Turkiye calls Israel ‘biggest threat to regional peace’ after deadly Syria strikes

The Turkish Foreign Ministry says Israel is the “greatest threat” to peace in West Asia, condemning dozens of Israeli airstrikes that hit several military sites in Syria on Wednesday.

“Israel has become the foremost threat to the security of our region through its attacks on the territorial integrity and national unity of the regional countries. As a strategic destabilizer in the region, Israel causes turmoil and fuels terrorism,” a Foreign Ministry statement issued on 3 April reads.

“Therefore, in order to establish security throughout the region, Israel must first abandon its expansionist policies, withdraw from the territories it occupies, and stop undermining efforts to establish stability in Syria,” the statement adds.

On Wednesday night, Israeli warplanes launched an intense bombing campaign across Syria that killed at least 11 people. The main targets of the attack were the Barzeh Scientific Research Center just outside Damascus, the Hama military airport in western Syria, and the T4 airbase near Palmyra. 

The Israeli blitz almost entirely destroyed Hama airport.

According to several reports in Israeli media, the attacks were intended to send a message to the Turkish government. “We will not allow you to establish a presence in Syria,” officials told the Jerusalem Post.

In recent weeks, Ankara has begun the process of taking over the Tiyas Air Base in Syria’s central governorate of Homs, also known as the T4 airbase, with plans to equip it with a complex defense system that includes short, medium, and long-range capabilities against jets, drones, and missiles.

Earlier on Thursday, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar accused Ankara of playing a “negative role” in Syria, saying that “they are doing their utmost to have Syria as a Turkish protectorate. It’s clear that is their intention.”

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Belgium Is Latest To Declare It Won’t Arrest Netanyahu, In Reversal

Did Hungary’s Viktor Orban start a trend? He is hosting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on a four-day trip to Budapest through Sunday. PM Orban used the occasion to declare that Hungary, an ICC founding member, will pull out of The Hague-based International Criminal Court.

The ICC slammed the move, and said that member states have an obligation to enforce its arrest warrant against Netanyahu. Interestingly, Belgium too has declared in all likelihood it would never arrest the Israeli head of state.

Prime Minister Bart De Wever on Thursday said his country would ignore a warrant for the arrest of Netanyahu, in a reversal from the stated policies of the prior government. This could lead to more and more countries declaring the same, also amid ongoing US pressure to not confirm to ICC dictates.

“To be completely honest, I don’t think we would either,” De Wever told a journalist from the VRT broadcaster. He was specifically responding to Hungary’s announcement that it wouldn’t arrest the Israeli leader, who is accused by The Hague of overseeing war crimes in Gaza.

“There is such a thing as realpolitik, I don’t think any European country would arrest Netanyahu if he were on their territory. France wouldn’t do it, and I don’t think we would, either,” the Belgian prime minister added.

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Video footage appears to contradict Israeli account of Gaza medic killings

Mobile phone footage has emerged that appears to contradict Israel’s account of why soldiers opened fire on a convoy of ambulances and a fire truck on March 23, killing 15 rescue workers.

The video, published by the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS), shows the vehicles moving in darkness with headlights and emergency flashing lights switched on – before coming under fire. The PRCS said the video was obtained from the phone of a paramedic who was killed.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) initially denied the vehicles had their headlights or emergency signals on.

But in response to the new video, the IDF told the BBC: “All claims, including the documentation circulating about the incident, will be thoroughly and deeply examined to understand the sequence of events and the handling of the situation”.

A surviving paramedic previously told the BBC that the ambulances were clearly marked and had their internal and external lights on.

The latest video, which the PRCS said had been shown to the UN Security Council, shows the marked vehicles drawing to a halt on the edge of the road, lights still flashing, and at least two emergency workers stepping out wearing reflective clothing.

The windscreen of the vehicle being filmed from is cracked and shooting can then be heard lasting for several minutes as the person filming says prayers. He is understood to be one of the dead paramedics.

