Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva returns to Brazil’s highest office in an incredible political comeback.
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s new President
Brazilian President-elect Lula da Silva assures that his country has returned to the international arena and will no longer be a “pariah”.
Lula won Brazil’s presidential elections, urging “peace and unity” after defeating far-right Jair Bolsonaro in a contentious runoff election on Sunday. Bolsonaro has not yet conceded loss, but leftist da Silva has concluded a historic political comeback.
The victory represents a stunning turnaround for leftist icon Lula, who returned for an unprecedented third term at 77 after leaving office in 2010 as the most popular President in Brazilian history.
“This country needs peace and unity,” Lula said to loud cheers in a victory speech in Sao Paulo.
“The challenge is immense,” he said of the job ahead of him, citing a hunger crisis, the economy, bitter political division, and deforestation in the Amazon.
Later, in front of a crammed audience of hundreds of thousands of supporters wearing red Workers’ Party clothing, he declared, “Democracy is back.”
Bolsonaro’s overwhelming silence
Bolsonaro, 67, was silent in the hours after the result was declared.
After months of claiming — without providing any evidence — that Brazil’s electronic voting system is plagued by fraud and that the courts, media, and other institutions had conspired against his far-right movement, all eyes will now be on how Bolsonaro and his supporters will respond to the outcome.
“Anywhere in the world, the losing president would already have called to admit defeat. He hasn’t called yet, I don’t know if he will call and concede,” Lula told the massive crowd.
While Bolsonaro remained silent, several of his most important allies publicly endorsed the results. Arthur Lira, the speaker of the lower house of Congress, said it was time to “extend a hand to our adversaries, debate, and build bridges.”
“Today democracy won, and the possibility of dreaming of a better country again.”
‘Biggest comeback’
Lula discussed racial and gender equality in his victory speech, as well as the pressing need to address the food crisis afflicting 33.1 million Brazilians.
“Today we tell the world that Brazil is back,” he said, adding that the country is “ready to reclaim its place in the fight against the climate crisis, especially the Amazon.”
He vowed to “fight for zero deforestation.”
Lula’s win is “one of the biggest comebacks in modern political history,” tweeted Brian Winter, editor-in-chief of Americas Quarter.
It’s Lula, in one of the biggest comebacks in modern political history. Two years ago he was in prison. Now he’ll get a chance to repeat the magic of his 1st presidency in 2000s — but with a much more difficult global economy, and a VERY divided Brazil he won by only about 1 pt
Brazil’s First Lady Michelle Bolsonaro showed up at the polling station to vote in the country’s presidential elections wearing a T-shirt depicting an Israeli flag, Israeli media reported.
Her husband, current Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, is facing left-wing former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
The Times of Israel reported that “Bolsonaro, who enjoys the support of the country’s millions of evangelical Christians, pledged to move Brazil’s embassy to Jerusalem, but in the end opened a trade and investment office in the capital.”
“At a time when Brazilians vote in one of their most consequential elections in recent history, Bolsonaro shows that his priorities do not lie in the interests of the Brazilian people but in a foreign power,” Palestinian journalist and editor of The Palestine Chronicle Ramzy Baroud said.
“While this phenomenon is not confined to Brazil, as it is also the norm in American elections, it is particularly tragic in the case of Brazil, as the country faces immense socio-economic and political challenges that require true loyalty to the nation, not to Israel,” Baroud added.
Four Israelis and a Palestinian were injured in a shooting operation on the evening of 29 October in the Kiryat Arba settlement of the West Bank city of Hebron, with the attack resulting in the death of one settler.
One of the injured Israelis remains in critical condition.
The shooter, identified as 35-year-old Mohammad al-Jabari, was run down by an Israeli police vehicle twice as he was still firing shots. After being hit by the car, Jabari exchanged fire with the occupation forces before being shot dead.
Jabari was a member of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Hamas resistance movement. He was also a father of two children, and a teacher at the Jawad Al-Hashlamoun Basic School in the Hebron Education Directorate.
“We mourn the martyr and educator Muhammad Kamel Al-Jabari … who was shot dead by the occupation,” the Palestinian Ministry of Education said in a statement.
The operation itself targeted the home of far-right, Israeli extremist MK and leader in the Otzma Yehudit party, Itamar Ben Gvir.
“My family is currently secured [as we come] under a shooting attack on our home,” Ben Gvir said via Twitter as the operation was taking place. While speaking on the phone with Hebrew Channel 12 media outlet, he said that he wasn’t at home at the time of the shooting, but that his family was.
משפחתי נמצאת כרגע מאובטחת תחת מתקפת יריות על ביתנו בגבעת האבות. נשמעים לכוחות הביטחון.
The following day, Ben Gvir offered his condolences via Twitter to the family of the dead settler, who was identified as 49-year-old Ronen Hanania.
קיבלתי בצער ובלב כבד את הידיעה על הירצחו של רונן חנניה הי"ד בפיגוע הנורא אמש בחברון. כל חטאו היה רק כי הוא יהודי. בשעה קשה זו שולח תנחומים ומשתתף בצערם הכבד של בני המשפחה. pic.twitter.com/vvkql1Q8ji
Following the shooting, massive Palestinian rallies celebrating the operation were held in the Gaza Strip, as well as across the occupied West Bank.
Hamas spokesman, Hazem Qassem, said in a statement following the operation: “The bullets of the resistance are a practical response to Zionist settlement expansion, and the crimes they are committing,” adding that the operation “proves that the resistance front can surprise the occupiers.”
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) resistance faction and the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) also praised the operation.
The day after the attack, on 30 October, the Israeli army made preparations for the punitive demolition of Jabari’s home – a popular form of collective punishment deployed by the occupation.
The shooting operation represents a highly significant increase in resistance activity across the West Bank recently, which comes as a result of constant Israeli violence and oppression of Palestinians.
رام الله | دخلت الخليل وأريحا، على مسافة أيّام قليلة من انتخابات «الكنيست»، على خطّ الاشتباك، لتُبدِّد «نشوة النصر» الإسرائيلية في نابلس وجنين، ومعها جميع إجراءات الطوارئ الأمنية التي تتعزّز تباعاً خشيةَ تنفيذ عمليات فدائية. عمليات أقرّ وزير أمن العدو، بيني غانتس، أنه لن يكون في المستطاع «منْعها كلّها»، متحدّثاً عن «أثمان مؤلمة وصعبة… وتحدّيات كبيرة». وتُنذر عمليتا الخليل وأريحا بتداعيات سيتحدَّد حجمها في الأيام المقبلة، مع تمدُّد حالة الاشتباك من شمال الضفة إلى جنوبها، ما يضع المنطقة بأكملها – وذلك سيناريو الرعب الإسرائيلي – في حالة مقاومة لن يكون من الممكن تحجيمها
في ذروة الاستنفار الإسرائيلي في الضفة الغربية المحتلّة، جاءت عملية «كريات أربع» التي نفّذها الشهيد محمد الجعبري، لتهدِم نشوة المنظومة الأمنية والاستخباراتية للعدو، والتي يعيشها الاحتلال منذ ارتكب جرائمه الأخيرة في نابلس وجنين؛ كما جاءت لتُبدِّد جميع الإجراءات التي اتّخذتها المؤسستَان العسكرية والأمنية مع اقتراب انتخابات «الكنيست»، خشيةَ تنفيذ عمليات فدائية. وتُنذر عملية الخليل التي تحمل في طيّاتها دلالات عسكرية وجغرافية غاية في الأهميّة، بتداعيات سيتحدَّد حجمها في الأيّام المقبلة. وإلى مقتل مستوطن وإصابة آخرين، فإن تداعياتها تبدو أكثر خطورة، مع تحرُّك مدينة الخليل بعد أشهر من حالة الهدوء النسبي الذي عاشته المحافظة، والذي من شأنه – إذا قُدِّر له أن يستمرّ ويتّسع – أن يقلب الأوضاع في الضفة رأساً على عقب، ولا سيما أن العملية استُتبعت بإطلاق نار آخر تجاه جنود الاحتلال قرب بلدة بني نعيم.
وسارع رئيس حكومة العدو، يائير لابيد، إلى تقييم الوضع الأمني في أعقاب العملية، آمراً بتعزيز القوات الأمنية في المنطقة، على أن تستمرّ حالة التأهُّب في مختلف الساحات، فيما قامت قوات الاحتلال بإغلاق جميع الطرق والمداخل المؤدية إلى مدينة الخليل، ومنعت الدخول إليها أو الخروج منها. وإلى ذلك، اقتحمت منزل الجعبري، وأخذت قياساته تمهيداً لهدمه، كما اعتقلت شقيق الشهيد. من جهته، اعترف وزير الأمن، بيني غانتس، أنه «ليس في الإمكان منْع كلّ العمليات المسلّحة»، مضيفاً: «في الإمكان دائماً حدوث عمليات. والأثمان مؤلمة وصعبة، لكن الوضع معقَّد. وهناك تحدّيات كبيرة، واسعة وطويلة، وصمدنا أمام هذه التحديات في الماضي، وسنصمد أمامها الآن». وفي الإطار نفسه، ذكرت إذاعة جيش الاحتلال أنه سيتمّ نشْر سريتَين من «حرس الحدود» في الساعات المقبلة، لتعزيز منطقة الخليل، كما يدرس الجيش تعزيزات إضافية ستصل إلى المنطقة خلال الأيام القليلة المقبلة. يُعدّ الجعبري، منفّذ العملية، أحد عناصر حركة «حماس» في الخليل، وهو شقيق الأسير المحرّر والمبعد إلى قطاع غزة، وائل الجعبري، وقد تمكّن من تنفيذ عمليّته بعدما نجح في الوصول إلى مستوطنة «كريات أربع»، كبرى مستوطنات الضفة، حيث استهدَف مستوطنين عند مدخل أحد أحيائها ببندقية «M16»، ما أسفر عن إصابة مستوطن ونجله، فيما أصيب الآخرون خلال محاولتهم مساعدتهما، ومن بينهم أحد قادة المستوطنين، عوفر أوهانا. وذكرت مصادر عبرية أن السلاح المستخدَم في العملية تم الاستيلاء عليه مع كمية أسلحة أخرى، قبل أشهر، من إحدى قواعد جيش الاحتلال في النقب.
ستعطي الخليل حالة المقاومة المتصاعدة في الضفة زخماً وقوّة هائلَيْن، بفعل خصوصيّتها
وبتنفيذها هذه العملية، أثبتت المقاومة قدرتها على مفاجأة العدو بضربات قويّة، وكسْر الوهم الأمني الذي يحاول ادّعاء تجسيده على الأرض، خاصّة أنها جاءت بعد أيّام من معركة شرسة خاضتها مجموعة «عرين الأسود» في مدينة نابلس، واستشهد خلالها قائدها وديع الحوح. وبهذا، تكون العملية قد كسرت طَوْق الاحتواء والحصار المفروض على المقاومة في نابلس وجنين، وأبعدت خطر تفكيك وإنهاء «العرين» أو أيّ خليّة مسلّحة. كذلك، يمكن لعملية الخليل أن تمثّل شرارة إطلاق المارد في جنوب الضفة، وتحديداً الخليل، التي تُعدّ خزاناً بشريّاً وعسكريّاً هائلاً، إذ تتوفّر فيها الأسلحة بكثرة، وكذلك المستوطنون الذين سيتحوّلون إلى أهداف للمقاومين. كما يمكن أن تشكّل امتداداً لحالة المقاومة في شمال الضفة الغربية، كونها تُعدّ ضربة قويّة في الرأس، نظراً إلى البراعة في التنفيذ، والاحترافية في اختيار المكان والتوقيت. وتعيش منطقة شمال الضفة، وتحديداً مدينة نابلس، حالة حرب متواصلة وحصاراً إسرائيليّاً مطبِقاً، في ضوء استمرار العمل المقاوم، وعمليات إطلاق النار على الحواجز العسكرية، وفشل الاحتلال في إنهاء ظاهرة مجموعة «عرين الأسود»، التي من شأن عملية الخليل أن تخفّف الضغط عنها، إذا ما تداعت أحداثها وتطوّرت على الأرض. وستعطي الخليل حالة المقاومة المتصاعدة في الضفة زخماً وقوّة هائلَيْن، بفعل خصوصيّتها، التي تنبع أوّلاً من ضرب حالة الاستقرار والهدوء التي روّجها الاحتلال لمدينة الخليل كمثال للهدوء والاستقرار كونها المدينة الأكبر مساحة والأكثر تعداداً للسكان، ودخولها على خط الاشتباك الذي سيمتدّ من جنين شمالاً إلى الخليل جنوباً، سيعني – إذا ما تحقَّق – استنزاف جيش الاحتلال وقواته. وقد جاءت العملية بعد نحو أسبوعين من بيان «العرين» الذي قالت فيه إنها تنتظر «خليل الرحمن وبيت لحم لتخطّا أوّل بيان للعرين بالدم والرصاص».
