It’s a sign of Israel’s swaggering sense of impunity, and of the grotesque depravity at the heart of their notions of supremacy, that their soldiers and those in charge of them thought that they could get away with inflicting severe physical abuse on the 430 members of the Global Sumud Flotilla, from 45 countries, who were illegally intercepted at sea, in international waters, and then, over two days, were abused on Israeli ships located nearby.

They were then illegally brought to Israel to face further abuse under the watch of Itamar Ben-Gvir, the terrorist thug serving as the Minister of National Security, who caused global outrage when he posted a video of himself and his soldiers bullying and humiliating detained activists in his custody.

As Reuters reported in an article entitled, “Freed Gaza flotilla activists allege Israeli abuse including rape”, the flotilla’s organisers said that activists released from Israeli custody after being detained “were subjected to abuse, with several hospitalised with injuries, and at least 15 reporting sexual assaults, including rape.”

• READ MORE: ‘More horrific than Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo’: The unsalvageable depravity of Israel’s prisons for Palestinians
• Flotilla activists tasered, sedated, sexually assaulted – Israeli prison service claims brutal abuse ‘justified’
• ‘It’s worse for Palestinians,’ says Australian flotilla activist about Israeli torture
• Shameen Suleman: Outrage over the flotilla activists but where were they for Palestinians?
• Israel’s $700m Hasbara fiasco – how Ben-Gvir’s flotilla abuse video stirred backlash
• Other Gaza flotilla reports

A spokesperson for the Israeli Prison Service stated, “The allegations raised are false and entirely without factual basis”, and Reuters noted that it “was not able to verify them independently”, but why would anyone believe the Israelis, when so many of those released were photographed with visible signs of abuse, including severe bruising, and what appear to be burn marks?

Because the Israelis lied about the evident signs of physical abuse, why is it plausible to suggest that claims of sexual assault, and even of rape, are somehow implausible?

Both have been reported widely in Israel’s prisons for Palestinians, and have even been celebrated in the case of five soldiers caught on video raping a Palestinian prisoner in the notorious Sde Teiman prison, who later had to be treated for the most severe internal injuries.

Why, we have to ask, did those directing the soldiers think that they would get away with their actions, when it was obvious that, on their release, the detained activists would be able to publicly show the signs of the abuse to which they were subjected, and, very possibly, would be able to undergo medical examinations to verify the claims by some that they were subjected to sexual assault and rape?

As Reuters described it, “A German Foreign Ministry ⁠spokesperson said consular officials who met German activists on their arrival in Istanbul reported that a number had injuries and were undergoing medical checks”, and stated, “We naturally expect a full explanation, as some of the allegations that have been made are serious.”

Prosecutors investigate kidnapping, torture crimes
In Italy, meanwhile, prosecutors in Rome “are investigating ​the possible crimes of kidnapping, torture and sexual assault and will hear testimony from activists who have returned to Italy over the coming days”, according to an Italian ​legal source.

As Reuters explained, the organisers of the Global Sumud Flotilla “had documented at least 15 cases of sexual abuse, with the worst occurring on one Israeli landing ​craft which had been converted into a makeshift prison with barbed wire and shipping containers”.

There, according to the organisers, they “were thrown into the containers and beaten over the head and ribs.” They also reportedly “suffered multiple cases of sexual abuse, including ‘humiliating strip searches, sexual taunting, groping and pulling of genitals’”, and there were “multiple accounts of rape.”

“At least 12 sexual assaults have been documented on that vessel alone, including anal rape and forcible penetration by a handgun”, the group added.

Sabrina Charik, who helped organise the return of 37 French citizens from the flotilla, told Reuters that “five French participants had been hospitalised in Turkey, some with broken ribs or fractured vertebrae”, and that some of them “had made detailed accusations of sexual violence, ⁠including of rape.”

Reuters explained how Mi Hoa Lee, an activist from Spain, “​said she was forced into the darkened container on the ship, according to a video interview included with the flotilla’s statement.” She said, “Four men started beating me in the face against the wall, and I fell down and then stood up again, again ‌to the floor, ⁠stood up again, and they started tasering me for more than one minute.

In the video, she “point[ed] to her ribcage, hips and back where she said they applied the taser.”

“Then”, she added, “they kept beating me until I almost lost consciousness.”

Two ‘prison ships’
Ilaria Mancosu, an Italian activist, told Reuters that “the flotilla members were removed from their boats to two so-called prison ships”, and that “those put on one of the ships suffered more violence than the other.”

As she described it, “They were locked in a container and beaten by five soldiers, suffering fractures to the ribs and arms. Some had serious injuries to their eyes and ears caused by tasers.”

She added that “they spent two days on the prison ships with no ​running water and used cardboard and plastic to keep warm ​at night, since they had no blankets and ⁠were stripped of most of their clothes.

Once on land they were made to kneel for several hours and kicked and shoved if they moved or spoke. They were then taken to a prison where they were moved from room to room periodically to keep them from sleeping.”

According to Reuters, the Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said that he had been in touch with all his EU counterparts “so that there may be a quick ​decision to impose sanctions” on Itamar Ben-Gvir

But the problem with this is that, while Ben-Gvir was swaggeringly and demonstrably the face of this abuse, he is not a rogue element or a “bad apple” but an Israeli government minister who is openly showing the world not only how Israel treats Palestinians, but how, given a chance, it treats anyone, anywhere who opposes its genocidal supremacism in any way.

Andy Worthington is an UK investigative journalist, author, campaigner, commentator and public speaker. He is an authority on Guantánamo and the “war on terror”. This commentary was first published on his Facebook page.

Pesta Babi (Pig feast), the controversial Papuan documentary film critical of a major development project impacting on the environment in the southeastern Melanesian region, is stirring public debate and a “crackdown” across Indonesia.

The film caused a stir when it had its premiere in New Zealand in March and was described in a review by Asia Pacific Report as “exposing oligarchs, food security crisis and ecocide under the noses of the military”.

Screenings followed in Australia but there have been reports of a backlash in some parts of Indonesia and some public shows being shut down.

• READ MORE: West Papuan doco Pig Feast exposes oligarchs, food security crisis and ecocide under noses of military
• Army chief denies direct central command over Pesta Babi film crackdown
• Other Pesta Babi reports

However, the Indonesian military denied they were responsible for the crackdown, blaming some local authorities.

An Al Jazeera television report said Indonesian authorities had shut down several screenings of the documentary about alleged human rights abuses in Papua, including Indigenous land seizures.

It noted that human rights groups and international media still faced restricted access to the Papuan region, which is mainly referred to as “West Papua” in Pacific countries.

Pesta Babi is focused on the largest forest conversion project in modern history in a remote are near Merauke — turning 2.5 million ha of tropical forest into industrial plantations under the guise of “food security” and the “energy transition”.

Footage of village resistance
Dramatic footage of scenes show Indigenous village resisters against the massive destruction of rainforest in one of the three largest “lungs of the world”, shipping of barge-loads of heavy machinery, vast swathes of forest scoured out for rice and palm oil plantations, and of a traditional “pig feast” — the first in a decade.

Papuan environmental film ‘blocked’                       Video: Al Jazeera

In an editorial last week, The Jakarta Post said: “A series of crackdowns on public screenings and discussions of the documentary film Pesta Babi (Pig Feast) serves as a grim reminder that the nation’s democratic progress is not only stalling but effectively backsliding.”

Indnesian Army Chief-of-Staff General Maruli Simanjuntak said there had been “no direct instructions from the central military command to shut down public screenings of the documentary film Pesta Babi: Kolonialisme di Zaman Kita (Pig Party: Colonialism in Our Era).

“The shutdowns came from local administrations to maintain regional safety,” he said at the House of Representatives in Jakarta, according to antaranews.com.

“It is the responsibility of the regional coordinator … who deemed there was a risk of rioting. There was no direct instruction.”

Coordinating Minister for Legal and Human Rights Yusril Ihza Mahendra described the title of the film as “provocative” but denied there was a formal ban on screening it.

‘Important educational film’
Jubi News reports from Manokwari, West Papua, that a member of Indonesia’s Regional Representative Council (DPD RI) for West Papua, Filep Wamafma, welcomed the documentary as an “important educational medium” to open public discussion about development issues facing Papuans.

Wamafma said this after attending a public screening of the documentary at the School of Law (STIH) campus in Wosi, Manokwari Regency, last Monday.

The screening was organised by the academic community from Manokwari School of Law in collaboration with academics from Universitas Papua. Participants included students, lecturers, activists, and members of the public.

Wamafma said social conflicts arising from competition over natural resources and economic interests occured not only in Papua but also in many parts of the world.

However, he stressed that Papua’s problems had “unique characteristics” needing serious attention.

“This is a real global phenomenon, but each region has different problems. This film provides a concrete picture of the issues currently faced by Papuan society,” Wamafma said.

He encouraged students, especially law students, to approach the issues raised in the documentary through academic and constitutional perspectives.

Students, he said, should develop systematic analytical thinking by examining facts, legal norms, conducting analysis, and drawing conclusions.

The documentary has been made by award-winning investigative filmmaker Dandhy Dwi Laksono and producer Victor Mambor, founder of Jubi Media, who first visited New Zealand 12 years ago.

• Pesta Babi film review

Activists freed from Israeli detention following the interception of a Gaza-bound aid flotilla have reported that they were subjected to physical and sexual abuse, say flotilla organisers — with at least 15 reporting sexual assaults, including rape.

“At least 15 cases of sexual assaults, including rape. Shot with rubber bullets at close range. Tens of people’s bones broken,” organisers of the Global Sumud Flotilla posted on Telegram.

“While the world’s eye is trained on the suffering of our participants, we cannot emphasize enough that this is a mere glimpse of the brutality Israel imposes daily on Palestinian hostages,” the statement added.

• READ MORE: ‘It’s worse for Palestinians,’ says Australian flotilla activist about Israeli torture
• Gaza flotilla activists allege abuse, sexual assault in Israeli detention
• Shameen Suleman: Outrage over the flotilla activists but where were they for Palestinians?
• Israel’s $700m Hasbara fiasco – how Ben-Gvir’s flotilla abuse video stirred backlash
• Other Gaza flotilla reports

The reports come after the Israeli Prison Service (IPS) on Wednesday doubled down on its abusive treatment of activists forcibly detained, despite scores of testimonies detailing beatings, interrogation and humiliation as well as rape and sexual abuse.

The IPS responded to a barrage of global criticism after a video showed far-right Israel National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir taunting the flotilla detainees as they were being handcuffed, pushed, dragged and assaulted.

A group of Australian citizens were kidnapped on international waters and beaten senseless on camera by their captors – Israel

The most prominent Israel advocate in Australia – Jillian Segal – has so far said nothing about the welfare of her fellow Australian citizens nor… pic.twitter.com/deibOB3nhC

— RonniSalt-WhoWroteGunnawahYeahThatOne (@RonniSalt) May 23, 2026

“Upon receiving the detainees, the prison guards were required to act to maintain order and security at the site. All actions were carried out in accordance with procedures and professional considerations,” the IPS claimed.

The IPS also claimed that some of the detainees being shown in widely circulating videos were “not under the responsibility” of the IPS when they were being filmed.

Rights groups say abuse ‘systematic’
However, rights groups have accused Israel of making humiliation, sexual abuse and torture of detainees and prisoners systematic.

Dr Mimi Syed, a US-based physician who volunteered in Gaza amid Israel’s war on the besieged enclave, told The New Arab that Israel’s treatment of those aboard the flotilla is illegal.

“You cannot treat activists and humanitarian workers this way. It’s absolutely outrageous how there’s witnesses saying that people were raped and obvious signs of force being used — I saw some of the photos of the activists which show signs of bruising and fractures, things like that which are absolutely unnecessary,” she said.

“There is video recording of officials deliberately assaulting some of these activists which is just unheard of.

“I’m not surprised as this is something the Israeli government has been doing to civilians in Gaza, so doing to activists in other countries is still right on par with what they have demonstrated to the world in the last two and a half years,” she said.

Several photos and videos shared this week on social media showed flotilla activists being forced to kneel down with their heads on the ground, while Israeli prison officers are surrounding them.

The footage, some of which was shared by minister Ben-Gvir, was condemned by several states, while Poland, France, Italy, Canada, Australia, Belgium, the Netherlands and the UK summoned Israeli ambassadors to “clarify” why their citizens were mistreated.

‘Complete impunity’
The liberal Israeli newspaper Haaretz asked the country’s foreign ministry if the treatment of the flotilla activists was acceptable, but there was no response.

“When a country has complete impunity to do what they want, nothing really is out of bounds for them,” Dr Syed said.

“They will do what they need to achieve their goal which is a land grab, ethnic cleansing, genocide, the displacement of millions of people. It’s not just in Gaza, it’s in the West Bank and Lebanon.”

Activists aboard the Global Sumud Flotilla, who were taken to Istanbul before returning to their countries, also revealed on Friday that the abuse they faced included rubber bullets being fired at close range, tasers to the face, stun grenades thrown into groups of people, stress positions for hours under bright lights, the forced removal of hijabs and sexual taunting.

They said the sexual violence included strip searches, groping, the pulling of genitals, and rape.

According to organisers, based on testimonies from those released from detention, some of the most horrifying accounts come from those aboard a single vessel, dubbed “torture boat”.

“I can say that all were in many ways abused, not one single person walking with nothing,” Veronica Otero, told reporters.

“Among them there were 36 fractures, many broken ribs, torso, shoulders, and back. People were in agony. People were not breathing [due to the broken ribs].”

Testimonies of abuse, rape
More than 50 boats took part in the Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF), with 430 people on board from more than 40 countries, and since armed Israeli naval commandos began intercepting the fleet in international waters, many have detailed the abuse they faced.

One Australian activist, Zack Schofield, who had since been deported to Istanbul and has now returned to Australia, said all the members of the flotilla were treated brutally.

“Her hands [and] feet were zip-tied together, and then she was dragged around the rest of the processing centre, before she was taken into a prison bus,” he told reporters, referring to an abused Irish woman who was part of the flotilla group.

“There’s no consistency to the violence. It was really at the whim of whichever guard was in front of you,” he continued, adding that he saw many people receive similar or worse treatment.

Juliet Lamont, a filmmaker from Australia, said Israeli soldiers sexually assaulted and beat her, noting she witnessed others — at least 40 — being left with broken bones, while others were sedated and tasered.

The activists said prison guards restricted access to food and water, and were left to sleep on cold, wet floors for days with no mattress or blankets, in cramped conditions.

We do not need any more examples to know that we are dealing with a terrorist state! There is a long, documented history of systemic violence perpetrated by the Israeli regime against the Palestinian people with absolute impunity. pic.twitter.com/JIPvZf2Rqp

— Thiago Ávila (@thiagoavilabr) May 23, 2026

Brazilian activist Thiago Ávila told The New Arab he was beaten unconscious and Israeli forces threatened to kill him.

Meanwhile, Luca Poggi, an Italian economist who was aboard the flotilla, confirmed the reports of sexual abuse: “We were stripped, thrown to the ground, kicked.

“Many of us were tasered, some were sexually assaulted, and some were denied access to a lawyer,” he told reporters after he was deported to Rome.

Nadda Osman is a British-Egyptian journalist and editor based in London. She holds a degree in English and journalism and reports on the Middle East and North Africa. Republished from The New Arab.

• Australian members of the Gaza flotilla arrived back home today and told news media of their abuse. Two of the three New Zealand members of the flotilla are due to arrive back in Auckland early tomorrow afternoon.

Australian activist Zack Schofield says he was illegally detained by the Israeli military after the Global Sumud Flotilla was intercepted in international waters on Monday.

Now released, Schofield alleges activists were subjected to violence, tasers, beatings and deprivation while in Israeli custody.

The claims were made in an interview with Anadolu Ajansi following his release.

• WATCH: Original video with Zack Schofield from @anadoluagency
• Original IV with Patrick Kaiser
• Gaza flotilla activists allege abuse, sexual assault in Israeli detention
• Shameen Suleman: Outrage over the flotilla activists but where were they for Palestinians?
• Israel’s $700m Hasbara fiasco – how Ben-Gvir’s flotilla abuse video stirred backlash
• Other Gaza flotilla reports

“The torture is nothing compared with what happens to Palestinians in the occupied territories every single day,” he said.

“This is why we went. It is because Israel behaves worse towards Palestinians in every way imaginable.

“It rapes them systematically in their prisons. It shoots them at aid sites. It bombs them in their homes.

“And Palestinians have been at the forefront of a global war against humanity for generations. That’s why we went, and I’d do it all again.”

Global condemnation
The interception of the flotilla has sparked international condemnation and renewed scrutiny over Israel’s blockade operations and the treatment of activists attempting to reach Gaza by sea.

Schofield previously spoke to Michael West Media after an earlier detention by Israeli forces. This is now the second time he says he has been abducted while participating in flotilla actions.

Britain. France. Canada. Italy. Spain. Belgium. The Netherlands. Poland. Australia. New Zealand . . .  The European Union. The United Nations . . .

Suddenly they have found outrage because international activists aboard the flotilla were humiliated, abused and tortured by Israeli war criminals under National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s prison system.

Ambassadors are being summoned. Statements are being released. Diplomats are demanding “clarifications”.

But where have these governments been while Palestinians endured this for years?

Palestinian journalist Sami Al-Sa’i described being raped by Israeli prison guards while blindfolded and handcuffed, left bleeding on the floor as guards laughed and discussed filming the assault.

As a reminder once again, this is the report prepared by Nicolas Kristof from The New York Times, in which I was one of the speakers talking about my own experience, having been raped by members of the Israeli Prison Service during my detention… https://t.co/TQiqu8GQI2

— سامي السّاعي (@SamiAssai) May 22, 2026

Other former detainees described rape with objects, attacks involving dogs, electrocution, starvation and repeated torture inside Israeli detention facilities. Human rights organisations, UN experts and former detainees have all warned that this abuse is systematic, organised and protected from accountability.

Where were these governments when Dr Adnan Al-Bursh was abducted, tortured, sexually abused and ultimately murdered in israeli custody, with his body still withheld from his family? Where are they while Dr Hussam Abu Safiya and Palestinian medical workers remain detained, abused and denied proper medical treatment?

And now the world acts shocked because foreign activists were finally subjected to a fraction of what Palestinians have endured for decades.

In 2010, israeli forces attacked the Mavi Marmara flotilla trying to break the siege on Gaza, killing nine activists before a tenth later died from his injuries.

The world condemned it, statements were made, outrage came and went, yet Palestinians remained trapped under siege while Israeli war criminals continued receiving arms, protection and political cover from Western governments.

To the people aboard the flotilla who were tortured, humiliated and abused while trying to break the siege on Gaza and deliver aid to starving civilians: may you recover safely and may your courage wake people up.

The world saw what happened to you. Palestinians have been screaming about these crimes for years. Credit to @thiagoavila for continuing to expose what so many tried to ignore.

Warning: distressful content!

Those genocidal maniacs RAPED humanitarian activist trying to take food and medicine to children in Gaza! And the worst is that even this they escalate to much worse forms with the 9000 Palestinians in israeli dungeons (almost 400 children)! pic.twitter.com/a0yuMuilvQ

— Thiago Ávila (@thiagoavilabr) May 21, 2026

Summoning ambassadors is not enough. Condemnations are not enough. Expel them. Sanction them. Stop arming them. Stop protecting Israeli war criminals while criminalising activists who try to stop weapons reaching them.

While Western governments choose silence, the British state chooses to criminalise, arrest and persecute activists, journalists, doctors, teachers and humanitarians for standing with Palestine. @Majstar7, @swilkinsonbc, Junaid Mayet, @KarakDesi and thousands more whose only “crime” was refusing to stay silent while Palestinians were slaughtered, starved and abused in plain sight.

My activism is for people. I oppose dehumanisation, torture, rape, abuse and the killing of civilians, no matter who the victim is.

But Palestinians have been subjected to all of this in plain sight while the world chose silence.

Shameen Suleman is a journalist for MENA Uncensored.

Spanish Member of the European Parliament Irene Montero has accused the European Union (EU) of failing to protect European citizens aboard a Gaza-bound flotilla intercepted by Israel, directing sharp criticism at the bloc’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas during a plenary session on the Middle East.

Addressing Kallas in the parliament chamber on Tuesday, the Podemos lawmaker condemned Israel’s actions in the Mediterranean and accused EU leaders of remaining silent, reports Anadolu Ajansi.

“Israel has been in the middle of the Mediterranean for 24 hours, and that is saying something, hijacking ships and kidnapping European citizens,” Montero said.

• READ MORE: Tehran says it is reviewing US response to peace proposal — and global anger over Israeli treatment of Gaza flotilla activists
• Israel begins deporting Gaza aid flotilla activists amid global outcry
• Peters condemns Israeli minister over flotilla video as 3 Kiwis detained
• Peace Action demands NZ summon Israeli ambassador over brutal action against activists
• Other Gaza flotilla reports

“You find that amusing, don’t you? It doesn’t amuse me at all,” she said, asking: “Are you ever going to lift a finger to protect them?”

Montero questioned how the EU would react if another country had carried out similar actions.

“What would you do if it were Iran, if it were Russia standing in the middle of the Mediterranean to kidnap European citizens?” she asked.

“But since it’s Israel, you just smile and look the other way. Shame on you.”

Shared her speech footage
Later on Wednesday, Montero shared footage of her speech in a post on the US social media platform X, accusing the EU of helping “genocidaires.”

“Israel assaults and hijacks ships loaded with aid for Gaza right in the middle of the Mediterranean, and this lady finds it amusing and doesn’t lift a finger to defend the kidnapped people,” she wrote.

“They help the genocidaires without even hiding it.”

❝Ms. Kallas, Israel has spent the last 24 hours, which is no small matter, in the middle of Mediterranean hijacking ships and kidnapping European citizens. You find that amusing, don’t you? It doesn’t amuse me at all❞

Spanish MEP Irene Montero confronted EU foreign policy… pic.twitter.com/YIHm7SZeHI

— Anadolu English (@anadoluagency) May 20, 2026

Deportation begins
The Global Sumud humanitarian aid flotilla said Tuesday that all 50 vessels in its aid convoy and about 430 crew and activists had been seized by Israel.

Al Jazeera reports that Israel has begun deporting detained Gaza flotilla activists amid a global outcry over their “appalling” treatment by their Israeli captors. They were being released from the Ktziot detention facility where they were forcibly taken to.

The Adalah legal rights group said it had received confirmation from the Israeli Prison Service and state authorities that all detained members of the Global Sumud Flotilla and Freedom Flotilla Coalition were being transferred for deportation.

According to Adalah, most of the activists are being taken to Ramon Airport to be flown out of the country, while its legal team is monitoring the process to ensure that all activists are safely and fully sent without further delay.

37 MEPs demand ‘accountability’
Meanwhile, Global Sumud Aotearoa reports that while the activists remained detained after their illegal kidnapping, 37 Members of the EU Parliament circulated and co-signed a protest letter.

Although the flotilla are now being released, the demand for accountability in the MEP letter remains the same:

“On 18 May 2026, Israeli naval forces violently abducted the humanitarian workers of the Global Sumud Flotilla in the international waters of the Mediterranean Sea.

“Their abduction constitutes yet another flagrant violation of the rights and principles enshrined in EU law. A previous interception of this same flotilla on 29 April produced documented testimony of systematic torture, severe physical abuse and sexual violence against detained participants.

“The EU–Israel Association Agreement contains binding human rights obligations. Those obligations are being openly and repeatedly violated. Continued inaction by European institutions renders the EU complicit in this pattern of impunity.

