Bay Area: All Out for Nakba 77 - The People Stand with Palestine
Saturday, May 17th, 2:30 pm
16th and Valencia Streets
Join the JVP-Bay Area contingent at 2:15 pm at 17th and Valencia. Look for the banner that says “Jews Say Stop Arming Israel”.
For 77 years, the Palestinian people have been subjected to occupation, forced displacement and ethnic cleansing under Israeli settler colonialism. Israel, with the support of the United States, is committing genocide in Gaza, using starvation as a weapon in addition to brutal military force. No humanitarian aid has been allowed into Gaza since March 2, 2025. Israel is also escalating its repression and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank.
Despite this, the Palestinian people continue to resist all attempts to displace them and insist on the right to their land, their liberation and their return.
It is more important than ever that on this 77th anniversary of the ongoing Nakba, all those with a conscience make it a priority to say loudly and clearly: THE PEOPLE STAND WITH PALESTINE, and to lift up these demands:Rallies will be taking place throughout the world.
- An end to the genocide in Gaza;
- A full and immediate two-way arms embargo on Israel;
- The release of all Palestinian political prisoners;
- Immediate humanitarian aid and reconstruction for Gaza;
- An end to the Zionist occupation of all Palestinian land.
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FWD from Leslie London (professor of public health at University of Cape Town):
Dear friends and colleagues
We write as academics, scientists and researchers in the health sector who have experienced the shutting down of our efforts to address the genocide in Gaza by our own professional organisations.
Many of you will have similar experiences of being blocked when trying to get your professional organisations to respond appropriately to the decimation in Gaza and the complete abnegation of professional solidarity in the face of the destruction of the Gazan health system and attacks on health workers.
We felt that one thing we could do is get together with like minded defenders of human rights to share experiences and explore across organisations what strategies could be useful to help stop the genocide and protect the people, the environment and what is left of the health care system in Gaza.
We are not organising this in the name of any organisation but rather as a loose network of individuals who have tried hard in our own organisation, without evident success, and we now feel that learning, sharing and building solidarity with others in similar situations might be the strongest strategy now.
We are therefore inviting you to a Webinar we will be hosting on the 19th at 5pm CET to explore how health professional organisations’ responses have failed Gaza and what can be done when your organisation turns a blind eye to Injustice.
Please circulate to those you feel would value such a discussion.
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May 25th
TO MARK THE 5th ANNIVERSARY OF GEORGE FLOYD'S MURDER & OPPOSE TRUMP'S ANTI-GEORGE FLOYD ACT EXECUTIVE ORDER
On April 28th, 2025, Donald Trump signed the so-called “Strengthening and Unleashing America’s Law Enforcement to Pursue Criminals and Protect Innocent Citizens” Executive Order (EO) into law, signifying a continued push towards the expansion of the police and prison state. This EO is the Trump administration’s attempt to undo any and all restraints put on police departments after the George Floyd rebellion. It is the Anti-George Floyd Policing Act. The EO gives police carte blanche to double down on their crimes against the people along with expanding prisons. We knew Trump’s return to office would embolden racist and repressive policing. This EO makes it plain.
George Floyd was murdered by racist killer cop Derek Chauvin on May 25th, 2020. Following his murder, the Minneapolis community, including our National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (NAARPR) branch, the Twin Cities Coalition for Justice, quickly mobilized and sparked a fire that led to millions hitting the streets worldwide to fight for justice for George Floyd and all victims of police terror. NAARPR played a conscious role in all cities where we have branches and affiliate organizations present in advancing the struggle on the streets. Five years later, we have experienced the failures of the previous presidential administration in passing any substantial police accountability measures. Now under Trump and his new EO, we see the forces of police terror seeking to advance their agenda at the expense of the voice of the people.
We call on all NAARPR branches, affiliate organizations to take action and unite with as many forces as possible on the 5 year anniversary of George Floyd’s murder to fight back against Trump’s anti-George Floyd executive order. We call on all strains of the people’s movement to unite and fight against Trump’s police and prison state agenda along with the local struggles with the families of police crime victims. Only through uniting with all who can be united, can we build a united front to win community control of the police and make advancements towards ending police terror.
All out for May 25th!
Justice for George Floyd and all victims of police terror!
Rescind Trump’s police and prison state Executive Order!
Pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act!
Community Control of the police now!
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We need a united, independent, democratically organized mass movement for peace, justice and equality in solidarity with similar movements worldwide if we are to survive the death agony of capitalism and its inevitable descent into fascism and barbarism before it destroys the world altogether!
—Bonnie Weinstein
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Russia Confirms Jailing of Antiwar Leader Boris Kagarlitsky
In a secret trial on June 5, 2024, the Russian Supreme Court’s Military Chamber confirmed a sentence of five years in a penal colony for left-wing sociologist and online journalist Boris Kagarlitsky. His crime? “Justifying terrorism” — a sham charge used to silence opponents of Putin’s war on Ukraine. The court disregarded a plea for freedom sent by thirty-seven international luminaries.
Kagarlitsky, a leading Marxist thinker in Russia’s post-Soviet period, recently addressed socialists who won’t criticize Putin:
“To my Western colleagues, who…call for an understanding of Putin and his regime, I would like to ask a very simple question. [Would] you want to live in a country where there is no free press or independent courts? In a country where the police have the right to break into your house without a warrant? …In a country which…broadcasts appeals on TV to destroy Paris, London, Warsaw, with a nuclear strike?”
Thousands of antiwar critics have been forced to flee Russia or are behind bars, swept up in Putin’s vicious crackdown on dissidents. Opposition to the war is consistently highest among the poorest workers. Recently, RusNews journalists Roman Ivanov and Maria Ponomarenko were sentenced to seven, and six years respectively, for reporting the military’s brutal assault on Ukraine.
A massive global solidarity campaign that garnered support from thousands was launched at Kagarlitsky’s arrest. Now, it has been revived. This internationalism will bolster the repressed Russian left and Ukrainian resistance to Putin’s imperialism.
To sign the online petition at freeboris.info
—Freedom Socialist Party, August 2024
https://socialism.com/fs-article/russia-jails-prominent-antiwar-leader-boris-kagarlitsky/#:~:text=In%20a%20secret%20trial%20on,of%20Putin's%20war%20on%20Ukraine.
Petition in Support of Boris Kagarlitsky
We, the undersigned, were deeply shocked to learn that on February 13 the leading Russian socialist intellectual and antiwar activist Dr. Boris Kagarlitsky (65) was sentenced to five years in prison.
Dr. Kagarlitsky was arrested on the absurd charge of 'justifying terrorism' in July last year. After a global campaign reflecting his worldwide reputation as a writer and critic of capitalism and imperialism, his trial ended on December 12 with a guilty verdict and a fine of 609,000 roubles.
The prosecution then appealed against the fine as 'unjust due to its excessive leniency' and claimed falsely that Dr. Kagarlitsky was unable to pay the fine and had failed to cooperate with the court. In fact, he had paid the fine in full and provided the court with everything it requested.
