Tag: israel

Israel Pummels South Lebanon In Biggest Airstrikes Since November Hezbollah Ceasefire

In an dangerous sign that hostilities involving Iran and Israel could quickly ratchet again, Israel on Friday is pounding southern Lebanon, where Iran-backed Hezbollah is entrenched, in the biggest escalation there since a November ceasefire was agreed to.

Massive plumes of smoke have been observed over the region, with Lebanon’s official National News Agency reporting that a residential building in Nabatieh was directly struck, resulting in the death of at least one person and the wounding of 21 more.

Local media further says there over twenty strikes in only under 15-minutes, making it the most intense attack in well over six months.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed what it said were airstrikes targeting a “significant underground project” used by Hezbollah. The statement touted that the site was “completely taken out of use” following the strikes,

But questions remain as the IDF said that it targeted a Hezbollah site identified as Beaufort Ridge, which actually lies some five miles from Nabatieh.

“In recent days, the IDF identified attempts by the Hezbollah terror organization to restore the site, and therefore the terror infrastructure in the area was struck,” the Israeli military said.

Keep reading

‘Gaza must be eliminated’: Israel’s airwaves are filled with pro-genocide propaganda

“Strikes on Iran ease pressure on Israel to end starvation in Gaza.” That, in case you missed it, is a recent headline from the Guardian from Saturday. It’s the sort of statement that might have once shocked people but is now just another news bulletin.

Following Israel’s ‘pre-emptive strike’ on Iran earlier this month, which happened just as more people started speaking up about the genocide, attention has been averted from Gaza. But Israel’s assault on Gaza (and the West Bank), is continuing apace.

With the pressure off, the fear is that some of the most extreme voices in Israel will get exactly what they want in Gaza. Which, as retired Maj Gen Giora Eiland wrote in an Israeli paper on 12 October 2023, is to turn into “a place where no human being can exist”.

To remind you of what some of these voices have planned for Gaza, below is a collection of some of the more outrageous statements by Israeli lawmakers or influencers since 7 October 2023.

I’ve limited the collection to 20, but there are databases online with hundreds of statements which show a blurring of Hamas and the population of Gaza (including children) and a desire to inflict collective punishment. The end goal of all this is not the removal of Hamas from Gaza, but the removal of all Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank.

  • “All of Gaza’s infrastructures must be destroyed to its foundation and their electricity cut off immediately. The war is not against Hamas but against the state of Gaza,” said May Golan, minister for social equality and the advancement of the status of women of Israel on 7 October 2023.
  • “Flatten everything [in Gaza] just like it is today in Auschwitz,” David Azoulay, council leader for the northern Israeli town of Metula, said in an interview with an Israeli radio station, December 2023.
  • “[I]t’s an entire nation out there that is responsible. it’s not true this rhetoric about civilians not aware not involved, it’s absolutely not true …” Isaac Herzog, Israel’s president, said at a press conference on 13 October (in English).
  • “Now we all have one common goal – erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the Earth” Nissim Vaturi, deputy speaker of the Israeli parliament, wrote on X 7 October 2023. Vaturi also wrote: “The war will never end if we don’t expel everyone.” (2 November 2023) and “To wipe out Gaza. Nothing else will satisfy us … Don’t leave a single child there, expel all the remaining ones in the end, so they have no chance of recovery.” (9 October 2023)
  • “The children and women must be separated and the adults in Gaza must be eliminated. We are being too considerate,” Vaturi said during an interview with Kol BaRama radio in February 2025, when he also called Palestinians “subhumans” and said the West Bank would be turned into Gaza next.
  • “The Gaza Strip should be flattened, and for all of them there is but one sentence, and that is death,” Yitzhak Kroizer, a member of national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s far-right Otzma Yehudit party, said in a radio interview. This did not get much international coverage but was cited in the letter sent to the attorney general at the end of 2023 accusing the country’s judicial authorities of ignoring incitement to genocide.
  • “Gaza won’t return to what it was before. We will eliminate everything,” Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant, said October 2023. (Gallant was in this position at the time of the statement but is no longer in government)
  • “I’m not sure you’re speaking for us when you say we want to treat every child and every woman. I hope you don’t stand behind that statement either. When fighting a group like this, the distinctions that exist in a normal world don’t exist,” said Likud parliament member Amit Halevi in the Knessest, in response to a statement from an Israeli doctor saying suffering children should get painkillers, May 2025.
  • “The children in Gaza have brought this upon themselves,” said Meirav Ben-Ari from Yair Lapid’s opposition party Yesh Atid in response to a Palestinian lawmaker bemoaning the loss of civilian life on 16 October 2023.
  • “There should be 2 goals for this victory: 1. There is no more Muslim land in the Land of Israel … After we make it the land of IL, Gaza should be left as a monument, like Sodom …” said Likud member of the Knesset Amit Halevi on 16 October 2023.
  • “They [the children] are our enemies,” said Simcha Rothman, a member of the Knesset for the National Religious party, part of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition. Rothman was responding to a question from a Channel 4 (UK) interviewer asking “the children are your enemies?”

