Category World News

Washington, DC – United States Congresswoman LaMonica McIver has been charged with assaulting a law enforcement officer after a standoff at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility in early May.

On Tuesday, Democrats denounced the charge as an attempt by the administration of Republican President Donald Trump to silence his political rivals for speaking out against his deportation campaign.

In a post on the social media platform X, Democratic Representative Gil Cisneros blasted the administration for having “gone after judges, prosecutors, and now, Members of Congress” in its attempts to stifle dissent.

“The charges against Rep McIver are a blatant political attack and an attempt to prohibit Members of Congress from conducting oversight,” Cisneros wrote.

The charge was announced on Monday evening, with federal prosecutor Alina Habba —Trump’s former personal lawyer — accusing McIver of having “assaulted, impeded, and interfered” with law enforcement.

“The conduct cannot be overlooked,” Habba wrote in a statement. “It is my constitutional obligation to ensure that our federal law enforcement is protected when executing their duties.”

The criminal charge stemmed from an incident on May 9, when McIver joined two other members of Congress for an oversight tour of Delaney Hall, a privately run immigration detention facility in Newark, New Jersey.

The visit devolved into a fracas involving elected officials, protesters and federal law enforcement agents. The mayor of Newark, Ras Baraka, was arrested at the scene for alleged trespassing.

In Monday’s statement, Habba announced the charge against Baraka has since been dropped “for the sake of moving forward”. But his arrests likewise spurred outcry over possible political motives.

‘Intimidate and interfere’

Late on Monday, McIver responded to the charges against her with a statement of her own, saying she and other members of Congress were “fulfilling our lawful oversight responsibilities” when they visited the detention centre.

McIver accused ICE agents at the scene of creating an “unnecessary and unsafe confrontation”. She added that the charges against her “mischaracterise and distort my actions”.

“The charges against me are purely political,” McIver wrote.

Top Democrats also remained defiant in the face of the Trump administration’s accusations, saying they would continue their oversight duties at immigration facilities like Delaney Hall.

“The criminal charge against Congresswoman LaMonica McIver is extreme, morally bankrupt and lacks any basis in law or fact,” Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives said in a joint statement.

They underscored that they have a right as Congress members to show up at federal facilities unannounced for inspections.

The charges against McIver, they argued, are a “blatant attempt by the Trump administration to intimidate Congress and interfere with our ability to serve as a check and balance on an out-of-control executive branch”.

In a separate statement, Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee said the criminal charge was a “dangerous precedent” that “reveals the increasingly authoritarian nature of this administration”.

“Representative McIver has our full support, and we will do everything in our power to help fight this outrageous threat to our constitutional system,” they said.

Democrats have denounced the Trump administration’s push for “mass deportation” as violating constitutional and human rights. As part of that push, the Trump White House has sought to expand the use of private detention centres to house the growing number of people arrested for deportation.

Mayor Baraka, in particular, has repeatedly protested the 1,000-bed Delaney Hall for opening without the proper permits and approvals. Its operator, The GEO Group, has denied any violations.

The leaders of the United Kingdom, France, and Canada have “strongly opposed” Israel’s military offensive in Gaza, and they are threatening to “take concrete steps” if Israel doesn’t put an end to its siege and put restrictions on aid delivery to the Palestinian enclave.

In a statement released on Monday, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said they also oppose settlement expansions in the occupied West Bank. As Gaza continues to be the focus of the world’s attention, settler violence has risen in the occupied West Bank. Nearly 1, 000 Palestinians have been killed and thousands displaced in Israeli raids.

The Netherlands’ request to review a trade agreement with Israel comes weeks after the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has increased its bombardment of Gaza in response to an aid embargo that has been in place since March 2.

Western countries backed Israel’s right to self-defence when Netanyahu’s government launched a devastating offensive in Gaza on October 7, 2023. More than 53, 000 Palestinians have been killed in the offensive, which also destroyed large areas of Gaza.

On Tuesday, the EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said that Israel has the right to defend itself, but its current actions go beyond proportionate self-defence.

What actions might Western nations take against Israel, and has Israel’s most recent attack in Gaza forced them to change their positions? Here is what you need to know:

What were the words of the United Kingdom, France, and Canada?

The countries ‘ three leaders criticised Israel’s renewed Gaza offensive, while describing the “human suffering” of Palestinians in the coastal enclave as “intolerable”.

They added that Israel’s announcement to provide some aid was “wholly inadequate.”

