Tag: israel

Stop Israel’s Dystopian ‘Humanitarian City’ Plan – Before It’s Too Late

The Israeli government has just put forward one of the most brazenly genocidal schemes in modern memory – and unless we act immediately, the world will once again let it happen.

As reported in Haaretz, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz is proposing to force some 600,000 Palestinians – and eventually the entire population of Gaza – into a fenced-in “humanitarian city” to be built on the ruins of Rafah in southern Gaza. The plan is to “screen” the population, separate out alleged Hamas members, and then pressure the remaining civilians – men, women, and children – to “voluntarily” leave Gaza for another country. Which country? That hasn’t even been determined. The point isn’t relocation – it’s erasure. This reflects a long-standing goal among many Israelis, especially on the right, to take full control of Gaza and clear it of Palestinians.

The UN has warned that the deportation or forcible transfer of an occupied territory’s civilian population is strictly prohibited under international humanitarian law and “tantamount to ethnic cleansing”.

While all eyes are focused on a possible ceasefire, Gallant is not interested in peace – he’s interested in a “final solution.” A speeding up of the second Nakba we have been witnessing for the past 20 months. In fact, he has stated that construction would begin during a 60-day ceasefire. So what’s the point of a ceasefire, if it’s used to build a concentration camp?

Once Palestinians are herded into this camp, they will not be allowed to leave for other parts of Gaza. They won’t be allowed to return to what’s left of their homes, their neighborhoods, their farms, their schools. They will be trapped inside this militarized zone, under constant surveillance, held at gunpoint until Israel can arrange their deportation.

Just think of the tragic, unbearable irony: the Israeli government—founded in the aftermath of the Holocaust – is now building a massive concentration camp for an entire population.

If that sounds unthinkable, look at what Israel has already gotten away with.

Keep reading

UK police arrest scores of supporters of newly banned Palestinian protest group

British police arrested scores of supporters on Saturday of a pro-Palestinian protest group that was banned this month under anti-terrorism legislation.

Police said they had arrested at least 41 people in London and 16 others in Manchester for showing support for the group Palestine Action. Campaign group Defend our Juries said 86 people had been arrested across the UK, with other protests held in Wales and Northern Ireland.

British lawmakers proscribed the group under anti-terrorism legislation earlier this month after some of its members broke into a Royal Air Force base and damaged planes in protest against Britain’s support for Israel.

“Officers have made 41 arrests for showing support for a proscribed organisation. One person has been arrested for common assault,” London’s Metropolitan Police said in a statement on social media about the demonstration.

After a similar protest in London last week, police arrested 29 people.

Before Saturday’s arrests in London, close to 50 protesters had gathered with placards saying “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action” near a statue of former South African President Nelson Mandela outside the British parliament.

Keep reading

Syrians Fear Israel Normalization Could Trigger Another Countrywide War

Many Syrians fear another country-wide war could erupt if the country’s new post-Assad rulers make peace with Israel through a normalization deal based on Trump’s Abraham Accords.

Last week, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar told reports that normalization with Syria and Lebanon is on the table, as Prime Minister Netanyahu agrees with Washington on a hoped-for expansion of the Abraham Accords.

“Israel is interested in expanding the Abraham Accords circle of peace and normalization,” Saar said. Israel had already signed deals with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan – the result of Trump’s first term in office.

“We have an interest in adding countries such as Syria and Lebanon, our neighbors – to the circle of peace and normalization while safeguarding Israel’s essential and security interests,” Saar added.

PM Netanyahu himself has recently said that the June war with Iran had opened “the path to dramatically enlarge the peace accord.”

From a strategic point of view, Tel Aviv wants to isolate any Arab country which remains resistant and critical of its war in Gaza.

Going back to Hafez al-Assad who ruled Syria since 1970, Ba’ath-ruled Syria had long been Israel’s fiercest enemy and neighbor, with the two having fought several wars.

The average Syrian has long been hugely critical of Zionism and Israeli expansionism, particularly since it came under control of the Golan Heights.

Now under President Sharaa, hundreds of foreign jihadist groups are running around Syria, often persecuting Christians, Alawites, and Druze as Sharaa’s HTS government in Damascus turns a blind eye.