The following statements were all made on Channel 14: a far-right TV station that used to be a niche outlet but has morphed into one of the most watched news sources in Israel. Three civil rights organization have asked for an investigation into Channel 14 for its normalization of genocidal statements.

Keep reading

Israeli Soldiers Ordered to Fire on Aid-Seekers in Gaza

Israeli soldiers speaking with Haaretz say they received orders to fire on desperate Palestinians attempting to reach aid distribution sites in Gaza. Over 550 Palestinians have been killed trying to get aid in the past month. 

“Israeli soldiers in Gaza told Haaretz that the army has deliberately fired at Palestinians near aid distribution sites,” the outlet explains. Conversations with officers and soldiers reveal that commanders ordered troops to shoot at crowds to drive them away or disperse them, even though it was clear they posed no threat.”

Earlier this week, the Gaza Health Ministry reported that 549 Palestinians have been killed and over 4,000 injured since Israel restarted aid distribution near the end of May. The IDF has even fired on Palestinians waiting to receive aid with drones and tanks. 

One soldier explained to Haaretz, “It’s a killing field.” They added that the Israeli soldiers fired at the Palestinians even though the aid seekers did not present a threat. An officer told the outlet, “It’s neither ethically nor morally acceptable for people to have to reach, or fail to reach, a [humanitarian zone] under tank fire, snipers and mortar shells.”

A doctor in Gaza speaking to NBC News about the aid sites in Gaza said, “It’s a death trap, it’s a slaughterhouse.” They report receiving dozens of patients daily who were wounded near the aid sites. 

Haaretz reports that Israeli forces opened fire at Palestinians near aid sites at least 19 times over the past month. Soldiers said some Palestinian militias backed by Tel Aviv have also fired on civilians, including the ISIS-linked Abu Shabab. 

On Thursday, at least 18 Palestinians were killed by an Israeli air strike while attempting to receive aid that the Gaza police had recovered from looters. 

At the beginning of March, Tel Aviv broke a ceasefire and hostage exchange deal with Hamas by cutting off all aid entering the Strip. Near the end of May, Israel began allowing the US-based Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) to distribute a limited amount of aid in Gaza. 

Human rights groups warned that the GHF’s distribution plan would be insufficient. Over the past week, children have died of deprivation. On Thursday, two infants at the Al-Nassar Hospital in Khan Younis died due to a lack of formula. 

Keep reading

More Fetal Losses Than Expected After Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccination In Israel: Study

A higher-than-expected number of miscarriages and other forms of fetal loss were associated with COVID-19 vaccinations in Israel, a new study has revealed.

Researchers found 13 fetal losses—four more than the nine expected—for every 100 pregnant women who received a COVID-19 vaccine during weeks eight to 13 in pregnancy, according to the study, which was published as a preprint on the medRxiv server.

Most people in Israel, including pregnant women, received the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.

Pfizer did not respond by publication time to a request for comment.

The team behind the study includes Retsef Levi, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology researcher who was recently named to the committee that advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on vaccines, and Dr. Tracy Hoeg, who works for the Food and Drug Administration.

The researchers analyzed electronic health records from Maccabi Healthcare Services, one of four organizations that provide health care to Israelis. They looked at 226,395 pregnancies that occurred between March 1, 2016, and Feb. 28, 2022. The primary analysis looked at fetal loss for pregnant women after dose one or dose three of a COVID-19 vaccine, with fetal loss including miscarriage, abortion, and stillbirth.

The researchers came up with an expected number of fetal losses based on a model that drew from data before the COVID-19 pandemic, then compared the expected number of fetal losses with those that occurred from week eight of pregnancy onward.

They identified 13,214 fetal losses after the COVID-19 pandemic started, compared with 12,846 fetal losses in the reference period, finding that women who received a COVID-19 vaccine during weeks eight to 13 in pregnancy experienced a higher-than-expected number of fetal losses.

“If you believe this result … every 100 women that you would vaccinate during weeks eight to 13, you are going to see close to four additional fetal losses,” Levi told The Epoch Times.

Keep reading

The Real Winners: The Strategic Fallout of the Israel-Iran War

On June 24, US President Donald Trump announced a truce between Israel and Iran following nearly two weeks of open warfare.

Israel began the war, launching a surprise offensive on June 13, with airstrikes targeting Iranian nuclear facilities, missile installations, and senior military and scientific personnel, in addition to numerous civilian targets.

