Tag: israel

Biden Admin ‘Undeniably Complicit’ in Israel’s Starvation Campaign in Gaza : Ex-Officials Say

A dozen former Biden administration officials signed a letter posted on X Friday describing the U.S.’s unrelenting support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza and how the backing ultimately puts America’s interests at risk and a “target” on its back.

“It has not made his rallies any safer, it has emboldened extremists while it has been devastating for the Palestinian people, ensuring a vicious cycle of poverty and hopelessness, with all the implications of that cycle, for generations to come,” the wrote.

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Israeli Lawmaker Says Iran is Israel’s Main Target

Shortly after the 7 October Hamas attack, U.S. politicians — who get patted on their heads for their loyalty to Israel before anything else — were tripping over themselves to assign blame on Tehran.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, the neocon warhawk who can’t fight his way out of a paper bag, Graham announced that he would introduce a resolution to “allow military action by the United States in conjunction with Israel to knock Iran out of the oil business.”

“Iran, if you escalate this war, we’re coming for you,” the nothing of a man said.

Israel has made it clear since the beginning of the war that Tehran is the “head of the snake” and its ultimate target. Once again, U.S. forces could be compelled to fight in a war to make sure Israel remains the only nuclear power in the region.

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Senior Israeli Lawmaker Suggests Nuclear Attack on Iran

A longtime Israeli lawmaker and former defense minister took to the airwaves and social media on Wednesday to suggest his country should do whatever it takes to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

“It is not possible anymore to stop the Iranian nuclear program with conventional means,” Avigdor Liberman of the right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu party said during a Channel 12 interview. “And we will have to use all the means that are available to us.”

“We will have to stop with the deliberate policy of ambiguity, and it needs to be clear what is at stake here,” Liberman continued, apparently referring to Israel’s refusal to say whether it has nuclear weapons. “What is at stake here is the future of this nation, the future of the state of Israel, and we will not take any risks.”

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Pentagon chief recommends avoiding Israel-Hezbollah war but sends fighter jets to Israel anyway

For U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin an immediate diplomatic solution is needed to prevent a “costly war” between Israel and Lebanon despite “Hezbollah’s provocations.”

“Diplomacy is by far the best way to prevent more escalation. We’re urgently seeking a diplomatic agreement that restores lasting calm to Israel’s northern border and enables civilians to return safely to their homes on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border,” Austin claimed to reporters during a meeting at the Pentagon with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on June 25.

Hezbollah and Israeli forces have exchanged fire on a near-daily basis since the beginning of the war in Gaza, but escalating attacks over the last several weeks have caused growing unease. And the U.S. official blamed the Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah’s threats. “Hezbollah’s provocations threaten to drag the Israeli and Lebanese people into a war that they do not want and such a war would be a catastrophe for Lebanon and it would be devastating for innocent Israeli and Lebanese civilians,” Austin told Gallant. “Another war between Israel and Hezbollah could easily become a regional war with terrible consequences for the Middle East, and so diplomacy is by far the best way to prevent more escalation.”

Previously, Gallant suggested Israel pursue a large-scale war against Hezbollah but during the meeting, he said he was “working closely” with Austin to find a diplomatic resolution. However, they also discussed military “readiness in every possible scenario.” Gallant insisted on the threat of nuclear war with Iran, telling Austin that “time is running out.”

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Top Hezbollah commander assassinated by Israeli drone in south Lebanon

An Israeli drone strike in the southern Lebanese city of Tyre killed the commander of Hezbollah’s Aziz Unit on 3 July, Mohammed Naame Nasser, marking the second high-profile assassination of a resistance commander in as many months.

The Aziz Unit reportedly operates in the eastern sector of the Lebanese–Israeli border region.

Israel’s latest provocation inside Lebanese soil comes as border tensions threaten to boil over, with western officials set to meet in the French capital on Wednesday to discuss ways to “defuse” the crisis.

On Tuesday, Hezbollah’s Deputy Secretary General, Sheikh Naim Qassem, stressed that the only path to a de-escalation on Israel’s northern border is a full ceasefire in Gaza.

“If there is a ceasefire in Gaza, we will stop without any discussion,” the Lebanese resistance leader told AP.

“Israel can decide what it wants: limited war, total war, partial war,” Qassem said. “But it should expect that our response and our resistance will not be within a ceiling and rules of engagement set by Israel … If Israel wages the war, it means it doesn’t control its extent or who enters into it.”

Nearly nine months into Israel’s campaign of genocide in Gaza, authorities have recently intensified threats to expand the war against Lebanon in a last-ditch effort to regain control of the northern occupied territories.

Nevertheless, the lack of a clear strategy to disengage from Gaza, on top of a critical manpower and munitions crisis, has deepened rifts between the military and political leaders in Israel. Earlier this week, top security officials told the New York Times (NYT) that they are pushing for a ceasefire in Gaza, even if it means “keeping Hamas in power for now.”

On Tuesday, the NYT report received a swift response from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

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Ben-Gvir says Palestinian prisoners should be killed, boasts of ‘abominable’ prison conditions

Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has reiterated his call for Palestinian prisoners to be executed, amid a spat with Israel’s Shin Bet internal security service on the state of Israel’s prisons.

