FACTIFADA: Reference tools for navigating the Israeli-occupied Internet

Outside the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Palestine’s legal representative Paul Reichler tells Middle East Eye’s News Editor Sondos Asem that the ICJ’s advisory opinion on 22 October was a ‘historic’ affirmation of Israel’s legal obligations. He says the Court found Israel in breach of its obligations under the Fourth Geneva Convention for imposing a total blockade on Gaza between March and May 2025, causing starvation and humanitarian collapse. Reichler describes the ruling as a landmark clarification of Israel’s duties as an occupying power, and a warning that its conduct in Gaza violates international humanitarian law.

Avaaz/Reporters Without Borders (RSF)—Hundreds of media outlets, brought together by the campaigning platform Avaaz and Reporters Without Borders (RSF), are waging a campaign calling for the protection of Palestinian journalists in Gaza, the emergency evacuation of reporters seeking to leave the Strip, an end to impunity for Israeli crimes against Gaza’s reporters and that foreign press be granted independent access to the territory.

Originally published: 15 March 2024. Latest update: 5 July 2025.
“I, Lee Mordechai, write this document as a historian and Israeli citizen, as my testimony to the horrible current situation in Gaza as events are unfolding. I write my personal opinion as an academic, partially because of the disappointing general silence on this issue among many international and Israeli academic institutions, especially those that are well-positioned to comment on it, even as some of my colleagues have bravely spoken out. I do not believe this document will convince many others to change their minds. Rather, I write this publicly to testify that during the war there were and remain Israeli voices who strongly dissented from Israel’s actions.”

A shocking collection of before and after drone footage from the skies above Gaza, showing the scale of Israel’s genocidal war and its clear genocidal intent to make the Strip unliveable for the pre-October 7th population of 2.2 to 2.3 million Gazans.

The following Security Council press statement was issued today by Council President Pascale Christine Baeriswyl (Switzerland).

Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt, writes: “Genocide is a complex and insidious crime; proving destructive intent is an onerous task – yet not when it is so ostentatious, sustained by a political doctrine of ideological hatred and articulated through institutional structures and policies.”

Today the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel is illegally occupying Palestinian land, including the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza.

Today, Spain, invoking Article 63 of the Statute of the Court, filed in the Registry of the Court a declaration of intervention in the case concerning Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel).

Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel) – Palestine files an application for permission to intervene and a declaration of intervention in the proceedings, invoking Articles 62 and 63 of the Statute of the Court.

What’s notable about this excellent, 47-minute Al-Jazeera investigation is how its simple timeline and stating of the facts of Israel’s relentless destruction of Gaza’s hospitals, uncover an obvious genocidal intent. Israel’s weak propaganda can not hide its undeniably intentional, no doubt Israeli army quadcopter-documented, massacres of people sheltering in hospitals.

TRT World—Norway, Spain and Ireland have formally recognised the State of Palestine in a historic move amid Israel’s brutal attacks on Gaza. Britain, Australia, Malta and Slovenia indicated they could follow suit, as 146 of the 193 UN member states already recognise a sovereign Palestine.

The ICJ today ruled to reaffirm its previous rulings and issue new orders to Israel to cease its Rafah offensive. It also ordered Israel to open the Rafah crossing with Egypt for humanitarian aid and international inquiries. It also ordered Israel to report back in one month.

Video and text of statement. “Today’s applications are the outcome of an independent and impartial investigation by my Office. Guided by our obligation to investigate incriminating and exonerating evidence equally, my Office has worked painstakingly to separate claims from facts and to soberly present conclusions based on evidence to the Pre-Trial Chamber.”

Lily Greenberg Call, a special assistant to the chief of staff in the Department of the Interior, became the first Jewish political appointee to resign her post in protest of U.S. President Joe Biden’s support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Army Major Harrison Mann, an active-duty officer with the U.S. Army, publicly announced his resignation on Monday from the Defense Intelligence Agency and US Army over US policy on Gaza―the latest official to leave their post in protest of the Biden administration’s continued support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

THE HAGUE, 10 May 2024. South Africa today filed an urgent request with the Court for the indication of additional provisional measures and the modification of provisional measures previously prescribed by the Court in the case concerning Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel).