“If Israel does not cease the renewed military offensive and lift its restrictions on humanitarian aid, we will take further concrete actions in response”, the leaders ‘ statement said.

The Israeli government’s denial of essential humanitarian assistance to the population risks breaking international humanitarian law, according to the statement.

” We condemn the abhorrent language used recently by members of the Israeli Government, threatening that, in their despair at the destruction of Gaza, civilians will start to relocate. International humanitarian law is violated by permanent forced displacement.

The three Western leaders said that while they supported Israel’s right to defend itself following Hamas’s attack on October 7″, this escalation is wholly disproportionate”.

They remarked, “We will not sit back and watch as the Netanyahu government continues these vile actions.”

On Tuesday, the UK announced it would suspend trade talks with Israel over the Gaza war. Additionally, it imposed sanctions on settlers and Palestinian-supporting organizations.

Israel’s conduct in its war on Gaza and the government’s support for illegal settlements is” damaging our relationship with your government”, said British Foreign Secretary David Lammy.

Regarding the situation in Gaza and the West Bank, my joint statement is with @EmmanuelMacron and @MarkJCarney. pic. twitter.com/76vYpB42xf

Nine aid trucks were allowed to enter Gaza on Monday despite intense international pressure, prompting accusations that Israel is using starvation as a weapon of war.

However, the United Nations ‘ relief chief Tom Fletcher called the entry of the trucks a” drop in the ocean”, adding that” significantly more aid must be allowed into Gaza”.

Fletcher called the number 14, 000 Palestinian babies “utterly chilling” on Tuesday when he warned that if aid didn’t arrive, they could die in 48 hours. Some half a million people in Gaza, or one in five Palestinians, are facing starvation due to the Israeli blockade.

The 2.3 million people in Gaza are in acute need of food, with the 2.3 million people who are starving, resorted to eating animal feed and flour mixed with sand.

The UN humanitarian office’s spokesman Jens Laerke said on Tuesday that about 100 more trucks have been approved by Israel to enter Gaza.

The leaders of the UK, France, and Canada opposed all attempts to expand Israeli settlements because they are “illegal and undermine the viability of a Palestinian state and the security of both Israelis and Palestinians,” according to the leaders of the UK, France, and Canada, shifting their focus to the occupied West Bank.

” We will not hesitate to take further action, including targeted sanctions, “they said.

The statement made by the UK, Canada, and France is “reflective of states wanting to backtrack and try to cover up their complicity,” according to Yara Hawari, co-director of Al-Shabaka, the Palestinian Policy Network, highlighting that the situation in Gaza is the “worst that it has ever been” and that the genocide is escalating to new levels of cruelty and inhumanity.

” They can point to the statement and say, you know, well, we did … stand up against it, “Hawari told Al Jazeera, adding that none have stopped arms sales to Israel.

Hawari specifically made a reference to the role of the UK, claiming that it was “particularly complicit in this””. There are reports coming out every day on how many weapons have been transferred from the UK to Israel over the course of the last 19 months, “she said.

What other statements have been made by Western nations?

Sweden’s Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard said on Tuesday that her country will push for EU sanctions against Israeli ministers because of insufficient steps to protect civilians in Gaza.

We need to change the tone because we don’t see a noticeable improvement in Gaza’s civilian population. We will therefore now also push for EU sanctions against individual Israeli ministers, “Stenergard said in a statement.

Jean-Noel Barrot, the country’s foreign minister, requited that Israel’s “blind violence” and the humanitarian aid stop.

On Monday, 24 countries, overwhelmingly European ones, issued a joint statement saying Israel’s decision to allow a” limited restart “of aid operations in Gaza must be followed by a complete resumption of unfettered humanitarian assistance.

The foreign ministers of nations like Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, and the UK all signed it.

Meanwhile, the European Union’s top diplomat, Kallas, has decided to order a review of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, a free trade deal between the two regions.

Kallas informed Al Jazeera that the Netherlands earlier this month had requested that Article 2 of the Association Agreement be reviewed, which requires that both parties adhere to human rights.

The move has been backed by other member states, including Belgium, France, Portugal and Sweden.

The recent criticism from Western capitals, according to Robert Patman, a professor of international relations at the University of Otago in New Zealand, was in part due to public pressure.

” I think there’s a sense that in liberal democracies, they can’t ultimately be indifferent to public concern about the situation … I think another factor is a perception among many countries that]US President Donald] Trump himself is getting impatient with the Netanyahu government, “he told Al Jazeera.