On February 13 a military court of appeal sent him to prison for five years and banned him from running a website for two years after his release.
The reversal of the original court decision is a deliberate insult to the many thousands of activists, academics, and artists around the world who respect Dr. Kagarlitsky and took part in the global campaign for his release. The section of Russian law used against Dr. Kagarlitsky effectively prohibits free expression. The decision to replace the fine with imprisonment was made under a completely trumped-up pretext. Undoubtedly, the court's action represents an attempt to silence criticism in the Russian Federation of the government's war in Ukraine, which is turning the country into a prison.
The sham trial of Dr. Kagarlitsky is the latest in a wave of brutal repression against the left-wing movements in Russia. Organizations that have consistently criticized imperialism, Western and otherwise, are now under direct attack, many of them banned. Dozens of activists are already serving long terms simply because they disagree with the policies of the Russian government and have the courage to speak up. Many of them are tortured and subjected to life-threatening conditions in Russian penal colonies, deprived of basic medical care. Left-wing politicians are forced to flee Russia, facing criminal charges. International trade unions such as IndustriALL and the International Transport Federation are banned and any contact with them will result in long prison sentences.
There is a clear reason for this crackdown on the Russian left. The heavy toll of the war gives rise to growing discontent among the mass of working people. The poor pay for this massacre with their lives and wellbeing, and opposition to war is consistently highest among the poorest. The left has the message and resolve to expose the connection between imperialist war and human suffering.
Dr. Kagarlitsky has responded to the court's outrageous decision with calm and dignity: “We just need to live a little longer and survive this dark period for our country,” he said. Russia is nearing a period of radical change and upheaval, and freedom for Dr. Kagarlitsky and other activists is a condition for these changes to take a progressive course.
We demand that Boris Kagarlitsky and all other antiwar prisoners be released immediately and unconditionally.
We also call on the authorities of the Russian Federation to reverse their growing repression of dissent and respect their citizens' freedom of speech and right to protest.
Sign to Demand the Release of Boris Kagarlitsky
https://freeboris.info
The petition is also available on Change.org
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Mumia Abu-Jamal is Innocent!
FREE HIM NOW!
Write to Mumia at:
Smart Communications/PADOC
Mumia Abu-Jamal #AM-8335
SCI Mahanoy
P.O. Box 33028
St. Petersburg, FL 33733
Join the Fight for Mumia's Life
Since September, Mumia Abu-Jamal's health has been declining at a concerning rate. He has lost weight, is anemic, has high blood pressure and an extreme flair up of his psoriasis, and his hair has fallen out. In April 2021 Mumia underwent open heart surgery. Since then, he has been denied cardiac rehabilitation care including a healthy diet and exercise.
Donate to Mumia Abu-Jamal's Emergency Legal and Medical Defense Fund, Official 2024
Mumia has instructed PrisonRadio to set up this fund. Gifts donated here are designated for the Mumia Abu-Jamal Medical and Legal Defense Fund. If you are writing a check or making a donation in another way, note this in the memo line.
Send to:
Mumia Medical and Legal Fund c/o Prison Radio
P.O. Box 411074, San Francisco, CA 94103
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Updates From Kevin Cooper
A Never-ending Constitutional Violation
A summary of the current status of Kevin Cooper’s case by the Kevin Cooper Defense Committee
On October 26, 2023, the law firm of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, LLP wrote a rebuttal in response to the Special Counsel's January 13, 2023 report upholding the conviction of their client Kevin Cooper. A focus of the rebuttal was that all law enforcement files were not turned over to the Special Counsel during their investigation, despite a request for them to the San Bernardino County District Attorney's office.
On October 29, 2023, Law Professors Lara Bazelon and Charlie Nelson Keever, who run the six member panel that reviews wrongful convictions for the San Francisco County District Attorney's office, published an OpEd in the San Francisco Chronicle calling the "Innocence Investigation” done by the Special Counsel in the Cooper case a “Sham Investigation” largely because Cooper has unsuccessfully fought for years to obtain the police and prosecutor files in his case. This is a Brady claim, named for the U.S. Supreme court’s 1963 case establishing the Constitutional rule that defendants are entitled to any information in police and prosecutor's possession that could weaken the state's case or point to innocence. Brady violations are a leading cause of wrongful convictions. The Special Counsel's report faults Cooper for not offering up evidence of his own despite the fact that the best evidence to prove or disprove Brady violations or other misconduct claims are in those files that the San Bernardino County District Attorney's office will not turn over to the Special Counsel or to Cooper's attorneys.
On December 14, 2023, the president of the American Bar Association (ABA), Mary Smith, sent Governor Gavin Newsom a three page letter on behalf of the ABA stating in part that Mr.Cooper's counsel objected to the state's failure to provide Special Counsel all documents in their possession relating to Mr.Cooper's conviction, and that concerns about missing information are not new. For nearly 40 years Mr.Cooper's attorneys have sought this same information from the state.
On December 19, 2023, Bob Egelko, a journalist for the San Francisco Chronicle wrote an article about the ABA letter to the Governor that the prosecutors apparently withheld evidence from the Governor's legal team in the Cooper case.
These are just a few recent examples concerning the ongoing failure of the San Bernardino County District Attorney to turn over to Cooper's attorney's the files that have been requested, even though under the law and especially the U.S. Constitution, the District Attorney of San Bernardino county is required to turn over to the defendant any and all material and or exculpatory evidence that they have in their files. Apparently, they must have something in their files because they refuse to turn them over to anyone.
The last time Cooper's attorney's received files from the state, in 2004, it wasn't from the D.A. but a Deputy Attorney General named Holly Wilkens in Judge Huff's courtroom. Cooper's attorneys discovered a never before revealed police report showing that a shirt was discovered that had blood on it and was connected to the murders for which Cooper was convicted, and that the shirt had disappeared. It had never been tested for blood. It was never turned over to Cooper's trial attorney, and no one knows where it is or what happened to it. Cooper's attorneys located the woman who found that shirt on the side of the road and reported it to the Sheriff's Department. She was called to Judge Huff's court to testify about finding and reporting that shirt to law enforcement. That shirt was the second shirt found that had blood on it that was not the victims’ blood. This was in 2004, 19 years after Cooper's conviction.
It appears that this ongoing constitutional violation that everyone—from the Special Counsel to the Governor's legal team to the Governor himself—seems to know about, but won't do anything about, is acceptable in order to uphold Cooper's conviction.
But this type of thing is supposed to be unacceptable in the United States of America where the Constitution is supposed to stand for something other than a piece of paper with writing on it. How can a Governor, his legal team, people who support and believe in him ignore a United States citizen’s Constitutional Rights being violated for 40 years in order to uphold a conviction?
This silence is betrayal of the Constitution. This permission and complicity by the Governor and his team is against everything that he and they claim to stand for as progressive politicians. They have accepted the Special Counsel's report even though the Special Counsel did not receive the files from the district attorney that may not only prove that Cooper is innocent, but that he was indeed framed by the Sheriff’s Department; and that evidence was purposely destroyed and tampered with, that certain witnesses were tampered with, or ignored if they had information that would have helped Cooper at trial, that evidence that the missing shirt was withheld from Cooper's trial attorney, and so much more.
