Egypt's stability is crucial for Saudi Arabia and the UAE, but now they're linking financial aid to the mass displacement of Gazans to Sinai, which poses an even greater threat to Cairo's national security.
Mohamad Hasan Sweidan
FEB 26, 2024
As Israel's brutal military assault on Gaza escalates, reports continue to swirl about a big Egyptian trade-off in the works: the absorption of large numbers of displaced Palestinians from the Strip in exchange for easing Cairo's massive debt load – which surpasses $160 billion.
Yet more than four months after the war's onset, Egyptian parliamentarian Mustafa Bakri says President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has rejected $250 billion from foreign states as payment to allow Gazans to flood the Sinai.
Despite Cairo's repeated rejection of forcibly transferring Palestinians into Egyptian territory, ongoing fears of a potential influx of Gazans fleeing Israeli atrocities, the viability of their return, and the destabilization of the Sinai border have continued to beset the Egyptian government. And important questions linger about who truly stands to gain from the displacement of Palestinians beyond Gaza's confines.
As the conflict grows in both ferocity and breadth, it has become evident that for many Arab leaders, the Palestinian cause has become a secondary concern, if not a burdensome inconvenience. Arab states that normalized relations with Israel in 2020 – such as the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan – currently view Palestine as an obstacle to their diplomatic flexibility.
The plan: cash for displacement
As Israel advances militarily into Gaza's southernmost territory, Rafah, photos and videos published by the Sinai Foundation for Human Rights reveal that Egypt has begun constructing a closed zone on its border with Gaza – ostensibly aimed at sheltering Palestinians fleeing the anticipated Israeli attack on Rafah.
The images show workers using heavy machinery to install concrete barriers and security towers around a strip of land on the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing.
There is little doubt that the mass displacement of Palestinians poses a threat to Egypt's national security in the long term. Still, the Saudis and Emiratis appear to be prioritizing this Israeli objective, and so Egypt faces a dilemma:
Either continue to reject displacement or accept a mass exodus to Sinai – even temporarily – in exchange for economic incentives that include offsetting a major part of its accumulated debt, which also threatens the Egyptian economy significantly and, by extension, its social cohesion.
Cairo has been complicit in Israel's blockade of Gaza since 2007 and has played an active role in countering Palestinian resistance by flooding tunnels connecting the Strip to Sinai.
The critical role played by Saudi Arabia and Egypt in shaping post-war Gaza cannot be overstated. Riyadh's embrace of normalization sets a dangerous precedent, fulfilling a long-held US–Israeli desire to integrate the occupation state into West Asia – to the detriment of Palestine.
This shift in dynamics represents a concerted effort to sideline the Palestinian cause in favor of broader regional political and economic guarantees from Washington. Speaking at this year's Munich Security Conference, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said there is an "extraordinary opportunity" in the coming months for the recognition of Israel among Arab states:
Virtually every Arab country now genuinely wants to integrate Israel into the region to normalize relations … to provide security commitments and assurances so that Israel can feel more safe.
It seems clear that Riyadh decided, from the beginning of the Gaza war, to prepare the internal environment for the post-Gaza phase, that is, the phase of normalization and settlement. Saudi Arabia insisted on not postponing any festival or celebration, prevented participating artists from showing sympathy for the Palestinians, punished those who sympathized with the martyrs of Gaza from a Saudi platform, and even banned the wearing of the Palestinian Kufiyyeh at Mawsim al-Riyadh, a state-funded annual festival.
Saudi Arabia's meticulous plan to relegate the Palestinian issue to the annals of history comprises five strategic steps:
First, insulate domestic affairs from Gaza's turmoil. Second, promote the two-state solution as a precursor to normalization with Israel. Third, coerce other Arab countries into following suit while isolating dissenting voices. Fourth, facilitate the displacement of Palestinians, both in the short and long term, by leveraging soft power incentives and economic inducements. In December, the French newspaper Le Monde leaked a controversial Saudi–French proposal to end the Gaza war by displacing Hamas leaders and members to Algeria.
Fifth, the kingdom seeks to foster economic ties with Israel to integrate it as a normal part of West Asia.
The success of Riyadh's plan hinges on the compliance of key stakeholders Israel and Egypt, whose approval is paramount for normalization and the execution of Palestinian displacement.