“We therefore demand:

• Immediate suspension of the EU–Israel Association Agreement pending compliance with its human rights provisions;
• Immediate and unconditional release of all detained flotilla participants;
• An independent international inquiry into the full scope of EU member state complicity in the abduction, detention, and documented physical and sexual violence inflicted upon flotilla participants by Israeli forces.

“Europe cannot continue to look away. Each failure to act is a signal to Israel that there is no cost to lawlessness. That signal must end now.”

New Zealand has joined international condemnation of Israel’s far-right national security minister, even summoning the Israeli ambassador to convey that message.

A video posted by Israel’s National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, showing him taunting detained flotilla activists, drew international condemnation on Thursday.

The video showed kneeling activists, with their hands zip-tied, while Ben-Gvir shouted “they came as big heroes, see how they look now… not heroes, nothing, terror supporters”.

The video released by Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir

• READ MORE: Peace Action demands NZ summon Israeli ambassador over brutal action against activists
• Several nations summon Israeli envoys as Ben-Gvir taunts flotilla activists
• 87+ Gaza aid flotilla activists abducted by Israel now on hunger strike
• Family pleas for kidnapped 3 Kiwis as Gaza flotilla demands global activists’ freedom from Israel
• Other Gaza flotilla reports

Ben-Gvir also said he had told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “give them to me for more much time, give them to us for the terrorist prisons, this is how it should look”.

He posted the video with the caption “welcome to Israel”.

In a statement on X, Foreign Minister Winston Peters said New Zealand condemned Ben-Gvir’s behaviour.

“Last year, New Zealand placed a travel ban on Minister Ben-Gvir for severely and deliberately undermining peace and security and removing prospects for a two state solution.

Further vindication
His latest conduct with respect to the Gaza flotilla, which has been seriously criticised by his own Prime Minister, is further vindication of that position.

Peters said ministry officials had been instructed to call in the Israeli Ambassador on Thursday to directly pass the government’s grave concerns.

New Zealand condemns the behaviour of Israeli Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

Last year, New Zealand placed a travel ban on Minister Ben-Gvir for severely and deliberately undermining peace and security and removing prospects for a two state solution.

His latest conduct with…

— Winston Peters (@NewZealandMFA) May 20, 2026

“We expect Israel to adhere to its international legal obligations, including in its treatment of New Zealanders participating in the flotilla.”

The US, the UK, France, Italy and Canada were among the countries which expressed alarm at the video, which Ben-Gvir shared on social media.

A global pro-Palestinian humanitarian aid movement said three New Zealanders were detained by Israel after their boats were intercepted while taking part in a flotilla to Gaza.

The Global Sumud Flotilla had repeatedly tried to break Israel’s naval blockade of the Palestinian territory.

In a statement, the group said New Zealanders Mousa Taher, Hāhona Ormsby and Julien Blondel were now in Israeli custody.

It said Mousa and Julien had returned to the flotilla after an earlier interception.

MFAT comment
RNZ approached the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) for comment.

In a previous statement provided to RNZ earlier this month, MFAT said it understood up to six New Zealanders had been caught up in the interception and it was aware of allegations made about the treatment of New Zealanders in custody.

Consular officials in New Zealand and Europe had been working to get information and support the New Zealanders involved, it said.

“The New Zealand government made it clear to Israel that the safety of New Zealanders involved was paramount and that international law must be upheld,” the previous statement said.

New Zealand had a long-standing “do not travel” advisory in place for Gaza, explicitly warning against any attempt to enter by sea, MFAT said.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

• Pacific Media Watch reports that 428 Gaza flotilla humanitarian activists from 40 countries were abducted from more than 50 boats in the Israeli operation this week, according to organisers. The boats were carrying humanitarian aid in a bid to break the illegal blockade of Gaza.

New Zealand needs to summon Israeli ambassador to protest over the illegal and brutal treatment of Global Sumud Flotilla humanitarian aid activists — including three New Zealanders — kidnapped in international waters this week.

Peace activists are demanding this in the response to Israel ambassadors being summoned by several host governments over the “degrading” treatment.

Media footage broadcast by Al Jazeera and other media show Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir taunting activists in Israeli custody, including the three New Zealanders — Mousa Taher, Julien Blondel and Hāhona Jason Ormsby.

• READ MORE: Several nations summon Israeli envoys as Ben-Gvir taunts flotilla activists
• 87+ Gaza aid flotilla activists abducted by Israel now on hunger strike
• Family pleas for kidnapped 3 Kiwis as Gaza flotilla demands global activists’ freedom from Israel
• Other Gaza flotilla reports

Update: New Zealand has now also condemned the behaviour of Israeli Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir with Foreign Minister Winston Peters issuing a statement saying, “we have instructed MFAT to call in the Israeli Ambassador today to directly pass on our grave concerns”.

The latest protest came from the European Union’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, who condemned a video showing Ben-Gvir abusing activists as they were forced to kneel on the floor with their hands tied behind their backs.

Kallas described the treatment of the abducted activists as “degrading and wrong” and said rightwing minister Ben-Gvir’s conduct was “unbecoming of anyone holding office in a democracy”.

Peters noted that New Zealand had last year placed a travel ban on Ben-Gvir for “severely and deliberately undermining peace and security and removing prospects for a two state solution”.

Several countries — including Italy, France, the Netherlands, and Canada — have summoned the Israeli ambassadors to their capitals to express “indignation” over Israel’s treatment of the Gaza flotilla activists.

Other countries condemning the incident include South Korea, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Greece, Germany, Poland, Qatar, Slovenia, Turkiye, Austria, Belgium, Colombia and the United Kingdom.

Ben-Gvir’s actions ‘unacceptable’
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot denounced Ben-Gvir’s actions as “unacceptable”, calling for the release of French citizens “as soon as possible”.

Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Anand called the incident “deeply troubling”, adding that Ottawa would summon the Israeli ambassador over the incident.

“The world is finally moving after seeing the cowardice and the violence of the Zionist regime against our non-violent solidarity humanitarian mission,” a flotilla organiser, Brazilian Thiago Ávila, posted on X.

“But the key problem is that this level of unacceptable violence is still nothing compared to what they do to Palestinians every day.”

All 428 activists from 40 countries were part of the peaceful flotilla of more than 50 boats taking humanitarian aid to Gaza in a bid to break Israel’s illegal blockade.

“We call on the Foreign Minister, Winston Peters, to summon the Israeli Ambassador,” said Valerie Morse, member of Peace Action Wellington, in a statement.

“He needs to stand up for these New Zealanders who are being detained illegally and tortured by the Israeli military.

“The video footage shows the activists held in stress positions while Ben-Gvir parades around shouting at them.

New Zealand condemns the behaviour of Israeli Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

Last year, New Zealand placed a travel ban on Minister Ben-Gvir for severely and deliberately undermining peace and security and removing prospects for a two state solution.

His latest conduct with…

— Winston Peters (@NewZealandMFA) May 20, 2026

‘Peters ignored responsibilities’
“Thus far, he has completely ignored his responsibilities as Foreign Minister. We have not heard a word of condemnation for Israel’s blatant kidnapping of ordinary people peacefully sailing in the Mediterranean Sea,” Morse said.

“Peters is greenlighting more Israeli impunity by failing to take action for New Zealanders in extremely vulnerable positions.

“He must demand the immediate release of these New Zealanders without delay and without harm.”

The world is finally moving after seeing the cowardice & the violence of the Zionist regime against our non-violent solidarity humanitarian mission. But the key problem is that this level of unacceptable violence is still nothing compared to what they do to Palestinians every day pic.twitter.com/8Z7mgJa5uc

— Thiago Ávila (@thiagoavilabr) May 20, 2026

At least 87 people kidnapped by Israeli forces from a humanitarian aid flotilla bound for Gaza have begun a hunger strike, say organisers, after Israeli forces intercepted the last remaining vessel in international waters.

The group is striking “in protest of their illegal abduction and in solidarity with the over 9500 Palestinian hostages held in Israeli dungeons”, the Global Sumud Flotilla wrote on X, reports Al Jazeera.

Late on Tuesday evening, Israeli forces “kidnapped” six people on board the Lina al-Nabulsi boat, organisers said.

• READ MORE: Family pleas for kidnapped 3 Kiwis as Gaza flotilla demands global activists’ freedom from Israel
• Foreign ministers of 10 countries say Israel’s storming of the aid flotilla is blatant violation of international law
• Greenpeace calls on global govts to ensure safety of Gaza flotilla stormed by Israeli military
• ‘They threatened to kill us at gunpoint,’ says NZ Gaza flotilla activist
• After Israel’s brutal attack on Kiwis the NZ government does nothing
• Other Gaza flotilla reports

The boat was the last in a group of more than 50 vessels that left Turkiye’s port city of Marmaris last week to sail towards Gaza, with the goal of breaking Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip.

Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed late on Tuesday that its forces were taking hundreds of flotilla participants to Israel.

“Another PR flotilla has come to an end. All 430 activists have been transferred to Israeli vessels and are making their way to Israel, where they will be able to meet with their consular representatives,” a ministry spokesman said, calling the effort “nothing more than a PR stunt.”

Israeli forces began overtaking the vessels in international waters off the coast of Cyprus on Monday, organisers said, where they raided boats, allegedly fired rubber bullets and abducted participants.

Nine Indonesians, 3 New Zealanders
The detainees included nine Indonesian citizens, a spokesperson for Indonesia’s foreign ministry said Wednesday.

Indonesia called for the immediate release of all vessels and said that “every diplomatic channel and consular measure will continue to be fully utilised”.

Some 15 Irish citizens, including Dr Margaret Connolly, the sister of Irish President Catherine Connolly, were among those being held.

Countries including Turkiye, Spain, Jordan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Brazil, Indonesia, Colombia, Libya, and the Maldives denounced the Israeli interceptions as “blatant violations of international law and international humanitarian law”.

Three New Zealanders were also abducted on the flotllla but their government has not spoken out. They are Mousa Taher, turning 39 next week; Hāhona Ormsby, 56; and Julien Blondel, 47.

The United States, however, imposed sanctions on four activists for their involvement in flotillas that have tried to reach Gaza, claiming without evidence that the organisers were acting “in support of Hamas”.

Some previous flotilla participants have refused food upon being detained by Israel.

Pro-Palestine activists jailed in the UK also participated in a high-profile, months-long hunger strike that began last year and led to severe health effects.

• More information at the Global Sumud Flotilla New Zealand delegation Instagram page

NZ EMBASSY (responsible for the illegally occupied Palestinian terroritories) in Ankara, Turkey
+90(312)4463333
Email: NZEmbassyAnkara@mfat.govt.nz

Celebrated Italian war reporter Francesca Mannocchi has condemned the double standard over Israel’s war mongering.

“What Israel is doing in southern Lebanon is, quite simply, no different from what Russian troops have been doing in Ukraine,” she said in an interview.

“It’s the same thing…

• READ MORE: At least 22 killed in Israeli attacks on Lebanon in 24 hour – ceasefire death toll tops 3000

“Since 2022, have we ever read a headline saying, ‘Putin is building a security buffer zone in Mariupol’? No.

“We’ve always called it what it is: a military occupation.

“Yet when Israeli troops do the exact same thing in southern Lebanon, we call it a ‘security buffer zone’.

That framing clearly shaped perception, Mannochi said.

‘Same dynamics, same methods’
“We are talking about the same dynamics, the same methods, the same displacement of civilians, the same destruction. And yet, on one side it is widely seen as a war crime; on the other, as a legitimate security operation.”

Mannochi asked why the difference?

“Because in recent years there has been a gradual erosion in how international law is perceived and applied. And it has its convenient enemies.

“Putin is an easy one: no one would seriously argue that the Russian Federation is a democracy.

Israel, on the other hand, continues to be described, and accepted, as a ‘democracy’, even when that label is increasingly contested.

“Why? Because this implicates us. While we no longer feel allied, morally or politically, with Russia, many in the West still see themselves as morally and militarily aligned with Israel.”

Italian war reporter Francesca Mannocchi:

“What Israel is doing in southern Lebanon is, quite simply, no different from what Russian troops have been doing in Ukraine. It’s the same thing…

Since 2022, have we ever read a headline saying “Putin is building a security buffer… pic.twitter.com/yRM0p7BBDp

— Paolo Mossetti (@paolomossetti) May 18, 2026

The Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) has called on the New Zealand government to resolve a tenancy controversy over the Israeli embassy — by expelling the ambassador and staff.

Noting the world pariah status of the country after the International Criminal Court (ICC)  has reportedly sought arrest warrants for war crimes against up to five more Israeli officials, the PSNA said today the shift of the Israeli embassy into the Fisher Funds building in Wellington had concerned other tenants in the office high rise.

Citing The Post front-page article on Monday, it said only some occupants of the 13-storey site had been told that Israel was moving in.

• READ MORE: Israeli far-right minister Smotrich says ICC seeks his arrest
• Israeli Embassy on the move ‒ but not all new neighbours happy, despite heightened security promise
• Family pleas for kidnapped 3 Kiwis as Gaza flotilla demands global activists’ freedom from Israel
• Other Gaza genocide reports

PSNA spokesperson Rinad Tamimi said in a statement “the building’s owner was obviously trying to keep the arrival of the embassy a secret” to avoid objections.

“It’s pretty obvious why. The Fisher Funds building is owned by Prime Property Group, which is controlled by rich-lister and former Israeli Defence Force major, Eyal Aharoni,” she said.

“He’s looking after his own.”

According to Al Jazeera and news agencies, Israeli far-right Finance Minister ⁠Bezalel Smotrich said he had been informed that the ICC ⁠in ⁠The Hague ⁠had ⁠requested a warrant for his arrest.

Smotrich did not specify who had informed him about the warrant and said it was a “declaration of war”. The process of seeking warrants ⁠is confidential.

Displacement orders
The ICC accusations reportedly centre on Smotrich’s forced displacement orders for Palestinians, his support for moving Israeli settlers into occupied territory, and his claim it may be “justified and moral” to starve Palestinians in Gaza.

Another report, by the independent Haaretz newspaper, named five officials — including Smotrich — as the subject of arrest warrants, but the ICC described this as “inaccurate”.

In November 2024, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for “crimes against humanity and war crimes” committed during Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

Tamimi said the solution to the embassy location concern was the New Zealand government could expel the ambassador and his staff.

“We broke off diplomatic relations when it was discovered Israel’s Mossad spy agency had been getting fake New Zealand passports. So, there is a precedent,” she said.

“It all comes down to the fact that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. It’s the world’s worst atrocity of this century and shamefully its ongoing perpetrators are flying their flag over our capital city.

‘Kidnapping citizens’
“At this very moment, Israel is firing on the Sumud Flotilla trying to bring aid to Gaza and kidnapping and assaulting New Zealand citizens on that convoy.

“Our ministers are shaking hands with the people who represent this illegal violence in international waters.”

Tamimi said that although Fisher Funds did not own the building it operated out of, “it must have powers as the holder of naming rights”.

Three New Zealanders are being illegally held hostage by the Israeli military after security forces boarded more than 50 boats of the Global Sumud Flotilla carrying humanitarian aid bound for the besieged Palestinian enclave of Gaza.

They have been named by the flotilla Aotearoa delegation as Mousa Taher, turning 39 next week; Hāhona Ormsby, 56; and Julien Blondel, 47.

All three were among the 428 humanitarian aid activists from 40 countries detained by the Israeli forces when they illegally intercepted the flotilla in international waters near Cyprus over the past two days.

• READ MORE: Foreign ministers of 10 countries say Israel’s storming of the aid flotilla is blatant violation of international law
• Greenpeace calls on global govts to ensure safety of Gaza flotilla stormed by Israeli military
• ‘They threatened to kill us at gunpoint,’ says NZ Gaza flotilla activist
• After Israel’s brutal attack on Kiwis the NZ government does nothing
• Other Gaza flotilla reports

Mousa Taher was aboard the Kasri Sadabat, one of the final 10 boats to be intercepted. A father of seven, Mousa left his children a message before being illegally abducted, writing on a sign for the livestream camera, “I love you”, and “Salaam Baby!”

His 11-year-old son has written a plea to the New Zealand government to intervene:

“To Mr Government: I want to ask you to please help my Dad, Mousa Taher, so his boat doesn’t get intercepted by Israelis. I miss him very much and I hope to see him untouched, not hurt, and in good conditions.

The people in Gaza deserve support, especially all the kids like me. Help my Baba to help Palestinians please.”

— From: Shay Yusuf. Age 11

Taher, who was previously illegally intercepted by the IOF on April 29 alongside Julien Blondel, returned to the flotilla for a second time.

Taher, who was previously illegally intercepted by the IOF on April 29 alongside Julien Blondel, returned to the flotilla for a second time.

Message to ‘fellow Kiwis’
Yesterday, before his illegal interception, Taher sent the Aotearoa delegation a message announcing, “I have a message to my fellow Kiwis and the New Zealand government.

“I’m on my boat which has humanitarian aid, on the way to Gaza to break the illegal siege of the israeli occupation forces.

“What I would like to say is that, for three years, I watched the uncontested demolition and obliteration of a people. It was on the TV for all of us to watch.

“Our government chose time and time again to do nothing. To be complicit, and to allow this to happen.

“There has been war crime after war crime, and yet the New Zealand government has been investing and shaking hands with these war criminals who are committing war crimes.”

“Our government has a choice. Are you going to uphold international law? Are you going to uphold humanitarian values? Are you going to be the New Zealand that we know and love?

“Or are you going to allow these oppressors to continue?… Please just be humans. And stop the killing of babies… this is my request and my plea. Kia Kaha, and we will see you in Gaza hopefully.”

Blondel abducted second time
Also abducted is New Zealander Julien Blondel, a dual citizen to Switzerland, who was beaten in the face in Israeli military custody after the first interception on April 29.

Despite the beatings, sexual harassment, and abuse that flotilla participants experienced during this abduction, both Blondel and Taher have returned to the flotilla to try and break the siege once more, the Aotearoa delegation said in a statement.

“They returned because they remain steadfast in their solidarity with the Palestinian people and their belief in a liberated world,” the statement said.

Hāhona Chris Ormsby (Ngāti Maniapoto), father of five children, is the third New Zealander to be illegally abducted.

Before the illegal interception, he said, “we are now only days away from Gaza… we need your eyes on us. Your eyes then become the government’s eyes on us.

“It keeps us safe. It keeps us out of harm’s way by the IOF… My freedom is not real if yours is denied. Free Gaza.”

The Aotearoa delegation said: “To echo Hahona’s words, we implore New Zealand to keep its eyes on the abducted flotilla participants to keep our whānau safe. We demand that the New Zealand government does everything in its power to protect them.”

Flotilla organisers demand release
The abducted participants are being taken to a port in Israeli-occupied Palestine.

The Global Sumud Flotilla organisers have demanded the immediate, unconditional release of all the  participants, alongside the more than 9000 “unjustly detained Palestinian political prisoners facing a codified regime of state-sanctioned terror”.

GSF has also called on world leaders to demand the release of the flotilla participants, the release of the Palestinian political prisoners and hostages and an end to the genocide and blockade on Gaza.

Meanwhile, the Global Humanitarian Convoy has been blocked on the outskirts of Sirte in Libya while attempting to reach Gaza. This is despite the unambiguity of the Fourth Geneva Convention: all parties are obligated to allow the free passage of humanitarian aid and personnel.

“The international community must act now and protect the lives of the vulnerable,” said the GSF. “Blocking humanitarian aid is a violation of international law both at sea and on land.

“Our governments must speak up.”

10 countries condemn Israel
Al Jazeera reports that several countries have condemned the Israeli attacks on the aid flotilla.

The foreign ministers of Turkïye, Spain, Jordan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Brazil, Indonesia, Colombia, Libya, and the Maldives released a joint statement, describing Israeli forces’ actions as “blatant violations of international law and international humanitarian law”.

On Saturday, Trump took revenge on Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy for Cassidy’s vote five years ago to convict Trump, in his second impeachment, for instigating an attack on the US Capitol.

Cassidy thereby became the first GOP senator defeated by a Trump-endorsed candidate in a Republican primary. (Other Republican senators who have stood up to Trump — such as North Carolina’s Thom Tillis and Utah’s Mitt Romney — saw the writing on the wall and didn’t seek reelection.)

Trump’s purge of Cassidy comes in the wake of Trump’s purges of House Republicans who stood up to him, such as Wyoming’s Liz Cheney.

• READ MORE: Trump says Iran attack held off upon Gulf states’ request
• Republican Thomas Massie who stood up to Trump defeated in Kentucky primary
• Other Donald Trump reports

Trump’s next Republican target in the House is Kentucky representative Thomas Massie, who had the guts to oppose US military involvement in Iran, demand release of the Epstein files, and criticise Trump’s spending bills for adding to the national debt. Massie appears likely to be defeated by a Trump-backed opponent in Tuesday’s Kentucky primary.

Trump is marshaling the full force of his MAGA machine — spending more than $30 million on a House Republican primary — to purge another of his political enemies from the Republican House. Even Secretary of “War” Pete Hegseth is flying to Kentucky to campaign for Massie’s challenger.

It’s all seen as an investment in intimidating and disciplining Republican office-holders who might otherwise think of straying.

Trump has also purged state legislators who have refused to do his bidding, such as the seven Indiana Republicans who refused to redistrict the state as Trump demanded they do, and who Trump insured were defeated in their recent primaries.

The message is clear to every current or aspiring Republican politician: Be a toady to Trump, or you’re out.

In his concession speech Friday night, Cassidy stated the obvious reference to Trump:

“Our country is not about one individual. It is about the welfare of all Americans, and it is about our Constitution.

“And if someone doesn’t understand that and attempts to control others through using the levers of power, they’re about serving themselves. They’re not about serving us. And that person is not qualified to be a leader.”

Nicely put but sadly irrelevant because Trump — who’s clearly serving himself rather than the American public — now possesses all levers of power in the official Republican Party.

As Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said yesterday on Meet the Press, “There’s no room in this party to destroy [Trump’s] agenda.”

Former generations of Republican politicians had principles, beliefs, ideals. They thought the federal government too large. Or believed it spent too much money. Or was too lenient on criminals. Or was too eager to support the civil rights of Black people. Or any number of issues with which Democrats disagreed.

Today’s Republican Party no longer has any purpose other than achieving whatever Trump wants, which is mainly to make Trump richer and more powerful. The GOP is now Trump’s; it is no longer America’s.

Today’s Republican voters, by contrast, are showing increasing frustration with Trump. Those who think of themselves as traditional Republicans don’t like Trump’s expansive use of federal power. Those who are fiscally conservative, like Thomas Massie, are upset by Trump’s wanton spending, tax cuts, and soaring debt.

“America-first” Republican voters are concerned about Trump’s intrusions into Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, and elsewhere. And they want the rest of the Epstein files released.

Yet for elected Republicans, survival now depends on personal loyalty to Trump.

All of which raises a fundamental question: Has the official Republican Party — now nearly purged of anyone willing to reflect the concerns of Republican voters rather than Trump’s will — become complicit in Trump’s criminality? Is it aiding and abetting Trump’s lawlessness?

A case can be made that the official Republican Party is indeed complicit.

For Trump, the first and most basic sign of loyalty to him — and therefore survival as a politician in Trump’s Republican Party — is a willingness to publicly proclaim as truth what we know to be two big lies: that Trump won the 2020 election, and that he did not seek to overturn its results by illegal means. As a result, almost all congressional Republicans are now election deniers.

Trump has also made it clear that loyalty to him bars any criticism of his unlawful immigration dragnet, which has so far resulted in the murders of three US citizens by ICE agents and the detention and deportation, without a hearing, of people suspected of being in the US illegally.

