Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Friday that he has ordered the Israel Defense Force to “immediately impose a lockdown on Hebron and prepare for a full lockdown of the entire” illegally occupied West Bank following a gun battle that reportedly left two Palestinians dead and at least five Israeli soldiers wounded. Following an emergency meeting […]
The post Netanyahu’s full West Bank lockdown called collective punishment appeared first on Asia Times.
Days before Israel’s legislative elections, scheduled for October 27, Israeli forces escalated military activities across the West Bank. Observers speculate that the Israeli government may carry through with its threat to escalate its assaults on Palestinians in the occupied territory.
These speculations are apparently based on the results of the early polls, which showed the bloc of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a tight race with its competitors and facing a likely political deadlock.
On Tuesday, October 20, the Israeli military announced a 24-hour military drill across the West Bank that involved gunfire, explosions, and increased movements of soldiers, aircraft, and military vehicles.
Concurrently, security measures against Palestinians and their supporters have been further tightened. On Tuesday, October 21, the Israeli forces briefly detained 80 US, British, and Israeli volunteers assisting Palestinians harvesting olives west of the southern West Bank governorate of Bethlehem.
The detainees included the New York Democratic congressional nominee Brad Lander, a group of rabbis, and Israel’s former deputy attorney general.
Commenting on the incident, Lander wrote in a post on X:
“I’ve been detained by the IDF, along with a group of rabbis & volunteers. We were simply harvesting olives in a grove near Nehalim in the West Bank.”
“The occupation is a crime under international law. Harvesting olives isn’t a crime under any law I know,” the congressional candidate continued, although he calls himself a “liberal Zionist.”
The Israeli military stated that the mass detention of activists was carried out because they did not submit requests to the relevant authorities in advance for necessary coordination “to ensure the security of the area and maintain public order.”
The incident occurred amid an unprecedented escalation of settler violence in the West Bank, particularly during the olive harvest season.
The last couple of weeks saw horrific settler attacks carried out under the protection of the Israeli forces. Those attacks caused injuries not only to Palestinians, but also international activists, journalists, and diplomats from other countries.
Damage to Palestinian agricultural lands and the looting of crops has also been reported over the same period.
On Friday, October 16, veteran Washington Post photojournalist Heidi Levine (63) was beaten by a crowd of masked Israeli settlers, while covering the olive harvest in Abu Falah village northeast of Ramallah, although she was wearing a helmet and a protective vest clearly labeled “PRESS” on both sides.
One day later, a delegation of European diplomats was attacked by a group of masked colonists in the village of Taybeh, east of Ramallah, during a visit to the area to support Palestinian farmers harvesting olives.
The Israeli forces also intensified military raids in different parts of the West Bank in recent days, detaining Palestinian traffic police for hours.
Many believe the incident aimed to break the morale of the Palestinian people by exposing the helplessness of the Palestinian security apparatus in the face of Israel as an occupying power.
Meanwhile, others viewed it as a provocation of the Palestinian Authority and its security forces, in a bid to push them for an armed confrontation with the Israeli forces. A scenario that the Israeli government has already laid the groundwork for as per recent statements from Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz.
Ada Colau, a candidate for the Frente Amplio, had planned to attend the Ciudades Valientes meeting on November 3 and 4 in the municipality of Caguas in central Puerto Rico. When she applied for the digital travel authorization known as ESTA (Electronic System for Travel Authorization), U.S. authorities approved the members of her delegation but denied her request. She was then advised to attend an in-person interview at the U.S. embassy in Madrid.
According to people close to Colau, the interview held two weeks ago focused on her position on the conflict in Gaza. “The entire interview was about the Flotilla and her pro-Palestinian activism, with a lot of insistence on the three days she was held in Israel,” they said.
RELATED: U.S. Expands Social Media Review for Visa Applicants Starting October
After the interview, U.S. authorities issued a final denial, citing “suspicion that she wants to migrate illegally to the country.”
“This is a clear case of political censorship. And it is a disgrace, because while we see that Javier Milei can travel freely to our country to insult the press and citizens in general, his friend Donald Trump bans me from entering a country like Puerto Rico, which is a colony occupied by the United States,” Colau said.
The US has refused to grant a visa to former Barcelona mayor Ada Colau over her participation in the Global Sumud Flotilla and her support for Palestine.
