Palestine

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Re: Palestine

Post by blindpig » Fri Dec 27, 2024 12:27 pm

Resist, My People, Resist: The Fifty-Second Newsletter (2024)

With a year marked by genocide and conflict almost behind us, we welcome the new year with struggle; may it bring us closer to a socialist world where the dreams of humanity can finally awaken.

26 December 2024

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Maysa Yousef (Gaza, Occupied Palestinian Territory), Alice in Palestine #1, 2021.

Dear friends,

Greetings from the desk of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.

Pain shudders through the arteries of global society. Day after day passes by as the genocide against the Palestinian people continues and the conflicts in the Great Lakes region of Africa and Sudan escalate. More and more people slip into absolute poverty as arms companies’ profits soar. These realities have hardened society, allowing people to bury their heads and ignore the horrors unfolding across the world. Ferocious disregard for the pain of others has become a way to protect oneself from the inflation of suffering. What can one do with the wretchedness that has come to define life across the planet? What can I do? What can you do?

In 2015, the Palestinian poet Dareen Tatour wrote Qawim ya sha’abi, qawimhum (Resist, My People, Resist Them), for which she was arrested and imprisoned by the Israeli state. A poem that can send you to prison is a powerful poem. A state threatened by a poem is an immoral state.

Resist, my people, resist them.
In Jerusalem, I dressed my wounds and breathed my sorrows to God.
I carried the soul in my palm
for an Arab Palestine.
I will not succumb to the ‘peaceful solution’,
never lower my flags
until I evict them from my homeland
and make them kneel for a time to come.
Resist, my people, resist them.
Resist the settler’s robbery
and follow the caravan of martyrs.
Shred the disgraceful constitution
that has imposed relentless humiliation
and stopped us from restoring our rights.
They burned blameless children;
As for Hadeel, they sniped her in public,
killed her in broad daylight.
Resist, my people, resist them.
Resist the colonialist’s onslaught.
Pay no mind to his agents among us
who shackle us with illusions of peace.
Do not fear the Merkava [Israeli army tanks];
the truth in your heart is stronger,
as long as you resist in a land
that has lived through raids and victory.
Ali called from his grave:
resist, my rebellious people,
write me as prose on the agarwood,
for you have become the answer to my remains.
Resist, my people, resist them.
Resist, my people, resist them.


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Choi Yu-jun (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea), Sleeping Beauty, 2018.

‘Hadeel’ in the poem refers to Hadeel al-Hashlamoun (age 18), who was shot dead by an Israeli soldier on 22 September 2015. This murder took place alongside a wave of shootings – many fatal – against Palestinians by Israeli soldiers at checkpoints in the West Bank. On that day, Hadeel came to Checkpoint 56 on al-Shuhada Street in Hebron (Occupied Palestinian Territory). The metal detector beeped, and the soldiers told her to open her bag, which she did. Inside was a phone, a blue Pilot pen, a brown pencil case, and other personal belongings. A soldier yelled at her in Hebrew, which she did not understand. Thirty-four-year-old Fawaz Abu Aisheh, who was nearby, intervened and told her what was being said. More soldiers arrived and aimed their guns at both Hadeel and Fawaz. One soldier fired a warning shot and then shot Hadeel in the left leg.

At this point, a soldier, claiming he saw a knife, fired several shots into Hadeel’s chest, who was photographed standing still moments before. After being left on the ground for some time, she was taken to a hospital, where she died of blood loss and multi-system failure resulting from the gunshot wounds. Human rights organisations such as Amnesty International and B’Tselem said that the question of the knife was moot since Hadeel had been the subject of an ‘extrajudicial execution’ (let alone the fact that testimonies about the knife were inconsistent). Tatour’s depiction of Hadeel’s execution in broad daylight is a powerful reminder of the waves of violence that structure the daily lives of Palestinians.

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Maksudjon Mirmukhamedov (Tajikistan), My Mustang, 2020.

A month after Hadeel was killed, I met a group of teenagers in a refugee camp near Ramallah. They told me that they see no outlet for their frustrations and anger. What they do see is the daily humiliation of their families and friends by the Occupation, which drives them to desperation. ‘We have to do something’, Nabil says. His eyes are tired. He looks older than his teenage years. He has lost friends to Israeli violence. ‘We marched to Qalandiya last year in a peaceful protest’, Nabil tells me. ‘They fired at us. My friend died’. Colonial violence bears down on his spirit. Around him young children are executed with impunity by the Israeli military. Nabil’s body twitches with anxiety and fear.

I have thought about those teenagers often, especially over the last year, which has been defined by the escalation of the US-Israeli genocide against Palestinians. I think of them because of the barrage of stories about young people like Hadeel and Nabil’s friend being killed by Israeli troops not just in Gaza, but in the West Bank.

On 3 November 2024, fourteen-year-old Naji al-Baba from Halhul, north of Hebron, came home from school with his father Nidal Abdel Moti al-Baba. They ate molokhia, his favourite, for lunch, and then Naji told his father he was going to play football. Naji and his friends played next to his grandfather’s shop. Israeli soldiers arrived and shot at the boys, hitting Naji in the pelvis, foot, heart, and shoulder. After the funeral, Nasser Merib, the manager of the Halhul Sports Club, where Naji practised, said that he had a strong right foot. ‘He was ambitious and dreamed of becoming international like Ronaldo’. That dream was destroyed by the Israeli occupation.

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Chuu Wai (Myanmar), When Amelie & Khin Meets Revolution, 2021.

The death of a young person is an unforgivable act. The death of a child is particularly hard to fathom. Naji could have captained the Palestinian football team. Hadeel could have become an extraordinary scientist. Their families look at the photographs that remain and weep. In Gaza, other families sit in tents with no way to remember their lost children, their bodies obliterated or missing and their pictures turned to ash in the rubble. So much death. So much inhumanity.

If time and struggle allow us, we will be able to properly awaken the dreams of humanity. But the night before dawn will be long and hard. We crave humanity, but we do not expect it to arrive easily. Small voices call out for a new world, and many feet march to build it. To get there will require putting an end to war and occupation and to the ugliness of capitalism and imperialism. We know that we live in pre-history, in the era before true human history will begin. How we long for that socialist world, where Naji and Hadeel will have a future before them and not just a brief interlude in our world.

Happy New Year. May it bring us closer to humanity.

Warmly,

Vijay

https://thetricontinental.org/newslette ... -new-year/

******

For First Time – Israel Admits to Assassination of Ismail Haniyeh
December 24, 2024

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Palestinian Prime Minister and head of Hamas's political bureau Ismail Haniyeh in Gaza. Photo: The Palestine Chronicle/File photo.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has confirmed, for the first time, that Israel assassinated Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.

In a threat to the Ansarallah movement in Yemen, Katz said in a speech on Monday, that Israel would “behead the leaders of the Houthis (Ansarallah – PC), just as we did to Haniyeh, Sinwar, and Nasrallah.”

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His admission at a Defense Ministry event comes five months after Haniyeh was assassinated in the room of the guesthouse he was staying in. He had attended the inauguration of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian a day earlier.

Katz’s Threats
“In these days, when the Houthi terror organization is firing missiles at Israel, I want to convey a clear message to them: We have defeated Hamas, we have defeated Hezbollah, we have blinded the defense systems in Iran, and damaged the (missile) production systems,” Katz is quoted by The Times of Israel as saying.



“We have overthrown the Assad regime in Syria, we have dealt heavy blows to the ‘axis of evil,’ and we will also severely strike the Houthi terror organization in Yemen, which remains the last one standing,” he continued.

Katz vowed that Israel would “strike strategic infrastructure and behead its leaders, just as we did to Haniyeh, Sinwar, and Nasrallah, in Tehran, Gaza, and Lebanon — we will do in Hodeidah and Sanaa.”

“Whoever raises a hand against Israel will have their hand cut off, and the long arm of the IDF (Israeli army – PC) will strike them and settle the score,” he reportedly threatened.



Key Negotiations Member
As the head of Hamas’ political bureau, Haniyeh was a key figure in the ceasefire negotiations with Israel.

In August, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) announced that technical investigations confirmed that the assassination of Haniyeh was carried out using a 7.5-kilogram projectile.

“This action was designed and implemented by the Zionist regime and supported by the criminal government of America,” the IRGC said in a statement.

Hamas said at the time that if assassinating Haniyeh “was one of Netanyahu’s goals to change the course of the negotiations, he is delusional.”

Further Assassinations
Israel has until now not publicly claimed responsibility for the assassination of Haniyeh and his bodyguard Wassim Abu Shaaban. Millions of people took part in funeral prayers in absentia for Haniyeh, across several Islamic and Arab countries and elsewhere.

Tel Aviv subsequently assassinated Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah in a Beirut bombing on September 27, followed by the killing of Haniyeh’s successor Yahya Sinwar in October in Gaza.

Israeli media outlets, including Yedioth Ahronoth and Channel 12, noted that Katz’s admission of Haniyeh’s assassination marked the first public acknowledgment of the operation by a senior Israeli official, the Anadolu news agency reported.

Katz’s statements come after a hypersonic ballistic missile strike on Saturday by the Yemeni Armed Forces, affiliated with the Ansarallah movement, which targeted an Israeli military site in Jaffa, near Tel Aviv.

Israeli authorities confirmed that their air defense systems, including the Iron Dome and David’s Sling, failed to intercept the Yemeni missile.

https://orinocotribune.com/for-first-ti ... l-haniyeh/

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Sheltering in Churches, Gaza’s Christians Face Another Christmas Under Fire
Posted by Internationalist 360° on December 24, 2024
Ruwaida Kamal Amer

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People react following Israel’s attack on the compound of the Greek Orthodox St. Porphyrius Church in Gaza City, October 20, 2023. (Omar El-Qattaa)

After repeated Israeli attacks on Gaza’s historic churches, displaced Palestinians mourn loved ones and the joy of holidays past.


As the second Christmas under Israeli bombardment draws near, nearly 1,000 Palestinian Christians are sheltering in the Greek Orthodox Church of St. Porphyrius and the Latin Monastery in the center of Gaza City. For more than a year now, since the beginning of Israel’s assault on the Strip, they have been living in these two churches with hardly any food, water, or electricity.

Among them is 47-year-old Ramez Suhail Al-Suri, a Palestinian Christian from Gaza City. Before the war, Al-Suri fondly recollected, Christmas was a joyous time for him and his family — his wife, Helen, and his three children, Suhail (14), Julie (12), and Majd (11).

“In Gaza during the holidays, we had a Christmas tree [at home], but we used to go to the market and buy new clothes, chocolate, and decorations so that the children would be happy,” Al-Suri recounted to +972. “We also would participate in church celebrations — we had a lot of joy in our lives.”

As soon as Israel began bombarding the Strip on October 7, Al-Suri and his family, along with other relatives, sought refuge in the Orthodox church. “We know that international and humanitarian laws prohibit the bombing of churches and mosques,” he explained.

But it quickly became clear to them that “the bombing was random and very violent.” When a massive explosion rocked Al-Ahli hospital on Oct. 17, 2023, just 350 meters away from where Al-Suri and his family were sheltering in the church, they could feel the impact. “It was a very terrifying and tragic moment — nearly 500 people were killed. We were worried about this indiscriminate bombing, [since] it was so near.”

Sadly, Al-Suri’s anxieties would be justified just two days later. “That evening, we put our children in their places to sleep [inside the church] and left them there,” Al-Suri told +972. “My wife and I went to see my sick father, who is 87 years old, and was sleeping in another building to be cared for and looked after.”

At around 8:30 p.m., an Israeli airstrike hit the church’s outer building, causing it to collapse and killing 18 people, including Al-Suri’s three children, and wounding several others. “At that moment, I could not believe what I was seeing. I tried to save my children but all three of them were in critical condition and died quickly,” Al-Suri said. “One of my children was lying on the [church’s] fence and I could not carry him, but the rescue teams helped.”

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People search for survivors in the aftermath of Israel’s attack on the compound of the Greek Orthodox St. Porphyrius Church in Gaza City, October 20, 2023. (Omar El-Qattaa)

The Oct. 19 strike would only be the first of multiple attacks on Gaza’s churches over the past year, despite their role as shelters for hundreds of displaced Palestinians, including young children, the elderly and the disabled. Less than two months later, in December, Israeli snipers killed mother and daughter Nahida and Samar Anton in the courtyard of the Latin Monastery, also known as the Holy Family Church, and injured seven others who rushed to help them. Then in July, the Israeli army struck the Holy Family School, killing four civilians, and targeted the Greek Orthodox church yet again in a separate airstrike.

Al-Suri’s children all attended the Holy Family School, “one of the most prestigious in Gaza,” he recalled with pride. “They had dreams for their future: Julie wanted to be a dentist, Suhail wanted to be an accountant, and Majd wanted to study business.” All three of them planned to compete in a bible memorization competition in the West Bank last year. “They memorized the book and were waiting for permits to leave Gaza,” he added. “Now they are reading the book in heaven.

“On [Oct. 19], I lost my entire life — my life now has no meaning. I lost three children in a few seconds and now their mother and I are alone,” Al-Suri lamented. “This is what the war on Gaza did to me.”

‘We hope that God will respond to us and stop this war’

The Greek Orthodox Church of St. Porphyrius in Gaza City is one of the oldest active churches in the world. Its foundation dates to the 5th century, while the current structure was completed in the 12th century, with stained-glass windows that boast ornate biblical depictions and thick walls that surround the tomb of St. Porphyrius, the first bishop of Gaza. The building is a legacy of Gaza’s colorful history, having witnessed periods of pagan, Christian, and Muslim rule.

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Palestinian refugees break their Ramadan fast at the Church of St. Porphyrius, a Greek Orthodox church in Gaza City, July 25, 2014. (Emad Nassar/Flash90)

Both the Church of St. Porphyrius and the Latin Monastery have also been anchors for Gaza’s dwindling Christian community, whose number hovered slightly above 1,000 before Israel launched its most violent and destructive assault on the Strip to date — and around three times as many prior to Israel’s imposed siege and blockade in 2007. Nor has this been the first year that they have served as shelters: both have historically opened their doors to Gazans of various faiths during the previous four wars Israel waged against the enclave since 2005. During Israel’s 2014 Operation Protective Edge, about 70 Palestinians sheltered in the Orthodox church for days.

Over the past decade and a half, Christmas represented a rare and cherished opportunity for many Gazan Christians to escape the blockaded strip and reunite with family in the West Bank. “We used to obtain approval from the Israeli army to visit the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem,” Al-Suri recounted to +972. “We used to feel the glorious holiday rituals in that city, with its prayers and celebrations.”

Al-Suri’s family would also visit friends and relatives in Ramallah and Jerusalem, where they would make the pilgrimage to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, believed by Christians to be the site of Jesus’ crucifixion and burial. Al-Suri took great care to organize such visits. “We only got those permits once a year,” he noted.

This Christmas in Gaza, like all other holidays that are meant to be joyous, is “dull, limited to prayer and supplication only,” Al-Suri observed. Helen, his wife, still struggles to comprehend her children’s absence. “She tries to be strong, but I see great sadness in her eyes, and I cannot blame her,” he said. Helen now suffers from high blood pressure and an enlarged heart muscle, which she manages with medication. To help her cope with the loss, Al-Suri recently enrolled her in online accounting studies at Al-Azhar University.

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Julie, Majd, and Suhail, the children of Ramez and Helen Al-Suri, who were killed in Israel’s airstrike on St. Porphyrius Church in Gaza City, in 2022. (Ramez Al-Suri)

As soon as he is able, Al-Suri plans to seek asylum for himself, his wife, and his parents — either in Australia, the United States, or Europe. His sisters live abroad and have attempted to help him get out of Gaza, an impossible task since Israel’s closure of the Rafah crossing in May.

“We hope that God will respond to us and stop this war,” Al-Suri pleaded. “What we have experienced of injustice, famine, displacement is enough, and I do not think the Palestinian people are able to bear more suffering.

“I try to help people through humanitarian work in all areas of the Gaza Strip and return to my normal everyday life, but I cannot: my children are in front of my eyes every moment.”

No safe places for worship or shelter

Among the Palestinian Christians who fled Gaza since October 7, 300 have ended up in Egypt. At the beginning of the war, Kamel Ayyad, a 51-year-old Palestinian Christian from Gaza City, was displaced with his family from the western part of the city to its center, and ultimately managed to escape to Egypt in November 2023.

After October 7, Ayyad quickly corralled his immediate family and relatives and, like Al-Suri and his family, took shelter in a house of worship — the Latin Monastery in the Zeitoun neighborhood. “We believed that it was a safe place and nothing would happen to us,” he told +972.

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People react following Israel’s attack on the compound of the Greek Orthodox St. Porphyrius Church in Gaza City, October 20, 2023. (Omar El-Qattaa)

Their problems, however, immediately compounded. “There was no food, no water, and no electricity. The church was trying to provide us with what we needed, but the situation was very bad,” Ayyad recalled.

Then, in mid-October, the massacre at the St. Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church sent Ayyad and other Christians who had been sheltering in the Latin Monastery into shock. Many of them arrived at the scene on foot to help with rescue efforts and check on family and friends: “Everyone went out to inspect the place. We found some body parts that we recognized. Among the dead was my cousin Lisa Al-Suri [32], her husband Tariq [37], and her son Issa [12]. An entire family was killed by the Israeli missile.”

For Ayyad, the bombing was a turning point. “It was a great tragedy — sadness spread in the churches,” he recalled. “Everyone became afraid and wanted to leave Gaza. The sight of [bodies] in white shrouds [affirmed that] this is a war that has crossed many lines and spares no one; there are no safe places of worship or shelters for the displaced.” Out of fear for his children’s safety, Ayyad made the decision to leave.

From Egypt, Ayyad, who used to work in the Holy Family Church, reminisces about past Christmas celebrations in Gaza. “December was considered the happiest month for us. Young people came to decorate the church, and the huge tree sat in the middle of the courtyard. Christians and Muslims shared in the celebration.

“Now the church is sad: the displaced are sleeping in the corridors, most of us have lost our homes and workplaces, and the bombing is still ongoing. Nothing has changed at all.” Despite all this, Ayyad says he still hopes to return to Gaza, one day — to “how it was before.”

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2024/12/ ... nder-fire/

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Tulkarem, Jenin under attack as Fatah bans Al Jazeera in West Bank

An Israeli drone strike and incursion has killed at least two Palestinians in the Tulkarem refugee camp

News Desk

DEC 24, 2024

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(Photo credit: AFP)

An Israeli drone strike targeted the occupied West Bank’s Tulkarem on 24 December after Tel Aviv announced a large operation in the city overnight – invading it with heavy reinforcements.

BREAKING | Israel bombs Tulkarem camp in the occupied West Bank amid ongoing invasion. pic.twitter.com/8akgMFbS9S

— The Cradle (@TheCradleMedia) December 24, 2024


At least one person was killed in the airstrike on the Al-Hamam neighborhood in Tulkarem camp, one of the city’s main refugee camps.

Meanwhile, Palestinian resistance factions announced targeting the Israeli forces invading the camp.

“Since the early hours of dawn, our fighters have continued to confront the occupation forces on the fighting fronts in Tulkarem camp, targeting the enemy forces and military vehicles with heavy volleys of bullets, achieving confirmed casualties,” the Tulkarem Brigade of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) movement’s Quds Brigades said in a statement on Tuesday.

Earlier, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades said its fighters “discovered a Zionist special force” infiltrating Tulkarem camp’s Hadaida neighborhood, and “engaged in fierce clashes with them using machine guns and explosive devices.”


⚡️Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades – Tulkarem:

With the help and strength of Allah, our fighters were able to detonate a powerful IED on a military bulldozer at the entrance of Nour Shams camp. pic.twitter.com/qIGQ8WxzCj

— Warfare Analysis (@warfareanalysis) December 24, 2024


Israeli troops raided Tulkarem camp at dawn on Tuesday. As a result, one Palestinian was shot dead by the army as they entered. The troops prevented ambulances from reaching the victim, according to WAFA news agency.

The bulldozers inflicted heavy damage on infrastructure, destroying public and private property and damaging the water network. Walls were knocked down, and shops were decimated.

“Violent confrontations took place in the camp, with the sounds of huge explosions being heard,” WAFA reported.

Clashes also persisted in the refugee camp of Jenin, where Palestinian Authority (PA) forces are waging a brutal Israeli-backed assault and siege against resistance fighters affiliated with the Quds Brigades.

The Quds Brigades’ Jenin Brigade has vowed not to surrender.

The PA’s Fatah party announced on Tuesday that it is preventing Qatari media outlet Al Jazeera from operating in the West Bank, accusing it of incitement against Ramallah.

