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Megan O’Toole

@meganotoole.bsky.social
22K followers 943 following 1.1K posts

Award-winning investigative/data journalist. Senior editor @MiddleEastEye, former MENA editor @AlJazeera, Global Authentication Project member @Bellingcat, meganotoole.ca

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Megan O’Toole @meganotoole.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Iran says it will upgrade the range of its missiles, as American forces are now positioned as far as 1,000km from the Iranian coast.
middleeasteye.net
Iran to increase the range of its missiles, army spokesperson tells Fars
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Megan O’Toole @meganotoole.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
‘Those are the competing visions among Israelis for the West Bank: the absolute confinement of Palestinians in a series of cages versus their extermination. That is what is really at stake - nothing more - in the West’s struggle to unseat Netanyahu and uphold its fabled two-state solution.’
middleeasteye.net
The West wants Netanyahu gone - so Palestinians can be killed more quietly again
Trump, nosediving in the polls and bristling over a disastrous war on Iran, needs a scapegoat – and the Israeli prime minister best fits the bill
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Megan O’Toole @meganotoole.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Middle East Eye is now accepting applications for the second year of our Fellowship programme, focusing on the impacts of AI across the region. For more details and to apply, visit: www.middleeasteye.net/fellowship
middleeasteye.net
Middle East Eye Fellowship
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Megan O’Toole @meganotoole.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
The UK government ‘cannot credibly tell Palestinians and their supporters that they were right, while simultaneously maintaining the relationships that allow Israel to continue committing atrocities with effective impunity. It has to pick a side.’
middleeasteye.net
Miliband speaks of a Middle East policy shift - so it's time to pick a side
The UK government cannot credibly tell Palestinians and their supporters that they were right about Gaza, while simultaneously enabling Israeli atrocities
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Megan O’Toole @meganotoole.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has called for Israel to ‘go to war’ in the occupied West Bank and ‘do there what we did in Gaza.’
middleeasteye.net
'Do there what we did in Gaza': Smotrich calls for full-scale war in occupied West Bank
Finance minister says Israel should dismantle the Palestinian Authority and expand Israeli territorial control of occupied territory
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Megan O’Toole @meganotoole.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
‘Naza exposed dark truths about mainstream Israeli society, from the far right to the supposedly enlightened centre and left, where no criticism of the Israeli military is tolerated.’
middleeasteye.net
As elections loom, Naza controversy strikes at the heart of Israel's crisis
The film exposes dark truths about mainstream Israeli society, from the far right to the supposedly enlightened centre and left
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Megan O’Toole @meganotoole.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
‘The $600bn that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman committed to investing in the US in his deals with Trump last year has bought almost zero protection from the world’s military superpower.’
middleeasteye.net
Yemen's Houthis are upending the Gulf order. The Saudis are the biggest losers
The war has entered a critical phase, with the Iran-aligned group calling the shots, as Trump leaves Mohammed bin Salman out in the cold
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Megan O’Toole @meganotoole.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Trump bans CNN, MS Now and Politico from the White House for ‘fake news’
aljazeera.com
Trump bans news outlets CNN, MS NOW and Politico from White House
The US president criticised the outlets' coverage of him and his administration.
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Megan O’Toole @meganotoole.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
‘The American security order in the Middle East is dead. Pretending otherwise is becoming a danger to the region’ - @tparsi.bsky.social
middleeasteye.net
Saudi-Yemen conflict: The notion of an 'American saviour' is dead
Regional leaders must urgently adopt a new model in which they take primary responsibility for security in the Middle East
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Megan O’Toole @meganotoole.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Dozens of far-right Israelis gathered outside NAZA filmmaker Rachel Szor’s family home this week, demanding she be hanged over her documentary on Israel’s war crimes in Gaza.
middleeasteye.net
Far-right Israelis call for NAZA co-director to be hanged in protest outside parents' home
Dozens of Israelis amassed outside the family home of Rachel Szor as backlash over Gaza documentary intensifies
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Megan O’Toole @meganotoole.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
The Majd al-Krum dispute ‘is not merely about several tents on a hill in the Galilee. It is about whether a system developed over decades in the occupied West Bank … is beginning to take root inside the Green Line.’
middleeasteye.net
Majd al-Krum: Is Israeli settler terrorism expanding across the Green Line?
