• ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 117: Israel besieges Nasser Hospital for tenth consecutive day
    Mustafa Abu SneinehJanuary 31, 2024
    Palestinians wait in line in front of bakeries for hours to buy bread that is available in limited quantities in Deir al-Balah, January 30, 2024. (Photo: Naaman Omar/APA Images)
    Palestinians wait in line in front of bakeries for hours to buy bread that is available in limited quantities in Deir al-Balah, January 30, 2024. (Photo: Naaman Omar/APA Images)
    Casualties

    26,900+ killed* and at least 65,949 wounded in the Gaza Strip.
    387+ Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem
    Israel revises its estimated October 7 death toll down from 1,400 to 1,147.
    560 Israeli soldiers killed since October 7, and at least 3,221 injured.**
    *This figure was confirmed by Gaza’s Ministry of Health on Telegram channel. Some rights groups put the death toll number closer to 32,000 when accounting for those presumed dead.

    ** This figure is released by the Israeli military.

    Key Developments

    Palestinians bury bodies of 100 people in mass grave in Rafah city following weeks of being held in Israel.
    Wafa reports Palestinian medics found organs missing from martyrs’ bodies, accuse Israeli authorities of stealing them.
    Al-Amal and Nasser Hospitals under siege by Israeli tanks in Khan Younis for tenth consecutive day.
    PRCS says Israeli forces kill security employee in Al-Amal Hospital while standing near backdoor.
    Nasser Hospital warns electrical generators will stop within two days due to fuel shortages, waste accumulates inside facility as Israeli forces refuse to allow it to be transported out.
    Israeli forces start flooding some tunnels in Gaza by pumping large amounts of sea water.
    BBC says Israeli bombardment destroyed or damaged more than half of Gaza’s buildings between October 12 last year and January 29.
    The Washington Post reports U.S. “has not independently verified Israel’s claims” about UNRWA employees’ alleged involvement in October 7 attack.
    Nine UNRWA employees could return to work if found innocent, were “pre-emptively dismissed” and have “right of recourse,” according to UNRWA spokesperson.
    Israel’s Netanyahu says truce and exchange deal with Hamas won’t happen on his watch.
    Israeli authorities in Jerusalem force Palestinian to demolish his own house in Jabal al-Mukabbir.
    100 Palestinian bodies buried in a mass grave in Rafah

    Palestinians buried the bodies of 100 people in a mass grave in Rafah city on Tuesday afternoon, following weeks of being held in Israel.

    Advertisement

    Mondoweiss publishes news and analysis about Palestine for people taking action. Donate today.
    Wafa news agency reported that some of the Palestinian martyrs could not be identified due to decomposition, while medics accused Israeli authorities of stealing organs from some of them.

    Israeli forces handed the bodies at Kerem Abu Salem crossing, south of the Gaza Strip, and Palestinians laid the bodies in a long grave, wrapped in dark navy sheets, and used a bulldozer to cover them with soil.

    Wafa reported that it is unclear when and where Israel killed those Palestinians since October. It added that Israeli forces rampaged through Palestinian cemeteries and took several bodies of those buried there.

    As Israeli forces advanced into Al-Shifa Hospital in November, the army exhumed graves in north Gaza and took 110 bodies to inspect whether any of them were Israeli captives.

    According to the BCC, Israeli forces have destroyed nearly half a dozen graveyards in the Gaza Strip since October, including the cemeteries of al-Faluga, Beit Lahia, al-Shuja’iyya and Beit Hanoun, among others.

    Wafa reported that Palestinian medics found missing organs from the martyrs’ bodies and accused Israeli authorities of stealing them.

    Israeli tanks besiege Al-Amal and Nasser Hospitals in Khan Younis

    Gaza’s Ministry of Health said on Wednesday that Israeli forces killed 150 Palestinians and injured 313 others in 16 massacres in the past 24 hours. The number of Palestinians killed in the Israeli aggression on Gaza now stands at 26,900 martyrs, and 65,949 were injured since October.

    For the tenth consecutive day, both the Al-Amal and Nasser Hospitals are under siege by Israeli tanks and forces in Khan Younis, south of Gaza, the second-largest city in the enclave.

    There are 36 hospitals in the Gaza Strip, but only 14 of them are partially operating — nine of them in southern Gaza, including al-Amal and Nasser Hospitals.

    Gaza’s Ministry of Health spokesperson Dr. Ashraf al-Qidra said yesterday that there were 150 medical staff, 450 injured patients, and 3,000 displaced Palestinians trapped in the Nasser Hospital, and that they are at risk of Israeli fire if they attempt to leave.

    Wafa reported that Israeli forces also fired bullets at anyone who moved in the vicinity of the al-Amal Hospital, which is run by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS).

    Israeli forces stormed the al-Amal Hospital courtyard on Tuesday and the PRCS offices.

    “Israeli tanks are currently stationed in A-Amal hospital front yard, firing live ammunition and smoke grenades at the displaced individuals and PRCS staff,” PRCS wrote on X on Tuesday afternoon.

    “We deeply worry for the safety of our teams, the wounded, the sick, and thousands of displaced people in the building. Fires have broken out in tents within the confines of the PRCS Headquarters,” it added.

    PRCS said on Wednesday that Israeli forces shot and killed a security employee in al-Amal as he was standing near a rear door.

    “Intense and ongoing targeting in the vicinity of Amal Hospital and the launch of smoke grenades,” PRCS wrote on X on Wednesday morning.

    The Nasser Hospital has warned that electrical generators will stop within two days due to fuel shortages and that waste has accumulated inside the facility as Israeli forces refuse to allow it to be transported out.

    Israel begins flooding Gaza tunnels

    Israeli forces announced on Tuesday evening that they started flooding tunnels in Gaza where “suitable,” pumping large amounts of sea water into them.

    Following a report in December about the Israeli plan to flood Gaza tunnels used by Palestinian resistance fighters, concerns were raised regarding the damage salted seawater could cause to the soil, environment, and fresh water in the Gaza Strip, which would affect the livelihoods of nearly 2.3 million Palestinians.

    The Guardian reported then that flooding under Gaza would amount to “ruining the basic conditions for life in Gaza” and cause “an ecological catastrophe,” which would constitute one element of the crime of genocide.

    Israel destroyed half of Gaza’s buildings

    In the past 24 hours, Israel continued to bombard Gaza from land and air. Wafa reported that at least six Palestinians were killed in Khan Younis by Israeli artillery and airstrikes. Israel also bombed the neighborhoods of al-Daraj, al-Zaytoun, Sina, and al-Rimal, on the outskirts of Gaza City. Palestinian medics and ambulances faced difficulties reaching these areas to retrieve the bodies of Palestinians and rescue the injured.

    In the Tal al-Zaatar neighborhood in Jabalia, Israel artillery targeted al-Awda Hospital while bombing the vicinity of al-Dawa Mosque, north of Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.

    In Khan Younis, Israeli forces bombed the al-Namsawi (The Austrian) neighborhood and the city center. Wafa reported that Israeli bulldozers razed and swept parts of Al-Shuhada Street in Gaza City under the protection of tanks and air forces.

    An Israeli airstrike killed at least 11 Palestinians in Deir al-Balah on Tuesday evening.

    The BBC released a report saying that more than half of the Gaza Strip buildings were destroyed or damaged in the Israeli bombardment campaign. The report covers the period from October 12 last year till January 29, based on satellite imagery.

    “Across Gaza, residential areas have been left ruined, previously busy shopping streets reduced to rubble, universities destroyed and farmlands churned up, with tent cities springing up on the southern border to house many thousands of people left homeless,” BBC reported.

    Since December, Khan Younis saw immense destruction by Israeli forces. BBC analysis revealed that “between 144,000 and 175,000 buildings across the whole Gaza Strip have been damaged or destroyed. That’s between 50% and 61% of Gaza’s buildings.”

    Nearly two million Palestinians have been internally displaced, the majority having fled from northern and central Gaza to Rafah city, which borders Egypt in the south.

    Israeli bombardment chased them there, however, and in recent weeks, rain and cold weather has made daily life miserable for thousands of families amid a lack of sufficient food, fresh water, and efficient sources of heating.

    ‘Withdrawing funds from UNRWA is perilous‘

    The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) warned again of the abrupt ending of donations by the U.S. and other states, which would lead to the shutting down of humanitarian operations in the Gaza Strip.

    Last week, the U.S., the biggest donor to UNRWA, said it was suspending the money it pledged to the UN agency after Israel claimed that 12 UNRWA employees were involved in Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7.

    UNRWA said that it fired nine of the employees, and a tenth is still being identified, while the remaining two were killed in the October attack.

    “Withdrawing funds from UNRWA is perilous and would result in the collapse of the humanitarian system in Gaza, with far-reaching humanitarian and human rights consequences in the occupied Palestinian territory and across the region,” UNRWA said in a statement on Tuesday.

    UNRWA employs 30,000 workers, 13,000 of them in the Gaza Strip, and the rest are in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and the West Bank.

    Israeli politicians have long aimed to weaken and bring UNRWA to an end long before October 7, as the agency highlighted the plight of millions of Palestinian refugees and their right of return to their homes and lands inside modern-day Israel.

    The Washington Post reported that the U.S. “has not independently verified Israel’s claims [about UNRWA’s employees], which are based on intercepted communications, phone location data, interrogations of Hamas fighters and documents that the Israeli military has recovered in Gaza.”

    It added that one of the reasons the U.S. rushed to end donations to UNRWA is to compel the agency to conduct a thorough investigation “or risk permanently losing funding from Western governments whose donations are critical to its survival.”

    However, U.S. officials acknowledge that there is no alternative to UNRWA to supply humanitarian aid in Gaza. The case is not sealed yet, and the nine UNRWA employees could return to work if they are found innocent, as they were “pre-emptively dismissed” and have “the right of recourse,” an UNRWA spokesperson told Al-Jazeera.

    Israel’s Netanyahu says truce and exchange deal with Hamas won’t happen

    As details of a potential truce and captive exchange deal leaked to the media, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu assured Israelis that such a deal will not take place on his watch.

    According to the potential deal, a 45-day pause of fighting would be announced by Israel and Palestinian resistance movements, during which Hamas will release 35 Israeli captives in return for 4,000 Palestinian prisoners.

    Netanyahu said on Tuesday evening, “we will not remove the IDF from the Gaza Strip and we will not release thousands of terrorists.”

    “None of this will happen. What will happen? Absolute victory!” he added during a speech at the Bnei David academy in the illegal settlement of Eli in the occupied West Bank.

    The deal is yet to be confirmed, and Hamas is studying it before replying through Qatar and Egypt.

    Yair Lapid, an opposition figure who served for a stint as prime minister, said that there will be “a safety net” in the Knesset for Netanyahu’s government to help advance “any deal that brings the hostages home.”

    Lapid’s words came after several right-wing ministers threatened to collapse the government if Netanyahu pushed ahead with the deal, which if successful, will be the biggest since 1985.

    Israeli forces have arrested 1,000 Palestinians from Jenin since October

    Israeli forces arrested 16 Palestinians from the occupied West Bank, including two women, on Wednesday. During the arrest campaign, carried out during the night, military forces raided Azzun, Nablus, Bethlehem, Beit Fajjar, Qalandia refugee camp, Ramallah, and Jaba near Jenin.

    According to the Prisoner’s Club, Israel arrested 1,000 Palestinians from the Jenin area since October, making up nearly a sixth of the total 6,420 detainees.

    On Tuesday, Israeli authorities in occupied Jerusalem forced Jamil Sarri to self-demolish his house in the Jabal al-Mukabbir neighborhood, rendering his family homeless.

    The house of 100 square meters was built without an Israeli permit, and if authorities demolished it, Sarri would have to have paid the costs of the demolition.

    Israel rejects 98 percent of Palestinian applications for building permits in Jerusalem while continuing to build and plan for the construction of thousands of new settler housing units.

    BEFORE YOU GO – At Mondoweiss, we understand the power of telling Palestinian stories. For 17 years, we have pushed back when the mainstream media published lies or echoed politicians’ hateful rhetoric. Now, Palestinian voices are more important than ever.

    Our traffic has increased ten times since October 7, and we need your help to cover our increased expenses.

    Support our journalists with a donation today.

    https://mondoweiss.net/2024/01/operation-al-aqsa-flood-day-117-israel-besieges-nasser-hospital-for-tenth-consecutive-day/

    https://donshafi911.blogspot.com/2024/01/operation-al-aqsa-flood-day-117-israel.html
    ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 117: Israel besieges Nasser Hospital for tenth consecutive day Mustafa Abu SneinehJanuary 31, 2024 Palestinians wait in line in front of bakeries for hours to buy bread that is available in limited quantities in Deir al-Balah, January 30, 2024. (Photo: Naaman Omar/APA Images) Palestinians wait in line in front of bakeries for hours to buy bread that is available in limited quantities in Deir al-Balah, January 30, 2024. (Photo: Naaman Omar/APA Images) Casualties 26,900+ killed* and at least 65,949 wounded in the Gaza Strip. 387+ Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem Israel revises its estimated October 7 death toll down from 1,400 to 1,147. 560 Israeli soldiers killed since October 7, and at least 3,221 injured.** *This figure was confirmed by Gaza’s Ministry of Health on Telegram channel. Some rights groups put the death toll number closer to 32,000 when accounting for those presumed dead. ** This figure is released by the Israeli military. Key Developments Palestinians bury bodies of 100 people in mass grave in Rafah city following weeks of being held in Israel. Wafa reports Palestinian medics found organs missing from martyrs’ bodies, accuse Israeli authorities of stealing them. Al-Amal and Nasser Hospitals under siege by Israeli tanks in Khan Younis for tenth consecutive day. PRCS says Israeli forces kill security employee in Al-Amal Hospital while standing near backdoor. Nasser Hospital warns electrical generators will stop within two days due to fuel shortages, waste accumulates inside facility as Israeli forces refuse to allow it to be transported out. Israeli forces start flooding some tunnels in Gaza by pumping large amounts of sea water. BBC says Israeli bombardment destroyed or damaged more than half of Gaza’s buildings between October 12 last year and January 29. The Washington Post reports U.S. “has not independently verified Israel’s claims” about UNRWA employees’ alleged involvement in October 7 attack. Nine UNRWA employees could return to work if found innocent, were “pre-emptively dismissed” and have “right of recourse,” according to UNRWA spokesperson. Israel’s Netanyahu says truce and exchange deal with Hamas won’t happen on his watch. Israeli authorities in Jerusalem force Palestinian to demolish his own house in Jabal al-Mukabbir. 100 Palestinian bodies buried in a mass grave in Rafah Palestinians buried the bodies of 100 people in a mass grave in Rafah city on Tuesday afternoon, following weeks of being held in Israel. Advertisement Mondoweiss publishes news and analysis about Palestine for people taking action. Donate today. Wafa news agency reported that some of the Palestinian martyrs could not be identified due to decomposition, while medics accused Israeli authorities of stealing organs from some of them. Israeli forces handed the bodies at Kerem Abu Salem crossing, south of the Gaza Strip, and Palestinians laid the bodies in a long grave, wrapped in dark navy sheets, and used a bulldozer to cover them with soil. Wafa reported that it is unclear when and where Israel killed those Palestinians since October. It added that Israeli forces rampaged through Palestinian cemeteries and took several bodies of those buried there. As Israeli forces advanced into Al-Shifa Hospital in November, the army exhumed graves in north Gaza and took 110 bodies to inspect whether any of them were Israeli captives. According to the BCC, Israeli forces have destroyed nearly half a dozen graveyards in the Gaza Strip since October, including the cemeteries of al-Faluga, Beit Lahia, al-Shuja’iyya and Beit Hanoun, among others. Wafa reported that Palestinian medics found missing organs from the martyrs’ bodies and accused Israeli authorities of stealing them. Israeli tanks besiege Al-Amal and Nasser Hospitals in Khan Younis Gaza’s Ministry of Health said on Wednesday that Israeli forces killed 150 Palestinians and injured 313 others in 16 massacres in the past 24 hours. The number of Palestinians killed in the Israeli aggression on Gaza now stands at 26,900 martyrs, and 65,949 were injured since October. For the tenth consecutive day, both the Al-Amal and Nasser Hospitals are under siege by Israeli tanks and forces in Khan Younis, south of Gaza, the second-largest city in the enclave. There are 36 hospitals in the Gaza Strip, but only 14 of them are partially operating — nine of them in southern Gaza, including al-Amal and Nasser Hospitals. Gaza’s Ministry of Health spokesperson Dr. Ashraf al-Qidra said yesterday that there were 150 medical staff, 450 injured patients, and 3,000 displaced Palestinians trapped in the Nasser Hospital, and that they are at risk of Israeli fire if they attempt to leave. Wafa reported that Israeli forces also fired bullets at anyone who moved in the vicinity of the al-Amal Hospital, which is run by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS). Israeli forces stormed the al-Amal Hospital courtyard on Tuesday and the PRCS offices. “Israeli tanks are currently stationed in A-Amal hospital front yard, firing live ammunition and smoke grenades at the displaced individuals and PRCS staff,” PRCS wrote on X on Tuesday afternoon. “We deeply worry for the safety of our teams, the wounded, the sick, and thousands of displaced people in the building. Fires have broken out in tents within the confines of the PRCS Headquarters,” it added. PRCS said on Wednesday that Israeli forces shot and killed a security employee in al-Amal as he was standing near a rear door. “Intense and ongoing targeting in the vicinity of Amal Hospital and the launch of smoke grenades,” PRCS wrote on X on Wednesday morning. The Nasser Hospital has warned that electrical generators will stop within two days due to fuel shortages and that waste has accumulated inside the facility as Israeli forces refuse to allow it to be transported out. Israel begins flooding Gaza tunnels Israeli forces announced on Tuesday evening that they started flooding tunnels in Gaza where “suitable,” pumping large amounts of sea water into them. Following a report in December about the Israeli plan to flood Gaza tunnels used by Palestinian resistance fighters, concerns were raised regarding the damage salted seawater could cause to the soil, environment, and fresh water in the Gaza Strip, which would affect the livelihoods of nearly 2.3 million Palestinians. The Guardian reported then that flooding under Gaza would amount to “ruining the basic conditions for life in Gaza” and cause “an ecological catastrophe,” which would constitute one element of the crime of genocide. Israel destroyed half of Gaza’s buildings In the past 24 hours, Israel continued to bombard Gaza from land and air. Wafa reported that at least six Palestinians were killed in Khan Younis by Israeli artillery and airstrikes. Israel also bombed the neighborhoods of al-Daraj, al-Zaytoun, Sina, and al-Rimal, on the outskirts of Gaza City. Palestinian medics and ambulances faced difficulties reaching these areas to retrieve the bodies of Palestinians and rescue the injured. In the Tal al-Zaatar neighborhood in Jabalia, Israel artillery targeted al-Awda Hospital while bombing the vicinity of al-Dawa Mosque, north of Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza. In Khan Younis, Israeli forces bombed the al-Namsawi (The Austrian) neighborhood and the city center. Wafa reported that Israeli bulldozers razed and swept parts of Al-Shuhada Street in Gaza City under the protection of tanks and air forces. An Israeli airstrike killed at least 11 Palestinians in Deir al-Balah on Tuesday evening. The BBC released a report saying that more than half of the Gaza Strip buildings were destroyed or damaged in the Israeli bombardment campaign. The report covers the period from October 12 last year till January 29, based on satellite imagery. “Across Gaza, residential areas have been left ruined, previously busy shopping streets reduced to rubble, universities destroyed and farmlands churned up, with tent cities springing up on the southern border to house many thousands of people left homeless,” BBC reported. Since December, Khan Younis saw immense destruction by Israeli forces. BBC analysis revealed that “between 144,000 and 175,000 buildings across the whole Gaza Strip have been damaged or destroyed. That’s between 50% and 61% of Gaza’s buildings.” Nearly two million Palestinians have been internally displaced, the majority having fled from northern and central Gaza to Rafah city, which borders Egypt in the south. Israeli bombardment chased them there, however, and in recent weeks, rain and cold weather has made daily life miserable for thousands of families amid a lack of sufficient food, fresh water, and efficient sources of heating. ‘Withdrawing funds from UNRWA is perilous‘ The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) warned again of the abrupt ending of donations by the U.S. and other states, which would lead to the shutting down of humanitarian operations in the Gaza Strip. Last week, the U.S., the biggest donor to UNRWA, said it was suspending the money it pledged to the UN agency after Israel claimed that 12 UNRWA employees were involved in Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7. UNRWA said that it fired nine of the employees, and a tenth is still being identified, while the remaining two were killed in the October attack. “Withdrawing funds from UNRWA is perilous and would result in the collapse of the humanitarian system in Gaza, with far-reaching humanitarian and human rights consequences in the occupied Palestinian territory and across the region,” UNRWA said in a statement on Tuesday. UNRWA employs 30,000 workers, 13,000 of them in the Gaza Strip, and the rest are in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and the West Bank. Israeli politicians have long aimed to weaken and bring UNRWA to an end long before October 7, as the agency highlighted the plight of millions of Palestinian refugees and their right of return to their homes and lands inside modern-day Israel. The Washington Post reported that the U.S. “has not independently verified Israel’s claims [about UNRWA’s employees], which are based on intercepted communications, phone location data, interrogations of Hamas fighters and documents that the Israeli military has recovered in Gaza.” It added that one of the reasons the U.S. rushed to end donations to UNRWA is to compel the agency to conduct a thorough investigation “or risk permanently losing funding from Western governments whose donations are critical to its survival.” However, U.S. officials acknowledge that there is no alternative to UNRWA to supply humanitarian aid in Gaza. The case is not sealed yet, and the nine UNRWA employees could return to work if they are found innocent, as they were “pre-emptively dismissed” and have “the right of recourse,” an UNRWA spokesperson told Al-Jazeera. Israel’s Netanyahu says truce and exchange deal with Hamas won’t happen As details of a potential truce and captive exchange deal leaked to the media, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu assured Israelis that such a deal will not take place on his watch. According to the potential deal, a 45-day pause of fighting would be announced by Israel and Palestinian resistance movements, during which Hamas will release 35 Israeli captives in return for 4,000 Palestinian prisoners. Netanyahu said on Tuesday evening, “we will not remove the IDF from the Gaza Strip and we will not release thousands of terrorists.” “None of this will happen. What will happen? Absolute victory!” he added during a speech at the Bnei David academy in the illegal settlement of Eli in the occupied West Bank. The deal is yet to be confirmed, and Hamas is studying it before replying through Qatar and Egypt. Yair Lapid, an opposition figure who served for a stint as prime minister, said that there will be “a safety net” in the Knesset for Netanyahu’s government to help advance “any deal that brings the hostages home.” Lapid’s words came after several right-wing ministers threatened to collapse the government if Netanyahu pushed ahead with the deal, which if successful, will be the biggest since 1985. Israeli forces have arrested 1,000 Palestinians from Jenin since October Israeli forces arrested 16 Palestinians from the occupied West Bank, including two women, on Wednesday. During the arrest campaign, carried out during the night, military forces raided Azzun, Nablus, Bethlehem, Beit Fajjar, Qalandia refugee camp, Ramallah, and Jaba near Jenin. According to the Prisoner’s Club, Israel arrested 1,000 Palestinians from the Jenin area since October, making up nearly a sixth of the total 6,420 detainees. On Tuesday, Israeli authorities in occupied Jerusalem forced Jamil Sarri to self-demolish his house in the Jabal al-Mukabbir neighborhood, rendering his family homeless. The house of 100 square meters was built without an Israeli permit, and if authorities demolished it, Sarri would have to have paid the costs of the demolition. Israel rejects 98 percent of Palestinian applications for building permits in Jerusalem while continuing to build and plan for the construction of thousands of new settler housing units. BEFORE YOU GO – At Mondoweiss, we understand the power of telling Palestinian stories. For 17 years, we have pushed back when the mainstream media published lies or echoed politicians’ hateful rhetoric. Now, Palestinian voices are more important than ever. Our traffic has increased ten times since October 7, and we need your help to cover our increased expenses. Support our journalists with a donation today. https://mondoweiss.net/2024/01/operation-al-aqsa-flood-day-117-israel-besieges-nasser-hospital-for-tenth-consecutive-day/ https://donshafi911.blogspot.com/2024/01/operation-al-aqsa-flood-day-117-israel.html
    MONDOWEISS.NET
    ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 117: Israel besieges Nasser Hospital for tenth consecutive day
    Palestinians buried 100 bodies held by Israel in a mass grave in Rafah. Netanyahu says a truce and exchange deal won’t happen on his watch, while Israeli forces started flooding Gaza tunnels.
    Like
    1
    0 Комментарии 0 Поделились 13989 Просмотры
  • Bill Gates Launches Global Tracking Tattoos
    The Gates Foundation Showed Off "Vaccine" Patches at WEF in Davos

