cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/68320

A family of three, including their 2-year-old child, were killed by US strikes against a residential building in Iran's Qeshm City, according to reports from Iranian media on Thursday.

Videos posted by the official IRNA news agency showed rescue teams searching through rubble for survivors. Two other children, ages 7 and 9, were found wounded in the wreckage and have been transported to the hospital, according to the agency.

The US attack on the building in the neighborhood of Chah Tangu was one of several launched against residential areas across Qeshm Island in the Persian Gulf overnight in what US Central Command (CENTCOM) said were dozens of strikes on Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) sites across the country.

The IRGC said that it would respond to Thursday's strikes by hitting back against the “aggressor." Iranian strikes on sites in Kuwait and Jordan followed shortly after, leading to the death of a worker in a Chinese-owned building in Kuwait. Iran also claimed that its attacks destroyed US aircraft in Jordan, which has not been confirmed.

The wave of US attacks came after Trump vowed on Wednesday to "beat the fucking shit out of" Iran after it fired ballistic missiles toward US troops in Jordan, the first such strike since a brief bombing pause over the weekend. The US also partnered with Saudi Arabia to carry out attacks on Iran-backed militias in Iraq, which reportedly killed 20 fighters and six Iranian advisers.

In a statement on Thursday, CENTCOM said it had "successfully completed a heavy wave of strikes" against Iran "in response to yesterday’s attempted missile attacks on US forces." It did not specify the strategic reason for the strikes on Qeshm or acknowledge the reported civilian casualties.

According to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), at least 254 children have been killed in Iran since the US and Israel launched the war on February 28, among more than 1,700 total civilians.

Iran has reported that at least 383 children, including seven infants, had been killed over the course of the war, prior to the resumption of attacks in July. With Thursday’s attacks, at least three more children have been killed since the conflict resumed this month.

Many of those casualties include at least 123 children killed by US strikes on the Shajareh Tayyebeh elementary school in Minab on the first day of the war. Earlier this month, Trump declined to release the findings of a Pentagon investigation into the massacre, saying it would be impossible to ever determine who was at fault.

Since restarting the war earlier this month, the US has focused its attacks on southern Iran in areas near the Strait of Hormuz, where Iran has once again functionally blocked travel, despite US demands for unrestricted travel through the waterway, which carried around a fifth of the global oil supply before the war.

Trump's continued escalation comes as Americans are overwhelmingly skeptical of the war. A CNN poll released Wednesday showed that 67% of Americans believe Trump's military actions have "hurt the US" by causing oil prices to spike. Nearly three-quarters of Americans believe Trump does not “have a clear plan for handling the situation in Iran,” according to the poll.

From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/67142

Kyle DavidsonMichigan Advance

Two state agencies charged with overseeing Michigan’s natural resources and the environment have approved another set of permits for Enbridge’s Line 5 tunnel project, pushing the Canadian energy company closer to the full approval needed to begin construction.

The Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy announced Wednesday that it had reapproved a set of permits that expired earlier this year, concerning wetlands resources and the Great Lakes submerged lands. It follows a 2024 agreement between Enbridge, EGLE and the Bay Mills Indian Community, where the company agreed to redo its Part 303 and 325 permits to incorporate new wetland survey results.

The Department of Natural Resources also approved a Part 365 permit, which will require Enbridge to take steps to reduce its impacts on rare plants and animals while constructing the tunnel.

This map shows the proposed tunnel and the existing dual pipelines crossing the Straits of Mackinac. | (Screenshot from the MPSC Line 5 Issue Brief)

Great Lakes Tribal Nations and environmental advocates have called on state officials to shut down Line 5 for years. The controversial pipeline runs from Superior, Wisconsin to Sarnia, Ontario, with a 4.5-mile segment of dual pipelines running through the Straits of Mackinac, where Lake Michigan and Lake Huron meet.

Opponents, including Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, have repeatedly raised concerns about the threat of an oil spill in the straits, with the Oil and Water Don’t Mix Coalition arguing that taxpayers could be left on the hook for $4 billion should Line 5 rupture.

In 2018, Line 5 was damaged by a boat anchor dragged along the bottom of the straits, which dented the dual pipelines in three places. Enbridge later agreed to replace the dual pipelines with a new segment housed within a utility tunnel beneath the lakebed.

While Enbridge says the tunnel project will mitigate risks around future anchor strikes and an oil spill, Line 5 opponents are continuing to advocate for a shutdown, arguing the geological conditions of the lakebed are not stable for drilling, and that the construction process could also result in the release of oil or natural gas liquids from the existing pipeline.

Environmental advocates havepointed to the release of 1,900 gallons of drilling fluid amid Enbridge’s effort to reroute Line 5 in Wisconsin as further evidence of their concerns, arguing the release is in violation of waterway and wetland permit conditions.

Opponents say major legal hurdles remain

The project is still awaiting approval from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and another permit, which would allow Enbridge to discharge up to 6 million gallons of treated wastewater into the Great Lakes each day as the company builds the tunnel, remains under EGLE review.

Another major permit, issued by the Michigan Public Service Commission, is under review by the Michigan Supreme Court following a challenge from the Bay Mills Indian Community, Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians, and Nottawaseppi Huron Band of the Potawatomi and several environmental advocacy groups.

Debbie Chizewer, a managing attorney for Earthjustice, which represents the Bay Mills Indian Community, told Michigan Advance they expect to appeal the EGLE permits, as they have done previously.

Whitney Gravelle, president of the Bay Mills Indian Community, called the permitting decision a betrayal.

“The Straits of Mackinac, the sacred place where my Tribe’s creation story begins, have been handed over to a foreign corporation with a history that is nothing short of disastrous,” Gravelle said in a statement. “Enbridge has spilled oil, committed safety violations, trespassed on lands, shattered ecosystems, pierced aquifers, violated our laws, and repeatedly shown contempt for tribal sovereignty. They have left devastation in their wake, and now they’re being rewarded with responsibility over one of the most precious and sacred resources in our state. The Great Lakes are not safe in their hands.”

In a press release announcing the permitting decision, EGLE said its 16-month review of the permit “concluded that the public and private need for the proposed activity outweighed other public interest criteria.”

Critics call permits a betrayal

Following the decision, several environmental advocacy organizations criticized Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and her administration, arguing the governor had softened her stance on the pipeline after pledging to take action against Line 5 in her 2018 campaign for governor.

As governor, Whitmer has authority over EGLE and the DNR and the final say on how or if these projects move forward, Beth Wallace, the climate and energy director for the National Wildlife Federation, told the Advance Thursday.

“EGLE has once again approved a set of permits where they have failed to consider or even look at the harm that is going to be caused from the actual construction of the pipeline,” Wallace said. “Enbridge and Governor Whitmer have allowed a permit to move forward that only looks at shoreline impacts in the wetlands from them starting the construction.”

State Rep. Betsy Coffia, a Democrat from Traverse City, also voiced her discontent with the decision in a Facebook post, where she spoke out against Whitmer’s appearance with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman at a groundbreaking for the Saline Township data center, and her decision to veto nine bills passed at the end of 2024, when Democrats held the majority in both the House and Senate.

“I am especially grieved by this profound disrespect to our tribal nations who have been on the front lines on this case for years, fighting to protect our precious Great Lakes,” Coffia said. “Let’s be honest. Michigan government does not have a good track record of keeping our word with our Native brothers and sisters and today is a shameful new chapter in that betrayal to both the tribes and the precious, Great Lakes waters, they have protected for generations.”

Wallace similarly pointed to the governor’s support for data center development.

“You saw yesterday that she has come up with a pledge for data centers to do the right thing, and we’re seeing very much in this moment that those types of commitments have fallen very short and are very shallow, and we actually need leaders to demand better and uphold our laws instead of taking pledges from the corporations,” Wallace said.

Whitmer’s office did not respond to several requests for comment left through text message and voicemail. This story will be updated if a response is received.

While the department’s decision dealt a clear blow to those advocating against the pipeline, Enbridge spokesperson Ryan Duffy said the permits were an important step forward for the project.

“We are reviewing the new permit conditions issued today to assess any impacts on tunnel construction,” Duffy said in a statement Wednesday evening.

The Great Lakes Michigan Jobs coalition, which consists of several business, industry and labor groups, also cheered the permit approvals.

“Union members across the Upper Peninsula back the Tunnel because it protects the Great Lakes, creates and supports great jobs and great paychecks, and it’s a big part of our energy mix,” Mike Smith, the executive director of the UP Construction Council, said in a statement. “Today’s news represents just one more important step on that path, and we’re eager for regulators to give every green light needed to start construction.”

In 2022, an Enbridge consultant determined a shutdown of the pipeline would result in a half-cent-per-gallon increase on gas, jet fuel and diesel in Michigan and Wisconsin, and a 5-cent-per-gallon increase in Ontario.

3:03 pm — This story has been updated after a previous version misstated the amount of drilling fluid spilled.

The post Tribes, environmental advocates decry Michigan’s approval of Line 5 permits appeared first on ICT.

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cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/66903

This story is published through the Indigenous News Alliance.

Indigenous communities around the world face mounting, and colliding, impacts from climate change, violence, rising threats from artificial intelligence, and many other crises. Their leaders are demanding that the world take action, and they’ve given the United Nations a 12-point plan for what they say it must do.

Simply put, their proposal calls on the U.N. and governments around the world to take sweeping and rapid action to protect Indigenous land, rights, and lives.

“Our communities — our women, our children, our families — they have a right to action and that’s what we’re not seeing globally,” said Cora McGuire-Cyrette, who is a member of the Bingwi Neyaashi Anishinaabek and spoke on behalf of the Ontario Native Women’s Association. “We’re looking for action.”

Last week, the seven Indigenous members of the United Nations Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, or EMRIP, finalized the proposal it will present to the U.N. Human Rights Council. But even as the recommendations generated hope for change, the financial crisis facing EMRIP cast a shadow over the proceedings. Many delegates expressed concerns about the future of the forum, and other hard-won international platforms for Indigenous voices.

Given the scale of threats Indigenous peoples face, these forums are more important than ever, said Sheryl Lightfoot, who is Anishinaabe and serves as EMRIP’s North America region expert.  “There’s clearly no shortage of work,” she said.

The breadth of the 12 recommendations reflects that urgency, calling for stronger protections for Indigenous cultures and rights and a greater voice in global affairs.

One recommendation sought greater protections for remote Indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation or initial contact. Others stressed the need to preserve Indigenous languages and data sovereignty.

Delegates also argued that the legal standing of Indigenous peoples must be strengthened by recognizing their rights as distinct from broader human rights and by fully implementing the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. They also called on the U.N. to increase Indigenous participation within the Human Rights Council and encourage member states to engage more fully with EMRIP.

Albert Barume is the U.N. special rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous peoples and EMRIP’s former chairperson. He told the delegates about what he called a widespread trend of “stagnation and regression” for human rights. “In the last years,” he said, “almost no single states have taken a new measure protecting Indigenous peoples’ rights. And states that had legal and policy frameworks are actively dismantling and regressing.”

Macy Duxfield, who is Māori and belongs to the Ngaa Rauru, Te Ātihaunui-a-Papārangi, and Ngāi Tahu nations, described Aotearoa New Zealand’s policies toward Indigenous peoples as regressive. But she reminds herself of the continual work that’s still needed to overcome the challenges her people face. “We exist in this moment,” she said. “We’ve inherited the work from our ancestors, and we pass it on to our descendants.”

McGuire-Cyrette and others also reminded delegates about the importance of greater autonomy for Indigenous women and girls. “We recommend the inclusion of Indigenous women in all decisions that impact our lives, our families, and our nations,” McGuire-Cyrette said.

But even as Indigenous delegates try to use international forums to fight for change, those mechanisms are in danger. EMRIP is among the three U.N. bodies focused on Indigenous peoples — along with the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues and the special rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous peoples. All three agencies face an uncertain future due to dwindling financial support.

Marjolaine Étienne, who is Innu from the Pekuakamiulnuatsh community of Mashteuiatsh in Quebec, told delegates the U.N. Voluntary Fund for Indigenous Peoples needs greater support. The program helps Indigenous representatives cover the costs of attending international meetings. The number of representatives the fund supports is already perilously low, she said. Without greater state contributions, fewer delegates will be able to attend those forums, sidelining them from the international stage.

Just eight countries contribute to the fund, and its budget is less than $2 million. Only three countries contributed to the U.N. Trust Fund for Indigenous Peoples. The United States does not contribute to either of them.

“The liquidity crisis must not be used as an excuse to limit the mandate of EMRIP and to reduce the frequency or depth of country engagements or follow-up,” McGuire-Cyrette said.

