Tag: israel

Prolonging Genocide as a Smokescreen: On Israel’s Other War in the West Bank

Promises of “absolute victory” in Gaza are nothing but “gibberish”, according to Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Gallant’s comments were not meant to be public, but somehow were leaked and published by Israeli media on August 12.

The explanation of why Netanyahu is pursuing a losing war in Gaza has been largely confined to the prime minister’s personal interests: avoiding the outcome of his corruption trials, preserving his extremist government coalition and avoiding early elections.

Still, none of these rationales explain the absurdity of continuing with a war, which, in the words of former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak is “the worst failure in Israel’s history”.

What else could explain Netanyahu’s motive behind the war? And why are his most crucial government allies, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich determined to prolong it?

The answer may not lie in Gaza, but in the West Bank.

While Israel is extending its failed military campaign in the Strip with no clear strategic objectives, its war on the West Bank is driven by clear strategic motives: the annexation of the West Bank and the ethnic cleansing of large sectors of the Palestinian population.

This is not only obvious through Israel’s daily actions in the West Bank but also because of the clear statements made by Israel’s extremist government officials.

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Israel launches violent raids on southern Lebanon as China urges nationals to leave

Israeli forces intensified their cross-border attacks on Lebanon overnight Wednesday-Thursday with a series of 10 raids across eight different southern areas within 45 minutes, Lebanese media reported on Thursday.

The attacks took place around 1am local time, according to security sources, adding that the strikes targeted and destroyed several buildings in the Khiam, Kfarchouba, Mhaybib, Aita al-Chaab, Ghazziye, Ramiye, and Kaouthraiyet al-Sayyed, villages that lie about 30 kilometres (18.6 miles) past the Blue Line. No casualties were reported.

The Israeli military said that its air forces had hit more than 10 “Hezbollah targets” in different areas in southern Lebanon.

The army claimed on X that “among the targets attacked were weapons depots, military buildings, and a launcher used by Hezbollah to carry out operations against Israel”.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah announced it had targeted Israeli army barracks in northern Israel.

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Israeli Forces Target Houses, Tents – Scores of Civilians Killed in Gaza

Israeli airstrikes claimed the lives of scores of Palestinian civilians on day 321 of the genocidal war the occupation army is launching on the Gaza Strip.

The airstrikes targeted houses and tents in various areas in the besieged Strip namely Beit Lahia, Tal al-Zaatar in Jabaliya, Khan Yunis, Nuseirat camp, Al-Maghraqa, Tal Al-Hawa, Al-Zeitoun, and Al-Sabra and Deir Al-Balah.

Eleven people were killed and several others injured at dawn Thursday in an Israeli shelling that targeted the Hamouda family’s house, in Beit Lahia, north of Gaza.

The victims, mostly women and children, were taken to Kamal Adwan Hospital badly burnt while others were still under the rubble.

Also in the north of Gaza namely in the Tal al-Zaatar area in Jabaliya, the Israeli occupation army targeted the Salman family’s residential apartment killing three Palestinians and injuring others.

In Khan Yunis, south of Gaza, Abu Daqqa’s house in al-Fakhari area, east of the city was shelled by Israel’s occupation army killing a woman and a child.  

In parallel, the Israeli occupation opened fire on the tents of displaced Palestinians in Mawasi al-Qarara, northwest of Khan Yunis.

Israel’s occupation forces targeted the house of the Al-Judaili family in the Nuseirat camp in the center of Gaza, injuring several Palestinians.

In the meantime, Israel’s occupation’s artillery shelled the Al-Maghraqa area northwest of the Nuseirat refugee camp.

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Countries fueling Israel’s Gaza war may be complicit in war crimes, experts warn

Israeli tanks, jets and bulldozers bombarding Gaza and razing homes in the occupied West Bank are being fueled by a growing number of countries signed up to the genocide and Geneva conventions, new research suggests, which legal experts warn could make them complicit in serious crimes against the Palestinian people.

Four tankers of American jet fuel primarily used for military aircraft have been shipped to Israel since the start of its aerial bombardment of Gaza in October.

Three shipments departed from Texas after the landmark international court of justice (ICJ) ruling on 26 January ordered Israel to prevent genocidal acts in Gaza. The ruling reminded states that under the genocide convention they have a “common interest to ensure the prevention, suppression and punishment of genocide”.

Overall, almost 80% of the jet fuel, diesel and other refined petroleum products supplied to Israel by the US over the past nine months was shipped after the January ruling, according to the new research commissioned by the non-profit Oil Change International and shared exclusively with the Guardian.

