Tag: ethnic cleansing

Israeli Military Lists Returning Hostages as Least Important Goal for Gaza

The Israeli military has listed the return of the remaining Israeli captives in Gaza as its least important goal in its plans for an escalated assault on the Strip, Haaretz reported on Wednesday.

According to the report, retrieving the hostages was placed last in a list of six objectives. Those goals include:

  1. Defeating Hamas
  2. Operational control over the territory
  3. Demilitarizing the territory
  4. Striking Hamas government targets
  5. Concentrating and moving the population
  6. Returning the captives

News of the Israeli military’s goals comes after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted that retrieving the hostages was not his priority, something that’s been clear for a long time but hasn’t been explicitly stated by the Israeli leader until last week.

The Israeli military finalized plans for the expanded offensive, dubbed “Gideon’s Chariot,” on Tuesday and Wednesday after the government approved the escalation.

The purpose of the expanded assault is to achieve the full Israeli military occupation of Gaza and concentrate the entire civilian population into a tiny area of southern Gaza with the goal of forcing them to leave to achieve ethnic cleansing.

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It Was Never About Hostages. It Was Never About Hamas.

Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that freeing the Israeli hostages in Gaza was not his top priority, suggesting instead that defeating Hamas should take precedence over a hostage deal.

“We have many objectives, many goals in this war,” Netanyahu said. “We want to bring back all of our hostages. That is a very important goal. In war, there is a supreme objective. And that supreme objective is victory over our enemies. And that is what we will achieve.”

Nothing the prime minister said here is true or valid — unless by “enemies” he means “all Palestinians in the Gaza Strip”.

Netanyahu has been fairly transparent about the fact that Israel’s ultimate goal in Gaza is neither freeing the hostages nor defeating Hamas, but seizing Palestinian territory and removing its Palestinian inhabitants. He has openly said that Israel will occupy Gaza via military force, completely ruling out the possibility of any form of Palestinian government for the enclave. He has openly said he wants to enact President Donald Trump’s ethnic cleansing plan for Gaza, which explicitly entails removing “all” Palestinians and never allowing them to return.

So they’ve made this perfectly clear. This isn’t about Hamas, except insofar as an armed resistance group will make it difficult to forcibly remove all Palestinians from Gaza. And it certainly isn’t about hostages.

And yet, bizarrely, this is how the western political-media class continues to frame this onslaught. They call it Israel’s “war with Hamas”, when it’s nothing other than an undisguised ethnic cleansing operation. They prattle on about October 7, hostages, and terrorism, even though it has already been made abundantly clear that this has nothing to do with any of those things. They act as though the admission was simply never made.

There is absolutely no excuse for continuing to babble about hostages and Hamas after the US and Israel said the goal is the complete ethnic cleansing of Gaza. They told you what this is really about. They said it. With their face holes. They said it right to you. End of debate.

Israel has been seeking ways to purge Gaza of Palestinians for generations. That’s all this has ever been about. Not October 7. Not hostages. Not Hamas. Not terrorism. Everything about Israel’s operations in Gaza have indicated that their real goal is to remove Palestinians from a Palestinian territory and not to free hostages or defeat Hamas. And then when Trump took office, they started openly admitting it.

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Amnesty International: Israel Carrying Out ‘Live-Streamed Genocide’ in Gaza

Amnesty International said in its annual human rights report that Israel is carrying out a “live-streamed genocide” as the world looks on.

“Since 7 October 2023 – when Hamas perpetrated horrific crimes against Israeli citizens and others and captured more than 250 hostages – the world has been made audience to a live-streamed genocide,” Amnesty Secretary-General Agnes Callamard said in an introduction to the report.

“States watched on as if powerless, as Israel killed thousands upon thousands of Palestinians, wiping out entire multigenerational families, destroying homes, livelihoods, hospitals, and schools,” Callamard added.

The report said that Israel was committing the crime of genocide by “killing Palestinian civilians, causing serious bodily or mental harm, and deliberately inciting conditions of life calculated to bring about Palestinians’ physical destruction by causing mass forced displacement, obstructing or denying lifesaving aid, and by damaging or destroying life-sustaining infrastructure.”

