MintPress News

1. Trump’s Yemen Surge: How Policy from DC Think Tanks Brought Famine Roaring Back

President Donald Trump's new Yemen campaign is driving what experts call a spiraling humanitarian disaster, nearly doubling the previous administration's costs while slashing aid and intensifying airstrikes.

Under pressure from powerful Washington think tanks, Trump has sharply increased airstrikes, cut $107 million in aid, and designated Yemen's Ansar Allah as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO )—all steps that experts and aid groups say are deepening famine, displacement, and collective punishment.

The latest moves target Ansar Allah-controlled northern Yemen, home to roughly 70% of the population and 80% dependent on food imports. April's cuts to humanitarian aid, along with a deliberate U.S. campaign to bomb ports and airports, are putting millions at risk.

Humanitarian organizations—including Action Against Hunger and the World Food Program—warn that aid restrictions and destroyed infrastructure have left at least 19.5 million Yemenis in urgent need, with 64% of households unable to meet basic food needs and children facing malnutrition rates among the highest in the world.

These policies mirror the siege tactics imposed by Israel on Gaza, and, according to Washington-based NGOs and experts, go even further. Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) cautions that Trump's escalation "might also plunge the country into famine."

Trump's January decision to designate Ansar Allah as an FTO reversed the Biden administration's more cautious approach. Biden, reacting to Ansar Allah's actions against Israel, had classified the group as a "specially designated global terrorist" in early 2024, but stopped short of the FTO label to avoid cutting off lifesaving aid.

As Anne Garella of Action Against Hunger warned, "The FTO designation could lead to restrictions or delays on imports of essential commodities, as well as higher prices. In a country where 49% of the population is food insecure and 55% of children under five suffer from chronic malnutrition, this could have devastating consequences."

Since the escalation, more than 531,000 people have been newly displaced, and another 1.3 million have slipped below the poverty line.

The cumulative effect of U.S. actions, along with a U.S.-backed Saudi blockade in place since 2015, has been catastrophic. The blockade alone has driven famine, a cholera outbreak, and mass starvation—especially among children. Of the estimated 400,000 civilians killed during the U.S.-backed war, most died due to blockade-induced deprivation.

Behind the scenes, major Washington think tanks are encouraging the White House to intensify the siege. The Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a key player in the build-up to the Iraq War, justified recent U.S. airstrikes that killed 80 civilians at Yemen's Ras Issa port, claiming such attacks degrade "the economic source of power" for Ansar Allah.

The Heritage Foundation, one of Trump's chief policy influencers, has argued in its "Government by Injunction" commentary that aid organizations—groups humanitarian officials fear could be blocked from conducting life-saving missions—could "turn out to be fronts for the Iran-backed Houthis, who are trying to sink ships that traverse the Red Sea, as well as kill Israelis with their rockets. (Or terrorists could wind up stealing the money from the needy. It's happened before.)"

Dana Stroul, director of research at the pro-Israel Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a former top Biden Defense Department official, has publicly advocated "increasing maritime and overland interdiction efforts" to block Iranian resupply of Ansar Allah—an approach that would further tighten the blockade. While Stroul recommends mitigating civilian harm and supporting aid efforts, her "maximum pressure" strategy would effectively deepen the suffering of Yemen's already vulnerable, starving civilian population.

The severity of the crisis is starkly illustrated in the World Organisation Against Torture's "Torture in Slow Motion" report, which found that the U.S.-backed blockade has "substantially contributed to pushing Yemeni civilians into starvation and can be considered torture."

With U.S. military attacks ramping up and think tanks calling for harsher collective punishment, aid agencies and human rights advocates warn that Yemen is spiraling into deeper catastrophe. If Trump continues down this path—halting aid, bombing infrastructure, and tightening import restrictions—the result will be a man-made famine and a yet another stain on U.S. foreign policy.

Feature photo | Crowds gather at Al Mashhad cemetery in Sanaa, Yemen, on April 23, 2025, to bury victims of recent U.S. airstrikes. The mass funeral highlights the mounting civilian toll of the ongoing conflict and deepening humanitarian crisis in Yemen. Photo by Osamah Abdulrahman | AP

Robert Inlakesh is a political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker currently based in London, UK. He has reported from and lived in the occupied Palestinian territories and hosts the show 'Palestine Files'. Director of 'Steal of the Century: Trump's Palestine-Israel Catastrophe'. Follow him on Twitter @falasteen47

The post Trump's Yemen Surge: How Policy from DC Think Tanks Brought Famine Roaring Back appeared first on MintPress News.

2. What Do Congo’s Minerals and a Shadowy Prison Deal Have in Common? Erik Prince

Erik Prince, the controversial founder of Blackwater and longtime ally of Donald Trump, is mounting a major comeback. He has secured a new deal to "protect" the Democratic Republic of Congo's (DRC) lucrative mineral sector and is pitching a privatized prison complex in El Salvador that critics say echoes Guantanamo Bay.

In a letter dated Feb. 8, 2025, Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi proposed that, in exchange for U.S. military support to combat a rebel insurgency, the Democratic Republic of Congo would grant lucrative mining contracts to the United States. This proposal aligned with the Trump administration's recent initiative to establish a sovereign wealth fund aimed at investing in strategic sectors, including critical minerals."

Tshisekedi was simultaneously holding negotiations with Princ aimed at allowing his private firm to tax and "secure" the DRC's mineral wealth. Reuters recently confirmed that a deal has been reached.

While the letter did not specify the type of military support Tshisekedi was seeking, the exchange on offer would open up Congolese reserves of cobalt, lithium, copper, and tantalum—critical components in high-tech manufacturing—to U.S. firms. The proposal aligned closely with Trump's "Stargate" initiative, a $500 billion joint high-tech investment launched at the start of his new term.

On his podcast "Off Leash" earlier this year, Prince declared: "It's time for us to just put the imperial hat back on, to say, we're going to govern those countries." He added, "You can say that about pretty much all of Africa; they're incapable of governing themselves."

 

A Legacy of Violence

Prince rose to prominence during the George W. Bush administration, when his firm Blackwater became a central part of U.S. military operations in Iraq. The company was so deeply embedded that it was sometimes called the private wing of the U.S. military. Blackwater was later implicated in a CIA assassination program.

But the firm's reputation was irreparably damaged after the 2007 Nisour Square massacre, in which Blackwater personnel killed 17 Iraqi civilians. The incident stands as one of the grimmest examples of the Iraq War's failures. A federal jury found several of the mercenaries guilty of murder in 2014. Trump pardoned them in 2020.

Through the Obama years, Prince faded from public view. Tainted by Blackwater's legacy and the fallout from the Nisour Square massacre, he struggled to regain his former influence. But his alignment with Donald Trump and the Republican Party opened the door to a new round of ambitious proposals.

That resurgence was soon complicated by a fresh scandal. In 2021, Prince was accused of violating a United Nations arms embargo by aiding Libyan warlord Khalifa Haftar—a scandal that derailed his efforts to regain a foothold in Washington. A U.N. report alleges that Prince provided military support to Haftar, including weapons, aircraft, and proposals for a mercenary operation known as "Project Opus."

Despite the setback, Prince is forging ahead, emboldened by Trump's return to power. A 26-page plan he pitched to the Trump team outlines a $25 billion private deportation force capable of deporting up to 600,000 people per month.

Another recently leaked proposal reveals Prince's plans to build a mega-prison in El Salvador, partially under U.S. jurisdiction and shielded from legal oversight. Though framed as a tool for deporting undocumented immigrants, concerns grew after Trump was caught on a hot mic telling President Bukele, "The homegrowns are next."

Around the same time, the Trump administration began instructing immigration officers to flag "antisemitic" social media content as grounds for denial or removal. Civil liberties groups warn that such policies are already being used to suppress pro-Palestinian speech. Taken together, Prince's prison and Trump's crackdown suggest a terrifying possibility: that political expression—particularly criticism of Israel—could land people in offshore detention.

