UN report on Israel’s deliberate targeting and killing of Palestinian children

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From the United Nations

18 June 2026

“The essence of childhood has been destroyed”: Israel’s deliberate targeting of Palestinian children in the Occupied Palestinian Territory since 7 October 2023

Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel

https://undocs.org/en/A/HRC/62/CRP.2 — English
https://undocs.org/fr/A/HRC/62/CRP.2 — French
https://undocs.org/ar/A/HRC/62/CRP.2 — Arabic
https://undocs.org/zh/A/HRC/62/CRP.2 — Chinese
https://undocs.org/ru/A/HRC/62/CRP.2 — Russian
https://undocs.org/es/A/HRC/62/CRP.2 — Spanish

[emphasis added]

Summary:

The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel examines violations and crimes against and affecting Palestinian children, including serious physical and psychological harm by the Israeli security forces since 7 October 2023 resulting in the death of at least 20,179 and injury of 44,143 children.

The paper describes the deliberate targeting and killing of Palestinian children, including post-ceasefire since the October 2025 Gaza peace plan. The Commission also examines a sharp increase in violence perpetrated by members of Israeli settlers against Palestinian children in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

The Commission examines the use of torture, inhumane and degrading treatment, including sexual and gender-based violence, against Palestinian children, particularly during mass arrests and in detention. It analyses pattern of Israel’s targeting of critical infrastructure essential to children, such as healthcare facilities and its short- to long-term consequences, as well as the impact of reproductive violence on newborns, resulting in poor neonatal health and birthing outcomes; attacks on orphanages and schools, impacting the loss of care for orphans and unaccompanied children, and inducing academic harm and learning disruptions for children, respectively.

The Commission examines the impact of the conditions of life imposed by Israel in Gaza resulting in preventable mortality of children, exacerbating morbidity, and serious mental trauma from the relentless and widespread attacks by Israel over two years – collectively revealing severe, multi-layered harm to Palestinian children’s survival, health, and development. Further, the Commission examines how Israeli soldiers mock and weaponize symbols of childhood in Gaza, raising ethical, disciplinary and legal questions about the conduct of the Israeli security forces during the ground invasion of Gaza.

Lastly, the Commission provides recommendations to diverse stakeholders for the cessation of attacks, reparations, accountability and international enforcement of sanctions – aimed at advancing child-responsive justice.

I. Introduction

1. This Conference Room Paper (CRP) of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel (the Commission) examines Israeli violations and crimes against Palestinian children in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, as well as their short- to long-term impact on children, between 7 October 2023 and 31 March 2026. The Commission has published four mandated reports and four conference room papers since 7 October 2023.

2. This report presents the Commission’s new and expanded findings on the intentional targeting, arrests and ill-treatment, sexual and gender-based violence, attacks on educational facilities and healthcare, and the conditions imposed in the Occupied Palestinian Territory which directly affect children. For the purpose of this report, a ‘child’ means “every human being below the age of 18 years”, consistent with article 1 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).

3. Since 7 October 2023, the Commission has sent 13 requests for information and/or access to the Government of Israel, four requests for information to the State of Palestine and one request for information to the Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip. The State of Palestine and the Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip provided information to the Commission. No responses were received from the Government of Israel.

4. The Commission’s comprehensive findings on violations and abuses against Israeli children committed by the military wing of Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups on and since 7 October 2023 were presented in its reports to the Human Rights Council in June 2024 and to the General Assembly in October 2024, as well as in a separate conference room paper published in June 2024.

5. In these reports, the Commission found that Israeli children were subjected to physical and emotional mistreatment on 7 October 2023. In addition to the 40 children who were killed and hundreds injured, many children lost one or both parents. Many children witnessed the killings of their parents and siblings and were also filmed for propaganda purposes by Palestinian armed groups who published videos depicting Israeli children in vulnerable positions while they were under the control of the armed elements. The Commission finds it particularly egregious that children were targeted for abduction, several of them taken alone. The Commission concluded that Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, including against Israeli children and child hostages.

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Alert from Dennis Kucinich: Strip Sections 219/1217 from 2027 NDAA

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From the Kucinich Report:

Against the horrific high- and low-tech butchery of Palestinians and Lebanese by Israeli ethno-nationalist psychopathic killers, this week there will be an effort in Congress to formally merge or integrate the military of Israel and the United States at the most advanced levels.

Section 219 (formerly Section 224) [and Section 1217 in the Senate] of the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act of 2027, provides for an unprecedented unification. The nearly $4 billion in the NDAA for Israel’s offensive efforts pales next to Israel having direct access to determining use of $1.5 trillion in annual military resources of the United States.

Money can be appropriated one year and withdrawn the next. Institutional integration is permanent.

Section 219 creates permanent mechanisms through which military planning, intelligence sharing, weapons development, procurement, research, artificial intelligence, and strategic coordination become increasingly intertwined between the United States and Israel.

It is a proposal to embed another nation’s military establishment within the long-term planning and strategic architecture of the United States government.

TAKE ACTION

The merger is timed to be voted on the week of June 29, just before the Fourth of July.

Find your member of Congress: House Senate

It is urgent that you call your congressional representative today at 202-224-3121 and tell them to Strip Section 219 (House) or Section 1217 (Senate) from the 2027 NDAA.

Congressmen Tom Massie (R-KY) and Ro Khanna (D-CA) will offer an amendment in the House to remove Section 219. Please tell your U.S. Representative: Support the Massie-Khanna Amendment to the NDAA.

Optional telephone script for the House of Representatives:

My name is ______ and I am a constituent. I am calling to urge Representative ______ to support the Massie-Khanna Amendment and to remove Section 219 from the NDAA. Congress should defend American sovereignty, uphold the Constitution, and reject any measure that integrates the executive and military functions of the United States with those of a foreign government. Please pass my message to the Representative. Thank you.

Please do all you can to spread the word. Share this post and ask your network to take action.

