Stuart Jeanne Bramhall's Blog: The Most Revolutionary Act

Israel accepts Trump’s proposed prisoner swap with Hamas

Smoke rises over Gaza City after an Israeli airstrike on October 2, 2025. ©  Khames Alrefi / Anadolu / Getty Images

RT

The Palestinian armed group earlier said it was ready to release all hostages

Israel has said it is ready for a prisoner swap with Hamas in line with US President Donald Trump’s peace plan.

The announcement came hours after the Palestinian armed group signaled its acceptance of parts of the proposal.

“Israel is prepared for the immediate implementation of the first stage of Trump’s plan for the immediate release of all the hostages,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement on Saturday.

“We will continue to work in full cooperation with the president and his team to end the war in accordance with the principles laid out by Israel, which correspond with Trump’s vision for ending the war,” it added.

The statement did not address Trump’s call for Israel to halt its strikes in Gaza.

Under Trump’s plan, Hamas must release all remaining hostages within 72 hours after Israel suspends military operations in Gaza and withdraws its troops “to the agreed upon line.”

Once the hostages are freed, Israel would release 250 Palestinian prisoners serving life sentences and 1,700 Palestinians detained after October 7, 2023.

An apolitical, Hamas-free transitional government will be established in Gaza, which is intended to become “a deradicalized, terror-free zone that does not pose a threat to its neighbors.”

Late on Friday, Hamas released a statement saying it was ready for a prisoner swap in accordance with the proposed formula and in principle had agreed to hand over power in Gaza to an independent government “based on the Palestinian national consensus and based on Arab and Islamic support.”

[…]

Via https://www.rt.com/news/625886-israel-trump-plan-hostages/

Hamas Says Its Ready to Release All Israeli Hostages

Explosion is seen following the Israeli attack in Gaza City, Gaza on October 3, 2025. ©  Getty Images / Anadolu / Saeed M. M. T. Jaras

RT

The militant group has also expressed a readiness to hand over Gaza governance to independent Palestinian “technocrats”

Palestinian militant group Hamas has said it is prepared to release all the Israeli hostages and enter negotiations to iron out the details of the handover. The group also reiterated its readiness to hand over Gaza to an independent Palestinian body.

Hamas said on Friday that it had made the decision after a “thorough study” of the 20-point plan unveiled by US President Donald Trump on Monday. The plan calls for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and the militant group, a hostages-for-prisoners exchange, a phased Israeli withdrawal from the enclave, and creation of a transitional international administration.

The group formally announced “its agreement to release all prisoners of the occupation alive and dead according to the exchange formula contained in President Trump’s proposal.”

“In this context, the movement confirms its readiness to immediately enter through mediators into negotiations to discuss the details of this,” Hamas said in a statement.

The group also said it was ready to transfer the governance of Gaza to “a Palestinian body of independents.” The body of “technocrats” should be “based on the Palestinian national consensus and based on Arab and Islamic support,” it added.

Hamas did not explicitly agree to or reject the other points envisioned in the Trump plan – including its own full disarmament. The “other issues” mentioned in the plan are bound to be discussed “through an inclusive Palestinian national framework in which Hamas will be included and will contribute to it with all responsibility,” it stated.

President Donald J. Trump releases important statement on Hamas’ response to President Trump’s proposal: pic.twitter.com/yNyetA1bP1

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) October 3, 2025

A senior official with the group, Mousa Abu Marzook, further elaborated on the announcement, stating that to “stop the war and massacres” was the priority. He told Al Jazeera that handing over all the hostages within 72 hours before Trump’s ultimatum deadline runs out was “theoretical and unrealistic.” He also touched upon the disarmament issue, stating that the group will “hand over weapons to the coming Palestinian state, and whoever governs Gaza will have weapons in their hands.”

The announcement comes shortly after Trump issued his latest ultimatum to Hamas, demanding the group accept his plan by 6pm US Eastern time (22:00 GMT) on Sunday or face ultimate destruction.

“If this LAST CHANCE agreement is not reached, all HELL, like no one has ever seen before, will break out against Hamas. THERE WILL BE PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST ONE WAY OR THE OTHER,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social earlier in the day.

Hamas said acceptance of a Gaza ceasefire does not mean disarmament, telling RIA Novosti that weapons would only be surrendered once a Palestinian state with its own army is established. The group said the key issue is halting the fighting, with other details open for discussion.

Talks on hostages and a wider settlement are due to start October 5 in Egypt, Israel’s Channel 12 reported, adding that the 72-hour deadline for releases may be extended given conditions on the ground.

Hamas took around 250 people hostage during the October 7, 2023 surprise attack on southern Israel that left at least 1,200 people dead and prompted Israel’s subsequent operation in Gaza. The militants are believed to still hold in custody nearly 50 hostages, of whom roughly half are presumed to be alive.

The Israeli military campaign in Gaza has caused widespread destruction across the enclave and displaced most of its residents, while over 68,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to the local health authorities.

[…]

Via https://www.rt.com/news/625882-hamas-hostages-israeli-release/

 

Does Melatonin Help Ease Migraines?

Analysis by Dr. Joseph Mercola

Story at-a-glanceMore than 1 billion people worldwide and 12% of Americans live with migraines, a disabling neurological condition that disrupts sleep, work, and daily lifeMelatonin does more than regulate sleep; it also shields your brain at a cellular level by neutralizing damaging free radicals and reducing inflammation linked to migrainesResearch shows melatonin reduces headache frequency by 51%, intensity by 53%, and duration by 46%, offering a powerful natural alternative to standard pharmaceutical drugsAdults with episodic migraines taking 3 mg of melatonin before bed experienced the strongest improvements, often cutting their migraine frequency by half or moreMelatonin’s safety profile is superior to common drugs like amitriptyline, with fewer and milder side effects, making it a well-tolerated option for migraine prevention

More than 1 billion people worldwide today deal with migraines1 — a disabling neurological condition marked by pounding pain, nausea, and other severe symptoms. In the U.S., an estimated 12% of the population deals with migraines, both young and old, though women are more prone to experiencing them.2

For many, migraine episodes are chronic and can derail work, sleep, and daily life, and left untreated, the condition becomes more frequent and harder to control. And while prescription drugs like painkillers are the standard treatment, they don’t always work — and often bring side effects of their own.

This is why interest is growing in natural solutions to ease migraines. One remedy that’s becoming popular today is melatonin — but do the studies support this claim?

The Lowdown on Melatonin

Melatonin is a hormone that is widely recognized for regulating sleep cycles, also known as the circadian rhythm — a process that makes you alert during daytime and sleepy at night. Yet, this is only one of melatonin’s many advantages; it also plays a vital role in your central nervous system and overall health.

• Your pineal gland secretes melatonin — This tiny endocrine gland located in your brain releases melatonin in your bloodstream at night, signaling to your body that it’s time to rest. However, did you know that there’s another source of melatonin in your body?

• Your mitochondria, the powerhouse of your cells, actually produce 95% of your body’s melatonin — This process depends on your exposure to natural sunlight.3 Near-infrared light (NIR) light penetrates deep into your skin and activates cytochrome c oxidase in your mitochondria. This key enzyme stimulates the production of mitochondrial melatonin, also known as subcellular melatonin.4

• NIR light is abundant in early morning and late afternoon sunlight — It ranges from 800 to 1,000 nanometers. This is why early morning sun exposure is essential if you want to boost your melatonin levels.