Closing the file on the Palestinian cause and forging ties with Tel Aviv is an ambition the Saudis share with the UAE in pursuit of economic and political gains. Despite official Arab declarations rebuffing displacement plans, behind-the-scenes maneuvers suggest a different reality, one that veers towards the gradual dissolution of the Palestinian cause.
Saudis and Emiratis buy Egypt's sovereignty
Riyadh's sudden eagerness to bolster economic ties with Cairo is palpable. With unprecedented directives from both governments, mutual investments are set to soar, with Saudi Arabia aiming to ramp up trade to $100 billion.
Recent collaborations include a $4 billion deal with Saudi-listed ACWA Power for the Green Hydrogen project. Moreover, strategic initiatives like the memorandum of understanding between the Egyptian Ministry of Military Production and the Saudi General Authority for Military Industries and agreements in petroleum and mineral resources signal deepening economic integration.
Ongoing negotiations between Cairo and Abu Dhabi to develop a substantial tract of land along Egypt's Mediterranean coast, potentially valued at $22 billion, could be a game-changer for Egypt's beleaguered economy.
According to the CBE report, the proposed contract's value encompasses a significant portion of the Egyptian government's external debt due in 2024, totaling $29.229 billion. This includes interest payments totaling $6.312 billion and debt installments amounting to $22.917 billion.
Economic lifeline or political liability?
There is no doubt that the Saudi–Emirati interest in investing in Egypt is mainly driven by these two countries' fears of Egypt's economic collapse, which could destabilize a key, friendly Arab state in the region.
But information has surfaced that the two Gulf states' offers to Egypt now tie the displacement of Gazans to a proposal to alleviate Cairo's staggering debt burden. The reported US offer to wipe out $160 billion of Egyptian debt in exchange for hosting 100,000 Gazan refugees has a dangerous historical precedent. In 1991, Washington forgave Egypt's debt in return for its support of the US-led coalition against Iraq.
Egypt's monumental national debt ranks second globally in risk of default after Ukraine. Notably, Arab countries hold a significant portion of Egypt's debt, with Saudi Arabia and the UAE alone accounting for approximately 20.3 percent.
Egypt's looming economic collapse is not in the interest of either the Persian Gulf's Arab states or their US ally due to the country's strategic significance in the Arab world and North Africa – hence, the resolution of the Palestinian issue emerges as a shared priority among Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and the US.
The latter states' normalization efforts align with their broader geopolitical strategies aimed at containing Iran and neutralizing the Axis of Resistance. Despite Saudi Arabia's rhetoric endorsing normalization in exchange for Palestinian rights, its actions during the Gaza war confirm that Riyadh has, since day one, been working to sideline the Palestinian cause and inhibit any positive engagement with it.
In the long term, the establishment of a Palestinian state poses a threat to efforts aimed at permanently extinguishing the Palestinian issue. Thus, the prospect of displacing Palestinians to Egypt, despite the formidable obstacles, remains a viable strategy for Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
As geopolitical interests intertwine with economic imperatives, the fate of millions of Palestinians hangs in the balance, subject to the whims of power politics and strategic calculus.
https://thecradle.co/articles/will-egyp ... ebt-relief
'The Street' might have something to say about that...The train has left the station for the '2 state plan'.
Hezbollah vows ‘creative’ response as Israel hits south Lebanon
A drone strike on the southern city of Tyre came shortly after an escalatory strike on Baalbek, eastern Lebanon
News Desk
FEB 26, 2024
(Photo credit: X)
An Israeli drone struck a car in the town of Majadel in the southern Lebanese city of Tyre on the afternoon of 26 February, shortly after an escalatory attack near Lebanon’s eastern city of Baalbek.
Video footage on social media shows a vehicle completely destroyed as a result of the attacks in Tyre.
Casualties have been reported in both the strike on Tyre and the attack on Baalbek. The events constitute a significant Israeli escalation, marking the first attack on the Baalbek area in years.
Sky News Arabic cited the head of the Majadel municipality in Tyre as saying that a “prominent figure” was the possible target of this latest strike. The civil defense in southern Lebanon said two people were killed as a result.
Hezbollah announced an attack on the Baranit barracks around the same time as the Tyre attack.
“The enemy thinks it can regain its prestige through attacking Baalbek and other villages today,” said Hezbollah MP Hassan Fadlallah on Monday.
“The resistance will be creative in its response to the enemy’s … aggression,” Fadlallah went on to say, adding that Hezbollah “will surprise the enemy as it surprised us today.” The attacks “will not go unanswered … An end to this war will only be achieved through victory,” he added.