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Partners in Genocide: Israel Is Slaughtering Palestinians With Western Arms

While many are earnestly pointing at the devastation of war, the rampant human rights violations and the deliberate relegation of international and humanitarian law, there are those who see war from an entirely different perspective: profits.

For the merchants of war, the collective pain and misery of whole nations is dwarfed by the lucrative deals of billions of dollars generated from weapons sales.

The great irony is that some of the loudest advocates of human rights are, in fact, the ones who are facilitating the global arms trade. Without it, human rights would not be violated with such impunity.

The Geneva Academy, a legal research organization, says that it currently monitors about 110 active armed conflicts worldwide. Most of these conflicts are taking place in the Global South, though many of these cases are either exacerbated, funded or managed by western powers or western multinational corporations.

Of the 110, 45 armed conflicts are taking place in the Middle East and North Africa region, 35 in the rest of Africa, 21 in Asia and six in Latin America, according to the Academy.

The worst and bloodiest of these armed conflicts is currently taking place in Gaza, one of the poorest and most isolated regions in the world.

To estimate the future death toll resulting from the war in Gaza, one of the world’s most respected medical journals, the Lancet, undertook a thorough research entitled “Counting the dead in Gaza: Difficult but essential”.

The approximation was based on the death toll figure produced as of June 19, when Israel had then reportedly killed 37,396 Palestinians.

Lancet’s new number was horrifying, even though the medical journal said that its conclusions were based on conservative estimates of indirect deaths vs direct deaths that often result from such wars.

Should the war end today, meaning June 19, 7.9% of the population of the Gaza Strip will die because of the war and its aftermath. That’s “up to 186,000 or even more deaths”, according to the Lancet.

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Farage and Musk don’t care about free speech. And Israel really is a terrorist state

In the space of just one week there has been a massive, almost Orwellian crackdown on free speech, with a number of arrests made. Not in North Korea or China but in the USA and UK. Barely days after former UN weapons inspector and social media tsar Scott Ritter had his house raided by FBI officers looking for evidence that he was actually working for America’s enemies we witnessed the arrest and detention of a young British journalist called Richard Medhurst who, when arriving at Heathrow airport from overseas, was escorted off a plane and held on terrorism charges. And then remarkably, Elon Musk, a billionaire who owns X and claims to be a champion of free speech shuts down the account of Egyptian comedian Bassem Youssef – which is followed by rumours on social media that the next polemic commentator to get the chop will be the YouTube talk show hosted by Judge Andrew Napolitano.

What’s going on? What do these individuals all have in common? Clearly their uncompromised stance against Israel is the issue here and we have to assume that either the Zionist State has cracked the whip and wants this baptism of criticism and scorn to stop or the initiative comes exclusively from the deep state itself in the U.S., with London ever grateful to play the role of diminutive pooch in the handbag. But the crackdown is unprecedented and really bears witness to a fear many in the west have had for some time, which is that most of these countries are parodies of democracy. Some even go further and claim, like Youssef, that western countries’ governments are controlled by Israel. Far-fetched? Less so, given the arrests and cancels in recent days.

Yet if it is all about making the accusations against Israel more round-edged, one has to ask the questions whether the decision was wise or foolhardy and taken at what level?

The genocide Israel carries out can’t be covered up or extinguished by the history books, even if those tomes are written by the victors, as Churchill once said.

Britain and the U.S. are complicit in it and will have to face the consequences for it one day. Both the ICJ and the ICC tribunals in the Netherlands are collecting evidence on a daily basis leaving many stunned by the rank desperation and stupidity of this Kristallnacht stunt both by the deep state and by Elon Musk.

The three guilty were commentators and journalists who are hell-bent on saying or reporting the truth, no matter how unpalatable it may be. We can assume in the case of the young journalist Medhurst that instructions to scare him with the Heathrow stunt were probably instructions from Langley which UK cops happily obliged to execute.

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Does Any Other Country Besides Israel Have the Right to Defend Itself?

Despite the countless atrocities, assassinations and violations of humanitarian and international law, American politicians and the corporate media recite ad infinitum the accepted talking point that Israel has a “right to defend itself.” From their distorted perspective, only the aggressor deserves that prerogative.

Israel’s claim to self-defense is never questioned.  Although it has one of the strongest modern militaries (581 aircraft, including F-15, F-16 and advanced stealth F-35 fighter jets), possesses the latest air defense systems, stockpiles 400 nuclear weapons with delivery systems, and has the United States, the world’s largest military power, standing ready to protect it, we are to believe that Israel is in physical danger.