“We are not authorized to send military equipment, weapons to countries that commit human rights abuses. ICJ has determined plausible genocide, yet we are still sending billions upon billions of not just defensive weaponry, but offensive weaponry. It is tantamount to a violation of domestic law. Many diplomats know it. Many diplomats are scared to say it.”

“The Court finds that the circumstances do not require the exercise of its power to indicate provisional measures.”

Today, the ICJ announced dates for South Africa and Israel to offer closing statements.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ), the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, holds public hearings on the request for the indication of provisional measures submitted by Nicaragua in the case Nicaragua v. Germany on 8 and 9 April 2024, at the Peace Palace in The Hague, the seat of the Court. Session held under the presidency of Judge Nawaf Salam, President of the Court.

THE HAGUE, 5 April 2024. Today, Colombia, invoking Article 63 of the Statute of the Court, filed in the Registry of the Court a declaration of intervention in the case concerning Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel).

Overviews of destruction and eyewitness reports.

The ICJ reaffirmed its 26 January provisional orders to Israel, with only the Israeli ad hoc judge and Judge Sebutinde again voting against, and ruled unanimously in favor of South Africa’s 6 March 2024 request for additional provisional measures to stop the famine in Gaza. The court also ordered Israel to not commit any of the crimes of genocide and to report back in one month.

The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates, representing the State of Palestine, announced on 28 March 2024 its intention to intervene in South Africa’s ICJ case against Israel for violations of the Genocide Convention. Palestine also thanked Belgium and Ireland for also filing interventions, and called on all State Parties who are signatories to the Genocide Convention to do the same.

Annelle Sheline, PhD, served for a year as a foreign affairs officer at the Office of Near Eastern Affairs in the Department of State’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor.

Israel has been relentlessly casting Al-Shifa as a HAMAS command center for months before the ground war even began. A look back at five months of failed Al-Shifa propaganda.

Israel’s siege of Gaza has created what aid officials are referring to as “man-made starvation”, with the territory facing the threat of mass deaths from famine in the coming weeks. Children are already dying from hunger. As part of its devastating war strategy against Hamas, Israel has restricted shipments of food and medicine to just a fraction of what Palestinian civilians need to survive. The crisis is an artificially created one. “Starvation is used as a weapon of war,” the EU foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said this week. “Israel is provoking famine.”

Al-Jazeera Arabic broadcast this footage of the murder of four unarmed young men in the Al-Sika area of Khan Younis in southern Gaza in early February 2024.

Excellent document from the #CrimesByIsrael project that tracks violations of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, Fourth Geneva Convention, Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, and Protocol III of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons.

The IDF’s Twitter account today posted a video declaring: “Hamas terrorist funds found inside Shifa Hospital. Along with the funds themselves were notes thanking the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists for their ‘good work’.” The only problem with this latest piece of failed IDF propaganda was that the video attached to the tweet shows the exact opposite.

On 15 March 2024, OXFAM International released a 26-page briefing paper, “Inflicting Unprecedented Suffering and Destruction: Seven ways the government of Israel is deliberately blocking and/or undermining the international humanitarian response in the Gaza Strip”, to outline how Israel blocks and undermines international humanitarian aid to Gaza.

Les Roberts is an Epidemiologist and Professor Emeritus at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. He has taken part in the field measurement of mortality in crises including: Rwanda 1994, more than 30 health Zones in the Democratic Repoublic of Congo 1999-2002, Iraq 2004, Zimbabwe 2007, the Central African Repbulic 2009, 2018, and 2022, and Sierra Leone 2000 and 2014.