Is the Governor going to get away with turning a blind eye to this injustice under his watch?
Are progressive people going to stay silent and turn their eyes blind in order to hopefully get him to end the death penalty for some while using Cooper as a sacrificial lamb?
An immediate act of solidarity we can all do right now is to write to Kevin and assure him of our continuing support in his fight for justice. Here’s his address:
Kevin Cooper #C65304
Cell 107, Unit E1C
California Health Care Facility, Stockton (CHCF)
P.O. Box 213040
Stockton, CA 95213
www.freekevincooper.org
Call California Governor Newsom:
1-(916) 445-2841
Press 1 for English or 2 for Spanish,
press 6 to speak with a representative and
wait for someone to answer
(Monday-Friday, 9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. PST—12:00 P.M. to 8:00 P.M. EST)
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Resources for Resisting Federal Repression
https://www.nlg.org/federalrepressionresources/
Since June of 2020, activists have been subjected to an increasingly aggressive crackdown on protests by federal law enforcement. The federal response to the movement for Black Lives has included federal criminal charges for activists, door knocks by federal law enforcement agents, and increased use of federal troops to violently police protests.
The NLG National Office is releasing this resource page for activists who are resisting federal repression. It includes a link to our emergency hotline numbers, as well as our library of Know-Your-Rights materials, our recent federal repression webinar, and a list of some of our recommended resources for activists. We will continue to update this page.
Please visit the NLG Mass Defense Program page for general protest-related legal support hotlines run by NLG chapters.
Emergency Hotlines
If you are contacted by federal law enforcement, you should exercise all of your rights. It is always advisable to speak to an attorney before responding to federal authorities.
State and Local Hotlines
If you have been contacted by the FBI or other federal law enforcement, in one of the following areas, you may be able to get help or information from one of these local NLG hotlines for:
Portland, Oregon: (833) 680-1312
San Francisco, California: (415) 285-1041 or fbi_hotline@nlgsf.org
Seattle, Washington: (206) 658-7963
National Hotline
If you are located in an area with no hotline, you can call the following number:
National NLG Federal Defense Hotline: (212) 679-2811
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1) Supreme Court Hears Case on Birthright Citizenship and Judicial Power
The Supreme Court could use the case to limit nationwide injunctions and reshape how federal courts handle challenges to President Trump’s policies.
By Abbie VanSickle, Supreme Court reporter, May 15, 2025
The Supreme Court is hearing arguments in a case that could limit the power of federal judges to hobble President Trump’s agenda while challenging the long-held belief that the 14th Amendment guarantees citizenship to all children born in the United States.
On issue after issue, individual judges have frozen Mr. Trump’s initiatives in place while they are litigated in court using nationwide injunctions, which block policy across the country and not just for the parties who sued. The justices will consider a dispute that stems from the president’s executive order to end the automatic practice of birthright citizenship, a change blocked almost immediately by federal judges who ruled that it was unconstitutional.
The Supreme Court could use the case to limit nationwide injunctions and reshape how federal courts handle challenges to Mr. Trump’s policies, curbing the power of federal judges to swiftly block executive actions and increasing presidential power. Groups opposing Mr. Trump’s actions would most likely have to bring many individual claims, or pursue other legal pathways, such as class action lawsuits.
It is not clear how much the justices will engage with the substance of Mr. Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship. In 1898, the Supreme Court affirmed that right in a landmark case, United States v. Wong Kim Ark.
Here’s what else to know:
A long dispute: Supreme Court justices across the ideological spectrum have said they are troubled by at least some nationwide injunctions, and several have long called for the court to address their scope.
Birthright citizenship: The practice of granting citizenship to people born in the United States, even to parents who are not citizens, has long been considered a tenet of immigration law. The 14th Amendment, ratified after the Civil War, declares that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”
Government’s argument: Solicitor General D. John Sauer, representing the Trump administration, argued that the 14th amendment’s provision of birthright citizenship was meant, at the time of its passage, for freed slaves, not immigrants to the United States. It is a once-fringe theory that has been rejected by most scholars and courts.
Many injunctions: Judges have issued more than a dozen nationwide injunctions against the Trump administration, including its effort to revoke Temporary Protected Status for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans, which allowed them to legally work and remain in the United States.
Unusual case: Several aspects of this case are unusual, including how quickly it made it to the court, that it extended the court’s typical calendar, and even that oral arguments are happening at all.
The Supreme Court is hearing arguments in a case that could limit the power of federal judges to hobble President Trump’s agenda while challenging the long-held belief that the 14th Amendment guarantees citizenship to all children born in the United States.
On issue after issue, individual judges have frozen Mr. Trump’s initiatives in place while they are litigated in court using nationwide injunctions, which block policy across the country and not just for the parties who sued. The justices will consider a dispute that stems from the president’s executive order to end the automatic practice of birthright citizenship, a change blocked almost immediately by federal judges who ruled that it was unconstitutional.
The Supreme Court could use the case to limit nationwide injunctions and reshape how federal courts handle challenges to Mr. Trump’s policies, curbing the power of federal judges to swiftly block executive actions and increasing presidential power. Groups opposing Mr. Trump’s actions would most likely have to bring many individual claims, or pursue other legal pathways, such as class action lawsuits.
It is not clear how much the justices will engage with the substance of Mr. Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship. In 1898, the Supreme Court affirmed that right in a landmark case, United States v. Wong Kim Ark.
Here’s what else to know:
A long dispute: Supreme Court justices across the ideological spectrum have said they are troubled by at least some nationwide injunctions, and several have long called for the court to address their scope.
Birthright citizenship: The practice of granting citizenship to people born in the United States, even to parents who are not citizens, has long been considered a tenet of immigration law. The 14th Amendment, ratified after the Civil War, declares that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”
Government’s argument: Solicitor General D. John Sauer, representing the Trump administration, argued that the 14th amendment’s provision of birthright citizenship was meant, at the time of its passage, for freed slaves, not immigrants to the United States. It is a once-fringe theory that has been rejected by most scholars and courts.
Many injunctions: Judges have issued more than a dozen nationwide injunctions against the Trump administration, including its effort to revoke Temporary Protected Status for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans, which allowed them to legally work and remain in the United States.
Unusual case: Several aspects of this case are unusual, including how quickly it made it to the court, that it extended the court’s typical calendar, and even that oral arguments are happening at all.
The original case that established birthright citizenship was decided in 1898.
By Amy Qin
In August 1895, a young cook named Wong Kim Ark was about to disembark from the S.S. Coptic, after a long journey home to San Francisco from China, when U.S. customs officials denied him re-entry.
He was not a U.S. citizen, they said. Never mind that Mr. Wong had been born in San Francisco’s Chinatown, not far from the port where he was now being held. The 14th Amendment’s provision for automatic citizenship for all people born on U.S. soil did not apply to him, officials later argued, because he and his parents were not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States at the time he was born.