Former Blackwater CEO Erik Prince wants US taxpayers to fund privately run deportation camps in El Salvador.

No legal challenges, no due process, no accountability.

Hiring private companies is a key way the US evades oversight and accountability for human rights abuses. pic.twitter.com/BBuDKrkp36

— CODEPINK (@codepink) April 18, 2025

Human rights groups have already raised concerns about potential violence, overcrowding, and abuse at the proposed facility. The comparisons to Guantanamo Bay have sparked widespread alarm online, though no official announcement has indicated that the plan will move forward.

Meanwhile, the agreement with the DRC is already underway. Prince has previously voiced frustration that U.S. military intervention did not come sooner during the 1994 Rwandan genocide, when hundreds of thousands of Tutsis were massacred. That conflict ended with the fall of Rwanda's Hutu-led government and the rise of President Paul Kagame, a Tutsi.

Now, as the Tutsi-led M23 rebel group advances across eastern Congo—a movement the United Nations accuses Rwanda of supporting—Prince finds himself profiting from a crisis rooted in the very conflict he once lamented.

Feature photo | Erik Prince meets with Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa in Quito, Ecuador, on March 11, 2025. The image was shared on Noboa's official X account. Daniel Noboa | X

Robert Inlakesh is a political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker currently based in London, UK. He has reported from and lived in the occupied Palestinian territories and hosts the show 'Palestine Files'. Director of 'Steal of the Century: Trump's Palestine-Israel Catastrophe'. Follow him on Twitter @falasteen47

The post What Do Congo's Minerals and a Shadowy Prison Deal Have in Common? Erik Prince appeared first on MintPress News.

3. Facing Prison Time in Germany for Criticizing an Israeli Journalist: The Case of Hüseyin Dogru

Amid a crackdown on pro-Palestine voices in Germany, a journalist regularly attacked as a Russian operative is facing up to three years in prison for defamation of an Israel-based journalist. Hüseyin Dogru, founder of red. media, has been charged with defamation for actions relating to a spat with Nicholas Potter, a German state-funded reporter working for the Israeli outlet, The Jerusalem Post.

In December, Potter, a self-styled counter-extremism expert, published a lengthy exposé in The Jerusalem Post, claiming that red. media, MintPress News, and The Grayzone were part of a network of far-left outlets promoting extremism and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.

Worse still, he strongly insinuated that all three were promoted and funded by the governments of Russia, Syria, and Iran.

The charges are false (see MintPress' rebuttal here), and are particularly ironic, coming as they do from a journalist who is funded by the German Foreign Office. One who, amid a genocide, moved to Israel to work for an outlet headed by a former Israeli Defense Forces spokesperson.

Moreover, Potter himself arguably holds extreme views on the subject. Just weeks after attacking us for our journalism, he penned an article titled "Can Journalists Be Terrorists," which attempted to justify many of Israel's killings of Palestinian media workers.

Both red. and MintPress immediately highlighted much of this important context, and our content went viral.

 

From Viral Criticism to Criminal Charges

A sticker about Potter, based on a red. media graphic, was spotted in Berlin. The sticker took the outlet's criticism of him, and plastered the phrase, "The German Hurensohn" — "The German Son of a Bitch" —  over the top. That sticker is the centerpiece of the prosecution's allegation of a coordinated "hate campaign" against Potter led by red. media. Potter claims that he has suffered harassment and threats to his life, and some have tried to link this back to red. media's graphic.

The accusations provoked a storm of articles in German media, all supportive of Potter. Many echoed U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken's claims that red. media is a Russian government-controlled influence operation.

Dogru denies these allegations, although he was previously a key part of Red Fish, a platform financed by Ruptly, a Germany-based outlet partially funded by the Russian state-controlled network, RT. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Dogru closed Red Fish and started his own independent outlet. He insists it has no connection to Russia and is dedicated to making revolutionary and educational content. He also denies having any information or involvement in producing anti-Potter stickers.

 

Germany Criminalized Palestinian Solidarity

Potter's support for Israeli policies has certainly drawn the ire of many in the pro-Palestine movement in Germany. Yet he is far from alone. The German government has offered its full support to Israel and has gone so far as to ban pro-Palestine demonstrations and lock up countless activists, including Jewish people. The phrase "From the River to the Sea" has effectively been criminalized, with Berlin announcing that it would deny citizenship to anyone using it. New German citizenship laws require all applicants to sign what is, in effect, a loyalty oath to the State of Israel, declaring that it has a "right to exist."

Berlin is currently deporting foreign residents for their participation in lawful protests supporting Palestinian rights. Dogru worries about his family's safety as well:

Given that the German government is becoming increasingly repressive—especially in its treatment of pro-Palestinian activists, some of whom are facing deportation or threats thereof—we're concerned that similar measures could be used against us in the future, particularly against my wife and child."

Commentators have warned that, with these actions, Germany is lurching towards the authoritarian right. With the far-right AfD Party surging in the polls (a recent survey found they are now the most popular party in Germany), many inside the country are ringing the alarm bells.

"For decades, Germany has stuck with Israel and its narratives in the Middle East," Dogru told MintPress, adding: "Since October 7, we see that the German government is violently repressing activists to make sure there are no voices in Germany critical of Israel. Activists here have paid a high price to make sure that they can protest."

According to Dogru, this is a test case. Ultimately, the suppression of speech is not about Israel, but an attack on its own society.

Germany is preparing to assert itself as a leading military and political force in NATO and the EU. To do that, it must eliminate resistance — not just abroad, but at home. This isn't driven by historical guilt or solidarity. It's about silencing dissent and disciplining society. By targeting the most marginalized, the German state is disciplining its population — silencing opposition before it grows."

The message from the German government is clear, Dogru claims: "fall in line, or be crushed."

Editor's note | This article was updated after publication. A reference to "Dogru's graphic" was changed to "red. media's graphic" to accurately reflect the source. Additionally, a quote was revised to better represent Dogru's concerns about potential deportation.

Feature photo | Illustration by MintPress News

Alan MacLeod is Senior Staff Writer for MintPress News. After completing his PhD in 2017 he published two books: Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting and Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent, as well as a number of academic articles. He has also contributed to FAIR.org, The Guardian, Salon, The Grayzone, Jacobin Magazine, and Common Dreams.

The post Facing Prison Time in Germany for Criticizing an Israeli Journalist: The Case of Hüseyin Dogru appeared first on MintPress News.

4. Wiz Acquisition Puts Israeli Intelligence In Charge of Your Google Data

Google recently announced it would acquire Israeli-American cloud security firm Wiz for $32 billion. The price tag — 65 times Wiz's annual revenue — has raised eyebrows and further solidified the close relationship between Google and the Israeli military.

In its press release, the Silicon Valley giant claimed that the purchase will "vastly improve how security is designed, operated and automated—providing an end-to-end security platform for customers, of all types and sizes, in the AI era."

Yet it has also raised fears about the security of user data, particularly of those who oppose Israeli actions against its neighbors, given Unit 8200's long history of using tech to spy on opponents, gather intelligence, and use that knowledge for extortion and blackmail.

 

Israel's Global Spy Network

Wiz was established only five years ago, and all four co-founders — Yinon Costica, Assaf Rappaport, Ami Luttwak, and Roy Reznik — were leaders in Israel's elite military intelligence unit, Unit 8200. Like many Israeli tech companies, Wiz is a direct outgrowth of the military intelligence outfit. A recent study found that almost fifty of its current employees are Unit 8200 veterans.

"That experience showed me the impact you can make when you combine great talent with amazing technology," Rappaport said of his time in the military.

Former Unit 8200 agents, working hand-in-glove with the Israeli national security state, have gone on to produce many of the world's most infamous malware and hacking tools.

Perhaps the most well-known of these is Pegasus, spyware used by governments around the world to surveil and harass political opponents. These include India, Kazakhstan, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia, the latter of which used the tool to spy on Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi before he was assassinated by Saudi agents in Türkiye.

