CNN has released leaked images of the Israeli torture camp Sde Teiman in the al-Naqab desert, where the Israelis perpetrate grave crimes against Palestinian prisoners abducted from Gaza (Social media)
According to the whistleblowers, the beatings inflicted upon detainees were said to be done out of spite and not intended for intelligence gathering.
Three Israeli whistleblowers working at the Sde Teiman torture camp, a “holding” site for Palestinians abducted during “Israel’s” invasion of Gaza, have come forward with testimonies of systemic abuses by the military, including prisoners being restrained, blindfolded, and forced to wear diapers, CNN reports.
The whistleblowers described the grim conditions that Palestinian detainees face in Sde Teiman, stating that they were not allowed to move, talk, or even peek under their blindfolds.
“We were told they were not allowed to move. They should sit upright. They’re not allowed to talk. Not allowed to peek under their blindfold,” the whistleblowers told CNN.
CNN has released leaked images of the Israeli torture camp Sde Teiman in the Negev desert, where Israel perpetrates grave crimes against Palestinian prisoners abducted from Gaza. pic.twitter.com/hVqop9Tx22
Guards were instructed to enforce silence using Arabic commands like “uskot” (shut up: اسكت) and to identify and punish individuals described as “problematic.”
They described “a routine search when the guards would unleash large dogs on sleeping detainees, lobbing a sound grenade at the enclosure as troops barged in.”
Located approximately 18 miles from the Gaza separation line, the facility is said to be divided into two sections: enclosures where around 70 Palestinian detainees from Gaza are subjected to extreme physical restraint, and a field hospital where injured detainees are immobilized, diapered, and fed through straws.
“They stripped them down of anything that resembles human beings,” they said.
These testimonies align with details from a letter authored by a doctor working at Sde Teiman which was published by Haaretz in April.
“Just this week, two prisoners had their legs amputated due to handcuff injuries, which unfortunately is a routine event,” the physician said in the letter dated April.
He mentioned that prisoners were fed via straws, forced to use diapers for bodily functions, and subjected to continuous restraints, actions that contravene medical ethics and legal standards.
“We are all complicit in breaking law,” he was quoted as saying.
Accounts of a detained Palestinian doctor
Former detainee Dr. Mohammed al-Ran said that after being cleared of any links to Hamas links. He functioned as Shawish for a few weeks. The Shawish acted as middlemen to communicate and translate communications with Israeli guards on behalf of prisoners.
Al-Ran said he received “a special privilege”, namely the removal of his blindfold. This was a different type of hell, he said.
“Part of my torture was being able to see how people were being tortured,” Al-Ran said. “At first you couldn’t see. You couldn’t see the torture, the vengeance, the oppression.”
“When they removed my blindfold, I could see the extent of the humiliation and abasement … I could see the extent to which they saw us not as human beings but as animals.”
Earlier today, Hamas warned that the Israeli prison administration’s escalation of its aggressive policies against prisoners and detainees “will result in further explosions in the face of the occupation.”
Following circulating reports of abuse and torture in Israeli prisons, the Palestinian Resistance group made it clear that the systematic assault on prisoners and detainees “will not weaken their resolve,” reiterating that the Resistance is committed to their liberation, a statement read.
It pointed out that the reported abuse and torture of prisoners and detainees indicate that the Israeli occupation government adopts a policy of deliberate attacks against them, motivated by punishment and revenge.
Hamas emphasized that the Palestinian people “will not leave their prisoners and detainees to fall victim to the brutality of the Nazi-like occupation,” stressing that the Resistance remains committed to achieving their imminent freedom.
The movement called on the masses of the Palestinian people, their factions, and youths to boost their revolutionary and resistant actions in support of the prisoners by all means.
Elsewhere, Hamas warned the “fascist Israeli government” against continuing with its criminal policy and held it fully responsible for the well-being of every prisoner and detainee.
if Shai Davidai had been black, LGBT, hispanic, Muslim, Arab, Palestinian, and demanded the National Guard and FBI be sent to colleges to arrest, torture and kill "white supremacist transphobe Zionist anti-black racists", not only would be he fired in 1 second, but the entire… pic.twitter.com/zmr0fr8Rll
Things are really ramping up with the student protests are these various univeristies.
Columbia, where it all started, is ground zero.
The Independent:
Columbia University faculty members are staging a demonstration in support of student pro-Palestine protestors as a rabbi warns Jewish students to leave campus.
A rabbi affiliated with the school has also told a group of nearly 300 Jewish students to go home — meanwhile, Columbia/Barnard Hillel said they do not believe Jewish students should leave campus. The messages came ahead of Passover, which began Monday.
The New York Police Department arrested some 100 students last week after the university’s president requested they respond. Police Chief John Chell later noted that the students who were arrested “were peaceful,” per the Columbia Spectator. Now, faculty have staged a walkout protesting the arrest of student protesters.
The school moved classes online on Monday.
The weight of that last sentence is not really being acknowledged in the mainstream media. They moved the classes online because they shut down the university, effectively declaring a state of emergency.
They banned a Jewish faculty member because they said they didn’t have the resources to ensure his safety.
A Jewish Columbia University professor who has been a vocal critic of the administration’s response to the ongoing anti-Israel student protests on Monday said he was barred from its main campus.
Israel-born Shai Davidai, an assistant professor at Columbia Business School and an outspoken supporter of the Jewish state, said that when he swiped his key card at the school’s Morningside Heights campus, it read “deactivated.”
He said administrators told him they banned him for campus because they could not ensure his safety.
Shai Davidai
Many of the demonstrators who arrived to show solidarity with Columbia’s Jewish community were also turned away at the gates of the Ivy Leave school — though some with active Columbia IDs were allowed in.
…
Davidai’s rejection from the campus of his own university prompted a crowd of pro-Israel protesters to shout, “Let him in!” and “Shame!”
“They are not letting me on main campus,” he told a crowd of pro-Israel rallies at the school’s gate.
There is no reason to believe this is going to slow down any time soon.
It’s starting now because the weather broke. I don’t see any reason it would stop until either it gets cold again, or Israel stops their wars. Neither of those things is going to happen soon.
So are these universities all just going to lockdown, because they can’t respond to the demands of the students?
Or will the cops get way more aggressive, and go full Kent State on the kids?
At Kent State, a college in Ohio, the National Guard was sent in in 1970 to put down a protest against the Vietnam war.
The brave soldiers (heroes, really) opened fire on the kids, killing four and injuring nine.
The situation was very similar, or nearly identical, to what is going on now at Columbia and elsewhere. (The shootings were in May, after students had organized when the weather broke around popular sentiment against the war.) If there’s any notable difference, it’s that the US government is a lot more devoted to war in Israel than they were to war in Southeast Asia.
The Kent State Massacre was one of the events people point at as having led to the end of the Vietnam war. Students at universities and high schools across America staged a massive strike, walking out of schools all over the country. Four million students participated (that was a much bigger number back then).
It’s obvious that the US government is making this comparison to Kent State when they see these student protests rising now. But what ability do they have to stop it? The fact that they started with arrests shows that they have no idea how to stop it. They should have known that the arrests would just make it worse, but apparently they didn’t know that.
It’s very good. This is very, very good. Things are escalating.
Ultimately, we need to see massive student strikes, like in the 1970s. That’s where this must head.
I am not so silly as to believe that anything is going to change the US government’s devotion to the Jews. That will not happen. But we can certainly force the government to say “we don’t care what you think, we are going to keep supporting Israel no matter what.”
That’s what the goal has to be: pulling off this veil, and showing that at its heart, the US government is a Jewish occupation of the United States which in no way represents the American people.
Before the Jewish assault on Gaza, we were nowhere close to massive organized protests against Israel. Now, here we are. Things can happen fast. History can happen in front of you.
The Jews are not invincible. There are a lot more of us than there are of them. We stand on the precipice of Americans demanding an end to the Jewish occupation not just of Palestine, but of the United States as well. It is only the Jewish occupation of the United States that allows for the Jewish occupation of Palestine, and at some point, this is going to become obvious to these protesters.
Understand the Weight of This
The movement against Israel is a lot more important than anything we’ve ever seen in this country in my lifetime.
This is bigger than MAGA. It’s clear that MAGA is number two, but this is much bigger.
MAGA was undoubtedly about attacking symptoms of this Jewish occupation of the United States, but with these anti-Israel protests, we are approaching a strike on the black heart of the beast.
It’s maybe difficult for right-wingers to grasp, because this is primarily a leftist movement. But that is really irrelevant. What matters is the direction a thing is going in and the potential directions it is going to lead.
We all remember the old quote:
Many of you had leftist views in your younger days, and most of you probably changed these views rather quickly, over a matter of months or even weeks.
The core idea of these protests is that what the Jews are doing in Palestine is unacceptable, and must be stopped at any cost. However, the real cost of stopping what is happening in Palestine is stopping what is happening in America. The relevance of political affiliation here is minimal. People’s political ideas change all the time. The path is here for these people to very quickly change their ideas about the nature of the American state.
It’s worth noting that a lot of the people who joined Adolf Hitler’s NSDAP in the 1930s were former communists.
What’s more, when these protests really start rolling, right-wingers are obviously going to be involved. I’ve instructed all of my readers to go to these protests and not to make any trouble with the leftists. When the school walkouts start, and the groups start to form in city encampments, there will be as many right-wingers as there are leftists participating in certain places. The leftists will not kick you out as long as you don’t make trouble and make a point that your main focus is on dismantling the state of Israel and the American state that empowers and enables it.
In terms of turning leftists into right-wingers: that doesn’t even have to happen in those terms. We can formulate a new political order. I don’t really care about free healthcare, abolishing student loan debt, or really any of the other socialist issues that don’t involve social issues. Further, if we’re removing the Jews, many of these social problems will just start to fade and disappear. Feminism and homosexual normalcy are products of the Jewish occupation. They’re not something that developed naturally, but rather were forced on us, and continue to be forced on us every day. When you remove the people forcing these issues, some people will still support them, but that support will wane over time when you no longer have a massive public-private apparatus telling people they need to believe in this specific set of values.
This is the most important thing: anyone telling you not to support these university protests because they are leftists is a Jewish shill. Anyone who is against Israel is your ally. Period. There are no caveats on that. I don’t what their race is, or if they’re a tranny, or whatever. It doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is organizing the people – all people – against the Jews.
(Republished from The Daily Stormer by permission of author or representative)
Kit Klarenberg is an investigative journalist and MintPress News contributor exploring the role of intelligence services in shaping politics and perceptions. His work has previously appeared in The Cradle, Declassified UK, and Grayzone. Follow him on Twitter @KitKlarenberg.
On April 13, Iran, alongside Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Yemen’s Ansar Allah, executed Operation True Promise, a vast wave of drone, cruise and ballistic missile strikes on Israel, launched in retaliation to Tel Aviv’s criminal bombing of Tehran’s Damascus embassy less than two weeks earlier, which killed two Iranian generals. As a result, history was made, and the world – particularly West Asia – will never be the same again.
“This action was hugely significant. Now, the Israelis will have to be extremely careful about what they do in Syria against Tehran. The regional balance of power has permanently shifted away from the Zionists. Tel Aviv will never recover at all. It is the end of them. They have destroyed themselves. They are seen as a regime that has no place in the civilized world, a Nazi state, across the entire globe,” geopolitical expert Dr. Mohammad Marandi tells MintPress News.
Iran’s first-ever strike on Israel, following decades of provocations, escalations, assassinations, incendiary threats, and determined lobbying for U.S.-led war against Tehran by Tel Aviv officials, the effort targeted airbases, Israeli Air Force intelligence HQ and a constellation of air defense systems. The U.S., Britain, and France scrambled jets to help shoot the vast payload down – unsuccessfully – while Jordan controversially permitted Western powers to use its airspace for the purpose. Israel claimed a 99% interception rate.
However, extensive photo and video material shows that most missiles hit their targets and wrought much damage. In the process, Iran demonstrated to Tel Aviv and its Western backers a hitherto unknown ability to circumvent layer upon layer of protective measures, including top-tier fighter jets, NATO-supplied air defense systems, and the much-vaunted Iron Dome. One by one, they largely failed in their duty, leading to the astonishing sight of Iranian missiles soaring unmolested over the Knesset.