To Trump, loyalty requires full support of his foreign policy — including the abduction of a foreign leader, an undeclared war with Iran, and the killing on the high seas of people only suspected of smuggling drugs, in violation of international law.

Loyalty also demands unquestioned support for other of his lawless acts — using the Justice Department to prosecute his political opponents, building a mammoth White House ballroom, issuing no-bid contracts to his friends, promoting his family’s businesses and implementing policies favorable to them, accepting gifts from foreign powers, and defying court orders.

Is it fair to conclude from all of this that today’s official Republican Party — the people who are in office because Trump has put them there, or who maintain their office because they back whatever Trump wants — has in effect become a criminal organisation, analogous to the mafia or a drug cartel, whose members are blindly loyal to their criminal bosses?

Robert Reich is a US professor, former Secretary of Labor, co-founder of Inequality Media and writes at robertreich.substack.com

Greenpeace International has condemned Israeli armed forces for illegally attacking a peaceful Gaza-bound Global Sumud Flotilla in international waters for the second time.

The flobal environmental movement said in a statement it echoed the Global Sumud Flotilla’s urgent demand for safe passage for their peaceful humanitarian mission.

“Governments must act now to stop these illegal acts of aggression,” the Greenpeace statement said.

• READ MORE: Irish president’s sister, 2 Kiwis among Gaza flotilla activists detained by Israel
• The Flotilla Tracker map showing the location of the vessels
• Live streams from the flotilla
• Other Gaza humanitarian flotilla reports

Greenpeace spokesperson Pujarini Sen said: “In Palestine, in Lebanon and now in international waters, Israel’s disregard for human rights and international law cannot be tolerated.

“How long will the world stand by and watch Israel act with such impunity?

‘Protect the flotilla’
“Greenpeace calls on all governments to act with urgency to uphold international law and ensure the immediate release and protection of the Global Sumud Flotilla with concrete steps to ensure its safe passage to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza.”

The Global Sumud Flotilla is a peaceful international movement sailing to oppose Israel’s genocidal siege on Gaza, to confront the complicity that enables occupation, and to stand with the Palestinian people.

The Israeli government continues to enforce a blockade by land and sea of aid and food from international organisations. Blocking aid and targeting those who attempt to deliver it are violations of international humanitarian law.⁣

CPJ protest over journalists
In New York, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) called on international governments to demand the immediate release and protection of all civilians detained after Israeli forces attacked and intercepted the Global Sumud Flotilla in international waters, including at least seven journalists on board.

“Detaining journalists for documenting a humanitarian mission is a grave violation of press freedom and international law,” said CPJ’s MENA regional director Sara Qudah in a statement.

“Israeli authorities must restore communications, ensure the safety of all passengers, and allow independent media to report without intimidation, violence, or arbitrary detention.

“Governments worldwide must act now to prevent further Israeli attacks on journalists and humanitarian civilians.”

At least 40 countries are represented by some 500 protesters and humanitarian activists on board the flotilla.

Israel is reported to have boarded and seized more than 60 boats in the flotilla.

At least two New Zealanders are reported to have been kidnapped by the Israeli military.

CPJ calls on international governments to demand the immediate release and protection of all civilians detained after #Israeli forces attacked and intercepted #the_Global_Sumud_Flotilla in international waters, including at least 7 #journalists on board. Detaining journalists for… pic.twitter.com/OpcQ33Jgrj

— CPJ MENA (@CPJMENA) May 18, 2026

Irish President Catherine Connolly’s sister is among the Gaza-bound Global Sumud flotilla activists detained by Israeli forces, reports Middle East Monitor.

Dr Margaret Connolly was among at least six Irish citizens aboard the aid flotilla detained by Israel, the Irish Independent reported, citing activists.

At least two New Zealanders — Hāhona Ormsby and Julien Blondel — have also been detained, according to the Global Sumud Aotearoa — support delegation.

• READ MORE: Spain summons Israeli envoy over Gaza flotilla interception, calls it ‘new violation of international law’
• Türkiye condemns new Israeli ‘piracy’ against Gaza aid flotilla in international waters
• The Global Sumud Flotilla Tracker
• Other Gaza flotilla reports
• WATCH: An Al Jazeera Instagram report showing the Israeli military storming the flotilla

A third New Zealander, Mousa Taher, was still sailing toward Gaza aboard the Kasri Sadabat.

According to the Global Sumud Flotilla, 10 boats from a 60-vessel convoy were intercepted in international waters and boarded by Israeli forces earlier on Monday.

Organisers said the interception took place around 70 nautical miles off the island of Cyprus, with at least six of the 15 Irish participants detained.

The flotilla released videos from Connolly and five other activists that appeared to have been recorded before the interception.

‘If you are watching . . . ‘
“If you are watching this video, it means I have been kidnapped from my boat in the flotilla by the Israeli occupying forces, and I’m now being held illegally in an Israeli prison,” Connolly said in the video.

“I am so proud to be taking part in this flotilla — it is the largest to date,” she added.

The Israeli army attacked and intercepted the Gaza-bound Global Sumud humanitarian flotilla in international waters and detained around 100 activists as the mission sought to break Israel’s blockade on the Palestinian enclave.

The flotilla, consisting of more than 50 boats, set sail on Thursday from the Turkish Mediterranean district of Marmaris in a renewed attempt to break the Israeli blockade imposed on Gaza since 2007.

Organisers said the mission included 426 participants, among them 96 Turkish activists and participants from 39 other countries, including Germany, the US, Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Brazil, Algeria, Indonesia, Morocco, France, South Africa, the UK, Ireland, Spain, Italy, Canada, Egypt, Pakistan, Tunisia, Oman and New Zealand.

On April 29, Israeli forces also attacked the Global Sumud aid flotilla off the coast of the Greek island of Crete.

Pacific Media Watch reports: A Global Sumud Aotearoa statement said today: “Overnight, the Israeli military has illegally boarded and intercepted over 35 vessels of the Global Sumud Flotilla, including the two vessels carrying New Zealanders Hāhona Ormsby and Julien Blondel.

“Hāhona and Julien are now in israeli custody.

“New Zealander Mousa Taher is aboard one of 18 vessels still sailing through the night to Gaza.

“The safe and unimpeded passage of the remaining vessels is protected under international law, including the UNCLOS Treaty.

“We sail with the legacy of a people who have resisted for eight decades, rooted in steadfastness, in Sumud. We will not stop until the siege is broken and until Palestine is free.”

• Global Sumud Flotilla Live Feed

Türkiye has condemned Israel’s intervention against the Gaza-bound Global Sumud Flotilla in international waters, describing it as “a new act of piracy”, reports TRT World News.

In a statement, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said Israeli forces had yesterday intervened against the flotilla, which was carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza.

Three New Zealanders were reported to be facing illegal interception — including Hāhona Ormsby, Mousa Taher, and Julien Blondel — according to Sumud Flotilla statement.

• READ MORE: Israeli forces storm Gaza-bound aid flotilla off Cyprus
• Global Sumud Flotilla Live tracker
• Other Gaza flotilla reports

The Turkish ministry said: “We condemn the intervention carried out by Israeli forces in international waters against the Global Sumud Flotilla, which was formed to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza and which constitutes a new act of piracy.”

The ministry noted that citizens from nearly 40 countries were on board the flotilla of more than 50 vessels and said Israel’s “attacks and intimidation policies” would not prevent international solidarity with the Palestinian people.

It called on Israel to immediately halt the intervention and unconditionally release the detained participants.

The ministry also said Turkish authorities were taking necessary steps to ensure the safe return of Turkish citizens aboard the flotilla and were closely monitoring developments in coordination with other countries.

Israeli military attack
The Israeli army attacked the Gaza-bound Global Sumud humanitarian flotilla in international waters on Monday. Live broadcasts from the flotilla showed Israeli naval forces intercepting the vessels one by one.

Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth reported that activists detained aboard the flotilla were being transferred to a navy ship described as a “floating prison” before being taken to the port of Ashdod.

The Global Sumud aid flotilla demanded “safe passage” for its humanitarian mission to Gaza, accusing Israel of carrying out “illegal acts of piracy.”

In a statement, the flotilla said Israeli forces attacked the first of its boats “in broad daylight” in international waters while military vessels intercepted the fleet.

“We demand safe passage for our legal, non-violent humanitarian mission,” the statement said.

• WATCH: An Al Jazeera Instagram report showing the Israeli military storming the flotilla

A Sumud Flotilla Aotearoa statement in Auckland last night said three of the boats being illegally intercepted carried New Zealanders on board. They were reported to be:

Hāhona Ormsby aboard the Diabolo
Mousa Taher aboard the Kasri Sadabat
Julien Blondel aboard the Abodes

“This is an illegal interception of a peaceful humanitarian flotilla sailing under international law.” said Phoebe McLean of the Aotearoa Delegation.

“We must speak out. We must protect our people. We must protect Palestine.”

‘Propaganda campaign’
In a background statement, the Aotearoa Delegation statement said this latest military interception followed a “coordinated week-long propaganda campaign” broadcast by state-controlled Israeli regime media outlets, and amplified by their own “self-proclaimed propaganda yacht filled with influencers spreading the israeli regime’s lies”.

“This established playbook seeks to manufacture consent to carry out war crimes and crimes against humanity against an unarmed, non-violent civil society mission composed of doctors, journalists, and humanitarians.”

The Global Sumud Flotilla legal team has formally stated that the participants are entirely unarmed, and any violence executed on these vessels remains the sole legal responsibility of the israeli regime.

Active criminal investigations are moving forward across 20 countries, and individual liability will also be pursued in international courts for all forces “enforcing this genocidal siege”, the statement said.

Also, the naval interception of the flotilla “occurs in tandem with an aggressive containment strategy on land”.

The Global Sumud Land Convoy — comprising more than 30 vehicles, including 7 specialised ambulances and 20 mobile homes — has been halted near Sirte, Libya.

Eastern Libyan authorities, reportedly acting under direct political pressure from Egypt, have positioned military forces to block the overland humanitarian route toward Rafah.

ANALYSIS: By Trita Parsi

The Middle East is once again teetering on the brink as Trump appears poised to reignite war with Iran.

Press reports indicate he will convene military advisers on Tuesday, though my understanding is that both the meeting and the decision are likely to come sooner.

Over the past several hours, Trump has flooded Truth Social with a barrage of incendiary threats. While some of this may be theatrical brinkmanship designed to force Tehran into submission, sources in the Iranian capital tell me they expect the United States to resume hostilities within the next 48 hours.

• READ MORE: Iran says talks ongoing through Pakistan with a focus on ending war
• Israeli forces storm Gaza-bound aid flotilla off Cyprus
• Other Gaza and Iran “ceasefire” reports

We should first recognise that restarting the war amounts to an admission that Trump’s previous escalatory gambit– the blockade of the blockade — has failed. That, in turn, was itself an admission that the war had failed. Which was an admission that the threats of war in January had failed.

As I have argued before on my Substack, this relentless search for an escalatory silver bullet capable of bringing Iran to its knees is not unique to Trump; it has become a defining pathology of American Iran policy for decades.

Although negotiators have made meaningful progress on several fronts, talks have thus far failed to produce an agreement, largely because of irreconcilable differences over Tehran’s highly enriched uranium stockpile. And as Washington has come to realise that the blockade is backfiring, a new and dangerous dynamic has emerged: both sides now believe another round of fighting will strengthen their hand in the negotiations that follow.

As I argued in numerous interviews in January, Trump dramatically underestimated Iran’s strength, while hardliners in Tehran believed war would strengthen Iran’s leverage by exposing the illusion of Iranian weakness.

Vindicated assessment
In their view, the outcome of the conflict vindicated that assessment, leaving them increasingly confident — even emboldened — about what a second round of war could yield. I am told the new Supreme Leader belongs to this camp.

Moreover, just as Tehran believes Trump intends to prosecute the next war with far greater ferocity, Iranian planners are preparing a far more expansive and punishing retaliatory campaign, complete with new strategic objectives and targets.

First, Iranian officials increasingly describe the next war as an opportunity to inflict maximum strategic damage on the United Arab Emirates, citing Abu Dhabi’s active role in the previous conflict, its deepening and increasingly overt partnership with Israel, and its role in urging Trump to resume hostilities.

Tehran is likely to target American data centers in the UAE, a move that serves multiple purposes. Iranian officials argue that these American technology firms have already become participants in the conflict through their support for the Pentagon.

At the same time, Tehran sees an opportunity to cripple the UAE’s ambitions to become a global artificial intelligence hub — and, in doing so, potentially undermine Washington’s AI competition with China.

This points to a second defining feature of Iran’s strategy in a future war. Tehran believes Trump and his family hold financial stakes in many of these same technology ventures.

Targeting Trump’s personal business interests is a lever Iran conspicuously avoided pulling during the first conflict but now appears increasingly willing to use.

Logic straightforward
The logic is straightforward: Trump may tolerate damage to American strategic interests, but he is acutely sensitive to threats against his own financial empire. Raise the personal cost to Trump himself, the reasoning goes, and he may prove more willing to adopt a realistic negotiating position.

Third, Tehran is likely to show far less restraint if evidence emerges that other Gulf Cooperation Council states permit the United States or Israel to use their territory or airspace in a renewed conflict. The result would be broader and far more perilous horizontal escalation, with potentially catastrophic consequences for the global economy should critical energy infrastructure come under attack.

Fourth, the Red Sea is now in play. That would dramatically widen the geographic scope of the conflict while placing even greater upward pressure on already volatile oil prices.

Finally, Tehran is increasingly examining the possibility of severing the major submarine fiber-optic cable networks running beneath the Persian Gulf — arteries through which most GCC internet traffic flows, including billions of dollars in financial transactions. Iranian officials increasingly view this as a potential second Strait of Hormuz: a powerful new point of leverage capable of disrupting the global economy at enormous scale.

Renewed war is not inevitable. But when both sides convince themselves that another round of fighting will strengthen their negotiating position, the gravitational pull toward conflict becomes dangerously strong — however irrational the logic may ultimately be.

Trita Parsi is an Iranian-Swedish political analyst and foreign policy scholar specialising in Middle East geopolitics and US-Iran relations. He is the co-founder and executive vice-president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and founder of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC). Republished with permission.

What a blast at the Auckland Writers Festival today, I had tickets for Marika and I to attend Palestinian writer Tareq Baconi’s talk and decided to dress up and wear my Palestine-flag-dress.

Little did I know the stir it would cause — the Aotea Centre security literally chased me through the building and around the auditorium where Tareq would be talking, saying I had to “remove my flag”.

But it was attached to my dress, so it was not “removeable” — unless I took my dress off (which was an option if things got too heated).

• READ MORE: Israel becomes world’s most disliked country, global survey finds – Middle East Monitor
• Israel to spend $730m on propaganda as global image collapses over Gaza genocide
• Improvements in Pacific media freedom, but a shameful silence on Gaza ‘death trap’
• Other Gaza and war on Iran reports

So I kept on walking, staying in view of all the people who were witnessing and sticking up for me. Yes, members of the public were challenging those security guards chasing me and questioning them about why I couldn’t keep my flag-dress as it was.

This went on until I managed to disappear into the rows of seats — what a great example of humanity that was. Later, after the talk, when I met gorgeous Tareq for the book signing, he also praised the dress and the action to dodge the security guards (there was only one witness who totally disappointed by their lack of support and sourness).

But the rest of humanity was totally behind this unplanned and unintentional statement.

Kathrine Ross is an activist with the Palestine Soidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA). This commentary was first published on her Facebook page.

• Palestinian scholar Tareq Baconi’s moving memoir, Fire In Every Direction, as described in the festival storybook: “At once a love story, a coming-of-age tale and diasporic narrative, it takes us from the Middle East to London, and from 1948 to the present, as Baconi traces generations of his family’s displacement through war, as well as his own political and queer awakening in the face of other forms of exile and expression.”

Fiji’s media workers finally got to celebrate their World Press Freedom Day this week 11 days late — on Thursday, May 14.

The event was pushed back from its traditional May 3 global date — which fell on a Sunday this year — to accommodate a packed news cycle dominated by parliamentary sittings and the Coca-Cola Games.

The events across Suva and Savusavu highlighted both the grit of local journalists and the very real threats still hovering over the industry.

• READ MORE: Other World Press Freedom Day reports

In the capital Suva, the day started before sunrise. At 5am journalists met at the Bowling Club for a morning walk down to My Suva Park and back, catching up over a networking breakfast.

Later that evening, the focus shifted to Gordon House at the British High Commissioner’s Residence for a reception backed by BBC Media Action, Women in Media Fiji, and the Fijian Media Association (FMA).

Permanent Secretary for Information Eseta Nadakuitavuki described reporters as “real warriors” who required courage and “a very thick skin”.

While she praised the media’s fearless role in holding the powerful accountable, she also pointed to modern digital threats. She warned that while AI brought innovation, the rise of fake news and deepfakes meant ethical journalism and rigorous fact-checking were more crucial than ever.

BBC Media Action mentorship
The night also carved out time to recognise seven local journalists who completed a BBC Media Action content production mentorship under seasoned journalist Elenoa Baselala.

Up North, a different kind of gathering took place at the Hot Springs Hotel in Savusavu. FMA general secretary Stanley Simpson joined journalists for a dinner supported by the Pacific Media Assistance Scheme (PACMAS).

The Savusavu event was an acknowledgment of the mental toll carried by reporters outside the capital who usually “survive on roti and bean between assignments”.

Remembering the heavy weight these journalists carry, it was highlighted that in 2017, Northern reporters had to cover two back-to-back tragedies involving children: a fatal house fire, followed just two days later by a father drowning his three kids and himself.

With no debrief rooms or on-call counselors in the North, these reporters — including Peceli, Shratika, Naca, Feroz, Sampras, Nitesh, and Josese — just had to file their heartbreaking stories and keep going.

There was plenty of reason to celebrate on a national level, as Fiji recently jumped 16 spots to 24th globally on the 2026 Reporters Without Borders (RSF) World Press Freedom Index — a massive climb from 84th place in 2023.

However, the FMA made it clear that Fiji’s press freedom gains remained fragile.

Navigating complexities
The industry is still navigating the complexities of Fiji’s hard-drugs crisis and dealing with disquieting developments like journalists being summoned to testify in court. There is also ongoing friction with government officials; recently, Minister for Information Lynda Tabuya criticised the media in Parliament over “mal-information” regarding a broken lift at the CWM Hospital, subsequently calling for an end to “doorstop-style” interviews.

The FMA firmly defended the practice as a necessary tool for holding officials accountable in a democracy.

Despite the challenges, the media fraternity is already looking ahead to its next major gathering. In September, the focus will return to Fiji as it hosts the region for the Pacific Media Summit.

Republished from the Fijian Media Association FB page.

Most of the Western media refuse to join the dots and explain Israel’s decades-long obsession with defanging Tehran.

The war in Iran is what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has planned for four decades. He has always wanted Israel to extend from Egypt to the Euphrates and in the process have the United States overthrow seven neighbouring countries, the last and latest being Iran.

That was also America’s plot, hatched by the neo-conservative authors at the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) in 2000. The list of targeted countries, confirmed by US General Wesley Clark in 2007, was based on a proposal published in Israel in 1982.

• READ MORE: Lifting secrecy plans to censor jornalists
• Other war on Palestine, war on Iran reports

Ambitious as they were, these long-held intentions have now culminated in the US-Israel war on Iran, which seems sudden but was carefully planned, a former British Ambassador claims.

US President Donald Trump was not “bounced into it” by Israel: it had been in gestation for months, says Craig Murray, Britain’s ambassador to Uzbekistan between 2002 and 2004.

Well in advance, Trump had weapons ordered for fast delivery from Lockheed Martin, naval ships and troops were moved to the Gulf, and CIA and Mossad agitators reportedly stirred up Iranians in several cities, already exasperated by their theocratic rulers and by US sanctions.

If Murray is right, Trump and Netanyahu must have been planning this in their frequent meetings before and since the “12-day war” against Iran last year. Or for longer: Trump has reminded the world that as far back as 1987 he wanted the US to take over some of Iran’s oil, and to go to war for it.

Everything is a ‘deal’
But Trump’s shambolic war shows that he regards everything as a “deal’” and while aggrandising himself, he fails to understand that Iranians don’t accept transactionalism about their country, whoever its leader is.

He appears not to remember that under the Shah, Iran was on good terms with Israel and the US, until the uprising against the Pahlavis in 1979. He doesn’t mention the CIA’s overthrow in 1953 of Prime Minister Mossadegh, who merely wanted to nationalise Iran’s oil.

Instead of understanding Iran and its people, Trump claims to trust his “gut instinct” about the war, and he regularly gets it wrong.

The state of the president’s mental, cognitive and physical health has been raised again lately by his niece Mary Trump, a clinical psychologist. She observes symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease in Trump, and recalls that his father and her grandfather, Fred Trump sr., died with dementia.

Other specialists detect signs of “malignant narcissism”, and note that the President’s repeated threats, exaggerations, and reversals are more likely to be the results of incapacity than of intent.

Still, Trump’s erratic statements keep attention focussed on him, keeping the world guessing and confused, and his narcissistic self on centre stage. For Trump, as for Netanyahu, the personal is paramount. Both of them face coming elections (Trump has to face the mid-terms in November while Netanyahu has a general election before the end of the year); both want to stay alive and out of jail; and the continuing war further enriches them, their families and friends.

Plans for war
Netanyahu’s project derives from the 1982 Yinon Plan, named after its author, an Israeli diplomat, journalist, and former adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Published in the Hebrew journal Kivunim (“Directions”) as “A Strategy for Israel in the 1980s”, it reappeared in a 1996 policy paper titled “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm”, prepared for Netanyahu by American neoconservative strategists. They also produced their “Project for the New American Century”, advocating a “catastrophic and catalysing event” that would convince Americans of the need for war.

The “Clean Break” document argued that Israel should abandon land-for-peace diplomacy and instead pursue a strategy that would weaken or remove hostile regimes in the region, particularly Iraq and Syria. The goal was not mere military victory but a geopolitical restructuring of the Middle East in Israel’s favour.

In 1997, some of the same people involved with that report established the Project for the New American Century think tank, which produced several major reports, especially “Rebuilding America’s Defences” in the year 2000. It argued for preserving US military preeminence in the Middle East and two other theatres with a “revolution in military affairs” that might be accelerated by a “catastrophic and catalysing event — like a new Pearl Harbor”.

Just a year later on 9/11, such an event occurred, leading Congress quickly to pass the Authorisation for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists, and the anti-terrorism PATRIOT Act.

Track the planning process forward to 2001, and a former CIA operator confirms what many conspiracy analysts have suspected for years: that Israel, together with Saudi Arabia, was potentially informed about conspirators in the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon on September 11 before they occurred. John Kiriakou, a former CIA bureau chief for Pakistan, points to the involvement of the Saudi royal family in Al-Qaeda’s plan.

As well, Kiriakou says that Mossad was thick on the ground on the US east coast in 2001 and Israel knew what was to happen, but did nothing to stop it.

Furious response over Saudis
Kiriakou points to the furious response to Riyadh by US agencies on learning of the Saudis’ dominant involvement in 9/11. It produced three sudden deaths in a week in July 2022: Princes Ahmed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz (in hospital after an operation), Sultan bin Faisal bin Turki (in a car accident), and Fahd bin Turki bin Saud al-Kabir (of thirst in the desert).

