NEWS: Netanyahu Admits Israel Armed Gaza Clan That Has Crippled Aid Deliveries
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu today admitted his government has been arming and supporting the most notorious criminal gang in Gaza — a group known for looting UN and NGO aid trucks.
Netanyahu said: “We made use of clans in Gaza that are opposed to Hamas… What’s wrong with that?”
The UN has repeatedly warned that Israel forces aid convoys onto dangerous routes where looting is rampant, while blocking safer alternatives.
Today, the UN spokesperson said Israeli authorities continue to obstruct humanitarian efforts:
➤ Of 16 aid missions requiring Israeli coordination yesterday, 5 were rejected outright — including missions to deliver water, retrieve nutrition supplies, and relocate fuel.
➤ Six more missions were canceled or impeded due to security and logistical barriers.
➤ Only 5 missions were completed — focused on screenings and medical services — but none delivered urgently needed supplies.
Meanwhile, Gaza’s aid supplies are dwindling under Israel’s near-total, 90-day blockade:
➤ Food partners now distribute just over 250,000 meals daily — down from 1 million meals a day at the end of April.
➤ Half of Gaza’s community kitchens have shut down due to lack of supplies or Israeli displacement orders.
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🚨France, Germany, Italy, and the United States have escalated attacks on UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, demanding her resignation over remarks she did not make.
Here’s everything you need to know:
1. U.S. Ambassador Mike Waltz and the leading Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee accused Albanese of calling Israel the “common enemy of humanity.”
2. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot went further, branding her a “political activist who stirs up hate,” accusing her of comparing Israel to the Third Reich, and announcing France will formally demand her removal at the UN Human Rights Council session on February 23, 2026. He insisted she must resign immediately.
🔴3. But Albanese never called Israel the “common enemy of humanity.” She described the system enabling genocide in Palestine as humanity’s common enemy. The quote has been widely misrepresented.
4. French officials also criticized her for appearing at the Doha Forum alongside a Hamas leader and Iran’s foreign minister. In fact, she was not on stage with those figures. Paris has long accused her of “justifying” the October 7 attacks for contextualizing them within decades of occupation, a characterization President Emmanuel Macron previously called a “disgrace.”
5. The Trump administration has previously demanded her removal and imposed sanctions on her for documenting Israel’s crimes.
6. Germany’s Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul echoed the push, writing: “I respect the UN system based on independent rapporteurs. However, Albanese has made numerous inappropriate statements in the past. I condemn her recent statements on Israel. Her position is untenable.”
7. Italy’s foreign minister also supported her removal, stating that Albanese’s positions “do not reflect those of the Italian government” and that her “behaviors, statements, and initiatives are not appropriate for the position she holds within a body of peace and guarantee such as the United Nations.”
8. Supporters, including various scholars, say the campaign is political retaliation for her reports on Israeli human rights violations.
9. Amnesty International France called Paris’s move a “shameful misrepresentation,” stating: “No, Francesca Albanese did not designate Israel as the common enemy of humanity… We denounce this attack on the independence of her mandate.” The group added it was “shocking” that France’s foreign minister repeated false claims while publicly prioritizing the fight against disinformation.
10. In an interview with L’Humanité, Albanese responded to @jnbarrot: “Everyone makes mistakes, it’s human. But we correct, we rectify,” calling on him to apologize and retract his false comments.
11. The backlash has not come only from Western governments.. “We don’t agree with much of what she says. We wouldn’t use the language that she’s using in describing the situation,” the spokesperson for UN Secretary-General António Guterres said.
The fight now centers on whether @FranceskAlbs, an independent UN Special Rapporteur can continue documenting Israeli crimes without political reprisal.
🧵 1/
Human Rights Watch shelved a report concluding that Israel’s decades-long denial of Palestinians’ right of return constitutes a “crime against humanity,” prompting the resignation of its entire Israel-Palestine team: Israel-Palestine director Omar Shakir and assistant researcher Milena Ansari.
Drop Site News spoke directly with Shakir and reviewed internal HRW emails and other documents. The story: 🧵🔽
2/ The 43-page report had completed Human Rights Watch’s full internal review process over seven months, including sign-off from HRW’s legal team and divisions covering refugees, international justice, women’s rights, and children’s rights.
It was halted roughly two weeks before its scheduled publication on December 4.
3/ Shakir said the report traced Israel’s policies from the 1948 expulsions through the present-day emptying of refugee camps in Gaza and the West Bank.
It was based on interviews with 53 Palestinian refugees and fieldwork across Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria.
Shakir said he hoped it would open “a path to justice for Palestinian refugees.”
⭕️ Only 12 of 50 Palestinians approved to return to Gaza were allowed through the Rafah crossing on Monday, as returnees described being transferred by the armed Abu Shabab militia to Israeli checkpoints and subjected to hours-long interrogations, threats, and confiscation of personal belongings.