Background:
Our own government – House, Senate and Administration – is in moral collapse, placing overwhelming emphasis on militarism instead of adequately funding America – housing, education, food, health, safety, and retirement security. Americans are standing at freeway exits, begging for food, while our tax dollars flow to weapons manufacturers.

While carrying a national debt approaching $40 Trillion, the Administration is increasing spending for its newly dedicated Department of War by 67% to upwards of $1.5 TRILLION per year. Simultaneously, with more than 42 million Americans unable to feed themselves, the administration is cutting federal food programs.

The practical implications extend far beyond dollars. With NDAA Section 219, Congress the legislation would create enduring institutional relationships affecting how those extraordinary military resources are developed, coordinated, and potentially employed.

No Congress has ever before considered legislation of this nature with any foreign nation.

If the Administration’s “America First” claim were to mean anything, it must first mean that America’s Constitution comes first. It must mean that American families, farmers, workers, veterans, and children come first. Section 219 turns that claim into a farce.

Section 219 of the NDAA would cause the United States to become dependent upon Israel making decisions about war, peace, military strategy, intelligence, and U. S. national security. This is the consequence of permanent institutional integration.

One week ago, a UN Commission of Inquiry determined that Israeli security forces deliberately targeted and killed Palestinian children, sometimes as a game, torturing them, subjecting children to sexual violence resulting in “unprecedented death, injury and trauma.”

Since Oct. 7, 2023, the IDF has been instrumental in the deaths of as many as 800,000 Palestinians, including children, emergency health care workers, doctors, nurses, journalists, and educators.

UN investigators and human rights observers have documented the killing of Palestinian children and have accused Israeli forces of deliberately targeting the children of Gaza.

These findings are reinforced by dehumanizing statements from Israeli political figures who have portrayed Palestinian children as future terrorists, so children are targets.

Essential civilian infrastructure has been devastated. Water systems, hospitals, schools, electrical networks, and sanitation facilities have been damaged or destroyed, eacerbating a man-made, humanitarian catastrophe.

In the occupied West Bank, armed “settlers” have been widely reported to have attacked Palestinian communities, burned homes, uprooted olive groves and other crops, destroyed property, and killed livestock, further displacing civilian populations.

Israel has used starvation as a weapon, setting food as a trap and, gunning down Gazans as they rush desperately to feed themselves and their children. Water supplies have been poisoned, wells filled with cement.

Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon are testing ground sfor increasingly sophisticated military technologies, destroying entire villages with increasingly powerful munitions, and using precision, artificial intelligence-assisted targeting systems. Human rights organizations have raised serious concerns about the speed of targeting decisions, civilian casualty rates, and the implications of delegating life-and-death decisions to algorithmic systems.

White phosphorous and other weapons banned by international treaty are in use.

The conduct of the IDF has earned world-wide condemnation. Twenty-nine UN member states do not have diplomatic relations with Israel. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

The Israel newspaper Haaretz recently reported that the ICC prosecutor is also seeking arrest warrants for Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich: “Gaza must be destroyed entirely.” and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Givr, who has said: “All of Lebanon must burn.” Will these be our new partners? If so, the fundamental question becomes: Who are WE?

What is to be lost further in an Israel-U.S. military merger?

If the U.S. combines our military capabilities with the twisted occupation and expansionist ethic of Israel’s use of military technology against civilian populations, will it be long before our own government militarizes the high -tech surveillance infrastructure already in place to use state violence against our own citizens who protest abuse of basic rights?

The First Amendment has already been taken down on college campuses, and in cities and states where Israel critics are sanctioned.

U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) officials have trained in Israel. The lessons learned there have come to America in terms of deportation, detention, and in some cases, physical abuse, injury and death at the hands of ICE government agents.

Israel kills Arab children so they will not commit crimes in the future. Will Americans, as in the movie Minority Report be pitched into a dystopian world where predictive algorithms enable Israel-U.S. collaborators to hunt down, prosecute and even punish Americans for crimes not committed?

As a Member of Congress, I questioned Benjamin Netanyahu during a hearing which took place prior to the 2003 Congressional vote on going to war against Iraq. He admitted he wanted not only Iraq to be attacked by the United States, but also Libya and Iran. It is widely known that the Israeli Prime Minister pushed President Trump into the disastrous war against Iran.

It is inevitable that as Israel’s aggression is maximally empowered, once placed inside the U.S. war-making establishment, the U.S. will be dragged into the Zionists’ expansionist designs on Iran, Turkey, Egypt and elsewhere. A greater Israel means a lesser United States. Congress, heavily influenced by the Israel lobby, is unable to reclaim its constitutionally based war power

Since the merger is to be voted on, this week, before America celebrates the 250th anniversary of our Declaration of Independence, let us be reminded by Thomas Jefferson’s July 4, 1776 characterization of George III, King of Great Britain: “He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws….”

Our forefathers did not fight for freedom and for independence at Lexington and Concord, Bunker Hill, Trenton, Saratoga, and Yorktown, nor sacrifice American blood and treasure in battles in World War I and World War II to arrive at July 4, 2026, having willingly forfeited our sovereignty to a foreign nation, losing control of our future and putting in doubt “our lives, our fortunes, our sacred honor.”

…

Please do all you can to spread the word. Share this post and ask your network to take action.