Hezbollah brought down a $2 million Hermes 450 drone over south Lebanon earlier on 26 February.
The Israeli army framed the Baalbek strike as a response to the downing of the drone, which was illegally violating Lebanese airspace.
The Al-Baghdadi site was hit with several Hezbollah missiles at dawn on 26 February.
Western countries continue to pressure Lebanon and Hezbollah into de-escalation and a withdrawal of the resistance from the border without demanding any concessions from Israel. Hezbollah has repeatedly said it will not stop attacking Israeli sites until the war on Gaza ends.
In turn, Israeli officials have stepped up in threatening rhetoric towards Lebanon. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on 25 February that Israel will continue to bombard Lebanon even if a truce is reached in Gaza.
https://thecradle.co/articles/hezbollah ... th-lebanon
Netanyahu pledges to invade Rafah regardless of ceasefire deal
Hamas says Tel Aviv is 'procrastinating' a ceasefire agreement as an extended lull in the violence would ignite a deep crisis inside Israel
News Desk
FEB 26, 2024
(Photo Credit: AFP)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the ground invasion of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip will not be scrapped even if a temporary ceasefire deal is reached with the Palestinian resistance.
“Once we begin the Rafah operation, the intense phase of the fighting is weeks away from completion. Not months,” Netanyahu told CBS News on 25 February. “If we don’t have a deal, we’ll do it anyway. It has to be done because total victory is our goal, and total victory is within reach.”
The Israeli premier also repeated claims that his government has “no plans” to forcibly displace over one million Palestinians taking refuge in Rafah into bordering Egypt. Nevertheless, Cairo has been building a fortified buffer zone to potentially house Palestinian refugees and was recently reassured by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) of a “support package” to meet its financial needs.
Netanyahu's comments came a few hours before the Israeli army presented to the War Cabinet its “operational plan” for Rafah as well as alleged plans to “evacuate civilians” from the battle zones.
On Sunday, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan confirmed President Joe Biden was not briefed on the Rafah plan. “We believe that this operation should not go forward until or unless we see [a plan to protect civilians],” Sullivan told reporters.
Ceasefire talks resumed on Sunday. The proposal currently being discussed was developed by the US, Egypt, and Qatar, but the outline reportedly matches its earlier proposal for the first phase of a truce.
Hamas officials revealed on Sunday that Israel continues to hinder reaching a final agreement, stressing that “the gap remains large” between the parties as Tel Aviv rejects a complete ceasefire and the withdrawal of all invading troops from Gaza.
The resistance sources who spoke with Al-Mayadeen also indicated that “Hamas believes the occupation is trying to buy time and procrastinate to avoid reaching a final agreement, as a ceasefire would trigger an internal crisis [in Israel.]”
Negotiators face an unofficial deadline of the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan around 10 March, as the Israeli war cabinet has warned it would enter Rafah if its remaining captives are not returned in that time.
As Tel Aviv prepares to ethnically cleanse the last remaining refuge for Palestinians in Gaza, the UN has warned of looming famine, saying it threatens everyone in Gaza, with the World Food Programme (WFP) describing the situation as "unprecedented levels of desperation."
https://thecradle.co/articles/netanyahu ... efire-deal
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U.S. Seeks to Cap Middle East Violence; In This, Iran Is (a Kind of) ‘Ally’
Alastair Crooke
February 26, 2024
The Resistance seeks to maintain their calibratory control for attriting Israel, whereas Israel wants to move directly to its ‘Armageddon vision’.
Israel’s dual strategy for Lebanon is to exert pressure through direct raids to instil fear amongst the wider population, whilst deploying diplomatic pressure to purge Hizbullah – not just from the border, but from regions beyond the Litani River (some 23 kms to the north).
Only Hizballah doesn’t budge.
It remains adamant: It will not be displaced from its historic homelands in the south – and refuses to discuss the matter at all.
“If this threat is not removed diplomatically, we will not hesitate to take military action”, Israeli ministers repeatedly insist. A poll by the Israeli (Hebrew) newspaper Ma’ariv showed that 71 percent of Israelis believe Israel should launch a large-scale military operation against Lebanon to keep Hizbullah away from the border. Again, the U.S. accepts the Israeli lead – that Israel needs to mount a military operation in Lebanon.