An encampment established in a Palestinian-majority town in the Galilee mirrors the tactics long used in the occupied West Bank
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Megan O’Toole @meganotoole.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
‘The longer the war grinds on without a decisive American or Israeli victory, the more plausible it becomes that regional actors will quietly begin exploring an accommodation among themselves—one that treats US-Israeli preferences as a constraint to be managed, rather than an anchor to be followed.’
middleeasteye.net
Iran does not need to beat the Americans militarily. It just needs to outlast them
As Yemen's Houthis ramp up the costs of war in the Gulf, Tehran is wagering on US elections to bring a political sea change
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Megan O’Toole @meganotoole.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Attack on Saudi pipeline may cut four percent of global oil supply
middleeasteye.net
Attack on Saudi Arabian pipeline may cut four percent of world's oil supply
Kingdom may need five to six weeks to repair damage from a drone attack on the pipeline that has been a critical Strait of Hormuz bypass
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Megan O’Toole @meganotoole.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
In Syria's Daraa, water is life - and today the land is parched ➡️ Read/watch the second story in MEE’s Fellowship series on water scarcity in the Middle East
middleeasteye.net
In Syria's Daraa, water is life - and today the land is parched
Amid scarce rainfall, war-scarred infrastructure and the proliferation of unregulated wells, the region is in the grips of a severe water crisis
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Megan O’Toole @meganotoole.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
‘From endeavouring to unleash the apocalypse on Iran to extrajudicially murdering fishermen and other folks in the Caribbean to kidnapping foreign heads of state and spontaneously renaming bodies of water, Trump has breathed new life into imperial impunity.’
middleeasteye.net
9/11 at 25: Trump finds new targets for America's endless war on terror
For a quarter century, the US has drone-struck weddings, abducted and tortured people at black sites and blown up fishermen, spreading terror in the name of fighting it
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Megan O’Toole @meganotoole.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Gaza Board of Peace ‘is Blairism in institutional form: grandiose moral rhetoric masking power, money and breathtaking contempt for Palestinian agency’.
middleeasteye.net
Palestine will outlast Blair and his grotesque 'Board of Peace'
As Gaza reconstruction stalls, the former UK prime minister stands accused of attempting to rewrite the country's history
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Megan O’Toole @meganotoole.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair was sent by Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’ to ask the PA to remove any mention of the word ‘Palestine’ from textbooks, former UK envoy says; Blair’s office denies it.
middleeasteye.net
Exclusive: Blair asked PA to remove 'Palestine' from textbooks, former UK envoy says
In a wide ranging interview with MEE, Jeremy Greenstock questioned Blair's ability to act as a neutral intermediary and said he was facing 'difficulties' in his role overseeing postwar Gaza
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Megan O’Toole @meganotoole.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
The US has launched a new wave of strikes on Iran, with explosions heard around the Strait of Hormuz
aljazeera.com
‘No one will be able to export oil’ if US intensifies blockade, Iran warns
Parliament speaker says if Iran can't ship oil from Gulf, 'no one will' as Trump claims Hormuz Strait in 'good shape'.
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Megan O’Toole @meganotoole.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
‘Emboldened by Europe’s leniency towards the genocide in Gaza, Israel continues to breach every legal, moral and human boundary. The draft data-sharing agreement poses a direct threat to the security and freedom of Palestinians everywhere.’