Israel blocked 38 of the 50 Palestinians attempting to enter Gaza and sent them back to Egypt, various outlets report today. On the outbound side, just five patients were allowed to leave for medical treatment. Reuters reported that ten companions accompanied them, while Gaza’s Ministry of Health said the total number of people who exited was just eight. An Israeli security source confirmed to Haaretz that members of the Israel-backed Abu Shabab militia, operating as the so-called “Popular Forces” now under Ghassan Duhine, escorted civilians from Rafah and handed them over to Israeli authorities at a newly installed inspection point.
Palestinian National Initiative Secretary General Mustafa Barghouti said returnees faced “horrific inspection procedures.” One woman, Sabah al-Raqab, said Abu Shabab gunmen beat, humiliated, strip-searched, handcuffed, and threatened women with arrest and death. Of six buses waiting to enter Gaza, she said, only one was allowed through.
The 12 who entered, nine women and three children, told Arab media they were questioned at multiple locations along the crossing. Several said masked Abu Shabab gunmen handed them over for Israeli interrogation. One woman said Israeli officials seized all their belongings, “even the children’s toys,” and denied them food and water. Another said she was questioned for more than two hours and told: “We won’t let you in. We’ll take you as prisoners until you tell us who entered on October 7.”
Middle East Eye shared footage of a Palestinian woman who said Israeli forces blindfolded and restrained returnees. “They don’t want large numbers to return; they want large numbers to leave,” she said.
Read Mustafa Barghouti’s full comments below documenting the ordeal for the 12 Palestinian returnees:
In February 2024, the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem suppressed an internal report meant for wider circulation among senior Biden administration officials, saying it “lacked balance.” Reuters recently reported that the internal cable included photos from northern Gaza warning the area had become an “apocalyptic wasteland,” but U.S. ambassador to Israel Jack Lew and his deputy, Stephanie Hallett, blocked the images from distribution.
Jonathan Whittall @_jwhittall, who was on the UN fact-finding trip and is the former head of UN OCHA in the OPT, now shares a selection of those photos with Drop Site for the first time.
The images were taken during the January 2024 visit, which followed a three-month total siege on northern Gaza. Whittall says the mission’s purpose was to reflect reality, not political balance. “Many of these scenes had already been captured by Palestinian journalists, but they too had been dismissed as biased,” he writes. 🧵
📸 Photo 1: A partially destroyed school with piles of garbage and rubble lining the streets in Jabaliya. The school had no clean water or sanitation available and was being used as an emergency shelter by displaced Palestinians. January 31, 2024. (Photo by Jonathan Whittall.)
📸 Photo 2: The same partially destroyed school in Jabaliya. January 31, 2024.
📸 Photo 3: The inside of the school in Jabaliya with burnt out vehicles and rubble in the courtyard.
🚨 Jared Kushner presented a “master plan” for redeveloping Gaza into a high-tech metropolis during a speech at the Board of Peace charter signing ceremony in Davos, Switzerland, on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum.
Watch his full remarks here. We break down some key points in the thread below: 🧵
1/ Senior White House adviser and Trump’s son in law Jared Kushner said the administration has moved from securing a ceasefire to what he described as the far harder task of implementing peace, framing the effort as a shift in mindset after years of war in Israel and decades of despair in Gaza.
He credited President Donald Trump’s “first principles” approach for pushing the team to aim for outcomes others considered impossible, arguing that peace required changing behavior, habits, and expectations on both sides.
2/ Kushner said the next phase centers on security and demilitarization, arguing that no reconstruction or investment is possible without it. He said the United States is working with Israel and a new technocratic Palestinian governing committee to “work with Hamas on demilitarization,” describing security as the foundation for rebuilding Gaza’s economy and ending what he called long-term dependence on aid.
🇻🇪 How popular was Trump’s move to intervene militarily to depose Maduro among Venezuelans?
Two pre-intervention surveys suggested a sharp split between Venezuelans inside the country and those abroad, with deep opposition at home and high support in the diaspora.
1. Datanálisis poll, Dec 2025
(Caracas-based firm)
▪️ Foreign military intervention (inside Venezuela)
➤ 55% opposed
➤ 23% supported
➤ 22% unsure / other
▪️Political alignment of those polled
➤ 60% politically unaffiliated
➤ 13% support the government
➤ 19% support the opposition
Page 1/5.
Thread continues below ⬇️
2. AtlasIntel Intel Poll, October 22-28, 2025, published by Bloomberg
(Brazil-based polling firm)
▪️ Support for U.S. military intervention
➤ 64% support among Venezuelans abroad
➤ 34% support among Venezuelans living in the country
3. AtlasIntel Intel Poll, October 22-28, 2025
▪️ Is US intervention the “most viable pathway for topping the Maduro regime and re-establishing democracy?”
➤ 55% of migrants say yes
➤ Only 25% of those in Venezuela say yes