ويستهدف الاستيطان مدينة الخليل منذ اليوم الأوّل لاحتلالها، وهي تُعدّ من أكثر المناطق التي يرفض الاحتلال التنازل عنها أو تسليمها، وتحديداً بلدتها القديمة المجاورة لمستوطنة «كريات أربع». وهذا يعني أن العملية ستلقي بظلالها على ما تقدَّم، بعدما أفقدت العدو الشعور بالأمان، والذي سيتنامى إذا ما قُدّر لحالة المقاومة في المحافظة أن تنمو. وجاءت عملية الخليل في توقيت حسّاس وخطير عاشه الفلسطينيون في الأيام الأخيرة، في ظلّ محاولة الاحتلال كسْر مجموعة «العرين» بعد اغتيال قائدها في نابلس، وتكثيف بثّ الأخبار حول تسليم خمسة عناصر من المجموعة أنفسهم للسلطة، في محاولة لضرب الروح المعنوية للبيئة الشعبية الحاضنة، وللجمهور، وتشويه مقاتلي «العرين». لكنّ تلك المحاولات تبدَّدت مساء الجمعة، حين خرجت مسيرة شعبية عارمة وسط نابلس لدعم المجموعة وإسنادها، شارك فيها قادة «العرين»، محمولين على الأكتاف، في مشهد بدّد رواية الاحتلال، الذي عاد، بحسب وسائل إعلام عبرية ومن خلال «الشاباك»، لبعث رسائل تهديد إلى مجموعة من قيادة «العرين»، بتصفية أفرادها في الوقت القريب. وذكر موقع عبري، في هذا الإطار، أن التهديدات وصلت إلى القائد في «العرين»، أسامة الطويل، الذي يَعتبره الاحتلال أحد عناصر «كتائب القسام»، إضافة إلى محمد طبنجة، أحد قادة «الجبهة الشعبية» في «العرين»، وحسام إسليم أحد عناصر الذراع العسكرية لـ«حماس». ولا يمكن إغفال الأثر الذي ستتركه العملية على الساحة الداخلية الإسرائيلية، التي تشهد انتخابات مستعرة بعد أيّام قليلة؛ ففيما حاول المتطرّف إيتمار بن غفير استجلاب دعْم المستوطنين له بادّعاء تعرُّض منزله وعائلته لإطلاق نار في العملية – وهو ما نفته المصادر الأمنية لاحقاً -، إلّا أن من شأنها أن تترك أثراً على بيني غانتس ويائير لابيد اللذين يسعيان إلى الإبقاء على حظوظهما في الانتخابات من خلال الدم الفلسطيني في نابلس، لكن عملية الخليل يمكن أن تطيحهما أيضاً.
وبعد ثمانية أشهر على إطلاقها عملية «كاسر الأمواج» للقضاء على المقاومة في مدينة جنين، عقب عمليتَي رعد خازم وضياء حمارشة، تجد إسرائيل نفسها أمام تسونامي من العمل المقاوم؛ فبينما هي فشلت في القضاء على المقاومة في جنين، فإنها انتقلت إلى مدينة نابلس التي شهدت ولادة «عرين الأسود»، فيما تثبت العملية الأخيرة أن الأمواج وصلت إلى جنوب الضفة الغربية، ما يعني أن الأخيرة باتت مرشّحة لموجة عمليات واسعة في الفترة المقبلة. وتعيش دولة الاحتلال حالة استنفار عالية، إذ جاءت العملية لتثبت مرّة أخرى أنها أوهن من بيت العنكبوت، وفق سيناريو إذا ما تحقَّق فإنه سيشكّل أسوأ الكوابيس التي كانت إسرائيل تخشاها، وهو امتداد حالة المقاومة والاشتباك في عموم الضفة الغربية.
On 30 October, the Hebrew newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported that 25 Israelis had been killed since the start of the year, the highest toll since 2015, due to the increase in Palestinian resistance operations.
According to the special coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Tor Wennesland, 2022 could also be the deadliest year for Palestinians since 2005. In the past month alone, 32 Palestinians, including six children, were killed by Israeli forces during their frequent raids in the occupied territories in the West Bank.
Since the beginning of the year, Israeli raids in the West Bank and East Jerusalem have been responsible for killing 125 Palestinians.
By comparison, only two Israeli military personnel were killed during Palestinian resistance operations, with 25 Israeli civilians injured over the past month.
Wennesland stated that “mounting hopelessness, anger, and tension have once again erupted into a deadly cycle of violence that is increasingly difficult to contain,” and that “too many people, overwhelmingly Palestinian have been killed and injured.”
He added that it is a priority to ease tensions between the Palestinians and Israeli authorities, further emphasizing that the goal must be “to empower and strengthen the Palestinian Authority (PA) and build towards a return to a political process.”
On 18 October, a report released by the UN’s Special Rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories recommended that UN member states develop “a plan to end the Israeli settler-colonial occupation and apartheid regime.”
“The realization of the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination requires the definitive dismantling of Israel’s colonial occupation and apartheid practices”, wrote Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur.
According to the report, nearly 4,500 Palestinians are currently detained, 730 of whom are held without charge and largely on the basis of secret evidence, while children as young as 12 are subjected to arbitrary arrests and detention measures – between 500 and 700 minors are detained by the Israeli government each year.
Over 600 Palestinian political prisoners suffer acute illness inside the Israeli occupations and are at risk of dying, according to a statement released by human rights lawyer Abdel Nasser Farwana on 10 September.
One such case is that of Nasser Abu Hamid, who is dying in prison from cancer and is not receiving the care he needs.
Israeli forces are largely overstretched to take on a united Palestinian resistance front within the occupied territories, according to a report released by Israel’s State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman.
The report published on 2 October highlights growing concerns about the IDF conducting operations inside the West Bank, citing missing equipment and the poor living conditions of conscripts.
Last night, four Israelis and a Palestinian were injured in a shooting operation on the evening of 29 October in the Kiryat Arba settlement of the West Bank city of Hebron, with the attack resulting in the death of one settler.
Meanwhile, a Palestinian driver rammed into the positions of Israeli soldiers in two locations in Jericho on 30 October, leaving five soldiers injured and resulting in the death of the driver who was killed on sight.
Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah stressed on Saturday that none will be able to extract oil and gas if Lebanon is prevented from doing that, adding that this rule will govern the upcoming stage.
In a televised speech, Sayyed Nasrallah indicated that who imposed on the United States and ‘Israel’ the maritime deal can be the guarantee in this regard.
Sayyed Nasrallah called for trusting God and the Resistance, underling the importance of the state stance and the popular support to reach the major maritime victory.
Sayyed Nasrallah hailed the major achievement of the demarcation, adding that the UK and France delineated in 1923 the Lebanese-Palestinian border, which has become since then internationally acknowledged.
His eminence noted that the demarcation of the borders was abandoned during the the twentieth century, pointing out that, after 2000, several studies conducted by certain states confirmed Lebanon has offshore oil and gas resources, which necessitated maritime border demarcation.
“This fortune has become a bad need for the Lebanese state and people.”
Sayyed Nasrallah stressed that the Zionist entity considers that its borders are from the Nile to the Euphrates, and it does not initially recognize borders, and considers that its borders are where its strength and might reach.
Sayyed Nasrallah explained the legal difference between the territorial waters (TW), the Contiguous Zone (CZ), and the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), showing a map that displays them with respect to Lebanon.
White: TW, Light Blue: CZ, Dark Blue: EEZ
Hezbollah leader then displayed a map that shows the area (around 679 square kilometers) which Lebanon restored after the maritime agreement and lies between line 1 and line 23.
Sayyed Nasrallah reiterated that Hezbollah has never interfered in identifying the borders, adding that the Resistance is just responsible for liberating what the Lebanese state classifies as occupied by the Israeli enemy.
Sayyed Nasrallah also called on the Lebanese groups which voiced objections to the agreement to continue their struggle to reach line 29 without swearing and accusing others of betrayal, adding that they should have started their struggle in 2011 when the governmental decree was issued.
Hezbollah Chief recalled that, between 2009 and 2010, the Lebanese officials agreed to task House Speaker Nabih Berri with leading the negotiations, adding that he did not relinquish even a glass of the Lebanese water.
To know more about maritime negotiation lines, Al-Manar prepared in August a detailed report on the issue.
Sayyed Nasrallah indicated that the first US mediator Frederick Hof proposed that Lebanon restores only 55% of its maritime rights, adding that Speaker Berri did not make any concession in this regard.
“The Resistance wasn’t asked to do anything before the end of the negotiations, but we were aware of what is going on.
According to Sayyed Nasrallah, the indirect maritime talks in Naqoura reached a deadlock in light of the US pressures on Lebanon to accept Hof’s proposal.
Sayyed Nasrallah added that Biden’s administration appointed Amos Hochstein as a new mediator, noting that his proposals were better than Hof’s ones, yet did not match the Lebanese demands in the beginning.
Hezbollah leader recalled that the Lebanese officials considered the advent of the Greek ship to start extracting oil from Karish field is an aggression on Lebanon, emphasizing that the Resistance, accordingly, vowed to prevent the Israeli enemy from extracting gas before the maritime border demarcation.
“All fields and facilities in the occupied Palestinian waters are within reach of the missiles and drones of the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon.”
Due to the unified stance of the Lebanese officials and Hezbollah military readiness to confront all the choices, the Israeli enemy face a dilemma of either stopping gas extraction from Karish or engaging in a war, according to Sayyed Nasrallah, who pointed out that this dilemma pushed the Zionists to select the indirect negotiation as a solution.
Sayyed Nasrallah said that the negotiations used to face a deadlock at some points, adding that a comprehensive war was about to break out.
The US administration was pressured by the repercussions of the Russian-Ukrainian war and wanted to reach a settlement for the maritime dispute by all means, according to Sayyed Nasrallah.
Despite the heavy pressures on the Lebanese negotiators, Lebanon managed to liberate a large area and all the gas blocks till line 23, and the firms, tasked by the Lebanese authorities, can start their operations, Sayyed Nasrallah noted.
“Lebanon has attained the important achievement of lifting the US ban on the oil companies’ operation in the Lebanese waters. Lebanon remained defiant in the face of the American pressures and the economic crisis, rejected the Hof Line, obtained Line 23 which it demanded, and insisted to obtain all maritime blocks in its exclusive zone, which it obtained indeed.”
Hezbollah leader displayed the only remaining issue that has not been resolved yet as Lebanon expressed reservation about it, adding that the Israeli enemy has positioned a line of buoys that admits a different territorial position.
The following map shows the Israeli line of buoys that violates the Lebanese borders.
Sayyed Nasrallah hailed the Resistance threats, the people support and the firmness of the official stance which challenged the foreign pressures contributed to the achievement.
Lebanon was on the verge of a war, but the Israeli enemy backed off, according to Sayyed Nasrallah, who hailed Lebanon’s wisdom and strength in face of the threats of the Israeli enemy and the United States.
Sayyed Nasrallah maintained that the Israeli enemy did not obtain any security guarantees as a result of the agreement, adding that the Lebanese signature was placed on a separate copy of the agreement and denying any trace of normalization in all the procedures.
The Resistance Leader said, “We have liberated this region and the freedom to work, and companies can go and work seriously.”
Sayyed Nasrallah indicated that the Israeli enemy by the Resistance readiness to engage in an all-out war, adding that the Zionists think that Hezbollah has been deterred since 2006 war and due to the socioeconomic crisis storming Lebanon.
When the Resistance launched the drones over Karish, the Israelis took its threats seriously, according to Sayyed Nasrallah.
Sayyed Nasrallah affirmed that Hezbollah is after Lebanon’s peace and security, adding that, however, when the the Lebanese interests impose breaking the rules of engagement, the Resistance will do.
In this concern, Sayyed Nasrallah warned the Israeli enemy against miscalculating Hezbollah stance and thinking that it is deterred.
Sayyed Nasrallah called on the Lebanese authorities to follow up the gas extraction issue seriously as Lebanon lost a long time during the negotiations, stressing that the Resistance will guarantee Lebanon’s rights by preventing the enemy from extracting gas if Lebanon is prevented from doing so.
According to Sayyed Nasrallah, the Palestinian resistance contributed to Lebanon’s maritime victory by engaging in clashes with the Zionist enemy across the occupied West Bank, adding that this forces the Israeli enemy to deploy half of its troops in the WB.
Sayyed Nasrallah added that European need for the Middle East gas and the readiness of the Resistance allies in the region (Yemen, Iraq, Palestine, Syria) to support Hezbollah in the war contributed also to the victory.
Sayyed Nasrallah also maintained Israel’s inability to engage in a war due to the internal conflicts, the economic aspects of the gas extraction and other reasons imposed on the occupation entity to accept the agreement.
Sayyed Nasrallah underscored that all the Lebanese must celebrate reaching this achievement, warning against underestimating the efforts of any party in this regard.
Sayyed Nasrallah indicated that Amal Movement voiced clearly its readiness to confront any Israeli war on Lebanon if the negotiations fail, hailing this stance as a contribution to the victory.
Sayyed Nasrallah started his speech by offering condolences on the death of the two clerics Sheikh Ismail Khatib as well as Sheikh Hussein Abdullah and congratulating Palestine’s Islamic Jihad Movement on martyrdom anniversary of Leader Fathi Shaqaqi.
Sayyed Nasrallah also stressed that the heavy participation in Shiraz martyrs funeral confirms Iranians’ decision to confront foreign sedition conspiracy.
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Israeli occupation forces have killed another Palestinian following a car-ramming operation that left five settlers injured near the city of Jericho in the occupied West Bank.
The Palestinian Information Center, quoting Israeli media, said following the Sunday attack the Israeli occupation forces fatally shot the Palestinian man who was driving the car south of Jericho.
The Palestinian news agency also cited Israeli media as identifying the driver as as 49-year-old Barkat Odeh from the town of al-Eizariya near East al-Quds.
Israeli medical said the five injured Israelis are in their 20s and suffered different injuries following the incident.
The reported attack came amid heavily intensified Israeli raids throughout the West Bank in search of alleged Palestinian gunmen responsible for a spate of deadly attacks on Israeli occupation forces by Palestinian resistance forces – which began in March.
More than 100 Palestinians have so far been killed during the Israeli regime’s brutal crackdown on West Bank’s native residents.
On Saturday, four Israelis and a Palestinian were injured in a gun attack near an Israeli checkpoint in the occupied West Bank city of al-Khalil, also known as Hebron.
The Palestinian man was reportedly martyred by the occupying forces. Local news outlets cited Tel Aviv’s army as saying that the unidentified fighter “shot live fire” at the checkpoint in al-Khalil, also home to a community of radical Israeli settlers.
“Soldiers are conducting searches in the area” for additional suspects, the occupying army said. The Palestinian Red Crescent also announced that the Palestinian victim was receiving treatment at a local hospital.
The Israeli regime occupied and annexed the West Bank, including East al-Quds, in a heavily-Western-backed war of aggression in 1967.
Ever since, it has dotted the territory with hundreds of illegal settlements that have come to house hundreds of thousands of Zionist settlers that immigrated to occupied Palestine – mostly from Europe and the US.
Saturday, 29 October 2022 9:50 AM [ Last Update: Saturday, 29 October 2022 10:26 AM ]
Iranians attend the funeral procession for victims of a terrorist attack on the holy shrine of Shah Cheragh in the southern Iranian city of Shiraz, on October 29, 2022. (Photo by Fars news agency)
Tens of thousands of people from different walks of life have taken part in a funeral procession for the victims of a terrorist attack on the holy shrine of Shah Cheragh in the southern Iranian city of Shiraz.
The massive ceremony started on Saturday morning with a number of high-ranking state and military officials in attendance.
The participants held up pictures of the victims and chanted slogans against the United States, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Britain for their support of the Daesh terrorist group.
They also demanded that those behind the vicious act of terror must be held accountable as soon as possible.
Following the funeral procession, the coffins are going to be flown to the northeastern city of Mashhad, which houses the mausoleum of the eighth Shia Imam, Ali ibn Musa al-Reza, where mourners will bid farewell to the victims.
Iranians attend the funeral procession for the victims of a recent terrorist attack on the holy shrine of Shah Cheragh in Shiraz, on October 29, 2022. (Photo by Fars)
After Friday prayers, Iranians from all walks of life took to the streets across the country, including the capital Tehran, to condemn the terrorist attack on Shah Cheragh holy site.
They waved signs and chanted slogans asking for the prosecution of the perpetrators.
A heavily-armed terrorist assaulted the well-known shrine at approximately 5:45 p.m. local time (1415 GMT) on Wednesday, just before the evening prayers, killing 13 pilgrims — including a lady and two children — and injuring at least 40 others.
The attacker opened fire indiscriminately on visitors within the shrine, according to the police commander of Fars province. The perpetrator was wounded and taken into custody by security personnel. He later succumbed to his wounds.
Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has offered condolences to the Iranian nation, assuring that the perpetrators of the “outrageous” crime will definitely face punishment.
IRGC chief: US, Israel main architects of recent riots across Iran
Chief commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) said Saturday the United States and Israel have hatched a sinister plot to incite the recent riots across the country.
Addressing the funeral procession in Shiraz, Major General Hossein Salami said the US, Israel, and Saudi Arabia are desperate about their back-to-back defeats in West Asia, including in Yemen.
The senior commander stated that those behind Iran’s riots cannot tolerate the Islamic Republic’s political and spiritual influence across the region, and have therefore resorted to provoking unrest inside Iran, but to no avail.
He said Washington has a long history of making attempts to weaken Iran, stressing that the Islamic Republic has successfully overcome hurdles caused by inhumane US sanctions.
“The Iranian nation has well proven that the US cannot do a damn thing,” Major General Salami said, emphasizing that Pentagon officials did not dare to respond when the IRGC targeted the US-run Ain al-Asad in Iraq’s western province of Anbar on January 8, 2020, after launching a wave of attacks to retaliate against the assassination of top Iranian anti-terror commander Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani.
The IRGC chief stressed that the Iranian nation is inspired by Imam Hussein (AS), the third Shia Imam and the grandson of Prophet Mohammad (Peace be upon Him), and his companions in the fight against tyranny.
He added, “The US wants the Iranian nation to be dependent in order to plunder its natural wealth. It wants the Iranian universities to be shuttered and its public assets torched.”
“The Islamic establishment is deeply-rooted in the hearts and minds of the Iranian nation,” Major General Salami said, calling on young Iranian rioters not to sell their honor to American statesmen.
“My advice to rioting students is: ‘Return to the nation, don’t play into the hands of enemies,” he said.
“Those flouting hijab and harassing veiled women are following the path of enemies. This ominous plot of riots in Iran has been constructed in US command rooms.
We (Iranians) will bury US pipedreams in this land. We also warn Saudi rulers to think about the repercussions of their actions,” the high-ranking Iranian military commander also noted.
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من الصعب أن بقف المرء متفرّجا على التطوّرات الأخيرة التي حصلت بين لبنان وكيان العدو الصهيوني دون أن يتفاعل مع تعدّد الآراء حول الموضوع. فهناك من رحّب بل هلّل ل «الاتفاق» الذي تمّ عبر الوساطة غير النزيهة للولايات المتحدة بين لبنان والكيان حول تقاسم المناطق الاقتصادية البحرية. وهناك من ندّد با»لاتفاق» واعتبره تفريطا بالحقوق اللبنانية واعترافا بالكيان وتطبيعا معه. كما انه هناك سجال عقيم حول المصطلح. فهل هو «اتفاق» أم «تفاهم» أم «امتداد لقرار الهدنة» أم هو «إطار»؟ فتلك الرياضة المصطلحية تدلّ على حالة ارباك بين النخب ناتج عن عدم إمكانية قراءة المشهد السياسي في أبعاده الدولية والإقليمية والمحلّية. كما يدلّ على عدم توافق حاد على الخيارات والسياسات بين النخب الحاكمة فيصبح التناقض مفتاحا للموقف السياسي بغض النظر عن يقينه. فالمواقف تؤخذ على قاعدة الكيدية واللعبة الصفرية بعيدا عن مصلحة الوطن. وبغض النظر عن أحقّية تلك السجالات فيمكن تسجيل عدّة ملاحظات عما جرى.
الملاحظة الأولى ناتجة عن قراءة للمشهد الدولي وموازين القوّة. فالولايات المتحدة التي فرضت حصارا على لبنان بغية التجويع والتركيع اضطرت إلى فك حصارها على لبنان لحماية المصالح الاقتصادية لكيان العدو بعد التهديدات الجدّية للمقاومة في لبنان في استهداف أي عمل استخراجي للغاز او النفط في حوض قاريش أو غير قاريش. فلم يعد ممكنا تأمين مصالح العدو دون تأمين في الحد الأدنى مصالح لبنان بسبب وجود مقاومة فعالة لا تردع فقط بل تفرض شروط الاشتباك والتفاوض. هذا تحوّل استراتيجي لم يكن في حسبان التحالف الأميركي الصهيوني عندما أطلقت الولايات المتحدة الحصار الاقتصادي على لبنان منذ بداية العقد الماضي.
الملاحظة الثانية تتعلّق بجدّية الحصول على ضمانات للبنان في الاستخراج. على ما يبدو تنحصر الضمانات في التزام شركة توتال في استئناف التنقيب ومن ثمة في الاستخراج وإن كانت الدولة اللبنانية بعيدة عن حقيقة المعلومات. فالأخيرة رهن إرادة الطرف الفرنسي الذي لم يكن نزيها فيما يتعلّق بالحقوق اللبنانية وكان خاضعا للمشيئة الأميركية. طبعا، ليس هناك من يمنع المقاومة في ممارسة الضغوط العسكرية وغير العسكرية لإجبار الطرف الفرنسي للتقيّد بالالتزامات التي اخذها على عاتقه. المسألة ستكون في عهدة الدولة اللبنانية لمراقبة ما تقوم به الشركة وهذا قد يكون أمرا مقلقا نظرا للفساد للمنظومة السياسية الحاكمة.
الملاحظة الثالثة هي السابقة التي حققّتها المقاومة في الصراع والتي تمتد إلى الحقل الاقتصادي ليس في لبنان بل في فلسطين المحتلة. السابقة تجعل المقاومة الفلسطينية تسلك الطريق نفسه في استعادة حقوق فلسطين في استخراج الغاز والنفط في المنطقة الاقتصادية البحرية لقطاع غزّة وذلك بغض النظر عن المشهد السياسي الداخلي الفلسطيني الذي يشبه المشهد اللبناني في الانقسام الحاد بين السلطة الفلسطينية والمقاومة في غزّة. فالحق بيد القوّة والقوّة ببوز المدفع (رحمك الله يا عمر الزعنّي).
الملاحظة الرابعة تتعلّق بالبعد الاقتصادي للغاز والنفط في مستقبل الاقتصاد اللبناني. وهنا نختلف مع اللذين يربطون الخروج من الأزمة الحالية الاقتصادية المالية التي تعصف بلبنان بل تهدّد وجود الدولة والكيان مع استخراج النفط. فمعظم التقارير تفيد بأن استخراج النفط والغاز لن يبصر النور قبل عدّة سنوات تتراوح بين 3 و8 سنوات وفقا لتلك التقديرات ليصبح السؤال الملح ما العمل حتى ذلك الحين؟
من جهة أخرى إن الأزمة الاقتصادية في لبنان أزمة بنيوية وليست ظرفية كي يحلّها استخراج النفط والغاز. والمنتدى الاقتصادي الاجتماعي قد أعدّ ورقة استشرافية توصف مفاصل الأزمة وترسم خارطة طريق للخروج من الأزمة وفقا لأولويات تعالج فورا وفي المدى المتوسط والمدى الطويل. وهذه خارطة الطريق لا تستند لا من بعيد ولا من قريب على النفط والغاز. فلبنان غني أكثر مما يتصوّره البعض. فالنخب الحاكمة ومن يدور في فلكها استطاعت استخراج أكثر من 130 مليار دولار نقدا على مدى ثلاثة عقود وذلك دون أخذ بعين الاعتبار الأصول الثابتة والأملاك التي استولت عليها. فحجم الدين العام والخسارات التي يراكمها مصرف لبنان مؤشر فعلي لحجم الثروات التي استخرجت من لبنان.
والخطة الاقتصادية التي يقترحها المنتدى الاقتصادي والاجتماعي تدعو إلى إعادة هيكلة الدين العام عبر تحميل المصارف والمسؤولين الذين استفادوا من ذلك، وإعادة هيكلة النظام المصرفي لتحويله إلى مصلحة ذي منفعة عامة وليس للربح، وعبر خيارات وسياسات اقتصادية تؤدّي إلى تطوير البنى التحتية وتشجيع القطاعات الإنتاجية وإعادة النظر في المنظومة التربوية وإعادة النظر بالنظام الصحّي كي يصبح الاستشفاء حقّا وليس امتيازا وكذلك الأمر بالنسبة للتعليم. كما أن العلاقة مع الكتلة الاوراسية ودول الجنوب الشامل تأخذ الأولوية في التعاطي الخارجي. وكل ذلك يتطلّب قرارا سياسيا يحدّد فيه الخيارات والسياسات المطلوبة. والسؤال البديهي المطروح هل تستطيع النخب الحاكمة اتخاذ ذلك القرار؟ أو هل ترغب في اتخاذه؟ فهذا القرار يتطلّب اصلاحا جذريا للنظام السياسي والاقتصادية والاجتماعي قد يلغي أو يحدّ من امتيازاتها وقدرتها على السيطرة على مقدّرات البلاد وهذا من الصعب تصوّره. فالعصبيات الطائفية والمذهبية أقوى من التحدّيات التي تواجه الوطن. فلا الجوع ولا الفقر يوحدان اللبنانيين الذين يفضّلون الهجرة ولا التخلّي عن الزعامات الطائفية والمذهبية التي أوصلت البلاد إلى الانهيار.
هنا يصبح السؤال: ما هو الحل؟ لا نعتقد أن النفط والغاز هما الحل في ظل منظومة سياسية فاسدة وغير كفؤة إلاّ في الهدر والنهب. كما لا نعتقد أن النفط والغاز يشكّلان ضرورة للخروج من الأزمة التي يمرّ بها لبنان. ففي أحسن الأحوال قد (ونشدّد على «قد») يشكّلان عاملين مساعدين لإطلاق اقتصاد إنتاجي. الريع يهدّد مجدّدا الاقتصاد اللبناني فننتقل من المستوى الكارثي القائم إلى مستوى أكثر كارثية. فالنعمة ستتحول إلى نقمة مع وجود المنظومة السياسية المتسلّطة لأنها غير معنية بإيجاد حلول. ولا نعتقد أن المكوّنات الشعبية قادرة أو راغبة في تجاوز العقد التي يفرضها النظام القائم والتي يستفيد منها المتسلّطون. لذلك لا نعتقد أن الحل قد يأتي من الداخل اللبناني بل من الخارج. اللبنانيون عاجزون عن صنع استقلالهم السياسي والاقتصادي وإن استطاعوا تحرير الأرض من المحتّل الصهيوني. لكن مفهوم السيادة متنازع عليه بين مكوّنات الوطن وبالتالي يستطيع العامل الخارجي التسلّل وفرض الحل. في الماضي كان الغرب متحكّما بمفاصل القرار في لبنان وحتى الساعة. لكن موازين القوّة تغيّرت لصالح القوى المتخاصمة مع الغرب إقليميا ودوليا. وإذا كان لبنان حاجة للاستقرار الإقليمي فالقوى الإقليمية بما فيها العربية ستكون عرّابة لحلّ ما للبنان. لكن عجز النخب اللبنانية في صوغ مشروع وطني يلتف حوله اللبنانيون يجعل جدوى استقلال لبنان ككيان أمرا جديرا بالبحث وللأسف الشديد.
*باحث وكاتب اقتصادي سياسي وعضو الهيئة التأسيسية للمنتدى الاقتصادي والاجتماعي
Progressive Democratic Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (front) and Ilhan Abdullahi Omar (center) pose for a photograph at Capitol Hill. (AP file photo)
Progressive Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says that the United States is “facing an environment of fascism” similar to the days of Jim Crow in the leadup to the 2022 midterms which Democrats are likely to lose to Republicans.
Federal officials at the Department of Homeland Security and FBI have warned of a “heightened threat” ahead of the midterm elections charged by violent extremism, CBS News reported
What they’re saying: “We are really truly facing an environment of fascism in the United States of America. This type of intimidation at the polls brings us to Jim Crow,” Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) told MSNBC on Friday about reports of intimidation at Arizona ballot boxes.
“It brings us back and harkens back to a very unique form of American apartheid that is not that long past ago,” she added. “And we have never fully healed from it and those wounds threaten to rip right back open if we do not strongly defend democracy in the United States of America.”
US authorities released a bulletin on Friday that said domestic violent extremists pose a threat of violence for the 2022 midterms and the days after.
“Following the 2022 midterm election, perceptions of election-related fraud and dissatisfaction with electoral outcomes likely will result in heightened threats of violence against a broad range of targets ― such as ideological opponents and election workers,” the bulletin reads, according to CNN.
CBS reported that these extremists may target state and local government buildings following the election.
The bulletin was issued on the same day as the attack on US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband at their residence in San Francisco.
Speaking at a political event in Pennsylvania hours after Paul Pelosi was attacked and gravely injured by an intruder, US President Joe Biden blamed the Republican Party, increasingly influenced by the political vitriol of former President Donald Trump, for “too much political violence.”
“There’s too much violence, political violence, too much hatred, too much vitriol,” Biden said.
“And what makes us think that one party can talk about ‘stolen elections,’ ‘COVID being a hoax,’ ‘this is all a bunch of lies,’ and it not affect people who may not be so well balanced? What makes us think that it’s not going to corrode the political climate?” Biden added.
Paul Pelosi was attacked and severely beaten by an assailant with a hammer, according to people familiar with the matter.
Pelosi, 82, suffered blunt force trauma to his head and body, according to two people with knowledge of the investigation into the attack who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing probe.
The assailant is in custody, and the motivation for the attack is under investigation, the spokesman said.
Meanwhile, Democrats are worried they could lose control of both chambers of Congress on November 8 which would give Republicans the power to bring Biden’s legislative agenda to a halt. Biden’s unpopularity is helping drive this view.
Biden’s term has been marked by the economic scars of the global health crisis, including soaring inflation. Biden’s popularity hit a record low of 36 percent in May and June.
US consumer inflation hit a 40-year high of 8.6 percent in the 12 months through May, with gasoline marking a record high and the cost of food soaring, Labor Department data showed.
The surging costs have become a political headache for the Biden administration, which has tried several measures to lower prices but said much of the responsibility to control inflation falls to the Federal Reserve.
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سرّبت السلطة أخباراً ادّعت فيها أنها تَوافقت مع قيادة «الأسود» على تسليم البنا نفسه (أ ف ب)
أثار إقدام القيادي في «عرين الأسود»، محمود البنا، على تسليم نفسه لأجهزة السلطة الفلسطينية جدلاً واضطراباً في الشارع الفلسطيني، اضطرّا المجموعة التي استُشهد للتوّ قائدها، وديع الحَوح، إلى إصدار بيان توضيحي تبرّأت فيه من خطوة البنا وأكدت أنها «بألف خير». وإذ لا تُنكر مصادر من داخل المجموعة تأثير تلك الخطوة على «الأسود»، فهي تؤكّد أن ثمّة «قيادة عميقة» للحالة الناشئة في نابلس، لم تصل إليها يد العدو أو السلطة، فيما تأتي محاولة فلسطينيَّين اثنَين تنفيذ عملية فدائية عند حاجز حوارة أمس، لتُثبت أن الرابط في ما بين «العرين» والفعل المقاوم في الضفة، أكبر، إلى الآن، من أن تتمكّن إسرائيل من اجتثاثه
تسير مجموعة «عرين الأسود» على حدّ السكّين. بعد استشهاد قائدها وديع الحَوح وأربعة من رفاقه، تلقّت المجموعة، التي تتّخذ من البلدة القديمة في نابلس معقلاً لها، ضربة معنوية، تَمثّلت في قيام أحد أكبر قادتها، محمود البنا، ومعه أربعة من المقاتلين، بتسليم أنفسهم ليل الأربعاء – الخميس، إلى الأجهزة الأمنية الفلسطينية، بذريعة تأمينهم من عملية اغتيال إسرائيلية متوقّعة. وقالت ليلى، شقيقة البنا، في منشور عبر صفحتها في «فيسبوك»، إن «عائلة محمود ووالدته وشقيقاته بذلوا جهوداً كبيرة لإقناعه بتسليم نفسه وترك السلاح، وخصوصاً أنه الأخ الوحيد المتبقّي لديهم، بعد مقتل شقيقه محمد في أحد سجون جهاز الاستخبارات في رام الله». وأضافت ليلى: «الحمد لله إنو رح يضلّلنا سند، نشكر ربنا إنو اقتنع، ونشكر كلّ واحد ساهم في إقناعه».
على أن خروج البنا من الصفّ القيادي لـ«العرين»، والذي عدّه مقرّبون من الجماعة «ضربة لا تقلّ ألماً عن استشهاد الحَوح»، عملت السلطة على استغلاله وتوظيفه منذ اللحظة الأولى. إذ سرّبت عبر منصّات ومواقع إلكترونية مقرّبة منها أخباراً ادّعت فيها أنها تَوافقت مع قيادة «الأسود» على تسليم البنا نفسه، لحمايته من التصفية. كما نشرت عدّة بيانات باسم مجموعات «كتائب شهداء الأقصى» في نابلس، حاولت فيها غسل يد الأجهزة الأمنية من الدور الذي تمارسه لتقويض الحالة التي تمثّلها «العرين»، حينما ذكرت أن «تسليم البنا ورفاقه أنفسهم، هو خطوة تكتيكية للمحافظة على استدامة العمل». كلّ تلك الفوضى استدعت توضيحاً من «الأسود»، التي نشرت، لاحقاً، بياناً أعلنت فيها أنها لم تخوّل أيّ طرف من الأطراف تسليم أيٍّ من مقاتليها، وأن «مَن يقوم بتسليم نفسه، هذا قراره وخياره ولا نناقشه به حتى»، داعيةً المواطنين إلى «التوقّف عن تداول الإشاعات، وعدم الإساءة إلى أيّ مقاتل سلّم نفسه». وأكدت أن «العرين بألف خير وفضل من الله، ونقول إن كان أبو صالح وعبود وإبراهيم والوديع والمبسلط وأدهم والدخيل قد مضوا، فإن المنتظرين الصادقين كثر».
لا يقلّل مصدر مقرّب من المجموعة من تأثير ما أقدم عليه القيادي محمود البنا
من جهته، قال البنا، في منشور عبر صفحته في «فيسبوك»، إنه سلّم نفسه لـ«إخواننا» في الأجهزة الأمنية، «بعد مشاورتي لإخواني في النضال أنا ورفاق دربي»، حتى «يحمونا من هذا المحتلّ الغاشم الذي حاول تنفيذ إبادة جماعية لنا في آخر عملية اغتيال»، مضيفاً: «نحن لم نُسلّم لننتهي، إنما للحق جولات». إلّا أن الصدمة التي أحدثتْها خطوة البنا ورفاقه، استدعت تصريحات من العديد من الشخصيات ذات الحضور الرمزي، في محاولة لرفع المعنويات وجبْر الكسر، ولا سيما أن الصحافة الإسرائيلية أطلقت موجة احتفاء بما سمّته «القضاء على ظاهرة العرين». إذ قال موقع «إنتلي نيوز» العبري: «عرين الأسود على وشْك الزوال من الوجود. هذه ضربة معنوية شديدة للجمهور الفلسطيني الذي علّق آماله على التنظيم»، فيما ردّت والدة الشهيد إبراهيم النابلسي على ذلك بالقول: «أُطمئِنكم أن العرين حيّ وقوي وثابت، وأُسوده أبطال كما تعرفونهم على الدوام، ولا يتراجعون للحظة، فقطار الحرية انطلق ولن يتوقّف». وفي ما بدا كمكافأة لمحافظ نابلس، بوصْفه «عرّاب الإنجاز»، أعلن الاحتلال، أوّل من أمس، فكّ الحصار بشكل جزئي عن المدينة. لا يقلّل مصدر مقرّب من «عرين الأسود» من تأثير ما أقدم عليه القيادي البنا، ولا سيما أن الأخير كان المرشّح الأبرز لملء الفراغ التي تركه الشهيد الحَوح، غير أنه ينبّه إلى أن «الصورة لم تتّضح بعد، هناك تفاصيل ليس من الجيّد الحديث فيها على الصعيد الأمني». ويؤكد عامر محمد (اسم مستعار)، وهو أحد مقاتلي «العرين»، بدوره، في حديثه إلى «الأخبار»، أنه على رغم الضربات التي تلقّتها المجموعة خلال الأيام الأخيرة، إلّا أن «ثمّة قيادة عميقة للحالة، لم تصل إليها يد الأجهزة الأمنية الفلسطينية، ولم تستطع إسرائيل ضربها»، مضيفاً إن «تلك القيادة هي مَن تتولّى حالياً تسيير شؤون الأسود». ويبيّن أن «قيادة الظلّ كانت تعمل مِن خارج دائرة الميدان، لذا فهي التي تنظّم اليوم عمل المقاتلين، وإذا كانت روح المقاومة لدينا حاضرة، وهناك قيادة تدير الموقف، فلن يضرّنا شيء».
وفي الاتّجاه نفسه، يرى الباحث السياسي مجد ضرغام أن «الضربات التي تلقّتها العرين ستؤثّر بلا شكّ على اندفاع هذه الجماعة وديناميكيتها»، غير أنها «ستُكسبها مزيداً من الهدوء، وضبط الخطاب الإعلامي، والتعاطي مع الأزمات (…)»، بحسبه. ويرى ضرغام، في حديث إلى «الأخبار»، أن «السلطة وإسرائيل لم تُحسنا فهم الحضور الوجداني للعرين ومقاتليها في الشارع، لذا، فإن خطواتهما الميدانية قاصرة عن القضاء على الظاهرة جذرياً»، لافتاً إلى أن «هناك جنديَّين في جهاز الدفاع المدني حاولا تنفيذ عملية عند حاجز حوارة القريب من نابلس يوم أمس، ما أدّى إلى استشهادهما. بالتأكيد، هما ليسا من العناصر المنضوية في تشكيل العرين، لكن الرابط بين قرارهما القيام بالفعل المقاوم، والعرين، هو الذي لا تستطيع إسرائيل ولا السلطة تقويضه».
Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s speech on the maritime delimitation agreement and the critical stages of negotiations 10/29-2022
Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah explains the details of the maritime border agreement that gave Lebanon its rights in the Mediterranean Sea.
After years of talks about there being a wealth of natural resources in the Lebanese territorial waters in the Mediterranean Sea, Lebanon was in need of demarcating its maritime borders, Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said on Saturday in the wake of Beirut and “Tel Aviv” signing a US-mediated agreement on the Lebanese maritime borders.
“The land borders between occupied Palestine and Lebanon were drawn up by the French and British mandates, but the maritime borders were not demarcated,” Sayyed Nasrallah said.
“Lebanon, in the battle of the demarcation of the southern maritime borders that started with a Greek ship docking in the area and ended with documents being handed over in Al-Naqoura, was able to obtain all of its demands except for one issue,” the Hezbollah chief underlined.
During a televised speech in the wake of the signing of the US-mediated agreement, Sayyed Nasrallah described the results of the indirect talks as important and a major historic victory for Lebanon. However, “a small area of 2.5 square kilometers is still outstanding, and Lebanon insists that it is occupied.”
“Lebanon bore all the pressures, the blockade, the strain of time, and all the risks, insisting on obtaining Line 23, all of the blocs in full, and even more,” he added. “Even in terms of the demarcation of the maritime border with Cyprus, Lebanon’s share of its exclusive maritime zone will increase after a deal is struck.”
“The Israeli enemy recognized the balance of deterrence with the Resistance as a result of what happened on the issue of the demarcation of the maritime borders,” Sayyed Nasrallah underlined. “There is nothing even remotely close to normalization or a recognition of the Israeli enemy after the agreement on the demarcation of the maritime border.”
“Everything that happened did not grant Lebanon any security guarantees, and if there were any security guarantees made discreetly, [Israeli occupation Prime Minister Yair] Lapid and others would have displayed them to the public, as they are in a dire need for those guarantees.”
“One of the conditions that led to the deal is the heroic Resistance in the occupied West Bank, as the occupation’s current state is one of the many conditions that helped with this achievement,” he stressed. “The Israeli enemy is not ready for war due to the internal divides it has […] Lebanon was able to take over the current historic circumstances to conclude the demarcation agreement.”
“The official position, along with the threat of the Resistance and its readiness, sending drones and amassing popular support, contributed to the completion of the demarcation agreement,” the Lebanese Resistance leader added.
He explained that the US blockade on Lebanon led the Lebanese people to become more accepting of high-risk options to reclaim the oil wealth, even at the risk of war with the Israeli occupation.
Lebanon’s rights to expand
“In light of the demarcation of the maritime borders, Lebanon is specifying the gas and oil blocs,” he added. “There is something called territorial waters, which have their own mechanism, there are the adjacent waters, and there is a part called the exclusive economic zone.”
“The territorial waters are part of the country, and the Lebanese state has full sovereignty over these waters and it benefits from its resources,” he explained. “Line 23 imposes on Lebanon the liberation of that maritime area under the banner of territorial waters and an exclusive maritime zone, which is a national cause.”
“The Lebanese state saw that Line 23 is the maritime borders, leaving the door open for amendments,” the Lebanese Resistance leader said. “We said it before, and we reiterate that the Resistance does not intervene in the maritime border demarcation for various reasons. We say that we will adhere to the decisions taken by the state of Lebanon.”
“Those speaking against Line 29, carry on with your struggle without making others seem like traitors,” he stressed.
“The enemy drew Line 1 from Al-Naqoura and considered that it was its maritime zone, prohibiting anyone from exploring the area after Lebanon claimed its rights in the zone,” Sayyed Nasrallah said.
“There was a prohibition from the United States regarding the exploration and drilling for oil in light of the blockade on Lebanon and the pressure on the Lebanese state to give up the borders it had in mind and accept Line 1,” the Resistance leader explained. “The companies that had for years signed agreements on working in the southern blocs, prior to the demarcation, were prohibited from doing so by the United States.”
“The enemy exercised its authority in this zone, practicing hegemony on the blocs that fell on the border with Lebanon and claimed them as its own, saying they fell within its exclusive economic zone,” Sayyed Nasrallah highlighted.
“As per the data being circulated, the area between Line 1 and Line 23 is 876 square kilometers,” he added. “The first mediator, Frederick Hoff, proposed a line, which he saw posed as a settlement, between Line 1 and Line 23, giving 45% of the area to the enemy and 55% to Lebanon […] this was very unfair toward Lebanon.”
“The Americans exerted pressure on everyone, but the official Lebanese stance remained in rejection of Hoff’s line,” he underlined. “Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, during all of these negotiations, did not give a single concession and bore the burdens until we reached a stage where he announced the end of his direct responsibility for the issue.”
“The responsibility of following up on the negotiations was transferred from Speaker Berri to President Michel Aoun as of September 22, 2020,” he recalled. “The issue was transferred from safe hands to safe hands, and from a proclaimed man of steel to another proclaimed man of steel.”
New phase in the demarcation process of the maritime borders
Sayyed Nasrallah stated that, “After the change of the American administration, the American mediator, Amos Hochstein, was assigned and presented a new advanced proposal that extends beyond Hoff’s proposal, but he did not respond to the Lebanese proposal and demands, and thus began implementing a new forein policy approach in the region and across the world.”
Furthermore, he said that “at this stage, a ship directed towards the Karish field approached to begin oil and gas extraction. Here, a completely new stage began.”
Sayyed Nasrallah noted that at that time “the Resistance took a higher stake and a firm stance that it would not allow the Israelis to extract oil from Karish before an agreement that meets Lebanon’s demands has been reached.”
The Secretary-General added that “for the Zionist, the Resitance’s anouncement of its new position came as a surprise.” Noting that the discussed agreement must be reached throuh indirect negotiations that respond to Lebanon’s demands.
Sayyed Nasrallah also highlihted that “based on this threat, we are in front of a whole new phase, and this means that we have set up an equation beyond Karish and all the existing facilities that can be hit through the Lebanese Islamic Resistance’s missiles.”
He stressed that “the official Lebanese position; unified and strong, and the threat from the Resistance practically led to putting Israel under severe pressure,” noting that “the Israelis did not have the ability to wage war or to abolish Karish, so the only solution they had was to adhere to the indirect negotiations.”
According to Sayyed Nasrallah, “The negotiations regarding the demarcation of the Lebanese maritime borders were never easy, even the signing of the last agreement was a difficult process.” Adding that, “There was a big problem regarding the management of the Qana field and the extent of Lebanon’s rights. Meanwhile, the Americans were intending to implicate the Lebanese negotiating team in a normalization process, even in the slightest way.”
Significantly, the Secretary-General noted that “at certain times, the negotiations reached a dead-end and we were at the brink of a war,” but “the solidity and steadfastness of the Lebanese negotiator and the heads of state was very essential to the negotiation process. Simultaneously, the enemy issued threats of mass destruction while the Americans pressured Lebanon to accept settlements that are not in its favor.”
He added, “We launched the drones, asserting that the field data the Resistance had accumulated confirmed that it was preparing for a comprehensive war, and the Israelis realized that.”
The Resistance leader underscored that “Lebanon was strong, using all of its strength and might, because it did not fear all of the US and Zionist pressures, nor heading toward war.”
“The state’s official position adopted the Resistance’s threats, and it was wise throughout the negotiations process.”
“We did not commit any wrongdoing, and action was taken at the required level […] when national interest requires bypassing the rules of engagement, the Resistance will not hesitate, even if the the situation requires waging war,” Sayyed Nasrallah asserted.
He once again underlined that no party will be able to extract its natural resources if Lebanon was prevented from doing so.
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A Jewish settler was killed and five others wounded in a shooting attack on the illegal Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arba in the occupied Palestinian city of Al Khalil, Hebron, Israeli media reported late Saturday.
Israeli sources also claimed that the attacker was killed by Israeli occupation forces in the area.
The shooting operation on Israeli MK Itamar Ben-Gvir's house in the illegal settlement of Kiryat Arba.
According to reports, it seems that the attack on the settlement was not random, targeting instead the house of extremist Knesset member Itamar Ben-Gvir.
Ben-Gvir is known for his violent rhetoric and incitement against Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem and West Bank.
News about the targeting of Ben-Gvir’s house, however, remains contested in Israeli media. While Israeli Channel 7 confirmed that Ben-Gvir’s house was the target, other Israeli sources claimed that the attacker targeted an Israeli military checkpoint.
Palestinian news agency Quds News Network said that the attacker was a Palestinian young man by the name of Mohammad Kamal Jabari.
RT Arabic website also said that a Palestinian paramedic was shot while trying to respond to an emergency call of a Palestinian wounded near the Kiryat Arba settlement. The paramedic is currently being treated at the al-Ahli hospital.
Moreover, Israeli media said that one of the settlers is in a critical condition.
The Nablus Battalion of al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad resistance movement, announced that its fighters carried out on Friday evening a shooting operation on the ‘Israeli’ occupation’s al-Murabba Checkpoint western Nablus, and left the spot unharmed.
Additionally, the Nablus Battalion of al-Quds Brigades targeted Shaked Settlement with heavy barrages of fire.
At the same time, confrontations broke out between Palestinian youths and the ‘Israeli’ occupation forces in Beit Dajan eastern Nablus in the occupied West Bank.
Other confrontations with the occupation forces took place in Ayda Refugee Camp northern Bethlehem, and the al-Aroub Refugee Camp northern al-Khalil.
In parallel, the Zionist regime forces launched gas bombs towards houses and properties of the Palestinian people, and kidnapped a boy named Mohammad Yasser Darwish from the holy city of al-Quds.
Posted on October 29, 2022 by uprootedpalestinians
October 29, 2022
The United Nations warned in March that millions of Yemenis are at the brink of starvation as a result of the economic collapse caused by the Saudi-led aggression on Yemen for the seventh year in a row, calling for “urgent measures to be taken.”
By Staff, Agencies
Yemen needs an urgent political solution that culminates in the country reaching a solution that ends the suffering caused by the war on the country, which has been going on for eight years, the International Committee of the Red Cross [ICRC] said on Friday.
“Two out of three Yemenis are currently suffering from food insecurity, i.e., about 19 million people,” said the Director of Operations at the International Committee of the Red Cross Martin Schuepp on Twitter during his visit to Yemen.
“Many more suffer from a lack of access to basic health care, yet despite all this, Yemen is too often out of the spotlight. We need to ensure that the support we receive from donors and partners continues to enable us to continue our work,” Schuepp added.
The UN official explained that “the ICRC is dealing with urgent needs and at the same time trying to come up with solutions that would allow the country to catch a breath”. However, he stressed that a “full recovery in the long term will be possible only with a political solution to the ongoing conflict.”
“During the visit, I personally saw local doctors, together with ICRC staff, treating people with gun wounds in a local emergency department, and I spoke to farmers whose livelihoods were severely damaged during the years of conflict,” said the Red Cross operations director. “We are trying to provide them with some additional income to restore their livelihoods.”
For almost eight years, numerous treaties and laws were violated by the Saudi-UAE aggression coalition, but no international action was taken. Yemen is now known as the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, but officials only had empty statements and imposed double standards.
Other than the numerous bombardments, the coalition attacked hospitals and human aid warehouses and imposed an aerial and naval blockade on Yemen, violating Articles 9, 11, 14, and 18 of the Additional Protocol II.
Earlier this year, the Eye of Humanity Center for Rights and Development in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, announced that the number of civilian casualties as a result of the Saudi-led coalition’s direct bombing over the past seven years resulted in 46,262 casualties, between martyrs and wounded.
The aggression has so far caused 17,734 deaths, among which are 4017 children, 2434 women, and 11,283 men, while the number of those wounded reached 28,528, including 4,586 children, 2,911 women, and 10,032 men.
In the same context, Entisaf Organization for Child and Women’s Rights in Sanaa reported that the siege imposed by the aggression caused the loss of 100,000 newborns, at a rate of six children every two hours, in addition to more than 3,000 children with cancer who are at risk of death.
The United Nations warned in March that millions of Yemenis are at the brink of starvation as a result of the economic collapse caused by the Saudi-led aggression on Yemen for the seventh year in a row, calling for “urgent measures to be taken.”
Lion’s Den battalion called out those who think that the battalion will demise or that they have information on it as delusional while saluting the Resistance fighters that fought along them in Nablus
The Lion’s Den (Areen Al-Ousoud) battalion in Nablus.
The Areen Al-Ousoud (The Lions’ Den) Palestinian Resistance battalion said on Friday that it is, “those who presume that the Lion’s Den will demise and those who assume that they possess information about the group are the most delusional.”
The Areen Al-Ousoud (The Lions’ Den) Palestinian Resistance battalion said on Friday that it is, “those who presume that the Lion’s Den will demise and those who assume that they possess information about the group are the most delusional.”
In a statement, the group pointed out that, “the real fighters of the Lions’ Den were divided into three sections; Martyrs in God’s heavens, wounded fighters on the path of continued Resistance and those who await. They are the soldiers of God known only to him.”
The group continued, “Even if only one soldier from us remains, he will be martyred so that the idea of resistance will continue,” and asked, “What homeland is this in which we reconcile with the enemy shedding our blood?” adding that “the cowards are restless.”
“May God take away any rifle that does not confront the enemy and does not think about engaging them,” the group stated.
The battalion highlighted the Resistance fighters that have fought in the battle against the Israeli occupation in Nablus, “As for you, the ones who told commander Wadih that he will not be left alone and have engaged in a heroic battle, and no matter how much the occupation tries to hide it (achievements of the battle), its results will appear”.
“Our brothers in the Balata Battalion, the hornets’ nest battalion, the Jenin Battalion, and the Askar Battalion, we shall meet soon in battle side to side God willing,” the statement continued.
The Lions’ Den battalion also addressed the Palestinians, “Residents of our besieged city, go out and look at the roads of the settlers, for by God they are empty and the settlers are besieged.”
The Balata Battalion responded to the statement of the Lions saying: “a message to our brothers in arms and blood and partners in battles, you are not alone”.
“The Balata battalion will always be present shoulder to shoulder and fighting as one against the occupation,” the battalion’s statement said.
In this context, Israeli media reported on Friday that, “no one in the security and military establishment can say that the phenomenon of the Lions ‘Den will not multiply.”
This comes shortly after Areen Al-Ousoud revealed some details pertaining to the night Israeli occupation forces stormed the city of Nablus, during which one of the organization’s ranking members, Wadih Al-Houh, was martyred, along with five other Palestinians. Lions’ Den stressed that its leadership lured the occupation to the operation in the old city of Nablus.
The Lions’ Den consists of groups that include members of various Palestinian factions in Nablus and Jenin, in the northern occupied West Bank.
The head of Cardio-Thoracic surgery at Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba, Prof. Gideon Sahar, was heavily criticized on 24 October, after raising concerns about the high birth rate among the Bedouin population during a factional meeting in the southern Omer with Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked, according to Middle East Eye.
“On the one hand, we understand that the birthrate is decisive – the Arab womb; and on the other hand, we encourage it with all the child allowances. That’s why I think we should consider a child allowance that is regressive: the first child receives one, the second child receives one, perhaps the third child; the fourth child does not, and the fifth child perhaps triggers a fine. We have to figure out something,” said Prof. Gideon Sahar.
Sahar suggested imposing a fine on Bedouin families upon the birth of a fifth child. Shaked replied that such a policy “won’t work,” citing her program for fighting polygamy among the Bedouin community, wherein “westernization” encourages women to have fewer children.
“The best solution would be to simply westernize them, to emancipate Bedouin women,” she said. “The more they study and the more they work, the more they will live a Western life – and in that life, there will be less room for children.”
On the other hand, a group representing Arab physicians in the Naqab has filed a formal complaint with the administration of Soroka hospital, expressing outrage at Sahar’s description of Palestinians and the “Arab womb” as “problematic,” according to Middle East Eye.
The Association of Arab Doctors of the Negev demanded that Sahar be “dismissed immediately.” In a letter, the group stated that “anyone who views ‘Arab women’s wombs’ as a threat has no place in the healthcare system and they should not be able to take care of Arab heart problems under any circumstances.”
Meanwhile, a report released on 18 October by the UN’s Special Rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, has recommended that UN member states develop “a plan to end the Israeli settler-colonial occupation and apartheid regime.”
“The realization of the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination requires the definitive dismantling of Israel’s colonial occupation and apartheid practices,” wrote Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur.
According to the report, nearly 4,500 Palestinians are currently detained, 730 of whom are held without charge and largely on the basis of secret evidence, while children as young as 12 are subjected to arbitrary arrests and detention measures – between 500 and 700 minors are detained by the Israeli government each year.
Christians are an integral part of Palestine, the region’s social fabric and the Arab world’s identity as a whole. Despite the Collective and Historic-West’s active attempt to isolate and contain the Christian role in the struggle for national liberation through the resettlement of Arab and Palestinian Christians in exile, it remains that the formation of the Arab national identity, through the entirety of its social fabric, is rooted in their unified historical and cultural background and identity.
“We will not kneel! Yes, we seek peace but we will not surrender.”
There is a direct correlation between the extent to which people value their lives and their willingness to defend the Arab identity of Palestine, which is integral to the Arab social fabric of the entire region. This correlation between Arabs and their land has manifested as Resistance movements across the Arab world. More specifically, it became visible in liberation movements seeking to liberate Palestine from the settler colonial entity of “Israel” as a primary front for Arab liberation from Western hegemony. This is to say that “Israel” is merely an agent of hegemony seeking to ensure the continuous security and sustainability of the Western project of the New Middle East as it was initially developed through the enforcement of the Balfour Declaration and Sykes-Picot agreement.
As Palestinians and Arabs sacrifice their lives for liberation, the narrative of Christians, be it in Palestine or across the Arab world, is being purposefully obliterated. Having systematically fragmented the Christian voice of Palestinians and the surrounding Sykes-Picot-generated entities through settler colonialism and fragmentation practices, it has become necessary to dissect the Western-led Israeli narrative, despite all Western efforts to obstruct that process, and highlight the engagement of the Christian segment in liberation movements, be it armed resistance or otherwise, across the Arab world.
Christians are an integral part of the region’s social fabric and of the Arab world’s identity as a whole. Despite the Collective and Historic West’s active attempt to isolate and contain the Christian segment’s role in the struggle for national liberation through the resettlement of Arab and Palestinian Christians in exile, it remains that the formation of the Arab national identity, through the entirety of its social fabric ―Christians, Muslims, Druze, Jews, and all minority groups and confessions― is rooted in their unified historical and cultural background and identity.
“Israel” isolates Christians from Palestine and the cause
The Palestinian people, both Muslim and Christian alike, believe that the land upon which people walk, in Palestine, and Al-Quds more specifically, is sacred. The Greek Orthodox Archbishop of Sebastia, Atallah Hanna, has consecrated on several occasions the relationship between the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and the Al-Aqsa Mosque. He reaffirmed the Arab identity of Al-Quds, that of both its land and people, as an integral part of the larger Arab world in the face of the settler colonial entity that is considered the primary threat in the path toward Arab liberation.
Since the 1948 Nakba of Palestine, the Haganah massacres that led to it, in addition to the establishment of the Israeli settler colonial entity, there has been an active and continuous attempt by the Israelis to alter the identity of Palestine. They sought to eliminate its Arab historic and cultural features in the hopes of putting an end to the righteous Arab Palestinian cause and thus legitimizing their settler existence, as well as the sustainability of the non-nations of Sykes-Picot. The Zionist entity, in other words, looked to install the foreverness of a fragmented Arab national identity.
