The Former Israeli Spies Overseeing US Government Cyber Security

Nate Bear

https://www.donotpanic.news/p/the-former-israeli-spies-overseeing

A company with deep ties to Israeli intelligence oversees cyber security across more than seventy US government agencies, including the Department of Defense and Homeland Security.

Axonius was founded by former spies in Israel’s Unit 8200 and its software, which allows an operator ‘visibility and control over all types and number of devices,’ collects and analyses the digital data of millions of US federal employees.

The stated aim of the Axonius platform is to centralise IT tools to identity and fix security breaches. As a product of Israeli intelligence, however, the scale of Axonius’s use across the US government raises serious questions.

Axonius was founded and is currently run by Israelis Dean Sysman, Ofri Shur and Avidor Bartov, who met in the 2010s while working on the same team within Israel’s Unit 8200 spy service. On his LinkedIn profile, Sysman offers few details of their work for the IDF, describing it simply as having ‘far-reaching implications.’

Sysman left the IDF in 2014 after five years and set up a cyber hacking outfit, while Shur and Bartov stayed on until 2017, a period which encompassed Israel’s 2014 war of aggression against Gaza, during which the IDF murdered more than two thousand Palestinian civilians.

Axonius was established with curious speed. After leaving the IDF in 2017, Shur and Bartov teamed back up with Sysman and immediately received $4 million in seed funding from Yoav Leitersdorf, a San Francisco-based Israeli-American and fellow Unit 8200 veteran, to start Axonius. Leitersdorf, the managing partner at US-Israeli venture capital firm YL Ventures, is a prolific early-stage investor in Unit 8200 cyber start-ups.

The same year Sysman, Shur and Bartov also received millions in seed financing from Israeli firm Vertex Ventures which is run by veterans of Israel’s spy units. Tami Bronner, a partner at Vertex, spent four years in Israeli military intelligence.

Following this early financing from investors close to Israel’s intelligence establishment, the company went on to receive hundreds of millions in investment from a network of US venture capital firms with intelligence links to Israel.

These include Palo Alto-based Accel Partners, which has invested in more than thirty Israeli tech companies, including another Unit 8200 cyber spin-out, Oasis. Nir Blumberger, an Israeli who served in the IDF, was recruited by Accel from Facebook to open its Tel Aviv office in 2016.

Other Axonius backers include San Francisco-headquartered Bessemer Venture Partners which employs former Israeli intelligence operatives in a Tel Aviv office led by Adam Fisher. An American who emigrated to Israel in 1998, Fisher has acted as an intermediary between Zionists in Silicon Valley and the IDF, and during the genocide gave a presentation on how Israel can win the online war. Israeli Amit Karp, a partner at Bessemer Ventures and another former Israeli intelligence officer, sits on the Axonius board.

Menlo Park-based Lightspeed Venture Partners, which has backed Axonius with around $200 million over numerous funding rounds, also has significant ties to Israeli spy units. Yonit Wiseman, a partner at Lightspeed, spent six years in Israeli military intelligence, leaving in 2018. Her colleague, Tal Morgenstern, was a special forces commander in the IDF.

Given the evidence that Axonius is an Israeli intelligence cut-out, the scale of its penetration within the US federal government structure is extraordinary.

The company says its platform is ‘deployed in more than 70 federal organizations’ and is used by four of the five major US Department of Defense service agencies. The US federal government contract award website shows Axonius awards for the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps, which in itself means millions of personnel and their devices.

In November 2024, the company was selected by the Department of Homeland Security to modernise its cybersecurity abilities by centralising ‘data coming from hundreds of separate data sources residing across dozens of federal, civilian, and executive branch agencies.’ Just a month later, in December 2024, the company was contracted by the Department of Defense to upgrade its system of 24/7 surveillance which oversees all on-site and off-site DoD computers and IT networks, a capability known as ‘continuous monitoring and risk scoring.’ And in April this year Axonius obtained authorisation for any US federal agency to use its cloud-based cyber surveillance system.

Other federal departments integrating Axonius software include energy, transportation, the US Treasury and many others. Data from the US spending awards site shows the US Defence Logistics Agency, responsible for managing America’s global weapons supply chain, is the single largest Axonius customer, spending $4.3 million in 2023 alone. The Department of Agriculture has paid nearly $2 million for Axonius tools and the Department of Health and Human Services has spent $1.3 million since 2021.