— The Times of Palestine (@PalTimesNews) October 21, 2026
Colau had been invited to attend a meeting convened by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. pic.twitter.com/TuEEQasz9x
Ada Colau governed Barcelona between 2015 and 2023. She had traveled to the Caribbean archipelago in April 2024 to discuss urban planning, access to housing, human rights and the role of women in politics. During that visit, at a conference on government and citizen participation, she advocated for truth, justice and reparation in the face of European colonization in Latin America.
The prohibition echoes other restrictions imposed by Washington on figures critical of its foreign policy. The same administration has repeatedly denied a visa to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to attend the United Nations General Assembly. In Colau’s case, the stated rationale of immigration risk collides with a documented history of official visits and public conferences.
The decision keeps the event in Caguas and preserves the original schedule rather than postponing or relocating it.
The Puerto Rican collective confirmed that its upcoming event will keep its original agenda, and that the political leader will participate remotely. “Ada will be present, one way or another, because ideas and courage do not require visas to cross the borders imposed on us to divide us,” they affirmed.
“Colau is one of the founding voices of the international municipalist movement that inspires this meeting and her physical absence will be felt, but we maintain our commitment to the exchange of experiences,” the organizers said, rejecting the ban.
“Her physical absence will be felt, but we maintain our commitment to the exchange of experiences. Our collaboration with Ada and with the Sentit Comú Foundation remains just as strong and Brave Cities will take place as planned,” the League stated in a public communiqué.
For her supporters, the case exposes the double standard at the heart of the colonial relationship. The denial of entry, they insist, is not a security measure but a political sentence delivered through administrative channels.
Organizers say the work continues, and that Colau’s ideas will still shape the conversations in Caguas even in her in-person absence. The entry ban, however, ensures that a voice critical of U.S. policy will not speak from the island that Washington governs as a colony.
🚨🇪🇸 BREAKING — Ada Colau:
— Pamphlets (@PamphletsY) October 18, 2026
“If we trivialize and allow the genocide in Gaza, and apartheid and the colonial persecution of Palestine, humanity is lost.
Therefore, all humanity must not give up, resign itself, normalize or trivialize the genocide in Gaza and the persecution of… pic.twitter.com/cLg7UIx5Ss
Puerto Rico has been under U.S. control since 1898, after the Treaty of Paris, and since 1952 has held the status of a commonwealth with its own constitution, although the United States retains exclusive control over immigration, customs, defense and currency. ESTA was required because of the island’s colonial status. Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory, and ESTA applies to travelers from visa-waiver countries such as Spain who enter U.S. territory.
Rights groups have often criticized U.S. visa denials based on political views, while U.S. officials typically say such decisions follow immigration law and are not open to public discussion.
On the opening day of its National Smallholder Farmers’ Conference and 31st Annual General Meeting (AGM), held from September 29 to October 1, MVIWATA, Tanzania’s national network of smallholder farmers’ groups, set aside time during a program on land, seed, and markets to state solidarity with the peoples of Palestine and Cuba, with the ambassadors of both countries present in the hall.
“We, the members of MVIWATA, who have convened in Morogoro for our 31st Annual General Meeting, wish to give a brief statement in support of the people of Palestine and the Cuban people,” read Theodora Pius, MVIWATA’s head of program, opening the statement. The organization said it was “extremely angered by the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people” and “frustrated to see an open silence on war crimes that happen every day against the people of Palestine by the State of Israel and its allies.” It said its solidarity was with all of Palestine, “not only in the Gaza Strip.”
The statement then turned to Cuba, denouncing more than 60 years of US-imposed blockade, it said, imposed because Cubans exercised their freedom to choose their own political system, and went on to articulate what the blockade now means: “no electricity, no fuel, no medicines, no food.” Despite this, the statement said that the Cuban people have continued to send their expertise (doctors above all) to support life in other countries.
The Cuban Ambassador, Yordenis Despaigne Vera, thanked the smallholder farmers and described the current stage of the blockade as an energy war. United Nations agencies reinforce this characterization. By May, the Cuban people were living with daily blackouts of up to twenty hours, and more than 100,000 patients, including 11,000 children, were waiting for operations delayed by power cuts and shortages. Cuba’s own health ministry recorded infant mortality rising from 7.1 to 9.9 deaths per thousand live births between 2024 and 2025. The ambassador called the United States program “a silent genocide” and said Tanzania’s government and people had stood with Cuba throughout. A week earlier, at the UN General Assembly, Tanzania’s Vice-President had reaffirmed the country’s “unwavering solidarity with Cuba” against unilateral sanctions. Last October, the Assembly voted 165 to 7, with 12 abstentions, to demand an end to the blockade; Tanzania voted in favor.