In response, Iran launched a wave of ballistic missiles and drones deep into Israeli territory, triggering air raid sirens across Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Beersheba and numerous other locations, causing unprecedented destruction in the country.

What began as a bilateral escalation quickly spiraled into something far more consequential: a direct confrontation between the United States and Iran.

On June 22, the United States Air Force and Navy carried out a full-scale assault on three Iranian nuclear sites – Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan – in a coordinated strike dubbed Operation Midnight Hammer. Seven B-2 bombers of the 509th Bomb Wing allegedly flew nonstop from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri to deliver the strikes.

The following day, Iran retaliated by bombing the Al-Udeid US military base in Qatar and firing a new wave of missiles at Israeli targets.

This marked a turning point. For the first time, Iran and the United States faced each other on the battlefield without intermediaries. And for the first time in recent history, Israel’s long-standing campaign to provoke a US-led war against Iran had succeeded.

Keep reading

‘War Industry’ Silenced Democrat Opposition On Iran Strikes: Sen. Murphy

A leading Democratic senator has offered a frank and rare explanation for why many in his party are disconnected from everyday Democratic voters when it comes to foreign policy, which for a brief spell during the Bush years was dubbed ‘anti-war’—a platform which pretty much disappeared during the Obama years and later Biden admin.

Senator Chris Murphy was on MSNBC this week to talk about President Trump’s strike on Iran’s nuclear sites, which was not so much as debated much less formally approved by Congress. Murphy pointed out to Chris Hayes that an overwhelming 87% of Democrats expressed disapproval, according to a recent poll, and that 56% of Americans overall opposed the military action.

“I gotta say, if you just looked at elected Democratic members of Congress I don’t think you would think the voting members of the party were as overwhelmingly against this strike as they are compared to the people they send to go represent them in Congress,” Hayes told Murphy in the Tuesday interview, asking, “Do you feel like there’s a pretty big distance on these kinds of issues, between Democratic voters and democratic electeds?”

“I mean yes,” Murphy responded without hesitation. “That’s because, listen, there is a war industry in this town. There just is. There’s a lot of people who make money off of war.

“The military, I love them, they’re capable. But they are always way overly optimistic about what they can do,” the senator added.

“So the American people get it,” Murphy then said. “This town, you know, has, like I said, a degree of optimism and hubris about military action that is derivative of the fact that the war industry spends a lot of money here in Washington telling us that the guns and the tanks and the planes can solve all of our problems.”

Keep reading

Canadian PM Carney Calls for ‘Zionist Palestinian State’

In an interview Wednesday Prime Minister Mark Carney said Canada would only accept a “Zionist Palestinian state”. Two week earlier foreign affairs minister Anita Anand described Canada’s “unwavering support for Israel’s security” and next week an RCMP commissioner is set to speak at an event to assuage the concerns of Canadians who’ve fought in Gaza that they may be investigated under Canada’s war crimes legislation.

Canadian policy towards Israel is unique. No other faraway state has received a constant flow of Canadians joining its military. No other wealthy faraway country receives a remotely comparable amount of registered charity funds. No other state has a publicly financed special envoy to deflect criticism of its colonial violence or gets Ottawa to send letters threatening the International Criminal Court on its behalf. Nor is there another country in which the government sues to block proper labels on its wines or the Canadian embassy hosts parties for Canadians fighting in its military or the foreign minister says Canada would act as an “asset” for it on the UN Security Council.

I’ve written extensively about Canadian governments’ violating international law while professing its importance. In the case of Israel, the duplicity is even more glaring. Our governments have repeatedly failed to uphold Canadian law. The Minister of Justice, Global Affairs, RCMP and other government agencies have ignored their legal responsibilities regarding a genocidal apartheid state.

Issuing arms permits to Israel contravenes Canada’s Export and Import Permits Act yet Ottawa refuses to stop the flow of arms. According to the federal government, “Under the Export and Import Permits Act (EIPA), the Minister of Foreign Affairs must deny exports and brokering permit applications for military goods and technology if there is a substantial risk that the items would undermine peace and security, or could be used to commit or facilitate serious violations of international humanitarian and human rights laws.”

By any credible account, the Israeli military has long committed “serious violations of international humanitarian and human rights laws.” Israel has launched a series of deadly wars on the besieged population of Gaza (2008, 2014, 2021). It’s also killed over a thousand in the West Bank and beginning in 2013 Israeli forces began bombing Syria on a near weekly basis.

Keep reading

The truth behind Trump’s bombings and the huge Iran secret kept from the world that’s hoodwinked all of America

Two days before American B-2 stealth bombers dropped the biggest payload of explosives since World War II on Iran, trucks were seen lining up outside the primary target at Fordow.

Satellite images showed scores of cargo vehicles outside a tunnel entrance to Iran’s key nuclear base inside a mountain.