Axonius is commonly described as an American company. While its headquarters and administrative functions are in New York, its founders, senior executives, and its primary financiers are all Israeli, and, critically, its software and engineering functions are based in Tel Aviv. Axonius has more than eight-hundred employees, and a search of LinkedIn profiles confirms that a majority of Axonius’s engineers in Tel Aviv have a background in Israeli military intelligence.

The pitch for the Axonius system is that it centralises data from all the security and IT tools an organisation uses into one place for easier analysis, control and fixes. And that place is Tel Aviv, where the hundreds of former Israeli spies working as engineers for Axonius have unprecedented access and visibility into the habits and movements of millions of US federal government employees.

With this visibility an Axonius operator can connect individual devices with individual IDs as well as seeing all login/logoff data and website usage. An operator can also order an account to be disabled, a device to be quarantined, or a user to be removed from a group.

In addition to this, Axonius has a separate R&D division within the company known as AxoniusX, a skunkworks unit focused on developing new cyber tools, run by another Unit 8200 spook, Amit Ofer.

Perhaps none of this matters, and Axonius is simply indicative of the sleazy, symbiotic nature of the relationship between the US and its colonial outpost.

This would be a fair argument if it wasn’t for Israel’s long history of espionage in the United States. From recruiting Hollywood producers who ran front companies that stole nuclear technologies, to selling bugged software to foreign governments, spying (especially cyber spying), has been central to Israel’s foreign policy. Robert Maxwell, the father of Ghislaine Maxwell, was a spy for Israel, and a significant amount of circumstantial evidence suggests Jeffrey Epstein was also an Israeli military intelligence asset. More recently, during Trump’s first term, Israel planted miniature spying devices around the White House and other US government buildings in Washington DC to monitor US officials.

US authorities, then, have allowed former spies from a country with a known history of espionage within the United States to establish a framework of cyber intelligence access across almost the entire federal government apparatus.

To put it another way, the US has effectively subcontracted its federal-level cyber security infrastructure to Israeli intelligence.

Whether Axonius has used, or has any intent to use its unprecedented access maliciously, is impossible to know. For anyone with knowledge of Israel’s history of spying, however, the embedding of cyber software made by former Israeli spies within the US federal computer system network should raise serious alarms.

More broadly, Axonius shows how a militarised Israeli state takes billions in American funding every year to build its digital architecture of apartheid and genocide, and then sells these capabilities back to the US. American taxpayers, then, effectively pay Israel twice. And when the US buys back the technologies their taxpayers funded in the first place, they are inviting in trojan horse capabilities and making Israeli war criminals rich in the process.

The good news is that millions of ordinary Americans are wising up to the reality that Israel is not the great deal for the US that political leaders have, for so long, sold it as.

The Axonius story confirms, once again, just how bad this deal is.

 

Israeli genocide made 2025 deadliest year for Palestinians since 1967: rights groups

Figures released by the Israeli rights groups showed that the death toll from the Israeli war reached over 36,000 in March 2024 and rose to 67,173 by October 2025.

December 2, 2025

https://www.trtworld.com/article/7d218ce080d6

Israeli human rights organisations have deemed 2025 the “deadliest and most destructive” year for Palestinians, with Israel doubling its killing and forced displacement of civilians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

This came in a joint report released on Tuesday by 12 Israeli human rights groups: Bimkom, Gisha, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, HaMoked, Yesh Din, Combatants for Peace, Ir Amim, Emek Shaveh, Physicians for Human Rights Israel, Breaking the Silence, and Torat Tzedek.

“In 2023 and 2024, grave violations were documented in Gaza during the Israeli genocide, but the outcomes in 2025 reveal a sharp deterioration, with the death toll nearly doubling, displacement becoming almost across the entire enclave, and hunger becoming a cause of mass death,” the report said.

“Violations that were considered exceptional at the start of the war became part of daily practice” in the current year, the rights groups said.

“The second year of the war in Gaza was the deadliest and most destructive for Palestinians since 1967.”

Figures released by the Israeli rights groups showed that the death toll from the Israeli war reached over 36,000 in March 2024 and rose to 67,173 by October 2025, including more than 20,000 children and around 10,000 women, in addition to an estimated 10,000 bodies still under the rubble. The number of wounded surpassed 170,000.

According to the report, Palestinian displacement in 2025 reached 1.9 million people, around 90 percent of Gaza’s population, up from about 1 million in 2024.

Many were displaced multiple times, the report said, as entire neighbourhoods and vital infrastructure, including water and electricity, collapsed.