• You need both pineal melatonin and mitochondrial melatonin — While pineal melatonin follows the circadian rhythm, the subcellular melatonin from your mitochondria acts as a powerful antioxidant — it benefits your health by neutralizing free radicals before they damage cellular structures. Think of pineal melatonin as your “sleep signal” and mitochondrial melatonin as your “cellular shield.” Both of these are essential, as one is for rest, the other for repair.

• Importantly, subcellular melatonin does not go into your blood — So, you’re not going to directly increase your blood or serum level of melatonin by sun exposure. However, bright sun exposure around solar noon will indirectly help your pineal gland to produce melatonin during the night.

The benefits of melatonin are multifaceted — in fact, if you do a quick search on my site, you’ll find many articles discussing the benefits of this hormone — from improving sleep quality, protecting against Alzheimer’s, and even supporting vision health. But does it have any benefit for migraines?

The Link Between Melatonin and Migraines

Migraines are triggered by a number of factors, and there are several different types. The attacks are typically recurring, and the intensity could be moderate to severe — oftentimes they only occur on one side of your head.

• Symptoms usually last for hours to days — Most sufferers describe it as a throbbing, piercing, or “burning” pain. They also experience nausea, visual disturbances, dizziness, numbness in the extremities or face, and extreme sensitivity to light, sound, smell, and touch.

• Lack of sleep is one known trigger — According to an article in Migraine Again, poor sleep can both be a trigger of migraine or a symptom. It’s also possible that excessive sleep leads to migraines in some people. Melatonin’s ability to regulate the sleep-wake cycle is one of the reasons why it’s becoming recognized as a helpful treatment against migraines.5

[…]

• Melatonin also influences processes that are linked to migraines — For example, there’s research linking estrogen to migraines, and melatonin plays an essential role in hormone regulation. When you have low melatonin levels, it throws off your estrogen balance, which triggers pain associated with migraines.

• To better understand this, you need to first become familiar with the pain process — Pain is relayed through the trigeminal network to an area in your brain stem called the trigeminal nucleus. From there, it is conveyed to the sensory cortex in your brain that is involved in awareness of pain and other senses.

• How does estrogen (and melatonin) fit into all of this? Apparently, estrogen is a major factor in this chain of events. Researchers found that this hormone sensitizes cells around the trigeminal nerve and connected blood vessels in the head, thereby augmenting pain signals. Hence, when your melatonin levels are out of whack, it fails to regulate estrogen, and estrogen’s effects on the trigeminal nerve system become stronger, raising the risk of migraines.7

Another reason why melatonin is becoming associated with migraines is because there’s a theory that people with migraine have lower melatonin levels. A 2010 study supports this, stating that those with chronic migraine had lower melatonin levels compared to those without migraine.8

However, a 2022 review found conflicting results;9 although there are some studies showing lower melatonin in those with migraine, others did not.10 Still, there are studies supporting the promising effects of melatonin in relieving migraines.

Systematic Review Highlights How Melatonin Mitigates Migraine Intensity and Duration

A 2019 systematic review published in Medicine pulled together evidence from seven separate studies — four randomized controlled trials and three observational studies — to identify whether melatonin reduces headaches and how it compares to standard drugs. The participants were adults and children already struggling with migraines — some had occasional attacks while others dealt with frequent, chronic pain.11

• The review showed promising results — Across these studies, the researchers found that melatonin reduced headache frequency by an average of 51%, intensity by 53%, and duration by 46%. This could mean going from 10 migraines per month to fewer than five, and having them last hours instead of days. Adults generally had better responses than children, and those with chronic migraines saw larger improvements than people with fewer attacks.

• Melatonin slashes migraine days by half — One of the strongest trials showed that over half of participants (54.4%) on melatonin cut their number of headache days by at least 50%. In comparison, only 20.4% of people on placebo reached that level of improvement.

• Melatonin consistently lowered not just frequency, but also severity — In one controlled study, people taking melatonin had their pain scores drop from nearly 7 on a 0 to 10 scale down to around 3.6. Melatonin also reduced the need for pain medications, which is valuable if you’re concerned about the risks of overusing drugs like triptans or nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs).

• The review also explored why melatonin helps migraines from a biological perspective — One mechanism involves neurotransmitters (chemical messengers in your brain). Melatonin helps regulate serotonin, dopamine, and glutamate, all of which play roles in migraine pathways. By calming down overactive pain circuits, melatonin reduces the likelihood that a small trigger snowballs into a full-blown attack.

• Melatonin also affects blood vessel changes tied to migraine — During attacks, a pain molecule called calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) surges, causing blood vessels in the brain to dilate abnormally. Melatonin helps suppress CGRP release, preventing those painful vascular changes.

• Pain relief is another key effect — Melatonin boosts the release of endorphins, which are your body’s natural painkillers. It also activates gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), a calming neurotransmitter that reduces nerve excitability. This gives your body more internal support to quiet pain signals without needing as many external medications.

The review pointed out some conflicting results, however. Some trials found melatonin worked better than a placebo, while one reported no difference. These mixed outcomes make it clear that melatonin is helpful for many, but may not be universally effective.

[…]

Melatonin Protects the Brain with Its Anti-Inflammatory Effects

A 2022 systematic review published in The Egyptian Journal of Neurology, Psychiatry and Neurosurgery pulled together findings from five randomized controlled trials from different countries to determine melatonin’s effects on people with migraine. Two studies were from the U.S.; the rest were from Brazil, Norway, and Iran.13

• The populations studied were carefully defined — Some were teenagers, others were adults over 30, all diagnosed with episodic migraine, meaning they suffered regular but not chronic headaches. Across the five trials, melatonin doses varied, from as little as 1 to 2 milligrams (mg) up to 8 mg, but the most common and most effective was 3 mg taken before bed.

• Melatonin showed meaningful improvements in several trials — In the Brazilian trial, for example, 54.4% of participants taking 3 mg of melatonin had their monthly migraine frequency cut in half or more. By contrast, only 39.1% on amitriptyline and 20.4% on placebo hit that benchmark.

• Melatonin led to better outcomes compared to a placebo — A trial from Iran compared melatonin with both placebo and valproic acid, a drug widely prescribed for migraine. The melatonin group showed fewer migraine days, shorter duration of attacks, and less severe pain than placebo. They also had lower scores on the Migraine Disability Assessment (MIDAS), which measures how much migraines interfere with daily life.

• The review sheds light on how melatonin works in the body — The researchers make it clear that melatonin isn’t just a sleep hormone; it protects the brain against free radicals. It also reduces inflammation by lowering levels of inflammatory messengers like interleukin (IL-6) and tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), both of which are elevated in migraine patients.

By stabilizing these systems, melatonin helps reduce the brain’s overreaction to light, sound, or stress, which often sets off a migraine. Animal studies even suggest melatonin calms the overactive trigeminal nerve pathway, which plays a central role in migraine pain.