Keep reading

Former Biden, Obama spokespersons cash in on Gaza genocide

A mercenary firm implicated in severe abuses in Gaza has hired a PR firm led by influential former Democrat flacks, including the spokeswoman for Biden’s Pentagon.

Meanwhile, a former State Dept spokesman who defended Israel’s crimes is now VP at a Democrat PR firm representing Israel’s Foreign Ministry.

Editor’s note: After The Grayzone published a report revealing damning new footage showing mercenaries from the UG Solutions firm firing toward crowds of desperate aid seekers in the southern Gaza Strip, the company deleted its entire press page. (The previously unreported footage had been inexplicably distributed to the media by UG Solutions itself).

Two days later, thanks to the sleuthing of journalist Jack Poulson, we learned that UG Solutions’ new press page was created by Seven Letter, a PR management firm operated by former Obama and Biden communications officials. Among those hired by Seven Letter was Sabrina Singh, the former Pentagon spokeswoman who routinely spun Israel’s crimes.

Seven Letters’ Gaza profiteering follows the high-level contract Israel’s Foreign Ministry signed with a top PR firm run by Biden veterans called SKDK. Among SKDK’s top recent hires was Vedant Patel, the former spokesman for the Biden State Department who was notorious for his absurd denials of documented Israeli crimes across occupied Palestine.

In addition to Israel’s Foreign Ministry, SKDK represents the 10/7 Project, a consortium of Jewish organizations which attacks reporters who fail to toe Israel’s line on Gaza.

Keep reading

‘No nation is above the law’: Colombia to host international summit against Israeli impunity

More than 20 states will gather in Bogota on 15–16 July to declare “concrete measures” against Israel’s violations of international law, according to diplomats speaking to Middle East Eye.

The summit, co-chaired by Colombia and South Africa, will bring together members and supporters of The Hague Group, a bloc launched in January to confront what it calls “a climate of impunity” surrounding Israel’s actions in Gaza.

The group includes Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, Honduras, Malaysia, Namibia, Senegal, and South Africa, with additional countries such as Spain, Ireland, Turkiye, Portugal, China, Qatar, Algeria, Bangladesh, Brazil, Chile, Indonesia, Lebanon, Nicaragua, Oman, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Uruguay, and Palestine set to attend.

Colombian Vice-Minister of Multilateral Affairs Mauricio Jaramillo Jassir said the summit would not only reaffirm the group’s resistance to the ongoing “Palestinian genocide,” but also outline specific steps to move from words to collective action. 

“Colombia cannot be indifferent in the face of apartheid and ethnic cleansing,” he said.

The conference will be hosted at the Museo Nacional de Colombia under the banner Collective Action in Defense of Palestine, with keynote remarks to be delivered by UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine Francesca Albanese – who was recently sanctioned by the US for what US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called a “campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel.”

Other speakers include UK parliamentarian Jeremy Corbyn, EU lawmaker Rima Hassan, and Andres Macias Tolosa of the UN Working Group on Mercenaries. Colombia’s Minister of Culture, Yannai Kadamani Fonrodona, will also participate.

Keep reading

US threatens ICC: Drop Israel war crimes probe or ‘all options on the table’

A senior legal adviser to the US State Department has issued a dramatic threat to the International Criminal Court’s oversight body, warning that “all options are on the table” if the court does not drop investigations and arrest warrants against the US and Israel.

Reed Rubinstein made the threat on Tuesday during a meeting of the Assembly of State Parties (ASP), the ICC’s oversight body, in New York.

“We will use all appropriate and effective diplomatic, political and legal instruments to block ICC overreach,” the US representative warned.

“Our additional sanctions of June 5 should underscore our resolve,” he added, referencing the US’s recent move to sanction four ICC judges who issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant last November.

Rubinstein went on to threaten the ICC: “To be clear, we expect all ICC actions against the United States and our ally Israel – that is, all investigations and all arrest warrants – to be terminated,” he said.

“If not, all options remain on the table.”

The ASP was meeting to discuss a potential amendment to the Rome Statute, the ICC’s founding treaty, to expand the court’s jurisdiction over the “crime of aggression”.

