Human Rights Glance
AL-MAGHAZI REFUGEE CAMP, Gaza Strip—At midnight, Waad al-Shafi was still awake, sitting on the floor beside her 22-month-old son, Jawad. The room was small and worn down by Israeli shelling. Long cracks run across the concrete and flakes of paint hung from the corners. The dim light cast shadows on the wall behind her.
She held a cloth dampened with cool water, which she dabbed lightly on Jawad’s feet as he slept. Every few moments, she placed her hand on his chest and felt his breathing. Jawad stirred before his eyes snapped open. He let out a low whimper before the words came out in broken pieces: “Bang. Blood. Tank.”
Waad didn’t ask him what he meant. She knew. She leaned toward him and smoothed his hair with one hand, keeping the other resting on him. When his voice fell quiet again, she stayed as she was, sitting beside him, awake, watching the rise and fall of his chest.
Jawad has been this way since March 19, when his father, Osama Al-Shafi, said he was going to take his son to the store to buy candy. He lifted Jawad onto his shoulders and headed out. The store was to the west, near their home in the eastern part of Al-Maghazi refugee camp, a few hundred meters from the “yellow line.” When he left the house, his direction suddenly changed and he began wandering eastward.
The Man Who Walked Toward the "Yellow Line" in Gaza—and the Son He Carried With Him
Israel announces theft of Palestinian land in West Bank to expand road for settlers
Israel has issued orders to confiscate large tracts of Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank in order to expand a road for Israeli settlers in the area.
One of the largest settler roads in the West Bank, Route 60 lies east of Ramallah and south of Nablus and its completion requires the appropriation of Palestinian land along its route.
The project will lead to the expropriation of privately owned paved agricultural land, in order to add new lanes and strengthen links between illegal Jewish settlements in the area.
Al-Mazra'a Al-Sharqiya, east of Ramallah, is among the Palestinian towns most threatened by the project, as the road runs alongside large areas of its agricultural land.
The Israeli expropriation notice announces the confiscation of hundreds of dunams, but the exact number is unknown because farmers found the confiscation orders discarded on their land rather than delivered to them directly.
Taysir Salem, a landowner in Al-Mazra'a Al-Sharqiya, told Middle East Eye his grandfather owned 180 dunams (18 hectares) of land, which his family inherited and planted with trees.
The land is now set to be confiscated.
"Route 60 will be extended through our land, and at our expense, they will take it by force and bulldoze half of a hill that belongs to us," he said.
"All the neighbouring towns will also be subjected to land theft because of the road," he added.
The official Israeli confiscation of the land is accompanied by a settler campaign to intimidate local residents and prevent them from accessing it fully.
Smotrich: Steve Witkoff called Gaza Palestinians ‘two million Nazis’
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has said US envoy Steve Witkoff described Gaza’s entire population as “two million Nazis” during a private meeting last year.
Speaking at a conference in Israel on Thursday, the far-right minister recounted a conversation held after Witkoff’s visited Gaza last August at the height of the Israeli genocide.
Smotrich said: "When Witkoff was appointed, I sat with him and Ron Dermer [former Israeli ambassador to the US]." They showed Witkoff a propaganda video, after which the US envoy turned to Smotrich and reportedly said: "Bezalel, I will not let two million Nazis live next to your children on fences."
Witkoff, a former property lawyer with no previous foreign policy or humanitarian experience, publicly presented the Gaza visit as an effort to “help craft a plan to deliver food and medical aid to the people of Gaza”.
At the time, Israel was deliberately starving residents by restricting food entering Gaza and driving much of its population towards famine.
Photo of bound Palestinian detainee corroborates Israeli torture reports, say rights groups
An Israeli soldier’s photo of a Palestinian man from Gaza stripped to his underwear, blindfolded and bound face-down to an iron rod corroborates extensive reporting on Israeli torture of Palestinians in detention and itself may constitute a war crime, rights groups have said.
The image was shared on a now-deleted personal social media account, with the Hebrew-languahttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jul/08/photo-palestinian-prisoner-corroborates-israeli-torture-claimsge caption “good morning”. It was brought to wider public attention by a Palestinian writer and activist who goes by Tamer.
“Both abusive treatment of detainees and the public sharing of humiliating or degrading images of them can constitute war crimes,” said Oneg Ben Dror from the prisoner and detainees department at Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI).
The photo “confirms what thousands of testimonies from Palestinian detainees have exposed, and what we and other organisations have been reporting for nearly three years now,” she added. “Israeli detention facilities are torture camps for Palestinians.”
Holocaust Museum LA deletes post saying 'never again' applies to all people
The Holocaust Museum LA on Saturday deleted a social media post stating in block letters that "'Never again' can't only mean never again for Jews," on an illustrated image of interlocking human arms of different shades.
"Standing with humanity does not betray our people," the following slide said. "It honours them."
Within a day, the post was gone, and they promised to "do better".
“We recently posted an item on social media that was part of a pre-planned campaign intended to promote inclusivity and community that was easily open to misinterpretation by some to be a political statement reflecting the ongoing situation in the Middle East. That was not our intent,” a later post said.
"It has been removed to avoid any further confusion," the museum added. "We promise to do better".
A screenshot of the original image released by the California museum was captured by Ryan Grim, co-founder of Dropsite News.
"Speechless. No words for this," he captioned in a post on X.
"Think about how many people must have complained about this first message to get them to delete it and even issue an apology," he wrote. "If you denounce genocide, some might think you’re being critical of Israel and we can’t have that".
The Forward news outlet, which targets a Jewish American audience, noted that Jews who have rallied against gun violence in the US and against China's crackdown on the Uyghur minority have used the phrase "never again" for their causes, but others oppose it for anything but the Holocaust of World War II.
Gov. DeSantis confirms Florida's "Alligator Alcatraz" shutting down operations, all detainees relocated
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis held a news conference at "Alligator Alcatraz" on Thursday morning and confirmed that the mission at the controversial immigration detention facility was completed and all the detainees have been relocated.
DeSantis made the announcement alongside White House Border Czar Tom Homan, and Florida State Board of Immigration Enforcement Executive Director Anthony Coker at the isolated facility in the Florida Everglades.
During the news conference, DeSantis said that "Alligator Alcatraz" was always meant to be temporary until more detention centers could be located – and that has occurred.
"It served its purpose for the time," DeSantis said on Thursday.
Earlier this week, CBS News Miami's Jim DeFede reported that vendors hired by the state to operate "Alligator Alcatraz" were notified that they were to begin "full demobilization" of the facility, quietly bringing a close to the $1.2 billion experiment that had once been hailed by DeSantis and President Donald Trump as a model that other states should pursue, according to sources.
Palestinian dies in Israeli custody with signs of torture
A Palestinian citizen of Israel held by the internal security agency, Shin Bet, has died in hospital after being found unconscious in his cell, with his family and lawyers saying they found severe bruising on his body.
According to a Haaretz report, Saber Amitel, 21, was arrested earlier this month and taken to Shikma prison in Ashkelon, where he was denied access to a lawyer. He was suspected of arms smuggling
Police told his attorneys and family that he had attempted to take his own life.
His family and legal team were only permitted to visit him after Haaretz enquired about the case.
When his lawyers visited him at Barzilai Hospital on 8 June, they found severe bruising on his body, according to Haaretz.
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- Israel 'emptying' Al-Aqsa facilities to undermine Waqf, watchdog warns
- Leen Ezzeddine, the US-Lebanese graduate at Harvard Medical School who chose to speak out
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