According to Patman, many nations in the Global South were more quick to condemn Israel’s actions because they had previously experienced colonialism.

” They have a history of having to struggle for their own political self-determination, and given that experience, they can empathise with the Palestinians who’ve been denied the right, “he said.

What has Israel done to combat it?

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu on Monday criticised Carney, Macron and Starmer following their joint statement.

The leaders of London, Ottawa, and Paris are offering a huge prize for the genocidal attack on Israel on October 7 by calling on Israel to end a defensive conflict to stop Hamas terrorists from attacking our borders and launching a Palestinian state, he wrote on X.

By asking Israel to end a defensive war for our survival before Hamas terrorists on our border are destroyed and by demanding a Palestinian state, the leaders in London, Ottowa and Paris are offering a huge prize for the genocidal attack on Israel on October 7 while inviting more…

Meanwhile, Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich lashed out at the three leaders, saying his country” will not bow its head before this moral hypocrisy, antisemitism, and one-sidedness”.

Smotrich accused the three nations of “morally aligning themselves with a terrorist organization” in a post on X.

In particular, Smotrich took issue with the three countries saying they are” committed to recognising a Palestinian state”.

He claimed that they have even attempted to reward terrorism by granting it a state.

Netanyahu’s government and his far-right coalition partners have been vocal against the realisation of a sovereign Palestinian state despite broad international support for the so-called two-state solution.

What exactly is “Operation Gideon’s Chariot”?

This major ground offensive, launched by Israel on the Gaza Strip on Sunday, came after days of intense bombardment that killed hundreds of Palestinians.

More than 200 people have died as a result of a constant barrage of strikes since Sunday.

Major hospitals, including the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza, have been rendered nonoperational after attacks by Israeli forces. According to medical professionals, it could cause the deaths of tens of thousands of sick and injured people.

With the backing of Israel’s lethal air force, the operation is targeting both southern and northern Gaza.

The Israeli military claimed that the offensive was intended to expand “operational control” in the Gaza Strip. Israel says its campaign also aims to free the remaining captives held in Gaza and defeat Hamas.

However, Netanyahu has faced repeated criticism from Israeli society, including the families of the captives, for failing to prioritize their return. He has also rejected Hamas’s offers to end the war and free the captives.

How will the Western actions impact Israel, and what’s next?

The UK, France, and Canada’s threats against Israel, according to Andreas Krieg, senior lecturer at King’s College London, set a precedent for other Western governments to follow.

” While it will not have a direct impact on Israel’s behaviour on the ground, it widens the boundaries of discourse internationally and makes it easier for other governments to openly stand against Israeli atrocities, “he told Al Jazeera.

The United States is still essential to a change of course in Israel, he said. The US supplies the bulk of arms to Israel as well as providing diplomatic cover at the United Nations.

However, there is a pronounced deterioration of international opinion regarding the portrayal of Israel, which makes it appear to be a rogue actor, according to Krug.

Husam Zomlot, the Palestinian ambassador to the UK, told Al Jazeera that the” number one “thing the three countries could do was impose an arms embargo on Israel”. Some measures have been taken by the UK to halt some arms exports. It’s not enough. He said it needs to be thorough and in-depth.

Zomlot also said that the states should act to ensure that” war criminals “were” held accountable””. They must vouch for our efforts to establish the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice, he added.

Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant face ICC arrest warrant for war crimes, but some European nations have said that they won’t arrest them.

The UN’s special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, questioned the intended purpose of the sanctions.

” Targeting whom? You must impose sanctions on the state. It’s not about the prime minister. She told Al Jazeera, “This is the entire government enterprise.”

Krieg from King’s College London says the reputational damage will affect Israel far beyond the current war in Gaza.

When Israel announced on May 5 its intention to permanently reoccupy Gaza, it did not merely declare a new phase of military domination. The expansionist state also signalled an intensification of its campaign of erasure and systematic silencing.

This move should sound an alarm for every newsroom and journalist around the globe. This is not just a territorial occupation, but a war on truth. And in that war, Palestinian journalists are among the first to be targeted.

The staggering toll of media workers killed in Gaza speaks for itself. One recent report states that more journalists have been killed in Gaza than in the two world wars, the wars in Afghanistan, the former Yugoslavia and Vietnam combined. It is the deadliest conflict for media professionals ever recorded.

