> The call from Veterans for Peace (VFP) comes days after the investigative outlet ProPublica published a detailed account of how the U.S. State Department submitted a report to Congress that contradicted the findings of the department’s own experts and those of other agencies.

> The Blinken-led State Department’s May report concluded that Israel was not “prohibiting or otherwise restricting the transport or delivery of U.S. humanitarian assistance,” despite internal assessments from State Department experts and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) arguing that Israel had deliberately impeded American aid shipments to Gaza and that weapons transfers to the country should be cut off in line with Section 620I of the U.S. Foreign Assistance Act.

> VFP’s letter came days after the U.S. and Israel reached a deal for an additional $8.7 billion in American military support, even as the Israeli military continues to obstruct aid deliveries in Gaza, bombard the enclave’s starving population, and expand the assault on Lebanon.

> Susan Schnall, VFP’s president, said Monday that U.S. military aid to Israel amounts to “a theft from millions of Americans who have none of the health insurance every Israeli enjoys; from millions of Americans living in horrific housing while Israel builds thousands of upscale homes on land stolen from Palestinians; from millions of young Americans who can’t afford college because America’s top priorities are weapons and death, not human needs.”

> Netanyahu told attendees that Israel will “continue degrading Hezbollah” until its military objectives are met and vowed to keep bombing Gaza until “total victory” is achieved. He also threatened Iran, who he claimed was behind many of the problems in the region.

> Netanyahu also lashed out at the very body he was addressing, accusing the United Nations of being a “house of darkness” and a “swamp of antisemitic bile.”

> Netanyahu was greeted by protest as soon as he arrived in New York City on Thursday. Thousands rallied and then marched to the United Nations headquarters, in an action organized by the Shut It Down For Palestine Coalition, which includes which includes the Palestinian Youth Movement, PAL-Awda NY, the People’s Forum, Nodutdol, the ANSWER Coalition and other groups.

> Shortly after Netanyahu’s speech Israel bombed south Beirut, leveling six residential buildings. Israeli media has reported that it was an attempted assassination of Hezbollah’s Secretary General, Hasan Nasrallah. Lebanese sources told the Iranian news agency, Tasnim that Nasrallah is in a safe place. Reuters and AFP also quoted sources close to Hezbollah who say Nasrallah is still alive.

> The Times of Israel reports approved of the strikes from his New York City hotel, right before he gave his U.N.

> The Biden administration was reportedly informed of the attack shortly before it happened. It just comes just one day after Israel announced that it had secured an $8.7 billion military aid package from the United States.

> Israel conducted an unprecedented airstrike on Beirut’s southern Dahiya district on Friday evening in what Israeli media described as an attempt to assassinate Hezbollah’s Secretary General, Hasan Nasrallah.

> The strike targeted and leveled six residential buildings. The Israeli army’s spokesperson, Daniel Hagari, released a video statement shortly after the strike claiming that the buildings contained Hezbollah’s “Central Headquarters.” Lebanese media reported that over 10 Israeli missiles were dropped in less than three minutes on the complex, situated in the Haret Hreik area in Dahiya. The Israeli army’s radio said that Israeli F-35 fighter jets dropped 2000-pound bunker-buster bombs on the residential buildings.

> Lebanese first responders continue rescue efforts to pull out survivors from under the rubble. As of the time of writing, the number of civilians killed has not been specified.

> The Israeli army’s radio quoted a military source saying that any person who was present in the targeted buildings “will not come out alive.” The Lebanese Health Minister, Firas al-Abyad, said that some of the buildings targeted were “full of civilian residents.”

> “I saw a mirror,” Odah said, recalling moments spent with Williams’s family. “A reflection of these two systems that are both upheld by the U.S. that condemn Black and Palestinian men, our fathers, our grandfathers, and the rest of our families, at the mercy of those who continue to find ways to dehumanize us.”

