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Israel’s military has been calling doctors working inside Gaza’s al-Shifa Hospital, where its forces has been carrying out a raid. One doctor recorded his conversation. Here’s what he told the Israeli army.

“From the river to the sea, Israel will be free.”

OK, that is not the way it is supposed to go, is it? But at this moment of war and mass death, this proposition is worth reflecting on: Palestine cannot be free without Israel – or at least the Israelis – being free. True freedom between the river and the sea can only be achieved by breaking free from the chains of settler-colonialism but also the narrow bounds of the nation-state.

Before I explain further, let me get into the current debate over the slogan “river to the sea”.

When most Israelis, and no doubt a significant number of Palestinians, hear the phrase “river to the sea,” they imagine it in exclusivist terms. This is not surprising.

The zero-sum understanding of the nation-state – a specific territory under the exclusive control of one national community, has been the determinative communal identity for at least four centuries. Its logic is as simple as it is violent: if this territory belongs to my group, it cannot belong to yours.

Not every country’s identity and politics are based on this logic, but many are. Even countries with a long tradition of intercommunal tolerance can rapidly veer towards chauvinism.

The dynamics are even clearer in settler-colonial societies, where the settler community has to conquer the territory and subdue or expel the Indigenous population in order to build its own society. Genocide is more often than not a core experience of this process.

Israel is, of course, the quintessential settler-colonial society; yet it is also one whose maximalist impulse has yet to be realised. Palestinians have not been reduced to a manageably small minority who can be given formal political rights and then ignored, repressed and extracted without meaningful resistance – as was the fate of Indigenous Americans and Australians.

Given the violence inherent to colonialism, Indigenous resistance has naturally been imagined by settler societies as the mirror image of their eliminationist impulses and policies: We want them gone and will commit whatever violence is necessary to achieve that goal, so they must want and would do the same. Not surprisingly, when resistance does take the form of mass violence, as happened on October 7, that imagination is powerfully reinforced.

In this context, when most Zionist Israelis and Israel supporters hear the phrase “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”, they hear “a genocidal call to violence to destroy the state of Israel and its people to replace it with a Palestinian state extending from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea”. The fact that some Palestinians, particularly Hamas, have leaned hard into a violently exclusivist connotation of the phrase only serves to reinforce the idea.

But Hamas has never represented most Palestinians, despite the concerted efforts of the movement and successive Israeli governments (for very different reasons) to elevate its status. Its popularity in, if not control over, Gaza had waned significantly before the October 7 attack.

Into this deeply dysfunctional mix enters Representative Rashida Tlaib, currently the only Palestinian American member of the United States Congress. Along with her colleague Ilhan Omar and occasionally other members of “The Squad”, she has been the only national political voice advocating unhesitatingly for Palestinian rights.

For the vast majority of her congressional colleagues and most who describe themselves as “pro-Israel”, Tlaib’s use of the “river to the sea” slogan permanently marked her as an enemy of Israel. This was why, on November 6, she was officially censured by the House of Representatives.

Of course, Palestinians are not the only ones advocating a “river-to-sea” discourse. It has more or less been the official policy of the Israeli state since 1967, when it occupied the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights. Since then, every Israeli government has pushed for the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied territories, rendering the two-state solution an impossibility well before the Oslo peace process began.

Within the Israeli political space, from the far-right to the liberal left, the idea of sharing the land with the Palestinians as equals was never on the table.

The problem Israel has faced – like other settler-colonial powers – has been that Indigenous populations rarely if ever go gentle into that good night. Revisionist Zionism founder Ze’ev Jabotinsky would not have disagreed with Tlaib’s argument in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas attack, that the “suffocating, dehumanising conditions” of permanent occupation inevitably “lead to resistance”.

Exactly a century ago, in his 1923 manifesto, The Iron Wall, he advocated overwhelming Jewish power to turn Palestine from the river to the sea into a Jewish ethnostate precisely because of the inevitability of Palestinian resistance.