This righteous scene no doubt sent untold chills through Western and Israeli corridors of power, searching vainly for spines to run up. It also dispatched a palpable message—Tehran could, if it wished, have struck the Zionist legislature but didn’t do so. For the time being, at least. The floor was now Tel Aviv’s to decide whether—and how—to retaliate. A response came on April 19 in the form of pre-dawn drone sorties across Iran.
Initially framed by Western media as hugely impactful, in reality, a small swarm of Israeli quadcopters attempted to breach Tehran’s air defenses but ultimately couldn’t. An Iranian spokesperson referred to the effort as “failed and humiliating.” This characterization surely applies more widely to the pathetic state to which Tel Aviv has been reduced following Operation True Promise’s seismic success. As we shall see, Israel now has little time remaining and no good choices left to make.
Iraqi military personnel inspect Israeli missile fragments found by farmers in Latifiya and Aziziya. Photo | Sabreen
‘NEW EQUATION’
Despite its astonishing optics and unprecedented nature, some West Asian observers were disappointed that the attack on Israel wasn’t a decapitation. Such perspectives overlook Iran’s longstanding commitment to caution. Devastation of Tehran’s Syrian embassy was without historical parallel and concerned with Israel eliciting a major escalation to drag the U.S. into total war. A measured, well-advertised show of strength deterred a broader response while signaling a major shift in Iranian policy towards Israel. IRGC commander Hossein Salami has said:
“We have decided to create a New Equation, and that is if from now on the Zionist regime attacks our interests, assets, personalities, and citizens, at any point, we will attack against them.“
Those are fighting words, and Operation True Promise demonstrated they can be backed with action. Iran has shown it can strike Israel directly from its own soil, its fleets of missiles and drones capable of traveling thousands of kilometers over both friendly and hostile airspace, separate timezones, and multiple countries. Along the way, Tehran will have gleaned an enormous amount of invaluable intelligence on the defensive capabilities and vulnerabilities of Israel and the local Western infrastructure upon which its defenses depend.
Any future Iranian strike would make the most of whatever was learned on April 13, and the data yield was surely enormous. Since Russia’s “Special Military Operation” began in February 2022, defense cooperation between Moscow and Tehran has reached extraordinary levels – and intensive learning and on-the-go refinement of battle strategy is core Russian military doctrine. As a nameless Ukrainian Army officer bitterly toldPolitico on April 3, Western weapons systems sent to Kiev “become redundant very quickly because they’re quickly countered by the Russians”:
“We used Storm Shadow and SCALP cruise missiles [supplied by Britain and France] successfully – but just for a short time. The Russians are always studying. They don’t give us a second chance. And they’re successful in this.“
If there’s a next time, too, Iran’s missile and drone fleet is likely to be considerably more sustained, playing out over several days, weeks, or even months, wave after wave, burst after burst. Estimates suggest around 300 separate projectiles were fired at Israel during Operation True Promise. Largely unsuccessful attempts to repel the blitz by Tel Aviv alone cost $1.08 – 1.35 billion, according to an Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) general.
“One Arrow missile used to intercept an Iranian ballistic missile costs $3.5 million, while the cost of one David Sling missile is $1 million, in addition to the sorties of aircraft that participated in intercepting the Iranian drones,” they told local media. Meanwhile, an Israeli think tank researcher calculates the costs “were enormous,” comparable to what Israel burned through during the entire 1973 Arab-Israeli war, which lasted almost three weeks.
IDF personnel remove debris from missile intercepted during the Iranian attack in southern Israel. Photo | IDF
Those sums were spent on missile interceptors, missiles, jet fuel, and other military equipment and infrastructure. It is uncertain how much Iran spent on the Operation, but it is undoubtedly a great many orders of magnitude less. Some sources have suggested $30 million, which could well be accurate. Dr. Marandi tells MintPress News that “most” of the initial “decoy” barrage, including drones, were collecting dust. “Tehran was looking for an excuse to get rid of them,” he says.
“Most of the heavy-duty work attempting to counter Iran’s strike was done by the Americans anyway, not the Israelis. The Iron Dome barely factored in. The two places hit hardest – the southern airbase where F35s are based and Tel Aviv’s Golan Heights intelligence base resulted in significant damage and casualties. Of course, the Zionists don’t admit this,” Dr. Marandi adds.
This massive cost discrepancy is a very, very grave issue for Israel, as the U.S. can attest, given its embarrassing experiences attempting – and completely failing – to end Ansar Allah’s anti-genocide blockade of the Red Sea. Almost immediately, Politico reported that the Pentagon was aghast at squandering missiles costing millions to shoot down $2,000 Ansar Allah drones. A CIA officer lamented:
“That quickly becomes a problem because the most benefit, even if we do shoot down their incoming missiles and drones, is in their favor. We, the U.S., need to start looking at systems that can defeat these that are more in line with the costs they are expending to attack us.“
‘ISRAEL GOES UNDER’
There is no sign yet of Washington having publicly rectified this concern, which may account for why U.S. officials at the start of April offered Ansar Allah a sweeping offer of total surrender in return for ending the Red Sea blockade. This was summarily rejected. No business as usual – no commerce, no trade – on Yemen’s watch while Palestinians are slaughtered. In the event of any subsequent Iranian strike on Tel Aviv, too, Tehran’s drones will not be used to deter shipping either, but tie up, smoke out, and exhaust Israeli air defenses.
This tactic was used to significant effect on April 13, as it has been by Russia since its airstrikes on critical Ukrainian infrastructure began in late 2022. Now, Kiev is on the verge of being de-electrified, which will cause battlefield collapse and population displacement, with potentially devastating knock-on effects on neighboring countries and states trying to keep Kiev’s lights on. It seems safe to say neither Israel nor its Western allies could sustain a serious defense to a protracted assault by Tehran, economically or materially.
That conclusion is supported by an April 22 Wall Street Journal report, which revealed the Biden administration was shocked at the scale of Iran’s barrage. It “matched worst-case scenarios” outlined by U.S. intelligence and the Pentagon, an unnamed senior official despairing, “this was on the high end…of what we were anticipating.” White House Situation Room attendees on the day allegedly feared Israel and its allies would not be able to repel the assault. And they couldn’t.
On top of a mass crime against humanity amounting to a 21st-century Holocaust, Israel’s genocide in Gaza has been utterly destructive to its own economy. A Financial Times investigation published on November 6 documented how the assault has ravaged personal finances, job markets, businesses, industries, and the Israeli government itself.
“Thousands” of companies were teetering on the brink of collapse, with entire sectors plunged into an unprecedented crisis. One in three businesses had either shuttered or were operating at 20 percent capacity.“
One can imagine how much worse things have gotten in the six months since, and Israel isn’t yet embroiled in an all-out war. An extended period of mass strikes from Iran, Ansar Allah and Hezbollah could completely paralyze the country economically, render entire areas uninhabitable – or, at least, uninhabited – destroy infrastructure, and much more. Among the infrastructure in Tehran’s crosshairs could well be the Dimona nuclear power plant, which would unleash deadly chaos on a terrifying scale.
Resultantly, Israel’s “Samson Option,” under which it is committed to launch a mass nuclear strike if its existence is threatened, should no longer be taken very seriously. Israeli military theorist Martin van Creveld once boasted, “We have the capability to take the world down with us, and I can assure you that will happen before Israel goes under.” But Tehran’s hypersonic missile capabilities are in every way an effective counter-deterrent. They could even deliver a nuclear, chemical or biological payload of their own.
‘WHOEVER MOVES’
Israel’s Iranian drubbing is further exacerbated by its attempt to crush Hamas being an absolute disaster in every conceivable way. The fiasco’s consequences are and will remain wide-ranging and grave, to the extent they could be fatal. This may account for Netanyahu’s flailing bid to draw Tehran into all-out war. After all, the scale of the Israeli Defense Forces’ defeat is such that in a scathing op-ed for Haaretz on April 11, Zionist “journalist” Chaim Levinson lamented:
“We’ve lost. Truth must be told… It’s unpleasant to say, but we may not be able to safety [sic] return to Israel’s northern border…No cabinet minister will restore our sense of personal security. Every Iranian threat will make us tremble. Our international standing was dealt a beating. Our leadership’s weakness was revealed to the outside. For years we managed to fool them into thinking we were a strong country, a wise people and a powerful army. In truth, we’re a shtetl with an airforce, and that’s on the condition it’s awakened in time.”
Haaretz | Apr 11, 2024
Even the Western media, which since the genocide began has been at best silent and at worst complicit – and much more active in the latter sphere than the former – has acknowledged Tel Aviv’s battlefield cataclysm. The Economist, a nakedly Zionist publication that has whitewashed, diminished, or outright justified every conceivable crime committed by the IDF, has condemned the Forces’ “military and moral failures” and how “its generals botched the strategy, and discipline among troops has broken down”:
“[Israel is] accused of two catastrophic failures. First, it has not achieved its military objectives in Gaza. Second, it has acted immorally and broken the laws of war. The implications for both the IDF and Israel are profound…Hamas fighters are still ambushing Israeli forces throughout Gaza, and the group is reasserting itself in areas the IDF has left…Accusations that Israel has broken the laws of war are plausible.“
The Economist went on to slam a “lack of enforcement” of already virtually non-existent “rules of engagement” under which the IDF operates. A “veteran reserve officer” was quoted as saying commanders could arbitrarily “decide that whoever moves in his sector is a terrorist or that buildings should be destroyed.” A sapper in another unit admitted, “The only limit to the number of buildings we blew up was the time we had inside Gaza”:
“Soldiers have filmed themselves vandalizing Palestinian property and, in some cases, put those videos online. On February 20, the IDF’s chief of staff published a public letter to all soldiers warning them to use force only where necessary, ‘to distinguish between a terrorist and who is not, not to take anything which isn’t ours – a souvenir or weaponry – and not to film vengeance videos.’ Four months into the war, this was too little, too late.”
That The Economist printed such things at all reflects how far Israel has fallen since October 7, 2023. Now, it is a global pariah, viscerally loathed by the overwhelming majority of the world’s citizenry. Adversaries do not fear its once-vaunted military and its ability to unilaterally strike neighboring countries with total impunity, and no comebacks, is over. Tel Aviv’s claim to “defense” and security primacy, upon which much of its exports were successfully marketed for decades, has been amply demonstrated to be bogus.
Meanwhile, Israel has suffered population collapse, with simultaneous mass brain drain and workforce freefall as settlers flee or get conscripted. Demand for mental health services has reached all-time highs. The trauma of perpetrating genocide and living under the daily threat of attack, as Palestinians have since 1948, has ravaged soldiers and civilians alike. But scores of psychiatrists have relocated elsewhere due to stressful workloads and likely won’t return. Such are the foundational flaws of a settler colonial state.
“I don’t think 10 years from now Israel will exist. Zionism will die. The only solution is equal rights for Christians, Muslims, and Jews throughout Palestine. This war will continue, but direct engagement with Iran would be totally destructive, militarily. So the Israelis now target Rafah, but they will be defeated there, and they know that. As long as Netanyahu is leader, we will have a continuation of this tragedy. The only way out is a coup in Tel Aviv,” Dr. Marandi concludes.
For many, these developments may be little consolation, coming as they do off the back of thousands of murdered and mutilated Palestinian children. Yet, Israel as we know it is on the brink of extinction, which wasn’t the case before Hamas breached Gaza’s concentration camp walls. Palestine is now closer to being free than at any point since Israel’s creation. And there is no going back to “normal.”