Lightfoot acknowledged there is widespread uncertainty within EMRIP and all U.N. bodies amid the agency-wide reform effort known as UN80. But she said EMRIP is preparing for whatever happens. “There are a lot of unanswered questions right now” about the reforms, she said, “and what the impacts of that might be for Indigenous-specific mechanisms.”

“I don’t know where we’re going,” she said. “I don’t know what kind of efficiencies the U.N. will ask of us. But I know we are thinking it through because we want to be ready to respond.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Indigenous leaders give the UN a roadmap for protecting their peoples on Jul 24, 2026.

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cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/67073

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday announced actions to tighten and accelerate the illegal occupation and colonization of the West Bank after a Palestinian defending his village from rampaging settlers fatally shot two Israelis—whose companions killed four Palestinians in response—while other members of Netanyahu's government called for more ethnic cleansing in Palestine.

Residents of Tell—located 3 miles southwest of Nablus and less than 2 miles from the illegal Israeli settlement of Havat Gilad—said settlers attacked homes on the outskirts of the town at around 8:30 on Friday morning.

According to The Times of Israel, a group of several dozen settlers invaded the village under the pretense of going on a hike. However, as the newspaper noted, Tell is located in an area of the occupied West Bank that is off limits to Israelis unless they obtain permission from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), which the military said they did not do.

Local Palestinian leader Essam Saifi told Reuters that settlers attacked the eastern ⁠part of Tell and tried to break into ⁠homes there. When residents emerged to confront the settlers, the intruders opened fire on them before leaving.

Backed by IDF troops, the settlers returned around half an hour later. Video recorded by one of the settlers shows an Israeli firing his gun in the air while his companions, who included minors, shout threats while other settlers stormed local residents' land. A Palestinian man snatched a long gun from a member of the Havat Gilad local security squad and shot him and an IDF major, mortally wounding both men.

Israelis returned fire, killing four Palestinians, including the shooter, and wounding four others. IDF commandos later raided a hospital in Nablus and seized two of the wounded Palestinians.

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that "this massacre represents a renewed image of the ongoing Nakba to which our Palestinian people are subjected," a reference to the ethnic cleansing of more than 750,000 Arabs from Palestine by Zionist forces during the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948.

The ministry also condemned "the misleading narratives promoted by the Israeli occupation authorities... in a systematic attempt to turn the executioner into the victim, and to cover up the crimes of murder, field executions, massacres, and grave violations committed by the occupation forces and settler militias against the Palestinian people."

IDF troops subsequently locked down Tell and Nablus while deploying five additional companies to the area and canceling soldiers' weekend furloughs in preparation for imminent "extensive counterterrorism operational activity in the sector.”

Responding to the incident as well as two separate stabbings of Israelis in the West Bank on Thursday, Netanyahu convened a security consultation, which resulted in a joint statement with Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz announcing a tightening of the occupation and acceleration of the colonization of Palestine—both already illegal under international law.

The statement said Israel will demolish the family home of the Palestinian who shot the two Israelis, confiscate arms and revoke work permits of Palestinians in "villages acting as terrorist hubs," reinforce IDF units throughout the occupied territories, expedite the "legalization of farm outposts" and establish new ones, and increase apartheid checkpoints and road separations.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich responded to the incident by calling for the destruction and "evacuation"—a term widely viewed as a euphemism for ethnic cleansing—of local Palestinians "for their own protection."

"This is our appropriate Zionist answer to terrorists and terrorism," Smotrich said.

"We will not normalize the erosion of deterrence and the brazenness of our enemies in recent weeks against the pioneers of settlement and the farms," Smotrich, who chairs the far-right Religious Zionism party, said on social media, "I demand that the IDF act with an iron fist against the village of the murderers and its surroundings and restore governance and deterrence."

Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who leads the far-right Jewish Power party, demanded the Palestinian shooter's town be obliterated like Beit Hanoun in Gaza, where Israeli forces have been waging a war that United Nations officials, legal and academic experts, and around 20 national governments have called a genocide.

"For every Jew murdered, the enemy must suffer the loss of land and homes," Ben-Gvir said. "This is the language spoken in the Middle East, and just as we spoke it in Gaza, it is time to speak it in [the West Bank] as well."

Yair Golan, who heads the opposition Democrats, accused Netanyahu and Katz of "a clear intent to set the area ablaze."

"Every escalation in the field endangers human lives—Israelis and Palestinians alike," he added.

David Zini, the head of Shin Bet, Israel's internal security and counterintelligence agency, urged the Israeli public “not to take the law into their own hands and to place their trust in the IDF and the Shin Bet, whose mission and duty this is.”

Many settlers rejected Zini's call and instead carried out revenge attacks on West Bank towns and villages, reportedly including Madama, Urif, Burin, Far'ata, Jit, Qabalan, Sarra, and others, resulting in multiple injuries.

Meanwhile, settlers mourned the killing of the two slain Israelis, 32-year-old Havat Gilad civil defense squad member Benayahu Mellet and 27-year-old IDF Maj. Yuval Ezra.

Extremist settler Meir Ettinger eulogized Mellet on social media, saying that "he was never satisfied with recognized roads and fences, and strived continuously to conquer the region."

“Benayahu always insisted on not making a distinction between areas C and B," Ettinger added.

Under the moribund Oslo Accords, the West Bank is divided into Areas A, B, and C. Area A is under full Palestinian Authority control, while Area B is under mixed control and Area C is under full Israeli control.

Israeli efforts to expand West Bank settlement activity have accelerated dramatically since the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023. Attacks on West Bank Palestinians, including pogroms carried out by mobs of settlers protected and sometimes joined by Israeli troops, have killed at least 1,111 Palestinians—at least 243 of them children—since October 2023, according to the latest report published by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Israeli officials say 47 Israelis—including IDF troops, security personnel, and civilians—have been killed by Palestinian attacks over the same period.

According to the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, more than 620,000 Jews currently reside in over 130 settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. While Israel grants every Jew in the world the right to settle there, it has—against UN resolutions and international law—refused to allow the approximately 5 million Palestinian refugees alive today to return to their homeland.

B'Tselem is one of 20 Israeli human rights groups that on Friday issued an "urgent call to the international community to take immediate action to stop Israel's violence and prevent pogroms by settler militias and the Israeli army across the West Bank."

From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/66823

For decades, Israel has employed settler violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank as part of its program of ethnic cleansing. However, such violence has sharply increased since the far-right ultra-nationalist government, led by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, came to power in 2022.

While settler violence has affected the entire occupied territory over the last couple of years, it has been heavily concentrated in villages east of Ramallah, including Al-Mughayyir, Turmus Ayya, Deir Dibwan, Deir Jarir, Kufr Malik, Mazraa Al-Sharqiyah, and Khirbet Abu Falah.

A convergence of geographic, political, and strategic factors has made this area one of the primary flashpoints for displacement and the takeover of land in the occupied West Bank.

Ramallah’s eastern countryside overlooks the Jordan Valley to the east and the central West Bank to the west, making it a critical visual and geographical crest.

A continuous chain of Israeli settlements and wildcat outposts were established on the hilltops around these villages in order to isolate Palestinian agricultural communities, cutting them off from their surrounding pasturelands, and connecting infrastructure.

The local economy of villages east of Ramallah remains deeply rooted in traditional rain-fed agriculture, notably olive orchards and livestock grazing. This in turn made the area a target for systematic settler violence during harvest periods, severely undermining the long-term economic viability of the land for indigenous farmers.

The semi-nomadic Bedouin and Palestinian herding communities along the eastern Ramallah slopes have also been systematically targeted by aggressive settler groups, who destroy their crops, seize their animals, block their water supply and attack them physically.

Read more: Paradise lost: a Palestinian farmer on settler violence and dispossession

Three Palestinians killed in villages east of Ramallah in one week

On Sunday, July 19, the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) and illegal settlers launched a coordinated attack against Palestinians in Deir Jarir town, northeast of Ramallah in the central occupied West Bank.

Odah Abdul-Rahim Farakhna (53), and Ahmad Adul-Rashid Abu Mokho (26) were shot dead, while a third person was injured in the assault.

B’Tselem, an Israeli non-profit organization that documents human rights violations committed by Israel in the occupied Palestinian territories, slammed the offensive on Deir Jarir, accusing Israel of promoting ethnic cleansing in the West Bank.

“The killing in Deir Jarir is one example of how Israel promotes ethnic cleansing in the West Bank: settlers invade and steal, while the military and police accompany them and shoot Palestinians who try to protect their homes and property,” Yuli Novak, the executive director of B’Tselem noted.

The deadly attack on Deir Jarir was preceded by another tragic incident in Al-Mughayer village, northeast of Ramallah.

Palestinian footballer Fadi Hamdallah Al-Nasaan (17) died on Saturday, July 18, due to injuries he sustained after being shot by the IOF one week earlier during a raid on Al-Mughayer.

According to the Palestinian Football Association, Al-Nasaan is one of 1,013 Palestinian athletes, including 568 from the football community, who have been killed by Israel since October 7, 2023.

Meanwhile, the latest death toll published by Shireen Observatory indicates that at least 79 Palestinians have been killed due to Israeli violence in the occupied West Bank since the beginning of the year. This includes 21 children, five women, two elderly people, three prisoners, and one journalist.

From BT News via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/66099

Kalle Benallie and Jourdan Bennett-BegayeICT

TOTAH, New Mexico — Michael Roy held his “I did this, I did that” sign outside the Totah Theater in Farmington, New Mexico, where Navajo Nation presidential candidates were informing Navajo citizens of their platforms on economic development.

“I’m kind of undecided on who to vote for, but I got to hear them out and stuff like that,” Roy, 56, told ICT. “But what I have here on my sign, I’ve heard this before way back ever since I guess the administrations that I was born into, so things never change.” He is from Cudeii, New Mexico.

Roy is one of the many Navajo voters who will go to the polls on July 21 on the Navajo Nation.

Michael Roy, 56, stands outside of the Navajo Nation presidential forum on June 24, 2026, in Farmington, New Mexico. (Jourdan Bennett-Begaye, ICT)

The 16 presidential candidates are vying for the top two spots to move on to the general election in November.

The primary was moved to July 21 due to Arizona’s state and county elections and will only be for Navajo citizens in Arizona. Citizens in New Mexico and Utah have already cast their votes in June. The Navajo Nation has approximately 427,000 citizens.

In the last few months, the candidates have traveled across the southwest for several presidential forums, meeting Navajo voters in urban and rural communities, and sharing their priorities.

The Farmington forum was the first time Eleanor Joe, 65, attended a forum for the Navajo Nation candidates this year.

Navajo Nation ballot examples on the wall for Navajo voters in July 2026. (ICT Staff)

Joe said she isn’t happy with current Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren but some of the candidates she heard from at the forum, she liked. They told her exactly what was going on and what they were planning to do.

She’s looking for a Navajo candidate who can tackle homesight leases, use old buildings to bring businesses to the nation, and advocate for Navajo people with mental health issues or mental illnesses.

Joe said she liked Tom Chee’s focus on the Navajo language and traditions while “Justin Jones, I think he sounds like he’s going to clean house.” She also liked that Crystalyne Curley has experience as Speaker of the House.

A Navajo elder’s soda with voting materials at the Navajo Nation presidential forum on June 24, 2026, in Farmington, New Mexico. (Jourdan Bennett-Begaye/ICT)

Another voter at the forum, Rita James, wants a new administration. She said the system is already set for them, “but we just need to put the right people in there.”

She’s looking for a Navajo leader with “a vision and a leader with unity.”

James continued: “We do not want any other leader that’s going to downgrade the present administration, but we want to move on with you know a president that has a credential and has a future and hope for a new administration is what we’re looking for.”

Her hope is that a Navajo woman would be the next Navajo Nation leader.

“We are at the stage where we need a woman leader,” James, 66, said. “ … because the current administration kind of disrespected the women, so her vice president doesn’t have a voice. So right now we want somebody that has a voice, a woman that can fix the problem that happened with her.”

In 2024, Navajo Nation Vice President Richelle Montoya accused Nygren of sexual harassment. The Navajo Nation Attorney General’s office is currently investigating.

James has voted for Emily Ellison the last two times she ran for president.

Rita James with Navajo Nation Presidential Candidate Emily Ellison after the Navajo Nation president forum on June 24, 2026, in Farmington, New Mexico. This is Ellison’s third time running for president. (Jourdan Bennett-Begaye/ICT)

Presidential nominee and current Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren has faced turbulence in his position. In 2025, the Navajo Nation Council sought to oust Nygren led by presidential candidate and Navajo Nation Council Speaker Crystalyne Curley.

