By Maryam Qarehgozlou

Over the past two years, tens of thousands of civilians—overwhelmingly Palestinians—have been killed, maimed, starved, or displaced, not only by bombs and bullets, but by speeches, vetoes, arms licenses, financial donations, intelligence sharing, and media propaganda.
   This is not merely the story of one war or one regime. It is the story of a transatlantic and global network of politicians, billionaires, lobbyists, and ideologues who have actively aided and defended genocide in Gaza and fueled wars elsewhere—from Iran and Yemen to Venezuela and beyond.
   Through direct military support, diplomatic shielding, economic pressure, and rhetorical dehumanization, these war-mongering actors have helped transform international law into a hollow slogan and mass killing into an acceptable tool of policy.
    As 2025 draws to a close, here is the list of figures—across governments, parties, and continents—whose actions, remarks, and advocacy materially contributed to wars and mass killings this year.
   They are the ones who planned, choreographed, enabled, and facilitated war crimes, and then used their power and influence to conceal them.

Donald trump
   If there is a chief warmonger of this year, US President Donald Trump occupies that position with little to no competition.
   His record on Gaza alone, where over 71,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, have been killed by the Israeli regime, is a case study in how genocide becomes state policy.
   Trump openly promoted plans to remove Palestinians from their homeland, brushed aside Israel’s relentless violations of the ceasefire, and framed genocide as a strategic necessity.
   Beyond Gaza, Trump’s warmongering extended across continents.

     His so-called “war on drugs” against Venezuela functioned as a thinly veiled «regime-change» operation aimed at embezzling the country’s massive oil reserves.
   In West Asia, he engaged in direct and unlawful confrontation with Iran, including dastardly attacks on its nuclear sites, while offering Israel unconditional backing for its military aggression against the Islamic Republic, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Palestine—both militarily and diplomatically.
   Under Trump, war was not a failure of diplomacy; it was its intended outcome.

Benjamin Netanyahu
   Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stands as one of the most enduring institutional warmongers in modern history, and it only become worse this year.
     His rule has been defined by endless war—most catastrophically in Gaza, tens of thousands of women and children have been killed under his command, but also across the occupied West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and through repeated escalations with Iran.
   Beyond Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen, he ordered an unjustified and illegal military aggression against the Islamic Republic of Iran in June this year, which led to the martyrdom of over 1,000 people.
   Netanyahu’s vision extends beyond immediate battlefields.
   His rhetoric and policies have consistently aligned with expansionist ideas associated with “Greater Israel,” signaling ambitions of occupation and domination beyond Palestine.
   Civilian death, under Netanyahu, is not collateral damage—it is a governing tool.

Itamar Ben-Gvir
   Few political figures in the world embody open, unapologetic warmongering as clearly as hawkish Israeli minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
   Even after Israel was forced into a ceasefire with Hamas in October, Ben-Gvir immediately demanded a return to full-scale war, warning Netanyahu that restraint itself was dangerous.
   He has explicitly called for the full occupation of Gaza, the complete halt of humanitarian aid, and the forced migration of Palestinians—policies that meet every legal definition of ethnic cleansing.
   His statements that Gaza should be “flattened” and that negotiations are a “terrible mistake” reveal a man for whom extermination is not an unintended consequence but the objective.
   Inside Israeli prisons, human rights groups describe his policies against Palestinian abductees as a continuation of the war by other means—through torture, medical neglect, and systematic dehumanization.
   He not only backed the regime’s aggression against Iran but also celebrated it.

Keir Starmer
   UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer represents a more sanitized, technocratic form of Western warmongering—one that hides behind legal language while enabling mass killing.
   Under his leadership, the UK licensed more military equipment exports to Israeli-occupied territories in three months than the previous Conservative government approved in four years.
   Between October and December 2024, the Labour government approved £127.6 million worth of single-issue military export licenses to Israeli-occupied territories.
   The total value of military equipment exports approved under the Conservative government for 2020-2023 was approximately £115 million.
   Starmer’s government also allowed British intelligence infrastructure to be used directly in Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.
   Royal Air Force (RAF) surveillance flights from Cyprus mapped the destruction of Gaza hundreds of times, turning Britain into an operational partner rather than a passive observer.