The latter two were both in their mid-twenties, while Ahmed was 43. Seven months later Mushaf Ali Mir, Pakistan’s Air Marshal, died in a plane crash in clear weather over the unruly Northwest Frontier province, along with his wife and closest confidants.

9/11 researchers have found out a lot more about what two US “allies”, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, knew in advance of 9/11 and did in support of al-Qaeda. US lawyer Gerald Posner’s account is based on al-Qaeda operative Ali Zubaydah’s claims about his capture and interrogation, and his admissions about his work with Saudi and Pakistani officials.

From Guantánamo Bay, where he has been held without charge for more than two decades, he told Posner that both Prince Ahmed and Mushaf Ali Mir, Pakistan’s Air Marshal, “knew that an attack was scheduled for American soil on that day”. Like Israelis, they did nothing to stop it.

The Report of the 9/11 Commission, which some said was “set up to fail”, read more as a call to arms against al-Qaeda than a forensic criminal report. The GW Bush, Obama, and Biden administrations prevented the US Congress accessing 28 pages from the Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities before and after 9/11.

Eventually released by Biden in June 2016, the pages identified Saudi Arabian diplomats, officials, and members of the ruling family as contributors to preparations for the attacks, but not Israelis.

Yet when US President Bush declared a “war on terror” in response to 9/11, he realised Netanyahu’s aim for the US to attack Israel’s neighbours. And war, says Israeli journalist Gideon Levy, “is always the first option, not the last one in Israel“.

Heavy insider trading was recorded in New York in advance of September 11, including put options on United Airlines, American Airlines, and other related stocks. A majority of those polled by The New York Times in the five years after the attacks on the Twin Towers and Washington thought the government was lying or was hiding something.  Even some staff, investigators, and members of the 9/11 Commission knew that senior military officials and CIA director George Tenet had lied to them, while others’ evidence was suppressed. But their knowledge was excluded from the final report.

Terrorists, neo-colonialists, tyrants and war criminals
This history reveals the need to be sceptical of Washington’s claims about terrorism from 9/11 to today’s war against Iran. “Terror” is repeatedly used as propaganda to manufacture consent for war and to demonise enemies of the West, while what the US and Israel do is “not terrorism”.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 was a war crime, said NATO and its friends: yet the US coalition’s long wars in Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, Somalia, and Syria were not. Russia’s annexation of Crimea, its former territory, was an outrageous land grab: Israel’s annexations of Syria’s Golan and the Palestinians’ West Bank territory were not. Hamas’ breakout from Gaza on 7 October 2023 was terrorism; Israel’s recurrent attacks on Palestinians since 1948 and its ethnic cleansing of Gaza since 2023 were not.

Hamas and Hezbollah’s retaliation and the Houthis’ attacks are terrorism: Israel’s bombing and occupation of Gaza and southern Lebanon are not. Iran’s leaders are murderous tyrants: Israel’s indicted war criminals Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant (both wanted by the International Criminal Court on arrest warrants for crimes against humanity).are not. Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran’s IRGC are designated terrorist organisations: the IDF, CIA, and Mossad are not. The US assaults on Venezuela and Iran, to be followed by Cuba, are claimed to be against terrorism or drugs: in fact they are about who controls oil and makes and unmakes governments.

It does not occur to most Americans and Israelis that their own activities are state terror. Instead, they claim a right to defend US hegemony and all Jews’ right to Eretz Israel and greatness as “God’s chosen people”. Palestinians who resist have no such rights and are called subhuman terrorists, and under a new law, Arab Israelis will be executed for terrorism, while Jewish Israelis are not.

In the 1930s and 1940s, the Nazis made similar claims about the superiority of their civilisation to justify the Holocaust. No wonder some now detect a resurgence of fascism in the US, Israel, and elsewhere. Others observe the sudden rise of anti-Semitism since October 2003.

A growing number expect the US war to fail, leaving Israel to do its worst in Iran and Lebanon.

Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis have been added to Al-Qaeda on the list of designated terrorists. The wars that followed culminate in Iran, labelled by Trump a “terrorist regime”.

Candidate Trump took Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s advice to “move fast and break things”. He has done it as president. What ends up broken is now the whole world’s concern.

Dr Alison Broinowski AM is an Australian former diplomat, academic and author. Her books and articles concern Australia’s interactions with the world. She is president of Australians for War Powers Reform. Republished with permission from Declassified Australia.

Amnesty International says it is “deeply alarmed” over the obstruction of justice and chaotic scenes — including gunfire — witnessed at the Philippines Senate this week over a fugitive from the International Criminal Court.

Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, who faces an arrest warrant issued by the ICC, escaped from the Senate premises in the early hours of yesterday, May 14, after the gunfire incident on Wednesday night.

Senate President Alan Peter Cayetano confirmed his exit yesterday afternoon.

• READ MORE: Bato dela Rosa, wanted by ICC, evades arrest, escapes Senate premises
• Authorities must arrest former police chief

The independent news website Rappler reported Dela Rosa’s escape yesterday morning, citing information relayed by the Senate secretariat to a credible source.

In response to reports that Dela Rosa had fled the Philippines Senate building allowing him to evade the arrest warrant, Ritz Lee Santos III, executive director of Amnesty International Philippines, said:

“We are deeply alarmed at the obstruction of justice and chaotic scenes witnessed at the Philippines Senate,” he said.

“Ronald dela Rosa’s position as Senator offers him no special protection from an ICC arrest warrant, neither under domestic nor international law. It is hugely concerning that fellow Senators and others appear to have assisted him in evading arrest and in delaying the execution of the arrest warrant — effectively facilitating his escape for now.

“Despite seeking to distance themselves from these events, President Marcos and relevant agencies remain ultimately responsible for ensuring Dela Rosa’s arrest.

Philippine senator wanted by ICC escapes            Video: Al Jazeera

Key role in ‘war on dugs’
Santos said Dela Rosa held a key role in the “war on drugs” under former President Ridrigo Duterte, who is in The Hague awaiting trial on ICC charges of crimes against humanity.

The former police chief was a “clear flight risk” and appeared intent on avoiding accountability, said Santos.

“He should be promptly located, arrested and surrendered to the ICC to answer allegations of crimes against humanity.

“The place for Dela Rosa to challenge his case and the crimes against humanity he is alleged to have committed is in The Hague, in impartial and independent trial proceedings.

“Political authority must not place anyone above the law. In the interest of justice for victims, survivors and their families, those alleged to have committed grave crimes must be held to account, no matter how long it takes.”

Three-day stand-off
After a three-day standoff between law enforcement and dela Rosa at the Philippines Senate, he was reported to have left the Senate building at 2.30am local time yesterday. His whereabouts are currently unknown.

The night before, gunshots were fired inside Senate premises while some Senators and media were still inside. There remain conflicting reports on what led to the shooting.

Various senior administration representatives, including President Ferdinand Marcos Jr, denied that there were attempts to execute an arrest warrant.

On May 11, the ICC confirmed it had issued an arrest warrant for the sitting senator.

The warrant states that the ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber found there were “reasonable grounds to believe” Dela Rosa had committed the crime against humanity of murder, citing incidents in which 32 people were killed between 2016 to 2018.

By Kim Wingerei

Saher Alghorra, a Palestinian photojournalist, has won the Pulitzer Prize for a series of photographs published in The New York Times. What’s the scam?

The scam is that so far, not a single Australian or New Zealand mainstream media outlet has reported on it, let alone dared show the “haunting images” from the Gaza genocide.

Instead, the focus has been on Australia’s Royal Commission into Antisemitism and, of course, the excesses of the rich and famous at the Met Gala.

• READ MORE: Palestinian photographer wins Pulitzer Prize for Gaza war images
• See the images

Established in 1917, the Pulitzer Prizes are annual awards given by Columbia University for achievements in “journalism, arts and letters”.

It’s the equivalent of our Walkley Awards (not the Walkey) and New Zealand’s Voyager Awards.

Saher Alghorra won for his “haunting, sensitive series showing the devastation and starvation in Gaza resulting from the war with Israel.”

The Pulitzer profile says:

Saher Alghorra is a photojournalist who was born, lives and works in Gaza.

He got his first camera in 2017, and immediately began chronicling the fragile existence of everyday Palestinians.

Alghorra began his work as a freelance photojournalist in 2021 with many international agencies and institutions. His work has appeared in The Guardian, Time magazine, The Telegraph and The New York Times. In July 2023, he became the ZUMA Press Wire Service chief photojournalist in Gaza.

In 2023, an image of his was chosen as one of TIME Magazine 100 best photos of the year. In 2024, he won Best in Show at the Communications Arts Photography Annual, for his coverage for ZUMA in Gaza during the ongoing war.

• See the series here.

Kim Wingerei is a businessman turned writer and commentator. He is passionate about free speech, human rights, democracy and the politics of change. Originally from Norway, Kim has lived in Australia for 30 years. Author of ‘Why Democracy is Broken – A Blueprint for Change’. Republished from Michael West Media with permission.

As New Caledonia marks the second anniversary of a spate of unrest and riots that broke out on 13 May 2024, the situation on the ground remains tense, on the political, economic and security levels.

Politically, over the past two years, there have been sequences of discussion between local stakeholders and the French State.

Under the now former Minister for Overseas Territories, Manuel Valls, a series of talks in the suburbs of Paris (Bougival) in July 2025, led to a document that seems to provide a roadmap for more powers for the French Pacific territory, including the prospect of a “State” of New Caledonia, with its associated “nationality”.

• READ MORE: Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports

This Bougival process was, however, denounced by the FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front) which said, after its delegates had initially signed the agreement, that their signatures were withdrawn.

Other parties, including the “moderate” pro-independence PALIKA and UPM, committed to the agreement.

But the legislative byproducts of the Bougival document, including a constitutional amendment and an organic law, could not be enacted, especially as a result of a rebuke from the French National Assembly on April 2 this year.

Through a game of alliances between local and mainland French parties, the rejection of the Bougival-inspired bills came from both left (Socialists) and far-left (La France Insoumise) parties and even from the far-right Rassemblement National (RN).

As French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu announced earlier this month, after holding a fresh series of talks with local politicians, he had decided that crucial local elections should be held on June 28, most of the local parties have now entered into campaign mode.

The poll, which had been postponed three times since May 2024 (the date originally set) is now once again at the centre of debates, especially on the sensitive question of who will be qualified to cast their votes.

Since the Nouméa Accord was signed in 1998, and as part of its implementation, the electoral roll is currently “frozen”. It means it excludes people who were born or have resided in New Caledonia for an uninterrupted 10 years after November 1998.

There have been talks on an “adjustment” of the sensitive electoral roll to at least include people who were born in New Caledonia and have reached voting age since 1998.

Relaxing this criterion — which was originally designed as a temporary measure to guard against a potential risk of “diluting” the indigenous Kanak population vote — would concern about 10,000 new voters, usually referred to as “the natives”.

But this issue is crystallising again tensions and passions in New Caledonia, just like it did in reaction to an earlier attempted constitutional amendment which, in May 2024, was also perceived as the main trigger for the demonstrations, followed by unrest, staged by pro-independence parties.

But two years on, French Minister for Overseas Naïma Moutchou and French PM Lecornu, have launched another attempt to “adjust” the provincial roll, focusing on the inclusion of the “natives”.

The provincial elections in New Caledonia elects new members for the three provincial assemblies. Based on the results, they will also determine proportionally, the makeup of New Caledonia’s Congress, the makeup of New Caledonia’s collegial government and its president.

The organic law to integrate the natives is scheduled to be tabled before the Senate on  May 18, and later before the Lower House, the National Assembly.

On the same day in Nouméa, the local Congress will be asked to vote and therefore express its position on the same matter, even though the vote would be non-binding for the French lawmakers.

Under a particularly tight schedule, the proposed organic law is also supposed to be endorsed by France’s Constitutional Council before the end of May 2026.

If it fails, New Caledonia’s provincial elections will still take place, but without any change to the “frozen” electoral roll.

In a special, 30-minute long address dedicated to New Caledonia, on social networks on May 8, Lecornu said the “status quo is not a destiny”.

After the provincial polls, Lecornu intends to bring politicians together again sometime in July to resume wider talks on New Caledonia’s political future.

In preparation for the poll, most of New Caledonia’s political parties and groups, whether pro-independence or pro-France (those who wish New Caledonia to remain a part of France), have already positioned themselves, especially on the electoral roll issue.

In the pro-France camp, there are ructions within leading parties, such as Rassemblement-LR and other components, such as Les Loyalistes or Nicolas Metzdorf’s Génération NC.

Rassemblement president and head of the local government Alcide Ponga’s suggestion that his party should run the provincial elections behind Metzdorf — who is also one of New Caledonia’s two representatives at the French National Assembly — has drawn criticism and several resignations from Rassemblement.

Since August 2024, the FLNKS has lost two of its pillars: the PALIKA (Kanak Liberation Party) and the UPM (Progressist Union in Melanesia) have formed their own “UNI” (Union Nationale pour l’Indépendance) group, mostly based on their disapproval of the hardline approach promoted by the main component of FLNKS, Union Calédonienne and its allied “pressure groups”.

One of those groups, the CCAT (Field Action Coordination Committee), was perceived as the main force behind the protests that later degenerated into riots, in May 2024.

In August 2024, CCAT leader Christian Téin was elected as FLNKS president, even though he was at the time serving a pre-trial jail term in Mulhouse (north-east of mainland France).

Pending the ruling on his case for alleged crime-related charges, which has not happened yet, Téin was allowed to return to New Caledonia.

The purpose of the march was to reaffirm that “the fight is not over” and to pay homage to the Kanak “martyrs” of May 2024.

“We are here because what happened in 2024 is about to happen again,” FLNKS politburo member Henri Juni told the crowd, denouncing what he terms another “passage en force” from the French State.

Juni said the FLNKS now aimed at restoring “maximal unity” within the pro-independence camp to obtain maximal results at the coming provincial elections.

FLNKS’s official stance on the matter is that the electoral roll can be modified, but that this can only take place as part of a comprehensive agreement on the future of New Caledonia.

PALIKA, on its part, held an extraordinary congress over the weekend that mostly concluded that its commitment to the Bougival process, further reinforced by more talks in January 2026, had now de facto come to an end, since it regarded this process as also de facto ended due to the April 2026 French parliament’s rejection.

In view of the June 2026 provincial polls, PALIKA is now calling for “mobilisation” from voters “in order to create the conditions of a ‘rapport de force’ to support our project of full sovereignty in partnership”.

On the sensitive issues of relaxing the restrictions of the electoral roll, PALIKA says in a release published on Tuesday that they are in favour of a readjustment for the “natives”.

One heart, one voice
On the pro-France side, parties are in support of the relaxation of the electoral roll, not only for the “natives”, but also for qualified “spouses”.

A local association named “Un, Coeur, une voix” (One heart, one voice, or OHOV) is campaigning against the minimal inclusion of “natives”, but calls for a wider opening for the roll.

“This is a minimal adjustment that institutionalises a durable exclusion”, OHOV wrote to French President Emmanuel Macron early in May 2026.

OHOV is also preparing to bring the matter to a court, in opposition to the partial “readjustment” of the proposed organic law to eventually contest the future outcome of the provincial polls.

“You have thousands of (New) Caledonians who were born there, or their spouses, … And they cannot vote… This is a matter of justice, of balance also and this is not a great demographic upset, it’s a point of equilibrium”, Minister Moutchou pleaded earlier this week during an interview with French national media France Info.

Security issues
On the security front, French High commissioner Jacques Billant has already enforced a ban on the sale of alcohol between 11 and 17 May 2026. The only exception being the sale of alcohol at New Caledonia’s international airport, Nouméa-La Tontouta.

Billant said this was “to prevent any public order unrest”, or “events and demonstrations” taking place around the symbolic date of 13 May 2024.

Earlier in April, 3-star Lieutenant-General Pierre Poty, who commands all gendarmerie forces in France’s Overseas Territories, told New Caledonian media French forces were “ready to confront fresh unrest, thanks to its prepositioned forces and their armoured components”.

But he said he did not see “any precursor sign of a resumption of violence”.

Meanwhile, in Nouméa, a neighbourhood watch group of so-called “Citizen Resistance Collective” (CRC), said earlier this week they have remained vigilant and would not allow “another May 13 to happen, because the response would be immediate and determined”.

The CRC was formed during the 2024 unrest, mainly to protect their property against burning and looting from protesters.

Early in May 2026, the French High Commission in Nouméa revealed latest statistics showing that in 2025, the number of burglaries on residential properties has risen by 46.7 percent, mostly in the capital Nouméa and its urban surroundings.

Economy
New Caledonia’s economic situation remains a matter for concern.

Most private sector stakeholders have sounded the alarm bell over the past months, despite French assistance being deployed over the past two years, mostly to refinance the construction of destroyed public buildings and infrastructure.

Businesses, employers and employees are up in arms against the current situation which deprives business leaders and investors of the required “visibility” to regain confidence.

Most of them are demanding that a political agreement be reached, which would provide them a minimum of predictability in the long term.

“We don’t believe things are getting better”, New Caledonia’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI) vice president Stéphane Yoteau told an economic forum earlier this month.

Yoteau said businesses in New Caledonia have now reached “a degree of absolute urgency”.

“The situation is catastrophic, we’re now caught in a vicious circle that is feeding itself: less business (-20 percent), less employment (-12,000), less spending revenues (household budgets have lost 10 percent on average), so there is less consumption, therefore less public tax income, etc. And so on”, the CCI leader explained.

The forum gathered representatives from employers federations MEDEF-NC, CPME-NC (small and medium industries confederation) and FEINC (federation of industries of New Caledonia).

‘A degree of absolute urgency’
They are asking for five emergency measures, including a postponement or a tax holiday for some social contributions.

They said these measure could be drawn from French government assistance and re-directed to help small and medium businesses keep their heads above water.

They say New Caledonia’s economy is “on the verge of collapse” and “economic breakdown”.

“The question today is not even to access financing faculties. There is no more business in New Caledonia. Everything stops,” FEINC President Xavier Benoist told local media.

He said 40 percent of businesses only have a few weeks of visibility and 45 percent have only three months left in terms of cash flow.

Despite the recent announcement from the French PM of a “re-foundation” plan for more than 2 billion euros over the next five years, business leaders are asking for an immediate emergency package to “save New Caledonia’s economy”.

“What we are asking is not a favour, it’s not assistance. It’s something to keep our economic fabric alive. Otherwise, it will continue to go down”, said Sonia Critg, vice-president of the small industries branch of the CPME.

“Not doing anything today amounts to deliberately choosing a much deeper and much more expensive social crisis tomorrow”, she stressed.

On May 11, more than 100 business leaders, employees, unemployed, retired workers, staged a protest march in front of New Caledonia’s government building in downtown Nouméa.

Once again, at the heart of their plea, was a cry for assistance to ease their situation which, they said, was “no longer bearable”.

Minister for Economy Christopher Gygès received a delegation and promised some exemption measures were in the pipeline, especially targeting small and very small businesses.

Recently appointed head of the French inter-ministerial mission for reconstruction, Amaury Decludt recently completed his first mission in the French Pacific territory.

He assured that out of the more than 2 billion euros earmarked by France, about 10 percent was ready to be mobilised, mainly for large infrastructure projects such as one road across New Caledonia’s main island or a project to build bus exchange stations in rural areas.

He said talks were ongoing regarding New Caledonia’s crucial nickel mining sector and has been facing major difficulties over the past few years..

Out of the three companies currently in existence, two (one in the North of the main island, the other in the South) were currently up for sale.

Decludt also said the French government was also in contact with the European Union to persuade Brussels of the appeal of New Caledonia’s nickel.

New Caledonia’s nickel industry has been facing major structural challenges over the past few years, mainly due to the rise of world-class competitors in Indonesia, as well as high costs of production mainly related to high cost of the energy.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Opposition New Zealand MPs say former TVNZ political editor Maiki Sherman was “hounded” into resigning, after a “witch hunt” while public broadcasters are under “immense pressure” from the governing coalition.

There has also been an outpouring of reaction from other broadcasters and commentators.

Many were grieving over the loss to political journalism, some questioning the support TVNZ gave its reporter and others stating it should not have been a sackable offence.

• READ MORE: TVNZ’s ‘first wahine Māori’ political editor Maiki Sherman resigns
• The Maiki Sherman saga: What actually happened — Lyric Waiwiri-Smith
• ACT leader David Seymour is seeking to undermine public broadcasting — Steven Cowan
• Oceania and global media freedom reports
• Other Maiki Sherman reports

Others have argued the scrutiny and pressure applied by the media should also apply to its own reporters.

Sherman resigned last Friday following a period of scrutiny over an incident during pre-Budget drinks in Finance Minister Nicola Willis’ office a year ago.

She had used a homophobic slur against Stuff journalist Lloyd Burr in response to “deeply personal and inappropriate remarks,” she said. She apologised at the time and informed her manager.

The resignation also came after a suspension from Parliament due to breaching parliamentary rules by pursuing an interview with National’s chief whip Stuart Smith, during a period of scrutiny on Luxon’s leadership.

Written in support
Prior to her resignation, veteran political journalists Richard Harman and Audrey Young had both written in support.

Harman told The Post there was a “bit of a public beat-up of Maiki going on at the moment” and that TVNZ should back its reporter.

Young wrote in her column in The New Zealand Herald at the end of April the level of hate against Sherman was “just incredible” and “clearly goes well beyond journalistic critique”.

The day the story about the incident in Willis’ office broke in a blog written by Ani O’Brien, Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour told reporters if the content was accurately reported, “it’s absolutely disgraceful”.

“But the fact that it hasn’t been a story for nearly a year is in itself a disgraceful double standard, and I think we should all just be glad that one woman with a substack actually made it a story, because we all know that in the same circumstances, a member of Parliament would have got wall-to-wall coverage night after night after night, don’t we?”

At the time, he suggested Parliament’s speaker should consider Sherman’s access to Parliament.

Opposition politicians speak out
Labour MP Willie Jackson said Sherman had been “hounded” into resignation after she “made a mistake”.

He acknowledged her as a “trailblazing” wahine Māori broadcaster, and despite a “number of run-ins with her over the years” was very proud of her.

“It’s a shame TVNZ let her down so badly, deciding obviously with pressure from this government, that her position was untenable.”

Green MPs Hūhana Lyndon and Steve Abel also spoke out.

Lyndon said the right “came out hard to hunt her down” and suggested considering the context where public broadcasters under “immense pressure and threats” from ministers of the coalition government created a “chilling effect”.

Abel called it a “witch-hunt” and said something was “rotten” in New Zealand with right wing politicians targeting journalists.

He also said TVNZ bosses needed to be questioned, because Sherman’s statement implied she no longer had the backing of her employer.

“Why would the bosses in a public media institution whose duty is upholding the principle of free and independent media not be backing a journalist who has clearly been targeted for political reasons.”

‘Deeply upsetting to witness’
Te Pāti Māori MP, and former broadcaster, Oriini Kaipara also took to social media, calling Sherman’s treatment “deeply upsetting to witness”.

“Maiki is one of the sharpest political journalists in the country. Intelligent, fearless, composed, and uncompromising in holding power to account.

“Her rise mattered. Not just professionally, but culturally.

“So many Māori, especially wāhine and rangatahi, saw themselves in her. Many only turned the news on or anticipated any political story because of Maiki.”

Kaipara said it felt “personal” and reeked of “foul play”.

Voices from outside Parliament
There had also been an outpouring of support, including from Māori broadcasters, and questions about double standards.

Scotty Morrison gave a mihi during Te Karere’s show the day the news broke, acknowledging the loss for TVNZ and the brilliance of Sherman’s work.