The far-right minister took to X to respond to Shin Bet accusations that the government had ignored months of warnings about prison overcrowding with at least 21,000 Palestinian detainees held since 7 October.

“Since I assumed the position of Minister of National Security, one of the highest goals I have set for myself is to worsen the conditions of the terrorists in the prisons, and to reduce their rights to the minimum required by law,” Ben-Gvir said.

The minister appeared to boast about the squalid conditions Palestinians are kept in, in remarks some observers have called an open admission that Israel is running concentration camps.

“Everything published about the abominable conditions” of Palestinians in Israeli jails “was true”, Ben-Gvir said, boasting that he had reduced food and shower times for prisoners, removed electrical devices, and stopped financial deposits.

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‘We’d rather die than enlist’: Haredi Jews vow to defy conscription

On Sunday evening, thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews demonstrated in Jerusalem against last week’s landmark High Court ruling, which mandates the conscription of Haredi youth into the Israeli army. The largest anti-draft rally in a decade united several Haredi factions, whose adherents carried signs that read “We will not enlist in an enemy army,” “We would rather live as Jews than die as Zionists,” “To jail and not to the army,” “Zionism uses Jews as human shields,” and other critical slogans in Hebrew and English. 

Protesters attacked cars transporting two Haredi political leaders, burned garbage cans, and tried to rip fences and traffic signs out of the ground. Police attempted to forcibly disperse them using mounted officers, batons, and a water cannon loaded with “skunk” — though many of the remaining demonstrators, including young children, jubilantly endured powerful jets of the foul-smelling liquid. A handful of protesters were arrested.

Since the Israeli state was founded, the ultra-Orthodox have been exempt from mandatory military service — yet this policy has long been a controversial political and legal issue. With Haredi men devoting their lives to Torah study, the community sees conscription as an attack on their way of life. For the more staunchly anti-Zionist sects, which have spearheaded the recent protests, serving in the Israeli army is incompatible with their view of the state as illegitimate for having been established before the return of the messiah. 

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Israel turbocharges West Bank settlement expansion with largest land grab in decades

Israel has approved the largest seizure of land in the occupied West Bank in over three decades, a settlement tracking group said Wednesday, a move that is likely to worsen already soaring tensions linked to the war in Gaza.

Israel’s aggressive expansion in the West Bank reflects the settler community’s strong influence in the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the most religious and nationalist in the country’s history. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a settler himself, has turbocharged the policy of expansion, seizing new authorities over settlement development and saying he aims to solidify Israel’s hold on the territory and prevent the creation of a Palestinian state.

Authorities recently approved the appropriation of 12.7 square kilometers (nearly 5 square miles) of land in the Jordan Valley, according to a copy of the order obtained by The Associated Press. Data from Peace Now, the tracking group, indicate it was the largest single appropriation approved since the 1993 Oslo accords at the start of the peace process.

Settlement monitors said the land grab connects Israeli settlements along a key corridor bordering Jordan, a move they said undermines the prospect of a contiguous Palestinian state.

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Iran vows to protect Hezbollah from Israeli attack

Iran will throw all of its military power behind Hezbollah if Israel launches a full-scale attack on the Lebanon-based Islamist movement, a senior official in Tehran has warned. He added, however, that his country does not want an all-out war in the Middle East.

Tensions between the Jewish state and the Shia group, which has close ties with Iran, reached boiling point after the start of the Hamas-Israel war in October, with the two belligerents exchanging cross-border strikes. However, they have so far managed to avoid a major engagement.

In an interview with the Financial Times on Tuesday, Kamal Kharrazi, a foreign affairs adviser to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, reiterated that Iran is “not interested” in a regional war. He urged the US, Israel’s key ally, to put pressure on West Jerusalem to prevent such escalation.

However, Kharrazi insisted that “all Lebanese people, Arab countries, and members of the axis of resistance will support Lebanon against Israel” if efforts to avoid a major conflict prove unsuccessful. “In that situation, we would have no choice but to support Hezbollah by all means,” he said.

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US Sends Amphibious Assault Ship To Show Support for Israel Amid Lebanon Tensions

The US has deployed an amphibious assault ship to the Middle East to demonstrate support for Israel amid soaring tensions on the Lebanon-Israel border.

The Pentagon announced that the USS Wasp arrived in the eastern Mediterranean Sea last week. The deployment comes amid fears of a full-blown Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon as Israeli forces and Hezbollah continue to trade fire across the border.

A US official told The Associated Press that the deployment was “about deterrence,” but the US show of force could embolden Israel. The US insists it’s working to prevent a war in Lebanon, but Middle East Eye recently reported that Washington conveyed to Lebanon it would ultimately support Israel if it went ahead with an invasion.

The Wasp is carrying a US Marine Corps Expeditionary Unit and is sailing along with the USS Oak Hill, a dock landing ship. US officials told NBC News last week that one purpose of the Wasp’s deployment is to stand by to evacuate Americans in the event that a full-scale war breaks out along the Israel-Lebanon border.

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