Regarding Israeli-induced starvation, the report said that 461 people, including 157 children, died of hunger by October 2025.

The rights groups said that 2,306 Palestinians were killed and 16,929 wounded while waiting for aid delivery in a “daily tragedy” created by the Israeli mechanism in 2025.

Illegal settler violence

According to the rights groups, about 1,200 attacks by illegal settlers were recorded between 2023 and 2024 in the occupied West Bank, while large-scale violence escalated in 2025.

The report found that 44 Palestinian herding communities were fully displaced, and 10 communities were partially emptied, taking the total number of displaced Palestinians to 2,932, including 1,326 children.

It added that the number of administrative detainees, who are held without charge, rose from 1,000 in 2023 to 3,577 in 2025, three times the prewar average.

The report documented at least 98 Palestinian deaths in Israeli custody due to torture, denial of medical treatment, and inhumane detention conditions.

“2025 revealed a reality previously unimaginable: a state operating without limits, systematically violating international law, dismantling the very values it claims to uphold. Israel cannot claim morality or self-defence.”

Palestinian and Israeli rights organisations have repeatedly reported torture of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, including beatings, starvation, and sexual abuse.

The Israeli forces have escalated their attacks in the occupied West Bank since October 2023.

More than 1,085 Palestinians have since been killed, and 10,700 others wounded in attacks by the army and illegal Israeli settlers in the occupied territory.

Over 20,500 people have also been arrested.

In a landmark opinion last July, the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory illegal and called for the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

 

Israel-Turkey rift dampens Gaza force plans as allies get cold feet

Israel's opposition to Turkish deployment is causing potential partners such as Pakistan and Azerbaijan to hesitate, putting the US scheme at risk

By Ragip Soylu in Ankara

Published date: 2 December 2025

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-turkey-rift-dampens-gaza-force-plans-allies-pull-back

The United States is struggling to create an international stabilisation force for Gaza, as stipulated by the UN Security Council, due to disagreements with Israel over Turkey’s participation, two people familiar with the issue told Middle East Eye.

The Security Council last month approved a resolution to create the force, securing official support from Turkey, Qatar, Egypt, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Pakistan and Jordan.

However, little progress has been made since then, the sources said.

Turkish officials have repeatedly stated that Ankara is ready to contribute to the force, but Israel has consistently indicated that it will not tolerate the presence of Turkish troops in the Gaza Strip.

Despite Israel’s opposition, Middle East Eye reported last month that the Turkish government had finalised plans to deploy a contingent of at least 2,000 soldiers to Gaza.

The force would be composed of personnel from multiple branches of the military with previous peacekeeping and conflict-zone experience.

Now, however, Turkey’s participation in the force appears increasingly uncertain.

“Without Turkey’s participation, countries like Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan, Pakistan and Indonesia are not inclined to deploy troops,” one person familiar with the negotiations told MEE.

The UAE, on the other hand, announced last month that it would not join the force “for now”, citing the lack of a clear framework.

It remains unclear whether the Security Council resolution has convinced Abu Dhabi to reconsider its stance.

An Israeli report suggested that the UAE refused to join the Gaza force due to concerns over Qatari and Turkish influence, intimating that their involvement could empower groups linked to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.

“There are elements belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood who are taking a central role in the plan to reconstruct Gaza,” a source familiar with Abu Dhabi’s position told i24NEWS.

The UAE is expected instead to focus on humanitarian aid, reconstruction and supporting the establishment of an effective local government.

Israeli anger

A second person familiar with the issue told MEE that Ankara still expects the United States to persuade Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept Turkey’s participation.

“Washington remains insistent on deploying Turkish troops,” the source said.

The source added that Turkey’s sudden decision to issue an arrest warrant for Netanyahu last month on charges of crimes against humanity did not help the negotiations.

“Obviously, the Israelis are angered by this in the middle of the talks,” they said.

One person familiar with US planning told the Washington Post that the goal is for the force to consist of three brigades, perhaps up to 15,000 troops.

Another source said the international stabilisation force could include as many as 20,000 soldiers.

The Post reported a US official and saying the objective is to deploy the force in “early 2026”, although discussions about which countries will participate remain “a fluid process”.

Another US official told Israel’s Channel 14 this week that operations are expected to begin as early as January.

In November, Israel also blocked the entry of dozens of Turkish search and rescue personnel into the Gaza Strip. The team had been sent to help recover the remains of Israeli soldiers.