Miriama Kamo wrote on social media, acknowledging the pressure of the high-profile job while Sherman juggled being a mother to six kids as well. Kamo also questioned how TVNZ had supported its reporter, and how it planned to “address the vacuum her departure has left”.

Broadcaster Moana Maniapoto said “somewhere someone is raising a glass,” and the resignation was not good news for the public in election year.

Former Māori Party chief-of-staff Helen Leahy wrote the relationship between the press gallery and politicians was never an easy one.

“But you don’t get the breaking news by sitting noho puku [sitting still]. You don’t get a leader opening up and being vulnerable without mutual respect. Maiki would persevere.”

Political commentator Liam Hehir queried a double standard, asking why comments of a prominent journalist at a work-function were “inherently off limits”.

On X, pollster David Farrar wrote the resignation was “sad”.

“I don’t think one regrettable moment should cost you your job. We need less cancel culture, not more.”

Former Prime Minister Helen Clark wrote that at a party in the Minister of Finance’s office, “where one assumes alcohol flowed”, there was an exchange between journalists.

“The aftermath — one was later hounded from her job. The other wasn’t. All in the context of public media being undermined. Shameful.”

‘Rules broken all the time’
Former political editor Duncan Garner wrote that after nearly 20 years inside Parliament, he knew how the place worked.

“The rules were broken all the time. By journalists. By MPs. By ministers. By people who later got promoted, protected, forgiven, knighted and sent off to cushy jobs.

“So why Maiki?”

And blogger O’Brien — who posted the original blog breaking the story — said for years journalists and commentators, including Sherman, had “enthusiastically participated in a culture where politicians and public figures were subjected to career-ending moral scrutiny for comments or conduct less severe than this”.

“The modern media class has normalised the idea that professional ruin is an acceptable and even righteous outcome for personal failings.

“It is difficult now to object when that same standard is turned inward.”

Politik blog political writer Richard Harman posted online saying this was the “most hostile environment within which to be a political journalist I have known in my 55 years as a journo”.

“The mob is ruling at the moment. They have tasted blood. Who will they turn on next?”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Previously it was reporting on governments or politics that brought trouble for Tonga’s journalists — now it’s reporting on drugs or gangs.

Tongan journalists are coming to terms with new pressures on media freedom over reporting on the country’s drug crisis, and the role of gangs in it.

This comes after a journalist at Kele’a Publications was threatened at gunpoint in Nuku’alofa, following reporting on drugs issues two weeks ago — the same week as World Press Freedom Day.

• READ MORE: Tongan armed threat against journalist troubles Pacific media freedom
• Tongan police investigate journalist threatened at gunpoint after gang-related report
• Other Pacific media freedom reports

While Tonga police are still searching for the suspect who threatened a journalist, the manager of the Kele’a Publications said police should do more to protect the press.

According to Teisa Cokanasiga, journalist freedoms were usually tested by previous governments when reporting on the police, but the current situation was different and represented a new type of challenge for Tonga’s media.

“The threat was regarding reports that we did about drugs and a specific gang member who is currently serving life in prison. So now we are aware that we have that kind of threat.

“In terms of freedom of the press, to report on political issues and controversial issues concerning the leadership in the country. I think we are fine with that.”

More awareness needed
Cokanasiga said there needed to be more awareness around this kind of threat as it could happen to any member of Tonga’s media.

“It’s just disheartening. And we are now aware that we can get that kind of challenge or risk, not only, I mean, from the public as well.”

For now, Cokanasiga said her team was supporting the journalist, and also being cautious while continuing daily duties.

“We’ve been trying to be, you know, encouraging of each other and at the same time give them space, especially the concerned journalist, and for her to slowly get back to working.”

Attack on Tongan’s constitutional rights
The Media Association of Tonga (MAT) said the incident was an assault not only on the safety of an individual journalist but on the constitutional right of every Tongan to receive information without fear or favour.

MAT’s president, Katalina Uili Tohi, said a climate of fear and intimidation targeting media personnel undermined democratic principles and silenced the very voices that hold power to account.

She said journalists must be able to work without the threat of violence or death.

Meanwhile, the co-chair of the Pacific Freedom Forum, Lepailetai Tosi Tupua has commended the courage and professionalism of the journalist and her colleagues and their swift reporting to police.

He said they awaited the outcomes of a thorough and impartial police investigation into this incident, ensuring public safety and including safety on the job for all media workers reporting these matters.

Police have yet to arrest anyone, but Cokanasiga said they remained in regular contact with both her and the journalist.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

ANALYSIS: By Jonathan Cook

For decades, two irreconciliable narratives about Israel and its motivations have existed in parallel.

On the one side, an official Western narrative portrays a plucky, besieged “Jewish” state of Israel, desperate to make peace with its hostile Arab neighbours. Even to this day, that story dominates the political, media and academic landscape.

Time and again, or so we are told, Israel has held out an olive branch to “the Arabs”, seeking acceptance, but is always rebuffed.

• READ MORE: Shoot Palestinians, not settlers: Israeli general exposes double standard
• Jonathan Cook’s website
• Other reports on the war on Gaza, Lebanon Iran

A largely unspoken subtext suggests that supposedly irrational, bloodthirsty, Jew-hating regimes across the region would have completed the Nazis’ exterminationist agenda but for the West’s humane protection of a vulnerable minority.

A Palestinian counter-narrative, accepted across much of the rest of the world, is choked into silence in the West as an antisemitic “blood libel”.

It presents Israel as an ethnic supremacist, highly militaristic state — armed by the United States and Europe – bent on expansion, mass expulsions and land theft.

On this view, the West implanted Israel as a colonial military outpost, there to subdue the native Palestinian population, and terrorise neighbouring states into submission through relentless and overwhelming displays of force.

No middle ground possible
Palestinians cannot make peace, or reach any kind of accommodation, because Israel pursues only conquest, domination and erasure. No middle ground is possible.

The proof, note Palestinians, is Israel’s long-standing refusal to define its borders. As its military power has grown decade after decade, ever more extreme political agendas have surfaced, demanding not just Israel’s takeover of the last remnants of the Palestinian territories it illegally occupies but expansion into neighbouring states like Lebanon and Syria.

Here are two conflicting narratives in which each side presents itself as the victim of the other.

Two and a half years into a series of Israeli wars against the peoples of Gaza, Iran and Lebanon, how are these two perspectives holding up?

Does Israel look like the frustrated peacemaker facing off with barbaric opponents, or a rogue state whose decades-long aggression has provoked the very retaliatory violence exploited to excuse its constant war-making?

Is Israel a small, reluctant fortress state defending itself, or a Western military client so drunk on its own power that it can no more limit its territorial ambitions than a great white shark can stop swimming?

The truth is that the past 30 months have graphically exposed not only what Israel always was but, by extension, what our own Western states aspired to achieve through their most favoured Middle East client.

Ambassador let slip
In a moment of imprudence last month, Christian Turner, Peter Mandelson’s replacement as British ambassador to the US, let slip the reality. Washington, the West’s imperial hub, he said, had no deep loyalty to its allies — apart from one.

Unaware his words were being recorded, he told a group of visiting students: “I think there is probably one country that has a special relationship with the United States, and that is probably Israel.”

That special relationship requires that the political and media class in Washington’s other client states, such as Britain, shield the West’s Sparta in the Middle East from critical scrutiny.

So glaring have Israel’s atrocities become that the British government announced last month that it was shuttering its Foreign Office unit tracking war crimes — citing the need for cuts — rather than face further exposure of its collusion in those crimes.

If the British government refuses to monitor Israel’s war crimes, don’t expect more from the establishment media.

For months, Israel has been blowing up village after village in south Lebanon, driving millions of inhabitants from lands lived on for millennia by their ancestors, and it barely registers with our politicians and media.

Israel is destroying Gaza’s water supplies, as it earlier did the tiny enclave’s hospitals and health system, ensuring the further spread of disease, and our politicians and media have barely a word to say about it.

Israel kills, jourmalists, first responders
Israel kills journalists and emergency crews in Gaza and Lebanon week after week, month after month, and it raises barely an eyebrow from the political and media class.

Israel declares “yellow lines“ in Gaza and Lebanon, demarcating expanded borders that formalise its theft of other peoples’ lands, and this instantly becomes the new normal.

Israel continuously violates ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon, spreading misery and inflaming yet more anger and bitterness, and once again, our politicians and media turn a blind eye.

Which Western media outlets are pointing out a starkly revealing fact: that Israel now occupies more of Lebanon than Russia does of Ukraine?

An analysis by the Newscord media monitoring group last month confirmed earlier research: that the British media studiously avoid naming ethnic cleansing and genocide when it is Israel — rather than Russia — carrying them out.

Comparing the coverage of the most “serious” establishment British news outlets — the BBC, The Guardian and Sky — with that of Al Jazeera, the study found that UK media consistently choose to obscure Israel’s responsibility for its crimes.

Israel was identified as conducting attacks in Gaza in only around half of British news reports, in contrast to nearly 90 per cent of Al Jazeera’s. As Newscord noted: “Half the time, BBC readers aren’t told who killed the person in the story.”

Hind Rajab headline
That was graphically illustrated in a notorious BBC headline: “Hind Rajab, 6, found dead in Gaza days after phone calls for help.”

In fact, an Israeli tank had sprayed a stationary car with gunfire even though the Israeli military had known for hours that it contained a Palestinian girl — the sole survivor of an earlier attack — who emergency crews were desperately trying to reach. Israel killed the rescue team, too.

In another revealing finding, Newscord notes that four out of every five BBC reports on casualties caused by Israel’s attacks used the convoluted passive — rather than active — voice, clearly with the intent to downplay Israel’s culpability and savagery.

The British media also actively undermined the enormity of the Palestinian death toll in Gaza by regularly attributing the figures to a “Hamas-affiliated” Health Ministry — even though the numbers, currently at well over 70,000 Palestinians, are almost certainly a massive undercount, given Israel’s early destruction of the enclave’s government and its capacity to count the dead.

The fact that the United Nations has found the Gaza figures to be credible was mentioned in only 0.6 percent of reports.

Similarly, the BBC and The Guardian made the decision to humanise Israeli captives of Hamas twice as often as they did Palestinian captives of the Israeli state.

The inappropriateness of that double standard is underscored by continuing insinuations from politicians and the media that Hamas “beheaded babies” and carried out systematic rapes on 7 October 2023 — more than two years after those claims were utterly discredited.

Sickening practice
Contrast that with the media’s effective burial of Euro Med Monitor’s report last month on the sickening practice by the Israeli military of raping Palestinian prisoners with dogs trained for that very purpose.

There has been a flood of accounts from Palestinians held captive by Israel of their systematic rape and sexual abuse, confirmed by human rights groups and by the testimonies of whistleblowing Israeli soldiers and medics. Little of this is making headway in the Western media.

Newscord points to a further, veiled problem that skews Western coverage: the omission of established but inconvenient facts that would present Israel in a depraved — that is, an accurate — light.

For example, observes Newscord, the BBC has entirely failed to report all but one of the hundreds of clearly genocidal statements made by Israeli officials, from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu down.

It is easy to understand why. Legal authorities usually struggle to make a conclusive determination of genocide because, crucially, it depends on divining intent, which is typically hidden by those committing atrocities.

Starkly, in Israel’s case, not only do its actions in Gaza look like genocide, but its leaders have been crystal clear that those actions are intended to be genocidal. That is behaviour only seen in those intoxicated by a sense of their own impunity.

Once again, the British media have obligingly taken it upon themselves to shield Israel from any legal jeopardy — all in the interests of objective reporting, you understand.

Same story since 1948
This is nothing new. It has been the same story since before Israel’s violent creation on the Palestinians’ homeland in 1948, when 80 percent of the native population were ethnically cleansed by Israel from the new, self-declared “Jewish” state. Or when, in the continuing language of deceit employed by Western political, media and academic elites, some 750,000 Palestinians “fled”.

The aim has been to manufacture and maintain a bubble of illusion for Western publics, one where our own crimes — and those of our allies — remain invisible to us.

Note in this regard the UK government’s determined exclusion of Israel from a recent “independent” inquiry, under former Whitehall bureaucrat Philip Rycroft, into malign foreign financial influence on British politics. It was, of course, Russia that was put chiefly under the spotlight.

Predictably, Keir Starmer’s government rejected in April a petition signed by more than 114,000 people calling for a similar public inquiry into the influence of the powerful Israel lobby.

That came as no surprise, given that any such investigation would have risked foregrounding the many hundreds of thousands of pounds known to have been received by Starmer and his ministers from pro-Israel lobbyists.

The same British political and media class so averse to investigating the malign influence of the pro-Israel lobby is also ignoring Israel’s current, systematic destruction of villages and infrastructure across south Lebanon — in flagrant violation of a supposed ceasefire.

Israeli soldiers have told local media that their job is to target all structures indiscriminately, whether civilian or “terrorist”, with the goal of preventing the Lebanese inhabitants from returning to their villages.

Colonising occupied lands
That fits with Israel’s announcement that it does not intend to withdraw after the fighting ends, and widespread plans to colonise the occupied lands in Lebanon with Jewish settlers.

Were it not for videos of Israel blowing up Lebanese communities breaking through on social media, despite algorithmic suppression, we might not know about Israel’s wholesale efforts to ethnically cleanse south Lebanon.

Responding to these videos with a rare “mainstream” report on the campaign of destruction, The Guardian sugar-coated the horror faced by Lebanese families discovering their homes gone, along with priceless memories and heirlooms. This experience was described — absurdly — by the paper as “bittersweet”.

Critics note a consistent pattern. Israel is not only levelling south Lebanon; over the past 30 months, it has levelled almost every building in Gaza, too.

But the template for both is of much earlier origin, as every Palestinian learns from a tender age.

Having expelled most Palestinians from their homes in 1948, Israel spent years blowing up some 500 villages one after another — even as Israeli leaders publicly claimed to be begging the refugees to return and Western leaders were extolling Israel as the “only democracy” in the Middle East.

Expulsions that the West still pretends did not take place eight decades ago are now being live-streamed. This time, they are impossible to deny, as well as the colonial, supremacist agenda behind them.

Villify the messenger
If the message inhering in Israel’s atrocities can no longer be disappeared, laundered or normalised — as it was in an age before 24-hour rolling news and social media — then a different strategy is required: villify the messenger.

This is the political task of our times.

The anti-racist left are demonised as Jew-hating bigots for trying to burst the West’s long-established bubble of illusion by noisily flagging both the atrocities committed by Israel, supposedly in the name of Jews, and the complicity of their own governments in those atrocities.

Last month, Starmer’s government forced through the Commons a law allowing the police to outlaw protests causing “cumulative disruption” — that is, repeat protests like those against Israel’s genocide in Gaza. The media barely blinked.

Last week’s attack on two Jewish men in Golders Green, allegedly by a mentally ill man with a long history of violence, is being quickly exploited by the main parties to prepare for even tighter restrictions on the right to protest.

Britons who try to stop Israeli war crimes, whether by targeting Israel’s factories of death located in the UK or by holding placards in support of this kind of direct action, continue to be treated as “terrorists”, even after a court ruling that the proscription of Palestine Action is unlawful.

With juries often proving reluctant to convict, the British state has set about openly rigging the trials. Juries are blocked from learning about the reasons for the targeting of Israeli weapons factories — the accused’s main defence. Judges instruct juries to convict.

Long-established right
Members of the public who silently hold signs outside court are arrested for reminding juries of a long-established right in law to defy such instructions, follow their consciences and acquit — a police abuse contravening hundreds of years of legal precedent, and one the courts appear increasingly ready to condone.

There are gags, being dutifully obeyed by the media, on other secret malpractices designed to help the British government secure the verdicts it needs to stop activism against the genocide. We only know because Your Party MP Zarah Sultana has used parliamentary privilege to draw attention to them.

It was telling last week that, in the current repeat trial of six Palestine Action defendants, five of them dispensed with their barristers for the closing speeches. They noted, darkly, that their legal representatives could not properly represent them due to “decisions made by the court”.

Meanwhile, the Starmer government is pressing ahead with plans to finally rid itself of troublesome juries and let more reliable judges decide these political show trials alone.

Welcome to the rapid unravelling of Britain’s most cherished constitutional rights — needed chiefly, it seems, to protect a far-off country that, according to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), commits the crime of apartheid against Palestinians and may plausibly be committing genocide in Gaza.

Jonathan Cook is a writer, journalist and self-appointed media critic and author of many books about Palestine. Winner of the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. This article was first published on the author’s website and republished with permission.

COMMENTARY: By Caitlin Johnstone

Fiji’s military chief has made a public admission at a church service that the institution was “at fault” for the death of Jone Vakarisi while he was in military custody.

Local media reported that Republic of Fiji Military Forces (RFMF) commander Ro Jone Kalaouniwai, while addressing officers at a military family service, admitted “we are at fault” for Vakarisi’s death.

“We must be held accountable,” he was quoted as saying by local media outlets.

• READ MORE: Other Fiji military reports

State broadcaster FBC reported that Kalouniwai described Vakarisi’s death as an “unintentional” and “regrettable” incident, while the two national dailies reported him saying no one imagined or knew it would end up the way it did.

Vakarisi, 37, was notorious for being at odds with law enforcement and had been linked to criminal networks. He died on April 16 after being detained by soldiers and taken to RFMF’s Queen Elizabeth Barracks in Suva to be questioned regarding “national security investigations”, which included allegations of trying to break in and access military assets.

Commander Kalouniwai initially attributed Vakarisi’s death to “pre-existing conditions”.

However, he was forced to issue a “correction” after the police announced they had classified Vakarisi’s death as murder.

Murder investigation
A murder investigation is currently ongoing, with no one charged, almost a month since Vakarisi’s death.

The Fiji police and military have launched joint security operations to take down criminal networks in the country. The operations have resulted in a heightened military visibility around the country.

Kalouniwai said the security forces had made progress but “an unforeseen incident occurred at the camp”, the FBC report said. He urged military officers to adhere to the law.

RNZ Pacific contacted Fiji police last week seeking an update on the murder investigation.

In an email reply, Commissioner Rusiate Tudravu said he would not let media dictate police actions and advised RNZ Pacific to continue liaising with the police’s media liaison officer.

Over the weekend, graphic and distressing photos of Vakarisi’s body began circulating and being shared widely on social media.

Fiji’s Online Safety Commission said it was “deeply concerned” about the images being circulated.

“The images being shared are highly distressing, show the deceased in a vulnerable and exposed state, and have caused further pain and trauma to the grieving family members,” it said.

“We strongly urge members of the public to refrain from sharing, reposting, forwarding, or publishing such material across any social media platform, messaging publication, or online platform.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

A New Zealander who took part in the global flotilla trying to break the illegal Gaza siege and who was abducted by Israel returned home this week and gave a searing speech in Auckland today condemning the abuses he and others suffered.

“They abducted us at gunpoint and threatened to kill us if we resisted,” said Sean Janssen.

“Dozens of people were packed into shipping containers and kept in conditions most would deem unfit for animals.”

• READ MORE:  Israel deports two abducted Gaza aid flotilla activists
• Israeli weapon fires tiny metal cubes into people in Lebanon, like Gaza
• ‘We’re under attack!’ – the night the Israelis struck the Global Sumud Flotilla
• The two decade illegal Israeli siege of Gaza
• Global Sumud Flotilla

Janssen was one of more than 170 people who were illegally abducted by Israeli military forces on board Global Sumud Flotilla boats in international waters for 48 hours and given restricted access to food and water.

He said flotilla participants were beaten and 34 people needed immediate medical attention when they were dumped ashore in Greece.

Three other abducted New Zealanders — Jay O’Connor, Mousa Taher and Julien Blondel — were taken ashore as well while at least two others are continuing on with the flotilla that has now reached Turkïye.

Two high-profile flotilla leaders who were kidnapped and taken illegally to Israel were set to be released after more than a week of torture allegations and diplomatic efforts to seek their freedom.

Abukeshek, Ávila being freed
Saif Abukeshek, a Spanish-Palestinian, and Brazilian Thiago Ávila were being freed, according to a statement from the rights group Adalah, which was representing the two men.

“I believe in a Free Palestine and that this isn’t a radical belief,” Sean Janssen told the cheering crowd. “Yet for almost 80 years, this belief and having the conviction to say it publicly has been met with harassment, suppression and violence.

“Leaders who preach of freedom, justice and equality have done nothing or actively contributed to the destruction of those things for Palestinians.

“For almost 80 years the world has watched as Israel has strengthened its capacity to inflict suffering and death against the people of Palestine, yet done nothing because it was only inflicted on Palestinians.”

Janssen said that for 20 years Israel had restricted the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza, blocked by a military siege.

“They impose this blockade on Gaza because starvation is one of their tools of extermination,” he said.

“In the last 3 years, Israel has attacked more than 200 schools in Gaza. They have murdered more than 300 journalists.”

36 hospitals destroyed
Since October 2023, the occupation forces had destroyed 36 hospitals.

“They have bombed the sick and slaughtered new born babies in their incubators.”

Janssen said that there was no course too extreme and no action too radical that Israel would not take to ensure the genocide was completed.

“When Palestinians did what all people have a right to do — defend themselves — they were condemned,” he said.

“Palestinians have been condemned for demanding the most basic of rights and for following the most fundamental of human instincts — to survive.

“They were condemned for refusing to accept violence and barbarism forced upon them.

“They refused to do nothing as their culture, their history and their people were erased.”

Brutal Israeli treatment
Moving on to the brutal treatment by Israeli forces against the Gaza flotilla humanitarian activists on April 30, Janssen said:

“The Israeli occupation forces abducted myself, 4 other citizens of New Zealand, and in total almost 200 people from nations around the world.

“They abducted us at gunpoint and threatened to kill us if we resisted.

“Dozens of people were packed into shipping containers and kept in conditions most would deem unfit for animals.

“As people slept outside in freezing temperatures they had cold water poured onto them.

“We were denied access to life saving medicine. For refusing to stand when ordered I was held by the neck face down on concrete and bashed across the head.

“My treatment was far from the worst. My friend and fellow New Zealander, Julien Blondel, the man who taught me to tie a bowline knot  — with incredible patience — and is one of the gentlest people I’ve ever met, was beaten bloody and shot with crowd suppressing rounds at point blank range.

“This still is far from all of the violence and cruelty done to us by these [Israeli state] terrorists.”

Appeal for protest letters
Janssen stressed community empowerment, appealing to the protesters to call and write to their MPs and ministers — “remember that for 2 of our comrades that violence and cruelty is not over.”

He was referring to Saif Abukeshek and Thiago Ávila, who have since his speech been freed by the Israeli authorities under global pressure and “deported”.

Saif Abukeshek was a man who had dedicated his life to supporting his people to freedom, Janssen said.

“He spoke of his love for his family every single time I heard him speak.”

“Thiago Ávila, who after being beaten by the Israelis, stood for hours by the entrance to the prison yard and greeted all of us, to make sure that a smile was the first thing all of his comrades saw, so we knew we were still in this together.

“Thiago Ávila, whose mother died with her son in Israeli custody.”

Janssen said these men were “as I speak held hostage by Israel, subject to torture and indefinite detention, and for Saif being Palestinian, potentially execution as well“.

‘Not radical’ to be humanitarian
“The President of the United States called us terrorists. The Israeli press labeled us as
radicals and extremists for what we aimed to do.

“But is it radical for starving people to be able to eat? Is it radical that people who are sick be able to access healthcare?

“These things are what the flotilla aims deliver to Gaza. Are these things radical or are they what is needed for people to live?

“What is radical, what is extreme, are the lengths that Zionism and its allies will go to refuse these things to Palestinians.”