Special U.S. Coordinator, Amos Hochstein, whilst emphasising the absolute need for Israeli residents to return to their homes in northern Israel, says that the U.S. nonetheless is seeking to keep the conflict in Lebanon to the lowest level possible. He outlined:
“What we’ve been trying to do is to make sure that we can contain the fighting to the lowest level possible and to work on lasting solutions that can bring a cessation of hostilities. We’re going to have to do a lot of building up of the Lebanese Armed Forces; we have to build up the economy in south Lebanon. That’s going to require an international coalition of support, not just the U.S.”.
Put simply: Hizbullah has created a buffer ‘fire-zone’ inside Israel, extending over 100 kms laterally and penetrating 5-10 kms deep. Israel wants that buffer back, and now insists on having its own buffer deep into Lebanon – to ‘reassure’ its returning border inhabitants that they will be safe.
Hizbullah declines to yield an inch whilst the war in Gaza continues – thus fusing together the two issues.
But Netanyahu has made plain that the war in Gaza must continue – a long process – until all Israel’s (likely unrealisable) objectives are met. But the issue of displaced Israeli civilans is becoming immediate. Tension throughout the region is high and building, as a fraught Ramadan approaches, and an Israeli incursion into Rafah looms.
Israeli media reports:
“U.S. officials worry Ramadan may become a ‘perfect storm’, leading to a regional blow-up. Netanyahu’s capitulation to his far-right coalition partners regarding Israeli Arabs’ access to the Temple Mount/Al Aqsa compound during Ramadan has alarmed U.S. officials, though this is just one of many factors sparking concern that a series of worrying trends could coalesce and cause Middle East tensions to spill over during the next couple of weeks”.
Currently, there is a short ‘time out’ whilst hostage negotiators gather in Cairo and the U.S. ‘pulls every string’ it can to obtain a substantive ceasefire.
But sooner or later Israel will begin a military operation in Lebanon (in one sense, this is already well under way). The Israeli cabinet feels compelled to find a way to restore deterrence. Minister Smotrich said that this aim, in the final analysis, trumps even the hostage return.
When Israel does act in Lebanon, the Resistance may recalibrate via several possible avenues (apart from that pursued by Hizbullah): Iraqi resistance allies might resume strikes on U.S. bases, Syria might assume a more prominent role and Houthi forces might raise the level of attacks on Israeli, U.S. and UK linked shipping.
And here is the paradox: the ‘solution’ on which the U.S. relies for keeping violence down – that is to say, U.S. ‘deterrence’ – no longer deters. There has been a tectonic shift in conceptual thinking towards U.S. ‘deterrence’ amongst resistance forces – a shift in tactics which has not registered sufficiently, if at all – in the western consciousness.
Sergei Witte, a military historian, has described the conundrum succinctly:
“To begin, one must understand the logic to American strategic deployments. America (and NATO) has made generous use of a deterrence ‘tool’ colloquially known as the Tripwire Force. This represents an undersized, forward-deployed force located in potential conflict zones – with an eye to deterring war by signalling the American commitment to respond”.
Tripwires however can be double-edged. Although deterrent in concept, in the hands of Israeli and American Iran-hawks, these undersized and vulnerable bases metamorphose from deterrent into ‘tethered goats’ designed to attract a swooping attack from some (claimed Iran-linked) ‘vulture’; and hey-presto the hawks get their long-sought Iran war. That is basically why U.S. forces remain in Syria and Iraq. The ‘fighting ISIS’ label basically is ho-ee.
The conundrum – and indeed the limits to these skeletal forward deployments – is that they are too small to credibly deter attack, but large enough to invite it (potentially from irate Iraqi militia forces enraged about Gaza massacres).
Hochstein tells us the U.S. plan is to “manage” the conflicts (Gaza, West Bank and Lebanon) down to the lowest level possible. Yet, bluntly put, retaliatory strikes on militia – the standard response in the American toolbox – is relatively useless for containing violence; it provokes rather deters. As Witte concludes:
“We see [such] dynamics at play in the Middle East, where America’s falling deterrent powers may soon force it to take more aggressive measures. This is why those voices calling for war with Iran, as deranged and dangerous as they may be, are actually keyed in on a crucial aspect of America’s strategic calculus. Limited measures no longer suffice to intimidate, which may leave nothing in the stable except the full measure”.