The Palestinian ambassador, Salam Abu Sharar, addressed the room of farmers. Land, he said, is close to the hearts of the Palestinian people and of MVIWATA alike, and the question of Palestine “is not about religion; it is about land.” In a hall where the first working session opened with the words “land is life, land is not a commodity,” he spoke the delegates’ own language: the struggle of Tanzania’s peasants and the national liberation of Palestine are one struggle.
MVIWATA has been here before. Its AGM in Njombe in December 2023 condemned Israel’s genocide in Palestine. In July 2025, it hosted the youth of La Via Campesina in Morogoro, whose declaration ended with “Free Palestine!” Within days of that meeting’s close, Israeli forces bulldozed the seed multiplication unit of the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, the Palestinian farmers’ organization in Hebron, destroying more than seventy local varieties. The same year, MVIWATA and the International Association for Popular Cooperation ran an Africa Bioinputs School in Tanzania, with participants from thirteen countries, including Palestine, learning how farmers make their own fertilizers and pest controls.
On the conference’s final day, the Tanzanian farmers resolved to build their own bank of indigenous seed. In Hebron and in Morogoro, the seed is where the struggle over who feeds whom begins. MVIWATA Chairperson Apollo Chamwela told the ambassadors that the organization stood ready to do for Cuba what it had tried to do for Palestine: collect food if mechanisms for transporting it can be arranged.
MVIWATA is a membership organization of smallholder farmers, founded in 1993 and organized across mainland Tanzania and Zanzibar. It was a meeting with a government minister as its guest of honor. Its statement on Palestine and Cuba came in the same breath as its demands for land, seed, and dignified prices for its members’ produce at home. For these farmers, sovereignty over food and sovereignty over territory are one question, whether the territory is a village in Kilosa or a hillside in Hebron.
The hall closed the statement with a call and response. “Long live Palestine! Long live!” “Viva Fidel! Viva!” “Viva the resistance of the people of Palestine! Viva!”
Jonis Ghedi-Alasow is the Coordinator of the Pan Africanism Today Secretariat.
This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on Oct. 21, 2026. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.
Democratic US congressional candidate Brad Lander said Wednesday that he was released by Israeli forces with a “warning” after he and dozens of others were detained while helping Palestinians harvest olives in the illegally occupied West Bank.
“Several dozen rabbis and participants harvesting olives with me are still in detention,” Lander, who is Jewish, wrote on social media. “They should all be released immediately. To be clear: Palestinians face far worse consequences every day. These detentions by the IDF are one more attempt to undermine Palestinians’ right to harvest their olive groves, travel on their roads, and live in their homes.”
Prior to his release, Lander posted a video from a bus that he said was “taking us away for processing” after settler security called the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on the group harvesting olives.
“Let’s be clear: Occupation is a crime under international law,” said Lander, who is running to represent New York’s 10th Congressional District in the US House of Representatives. “Harvesting olives is not a crime under any law.”
I’ve been released from IDF custody with a “warning,” apparently because of my public profile (I told them I wasn’t even a congressmember yet, just a nominee).But several dozen rabbis & participants harvesting olives with me are still in detention.
— Brad Lander (@bradlander.bsky.social) 2026-10-21T13:34:39.826Z
Lander was part of a group of around 80 American and Israeli rabbis and activists who were detained by the IDF on Wednesday as they helped Palestinians harvest olives from a grove near an Israeli settlement in the West Bank. Israeli lawyers told NPR that the incident marked “the largest mass detention of activists in the occupied West Bank in at least a decade.”
Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of the US-based advocacy group J Street, said in response to the detentions that “when the government of Israel and its military and law enforcement are arresting rabbis and volunteers who have journeyed 6000 miles to protect Palestinian farmers harvesting olives and not the violent terrorists harassing and attacking the farmers—it tells you all you need to know about this government’s moral compass.”
“This illegal and immoral occupation must end,” he added.
The mass detention came after several recent instances of horrific Israeli settler violence against Palestinian olive harvesters, European diplomats, and an American journalist.
Heba Morayef, Amnesty International’s regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, said in a statement earlier this week that “Israel’s apartheid system is turning the olive harvest into a season of horror for Palestinian families across the occupied West Bank.”
