Police inaction in the bus-ramming and mass riots that occurred on Tuesday reflects a broader tendency to avoid intervention in ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods, particularly those dominated by extremist factions
Israel ‘asphyxiating’ Palestinians for ‘apartheid system’ in West Bank: UN
The United Nations human rights office has called on Israel to “dismantle all settlements” in the occupied West Bank, saying its “oppression and domination” of Palestinians resembles “apartheid”.
In a new report on Wednesday, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights slammed Israel’s “systemic discrimination” against Palestinians, citing restrictions on movement through checkpoints, and “limited access to roads, natural resources, land and basic social facilities”.
“There is a systematic asphyxiation of the rights of Palestinians in the West Bank,” said UN rights chief Volker Turk in a statement. “This is a particularly severe form of racial discrimination and segregation that resembles the kind of apartheid system we have seen before.”
While UN-affiliated independent experts have described the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories as “apartheid”, Turk’s comments marked the first time a UN rights chief used the term, which was coined during South Africa’s system of racial segregation that lasted from 1948 to 1994.
Turk said every aspect of life in the occupied West Bank is “controlled and curtailed by Israel’s discriminatory laws, policies and practices”, from accessing water to harvesting olives.
Wednesday’s report called out the Israeli authorities for treating Israeli settlers and Palestinians “under two distinct bodies of law and policies, resulting in unequal treatment on a range of critical issues”, with “large-scale confiscation of land and deprivation of access to resources”.
The laws had led to Palestinians being dispossessed of their lands and homes “alongside other forms of systemic discrimination including criminal prosecution in military courts during which their due process and fair trial rights are systematically violated”.
Women watch Israeli machinery demolishing a building at Nur Shams refugee camp in the occupied West Bank
Two bodies of law
Israel has previously rejected the apartheid accusations, saying its policies are driven by “security concerns” rather than racial or ethnic discrimination.
The UN rights office said the discrimination in the Palestinian territories is compounded by continuing and escalating settler violence in many cases “with the acquiescence, support and participation of Israel’s security forces”.
More than 500,000 Israelis currently live in settlements in the West Bank, occupied since 1967 and home to about three million Palestinians.
Violence has surged in the shadow of the genocidal war on Gaza, with Israeli attacks killing more than 1,100 Palestinians in the West Bank since October 7, 2023. Israeli authorities have arrested nearly 21,000 Palestinians during that period.
Meanwhile, Israel’s settlement expansion continues, with Israel recently approving 19 new settlement outposts in the occupied West Bank, as the right-wing government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu moves to prevent the formation of a contiguous Palestinian state.
Spanish PM open to sending troops to maintain peace 'in Palestine'
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20260108-spanish-pm-open-to-sending-troops-to-maintain-peace-in-palestine
"I will propose to parliament, when the opportunity presents itself, that we send peacekeeping troops to Palestine, once we can see how to advance this task of pacification," he told a gathering of Spanish ambassadors in Madrid.
"Of course, we have not forgotten Palestine and the Gaza Strip... Spain must actively participate in rebuilding hope in Palestine. The situation there remains intolerable."
Sanchez also reaffirmed Spain's willingness to deploy troops to Ukraine in the event of a peace deal, calling the current moment "critical" and "decisive" for achieving peace there.
"If Spain has sent peacekeeping troops to many regions far from our country, how could we not send peacekeeping troops to Ukraine, a European country?" he added.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is against having any foreign peacekeeping troops on Ukrainian soil.
At the end of last year, Sanchez called for raising awareness about the "dramatic situation" of Palestinians during a meeting in Madrid with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
Charges Dropped Against Nine Arrested at Pro-Palestine Protest
Organizers say these arrests are another example of police overreach and that they are being used as justification for ongoing repression. Toronto police call the arrests “lawful, justified, and reasonable”
Indigenous organizations rallied downtown on Oct. 8 to support Mskwaasin Agnew, a Cree/Dene harm reduction worker. Agnew was kidnapped by the Israeli military while aboard the international Freedom Flotilla ship Conscience, which was attempting to deliver essential medical supplies to Gaza.
Criminal charges against nine people who were arrested during an Indigenous-led, pro-Palestine demonstration in Toronto last fall have been dropped.