Amnesty first concluded Israel was committing genocide in Gaza in a report published in December 2024. The US has rejected the conclusion and has opposed the genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice since US officials are implicated due to US military aid and other types of support for Israel.

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ICJ Hearings: Assessing Israel’s Responsibility for Gaza’s Humanitarian Disaster

Monday, April 28, 2025, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) is conducting public hearings regarding the request for an advisory opinion concerning Israel’s obligations in relation to the presence and activities of the United Nations, other international organisations, and third states in the context of the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Israel has accused the International Court of Justice of ‘anti-Semitism’ and has abstained from hearings on its duty to provide urgent humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians in the occupied territories.

On 20 December 2024, the Secretary-General of the United Nations submitted a request for an advisory opinion to the Court via a letter. Subsequently, on 23 December 2024, the President of the Court issued an Order indicating that the United Nations, its Member States, and the observer State of Palestine were likely to provide relevant information regarding the inquiry presented to the Court for an advisory opinion.  Following this, the Court permitted the participation of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, the League of Arab States, and the African Union in the proceedings, as per their request. A total of forty-five written statements were submitted to the Registry by various States and international organisations.

Since March 2, the 2.3 million inhabitants of the Gaza Strip have not received any food or medical supplies due to Israel’s longest blockade of the region, which was subsequently followed by the breakdown of a two-month ceasefire two weeks later. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has begun hearings in The Hague (NL) to assess Israel’s accountability for the humanitarian crisis affecting Gaza amid its conflict with Hamas…

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As Israel Openly Declares Starvation as a Weapon, Media Still Hesitate to Blame It for Famine

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on March 2 that “Israel has decided to stop letting goods and supplies into Gaza,” where the ongoing Israeli genocide, with the loyal backing of the United States, has officially killed more than 51,000 Palestinians since October 2023. The announcement regarding the total halt of humanitarian aid amounted to yet another explicit declaration of the starvation policy that Israel is pursuing in the Gaza Strip, a territory that—thanks in large part to 17 consecutive years of Israeli blockade—has long been largely dependent on such aid for survival.

Of course, this was not the first time that senior Israeli officials had advertised their reliance on the war crime of forced starvation in the current genocidal assault on Gaza. On October 9, 2023, two days after the most recent launch of hostilities, then–Defense Minister Yoav Gallant ordered a “complete siege” of the Gaza Strip: “There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed.” Two days after that, Foreign Minister Israel Katz boasted of cutting off “water, electricity and fuel” to the territory.

And just this month, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir proclaimed that there was “no reason for a gram of food or aid to enter Gaza.” Following an April 22 dinner held in his honor in Florida at US President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, Ben-Gvir reported that US Republicans had

expressed support for my very clear position on how to act in Gaza and that the food and aid depots should be bombed in order to create military and political pressure to bring our hostages home safely.

Never mind that the hostages would have been brought home safely as scheduled had Israel chosen to comply with the terms of the ceasefire agreement with Hamas that was implemented in January, rather than definitively annihilating the agreement on March 18. It is no doubt illustrative of Israel’s modus operandi that the March 2 decision to block the entry of all food and other items necessary for human existence took place in the middle of an ostensible ceasefire.

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Genocide’s Back: Trump-Backed Israeli Brutality

If we in the West are the most propagandized people in the world; Gazans are the least propagandized. Outwardly captives, Gazans are liberated from the illiberal political propaganda that grips the West

WHAT has Israel been up to since March 18, 2025, which was when the “genocidal entity” formally broke the nominal ceasefire agreement in Gaza? Oracular insight here is unnecessary.

Israel has been trampling underfoot everything decent and good.

Genocide is back. This time with President Trump in fawning agreement, playing procurer and pimp for the Israeli State, and subjecting ingrate Bibi Netanyahu to no more than a curt jerk of the leash: During a press conference with the US president, on April 7, the Israeli prime minister’s face, nevertheless, grew as dark as a thundercloud on mention of possible diplomacy with Iran.