According to Gaza’s Government Media Office, at least 222 journalists have been killed. The Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU) summed up this deplorable state of affairs by stating that “Israel is the greatest killer of journalists in modern history.”

This is not just the consequence of war. This is a strategy. This is a media blackout enforced through bloodshed and sealed borders.

Just on Sunday, one of the bloodiest days in recent months, the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) killed husband and wife journalists Khaled Abu Seif and Nour Qandil along with their little daughter in Deir el-Balah. They also murdered photographer Aziz al-Hajjar and his wife and children in northern Gaza and journalist Abdul Rahman al-Abadlah in southern Gaza. An Israeli strike on a tent in the “safe zone” of al-Mawasi killed Ahmed al-Zinati and his wife and two young children.

On Thursday, two journalists – Hassan Sammour and Ahmed al-Halou – were killed in two Israeli attacks. Two days earlier, an Israeli drone targeted journalist Hassan Eslaih in the barely functioning Nassar Medical Complex in Khan Younis. Eslaih was recovering from injuries sustained when the IOF bombed a media tent on April 7. In the attack, Eslaih’s colleague Hilmi al-Faqaawi was burned to death.

On April 17, Fatima Hassouna, a prominent photojournalist whose life during the genocide became the subject of a documentary, was targeted and killed in her home along with 10 members of her family. A day earlier, she had found out that the film would be screened at the Cannes Film Festival.

On May 7, when more than 100 people were killed in a single day, journalists Yehya Subeih and Noor al-Din Abdu were also targeted.

Yehya’s first child, a baby girl, had been born that very morning. He had left home to get supplies for his wife and never returned. His daughter will grow up marking her birthday on the same day her father was killed.

Abdu was covering an Israeli massacre at a school in Gaza City when he was killed. Apart from his journalistic work, he was also documenting the devastating loss of his own extended family. On May 6, he sent the name and photo of yet another victim to add to the list he and his uncle Rami Abdo, founder of the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, were keeping. A day later, he was added to it himself.

These are just a few of the many assassinations Israel has carried out in its pursuit of a media blackout in Gaza. There are also many more cases of journalists who have survived but the trauma has silenced them.

Among them is my relative Rami Abu Shammala. Rami’s family home stood only a few blocks from the ruins of my in-laws’ home in Hay al-Amal in Khan Younis – or what remains of what was once a vibrant, living neighbourhood.

On May 4, a day after we marked World Press Freedom Day, an Israeli strike destroyed Rami’s home, killing his sister-in-law Nisreen and sending six children to the emergency department of the Nasser Medical Complex. Rami was not home and survived, but he fell into a state of grief so deep he could no longer bear witness.

Just two days earlier, journalist Norhan al-Madhoun lost her brother, Rizq, a photographer, in an Israeli air strike targeting a community kitchen he was volunteering in. He and five of the kitchen workers were murdered in an instant. In October, the family lost father Ahmed Khalil al-Madhoun when he was killed while delivering water and then another brother Haitham, who was killed the very next day.

Following Rizq’s killing, Norhan posted on social media the following: “With a heart that cracks from so much loss, I mourn you today, my beloved brother and my irreplaceable rib. … Those who knew him know that he was a homeland of generosity, a haven of compassion, and a constant voice for courage and truth. But I, who have always found refuge in the word, in writing as a career, find myself helpless before the enormity of loss.”

This is what silencing a journalist looks like – not just the destruction of cameras and press vests, but the destruction of families, homes and futures. Grief and shock may silence even more than intimidation.

All of this bloodshed targeting Gaza’s journalists has been happening at a time when Israel is supposedly carrying out “limited operations”. We can only imagine what will happen as its genocidal army moves in to reoccupy the strip.

The world must no longer turn a blind eye. Palestinian journalists’ survival and freedom to report demand urgent, global action.

Foreign journalists cannot continue to stay silent about Israel’s refusal to allow them to report freely from Gaza. Embedding with the IOF and being shown only what it wants the media to see must be publicly rejected.

Without international media access, Gaza will continue to be a closed theatre of war, a place where crimes can continue unseen. In Gaza, the absence of cameras will be as deadly as the bombs exported from the United States.

Now is the time for journalists, editors and news organisations to demand access – not only as a professional right but also as a moral imperative. Until this access is granted, newspapers and cable news networks should routinely remind readers and viewers that their journalists are denied entry by Israel.

This is not just about solidarity with Palestinian journalists. It is about defending the very essence of journalism: the right to bear witness, to document the stories that those in power would rather keep hidden.