middleeasteye.net
Why EU-Israel data-sharing deal must be quashed
By enabling the exchange of sensitive personal information, the draft agreement would heighten the dangers facing Palestinians
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Megan O’Toole @meganotoole.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Israel’s far-right Jewish Power party is preparing to release a children’s book celebrating the racist ‘achievements’ of its leader, Itamar Ben Gvir
middleeasteye.net
Ben Gvir to release children’s book glorifying his racist ‘achievements’ in power
Jewish Power will distribute the book as support for Israel’s far right grows among young people
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Megan O’Toole @meganotoole.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Iran will defeat enemy in ‘full-scale economic war,’ Ghalibaf says
middleeasteye.net
Live: Iran will defeat enemy in ‘full-scale economic war,’ Ghalibaf says
During a televised speech, Iran's president Masoud Pezeshkian urges Muslim nations’ for unity despite differences
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Megan O’Toole @meganotoole.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
The Trump administration has labelled the UK activist group Palestine Action as a “specially designated global terrorist”.
middleeasteye.net
US designates Palestine Action activist group 'Specially Designated Global Terrorist'
US crackdown follows the UK's proscription against Palestine Action one year ago
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Megan O’Toole @meganotoole.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
‘Sanctions arrested Iran’s development and hardened it at the same time. The country was denied a decade of growth, and given in exchange a tolerance for punishment that few open economies possess.’
middleeasteye.net
Sanctions didn't break Iran. They hardened it
Tehran was denied a decade of growth, and given in exchange a tolerance for punishment that few open economies possess
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Megan O’Toole @meganotoole.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
West Bank settler attacks: “Western discourse demands that Palestinians prove, endlessly, that they accept another people’s right to exist. Who will affirm Palestinians’ right to exist?”
middleeasteye.net
As the world fixates on Hamas, who will disarm the Israeli settlers storming West Bank villages?
Palestinians are constantly asked to prove their acceptance of Israel's right to exist - yet every day, their own existence is being erased
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Megan O’Toole @meganotoole.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Israeli soldiers marked Palestinian detainees with numbers on their foreheads and arms during a raid in the occupied West Bank this week.
middleeasteye.net
Israeli soldiers number Palestinian detainees on their foreheads
Troops round up Palestinian residents near Qabatiya and mark them with numbers before interrogating them
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Megan O’Toole @meganotoole.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
‘Whatever the outcome, the Mecca agreement could do more to determine the region’s trajectory than anything decided in Washington, Tel Aviv or Tehran.’
middleeasteye.net
How a pragmatic axis could reshape the Middle East
The Mecca agreement could do more to determine the region's trajectory than anything decided in Washington, Tel Aviv or Tehran
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Megan O’Toole @meganotoole.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Ein al-Auja: How settler attacks and water diversion erased a Palestinian community ➡️ Read/watch the first piece by Majd Jawad in our @middle-east-eye.bsky.social Fellowship series, focused on water shortages in the Middle East
middleeasteye.net
Ein al-Auja: How settler attacks and water diversion erased a Palestinian community
The spring that once sustained life here has run dry, as Bedouin families flee Israeli violence and resource theft
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Megan O’Toole @meganotoole.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
Turkish officials suspect that Israel fabricated Trump Air Force One assassination plot to derail US-Iran deal
middleeasteye.net
Turkey suspects Israel fabricated Trump Air Force One assassination plot to derail US-Iran deal
Israeli intelligence had warned that Iranian operatives could target Trump’s plane with shoulder-fired missiles during the Nato summit in Ankara amid tense negotiations with Tehran
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Megan O’Toole @meganotoole.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Elon Musk ‘provides the ideological scaffolding for a contemporary race war. Through his wealth, his platform, and his extraordinary influence, he does more than amplify race thinking and grievances. He organises them into a coherent worldview.’
middleeasteye.net
Elon Musk is a race-war entrepreneur
The US trillionaire fans the flames of far-right hatred by amplifying racial antagonisms and myths of white dispossession
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Megan O’Toole @meganotoole.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
‘How many people do you need to kill before you’ve violated a ceasefire? One, surely. But … how about more than 1,200? That’s how many Palestinians Israel has killed in Gaza since agreeing to an ostensible ceasefire with Hamas in October.’ @barrymalone.bsky.social via @middle-east-eye.bsky.social
middleeasteye.net
Israel is not 'testing' its ceasefires. It's violating them
As the Israeli military ignores deals in Gaza and Lebanon and continues its industrial-scale killing, the western media turns a blind eye
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Megan O’Toole @meganotoole.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
‘Israeli electoral manipulation services are for sale to the highest bidder, and they’re already twisting what we know and understand about the very essence of free and fair elections.’