The arrests occurred on Oct. 8, 2025, near the Global Affairs Canada office at Queen Street and University Avenue, where hundreds gathered to protest the Israeli kidnapping of Indigenous harm reduction worker and advocate Mskwaasin Agnew and others who were travelling on the Mediterranean Sea as part of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition in an attempt to break Israel’s illegal blockade of Gaza.
The demonstration had gone on for six hours, organizers say, when Toronto Police became “increasingly agitated,” and attempted to end the protest.
According to a statement shared by the Legal Support Committee (LSC) — a collective that supports people arrested in the Greater Toronto Area for organizing and protesting for the liberation of Palestine— the protest erupted into “chaos” when Inspector Israel Bernardo drove an unmarked vehicle into the crowd.
“Unaware that the vehicle was driven by a police officer, protesters rushed in front of the vehicle to protect attendees — at which point, Bernardo emerged from his vehicle, ordering officers to arrest people,” the statement reads. “Multiple people were tackled and beaten by police.”
In a video shared on Instagram from the Oct. 8 demonstrations, police officers can be seen punching, shoving and dragging protesters.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DQIE1FqkYXt
When asked to comment on the incident, Toronto Police spokesperson Stephanie Sayer denied that Bernardo was involved in any wrongdoing, stating that “the actions of all involved officers were lawful, justified, and reasonable.”
Nine people were arrested on the scene, and all were charged with three separate counts: unlawful assembly, obstructing a peace officer, and common nuisance.
On Jan. 6 and Jan. 7, six weeks after the arrestees made their first appearance in court, the charges were dropped.
Toronto police tell The Grind that in court the Crown stated that it withdrew the charges “for lack of public interest based on the need to be judicious with respect to the use of court resources.” The Crown added that it believed “there were reasonable and probable grounds for these arrests, but in the specific circumstances of this case and these accused, there is insufficient public interest to warrant further criminal prosecutions.”
Arash Ghiassi, a legal representative for the nine arrestees, notes however that the Crown also stated that there was an insufficient reasonable prospect of conviction.
“The Crown Attorney took one look at these false charges and immediately recognized that they are not worth pursuing,” Ghiassi says in a statement. “These protesters were exercising their constitutional right to peacefully protest. This is another example of police overreach and overcharging to create a false narrative for justifying their heavy presence at both pro-Palestine and Indigenous led demonstrations.”
According to data compiled by the LSC, charges against pro-Palestine protesters rarely result in convictions. The organization says that approximately 170 people have been arrested as a result of Palestine solidarity actions since October 2023. Of those 170 arrested, 16 received trespass tickets and 154 received criminal charges. Of the 96 people who have had their charges resolved so far, only two have been convicted, while the rest have had their charges withdrawn, stayed or received discharges.
11-year-old girl shot in the head by Israeli troops in Gaza safe zone
Israeli gunfire killed 11-year-old Hamsa Hosou in northern Gaza, her family says, despite a ceasefire in place for nearly three months.
Her uncle, Khamis Housou, said he woke up to screaming in the family’s building. “I saw Hamsa lying on the floor and blood coming out of her nose and mouth,” he said.
She is among more than 400 Palestinians reported killed since the truce took effect.
Israeli attack on Gaza tent kills at least three Palestinians
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinian families are struggling to survive in makeshift tent camps across the Gaza Strip
An Israeli attack on a tent in southern Gaza has killed at least three Palestinians and wounded three others, local rescuers say, as Israel continues to bomb the coastal enclave despite an October ceasefire.
The Palestinian Civil Defence in Gaza said on Thursday that its teams recovered the bodies of three slain residents after the Israeli military bombed a family’s tent in the al-Mawasi area of Khan Younis.
Three others were wounded, including one person who suffered critical injuries, the agency said in a post on Telegram.
The attacks come as Israel has continued its military assault on Gaza despite a United States-brokered ceasefire agreement that came into effect on October 10.
At least 425 Palestinians have been killed and 1,206 others wounded in Israeli attacks since October 11, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza.