Israel—and its supporters—regularly claim that Palestinians lie about how many Palestinians have been killed and injured as a result of Israeli violence. Experts who watch the statistics closely, disagree.

Five Palestinians, including two children, were reported killed and others wounded near Al-Shati refugee camp northwest of Gaza City, when parachutes on airdropped aid crates failed to open. The incident happened at 10:30am in the morning of Friday 8 March 2024.

“You know, as we manage challenges at home, we’re also managing crises abroad, including in the Middle East. I know the last five months have been gut-wrenching for so many people, for the Israeli people, for the Palestinian people and so many here in America…”

Al-Jazeera—In his impassioned address to the UNGA, Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian ambassador highlights Israel’s unchecked atrocities against Palestinians, including indiscriminate bombing and starvation tactics. He calls for immediate action to halt the ongoing genocide and emphasizes the urgent need for accountability and sanctions against Israel. The ambassador urges global solidarity in support of Palestinian freedom and condemns any form of support to Israel’s criminal policies. He underscores the importance of correcting past failures to pave the way for justice, freedom, and peace in Palestine.

At least nine people have been killed and many others injured in an Israeli bombing of an aid truck in Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, according to witnesses cited by the Wafa news agency. The Israeli bombing hit the truck belonging to a Kuwaiti association in the Brook area on al-Rashid Street, according to Al Jazeera sources.

Safa Joudeh: “My father is the ObGyn who treated this women. A countless number of patients he treated have either been killed or lost children in Israel’s onslaught. His fertility clinic was ransacked by Israeli soldiers, set on fire and hit by two missiles. The eggs and embryos that remained there have been lost. Israel’s war on Gaza is a war on life itself.”

At dawn, 4:30am on 29 February 2024, a convoy of food aid trucks arrived southwest of Gaza City where people had congregated at the Nabulsi Roundabout on Harun Al-Rashid Street. They were instantly surrounded by desperate Palestinians, who began unloading aid from the trucks. Israeli tanks and snipers opened fire on the crowd, killing at least 112 people and injuring another 750.

Press Release: Commission will proceed to paying EUR 50 million to UNRWA and increase emergency support to Palestinians by EUR 68 million in 2024

Aaron Bushnell was a US Air Force serviceman who self-immolated outside the US Embassy in Washington DC shouting “Free Palestine” on Sunday 25 February 2024, after explaining in a Twitch livestream that he could no longer be “complicit in genocide” (among other connections to the Israeli military, the USAF acts as the United States’ FedEx for weapons deliveries to Israel.

THE HAGUE, 1 March 2024. Nicaragua today filed an Application instituting proceedings against Germany before the International Court of Justice for alleged violations by Germany of its obligations deriving from the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (the “Genocide Convention”), the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols, “intransgressible principles of international humanitarian law” and other norms of general international law in relation to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly the Gaza Strip.

On 19 February 2024, the UN raised the alarm about widespread, ongoing human rights violations against Palestinian women & girls, including allegations of rape in detention.

Two days later, on 21 February 2024, the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel (ARCCI) released a 39-page report titled, “Sexual Crimes in the October 7 War”, accusing HAMAS of a systematic rape plan during Operation Al-Aqsa Flood primarily relying on recycled, already-published and widely debunked propaganda.

The urgency of the UN press release to raise the alarm about violations of Palestinian women and girls—including credible extrajudicial killings—is that violations are ONGOING, not a historical event that took place 5 months ago. Israel’s distraction from ongoing human rights violations is dangerous to Palestinian women and girls.

Today, the International Court of Justice held the first in a series of public hearings from 19-26 February 2023 on the request for an advisory opinion in respect of the Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem at the Peace Palace in The Hague, the seat of the Court. After an introduction from the court, Palestine began to present its case.

THE HAGUE, 9 February 2024. The International Court of Justice will hold public hearings on the request for an advisory opinion in respect of the Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, from Monday 19 to Monday 26 February 2024 at the Peace Palace in The Hague, the seat of the Court. Fifty-two States and three international organizations have expressed their intention to participate in the oral proceedings before the Court.