In May, a Navajo Nation District Court dismissed a second ethics complaint that was filed by Special Prosecutor Kyle Nayback for alleged misuse of funds during the fall 2025 budget process. The judge ruled the complaint was better suited for the Ethics and Rules Committee rather than the court.  Nayback also filed a complaint against Nygren’s former chief of staff, Patrick Sandoval, for financial benefits from a company that was seeking payment from the office of the president and vice president.

The 15 other candidates running for Navajo Nation president are: Justin Jones, Kevin Cody, Crystalyne Curley, Jordan Begay, Arvin Trujillo, Debbie Nez-Manuel, Tom Chee, Frank Dayish Jr., Donovan Begay, Alexander Chambers, Emily Ellison, Johnny Russell Jr., Larry Noble, Myron Lizer and Andrew Curley.

• Kevin Cody’s platform is focused on public safety, healthcare, education, local government, and  public safety.

• Andrew Curley’s platform is no uranium mining, downsizing the president’s office, better relationship with the Navajo Nation Council, land reform, and water rights.

• Debbie Nez-Manuel’s platform is ethics and management reform, veterans, education and public spending, protecting Navajo tradition and culture.

• Crystalyne Curley’s platform is safety, infrastructure, economy, preservation of culture and traditions, and a focus on veterans, elders, disabled and the youth.

• Jordan Begay’s platform is healthcare, lessening federal government input, strengthening the economy and education.

• Arvin Trujillo’s platform is to restore the relationships between the three branches of government, support departments and divisions in the government, and build up the economy.

• Tom Chee’s platform is building community, supporting chapters, investing in the youth, building the economy, and preserving Navajo language and culture.

• Frank Dayish’s platform is to protect resources, agriculture, expand manufacturing, efficient housing, restart economic activity, and housing.

• Donovan Begay’s platform is veterans and healthcare.

• Alexander Chamber’s platform is government accountability, infrastructure, safety, energy, strengthening economy, and unifying government branches.

• Emily Ellison’s platform is government accountability, sovereignty, infrastructure, supporting local businesses and community.

• Myron Lizer’s platform is infrastructure, water access, energy, economic development, jobs, housing, leadership transparency, healthcare, supporting youth, and education.

Important dates and where to vote

Election results are expected to be certified after July 31. Early voting ended on July 17 for in-person voting. Voting registration has closed until July 31, after the primary.

Five election offices to vote include the Chinle Agency Election Office, the Fort Defiance Agency Election Office, the Eastern Navajo Agency Election Office, the Northern Agency Election Office and the Western Navajo Agency.

All 110 chapter houses are polling locations as well.

There are several deadlines for the general election in November. Voting registration closes on Sept. 25, absentee voting begins Oct. 5, the last day to submit an absentee ballot is Oct. 19 and the last day to vote in person is Oct. 30.

The post Navajo Nation voters looking for a president with vision, unity appeared first on ICT.

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This story is published through the Indigenous News Alliance.

The Arctic is warming four times faster than other regions, a trend that disproportionately harms the Indigenous Sámi people — particularly their access to vital traditional resources like reindeer and salmon, which are used for food, clothing, weapons, and more.

As northern temperatures rise, snow is melting and refreezing at an accelerating rate. That forms ice, preventing reindeer from reaching the lichen below and dramatically increasing starvation rates. “Those impacts in nature are severe for our culture and livelihoods,” said Tuomas Aslak Juuso, vice president of the Sámediggi, or Sámi Parliament, of Finland. “So survival of reindeer and then survival of our livelihoods [and] cultures is then questioned.”

Last week, the impacts of climate change and colonialism were among the key issues raised by the hundreds of Indigenous people gathered in Geneva. They’d come from around the world to discuss these mounting threats at the United Nations Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, or EMRIP. They agreed that a multitude of crises will only grow worse unless they are given greater say in international negotiations and decision-making. That’s why in addition to pushing specific policy recommendations on conflict, AI, and other key issues, Indigenous delegates continued their decades-long demand for better representation at the U.N.

“What we are trying to do is to get some implementation resources for us to adapt to the climate change. With Finland, for example, we don’t have any adaptation resources on how to adapt to these situations,” Juuso said. “To be able to bring these issues forward to the global discussion, we would have to have the opportunity to participate.”

Member states are granted access to U.N. gatherings, where they can easily express views, determine policies, and outline their progress implementing international commitments required by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and other agreements. But Indigenous advocates say the voices of the peoples directly impacted by such actions aren’t always heard at international forums.

The U.N. structure requires participation through either a member state or a registered civil society agency — for instance, a non-governmental organization, academic institution, or accredited Indigenous organization. But Indigenous nations don’t fit neatly into one of those categories and are reduced to participating as NGOs. Beyond those structural barriers, Indigenous peoples also face financial and other resource challenges that compound the difficulty of making themselves heard at the international level. That’s why those attending EMRIP continued the long fight for what is called enhanced participation, which could finally give Indigenous nations and organizations the same access and power the United States and other countries enjoy.

That increased influence is especially important when many countries ignore Indigenous priorities. Throughout the week, many delegates identified climate and environmental issues as one area where national governments often have different priorities than Indigenous peoples, who consider land and ecosystems more important than economic growth — a value system they believe is at odds with the world’s best interests.

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“We’ve got to try and balance immediate economic interests with longer-term environmental protections,” said Kym Hamilton, who is from the tribes of Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngā Rauru, Ngāti Raukawa in Aotearoa New Zealand. “I think we’ve got a responsibility to protect our descendants.”

In U.N. lexicon, enhanced participation is the catchphrase often used for efforts to elevate Indigenous peoples’ voices. Those gathered in Geneva asserted the right to represent their communities in crucial global discussions that impact them. They are also demanding more respect from member-state governments and other policymakers, something they argue will better help them to survive conflict and other crises.

“The question before us is no longer whether Indigenous peoples should participate more fully in the Human Rights Council,” Hamilton, who spoke on behalf of the National Iwi Chairs Forum that represents 87 tribes, said. “The question now is how quickly we will implement these commitments.”

She offered recommendations for EMRIP’s seven expert Indigenous members, including a clear timeline for creating participatory status for Indigenous peoples’ institutions and appointing Indigenous and state representatives with equal standing to lead the process. She also called for the establishment of an independent and transparent accreditation mechanism to prevent states from vetoing Indigenous representatives, and initiatives to provide predictable and sustainable funding to take part.

Hamilton said Indigenous peoples’ full participation in international deliberations includes the right to decide who represents their communities. “Governments don’t always tell the truth,” she said, citing the U.N. Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review — which all 193 member states must undergo every 4.5 years — which she said revealed gaps between the reports governments submitted and the actual human rights situations within their jurisdictions.

Kenneth Deer, member of the Mohawk Nation of Kahnawà:ke and longtime international Indigenous advocate, echoed that point. “The government never speaks ill about itself,” he said. “You can’t let government speak for us.”

But the U.N.’s accreditation and recognition process can hinder progress toward collectively tackling the challenges impacting Indigenous peoples, he noted. “For us, as a representative institution, there isn’t actually any clear path to accreditate ourselves — and that leads to them trying to improvise, and try to find ways how we can accreditate ourselves.”

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The National Congress of American Indians also called for increased Indigenous participation at the international level. “Recognition and participation of Indigenous peoples must accommodate the numerous ways we identify, organize, and represent ourselves,” President Mark Macarro said. “It is essential that we participate directly in matters of global concern that affect our environment, health, human rights, and unique rights as Indigenous peoples.”

Deer said he’s seen many caucuses of Indigenous delegates at the U.N. engage in important collaborations. But he wishes they could have a higher profile. “Indigenous peoples want to have a voice,” he said. “They want to be heard.”

A diversity of voices at the U.N.’s highest levels, he believes, would improve the U.N. processes and system to the benefit of all countries. “What we need is the states, now, to agree to a process that was run by Indigenous people,” he said.

Throughout the week, EMRIP delegates identified a host of other barriers to participation. For example, communications technology within remote communities presents challenges to joining global deliberations. Additionally, there are significant financial barriers for under-resourced communities when U.N. forums are held far from their homelands.

The U.N. Voluntary Fund for Indigenous Peoples, which helps finance travel to U.N. forums, is also experiencing budget shortfalls, inhibiting many delegates’ ability to attend. It is seen as an important way to increase participation among delegates from areas where governments do not recognize the Indigenous peoples within their borders. Sheryl Lightfoot, EMRIP’s North America region member, is an Anishinaabe expert in Indigenous rights, global politics, and public policy.

She said states are not involved in how EMRIP officially recognizes Indigenous peoples. “Worldwide, there’s a need — and this is especially true across Africa and Asia — of Indigenous peoples seeking just mere recognition of their existence from their governments,” she said. “States seem to be more resistant now than they were 10 years ago to recognize that peoples are Indigenous peoples and have those rights attached to them.”

Despite Hamilton’s doubts about how much change has been achieved internationally, hearing her peers from other Indigenous nations testify about how they’ve persevered inspired her and restored her hope. “I feel like there’s a real sense of … urgency and concern,” she said. “We don’t want our grandchildren’s grandchildren to have to keep coming here and doing this stuff.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline As climate change threatens their lands, Indigenous nations demand more power at the UN on Jul 21, 2026.

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cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/66266

Palestinian officials said an Israel Defense Forces drone strike burned a family of six alive in their Gaza City home on Tuesday, a bombing that followed the massacre of another Palestinian family over the weekend and other attacks—including one on a hospital—as the Israeli genocide continues amid a nominal ceasefire.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said that rescue workers initially recovered the charred bodies of a mother, later identified as Salsabeel el-Masri, and her four children from their home in the Sabra neighborhood of Gaza City. Husband and father Firas el-Masri was later confirmed killed in the same strike.

The couple's three daughters and son—Faryal, Salma, Amira, and Naeem—ranged in age from 6 to 13.

(Photo by el-Masri family/X)

At least some members of the family—who were sleeping when their home was bombed—were apparently not killed by the blast.

"They were all burned so much that our crews couldn't reach them," said Palestinian Civil Defense spokesperson Mahmoud Basal. "They were screaming and begging us to get them before they were martyred, but all attempts failed."

Video recordings of the airstrike's aftermath show first responders desperately trying to extinguish the blaze caused by the attack and retrieving the burnt victims' bodies.

Ahmed el-Masri told the Emirati newspaper The National that his brother's "entire family was wiped out from the civil registry."

"Martyred child Ameera Al-Masri, a charred corpse"

Today, from Gaza City, Israel has wiped out the Al-Masri family in a targeted airstrike on their flat. pic.twitter.com/XmLL3Rde0M
— Abubaker Abed (@AbubakerAbedW) July 21, 2026

The el-Masri family is one of approximately 2,700 erased from the registry since Israel launched its war on Gaza in retaliation for the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023, according to an Al Jazeera analysis published in January.

The Israel Defense Forces confirmed the bombing, claiming the strike was targeting a Hamas member. The IDF dramatically loosened its rules of engagement following the October 7 attack, effectively allowing an unlimited number of civilians to be killed when targeting a single Hamas member, no matter how low-ranking.

Reuters reported at least six more Palestinians were killed by Israeli strikes later on Tuesday, including one targeting a vehicle in the central Gaza Strip.

On Monday, an IDF missile attack on the al-Yemen al-Saeed Hospital in northern Gaza's Jabalia refugee camp killed at least two people and wounded 16 others, including women and children.

“The children were having fun and playing football, and suddenly they started screaming,” eyewitness Youssef Akasha told Drop Site News contributor Mohamed Ahmed. “We found many children lying on the ground, women screaming, and young men running to rescue the wounded."

Graphic video footage shows children, including infants, being treated for shrapnel embedded in their bodies.

Israel's attack on the el-Masri family followed a Saturday IDF airstrike on the home of the Nasman family in the al-Nasser neighborhood of Gaza City that killed five people. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that Adham Nasman, 42; his wife, Marwa, 40; and three of their children—Arwa, 8, Ibrahim, 16, and Yahya, 18—were killed, and that Adham was apparently the intended target.

The couple's 13-year-old son, also named Adham, was not home at the time of the strike. Video footage published by photojournalist Nahed Hajjaj shows the grieving boy beside the bodies of his slain family.

Ayham Nasman, the sole survivor of his immediate family, returned to find his father, mother, and three siblings killed after an Israeli strike hit their residential apartment in Gaza's Al-Nasr neighborhood.

Ayham survived because he was not inside the apartment when it was… pic.twitter.com/86Co3JlI4r
— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) July 19, 2026

In another massacre on Saturday, an Israeli drone bombed a funeral in the Nuseirat refugee camp for a man who was allegedly a member of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, who had been killed earlier the same day in another IDF strike. Eight people were killed and 20 others wounded in the second attack, according to Palestinian, Israeli, and international media reports.