    2nd Smartest Guy in the World
    This Substack has been exposing the deranged and murderous projects of the One World Government’s errand boy Bill Gates for quite some time; for example:

    HORROR SHOW UPDATE: Are Genetically Modified Mosquitoes That Vaccinate Humans Now Causing U.S. Malaria Cases For First Time Since 2003?

    HORROR SHOW UPDATE: Are Genetically Modified Mosquitoes That Vaccinate Humans Now Causing U.S. Malaria Cases For First Time Since 2003?
    This Substack previously reported on the illicit Bill Gates mosquito eugenics program: And now we have the latest in Statism bioterrorism with the latest mass induced fear campaign involving “malaria:” We know that Bill Gates has been releasing his genetically modified frankenmosquitos in Florida for years now. We may extrapolate that said frankenmosquit…

    Read full story

    Bill Gates is funding a scheme to cut down 70 million acres of forests in North America
    This Substack has been extensively exposing the Rockefeller Crime Syndicate’s most visible and psychopathic puppet Bill Gates; in fact, just last week he yet again released billions upon billions of genetically modified frankenmosquitos all across Florida, potentially poisoning the entire Sunshine State population.
    Read full story
    From developing aerosolized delivery systems for deadly “vaccines” to blotting out the sun to deploying GMO Frankenmosquitos to manufacturing tumorigenic synthetic meats and so on and so forth, the latest Bill Gates project to enslave the planet into 15 Minute Cities with Nazi concentration camp-like tattoos is almost ready for prime time; that is, IF enough genetically modified slaves comply with this latest insanity.


    by Emerald Robinson

    On April 6th of 2020, I posted a Tweet thread about Bill Gates and the COVID-19 virus that went viral — it was viewed by millions of people around the world — and it became the subject of fake “fact-checking” in various corporate media outlets.

    As most of you already know, I was de-platformed from Twitter in late 2021 for warning people about the undisclosed ingredients in the COVID vaccines. When Elon Musk restored my account in his general amnesty in late 2022, I noticed that my Tweet thread on Bill Gates had been completely stripped of its viewership numbers!

    Here’s the original thread.














    That was four years ago.

    When you place the text of these tweets into Google, just look at all the fake news “fact-checking” that you get!




    Now if there’s one thing we’ve learned in the last few years: all the conspiracy theories are true.

    So, naturally, the hirelings at the Gates Foundation went to the World Economic Forum last week in Davos to unveil their latest invention: the micro-needle patch.

    For “easy vaccine delivery” of course.




    To summarize: I told you exactly what Bill Gates was doing with “quantum-dot tattoos” and “nano-technology” in early 2020 — he was introducing a global digital ID system using vaccines as a pretext.

    I was branded as a lunatic for stating this obvious truth.

    Four years later, Bill Gates announces at Davos that he’s going to do exactly what I told you.

    Who was right — and who was wrong?


    Readers of this Substack appreciate that one of the very best ways to never become a victim of our globalist tormentors and their technocratic democide is to stay as healthy as possible; to wit:

    The Cure for Frankenmosquitos, Malaria, Turbo Cancers, Bacteria, Parasites & Viruses

    The Cure for Frankenmosquitos, Malaria, Turbo Cancers, Bacteria, Parasites & Viruses
    The democidal ecosystem of sociopathic puppet Bill Gates encompasses PSYOP-19 “pandemics,” slow kill bioweapon DEATHVAX™ programs, WHO funding via “nonprofit” money laundering, synthetic tumorigenic meats, sun blocking programs, farmland monopolies,

    Read full story

    And we must now have contingency plans in place on the local level to survive whatever followup tyrannies they attempt to foist on humanity.

    They want you dead.

    Do NOT comply.




    Upgrade to paid

    Shop 2SG merch

    Use code 2SGPET for 10% off PetMectin

    Use code 2SGPET for 10% off PetDazole

    Use code 2SGPET for 10% off FishCycline

    https://open.substack.com/pub/2ndsmartestguyintheworld/p/bill-gates-launches-global-tracking
    Bill Gates Launches Global Tracking Tattoos The Gates Foundation Showed Off "Vaccine" Patches at WEF in Davos 2nd Smartest Guy in the World This Substack has been exposing the deranged and murderous projects of the One World Government’s errand boy Bill Gates for quite some time; for example: HORROR SHOW UPDATE: Are Genetically Modified Mosquitoes That Vaccinate Humans Now Causing U.S. Malaria Cases For First Time Since 2003? HORROR SHOW UPDATE: Are Genetically Modified Mosquitoes That Vaccinate Humans Now Causing U.S. Malaria Cases For First Time Since 2003? This Substack previously reported on the illicit Bill Gates mosquito eugenics program: And now we have the latest in Statism bioterrorism with the latest mass induced fear campaign involving “malaria:” We know that Bill Gates has been releasing his genetically modified frankenmosquitos in Florida for years now. We may extrapolate that said frankenmosquit… Read full story Bill Gates is funding a scheme to cut down 70 million acres of forests in North America This Substack has been extensively exposing the Rockefeller Crime Syndicate’s most visible and psychopathic puppet Bill Gates; in fact, just last week he yet again released billions upon billions of genetically modified frankenmosquitos all across Florida, potentially poisoning the entire Sunshine State population. Read full story From developing aerosolized delivery systems for deadly “vaccines” to blotting out the sun to deploying GMO Frankenmosquitos to manufacturing tumorigenic synthetic meats and so on and so forth, the latest Bill Gates project to enslave the planet into 15 Minute Cities with Nazi concentration camp-like tattoos is almost ready for prime time; that is, IF enough genetically modified slaves comply with this latest insanity. by Emerald Robinson On April 6th of 2020, I posted a Tweet thread about Bill Gates and the COVID-19 virus that went viral — it was viewed by millions of people around the world — and it became the subject of fake “fact-checking” in various corporate media outlets. As most of you already know, I was de-platformed from Twitter in late 2021 for warning people about the undisclosed ingredients in the COVID vaccines. When Elon Musk restored my account in his general amnesty in late 2022, I noticed that my Tweet thread on Bill Gates had been completely stripped of its viewership numbers! Here’s the original thread. That was four years ago. When you place the text of these tweets into Google, just look at all the fake news “fact-checking” that you get! Now if there’s one thing we’ve learned in the last few years: all the conspiracy theories are true. So, naturally, the hirelings at the Gates Foundation went to the World Economic Forum last week in Davos to unveil their latest invention: the micro-needle patch. For “easy vaccine delivery” of course. To summarize: I told you exactly what Bill Gates was doing with “quantum-dot tattoos” and “nano-technology” in early 2020 — he was introducing a global digital ID system using vaccines as a pretext. I was branded as a lunatic for stating this obvious truth. Four years later, Bill Gates announces at Davos that he’s going to do exactly what I told you. Who was right — and who was wrong? Readers of this Substack appreciate that one of the very best ways to never become a victim of our globalist tormentors and their technocratic democide is to stay as healthy as possible; to wit: The Cure for Frankenmosquitos, Malaria, Turbo Cancers, Bacteria, Parasites & Viruses The Cure for Frankenmosquitos, Malaria, Turbo Cancers, Bacteria, Parasites & Viruses The democidal ecosystem of sociopathic puppet Bill Gates encompasses PSYOP-19 “pandemics,” slow kill bioweapon DEATHVAX™ programs, WHO funding via “nonprofit” money laundering, synthetic tumorigenic meats, sun blocking programs, farmland monopolies, Read full story And we must now have contingency plans in place on the local level to survive whatever followup tyrannies they attempt to foist on humanity. They want you dead. Do NOT comply. Upgrade to paid Shop 2SG merch Use code 2SGPET for 10% off PetMectin Use code 2SGPET for 10% off PetDazole Use code 2SGPET for 10% off FishCycline https://open.substack.com/pub/2ndsmartestguyintheworld/p/bill-gates-launches-global-tracking
    OPEN.SUBSTACK.COM
    Bill Gates Launches Global Tracking Tattoos
    The Gates Foundation Showed Off "Vaccine" Patches at WEF in Davos
    Angry
    1
    0 Комментарии 0 Поделились 6136 Просмотры
  • The Climate Scam Revealed by COP28

    All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).
    To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

    Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

    ***

    As COP28 draws to an end, it may be the moment to uncover the enormous scam these COPs are, have been and will be – if the fraud is maintained into the uncertain future.

    For those who do not know by now, COP stands for Conference of the Parties; 28 means it is the 28th Conference of the Parties, referring to the United Nations Climate Change Conferences, held every year in the context of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

    The present COP28 is hosted by the United Arab Emirates (UAE). It is taking place in Dubai from 30 November to 12 December 2023.

    The COPs started with the (in)famous Earth Summit in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. That is when the multi-trillion-dollar scam began. Actually, the precursor of this fraud is the Club of Rome’s report “Limits to Growth” which remains the blueprint for much of UN Agenda 2030 and the Great Reset.

    COPs are a worldwide swindle stretching over all 193 UN member countries, in a similar way as did the COVID con that began at midnight on 31 December 2019 – and marked the beginning of UN Agenda 2030, alias the WEF’s Great Reset.

    In case you do not know, the World Economic Forum (WEF), a mere NGO registered in a lush suburb in Geneva, Switzerland, and the world body called the United Nations, have entered into an agreement in 2019, under which their agendas are paired and are supposed to be implemented hand-in-hand.

    The UN Agenda 2030 and the WEF’s Great Reset are 2 in 1, a set of monstrous plans to massively reduce the world population, robotize and digitize the survivors for total control and use the multi-faceted man-made geoengineering technology to induce “climate change”.

    This brings us back to the topic at hand – a scam of unheard proportions, keeping still to this day some 90-plus percent of the world population spell-bound and indoctrinated by a monumental lie cast upon humanity for total control and enslavement by a small, utterly sick, insanely wealthy, and powerful “Big Money” elite.

    The President of COP28 is UAE’s Sultan Al Jaber, also CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), which is fully state-owned by UAE. It is the world’s 12th largest oil company by production. In 2021, the company had an oil production capacity exceeding 4 million bpd (barrels per day) with plans to increase to 5 million bpd by 2030.

    undefined

    The entrance to COP28 with the flags of all nations (Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0)

    COP28 UAE is taking place from 30 November to 12 December 2023 at Expo City, Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

    In addition, Sultan Al Jaber is also a member of the Abu Dhabi Supreme Council for Financial and Economic Affairs. He is chairman of the Emirates Development Bank and of the board of trustees of the Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence.

    ADNOC prides itself for taking transformative steps to make today’s energy cleaner while investing in “clean energies of tomorrow.”

    As a byline for the climate consciousness that precedes such events as COP28, a few weeks before the start of COP28, ADNOC announced the award of contracts for a huge natural gas production project. The company will invest in the Hail and Ghasha offshore gas fields off the coast of the Emirates. The two contracts are worth a total of $16.9 billion.

    A joint venture between the Abu Dhabi National Petroleum Construction Company (NPCC) and two Italian companies are responsible for the infrastructure on the mainland. So much for Europe’s official climate fanatism.

    The plan is to produce almost 42.5 million cubic meters of gas by 2030. The project is the first in the world that aims to be “climate neutral”, according to ADNOC.

    Question – what is “climate neutral” by producing more than 40 million cubic meters of gas? Climate neutrality is a mere slogan that has been injected under the skin of the common people, so they must not think anymore. The thinking has been done for them. “Climate Neutral” equals all is good.

    Let’s face it, Sultan Al Jabar is not leading COP28 to phase out the use of hydrocarbon energy, as the climate freaks may dream. Of course not.

    So, let us give all climate fanatics – including those who glue themselves on the highways and on airport runways in Europe and in the US of A in protest against fossil fuel-driven cars and planes – a picture of what reality has in store for them.

    Imagine, COP28, pretty much like COP27, held in Sharm El Sheikh Egypt in November 2022, is attended by some 70,000 people, or “participants”. Thousands are from NGOs and businesses who are using the event for networking. About 2,000 of them – maybe more – are lobbyists for oil companies or governments, or corporations, depending on fossil fuels for their economies, production and for their future.

    They are not lobbying for phasing out the world’s most important source of energy. About 85% of all energy used in the world stems from hydrocarbons.

    These lobbyists are in Dubai at the COP28 to make oil and gas deals for profit.