In total, more than 50,000 journalists, human rights defenders, diplomats, business leaders and politicians are known to have been secretly surveilled. That includes heads of state such as French President Emmanuel Macron, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan and Iraqi President Barham Salih. All Pegasus sales had to be approved by the Israeli government, which reportedly had access to the data Pegasus' foreign customers were accruing.

Unit 8200 also spies on Americans. Whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed that the National Security Agency regularly shared the data and communications of U.S. citizens with the Israeli intelligence group. "I think that's amazing…It's one of the biggest abuses we've seen," he said.

For the Israeli government, the utility of these private spying firms filled with former IDF intelligence figures is that it allows it some measure of plausible deniability when confronted with spying attacks. As Haaretz explained: "Who owns [these spying companies] isn't clear, but their employees aren't soldiers. Consequently, they may solve the army's problem, even if the solution they provide is imperfect."

Today, former Unit 8200 agents not only create much of the world's spyware, but also the security features that claim to protect against unwanted surveillance. A MintPress investigation found that three of the six largest VPN companies in the world are owned and controlled by an Israeli company co-founded by a Unit 8200 veteran.

 

How Unit 8200 Controls Palestinians

It is in Palestine, however, that Unit 8200 has been most active. The unit serves as the centerpiece of Israel's hi-tech repressive state apparatus. Using gigantic amounts of data compiled on Palestinians by tracking their every move through facial recognition cameras, monitoring their calls, messages, emails and personal data, Unit 8200 has created a digital dragnet that it uses to snoop on, harass, and suppress Palestinians.

It compiles dossiers on virtually every Gaza resident, including their medical history, sex lives, and search histories, so that this information can be used for extortion or blackmail later. If, for example, an individual is cheating on their spouse, desperately needs a medical operation, or is secretly homosexual, this can be used as leverage to turn civilians into informants and spies for Israel.

One former Unit 8200 operative said that as part of his training, he was assigned to memorize different Arabic words for "gay" so that he could listen for them in phone conversations he was eavesdropping on.

Unit 8200 is also reportedly behind the even more controversial Project Lavender, a giant, AI-generated kill list of tens of thousands of Gazans that the IDF uses to target the densely populated strip's civilian population.

Every Gazan (including children) is assigned a score of 1-100, based on their perceived proximity to Hamas. A wide range of characteristics will increase an individual's score, including living or working in the same building or being in a WhatsApp group with a known or suspected Hamas member.

If a person's number reaches a certain threshold, they are automatically added to a Unit 8200 kill list. This, one IDF commander explained, solved Israel's perennial targeting "human bottleneck," allowing them to carry out tens of thousands of strikes into Gaza during the first few weeks of the post-October 7 attack alone.

Unit 8200 is also widely reported to have carried out the Lebanon Pager Attack, exploding thousands of electronic devices at the same time, killing dozens and injuring thousands more. The operation was widely described, even by former CIA director Leon Panetta, as an act of terrorism.

This long history of violence, skulduggery, and spying raises troubling questions about whether a corporation founded and staffed by dozens of individuals from such an organization can be trusted with billions of users' private and personal data.

 

Google's Ties to Israeli Intelligence

Google's purchase of Wiz deepens its already close ties to Unit 8200. In 2013, the tech giant acquired Waze, an online maps service founded by three Unit 8200 veterans, for $1.3 billion. It has also directly hired dozens of former spooks and spies to fill its ranks; a 2022 MintPress News investigation found at least 99 former Unit 8200 agents working at the Silicon Valley behemoth.

Among these figures is Gavriel Goidel, Head of Strategy and Operations for Google Research. Goidel joined Google in 2022 after a six-year career in military intelligence, during which he rose to become Head of Learning at Unit 8200. There, he led a large team of operatives who sifted through intelligence data to "understand patterns of hostile activists," according to his own account.

Google is far from an outlier when it comes to hiring former Israeli spies to carry out its operations. Facebook, Microsoft, and Amazon have all hired a significant number of ex-Unit 8200 agents. Even TikTok, supposedly a hotbed of anti-Semitism, employs a considerable number of ex-spooks. Perhaps most surprisingly, a number of top U.S. media outlets, including CNN and Axios, have recruited former Unit 8200 spies and analysts to write and produce America's news about the Middle East.

Google has invested heavily in Israel, first opening offices there in 2006. Longtime CEO Eric Schmidt is known to be a vocal supporter of the controversial state. In a 2012 meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he declared that "the decision to invest in Israel was one of the best that Google has ever made."

But the Wiz deal is undoubtedly the company's biggest Israeli investment yet. The all-cash acquisition represents a massive injection of money into Israel's flailing and war-weary economy, equivalent to 0.6% of the country's GDP. The money, the Israeli press excitedly reports, will allow the government to continue without enacting major austerity measures, reduce the nation's deficit, and enable Israel to continue on a wartime footing for longer. As such, it represents a move critics say amounts to a financial intervention on behalf of Israel. Moreover, it also sends a message to the rest of the business world to invest in the country, boosting investor sentiment at a time when it is most needed.

The size of the deal also surprised many. The price is similar to that of the sale of JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo in 2008, Visa Europe in 2017, and Twitter in 2022. Yet Wiz is a new and relatively unknown company, raising questions about its valuation.

Ultimately, though, these considerations are secondary to the main issue that such a group will now be charged with providing security for the data of billions of users worldwide. Given Unit 8200's role in monitoring and targeting the Palestinian population, many will be wondering if, going forward, Google products are at all safe to use.

Feature photo | Illustration by MintPress News

Alan MacLeod is Senior Staff Writer for MintPress News. After completing his PhD in 2017 he published two books: Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting and Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent, as well as a number of academic articles. He has also contributed to FAIR.org, The Guardian, Salon, The Grayzone, Jacobin Magazine, and Common Dreams.

The post Wiz Acquisition Puts Israeli Intelligence In Charge of Your Google Data appeared first on MintPress News.

5. Before Trump Bombed Yemen, Biden Displaced Over Half a Million People—And No One Said a Word

In 2024, while all eyes were on Gaza, President Joe Biden launched a bombing campaign in Yemen that displaced more than 531,000 people. Nearly 40,000 were driven from their homes by U.S. bombs alone.

It was called Operation Prosperity Guardian, and you probably never heard of it.

There was no congressional vote. No White House press conference. And yet by the end of the year, U.S. warplanes had hit schools, mosques, farms, ports, and fuel trucks across Yemen, causing a humanitarian collapse that rivaled the worst years of the Saudi-led war.

Two reports issued by Yemen's National Team for Foreign Outreach (NTFG), reviewed by MintPress News, have revealed staggering statistics about the impacts of Biden's final military campaign against the war-torn Arab nation.

President Biden, in his first foreign policy speech in 2021, declared that ending the "catastrophic" war in Yemen would be a top priority. By then, the U.S.-backed war, primarily carried out by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, had already claimed nearly 400,000 lives since its 2015 launch under Barack Obama's administration.

In October 2023, the Ansar Allah-led government in Sana'a began intervening in the Gaza war, following Israel's bombing campaign that killed thousands of Palestinian civilians. After launching missiles, the group imposed a blockade in the Red Sea on Israeli-linked ships. Rather than pursuing negotiations, the White House responded by deepening its military intervention in support of Israel.

This is peak American foreign policy… When asked if the strikes on Yemen are working Biden replies: "When you say working, are they stopping the Houthis? No. Are they going to continue? Yes."

Literally saying "bombing these folks is useless, but we'll keep doing it". pic.twitter.com/otzJC6hzpS

— Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand) January 19, 2024

In December 2023, then–Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced the launch of a multinational naval mission called Operation Prosperity Guardian. Under this campaign, the Biden administration initiated airstrikes on Ansar Allah in Yemen without congressional approval or popular mandate.

