Somil Kumar

“Where must we go, we who wander this wasteland, in search of our better selves?”

[The Wire @thewire_in]

Conservationists and retired civil servants filed the petition in the Delhi High Court, arguing that the Board has approved more than 97% of proposals submitted for clearing forests from 2014 to 2026.
https://t.co/JdisvY7Qi8

[Prem Thakker @prem_thakker]

Read this very carefully: *One quarter* of all the people who have died of starvation in Gaza over the past 22 months have died in the past *3 days*

[Sulaiman Ahmed @ShaykhSulaiman]

Palestine BEFORE the GENOClDE

[PunsterX @PunsterX]

This road was built using space technology. That's why it developed a crater like the moon. But haters will criticise this also.

[Drop Site @DropSiteNews]

UN Secretary General’s Office:

🔹 More than 80% of people with disabilities have lost essential items like wheelchairs, hearing aids, and walkers, according to a survey conducted by UN partners.

🔹 With mobility gone, they face isolation, blocked aid access, discrimination, and the constant threat of explosive remnants.

Months of escalating violence in Gaza are putting the most vulnerable—especially people with disabilities and the elderly—at even greater risk.

[Drop Site @DropSiteNews]

🇺🇳NEW: UN OCHA reports in the first two weeks of July, Israeli settlers injured 88 Palestinians, the majority of whom were physically assaulted. This follows a record high of 100 injuries in June – the highest number of Palestinians injured by Israeli settlers in a single month since OCHA began recording casualties two decades ago.

Additional Details:

▪️Between June 1 and July 14, 2025, Israeli settlers carried out multiple attacks targeting vital water springs and water infrastructure in the Ramallah, Salfit, and Nablus governorates.

▪️Between July 8-14, seven Palestinians, including one child, were killed in the West Bank: five by Israeli forces, one by an Israeli settler, and one where it is unknown if the perpetrator was an Israeli soldier or a settler.

▪️ Additionally, a Palestinian man succumbed to wounds sustained in 2024. One Israeli settlement guard was killed by two armed Palestinians, who were killed (counted above).

▪️ During the same 7-day period, at least 115 Palestinians, including 10 children, were injured, the majority (78) by Israeli settlers and 40 by Israeli forces.

▪️Since January 2023, 2,895 Palestinians have been displaced due to settler violence and access restrictions, including 636 displaced so far in 2025.

🎥 Video: Palestinian youth drive off Israeli settlers from the outskirts of their village of Jiljilya, north of Ramallah.

[Drop Site @DropSiteNews]

🔴 Palestinian Detainee Killed 7 Days After Arrest

July 17, 2025 — The Palestinian Commission of Detainees’ Affairs and the Prisoner’s Society have confirmed the death of Sameer Mohammad Yousif al-Rifai, a 53-year-old political detainee from Rummaneh village near Jenin, just one week after his arrest by Israeli forces.

Al-Rifai, a husband and father of five, was arrested from his home on July 10. He was due to appear in an Israeli military court for the first time today. He suffered from pre-existing heart conditions and required ongoing medical care—none of which was provided in Israeli custody.

The Commission said it holds Israel fully responsible for his death, calling it part of the systematic crimes practiced in Israeli prisons: torture, starvation, medical neglect, and conditions deliberately engineered to kill.

▪️ 74 Palestinian prisoners have died in Israeli custody since the start of the Gaza genocide in October 2023.
▪️ 311 have been killed since 1967.
▪️ Thousands remain forcibly disappeared, with no access to legal or medical aid.

Al-Rifai’s death, the Commission said, is “a new crime added to the record of Israeli brutality,” and an extension of the genocide against the Palestinian people.

They call on the international community to end Israel’s impunity, impose sanctions, and take urgent steps to hold Israeli leaders accountable for crimes against humanity.