Rather than back down, Mr. Wong took his case to the courts — and won.
In Mr. Wong’s case, the Supreme Court affirmed in 1898 the constitutional guarantee of automatic citizenship for nearly all children born in the United States, a right that has deep roots in common law. That expansive understanding of birthright citizenship has been the law of the land since.
Now, the Trump administration wants to roll back the Wong Kim Ark ruling as it moves to crack down on immigration.
On his first day back in office, President Trump signed an executive order declaring that the government would stop treating U.S.-born children of parents who are undocumented or are in the country temporarily as U.S. citizens.
The Trump administration is pushing forward a reinterpretation of the 1898 decision, drawing on ideas from a small group of legal scholars like John Eastman, a lawyer known for drafting a plan to block congressional certification of the 2020 presidential election.
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2) Gazans Once Escaped To Rafah. Now Israel Is Razing It.
By Samuel Granados, Aric Toler and Aaron Boxerman, May 15, 2025
Razed in last few weeks. Razed before the cease-fire. Newly built road.
Before the cease-fire in January, Israel had demolished areas of Rafah along Gaza’s borders. But in areas of Rafah away from the borders, many buildings were still standing, though damaged.
The recent destruction is much more far-reaching, flattening mosques, schools, greenhouses and even greenery.
In early April, after the fighting resumed, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggested that Israel’s goal was to cut Rafah off from the rest of Gaza. Now, the images show that the Israeli military has completed a ring of destruction around the city.
Last year, a million Palestinians fled to Rafah, the southernmost city in the Gaza Strip, to escape the brunt of Israel’s bombardment in its war against Hamas. When Israeli forces later invaded Rafah itself, they flattened areas along the border with Egypt, but many neighborhoods were largely spared the worst of the war.
That is no longer the case.
The Israeli military has destroyed extensive parts of Rafah since it ended a cease-fire in March after talks with Hamas collapsed. In early May, after much of the destruction was already complete, Israel announced it would soon launch an “intensive” escalation of its campaign in Gaza. Over the previous two nights, strikes have killed dozens of Palestinians in Gaza, Palestinian officials said. On Tuesday, the Israeli military targeted Muhammad Sinwar, a top Hamas leader in Gaza, near a hospital in Khan Younis.
Satellite images analyzed by The New York Times show that the Israeli military has flattened large areas in and around the city of Rafah and built new military infrastructure in the last two months.
Before the cease-fire in January, Israel had demolished areas of Rafah along Gaza’s borders. But in areas of Rafah away from the borders, many buildings were still standing, though damaged.
Israeli leaders say capturing more territory inside Gaza will pressure Hamas to surrender and release the remaining hostages that the group has held since it led a deadly attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Israel’s defense minister vowed that Israeli forces would “clear out” the areas and “prevent any threat,” including in Rafah.
Israeli security officials have previously said that tunnels between Egypt and Gaza have allowed Hamas to stock up on weaponry and other supplies.
In response to a question from The Times about the Israeli military’s operations in Rafah, the military said that it was part of an effort to secure operational control and conduct counterterrorism operations.
“We will replicate the model implemented in Rafah in other areas of the Strip as well,” said Effie Defrin, the Israeli military spokesperson, in a press briefing last week.
Demolishing Block by Block
Here is what the operation looks like on the ground: Four excavators could be seen in a video verified by The Times tearing down a row of buildings in Rafah’s Shaboura neighborhood in April. The video, first shared on an Israeli Telegram channel, was taken from an armored vehicle.
Satellite imagery shows that hundreds of buildings were destroyed in this neighborhood during the month of April, including on the block where the video was filmed.
Earlier this month, the Israeli security cabinet approved a new plan to call up tens of thousands of additional soldiers, to seize and hold territory in the embattled enclave, and to forcibly displace Palestinians to the south. But the satellite imagery shows the areas of the south where buildings are still standing are getting smaller and smaller.
Another video shows four buildings destroyed in a controlled demolition. The video, uploaded on an Israeli soldier’s Instagram account and shared by the Palestinian journalist Younis Tirawi on his X account, was filmed in northern Rafah, where much of the destruction has taken place. Satellite image shows that the demolition took place sometime in April.
New Construction
Israeli forces are not just clearing land. They are building on it.
One new road already stretches more than three miles from the Israeli border across Rafah into agricultural areas. It is protected by berms, trenches and several military outposts.
And other construction is moving at a rapid clip, the satellite images show.
Several new military outposts, often graded, paved and surrounded by defensive walls, have been built across southern Gaza in the past month. Soldiers have also commandeered buildings to use as bases, such as an under-construction hospital.
Israel calls the road it has constructed from the Israeli border the “Morag Corridor,” which Mr. Netanyahu said last month was intended to cut Rafah off from the rest of the enclave. The name is a reference to a Jewish settlement that existed in the area until Israel withdrew its soldiers and civilians from Gaza two decades ago.
What the construction might mean for the long term is uncertain. Some Israeli officials have agitated for Israel to rebuild Jewish settlements in the enclave, but Mr. Netanyahu has rebuffed the prospect for now.
Mr. Netanyahu said last week, after much of the construction and razing in Rafah was already in progress, that Israel was “on the eve of a forceful entry to Gaza.”
Riley Mellen contributed reporting.
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3) Israeli Strikes Kill Dozens in Gaza, Health Ministry Says
Israel has threatened to escalate its military campaign against Hamas, despite a U.S.-backed push for the two sides to agree a new cease-fire.
By Aaron Boxerman, Reporting from Jerusalem, May 15, 2025
The aftermath of an Israeli military strike on northern Gaza on Thursday. Credit...Bashar Taleb/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Dozens were killed in Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip on Thursday, the territory’s health ministry said, in another powerful wave of attacks that came as Israel threatened to intensify its campaign.
Dozens more were injured in the attacks, according to the ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Israel has threatened a significant military escalation in the coming days unless Hamas lays down its arms and frees the remaining hostages it holds. But the Palestinian armed group has rejected Israel’s conditions, demanding an end to the war and a full Israeli withdrawal in exchange for releasing the captives.
The Trump administration is seeking to broker an end to the war, but U.S.-backed attempts to push Israel and Hamas to agree to a new cease-fire remain deadlocked. Israel’s campaign began after the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and about 250 people taken to Gaza as hostages.
Israel’s subsequent military campaign against Hamas has killed more than 50,000 people, including thousands of children, according to Gaza health officials. Gaza’s health ministry said that more than 50 people had been killed in the latest strikes. Despite its immense toll, the war has failed to either decisively subdue Hamas or free all of the hostages.
Over the weekend, the United States and Hamas reached a separate agreement to free Edan Alexander, the last American hostage left alive in Gaza, effectively bypassing Israel. President Trump wrote on social media that he hoped it would be the “first of those final steps necessary to end this brutal conflict.”
Israeli negotiators traveled to Qatar this week for the latest round of indirect cease-fire talks with Hamas to free the remaining hostages. The following day, the office of Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said he had spoken with Steve Witkoff, Mr. Trump’s Middle East envoy, as well as the Israeli negotiating team.