“To all Al Jazeera employees working in Palestinian territories, we hope you reflect on your actions and resign from this biased channel that has destroyed and continues to destroy the Arab world,” Fatah said.

“Al Jazeera floods the media with lies, especially in Palestine, siding with a group of hostile mercenaries in the Jenin camp and trying to present them as heroes resisting the occupation,” the party added.

https://thecradle.co/articles/tulkarem- ... -west-bank

Israel 'severely weakened' war protocols to allow rampant killing of civilians in Gaza: Report

Just a few months into the war, the Israeli military killed 15,000 Palestinians and fired more than 30,000 munitions into Gaza

News Desk

DEC 26, 2024

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(Photo credit: UNRWA)

The Israeli army has “severely weakened” its protocols to protect civilians during military operations since the start of the war in Gaza, allowing mid-ranking officers to order indiscriminate strikes from the air force, according to a New York Times (NYT) investigation.

According to NYT, officers were granted the authority right after 7 October to risk the killing of up to 20 civilians in each airstrike. The order had “no precedent” in Israel’s military history.

“Mid-ranking officers had never been given so much leeway to attack so many targets, many of which had lower military significance, at such a high potential civilian cost,” NYT said, adding that under this order, “the military could target rank-and-file militants as they were at home surrounded by relatives and neighbors.”

Previously, Israeli strikes were approved only after officers found that no civilians would be hurt. In some cases, the military had granted them the leeway of risking up to five civilian deaths. Nonetheless, this did not stop brutally deadly strikes against civilians in previous conflicts.

An anonymous military officer told NYT that Israel changed its protocol because it believed it was existentially threatened.

“Israel severely weakened its system of safeguards meant to protect civilians; adopted flawed methods to find targets and assess the risk of civilian casualties; routinely failed to conduct post-strike reviews of civilian harm or punish officers for wrongdoing; and ignored warnings from within its own ranks and from senior US military officials about these failings,” according to the investigation.

NYT reviewed dozens of army records and conducted interviews with over 100 Israeli soldiers and officials, including those who had a hand in vetting targets for airstrikes and attacks.

As part of this loosening of protocol, Tel Aviv greatly expanded its set of targets for preemptive strikes and the number of civilians it could risk killing. As a result, nearly 30,000 munitions were fired into the besieged Gaza Strip in the first seven weeks – more than the next eight months of the war combined, NYT said.

“On a few occasions, senior commanders approved strikes on Hamas leaders that they knew would each endanger more than 100 noncombatants – crossing an extraordinary threshold for a contemporary western military,” it added.

This policy has been evident throughout the course of the war in Gaza. One attack in the northern strip in October this year resulted in the killing of at least 100 Palestinians.

In early June, Israel launched an indiscriminate rescue operation in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza to retrieve Noa Argamani and three other Israeli captives. Nearly 300 Palestinians were massacred in the process.

“The military struck at a pace that made it harder to confirm it was hitting legitimate targets. It burned through much of a prewar database of vetted targets within days and adopted an unproven system for finding new targets that used artificial intelligence at a vast scale,” the NYT investigation revealed.

Insufficient models to assess the risk of civilian loss were used repeatedly. In the first two months of the war, 15,000 Palestinians were killed by Israel.

At one point, the military leadership “briefly ordered that its forces could cumulatively risk killing up to 500 civilians a day in preplanned strikes.” This limit was removed two days later, allowing officers to order as many air strikes as they “deemed lawful.”

Israeli newspaper Haaretz confirmed in a report earlier this week that low-ranking officers have been given the authority to order unprecedently deadly attacks.

“We commanders and combatants are participating in the atrocity unfolding in Gaza. Now everyone must face this reality,” an anonymous officer told the newspaper.

The report also discussed the Netzarim corridor, where Israel has split Gaza into two in order to prevent the return of displaced civilians to the north, and where soldiers have established a “kill zone” in which anyone who moves is declared a terrorist.

Soldiers are “operating like independent militias, unrestricted by standard military protocols,” the report stated.

https://thecradle.co/articles/israel-se ... aza-report

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Israeli Occupation Army Sets Fire to Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital

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Zionist troops force Palestinian patients out of Kamal Adwan hospital, Dec. 27, 2024. X/ @swilkinsonbc

December 27, 2024 Hour: 8:02 am

‘These are Zionist war crimes committed amid international apathy and the total complicity of the U.S.,’ Hamas denounced.

On Friday, the Israeli occupation army stormed the Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia, in the northern Gaza Strip, and set its facilities on fire.

“The occupation army is now burning all the hospital’s operating departments while we are still inside. It evacuated all medical staff and displaced people, arresting several medical staff members. There are a large number of injuries among them,” said Husam Abu Safiya, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, shortly before communication was cut off with personnel inside the hospital.

Zionist troops raided Kamal Adwan Hospital just hours after surrounding it and ordering the evacuation of all patients and their companions. These individuals were gathered in the hospital courtyard, where they were searched, and many were arrested.

Videos circulating on social media show large plumes of smoke rising from the hospital, which has endured intense attacks by the Israeli army over the past two and a half months.


The text reads, “The moment when a Zionist army drone dropped several parcel bombs on the Kamal Adwan Hospital in the north of the Gaza Strip. Israel can drop bombs on hospitals every day in Gaza and it doesn’t even make the news in the Western media.”
These assaults are part of a harsh “scorched earth” offensive in northern Gaza that has resulted in more than 3,000 deaths and approximately 1,000 missing persons.

The Gaza-based Health Ministry confirmed that it lost communication with Doctor Husam Abu Safiya and stated that many patients were forcibly evacuated “at gunpoint” to the nearby Indonesian Hospital, which was destroyed a few days ago. Palestinian authorities also reported that Israeli forces forced patients to strip “in the cold” before transferring them to unknown locations.

“The occupation celebrates the end of a year of genocide by crowning its crimes with the destruction of Kamal Adwan Hospital,” the Health Ministry denounced.


To justify its actions, the Israeli occupation army claimed that the Kamal Adwan hospital served as a hideout for members of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas).

Meanwhile, this week, Israeli strikes put out of service the only three hospitals that were still partially functioning in the area, the Kamal Adwan, the Indonesian and the Al Awda.

On Thursday, around 50 people, including five doctors, were killed in attacks near Al Awda Hospital, which currently shelters approximately 350 people, including 75 wounded and sick individuals along with their companions, and 180 medical staff members.

“These are Zionist war crimes committed amid international apathy and the total complicity of the U.S. government, a partner in the genocidal campaign in Gaza,” Hamas denounced.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/israeli- ... -hospital/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Palestine

Post by blindpig » Sun Dec 29, 2024 7:06 pm

‘Israeli’ Forces Storm Kamal Adwan, Detain Patients, Threaten Director with Arrest
December 28, 2024

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'Israeli' army forces doctors and patients to head south on foot, half-naked, in the freezing cold. Photo: Palestine Chronicle.

Contact with the hospital has reportedly since been lost. Ambulances dispatched to the site have not returned, and the fate of those taken remains unknown.

The director of the hospital, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, has been reportedly threatened with arrest during the Israeli invasion of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, in the northern Gaza Strip.

In the early hours of the morning, Israeli forces surrounded the hospital with tanks under heavy fire from quadcopter-mounted machine guns.

Explosive devices planted around the facility were detonated at the northern gate and the back entrance, causing extensive damage and igniting fires in surrounding buildings.

At approximately 7:15 a.m. local time, Israeli officers used loudspeakers to order Dr. Abu Safiya, along with the injured, patients, and medical staff, to evacuate the hospital within 15 minutes, Quds News Network reported.

The Health Ministry in Gaza later confirmed that Israeli occupation forces forcibly removed 350 people from the premises, stripping patients, companions, and staff of their clothing in the freezing cold before transporting them to an undisclosed location.


Contact with the hospital has reportedly since been lost. Ambulances dispatched to the site have not returned, and the fate of those taken remains unknown.

Meanwhile, fires reportedly broke out in critical hospital departments, including the operating room, laboratory, and emergency ward, compounding the crisis.

Reports indicate that Israeli forces have specifically threatened to arrest Dr. Abu Safiya, claiming he is harboring Resistance fighters in the facility.

This assault is the latest in a series of repeated attacks on Kamal Adwan Hospital, which has been operating under dire conditions.

For months, the northern Gaza Strip has faced a total blockade, with Israeli forces preventing the entry of essential supplies, including medical equipment, water, and food.

Ongoing Genocide
The ongoing Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip, which began on October 7, 2023, has led to a humanitarian crisis of unprecedented scale. As the death toll among besieged and starved Palestinian civilians continues to rise daily, Israel is currently facing charges of genocide against Palestinians before the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, at least 45,399 Palestinians have been killed, and more than 107,940 have been wounded since the start of the war. The toll is expected to rise further, with at least 11,000 people still unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes across Gaza.

The war, which Palestinians call “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood,” began after a military operation carried out by Hamas on Israeli territory. Israel reports that 1,200 of its soldiers and civilians were killed during the initial attack on October 7. However, Israeli media have raised concerns that a significant number of Israeli casualties were caused by ‘friendly fire’ during the assault.

Human rights organizations, both Palestinian and international, have reported that the overwhelming majority of the casualties in Gaza are women and children. The ongoing violence has also exacerbated an acute famine, with thousands of children among the dead, highlighting the severity of the humanitarian disaster.

The war has displaced nearly two million people from their homes across Gaza, with the majority of the displaced forced into the already overcrowded southern region of the Strip. The population in Gaza remains trapped in the ongoing conflict, with little access to basic necessities such as food, water, and medical care.

https://orinocotribune.com/israeli-forc ... th-arrest/

The Politics of Betrayal: Jenin, Abbas, and the hellscape of Gaza
December 26, 2024

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Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas arrives at Jenin refugee camp on July 12, 2023, in the wake of the most wide-ranging "Israeli" military invasion of the camp since the Second Intifada. Photo: Thaer Ganaim/APA Images

By Abdaljawad Omar – December 24, 2024

The PA’s deadly campaign against the resistance in Jenin is breaking long-standing taboos against spilling Palestinian blood. It is also raising profound questions over the future of resistance in the face of the Gaza genocide.

For more than three weeks, the Palestinian Authority has waged “Operation Protecting the Nation,” a large-scale campaign to dismantle organized Palestinian resistance in the northern West Bank. The operation aims to disarm factions, composed primarily of young men in refugee camps, that have entrenched themselves in Jenin and its rural areas in the past couple of years. To date, the operation has claimed the lives of three Palestinians at the hands of the Palestinian Security Forces. Two PA officers have also been killed.

During the operation, a widely circulated video captured a young Palestinian fighter in Jenin confronting members of the Palestinian Security Forces (PSF), a moment heavy with the unresolved tensions fracturing Palestinian society. His voice—steady, grief-stricken, and accusatory—is the only sound we hear. It cuts through the scene as both a weapon and a lament, accusing the PSF of betrayal and mourning the disintegration of a shared national purpose. The young man shames the PSF, invoking the memory of “Israeli” soldiers who fell or were injured on the very road the forces now use to assert control over Jenin’s refugee camp—a searing reminder of battles waged by the resistance against an overwhelmingly powerful enemy. A masculine voice that calls on the PSF to find their manhood in refusing to fight the resistance, and in joining it. His words bristle with pain and urgency, as he accuses them of forfeiting their manhood and implores them not to force the resistance into using deadly force.

With a mix of fury and restraint, he points to the power of the Palestinian resistance in Jenin—improvised explosive devices lying in wait, not detonated, a calculated restraint meant to convey both strength and purpose, but also the choice not to explode them in the invading PSF. By the end of the clip, his voice rises to an anguished crescendo: “Ya Hayif,” he cries, a lament that reverberates with the weight of betrayal and loss, uttered in moments of profound disappointment and disbelief. The phrase Ya Hayif is used colloquially acrossBalad al-Sham to express deep sorrow, regret, or disappointment in the face of perceived wrongs.

Over the past decade, certain moments have laid bare the deep fractures within Palestinian society, but few have resonated as profoundly as the voice of Aseel Suliman. On November 20, 2020, in a searing two-minute broadcast, the local radio host unleashed a scathing critique of the PA decision to resume security coordination with “Israel”—a move that the minister of civil coordination, Hussein al-Sheikh, had incongruously hailed as a “victory for Palestine.” Suliman’s voice, trembling with indignation, channeled the frustration of a public long disillusioned by the PA’s attempts to reframe submission as triumph. Her words dismantled the hollow rhetoric, cutting through layers of political posturing with raw clarity. By the end of the broadcast, she reached for the poetry of Amal Dunqul, the Egyptian poet of heartbreak and defiance.

Dunqul in his poem “do not reconcile” conjures the specter of an Arab unburdened by shame, a figure who betrays the innocence of childhood memories and, after years of struggle, chooses the path of normalization with the enemy—a quiet submission dressed up as pragmatism. “Would my blood turn to water in your eyes?” he writes, the accusation ringing sharp and intimate. “Would you forget my clothes, soaked in blood? Would you drape yourself—over my blood—in garments adorned with silver and gold?” His words are unrelenting, a poetic autopsy of betrayal, probing the uneasy intersections of memory, dignity, and complicity. Although Dunqul’s “Do Not Reconcile” was written as an anthem against the looming specter of Egyptian peace with “Israel” in 1976, it has long since outlived its immediate context.

These moments of lamentation and shaming—whether in the anguished cry of “Ya Hayif” echoing through the battles of Jenin today, or in Aseel Suliman’s sharp critique of the hollow declarations of victory from the West Bank’s ruling elite—are saturated with layered emotions and entangled politics. They embody not just indignation but a deeper reckoning with loss, betrayal, and a collective yearning for accountability. It is within these spaces of raw confrontation that figures like Nizar Banat emerged, wielding piercing political analysis and rhetorical prowess to launch scathing diatribes against the Palestinian Authority. These are moments of collective introspection, heavy with the dread of asking, “What have we become?” and the uneasy recognition of a fragmented national body, the inability to fight back, and the complicated place of resistance in the contemporary landscape of Palestine.

On one level, these lamentations harbor a lingering hope: a belief, however fragile, that the agents of the PSF remain redeemable, that they can still be shamed into recognition of their complicity, they can be changed. On another level, these laments underscore the profoundly difficult choices confronting Palestinian fighters in Jenin and beyond—a stark reminder that to resist the PA is, at times, to resist one’s own kin. To fight back is to confront the self, and this confrontation lays bare the PA regime’s insidious ability to enlist the bodies of young men as instruments of its will. As one Palestinian from Jenin observed, “They embezzle us with some of our own flesh.”

This is a politics of intimate betrayal, where the lines of battle blur, and the fighters emerge from the same streets, speak the same dialect, yet wage war for futures that could not be more opposed. The power of the PSF does not lie in their operational capacity or the American training imparted in Jordan and Jericho. Their true power lies in the slow, methodical erosion of belief and trust in resistance—a process as deliberate as it is relentless. By sending young Palestinian men to face off against young Palestinian men, the PSF orchestrates a tragic theater of Palestinian blood spilled in battles where there are no winners. What unfolds is not simply a clash of arms but a grinding duel of endurance, a contest over who will yield first, who will step back, and who will refuse to go any further. Who will say, “Palestinian blood is not worth it.”

For many Palestinians, the specter of full-scale infighting is too devastating to justify, no matter how noble the cause, how urgent the need, or even how deeply cynical the motives might be. Yet the PA’s ability to command young men into battle—and for these young men to willingly confront their peers—reveals the unsettling power of cooperation at this fraught juncture. In Jenin, many of those targeted by the PA’s campaign are sons or relatives of PSF security members, themselves products of the same social fabric. Many hail from the very communities that identify with Fatah, the ruling party of the PA, blurring the lines between loyalty, resistance, and betrayal in ways that make the confrontation not just political but deeply personal.



The growing strength of cooperation

In the current political moment, one of the most disconcerting realities—and perhaps one of the clearest signs of a global moral decay—is the world’s inability, or unwillingness, to stop genocide. This is not merely the absence of action; it’s the quiet normalization of atrocity, even among those who claim solidarity with Palestine. But also the presence of mass-scale actions that have not yielded enough power to halt or pause “Israel’s” military machine.

“Israel’s” unyielding campaign against Gaza, its transformation of the strip into an apocalyptic ruin, is not just a military operation—it is a performance, a deliberate spectacle of cruelty. Supported unflinchingly by Europe and the United States, this devastation broadcasts a chilling set of messages: to the Arab world, a grim reminder of its impotence; to Palestinians, the insistence that resistance will meet unrelenting destruction; and to the so-called global south, a veiled warning that when the stakes rise, international norms and rules will be discarded, replaced by the unrestrained force of empire.

For Palestinians outside Gaza, the violence is not just endured—it is absorbed, pressed into their lives as though it were an immutable truth. Each child buried, each family obliterated, each home reduced to rubble becomes a reminder of their place in a world that refuses to stop the massacre and often enables it. With every cry from Gaza falling on deaf ears, every bullet targeting a doctor or nurse, and every social media post announcing another martyr, Palestinians internalize a cruel narrative: that they are disposable, their lives discarded long before their deaths. Palestinians are cast, unwillingly, into a tragedy that plays out on a loop, as if their suffering is both inevitable and eternal, and with every massacre they are reminded by those who seek to uproot the idea and practices of resistance:“Why did you dare and rebel?”

As the normalization of failure to stop the genocide takes hold, a perverse displacement of anger begins to fester. The rage that should be directed at the architects of monstrosity—”Israel”—increasingly turns inward, aimed at resistance itself, both as an idea and as a practice. Tufan al-Aqsa, the ‘Al-Aqsa Flood’ operation of October 7, is reframed as an uncalculated moment of madness, “Israel” cements its narrative of victory, and the PA seizes the opportunity to wield its power against the resistance who have dared to challenge the status quo. The dampening of belief in resistance, the erosion of trust in its possibilities, has unfolded to the point where resistance itself becomes the scapegoat, and the earlier wager by the PA to remain on the sidelines starts to pay off.

For over fourteen months, the world has watched the destruction of Gaza, followed by “Israel’s” success in neutralizing Hezbollah’s military and political capacity to lend support. This current moment paves the way for those who have long wagered on paralysis, like the PA, to finally act, and direct their muscle toward what remains of Palestinian resistance in the West Bank. The hellscape of Gaza—the pain, the trauma of a world unmade—has been met with an extraordinary global outcry. Loud voices spoke up, millions of students, activists, and ordinary people raised the stakes, media organizations tirelessly exposed “Israel’s” crimes, and the barbarism of sadistic “Israeli” soldiers was laid bare for all to see. And yet, none of it stopped the machine. The grinding inevitability of destruction continued, indifferent to the resistance, indifferent to the humanity it annihilates. But as the world watched, so too did Palestinians living within “Israel’s” domain—those whose survival has come to hinge on a fraught calculus, secretly placing their bets on cooperation as a means to endure. For them, survival means navigating the machine’s relentless gears, hoping to outlast its crushing weight, even at the price of such cooperation.

The transparency of betrayal

Long ago, one of the most frequently repeated injunctions employed to justify supporting Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) was the claim that he is “truthful.” Those who advanced this line emphasized a peculiar virtue: unlike his predecessors, Abu Mazen does not traffic in fantasies or performative political gestures. He is unabashedly committed to cooperation with “Israel”—he is honest about it, direct, and unapologetically one-dimensional in his approach. With Abu Mazen, what you see is what you get. But here lies the paradox: this “truthfulness” is not a virtue in the conventional sense but an honesty-in-betrayal.

It is as if Abu Mazen’s disarming candor in aligning with “Israel’s” interests functions as a peculiar ideological lubricant, one that smooths over the profound contradictions at the heart of his leadership. Here, “truthfulness”—a truthfulness understood not as integrity but as a cynical transparency—emerges not as a moral virtue but as a tool to obscure the extraction of financial surplus for family and cronies.

In this twisted economy, the very transparency of the regime becomes its concealment: the open admission of shortcomings, failures, and moral bankruptcy acts as a calculated strategy to shield itself from critique. What masquerades as disarming honesty is, in fact, a cunning choreography, aligning words seamlessly with policies and actions—a betrayal masked as coherence, a spectacle of confession performed to disarm dissent. Abu Mazen is not hypocritical, but exactly what he says he is.

Honesty, when wielded as a political tool, opens a world of inversions and lies. To be honest, in Abu Mazen’s sense, is to destabilize the very ground on which meaning rests. It is to invert values with the precision of a scalpel, turning courage into criminality, solidarity into sedition, and resistance into a threat against the collective.

