Simon Stevens

Lecturer in Historical and Political Studies. Passionate about human rights and social justice.

[OSINTdefender @sentdefender]

Hundreds of masked members of the white suprematist, neo-fascist, extremist group Patriot Front marched across areas of Downtown Washington, D.C. earlier this morning, in the lead up to today’s celebrations for the Fourth of July. Members of the group gathered and chanted hate slogans around the National Mall and Union Station, while carrying American and Confederate Flags.

[Human Rights Watch @hrw]

On July 4, 2026, the United States celebrates 250 years since its Declaration of Independence. For many, this will be a celebration of one of the world’s longest democratic traditions.

But since returning to power in 2025, President Donald Trump and his administration have attacked and undermined human rights and fundamental freedoms across the board.

Learn more: https://t.co/UKRNZggdul

[Erika Guevara Rosas @ErikaGuevaraR]

#Sudan: RSF atrocities in El Fasher ‘a stain on the Conscience of Humanity’

Our new @Amnesty report finds that the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) committed crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing during their assault on El Fasher, North Darfur.

Based on 247 survivor testimonies, satellite imagery and video analysis, the evidence is clear:

This is a war on civilians.

📌 Key findings, between early 2024 and October 2025:
- Civilians were deliberately targeted through murder, torture, imprisonment, forcible transfer and persecution.
- Rape, sexual slavery, enslavement and other sexual violence were widespread.
- Children were not collateral damage, they were killed, raped, abducted and forcibly recruited.
- Non‑Arab communities were attacked using racist and dehumanising language
- Older people and persons with disabilities were targeted, abandoned, or denied life‑saving aid.

🚨 Amnesty calls for:
- An immediate ceasefire
- The urgent deployment of an independent international force to protect civilians

The world has been warned. The time to act is NOW!

Read the report: https://t.co/ycCPPbIXtr

[Amnesty International @amnesty]

The war in Sudan is a war on civilians.

New report by @amnesty documents the RSF’s crimes against humanity of murder, forcible transfer, imprisonment, torture, rape, sexual slavery, other forms of sexual violence, enslavement, extermination and persecution.
https://t.co/GzV6t2KzRG

[Charles M. Blow @CharlesMBlow]

This is what has been unleashed in this country: a return to emboldened racism. They feel validated and vindicated. They no longer have to couch their bigotry in polite language. It can now, once again, be raw and visceral. This is what we are fighting people.

[Josh Bornstein @JoshBBornstein]

Authoritarians and fascists target science, reason, knowledge, expertise and intelligence. Universities represent all those things. Ultimately these attacks lead to a nihilism which we see in the US under Trump and in the collapse of the Liberal Party here.

[Mehdi Hasan @mehdirhasan]

This is what fascism looks like https://t.co/rQPc6ta2Df

[Saul Staniforth @SaulStaniforth]

Chris Sidoti: "I have 3 questions for Israeli people.. what kind of people are your soldiers who would allow a 14 year old child to bleed to death over a 45 minute period.. what kind of people are your military leaders.. what of people are your leaders.."

[Alex Crawford @AlexCrawfordSky]

One of the killings involved a ten day old baby being shot by an Israeli sniper in broad daylight whilst the baby was being breastfed : an independent UN Commission says Israeli authorities and security forces deliberately targeted Palestinian children resulting in genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza, and war crimes in the occupied West Bank

[Shaiel Ben-Ephraim @academic_la]

I have been reading the new UN report about how Israel has been targeting children in Gaza. There are no words to describe how awful it is. Here are some of the worst examples:

1) Hind Rajab and family, Tel al-Hawa, Gaza City, 29 Jan 2024. Named. A family of seven plus two paramedics killed. Hind Rajab, 5 to 6, stayed on the phone with rescuers for hours, trapped in a car among her dead relatives. Her cousin Layan Hamadeh, 15, was killed mid-call. The rescue ambulance, dispatched with COGAT clearance, was shelled.

2) The 15-year-old with the white flag, Khan Younis, 24 Jan 2024. Anonymous. Shot in the foot during an ordered evacuation while holding a white cloth, then shot twice more in the back and neck as he tried to rise. His 20-year-old brother killed running to him; their mother shot signaling for an ambulance. Assessed as DAN .338 sniper fire from about 200m.

3) The 10-day-old baby, Nuseirat camp, 12 Apr 2024. Anonymous. Shot in the head by a quadcopter-mounted rifle while being breastfed inside a tent. Survived with brain damage and seizures.

4) The 14-year-old killed with fragmenting pellets, Aug 2024. Anonymous. Cube-shaped pellets that fragmented internally like cluster munitions, destroying multiple organs. The report flags the munition itself as a possible war crime.

5) Jadallah "Jad" Jadallah, Al-Far'a camp, Tubas, 16 Nov 2025. Named. Jadallah Jihad Jouma Jadallah, 14, shot at close range and left bleeding for roughly 45 minutes while about 14 soldiers stood around him. One kicked his cap back when he threw it for attention, one filmed him, one placed a stone beside him to stage a stone-throwing pretext. Soldiers fired at his approaching mother and blocked two ambulances. Body withheld.