About the author: Dennis J. Kucinich is a former U.S. Congressman, presidential candidate, and lifelong advocate for peace through constitutional government. During his sixteen years in Congress, he consistently challenged unauthorized wars and the expansion of executive war powers. He opposed the invasion of Iraq, warned against the intervention in Libya, and for more than two decades argued against military confrontation with Iran. His work has consistently focused on defending the Constitution, restoring congressional authority over war, and advancing a foreign policy rooted in diplomacy and American self-government.

https://kucinichreport.substack.com/p/war-crimes-war-powers-and-american

The Russian-Chinese Communiqué

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From Consortium News
May 23, 2026

After their summit in Beijing on Wednesday, the Russian and Chinese presidents issued the following communiqué, declaring the failure of neocolonial hegemony and the emergence of a new era of international relations.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Beijing on Wednesday. (Russian President)

The Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China (hereinafter referred to as the Parties), being civilizations with an ancient history, founding countries of the United Nations (U.N.) and permanent members of its Security Council, important centers of power in a multipolar world, playing a constructive role in maintaining the global balance of power and improving the system of international relations,

Guided by the ideas of the Russian-Chinese Joint Declaration on a Multipolar World and the Formation of a New International Order of April 23, 1997, the Joint Declaration between the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China on the International Order in the 21st Century of July 1, 2005, the Joint Statement of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China on the Current Situation in the World and Major International Issues of July 4, 2017, the Joint Statement of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China on International Relations Entering a New Era and Global Sustainable Development of February 4, 2022, state the following:

1. Since the end of World War II, changes in the international landscape and the balance of power in the world have accelerated.

On the one hand, the wave of decolonization and the end of the Cold War led to a significant increase in the number of sovereign states in the world. Global society has become more diverse and complex. The development and international influence of states in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and the Caribbean have risen. The number of regional and interregional associations, spanning all areas of international relations, from politics and security to economics and humanitarian affairs, has increased, and their role in global affairs is steadily growing. Global interconnectedness and interdependence have reached levels unprecedented in human history.

Attempts by a number of states to unilaterally manage global affairs, impose their interests on the entire world, and limit the sovereign development of other countries, in the spirit of the colonial era, have failed. The system of international relations in the 21st century is undergoing a profound transformation, evolving toward a long-term state of polycentricity and the emergence of a new type of international relations.

Most states, drawing on their historical experience, have deeply recognized the dawn of a new era and the need to pursue the path of forming a more cohesive international community, as well as mutual respect for fundamental interests, equality, justice, and mutually beneficial cooperation without dividing the world into opposing regions and blocs.

On the other hand, the global situation is becoming more complex. Negative neocolonial tendencies such as unilateral forceful approaches, hegemonism, and bloc confrontation are on the rise. Fundamental, universally recognized norms of international law and international relations are regularly violated, and it is becoming more difficult for states to coordinate their actions and resolve conflicts within global governance institutions, many of which are losing their effectiveness. The global peace and development agenda is facing new risks and challenges, and there is a danger of fragmentation of the international community and a return to the “law of the jungle.”

2. Advocating for a harmonious process of establishing an equal and orderly multipolar world and a new type of international relations, including a more just and rational system of global governance, the Parties undertake and call upon the international community to adhere to the following basic principles in their relations with each other:

1) the principle of openness of the world for inclusive and mutually beneficial cooperation.

It is important to overcome the divisions of the world and promote the elimination of cross-border barriers in various spheres, while respecting the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and identity of all sovereign states. There is no universal development path in the world, and no “first-class” countries or peoples exist. The natural differences between states in such a diverse and complex world should not be an obstacle to the development of equal, respectful, and mutually beneficial relations between them. It is essential to respect the choice of each sovereign state’s path and development model. Democratizing international political relations and building a more open global economy are in the fundamental interests of all countries. Unilateral approaches to resolving common problems, hegemony, and coercive policies in any form are unacceptable.

2) the principle of indivisible and equal security.

The emergence of a more cohesive international community amid growing common risks and challenges for humanity means that the security of one state cannot be achieved at the expense of another. All sovereign states have an equal right to security. It is necessary to pay due attention to the rational security concerns of all countries, focus on cooperation on security issues, reject bloc confrontation and zero-sum game strategies, oppose the expansion of military alliances, hybrid wars, and proxy wars, and promote the creation of a renewed, balanced, effective, and sustainable global and regional security architecture. Disagreements and disputes should be resolved peacefully, addressing the root causes of conflicts. It is unacceptable to coerce sovereign states into abandoning their neutrality.

3) the principle of democratization of international relations and improvement of the global governance system.

All states and their associations are free to choose their international partners and models of international interaction. Global hegemony is unacceptable and must be prohibited. No state or group of states should control international affairs, dictate the fate of others, or monopolize development opportunities. The system of global governance and regulation must ensure conditions for the equal participation of all states in political decision-making processes and their benefits, and it must be continuously improved. Global governance, an important instrument for regulating the system of international relations, must adhere to sovereign equality, the rule of international law, multilateralism, human-centeredness, and results-oriented approaches.

To this end, it is necessary to strengthen the role of multilateralism as the primary tool for resolving multifaceted and complex global problems and prevent the weakening of the U.N. Reform of the U.N. and other multilateral institutions must serve the interests of all humanity and consistently enhance the representativeness and voice of developing states in the international system. The U.N. Charter is the fundamental norm of international relations, and its principles must be observed in their entirety and interrelationship. Rules developed by a small group of states should not replace generally recognized international law. Large states must assume special responsibilities and missions, impose additional demands on themselves, and not abuse their advantages;

4) world civilizational and value diversity.

All human civilizations are valuable and equal in themselves; civilizations are not divided into highly developed and underdeveloped, strong and weak. The spiritual and moral system of no civilization can be considered exclusive or superior to others. All countries must advocate for a view of civilization based on equality, the mutual exchange of experiences, and dialogue. They must strengthen mutual respect, understanding, trust, and exchanges between different nationalities and civilizations, promote mutual understanding and friendship among the peoples of all countries, and protect the diversity of cultures and civilizations.

It is necessary to resolutely oppose the use of human rights as a pretext for interference in the internal affairs of other states, as well as the politicization and instrumentalization of human rights issues. Religion is an important conduit for human culture, playing a special role in building ties between peoples, and all states must create favorable conditions for interreligious dialogue and exchanges.