This latest journalism catastrophe by the Jerusalem Post is comparable to that time it reported on 1 December 2023, with a straight face, that a dead Gazan baby was in fact a ‘rubber doll’ and that video of the devastated relatives holding her corpse was a “Pallywood” production, Israel’s favorite phrase to delegitimize vile things it actually did by claiming visual evidence is just a Palestinian studio video production.

“The Court notes that the most recent developments in the Gaza Strip, and in Rafah in particular, ‘would exponentially increase what is already a humanitarian nightmare with untold regional consequences’, as stated by the United Nations Secretary-General (Remarks to the General Assembly on priorities for 2024 (7 Feb. 2024)).

This perilous situation demands immediate and effective implementation of the provisional measures indicated by the Court in its Order of 26 January 2024, which are applicable throughout the Gaza Strip, including in Rafah, and does not demand the indication of additional provisional measures.

The Court emphasizes that the State of Israel remains bound to fully comply with its obligations under the Genocide Convention and with the said Order, including by ensuring the safety and security of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.”

On Friday 29 December 2023, the South African Government invoked the Genocide Convention against Israel at the International Court of Justice, asking for provisional measures to halt Israel’s genocide “in light of the nature of the rights in issue, as well as the ongoing, extreme and irreparable harm being suffered by Palestinians in Gaza”. Following arguments from both South Africa and Israel, the ICJ issued orders to Israel on Friday 26 January 2023. Yesterday, on Monday 12th February, following Israel’s attack on Rafah, South Africa requested additional measures from the court.

The Guardian’s Chris McGreal published a long article on 4 February 2024 looking behind the management curtain in CNN, shedding light on the network’s pro-Israel bias that has left American viewers woefully uninformed and intentionally misled about Israel’s war on Gaza.

It should go without saying that, with life in the border town of Rafah already an experience of failed ‘shelter’ in tents fashioned from plastic sheets, almost no water or access to medical services, and people subsisting on a few pieces of bread a day, that there is no way to conduct any “evacuation” that would merit being described as “humanitarian.”

Along the lines of the Guardian’s excellent January 30th multimedia report on Gaza’s destruction, today Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz published a similar piece, titled, “Gazans Fled Their Homes. They Have Nowhere to Return to”. The subheader adds, “‘It’s Mind-blowing’: 1.7 Million Palestinians Escaped Israel’s Bombardment of Gaza. Most of Their Homes Have Been Damaged or Destroyed”.

Julia Sebutinde, the Ugandan judge who opposed all measures approved by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in South Africa’s genocide case against Israel, has recently been elected vice president of the ICJ for a three-year term. Short 1:12 video report from TRT World, Turkey’s public broadcaster.

Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel) – Nicaragua requests permission to intervene in the proceedings under Article 62 of the Statute.

“We got hold of Israel’s dossier against UNRWA – why did the donors including the UK withdraw funding on such flimsy unproven allegations before an investigation?”—Lindsey Hilsum, Channel 4 News International Editor

Yesterday, the Guardian newspaper published an excellent feature on the destruction of Gaza’s neighborhoods. “Satellite imagery and open-source evidence lay bare the destruction to civilian infrastructure by Israel in its war on Hamas.” It’s one of the best uses of the Web in news reporting that I’ve ever seen, and both the investigation and its presentation speaks for itself, once you start scrolling and the page literally comes alive to communicate the scale of the destruction. It will take you some time to go through it, it’s extensive.

CCTV footage from Ibn Sina Hospital in Jenin captured an overnight raid by Israeli undercover units that resulted in the assassinations of three Palestinians in their beds, one a paralyzed man. Israel claims the three were members of a “Hamas terrorist cell”. The footage, authenticated by Al Jazeera’s Sanad verification unit, shows the Israeli agents disguised as doctors, nurses and civilians—one carrying a fake baby—carrying guns as they search the hospital.