International aid as well as aid groups themselves blocked
At the same time, hundreds of thousands of displaced families have been sheltering in makeshift tent camps across Gaza after their homes were destroyed in Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians in the territory. Israel has refused to allow a free flow of shelter supplies into the Gaza Strip, despite warnings from the United Nations and humanitarian groups that Palestinians are suffering amid a series of deadly winter storms.
Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym MSF, said this week that Palestinians in Gaza were suffering from “respiratory infections, wound complications [and] skin diseases” as a result of harsh living conditions. Babies are also “suffering from severe cold”, the group said, “all the while Israel continues to block or delay the entry of vital supplies like tents, tarpaulins, and temporary housing”.
Meanwhile, Israel has moved to block international aid groups, including MSF and the Norwegian Refugee Council, from operating in the Strip. Israel has revoked the operating licences of 37 aid organisations for failing to comply with new regulations that require them to provide detailed information on staff members, funding and operations.
Experts say those requirements contravene humanitarian principles and follow a longstanding Israeli government campaign to vilify and ultimately impede the work of aid groups providing assistance to Palestinians.
On Thursday, the Reuters news agency reported that MSF, Medecins du Monde Suisse and the Danish Refugee Council said the Israeli authorities refused to allow their international staff to enter Gaza this week. The targeted groups have said they will be forced to stop providing key services, including healthcare, in Gaza as a result of Israel’s ban, putting Palestinian lives at risk.
Israel says Nickolay Mladenov to direct Trump’s proposed Gaza ‘peace board’
UN special envoy for the Middle East Peace Process Nickolay Mladenov, attends a news conference at the (UNSCO) offices in Gaza City. September 25, 2017
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that former United Nations Middle East envoy Nickolay Mladenov will direct a proposed United States-led “board of peace” in Gaza.
In a statement on Thursday, Netanyahu’s office said Mladenov “is slated to serve as Director General of the ‘Peace Council’ in the Gaza Strip”. Israel’s President Isaac Herzog also met Mladenov on Thursday, a spokesperson from his office said, without elaborating.
Under Trump’s plan to end the war, the proposed Board of Peace would supervise a new technocratic Palestinians government, the disarmament of Hamas, the deployment of an international security force, the further pushback of Israeli troops, and the reconstruction of the war-ravaged Gaza Strip.
Trump is expected to announce appointments to the board next week, according to the Axios news outlet, citing US officials and sources familiar with the matter.
“Among the countries expected to join the board are the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt and Turkiye,” Axios reported.
Mladenov, a former Bulgarian defence and foreign minister, previously served as the UN envoy to Iraq before being appointed as the UN Middle East peace envoy from 2015 to 2020.
During his time as Middle East envoy, Mladenov had good working relations with Israel and frequently worked to ease tensions between Israel and Hamas.
https://apnews.com/article/bulgaria-middle-east-gaza-nikolay-mladenov-5b4f02c2deb0ba621951c71e6ac60dd1
Mladenov served as the top U.N. envoy in Iraq from 2013 to 2015, before then-U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed him as the organization’s top Mideast envoy. During that job, he helped to defuse cross-border violence between Israel and Hamas and keep up the idea of a negotiated solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
As a sign of recognition for his peace efforts in the Middle East, he received in February 2021 the Grand Star of the Order of Jerusalem, awarded by the Palestinian president to officials, envoys, and prominent figures in recognition of their service.
Definitely seems like a much better choice than Tony Blair.
Workers at NY’s Israeli-owned Breads Bakery unionize, call to end ‘support of Palestine genocide’
https://www.timesofisrael.com/workers-of-israeli-owned-ny-bakery-unionize-call-to-end-support-of-palestine-genocide/
Employees at New York City’s biggest Israeli bakery chain say they have formed a union — and one of their top demands is “an end to this company’s support of the genocide happening in Palestine.”
As an example, they cited Breads Bakery’s participation in last year’s Great Nosh, a citywide festival of Jewish food held on Governor’s Island.
“The workers refuse to participate in Zionist projects such as fundraisers that support the ‘Israeli’ occupation of Palestine, baking cookies with the ‘Israeli’ flag, and catering events such as the Great Nosh, which are connected to organizations that donate millions each year to the IDF,” the union, which is calling itself Breaking Breads, said in a statement issued Tuesday.