• Melatonin is far safer than pharmaceutical solutions for migraine — Across the five trials, conventional drugs like amitriptyline or topiramate caused higher rates of fatigue, cognitive problems, or weight gain.14 As for melatonin, only mild issues like dizziness, nausea, and constipation, occurred, but at significantly low rates.

• An earlier study reported similar results — Published in The Journal of Family Practice, this study’s researchers compared melatonin use with amitriptyline. While nearly half of the patients who took the pharmaceutical drug reported adverse effects — most commonly daytime sleepiness, dry mouth, and weight gain — only 16% of melatonin users reported any issues at all.15

[…]

As I mentioned above, there are many different reasons why people suffer from migraines. One foundational cause is mitochondrial dysfunction — this is actually a hallmark of most all chronic diseases. The most important strategy is to limit your intake of linoleic acid (LA), as this omega-6 fat acts as a mitochondrial toxin when consumed in excess.

[…]

Via https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2025/10/03/melatonin-for-migraines.aspx

Erasing Encephalitis — Why Vaccine Brain Injuries Became Autism

Analysis by A Midwestern DoctorStory at-a-glanceFor over a century, vaccination has been repeatedly linked to severe neurological injuries including brain damage — with many modern studies showing a 3 to 7 fold increase in common chronic illnessesTo dodge this massive liability, all research into vaccine injuries (and many other catastrophes like Agent Orange) was suppressed so that health authorities could claim there was “no evidence” of vaccine harmAnother scheme was to redefine the brain injury as “autism” rather than encephalitis (which the U.S. government was legally required to provide injury compensation for)Previously, children with significant vaccine brain damage were referred to as “mentally retarded.” However, after a multi-decade campaign cancelled “retarded” they were instead diagnosed as autistic — a vague term which blurs severe and minor disability together, thereby effectively concealing the severe cases from the public’s awarenessThis article will reveal the manipulative techniques and wordplay that have been used to conceal vaccine injuries from the public’s awareness, as now is the time when we can at last end this atrocity

I’ve long believed that public relations (propaganda) is one of the most powerful but invisible forces in our society. Again and again, I’ve watched professional PR firms create narratives that most of the country believes, regardless of how much it goes against their self-interests.

What’s most remarkable is that despite the exact same tactics being used repeatedly on the public, most people simply can’t see it. When you try to point out exactly how they’re being bamboozled by yet another PR campaign, they often can’t recognize it — instead insisting you’re paranoid or delusional.

That’s why one of my major goals in this publication has been to expose this industry. Once you understand their playbook — having “independent” experts push sculpted language that media outlets then repeat — it becomes very easy to spot, and saves you from falling into the traps most people do. The COVID-19 vaccines, for instance, were facilitated by the largest PR campaign of our lifetime.

One of the least appreciated consequences of this industry is that many of our cultural beliefs ultimately originate from PR campaigns.1 This explains why so many widely believed things are “wrong” — if a belief were actually true, it wouldn’t require a massive PR investment to instill in society. Due to PR’s power, the viewpoints it instills tend to crowd out other cultural beliefs.

In this article, we’ll take a deeper look at what’s behind one of those implanted beliefs: “vaccines don’t cause autism.”

Video LinkThe Frequency of Vaccine Injuries

When vaccinated and unvaccinated children are compared, chronic illnesses are 3 to 7X as common in the vaccinated individuals. Because of this, there is a longstanding embargo on ever conducting this type of research (allowing the status quo to remain that “no evidence exists” between the vaccine and the injury).

Recently, Senator Ron Johnson revealed that a robust study comparing vaccinated children to unvaccinated had been conducted at a premier medical institution in 2020, but due to the results it showed, despite previously committing to publishing the paper, its authors chose not to, due to how much it violated the medical orthodoxy.

It’s important to note that beyond these results being earth-shattering, they are also entirely in line with every other long-term comparative study that has ever been done on vaccines — all of which I synopsized here (along with the characteristic signs that allow one to identify the frightfully frequent vaccine-injured children).

Erasing Encephalitis[…]

One of the most widely recognized side effects of vaccination is neurological damage (particularly to the cranial nerves and brain). Prior to the censorship which took over our medical journals, reports of vaccine brain and nerve injuries (e.g., encephalitis) were extensively reported throughout the medical literature — including many identical to what are seen in modern-day autism.

Furthermore, it used to be widely recognized that vaccines could make you “mentally retarded” or “severely retarded.” Consider for example, the language at this 1983 debate between doctors which took place on the Donahue Show (which at the time was the largest talk show in America) — that to my knowledge was the last time a publicized debate on vaccines was allowed to happen:

Video Link

Given the taboo around “retarded” that exists now, it is quite noteworthy how nonchalantly it was used there. This shift resulted from disability groups in the late 1990s and early 2000’s campaigning against “retarded,” an extensive 2008 campaign (ending the “r-word”)3 and in 2010, Obama signing a law which effectively outlawed the term by removing “mentally retarded” from all federal laws and statutes and replacing it with “intellectual disability” (something which has never been done with any other word).4

As such, the vaccine brain injuries, which made children mentally retarded were re-labeled as “autism,” while in tandem, autism was given an extremely broad and vague definition that swept over all the concurrently occurring neurological injuries.

Because of this, the stark and unmistakable impression of a severe vaccine brain injury (e.g., “you know Sue’s son became severely retarded after their 2 month vaccines”) was displaced with a much more amorphous term that was easy to write off because it was too complex and vague to think about — hence providing easy mental escapes from this uncomfortable topic, thereby making it easy to write off and close one’s mind to.

[…]

Mild Autism

Anytime something injures human beings (unless it’s highly lethal), less severe reactions will be much more common than severe injuries (e.g., far more were disabled than killed by the COVID vaccines5).

As such, individuals with minor neurological injuries from vaccination have changes that lightly overlap with those seen in severe injuries.

Because of this, “autism exists on a spectrum” with many of its characteristic changes being seen to lesser extents in individuals who are not severely disabled (e.g., Elon Musk has characteristic autistic traits and has admitted as such6).

Yet, rather than recognizing that the rise in autistic-like traits signals something is profoundly changing in the population — and that a smaller group may be developing severe brain damage and more extreme versions of these traits — the prevailing narrative claims the autism surge is simply due to people who were otherwise basically normal (aside from a few “autistic quirks”) being re-diagnosed as autistic.

As such, the autism epidemic is dismissed as an illusion, attributed to “selective data interpretation by anti-vaxxers” — a convenient explanation that allows many to avoid grappling with an uncomfortable possibility.

Likewise, whenever “autism” is equated to brain damage, a large chorus of people can be relied upon to denounce them by saying their (highly functional) autistic child is not brain damaged, thereby silencing and ending the actual debate (e.g., Elizabeth Warren has repeatedly done this to RFK7).

Similarly, once the societal conception of vaccine brain injuries was shifted from “mentally retarded” or “autism,” a push began to normalize autism (e.g., with terms like neurodiversity), thereby making it even more taboo to criticize the complications of this illness.