Time is now and forever on the side of the tenacious, undefeated Resistance – so, too, justice and virtue. We should never forget the immortal, galvanizing words of Palestinian poet Refaat Alareer, slain in cold blood by a targeted IDF airstrike on December 6, 2023:
“If I must die, let it bring hope‘
Feature photo | A passerby, taking on his cellphone, walks past a banner showing missiles being launched from Iranian map in northern Tehran, Iran, April 19, 2024. Vahid Salemi | AP
Tuesday, April 23, 2024, marked the 200th consecutive day of Israel’s large-scale military offensive on the Gaza Strip. Nearly 90 percent of the population is displaced, with many living in dire conditions in tents, and the few remaining schools used as shelters. Despite the International Court of Justice’s provisional measures orders to prevent genocide, Israel persists in threatening a large-scale ground invasion of Rafah, home to over 1.2 million residents and displaced persons—a threat that has loomed over the Palestinian people there for several weeks.
Our organizations — the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), Al Mezan, and Al-Haq — are closely monitoring and deeply concerned about the escalation of Israeli airstrikes on Rafah. The tactics of intensified bombing of homes using heavy artillery and carpet bombing are alarming and have resulted in significant civilian casualties over the last six months.
Furthermore, concerns are growing as reports from Israeli media indicate that the Israeli army is purchasing thousands of tents to accommodate displaced individuals from Rafah. The Israeli plan to expand the so-called safe zone in the Al-Mawasi area, despite its limited capacity and current overcrowding with displaced persons, is also troubling. This expansion is purportedly capable of housing up to a million people, but the reality of its size (extending about a kilometer deep from the borders of Khan Younis to the borders of Rafah) raises doubts about its feasibility and effectiveness in addressing the humanitarian crisis.
Our organizations have repeatedly warned and expressed serious concerns about the potential consequences of a large-scale ground invasion on Rafah, similar to what has occurred in most governorates of the Gaza Strip. Such an invasion could lead to horrific massacres and raise scenarios of a second Nakba. The densely populated city, with hundreds of thousands of displaced individuals residing in tents and heavily relying on aid from the Rafah and Kerem Abu Salem Crossings, exacerbates the vulnerability of its population. The closure of these vital crossings during a potential Israeli attack would leave no suitable alternatives for the evacuation of Rafah residents and those already displaced within the city. This concern is compounded by the continued attacks and destruction that have altered the landscape of the Gaza Strip.
According to the latest update from the Palestinian Ministry of Health on April 23, 2024, Israeli military attacks over the span of 200 days have led to the killing of 34,183 Palestinians, including 14,778 children and around 10,000 women, and the injury of 77,143 others. One child is killed or injured every 10 minutes in Gaza. An estimated seven to eight thousand Palestinians are still missing, buried under the rubble, or in the streets. There have been ongoing efforts over the past few days to retrieve some of them, amid reports of finding individuals bound and buried in mass graves in Nasser and Al-Shifa Hospitals, indicating the possibility of them being killed by the Israeli army after their arrest. All of this requires the opening of a serious and independent international investigation. It is worth noting that citizens have been forced to create temporary graves in hospitals, markets, streets, and near destroyed homes due to the impossibility of transporting the people killed to official cemeteries.
After 200 days of horrific genocidal acts in Gaza, the real objectives of the attack are the continuation of the 76-year-long ongoing Nakba and the erasure and genocidal destruction of the Palestinian people in Gaza. Israel is laying the groundwork to fulfill its settler colonial plan of colonizing Gaza, played out in real time on the world’s television sets and screens. We warn that the risks of displacement are still present unless the international community intervenes effectively to prevent them.
Our organisations reiterate that silence from the international community is no longer acceptable, and mere statements of condemnation are not enough in the face of genocide and systematic and deliberate crimes to destroy the foundations of Palestinian life.
Our organizations warn of the threat of an Israeli ground invasion on Rafah. Such an attack would represent the peak of the Israeli attack on Gaza, with the intent of inflicting the highest number of casualties and civilian victims, potentially leading to mass forcible displacement towards the Egyptian borders, located mere meters away. This scenario threatens the acceleration of the Nakba on the Palestinian people and is an approaching reality.
We urgently call on the permanent members of the UN Security Council, the UN Secretary-General, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, and the High Commissioner for Human Rights to swiftly intervene to avert the continuing Nakba and to halt the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
Our organisations warn Third States that they may be complicit in genocide through their unlimited military and financial support of Israel’s aggression on the Gaza Strip. We remind the Third States of their erga omnes obligations to protect the Palestinian people from genocide.
We further urge the international community to secure the right of return of Palestinians to their areas of residence and ensure the provision of essential services, including access to clean water, reopening closed roads, and other necessary support.
We emphasize that the key to resolving the crisis in the region forever lies in ending the illegal occupation, dismantling the Israeli settler-colonial apartheid regime, revoking all discriminatory and inhumane laws, policies, and practices against the Palestinian people as a whole, and enabling the Palestinian people to exercise their inalienable right to self-determination and the return of refugees without any conditions or restrictions.
Fabio G. C. Carisio Fabio is investigative journalist since 1991. Now geopolitics, intelligence, military, SARS-Cov-2 manmade, NWO expert and Director-founder of Gospa News: a Christian Information Journal. His articles were published on many international media and website as SouthFront, Reseau International, Sputnik Italia, United Nation Association Westminster, Global Research, Kolozeg and more…
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected the latest truce and prisoner-exchange proposal by Hamas and has approved an IDF plan to launch an operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, Israeli media reported on Friday.
”The IDF is prepared for the operation and to evacuate the [civilian] population,” the PM’s office said in a statement, as cited by the Times of Israel.
Benjamin Netanyahu said the IDF is prepared to conduct the attack and evacuate the civilian population
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected the latest truce and prisoner-exchange proposal by Hamas and has approved an IDF plan to launch an operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, Israeli media reported on Friday.
”The IDF is prepared for the operation and to evacuate the [civilian] population,” the PM’s office said in a statement, as cited by the Times of Israel.
Earlier in the day, Hamas announced on social media that it had presented its “vision” of a prisoner swap with Israel to Qatari and Egyptian mediators and was looking towards a ceasefire agreement which would involve the withdrawal ofIsrael Defense Forces from Gaza.
As reported by Reuters, which has seen the proposal, the Palestinian militants proposed the release of Israeli women, including female soldiers, children, the elderly and ill hostages, in exchange for Israel freeing between 700 and 1,000 Palestinian prisoners. Once the prisoner exchange is complete, Hamas said it would be ready to negotiate a date for a permanent ceasefire.
The Jewish state, however, dismissed the proposal and accused Hamas of making “unrealistic demands.” On Thursday, Netanyahu also reiterated Israel’s determination to complete its mission of “eliminating” Hamas.
After Hamas militants launched a surprise attack on Israeli settlements last October 7, which saw 1,100 people killed and 250 taken hostage, Israel has been conducting a relentless siege on Gaza.
According to the latest information from Palestinian health authorities, at least 31,341 people have been killedand 73,134 others injured in Israeli airstrikes and ground operations in the enclave over the past half a year.
The number of Palestinian detainees killed since October 7 as a result of torture and medical negligence has risen to 13, according to a joint statement by the Commission and the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club.
Palestinian citizen of Israel, Juma Abu Ghanima, was killed in an Israeli prison, five days after Israeli authorities announced that he had been transferred, in serious health condition, from his cell in Eshel prison to a medical facility, the Prisoners and Ex-Prisoners Affairs Commission said on Saturday.
Abu Ghanima, 26, was detained in December by Israeli occupation forces, “on the precedent of his resistance to the occupation,” the Commission further stated.
The number of Palestinian detainees killed since October 7 as a result of torture and medical negligence has risen to 13, according to a joint statement by the Commission and the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club.
Abu Ghanima, a Palestinian resident of the Naqab, in Palestine 48, was arrested last December while trying to return to Israel.
According to Israeli media, Abu Ghanima, who crossed into Gaza in 2016, began military training with the Palestinian Resistance movement Hamas, including advanced training with the Nukhba forces.
“During his time in Gaza, Abu Ghanima carried out various surveillance operations along the border and met with Hamas officials,” according to The Times of Israel.
Abu Ghanima, however, had been reportedly detained by Hamas in Gaza in 2021 for adhering to security restrictions and tried to return to Israel after the prison was bombed by Israeli forces last December.
Israeli media have revealed the death of several detainees from Gaza. However, Israeli authorities refuse to disclose their identities, according to the Commission and PPS.
In a statement, the two prisoner groups held the Israeli prison administration fully responsible for the death of Abu Ghanima, for continuing “to carry out “torture and systematic medical negligence against Palestinian detainees held in Israeli jails”.
The total number of Palestinian detainees held in Israeli jails surged to 9,100, including 3,558 administrative detainees, according to the statement.
TOPSHOT – Palestinian Nisrine al-Najar receives treatment at a clinic set up by Doctors Without Border (MSF) inside the Rafah Indonesian Field Hospital in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, for severe injuries and burns sustained during Israeli bombardment, on March 7, 2024, on the eve of the International Women’s Day and amid ongoing battles between Israel and the Hamas movement. (Photo by MOHAMMED ABED / AFP)
The Ministry of Health in Gaza has released shocking new figures today, revealing that a staggering 30,960 Palestinians have been martyred since October 7, with 72,524 more left injured. The Israeli occupation forces are said to be responsible for 10 massacres in the past day alone, resulting in the deaths of 82 Palestinians and the injury of 122 others. The situation is dire, with many victims trapped under rubble as ambulances and rescue teams are deliberately obstructed from reaching them.
Of particular concern is the high number of women and children among the casualties, making up 72% of all Palestinian victims since October 7. In a chilling statistic, the UN Palestinian Refugee Agency (UNRWA) revealed that 9,000 women have been killed in Gaza so far, with an average of 63 women losing their lives each day. The suffering of Palestinian women in Gaza is a cause for alarm, with many more still missing or trapped in the devastation.
Children looking at a little girl, who was killed in Israeli strikes on central Gaza last night. pic.twitter.com/TdsriMmZEN
The report by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics paints a grim picture of the ongoing aggression, with women and children bearing the brunt of the Israeli genocidal war on Gaza.
“I screamed for my children and my husband. They were all dead. Their father took them and left me behind,” Rania Abu Anza, the mother of twin martyrs Wissam and Naeim said.
After a decade-long struggle with infertility, Rania Abu Anza’s dream of motherhood turned into a nightmare when an Israeli airstrike destroyed her home in southern Gaza, claiming the lives of her five-month-old twins, her husband, and 11 other relatives.
Rania recounted the tragic events, saying, “I screamed for my children and my husband. They were all dead. Their father took them and left me behind.”
The strike occurred late Saturday night while Rania was asleep with her husband and children.
Rania said she woke up to breastfeed Naeim, the boy and went back to sleep with him in one arm and Wissam, the girl, in the other. Their father was sleeping beside them, she recalled tearfully.
RAFAH: A mother mourns the loss of her infant twins after they were killed by an Israeli air strike.
Rania Abu Anza says her husband and 13 other family members were killed in the attack.
The twins were conceived after multiple rounds of IVF over the course of a decade. pic.twitter.com/XGiNFBQF8d
As part of “Israel’s” ongoing genocidal campaign on the Strip, the army frequently targets the homes of civilians.
Regarding this attack, Dr. Marwan al-Hams, director of the local hospital, confirmed that of the 14 people killed in the Abu Anza house, six were children and four were women.
Rania’s anguish was palpable as she mourned the loss of her family, including her sister, nephew, and a pregnant cousin.
The Abu Anza family had faced a long struggle with infertility before finally conceiving through IVF treatments.
Rania and her husband, Wissam, were overjoyed when they learned they were expecting twins.
Her husband was so proud he insisted on naming the girl after himself, she added.
“I didn’t get enough of them,” Rania lamented, reflecting on her brief time with her beloved children.
💔Rania Abu Anza bids farewell to her husband and her twins,Naeem and Wissam,whom she gave birth to after 11 years of waiting to become a mother They were martyred in the bombing of their house in Rafah/Gaza last night The kinda sorrow I can never handle إنا لله وإنا إليه راجعون. pic.twitter.com/Jmr6TtM7rB— Алина Черчесова Alina Caucasian (@AlichersoulUz) March 3, 2024
The war on Gaza has so far resulted in more than 30,000, and numbers keep mounting as the Strip is now faced with hunger and disease due to the Israeli blockade.
Certain countries have condemned the violence and called for an immediate ceasefire to prevent further civilian casualties.