“States must recognize that settler attacks are not isolated acts, but a central policy of the Israeli state,” said Morayef, calling on nations to “take concrete measures to respect their obligations under international law and to avoid complicity in Israeli violations and crimes against Palestinians by halting all trade, investment, and cooperation that contribute to maintaining the unlawful occupation, apartheid, and the ongoing campaign of ethnic cleansing.”
“Hiding behind empty rhetoric is not only cowardly, it is enabling further abuses,” she added. “For Palestinians, it continues to be deadly.”
Teachers face being banned from wearing politically-contentious insignia – such as pro-Palestinian badges – following a review of antisemitism in schools that found 60% of Jewish pupils reported suffering abuse.
The post Teachers May be Banned by Schools From Wearing Politically-Contentious Badges appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
The Cradle – October 20, 2026
US special envoy Tom Barrack conceded that a “ground kinetic” battle in Yemen by the US “seems fruitless” during a talk at the Global Security Forum in Qatar on 20 October.
“I think the president’s been clear that he supports Saudi Arabia and the backing that they need logistically he will supply. But America getting involved in a ground kinetic battle somewhere else seems fruitless.”
Barrack is Washington’s ambassador to Turkiye and special presidential envoy for Syria and Iraq.
He admitted that military force has failed in Yemen and that Riyadh is in a “very difficult position.”
“These kinetic reactions have never worked. It doesn’t work. It’s probably not likely that it’s going to work,” he said.
Barrack questioned whether US meddling across West Asia has helped or harmed the region, arguing that Ansarallah in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the resistance factions in Iraq would lose their reason to exist only once states took responsibility themselves.
He pressed for talks between Riyadh, Sanaa, and regional mediators, urging regional capitals to build their own alliances instead of leaning on Washington.
He went further, admitting that the US has had a hand in 23 regime changes across the region, none of which achieved their aims.
He declined to say whether the US-Israeli war on Iran launched on 28 February was a mistake, while conceding that it had unleashed unintended consequences across the region.
The admission comes as the Saudi-led coalition presses on with airstrikes on Yemen, drawing retaliatory missile and drone strikes by the Yemeni Armed Forces (YAF) on the kingdom.
Riyadh has turned to its defense partners under the Mecca pact, including Pakistan and Turkiye, after Washington declined its requests for direct US intervention against Yemen.
Barrack’s remarks follow Washington’s failed bid to subdue Yemen by military force, with more than 1,000 US airstrikes between March 2024 and April 2025 unable to halt Yemeni naval operations waged in support of Gaza, forcing the US into an Omani-brokered ceasefire with Sanaa in May 2025.
The campaign cost Washington $1 billion in its first three weeks alone, as Yemeni forces downed 17 MQ-9 Reaper drones and the US lost two F-18 fighter jets.
Ansarallah leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi said in November 2024 that the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier had retreated hundreds of miles after coming under Yemeni fire, while then US Under Secretary of Defense Bill LaPlante admitted he was “just shocked” by what Yemen’s missiles could do.
Europe fared no better, with Rear Admiral Vasileios Gryparis, commander of the EU’s Operation Aspides, telling Bloomberg in June 2024 that his Red Sea fleet needed to more than double in size and that US–UK strikes on Yemen were “not contributing to the solution,” after France withdrew one of his frigates citing the threat level.
The European Union claims that "the fundamental right to freedom of expression" only applies to journalists "acting in good faith," and that authorities do not have to give due process before freezing people's bank accounts, as these sanctions are "temporary and are not criminal in nature," according to a legal letter shared by a sanctioned journalist.
Last year, the European Union blacklisted 21 people for allegedly spreading Russian propaganda, banning them from doing business in Europe. One of them, Hüseyin Doğru, was falsely listed as a Turkish citizen living in Istanbul. In fact, Doğru is a German journalist in Berlin, making him the first European citizen on European soil to be sanctioned this way.
It was like being sentenced to "civil death," Doğru told American journalist Chris Hedges. He was banned from holding a job in Europe or having a European bank account, and authorities have restricted Doğru to a €506 ($567) per month allowance from his own money. "The sanctions are designed for people outside of Europe, so they don't really know how that should function with me, because I'm a European citizen and I'm living in Europe," Doğru told Hedges.
Last month, the civil libertarian Wau Holland Foundation hired lawyers to contest the sanctions against Doğru. And earlier this month, the Council of the European Union sent a response letter, which Doğru shared on social media, promising to escalate the case to the E.U. General Court. Although the council conceded to Doğru that he is not a Turkish citizen living in Turkey, it still insisted on the authority to punish him for his speech.