Fortunately, independent voices are beginning to sound the alarm over this issue. Gavin de Becker (a longtime advocate for vaccine safety), in an excellent newly released book points out that:

1. There is no clear definition for autism or a definitive way to diagnose much of it.

2. The same people who whitewashed the link between autism and vaccines by claiming there is “no evidence” also did the same for many other controversies, such as:

• Agent Orange being safe — when in reality (due to faulty production by Monsanto) it was extremely dangerous

• Vaccines causing SIDS (something there actually is a century of evidence for)

• Vaccines causing Gulf War Syndrome (a devastating military illness Congress’s GAO admitted was likely due to a poorly manufactured anthrax vaccine).

The book has many poignant quotes like this one:

“Promoting their work on vaccine safety, an IOM spokesperson said, ‘We looked very hard and found very little evidence of serious adverse harms from vaccines. The message I would want parents to have is one of reassurance.’

Since that’s the same ‘very little evidence’ the Government found with Agent Orange, burn pits, the anthrax vaccine, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, breast implants, and Gulf War Syndrome, I’m not sure how reassuring it ought to be to parents.“

[…]

Autism Data

Given all of this, there are two critical, but almost never discussed data points to consider. First, one of the primary studies cited to support the argument that the rise in autism actually is due to diagnostic reclassification is a 2009 study from California9 (conducted when the word retarded was being banned). Rather than show minor traits were being relabeled as autism, it showed 26.4% of children who had previously been diagnosed as “mentally retarded” became “autistic” (as did another commonly cited study10).

Second, while the general public has been conditioned to believe in the amorphous autism label, since this is untenable for those actually working with severely disabled children (vs. those on the spectrum), within the autism field, the two are differentiated by the terms “profound autism” and the far less severe “non-profound” autism. CDC data11 in turn, shows that roughly 26.7% of autistic children have “profound autism,” and that it is continually increasing (although at a much slower rate than non-profound autism):

However, since clarifying what autism is defeats the purpose of the label (having it be an ambiguous term that ultimately sweeps everything under the rug), this distinction is rarely if ever mentioned, and folks outside the autism community are seldom even aware of the term “profound autism” — they simply know “vaccines do not cause autism.”

The 1986 Vaccine Injury Act

The 1986 Vaccine Injury Act had a large number of supporters in Congress due to a recent public recognition (made possible by the mainstream media of that era not habitually censoring pharmaceutical injury stories) that the original DPT vaccine frequently caused brain damage and severe disability.

Because of that, the act was created with the intention of fixing many of the major safety issues with vaccines and providing for injured parents to have an easier time obtaining compensation (by having the government rather than vaccine manufacturers pay for injuries), with the industry, in turn, agreeing to the act as they needed a way to be shielded from injury lawsuits that were bringing them to bankruptcy.

However, while well-intended (e.g., it put into place many critical provisions we rely upon now, like VAERS), give or take, every key provision in the act was implemented at the H.H.S. Secretary’s discretion. As such, once it passed, most of the things it was intended to do never happened and the overall situation instead became much worse as vaccine manufacturers no longer had any legal liability for making injurious products, hence allowing a flood of them to enter the market.

[…]

As the act was structured:

• If someone was afflicted with a condition that was agreed to be linked to vaccination shortly after vaccination, the Federal government was responsible for paying compensation to them, and to do so through a “vaccine court” designed to be much easier to handle than the hostile court system parents of DPT-injured children had navigated.

[…]

• In the original act, after intense negotiation, a series of vaccine-linked injuries were put into it (forming the initial vaccine injury table), along with a stipulation requiring continuous research to identify other complications that could be linked to vaccination.

Since much of that was at the H.H.S. Secretary’s discretion, there was an incentive to never allow future research which could unveil additional injuries requiring compensation. As such, despite twelve new vaccines being added to the schedule and decades of science since 1986, virtually no additional neurological injuries have been added to the table.13

Likewise, at the time the original act was written, brain damage (encephalopathy) was a widely recognized complication of vaccination.14 Hence, this was one of the few neurological conditions for which it stipulated that coverage was required.

[…]

As such, replacing encephalopathy with “autism” (which vaccines “do not cause”) made it possible to exempt the federal government from the massive liability it faced for these ever-increasing vaccine brain injuries.

[…]

Via https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2025/10/03/why-vaccine-brain-injuries-became-autism.aspx

How Israel Markets Its Surveillance Technology Abroad

The Palestine Laboratory EP 2

Al Jazeera (2025)

Film Review

https://www.aljazeera.com/video/featured-documentaries/2025/2/6/the-palestine-laboratory-ep

The US has invested heavily in Israeli surveillance technology (see The Palestine Laboratory EP 1) to restrict illegal immigrants from entering the US, Trump paid two million dollars to supplement his border wall with 55 surveillance towers the US government has installed in remote border area. Each tower covers a 5 mile radius and includes underground censors.

In addition the border state of Arizona has purchase Celebrite software from Israel. It enables them to extract cellphone data without a password. Meanwhile drug cartels have installed (with the collusion of law enforcement) Israel’s Pegagus software (see The Palestine Laboratory EP 1) on the phones of 60,000 people they disappeared in Mexico city. At present the Mexican army is the country’s biggest Pegasus user user of Pegasus in the country, despite having no legal authorization to use it.

The EU is the second biggest buyer of Israeli surveillance technology. In 2021 Samos closed its migrant refugee camp and transferred thousands of refugees to a Closed Control Access Center (CCAC). The latter is a massive concrete building equipped with cameras in every corridor and external surveillance via tall pole-based camera and drones. This technology transfers data in real time to police and security centers, capable of calling up fingerprint and other AI biometric data in real time. The EU has been using Israeli surveillance drones since 2011 to monitor sea born migrants, which it pays Libya to intercept.

India is Israel’s largest weapons and surveillance client. The filmmaker interview an Indian farmer who was tear gassed via drone while protesting government farm policy. Prior to its collapse, the Soviet Union was India’s main supplier of weapons technology. Since India turned to Israel for its weapons, they account for 55% of the country’s total imports. They have also allowed Israel to build missile factories and launch missiles on Indian soil. India also exports Indian-made and drones to Israel.

In 1948 India was one of the first countries to support Israel. Their current right-ring Hindu supremacist government also supports the genocide in Gaza owing to longstanding Islamophobia.

Israel was also a major supporter of South African apartheid (which started in 1948).* In the 1960s, South Africa supplied Israel with the uranium they needed to develop a nuclear bomb (the ANC voluntarily shuttered its nuclear industry when it took power in 1994). In 1970 Israel provided South Africa the military technology they needed to topple Angola’s left wing government. By the 1980s, international condemnation of apartheid-related atrocities left the UK, US and Israel as the only three countries supporting apartheid.

*Under apartheid all non-white residents were forced to move to primitive townships.

 

Trump Wants to Transform Gaza into “US Territory”? Goodbye to “Greater Israel”?

By Prof Michel ChossudovskySeptember 30, 2025 The Plan for Gaza submitted by the White House on September 29, 2025 confirms Washington’s Intent to transform Gaza into a US Territory

Israel will not occupy or annex Gaza. As the I.S.F. establishes control and stability, the Israel Defense Forces (I.D.F.) will withdraw based on standards, milestones, and time frames linked to demilitarization that will be agreed upon between the I.D.F., I.S.F., the guarantors, and the United States, with the objective of a secure Gaza that no longer poses a threat to Israel, Egypt, or its citizens.Practically, the I.D.F. will progressively hand over the Gaza territory it occupies to the ISF according to an agreement they will make with the transitional authority until they are withdrawn completely from Gaza, save for a security perimeter presence that will remain until Gaza is properly secure from any resurgent terror threat.

