Tag: israel

Israel Keeps Emergency Biometrics Measures in Place, More than a Year into Gaza War

Last year, on October 7th, a Hamas attack on Israel plunged the country into a war against Gaza that would bring chaos to the region. But aside from death and destruction, the war has also brought unprecedented access to biometric data to the Israeli government, sparking fears over privacy violations for Israelis.

Just one month after the attacks, the Knesset approved full access to the National Biometric Database for Israeli security forces using expedited legislation. The new access was not to be monitored by other government agencies. Since then, the Ministry of National Security has been regularly extending the temporary order despite the country’s regulators, legal experts and rights organizations arguing against its necessity.

“This legislation was enacted under difficult conditions, time pressure, and uncertainty,” the country’s Biometric Commissioner Naama Ben Zvi told Israeli media outlet Calcalist.

The database holds fingerprint and facial data of approximately 7 million Israelis. In the beginning, authorities argued that the biometric data was critical for identifying the deceased, kidnapped and missing during Hamas’s attack. Alongside the data access, the government also started mandating that citizens applying for an ID card or passport also submit fingerprint and facial biometrics.

According to data from the Biometric Commissioner, however, the fingerprint data was not indispensable. The biometric database helped identify 106 people out of 1,205 casualties, around 11 percent. The individuals were also identified using methods such as DNA, dental records and Israeli Defense Force (IDF) biometric databases which hold records from military conscripts.

“From a national perspective, fingerprints are not a significant game changer,” says Ben Zvi, who also heads the Identity and Biometric Applications Unit at the Israeli National Cyber Directorate. Citizens should be given a choice when submitting biometric data, she adds.

“Taking fingerprints from the entire population infringes on privacy.”

The Biometrics Commissioner is not the only one criticizing the government over privacy.

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Ex-Mossad Agents Reveal Details Of How They Turned Hezbollah’s Communications Devices Into Bombs

Key details of the Israeli intelligence service’s operation targeting members of Hezbollah with exploding pagers and walkie-talkies in September have been revealed. You can read our reporting of the first wave of explosions here, and the second wave here. Israel didn’t initially admit responsibility for the blasts but was always acknowledged to have been behind them — although exactly how it orchestrated them had remained mysterious.

The new information about the campaign was provided by two recently retired senior Mossad agents, who spoke with the 60 Minutes news magazine broadcast on the CBS television network. Both wore masks while interviewed and gave false names.

First, it’s worth recapping how the operations played out.

The first wave of explosions, on September 17, targeted pagers used by Hezbollah.

At around 3:30 p.m. local time, it seems the pagers were triggered simultaneously, by a specific message. The message was one that looked, at least, as if it was sent by Hezbollah leadership. The detonation then happened with a slight delay.

The second wave of explosions, on the following day, targeted walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah.

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Israel Gives Biden His Marching Orders

My former CIA colleague Larry Johnson has a real ability to clarify the significance of the constantly growing deep dark hole that Joe “Mumbles” Biden, he of failing mental capacity, has hurled the American people into. Larry wrote on December 12th that

“There is still plenty of time before Donald Trump is inaugurated for Joe Biden’s team of cretins to start World War III. I think the biggest risk is that Israel may be emboldened to attack Iran and try to destroy sites, and may be encouraged to do so by the Biden lackeys. In short, American interference, at the behest of Netanyahu’s Israel, has left the Middle East in ruins, with over a million dead and open wars raging in Libya, Sudan, Somalia, Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine, and with Iran on the brink of a nuclear arsenal, being pushed against its own inclinations to this eventuality. The collapse of the Assad regime has prompted a punishing military response from Israel, which has launched airstrikes at military targets across Syria and deployed ground troops both into and beyond a demilitarized buffer zone for the first time in 50 years.”

Given the destruction and partitioning of Syria, it has become impossible to consider United States foreign policy without some acceptance that it is driven and, in a sense, directed by Israel and Israel’s formidable domestic lobby in the US. “The Lobby,” as it is commonly referred to, controls both Congress and the White House on key issues and manages the media narrative in such a fashion as to make Israel the permanent victim, never the aggressor. Even though Israel is now marching in triumph across what remains of Syria and has indicated that it will be sticking around as an occupier, the move is being described as “temporary” and “defensive” by White House spokesmen. The Lobby’s success rests on the corruption that lots of money can buy, obvious to nearly everyone in politics, but a forbidden topic, sometimes referred to as an antisemitic “trope,” i.e. “Jews and money.” Israel’s role in managing the Joe Bidens and Donald Trumps is largely exercised in the broader Middle East but it also includes passionately supporting Volodymyr Zelensky’s Ukraine, a process derived in part from Jewish mythologizing and obtaining revenge for the alleged “pogroms” carried out in imperial Russia. Subsequent Jewish dominance of the Soviet intelligence and security services, which saw the killing of millions of Christians in Russia, Ukraine and Eastern Europe, are carefully excluded from the narrative.