[Muhammad Shehada @muhammadshehad2]

The picture above was Gaza’s largest nonviolent demonstration to call for our right to life

Young people marched weekly, unarmed & bare-chested, for over a year to Israel’s apartheid fence

IDF killed & maimed over 35,000, inc. double amputees, doctors, kids, journalists…

Soldier bragged in Haaretz about how many kids they kneecapped & crippled, with one saying he maimed 42 in one day. They bragged about how eager their partners were back home to hear about their murderous adventures

Not a single soldier was ever held accountable for this; they all walked free

This was 5 YEARS before Oct 7

So when folks shamelessly ask “where is the Palestinian Gandhi?” The answer is “Israel murdered him as you stood watching”!

[Gautam Bhatia @gautambhatia88]

Where Freedom Ends: On the Supreme Court’s Recent Free Speech Hearings —

https://t.co/KLvSUUEKkl

[Drop Site @DropSiteNews]

🚨Palestinian journalist and recently freed prisoner Sami Al-Sa’i told Al-Quds Radio today that he was raped and tortured by Israeli prison guards in Megiddo Prison.

Al-Sa’i was arrested from his home in Tulkarem. Upon arrival at Megiddo, he says guards “laughed and cursed” while subjecting him to what he describes as “indirect rape” for 30 minutes, leaving him with severe bleeding for 22 days without medical care.

In a harrowing audio interview with Al Quds, he calls the assault just “a small part” of what prisoners endure daily—especially detainees from Gaza, who face “amputations and lethal neglect” inside Israeli jails.

His testimony adds to mounting evidence of systematic torture and abuse of Palestinian prisoners, documented in detail in the March 2025 UN Commission of Inquiry report.

[liam cunningham @liamcunningham1]

Israel is now bombing Damascus Syria.
These genocidal psychopaths have got be stopped. The international community should hang their collective heads in shame.

[Drop Site @DropSiteNews]

📚 Targeting Printing and Publishing Houses in Gaza: A Cultural Violation and a Memoricide

A new report from the Institute for Palestine Studies documents the systematic destruction of Gaza’s printing presses, publishing houses, and bookstores. These facilities, key to the Strip’s educational and cultural infrastructure, have been reduced to rubble, leaving a vacuum in the production and preservation of Palestinian literature, education, and historical memory.

➤ Rashad al-Shawa Press, Gaza’s largest historic printing house, was destroyed. It had produced the official Palestinian Gazette since 1983 and was one of the few facilities capable of completing the entire print process in-house.

➤ Samir Mansour Bookstore, damaged in prior wars and again in 2023, continued operations from sidewalk stalls during the war, distributing free books to children and publishing over 50 titles through regional partners.

➤ Dar Al Kalima, a publisher of over 500 academic and literary works, was burned to the ground in December. Its director said the destruction dealt a serious blow to intellectual life in the Strip.

➤ Dar Al-Shorouq and Al-Nahda Press, both key printing and distribution hubs, were either destroyed or looted, halting decades of work producing textbooks, reference materials, and Arabic literature.

➤ Dar Al-Miqdad, based in Shati refugee camp, specialized in educational publishing and was also destroyed by airstrike. Its managers estimate the loss at $200,000.

▪️ The report cites Articles 19 of the ICCPR and 52 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, which protect civilian cultural institutions from targeting unless used for military purposes. No such justification has been presented for these strikes.

Lawyer and human rights activist Saeed Abdullah writes: “When ink is bombed, memory is slaughtered.”

Read the full report by Institute for Palestine Studies 👇🏼

[Adil Haque @AdHaque110]

"10 children per day lose one or both of their legs"

[Nimer Sultany @NimerSultany]

I'm a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See it.

Omer Bartov, NYT https://t.co/clMw0e1NUV

[Drop Site @DropSiteNews]

BREAKING: Israeli arson attacks reported near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank: 👇🏼

[Richard Sanders @PulaRJS]

It is simply unbelievable what we are witnessing here.

What is the matter with the Western world? The US could put a stop to this in 2 minutes.