Donald Trump has insisted that the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program was destroyed in the precision strikes, an assessment backed by the CIA and Israeli intelligence.

But there was also a frantic effort to move centrifuges and highly enriched uranium before US bombers attacked, the key question for the Pentagon now is: where did it go?

One possibility, according to experts, is a secret facility buried even deeper under another mountain 90 miles south of Fordow: ‘Mount Doom.’

In Farsi, the potential new ground zero for Iran’s nuclear program is Kuh-e Kolang Gaz La, otherwise known in English as ‘Pickaxe Mountain,’ located in the Zagros Mountains in central Iran on the outskirts of one of the regime’s other nuclear sites at Natanz.

‘It is plausible that Iran moved centrifuges and highly enriched uranium (HEU) to secret or hardened locations prior to the recent strikes – including possibly to facilities near Pickaxe Mountain,’ Christoph Bluth, professor of international relations and security at the University of Bradford, told the Daily Mail.

Previous intelligence had showed ‘large tunnels being bored into the mountain, with possible infrastructure for an advanced enrichment facility,’ he claimed.

‘The site may be buried 100 meters below the surface. So it is conceivable that advanced centrifuge cascades have been hidden there, but there is no specific evidence at this time to confirm where centrifuges and fissile material has been moved to.’

Keep reading

The Battle over Battle Damage Assessment at Fordo

There are some questions being raised over the absolute confidence that the damage at the Fordo nuclear site in Iran was actually destroyed.  A solidly reliable source of Fake News, CNN, has now assumed the role of expert “Battle Damage Assessor”. Anyone can be a Battle Damage Assessor – it is very similar to being a “Sniper Profiler” in the 2002 Washington D.C. Sniper Episode – a conveyor belt of “Sniper Profilers” appeared out of nowhere flooding the airwaves with commentary and descriptions that proved to be wildly inaccurate.

CNN reported on their view of the Battle Damage Assessment (BDA):

“The US military strikes on three of Iran’s nuclear facilities last weekend did not destroy the core components of the country’s nuclear program and likely only set it back by months, according to an early US intelligence assessment that was described by seven people briefed on it.

The assessment, which has not been previously reported, was produced by the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon’s intelligence arm. It is based on a battle damage assessment conducted by US Central Command in the aftermath of the US strikes, one of the sources said.”

CNN continued on:

“Two of the people familiar with the assessment said Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium was not destroyed. One of the people said the centrifuges are largely “intact.” Another source said that the intelligence assessed enriched uranium was moved out of the sites prior to the US strikes.

“So the (DIA) assessment is that the US set them back maybe a few months, tops,” this person added.”

Karoline Leavitt responded like a flamethrower against CNN:

“This alleged assessment is flat-out wrong and was classified as ‘top secret’ but was still leaked to CNN by an anonymous, low-level loser in the intelligence community. The leaking of this alleged assessment is a clear attempt to demean President Trump and discredit the brave fighter pilots who conducted a perfectly executed mission to obliterate Iran’s nuclear program. Everyone knows what happens when you drop fourteen 30,000-pound bombs perfectly on their targets: total obliteration.”

There are several matters that come to mind with the contrived effort of CNN to assert themselves as the self-appointed Gatekeepers of truth for BDA.

Keep reading

US Navy Used Munitions at ‘Alarming Rate’ To Intercept Iranian Missiles Fired at Israel

A senior US military official told Congress on Tuesday that the US Navy used munitions at an “alarming rate” while defending Israel from Iranian missiles during the 12-day war that Israel started with massive strikes on Iran.

Adm. James Kilby, the acting chief of naval operations, was asked during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing whether the US Navy had enough SM-3 interceptors, an advanced missile that can reach space and can cost between $10 million and $30 million for a single missile.

“We do, sir, but we are, to your point, using them at an alarming rate,” Kilby told Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI), who said the US was using a large number of munitions to defend Israel.

Kilby continued, “As you know, those are missiles procured by the Missile Defense Agency and then delivered to the Navy for our use. And we are using them quite effectively in the defense of Israel.”

It’s unclear how many SM-3 missiles the US Navy fired to defend Israel during the 12 days of war. The munitions were also used last year when Iran fired missiles and drones at Israel in April 2024 in response to the Israeli bombing of its consulate in Damascus and in October when Iran launched another attack over Israel’s assassination of Hamas’s political chief, Ismail Haniyeh, when he was in Tehran.

The US also expended a lot of munitions during its bombing campaigns against the Houthis in Yemen. President Trump’s airstrikes in Yemen, which lasted from March 15 to May 6, were particularly violent and killed more than 200 civilians. Despite the heavy attacks, the Houthis, officially known as Ansar Allah, were able to keep up attacks on US warships, and Trump eventually gave up trying to stop them from firing at Israel.

Keep reading