The council quoted a 2022 court case between the Russian news outlet RT and several European countries: "The protection of the right of the media and, more particularly, of journalists to impart information on issues of general interest is subject to the proviso that they are acting in good faith and on an accurate factual basis and provide 'reliable and precise' information in accordance with the ethics of journalism."
Doğru's lawyers insisted that he should be treated as innocent until proven guilty. But the council responded that sanctions fall short of a criminal punishment, so any complaint about a "violation of the presumption of innocence is therefore unfounded." In other words, because he is not accused of a crime, Doğru has fewer rights than a criminal suspect.
"People need to understand sanctions are an extrajudicial measure. They're extrajudicial. There's no court. There is no hearing, no evidence, there is no sentence by the court, nothing," Doğru told Hedges. "When you're sanctioned, you are not informed….The day when I was sanctioned, me and my wife, my wife was pregnant back then, we went to the pharmacy to buy medicine for her, and her cards did not work."
The original blacklisting decision accuses Doğru of supporting "actions by the Government of the Russian Federation which undermine or threaten stability and security in the Union" by spreading "false information on politically controversial subjects with the intent of creating ethnic, political and religious discord amongst its predominantly German target audience."
Doğru and his wife, British journalist Lizzie Phelan, previously worked at the Russian-funded publication Redfish. A few months after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he split off to create a new website called red.media, insisting to The Left Berlin that "we are not Russian. We are not Kremlin. red.media is not funded by Russia or any other state." In the same interview, Doğru called Russia an "imperialist" regime.
But in September 2024, a Biden administration "fact sheet" on Russian propaganda offhandedly mentioned red.media, citing a hit piece on Doğru by the German newspaper Tagesspiegel. Doğru told Hedges that the U.S. fact sheet created a circular logic in German media: "They said red.media is Russian because [U.S. Secretary of State Antony] Blinken said so. But what they never said is that Blinken is referring to your articles where you never say it like that. You say there is a suspicion, it might be so."
Doğru shut down red.media in May 2025 due to the bad press. The European Union sanctioned him a few weeks later. Doğru's lawyer, Alexander Górski, told the Frankfurter Allgemeine earlier this year that the European Union didn't "even attempt to make an evidentiary case" about any ongoing connection to Russia.
The blacklisting decision also claimed that, during a pro-Palestinian student protest at Humboldt University in Berlin, red.media "coordinated with the occupiers to disseminate images of their vandalism—which included the use of Hamas symbols." Doğru told Hedges that these accusations are an attack on journalists' freedom to do their jobs.
The European Union does not have the same protections for the freedom of the press as the U.S. Constitution. Earlier this year, the Curia of the European Union ruled that simply reposting clips from Russian media could be a violation of European sanctions, even if no money changes hands, something that is explicitly exempted from U.S. sanctions under the Berman Amendment.
Still, U.S. authorities have tried to push the limits of international sanctions to censor speech. The Biden administration told an American nonprofit that "the provision of a platform for [the sanctioned individuals] to speak" was illegal, backing down after the nonprofit sued.
And the Trump administration sanctioned Italian academic Francesca Albanese for her "lawfare" calling for the prosecution of Israeli leaders and a boycott of Israeli industries. In addition to freezing her bank accounts, the sanctions forced Columbia University researchers to cut off their relationship with Albanese, and Georgetown University to close her email account.
In the same statement accusing red.stream of being a Russian front, the Biden administration announced sanctions on two Russian news agencies. "We encourage dissent, open debate, and free discourse. But we will not stand for attempts by state actors to carry out covert activities with the goal of hijacking that discourse," the statement insisted. "The ultimate goal of sanctions is not to punish, but to bring about a positive change in behavior."
The post The European Union Wants To Punish People for Their Speech—Without Even a Trial appeared first on Reason Magazine.
At least eight Palestinians, including four children, were killed in Israeli assaults in different parts of the Gaza Strip over the last two days.
On Monday, October 19, Israeli forces launched drone strikes on north-central Gaza City and the southern city of Khan Younis, killing a Palestinian man and two children.
One day earlier, five Palestinians were killed and several others were injured in Israeli shelling and gunfire across the besieged enclave. This includes two children, who were shot dead by Israeli soldiers in separate attacks.
One of the slain children was identified as 13-year-old Tamer Soboh, who was killed in the northern city of Beit Lahia; the other was Misk al-Dalu, who died after Israeli troops opened fire at tents sheltering displaced people in al-Maghazi refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip.