The employees at Breads, a spinoff of a Tel Aviv bakery with six outposts in New York City, say “over 30%” of the company’s 275 workers signed cards in support of the union, which will be represented by United Auto Workers. They are alleging poor working conditions, low and unfair pay, and a lack of “respect” from management.
But the workers are also calling on the bakery’s operators, CEO Yonatan Floman and founder Gadi Peleg, to end Breads’ ties to Israel. Both men are Jewish Israelis, and Breads’ menu features items from across the Jewish diaspora that are popular in Israel, such as rugelach, challah, bourekas, and its award-winning babka.
"We cannot and will not ignore the implicit and explicit support this bakery has for Israel,” Breaking Breads posted on Instagram on January 1 in a statement that appeared in English, Spanish, Arabic, and French. It said it had announced itself to Breads’ management days earlier.
“We see our struggles for fair pay, respect, and safety as connected to struggles against genocide and forces of exploitation around the world,” the statement continued. “There are deep cultural changes that need to happen here, and we need to see accountability from upper management.”
‘We just sit and cry’: Gaza’s cancer patients die waiting for treatment
Doctors say cancer-related deaths have tripled since Israel’s war on Gaza began, as Israel blocks patients from leaving and restricts the entry of chemotherapy drugs.
For Hani Naim, the wait is not for a cure, but for permission to save his own life.
Living with cancer for six years, Naim had been approved for treatment abroad. But like thousands of others, he remains trapped in Gaza, barred from leaving by tightening Israeli restrictions.
“I used to receive treatment in the West Bank and Jerusalem,” Naim told Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum. “Today, I cannot access any treatment at all. I need radiotherapy, and it no longer exists in Gaza.”
Naim is one of 11,000 cancer patients currently stranded in the enclave, where the healthcare system has collapsed entirely.
According to doctors, the number of cancer-related deaths has tripled since the October 2023 start of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. With no chemotherapy, no radiotherapy, and no way out, a cancer diagnosis has become, for many, an immediate death sentence.
A ‘ghost hospital’
The epicentre of this crisis is the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital. Once the sole facility providing specialised oncology care in the Gaza Strip, it now stands as a hollowed-out shell.
“It resembles a ghost hospital after being turned into a military site during the war,” Abu Azzoum reported. “Israeli forces blew it up, leaving patients to fend for themselves.”
With the main facility destroyed, doctors have been forced into makeshift clinics with zero resources.
Almost 50 writers boycott Adelaide festival after it dumps pro-Palestine academic Randa Abdel-Fattah
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2026/jan/09/adelaide-festival-boycott-pro-palestine-academic-randa-abdel-fattah-ntwnfb
The Adelaide festival has pulled down part of its website as dozens of speakers said they were boycotting writers’ week, after Palestinian Australian author Randa Abdel-Fattah was dumped from the lineup with the board citing “cultural sensitivity” concerns in the wake of the Bondi terror attack.
The page promoting the schedule of authors, journalists, academics and commentators was “unpublished” on Friday following widespread condemnation of the board’s decision to remove Abdel-Fattah.
“In respect of the wishes of the writers who have recently indicated their withdrawal from the writers’ week 2026 program, we have temporarily unpublished the list of participants and events while we work through changes to the website,” the festival posted online.
By Friday afternoon, 47 participants had withdrawn, with more believed to be coordinating their exit announcements with fellow speakers.
Saturday January 10 - Join the weekly rally & march for Palestine - End the Genocide Now!
https://www.vancouverisawesome.com/local-events?_evDiscoveryPath=/event%2F3426864-saturday-january-10-join-the-weekly-rally-march-for-palestine-end-the-genocide-now-
As we start 2026, we are entering another year of US-Israeli genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and another year of Zionist attacks on Palestinians in West Bank. We are also starting 2026 committed to building the movement in solidarity with Palestine, and together with millions of activists world-wide continuing the struggle for Palestinian liberation and self-determination!
During 3 months of a so-called ceasefire, more than 425 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza by Zionist forces. The criminal siege on Gaza continues to leave Palestinians without shelter as winter cold, rain and flooding claim more lives. The demand to end the genocide on Gaza remains an urgent call for all peace and justice-minded people around the world.