This “honesty” functions not to illuminate but to obscure, creating a kaleidoscopic landscape where every truth morphs into its opposite. Such a strategy weaponizes candor; and here, Abu Mazen’s candor performs a curious function. Instead of being a nationalist leader who might in the future disappoint or betray the cause, his candid betrayal from the outset rewrites the very narrative of leadership and accountability.

By openly embracing a politics of complicity, Abu Mazen creates a paradoxical shield: betrayal, confessed and acknowledged, becomes a strategy to sidestep accountability altogether. Yet, for many Palestinians, this candor is strangely welcomed—a bitter relief in a landscape where the cyclical crushing of hopes has become an unbearable norm. Better, perhaps, to endure a leader who openly admits his capitulation than one who cloaks betrayal in the rhetoric of liberation—or, more tragically, a leader who genuinely seeks liberation, is willing to die for it, and yet is ultimately met with the same crushing disappointment.

This transparency, however, is not without its accomplices. It finds its first ally in the discourse of “realism” and “reality,” where the reality of a vicious and monstrous “Israel” protected by imperialism is used to dismiss questions of ethics or resistance as naïve. The second ally is an economic infrastructure finely tuned to consumerism, which operates as both a material and symbolic logic. This infrastructure does not merely shape the desires of a population but actively enforces the conditions in which submission appears as the only “rational” course of action, but also one that fulfills the desire to follow TikTok trends, to fall in love in a modern-day Mall, or open the doors to life where the heaven of consumer products is readily available. In this sense, betrayal is not just a political choice; it becomes a mode of existence, cloaked in the language of necessity and inevitability. But more than anything else, with Abu Mazen, there are no moments of pure political potentiality—no Tufan al-Aqsa, no breaches or transgressions that rupture the status quo and open horizons of liberation. Instead, there is a recurrent rhythm of complicity—a rhythm that, while costly, remains steady and stable, offering a grim predictability in place of transformative possibility.

Already in the very early days of “Israel’s” air campaign of destruction over Gaza, videos of Abu Mazen’s speeches and diatribes against the unrealism and madness of resistance made their way to TikTok. Over time, Abu Mazen’s logic will displace Sinwar’s breach of Gaza’s Envelope—a gesture that tore through the fabric of control, provoking the ensuing war. The quietism of Abu Mazen aligns not only with the machinery of occupation but also with a deeply ingrained fear, syncing with the subdued despair of Palestinians in the West Bank, Jerusalem, and within “Israel”. It is a politics that declares its own honesty through the very act of capitulation, a dialectic where paralysis and betrayal mask themselves as the only viable alternatives to chaos and annihilation.

Abu Mazen’s logic, hammered into the rubble by the bombs, begins to weave itself into the intellectual fabric, gaining traction as familiar refrains resurface. Palestinian intellectuals return to rehearsed critiques of the Axis of Resistance, calling into question its authenticity, decrying the self-interest guiding Iranian policies, and lamenting the supposed futility of armed struggle in generating political possibilities. Many of these intellectuals champion alternate “forms of resistance,” or, more insidiously, the quietism of submission. Meanwhile, others murmur of a Nakba more devastating than that of 1948—a quiet catastrophe unfolding in its own inexorable rhythm. The arguments pile up like debris: the invincibility of “Israel’s” military, fortified by unabashed support from Western ruling classes; the inevitability of subjugation framed as realism. The rhetoric folds back upon itself, disarming resistance not through brute force alone but through the erosion of its intellectual and moral ground, leaving silence not as consent but as the echo of a deliberate abandonment.

What was surprising was not merely that the PSF launched a new operation against what remains of the organized resistance in the northern West Bank, but the extent of intellectual, media, and political complicity that has accompanied it.

The operation has not just been tolerated—it is actively legitimized, often through critiques of the very foundations and logics of resistance itself. For many Palestinians, it was met with silence, a collective quiet that betrayed the absence of widespread protest or action, save for the immediate social circles surrounding the armed movement in Jenin. The bombs, the intellectual assaults, and the relentless psychological warfare—combined with “Israel’s” monstrosity and its success in containing the axis of resistance—have hollowed out the call to resistance. Its values, its affective architecture, and the emotional resonance that once unified a collective struggle now lie diminished, leaving behind a terrain marked by disillusionment and doubt. In this context, the stability and brutal clarity of betrayal seem preferable to the uncertainty of resistance.

Breaking the taboo

The inferno of Gaza has culminated in a moment where the breaking of norms feels almost natural. The once-firm taboo against direct confrontation between the PSF and resistance factions in the northern West Bank has disintegrated. High on its immediate success in demonstrating to Palestinians that cooperation ensures survival—for now—the PA now dares to march its forces into the heart of Jenin’s refugee camp. There, it guns down a key resistance leader, spilling the blood of a Palestinian child in the process, and vows to remain until control over Jenin and its camp is disarmed.

For years, among Palestinians—especially those committed to resistance—an unspoken rule prevailed: avoid internal infighting, above all the spilling of Palestinian blood. This principle, more than a mere abstraction, was a guiding ethic, even in moments of unbearable pressure. When the PSF surrounded Bassel al-Araj and his comrades, he could have fought back, engaging in a gun battle that might have turned the encounter into yet another tragedy of Palestinian against Palestinian. Instead, Bassel chose surrender, enduring arrest and torture rather than violating the fragile boundary that held together a fractured and embattled society.

This reflects the current moment, where “resistance,” both as a concept and a practice, has buckled under the crushing weight of “Israel’s” relentless monstrosity and its readiness to deploy the full force of its American-manufactured arsenal. The Palestinian Authority, ever eager to satisfy the demands of “Israel” and the United States, seems increasingly willing to gamble with the specter of internal civil war, if not with bloody civil war itself. It is prepared to spill Palestinian blood—not only to demonstrate the abilities of its counterinsurgency tactics but also to exploit the symbolic and moral gravity of the specter of fratricide, a weapon as potent as any in maintaining its hold on power. It chose to do so at a moment when resistance movements are in retreat, and the forces advocating for survival through cooperation are on the ascent.

This operation is undoubtedly risky, carrying the very real potential to backfire as internal fighting threatens to spiral, and the targeting of those cadres involved in the PSF operation—or those who ordered it—becomes both more palpable and, for many, more justifiable. The PA is wagering that, like Bassel al-Araj, the resistance and its cadres will choose to avoid internal bloodshed, opting for capitulation, even at the cost of arrest and torture.

Yet what is certain is that the long-standing taboo against spilling Palestinian blood—a fragile yet crucial moral boundary—has historically provided a buffer that protected both the ruling class and those seeking to challenge its authority. It has attempted to prevent family feuds and the intensification of internal contradictions between various political forces.

By crossing this line, the PA not only risks further eroding its legitimacy but also dismantles a shared ethical barrier that once restrained a descent into internal conflict. The PA has chosen to break this taboo at a moment when its logic of cooperation—bolstered by “Israel’s” monstrosity and the narrative of necessity—is at its peak. Yet this decision is not without peril; it risks complicating the PA’s grip on power in the West Bank, potentially deepening the very fractures it seeks to suppress. After all, an operation of this scale, like any form of active engagement, inevitably generates uncertainty, unraveling one of the facets that compels Palestinians to cling to the PA in the first place.

The longer the PSF operation drags on, the bloodier it becomes, and the greater the sacrifices it demands, the louder the bells of danger will toll for the ruling class in the West Bank. In such a landscape, the language of lamentation or shaming will falter under the weight of spilled blood. As the toll rises, cries of revenge will drown out appeals to restraint, transforming grief into a relentless demand for reckoning.

(Mondoweiss)

https://orinocotribune.com/the-politics ... e-of-gaza/

‘Israel’ Kills 5 Palestinian Journalists in Targeted Strike on Broadcast Vehicle
December 27, 2024

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Five journalists from Al-Quds Today channel were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Nuseirat. Photo: The Palestine Chronicle/via social media.

Five journalists from Al-Quds Today channel were killed at dawn on Thursday, December 26, in an Israeli airstrike that targeted the channel’s external broadcast vehicle in the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip, coinciding with airstrikes in various areas of the Strip.

In a statement, the channel mourned the five journalists and identified them as Faisal Abu Al-Qumsan, Ayman Al-Jadi, Ibrahim Al-Sheikh Khalil, Fadi Hassouna, and Muhammad Al-Ladah.

The channel said in a statement that the five were killed “while performing their journalistic and humanitarian duty,” describing the incident as “a crime added to the series of crimes committed by the occupation against Palestinian journalists.”

Al-Quds Today also broadcast a video clip showing its photographer in the central Gaza Strip, Ayman Al-Jadi, celebrating the birth of his first child, just hours before his death.

Eyewitnesses reported that a missile fired by an Israeli aircraft directly hit the external broadcast vehicle, which was parked in front of Al-Awda Hospital in Al-Nuseirat camp, resulting in the deaths of the five workers and the complete destruction of the vehicle.

The Gaza Government Media Office announced in a statement that more than 201 journalists have been killed since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023.

The Media Office strongly condemned the targeting, killing, and assassination of Palestinian journalists by the “Israeli” occupation.

It called on the International Federation of Journalists, the Federation of Arab Journalists, and all journalistic bodies worldwide to condemn these systematic crimes.

More Massacres
Meanwhile, Quds News Network reported that occupation forces launched a raid targeting a house in the Al-Sabra neighborhood, south of Gaza City.

The Civil Defense in Gaza stated that its crews had recovered the bodies of five dead and injured people from a building belonging to the Dahshan family, which was targeted by the occupation forces near Al-Nour Stadium in the Sabra area, south of Gaza City.

Five people were killed, and 20 others injured, in an Israeli bombardment of a house in the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood of Gaza City. Medics warned that the death toll could rise as many people remain trapped under the rubble.

A Palestinian casualty and other injured individuals arrived at the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital after the occupation forces targeted a group of residents on Al-Maghribi Street, east of Gaza City.

The occupation forces opened fire continuously from vehicles and drones toward the southeastern areas of the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood, southeast of Gaza City, coinciding with the sound of an explosion in the city.

Local sources reported an explosion following the bombing of residential buildings in Beit Lahia, in northern Gaza, and that the Israeli Air Force launched an airstrike targeting Jabaliya Al-Balad.

Sources added that casualties occurred as a result of the occupation bombing a house on the old Gaza Street in Jabaliya Al-Balad.

The Al-Awda Hospital reported that the occupation forces detonated a booby-trapped robot next to the hospital in Tal al-Zaatar, north of the Strip.

Additionally, local sources said that a doctor at Kamal Adwan Hospital was injured when Israeli occupation forces detonated a robot in front of the hospital.

Shrapnel from the explosion reportedly reached the surgical departments and patients’ rooms.

In the south, an Israeli helicopter fired on the city of Rafah.

Ongoing Genocide
Meanwhile, the Israeli genocide in the Gaza Strip continued with the death toll among starved and besieged Palestinian civilians rising daily.

Currently on trial before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for genocide against Palestinians, Israel has been waging a devastating war on Gaza since October 7, 2023.

According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 45,361 Palestinians have been killed, and 107,803 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7, 2023.

Moreover, at least 11,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.

Israel says that 1,200 soldiers and civilians were killed during the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation on October 7. However, Israeli media published reports suggesting that many Israelis were killed on that day by ‘friendly fire’.

Palestinian and international organizations say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.

The Israeli war has resulted in an acute famine resulting in the death of many Palestinians, mostly children.

The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly two million people from all over the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern region.

https://orinocotribune.com/journalists- ... t-vehicle/

******

‘Executions, sexual assault’: Eyewitnesses describe Israeli raid of Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital

Civilians who were either wounded or carrying white flags were executed on the spot by Israeli army forces during the hospital raid

News Desk

DEC 29, 2024

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(Photo credit: Lefteris Pitarakis/AP)

A new report by the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor has revealed the shocking conduct of Israeli army forces, including executions and sexual assault, during their recent storming of Kamal Adwan Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip’s Beit Lahia.

Euro-Med Monitor collected testimonies documenting crimes committed by the Israeli army during its storming of Kamal Adwan Hospital and surrounding areas in northern #Gaza, including deliberate killings, field executions, and sexual assaults on womenhttps://t.co/1jEYJVOa2A

— Euro-Med Monitor (@EuroMedHR) December 29, 2024


According to testimonies collected by the human rights monitor, Israel’s latest storming of the north Gaza hospital included deliberate killings and field executions, and sexual and physical assaults on women, including medical staff members and displaced civilians.

“These included detonating booby-trapped robots near several inhabited homes, causing their collapse and killing civilians inside. The crimes also involved Israeli soldiers executing civilians on the spot, some of whom were wounded, while others carried white flags,” according to the eyewitness accounts cited in the report.

Dozens of women and girls were detained and subjected to “severe abuse,” it adds. “This included beating them and forcing them to remove their hijabs and clothing.”

Those in and around the hospital were forced to flee outside northern Gaza at gunpoint. Dozens of people were abducted by Israeli forces during the raid, including Kamal Adwan Hospital director Hussam Abu Safia.

"I am a volunteer paramedic. I was staying in a house near Kamal Adwan Hospital with 11 civilians. Around 12:30 a.m. on Friday, we heard a vehicle at the door. I told those with me it seemed like the army was placing explosive robots. Looking out the window, I saw several robots in front of homes in the area," an eyewitness told the Euro-Med monitor.

The witness said the detonations began 30 minutes later as the group fled the house to find safety.

The last photograph taken of hospital director Safia before his abduction by troops circulated on social media on 28 December, showing him walking through a heap of destruction with Israeli tanks in front of him.


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Dr. Hossam Abu Safia, Director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, stands unarmed against Israeli tanks before his arrest. pic.twitter.com/xISNgD7QKP

— James (@kh_sohel32) December 29, 2024

Israeli forces stormed Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza on 27 December, evacuating people at gunpoint and setting the facility ablaze after brutal attacks on the hospital’s vicinity – which killed at least 50 in under 24 hours.

This comes as part of the unofficial implementation of the Generals’ Plan, which seeks to make northern Gaza uninhabitable through mass destruction, killing, and expulsion. Israel's goal is to completely empty out north Gaza and transform the area into an isolated military zone.

Israel’s war against the health sector in northern Gaza, which is part of this plan, aims to make the area unlivable.

The Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza has been destroyed for the most part and recently surrounded by Israeli troops. Officials say the hospital may not ever open again.

The Israeli army continued to launch attacks against hospitals in Gaza on 29 December, bombing the Al-Ahli (Baptist) Hospital and the top floor of Al-Wafaa Hospital in Gaza City. At least eight were killed in the strike at Al-Wafaa Hospital, according to Palestine Today's correspondent.

Over a dozen others have been killed across Gaza since dawn on Sunday.

https://thecradle.co/articles/execution ... n-hospital

PA denies killing of Jenin journalist, blames resistance as family reveals ‘authority shot her’

Palestinian journalist Shatha al-Sabbagh was shot dead in Jenin refugee camp as she was leaving the house with her family

News Desk

DEC 29, 2024

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(Photo credit: QNN)

Palestinian Authority (PA) security services denied on 28 December the killing of journalist Shatha al-Sabbagh in the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, despite a statement by her family blaming Ramallah.


The “heinous crime was committed by outlaws inside the Jenin camp,” PA security spokesman Anwar Rajab said, referring to Palestinian resistance factions inside the camp, namely the Jenin Brigade of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) movement’s Quds Brigades.

He also claimed Palestinian security services were not present in the area at the time.

The PA is currently waging an indiscriminate, Israeli-backed siege and assault against the Jenin resistance and its popular cradle inside the city’s refugee camp.

In a statement, Sabbagh’s family said it holds the PA responsible for “this full-fledged crime,” calling on local and international agencies to “immediately” probe the killing and holding those “involved in planning and execution accountable."


Sabbagh was shot dead on Saturday evening. Her mother said in an interview on Sunday morning that the family, including young children, left their house to head to a nearby grocery store when the gunfire began. She said they lay flat on the ground, but it was too late.

“My daughter is dead; stop the gunfire,” she recounted, screaming as the sound of bullets continued. Sabbagh was left to bleed out as the gunfire prevented anybody from approaching.

Her brother told local media in an interview that “the authority’s security services shot her,” adding that a sniper was deployed on the building facing where his family was. Sabbagh's brother-in-law and others have also refuted the PA narrative.


The PA officially announced the start of its siege and assault against Jenin on 14 December.

It said it aimed to restore order and root out the Jenin Brigade and other factions – which it refers to as “outlaws” and “Iranian gangs” – from the Jenin camp.

At least nine people have been killed, among them children, PA security forces, and commanders of the Jenin Brigade.

https://thecradle.co/articles/pa-denies ... y-shot-her

PA thugs are Sonder commandos

If somebody nuked Tel Aviv I'd shed no tears.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Palestine

Post by blindpig » Tue Dec 31, 2024 12:39 pm

Zionism’s Colonial Heritage and Transatlantic Reach
By Gerald Sussman - December 29, 2024

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[Source: blogs.timesofisrael.com]

Since the Six-Day War in 1967, the dislocation and suffering of the Palestinian people perpetrated by the U.S.-Israel colonial alliance has prompted questions about the sanity of both governments and exposed the racist underpinnings of Zionist propaganda. There are multiple intersections between the West and the Zionist movement that have led to the gradual century-old destruction of a people, the Palestinians, reaching the full realization of the genocide policy in 2023 in which the U.S. acts as its main material accomplice.

As a project co-founded by European Jewish leaders, with the encouragement of European and American evangelicals and the backing of the British state, Zionism emerged from an intense period of nationalism and colonialism in the late 19th century.[1] These twin forces rested on a bedrock of Judeo-Christian notions of white supremacy sanctified in biblical scripture that justified the subjugation of non-white peoples. Its “civilizing mission” impelled the British “mandate” over Palestine, then an almost wholly Arab territory, formally established from the spoils of the Great War and the demise of the Ottoman empire.

One of the prominent Zionists, Chaim (aka Charles, his publishing name) Weizmann, then a chemist and professor of some renown at the University of Manchester, approached the British government and helped procure in 1917 the “Balfour Declaration.” This document promised the Zionists a “national home” for the Jewish people in what would become a post-war League of Nations-sanctioned British-administered “mandate.” British state elites and Arthur Balfour himself, then foreign secretary and former prime minister, had specific interests in reaching this accord with the Zionists.

Image
Lord Arthur Balfour, center, in British Mandatory Palestine, with Vera and Chaim Weizmann (seated, at left), Nahum Sokolow and others in 1925. [Source: jns.org]

For Britain, the prospect of Eastern European and Russian Jews seeking exile in the UK during that troubled period was an unwholesome prospect for many if not most of the British elites. Balfour had made clear in his writings that in fact he looked down on Jews, Arabs and, in general, people of color, but found the possibility of an Anglo-Jewish alliance in the Middle East a potentially strategic asset of the empire.[2]

Despite the best efforts of leading Zionists like David Ben-Gurion, Ze’ev Jabotinsky, and Weizmann, Jewish migration to the “homeland” proceeded slowly. It was only after Hitler came to power that the pace accelerated, largely illegally, which alarmed not only the Palestinians and the British authorities but also other Arab countries and the Soviet Union, the latter two of which began to question the loyalty of their Jewish citizens. But even with a large influx of European refugees, the Jewish population of Israel in 1940 was still below one-third, making Zionist control at that point problematic.

With Jewish paramilitary support, Britain brutally suppressed the Palestinian uprising from 1936 to 1939. What followed was the first Nakba (Catastrophe) in 1947-1948, one of several, in which some 750,000 Palestinians were driven out of their homes, cities and villages. None of these earlier catastrophes, however, compares to the Israeli effort at a final solution to the “Palestinian problem,” an Arab nation that Israel has refused to formally recognize or even acknowledge.

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Scene from the Palestinian Nakba in 1948. [Source: yahoo.com]

Britain’s exhaustion as an empire by the end of World War II led to its decolonization throughout the world, including its control of Palestine, which it transferred to the UN General Assembly following the war. The Palestinian leadership refused to accept the Western-dominated UN’s unequal and irrational partition of the land favoring the new Jewish state. The utterance “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” called for a unitary state guaranteeing complete freedom for all its residents, i.e., not an exclusivist Jewish nation.