[Zach W. Lambert @ZachWLambert]

If you thought Superman was right for fighting fascists in the 1970s but now you think he’s wrong for fighting fascists in the 2020s, then Superman didn’t go woke… you went fascist.

[Ami Dar @AmiDar]

This piece by Ayman Odeh, the most admirable Israeli politician of our generation, is so good and so important that I am copying the whole thing here. Pease read and share:

* * * * * * *
Today, my voice, my party, and my very presence in the Israeli parliament are under attack. But this is not just an attack: It's an attempt to erase me, and all those who oppose the Netanyahu government, the occupation and war in Gaza.

Members of both the ruling coalition as well as members of the opposition are trying to impeach me over a tweet I posted on X nearly six months ago, in which I wrote:

"I am happy about the release of the hostages and the prisoners. We must now free both peoples from the yoke of occupation. Because we were all born free."

A tweet that endorses a humane and just position, based on the universal recognition that no one's freedom can survive at the cost of another's, shouldn't trigger such controversy. But here, in Israel, words like these are twisted to mean "support for terrorism."

Let me be clear: those who support terror are not, like me, advocates for peace. Those who support terror actually sit in this Israeli government. They are the extremists, not me. But instead of taking responsibility for their own words and deeds, they are now judging me for what I feel, for what I wrote.

Many of those extremists, some ministers in this government, have declared, since the very first days of this war: "Gaza should be burned to the ground." Others said, without shame: "The children of Gaza brought this upon themselves." Some went even further, proclaiming: "There are no innocents in Gaza" and even: "Men should be separated from women and children – and then executed."

These are the words of sitting members of the Knesset, some from the Netanyahu coalition, some from the opposition. And yet they want to impeach me and to silence all of us who speak out against the war.

Like Émile Zola, who cried out in defense of human conscience during the Dreyfus Affair, I too feel a moral duty to cry out.

I accuse.

I accuse the Israeli government, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, of waging a war of annihilation against the Palestinian people. This is a government that has abandoned even the faintest pretense of morality. Its goal is not security, it is vengeance, destruction, domination and occupation.

I accuse those who are supporting this disgraceful, dangerous, and profoundly anti-democratic impeachment process. This is not an isolated event. It is yet another painful step in a systematic campaign to erase the political representation of Arab citizens of Israel and to silence every moral voice that dares to speak about equality, justice, democracy and peace.

I accuse the mainstream Israeli media, which has largely failed to cover this impeachment process with the gravity it demands. The same media that obscures the horrors of war – the suffering of children, the starvation, the destruction. Much of the Israeli media chose, from the very beginning of this war, to serve the government, and to hide reality from the public. This is not journalism: It is complicity.

I accuse the leaders of the opposition who have failed to offer a real alternative to this criminal path. They chose to play by the rules written by a system sliding toward fascism. A democracy without a moral opposition is no democracy at all.

I accuse those who support Jewish supremacy, who refuse to see us as equals, who deny our humanity and who fail to recognize even a single nonviolent freedom fighter among the Palestinian people. The Palestinian people have the right to exist, the right to resist injustice, and the right to seek freedom, through dignity, through persistence, and through the justice of our cause.

I accuse the leadership of the settler movement – the ideological vanguard of apartheid and Israel's shadow government. They preach ethnic cleansing, glorify Jewish supremacy, and work daily to expel and erase the Palestinian people, in the West Bank, Gaza, and the Negev, in the name of Judaism but against its values.

I accuse those leading the campaign of destruction in Gaza. They have crossed every red line. They have lost all restraint. They act with a cruelty that history will shudder to remember. I accuse those who demolish cities, erase lives and perpetuate an illegal occupation, all in the name of Israel's "security."

I accuse those responsible for the horrifying massacre of October 7. This is an unforgivable crime. Killing innocents – elderly people, women, men, young people, including those dancing at a music festival – is an appalling crime. I have condemned these horrific crimes hundreds of times. I visited the families of the hostages and the victims. I carry their pain. I recognize their pain. The murder of innocent people must always be condemned. This is a moral principle I will never abandon.

