A UN report released Oct. 11 documented Israeli attacks on healthcare facilities and medical personnel in the Gaza Strip in violation of international human rights law, calling the attacks war crimes and crimes against humanity. The report—written by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel—also condemned Israeli treatment of detainees, citing instances of abuse, torture, sexual assault, and arbitrary detention.

With Lebanon under bombardment and the world awaiting Israel's response to the Iranian missile attacks on its territory, fears mount that Iran's nuclear facilities could be targeted—which, in addition to being an environmental disaster in its own right, could represent the crossing of a moral threshold toward the use of nuclear weapons. So two theaters of the world conflict—the Middle East and Ukraine—now constitute a looming nuclear threat. Meanwhile, the other horsemen of the apocalypse continue their relentless advance—climate change, cyber-based disinformation and the ultimate replacement of humanity by artificial intelligence. In Episode 246 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg looks for glimmers of hope in emerging signs of human resistance—such as the East Coast dockworkers' strike, which is demanding a ban on all automation at the ports.

Iran launched scores of ballistic missiles into Israeli territory on Oct. 1, in what it described as an exercise of its "legitimate right to self-defense under the UN Charter." The attack came hours after Israel announced a ground incursion into Lebanon, and as UN experts warned of the dire consequences of regional hostilities.

In the first CounterVortex meta-podcast of February 2018, we noted the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists' decision to advance the minute hand of its Doomsday Clock to two minutes of midnight, citing the threats of nuclear weapons, climate change and "cyber-based disinformation." The clock was most recently moved to 90 seconds to midnight in January 2023, in light of the Ukraine war—the closest it has ever been. The clock did not move forward in 2024, despite Israel crossing the genocidal threshold in Gaza—a conflict now spreading to Lebanon, with potential to ignite the entire Middle East and even the world. The threat of Iran being drawn into the conflict could bring its patron Russia nose-to-nose with Israel's patron, the United States. This comes just as Vladimir Putin has announced a revision to Russia's nuclear weapons doctrine, allowing a first strike if its territory is attacked even by a non-nuclear state that is backed by a state with nuclear weapons. This appears to add frightening credibility to the mounting nuclear threats from Moscow. All this as the "normal" functioning of the capitalist system continues to compel the apocalypse. The some 50 left dead by Hurricane Helene in the US South are among hundreds killed in extreme weather events around the world in recent days—obvious signals of global climate destabilization. The multi-faceted systemic crisis portends imminent human extinction.

UN officials on Sept. 26 warned of a rapidly worsening humanitarian crisis in Lebanon as death tolls mount from Israeli air-strikes. Secretary-General António Guterres told the Security Council:  "Hell is breaking loose in Lebanon and we should all be alarmed by the escalation." The warnings came just as Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu arrived in New York for the UN General Assembly. Human Rights Watch one day earlier called for urgent UN action, reporting that some 1,600 Israeli strikes have killed at least 558 people, including 50 children, and injured thousands in the span of two days. The UN's Refugee Agency revealed that some 90,000 Lebanese residents had been displaced in the span of 72 hours.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) stated Sept. 18 that the simultaneous detonation of thousands of communication devices across Lebanon and Syria violated customary international law. Thousands of pagers exploded the day before, killing 12 and injuring more than 2,000 people. Walkie-talkie explosions the following day killed an additional 25 and injured at least 600. The devices were evidently part of the Hezbollah communication network. Israel is widely believed to be behind the explosions, but has not commented.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused Lebanon and Cyprus of violating the human rights of Syrian refugees with indirect financial support from the European Union (EU). In a report released Sept. 4, HRW detailed how both countries have intercepted and forcibly returned refugees to Syria in a coordinated effort to prevent them from seeking asylum in Europe.

A fresh round of Gaza ceasefire negotiations got underway in Doha, Qatar, on Aug. 15. The aim is to reach a deal to bring an end to Israel’s more than 10-month-long war in the Gaza Strip and secure the release of the estimated 115 Israeli hostages still held by Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups from their Oct. 7 attacks into Israel last year. Forty-one of the hostages are believed to be dead, and the recorded death toll from Israel's military campaign has now reached over 40,000, according to health authorities in Gaza. That's roughly 2% of Gaza’s population—or one out of every 50 residents—that has been killed.