middleeasteye.net
Why Israel is a friend of budding autocrats around the world
As global public opinion turns against Tel Aviv, the Netanyahu regime is ramping up its electoral meddling, from Europe to South America
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Megan O’Toole @meganotoole.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
Hamas says that it will not take any steps towards disarmament before Israeli forces withdraw from Gaza, and that Israel will have no role in the disarmament process.
middleeasteye.net
Hamas says it will not disarm in Gaza before Israel withdrawal
The Palestinian movement said it would relinquish its weapons to allow for a technocratic administration to run the besieged territory
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Megan O’Toole @meganotoole.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
Authorities in Indian-administered Kashmir have ordered a multi-level audit across all public libraries and educational institutions to purge books and digital archives flagged as ‘anti-national’ or ‘glorifying terrorism’.
middleeasteye.net
'Erasing historical facts': India orders massive crackdown on books in Kashmir's libraries
Scholars say sweeping purge of school and public archives marks another blow to intellectual freedom in the region
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Megan O’Toole @meganotoole.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
Trump says an attack on Pickaxe Mountain, the fortified underground facility at the centre of renewed Israeli claims about Iran’s nuclear programme, will be coming ‘pretty soon.’
middleeasteye.net
Live: Trump threatens Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain and civilian infrastructure
Oman presented Iran a proposal for a joint regional mechanism to manage the Strait of Hormuz with voluntary fees
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Megan O’Toole @meganotoole.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
Trump backtracks on Saudi nuclear deal, demands Israel normalisation
middleeasteye.net
Trump backtracks on Saudi nuclear deal, demands Israel normalisation
Earlier this week Trump has reportedly approved a 30-year civil nuclear agreement with Saudi Arabia
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Megan O’Toole @meganotoole.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
Yemen’s Houthis have announced a maritime blockade of Saudi Arabia, after the two sides traded fire last week for the first time in years.
aljazeera.com
Yemen’s Houthis announce maritime blockade of Saudi Arabia
US forces attack Iran for ninth consecutive night as US soldier killed in drone explosion in northern Iraq.
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Megan O’Toole @meganotoole.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
The US is carrying out major strikes on Iran, with officials in Bandar Abbas reporting attacks on civilian infrastructure, including power facilities and a train station.
aljazeera.com
US carries out major strikes on civilian infrastructure in southern Iran
Officials report power outages, attack on train station in Bandar, as Iran says Hormuz won't return to pre-war status.
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Megan O’Toole @meganotoole.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
Iran has asked Yemen’s Houthis to stand ready to close the Red Sea oil route if the US hits Iranian power infrastructure, according to a Reuters report.
reuters.com
EXCLUSIVE: Iran tells Houthis to close Red Sea gateway if US hits power network, sources say
Iran has asked Yemen’s Houthi movement to stand ready to close the Red Sea oil route if the United States strikes Iranian power infrastructure, three sources told Reuters, posing a potent new threat ​...
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Megan O’Toole @meganotoole.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
Trump says the US is "reinstating" a blockade on Iran in the Strait of Hormuz and will charge ships for safe passage.
middleeasteye.net
Trump says US reinstating Hormuz blockade and charging ships for passage
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Megan O’Toole @meganotoole.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
Ankara summit highlighted how NATO is fuelling ‘a permanent war economy dressed in the language of collective defence, sustained by threats that are partly real, partly constructed and enormously profitable for those who have made the manufacture of insecurity their business.’
middleeasteye.net
Nato summit: How a fractured alliance is fuelling a permanent war economy
Massive surge in arms spending is justified through the language of collective defence, and sustained by threats that are partly constructed
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Megan O’Toole @meganotoole.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
Britain’s refusal to sanction Netanyahu ‘turns the rule of law into a buffet, where we can pick and choose what rules to apply, according to our relationship with the delinquent state.’
middleeasteye.net
Why Britain must sanction Netanyahu
The Israeli leader is a fugitive from justice who has presided over a genocide for nearly three years. What are we waiting for?