What is at stake is the formation of a U.S. neocolonial entity in the Levant. 

In early February, barely two weeks after his inauguration, President Trump intimated that Gaza would become a US territory, with a view to developing a luxury real estate project with mansions, luxury apartments, hotels and casinos.

How many years would it take to remove the ruble and rebuild?

Under Trump’s advisory, Palestinians would be relocated and excluded from their homeland.

“I would like Egypt to take people,…You’re talking about probably a million and a half people, and we just clean out that whole thing and say: ‘You know, it’s over.’” [Trump told the king of Jordan] ….

“I would love for you to take on more, ‘cause I am looking at the whole Gaza Strip right now, and it’s a mess. It’s a real mess.”

Video: President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu: Press ConferenceWill this Multi-billion Dollar Real Estate Project be Carried Out?  

It’s  doubtful.  There is an unspoken objective, which is barely mentioned by the mainstream media. 

As outlined by Felicity Arbuthnot with foresight 11 years ago in a December, 30 2013 article:

“Israel is set to become a major exporter of gas and some oil, “If All Goes to Plan””.  

Arbuthnot was referring to the ownership of Gaza’s maritime natural gas reserves, which belong to the State of Palestine.  

At the time of writing, the Netanyahu government is planning to appropriate these maritime gas reserves. What this signifies is that Israel is intent upon annexing Gaza as well as destroying an entire country. 

The maritime gas reserves belong to Palestine. Israel’s war against Gaza commenced prior to October 7, 2023 with the outright theft of Palestine’s maritime natural gas reserves. which are part of The Levant’s vast maritime corridor of of natural gas reserves in the Easter Mediterranean.

Recent Developments: All Things are NOT Going Well for Netanyahu.

Washington’s intent is to eventually scrap “The Greater Israel” project.

Confrontation between Netanyahu and Trump is currently unfolding, so far behind closed doors.

Washington’s unspoken intent is to transform Gaza into an “American Territory” to prevent the Netanyahu government from appropriating  Gaza’s maritime gas fields.  The management of  the  latter is already underway under the auspices of Israel’s Ministry of Energy. (for details see below)

Secret negotiations are currently unfolding (Reuters May 7, 2025) regarding the creation of a “U.S led administration” (aka American Territory).

“The “high-level” consultations have centered around a transitional government headed by a U.S. official that would oversee Gaza until it had been demilitarized and stabilized… There would be no fixed timeline for how long such a U.S.-led administration would last, which would depend on the situation on the ground, ….” (Reuters May 7, 2025)

US. Foreign Policy will eventually overshadow the so-called “Greater Israel” project.

We can expect a shift in the Zionist narrative.  Netanyahu is a proxy. Is regime change in Israel contemplated?

While Israel has invaded part of Syria’s Southern territories, the U.S project consists in transforming Gaza into a U.S territory under U.S laws. This project would be part of broader US agenda which consists in the militarization of the entire Eastern Mediterranean coast line, namely the Levant extending from the Egypt-Gaza border to the Northern tip of Syria.

As outlined below, Israel’s Ministry  of Energy and Infrastructure has already awarded licenses to six Israeli and international companies “to explore for natural gas in areas that are considered Palestinian maritime areas under international law”.  That announcement was made 3 weeks after October 7, 2023.

America’s Levant Military Corridor

The administrative arm of America’s  Levant military corridor is the gigantic American Embassy in Beirut (in a country of less than 6 million inhabitants), 10 times bigger than that of London, it’s the second largest US Embassy Worldwide after that of Baghdad which serves to administer America’s unspoken colonial project in Iraq.

US “Embassy” in Iraq. Largest Worldwide

Cost: a staggering 750 Million Dollars. “1,350 government employees, and thousands of contractors”

[…]

Israel’s Ministry of Energy 

Already in July 2023, Israel’s Ministry of Energy (IEM) opened the bidding for the exploration of maritime natural gas in Gaza.

And then, three weeks after October 7,  the Ministry (IEM) announced the granting of licenses to both Israeli and international companies to explore for maritime natural gas.

On October 29, the Ministry on behalf of the Israeli government announced the winning bidders for two Zones within OBR4 (Gaza overlapping with Israeli territorial waters).

The companies included Eni S.p.A (Italy), Dana Petroleum (UK based subsidiary of the South Korean National Petroleum Company), and Ratio Petroleum (an Israeli company).

“Israel awarded gas exploration licenses for Zone G, a maritime area adjacent to the shores of Gaza as depicted in the green area of Map 2 above.

Notably, 62 percent of Zone G falls within  the maritime boundaries declared by the State of Palestine in 2019, in accordance with provisions of the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), of which Palestine is a signatory.

In addition to the licenses already awarded in Zone G, Israel has also issued tenders for Zones H and E (as depicted in pink on Map 2); 73 percent of Zone H falls within Palestine’s declared maritime boundaries, along with five percent of Zone E.:” See Adalah

For additional information, see the Ministry’s press release.

 

Gaza: “A U.S. Territory”? Is Trump “Attempting” to Bypass the Israeli Government?  

Visibly, the illegal ownership of Gaza’s maritime gas reserves by the State of Israel (as mentioned above) is in blatant contradiction with Donald Trump’s recently announced plan to transform Gaza into a “U.S territory”.

If Trump’s project of a “U.S Territory” were to be carried out, Gaza’s maritime offshore gas reserves, worth billions of dollars WOULD NOT BE MANAGED BY ISRAEL. They would be brought under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Government with a status similar to America’s 14 territories including Guam, America’s Samoa, the US Virgin Islands.

What is at stake is Colonial-style theft in derogation of International Law. Negotiations with oil and gas companies would be under the jurisdiction of the “US Territory”, in liaison with Washington. 

“Territories are areas that belong to and are governed by the “parent” country” [U.S.]

“Territories of the United States are sub-national administrative divisions and dependent territories overseen by the federal government of the United States.

What should also be understood, is that the Gaza maritime gas reserves are part of broader coastal maritime area of natural gas extending from the Egyptian border to Northern Syria. (See map below)

 

Goodbye to “Greater Israel”? 

Under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Government, the Gaza “U.S Territory’s” maritime gas reserves would be under the mandate of the U.S Department of Energy which is  now in the hands of Trump’s appointee Energy Secretary Chris Wright.

While the U.S and Israel are collaborating in the field of energy, Washington and the U.S Energy Department would be calling the shots, if and when the U.S Territory is established. .

According to the Asian Times:

“Three months before the October 7, 2023 attacks, Hamas made a US-brokered deal [?? yet to be confirmed] to allow development of a potentially significant gas field off the coast of Gaza”.

While the war in Gaza has been raging major energy developments in the region have been progressing rapidly”

At a Press Conference in Washington: Trump suggested that:

“displaced Palestinians in Gaza be permanently resettled outside the war-torn territory and proposed the U.S. take “ownership” in redeveloping the area into “the Riviera of the Middle East.”