This is where Iran and the Resistance play their paradoxical part. The U.S. (neo-con zealots notwithstanding) does not want a big war; nor does Iran. The latter however seems to understand that Iraqi militia attacks on U.S. bases may put pressure on the U.S. to withdraw from Iraq, but conversely these strikes also provide the neo-cons with the pretext (Iran as ‘head of the snake’) to push for maximal war on Iran.
The Iranian and Axis’ interest is twofold: First, to retain the power to carefully calibrate the intensity of conflict; and secondly, to keep escalatory dominance in their hands. As Al-Akhbar notes:
“The Resistance, with all its branches, is not about to cave to the Israeli conditions that shall open the way for a major change in the equation that shields Lebanon. Any subsequent agreement will depend on the positioning that the Resistance chooses to preserve its deterrence and defense capacities”.
Hence, in Iraq, the Head of Quds Force within the IRGC has advised Iraqi militia forces to ceasefire for the time being. (This anyway serves the Iraqi government’s interest which is seeking the exit of all U.S. forces from Iraq).
The ‘tripwire’ toolbox of the West is a classic example of a strategic paradox. An evaporating deterrent advantage risks forcing the U.S. to go to massive military over-match (even when it might not want to do so). And so, America faces checkmate. Its chess piece is stuck on one square (the Zionist ‘King’), but every potential move thereafter promises only to worsen the initial situation.
Furthermore, the U.S. is check-mated by the cognitive block of being unable fully to assimilate the conceptual ‘deterrent shift’ wrought by General Qassem Suleimani and trialled during Israel’s 2006 war against Hizbullah.
Israel, like the U.S., has long enjoyed air superiority. How has the resistance resolved to answer this? One element proved to be the burying of forces, missiles, and all strategic assets at a depth that even bunker-buster bombs cannot reach. Missile launchers can emerge from the depths, fire and be buried within 90 seconds.
A second is a constellation of fighters formed into autonomous units who are prepared for continuous fighting according to a pre-set plan, for up to a year or two – even were all communications with HQ to be completely severed.
In 2006, Hizbullah understood that Israel’s civilian population had only a very limited capacity to sustain a daily concentrated missile bombardment, and conversely Israel didn’t have the munitions for prolonged air attack. In that war, Hizbullah maintained continuous rocket and missile barrages for 33 days. It was enough; Israel sought an end to the war.
The lesson is that today’s wars are wars of attrition (i.e. Ukraine), rather than ‘arrow assaults’. Thus, the Resistance seeks to maintain their calibratory control for purposes of attriting Israel, whereas the Israeli cabinet wants to move directly to its ‘Armageddon vision’.
Some of this inability to absorb the implications of this new asymmetric warfare of General Suleimani – (hubris plays a big part) – goes to explain how the U.S. can be so sanguine to the risks run, both by the U.S. and Israel – risks that seem obvious to others. NATO-trained officers simply cannot conceive how a military power such as that of the IDF cannot but prevail over militia forces (Hizbullah and the Houthis). Nor can they compute how ‘barefoot tribesmen’ can prevail in a major naval war encounter.
But recall all the ‘experts’ who predicted that Hamas would be crushed – within days – by the infinitely weightier Israeli military machine…
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2024/ ... kind-ally/
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ISRAELI DEMONSTRATORS GATHER BY THE BORDER FENCE WITH EGYPT AT THE NITZANA BORDER CROSSING IN SOUTHERN ISRAEL ON FEBRUARY 18, 2024, AS THEY ATTEMPT TO BLOCK HUMANITARIAN AID TRUCKS FROM ENTERING INTO ISRAEL ON THEIR WAY TO THE GAZA STRIP. (PHOTO: GIL COHEN-MAGEN/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES/ MONDOWEISS)
Over 2/3 of Jewish Israelis oppose humanitarian aid to Palestinians starving in Gaza
Originally published: Mondoweiss on February 23, 2024 by Jonathan Ofir (more by Mondoweiss) | (Posted Feb 26, 2024)
This is a shocking data point. The Israeli Democracy Institute released a survey this week showing that over 2/3 of Jewish Israelis—68% that is—opposed “the transfer of humanitarian aid to Gaza residents at this time.”
It gets even worse—the survey lowered the bar to exclude any possible opposition to either UNRWA (which Israel has been inciting against) or the Hamas authorities (which Israel considers terrorists). To no avail. Over two-thirds still oppose humanitarian help “via international bodies that are not linked to Hamas or to UNRWA… A majority of Jewish respondents (68%) oppose the transfer of humanitarian aid even under these conditions,” the survey notes.