From the outset, the Zionist leaders assumed that an Israeli state would require an overwhelming preponderance and hegemony of Jews and, thus, Israeli governments have depicted the mantra as a threat to the Jewish state. Likud created its own a version of it into an election manifesto in 1977, calling for Israeli control of the whole of historic Palestine. Israel’s first prime minister and defense minister Ben-Gurion wrote that “a Jewish state on only part of the land is not the end but the beginning.” “‘From the river to the sea’ is just fine so long as it’s Israel’s sovereignty.”[3]

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Ben-Gurion [Source: reddit.com]
That formality was enacted in July 2024 when Benjamin Netanyahu’s government put forward a resolution in the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, foreclosing the creation of a Palestinian state, i.e., a two-state solution, predicated on an uncontested Jewish state stretching from the land west of the River Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea. There was not a single Zionist vote in opposition. Its rationale is always with reference to the historical persecution of Jews. Paradoxically, the Holocaust has been culturally appropriated and weaponized in service to the extermination desires of the praetorian Israeli state.

The 1948 atrocities directed upon Palestinians were severe enough to prompt Albert Einstein, Hannah Arendt, Sidney Hook, Seymour Melman, and other prominent Jewish-American leaders and intellectuals to denounce Israeli terrorism in a December 1948 open letter to The New York Times.

They described Herut, the right-wing predecessor to Likud, which carried out most of the murders and expulsions of Palestinians as a “terrorist, right wing, chauvinist organization” that is “closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties.”

By any contemporary human justice measures, the magnitude of crimes confers on Israel and its U.S. political backers and materiel suppliers the status of one of the most criminal states in modern history.

The U.S.-Zionist Alliance
In support of Gaza and West Bank apartheid (as well as in “green line” Israel) and IDF genocide, the U.S. and UK have not only provided the weapons of physical annihilation, they are also collaborating with their junior partner in the propaganda war of public disinformation and deception.

By now it has become clear to most people in the U.S. and UK that the provision of weapons to the apartheid state, including thousands of 2,000-pound bunker-buster and other bombs, precision-guided air-to-ground Hellfire missiles, and assorted other instruments designed for maximum destruction, is part of the effort to either entirely eliminate the civilian Palestinian population or force survivors into helpless refugees.

Aiding the crime, Britain’s military corporation BAE provides Israel with parts of the F-35 fighter jets along with “systems for naval drones, missile guidance and components in fighter jets used against Palestinians in Gaza.”[4]

Germany, a country that knows something about genocide, is the second largest external provider of weapons to Israel after the U.S.

What sustains the contemporary close political alignments of the U.S. and British governments with Israel, which has become a pariah state in most of the rest of the world? The first thing to look at is the role of the political class in these countries and how foreign policy is collectively constructed in the Middle East (West Asia) by the U.S.-led West to bring about the horrors in Gaza and the West Bank.

The genocide is organized on the ground by Israeli military, state technocrats, and right-wing politicians, but this is possible only through their relationship to the larger goals of sponsoring powers that work together toward shared, though not always identical, objectives in the region.

Originally the PR branch of the American Zionist Emergency Council, a war-time organization that focused mainly on the Jewish colonization of Palestine, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in more recent decades has waged a propaganda and financial war on any American politician not fully behind the U.S.-Israel strategic alliance.

Thanks in large part to activist online journalism and a few journalists in the mainstream media, such as in Al Jazeera, the Israel lobby has been exposed for its close ties to the American and British political and media elites. Mearsheimer and Walt lifted the veil on the lobby’s influence on and manipulation of American politics at a time when few academics or journalists were willing to touch the subject.[5]

Joined by the Anti-Defamation League, Christians United for Israel, and other groups in the Israel lobby, AIPAC developed a broad strategy of controlling public discourse in the U.S. mainstream media, public forums, universities, Congress, and the White House on Israel’s supposed common interests with America in the Middle East and pushing unconditional support for Israel itself.

The lobby has successfully colluded with U.S. foreign policy elites to steer the ideological framing of Israel away from the reality of its refusal to permit Palestinians an independent state, the illegal encroachment of Jewish settlements on IDF-occupied Palestinian territory, the unending evictions of Palestinians from their villages, and the massive arrests, ruthless treatment, and torture of Palestinian resisters, including thousands of children as young as ten and even younger.

The U.S. elections in 2024 were especially crucial for the pro-Trump Netanyahu government and its operatives in America. By mid-June, an AIPAC-affiliated super political action committee had spent $14.5 million to unseat Jamaal Bowman, a Democratic two-term incumbent congressman in New York’s 16th congressional district who had criticized Israel’s genocide in Gaza and called upon the U.S. government to cut military aid to that country.

AIPAC and associated Zionist groups are among the largest contributors to selected political candidates—from the White House down to state legislative races—who can be relied upon or simply bribed through major campaign contributions to act as influencers in the service of the Israeli agenda.

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[Source: abebooks.com]

According to its own website, AIPAC backed 362 pro-Israel candidates, and in each primary where it funded someone on the ballot, it won, while defeating 11 candidates critical of Israel.

The Zionist lobby was already active in earlier decades, helping to defeat the re-election efforts of Senators William Fulbright (1974) of Arkansas and Charles Percy (1984) of Illinois, along with House member Paul Findley (1982) of Illinois.

Former U.S. representative Pete McCloskey (1982) was targeted and defeated in his bid to become senator from California as was Adlai Stevenson III (1982 and 1986) in the race for governor of Illinois.

They and other politicians and government officials were culled by the lobby for expressing mild criticism of the one-sided, pro-Israel U.S. Middle East policy.[6] Much of the AIPAC $43 million war chest was spent on “filling television screens, stuffing mailboxes and clogging phone lines with caustic attacks,” causing Bowman to lose the primary to a pro-Israel Democrat, George Latimer.

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George Latimer, left, Jamaal Bowman, right. [Source: lohud.com]

The New York race had the largest pool of money any interest group had ever spent on a political contest and was one of several where AIPAC sought to unseat legislators deemed unfriendly to Israel. Cori Bush, another progressive Democratic incumbent, was also unseated in the 2024 primary for Missouri’s 1st congressional district with the help of AIPAC’s major financial contribution to her rival.

AIPAC and the United Democracy Project (UDP) thus have a dual character, not only lobbying for Israel but also in defeating left-wing candidates who oppose the Israeli genocide and the heavy hand of corporate power in American politics.

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Cori Bush, another victim of AIPAC. [Source: thegrio.com]

That linkage is important to recognize, as the apartheid system is directed against both Palestinians and the working class of the U.S. and all other nations. By March 2024, AIPAC’s super PAC, the UDP, and allied groups had already spent $30 million during the 2024 election cycle to unseat progressives critical of Israel. The amount spent for the full 2023-2024 cycle was expected to reach $100 million in support of Israel.

“AIPAC has become a fundraising juggernaut in recent years, raising more money for candidates than any similar organization this cycle.”[7] It is clear that the Zionist lobby had Kamala Harris under its supervision, as she acted listless in responding to the ongoing U.S.-backed Israeli genocide in Gaza and mass murders and terrorism in the West Bank.

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Kamala Harris [Source: jns.org]

Where does AIPAC get its money? PACs and Super PACs like AIPAC, created in 2020-2021, which is designated as a 501(c)4 social welfare organization, are not required to disclose their contributors, and the lobbying powerhouse prefers to keep this information under wraps. But according to a Jewish newspaper, The Forward, in 2023 its biggest funders included owners of professional sports teams, “heads of private equity firms; real estate titans; a Maryland congressman… the former CEO of Victoria’s Secret; the co-founder of the dance-exercise company Zumba; and the creator of Squishmallows,” a popular children’s toy.[8]

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Jan Koum [Source: thefamouspeople.com]

But as Bernie Sanders has pointed out, AIPAC is also being funded by corporations that are happy to support the defeat of progressive members of Congress who tend to stand up for both Palestinian rights and worker rights in America. Almost 60% of AIPAC’s money comes from corporate CEOs and other top executives from Fortune 500 companies. The largest single donor to United Democracy Project, AIPAC’s Super PAC, is Jan Koum, the multi-billionaire former CEO of WhatsApp and a regular Republican funder. The biggest institutional contributors to UDP come from FIRE, finance/insurance and real estate sectors (Marcetic 2024)

AIPAC represents “the intersection of the pro-Israel lobby and corporate, right-wing politics” married to neo-liberal free market fundamentalism. It is credited with developing the strategy of targeting candidates in both parties, which corporate funders can be expected to increasingly take up in the coming years.[9]

Harris’s message, no less than Trump’s, was more military, more wars, more capitalism, more fracking. What little separation exists between the two parties will be extinct in the next few years, giving way to an outright bacchanalian orgy of destruction of the planet and its people.

AIPAC Goes Transatlantic
The neo-liberal order, which among other things, stands for the breakdown of moral and ethical standards, has destroyed most of the vestiges of the public sphere, and this is true on both sides of the Atlantic. Like the U.S., Britain has long been captive to the Zionist lobby, which wields much influence in the country through access to ministers, donations to the parties, and the repression of public opinion critical of Israeli policies of apartheid and genocide.

The Starmer government purged Labour’s ranks of people sympathetic toward the Palestinians, taking cues from the Israel lobby by labeling the critics of Israel as anti-Semites. Keir Starmer himself declared a few months before taking over the leadership of Labour, “I support Zionism without qualification.”[10]

He also stated on LBC radio in the UK that Israel has the right of siege in Gaza, including its cutting off of water and power.[11] This is consistent with the view of retired Israeli Major-General Giora Eiland, who called for a starvation policy in Gaza and told Israeli media: “Creating a severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza is a necessary means to achieve the goal. Gaza will become a place where no human being can exist.”[12]

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Keir Starmer [Source: blogger.com]

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Major General Giora Eiland [Source: en.wikipedia.org]

Starmer put into practice the next phase of his Zionist program by arresting critics of Israel through the employment of the draconian “Terrorism Act 2000, Section 12” which covers materials posted online.

A journalist and pro-Palestinian activist, Sarah Wilkinson, was arrested under the Act (originally enacted under the Tony Blair government) in August 2024 after a raid on her house by 12 police who confiscated all her electronic devices.[13] She was threatened with a long prison sentence for posting online remarks about the “incredible” way that Hamas was able to launch its assault on October 7.

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Sarah Wilkinson [Source: commondreams.org]

The same month, independent British foreign affairs journalist Richard Medhurst, who is sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, was arrested at Heathrow Airport and charged under the same act, which bans any writing regarded as favorable to proscribed entities, such as Hamas.

There is no conceivable application of this law to Jews or Israelis living in Britain who express even bloodcurdling support for terrorism and torture employed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) against Palestinian civilians.[14]

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Richard Medhurst [Source: x.com]

Israel exercises direct power connections to British electoral politics and Parliament through such groups as Labour Friends of Israel (LFI), founded in 1957, and Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI), founded in 1974, both of which lobby for Israel.

For the Tories, upon election to Parliament, one almost automatically becomes a member of CFI. As a result, Conservative cabinet members have come to expect regular donations from the Israel lobby, which has amounted to hundreds of thousands of pounds going to at least one-third of all current sitting members of the party.

Large numbers of Labour MPs have also been feeding at the trough. Twenty percent of Labour’s sitting MPs have been funded by pro-Israel groups or individuals—including 15 who have been directly funded by the Israeli state.[15]

The 2017 Al Jazeera documentary, “The Lobby,” exposed the fact that the Israeli government, working through its embassy in London, has had a direct hand in managing the various friends of Israel groups, including its many city branches. The Union of Jewish Students in the UK, which receives money from the Embassy, sends student delegations to Israel for propaganda immersion. Just prior to the 2024 general election, some 15 MPs took travel funding from pro-Israel lobby groups, the LFI and CFI.

Twelve successful Labour candidates and three winning Conservatives took advantage of the Israeli largesse by accepting the invitations and expressing solidarity with Israeli apartheid and genocide policies (McEvoy 2024d). Parallel with the U.S. but on a smaller scale in the UK, elections are open doors for contributions from wealthy individuals and corporate elites.

The Zionist lobby is able to exploit these openings to block those Anglo-American politicians from interfering with the apartheid state. Suppressing Palestine rights is fully consistent with neo-conservative foreign policy and fits the long trajectory of Western imperialism.

As the Al Jazeera documentary also disclosed, the Israeli main propaganda unit, the Ministry of Strategic Affairs, regularly funnels talking points to British MPs to get them to serve as spokespersons for Israeli interests, such as during Prime Minister’s Question Time.

AIPAC as well is channeling money to universities in Britain to promote propaganda through the efforts of the campus-based think tank, the Pinsker Center, whose role is to construct a narrative of Jewish student victimhood without a word of condolence for Palestinian students whose relatives are being starved and slaughtered by the IDF.

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British Army commander Richard Kemp, front, speaking at the Pinsker Center.[Source: pinksercentre.org]

Beyond the campuses, AIPAC seeks to create a stronghold in Parliament similar to the power it wields in Congress. The documentary also exposed plots in the Israeli Embassy in London to take down public officials who are seen as critical of the apartheid policy or insufficiently pro-Zionist.

Israel and its modern-day Maccabees have made their mark. Members of Labour Friends of Israel have used the (now increasingly failing) tactic of labeling anyone who brings up Israel’s repression as “anti-Semitic.” It was very successful, however, in purging Labour of pro-Palestinian MPs and party members, particularly during Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership period (2015-2020).

Image
[Source: haimbresheeth.com]

The “anti-Semitic” tag is equivalent to the use of “heretic” during the Inquisition. Though today’s heretics raising such issues may not be burned at the stake, they may lose their position in the party or their jobs or their university matriculation status. The militant attitude of LFI incites fear and intimidation among those concerned about social justice.

Stuart Roden, hedge-fund manager and chairman of the Israeli venture capital firm Hetz Ventures [based in Tel Aviv], “has given the Labour party over half a million pounds ahead of the UK’s [2024] general election,” part of the £1m he has donated to Labour since 2023. Roden is also the principal funder of a Zionist educational program, “I-gnite,” which teaches British children that “the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) are acting proportionately in Gaza.”[16]

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Stuart Roden [Source: mural.com]

In October 2023, he was filmed confronting pro-Palestinian protesters but was not taken to task for interfering with the speech rights or feelings of Palestinian-Britons or others involved in the demonstration.

AIPAC is just the newest of a number of pro-Israel influencers. These include the Jewish Leadership Council, the Zionist Federation, and the Board of Deputies of British Jews, all elite organizations amongst the Jewish population of Britain.

It was under Tony Blair, a member of Labour Friends of Israel, that the Israel lobby began to make serious political inroads in the government, according to a 2009 Channel 4 (UK) investigative news program.

The video also revealed that a press “watchdog” group on behalf of Israel, “Honest Reporting,” regularly challenged the Israel coverage in The Guardian and BBC. The organization is headquartered in Jerusalem with another branch in New York City.

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Simon Plosker [Source: njjewishnews.timesofisrael.com]

Its managing editor at the time, Simon Plosker, had previously worked for the pro-Israel propaganda unit, Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre (BICOM) as well as for the IDF press office.

BICOM acts as an influencer upon the British public, largely by issuing press releases to the British media, funding trips to Israel for British journalists, and giving talks at British universities. Funding sources for Bicom have major investments in the occupied West Bank.[17]

The heavy hand of Zionism International helped to build a coalition of leaders, including Trump’s CIA director Mike Pompeo, Trump himself, and Benjamin Netanyahu, dedicated to blocking Corbyn from becoming prime minister and removing him as Labour Party leader.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Starmer will be hard-pressed to continue defending Israel’s genocidal policies in Gaza and the West Bank as “the right of self-defense.”

From the Jordan to the Sea: Turning the Tide?
By May 2024, a Data for Progress poll indicated that 70% of likely American voters, including 83% of Democrats, favored a permanent cease-fire and de-escalation of violence in Gaza. A similar YouGov poll found that 56% of Britons favored cutting arms shipments to Israel and an immediate cease-fire (66%). Despite these findings, neither of the leading political parties in the U.S. or UK has taken action to end the human slaughter in Palestine.[18]

In November 2024, the U.S. vetoed a UN Security Council resolution to demand a cease-fire in Gaza. The vote was 14 to 1.

The Biden government, which had already given Israel more than $20 billion in military support for the Israeli assault on Gaza and the West Bank, remained super-hawkish to the end, though its standard bearer managed to get five draft deferments during the Vietnam war. [four student deferments and a legitimate medical exemption]

Based on his acts as a first-term president, it is unlikely that Trump will use leverage on Israel to back away from its subjugation and slaughter of Gazan and West Bank civilians, confiscation of the remaining Palestinian state, and its “final solution.”

And unless the Gulf states, Western Europe, and the UN take a more interventionist role in forcing the U.S. to end its complicity in the incomprehensible Israeli atrocities, there appear to be only two possible outcomes: extermination of the Palestinian people or a regional war involving Israel, the U.S., and UK against Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and Iran, with the possible material backing of Russia and China.

For Israel there is no such thing as a diplomatic solution. One way or another, it appears that the Zionist project may soon meet its Waterloo.

(Notes at link)

https://covertactionmagazine.com/2024/1 ... tic-reach/

******

'Systematic elimination of prisoners': Five Palestinians die in Israeli custody within 24 hours

Palestinian prisoners in Israeli detention camps face sexual assault and extreme forms of torture such as electrocution and sleep deprivation

News Desk

DEC 30, 2024

Image
(Photo credit: AFP via Getty Images)

Four Palestinian prisoners died in Israeli custody on 30 December, bringing the number of detainees killed in Tel Aviv’s brutal prison system up to five within the past 24 hours.

Mohammad Rashid al-Akka, Samir Mahmoud al-Kahlout, Zuhair Omar al-Sharif, and Mohammad Anwar Lubbad were killed while detained by the Israeli army on Monday, according to a statement released by the Palestinian Prisoners Club (PPC) and Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs.

The statement held the Israeli Prison Service (IPS) responsible for the crimes committed against prisoners, warning of a “growing humanitarian disaster” and accusing Israeli authorities of working to “systematically and publicly liquidate prisoners.”

A day earlier, prisoner Ashraf Mohammad Abu Warda died after being hospitalized. All five were detained from the Gaza Strip, where Israel continues its genocidal campaign against civilians and medical facilities.

The Palestinian Ministry of Detainees and Ex-Detainees announced last week the deaths of two other Palestinian prisoners, Samih Aliwi and Anwar Aslim. Aliwi, a Hamas leader from the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, died last month after being transferred from the Ramle prison clinic to a hospital.

He was held under administrative detention by Israel since October last year despite his several serious medical issues.

Israeli detention centers and prisons where Palestinian detainees are held are known for their extremely repressive and violent conditions, which include torture, rape, and other human rights violations.

The director of north Gaza’s besieged and destroyed Kamal Adwan Hospital, Dr Hussam Abu Safia, was detained on 27 December in the latest of many raids on the medical facility. Abu Safia was reportedly taken to the notorious Sde Teiman detention camp, where there have been numerous incidents of rape and torture.

“Sde Teiman is known for brutality and torture, we can't imagine what our father is going through in that place and if he is well or not, warm or cold … hungry or in pain,” the hospital director’s family told CNN.

The UN warned earlier this year that Palestinians imprisoned across Israeli jails and detention camps have also faced waterboarding, sleep deprivation, and electrocution by Israeli prison authorities since 7 October 2023.

The Sde Teiman torture camp, where dozens have been killed, has been referred to as Israel’s Guantanamo.

https://thecradle.co/articles/systemati ... n-24-hours

Over 80 percent of Gaza displacement tents destroyed by bitter winter conditions

Seven people including an infant have died after succumbing to brutal weather conditions that displaced Palestinians are unprepared for

News Desk

DEC 30, 2024

Image
(Photo credit: AA/Getty Images)
The besieged population's suffering worsens in the Gaza Strip due to the harsh weather conditions that have so far led to the death of several displaced Palestinians and the destruction of tens of thousands of tents.


Gaza’s Government Media Office said in a statement on 30 December that the number of deaths from the extreme weather conditions has reached seven, adding that the toll is expected to increase. One of the several victims of the freezing weather was an infant, according to medical sources cited by WAFA news agency.

“We have warned more than once of the danger of the arrival of depressions, winter, and frost waves, coinciding with the tragic reality experienced by our people, who are being subjected to killing, genocide, and the destruction of homes and vital sectors,” the media office's statement read.

The media office announced a day earlier that around 110,000 tents out of 135,000 are “worn out” and “unfit” for displaced Palestinians.

By late November, over 80 percent of Gaza’s displacement tents had already been severely affected by the weather and the lack of essential facilities to deal with it.

Video footage from 30 December and the past 24 hours has shown many tents, most of which are made from cloth, completely soaked in rainwater, or submerged in areas that have been flooded.


Hundreds of tents have been decimated since Sunday night, particularly in central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah and the southern Al-Mawasi-Khan Yunis area.

“Babies in Gaza are freezing to death due to cold weather and lack of shelter … Blankets, mattresses, and other winter supplies have been stuck in the region for months waiting for approval to get into Gaza,” Commissioner-General of UNRWA Phillipe Lazzarini said last week, referring to Israel's closure of all border crossings and the continued prevention of essential aid from entering the strip. Meanwhile, warplanes continue to carry out brutal attacks across the strip.