President Trump confirmed that the U.S annexation of Gaza would be in the form of a “long-term ownership position”. Meanwhile, Trump has been calling for the exodus of the entire population of the people of Palestine from Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

Ironically,  the protest movement against Netanyahu has shifted. Both Netanyahu and Trump are accused of ethnic cleansing and genocide.

It is now abundantly clear that the U.S. was involved in the planning of the genocide

“The long-term ownership” position is tantamount to an act of colonization against the People of Palestine. It suggests the creation of a U.S Territory, which would enable the US government to acquire ownership of Gaza’s maritime natural gas reserves, as well as establish a military base in Gaza. (see below)

Smoking Gun? Gaza and The Rothschild Energy Plan 

Who’s behind Donald Trump? According to Dean Henderson (outstanding analysis):

In addition to the Rothschild riviera plan, there is also the Rothschild energy plan. In 1999 British Gas (BG) discovered a significant gas field in the Gaza Marine fields just 20 miles off Gaza. The Palestinian Authority granted BG a 25-year exploratory concession as a partner, but the Israelis blocked its development.

In 2016 Royal Dutch Shell, whose biggest shareholder is Victor Rothschild, paid BG $52 million for the field. But they would not help the PA develop it either. If the US were to take over Gaza, surely the Rothschilds would commence with its development.

Trump’s declaration yesterday can only be seen as blatant colonialist piracy (Henderson, February 12, 2025)

[…]

Via https://www.globalresearch.ca/why-does-donald-trump-want-to-transform-gaza-into-a-u-s-territory/5879488

Trump’s Gaza Blueprint Won’t End Palestine’s Historical Resistance

By Rima Najjar

Opening: Refusal and Escalation, Not Empire

Trump and Netanyahu’s 20-point diplomatic initiative — marketed as a plan to restructure governance in Gaza and redefine Palestinian political participation — is neither a peace plan nor a novel imperial strategy. It’s a recycled blueprint for domination. Even Netanyahu is uneasy — not because the plan is unjust, but because it’s too blatant, too theatrical, too exposed.

This is the same architecture of control, repackaged in diplomatic jargon. I won’t waste space outlining its provisions or dignifying the hollow endorsements from Egypt, Jordan, and the UAE. Their statements aren’t positions — they’re noise.

What matters is the ideological clarity of the rejection. Resistance movements like Masar Badil, the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement, issued a categorical denunciation:

“This is not a peace plan. It is a colonial imposition dressed in diplomatic theater. Trump’s proposal is designed to liquidate Palestinian resistance, legitimize Israeli aggression, and install a foreign-controlled regime in Gaza. We reject it entirely — not as a negotiation, but as an extension of war.”

That’s the starting point. Not the plan’s details, but its refusal. From there, we turn to Netanyahu’s calculated ambivalence — and then to how this will unfold on the ground, beginning with Hamas and the broader resistance landscape.

Netanyahu’s Unease: Strategic Ambivalence and Calculated Distance

Netanyahu’s public stance is a mix of endorsement and staged discomfort. He’s expressed “concerns” about transitional governance and the risks of empowering non-aligned Palestinian actors. But this unease is tactical, not ideological. It’s a maneuver — feigned reluctance to deepen control while shielding himself from domestic backlash and maintaining alignment with U.S. strategic interests.

He’s not troubled by the plan’s colonial logic. He welcomes it. The consolidation of foreign control over Gaza, the sidelining of resistance, the rebranding of occupation as peace — these are outcomes he’s pursued for decades.

What unsettles him is the plan’s transparency. Its terms are so visibly skewed — so brazen in bypassing Palestinian agency and centralizing power under U.S.-Israeli command — that they risk exposing the machinery of domination usually cloaked in diplomatic language.

Netanyahu wants the same outcome: pacified resistance, controlled governance, strategic dominance. But he prefers it delivered through subtler means — negotiations that appear balanced, language that feigns neutrality, processes that allow him to deny authorship. That’s the function of plausible deniability: to secure maximalist goals while claiming moderation.

On the Ground: Resistance Will Not Be Technocratized

For resistance factions — especially Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad — this plan is not a diplomatic overture. It’s a provocation. Hamas may “study” the proposal in good faith, but that faith is tactical. It’s a delay mechanism, a way to assess leverage and prepare for escalation. Palestinian Islamic Jihad has already called the plan “a recipe to blow up the region.” They’re right.

What’s coming is a dual-track response:

Public calibration: Hamas will issue statements of conditional openness, emphasizing reconstruction and prisoner exchanges. This is not compromise — it’s strategic ambiguity.Operational resistance: Behind the scenes, networks will consolidate. Surveillance will intensify. Attempts to fragment and neutralize ideological leadership will be met with countermeasures.

The plan’s emphasis on “technocratic governance” is not administrative — it’s a tool of erasure. But resistance is not a bureaucratic glitch. It’s a political reality. And it will not be absorbed into a foreign-controlled regime, no matter how many reconstruction dollars are dangled.

Resistance in Palestine has never been a malfunction to be corrected. It is the architecture of survival under siege, the infrastructure of refusal built across generations. From the fedayeen of the 1950s and 60s, to the grassroots networks of the First Intifada, to the armed and political formations of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, resistance has adapted, reconfigured, and reasserted itself in response to every attempt at containment. It is not reactive. It is generative.

This plan will not absorb resistance. It will provoke it.

How Resistance Will ManifestShadow Governance: As technocrats are installed under international supervision, resistance factions will build parallel structures — informal courts, underground education networks, and social services that bypass the imposed regime. This echoes the First Intifada, when local committees replaced Israeli municipal control.Ideological Consolidation: Messaging will sharpen. Resistance movements will reject the language of “stabilization” and “de-radicalization” as colonial euphemisms. Political education will intensify, especially among youth, to inoculate against technocratic co-optation.Armed Retrenchment: Public statements may gesture toward negotiation, but armed factions will prepare for escalation. The demilitarization clause will be treated not as a condition but as a provocation. Tunnel networks, rocket development, and asymmetric tactics will continue — quietly, strategically.Martyrdom and Memory: The archive of resistance will expand. Every arrest, every demolition, every refusal will be documented and mythologized. Testimony will become a weapon. Visual and textual artifacts will circulate — graffiti, encrypted videos, underground publications — reasserting the legitimacy of resistance against imposed governance.Regional Recalibration: Resistance will not remain confined to Gaza. The West Bank, refugee camps in Lebanon and Jordan, and diaspora communities will respond. Expect coordinated days of rage, symbolic actions at embassies, and renewed calls for boycott, divestment, and sanctions.West Bank Mobilization: Expect intensified confrontations in Jenin, Nablus, and Hebron. Armed cells will reorganize, youth networks will re-emerge, and settler incursions will be met with direct retaliation. The West Bank will not be a passive observer — it will be a second front.The Arc That Informs This

This is not new. The British Mandate tried to install compliant intermediaries. The Oslo Accords tried to bureaucratize resistance into the Palestinian Authority. The Abraham Accords tried to normalize regional complicity. Each time, resistance re-emerged — fragmented, yes, but more adaptive.