In this regard, Christian Palestinians did not stand idle, nor did they ever abandon the Palestinian struggle, nor their Arab identity, neither at home nor in exile. Archbishop Hanna reaffirmed that the settler colonial entity threatened the Arab social fabric, history, and national identity, and noted that it cannot “remove Al-Quds from the Palestinian conscience, be it that of Christians or Muslims.”
He further called on Palestinian Christians everywhere “not to forget their church,” adding that Palestine “is their spiritual roots and their national roots, they belong here, and their identity is rooted in this region’s history. They must never forget their Palestinian heritage.”
Brothers in Arms
On October 23, 2022, the Israeli occupation assassinated Tamer Al-Kilani, a Palestinian Resistance fighter from the Lions’ Den group in the West Bank’s Nablus, via a TNT device planted on a motorcycle next to his.
This marks the latest of the ever-ongoing assassination policy of the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) against Palestinian Resistance leaders. However, since the beginning of 2022, the IOF has intensified its assassinations and has even used drones and TNT devices to conduct them.
While many Christian resistance fighters became renowned in the earlier stages of the Palestinian struggle, such as Ghassan Kanafani and Georges Habash, since the Second Intifada, there became a generation of Arabs – both Christian and Muslim – that have questioned the role of Christians in Palestinian liberation movements.
In 2006, shortly after the end of the Second Intifada, there was a general decision between Palestinian Resistance groups and the Palestinian Authority to de-escalate. During that time, two young men were assassinated for insisting on carrying the legacy of those that were martyred before them.
Martyr Daniel Abu Hamama, in his early 20s at the time, was assassinated alongside martyr Ahmed Musleh who was around the same age, on Easter Sunday after they were driven into an ambush. In 1990, Abu Hamama joined the Palestinian Authority’s special forces apparatus, seeking a job to support his family. As the confrontations intensified prior to the start of the Second Intifada, Abu Hamama joined the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the military wing of Fatah.
The IOF assassinate Palestinian Resistance fighters Martyrs Daniel Abu Hamama and Ahmad Musleh in 2006
The IOF’s bullets obstructed Abu Hamama’s path to Beit Lahm in the West Bank, preventing him from attending the Easter celebration with his family and loved ones.
That evening, the IOF bullets turned Daniel’s holiday delight into a reminder that the way of the Cross ends in resurrection and is the only way to salvation.
His blood quenched the soil that Christians consider the birthplace of Christianity. The assassination targeted the car Abu Hamama was in with his two friends, Martyr Ahmed Musleh and Arafat Abu Shaira, who was injured during the attempt.
According to an eyewitness who spoke to Al-Quds News, “When Daniel fell from the vehicle, bleeding, the occupation soldiers attacked, dragging him to the ground to a warehouse 15 meters away from the vehicle, taking off his clothes,” pointing out that “people in the neighboring area then heard the sound of gunfire inside, which made them believe there’s an interrogation. Then, an execution had taken place before an IOF ambulance came and held his body for two days.”
مقاتلون فلسطينيون يودعون رفيقهم المقاتل الشهيد دانيال أبو حمامة على أبواب كنيسة المهد في بيت لحم قبل إدخال الجثمان للصلاة عليه في الكنيسة – أبريل 2006.
His mother’s words ring notably: “Praise be to God, who honored our son by allowing him martyrdom in defense of the dear homeland,” noting that Abu Hamama has “always wished to be martyred.”
A School of Liberation Theology
Abu Hamama would not have been the first or last Christian to join Fatah. Long before him, the protector of Al-Quds and exiled freedom fighter Archbishop Hilarion Cappucci had assisted Fatah for years before he was arrested and then exiled.
Cappucci was known for having been both a clergyman and a freedom fighter, a boy from Syria’s Aleppo that refused to watch Palestine suffer. When Al-Aqsa Mosque called for help, he ordered for the bells of the Church of the Sepulcher to be tolled. In his approach toward the Palestinian struggle, Cappucci left behind him a legacy. He became a symbol of confrontation on the individual, religious, and national levels. A symbol of unity of ranks in purpose and fate, and thus a symbol of the Arab liberation theology uniting Christians and Muslims across the Arab and Islamic worlds.
In his own words, Cappucci summarized his legacy, and that of all those who have chosen to follow in his footsteps, when he said “We will not kneel! Yes, we seek peace but we will not surrender. What we demand is righteousness and justice, and God is righteousness and justice. And if God is with us, then who is against us? Therefore, our dark nights must end, and our chains must be broken.”
Furthermore, the Syrian Archbishop of Al-Quds also said “I, who have lived in Al-Quds for long, have prayed to the verses of its minarets and the tolling of its church bells. I have extended my hand, at times of adversity, to assist Palestinian freedom fighters…and because of that I was arrested and exiled,” calling on generations not to abandon this legacy for the sake of Palestine, and stressing that the people of the region depend on it.
Palestine will remain an Arab cause because it affects all of us living in the made-to-fragment Sykes-Picot entities. The liberation of Palestine and its people is the liberation of the Arab nation, and the first step towards the defragmentation of its social fabric, thereby allowing it to become a united nation capable of developing sustainable social, economic, and political organizations, and securing safety and prosperity for all the remaining minorities in the region on its own terms, without the Western dictations that have plagued the Arab world for far too long now.
It didn’t come as a surprise that the Daesh Takfiri group claimed responsibility for the dastardly terrorist attack at the revered Shah Cheragh shrine in Shiraz on Wednesday.
The modus operandi employed by the Kalashnikov-yielding terrorist who went on a rampage at the 12th-century shrine belonging to a descendant of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) was straight out of the Daesh playbook.
So, quite expectedly, the group in a statement posted on their website Amaq News bragged about the carnage, which left at least 15 people dead and dozens of others injured.
Among the victims were 4-year-old Artin’s parents and brother, who had gone to the shrine for evening prayers. Artin was lucky to survive and is recuperating from injuries at a local hospital in Shiraz.
The terrorist, whose identity hasn’t been disclosed yet, reportedly aimed to target the congregational prayers inside the main hall of the shrine, but the shrine staff shut the door on him, preventing a bigger massacre.
Let’s get this straight. Contrary to popular perception, Daesh hasn’t been decimated or consigned to the dustbin of history yet. The group, driven by the toxic Takfiri ideology, is very much active and thriving.
It reminds me of what Lebanese Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said some time ago. The self-anointed Daesh regime in Iraq and Syria was annihilated by the resistance axis led by Iran’s famed anti-terror commander Lt. Gen. Qassem Soleimani.
But, as a group and ideology, Daesh is still very much there – in Iraq, in Syria, in Afghanistan – overtly and covertly backed by Western powers.
It’s no secret how Daesh fighters were shipped from Iraq and Syria in military helicopters to Afghanistan, to fill the vacuum left by the US-led NATO military alliance. Those who deny this fact need a reality check.
This is the group that wreaked havoc in Iraq and Syria for years and continues to carry out diabolic attacks on religious and ethnic minorities in Afghanistan in line with the roguish agenda of Western hegemonic powers.
The far-right Takfiri ideology that drives these brainwashed terrorists, according to which anything not in sync with their rigid interpretation of religion must be exterminated, is essentially designed to sow seeds of discord among Muslims and malign the image of Islam. That is precisely where the interests of Daesh and Western powers converge.
The criminal collusion between them has been on full display in regional countries in recent years. And now they have shown the audacity to target the Islamic Republic of Iran, attacking the country’s sacred religious places and spilling innocent blood to incite sectarian tensions and civil war.
The last time Daesh footprints were spotted in Iran was in 2017 when the group targeted the mausoleum of the late founder of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini, and the parliament building, leaving at least 17 dead and hundreds of others injured.
This is a moment of reckoning for people in Iran, cutting across sectarian, regional, and ideological lines, to thwart evil plots designed to cause social disintegration in the country. It’s also important that regional countries join hands with the Islamic Republic to confront and defeat this hydra-headed monster before it swallows them.
The fact that Wednesday’s attack came amid foreign-backed unrest and riots in Iran makes it even more sinister and dastardly.
It won’t be an exaggeration to state that the anarchy and mobocracy seen across Iran in recent weeks essentially paved the ground for this cold-blooded massacre, which makes the Western powers that instigated rioters directly complicit in this diabolic crime.
As Iran’s foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian quite rightly remarked on Thursday, it’s a “multi-layered project” by enemies to fuel insecurity in the country.
What is also worth noting is the target chosen by the terrorist group – a holy shrine in a city known as Iran’s cultural capital. Shiraz, the capital of southern Fars province, is among the major tourist attractions in Iran, known for its picturesque gardens, ruins from Achaemenid era, mausoleums of legendary Persian poets Hafiz and Saadi, as well as the city’s rich heritage.
The objective appears to be fuelling insecurity, instilling fear, and turning Iran into another Afghanistan or Syria, so that tourists stop coming and locals live in constant fear.
There are very few hashtags for victims of Daesh terrorism in Shiraz, which is not surprising though. It goes to show not all lives matter. Had it been Paris or London or New York, it would be a different story altogether. But this is the Islamic Republic of Iran, the country that has singlehandedly challenged the hegemony of arrogant global powers and laid bare their evilness.
Hence, it’s only understandable why the corporate Western media, an extended arm of the Western military-industrial complex, has willfully shut its eyes to the bloodletting in Shiraz, treating it as a normal incident.
The same media brazenly distorted facts in the case of Mahsa Amini’s death and instigated deadly riots in Iran that cost many precious lives.
The self-righteous human rights advocates in the West, who miss no opportunity to decry Iranian authorities for using force to maintain law and order, especially amid foreign-backed riots, have also been silent. Their silence amounts to both complicity and cowardice.
As Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei and President Ebrahim Raeisi have categorically stated, this terrorist act will not go unanswered. The perpetrators and their backers will have to pay the price. It’s important to nip this evil in the bud.
Syed Zafar Mehdi is a Tehran-based journalist, political commentator and author. He has reported for over 12 years from India, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kashmir and Middle East for leading publications worldwide.
(The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of Press TV.)
Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:
Academics Benny Morris of Ben-Gurion University and Benjamin Z. Kedar of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem have produced an extraordinary paper based on a welter of archival material, exposing in disturbing detail the hitherto obfuscated dimensions of an operation by Zionist forces to use chemical and biological weapons against both invading Arab armies and local civilians during the 1948 war.
That brutal conflict created the state of Israel, and led to permanent displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, known as the “Nakba” – Arabic for disaster, catastrophe, or cataclysm.
Morris and Kedar offer a highly granular timeline of events, starting in the initial months of that year, as Britain prepared to evacuate Mandatory Palestine on May 15. In the lead up to that date, Zionist settlers were very much on the defensive, with militias “continuously” attacking their enclaves and convoys, with the support of neighboring armies, due to their joint rejection of UN Resolution 181, passed in November 1947, which proposed partitioning Palestine into separate Arab and Jewish states.
With Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Transjordan all having expressed an intention to invade Palestine when Britain left – and having been actively encouraged in this regard by British intelligence – Zionist guerrillas began mounting an offensive, not merely to neutralize Arab fighters, but capture territory, destroying houses and civilian infrastructure along the way, to prevent displaced residents from returning.
In order to augment the latter component of this effort, ensure Zionist seizure of Arab villages and towns was permanent, facilitate easier conquest of further areas, and hinder the progress of advancing Arab armies, these militias began poisoning wells with bacteria to create local epidemics of typhoid, dysentery, malaria and other diseases, in direct violation of the 1925 Geneva Protocol, which strictly prohibits “the use of bacteriological methods of warfare.”
As we shall see, the Zionists were suitably emboldened by the clandestine operation’s success that they eventually attempted to expand their poisoning campaign to invading Arab armies’ home soil.
“STATE OF EXTREME DISTRESS”
The code name of the biological warfare operation, “Cast Thy Bread” was a reference to Ecclesiastes 11:1, which directs Jews to “cast thy bread upon the waters, for after many days you will find it again.”
