Issue 8 - Beginning Of the End
Good morning and welcome to the eighth EPYU issue.
This newsletter exists to amplify truth, challenge erasure, and center Palestinian voices. Here's what they don’t want you to see this week:
Quick News Roundup
As of June 20, the death toll in Gaza has risen to 62,614 Palestinians since October 7, 2023, according to the latest counts. Israel continues to target civilians, often striking those waiting for aid. On June 20 alone, 60 people were killed while waiting for humanitarian assistance. In the days prior, the numbers were similarly devastating—72, 33, 80, and 20 killed on consecutive days. Since the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) resumed aid distribution in late May, 397 people have been killed and over 3,000 injured while seeking aid.
In a terrible move, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) issued a statement this week accusing armed men allegedly affiliated with Hamas of executing and torturing GHF-affiliated workers—actions it said may amount to war crimes. The statement drew criticism for failing to condemn GHF itself, in contrast to earlier UNRWA comments. OHCHR has called for an investigation and accountability from authorities in Gaza.
Meanwhile, central and southern Gaza remain under a communications blackout following Israeli attacks. UNRWA communications director Juliette Touma said that telecommunications are now being used as a weapon of war, targeting civilians by isolating them from the outside world.
In Egypt, authorities detained and interrogated over 200 international activists who arrived in Cairo to join the Global March to Gaza—a grassroots convoy intended to reach Rafah via Tunisia. Activists, including many French nationals, were reportedly held without food or water. Critics have accused the Egyptian government of hypocrisy and repression.
In the U.S., a federal judge has ordered the release of Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate and legal permanent resident, from immigration custody. Khalil, a prominent voice in pro-Palestinian protests, had been arrested under a rarely used law targeting foreign nationals considered adverse to U.S. foreign policy. Judge Michael Farbiarz found no evidence that Khalil posed a threat or flight risk and raised concerns that his detention may have violated his First Amendment rights. The White House has announced plans to appeal.
Morning Read
Manufactured Victimhood
In modern warfare, victimhood carries weight. It shapes public opinion, influences diplomacy, and can shield a state from accountability. But what happens when a powerful military actor uses the language of suffering to justify its aggression?
A 2021 study in Political Psychology found that Israel’s use of victim narratives is not a natural response to trauma, but a calculated political strategy. Israeli leaders invoke victimhood more often during low-risk conflicts and much less during times of real existential threat. For example, during the 2012 aerial assault on Gaza, Operation Pillar of Defense, victim claims were used twice as frequently as during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, which posed a far greater danger.
Why? When survival is truly at stake, governments focus on military mobilization. But when the threat is limited or one-sided, victimhood becomes a political tool. It is used to justify disproportionate violence, rally domestic support, silence international criticism, and present aggression as reluctant self-defense. These are not spontaneous expressions of grief. They are what the authors call “victim claims,” carefully crafted appeals meant to gain public recognition and moral immunity. In Israel’s case, this strategy is deeply embedded in national discourse. Holocaust memory, siege mentality, and existential fear are repeatedly reactivated to serve political goals.
This approach supports a larger war-driven agenda. By presenting itself as constantly under threat, Israel normalizes militarization, sustains occupation, and shapes global perception. Overwhelming force is portrayed as necessary and even virtuous. So when a nuclear-armed state with total air superiority claims to be the victim of the people it occupies, ask yourself: is this grief, or is it strategy?
Victimhood is not always about harm. Sometimes it’s about power.
In Culture & Heritage
In Silwan, Occupied Jerusalem, residents are resisting ethnic cleansing not only with protests, but with paint. I Witness Silwan is a community-based art project transforming homes under threat of demolition into canvases of resistance — murals of eyes, local martyrs, symbols of liberation — all watching, all remembering.
Their work is both cultural defense and political education, confronting Zionist myth-making and settler tourism. “We turn walls into voices and streets into stories that passersby must reckon with,” they say.
Since October 7, violence and displacement have escalated, but so has the art, spreading globally through murals, banners, projections, and campaigns. As Gazan artist Ayman Alhossary put it: “We are one body, from Jerusalem to Gaza.”
Read about Witness Silwan here.
Education Corner
This week, EPYU’s Instagram covered: How Israel uses their citizens as human shields, all the while accusing resistance of the same thing. What Iranian sites were attacked, and what it could mean if there is a leakage. What does it mean for Israel to be the only nation in the Middle East to own a nuclear weapon?
Today’s Deep Dive
Why would anyone celebrate missiles flying over Israel? Haaretz has a theory: it’s because the world is “repellent” and loves death. Of course. It couldn’t possibly be because Palestinians and others across the region are living through one of the most documented genocides of our time, while the world cheers on their annihilation or changes the channel.
In this op-ed, I respond to Linda Dayan’s hand-wringing over the “barbaric” reactions to Iran’s recent strike on Israel. I unpack the grief, history, and grotesque imbalance of power that she conveniently glosses over. No, the people clapping weren’t celebrating death. They were celebrating the fact that, just for once, they weren’t the ones under the rubble.
Spoiler: missiles may not discriminate, but apartheid states do.
Read today’s deep dive on our Substack blog here.
Recommendations
Attend: Every Sunday at 14:00 in Gothenburg, a demonstration at Gustav Adolfs Torg.
Watch: AJ+’s Bisan Owda’s It’s Bisan From Gaza, I’m Still Alive series.
Free: Enjoy flyers_for_falastin demonstration flyers! Print at home or support your local library and show off at protests and demonstrations! Download here.
Discover: A Virtual Tour of the Museum of the Palestinian People (MPP). Discover the Nakba and Diaspora section as well as the Occupation and Resilient People sections.
Until Liberation,
Nightlock, EPYU.