3. The parties will continue to develop a joint vision for the formation of a multipolar world and a new type of more equitable international relations.

https://consortiumnews.com/2026/05/23/the-russian-chinese-communique/

Cuba Is Not a Failed State – It Is a Besieged State

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From UNAC / Stop the Wars at Home and Abroad
May 22, 2026

We Need to Build a Unified Resistance to Sanctions and War

The statement below is a response to the ongoing blockade against Cuba and the propaganda derived from it.   We hope you will endorse this statement, but we also hope you will commit to emergency actions if the Trump Administration follows through with their threats to invade Cuba.

At this critical junction in world history when the Cuban Revolution is being threatened by US hegemon, it is essential to come to its defense. Cuba is the hope of humanity.

  • Sign On to  “Cuba is Not a Failed State – It Is a Besieged State”
  • Register your Emergency Action

We defend Cuba by combating the intentionally negative stereotyping of a failed state. The problems Cuba faces under blockade conditions should not be portrayed in such alarmist ways that it reinforces Washington’s propaganda. We need to combat this defeatist approach.

Cuba is being sanctioned for the crime of being a good example

That Washington continues to intensify its six-decade campaign against the Cuban Revolution testifies to the island’s resilience and strength.

Washington’s regime-change campaign has taken a heavy toll. Responsible Statecraft describes US policy as “bent on breaking the island.” The Guardian reports “an epidemic of flies, rats, waste and foul odors.”

These accounts portray Cuban hardship but intentionally overlook Cuban social achievements. Even statements from Congressional leaders advocating for an end to the blockade by focusing on the crisis it has created, can feed into Washington’s self-serving narrative that Cuba is a “failed nation.”

When descriptions of the humanitarian crisis caused by the escalated blockade do not question the ideological assumption that accepts capitalism as the natural state of humanity, they can be used to depict socialism as an abortive failed experiment.

This is why solidarity activists must take special care to highlight the incredible achievements of Cuba, even under blockade conditions, all while waging an active campaign against the sanctions and gathering supplies to take to the island in solidarity.

Doing so much with so little

The Center for Economic and Policy Research documents a dramatic increase in infant mortality from 4.9, now rising to 9.9 per 1,000 live births, attributable to deteriorating living conditions caused by the US economic war.

Yet, even under this intentional strangulation, Cuba’s infant mortality rate remains among the lowest in the region. Cuba has free public, personalized healthcare for every Cuban from birth and throughout life.

Surrounding countries that are not facing any U.S. sanctions but are forced to survive under capitalist relations have consistently higher infant mortality rates. Panama (11), Dominican Republic (16), El Salvador (12), Honduras (15), Guatemala (20), Jamaica (12), Haiti (45-50).

Most stunning is that Cuba’s infant mortality figures under a ruthless blockade are still lower than for African Americans in the U.S. (10.9).

This reflects the demonstrated success of Cuba’s social medicine model, even under the most challenging of circumstances.

Using Cuba’s example of people-centered healthcare, Nicaragua dramatically reduced their infant mortality from 29 deaths per thousand in 2005 under a right-wing, pro U.S. government  to 9 under the Sandinistas and with the assistance of Cuban doctors.

This is why the Trump administration is determined to block Cuban medical staff from providing medical care in the Caribbean. A dozen countries have acquiesced to demands from the U.S. to end medical agreements with Cuba.

  • Sign On to  “Cuba is Not a Failed State – It Is a Besieged State”
  • Register your Emergency Action

Cuba’s medical staff focuses heavily on underserved areas in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Africa. They provide more doctors and medical staff than the World Health Organization and most western nations combined. The United States calls Cuba’s medical internationalism “human trafficking” – but it’s really an internationalist lifeline for the Global South.

Cuba is not alone, as it receives significant solidarity aid from allied states.  China, for example, is helping  address Cuba’s fossil fuel dependency by supplying 49 solar farms (20% of all its energy needs) and fleets of electric buses, cars, and scooters. Our solidarity movement should highlight and encourage such international cooperation.

Among Cuba’s public health achievements are its international medical brigades, excellence in advanced research, response to the pandemic, service to underserved populations, south-south cooperation initiatives, and the world’s highest doctor-to-patient ratios.

The Cuban socialist model has also produced notable successes in sports and public education.

Writing from Cuba, Carlos Fernandez de Cossio defended the country’s accomplishments over the past decade despite the “intense economic war,” including:

  • sustaining the national electrical system while expanding renewable energy
  • strengthening telecommunications and expanding internet access
  • supporting vulnerable populations through food cultivation
  • improving water infrastructure in underserved communities
  • developing COVID vaccines and other medicines
  • expanding domestic industry including the assembly of electric vehicles

For a small, natural resource-poor island, Cuba has achieved so much with so little and under such extraordinarily adverse conditions. The nation asks only that the jackboot of imperialism be lifted so that it may truly flourish.

International people’s solidarity must not allow these incredible achievements to be overlooked as we advocate for relief from the cruel blockade. We should describe this crisis  the same way that the Cuban leadership describes it – acknowledging the harms of US imperialism, but always stressing the achievements of the Cuban revolution and the power of solidarity and cooperation.

¡Venceremos!

Leading Organizers from the Following Organizations support this Cuba statement and the Call to Action.  

United National Antiwar Coalition, Cuba Si NY/NJ, International US-Cuba Normalization Conference, Venezuela Solidarity Network, US Peace Council, Alliance for Global Justice, SanctionsKill! Campaign, Resist U.S. Led War Movement, Black Alliance for Peace, International League of Peoples Struggles, Americas Without Sanctions, Chicago ALBA Solidarity, Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition, Task Force on the Americas, International Action Center, Veterans For Peace, Code Pink NY, National Lawyers Guild, Anti War Action Network, Freedom Road Socialist Organization, Bronx Antiwar, Compas de la Diaspora, Struggle for Socialism Party, Alberto Lovera Bolivarian Circle, Diaspora Pa’lante Collective, Workers World Party,
(This statement was initiated by the SanctionsKill Campaign.)

