Something significant and revelatory just happened in the New Zealand Parliament. I was present at today’s Foreign Affairs Select Committee meeting when things kicked off between the Foreign Minister and humanitarian aid activist Hāhona Ormsby, one of the New Zealanders who survived kidnapping and beatings by Israeli forces in May.

Despite the presence of many well-known pro-Palestinian activists, there was no security in the room when things turned spicy. By the time security raced into the room the minister had lost all composure and repeatedly shouted at Ormsby, “You’re a liar!”

Hāhona may have breached parliamentary rules when he rose to challenge Winston Peters but he felt it was a price worth paying.

• READ MORE: ‘Is it NZ First, or Israel First?’ Ormsby challenges NZ foreign minister Peters
• A world first: Australia will now investigate Israel over Gaza flotilla brutality
• France opens ‘war crimes’ probe into Israel’s treatment of Gaza activists
• Other allegations of Israeli brutality against Gaza flotilla activists
• The Global Sumud Aotearoa dossier answering Israeli claims
• ‘He’s Māori!’ Hāhona Ormsby – a New Zealander in the Israeli prison system nightmare

“Is it New Zealand First, Winston? Or is it Israel First? Ormsby shot at the minister, leader of the New Zealand First Party. Turning to see the speaker, Peters appeared to recognise the tattooed face (mata ora) of Ormsby (Ngāti Maniapoto).

The chair tried to shut things down but Ormsby continued, “Are you going to sanction Israel? Are we going to investigate Israel for the people on the fleet that were brutally beaten and tortured?”

When Ormsby identified himself as one of the activists who had been held captive and severely beaten by the Israelis, Peters shouted, “Get out of here! You’re a liar!”

Another activist shot back: “You’re a war criminal.”

A priceless moment
This was a priceless moment because it revealed something enormously important: Peters believes what Itamar Ben-Gvir, Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli ambassador are saying and denies the evidence of 430 activists who were kidnapped and taken to Israel in May.

Some were hospitalised immediately on arriving in Türkiye. Winston takes the word of indicted war criminals in preference to medical examiners and lawyers who attended the activists on arrival in Türkiye.

Denying his own lying eyes, he waves away the black eyes, broken noses, deep wounds and other clearly visible injuries. Peters said there was “no evidence of brutality”.

Above all, he is calling fine New Zealanders, several of whom I know and respect, liars. He is calling Samuel Leason, Jay O’Connor, Mousa Taher, Rana Hamida, Julien Blondel, Sean Janssen and Hāhona Ormsby liars on the word of a state that invented a new form of lying — hasbara — a billion-dollar propaganda campaign to frame their genocidal violence as self-defence.

By impugning the good name of some of our finest citizens Winston Peters betrays his duty to defend New Zealand and puts at risk Kiwis who continue their non-violent campaign to open a humanitarian corridor to the suffering people of Palestine.

Meanwhile, even Australia has, on instruction from Winston’s counterpart Penny Wong, launched an investigation into testimonies of rape and torture by Australian members of the Global Sumud Flotilla.

France, Italy, Poland, Türkiye and others have launched investigations over crimes including unlawful interception and piracy, rape and other sexual violence, torture, systematic abuse and illegal detention.

Countries such as Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom have issued stinging rebukes. Malaysia is taking Israel to the International Court of Justice over the kidnapping and violence dished out to their citizens.

Surprise for Global Sumud Delegation
Just the day before, to the surprise of the Global Sumud Delegation, the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs (after having done absolutely nothing since Israeli forces attacked the flotilla in international waters) sent them an email offering to pass on any information about mistreatment to the Israelis.

It triggered suspicion as to motives. Today’s exchange reveals that MFAT and its minister had already made up their minds.

Rana Hamida of Global Sumud Aotearoa said: “Knowing we were coming to Wellington, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent us an email yesterday asking us to provide information on what happened to our activists. The message was that they would put this to the Israelis — in other words: they will leave it to Israel to be both the criminal and the judge. That’s not good enough.”

I tell Hāhona Ormsby’s story in detail in “He’s Māori!” Hāhona Ormsby – a New Zealander in the gruesome Israeli prison system”.

‘Is it NZ First, or Israel First?’ Ormsby challenges NZ foreign minister Peters #asiapacificreport #globalsumudflotilla @gbsumudflotilla #KiaOraGaza @1ElegantFriends #Israeliabuse #israelitorture #HumanRightsMatter https://t.co/ox6qZMhwLh pic.twitter.com/OVVWfYIPeC

— David Robie (@DavidRobie) June 18, 2026

Ormsby’s action today in a parliamentary select committee clearly breached rules. It was, however, acting in the long tradition of those who have the courage to oppose complicity with tyranny and oppression.

As such, he stands in the company of the great Medea Benjamin of Code Pink, my friend and former CIA veteran Ray McGovern, Greta Thunberg and so many others who have raised their citizen voices in the halls of power and calmly accepted the indignity of being frog-marched out of buildings for doing so.

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 contributes to Asia Pacific Report and he hosts solidarity.co.nz

A member of the Aotearoa delegation on the Global Sumud flotilla humanitarian aid mission seeking to break the illegal Gaza enclave blockade imposed by Israel since 2007 clashed with New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Winston Peters in a parliamentary hearing yesterday.

Peters was attempting to defend his heavily criticised government response to Israel’s war on Gaza that has killed more than 75,000 Palestinians — mostly women and children — while speaking to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee yesterday.

Peters was answering a line of questions from MPs on whether New Zealand had spoken strongly enough against Israel, when Hāhona Ormsby (Ngāti Maniapoto) — a flotilla activist who was brutally abused by Israeli military after being kidnapped in the Mediterranean sea near Cyprus last month and detained — stood up and interrupted him.

• READ MORE: A world first: Australia will now investigate Israel over Gaza flotilla brutality
• France opens ‘war crimes’ probe into Israel’s treatment of Gaza activists
• Other allegations of Israeli brutality against Gaza flotilla activists
• The Global Sumud Aotearoa dossier answering Israeli claims

“Is it New Zealand First, Winston? Or is it Israel First?” Ormsby asked.

He then asked whether New Zealand would sanction Israel, or “investigate Israel for the people that were on the flotilla who were brutally beaten and tortured?”

Ormsby and his fellow activists were then ordered by committee chair Tim van de Molen to leave the room. The video livestream feed was also cut during the protest.

Global Sumud Aotearoa Delegation activists came to Wellington this week to challenge Peters over what they condemned as “government inaction following the abduction and mistreatment of New Zealand citizens” by the Israeli military forces in both May and last year.

Australia, France, other countries investigating
Unlike Australia, France, Spain, Malaysia, Türkiye and several other countries, New Zealand and Peters have failed to launch a government investigation into the mistreatment of New Zealand citizens.

The Australian Federal Police (AFP), under instruction from Foreign Minister Penny Wong have now launched an investigation into rape and torture by Israeli forces on Australian citizens who were detained in international waters.

“Knowing we were coming to Wellington, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent us an email yesterday asking us to provide information on what happened to our activists,” a spokesperson for Global Sumud Aotearoa, Rana Hamida, said.

‘Israel both criminal and judge’
“The message was that they would put this to the Israelis — in other words: they will leave it to Israel to be both the criminal and the judge. That’s not good enough.

“Malaysia, for example, is taking Israel to the International Court of Justice over the kidnapping and violence dished out to their citizens.”

Hāhona Ormsby, who endured multiple beatings by the Israelis after being seized in international waters and taken to Israel, said: “Calling in the Israeli ambassador and slapping him with a wet bus ticket over tea and scones does not count as meaningful action.”

The government has treated people like Ormsby as a “threat” while doing nothing to hold Israel to account, Global Sumud Aotearoa said in a statement.

“I had two detectives come and interview me this week to assess if I was a ‘threat’. Imagine that? I joined the Sumud flotilla armed with nothing other than aroha and I — a New Zealand citizen — get treated as the problem,” Ormsby said.

“But some Israeli soldier fresh from killing women, children, and babies in Gaza and Lebanon knows they can holiday in New Zealand with no questions asked.”

Global Sumud Aotearoa is demanding that the NZ government launch its own “non-Israeli-led investigation”. New Zealand should coordinate with other governments who had already launched inquiries into the attack on their citizens, the group said in its statement.

‘Interview the activists’
“A first step would be for the government to formally interview our returning activists. Second, the government should liaise with the Turkish authorities who sent planes to Israel to bring over 400 detained Sumud activists to safety in Istanbul.

“It should be noted New Zealand provided absolutely no support whatsoever to their citizens,” the statement said.

All the Sumud people who were flown out of Israel, including the New Zealand citizens, were given medical examinations and forensic interviews in Türkiye.

Some, including Hāhona Ormsby and fellow Kiwi Mousa Taher, received hospital treatment for their injuries.

“MFAT requesting medical records from Türkiye would be a useful place to start,” the Sumud statement said.

Global Sumud Aotearoa has widely distributed a detailed response to “Israeli propaganda that ludicrously suggested that the black eyes, broken noses and ribs inflicted on citizens from over 40 countries was an elaborate hoax”.

“The photo of the damaged face of New Zealand citizen Julien Blondel, beaten by Israelis in an attack in international waters on April 29, should have triggered immediate action by the NZ government,” the statement said.

“The Israelis, realising that New Zealand and other Western governments stood with them, not their own citizens, increased the level of violence in their June attack on over 50 vessels.”

Police have paid $10,000 to veteran activist John Minto after he was unlawfully arrested and pepper-sprayed at a pro-Palestinian protest in Christchurch in 2024.

The Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA) last year found Minto’s arrest was unlawful and an officer used excessive and unjustified force.

The payout follows negotiations between police and Minto following the authority’s findings.

• READ MORE: Other pro-Palestine protest reports

Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) national organiser Minto, then 70, was charged with obstructing and resisting police during a protest in Lyttelton on Waitangi Day 2024. Charges were later dropped.

Minto said he would donate the money to the group.

He said he was concerned police still disputed the authority’s findings.

A police investigation concluded the officer’s actions were lawful, but he had failed in his duty to provide aftercare after pepper-spraying Minto.

“I’m pleased this issue is now resolved but disturbed that even after the IPCA report, the police have not accepted responsibility for what in this instance was thuggish behaviour,” Minto said.

Writing to minister
He would write to Police Minister Mark Mitchell calling for law changes to make IPCA findings legally binding on police.

IPCA chair Judge Kenneth Johnston KC wrote to Minto last year and said the authority had found inconsistencies between the arresting officer’s account and video footage, which led the authority to “doubt the genuineness” of the officer’s version.

The authority did not accept the police explanation that Minto had moved from where he was standing or that the officer could have perceived Minto as a real threat.

Johnston said the authority considered the possibility of police charging the officer with assault, but could not rule out self-defence. Instead, the authority asked police to consider an employment process for the officer involved. Police declined to do so.

Minto was pepper-sprayed as police arrested another protester. Half an hour later he was himself arrested ostensibly for obstructing the earlier arrest.

The IPCA found there was no case for the obstruction charge and no grounds to suspect Minto had hindered the arrest of the other protester, “or indeed showed any intention of doing so”.

‘Standing lawfully’
“Our view is that you were standing lawfully on the footpath both prior and during the other protester’s arrest. The evidence does not show you advancing past where you were originally standing after being pushed by the officer who pepper sprayed you, and that you were not paying any attention to the arrest.”

Canterbury District Commander Superintendent Tony Hill said, at the time of the authority’s findings, that police were satisfied there were no employment or criminal matters to address.

“It is important to note that the officer involved was one of a group of other officers dealing with policing a large group of people, in a heightened and dynamic environment,” he said.

Police have been approached for comment on the payment to Minto.

By Andrew Brown in Sydney

This is the biggest story most Australians have not yet grasped.

Australian survivors of physical, psychological and sexual abuse by Israeli authorities met with Foreign Minister Penny Wong, Dr Anne Aly MP, a Deputy Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police (AFP), and a senior DFAT official on Monday.

As a result, the Australian government has committed to an independent investigation into the assaults, sexual assaults and torture of the Gaza Flotilla humanitarians.

• READ MORE: Family welcomes Australian investigation into IDF abuse claims
• France opens ‘war crimes’ probe into Israel’s treatment of Gaza activists
• Other allegations of Israeli brutality against Gaza flotilla activists

Read that again. Not an internal Israeli review. Not a department preparing a briefing note. Not a politician expressing concern.

An independent Australian investigation,

with the AFP at the table, into the conduct of the military and prison personnel of one of this country’s closest allies.

That is not normal. There is no comparable moment in the modern history of the relationship. A Western democracy, a reliable friend of Israel, has committed to formally investigating the Israeli state over what it did to that democracy’s own citizens.

That has not happened before. Anywhere.

Eleven Australians
The Australians were among humanitarian volunteers detained by Israel after attempting to deliver food, medicine and aid to starving civilians in Gaza. Eleven of them came home with allegations of physical abuse, assault and, in several cases, sexual assault.

And the investigation did not happen by accident. It happened because a handful of Australians refused to let it be buried.

Juliet Lamont and Neve O’Connor came home injured and traumatised, and instead of retreating into private recovery they kicked the door of the national conversation off its hinges. They put their names to sworn testimony. They sat through Senate estimates. They took their case to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

And when their own prime minister declined to meet them, Lamont’s response was devastating in its simplicity. If Australian survivors can be heard in The Hague but not in Canberra, something has gone badly wrong.

Today they were heard.

“We came here seeking justice for survivors of Israel’s abuse of Australian citizens,” Lamont said after the meeting. “Today we secured an Australian investigation. Believing survivors is the first step. Investigation is the second. Justice is the third.

“There must be consequences for Israel’s brutality.”

O’Connor put the stakes in their proper, global frame. “What happened to us is what Palestinians have been warning the world about for decades. The same methods. The same perpetrators. The same chain of command.

“This investigation matters not only because Australians were harmed. It matters because it exposes the nature of the state responsible.”

That is the heart of it. And it is why this is much bigger than 11 Australians and one flotilla.

Will Israel cooperate?
A credible investigation will need operational footage, body camera recordings, communications records, detention logs, medical records and witness statements. Material capable of establishing exactly what happened.

And this is where Israel is trapped. There are only two paths, and both are damning.

It can cooperate. Hand over the footage, open the logs, produce the records, name the personnel. If its account is true, that material exonerates it completely. A government confident in its own conduct does not hide the evidence. It rushes to produce it.

Or it can refuse. And if it refuses, every Australian is entitled to ask one question. Why? Why would a state that insists it did nothing wrong withhold the one thing capable of proving it? There is only one honest answer, and Israel knows it. You do not bury evidence that vindicates you.

You bury evidence that convicts you.

This is established behaviour. When the United Nations investigated the 2010 Mavi Marmara raid, Israel refused to let its soldiers be interviewed and ran its own inquiry instead. The pattern is decades old. Deny everything, investigate nothing independently, wait for the world to lose interest.

Israel denies
Israel’s ambassador maintains that participants were treated appropriately. Its prison service has issued a flat denial.

Yet National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir posted footage of detained activists handcuffed and forced to crouch as guards waved Israeli flags in their faces, and called himself proud of it. Let the evidence speak. A state with nothing to hide would already be couriering the files to Canberra.

What makes this explosive is who is asking the questions. Australia is not Iran, not South Africa, not one of Israel’s usual critics. It has spent decades as one of Israel’s most dependable friends.

When a loyal friend opens a file on you, the findings carry a weight no critics ever could.

Remembering Zomi Frankcom
Australians remember Zomi Frankcom. When the aid worker was killed in Gaza, the government accepted an Israeli internal review where it should have demanded answers. That impression has not faded. This time the government has committed to something different,

and it will be held to it.

Penny Wong has told the Senate she believes the women, calling their treatment horrific and unacceptable. Today she went further and committed her government to act. The question is no longer whether the allegations are credible. It is what Australia does with what it finds.

Sanctions. Travel bans. And the bluntest instrument of all. Australia could expel Israel’s ambassador and declare implicated officials persona non grata, putting them on a plane.

A few years ago the idea was fantasy. It is now a live question, and it sharpens with every day Israel stonewalls.

Australia breaks ranks
Understand what is truly at stake. For decades Israel has acted in the settled expectation that it answers to no one, underwritten by the certainty that its Western friends would always look away.

That assumption is what is now on trial in Canberra. The moment a trusted ally follows the evidence wherever it leads, the spell breaks, and other capitals discover they can ask the question too.

This is why the world is watching a story that began with a few small boats.

The 11 Australians have names. Neve O’Connor, Juliet Lamont, Zack Schofield, Surya McEwen, Sam Woripa Watson, Anny Mokotow, Bianca Pullman Webb, Ethan Floyd, Violet Coco, Gemma O’Toole and Helen O’Sullivan. They are not going away.

The era of impunity rested on a single belief. That no friend would ever break ranks. A friend just did.

Asia Pacific Report notes: Three New Zealanders on the Global Sumud Flotilla had similar allegations of brutality and inhuman treatment by the Israeli security forces, along with more than 300 people from more that 40 countries. France has opened a ‘war crimes’ investigation into Israel after the brutality.

Anti-War Aotearoa and Greenpeace are calling on Kiwis to join the March for Peace on June 20 in Auckland. I will be marching.

I will be marching for many of the same reasons that compelled me to march against the Vietnam war in 1973 as a 12-year old — opposition to New Zealand participation in wars of aggression, solidarity with humanity and a belief that peace trumps war.

Soon after that first march, I attended my first rallies outside the South African Consulate in Wellington to protest the Apartheid regime.

• READ MORE: Trump says US-Iran peace deal to be signed today, Tehran disputes
• The March for Peace — why Greenpeace Aotearoa is teaming up with Anti-War Aotearoa  for peaceful protest to demand an end to NZ’s complicity in Trump’s warmongering
• Other peace reports

When history calls, you should answer the call
Two years later, as a 16-year-old, I marched on the final leg of the Te Hīkoi o te Motu, the Māori Land March led by the great Whina Cooper.

I vividly remember heading out into Wellington harbour in 1983 on a small yacht, part of a peace flotilla made up of kayakers, yachties and wind surfers, that tried to stop the USS Texas from berthing.

It won that battle that day but we won the war for a nuclear-free New Zealand.

Peace and Justice were the beating heart of all those causes.  It was about ordinary New Zealanders standing up and saying: Not in Our Name.

We didn’t want our soldiers killing Vietnamese people in Vietnam. We didn’t want our government or our sports people to support the racist South African regime.

We wanted to live in a New Zealand that honoured the Treaty of Waitangi and where both Māori and Pākehā stood shoulder-to-shoulder to build a better country for all New Zealanders.

The election of Norman Kirk’s government was made possible by the protest movement convincing enough New Zealanders that real change was needed.  One of the Kirk government’s first acts was to end our shameful participation in the Vietnam war.

We mobilised. We marched
After the sinking of Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior by the French government in Auckland Harbour in 1985, the peace movement went into overdrive. We mobilised. We marched. We took part in campaigns that drove real societal change.

Many of these changes reach down to the present day through legislation like the New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act 1987, the 1985 revision to The Treaty of Waitangi Act, the Conservation Act 1987, the State-Owned Enterprises Act 1986 (that means the Crown must act in a manner consistent with the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi), and the Homosexual Law Reform Act 1986.

Several of these gains are now under threat.

Marching for peace is a great way to show solidarity and to bring together great everyday New Zealanders.

As a side note: the greatest march I ever went on was the Wellington section of Te Hīkoi mō te Tiriti in 2024. Toitū Te Tiriti! It was as big a march as I ever attended in Aotearoa and it was for a cause that should matter deeply to us all.

No one should doubt that getting out and marching is also part of a process — sometimes long and hard — that can lead to powerful changes in national sentiment and put real pressure on political parties to return the country’s policy settings towards justice and a better, kinder, safer Aotearoa.

The organisers of the March for Peace are Greenpeace and Anti-War Aotearoa. They are united around respect for the United Nations Charter and rejection of any support whatsoever for US wars of aggression. I am proud to be counted in their numbers.