According to the first NTFG report, the U.S.-led operation, alongside subsequent Israeli airstrikes, worsened Yemen's humanitarian crisis, increasing the number of civilians in need of urgent aid from 18.2 million to 19.5 million in 2024 alone. In other words, the U.S.-taxpayer-funded war effort pushed 1.3 million additional people into poverty last year.

The report also noted that U.N. officials "warned of the U.S., U.K., and Israeli attempts to disrupt Sana'a International Airport and the ports of Hodeidah to obstruct and suspend international humanitarian aid to Yemen, especially since these vital facilities are crucial humanitarian sites."

That warning highlights what appears to be the intentional collective punishment of the Yemeni people. Nearly 80% of the country's food is imported.

Sites damaged or destroyed in December 2024 included:

• 23 commercial facilities
• Eight petrol stations
• Two tourist facilities
• Six schools
• Six mosques
• 45 roads and bridges
• Six water tanks and networks
• Five seaports
• Four farms
• 13 food trucks
• Four fuel trucks
• 37 agricultural fields

The second NTFG report focused on internal displacement and humanitarian fallout. According to U.N. statistics cited in the report, 531,000 people were internally displaced in Yemen during 2024, with at least 38,129 of them forcibly displaced directly by military attacks.

In the final month of Biden's presidency, the U.S. and its allies targeted an alarming number of civilian sites. The report states:

Airstrikes targeted power stations in the Capital Secretariat (Sana'a) and Hodeidah, setting fire to critical equipment necessary for electricity production and leaving civilians without power. In addition to crippling Yemen's electricity supply, the U.S.-U.K.-Zionist coalition launched attacks on key Red Sea ports in Hodeidah, including Al-Salif Port, Hodeidah Port, and Ras Issa Port. These strikes resulted in multiple deaths and injuries among port workers, disrupting vital trade and humanitarian supply lines."

Though the Trump administration has intensified the war since taking office, the U.S. military campaign in Yemen now spans more than a decade. Indeed, until Israel's assault on Gaza, it was widely considered the world's worst man-made humanitarian catastrophe.

While under Biden, Ansar Allah was designated a "Specially Designated Global Terrorist" organization. The Trump administration has since replaced that label with the more severe "Foreign Terrorist Organization" designation. The new classification drastically impairs the ability of humanitarian groups to deliver aid, effectively criminalizing relief work in large swaths of northern Yemen.

Feature photo | Locals inspect a building destroyed by U.S. airstrikes overnight in Sana'a, Yemen, March 20, 2025. Photo | AP

Robert Inlakesh is a political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker currently based in London, UK. He has reported from and lived in the occupied Palestinian territories and hosts the show 'Palestine Files'. Director of 'Steal of the Century: Trump's Palestine-Israel Catastrophe'. Follow him on Twitter @falasteen47

The post Before Trump Bombed Yemen, Biden Displaced Over Half a Million People—And No One Said a Word appeared first on MintPress News.

6. Iran’s Military Presence in Sudan: UAE-Israel Plot Backfires

The United Arab Emirates and Israel had hoped to extract strategic victories in Sudan, taking advantage of the fall of the nation's former dictator and the descent into civil war. But newly released satellite images suggest that Tehran's renewed ties with the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) may be unraveling those ambitions.

Satellite images, initially reported by Russian state broadcaster RT, reveal an extensive underground tunnel complex under Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) control, allegedly constructed with assistance from Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The facility, featuring 12 fortified entrances, is situated within mountainous terrain and mirrors Iranian missile bases designed to withstand aerial bombardments. This has heightened concerns in Tel Aviv and Abu Dhabi regarding Iran's expanding influence in Sudan.​

Hebrew sources: A huge underground tunnel complex in Sudan, presumably built by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, is located at 16.251586° 32.646261°

The underground base has 12 different entrances. It is located deep underground and is heavily fortified, modeled… pic.twitter.com/jAUPQeu61l

— Middle East Observer (@ME_Observer_) April 12, 2025

Following al-Bashir's removal in April 2019 via a military coup spurred by widespread popular protests, regional actors, notably the UAE and Israel, moved swiftly to take advantage of a nation undergoing a tumultuous political transformation.

Despite diplomatic efforts to prevent open conflict, Sudan slid into civil war. The SAF, led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, faced off against the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a powerful paramilitary faction rooted in the notorious Janjaweed militias that once fought on behalf of Bashir's regime. The RSF is led by billionaire warlord Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as Hemedti.

The UAE threw its weight behind Hemedti and the RSF—despite their well-documented war crimes—as part of Abu Dhabi's broader push for influence in the Horn of Africa. The UAE's support was so extensive that Hemedti's official Facebook page was reportedly operated from inside the Emirates.

Israel, meanwhile, had worked closely with the Trump administration during his first term to pressure Sudan into normalizing ties with Tel Aviv. In exchange, Washington offered to remove Sudan from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, forgive debts and lift sanctions.

While normalization talks progressed, Israel deepened its political and intelligence footprint in Sudan. Hemedti signed a $6 million contract with a Canadian lobbying firm founded by ex-Israeli intelligence operative Ari Ben-Menashe. The RSF, in turn, positioned itself as an opponent of "radical Islamists" and openly advocated for normalization with Israel.

When the civil war erupted in 2023, Israel moved quickly to cast itself as a potential mediator—citing ties to both sides. The Israeli Foreign Ministry expressed early support for Gen. al-Burhan and the SAF. But in reality, the Mossad was said to favor Hemedti's RSF and reportedly maintained close contact with him in Khartoum.

A 2022 investigative report by Haaretz alleged that "high-end surveillance technology, made in the European Union, with the potential to tip the balance of power in Sudan," had been delivered to the RSF by private jet. The Predator spyware reportedly originated from the Intellexa consortium, whose parent company Cytrox was founded by former Israeli intelligence officer Tal Dilian.

According to Israel Hayom, the country's most-read daily news outlet, Sudan was seen as Israel's strategic gateway to Africa—and a possible solution to its domestic dilemma push to deport some 150,000 African asylum seekers. Israel and the UAE also occupy Yemen's strategic Socotra Island, indicative of a joint agenda in the region.

Despite Tehran's close ties with Khartoum in the 1990s, the Islamic Republic was slowly pushed out of the North-East African nation, leading to a mutual severing of ties in 2016. However, the civil war appears to have breathed new life into Iranian-Sudanese relations.

In early 2023, a normalization deal between Sudan and Israel was said to be imminent. But by July 2024, Iran had officially reestablished ties with the SAF—the internationally recognized government—following calls for urgent military support from General al-Burhan, whose forces appeared to be losing the war. By October, the SAF had managed to turn the tide by capturing strategically significant routes and mountain ranges.

In September 2024, the Brussels International Center argued that Iran's delivery of Mohajer-6 and Ababil drones may have changed the course of the war and could deeply affect Israeli-Sudanese relations. The report also noted that the SAF's rhetoric had taken a sharply anti-Israel turn since the outbreak of Israel's war on Gaza. Iran's increasing engagement, it said, "could diversify Iranian security partnerships and promote its 'drone diplomacy.'"

By December, the conservative U.S.-based Jamestown Foundation reported that Iran was aiming to establish a naval base in Sudan and claimed that its drone deliveries to the SAF had already shifted the balance in key battles.

In February, Sudanese Foreign Minister Ali Yusuf and his Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi announced an agreement to boost trade, step up diplomatic coordination and involve Iran in post-war reconstruction efforts. In response, Israeli officials began expressing their concerns to local media.

Chief among Israel's fears is that Sudan may again become a hub for weapons transfers by Iran's IRGC to groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. In the past, Sudan had served as a corridor for arms transfers to Palestinian militants. As recently as December 2023, Israel was reported to have carried out a failed intelligence operation to locate a former Sudanese general accused of supplying weapons to Hamas.

Following the release of satellite images showing a fortified underground base, new aerial footage surfaced suggesting that Sudan is operating Iranian "Malta AI Fajr-1" VHF radar systems along its Red Sea coast. If confirmed, these developments point to a broader regional realignment—one where Iran, even as it loses ground in Syria, continues building alliances at Israel's expense.