Add your support and help to circulate this statement.

Sign here: https://unac.notowar.net/cuba-is-not-a-failed-state-it-is-a-besieged-state/#Endorse

US Mother’s Day original goal was an international women’s peace congress to end war so “the great human family can live in peace”

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From The Peace Alliance

MOTHER’S DAY PROCLAMATION
Boston, 1870

“Arise, then… women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts,
whether our baptism be that of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies.
Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage,
for caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country
to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.

From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own.
It says:  Disarm, Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.
Blood does not wipe out dishonor,
nor violence vindicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
at the summons of war,
let women now leave all that may be left of home
for a great and earnest day of council.

Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them then solemnly take council with each other as to the means
whereby the great human family can live in peace,
each bearing after his own kind the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
but of God.

In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask
that a general congress of women, without limit of nationality,
may be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient,
and at the earliest period consistent with its objects,
to promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
the amicable settlement of international questions,
the great and general interests of peace.“

~ Julia Ward Howe

https://peacealliance.org/history-of-mothers-day-as-a-day-of-peace-julia-ward-howe/

The US kills babies in Cuba; CBS hides the truth

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From Global Research

May 4, 2026
Michelle Ellner
CODEPINK

When the lights go out in Havana, the foreign cameras arrive to film the darkness.

They come for the blackout glow: candles in apartment windows, families sleeping on balconies, mothers fanning infants through another airless night. They come for the line outside the pharmacy, the bus that never comes, the refrigerator gone warm.

They come for the darkness.

A recent CBS segment on Cuba offered viewers a familiar script: a “failed” island, an aging revolution, refugees in Florida, and Washington once again contemplating what to do with the place 90 miles away. But the segment was also built on an omission so large it swallowed the truth: that while these cameras speak of shortages and collapse, babies are dying under a policy designed to create both.

A new report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research has found that the expansion of U.S. sanctions beginning in 2017 was likely the primary cause of a dramatic rise in infant mortality in Cuba. According to the report, Cuba’s infant mortality rate surged by 148 percent from 2018 to 2025. Had the rate remained stable, approximately 1,800 babies who died during those years would likely still be alive. 

Read that again. Babies. 

The report links the rise to the tightening of unilateral U.S. coercive measures under the first Donald Trump administration, the continuation of most of those measures under Joe Biden, and further escalation under the second Trump administration. Instead of telling that story, prime-time segments like CBS recycle Cold War clichés.

In this segment, people are invited to remember pre-revolutionary Cuba as a lost paradise. But beyond the casino lights were cane cutters, domestic workers, rural families without doctors, children without schools, Black Cubans denied the full rights, dignity, and opportunities the government claimed to promise, workers, surviving in an economy where much of the wealth flowed upward. For many Cubans, the revolution was a rupture with dependency.

It is common in U.S. media to shrink the Cuban Revolution into one beard, one speech, one man. As if millions of lives, shaped by inequality, dictatorship, and foreign domination, could be reduced to nothing more than a personality cult. Fidel Castro was central to Cuba’s history, but so were peasants who wanted land, teachers who crossed mountains to teach literacy, doctors who stayed in poor neighborhoods, workers who believed sovereignty meant something more than a flag. 

Like any other country, Cuba has real internal problems. Bureaucracy exists. Economic errors exist. Frustration is real. Emigration is real. And yet, these realities are routinely seized upon by Washington as the ready-made justification for intervention, pressure, and policies that deepen the very conditions they claim to condemn.

For decades, the United States has built an external wall around the island brick by brick. Sanctions. Financial penalties. Shipping restrictions. Fuel pressure. Banking obstacles. Threats against companies that trade. Punishments for third countries. Obstacles to medicine, parts, credit, investment, and entrepreneurs. Policy papers described the logic openly generations ago: create hardship, provoke desperation, generate political unrest.

This is where media like CBS plays a critical role by showing the suffering while obscuring the system that produces it. By rendering U.S. policy as background noise rather than as an active force shaping the very reality being filmed. And this is not an isolated editorial choice. It is a pattern.

But when infant deaths rise sharply during a period of intensified external strangulation, honesty demands more than repeating those talking points. It requires naming cause and responsibility. And it requires asking a more uncomfortable question: If the Cuban system is truly destined to fail on its own, why has so much power been invested in making sure it does?

You don’t spend decades trying to suffocate something that poses no alternative. Why isolate, sanction, and punish a model you believe is irrelevant? Unless the fear is not that it will fail. Unless the fear is that it might, even with all its contradictions, suggest a different way of organizing society. One where people are not reduced to clients, markets, or consumers to be captured, but honored as human beings to be nourished, protected, and allowed to flourish.

When I walked through Havana during a blackout, I saw neighbors calling across courtyards, playing dominoes by candlelight. Someone on the corner had a speaker with half a battery and enough music for three buildings. Two young people kissed along the Malecón. Someone cursed the government. Someone cursed the blockade. Someone cursed both. Someone laughed. I saw human beings remain stubbornly human. 

Why does CBS not cover that? Because they film the darkness. But the real story is not the candle in the window. It is the hand that cut the fuel, the policy that constricted the hospital, the silence that normalized preventable deaths, and the infants whose names will never appear in the broadcast.

Michelle Ellner is a Latin America campaign coordinator of CODEPINK. She was born in Venezuela and holds a bachelor’s degree in languages and international affairs from the University La Sorbonne Paris IV, in Paris. After graduating, she worked for an international scholarship program out of offices in Caracas and Paris and was sent to Haiti, Cuba, The Gambia, and other countries for the purpose of evaluating and selecting applicants.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/cuba-they-film-darkness/5924811

The National Lawyers Guild joins the International Association of Democratic Lawyers in condemning the joint U.S.-Israeli illegal aggression on Iran

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National Lawyers Guild
March 13, 2026

The National Lawyers Guild joins the International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL) in condemning in the strongest terms the joint attack by the United States and Israel on the Islamic Republic of Iran, launched on the morning of Saturday, February 28, 2026, amid the holy month of Ramadan. 

