Tag: israel

NATO member to join genocide case against Israel

Türkiye intends to formally join a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague on Wednesday, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan has announced, at a news conference in Cairo.

The ICJ case was launched in December by South Africa, which accused the Jewish state of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Since then, over a dozen countries have announced their intention to join the case. The Hague court has yet to issue a final ruling, but has ordered Israel to refrain from any acts that could fall under the UN Genocide Convention.

Fidan stressed that the Middle East can no longer tolerate Israel’s “provocations,” including its attacks on Lebanon and Iran, and accused the Jewish state of pursuing violence and “expansionism” while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu aims “to set the entire region on fire.”

The minister condemned the “treacherous” assassination in Tehran last week of the Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh – who served as the Palestinian armed group’s chief negotiator in indirect ceasefire talks with Israel. 

Iran and Hamas have accused Israel of being behind the strike, although the Jewish state has refused to confirm or deny involvement.

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Israel’s admission that it targeted a journalist exposes crude attempt to control war narrative

Ismail Al-Ghoul and his cameraman Rami Al-Refee were observing the conflict-zone-reporting best practice, as they motored back from their assignment on the last day of July. Having reported issues facing the displaced people of northern Gaza, they were leaving the scene of greatest danger. Blast vests bearing the insignia “PRESS” protected their bodies. Minutes earlier they had updated the Al Jazeera newsroom with their location.

None of this would save their lives when an Israeli drone strike blasted their car. The explosion blew off Al-Ghoul’s head – an image subsequently shared on social media. Al-Refee and Khalid Shawa, a boy who happened to be passing by on a bicycle, also died instantly.

Unusually, we know that the killing was deliberate – because the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) has admitted as much.

The occupation army justified the assassination, arguing that the journalist’s name appears on a list of “senior Hamas officers” that it captured earlier in the conflict. This allegation is strenuously denied by Al-Ghoul’s family, his employer and his union. And Israeli “evidence” in similar cases has appeared questionable. Indeed, Al-Ghoul spent enough time “on camera” that his capacity outside journalism would have been limited.

Critically, however, he was arrested by Israeli soldiers in March and held for 12 hours before being released without a charge. Surely, if the evidence of his Hamas membership justified his killing, there must have been sufficient basis for his prosecution?

This admission of targeting confirms much of what have for months been swirling allegations about Israeli operations. We know that it has software – Pegasus – that secretly invades mobile phones and shares its user’s locations, communications and the identities of those who they meet.

We know that the Israeli army uses software called “Lavender” that deploys AI to sort operational intelligence and suggest targets for assassination. A further tool, “The Gospel”, uploads targets’ geo locations to killer drones dramatically faster than had been possible with manual programming.

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Israeli media publishes video of soldiers allegedly raping Palestinian detainee

Israeli media has published footage purportedly showing the moment soldiers in an infamous detention facility raped a Palestinian detainee.

Late last month, nine Israeli soldiers were arrested for the alleged rape of a Palestinian detained in Sde Teiman, a facility in southern Israel’s Negev desert.

Since Israel’s war on Gaza began in October, many Palestinians detained by Israeli forces have said they were sexually abused by troops at Sde Teiman.

However, no one had been arrested for the abuse until 29 July, when military police raided the facility, clashed with the soldiers and took them into custody.

The incident created a backlash in Israel, with a far-right mob, that included an MP and minister, storming the detention centre and a military court in protest against the arrests.

Israeli media has published footage purportedly showing the moment soldiers in an infamous detention facility raped a Palestinian detainee.

Late last month, nine Israeli soldiers were arrested for the alleged rape of a Palestinian detained in Sde Teiman, a facility in southern Israel’s Negev desert.

Since Israel’s war on Gaza began in October, many Palestinians detained by Israeli forces have said they were sexually abused by troops at Sde Teiman.

However, no one had been arrested for the abuse until 29 July, when military police raided the facility, clashed with the soldiers and took them into custody.

The incident created a backlash in Israel, with a far-right mob, that included an MP and minister, storming the detention centre and a military court in protest against the arrests.

On Tuesday, Channel 12 released a video reputedly of the moment the Palestinian was sexually abused.

He was taken to a field hospital at Sde Teiman with “a ruptured bowel, a severe injury to his anus, lung damage and broken ribs”, according to media reports.

The footage released by Channel 12, taken from evidence used in the investigation, shows detained Palestinians lying on the floor with their hands and eyes covered.

A group of reserve soldiers are then seen taking one of the detainees aside, then trying to hide their subsequent actions with riot shields.

The reservists are members of Force 100, a unit tasked with guarding the prisoners in Sde Teiman.

According to Channel 12, the suspects in the case were found to be lying on a polygraph test.

Two suspects were asked two identical questions: “Did you insert an object into the Palestinian’s anus during a search? and “Are you hiding the identity of the person who inserted an object into the Palestinian’s anus?”