Gaza genocide ongoing
The genocide in Gaza and the West Bank has not stopped. The destruction of the communities of Lebanon is ongoing. The sovereign state of Iran is the subject of ongoing US-Israeli aggression in contravention of international law. Cuba is in danger.

We live under a government that has doubled spending on a war machine that — given our alliance with a rogue and hostile USA — will not make us safer. Global research shows the US is seen as the greatest risk to humanity today.

We live under a government that wants our military to be “interoperable” with the Americans. They are  negotiating with the US to give their war machine access to our critical minerals and allow foreign corporations to undertake seabed mining and other environmentally damaging activities.

We live under a government that has money for missiles but ignores the daily horror that 30,000 homeless New Zealand children must endure. Scrapping national subsidies for youth transport and getting rid of thousands of public service jobs whilst finding more and more money for a war on China is madness.

That needs to change. I feel exactly the same passion as I did as a 12-year-old whose political awakening was the US (and New Zealand) war of aggression against Vietnam — even if, at the time, I wasn’t exactly sure what the word “mobilisation” meant!

If you haven’t marched for a long time or if you have never marched but support this cause, here’s my invitation: head down to Aotea Square on June 20 and step forward to March for Peace.

Because marching matters.

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 . This article was first published by Greenpeace Aotearoa.

What is happening right now is [the] erasure of humans, trees and stones, and anything that is Palestinian, by settlers under the support of the military.

— Muntasir al-Maliki, a resident of Kufr Malik

Palestinian Bedouins lived for generations in the occupied West Bank village of Khirbet Zanuta (Zanuta), sustaining themselves through herding, farming and dairy production.

The village was designated as part of Area C under the 1995 Oslo II Accords, placing it under full Israeli military and administrative control.

Today, Zanuta is being eaten away by Israeli outposts and settlements and destroyed by  state-sponsored violence and terror.

• READ MORE: Amnesty International accuses Israel of ethnic cleansing in the West Bank
• Erasing anything Palestinian: Israel’s ethnic cleansing of the West Bank Bedouin amd herding communities
• Other Gaza genocide, West Bank reports

Just 1km from Zanuta, Israeli settlers established an illegal outpost known as Meitarim Farm in 2021.

The settlers soon began a sustained campaign of violent attacks and threats against Zanuta’s residents.

They set fire to the villagers’ tents and classrooms, broke into their homes, beat them with rifles, threw stones at them, smashed their solar panels and windows, emptied their water tanks and pumped sewage onto their farmland.

The story of Zanuta reflects the fate of dozens of Palestinian Bedouin and herding communities already displaced or at imminent risk of displacement in Area C.

This report lays bare the scale and severity of the ethnic cleansing campaign targeting these communities, carried out in a context of apartheid and unlawful occupation and against the backdrop of an ongoing genocide in the occupied Gaza Strip.

The report also demonstrates — contrary to what too many in the international community suggest — that the campaign is not the product of “rogue” settlers, settlers’ organisations or “extremist” government ministers.

In other words, settler violence is not an aberration but an integral part of an organised state policy.

The escalating violence in Zanuta followed decades of systematic discrimination by the Israeli authorities, including constant threats of home demolitions to force them to leave, a common practice adopted by Israel to enforce its system of apartheid.

Zanuta’s residents repeatedly reported settler attacks to the Israeli police, seeking protection, but no action was ever taken.

When the settlers from Meitarim Farm again raided the village on 21 October 2023, this time accompanied by Israeli forces, and threatened to harm residents if they did not leave, the community knew they had no choice but to flee.

In a rare move, in July 2024 and February 2025, Israel’s Supreme Court ordered the police and military to facilitate the community’s return and protect residents from attacks.

The Israeli police and military ignored both rulings. Every attempt by residents to return was met with continued settler violence and the acquiescence of Israeli forces.

Digital evidence, interviews and satellite imagery from 30 March 2025 confirm the outcome: Zanuta no longer exists — it has been forcibly depopulated and extensively destroyed.

Meanwhile, the settlers received state backing to intensify their violent campaign. In April 2025, two Israeli ministers — Bezalel Smotrich and Orit Strock — held an event at Meitarim Farm where they distributed 19 state-funded all-terrain vehicles (ATVs), cameras and night-vision equipment to settlers living in outposts in the Hebron area.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich explained why:

“The heroic and pioneering settlers who live here are doing Zionism, and they need security… We are here to build with them and to settle the land…”

… while praising settler land seizures and emphasising the role of ATVs in taking over Palestinian grazing land.

The report demonstrates that the ethnic cleansing campaign in Area C is state-sanctioned, state-driven and state-implemented; it seeks to accelerate the Israeli government’s annexation agenda and settlement expansion through war crimes and crimes against humanity.

As such, the report’s conclusions demand that the international community fully confront and name the Israeli state-driven project, and act decisively to prevent the destruction of Palestinian communities and the annexation of the West Bank.

Amnesty International’s legal analysis
Zanuta is one of 117 predominantly Bedouin and herding Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank that have faced either full or partial displacement due to settler attacks and related access restrictions between January 2023 and April 2026, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

In total, approximately 5910 people were forced to leave their homes, leaving behind them vast, depopulated areas. Most of the affected communities lie in Area C, which comprises over 60 percent of the West Bank, and has been central to Israel’s territorial and demographic quest for domination for decades because of its natural resources, vital grazing and agricultural land and small Palestinian population.

In late December 2022, Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party formed Israel’s 37th government in coalition with two ultra nationalist and religious political parties.

While state-supported settler violence has been a growing concern over the past three decades for Palestinian communities in the West Bank, there has been an unprecedented surge in the scale and intensity of attacks since then.

Tactics became particularly aggressive after 7 October 2023 when Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups attacked southern Israel, killing approximately 1200 people, mostly civilians, and forcibly taking 251 others to the Gaza Strip where they were held as hostages and subjected to abuses.

Amnesty International found that these acts constituted war crimes and crimes against humanity.

In response, Israel launched a military offensive on the occupied Gaza Strip of unparalleled magnitude, scale and duration and inflicted catastrophic levels of destruction, displacement and starvation on Gaza’s civilian population, committing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

While most global attention focused on Gaza, Israel intensified its abusive policies and practices against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, with government officials openly encouraging and supporting settler attacks.

Displacement and dispossession: war crimes and crimes against humanity
Ideologically motivated Israeli settlers have terrorised Palestinian communities through repeated raids on their homes and villages, beatings, death threats demanding they leave, persistent harassment, the destruction of property and village infrastructure, cutting off access to water and electricity, and theft of their livestock and belongings.

These practices deliberately intensified an already coercive environment aimed at forcibly displacing and dispossessing Palestinians, manifested in state policies of access restrictions, home demolitions and settlement expansion. Palestinians who have attempted to return have found their villages fenced off or destroyed, or have faced renewed settler attacks, harassment and intimidation, forcing them to flee again.

These settler attacks are the direct result of a state policy that integrated and enabled the settler movement’s vision of “Greater Israel”, an ideology that treats the area extending from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River, including the entirety of the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), as an integral part of Israel.

Senior Israeli officials in the 37th government have fully embraced this vision and explicitly encouraged, facilitated and condoned settler violence against Bedouin and herding communities as a deliberate tool of displacement with greater openness and force than their predecessors, as they pursued their goal of formally annexing the West Bank under Israeli law.

Since 1967, Israel has been enforcing its occupation through military orders and regulations.

The situation in the OPT, including in Area C of the West Bank, is therefore primarily governed by international humanitarian law (including the rules of the law of occupation); and international human rights law. The same international norms apply to occupied East Jerusalem, illegally annexed by Israel since 1967, despite Israel’s attempts to separate it from the rest of the West Bank through a regime of fragmentation and legal segregation.

In this report, Amnesty International presents conclusive evidence that these violations, perpetrated between January 2023 and December 2025, amount to the war crime of unlawful deportation and transfer and the crime against humanity of forcible transfer or deportation, committed as part of a policy to ethnically cleanse Area C of the occupied West Bank by forcibly displacing Palestinian Bedouin and herding communities and expanding illegal settlements at their expense.

Amnesty International uses the term ethnic cleansing in this report to describe a deliberate pattern of conduct aimed at permanently removing Palestinian Bedouin and herding communities from specific areas of the occupied West Bank, in particular Area C.

While ethnic cleansing is not recognised as an independent crime under international law, Amnesty International uses the term in line with the UN Commission of Experts on Former Yugoslavia’s definition, which describes it as “a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas”.

While this report covers the period between December 2022 and December 2025, these egregious crimes are ongoing and are part and parcel of Israel’s system of apartheid, as shown by Amnesty International’s continuous documentation and reporting of the situation on the ground.

• Read the full Amnesty International report

As FIFA Men’s World Cup begins, millions around the world gather to cheer for their favorite teams.

Let’s use the occasion to protest host nation the United States, the top supporter of Israel’s settler-colonial apartheid regime and financier of its military machine, and the US-Israeli imposed might-makes-right order.

Let’s raise our voices against those who seek to strip us of our right to self-determination.

• READ MORE: 20 years of the BDS movement
• Ban apartheid Israel from sports
• World celebrates, but Gaza watches the World Cup from a distance – Al Jazeera

FIFA and Trump believe a World Cup is enough to silence the cries of entire peoples. Force does not make right, and grand stadiums cannot silence history and our ongoing struggles.

Israel continues its genocide in Gaza and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people, bombs Lebanese cities, strikes Yemen, joins the US in attacking Iran, and extends its expansionist ambitions to Syria, Iraq, alongside US threats against the peoples of Greenland, Cuba, and Venezuela, and US-Israeli criminal interference across Latin America.

It is clear that this is the agenda of one system, operating on the principle that might makes right, and that whoever holds the weapons and the money controls the narrative and the fate of people across the globe.

Let’s not drop the ball during this period but escalate our efforts to isolate Israel’s genocidal settler-colonial regime and its supporters and use the World Cup to shine a spotlight on Israel’s crimes against Palestinians and FIFA’s complicity in normalising the US-Israeli might-makes-right order.

Let us amplify our calls to boycott Israel’s settler-colonial apartheid regime and all corporations and bodies affiliated with or supporting it, foremost among them Reebok, the official sponsor of the Israel Football Association, and all those who whitewash Israeli crimes with a brand name or sponsorship deal.

Sports arenas are not above politics; they are platforms for supporting the struggles of peoples for freedom and justice, including the Palestinian liberation struggle against colonialism.

Lets turn Trump’s World Cup on its head:
1. Join our global people-powered social media storm on June 11.
Let’s make sure Palestinian rights are front and center during the Men’s World Cup kick off. Let’s call out FIFA’s complicity in sportswashing Israel’s attacks on Palestinians and their sports and its normalisation of the US/Israeli might-makes-right order.

Join our Social Media Storm on June 11 from (8-9)pm occupied Palestine time.
Follow the BDS Movement and PACBI accounts on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram throughout the World Cup and tweet with us using the hashtags: #FIFAWorldCup #DisruptFIFA #BoycottReebok #WeAre26 #WorldCup2026

2. Escalate our calls to Boycott Reebok
During Israel’s genocide, Reebok chose to sponsor the Israel Football Association and its illegal settlement teams, granting sporting legitimacy to an entity that international courts have ruled practices apartheid.

Every Reebok product you buy today is implicit support for Israel’s crimes against Palestinians and in Lebanon and beyond. Let’s boycott Reebok until it explicitly announces the termination of its sponsorship of Israel’s settler-colonial apartheid system.

Let sports arenas be free from apartheid, oppression and sportswashing, because right is not measured by the magnitude of power, but by the justice of the cause.

Stephanie Westbrook is organiser of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI).

A New Zealand policy research and advocacy group released a detailed blueprint today for a fresh “independent” Te Tiriti and Pacific-based approach to foreign policy, and called for greater transparency in election year.

The current coalition government has “radically shifted New Zealand’s longstanding foreign policy traditions” — including by moving the country away from a principled defence of its independent values to “unquestioning support” for the actions of the Trump administration, said Te Kuaka spokesperson Dr Marco de Jong.

“New Zealand’s slide under this government towards a tightly aligned, militaristic foreign policy is not inevitable,” he added.

• READ MORE: Other Aotearoa New Zealand foreign policy reports
• Other Te Kuaka reports

Te Kuaka — a group made up of academics such as Dr de Jong and Dr Arama Rata, and lawyers with expertise in international and constitutional law like Fuimaono Dylan Asafo and Gabriella Brayne — released a policy brief, “A Foreign Policy Alternative for the 2026 New Zealand Election”.

The group refers to the need to revitalise “an independent, Te Tiriti-based, Pacific-centred, internationalist foreign policy”.

Last year has witnessed “tumultuous developments in world affairs” such as Israel’s genocide in Gaza, US aggression in Venezuela, and US and Israel waging war on Iran.

Independent values
Te Kuaka’s policy brief says the current government “has radically shifted New Zealand’s longstanding foreign policy traditions”, including by moving NZ away from a principled defence of its independent values and interests towards total, unquestioning support for the actions of the Trump administration.

The brief calls for:

• greater transparency around trade agreements;
• a War Powers Act to ensure parliamentary authorisation for going to war,;
• shifts in New Zealand’s approach to the Pacific towards non-militarisation;
• NZ intervention in support of South Africa’s International Court of Justice (ICJ) genocide case against Israel; and
• other changes.

“How New Zealand acts in the world has always mattered,” said Dr de Jong. “And we need our political parties speaking more openly about their plans on how to maintain and strengthen our independent foreign policy.”

The policy brief also calls for New Zealand to take more strident steps in relation to Indigenous self-determination in Kanaky New Caledonia and to support a human rights visit to West Papua.

The coalition government did not have a mandate for this “dramatic repositioning” in support of the Trump administration, Dr de Jong said.

Call for ‘greater clarity’
“Before the coming election we are calling for greater clarity from political parties about what the public can expect to see from them in relation to New Zealand’s position in the world.”

The policy brief notes that Te Tiriti o Waitangi has not been sufficiently honoured in foreign policy, and also proposes formalising requirements for Māori representation alongside official New Zealand delegations to international forums.

“We are in a rupturing world,” said Dr de Jong. “We need to ensure we’re not unthinkingly caught in the riptide of major powers’ priorities, and that instead we chart our own course, appropriate to our histories and our location in the Pacific.”

• Te Kuaka has previously published reports on conflict prevention and peace mediation, New Zealand’s positioning on AUKUS, and civilian casualties and the NZ Defence Force.

Today the US and/or Israel have been attacking Iran, Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen and Venezuela.

The US is also strangling Cuba with an illegal economic blockade, threatening Greenland and preparing for war against China.

History shows that US invasions kill, injure and destroy ordinary people’s lives, homes, essential infrastructure — and they usually leave repressive regimes to rule.

• READ MORE: Israel kills 4 in Lebanon strikes after Trump warned Netanyahu to stop
• Te Kuaka advocacy group calls for NZ transparent, independent ‘Pacific foreign policy’
• Stop Wars Aotearoa coalition
• Other US-Israel war on Iran reports

The ordinary people of the US pay the price of these wars with their lives, taxes, poverty and are dependent on jobs that manufacture weapons.

US and Israel knew their attack on Iran would trigger an international oil crisis.

The result has been massively increasing oil and food prices and profiteering here in Aotearoa New Zealand, causing the greatest suffering for working class people especially the poorest in the country and world wide.

Why have the US and israel attacked Iran?

• To enforce US and Israeli domination and control of the Middle East region and the world’s oil resources; and
• To control world central trade routes and oil supplies to the main US economic rival — China.

Waiting on oil companies
Shamefully, the current NZ government refuses to oppose the illegal US and Israeli attacks on Iran, and fails to oppose the genocide still happening in Gaza. They just wait for oil companies to determine NZ’s supply, and help mega corporations to profit.

This government has no plan for making Aotearoa New Zealand more food and energy secure. But it is increasingly integrating the NZ military with the Australian and US war machines and preparing for the US-promoted “War with China”.

We are already in a cost-of living crisis, and rising fuel prices are adding to the price of food and other essentials. Kiwi families are struggling. Many people in town and country are facing huge price increases.

Some families have been getting the government’s limited support package. But 92 percent of households don’t get anything.

Don’t let this government drag us into war. Demand an independent foreign policy for Aotearoa/NZ.

• Stop Wars Aotearoa coalition rally and march to US embassy: 2pm, Saturday 13 June 2026, Aotea Square, CBD, Auckland

COMMENTARY: By May Pik

The Israeli narrative is mostly told through the perspective of Zionist talking points, making it uncomprehensible as to how a people that went through genocide can turn into the perpetrators of another.

Today, I want to tell another narrative — the story of brainwash and indoctrination I was exposed to growing up in Israel. I want to be clear that I do not in any way excuse the people of Israel for their part and responsibility.

Yes, I was indoctrinated, used and manipulated by my country and its government, but I also had the obligation to question my upbringing, to think for myself, to break away, speak out and stand for justice.

• READ MORE: Israel’s genocide in Gaza has not stopped, despite the ceasefire: Analysts
• Death toll in Israel’s war on Gaza rises to at least 72,980
• Other Gaza reports

That remains my obligation, and that is why I wanted to speak here today. This knowledge can make us better prepared in fighting against Zionists and their ambassadors.

Looking back I can see how my history was heavily tied to Zionism, yet growing up I didn’t know what the word Zionism meant. My maternal grandmother, named Ziona (from the word Zion), arrived in Palestine in 1933 on a ship as a nine-month-old baby.

My maternal grandfather grew up in Jerusalem to a religious family, going seven generations, but converted to Zionism and joined the notorious “Stern Gang”, a Jewish terrorist group, at age 16.

My mother was born in 1957 and grew up in a poor developing town in the desert, to a patriotic, proud family. She met my dad, a new immigrant from South Africa, a young Zionist eager to start a new life away from apartheid — a bit ironic.

They met as two young 20-year-olds in the beautiful village of Ayn Hawd, a Palestinian village which was ethnically cleansed by Israel in 1948, and was turned into a bohemian village for Jewish artists.

Jerusalem neighbourhood
After my parents divorced, my father went to live in villages on the margins of the West Bank which I did not know were illegal settlements. And I, as a six-year old girl, went on to live with my mother in Gilo, a Jerusalem neighbourhood, built in the 1970s as part of the never-ending illegal expansion of Jerusalem into 1967-occupied Palestinian land.

My high school, overlooking the ancient city walls, used to be a primary school for Palestinian children before 1948. I remember the lone large olive tree at the entry to the school — a lasting monument to a story that nobody told me.

As a child I learned at school how we, Jewish people throughout history were faced with existential threats. Every April, the Passover texts reminded us of our escape from the evil pharaoh in Egypt.

Every May a two-minute siren marked the Holocaust memorial day, followed a week later with another siren blasting in memory of fallen soldiers of the IDF, ending with military parades and huge firework displays celebrating our long awaited Independence Day.

An unspoken but felt thread connected the victimhood of the Nazi death camps to the deaths of Jewish soldiers in the battlefields of Palestine, Egypt and Lebanon, and to the redemption in the form of the Jewish state.

This repeating cycle of memorial days traumatised and retraumatised us, from kindergarten age to old age, with horrific stories and pictures of starving children in concentration camps and of young innocent-looking men who lost their lives in battle, making sure the lesson is well learned and never forgotten.

Memorial day ceremonies at school were rehearsed weeks prior, perfecting the right tone of voice as we recited the same poems and songs, as a rite of passage.

Sad patriotic songs
All radio stations played sad patriotic songs, TV programmes were dedicated to the memories of those who were sacrificed. Everyone dressed in white shirts and blue pants, the colors of our flag.

When the sirens sounded, everybody in the streets, everywhere in the country, stood still with bowed heads, sharing the grief of our victimhood in pride.

History lessons taught us that Palestine was a big desert with few scattered “Arab” villages.

But the words “Palestine” and “Palestinian” did not exist in the Israeli vocabulary, (it still doesn’t). Instead they were all just “Arabs”, with no distinct Palestinian nation, history, or language.

Arabs that have many other Arabic-speaking countries nearby to migrate to, if they only chose to let us Jews have our one and only promised land and country.