These attacks constitute another example of the crime of aggression, in blatant violation of article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter and the principles of sovereignty, territorial integrity of states, good neighborliness and the peaceful settlement of disputes. International law clearly prohibits both the use of force and the threat to use force against the territorial integrity of any state, and it is also clear that the United States and Israel have deep disregard and contempt for these principles. These attacks further violate the U.S. Constitution. The U.S. president acted unilaterally and lawlessly — without congressional authorization and absent any imminent threat to the U.S. However, it is important to point out the failure and unwillingness of the U.S. Congress to act to respond to Trump’s other unauthorized hostilities in Iran or anywhere. As many have also pointed out there are over 50 members of Congress who have investments in defense companies and directly profit from these illegal wars. 

Neither the U.S. nor Israel has attempted to hide the fact that this aggression is being carried out to facilitate a regime change that they would find amenable to their goals of total domination of the entire region of West Asia militarily, economically and politically, and to deprive the Palestinian people under occupation and facing an ongoing genocide of support for their capacity to resist and free themselves of this unlawful occupation. We are reminded of the 12-day war of June 2025, another illegal aggression perpetrated by the same parties against Iran, which the NLG and IADL also strongly condemned. The persistent lack of accountability or any meaningful consequences for those responsible has not merely enabled further warmongering and destruction; it has entrenched a culture of impunity that effectively amounts to complicity.

Once again, we note that purported negotiations that claimed to seek a peaceful resolution or to address nuclear development were used as a sham in an attempt to lower Iranian defenses, as we have seen before in the context of the invasion of Iraq. Israeli officials have openly stated that they have planned this attack over months and weeks, spanning a larger period of time than any of the negotiation rounds. Such aggression not only underlines the bad faith of the United States and Israel but also discourages nations from participating in peace talks or negotiations, when it has been made clear that these states view such negotiations only as a way to pass time until a new aggression is launched. 

This aggression follows by less than two months the U.S. attack on Venezuela and the unlawful abduction of its president and first lady, and comes amid the ongoing war threats and oil blockade imposed on Cuba. This complete disregard for the process of negotiations only encourages nuclear proliferation around the world; we further note that the United States holds the world’s largest supply of nuclear weapons and is the only state to have used them. Further, Israel is an undeclared nuclear power that routinely makes threats based on its nuclear weapons capacity. 

We note that Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, is still the subject of an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity, while pursuing constant war and aggression against the Palestinian people targeted for genocide, Lebanon, Syria, and now, once again, Iran. The aggression is the continuation of the illegal aggression launched last year as well as a continuation of a sustained and deliberate campaign of hostile acts spanning more than 46 years – including sanctions designed to destroy the Iranian economy, coordinated cyber-warfare operations, targeted assassinations and systematic acts of sabotage. 

We urge all states to provide all necessary assistance, consistent with their obligations under international law, to the Islamic Republic of Iran, Palestine, and other nations subjected to unlawful aggression by the United States and Israel,  and to condemn their  serious violations of international law, including genocide. We underline that this aggression is a threat not only to all of the peoples and nations of the West Asian region but to the future of multilateralism, international law, and the territorial integrity of states. Iran, a sovereign nation, has the clear and legitimate right to defend itself against this unlawful aggression. We urge all states to immediately implement an arms embargo on Israel and the U.S., withdraw their ambassadors, and pursue legal actions to hold their military and political officials accountable. 

We cannot rely solely on states or international institutions to end this aggression. We urge all supporters of justice, sovereignty, peace, and international law to participate in mass demonstrations and actions against the aggression on Iran, and to mobilize popular pressure to bring the aggression to an end. We urge all legal organizations, lawyers and human rights organizations to utilize domestic and international systems to hold Israeli and U.S. officials and soldiers accountable for their unlawful aggression against Iran and their acts of genocide in Palestine, as well as to support and defend organizers and social movements against state repression for their work to end war and genocide. 

The Military Law Taskforce (MLT) of the National Lawyers Guild reminds U.S. armed service members that they have the right and the duty to resist and refuse illegal orders. The MLTF pledges to support those who do so, and support service members who protest or stand against this disastrous war.

https://www.nlg.org/nlg-iran-march-2026/

Genocide is Embedded in America’s “Humanitarian Wars”.

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War on Iraq : Five US Presidents, Five British Prime Ministers, More than Thirty Years of Duplicity, and Counting….

From Global Research

By Felicity Arbuthnot and Prof Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research 6 August 2010
Global Research, May 02, 2026 republished

Introduction by Michel Chossudovsky on America’s “Humanitarian Wars”, followed by an incisive and carefully documented article by Veteran War Correspodent Felicity Arbuthnot on The War on Iraq.

***

Introduction  

“Is it a mere coincidence? In recent history, from the Vietnam war to the present, the month of March has been chosen by the Pentagon and NATO military planners as the “best month” to go to war.

With the exception of the War on Afghanistan (October 2001) and the 1990-91 Gulf War, all major US-NATO and allied led military operations over a period of more than half a century –since the invasion of Vietnam by U.S. ground forces on March 8, 1965– have been initiated in the month of March.

The Ides of March (Idus Martiae) is a day in the Roman calendar which broadly corresponds to March 15. The Ides of March is also known as the date on which Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC.

Lest we forget, the month of March (in the Roman Calendar) is dedicated to Mars (Martius), the Roman God of War.

March 2024 marks the 21st anniversary of the onslaught of the war on Iraq.

The US-NATO led invasion of Iraq started on 20 March 2003 on the pretext that Iraq possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD).

In March, we will also be commemorating the Vietnam War launched on March 8, 1965 following the adoption by the US Congress of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which authorized President Lyndon Johnson to dispatch ground forces to Vietnam.

We will also be remembering NATO’s War on Yugoslavia which was launched on March 24, 1999 under Operation “Noble Anvil”.

