Tag: israel

Facebook Ramps Up Censorship Amid Israeli Pressure

On July 10, it was announced that social media giant Meta would broaden the scope of its censorship and suppression of content related to the Gaza genocide. Under the new policy, Facebook and Instagram posts containing “derogatory or threatening references to ‘Zionists’ in cases where the term is used to refer to Jews or Israelis” will be proscribed. Unsurprisingly, a welter of Zionist lobby organizations – many of which aggressively lobbied Meta to adopt these changes – cheered the move. Emboldened, the same entities are now calling for all social media platforms to follow suit.

The Times of Israel noted that “nearly 150 advocacy groups and experts provided input that led to Meta’s policy update.” This prominently included Tel Aviv-based CyberWell, mundanely described by the outlet as “a nonprofit that has been documenting the swell of online antisemitism and Holocaust denial since Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza.” These malign activities have had a devastating impact on what Western audiences see and hear about the Gaza genocide on their social media feeds.

In January, CyberWell published an extensive report on how it was seeking to censor many prominent X accounts that expressed doubts about the official narrative of October 7, including the widely disseminated, proven-to-be-false libel that Hamas fighters beheaded dozens of infants. Users in the firing line included popular anonymous Zei Squirrel, Al Jazeera, The Grayzone chief Max Blumenthal, and famous rapper Lowkey, of MintPress News. CyberWell claimed such legitimate skepticism was comparable to Holocaust denial.

The impact of these lobbying efforts isn’t clear, although almost simultaneously, Zei Squirrel was abruptly suspended from X without warning or explanation, sparking widespread outrage. It was only due to relentless backlash that the account was reinstated. More recently, CyberWell submitted formal guidance to Meta on censoring the Palestine solidarity phrase “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” which Zionists falsely claim is a clarion call for the genocide of Jews.

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LA CITY COUNCIL CONSIDERS FUNDING FORMER IDF SOLDIERS TO PATROL ITS STREETS

THE LOS ANGELES City Council is considering whether to give public funds to private, armed security patrols to protect its religious communities, following a protest against the marketing of West Bank settlement properties at an LA synagogue last month that turned violent. 

In the immediate wake of the incident, city council members introduced a motion to give $1 million to several Jewish security organizations that would expand their work around Jewish schools, religious institutions, and neighborhoods. 

Magen Am, a nonprofit that runs armed patrol services and firearm training programs for the Jewish community, was named as the recipient of $350,000 in the motion. The group is largely made up of former Israeli soldiers, along with U.S. military veterans, according to the group’s website and social media posts, and was founded by a former MMA fighter with ties to the National Rifle Association. The majority of the former Israel Defense Forces soldiers in the group are “lone soldiers,” according to several reports, the term for individuals with no direct ties to the state of Israel who immigrated there to serve in the nation’s military.

The city council has since introduced a new motion, which would give $2 million to various faith groups that want to hire additional security and does not mention Magen Am or any recipients by name. But LA activists are still concerned that city funds will go to an armed group with hard-line political stances.

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Israel minister demands West Bank annexation if UN court rules against it

Hardline Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called on the prime minister to annex the occupied West Bank if the International Court of Justice (ICJ) rules Israeli settlements are illegal this week.

Smotrich told reporters, “no one will move the people of Israel from their land”, the Times of Israel quoted him as saying on Monday.

The UN’s top court is expected to deliver a non-binding ruling on the legal ramifications of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories on Friday.

“I hereby call on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – if the International Court of Justice in The Hague does decide that the settlement enterprise is illegal – respond to them with a historic decision of applying sovereignty to the territories of the homeland,” said Smotrich.

The far-right minister also promised to “thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state through massive construction, regulating settlements, building roads and other measures in the field” – all moves illegal under international law.

Fifty-two countries presented arguments at the ICJ, also known as the World Court, about the legal consequences of Israel’s actions in the occupied territories in February, after the UN General Assembly asked it in 2022 for an advisory opinion.

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Biden campaign to blame ‘climate of violence’ on pro-Palestine protests after Trump shooting: Report

The re-election campaign of US President Joe Biden is shifting focus away from attacking former president Donald Trump for the climate of violence in the country and instead placing the blame on pro-Palestinian protesters.

According to senior US officials who spoke with Reuters on 14 July, the campaign will “draw on the president’s history of condemning all sorts of political violence including his sharp criticism of the ‘disorder’ created by campus protests over the Israel–Gaza conflict.”

The shift came in response to Saturday’s assassination attempt on Trump. “This changes everything,” one campaign official told the British news agency. ”We’re still assessing. Making the case against Trump, drawing that split screen will get much harder.”