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Iran: A History of US and Israeli Jihad Using Terrorists

Israel is nervous.  Waiting.  Netanyahu wants a ‘pre-emptive strike’ inside Iran.  And we are still discussing whether this man is or isn’t absolutely insane.  Comparisons to Hitler are wasted on this vermin.  Hitler at least had a focus – the eradication of an ideology, communism.   Netanyahu’s focus is the eradication of people via Jihad.  Can the remaining secular Israeli’s convince Netanyahu to stop, or do they have the same glint in their eye every time they hear of more deaths?

Bunkers won’t save people from a nuclear strike.  Where the wind blows.  Death will follow. 

Peace talks.  Netanyahu has declared from his beginning that annihilating all Palestinians was his goal.  The 50,000 Christians are just more goyims going to their grave.  Their churches already decimated.  A two state solution will never be accomplished – it is over.  We have the Truth, and we still ignore it.  Why?  For the same reason lies are told, to protect us from knowledge.  Because knowledge will erase power.

Where is The Vatican?  Shouldn’t Pope Francis be involved in intense dialogue with the Israeli Rabbi’s foaming at the mouth as they gleefully dance on dead bodies?  Or is Pope Francis too busy filling his gluttonous girth with wine and meat?  The Church was silent during WWII.  The number of Christians killed is relatively equal to the ‘estimated’ number of Jews.  The Church’s justification?   They feared retaliation against Catholics.  The Church – was afraid.

Is that why Pope Francis won’t speak out against Israel or attempt to negotiate peace?  Because he is afraid?  Or is it because Francis is also a Mossad heretic?  The evangelical pastors are also oddly silent in this martyrdom of Palestinians on behalf of secularism.

CSIS ‘expert analysts’ believe that Israeli’s are comforted and overjoyed that 2 Hamas leaders have been assassinated – leaving the remaining Palestinians hopeful that they won’t be bombed as Netanyahu fulfills his claim that it is only about Hamas.  Yet the daily death toll of Palestinians remains a constant.   A constant that Truth cannot deny – although many are now projecting that the true death toll is likely closer to 200,000 vs the 40,000 estimate.

What is at the root of Israel’s abject hatred of Iran?   Why does the US support and incite this tension?  Which Terrorists incite Jihad?

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Israel lobby spends millions to unseat US lawmaker critical of Gaza war

The pro-Israel lobby in the US is pouring millions into a campaign to unseat an African-American Congresswoman from Missouri, Cori Bush, as part of a broader effort to replace critics of Israel’s war in Gaza with more Israel-friendly Democrats, The Washington Post reported on 6 August.

“It’s because I called for a cease-fire in Gaza,” Bush told a potential voter as she campaigned door-to-door in her district. “That’s where all of this started.”

Bush is facing a tight primary contest Tuesday against St Louis County Prosecutor and fellow African-American and Democrat Wesley Bell, who is supported by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the largest and most powerful pro-Israel group in the US.

Whoever wins the primary will run against the Republican party’s candidate for the congressional seat in November.

Outside groups have already spent over $15 million in Missouri’s 1st Congressional district race, with 80 percent of the funds going toward ads opposing Bush and supporting her AIPAC-backed opponent.

In June, AIPAC and other pro-Israel groups spent $17 million to help defeat another progressive African-American member of the US Congress who was critical of the Gaza war, Democrat Jamaal Bowman from New York.

The Washington Post adds that the National Black Empowerment Action Fund (NBEA), founded by AIPAC veteran Darius Jones, donated $1 million to the campaign against Bush last week.

Most of the voters in Bush’s district with whom the Washington Post spoke said they did not know that AIPAC and other Israel lobby groups were so involved in tipping the race.

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Israel commits new massacre in south Lebanon as regional tensions spiral

The Israeli army committed a massacre in the southern Lebanese village of Maifadoun on 6 August.

Five people were killed in an Israeli airstrike in the town of Maifadoun, the Lebanese Health Ministry said. 

“An enemy drone raided, at around 10:05 am, a two-story house in the Al-Nadi neighborhood in the town of Maifadoun. Smoke rose, and ambulances headed to the scene,” Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) reported on Tuesday. 

Israeli warplanes also struck the town of Khiam on 6 August.

Hezbollah announced the deaths of four of its fighters after the Israeli attack on Maifadoun.

The Lebanese resistance movement had targeted Israeli forces in the Avivim settlement hours earlier in response to continued Israeli attacks on civilians in south Lebanon. 

“In response to the Israeli enemy’s attacks on the steadfast southern villages and homes, the Islamic Resistance’s Mujahideen targeted a building used by enemy soldiers in the Avivim settlement on Tuesday 06-08-2024 with appropriate weapons and hit it directly,” the Lebanese resistance movement said in a statement. 

Hezbollah carried out several operations the day before, including suicide drone attacks on two Israeli army headquarters – launched in response to Israeli attacks and assassinations in the town of Bazouriye and Mays al-Jabal earlier this week. 

The resistance group said both attacks resulted in “confirmed casualties,” including deaths and injuries among the Israeli army’s ranks. 