But an Israeli official familiar with the talks said there was little expectation of a breakthrough. The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, spoke on condition of anonymity.
The Israeli military campaign, however, has not stopped. On Tuesday, Israeli aircraft bombarded the area around the European Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis in an attempt to kill Muhammad Sinwar, one of Hamas’s top leaders in Gaza. Mr. Sinwar’s older brother, Yahya Sinwar, masterminded the Oct. 7 attacks and led Hamas before he was killed by Israeli forces last year.
Neither Israel nor Hamas has publicly commented on the fate of the younger Mr. Sinwar.
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4) Ben & Jerry’s Founder Arrested at Senate Hearing After Protesting War in Gaza
Ben Cohen, a co-founder of the ice cream brand, was among a group that interrupted a Senate hearing on Wednesday, protesting Congress’s funding of Israel’s military.
By Isabella Kwai, May 15, 2025
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/15/us/ben-jerrys-ben-cohen-arrested-rfk-senate-gaza.html
Mr. Cohen and Jerry Greenfield founded Ben & Jerry’s in 1978.Andrew Kelly/Reuters
One of the founders of Ben & Jerry’s, Ben Cohen, was arrested on Wednesday in Washington, D.C., after he interrupted a Senate committee hearing to protest Congress’s funding for Israel’s military as it wages war against Hamas in Gaza.
Mr. Cohen, 74, was among a group of protesters that disrupted a Senate health committee hearing as Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, promoted President Trump’s budget for the next fiscal year.
The protesters shouted and held up signs as Mr. Kennedy was speaking before Capitol Police officers escorted them out, according to a broadcast of the hearing. A video posted by Mr. Cohen on social media showed him being detained by police officers, his hands behind his back.
“I said that Congress is paying to bomb poor kids in Gaza and paying for it by kicking poor kids off Medicaid in the U.S.,” Mr. Cohen can be heard saying in the video he posted. He also called on lawmakers to do more to get food into Gaza, where the United Nations and other aid agencies have said a famine is looming.
“They need to let food to starving kids,” he said.
Mr. Cohen was charged with crowding, obstructing or incommoding, the Capitol Police said in a statement, a misdemeanor that can be punishable by up to 90 days in prison and a $500 fine if convicted.
Six other people were also arrested on charges that included assaulting a police officer and resisting arrest. Mr. Cohen has been released from custody, the police said.
Mr. Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, the two founders of the ice cream brand, have long been outspoken about political issues, including criticizing Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. They gave up most involvement with the company when it was sold to Unilever in 2000, but have remained outspoken, as has the company.
Ben & Jerry’s in 2021 said it would end sales in the Israeli-occupied West Bank because it was “inconsistent” with the company’s values. The co-founders, who are both Jewish, wrote in a 2021 New York Times Opinion essay that they supported the company’s decision.
“As Jewish supporters of the State of Israel, we fundamentally reject the notion that it is antisemitic to question the policies of the State of Israel,” they wrote.
That decision led to backlash in Israel and hurt sales at Unilever, which eventually sold the Ben & Jerry’s business in Israel to a local partner. In March 2024, Unilever said it would spin off its ice cream unit, which includes Ben & Jerry’s, to reduce costs.
Ben & Jerry’s last year sued Unilever over accusations that it had fired the ice cream brand’s chief executive because of its social activism and had censored the ice cream maker’s attempts to express support for Palestinian refugees. Unilever has rejected those claims and called for the suit to be dismissed.
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5) Some Republicans Push to Put School Desegregation Officially in the Past
Louisiana officials want to overturn the remaining federal desegregation orders in their state. They may find allies in the Trump administration.
By Sarah Mervosh, May 16, 2025
The Justice Department dismissed a desegregation order in Plaquemines Parish, La., which had been kept open by mistake. State officials hope others may be lifted. Credit...Kathleen Flynn for The New York Times
Republican leaders in Louisiana are pushing to end the last remnants of federally ordered school desegregation in their state, arguing that the era of racial exclusion is in the past and that the U.S. government has forced burdensome requirements on school districts long enough.
They may have found allies in the Trump administration, as it seeks to slash federal bureaucracy and roll back diversity efforts across the country.
It has been 71 years since the Supreme Court made racially segregated schools illegal in its landmark 1954 ruling, Brown v. Board of Education. Louisiana officials say that federal orders forcing school districts to comply with the decision are outdated and no longer needed, and that the country needs to move on.
Civil rights advocates see the effort as part of a broader attack on Black students and civil rights under the Trump administration, at a time when U.S. schools are only growing more segregated.
Nationally, more than 300 desegregation orders are estimated to still be on the books from the 1960s and 1970s, when school districts resistant to integration were put under the supervision of federal courts. In the decades since, many orders have gone dormant, with little federal enforcement.
In Louisiana, one of several Southern states with the bulk of remaining orders, the attorney general, with the support of the governor, is reviewing orders statewide and has vowed to work with school districts to “officially put the past in the past.”
The Justice Department has already dismissed one order, in a district south of New Orleans, which was left open for decades by mistake. Federal officials are open to lifting others.
“I don’t think it serves the interest of justice to have ancient consent decrees out there,” said Harmeet K. Dhillon, the assistant attorney general over civil rights under President Trump, who said her office would consider requests for dismissal on a case-by-case basis.
“It is 2025,” Ms. Dhillon said. “I haven’t heard a recent claim that there is government mandated segregation happening in 2025 in a school district.” She added: “If it’s happening, it’s wrong.”
The Supreme Court has said that school desegregation orders were meant to be temporary, and over the years, many have been lifted, usually after a district showed it had made efforts to desegregate.
Civil rights advocates fear any rollback of desegregation orders would harm Black students, at a moment when the Trump administration has been campaigning against programs meant to help them, including diversity, equity and inclusion practices.
The administration is invoking Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on race, color and national origin and which has historically been used to protect minority groups, to threaten and investigate school districts with certain D.E.I. policies.
President Trump also issued new guidance on school discipline, instructing schools to look at behavior alone, without taking into account racial disparities in punishment. He has ordered the federal government more broadly to stop considering “disparate impact,” which is when a seemingly race-neutral policy has different outcomes for different demographic groups.
“You have an administration that denies the past and wants to tell a singular story about America and this country that erases this racial inequality,” said Janel George, an associate law professor at Georgetown, who focuses on racial equity in education.
In many cases, school districts are still under federal oversight because they never proved that they desegregated, said GeDá Jones Herbert, chief legal counsel for Brown’s Promise, a group that supports school integration. An open desegregation order is a legal tool for students to take a district back to court “and say, ‘hey they are still not doing what they need to do,’” she added.
Decades of research have shown that racially integrated schools improve academic and life outcomes for Black students, with no measurable harm to white students. That is largely because integration allows students of color to share in resources that white students already have.
Liz Murrill, the Louisiana attorney general, argued the answer is not to keep school desegregation orders open for decades. She said many orders in her state had been dormant for 30 or 40 years, and others had racked up expensive legal bills for school districts.