Growing up as an Israeli child I was never told about the Nakba, I never even heard the word. I wasn’t told about the expulsions, the massacres and the facts of the occupation.

To Israelis, 1948 was a story of a heroic war, of one small Jewish army, against five big Arab armies, where only through our brilliant ingenuity we managed to defeat the Arabs and win our country.

Atrocities quietly buried
We were taught that Palestinians voluntarily ran away from their homes. Nobody told me that the pine trees were planted to cover the evidence, that the maps were re-drawn, the names changed, atrocities quietly buried. It was a methodical campaign of erasure that was invisible and very effective.

Today I find it hard to grapple with the countless lies I was taught as “facts” by my parents, teachers, and elders. Lies such as “we [the Israelis] want peace — they [the Arabs] want to throw us to the sea”, “they attack, we defend ourselves”, and “We are civilised, they are barbaric and primitive”. Lies were repeated and implied in every aspect of our culture, in literature, cinema, newspapers, popular music.

It was the narrative told day in and day out, generation after generation.

I recall, as a child, my best friend’s father shouting in front of the TV news — “Death to Arabs!” a slogan written as graffiti on street walls.

As a teen growing up in Jerusalem during the period of the second Intifada, life was filled with fear and suspicion, with no context given to bombs exploding in buses and cafes, with no understanding of the reality Palestinians were facing under the brutal occupation in the West Bank and Gaza, without mentioning the death toll on the other side — 10 times higher.

Again we were the victims, the only victims, of senseless barbarism or of acts of religious fanatics, in a vacuum of history and reality.

At age 16 I received my first order to appear for military selection where we were sorted based on motivation and test scores.

Legally mandatory
I wasn’t sure I wanted to join the army, but it was legally mandatory, and while there were loopholes, the social repercussions for evading service were serious, and for my family, like most families, it went without saying that I would go. It was every citizen’s basic moral obligation.

So at age 18 just two months after graduating from high school, I was conscripted into the IDF. Entering the admission base as an individual and leaving on a bus-to-bootcamp, near Gaza, as a number.

Yelled at and abused by commanders from the very first moment, forced into immediate unquestioning obedience to any command, no matter how absurd. This training was supposed to be the final nail in the coffin of a young person’s empathy and independent thinking, if there was any left.

The bootcamp lasted a month, at the end, a swearing-in ceremony, having to proclaim to devote all our strength and even to sacrifice our life to preserving the State of Israel and its freedom.

I ended up serving at the Heritage Unit of the Ordnance Corps, but in reality, my role in the army consisted mainly of making coffee for arrogant officers, while trying my best to do as little as I could and get as many sick leaves as possible.

This was a typical army service for Israeli women. I hated wearing the uniform, resented being the property of the state — as we were explicitly told we were — and was disgusted by the chauvinistic demeaning attitudes so commonplace in the army.

I was not yet aware of the bigger picture, I only knew I despised this system for what it was doing to me. After two miserable and depressing years it was finally my last day of service. I didn’t even return to the base to say goodbye as was customary, I wanted nothing to do with it.

Nihilistic Tel Aviv lifestyle
For the next few years while getting my degree, I immersed myself in a nihilistic Tel Aviv lifestyle of not caring about anything other than my own little bubble. I resented the society I was part of, that was rude, arrogant, and full of open contempt for humanistic values.

A society where people don’t want to know what’s happening just a few kilometers away, in fact they don’t even want to know what’s happening to their nextdoor neighbour.

Glimpses of reality on the other side of the fence pierced my bubble from time to time like the eerie soundtrack in the film The Zone of Interest. There was a horrible reality just a few kilometers away and it wasn’t long before my bubble would finally burst.

It was only in my mid-20s, when I met Rod, who later became my dear husband, that I summoned the courage to start challenging my upbringing. To finally begin to see what was always in front of my eyes.

It was very hard to come to terms with. Rod once said it was like waking up and realising you have been sleeping all your life, and everything you thought existed was in ruins, everything collapses. I was left with nothing. I always believed we — the people around me, my parents, teachers, neighbours, friends — were the good ones, that we were all seeking peace, that the only problem was that the Palestinians were sabotaging it.

That all the wars were imposed on us. Everything I thought I knew was wrong.

Undoing years of indoctrination took effort and time. There was a part of me that fought against it and another part that pushed me to carry on learning. The pull towards escapism was strong, but reality kept calling on me not to run away.

Coming to terms
The process of coming to terms with the facts took many years with different layers to peel off, some a lot harder to let go of. The crimes of the Nakba were a lot harder to admit than the crimes of 1967.

So-called leftists in Israel distance themselves from rightwing settlers living in the 1967 Occupied Territories and admit that settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip are barriers to peace — but they would never question Jews living in stolen houses in Jaffa, Jerusalem or Haifa — the parts of Israel that are considered “legal” by the United Nations.

It took me, too, a much longer time to see the entirety of the land as Palestinian land. It was hard to admit to myself that, no matter where I lived in Israel, I was a settler colonialist too. That despite my family being “good” Israelis, they were still all Zionist, still sent their kids to serve in the army, still believed in our God-given right to steal other people’s land, control and subjugate other people for the sake of our so-called safety. It was built into our DNA.

With my awakening however, came the price. I no longer felt I had a homeland, I was now disgusted by the Independence Day celebrations. Memorial days seemed highly cynical, the places I used to love were now haunted by knowledge of the past.

A beach I fondly remembered from my childhood was the site of the atrocious Tantura massacre. My best friend’s partner, an army pilot, was now not a hero but a murderer, who took part in bombing families in Gaza. And so many other friends and family members that participated and supported it.

In my family, Passover eve was annually celebrated in an uncle’s house in a settlement in occupied East Jerusalem. I was now confronted with the irony of celebrating freedom while putting Palestinians under curfews and closures.

At the same time, Israeli society was becoming increasingly militant, racist and intolerant.

Confronting hostile responses
Confronting family members with my opinions was met with hostile responses. At one point it was suggested I go to live in Gaza. At work, I overheard my bosses, jovial at the news of a Palestinian family set on fire by settlers.

It was becoming increasingly unbearable, I felt like I was suffocating. And then in 2014, Gaza was getting “mowed down” once more. Again thousands of innocent people were being bombed by the state I was part of.

The racist rhetoric by politicians, media and the public was getting more and more explicit, critical voices were more and more censored and crushed, and it was suggested to Rod he may lose his job at the hospital if he continued to express his views on social media.

We decided to leave. We were now parents, and we were sickened at the thought of our son growing up in a place like that. Even though it was the only country we knew as home.

In my first years in New Zealand, I didn’t want to think about Israel. Sometimes it entered my dreams, usually bad ones. Sometimes songs in Hebrew that we played at home and that I used to love, would remind me of everything I ran away from.

Ties to family dwindled to almost nonexistent. I thought I was done with it, but it came back to find me. On October 7, 2023, I woke up to the news reporting of the attacks.

Within a few minutes of letting the news sink in, I looked up at Rod and I said: “They let it happen”. I remembered the military term “Quality Terror attack” — a terror attack that is big enough to give the pretext for a major pre-planned military attack on the Palestinians. It was clear that a huge massacre was going to happen, the poor people of Gaza, I knew, stood no chance.

Death toll climbed
As weeks turned into months and years, the death toll climbed from hundreds to thousands to tens of thousands, with images of utter destruction, limbless, parentless children, the starvation that was so reminiscent of the Holocaust, I realised this is Israel’s “final solution”. Gaza was turned from a concentration camp into an extermination camp.

Evidence to the sick society were the countless social media posts of gleeful IDF soldiers, as they slaughter, burn, blow up, steal, and then ridicule, laugh, and joke. This disgrace, side by side with the self-righteous sanctimonious moral bullshit I grew up on, in my native tongue, repeated mindlessly by family members, past friends, then in English in Western media, offering moral cover.

I was sick to my stomach and deeply ashamed. The question “where are you from” became more dreaded than ever. But while I was shocked by the genocide, I was not surprised: I understood that this was the natural conclusion of the racist ethnic cleansing project called Israel.

As years went on I came to learn more about the colonial roots of the evil I knew from Palestine. I read about tactics the British had used in their colonies, so strikingly similar. In fact, it was the British Major-General Orde Wingate who taught the British tactics to the Jewish militias in the 1930s. Moshe Sharet, a general in 1948, said, “He [Wingate] taught us everything we know”. Martial law, the taking over of homes, administrative detentions, torture, land confiscations.

Our world today is still guided by the core beliefs and values learned and internalised over centuries of European white supremacy, with their so-called higher sense of morals giving them the right to dominate lesser races, to plunder the world and enslave its indigenous populations.

These racist sentiments did not vanish with the breakdowns of the old empires. They permeate, brew and simmer under the surface all the time.

Winston Churchill once said: “I do not admit … for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race, has come in and taken their place.”

‘Outpost of civilisation’
Echoing this was Theodor Herzl, the father of the Jewish Zionism, who said in 1896 that the Jewish state would be “an outpost of civilisation as opposed to barbarism”.

Just this month [May] the Minister of Regional Development, Shane Jones, said that New Zealand’s new trade agreement with India would lead to a “butter chicken tsunami coming to NZ”.

Indoctrinated for generations; we hardly question the West’s morals, of who is virtuous and who is a savage. Who gets to control and subjugate, who has to submit, who is allowed to defend himself, who is denied the right to resist.

This sickness, these notions, are what allowed the genocide in Gaza to unfold. And it is this beast, this inhumane system built for the exploitation for profit for the few and the so-called reasoning of supremacy that justifies it, that we need to eradicate in order to create true social equality, to free all of us, and free Palestine.

I still have hope when I see the brave flotillas sailing to Gaza.

I still have hope when masses of people go out to the street all around the world.

I still have hope when dock workers refuse to load weapons destined for Gaza.

I still have hope thanks to all of you here today. Let’s carry on in spirit of Sumud.

Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou katoa.

Republished with permission.

The US Tsunami Warning Centre has issued advisories for parts of the Pacific following a massive earthquake off Mindanao in the Philippines.

The magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck at a depth of 63km truck off the coast of Sarangani province on Monday morning, rocking many parts of Mindanao and triggering a tsunami warning.

• READ MORE: Live updates at Rappler: Magnitude 7.8 Mindanao earthquake
• Other Philippines disaster reports

The tremor caused damage to infrastructure, and prompted evacuations and school class suspensions.

The US warning centre has tsunami waves forecast to be less than 0.3 meters above the tide level for the coasts of:

• American Samoa
• Chuuk FSM
• Fiji
• French Polynesia
• Guam
• Hawai’i
• Kiribati
• Kosrae (FSM)
• Marshall islands
• Nauru
• New Caledonia
• CNMI
• Palau
• Papua New Guinea
• Pohnpei (FSM)
• Samoa
• Solomon Islands
• Tonga
• Tuvalu
• Vanuatu
• Wallis Futuna
• Yap

The US Tsunami Warning Centre says government agencies responsible for threatened coastal areas should take action to inform and instruct any coastal populations at risk in accordance with their own evaluation, procedures and the level of threat.

Stay out of water
A tsunami advisory remains in effect for the Marianas — the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) and Guam. Authorities are warning of hazardous ocean conditions and strong currents along coastlines.

The first tsunami-related sea level fluctuations could reach Guam from 12:45 pm local time, before spreading northward across the Northern Marianas, with estimated arrival times of 12:54pm in Rota, 1:02opm in Tinian and 1:04pm in Saipan.

Officials cautioned that actual arrival times may vary and that the first wave may not be the largest.

Forecast impacts include sea level changes of up to one foot above and below normal tide levels, minor flooding in some beach and harbour areas, and strong and unusual currents in harbours, bays and nearshore waters.

Hazardous conditions could persist for several hours or longer, the advisory said.

Authorities have urged residents and visitors to stay out of the water and away from beaches, harbours and shorelines until the advisory is lifted.

Continue monitoring
Emergency officials stressed that a full-scale evacuation had not been ordered and advised the public to continue monitoring official updates and instructions.

The advisory covers Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, including Saipan, Tinian and Rota.

Officials said they would continue monitoring the situation and issue additional bulletins as more information becomes available.

This story was first published on

A South Auckland-based cultural studio founded by Fijian artist-curator Vasemaca (FKA Ema) Tavola has hit back at a spate of pro-Israeli propaganda in her homeland with a bold new banner design championing “Fijians for Palestine”.

Tavola’s practice is aligned with the “politics of decolonisation and indigenous feminisms, motherhood, and histories of BIPOC art and activism in the Global South”.

Her Vunilagi Vou studio has posted this message in response to public reactions over Israel opening its first embassy in Oceania in Fiji last week in the face of protests in three cities — Suva, Auckland and Wellington:

• READ MORE: Palestine supporters stage pickets in 3 cities in Fiji, NZ protesting against new Israeli embassy
• Rabuka rules out military involvement with Israel in Mideast conflicts
• Other Fiji, Pacific ties with Israel reports

“The inspiration struck and this new mini banner emerged. Born from the hideous task of monitoring the Facebook comment section from people boldly declaring mis-/disinformation, Zionist propaganda and outright hate speech in my own Fijian community, I wanted to perform a creative act that could neutralise the sadness of this moment.

“The French-American artist Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010) famously said, ‘the act of sewing is a process of emotional repair’ and the sentiment has been the lifeblood of this ongoing series of mini banners. They are affirmations and dreaming, spells sewn with stitches, commitment captured in layers, trims, fringe and ric-rac — love letters to the future.

“Inspired and dedicated to Fijians for Palestine Solidarity Network and the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre protests that have been happening in Suva to boldly and publicly declare that people in Fiji stand with Palestine, and the acts of some and the sycophancy of our government does not represent all of Fiji and all Fijians, as hard as that is to process for some Facebook users.

“The words on this mini banner are a truth that cannot be denied in a post truth era; Fijians are not a monolith and while many are spouting mind-boggling disinformation and vitriol against Palestinians and our fellow non-Indigenous Fiji people, there are many, many Fijians who stand for and with Palestine and reject the re-authoring of factual history and the monetisation of rage on platforms like Facebook.

“The social practice of this space has become a complete perversion of humanity.

The banner: Kaiviti Solidarity (2026) Cotton dobby, cotton towelling, rayon, bullion fringe trim, ric-rac and cowrie shells on 10oz canvas, 600x450mm

Fijian and Palestine flags — challenging hypocrisy
Vunilagi Vou also “reimagined” a publicity photo circulated of a photo of the Fijian and Israeli flags side by side with another image showing off the Palestinian flag.

“If the current Fiji government can make such a divisive and disturbing symbolic image using AI to announce the opening of an Israeli embassy in Suva, I’ll keep the prompts flowing and re-imagine this image.

“Fiji is a gloriously diverse, complex and resilient nation of people who are the living embodiment of a globally connected mix of cultures, histories and influences. We are not a monolith, and the current Fiji government’s relationship to Israel, engaged in the ongoing, intentional and systematic destruction of Palestinian people, is an embarrassment.

“We represent a range of views as Fiji people; many use the Christian Bible and its ideologies as a moral and ethical compass, and others who can see the hypocrisy of largely Indigenous people siding with the perpetrators of a genocide against Indigenous people.

“Trying to understand the geopolitical, historical, social, spiritual nature of South West Asia and North Africa, and our relationship with imperialism and the tools of colonisation, oil and capitalism, globalisation and climate collapse all feels like unravelling the world we know.

“So, Palestine, and our courage to learn and unlearn, critique why we know what we know, feels like a profound symbol and beacon for imagining a future that survives this current hellscape.

“A free Palestine is inextricable from a free West Papua. Systemic violence, colonial extraction, Indigenous erasure and murderous genocide, should never ever be normalised.”

COMMENTARY: By Maher Nazzal

Walking into Palestine is not just a journey across geography, it is a confrontation with memory, identity, and everything you were told, and everything you discover for yourself.

The first thing that stays with you is the wall. It does not feel like a distant structure you read about in reports; it rises suddenly into your view, stretching across the landscape like a scar that refuses to fade. Concrete slabs stacked high, covered in layers of paint, messages, names, grief, humour, and resistance. It divides not only land, but daily life.

On one side, movement feels controlled, measured, observed. On the other, life continues stubbornly, beautifully, and painfully.

The borders are not just lines on a map. They are checkpoints, gates, pauses in time. You wait. You are asked. You move forward or you don’t. People pass through them with a kind of practised patience that comes only from living a life where waiting is normal. And yet, even there, you see dignity in the eyes, in the silence, in the quiet determination to continue.

But Palestine is not defined by its restrictions.

It is defined by its people.

People who greet you as if you have always belonged there. People who carry history in their voices without needing to announce it. People who laugh in ways that refuse to be diminished. There is warmth that does not depend on comfort — it exists even in hardship.

You hear stories in taxis, in shops, at doorways, in fields. Stories of loss, yes, but also of endurance, education, love, and return.

And then there are the trees.

Olive trees are older than nations. Their trunks twisted like they have been holding secrets for centuries. Some stand alone on rocky hillsides, others form quiet groves that feel almost sacred. They do not move quickly. They do not need to. They belong in a way that cannot be negotiated. Each tree feels like a witness.

The rocks are everywhere grey, pale, sharp, ancient. They shape the hills, the terraces, the pathways. They feel like the bones of the land itself, exposed and unhidden. And between them, the soil dry in some places, fertile in others holds both struggle and promise.

And the sand… especially when the wind carries it. It softens everything. It moves across roads, settles on stone, touches skin without asking permission. It reminds you that land is never still. It remembers everything that passes over it.

To visit Palestine is to realise that it is not a place that can be reduced to headlines or borders or walls. It is a living presence, layered, wounded, resilient, and deeply human. It stays with you long after you leave, not as a memory you can place neatly in the past, but as something that continues to speak inside you.

Maher Nazzal is an activist, advocate and digital creator for a Free Palestine. He is a spokesperson for Palestine Forum of New Zealand and former co-chair of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA). This article was first published on Nazzal’s Facebook page and is republished with permission.

Fiji will not be “militarily involved” in any of the conflicts currently involving the State of Israel, says the country’s prime minister.

Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka made this reassurance yesterday, saying Fiji’s relationship with Israel would remain focused on development co-operation and strengthening bilateral ties, not military engagement.

Israel’s new embassy in Fiji — the first opened in Oceania — was officially opened yesterday with protesters against the diplomatic mission just across the street in the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre (FWCC).

• READ MORE: Questions over regional tensions and public protests were raised in Fiji over Israeli embassy
• Pro-Palestinian protesters demonstrate across the road from new Israeli embassy
• Palestine supporters stage pickets in 3 cities in Fiji, NZ protesting against new Israeli embassy
• Fijian PM Rabuka rejects criticism over new Israeli embassy
• Other Fiji, Pacific ties with Israel reports

“We don’t want Israel in our country,” declared Shamima Ali, chair of the Fiji NGO Coalition on Human Rights and an organiser of the Fijians For Palestine protest, reports Mai TV.

Protesters in New Zealand also picketed the Fiji High Commission in Wellington and the Fiji Consulate in Auckland.

Rabuka said Fiji’s interest in the partnership was based on development opportunities and the long-standing relationship between the two countries.

“We are looking at our own development and they are capable of giving us the development we need,” he said.

Training opportunities
He said Fijians had benefited from training opportunities in Israel over the years, including young people currently undergoing training there.

“Right now we have some young people undergoing training in Israel.

“Our own president did some training in his career path with the Native Land Trust Board at the time in Israel.”

 

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Rabuka said Fiji’s engagement with Israel had also been shaped by its long history of peacekeeping in the Middle East.

He said many Fijians had experienced the hospitality of the people and State of Israel through Fiji’s involvement in peacekeeping operations in the region.

Rabuka said the government would not allow the relationship to “become militarised”, as this would contradict Fiji’s wider regional position, including the “Ocean of Peace” concept for the Pacific.

Israel’s Foreign Affairs Minister Gideon Sa’ar also stated that Israel would not ask Fiji for military support, saying Israel was capable of “fighting its own wars”.

Republished from The Fiji Times with permission.