    Image: COP 28 President Dr. Sultan Al Jaber: Inaugural Plenary Address (Source)

    COP28 President Dr. Sultan Al Jaber: Inaugural Plenary Address

    This year more than ever. And Sultan Al Jabar will connect them to ADNOC dealmakers, as well as commercial managers of other large petrol and gas companies present at the COP28 – and previously at COP27, and previously at… well, you get the picture.

    Imagine, Since the Earth summit in 1992 in Rio, every year the same – just bigger – circus – while fossil fuel consumption rises.

    Now as then, of the world’s total energy consumption, about 85% stems from fossil fuels. There has been no change in hydrocarbon energy use in 30 years of pledging “good doing” and temperature and CO2 emissions reduction – and what-not nonsense.

    The number of lobbyists and the business deals grow — and the world’s public at large keeps slumbering away, and the number of COP participants grows every year.

    What level of CO2 emission would a 2-week summit attended by 70,000 people, many of them big shots and big spenders, generate? Probably thousands of tons – or more – of CO2.

    Just think of the air traffic for the participants, back and forth, many of the VIPs come in their private jets – not unlike the bigwigs going to the annual WEF meetings in Davos.

    Plus, the food and drink – production, transport, consumption, the air-conditioned comforts of the attendees’ hotel rooms – and much more. You got it.

    Or, has anybody dared to calculate the CO2 emissions of the currently active, lingering, and endless wars and conflicts around the globe? Driven, of course, by the dark forces behind the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), call it the hardly visible Financial-Military-IT-Media-Pharma (FMIMP) Complex?

    Talking about CO2 and other “greenhouse gases” emissions emanating from wars is a strictly forbidden topic for the COPs. Otherwise, you might endanger the huge profit concept of the FMIMP Complex.

    After all, they call the shots and pull the strings on the indoctrination and dumbing down of the people so they believe in climate change – which is so severe, it is said, that it affects life on earth within the span of a human life of about 80 years.

    To be sure, climate changes all the time. But by far the main driver of real climate change is the sun. Solar movements account for about 97% of Mother Earth’s climate. That was the case since the earth exists.

    Major climate changes may occur within 20,000 to 30,000 years with shorter cycles in between, but always at a pace, so that life on earth can adapt. That has been the history until now, and real science tells us, this history continues its course for the foreseeable billions of years left for Mother Earth.

    Take this – nobody pays the slightest attention to the CO2 and other “greenhouse gas” generating events like these GOPs and the Western-driven endless wars. But the Dutch government plans to force close up to 3,000 farms, one-third of Dutch farmland to become idle, because – literally – of farting cows and other agricultural prone methane emissions, purportedly affecting our climate.

    Tiny Holland, barely 42,000 km2 and about 18 million people, is the second largest agricultural goods exporter in the world, just after the United States. Might there be another Bill Gates agenda – misery and death by starvation – behind this ludicrous endeavor?

    Also worth mentioning may be this little innocent zoom anecdote just a few days ago, between Mary Robinson, former Irish President, and Sultan Al Jaber, the head of COP28.

    Ms. Robinson tells the Sultan,

    “We are in an absolute crisis that affects particularly women and children… as we have not yet committed to phasing out fossil fuels…. You, as the President of COP28, could now say with much credibility as you are the CEO of ADNOC …. “We must phase out fossil fuels and convert world economies into affordable, renewable, and clean energies. It will not happen overnight, but it is urgent. That’s what I would like to hear, your word “urgent”.”

    Sultan Al Jaber, with much patience, responds –

    “There is no science behind what you are asking me to do, which is phase out fossil fuels, oil, gas, coal… you are lying about it and you want me to lie about it on your behalf.”

    The ADNOC Chairman adds, that phasing out of coal, oil and gas would take the world ‘back into caves’. See video below.



    COP28 will end like all the previous COPs – no firm conclusions.

    The “agreements” of the Paris COP21 are still unfulfilled; they are talked about, but remain unfulfilled.

    Countries’ governments will continue thinking about the Paris agreements, and consider solutions, and present and debate them at the next COP, and the next…

    Amen.

    *

    Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

    Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).

    Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.

    https://youtu.be/R3uQHT7PyNA


    https://www.globalresearch.ca/climate-scam-revealed-cop28/5842976
    The Climate Scam Revealed by COP28 All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version). To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here. Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles. *** As COP28 draws to an end, it may be the moment to uncover the enormous scam these COPs are, have been and will be – if the fraud is maintained into the uncertain future. For those who do not know by now, COP stands for Conference of the Parties; 28 means it is the 28th Conference of the Parties, referring to the United Nations Climate Change Conferences, held every year in the context of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The present COP28 is hosted by the United Arab Emirates (UAE). It is taking place in Dubai from 30 November to 12 December 2023. The COPs started with the (in)famous Earth Summit in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. That is when the multi-trillion-dollar scam began. Actually, the precursor of this fraud is the Club of Rome’s report “Limits to Growth” which remains the blueprint for much of UN Agenda 2030 and the Great Reset. COPs are a worldwide swindle stretching over all 193 UN member countries, in a similar way as did the COVID con that began at midnight on 31 December 2019 – and marked the beginning of UN Agenda 2030, alias the WEF’s Great Reset. In case you do not know, the World Economic Forum (WEF), a mere NGO registered in a lush suburb in Geneva, Switzerland, and the world body called the United Nations, have entered into an agreement in 2019, under which their agendas are paired and are supposed to be implemented hand-in-hand. The UN Agenda 2030 and the WEF’s Great Reset are 2 in 1, a set of monstrous plans to massively reduce the world population, robotize and digitize the survivors for total control and use the multi-faceted man-made geoengineering technology to induce “climate change”. This brings us back to the topic at hand – a scam of unheard proportions, keeping still to this day some 90-plus percent of the world population spell-bound and indoctrinated by a monumental lie cast upon humanity for total control and enslavement by a small, utterly sick, insanely wealthy, and powerful “Big Money” elite. The President of COP28 is UAE’s Sultan Al Jaber, also CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), which is fully state-owned by UAE. It is the world’s 12th largest oil company by production. In 2021, the company had an oil production capacity exceeding 4 million bpd (barrels per day) with plans to increase to 5 million bpd by 2030. undefined The entrance to COP28 with the flags of all nations (Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0) COP28 UAE is taking place from 30 November to 12 December 2023 at Expo City, Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. In addition, Sultan Al Jaber is also a member of the Abu Dhabi Supreme Council for Financial and Economic Affairs. He is chairman of the Emirates Development Bank and of the board of trustees of the Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence. ADNOC prides itself for taking transformative steps to make today’s energy cleaner while investing in “clean energies of tomorrow.” As a byline for the climate consciousness that precedes such events as COP28, a few weeks before the start of COP28, ADNOC announced the award of contracts for a huge natural gas production project. The company will invest in the Hail and Ghasha offshore gas fields off the coast of the Emirates. The two contracts are worth a total of $16.9 billion. A joint venture between the Abu Dhabi National Petroleum Construction Company (NPCC) and two Italian companies are responsible for the infrastructure on the mainland. So much for Europe’s official climate fanatism. The plan is to produce almost 42.5 million cubic meters of gas by 2030. The project is the first in the world that aims to be “climate neutral”, according to ADNOC. Question – what is “climate neutral” by producing more than 40 million cubic meters of gas? Climate neutrality is a mere slogan that has been injected under the skin of the common people, so they must not think anymore. The thinking has been done for them. “Climate Neutral” equals all is good. Let’s face it, Sultan Al Jabar is not leading COP28 to phase out the use of hydrocarbon energy, as the climate freaks may dream. Of course not. So, let us give all climate fanatics – including those who glue themselves on the highways and on airport runways in Europe and in the US of A in protest against fossil fuel-driven cars and planes – a picture of what reality has in store for them. Imagine, COP28, pretty much like COP27, held in Sharm El Sheikh Egypt in November 2022, is attended by some 70,000 people, or “participants”. Thousands are from NGOs and businesses who are using the event for networking. About 2,000 of them – maybe more – are lobbyists for oil companies or governments, or corporations, depending on fossil fuels for their economies, production and for their future. They are not lobbying for phasing out the world’s most important source of energy. About 85% of all energy used in the world stems from hydrocarbons. These lobbyists are in Dubai at the COP28 to make oil and gas deals for profit. Image: COP 28 President Dr. Sultan Al Jaber: Inaugural Plenary Address (Source) COP28 President Dr. Sultan Al Jaber: Inaugural Plenary Address This year more than ever. And Sultan Al Jabar will connect them to ADNOC dealmakers, as well as commercial managers of other large petrol and gas companies present at the COP28 – and previously at COP27, and previously at… well, you get the picture. Imagine, Since the Earth summit in 1992 in Rio, every year the same – just bigger – circus – while fossil fuel consumption rises. Now as then, of the world’s total energy consumption, about 85% stems from fossil fuels. There has been no change in hydrocarbon energy use in 30 years of pledging “good doing” and temperature and CO2 emissions reduction – and what-not nonsense. The number of lobbyists and the business deals grow — and the world’s public at large keeps slumbering away, and the number of COP participants grows every year. What level of CO2 emission would a 2-week summit attended by 70,000 people, many of them big shots and big spenders, generate? Probably thousands of tons – or more – of CO2. Just think of the air traffic for the participants, back and forth, many of the VIPs come in their private jets – not unlike the bigwigs going to the annual WEF meetings in Davos. Plus, the food and drink – production, transport, consumption, the air-conditioned comforts of the attendees’ hotel rooms – and much more. You got it. Or, has anybody dared to calculate the CO2 emissions of the currently active, lingering, and endless wars and conflicts around the globe? Driven, of course, by the dark forces behind the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), call it the hardly visible Financial-Military-IT-Media-Pharma (FMIMP) Complex? Talking about CO2 and other “greenhouse gases” emissions emanating from wars is a strictly forbidden topic for the COPs. Otherwise, you might endanger the huge profit concept of the FMIMP Complex. After all, they call the shots and pull the strings on the indoctrination and dumbing down of the people so they believe in climate change – which is so severe, it is said, that it affects life on earth within the span of a human life of about 80 years. To be sure, climate changes all the time. But by far the main driver of real climate change is the sun. Solar movements account for about 97% of Mother Earth’s climate. That was the case since the earth exists. Major climate changes may occur within 20,000 to 30,000 years with shorter cycles in between, but always at a pace, so that life on earth can adapt. That has been the history until now, and real science tells us, this history continues its course for the foreseeable billions of years left for Mother Earth. Take this – nobody pays the slightest attention to the CO2 and other “greenhouse gas” generating events like these GOPs and the Western-driven endless wars. But the Dutch government plans to force close up to 3,000 farms, one-third of Dutch farmland to become idle, because – literally – of farting cows and other agricultural prone methane emissions, purportedly affecting our climate. Tiny Holland, barely 42,000 km2 and about 18 million people, is the second largest agricultural goods exporter in the world, just after the United States. Might there be another Bill Gates agenda – misery and death by starvation – behind this ludicrous endeavor? Also worth mentioning may be this little innocent zoom anecdote just a few days ago, between Mary Robinson, former Irish President, and Sultan Al Jaber, the head of COP28. Ms. Robinson tells the Sultan, “We are in an absolute crisis that affects particularly women and children… as we have not yet committed to phasing out fossil fuels…. You, as the President of COP28, could now say with much credibility as you are the CEO of ADNOC …. “We must phase out fossil fuels and convert world economies into affordable, renewable, and clean energies. It will not happen overnight, but it is urgent. That’s what I would like to hear, your word “urgent”.” Sultan Al Jaber, with much patience, responds – “There is no science behind what you are asking me to do, which is phase out fossil fuels, oil, gas, coal… you are lying about it and you want me to lie about it on your behalf.” The ADNOC Chairman adds, that phasing out of coal, oil and gas would take the world ‘back into caves’. See video below. COP28 will end like all the previous COPs – no firm conclusions. The “agreements” of the Paris COP21 are still unfulfilled; they are talked about, but remain unfulfilled. Countries’ governments will continue thinking about the Paris agreements, and consider solutions, and present and debate them at the next COP, and the next… Amen. * Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles. Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020). Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing. https://youtu.be/R3uQHT7PyNA https://www.globalresearch.ca/climate-scam-revealed-cop28/5842976
    WWW.GLOBALRESEARCH.CA
    The Climate Scam Revealed by COP28
    All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version). To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here. Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel …
    Like
    1
    1 Комментарии 0 Поделились 25134 Просмотры
  • Israel’s strategy is “cold and calculated, and lacks any sense of decency” – Day 60
    contact@ifamericansknew.org December 5, 2023 ethnic cleansing, Gaza, hamas, humanitarian aid, Israel, tunnel
    Israel’s strategy is “cold and calculated, and lacks any sense of decency” – Day 60
    UNICEF spokesperson says alleged Gaza safe zones are ‘zones of death’ In a Sky News interview, UNICEF spokesperson James Elder says Israel’s proclaimed ‘safe zones’ in Gaza are ‘zones of death’ with increased risk for disease. Elder says Israeli authorities are fully aware of the dire consequences in the alleged safe zones, and that the decision to push 80% of the population into a zone that is 4% the size of Gaza is ‘cold’ and ‘calculated’ and lacks ‘any sense of decency’.

    Khan Younis and Rafah: Monday night was terrifying for residents of Khan Younis and Rafah, and 1.5 million evacuees. Since early yesterday evening, there has been non-stop heavy artillery shelling, relentless air strikes and mass bombardment.

    The vast majority of residential homes and public facilities – schools, hospitals, medical centers and shops – in the eastern side of Khan Younis, have been completely destroyed. At the same time, people were ordered to evacuate in the middle of the night and early hours of this morning under heavy bombardment.

    As ambulances tried to get to the eastern side of Khan Younis to Abasan al-Kabira and Bani Suheila, where people were stranded and caught under the heavy bombardment, they were shot at and could not evacuate any of the injured or bring out any of those who were killed overnight.

    The Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis has called for blood donations due to the high number of severely injured patients arriving every hour. Twenty-six out of 35 hospitals in Gaza are currently out of service, and 52 out of 72 primary healthcare clinics have been shut down.

    Palestinian officials in Gaza say Israeli jets dropped phosphorus bombs north and east of Khan Younis. (Use of white phosphorus in civilian areas is considered a war crime due to its extremely dangerous effects on the human body. White phosphorus ignites instantly when in contact with oxygen. It can burn through the human body, including through bone, causing severe, excruciating damage. It can also cause extreme harm when inhaled, with risks of suffocation, cardiovascular failure, coma, death, and other lifelong effects. The substance burns at temperatures of up to 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit.)


    Nasser hospital staff are stretched to their limits as casualties mount in southern Gaza, says UNICEF. Fifty-two of 72 primary healthcare clinics have shut down in Gaza. [Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters] (photo)
    Central Gaza: Israeli jets targeted the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza this morning. Bombing began around 6:05am (04:05 GMT) while most residents were asleep, leading to a total “state of panic”. At least 15 houses were “completely destroyed” more than 15 people were killed, including children. Many wounded are still trapped under the rubble.
    The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) has shared footage of the moment an Israeli artillery tank targeted the vicinity of two ambulances in Gaza. PRCS said the two ambulances were attending to casualties in Deir el-Balah, southern Gaza.

    Northern Gaza: Gaza’s health ministry is warning of a “massacre” at Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, where Israeli tanks and snipers are reportedly surrounding the facility and “shooting at anyone who moves”; Israeli forces have already killed 108 civilians and injured dozens in the hospital’s vicinity. Munir al-Bursh, director-general of the Health Ministry in Gaza, said,

    The Israeli occupation forces have laid siege to the facility from all sides. Patients and those who took shelter here are gripped with fear and overwhelmed by horror.

    The Israeli forces are attacking with the aim of forcibly removing all those inside the hospital. These are patients, victims and displaced civilians.

    We, the medical staff, are holding our ground. We are standing by our patients. We will continue to serve our people by all means left here at Kamal Adwan Hospital.

    UN says no place is safe: The United Nations warns that creating “so-called safe zones” for civilians to flee to within the Gaza Strip is impossible amid Israel’s bombing campaign. The Israeli army, which initially focused much of its offensive on the north of the enclave, has now dropped leaflets on parts of the south, telling Palestinian civilians there to flee to other areas. “The so-called safe zones … are not scientific, they are not rational, they are not possible, and I think the authorities are aware of this,” said UNICEF spokesperson James Elder.

    Journalists face grave threats: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reports that 63 journalists and media workers have been killed since October 7. The overall death toll includes 56 Palestinians, four Israelis and three Lebanese nationals. Sherif Mansour, CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa program coordinator, said,

    CPJ emphasizes that journalists are civilians doing important work during times of crisis and must not be targeted by warring parties. Journalists across the region are making great sacrifices to cover this heart-breaking conflict. Those in Gaza, in particular, have paid, and continue to pay, an unprecedented toll and face exponential threats.

    Humanitarian update

    UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said the resumption of the Israeli military operation and its expansion further in southern Gaza is repeating horrors from past weeks. He added,

    The latest developments are further strangling the humanitarian operation, with limited supplies going in and complex logistical and coordination arrangements that slow down and at times obstruct the flow. The Israeli Authorities continue to restrict the flow of humanitarian supplies, including fuel, forcing the UN to only use the ill-equipped crossing point with Egypt.

    We call on the State of Israel to reopen Kerem Shalom and other crossings and facilitate the unconditional, uninterrupted and meaningful delivery of lifesaving humanitarian assistance. The failure to do so violates international humanitarian law.

    On 4 December, 100 aid trucks carrying humanitarian supplies and 69,000 litres of fuel entered from Egypt into Gaza, about the same as the previous day. This is well below the daily average of 170 trucks and 110,000 litres of fuel that had entered during the humanitarian pause implemented between 24 and 30 November.

    On 4 December, for the second consecutive day, Rafah was the only governorate in Gaza where limited aid distributions, primarily of flour and water, took place.

    On 4 December at about 20:30, the main telecommunication provider in Gaza announced that all telecom services had shut down due to cuts in the main fibre routes. This followed a partial shutdown in Gaza city and northern Gaza a few hours earlier due to ongoing hostilities. Humanitarian agencies and first responders have warned that blackouts jeopardize the already constrained provision of life-saving assistance.

    Al-Azhar University of Gaza before and after Israel bombed the institution
    Al-Azhar University of Gaza before and after Israel bombed the institution. The university was built in 1991 (photo)
    Other Gaza updates

    Agriculture destroyed: Human Rights Watch (HRW) has found that orchards, greenhouses and farmland have been razed due to Israel’s ground invasion in the north of Gaza. In Beit Hanoun in northeast Gaza, what was once green agricultural land has now become “brown and desolate”, increasing concerns about food insecurity and the loss of livelihoods.

    The razing continued during the seven-day truce and satellite imagery showed the destruction of farmland by Israel’s use of bulldozers to carve new roads for its armored vehicles.

    Israel set to possibly flood Gaza’s tunnel system: the Wall Street Journal reports:

    Israel has assembled a system of large pumps it could use to flood Hamas’s vast network of tunnels under the Gaza Strip with seawater, a tactic that could destroy the tunnels and drive the fighters from their underground refuge but also threaten Gaza’s water supply, U.S. officials said.

    The Israel Defense Forces finished assembling large seawater pumps roughly one mile north of the Al-Shati refugee camp around the middle of last month. Each of at least five pumps can draw water from the Mediterranean Sea and move thousands of cubic meters of water per hour into the tunnels, flooding them within weeks.

    Sentiment inside the U.S. was mixed. Some U.S. officials privately expressed concern about the plan, while other officials said the U.S. supports the disabling of the tunnels and said there wasn’t necessarily any U.S. opposition to the plan. The Israelis have identified about 800 tunnels so far, though they acknowledge the network is bigger than that.

    Because it isn’t clear how permeable the tunnels are or how much seawater would seep into the soil and to what effect, it is hard to fully assess the impact of pumping seawater into the tunnels, said Jon Alterman, senior vice president at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

    “It’s hard to tell what pumping seawater will do to the existing water and sewage infrastructure. It is hard to tell what it will do to groundwater reserves. And it’s hard to tell the impact on the stability of nearby buildings,” Alterman said.

    RECOMMENDED READING: ICRC president describes human suffering in Gaza as ‘intolerable’

    Attacks on southern Gaza promise to be “worse” than north: Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defense minister, has been saying that what will come to the southern part of the Gaza Strip will not only be equal to what we saw in the north but, actually, even worse. He says the army is going to continue its ground operation inside of the northern part of the Gaza Strip. He also said that Israeli troops are going to remain stationed there until every single Hamas target – infrastructure and fighters – is eliminated.

    Palestinians mourn the death of loved ones who were killed by Israeli bombardment in the southern Gaza Strip
    Palestinians mourn the death of loved ones who were killed by Israeli bombardment in the southern Gaza Strip (photo)
    RECOMMENDED READING: Is Israel’s Gaza bombing also a war on the climate?

    West Bank, Jerusalem, and Israel news

    Israeli settlers break into Jerusalem’s Aqsa mosque: Dozens of fanatic Israeli settlers Tuesday morning broke into the compounds of al-Aqsa Mosque under heavy protection from the Israeli police. The extremist settlers divided into groups, raided the holy Islamic Mosque from al-Maghariba gate and took provocative tours in its compounds. The settlers performed Talmudic rituals in the eastern part of the Mosque.

    Jerusalem Palestinian killed: A Palestinian was Tuesday morning killed, while his brother was detained, by Israeli forces during a raid in Qalandia camp, north of occupied Jerusalem. Witnesses said that the occupation forces violently stormed Manasra’s and blew up the door of the house just as he was about to open it, with a bomb that disintegrated his body. The occupation forces later detained his brother before they withdrew.

    Israel says Jerusalemite children released in recent prisoner swap can’t go back to school: Families of the child prisoners released in the recent exchange deal said that the schools’ administrations affiliated with the so-called Israeli Ministry of Education and the occupation municipality in Jerusalem refused the return of their children to school.

    2 Palestinians killed Monday night: Two Palestinian youths was Monday evening killed after they were shot by Israeli occupation forces in the town of Sa’ir, northeast of Hebron. The Ministry of Health said that Anas Ismail al-Froukh, 23, and Mohammad Saa’di al-Frouk, 22, died due to their severe injuries by Israeli forces.

    Major new settlement plan approved for occupied East Jerusalem: Ir Amim, an organization that focuses on the Israel-Palestine conflict in Jerusalem, says that amid the ongoing war in Gaza, Israel is seeking to expand the settler presence in occupied East Jerusalem. “Today, officials shockingly announced the approval of the Lower Aqueduct plan – the first major new settlement plan to be fully approved in East Jerusalem since [the settlement of] Givat Hamatos in 2012,” the group said.

    This plan has disastrous ramifications, the group said, predicting “It will extend the Israeli settlement wedge along East Jerusalem’s southern boundary, further sealing [it] off from the southern West Bank, while fracturing the Palestinian space and depleting more vacant land for Palestinian development.”

    Israel says three more soldiers were killed during fighting on Tuesday and four others were seriously injured in various battles in northern Gaza. More than 80 Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the start of the ground invasion of the Palestinian enclave, the UN said on Tuesday, citing official Israeli sources. It was not known if the latest deaths announced by Israel were part of that total.

    RECOMMENDED VIEWING: Watch: Debunking Israel’s “mass rape” propaganda

    The firing of rockets by Palestinian armed groups towards Israeli population centers has continued over the past 24 hours, with no reported fatalities. (Information on rocket attacks is here.) It appears that the last time a rocket killed an Israeli was October 7-8, as reported by Ha’aretz and the Times of Israel. 15 Israelis were killed – 10 of them Palestinian Israelis who reportedly had no access to bomb shelters. Rockets have killed a total of 35 Israelis over the 22 years they’ve been fired,.

    Elsewhere

    Resigned US State Department official reveals details of child rape case in Israeli prison, calls for accountability: In a CNN interview, former US State Department official Josh Paul discloses a troubling incident involving the alleged rape of a 13-year-old Palestinian boy in an Israeli prison. The State Department’s inquiry into the case resulted in Israeli officials shutting down the charity involved in bringing the case to light.

    Paul condemned ongoing atrocities in Gaza and the West Bank and called for accountability. He questioned the US foreign policy’s impact on global perceptions and whether the US is using its ‘leverage’ to end the Israeli onslaught on Gaza.

    Josh Paul resigned from the US State Department in October over the Biden administration’s decision to continue sending weapons and ammunition to Israel following the Israeli war on Gaza.

    More pro-Israel legislation: A week after US lawmakers expressed frustration in having to vote for yet another pro-Israel resolution, the House is expected to vote again this week to declare anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism, in a new bill which critics say will further undermine free speech protected by the US constitution.

    House Resolution 894 — introduced by Jewish Republicans, Representative David Kustoff (Tenn.) and Max Miller (Ohio) – “clearly and firmly states that anti-Zionism is antisemitism.” The bill embraces the highly controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) so called working definition of anti-Semitism, which, while not explicitly mentioning anti-Zionism, includes “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination” and “claiming that the existence of a state of Israel is a racist endeavor,” as anti-Semitic.

    Some Democratic senators say that Israel’s military must adopt substantive measures to lessen civilian deaths in Gaza as part of receiving the supplemental $14.3 billion in US aid for Israel’s war, but only a few call for a ceasefire (Bernie Sanders is not among them). House Resolution 786 calling for a ceasefire has 17 cosponsors. (Bernie Sanders is not among them.)

    Poll shows split support in US for Israel’s war on Gaza: A survey by US polling agency Gallup shows among members of US President Joe Biden’s Democratic Party, only 36 percent support the war as opposed to 71 percent among opposition Republican Party members.

    Biden received a 32 percent approval rating for his handling of the Gaza conflict. Also, four in 10 Americans surveyed say the US is sending too little aid to the Palestinians in Gaza.



    Statistics as of Dec. 4:

    Palestinian death toll: OCHA reports at least 15,688* (~15,428 in Gaza** (4,257 women and 6,387 children), and at least 260 in the West Bank). This does not include an estimated 7,000 more still buried under rubble. Euro-Med Monitor reports 20,360 Palestinian deaths.

    *IAK does not yet include 471 Gazans killed in the Al Ahli hospital blast since the source of the projectile is being disputed; although much evidence points to Israel as the culprit, experts are still looking into the incident. Israel is blocking an international investigation. Israel killed more Palestinians in a little over a month after Oct. 7 than in all the previous 22 years combined.

    Palestinian injuries: 44,595** (including at least 42,000 in Gaza** and 3,365 in the West Bank). **NOTE: it is impossible to offer an accurate number of injuries in Gaza due to the ongoing bombardment and communication disruption.

    It remains unknown how many Americans are among the casualties. in Gaza**. About 1.8 million people have been displaced (nearly 80% of the population).

    Reported Israeli death toll ~1,200 (7 killed in West Bank, 80 in Gaza), including 32 Americans, and 5,431 injured, approximately 30 children).

    NOTE: It is unknown at this time how many of the deaths and injuries in Israel may have been caused by Israeli soldiers; additionally, since Israel has a policy of universal conscription, it is unknown how many of those attending the outdoor rave a few miles from Gaza on stolen Palestinian land were Israeli soldiers.

    Find previous daily casualty figures and daily news updates here. For more news, go here and here.**** Live broadcast news from the region is here.

    RELATED READING:

    US poised to give Israel $18 billion in aid this year
    Gaza Civilians, Under Israeli Barrage, Are Being Killed at Historic Pace
    Israel has lost control of the narrative – October 7 truths coming out
    Essential facts and stats about the Hamas-Gaza-Israel war
    What media reports fail to tell you about October 7
    More Palestinians killed in past 34 days than in the past 22 years combined

    https://israelpalestinenews.org/israel-strategy-cold-calculated-lacks-decency-day-60/
    Israel’s strategy is “cold and calculated, and lacks any sense of decency” – Day 60 contact@ifamericansknew.org December 5, 2023 ethnic cleansing, Gaza, hamas, humanitarian aid, Israel, tunnel Israel’s strategy is “cold and calculated, and lacks any sense of decency” – Day 60 UNICEF spokesperson says alleged Gaza safe zones are ‘zones of death’ In a Sky News interview, UNICEF spokesperson James Elder says Israel’s proclaimed ‘safe zones’ in Gaza are ‘zones of death’ with increased risk for disease. Elder says Israeli authorities are fully aware of the dire consequences in the alleged safe zones, and that the decision to push 80% of the population into a zone that is 4% the size of Gaza is ‘cold’ and ‘calculated’ and lacks ‘any sense of decency’. Khan Younis and Rafah: Monday night was terrifying for residents of Khan Younis and Rafah, and 1.5 million evacuees. Since early yesterday evening, there has been non-stop heavy artillery shelling, relentless air strikes and mass bombardment. The vast majority of residential homes and public facilities – schools, hospitals, medical centers and shops – in the eastern side of Khan Younis, have been completely destroyed. At the same time, people were ordered to evacuate in the middle of the night and early hours of this morning under heavy bombardment. As ambulances tried to get to the eastern side of Khan Younis to Abasan al-Kabira and Bani Suheila, where people were stranded and caught under the heavy bombardment, they were shot at and could not evacuate any of the injured or bring out any of those who were killed overnight. The Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis has called for blood donations due to the high number of severely injured patients arriving every hour. Twenty-six out of 35 hospitals in Gaza are currently out of service, and 52 out of 72 primary healthcare clinics have been shut down. Palestinian officials in Gaza say Israeli jets dropped phosphorus bombs north and east of Khan Younis. (Use of white phosphorus in civilian areas is considered a war crime due to its extremely dangerous effects on the human body. White phosphorus ignites instantly when in contact with oxygen. It can burn through the human body, including through bone, causing severe, excruciating damage. It can also cause extreme harm when inhaled, with risks of suffocation, cardiovascular failure, coma, death, and other lifelong effects. The substance burns at temperatures of up to 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit.) Nasser hospital staff are stretched to their limits as casualties mount in southern Gaza, says UNICEF. Fifty-two of 72 primary healthcare clinics have shut down in Gaza. [Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters] (photo) Central Gaza: Israeli jets targeted the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza this morning. Bombing began around 6:05am (04:05 GMT) while most residents were asleep, leading to a total “state of panic”. At least 15 houses were “completely destroyed” more than 15 people were killed, including children. Many wounded are still trapped under the rubble. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) has shared footage of the moment an Israeli artillery tank targeted the vicinity of two ambulances in Gaza. PRCS said the two ambulances were attending to casualties in Deir el-Balah, southern Gaza. Northern Gaza: Gaza’s health ministry is warning of a “massacre” at Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, where Israeli tanks and snipers are reportedly surrounding the facility and “shooting at anyone who moves”; Israeli forces have already killed 108 civilians and injured dozens in the hospital’s vicinity. Munir al-Bursh, director-general of the Health Ministry in Gaza, said, The Israeli occupation forces have laid siege to the facility from all sides. Patients and those who took shelter here are gripped with fear and overwhelmed by horror. The Israeli forces are attacking with the aim of forcibly removing all those inside the hospital. These are patients, victims and displaced civilians. We, the medical staff, are holding our ground. We are standing by our patients. We will continue to serve our people by all means left here at Kamal Adwan Hospital. UN says no place is safe: The United Nations warns that creating “so-called safe zones” for civilians to flee to within the Gaza Strip is impossible amid Israel’s bombing campaign. The Israeli army, which initially focused much of its offensive on the north of the enclave, has now dropped leaflets on parts of the south, telling Palestinian civilians there to flee to other areas. “The so-called safe zones … are not scientific, they are not rational, they are not possible, and I think the authorities are aware of this,” said UNICEF spokesperson James Elder. Journalists face grave threats: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reports that 63 journalists and media workers have been killed since October 7. The overall death toll includes 56 Palestinians, four Israelis and three Lebanese nationals. Sherif Mansour, CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa program coordinator, said, CPJ emphasizes that journalists are civilians doing important work during times of crisis and must not be targeted by warring parties. Journalists across the region are making great sacrifices to cover this heart-breaking conflict. Those in Gaza, in particular, have paid, and continue to pay, an unprecedented toll and face exponential threats. Humanitarian update UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said the resumption of the Israeli military operation and its expansion further in southern Gaza is repeating horrors from past weeks. He added, The latest developments are further strangling the humanitarian operation, with limited supplies going in and complex logistical and coordination arrangements that slow down and at times obstruct the flow. The Israeli Authorities continue to restrict the flow of humanitarian supplies, including fuel, forcing the UN to only use the ill-equipped crossing point with Egypt. We call on the State of Israel to reopen Kerem Shalom and other crossings and facilitate the unconditional, uninterrupted and meaningful delivery of lifesaving humanitarian assistance. The failure to do so violates international humanitarian law. On 4 December, 100 aid trucks carrying humanitarian supplies and 69,000 litres of fuel entered from Egypt into Gaza, about the same as the previous day. This is well below the daily average of 170 trucks and 110,000 litres of fuel that had entered during the humanitarian pause implemented between 24 and 30 November. On 4 December, for the second consecutive day, Rafah was the only governorate in Gaza where limited aid distributions, primarily of flour and water, took place. On 4 December at about 20:30, the main telecommunication provider in Gaza announced that all telecom services had shut down due to cuts in the main fibre routes. This followed a partial shutdown in Gaza city and northern Gaza a few hours earlier due to ongoing hostilities. Humanitarian agencies and first responders have warned that blackouts jeopardize the already constrained provision of life-saving assistance. Al-Azhar University of Gaza before and after Israel bombed the institution Al-Azhar University of Gaza before and after Israel bombed the institution. The university was built in 1991 (photo) Other Gaza updates Agriculture destroyed: Human Rights Watch (HRW) has found that orchards, greenhouses and farmland have been razed due to Israel’s ground invasion in the north of Gaza. In Beit Hanoun in northeast Gaza, what was once green agricultural land has now become “brown and desolate”, increasing concerns about food insecurity and the loss of livelihoods. The razing continued during the seven-day truce and satellite imagery showed the destruction of farmland by Israel’s use of bulldozers to carve new roads for its armored vehicles. Israel set to possibly flood Gaza’s tunnel system: the Wall Street Journal reports: Israel has assembled a system of large pumps it could use to flood Hamas’s vast network of tunnels under the Gaza Strip with seawater, a tactic that could destroy the tunnels and drive the fighters from their underground refuge but also threaten Gaza’s water supply, U.S. officials said. The Israel Defense Forces finished assembling large seawater pumps roughly one mile north of the Al-Shati refugee camp around the middle of last month. Each of at least five pumps can draw water from the Mediterranean Sea and move thousands of cubic meters of water per hour into the tunnels, flooding them within weeks. Sentiment inside the U.S. was mixed. Some U.S. officials privately expressed concern about the plan, while other officials said the U.S. supports the disabling of the tunnels and said there wasn’t necessarily any U.S. opposition to the plan. The Israelis have identified about 800 tunnels so far, though they acknowledge the network is bigger than that. Because it isn’t clear how permeable the tunnels are or how much seawater would seep into the soil and to what effect, it is hard to fully assess the impact of pumping seawater into the tunnels, said Jon Alterman, senior vice president at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. “It’s hard to tell what pumping seawater will do to the existing water and sewage infrastructure. It is hard to tell what it will do to groundwater reserves. And it’s hard to tell the impact on the stability of nearby buildings,” Alterman said. RECOMMENDED READING: ICRC president describes human suffering in Gaza as ‘intolerable’ Attacks on southern Gaza promise to be “worse” than north: Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defense minister, has been saying that what will come to the southern part of the Gaza Strip will not only be equal to what we saw in the north but, actually, even worse. He says the army is going to continue its ground operation inside of the northern part of the Gaza Strip. He also said that Israeli troops are going to remain stationed there until every single Hamas target – infrastructure and fighters – is eliminated. Palestinians mourn the death of loved ones who were killed by Israeli bombardment in the southern Gaza Strip Palestinians mourn the death of loved ones who were killed by Israeli bombardment in the southern Gaza Strip (photo) RECOMMENDED READING: Is Israel’s Gaza bombing also a war on the climate? West Bank, Jerusalem, and Israel news Israeli settlers break into Jerusalem’s Aqsa mosque: Dozens of fanatic Israeli settlers Tuesday morning broke into the compounds of al-Aqsa Mosque under heavy protection from the Israeli police. The extremist settlers divided into groups, raided the holy Islamic Mosque from al-Maghariba gate and took provocative tours in its compounds. The settlers performed Talmudic rituals in the eastern part of the Mosque. Jerusalem Palestinian killed: A Palestinian was Tuesday morning killed, while his brother was detained, by Israeli forces during a raid in Qalandia camp, north of occupied Jerusalem. Witnesses said that the occupation forces violently stormed Manasra’s and blew up the door of the house just as he was about to open it, with a bomb that disintegrated his body. The occupation forces later detained his brother before they withdrew. Israel says Jerusalemite children released in recent prisoner swap can’t go back to school: Families of the child prisoners released in the recent exchange deal said that the schools’ administrations affiliated with the so-called Israeli Ministry of Education and the occupation municipality in Jerusalem refused the return of their children to school. 2 Palestinians killed Monday night: Two Palestinian youths was Monday evening killed after they were shot by Israeli occupation forces in the town of Sa’ir, northeast of Hebron. The Ministry of Health said that Anas Ismail al-Froukh, 23, and Mohammad Saa’di al-Frouk, 22, died due to their severe injuries by Israeli forces. Major new settlement plan approved for occupied East Jerusalem: Ir Amim, an organization that focuses on the Israel-Palestine conflict in Jerusalem, says that amid the ongoing war in Gaza, Israel is seeking to expand the settler presence in occupied East Jerusalem. “Today, officials shockingly announced the approval of the Lower Aqueduct plan – the first major new settlement plan to be fully approved in East Jerusalem since [the settlement of] Givat Hamatos in 2012,” the group said. This plan has disastrous ramifications, the group said, predicting “It will extend the Israeli settlement wedge along East Jerusalem’s southern boundary, further sealing [it] off from the southern West Bank, while fracturing the Palestinian space and depleting more vacant land for Palestinian development.” Israel says three more soldiers were killed during fighting on Tuesday and four others were seriously injured in various battles in northern Gaza. More than 80 Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the start of the ground invasion of the Palestinian enclave, the UN said on Tuesday, citing official Israeli sources. It was not known if the latest deaths announced by Israel were part of that total. RECOMMENDED VIEWING: Watch: Debunking Israel’s “mass rape” propaganda The firing of rockets by Palestinian armed groups towards Israeli population centers has continued over the past 24 hours, with no reported fatalities. (Information on rocket attacks is here.) It appears that the last time a rocket killed an Israeli was October 7-8, as reported by Ha’aretz and the Times of Israel. 15 Israelis were killed – 10 of them Palestinian Israelis who reportedly had no access to bomb shelters. Rockets have killed a total of 35 Israelis over the 22 years they’ve been fired,. Elsewhere Resigned US State Department official reveals details of child rape case in Israeli prison, calls for accountability: In a CNN interview, former US State Department official Josh Paul discloses a troubling incident involving the alleged rape of a 13-year-old Palestinian boy in an Israeli prison. The State Department’s inquiry into the case resulted in Israeli officials shutting down the charity involved in bringing the case to light. Paul condemned ongoing atrocities in Gaza and the West Bank and called for accountability. He questioned the US foreign policy’s impact on global perceptions and whether the US is using its ‘leverage’ to end the Israeli onslaught on Gaza. Josh Paul resigned from the US State Department in October over the Biden administration’s decision to continue sending weapons and ammunition to Israel following the Israeli war on Gaza. More pro-Israel legislation: A week after US lawmakers expressed frustration in having to vote for yet another pro-Israel resolution, the House is expected to vote again this week to declare anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism, in a new bill which critics say will further undermine free speech protected by the US constitution. House Resolution 894 — introduced by Jewish Republicans, Representative David Kustoff (Tenn.) and Max Miller (Ohio) – “clearly and firmly states that anti-Zionism is antisemitism.” The bill embraces the highly controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) so called working definition of anti-Semitism, which, while not explicitly mentioning anti-Zionism, includes “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination” and “claiming that the existence of a state of Israel is a racist endeavor,” as anti-Semitic. Some Democratic senators say that Israel’s military must adopt substantive measures to lessen civilian deaths in Gaza as part of receiving the supplemental $14.3 billion in US aid for Israel’s war, but only a few call for a ceasefire (Bernie Sanders is not among them). House Resolution 786 calling for a ceasefire has 17 cosponsors. (Bernie Sanders is not among them.) Poll shows split support in US for Israel’s war on Gaza: A survey by US polling agency Gallup shows among members of US President Joe Biden’s Democratic Party, only 36 percent support the war as opposed to 71 percent among opposition Republican Party members. Biden received a 32 percent approval rating for his handling of the Gaza conflict. Also, four in 10 Americans surveyed say the US is sending too little aid to the Palestinians in Gaza. Statistics as of Dec. 4: Palestinian death toll: OCHA reports at least 15,688* (~15,428 in Gaza** (4,257 women and 6,387 children), and at least 260 in the West Bank). This does not include an estimated 7,000 more still buried under rubble. Euro-Med Monitor reports 20,360 Palestinian deaths. *IAK does not yet include 471 Gazans killed in the Al Ahli hospital blast since the source of the projectile is being disputed; although much evidence points to Israel as the culprit, experts are still looking into the incident. Israel is blocking an international investigation. Israel killed more Palestinians in a little over a month after Oct. 7 than in all the previous 22 years combined. Palestinian injuries: 44,595** (including at least 42,000 in Gaza** and 3,365 in the West Bank). **NOTE: it is impossible to offer an accurate number of injuries in Gaza due to the ongoing bombardment and communication disruption. It remains unknown how many Americans are among the casualties. in Gaza**. About 1.8 million people have been displaced (nearly 80% of the population). Reported Israeli death toll ~1,200 (7 killed in West Bank, 80 in Gaza), including 32 Americans, and 5,431 injured, approximately 30 children). NOTE: It is unknown at this time how many of the deaths and injuries in Israel may have been caused by Israeli soldiers; additionally, since Israel has a policy of universal conscription, it is unknown how many of those attending the outdoor rave a few miles from Gaza on stolen Palestinian land were Israeli soldiers. Find previous daily casualty figures and daily news updates here. For more news, go here and here.**** Live broadcast news from the region is here. RELATED READING: US poised to give Israel $18 billion in aid this year Gaza Civilians, Under Israeli Barrage, Are Being Killed at Historic Pace Israel has lost control of the narrative – October 7 truths coming out Essential facts and stats about the Hamas-Gaza-Israel war What media reports fail to tell you about October 7 More Palestinians killed in past 34 days than in the past 22 years combined https://israelpalestinenews.org/israel-strategy-cold-calculated-lacks-decency-day-60/
    ISRAELPALESTINENEWS.ORG
    Israel's strategy is "cold and calculated, and lacks any sense of decency" – Day 60
    Gaza humanitarian updates; Israel considers flooding tunnels; West Bank, Jerusalem, and Israel news; US government continues to support Israel
    1 Комментарии 0 Поделились 26526 Просмотры
  • November 29: Today’s news on Palestine & Israel – Day 54
    Truce/prisoner update, humanitarian situation, West Bank killings, messages from Pope & President Biden, $18 Billion for Israel, and more