If a district is engaging in discriminatory practices today, she said, “you file a new lawsuit for a new problem.”
In what Louisiana officials hope will be the first of many dismissals, the Trump administration lifted a desegregation order in Plaquemines Parish, south of New Orleans, last month, addressing what it called a “historical wrong.”
In 1975, a judge ruled that the district had sufficiently desegregated. But the case remained open, lost in a bureaucratic shuffle.
The dismissal came as a relief to school officials, who had recently been dealing with reams of federal paperwork on everything from the number of Advanced Placement classes at each school to the racial makeup of athletic clubs, said Shelley Ritz, the superintendent. “It was binders on top of binders,” she said.
That doesn’t mean there still isn’t important work to do, Dr. Ritz said.
Plaquemines Parish in many ways exemplifies the lingering debates around school desegregation, whether the country has done enough to remedy the harms of the past and how much schools should be held responsible for factors outside of their direct control.
The Justice Department took the Plaquemines Parish school district to court in 1966, a time when Leander Perez, a prominent segregationist, ruled the region. He was a towering political figure who opposed the integration of Ruby Bridges and other Black students in New Orleans and helped open all-white private academies in Plaquemines Parish.
His legacy lives on in infamy in a communal history that has been passed down over generations, said Dione Griffin-Cossé, 56, who attended an all-Black school in Plaquemines Parish in the 1970s and ’80s and still lives in the area.
Still, the news of the order’s end surprised her and some others, who said they thought the time of desegregation had already passed. “To me, that’s long gone,” she said.
Today, the Plaquemines Parish school district is racially mixed, with a student body that is about 50 percent white, 25 percent Black, 12 percent Hispanic and 5 percent Asian. Many of the individual schools are themselves relatively diverse. But the bulk of white students attend schools on the north side, in a more populated area close to New Orleans.
That is largely the result of housing patterns, Dr. Ritz said.
Plaquemines Parish lies at the tip of Louisiana’s boot, in an area prone to flooding. The southern part of the district is at especially high risk. There, families are poorer, and students are largely Black or Hispanic.
Across the country, Black and Hispanic students are most likely to attend high poverty schools, which research shows is a driving factor in the country’s wide gaps in academic achievement. That’s also the case in Plaquemines Parish, which ranks among the best in the state for student growth and achievement, but where students in the southern end of the district still post lower test scores.
Dr. Ritz pointed to a number of investments the district had made to help attract qualified teachers to lower-income schools on the southern end. That includes opening day care centers for the children of employees and subsidizing apartments for teachers. “We are truly committed to every student in Plaquemines,” Dr. Ritz said.
The Supreme Court endorsed the idea that schools should not be on the hook for housing segregation in a series of rulings dating to the 1970s that set off a gradual unwinding of desegregation efforts across the country.
In 1974, during a period of fierce public pushback to the busing of students, the Supreme Court made its first major turn away from mandated integration.
The case involved a plan to integrate students from Detroit, which was majority Black, with its surrounding suburbs, which were predominantly white. The court ruled that schools did not have to desegregate across district lines, even if the result was segregation.
The case would limit efforts to integrate outside of the South, where desegregation occurred at schools within individual districts.
Then in 1991, the court ruled that districts already under federal court order could be released if they had addressed segregation “as far as practicable,” though segregation may still remain as a result of private residential choices.
The new efforts to roll back remaining desegregation orders may simply signal the official end of a movement that peaked long ago.
U.S. schools have only grown more segregated in recent decades, in part because of the lifting of desegregation orders, but also because of the rise of charter schools, according to research by professors Sean Reardon of Stanford University and Ann Owens of the University of Southern California.
Today, schools are more segregated than they were in the late 1980s.
“The country has just sort of decided that segregation is not a problem that it wants to focus on,” Dr. Reardon said.
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6) New Jersey Transit Strike Leaves Commuters Searching for Rides
A walkout by engineers was causing disruptions for tens of thousands in the New York metropolitan region. Commuters raced to find other ways into New York City and beyond, but alternatives were costly.
By Patrick McGeehan and Matthew Haag, May 16, 2025
![[object Object]](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2025/05/16/multimedia/16njtransit-strike-caro-846am-bmkz/16njtransit-strike-caro-846am-bmkz-verticalTwoByThree735.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp)
The first statewide transit strike in New Jersey in more than 40 years began just after midnight Friday when about 450 unionized locomotive engineers walked off their jobs in a pay dispute, shutting down New Jersey Transit’s rail network.
Some commuters showed up at NJ Transit rail stations on Friday morning unaware of the shutdown, while others rushed to find different modes of transportation into New York City and beyond for work. Tens of thousands of commuters ride the trains on a typical workday.
They scrambled to take ferries, NJ Transit buses and charter bus services. Amtrak was an option for passengers in some areas of New Jersey but at a steep cost. Some commuters in Trenton said they could not afford a one-way ticket of up to $118 into the New York City metropolitan region, about six times the cost of a NJ Transit rail ticket. (Later in the morning, some Amtrak fares posted online were lower.)
Members of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen began picketing early Friday. Mark Wallace, the union’s national president, said Thursday: “They have money for penthouse views and pet projects, just not for their frontline workers. Enough is enough. We will stay out until our members receive the fair pay that they deserve.”
Kris Kolluri, the chief executive of NJ Transit, said at a news conference late Thursday that he would return to the bargaining table at any time. “This is not a lost cause,” he said. “This is an eminently achievable deal.”
Gov. Philip D. Murphy said the agency’s offer to the union “would have given their members almost exactly what they asked for.”
Here’s what we’re covering:
· Working from home: NJ Transit urged rail commuters whose presence at their workplaces was not essential to work from home during the strike. Some big employers in New York, like Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, gave workers temporary permission to work remotely or said they would consider providing flexibility.
· Bus service: NJ Transit’s statewide bus system continued to operate as scheduled. The agency hired private buses to substitute for its train service, but they will start running on Monday, and Mr. Kolluri said that the chartered buses could accommodate only about 20 percent of the displaced train riders. There is no supplemental bus service on Friday.
· Using your tickets: Commuters who already have NJ Transit rail tickets and passes to or from New York, Newark or Hoboken may use those tickets on NJ Transit’s existing buses routes and light rail lines. But they will not be cross-honored on other carriers, including Amtrak, PATH ferries and private carrier buses.
· Pay dispute: The union says its members want parity in wages with their counterparts who work for the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North Railroad. Mr. Kolluri said an offer the union voted down in March would have raised the average annual pay of full-time engineers to $172,000 from $135,000. But Mr. Haas said those figures were inflated.
· Picket lines: The union planned to have picket lines at Penn Station in New York, at NJ Transit’s headquarters in Newark and at the train station in Atlantic City.
· Sports and concerts: NJ Transit also carries fans to concerts and sporting events at the Prudential Center in Newark and MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J. Before the midnight deadline, the agency had already canceled service to MetLife for Shakira’s concerts on Thursday and Friday nights.