> Missouri killed Williams, who was 55 years old, for a murder he said he did not commit and even though prosecutors fought to throw his conviction out due to the paucity of the evidence. Gov. Mike Parsons declined to grant Williams clemency, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to step in. His execution coincided with nationwide protests on Tuesday against Israel’s ongoing bombing campaign in Lebanon that has killed at least 615 people, including more than 50 children. News of the execution reverberated among protesters, who drew connections between Israel’s relentless U.S.-backed war on Gaza and state-sanctioned killing in the United States. In some places, demonstrators recited a poem Williams had written about Palestinian children

> “We’re clearly seeing that some people’s lives, some people’s futures — their security, their liberty, their humanity — are far more valuable than others. I mean, there is a dehumanization of Black and brown Americans in this country, and it’s been allowed to persist, and often it’s actually been perpetrated by the same institutions of our nation who are supposed to be fighting for justice, for our rights. They’re erasing us, they’re making excuses, and they’re harming people,” said Ramirez. “And I think it’s because if they don’t see us as humans, then you’re really not hurting us, right? If you don’t see the right to protect ourselves, if you don’t see us as humans, there’s no remorse.”

> Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., echoed her colleague’s point, noting that President Joe Biden did not deliver on his 2020 campaign pledge to abolish the death penalty and that Democrats recently dropped opposition to capital punishment from their party platform. And in the case of Gaza, Bush said, the administration has escalated the conflict.

> On Wednesday, Sanders introduced six resolutions blocking six sales of different weapons contained within the $20 billion weapons deal announced by the Biden administration in August. The sales include many of the types of weapons that Israel has used in its relentless campaign of extermination in Gaza over the past year.

> “Sending more weapons is not only immoral, it is also illegal. The Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and the Arms Export Control Act lay out clear requirements for the use of American weaponry – Israel has egregiously violated those rules,” said Sanders. “There is a mountain of documentary evidence demonstrating that these weapons are being used in violation of U.S. and international law.”

> This will be the first time in history that Congress has ever voted on legislation to block a weapons sale to Israel, as the Institute for Middle East Understanding Policy Project pointed out. This is despite the U.S. having sent Israel over $250 billion in military assistance in recent decades, according to analyst Stephen Semler, as Israel has carried out ethnic cleansings and massacres across Palestine and in Lebanon.

> The resolutions are not likely to pass; even if they did pass the heavily pro-Israel Congress, they would likely be vetoed by President Joe Biden, who has been insistent on sending weapons to Israel with no strings attached.

> However, Sanders’s move is in line with public opinion. Polls have consistently found that the majority of the public supports an end to Israel’s genocide; a poll by the Institute for Global Affairs released this week found, for instance, that a majority of Americans think the U.S. should stop supporting Israel or make support contingent on Israeli officials’ agreement to a ceasefire deal. This includes nearly 80 percent of Democrats.

> While the majority of fentanyl is seized at the U.S.-Mexico border, 93 percent of those seizures happened at legal crossing points last year. More than 86 percent of people sentenced for trafficking fentanyl in 2023 were U.S. citizens, and almost all fentanyl is smuggled for U.S. consumers.

> Democrats’ and Republicans’ shared focus on fentanyl trafficking at the U.S.-Mexico border as the sole root of the overdose crisis is dangerously myopic. It fails to address the myriad causes or advance any much-needed solutions. Indeed, the U.S. is grappling with a serious public health crisis, as the country faces more than 100,000 deaths per year from drug overdoses, two-thirds of which are due to synthetic opioids like fentanyl. Twenty-seven thousand pounds of fentanyl were seized at the border last year, up from just 4,600 pounds in 2020. But militarizing the border — and promoting rhetoric that demonizes immigrants — will not save any lives.

