline Observer reported last month. An Avelo spokesperson told Al Jazeera that that reporting is outdated.

The airline has not disclosed the terms of the deal with ICE but is said to be using three of its Boeing 737 aircraft for the flights. Avelo has 20 aircraft in its fleet.

At the beginning of 2024, Avelo reported its first profitable quarter since its founding but hasn’t released any financial results since then. Because it is not a publicly traded company, Avelo is not legally obligated to regularly disclose its financial status to the public.

Avelo’s deal was brokered through a third-party contractor, CSI Aviation, which received $262.9m in federal contracts, mostly through ICE, for the 2025 fiscal year. While CSI Aviation did not confirm to Al Jazeera the specifics of its deal with Avelo, federal spending records show the company was awarded a new contract in March and received $97.5m in April when the Avelo flights were announced.

April’s contract marks the biggest for CSI Aviation since it began receiving federal contracts in 2008. Until now, CSI Aviation’s highest payouts had come more frequently during Democratic administrations. In October under former President Joe Biden, the federal government paid out more than $75m to CSI Aviation.

CEO Andrew Levy has said Avelo operated similar flights under the Biden administration but the public outcry against Avelo this time is because of how Republican President Donald Trump’s administration has conducted deportations.

“In the past, the deportees were afforded due process,” aviation journalist and New Hampshire state lawmaker Seth Miller said. “[They were] not snatched off the street, moved multiple times to evade the judicial process and put on planes before they could appeal. In the past, they were returned to their country of origin, not a third country. In the past, they were not shipped to a labour camp from which no one is ever released.”

“These are, to me, not the same deportations as in the past, and any company signing on in April 2025 to operate those flights knows that,” Miller told Al Jazeera.

The US government has awarded CSI Aviation $165m for deportation charter flights so far in the current year until August 31, and that could be extended to February 26. The data does not specify how much goes to each subcontractor. However, the March 1 $165m contract was modified on March 25 with an additional $33.7m tacked onto it just days before Avelo announced its deal.

Al Jazeera was unable to confirm the specific dollar amount for the Avelo contract.

CSI Aviation did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.

Avelo, led by Levy – an industry veteran who previously served as CEO of another US-based budget airline, Allegiant, and as chief financial officer for United Airlines – has stood by the deal despite the public outcry.

“We realize this is a sensitive and complicated topic. After significant deliberations, we determined that charter flying will provide us with the stability to continue expanding our core scheduled passenger service and keep our more than 1,100 Crewmembers employed for years to come,” Levy said in a statement to Al Jazeera, comments the company had also provided to other publications.

Connecticut Attorney General William Tong pressed the airline for the terms of the deal. Avelo responded by instructing Tong to file a  Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. FOIA requests typically take several months to process. Connecticut is home to one of Avelo’s biggest hubs in New Haven.

Avelo declined Al Jazeera’s request for information on the terms of its agreement with CSI Aviation, saying in an email that it was not “authorised to share the details of the contract”.

Al Jazeera has submitted a FOIA request for the contract terms. ICE denied our expedited request for the contract terms, saying our request lacked “an urgency to inform the public about an actual or alleged federal government activity, if made by a person primarily engaged in disseminating information”. The phone number ICE gave to challenge the request through its public liaison did not work when called.

“For reasons of operational security, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement does not release information about future removal flights or schedules in advance. However, the removal of illegal aliens who are unlawfully present in the United States is a core responsibility of ICE and is regularly carried out by ICE Air Operations,” a spokesperson for ICE told Al Jazeera.

Several lawmakers, including Senator Alex Padilla of California and Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, have voiced concerns over these flights.

“Given the Trump Administration’s mission to indiscriminately deport our nation’s immigrants – without due process, in violation of the Constitution and federal immigration law, and, in some cases, in defiance of court orders – it is deeply disturbing that Avelo has determined that its partnership with ICE is ‘too valuable not to pursue,’” Padilla’s office said in a news release.

Flight attendants have also raised safety concerns, saying there is no safe plan in the event of an emergency and it is only a matter of time before a tragic incident occurs.

As first reported by ProPublica, ICE Air detainees have soiled themselves because they did not have access to bathrooms while being transported to prisons without due process.

ICE has denied allegations that detainees lacked access to bathrooms during flights.

Are financiers concerned?

Avelo’s largest investor is Morgan Stanley Tactical Value, whose managing director, Tom Cahill, sits on Avelo’s board. Morgan Stanley’s fund invested an undisclosed amount in the airline’s Series A funding round, the first major investment stage for a company.

That round raised $125m in January 2020, weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic was declared a US and global emergency. A subsequent Series B round in 2022 brought in an additional $42m, $30m of which came from Morgan Stanley.

Morgan Stanley Tactical Value remains Avelo’s largest shareholder. Cahill, who has been with Morgan Stanley since 1990, has not publicly commented on the deal. He did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment. Morgan Stanley declined to comment.

Avelo has also hired Jefferies Financial Group, an investment bank and financial services company, to raise additional capital in a new investment round, reportedly aiming to raise $100m, according to the Airline Observer, information that Avelo said is outdated.

Jefferies did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.

A public image problem

Avelo’s involvement in the deportation programme has sparked intense public backlash. Upon the launch of the flights, protests erupted at airports in Burbank, California; Mesa, Arizona; and New Haven, Connecticut.

A Change.org petition calling for a boycott of the airline has garnered more than 38,000 signatures. Avelo did not comment on the petition.

“From a reputational perspective, someone in a boardroom somewhere made the decision that the hit to reputation wasn’t as important as staying alive,” said Hannah Mooney Mack, an independent strategic communications consultant.

Miller has taken action to raise awareness about the airline’s recent contract, funding two billboards near Tweed New Haven Airport that criticise Avelo’s participation in deportation flights. The signs read: “Does your vacation support their deportation? Just say AvelNO!”

“I love almost all of the things that aviation does in helping bring people together and connect communities and things like that. This is decidedly not that. And it rubbed me the wrong way,” the congressman told Al Jazeera.

“I certainly understand that from a financial perspective there may be a need. I happen to disagree with it from a moral perspective and think it’s abhorrent.”

Miller said he spent $7,000 on the billboards and 96 people contributed to the effort. Avelo reportedly convinced billboard operator Lamar Advertising to take down the ads, citing copyright concerns. Miller has since sued Avelo on First Amendment grounds. He said he’s fighting because he thinks people need to know about Avelo’s contract.