Under such favorable circumstances, Israelis are louder and prouder about killing and destroying with monomaniacal diligence. Indifferently, and for the first time, Israel openly admitted to targeting journalist Hussam Shabat for “elimination,” in December of 2024, and executing the him on March 24. The sadistic serial killer stalked its prey, then pounced.

The predator has so far singled out and assassinated 232 other Palestinian journalists.

Shabat thus knew, as he put it, that “journalism meant Israel would kill him.” Only 23, so full of promise, Shabat wrote his epitaph in advance of his death. It read:

“If you’re reading this, it means I have been killed — most likely targeted — by the Israeli occupation forces. … For [the] past 18 months, I have dedicated every moment of my life to my people. I documented the horrors in northern Gaza minute by minute, determined to show the world the truth they tried to bury.

I slept on pavements, in schools, in tents — anywhere I could. Each day was a battle for survival. I endured hunger for months, yet I never left my people’s side.”

By God, I fulfilled my duty as a journalist. I risked everything to tell the truth, and now, at last, I have found rest—something I have not known for the past 18 months. I did this because I believe in the Palestinian cause, in our right to this land. The greatest honor of my life was to die defending it and serving its people.

I ask you now: Do not stop speaking about Gaza. Do not let the world look away. Keep fighting, keep telling our stories—until Palestine is free.

For the last time,

Hussam Shabat, from northern Gaza.”

Trampling underfoot everything decent and good: Fatma Hassona was to be the subject of an upcoming documentary, “Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk,” to debut at the Cannes Film Festival. Israel could not allow that. So, Air Force Genocide bombed the 25-year-old Palestinian photojournalist, also murdering nine members of her family.

After a brief, relative lull, eighteen months into the genocide of the Palestinians of Gaza, Israel has resumed its slaughter of civilians at an average rate of 103 souls a day, with 223 individuals dealt life-altering injuries, also daily. Since March 18, reports Ha’aretz, Israel has killed 1,652 people and wounded 4,391 in strikes on Gaza. (Ha’aretz “Israel News” newsletter, Wednesday, 16.04.2025.) The number murdered now approaches 2,000.

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Nova festival founder outed as Israeli intel collaborator involved in Gaza genocide

As Fox News seethes over pro-Palestine slogans at a California music festival, founders of the Israeli rave attacked on Oct 7 claim to be “deeply hurt” by the display. Yet one of the founders has openly bragged of serving as a top Israeli military intelligence asset involved in the Gaza genocide.

Amid a full-blown corporate media freakout over Irish hip hop trio Kneecap projecting “Fuck Israel – Free Palestine” during their set at the Southern California music festival Coachella, the founders of the Israeli Supernova Music festival issued a statement demanding the rappers make amends for having “deeply hurt many in our community” with their alleged “affront” against the Israeli rave community.

“The Nova community was built on the ideals of peace, freedom, and unity through music,” reads a solemn message from the Tribe of Nova Foundation, which was immediately re-broadcast on social media by at least one former official Israeli propagandist. “Our festival was a space where people came together – across cultures and beliefs – to celebrate life. That’s why we believe that even in the face of ignorance or provocation, our response must be rooted in empathy, not hate.”

A review of one of the group’s cofounder’s online activities, however, reveals that rather than the peace-loving hippie he purports to be, he’s taken an active and ambitious role in Israeli intelligence operations in the time since October 7.

Yet as independent researcher “12 Ball” noted on Twitter/X, the day after concertgoers died amid Israel’s response to armed Hamas incursions, Nimrod Arnin – who helped organize the rave and is listed as a Tribe of Nova foundation co-founder – leapt into action to help Israel’s military unleash fire and fury on Gaza.

On Oct 8, Arnin co-founded “Cobalt Complex, an autonomous OSINT & civilian web intelligence (WEBINT) operations center that operated independently to support Israel’s intelligence apparatus at the outset of the Iron Swords War,” he wrote on his LinkedIn profile, using the official Israeli euphemism for its genocidal siege of Gaza.

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Israeli Defense Minister Says No Humanitarian Aid Will Enter Gaza, Vows Indefinite Occupation

On Wednesday, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said that no humanitarian aid will enter Gaza and vowed that the IDF will occupy the territory it has captured in Gaza indefinitely.