All these wars, according to the media, are peace-making undertakings. They are tagged as “Humanitarian Wars” under the banner of “Responsibility to Protect (R2P). 

January-February 2024, we commemorated the thirty-third anniversary of so-called Gulf War, namely the first genocidal attack against  Iraq. 

“In Geneva, on 9th January 1991, then Secretary of State James Baker –a “diplomat” who stated: “We will reduce Iraq to a pre-industrial age”– met Iraq’s Foreign Minister, Tareq Aziz, with a letter from Bush Snr., promising the destruction of Iraq, if Kuwait was not withdrawn from by 15th January. Tareq Aziz stated he would not deliver the letter.” (Felicity Arbuthnot)

Sending Countries “Back to the Stone-Age” 

Iraq

Secretary of State James Baker stated: 
“We will reduce Iraq to a pre-industrial age”

During that first war [Gulf War], Secretary of State James Baker told the Iraqi foreign minister that “we will return you to the pre-industrial age.”

Baker’s words were prophetic. The American-led coalition delivered 88,000 tons of bombs, equivalent … to seven Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs.

The bombing unquestionably set out to destroy the civilian infrastructure, leveling oil refineries, electrical plants and transportation networks. (The Nation, May 28, 2007)

Vietnam

General Curtis LeMay is quoted as saying in relation to North Vietnam:
“they’ve got to draw in their horns and stop their aggression, or we’re going to bomb them back into the Stone Age.
( Curtis Lemay, 1965 autobiography (co-author with MacKinlay Kantor)

Pakistan 

“The Bush administration threatened to bomb Pakistan “back to the stone age” after the September 11 attacks if the country did not cooperate with America’s war on Afghanistan, 

… General Pervez Musharraf, said the threat was delivered by the assistant secretary of state, Richard Armitage, in conversations with Pakistan’s intelligence director … ‘Be prepared to be bombed. Be prepared to go back to the stone age’,”. … (The Guardian, September 22, 2006, emphasis added)

Israel

 “We are fighting against animals”, Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant 

Genocide is Embedded in America’s ‘Humanitarian Wars”

Is this not what Israel –with the firm support of the Biden Administration– is  carrying out in Palestine?

All U.S. led wars have targeted hospitals and schools.

I recall Twenty-five years ago in the early hours of March 24, 1999, when NATO began the bombing of Belgrade under Operation “Allied Force ”,

“the children’s hospital was the object of air attacks. It had been singled out by military planners as a strategic target”. 

The conduct of war crimes and genocide is integral part of what is euphemistically call “US Foreign Policy”. 

The history of US-led wars confirms that murdering millions of civilians is an integral part of America’s global war agenda.

From Dresden to Gaza (1945-2024): The Death of 40+ Million People

During and since World War II , the United States has killed more than 40 million people in a number of countries, “most of them civilians, either directly or through proxy by its puppet regimes”:

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US & Israel bomb 307+ medical facilities in Iran

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From Mint Press News
April 9, 2026
Alan McLeod

The United States and Israel are systematically targeting hospitals in Iran. In one month of bombing, the two countries have hit at least 307 health centers across the country, according to reports from the Iranian Red Crescent. The carefully planned destruction of the Islamic Republic’s medical infrastructure fits into a long history of deliberate U.S. attacks on hospitals. Since the end of World War Two, Washington has targeted medical centers in at least 16 countries, and the 307 Iranian sites hit does not even come close to the record for the number of hospitals in any country destroyed by American bombs and missiles.

IRANIAN DESTRUCTION

There was no warning. U.S. and Israeli airstrikes hit Gandhi Hotel Hospital in northern Tehran on March 1, and again on March 2. Locals were fasting for Ramadan as missiles tore into the building, shattering glass and wrecking its neo-natal unit and ICU. Completed in 2009 and described as “beacon” of Iranian medicine and one of the most advanced medical centers in West Asia, the 17-storey building was among the country’s most important hospitals. Images of the aftermath show a once proud building in ruins, with floor after floor devastated. Gandhi Hotel Hospital is one of more than 300 medical centers that have been hit by U.S. and Israeli strikes. Nine days afterward, on March 11, the Persian Gulf Martyrs Educational and Medical Center in Bushehr on Iran’s southern coast was targeted and severely damaged.

Missile explosions destroyed much of the hospital’s medical equipment. Even as the glass was still falling, authorities made the decision to rush patients to the nearby Nuclear Scientists Martyrs Hospital, despite the fear of a double-tap strike, like the ones often seen in Israeli attacks on Palestine. On March 21, the Imam Ali Hospital in Andimeshk, Khuzestan Province, was targeted. Video footage from the aftermath of the attack shows wards, waiting rooms, and corridors completely devastated, with both walls and roofs collapsing under the strain of U.S./Israeli bombardment.

The Imam Ali is Andimeshk’s only hospital, and patients were forced to be bussed to healthcare facilities in other cities, according to Hossein Kermanpour, head of public relations for the Iranian Ministry of Health. I wish [Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu] understood that this is a crime against humanity,” he said.

Other medical infrastructure, including a first responders’ center, an Iranian Red Crescent office, and the Pasteur Institute, a medical research laboratory, have also been hit. “What message does attacking hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and the Pasteur Institute as a medical research center in Iran convey?” asked Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian; “As a specialist physician, I urge WHO, the Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders and physicians worldwide to respond to this crime against humanity.”

The attacks have been largely ignored by Western media. Few newspapers or TV news reports have even mentioned the damage to the country’s healthcare system, let alone centered it as a major news story.