Gaza’s tent cities have been facing heavy rains and brutal floods since last month.

“In Gaza, this winter is not just cold; it is a fight for survival. People are struggling against the biting chill, without proper clothing or heating … What might seem minor elsewhere – catching a cold or staying wet – is life-threatening here, especially for children and the elderly,” wrote Gaza-based Palestinian writer Esraa Abo Qamar for the Palestine Chronicle.

Over 90 percent of Gaza’s population has been subjected to Israel’s forced displacement orders since the beginning of the war. As a result, the displaced Palestinians have been constantly on the move, forced into makeshift shelters and encampments that have been repeatedly targeted by Israeli airstrikes.

Making conditions even worse, Israel has expanded its brutal assault against Gaza’s medical facilities.

https://thecradle.co/articles/over-80-p ... conditions

Kamal Adwan Hospital chief taken to notorious Israeli torture camp

Doctor Hussam Abu Safia was abducted during an Israeli raid that ended with north Gaza's last functioning hospital set on fire

News Desk

DEC 30, 2024

Image
(Photo credit: AFP)

Director of Kamal Adwan Hospital Dr Hussam Abu Safia has been taken to Israel's notorious torture camp, Sde Teiman, following his abduction by Israeli forces at the Kamal Adwan Hospital in north Gaza, CNN reported on 30 December.

Dr Abu Safia has not been seen publicly since his abduction from the hospital during an Israeli raid on 27 December that caused the hospital to cease functioning.

Medical staff told CNN that Israeli forces started a fire in the hospital and that they were all rounded up outside and ordered to remove their clothes over the course of several hours before being forced to leave.

Israeli media published footage of Dr Abu Safia walking alone through the rubble surrounding the hospital toward an Israeli tank before his abduction.


Recently released former detainees from Sde Teiman have told CNN that Dr Abu Safia is in the notorious detention center.

Ahmad al-Sayyed Saleem, 18, said a doctor from the Abu Safia family was brought into the prison on Saturday.

Saleem was detained 42 days ago at an Israeli checkpoint when he was forced to leave northern Gaza.

Another former prisoner, Yahya Zaqout, said he was in a cell next to the doctor and heard guards calling his name.

“I heard them calling his name between the names they call every morning and night, and we had men that were brought to our cell and told us they were detained along with Dr Hussam,” he said.

“They are all still in detention. They treated them really badly especially the doctors,” said Alaa Abu Banat, who was detained at Sde Teiman 43 days ago.

Dr Abu Safia's family told CNN: “Sde Teiman is known for brutality and torture, we can't imagine what our father is going through in that place and if he is well or not, warm or cold … hungry or in pain.”


Israeli soldiers working as guards in the facility have regularly tortured Palestinian detainees through the use of rape, beatings, electrocution, and forced feeding since the start of the war on Gaza in October last year.

An Israeli doctor who worked at the camp reported that doctors there are “routinely” forced to amputate prisoners' limbs as a result of prolonged handcuffing by the guards.

“The situation there is more horrific than anything we've heard about Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo,” Khaled Mahajneh, a lawyer who visited Sde Teiman, told +972 Magazine.

WAFA news agency reported on Monday that Israeli army forces arrested a number of patients on Sunday night while they were being transferred from the Indonesian Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip to Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.

Medical sources stated that “Israeli army forces arrested four patients out of 10, while they were being transferred from the Indonesian Hospital to Al-Shifa Hospital.”

Israel's war on Gaza is approaching its 15th month. Israeli forces have killed over 45,500 Palestinians since October last year in an effort to ethnically cleanse the strip and prepare it for Jewish settlement.

https://thecradle.co/articles/kamal-adw ... rture-camp
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Re: Palestine

Post by blindpig » Thu Jan 02, 2025 3:29 pm

Israel offers displaced settlers 'financial compensation' to return north despite lasting security concerns

Roughly 60,000 Israeli settlers have been displaced since the start of the war between Israel and Hezbollah in October 2023

News Desk

DEC 31, 2024

Image
(Photo credit: Sergey Ponomarev/New York Times)

The Israeli government has published a plan for the return of settlers displaced from northern Israel over a year ago due to the war with Hezbollah, Israel Hayom reported on 31 January, despite the continuing lack of security.

The plan calls for settlers to begin returning to their homes at the end of February when the 60-day ceasefire with Hezbollah comes to an end if the security situation allows.

The war between Israel and Hezbollah began on 8 October 2023, when Hezbollah opened the fighting on Israel's northern front in support of Hamas and Palestinians in Gaza. Some 60,000 Israeli settlers were evacuated from their homes in the settlements near the border due to Hezbollah rockets, missiles, and drones.

Israel escalated the war in September, launching a massive bombing campaign that killed almost 4,000 Lebanese, both Hezbollah fighters and civilians, and displaced over 1 million Lebanese from their homes in the south of the country. A ceasefire was reached on 27 November.

Though the ceasefire was declared five weeks ago, Israel Hayom notes that only about a quarter of Israeli settlers have returned to their homes in the north. Even fewer have returned home to the settlements next to the border fence. In Metula, only about 20 settlers have returned.

The Israeli government plan will provide settlers with two grants to encourage their return.

First, each family will receive 15,000 shekels ($4,100) to compensate for damage to their homes caused by the war. Second, each adult will receive 15,000 shekels, and each child will receive 8,000 shekels ($2,200).

Since the start of the war, displaced settler families have received occupancy grants to live in hotels away from the fighting.

Families whose children are in school and do not wish to return to their homes until after the school year is complete will continue to receive occupancy grants.

Families of three settlements near the border, Metula, Manara, and Avivim, will be able to remain outside the locality with state funding until the infrastructure is repaired and local services are restored.

However, the possibility of renewed fighting between the Israeli military and Hezbollah after the ceasefire ends is causing many settlers to hesitate to return home.

"They're not talking to us. We don't even know what's going on," one resident of Kiryat Shmona told Israel Hayom.

Israel is also seeking to increase the number of settlers in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, which Israel conquered in 1967.

Immediately after the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad fell to US and Turkish-backed extremists on 8 December, the Israeli military occupied more Syrian territory in the Golan.

Days later, Benjamin Netanyahu's government approved an $11-million plan of financial incentives to double the population of Israeli settlers in the Golan Heights.

https://thecradle.co/articles/israel-of ... y-concerns

UN accuses Israel of turning Gaza hospitals into 'death traps'

The report comes just days after the Israeli army violently evicted north Gaza's last functioning hospital before setting it on fire

News Desk

DEC 31, 2024

Image
(Photo credit: AFP)

The UN Human Rights Office issued a report on 31 December condemning Israeli attacks on Gaza hospitals, saying they had become "death traps."

The 23-page report documented various Israeli attacks on Gaza's hospitals and the destruction of the strip's health care system between October 2023 and July 2024.

"The destruction of the healthcare system in Gaza, and the extent of killing of patients, staff, and other civilians in these attacks, is a direct consequence of the disregard of international humanitarian and human rights law," the report said.


UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, said the Israeli military had shown "blatant disregard for international humanitarian and human rights law."

"As if the relentless bombing and the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza were not enough, the one sanctuary where Palestinians should have felt safe, in fact, became a death trap," Turk said in a statement.

In recent days, the Israeli military escalated its attack on the Kamal Adwan Hospital in north Gaza while detaining the hospital director, Hussam Abu Safia, and hundreds of others.


Dr. Abu Safia was then seen at Israel's notorious detention center, Sde Teiman, where Israeli forces regularly rape and torture detainees.

The Israeli military justifies its attacks on Gaza hospitals by claiming Hamas uses them as command centers for military operations. Israel claims the patients, staff, and displaced civilians it abducts are suspected militants.

However, the UN report alluded to such claims but said Israel had provided no evidence to substantiate them.

The report said Israel's attacks against hospitals and civilians in Gaza could constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Israel's war on Gaza has killed more than 45,500 Palestinians, destroyed large swathes of the strip, and displaced almost its entire population, often more than once.

Many ministers and Knesset members in the Israeli government openly advocate for ethnically cleansing Gaza of Palestinians to open the way for Jewish settlement.

https://thecradle.co/articles/un-accuse ... eath-traps

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Netzarim corridor commander led campaign to 'halt aid, flatten, conquer' Gaza: Report

Israeli army commanders operating in the land corridor bisecting Gaza have established 'extermination zones' where any Palestinian is shot and later labeled a 'terrorist'

News Desk

JAN 1, 2025

Image
(Photo credit: Tanya Habjouqa/NOOR Images for The Wall Street Journal)

An Israeli army commander is facing criticism for endangering his soldier's lives in a frantic effort to conquer territory in Gaza, ethnically cleanse 250,000 Palestinians from north of the strip, and allowing his brother to operate a rogue army unit to demolish as many Palestinian homes as possible, an investigation by Haaretz revealed on 1 January.

Israeli soldiers say that Brig. Gen. Yehuda Vach, the commander of the 252nd division, is responsible for the deaths of eight soldiers during four months of combat in the Netzarim corridor in central Gaza.

When Vach ordered his troops to enter Zeitoun, a southern neighborhood of Gaza City, in August, he was constantly pushing to get as far north as possible without taking precautions to ensure their safety from attacks by Hamas fighters.

"He sent the soldiers in there without the necessary preparations on the ground and without ensuring that there were no bombs there," one soldier said. "A supply convoy either drove over a bomb or they were hit by an anti-tank missile." Other soldiers were killed in clashes with the Palestinian resistance.

In early December, Vach complained to the division's top officers that "We didn't achieve our goal" to forcibly displace some 250,000 Palestinian residents in northern Gaza to areas south of Netzarim.

Vach also told his officers that his goal was to conquer land to punish Palestinians for Hamas' Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.


"Vach declared "there are no innocents in Gaza"... It became operational doctrine: everyone's a terrorist."

Deranged Judeo-Nazi Brig. Gen. Yehuda Vach, featured in today's shocking Haaretz piece, is the brother of Golan Vach, the officer behind the "8 burnt babies" hoax (see QT)… https://t.co/iDcr5cXuak pic.twitter.com/HL852hs64j

— B.M. (@ireallyhateyou) December 18, 2024
"Only by losing land will the Palestinians learn the necessary lesson from the massacre Hamas perpetrated in southern Israel on October 7," Vach told his officers.

In another instance, Vach insisted that his soldiers block the entrance of humanitarian aid to Gaza.

"Not one truck should enter," an officer told Haaretz regarding Vach's comments.

Vach also stated that he was seeking to "flatten" as much of Gaza as possible and that "there are no innocents in Gaza."

Vach was born and grew up in the settlement of Kiryat Arba and now lives in the religious Kibbutz Meirav on Mount Gilboa.

Vach also allowed his brother, Col. (res.) Golan Vach, to establish a force to demolish as many Palestinian homes as possible.

"Golan established a small force called Pladot Heavy Engineering Equipment," a senior officer told Haaretz. "It was a team of soldiers and civilians who look like hilltop youths. The force's sole objective was to demolish Gaza, to flatten it" so that no Palestinians could return to live there.

"They'd get a particular strip in the Netzarim corridor and flatten every building in it," said one soldier. "The mission was to go house-to-house and ensure that everything there was ready for flattening."

Golan Vach played a key role in helping Israel cover up the killing of its soldiers and civilians, per the Hannibal Directive, on 7 October 2023. He also fabricated stories claiming that Hamas fighters burned Israeli babies.

A previous Haaretz investigation revealed that members of Division 252 had turned the areas around the Netzarim Corridor into a free-fire zone to kill Palestinian civilians.

The soldiers were under strict orders to "shoot anyone" they spotted approaching the "killing area."

"There is a line north of the Netzarim Corridor known as the 'line of corpses,' and the residents of Gaza are fully aware of its meaning. In this area, Palestinians are indiscriminately shot, and their bodies are left to be devoured by dogs," a commander from Division 252 told Haaretz.

"The killing area is the sniper's target range … We kill civilians there, and they are counted as terrorists," he added, revealing that a "competition" exists between the different army divisions occupying the east-to-west corridor. "If Division 99 killed 150, then the next in line would try to reach 200."

Those interviewed often spoke about the "imaginary lines" north and south of the Netzarim Corridor that commanders implement as the kill zone. "Anyone approaching the line at that moment is considered a threat — and no shooting permit is required."

https://thecradle.co/articles/netzarim- ... aza-report

Israeli war chief threatens Gaza with 'heavy blows' after New Year's rocket barrage from Hamas

Hamas continues to fire rockets and battle Israeli ground forces 15 months after the start of the genocide on Gaza

News Desk

JAN 1, 2025

Image
(Photo credit: Sebastian Scheiner, AFP)

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz threatened Hamas on 1 January with "blows with a force not seen in Gaza for a long time" if the resistance movement does not release Israeli captives held in Gaza and does not stop firing rockets toward Israel.

"If Hamas does not soon allow the release of the Israeli hostages from Gaza, despite Israel's willingness to make far-reaching compromises in accordance with the principles outlined by the US president, and continues to fire at Israeli communities, it will receive blows with a force not seen in Gaza for a long time," Katz stated on Wednesday in the southern Israeli settlement of Netivot.

The Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, fired a salvo of rockets at Netivot as the new year began.

Hamas continues to hold 100 Israelis captive in Gaza, with 64 believed alive. Israel has thousands of Palestinians captive in its prisons and detention camps, where Israeli guards regularly torture and rape them.

"The IDF will intensify its activities against the terror nests in Gaza until the release of the hostages and the elimination of Hamas," Katz continues.

"I call on the residents of Gaza to rise up against the murderous Hamas organization, which also uses you as human shields, and to bring about the release of the hostages, to prevent suffering and end the war," he adds.

Following Hamas's rocket fire on Israeli troops operating inside Gaza on Wednesday, the military demanded that all remaining civilians leave the Jabalia area.

While Hamas rockets do minor damage to Israeli settlements, the Israeli Air Force said on Wednesday it had launched over 1,400 airstrikes in the Gaza Strip in December, including by fighter jets, attack helicopters, and drones.

The air strikes and accompanying ground operations have killed 1,170 Palestinians over the same period.

Since Israel's war on Gaza began in October 2023, Israeli forces have killed over 45,550 Palestinians, according to a count by Gaza health authorities.

However, some estimates of the death toll are much higher. Palestinian Dr. Ghassan Abu Sitta told Democracy Now! that the toll may be as high as 300,000.

https://thecradle.co/articles/israeli-w ... from-hamas
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Re: Palestine

Post by blindpig » Fri Jan 03, 2025 12:37 pm

Israeli demolition campaign intensifies in southern Lebanon

The Lebanese army recently entered the towns of Al-Bayada and Shamaa to find ‘everything razed to the ground’

News Desk

JAN 2, 2025

Image
(Photo credit: Lazar Berman/Times of Israel)

Israeli troops advanced into and heavily attacked the southern Lebanese village of Beit Lif on 2 January, in violation of the fragile ceasefire that Tel Aviv has been continuously breaching since it took effect in late November last year.

“The Roumieh area between Beit Lif and Yater was subjected to enemy artillery shelling,” Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) reported on Thursday afternoon, coming as Israeli forces entered and searched homes in the area.

According to Al Manar’s correspondent in the south, the Israeli army pushed into Beit Lif with several Merkava tanks, military hummers, a bulldozer, and infantry forces and began demolitions in the town. The sounds of heavy explosions and gunfire were heard.

Earlier on Thursday, an Israeli drone targeted the vicinity of a farm between the towns of Beit Lif and Yater with two missiles.

The new ceasefire violations occurred a day after the Israeli military set fire to homes in the Aitaroun-Bint Jbeil district.

In accordance with the ceasefire agreement, the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) entered the towns of Shamaa and Al-Bayada on 1 January. The two towns are among those that witnessed fierce clashes between the Lebanese resistance and the Israeli army during Tel Aviv’s failed ground operation in Lebanon, which began in early October and ended with the ceasefire on 27 November.

Al-Bayada and Shamaa were also heavily bombarded throughout the war that began in October last year.

NNA reported massive destruction of infrastructure – with entire neighborhoods and even the electricity network ravaged. “Everything was razed to the ground.”

Israel has violated the ceasefire – which is based on the implementation of UN Resolution 1701 – over 100 times since it took effect with deadly airstrikes, arrests of Lebanese citizens, troop advancements, and mass detonation campaigns in southern villages. Entire villages have been wiped out as a result of the demolition campaign.

Tel Aviv claims to be targeting Hezbollah infrastructure in the south, which the LAF was tasked to dismantle as per the agreement.

Israeli troops are required to withdraw from Lebanon within 60 days of the ceasefire’s announcement. So far, it has been over four weeks, leaving less than a month before the Israeli army must retreat, according to the agreement.

Security sources in Lebanon told The Cradle on 23 December that the Israeli army is unhappy with the LAF's efforts to implement the ceasefire and is planning to maintain a presence in the south past the 60-day implementation period.

“Now is the opportunity for the Lebanese state to prove itself through political action,” Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Naim Qassem said in a speech on Wednesday, echoing recent comments by the resistance group’s MPs and officials.

Hezbollah officials have recently said that the current period represents a test for the Lebanese state regarding whether or not it will be able to protect the south from Israeli attacks and violations once the resistance is no longer present south of the Litani River.

“If the occupation takes any steps against Lebanon from the eastern front due to its expansion in Syria, we will carry out our national duty … anyone who believes that the resistance in Lebanon has weakened is deluded … We possess the resources and intellect to be in a position to confront the occupation. On the 61st day after the ceasefire, we will be in a position to make the Israeli enemy taste our wrath,” Hezbollah MP Ihab Hamadeh told Al Mayadeen on Wednesday.

https://thecradle.co/articles/israeli-d ... rn-lebanon

Resistance comeback in Gaza challenges Israel’s claims of Hamas casualties: Report

Israel’s claim of nearing total victory over Hamas contradicts the recent figures coming out of Gaza that indicate an increase in Hamas fighters and ongoing recruitment

News Desk

JAN 2, 2025

Image
(Photo Credit: Reuters)
Data released on 1 January estimates that the remaining fighters in Gaza are between 20,000 and 23,000, according to Israeli media, which contradicts previous figures released by Israeli authorities.

This information calls into question the numbers previously provided by the Israeli government and army that placed the amount of Hamas fighters at 25,000 in October 2023.

The Israeli army has claimed that up to 20,000 Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) fighters have been eliminated and 16,000 wounded. Despite the recruitment of new fighters, initial Israeli army estimates conflict with emerging data on the amount of remaining Hamas fighters.

Alternative figures place the number of resistance fighters in the strip at 12,000, with the majority located in the south.

The withdrawal of Israeli forces from northern Gaza in January and February, and their subsequent retreat from the southern city of Khan Yunis in April were among the first reports of a Hamas recovery.

These events came after Tel Aviv claimed that the Israeli army had “completed the dismantling of Hamas’s military framework in the northern Gaza strip.”

In July 2024, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that victory over Hamas was in sight. Yet the dismantling of Hamas's military wing, the Qassam Brigades, continues to evade Israel. Brian Carter, Middle East portfolio manager for Critical Threats Project (CTP), commented to CNN, “they haven’t defeated these fighters at all.”

According to the Jerusalem Post, discrepancies between the figures released by Netanyahu's office and the Israeli army have put into question the reported capabilities of Hamas's remaining forces.

Preliminary Israeli estimates were likely inaccurate, with the number of Hamas militants in October 2023 closer to 40,000. The ongoing displacement and conflict further impede Israel's ability to collect accurate data on the remaining fighters.

Netanyahu’s promise to achieve “total victory” over Hamas by completely “eliminating” the group has not yet been achieved. The continued operational abilities of Hamas’s Qassam Brigades and the recent rise in the estimated number of active militants indicate that Hamas is still functional.

https://thecradle.co/articles/resistanc ... ies-report

Israel rings in New Year with deadly strikes on 'safe zones' across Gaza

As infants die from hypothermia, the Israeli army launched airstrikes across Gaza targeting makeshift tent cities sheltering Palestinians

News Desk

JAN 2, 2025

Image
(Photo Credit: AP)

The Gaza Health Ministry confirmed that at least 52 people were killed by Israeli forces in the early hours of 2 January, marking the 453rd day of the ongoing genocide in the strip.

Thursday's Israeli raids targeted humanitarian safe zones and camps being used as temporary shelters. The airstrikes destroyed improvised tents sheltering displaced Palestinians, which had already been flooded and heavily damaged in recent days due to harsh weather conditions.