Before Saturday’s assassination attempt, Biden’s campaign strategy was set to focus on attacking Trump personally, including TV ads highlighting his May felony conviction relating to hush money paid to a porn star to avert a sex scandal before the 2016 US election.

As student protests against the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza spread across dozens of US university campuses this year, Biden was quick to condemn protesters and accuse them of promoting violence and antisemitism.

In April, he released a statement condemning protesters at Columbia University occupying the institution’s Hamilton Hall, which they renamed Hind’s Hall in honor of Hind Rajab, a six-year-old Palestinian girl who was murdered by the Israeli army in Gaza.

Hind and her relatives were killed on 29 January while fleeing their neighborhood in Gaza City after the Israeli military issued evacuation orders for the area. Their bodies were finally recovered 12 days later. Multidisciplinary research group Forensic Architecture mapped a total of 335 bullet holes in the Kia Sedan where they were killed.

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Israel assassinates Syrian businessman with links to Resistance Axis

Mohammad Baraa al-Katerji, a Syrian businessman with deep ties to the Axis of Resistance, was assassinated on 15 July in an Israeli airstrike near Syrian–Lebanese border. 

Katerji was killed in the town of Saboura on the Syrian side of the border with Lebanon on Monday evening. 

He was a high-profile businessman in Syria and across the region. Along with his brother Hussam, he established businesses in the oil, construction, logistics, and transport sectors. The two were also close to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. 

Katerji was allegedly involved in financing and helping to facilitate weapons transfers to resistance movements across the region, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, according to an Israeli official cited by Financial Times. According to the unnamed official, this included millions of dollars to Hezbollah since the start of the war in Gaza in October. 

As a result, he and his brother have faced harsh sanctions from the US, UK, and EU over the years. Among the sanctioned businesses is the Katerji Holding Group. 

“About a month ago, Katerji Holding Group announced the launch of work on the largest industrial complex in the Middle East and the first of its kind in Syria within the Sheikh Najjar Industrial City in Aleppo on an area of ​​up to three million square meters,” Syrian journalist Mohammad Dabaa wrote on Tuesday. 

“The project includes 357 industries, provides 300,000 direct and indirect job opportunities, and relies on alternative energy, producing 150 megawatts of electrical current, with an implementation period of 12 months,” he added. 

The killing comes as Israel has stepped up its illegal airstrikes on Syrian territory. 

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Weapons experts: US-supplied bombs used in Israeli strike of Gaza ‘safe zone’

Israel’s deadly strike on Al-Mawasi, one of the bloodiest attacks in more than nine months of war in Gaza, used massive payload bombs provided by the United States, according to weapons experts.
The bombing of the Israeli-declared “safe zone” transformed the tent city on the Mediterranean coast into a charred wasteland, with nearby hospitals overrun with casualties.
According to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, the barrage killed at least 92 people and wounded more than 300.
The Israeli military said it targeted two “masterminds” of the October 7 attacks by Hamas that triggered the war. It said a top commander, Rafa Salama, was killed in the strike, but uncertainty remains over Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif.
AFP videos of the attack showed a white mushroom cloud billowing over a busy street, leaving behind a huge crater strewn with the wreckage of tents and a building blown to bits.
Here is what we know about the weaponry used in the attack:
Two weapons experts said that a sliver of munition seen in a video of the blast site circulating online was a tail fin from a US-made Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM). AFP could not independently verify the video.
The GPS-aided kit converts unguided free-fall bombs — so-called “dumb bombs” — into precision-guided “smart” munitions that can be directed toward single or multiple targets.
The United States developed the kit to improve accuracy in adverse weather after Operation Desert Storm in 1991.
The first JDAMs were delivered in 1997 and, according to the US Air Force, have a 95 percent system reliability.

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Israeli ‘siege tactics’ block aid groups to access Gaza: NGOs

Access to war-torn Gaza has become increasingly difficult for humanitarian groups, 13 leading NGOs warned on Monday, accusing Israel’s military of blocking much-needed aid from reaching the besieged Palestinian territory.

Denouncing “Israel’s systematic obstruction of aid and its ongoing attacks on aid operations”, the humanitarian organisations said that Israel had facilitated only 53 — less than half — of the 115 relief missions they had planned.

The aid groups slammed what it called Israel’s “siege tactics” in its struggle against Palestinian militant group Hamas.

It said the so-called “humanitarian zone” where most of the strip’s population of 2.4 million people now reside had become “an active combat zone” and “extremely unsafe”.

The charities also criticised the bombing of United Nations schools used as shelters by displaced Palestinians.

At least six schools have been hit over the past nine days.

“These recent events are exacerbating the humanitarian catastrophe at a time when NGOs continue to come up against the obstacles imposed by the continuation of Israeli military operations on the ground,” a press release summarising the 13 NGOs’ views warned.

