Middle East

Yes Magazine -  The United States has historically provided hundreds of billions of dollars in foreign aid to Israel. The flow of taxpayer funds to Israel’s military has only increased since Israeli forces launched an attack on Gaza in October 2023, in which as many as 186,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to an estimate published in The Lancet in July 2024.

Beyond the federal dollars funding the ongoing attack on Gaza, there are also investments made on the state and municipal levels to support Israel’s violence against Palestinians. “The ethnic cleansing and horrors that we’re witnessing being carried out by the Israeli government are deeply entangled in material support from the United States, and that happens on multiple levels,” says Jay Saper, an organizer with Jewish Voice for Peace in New York City.

As demands for Palestinian liberation grow louder than ever before in defiance of Israel’s continuing assaults on the occupied nation and its people, organizers with JVP and other groups critical of U.S. funding for Israel have ramped up efforts targeting this support in their own backyards. These efforts include the Not on Our Dime! campaign in New York state, which aims to end subsidies for New York–registered charitable organizations that fundraise to support the Israeli military and violent settler groups, and the Break the Bonds campaign, a JVP-led initiative that seeds and supports local efforts to demand divestment from Israel Bonds nationwide. MORE

NBC News - Israeli forces were conducting a sweeping military operation in the occupied West Bank, launching multiple airstrikes and deadly raids, and sealing off the city of Jenin, Palestinian officials said.Israel has conducted near-daily raids in the territory in the months since Hamas' Oct. 7 attack and in the midst of Israel's military offensive in Gaza — but Wednesday's operation could mark the largest in more than 20 years.