The numbers are worse when it comes to right-wing Jewish Israelis, where the opposition is at 80%—four out of five. And consider that about 2/3 of Israeli voters are considered right-wing.
One really has to pause here. We are in a situation where Palestinians in Gaza are starving, people are consuming animal feed in their desperation. The week the UN’s World Food Programme reported people in Gaza are “already dying from hunger-related causes,” and a UNICEF nutrition screening in north Gaza found that 1 in 6 children under two years old are acutely malnourished. Israelis are not completely ignorant of this. They are supporting genocide by an overwhelming majority.
It is now mainstream within Israeli society to discuss from which age it is acceptable for children to be starved. A recent discussion on the mainstream public broadcaster news program reached a consensus between a former Mossad official and the veteran host that children over the age of 4 were legitimate to starve.
Much of the world, including the United States, seems to be in denial at quite how murderously and explicitly genocidal Israeli society really is. Nancy Pelosi keeps talking about Israel as “the only democracy in the region” while Israelis themselves are supporting the starvation of children. People just don’t seem to get it.
Humanitarian help was one of the main points of the January 26 International Court of Justice order that was issued when the court found it plausible Israel is committing genocide, as charged by South Africa. It was point 4 of the 6, stating that:
The State of Israel shall take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to address the adverse conditions of life faced by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Even the ad-hoc Israeli judge Aharon Barak, who voted against 4 out of the 6 urgent measures, voted for this one (it was passed 16-1, with the Ugandan judge Julia Sabutinde, who voted against absolutely all measures, being the outlier).
This is such a basic thing, such a basic requirement—even in war. When you oppose such a basic matter, it becomes something else than war—it becomes genocide. As we are seeing.
This poll only seems to confirm what we already have been seeing. Israeli protesters have been holding up aid trucks at the southern border near Rafah. One could be tempted to frame these as fringe extremists—but the poll shows they are in the mainstream. The poll also affirms that Israeli leaders like Defense Minister Yoav Galant, who said at the beginning of the genocide, “I have ordered a full siege on the Gaza Strip—no power, no food, no gas, everything is closed—we are fighting human animals and we act accordingly,” are really representative of the wider population.
This is the worst level of dehumanization in Israeli society that I can remember since I was born there 52 years ago. Of course, this dehumanization didn’t start on October 7, and it existed way before I was born and even before the state existed. But now it seems to be culminating. Israelis don’t seem to care anymore about even maintaining a semblance of liberalism—they’ve gone into full genocide mode. And when I say dehumanization, it’s not only the Palestinians who are being dehumanized in this process. Israelis are reducing themselves to a level of barbarism. It’s really something that we have done to ourselves while convincing ourselves that taking tens of thousands of Palestinian lives will somehow redeem us from this abyss. It won’t.
https://mronline.org/2024/02/26/over-2- ... g-in-gaza/
(In truth about the same attitude as that of US citizens towards Native Americans 159 years ago.)
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Yemen Stages Hail of Strikes Against US Oil Tanker, Warships in Support of Gaza
FEBRUARY 25, 2024
Photo: PressTV.
Yemen’s Armed Forces have announced staging a raft of missile and drone strikes against a US oil tanker and a number of US warships in support of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, who are enduring a genocidal Washington-backed Israeli war.
“The naval forces in the Yemeni Armed Forces carried out a military operation targeting the US oil tanker ‘Torm Thor’ in the Gulf of Aden with several appropriate naval missiles,” the forces said in a statement on Saturday.
“Meanwhile, the drone air force targeted a number of US warships in the Red Sea with several drones,” the statement added.
According to the statement, the strikes came in protest at the “plight of the Palestinian people.”
The Israeli regime launched the war on October 7, 2023, following the al-Aqsa Flood, a surprise operation staged by Palestine’s resistance movements against the illegal Israeli occupation.
So far, nearly 30,000 people, mostly women and children, have died in the military onslaught that enjoys unreserved political and military support on the part of the United States, Tel Aviv’s main benefactor.
The UN reports taking place of gross human rights violations, including possible war crimes, during the Israeli regime’s ongoing genocidal war against Gaza.
The Yemeni forces vowed to keep up their operations as long as the regime sustains the war and a concomitant siege that it has been employing against Gaza.