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7) Judge to Press Trump Administration Over Return of Wrongly Deported Man
Justice Department lawyers are scheduled to appear in Federal District Court in Maryland to defend their latest effort to avoid disclosing details about several key aspects of the proceeding.
By Alan Feuer, May 16, 2025
The federal courthouse in Greenbelt, Md. The Justice Department has argued that many of details of the deportation case involving Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia should not be made public because they amount to state secrets. Credit...Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times
It has been more than a month since the Supreme Court ordered the White House to work toward securing the release of a Maryland man who was wrongfully deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador in March.
Top administration officials — including President Trump himself — have repeatedly said that the man, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, will not be coming back to the United States, largely because of accusations that he is a member of the violent street gang MS-13.
Their public statements have raised significant questions about whether the administration is openly defying the Supreme Court’s instructions — and what, if anything, might be done about that.
But even as those weighty issues simmer in the background, the White House is confronting a more immediate concern: whether it has been abiding by a separate court order to answer questions about the way it has been handling the case.
On Friday, lawyers for the Justice Department are scheduled to appear in Federal District Court in Maryland to defend their latest effort to avoid disclosing details about several key aspects of the proceeding. Those include the diplomatic steps that officials have taken in the past few weeks toward releasing Mr. Abrego Garcia, as well as the nature of the deal between the White House and the Salvadoran government to house deported immigrants in its jails.
The Justice Department has argued that many of those details should not be made public because they amount to state secrets. In fact, in a declaration filed last week mostly under seal, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the disclosure of such material “could be expected to cause significant harm to the foreign relations and national security interests of the United States.”
Lawyers for Mr. Abrego Garcia have scoffed at the idea that the government’s efforts to free their client from El Salvador should be considered a state secret, especially given that Mr. Trump and some of his top aides have been talking publicly about the man for weeks.
“On its face, there is little reason to believe that compliance with a court order to facilitate the release and return of a single mistakenly removed individual so that he can get his day in court implicates state secrets at all,” the lawyers wrote in a court filing this week. “No military or intelligence operations are involved, and it defies reason to imagine that the United States’ relationship with El Salvador would be endangered by any effort to seek the return of a wrongfully deported person who the government admits never should have been removed to El Salvador in the first place.”
Judge Paula Xinis, who is presiding over the proceeding, will hear both sides of this debate on Friday and eventually determine whether to let the government use what is known as the state secrets privilege and other legal protections to keep its internal deliberations under wraps. The hearing in front of her could become contentious, if only because the administration has for weeks been stonewalling her efforts to get to the bottom of how it has been handling the Abrego Garcia case.
In early April, for example, the judge determined that the White House had failed to comply with the Supreme Court’s instructions to “facilitate” Mr. Abrego Garcia’s release from Salvadoran custody. As an initial remedy, she ordered the government to provide her with daily updates about what steps it had taken and planned to take to secure Mr. Abrego Garcia’s freedom.
Then, after a federal appeals court directed officials to take a more proactive role in getting him out of custody, Judge Xinis opened an investigation into what exactly the administration had been doing. As part of that inquiry, she ordered Trump officials to answer questions — both in person and in writing — about the deal they had reached to house deported immigrants in El Salvador and what had been done to free Mr. Abrego Garcia from the notorious mega-prison there known as CECOT.
But that process also broke down and Judge Xinis quickly blasted the government for what she called its “willful and bad faith refusal” to adequately answer the questions. Just as she appeared to be losing patience, the Justice Department asked her for a pause in the question-asking process, suggesting there had been a diplomatic development that justified a seven-day delay.
The New York Times reported that around that time, officials at the State Department had sent a note to their counterparts in El Salvador inquiring about having Mr. Abrego Garcia released, but El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, rejected the offer.
In the end, Judge Xinis granted the Justice Department’s request for a delay, but denied department lawyers when they asked her for a second weeklong pause. Last week, finally faced with having to answer questions about the case, department lawyers countered with their latest legal maneuver: an invocation of the state secrets privilege.
It was not the first time that the administration tried the same tactic in a deportation case.
In late March, the Justice Department invoked the state secrets privilege in an effort to avoid providing data to a federal judge in Washington about three charter planes that flew to El Salvador that month carrying Mr. Abrego Garcia and scores of other immigrants.
The judge in that case, James E. Boasberg, wanted the data in an effort to determine whether the government had flouted his order to turn the planes around. Judge Boasberg’s investigation into the White House’s compliance with his ruling was temporarily put on hold last month by the federal appeals court that sits over him.
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8) Trump Says ‘a Lot of People Are Starving’ in Gaza and the U.S. Wants to Help
Humanitarian support has collapsed in the enclave, which has been under total Israeli blockade for more than two months. Aid groups warn that the territory is on the brink of famine.
By Luke Broadwater and Erika Solomon, May 16, 2025
"Israel has declared about 70 percent of the enclave to be either “no go” zones or under evacuation orders."
Luke Broadwater from Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates; and Erika Solomon reported from Berlin.
President Trump said on Friday that “a lot of people are starving” in the Gaza Strip under an Israeli blockade preventing aid deliveries, adding that the U.S. wanted to help alleviate the suffering.
“We’re going to handle a couple of situations that you have here,” Mr. Trump said, speaking in the United Arab Emirates on the last leg of his visit to three Persian Gulf nations this week. “We’re looking at Gaza, and we got to get that taken care of. A lot of people are starving. A lot of people. There’s a lot of bad things going on.”
Aid groups have warned for weeks that the population of Gaza is on the brink of famine, and some Israeli military officials have begun to privately express concerns over the risk of starvation in the territory, 19 months after the war there began.
On top of the total siege it has imposed on Gaza for more than two months, Israel has escalated its military campaign in recent days. Strikes on Friday killed more than 100 people, according to Gaza’s health ministry, a day after Israeli bombardment forced the closure of one of the enclave’s major hospitals.
The Trump administration had long remained largely silent on Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza. Gulf Arab leaders who met with Mr. Trump during his trip to the region this week seized on the opportunity to address that stance after scoring a remarkable turnaround on Syria, when the president announced on the first day of the visit that he would lift sanctions on the country.
Mr. Trump emerged from his trip to the Middle East with a more sympathetic tone on Gaza — a notable shift given his longstanding close relationship with the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu.
Unlike his predecessor, Joe Biden, whose administration had criticized Israel’s conduct and threatened to halt some military aid, Mr. Trump had shown considerable support for Israel’s aggressive military campaign. Early in his presidency, Mr. Trump had even suggested the idea of removing all Palestinians from Gaza to make way for a luxury waterfront development.
Boarding Air Force One on Friday, Mr. Trump told reporters that the United States must take action on the Gaza crisis. He was en route home after the first major state visit of his second term, which took him to Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
“I think a lot of good things are going to happen over the next month ,” Mr. Trump said. “We have to help also out the Palestinians,” he added, noting that the United States would look at both sides of the issue. “We’ll do a good job,” he said.