After the discovery of IRGC underground bases in Sudan, new footage shows that Iran has set up 'Matla Al Fajr-1' radars near Sudan's Red Sea coast.

These radars can detect aircraft up to 300 kms away at altitudevof up to 20 kms and can track around 100 targets at the same time. pic.twitter.com/f3qgVnJGe6

— Current Report (@Currentreport1) April 12, 2025

Feature photo  | Iranian military personnel are shown in an fortified underground base next to a domestically designed drone in Iran. Photo | Iranian Military Press Office

Robert Inlakesh is a political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker currently based in London, UK. He has reported from and lived in the occupied Palestinian territories and hosts the show 'Palestine Files'. Director of 'Steal of the Century: Trump's Palestine-Israel Catastrophe'. Follow him on Twitter @falasteen47

The post Iran's Military Presence in Sudan: UAE-Israel Plot Backfires appeared first on MintPress News.

7. Chris Hedges: Israel is About to Empty Gaza

Washington — (Scheerpost) — Israel is poised to carry out the largest campaign of ethnic cleansing since the end of World War II. Since March 2, it has blocked all food and humanitarian aid into Gaza and cut off electricity, so that the last water desalination plant no longer functions. The Israeli military has seized half of the territory — Gaza is 25 miles long and four to five miles wide — and placed two-thirds of Gaza under displacement orders, rendered "no-go zones," including the border town of Rafah, which is encircled by Israeli troops.

On Friday Defence Minister Israel Katz announced that Israel will "intensify" the war against Hamas and use "all military and civilian pressure, including evacuation of the Gaza population south and implementing United States President [Donald] Trump's voluntary migration plan for Gaza residents."

Since Israel's unilateral ending of the ceasefire on March 18 — which was never honored by Israel — Israel has been carrying out relentless bombing and shelling against civilians, killing over 1,400 Palestinians and wounding over 3,600, according to the Palestinian health ministry. An average of one hundred children are being killed daily according to the United Nations. Israel is, at the same time, inciting tensions with Egypt to lay what I suspect will be the groundwork for a mass expulsion of Palestinians into the Egyptian Sinai.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, echoing Katz, said Israel would not lift the total blockade until Hamas was "defeated" and the remaining 59 Israeli hostages were released.

"Not even a grain of wheat will enter Gaza," he vowed.

But no one in Israel or Gaza expects Hamas, which has weathered the decimation of Gaza and sustained mass slaughter, to surrender or disappear.

The question no longer is will the Palestinians be deported from Gaza but when they will be pushed out and where they will go. The Israeli leadership is apparently torn between driving Palestinians over the border into Egypt or shipping them to countries in Africa. The U.S. and Israel have contacted three East African governments – Sudan, Somalia and the breakaway region of Somalia known as Somaliland – to discuss the resettlement of ethnically cleansed Palestinians.

The consequences of wholesale ethnic cleansing will be catastrophic, jeopardizing the stability of the Arab regimes allied with Washington and setting off firestorms of protests within Arab countries. It will likely mean the severing of diplomatic relations between Israel and its neighbors Jordan and Egypt, already close to the breaking point, and push the region closer to war.

Diplomatic relations have fallen to their lowest point since the signing of the Camp David Accords in 1979. The Israeli embassies in Cairo and Amman are largely empty with Israeli staff withdrawn over security concerns following the Oct. 7 incursion into Israel by Hamas and other armed Palestinian factions. Egypt has refused to accept the credentials of Uri Rothman, who was appointed to be the Israeli ambassador last September. Egypt did not name a new ambassador to Israel when former ambassador, Khaled Azmi, was recalled last year.

Israeli officials are accusing Egypt of violating the Camp David accords by increasing its military presence and building new military installations in the Northern Sinai, charges Egypt says are fabricated. The peace treaty's annex permits additional Egyptian military hardware in the Sinai.

Former Israeli chief of the general staff, Herzi Halevi, warned of what he calls Egypt's "security threat." Katz said that Israel would not allow Egypt to "violate the peace treaty" between the two countries signed in 1979.

Egyptian officials note that it is Israel that has violated the treaty by occupying the Philadelphi Corridor, also known as the Salahuddin Axis, which runs along the nine mile border between Gaza and Egypt and is supposed to be demilitarized.

"Every Israeli action along Gaza's border with Egypt constitutes hostile behavior against Egypt's national security," Egyptian General Mohammed Rashad, a former military intelligence chief, told the Arabic language newspaper, Asharq Al-Awsat. "Egypt cannot sit idly by in the face of such threats and must prepare for all possible scenarios."

Israeli officials are openly calling for the "voluntary transfer" of Palestinians to Egypt. Knesset member, Avigdor Lieberman, stated that "displacing most Palestinians from Gaza to the Egyptian Sinai is a practical and effective solution." He contrasted the high population density — Gaza is one of the most densely populated places on the planet — with the vast "untapped lands" in the Egyptian Northern Sinai and noted that Palestinians share a common culture and language with Egypt, making any deportation "natural." He also criticized Egypt because it allegedly "benefits economically from the current political situation," as a mediator between Israel and Hamas and "reaps profits from smuggling operations through the tunnels and the Rafah crossing."

The Israeli think tank Misgav Institute for National Security, staffed by former Israeli military and security officials, published a paper on Oct. 17, 2023, calling on the government to take advantage of the "unique and rare opportunity to evacuate the entire Gaza Strip," and resettle Palestinians in Cairo with the assistance of the Egyptian government. A leaked document from the Israeli Intelligence Ministry proposed resettling Palestinians from Gaza to the Northern Sinai and constructing barriers and buffer zones to prevent their return.

Any expulsion would likely happen swiftly with Israeli forces, which are already mercilessly herding Palestinians into containment areas in Gaza, carrying out a sustained bombing campaign against the trapped Palestinians while creating porous evacuation portals along the border with Egypt. It would entail a potentially lethal standoff with the Egyptian military, instantly throwing the Egyptian regime of Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, who has described any ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians in Gaza as a "red line," into crisis. It would be a short step from there to a regional conflict.

Israel has seized territory in Syria and southern Lebanon, part of its vision of "Greater Israel," which includes occupying land in Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. It covets the maritime gas fields off Gaza's coast and has floated plans for a new canal to bypass the Suez Canal, to connect Israel's bankrupt Eilat Port on the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. These projects require emptying Gaza of Palestinians and populating it with Jewish colonists.

The anger on the Arab street — an anger I witnessed over the past few months during visits to Egypt, Jordan, the West Bank and Qatar — will explode in a justifiable fury if mass deportation takes place. These regimes, simply to hold on to power, will be forced to act. Terrorist attacks, whether by organized groups or lone wolves, will proliferate against Israeli and western targets, especially the United States.

The genocide is a recruitment dream for Islamic militants. Washington and Israel must, on some level, understand the cost of this savagery. But it appears as though they accept it, foolishly trying to obliterate those they have cast out of the community of nations, those they refer to as "human animals."

What do Israel and Washington believe will happen when the Palestinians are expelled from a land they have lived in for centuries? How do they think a people who are desperate, deprived of hope, dignity and a way to make a living, who are being butchered by one of the most technologically advanced armies on the planet, will respond? Do they think creating a Danteesque hell for the Palestinians will blunt terrorism, curb suicide attacks and foster peace? Can they not grasp the rage rippling through the Middle East and how it will implant a hatred towards us that will endure for decades?

The genocide in Gaza is the greatest crime of this century. It will come back to haunt Israel. It will come back to haunt us. It will usher to our doorsteps the evil we have perpetrated on the Palestinians.

You reap what you sow. We have sown a minefield of hatred and violence.

Feature photo | Illustration by Mr. Fish | ScheerPost

Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for fifteen years for The New York Times, where he served as the Middle East Bureau Chief and Balkan Bureau Chief for the paper. He previously worked overseas for The Dallas Morning News, The Christian Science Monitor, and NPR. He is the host of show The Chris Hedges Report.