However, for families like the Abu Anzas, the damage has already been done, leaving behind shattered lives and broken dreams.
Following the Israeli massacre in Rafah, and a planned incursion into the area, China calls for an immediate halt to “Israel’s” aggression.
On Tuesday, China called on “Israel” to halt its aggression in the region of Rafah in the Gaza Strip “without delay,” cautioning of an impending “severe humanitarian crisis” should the war persist. “China follows closely the developments in the Rafah area, opposes and condemns actions that harm civilians and violate international law,” a foreign ministry spokesperson said in a statement.
Beijing urged “Israel” to immediately “stop its military operation as soon as possible, (and) make every effort to avoid innocent civilian casualties, in order to prevent a more serious humanitarian disaster in the Rafah area”.
“Israel” is under increasing international pressure to consent to a ceasefire with the Palestinian Resistance, while simultaneously gearing up for a raid into Rafah, the southern Gaza border city where over a million displaced Palestinians are seeking refuge after “Israel” announced it would be a safe zone for the displaced.
On Monday, Al Mayadeen‘s correspondent reported that Israeli occupation forces committed a major massacre in Rafah early in the morning, with most of the victims being women and children. Our correspondent said that Israeli occupation warplanes launched more than 50 airstrikes on Rafah, noting that the occupation forces used internationally prohibited incendiary missiles in its airstrikes.
Palestinian medical sources said that at least 100 people were martyred and more than 230 were wounded in heavy Israeli strikes on the city of Rafah, southern Gaza Strip.
In response to the massacre, the Palestinian Resistance movement Hamas stressed that the “Nazi-like” Israeli occupation army attack on the city of Rafah was considered a continuation of the genocidal war against the Palestinian people. In a statement commenting on the massacre that the Israeli occupation forces committed against the southern city, in which at least 100 Palestinians were martyred and several others were wounded, Hamas held the US administration and President Biden personally full responsibility along with the Israeli occupation government for this crime.
For its part, the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine affirmed that the Israeli massacre in the city of Rafah and the entity’s insistence to continue carrying out its crimes is a deliberate escalation in the genocide against the Palestinian people. In a statement, the movement said, “These crimes confirm that the Nazi and criminal government of the entity does not care about public opinion or its allies among the normalization camp.”
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement says the Israeli crimes prove that the occupation does not care about public opinion or its allies in the normalization camp.
Smoke plumes billow during Israeli bombardment over Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on February 11, 2024. (AFP)
The Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine affirmed on Monday that the Israeli massacre in the city of Rafah and the entity’s insistence to continue carrying out its crimes is a deliberate escalation in the genocide against the Palestinian people.
In a statement, the movement said, “These crimes confirm that the Nazi and criminal government of the entity does not care about public opinion or its allies among the normalization camp.”
It warned the global community, especially Arab countries, that “the Zionist attack on Rafah aims to forcibly displace the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip from their land,” holding the administration of US President Joe Biden directly accountable for the ongoing genocide, citing its provision of military, financial, and political backing to the occupying entity.
About 1.4 million Palestinians have crowded into Rafah, with many living in tents while food, water, and medicine are becoming increasingly scarce.
Al Mayadeen‘s correspondent reported early Monday that Israeli warplanes launched over 50 airstrikes on the densely-populated city, noting that the occupation forces used internationally prohibited incendiary missiles in its airstrikes.
The violent bombardment resulted in the martyrdom of over 100 people and dozens of injuries, he added.
Earlier in the day, the Palestinian Resistance movement Hamas said the massacre committed by “the terrorist Netanyahu government and its Nazi-like army” flies in the face of the urgent measures called for by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), including ceasing all activities amounting to genocide.
Hamas held Biden’s administration responsible for the crimes of the “Nazi-like” Israeli occupation army.
It also called on the League of Arab States, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and the United Nations Security Council to take urgent and serious action to stop the Zionists’ aggression.
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The final stage of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, an orchestrated mass starvation, has begun. The international community does not intend to stop it.
The final stage of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, an orchestrated mass starvation, has begun. The international community does not intend to stop it.
There was never any possibility that the Israeli government would agree to a pause in the fighting proposed by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, much less a ceasefire. Israel is on the verge of delivering the coup de grâce in its war on Palestinians in Gaza – mass starvation. When Israeli leaders use the term “absolute victory,” they mean total decimation, total elimination. The Nazis in 1942 systematically starved the 500,000 men, women and children in the Warsaw Ghetto. This is a number Israel intends to exceed.
Israel, and its chief patron the United States, by attempting to shut down the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which provides food and aid to Gaza, is not only committing a war crime, but is in flagrant defiance of the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The court found the charges of genocide brought by South Africa, which included statements and facts gathered by UNWRA, plausible. It ordered Israel to abide by six provisional measures to prevent genocide and alleviate the humanitarian catastrophe. The fourth provisional measure calls on Israel to secure immediate and effective steps to provide humanitarian assistance and essential services in Gaza.
UNRWA’s reports on conditions in Gaza, which I covered as a reporter for seven years, and its documentation of indiscriminate Israeli attacks illustrate that, as UNRWA said, “unilaterally declared ‘safe zones’ are not safe at all. Nowhere in Gaza is safe.”
UNRWA’s role in documenting the genocide, as well as providing food and aid to the Palestinians, infuriates the Israeli government. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused UNRWA after the ruling of providing false information to the ICJ. Already an Israeli target for decades, Israel decided that UNRWA, which supports 5.9 million Palestinian refugees across the Middle East with clinics, schools and food, had to be eliminated. Israel’s destruction of UNRWA serves a political as well as material objective.
The evidence-free Israeli accusations against UNRWA that a dozen of the 13,000 employees had links to those who carried out the attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, which saw some 1,200 Israelis killed, did the trick. It led 16 major donors, including the United States, the U.K., Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland, Finland, Australia, Canada, Sweden, Estonia and Japan, to suspend financial support for the relief agency on which nearly every Palestinian in Gaza depends for food. Israel has killed 152 UNRWA workers and damaged 147 UNRWA installations since Oct. 7. Israel has also bombed UNRWA relief trucks.
More than 27,708 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, some 67,000 have been wounded and at least 7,000 are missing, most likely dead and buried under the rubble.
More than half a million Palestinians – one in four – are starving in Gaza, according to the U.N. Starvation will soon be ubiquitous. Palestinians in Gaza, at least 1.9 million of whom have been internally displaced, lack not only sufficient food, but clean water, shelter and medicine. There are few fruits or vegetables. There is little flour to make bread. Pasta, along with meat, cheese and eggs, have disappeared. Black market prices for dry goods such as lentils and beans have increased 25 times from pre-war prices. A bag of flour on the black market has risen from $8.00 to $200 dollars. The healthcare system in Gaza, with only three of Gaza’s 36 hospitals left partially functioning, has largely collapsed. Some 1.3 million displaced Palestinians live on the streets of the southern city of Rafah, which Israel designated a “safe zone,” but has begun to bomb. Families shiver in the winter rains under flimsy tarps amid pools of raw sewage. An estimated 90 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been driven from their homes.
“There is no instance since the Second World War in which an entire population has been reduced to extreme hunger and destitution with such speed,” writes Alex de Waal, executive director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University and the author of “Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine,” in the Guardian. “And there’s no case in which the international obligation to stop it has been so clear.”
The United States, formerly UNRWA’s largest contributor, provided $422 million to the agency in 2023. The severance of funds ensures that UNRWA food deliveries, already in very short supply because of blockages by Israel, will largely come to a halt by the end of February or the beginning of March.
Israel has given the Palestinians in Gaza two choices. Leave or die.
I covered the famine in Sudan in 1988 that took 250,000 lives. There are streaks in my lungs, scars from standing amid hundreds of Sudanese who were dying of tuberculosis. I was strong and healthy and fought off the contagion. They were weak and emaciated and did not. The international community, as is in Gaza, did little to intervene.
The precursor to starvation – undernourishment – already affects most Palestinians in Gaza. Those who starve lack enough calories to sustain themselves. In desperation people begin to eat animal fodder, grass, leaves, insects, rodents, even dirt. They suffer from diarrhea and respiratory infections. They rip up tiny bits of food, often spoiled, and ration it.
Soon, lacking enough iron to produce hemoglobin, a protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen from the lungs to the body, and myoglobin, a protein that provides oxygen to muscles, coupled with a lack of vitamin B1 , they become anemic. The body feeds on itself. Tissue and muscle waste away. It is impossible to regulate body temperature. Kidneys shut down. Immune systems crash. Vital organs – brain, heart, lungs, ovaries and testes — atrophy. Blood circulation slows. The volume of blood decreases. Infectious diseases such as typhoid, tuberculosis and cholera become an epidemic, killing people by the thousands.
It is impossible to concentrate. Emaciated victims succumb to mental and emotional withdrawal and apathy. They do not want to be touched or moved. The heart muscle is weakened. Victims, even at rest, are in a state of virtual heart failure. Wounds do not heal. Vision is impaired with cataracts, even among the young. Finally, wracked by convulsions and hallucinations, the heart stops. This process can last up to 40 days for an adult. Children, the elderly and the sick expire at faster rates.
I saw hundreds of skeletal figures, specters of human beings, moving forlornly at a glacial pace across the barren Sudanese landscape. Hyenas, accustomed to eating human flesh, routinely picked off small children. I stood over clusters of bleached human bones on the outskirts of villages where dozens of people, too weak to walk, had laid down in a group and never gotten up. Many were the remains of entire families.
In the abandoned town of Maya Abun bats dangled from the rafters of the gutted Italian mission church. The streets were overgrown with tussocks of grass. The dirt airstrip was flanked by hundreds of human bones, skulls and the remnants of iron bracelets, colored beads, baskets and tattering strips of clothing. The palm trees had been cut in half. People had eaten the leaves and the pulp inside. There had been a rumor that food would be delivered by plane. People had walked for days to the airstrip. They waited and waited and waited. No plane arrived. No one buried the dead.
Now, from a distance, I watch this happen in another land in another time. I know the indifference that doomed the Sudanese, mostly Dinkas, and today dooms the Palestinians. The poor, especially when they are of color, do not count. They can be killed like flies. The starvation in Gaza is not a natural disaster. It is Israel’s masterplan.
There will be scholars and historians who will write of this genocide, falsely believing that we can learn from the past, that we are different, that history can prevent us from being, once again, barbarians. They will hold academic conferences. They will say “Never again!” They will praise themselves for being more humane and civilized. But when it comes time to speak out with each new genocide, fearful of losing their status or academic positions, they will scurry like rats into their holes. Human history is one long atrocity for the world’s poor and vulnerable. Gaza is another chapter.
In a shocking escalation of the ongoing barbaric bombing, the Gaza Strip continues to bear the brunt of the Israeli aggression for the fourteenth consecutive day. With no respite in sight, the occupying forces launched a series of relentless airstrikes throughout the region.
Tragically, the impact of these attacks reached even the places of worship. According to Palestinian medical sources, the Greek Orthodox Church in Gaza City, known as the Porphyrius Church, became the site of intense bombarding. The consequences were devastating. Eight Christian citizens, including innocent children, lost their lives, while a significant number sustained severe injuries. It is worth noting that the Porphyrius Church stands as the third oldest church in the world, adding to the historical and cultural significance of this shocking event.
The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem has strongly condemned what it labeled as an ‘Israeli’ assault on the Porphyrius Church, emphasizing that such an act constitutes a war crime.
Meanwhile, the Hamas movement urged the international community and the World Council of Churches to voice a robust condemnation and exert pressure on the Zionist entity to halt their relentless and what they described as fascist aggression.
In the same context, Al-Omari Mosque in Jabalia Al-Balad was bombed, completely destroying it, while the Al-Zahra Towers in Gaza City were also attacked, leaving six thousand Palestinians without a roof over their heads.
The occupied West Bank has also seen its fair share of violence, as the Nour Shams camp was stormed by Israeli forces, leading to a number of confrontations with resistance fighters. The Thabet Hospital in Tulkarm has also received four new casualties.