Tensions between Turkey and Israel have been running high due to Ankara’s actions against Netanyahu’s government at the International Court of Justice and a trade ban imposed since the spring of 2024.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called Israel’s war on Gaza a genocide and repeatedly urged the international community to hold Israeli leaders accountable.

The two countries are also at odds in Syria.

Netanyahu’s government reportedly wants to maintain control over certain territories in the south of the country as a buffer zone and opposes the deployment of any Turkish radars or sophisticated systems south of the T4 air base near Homs.

In pardon of narco trafficker, Trump destroys his own case for war

It appears more important to the White House that the party of convicted Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández wins (last) Sunday's volatile election.

Kelley Beaucar Vlahos

Nov 29, 2025

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/trump-pardon-drug-trafficker/

The Trump administration has literally killed more than 80 suspected drug smugglers by blowing their small boats out of the water since September, but this week the president has reportedly decided to pardon one of the biggest cocaine traffickers of them all.

If that doesn't make any sense to you, then join the club.

The news that Trump is going to pardon Juan Orlando Hernández, the former president of Honduras who was sentenced to 45 years in U.S. prison just last year came as a shocker. The White House has said repeatedly that drug traffickers are narcoterrorists who are waging war on America, justifying their killing the boats every time. Yet Hernandez was convicted of conspiring to import 500,000 kilos of cocaine into the United States and stuff it "right up the noses of the gringos" and Trump says "CONGRATULATIONS TO JUAN ORLANDO HERNANDEZ ON YOUR UPCOMING PARDON."

While president, Hernández received millions of dollars from trafficking organizations in Honduras, Mexico, and from notorious drug lords like Joaquín Guzmán Loera, a.k.a. El Chapo, who was the former leader of the Sinaloa Cartel and is responsible for the murder of some 34,000 people. In return, according to prosecutors, President Hernández allowed vast amounts of cocaine to pass through Honduras on its way to the United States.

Prosecutor Jacob H. Gutwillig told jurors during the trial that Hernández had accepted “cocaine-fueled bribes” from cartels and “protected their drugs with the full power and strength of the state — military, police and justice system.” Hernández ran the country from 2014-2022; his National Party had been in power since 2009.

Sounds like the very type of menace — or terrorist — that the Trump administration is trying to use as a justification for military action in Latin America today.

"Former president Hernández was found guilty of taking bribes from El Chapo and the Sinaloa Cartel to allow 400 tons of cocaine to flow through Honduras into the United States, essentially running Honduras like a narcostate," noted Quincy Institute research associate Lee Schlenker.

"Trump accuses Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro of conspiring to flood the United States with deadly drugs through the dubious 'Cartel of the Suns,' but far from pardoning Maduro or praising his acolytes, like (he promises) with Hernández, Trump has brought us closer to a U.S.-led military intervention in Latin America than we've been in over 35 years by threatening air strikes against Venezuelan territory," he added.

We assume the difference here is politics. And ideology. Maduro is a socialist and doesn't want to do business with Washington. Hernandez was tolerated if not preferred by previous U.S. administrations from Obama through the first Trump White House, because he and his National Party were business friendly, anti-communist, and supported by the neoconservatives now gunning against Maduro.

While he was useful, Hernandez played the game and Washington turned a blind eye to his crimes which not only included the drugs but human rights abuses against his people via the military and police, election fraud, embezzling from the nation's social security system and World Bank Funds, and even bragging at one point that he was siphoning off international funds through phony NGOs.

Hernández left office in 2021 and wasn't indicted until 2022 (by the Biden DOJ), though he and his family were already being investigated during the first Trump tenure. His brother Tony, a former Honduran congressman, was convicted of drug trafficking in 2019 and given a life sentence. DOJ prosecutors say he "was involved in all stages of the trafficking through Honduras of multi-ton loads of cocaine destined for the U.S."

In the same day he announced his would pardon Juan Orlando Hernández, Trump said he was endorsing the National Party candidate for president, Nasry “Tito” Asfura, who is running against what he calls the "narco-communism" represented by center-left candidate Rixi Moncada of the incumbent LIBRE party. This is laughable, says Schlenker, because current president Xiomara Castro has done everything to curry favor with Trump, including "tough-on-crime policies not too dissimilar from those seen in neighboring El Salvador under Trump ally Nayib Bukele."

But Asfura and Hernandez have paid lobbyists in Washington and if you think that doesn't make a difference then we have a block of empty office space on K Street to sell you. According to Schlenker, Hernández paid D.C. lobbying group BGR Group, which was a leading donor to now Secretary of State Marco Rubio's 2016 presidential campaign, over $600,000 in 2019 to win allies in Washington as he was under investigation.