After Israeli Defence Force soldiers withdrew from Khalifa bin Zayed School in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip, Palestinians discovered the bodies of 30 men and women inside the school’s grounds. The bodies were found under a pile of rubble in zip-up body bags, blindfolded and with their hands bound behind their backs with zip-ties. Palestinians who looked at the bodies reported they showed signs of torture.

Middle East Eye published a video posted by Twitter user @yankicoen on 30 January 2023 (original in Hebrew embedded) depicting an Israeli soldier forcing detailed Palestinians on a bus to repeat in Hebrew a humiliating narrative, pledging slavery to his family. Middle East Eye reports: “A video circulating online has sparked outrage as it purportedly shows a soldier coercing blindfolded detainees into pledging themselves as slaves. The Palestinian men were forced to praise the family and say that they want ‘to work for them in sewage and gardening’.” “We want to be slaves of the Azolai family forever and ever.” Some online users have stated that the Azolai family is the soldier’s family.

The United States announced that it had cut off aid to UNRWA immediately following the International Court of Justice’s ruling in South Africa’s genocide case but the United States—along with every other country in the world—has not taken even a single action against Israel, the party violating the Genocide Convention!

South Africa’s filing at the International Court of Justice to ask for provisional measures to halt Israel’s genocide “in light of the nature of the rights in issue, as well as the ongoing, extreme and irreparable harm being suffered by Palestinians in Gaza” was ruled on today, Friday 26 January 2023.

“In light of the ongoing Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, and as our people continue their battle for independence, dignity and breaking-free from the longest-ever occupation during which they have drawn the finest displays of bravery and heroism in confronting the Israeli murder machine and aggression. We would like to clarify to our people and the free peoples of the world the reality of what happened on Oct. 7, the motives behind, its general context related to the Palestinian cause, as well as a refutation to the Israeli allegations and to put the facts into perspective.”

Palestinian writer Mohammed El-Kurd misspoke at a recent 13 January 2024 London rally for Palestine, forgetting the word “not” in the last line of an otherwise abundantly crystal clear speech. Obviously, it would not make sense, attached to the rest of a speech castigating Israeli massacres, in a sentence that also sees the addition of the typically negatively-associated adverb “normalize” before the noun “massacres”, for El-Kurd to be talking about anything except Israel’s ongoing massacres of Palestinians. Enter the Zionists.

‘Honest Reporting’ is a pro-Israel ‘media monitoring’ group that’s been around since its early days as an email list in 2000, after some Zionist British college students were triggered by slightly fair coverage of Israel’s gross human rights violations during the Second Intifada.

New Yorker staff writer Isaac Chotner earned bonus hasbara points on 3 January 2024 by getting an article published, “Gaza is starving”, that cleverly avoids any mention of the perpetrator—Israel in 2,000 words. A month before this article, on 7 December 2023, a Human Rights Watch press release had asserted that “The Israeli government is using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare in the Gaza Strip, which is a war crime.”

Today, on 9 January 2024, COGAT turned up the dial on its gaslighting stove to the very highest setting. Knowing that all the aid Israel has permitted to enter has averaged 76 trucks a day since October 7th, COGAT’s social media team cooked up a 1-minute video featuring spokeswoman Shani Sasson, introduced with the obviously false claim that, “Before the war, an average of 70 food trucks entered Gaza every day. The average last week was 109.”

Israel is conducting genocide by starvation. In mid-December, Israeli government and hasbara accounts began posting links to a new website from the IDF’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), “Operation Swords of Iron: Humanitarian Efforts“. The website offers updates about the humanitarian aid that Israel gives permission to enter Gaza after an intentional, complicated ‘inspection’ process.

A Department of Education policy adviser appointed by the Biden administration quit Wednesday to protest the administration’s crucial military support of Israel’s war in Gaza and its handling of the conflict’s repercussions at home and abroad.