New Zealand protests against Israel
Pacific Media Watch reports that Rabuka staged two military coups in Fiji in 1987 and became known as the father of Fiji’s “coup culture” — four coups in two decades.

In New Zealand, protest pickets were organised by the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) with about 20 people in a picket at the Fijian Consulate in Auckland’s suburb of Mt Roskill, and a dozen stood in pouring rain at the Fiji High Commission in Wellington’s CBD.

The Auckland protest featured a striking tropical banner warning “PM Rabuka don’t vote for genocide” in reference to Fiji’s persistent record of voting in support of Israel and the US in defiance of the overwhelming global condemnation of the Zionist state’s genocidal actions with impunity.

The Wellington protest featured scores of pairs of children’s shoes in recognition of killing more than 75,000 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them women and children.

“High Commission staff complained to protesters about a Palestinian flag ‘invading’ high commission airspace over the brick fence at the front of the high commission,” said Don Carson, a PSNA organiser.

“Protesters got their message though with megaphones calling Fiji openly complicit with Israeli genocide in Gaza.

“They also left a collection of old shoes — throwing shoes is a gesture of contempt in the Arab World — in the rain outside the High Commission for the staff to have to clean up.”

• Israel is on trial for genocide before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in a case brought by South Africa and supported by dozens of countries, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant are wanted on arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Indonesia has kidnapped and threatened Mama Yasinta Moiwend (Mama Sinta), one of the Marind tribe women featured in the controversial documentary Pesta Babi (Pig Feast), into denying the film and its message, claims a West Papuan advocacy group.

Pesta Babi, which focuses on the Merauke sugarcane megaproject and was premiered in New Zealand in March, exposes how Indonesia is destroying West Papua’s ancestral forest for profit.

“It is a moderate film, which does not show the real truth — that all West Papuans want freedom and independence instead of colonial ‘development’,” said the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) president Benny Wenda.

• READ MORE: ‘Threat to democracy’ – Indonesian filmmaker slams military crackdown on Papua documentary
• West Papuan doco Pig Feast exposes oligarchs, food security crisis and ecocide under noses of military — film review
• Other Pesta Babi reports

“Despite this, Indonesia has done everything they can to destroy it.”

Since the screenings of the film in New Zealand and Australia, the documentary has been widely shown in Indonesia and stirred a military crackdown with attempts to block it.

Partners in the production of the film include the Papuan media group Jubi, Greenpeace  and Pusaka, a group committed to “fostering and advancing a just and equitable life” for Indigenous peoples and marginalised communities.

In a series of social media videos, Mama Sinta has publicly distanced herself from Pesta Babi, stating that she was “exploited by the filmmakers”.

She was later presented to a police station in Jakarta, where she filed charges against LBH Papua Merauke, an organisation involved in producing the film. Her family have stated they have not been able to contact her for the past week.

‘Why change her views suddenly?’
“Mama Sinta has clearly been kidnapped by the colonial TNI. Why else would she be in Jakarta, away from the community she has spent her life fighting to protect? Why else would she change her views so suddenly?” asked Wenda.

Against her will, the Indonesian state had forced Mama Sinta to issue a statement retracting her involvement in the film, he said.

“For West Papuans, this is not a new phenomenon. Indonesia has always used any means they can to divide our spirit: bribery, threats, arbitrary arrests, beatings and torture.

“Those who they cannot silence they simply kill.

“Mama Sinta is just like the elders who were forced at gunpoint to vote against West Papuan independence during the Act of ‘No Choice’ [in 1969]. Merdeka remained in their hearts, even if they raised their hands against it.”

Wenda said Mama Sinta would have been afraid of “what would happen to her” if she did not agree to the TNI’s demands.

At a time when violence had ramped up across West Papua, with nearly 40 civilians “massacred in the past two months”, Papuans were aware of the dangers of speaking out.

“This is why she recanted.”

‘Terrified’ of public
“The Indonesian state response to Pesta Babi — from kidnapping its star to violently shutting down screenings of the film — clearly demonstrates their overwhelming fear of being found out.

“Indonesia is terrified that their own people, their youth and students, will discover what their government is doing to West Papua.

“The filmmakers deserve thanks for exposing Indonesia’s ecocide in Merauke. I call on them, and all Indonesian solidarity groups to stay strong: deepen your support for West Papua, oppose your country’s ongoing occupation, genocide and crimes against humanity.”

In an interview with RNZ Pacific last week, the film’s director, Dandhy Laksono, criticised the military crackdown over the documentary.

He said that Pesta Babi had been showing at about 1700 cinemas around Indonesia.

“We have recorded more than 30 incidents of the state apparatus stopping the screening — mostly by military, and then they are also using the civil servants — in the name of public order,” he said.

No public disorder
Laksono said there had been no public disorder from the film in parts where it had shown.

“It’s ridiculous, and thanks to the audience they defend the film quite hard, and they defend their rights to to watch and to absorb the information, about what has actually happened in West Papua.”

Wenda said the crackdown on the documentary was just one small example of Indonesia’s policy of repression in West Papua.

“They are only able to get away with their crimes because they have transformed West Papua into the Pacific North Korea: journalists are banned from entering, along with NGOs like Amnesty and the Red Cross.”

Six years had passed since Indonesia vowed to allow the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to visit West Papua — “and still they refuse access”.

Pro-Palestine protesters in Fiji and Aotearoa New Zealand staged pickets in three cities today in protest against Israel opening its first embassy in Oceania.

Before visiting Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar formally opened the embassy in the Fji capital, about 30 protesters gathered at the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre (FWCC) — just across the street from the diplomatic mission — and 20 demonstrators picketed the Fiji consulate in the Auckland suburb of Mt Roskill calling for sanctions against Israel over its genocide in Gaza and invasion of Lebanon.

Other protesters picketed Fiji’s High Commission in the New Zealand capital of Wellington.

• READ MORE: Fiji police question protesters over picket against opening of Israel embassy
• Pro-Palestinian activists plan protest against ‘Israeli pond’ diplomacy push in Pacific
• Pro-Palestine groups plan coordinated protests in Fiji and NZ over Israel’s first Pacific embassy
• Fiji’s stance on Israel and new embassy stirs revived condemnation
• ‘He’s Māori!’ Hāhona Ormsby – a New Zealander in the Israeli prison system nightmare
• Other Fiji, Pacific ties with Israel reports

Fiji police “intervened” during the Suva protest organised by the NGO Coalition of Human Rights and the Fijians for Palestine groups, reports The Fiji Times.

The protestors were asked to stop chanting slogans, such as “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”, and were criticised over their placards — such as “There is no doubt. It is a genocide in Gaza” and Palestinian flags.

The demonstration continued as a silent protest against the establishment of the Israeli diplomatic mission in Fiji, with protesters gathering to express their opposition to Israel’s genocidal actions in Gaza.

Several reporters were at the picket scene in Suva as police spoke to FWCC coordinator Shamima Ali, who is chair NGO Coalition of Human Right, in what witnesses described as “harassment”.

Critical of Public Order Act
Fijivillage News reports Ali has criticised the use of Fiji’s Public Order Act against pro-Palestine protesters, claiming the legislation was again being used to restrict people’s rights to peaceful protest.

Ali said the government had acknowledged concerns surrounding the Public Order Act and its broad powers, but reforms had yet to be implemented.

She questioned the decision by police to intervene in what she described as a “peaceful demonstration”, saying protesters were exercising their democratic right to express opposition to Israel’s actions in Gaza.

Professor Vijay Naidu commented in a social media post: “Fiji police had 7 twin cabs, two large paddy wagons to intimidate and suppress peaceful protesters gathered on a private property [the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre].

“Strange that police often claim, ‘no transport’ for not attending to calls regarding crimes.”

Israel is on trial for genocide before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in a case brought by South Africa and supported by dozens of countries, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant are wanted on arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

in New Zealand, the picket outside the Fiji consulate in Auckland was also peaceful and quiet apart from a short speech and many toots of support by passing motorists.

Several banners and many Palestinian flags dominated both sides of Stoddard Road outside the consulate in the Tulja Centre.

Banners declared “PM Rabuka stop voting for genocide”– in reference to the lead role that Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka’s Fiji has played a leading role in Pacific votes in support of an isolated Israel in the United Nations — and “Stop the genocide in Gaza: Sanction Israel now — boycott Israeli goods.”

An organiser, Barry Lee of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA), “Israel is regarded around the world as a war criminal, and there is ample evidence of their war crimes every day.

“Israel and the United States are the most warmongering states in the region. They have attacked all of their neighbours at least once, and they are currently killing people in Gaza, they have just stopped attacking Iran, and now they are attacking Lebanon as the United States is underwriting its supply of weapons to do so.”

PSNA spokesperson Rinad Tamimi said that while the rest of the world was distancing itself from Israel for its genocide in Gaza, illegal settlements on the West Bank and invasion of Lebanon, Fiji was deepening its ties with the Benjamin Netanyahu regime.

“It’s partly personal.  Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka is grateful for Israeli support for his coup in 1987, when the rest of the world were distancing themselves from the Rabuka led military junta,” Tamimi said in a statement.

“But it’s mostly the result of intense diplomatic activity by Israel throughout the Pacific, its determined attempts to reverse the trend around the world to isolate Israel and its institutions.”

“Israel is working with US Christian Zionists to make the Pacific an Israeli pond, to deliver votes in the United Nations and embassies in Jerusalem.”

In the September 2024 landmark United Nations General Assembly resolution to order Israel out of the Palestinian Occupied Territory within 12 months, no fewer than seven Pacific countries, including Fiji, voted against, out of a world total of 14 votes against.

Since US President Donald Trump had defied the United Nations and opened a US embassy in Jerusalem in 2018 during his his first term in the White House, only a handful of countries had followed.

“Since then, only Kosovo, Honduras and Guatemala have joined the US.  That is, except for the Pacific — Papua New Guinea and Fiji are now in Jerusalem and they are soon to be joined by Samoa,” Tamimi said.

“It’ll be Samoa’s only country post outside the Pacific. Is Israel paying for it?”

At a joint media conference in Suva with Rabuka before the formal opening of the Israeli mission in Suva, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar declared Fiji was a “true friend of Israel”, reports FBC News.

Sa’ar said the embassy would serve as a platform to turn diplomatic ties into practical partnerships, with a focus on sectors that directly supported Fiji’s development priorities.

He added that Israel was ready to share its expertise in water management, renewable energy, agriculture and technology — areas that he said were increasingly important for Pacific island nations facing climate and resource pressures.

A protest led by the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre was held at their office today — located opposite FHL Tower where the new Embassy of Israel was due to be opened later in the day.

Police visited the centre and spoke to coordinator Shamima Ali.

The protest was taking place while similar pickets were being held at the Fiji consulate in Mt Roskill, Auckland, and High Commission in Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand.

• READ MORE: Pro-Palestinian activists plan protest against ‘Israeli pond’ diplomacy push in Pacific
• Pro-Palestine groups plan coordinated protests in Fiji and NZ over Israel’s first Pacific embassy
• Fiji’s stance on Israel and new embassy stirs revived condemnation
• ‘He’s Māori!’ Hāhona Ormsby – a New Zealander in the Israeli prison system nightmare
• Other Fiji, Pacific ties with Israel reports

When Fijivillage News questioned police, they said they were at the scene and had advised those present that they could not conducting any protest in a public place.

Ali has criticised the use of the Public Order Act against pro-Palestine protesters, claiming the legislation was once again being used to restrict people’s rights to peaceful protest.

Ali said the government had acknowledged concerns surrounding the Public Order Act and its broad powers, but reforms had yet to be implemented.

She questioned the decision by police to intervene in what she described as a peaceful demonstration, saying protesters were exercising their democratic right to express opposition to Israel’s actions in Gaza.

“Stop #Zionism poisoning the Pacific” rallies in #Fiji & #Aotearoa today protesting against #Israel opening its first embassy in Oceania on a controversial new #diplomacy bid to “win friends” for the rogue pariah nation. #asiapacificreport #embassyprotesthttps://t.co/cUmFowKvDl pic.twitter.com/uFwJP2paik

— David Robie (@DavidRobie) June 2, 2026

‘Threat to public safety’
Ali claimed police informed protesters that they were considered a “threat to public safety” under an assessment made by a police officer.

She challenged that assessment, saying the group consisted of men, women and children participating in a peaceful gathering.

She also criticised the deployment of police resources to monitor the protest, arguing that law enforcement attention should be directed towards more pressing public safety concerns.

Despite being instructed to stop chanting and remove “certain banners”, Ali said protesters intended to continue their demonstration.

She alleged that police specifically objected to banners carrying the slogan “from the river to the sea”, which has been used by pro-Palestinian groups around the world to support self-determination.

Ali also questioned the Fiji government’s position on Israel and claimed there had been insufficient public consultation on decisions relating to Fiji’s engagement with the Middle East country.

She maintained that the protest would continue peacefully and called for the Public Order Act to be reviewed or repealed.

Republished from Fijivillage News with permission.

Israel is working with US Christian Zionists to make the Pacific “an Israeli pond” to help deliver votes in the United Nations, warns the advocacy and protest movement Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA).

National spokesperson Rinad Tamimi said in a statement today that PSNA would picket the Fiji High Commission in Wellington and Consulate in Auckland tomorrow at 12.30pm in protest over Israel opening its first Pacific Islands Embassy in the Fiji capital Suva later on Tuesday.

Tamimi said PSNA was acting in solidarity with a call for support from the Fijians for Palestine Solidarity Network (Fijians4Palestine) in Fiji.

• READ MORE: Pro-Palestine groups plan coordinated protests in Fiji and NZ over Israel’s first Pacific embassy
• Fiji’s stance on Israel and new embassy stirs revived condemnation
• ‘He’s Māori!’ Hāhona Ormsby – a New Zealander in the Israeli prison system nightmare
• Other Fiji, Pacific ties with Israel reports

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar arrived in Fiji today and is scheduled to cut the ribbon to open the embassy at 5pm.

Tamimi said that while the rest of the world was “distancing itself from Israel for its genocide in Gaza, illegal settlements on the West Bank and invasion of Lebanon,” Fiji was “deepening its ties with the [Benjamin] Netanyahu regime”.

“It’s partly personal. Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka is grateful for Israeli support for his coup in 1987, when the rest of the world were distancing themselves from the Rabuka-led military junta,” Tamimi said.

“But it’s mostly the result of intense diplomatic activity by Israel throughout the Pacific, its determined attempts to reverse the trend around the world to isolate Israel and its institutions.

‘Working with Christian Zionists’
“Israel is working with US Christian Zionists to make the Pacific an Israeli pond, to deliver votes in the United Nations and embassies in Jerusalem.”

In the September 2024 landmark UN General Assembly resolution to order Israel out of the Palestinian Occupied Territory within 12 months, no fewer than seven Pacific countries, including Fiji, voted against, out of a world total of 14 votes against.

“It’s the same Pacific slant with embassies in illegally Occupied Jerusalem. The world would locate all their embassies in Tel Aviv because they didn’t recognise Israeli sovereignty over East Jerusalem.

“Then Trump opened a US embassy in Jerusalem in 2018.

“Since then, only Kosovo, Honduras and Guatemala have joined the US. That is, except for the Pacific — Papua New Guinea and Fiji are now in Jerusalem and they are soon to be joined by Samoa,” Tamimi said.

“It’ll be Samoa’s only country post outside the Pacific. Is Israel paying for it?”

According to the Jewish News Syndicate (JNS), Israel previously had an embassy in Fiji in the 1970s and 1980s. But this was closed in the 1990s due to budgetary cuts, and its role was replaced by non-resident ambassadors.

“Our affinity and affection to Israel actually predates our official establishment of ties over half a century ago and dates back to 1835 when Christian missionaries came to Fiji and taught the Bible,” said Fiji’s Ambassador to Israel Jesoni Vitusagavulu.

“We have a deep appreciation for Israel.”

Twelve Pasifika people in New Zealand received awards in this year’s King’s Birthday Honours.

The New Zealand Royal Honours acknowledges people who have served their communities and recognises their achievements.

The honors system includes three Orders: The Order of New Zealand; The New Zealand Order of Merit; and The King’s Service Order.

• READ MORE: Māori academics, artists, educators awarded King’s Birthday Honours
• King’s Birthday Honours 2026: Who took the top gongs
• Other New Zealand awards reports

Various other medals are also awarded: including the King’s Service Medal, the New Zealand Antarctic Medal, and New Zealand Distinguished Service Decoration.

A total of 178 recipients were congratulated across New Zealand on Monday — six percent were Pacific Islanders.

Olympian Beatrice Roini Liua Faumuinā was named a Companion of the Order of New Zealand for her services to sport and governance.

“It’s a real good reflection of all the work that’s happened in the last 20 years, transitioning from being an athlete into the governance world, and wanting to be able to contribute in spaces where you can make real impacts and transition for many people,” the former New Zealand Trade Commissioner and Consul-General in New York said.

Total surprise
For some of the newly inducted Members of the Order, the awards have come as a total surprise.

Tofa Robertina O’Halloran, who was named a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM), was at a loss for words.

“I’m just flabbergasted, and I had never expected anything like this. It was just a surprise,” she said.

“My son called me and said, ‘Mum, look at your email’, and I said, ‘I’ll read it later’. He said, ‘Look at it now’. I don’t know, I’m just short of words to say to him.”

O’Halloran was acknowledged for services to education and the Niuean community.

As one of the first Niuean primary teachers in New Zealand and a volunteer Vagahau Niue (Niuean language) educator, she attributed her award to those that inspired her to follow this path.

“I can thank the old folks who encouraged us to maintain the language, that’s who I acknowledge first, because they’re the ones who kept us going.”

Testament to success
For the founder of Samoan fashion brand Mena Designs, the recognition feels like a testament to their success.

Talaleomalie Filomena Loheni (MNZM) taught herself to sew dresses for her family, she never expected to one day be the first Pacific business invited to showcase at the New Zealand Fashion Week.

“I did not expect anything, you know. I was so surprised when I got the email, oh my goodness … We knew the business was very successful, because we sell worldwide… I feel honoured, and I feel humbled, I feel proud to be recognised.”

Loheni has seen her brand become a household name in Oceania fashion, and has showcased globally in Fiji, Japan, Canada, and the United States of America.

Okesene Seanoa Faraimo was named MNZM for services to the community, Tokelau language and culture.

The long-time social worker has played a key role in the development of multiple Tokelau focused strategies, reports and programs, and has been a strong advocate for the revitalisation of Te Gagana Tokelau (the Tokelau language).

Faraimo said it is an honour to be acknowledged for his work.

‘Very humbled’
“When I was told that I am nominated for this award I thought of the many others doing great work supporting whanau and the community, so I am very humbled to receive this award.”

For Lemalu Freddie Ah Kuoi (MNZM), being honoured for services to rugby league and the community has made him reflect on his long career.

“What it does show to me is that God’s hand is on my life, he’s given us to act on and to use wisely while we’re here, and so it gives me great confidence, and knowing that yes, I’m on the right track. Thank you, Lord.”

At 18 years old, Ah Kuoi made his debut in the international rugby scene in 1975, before becoming the youngest Pasifika player to captain the New Zealand Kiwis at the age of 23.

Now he runs the ‘WAI – Who Am I’ course, helping mentor young offenders through physical training and life coaching.

He says his many achievements are thanks to the many hands that have helped along the way.

“The medal represents most of the fact of all the things in my life that I’ve done, and the people that were involved with it, because you know, you can’t do it on your own, you know, it’s something that’s usually required teamwork.”

New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon congratulated the Honours recipients for their “outstanding efforts”.

“The achievements and service of every New Zealander honoured on this list have helped make our country a stronger, better place, and I would like to thank them for their contributions,” he said.

“Congratulations to all the King’s Birthday 2026 Honours recipients. New Zealand is incredibly proud of you and stands alongside each of you in celebration.”

The full list of Pasifika inductees/awardees

To be Companions of the said Order (CNZM)
Beatrice Roini Liua Faumuinā (ONZM) — for services to sport and governance

To be Members of the said Order (MNZM)
Freddie (Lemalu Freddie) Ah Kuoi for services to rugby league and the community

Okesene Seanoa Faraimo for services to the community, Tokelau language and culture

Fane Fusipongi Ketu’u, JP for services to Tongan language education

Inspector Neru Grant Leifi for services to the New Zealand Police and the community

Filomena Loheni – for services to Pacific fashion

Tofa Robertina O’Halloran for services to education and the Niuean community

Esitone (Leota Pauga Esitone) Pauga for services to Fire and Emergency New Zealand

Kathleen Tuai for services to the Pacific community

Vania Nive Hannah Wolfgramm for services to rugby

The King’s Service Medal (KSM)

Reverend Tapita Taia Ching for services to the Pacific community and education

Vaitoelau Kumitau for services to the Niuean community

This story was first published on

There was only one moment when I was interviewing him last week that Mousa Taher broke down and cried. It was a surprising, pivotal moment in the interview.

He had just made it back to Aotearoa New Zealand from Israeli detention. Of course, we covered the ordeal — the beatings, the death threats, the scare tactics with dogs, etc — that he and 430 other Global Sumud activists from 60 countries had been subjected to over four days from their interception in international waters to their release and flight to safety in Tűrkiye.

Near the end of the interview I asked him, “What do you think is going through the minds of our leaders — Christopher Luxon [Prime Minister] and Winston Peters [Foreign Minister] — that they choose to align themselves, not with you and the Palestinians, but with the Israeli regime that is committing genocide?”

• READ MORE: ‘He’s Māori!’ Hāhona Ormsby – a New Zealander in the Israeli prison system nightmare
• Gaza freedom flotilla – reluctance of the West to protest Israel’s thuggery enabled the abuse
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• Other Gaza flotilla human rights reports

For a moment his head went down and then he said: “Honestly, it’s a bit of a touchy subject for me, Eugene.” And then he cried.

“On my way back I almost mourned the death of my country. I’m a proud Kiwi. My grandfather George Whale, fought for New Zealand in the Second World War. From my Pakeha (non-indigenous Māori) side, you learn about the nuclear-free New Zealand movement, you learn about the anti-Apartheid Springbok Tour protests, you learn about the attack and sinking of Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior, you learn about New Zealand being the first country to give women the vote.

“You think your country is special, and has a sense of justice, a sense of doing what’s right, and standing up to the giants even if that’s going to cost us.  I just don’t know where that place is anymore.

Mousa’s comment about mourning for our country brought to mind Cry, the Beloved Country, Alan Paton’s 1948 novel about Apartheid South Africa — a country that was fractured along racial and political lines, one where the ruling group had sunk into a moral abyss, resolutely cleaving to an abhorrent vision of the world.  New Zealand, like most Western countries, stood with white South Africa through long decades. We mobilised and eventually changed that.

Endless wars of aggression
New Zealand’s close alignment with both Israel and the US in their endless wars of aggression may sit badly with many New Zealanders but, to date, the pushback has been insufficiently powerful, the mobilisation of citizens too small to effect a fundamental change in the country’s foreign policy settings.

This November’s general election, coming just four days after the US mid-terms, will be instructive and crucial.

Mousa Taher had two gruelling encounters with the Israeli occupation forces in the past month. It speaks to his commitment, his sense of sumud (steadfastness) that he signed up for a second sailing with the flotilla in May.

This was just weeks after being captured by the Israelis in international waters off Crete. That time he got off relatively lightly compared to the severe beating dished out to some of his comrades, including New Zealander Julien Blondel.

The Turkish government laid on flights from Crete for a couple of hundred activists, taking them to Istanbul. New Zealand offered zero support.

“At that point I was kind of done. ‘I’ve done my dash here.  I miss my family, and I think I’m ready to go home’.” But then his friend Bianca, a Kiwi-Australian said she would stay and join the next flotilla attempting to open a humanitarian corridor to Gaza.

“Wow, she’s a soldier, mate.  I just completely changed my mind. I thought: ‘If there’s a chance to go and to finish this mission, I’m in’.”

Hugged the Turkish coast
Mousa, a “backyard” mechanic, spent May working on boats, training and getting everything ready to sail again. Sailing from Marmaris, Tűrkiye, they initially hugged the Turkish coast and were treated to wonderful experiences including a village turning out en masse and preparing a feast for the Sumud activists.

Not long after passing Cyprus, still over 400km from Israeli waters, the flotilla was intercepted and a four-day ordeal began. It was quickly clear the Israelis tactics were hardening, perhaps out of a sense of impunity after governments like New Zealand, Australia, Canada and the UK turned a blind eye and deaf ears to the mistreatment of their own citizens last time.

Israeli Shayetet 13 commandos, weapons trained on the humanitarian activists, took control of Kasr-i Sadabad, the vessel Mousa was sailing on. He and another activist, also of Palestinian descent, were made to strip to their underpants in front of everyone. “It was kind of weird.”

The crew was then transferred to a prison ship which sailed for Ashdod, Israel.  Without cause, they were tasered.

“They knew me by name this time. They blindfolded all of us, zip-tied all of us. They zip tied my legs, not anybody else’s — and my hands very tightly. ‘Don’t you ever fucking come back here, Mousa.  It’s your second time. We’ve seen the messages you sent to your kids.

“‘You’re saying you’re scared for your life — that means you want to kill yourself, you’re going to suicide bomb. You’re a terrorist!’ They’d stand on my hands, stand on my face, kick me in the face.”

“They were complete sadists. They were enjoying it, mate. When he put his boot on my face, I couldn’t quite see because of the blindfold, but I could feel he was posing. They were laughing and having this conversation, like it wasn’t a serious thing that they were doing.”

More tasers, kicks, punches
After they got to Ashdod, it got worse. More tasers, more kicks, punches, stripping and humiliating, menacing with dogs, stress positions, the craft of sadism.  Later he learnt of the sexual violence the Israelis committed on many comrades, male and female.

All this comes in a week that saw Israel added to the United Nations blacklist of states committing sexual violence in conflict zones.  I have written about the deliberate sexual depravity that is now standard in the Israeli gulag, home to thousands of Palestinian hostages abandoned by our governments.  Some Zionist Israelis openly admit that rape is an Israeli weapon of war.

France, Italy, Türkiye, Spain, Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia, Jordan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Libya, and several other countries have condemned the violence. Malaysia has announced it is preparing to take a case to the International Court of Justice over the kidnapping and torture of Sumud activists.

Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Micheál Martin has sent a letter to the European Council using the treatment of the Sumud flotilla to demand the suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement.

New Zealand’s PM, as usual, is missing in action.

I spent a long time talking with Mousa Taher.  Like all the many Sumud people I have dealt with, he is the soul of decency and humanity.  And courage.  I won’t recount his full story but Mousa Taher has been through the fires of hell — the Israeli prison system.

His torment was relatively brief — four days — compared to the endless agony of thousands of Palestinian souls caught in the torment that Israel inflicts and which New Zealand, Australia and all the other state sponsors of genocide facilitate every day.

Last word to Alan Paton
I’ll give the last word to Alan Paton, author of Cry, the Beloved Country. I address it to all the people who have not stepped forward and joined the struggle for Palestine, who have not stepped forward to reshape our foreign policy and move New Zealand towards peace and independence, who have not raised their voices to reject hostile military alliances and America’s endless wars of aggression.

Without necessarily taking the same risks, we all need to be more like Mousa Taher, Hāhona Ormsby, Julien Blondel, Jay O’Connor, Rana Hamida, Samuel Leason, Sean Janssen, and all the wonderful activists of the Global Sumud organisation like my friend Eloiza Montana.

Alan Paton: “To give up the task of reforming society is to give up one’s responsibility as a human being.”

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

Pro-Palestine activist groups plan to simultaneously protest against the opening of the first Pacific embassy by Israel with pickets in the Fiji capital Suva and the New Zealand cities of Auckland and Wellington next week.

Fijians for Palestine and the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) are planning these coordinated protests in opposition to Tel Aviv opening the embassy in Fiji on Tuesday.

Ironically, the Fiji picket will be just across the road at the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre in downtown Suva with Palestinian flags “flying in the face of Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar”, according to organisers.

• READ MORE: Fiji’s stance on Israel and new embassy stirs revived condemnation
• ‘He’s Māori!’ Hāhona Ormsby – a New Zealander in the Israeli prison system nightmare
• Other Fiji, Pacific ties with Israel reports

The opening is scheduled for 5pm on Tuesday and pickets will be happening at the same time at the Fiji Embassy in Wellington and also at the Fiji consulate in the Auckland suburb of Mt Roskill.

“The genocidal state of Israel is opening an embassy in Fiji’s capital, Suva,” said Fijians For Palestine in a social media post at the weekend. “Fiji cannot build its state on the graves of children. Fiji cannot develop on the blood of innocents. Free Palestine.”

The embassy launch in Suva follows Fiji controversially opening an embassy in Jerusalem last year in defiance of United Nations resolutions that have declared occupied East Jerusalem as part of the state of Palestine,

Fiji is regarded as a staunch supporter of Israel at the UN in the face the face of overwhelming resolutions against Israel.

Fiji move condemned
The Fiji role was condemned at a pro-Palestinian rally in Auckland Tāmaki Makaurau today.

“PSNA is responding to a call from Fijians for Palestine, to protest against the opening in Fiji of the Pacific’s first Israeli embassy,” organiser Anna Lee told protesters.

“Israeli Foreign Minister, Gideon Sa’ar is scheduled to cut the ribbon in Suva to open Genocide Israel’s brand-new embassy at 5pm next Tuesday.

“The embassy opening represents a major advance for Israel’s determined attempts to reverse the trend around the world to isolate Israel and its institutions.”

The embassy move represents a major diplomatic advance for Israel’s determined attempts to reverse the trend around the world to isolate Israel and its institutions.

In the September 2024 landmark UN General Assembly vote to order Israel out of the illegally occupied Palestinian Territory within 12 months, no fewer than seven Pacific countries — including Fiji — voted against out of a world total of 14. In favour were 124 countries out of 193 member states.

In the UNGA vote the following September on recognition of Palestine, Fiji abstained. However, five other Pacific countries comprised half of the 10 votes against — again alongside the United States and Israel. In favour were an overwhelming 157 countries (81 percent).

Bid to ‘cajole votes’
“There is a clear, and thus far successful, attempt by Israel to use the US brand of Christian fundamentalism, to cajole votes and embassies out of the Pacific,” said PSNA’s Lee.

“The Pacific is our backyard. Our protests will show Zionist Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka that Palestine has many supporters.”

According to The Fiji Times, the new Israeli embassy will mark a “significant milestone in the growing relationship between the two countries and strengthening Israel’s diplomatic presence in the Pacific region”.

“The embassy will provide Israel with a permanent diplomatic presence in the Blue Pacific, a region that has attracted increasing attention from global powers seeking influence through development assistance, climate initiatives, security partnerships and economic engagement,” the newspaper reported.

“The development follows Fiji’s opening of its embassy in Jerusalem last year, making it one of a small number of countries with an embassy in Israel’s capital.”

Israel later announced plans to establish a reciprocal diplomatic mission in Fiji in 2026, citing Fiji’s “consistent support for Israel in international forums, including the United Nations”.

The opening of the embassy is also being viewed as part of Israel’s broader effort to increase its engagement with Pacific Island nations amid growing geopolitical competition in the region.

Diplomatic, legal implications
Fiji’s decision to establish an embassy in Jerusalem last year drew criticism from Palestinian officials and local activist groups, who argued that the move carried diplomatic and legal implications because of the disputed status of the city.

Today’s Auckland rally also featured Global Sumud Flotilla humanitarian aid activists detained and tortured by the Israeli military last week, including Hāhona Ormsby and Mousa Taher, and speakers criticising New Zealand involvement alongside Israel in the  RIMPAC 2026 military exercises due in Hawai’i next month.

I interviewed several of the New Zealanders who, as members of the Global Sumud Flotilla to Gaza, were taken hostage by the Israelis in international waters near Cyprus last week and moved to Israel.

The sadism and savagery of their mistreatment — clearly designed to intimidate and stop further attempts to open a humanitarian corridor — gave them a small taste of the network of torture camps that hold thousands of Palestinians in captivity suggestive of Dante’s Inferno.

Their ordeal lasted only four days. Repeatedly kicked, punched, sexually humiliated and beaten unconscious, the cruellest blow was that their own government refused to stand up for them.

• READ MORE: Gaza freedom flotilla – reluctance of the West to protest Israel’s thuggery enabled the abuse
• Kidnapped Kiwi Gaza flotilla detainee condemns brutal Israeli torture
• Other Gaza flotilla human rights reports

Of the 430 activists from 60 countries, there were several who were raped and many who will carry injuries for the rest of their lives.

This is Hāhona Ormsby’s story:
Itamar Ben-Gvir himself spat at Hāhona Ormsby. Many will recall the footage of the Israeli National Security Minister swaggering among the zip-tied Global Sumud activists last week, each of whom was forced face down before him.

Sadists like doing this sort of thing. It recalled the dreadful footage from last year of him intimidating the great Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti.

Hāhona was being moved through a huge tent. He passed a table where Ben-Gvir was drinking a can of Coke. The minister looked up and saw a man with a facial tattoo. Recognising an Indigenous person, he spat at him!  “It landed on my t-shirt,” Ormsby told me.

“As soon as he spat at me — and I don’t know if the soldier did it to impress Ben-Gvir — but the soldier with me punched me in the back of the head.”

Hāhona Ormsby is Ngāti Maniapoto, a member of a major tribal federation in New Zealand.  He is one of the nicest, most decent people you could possibly meet. His mataora (tattoo) is both sacred and traditional. Earlier that day it had already drawn unwelcome attention.

“He’s a Māori! He’s a Māori!” a female soldier shouted, pointing at Ormsby.  She may have recognised this if she was one of thousands of Israeli soldiers who holiday in New Zealand every year. Our government welcomes them, no questions asked.

Few Palestinian refugees are ever allowed entry.

Personal ‘minder’
As with each activist, Hāhona was provided a personal “minder” soon after he arrived in Ashdod, Israel.

“A soldier came and lifted me up by my zip ties. He pulled down his mask and said, ‘Look into my eyes. I am the craziest motherfucker here. I will hurt you every minute you are with me’.” And that is how the nightmare started.

Throughout the day the New Zealand citizen was intermittently punched, kicked, kneed in the groin, body slammed, stripped naked, and repeatedly hauled up by the plastic zip ties that bound his wrists together.

Several of the captives told me how incredibly tight and painful these zip ties were and how they feared long-term nerve damage.

“The whole time I looked at that soldier I was thinking, ‘I know you kill children, I know you kill women, I know you are that evil,”  Evil. That word has come up several times in my conversations with the activists who got this taste, this small intimate encounter with the genocide.

Hāhona thought of his good friend, fellow Kiwi Julien Blondel who was savagely beaten a couple of weeks earlier. “I felt his wairua (spirit), his brokenness and I now understood that brokenness. That sense of lostness.”

Forced head down for long periods in stress positions, receiving random kicks and body slams throughout the day, he was also menaced by close encounters with dogs. “If you do not stop lying to me, I’m going to lock you in that cell with these dogs!” he was told when an interrogator said he didn’t believe he was a teacher.

Hāhona thought of his whānau, his extended family. He remembered they had urged him to come home after he made it to Türkiye after an earlier interception, an earlier ordeal in April.

“But I thought: my comrades, they were going on and I had to stand with them.”

Beaten unconscious
At one point his “minder” beat him unconscious. The Kiwi citizen was kicked hard in the groin and that night had blood in his urine. “The whole night I thought about the Palestinians and what they are going through. If the Israelis do this to a New Zealander imagine what the Palestinians are going through.”

To me, listening to this, I recognised true courage, true humanity, the kind we seldom encounter and should always revere.

Listening to Hāhona Ormsby I recalled my Catholic upbringing and the words of John 15: “Greater love hath no man than this: that he lay down his life for his friends.” Ormsby and all those other activists joined the flotilla not out of hatred for Israel but out of love for suffering humanity, for their brothers and sisters in Palestine. They represent the very best of us.

Another man who professes to be a Christian is the Prime Minister of New Zealand, Christopher Luxon. For me, his variant bends towards Hell and Israel; our government being a stalwart ally of the Israelis.  The Israeli Ambassador is being called in by the ministry of foreign affairs for what, Ormsby says, is likely “a slap with a wet bus ticket” over the state terrorist attack on New Zealand citizens.

Our government offered no material support to the Sumud activists after the recent ordeals our citizens were subjected to. They issued no warnings to the Israelis to respect our citizens, providing the IDF with a free pass to abuse New Zealanders in captivity.

And, my god, they did. The first duty of a leader is to protect citizens. All this comes in a week that saw Israel added to the United Nations blacklist of nations committing sexual violence in conflict zones.

I won’t repeat all the grim details of what Hāhona went through. Let us just say it was a huge relief when, four days after his capture aboard the Al Tira (named, as all the Sumud boats were, after a Palestinian village that had been erased by the Israeli occupation), Hāhona was transferred to the airport where they boarded planes provided by the Turkish government.

Turkish delight!
Ormsby had his first food in four days on that plane — Turkish delight! On the tarmac at Istanbul they were welcomed by top Turkish politicians and Foreign Ministry staff, a crowd of supporters, media and a fleet of buses and ambulances to shuttle those who needed it to hospital, others to medical checks, forensic interviews to record their testimony, psychological evaluations and eventually a banquet and accommodation provided by the government.

It is worth noting that no officials welcomed them when they returned to New Zealand. No media was there to interview them. It reminded me of the similarly shameful way New Zealanders who fought Franco’s Fascists in Spain in the 1930s were treated on their return, prior to the Second World War.

It’s our collective job to make sure this extraordinary story is shared and remembered — and that we draw the necessary lessons from it.

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 bank accounts of two New Zealanders have been frozen as police probe an extraordinary international case of two alleged Samoan hitmen who confessed to murdering a Sydney gang boss.

Joseph Vaa, 27, admitted on Vietnamese television to gunning down suspected “Coconut Cartel” ringleader Lorenzo Lemalu Tovia outside a restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam on May 21.

His associate, Steve Tofa, 23, also called Tafia in some news reports, then confessed to being his accomplice in the shooting.

• READ MORE: Samoan police investigate after pair admit killing ‘Coconut Cartel’ ringleader in Vietnam
• Other Samoan crime reports

Fiji police have since confirmed the pair, who are facing down a potential death penalty, transited through the island nation’s international airport.

Tovia died at the scene while his associate Sauni Sam, 27, is in intensive care in hospital with serious injuries.

Tovia is believed to be the mastermind behind Sydney’s Coconut Cartel, which reportedly broke away and declared war on the rival Alameddine gang earlier this year.

Samoa police have frozen the bank accounts of the duo as well as four other people as their investigations into the bizarre international case widen.

Urgent directive
Documents obtained by RNZ Pacific show the transnational crime unit issued an urgent directive to the Central Bank of Samoa (CBS) on Wednesday, ordering six accounts and transactions connected to them to be immobilised.

CBS governor Maiava Atalina Ainuu-Enari immediately ordered commercial banks to freeze accounts belonging to Vaa and Tovia “without delay”, as well as those belonging to two New Zealand nationals, a United States citizen and a Thai.

Those named in the order, issued on May 27 under Samoa’s money laundering laws, were Tafia Tovia (aka Steve Tofa), Vaa Soloa Vaa (aka Joseph Vaa), Connor Songkran Strickert, Fred Olivia Junior Papalii, Olini Atiua and James Tuisavailuu Atua.

The document states the request relates to “an ongoing investigation into a serious violent incident that occurred in Vietnam” and “two Samoan nationals alleged to have been involved in the shooting of another Samoan man, believed to be associated with organised criminal activity”.

In a further connection to New Zealand, three people have been stopped by police investigating the gang hit as they tried to board a flight from Samoa to Auckland.

The man, woman and child were bound for Auckland when they were arrested at Faleolo International Airport in Samoa on Thursday, 7 News Australia reported.

Pair used fake passports, false names – reports
A video on Vietnamese television channel VTV9 showed Vaa and Tofa, wearing black hoods and handcuffs, while being marched into a room by police to confess. The footage showed that the two were reading their confessions from a script.

Fiji police spokesperson Ana Naisoro told RNZ Pacific that the two “travelled through Fiji, using their Samoan passports”.

However, Naisoro declined to confirm local media reports that there had been a security breach, which was only discovered after overseas law enforcement agencies shared intelligence with Fijian border officials.

According to local reports, the suspects used fake passports and false names to transit through Fiji’s main international airport in Nadi.

Fiji police and immigration are now reportedly working closely with international police networks, including Interpol, to trace the pair’s movements during their short stay in the country.

Capital punishment
Australian drug policy researcher Dr Ben Mostyn told RNZ Morning Report the alleged hitmen could face execution under Vietnam’s capital punishment laws.

The Sydney University senior lecturer said the Australian and Samoan governments were opposed to capital punishment and could try to intervene.

“Often when you have these sort of dual citizens in foreign countries you can get diplomatic behaviour from both countries trying to intervene.”

But he said “quite a few” Australian nationals have been executed in Southeast Asia in the past, despite diplomatic efforts.

The duo were initially thought to be Australian but 7News reports they used fake passports and false names; Lang Kenny Trong Minh do and Justin John White, to travel to Vietnam. They were arrested at the Cambodian border less than three days after the shooting.

Dr Mostyn said police believed the killing was meant to send a message to the cartel, which was trying to separate from a larger gang.

Violence around the drug trade is not unusual in the Southeast Asia, he added.

Samoa authorities react
Authorities also identified Unalei Car Rentals in the Apia suburb of Vaitele as an “associated entity” linked to the investigation.

The order stated that the Financial Intelligence Unity (FIU) had grounds to suspect the transactions involved proceeds of serious crime, money landering offences or offences linked to the financing of terrorism.

The development comes after three people due to fly to Auckland on Air New Zealand were were stopped at Faleolo International Airport on Wednesday night.

Sources told the Samoa Observer that a man was given a stop order before boarding the aircraft. Video footage reportedly obtained by the newspaper shows a man dressed in black being escorted by police at the airport.

In a bizarre twist, the police later issued a statement saying they were seeking Strickert for questioning.

The Thai citizen claimed on Facebook that he had already been questioned by the police, was “willing to cooperate fully” and had “nothing to hide”.

‘Highly dangerous’
Lieutenant General Mai Hoàng, the director of the HCM City Police, said authorities would deal strictly with all lawbreakers operating within Vietnamese territory.

“If the subjects provide sincere declarations, they will receive the leniency of Vietnamese law,” he stated.

Local police said the alleged hitmen used “military-grade firearms” during the attack last Wednesday night outside the Cee’f seafood restaurant on Truong Dinh Street in Ben Thanh ward. Surveillance footage showed them fleeing on foot immediately afterwards.

Deputy director of police Nguyen Thanh Hung told state media that police used surveillance measures and digital mapping to trace their movements and escape route.

Investigators issued emergency detention orders against the two suspects and said at the time that they were “highly dangerous” and “prepared to resist arrest”.

The Khmer Times reported that during their initial interrogation, the suspects told police that they were acting on behalf of a individual based abroad.

They said they had arrived at Tan Son Nhat International Airport in HCM city on May 14 and spent several days monitoring the activities of the two Australian victims.

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

New Zealand’s Budget 2026 will see more foreign aid to the Pacific region, while defence and customs spending rises with an eye towards crime and security.

But Pacific-focused policy work will be cut as the government seeks to reduce the size of the public sector, as the Ministry for Pacific Peoples (MPP) will see a $2.8 million cut over four years.

The ministry previously saw a significant cut in Budget 2024.

• READ MORE: ‘Immediate pain, cuts and no plan’: Opposition attacks NZ Budget 2026
• Other NZ Budget reports

New Zealand will spend $1.2 billion on foreign aid this fiscal year, around $116 million more than the last year.

Additionally, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) has set aside $110 million in aid spending for the Indo-Pacific exclusively for three years beginning in 2027/28.

Foreign Minister Winston Peters said a highly active and effective foreign policy is called for in what he called the most adverse and contested geostrategic environment of the past 80 years.

Finance Minister Nicola Willis said that the budget heavily prioritised capital spending for infrastructure, while tightening the government’s belt with a lower operating allowance.

To that end, the Pacific Ocean would see a greater Defence Force presence with more than $3.3 billion in new spending — $2.34 billion of which is capital spending.

New customs funding for staffing and machinery in the region has also been announced, with an eye towards the trans-Pacific drug trade.

Most adverse geopolitical scene in eight decades — Peters
New Zealand’s aid spend includes its International Development Contribution for the year, and the costs associated with managing it, both of which have risen.

Funding for diplomatic and consular missions also increased by $145 million over the next four years.

But the budget also revealed that New Zealand reduced its aid allocation by $3 million in the last fiscal year.

MFAT budgets foreign aid on a triennium (three-year) cycle, with Budget 2024 initially setting out around $2.9 billion for the 2024-2027 triennium. This was upped to $3.063 billion the following year and reduced to $3.06 billion this year.

The next triennium will be set out in Budget 2027, but this budget laid out $145.3 billion for the Indo-Pacific exclusively on top of that.

It comes amid a global pullback in foreign aid last year, highlighted by the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) in April, which showed a massive contraction in spending for developing countries, mostly thanks to the United States shuttering its aid programme in January 2025.

Meanwhile, as part of nearly a billion dollars in new spending for defence force operations, NZDF will cover $174 million in cost increases over four years for aircraft, ships and personnel on the ground in both New Zealand and the Pacific.

Three new drug-detecting submarine drones announced by Customs Minister Casey Costello are also on the way, as is a Customs liaison officer to the region.

There will also be a Customs liaison officer sent to South America, alongside a Police liaison officer to Bogota, Colombia, announced earlier in the month.

With New Zealand a key destination on the Pacific narcotics highway, Costello will hope that a $15.3 million investment into its border management services will make a difference.

MFAT has also set aside $20 million to host the annual Pacific Islands Forum next year.

Pacific Ministry shaved, immigration rules tightened
The MPP will see a $2.8 million cut over four years. This is due to a savings initiative that cut back the baseline by reducing policy advice, communications, and relationships resourcing.

Pacific Peoples Minister Paul Goldsmith has previously described MPP’s primary function as a base of expertise.

RNZ Pacific understands this savings reduction is separate to anything that may come out of the government’s more recent ambitions to reduce the size of the public sector.

A spokesperson for MPP said last week that no immediate decisions had been made at the time, and that they were working through options.

For immigration, $18 million over four years is set out to strengthen investigation capacity, while the government progresses a bill that critics say will make Pacific people more likely to be deported.

Immigration Minister Erica Stanford said that for the first time they will enforce a maximum continuous stay, which requires those on a temporary work visa to depart New Zealand immediately upon the visa’s expiry.

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

As testimonies from the 428 participants illegally kidnapped by the Israeli regime continue to surface, the United States critical role in the abuses and torture of humanitarian volunteers and journalists has become undeniable.

This role goes beyond the US State Department’s diplomatic shielding and the US Embassy’s refusal to assist American families seeking information; it includes the very ship on which volunteer participants were illegally detained and tortured.

It also includes the weapons used to inflict life-threatening trauma against them.

• READ MORE: Global Sumud Flotilla urges probe of US complicity in members’ abduction and torture by Israel
• Kidnapped Kiwi Gaza flotilla detainee condemns brutal Israeli torture

The US-funded ‘torture ship’
The vessel at the centre of many severe abuses, including systematic torture and sexual assault, was a converted naval landing craft that participants have come to call the “torture ship”.

The vessel is the INS Nahshon, built by Bollinger Mississippi Shipbuilding (a subsidiary of Bollinger Shipyards) and fully financed under the US Foreign Military Financing (FMF) programme.

Delivered to the occupation navy in 2023, this ship was used as a floating prison during the illegal April 29 and 30 interceptions off the coast of Crete, where at least 30 participants were injured severely enough that they had to be taken to the hospital.

Brutality inside ‘The beating container’
During the vessel’s deployment, detained humanitarians, doctors, and journalists were processed one by one through a darkened shipping container.

Inside, groups of three to five soldiers systematically brutalised each person who came through the door while those waiting outside listened to the screams.

“All of a sudden I hear, ‘Welcome to israel.’ And I start getting hit, like first hit on the head, second hit in the ribs, then I fall, then they kick me,” said humanitarian activist Yassine Benjelloun, who was also tasered multiple times.

“What lasts maybe three or five minutes seems like a lifetime. You don’t know that the door is going to open, and they’re going to kick you out.”

Megan Marie Dominguez, a US activist, was thrown into the “beating container”, struck with sufficient force to render her nearly unconscious, then passed to a second set of soldiers armed with tasers and what she describes as “other toys to beat people up with.”

Dr Jihan Alya Mohd Nordin, a Malaysian physician on board, described a medical situation unprecedented in her professional experience.

She documented:

• 35 participants with fractures, including broken ribs, shoulder dislocations, and humerus fractures.
• Severe head injuries, concussions, and eye/ear trauma.
• At least two individuals forcibly injected with unidentified substances that left them drowsy and disoriented.
• 14 cases of sexual assault, as well as the systematic, deliberate removal of Muslim women’s hijabs.

“Being a doctor, the main aim is to reduce the sufferings of people,” said Dr Jihan. “But when we cannot do anything to help them, it was the worst and the most horrible feeling that I have.

“It was so devastating.”

Dr Jihan: ‘I was punched, kicked and choked” by the Israeli military Video: News Straits Times

American munitions used against civilians
The weapons deployed on board were also American-made. Stun grenades and metal-bearing projectile rounds were identified by manufacturer markings as products of Combined Tactical Systems (CTS), a brand of the Jamestown, Pennsylvania-based weapons manufacturer Combined Systems Inc. (CSI).

These weapons were fired at close range in enclosed spaces against participants who were sitting down or trying to sleep, a direct violation of the manufacturer’s own usage guidelines.

A structural policy of complicity — the weapons.
The ship. The diplomatic silence. None of this was accidental. Former US State Department official Josh Paul, who resigned in protest over US arms transfers to Israel, is unequivocal:

“Under US law, arms transfers must only be made for purposes authorised by law.

“INS Nahshon’s use by Israel to conduct an illegal seizure in international waters, and then to act as a base for the torture and sexual assault of foreign civilians, including Americans, who had broken no laws, and were acting from conscience to serve an urgent humanitarian need, plainly and grievously violates those terms.

“When this sale was authorised, US officials will have asked themselves how Israel might use this platform. The basis on which they should have denied this transfer has been there since at least the Mavi Marmara incident in 2010 [in which 10 Turkish people were killed by Israeli forces], but is now more clear than ever, and the lesson here is a simple one: that anything we transfer to Israel, Israel will find a way to misuse — whether it is a bomb, a bulldozer, or a boat.”

This is not an isolated incident or the failure of a single administration; it is a structural, bipartisan commitment by the United States government to prioritise its strategic relations above the protection of its own citizens and its own laws.

By using a separately constructed, “broken” vetting process, the State Department routinely circumvents the 1997 Leahy Law, which strictly prohibits US military assistance to foreign units credibly accused of gross human rights violations like torture and rape.

While international law has been flagrantly violated and legal proceedings are now active in Turkey, Italy, and Spain, with Italian prosecutors opening an investigation into kidnapping and sexual assault, the US government continues to look away.

Demands to the United States government
The israeli regime continues to commit genocide using US-built ships and US-made weapons.

The torture of US citizens and humanitarian volunteers with American-made tools is not an anomaly. It is the direct outcome of unconditional US support for a regime continuously committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.

What Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF) participants survived for days, many Palestinians endure indefinitely without lawyers or consular access.

The Global Sumud Flotilla calls on the United States government to take immediate action:

• Open immediate hearings into the deployment of FMF-funded military assets, including INS Nahshon, against US citizens.
• Suspend all arms transfers to the israeli regime pending that investigation.
• Enforce the Leahy Law without exemption or special processes for the regime.
• Provide a full accounting of every consular and distress request filed by families of detained participants that was dismissed or ignored.
• Investigate the use of Combined Tactical Systems (CTS) munitions, produced under Department of Defense (DOD) contracts, against unarmed civilian humanitarians.
• End unconditional military and diplomatic support for a regime committing genocide.

One of the three New Zealanders on the Global Sumud Flotilla who were among the hundreds kidnapped by the Israeli military illegally on international waters this month and abducted to Israel has described his brutal torture after returning home.

Speaking in a TV3 news report last night, Hāhona Ormsby (Ngāti Maniapoto), 56, said he was beaten for hours, rammed into a wall until he was unconscious and kicked in the genitals.

He is one of many activists among the 430 Gaza humanitarian flotilla aid crew from more than 40 countries alleging they were abused.

• READ MORE: Gaza flotilla activists allege abuse, sexual assault in Israeli detention
• ‘I could die here’: Kiwi activist alleges violent abuse by Israeli forces
• Flotilla activists recount Israeli violence as they arrive in Turkiye
• Gaza freedom flotilla – reluctance of the West to protest Israel’s thuggery enabled the abuse
• Other Gaza flotilla human rights reports

The other New Zealanders are Mousa Taher, 39, and Julien Blondel, 47.

They were trying to break the 16-year illegal Israeli military blockade of the Palestinian enclave.

Ormsby told reporter Molly Swift “it feels surreal” to be back in Auckland trying to come to terms with “actually being home and being safe” because just last week he was detained
in Israel where he said he was violently beaten at the hands of Israeli soldiers.

It was his first flotilla and as an educator he was hoping to bring school supplies to Palestinian children, the TV3 report said.

“They boarded the boat. We were stripped of all our clothes. We were wearing clothes for the interception to keep warm. We were stripped of shoes,” Ormsby said.

“I left the boat just wearing a pair of shorts and t-shirt. I actually had a gun pointed at me,” he said demonstrating at the back of his head.

“Like I could feel the gun on the back of my head.”

The detainees were taken on a “prison” ship to the Israeli port Ashdod for processing.

“Even there, I was quite overwhelmed at the treatment. Just randomly in the early hours of the morning we had flashbangs thrown into the containers.”

Disturbing account of Gaza flotilla treatment by Israel.      Video: TV3/Stuff

TV3 reports that Israel claims the allegations are “false and entirely without factual basis”. However, documented reports with photographic evidence has been widely published around the world and several governments have announced that that have initiated prosecution investigations against the Israelis.

Cruel treatment against prisoners is explicitly classified as a serious war crime under international humanitarian law.

Eleven Australians were also on the flotilla and have made similar allegations against the Israelis. The New York Times this month published a major report of allegations against Israeli prisons while the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem’s report “Living Hell” has documented systematic torture of Palestinians.

Professor Stuart Rees, a professor emeritus of the University of Sydney, has blamed Western governments for the “thuggery” of the Israeli government, saying, “If bullies notice that no one intervenes to stop their behaviour, they may interpret such non-intervention as permission to continue bullying.”

Moana Pasifika captain Miracle Fai’ilagi says he still hopes the franchise will be saved.

Shareholders of Moana Pasifika have voted to appoint liquidators to the franchise’s holding company.

The Pasifika Medical Association (PMA) said it could no longer continue funding the team and it was “deeply disappointed” to have reached this point.

• READ MORE: ‘We always stay hopeful’, says Umaga on Moana Pasifika’s future
• Other Pacific rugby reports

New Zealand Rugby said the tender process for the Moana Pasifika licence was continuing, despite the franchise now going into liquidation.

And New Zealand Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has suggested all might not be lost.

It is understood a private consortium or the New Zealand, Australian and Samoan governments could come to the rescue.

The team’s debts include a NZ$2.7 million crown loan. Liquidator Stephen White said it was still early days.

No approaches yet
“We haven’t yet had any approaches, but we are aware that NZ Rugby has had various conversations with parties,” White said.

“We know there are consortia out there that have looked at the franchise over the course of the recent past. So we’ll be reaching out to those people soon to see if there’s anything we can assist with.”

Fai’ilagi has not given up on the team playing in next year’s Super Rugby Pacific competition.

“We want this team to continue,” he told RNZ Morning Report’s John Campbell.

Fai’ilagi was brought out of playing club rugby in Samoa to now captain the Super Rugby franchise.

“I was just living a dream of someone else, all the older kids back home,” he said.

“Just having this team, it’s quite special to me, and just to get the opportunity to come here and express myself.

“When I was young, I hardly connected with people — I’m too shy and other stuff. But coming here, you meet a lot of people, and those people will help you along the way.

‘Special connections’
“And that’s something special about this group, the connections of other boys coming in.

“We have a guy from Japan, we have … Tom Savage from Great Britain, and other boys from other cultures. So it is quite special, this team, and just bringing all of those guys together and just build this group. It’s pretty massive.”

Fai’ilagi said there was 100 percent effort in the build-up to what may be their last-ever game — against the Brumbies in Canberra on Saturday.

“We’re not just counting days, but we’re just making the days count, just turning up every week despite everything that’s happening in the background.

“But the boys always turn up, like 100 percent effort, and with the energy as well, so just having fun.”

Meanwhile, the chief executive of a rugby consortium hoping to purchase Moana Pasifika said she was devastated to learn that the franchise had gone into liquidation.

Proposal to save club
Tracy Atiga, from Kanaloa Rugby, said they were still waiting to hear back from New Zealand Rugby about their proposal to save the club.

She told RNZ Pacific Waves she was not surprised by the liquidation.

“It was actually something that we were preparing for, because you get to a point with with these types of things in business, and you kind of know what the next steps will be,” she said.

“Even though it wasn’t what we had hoped for, we understood that that was a potential outcome, and it’s come to fruition now. So we just got to move forward and new strategy, and go from there.”

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

The head of the United Nations body mandated to develop regulations for seabed mining in international waters says Pacific countries are playing a big role in shaping the regulations that will govern the future industry.

International Seabed Authority (ISA) Secretary-General Leticia Carvalho was in Fiji last week conducting training for Pacific Island nations on what it means to be a sponsoring state of a potential seabed mining company.

There is great interest from the likes of China and the US in polymetallic nodules found on the deep seabed in parts of the Pacific Ocean’s international waters.

• READ MORE: Other seabed mining reports

These nodules are rich in minerals such as copper, cobalt and nickel. These metals are highly valued in modern tech — but it remains uncertain how damaging mining would be to the marine environment.

Carvalho told RNZ Pacific Waves the region was very important to the ISA process of developing rules for mining, given the strong country positions both for and against.

“Some of them are really close to the idea of mining in the deep sea outside of national jurisdiction. Others are very much attached to the environmental safeguards and cautious about this activity, therefore this region has a big role in shaping the regime.”

She said she respected the opposing views Pacific countries had on the potential future industry.

PIF representatives
In Fiji, she met with representatives of Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) member countries and civil society organisations.

She said these were sovereign positions and her role was not to judge but rather to facilitate dialogue.

“And that is why I am here for capacity building, training, bringing my team to support these countries to better understand how they can make decisions internally and how they can sit at the table with others to find consensus in the multilateral space.”

She also acknowledged there were some civil society complaints about exclusion from the training but she clarified that the list of participants was constructed based on the relevance of the subject matter.

“So this training was particularly formulated to get government officials more enlightened about the responsibilities and how to make deals with contractors and investors.”

Carvahlo said some representatives of civil society networks were present as observers but it was not possible to invite everyone.

Before she left Fiji, Carvahlo did meet with a group of civil society representatives. She said it was good for her to hear their concerns firsthand.

‘Still big gap’
“They still see a big gap in their participation and their voices to be heard in the decision making,” she said.

“It was very enlightening for me to see that there is still work to be done in this region to make that communities can really engage and shape and influence decision making.”

The ISA boss encouraged all Pacific Island countries, regardless of their stance on deep sea mining, to participate fully in the International Seabed Authority meetings to make use of this historic opportunity to develop the proper regulations for an industry before it actually begins.

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

An Indonesian filmmaker says the crackdown by authorities on his West Papua documentary in some parts of the country is a threat to democracy.

The Pesta Babi (Pig Feast) documentary looks at the social and environmental impacts of land seizures for big agri-business ventures in Papua — and the Indonesian military’s role in it.

Since March, the film has had screenings in New Zealand and Australia, and is now showing in Indonesia, where it has sparked public interest — not just through its treatment of the subject, but because authorities are trying to ban it.

• READ MORE: Pesta Babi doco stirs West Papuan development debates and ‘crackdown’
• Other Pesta Babi documentary reports

‘Public order’
The film’s director, Dandhy Laksono, said that Pesta Babi was showing at about 1700 cinemas around Indonesia.

“We have recorded more than 30 incidents of the state apparatus stopping the screening — mostly by military, and then they are also using the civil servants — in the name of public order,” he explained.

Laksono said there had been no public disorder from the film in parts where it had shown.

“It’s ridiculous, and thanks to the audience they defend the film quite hard, and they defend their rights to to watch and to absorb the information, about what actually happened in West Papua.

“I think compared to the subset of the public screening, the intervention or the intimidation is nothing in terms of numbers, but in terms of substance of democracy, that’s a real threat.”

Interests disrupted
Laksono’s previous documentary film, The End Game, about efforts to undermine anti-corruption activities in Indonesia, also faced shutdowns, but only a handful. Pesta Babi has touched even more of a nerve.

“Because this film also talked directly about the military interest in West Papua, as well as the multinational corporation investment, so yeah, we assume that many interests is disrupted by this film.

The director said the reception of many Indonesians showed the film had also opened eyes.

“The most common thing is they [the audience] realise that the social media algorithm is never friendly for the Papuans, for the West Papuan issue, so they never have a chance to get the real situation in West Papua.

“And even the mainstream media, Jakarta-based mainstream media, has never enough cover for West Papua, and of course, the international journalists cannot access the West Papua, so basically many people are blind from the current situation in West Papua.”

Relatable across republic
The film has resonated with Indonesian audiences, Laksono added, because what was happening in West Papua was relatable across the republic.

“They comment about the proximity with their own problem in their own land, because the military now have more control under [Indonesian President] Prabowo’s administration and also the agrarian conflict with the land grabbing and environmental destruction for the investment.

“So basically what happens in West Papua now is basically a common phenomenon in other places in Indonesia, but of course in West Papua we have more in terms of scale and in terms of level of the damage — but the essence is same, so they feel the proximity.”

Laksono said the government had tended to use nationalism as a way to mischaracterise coverage of genuine West Papuan stories as a threat to the unitary Indonesian republic.

But he said more people were now seeing through this kind of propaganda and the bid to hide the human rights, environmental and social issues in Papua.

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

ANALYSIS: By Professor Stuart Rees

If bullies notice that no one intervenes to stop their behaviour, they may interpret such non-intervention as permission to continue bullying.

For years, the same process has operated in relation to the thuggery of Israel’s Netanyahu government, and in that respect, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s abuse of detainees from the Gaza international aid flotilla was no surprise.

Suddenly, even the Australian government — and New Zealand — condemned the abuse meted out to hundreds of humanitarian activists, but that condemnation was too little too late.

• READ MORE: Uncertainty persists as Trump says Iran deal not ‘fully negotiated’
• Other Gaza flotilla human rights reports

The first measure concerns politicians’ and journalists’ reluctance to question Israeli spokespersons’ claims that they and their army operate according to the highest moral standards.

The second concerns the failure to hold Israel accountable to the rules of international law.

This culture of non-accountability, coupled with acceptance of Israel’s false claims, reappeared when 430 sailors from 40 different countries were taken into Israel’s detention, forced to kneel with their hands zip-tied behind their backs while the Israeli national anthem played and Ben-Gvir taunted them.

On ABC television’s 7:30 Report, the Israeli Ambassador to Australia repeated that Israeli forces had boarded the flotilla with “great sensitivity”. He assured listeners there would be no ill-treatment of the detainees.

Litany of Israeli lies
His claims followed a litany of lies.

In the Gaza slaughter, Israeli military spokespersons insisted they would not harm civilians, Palestinians were allegedly not short of food, and the bombing of hospitals, schools and so-called safe houses was justified by claims that these were all sites of Hamas operations.

The adjective ‘Hamas’ is used to stigmatise anyone who opposes Israeli actions.

Ben-Gvir and others labelled participants in the humanitarian aid flotilla “Hamas terrorist supporters”. This all-purpose label apparently explains terrorism, but even regarding a slaughter of innocents in Gaza, on the West Bank and in Lebanon, few politicians have asked, “whose terrorism are you referring to?”

Government-sanctioned brutality
Israeli officials claimed that no flotilla detainees were harmed, but a video showed detainees being abused in Israeli captivity, and returning Australian detainees reported experiences of violence and sexual abuse.

The Israeli legal rights centre Adalah reported “systemic violations of due process and widespread physical and psychological abuse by Israeli authorities”.

The same organisation said, “at least three people [from the flotilla] required hospitalisation due to injuries such as rib fractures and breathing difficulties”, each incident raising questions about the Israeli Australian Ambassador’s assertion that Israeli forces showed “great sensitivity”.

It is predictable that governments would be reluctant to ask whether Israel’s attacks on the international aid flotilla could be justified in international law.

In relation to other Israeli killing sprees, governments have treated international law as of no consequence.

The 1948 Genocide Convention identified genocide as a crime and obliged signatory governments to prevent such actions and to punish perpetrators. These obligations have been ignored. Neither has action been taken to obey the International Court of Justice’s January 2024 ruling that Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands is illegal and should end immediately.

Israel insists that theirs is a lawful blockade of Gaza, but Western governments, having never used their navies to escort small boat flotillas to the shores of Gaza, have colluded with this claim.

Under what circumstances can a country that illegally occupies another’s waters be entitled to enforce a blockade?

The United Nations has described the Israeli blockade of Gaza as a “direct contravention of international human rights and humanitarian law”. Don Rothwell, professor of international law at the Australian National University (ANU), concludes “there has been no legal basis for Israel to enforce a blockade off the coast of Cyprus (within 200 miles of Gaza), yet under international law an exception to a blockade exists for the provision of humanitarian aid to a civilian population”.

Western facilitators
Ben-Gvir’s bullying had been practised for years, but who cared if it was exercised at the expense of Palestinians?

Now, however, international human rights activists have been abused. In response, previously silent commentators have rediscovered their principles and expressed outrage.

The chances of that outrage leading to a revival of respect for international law appear to depend on governments admitting that

the Ben-Gvir abuse was a feature of overall Israeli state violence towards Palestinians,

a policy facilitated by Western democracies.

Ben-Gvir’s treatment of the flotilla detainees was the tip of an iceberg. The UN’s February 2026 Report concluded that the Israeli prison system had degenerated into a laboratory of calculated cruelty.

The Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem published its 2026 paper, “Welcome to Hell: the Israeli prison system as a network of torture camps.”

Abuse of Palestinians, mostly in secret, had been reported but elicited nothing like the outrage expressed about the treatment of the flotilla crews.

The UN reported that as minister responsible for Israeli prisons, Ben-Gvir had institutionalised torture, collective punishment and dehumanising conditions. Abuse of detainees included rape with bottles, metal rods, and knives, starvation, breaking of bones and teeth, burning, being spat upon, being attacked and urinated upon by dogs.

Courage betrayed
In total contrast to that bestiality, 430 courageous individuals sailed to Gaza, motivated by the ongoing genocide in Gaza and by feeling betrayed by governments that had not intervened in the genocide in Palestine and stayed silent when Israeli forces boarded the flotilla.

Parents of those detainees have condemned governments for a failure to intervene.

But a failure to stop ethnic cleansing, stealing of lands and eventually a genocide had been underway for years, long before October 2023. Throughout those decades, the victims were a stigmatised “other”, so international humanitarian law could be ignored, and Israel and the US were given assurance that murder and mayhem in Palestine and Lebanon should continue.

Ben-Gvir noticed governments’ collusion with slaughter in Gaza and would have taken silence about the boarding of the flotilla as similar to Western collusion with death and destruction in Gaza, and with silence about the extent of cruelty in Israeli prisons.

Abuse of the gutsy flotilla crews has prompted outrage, but that protest has been far too little and far too late.

Moana Pasifika’s head coach Fa’alogo Tana Umaga says they are still hopeful the team continue on in Super Rugby Pacific in 2027.

Speaking at the post-match press conference following Saturday’s clash against the Reds in North Harbour, Fa’alogo said there had been discussions last week between the Moana Pasifika management and team.

“Even this week there was a meeting around what the future looks like. There’s some certainty but not a lot.

• READ MORE: Other Pacific rugby reports

“We always stay hopeful. Who would have thought I would get a job after this but I got one. I had actually given up hope on that.

“So, if it can happen to me it can happen to anyone.”

RNZ Pacific has been told that there are at least two organisations which had shown interest in securing the licence from Pasifika Medical Association (PMA), after it announced last month the club would be disbanded.

One of the bidders is Kanaloa Consortium, which are based in Hawai’i and Auckland.

Pasifika consortium
The consortium is backed by a number of Pasifika heritage former All Black players that includes Joe Rokocoko, Ben Atiga, John Afoa, Anthony Tuitavake and Jerome Kaino.

Kanaloa’s CEO Tracy Atiga confirmed last week they haD sent in their proposal, as per requirements of New Zealand Rugby, and were awaiting an update.

New Zealand Rugby has remained tight-lipped on who the bidders are but said they had opened the process to all bidders.

RNZ Pacific has requested NZ Rugby for an update on what the process now includes and when an announcement would be expected on Moana Pasifika’s future.

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

In 2015, the John Key government announced a cooperation agreement that would see NZ Aid pay for Cuban doctors to be taught English in New Zealand before their deployment to the Pacific Islands as part of the communist island’s Medical Brigades.

Cuba, a country of just 11 million people that has been under continuous US economic sanctions since 1962, has sent more than 400,000 healthcare professionals to 155 countries over the last six and a half decades.

Since 1960, when an earthquake devastated Valdivia in Chile, Cuban doctors have been on the frontlines of medical emergencies around the globe.

• READ MORE: Other Cuban reports

They were there for the Chernobyl disaster of 1986, in Sri Lanka following the 2004 tsunami, in Pakistan after the 2005 earthquake, in Africa during the Ebola outbreak, in South Africa for the HIV/ AIDS epidemic, and Italy during the outbreak of covid.

In any given year the country has had more health professionals working in aid programmes abroad than the USA, Germany, France, Italy, Japan and the UK combined.

The National government and Cuba were unlikely bedfellows. The conservative party’s founding constitution in 1936 committed it to combating communism and socialism.

But the communist nation’s medical assistance programme has been a spectacular success when it comes to providing healthcare to those most in need, and the cooperation agreement was a concrete acknowledgement of that.

Soft power, hard currency
Cuba’s overseas doctors programme is both an exercise in what is sometimes called soft power and a source of desperately needed hard currency.

Economists are divided over whether the US dollar’s status as the global reserve currency is an “exorbitant privilege” but there’s no debate over the power it gives the US government to inflict economic devastation on its perceived enemies.

Last year, the medical journal The Lancet published an article that found that economic sanctions — the majority being unilateral imposed by the US — had caused more than 560,000 deaths every year between 2010 – 2021.

In total, the study attributes 38 million deaths – half of them children – to sanctions since 1970.

No country on earth has been under US sanctions for longer than Cuba. A 1958 arms embargo was expanded to include all goods four years later.

The laws and regulations governing the embargo have been described as the “oldest and most comprehensive US economic sanctions against any country in the world.”

Cuba not only survived those sanctions, but its commitment to investing in healthcare at home saw it achieve lower infant mortality rates over a sustained period than the US, while matching it for life expectancy.

Massively impressive
To describe that as impressive is to massively understate the achievement. Life expectancy and low infant mortality normally correlate very closely with a country’s relative wealth.

The US’s GDP per capita has been about eight times that of Cuba for decades.

During the Cold War, trade with the communist bloc helped insulate Cuba from the full impacts of the embargo. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 saw the island nation facing catastrophic shortages of oil, food and basic goods.

A deal struck between Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez, in 2000, to swap Venezuelan oil for Cuban medical professionals was critical to the island nation surviving the crippling US sanctions regime.

That ended with the US’s imposition of a maritime blockade of Venezuela following its “arrest” — kidnapping is a more accurate term — of its president, Nicolas Maduro, in January of this year.

The longest running US sanctions regime in history has become a near total siege resulting in a devastating health crisis.

The UN reports that more than 100,000 patients are awaiting surgeries due to power outages.

“Shortages of electricity, fuel, medicine and medical supplies are severely disrupting emergency care, blood banks, laboratories, immunisation programmes and maternal and child health services.”

Blackouts lasting up to 20 hours have forced hospitals to suspend non-emergency operations. There’s no fuel for ambulances or private cars, so people struggle to get to health services even in an emergency.

Infant mortality has doubled to 9.9 deaths per 1000 live births. At least half of those deaths are directly attributable to US sanctions.

Last week, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared Cuba a “severe national security threat” due to its military ties to China and Russia. (The US has around 800 military bases in 80 different countries. Neither China nor Russia has a base in Cuba although both are said to have spy facilities — presumably not unlike the ones the US has in New Zealand and Australia.)

And in an effort to illustrate the “heinous nature” of the Cuban government, the US last week issued an arrest warrant for its former Defence Minister, 94-year-old Raul Castro, for the 1996 shooting down of two civilian planes off the coast of Cuba.

The planes were flown by the Brothers of the Rescue, a group that both rescued Cubans attempting to flee the island and dropped anti-government leaflets over Havana.

The then President, Fidel Castro, declared the planes a threat to Cuba’s national security.

Many would take issue with that claim, but it is surely as credible as the US claim that the 57 boats it has sunk in the Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific Ocean since September last year, killing 194 people, were a threat to US national security.

The US accuses Cuba of human rights abuses, including those of medical brigade doctors who it says are victims of human trafficking and forced labour.

This would make Cuban doctors, surely, the only victims of forced labour anywhere to be given a free tertiary education before being trafficked to jobs paying significantly more than if they stayed at home.

(The American Civil Liberties Union has estimated that around 800,000 prisoners in the US produce more than $11 billion in goods while being paid just pennies an hour.)

None of the US’s explanations/accusations can be taken seriously. So, what else could be driving the ramping up of its decades old campaign to topple the Cuban government?

Noam Chomsky called it “the threat of the good example.” A poor country showing it’s possible to redistribute resources and defy Western dominance is simply unacceptable and must be crushed.

One showing that, for a fraction of the cost of what most Western countries spend on “defence,” it can be a superpower in the supply of medical assistance to the Global South is it seems doubly unacceptable.

And then there’s the threat to the bottom-line of US corporations.

ExxonMobil is currently before the courts seeking $1 billion in compensation for the nationalisation of its refineries in 1959.

Last week, the Supreme Court ruled in favour of a US company — Havana Docks Corporation — that claims its waterfront property had been seized by the Cuban government in 1960. It will likely open the floodgates to similar claims.

In 1971, the government commission that first certified that the Havana Dock Corporation’s property had been unlawfully confiscated did the same for 6000 other companies with “legitimate” claims to property worth a combined $1.9 billion ($9.3 billion in today’s term).

Every year for the last three decades, New Zealand and Australia have joined a large majority of UN General Assembly member states in voting for a non-binding resolution demanding an end to the US blockade. (Last year’s vote was opposed by the US, Israel, Argentina, Paraguay, North Macedonia and Ukraine.)

But as that blockade is being tightened to the point of catastrophe, and with the US threating an armed invasion both governments have remained mute.

It’s shameful. Doubly so given that New Zealand’s last National government acknowledged Cuba’s contribution to the alleviation of suffering caused by poverty and scarcity with its cooperation agreement.

The people of Cuba are now suffering unprecedented poverty brought on by scarcity due to an entirely man-made disaster. We know who the culprits are, but not only do our governments remain silent, they continue to be slavishly committed to military cooperation and integration with one of the world’s leading enablers and purveyors of violence.

• Our governments may be silent but civil society isn’t. Here’s a link to an international petition and a NZ one. To keep up with what’s happening in Cuba and solidarity actions in Aotearoa follow the New Zealand Cuba Friendship Society on Facebook.

Jeremy Rose is a Wellington-based freelance journalist. You can follow him on his Substack Towards Democracy.

An emotional and inspiring welcome greeted two of Aotearoa New Zealand’s three Gaza Sumud Flotilla humanitarian activists who arrived home today after their ordeal at the hands of the brutal Israeli military and prison forces last week.

About 60 whānau, supporters and well-wishers greeted Hāhona Ormsby (Ngāti Maniapoto), 56, and Mousa Taher, 39, with a waiata and haka.

A large banner among the Palestinian flags at Auckland International Airport declared “Nau mai ki te kainga e Hāhona korua ko Mousa — Free Palestine” (“Welcome home, Hāhona, you and Mousa”).

• READ MORE: Andy Worthington: The startling severity of Gaza flotilla activists’ rape allegations
• Wong’s muted response to Ben-Gvir’s video raises serious questions
• Peters condemns Israeli minister over flotilla video as 3 Kiwis detained
• Other Gaza flotilla reports

Another banner said, “We stand together from Aotearoa to Gaza — Global Sumud Flotilla — Free Palestine”.

The returning activists were among about 430 humanitarians from 43 countries trying to break the illegal blockade who were kidnapped, abused and abducted to Israel on “torture ships”.

Most were tortured and beaten, stirring global outrage, and Ormsby was seen to be walking today with a limp at Auckland International Airport.

The third New Zealand activist, Julien Blondel, 47, was not on this flight. His battered face was featured in several reports about an Israeli military raid on the flotilla last month.

Government ministers for several countries have accused Israel of “inhumane treatment” and “unacceptable” brutal behaviour over the abducted activists.

A video posted on social media by Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir last week showed him taunting the activists as they were zip-tied and forced to kneel under threat after being detained by the Israeli forces in international waters.

This video was widely condemned, including by New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters who said in a statement:

‘Travel ban on 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.”

However, a Palestinian researcher has criticised the “weak responses” of Australia and New Zealand over the “detention and humiliation”.

Writing in the Sydney-based Green Left magazine, Shamikh Badra said the abuse and torture by Israel not only revealed Tel Aviv’s approach to the Gaza enclave, it raised questions about Australia’s “response to an ally which is responsible for genocide”.

The Ben-Gvir video footage showed that hundreds of detained activists from various countries — including 11 Australians and three New Zealanders — were forced to kneel with their hands restrained behind their backs while Ben-Gvir walked past mocking them.

Among the peace activists were doctors, students, academics and filmmakers.

“The flotilla had again been attempting to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza, and challenge the illegal blockade,” wrote Badra, who is originally from Gaza and is a convener of the Coalition for Justice and Peace in Palestine.

He is also a PhD candidate at the School of Humanities and Social Inquiry at the University of Wollongong.

“They were again intercepted illegally in international waters, but the outcry at their treatment has only come after Ben-Gvir’s public humiliation.

‘Public display of Israeli state power’
“Ben-Gvir’s video was not just about controlling the detainees; it was a public display of the Israeli state’s power,” wrote Badra.

“The forced kneeling, restraints and ridicule were part of a political performance designed to send a wider message: Israel will stop all attempts to challenge the blockade of Gaza.

“Some detainees were restrained with plastic ties; others were forced to kneel while the Israeli national anthem played through loudspeakers. This was a deliberate display of domination.

“They report that they were sexually abused, punched, tasered and kept in inhumane conditions.”

Basic humanitarian law meant that even in situations involving detention or maritime interception, civilians must be protected, wrote Badra.

“This is why European officials, the first to speak out, described the scenes as degrading and unacceptable.”

‘Shocking’ but restrained response
As with New Zealand’s Minister Peters, Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong followed suit, saying the footage was “shocking and unacceptable”.

“However there is another broader issue — Wong’s restrained response,” wrote Badra.

“The Benjamin Netanyahu government, of which Ben-Gvir is a senior minister, is one of the [Australian] Labor government’s closest strategic partners.

“Australia’s foreign policy is supposed to be framed around protecting human rights, opposition to arbitrary detention and the defence of its citizens overseas.

“If Israel knows that international reactions are likely to be limited to statements of concern, rather than military sanctions and political isolation, the cost to it of mistreating flotilla activists is marginal.

“But perhaps Ben-Gvir has done us a favour by revealing how Israel treats supporters of Palestine. The flotilla activists’ accounts of their abuse, and the abuse they saw meted out to Palestinian prisoners, don’t leave much to the imagination.”

Shame on the Basque police @ertzaintzaEJGV for brutalising Flotilla members returning home after being abducted, unlawfully detained and ill-treated by Israel. May those responsible be held accountable.

We must resist the Israelisation of our societies. https://t.co/HzaOANaMLf

— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) May 24, 2026

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.

New Zealand Police Commissioner Richard Chambers says Pacific Island nations are addressing corruption among their police and customs officials.

Chambers has concluded a trip to Suva, Fiji, for the inaugural Pacific Transnational Crime Summit, which brought together Pacific police chiefs, ministers and prime ministers to discuss what is now a “destination market” for drugs and human trafficking.

He said there was a willingness among police chiefs, most of whom are dealing with corruption in their ranks, to discuss these issues with humility.

• READ MORE: Other Fiji crime reports

“We appreciate that it’s pretty hard sometimes to turn down an offer of a large sum of money when the incomes that many police staff earn aren’t great,” Chambers said.

“New Zealand will support our Pacific neighbours when it comes to particular problems, and that’s not new; we’ve done that for many years.”

New Zealand Police have confirmed their involvement in a six-month investigation into 11 Fiji police officers who were allegedly involved with Auckland-based drug dealers.

The investigation followed a leak of more than 100 text screenshots depicting officers accepting bribes and tipping people off about impending raids.

No specifics
Chambers refused to provide any specifics about that case or any others in which New Zealand may be involved.

However, he said that he had “absolute trust” in the Fiji Police Force and its Commissioner, Rusiate Tudravu.

“He talks quite openly about the challenges that he’s encountered as the commissioner there, and what he’s doing to stamp it out,” Chambers said.

“I’ve been a police officer for 30 years, and over that time I’ve done a lot of work with Fiji … I’ve never experienced any issues myself.”

The Pacific is a strategic transit point for traffickers both in Southeast Asia and Central America. Referred to colloquially by officials and experts as the “narco highway”, product is funnelled through Pacific communities on its way to Australia and New Zealand, where street prices are among the highest in the world.

Chambers’ Australian counterpart Krissy Barrett called this her “nation’s shame”, making for a “moral responsibility” to act. Australia has previously committed AU$400 million to regional policing efforts.

Pacific watch
One action stemming from the summit is a new dob-in line for Pacific communities, calling on the public to “be the community’s eyes and ears.”

The online platform, dubbed Pacific Watch, “will allow the public to” safely and anonymously report suspicious behaviour, drug-related activities and other crimes threatening community safety,” as reported by the Fiji Sun. Its slogan will be: ” Recognise, Remember and Report.”

The website features links to every Pacific country’s police page, as well as a “report now” button that leads to a Microsoft Form. It prompts the user to offer the suspect’s name or nicknames, their appearance and features, occupations, transport and a specific address, on top of describing the activity.

“Phase two” will reportedly include the ability to upload photos and videos as evidence.

It comes after the AFP announced a new office in Bogota, Colombia, alongside Colombian, Mexican, US, Interpol and Pacific forces, with a focus on disrupting supply lines. It would serve as an intelligence source for Pacific officials at one of the key entrances and exits of the narco highway.

New Zealand will send a liaison officer there “before Christmas”, Chambers said.

Military presence
Chambers said military officials from across the world were crawling at the summit.

“[One] thing that has been a particular focus this week is the coordination that needs to occur across all maritime activity,” he said.

“So, besides the Australian Navy, here we have the French Navy, the Mexican Navy, the Colombian Navy.”

However, he said that the Republic of Fiji Military Forces (RFMF), which has partnered with the Fiji Police for the country’s primary counter-drug taskforce, were absent.

Fiji police are currently investigating the death of known drug pusher Jone Vakarisi, who was beaten to death in a military prison. Military officers have also reportedly patrolled streets in Fijian drug hotspots without police present.

Tudravu has continuously maintained that his officers are in control of all counter-drug operations in the country.

It is unclear whether the Australian and Fiji police, who co-convened the summit, extended an invitation to the military.

RNZ Pacific has asked the Fiji Police and the RFMF for comment.

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

New Zealand’s government is increasingly eager to promote the buy-in of Pacific nations for closer Defence Force integration in the region, amid concerns about militarisation of the region.

The security environment has been shifting rapidly, and regional defence is becoming more complex, leaving Pacific Islanders wondering if their “Ocean of Peace” is slipping out of their grasp.

In recent months, the defence and police forces of Australia and New Zealand have been increasing cooperation with counterparts in Pacific countries — including Fiji, Tonga, Samoa and Vanuatu — in efforts to combat transnational crime, especially the illicit drug trade.

• READ MORE: Other NZ defence policy reports

But as a number of Pacific Island countries weigh up signing major bilateral treaties or agreements with the likes of Australia, China and the United States, New Zealand has been steadily pushing Pacific regional defence cooperation on a number of fronts.

The communiqué from last October’s South Pacific Defence Ministers Meeting (SPDMM) in Chile is instructive.

The SPDMM — which involves New Zealand, Australia, Chile, Fiji, France, Papua New Guinea and Tonga — notes the leadership role New Zealand has taken on better coordinating regional defence architecture.

The member countries agreed to push for a defence advisor from their collective to be embedded in the secretariat of the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), whose secretary-general Baron Waqa attended the Chile meeting and appeared to support closer integration.

While the advisor position is yet to be established, the SPDMM is surging ahead with a range of new regional defence initiatives, including developing the Pacific Response Group, under which defence personnel from Australia, Fiji, France, New Zealand and PNG work together to support coordinated humanitarian assistance and disaster relief responses across the Pacific.

Social licence
A briefing from the March joint meeting of the Defence and Foreign ministers of Australia and New Zealand, emphasised how they aim to promote “the sense of integration through Pacific defence forces’ and to “enhance the sense of Pacific forces meeting Pacific security needs”.

It also highlighted a keenness to “get more links between SPDMM and PIF so that these voices are heard directly by the region”.

“The briefings reveal New Zealand’s role in integrating and aligning Pacific defence forces alongside a considerable anxiety about regional social licence,” Pacific historian Marco de Jong said.

He said the language being used “speaks to a programme of influence and public relations, calibrated to downplay criticism that New Zealand is contributing to the militarisation of the Pacific”.

A representative with Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era, Maureen Penjueli, who is also a long time advocate for Indigenous rights in the region, said there had been a lack of consultation with the wider Pacific Islands region about the new defence tack.

“We’ve seen so much occupation by those in the defence interests area. For example, the Australian National Security College takes a very primary seat at the Pacific Islands Forum on security. We’ve got competing interests, which is the Fusion Centre that’s in Vanuatu,” Penjueli said.

“When you add more and more players to this regional architecture that already has enough players on defence and security, it complicates the governance structure in a way. Who does it respond to? Who is it answerable to?

“It does not go through the rigour of national consultations, consultations with civil society around some of these bigger significant shifts around defence and security.”

Long-standing partner
New Zealand is a long-standing contributor to Pacific regional initiatives, and its Defence Force is well valued in the region, especially in responding to disasters, humanitarian needs, transnational crime and maritime security threats, and also including in training support.

New Zealand’s Defence Minister Chris Penk, who replaced Judith Collins in the role since March’s 2+2 Ministerial Meeting with Australia, said that New Zealand always sought to adapt its work with Pacific partners to their context, culture and operational needs.

He told RNZ Pacific that in order to support closer cooperation between Pacific militaries, members were also looking at a SPDMM Status of Forces Agreement.

“This would provide a common legal framework for personnel to deploy into each other’s countries more easily, strengthening our collective ability to respond to maritime security challenges as well as humanitarian and disaster relief events.”

Asked if New Zealand is contributing to militarisation of the Pacific Islands, Penk said Pacific partners had warmly welcomed the country’s continued presence and partnership in the region

“The New Zealand Defence Force contributes to regional responses where it is agreed that defence force personnel and assets should be involved, including humanitarian assistance, maritime domain awareness, fisheries patrols, and search and rescue operations.

“As a Pacific military, we are proud to work alongside our Pacific partners to help respond to the challenges facing our region.”

‘Ocean of Peace’
Penjueli warned that militarisation of the region was escalating against the wishes of most Pacific Islands people.

Making things more complicated, she said, was the growing number of security treaties and agreements that Island countries were being drawn to.

She said they were no longer just about defence or security inter-operability, and often included development and economic dimensions, arrangements that “entangled” Pacific countries into wide ranging commitments beyond traditional military and security ties.

Penjueli worried that the interests of the Island countries themselves were more than ever being buried under broader geopolitical jostling.

“We were told that this is to ready the region in an anticipation, to contain China, and we’re told that this is about the drug trade and the drug war that’s taking place.

“Yet for the Pacific, climate change or the climate crisis, remains our significant issue around security. So, I think the agendas are very different.”

At their last leaders summit, PIF countries signed up to the Blue Pacific Ocean of Peace Declaration, formally committing the region to peace, sovereignty, and climate justice.

However, Penjueli said being a true ocean of peace required demilitarisation and de-escalation — something which she suggested was not the direction that the defence-oriented governments of the region were heading in.

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

The French National Assembly has voted to allow “native” voters to take part in New Caledonia’s local provincial elections scheduled for next month.

However, the French parliament’s Lower House also refused to include their “spouses”, just like the Senate did two days earlier.

Amid debates in Paris on Wednesday evening (Thursday NZT), the vote to include people who were born in New Caledonia since 1998 came at an absolute majority of 386 in favour and 127 against.

• READ MORE: French Senate endorses change to New Caledonia’s ‘frozen’ electoral roll
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports

But the vote on this “organic bill”, only weeks ahead of crucial elections to be held on in the French Pacific territory, is still subject to the verdict of the French Constitutional Council.

French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu, who took part in the heated debates, said the main purposes of the partial “unfreezing” of New Caledonia’s electoral restrictions was to rectify “growing distortions” in New Caledonia’s electoral roll.

He said the restrictions were imposed as part of the implementation of the autonomy Nouméa Accord signed in 1998 (since referred to as the “frozen” electoral roll).

But since 1998, due to demographic changes, the proportion of “native” people (from all ethnic groups) has grown from seven percent to 17 percent — an estimated 10,500 people.

‘Small step’ but ‘major’
Lecornu reacted to the vote to include “natives”, saying even though it could be regarded as a “small step”, it was a “major step forward” and a “victory for good sense”.

But the French Lower House’s vote failed to endorse another amendment regarding the “spouses” of qualified voters and whether they could also be included in the “special electoral roll” (specifically designed for provincial elections).

The vote on this specific topic was one vote short (164 against and 163 in favour).

The “spouses” category includes about 1700 people who are married to qualified voters — either by legal marriage or by way of a civil union pact (what the French civil status refers to as PACS) for a minimum period of five years.

Pro-independence FLNKS MP Emmanuel Tjibaou, during debates, repeated that New Caledonia’s electoral roll could not be modified “without the agreement of the colonised people” (the indigenous Kanak population) and that a prior “consensus on a comprehensive agreement” was required.

Talks in view of such a comprehensive agreement were mooted by Lecornu, after the crucial elections to be held on 28 June 2026.

The French PM also promised that a comprehensive agreement on New Caledonia’s political future would be finalised “by the end of this year”.

Tjibaou assurance
Tjibaou, during debates, assured that his pro-independence camp remained engaged in view of the announced post-elections discussions, sometime in July.

However, for the pro-France side (parties that wish New Caledonia to remain a part of France), the inclusion of natives but not of the “spouses” was mainly regarded as “disappointing” and “insufficient”.

An emotional pro-France MP for New Caledonia, Nicolas Metzdorf (Les Loyalistes), during debates on Wednesday, said even though he was “very happy for the natives of New Caledonia” — “for us, this is far from being enough”.

“You are the shame of the Republic, you are the shame of New Caledonia”, he lashed out at French MPs.

He warned that since the “spouses” were still denied the right to vote at those local elections, his party would not take part in the announced talks with the French government after the poll and that they would now wait until the next French Presidential elections in 2027.

“We have nothing left to expect from this government”, he told the House.

Local reactions
New Caledonia’s Senator Georges Naturel (Les Républicains, rightwing), who was the mover of the motion in the French Parliament, hailed the lawmakers’ vote (both in the Senate and the National Assembly), saying the inclusion of “natives” was “a gesture of justice and democratic consistency”.

However, he remained cautious on the upcoming verdict from France’s Constitutional Council, saying the legal framework was “narrow”.

One of the leaders of moderate pro-independence group “UNI” (Union Nationale pour l’Indépendance, which split from FLNKS in 2024), Victor Tutugoro, said this was a “wise decision” on the part of French MPs, because it was in keeping with the spirit of the 1998 Nouméa Accord.

Speaking on behalf of the moderate Wallisian-based Éveil Océanien party, Milakulo Tukumuli said he was rather satisfied with the outcome of the vote, because “it is totally in keeping with our position”.

The very issue of modifications to New Caledonia’s conditions of eligibility for voters was perceived as one of the main triggering factors that led to riots in May 2024, causing 14 deaths and more than 2 billion euros (NZ$3.9 billion) in material damages, a drop of 13.5 percent in the local GDP, as well as thousands of unemployed due to the destruction of hundreds of businesses.

Due to the riots, New Caledonia’s provincial elections have been postponed three times since 2024.

Those elections are crucial in the sense that they will choose new members for New Caledonia’s three provincial assembles (North, South and the Loyalty outer islands) and then, proportionally, will determine the makeup of the territorial Congress and its “collegial” government, as well as its president.

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

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

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”.

The French Senate has endorsed proposed changes to New Caledonia’s restricted electoral roll to allow “native” people to vote in next month’s local elections.

The proposed changes relax current vote restrictions enforced under the Nouméa Accord, signed in 1998, a situation often referred to as the “frozen” electoral roll.

The relaxing measure concerns an estimated 10,000+ voters, who were born in New Caledonia since 1998 and have since reached the voting age of 18.

• READ MORE: Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports

The measures, initially perceived as a way to protect against any dilution of the indigenous Kanak voters, only concerned about 8 percent of the population.

But as time went by, it was now barring 17 percent, French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu told French Senators on Monday evening Paris time.

He said this growing proportion infringed on France’s principles of universal and equal suffrage.

After hours of debates in Paris, the vote on Monday was 304 in favour and 20 against.

Obtained a pledge
Over the past few weeks, Lecornu held more talks with New Caledonian politicians from all sides of the spectrum, and said he had obtained a pledge that after the 28 June 2026 provincial elections, everyone would come back to the table and resume comprehensive political talks concerning New Caledonia’s future status.

He said the talks would start as soon as July 2026 and would have to bring an outcome “before the end of the year”.

Yes to ‘natives’, no to ‘spouses’
But the Senate did not approve of another amendment which aimed at extending the “unfreezing” of New Caledonia’s electoral roll to “spouses” of qualified voters.

The inclusion of those who are regarded as spouses was aimed at those who had been married (or entered into a French Civil Union pact) there for at least five years and latest estimates showed this concerned between 1500 to 1800 people.

New Caledonia’s Senator (Les Républicains, right-wing) Georges Naturel, who was the mover of the motion, admitted himself that this additional clause for “spouses” would potentially expose the text to a censure from the French Constitutional Council.

New Caledonia’s other Senator Robert Xowie (pro-independence FLNKS) warned of yet another attempt of “passage en force” which would probably make the provincial elections campaign “even more radical”.

The proposed changes to New Caledonia’s electoral makeup come less than six weeks ahead of crucial elections in the French Pacific territory.

The provincial elections are scheduled to be held on 28 June and, based on proportional representation, they will determine not only New Caledonia’s three provincial assemblies (North, South and the Loyalty Islands), but also the territorial Congress, its local government and its president.

Lecornu: Status quo would sow seeds of fresh violence
Taking the floor on Monday before the Senate, Lecornu stressed that not changing New Caledonia’s electoral rule “cannot be a solid base for the future”.

Lecornu said not doing anything would potentially sow the seeds of fresh violence in New Caledonia.

Earlier attempts to change New Caledonia’s status under the French Constitution, in May 2024, have led to insurrectional riots, which caused 14 deaths and over 2 billion euros (abot NZ$3.9 billion) in damages, as well as thousands of jobs lost due to the destruction of hundreds of businesses.

Lecornu said his government’s Bill was meant to offer New Caledonia’s political stakeholders — both pro-France and pro-independence — a “balanced” compromise.

But this reform for “natives” still has many hurdles to pass.

On Wednesday (local time), the French Lower House, the National Assembly, which is divided and less likely to approve the French Organic Bill, is also to vote on the same text.

On April 2, the National Assembly rejected an earlier attempt to change France’s Constitution to implement the outcome of talks held in July 2025 (Bougival talks) and in January 2026 (Matignon-Oudinot talks). The process was proposing to create a “State” of New Caledonia and a correlated “Nationality”, all under the French framework.

Mixed feelings from New Caledonia’s polarised Congress
A few hours earlier on Monday in Nouméa, New Caledonia’s Congress was also convened at the request of the French government.

The meeting was also dedicated to the Organic Bill later debated in the Senate.

The request was to provide French lawmakers with a snapshot of the parties’ views regarding the text.

The sitting lasted hours in Nouméa and, once again, it was the reiteration of each party’s stance on the proposed changes to the electoral roll conditions of eligibility. The final vote reflected a polarised landscape, with each party camping on their respective positions.

On the pro-France side, most were in favour of opening the vote to the “natives”, but many regretted that the same could not be done for their spouses.

“Which country in the world is barring its own children to choose their local representatives? None,” an indignant pro-France Rassemblement group leader Virginie Ruffenach said.

“Not now,” replied UC-FLNKS group leader Pierre-Chanel Tutugoro, who said the electoral roll was “a fundamental pillar of (New Caledonia’s decolonisation process, as enshrined in the (1998) Nouméa Accord”.

Tutugoro said this could not be modified outside of a wider political agreement.

The final vote in the Congress on the inclusion of “natives” reflected those divisions: 25 in favour (including pro-France Rassemblement and pro-independence UNI [Union Nationale pour l’Indépendance]), 14 against (pro-independence Union Calédonienne-FLNKS [Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front]) and 13 abstentions (pro-France Les Loyalistes).

More pre-election local moves on the local front
Meanwhile, over the weekend, the four main components of the pro-France block announced a pact to contest the upcoming provincial elections as a united front.

These are Sonia Backès (Républicains Calédoniens), Nicolas Metzdorf (Génération NC), Alcide Ponga (Rassemblement — Les Républicains) and Gil Brial (Mouvement Populaire Calédonien).

In a joint statement, they have announced they have chosen the “general interest”, based on common candidates.

“Together, we share the essential: our indefectible attachment to France, civil peace, democracy and institutional stability,” they wrote.

“On 28 June, the choice will be simple: between division that paralyses and union that builds”.

At a media conference held on Friday, May 15, FLNKS leader Christian Téin said they remained open to talks with other parties.

He said there was a “will to build our country with all voluntary groups”, including in New Caledonia’s Southern province (where the capital Nouméa is located and traditionally perceived as pro-France).

Security reinforcements to arrive soon: French High Commissioner
Speaking to local Radio Rythme Bleu on Monday, France’s High Commissioner in New Caledonia Jacques Billant said preparations were currently being made in preparation of the French Pacific territory’s provincial elections.

“My priority as High Commissioner is that the elections take place in a serene atmosphere so that every political force can campaign in the best possible conditions and that each and every voter can exercise their civic right”.

He said the French Ministry of Interior (Home Affairs) “will allow reinforcements for New Caledonia. They will arrive gradually starting mid-June”.

“We’re talking about over 300 gendarmes who will arrive to reinforce the 2000 police force and gendarmes already deployed.”

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