The Gaza government has reported that 369 citizens have been martyred in the past 24 hours alone as a result of Israeli attacks.
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The Israeli occupation is embarking on a true genocide against the minority Christian population in the Gaza Strip, which reportedly does not exceed 1,000 people.
The Israeli occupation on Thursday bombed a church that has been standing for far longer than itself as an entity. A 1,700-year-old church, one of the oldest in the region, was shelled in a war crime that not only targeted a religious building; but also a sanctuary where civilian refugees were hiding.
The reported injuries and deaths from the attack on the church are in the dozens, with entire families going missing beneath the rubble, which highlights Israeli brutality and shows that “Tel Aviv” is not looking to target the Palestinian Resistance, as per its claims, but instead is indiscriminately targeting civilians left and right, of course without any international accountability.
The Greek Orthodox Monastery of Saint Porphyrius did not discriminate on the basis of religion, allowing hundreds of people of all sects to seek refuge within its thought-to-be-safe walls. It also showed that the Israeli occupation itself does not discriminate either, as it killed the people of Gaza regardless of their beliefs. The senseless occupation has long been targeting residential buildings indiscriminately, pushing the residents of Gaza to seek refuge in churches, mosques, and schools, only to have those places of refuge bombed.
The Israeli occupation is systematically attacking Palestinian civilians seeking refuge, even as they tell them to do so. A few days into the aggression on Gaza, the Israeli occupation bombed a convoy of Palestinian refugees going from northern Gaza to the south of the Strip after ordering their displacement.
Firsthand reports indicate that the toll of martyrs was no less than 40, with hundreds, many of whom are Christians, being in the church. Many said the church had more than 500 people, which, if they were all killed – taking into account that Muslim refugees would have also been there – would have been around 30-40% of the Christian population of the Gaza Strip.
Such a systemic crime could have been genocide; accompanied by the aerial bombardment, it would have consequently wiped out the entire Christian population of the Gaza Strip, thus erasing over 2,000 years of history.
“There were 385 Christians seeking refuge in the church, we did not want to be forcibly displaced to Sinai. They talked to us, saying, ‘You must leave to the south, you must leave to the south.’ We said we did not want to go to the south,” one steadfast victim said.
“We were all in the church, almost 400 Christians. We were sitting there safely, and all of a sudden we were getting bombarded. The entire floor was leveled over our heads,” another eyewitness and victim said, with bandages covering the top of her head and a child on her lap crying.
The Israeli occupation, with its behemoth intelligence system that it claims is unmatched, must have known that the church only harbored civilians, but that did not prevent it from rendering the holy site nothing but rubble. This means that either the Israeli occupation’s intelligence agencies are not as great as it claims, or it is purposely killing civilians.
It did not even use common sense to avoid committing a double war crime, one count for attacking a religious site and another for targeting unarmed civilians. The third could be one count of attempted genocide.
Photos shared from the site show nurses, doctors, and emergency crews tending to patients, some of whom do not look to be older than 2 or 3, with blood and dust covering them from the debris that fell on them.
عاجل🚨🚨: عشرات الإصابات جميعهم من الأطفال والنساء الذين نزحوا إلى كنيسة وسط قطاع غزة بعد قصفها من قبل طائرات الاحتلال الإسرائيلي . pic.twitter.com/iUvVuy4PJ4
🚨🚨🚨 مجزرة جديدة يرتكبها الاحتلال الاسرائيلي بحق مئات النازحين داخل كنيسة الروم الآرثوذكس بمدينة غزة ووقوع أعداد كبيرة من الشهداء والجرحى الاعداد صخمة وتزيد عن 400 شهيد وجريح pic.twitter.com/lK2uLqtxmv
This falls in line with the Israeli policy of committing war crimes in Gaza under the guise of striking military targets belonging to the Palestinian Resistance.
The occupation forces deliberately targeted al-Maamadani (Baptist) Hospital in central Gaza, causing a gruesome massacre that claimed the lives of at least 500 martyrs, mainly children.
The attack, another war crime, was also a double violation of international law. Attacking medical structures constitutes a war crime. However, the hospital is a Christian one, with a church attached to it. While the hospital is called the Baptist church, after John the Baptist, it is also run by the Greek Orthodox church, but the church that is within the hospital is run by the Baptist sect.
The phrase, “We said we wanted to die in Gaza” reflects how the Palestinian people, whether Christian or Muslim, are attached to their homeland, as they acknowledge that this is their country, and it is their right to live within the bounds of this state.
Resistance is entrenched in Palestinian culture; this is not something to be disregarded, for the main argument for the Israeli occupation is that the Resistance’s actions go against the will of the Palestinian people, which could not be any less true.
In this case, Palestinian Christians were killed by the Israeli occupation, and not once throughout all the recordings published did anyone condemn Hamas or blame them for their tribulation; to the contrary, they always affirmed their commitment to their land and country, as well as to their Resistance.
Another victim/eyewitness underlined that “we don’t have another place to flee to,” adding that his house had been bombed and leveled. “Where shall I go now?”
“There is no place left for us,” he cried. “I am a Christian in Gaza. You’re bombing Christians and Muslims in Gaza.”
This goes hand in hand with the pro-Resistance sentiment echoed by many Christians and even Christian clerics who declared that they would not leave Palestine over their dead bodies.
Before the church was destroyed on top of the heads of the refugees it was housing, Archbishop of Tabarayya Alexios declared from the ancient Monastery of Saint Porphyrios, “As long as there is at least one Christian in the territory of Gaza, I will not go anywhere, because I can be a hope for them, so I will stay in the province that believes in me. If I die, I will have a dignified death as my destiny!”
“This is our homeland,” he underlined. “We will not abandon it. Or fate is with Christ, and we accept whatever outcome he allows.”
The cleric did not care for the brutal air raids and artillery strikes targeting his place of residence, nor did he take to condemning the Resistance as the West would expect him to do. Instead, he underlined that he would remain steadfast in his land despite the vicious attempts to uproot him and his people.
This, in itself, also echoes the sentiment of Father Monk Antonios Hanania of occupied Palestine’s Akka, who said, “We are Resistance fighters, we are Palestinian Fidaʼiyin, and many martyrs of ours have ascended to the Heavens; they are now alive with their Lord for they are honest believers who have proven true to what they pledged [to Allah].”
“In the meantime, we have not fulfilled our pledge [offering our lives], and we continue to wait [for our turn] to be honored with martyrdom,” he added.
After all, Jesus told Peter to sheath his sword; he did not tell him to discard it completely (John 18:11).
As a matter of fact, the Israeli narrative of the Resistance cursing the people of Gaza with deaths en masse neglects the fact that the Palestinian Resistance, as it is known today – mainly as Hamas – has only been around for a few decades. Meanwhile, the occupation has been around for 75 years. Long before Hamas was even conceived, the people of Palestine were being occupied by a settler colonial entity that was brutally killing them for years, and they had to pick up arms in its face.
The Palestinian Resistance in Gaza, whether Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), or any other Palestinian Resistance faction, is only used as a scapegoat for the Israeli war machine that seeks to kill the Palestinian people indiscriminately in a manner that would culminate in ethnic cleansing.
The Palestinian people live under occupation. They are dying year-round, but the West only dares speak of what is going on when the Palestinians fire a rocket toward the Israeli occupation residing on their own occupied Palestinian land. That is when they are labeled “aggressors”; when their killing is most legitimized under the pretext of “terrorism”, the West’s favorite buzzword for any act that sees the oppressed standing up to an oppressor.
Hamas and the other factions’ raison d’etre is the Israeli occupation; if there was not an occupation, there would not be Hamas, but if there was no Hamas, there would be an even worse occupation – there would be nothing stopping “Israel” from barging into the homes of whoever they want and dragging them in the streets, brutally assaulting them, detaining them, and even killing them.
That is evident because in the West Bank, a Hamas-free territory, those sorts of crimes take place daily – Palestinians are arrested for their political affiliations, as they would in a fascist state, they are shot at, their kids are shot at and murdered in cold blood, they are deprived of all their rights, and they have to refer to the Israeli occupation before taking any step or else they risk prison time.
To neglect the Israeli occupation’s criminality that birthed the Palestinian Resistance movements we know today is to neglect decades of history that culminated in the creation of movements that seek to liberate the oppressed from the grips of the oppressor – it is to neglect history in itself, and those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. If one does not want ethnic cleansing or genocide, one must not neglect the importance of armed struggle, but that is a topic for another day.
Palestinian Christians once again remind the entire world that while they are a minority and sidelined by the media as Resistance fighters, they are exactly that.
“But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one” (Luke 22:36).
Today, one realizes that if the Western conscience is not moved by the Israeli occupation seeking to uproot innocent civilian Christians and erase their history – Orthodox and Baptist Christians like those of their own nations, possibly the people that the ones they should relate to most in the region – then nothing will.
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Gaza — (Consortium News) — Hundreds of people were killed on Tuesday by a devastating airstrike on the Anglican al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City. Although Israel now blames the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) for the bombing, observers, including reporters from MSNBC and the BBC, suggest that this is unlikely. A reporter for the BBC stated on air:
The Israeli military.. have said they are investigating, but it’s hard to see what else this could be, really, given the size of the explosion, other than an Israeli air strike…”
The Anglican News Service also reported that the same hospital was hit by an Israeli rocket the day before the massive explosion.
Hananya Naftali, who currently works for Benjamin Netanyahu as a deputy media advisor, initially posted via social media that Israel had bombed the al-Ahli hospital before deleting the post and blaming PIJ for the attack.
He eventually apologized and retracted his first post, as Israel blamed a misfired Hamas rocket for the grisly damage. An official Israeli government Twitter account also deleted a video they published as evidence of Hamas’s responsibility for the attack after it was exposed to have included a video dating from 2022.
“BBC News is going out of its way to lend a sympathetic ear to Israel’s patently ridiculous claim that Islamic Jihad, not Israel, hit al-Ahli hospital in Gaza, killing many hundreds of Palestinian families sheltering there. That’s even though every journalist at the BBC knows that no group in Gaza has a rocket capable of flattening an entire building. Their rockets would barely be able to knock a hole in one of the hospital’s wall”
In just the last few days, members of Israel’s military and police forces admitted publicly their intent to target civilians in Gaza.
Another Israeli strike destroyed a crucial UNRWA depot in central Gaza holding scarce supplies. Palestinian civilians were continuously shelled in their homes. The death toll of civilians continues to rise, with the real numbers unknown as untold numbers of people remain under the rubble, with no one left in some families to reclaim the bodies.
Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian ambassador to the U.N., also reportedly pushed back on Netanyahu for denying Israel’s responsibility for the hospital bombing, saying: “He is a liar. His spokesperson and digital spokesperson tweeted that Israel did the hit thinking that this hospital was a base for Hamas. Then he deleted that tweet. Now, they changed the story to try to blame the Palestinians. It is a lie.”
Earlier today I shared a report that was published on @reuters about the bombing at the hospital in Gaza which falsely stated Israel struck the hospital. I mistakenly shared this information in a since deleted post in which I referenced Hamas’ routine use of hospitals to store…
Electronic Intifada further criticized Israel’s refusal to admit responsibility for the attack, deconstructing numerous official Israeli social media posts.
The attack at al-Ahli al-Arab Hospital was so atrocious that doctors were forced to hold a press conferencesurrounded by casualties. During their press conference, the hospital’s director reportedly stated, “The IDF told us, ‘We warned you yesterday with two bombs. So why have you not evacuated the hospital until this moment?’” A doctor at the press conference said that Western officials who gave “unconditional support” to Israel had “blood on their hands” after this attack.
All this comes after the WHO reported that multiple medical facilities had been targeted by Israel during the recent bombing campaigns. Hospitals in Gaza were already on the verge of total collapse. Israel also continues to bomb medics and emergency personnel in the midst of their attempt to perform their duties.
Naftali claims this video shows that Islamic Jihad rockets hit the hospital. While they are seen flying over the hospital, none are seen in this video actually hitting it. How many of these simple rockets would have to detonate to cause the massive explosion that destroyed the building? The next video shows and has the distinct sound (turn up the volume) of a more powerful JDAM bomb (listen) — which the Palestinians clearly don’t have — hitting the hospital.