In the latest bit of “mowing the grass” by the Israeli military, the country’s new Defense Minister Israel Katz told the press that the Israel Air Force (IAF) had carried out more than 480 strikes across Syria during the two days after the initial invasion, deliberately destroying most of Syria’s strategic weapon stockpiles. Meanwhile, the Israeli navy totally destroyed the Syrian fleet based at Latakia overnight. Katz hailed the operation as “a great success.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on the day before, had called the rapid defeat of the Bashar al-Assad’s regime as “a new and dramatic chapter… The collapse of the Syrian regime is a direct result of the severe blows with which we have struck Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran… we are changing the face of the Middle East.”

When informed of the initial invasion of al-Assad’s Syria by Israeli, Turkish, insurgent and US forces, Donald Trump said that the conflict was none of our business and it would be best to keep out of it. Hopefully that will be the policy after January 20th inauguration, but one recalls that Trump’s record of pandering to Israel is almost as bad as Biden’s, and he was the one who decided (admittedly under pressure from the Pentagon) to continue in 2017 the military occupation of a third of Syria that included its oil resources and its best agricultural land. Add in the crippling US and European sanctions on Damascus and one might argue that since that time Syrians have been poor and starving, causing refugee flows and hostility towards al-Assad government that contributed to the success of the recent uprising.

To be sure, many Syrians are celebrating the fall of an admittedly repressive, authoritarian, and corrupt Bashar al-Assad government. But other Syrians, particularly from hitherto protected minority groups like Christians, Alawites and Shiites, are now living in fear of or fleeing from the violent sectarian insurgents that have taken the place of President al-Assad. Christian Churches have already been looted and desecrated and warned not to hold Christmas services, not to sponsor Christmas parades, and not to display the image of St. Nicholas.

To be sure, fearing what is to come is legitimate as the “rebel” leader of the al-Qaeda derived Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) Terror group, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, who now goes by his given name Ahmed al-Shara, is a founder of al-Qaeda in Syria, al-Nusra, and a former deputy to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The US State Department has listed him as a terrorist as well as HTS as a terrorist group, and has placed a $10 million bounty on al-Jolani’s head, which presumably will soon be removed by Joe Biden. There is plenty of blood on al-Jolani’s hands and little in the way of evidence that he will not opt to slaughter those who he sees as his enemies, much of the killing being guided by the extreme religious groups that make up his followers. Indeed, there are already reports of group killings, including numerous soldiers in the Syrian Arab Army who surrendered rather than fight the insurgents.

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Israel to Annex the West Bank – Why Now? And What are the Likely Scenarios?

Israel is getting ready to annex the occupied Palestinian West Bank. The annexation will be a major step backward on the road to Palestinian freedom and will likely serve as a catalyst for a new Palestinian uprising.

Though annexation has been on the Israeli agenda for years, this time around a ‘great opportunity’ – in the words of extremist Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich – has presented itself and, from an Israeli point of view, cannot be missed.

“I hope we’ll have a great opportunity with the new US administration to create full normalization (of the Israeli occupation),” the minister was quoted as saying by Israeli media.

This is not the first time that Smotrich, among other Israeli extremists, has made the connection between Trump’s advent to the White House and the illegal expansion of Israel’s borders.

Two reasons make Israel’s far-right optimistic about Trump’s arrival: One, the Israeli experience during Trump’s first term in office, where the US president allowed Israel to claim sovereignty over illegal settlements, the Syrian Golan Heights, and occupied East Jerusalem; and, two, Trump’s more recent statement in the run-up to the election.

Israel is “so tiny” on the map, Trump said while addressing the pro-Israeli group ‘Stop Antisemitism’ at an event last August, wondering: “Is there any way of getting more?” The statement, absurd by any definition, caused joy among Israeli politicians, who understood it to be a green right for further annexations.