Oxfam, Doctors Without Borders, Save the Children and the Norwegian Refugee Council were among the charities to contribute to the document.

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Geopolitical Events Could Escalate To Global War

The latest reports coming out of the Middle East indicate that Israel and Hezbollah have each drafted “battle plans” of their own and are currently trying to obtain more weapons in preparation for a significant war. Another potential escalation could be the pact between Russia and North Korea, both enemies of the West.

The news coming from the Middle East came straight from two senior American officials who were briefed on intelligence about the moves, which contradicted public statements by both sides that they were not interested in going to war. According to a report by Politico, officials believe that the risk of a major escalation is higher than it has been in a long time.

Israel continues to pursue its goal of the elimination of Hamas, while Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon could throw even more fuel on the fire. Iran has been warning that should the IDF enter southern Lebanon, the Jewish state should expect an “obliterating war.”

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Israel Uses Water as a Weapon of Its Genocide in Gaza

Through persistent, systematic, and widespread targeting of the Gaza Strip’s water sources and desalination plants, Israel is using water as a weapon against Palestinian civilians. In addition to imposing famine, Israel is deliberately reducing the amount of water available to residents of the Strip—especially potable water sources—intentionally targeting the over 2.3 million people who live there as part of its genocide, ongoing since last October. 

On Monday, July 1, the Euro-Med Monitor field team observed significant damage to a desalination plant in the Al-Zaytoun neighbourhood, south of Gaza City, as a result of direct Israeli targeting. This also resulted in the killing of a young man who was filling a gallon with water, plus the wounding of other individuals. The station, which provided services to at least 50,000 people in several nearby residential neighbourhoods, sustained significant damage after being bombed by the Israeli army with a GBU missile that broke through multiple stories and detonated on the ground floor.

As summer temperatures rise, the people of the Gaza Strip are facing significant challenges in accessingwater. Estimates show that since October of last year, the per capita share of water in the Gaza Strip has decreased by 97% due to the extensive destruction of water infrastructure by Israel. Therefore, as a result of the genocide, the per capita share of water in the Strip has decreased to between 3 and 15 litres per day, while in 2022 it was approximately 84.6 litres per day.

In view of the ongoing crimes against the Palestinian people that deprive them of necessities for survival—such as the destruction of over 700 wells and water desalination plants since the start of the genocide—all areas of the Gaza Strip are experiencing a shortage of water, and the sewage system is collapsing. Meanwhile, certain areas of the Strip are suffering from a shortage of fuel, which Israel forbids from entering the Strip, despite the large number of casualties—including children—caused by infectious diseases and epidemics that spread through the accumulation ofcontaminated water due to inoperative sewage stations.

Continued destruction and devastation by the Israeli army is rendering the Gaza Strip unlivable, particularly after the army’s destruction of 9 out of 10 water tanks and half of the water networks, or 350 km out of 700 km.

Additionally, as a result of the crimes and arbitrary policies of Israel, all six wastewater treatment plants have been disrupted, approximately 65 sewage pumps stopped, and 70 km of sewage networks destroyed. This has resulted in the unchecked disposal of wastewater, estimated to be around 130 thousand cubic metres per day, onto Gaza Strip roads and shelters for displaced people.

According to United Nations estimates, about 96 percent of the Strip’s population (2.15 million people) faces high levels of acute food insecurity. While the whole territory is classified in Emergency (IPC Phase 4), over 495,000 people (22 per cent of the population) are still facing catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity (IPC Phase 5). In this Phase, households experience an extreme lack of food, starvation, and exhaustion of coping capacities.

Euro-Med Monitor warned last January that distress is engulfing Gaza City and the Strip’s northern regions in alarming ways—a result of Israel’s cutting off of the water supply in the Strip, systematic and intentional Israeli bombing of water sources and wells, and a lack of fuel required to run water conversion and distribution facilities.

The lack of drinking water in the Gaza Strip has become a matter of life and death, with residents currently being forced to drink unclean well water amid continued Israeli military attacks and lack of food, water, and fuel supplies.

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Israel Used US-Provided Bomb on School Sheltering Civilians

Israel used a US-provided bomb in a strike on a school in a town east of the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis that was sheltering civilians, CNN reported on Wednesday.

The airstrike hit tents on the outside of the school in the town of Abassan on Tuesday. Officials at the nearby Nasser Hospital said 31 Palestinians were killed in the Israeli attack, including eight children.

Footage from Al Jazeera shows children playing soccer in the schoolyard as the strike hits the school’s entrance. Weapons experts told CNN that a video of the aftermath showed remnants of a US-made GBU-39 small-diameter bomb, a 250-pound munition.

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