The crimes of Israel's occupation can never justify the killing of even a single innocent Israeli civilian on October 7. And nothing that happened on October 7 can ever justify the killing of even one innocent Palestinian civilian in Gaza.

I accuse the international community. Yes, I accuse U.S. President Donald Trump and his predecessors, who legitimized the war of annihilation in Gaza and the rise of fascism in Israel. Trump spoke about annexation and apartheid without a trace of empathy or any recognition of the price that would be paid for it.

And I accuse us, too. Yes, I accuse myself.

We have not done enough. We have not been strong enough, loud enough, to stop this catastrophe. We have not worked hard enough to empower the Arab vote in Israel. But we are here. We are still standing. And we will not stop. We will not be silent. We will not falter.

But I do not accuse the families of the hostages and the victims of October 7. They deserve every embrace, even when their own government abandoned them.

I do not accuse the Arab public in Israel, who once again have proven to be a moral compass, a voice of reconciliation in a sea of hatred.

And I certainly do not accuse the Palestinian people in Gaza or the West Bank. Gaza is the most devastated place on earth since World War II. The West Bank's over 1,300 military checkpoints make daily life for Palestinians living under occupation nearly impossible.

I see their suffering. I hear their cries. I see the destruction. I know the impossible choices they face every day under siege, under occupation, under bombardment. I see people who simply want to live – who simply want to raise their children in dignity and peace, and to realize their right to self-determination through the establishment of a Palestinian state. I see people who have been stripped of their freedom and their humanity, trapped between the walls of oppression and the fires of war.

I do not accuse those who oppose this war: Jews and Arabs who declared in a clear, unwavering voice: not in our name. Our destiny is shared. We are not enemies. We are partners.

And I accuse Israel's occupation, which fuels the pain, destruction, and endless cycle of violence. This is why I believe we must liberate both peoples, because we were all born free.

The path of Israel's right wing has failed. This war of annihilation has achieved nothing and will achieve nothing. In the end, Palestinians and Israelis will rise together. Only a political solution can bring justice, safety, and peace from the river to the sea.

History will judge those who stayed silent, and honor those who resisted and believed. We choose to believe. We choose to resist.

Only together can we build something else: a different future. A better future.

Because my children, just like every child, are so desperately thirsty for life. They are thirsty for joy. They are thirsty for the simple, stubborn hope that refuses to die. They are thirsty for security, for peace, for the right simply to be.

And who among us is not?

This week, when I face impeachment for my principles, I will stand in the Knesset with my head held high. Every word I said represents me fully – and I take nothing back. Not a sentence, not a word, not a letter, not a comma, not even a single dot.

My positions are moral positions. They offer an alternative, an alternative of democracy, equality, and peace for both the Jewish and Palestinian peoples.

Because history will judge them. And history will vindicate me.

* * * * * * * *

Ayman Odeh is a Palestinian citizen of Israel, a member of the Israeli Knesset and the leader of the Hadash-Ta'al party.

[Srivatsa @srivatsayb]

If you ask why a bridge collapsed, you are part of the “Global Toolkit”

If you ask about corruption in roads, garbage, or housing, you are “Lutyens Lobby”

If you question democratic backsliding, you are an “Urban Naxal”

If you speak for farmers, you are a “Khalistani”

If you support secularism and harmony, you are “Pakistani”

If you talk about unemployment, you are an “Andolanjeevi”

If you question high taxes, you are “Tukde Tukde Gang”

If you are a journalist with integrity, you are a “Presstitute”

If you expose freebies to cronies like Adani, you are “Soros Gang”

If you defend scientific temper, you are a “Nehruvian Elitist”

If you challenge foreign policy blunders, you are a “Deshdrohi”

Silence is now patriotism. Truth is sedition. Modi has presided over the slow, deliberate death of hope.