The footage was found on his phone after his body was recovered from a shallow grave one week after the incident. The bodies of the eight paramedics, six Gaza Civil Defence workers and one UN employee were found buried in sand, along with their wrecked vehicles. It took international organisations days to negotiate safe access to the site.

Israel claimed a number of Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants had been killed in the incident, but it has not provided any evidence or further explained the threat to its troops.

Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar earlier this week echoed the army account, saying “the IDF did not randomly attack an ambulance”.

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Hamas Ready To Free All Hostages At Once For Permanent Truce

Amid an expanded Israeli military (IDF) ground operation, which has again seen Rafah surrounded, Hamas is signaling that it’s ready to release all remaining Israeli hostages in exchange for a permanent ceasefire.

A Thursday Times of Israel report cited a senior Palestinian official who described that Israel has had a “longstanding rejection” of such a deal, which is why Hamas has so far offered a phased release approach; however, negotiations are at a “standstill” as the IDF has moved to a military solution.

Israel has reportedly countered by asking Hamas to release eleven hostages, but with no commitment this would lead to permanent ceasefire talks.

“While Netanyahu signed onto the deal, he has long rejected the latter two clauses of phase two, arguing they would allow Hamas to remain in power,” the report observes. “Accordingly, he has largely refused to hold talks regarding phase two of the deal, which were supposed to begin on February 2.”

The senior Palestinian official sourced in the Israeli media report said, “The number of hostages is not the issue. If Israel demonstrates its intention to reach a permanent ceasefire, [Hamas is] prepared to release all of the hostages.”

Israel only wants a partial agreement so that it can continue fighting. It wants [Hamas] to give up all the hostages without entering the second phase,” the official claimed.

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Trying to Block Arms to Israel, Bernie Sanders Denounces AIPAC’s Massive Election Spending

As Israel continued its monthlong blockade of humanitarian aid to Gaza and pounded the enclave with American bombs, in Washington the Senate on Thursday voted down two resolutions from Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., to block the sale of tens of thousands of 2,000-pound bombs and other offensive weapons to Israel.

The resolutions marked the second time since November that Sanders forced a vote on arms sales. Once again, they exposed a deep divide among Democrats and blanket Republican support for Israel.

The Senate voted 15-82 on the first resolution, concerning 2,000-pound bombs, with all Republicans present voting against it, along with most Democrats. Sanders was joined by 14 Democrats.

The second resolution, focusing on other weapons, fared even worse. It was defeated 15-83.

The Trump administration officially opposed the resolutions, along with the influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

Sanders, in a passionate floor speech, denounced AIPAC for its massive spending on last year’s elections.

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Israel removes all remaining tariffs on US imports

Israel has canceled all previous tariffs on products from the US, a joint statement from the Prime Minister’s Office, Finance Ministry, and Economy and Industry Ministry confirmed on Tuesday.

The Finance Committee approved it, and the Economy and Industry Minister, Nir Barkat, signed the order to amend the Trade Tariff and Protective Measures Order.

free trade agreement between the US and Israel signed in 1985 had already led to nearly all imported goods from the US being fully exempt from tariffs.

The joint statement clarified that, due to this, the tariff reduction will apply to a very limited number of products, primarily in the food and agricultural categories.

The removal of remaining tariffs would expand the strategic relationship between the two countries, the statement added.

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War, Doublethink, and the Struggle for Survival: Geopolitics of the Gaza Genocide

In a genocidal war that has spiraled into a struggle for political survival, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition and the global powers supporting him continue to sacrifice Palestinian lives for political gain.

The sordid career of Israel’s extremist National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, epitomizes this tragic reality.

Ben-Gvir joined Netanyahu’s government coalition following the December 2022 elections. He remained in the coalition after the October 7 2023 war and genocide, with the understanding that any ceasefire in Gaza would force his departure.

As long as the killing of Palestinians and the destruction of their cities continued as long as Ben-Gvir stayed on board – though neither he nor Netanyahu had any real ‘next-day’ plan, other than to carry out some of the most heinous massacres against a civilian population in recent history.