Israel's US-backed assault on Gaza has left more than 250,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing since October 2023 and around 2 million people forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened. Over 21,500 children—1,022 of them babies—are among the more than 73,000 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces during the war that scholars, jurists, human rights groups, a panel of United Nations experts, and others say is a genocide.

Israel is facing a genocide case filed by South Africa at the International Court of Justice and supported by nearly 20 nations, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant—his former defense minister who ordered the "complete siege" on Gaza that fueled famine and disease—are wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes, including murder and forced starvation.

The IDF's continued attacks come despite a US-backed ceasefire that went into effect last October. Since then, more than 1,160 Palestinians—most of them civilians—have been killed and over 3,750 others wounded by Israeli forces, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

“Nine months after the announcement of a ceasefire, still nowhere is safe for Palestinians in Gaza,” UN human rights spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan told reporters in Geneva on Tuesday. "The killing of civilians in these attacks raises concerns of continuing violations of international humanitarian law, war crimes and other possible atrocity crimes in Gaza. Under international law, deliberately attacking civilians is a war crime."

Akasha, who witnessed the Jabalia hospital bombing, told Drop Site News, “I don’t feel like there is a ceasefire at all."

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cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/65003

Anti-fossil fuel campaigners on Wednesday emphasized that Michigan state regulators had issued key permits for the Enbridge Line 5 tunnel in the Straits of Mackinac on the same day that "wildfire smoke from climate change blotted out the Mackinac Bridge from view" and as the US and other countries faced extreme heatwaves.

Despite the mounting evidence that—as energy and climate experts have long warned—continued fossil fuel extraction is heating the planet and causing dangerous extreme weather, Michigan's Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy handed down a permit Wednesday to allow the Canadian company Enbridge to construct a tunnel that EGLE officials acknowledged will likely have "significant impacts" on threatened or endangered species and Indigenous burial ground in the Straits.

“The magnitude of impacts to recognized historic and cultural values of this proposed project exceeds that of any other that EGLE has reviewed,” said EGLE in its statement on the permits.

Enbridge has sought to build a tunnel around its Line 5 pipeline in the Straits for years, following a massive oil spill from its Line 6B pipeline in the Kalamazoo River. Line 5 has been struck by ships' anchors numerous times, heightening concerns.

EGLE said in its explanation that the oil spill risk was found to be "unacceptable" and that the need for the tunnel outweighed its risks.

But opponents who have argued that Line 5 should be permanently shut down, including the Bay Mills Indian Community, condemned the agency for "rewarding" Enbridge with new permits even after its fossil fuel infrastructure has caused hazardous oil spills.

“Enbridge has spilled oil, committed safety violations, trespassed on lands, shattered ecosystems, pierced aquifers, violated our laws, and repeatedly shown contempt for tribal sovereignty," said Whitney Gravelle, president of the Bay Mills Indian Community. "They have left devastation in their wake, and now they’re being rewarded with responsibility over one of the most precious and sacred resources in our state. The Great Lakes are not safe in their hands. This decision is a deep betrayal of our Great Lake State, and we will confront it immediately, fiercely, and without hesitation.”

The state Department of Natural Resources also issued a permit following EGLE's decision, granting permission for the tunnel despite its potential impact on rare plants and animal habitats.

According to Michigan Bridge, about 1.53 acres of wetlands in Mackinac County would be impacted by the tunnel project, as well as 0.17 acres of Lake Michigan bottomlands in Emmet County, where Enbridge is expected to build a water intake structure.

The environmental legal organization Earthjustice, which has helped represent the Bay Mills Indian Community in its legal challenges against Enbridge, said that with the permits, the company will "transform the Straits of Mackinac into an industrial construction zone for at least six years, destroying views, displacing wildlife, and interrupting tourism dollars."

“Our environmental laws, the looming climate crisis, and simple common sense tells us that an oil pipeline doesn’t belong in the Great Lakes,” said Earthjustice managing attorney Debbie Chizewer. “Today’s decision is a setback, but we’re not giving up. A future without oil in the Great Lakes is still possible.”

EGLE is also expected to rule by September 30 on an Enbridge request to discharge millions of gallons of treated wastewater per day into Lake Michigan while it is constructing the tunnel, and the Michigan Supreme Court is considering a lawsuit brought by four Tribal Nations, including Bay Mills, alleging that the Michigan Public Service Commission improperly issued a key tunnel permit in 2023.

The state is also fighting Enbridge over Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's 2020 order to shut down Line 5 over oil spill concerns. She had campaigned in 2018 on a promise to shut down the pipeline. A federal judge ruled last year that the state had no authority to terminate the use of the pipeline, and the state appealed that ruling.

Advocates expressed anger on Wednesday at Whitmer as her government issued the permits.

“It’s incredibly disappointing that a governor who ran on a commitment to the climate and protecting the Great Lakes has now decided to instead endorse a Canadian industrial tunnel project that still threatens the Great Lakes and will contribute fossil fuels to the climate,” David Holtz, coalition coordinator for the anti-Line 5 group Oil & Water Don’t Mix, told Bridge Michigan.

David Gover, managing attorney for the Native American Rights Fund, said that "the Straits of Mackinac are not a piece of Enbridge oil infrastructure; they are the heart of creation for Anishinaabe people and a vital source of life for all who depend on the Great Lakes."

“We will pursue every legal avenue," Gover said, "to defend treaty rights, protect drinking water, and preserve tribal lifeways from another Enbridge disaster.”

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cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/64898

The family of Palestinian political leader Marwan Barghouti stated on Monday, July 13, that he was shot in the leg with rubber bullets by Israeli prison guards. Barghouti’s wife, Fadwa, said in a post she wrote on Facebook, that the attack “caused him to bleed and suffer a painful injury.”

According to Fadwa, the violent act coincided with a report by the Israel Prison Service (IPS), which incited violence against her husband.

The report alleged that Barghouti continues to declare his support for armed resistance, despite being incommunicado and placed in solitary confinement for the last few years.

It also listed a number of accusations against the veteran Palestinian leader, including disseminating rhetoric that encourages violent struggle, working to unite Fatah and Hamas under a joint leadership, seeking to exert influence over the Israeli political arena through Arab members of the Israeli parliament (known as the Knesset), and inciting terrorism.

The language of the report reveals an attempt to demonize Barghouti by claiming that he certain acts, while cultivating “a moderate international image” and “consolidating his standing as a leading Palestinian Arab figure.”

Incitement fails to erase Barghouti’s influence

Barghouti’s wife argued that the Israeli report was issued “at a time when the international campaign “Free Marwan, Free Palestine” continues to expand, attracting prominent global figures and leaders and receiving significant official and public support around the world.”

“What the occupation has failed to understand throughout the past quarter century – and still fails to understand today – is that Marwan has never wavered in his conviction that freedom is a fundamental right and that occupation is destined to end,” Fadwa affirmed.

“He has rejected both surrender and despair, believing that resisting occupation while striving for a just peace that brings it to an end is both a national and a moral responsibility. He believes in the unity of the Palestinian people and their land. Marwan’s foremost concern has always been to spare every Palestinian child the suffering of occupation and the devastation of war, and his enduring goal has been to secure a life of freedom and dignity for his people,” she continued.

Fadwa further asserted that although the report wanted to condemn her spouse, it acknowledged the extent of his “status, influence, symbolism, and the global campaign demanding his freedom.”

“As for incitement and aggression, they will not change this fact, nor will they take Marwan away from the conscience of his people or from the conscience of the free people of the world, nor will they take away from Marwan his love for his homeland, his love for his people, and his concern for them,” she emphasized.

It is worth noting that Marwan Barghouti secured an overwhelming victory with the highest number of votes in Fatah central committee elections in May 2026, despite being imprisoned in Israeli jails since 2002.

This in turn, denotes that he remains a highly popular figure among the Palestinian grassroots, given that Fatah is the largest national political faction within the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

Zoe. , July 15, 2026

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cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/63860

This story was originally published by Source New Mexico.

Joshua Bowling
Source New Mexico

The New Mexico Department of Justice recently published the results of a yearslong investigation into Gallup-McKinley County Schools and found that the district disproportionately disciplines Native American and Hispanic students, causing them to miss exponentially more instructional time than other students across the state.

Attorney General Raúl Torrez’s report, published Thursday, July 2, found that the district’s students lose “at least twice as many” instructional days as those in other New Mexico districts to out-of-school suspensions. It’s even higher for Native American and Hispanic students, who lose “roughly eight to 10 times” and three to four times as many school days as their white peers, according to the report.

Teachers in the district impose harsher penalties on Native and Hispanic students than on white students, the report says.

Torrez’s office launched this investigation in 2023 following news reports that the district drove New Mexico’s outsized rates of expelling Native students.

In the agency’s new report, titled “Forced Out: How Exclusionary and Disparate Disciplinary Practices at Gallup-McKinley County Schools Rob Students of Instructional Time,” NMDOJ officials wrote that the district “appears to have made progress” in some areas, including reducing its number of expulsions and referrals to law enforcement agencies.

The Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission in March also issued a report that called on district leaders to adopt a new, culturally appropriate disciplinary system in light of these longstanding allegations.

A district spokesperson in a statement to Source NM wrote that under Superintendent Jvanna Hanks’ leadership, district leaders created an Equity Council, which will include positions “designated for members of the Native American community.”

“Gallup-McKinley County Schools is aware of and has been reviewing the New Mexico Department of Justice report and appreciates NMDOJ’s work to help ensure all students are treated fairly, supported appropriately and able to remain engaged in learning,” the statement said.

Broadly, the issue of lost instructional time has been a focus for state lawmakers in recent months. A June Legislative Finance Committee report found that a $2.6 billion investment aimed in large part at complying with the state’s landmark Yazzie/Martinez educational equity lawsuit had done little to rectify the issue of kids missing out on learning time.

Students across the state are required to annually attend a minimum of 1,140 instruction hours. The average absentee student in New Mexico missed about 215 hours in the 2024-25 school year — nearly one-fifth of the total required learning time, according to that report.

However, Kevin Mitchell, president of the Gallup-McKinley County Schools Board of Education, pushed back on the NMDOJ findings. Native American students will comprise the majority of the district’s disciplinary actions because the majority of its students are Native, he said.

The sprawling district sits in the Four Corners region and includes portions of the Navajo Nation. In fact, nearly 54 percent of Gallup’s population is Indigenous, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s latest data.

“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out we’re talking about 89% Native American population throughout the whole district…it could be a little higher,” Mitchell told Source NM. “‘You guys are disciplining Native Americans more than other students.’ Well, of course — it’s all we have.”

Mitchell added that many of his district’s schools serve small, rural communities, meaning a handful of chronic offenders in the classroom can skew overall disciplinary rates.

In a follow-up statement to Source NM, Mitchell wrote that he and his elected colleagues on the Board of Education have “consistently fought for quality education for all students,” citing the new Equity Council and the re-establishment of an Indian Education Committee.

“This work does not end with one report or meeting,” Mitchell wrote.

The post New Mexico Attorney General investigation finds Gallup schools more severely discipline Native, Hispanic students appeared first on ICT.

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Israel is seeking to annex Palestinian historical sites to advance the Judaization of the occupied West Bank

Palestine has launched an initiative at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to protect archaeological sites in the occupied West Bank from Israeli seizure, a Palestinian diplomat announced on 11 July.

Adel Attieh, Palestine's permanent delegate to UNESCO, told the Voice of Palestine radio that the initiative is asking UNESCO to take action against Israeli attempts to erase Palestinian cultural heritage, particularly at the Ibrahimi Mosque and Old City in Hebron, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Attieh said international law obliges Israel to refrain from actions that alter the site's structure or surroundings.

Other archaeological sites threatened by Israel include the Church of the Nativity and Christian pilgrimage route in Bethlehem, the site of Jesus' birth; the ancient stone terraces in Battir hill in Jerusalem, where grapevines and olive trees are grown; and Ancient Jericho/Tal al-Sultan, the site of an ancient Canaanite city and the spring of Ain al-Sultan.

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cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/62855

The Health Work Committees, a prominent Palestinian non-governmental health and development organization operating in the occupied West Bank since 1985, was subjected to a sweeping arrest campaign by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) over the past couple of weeks.

On Sunday, June 21, the IOF stormed the headquarters of the organization in the central city of Ramallah, and shut it down under a one-year military closure order.

According to a well-informed HWC source, who spoke to BreakThrough News anonymously due to security concerns, the IOF arrested all of the organization’s board members, including its chairperson, Dr. Mazen Rantisi (71), before and after the organization’s main office was raided.