"Hernandez has strong supporters in Trump world, including convicted (and later pardoned) Trump advisor Roger Stone, who has been urging Trump to pardon Hernández for months. Rubio, for his part, has long sung Hernández's praises, thanking him for his work targeting drug trafficking, as has Rubio ally, lobbyist, and former Trump administration official Carlos Trujillo, who represents several Honduran clients who would likely stand to benefit from a return to National Party rule," added Schlenker.

Trujilo was just on Capitol Hill talking down LIBRE before he was called out by Rep. Joaquín Castro for his obvious conflict of interest.

The New York Times said Sunday's elections were already beset by fears of "fraud, mass protests and even the threat of a military crackdown," and Trump and other Washington neoconservatives weighing in is adding another layer of volatility.

For those of us picking up on news this weekend that Trump is boasting about "closing the airspace" around Venezuela only reinforces the suspicion that this is not about "narcoterrorism" at all. If Trump wanted to rid the hemisphere of drug traffickers, he wouldn't be letting them out of prison, period.

UN report accuses Israel of 'de facto' state policy of torture

UN Committee Against Torture says practice has become 'organised and widespread' since October 2023

By MEE staff

Published date: 30 November 2025

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/un-report-accuses-israel-de-facto-state-policy-torture

A UN report has accused Israel of having a "de facto" state policy of torture for Palestinian prisoners.

The UN Committee Against Torture said on Friday that use of torture by the Israeli state was "organised and widespread" and had greatly increased since the beginning of the war on Gaza on 7 October 2023.

The report noted that Israel had no legislation criminalising torture, and said its legislation allowed public officials to be exempted from criminal culpability under the principle of "necessity".

"The committee was deeply concerned about reports indicating a de facto state policy of organised and widespread torture and ill-treatment during the reporting period, which had gravely intensified since 7 October 2023," the report said.

"It also expressed its concern that a range of policies adopted by Israel in the course of its continued unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, if implemented in the manner alleged, would amount to cruel, inhuman or degrading living conditions for the Palestinian population."

The report also comes as Israel has faced widespread criticism over a video that apparently showed soldiers shooting dead two unarmed men in the occupied West Bank.

The United Nations said on Friday that the killing in the occupied West Bank appeared to be a "summary execution".

"We are appalled at the brazen killing by Israeli border police yesterday of two Palestinian men in Jenin," UN rights office spokesman Jeremy Laurence told reporters in Geneva, calling the incident "yet another apparent summary execution", in reference to the killings that took place on Thursday. 

He said UN rights chief Volker Turk is calling for "independent, prompt and effective investigations into the killings of Palestinians", and for those responsible for killings and other violations in the occupied West Bank to "be held fully to account".

Summary execution is a war crime under the Geneva Convention and international law. 

A video has circulated widely on social media showing the two Palestinian men emerging from a building with their arms raised and their shirts lifted, clearly indicating they were unarmed and posed no threat to the Israeli soldiers.

Gaza 'stabilization force' fails to launch as nations unwilling to commit troops: Report

Several nations that previously committed troops to the US-led occupation force have 'backpedaled' amid fears they will have to kill Palestinians

News Desk

NOV 29, 2025

https://thecradle.co/articles/gaza-stabilization-force-fails-to-launch-as-nation-unwilling-to-commit-troops-report

The White House is having difficulty launching its so-called Gaza International Stabilization Force (ISF), as countries that previously expressed willingness to deploy troops to the project now seek to distance themselves from it, according to a 29 November report in the Washington Post.

The ISF “is struggling to get off the ground as countries considered likely to contribute soldiers have grown wary” over concerns their soldiers may be required to use force against Palestinians.

Indonesia had stated it would send 20,000 peacekeeping troops. However, officials in Jakarta speaking with the US news outlet said they now plan to provide a much smaller contingent of about 1,200.

Azerbaijan has also reneged on a previous commitment to provide troops. Baku will only send troops if there is a complete halt to fighting, Reuters reported earlier this month.

US President Donald Trump’s plan for Gaza envisioned meaningful troop contributions from Arab states, including the UAE, Bahrain, and Qatar. But after expressing early interest, none have committed to participating.

“A month ago, things were in a better place,” one regional official with knowledge of the issue stated.

Trump’s plan for post-war Gaza rests on the ability of an international force to occupy the strip and was endorsed by a UN Security Council resolution on 17 November.