> Experts caution that it is difficult to attribute such data to any singular source; we need more studies over a longer period of time to determine what’s driving the plunge. Still, we can look to several recent developments as possible culprits: In December 2022, Biden signed the bipartisan Mainstreaming Addiction Treatment (MAT) Act, which removed the bureaucratic hurdles facing doctors who need to prescribe buprenorphine for opioid addiction treatment. Prior to the MAT Act in 2020, less than 6 percent of doctors were allowed to prescribe buprenorphine. Meanwhile, a naloxone nasal spray that can reverse opioid overdoses and save lives was approved to be sold as an over-the-counter medicine in March 2023. It has since become much more readily available.

> This is a good start, but doctors are still calling for increased funding for addiction treatment and harm reduction services. Rural areas, as well as Black and Native American communities, especially face substantial barriers to accessing quality health care. Currently, Congress is considering a bipartisan bill, the Modernizing Opioid Treatment Access Act, which would expand access to methadone, a prescription drug used to treat opioid addictions. Unlike in several European countries, methadone is only obtainable in the United States at designated opioid treatment clinics and must be taken on-site — creating an unnecessary hurdle for those who live miles away from the closest clinic. Addiction recovery advocates also point toward the need for expanded telemedicine options, mobile methadone clinics and robust drug education campaigns as necessary tools to fight the overdose crisis.

> Israel is continuing its bombardment of Lebanon and preparing for a possible ground invasion of the country, with the Netanyahu government rejecting a proposed 21-day ceasefire put forward by the United States, France, Canada, Australia, Japan, Qatar, the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

> About 500,000 people in Lebanon have been displaced, and the Health Ministry reports at least 72 people were killed and nearly 400 wounded in Israeli attacks on Wednesday, bringing the death toll to over 620 in recent days.

> “There is a lot of suffering. There is a lot of hardship right now,” says Beirut-based journalist Lara Bitar, who details how Israel has repeatedly attacked and invaded Lebanese territory going back decades.

> “The source of this pain can be pinpointed to the presence of the Israeli settler state in our region that continues to wreak havoc in Palestine, in Lebanon and across most of the world.”

> Outspoken advocates for Palestinian rights, including Representatives Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan) and Cori Bush (D-Missouri), have said that bolstering the U.S.’s military presence in the region will only worsen an already catastrophic situation created by Israeli forces over the past year — and could increase the already strong threat of a regional war.

> The lawmakers pointed out that only an arms embargo to Israel — as has been ordered by international and domestic law — can result in the de-escalation of tensions that the Biden administration has claimed that it supports.

> “The Biden-Harris administration continues to allow Netanyahu and the Israeli government to operate with impunity as they carry out war crimes. After facing no red line in Gaza, in an attempt to remain in power, Netanyahu is now expanding his genocidal campaign to Lebanon, using the same tactics the Biden-Harris administration has endorsed,” Tlaib said in a fiery statement on Wednesday.

> “Deploying more U.S. troops and sending more U.S. bombs will only lead to more suffering and carnage,” she said. “The Biden-Harris administration is capable of stopping the bloodshed. President Biden must implement an immediate arms embargo to end the slaughter and de-escalate the risk of a wider regional war.”

> The US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the State Department’s refugees bureau concluded in April that Israel was deliberately blocking aid to Gaza, according to a report by the news site, ProPublica.

> In a 17-page memo sent to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, USAID documented several examples of Israel blocking aid into the besieged Gaza Strip - including Israel killing aid workers, destroying agricultural structures, bombing ambulances and hospitals, and flat-out turning away trucks filled with food and medicine.

> The head of the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration said Israel was blocking aid and argued that its actions should trigger the Foreign Assistance Act, which bars military support from going to any nation that restricts the delivery of assistance.

> Stacy Gilbert, a former senior civil-military advisor in the refugees bureau, resigned over Blinken’s report to Congress, saying in a public statement that there "is abundant evidence showing Israel is responsible for blocking aid”.

> In his final address to the UN General Assembly as the U.S. president on Tuesday, Biden boasted about working for peace and deescalation through his administration, walking through historic conflicts that he claimed he opposed.

