Contributing Writers

The United Auto Workers union has reached tentative agreements with Ford, Stellantis and General Motors, and workers are returning as they end a historic six-week strike against the Big Three automakers based in Detroit. Under the deals, workers will get major raises over the length of the contracts, as well as improved benefits. “They will be life-changing for some of the lowest-paid members of the union,” says legendary labor journalist Jane Slaughter, founder of Labor Notes.

We speak with Israeli historian Ilan Pappé about Israel’s escalating war on Gaza, as well as a leaked document from the country’s Ministry of Intelligence that suggests permanently expelling Gaza’s entire population to the Sinai Desert in Egypt. “This is a massive operation of killing, of ethnic cleansing, of depopulation,” says Pappé.

As Israeli tanks and other ground forces enter Gaza, we speak with a doctor in the besieged territory. Dr. Hammam Alloh is working at Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest in the area, and says tens of thousands of people have sought shelter to escape Israel’s heavy bombardment. He describes making harrowing decisions with rapidly dwindling supplies, such as not resuscitating a patient who went into cardiac arrest because of a lack of ventilators.

Amid growing alarm that more Israeli airstrikes will hit hospitals in Gaza, we speak with two physicians about Gaza’s medical system and Israel’s orders to evacuate key hospitals. Dr. Fadel Naim, head of orthopedic surgery at Al-Ahli al-Arabi Hospital in Gaza, says Israel has “bombed all around the hospital.” Dr.

We look at the reluctance in Congress to censure Israel despite growing grassroots pressure for a ceasefire in Gaza. “The narrative on both sides of the aisle is mostly about the right of Israel to defend itself,” says Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace. “Congress has bought, completely, the framing which says that any Palestinian that dies in Gaza … that’s all on Hamas.

We speak with Illinois Congressmember Delia Ramirez, one of the 18 members of the U.S. House of Representatives who have signed a resolution calling for an immediate deescalation and ceasefire in Israel and Palestine. “The only way we move forward is deescalating,” says Ramirez. “The aid that we send cannot be used to kill innocent lives. It’s unacceptable, it’s not moral, and I can’t stand behind that.

We bring you the voices of Jewish Voice for Peace and their allies who shut down the main terminal of Grand Central Station during rush hour Friday in one of New York’s largest acts of civil disobedience in 20 years to demand a ceasefire in Gaza. The multiracial, intergenerational movement says about 400 people were arrested, including rabbis, famous actors and elected officials from the New York State Assembly and Senate and the City Council.

A free speech battle is playing out on college campuses, as students, professors and others advocating for Palestinian rights across the United States are facing racist attacks and retaliation that threaten their safety and livelihoods. These attacks aim to suppress criticism of Israel and U.S. support of its actions in Gaza. This comes as the U.S. Senate has unanimously passed a resolution “condemning Hamas and antisemitic student activities on college campuses.

According to the latest update from the Israeli military, Hamas is still holding at least 229 hostages captured during its October 7 incursion into southern Israel. The group has stated that they will not release all hostages until Israel agrees to a ceasefire in Gaza. To discuss the release thus far of four hostages and prospects for future releases, we speak to Gershon Baskin, who helped negotiate a critical hostage exchange between Israel and Hamas in 2011.

Palestinian poet Ahmed Abu Artema was seriously injured in an Israeli airstrike on October 24 that also killed five members of his family, including his 12-year-old son. Artema helped inspire the Great March of Return, a series of nonviolent protests in Gaza starting in 2018 when thousands of Palestinians marched to the militarized fence separating them from their ancestral homes inside Israel, braving deadly Israeli sniper fire that killed hundreds and injured thousands more.

UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestine refugees, says it is close to running out of supplies in Gaza, where it is sheltering over 600,000 displaced Palestinians. Israel has claimed that they cannot allow fuel to enter the besieged territory because of the supposed risk of it being appropriated by Hamas.

A free speech battle is playing out on college campuses, as students, professors and others advocating for Palestinian rights across the United States are facing racist attacks and retaliation that threaten their safety and livelihoods. These attacks aim to suppress criticism of Israel and U.S. support of its actions in Gaza. This comes as the U.S. Senate has unanimously passed a resolution “condemning Hamas and antisemitic student activities on college campuses.

According to the latest update from the Israeli military, Hamas is still holding at least 229 hostages captured during its October 7 incursion into southern Israel. The group has stated that they will not release all hostages until Israel agrees to a ceasefire in Gaza. To discuss the release thus far of four hostages and prospects for future releases, we speak to Gershon Baskin, who helped negotiate a critical hostage exchange between Israel and Hamas in 2011.

Palestinian poet Ahmed Abu Artema was seriously injured in an Israeli airstrike on October 24 that also killed five members of his family, including his 12-year-old son. Artema helped inspire the Great March of Return, a series of nonviolent protests in Gaza starting in 2018 when thousands of Palestinians marched to the militarized fence separating them from their ancestral homes inside Israel, braving deadly Israeli sniper fire that killed hundreds and injured thousands more.

UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestine refugees, says it is close to running out of supplies in Gaza, where it is sheltering over 600,000 displaced Palestinians. Israel has claimed that they cannot allow fuel to enter the besieged territory because of the supposed risk of it being appropriated by Hamas.