“Operation Swords of Iron”—Israel’s “response” to HAMAS’s attack—has seen Israel directly indiscriminately bombing and otherwise targeting Palestinian civilians, leaving at the end of the year over 22,000 dead, over 61,000 wounded, and 1.9 million homeless.

Who, What, Where, When, Why? The five W’s of writing, the five questions that good journalists seek to answer in every report. What has happened with the BBC News?

THE HAGUE, 29 December 2023. South Africa today filed an application instituting proceedings against Israel before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, concerning alleged violations by Israel of its obligations under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (the “Genocide Convention”) in relation to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

I just feel really dumb having to write this because the level of Israel propaganda is pathetic but its useful idiots keep spreading it, so here we are. The latest trope comes from this picture of a HAMAS tunnel entrance.

One of the challenges during Israel’s obvious and blatant genocide of Gazans has been access from concerned global citizens to on the ground information, directly from Gaza.  

Late on 23 December 2023, at 11:23pm GMT, the Times of Israel published an article claiming that the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) had blamed Israel for the ICRC’s lack of access to the Israeli hostages kidnapped by HAMAS on October 7, portraying her as intentionally dragging her heels until “Israel must first deal with the demands of the HAMAS terror group,” as the article’s subheading put it.

The video was distributed on October 9th by professional inciter Jarens, the Australian Jewish Association, whose Twitter feed is a record of repeated demonization of pro-Palestinian protests. The video was picked up by mainstream media as fact. The AJA’s video, which started the panic rolling, contained inaccurate subtitles claiming the crowd were chanting “Gas the Jews?”

Shuja’iyya (also Shejaiya, Shijaiyeh, Shujayya, Shuja’ia, Shuja’iya, per Wikipedia) is a neighborhood east of Gaza City. An IDF soldier’s video captured the moment the entire neighborhood was destroyed, with the screams of dying Palestinians audible on the video.

While Internet claims of HAMAS atrocities perpetrated against Israeli babies had circulated from October 7, the “HAMAS beheaded 40 babies” story started to spread in earnest after the IDF arranged a October 10 tour for foreign journalists of the Kfar Aza town in Israel.

On 13 December 2023, the IDF entered the Shadia Abu Ghazaleh School, near Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza North and arrested all of the men, presumably for another “HAMAS is surrendering” photo op. The women, children, and infants left behind were brutally killed with gunfire, leaving “dozens” of bodies piled behind.

+972 Magazine was founded in 2010 as an independent, online, nonprofit magazine run by a group of Palestinian and Israeli journalists. Local Call was established in 2014 by +972 Mag to promote citizen journalism, by Just Vision (a team of filmmakers, journalists, storytellers and human rights advocates), and by photographer collective Activestills.

GENEVA (2 November 2023) – Time is running out to prevent genocide and humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, UN experts warned today, expressing deep frustration with Israel’s refusal to halt plans to decimate the besieged Gaza strip. “We remain convinced that the Palestinian people are at grave risk of genocide,” the experts said. “The time for action is now. Israel’s allies also bear responsibility and must act now to prevent its disastrous course of action,” they said.

Craig Mokhiber, Director of the New York office of the United Nations Human Rights Office, resigned in protest on October 31st over the UN’s worthless response to Israel’s violations of Palestinian human rights. Here is the letter he wrote to UN human rights head Volker Türk on October 28th.

On 17 October 2023, Josh Paul, the State Department’s Director of Congressional and Public Affairs at the Bureau of Military Affairs posted his resignation letter on LinkedIn.

Yanis Varoufakis, former Minister of Finance for Greece: “Defenders of Israel’s bombing and invasion of Gaza have challenged me to offer a ‘chapter-and-verse’ list of war crimes that Israel has committed since the Hamas Offensive of 7th October. Here is an indicative, but not exhaustive, list. There is no doubt: Israel is investing in war crimes to effect its recapture and ethnic cleansing of Gaza while, at the same time, practising similar tactics in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.”