6) Layla al-Khatib, Muthallath al-Shuhada, 25 Jan 2025. Named. Layla (Laila) Muhammad Ayman al-Khatib, 2, shot in the back of the head during dinner at home, four bullets fired through the living room window. Youngest West Bank child killed in the reporting period. B'Tselem found the only man in the building was her grandfather, contradicting the "wanted terrorist" claim.

7) Saddam Rajab, Tulkarem, shot 28 Jan 2025, died 7 Feb 2025. Named. Saddam (Sadam) Rajab, 10, shot during an incursion. A soldier told the father, "I am the one who shot your son. God willing, he will die." Medical care obstructed; the boy died of his wounds days later.

8) Walid Ahmad, Megiddo Prison, died 22 Mar 2025. Named. Walid Khalid Abdullah Ahmad, 17, from Silwad. Healthy at arrest in Sept 2024; dead six months later of starvation, muscle wasting, untreated colitis and scabies. First Palestinian minor to die in Israeli custody since Oct 2023. Family learned of his death from a news article; body withheld.

9) The Sde Teiman 15-year-old, detention. Anonymous. Held among 70 adults, shackled until his hands bled, dogs released on prone detainees; described as "the worst days of my life." A separate 15-year-old reported being electrocuted via a needle in his shoulder over 54 days.

10) The four newborns at Al-Nasr Pediatric Hospital, Nov 2023. Anonymous. Found decomposing, still attached to defunct life-support machines, after staff were forced to evacuate without being able to move them. Independently verified by the Commission, Washington Post, and CNN.

11) Newborn hypothermia deaths, Dec 2024 to Feb 2025. Anonymous. At least 15 newborns, including a one-day-old girl, died of cold linked to lack of shelter, fuel, and incubators. UNICEF called the deaths preventable.

12) Sexual violence in detention. Anonymous. Forced public stripping and filming of boys during mass arrests; two cousins aged 7 and 13 stripped at gunpoint in Jenin; new reports of boys raped in custody, one on multiple occasions.

The Commission documents at least 20,179 Palestinian children killed and 44,143 wounded in two years, 30 percent of all the dead in Gaza, alongside 213 more killed in the West Bank. Thirteen times the Commission asked Israel to respond, and thirteen times it heard nothing back. Israel doesn't care enough to even respond. It kills children as a matter of policy.

[OSINTdefender @sentdefender]

The Iranian delegation, led by Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, refuse a photo with U.S. Vice President JD Vance and the American side, walking out of the negotiation venue in Switzerland, following threats made against Iran’s diplomatic delegation by President Donald J. Trump.

[Palestine Festival of Literature @PalFest]

A version of our story on the UK government's unprecedented suppression of protest and the criminalization of the Elbit Four - by renowned lawyer Geoffrey Robertson - has today been reprinted in The Guardian.

https://t.co/QBqW8xSdbF

[The Observer @ObserverUK]

Keir Starmer is preparing to set out a timetable for his departure from No 10 this week after Andy Burnham’s triumphant return to Westminster in the Makerfield byelection.

Read @RSylvester1's exclusive now: https://t.co/jDE4INemuC

[Hugh Grant @HackedOffHugh]

All still suckling at the teat.

[Nicola Perugini @PeruginiNic]

Further genocidal incitement.

[The Tennessee Holler @TheTNHoller]

Israel’s unhinged national security minister says “all of Lebanon must burn” and “you need to go berserk. To obliterate.”

4 IDF soldiers were just reportedly killed as Israel continues to attack Lebanon— clearly trying to make a peace deal with Iran impossible.

[Mehdi Hasan @mehdirhasan]

Think about how insane this tweet is. Graham is endorsing the MOU as a way to open the strait (which was open before the war) and get negotiations (which were happening before the war). It's a clear admission that the entire war was a waste of time, money, and lives.
Ridiculous.

[Zack Polanski @ZackPolanski]

This Governments branding of protest as 'terrorism' has seen grandparents arrested and dragged through the courts simply for holding up signs.

It's deeply authoritarian when people are speaking out against a genocide and for a free Palestine.

[Al Jazeera English @AJEnglish]

BREAKING: Britain’s Court of Appeal has ruled that the government’s proscription of the activist group Palestine Action as a “terrorist” organisation was lawful.

🔴 LIVE updates: https://t.co/3m0CL1Edd9

[The Cradle @TheCradleMedia]

Leading medical journal The Lancet publishes call to expel Israeli Medical Association over Gaza genocide
——
Medical journal The Lancet has published a petition calling for the Israeli Medical Association to be boycotted and expelled from the World Medical Association over its failure to condemn what the petition describes as Israel's genocide against Palestinians and the collapse of Gaza's healthcare system.

The campaign, launched by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, Healthcare Workers for Palestine, and Doctors for Gaza, has so far received support from more than 1,150 healthcare professionals and medical organizations. The call for expulsion is expected to be raised at the World Medical Association's general assembly in October.

The Israeli Medical Association opposed the move, arguing that its expulsion would not advance peace, healthcare, or human rights, and would instead create a precedent for using political pressure campaigns to isolate healthcare workers based on their nationality.