Regardless of whose side one is on, as long as the understanding of the “river-to-sea” discourse is filtered through the prism of the inherently colonial nation-state, one’s imagination of other possibilities will be highly constrained. And a far more expansive imagination is precisely what is most desperately needed today, not only to establish freedom, justice and peace for all the inhabitants of Palestine/Israel in the midst of the present horror, but to address humanity’s myriad existential problems, in which the Israeli occupation is deeply embedded.

In that regard, Tlaib’s argument – echoed by innumerable Palestinian activists and their allies, including many Jews – that “from the River to the Sea is an aspirational call for freedom, human rights and peaceful coexistence, not death, destruction or hate” represents a radically post-nationalist imagination of the future in Palestine and Israel. In fact, it is one that Palestinians on the front lines of the occupation, joined by Israeli and international solidarity activists, have been putting into practice, however tentatively and against overwhelming force, for decades, as anyone who is engaged in solidarity work in the occupied territories will attest.

To share a communal meal in Nabi Saleh or Bil’in, Atwani or the Jordan Valley after a day spent planting or harvesting olive trees, walking children to school, facing off against Israeli settlers, bulldozers or tear gas – and now to struggle daily together in the US and across the West, is to repeat an experience common to the Freedom Riders, the multi-racial African National Congress, and others who struggled for freedom.

Intercommunal solidarity and joint action towards a common future were central to all these struggles, as they pushed for imagining possibilities for sharing land, resources and power that previously seemed naïve, far-fetched or even dangerous.

Every day, more and more Jews and others join Palestinians in causing precisely the sort of “good trouble” that previously helped end – however imperfectly – apartheid in America and South Africa, and formal colonial rule across the Global South. There is a growing awareness, particularly among young people, that the stakes of Gaza extend beyond Palestine and Israel, representing the front lines of a battle for the future, for the possibility of humanity not being engulfed by growing violence and inequality as we veer towards ever more deadly threats to our collective survival.

For those still trapped inside binary identities and safely ensconced in an increasingly psychopathic global capitalist system, a free Palestine from the river to the sea – indeed, a truly free, equal and sustainable world – remains an unthinkable proposition.

But as the latest wave of violence confirms, Israel cannot be free until Palestine is free, and the price of that freedom is real decolonisation. This means the creation of a political order, whatever its name or form, in which all people living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea are accorded the same fundamental rights and freedoms.

In the face of the horrors of Gaza, we should be working to encourage real decolonisation not just in Israel/Palestine, but globally, before the violence engulfs us all.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Lawyers say Israel’s acts against Palestinians in Gaza amount to genocide, call on West to refrain from abetting crimes.

A group of lawyers representing Palestinian victims of Israeli attacks on Gaza have filed a complaint to the International Criminal Court (ICC), arguing that Israel’s actions amount to the crime of genocide.

Gilles Devers, a veteran French lawyer and the victims’ representative before the ICC, submitted the complaint to the prosecutor as part of a four-person delegation in the Dutch city of The Hague on Monday.

The civil society initiative could result in arrest warrants being issued against top Israeli politicians, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“It is clear for me that there are all the criteria for the crime of genocide,” Devers told Al Jazeera, adding that cases such as ex-Yugoslavia and Rwanda set the precedent against which the complaint had been submitted.

“So this is not my opinion, it’s the reality of law.”

Israel has made no attempt to hide the hallmarks of genocide, the group has argued, by cutting food and electricity to Gaza, attacking civilians and civilian infrastructure and using dehumanising talk that likens people to “animals”.

The group also collected the witness accounts of Palestinian victims whom they legally represent in court.

With mounting allegations of serious war crimes being committed in Gaza, Devers said governments that did not wish to be found complicit should refrain from backing Israel.

“Governments must choose which camp they are on, if they support human rights or genocide. They cannot give speeches about international law and human rights and then accept Israel’s attack without doing nothing,” he said.

Israel does not recognise the ICC, but Devers said that did not render the court ineffective.