However, because the resolution gave the force the mandate to “demilitarize” the Gaza Strip, many countries are resisting participation.

They say their troops could be required to disarm Hamas on Israel’s behalf. This would require killing Palestinians and possibly cast their forces as co-perpetrators in Israel’s genocide in front of the world.

Some officers are “really hesitant” to participate, one Indonesian official said.

“They want the international stabilizing force to come into Gaza and restore, quote unquote, law and order and disarm any resistance,” a senior official in Indonesia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. “So that’s the problem. Nobody wants to do that.”

Participation would also put their soldiers in harm’s way, whether from Hamas or the ongoing Israeli airstrikes, which regularly kill Palestinians despite the alleged ceasefire that took effect in October.

Sources familiar with the plan told the Washington Post that the White House plans to man the force with between 15,000 and 20,000 foreign troops, divided into three brigades to be deployed in early 2026.

However, details have not been finalized, which has led to additional hesitancy among potential participating nations.

“Commitments are being considered. No one is going to send troops from their country without understanding the specifics of the mission,” the official said.

Efforts to establish the so-called “Board of Peace,” a committee of Palestinian technocrats taking orders directly from the White House to deal with the day-to-day administration of the enclave, have also stalled.

“We thought, with the Security Council resolution, within 48 to 72 hours, the Board of Peace would be announced,” another person familiar with the plan told The Post. “But nothing, not even informally.”

No other members of the Board of Peace have yet been named.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stated that the Israeli army will disarm Hamas if foreign countries are unwilling to do so for them.

“All indicators show that indeed no countries are willing to take on this responsibility, and that understanding is sinking in both in Israel and in the US,” said Ofer Guterman, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Tel Aviv.

“Bottom line: It’s unlikely that the ISF, if it’s established at all, will lead to Gaza’s demilitarization,” he added.

Tamara Kharroub, Deputy Executive Director and Senior Fellow of the Arab Center in Washington, DC, described the Trump plan as “Permanent Palestinian subjugation and neocolonial rule dressed up as peace.”

“There are no guarantees or binding mechanisms or clarity around what constitutes reform or demilitarization and around who determines what they are. The plan ultimately gives Israel a blank check to prolong its presence in Gaza, fully reoccupy it, or resume its genocidal war,” Kharroub wrote.

Amnesty International Says Gaza Genocide Is Not Over

The group says Israel continues to deliberately inflict conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians in Gaza

by Dave DeCamp | November 27, 2025

https://news.antiwar.com/2025/11/27/amnesty-international-says-gaza-genocide-is-not-over/

Amnesty International said on Thursday that the Israeli genocide against the Palestinian population of Gaza is not over despite the US-backed ceasefire deal, which Israel has continued to violate.

While the agreement has led to a de-escalation of Israeli attacks and a slight increase in aid entering Gaza, Israeli forces have killed hundreds of Palestinians, and Israel continues to impose restrictions on humanitarian aid and is not allowing reconstruction.

“More than one month after a ceasefire was announced in Gaza on 9 October, Israeli authorities are still committing genocide against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip, by continuing to deliberately inflict conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction,” Amnesty said in a statement.

“Israel severely restricts the entry of supplies and the restoration of services essential for the survival of the civilian population – including nutritious food, medical supplies, and electricity – as well as stringently limiting medical evacuations. Israeli authorities continue to prohibit the entry of equipment and material necessary to repair life-sustaining infrastructure and required to remove unexploded ordnance, contaminated rubble and sewage,” the group added.

Amnesty also pointed to the continued displacement of Palestinian civilians in Gaza as they are not allowed to enter the Israeli-occupied side of the Strip, which accounts for 58% of the territory, and are shot and killed if they attempt to cross the “yellow line,” the ambiguous boundary that cuts Gaza in two.

“Palestinians are prevented from returning to their homes or agricultural lands located in areas beyond the yellow line, and the Israeli military has shot at those who come near,” Amnesty said. “Some 93 Palestinians attempting to cross and return to their homes have been killed.”

Gaza’s Health Ministry said on Thursday that since the ceasefire was supposed to go into effect, Israeli forces have killed at least 347 Palestinians and wounded 889, more than 1,000 total casualties.

Amnesty called for international pressure on Israel, saying it was “clear that Israel will not permit the provision of aid sufficient to create life-sustaining conditions within Gaza unless the international community demands that it takes effective measures to ensure that it does so.”