Rantisi was arrested from his home in Ramallah in the early hours of June 21. HWC’s financial director, Tayseer Abu Sharbak, was also arrested that same day from his home in Al-Am’ari refugee camp in the central city of Al-Bireh. Meanwhile, a physician, Khaled Ayash, was apprehended from the town of Biddu northwest of Jerusalem in late June.

On Wednesday, July 1, the IOF arrested other HWC staff after raiding their homes in different parts of the occupied West Bank.

The detained staff were identified as:

• Public Relations Director, Dr. Jamila Abu Dahou
• Board members: Etaf Bader, Jamila Kanaan and Myassar al-Faqih
• Accountant, Faten Hanaysheh
• And a driver known as Abu Sree

BreakThrough News learned from HWC’s unnamed source that no indictment has been issued against the arrested staff and leaders yet, and that they are still under investigation.

It is worth noting that the recent crackdown on HWC by the IOF is not the first. In June 2021, the organization was raided and shut down for six months. One month later former director, Shatha Odeh, was illegally detained in Israeli jails for 11 months and fined USD 9,000.

Odeh, who was given a 5-year suspended imprisonment sentence, was released on the condition of not providing health services to people.

The repressive campaigns against the HWC are not isolated incidents, but are part of a broader systematic crackdown on the Palestinian health sector as a whole, reflecting Israel’s ethnic cleansing policies.

Israel’s brutal crackdown on Palestinian health sector as genocidal tactic

Over the last three years, Israel has escalated its crackdown on the Palestinian health sector, deploying it as both a settler-colonial ethnic cleansing policy and a genocidal tactic.

At least 1,722 healthcare workers have been killed by the Israeli Occupation Force (IOF) in Gaza since Israel began its genocidal aggression on the besieged enclave on October 7, 2023.

According to UN experts, this equates to killing an average of more than two people per day.

In many cases, Israel targeted rescue workers in their clearly marked ambulances while they were trying to reach casualties. The Hind Rajab massacre represents one of numerous crimes, during which rescuers became the victims for only trying to save the lives of other victims.

Arbitrarily arresting health workers and medics and placing them under administrative detention and inhumane conditions without charge, have been among the atrocities committed by Israel against the Palestinian health sector.

The case of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, a pediatrician from Gaza who was arrested by Israeli forces in December 2024 during the siege on Kamal Adwan Hospital, may be the most shocking, but it is not the only one of its kind when it comes to detention incidents.

Read more: HRF urges ICC to issue warrants for 24 Israeli soldiers accused of the murder of Hind Rajab and her rescuers

More than 1,800 health facilities have been partially or completely destroyed over the same period, as per a latest report published by the the UN World Health Organization (WHO).

WHO representative in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Dr. Reinhilde Van de Weerdt, clarified that the destruction affected not only big hospitals, but also smaller primary health care centres, clinics, pharmacies and laboratories.

Read more: Israeli attacks persist on northern Gaza’s last hospitals

UN experts argue that Israel’s systematic targeting of the Palestinian health sector amounts to “medicide”. The word denotes the war crime of intentionally targeting healthcare workers and medical facilities.

The international community must not remain silent, says PHM

The People’s Health Movement (PHM)issued a statement on Tuesday, June 23, unequivocally denouncing “the arrest of Dr. Mazen Rantisi, the closure order imposed on HWC’s headquarters, and the ongoing repression targeting Palestinian health institutions and civil society organizations.

“HWC is an important part of the People’s Health Movement (PHM), and we stand in full solidarity with the organization, its staff, and the patients and communities it serves.” The statement reads.

The movement called for “the immediate and unconditional release of Dr. Mazen Rantisi and all Palestinian health workers and civil society personnel arbitrarily detained.”

It also demanded “the immediate reversal of the closure order against HWC, and the protection of Palestinian health workers and healthcare institutions from attacks, harassment, and arbitrary detention.”

The PHM stressed that international accountability for violations of the right to health and attacks on healthcare under occupation should be maintained, and international solidarity with Palestinian civil society and health organizations be sustained.

“The right to health cannot exist where health workers are imprisoned, health institutions are shut down, and communities are denied access to care. The international community must not remain silent. Defending Palestinian health workers is inseparable from defending the Palestinian people’s right to health, dignity, self-determination, and freedom.” The movement emphasized.

Viva Salud warns that the crackdown on HWC would contribute to broader climate of pressure and restrictions

For its part Viva Salud strongly condemned the “worrying” measures, which the Israeli occupation authorities took against HWC and its staff.

“The arrest of two senior HWC representatives and the closure of the organization’s headquarters raise serious concerns for the future of its activities and for the continuity of services provided to Palestinian communities. These measures also contribute to a broader climate of pressure and restrictions affecting Palestinian civil society organizations and health institutions,” Viva Salud stated.

The Belgian non-governmental organization further asserted that it will continue to stand alongside HWC – as a partner – and to support its efforts “to ensure that all Palestinians can enjoy their fundamental right to health, dignity and self-determination.”

Zoe. , July 7, 2026

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cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/61627

This story was produced byHonolulu Civil Beat, a nonprofit news organization covering Hawaiʻi that specializes in accountability and in-depth enterprise coverage. For more stories like this,subscribe to their newsletters.

Hikari Mae Hida
Honolulu Civil Beat

Angela Mulligan graduated with a master’s degree in marriage and family therapy last March, hoping to become a couples therapist for clients on the Big Island and give back to the community she calls home.

Instead, she made a difficult decision to build her career online while working toward full licensure, serving clients based in Colorado. Under Hawai‘i’s current system, pre-licensed therapists cannot bill insurance during the thousands of hours they have to work to become licensed, so serving Hawaiʻi patients would mean working for little to no pay, a reality Mulligan cannot afford.

“I didn’t have the option of not working for money,” she said.

“Sometimes, I have guilt because I prefer to be serving where I live, but it hasn’t been possible until now,” she said.

The situation for budding therapists will soon change.

A new state law taking effect Wednesday aims to bridge this chasm by removing the financial barrier driving local therapy graduates out of state. Act 93, signed by Gov. Josh Green in June 2024, creates provisional, associate-level licenses for marriage and family therapists, mental health counselors, and psychologists in training. It allows them to legally bill insurance providers while accruing the clinical hours required for full autonomous licensure.

Applications for the new pathway officially opened through the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs on June 2. But there has been confusion over application technicalities and who needs to apply for the license. Some question how much this law will actually help retain local therapists.

Hawaiʻi has long grappled with a mental health workforce crisis. The federal government designates the entire state as a Mental Health Professional Shortage Area. A 2022 survey by Community First Access to Care found that mental health counseling was the state’s most critically needed medical specialty, cited by 78 percent of local healthcare providers.

The preamble to the bill reads: “This model of living is unsustainable and causes many of these practitioners to permanently move from Hawaii to one of the many other states where insurance reimbursements are allowed.”

‘Brain Drain’

Experts say that aspiring therapists in Hawaiʻi often underestimate the financial and bureaucratic obstacles that await them after graduation.

Under the current system, depending on the therapy license, post-graduate therapists have to accrue 1,000 to 3,000 hours of supervised experience — the equivalent of 25 to 75 40-hour weeks — over a minimum of two years before getting fully licensed.

The problem is that the new therapists cannot get paid for their work. Since there is no mechanism to bill insurance, in most cases, private practices and community clinics have to pay the fledgling therapists out of their own pockets, which many cash-strapped practices can’t afford.

Graduates are left with the choice of working those hours for little to no pay, taking on a second or third job, getting licensed in a state with associate licensing pathways or switching professions altogether, said John Souza, an assistant professor specializing in marriage and family therapy at the University of Hawaiʻi Mānoa.

Data collected by Souza illustrates this systemic toll. According to his preliminary findings, pre-licensed postgraduate therapists named licensing and bureaucratic barriers as top obstacles to practicing in Hawaiʻi. During grad school, 75 percent of students identified as local, compared to 33 percent percent of people surveyed who had graduated from their programs in Hawaiʻi. The research found that around 44 percent of therapists working toward licensure were paying for supervision in addition to working for free, at an average cost of roughly $8,400.

“These students are kind of walking into this fog,” Souza said. “It’s like they’re going into this blindly and not aware of just how much it’s going to cost for them to enter this career.”

Advocates warn that this financial bottleneck results in a loss of talent that directly impacts the competence of care available to Hawai’i locals.

“You have a terrible brain drain where people are leaving Hawai‘i because they can’t afford to work another year with either no income or very low income,” said Alex Lichton, legislative chair for the Hawai‘i Psychological Association.

And the system ends up perpetuating socioeconomic disparities.

Due to the inability to bill insurance, some younger therapists pursuing full licensure choose to work for private practices that mainly serve wealthier people who are able to pay for therapy in cash, creating even greater disparities in access to care.

“The people that survive the whole process disproportionately tend not to be Native Hawaiian, it’s disproportionately Caucasians,” Lichton said, adding that he received financial support from his family while pursuing licensure.

That demographic imbalance carries heavy clinical consequences. A study published in the Journal of Counseling Psychology demonstrated that racial and cultural mismatch between patient and therapist significantly increases premature dropout rates in therapy.

In Hawai’i, where Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander populations face disproportionately high rates of historical trauma, the lack of homegrown and Indigenous therapists widens existing healthcare inequities.

Kawaiolaakealiʻi Kapuni, born and raised on Maui, had a white woman as her first therapist whom she was paired with under her insurance at the time.

“I felt like I had to do more explaining about fundamental concepts before getting to the problem itself,” she said. When she switched therapists to a non-Indigenous woman of color, she had a similar experience.

She has never been able to see a Native Hawaiian therapist. “I don’t know how many kānaka ʻōiwi see a future for themselves in that field because there are so many barriers,” said Kapuni, adding that the bill doesn’t go far enough to address how healthcare inequities exist for Native Hawaiians.

In terms of one day having a Native Hawaiian therapist, she thinks there would be a level of intimacy that would make them better able to connect with their clients. “I think it would be life-changing,” she added.

Joanne Okika Shigeko Qinaau, a former PhD student in clinical psychology at UH Mānoa, wrote about the challenges facing local therapists in written testimony supporting the bill.

“The status quo is unsustainable and particularly challenging for those of us from underprivileged backgrounds,” Qinaau wrote, adding, “This bill would improve on-the-job training and cultivate homegrown talent – encouraging folx to stay in Hawai’i and meet the unique needs of our community.”

Uncertainties Remain

The state Office of Wellness and Resilience hosted a town hall meeting on Thursday to answer questions about the new law.

The comment section in the Zoom room flooded with confused applicants. Many worried that a surge of applications could take a long time to process, meaning clinicians whose applications are still in process on Wednesday can be in violation of the law if they continue treating their clients.

“Passing the national licensing exam was the easy part,” said Alexandra Love, who was born and raised in O’ahu and now runs her own private practice in Maui, about the time she applied for her license in 2016. She added that dealing with the department in charge of licensing was, “the true test, because everything is so slow.”

She expressed concern for her supervisees, who are applying for these associate licenses.

Cindy Matsushita, licensing administrator at the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, or DCCA, said during the town hall that the office has received 42 applications and 25 of them have been approved or are “in the process” of being approved, as of noon on Thursday. Previously, DCCA estimated that it would receive between 200 and 300 applicants during the initial one-month rollout window of the new program.

Tia Roberts Hartsock, director of the Office of Wellness and Resilience, wrote in a statement to Civil Beat: “We are aware of the issue and are working to resolve it.”

It is also unclear how much private insurance companies like Hawaii Medical Service Association and Kaiser Permanente will reimburse. While the new law allows associate billing, it does not mandate specific reimbursement rates.

Kathleen Kozak, Medical Director at UHA Health Insurance, declined to share UHA’s reimbursement rates, but said that “CMS reimburses different levels of providers, and we tried to come up with something that was similar in percentages.”

A spokesperson for HMSA said that “eligible services provided by practitioners in training are reimbursed at a lower rate than services provided by fully licensed providers, which reflects their licensure status and supervised role in care delivery.”

If commercial insurance companies set associate reimbursement rates too low, private practices may still struggle to offer livable wages to graduates.

Mulligan, the pre-licensed therapist on the Big Island currently accruing her hours online in Colorado, is in no rush to apply for the associate license.

With only eight months left before she qualifies for full autonomous licensure via her out-of-state remote work, she is uncertain how much applying for the program will change her current situation.

“Even if I can take insurance here, if they offer low rates to associates, I might as well wait to go through all of the paperwork later,” she said.