Since March 2, Israel has imposed a total blockade on aid and all other goods entering Gaza, which constitutes collective punishment of the entire civilian population. Katz said that the blockade was one of Israel’s main “pressure tools” against Hamas.

“Israel’s policy is clear: no humanitarian aid will be allowed into Gaza, and preventing humanitarian aid to Gaza is one of the central pressure tools that stops Hamas from using this means against the population,” Katz said in a post on X.

“No one, under the current reality, is going to allow any humanitarian aid into Gaza, and no preparations are being made to allow any aid of this kind,” Katz added.

Katz’s comments were meant to clarify an earlier statement where he suggested Israel could allow the distribution of aid “through civilian companies.” In that statement, he also said IDF troops would not leave the territory they’ve captured since Israel restarted its genocidal war on March 18.

“The IDF will remain in the security zones as a buffer between the enemy and the communities in any temporary or permanent reality in Gaza—similar to Lebanon and Syria,” Katz said. “To date, hundreds of thousands of residents have been evacuated, and dozens of percent of the territory have been incorporated into the security zones.”

He added that “in parallel” to the Israeli occupation of territory in Gaza, the “plan for the voluntary relocation of Gaza residents is being advanced,” referring to the goal of ethnic cleansing.

The Israeli military now controls more than 50% of Gaza’s territory and is working to turn the entire southern city of Rafah into a “buffer zone” free of Palestinians. The Associated Press noted that Katz’s comments will likely further complicate negotiations with Hamas since the Palestinian group is insisting it will only free the remaining Israeli hostages in exchange for a permanent ceasefire and Israeli withdrawal, terms Israel has refused.

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Israel is About to Empty Gaza

Israel is poised to carry out the largest campaign of ethnic cleansing since the end of World War II. Since March 2, it has blocked all food and humanitarian aid into Gaza and cut off electricity, so that the last water desalination plant no longer functions.

The Israeli military has seized half of the territory — Gaza is 25 miles long and four to five miles wide — and placed two-thirds of Gaza under displacement orders, rendered “no-go zones,” including the border town of Rafah, which is encircled by Israeli troops.

On Friday Defence Minister Israel Katz announced that Israel will “intensify” the war against Hamas and use “all military and civilian pressure, including evacuation of the Gaza population south and implementing United States President [Donald] Trump’s voluntary migration plan for Gaza residents.”

Since Israel’s unilateral ending of the ceasefire on March 18 — which was never honored by Israel — Israel has been carrying out relentless bombing and shelling against civilians, killing over 1,400 Palestinians and wounding over 3,600, according to the Palestinian health ministry.

An average of one hundred children are being killed daily according to the United Nations. Israel is, at the same time, inciting tensions with Egypt to lay what I suspect will be the groundwork for a mass expulsion of Palestinians into the Egyptian Sinai.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, echoing Katz, said Israel would not lift the total blockade until Hamas was “defeated” and the remaining 59 Israeli hostages were released.

“Not even a grain of wheat will enter Gaza,” he vowed.

But no one in Israel or Gaza expects Hamas, which has weathered the decimation of Gaza and sustained mass slaughter, to surrender or disappear.

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Protest at Travis AFB Against US Weapons for Israeli Genocide

At 7:30 a.m. on April 9, the heavy traffic flow into California’s Travis Air Force Base came to a sudden stop.  As they have done numerous times, the “People’s Arms Embargo” blocked the main road into the base. The action this time commemorated the recently deceased long-time peace advocate David Hartsough, one of the co-founders of the Peoples Arms Embargo.

With traffic into the base stopped, one angry airman jumped out of his pickup truck and threatened to assault the peaceful protestors. He finally thought better of it and returned to his truck. Other waiting airmen and airwomen were patient and a few indicated support for the protest. One lowered his window and said, “Palestine will be free!” In the workout gym in an adjacent plaza, many people on their workout machines waved and jumped up and down in support.

At the blockade on the six-lane divided highway, about forty police officers were quickly on the scene. They broadcast a recorded message in English and Spanish that anyone blocking traffic would be arrested. Twelve protesters were arrested and cited with the crime.

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