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Megan O’Toole @meganotoole.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
The US has revoked a general license that authorized the sale of Iranian oil, after attacks on tankers in the Strait of Hormuz.
reuters.com
United States revokes license that authorized Iranian oil sales
The United States revoked on Tuesday a general license that authorized the sale of Iranian oil, as a ​U.S. official warned that Iran's actions in the Strait of Hormuz were "wholly unacceptable" and ‌w...
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Megan O’Toole @meganotoole.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
‘The unipolar moment that Washington mistook for a permanent world order has ended. The only choice left for the US is whether to accommodate a world it can still help to shape but no longer command, or to spend its remaining strength resisting the irreversible.’
middleeasteye.net
On its 250th birthday, America must leave behind the illusion of primacy
The failed Iran war presents costly proof that global dominance was always beyond Washington's grasp
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Megan O’Toole @meganotoole.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
Israel’s assault on Gaza could resume within the next two months, potentially before the October elections, with Channel 12 citing Israeli officials as saying that the US-led “Board of Peace” is set to conclude that Hamas violated the “ceasefire” deal by refusing to disarm.
middleeasteye.net
Israel eyes return to Gaza war within months, Channel 12 reports
Israeli broadcaster says officials expect 'Board of Peace' to rule Hamas has breached the ceasefire, potentially clearing the way for a renewed assault
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Megan O’Toole @meganotoole.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
Companies are throttling AI use and pleading with workers to use less powerful models to stop costs from spiralling out of control, according to material obtained by 404 Media from companies such as Atlassian, Adobe and Amazon. In one case, AI spending tripled to more than $15 million a month.
404media.co
Companies Are Throttling Employees’ AI Use Because It’s Too Expensive
Sources and leaks from Amazon, Adobe, Atlassian, Citi, and more show what is really happening with AI right now: companies are trying to rein in AI use as costs spiral out of control.
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Megan O’Toole @meganotoole.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
‘As day follows night, Turkey has become Israel’s latest existential enemy.’
middleeasteye.net
Israel's 'kill first' strategy is now aimed at Turkey. Will the region respond?
Hard power is needed to halt Tel Aviv's reckless quest to redraw the borders of the Middle East
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Megan O’Toole @meganotoole.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
NPR just published, and then quickly retracted, a story saying Justice Samuel Alito had retired.
npr.org
Editor's note: NPR retracts story
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Megan O’Toole @meganotoole.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
‘Lebanon remains a paradoxical central node/sideshow of western imperialism, today of a US-Israeli project that appears to be trying to recover in and via Lebanon what it lost in its unsuccessful war on Iran. ‘
middleeasteye.net
Israel-Lebanon 'agreement' evokes the spectre of Oslo capitulation
Document signed in Washington gives Israel a green light to continue its occupation of Lebanese territory
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Megan O’Toole @meganotoole.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
Israeli forces deliberately targeted Palestinian children as a central element of their genocide in Gaza, the UN’s top investigative body on Palestine and Israel has concluded. Of more than 20,000 children killed, around a quarter were under the age of five.
middleeasteye.net
Drones and decomposing babies: What's in UN report on Israel's genocide of Palestinian children
Israel has killed over 20,000 Palestinian children since 7 October 2023. The UN has detailed instances of torture, rape and murder in a landmark report
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Megan O’Toole @meganotoole.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
‘This is happening across the occupied West Bank: a committed strategy to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from their land. The stakes couldn’t be higher in this accelerating catastrophe.’
middleeasteye.net
Even if Netanyahu is voted out, Israel's ethnic cleansing agenda will continue apace
Palestinians are being attacked and displaced on a regular basis - and none of the prime minister's potential successors elucidate a different future
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