The post Chris Hedges: Israel is About to Empty Gaza appeared first on MintPress News.

8. US Has No Real Targets in Yemen, and It’s Costing Taxpayers Billions

Just three weeks into U.S. President Donald Trump's air campaign against Yemen, reports emerged that the operation was nearing $1 billion in costs—a figure likely underestimated. More striking, however, is the volume of civilian infrastructure hit, indicating a lack of military targets.

The U.S. has killed at least 130 civilians in Yemen since launching its offensive in mid-March, including massacres in residential areas that left hundreds more injured. Despite Trump's claim—just two weeks in—that Ansar Allah had already been "decimated," airstrikes have continued for over a month with no tangible progress.

Frustration has bubbled to the surface. Trump administration officials, speaking anonymously to corporate media, have voiced concerns. Three sources briefed on "Operation Rough Rider" told CNN that nearly $1 billion had been spent in under three weeks on airstrikes, including costly B-2 stealth bomber deployments—with minimal results.

We just went to the place where the US bombed a Residential building last night in Sana'a Yemen killing 5 civilians and injuring 15 others. This is totally against International Law, it's Barbarian, it's Terrorism. Will any European State condemn this US Terrorism..? pic.twitter.com/CDMnpljVeo

— Mick Wallace (@wallacemick) March 24, 2025

The recent deployment of nuclear-capable B-2 bombers to the U.S. military base in Diego Garcia was perceived as a major threat to Yemen. Yet, in October 2024, American B-2 bombers failed to destroy an Ansar Allah military facility.

Pentagon officials have also warned that the campaign risks depleting weapons stockpiles meant to deter China. They reported that hundreds of millions of dollars in high-tech munitions are being rapidly burned through with "limited success."

Meanwhile, Yemen's Ansar Allah-led government continues to engage U.S. warships and vows to escalate in defense of Gaza. Since Sana'a imposed a blockade on the Red Sea in November 2023—effectively halting Israeli shipping for 16 months—U.S., Israeli, and British airstrikes have inflicted at least 964 civilian casualties across Yemen.

Washington claims the Ansar Allah leadership has suffered heavy losses, asserting that numerous senior figures have been assassinated—though no list of names has been provided to substantiate the claims. Instead, the U.S. is escalating its bombardment of densely populated areas, including a water facility in Hodeidah, which cut off access to clean water for 50,000 villagers.

Despite the mounting civilian toll, pro-Israel Washington-based think tanks continue to justify the campaign. The Atlantic Council recently published a piece dismissing claims that Iran had abandoned Ansar Allah—asserting it was a ruse to stall Trump's offensive—despite the fact that Ansar Allah has never publicly pushed such a narrative.

In a Truth Social post, Trump published video of an airstrike on a tribal gathering in a Yemeni village, boasting it was a leadership meeting. In doing so, he appeared to confirm for the first time that a U.S. vessel had been sunk by Ansar Allah.

This isn't the first time Trump officials have glorified deadly strikes. An airstrike that killed a newborn baby was described as "excellent" by Vice President J.D. Vance in a leaked Signal group chat reported by The Atlantic.

With no congressional mandate, little legal justification, and costs exceeding $1 billion, the war in Yemen remains unpopular and strategically unclear. Israel's own strikes on Yemen—often targeting civilian infrastructure such as gas stations and Hodeidah Port—offer a grim precedent.

U.S. officials have attempted to frame their military campaign as a defense of international shipping. Yet Yemen's actions in the Red Sea have targeted Israel specifically, while neutral nations continue to navigate freely. Trump's full-scale assault now threatens to eclipse the Biden administration's own Yemen campaign, which cost taxpayers roughly $600 million per month.

Feature photo | A Yemeni walks over the debris of a building destroyed in US airstrikes in Sanaa, Yemen, March 24, 2025. Photo | AP

Robert Inlakesh is a political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker currently based in London, UK. He has reported from and lived in the occupied Palestinian territories and hosts the show 'Palestine Files'. Director of 'Steal of the Century: Trump's Palestine-Israel Catastrophe'. Follow him on Twitter @falasteen47

The post US Has No Real Targets in Yemen, and It's Costing Taxpayers Billions appeared first on MintPress News.

9. With Yemen Attack, US Continues Long History of Deliberately Bombing Hospitals

In repeatedly targeting and destroying a cancer center in Yemen, the United States has carried on a long pattern of bombing hospitals.

On March 24, the United States carried out a premeditated attack on the Al Rasool Al-Azam Oncology Hospital in Saada, Yemen, turning it into rubble. At least two people were killed and 13 more injured.

This was not an isolated incident. Eight days previously, on March 16, Washington launched 13 separate airstrikes against the building, systematically destroying the hospital's five blocks.

The Anti-Cancer Fund, a local government medical organization, described the events as a clear "war crime."

"These attacks are not just airstrikes, but systematic executions, intended to eliminate hope and wipe out life amid a suffocating blockade," it said in a statement.

The Yemeni Cancer Control Fund, a government body tasked with overseeing the country's healthcare system, agreed, alleging that they were part of what it called:

A systematic American policy that has targeted the Yemeni people for years through bombings and a suffocating blockade, exacerbating the humanitarian crisis and spreading deadly diseases, including cancer, which has surged due to the use of internationally banned weapons since 2015."

The newly built Al Rasool Al-Azam Hospital was the centerpiece of the region's healthcare network. Costing over $7.5 million, the center provided crucial treatment to hundreds of cancer patients who previously went without any care at all or faced an eight-and-a-half-hour round trip to the capital, Sanaa, for therapy.

The repeated strikes on healthcare facilities in Yemen have received virtually zero attention in the United States. Indeed, Washington's attacks on Yemen have elicited almost no critical coverage, with corporate media seemingly more outraged that senior Trump officials used a Signal group chat to plan their operations than those deeds leading to the deaths of dozens of civilians.

The United States returned to bombing Yemen because its government, in an effort to halt the Israeli assault on Gaza, stopped Israeli ships traveling through the Red Sea. And like Palestine, Yemen is under an international blockade, depriving its people of basic necessities.

 

Post-9/11 Hospital Attacks

The destruction of the Al Rasool Al-Azam Oncology Center was far from a unique occurrence. In fact, the attack carries on an extremely long and well-documented tradition of the United States targeting hospitals.

In August 2017, the Trump administration itself not only bombed a hospital in Raqqa, Syria but reportedly used white phosphorous munitions to do so. Officials from the Red Crescent reported that the U.S. carried out 20 separate attacks on the hospital, systematically targeting its power generators, vehicles and wards, turning the site into rubble. At least 30 civilians were killed, some likely due to the effects of the white phosphorous, which causes respiratory damage and organ failure.

A highly controversial and widely-banned weapon, white phosphorous instantly ignites upon contact with oxygen, sticks to clothes and skin, and burns at an extremely high temperature. It cannot be extinguished by water, leaving those affected to suffer excruciating – and deadly – injuries.

In 2015, the U.S. Air Force carried out a bombing campaign against a Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan. The trauma center, one of the newest, largest, and most recognizable buildings in the city, was deliberately targeted; Doctors Without Borders had already supplied the military with its precise coordinates.

An internal inquiry revealed that the airmen aboard the AC-130 gunship that carried out the operation pushed back against their superiors, questioning the strike's legality. However, they were overruled and ordered to bomb the hospital regardless of their concerns. A Doctors Without Borders report concluded that the U.S. knew where the hospital was and that it did not hide any Taliban fighters and targeted it anyway. At least 42 people are known to have been killed in the incident.

The 2015 Kunduz bombing was a unique moment in history, as it was the first time that one Nobel Peace Prize winner (Barack Obama) bombed another one (Doctors Without Borders).