The violence of Israel was not just happening to Palestinians anymore, Janssen said.

“The violence of Zionism is growing bolder and it is spreading across the world with the backing of the United States.

“It is a disgrace that our [New Zealand] leaders did nothing for Palestinians, but for anyone who believed they would keep you safe when violence came to our shores, I have seen first hand that they will not.

NZ ‘silent, no sanctions’
“They have imposed no sanctions. They have not expelled the Israeli ambassador. They have not even publicly denounced this blatant act of terrorism.

“Their value for your lives and your safety only exists so long as it works for their benefit.”

Janssen said that until New Zealand had leaders who would take action to uphold international law, “we are all of us — like I was — all five million of us hostages of Israel.”

He added that even if Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour and Foreign Minister Winston Peters were “scared of Israel, I am not afraid”.

“Even if they are backed by the United States, I am not afraid of these terrorists.”

Devonport naval base protest
The protest crowd warmly applauded Janssen for his courage and conviction throughout the speech. Then they marched across Te Komititanga Square and caught the ferry to Devonport.

The protesters marched peacefully to the Devonport Naval Base, chanting “No money for bombs and occupation, money for books and education” and other calls in support for Palestinian freedom and against war on Iran and Lebanon.

Stop Wars Aotearoa organiser Joe Carolan addressed the crowd beside the naval base, saying “Christopher Luxon wants to send these sailors, and our soldiers, to die for [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu. No!”

“The people of New Zealand are quite clearly against this war. Seventy percent of them are against this war. And the people of United States are against this war, and the people of Britain are against this war.

“But all of this is happening because of Netanyahu’s desire for a Greater Israel.”

• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former defence minister, are wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza, including murder and forced starvation. Israel is also on trial for genocide in a case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) brought by South Africa supported by other countries.

The importance of media freedom is recognised each year globally on May 3. This year the Pacific Island country of Tonga commemorated World Press Freedom Day just a week after one of the most frightening threats to that freedom which took place at a media outlet.

A hooded man brandishing a pistol threatened a female journalist at the newsroom of Kele’a Voice, an FM radio station in Nuku’alofa. The radio station had broadcast a news story about a Tongan deportee serving a life sentence in Tonga for the importation of two kilograms of methamphetamine.

The convicted man was a member of an Australian motorcycle gang known as the Comancheros. He was planning to set up a chapter in Tonga, according to an ABC Foreign Correspondent documentary that included an interview with the man in prison.

• READ MORE: Tongan police investigate journalist threatened at gunpoint after gang-related report
• Other Pacific media freedom reports

The threatened journalist was warned never to broadcast any more stories on the Comancheros and drug trafficking.

The police are still investigating and looking for the man. The incident is to my knowledge the first armed threat ever carried out against any media in Tonga.

The manager of Kele’a Voice, Teisa Cokanasiga, said the incident was a huge threat to their freedom to report the news, and that it was the media’s role to report on stories of public interest.

Veteran journalist Katalina Tohi, president of the Media Association of Tonga (MAT), spoke out strongly: “A climate of fear and intimidation targeting media personnel undermines democratic principles and silences the very voices that hold power to account.”

‘Attack on right to know’
She said that an “attack on the press is an attack on our nation’s right to know”.

“The Media Association of Tonga is appalled by this brazen act of intimidation. Journalists must be able to carry out their work without the threat of violence or death.”

Tohi is also a board member of the Pacific Islands News Association (PINA); her condemnation of the Tonga incident is representative not only of MAT’s views, but also those of PINA as the premier news association of the Pacific.

Threats against press freedom are unfortunately ongoing in the Pacific. The incident in Tonga demonstrates that the enemies of press freedom can come from anywhere — not always the government or those in power, but anyone averse to truth and transparency.

Whether it is in Fiji, Samoa, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, French Polynesia or anywhere else in the Pacific, media freedom must be protected, advocated for and exercised to the fullest. Only then can we in the Pacific be assured of the proper exercise of democratic governance, the rule of law, transparency and commitment to truth as foundational pillars of society.

In Tonga, freedom of speech is a fundamental value inscribed in its 150-year-old Constitution. Clause 7 of the Tonga Constitution states:

“It shall be lawful for all people to speak write and print their opinions and no law shall ever be enacted to restrict this liberty.

“There shall be freedom of speech and of the press for ever but nothing in this clause shall be held to outweigh the law of slander or the laws for the protection of the King and the Royal Family.”

Social media issue
In an age when the communication industry has exploded, bringing with it misinformation and disinformation, the dominance of social media platforms has raised an important issue for our profession.

We need to redefine our freedom on the basis of truth, and not just because we have a voice. With the availability of technology such as AI, media freedom may be threatened not so much by forces from outside as from within the industry itself.

Never before has there been a greater emphasis on fact-checking, reflecting a decline in trust and reliability of content. Traditional editing has always included fact-checking, but it has become far more important amid today’s flood of misinformation, AI-generated inaccuracies and manipulated images.

Truth must be the foundation upon which media freedom is built. We are free to speak the truth — we are not free to misinform, deceive or propagate falsehood. There is a huge difference between the freedom to speak truth and the freedom to speak lies.

Freedom of speech is the tool for holding power to account on the basis of truth. And truth matters not only to those who speak but to those who listen; audiences influenced by misinformation train their ears to follow narratives that may be false.

In a world of too many confusing voices, what matters is not simply having a voice but having one that speaks truth — and we cannot be silent about the truth. We must speak, write, print and show, for truth matters.

‘Built on truth’
American civil rights essayist Maya Angelou rightly said: “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter”. Nothing important is built on silence. If it matters, it must be built on truth. And truth is dependent on a free and fearless media to be its voice.

Finally, I wish to point out a Biblical truth, spoken by Jesus himself: “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” (John 8.32)

Here we see a connection between knowledge, truth and freedom — the freedom that is such a vital part of our Pacific cultures and existence.

Kalafi Moala established Tonga’s first independent newspaper and currently manages the online platform Talanoa ‘o Tonga. He was elected president of the Pacific Islands News Association (PINA) in September 2024. This article was first published by DevPolicy Blog and is republished under a Creative Commons licence.

• Pacific Media Watch reports: Tonga dropped five places to 51st out of 180 countries surveyed in the 2026 World Press Freedom Index.

The treatment of Maiki Sherman has been deeply upsetting to witness.

To see the first wahine Māori ever rise to the role of political editor at 1News — only to now resign under such intense public and political pressure — is heartbreaking.

Maiki is one of the sharpest political journalists in the country. Intelligent, fearless, composed, and uncompromising in holding power to account.

• READ MORE: TVNZ’s ‘first wahine Māori’ political editor Maiki Sherman resigns
• TVNZ’s political editor Maiki Sherman resigns after two weeks of making headlines — Catrin Owen
• ACT leader David Seymour is seeking to undermine public broadcasting — Steven Cowan
• Maiki Sherman had no choice but to resign — Ani O’Brien gets 2 for 4 as rightwing political assassin — Martyn Bradbury
• Oceania and global media freedom reports

There are only a handful of Maiki’s calibre, political sharpness, and ability to move between te ao Māori, media, and the political establishment so effortlessly and powerfully.

Her rise mattered. Not just professionally, but culturally. So many Māori, especially wāhine and rangatahi, saw themselves in her.

Many only turned the news on or anticipated any political story because of Maiki. Because Maiki spoke truth. She was and is a trusted source of truth.

Which is why this feels bigger than one resignation. This feels very personal. If anything, this reeks of foul play, driven by a government failing miserably to earn public trust and confidence.

Maiki had already faced consequences publicly and professionally. Yet the continued targeting, commentary, and political pressure surrounding her has felt excessive and deeply uncomfortable to watch unfold.

Trailblazer . . . a force
Too often, wāhine Māori who rise into positions of influence are subjected to a level of scrutiny and hostility far beyond what others endure. Parliament and political culture in this country have long struggled with this.

Regardless of where people sit politically, Maiki changed the landscape forever. She opened doors that had never been opened before and represented Māori with immense strength and mana.

As Māori, we should be incredibly proud of what she has achieved — and stand beside her now.

Maiki is a trailblazer. A force. This moment does not diminish her legacy. Not even close.

Kia kaha tonu koe, Maiki. Ko te whakaaro nui ki a koutou ko tō whānau.

Oriini Kaipara (Tūhoe, Ngāti Awa, Ngāti Tūwharetoa and Ngāti Rangitihi) is the Te Pāti Māori elected MP for Tāmaki Makaurau. An acclaimed journalist and news presenter, Kaipara has championed Māori news in Māori and English across all major television channels in Aotearoa New Zealand. She has advanced indigenous representation by becoming the first person in the world to anchor mainstream, primetime television news, and often injecting te reo and tikanga Māori into her presentations. This commentary was first published on her Facebook page.

TVNZ political editor Maiki Sherman has resigned, posting on social media that today, Friday, was her last day at TVNZ.

The broadcaster confirmed Maiki Sherman had resigned from her role.

“As the first wahine Māori to lead 1News’ political team, Maiki has made a significant contribution to our journalism,” TVNZ said in a statement.

• READ MORE: TVNZ’s political editor Maiki Sherman resigns after two weeks of making headlines — Catrin Owen
• ACT leader David Seymour is seeking to undermine public broadcasting — Steven Cowan
• Oceania and global media freedom reports

“Her reporting – from presenting our polls, to covering general elections and bringing breaking news out of the Beehive — has helped keep audiences across Aotearoa informed and engaged with the decisions being made on their behalf.

A statement from me… pic.twitter.com/yUdOKWEqqM

— Maiki Sherman (@MaikiSherman) May 8, 2026

“Maiki’s nomination in this year’s media awards for Political Journalist of the Year is a testament to the calibre of her work. Today, Friday 8 May is Maiki’s last day.”

She confirmed Friday was her last day at TVNZ in a post on social media, saying her position had become “untenable”.

“The level of scrutiny on me this past week has been unprecedented, and this has placed enormous pressure on me. My role has become untenable and so I am finishing up with TVNZ today. I wish the team well,” she said.

Sherman had used a homophobic slur against Stuff journalist Lloyd Burr during pre-Budget drinks in Finance Minister Nicola Willis’ office last May.

Offensive comment
In her post, Sherman acknowledged the offensive comment had been made and said there was “no excuse for the language I used,” but went on to say she had apologised to Burr and Willis the next morning, and informed her manager.

“From my own perspective and for context, my comment was made in response to deeply personal and inappropriate remarks made to me that evening.

“This does not excuse my actions, I took responsibility for that a year ago, it is merely to help others understand why I reacted in the way that I did.”

The event had come to public attention in a column by right-leaning political commentator Ani O’Brien last Tuesday.

In a statement, Stuff said the company “stands by its previous comments on the matter”, which included saying it would respect Burr’s wishes not to comment further.

She was also suspended from Parliament last week for five days for breaching parliamentary rules by pursuing an interview with National’s chief whip Stuart Smith.

National’s campaign chair Simeon Brown had complained about TVNZ’s pursuit of Smith, saying the team had followed Smith into his corridor, “aggressively” banged on his door for several minutes, refused to accept Smith declining to comment further, and pressured Smith about how his refusal would be portrayed the following morning if he did not speak.

Publicised complaint
Brown publicised his complaint on social media, but TVNZ disputed the details of his account and said the appropriate place for such complaints was with Parliament’s Speaker.

Brown’s subsequent complaint to Speaker Gerry Brownlee resulted in the suspension.

Smith had been a central figure in speculation about a potential spill in National, with several MPs having leaked anonymously to the media — including questioning the leadership of Prime Minister Christopher Luxon in the wake of poor polling and ahead of a reshuffle of Cabinet.

Reports suggested Smith had sought to speak to Luxon over Easter weekend about MPs’ concerns about his leadership, and Smith had largely refused to comment on the story for four days, finally denying it in a written statement sent by the prime minister’s office.

That denial followed Luxon calling a vote of confidence in himself at a caucus meeting, after which Luxon was heavily critical of the media, saying he would not engage “if the media want to keep focusing on speculation and rumour”.

He subsequently cancelled his weekly slot on TVNZ’s Breakfast with host Tova O’Brien, who was one of those who broke the story about Smith.

Luxon had faced criticism over his three interviews with O’Brien who started as host in late March. He said his job was “the CEO” in their first face-off – with O’Brien interrupting to say his job was prime minister – and the following week he struggled to name a Māori MP in his Cabinet.

Challenging few weeks
In a message to staff, TVNZ’s chief news and content officer Nadia Tolich said the past few weeks had been challenging for Sherman, and she respected the decision to resign.

She thanked staff for supporting each other and “keeping the mahi front of mind”, saying she wished Sherman well in what she chose to do next.

Tolich noted Sherman was a nominee in this year’s media awards for Political Journalist of the Year and said this was a “testament to the calibre of her work”.

Plans for who would fill the role would be shared to staff in due course, the message said.

• Pacific Media Watch reports: In the latest 2026 World Press Freedom Index released last week, New Zealand ranked 22nd, a further decline of six places, behind South Africa (21st) but ahead of Australia (33rd).

One of the Pacific’s champions of a free press, Robert Iroga, says the biggest threat to media freedom in the region today is money problems.

Speaking at a World Press Freedom Day event in Honiara last Saturday, he shared his concern about the future of journalism.

Iroga said the theme for this year’s event was about peace, human rights, development, and security — but none of these could exist without a “strong and free media”.

• READ MORE: China’s growing grip on the fragile Solomon Islands media sector
• Fiji’s media win in World Press Freedom Index overshadowed by threats and court summons
• Journalists launch first investigative media outlet in Solomon Islands – In-Depth Solomon
• Other World Press Freedom Day reports

“Media freedom is no longer just about physical attacks on journalists,” said the founder and publisher of Solomon Business Magazine (SBM), a board member of the Pacific Islands News Association (PINA), and the chair of the Pacific Freedom Forum.

“The real danger now is the declining financial sustainability of media organisations.”

He explained that many media companies were earning less money and finding it hard to continue.

“Revenues are shrinking, and many outlets are struggling to survive,” he said.

Leaving for PR jobs
Because of this, experienced journalists were leaving their jobs for better pay in public relations and other fields. This was creating a serious gap in newsrooms.

Robert Iroga speaking at the World Press Freedom Day event in Honiara.  Video: Tavuli News

Iroga said this was now the biggest challenge to media freedom in the Pacific, including Solomon Islands. He warned that financial pressure could make media organisations more open to outside influence.

“This responsibility does not lie with journalists alone,” he said. “All of us must protect, support, and strengthen the systems that allow truth to be told.”

He added that the stories people chose to tell would shape the nation’s future.

“Let that future be one where truth is not feared, but defended,” he said.

Plea for more support
Iroga called on governments and communities to support local media through funding, training, and fair policies.

He said that without strong support, independent journalism might continue to weaken across the region. This would affect democracy and limit people’s access to reliable information.

He urged young journalists to stay committed despite challenges and keep telling important stories.

• Pacific Media Watch reports that the 2026 World Press Freedom Index released by the Paris-based media freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) last week did not include Solomon islands in their rankings. However, a recent major RSF research report on the Solomon Islands and growing Chinese media and political influence found:

“By capitalising on the economic fragility of the local media sector, China has stepped up conditional funding, editorial partnerships and influence programmes to disseminate its narratives.”

I was reluctant to enter into journalism because I valued the research and skills attached to the profession, particularly given it’s responsibility to hold the powerful to account.

I was lucky enough to have the legendary Colin McRae as my producer.

He said there are basically three rules. You must be fair, balanced and accurate.

• READ MORE:  Does abolishing the BSA mean the end of NZ’s enforceable media standards in general? — Peter Thompson
• Back to the old Wild West with no media standards? — The Daily Blog
• Open letter sent to Prime Minister and leaders of political parties one week before the decision to abolish the Broadcasting Standards Authority — Gavin Ellis
• World’s most powerful are suing media outlets before stories are even published, says editor — Michael Savage
• Broadcasting Standards Authority to be scrapped
• Other NZ media regulation and self-regulation reports

We did have some wonderful exchanges where I queried how you can be all those things in a blatantly unfair, unbalanced and inaccurate world (you know, one where the dominant lens is rarely Indigenous?).

Sometimes we made slight adjustments to ensure that voices with lived experience or expertise come through. But always — fair, balanced and accurate was the goal. On the odd occasion when I got it wrong, I would be mortified.

I watch aghast at all the people across social media speaking into their microphones and talking absolute rubbish, no restraints or repercussions whatsoever — to get views. Often journalists have to clean up that mess by countering it with facts on their own platforms where we are held to account.

The wholesale ditching of the Broadcast Standards Authority (BSA) probably doesn’t mean anything to anybody struggling to pay their rent. But it is a sign.

Instead of adjusting it to a changing environment, the New Zealand government decided to get rid of the whole thing and let the sector and media companies “self-regulate”. Why not do the same when it comes to health and safety, or dealing with waste?

It is a big deal. So is what’s happening elsewhere to journalism. Actively targeted by hostile military groups and by those who have plenty of money, constantly derided and undermined by those in power.

This is not about me or we journos. It’s about ALL of us.

Anyway, off for a hikoi and a coffee.

Moana Maniapoto MNZM (Ngāti Tūwharetoa/Tūhourangi/Ngāti Pikiao) is an Aotearoa New Zealand singer, songwriter, storyteller, documentary maker, and presenter of Te Ao With Moana. This article was first published on her personal FB page and is republished with permission.

New Zealander Jay O’Connor had finished a long but satisfying day as a crew member aboard Eros 1, one of dozens of vessels that formed the Global Sumud Flotilla that was heading to besieged Gaza to open a humanitarian aid corridor.

What Jay wanted was a well-deserved rest, not a kick in the head from a jack-booted Israeli soldier. But that’s what he got.

Late in the night of April 29, just as he was lying down for some rest, the Israelis struck.

• READ MORE: After Israel’s brutal attack on Kiwis the NZ government does nothing
• UN demands Israel immediately releases flotilla activists
• Other Global Sumud Flotilla reports

One of the crew ripped open the hatch, “We’re under attack!” Everyone was taken by surprise because the flotilla was nearly 1000 km out from Israel, near Greek territorial waters.

“We saw a couple of military RHIBS (rigid-hulled inflatables) sitting behind us. They had laser sights from rifles pointed in our eyes. They identified themselves as the Israeli Navy.”

The Israelis seized control of the boat, ferried the Sumud crew onto a nearby prison ship — an amphibious assault vessel converted to hold four shipping containers for the hostages.

As they did this, the Israelis sabotaged the Eros 1 and other intercepted vessels, cutting fuel lines, interfering with the engines, slashing sails, destroying navigation and comms equipment, and so on. All this happened in international waters, blatantly illegal under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

‘Sticking guns in our faces’
Inside the shipping containers, the 180 captives realised things were going to get worse.

“They were holding us in stress positions for ages, yelling at us, making us touch the Israeli flag, firing flash bangs, sticking guns in our faces, all that kind of bullshit,” Jay O’Connor said.

The raiders stripped Jay of his wet weather overalls and left him with no shoes, a t-shirt and the skirt he slept in. The nights were very cold and there was no bedding or mattresses inside the shipping containers.

“Occasionally they’d toss a bit of water or some really stale bread for us to eat. They were constantly pointing guns at us. They were constantly yelling at us and then they would fuck with us for no reason — get us to line up and be counted, make us sit in stress positions and occasionally grab someone, drag him out and beat them up.”

This went on for three days.

“About a quarter of us had to sleep outside on the deck. And just for shits and giggles, they would flood the deck with sea water just to make sleeping impossible.”

An activist talks to Dawn News about the illegal, brutal Israeli attack from on board the flotilla.

Diabetic crew member prevented taking insulin
Moussa Taher, another New Zealander, sailing on the Saf Saf, said the Israelis even refused to let a diabetic crew member take his insulin. Taher said one of his comrades turned 75 years old inside that shipping container prison.

On the morning of the third day the captives were told they were being transferred to another ship.

“At this point, we stopped complying,” Jay said, “Because they had six of us in solitary. We hadn’t any confirmation that they were even alive. So we basically sat down.

“They came in and grabbed us one by one, dragged us into the fourth container.” This is where dozens were severely beaten.

“I got a few punches to the head, a kick to the head, and a couple of really nasty kicks to my ribs and right kidney. After that, they were twisting our arms and dragging us out. Then all of a sudden, we’re on a Greek Coast Guard vessel!”

Transferred by the Greeks to Crete, the most seriously injured Sumud crew were taken to a local hospital. Later that day Jay and others were released and unceremoniously dropped off in a town square to fend for themselves. No phones, no money, no support.

NZ officials’ contact ‘limited, unhelpful’
Contact with New Zealand officials was limited and unhelpful. Citizens of other Western nations were treated in the same way by their pro-Israeli governments. These heroic activists were on their own.

“We couldn’t pay for a hotel. We couldn’t pay for a coffee, we couldn’t do anything. And then we see this line of local anarchists marching towards us, chanting! It was such a wonderful moment.”

While NZ Foreign Affairs were drafting press releases making hollow declarations such as “The safety of New Zealanders involved is paramount”, the Kiwis had to rely on the kindness of strangers who took care of them, fed them, clothed them and organised places for them to sleep.

The New Zealand government refuses to condemn the attack on Kiwi citizens.

Hāhona Ormsby (Ngāti Maniapoto) was on one of the boats that escaped the raiders. In all, the Israelis attacked 22 of the more than 60 boats in the flotilla.

“This is a humanitarian flotilla,” he told Radio New Zealand. “The only thing we are armed with is aroha (love) in our hearts. The intention is to definitely keep going.

“As tangata whenua, Māori have lived through colonisation, land being taken, and cultural suppression, so that creates a natural solidarity with the Palestinians.”

Undaunted in spite of trauma
Mousa Taher says he is undaunted despite the traumatic experience. He is now in Turkïye, linking up with others preparing to restart the journey to Gaza.

“So please keep us in your prayers, and please keep the Palestinians in your thoughts and your prayers. Our silence is helping the occupation forces to systematically destroy them and dismantle them.”

A month earlier, back in Wellington Jay O’Connor said this:

“I will be traveling from Te Whanganui a Tara [Wellington] to join the Global Sumud Flotilla. I’m doing this because I can’t just stay at this side of the world watching this genocide unfold.

“I want to be able to look my kids in the eyes and tell them that I did something to try and alleviate the suffering of children just like them who are being victimised every day by Israel. So, Free Palestine!”

Now, after the horror of what he has been subjected to by the Israelis, how does Jay feel?

“Personally, any uncertainty about whether I wanted to continue or not has been burned out of me by my experience at the hands of the Israelis. I am so incredibly angry. I’ve never been this angry in my life. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”

Kiwi heroes of our time
Jay O’Connor, Hāhona Ormsby, Mousa Taher, Julien Blondel, Sean Janssen and all the Kiwis onboard the Sumud Flotilla and within the Global Sumud Aotearoa Delegation represent the very best of the New Zealand spirit. They are the Kiwi heroes of our time.

Our government, sadly, stands with the villains and their names should live in infamy for not supporting their own people.

Eugene Doyle is a writer based in Wellington, New Zealand. He has written extensively on the Middle East, as well as peace and security issues in the Asia Pacific region. He is a contributor to Asia Pacific Report and hosts solidarity.co.nz

The signals are now coming from both sides of the negotiating table. American sources confirm it. Pakistani mediators confirm it.

The end of the US-Iran war is near, and the terms of that ending will echo across the international order for decades.

Let us be precise about what has happened here.