Civil Beat’s health access reporting is supported in part by the Atherton Family Foundation.

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This story was originally published by Florida Phoenix.

Liv Caputo
Florida Phoenix

A Miccosukee Tribe member wants her nation to be the new protector of the so-called ”Alligator Alcatraz” site, calling Friday on Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava to give it the territory to conserve.

But there’s a problem.

The DeSantis administration, which controversially seized the land last summer, still hasn’t given it back to the county, even after the state cleared out the lockup’s detainees and declared the center closed for business.

This means Miami can’t begin to sell or transfer the Everglades land to a conservator, as planned — at least not yet.

“The State has not returned the land to the County and has provided no timeline for doing so,” Dianne Fernandez, Cava’s deputy director of communications, told the Phoenix in an email. She provided a letter Cava sent Monday to the governor, asking DeSantis to coordinate the site’s “orderly transition” back to Miami-Dade.

The governor’s office referred the Phoenix to the Florida Division of Emergency Management, the agency in charge of “Alligator Alcatraz” operations, which has not responded to a request for comment.

“Alligator Alcatraz” was hastily built last summer atop the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport, a 5,120-acre plot deep within the Everglades complete with a 10,000-foot runway for pilots learning to fly. Although owned by Miami-Dade County — until it was temporarily commandeered last June — the airport pays taxes to Collier County.

The county estimates its value at $20 million. Cava, however, had estimated in early conversations with state government before construction that the plot would be worth closer to $190 million. State officials disagreed, and simply seized the land under emergency declaration instead of paying out Cava’s hefty request.

Remarkably, after a year of bitter debate between politicos and activists over the facility and its alleged wrongdoings — although none have been proven in court — the one point many agree on appears to be the site’s future as an environmental safe haven.

Attorney General James Uthmeier, the mastermind behind the facility, and Cava both have advocated to environmentally protect the land. After DeSantis announced the facility’s shuttering, Cava declared her plan to sell or transfer the site to an environmental conservator, such as the National Park Service.

Miccosukee Tribe member Betty Osceola said her nation is an interested buyer, considering its reservation abuts “Alligator Alcatraz” and it’s been an active environmental opponent of the facility’s construction and operation. The tribe joined most of the legal onslaught against the state for its alleged environmental harms caused by the facility.

“Miami-Dade County has title to the landscape, but all of Florida belongs to the indigenous people, regardless of what name and county you want to give to it,” Osceola said during a Friday press conference. She insisted tribe members would devote “110%” to preserving the land if it were theirs.

“I encourage the mayor’s office to have those conversations with the Miccosukee Tribe to see how [a transfer] could happen,” she said.

However, the Tribe said Osceola speaks for herself — not for them.

“The Tribe’s official positions are established through its elected leadership. At this time, Chairman Talbert Cypress has not issued any public statement or expressed any intention that the Tribe seeks ownership or control of the land,” chief communications officer Alvaro Zabaleta said.

The mayor’s office did not respond to questions about whether aides have spoken with the Miccosukees or any other buyer.

Correction: This story has been updated to show that Betty Osceola’s comments are hers, and not representative of the Miccosukee Tribe.

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Daniel Herrera Carbajal
ICT

The Tohono O’odham Nation has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security over its plans to construct a border wall on the tribe’s lands.

The suit was filed Tuesday as DHS plans to award contracts in the coming weeks to construct the border wall, according to a press release from Tohono O’odham.

“We do not believe, and we know that Customs and Border Protection has no legal authority to take any of our reservation land nor use it without permission,” said Tohono O’odham Chairman Verlon M. Jose in a speech Wednesday at a National Congress of American Indians event in Memphis, Tennessee.

About 62 miles of the Tohono O’odham Nations land are contiguous with the US-Mexico border.

“To build these walls, (Customs and Border Protection) will have to diminish the size of the Tohono O’odham Nation. … There is no good reason to steal even more tribal land or destroy tribal land” Jose said.

The Tohono O’odham Nation has said building a wall on its reservation would be illegal and DHS and other contracting personnel who enter the nation would be trespassing.

The tribe’s ancestral homelands lie adjacent but on opposite sides of the US-Mexico border. The Gadsden Purchase of 1854 divided the nation’s lands and separated families.

According to the Tohono O’odham Nation, there are more than 3,000 enrolled members who live in the tribe’s ancestral lands in the Mexican state of Sonora.

“The United States-Mexican border was drawn through the heart of our traditional territory, making it more difficult for us to visit our families, our cemeteries, our sacred places, our ceremonies,” Jose said.

The Tohono O’odham Nation has strongly opposed the construction of a border wall on its lands while strongly supporting border-security measures. The tribal nation spends millions of dollars a year on border security and has its own tactical patrol unit under the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency called the “Shadow Wolves” – an all-Native patrol unit whose mission is to delay, disrupt and interdict illicit trafficking, according to ICE.

“We believe in border security, to protect our people and to protect the United States,” Jose said.

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Gabriela Sá Pessoa
Associated Press

FORMOSO DO ARAGUAIA, Brazil — On a vast island in northern Brazil, an unusual debate about cattle and conservation is taking place.

Federal authorities last year ordered the removal of herds from protected Indigenous territory on the world’s largest river island, Bananal Island. They argued the land was reserved for Indigenous peoples and conservation, and that the herds kept there by outside ranchers were illegal and contributed to habitat degradation.

To comply with the order, wranglers drove more than 100,000 cattle from the island when the rivers were low enough. But the removal has created new problems for Indigenous residents who had come to rely on money they earned leasing the land to ranchers.

The events underscore the challenge of balancing conservation, Indigenous interests and pressure from agribusiness, one of Brazil’s most powerful sectors. Brazil is the world’s largest beef producer, accounting for about 20 percent of global output and 6 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.

Protecting Indigenous territories is widely seen as one of the most effective ways to curb deforestation in the Amazon, the world’s largest rainforest and a key regulator of the global climate.

Brazil has made progress in reducing deforestation, but cattle ranching remains the main driver of it. Ranchers clear large swaths of forest so cattle can graze.

Tocantins state, home to Bananal Island, was among the states with Brazil’s highest deforestation levels in 2025, according to MapBiomas, a nonprofit group tracking land use. Biodiversity is threatened as trees that absorb pollution are replaced by cattle that emit methane, a greenhouse gas contributing to global warming.

Cattle brought benefits and conflicts to the island

Brazilian law prohibits commercial activity on Indigenous lands. Cattle raising is allowed only for subsistence.

In practice, however, parts of Bananal Island were leased for decades. Under the informal system, ranchers paid village leaders a monthly fee of about 15 reais ($3) per head — far below the roughly 60 reais ($12) charged outside the island.

When the over 100,000 head of cattle were on the island, monthly revenue from leasing could reach 1.5 million reais ($290,000). Payments went to Indigenous chiefs, who passed part of the money to local associations.

“Cattle, over the years, have covered many of our community’s expenses,” said Cleiton Javae, chief of Txuiri village, citing schools, medicine, transport and traditional festivities.

But some residents say the money was concentrated among leaders and did not benefit the roughly 5,000 people in more than 40 villages.

“The law requires consultation and shared benefits,” said Leandro Milhomem, the chief of IBAMA, Brazil’s environmental agency, in Tocantins. “Instead, some chiefs had significant resources while, in the same community, children died of malnutrition.”

Indigenous residents told the AP that wranglers also fenced off parts of the island and restricted access to farming areas that were meant for communal use.

Leaders who supported agreements with ranchers say such incidents were isolated and argue that raising cattle has been blamed for broader policy failures. Still, they acknowledge the system spiraled out of control, with ranchers bringing far more cattle than declared.

“The situation became unsustainable, and removing the cattle was the only alternative,” Javae said.

Indigenous residents say they own the remaining cattle on the island. But in March, environmental authorities seized 550 head of cattle and issued 21 citations, according to documents reviewed by The Associated Press. One cited a wrangler who said an Indigenous chief told him to falsely claim the herd was Indigenous‑owned to avoid sanctions.

Cattle ranching caused soil acidification and fueled wildfires

Bananal Island lies between the Javae and Araguaia rivers at the junction of Brazil’s top soy and cattle-producing states of Tocantins, Mato Grosso and Para.

When European colonizers reached the area in the late 18th century, they found the island inhabited by Indigenous peoples and covered with wild banana groves that inspired its name: Ilha do Bananal in Portuguese.

The region remained largely overlooked by settlers and the Brazilian government until the 1950s, when it was designated a protected area. At the same time, authorities began promoting non-Indigenous cattle ranching through leasing agreements with local communities.

Ranching offered villages a potential source of income but also fueled inequality and environmental problems.

Cattle ranching caused soil acidification and fueled wildfires, according to Brazil’s environmental agency, with investigations finding blazes often started near grazing areas. Ranchers have long used fire to manage land and renew pasture.

Three Indigenous groups live on the island: the Javae, Karaja and Ava-Canoeiro. The Javae have long maintained close ties with non-Indigenous ranchers. Many outsiders married Indigenous women and settled on the island. Through these relationships, ranchers gained access to develop economic activity inside legally protected territory.

The island’s traditional cultures and non-Indigenous practices can be seen in the contrasts. Brick houses stand alongside thatched structures of wood and straw. In Txuiri village, children play with bows and arrows near a Protestant church. In another village, Boa Esperanca, Lucirene Javae, the eldest in the community, on a recent day prepared to roast turtles for lunch while watching cooking videos on YouTube.

Brazilian Indigenous people rethink economic models

The Javae are working with The Nature Conservancy, a nonprofit dedicated to land conservation, to develop a land management plan on the island that outlines their social, environmental and economic needs, along with pathways to meet them.

In May, Javae leaders and other Indigenous representatives visited the Macuxi people in Roraima, a state in the northern Amazon seen as a model for using agriculture to generate income and strengthen land rights.

In the 1980s, Macuxi leaders began raising cattle to help reclaim territory under pressure from farmers, miners and land grabbers. The land was only officially demarcated as Indigenous territory in 2005.

Today, the Macuxi collectively own about 45,000 head of cattle, said Ivo Aureliano Macuxi, an Indigenous rights advocate and member of the Indigenous Council of Roraima.

The Macuxi and Bananal Island peoples’ experiences reflect a broader debate by Indigenous groups in Brazil to balance economic activity with protection of their rights and the environment, he said.

That debate also has advanced in mining. In February, Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Flávio Dino ruled that the Cinta Larga people, who live in a region spanning the Amazonian states of Mato Grosso and Rondonia, have the right to mine within their own territory.

Aureliano said Indigenous communities need legal frameworks that both support their territories and respect the diversity of Brazil’s 391 Indigenous peoples.

“You can’t apply a single model as a template for other Indigenous lands,” Aureliano said, but instead must tailor plans to “each region, each territory, each people.”

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Just days after Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich stormed Bethlehem’s Solomon’s Pools in late May, accompanied by hardline Knesset member Zvi Sukkot, both of whom went swimming in one of the pools in an act of provocation, the local Palestinian community responded. A group of residents from Dheisheh refugee camp arrived at the site, Palestinian flags in hand, and jumped in. The community’s response was more than just a knee-jerk reaction to the Israelis — it was an act of defiance.

Since that first protest, the ancient site has become almost unrecognizable. Three of the pools that make up the ancient water reservoir, which are normally off-limits for swimming due to their depth of more than 20 meters, have been transformed into a space where Palestinians compete to swim every day. Activity at the pools now begins in the early hours of the morning. Fishermen arrive to cast their nets into the still waters, as if resuming a daily ritual inherited from generations before them. As the day advances, the place becomes a vibrant hub of community life. Families from Bethlehem, young men from the city’s refugee camps who lack any public spaces of their own, and visitors from different parts of the West Bank spread out along the pools’ stone edges or along the dirt paths surrounding them. Not everyone is coming to swim; some come to rest, others to simply take pictures. But everyone is ultimately here to send the same message: Smotrich and the settlers are not welcome.

Located in the village of Artas, southwest of Bethlehem, Solomon’s Pools belong to an ancient water system that evolved across different historical periods and formed part of a network for collecting and transporting water that served Bethlehem and Jerusalem, which gave it enduring significance for the Palestinians.

The pools are now the latest archaeological and historic site in the occupied West Bank that has come under threat of Israeli takeover.

On the slopes of the mountains adjacent to the pools, no more than four kilometers away, towering over the village, is the mega-settlement of Efrat, one of the largest settlements in the Gush Etzion bloc south of Bethlehem. Efrat’s proximity to Bethlehem and Jerusalem make it a key part of a broader Israeli project to reshape the geographic space around Jerusalem through a southward and westward expansion of Israeli colonization.