> He struck an almost anti-war tone as he bragged about withdrawing troops from Afghanistan and, ironically, opposing South African apartheid in his younger years. He also spoke extensively about the U.S.’s use of the UN charter to support Ukraine and the need for global powers to end Russia’s invasion. He then called for world order, saying that “the center has held” and that global chaos has been averted, referencing a famous William Butler Yeats poem.

> But Biden suspended his dovish talk when he spoke about the Middle East and Israel’s massacres — for which the U.S. has undermined humanitarian standards at every turn. While Biden dubiously claimed that his administration is working steadfastly to achieve peace in the Middle East, he invoked the October 7 attack led by Hamas forces — which officials have raised repeatedly in the past year to provide justification for Israel’s genocide.

> The Israeli military is reportedly preparing to invade Lebanon while continuing to launch extensive airstrikes across the country, forcing tens of thousands to flee. Lebanon’s Health Ministry reports the death toll has reached at least 569 people, with more than 1,800 wounded.

> Israeli strikes have killed United Nations employees, medical workers, at least one journalist and 50 children over the past two days. Meanwhile, Hezbollah launched dozens of rockets at Israel, including a long-range missile fired toward Tel Aviv that was intercepted by Israeli air defense systems.

> “Lebanese civilians are paying the price,” says Aya Majzoub in Beirut, Amnesty International’s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa, who calls Israel’s attacks “unprecedented” and “devastating.” “In a single day, on Monday, more than 500 people were killed. … It is one of the highest daily death tolls in recent global wars.”

> “The Israeli authorities’ shutdown of Al Jazeera’s office in Ramallah is another shameless attack on the right to freedom of expression and a crushing blow for press freedom.

> “Amid escalating violations of international law, including through military operations in the occupied West Bank and relentless unlawful attacks in the occupied Gaza Strip with the real risk of genocide, access for journalists to shed light on ongoing events is crucial. The shutdown of Al Jazeera’s office in Ramallah is a brazen attempt by the Israeli government to limit reporting on their violations of international humanitarian and human rights law.

> “Israeli authorities already ban most international journalists from freely entering the occupied Gaza Strip to report on the ongoing war, now they are extending their crackdown on media to the occupied West Bank. The authorities must immediately revoke the order to shut down Al Jazeera bureau, end their harassment, intimidation and obstruction of journalists and other media workers in the occupied Palestinian Territory in accordance with international humanitarian and human rights law. ”

> Massive Israeli air strikes on residential towns in southern and eastern Lebanon killed at least 274 people on Monday, in what has been Lebanon's bloodiest day for decades.

> At least 21 children, 39 women and two emergency responders were among the dead, Lebanon's health minister said, adding that more than 1,024 others were wounded.

> In response to the bombardment, Hezbollah fired rockets at military targets in northern Israel and illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.

> Over the weekend, an Israeli minister called for the “Shia enemy population” of south Lebanon to be expelled and a buffer zone created on the border.

> There was no hint of de-escalation as Israeli warplanes bombed a residential area of Beirut on Friday, killing at least 31 people, including multiple Hezbollah commanders, and wounding at least dozens of others. Lebanon’s Ministry of Health said that the dead include three women and seven children.

> During a Saturday television interview, Israeli Minister of Education Yoav Kisch falsely proclaimed that “there is no difference between Hezbollah and Lebanon.”

> “The way things are progressing at the moment, Lebanon will be annihilated,” he vowed. Pressed on the genocidal implications of the word “annihilated,” Kisch said, “Lebanon as we know it will not exist.”

> Israel bombed a residential building in Beirut’s southern Dahiya district on Friday killing nine people and wounding 59 others, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health as of the time of writing. The Israeli army announced in a statement shortly after the attack that the strike had targeted one of Hezbollah’s top military commanders, Ibrahim Aqil.