Khan Yunis was among the areas targeted by Israeli bombardment from air, land, and sea. The aggression on Khan Yunis alone resulted in 11 confirmed causalities and a dozen injuries. Among the victims was Major General Mahmoud Salah, director general of Gaza’s Police Force. Other deaths were also confirmed in the aftermath of Israeli strikes on the northern, southern, and western regions of the strip.

The attacks on Gaza escalated after Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz's warning that Hamas will “receive blows with a force not seen” if it does not cease all attacks on Israel. The intensified raids in recent days also coincide with the negotiation of a potential ceasefire deal in Egypt.


Since 1 January, eight Palestinians, including seven infants, have died from hypothermia.

Israeli media reports that Palestinians were forcefully evacuated by Israeli forces from the so-called safe zones and prohibited from taking their personal belongings with them, coming as reports from human rights organizations highlight a persistent shortage of warm clothing, now in the second winter since the start of the genocide.

There have been at least 45,581 confirmed deaths in Gaza since October 2023. Officials in the strip and international organizations have warned that the total death toll as a result of the Israeli genocide is likely much higher due to the intensity of the attacks, as well as the targeting of first responders and emergency personnel by Israeli forces, preventing them from reaching the victims.

Discrepancies and challenges in data collection due to the relentless Israeli bombing and the abundance of individuals who are still declared missing most likely indicate that the death toll is higher than what is currently recorded.

Palestinians are facing a myriad of severe hardships, with the exact total death toll still undetermined.

https://thecradle.co/articles/israel-ri ... cross-gaza

Impact in central Israel after latest Yemeni missile attack

Israel has struggled to draft a policy to confront the Yemeni army and Ansarallah movement due to a lack of intelligence information

News Desk

JAN 3, 2025

Image
(Photo credit: Yemen Military Media)

The Yemeni Armed Forces (YAF) carried out a missile attack against Israel early on 3 January, with video footage showing the moment of impact.


The YAF, which is merged with the Ansarallah resistance movement, is expected to release a statement in the coming hours.

Tel Aviv claimed the missile was intercepted after crossing into its territory.

“Following the sirens that sounded a short while ago in central and southern Israel, a missile that was launched from Yemen and crossed into Israeli territory was intercepted. A report was received regarding shrapnel from the interception that fell in the area of Modi'in in central Israel. The details are under review,” the Israeli army said in a statement.


Videos and images circulating social media show damage in a home in the central Modiin area south of Tel Aviv, which was reportedly caused as a result of shrapnel. Yemen has escalated its missile and drone attacks against Israel in recent days, prompting brutal Israeli attacks across the country late last month – which Tel Aviv said would continue.

US and UK jets also continue their violent campaign of airstrikes against Yemen in attempts to deter Ansarallah and the YAF’s maritime operations in the Red and Arab Seas, which have been targeting Israeli interests at sea since November last year.

The latest Yemeni attack near Tel Aviv came hours after a speech by Ansarallah leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi on 2 January.

“The Israeli enemy realizes that no matter how much it attacks, no matter what it does, and with it the Americans, and with it the British, and even if whoever joins them, that will not affect the Yemeni position, and will not push the sons of our dear people to retreat from their position of faith, principle, humanity, morality, and also important and honorable,” Houthi said on Thursday evening.

Israeli media has recently reported that it has been difficult to draft a policy on countering the drone and missile attacks launched by Ansarallah and the Yemeni army – particularly due to a lack of intelligence information.

“The Americans will contribute by their aggression against us to developing our capabilities, and they certainly do not want that. This is a problem for them, and indeed when they attacked our country, they contributed very greatly to developing our military capabilities,” the Ansarallah leader added.

Yemen has vowed not to stop its operations until the war in Gaza is brought to an end.

https://thecradle.co/articles/impact-in ... ile-attack
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Re: Palestine

Post by blindpig » Sat Jan 04, 2025 12:21 pm

Israeli Airstrikes Claim Lives of Two Palestinian Journalists in Gaza

Image
Jorunalists Mourns the death of several Palestine comunicators Photo: HispanTV

January 3, 2025 Hour: 2:50 pm

In a tragic escalation of violence, indiscriminate Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip have resulted in the deaths of two more Palestinian journalists on Thursday night. Omar al-Diraoui, a journalist and photographer, along with two family members, lost their lives when the Israeli military bombed their home in the Az-Zawayda area of central Gaza, as reported by Qatari news outlet Al Jazeera.

The attack also left several others injured, including additional family members of al-Diraoui.

This incident follows the confirmed death of photographer Hassan al-Qishaoui, whose passing was reported by Al Jazeera on the same day.

Experts have condemned these actions, stating that Israel is committing what has been described as “the largest genocide of journalists in the world.” They argue that Palestinian journalists are targeted for documenting Israeli crimes, including attacks on hospitals and civilian infrastructure.

202 Palestinian journalists have been killed in Israeli occupation airstrikes in the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the ongoing Israeli aggression, Gaza's Government Media Office announced.#Israel#Gaza pic.twitter.com/GbyH7lTP7I

— Al-Jarmaq News (@Aljarmaqnetnews) January 3, 2025


Since the onset of Israel’s brutal campaign against Gaza on October 7, 2023—characterized by widespread allegations of war crimes and genocide according to numerous human rights organizations—at least 217 journalists and media workers have been killed.

Israel has been identified as the country with the highest number of journalist fatalities globally and ranks third in terms of imprisoning journalists, according to an annual report by Reporters Without Borders published in mid-December.

Human rights organizations continue to hold Israel accountable for the killings of journalists, emphasizing that Gaza has become one of the most dangerous places in the world for media professionals. The report indicates that nearly 30% of all journalists killed while performing their duties have died as a result of Israeli bombardments in this region.

As international scrutiny grows regarding Israel’s military actions and their impact on press freedom and human rights, calls for accountability and protection for journalists operating in conflict zones become increasingly urgent. The ongoing violence not only threatens lives but also undermines the fundamental principles of free expression and access to information.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/israeli- ... s-in-gaza/

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New Year’s Massacre in Jabaliya – Israeli Airstrikes Kill 21 Palestinians
January 3, 2025

Image
A horrific massacre was carried out by Israel in Jabaliya. Photo: Hamza Hammad/Palestine Chronicle/via social media.

The New Year brought devastation to Gaza, as Israeli airstrikes in Jabaliya killed 21 Palestinians, most of them children, amidst ongoing bombardment and Resistance retaliation.

Residents of the Gaza Strip have welcomed the New Year amid the devastation of an Israeli massacre in Jabaliya.

Medical sources cited in Al-Jazeera reported that since dawn on Wednesday, Israeli raids have killed 21 Palestinians, including 15 in the northern Gaza Strip.

Al-Jazeera reported that 17 Palestinians were killed on Wednesday morning in Israeli airstrikes on Jabaliya Al-Balad in the north and on the Al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza.

Moreover, residential buildings in Beit Lahia and the Jabaliya refugee camp were destroyed in explosions carried out by occupation forces.

Gaza’s Civil Defense authorities noted that the relentless bombing campaign is worsening the plight of the displaced as heavy rainfall flooded at least 1,500 tents,

Israeli warplanes also targeted a water desalination plant on Old Gaza Street in Jabaliya Al-Balad, while air and artillery strikes hit areas near Kamal Adwan Hospital, which had been stormed by Israeli forces days earlier.

During that assault, more than 300 Palestinians were arrested, including the director, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, and the hospital itself was set on fire.

In Gaza City, two Palestinians sustained injuries when Israeli warplanes bombed aid warehouses in the Zaytoun neighborhood, as reported by Al-Aqsa TV.

Heavy gunfire from Israeli military vehicles was also documented in the southern Gaza Strip. Four Palestinians were killed by an Israeli drone strike in the Al-Manara neighborhood southeast of Khan Yunis.

Earlier today, Al-Aqsa TV reported that the home of Palestinian journalist Rami Abu Taima, located in the al-Fakhari area east of Khan Yunis, was targeted in a strike, injuring members of his family.

Israeli vehicles continued to fire in the Al-Mawasi area of Rafah, where large numbers of displaced residents have sought refuge.

Rocket ‘Surprise’
Meanwhile, the Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, claimed responsibility for a rocket barrage targeting Netivot just after midnight, in what they described as retaliation for “Zionist massacres against civilians.”

The Israeli army confirmed the launch of two rockets, one of which was intercepted, while the other landed in an open area without causing casualties.

In recent days, rockets have been fired from northern Gaza locations, including Beit Hanoun, where Israeli forces are stationed. This development was described as a “surprise” by Israeli media.

On Tuesday, the Al-Quds Brigades announced the destruction of an Israeli military convoy in Jabaliya refugee camp using anti-tank explosives.

Video footage released by the group shows missiles being launched toward Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, in response to continued aggression and the storming of Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Ongoing Genocide
The ongoing Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip, which began on October 7, 2023, has led to a humanitarian crisis of unprecedented scale. As the death toll among besieged and starved Palestinian civilians continues to rise daily, Israel is currently facing charges of genocide against Palestinians before the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, at least 45,541 Palestinians have been killed, and 108,338 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7, 2023.

The toll is expected to rise further, with at least 11,000 people still unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes across Gaza.

The war, which Palestinians call “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood,” began after a military operation carried out by Hamas on Israeli territory. Israel reports that 1,200 of its soldiers and civilians were killed during the initial attack on October 7. However, Israeli media have raised concerns that a significant number of Israeli casualties were caused by ‘friendly fire’ during the assault.

Human rights organizations, both Palestinian and international, have reported that the overwhelming majority of the casualties in Gaza are women and children. The ongoing violence has also exacerbated an acute famine, with thousands of children among the dead, highlighting the severity of the humanitarian disaster.

The war has displaced nearly two million people from their homes across Gaza, with the majority of the displaced forced into the already overcrowded southern region of the Strip. The population in Gaza remains trapped in the ongoing conflict, with little access to basic necessities such as food, water, and medical care.

(The Palestine Chronicle)

https://orinocotribune.com/new-years-ma ... estinians/

******

Gaza resistance targets Israeli settlements for eighth consecutive day

After more than a year of genocide, Palestinian resistance groups in Gaza are refilling their ranks and continue to deal heavy blows to the invading army

News Desk

JAN 3, 2025

Image
(Photo Credit: Reuters)

Palestinian resistance factions in Gaza launched multiple missile and rocket attacks on Israeli troops and settlements on 3 January, setting off alarms in nearby Jewish communities for the first time in nearly one year.

Hamas's military wing, the Qassam Brigades, announced the successful launch of a surface-to-air missile (SAM) at an Israeli Apache helicopter east of the Al-Bureij camp in central Gaza in cooperation with fighters of the Al-Nasser Salah al-Din Brigades – the military wing of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC).

The Palestinian attack activated air raid sirens at Kibbutz Beeri, a settlement overrun by Hamas fighters on 7 October 2023 that became the site of a large-scale Israeli massacre of their people.

“The last time there was a siren in Beeri following rocket fire from Gaza was in March, almost 10 months ago. Since then, an alarm has sounded in the evacuated kibbutz only once, during the Iranian attack in early October,” Hebrew daily Yedioth Ahronoth reported on Friday.

A few hours later, two rockets were launched from north Gaza, targeting the Israeli city of Sderot. “One projectile fell adjacent to the community of Nir Am, and the second projectile fell in an open area,” the Israeli army announced.


The operations marked the eighth consecutive day of Palestinian attacks targeting nearby Israeli settlements. They also come as the US-sponsored ethnic cleansing campaign of Gaza approaches its 15th month.

Resistance operations targeting the invading forces have also persisted inside the enclave, including the devastated north. On Friday evening, the Qassam Brigades reported the destruction of several Israeli Merkava tanks in Jabalia.

The military wing of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), the Martyr Omar al-Qassem Forces, also launched mortar attacks on Israeli troops gathered at the Civil Administration site east of Jabalia's refugee camp.

Reports in Israeli media have confirmed that the Palestinian resistance in Gaza is “making a substantial comeback” by recruiting new forces after more than a year of genocide.


More than 70 people were killed by the Israeli army in Gaza since dawn on Friday as the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu moves forward undeterred with its extermination plans.

“The Israeli occupation committed eight massacres against families in the Gaza Strip, resulting in 77 martyrs and 145 injuries arriving at hospitals during the past 24 hours,” Gaza's health ministry announced.

Besides dropping more than 85,000 tons of explosives in the enclave, Tel Aviv is also blocking the delivery of humanitarian aid and has systematically targeted Gaza's crumbling healthcare system.

“The destruction of the healthcare system in Gaza, and the extent of killing of patients, staff, and other civilians in these attacks, is a direct consequence of the disregard of international humanitarian and human rights law,” a damning UN report published on 31 December states.

As the massacres continue, Hamas announced on Friday night that indirect negotiations on a ceasefire in Gaza “will resume today in Doha.”

“Our seriousness and our efforts to reach an agreement as soon as possible, which achieves the aspirations and goals of our people, the most important of which is stopping the aggression,” the group said.

https://thecradle.co/articles/gaza-resi ... cutive-day

Rights groups sound alarm over 'forced disappearance' of Gaza hospital director

Kamal Adwan Hospital’s Dr Hussam Abu Safia is being held at the Sde Teiman torture camp and is said to be under investigation for ‘Hamas ties’

News Desk

JAN 3, 2025

Image
(Photo credit: X)

Human rights organizations have raised concern over the fate of the director of north Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital, Dr Hussam Abu Safia after the Israeli army denied his recent detainment despite video and photo evidence, reports in Hebrew media, and testimonies of released prisoners.

“Despite clear evidence of Dr Abu Safia's arrest, the occupation is now denying its previous statements and rejecting the existence of evidence, including videos and photos it had previously published, as well as the testimonies of some detainees who were released,” the Palestinian Prisoners Club (PPC) said in a statement on 3 January.

The risks of his detainment are growing, the statement says, adding that he is but one of thousands who are “enduring the crime of enforced disappearance.”

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) urged the Israeli military to permit a lawyer to visit Abu Safia in detention. The Israeli army responded by saying that no evidence exists to confirm the hospital director's detainment.

Abu Safia was detained on 27 December in the latest of many violent Israeli army raids on north Gaza’s besieged and destroyed Kamal Adwan Hospital.

Israeli media has published footage of Dr Abu Safia walking alone through the rubble surrounding the hospital toward an Israeli tank before his abduction.


Recently released Palestinian prisoners who spoke to CNN late last month said Abu Safia is being held at the notorious Sde Teiman military base and detention center in the Negev desert – where detainees have been raped and tortured by Israeli forces.

Israel’s i24 news channel reported on Friday that Abu Safia is currently at Sde Teiman, and will soon face a hearing to determine the potential extension of his detention.

“Dr Hussam Abu Safia is under investigation by the Shin Bet on suspicion of having ties to Hamas,” the Israeli outlet said.

Israeli forces stormed Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza on 27 December, evacuating people at gunpoint and setting the facility ablaze after brutal attacks on the hospital’s vicinity – killing at least 50 people in under 24 hours.

The Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza has also been destroyed for the most part and surrounded by Israeli troops.

This comes as part of the unofficial implementation of the Generals’ Plan, which seeks to make northern Gaza uninhabitable through mass destruction, killing, and expulsion. Israel's goal is to completely empty out north Gaza and transform the area into an isolated military zone.

Israel’s war against the health sector in northern Gaza, which is part of the same plan, aims to make the area unlivable. Scores of doctors and medical workers have been killed.

Abu Safia himself recently survived an injury sustained from one of the continuous Israeli attacks on his hospital, which have included airstrikes, artillery shelling, and the detonation of robotic-explosive devices.

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Re: Palestine

Post by blindpig » Sat Jan 04, 2025 12:21 pm

Israeli Airstrikes Claim Lives of Two Palestinian Journalists in Gaza

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Jorunalists Mourns the death of several Palestine comunicators Photo: HispanTV

January 3, 2025 Hour: 2:50 pm

In a tragic escalation of violence, indiscriminate Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip have resulted in the deaths of two more Palestinian journalists on Thursday night. Omar al-Diraoui, a journalist and photographer, along with two family members, lost their lives when the Israeli military bombed their home in the Az-Zawayda area of central Gaza, as reported by Qatari news outlet Al Jazeera.

The attack also left several others injured, including additional family members of al-Diraoui.

This incident follows the confirmed death of photographer Hassan al-Qishaoui, whose passing was reported by Al Jazeera on the same day.

Experts have condemned these actions, stating that Israel is committing what has been described as “the largest genocide of journalists in the world.” They argue that Palestinian journalists are targeted for documenting Israeli crimes, including attacks on hospitals and civilian infrastructure.

202 Palestinian journalists have been killed in Israeli occupation airstrikes in the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the ongoing Israeli aggression, Gaza's Government Media Office announced.#Israel#Gaza pic.twitter.com/GbyH7lTP7I

— Al-Jarmaq News (@Aljarmaqnetnews) January 3, 2025


Since the onset of Israel’s brutal campaign against Gaza on October 7, 2023—characterized by widespread allegations of war crimes and genocide according to numerous human rights organizations—at least 217 journalists and media workers have been killed.

Israel has been identified as the country with the highest number of journalist fatalities globally and ranks third in terms of imprisoning journalists, according to an annual report by Reporters Without Borders published in mid-December.

Human rights organizations continue to hold Israel accountable for the killings of journalists, emphasizing that Gaza has become one of the most dangerous places in the world for media professionals. The report indicates that nearly 30% of all journalists killed while performing their duties have died as a result of Israeli bombardments in this region.

As international scrutiny grows regarding Israel’s military actions and their impact on press freedom and human rights, calls for accountability and protection for journalists operating in conflict zones become increasingly urgent. The ongoing violence not only threatens lives but also undermines the fundamental principles of free expression and access to information.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/israeli- ... s-in-gaza/

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New Year’s Massacre in Jabaliya – Israeli Airstrikes Kill 21 Palestinians
January 3, 2025

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A horrific massacre was carried out by Israel in Jabaliya. Photo: Hamza Hammad/Palestine Chronicle/via social media.

The New Year brought devastation to Gaza, as Israeli airstrikes in Jabaliya killed 21 Palestinians, most of them children, amidst ongoing bombardment and Resistance retaliation.

Residents of the Gaza Strip have welcomed the New Year amid the devastation of an Israeli massacre in Jabaliya.

Medical sources cited in Al-Jazeera reported that since dawn on Wednesday, Israeli raids have killed 21 Palestinians, including 15 in the northern Gaza Strip.

Al-Jazeera reported that 17 Palestinians were killed on Wednesday morning in Israeli airstrikes on Jabaliya Al-Balad in the north and on the Al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza.

Moreover, residential buildings in Beit Lahia and the Jabaliya refugee camp were destroyed in explosions carried out by occupation forces.

Gaza’s Civil Defense authorities noted that the relentless bombing campaign is worsening the plight of the displaced as heavy rainfall flooded at least 1,500 tents,

Israeli warplanes also targeted a water desalination plant on Old Gaza Street in Jabaliya Al-Balad, while air and artillery strikes hit areas near Kamal Adwan Hospital, which had been stormed by Israeli forces days earlier.

During that assault, more than 300 Palestinians were arrested, including the director, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, and the hospital itself was set on fire.

In Gaza City, two Palestinians sustained injuries when Israeli warplanes bombed aid warehouses in the Zaytoun neighborhood, as reported by Al-Aqsa TV.

Heavy gunfire from Israeli military vehicles was also documented in the southern Gaza Strip. Four Palestinians were killed by an Israeli drone strike in the Al-Manara neighborhood southeast of Khan Yunis.

Earlier today, Al-Aqsa TV reported that the home of Palestinian journalist Rami Abu Taima, located in the al-Fakhari area east of Khan Yunis, was targeted in a strike, injuring members of his family.

Israeli vehicles continued to fire in the Al-Mawasi area of Rafah, where large numbers of displaced residents have sought refuge.

Rocket ‘Surprise’
Meanwhile, the Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, claimed responsibility for a rocket barrage targeting Netivot just after midnight, in what they described as retaliation for “Zionist massacres against civilians.”

The Israeli army confirmed the launch of two rockets, one of which was intercepted, while the other landed in an open area without causing casualties.

In recent days, rockets have been fired from northern Gaza locations, including Beit Hanoun, where Israeli forces are stationed. This development was described as a “surprise” by Israeli media.

On Tuesday, the Al-Quds Brigades announced the destruction of an Israeli military convoy in Jabaliya refugee camp using anti-tank explosives.

Video footage released by the group shows missiles being launched toward Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, in response to continued aggression and the storming of Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Ongoing Genocide
The ongoing Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip, which began on October 7, 2023, has led to a humanitarian crisis of unprecedented scale. As the death toll among besieged and starved Palestinian civilians continues to rise daily, Israel is currently facing charges of genocide against Palestinians before the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, at least 45,541 Palestinians have been killed, and 108,338 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7, 2023.