Meanwhile, mass funerals remain common across Gaza as Palestinians dig through the rubble to recover the remains of their loved ones.
On Sunday, the remains of 75 Palestinians were buried in the Sheikh Radwan Cemetery in Gaza city, the majority of whom were children and women killed in Israeli airstrikes that targeted their homes during the three-year genocide.
While mass killings are underway in the war-ravaged territory, the humanitarian crisis further deteriorates not only because of Israel’s continued blockade and restrictions on the entry of goods and supplies, but also because of measures taken by some organizations concerned with providing aid to the population.
On Monday, the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) announced that it will reduce food assistance in Gaza by around one-third due to shortage of funding. This means that 500,000 people will lose access to critical assistance.
It is worth noting that since the beginning of Israel’s genocidal aggression on Gaza, the WFP provided food assistance for up to 90% of families in the Gaza Strip.
RT | October 19, 2026
Anti-government rioters have torched Albania’s education ministry and supreme court, as protests spread across the Balkan nation. Prime Minister Edi Rama is refusing to step down and blames the unrest on Russia. What’s really going on?
As of October 19, the Albanian capital of Tirana has been rocked by seven consecutive days and nights of rioting, while protests and clashes between demonstrators and police have been reported in the cities of Lezhe, Vlore, Elbasan, and Shkoder. A large group of rioters breached the perimeter of the education ministry in Tirana on October 14, setting the building on fire.
Running battles between demonstrators and police have broken out around the ministry on several occasions since. On October 19, hundreds of demonstrators pelted rocks at riot police, who responded with tear gas and rubber bullets. The previous night, offices of the Albanian Supreme Court were set on fire, and arson attacks on several police stations in the city were reported.
Some 500 demonstrators had been detained and 167 of them formally arrested as of October 17, according to Reuters. 295 people had been injured, including 196 police officers, as of October 19, according to Interior Minister Ervin Demo.
What do the protesters want?
The protests follow more than a year of unrest in Albania, which began when Rama banned TikTok in the runup to last March’s parliamentary elections, following similar measures inposed by the EU during every major election across the bloc since 2024. The ban was lifted in February of this year, but demonstrations broke out again in May after Rama’s government authorized the sale of protected wetlands to a development company operated by US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
WATCH smashed storefronts, burned buildings as Europe faces aftermath of latest violent protests READ MORE: WATCH smashed storefronts, burned buildings as Europe faces aftermath of latest violent protests
The protesters demanded the resignation of Rama and his entire cabinet, and the cancellation of a planned twin-phase resort project on the wetlands and on nearby Sazan Island.
The protesters’ core demand – that Rama resign – remains unchanged. However, the movement is now calling for a root-and-branch reform of the entire Albanian establishment, with demonstrators accusing both Rama and opposition leader Sali Berisha of corruption. Unemployment, underfunding of schools, and declining living standards have also been cited by protesters as grievances.
What did Rama say about the protests?
Despite the repeated chants of “Rama resign” heard at the protests, Rama has claimed that the demonstrators do not oppose his government, but Albania’s “mission” of joining the EU.
“I am not being challenged,” he said in a video address on October 18. “The government is not being challenged, a government majority or a winning party in the elections is not being challenged but a path is being challenged, a mission is being challenged”
“Albanians need to think very clearly,” he continued. “Do they want this, do they want that, or do they want the EU?”
Rama has refused to resign, and blamed the protests on “foreign hands that do not wish for Albania to be at peace.” Back in June, Rama accused “the enemies of Albania and of Israel” of waging a “hybrid war” to stop the wetlands development. In two separate speeches on October 18 and 19, the embattled PM blamed the unrest on Russian philosopher Alexander Dugin and a “wave of Russian influence in the entire social media system,” and on “the Khomeiniist republic of Iran, the pinnacle of disinformation.”
Was Russia involved?
In short, no. Rama has not backed up any of his accusations, and they are being treated with skepticism and ridicule by demonstrators and opposition media. Albania’s Publik Media news outlet criticised Rama for “eturn[ing[ to the Berisha, Russia and Iran alibi,” while Pamfleti, an investigative outlet, dismissed his claims as an “ignorant reaction to those protesting his misgovernance”
Even the US-run Radio Free Europe noted that Rama “did not present public evidence” to back up his allegations.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has rejected Rama’s accusations. “No, Edi Rama,” she said on October 18, “it is the citizens of your country who have taken to the streets in protest.”