Israel’s aims for colonial expansion also received a boost in recent days. Following the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s rule in Syria, Israel immediately began invading large swathes of the country, reaching as far as the Quneitra governorate, less than 20 kilometers away from the capital, Damascus.

What is taking place in Syria serves as a model of what to expect in the West Bank in coming months.

Israel had occupied nearly 70 percent of the Syrian Golan Heights in 1967. It cemented its illegal occupation of the Arab region by formally annexing it in 1981 through the so-called Golan Heights Law.

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Veteran Calls Out House Committee for Supporting Genocide

On Wednesday, 17-year veteran and intelligence officer Josephine Guilbeau disrupted the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs to call out the billions of dollars Congress sends to fund genocide in Gaza while neglecting veterans at home. Here is what she had to say:

“US Congress is complicit in the genocide in Gaza! You keep sending billions of dollars to Israel meanwhile veterans are homeless and committing suicide with more budget cuts on the way. As a 17-year veteran and intelligence officer, I am watching you destroy American values and jeopardize our national security.

Israel is burning children alive! Israel is burning children alive!

For one year, I have watched Israel burn children alive. You don’t care about veterans. You don’t care about American values. You are destroying this country –  shame on all of you! May God give you the moral courage to do the right thing! May God give you your hearts. Please! Please! Shame on you.”

After being expelled from the committee room, she made a plea to all US veterans:

“We need veterans from California all the way to New York to stand against what we are witnessing right now. Your voice is so powerful! We know as veterans that they are not giving us any of the help that we need while they send our tax dollars to other countries who are committing genocide. Right now is the time to use your powerful voices as veterans to say enough is enough. We need to save our country from what our own congressmen are doing right now! Free Palestine!”

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Houthi Hypersonic Missile Renders Iron Dome Useless, Slams Into Tel Aviv Area

Yemen’s Houthi rebels launched its second hypersonic missile attack on Israel in just days, striking the Tel Aviv area early Saturday morning. The attack marked a rare instance where a hypersonic weapon overwhelmed Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system, underscoring the challenges posed by these new ultra-fast missiles. 

“Between the Yemeni Armed Forces regarding the implementation of a military operation targeting a military target of the Israeli enemy in the occupied Jaffa area with a hypersonic ballistic missile Palestine 2,” Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree announced on X. 

Footage post on X shows the failed interception of the hypersonic missile by the Iron Dome system. 

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‘Unbearable burden of war’: Hundreds of officers retire from Israeli army

Hundreds of Israeli officers have withdrawn from military service this year – citing the “burden of war” and unsatisfactory conditions for reservists, Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom reported on 19 December. 

“About 500 majors have already retired this year,” Israel Hayom said. The Israeli army is “surprised by the scope of the phenomenon, and admits that they estimated that the wave of departures would expand when the fighting subsides, and not in the midst of the war,” the daily added.

The report confirms that Israel started its war on Gaza last year with a “particularly acute manpower crisis.”

In 2022, a record number of over 600 Israeli majors retired from service. While the pace of departures slowed down at the start of 2023, as the war erupted in October of that year, the “trend is now worsening” once again, and the “outlook for 2025 is not encouraging.” 

One of the reasons is “the unbearable burden placed on [soldiers] by the war.” Many are tired of leaving their houses and families and putting themselves at risk for a “not so rewarding” salary. 

“The army is interested in increasing the number in order to establish more combat units, more defense battalions, more air defense units, and so on. At the moment, it is not clear how the army will manage to do this,” according to Israel Hayom.

Not only majors and captains are hesitant to continue service, but unit commanders are, as well.

The ground battles in Gaza and Lebanon have taken a toll on Israeli forces. A few weeks before the war and ground operations in south Lebanon ended, Yedioth Ahronoth reported that Israel was facing a “huge” shortage of soldiers due to a serious enlistment crisis.

The newspaper said at the time that 7,000 recruits were urgently needed.

The atrocities and war crimes being committed against innocent Palestinians as part of the genocide that Israel has been waging in Gaza for over a year have also taken a psychological toll on some soldiers.

Earlier this year, dozens of Israeli reservists signed a protest letter saying they would not obey a government-issued call to Gaza, citing the atrocities being committed there.

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Syria: Will the United States Try to Stop Israeli Militarism in the Middle East?