• READ MORE: Trump says Iran agreement ‘very possible’; Israeli forces bomb Beirut
• Iran’s Foreign Ministry says US proposal to end the war still ‘under review’
• In rare push, US lawmakers demand transparency on Israel nuclear capability
• Other US-Israel war/ceasefire reports

Iran, a nation under sanctions for more than four decades, subjected to assassinations, sabotage, proxy warfare — and finally direct military assault by the most expensively armed forces in human history, backed by a nuclear-armed Israel — has not been defeated.

It has not collapsed. It has not surrendered its sovereignty, its nuclear programme, or its dignity. It stood, absorbed the blows, struck back with precision, and forced Washington to the negotiating table.

That is not a stalemate. That is a victory.

Trump’s 10-day ceasefire declaration in April initially appeared like a pause. However, as days went by, it became clearer it was an exit strategy in search of a face-saving wrapper.

Silence terminal, not tactical
The Americans have not fired a significant shot since. The silence was not tactical. It was terminal.

Consider what Iran has demonstrated to the watching world. It faced two nuclear powers simultaneously, America and Israel, with all the military technology, intelligence infrastructure, and political backing that entails.

Strangely, Iran depleted American missile stockpiles to the point of a three-to-five-year restocking timeline. It struck American bases across seven countries.

It collected tolls on the Strait of Hormuz. It watched its adversary’s approval ratings collapse domestically while its own national resolve hardened.

Trump, the self-proclaimed dealmaker, cannot exit fast enough.

The man who launched this war with the language of dominance is now scrambling for the language of diplomacy, mediated by Pakistan, concluded on terms nobody in Washington would have accepted 12 weeks ago.

History will record this clearly. A civilisation several thousand years old, armed with ingenuity, patience, and righteous resistance, outlasted the last empire’s appetite for a fight it should never have started.

The war is ending. Iran is standing. The world has been watching, and the world has learned something.

Prince Taofeek Ajibade is an educator and digital creator from Ibadan, Nigeria.

The announcement by New Zealand’s Media and Communications Minister Paul Goldsmith that the government was abolishing the Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) came as no real surprise.

But it leaves a big question hanging: will the news media still be held accountable to basic standards which protect the public interest and the core functions of the Fourth Estate?

Dr Goldsmith has said the Media Council, the industry body dealing with news and online content, “will become the primary regulator for journalism”.

• READ MORE:  Open letter sent to Prime Minister and leaders of political parties one week before the decision to abolish the Broadcasting Standards Authority — Gavin Ellis
• Broadcasting Standards Authority to be scrapped
• Other NZ media regulation and self-regulation reports

That only raises more questions. The council primarily oversees standards in print and digital journalism. But unlike the BSA, it has no legal powers of enforcement, and its rulings cannot be appealed through the courts.

Goldsmith rightly points out the digital media environment has “changed dramatically, but our regulatory settings have not kept up”. But that is not the BSA’s fault.

Governments over the past two decades have proposed regulatory updates, but delivered nothing concrete.

Indeed, the Broadcasting Act dates back to 1989. Its definition of “broadcasting” excludes on-demand services but includes “any transmission of programmes […] by radio waves or other means of telecommunication”.

This became the focus of a heated dispute when the BSA signalled it was prepared to hear a complaint about online comments made on independent digital media site The Platform.

Reactions from the political right included accusations of bureaucratic overreach by the BSA, which allegedly was acting “like some Soviet-era Stasi” and making a “secret power grab”.

This significantly misrepresented the complexity of the issues at stake. For some years the BSA has openly advanced the case for regulatory reform — including whether that meant retaining the BSA itself in its current form.

No public consultation
The more fundamental question is whether any standards regime should apply to online media. That was a key issue raised in the media reform proposals put out for public consultation by the Ministry for Culture and Heritage in 2025.

These included a proposal to:

modernise the broadcasting standards regime to cover all professional media operating in New Zealand, not just broadcasters. The role of the regulator […] would be revised, with more of a focus on ensuring positive system-level outcomes and less of a role in resolving audience complaints about media content.

This would have entailed a two-tier model: an industry regulator responsible for handling day-to-day complaints about breaches of content standards; and a statutory regulator to oversee systemic issues, with powers to ensure the overall standards regime remained robust.

Even if the BSA were restructured, there was no proposal to simply dispense with it and replace it with an industry self-regulator.

There were a range of responses to the proposal, but policy development certainly appeared to be progressing on the basis that some form of statutory regulator would be retained.

The decision to scrap the BSA may be a politically populist tactic to leverage the case of The Platform in an election year. But it is also democratically indefensible because it has not been subject to any meaningful form of public consultation.

Can the industry self-regulate?
There is no disputing that the regulatory frameworks need to be updated, given the current patchwork quilt of regulations that is full of digital holes. But applying basic standards such as accuracy, balance and fairness on a platform-neutral basis should not be contentious.

These principles are not, as some have claimed, an affront to free speech. They are the basis for upholding freedom of expression in a democracy.

Goldsmith explained the decision to abolish the BSA on the grounds that:

Greater industry self-regulation is the most practical way to level the playing field across platforms, and can provide an appropriate level of oversight to maintain ethical journalistic standards and audience trust.

But eschewing enforceable standards that apply to all media places too much faith in deregulated markets and the industry’s willingness to police itself in the public interest.

It is a regulatory model based on best-case scenarios, where all media players can be trusted to behave professionally, ethically and take their public obligations seriously.

The media system in general is facing unprecedented pressures from audience fragmentation, failing business models, lost advertising revenues and declining public trust.

The opportunity costs of adhering to standards are starting to collide with commercial shareholder imperatives.

That is probably an argument in favour of government funding to support public interest media. But it also demands a regulatory model fit for the digital age, with sufficient power to encourage compliance with basic standards.

Without that, any media operator deciding its commercial interests outweigh the cost of complying could choose to ignore the standards with impunity.

In a media environment where disinformation, fake news and polarising propaganda are already permitted to proliferate, this represents a real risk to democratic processes.

Dr Peter Thompson is an associate professor in media and communication at Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington. This article was originally published on The Conversation and is republished under a Creative Commons licence.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has condemned Israel, saying it has no right to detain Brazilian activist Thiago Ávila and demanding his “immediate and unconditional” release.

In a statement on Tuesday, Thameen Al-Kheeta, spokesperson for the United Nations entity, said:

“Israel must immediately and unconditionally release Saif Abukeshek and Thiago de Ávila, members of the Sumud Global Flotilla, detained in international waters and taken to Israel, where they remain held without a formal charge.

• READ MORE: Israel court extends Gaza flotilla activists’ detention by six days
• Israel’s kidnapping of two important pro-Palestine global activists reaffirms persecution
• Other Gaza Freedom Flotilla reports

“It is not a crime to show solidarity and attempt to deliver humanitarian aid to the Palestinian population in Gaza, which urgently needs it.”

This is the first official statement from the UN since the activists’ kidnapping and detention last Thursday.

The statement came on the day that Israel’s courts ruled to extend their detention for another six days without formal charge.

Pacific Media Watch reports: The Israeli authorities have been accused over the torture and beatings of the two protest hostages.

The pair are accused of several offences, including “assisting the enemy during wartime” and “membership in and providing services to a terrorist organisation”.

Translated from the Portuguese in ICL Notíceas.

Nothing illustrates the inversion of the international and moral order more than the genocide in Gaza and the shipment of tens of billions of dollars of weapons to Israel by Western nations — especially the United States — to sustain it.

Part of this inversion is the unrelenting persecution of those who denounce the genocide — especially those who risk their lives to halt it and demand the rule of law.

But the rule of law, it appears, is buried under the rubble in Gaza.

• READ MORE: NZ govt must rebuke Israeli envoy over beating of citizens, says PSNA
• Other Gaza genocide and War on Iran reports

And because of that Israel is able, with barely a word of protest by Western nations — Spain being one of the few exceptions — to abduct 175 activists aboard the Global Sumud Flotilla 500 nautical miles from Gaza and 80 nautical miles west of the Greek island of Crete.

This violation of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea was accompanied by the usual Israeli brutality. Flotilla members from the 22 vessels that were intercepted and then transferred to the Israeli vessel Nahshon were denied food, forced to sleep on the floor as it was flooded “repeatedly” with water, punched, kicked, dragged across decks with their hands tied and shot at with rubber bullets and live ammunition.

Kidnapped by Israel                                   Video: The Chris Hedges Report

Eventually, all but two flotilla members were transferred to Crete, with 36 requiring medical attention.

Two of the leading activists on the flotilla, the Brazilian organiser of the flotilla, Thiago Ávila, and the Spaniard Saif Abukeshek, who is of Palestinian descent and who has organised Palestinian solidarity movements across Europe for more than two decades, were not allowed to disembark when the vessel reached Ierapetra Port in southern Crete, although the ship was in Greek territorial waters.

They were kidnapped and taken to Israel.

“Participant eyewitnesses provided harrowing testimony of Abukeshek’s screams echoing throughout the ship as he was subjected to systematic torture, after being separated from the others,” read a communique issued by the Global Sumud Flotilla.

Abukeshek was blindfolded, forced to lie on his stomach “since the moment of his seizure until this morning” which resulted in “bruising to his face and hands”.

Ávila was “dragged face-down across the floor” and beaten so severely that he passed out twice.

When the two activists appeared in an Israeli court there were visible bruises on their faces. Ávila had trouble lifting his right hand.

Since their kidnapping, the two men have been on hunger strike. They are accused of “assisting the enemy during wartime” and “membership in and providing services to a terrorist organisation”.

This is the world we now live in. The moral and the courageous are criminalised. The ruling class weaponises the law to justify the abuse and atrocities of the lawless.

Here is a link to an interview I did in Italy with Ávila.

Here is a link to the documentary we made in Italy where Ávila, along with Francesca Albanese, Greta Thunberg, Yanis Varoufakis and the striking Italian dock workers, who refuse to load weapons onto ships bound for Israels, are featured.

We must contact the Israeli Embassy in Washington. We must protest in front of the embassy, as well as the Israeli consulate in New York, to demand the release of Thiago and Saif.

They are the best among us.

Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for 15 years for The New York Times, where he served as the Middle East bureau chief and Balkan bureau chief for the paper. He is the host of show “The Chris Hedges Report”. This commentary was first published on the Chris Hedges X page and is republished with permission.

• The Chris Hedges Report

The Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) has called on the New Zealand government to follow through on its demands that Israel complies with international law following the abduction and beating of citizens by the Israeli military in international waters in the Mediterranean last week.

PSNA national spokesperson Rinad Tamimi said the government had been “very explicit” in its recent warnings to Israel that New Zealand did not expect a repeat of Israeli forces “brutally capturing New Zealanders” while they were trying to deliver humanitarian aid to Palestinians in the besieged Gaza enclave.

“Anyone who has seen the pictures of Invercargill resident Julien Blondel’s face or the reports of Jay O’Connor suffering from concussion and a likely broken rib will know that once more Israel has called the New Zealand government’s bluff,” she said in a statement.

• READ MORE: After Israel’s brutal attack on Kiwis the NZ government does nothing
• Gaza flotilla organisers subjected to ‘extreme brutality’ in illegal Israeli detention
• Global Sumud Flotilla calls on NZ govt to intervene after Israeli interception
• Former Greek minister slams ‘Western complicity’ over brutal Israeli kidnap of Gaza flotilla leaders
• Kia Ora Gaza website

“The Global Sumud Aid Flotilla’s sole intention is to deliver aid to Palestinians still under Israeli attack and starvation in Gaza.

“The world is looking at the Israeli attacks on Lebanon and Iran. But the situation for Palestinians in Gaza is no less dire than when the ceasefire there was meant to have started last October but Israel continues its daily killing of mainly women and children.

“The volume of food is insufficient and lacking nutrition. It is incredibly expensive. Promised tents haven’t arrived.

“Medicine has run out. Reconstruction hasn’t started. Israel is still expanding its yellow-line ‘no-go’ zone.”

Tamimi, who was elected at the PSNA annual general meeting in Rotorua last weekend, said she knew the New Zealand government had already proved it “doesn’t care about Palestinians in Gaza”.

But she added that the government could not avoid its responsibility to protect New Zealanders going about lawful business.

“The government can’t simply opt out of its duties to its citizens by telling them it’s too dangerous to try helping Palestinians in Gaza.

“Israel has killed people on flotillas before. It has captured New Zealanders and brutalised them previously. Now it has done it again.”

Tamimi said the least New Zealand could do was to issue a formal rebuke by calling-in the Israeli ambassador.

“The ambassador should be expelled as far as I’m concerned. But if it was good enough for John Key’s government to reprimand Israel through a formal rebuke, then why can’t [Foreign Minister] Winston Peters do at least the same?”

The University of the South Pacific (USP) Journalism Programme has marked the 2026 World Press Freedom Day this year in partnership with the Fiji National University (FNU) School of Language, Communication and Literature.

A successful collaboration between two universities, the event highlighted a strong partnership focused on advancing journalism education in the Pacific.

A panel discussion was moderated by the head of USP Journalism, Associate Professor Shailendra Singh, on the theme “Exploring media’s role in divided societies: can media be both peacemaker and watchdog?”

The panelists were:
· Dorinda Mabon – media and communications student, Fiji National University
· Iva Nataro – editor, Fiji Sun
· Vahefonua Tupola – Journalism Students Association representative, USP
· Nilesh Lal – executive director, Dialogue Fiji
· Alifereti Sakiasi – journalist, The Fiji Times

The Assistant Minister for Multi-Ethnic Affairs, Culture, Heritage and Arts, Shalen Kumar, was chief guest while the Pacific Representative of the UN Human Rights Pacific, Heike Alefsen was keynote speaker.

The collaboration highlighted a shared commitment to tackling key challenges such as misinformation, digital disruption, and ethical reporting, while preparing the next generation of journalists.

Asia Pacific Report and Pacific Media Watch collaborate with the University of the South Pacific Journalism Programme.

A female journalist in Tonga has been threatened at gunpoint following the broadcast of a news story about an Australian criminal deportee serving a life sentence in Tonga for methamphetamine importation.

The incident, in which an unknown individual threatened the journalist at the Kele’a Publications office in Nuku’alofa 12 days ago — 23 April — is under investigation by police.

Kele’a Publications manager Teisa Cokanasiga told RNZ Pacific that the man featured in the ABC’s Foreign Correspondent documentary had plans to set up a chapter of the Comanchero, an Australian outlaw motorcycle gang in Tonga.

• READ MORE: Fiji’s media win in World Press Freedom Index overshadowed by threats and court summons
• Other Tongan media reports

Cokanasiga said the incident, which appeared to be an attempt to silence the press, had shaken her small team.

“It is a big concern, and it is very worrying to me that this happened to us, to a journalist in our small organisation,” she said.

Cokanasiga said Kele’a Publications lacked resources, such as security cameras, that could assist with the police work and investigations into the incident.

She has calling on Tongans to help them if they have any information about the man.

Cokanasiga said gang-related activity was a big concern in Tonga, as it was in many other Pacific Island nations.

“People in the country are worried about drug trafficking and [the] growing influence of gang-related crimes, and it’s a huge concern.”

However, she said journalists should be allowed to do their job, as it was the media’s role to inform the public about public interest stories.

RNZ Pacific has contacted police for comment.

Media Association ‘shocked’
Meanwhile, the Media Association of Tonga (MAT) has expressed its “profound shock and deep concern”.

“The presence of a firearm in what is understood to be an act of intimidation represents a dangerous and unacceptable escalation against press freedom in the kingdom,” MAT said in a statement on Tuesday.

“MAT views this incident as a direct assault not only on the safety of an individual journalist but on the constitutional right of every Tongan to receive information without fear or favour.”

MAT president Katalina Uili Tohi said targeting of media personnel undermined democratic principles and silenced the voices that held power to account.

“The Media Association of Tonga is appalled by this brazen act of intimidation. Journalists must be able to carry out their work without the threat of violence or death,” she said.

The association is calling on the Minister of Police and the police chief to launch an urgent, thorough, and transparent investigation to apprehend the perpetrator.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Fiji has shot up the world rankings for press freedom but the victory feels hollow as journalists across the Pacific face a wave of court battles, police raids, and vicious online abuse.

The 2026 World Press Freedom Index, released last Thursday by Reporters Without Borders, shows Fiji climbing to a record 24th in the world.

But the celebration is being cut short. In Sāmoa, the media has plummeted to its lowest ranking ever (59th), and in Fiji, despite the “freedom”, reporters are still being summoned to court and having their phones seized by police.

• READ MORE: Fiji jumps, Samoa plunges in World Press Freedom Index
• Political cartooning and media freedom — Campion Ohasio
• Press freedom: Israel’s diabolical killing machine and how it targets journalists — David Robie
• FMA praises Fiji media workers for press freedom climb but warns it is ‘tenuous’
• Fiji climbs to 24th in World Press Freedom Index, biggest gain in the Pacific
• Political reforms drive Fiji’s big press freedom gains, says RSF
• RSF World Press Freedom Index 2026

The Paris-based global watchdog warns journalism is at a 25-year low. From AI-generated “fake news’” on Facebook to politicians bullying reporters, the job of telling the truth in the Pacific has never been more dangerous.

Sāmoa falls to lowest ranking after election fallout
The biggest shock in the report is Sāmoa’s collapse. After a messy 2025 election cycle, the island nation — once the “gold standard” for Pacific media — has seen its ranking fall off a cliff.

It isn’t only about politics, it’s about safety. Women journalists are being targeted with threats for simply doing their jobs.

Rula Sua Vaa, head editor of TV1 Sāmoa News, told the ABC she received threats against her and her family while covering the fallout between the Fa’atuatua i le Atua Sāmoa ua Tai (FAST) party and former Prime Minister Fiamē Naomi Mataʻafa.

The UN Women Asia and the Pacific project reports that 45 percent of women in Pacific media now self-censor online just to avoid the abuse.

As the UN stated on social media: “Behind every silenced voice is a growing crisis of digital violence, weak accountability, and threats to press freedom,” it says in a social media post.

Kalafi Moala, president of the Pacific Islands News Association (PINA), said the biggest threat might actually be “free” money being offered by foreign powers.

He said Pacific journalists were operating under dual pressures of political control and digital disinformation.

“In small island states, where information ecosystems are fragile and resources are limited, the impact can be immediate and damaging, undermining public trust, fueling division, and threatening social cohesion,” he said in a statement.

Kalafi Moala’s full interview with PMN News.

Fiji gains overshadowed by legal scrutiny
Fiji’s rise to 24th is a big win following the repeal of the old, “draconian” 2010 Media Industry Development Act in 2023.

But the Fijian Media Association warns these gains are “tenuous”.

This year alone, senior reporters Lavenia Lativerata (Mai TV) and Jake Wise (The Fiji Times) were summoned to testify in court while Meri Radinibaravi, an investigative journalist, had her phone seized by police over a Facebook post earlier this week.

Clayton Weimers, Reporters Without Borders North America executive director, said the global situation was critical.

“Journalists continue to be killed and jailed, but journalism itself is now threatened by economic headwinds, the criminalisation of reporting, and a hostile political climate. There is no freedom without press freedom,” he said in a social media post.

Across the region, the 2026 Index shows a Pacific moving in two directions.

While the laws are getting better in some countries, the digital and financial pressure on journalists is reaching a breaking point.

For Moala, the mission remains simple but difficult: “Tell the stories that’s right there in front of us… and somehow, we’ll get there.”

• New Zealand was ranked 22nd, ahead of Australia at 33rd in the 2026 Index.

Press freedom at its lowest point in 25 years                Video: RSF

Republished from PMN News with permission.

Forough Amin in her opinion piece “The consequences of selective morality” (The Press, 28 April 2026) argues that the Palestine solidarity movement’s call for sanctions against Israel is “selective morality”. She says we should be calling out all human rights abuses everywhere — which in her case means Iran.

We agree with Amin’s basic premise that calls for action against countries abusing human rights should be consistent and comprehensive.

Our focus, given our organisations’ title, is however on Palestine. Israel’s genocide in Gaza is objectively the worst atrocity this century and one which all Western governments, such as ours, support. That genocide is in our name.

• READ MORE: Amnesty International calls on governments to stop predatory, anti-rights order from taking hold in pivotal moment for humanity
• Other reports in the Gaza genocide and US-Israel attacks on Iran

It is precisely because our government refuses to sanction Israel for the mass killing and starvation of Palestinians in Gaza and the pogroms conducted by Israeli settlers, with the support of the Israeli military, throughout the OPT (Occupied Palestinian Territory) that we must all speak up and demand accountability for Israel and from our government.

The complete avoidance of accountability by Israel is the single most important reason that it continues its brutal occupation in the OPT, its daily theft of Palestinian land and its refusal to allow Palestinian refugees to return to land from which they were ethnically cleansed by Israeli militias in 1948.

Our government operates a simple, easy to understand, double standard — it calls out and acts on human rights abuses in countries that the US sees as enemies, but refuses to call out or act on human rights abuses in countries the US sees as friends.

That is why the government has enacted comprehensive sanctions against Iran and Russia, but miserly measures against a small handful of racist Israeli settlers for the most egregious of war crimes.

Tight business restrictions
Regarding Iran, for example, our government has imposed tight business restrictions, targeted travel bans, asset freezes, import/export bans and suspension of bilateral engagements.

in October last year the government even re-imposed UN sanctions following Iran’s non-compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on nuclear technology, ignoring the fact that the US pulled out of the JCPOA eight years ago.

New Zealand expects Iran, yet not the US, to keep following the trashed agreement.

So comprehensive and pervasive are the sanctions against Iran that the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) advises that “given the wide scope of the Regulations, and the penalties for non-compliance, it is recommended that anyone contemplating doing business with Iran obtain independent legal advice before engaging in business with people in Iran, or with entities that are incorporated in Iran or subject to its jurisdiction”.

The sanctions regime against Russia is similar in scope and designed to hold Russia to account for its invasion of Ukraine.

So, what did we do when the US and Israel twice launched massive air attacks against Iran, both times while the US was in negotiations with the Iranian leadership? Nothing.

Our Minister of Foreign Affairs issued a statement, not condemning the US and Israel, but condemning Iran for retaliating against US bases in the Gulf states. It would make great satire in a TV comedy but unfortunately its real.

No coup condemnation
Amin does not condemn the US-orchestrated overthrow of the first democratically-elected government in Iran in 1953 when Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh was deposed in a coup to make way for the US-installed Shah of Iran — a lineage Amin wants to reinstate, albeit temporarily.

Needless to say, calls for democracy under the Shah were met with hideous brutality and widespread oppression of Iranian human rights activists.

It’s important to consider the feelings of New Zealanders who have community connections to overseas conflicts. It’s also important not to blame any community here for war crimes committed on the other side of the world.

Palestinian New Zealanders in particular deserve our support and empathy as they watch tens of thousands of their kinfolk, mostly women and children, being killed in Gaza — actions driven by the most hideous, genocidal rhetoric from Israeli political and military leaders.

The situation with Israel is similar to apartheid South Africa in the 1980s.

Western governments, especially New Zealand, stood with apartheid South Africa and resisted black South African calls for sanctions, until international civil society groups (including HART and CARE here) mobilised public opinion to demand action against that apartheid state.

All major human rights groups, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, along with human rights groups in Israel, describe the regime there as an apartheid state. It has a whole host of laws that discriminate against Palestinian citizens of Israel as well as Palestinians living under Israeli military occupation.

Two to one back sanctions
The government’s selective morality is in our sights. Already public surveys show that of New Zealanders who give an opinion, they are two to one supporting sanctions against Israel.