The Saturday operations were also meant “as part of the response to the US-British aggression on our country,” the forces said, referring to violent and often deadly attacks that the United States and the UK have been conducting against numerous targets across the Arab Peninsula country in reaction to the pro-Palestinian strikes.
Also on Saturday, the Pentagon announced that US and British military forces had carried out a joint operation against 18 targets across Yemen.
It defined the attacks as “necessary and proportionate strikes,” alleging that they were conducted against “eight locations in Yemen,” including purported weapons storage facilities, drones, air defense systems, radars, and a helicopter.
On Monday, Mohammed Abdul-Salam, spokesman for Yemen’s Ansarullah popular resistance movement, said in a post on X that the continuation of the US-led strikes on Yemen gave the Israeli regime a chance to continue its brutal attacks against the people of Gaza.
He, however, asserted that “the US and the British should know that Yemen’s position will not change or break, but the country will become stronger and it remains committed to its stance.”
https://orinocotribune.com/yemen-stages ... t-of-gaza/
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Israeli Military Presents Plan to Attack Rafah
Victims of the Israeli bombings in Gaza, Feb. 25, 2024. | Photo: X/ @s_m_marandi
Published 26 February 2024
The announcement came despite international calls for Israel not to launch a ground operation in Rafah.
On Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said that Israel's army presented the War Cabinet with an operational attack plan and an evacuation plan for civilians in the southern Gazan city of Rafah.
The announcement came despite international calls for Israel not to launch a ground operation in Rafah, where over a million people are seeking shelter from Israeli bombardments elsewhere.
The cabinet approved a plan for food trucks to enter northern Gaza directly, aiming to prevent the trucks from being looted by civilians.
Currently, humanitarian aid trucks enter Gaza via two crossings located in the southern enclave and encounter difficulties reaching the north due to hungry civilians storming the trucks.
At least one in four households in the Gaza Strip, or more than half a million people, are facing catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity, the highest level of warning.
On Sunday, 25 Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza City. At least 15 people, including children, were killed and several others were wounded after warplanes hit a residential building in the Zaytoun neighborhood.
The warplanes fired a missile at the three-story house without prior warning. The Israeli army has been conducting operations in the neighborhood since Feb. 20. On the same day, 10 Palestinians were killed in Israeli airstrikes on the coastal road west of the Gaza City.
https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Isr ... -0001.html
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Aaron Burned Himself To Make Us Look At Gaza
Like many readers here I feel helpless about the ongoing genocide against Palestinians committed by U.S. supported Zionist settlers in the West Bank and Gaza. I can not even find the right words to express myself about it.
Others are more consequential. And powerful. Disgust about the cruelty imposed on Palestinians can induce the utmost will to change things.
U.S. Air Force Member Sets Self on Fire Outside Israel’s Embassy in D.C. to Protest War in Gaza - Time, Feb 25 2024
An active-duty member of the U.S. Air Force set himself on fire outside the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C., on Sunday, in apparent protest of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, which he described as a “genocide.”
...
The burn victim, who identified himself in video of the incident as 25-year-old Aaron Bushnell, reportedly succumbed to his injuries on Sunday night, according to independent journalist Talia Jane, who posted on social media that she is in contact with Bushnell’s family and friends.
Bushnell reportedly sent a message to media outlets before his planned self-immolation. “Today, I am planning to engage in an extreme act of protest against the genocide of the Palestinian people,” he warned. ...
On Facebook Sunday morning, he also wrote: “Many of us like to ask ourselves, ‘What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?’ The answer is, you’re doing it. Right now.” The post included a link to a live-stream of his protest on the web-broadcasting platform Twitch, which has since removed the video for violations of its community guidelines and terms of service. “I will no longer be complicit in genocide. I’m about to engage in an extreme act of protest,” the airman repeated, in footage reviewed by TIME, as he walked toward the driveway of the Israeli embassy. “But compared to what people have been experiencing in Palestine at the hands of their colonizers, it’s not extreme at all. This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal.”
After Bushnell doused himself with liquid and reached for his lighter, unidentified law enforcement or security officers could be heard asking off-screen, “Can I help you?” After setting himself aflame, he repeatedly shouted “Free Palestine.”
A security man decided to 'help' by pointing his gun on the dying man.
A censored video of the incident is here.
Rest in peace, Aaron Bushnell. Rest. In. Peace.
Posted by b on February 26, 2024 at 13:56 UTC | Permalink
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2024/02/a ... .html#more
of some of these incidents:
