US Press
Washington reads Israel's new investigations and America's sanctions on the ICC
Graphic: Times of Palestine
Original Reporting
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Two accountability stories moved through the American papers on Thursday, pointing in opposite directions: Israel's military opened criminal investigations into two of the war's most documented killings, and the United States sanctioned the president of the court that issued the arrest warrant for Israel's prime minister.
The New York Times reported the military's decisions on its Middle East file — criminal investigations into the killings of Hind Rajab and of Gaza medical workers, transferred to the military police — and added the sentence Palestinian readers will weigh: such investigations have rarely led to convictions. Times of Palestine reports that account separately today, along with the three aid-worker files the same office closed.
The Hill carried the International Criminal Court's response to the latest American designations, which the court called a "flagrant attack" on its independence. That story, too, has its own report on this site.
The Iran war, and what it is costing#
Washington's Iran coverage has turned to money and endurance, and that is where its Palestinian relevance now sits.
The New York Times reported the United Arab Emirates' total embargo on transactions with Tehran — the Emirates being Iran's most important regional trading partner — and, in a separate piece, described how the US Navy is quietly shepherding tankers through the Strait of Hormuz. The Washington Post covered the Emirati decision as a response to missiles fired toward its territory.
The Post and the Times both reported American debt passing $40 trillion, and both named spending on the Iran war among the causes.
The Hill quoted Senator Rick Scott saying the president will have to resume full war with Iran, and its own analysis column read Trump's declaration of an economic "D-Day" as frustration rather than strength almost six months into the conflict.
The Palestinian stake in that argument is straightforward: an administration this absorbed by Iran has little attention left for the Gaza plan it announced, and the phase-two obligations sit unenforced while the news cycle looks east.
Israel's other front, reported from Damascus#
Axios published the Syrian foreign minister, Asaad al-Shaibani, saying Israel's strike on the Abu al-Duhur airbase was unjustified and that he had told Israel his government was not helping Turkey build up a military presence there.
It is a reminder of how the region's files interlock. The same government that says its Gaza campaign answers a security necessity is now bombing a state its own American ally is trying to stabilise, and explaining both in the same language.
