A coalition led by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has announced formation of a parallel government in Sudan, further cementing the country's territorial split between army-held and RSF-held regions. Paramilitary leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo ("Hemedti") will head a 15-person council with Abdel Aziz al-Hilu, head of the SPLM-N rebel group, as deputy. The African Union urged member states to not recognize the new administration. The RSF-led government wants to rival the Port Sudan-based army-led transitional government, which installed a prime minister in May, former UN official Kamil Idris.

At least 17 people were killed in an armed attack on a bar in El Empalme, a small town north of Ecuador's port city of Guayaquil July 28—three days before US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Neom visited the country and signed a deal to fight organized crime and illegal migration. The deal includes training for Ecuadoran security forces in the US and collaboration on border security.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly told his ministers this week that he will seek cabinet approval for a plan to fully occupy the Gaza Strip. According to reports in the Israeli media, several ministers said Netanyahu used the term "occupation of the Strip" in private conversations describing his plan. One anonymous official was quoted as saying: "The die is cast—we are going for a full occupation of the Gaza Strip." Referring to IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, who is said to oppose such plans, the official added: "If the chief of staff doesn’t agree, he should resign." (ToI)

Amnesty International on July 28 called on Syria to investigate abductions of Alawite women and girls, and bring perpetrators to justice.

Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International's secretary general, said that the Syrian authorities must "act swiftly and transparently in locating missing women and girls, bringing perpetrators to justice, and providing affected families with timely, gender-sensitive and credible information and support."

The DC-based Syrian Emergency Task Force condemned the unlawful detention, torture and abuse of Syrian refugees in Lebanon, which it says has resulted in at least 40 deaths. Since 2014, Hezbollah and complicit Lebanese forces have arrested hundreds of Syrian refugees—particularly supporters of the Syrian Revolution—and sentenced them in unfair military trials, despite repatriation efforts by Syria's new government.

The ideological enforcer of MAGA-fascism in American higher education (just met with craven capitulation by Columbia and Brown University) is the Trump regime's Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism. Purporting to act on behalf of Jewish students, the Trump regime simultaneously attacks policies to promote campus diversity. This replicates the historical function of anti-Semitism—setting up Jews to take the hit for for the oppressive policies of (overwhelmingly) non-Jewish rulers. The perverse fascist pseudo-anti-fascism of the Trump regime has now become anti-Semitic pseudo-anti-anti-Semitism. This cynical feigned opposition to anti-Semitism is especially dangerous when actual anti-Semitism is very much in evidence—not least by the Trump regime itself, over and over! Yet the ever-more egregious manifestations of Jew-hatred are increasingly weaponized by the political right—and ignored or even normalized by the ostensible "left." In Episode 289 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg takes some encouragement from the growing ranks of Jewish voices breaking with the pro-Israel consensus to protest the Gaza genocide—while being clear in drawing the line against anti-Semitism.

Several United Nations agencies on July 28 condemned the use of starvation as a weapon of war, as malnutrition rates in Gaza spike under Israeli siege. During the UN Food Systems Summit Stocktake taking place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Secretary-General António Guterres stressed: "Hunger fuels instability and undermines peace. We must never accept hunger as a weapon of war."

Guterres' statement follows Israel's decision to permit a one-week scale-up of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip. UN agencies welcomed the easing of aid restrictions and so-called "humanitarian pauses" in the ongoing bombardment; however, as emphasized by UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher: "This is progress, but vast amounts of aid are needed to stave off famine and a catastrophic health crisis."

The International Criminal Court (ICC) on July 24 convicted two Anti-Balaka militia leaders, Alfred Yekatom and Patrice-Edouard Ngaissona, for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the Central African Republic (CAR) between 2013 and 2014. Yekatom was sentenced to 15 years in prison, while Ngaissona received a 12-year sentence.

The ICC found that Yekatom and Ngaissona led a campaign of violence targeting Muslim civilians in retaliation for months of looting and violence carried out by the Muslim-led Séléka rebel coalition, which had seized power in 2013. The convictions include charges of murder, intentionally attacking civilian populations, forcible transfer, torture and other inhumane acts, and persecution.