The court has jurisdiction in the 125 countries that recognise its authority.

Keep reading

Seeking bulldozer drivers to demolish Gaza: how a genocide is being outsourced

Omer Bartov is an Israeli-American historian and one of the foremost scholars on genocide in the world. He has spent over 25 years teaching a class on the subject. He deals with atrocities for a living, analyzing some of the very worst things that human beings are capable of. And yet even Bartov has said he can’t bear looking at some of the excruciating images coming out of Gaza any more.

What’s happening, Bartov says, is unprecedented in the 21st century. “I don’t know of any comparable situation. Recent estimates show that about 70% of the structures in Gaza are either completely destroyed or severely damaged,” Bartov says. “The argument that the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] is conducting a war in Gaza is simply cynical, there is no war in Gaza. What the IDF is doing in Gaza is demolishing it. Hundreds of buildings are being bulldozed every week. This is not a secret, but mainstream media coverage has been insufficient.”

Part of the reason that mainstream coverage has been insufficient is because reporting about what’s happening in Gaza is difficult: foreign reporters are still not allowed into Gaza to see what is happening for themselves and Israel is slaughtering Palestinian journalists on the ground. I feel like I’m screaming into the void every time I repeat some version of that sentence and yet there still seems to be apathy about this assault on press freedom from some of my colleagues in the mainstream media.

As Bartov said, despite the lack of coverage, the systematic destruction of Gaza is hardly a secret. Indeed, the Israeli military is so desperate for extra bulldozers that, over the last couple of months, there have been ads for bulldozer drivers to help demolish Gaza posted on Facebook – some apparently offering as much as 3,000 shekels ($882) a day for the work. I found around a dozen of these ads on Meta since the end of May, many of them on a public Facebook page for bulldozer operators. Meanwhile a Haaretz article from this week looking into the outsourcing of bulldozer drivers found that they are paid per building: 2,500 shekels for the demolition of a small building, 5,000 shekels for a large building.

“The idea that the bulldozer has become a major article of genocide and warfare is quite new,” says Neve Gordon, a professor of international law and human rights at Queen Mary University of London. “What is happening in Gaza is not a building here or there being demolished; it’s the destruction of whole villages and towns.”

Also new is the outsourcing of bulldozer drivers. “The Israeli military usually does not work in this way,” says Gordon. “It can sequester bulldozers and draft the drivers as reserve soldiers.” Reports from Israeli outlets show that the IDF is facing a shortage of drivers and is recruiting civilians for military operations in Gaza, Syria and Lebanon. “I would consider this as a form of ‘outsourcing demolitions’ used to advance a genocidal project,” Gordon says.

Keep reading

Netanyahu orders Israeli military to build massive concentration camp inside Gaza

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has formally ordered the Israeli military to create plans for the building of a giant concentration camp on the ruins of Rafah, where the population of Gaza would be moved in preparation for their forcible expulsion, Haaretz reported Wednesday.

The Israeli newspaper reported that Netanyahu made the order at a meeting of Israel’s security cabinet on Saturday, before he left for Washington to meet with US President Donald Trump.

Wednesday’s report by Haaretz adds to the growing mountain of evidence that Israel is actively moving ahead with its ethnic cleansing plan, despite the presentation in the US media that Trump and Netanyahu are seeking “peace” and a “ceasefire.”

Two days after Netanyahu ordered the military to start planning the concentration camp, Defense Minister Israel Katz announced preparations for what he called a “humanitarian city.” Katz stated that the Israeli military would patrol the camp, and that once inside, residents would not be allowed to leave. He also said that the building of the camp would be coordinated with “the emigration plan, which will happen.”

On the same day as the meeting with Trump, Netanyahu said the “relocation plan” was on Israel’s agenda, calling it a “brilliant vision.”

Only last week, Haaretz reported the existence of an internal briefing by the Israeli military that the “concentration and movement of the population” is an official goal of Israel.

In May, Netanyahu named the implementation of the “Trump plan” for ethnic cleansing as one of its official aims of the war.