Let’s hope Auckland City Council votes to end procurement of goods and services from companies identified by the UN Human Rights Council as supporting Illegal Israeli settlements in the OPT. These settlements constitute a war crime under the Fourth Geneva Convention.

And if Amin can find any comparable human-rights-abusing companies the Auckland City Council is working with, then she should take that up with the council and would be guaranteed backing from our supporters.

John Minto was national co-chair of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA). This article was first published by The Press and is republished with permission.

My name is Campion Ohasio, and I am currently the only political cartoonist in Solomon Islands.

In recent weeks, I have received many questions and comments from people across the country about my cartoons.

Some ask why I draw our national leaders in certain ways. Others wonder whether my caricatures are personal attacks or whether they violate the leaders’ rights.

• READ MORE: Other Campion Ohasio political cartoons and commentary
• Campion Ohasio artwork and cartoons

A few have even suggested that I should stop drawing critical cartoons.

I would like to take this opportunity to explain my work clearly and honestly.

As the only political cartoonist in our nation today, my job is simple: I use drawings to comment on the decisions, actions, policies, and laws made by our leaders.

My cartoons are not meant to attack any leader as a person or as a human being. Instead, they highlight issues that affect ordinary Solomon Islanders — issues such as corruption, poor governance, broken promises, and policies that may not serve the public interest.

Public figures hold power
In a democracy like ours, national leaders are public figures. They hold power on behalf of the people, and the people have every right to question how that power is used.

Political cartoons are one peaceful and creative way for citizens to express their views and hold leaders accountable.

As response to the many questions I have received. I believe healthy criticism is not an insult; it is an important part of democracy. Through my cartoons, I hope to encourage Solomon Islanders to think critically, ask questions, and stay engaged in the affairs of our country.

I remain committed to drawing honest cartoons that reflect the realities facing our people, always with the hope that our leaders will listen, improve, and serve the public interest better.

Thank you for your interest in my work.

A political caricature (also called a political cartoon) is a funny or exaggerated drawing that comments on a leader’s decisions, policies, or actions. It uses humour, symbols, and exaggeration to make a point about what the leader is doing in his public role.

Many people mistakenly think that a caricature is a personal attack on the leader as a human being. This is not true.

Eight reasons why leaders’ human rights are not violated
Here are eight reasons why cartoons and caricatures are not a violation of the leader’s human rights:

1 What a political caricature actually does: It criticises the actions, decisions, or policies of the leader.

It does not attack the leader’s basic human rights (such as the right to life, dignity, safety, or personal freedom). It focuses on the leader’s public role, not his private life as a father, husband, or ordinary person.

2 Why it isn’t a personal attack on human rights: Leaders are public figures. When someone becomes a president, prime minister, or national leader, they voluntarily step into the public spotlight. Their decisions affect thousands of citizens. Because of this, they must accept public criticism, including through cartoons and satire.

3 Criticism targets power, not the person: A caricature usually mocks a bad policy, a broken promise, corruption, or a harmful decision: not the leader’s race, family, or basic humanity. For example, drawing a leader as a big balloon floating away from reality is criticising his disconnection from people’s problems, not denying his right to exist.

4 Satire and humour are protected forms of free speech: In a democracy, freedom of expression includes the right to use humour and exaggeration to comment on those in power. Political caricatures have a long history of helping people understand and question government actions.

5 It doesn’t take away basic rights: Drawing a funny or critical cartoon does not stop the leader from: Living safely, having a family, practicing his religion, speaking freely, receiving fair treatment in court. These are real human rights. A caricature does not remove any of them.

6 Public accountability requires public criticism: Leaders exercise public power using taxpayers’ money. Citizens have the legitimate right to comment on how that power is used. Caricatures are one peaceful, creative way to do this.

7 Confusion between criticism and hate: Some leaders or supporters claim any negative drawing is “hate speech” or a human rights violation. This is usually an attempt to avoid accountability. Legitimate political satire is very different from threats, violence, or calls for harm.

8 Thin-skinned leaders weaken democracy: If leaders cannot handle a simple drawing or joke about their policies, it shows they may not be ready for the public scrutiny that comes with power. Strong leaders accept criticism; weak ones try to ban it.

For example: If a cartoon shows a leader pouring money into his own pocket while the people are hungry, it is highlighting possible corruption or bad priorities. It is not saying the leader has no right to live or be treated with dignity. It is saying: “Your policy or action is wrong.”

A political caricature is a form of peaceful criticism, not a personal attack. It doesn’t remove or violate any of the leader’s fundamental human rights. Instead, it exercises the public’s right to question those who hold power.

In a true democracy, leaders must learn to live with satire and criticism. Their job is to serve the people: and the people have the right to laugh, question, and point out when the leader is failing in that duty.

Criticising a leader’s actions through a caricature is about holding power accountable, not denying the leader’s humanity or human rights.

Campion Ohasio is a Solomon Islands-based self-taught visual artist, graphic designer, and prominent political cartoonist known for capturing South Pacific social issues. He gained early recognition in the 1990s for his work on Uni Tavur at the University of Papua New Guinea and later as a editor for the Solomons Voice. This commentary is republished with the author’s permission.

Kiwi Julien Blondel’s face may be bloodied but it is unbowed. So far the New Zealand government has done nothing after Blondel and other New Zealand peace activists were savagely beaten by Israeli soldiers who attacked the Global Sumud flotilla near the Greek Island of Crete on April 30.

The flotilla was Gaza-bound and seeking to open a humanitarian corridor to Gaza to bring humanitarian aid to the Palestinians and apply pressure to the Israelis to halt the genocide.

New Zealanders Jay O’Connor, Mousa Taher, Julien Blondel and Sean Janssen were among 176 people who were captured in international waters, subjected to vicious mistreatment then dropped onto Crete.

• READ MORE: Gaza flotilla organisers subjected to ‘extreme brutality’ in illegal Israeli detention
• Global Sumud Flotilla calls on NZ govt to intervene after Israeli interception
• Former Greek minister slams ‘Western complicity’ over brutal Israeli kidnap of Gaza flotilla leaders
• NZer Rana Hamida reports
• Other Global Sumud Flotilla reports
• Kia Ora Gaza website

O’Connor and Blondel were immediately transferred to hospital on arrival in Greece.

Several days after the Israeli attack, I spoke with Samuel Leason, another Kiwi who was on a boat that evaded the Israelis and made it to Crete. He told me that several people were still in hospital.

Our government has so far offered no consular support and the Kiwis, like their comrades, have had to rely on the kindness of strangers and local peace activists.

Samuel said it was really hard to see what Julien Blondel had been through.

‘Brutalised state’
“I spent the last week with him, preparing in Barcelona. He’s just the most lovely man. It was very difficult to see him in such a brutalised state.

“Despite what happened to him, he is steadfast in the movement, and he is steadfast for Palestine. We all are. We’re all fuming. We’re all fuming that our government can let Israel get away with something so blatantly illegal.”

At least four Israeli warships, overhead surveillance planes, drones and sophisticated jamming technology (to shut down the flotilla’s Starlink comms) were deployed against the humanitarian activists.

The Israeli raiders systematically destroyed communications, navigation and other equipment on the ships they captured. They tampered with engines, cut fuel lines and shredded sails.

Once they transferred the abductees onto warships, they abandoned the Sumud vessels in open seas.

Members of the Global Sumud Aotearoa Delegation who I talked with today said the beatings of dozens of activists was systematic. It started when flotilla members protested when two of the Steering Committee members, Saif Abukeshek and Thiago Ávila, were isolated and then subjected to violence (they heard their screams).

The IOF soldiers dragged dozens of Sumud members, one after another, into a separate area where they were repeatedly kicked and punched.

Among many beaten
New Zealander Blondel (pictured) was one of many to be savagely beaten. Several were hospitalised when the Israelis, coordinating with allies in the Greek military, transferred them to Crete.

It is worth noting the attack happened within Greece’s Search And Rescue zone and yet the Greek Navy ignored SOS calls from the flotilla.

Such is the loyalty to Israel of New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Foreign Minister Winston Peters that there has been no immediate condemnation of either the violence meted out to New Zealand citizens or the fact that this violence was part of an act of piracy in international waters hundreds of kilometres from Israel.

The NZ Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued the standard mumble: “The safety of New Zealanders involved [is] paramount and international law must be upheld.”

Will the Minister of Foreign Affairs haul the Israeli ambassador in for a dressing down? Will the government publicly and forcefully rebuke Israel for its criminal behaviour? Will the government seek reparations for the damage done to the Sumud vessels?

Unlikely, as it was revealed last week that the New Zealand prime minister wanted to even more strongly support the illegal US-Israeli war on Iran but was blocked by the minister of foreign affairs. (Imagine if Luxon had been our prime minister when the Rainbow Warrior was sunk).

With leaders like these across the Western world the Israelis have learnt that they can act with impunity.

‘Imagine the Palestinian hostages’
Eloiza Montana, comms lead for the Global Sumud Aotearoa delegation said: “What our people suffered is terrible but it is tiny compared to what Palestinians go through.

“Imagine: if the Israelis are allowed to do this to international activists who are sailing in the middle of the Mediterranean — imagine what is going on inside Israeli prisons to the Palestinian hostages.”

I have written a series of articles over the past few years highlighting the mistreatment of Palestinian prisoners. I have had the grim experience of watching footage of the rape-murder of a Palestinian prisoner by Israeli soliders at Sde Teiman prison and seen one of the perpetrators blessed a few days later on-camera by Netanyahu’s rabbi, who praised him for his work.

The only person punished for these sordid events was Israel’s top military prosecutor Major General Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi who, disgusted by the impunity, leaked the footage.

Israel’s outstanding human rights organisation B’tselem has done the world a great service by documenting the physical, sexual and psychological abuse that is standard practice within Israel’s prison system. For those who can handle the truth, I highly recommend B’tselem’s site “Welcome to Hell – The Israeli Prison Camps as a network of Torture Camps.”

New Zealand has maintained virtually total silence over this criminality in order to provide assistance to its close friend and ally Israel.

Our leaders tell us we share values with the Israelis. The New Zealand government may; I do not.

Speaking from Türkiye, Rana Hamida from Sumud’s Aotearoa New Zealand delegation told me: “We need to hold the criminals accountable, so we can move to restorative justice. Free Saif. Free Thiago. Free yourself!”

Olivia Coote, also a member of the delegation said: “Palestine activated for me a realisation that the society I was a part of is an absolute farce and that we are not the good guys.”

Last word on the attack
I’ll give the last word to Samuel Leason who told me from his ship moored off Crete this week:

“What this attack reveals is the true nature of the Israeli Occupation Force. There are 70 different nationalities on these boats — we represent the international community. For them to be able to come out here, brutalise us, steal our things and imprison us for days and then take some of our comrades to be questioned and tortured back in Israel just shows how much regard they have for people around the world.

“It shows how little regard they have for international law, and just how morally messed up they are.”

Eugene Doyle is a writer based in Wellington, New Zealand. He has written extensively on the Middle East, as well as peace and security issues in the Asia Pacific region and is a frequent contributor to Asia Pacific Report. He hosts solidarity.co.nz

Fiji has recorded a dramatic jump in its media freedom rating to be in the top 25 nations globally while Samoan government press restrictions have seen its rating plummet in the latest World Press Freedom Index.

Advocacy group Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) said globally it was the first time since the index was first compiled in 2001 that more than half of the world’s countries fell into the “difficult” or “very serious” press freedom categories.

The index released annually for World Press Freedom Day covers 180 countries but reports on only four of two dozen Pacific island nations and territories, including Tonga and the lowest ranked in the region Papua New Guinea.

• READ MORE: FMA praises Fiji media workers for press freedom climb but warns it is ‘tenuous’
• Fiji climbs to 24th in World Press Freedom Index, biggest gain in the Pacific
• Political reforms drive Fiji’s big press freedom gains, says RSF
• RSF World Press Freedom Index 2026

Three years after Fiji repealed its draconian media laws, it has climbed into the top tier of countries with free or mostly free media, recording a steep 15-point increase, the index’s second highest annual move globally after Syria.

Fiji has now risen from a low of 89 in 2023 to the 24th position in the 2026 index — which covers 2025 — reflecting the change in government after coup leader Voreqe Bainimarama lost power in the 2022 election.

Associate Professor Shailendra Singh, head of journalism at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji, told Pasifika TV the ranking is a reflection of a freer media environment but there is no room for complacency.

“There is the growing tension between the media and the government, and the bolder the media becomes, the more they test the government tolerance for scrutiny and criticism,” he said, highlighting accusations of misinformation levelled at the media by Fiji’s Information Minister Lynda Tabuya last week.

‘Criticised doorstopping’
“She criticised the doorstopping by a Fijian journalist and stated that this type of practice should be banned.

“This is a reminder that the fight for media freedom never ends and there are always new challenges cropping up, we can never let our guard down and any ethical breaches on our part makes for a stronger case for greater controls on the media.”

Fiji’s improved ranking was in contrast to the global trend for erosion of media independence, which also saw Samoa lead the way down for other Pacific nations surveyed.

Samoa posted the largest fall in the Pacific, plunging 15 points to 59th place, and the second greatest decline globally after Niger.

An acrimonious relationship between Prime Minister La’aulialemalietoa Leuatea Schmidt and local journalists, particularly the Samoa Observer newspaper which he has banned from government press conferences, has been a major factor.

Pacific Islands News Association (PINA) last November issued a statement of “deep concern” saying that it represents “a serious threat to media freedom, public access to information, and democratic accountability in Samoa and the wider Pacific region.”

La’aulialemalietoa rejected PINA’s position saying the government had “documented evidence of unprofessional reporting and breach of media ethical standards that led to this action”.

PINA president Kalafi Moala talking to Pasifika TV.

Samoan government ‘must improve’
PINA president Kalafi Moala told Pasifika TV the Samoan government must improve its approach.

“The Samoa Observer has for decades followed the tradition of holding power to account and they’ll be the first one in trouble if there’s an issue there,” he said.

Overall Moala said he sensed the political mood toward media freedom in the Pacific had shifted.

“Throughout the Pacific, the governments are trying to learn from the past and that freedom of the press goes in hand-in-hand with democracy,” he told Pasifika TV at the Media Council of PNG’s (MCPNG) annual summit in Port Moresby.

“These are not the governments of the 1960s, 1970s or 1980s, these are new governments with a whole new crop [of politicians] coming up and they’re far more aware of the fact they’ve got to be more democratic.”

Papua New Guinea is the lowest ranked Pacific island nation at 73rd place, but is up five points, and slowly climbing.

Its rating dropped 32 points in 2024 to 91st place after Prime Minister James Marape’s Government announced plans to tighten the media laws and proposed registering journalists.

Extensive lobbying efforts by the MCPNG has seen the government moderate its position.

‘Really proud’ of MCPNG
“I’m really, really proud of being part of the Media Council of Papua New Guinea,” said MCPNG secretary Belinda Kora.

“We realised that when we went to sit down with authorities responsible for communication and technology, and our prime minister, the lack of understanding they have of our roles, which led to a parliamentary inquiry and for the first time in the history of this country, the recommendations of that inquiry were actually adopted by the Parliament.

“So, when we’re sitting down with them, we’re making them aware and also educating them about why it is important to protect our rights.”

Tonga slipped five points to 51st position in the rankings but Moala, founder and editor of Talanoa ‘o Tonga and who was imprisoned in 1996 for contempt of parliament, said he could not fathom why.

“Right now, with a new government and new prime minister elected, I’m just absolutely amazed,” he said.

“We’ve never had a government like that for the last 20 years, he [Prime Minister Lord Fatafehi Fakafānua] is having regular press conferences every week, is open for interviews with media, he personally and his government actively want information to come out of every department.

“We’re going in a direction and moving at a speed in terms of media freedom I’ve never seen before.”

Pacific countries not ranked
Not ranked by RSF are Pacific island nations like Nauru, Kiribati and Tuvalu with little or no independent media, nor those with dynamic media environments like Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.

None of the territories or colonies of France and the United States are separately monitored or mentioned in the report.

“It is very sad that they [RSF] only concentrate on these four nations because it’s probably convenient to them,” he said.

“The whole Pacific is much bigger than that and our concern at PINA is there’s no coverage of any Micronesian country or territory.

“You’ve got Palau, you’ve got issues in the Marshall Islands, the American territories like Guam and so on.”

Only Australia and New Zealand were specifically mentioned in RSF’s Asia-Pacific annual regional report, despite the very significant gain made by Fiji and fall by Samoa by international standards.

Reporters Sans Frontières did not respond to Pasifika TV questions on why it does not cover all of the Pacific along with the 180 other nations.

West Papua not mentioned
Its report for Indonesia also does not mention West Papua where some of its harshest media restrictions are imposed, including bans of foreign media and regular internet blackouts during times of conflict, and where local journalists face intimidation.

Press freedom in the Pacific’s main donor partners — Australia, China, New Zealand and United States — continues to fall despite their provision of journalism training in the region.

New Zealand remains the highest ranked Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) member country at 22nd place but has fallen six points since last year, while Australia continues its decline, falling a further four points to sit at 33rd place.

The United States also continued its downward slide, falling seven points to 64th position, which RSF said was due to “President Donald Trump’s systematic weaponisation of state institutions, including funding cuts to public broadcasters”.

In April 2024, the Trump administration cut funding to Radio Free Asia, and its BenarNews Pacific service, ending coverage of the region, though it has now resumed with an almost exclusive focus on China-related stories.

Other media initiatives impacted by the US cuts included Internews and OCCRP.

China at 178th sits third from the bottom of the index, just above North Korea and Eritrea.

Reporters Sans Frontières said “the government has dramatically expanded its repressive toolkit in recent years, including a raft of national security laws that are regularly invoked to imprison journalists”.

“With 121 media professionals currently behind bars, China is the world’s largest jailer of journalists.”

Republished from Pasifika TV. Stefan Armbruster is regional news development lead.

Fiji has recorded the biggest improvement in the Pacific in the 2026 World Press Freedom Index, rising to 24th out of 180 countries.

The index has been compiled and published by global media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) since 2002.

Papua New Guinea moved up slightly on the index to 73rd.

• READ MORE: FMA praises Fiji media workers for press freedom climb but warns it is ‘tenuous’
• Political reforms drive Fiji’s big press freedom gains, says RSF
• RSF World Press Freedom Index 2026

But Samoa recorded the biggest drop in the region, falling to 59th — its lowest ranking.

Tonga also slipped this year to 51st, down from 46th in 2025.

New Zealand is ranked 22nd, ahead of Australia at 33rd.

Reporters Without Borders said for the first time in the Index’s history, more than half of the world’s countries now fall into the “difficult” or “very serious” categories for press freedom.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Three years after the lifting of draconian media laws under which Fiji’s media industry operated, and even with significant improvements in the country’s media freedom rankings, the gains from the return of media freedom remain tenuous.

This World Press Freedom Day, the Fijian Media Association is heartened by the country’s remarkable progress on the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) media freedom index for 2026.

Fiji improved in ranking by 16 places, now standing at 24th globally, up from 40th last year and 84th in 2023.

• READ MORE: Political reforms drive Fiji’s big press freedom gains, says RSF
• RSF World Press Freedom Index 2026

The global picture revealed by the RSF World Press Freedom Index shows over half of the world’s countries now fall into the “difficult” or “very difficult” categories for press freedom, the lowest in the 25 years since the index was first published.

This achievement for Fiji should be attributed not only to the media workers continuing to uphold the values of independent journalism to keep communities informed, but to everybody in this country who recognise and defend the importance of a free media for a healthy democracy.

While it is a moment to be celebrated, we are acutely aware of the various threats to individual media workers and the wider industry that continue to overshadow media development in Fiji.

In recent months, there have been several separate developments that have the potential to influence and shape how the media works and serves the community.

Summonsing of journalists
The summonsing of journalists to testify in court cases has been a particularly pointed moment, and its ramifications of this judicial action on the industry and the sources it depends on is something the FMA is acutely aware of.

More recently, the statement by the Minister for Information Lynda Tabuya in Parliament regarding what she referred to as “mal-information” and “misinformation” by the reporting on the broken-down lift at the Colonial War Memorial Hospital in Suva.

“This was followed by a public call for an end to “doorstop-style” interviews by local media.

Such a method of newsgathering is well-established in healthy democracies as a necessary part of holding officials accountable.

These developments signal the kinds of pressures the media continues to be subjected to.

Apart from the systemic issues the media and the people who work in the industry continue to contend with, the growing problem of the hard-drugs crisis and its impacts are also being felt in professional and personal ways.

Layer of complexity
This adds a layer of complexity that journalists need to navigate, while continuing to uphold the values and ethics the industry aspires to.

As we commemorate World Press Freedom Day 2026, the Fijian Media Association reaffirms our commitment to advocating for press freedom and the protection of journalists’ rights in Fiji.

We call on all stakeholders, including government officials and civil society, to work collaboratively to ensure a safe and supportive environment for media practitioners, allowing them to report without fear or favour.

Let us continue to champion the cause of press freedom, not only in Fiji but around the world, recognising that a free press is essential to a healthy democracy.

This World Press Freedom Day statement was republished from the Fijian Media Association.

World Press Freedom Index 2026                               Video: RSF

The Global Sumud Flotilla is demanding the New Zealand government intervene to uphold international law, after being intercepted by Israel.

It said 22 boats carrying aid for Gaza were illegally intercepted in international waters near the Greek island of Crete.

New Zealanders Jay O’Connor, Mousa Taher, Julien Blondel, and Sean Janssen were among the 175 people detained.

• READ MORE: Freedom Flotilla Coalition calls for the immediate release of Global Sumud Flotilla organisers
• NZer in flotilla intercepted by Israel has concussion and possible broken rib, says wife
• Former Greek minister slams ‘Western complicity’ over brutal Israeli kidnap of Gaza flotilla leaders
• Israeli forces raid Global Sumud Flotilla boats in international waters
• NZer Rana Hamida reports
• Other Global Sumud Flotilla reports
• Kia Ora Gaza website

O’Connor had received concussion and a possible broken rib, while Blondel was hit in the face, the Global Sumud Flotilla said.

“These citizens are part of a completely legal action onboard vessels that are lawfully exercising navigation rights under article 87 of UNCLOS — to deliver essential aid, open a humanitarian corridor to Gaza, and break the illegal siege on Gaza by the Israeli regime,” it said.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry had called organisers “professional provocateurs” and said it would not allow “the breach of the lawful naval blockade on Gaza”.

Global Sumud Flotilla said that Blondel had assured the team he was “up to be continuing this going forward,” as the rest of the Flotilla continues to sail.

Two other New Zealanders
Two other New Zealanders, Hāhona Ormsby and Samuel Leason, are currently regrouping with the others in Greece.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it understood up to six New Zealanders had been “caught up” in the interception.

It told RNZ on Saturday that it was aware of allegations made about the treatment New Zealanders had faced while in custody.

“Consular officials in Wellington, New Zealand’s Embassies in Rome and Ankara, and New Zealand’s Honorary Consul in Greece have been working throughout the night and over the past few days to gather information, provide advice to families, and support New Zealanders involved,” it said.

“Immediately following the interception of the flotillas on Thursday, the New Zealand government made it clear to Israel that the safety of New Zealanders involved was paramount and that international law must be upheld.

“These and other views were made clear to Israel’s Ambassador to New Zealand and by New Zealand’s Ambassador to Israel, stationed in Ankara.”

The ministry added that New Zealand had a long-standing “do not travel” advisory in place for Gaza, explicitly warning against any attempt to enter by sea.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former defence minister, are wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza, including murder and forced starvation. Israel is also on trial for genocide in a case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) brought by South Africa supported by other countries.