THE U.S.’ LONG HISTORY OF BOMBING HOSPITALS

President Trump has a history of targeting medical facilities. Last year, U.S. forces carried out 14 separate airstrikes on the Al Rasool Al-Azam Oncology Hospital in Saada, Yemen, the centerpiece of the country’s healthcare network. For a full investigation into the attack, and the U.S.’ long history of targeting civilian medical infrastructure around the world, see the MintPress News report:

“With Yemen Attack, U.S. Continues Long History of Deliberately Bombing Hospitals.” Repeated attacks against hospitals is more of a pattern than an aberration for Trump. In 2017, the U.S. carried out 20 strikes against a hospital in Raqqa, Syria, using white phosphorous munitions to do so, killing at least 30 civilians in the process.

Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, was not less fond of targeting healthcare facilities. In 2015, his administration ordered a bombing campaign against a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan. The building was one of the largest and most recognizable in the city, and an internal inquiry found that the airmen aboard the gunship pushed back against the order, citing its illegality. They were overruled and forced to carry out the strike, killing at least 42 people. Obama’s attack on Doctors Without Borders marked the only time in history that one Nobel Peace Prize winner has attacked another one. During his time in office, Obama bombed seven countries, including Libya, where U.S. planes struck a hospital in Zliten, leveling it completely. At least 11 people were killed in the operation.

Perhaps no nation on Earth has felt the impact of American power in the 21st century as badly as Iraq. Successive administrations attacked critical infrastructure there, including in 2003, when President Bush bombed the Red Crescent Maternity Hospital in Baghdad. While many were killed in the strike, the real death toll, as UNICEF noted, was far higher, as with no medical care, maternal mortality spiked after the attack. The 1990s is often remembered in the West as a time of peace. Yet President Clinton used the period to target medical infrastructure in three separate countries. In Yugoslavia, U.S. planes bombed a number of hospitals, including dropping now-banned cluster munitions on a facility in Niš, killing at least 15 people.

In Somalia in 1993, U.S. soldiers carried out a mortar attack against the Digfer Hospital in Mogadishu, destroying the building’s main reception area. They then proceeded to bomb the journalists attempting to cover the incident. Meanwhile, in Sudan, Clinton ordered a hit on the Al-Shifa medicine factory in Sudan. Fourteen cruise missiles pounded the plant, turning what had been the largest producer of medicine in the country into a pile of twisted metal. The German Ambassador to Sudan estimated that, without the antibiotics, antimalarials, and other drugs it produced, the true death toll of the strike was in the “tens of thousands.” Few Americans know about this incident. The 1980s were a dangerous time to be a doctor in a country designated for regime change.

The U.S. invaded Grenada in 1983, in order to put an end to the socialist revolution on the Caribbean island. In the process, it bombed the Richmond Hill Mental Hospital, killing dozens. In El Salvador, U.S.-backed death squads flying in American aircraft stormed a hospital in San Ildefonso, killing five people. Paratroopers also kidnapped, raped, and tortured the staff, including French nurse Madeleine Lagadec, causing a major diplomatic incident. Between 1981 and 1984, at least 63 health centers in Nicaragua were forced to close, due to attacks from U.S.-backed and trained “Contra” death squads, whom President Reagan labeled “the moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers.”

The violence meted out on Asia by the U.S., however, was on another level entirely. Bombing hospitals was official (if unstated) policy. “The bigger the hospital, the better it was,” said  former Army intelligence specialist Allan Stevenson, explaining the U.S. military’s position on Vietnam.

The most well-documented case of U.S. attacks on Vietnamese medical infrastructure occurred in December 1972, when American planes dropped over 100 bombs on the giant Bach Mai Hospital in Hanoi, killing at least 28 staff and an unconfirmed number of patients. During a Congressional hearing on clandestine activities in Laos and Cambodia, lawmakers were told that bombing of hospitals in those countries was “routine.”

To this day, Laos remains the most bombed country in history. North Korea, however, suffered the brunt of American attacks. In the course of the Korean War, the U.S. military destroyed an estimated 1,000 hospitals through bombing, as entire cities were leveled. Professor Bruce Cummings, America’s foremost expert on Korea, estimates that the U.S. killed around 25% of the entire North Korean population between 1950 and 1953.

ISRAELI CRIMES AND AMERICAN DREAMS

Israel, of course, is no stranger to bombing hospitals, either. Virtually every health center in Gaza has been damaged or destroyed. Israeli Defense Forces snipers have targeted healthcare workers inside hospitals, and have kidnapped, and tortured doctors. A particularly noteworthy example is that of Adnan Al-Bursh, head of orthopedics at al-Shifa Hospital. In December 2023, al-Bursh was arrested and detained for months, and was likely raped to death by IDF troops.

Israel is now systematically targeting Lebanon’s health system, as it did with Palestine, shelling hospitals deep inside the country. As a result, at least 57 Lebanese healthcare workers have died. The U.S. attacks on Iranian infrastructure are part of a wider regime change operation aimed at overthrowing the Islamic Republic and installing a U.S.-compliant administration. In recent times, Washington has assassinated the country’s supreme leader, carried out protracted economic warfare that has seriously harmed Iran, and fomented protests aimed at destabilizing and dislodging the government.

Trump also confirmed that his administration smuggled arms to Kurdish groups and to protestors leading the recent anti-government demonstrations – a key wanfactor in the violence that erupted. Thus, while systematic U.S./Israeli attacks on Iranian hospitals are shocking acts, they fit into a clear pattern stretching back over 80 years. As cataloged here, the United States has bombed healthcare infrastructure in at least 16 countries since the end of World War Two. Hitting hospitals may be a war crime, but it is as American as apple pie.


Alan MacLeod is Senior Staff Writer for MintPress News. He completed his PhD in 2017 and has since authored two acclaimed books: Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting and Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent, as well as a number of academic articles. He has also contributed to FAIR.org, The Guardian, Salon, The Grayzone, Jacobin Magazine, and Common Dreams. Follow Alan on Twitter for more of his work and commentary: @AlanRMacLeod.

https://www.mintpressnews.com/us-israel-bomb-307-medical-facilities-in-iran-carrying-on-long-tradition-of-targeting-medical-workers/290826/