On January 19, Ben-Gvir left the government immediately following a ceasefire agreement, which many argued would not last. Netanyahu’s untrustworthiness, along with the collapse of his government if the war ended completely, made the ceasefire unfeasible.

Ben-Gvir returned when the genocide resumed on March 18. “We are back, with all our might and power!”  he wrote In a tweet on the day of his return.

Israel lacks a clear plan because it cannot defeat the Palestinians. While the Israeli army has inflicted suffering on the Palestinian people like no other force has against a civilian population in modern history, the war endures because the Palestinians refuse to surrender.

Yet, Israel’s military planners know that a military victory is no longer possible. Former Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon recently added his voice to the growing chorus, stating during an interview on March 15 that “revenge is not a war plan”.

The Americans, who supported Netanyahu’s violation of the ceasefire – thus resuming the killings – also understand that the war is almost entirely a political struggle, designed to keep figures like Ben-Gvir and extremist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich in Netanyahu’s coalition.

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The JFK files and the curious case of Israeli exceptionalism

With the recent release of the JFK files, Twitter—sorry, X—is ablaze with amateur detectives sifting through the document dump with more fervour than an especially high Shaggy devouring Scooby Snacks. The question on everyone’s lips: whodunnit? The answer remains elusive, given the lack of a definitive smoking gun, but what is clear is that the lone gunman theory is dubious at best. What is clear is that Kennedy had managed to upset a lot of important people, and the list of suspects remains extensive.

What’s curious, though, is the feeling of uneasiness, a sense of hesitation when considering Israel’s possible involvement in the ‘63 assassination. Discussions about the Mob, the CIA (arguably the same entity in post-war America), the military, and the Fed all feel acceptable within the Overton Window, yet raising the question of Israeli connections feels problematic and that it must be treated with exceptional delicacy. Why does any criticism of Israel provoke an instinctive sense of foreboding, as if any questioning could incite the next Holocaust, invite accusations of antisemitism, and lead to cancellation or social exile, akin to getting a swastika tattooed on one’s forehead? The answer is simple: we have been indoctrinated and propagandised by a Zionist movement determined to pursue its goals without scrutiny, protest, or backlash.

This influence permeates all tiers of society. The CIA, for example, specifically demanded that all mentions of Israeli intelligence be redacted from the JFK files. Thankfully, they weren’t. The documents indicate that Israel, like the other key players, had the means, motive, and possibly the opportunity. This bizarre exceptionalism extends beyond public discourse into the very corridors of power. Trump is now pressuring universities with threats of defunding, arguing that it is antisemitic to protest against genocide. The paradox is staggering: recognising the Holocaust as one of history’s greatest atrocities somehow inhibits criticism of an ongoing holocaust against a minority group, ironically within the nation-state of Israel. The bullied have become the bully. Even asserting that Palestinians are human beings deserving of self-determination is almost as dangerous as being displaced to a refugee camp in the West Bank. Imagine if Putin had deliberately targeted refugee camps, hospitals, and women and children. The media would double down on the Hitler comparisons, yet when Netanyahu does it, we get justifications, sanitised language, and deflection tactics designed to desensitise us to human suffering—so long as the victims are Muslim and not Jewish. Without eyewitness videos capturing the daily brutality in Gaza, the mainstream media would still have us believe that the IDF is the “most moral army in the world”. October 7th, of course, is the official start of history, with Hamas launching an entirely unprovoked and exceptionally evil attack that now somehow justifies the ongoing mass slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocents, mostly children.

