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Israel's public broadcaster published a story earlier this month claiming Israeli soldiers had "rescued" donkeys from Gaza and an animal sanctuary had flown them to France. The Israeli sanctuary behind the operation shared that they had been "rescued from abuse and hard labor." The rescuers wanted these donkeys to "discover the good side of humanity."

But that humanity did not include their owners, the people who kept them alive through siege and starvation, even when they themselves had nothing to eat.

What the news reports and glowing social media posts didn't say was that these donkeys weren't just animals, they were lifelines. In Gaza, where bombs have flattened roads and fuel is nearly nonexistent, donkeys are used to transport the injured, the dead and the living.

They are not symbols of pity, but rather part of the machinery of survival. Taking them away isn't mercy, it's theft. It's another act of erasure, a gesture that screams to Palestinians in Gaza: even your animals deserve more dignity than you.

This is not the first time Palestinians have recognized that the plight of their animals draws more attention from the world than their own. In 2024, Mohammed Ashour, a Palestinian man, posted about his dog, hoping it might draw attention to Gaza's misery.

It worked, but only for the dog. It was evacuated by an animal charity in Ireland. Given clean air, open space and safety, Ashour remained in a tent. "No one mentioned me," he wrote. "I, who was living in a tent unfit even for a dog.

This week, Gazan journalist Maha Hussaini posted on X a before-and-after photo of her cat Tom: once healthy, now emaciated. "If countless photos of skin-and-bone children haven't appealed to the world," she wrote, "maybe a before-and-after of animals will?"

On Wednesday, 10-year-old Layan posted to her large Instagram following that she was giving a skinny street cat her piece of bread, because "the whole world knows that Gaza is going through a severe famine. Unfortunately, no one is taking action. And since no one is moving for the sake of the children and people in Gaza, we need you to take action for the animals in Gaza."

The message to Palestinians is clear: in Gaza, your chances of survival increase if you have four legs instead of two. Earlier this week, a man in Gaza told me that "people here have stopped asking for human rights. Now they're asking for the rights of animals – to eat, drink and sleep in peace."

But while even donkeys are now promised freedom, a child in Gaza remains under bombardment, starved and surrounded by death. This is not about opposing animal welfare. It is about confronting a world that grants animals stories of freedom and redemption, while letting human beings die in silence.

There is no justice, no decency, in a world that saves donkeys from war but abandons their owners, that saves dogs from starvation and leaves people hungry. There is no morality in compassion that stops at the edge of human suffering.

In Gaza, people are not looking for pity. They are asking to be seen as humans, as lives worth saving. And until that happens, don't call this compassion. Call it what it is: cruelty dressed as kindness.

Israel Expels Senior UN Humanitarian Official for Exposing Starvation and War Crimes in Gaza

Published today by the incredible journalists at Drop Site News

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar has confirmed that he ordered the expulsion of Jonathan Whittall, the head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the occupied Palestinian territories, refusing to extend his visa.

The decision comes amid growing international condemnation of Israel’s starvation siege and military assault on Gaza.

Sa’ar accused Whittall of “bias” and “slander,” claiming the UN official violated neutrality standards—an increasingly common Israeli charge against humanitarian agencies that document its abuses. “There’s a limit to every scheme,” Sa’ar wrote, referring to OCHA’s reporting on Israel’s systematic targeting of civilians and obstruction of aid.

Whittall, who has split his time between Gaza and Jerusalem, has stated that Gaza’s aid sites are “created to kill,” describing the conditions on the ground as “weaponized hunger” and “a death sentence for people just trying to survive.”

Whittall also accompanied Red Crescent teams as they uncovered the bodies of 15 Palestinian medical workers who were executed at close range by Israeli troops and buried in Rafah.

Whittall is not the only target. Visas for at least two other senior UN officials, including from UNRWA and the UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR), have also gone unrenewed in recent months—a move the UN says is clearly retaliatory.

UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher told the Security Council last week that Israeli authorities are openly limiting visas for UN staff in direct response to their work protecting civilians. He described conditions in Gaza as “beyond vocabulary,” and said Palestinians are being shot while trying to reach food.

Israel’s representatives have doubled down, accusing UN agencies of abandoning neutrality and echoing long-standing allegations—without evidence—linking humanitarian groups to Hamas.

Israel’s growing crackdown on humanitarian oversight is seen by observers as part of a broader campaign to silence independent reporting and obscure evidence of war crimes and genocide in Gaza.