> The targeted building was located in a crowded residential and commercial area, which was sealed off by the Lebanese army and security forces as rescue teams rushed to the scene to begin rescue efforts. The Lebanese Civil Defense reported that two buildings had collapsed in the al-Jamous neighborhood in Beirut’s district.

> Following today’s most recent bombing, the White House said in a statement that Washington had no prior knowledge of Israel’s intention to bomb the Lebanese capital. Lebanon’s Prime Minister said that “the bombing of a civilian residential area demonstrates that Israel gives no importance to human, legal, or moral imperatives.”

> Israeli officials are denying visas to humanitarian groups and other non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has warned — an attempt not only to disrupt aid in Gaza, but also to undermine Palestinians’ refugee status and their right to return to their homeland.

> On Tuesday, UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said that the Israeli government has “stopped giving visas” to leaders and staffers within the NGO community, after creating what many experts have called the worst humanitarian crisis in modern times. Those banned include agencies with “close partnerships” with the UN, he said.

> The UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported on Tuesday that Israel has “all but shut off” humanitarian access to northern Gaza, only fully facilitating two UN aid missions into the area in the first two weeks of September. Meanwhile, a group of 15 aid groups reported that the aid shipments entering Gaza hit a record low in August, with 83 percent of food aid being blocked from entry by Israeli forces.

> “There is a deliberate attempt to eliminate and to dismantle [UNRWA] and the real reason behind this has nothing to do with neutrality issues. There are political considerations behind it,” Lazzarini said. “Ultimately, there is a desire to strip the Palestinian from the refugee status and, beyond that, also to undermine the future aspiration of the Palestinian for self-determination. And that’s the reason why UNRWA has become such a target.”

> At least nine people have been killed and 2, 750 wounded in Lebanon on Tuesday after pagers used by Hezbollah - and medics- exploded in unison, in an attack that the movement and Lebanese government blamed on Israel.

> Among the dead was a 10-year-old girl, who was killed in eastern Lebanon's Bekaa Valley when the pager of her father, who is allegedly a Hezbollah member, exploded. Many have posted a photo of the girl on their X accounts and Instagram stories to pay their condolences.

> Several social media users drew attention to the reckless and casual nature of the attack which targeted many people including civilians. A human rights lawyer on X cited the International Humanitarian Law Databases of the ICRC, saying that “there was no way to know if they would be in shopping markets, homes, or streets with busy traffic”, pointing to the indiscriminate nature of the attack.

> Anthropologist and researcher Philip Proudfoot cited a section on indiscriminate attacks of the ICRC Geneva Conventions of 1949 and said that Israel is committing a war crime due to the indiscriminate nature of this attack with possible collateral damage. Many other users cited the same section of the convention, drawing attention to the fact that people had no means of knowing who was holding the explosive devices when they went off.

> In July the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued a historic advisory opinion concluding that Israel’s decades long occupation and annexation of Palestinian territory is unlawful because it violates some of the most fundamental tenets of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and denies Palestinians their human rights.

> The ICJ opinion also concludes that all states have an “obligation not to recognize as legal the situation arising from the unlawful presence of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory” and “not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by Israel’s illegal presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.” Meanwhile, the virtually unconditional transfer and sale of weapons, parts, and ammunition by governments where there is clear risk of use in harming civilians and violating international law has continued.

> As the UN General Assembly prepares to vote on a resolution this week that would seek to bring the occupation to an end, the undersigned organizations call on all governments, including the UN Security Council and its members, to adhere to the ICJ’s advisory opinion, including through the halting the transfer and sale of weapons, parts and ammunition.

> Humanitarian, development and human rights organizations, many of us with decades of experience working throughout the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, delivering lifesaving assistance and other services, have witnessed first-hand the humanitarian consequences of Israel’s occupation, and its devastating impact on the Palestinian population, including the well-being of children.

This includes but is not limited to: