Tag: palestine

Israel concedes error in video claiming to show Hamas tunnels under Gaza hospital

The Israeli military has conceded that a video it released claiming to show Hamas-built tunnels underneath a southern Gaza hospital actually shows different buildings.

On Tuesday, at least nine so-called bunker-busting missiles hit the European Hospital compound in Khan Younis, Gaza’s last cancer and cardiac care hospital.

At least 16 people were killed and more than 70 were injured. The hospital has now had to close due to the damage caused to buildings and water and sewage connections.

Patients have been evacuated, although nearby intensive care units have struggled to accommodate the extra people.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and domestic intelligence agency Shin Bet (ISA) claimed Hamas had constructed a command centre underneath the hospital, and said it believed the group’s military commander Mohammed Sinwar was killed in the attack.

The IDF released a video late on Tuesday highlighting what it said was tunnel infrastructure.

But analysis of satellite imagery shows the buildings highlighted are in a school 150-200 metres away.

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Ben & Jerry’s Co-Founder Ben Cohen ARRESTED for Disrupting Senate Hearing During RFK Jr.’s Testimony with Pro-Gaza Protest

Ben Cohen — the far-left co-founder of the notoriously woke Ben & Jerry’s ice cream company — was ARRESTED Wednesday during a Senate hearing for causing a major disruption with a deranged pro-Gaza protest while Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was testifying.

Cohen disrupted the proceedings with an unhinged pro-Gaza protest, accusing Congress of “killing poor kids in Gaza” and bizarrely linking Medicaid funding to the Israel-Hamas conflict, according to NBC News.

Capitol Police were forced to remove Cohen and six other protesters after their outbursts derailed the hearing.

The scene quickly descended into chaos after one protester shouted, “RFK kills people with AIDS,” before Cohen stood up and launched into a tirade blaming the U.S. for the deaths of Palestinian children.

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), who chaired the hearing, swiftly ordered the removal of the disrupters.

“Members of the audience are reminded disruptions will not be permitted while the committee conducts its business. Capitol Police are asked to remove the individuals from the hearing room,” Cassidy announced while Cohen was forcibly removed by a Capitol police.

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One Side Routinely Uses Human Shields in Gaza—But Not the Side That’s Usually Blamed

Since the earliest days of the post–October 7 US/Israeli genocide in Gaza, corporate media outlets have claimed that Hamas uses Palestinian civilians as human shields. Protocol 1 of the Geneva Convention characterizes the practice thusly:

The presence or movements of the civilian population or individual civilians shall not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations, in particular in attempts to shield military objectives from attacks or to shield, favour or impede military operations.

In other words, when civilians are used to shield military targets, attacking those targets can be legal under international law, but the attacker, as Al Jazeera (11/13/23) noted, still has to adhere to

the principles of distinction and proportionality: An army has the duty to target only the enemy, even if this means facing greater risks to minimize civilian casualties; and to weigh the military value of each attack against the civilian casualties that are likely to result from it.

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Israel’s Crimes on the West Bank

In 1948, the newly proclaimed Israeli government seized 78 percent of Palestinian land and expelled more than half of the population (750,00 people) from their villages and towns.

This act disregarded United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 (1947), which called for the termination of the colonial British Mandate and the partition of Palestine into a Palestinian and a Jewish state. This process came to be known as the Nakba (Catastrophe).

The Palestinians gathered in Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the neighbouring Arab states in the hope that they would soon be able to return to their homes. Indeed, U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194 (1948) noted that “refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid.”

Nothing of the sort ever happened — Palestinians are still waiting for that “earliest practicable date.”

In September 1948, Palestinians hastily organised the All-Palestine Government in Gaza, a largely nominal attempt to exercise sovereignty over their stolen lands. Many of its officials, including Prime Minister Ahmed Hilmi Pasha Abd al-Baqi (1882–1963) and Foreign Minister Jamal al-Husseini (1894–1982), came from elite Palestinian families, their political vision shaped by the distress of their great ruin.

Following the 1949 Armistice Agreements — signed between Israel and its neighbouring states Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria after the 1948 war — most of the territory that was not occupied by Israel came under the control of Jordan and Egypt. Jordan controlled what is now the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip was administered by Egypt.

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Trump could recognize Palestine – media

US President Donald Trump could formally recognize the state of Palestine at the upcoming Gulf-US summit in Saudi Arabia, the news outlet Media Line has reported, citing unnamed diplomatic sources.

Palestine is recognized as a sovereign nation by 147 countries, including Russia and most nations in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. However, most Western European countries, Israel, and the US do not officially consider it a sovereign state. Many nations have called for its recognition as the only way to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict, which escalated in 2023 when Israel launched a military operation in Gaza following a surprise Hamas attack that killed about 1,200 Israelis and saw 250 taken hostage.

“President Donald Trump will issue a declaration regarding the State of Palestine and American recognition of it, and that there will be the establishment of a Palestinian state without the presence of Hamas,” a Gulf diplomatic source, who declined to be named or disclose his position, told the outlet. The source also added that the announcement “will be the most important declaration that will change the balance of power in the Middle East.”

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Israeli cabinet votes to formalize annexation of occupied West Bank territory

In a landmark and highly controversial decision, Israel’s cabinet voted on 13 May to take full responsibility for land registration in Area C of the occupied West Bank – an area comprising around 60 percent of the territory and home to the vast majority of Israeli settlements. The move, pushed by far-right Ministers Israel Katz and Bezalel Smotrich, is widely being described by critics as a de facto annexation of Palestinian land.

Under the 1995 Oslo Accords, Area C was placed under temporary Israeli control, with an eventual transition to Palestinian Authority (PA) administration expected. That transition never materialized. Now, with the new cabinet resolution, any land registration efforts by Palestinians in Area C will be declared legally void by Israel. Israeli authorities plan to initiate formal land registration processes, conduct widespread land surveys, and potentially reclassify vast tracts as “state land,” opening them for settlement expansion.

Under international law, all Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank is illegal.

“This is a dangerous step toward realizing the messianic vision of the annexationist government,” said Israeli rights group Yesh Din, warning that the move violates international law and threatens the rights of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.

Palestinian activists, such as Ayed Jafry from the village of Sinjil, say the policy will further entrench dispossession. “We’re now dealing directly with the occupation again,” he told Middle East Eye (MEE). “This opens the door for settlers to seize land without oversight.”

According to Israeli media, the government is changing its policy from restricting land use unless permitted to broadly permitting land claims unless explicitly prohibited. Finance Minister Smotrich declared the move part of a broader campaign of “normalization and de facto sovereignty,” aiming to eliminate any prospects for a future Palestinian state.

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CENSORSHIP KINGDOM: Retired Constable to Sue UK Police After Arrest Over a Social Media Post Denouncing Anti-Semitism

The United Kingdom continues its decent into authoritarianism and censorship of social media content.

Now, a retired constable is getting ready to sue Kent Police after being arrested back in 2023 for posting a social media reply warning about rising anti-Semitism.

The Telegraph reported:

“Julian Foulkes, from Gillingham in Kent, was handcuffed at his home by six officers from the force he had served for a decade after replying to a pro-Palestinian activist on X.

The 71-year-old was detained for eight hours, interrogated and ultimately issued with a caution after officers visited his home on November 2 2023.”

Last week, Kent Police sent out a statement saying that the caution was a mistake and has been deleted from Foulkes’s record.

The local law enforcement agency admitted that it was ‘not appropriate in the circumstances and should not have been issued’.

“On Sunday, Mr. Foulkes accepted an offer from the Free Speech Union (FSU) to fund a legal challenge against the force for wrongful arrest and detention.

‘The FSU and Lord [Toby] Young have generously agreed to fully fund a lawsuit against Kent Police’, he said. ‘I’m extremely grateful for such excellent support and would urge anyone concerned about the sustained attack on free speech to please join the FSU. They’re fighting hard every day for all of us’.”

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Rumors Swirl After Prediction That Trump Will Recognize Palestinian State, Fundamentally Change Balance of Power in Middle East

Could President Donald Trump officially recognize Palestine as an independent state on his trip to the Middle East? That’s what some analysts are predicting as a lively debate rages in the Arab media sphere over just how far the U.S. president will go while abroad.

There had already been some writing on the wall that Trump’s Middle East tour — which includes visits to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates — was not coming in the midst of a period of unalloyed harmony between the administration and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Hebrew-language Israeli media reported Thursday that “the U.S. president is disappointed with Prime Minister Netanyahu” after he pressured now-former National Security Advisor Mike Waltz to sign off on an all-out military action by Israel against Iran.

The Washington Post also reported that, prior to a White House meeting between Trump and Netanyahu in March, Waltz looked to be “engaged in intense coordination with Netanyahu about military options against Iran,” something Trump opposed.

A source said Waltz “wanted to take U.S. policy in a direction Trump wasn’t comfortable with because the U.S. hadn’t attempted a diplomatic solution … It got back to Trump and the president wasn’t happy with it.”

That makes many wonder if Trump will use the occasion to join the 147 U.N. members which consider Palestine to be a legitimate state, albeit with some conditions.

The closest report we’ve seen to something like this comes from an unnamed “Gulf diplomatic source” who talked anonymously with American-based Middle East-centric news outlet The Media Line — who said he felt confident in predicting that outcome.

“President Donald Trump will issue a declaration regarding the State of Palestine and American recognition of it, and that there will be the establishment of a Palestinian state without the presence of Hamas,” he said in an article published Friday evening.

“If an announcement of American recognition of the state of Palestine is made, it will be the most important declaration that will change the balance of power in the Middle East, and more countries will join the Abraham Accords.”

Other sources disagreed — including a former Gulf diplomat willing to go on record, unlike the anonymous source predicting U.S. endorsement of Palestinian statehood.

Ahmed Al-Ibrahim, a former diplomat, said he thought this would be about tariffs and trade.

“I don’t expect it to be about Palestine,” the source said.

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Israeli Government Approves Plan for Full Military Occupation of Gaza

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said once the new offensive begins, it will not end until the Strip is ‘conquered’

The Israeli government has approved plans to expand the genocidal war on Gaza that Israeli officials say will lead to the full Israeli military occupation of the Palestinian territory.

The plan involves capturing more territory in Gaza, expanding the so-called “buffer zone” where the IDF has demolished virtually every structure, and forcibly displacing Palestinian civilians to move them all to a small area of southern Gaza.

Axios later reported that the Israeli plan involves flattening every single building that remains in Gaza, forcing the entire civilian population into one single area, and pressuring them to leave as part of an ethnic cleansing plan, though it’s unclear what countries are willing to take them.

An Israeli official told Haaretz that the plan is different from previous Israeli military operations because it will lead to “the occupation of territory and a sustained Israeli presence in Gaza.”

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Israel is “finally going to occupy the Gaza Strip” and that it was “no longer afraid of the word ‘occupation.’”

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Dying in ‘Hell’: The fate of Palestinian medics jailed by Israel

The head of orthopaedics at Gaza’s al-Shifa Hospital was working at the al-Awda Hospital in northern Gaza in December when he and other medics were arrested by the Israeli army for, they said, “national security reasons”.

Four months later, Ofer Prison guards dragged Al-Bursh and dumped him in the prison yard, naked from the waist down, bleeding and unable to stand, according to a statement provided by Israeli human rights organisation, HaMoked.

Recognising him, some of the other prisoners carried Al-Bursh to a nearby room, and he died moments later.

Dr Al-Bursh had become a fixture in the lives of many through the video diaries he posted before his arrest.

His videos showed him with his colleagues, digging mass graves in the al-Shifa yard to bury people because Israel would not let their bodies be taken to a cemetery, operating on the injured and the dying with little or no equipment, and waiting together for the Israeli assault on a hospital where thousands had sought safety.

The assault came in mid-November when, in scenes captured by Dr Al-Bursh, the Israeli army ordered al-Shifa, its patients, staff and approximately 50,000 displaced people sheltering in the compound to vacate.

Dr Al-Bursh made his way to the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza where he worked until that too came under fire in November and he moved to Al-Awda Hospital.

There he was arrested and entered a prison system that Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem describes as “Hell”.

Israel often detains healthcare workers like Dr Al-Bursh, holding them in horrific conditions for “investigation”.

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