Mr. Trump, who was greeted throughout his visit with lavish welcomes, enjoyed boisterous applause and even a standing ovation at some points in his first speech in Riyadh, where he addressed a gathering of business leaders.
The one point when his speech was met with stark silence was when he expressed a “fervent wish” that Saudi Arabia join the Abraham Accords, the 2020 deal in which two of its neighbors established diplomatic relations with Israel.
Polling has shown that the normalization of relations with the Israeli government is deeply unpopular among Saudis, especially since the war in Gaza, which has killed more than 50,000 people and reduced vast swathes of the enclave to rubble. Saudi officials say that recognizing Israel would hinge on the creation of a Palestinian state.
Gulf Arab leaders, aware of the symbolic potency of the Palestinian plight for their people, sought to change Mr. Trump’s rhetoric on Gaza. Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, the emir of Qatar, asked Mr. Trump to use American leverage to bring about peace in Gaza and end the killing.
Israel started its total blockade on March 2. For more than 70 days, it has barred the entry of food, water and other supplies while cases of malnutrition and disease are spiraling.
Israel says it is aiming to force Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that dominates Gaza, to accept new cease-fire conditions after a two-month truce fell apart. It also wants to secure the release of the remaining hostages held in Gaza since the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which set off the war.
Israel has been threatening to escalate its military campaign in Gaza even further and recently stepped up the intensity of deadly military strikes.
The United Nations-backed body that monitors starvation conditions in the world warned this week that Gaza is at “critical risk of famine,” saying that 100 percent of the enclave’s two million residents face a malnutrition crisis.
The conditions in Gaza have spurred the creation of an aid group with backing from the Trump administration, called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. The new group appears to have come in response to a plan that Israeli and U.S. officials have been working on in recent weeks, which involves distribution zones for food that would have Israeli forces stationed outside their perimeters.
That is similar to what the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation described as its plan for establishing a new system for aid to flow into the territory, in agreement with Israel.
The foundation said it would set up a number of distribution centers where Gazans could pick up food, hygiene kits and other humanitarian support, though it did not mention Israeli forces.
The U.S.-Israeli plan has been met with widespread skepticism from established humanitarian groups and U.N. agencies, which argue that the system could force sick or older Gazans into long and dangerous treks for aid.
Vowing not to join the effort, the United Nations also warned that the foundation’s distribution system could become a means for forced displacement, as most centers were expected to be in the southern part of the enclave. More than 90 percent of Gazans have been displaced in the war, many of them multiple times.
Israel has declared about 70 percent of the enclave to be either “no go” zones or under evacuation orders.
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9) Napalm Girl’ Was in the Photo. But Who Was Behind the Camera?
Questions about the credit for a famous photograph from the Vietnam War have divided the photojournalism community for months.
By Benjamin Mullin, May 16, 2025
The Associated Press is continuing to credit this Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph from 1972 to Nick Ut. Credit...Nick Ut/Associated Press
The photo is indelible, and its importance unmistakable: a Vietnamese girl burned by napalm, naked and screaming, her arms outstretched in despair. It drove home the consequences of the Vietnam War to readers in the United States, where it won a Pulitzer Prize.
But who took the photo, widely known as Napalm Girl? That is the question dividing the photojournalism community 53 years after it was taken.
The image, from a road in the village of Trang Bang, Vietnam, has been credited to Nick Ut, a photographer who worked for The Associated Press. In the decades since, Mr. Ut has repeatedly talked publicly, in interviews and elsewhere, about his role in capturing the photo and his later friendship with its subject, Kim Phuc Phan Thi.
Yet a documentary that premiered early this year, “The Stringer,” set off investigations into the creator of the image. The film argues that a freelance photographer took the image, and that an Associated Press photo editor misattributed it to Mr. Ut.
On Friday, the World Press Photo Foundation, a prominent international nonprofit, weighed in. It said a monthslong investigation had found that two other photojournalists “may have been better positioned to take the photograph than Nick Ut.”
Mr. Ut’s lawyer, James Hornstein, has repeatedly disputed the film’s claims and called them “defamatory.” He said in a statement that the World Press Photo decision was “deplorable and unprofessional” and “reveals how low the organization has fallen.” Mr. Hornstein declined to make Mr. Ut available for an interview.
The Associated Press, after spending nearly a year investigating, said this month that it would continue to credit the photo to Mr. Ut. A lengthy report from the investigation said he could have taken the photo, and cites evidence to support that position, but concluded that no proof had been found. It also says other photographers could have taken the photo.
“As our report explains in great detail, there’s simply not enough hard evidence or fact to remove the credit from Nick Ut, and it’s impossible for anyone to know with certainty how exactly things played out on the road in the space of a few minutes over half a century ago,” said Derl McCrudden, The A.P.’s vice president and head of global news production.
The controversy over the photo, officially titled “The Terror of War,” began when “The Stringer” premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January. The film, directed by Bao Nguyen, followed Gary Knight, a journalist, as he investigated a claim from a former A.P. photo editor, Carl Robinson, who said he was ordered to misattribute the photo to Mr. Ut in 1972. The end of the film shows Mr. Knight writing a message claiming that Nguyen Thanh Nghe, a freelance photographer, took the photo.
In an interview for this article, Mr. Nguyen said, “People need to have an open mind, need to see the film and all of the forensic reports and judge for themselves where the truth lies in this story.”
The attention to the film produced a quick and immediate pushback from Mr. Ut’s lawyer. It also led The Associated Press to release an earlier report in the days leading up to the premiere, saying, “The A.P. has no reason to believe anyone other than Ut took the photo.”
The Associated Press took a closer look at the issue after reviewing the film. The much longer report, released this month, reconstructed the scene using satellite imagery and photos on file from the day.
Both Mr. Ut’s lawyer and the filmmakers behind “The Stringer” said the Associated Press report bolstered their arguments. Mr. Knight said the filmmakers were “more confident after the A.P. report that our reporting is strong and reliable than even before.” Mr. Hornstein said in an interview that the report “makes quite clear that the film, which calls itself a documentary, fails to meet documentary film standards.”
“Both A.P. reports list very strong evidence that Nick Ut took the photo, including every eyewitness on the road that day other than Mr. Nghe,” Mr. Hornstein said. He added that living eyewitnesses from the A.P. offices and written testimony by now-deceased A.P. staff members also supported Mr. Ut’s credit.
The filmmakers behind “The Stringer” are updating the film to incorporate new developments. They’re also in negotiations for worldwide distribution.
Even though World Press Photo is acknowledging doubts about who took the photo, the organization is not stripping “The Terror of War” of its “Photo of the Year” award, which it conferred in 1973, its chief executive, Joumana El Zein Khoury, said in an interview. (Christiaan Triebert, a visual investigations reporter at The New York Times, contributed to the review as an independent analyst.)
To remove the award, Ms. Khoury said, the organization would have to be sure Mr. Ut didn’t take the photo, a conclusion that’s impossible to reach all these years later.
“While this may not be a perfect solution,” she said, “I think it’s a thoughtful and principled one.”
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