Dear Khani,
The death toll in Gaza is nearing 40,000 with no end to the Israeli military’s assault in sight. But amidst growing criticism of the war, Israeli authorities are doing all they can to avoid prosecution by spying on international legal bodies and controlling what journalists – inside Israel and within Gaza – can say or do. Meanwhile, state-sanctioned settler violence in the West Bank is at an all-time high, with dire costs to communities on the ground. Here’s what we’re paying attention to in Israel-Palestine.
The Israeli government has been working hard to control the narrative and sidestep accountability in its assault on Gaza, even as evidence mounts of war crimes. A Local Call investigation, with +972 Magazine and The Guardian, revealed that for nearly a decade, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has led a multiagency campaign to spy on top International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutors Karim Khan and Fatou Bensouda to thwart their probe into alleged war crimes. Alongside these illicit efforts, Israeli authorities are claiming that they can prosecute their own crimes in Gaza. But the evidence suggests otherwise, and observers are instead witnessing the mobilization of resources for “the biggest crime cover-up in the country’s history.”
Many of those crimes are taking place on a battlefield that some soldiers describe as having a “near-total absence of firing regulations [...] with troops shooting as they please.” But detention centers are also under scrutiny – the first lawyer to visit an Israeli detention center that has taken in more than 4,000 Palestinians in the last nine months describes the torture and abuse he witnessed there as ”more horrific than anything we’ve heard about Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.”
The campaign to avoid prosecution and accountability is also taking place within the media. The Israeli military censor has banned the highest number of articles in years in the past several months, contributing to an Israeli media that is already failing to cover the genocidal war in Gaza. All of this is happening as journalists in Gaza face regular deadly strikes. Our co-investigation with 13 media outlets via Forbidden Stories’ The Gaza Project reveals incriminating evidence against the Israeli government and army, calling into question their denials about targeting the press since the war began.
Meanwhile, the rapid rise and normalization of the far-right in Israel was on full display during the annual Jerusalem Flag March, which once again was characterized by racist slogans, attacks on journalists and growing attendance by right-wing Knesset members. Those leaders are working in lock-step with settlers who have ramped up their violence against communities in the West Bank. The view from the ground is harrowing, with one villager describing the destruction of his village by the state and growing settler violence as a trauma that will live on for generations.
Stay tuned as we continue to report on these stories and more. You can follow Just Vision on Facebook, Instagram and X and follow Local Call – our Hebrew-language news site run in partnership with 972 Advancement of Citizen Journalism – by signing up for the Local Call newsletter (in Hebrew). You can also find a selection of our articles in English on +972 Magazine. | 