The toll is expected to rise further, with at least 11,000 people still unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes across Gaza.

The war, which Palestinians call “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood,” began after a military operation carried out by Hamas on Israeli territory. Israel reports that 1,200 of its soldiers and civilians were killed during the initial attack on October 7. However, Israeli media have raised concerns that a significant number of Israeli casualties were caused by ‘friendly fire’ during the assault.

Human rights organizations, both Palestinian and international, have reported that the overwhelming majority of the casualties in Gaza are women and children. The ongoing violence has also exacerbated an acute famine, with thousands of children among the dead, highlighting the severity of the humanitarian disaster.

The war has displaced nearly two million people from their homes across Gaza, with the majority of the displaced forced into the already overcrowded southern region of the Strip. The population in Gaza remains trapped in the ongoing conflict, with little access to basic necessities such as food, water, and medical care.

(The Palestine Chronicle)

https://orinocotribune.com/new-years-ma ... estinians/

******

Gaza resistance targets Israeli settlements for eighth consecutive day

After more than a year of genocide, Palestinian resistance groups in Gaza are refilling their ranks and continue to deal heavy blows to the invading army

News Desk

JAN 3, 2025

Image
(Photo Credit: Reuters)

Palestinian resistance factions in Gaza launched multiple missile and rocket attacks on Israeli troops and settlements on 3 January, setting off alarms in nearby Jewish communities for the first time in nearly one year.

Hamas's military wing, the Qassam Brigades, announced the successful launch of a surface-to-air missile (SAM) at an Israeli Apache helicopter east of the Al-Bureij camp in central Gaza in cooperation with fighters of the Al-Nasser Salah al-Din Brigades – the military wing of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC).

The Palestinian attack activated air raid sirens at Kibbutz Beeri, a settlement overrun by Hamas fighters on 7 October 2023 that became the site of a large-scale Israeli massacre of their people.

“The last time there was a siren in Beeri following rocket fire from Gaza was in March, almost 10 months ago. Since then, an alarm has sounded in the evacuated kibbutz only once, during the Iranian attack in early October,” Hebrew daily Yedioth Ahronoth reported on Friday.

A few hours later, two rockets were launched from north Gaza, targeting the Israeli city of Sderot. “One projectile fell adjacent to the community of Nir Am, and the second projectile fell in an open area,” the Israeli army announced.


The operations marked the eighth consecutive day of Palestinian attacks targeting nearby Israeli settlements. They also come as the US-sponsored ethnic cleansing campaign of Gaza approaches its 15th month.

Resistance operations targeting the invading forces have also persisted inside the enclave, including the devastated north. On Friday evening, the Qassam Brigades reported the destruction of several Israeli Merkava tanks in Jabalia.

The military wing of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), the Martyr Omar al-Qassem Forces, also launched mortar attacks on Israeli troops gathered at the Civil Administration site east of Jabalia's refugee camp.

Reports in Israeli media have confirmed that the Palestinian resistance in Gaza is “making a substantial comeback” by recruiting new forces after more than a year of genocide.


More than 70 people were killed by the Israeli army in Gaza since dawn on Friday as the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu moves forward undeterred with its extermination plans.

“The Israeli occupation committed eight massacres against families in the Gaza Strip, resulting in 77 martyrs and 145 injuries arriving at hospitals during the past 24 hours,” Gaza's health ministry announced.

Besides dropping more than 85,000 tons of explosives in the enclave, Tel Aviv is also blocking the delivery of humanitarian aid and has systematically targeted Gaza's crumbling healthcare system.

“The destruction of the healthcare system in Gaza, and the extent of killing of patients, staff, and other civilians in these attacks, is a direct consequence of the disregard of international humanitarian and human rights law,” a damning UN report published on 31 December states.

As the massacres continue, Hamas announced on Friday night that indirect negotiations on a ceasefire in Gaza “will resume today in Doha.”

“Our seriousness and our efforts to reach an agreement as soon as possible, which achieves the aspirations and goals of our people, the most important of which is stopping the aggression,” the group said.

https://thecradle.co/articles/gaza-resi ... cutive-day

Rights groups sound alarm over 'forced disappearance' of Gaza hospital director

Kamal Adwan Hospital’s Dr Hussam Abu Safia is being held at the Sde Teiman torture camp and is said to be under investigation for ‘Hamas ties’

News Desk

JAN 3, 2025

Image
(Photo credit: X)

Human rights organizations have raised concern over the fate of the director of north Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital, Dr Hussam Abu Safia after the Israeli army denied his recent detainment despite video and photo evidence, reports in Hebrew media, and testimonies of released prisoners.

“Despite clear evidence of Dr Abu Safia's arrest, the occupation is now denying its previous statements and rejecting the existence of evidence, including videos and photos it had previously published, as well as the testimonies of some detainees who were released,” the Palestinian Prisoners Club (PPC) said in a statement on 3 January.

The risks of his detainment are growing, the statement says, adding that he is but one of thousands who are “enduring the crime of enforced disappearance.”

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) urged the Israeli military to permit a lawyer to visit Abu Safia in detention. The Israeli army responded by saying that no evidence exists to confirm the hospital director's detainment.

Abu Safia was detained on 27 December in the latest of many violent Israeli army raids on north Gaza’s besieged and destroyed Kamal Adwan Hospital.

Israeli media has published footage of Dr Abu Safia walking alone through the rubble surrounding the hospital toward an Israeli tank before his abduction.


Recently released Palestinian prisoners who spoke to CNN late last month said Abu Safia is being held at the notorious Sde Teiman military base and detention center in the Negev desert – where detainees have been raped and tortured by Israeli forces.

Israel’s i24 news channel reported on Friday that Abu Safia is currently at Sde Teiman, and will soon face a hearing to determine the potential extension of his detention.

“Dr Hussam Abu Safia is under investigation by the Shin Bet on suspicion of having ties to Hamas,” the Israeli outlet said.

Israeli forces stormed Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza on 27 December, evacuating people at gunpoint and setting the facility ablaze after brutal attacks on the hospital’s vicinity – killing at least 50 people in under 24 hours.

The Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza has also been destroyed for the most part and surrounded by Israeli troops.

This comes as part of the unofficial implementation of the Generals’ Plan, which seeks to make northern Gaza uninhabitable through mass destruction, killing, and expulsion. Israel's goal is to completely empty out north Gaza and transform the area into an isolated military zone.

Israel’s war against the health sector in northern Gaza, which is part of the same plan, aims to make the area unlivable. Scores of doctors and medical workers have been killed.

Abu Safia himself recently survived an injury sustained from one of the continuous Israeli attacks on his hospital, which have included airstrikes, artillery shelling, and the detonation of robotic-explosive devices.

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Re: Palestine

Post by blindpig » Sun Jan 05, 2025 3:43 pm

Israeli Attacks Kill 9 Security Members Guarding AID Trucks

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A Palestinian father carries his daughter next to the destroyed house of the Abu Libda family following an Israeli air strike in Al Maghazi refugee camp, central Gaza Strip. Photo: EFE/EPA/MOHAMMED SABER


January 4, 2025 Hour: 2:28 pm

At least nine security personnel supervising humanitarian aid convoys in the Gaza Strip have been killed in Israeli attacks over the past 24 hours, the Palestinian Red Crescent reported on Saturday.

Three of them have been killed in the city of Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, according to Palestinian media, while the others have been reported in Khan Younis, in the southern part of the enclave, local sources told a news agency.

On Thursday, the army also killed in the humanitarian zone of Mawasi, located in the south and center of the Strip, the dvision general Mahmoud Salah, director general of the police in southern Gaza, and Hussam Shahwan, director of the General Investigations Department at the same institution.


Both police officers were responsible for ensuring order in the area and preventing vandalism in the distribution of humanitarian aid.

In recent months, the Gaza police have conducted several operations in the southern Gaza Strip against groups that loot humanitarian aid trucks entering the enclave.

The looting of vehicles carrying humanitarian aid is a growing problem in Gaza and has worsened in recent months, so local police have conducted several operations to try to catch those involved in the theft of these trucks, It sometimes happens a few meters away from the Israeli forces stationed in the south of the enclave.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/israeli- ... id-trucks/

Israel Destroys UN Mission and Lebanese Army Property Despite Truce

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Referencial image. UNIFIL official in Lebanon. Photo: X/ @UNIFIL_


January 4, 2025 Hour: 3:57 pm

The UN peace mission in southern Lebanon (UNIFIL) said on Saturday that the Israeli army has destroyed with a bulldozer an identified property of the blue helmets, as well as an observation tower of the Lebanese armed forces, despite the truce in force, which ends at the end of this month.

UN peacekeepers reported the destruction by the Israeli army of a blue barrel marking the withdrawal line between Lebanon and Israel and an observation tower belonging to the Lebanese Armed Forces in Labbouneh.


The mission noted that these actions constitute a serious violation of resolution 1701 and international law, as they are clearly identifiable properties related to UNIFIL and Lebanese Armed Forces operations.

“We call on all actors to avoid any action, including the destruction of civilian property and infrastructure, that could endanger the cessation of hostilities,” the note concludes.

Israel has repeatedly violated the 60-day truce in force in Lebanon, brokered by the US following the escalation of the Israeli army’s war against that country and Hizbullah positions.

The truce stipulates that Israeli troops must withdraw from Lebanon, as they occupy a southern part of the country after launching an invasion in early October, while Hezbollah fighters are to retreat north of the Litani River.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/israel-d ... ite-truce/

******

Hamas publishes video of captive Israeli soldier as ceasefire talks resume in Doha

Israel has stepped up its bombardment of the Gaza Strip, killing over 265 Palestinians since the start of the new year

News Desk

JAN 5, 2025

Image
(Photo credit: Francisco Seco/AP)

Hamas's military wing, the Qassam Brigades published a video on 4 January of a 19-year-old female Israeli soldier held captive in Gaza.

The footage shows Liri Albag begging the Israeli government to reach a deal for her and other captives' release.

Hamas is demanding the Israeli army withdraw from Gaza and release some of the thousands of Palestinians held captive in Israeli prisons.

She stated that one of her fellow female soldiers was severely injured due to the Israeli army's ongoing bombing of Gaza.

"We are in a terrifying nightmare. Our chance to stay alive is connected to the withdrawal of the Israeli army and it not reaching us," she stated.

"I ask the Israeli government, if your loved ones were held captive, would you continue the war until now? Do you want to kill us?" she asked.

⚡️BREAKING: Al-Qassam Brigades publishes a new message from an Israeli prisoner, soldier Liri Albag who was captured from the Nahal Oz outpost on 7 October 2023:

"I ask you, government of Israel, I really want to ask you, do you want to kill us?"

A few things she said in the… pic.twitter.com/uQwB4AQbH9

— Suppressed News. (@SuppressedNws) January 4, 2025


Albag was taken captive by Hamas along with six other female conscript soldiers at the Nahal Oz army base on the Gaza border on 7 October 2023. Five of them remain in captivity.

Following the release of the video, several thousand protesters gathered in Tel Aviv near military headquarters, and called on US President-elect Donald Trump to end the war in Gaza and secure a deal.

Omri Lifshitz, son of captivity survivor Yocheved Lofshitz and captive Oded Lofshitz, demanded that Trump “End this fucking war now.”

The female conscripts were responsible for monitoring the Gaza border. They warned their superiors in the months and weeks ahead of 7 October that Hamas was preparing to launch an attack from Gaza on the settlements and military bases besieging the enclave.

During Palestinian protests against the Israeli siege of Gaza in 2018, snipers from Israeli army units stationed at Nahal Oz killed hundreds of Palestinians. They injured hundreds more near the border fence, including Palestinian medic Razan Al-Najjar.

Israeli troops shot Palestinians with their backs turned to the fence, while praying, or with nothing in their hands, the New York Times reported.

Do you remember Razan Al-Najjar? The nurse who aided peaceful protesters and was killed by the Israeli army’s surveillance and sniper unit, in which the captive Israeli soldier Liri Albag served along Gaza’s fence? pic.twitter.com/FAikXS973l

— Ramy Abdu| رامي عبده (@RamAbdu) January 5, 2025


The video's release coincides with renewed ceasefire and prisoner exchange talks in the Qatari capital, Doha, and as Israel has intensified its attacks on Gaza.

Medical sources in Gaza reported that more than 88 people had been killed by Israeli bombardment in the past day, including many in strikes on family homes. In the past three days alone, over 200 people have been killed. Since the start of the new year, over 265 Palestinians have been killed by Israel's indiscriminate bombardment of the strip.

Israel has killed over 265 Palestinians in Gaza since the start of 2025. pic.twitter.com/b2JimvzN5z

— The Cradle (@TheCradleMedia) January 5, 2025


On Friday night, Hamas said its officials would resume meetings in Doha with Egyptian and Qatari mediators to reach a ceasefire deal.

Israel also announced last week that it was sending a delegation of midlevel security officials to meet with mediators in Qatar.

However, a family member of a captive revealed to Haaretz that a senior Israeli negotiator said returning the captives is not the government's top priority but rather dismantling Hamas, which will require more time and additional military operations.

Since the start of Israel's war on Gaza 15 months ago, Israel's air force and ground troops have killed 45,805 Palestinians, the majority women and children, and wounded 109,064 others.

https://thecradle.co/articles/hamas-pub ... me-in-doha

Hezbollah says 'capabilities restored' as Israel threatens to collapse ceasefire

The resistance movement’s secretary general has said that Hezbollah’s patience may run out before the end of the 60-day ceasefire period

News Desk

JAN 5, 2025

Image
(Photo credit: Getty Images)

The head of Hezbollah’s Liaison and Coordination Unit, Wafiq Safa, confirmed in a press conference on 5 January that the Lebanese resistance has restored its capabilities and is capable of confronting Israeli attacks.

The conference marks Safa’s first public appearance since being targeted in an Israeli assassination attempt that killed 22 civilians and injured over 100 more. The attack took place in the southern suburb of Beirut, near the site where late Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah was assassinated.

“Hezbollah's capabilities have been restored, and it has the ability to confront any attack in the manner it deems appropriate,” Safa told reporters.
“Hezbollah has not and will not be defeated. It was created with victory imprinted on its forehead, and its determination is stronger than iron.”

Responding to a question on what happens if Israel fails to withdraw after the 60-day ceasefire implementation period – which is due to finish at the end of this month – the Hezbollah official said, “the Lebanese army and the monitoring committee were not informed of this matter,” as had been reported.

“But after the 60 days have passed, the matter is up to Hezbollah and the resistance to decide what they will do. As Sheikh Naim Qassem said, this is the responsibility of the state that signed the agreement, and it is the one that will follow up on the ceasefire procedures or violations,” he added.

He confirmed what Secretary-General Naim Qassem said in a speech one day earlier that Hezbollah’s patience may run out before the end of the 60 days, because Israel’s ceasefire violations are becoming “unbearable.”

Commenting on the issue of the Lebanese presidency, Safa confirmed that Hezbollah has no issue with the candidacy of US-backed Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) commander Joseph Aoun.

“Our only veto is on [Lebanese Forces (LF) leader] Samir Geagea because he represents a project of sedition, civil strife, and destruction in the country,” he added. Lebanese political forces have been deadlocked on the election of a new president for three years.

A parliamentary session to elect a president is scheduled for next week.

The press conference coincided with continued Israeli army advancements and ceasefire violations in southern Lebanon.

Israeli troops pushed into Taybeh and “carried out extensive combing operations with heavy and medium machine guns,” Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) reported, adding that explosions were heard inside the town’s neighborhoods.

They also continued demolition operations in Aitaroun and nearby areas, while blocking the road leading from Qantara to Taybeh.

The ceasefire agreement announced on 27 November, based on UN Resolution 1701, stipulates that the Lebanese army must dismantle Hezbollah’s presence and infrastructure south of the Litani River in a period of 60 days, during which Israel is also required to withdraw its forces from south Lebanon.

The agreement is being overseen by a US-led tripartite mechanism involving France and the UNIFIL. It has been violated over 1,000 times by Israel.

Several recent reports have said that Israel is gearing up to maintain its presence in the south past the 60-day period. Tel Aviv is unsatisfied with the Lebanese army’s efforts to implement the deal, and says Hezbollah has not left the areas south of the Litani.

According to Al Akhbar newspaper, the Lebanese army has received “serious signals” from the US that Israel could potentially extend its presence in south Lebanon by 30 days.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Sunday that Hezbollah is violating the ceasefire and has not withdrawn to behind the Litani River, adding that “if this condition is not met, there will be no agreement, and Israel will be forced to act on its own to ensure the safe return of residents of the north to their homes.”

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz threatens resumption of war on Lebanon, saying Hezbollah has yet to withdraw beyond the Litani River.

Israel has violated the ceasefire over 1,000 times since it took effect.

Speaking during a visit to the Northern Command, where weapons… pic.twitter.com/HYSdqC3hEA

— The Cradle (@TheCradleMedia) January 5, 2025


https://thecradle.co/articles/hezbollah ... -ceasefire
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Re: Palestine

Post by blindpig » Mon Jan 06, 2025 3:14 pm

Eight Israeli Lawmakers Demand Acceleration of the Extermination in Gaza by Destroying Remaining Food, Plus Water and Energy Infrastructure
Posted on January 5, 2025 by Yves Smith

It appears Palestinians in Gaza are not dying quickly enough to satisfy the real estate development timetables of some Israelis. So eight members of the Knesset sent a letter to Benjamin Netanyahu and Chair of Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Yuli Edelstein, pressing them to pick up the genocide tempo by making more comprehensive efforts to deny the remaining Gazas entirely of food, water, and power, and also drone-executing “anyone that moves” not exiting areas to be cleared while waving a white flag.


We thank Mondoweiss for reporting this appalling story and for readers guurst and Stacey B for calling it to our attention. We are reproducing Mondoweiss’ translation below. It makes a weak attempt to depict this Final Solution for Gazans as something other than what it is by pretending there will be humanitarian evacuation. As anyone who has been following the horrors in Gaza knows well by now, Israel has taken to herding Palestinians into purported safe zones and then killing them either en route or attacking the designated arrival area.

It was obvious where Israeli officials wanted their campaign to go within weeks of October 7. From an October 21, 2024 post, Israel Intends to Make Gaza Uninhabitable by Cutting Power Permanently:

It is striking to see how politicians, pundits, the press, and even key figures discuss the obvious trajectory of what Israel is doing to Gaza and its population. “Humanitarian crisis” winds up being inadequate since it averts attention from the deliberate steps Israel is taking to make living in Gaza untenable. “Genocide” is more apt but without describing the clear program Israel is launching, it can be depicted as overwrought.

Israel will reduce Gaza to a place where it is impossible to live, at least until if and when Israel decides to decides to repossess it bit by bit and rebuild. It is indifferent to the question of whether neighboring countries will relent in the face of escalating starvation, dehydration, and disease and take Palestinians in. It just wants them dispatched by whatever means necessary.

Israel plans first to reduce Gaza to rubble, as anyone could see when it started bombing apartment buildings on an indiscriminate basis. The excuse is it needs to do that as a preliminary to a ground operation to rout Hamas from the underground tunnels that survive the bombing campaign. Note military experts such as Scott Ritter have said that any clearing operation in Gaza would be a dangerous and high-casualty enterprise even for a military with the right equipment and equipment, and the IDF is not that. More important, Ritter and others have argued that the destruction of the buildings is likely to make any effort to wipe out the Hamas forces in Gaza more difficult….

The latest Seymour Hersh article describes the current Israel plan, which again could be inferred from actions and other statements. But Hersh usefully gets on the record the malignant intent, per the boldfaced section:

Netanyahu’s attitude, as assessed by the intelligence analysts, I was told, amounts to a determination “to wipe out Hamas.” One knowledgeable official told me that “Gaza City is in the process of being turned into Hiroshima with no nuclear weapons used.” At some point, he said, American-made bombs in the Israeli arsenal, including those known as “bunker busters,” may be targeted on the underground tunnel systems where Hamas manufactured the weapons and conducted planning for the horrific attacks in southern Israel on October 7.

If you have any doubts, see the additional detail today from the BBC, in Israel aims to cut Gaza ties after war with Hamas….

In other words, the elimination of Hamas from Gaza is the fig leaf for clearing Gaza of all Palestinians permanently. It would be impossible to resume water supplies or operate a hospital with no electricity. It’s been obvious this is the plan. The Israelis are now making it explicit. So why are officials and pundits mincing words?