    contact@ifamericansknew.org
    November 29, 2023
    November 29: Today’s news on Palestine & Israel – Day 54
    A Palestinian man cooks inside his damaged apartment in the Khezaa district on the outskirts of the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Yunis, following weeks of Israeli bombardment. (Photo by MAHMUD HAMS / AFP) (photo)
    ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY: November 29 is the date that the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution on the partition of Palestine in 1947. Resolution 181 called for the creation of an Arab state and a Jewish state, but was never implemented on the ground. This vote was obtained through bribes and threats, was opposed by the U.S. State Department, and has no force of law.

    November 29 is also the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, an official observance adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1977. The date was chosen for its significance to the Palestinian people, who are still waiting for their inalienable rights as defined by the General Assembly.

    Find previous daily casualty figures and daily news updates here. For more news, go here and here.**** Live broadcast news from the region is here.

    Latest statistics:

    Palestinian death toll: OCHA reports at least 14,571* (~14,329 in Gaza** (including at least 6,150 children and 4,000 women), and at least 242 in the West Bank). This does not include an estimated 7,000 more still buried under rubble. Euro-Med Monitor reports 20,360 Palestinian deaths.

    *IAK does not yet include 471 Gazans killed in the Al Ahli hospital blast since the source of the projectile is being disputed; although much evidence points to Israel as the culprit, experts are still looking into the incident. Israel is blocking an international investigation. Israel killed more Palestinians in a little over a month after Oct. 7 than in all the previous 22 years combined.

    Palestinian injuries: 39,093** (including at least 36,000 in Gaza** and 3,101 in the West Bank). **NOTE: it is impossible to offer an accurate number of injuries in Gaza due to the ongoing bombardment and communication disruption.

    It remains unknown how many Americans are among the casualties. in Gaza**, . About 1.8 million people have been displaced (nearly 80% of the population); 7,000 are missing (4,700 women and children) and presumed to be under rubble.

    Reported Israeli death toll ~1,200 (4 killed in West Bank, 75 in Gaza), including 32 Americans, and ~5,400 injured, approximately 30 children).

    NOTE: It is unknown at this time how many of the deaths and injuries in Israel may have been caused by Israeli soldiers; additionally, since Israel has a policy of universal conscription, it is unknown how many of those attending the outdoor rave a few miles from Gaza on stolen Palestinian land were Israeli soldiers.

    RECOMMENDED READING: Israel has lost control of the narrative – October 7 truths coming out

    Hover over each bar for exact numbers.
    Source: IsraelPalestineTimeline.org

    Truce/hostage/prisoner news:

    Hamas has released 86 prisoners so far, including 66 Israelis.
    Israel has released a total of 180 Palestinian prisoners, including women and children.
    Another group of captives is expected to be released on Wednesday in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
    160 people, 100 of them Israeli civilians, are still being held captive in Gaza.
    7,000 Palestinian political prisoners are still in Israeli prisons. 2,070 have not been charged or tried.
    As reportedly agreed upon by Israel and Hamas, the initial four-day pause has been extended for an additional 48 hours starting on 28 November.
    Al Jazeera reports on leaks coming out that there are negotiations between Israel and Hamas to release additional captives and extend the ceasefire by another five days. (07:50 GMT)
    Humanitarian update:

    At least 750 trucks have crossed the Rafah border into Gaza since Friday. That works out to roughly 150 trucks per day. Earlier this week, UNRWA officials told Al Jazeera that 200 trucks of aid would be needed daily for two months to meet the population’s basic needs. (09:25 GMT)

    Across the Gaza Strip, more than 46,000 homes have been destroyed and over 234,000 housing units have been otherwise damaged. These constitute over 60 per cent of the housing stock as of 24 November.

    Palestinians in Gaza are reporting being shot at by the Israeli army while visiting their destroyed homes in at least one part of Gaza City. There have been at least two other incidents today amid the ongoing truce between Israel and Hamas: Israeli forces opened fire on a Palestinian boat and shelled the coast of Khan Younis in southern Gaza at dawn. (11:00 GMT)

    Gaza’s civil defense team is facing difficulties digging bodies out from underneath rubble after weeks of Israeli army bombardments in Gaza. They have recovered 160 bodies, with reportedly at least 7,000 more buried underneath the rubble. They suffer from a lack of heavy machinery and fuel. (10:10 GMT)

    On 27 November, the MoH in Gaza announced that the Shifa Hospital in Gaza city has been able to reactivate its dialysis department. As of 28 November, an additional hospital resumed operating partially. Five hospitals are now operating in the north, albeit partially.

    On 28 November, the Gaza city municipality warned of the health and environmental ramifications of the accumulation of more than 35 tons of solid waste in the city. The solid waste cannot be transferred to the main landfill located in the vicinity of Gaza’s perimeter fence, due to prohibition by the Israeli military, the municipality stated.

    On 28 November, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) stated that Gaza suffers a US$1.6 million daily loss in farm production. The institution assesses the losses are likely higher considering the destruction of farm equipment and farmland, and damage caused to thousands of trees, especially olive trees. The economic impact is also significant, considering that 55 per cent of the Gaza’s agricultural products are exported, PCBS stated.

    RECOMMENDED VIEWING: My life as a Palestinian fighter

    Senate leader Chuck Schumer, who says God made him a “guardian of Israel,” said he’ll bring the emergency aid bill up for a vote next week. The bill includes over $14 billion for Israel, bringing the total amount of Americans’ tax money to Israel this year to $18 billion – $50 million per day.

    West Bank news:

    Raid on Jenin: The Israeli army has reportedly blown up two homes and also destroyed roads and water mains, as its raid on Jenin and its refugee camp continues for more than 12 hours. Dozens of armored military vehicles, hundreds of soldiers, and at least four bulldozers stormed Jenin, a town that has become a symbol of Palestinian resistance, Tuesday evening. Israeli forces also blocked the entrances of two main hospitals – and briefly of a third one. (09:15 GMT) Israeli forces have closed off the city and set up military checkpoints on all approach routes.

    Two children have been shot and killed by Israeli forces, the Palestinian Health Ministry said: a nine-year-old was shot in the head and a 15-year-old was shot in the chest.

    The total number of people arrested since October 7 is now more than 3,200, the Palestinian Prisoners Club said. (11:10 GMT)

    RECOMMENDED READING: Jenin: How the city became a symbol of Palestinian resistance

    Other news:

    Hamas invites Elon Musk to Gaza to witness ‘massacres and destruction’ The invitation from senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan came on Tuesday. The previous day, the tech billionaire, who owns social media platform X, had visited a kibbutz targeted by Hamas gunmen during the October 7 attack and declared his commitment to do whatever was necessary to stop the spread of hatred. “We invite him to visit Gaza to see the extent of the massacres and destruction committed against the people of Gaza, in compliance with the standards of objectivity and credibility,” Hamdan said.

    Former Israeli PM Ehud Barak has called for the removal of Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister, calling him “unfit to lead” in an opinion piece published in the Israeli publication Haaretz. Barak, who has also served as foreign minister and a military general, said that Netanyahu “can’t manage” the complexity of the current situation in the country, and he “must go before the consequences of his flaws become irreversible”. Barak called for the formation of a national unity government “without Netanyahu and the extreme right”. (03:50 GMT)

    President Biden tweeted: “Hamas unleashed a terrorist attack because they fear nothing more than Israelis and Palestinians living side by side in peace. To continue down the path of terror, violence, killing, and war is to give Hamas what they seek. We can’t do that.” – suggesting a call that Israel stop its attack.

    Hamas has said it was motivated to launch the attack essentially as the culmination of long-building anger over Israeli policy, including recent outbreaks of violence at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, but more generally over the treatment of Palestinians and the expansion of Israeli settlements.
    Pope Francis has called for a continuation of the truce in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, according to Vatican News. He said,

    I hope that the truce in Gaza might continue so that all the hostages might be freed, and the necessary humanitarian aid might be able to enter. May we please continue to pray for the serious situation in Israel and Palestine. Peace, please, peace.

    ****Some people are led to be skeptical of the Al Jazeera news network. However, the network has won several Emmys, a Peabody and the Overseas Press Association’s Edward R. Murrow award, among many other honors. The New York Times reports that “its reporting hews to international journalistic standards and provides a unique view on events in the Middle East.” it’s important to remember that all news sources may potentially have bias. For example, CNN uses anchors who used to work for the Israel Lobby, who have lifelong attachment to Israel, and who often exhibit pro-Israel spin and omission in their broadcasts. Similarly, Fox News is strongly influenced by Rupert Murdoch, who has a similarly strong attachment to Israel, and who may have fired Tucker Carlson, the network’s most popular host, in part due to the host’s opposition to war and his pattern of failing to exhibit sufficient devotion to Israel).

    RELATED:

    US poised to give Israel $18 billion in aid this year
    Gaza Civilians, Under Israeli Barrage, Are Being Killed at Historic Pace
    Israel has lost control of the narrative – October 7 truths coming out
    Essential facts and stats about the Hamas-Gaza-Israel war
    What media reports fail to tell you about October 7
    More Palestinians killed in past 34 days than in the past 22 years combined

