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• Israeli forces occupied schools in southern Lebanon during hostilities between September and November 2024 and in the following weeks, used some of them as barracks, and appear to have intentionally vandalized, pillaged, and destroyed school property.
• The hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah have had a devastating impact on children’s access to education and pillaging of at least two of the schools appears to amount to war crimes.
• International donors and aid agencies should support the Lebanese government to ensure the equitable reconstruction of schools in southern Lebanon. Lebanon should also provide jurisdiction to the International Criminal Court to investigate and prosecute atrocity crimes since October 2023.

Republished from Middle East Monitor, under Creative Commons license.

Israeli media reported on Monday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has decided his forces will carry out a full military occupation of the Gaza Strip, amid growing criticism of the worsening humanitarian crisis in the coastal enclave.

Israeli media says US President Donald Trump gave Netanyahu ‘green light’ to proceed with expanded assault, according to Anadolu Agency.

Netanyahu is expected to hold consultations with his government and military leadership in the coming days to rally support for the plan to take full control of Gaza.

The Israeli news website Ynet quoted a senior official close to Netanyahu as saying, “The die is cast — we are going for a full occupation of the Gaza Strip.”

Earlier, Netanyahu had said he planned to convene the Security Cabinet to discuss further measures in Gaza, as the war approached its 22nd month.

In a video message released on Sunday, Netanyahu stated that the Palestinian group Hamas continues to reject a negotiated solution.

A joint report issued by the Commission for Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society, and Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association has revealed a serious escalation in the mass abduction of Palestinians and accompanying violations since the beginning of the genocide in Gaza in October 2023.

According to the report, approximately 18,500 Palestinians have been abducted across the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem since the genocide began, part of a systematic campaign targeting civilians under the pretext of security operations.

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• US-backed Israeli forces and private contractors have put in place a flawed, militarized aid distribution system that has turned aid distributions into regular bloodbaths.
• The dire humanitarian situation is a direct result of Israel’s use of starvation of civilians as a weapon of war—a war crime—as well as Israel’s continued intentional deprivation of aid and basic services, which amounts to the crime against humanity of extermination, and acts of genocide.
• States should press Israeli authorities to immediately stop using lethal force as crowd control against Palestinian civilians, lift Israel’s unlawful sweeping restrictions on the entry of aid, and for the United States and Israel to suspend this flawed distribution system.

Japan’s embassy in Laos and its Ministry of Foreign Affairs has issued a rare and unusually direct advisory, warning Japanese men against “buying sex from children” in Laos.

The move was sparked by Ayako Iwatake, a restaurant owner in Vientiane, who allegedly saw social media posts of Japanese men bragging about child prostitution. In response, she launched a petition calling for government action.

The Japanese-language bulletin makes clear such conduct is prosecutable under both Laotian law and Japan’s child prostitution and pornography law, which applies extraterritorially.

This diplomatic statement was not only a legal warning. It was a rare public acknowledgement of Japanese men’s alleged entanglement in transnational child sex tourism, particularly in Southeast Asia.

It’s also a moment that demands we look beyond individual criminal acts or any one nation and consider the historical, racial and structural inequalities that make such mobility and exploitation possible.

As President Trump kicked off a weekend of golfing in his late mother's home country, hundreds of protesters rallied outside his resorts and in cities across Scotland — abseiling off a bridge, waving Palestinian flags and chanting for the U.S. president to be deported.

At a demonstration on Saturday outside the U.S. consulate in the capital Edinburgh, one protester held Scottish bagpipes in one arm, and a sign in the other. "At least this bag of hot air serves a purpose," it read. Another waved a banner saying "Scotland is already great"— a riff off Trump's "Make America Great Again" slogan.

The Freedom Flotilla Coalition confirms that its civilian vessel Handala, en route to break Israel’s illegal, genocidal blockade on Palestinians in Gaza, has been violently intercepted by the Israeli military in international waters about forty nautical miles from Gaza. At 23:43 EEST Palestine time the Occupation cut the cameras on board Handala and we have lost all communication with our ship. The unarmed boat was carrying life-saving supplies when it was boarded by Israeli forces, its passengers abducted, and its cargo seized. The interception occurred in international waters outside Palestinian territorial waters off Gaza, in violation of international maritime law.

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Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has announced that his country plans to recognise the State of Palestine at the United Nations.

In a Friday post on X, Carney stated: “Canada supports a two-state solution which guarantees peace and security for Israelis and Palestinians.” He added that Ottawa “will work intensively in all fora to further that end, including through the participation of the Minister of Foreign Affairs at the UN High-Level Conference on a Two-State Solution in New York next week.

The Prime Minister also said that Canada condemns the Israeli government’s failure to prevent the rapid deterioration of the humanitarian adisaster in the Gaza Strip.

Earlier, French President Emmanuel Macron declared his intention to recognise the State of Palestine in September 2025.

In response, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu strongly condemned the move, saying that the establishment of a Palestinian state would pose a threat to Israel’s security.

Meanwhile, the Hamas movement welcomed Macron’s intention to recognise Palestine during the UN General Assembly in September.

Hamas described the move as a positive step in the right direction towards justice for the oppressed Palestinian people and support for their legitimate right to self-determination and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on all of its occupied territory, with Jerusalem as its capital.

An analysis conducted by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) found no evidence that Hamas systematically stole US-funded humanitarian aid in Gaza, Reuters reported Friday. The findings challenge a justification used by Israel and the US to support a private aid initiative that bypasses the UN system amid deadly distribution chaos in Gaza.