Again, the destruction of hospitals and the targeting of medical personnel made it indisputable that Israel was intent on slaughtering all Gazans. Aside from the words of Israeli leaders, pundits and citizens, some of them captured in ICJ filings, we have acts like the choking off of food relief, gunning of people running to aid trucks, and videos of sacks of grain being emptied and filled with sand.

So why the ratcheting up now? Did someone have Nazi death camp like estimates of how long it ought to take before the Palestinians succumbed from starvation, disease, and exposure, and they’ve collectively managed to outlive forecasts, to much annoyance? Or is it that Israeli officials feel emboldened by the collapse of Syria and the just-around-the-corner arrival of the unconcerned-about-appearances Trump Administration? The worst is one can’t even see this missive as the product of hardliners; the co-signers skew to right wingers but are still broadly representative.

Needless to say, some things speak for themselves, and the document below is an example. The key bit is in the section numbered (1) to (3).

Concerning: the operational plan in the Gaza Strip

We approach you, as members of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, so that you re-examine the military operations in the Gaza Strip, due to its harsh results until now and prospects for the future. We shall thus specify:

The military operation in the Gaza Strip, as it was presented to us at the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee by the former Defense Minister even before the beginning of the ground operation on October 27, 2023, and as it has been conducted since, on the ground, does not allow for the objectives as determined by the governmental echelon: Toppling the governance and military capabilities of Hamas, and they are indeed not materializing until today, despite dealing with a small territory and an enemy that does not possess tools or capabilities of a modern army.
As was mentioned by the [IDF] Chief of Staff publicly, IDF operates with the method of local raids, a method which lacks the central component of a guerilla war of this kind: control. Effective control of the territory and the population is the only means towards cleansing enemy lines from the strip, and naturally towards decisive victory, rather than treading [water] in a war of attrition, where the side that is most worn is Israel. Therefore we end up inserting our soldiers again and again into neighborhoods and alleys that were already conquered by them many times, places which IDF leaders have declared as such, where Hamas divisions were dismantled and toppled, [declared] cleansed of enemies. (And in these same places we pay a dear and intolerable price in blood).
From the date October 6, 2024, in the north of the Gaza Strip, south of the Mefalsim [Jabalia] corridor, a one-way operation ensued, one which included encirclement and evacuation of the population southwards. We all hoped that this was the beginning of military actions that would bring the required change, yet it seems that this operation is not being conducted properly: that is, after the encirclement and humanitarian evacuation, the IDF does not regard, as is custom in international law and all western armies, those who remain, as enemies. And is again risking the lives of our soldiers by entering the dense residential territory.
After encirclement and evacuation of the population, the instructions to IDF need to be clear:
(1) Remote elimination of all energy sources, that is fuel, solar panels and any relevant means (pipes, cables, generators etc.)

(2) Elimination of all food sources including warehouses, water and all relevant means (water pumps etc.)

(3) Remote elimination of anyone who moves in the area and does not exit with a white flag during the days of the effective siege.

After these actions and the days of siege upon those who remain, IDF must enter gradually and conduct a full cleansing of the enemy nests.

This should be done in the northern Gaza Strip, and similarly in any other territory: encirclement, evacuation of the population to a humanitarian zone, and effective siege until surrender or full elimination of the enemy. This is how every army acts, and so must the IDF act.
Despite repeated questions and requests at the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, until today we have not received satisfactory answers from IDF representatives at the committee, concerning why they do not act as is required, to determine victory over Hamas as an ‘end of operations state’ concerning the fighting, and what the plans are for the future. Therefore we ask for your immediate intervention in response to these questions, as well as the issuance of suitable instructions to IDF in order to reach a decisive victory and a cessation of unnecessary risking of our soldiers’ lives.

Copy: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Chair of Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Yuli Edelstein.

[Signatories]: Amit Halevy [Likud], Nissim Vattori [Likud], Ariel Kellner [Likud], Osher Shekalim [Likud], Zvi Sukkot [Religious Zionism], Ohad Tal [Religious Zionism], Limor Son Har-Melech [Jewish Power], Avraham Bezalel [Shas].


https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/01 ... cture.html

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The Illusions of 2024
January 5, 2025

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Palestinians in Nuseirat camp, Gaza Strip, after an Israeli bombardment. Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib/Zuma Press.

By Justin Podur – Dec 31, 2024

In his novel, The Thorn and the Carnation, Yahya Sinwar’s character Ibrahim challenged his cousin Mahmoud, who said the Palestinians had to surrender lest they be wiped out entirely. Ibrahim said no, they cannot wipe us out, because they are governed by many equations. Mahmoud’s defeatism was always on the wrong track because the Israelis don’t accept surrender. After 2024 it seems Ibrahim was also mistaken about the equations.

Israelis were probably surprised as everyone else that they have been permitted to run this open-ended genocide. In the past, they’ve behaved as if constrained by things that didn’t turn out to constrain them in 2024. Let’s make a list so we can go into 2025 without illusions about the world we live in.

We can divide our list into non-constraints and partial constraints that may just not have reached an effective level.

Non-constraints first. Israelis are not constrained by any of the following:

Israeli society. The Western conscience. Israeli society began this year irredeemably genocidal and racist and has descended into worse condition every single day. They are actively demonstrating in favor of starvation and masses of them watch footage of Palestinians dying for pleasure. Western elites support all this with equal racist enthusiasm.

Hostage families. The families of the Israeli captives that actually want a prisoner exchange have been crushed by the weight of Israeli society and have no leverage over their government. There are also families of Israeli captives that campaign against a prisoner exchange. Israel’s plan is to kill all the hostages in order to continue the genocide. They will not be stopped by the captives’ families.

The American Jewish Diaspora. In 2024, there were some high-profile protests by Jewish Americans against what Israel is doing. But the majority of the Jewish diaspora supports Israel including while Israel is conducting genocide. https://www.ajc.org/news/survey2024. Predictions made by, e.g., Norman Finkelstein in his 2011 book A Farewell to Israel, that there would be a split between Israel and the Jewish diaspora, have proven incorrect.

Widespread information and Western public opinion. I’m old enough to remember when millions marched against the forthcoming invasion of Iraq in February 2003. The New York Times labeled us the “second superpower”, global public opinion. I had the feeling at the time that it was some kind of taunt, but was naive enough at the time to believe that the cost of the war would be too high and that if the US had wanted to invade and occupy Iraq they would have done it 12 years before in 1991. It seems I’ve been fooled by this type of delay many times now (believing for example that if HTS couldn’t take Syria in 2019 they couldn’t do it in 2024; or that if Israel couldn’t succeed in Lebanon in 2006 that they wouldn’t try in 2024…) In any case 2024 has shown yet again that global public opinion is no superpower.

American voting. The American electoral system worked to effectively exclude any third anti-genocide party and ensured that all candidates of both parties were genocidal. Pro-genocide forces boast openly about how anti-genocide voters have no option and how America will support Israel no matter what. The Israeli leader gets more standing ovations than any American could dream of. There will be no voting out the genociders.

American activism. Professional pro-genocide organizations have devoted enormous resources over decades to making anti-genocide organizing on campuses and elsewhere exceptionally difficult. The student encampments that brought hope of a new movement were dismantled by immense police violence in 2024. The election revealed the worthlessness of trying to pressure politicians through protest or petition. America’s genocide is well insulated from the mechanisms of civic action and activism.

The Arab street. It was believed, out of fear that the masses might revolt and destabilize them, that Arab regimes like Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and others wouldn’t dare support Israel while Israel was genociding the Palestinians. There were some demonstrations in Jordan at various times in 2023 and 2024 in solidarity, but these were crushed and their organizers jailed. In Egypt, the people live in fear of the regime. Israel might just try to overthrow Egypt in 2025, to try to displace the Palestinians into the Sinai desert for Israel to kill there in an Israeli-reoccupied Sinai peninsula – or try the equivalent in the West Bank, removing a supportive regime in favor of direct occupation and ethnic cleansing. Even the Palestinian Authority has continued faithfully with its security cooperation with Israel, killing West Bank resistance members even as their fellow Palestinians are being genocided. The only Arab government overthrown with great fanfare in 2024 was Syria – the last neighbour that opposed Israel. In 2024, the Arab street has done more for Israel than against it.



International law. In 2024 the ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant and the ICJ declared the occupation illegal. Having ordered provisional measures and been ignored, the ICJ promised to take years to rule on whether Israel is committing genocide and they have fulfilled their promise to do nothing legally for a long time. The Security Council issued a ceasefire resolution that wasn’t even vetoed by the US. All were ignored. International law has been exposed as an illusion.

International diplomacy and BRICS. A couple of countries have cut ties with Israel. Most – including big powers who could have made a big difference like China and Russia – continue to interact with Israel as if it’s not committing genocide (Turkey also could have made a difference and it did – helping Israel and destroying Syria). On the official level, the countries of the world have taken the position either that genocide is not a big deal or that it’s actually fine. It turns out that if you’re Israel, committing genocide won’t make you a pariah state – business will continue as usual.

None of the above have had any effect in halting the genocide.

What about partial constraints? The following probably still operate but, so far, below the threshold needed to stop genocide.

The balance of terror. At the beginning of 2024, Iran’s president Raisi, Hamas’s leaders Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar, Hezbollah’s General Secretary Hassan Nasrallah and the organization’s senior commanders all were alive. Israel killed them all. Even though they failed to occupy Lebanon through war, the Israelis have crept forward during the ceasefire and made a separate peace with Lebanon. They removed Assad, occupied Syria and destroyed the state and its arsenal, and probably used a nuclear weapon on an undefended target in Tartus. Iran still exists and Yemen continues to fight Israel but both are threatened with annihilation in 2025. If there was a balance of terror and deterrence going into 2024, it has been broken.

Military casualties. In previous Israeli wars on Gaza and Lebanon, Israel stopped well short of the casualty numbers they have already suffered in 2023-4. In 2024 they successfully added the religious orthodox to the recruiting pool and censored their actual casualty numbers effectively while likely suffering tens of thousands of wounded and thousands killed. Israel was believed to be a society that would disintegrate if military casualties reached a certain threshold. Perhaps Israeli society is in fact disintegrating, or perhaps the threshold is higher than previously believed. At the level that the Palestinian resistance can inflict them, military casualties have not so far been sufficient to stop Israel’s genocide.

Civilian casualties. Before 2024, many observers believed that Israel would balk at attacking Lebanon because of Hizbollah’s capacity to hit targets in Israel with rockets, drones, and missiles (as promised in a famous speech by Nasrallah in 2012). In 2024 Israel attacked Lebanon, slaughtering Lebanon’s civilians, destroying infrastructure, and absorbing the standoff attacks by Hizbollah. Israel sought a ceasefire after taking hundreds of military casualties in a short period of time, but continued genocide every single day of 2024, including days it was being bombed by Palestinian Resistance rockets from Gaza, by Hizbollah, by Ansrarallah in Yemen, by Iraqi resistance groups, and the two nights that it was bombed by Iran.

Economic attrition. Ansarallah in Yemen successfully imposed a major set of costs on Israel through its blockade of ships bound from Israel through the Red Sea. Hundreds of thousands of reservists were taken out of the work force to go and kill children in Gaza. The tourism industry died. Major investors have withdrawn. But the US will provide any amount of funds needed to keep Israel going and to keep the bombs falling on the children. Arab neighbours have created a land bridge so that Israelis can keep eating while they starve the Palestinians. Turkey keeps providing fuel while Israel plunges the Palestinians into darkness and cold. International shipping has assumed the extra costs of traveling around Africa to avoid the Red Sea blockade. Israel is suffering economically, but that suffering has not made Israel reconsider its genocide.

What are we left with? Palestinian and allied armed resistance, legal under international law. The potential of unarmed resistance of the kind that Palestine Action is engaged in. The accumulation of pressures that haven’t yet reached the required level – military actions, economic pressure, and activism at a higher threshold.

Since nothing has worked yet and the genocide goes on, it is impossible to say how well anything is working. Whenever the genocide does end, some of the things that didn’t yet get it done in 2024 will have played a role.

What’s certain is that against this enemy there’s no room for wasted effort.

May 2025 be a year of no more illusions.

https://orinocotribune.com/the-illusions-of-2024/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Palestine

Post by blindpig » Tue Jan 07, 2025 3:25 pm

Netanyahu approves new 'offensive and defensive' operations in occupied West Bank

The Palestinian Authority (PA) is carrying out a major operation against resistance fighters in the Jenin refugee camp on Israel's behalf

News Desk

JAN 6, 2025

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(Photo credit: CNN)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office announced that he approved a series of additional military operations in the West Bank.

According to Netanyahu's office, these operations include “additional offensive and defensive measures” in the West Bank, as well as arresting perpetrators of operations against Israel and bringing them to justice.

The decision followed Netanyahu's meeting on 6 January with Defense Minister Israel Katz and Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi.

Earlier today, Netanyahu vowed to liquidate those responsible for killing three Jewish settlers in the West Bank earlier on Monday.

“We will reach the killers, settle our accounts with them and with those who helped them, and no one will escape from us,” Netanyahu stated.

Israel increased the size and number of its military operations against Palestinian resistance groups in the occupied West Bank after Hamas's Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on 7 October 2023.

Israel's war in Gaza has killed over 45,000, the majority women and children.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) is currently carrying out a major raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank.

The Guardian notes it “is the largest operation the western-backed governing body has undertaken in the 30 years since it was formed.”

After a recent visit to Jenin, The Guardian observed that “Israel hopes it can delegate stamping out militant activity to the Ramallah-based authority, and the PA is seeking to prove it will be able to handle governing the Gaza Strip when the war there ends.”

However, residents of the camp are angry at the PA security forces for their collaboration with Israel against the local resistance fighters.

“Most of these young men are part of small, ad hoc militias only loosely affiliated with the traditional Palestinian factions, such as Fatah and its rival Hamas,” the UK paper added.

Mariam, a 23-year-old resident of the camp, stated, “This is basically a civil war, Palestinians killing Palestinians.”

Residents were further angered after a sniper from the PA security forces shot and killed 22-year-old journalism student Shatha al-Sabbagh on Saturday.

Amid the violence in Jenin, Israel's Jewish settlers are hoping that incoming US President Donald Trump will allow them to formally annex the occupied West Bank.

The New York Times (NYT) reported on Monday that “Some of President-elect Donald J. Trump's staffing choices have raised hopes among settlers that [annexation] could happen.”

Members of Trump's staff, including incoming Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, have visited the West Bank settlements and expressed their strong support for them and Israel.

“Trump's team was here, they saw the reality, and for me, that's a total relief,” said Israel Ganz, the head of a council governing the settlement of Shiloh.

Recently, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) reaffirmed that all Israeli Jewish settlements in the West Bank are illegal under international law and must be dismantled.

Israeli forces occupied the West Bank in 1967 and have been building illegal settlements for Jewish Israelis on stolen Palestinian land since that time.

https://thecradle.co/articles/netanyahu ... -west-bank

Israeli troops abduct Lebanese, Syrian farmers in south Lebanon

Israel has stated it does not intend to withdraw from south Lebanon following the end of the 60-day ceasefire with the Lebanese government

News Desk

JAN 6, 2025

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(Photo credit: BBC)

An Israeli army patrol abducted 19 farmers in the Hasabia district in southern Lebanon, including five Lebanese and 14 Syrians, Al Jadeed reported on 6 January.

According to the report, four of the abductees were women. The women were released, while the rest were taken to Israeli territory. The Lebanese channel later reported that one of the detainees was a Lebanese soldier.

Despite a ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel that took effect on 27 November, Israeli forces continue to flatten and demolish the homes of displaced Lebanese civilians in the south of the country.


The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel does not plan to withdraw from southern Lebanon at the end of a 60-day truce, with an Israeli official claiming that the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) is not ready to fully deploy to the border.

The comments coincide with the arrival of US presidential envoy Amos Hochstein in Beirut on Monday.

Responding to a question on Lebanon's fate if Israel fails to withdraw after the 60-day ceasefire implementation period – which is due to finish at the end of this month – the head of Hezbollah’s Liaison and Coordination Unit, Wafiq Safa, said, “the Lebanese army and the monitoring committee were not informed of this matter.”

“But after the 60 days have passed, the matter is up to Hezbollah and the resistance to decide what they will do. As Sheikh Naim Qassem said, this is the responsibility of the state that signed the agreement, and it is the one that will follow up on the ceasefire procedures or violations,” Safa added.

He confirmed what Secretary-General Naim Qassem said in a speech one day earlier that Hezbollah’s patience may run out before the end of the 60 days because Israel’s ceasefire violations are becoming “unbearable.”

Israel's 14-month-long war on Lebanon began on 8 October 2023. Israel escalated the conflict in September, carrying out major terror attacks with exploding pagers and walkie-talkies used by civilian and military Hezbollah members. Israel then launched a massive bombing campaign, striking civilian and military targets across Lebanon.

Israel killed at least 4,000 people during the course of the war, displaced more than one million others, and significantly damaged civilian infrastructure, including the healthcare system, while directly targeting civil defense rescuers.

https://thecradle.co/articles/israeli-t ... th-lebanon

Israeli settlers in Sderot claim Hamas rocket fire 'intolerable' as new barrage launched from Gaza

Israel continues its heavy bombardment of Gaza during ceasefire talks in Qatar

News Desk

JAN 6, 2025

Image
(Photo credit: AP photo/Ariel Sharit)

Hamas's armed wing in Gaza, the Qassam Brigades, launched three rockets at the Israeli settlement of Sderot, which lies on the northern Gaza border, on 6 January, stoking anger among residents, Israeli media reported.

According to the Israeli military, one of the rockets was shot down by missile defense, while another struck the city, damaging a home. The third rocket made impact in an open area without causing major damage. No injuries were reported.

The Qassam Brigades launched the rockets after the Israeli air force heavily bombed targets in northern Gaza on Monday.

Ynet reported that Hamas fired at Israeli settlements for nine consecutive days since last week and that a mortar shell exploded near the Erez border crossing on Saturday.

The resurgence of Hamas rocket fire on Sderot has angered settlers in the city.

An Israeli mother of five, Hodaya, initiated an emergency campaign through parent groups to suspend school activities indefinitely.

“This reality is becoming intolerable,” she told Israel Hayom, vowing to lead efforts to halt educational activities until security conditions improve. “We have returned to a state of war; this reality is unbearable,” another resident told the Hebrew outlet.

On 5 January, medical sources in Gaza reported that over 88 people had been killed by Israeli bombardment – which also targeted family homes – in the past day. Since the start of the new year, over 265 Palestinians have been killed by Israel's indiscriminate bombardment of the strip.

Indirect negotiations continue between Israel and Hamas for a ceasefire in Gaza and a prisoner swap.

Reuters reported on Sunday that a Hamas official provided the news agency with a copy of the list showing the names of 34 Israeli captives it agreed to set free in any possible ceasefire deal with Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office swiftly issued a statement saying Hamas had not provided a list of captives to be released.

Thousands of Palestinians remain captive in Israeli prisons and detention centers, where they are regularly raped and tortured.

https://thecradle.co/articles/israeli-s ... -from-gaza

******

Houthi Movement Attacks U.S. Aircraft Carrier in the Red Sea

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U.S Warship USS Harry S. Truman Photo: @EscenarioM

January 6, 2025 Hour: 6:54 pm

The Houthi movement, known as Ansar Alá and controlling northern Yemen, launched a missile and drone attack on the U.S. aircraft carrier USS Harry Truman in the Red Sea on Tuesday. In a statement broadcast by the Al Masirah television channel, the Houthis claimed, “We have carried out a high-quality military operation against the U.S. aircraft carrier USS Harry Truman in the northern part of the Red Sea.”

The statement further noted that “the operation was conducted using two cruise missiles and four drones at a time when the U.S. enemy was preparing to launch a major airstrike” against Yemen.

Since November 2023, Ansar Alá has initiated a campaign targeting merchant vessels allegedly linked to Israel, aiming to prevent their passage through the Arabian and Red Seas while humanitarian aid, including food and medicine, is not reaching Gaza.

The threat of attacks in this critical area for global trade—especially concerning oil—has led several shipping companies to reroute their vessels around Africa, resulting in slower and more expensive transportation.

#معركة_الفتح_الموعود_والجهاد_المقدس pic.twitter.com/1hxrj4EI0y

— العميد يحيى سريع (@army21ye) January 6, 2025


In response to these developments, the United States and its allies have been conducting operations in the region since mid-December, which include bombings on Yemeni soil aimed at deterring Houthi attacks on merchant ships and ensuring freedom of navigation.

Senior officials from Ansar Alá have repeatedly stated that they will continue their military operations until Israel ceases its aggression against Gaza.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/houthi-m ... e-red-sea/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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