On the other hand, the Palestinians, most in need of defense, are denied that right.  They are told to accept colonized lives in the Gaza concentration camp, to accept marginalization, injustice and humiliation forever; that they have no right to resist the Israeli apartheid regime.  And the United States and its Western proxies threaten the Islamic Republic of Iran, Hezbollah in Lebanon and others in the Palestinian Resistance for daring to challenge Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

Even though the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), Palestinian Islamic Jihad and smaller groups have no organized modern military, no air force, navy, air defense systems, nuclear weapons and no Western allies to defend them from Israeli terrorism, we are to believe that they are a threat.

In addition, the U.S.-Israeli narrative concerning Palestinians and their regional allies is rife with contradictions.  The United States and Israel can choose their allies, while Iranians and Palestinians cannot without controversy.

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US Calls for Ceasefire But Keeps Supporting War

On August 12, the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, issued a press statement commemorating the anniversary of the adoption of the Geneva Conventions.

He said: “The 75th anniversary of the adoption of the 1949 Geneva Conventions is a fitting occasion to reaffirm our commitment to respecting international humanitarian law… We call on others to do the same.”

Except Israel.

Blinken added: “Faced with the horrible reality of war, parties to armed conflict must comply with international humanitarian law to mitigate many of war’s worst humanitarian consequences, support pathways to peace, and advance the protection of civilians and other victims.”

Except Israel.

Of course, Blinken did not add the words “except Israel” but he should have, considering what had happened just two days earlier.

On August 10, Israel dropped bombs on a school sheltering displaced Palestinians, killing over 100 and injuring hundreds more.

The New York Times reported that one witness “said he found a scene of carnage unlike any he had seen in the past 10 months of war: A prayer hall strewed with bodies and body parts over two floors.” Another witness said “the dead were all in pieces.”

CNN said there was “no advance warning of the attack” and reported that the director for ambulance and emergency services said, “All of these people who were targeted were civilians, unarmed children, the elderly, men and women.”

NBC News described the event as “one of the deadliest attacks in the 10-month war” and said the strikes hit the school “during dawn prayers.” The network reported, “The White House said it was deeply concerned.” Two days earlier, Secretary Blinken announced that the US was sending billions more to Israel in a new weapons package.

The Financial Times quoted a surgeon as saying, “This was a very bloody day,” and that he had performed several amputations including on at least four children.

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Biden’s Convention Speech Made Absurd Claims About His Gaza Policy

An observation from George Orwell – “those who control the present, control the past and those who control the past control the future” – is acutely relevant to how President Biden talked about Gaza during his speech at the Democratic convention Monday night. His words fit into a messaging template now in its eleventh month, depicting the U.S. government as tirelessly seeking peace, while supplying the weapons and bombs that have enabled Israel’s continual slaughter of civilians.

“We’ll keep working, to bring hostages home, and end the war in Gaza, and bring peace and security to the Middle East,” Biden told the cheering delegates. “As you know, I wrote a peace treaty for Gaza. A few days ago I put forward a proposal that brought us closer to doing that than we’ve done since October 7th.”

It was a journey into an alternative universe of political guile from a president who just six days earlier had approved sending $20 billion worth of more weapons to Israel. Yet the Biden delegates in the convention hall responded with a crescendo of roaring admiration.

Applause swelled as Biden continued: “We’re working around-the-clock, my secretary of state, to prevent a wider war and reunite hostages with their families, and surge humanitarian health and food assistance into Gaza now, to end the civilian suffering of the Palestinian people and finally, finally, finally deliver a ceasefire and end this war.”

In Chicago’s United Center, the president basked in adulation while claiming to be a peacemaker despite a record of literally making possible the methodical massacres of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians.

Orwell would have understood. A political reflex has been in motion from top U.S. leaders, claiming to be peace seekers while aiding and abetting the slaughter. Normalizing deception about the past sets a pattern for perpetrating such deception in the future.

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Yemen: Hodeidah port attack by Israel was a ‘potential war crime’

Last month’s Israeli air strikes on Yemen’s port city of Hodeidah could constitute a war crime, Human Rights Watch said on Monday.

The rights group described the attacks as potentially “unlawful, indiscriminate or disproportionate”, and said they were likely to impact civilians in the country.

Israel carried out air strikes on the Yemeni city after a drone launched by the country’s Houthi movement, also known as Ansar Allah, hit central Tel Aviv, killing one person.

The Houthis, who control Sanaa and most of northern and western Yemen, have been launching drone attacks towards Israel in response to its ongoing military campaign against Palestinians in Gaza.

“Serious violations of the laws of war committed wilfully, that is deliberately or recklessly, are war crimes,” HRW said.

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