“This has all the hallmarks of the ‘highly likely’ British approach,” Serbian journalist Nebojsa Malic told RT on October 19, referring to British Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s failed attempts to blame the 2016 Brexit vote on Russia and a recent ‘terror plot’ at a US airbase on Iran. “We’ll just make an accusation and provide no evidence but say ‘oh it’s highly likely that Russia’s behind this’, and everybody is going to take it for granted.”
Rama is “doing this because he’s hoping it will stick,” Malic said. “He has nothing to lose. He’s seen plenty of leaders in western Europe essentially getting away scot free with covering for their malice and incompetence by blaming Russia.”
“Rama is just as opportunistic as [French President Emmanuel] Macron or any British prime minister in the last ten years,” Malic concluded. “They will say or do whatever, because they think that Russia is not able to defend itself.”
Why did Rama mention Israel?
Rama’s claim that “enemies of Albania and Israel” were behind this summer’s environmental protests stems from the involvement of Kushner in the wetlands project. A close associate of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Kushner has extensive family and financial ties to Israel. His investment firm, Affinity Partners, has funneled Emirati, Saudi, and Qatari cash into multiple Israeli businesses, including five arms manufacturers.
However, all available information suggests that the funding for Kushner’s Albanian projects comes from Albanian, American, and Qatari individuals and entities. Affinity Partners is leading the €1.4 billion Sazan Island project, while Kushner himself is a minority partner in the wetlands development.
Rama visited Israel and addressed the Knesset in January. Less than 24 hours later, Israel’s Channel 12 claimed that the Albanian PM had struck a deal with Netanyahu to accept up to 100,000 Palestinian refugees from Gaza. As speculation spread that the Palestinians would be resettled on land developed by Kushner, Rama clarified that no such deal had been, or would be, made.
Regardless, Rama’s close relations with Netanyahu are at odds with public opinion in Albania, where a 2024 poll found that 73% of the population believe that Israel should be sanctioned over its war on Gaza. Kushner is widely seen in Albania as representing Israeli interests, and Rama’s decision to amend environmental laws and grant “strategic investor” status to Affinity Partners has fueled accusations that the PM is placing Washington and West Jerusalem’s interests above Tirana’s.
Will there be an Albanian Maidan?
Some images emerging from Tirana – burning barricades, police officers set on fire with Molotov cocktails, and smouldering government buildings – are reminiscent of the scenes that played out during the 2014 ‘Maidan’ coup in Ukraine. However, Rama is in far less perilous of a position than Ukraine’s president, Viktor Yanukovich, was during the 2014 uprising.
Unlike the present unrest in Albania, the Maidan coup was planned and directed by foreign actors, namely the US State Department and the British embassy in Kiev. Rama, on the other hand, is a close partner of the EU and US, and neither Washington nor Brussels have backed the protesters. Instead, Rama has apparently been given carte blanche to squash the demonstrations, with columns of military vehicles seen entering Tirana between October 15 and 19.
The EU has condemned the use of violence by protesters, with the European Commission criticizing them for “arson, attacks on State institutions and the destruction of public and private property.” In a statement on October 18, the commission praised Rama’s progress toward EU membership and welcomed his “commitment that the right to protest will be protected.”
One week earlier, an EU delegation in Tirana said that Brussels was “aware of allegations of excessive use of force by the police against protesters and journalists,” adding that the government’s response to protests and riots “must remain within the law.”
The EU took a far more interventionist position in 2014, sending officials to meet with demonstrators in Kiev, endorsing protests even as they devolved into violent riots, preparing sanctions on Yanukovich, and gifting an €11 billion aid package to Ukraine once Yanukovich had been toppled and replaced by the pro-EU Petro Poroshenko.
The West is still firmly on Rama’s side, and he is unlikely to face any calls for resignation from abroad. However, he is still facing the most sustained public pressure campaign of his 13-year stint in power, and if the protests continue and more buildings burn, he may be left with no choice but to admit defeat and step down.
The Cradle | October 19, 2026
Egyptian construction firms coordinated with Israel on a US-backed “Green Rafah” project aimed at “housing” tens of thousands of Palestinians in the city that was eradicated by Tel Aviv’s genocide, sources told Middle East Eye (MEE) on 19 October.
