This week is a perfect example of the critical role Mondoweiss plays in the movement for Palestinian liberation. We published solid news reporting that you cannot find anywhere else in the media landscape, and we carried provocative opinion pieces that contribute to the discourse within the movement about the boundaries and roles that different groups can and should play to move forward toward victory.
This week, Tareq Hajjaj’s must-read dispatch describes Civil Defense crews in Gaza digging through a sea of rubble with almost no equipment, trying to recover and bury thousands of bodies still trapped under collapsed buildings. At the same time, Noor Alyacoubi reports that Gaza’s survival is being organized from the bottom up, as Palestinians in Gaza and in exile fund community-led reconstruction projects in the absence of meaningful international aid. Malak Hijazi looks at Gaza’s famed strawberry fields, once “red gold,” a source of livelihood and identity, which have been decimated by Israel’s genocidal war. Assessing the shifting geopolitics around Gaza, Mitchell Plitnick traces how Palestinian factions have used this “ceasefire” period to deny Israel a full surrender and force the U.S. to accept their continued existence.
In the United States, Michael Arria reports on a right-wing online witch hunt, featuring once fringe characters such as Laura Loomer, that falsely accused a Palestinian student of a campus shooting at Brown University. In California, Jenin Younes and Deyar Jamil break down Assembly Bill 715 as a template for the next phase of the crackdown on pro-Palestine dissent: laws branded as anti-discrimination measures that, in practice, target speech about Palestine and try to make solidarity itself a punishable offense. We also published items that continued a discussion around Jewish political identity and its relationship to the movement for Palestinian freedom.
I know that you value the work we do at Mondoweiss. Please make a donation today if you haven’t already done so. We are about $67,000 short of our year-end goal, which is a critical marker for how we plan the rest of our fiscal year. If you have already made a donation this year, please consider making another gift and scroll down to find our secure donation form.
Must Read: One excavator, 10,000 bodies, a sea of rubble: inside Gaza’s effort to retrieve and bury its dead
Tareq Hajjaj: Under the relative calm of a ceasefire, Civil Defense crews in Gaza are undertaking the monumental feat of recovering thousands of bodies still trapped under the rubble.
Long Read: Yalla, Yalla, Abya Yala: The history and future of Latin America’s engagement on Palestine
Maria Landi: The people of the world, especially those in the Global South, must move beyond symbolic support to take concrete actions, such as grassroots organizing, BDS, and South–South solidarity, to end Israel’s settler-colonial project.
Genocide in Gaza
Mitchell Plitnick: The U.S. appears ready to reassess its tactics in carrying out Donald Trump’s plan for Gaza. The news vindicates the strategy Palestinians have used during the ceasefire to avoid the surrender Israel has demanded in exchange for ending the genocide.
Abdalrahim Abuwarda: Growing up in Gaza, I didn’t realize that the siege I was living under was unique or that others didn’t face a constant threat of death. It was only after I left that I understood I had grown up in a concentration camp, and that it shaped my life.
Noor Alyacoubi: With limited resources, Palestinians in Gaza and in exile are funding community reconstruction efforts amid the absence of international aid. “We have to keep trying to help Gaza rise again,” an organizer with the Sameer Project tells Mondoweiss.
Malak Hijazi: The Gaza Strip is renowned in Palestine for its bright red and delicious strawberries. Once a major agricultural export, Gaza’s fields of “red gold” have been decimated by Israel’s genocide.
Catch-up
Michel Arria: Right-wing figures connected to the Trump administration launched an online witch hunt by falsely accusing a Palestinian student of a campus shooting at Brown University, potentially putting him at risk.
Jenin Younes and Deyar Jamil: Proponents claim that California’s AB 715 aims to combat antisemitism by strengthening anti-discrimination laws in public schools, but a closer look reveals it directly targets free speech on Palestine.
Sara Kershnar: Jewish advocacy for a one-state solution represents a form of Zionism that centers Jews in Palestine’s future. Instead, anti-Zionist Jews must aim to accelerate the dismantling of Zionism both in Palestine and worldwide.
Alana Lentin: Despite the mutual admiration between Zionists and fascists, they are usually seen as separate political movements. However, when viewed through the lens of Western racism, colonialism, and imperialism, the connections become clear.
Editorial Committee of Majallat al-Dirasat al-Filastiniyya: Israel’s genocide in Gaza set a global norm that views extermination as a ‘natural’ part of how nations and paramilitary groups wage war. We are already seeing this in Sudan.