While the US-Israeli war drive in West Asia continues to center on Palestine, the U.S. government is opening a new front of war and imperialism with their recent attack on Venezuela. Metro Vancouver United for Palestine (MVUP) condemns the U.S. attacks against Venezuela and the abduction of Venezuela's President Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores. Venezuela is a strong supporter of Palestine, and since 2009 has cut diplomatic relations with Israel. As Venezuela's self-determination and sovereignty are under attack by the U.S. government, MVUP's January 10 rally will continue to demand: No War on Venezuela! Release President Maduro and Cilia Flores now!
Join the weekly MVUP rally and march to demand:
Israel: Stop Ceasefire Violations!
End the Genocide! Stop Bombing Gaza!
US/Israel - End the Siege on Gaza Now!
Hands Off West Bank!
Free All Palestinian Prisoners!
Israel Stop Bombing Lebanon!
Boycott Israel!
Hands Off Iran!
Self-Determination for Palestine!
Deaf Palestinian man beaten by Israeli settlers
https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/09/world/video/west-bank-attack-settler-deaf-palestinian-digvid
In a mob attack on Thursday afternoon, a group of Israeli settlers beat an elderly deaf man and torched cars during a mob attack in a Palestinian village in the occupied West Bank. Surveillance footage shows several settlers attacking the man with clubs while others run up and kick him while he’s on his knees. CNN's Jeremy Diamond reports.
Extreme cold kills another infant in Gaza as Israel blocks vital aid
Wind hits tents on the beach in Gaza City
A seven-day-old infant has died due to the extreme cold in the Gaza Strip as the Israeli blockade of vital necessities worsens the humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian enclave.
Medical sources told Al Jazeera on Saturday that Mahmoud Al-Aqraa died in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza amid rapidly decreasing temperatures.
Palestinians living in makeshift tents have little protection from the strong wind and rain, as most shelters are made of thin canvas and plastic sheeting.
Israel continues to limit the number of tents and sustainable shelters entering Gaza, in violation of the ceasefire it agreed with Hamas in October. It has also blocked other vital necessities, such as mobile homes, as well as tools and materials to fix the damaged tents.
Temperatures at night in Gaza have been falling to as low as nine degrees Celsius (48 degrees Fahrenheit) in recent days.
In a statement, Gaza’s Civil Defence said on Friday that “every low-pressure system turns into a humanitarian disaster in light of the prevention of the entry of building materials and the disruption of reconstruction.”
The organisation warned of a “catastrophe” due to the “low-pressure system that caused serious damage to temporary shelters, and thousands of tents were completely damaged”.
The Civil Defence urged citizens to secure their tents to prevent them from being blown away, given that mobile homes are not allowed to enter.
“What is happening is not a weather crisis, but a direct result of preventing the entry of building materials and disrupting reconstruction, as people are living in torn tents and cracked houses without safety or dignity,” Civil Defence spokesman Mahmoud Basal said.
He also said Palestinians were forced to set up their tents on the beach due to the lack of available space inside the cities as a result of the extensive Israeli destruction of them.
Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary, reporting from Gaza City, said many tents she visited have been destroyed.
“There is no way to fix these tents, because the families do not have the materials to do that,” she said, adding that people whose tents are destroyed are forced to look for somewhere else to stay, and move to become displaced over and over again.
The meteorological authority in Gaza has warned that strong winds are expected to continue, and a further drop in temperatures is expected in the enclave.
In a statement to the AFP news agency last week, Amjad Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGO Network in Gaza, said about 1.5 million of Gaza’s 2.2 million residents have lost their homes in the war.
Of more than 300,000 tents requested to shelter displaced people, “we have received only 60,000,” Shawa said, pointing to Israeli restrictions on the delivery of humanitarian aid.
In a separate development, an Israeli quadcopter killed a Palestinian man who was being transferred to a hospital in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, medical sources told Al Jazeera on Saturday.
Nearly 80 percent of buildings in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged by Israel during its genocidal two-year war, according to the United Nations.
9c weather should not be a weather crisis killing infants from cold exposure. Stop blocking vital supplies, these deaths are entirely preventable.
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