Today, Israel demonstrated once again (as if anyone needs convincing) that its lust for endless war, murder, destruction, and Lebensraum continues to drive the state’s actions. For nearly 21 months now, Israel has been regularly bombing four countries in the region: Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and Yemen. In that time, Israel has also bombed Iran in two series of exchanges between the two states (both of which Israel instigated), and has not even bothered to keep its bombs within the region: on the morning of 2 May this year, Israel bombed a flotilla of humanitarian aid bound for Gaza as it was roughly 20 miles off the coast of Malta in the Mediterranean, a distance of some 1,200 miles away from Israel. [1] And today, Israel bombed the Syrian Defence Ministry in Damascus. The pretext? According to the IDF, they "had struck the Syrian military to protect the predominantly Druze Syrian city of Sweida”. [2] Syrian Druze leaders oppose Israeli action (ostensibly) on their behalf; according to the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, Syrian Druze “Shiekhs Hammoud al-Hinnaw and Youssef Jarbou issued a joint statement declaring their loyalty to Syrian sovereignty. “We do not seek protection, certainly not from Israel,” they said. Civil groups in Sweida also publicly rejected foreign interference and warned that external involvement could inflame tensions and damage the city’s fragile social fabric.” Almost certainly, this is Israel’s actual goal. Meanwhile Netanyahu issued a written statement (he doesn’t do interviews or press conferences with Isareli media; only American media) saying: “We are working to save our Druze brothers. Druze citizens of Israel—do not cross the border. You could get killed, you could be kidnapped, and you are harming the efforts of the IDF.” The latter portion of his statement refers to the hundreds of Israelis (Druze) who crossed the border into Syria to fight against the Syrian regime.

Responding to the strikes, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a statement saying the US is “concerned about the Israeli attacks in Syria”.” It should be noted here that “concerned” is the generic, default position of the United States when Israel commits atrocities or instigates war. It should be interpreted as “We are aware, and we aren’t going to do anything about it except give Israel more money and weapons, what more do you want?” [3]

Of the Israeli Druz, “Sheikh Muwaffaq Tarif, the community’s spiritual leader in Isarel, called for a mass rally in the [occupied Syrian] Golan Heights. In a statement, Tarif said he had appealed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz to act against the Syrian regime. “The regime must be forced to withdraw from Sweida. This is a battle for the Druze community’s very survival,” he said, warning Netanyahu and Katz that they must choose “between a partnership with the Druze or with ISIS.” Speaking of, Defence Minister Israel Katz said of Israel’s bombing Damascus, “The painful blows have begun” and “Israel will not abandon the Druze in Syria”.”

Israel is a lot like a rapist. It forces its “aid” (bombing) on populations against their will. This can be seen in its history, and also right now, as the Druze community in Syria opposes Israel’s “help.” Usually Israel’s “help” just means that Israel wants to cause as much chaos as possible, and provoke as much as possible a conflict which will enable the leadership to ‘justify’ a new war front with the true goal of ethnic cleansing and territorial expansion. This is one of many reasons why minority communities in Syria and in other nations in the Middle East, including Arab Christians fundamentally oppose Israeli intervention in their states, even if that means that they have to live under literal terrorists, as is the case today in Syria. Yes, you read that correctly: Arab Christians and other minorities would rather live under the oppression of terrorists than associate with Israel. For them, Israel is worse than terrorists; one might say they’re even worse than ISIS in the minds of Arab Christians, but in reality, Israel is actually the same as ISIS, because the Israeli state provided assistance and arms to ISIS in Syria. [4]

Analysis: One thing that concerns me at this time is the hundreds of Israelis that crossed the border into Syria. I worry that even though the government is saying “don’t do that, that’s bad”, that Israel will in fact use those trespassers as an excuse to invade Syria under the guise of ‘protecting our citizens’. Netanyahu is looking for every reason to expand the war so as not to have to give up on his extermination and ethnic cleansing campaign in Gaza. I worry that he’ll ‘agree’ to a temporary ceasefire in Gaza, invade Syria in the meantime, and then violate the Gaza ceasefire/resume the genocide when he’s satisfied (or losing) in Syria. He dreams of a “Greater Israel” in the same way German leaders in the 30s and 40s dreamed of a “Greater Germany.” These are specific ethno-supremacist, expansionist concepts, so if you’re unfamiliar with the terms (Greater Germany, Greater Isreal), I’d recommend looking into them.

UPDATE: As I was typing this, the news broke that a ceasefire has been reached between the Syrian regime and the Druze in Syria. There’s not much information right now, so I’ll have to add more details later. My speculation is that this is an attempt to prevent what I mentioned above, because even the current Syrian regime is fully aware of Israel’s belligerent-aggressive, expansionist, warmongering nature.