What’s unfolding now is not the end of resistance. It’s another chapter in its evolution. And it will not be resolved by technocrats, nor pacified by reconstruction funds. Because resistance is not a glitch in the system — it is the system’s reckoning.

Trump’s Gaza blueprint will not end resistance. It will escalate it. And history will record this chapter not as peace, but as provocation.

[…]

Via https://www.globalresearch.ca/trump-gaza-blueprint-resistance/5901569

Will California Zionise K-12 Education?

By Rick SterlingOctober 02, 2025Factual information about Israel and Palestine may soon be outlawed in the California K-12 school system. Assembly Bill 715 is currently on Governor Newsom’s desk. The legislation was recently rushed through the California legislature, amended just days before passage, and voted on at 1 a.m. with almost no time for public comment.   

The hurry is intentional because opposition grows whenever people learn about it. AB715 is opposed by educators across the spectrum, including the California Teachers Association, California Faculty Association, Association of School Board Administrators, California School Boards Association, and Council of UC Faculty Associations. Civil rights organizations, such as ACLU Action, also oppose the legislation.

What It Purports to Do 

Assembly Bill 715 aims to “prevent antisemitism.” It asserts, “Jewish and Israeli pupils are facing a widespread surge in antisemitic discrimination, harassment, and bullying. In many cases, such discrimination, harassment, and bullying has been so severe and pervasive that it has placed Jewish pupils at risk, or completely impeded their ability to learn or engage in school programs or activities.”

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is the main source for the claim that there is a “widespread surge” in antisemitism. Their accuracy is widely disputed. As the Jewish Currents publication reports, “A line-by-line reassessment of the organization’s data illuminates the flaws in its methodology.”

There is already protection in the California Education Code for genuine cases of discrimination or bullying. Section 220 of the code specifies that “No person shall be subjected to discrimination on the basis of disability, gender, gender identity, gender expression, nationality, race or ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or any other characteristic that is contained in the definition of hate crimes.” Through their ethnicity and religion, Jewish students are clearly a protected group. So are Israeli students.  They can file claims of discrimination under existing legislation.

What It Will Actually Do

AB715 aims to expand the definition of  “discrimination” and outlaw any textbook, instructional material, or course content that “would subject a pupil to unlawful discrimination.”   

But what is “unlawful discrimination”? AB715 specifies that the U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism is the basis for identifying antisemitism. That report asserts, “Jewish students and educators are targeted for derision and exclusion on college campuses, often because of their real or perceived views about the State of Israel. When Jews are targeted because of their beliefs or their identity, when Israel is singled out because of anti-Jewish hatred, that is antisemitism.” The document claims, “an unshakeable commitment to the State of Israel’s right to exist, its legitimacy, and its security. In addition, we recognize and celebrate the deep historical, religious, cultural, and other ties many American Jews and other Americans have to Israel.”

The U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism embraces the controversial “working definition” of antisemitism advanced by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). This definition has been widely criticized for its conflation of antisemitism with anti-zionism and criticism of the State of Israel. Over 100 human rights and civil society organizations reject the IHRA definition. Yet this is the definition which AB715 is based on.

If passed, AB715 will result in strict regulation of  education and educational material that might subject Jewish students to “unlawful discrimination”.  Facts and informed opinions about the reality in Israel and Palestine may be considered “antisemitic” or likely to cause discomfort. For example, students will not learn:

The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Israeli PM Netanyahu charging him with crimes against humanity.The International Association of Genocide Scholars determined that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Israel’s B’Tselem have ALL independently investigated and determined that Israel is an apartheid state.The greatest scientist of the 20th century, Albert Einstein, was against the creation a Jewish state and sought a binational Arab Jewish state in Palestine.In 1948, Einstein, Hanna Arendt, and other Jewish leaders denounced Menachim Begin as a Nazi and fascist.The Israeli newspaper Haaretz documents a Jewish scholar who was zionist but now supports Hamas and considers their armed resistance legitimate and legal.

All of the above are facts and assessments by credible organizations and individuals. AB715 is so vague yet sweeping that such education about Israel and Palestine may be considered “unlawful discrimination” against a pro-Israel student and therefore prohibited.

The Costs of AB715

If passed, AB715 will cost Californians dearly. It mandates the creation of a new Office of Civil Rights with an Antisemitism Prevention Coordinator and staff producing regular reports, investigations, etc. Incredibly, AB715 allows any member of the public to file a complaint, even anonymously. These complaints must be investigated and responded to within time requirements. School boards and superintendents, already busy, will have to spend precious time and resources investigating each and every complaint in a timely manner. The predictable result will be fear or prohibition on saying anything about Israel or Palestine. The Antisemitism Prevention Coordinator is also mandated to provide antisemitism education to teachers, administrators, and school boards.

Under California’s “Golden State Plan to Counter Antisemitism,” millions of dollars are appropriated for education about the genocide which ended 80 years ago.  Meanwhile, there is no funding and it appears the California legislature seeks to prevent education about the genocide happening today in Gaza.

Making it even worse, AB715 invites lawsuits which will further burden the education system. The legislation says, “Civil law remedies, including but not limited to injunctions, restraining orders, or other remedies, may also be available to complainants.”  Under AB715, as a gift for zionist activists, any member of the public can be a complainant.

AB715 Should Not Be Signed into Law

The organizations representing California teachers, adminstrators, school superintendents and school boards are ALL against this legislation. AB715 will be costly, wasteful, and damaging to K-12 education in California. Where there are genuine cases of discrimination or bullying, existing legislation is adequate. All students are protected against discrimination or bullying under section 220 of the California Education Code. Where Jewish or Israeli students have been victimized, they have the same recourse as all students. They do not need preferential treatment.

Teaching facts and expert opinions about Israel and Palestine is not antisemitic. It is history and current events.

Feeling uncomfortable when learning some facts or opinions is not being a victim; it is being educated. People can disagree and have different perceptions; they should not be prevented from hearing facts and different perspectives.

The intent of AB715 is clear: to restrict factual information about an important region of the world and to punish educators who present the Palestinian and anti-zionist Jewish perspective. Governor Newsom should not sign the legislation. To encourage him to make the right decision, contact him via this link.

This legislation does not prevent antisemitism; it actually promotes it by demonstrating that major Jewish organizations and the Jewish Legislative Caucus have the power to push this legislation which will deny the history and current reality of the Palestinian people.  Meanwhile, Jewish Voice for Peace and organizations across the education profession are working hard to stop this assault on the California education system.

[…]

Via https://www.globalresearch.ca/california-zionise-k-12-education/5901642

Israel declares 600,000 in Gaza City ‘military targets,’ cuts off lifeline from south

Israeli tanks cut northward travel on the Rashid Road, tightening the siege on Gaza City and intensifying pressure for Palestinians to leave their homes

News Desk

OCT 2, 2025

At least 600,000 Palestinians are currently under siege in Gaza City amid the Israeli army’s ongoing bombardment, encirclement, and expulsion campaign, the New Arab reported on 2 October. 

On Wednesday, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz announced that all Palestinians remaining in the city must abandon their homes, pass Israeli checkpoints, and move to tent encampments in the south, stressing that anyone who stays will be considered a “terrorist” or “terrorist supporter” and targeted by invading Israeli forces.