The prospect of using biological weapons against the “enemy” had been percolating among the Zionist movement for some time, come the 1948 war. Three years earlier, immediately after the end of the war in Europe, Crimea-born Jewish partisan leader and poet Abba Kovner had, after reaching Palestine, hatched a plot to mass-poison Nazis, to avenge the Holocaust.
Kovner intended to either infect waterworks in German cities, or poison thousands of SS officers detained in Allied prisoner of war camps with a fatal disease. Having procured poison from two academics at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University, he travelled to Europe to enact the plans, but was arrested by British security officials en-route, right after dumping his deadly cargo in the sea, and aborting his mission.
Abba Kovner, center, poses in Lithuania in July 1944, before he made is way to the Ein Ha-Horesh settlement in Palestine. Source | Yad Vashem
The former strategy resurfaced in Zionist consciousness as the prospect of a war of independence loomed, and became formalized with the creation of HEMED by Haganah, the primary Jewish paramilitary organization in Mandatory Palestine 1920 – 1948. HEMED’s three components – titled A to C – dealt with chemical and biological defense and warfare, and nuclear research.
On April 1, 1948, David Ben-Gurion, a leading figure in the Zionist movement who is regarded as the primary founder of the state of Israel, and served as its first Prime Minister, met with a senior representative of Haganah to “discuss the development of science and speeding up its application in warfare.”
Two weeks later, bacteria that would induce typhoid and dysentery among those who consumed it was distributed to Haganah operatives across Palestine. Before war even broke out on May 15, it had been used to poison water sources in Arab-held areas, the West Bank city of Jericho being the first documented instance. This was done in order to “undermine Palestinian staying power in still inhabited sites and to sow hindrances along the prospective routes of advance of invading Arab armies.”
That Zionist militants did not expect areas earmarked for Palestinians under the UN’s partition plan to remain Arab-inhabited in the event of victory in the looming war is strongly underlined by their targeting of many of these villages and towns in advance.
A vital aqueduct in Kabri that was the primary if not sole source of water for many nearby Palestinian settlements was poisoned on May 15. The paper’s authors call it “the most serious and potent use” of biological weapons during the entire 1948 War.
The historic northern city of Acre, designated part of a future Arab state by the UN, was one of the areas dependent on the aqueduct for water. The morale of its inhabitants is said by Morris and Kedar to have been “already shaky” at this juncture, due to Haganah’s recent conquest of the Arab parts of nearby Haifa, the region’s capital, and resultant flight of most of its population, many of whom took up residence in Acre.
Haifa’s capture by Zionists – achieved despite protection from British forces – cut off Acre not only from Haifa but neighboring Lebanon, and the prospect of Britain’s departure contributed to “plummeting” spirits among the population. The outbreak of a typhus epidemic, courtesy of Operation Cast Thy Bread, left Acre “in a state of extreme distress,” the city’s mayor reported on May 3. No one had the slightest clue that it had been deliberately created, for precisely this reason.
‘WHAT WAS THE POINT?’
Morris and Kedar assert that despite the widespread campaign of biological warfare engaged in by Zionist militias across Palestine, there were comparatively few reported casualties as a result – although dozens of Palestinians, and some British soldiers, are confirmed to have been killed – and the progress of invading Arab armies was barely halted due to disease outbreaks among soldiers.
“The apparent ineffectiveness…and problems in producing and transporting the weaponised bacteria may well have curbed enthusiasm for the campaign among Israeli defence executives. What was the point?” the pair speculates.
Such conjecture is somewhat bizarre, given so many of their findings, and private communications between Haganah operatives cited elsewhere in the paper, make abundantly clear the strategy was highly valued, and proved pivotal in the permanent capture of many Arab villages, towns, and cities.
Take for instance the aforementioned Acre. One day into the war, Zionist forces attacked the city, and delivered an ultimatum: unless inhabitants capitulated, “we will destroy you to the last man and utterly.” The next night, local notables duly signed an instrument of surrender, and three-quarters of the Arab population – 13,510 out of 17,395 – were displaced in a proverbial pen stroke.
The Arab village of As Sumeiriya, on the outskirts of Acre, lay in ruins after being leveled by a demolition team in May 1948. Frank Noel | AP
Accordingly, the academics refer to a previously unpublished June 1948 report from Hanagah intelligence unit Shai, which attributed the speed and ease with which Acre fell into Zionist hands in part to the epidemic they had earlier unleashed. The city was far from unique in this regard – outbreaks of typhus, and “panic induced by rumours of the spread of the disease” was determined to be “an exacerbating factor in the evacuation” of several areas.
Hindsight can on occasion mislead, but it was not retrospective pattern recognition that led Zionist militants to eagerly expand the poisoning campaign as the war unfolded. Between June and August 1948, two pseudonymous Hanagah operatives exchanged a series of cables while the bitter battle for Jerusalem raged. One became increasingly angry at the lack of progress, imploring the other, “immediately stop your neglect of Jerusalem and take care to send Bread here [emphasis added].”
Then, on September 26, “an important Zionist executive” proposed to Ben-Gurion a wide-ranging blitz of “harassment by all means,” not only in target areas of Palestine, but also belligerent Arab countries. This counter-offensive was intended to reverse the Egyptian Army’s capture of UN-mandated Jewish territory, seize some or even all the West Bank for settlement, and prevent the return of displaced Palestinian to areas partially or wholly in Zionist control.
The utility of biological warfare in achieving those objectives was obvious, and cables initiating the literally toxic process were fired off from the highest levels of Hanagah to its assorted militias the same day. Cairo’s water supplies were a major stated destination. Plans to that effect were evidently being explored in advance elsewhere as well.
On September 21, a Hanagah operative hiding in Beirut reported to headquarters on possible targets for sabotage operations in Lebanon, including “bridges, railway tracks, water and electricity sources.”
Lebanon remained in the crosshairs for some time, even as the war neared its completion, and Zionist victory was all but assured. In January 1949, two months before the country and Israel signed an armistice agreement ending the war between them, Hanagah again tasked operatives with investigating “water sources [and] central reservoirs,” in Beirut, and “supplying maps of water pipelines” in major Lebanese and Syrian towns.
“IT’S A TRICK…”
Clearly, then, there was very obviously a “point” to the poisoning program from the perspective of Ben-Gurion et al.
The connivance allowed the Zionists to efficaciously seize Palestinian territory, evicting Arabs from lands they had inhabited for centuries and deterring them from coming back, without firing a shot. Neither their victims – nor the international community – had no idea that the community-threatening epidemics seizing much of the region were man-made, rather than naturally occurring, either.
While it is clear from the paper certain individual militants were horrified by Cast Thy Bread and sought to curtail its operation, the relative lack of casualties cannot be chalked down to humanitarian concerns. Senior Zionists knew well the dire effects those infected by the bacteria suffered, not least because several of their own operatives contracted typhus themselves after accidentally drinking bottles containing it, believing the contents to be “gazoz”, a popular carbonated drink in the Middle East then and now.
Instead, Cast Thy Bread helped conceal the settlers’ long-term objectives of annexing land far in excess of that which had been proposed under the UN partition plan, including Palestinian territory and portions of neighboring Arab countries. Clandestine use of low death rate biological weapons meant a mass purge of civilians from these areas would appear to be voluntary and self-initiated, and could be secured without the need for large-scale massacres, or local residents being evicted at gunpoint en masse.
Ben-Gurion spelled out the Zionists’ true territorial ambitions in October 1937, following publication of Britain’s Peel Commission findings, which first advocated partitioning Palestine between Arabs and Jews. He supported the proposal, “because this increase in possession is of consequence not only in itself, but because through it we increase our strength, and every increase in strength helps in the possession of the land as a whole.”
Such honesty is vanishingly rare. Obscuring at all times the genocidal character of Zionism, which underpins and is absolutely fundamental to the colonial ideology, has been of the utmost importance to all its adherents ever since its inception. It is an ever-increasingly difficult facade to maintain, as the days of employing covert techniques to purge Israel and the territories it illegally occupies of Arabs are largely over. Instead, the slow-burn annihilation of Palestinians is conducted overwhelmingly in broad daylight.
As former British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters found out to their immense personal, professional and political cost, the primary means by which Israel shields its systematic ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from public scrutiny and condemnation today is via bogus accusations of anti-Semitism against detractors. Shulamit Aloni, former Israeli Education Minister and winner of the Israel Prize, explained toDemocracy Now! in 2002:
It’s a trick, we always use it. When from Europe somebody is criticizing Israel, then we bring up the Holocaust. When in [the U.S.] people are criticizing Israel, then they are anti-Semitic…It’s very easy to blame people who criticize certain acts of the Israeli government as anti-Semitic, and to bring up the Holocaust, and the suffering of the Jewish people, and that is to justify everything we do to the Palestinians.”
The material collated by Morris and Kedar suggests this is a long-established “trick”. On May 27, 1948, Egypt’s Minister of Foreign Affairs sent a cable to the UN Secretary General, revealing that the previous day his country’s soldiers had captured two “Zionist agents” who were attempting to contaminate springs “from which the Egyptian troops at Gaza draw their water supply,” and had “dropped typhoid and dysentery germs into the wells lying to the east of that town.”
Acre Aqueduct was poisoned by typhoid injected by Zionists in May 1948. Source | Palestine Land Society
The cable, intercepted by Hanagan, was read out at a UN Security Council meeting later that day by Syria’s representative. In response, Major Aubrey Eban, designated representative of the Jewish Agency for Palestine (Israel had not yet been internationally recognized and was not a member state at that time), offered a vicious riposte.
He charged that the Egyptian and Syrian governments had “chosen to associate themselves with the most depraved tradition of medieval anti-Semitic incitement – the charge that Jews had poisoned Christian wells.”
“The Security Council, we are convinced, will not wish to become a tribunal for recitations from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion offered from the words of Dr. Goebbels. We hope that the Security Council will be interested not in this contemptible incitement, but in the reality of [Arab] bombs and shells falling on Jerusalem and Tel Aviv at this moment,” he added furiously.
Such an intervention may account for why, after initial press interest in the two diplomats’ caustic war of words, Cast Thy Bread remained successfully buried for almost seven-and-a-half decades subsequently, despite opaque references to the monstrous machination appearing in several autobiographies of Zionist leaders and militants from the time, and a 2003 academic article.
Indeed, the operation was so secret that even Israeli government censors were apparently unaware of its existence, so allowed numerous highly incriminating papers referencing the operation’s codename to pass by them unexpurgated, straight into the publicly accessible archives of the Israeli Occupation Forces.
Reinforcing the significance of Operation Cast Thy Bread, and the eager Zionist embrace of its grisly constituent techniques, HEMED’s biological warfare division became the formally civilian Institute for Biological Research in Nes Ziona, a town in central Israel, after the 1948 War ended. Its first director was former Haganah officer Alexander Keynan, who was intimately involved in the planning and execution of “Bread”.
Little is known about the extent or nature of Israeli biological weapons research or development today. The Institute for Biological Research has remained largely hidden from public view ever since launch, not least due to extensive security measures blocking outsider access. British investigative journalist Gordon Thomas has described a site over which no aircraft are allowed to fly, and scientists toil in laboratories deep underground creating “bottled agents of death.”
Nonetheless, it may be significant that modern Israel is one of very, very few countries in the world that is neither a signatory to the 1975 Biological Weapons Convention nor the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention. Could another “Cast Thy Bread” be in the literal and proverbial pipeline? At the very least, we have no reason to think it won’t be. If such a campaign was to be waged now, it would likely escape public detection even more effectively than last time.
A striking aspect of Palestinian writing about the 1948 War, identified by Morris and Kedar, is an almost total lack of reference to epidemic outbreaks at the time at all. Surviving victims of the Nakba today who contracted typhoid at the time, or had friends and relatives who did, now face the renewed indignity of learning, 74 years after the fact, they were deliberately poisoned.
UPROOTED PALESTINIANS: SALAM ALQUDS ALAYKUM 