    https://israelpalestinenews.org/november-29-todays-news-on-palestine-israel-day-54/
    November 29: Today’s news on Palestine & Israel – Day 54 Truce/prisoner update, humanitarian situation, West Bank killings, messages from Pope & President Biden, $18 Billion for Israel, and more contact@ifamericansknew.org November 29, 2023 November 29: Today’s news on Palestine & Israel – Day 54 A Palestinian man cooks inside his damaged apartment in the Khezaa district on the outskirts of the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Yunis, following weeks of Israeli bombardment. (Photo by MAHMUD HAMS / AFP) (photo) ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY: November 29 is the date that the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution on the partition of Palestine in 1947. Resolution 181 called for the creation of an Arab state and a Jewish state, but was never implemented on the ground. This vote was obtained through bribes and threats, was opposed by the U.S. State Department, and has no force of law. November 29 is also the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, an official observance adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1977. The date was chosen for its significance to the Palestinian people, who are still waiting for their inalienable rights as defined by the General Assembly. Find previous daily casualty figures and daily news updates here. For more news, go here and here.**** Live broadcast news from the region is here. Latest statistics: Palestinian death toll: OCHA reports at least 14,571* (~14,329 in Gaza** (including at least 6,150 children and 4,000 women), and at least 242 in the West Bank). This does not include an estimated 7,000 more still buried under rubble. Euro-Med Monitor reports 20,360 Palestinian deaths. *IAK does not yet include 471 Gazans killed in the Al Ahli hospital blast since the source of the projectile is being disputed; although much evidence points to Israel as the culprit, experts are still looking into the incident. Israel is blocking an international investigation. Israel killed more Palestinians in a little over a month after Oct. 7 than in all the previous 22 years combined. Palestinian injuries: 39,093** (including at least 36,000 in Gaza** and 3,101 in the West Bank). **NOTE: it is impossible to offer an accurate number of injuries in Gaza due to the ongoing bombardment and communication disruption. It remains unknown how many Americans are among the casualties. in Gaza**, . About 1.8 million people have been displaced (nearly 80% of the population); 7,000 are missing (4,700 women and children) and presumed to be under rubble. Reported Israeli death toll ~1,200 (4 killed in West Bank, 75 in Gaza), including 32 Americans, and ~5,400 injured, approximately 30 children). NOTE: It is unknown at this time how many of the deaths and injuries in Israel may have been caused by Israeli soldiers; additionally, since Israel has a policy of universal conscription, it is unknown how many of those attending the outdoor rave a few miles from Gaza on stolen Palestinian land were Israeli soldiers. RECOMMENDED READING: Israel has lost control of the narrative – October 7 truths coming out Hover over each bar for exact numbers. Source: IsraelPalestineTimeline.org Truce/hostage/prisoner news: Hamas has released 86 prisoners so far, including 66 Israelis. Israel has released a total of 180 Palestinian prisoners, including women and children. Another group of captives is expected to be released on Wednesday in exchange for Palestinian prisoners. 160 people, 100 of them Israeli civilians, are still being held captive in Gaza. 7,000 Palestinian political prisoners are still in Israeli prisons. 2,070 have not been charged or tried. As reportedly agreed upon by Israel and Hamas, the initial four-day pause has been extended for an additional 48 hours starting on 28 November. Al Jazeera reports on leaks coming out that there are negotiations between Israel and Hamas to release additional captives and extend the ceasefire by another five days. (07:50 GMT) Humanitarian update: At least 750 trucks have crossed the Rafah border into Gaza since Friday. That works out to roughly 150 trucks per day. Earlier this week, UNRWA officials told Al Jazeera that 200 trucks of aid would be needed daily for two months to meet the population’s basic needs. (09:25 GMT) Across the Gaza Strip, more than 46,000 homes have been destroyed and over 234,000 housing units have been otherwise damaged. These constitute over 60 per cent of the housing stock as of 24 November. Palestinians in Gaza are reporting being shot at by the Israeli army while visiting their destroyed homes in at least one part of Gaza City. There have been at least two other incidents today amid the ongoing truce between Israel and Hamas: Israeli forces opened fire on a Palestinian boat and shelled the coast of Khan Younis in southern Gaza at dawn. (11:00 GMT) Gaza’s civil defense team is facing difficulties digging bodies out from underneath rubble after weeks of Israeli army bombardments in Gaza. They have recovered 160 bodies, with reportedly at least 7,000 more buried underneath the rubble. They suffer from a lack of heavy machinery and fuel. (10:10 GMT) On 27 November, the MoH in Gaza announced that the Shifa Hospital in Gaza city has been able to reactivate its dialysis department. As of 28 November, an additional hospital resumed operating partially. Five hospitals are now operating in the north, albeit partially. On 28 November, the Gaza city municipality warned of the health and environmental ramifications of the accumulation of more than 35 tons of solid waste in the city. The solid waste cannot be transferred to the main landfill located in the vicinity of Gaza’s perimeter fence, due to prohibition by the Israeli military, the municipality stated. On 28 November, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) stated that Gaza suffers a US$1.6 million daily loss in farm production. The institution assesses the losses are likely higher considering the destruction of farm equipment and farmland, and damage caused to thousands of trees, especially olive trees. The economic impact is also significant, considering that 55 per cent of the Gaza’s agricultural products are exported, PCBS stated. RECOMMENDED VIEWING: My life as a Palestinian fighter Senate leader Chuck Schumer, who says God made him a “guardian of Israel,” said he’ll bring the emergency aid bill up for a vote next week. The bill includes over $14 billion for Israel, bringing the total amount of Americans’ tax money to Israel this year to $18 billion – $50 million per day. West Bank news: Raid on Jenin: The Israeli army has reportedly blown up two homes and also destroyed roads and water mains, as its raid on Jenin and its refugee camp continues for more than 12 hours. Dozens of armored military vehicles, hundreds of soldiers, and at least four bulldozers stormed Jenin, a town that has become a symbol of Palestinian resistance, Tuesday evening. Israeli forces also blocked the entrances of two main hospitals – and briefly of a third one. (09:15 GMT) Israeli forces have closed off the city and set up military checkpoints on all approach routes. Two children have been shot and killed by Israeli forces, the Palestinian Health Ministry said: a nine-year-old was shot in the head and a 15-year-old was shot in the chest. The total number of people arrested since October 7 is now more than 3,200, the Palestinian Prisoners Club said. (11:10 GMT) RECOMMENDED READING: Jenin: How the city became a symbol of Palestinian resistance Other news: Hamas invites Elon Musk to Gaza to witness ‘massacres and destruction’ The invitation from senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan came on Tuesday. The previous day, the tech billionaire, who owns social media platform X, had visited a kibbutz targeted by Hamas gunmen during the October 7 attack and declared his commitment to do whatever was necessary to stop the spread of hatred. “We invite him to visit Gaza to see the extent of the massacres and destruction committed against the people of Gaza, in compliance with the standards of objectivity and credibility,” Hamdan said. Former Israeli PM Ehud Barak has called for the removal of Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister, calling him “unfit to lead” in an opinion piece published in the Israeli publication Haaretz. Barak, who has also served as foreign minister and a military general, said that Netanyahu “can’t manage” the complexity of the current situation in the country, and he “must go before the consequences of his flaws become irreversible”. Barak called for the formation of a national unity government “without Netanyahu and the extreme right”. (03:50 GMT) President Biden tweeted: “Hamas unleashed a terrorist attack because they fear nothing more than Israelis and Palestinians living side by side in peace. To continue down the path of terror, violence, killing, and war is to give Hamas what they seek. We can’t do that.” – suggesting a call that Israel stop its attack. Hamas has said it was motivated to launch the attack essentially as the culmination of long-building anger over Israeli policy, including recent outbreaks of violence at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, but more generally over the treatment of Palestinians and the expansion of Israeli settlements. Pope Francis has called for a continuation of the truce in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, according to Vatican News. He said, I hope that the truce in Gaza might continue so that all the hostages might be freed, and the necessary humanitarian aid might be able to enter. May we please continue to pray for the serious situation in Israel and Palestine. Peace, please, peace. ****Some people are led to be skeptical of the Al Jazeera news network. However, the network has won several Emmys, a Peabody and the Overseas Press Association’s Edward R. Murrow award, among many other honors. The New York Times reports that “its reporting hews to international journalistic standards and provides a unique view on events in the Middle East.” it’s important to remember that all news sources may potentially have bias. For example, CNN uses anchors who used to work for the Israel Lobby, who have lifelong attachment to Israel, and who often exhibit pro-Israel spin and omission in their broadcasts. Similarly, Fox News is strongly influenced by Rupert Murdoch, who has a similarly strong attachment to Israel, and who may have fired Tucker Carlson, the network’s most popular host, in part due to the host’s opposition to war and his pattern of failing to exhibit sufficient devotion to Israel). RELATED: US poised to give Israel $18 billion in aid this year Gaza Civilians, Under Israeli Barrage, Are Being Killed at Historic Pace Israel has lost control of the narrative – October 7 truths coming out Essential facts and stats about the Hamas-Gaza-Israel war What media reports fail to tell you about October 7 More Palestinians killed in past 34 days than in the past 22 years combined https://israelpalestinenews.org/november-29-todays-news-on-palestine-israel-day-54/
    ISRAELPALESTINENEWS.ORG
    November 29: Today’s news on Palestine & Israel – Day 54
    Truce/prisoner update, humanitarian situation, West Bank killings, messages from Pope & President Biden, $18 Billion for Israel, and more
    0 Комментарии 0 Поделились 15253 Просмотры
  • Syria is playing the long game - developing strategy for the potential of all-out war.
    An in-depth analysis of Syrian military developments since October 7th

    vanessa beeley

    Map showing the recent events on military front in Syria since October 7th Al Aqsa Flood operation.

    "While red lines in politics are mostly colorless to provide more room for maneuver, red lines in the field are drawn with iron and fire and colored with blood, making these lines unbreakable."

    Ibrahim Wahdi - SAA soldier and journalist

    October 7th has sent shock waves throughout the world. The invincible Israel with, allegedly, the most powerful military and intelligence capability was proven to be a paper tiger by a weaker and less well equipped Palestinian Resistance coalition.

    The effect has been dramatic on regional Resistance factions - triggering a regional wide engagement with Israel or with the illegal US military bases in Syria and Iraq. As a result, there has been an unprecedented military escalation in the region that has largely gone unreported with all eyes on Gaza and the ongoing Zionist ethnic cleansing in both Gaza and West Bank.

    Israel is in disarray with internal divisions threatening the Netanyahu extremist coalition government. Netanyahu is unable to acknowledge the military and intelligence failings despite pressure to do so, even from within his own military.

    Instead Israel has resorted to the familiar sadistic war against women, children and innocent civilians for almost two months. The ongoing brutal massacre on an hourly basis, the targeting of hospitals, UNRWA refugee centers and schools, humanitarian convoys, ambulances, paramedics, civil defence headquarters are a litany of war crimes.

    Of course any admission by Netanyahu would signal the end of his political career and bring him to trial for corruption. Despite the knowledge that his military would suffer horrendous losses in a ground operation in the sprawling urban landscape of the Gaza enclave, Netanyahu gave the green light to invade. He relied on the daily horrific civilian death toll to break the Resistance resolve.

    The message was “to resist is futile” but just as the entire globalist axis led by the US and UK failed to factor in the determination of the Syrian people to prevent regime change in Syria - the world has underestimated the strength of the Palestinian Resistance against decades of apartheid, oppression and trickle expansionist ethnic cleansing by the Zionist entity.

    Hezbollah in northern Palestine has skillfully and tactically occupied the Zionist forces in the north preventing their involvement in the Gaza operations and ongoing stealth ethnic cleansing of the West Bank.

    Yemen has directly engaged by targeting sites in southern occupied Palestine. Iraqi Resistance factions have increased their attacks against US illegal military bases in Iraq and Syria resulting in the death of at least forty US military personnel. Most recently Yemeni forces have seized an Israeli owned vessel in the Red Sea holding the crew hostage.

    Palestinian factions inside Syria have launched several missile attacks on Israeli occupation sites in the illegally annexed Golan territories and even attacked Eilat from Syrian territory.

    In response, the US and Israel have mobilised their ISIS agents in Syria to attack Syrian Arab Army positions in the central desert areas.

    Hayat Tahrir Al Sham (HTS), an Al Qaeda offshoot, have escalated attacks on the northern Lattakia countryside axis and intensified drone attacks in Western Aleppo, northern Lattakia and northern Hama.

    Israel aggression particularly south of Damascus has increased with the latest attack on the Sayeda Zainab district of south-east Damascus yesterday afternoon (22/11). Aleppo and Damascus civilian airports are still closed, not because of the previous damage from Israeli aggression, due to the high risk of Israeli bombardment.

    The US has directly engaged with the Syrian Arab Army in Deir Ezzor in north-east Syria. Syria has responded by directly engaging with the US occupation forces, targeting US military bases and shooting down US drones. Syria has expanded the operational area in Syria for all Resistance factions to enable the targeting of Israel from multiple and mobile fronts.

    In this article the focus will be on the military situation in Syria. Syria has endured a 12 year Western-orchestrated regime change war that has decimated Syrian infrastructure, depleted the military capability, imposed unprecedented sanctions unilaterally on the Syrian people. The US occupies oil and agricultural resources in the north-east, their assets occupy the agricultural resources in the north-west. Their Kurdish proxies and Al Qaeda assets benefit from the trade of Syrian resources under the protection of US political and military endorsement and collaboration.

    Syria’s refusal to abandon Palestine and willingness to expand the ability of Resistance factions to target Israeli facilities and installations has triggered serious recriminations from the US/Israeli axis.

    ISIS aggression on behalf of Israel and US

    On the 8th of November ISIS groups attacked Syrian Arab Army positions in the vicinity of the Homs, Hama and Raqqa triangle. The attack led to the deaths of 21 SAA soldiers and several injured. Military reinforcements were dispatched to comb the area and to eliminate the ISIS fighters.

    Since the double earthquake tragedy that struck Syria and Turkey on the 6th February there have been a number of ISIS attacks on Syrian military and civilians. This attack of the 8th November and the one that preceded it are the most intense.

    On 18th October, ISIS launched a wide-scale assault on the SAA and allies in the Al Sukhnah area of the eastern Homs desert. ISIS took control of SAA positions along the main road and the Dubayyat gas field. This from a Carnegie Middle East Center report in 2015 when ISIS was gaining ground in Syria (before Russian intervention in September 2015):

    Faced with dense regime defenses around Shaer, the Islamic State shifted its focus to Palmyra, which has been the site of the most development in Syria’s gas sector since the mid-1990s. Fields in the area were expected to eventually produce 9 million cubic meters of crude gas per day. These included the Arak, Dubayat, Hail, Hayan, Jihar, al-Mahr, Najib, Sukhneh, and Abi Rabah fields, which according to a former industry insider have collectively been producing half of Syria’s output of natural raw and liquid petroleum gas. Palmyra is also the transit point for pipelines carrying gas from important fields in Hasakah and Deir Ezzor provinces in northeastern and eastern Syria respectively.

    The US appears to be recycling their strategy of pre-Russian intervention to control the ‘hub between the extraction or transfer of virtually all of Syrian gas production and the processing and power plants further west that supply electricity and gas for domestic and industrial use’ to the most populated areas of Syria that are under the control of the Syrian government and military.

    The SAA was forced to withdraw and to await reinforcements from the 18th Division and allied forces.

    The ISIS terrorists were counter-attacked and the Syrian positions were recaptured in the southern outskirts of Al Sukhna. ISIS forces were routed with a high casualty rate.

    Units of the SAA pursued the remnants of ISIS terrorists targeting them heavily with artillery to force their retreat to the 55 km exclusion zone established by the US occupation forces around the US allied Al Tanf military base on the borders of Iraq and Jordan.

    ISIS terrorists were also besieged in small pockets around Al Dubayyat gas field. Russian and Syrian warplanes concurrently bombed ISIS groups emanating from the area of Al Tanf that were trying to reach Al Dubbayat to break the SAA siege on their militants.

    On November 16th, Deputy Head of the Russian Reconciliation Center, Vadim Collet, gave a statement that:

    “Armed groups trained at Al-Tanf base are planning to carry out sabotage acts in southern Syria against Syrian forces on main roads and fuel and energy facilities” adding that “the leadership of both Russian and Syrian forces will take preemptive measures to prevent armed provocations”

    On the 13th November, at night, the SAA again repelled an ISIS attack on Point 10 in the Ja'ideen area in the eastern desert of Raqqa, on the administrative border with Homs province.

    The joint Russian-Syrian warplanes targeted ISIS terrorists, forcing them to withdraw again to the open desert within the US controlled Al Tanf 55 km exclusion zone.

    The Syrian Arab Army secured the area between the Al-Rasafa Castle and Al-Zamla village less than an hour after the failed infiltration operation, which demonstrates a significant improvement in the Syrian Arab Army's ability to respond and deal with these attacks.

    Later on November 14, an ISIS cell attacked a Russian patrol with an RPG on Al-Shaer gas field road in the desert. Three Russian soldiers were injured in the attack.

    The level of attacks being carried out by the ISIS terrorists is indicative of both their presence in the areas occupied by US allied forces and of the control that the US alliance has over this terrorist faction operating in Syria and Iraq.

    The ISIS attacks must be seen in conjunction with the US and Israeli direct attacks on SAA and allied military positions.

    Israeli aggression against Syria since October 7th

    After five Israeli attacks in October, four of which targeted civilian airports in Damascus and Aleppo, putting them out of service, Israel has attacked more than three times in November.

    On November 8th at 22.50 Israel launched an attack on the positions of allied forces in the farmland extending from Sayeda Zainab and Aqraba, south-west of Damascus. They also targeted radar systems and air defence positions in Tal Qalib and Tal Al Massih in the Sweida district, southern Syria - scene of the most recent separatist protests backed and instigated by the US and Israel. Three civilians were injured in the Sweida attack.

    In the early dawn hours of November 10th, Israel bombed two positions of the Syrian allies in the vicinity of Shanshar, south-west of Homs. This led to the deaths of seven Hezbollah soldiers and significant material damage.


    Hezbollah fighters killed by Israeli aggression on November 10th

    Israel justified this aggression as a response to an attack on Eilat in southern occupied Palestine two days prior. The attack utilised a Shahed 101 suicide drone with a 600 km range. The drone was launched from central Syria, crossed Jordanian airspace undetected to Eilat where it hit and caused damage.

    However Israel is not able to identify who launched the drone. Sayed Hassan Nasrallah referred to the loss of Hezbollah fighters in Syria based on Israeli false claims. If indeed Hezbollah had launched the drone they would have claimed responsibility. Therefore this attack indicates the entry of new players in the Resistance axis.

    The following day, a faction calling themselves SWAT Jazeera Al Arabiya (Arabian Island) claimed responsibility for the Eilat attack. The faction is still mysterious but appears to be an ideological ‘jihadist’ group following the Islamic Resistance Iraq operational blueprint. While the SWAT zone of operation remains secret their arrival on the scene will send the message to the US and Israel that they will face more enemies the longer the genocidal campaign against Palestinians continues.

    Again on November 18, at 2:25 am, Israeli warplanes bombed two Hezbollah positions in the Bahdalia area close to Sayyida Zeinab city, southeast of Damascus, causing material losses.

    Perhaps more importantly than standard Israeli aggression against Syria - on the 18th October unidentified gunmen assassinated Lieutenant Colonel Qais Ismail and First Assistant Muhammad Hussein of the 112th Brigade, 5th Armoured Division. The attack was carried out to west of Daraa, south of Damascus.

    On October 24th Israel had dropped leaflets by drone on the ceasefire line threatening the 112th Brigade and their commander - effectively threatening officers of the SAA in the Daraa district. Was the 18th October assassination a precursor to further attacks by Israeli proxies on the ground south of Damascus?



    The two 112th Brigade officers gunned down and the leaflet dropped by Israeli drones.

    Yesterday, the 22nd November at 15.10, Israel again targeted the southern districts of Damascus including Sayeda Zainab (an important Iranian/Shia muslim pilgrimage site). I was actually in the area when this attack took place close to Sayeda Zainab. At this time of the afternoon the area is heaving with civilians and children who are leaving school. Video:

    Attacks on illegal US occupation bases in Syria and Iraq

    The following is an indication only of the number of attacks, the bases and US personnel casualties (it will need updating as attacks are almost daily):


    US illegal bases in Syria and Iraq have been targeted daily by the Resistance factions since the start of the Al Aqsa Flood operation. The US air defences have been unable to successfully counter drone and missile attacks. There are have been an estimated 50-60 attacks on US occupation forces between October 17th and November 22nd. This has resulted in 59 casualties, according to a press briefing by Dep. Pentagon Press Sec. Sabrina Singh:

    “The Pentagon is seeing an increase in attacks on US forces in Iraq and Syria, with a total of 55 attacks injuring dozens of service members since October 17, an official said Tuesday. The attacks, 27 in Iraq and 28 in Syria, have resulted in 59 service members being injured”, then corrected it, "Sorry, I can give you that rundown. So as of today, there have been approximately 58 attacks. So that's 27 in Iraq and 31 attacks in Syria."

    The US has routinely responded with airstrikes targeting SAA and allied sites in eastern Deir Ezzor countryside. The recent US aggression has adopted a different strategy.

    In the early hours of 9th November, US warplanes fired four rockets targeting a bakery and aid distribution warehouse belonging to the SAA allied forces on the outskirts of Deir Ezzor city.

    The attack developed into intense and direct clashes for over two hours between the US occupation forces with its Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River, and the Syrian Arab Army with its allies on the western bank near the towns of Abu Hardoub, Al-Quriyah, and Al-Miyadin.

    Various types of medium and heavy weapons, as well as rockets, were used during the clashes. Additionally, eight Fajr-1 rockets were fired, targeting the Green Village inside the US occupation base in the Al-Omar oil field.

