Tag: perpetual war

State Media: Syria’s Two Main Airports Disabled by Simultaneous Israeli Missile Strikes

Syria’s two main airports were taken out of service Thursday by simultaneous Israeli missile strikes, Syrian state media said, in the first such attack since Hamas terrorists launched their assault on Israel.

AFP reports Israeli missile strikes have caused the grounding of flights at the airports in the capital Damascus and northern city Aleppo, both of which are controlled by the government of war-torn Syria.

The “simultaneous” strikes “damaged runways in the two airports, putting them out of service”, state media said, citing an unidentified military source via Reuters.

Sources told the outlet the strikes on the airports are intended to disrupt Iranian supply lines to Syria and thence Israel.

A Syria military source cited by state news agency SANA said “bursts of missiles” hit the two airports at the same time, in what he said was a bid to distract the world’s attention from Israel’s war with Hamas terrorists in Gaza.

The Israeli military said it does not comment on such reports.

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Shani Louk Is Still Alive, Mother Reveals

The mother of Shani Louk, a 22-year-old German national believed to have been kidnapped by Hamas fighters during the militant group’s surprise attack on Israel on Saturday, said on Tuesday that her daughter is alive.

Louk, a tattoo artist, was attending the Tribe of Superova music festival in the plains of the Negev Desert near Urim, close to the Gaza Strip, on Saturday when Hamas fighters stormed the event. She’s believed to have been seized by the militants and paraded through the streets in the back of a pick-up.

Her mother, Ricarda, feared she was dead after seeing a video showing Louk unconscious in a car after being kidnapped by Hamas fighters. In an appeal shared on social media, she said the family was sent a video “in which I could clearly see our daughter unconscious in the car with the Palestinians and them driving around the Gaza Strip.”

While the video doesn’t show the woman’s face, Louk’s family said they were able to identify her by her dreadlocks and tattoos. In the clip, she asked for anyone to send help or news about her daughter.

On Tuesday, Louk’s family announced they had proof that Louk—who grew up in Israel—was alive. Swiss German-language news website Blick reported that her mother said she was in a hospital in Gaza with serious head injuries.

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Egypt’s Border Crossing With Gaza Closed Off as Palestinians Have Nowhere to Flee

The Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza has been closed off as Palestinians have nowhere to flee amid relentless Israeli airstrikes that started in response to the Hamas attack on southern Israel.

The Israeli military on Tuesday revised a recommendation for Palestinians to “get out” of Gaza through the Rafah crossing into Egypt. “Clarification: The Rafah crossing was open yesterday, but now it is closed,” the office of spokesman Lt-Col. Richard Hecht said, according to Reuters.

The New Arab reported that Egyptian officials said the crossing was closed off indefinitely. “The crossing will be closed indefinitely, for the situation has become quite dangerous after the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip has had an impact on the Egyptian side of the crossing,” an Egyptian security source told the outlet.

Another source said Egypt was trying to ensure “no attempts of infiltration by Palestinians into Egypt can take place.”

According to the Red Crescent, three Israeli airstrikes hit the Rafah border crossing within 24 hours after Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced a “complete siege of Gaza,” which involved cutting off food, water, electricity, and fuel.

Israeli Maj. Gen. Ghassan Alian, the head of an Israeli military agency in charge of policies in the West Bank and Gaza, said on Tuesday that Israel was turning Gaza into “hell.”

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Zelensky Bizarrely Blames The Israel-Gaza Conflict On Putin

Clearly, Ukraine’s war effort will suffer even further setback given that the attention of international media coverage has seemingly in an instant switched from the Russia-Ukraine war to the shocking scenes to have emerged from Israel. The world has pivoted from the battlefields of the Donbas to beholding scenes of southern Israel and the Gaza Strip.

On social media for example, masses of Americans have switched their Facebook profiles from Ukrainian flags to Israeli flags, or on the other side of it… to Palestinian flags. Perhaps trying to regain some of the lost spotlight and media focus, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has bizarrely laid blame on Russia for the outbreak of fresh conflict in the Middle East.

Zelensky said in Monday statements that Moscow stoke war in the region in an effort to weaken global unity and spread destabilization.

“Based on available information — very clear information — it is in Russia’s interests to inflame war in the Middle East to create a new source of pain and suffering that would weaken global unity, create divisions and help Russia in undermining freedom in Europe,” Zelensky said in a nightly video address.

Of course, he cited no evidence for the claims. The new talking point seems a desperate attempt to link ‘the current thing’ to the Russian invasion and the plight of Ukrainians. Zelensky in a series of messages has expressed solidarity with Israeli victims of Hamas terror.

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Israeli army says it does not have ‘confirmation’ about allegations that ‘Hamas beheaded babies’

The Israeli army has no information confirming allegations that “Hamas beheaded babies,” Israeli army spokesperson unit told Anadolu on Tuesday.

It was alleged that Hamas’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, “beheaded many Israeli babies” on the Israeli side during the early Saturday morning attack launched from Gaza.

When Anadolu contacted the Israeli army spokesperson unit over the phone and asked about the allegations, she said “We have seen the news, but we do not have any details or confirmation about that.”

The situation escalated with a Saturday surprise attack from Palestinian group Hamas in the Gaza Strip on southern Israeli towns. Israel retaliated with massive airstrikes in Gaza and placed the enclave under total blockade.

More than 1,900 people have so far been killed in the violence, including at least 900 Palestinians and 1,000 Israelis, according to authorities.

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Total siege of Gaza ‘prohibited’ under international law: UN

Israel’s total siege of the Gaza Strip, depriving civilians of goods essential for survival, is banned under international law, the United Nations human rights chief said on Tuesday.

Volker Turk called for all sides instead to defuse the “explosive powder-keg situation”, as Israel warned of a sustained war to destroy the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

“We know from bitter experience that vengeance is not the answer, and ultimately innocent civilians pay the price,” Turk said.

Hamas, which abducted about 150 people in its surprise weekend assault on Israel, threatened to execute the hostages if Israeli air strikes continue “targeting” Gaza residents without warning.

The threat came after Israel on Monday imposed a total siege on the Gaza Strip, cutting off food, water and electricity supplies.

“The imposition of sieges that endanger the lives of civilians by depriving them of goods essential for their survival is prohibited under international humanitarian law,” Turk said in a statement.

The siege risks seriously compounding the already dire human rights and humanitarian situation in Gaza, the statement said.

Any restrictions on the movement of people and goods to implement a siege must be justified by military necessity or may otherwise amount to collective punishment, it added.

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Biden Considering Huge $100 Billion Ukraine Spending Package: Telegraph

President Biden is considering asking Congress for a massive $100 billion spending package for the Ukraine war, The Telegraph reported on Saturday.

The idea of the huge spending package would be to fund the proxy war through the 2024 election without having to worry about the growing opposition to the policy in Congress, as the majority of the House and the Senate currently still support arming Ukraine.

“The ‘big package’ idea is firmly supported by many throughout the administration,” a source familiar with discussions on the matter told The Telegraph. “

Supporters of Ukraine want this to be a one-and-done big bill, and then not have to deal with it until after the next election.”

Defense News recently reported that multiple senators have also proposed passing a massive Ukraine aid package to get through a whole year. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) put the price tag at $70 billion.

An unnamed Biden administration official told The Telegraph that the White House is “not making any decisions about whether to do one big package or about how much it would be” until after a new House speaker is elected to replace Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), which is expected to happen on Wednesday.

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War As An ‘Investment’: The Bizarre Business-Speak Of Mass Killing

Did you know the Russia-Ukraine War is a great “investment” for the United States? A terrific opportunity to kill lots of Russians and to destroy lots of their military equipment at a relatively cheap cost to us? (Just don’t mention the price paid by Ukraine.) It gives new meaning to the expression “making a killing” on the “market.”

To Gordon Gekko’s infamous “greed is good” speech we must now add “war is good.” That war is “right.” That it “works” – at least for America, allegedly.

War as an “investment” truly symbolizes the moral bankruptcy of conventional discourse in the U.S. political mainstream.

Instead of war being a calamity, a catastrophe, a realm of death and destruction, dare I say even a mortal sin of grievous evil, we’re told that instead it’s an investment that’s paying dividends, especially in that growth stock known as Ukraine.

Even body counts and truck counts from the Vietnam War era are being brought back to show what a great “investment” the Ukraine War has been for the U.S.

In her latest, Caitlin Johnstone cites war-lover Max Boot for his advocacy of the Russia-Ukraine War as a continuing investment opportunity for the U.S., including the use of body and truck counts as a measure of progress:

“Russia has lost an estimated 120,000 soldiers and 170,000 to 180,000 have been injured,” [Max] Boot writes [in a Washington Post op-ed]. “Russia has also lost an estimated 2,329 tanks, 2,817 infantry fighting vehicles, 2,868 trucks and jeeps, 354 armored personnel carriers, 538 self-propelled artillery vehicles, 310 towed artillery pieces, 92 fixed-wing aircraft and 106 helicopters.”

CNN has recently made a similar argument…

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Israel Announces ‘Complete Siege’ of Gaza Strip Cutting Off Water, Food, and Electricity, Vows to Destroy Military Capability of Hamas

Israel has announced a “complete siege” of the Gaza Strip as hundreds of thousands of troops are preparing to launch an assault on the Hamas terror group responsible for the deadly attacks across Israel over the weekend.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said following a situation assessment with Israel Defence Forces (IDF) Southern Command the military will enact a “complete siege” of the Gaza Strip, preventing supplies such as water, food and electricity from entering the region.

The Defense Minister said, according to The Times of Israel: “I ordered a full siege on the Gaza Strip. No power, no food, no gas, everything is closed.

“We are fighting human animals and we act accordingly,” Gallant added.

The Israel Defense Forces has also said it is currently waging “widespread” air strikes against Hamas targets throughout the Gaza Strip.

The IDF’s top spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said that the military has mobilised 300,000 reservists over the past 48 hours, saying: “We have never drafted so many reservists on such a scale… We are going on the offensive.”

The chief military spokesman went on to say that Israeli troops have regained control over the border towns but that some clashes with Hamas terrorists are continuing, saying: “We are now carrying out searches in all of the communities and clearing the area.”

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Israel’s Massive Intelligence Failure

As the scope and scale of the Hamas surprise attack on Israel becomes clearer, one question emerges more than any other from the detritus of the battlefield: How did such a massive, complex undertaking escape the notice of Israel’s vaunted intelligence service?

An equally important question is why wasn’t this attack detected by the U.S. intelligence community as well, given the massive expenditures made in countering terrorism since the terrorist attacks on the U.S. homeland of September 11, 2001?

The answers lie in the history of success Israel has enjoyed in identifying and responding to Hamas operations in the past, success which manifested itself into a culture of complacency, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of Israeli citizens — the very people the intelligence services were dedicated to protect.

The fact that this attack took place 50 years and a day from when Israel suffered what had been — up until this moment — Israel’s greatest intelligence failure, the 1973 Yom Kippur War, only reinforces the depth of the failure that transpired.

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