Now is the “last opportunity for Gaza residents” to move south, Katz said.

Israeli forces have currently blocked all travel northward on the Rashid coastal road, cutting off the city’s last surviving lifeline for humanitarian aid and preventing Palestinians who had moved south temporarily in search of food and shelter from returning.

“The only safe road for bringing in food and medicine has been cut. Announcements and speeches mean nothing if aid cannot reach civilians,” stated Mahmoud Basal, the spokesperson of the Gaza civil defense, in a press statement.

While the Israeli military expected a mass exodus to the south, between 600,000 and 700,000 Palestinians remain in Gaza City, the UN estimated.

Those remaining are either unwilling or unable to leave their homes.

“We are not leaving. Yesterday, a drone dropped grenades on the rooftop of our building, but we are not leaving,” said 24-year-old Hani while speaking to Reuters.

“We are afraid that if we leave, we will never see Gaza City again.”

The closure of Rashid Street to northward travel is part of an effort to cleanse the northern strip, according to Ramallah-based political analyst Hani al-Masri.

“Turning the road into a one-way corridor south is a tool of collective pressure, a strategy to forcibly reshape Gaza’s population,” Masri told the New Arab.

Al Jazeera correspondent Hani Mahmoud reported Thursday that the Israeli military was creating “mayhem and panic” by ordering people to leave their homes, but then pursuing them on the Rashid Road south with helicopters, drones, and tanks.

“A big part of the reason that people are not now leaving Gaza City is because of the fear and the intimidation created by the Israeli military,” he said.

Al-Akhbar reported on Thursday that Israeli warplanes carried out dozens of strikes on Gaza City, including in the neighborhoods of Al-Nasr, Sheikh Radwan, and Al-Shati in the city’s northwest, as well as Al-Daraj, Al-Tuffah, and Al-Nafaq in the northeast, and Al-Sabra in the south.

Gaza’s Health Ministry continues to record an average of 100 Palestinians killed per day, Al-Akhbar added, not including the dozens missing whose bodies rescuers are not able to retrieve due to Israeli fire.

One strike on Wednesday killed the son of Gaza’s civil defense commander and injured several other rescue officers.

Meanwhile, the Quds Brigades of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) reported a major operation against an Israeli infantry unit in the Al-Nasr neighborhood. Resistance fighters detonated a booby-trapped house packed with improvised explosive devices as soldiers entered to destroy it.

According to health sources in Gaza, Israel has killed at least 66,225 Palestinians and injured 168,938 more since launching the genocide nearly two years ago, in October 2023. However, reputable studies have estimated the death toll in Gaza to be at least 100,000.

In one shocking case earlier this week, an Israeli drone opened fire through a window to shoot a Palestinian nurse in the head as he worked inside the Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Yunis.

[…]

Via https://thecradle.co/articles/israel-declares-600000-in-gaza-city-military-targets-cuts-off-lifeline-from-south

Trump notifies Congress of ‘non-international armed conflict’ against drug cartels

By ROSS IBBETSON, US ASSISTANT EDITOR

 3 October 2025

Donald Trump has declared war on drug cartels and notified Congress that the United States is now engaged in a ‘non-international armed conflict’.

The extraordinary escalation by the president follows a series of recent strikes on drug-smuggling vessels operated by ‘terrorist organizations’ in the Caribbean.

Trump’s declaration is intended to place an iron-clad legal framework around the military action. According to international law, a country may kill enemy fighters even when they pose no threat and detain them indefinitely without trial.

In a confidential memo sent to lawmakers on Thursday, the president calls the cartel gangsters ‘unlawful combatants’ whose actions ‘constitute an armed attack against the United States’.

It follows a closed-door Senate Armed Services Committee briefing on Wednesday during which Pentagon officials addressed lawmakers’ concerns over the legality of the strikes.

The president’s notice uses language from international law – ‘non-international armed conflict’ – which refers to war with a non-state actor.

‘The cartels involved have grown more armed, well-organized, and violent,’ the memo added. ‘They have the financial means, sophistication, and paramilitary capabilities needed to operate with impunity.’

It follows complaints from Democratic lawmakers that the strikes – including three deadly attacks on drug traffickers last month – are unlawful under the War Powers Act which requires the consent of the chamber for military action.

The War Powers Act, passed in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, has been challenged or sidestepped by almost every president since its enactment, including by Barrack Obama in Libya in 2011 and Bill Clinton in Kosovo in 1999.

What the Trump administration laid out at the closed-door briefing was perceived by several senators as pursuing a new legal framework that raised questions particularly regarding the role of Congress in authorizing any such action, a source said.

Pentagon officials could not provide a list of the designated terrorist organizations at the center of the conflict, which was a major source of frustration for some of the lawmakers who were briefed, a source revealed.

The administration has called the strikes ‘self defense’ and claimed that the laws of war allow the US to kill, rather than arrest, the smugglers who are working for cartels that the administration has deemed terrorists.

The concept of ‘non-international armed conflict’ was developed during the 20th century to define civil wars, as opposed to those between distinct nation states.

The precedent was broadened following the 9/11 attacks when George Bush declared war on Al-Qaeda. Some legal scholars objected to the use of wartime powers, claiming that the terrorist organization was a band of criminals, not soldiers.

This was rejected by the Supreme Court which found the conflict against Al-Qaeda was indeed a war, permitting the government to hold captured terrorists indefinitely without trial.

Its decision rested on the fact that Congress had authorized the use of armed force against Al-Qaeda.

It is not clear in the memo how trafficking in drugs constitutes use of force but it states that the cartels ‘illegally and directly cause the deaths of tens of thousands of American citizens each year.’

White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said in an email: ‘As we have said many times, the President acted in line with the law of armed conflict to protect our country from those trying to bring deadly poison to our shores, and he is delivering on his promise to take on the cartels and eliminate these national security threats from murdering more Americans.’

As the Republican administration takes aim at vessels in the Caribbean, Democratic senators and lawmakers have raised stark objections.

Some had previously called on Congress to exert its authority under the War Powers Act that would prohibit any action unless it was authorized by Congress.

The first military strike, carried out on September 2 on a drug-carrying speedboat, killed 11 people.

The boat was operated by the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang, which was listed by the US as a foreign terrorist organization earlier this year.

The Trump administration has justified the military action as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the United States.

But Democratic senators and human rights groups questioned the legality of the president’s action.

They called it potential overreach of executive authority in part because the military was used for law enforcement purposes.

By stating that his campaign against drug cartels is an active armed conflict, Trump appears to be claiming extraordinary wartime powers to justify his action.

Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committees, said the drug cartels are ‘despicable and must be dealt with by law enforcement.’

‘The Trump administration has offered no credible legal justification, evidence, or intelligence for these strikes,’ said Reed, a former Army officer who served in the 82nd Airborne Division.

The White House has yet to explain how the military assessed the boats’ cargo and the passengers’ alleged gang affiliation before the strikes.

[…]

Via https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15157065/Trump-declares-WAR-cartels-US-enters-non-international-armed-conflict-extraordinary-escalation.html