Israeli exceptionalism is even evident in the way definitions are constructed. The Stockholm Declaration of 2000 by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), adopted by numerous governments, originally referenced only Jewish victims, omitting other groups targeted by the Nazis. Only recently were the Roma added as a secondary consideration, yet most people still equate the Holocaust solely with the murder of six million Jews, forgetting the communists, Slavs, intelligentsia, disabled people, and others who perished. It is also evident in political rhetoric: politicians can discuss Islamic extremism and Asian grooming gangs without fear of career-ending repercussions from Muslim lobby groups. But criticising Zionist influence in domestic politics? That is antisemitic. Al Jazeera produced an in-depth documentary exposing the role of Israeli lobbying in UK politics, demonstrating how a coalition of bad-faith actors—including figures from the UK military, intelligence services, and the Labour Party itself—helped neutralise the “Corbyn threat” due to his pro-Palestinian stance. Luckily, the British public, of course, opted for Boris Johnson instead, another pyrrhic victory in the ongoing destruction of the country to “Build Back Better’. That wasn’t sarcasm. Confessions of an Economic Hitman outlines what would have come next if Corbyn hadn’t been stopped by the PR wing of the establishment, aka the media—something confirmed by leaked emails between then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo and top UK army generals. No one critical of Israel, capitalism, or the poverty gap will ever be allowed to hold real power. That’s not how pseudo-democracy works. The system’s genius lies in making people believe they have agency while using every cog in the machine to propagandise them into voting against their own interests, vilifying any true opposition, and infiltrating grassroots movements to sabotage them from within. Thatcher being Blair’s hero was no coincidence. Nor was it a coincidence that NHS privatisation began under a Labour government.

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Quakers condemn police raid on Westminster Meeting House

Quakers in Britain strongly condemned the violation of their place of worship which they say is a direct result of stricter protest laws removing virtually all routes to challenge the status quo.

Just before 7.15pm more than 20 uniformed police, some equipped with tasers, forced their way into Westminster Meeting House.

They broke open the front door without warning or ringing the bell first, searching the whole building and arresting six women attending the meeting in a hired room.

The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 and the Public Order Act 2023 have criminalised many forms of protest and allow police to halt actions deemed too disruptive.

Meanwhile, changes in judicial procedures limit protesters’ ability to defend their actions in court. All this means that there are fewer and fewer ways to speak truth to power.

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Another Soldier Confesses: IDF Used Palestinians As Human Shields, Committed Other War Crimes

Another Israeli soldier and veteran of Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza has admitted that he was a party to war crimes — and says his commander ordered him and other soldiers to continue perpetrating those crimes even after they’d raised objections. This latest of many such accounts was given to CBS News by an Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) soldier who agreed to speak on the condition that his identity wouldn’t be revealed. The experience that troubled him the most was his unit’s practice of forcing Palestinian civilians to probe buildings for improvised explosive devices.  

“They were Palestinian,” he said. “We sent them in first to see if the building was clear and check for booby traps…They were trembling and shaking.” So apparently common is the practice of using Palestinians in such a manner that it has a name of its own: the “Mosquito Protocol,” where Palestinians civilians are equated with the hated insects.  

The soldier told CBS that he objected to that abusive treatment of civilians, to the point that he took his concern to the chain of command — where it fell on deaf ears. “We talked to our commander, and we asked him to stop doing it,” he said, but said the unconscionable orders continued to be issued. 

The whistleblowing soldier who spoke to CBS says he continues to be troubled by what he personally did in Gaza. “I’m morally wounded. It’s fucked up, you know, to use citizens as your human shield like a dog.” The term “moral injury” describes psychological problems that spring from having observed, perpetrated, or failed to prevent actions that violate one’s sense of right and wrong. 

Of course, the people on the other end of the depraved practice battle their own psychological demonsCBS spoke to a 14-year-old Palestinian in the West Bank, where the IDF is accused of the same form of abuse. He claims he and his nine-year-old cousin were forced at gunpoint to search a four-story apartment building. “I was so scared. Then they started beating us,” he said. The IDF told CBS it prohibits this behavior.  

The soldier said he was witness to other IDF evils: “We’ve burned down buildings for no reasons, which is violating the international law, of course.” That confession should come as little surprise to even the most casual observer of the war, given the IDF’s astonishingly thorough and plainly visible destruction of neighborhoods, towns and cities throughout Gaza — and IDF soldiers’ enthusiastic use of personal social media accounts to share videos of themselves joyfully demolishing entire housing complexes. A January before-and-after analysis of Gaza using satellite imagery concluded that between 50% and 61% of buildings in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed

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