    Three US armored Humvees were destroyed, and a number of US soldiers and SDF fighters were injured. However, shooting down a US counter-drone Coyote Block 2 UAV by Syrian air defenses in Al-Mayadeen vicinity two days later was an extraordinary development.



    On November 13th, again early morning, US warplanes carried out six airstrikes on the Sayyal area in Al Bukamal (on border with Iraq) and sites near a bridge in Al Mayadin City, east of Deir Ezzor. One death and one injury from these attacks.

    This time the US targeted empty buildings and a PMU (Iraqi Popular resistance faction) missile launch site. The Resistance immediately responded and targeted US bases occupying the Al Omar oil field and the Conoco gas field, Shaddadi, Khrab Al Jir and other US occupation locations.

    The Conoco attack was notable. Remnants of the missiles found near the Conoco base indicate the use of 220 mm Caliber missiles launched from an Uragan launcher. A Syrian Arab Army artillery and rocket system. Field sources reported that 15 rockets targeted the US base killing 6 US soldiers in the command headquarters.

    The US Central Command statement indicates a weakness in the US military occupation of Syria. For the second time, following an unprecedented series of attacks on their bases the US retaliation has been muted and largely ineffectual.

    “in response to continued provocations by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and their affiliated groups in Iraq and Syria, U.S. Central Command (USCENTOM) conducted air strikes against facilities near the cities of Abu Kamal and Mayadin”

    This would suggest that Washington is reticent to escalate in the region where all US forces are sitting ducks. The default position is to trigger proxy forces including ISIS.

    The increasing number of attacks on US bases in Syria alone are an indication that the West Asia region has had enough of US illegal warfare and occupation.

    Despite having air superiority in the region the US knows that open war would be a military quagmire and would end in defeat. The success of the Resistance in targeting US bases and bypassing US air defence has sent a strong message to the US - that the Resistance capability is a force to be reckoned with.

    These groups excel in maneuvering, concealment, rapid and accurate targeting, and have the ability to significantly alter the course of events. They pose huge risk to US forces illegally on the ground in Syria.

    The balance of power between US forces, direct and proxy, has shifted and the SAA is taking the fight to the US with a vengeance. A two hour direct engagement between SAA and US forces, the shooting down of a US drone, the targeting of the Conoco base all suggest that the SAA is contemplating military escalation in coordination with Iraqi Resistance and other allies. The US military hegemony in Syria is at a tipping point.

    Share

    In north-west Syria - Al Qaeda supports Israel against Palestine

    Al-Qaeda's Hayaat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) failed to achieve any military victory on any front in northwest Syria following several failed attacks on Syrian Arab Army positions.

    Since the beginning of October, HTS has been increasing drone attacks to compensate for military failures on the ground. The most devastating drone attack was on the 5th October (2 days before Al Aqsa Flood) when they targeted the Homs Military Academy, during a graduation ceremony packed with celebrating families. More than 89 people, mostly civilians were killed and 227 injured, many critically.

    Deputy Head of the Russian Center for Reconciliation in Syria, Vadim Collet, said that:

    “the raids resulted in the destruction of shelters and training camps belonging to the Al-Nusra Front group.” adding that “34 militants were killed and more than 60 others were injured.”

    The SAA and Russian air forces responded decisively. Russian and Syrian warplanes combined with artillery and missile launchers have carried out multiple attacks against terrorist positions since October 5th. Dozens of terrorist headquarters, ammunition stores, drone manufacturing facilities have been destroyed in Idlib province (north-west Syria).

    Multiple terrorists from HTS, Omar Ibn Al Khattab Brigade, Ansar Al Tawhid, Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) and other Al Qaeda derivatives have been killed or injured in the attacks.

    The strikes targeted terrorist controlled villages and towns such as Kefraya, Bara, Bilon, Ayn Larouz, Bazabour, Jisr Al Shughour, Afes and others on the axis of the northern Lattakia countryside, Western Aleppo countryside and the axes of Al Ghab plain in northern Hama, and Idlib itself.

    Video:



    Syrian Arab Army initiated a new phase of military operations over a month ago. These operations have been escalating intensively and progressively, achieving significant results. The terrorists have been deprived of their ability to launch wide-scale attacks, and their military capabilities, infrastructure, ammunition depots, and drones have been gradually destroyed. This strategy has developed in lock-step with events since October 7th.

    Video:



    The Syrian Ministry of Defense has reported the downing of dozens of drones on the fronts of Aleppo, Idlib, Hama, and Homs. Some of these drones are large-sized, GPS-guided, long range and can carry 100 kg of explosives.

    This increase in drone warfare, aided and abetted in development by NATO member states including Turkey, is an indication that the Al Qaeda asset are collaborating with the US and Israel to keep the SAA and allies occupied on the northern front.

    Syrian Ministry of Defense:

    “Units of our armed forces operating in the axes of Idlib, Hama and Aleppo countryside confronted attempts by terrorist organizations to attack safe villages and some military points with suicide drones, and destroyed four of them.

    A drone equipped with a liquid fuel rocket engine, four meters long, six meters wingspan, and loaded with one hundred kilograms of explosives was also shot down in the Jorin area in Hama northern countryside”

    The SAA is tactically depleting the terrorist offensive capability in the north-west to enable the SAA to engage in the south should a direct confrontation with Israel or the US arise in the Golan territories. As former SAA soldier and researcher Ibrahim Wahdi has pointed out:

    The intense airstrikes, artillery shelling, and missile attacks carried out by the army in the past month will greatly pave the way for any future military operation if a decision is made to advance towards the M4 highway.

    For example, a few days ago the Syrian Arab Army's anti-tank units had successfully cut off the supply routes of armed groups near Tafasnaz, isolating them from the Turkish base at Tafasnaz Airport, destroying their vehicles, killing and injuring many of them within less than an hour, without the need for any ground advancement. This demonstrates the army's capability to carry out similar, broader operations in the future if a decision is made for a large-scale ground operation.

    We are witnessing a micro-glimpse of what might happen were the SAA to engage in a comprehensive war against the US/Israel-led axis of terror.

    The Syrian leadership is taking a cautious approach for obvious reasons while opening up new fronts for Resistance factions operating on Syrian territory.

    Even if the Israeli war on Gaza were to escalate, leading to regional and international engagement, Syria would not need to enter the war directly. Opening the Golan front for anyone who wishes to fight against Israel would potentially be sufficient.

    As President Assad strongly stated in his speech at the Emergency Arab League Summit on Gaza:

    By our will only, by the overwhelming popular public opinion in our countries, with the new reality imposed by the Palestinian resistance in our region, we possessed those tools. Let us use them, and let us take advantage of the global transformation that has opened for us political doors that have been closed for decades, so that we can enter through them and change the equations, and let the precious souls who rose in Palestine be a rewarding price for achieving what we were unable to do in the past and what we must accomplish in the present and in the future.

    All countries in the region, specifically Syria, should take advantage of the new reality and build upon the victories of the resistance in Gaza. With every military confrontation, the popular resistance proves its ability to adapt, utilize the terrain of the battlefield, choose the timing, and employ sophisticated techniques in simple ways, relying on the most important factor in winning wars, which is determination.

    The military tactics employed by the Palestinian resistance were simple yet highly effective, and the most significant outcome was the clear military weakness of colonial forces in the region when facing the unified alliance of resistance forces.

    The war against Israel no longer requires the intervention of the Egyptian army, just as expelling the United States from Iraq and Syria would not require a comprehensive war.

    It is clear that Israel has failed to achieve any military victory in Gaza. Even with resorting to genocide and destruction, it has not succeeded in even swaying the popular Palestinian support for the Resistance Coalition in Gaza and the West Bank.

    Not even a few thousand out of more than two million residents in Gaza have emerged demanding surrender or cessation from the resistance. On the contrary, with every new massacre, we see Palestinians more determined to remain steadfast and to resist ethnic cleansing for the third time.

    Time is Israel’s greatest enemy. The longer the Israeli military incurs losses on the ground in Gaza, the longer Western public outrage increases at the massacres of thousands of children, the longer Netanyahu loses public confidence in Israel and abroad - the greater the defeat for Israel long term.

    Confronted with the psychopathy of the Israeli leadership and military the Resistance Axis is conducting itself with dignity and professionalism. It is hard to determine the balance of power in the region due to the hysterical and irrational rhetoric emanating from Washington, London and Tel Aviv. However it is shifting fast and there will be no going back.

    Ibrahim Wahdi:

    Regionally, there are important players with differing tactics, strategies, capabilities, and, most importantly, their understanding of the terrain, which makes it nearly impossible to predict the outcome of the current confrontation.

    However, the Middle East will certainly witness radical transformations after the Al-Aqsa Flood operation. With the rise of China and Russia, the East as a whole is asserting itself, which means that countries like Iran and Syria will also enter new historical stages on the geopolitical level. The so-called Global South is rising from the ashes of decades or centuries of colonialist terrorism.

    ****

    This article was co-written with Ibrahim Wahdi - please subscribe to his blog here. His Telegram channel and Twitter/X account.

    Please do consider subscribing to my Substack account and I hope you find this article useful. Thank you.



