Israel has detained American Grayzone journalist Jeremy Loffredo while he was on assignment in Israel.

According to social media posts, Loffredo was detained on Tuesday along with four other journalists who were “beaten, blindfolded, and taken to an Israeli military base.” They also had their phones confiscated. Loffredo remains in custody, while the others, including Andrey X, were released 11 hours later.

Loffredo’s last video posted on X reported the damage caused by the Iranian missile strikes on Israel’s military sites on 1 October. Social media users believe this is the reason for his detention as no local news organisations have covered the damage from the attack.

On the first anniversary of the cross-border incursion on 7 October 2023 and the start of Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza, all that the UN can boast of can be summed up in one word: complicity. Western countries have either provided Israel with weapons or endorsed the genocide by reiterating Israel’s fabricated security and “self-defence” narrative. If a colonial, occupying entity has the “right to self-defence”, what about the people under occupation? According to the West and the UN, the colonised Palestinian people deserve genocide punctured by rare humanitarian pauses after which Israel is free to kill thousands more.

Netanyahu’s speech at the UN General Assembly blamed the Lebanese for Hezbollah’s existence; he invented stories about missiles and rockets in garages and kitchens – just one missile in each room – which is preposterous. Next, Lebanon is being bombarded by Israel and the Lebanese are blamed for Israel’s aggression, because according to Netanyahu, it is the Lebanese people who can end this new genocide, when the reality is that only Israel and its accomplices in the West are responsible for doing this.

Netanyahu doesn’t employ impenetrable rhetoric, he just lies. And this is apparently acceptable to the UN and the West’s “moral standards”.

For Israel to exist, genocide must be committed, insist Netanyahu and the allies of the settler-colonial, apartheid state. Having basically endorsed Israel’s “right” to commit genocide, is it possible for Western leaders to sink any lower?

The Israel Land Authority is set to seize the land on which UNRWA’s headquarters lie in occupied East Jerusalem to build housing for illegal settlers.

According to information released today, the UNRWA headquarters are set to be converted into 1,440 housing units.

Chaos has erupted after a major nine-date speaking tour by Nelson Mandela's grandson was thrown into doubt when he did not receive a UK visa in time for his flight.

Zwelivelile Mandla Mandela has reportedly cancelled his flight to the UK, where he was due to address a series of pro-Palestine events in eight cities - Sheffield, Manchester, Edinburgh, Dundee, Aberdeen, Glasgow, Bristol and Brighton - including one alongside Labour MPs.

On 7 October 2023, the day of the Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel in which 1,139 people died and hundreds were taken hostage, Mandela said: "We support the Palestinian right to resist and call on all resistance formations to likewise support Operation Al Aqsa Flood and intensify the struggle on all fronts."

He also told the international community to "rise to the occasion and support Hamas and the Palestinian resistance in fighting their oppressor".

After Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated by Israel in Tehran in July, Mandela eulogised him as a "great leader and an inspiration to all revolutionaries and freedom fighters of the world”.

His grandfather, Nelson Mandela, was a strong supporter of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which was at that point considered a terrorist organisation by the US and Israel.

Link to tweet

In the aftermath of Israel’s war in Gaza, Blinken conducted a whirlwind trip through the Middle East, trying to negotiate humanitarian assistance for Gaza.

By the time Blinken arrived in Saudi Arabia to meet MBS, he was exhausted, journalist Bob Woodward writes in his new book, “War,” which was obtained by CNN ahead of its October 15 release.

But the crown prince, a “night owl,” kept Blinken and his team up all night before finally meeting. Woodward quotes Blinken saying, “MBS was nothing more than a spoiled child.”

“Do I want it?” MBS said and tapped his heart, Woodard writes. “It doesn’t matter that much. Do I need it? Absolutely.”

Woodward also recounts a meeting that Graham, the South Carolina senator, had with the crown prince in March.

“Hey, let’s call Trump,” Graham said to MBS while visiting with the Saudi leader in March.

Woodward also writes that the Saudi leader operates and communicates with various world leaders and government officials. Woodward says bin Salman had an aide bring over a bag with about 50 burner phones, pulling out one labeled “TRUMP 45.”

Among the others in the bag, Woodward writes, was a burner labeled “JAKE SULLIVAN.”

Swedish police said on Thursday that they are investigating a shooting near an “Israeli target” in Gothenburg, which the national broadcaster said was a unit of Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems, Reuters has reported. There were no reports of any injuries.

A young suspect was apprehended at the scene and a preliminary investigation into suspected attempted murder and serious weapons crime has been initiated, added police.

A police spokesperson declined to comment on the suspected target. Elbit Systems in Sweden did not immediately respond to a request from Reuters for comment.

Bolivia has formally joined South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), according to the court in The Hague.

The South American nation filed an application on Tuesday to intervene in the case, which accuses Israel of perpetrating “genocidal acts” in violation of the Genocide Convention in its war on Gaza.

08 Oct 2024 - Israeli occupation forces have intensified their siege of the Jabalia camp and the surrounding neighborhoods, including Tal al-Zaatar, al-Sikka, Beit Hanoun, and Beit Lahia. The Israeli forces have also taken up positions in the western region of the Gaza Strip, advancing as far as the Jaffa Cemetery and the Tawam Junction.

With airstrikes, fire belts, and artillery shelling—including bombing homes over the heads of their occupants—the Israeli occupation forces have been occupying large portions of northern Gaza since Saturday evening, 5 October. Dozens of people have been killed and injured as a result of this ongoing invasion.

Initial reports confirmed that five citizens—including a woman, a man, and his son—were executed by the occupation forces for trying to escape the Jabalia camp while waving white flags.

Saudi Arabia has executed 213 people so far in 2024, more than it has in any other calendar year on record, as the kingdom competes for a seat at the UN Human Rights Council (HRC). According to the London-based rights group Reprieve, which documents the death penalty worldwide, the largest recorded figure prior to this year was 196 in 2022, followed by 184 in 2019.

“As the world's attention fixates on horror elsewhere in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia is clearing death row with a bloodbath,” Reprieve’s deputy director, Harriet McCulloch, told MEE.

“The Kingdom smashed its own grim record for most people executed in a year in the first nine months of 2024,” she added. “With 213 executions and counting, death row prisoners are at greater risk than ever before, their families desperately awaiting news of their fate in the news.”

The executions are taking place under the government of Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman, the kingdom’s prime minister and de facto leader, who pledged in a 2018 interview to minimise capital punishment.

One simple test stands between Wafa Aliyan, who's from an Arab Israeli village west of Jerusalem, and her dream of pursuing graduate law studies at Hebrew University: the YAEL Hebrew fluency test.

It took place in July, but Aliyan couldn't register because she has no ID card and wasn't allowed to register with her father's, as she did when she enrolled for undergraduate studies at Bethlehem University in the West Bank.

Aliyan was born in Jerusalem to an Arab Israeli father and a Palestinian mother from the West Bank but isn't recognized as an Israeli citizen. In fact, she's not a citizen or resident of any country in the world.

"I can't live," she says. "I can't attend an Israeli university because I have no ID. I get stopped at checkpoints – especially if I'm wearing a hijab. I can't go to a health clinic, and during the pandemic, I couldn't be vaccinated until the Health Ministry agreed for me to go to a clinic for foreigners."