During his time in office, Obama bombed seven countries, including Libya. In July 2011, as part of its mission to overthrow the government of Muammar Gaddafi, NATO planes bombed Zliten, destroying the city's hospital. Eighty-five people were killed, including at least 11 at the medical center. The event helped turn what was once Africa's most prosperous and stable country into a failed state replete with open-air slave markets. Libya's downfall has, in turn, helped to destabilize the entire Sahel region.

Perhaps no country in the 21st century has felt the wrath of Washington as much as Iraq. U.S. strikes on civilian infrastructure were a frequent occurrence, and hospitals were no different. Arguably, the most notable example is the April 2003 bombing of the Red Crescent Maternity Hospital in Baghdad.

American missiles struck the city center complex housing the hospital, killing several and wounding at least 25 people, including doctors.

The charitable hospital was crucial to providing affordable healthcare to working-class Iraqis, charging ten times less than the city's private clinics. It developed a reputation as a first-class maternity hospital, delivering an average of 35 babies per day before the invasion. UNICEF noted a sharp rise in maternal mortality after the bombing, partially due to the lack of obstetric care in Baghdad.

 

Clinton's War on Hospitals

Four years earlier, in May 1999, U.S.-led NATO planes dropped cluster munitions on an outdoor market and hospital in the Yugoslav city of Nis, killing at least 15 people and injuring 60 more, according to the hospital's director. Cluster munitions are now banned under international law. Regardless, between 2023 and 2024, the United States transferred large quantities to Ukraine for use against Russian forces.

Two weeks after the Nis bombing, NATO targeted a hospital in the Yugoslav capital, Belgrade. The missile strike destroyed much of the maternity ward, with rescuers pulling infants and mothers from the rubble in the dead of night. At least three people were reported killed.

The Yugoslav attacks were not the Clinton administration's only attacks on medical facilities. In 1998, in response to Osama bin Laden's recent bombings of American Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, President Bill Clinton ordered an attack on the Al-Shifa medicine factory in Sudan. Fourteen cruise missiles hit the plant, turning what had been the largest producer of medicine in the country into a pile of twisted metal. The factory had produced over half of Sudan's pharmaceuticals, including crucial antibiotics and antimalarial and diarrhea medications.

While not a hospital, the destruction of Al-Shifa was vastly more lethal than any other attack listed. The event led to a collapse in the availability of drugs in one of Africa's poorest countries. The German Ambassador to Sudan estimated that the death toll reached into the "tens of thousands."

The Clinton administration publicly insisted that the plant was actually bin Laden's chemical weapons factory. Privately, however, Secretary of State Madeline Albright worked hard to suppress a government report, noting this was not true.

Sudan was Clinton's second attack on Africa. In June 1993, U.S. soldiers (under U.N. auspices) carried out a mortar attack against Digfer Hospital in Mogadishu, Somalia. The bombs destroyed the main reception area, blew a gaping hole in the wall of the recovery room, and shattered glass across the building. "It probably will never be known how many Somalis died in the U.N. [U.S.] onslaught," wrote The Chicago Tribune. One reason for this is that helicopter-borne soldiers attacked reporters and photographers attempting to cover the attack, throwing stun grenades at them and chasing them away from the scene.

 

Latin American Dirty Wars

During the 1980s, Latin America and the Caribbean were the sites of intense U.S. interest. In October 1983, during the U.S. invasion of the island, American warplanes hit the Richmond Hill Mental Hospital in Grenada. The Reagan administration initially attempted to deny the attack before finally conceding their culpability. Dozens of people were injured, and at least 20 were killed, although The New York Times suggested an actual death toll of over twice that number.

The U.S. invaded Grenada in order to crush the island's socialist revolution. In Central America, however, it relied on funding, training and arming proxy forces to do its bidding. These death squads would wreak destruction across the region and continue to shape its politics and society to this day.

In El Salvador, U.S.-trained forces waged a dirty war against the population in order to crush leftist FMLN guerilla forces. Hospitals were among their preferred targets. On April 15, 1989, for instance, pilots flying U.S.-made A-37 jets and UH 1M and Hughes-500 helicopters bombed an FMLN hospital in San Ildefonso, killing five people.

Paratroopers armed with M-16 rifles arrived on U.S. helicopters and attacked and abducted the medical staff, including French nurse Madeleine Lagadec. Before executing her, the soldiers spent eight hours raping and torturing her. Images of the remains of her mutilated body caused outrage in France, which issued an international arrest warrant for the four U.S.-backed officers overseeing the operation.

In Nicaragua, meanwhile, throughout the 1980s, U.S.-trained paramilitaries intentionally attacked "soft targets" such as hospitals in an effort to terrorize the population into dropping their support for the country's socialist government.

A study by Richard M. Garfield, Professor of Nursing at Columbia University, found that, between 1981 and 1984, at least 63 health centers were forced to close due to attacks from the U.S.-backed "Contra" death squads.

These operations were carefully planned for maximum effect, with the Contras leaving behind graffiti at the crime scenes, announcing that the "Lion Cubs of Reagan" had visited the area. Throughout their campaign, President Reagan supported the Contras, labeling them "the moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers." Dr. Michael Gray, Chairman of Occupational Medicine at Kino Community Hospital in Tucson, AZ., a doctor who visited Nicaragua, held a different opinion, describing them and their actions as "no different than the SS at the end of the Second World War."

 

Cold War Killing Machine

During the American wars in Indochina, the bombing of hospitals was official – if unstated – U.S. policy.

Alan Stevenson, a former Army intelligence specialist, testified that, while on duty in Quang Tri province in Vietnam, he regularly identified hospitals to be struck by U.S. fighter jets. "The bigger the hospital, the better it was," he said, explaining the military's thought process. "This wasn't something that was hush‐hush," he added. "We really didn't consider it that nasty an item."

Former Air Force captain Gerald Greven corroborated Stevenson's allegations, noting that he personally ordered bombing raids against medical centers. It was official policy to "look for hospitals as targets," he said.

Perhaps the most notorious and well-documented case of this in Vietnam occurred on December 22, 1972, when American planes dropped over 100 bombs on the 1000-bed Bach Mai Hospital in Hanoi, nearly obliterating the building, in the process killing 28 medical staff and an unconfirmed number of patients.

The U.S. military justified the strike by claiming that the hospital "frequently housed antiaircraft positions" and noted its proximity to a military airbase.

During the Congressional hearings on clandestine U.S. activities in Laos and Cambodia, meanwhile, lawmakers were told that the bombing of hospitals was "routine." Indeed, the former remains the most bombed country, per capita, in world history.

Like in Vietnam, the targeting of hospitals was not only commonplace but deliberate. In 1973, former Army captain Rowan Malphurs testified that, while serving with the Combined Intelligence Center of Vietnam, he helped orchestrate attacks on Cambodian health centers. "We were planning bombings of hospitals," he said. Yet Malphurs was unrepentant. "I think it was a good thing because the North Vietnamese Army had a privileged sanctuary in Cambodia," he added.

Thus, as this brief rundown of the past five decades has shown, last month's attacks on the Al Rasool Al-Azam Oncology Hospital in Yemen are far from an aberration. As these examples from 13 different countries show, Washington, in fact, has a longstanding history of targeting medical centers.

Going further back, the government of North Korea estimates that the U.S. military destroyed some 1,000 hospitals during the Korean War. These numbers are entirely plausible, given the gigantic bombing campaign that the country faced. Entire cities were leveled or flooded after American planes targeted dams. Professor Bruce Cummings, America's foremost expert on Korea, estimates that the U.S. killed around 25% of the entire North Korean population between 1950 and 1953.

 

Radio Silence

Article 8 of the Rome Statute, one of the fundamental texts of international law, explicitly identifies "intentionally directing attacks against buildings dedicated to religion, education, art, science or charitable purposes, historic monuments, hospitals and places where the sick and wounded are collected, provided they are not military objectives," as war crimes.