In 2021, the ICC ruled that it has jurisdiction over grave crimes committed in occupied Palestinian territories, including potential war crimes committed by any party on the ground.

The initiative led by Devers is one in a number of lawsuits presented to the ICC in the past weeks.

On November 9, three Palestinian human rights groups urged the body to investigate Israel for “apartheid” as well as “genocide” and issue arrest warrants for Israeli leaders.

#JusticeForGaza, another initiative, aims to bring together diverse voices from international civil society, political leaders and representatives to petition the court. Prominent European politicians who have advocated for Palestinian rights, including Spain’s Ione Belarra and Britain’s Jeremy Corbyn, are among the more than 80 signatories of that petition.

Devers said the latest bombing of Gaza amounted to the most relevant crimes that the court had seen in decades.

“If the ICC does nothing, then it’s the end of the ICC,” he said. “We have sufficient proof for a mandate of arrest against Mr Netanyahu,” Devers said.

The ICC in March issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s alleged involvement in war crimes in Ukraine. While Putin rejected the verdict and did not surrender to the court’s jurisdiction, the decision was a symbolic moment and limited the Russian leader’s ability to travel internationally, including to attend international forums.

A plane was forced to return to an airport shortly after taking off when a horse got loose on board.

Around half an hour after leaving New York on its way to Belgium, the Boeing 747 cargo plane contacted air traffic control to inform them of the escaped animal.

“Yes sir, we are a cargo plane,” a pilot can be heard saying in an air traffic control recording obtained by Live ATC.

“We have a live animal, a horse, on board the aeroplane and the horse managed to escape its stall. We don’t have a problem as of flying-wise, but we need to return to New York.

“We cannot get the horse back secure.”

FlightRadar24 data showed the plane had climbed to 31,000ft before being forced to make a U-turn off the coast of Boston.

The audio showed it then dumped around 20 tonnes of fuel over the Atlantic, to ensure the aircraft was not above the safe weight limit for landing.

The pilot can then be heard asking air traffic control to request a vet is present when the flight lands at New York’s JFK airport.

‘We have a horse in… difficulty’

Upon landing, a control tower worker asked the pilot if they required assistance.

“On the ground, negative, on the ramp, yes,” he replied.

“We have a horse in… difficulty.”

The operator of the 9 November flight, Air Atlanta Icelandic, has been contacted for comment.

A tiny dog found alive by her owner’s body 10 weeks after the pair went missing on a hike showed “dedication and loyalty” to her owner, a rescuer has said. 

Rich Moore, 71, and his 12-pound Jack Russell terrier Finney disappeared on 19 August on a planned hike to Blackhead Peak in the Colorado mountains.

Rescue teams searched the treacherous and steep mountain between the peak and where Mr Moore’s car was parked without success, said Delinda VanneBrightyn from Taos Search and Rescue.

When a hunter found Mr Moore’s body on 30 October, Finney was still with her owner, despite having lost half her body weight.

Finney is believed to have survived by hunting small animals such as mice while also managing to avoid predators like mountain lions, coyotes and bears, Ms VanneBrightyn said.

“If that dog could talk it would be an amazing story,” she said. “We probably could not even believe the story the dog would tell.”

A recovery crew was flown in the day after Mr Moore’s body was found. Finney was taken to a vet for a check-up and treatment and is now with Mr Moore’s family, the sheriff’s office said.

Ms VanneBrightyn said they were very glad to return Finney to the family “because they have lost their loved one, but they still have this wonderful, loyal dog”.

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Ms VanneBrightyn, who has trained dogs for two decades, said Finney’s “magnificent story of survival” was a testament to her dedication and loyalty to Mr Moore.

“Jack Russells are pretty fierce, I have to say, they’re tough little dogs.”

The hunter found Moore’s body about 1.5 miles east of the peak, further away from his car, Ms VanneBrightyn said.

Mr Moore, who was an experienced hiker, died of hypothermia, Archuleta County Coroner Brad Hunt said.

Hypothermia can cause people to become disoriented and confused.