‘Let me show you’: Survivors cling to life in Gaza’s tent cities
Israel’s daily bombing of Gaza may have slowed down since a ceasefire was implemented in October, but the destruction and violence have not stopped. In the bombed-out ruins of Gaza, Palestinian refugees who have managed to survive Israel’s genocidal onslaught are clinging to life in tattered tent cities overwhelmed by rats, rain, cold, and illness. In this on-the-ground report from Gaza, 15-year-old refugee Magdy Abu Asr takes you inside the tent city where she and her family are struggling to survive so you can see it for yourself.
Credits:
Filmed by: Magdy Abu Asr
Producer: Ruwaida Amer
Voiceover: Dana Ballout
Post-Production: David Hebden
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Hello, how are you? Today I’m going to introduce myself. My name is Magdy Abu Asr, I’m 15 years old. As you can see, today I’m going to show you the entrance to our tent. We live by the sea. As you can see, today I’m going to show you the entrance to our tent and how we live. We’re right next to the street. Come, let me show you. This is the entrance to our tent. This is our tent’s screen instead of the wall of our house. You can see how it’s torn apart by the wind and the air. Let me also show you the water container. Of course, we don’t carry water here, unlike at home. We used to open the water tank and water would come out. Now you have to carry water from a far place to find water to wash, perform ablution for prayer, or anything
J Street’s ‘cut off military aid’ PR gambit changes nothing
Over the weekend, some progressive pundits declared victory as influential liberal zionist organization J Street appeared to announce a major break with the pro-Israel consensus in the Democratic Party. The organization said on Twitter/X it is “calling for the U.S. to end unconditional financial military subsidies to Israel and to move towards a relationship where we treat Israel like any other ally.”
“’No More Exceptions’: J Street Backs Phasing Out All U.S. Aid to Israel by 2028,” reads a Haaretz headline. “However you feel about J Street, anyone who is still saying that they are indistinguishable from AIPAC is either unintelligent or a bad faith actor,” wrote pollster Adam Carlson. “Democrats [are] coalescing around ending military aid to Israel,” boasted Executive Vice President of Center for International Policy Matt Duss.
At first glance, this move may seem like a major shift left for the liberal think tank and the broader Democratic Party consensus around Israel. But upon closer inspection, it’s clear this talking point is mostly a sieve, a PR tactic that provides a pseudo-break from Israel but does little to alter the material reality of apartheid and genocide, all while buying time for a Democratic leadership increasingly at odds with their base—71% of whom now support cutting off military aid to Israel.
This narrative that J Street and leading Democrats more broadly are all getting behind “cutting military aid,” while strictly accurate under certain interpretations of the word “aid,” is deeply misleading. The effort is explicitly aligned with a broader right-wing program to move from direct funding of the military to “co-development and co-production of weapons,” and is designed to provide zionist
How Zionism’s anti-Jewish logic led Israel to bomb an Iranian synagogue
This story originally appeared in Mondoweiss on April 15, 2026. It is shared here with permission.
The state of Israel and its propaganda machine (officially called “Hasbara”, Hebrew for “explanation”) has long claimed that Jews across the world are under existential threat from terrorists and antisemites emanating from the Muslim world and their “far-left” allies. This narrative asserts that Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran hate Jews simply for being Jews; that they seek the destruction of all Jews; and that their opposition to the Israeli regime is driven by this anti-Jewish hatred. Hasbara further posits that Israel is the only guarantor of Jewish safety – and that without it, we are doomed to a repeat of the Nazi Holocaust.
Yet, in the name of Jewish safety, Zionists have colonized Palestine, ethnically cleansed and destroyed its population, and constructed a regime of apartheid to manage ever-shrinking bantustans in the West Bank. In the name of Jewish safety, Israel has annexed Palestinian land and, as part of its Greater Israel project, sought further expansion into Syria and Lebanon. In the name of Jewish safety, Israel has jailed over ten thousand Palestinian political prisoners, turned Gaza into a concentration camp, and has recently adopted a law applying the death penalty only to Palestinians, while Jewish murderers and rapists are defended, even celebrated, by its parliamentarians instead of punished.
Finally, in the name of Jewish safety, Zionists have transformed the overwhelming majority of Jewish religious and cultural institutions into de facto embassies and propaganda arms of the Israeli state.
Because it presents an obvious threat to the Zionist colonial project, the long and extraordinary history of Jewish anti-Zionism has been suppressed, with its proponents sidelined or ostracized.
Diverse Jewish cultures –
Trump’s extreme use of military is stirring a crisis of conscience among troops
State Department pushes human rights watchdog to ignore deadly, illegal boat strike campaign
This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on April 14, 2026. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.
The former president of a top international human rights watchdog views the United States’ monthslong campaign of bombing boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean as a clear-cut case of “murder,” he told The Intercept Monday, but he warned that pressure from the Trump administration may stop the body from investigating the Pentagon’s actions.
Juan Méndez, a former president of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, noted that a month after the IACHR held a hearing on the boat bombing campaign, officials “may well feel that this is a very delicate situation, and if they take the initiative, they’re going to incur the wrath of the United States.”
The hearing last month was the first of its kind and included testimonies from the ACLU, the Center for Constitutional Rights, International Crisis Group, and Ben Saul, the United Nations special rapporteur on counterterrorism and human rights. The groups presented evidence that the US has been violating both domestic and international law by bombing vessels that it has claimed—without making any evidence publicly available—are involved in drug trafficking. Nearly 170 people have been killed in dozens of strikes, and legal experts worldwide have asserted the US is violating international law and has committed extrajudicial killings—potentially making those involved in the strikes liable for murder.
The hearing was followed by a statement from Tommy Pigott, a State Department spokesperson, who said the IACHR had “strayed far outside its mandate” by looking into the boat attacks—as the family of one man killed in a bombing requested it to—and accused the ACLU of trying to manipulate the body.
“The United States calls on the