For the past several decades, the United States and Israel have tried to isolate Syria in the Middle East.  Only U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, after the October War in 1973, tried and succeeded in bringing Syria into the step-by-step peace process negotiations with Israel.  Since then, however, U.S. efforts to negotiate a peace such as the Reagan plan in 1982 or the unsuccessful efforts to arrange an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon have ignored any role for Syria.  Currently, U.S. tolerance of Israeli military power against Syria complicates the task of reducing the violence and allowing the Syrian rebels to have the time and space to establish a stable government in Damascus.

For most of its history, Syrian authority has been marked by instability due to authoritarian leadership and a diverse population.  The fragmented nature of Syrian society; the absence of a strong national identity; and the debilitating conflict with Israel have contributed to weak governance.  Any Syrian government, particularly the current one that tries to take hold after 14 years of confrontation, will face a difficult geopolitical environment that limits policy options; inhibits risk-taking; and compromises central authority.  The various ethnic divisions, even among the majority Sunni Moslems, will make it difficult to achieve political and economic cohesion.

One hundred years ago, the wife of the British consul described inter-communal relations in a way that still fits: “They hate one another.  The Sunnis excommunicate the Shias, and both hate the Druze; all detest the Alawites; the Maronites do not love anybody but themselves are duly abhorred by all; the Greek Orthodox abominate the Greek Catholics and the Latins; and all despise the Jews.”  The Alawites. who have politically dominated the country in recent times, were singled out for persecution in the past by the Sunni majority,  Most of the population in Syria is Moslem, but 20 percent of the Moslems belong to various schismatic sects.

Today, Syria is in predictable chaos, and the presence of numerous foreign powers adds to the conflict.  Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have made it particularly difficult for the new regime by launching hundreds of air strikes against Syria, and seizing territory beyond the Golan Heights that provided a sightline to Damascus.  Former Israeli Air Force officers commented on social media that these attacks were carried out as part of an operation based on plans that were drawn up years ago.

Turkey has backed various Syrian rebel groups along the Syrian-Turkish border, and plans to continue the fight against Syrian Kurds based in northeastern Syria, where the Kurds have support from nearly 1,000 U.S. military personnel.  Among the foreign powers in Syria, Turkey has the greatest access and influence with the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which led the fight against former president Bahshar al-Assad.

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Overnight Israeli Strike In Syria So Large It Caused Earthquake

Days ago Israel began warning that it will use large bunker buster munitions to begin destroying the former Syrian Army’s underground missile and weapons storehouses. 

This has begun in the overnight hours, with Israeli warplanes pummeling air defense systems and ammunition depots in Damascus and the coastal city of Tartous, near where a Russian naval base is located. The strike on Tartous resulted in the single biggest explosion seen in Syria in years, unleashing a fireball and mushroom cloud so large it led to quick speculation it could have been a tactical nuke (which widespread reports are denying).

The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) described that Israeli warplanes hit air defense units and “surface-to-surface missile depots” as part of a bid to degrade and disable Syria’s military capability. SOHR also called it the “the heaviest strikes” on the region in over a decade.

The Telegraph wrote that “A 3.1 magnitude tremor was reported by the Geographic Survey of Israel’s seismology department at 11.49pm on Sunday night in the region of the bombings.”

“The explosions in Tartous were extremely loud,” Al Jazeera’s Resul Serdar, reporting from inside the country, additionally described. “Some experts are saying that might probably mean it was a chemical weapons production house.”

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Deadly USS Liberty Attack Records Remain Secret – For Now

On November 21, 2024, Senior Judge Marsha J. Pechman of the US District Court for the Western District of Washington issued what seems likely to be her final order in Kinnucan v. National Security Agency et al. The order came more than four years after the federal case was first filed in September 2020. The suit was brought to obtain records the NSA, Central Intelligence Agency, and the Defense Intelligence Agency had failed to release despite a series of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests concerning the USS Liberty (AGTR-5).

On June 8, 1967 – three days after Israel initiated the Six-Day War by attacking Egypt – Israeli forces launched a combined aerial and naval assault on the Liberty. Lasting over an hour, the unprovoked attack killed 34 Americans and wounded more than 170 others. The Israeli government would claim that the attack was the result of mistaken identity. More than 57 years after the attack, the FOIA lawsuit revealed new details and, more importantly, it made it clear that the US government is still refusing to release hundreds of pages of documents concerning the assault.

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