For those that still doubt whether Israel bombed the hospital in Gaza or not, please watch this >> pic.twitter.com/Pfwj6yF5MO
When morning came, however, the damage done to the hospital grounds appeared less than what might have been expected by such a huge blast. A BBC analysis appears to show that the explosion was restricted to the parking lot of the hospital, where thousands of internally displaced people had apparently been sheltering. The analysis appears to indicate that the deaths (and there is no firm number yet) may have come mostly from fire. Given the less-than-expected damage, it leaves open the possibility that it was an errant Palestinian rocket.
OTHER MEANS OF DEATH
Regardless of who was responsible, bombing is not the only form of terror facing Palestinians: “A U.N. official just told me civilians in Gaza are reduced to drinking seawater because clean water has run out. Body bags are running out, and fuel for hospital generators powering ventilators will run out in hours. Food supply low. The bombing is intensifying. There aren’t words.” So wroteThe Independent’s award-winning chief international correspondent, Bel Trew, on Monday.
Children in Gaza are killed and orphaned by the hour, with those who escape shelling facing imminent starvation and dehydration under Israel’s blockade. Israel bombed the crossing from Gaza into Egypt again on Monday, further delaying the entry of desperately needed supplies. The Guardian reported the words of a nurse in Gaza, who commented on wounded children brought to hospitals who are the last living members of their families: “This is a war against children. Even the survivors will spend the rest of their lives on their own.”
This is the brutal, criminal reality below the niceties and the moral sloganeering, now in full view.
Israel: You guys need to evacuate that hospital or you’ll get killed.
Palestinians: We can’t evacuate the hospital, it’s a hospital.
The media has thus far failed to fully control the public narrative around Israel’s worsening war crimes, especially as images of slaughter escape Gaza via social media, bypassing dishonest corporate media framing. In response to massive public outcry in solidarity with Palestinians, multiple Western governments are cracking down on dissent and, in doing so, further exposing the West’s real values when it comes to atrocities.
The Western propaganda machine excuses. obfuscates and covers up Israeli crimes. In that sense, the ongoing atrocity of genocide and the response to it is not simply a revelation of Israel’s efforts at ethnic cleansing. It is a mask-off moment for the underlying brutality of the entire architecture of the Western empire, its total disregard for civilian life and civil liberties.
The U.S., the U.K., and Europe also aid Israel in terms of financial and material support. Israel has always been propped up by the West: as President Joe Biden has said multiple times, if Israel didn’t exist, “we would have to invent one in the Middle East.” Biden arrived in Israel on Wednesday and, in a televised appearance with Netanyahu, said that “from what I’ve seen,” the “other team, meaning not you,” did this.
Biden: ‘Israel did not bomb the hospital, it was done by them’.
In attempting to excuse this escalating ethnic cleansing, the Western corporate press is revealing the true value of human life under empire: zero. Zero value for the lives of Palestinians and their children, and even for the Israeli hostages in Gaza.
Zero value in upholding Western democratic ideals that so many wars have been excused by. The world public has noticed, turning out in the thousands to protest Israel’s treatment of Palestinians despite the pro-Israel propaganda.
In response, many Western countries have stepped up efforts to criminalize support for the Palestinians, starkly demonstrating that the democratic ideals supposedly held by the West are dead.
Former U.K. ambassador and human rights activist Craig Murray was reportedly detained and questioned on Monday under the U.K.’s “Prevention of Terrorism Act” after returning from a solidarity march in Iceland for Palestinians.
At least 57 members of Jewish Voices for Peace were arrested while showing their solidarity with Palestinians in New York City. Pro-Palestinian rallies in France and Germany have been outlawed. And the British home secretary likewise warned about criminalizing flying the Palestinian flag.
Within Israel, the government has grown nervous enough about public opinion on the ongoing atrocities to heavily criminalize dissent, including factual information, as reported by Haaretz. This came after multiple voices within Israel, including those whose relatives had been taken hostage, urged the Israeli government not to destroy Gaza.
If Israel’s new law seems anti-democratic, freedom of speech isn’t looking much freer in France or Germany: TheHill reports that French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin banned “all pro-Palestine protests in the country… He has ordered foreign nationals who violate the protest ban to be “systematically” deported.” After tens of thousands of people protested in solidarity with Palestinians, tear gas was used against the French public:
France deploys water cannons and tear gas against peaceful pro-Palestine protesters. Nothing says “this is a free country” like using chemical warfare against those trying to prevent genocide. pic.twitter.com/yuMKsPvr41
Mnar Adley, CEO of the independent news organization Mintpress News, reported on apparent social media censorship of videos explaining the situation from a Palestinian perspective.
Meanwhile, independent journalist Eva Bartlett had her YouTube account completely removed. Bartlett wrote via X (formerly Twitter):
After over 15 years of having a Youtube account, now, while Israel is genociding Palestinians, Youtube has suddenly closed my account completely.
This is not coincidental. I had many videos which I took in Gaza, under Israel’s bombs in 2009 & 2012… pic.twitter.com/Tn39HQgfCc
According to Yahoo News, the BBC has removed six reporters for anti-Israel social media posts. After tens of thousands marched in multiple cities across Britain, the BBC was forced to apologize for mischaracterizing the rallies as if they were in support of Hamas, rather than in solidarity with the Palestinians living under apartheid and Israeli bombs.
All of Israel’s attacks on civilians, the West’s dishonest reporting on Israel’s war crimes, the attempts to silence solidarity with Palestinians, and the material aid sent by the West to Israel amidst its attacks on civilians in broad daylight, constitute a mask-off moment for Empire like we’ve never seen before.
Where the degradation of Palestinians by Israel was previously shoved to the side of public discourse, the entire world is now witnessing the reality of Israel and the West’s utter disregard for human life in Gaza. Despite its posturing, the Western establishment’s support for Israel as it commits atrocity after atrocity is demonstrating in real time that the West has no moral authority.
Its defense of human rights and democracy is a lie.
Feature photo | A wounded mother and child wait for treatment in al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, central Gaza Strip, after arriving from al-Ahli hospital following an Israeli airstrike there, Oct. 17, 2023. Abed Khaled | AP
Elizabeth Vos is an independent journalist and MintPress News Contributor. Her work has appeared in many media outlets, including Consortium News, where she co-hosts the CNLive! webcast.
Stories published in our Daily Digests section are chosen based on the interest of our readers. They are republished from a number of sources, and are not produced by MintPress News. The views expressed in these articles are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect MintPress News editorial policy.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect MintPress News editorial policy.
An analysis of how the Pro-Israeli lobbies that permeate mainstream media as well as Western nations into endorsing Israeli atrocities in the name of “Self-defense,” simultaneously condone the censoring of Pro-Palestinian sentiment and solidarity.
Bennett unhinged, ranted at the presenter like a belligerent toddler, and claimed that “Israel” was fighting “Nazis,” angrily declaring he would not give them electricity since they were his “enemies.”
In an interview with Sky News presenter Kamali Melbourne, Naftali Bennett the former Israeli occupation Prime Minister screamed “What’s wrong with you?” when he was asked about Gazans on incubators in hospitals that may die from the cutting of electricity.
🚨‼️ Clash entre l’ancien Premier ministre israélien Naftali Bennett et le journaliste de SkyNews Kamali Melbourne parce qu’il l’a interrogé sur le sort des civils à #Gaza
– Melbourne : « Qu’en est-il de ces Palestiniens à l’hôpital, de ces bébés dans des incubateurs à Gaza… pic.twitter.com/TKHJsBL6Lu— Charlies Ingalls Le Vrai 🤠🐑🐄🐔🐎🤓 (@CharliesIngalls) October 12, 2023
Forget the incubators, “Israel” literally targeted the Al-Ahli Hospital housing over a thousand people, killing no less than 500 people, mostly children.
As a barrage of Western media has bombarded us with unsubstantiated Israeli claims of Hamas beheading babies and raping women, the West’s double standards and massive difference in narrative when addressing Palestine as compared to Ukraine, has been noticed.
The worldwide rallying that followed the “invasion” of Ukraine was unbelievable. The entire Western world with very few exceptions expressed support for Ukraine and condemnation of Russia.
Ukrainians ‘brave’, Palestinians ‘terrorists’
Why does the US enable “Israel” to continue its crimes? Because “Israel”, like Ukraine, is a pawn for US interest in the region. This was expressed by Joe Biden back in his pre-President, more coherent days of 1986.
As the war in Ukraine rages and Kiev’s “popular resistance” is continuously promoted and funded, Palestinians around the world wonder why their cause has not been backed even remotely as close to Ukraine’s?
Maybe its because their resistance has lasted for over 70 years and has not been sensationalized in mainstream media (mm). Or maybe it is because Russia does not have powerful lobbies in the West influencing public and political opinion.
MM circulated gut-wrenching images of Ukrainians “resisting” with Molotov cocktails while Western reporters lamented the poor civilians who look white, European, and “civilized.”
In a controversial video, a CBS reporter in Kiev explained, astonished, that Ukraine was not like “Iraq, or Afghanistan.” Why? Because Kiev was “civilized.”
Zelensky himself rushed to proclaim his support for the Israeli occupation and condemn the “terrorists” of Hamas while accusing Russia of funding them.
How can a man who has been globally supported financially and morally to literally “Free” his country from an “invasion” have the audacity to proclaim his support for an apartheid state that has been crushing its second-class population for decades?
Palestinians on the other hand, are called “terrorists” by Western media, are accused of using human shields, attacked for being “anti-semitic” due to BDS policies, and are widely told to give up their cause and concede to a two-state solution to “end the violence.”
The reality is that the West and the US in particular only encourage revolutions when it is in their favor.
From Vietnam, to Iraq, to Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria, the amount of times American officials have convinced Americans that they are fighting for their “freedom” is mind-boggling.
The devil works hard but AIPAC works harder
The Israeli occupation military recently requested that the AIPAC Pro-Israeli lobby in the US support its ongoing atrocities in Gaza when the “ugly” scenes from Gaza started to surface.
A spokesperson for the Israeli military, Jonathan Conricus told AIPAC on October 13 that “Tel Aviv” would need the support of parties that want to “stand up for what’s right.”
He explained that the scenes from Gaza would be “hard to stomach,” but not as hard as the “things coming out of Kibbutz Be’eri and Kfar Aza.
“The things” in his address refer to media reports that emerged alleging that babies were beheaded, among other unsubstantiated actions. The reporter who made the initial claim denied that they had seen evidence of such an event and said they were told by one Israeli soldier. Additionally, the US President and several officials have admitted to not seeing any evidence. Moreover, the CNN reporter who made the false story go viral later apologized for her report, stating that she “needs to be more careful with [her] words,” admitting that she was “misinformed.”
AIPAC’s explicit mission is to influence Congress on Israeli problems and legislation. AIPAC meets with members of Congress on a regular basis and arranges events where it may “express its views.”
When these views are there to embolden and encourage Israeli actions, it is not hard to see why and how the US continues to stay mute on its atrocities. These “views” cost thousands of lives in Gaza and ensure the occupation pockets $3 billion in aid annually.
Drawing parallels
When Gustavo Petro, the President of Colombia accused the Israeli occupation Security Minister Yoav Gallant of utilizing language about Gazans similar to what Nazis used regarding Jews, “Israel,” was outraged.
Ironically, the clear implication that Jews in “Israel” should not repeat the tactics and language once used against their ancestors flew right over Israeli heads. The Israeli Foreign Ministry still managed to accuse Petro of anti-Semitism and halt all security deliveries to the country.
Vladimir Putin also drew the same parallels, albeit without being as direct as Petro, when he warned “Israel” against implementing a siege on Gaza reminiscent of the Leningrad siege by Nazi Germany, calling it “unacceptable.”
Only in “Israel”, does self-reflection not exist, and any criticism about its tactics is met with immediate antisemitism accusations. If more than one world leader is comparing the IOF with Nazis, one would think a rational nation’s first plan of action would be to assess why and how these parallels are being drawn. However, the Israeli occupation is not rational or looking to address its shortcomings in any way.