It is crucial to take a stance now as we are seeing a global trend of press freedom retreat, accelerated by the silencing of Gaza. The number of countries that genuinely uphold a free and vibrant news media is steadily shrinking. Simultaneously, the technological promise of social media to be a force for democratic change – once seen in the Arab Spring – has all but vanished.

Now is the time to enter Gaza. The international media must act – not later, not when the killing stops, not when permission is granted by Israel – but now. What is required is a global demand for access, for accountability, and for the protection of those who dare to speak.

This is the moment. We must not miss it.

Donald Trump made a rare trip to Capitol Hill to persuade Republican leaders to support his “big, beautiful bill,” which would lower taxes, lower programs for the poor, and raise the US’s national debt.

Thousands of children in Gaza are at risk of imminent death after a nearly three-month total Israeli blockade on the besieged enclave, which has spread famine, the United Nations relief chief warns.

That has put 14,000 babies at risk of dying in the next 48 hours, Tom Fletcher said in an interview with the BBC on Tuesday.

“We need to flood the Gaza Strip with humanitarian aid,” the UN’s undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs said, describing the situation as “chilling”.

All food, medicine and other life-saving aid had been blocked by Israel from entering Gaza beginning on March 2. As of Monday, a trickle of aid was authorised to enter for the first time since then.

Addressing the European Humanitarian Forum in Brussels on Tuesday, Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), said relief organisations have run out of words to describe the horrors unfolding in Gaza at Israel’s hands.

“But the worst in all this is that we are confronted with a situation: If there is political will, the war can stop. The siege being imposed on Gaza can be lifted,” Lazzarini said.

Since early March, at least 57 children are reported to have died from malnutrition.

A UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) assessment says more than 93 percent of children in Gaza, or about 930,000, are at risk of famine

UNRWA Director of Health Akihiro Seita added on Tuesday that the situation is getting “exponentially” worse and may soon arrive at a point that is “beyond our control”.

Israel told the UN on Tuesday that it would allow the entry of 100 trucks carrying humanitarian aid, a day after it said it allowed only nine aid trucks into the enclave for the first time in more than 80 days.

Both moves have been roundly slammed for fulfilling only a “drop in the ocean” of the humanitarian needs in Gaza, which has been largely reduced to rubble by Israeli air strikes and ground operations, which were expanded at the weekend.

Israeli attacks continue to kill dozens of Palestinians, including many children, each day while what’s left of infrastructure and aid supplies is being destroyed.

The municipality of Deir el-Balah in central Gaza announced on Tuesday that a major well, the last remaining source of drinking water in the area, was destroyed along with its generator in an Israeli strike.

This comes as more than 100,000 Palestinians have been driven out of their homes and shelters in the past several days alone, according to the UN, and have nowhere safe to go as they face famine.

The Israeli army on Tuesday bombed the Nasser Medical Complex in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis as well, hitting life-saving medical supplies and causing widespread destruction across the hospital’s different facilities, including oxygen lines and a laboratory.

“In northern Gaza, the Indonesian Hospital is under siege by the Israeli military with patients unable to enter or get out,” Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary said, reporting from Deir el-Balah.

“Aside from the Nasser and Indonesian hospitals, two other major hospitals in Gaza, the European and al-Awda, have been bombed and largely put out of service in the past few days,” she added.

Tess Ingram, a UNICEF communications manager, explained to Al Jazeera why a scheme hatched by the United States and Israel to take control of aid distribution in Gaza was unacceptable for the international community.

She said the UN and its international partners had 400 distribution points all over Gaza to help Palestinians whereas now only a “handful” of militarised points in southern Gaza will be used under the US-Israel plan.

“This would mean that people would have to walk a long way to collect a packet that weighs up to 25kg [55lb] and then walk back again,” she said.

Speaking on Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu emphasised that only a “minimal” amount of aid will be allowed into Gaza for diplomatic and political reasons as international pressure and condemnation is directed at him and his government.

His far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, said allowing any aid into Gaza while some Israeli captives taken during the Hamas-led attacks on October 7, 2023, are still held inside the enclave is “a grave mistake hindering our victory”.

As the Israeli military and government continue to promise to “defeat” Hamas, devastating military strikes on the Palestinian territory have intensified.

The Israeli army said on Tuesday afternoon that it attacked 100 targets in Gaza in the preceding 24 hours, claiming they were all “terrorist” targets.