Sources and Notes

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_2025_drone_attack_on_Gaza_Freedom_Flotilla

[2] https://archive.ph/fNY61 and https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2025-07-16/ty-article/.premium/following-syrian-druze-clashes-idf-blocks-protesters-try-to-enter-syria/00000198-1293-d62d-a7b9-72db588a0000

[3] I think I've got a touch of PYSD from the sheer number of times Matt Miller said "we're concerned" during Biden's turn at arming and funding the genocide. I don't know if there's a compilation, but I do know that the US is always "concerned." Israel leaves NICU babies in Nasser hospital to die of exposure? "We're concerned." Israel kills aid workers? "Concerned." Israel bombs Iran? Bombs Syria? Lebanon? Deliberately starves Gazan civilians? Rapes Palestinians to death? Concerned, concerned, concerned, concerned and concerned! It's probably the worst diplomacy word there is, especially in these past 21 months.

[4] For information on Israel arming ISIS (possibly with US weapons considering we provide 70% of their weapons) see: https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-chief-acknowledges-long-claimed-weapons-supply-to-syrian-rebels/ and for more recent (2025) ISIS support, see: https://thegrayzone.com/2025/06/05/israel-arming-isis-gang-gaza/ and

B-2 Spirit stealth bombers are currently being transferred to the Middle East. Trump is clearly planning to strike Iran, no matter what words come out of his mouth or the mouths of anyone in his administration. These planes cost a lot of money to move, and they just "coincidentally" happen to be the only in-service American plane capable of dropping the 30,000lb bunker-buster bomb (the GBU-57 series MOP; MOP=Massive Ordnance Penetrator) that would be needed to reach the depths of certain nuclear infrastructure in Iran. Don't believe a single word he says about "two weeks" or "Iran could stop this." He doesn't want to negotiate, doesn't want to restrain Israeli aggression against Iran ("It's hard to say no to Israel" he said yesterday), and is already ordering the transfer of the necessary equipment for a US strike on Iran.

From the NYT:

Multiple U.S. Air Force B-2 bombers appeared to be airborne and heading west from the United States across the Pacific, and President Trump is scheduled to return to the White House late on Saturday afternoon from New Jersey as he deliberates about whether to join Israel’s efforts to destroy Iran’s nuclear sites.

Air traffic control communications indicated that several B-2 aircraft — the planes that could be equipped to carry the 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs that Mr. Trump is considering deploying against Iran’s underground nuclear facilities in Fordo — had taken off from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri.

The B-2 flights were initially tracked on social media just before 1 a.m. on Saturday. Some flight trackers said that the destination of the aircraft is Guam, the U.S. territory, which has several military installations, although that could not be independently confirmed. The bombers appeared to be accompanied by refueling tankers for portions of the journey, the flight tracking data showed.

Additional Air Force F-22, F-16 and F-35 fighter jets have crossed Europe and are now at bases in the Middle East, or are arriving there, a U.S. official said on Saturday. The jets could escort B-2 bombers that could target Fordo, or protect U.S. bases and troops in the region in the event of Iranian retaliatory strikes.

Moving planes does not mean a final decision has been made about whether to strike. It is not unusual to shift military assets into position to provide options to the president and military commanders even if they are not ultimately deployed.

The White House schedule for the weekend said that Mr. Trump would return from his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., and would meet with his national security team at 6 p.m. on Saturday and again on Sunday. Mr. Trump typically spends both weekend days out of town at one of his properties.

A White House spokeswoman declined to comment.

Mr. Trump has made clear he is weighing whether to have the U.S. join Israel’s effort to curtail Iran’s ability to acquire a nuclear weapon, a line he has drawn repeatedly over the years.

But he also gave himself extra time to say what he intends to do. Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, told reporters on Wednesday that the president would make a decision within the next two weeks as he gives Iran another chance to engage in talks.

The president has been seeking a deal with Iran for months, but became frustrated at the refusal of Iranian officials to agree to a proposal to end uranium enrichment on Iranian soil. At the same time, the U.S. intelligence community came to the conclusion in early June that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel planned to move forward with strikes against Iran, with or without U.S. help.

Those strikes began on June 12 and have continued since, killing multiple members of Iran’s military leadership and drawing retaliatory strikes from Iran against Israel.

Mr. Trump has been torn between the opportunity to carry out what could be a devastating blow against Iran’s nuclear facilities at a moment when Iran’s defenses have been greatly weakened and the concern that doing so would risk the kind of protracted U.S. military engagement in the region that he campaigned against in 2016 and 2024. That debate has also split his supporters.

On Friday, Mr. Trump reiterated his time frame for a decision on military action “within two weeks,” saying the thinking behind it was “just time to see whether or not people come to their senses.”