“Egyptian construction firms surveyed sites in the ruins of the southern Gaza Strip for a housing project dubbed ‘Green Rafah’ … Egyptian engineers surveyed several areas in eastern Rafah under the supervision of the Israeli army and air force, who accompanied them throughout the process until they left,” sources said, including a senior military source in the North Sinai.
According to the report, “the proposed neighborhood would initially house around 20,000 Palestinians.”
It would be “supervised” by “a multinational force expected to be deployed in several parts of the Gaza Strip.”
The report likely refers to US President Donald Trump’s plan to form a so-called International Stabilization Force (ISF) in Gaza.
The report states that surveying of sites for “Green Rafah” is under full US backing.
“Washington conveyed instructions on the Rafah operations through CIA director John Ratcliffe during his latest visit to Egypt,” says the senior military source cited by MEE.
Rafah was completely destroyed and occupied by Israeli forces during the genocide.
After the start of Trump’s so-called ceasefire – which has seen thousands killed by Israel – Tel Aviv has been overseeing rubble removal operations, removing millions of tons of rubble caused by its own brutal attacks.
The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor reported at the year’s start that “no less than 70 percent of rubble removal operations in the city have been completed.”
“Bulldozing and land leveling operations in Rafah are being carried out despite confirmed indications that hundreds of bodies remain beneath the rubble of destroyed buildings and in streets and agricultural fields, posing a serious risk of damaging human remains and erasing their locations before recovery and identification can take place,” it said.
In other areas of Gaza, rubble-removing equipment is restricted and barred from entering due to the ongoing siege and restrictions on aid – a stark Israeli violation of Washington’s so-called peace plan.
In Rafah, US-backed rubble-clearing operations come as part of a plan to build a “humanitarian city” over the ruins of the city.
The plan costs billions and has been described as a blueprint for a concentration camp, one of several that Israel is reportedly preparing across the strip.
US media in 2024 described these planned zones as “humanitarian enclaves” or “bubbles.”
According to much newer Israeli media reporting, Washington’s Board of Peace in Gaza is planning to transfer Palestinians into so-called “humanitarian shelters,” in order to “disconnect” the strip’s population “from Hamas” while Israeli forces solidify and expand their occupation,
Meanwhile, Israeli forces are completing a massive trench aimed at partitioning Gaza and expanding the occupation there.
Al Mayadeen | October 19, 2026
Thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators gathered outside Japan’s National Diet in Tokyo, demanding Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s resignation over her government’s stance on Palestine and its alignment with US and Israeli military policies.
The protesters expressed solidarity with the Palestinian people and condemned the ongoing Israeli war on the Gaza Strip and aggression across West Asia.
Demonstrators criticized Japan’s refusal to recognize the State of Palestine, its failure to impose sanctions on “Israel,” and its continued purchases of weapons from Israeli companies.
Protesters oppose Japan’s military expansion
Participants also voiced opposition to the government’s plans to increase military spending, revise Article 9 of Japan’s Constitution, which renounces war, and ease restrictions on arms exports.
Speakers criticized military cooperation between Tokyo and “Israel”, particularly reports of plans to purchase Israeli-made drones.
Protesters argued that these drones had been developed and tested through operations involving the direct targeting and killing of Palestinians. They called on the Japanese government to end all military partnerships with the Israeli occupation.
Protestors demand closure of Israeli embassy
In September, over 100 pro-Palestine demonstrators gathered outside of the Israeli embassy in Tokyo and called for the expulsion of the newly appointed Israeli ambassador to Japan, Emmanuel Navon, and the closure of the embassy.
The protesters denounced the Israeli war on Gaza and criticized Tokyo’s and Tel Aviv’s military relationship.
Protesters carried Palestinian flags and banners condemning the Israeli aggression, while chanting slogans calling for freedom for Palestine and an end to the war.
The Network Against Japan Arms Trade (NAJAT), one of the main groups organizing the protest, stated that the demonstration was intended to formally convey its demands to the Japanese state.
NAJAT said the appointment of a new Israeli ambassador provided an opportunity to renew calls for his expulsion and urge Japan to take a stronger stance against “Israel.”
Protesters further called on Japanese authorities to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and demanded that the government close the Israeli embassy in Tokyo.
'Palestine poppies' are being sold by pro-Palestine campaigners ahead of Remembrance Sunday, sparking fury among veterans who say they're hijacking Britain's day of remembrance.
The post Veterans Condemn ‘Palestine Poppy’ as Hijacking of Britain’s National Symbol of Remembrance appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
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