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“The overwhelming scale and rate of children killed and injured in Gaza have been unparalleled across modern conflicts globally,” a new report by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory reaffirmed this week. Building upon earlier evidence and new testimonies, the report backs warnings from Palestinians and international activists that Israeli forces deliberately target Palestinian children as part of a strategy to “destroy the future of the Palestinians in Gaza.”

“That’s a very serious conclusion to come to,” said Australian legal expert Chris Sidoti, one of the commission’s members, during a press conference on June 26. Yet the widespread use of torture and other degrading treatment, attacks on schools and orphanages, and strikes on key infrastructure needed for children to lead dignified lives – such as hospitals – during the Gaza genocide left little room for doubt.

Read more: “There is no peace and no plan” for Gaza, health workers warn

The report details various ways Israeli occupation forces have harmed children in the Strip since October 7, 2023. These include killing and injuring children through mass bombardment and indiscriminate attacks, as well as direct targeting via sniper fire and quadcopter shootings. These attacks have not ceased since the so-called ceasefire took effect in October last year, with over 100 children killed in Gaza since then. Combined with obstruction of aid deliveries and reconstruction, these actions continue to create a harrowing environment for all residents, particularly children.

“It’s all as it was in October 2025,” Sidoti added. “The [Gaza Peace] Plan should be declared a failure.”

The commission cited dozens of examples of children’s suffering. The list includes six-year-old Hind Rajab, who was killed in an Israeli attack on her family’s car and the ambulance responding to help them. It also describes how small children witnessed their families being shot or kidnapped. In December 2023, the report notes, Israeli soldiers threw four hand grenades into a house in Gaza City hosting 30 people. During the attack, a five-year-old suffered severe injuries, including abdominal evisceration. He was forced to evacuate without medical care. “He lost consciousness at the school, while he was treated by a doctor who reinserted his exposed intestines by using diapers and taped his stomach.”

No “normal-sized” babies in Gaza

Interviews with international health workers volunteering in Gaza’s hospitals also revealed the extent of injuries suffered by children. From head and chest wounds to damage to eyes and hearing, the report warned that “at least 21,000 children were made newly disabled in Gaza and approximately 40,500 children suffered ‘war-related’ injuries.”

This means tens of thousands of children require long-term, often lifelong, rehabilitation but are unlikely to receive it due to the systematic destruction of healthcare infrastructure by Israeli forces. The impacts are equally felt by children with pre-existing chronic conditions, newborns, and pregnant women. “By October 2024, women in Gaza were reported to be three times more likely to die in childbirth and three times more likely to miscarry than before October 7, 2023,” the report notes.

By June 2025, a third of births in Gaza were premature, underweight, or required intensive care, including babies born at 32 weeks weighing only 0.9 kilograms. “Doctors have reported no longer seeing ‘normal-sized’ babies in Gaza.”

“There is a direct targeting by Israel to affect the long-term health outcomes of babies,” a pediatric nurse told the commission. “There is no reason why we cannot bring medications into Gaza to help pregnant women and babies, so it makes no sense except to think that this particular group is being targeted due to which there is a higher mortality among newborns.”

Read more: Intergenerational hunger: the effects of Israel’s starvation of Gaza

Compounding factors for children’s health include extreme temperatures and malnutrition, worsened by conditions created by Israel on the ground: destroyed housing, sanitation infrastructure, and aid obstructions. Speaking at the same conference as Sidoti, emergency physician Dr. Mahmooda Syed referred to infectious diseases contracted by children with compromised immune systems due to hunger as “manufactured conditions.”

She emphasized that everything from basic hygiene to administering insulin is impossible in the current situation. A similar point was raised by Al Mezan Center for Human Rights on June 25, highlighting the spread of insects and rodents resulting from Israel’s actions. The center warned that “diseases and serious public health hazards have proliferated throughout displacement camps and residential areas amid the absence of clean water, sanitation supplies, and essential services.”

The report highlights cases of skin and hair conditions and faltering oral health. Such “manufactured conditions” often become deadly for children with compromised immunity. One case involved a 12-year-old girl with celiac disease who suffered severe malnutrition after Israel’s 2025 blockade restricted access to gluten-free foods. The report notes that she lost “one-third of her body weight over six months, resulting in frail limbs, diarrhea, fatigue, and a weakened immune system.” The child died “due to septic shock from a simple infection.”

“I was not able to finish any operation because every time child patients were taken back to the operating room, their injuries would be covered in maggots and sepsis under the dressings,” another health worker was quoted saying. “These child patients had no immune system due to malnutrition. Children just did not recover.”

Read more: The unbelievable stories about the children of Gaza

Beyond Gaza, the report also sounds the alarm against a sharp increase in violence against Palestinian children in the West Bank, perpetrated particularly by Israeli settlers. The commission documented dozens of settler and Israeli forces attacks, which include killings, maiming, and sexual violence – and expose children to constant fear and trauma.

“By targeting children, Israel is eroding the foundational structure of Palestinian society, weakening the demographic vitality, and overall capacity of the Palestinian people to sustain and exercise its right to determine its future as a people,” the commission concluded. It recommended that governments take urgent and specific action, including a full arms trade ban on Israel, severing financial flows to illegal settlements, and investigating individuals known to have participated in attacks on Gaza – starting with their own citizens.

People’s Health Dispatch is a fortnightly bulletin published by the People’s Health Movement and Peoples Dispatch*. For more articles and subscriptions to People’s Health Dispatch, click* here.

Ana Vračar , June 28, 2026

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Amelia Schafer
ICT

The Caddo Nation is situated in an extreme childcare desert, a place where the demand for childcare disproportionately outweighs available services. Only one dedicated childcare facility exists within a 5-mile radius of Binger, Oklahoma, where the tribe’s headquarters are located according to a state database.

For years, Caddo parents have faced persistent waitlists, often of 90 children at a time, coupled with their status as long commuters, meaning the average parent travels more than 30 minutes to and from work each day, said Lauren French, who is Delaware and Caddo and serves as the Caddo Nation’s Child Care Director.

To top it off, the average Caddo parent has to travel an additional 20-40 minutes per day to and from child care, she said, often traveling far from their work site just to find an available day care provider.

A new tribal childcare facility opening this fall aims to relieve not only families in search of childcare, but provide a multi-function space for Caddo Nation youth. The center is more than three years in the making, French said.

The new 12,250-square foot facility, located in Hinton, Oklahoma, about one hour west of Oklahoma City, is purposely near Interstate 40, which a majority of parents use daily on their commutes, French said.

But French said she didn’t want to stop there.

An aerial photo of the new Caddo Nation Child Care center showcases the buildings unique design. Credit: MASS Design

She and others like Caddo Nation Chairman Bobby Gonzalez wanted to provide a multi-use space, not just a building with four walls and a roof where you drop your kid off every day, because for many children this will be their second-home. They wanted a space that reflected Caddo culture and tradition and provided a variety of learning opportunities both inside and outside of a traditional classroom, she said.

To create that second-home feeling, the Caddo Nation partnered with MASS Design, a nonprofit design lab that works with tribal nations to help develop new culturally-informed infrastructure, to create a culturally informed multi-purpose facility. From these conversations, the teams worked to develop an innovative center that could meet a variety of needs expressed by community members.

The new Caddo Nation Childcare Center will feature both indoor and outdoor classrooms and learning centers as well as a gym, a pool, a library, a fully staffed nursing center and a playground highlighting the Caddo Nation’s mound-building tradition, something that’s central to Caddo culture, French said.

The center will create an estimated 20-23 new jobs for the community and serve a total of 75 children between as early as six months old capping at 12 years old.

The project is one of the Caddo Nation’s first new construction projects in decades, according to MASS Design, and was constructed by Arrowood Kakinah Enterprise, a new Caddo-owned construction company.

“The whole impetus was, ‘How do we kind of think about seeding the site with the future leaders of the Caddo Nation,’” said Joseph Kunkle, Northern Cheyenne and a principal with MASS Design. “This is a facility for the generations to come, so how can we ensure we’re starting this larger development right?”

A childcare center is a critical part of a community’s infrastructure, much like a fire station, an emergency dispatch station or a police department, Kunkle said. The ability for families, especially rural families that often commute long distances daily for work, to have a safe-space they can take their children to was paramount to the project’s design and conception, he said.

“All communities need this type of infrastructure in order for us to go to work, to go to school, to make sure that our children are learning about the culture,” Kunkle said.

Native communities don’t often get that type of luxury, French said, referring to the ability to send their children to a culturally enriching environment they can trust isn’t always an option.

“We [Natives] should be able to have quality and we should be able to have a premier site for our families and for our communities to be, to grow up in and to share milestones with the communities and everything else like that,” French said.

One key component aimed at helping families is the facilities offering an on-site registered nurse. Rather than needing to take time off work to drive to a hospital or urgent care clinic, families can have their children taken care of at the same facility they take them to every day, French said.

From a design perspective, every aspect of the center’s creation is rooted in Caddo culture. Caddo people traditionally lived in structures called Koo Hoo Kiwat, which are dome shaped thatched homes made of river cane, tall grasses and logs. The Caddo Nation Child Care center’s exterior, a cedar shake facade, pays homage to the traditional look of the Koo Hoo Kiwats, while the interior features several motifs and murals alongside laminated timber structures and exposed wood.

The center is set to open in fall 2026.

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Shirley Sneve
ICT

CROW AGENCY, Montana – Thousands from across the continent flocked to the rolling plains along the Little Bighorn River where 150 years ago to the day Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer met his demise at what U.S. schoolchildren know as the Battle of Little Bighorn or Custer’s Last Stand – but Native Nations know as Greasy Grass.

“You know, Custer planned [a large-scale attack on tribes gathered along the river] because he wanted to be president,” said Oglala Sioux Tribe President Frank Star Comes Out. “And so news was supposed to hit Washington, D.C., that he defeated the Sioux. … Well, we changed history.”

Dawson Richards helps his father set up a tepee during festivities commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, Wednesday, June 24, 2026, in Crow Agency, Montana. (AP Photo/Tailyr Irvine)

In preparation for the commemoration events – that include a full-scale re-enactment of the battle planned for Friday – hundreds of tribal members, mostly youth, rode in on horseback to a campsite at Veterans Memorial Park on the Crow Agency. It’s an annual memorial ride that has been going on for decades.

The ride honors the 8,000 Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho people – and their horses – who were gathered at the river a century and a half ago.

“At first I rode for fun, then I slowly got other reasons,” said one young rider, Kyliana Lovell, a Iháŋktȟuŋwaŋ Dakota citizen from Wagner, South Dakota. “I started riding for my family, my passed-away relatives and mostly for my grandpa, because he loved riding horses when he was young.”

Gwen Spotted Horse, Northern Cheyenne, followed along in her car as her son and daughter rode over to the camp on Wednesday.

“Makes me feel proud,” Spotted Horse said. “We’re proud that our kids are wanting to learn [about their ancestors]. They’re the ones that kind of push us to come out.”

Men help erect a tipi on the evening of June 24, 2026, at the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe camp near the Greasy Grass battlefield. (Kevin Abourezk/ICT)

This year’s ride held extra meaning for Terry Richards, Oglala Lakota. His sons have ridden in the memorial ride for years and his ancestor, High Wolf, fought at Greasy Grass alongside Sitting Bull and other Lakota leaders.

“He fought this battle along with his mother and his brother and his father. They all fought here. They all followed Sitting Bull to Canada and came back,” said Richards. “High Wolf signed the 1868 treaty for the Black Hills.”

That treaty was swiftly broken when settlers discovered gold in the Black Hills in 1874.

“They [our ancestors] were lied to,” Richards continued. “So they came out to fight, fight for the land. And, the way of life. We’re happy to have this [150th commemoration] here today.”

A man walks back to camp during festivities commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, Wednesday, June 24, 2026, in Crow Agency, Montana. (AP Photo/Tailyr Irvine)

Gathering at the battlefield area in Montana means “we’re still here,” said William Good Bird, a traditional singer from the Spirit Lake Dakota Nation in North Dakota who woke up the camp where hundreds of people were gathered from numerous tribes with a song and drumming.

“Today I am celebrating the victory of our people, celebrating my life as a human being and my spot on this earth,” he said.

At the time, the Lakota were one of the largest and most powerful tribal nations, with strong leaders in Sitting Bull and warriors like Crazy Horse. Native warriors quickly overwhelmed Custer’s men as the U.S. forces were spread miles apart over the hilly area.

News of Custer’s defeat stunned Americans, who were celebrating their country’s centennial. The federal government accelerated efforts to subdue resistance, bringing years of hardship and upheaval for Native Americans. Crazy Horse was killed in 1877, and starvation brought about the surrender of others in 1881.