That the Trump administration repeatedly struck a well-known and easily identifiable hospital in Yemen is an extremely important story. But it has, in fact, received zero coverage in corporate media. Searches for "Al Rasool Al-Azam Hospital" and "Yemen Hospital" in the Dow Jones Factiva news database, a tool that records the content from more than 32,000 U.S. and international media outlets, show that no mainstream American publication has even mentioned this grave war crime.

This is not because the information is particularly hard to find. Well-known media figures such as Pepe Escobar and Jackson Hinkle visited Saada and recorded viral videos from the wreckage where the hospital once stood. The information has been all over social media for weeks and has been covered widely in alternative media, including Drop Site News, AntiWar.com, Truthout, Common Dreams, and foreign outlets such as Al-Jazeera, RT (formerly Russia Today), and The Cradle. Thus, every single editor in every newsroom and television studio in the United States has access to this information and made the decision not to cover the story – a fact that suggests a lot about the diversity of opinion and freedom of our press.

This complete disinterest in U.S. misdeeds sits in stark contrast to when official enemy states do the same thing. When Russia hit hospitals in Ukraine and Syria, those incidents became front page news and led television news bulletins. Moreover, corporate media regularly explicitly framed the events as war crimes (see PBS, Politico, Foreign Policy, CNN, Newsweek, ABC News and the Los Angeles Times). Talking heads waxed lyrical about how Russian President Vladimir Putin must be brought to justice. And yet, when the United States does the same, that cacophony falls to complete silence – even when it is carried out by a president that many in corporate media appear desperate to attack at any opportunity.

What the recent attack on the cancer center in Yemen underlines is that it is dangerous to be a healthcare worker. The United States has a longstanding history of targeting hospitals in nations it selects for regime change. This is true of both Democratic and Republican administrations.

Therefore, the sad truth is that if you are in a country targeted by the United States, you are often safer away from a hospital than inside one.

Feature photo | Illustration by MintPress News

Alan MacLeod is Senior Staff Writer for MintPress News. After completing his PhD in 2017 he published two books: Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting and Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent, as well as a number of academic articles. He has also contributed to FAIR.org, The Guardian, Salon, The Grayzone, Jacobin Magazine, and Common Dreams.

The post With Yemen Attack, US Continues Long History of Deliberately Bombing Hospitals appeared first on MintPress News.

10. Weaponizing DEI: Inside the Trump-Backed Crackdown on Palestine Solidarity

Under the pretext of dismantling Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs—widely unpopular among American conservatives—the powerful Heritage Foundation has begun to extend its campaign to anti-war activism and leftist causes on university campuses. The Trump administration appears to be enacting this agenda step by step.

DEI initiatives have become a fault line in America's ever-deepening culture war. While many liberals support them, a March NBC poll found that 85 percent of conservative respondents favored terminating all DEI programs.

Keenly attuned to the political climate, President Donald Trump wasted no time. Immediately after taking office, he signed executive actions designed to purge DEI from the federal bureaucracy.

For years, prominent conservative voices have railed against DEI. But since the war in Gaza began in October 2023, many of them have taken a novel turn—linking DEI to criticism of Israel. On November 29, Ben Shapiro tweeted: "Destroy DEI. It is the rationale for the entire toxic intersectionality that has radically exacerbated antisemitism in the first place." The following day, he aired an episode of his online show titled "Musk Is Right: Kill DEI To Fight Anti-Semitism."

On January 20, 2024, Shapiro and Elon Musk spoke for more than 40 minutes at an event hosted by the European Jewish Association, discussing DEI and antisemitism. The conversation was laced with straw man arguments that fused the two issues. Shapiro went so far as to claim that DEI is inherently linked to antisemitic conspiracy theories about Jews.

 

From Campus to Congress

This rhetorical linkage hasn't been limited to influencers or tech billionaires. For years, influential think tanks have been laying ideological groundwork to conflate DEI initiatives with pro-Palestinian sentiment. In December 2021, the Heritage Foundation released a study claiming that DEI staff on college campuses disproportionately hold anti-Israel views.

The study argued that many of these staffers displayed attitudes "so out of proportion and imbalanced as to constitute antisemitism." In effect, it equated anti-Israel sentiment with antisemitism outright.

In April 2024, the Heritage Foundation published a follow-up titled "Harvard and DEI: An Expensive Lesson." It referred to pro-Palestinian student protesters as "pro-Hamas students" while accusing DEI of discriminating against Jews. The piece also examined how the Trump administration has suspended $9 billion in federal grants and contracts awarded to Harvard University and local affiliates, including Boston-area hospitals, pending the university's compliance with specific demands. Chief among them: a crackdown on DEI and alleged campus antisemitism.

Soon after, on April 25, the Goldwater Institute published a piece titled "To Combat Campus Anti-Semitism, End DEI." It drew comparisons between student protests—many of which were led by Jewish anti-war students—and scenes from Nazi Germany, echoing rhetoric from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The issue reached Capitol Hill on July 3. At a hearing titled "Divisive, Excessive, Ineffective: The Real Impact of DEI on College Campuses," lawmakers were told that DEI programs have directly caused a rise in anti-Israel sentiment, conflated once again with antisemitism.

As at Columbia University—where the Trump administration canceled $400 million in grants—Harvard has also been asked to comply with additional federal demands. These extend beyond limiting pro-Palestinian activity. The administration has requested "full cooperation" with the Department of Homeland Security and other regulatory bodies.

Columbia, under pressure, restructured control of its Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies departments, placing them under federal review. It also increased campus security's authority to suppress anti-war demonstrations. Across the country, at least 60 universities now face similar threats.

 

The Blueprint Behind the Crackdown

Such measures, which encroach upon academic freedom, are being directed by the Federal Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism—a body established shortly after Trump's return to office. But this initiative did not arise in a vacuum.

The guiding framework was laid out in Project Esther, a 33-page report released by the Heritage Foundation on October 7, 2024. Its summary describes the "pro-Palestinian movement" in the United States as a "global Hamas Support Network (HSN)" that aims to sever U.S. support for Israel.

In leaked emails on Columbia's "Task Force on Antisemitism," James Schamus calls out the task force's refusal to define the very term they formed around:

"it is called the "Task Force on Antisemitism" not "The Task Force on, Like, Campus Vibes.""

1/2https://t.co/rEay8v4Pn2 pic.twitter.com/D4Td81WjUY

— Eli Meyerhoff (@EliMeye) February 28, 2024

The report's language openly conflates anti-Zionism with antisemitism and opposition to Israeli or U.S. foreign policy with extremism. The messaging mirrors that of Alex Karp, CEO of Palantir—a firm with well-known links to the CIA—who once warned, "If we lose the intellectual debate, you will not be able to deploy any army in the West, ever."

Project Esther also spells out a broader ideological mission. It states:

Supported by activists and funders dedicated to the destruction of capitalism and democracy, the HSN benefits from the support and training of America's overseas enemies and seeks to achieve its goals by taking advantage of our open society, corrupting our education system, leveraging the American media, coopting the federal government, and relying on the American Jewish community's complacency.

This rhetoric has filtered directly into government policy. The administration has accused pro-Palestine activists, such as detained Columbia graduate Mahmoud Khalil, of supporting Hamas. Similar tactics have surfaced in the smear campaign against children's entertainer Ms. Rachel, whom the organization Stop Antisemitism linked to alleged foreign funding and Hamas support.

Claims that foreign actors are financing the student protest movement have circulated among Washington think tanks since mid-2023. However, these accusations only appeared in official government communications after Trump returned to office. Despite numerous investigations and legal challenges, no credible evidence has been provided to substantiate claims of foreign funding.

Feature photo | Donald Trump, center, visits the grave site of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson at Ohel Chabad-Lubavitch, Oct. 7, 2024, in New York. Yuki Iwamura | AP

Robert Inlakesh is a political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker currently based in London, UK. He has reported from and lived in the occupied Palestinian territories and hosts the show 'Palestine Files'. Director of 'Steal of the Century: Trump's Palestine-Israel Catastrophe'. Follow him on Twitter @falasteen47

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