Keep reading

MTG Moves To Strike Half-Billion Of Military Aid To ‘Nuclear-Armed Israel’

Vying for the title of Most Brazen Bull in the china shop that is America’s relationship with the State of Israel, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene announced she will introduce an amendment to strike a half-billion dollars in additional military aid for the country — and she notably emphasized its status as a nuclear power. 

“I’m entering amendments to strike $500 million more for nuclear-armed Israel. And it’s important to say nuclear-armed Israel, because they do have nuclear weapons,” Greene said on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast, an influential hub of the MAGA movement with an audience of listeners comprising not only everyday Americans but also West Wing officials.

The additional $500 million would flow to a program that lie “at the heart of Israel’s aerial defense operations,” reports Responsible Statecraft. Greene says enough is enough. “We already give them $3.4 billion every single year…they don’t need another $500 million in our defense budget. That’s for the American people’s defense,” Greene told Bannon. “That’s for the defense of the United States of America and our borders.”  

It’s highly significant that, in her references to Israel, Greene used “nuclear-armed” five times, noting that “it’s important to say ‘nuclear-armed’ because they do have nuclear weapons — this is not a helpless country.” While Greene’s nuclear references ostensibly underscored the country’s military strength, she may have had other intentions: 

  • Spotlighting the hypocrisy of “nuclear-armed Israel” pushing the United States to war over Iran’s nuclear program. While the US intelligence community has concluded isn’t aiming for a nuclear weapon, Greene did give credence to Israel’s claims to the contrary, saying last month’s US strikes “on [Israel’s] behalf… destroyed Iran’s nuclear problem.” 
  • Firing a shot across the bow of all Israel aid, by violating a long-standing US government policy of refusing to confirm that Israel has a nuclear arsenal. Those refusals to acknowledge Israel’s nuclear status are part of a decades-long conspiracy to keep billions of dollars in aid flowing to Israel in violation of US law.

 As Brian McGlinchey explained in a deep-dive on the topic at Stark Realities: 

While having amassed upwards of 200 nuclear warheads, Israel is not a member of the the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT)…That makes U.S. aid to Israel illegal under the Symington Amendment of 1976, which bars economic and military assistance to countries that acquire nuclear reprocessing technology without submitting to international safeguards and inspections. The law was reinforced by the Glenn Amendment of 1977.

The proposed redistribution another $500 million of American wealth to Israel is contained in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the annual bill that funds the Department of Defense. “There are some parts of this NDAA that I cannot support, and that’s continued foreign aid and foreign funding, and it needs to come out,” said Greene. Bannon called this year’s iteration of the NDAA “disastrous,” as it calls for a trillion dollars in total purported “defense” spending.

Keep reading

Houthis Again Target Tel Aviv, As Israelis Plead For More US Raids On Yemen

The Houthis have clearly been ramping up their attacks on Israeli interests and assets out of Yemen, and on Thursday another ballistic missile strike on Tel Aviv was attempted.

Israel’s military said it intercepted a missile launched from Yemen, shortly after conducting airstrikes on Houthi targets. The Iran-aligned group later confirmed responsibility for the launch, calling it a “qualitative military operation” involving a ballistic missile.

As a result, multiple alert sirens were active across Israel during the dawn hours. All of this comes after the Houthis attacked and sank two commercial vessels bound for Israel, in complex operations which they boasted of and captured on film.

Israel is now reportedly formally asking the United States to renew its military strikes on the Iran-backed group, according to Kan public broadcaster..

Israel told the US that the attacks on shipping “can no longer remain solely an Israeli problem,” and called for “more intense combined attacks against Houthi regime targets — not just [Israeli] air force fighter jet strikes, but also a renewal of American attacks and the formation of a coalition including additional countries.”

“A broad coalition is needed to convey to the Houthi regime that it is in danger,” an anonymous Israeli defense official told Kan.

At the moment, the Houthis are still actively targeting Tel Aviv international airport, along with any vessel in the Red Sea bound for Israel. Ben Gurion airport has been directly hit at least once during the conflict.

President Trump had in May declared a US ceasefire with the Houthis, to the chagrin of Israel, which stepped up its own aerial attacks on Yemen.

Keep reading