Tepees dot the campground during festivities commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, Wednesday, June 24, 2026, in Crow Agency, Mont. (AP Photo/Tailyr Irvine)

Organizers bussed in more than 1,000 people to Thursday’s commemorative events on the Crow Agency, which over 19 tribes were involved in planning.

“It’s pretty impressive … all the response from the tribes,” said Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe Chairman Ryman LeBeau.

Crow Tribe Chairman Frank White Clay noted that his tribe and the Oglala Sioux Tribe set aside traditional rivalries in the run up to the 150th anniversary.

“This is historic. This hasn’t been seen for 150 years,” White Clay said. “It’s a step forward to unifying all the nations. … We all have similar issues, and we all have treaties and (are) calling on the U.S. government to uphold those treaties that were promised to us long ago.”

President Star Comes Out agreed.

“This shows that we can unite and we do have power because we’re still here. … I’m just excited,” Star Comes Out said. “I know that we’re all coming together in a good way.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

The post ‘We changed history’ by defeating Custer appeared first on ICT.

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I would like to preface that I am not indigenous and I am writing from what I have learned from indigenous comrades

Since dawn of capitalism and colonialism, there has been the story of growth and degrowth. For many leftists in western world, growth is unchallenged, they want to keep consuming, keep making more and more. Whenever degrowth comes into question people who hate green capitalism start talking about "socialist growth" citing China's example or North Korea's example when none of these places are without faults of their own. Many leftists haven't grown out of earn-and-spend model of capitalism where if you have enough money then you don't have any moral responsibility to the world and you can consumption whatever you want, for many this becomes doing "enough work". Take a smartphone, computer, or gen ai, crypto, or anything that today is constituted by capitalism and exists for it, many just want a better and better computer without knowing what they'll do with so much computing power, many want chatbots not knowing eventually we might as well run out of silicon to make chips that run these machines because they need so much compute to do next to nothing and all while polluting the environment and consuming resources like industrial meat farms. Many talk about renewable energy to fuel their "socialist growth" but I don't think they know what happens when you do too much of anything, even the renewables won't save world after a point what will they do then? Destroy the sun to create energy on Mars? Why is this the case especially in the west? We don't see comrades from other parts of the world talking about things like this, they're more considerate about what they are going to do, I mentioned China earlier, Chinese closed mines which was harming the environment of the surrounding area, Chinese policy carries many important elements of caring for nature around them despite many contradictions relating to consumerism especially. I believe many leftists haven't untangles their mind from a colonial epistemology, to them nature is science and can be reduced to empirical science not something a shaman experiences, these leftists can't support colonization of other people (though many still do) so they have a new frontier to conquer, nature and other beings in it, these leftists are still in that colonial thinking where nature and animals in it are separate and different than humans and it is duty of humans of conquer these animals and nature and thus instead of working with nature they want to make their own life as better as possible at expense of future generations and current natural world. When these people talk about degrowth it is about how they and only they can experience a curated version of nature which you can imagine produces horrendous results but that's the colonial world. Colonialism is the primary contradiction in this world, many want to reap fruits of colonialism's assualt on nature in a socialist manner instead of going beyond colonialism, beyond imperial thinking.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/57955

This story was originally published by Utah News Dispatch.

Annie Knox
Utah News Dispatch

A plan from Sen. Mike Lee and Rep. Celeste Maloy to change how the federal government manages a Utah national monument is facing a steeper road ahead after moving slower than anticipated and missing a deadline.

With support from the rest of Utah’s all-Republican congressional delegation, Lee and Maloy in March proposed undoing a Biden-era management plan for the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument spanning 1.9 million acres in southern Utah. Their effort drew intense opposition from environmental groups and Native American tribes.

In Lee and Maloy’s view, the 2025 guidelines went too far in restricting uses like road access. The lawmakers noted neighboring rural counties opposed the restrictions, saying standards set by the first Trump administration were better for managing the protected land.

Lee and Maloy invoked the Congressional Review Act, allowing Congress to review and overturn federal rules in an expedited process and by a simple majority of votes in the U.S. House and Senate. But the deadline for those votes came and went on the evening of Thursday, June 11, without any action from Congress.

In a joint prepared statement, Lee and Maloy said they’re not abandoning their plan.

“While the CRA pathway is no longer available for this measure, our focus on this issue is unchanged,” they said in the statement. “This was a procedural outcome, not a reflection of support for the underlying policy, and we are evaluating next steps. We remain committed to restoring our community’s voice in the monument’s future.”

Legal experts told Utah News Dispatch in May that if successful, the effort would have caused immense uncertainty on the ground, leaving federal land managers guessing about how they’re supposed to do their jobs. Under the act, they’d be barred from using a “substantially similar” framework in the future, but it’s not clear how different their next steps would need to be.

On Friday, June 12, a coalition of Native American tribes said the proposal would bring “devastating effects for the monument and for our peoples” and celebrated that the 2025 plan remains intact.

“That plan, for the first time, heeded our voices and our Traditional Knowledge by establishing a framework for Tribal co-stewardship over our ancestral lands,” said Autumn Gillard, coordinator for the Grand Staircase-Escalante Inter-Tribal Coalition, and who is Southern Paiute.

Gillard said use of the Congressional Review Act to overturn the monument guidelines would have been a “a direct strike against the Federal government’s duty to consult with Tribes.” It would also be the first time Congress used the act to undo a management plan for a national monument.

The current plan protects cultural places, petroglyphs, pictographs and structures that remain important for traditions, ceremonies, and domestic life, Gillard said, and removing it would have raised the risk of looting and vandalism.

The management plan also sets guidelines for camping, cattle grazing and other uses inside the monument. Changes to the plan could alter which activities are allowed and where within the monument they’re permitted, but would not affect its size.

The coalition said now that the fast-track window has closed, Lee would need 60 votes that he’s unlikely to get in order to overcome the Senate filibuster, a procedural maneuver to delay legislation.

The monument was created by former President Bill Clinton in 1996, over the objections of Utah officials. Clinton used his power under the Antiquities Act, a century-old law giving presidents authority to declare monuments to protect places of cultural, historical and scientific significance.

President Donald Trump drastically reduced the monument’s boundaries in 2017, before President Joe Biden restored it to its original size in 2021.

The post Utah bid to roll back Grand Staircase-Escalante plan veers off the fast track appeared first on ICT.

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cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/57488

Over eight months after US President Donald Trump announced the launch of phase one of his ceasefire deal for Gaza, modest progress seems to have been reached towards phase two.

During the first phase, Israel committed around 3,300 violations in the besieged enclave, killing almost 1,000 people and injuring thousands of others. The entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza, as well as emergency medical evacuations, have been significantly restricted.

However, the Trump administration has held Hamas accountable for obstructing progress toward the next phase of the deal. For many, this approach aims to pressure the movement and other Palestinian resistance factions to lay down arms, even as Israel continues its genocide in Gaza.

Read more: Hamas demands that Israel implement phase one of Gaza ceasefire

Mladenov’s biased “roadmap” for Gaza

Since being appointed by Trump, Nickolay Mladenov, the high representative of the Board of Peace for Gaza (a body criticized by Palestinian groups as advancing US and Israeli interests in Gaza), has effectively maximized pressure on the Palestinian resistance through both his public statements and the 15-point roadmap he revealed last month.

According to Mladenov, the roadmap is designed to implement Trump’s 20-point “comprehensive plan,” which includes reconstruction, demilitarization, the flow of humanitarian aid, the deployment of an international force, and Palestinian self-governance in the Gaza Strip.

Mladenov claimed that the proposed roadmap “rests on the principle of reciprocity.” Yet, analysts argue that it tends to frame the delay in disarming Palestinian factions as the sole obstacle hindering phase two of the deal.

Although the roadmap mentions that the killing has not stopped in the Gaza Strip despite the ceasefire, it does not point to the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) as the perpetrator. Neither does it stipulate the cessation of Israeli violations as a primary condition for phase two of the deal.

Moreover, it heavily focuses on decommissioning Palestinian weapons rather than demanding that Israel unconditionally withdraw from the Gaza Strip.

Under international law, the Gaza Strip is recognized as part of the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), where sovereignty ultimately belongs to the Palestinian people. The plan, however, prioritizes disarming Palestinians over ending the occupation, which in turn reflects a bias toward Israel that is evident throughout the proposal.

Mladenov’s roadmap uses the October 7 attacks as a pretext to justify and whitewash the mass killing and destruction, which Israel’s genocidal aggression has caused for around three years.

This was stated bluntly, without mentioning Israel’s 78-year occupation, which for decades had systematically exterminated Palestinians before October 7 erupted as a response to the oppression.

This oppression has been fueled by unwavering US support and the inefficiency of a decaying international community, which both bolstered Israel’s impunity.

While Mladenov raved about the return of all Israeli captives – whose number does not exceed 251 – he ignored the fact that about 10,000 Palestinians have been held in Israeli jails, most arrested many years before October 7. The return of these Palestinian hostages does not seem to concern the newly-appointed high representative for Gaza at all.

Weapons in Gaza will be passed to Palestinian committee

While Mladenov’s plan exposes a blatant alignment with Israel, analysts view it as a positive development that the decommissioning of weapons in Gaza is kept within the hands of the Palestinians themselves.

As per the roadmap, all weapons will pass to the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), including those held by the Palestinian resistance and local Israeli-led militias. The NCAG is a transitional, technocratic Palestinian administration tasked with running daily affairs in post-war Gaza.

“Decommissioning of weapons will be gradual, sequenced and time-bound, against an agreed timetable. It will be monitored and supported. It will be Palestinian-led, with weapons transferred to the NCAG. All armed groups, and the text says that explicitly, including the militias, take part, to decommission all weapons and all militant infrastructure,” the eighth principle of the roadmap reads.

Palestinian factions categorically reject unilateral disarmament, insist on IOF’s withdrawal from Gaza

After weeks of extensive consultations with mediators and guarantors of the ceasefire deal from Egypt, Qatar, and Türkiye, Palestinian factions submitted a unified, official response to Mladenov’s roadmap on Saturday, June 13.

In their response, the factions categorically rejected any unilateral disarmament, insisting that it cannot be a prerequisite and must be implemented only after Israel ends its military actions in Gaza and stops its violations of the ceasefire deal.

They affirmed that the IOF must completely and immediately withdraw from the Gaza Strip, and dismantle any outstanding security zones or dividing corridors.

The factions required the immediate entry and full activation of NCAG in Gaza, and formed an internal handover committee in Cairo to pave the way for a smooth transition of civil governance and public services.

The demands of the Palestinian factions also included compelling Israel to fully implement the humanitarian protocols of phase one. This includes ceasing all military incursions, opening all border crossings, and allowing the unrestricted distribution of fuel and aid.

Furthermore, Palestinian factions refused linking the reconstruction of Gaza to the demilitarization process, asserting that humanitarian rebuilding should be implemented independently, without being connected to political and security-related issues

Omar Assaf hails Palestinian factions for linking armed resistance to the existence of occupation

BreakThrough News spoke to Palestinian political activist, freedom fighter, and former prisoner in Israeli jails, Mr. Omar Assaf, to get his insights about the response of the Palestinian factions to Mladenov’s plan.

Assaf stated that Palestinian factions have handled ceasefire negotiations with a high degree of responsibility since the beginning of Israel’s genocidal aggression on Gaza to protect the interests of their people. This sense of responsibility is demonstrated during their recent consultations in Cairo, and in the response they submitted to Mladenov:

“The factions gave clear responses to all the issues raised, particularly concerning the weapons of the Palestinian resistance,” the prominent Palestinian activist noted. “They linked the possession of weapons to the existence of occupation. As long as Palestinian independence and statehood are not achieved, our homeland remains under occupation, and in accordance with international law, people under occupation have a legitimate right to defend themselves and their rights.”

From Assaf’s point of view, the wording of the response, which was unanimously supported by the Palestinian grassroots and all national movements, represented a major breakthrough. It was also welcomed by mediators, especially the part that indicates passing the weapons to a Palestinian committee, rather than to the Israeli occupation or other external parties.

The veteran Palestinian freedom fighter praised the factions for insisting on dismantling the Israeli-backed militias in Gaza as a major requirement for proceeding to Phase Two.

Regarding the deployment of the International Stabilization Force (ISF), Assaf said that this force should play the role of a peacekeeping force that must protect the Palestinian people, “instead of acting as another occupying power on Palestinian soil.”

Assaf affirmed that the ball is now in Washington’s court regarding the roadmap’s success, arguing that the factions’ response offered a viable solution to several key issues, including demilitarization.

elevation , June 17, 2026

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