Why does any criticism of “Israel” almost in every case instantly entail accusations of antisemitism and a hatred for Jews as a whole?
And going even further, how is it that every attempt to decolonize in the region gets labeled a terrorist attempt when it is not backed by US interests?
The media will call any political endeavor an Islamist one and any war against “Israel” an antisemitic one.
Almost every Western media outlet has treated Hamas as they did ISIS. Interview after interview, we see MM pundits demanding their pro-Palestine guests begin their interviews by condemning Hamas’s attack on innocent “peace-loving Israelis.”
Censorship is not limited to social media. Arab News recently reported that MSNBC suspended the programs of three Muslim anchors due to the ongoing aggression on Gaza. Recently, it was disclosed that Mehdi Hasan, Ayman Mohieddine, and Ali Velshi were discreetly replaced as anchors following Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.
Countries that vocalized Israeli support are the same countries with Israeli lobbies pushing a crackdown on Palestinian protests, exposing themselves as the poster children of double standards and utter hypocrisy.
France has completely banned pro-Palestine protests using the “disturbance of public order” as a transparent excuse, while neighboring Britain told police officers that chanting pro-freedom chants and waving Palestinian flags may be a “criminal offense”.
Rishi Sunak earlier declared his support for “Israel” and explained that any person in the UK who supported Hamas and its “barbaric acts of terrorism” would be held accountable, ignoring months of brutality and terror faced by Palestinians.
The occupation cannot be blamed alone if we do not hold the US equally accountable. As with Ukrainian troops, the US participates in funding and training initiatives with Israeli troops to embolden their brutality under the guise of “Self-defense.”
Months after the battle of Seif Al-Quds, the US approved a bill that along with billions in aid to “Israel,” ensures a “series of programs aimed at furthering peace in the region.”
What part of giving an occupying force $3 billion annually for use against oppressed and blockaded people is part of furthering peace?
Not only does the US fund “Israel’s” largest-ever “defense” program, the Iron Dome, but it continuously pours billions into the Israeli security fund.
According to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken last week, even though the occupation may be strong enough to defend itself, it never has to. The US will always be right by its side.
A horrible PR strategy
“Israel” is its own worst enemy, and it does such a poor PR job that it openly shows no sympathy for dead Palestinian civilians and openly expresses its genocidal intentions. Instead of at least pretending they cared they, along with beloved US officials, openly declare their agenda like bloodthirsty maniacs.
The former commander of the Northern Corps in the IOF, Eyal Ben Reuven, arrogantly announced in an interview with the Israeli Channel 13 that the occupation’s media rhetoric manipulation capabilities are “now being tested,” emphasizing that “So far we have not succeeded in that.”
According to Reuven, “the Israeli image must be marketed,” stressing that “the Israeli army must display all images through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs [website] or any other platform to try to give reaffirm Israeli narrative.”
Not only was the US the main contributor and constant enabler of Israeli aggression against Palestine for years, but it also has the audacity to claim it views Palestinians and Israelis in the same light. Blinken Tweeted in 2021 that “Israelis and Palestinians deserve equal measures of security, freedom, opportunity, and dignity.”
To want equal measures of security for an oppressor and his victim is an oxymoron. The US knows that “Israel” is the settler and aggressor and knows very well that its constant financial and moral support is the reason “Israel” has become as emboldened as it is.
In November 2022, Blinken accused Putin of being “barbaric” in denying heat water electricity for children and the elderly, claiming he was brutalizing them.
In his same response to news of “Israel’s” siege in Gaza and their cutting off electricity and water was no mention of barbarism or brutalization. Those terms are only reserved for Russia.
Palestine is not a double-edged sword
Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently called the attack on the hospital “unacceptable,” merely days after announcing on national television that Canada supported “Israel’s” right to self-defense.
The EU Commission President, Ursula Von Der Leyen while standing by Benjamin Netanyahu, expressed that she knew “Israel” would respond to the operation of the Palestinian Resistance in a way that “shows it is a democracy.” How utterly and sadly wrong she was.
After the hospital bombing on October 17, Von Der Leyen called for those responsible to be held accountable, without a single mention of “Israel.”
In the end, the resolution to the “Crisis” in the Middle East is not a two-state solution, or eradicating Hamas. Like a cancerous tumor, the occupation itself must be removed from the site. Or at the very least, the apartheid state must come to an end.
“Israel” itself is inhumane so long as it is led by Zionist supremacy and the crushing of Palestinian self-determination.
European and American officials can no longer condemn Palestinian resistance while simultaneously worrying about the humanitarian implications when “Israel” unleashes its revenge on Palestinians. This cannot be done together.
If this is not recognized, the “surprise” attacks by resistance factions in Palestine will never end. More importantly, the international community need not be so surprised when Palestinian resistance factions strike back at the occupation regime for its relentless and prolonged continuation of their misery.
In the words of Mohammed El Kurd, “How much violence is enough violence for people to retaliate?”
Related Videos
field | Resistance against the occupation continues
The Gaza Hospital massacre will not pass… Biden is a war criminal… Abbas does not represent his people… and the collapse of the occupation is worsening
The Israeli occupation carried out a massacre before the entire world as it bombed a hospital housing over a thousand civilians, killing hundreds in the process.
Palestinian media reported that Al-Maamadani Hospital was housing over a thousand people, including Palestinian refugees, patients, and media personnel.
The Government Media Office: #Israel committed a war crime, targeting the courtyard of the Baptist Hospital.
Hundreds of displaced Gazans had been taking shelter in the courtyard of the hospital thinking that it would be safe because it is a hospital sponsored by Christian… pic.twitter.com/PiZin8jqDH
The Israeli occupation forces bombed the Palestinian Hospital as Gaza continues reporting that its health sector is suffering in light of the crisis, with medicine and medical supplies being at risk of running out.
A video that went viral on social media showed the moment of the strike. It depicts an extremely fast object that hit the hospital in the terminal phase.
Some Israeli and pro-Israeli accounts claimed it was a failed resistance launch, in a weak attempt to shift the blame off the Israeli occupation and demonize the resistance factions. Based on the speed of the object it’s not possible for it to be a dud missile, as rockets failing to accelerate would have much lower speeds.
The speed difference can be easily identified between gliding munition launched from the air and failing-to-accelerate dud missiles. Hence, the object that hit the hospital was most definitely an Israeli airstrike.
Despite global appeals to protect healthcare facilities from Israeli airstrikes and forced displacement orders, Israeli threats have targeted hospitals in the Gaza Strip, endangering the well-being of patients and the wounded. “Israel” demanded on Saturday that al-Awda Hospital in northern Gaza forcibly evacuate its patients and staff within two hours.
Israeli warplanes also conducted airstrikes in the vicinity of the hospital in Tel al-Zaatar, northern Gaza, as part of their attempt to exert pressure on the hospital and expedite the displacement process.
In the same context, al-Durra Children’s Hospital in the east of the Gaza Strip was forced to evacuate its staff and patients after it was pounded with white phosphorus munitions.
Palestinian Health Ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qidra told Al Mayadeen, on Thursday, that Gaza was hours away from essential services completely shutting down, and the health sector is in collapse.
“Medicines are dwindling and have almost run out,” Al-Qidra said, noting that only life-saving units were operating in Gaza’s hospitals due to the existing fuel shortages.
When the Palestinian resistance breached all of Israel’s security boundaries last week, Tel Aviv was caught with its pants down. How can such a stunning intel failure not impact the country’s cyber intelligence sector and sales?
The sheer scale and intensity of the Palestinian resistance’s Operation Al-Aqsa Flood took Israel and the world by surprise last week. Even seasoned western intelligence agency veterans, who possess intimate knowledge of Israel’s surveillance capabilities, struggled to provide any plausible explanation for the glaring security gaps.
Academics with decades of research on the conflict, also admitted they are none the wiser: “Honestly I have no f’ing clue what’s going on. What this means. Or where this heads. Literally anything is possible,” tweeted an Associate Fellow at “the world’s oldest and the UK’s leading defense and security think tank,” the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).
US officials were notably evasive when asked if this amounted to an epic “intelligence failure.” Mainstream news outlets openly pondered how Tel Aviv could have missed the Palestinians’ elaborate plans while conspiracy theories quickly spread online to suggest that Israel may have intentionally allowed the incursion to occur – as if the Occupation state ever required an excuse to pulverize Gaza.
“There’s no way, in my view, that Israel did not know what’s coming…Something is very wrong here…This surprise attack seems like a planned operation on all fronts,” remarked one former Israeli intelligence officer.
An unprecedented security failure
A Financial Timesreport on the fiasco alleged that Israel “has built the most formidable intelligence service in the region and established a network of informants throughout the Palestinian territories, as well as in hostile neighbors” such as Iran, Lebanon, and Syria.
Yet, despite this apparently formidable fifth column and Tel Aviv’s construction of “a high-security barrier around Hamas’ stronghold in hemmed-in Gaza – buttressed by motion sensors and extending deep under the ground” – hundreds of Palestinian fighters were able to breach those defenses without difficulty.
This they did from multiple fronts, using boats, tunnels, motorbikes, and paragliders, infiltrating ten occupation army bases, and killing hundreds of sleeping Israeli troops.
Al-Aqsa Flood involved arranging multiple rocket launch systems, ground forces, vehicles, and other equipment in sensitive positions in advance of its execution, leaving resistance fighters and their equipment exposed to surveillance from assorted angles, yet they were neither detected nor intercepted.
Tel Aviv has invested billions of dollars in constructing its reputation, and has routinely boasted in the years prior that it was among the most heavily fortified and defended countries in the world.
In the event, the technology was rendered totally useless, their extensive constituent cameras, sensors, and other systems not identifying the attack or perpetrators. Meanwhile, drones blitzed automatic machine guns and electronic guard towers, as the Palestinian resistance blew up fences and entered into Israel.
“Even if all of the Gaza Strip is destroyed (and there is no need for this), and even if the heads of Mohammed Deif, Khaled Meshal, Yahya Sinwar, Ismail Haniyeh and their associates roll in the alleys, this will not make up for the biggest security failure since 1973.”
Israeli military officials have admitted that a very serious discussion is required “down the road” on what went wrong, but claimed this would follow the counteroffensive against Gaza, whenever that genocidal thrust ends. “We’ll talk about that when we need to talk about it,” an army spokesperson evasively said.
But beyond the military and settler losses endured by the Occupation state, the broader psychological impact of this Palestinian guerilla operation is profound. And it comes on the back of two years of relentless, and often successful, foreign hacking operations that have penetrated Israel’s toughest firewalls across critical institutions – including the country’s Ministry of Defense.
Most recently, a hacking operation leaked embarrassing private photos of Ehud Barak, Israel’s former defense minister and prime minister, which spread widely across social media and horrified Israel’s political elite.
Impact on Israel’s tech sector
Last year, the Times of Israelreported that in 2021, the country’s overall cybersecurity exports were estimated at $11 billion.
In addition, 33 percent of cyber unicorn companies operate from Israel, and a whopping 40 percent of global private cyber investments have been funneled into the country, according to the Israeli government.
From Tel Aviv’s perspective, the exposure of their electronic surveillance and warfare systems as ineffective and vulnerable to guerrilla attacks is a serious blow to Israel’s “Startup Nation” brand, which relies heavily on its multi-billion-dollar tech sector – with cybersecurity at its core.
Just a few years back, in 2018, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had boasted:
“Cybersecurity grows through cooperation, and cybersecurity as a business is tremendous…We spent an enormous amount on our military intelligence and Mossad and Shin Bet. An enormous amount. An enormous part of that is being diverted to cybersecurity…We think there is a tremendous business opportunity in the neverending quest of security.”
The push for cybersecurity supremacy permeates almost every area of Israeli society. Universities hone innovative new technologies and train future generations of cyber spies and security operatives, to be employed upon graduation by the welter of firms locally and abroad founded by veterans of Tel Aviv’s infamous cyber intelligence agencies, such as Unit 8200, which act as effective arm’s length divisions of the Israeli state.
Graphic videos showcasing Israel’s “surgical strikes” on Palestinian civilians and infrastructure are used as a marketing tool to promote their weaponry to foreign clients, while practical demonstrations of invasive surveillance tools like the notorious Pegasus have gained notoriety. Pegasus infects target smartphones, enabling the real-time harvesting of vast amounts of sensitive user data.
In recent years, revelations of foreign governments and security agencies being implicated in scandals due to their covert use of Pegasus have become disturbingly routine. This invasive tool was developed by the NSO Group, founded by a former Mossad operative.
A 2021 Carnegie Endowment investigation revealed that 56 different states had procured this technology, as well as other spyware and “digital forensics” innovations from Israeli competitors like Candiru, Cellebrite, and Cytrox.
Making a killing
As Jeff Halper, director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, documented in his 2015 bookWar Against The People, Tel Aviv hawking wares such as Pegasus to overseas customers generates an enormous amount of diplomatic goodwill, which is highly effective in stifling international criticism of Zionist barbarism towards Palestinians.
After all, that barbarism’s brutal efficacy has perversely become a unique selling point for Israeli killing apparatuses, surveillance “solutions,” and battle tactics worldwide.
Mere days before Operation al-Aqsa Flood commenced, Israeli media reported on a “record-breaking spike” in countries buying Israeli cyber warfare and intelligence systems from 67 to 83 over 2022, and marketing licenses for these wares granted to 126 countries.
This followed a “dramatic decline” in 2021, precipitated by the exposure of widespread use of Pegasus by repressive governments, and NSO and Candiru being blacklisted by Washington.
It seems likely the events of recent days will also lead to a significant decline in the fortunes of Israel’s cybersecurity sector. Gaza is, by design, an open-air concentration camp, and in theory, nothing and no one gets in or out without Tel Aviv’s authorization and knowledge. However, this time, the supposed internal surveillance system failed catastrophically.
Resistance in a digital age
Ironically, one of the most intriguing explanations proposed thus far is that Palestinians utilized Huawei smartphones for their digital communications. The much-maligned Chinese company has faced sanctions from the US and its international allies, ostensibly for being associated with the Communist Party.
Yet it may be due to their refusal to insert backdoors into their technology and devices at the behest of western intelligence agencies.
It has been suggested that the satellite communication function of Huawei Mate 60 Pro, for instance, “allows the phone to make calls and transmit data without a network connection, thus avoiding the surveillance of Pegasus spyware.”
The model also uses the independent Harmony operating system and “adopts the latest security measures to effectively defend against Pegasus spyware attacks,” which can effectively avoid Pegasus spyware surveillance.
This refusal has now become a compelling, unique selling point for freedom fighters not only in the Occupied Territories but across the world.
Al-Aqsa Flood has not only been a humiliating security failure for Israel but has also raised questions about the efficacy of its vaunted security technology. The historic 7 October resistance operation could have far-reaching consequences, affecting the occupation’s reputation not only in the military domain, but in the business and economic ones too.
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.
According to US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, an Israeli national security veteran said that “Israel” is pondering whether to use a “Leningrad approach” to starve out “Hamas forces” in Gaza and avoid an invasion, something the source said may lead to the murder of nearly 100,000 civilians.
The Israeli source told Hersh that “The big debate today … is whether to starve Hamas out or kill as many as 100,000 people in Gaza,” adding that, “Hamas now only has a two or three-day supply of purified water and that, along with a lack of food … may be enough to flush all the Hamas [forces] out.”
The Israeli occupation continues to bombard residential areas and hospitals, as well as vital infrastructure in the Gaza Strip amid a stifling blockade that is putting at risk numerous vital resources, such as fuel, food, and medicine, with the health sector being seriously jeopardized by the stifling siege.
Information revealed to Al Mayadeen indicates that the humanitarian situation in Gaza is being exacerbated by the hour, with 330,000 people, 15% of Gaza’s population, being displaced since the start of the aggression. This figure does not include the families moving between their families’ homes, meaning this figure could be as high as 33%.
The Palestinian people, according to information obtained by Al Mayadeen, do not feel safe in UNRWA schools where they usually take shelter.
Arab foreign ministers called for the “immediate” dispatch of food, fuel, and humanitarian aid to Gaza, urging the Israeli occupation to reconsider its unjust blockade.
The source told Hersh that Hamas forces are believed to live underground, rendering the Leningrad approach more effective as it would avoid a ground offensive.
According to the source, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and occupation officials are skeptical they could manage a ground attack in Gaza since they have not been trained for warfare and are primarily utilized as security guards in the West Bank.
The source also believes the Leningrad method may also push Hamas to release some hostages in return for supplies.
The situation is exceedingly fluid and unexpected, and “Israel” may opt to launch a broad ground assault, according to the source.
Three men burying victims of Leningrad’s siege in 1942, Volkovo cemetery, Leningrad (RIA Novosti’s archive)
The Siege of Leningrad stands as one of the darkest chapters of World War II, when German and Finnish forces, under the command of Nazi German leader Adolf Hitler, besieged the city of Leningrad in the Soviet Union. The attack resulted in an estimated 1.2 million casualties, including 140,000 children, over approximately 842 days.
Nazi forces laid siege to the city of Leningrad, now known as St. Petersburg, during World War II, from September 8, 1941, to January 27, 1944, hoping to break Soviet resistance and capture the city.
Hitler tasked the besieging forces with destroying the city to the largest extent possible, using aerial bombardment and artillery shelling, before entering it in the spring to displace its residents to remote Russian regions or take them as prisoners.
During the city’s siege by Nazi forces time, civilians endured the hardships of starvation, indiscriminate shelling, and air raids.
German forces cut off Leningrad from the south and west, encircling the city by land and sea, and blocking all supplies from reaching the city.
The residents of Leningrad suffered greatly during the siege, losing access to food, water, electricity, and medical care. Over a million people in the city perished due to hunger and disease.
Studies have shown that shelling and bombing by the invaders accounted for 3% of siege victims, while the majority succumbed to food shortages and sickness due to the shortage of essential goods.
‘Atrocity’ allegations debunked
Netanyahu alleged that what Hamas carried out was worse than ISIS, claiming “evidence” that Hamas members committed war crimes. However, these allegations have been debunked.
Oren Oziv, a journalist based in “Israel” and part of the group of journalists who were admitted into a media tour of the “Kfar Azza” settlement, denied reports of “Hamas beheading children.”
“During the tour, we didn’t see any evidence of this, and the army spokesperson or commanders also didn’t mention any such incidents,” Oren Ziv said in a post on X.
2/5 During the tour, journalists were allowed to speak to the hundreds of soldiers on site, without the supervision of the army's spokesperson team. I24 reporter said she heard it “from soldiers”. pic.twitter.com/IgHL8SBy8A
“Israel” has intensified its brutal airstrikes across Gaza, leading to hundreds of killings and thousands of injuries among civilians, including journalists.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health reported that the number of martyrs resulting from the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip has surpassed 704, with the number of injuries exceeding 3,900.
Al Mayadeen‘scorrespondent reported that a state of calm prevails in the Strip after a night of intense Israeli airstrikes.
Journalists Saeed Al-Taweel, Mohammad Sobh, and Hisham al-Nwajha were martyred in an Israeli bombing that targeted areas in the western Gaza Strip, Al Mayadeen‘s correspondent reported.
Our correspondent previously reported that the Israeli occupation is deliberately targeting journalists covering the ongoing aggression on the Strip.
The three journalists were killed as “Israel” bombed and destroyed a residential building in Western Gaza, in close proximity to Al Mayadeen‘s office in the Gaza Strip.
The war crime comes in conjunction with intensified IOF strikes across Gaza, leading to hundreds of deaths and thousands of injuries among civilians.
In the #Gaza Strip, a grieving #Palestinian father tenderly holds his lifeless baby girl in his arms, offering her a final, heart-wrenching embrace following her tragic loss in an Israeli airstrike.
This devastating scene serves as a poignant reminder of the immense human toll… pic.twitter.com/6IFrfXC1vr
In the same context, a government official in Gaza has stated that the Israeli occupation had collectively wiped out 15 families.
Our correspondent highlighted that the bombing witnessed on Monday is by far the harshest since the Israeli occupation launched its bombing campaign on the Strip.
In a response to the announcement made by the Israeli security minister Yoav Gallant, ordering a full siege of the city, Omar Shakir, Human Rights Watch “Israel” and Palestine Director for Human Rights, posted on X that depriving a population of food and electricity is “collective punishment” and that this is the Israeli occupation’s method of utilizing starvation as a weapon of war.
According to the Israeli Energy Minister Israel Katz, all the water supply from “Israel” to Gaza has been cut off.
Gallant, as quoted by GLZ Radio, has ordered to cut off electricity, water, and food from Gaza in the aftermath of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.
He revealed the occupation’s true face by referring to the Palestinians in Gaza as “human animals,” whom he will have to deal with “accordingly”.
The deadly violence between Israel and the Palestinians over the last year and a half has surged to levels unseen in the occupied West Bank in some two decades.
Israeli military operations in the occupied West Bank and unrest in the Gaza Strip have killed six Palestinians, Palestinian health officials said Wednesday, the latest spike in a wave of violence that has roiled the region for more than a year.
The death toll from the most recent flare-up stood at four late Tuesday. But on Wednesday the Palestinian Health Ministry raised it, saying an Israeli raid into the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank killed four people and wounded some 30 others, while a raid in a separate refugee camp killed another Palestinian. A sixth Palestinian was killed by Israeli fire in unrest in the Gaza Strip, officials said.
The deadly violence between Israel and the Palestinians over the last year and a half has surged to levels unseen in the West Bank in some two decades. Israel has stepped up its raids on Palestinian areas and Palestinian attacks against Israelis have been mounting. Tensions also appear to be spreading to Gaza.
The Israeli military said Wednesday that troops opened fire toward a Palestinian who was throwing explosives at them while they were on an overnight arrest raid in the refugee camp of Aqabat Jabr. The camp, near the Palestinian city of Jericho, has emerged as one of the focal points of Israel’s raids.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said Israeli forces killed 19-year-old Dhargham al-Akhras in the raid.
The bloodshed in the Jenin camp hours earlier was the latest in that stronghold of Palestinian militants where the Israeli military often carries out deadly raids. In July, Israel launched its most intense operation in the West Bank in nearly two decades, leaving widespread destruction in the camp.
The army said that forces carried out a rare strike Tuesday with a suicide drone during the operation and exchanged fire with gunmen in Jenin. While leaving the camp, the army said, an explosive detonated underneath an army truck as gunmen opened fire, damaging the vehicle. No soldiers were injured.
Videos posted on social media showed medics unloading the wounded at a hospital, while in other videos, explosions and gunfire could be heard echoing in the camp. As Israeli soldiers withdrew, a crowd of young men chanted: “Oh, you who ask, who are we? We are the Jenin Brigade.”
After the Israeli military withdrew from the Jenin camp, dozens of gunmen and residents poured into the streets to protest against the Palestinian Authority and its failure to protect them, according to footage shared by residents.
Israel says the raids are meant to dismantle militant networks and thwart future attacks.
Some 190 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since the start of the year, according to a tally by The Associated Press. Israel says most of those killed have been militants, but youths protesting the incursions and others not involved in the confrontations have also been killed.
At least 31 people have been killed in Palestinian attacks against Israelis since the beginning of 2023.
In the Gaza violence, health officials said the Israeli military killed a 25-year-old Palestinian along the volatile frontier with Israel as youths mounted violent protests at a separation fence.
Unrest over the past week has escalated tensions and prompted Israel to bar entry to thousands of Palestinian laborers from the impoverished enclave.
Over the last week, dozens of Palestinians — burning tires and hurling explosive devices at Israeli soldiers — have streamed toward the fence separating Israel from Gaza, which has been under an Israeli-Egyptian blockade since 2007. Israel says the blockade is needed to prevent the ruling Hamas militant group from arming itself.
Hamas says youths have organized the protests in response to Israeli provocations.
Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians seek those territories for their hoped-for independent state
UPROOTED PALESTINIANS: SALAM ALQUDS ALAYKUM 