Hezbollah has announced the deaths of several of its fighters in Israeli attacks since 4 August, as well as the killing of a civil defense paramedic affiliated with the resistance group’s Islamic Message Scouts Association. 

Tuesday’s massacre comes as regional tensions are at an all-time high following Israel’s assassinations of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on 31 July and top Hezbollah war commander Fuad Shukr in a Beirut residential building the day before. 

The attack on Beirut killed several civilians, including young children. 

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‘Display of Cowardice’- Meta Reinstates Malaysian PM’s Posts on Haniyeh’s Assassination

Meta has apologized for removing posts by Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim regarding the assassination of Hamas politburo leader Ismail Haniyeh.

The social media posts have been reinstated with the note: “This post goes against our Community Guidelines but has been left on Instagram for public awareness.”

Ibrahim’s posts included a video of him on a phone call with Hamas official, Dr Bassim Naim, expressing his condolences on Haniyeh’s killing in the Iranian capital last week.

In the caption, the premier called his death “a murder of the most heinous kind, plainly designed to derail ongoing talks aimed at ending the carnage in Gaza that has claimed over 40,000 lives.”

Malaysian government officials had reportedly met with Meta representatives on Monday to seek an explanation.

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EU’s top diplomat condemns Gaza starvation that Israeli minister called ‘moral’

European Union High Representative Josep Borrell on Monday condemned the worsening humanitarian situation in Gaza, urging Israel to halt actions that could further imperil the besieged region’s starving civilian population.

“The ever-worsening humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza is creating life-threatening conditions for an already severely weakened civilian population that continues to be subject to starvation and repeated displacement,” the European External Action Service (EEAS) chief wrote in a statement.

Borrell also raised concerns about the destruction of key civilian infrastructure, such as the sanitation and health systems, which are causing the spread of infections and diseases among the population.

“We recall that targeting critical life-saving infrastructure constitutes a war crime and urge all parties to take all feasible precautions to avoid harm to civilians, humanitarian workers, and critical civilian infrastructure,” his statement continued.

Borrell’s statement came hours after Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich suggested letting Gazan civilians die of starvation was “justified and moral” in response to Hamas keeping Israeli hostages.

“We are bringing in aid because there is no choice,” he said Monday at a conference in the town of Yad Binyamin, according to Israeli media. “Nobody will let us cause 2 million civilians to die of hunger even though it might be justified and moral until our hostages are returned.”

Over 100 Israeli hostages abducted by Hamas on Oct. 7 are still unaccounted for.

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Israel Is Never “Defending Itself”, and the US Is Never “Defending Israel”

In the last few days Israel has assassinated leaders in multiple neighboring nations, assassinated multiple journalists, deliberately destroyed a water facility in Gaza during a polio outbreak, and had riots defending the right of IDF soldiers to rape Palestinian prisoners. Clearly the sort of country we should all want to send our sons and daughters to go fight and die for.

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Western officials are always babbling about Israel’s “right to defend itself”, which sparks all kinds of debates about whether an occupying force does in fact have a right to defend itself under international law. What these debates overlook is the fact that Israel ISN’T “defending itself”. It’s pure offense. Pure attack. Israel is always the aggressor.

Israel is never “defending itself”, and the US is never “defending Israel”. Both of these nations exist in a constant state of attack and aggression, which is then framed as “defending” by propaganda spin.

The US sows violence and division in the middle east as a matter of policy. Israel’s very creation was an act of aggression upon the people this apartheid ethnostate was dropped on top of, and it has been the aggressor ever since. Other nations and groups in the middle east have been defending themselves against those aggressions. They are the only parties in all this who can claim to be “defending” anything.

Even measures which appear inherently defensive in nature like the “Iron Dome” and the missile and drone interceptions we saw this past April during Iran’s retaliatory strikes are not defensive the way Israel and the US use them, because they are used to protect Israel from the defensive measures of the people Israel is attacking. A Kevlar vest ceases to be a defensive measure when you use it to keep from being stopped by police while conducting a mass shooting. A shield stops being a tool of defense when you’re using it to make sure you can stab someone with your sword. They’re just measures taken to facilitate more Israeli aggression by removing the deterrence and defense capabilities of the people it’s attacking.

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CENTCOM Chief Meets With IDF Chief To Coordinate on Iranian Response

On Monday, the head of US Central Command (CENTCOM), Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla, met with Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi in Tel Aviv as the two militaries are preparing to defend Israel from an expected Iranian reprisal attack.

Kurilla also met with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who said the visit from the CENTCOM chief demonstrates strong US support for Israel. “Your arrival in Israel at this time is a direct translation of US support for Israel into action,” Gallant said. “The relationship between Israel and the United States is unshakable.”

Kurilla’s visit came after the US announced the deployment of new warships and warplanes to the Middle East for the purpose of helping defend Israel. It’s unclear when Iran is planning to launch an attack, but it could happen any day. Israel is also considering launching a “preemptive strike,” which would escalate the situation even more.

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