    https://beeley.substack.com/p/syria-is-playing-the-long-game-developing?r=29hg4d&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
    Syria is playing the long game - developing strategy for the potential of all-out war. An in-depth analysis of Syrian military developments since October 7th vanessa beeley Map showing the recent events on military front in Syria since October 7th Al Aqsa Flood operation. "While red lines in politics are mostly colorless to provide more room for maneuver, red lines in the field are drawn with iron and fire and colored with blood, making these lines unbreakable." Ibrahim Wahdi - SAA soldier and journalist October 7th has sent shock waves throughout the world. The invincible Israel with, allegedly, the most powerful military and intelligence capability was proven to be a paper tiger by a weaker and less well equipped Palestinian Resistance coalition. The effect has been dramatic on regional Resistance factions - triggering a regional wide engagement with Israel or with the illegal US military bases in Syria and Iraq. As a result, there has been an unprecedented military escalation in the region that has largely gone unreported with all eyes on Gaza and the ongoing Zionist ethnic cleansing in both Gaza and West Bank. Israel is in disarray with internal divisions threatening the Netanyahu extremist coalition government. Netanyahu is unable to acknowledge the military and intelligence failings despite pressure to do so, even from within his own military. Instead Israel has resorted to the familiar sadistic war against women, children and innocent civilians for almost two months. The ongoing brutal massacre on an hourly basis, the targeting of hospitals, UNRWA refugee centers and schools, humanitarian convoys, ambulances, paramedics, civil defence headquarters are a litany of war crimes. Of course any admission by Netanyahu would signal the end of his political career and bring him to trial for corruption. Despite the knowledge that his military would suffer horrendous losses in a ground operation in the sprawling urban landscape of the Gaza enclave, Netanyahu gave the green light to invade. He relied on the daily horrific civilian death toll to break the Resistance resolve. The message was “to resist is futile” but just as the entire globalist axis led by the US and UK failed to factor in the determination of the Syrian people to prevent regime change in Syria - the world has underestimated the strength of the Palestinian Resistance against decades of apartheid, oppression and trickle expansionist ethnic cleansing by the Zionist entity. Hezbollah in northern Palestine has skillfully and tactically occupied the Zionist forces in the north preventing their involvement in the Gaza operations and ongoing stealth ethnic cleansing of the West Bank. Yemen has directly engaged by targeting sites in southern occupied Palestine. Iraqi Resistance factions have increased their attacks against US illegal military bases in Iraq and Syria resulting in the death of at least forty US military personnel. Most recently Yemeni forces have seized an Israeli owned vessel in the Red Sea holding the crew hostage. Palestinian factions inside Syria have launched several missile attacks on Israeli occupation sites in the illegally annexed Golan territories and even attacked Eilat from Syrian territory. In response, the US and Israel have mobilised their ISIS agents in Syria to attack Syrian Arab Army positions in the central desert areas. Hayat Tahrir Al Sham (HTS), an Al Qaeda offshoot, have escalated attacks on the northern Lattakia countryside axis and intensified drone attacks in Western Aleppo, northern Lattakia and northern Hama. Israel aggression particularly south of Damascus has increased with the latest attack on the Sayeda Zainab district of south-east Damascus yesterday afternoon (22/11). Aleppo and Damascus civilian airports are still closed, not because of the previous damage from Israeli aggression, due to the high risk of Israeli bombardment. The US has directly engaged with the Syrian Arab Army in Deir Ezzor in north-east Syria. Syria has responded by directly engaging with the US occupation forces, targeting US military bases and shooting down US drones. Syria has expanded the operational area in Syria for all Resistance factions to enable the targeting of Israel from multiple and mobile fronts. In this article the focus will be on the military situation in Syria. Syria has endured a 12 year Western-orchestrated regime change war that has decimated Syrian infrastructure, depleted the military capability, imposed unprecedented sanctions unilaterally on the Syrian people. The US occupies oil and agricultural resources in the north-east, their assets occupy the agricultural resources in the north-west. Their Kurdish proxies and Al Qaeda assets benefit from the trade of Syrian resources under the protection of US political and military endorsement and collaboration. Syria’s refusal to abandon Palestine and willingness to expand the ability of Resistance factions to target Israeli facilities and installations has triggered serious recriminations from the US/Israeli axis. ISIS aggression on behalf of Israel and US On the 8th of November ISIS groups attacked Syrian Arab Army positions in the vicinity of the Homs, Hama and Raqqa triangle. The attack led to the deaths of 21 SAA soldiers and several injured. Military reinforcements were dispatched to comb the area and to eliminate the ISIS fighters. Since the double earthquake tragedy that struck Syria and Turkey on the 6th February there have been a number of ISIS attacks on Syrian military and civilians. This attack of the 8th November and the one that preceded it are the most intense. On 18th October, ISIS launched a wide-scale assault on the SAA and allies in the Al Sukhnah area of the eastern Homs desert. ISIS took control of SAA positions along the main road and the Dubayyat gas field. This from a Carnegie Middle East Center report in 2015 when ISIS was gaining ground in Syria (before Russian intervention in September 2015): Faced with dense regime defenses around Shaer, the Islamic State shifted its focus to Palmyra, which has been the site of the most development in Syria’s gas sector since the mid-1990s. Fields in the area were expected to eventually produce 9 million cubic meters of crude gas per day. These included the Arak, Dubayat, Hail, Hayan, Jihar, al-Mahr, Najib, Sukhneh, and Abi Rabah fields, which according to a former industry insider have collectively been producing half of Syria’s output of natural raw and liquid petroleum gas. Palmyra is also the transit point for pipelines carrying gas from important fields in Hasakah and Deir Ezzor provinces in northeastern and eastern Syria respectively. The US appears to be recycling their strategy of pre-Russian intervention to control the ‘hub between the extraction or transfer of virtually all of Syrian gas production and the processing and power plants further west that supply electricity and gas for domestic and industrial use’ to the most populated areas of Syria that are under the control of the Syrian government and military. The SAA was forced to withdraw and to await reinforcements from the 18th Division and allied forces. The ISIS terrorists were counter-attacked and the Syrian positions were recaptured in the southern outskirts of Al Sukhna. ISIS forces were routed with a high casualty rate. Units of the SAA pursued the remnants of ISIS terrorists targeting them heavily with artillery to force their retreat to the 55 km exclusion zone established by the US occupation forces around the US allied Al Tanf military base on the borders of Iraq and Jordan. ISIS terrorists were also besieged in small pockets around Al Dubayyat gas field. Russian and Syrian warplanes concurrently bombed ISIS groups emanating from the area of Al Tanf that were trying to reach Al Dubbayat to break the SAA siege on their militants. On November 16th, Deputy Head of the Russian Reconciliation Center, Vadim Collet, gave a statement that: “Armed groups trained at Al-Tanf base are planning to carry out sabotage acts in southern Syria against Syrian forces on main roads and fuel and energy facilities” adding that “the leadership of both Russian and Syrian forces will take preemptive measures to prevent armed provocations” On the 13th November, at night, the SAA again repelled an ISIS attack on Point 10 in the Ja'ideen area in the eastern desert of Raqqa, on the administrative border with Homs province. The joint Russian-Syrian warplanes targeted ISIS terrorists, forcing them to withdraw again to the open desert within the US controlled Al Tanf 55 km exclusion zone. The Syrian Arab Army secured the area between the Al-Rasafa Castle and Al-Zamla village less than an hour after the failed infiltration operation, which demonstrates a significant improvement in the Syrian Arab Army's ability to respond and deal with these attacks. Later on November 14, an ISIS cell attacked a Russian patrol with an RPG on Al-Shaer gas field road in the desert. Three Russian soldiers were injured in the attack. The level of attacks being carried out by the ISIS terrorists is indicative of both their presence in the areas occupied by US allied forces and of the control that the US alliance has over this terrorist faction operating in Syria and Iraq. The ISIS attacks must be seen in conjunction with the US and Israeli direct attacks on SAA and allied military positions. Israeli aggression against Syria since October 7th After five Israeli attacks in October, four of which targeted civilian airports in Damascus and Aleppo, putting them out of service, Israel has attacked more than three times in November. On November 8th at 22.50 Israel launched an attack on the positions of allied forces in the farmland extending from Sayeda Zainab and Aqraba, south-west of Damascus. They also targeted radar systems and air defence positions in Tal Qalib and Tal Al Massih in the Sweida district, southern Syria - scene of the most recent separatist protests backed and instigated by the US and Israel. Three civilians were injured in the Sweida attack. In the early dawn hours of November 10th, Israel bombed two positions of the Syrian allies in the vicinity of Shanshar, south-west of Homs. This led to the deaths of seven Hezbollah soldiers and significant material damage. Hezbollah fighters killed by Israeli aggression on November 10th Israel justified this aggression as a response to an attack on Eilat in southern occupied Palestine two days prior. The attack utilised a Shahed 101 suicide drone with a 600 km range. The drone was launched from central Syria, crossed Jordanian airspace undetected to Eilat where it hit and caused damage. However Israel is not able to identify who launched the drone. Sayed Hassan Nasrallah referred to the loss of Hezbollah fighters in Syria based on Israeli false claims. If indeed Hezbollah had launched the drone they would have claimed responsibility. Therefore this attack indicates the entry of new players in the Resistance axis. The following day, a faction calling themselves SWAT Jazeera Al Arabiya (Arabian Island) claimed responsibility for the Eilat attack. The faction is still mysterious but appears to be an ideological ‘jihadist’ group following the Islamic Resistance Iraq operational blueprint. While the SWAT zone of operation remains secret their arrival on the scene will send the message to the US and Israel that they will face more enemies the longer the genocidal campaign against Palestinians continues. Again on November 18, at 2:25 am, Israeli warplanes bombed two Hezbollah positions in the Bahdalia area close to Sayyida Zeinab city, southeast of Damascus, causing material losses. Perhaps more importantly than standard Israeli aggression against Syria - on the 18th October unidentified gunmen assassinated Lieutenant Colonel Qais Ismail and First Assistant Muhammad Hussein of the 112th Brigade, 5th Armoured Division. The attack was carried out to west of Daraa, south of Damascus. On October 24th Israel had dropped leaflets by drone on the ceasefire line threatening the 112th Brigade and their commander - effectively threatening officers of the SAA in the Daraa district. Was the 18th October assassination a precursor to further attacks by Israeli proxies on the ground south of Damascus? The two 112th Brigade officers gunned down and the leaflet dropped by Israeli drones. Yesterday, the 22nd November at 15.10, Israel again targeted the southern districts of Damascus including Sayeda Zainab (an important Iranian/Shia muslim pilgrimage site). I was actually in the area when this attack took place close to Sayeda Zainab. At this time of the afternoon the area is heaving with civilians and children who are leaving school. Video: Attacks on illegal US occupation bases in Syria and Iraq The following is an indication only of the number of attacks, the bases and US personnel casualties (it will need updating as attacks are almost daily): US illegal bases in Syria and Iraq have been targeted daily by the Resistance factions since the start of the Al Aqsa Flood operation. The US air defences have been unable to successfully counter drone and missile attacks. There are have been an estimated 50-60 attacks on US occupation forces between October 17th and November 22nd. This has resulted in 59 casualties, according to a press briefing by Dep. Pentagon Press Sec. Sabrina Singh: “The Pentagon is seeing an increase in attacks on US forces in Iraq and Syria, with a total of 55 attacks injuring dozens of service members since October 17, an official said Tuesday. The attacks, 27 in Iraq and 28 in Syria, have resulted in 59 service members being injured”, then corrected it, "Sorry, I can give you that rundown. So as of today, there have been approximately 58 attacks. So that's 27 in Iraq and 31 attacks in Syria." The US has routinely responded with airstrikes targeting SAA and allied sites in eastern Deir Ezzor countryside. The recent US aggression has adopted a different strategy. In the early hours of 9th November, US warplanes fired four rockets targeting a bakery and aid distribution warehouse belonging to the SAA allied forces on the outskirts of Deir Ezzor city. The attack developed into intense and direct clashes for over two hours between the US occupation forces with its Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River, and the Syrian Arab Army with its allies on the western bank near the towns of Abu Hardoub, Al-Quriyah, and Al-Miyadin. Various types of medium and heavy weapons, as well as rockets, were used during the clashes. Additionally, eight Fajr-1 rockets were fired, targeting the Green Village inside the US occupation base in the Al-Omar oil field. Three US armored Humvees were destroyed, and a number of US soldiers and SDF fighters were injured. However, shooting down a US counter-drone Coyote Block 2 UAV by Syrian air defenses in Al-Mayadeen vicinity two days later was an extraordinary development. On November 13th, again early morning, US warplanes carried out six airstrikes on the Sayyal area in Al Bukamal (on border with Iraq) and sites near a bridge in Al Mayadin City, east of Deir Ezzor. One death and one injury from these attacks. This time the US targeted empty buildings and a PMU (Iraqi Popular resistance faction) missile launch site. The Resistance immediately responded and targeted US bases occupying the Al Omar oil field and the Conoco gas field, Shaddadi, Khrab Al Jir and other US occupation locations. The Conoco attack was notable. Remnants of the missiles found near the Conoco base indicate the use of 220 mm Caliber missiles launched from an Uragan launcher. A Syrian Arab Army artillery and rocket system. Field sources reported that 15 rockets targeted the US base killing 6 US soldiers in the command headquarters. The US Central Command statement indicates a weakness in the US military occupation of Syria. For the second time, following an unprecedented series of attacks on their bases the US retaliation has been muted and largely ineffectual. “in response to continued provocations by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and their affiliated groups in Iraq and Syria, U.S. Central Command (USCENTOM) conducted air strikes against facilities near the cities of Abu Kamal and Mayadin” This would suggest that Washington is reticent to escalate in the region where all US forces are sitting ducks. The default position is to trigger proxy forces including ISIS. The increasing number of attacks on US bases in Syria alone are an indication that the West Asia region has had enough of US illegal warfare and occupation. Despite having air superiority in the region the US knows that open war would be a military quagmire and would end in defeat. The success of the Resistance in targeting US bases and bypassing US air defence has sent a strong message to the US - that the Resistance capability is a force to be reckoned with. These groups excel in maneuvering, concealment, rapid and accurate targeting, and have the ability to significantly alter the course of events. They pose huge risk to US forces illegally on the ground in Syria. The balance of power between US forces, direct and proxy, has shifted and the SAA is taking the fight to the US with a vengeance. A two hour direct engagement between SAA and US forces, the shooting down of a US drone, the targeting of the Conoco base all suggest that the SAA is contemplating military escalation in coordination with Iraqi Resistance and other allies. The US military hegemony in Syria is at a tipping point. Share In north-west Syria - Al Qaeda supports Israel against Palestine Al-Qaeda's Hayaat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) failed to achieve any military victory on any front in northwest Syria following several failed attacks on Syrian Arab Army positions. Since the beginning of October, HTS has been increasing drone attacks to compensate for military failures on the ground. The most devastating drone attack was on the 5th October (2 days before Al Aqsa Flood) when they targeted the Homs Military Academy, during a graduation ceremony packed with celebrating families. More than 89 people, mostly civilians were killed and 227 injured, many critically. Deputy Head of the Russian Center for Reconciliation in Syria, Vadim Collet, said that: “the raids resulted in the destruction of shelters and training camps belonging to the Al-Nusra Front group.” adding that “34 militants were killed and more than 60 others were injured.” The SAA and Russian air forces responded decisively. Russian and Syrian warplanes combined with artillery and missile launchers have carried out multiple attacks against terrorist positions since October 5th. Dozens of terrorist headquarters, ammunition stores, drone manufacturing facilities have been destroyed in Idlib province (north-west Syria). Multiple terrorists from HTS, Omar Ibn Al Khattab Brigade, Ansar Al Tawhid, Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) and other Al Qaeda derivatives have been killed or injured in the attacks. The strikes targeted terrorist controlled villages and towns such as Kefraya, Bara, Bilon, Ayn Larouz, Bazabour, Jisr Al Shughour, Afes and others on the axis of the northern Lattakia countryside, Western Aleppo countryside and the axes of Al Ghab plain in northern Hama, and Idlib itself. Video: Syrian Arab Army initiated a new phase of military operations over a month ago. These operations have been escalating intensively and progressively, achieving significant results. The terrorists have been deprived of their ability to launch wide-scale attacks, and their military capabilities, infrastructure, ammunition depots, and drones have been gradually destroyed. This strategy has developed in lock-step with events since October 7th. Video: The Syrian Ministry of Defense has reported the downing of dozens of drones on the fronts of Aleppo, Idlib, Hama, and Homs. Some of these drones are large-sized, GPS-guided, long range and can carry 100 kg of explosives. This increase in drone warfare, aided and abetted in development by NATO member states including Turkey, is an indication that the Al Qaeda asset are collaborating with the US and Israel to keep the SAA and allies occupied on the northern front. Syrian Ministry of Defense: “Units of our armed forces operating in the axes of Idlib, Hama and Aleppo countryside confronted attempts by terrorist organizations to attack safe villages and some military points with suicide drones, and destroyed four of them. A drone equipped with a liquid fuel rocket engine, four meters long, six meters wingspan, and loaded with one hundred kilograms of explosives was also shot down in the Jorin area in Hama northern countryside” The SAA is tactically depleting the terrorist offensive capability in the north-west to enable the SAA to engage in the south should a direct confrontation with Israel or the US arise in the Golan territories. As former SAA soldier and researcher Ibrahim Wahdi has pointed out: The intense airstrikes, artillery shelling, and missile attacks carried out by the army in the past month will greatly pave the way for any future military operation if a decision is made to advance towards the M4 highway. For example, a few days ago the Syrian Arab Army's anti-tank units had successfully cut off the supply routes of armed groups near Tafasnaz, isolating them from the Turkish base at Tafasnaz Airport, destroying their vehicles, killing and injuring many of them within less than an hour, without the need for any ground advancement. This demonstrates the army's capability to carry out similar, broader operations in the future if a decision is made for a large-scale ground operation. We are witnessing a micro-glimpse of what might happen were the SAA to engage in a comprehensive war against the US/Israel-led axis of terror. The Syrian leadership is taking a cautious approach for obvious reasons while opening up new fronts for Resistance factions operating on Syrian territory. Even if the Israeli war on Gaza were to escalate, leading to regional and international engagement, Syria would not need to enter the war directly. Opening the Golan front for anyone who wishes to fight against Israel would potentially be sufficient. As President Assad strongly stated in his speech at the Emergency Arab League Summit on Gaza: By our will only, by the overwhelming popular public opinion in our countries, with the new reality imposed by the Palestinian resistance in our region, we possessed those tools. Let us use them, and let us take advantage of the global transformation that has opened for us political doors that have been closed for decades, so that we can enter through them and change the equations, and let the precious souls who rose in Palestine be a rewarding price for achieving what we were unable to do in the past and what we must accomplish in the present and in the future. All countries in the region, specifically Syria, should take advantage of the new reality and build upon the victories of the resistance in Gaza. With every military confrontation, the popular resistance proves its ability to adapt, utilize the terrain of the battlefield, choose the timing, and employ sophisticated techniques in simple ways, relying on the most important factor in winning wars, which is determination. The military tactics employed by the Palestinian resistance were simple yet highly effective, and the most significant outcome was the clear military weakness of colonial forces in the region when facing the unified alliance of resistance forces. The war against Israel no longer requires the intervention of the Egyptian army, just as expelling the United States from Iraq and Syria would not require a comprehensive war. It is clear that Israel has failed to achieve any military victory in Gaza. Even with resorting to genocide and destruction, it has not succeeded in even swaying the popular Palestinian support for the Resistance Coalition in Gaza and the West Bank. Not even a few thousand out of more than two million residents in Gaza have emerged demanding surrender or cessation from the resistance. On the contrary, with every new massacre, we see Palestinians more determined to remain steadfast and to resist ethnic cleansing for the third time. Time is Israel’s greatest enemy. The longer the Israeli military incurs losses on the ground in Gaza, the longer Western public outrage increases at the massacres of thousands of children, the longer Netanyahu loses public confidence in Israel and abroad - the greater the defeat for Israel long term. Confronted with the psychopathy of the Israeli leadership and military the Resistance Axis is conducting itself with dignity and professionalism. It is hard to determine the balance of power in the region due to the hysterical and irrational rhetoric emanating from Washington, London and Tel Aviv. However it is shifting fast and there will be no going back. Ibrahim Wahdi: Regionally, there are important players with differing tactics, strategies, capabilities, and, most importantly, their understanding of the terrain, which makes it nearly impossible to predict the outcome of the current confrontation. However, the Middle East will certainly witness radical transformations after the Al-Aqsa Flood operation. With the rise of China and Russia, the East as a whole is asserting itself, which means that countries like Iran and Syria will also enter new historical stages on the geopolitical level. The so-called Global South is rising from the ashes of decades or centuries of colonialist terrorism. **** This article was co-written with Ibrahim Wahdi - please subscribe to his blog here. His Telegram channel and Twitter/X account. Please do consider subscribing to my Substack account and I hope you find this article useful. Thank you. https://beeley.substack.com/p/syria-is-playing-the-long-game-developing?r=29hg4d&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
    BEELEY.SUBSTACK.COM
    Syria is playing the long game - developing strategy for the potential of all-out war.
    An in-depth analysis of Syrian military developments since October 7th
    0 Комментарии 0 Поделились 21179 Просмотры
  • Welcome to Hadar: A Village Under Siege by al-Qaeda and Israeli Forces Alike
    Eva BartlettJune 27, 2018
    The village of Hadar, in Southern Syria, is buttressed on one side by Israeli watchtowers and walls – and endures deadly attacks from jihadist Syrian rebels from the other three.



    June 22, 2018, Mint Press News


    HADAR, SYRIA — Situated in the northern part of Quneitra governorate, with the towering Jabal al-Sheikh (Mt. Hermon) overlooking it and the region, Hadar is in both a beautiful area of Syria and a dangerous one.

    The roughly 10,000 defiant villagers of Hadar are isolated and under constant threat of attack. Until December 2017, Hadar was surrounded on three sides by terrorists and was attacked many times.

    The southwestern Syrian village of Hadar is next to the 1974 ceasefire line

    Positioned in a valley, with the al-Qaeda alliance until December 2017 occupying Beit Jinn and other villages to the east, Hadar also borders the ceasefire line of the occupied Syrian Golan, an area teeming with still more al-Qaeda terrorists. From their positions inside the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) zone of the occupied Syrian Golan, terrorists in Jubata al-Khashab (roughly 6 kilometers directly south of Hadar), Turunjah (roughly 5 kilometers south of Hadar), and Ufaniyah (further south than Jubata al-Khashab), have fired mortars, missiles, and other explosives on Hadar, something acknowledged even by the UN Secretary-General.

    Distance between Hadar and Jubata al Khashab which is occupied by al Qaeda terrorists

    In his December 6, 2017 report, the Secretary-General noted that terrorist groups fighting in the UNDOF area of operation include “the listed terrorist group Jabhat Fath al-Sham (formerly the Nusra Front) and Jaysh Khalid Ibn al-Walid, which pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).”

    The same report noted the attacks from the three villages towards Hadar were preceded by a “vehicle-borne improvised explosive device,” which killed nine people. In Hadar, I would learn that the car bomb didn’t just target “a pro-Syrian forces checkpoint in Hadar,” as per the UN report, but was headed towards the heart of the village when shot at by Hadar defenders. The vehicle exploded less than 100 meters from a school, at 9 a.m., according to Hadar resident Mahmoud Taweel. Had the village not been on alert, and families staying at home, the number killed would have surely been higher and included many children.

    Road of Nov 2017 suicide car bomb Israeli observation post above
    The road leading to the site of the deadly, Nov 2017 suicide car bomb. An Israeli observation post is visible atop in the mountain in the background. Eva Bartlett | MintPress News
    Most recently, on June 16, Syrian state media, SANA, reported that terrorists in Jubata al Khashab, “set fire once again to a large area of agricultural lands in the vicinity of Hadar village,” burning acres of fruit orchards south of the village. SANA further reported that firefighters were unable to reach the area to quell the fire, devastating the farmland and depriving landowners of their prime source of income.

    The support of Hadar villagers for their army and president is unsurprising, given these are the two bodies that have protected them and supported them against attacks from al-Qaeda and Israel, next door to Hadar.

    According to a report by Syrian journalist Alaa Ebrahim, the last attack on Hadar was on November 3, 2017, “… a ground offensive in three different directions, in an attempt to take the last few kilometers the government still controls along the border with Israel.” The Syrian army, Ebrahim noted, controls only five kilometers of the border with Israel and is limited in the number of military units it can move to the area, under the disengagement agreement reached following the 1973 war with Israel.

    Mr. Taweel explained that people of his town view Jabal al-Sheikh as a symbol of blessings. On top of that same mountain, Israeli observation posts oversee all activity. Hadar residents and Syrian soldiers believe that Israel has been coordinating with terrorist groups in their attacks on the village. Given that UNDOF forces themselves have documented Israeli soldiers interacting with terrorists in the occupied Syrian Golan, and given that Israel has attacked Syria on numerous occasions, the belief that the Israelis are aiding al-Qaeda terrorists in attacks on Hadar is more than reasonable.

    The corporate media silence on Hadar, in spite of what the villagers have endured and continue to face, would be surprising if it wasn’t already clear that corporate media isn’t interested in highlighting these kinds of Syrians. Just as they dismiss narratives of Syrians who do not support any of the terrorist factions, so have they corporate media dismissed narratives of Syrians who are proud supporters of the Syrian army and the democratically-elected president and Syrians whose experiences defy outside claims of a “civil war,” “revolution,” or “sectarian conflict.”

    “Our farmers can’t reach their land”

    On May 4, in a hired taxi and with a translator, I headed for Hadar to meet with Mahmoud Taweel, an English teacher, who would also introduce me to other Hadar residents, to hear from them on the attacks they’ve endured and the threats they’ve fought off, along with the Syrian army — largely to the silence of corporate media.

    Along the way, our taxi was joined by a car of four Syrian soldiers, who accompanied us both to show us the safest route to Hadar and also to protect us should terrorists in surrounding areas attack.

    We drove along a road flanking a heavily fortified UN base for a brief period, then followed another road cutting through open fields, Jabal al-Sheikh in the distance, finally descending along a narrow road winding its way through endless fruit-tree orchards before entering Hadar.

    In hired taxi en route to Hadar with Jabal al Sheikh in background20180504_112417

    In the town square, I chatted with a woman and man in a small shop until Mr. Taweel arrived. After a five minute walk, we reached his stone house, surrounded by fruit and other trees and adorned with yellow rose bushes.

    Watch | Hadar resident Mahmoud Taweel on life under threat from terrorism



    I asked Mahmoud Taweel to speak about life in Hadar over the past years. He said, of the terrorists south of Hadar and those formerly east of the town:

    They have been terrorizing us, by shelling, mortars. The most important thing is that they are depriving us of reaching our fertile farms. Ninety percent of our civilians depend on farming for their living. But our farmers can’t reach their land.”

    I was struck by the similarity of the situation of Palestinian farmers and these Hadar villagers. In the case of Palestinians, it is Israeli illegal colonists and soldiers who violently prevent them from accessing their lands, whether in West Bank areas of occupied Palestine or in the tiny and all too familiar Gaza Strip.

    Having worked for years with farmers in Gaza and also in the West Bank, with the violent Israeli tactics of shooting live ammunition to harass farmers off their land. This harassment has killed dozens of farmers and maimed many more. The situation in Hadar isn’t much different, except al-Qaeda and other terrorists do the attacking, bombing and burning of farmland and killing of villagers.

    Many maimed, many martyrs

    Hadar has a population of around 10,000, according to Mahmoud Taweel. I asked him about those injured and killed by terrorist attacks. He replied:

    Too many people were killed. At least 130 martyrs, and around 400 injuries and casualties. Some of them are hopeless cases: they can’t walk, speak, talk, and they need a very intensive health care on a daily basis.”

    So I asked him whether there is a hospital in the town to provide the needed health care to the injured:

    No hospital in Hadar, just a small mobile clinic with insufficient equipment. Ambulances took injured to Damascus, always under the threat of sniping from terrorists on either side.”

    Additionally, Hadar has suffered periods of no electricity. “Three months with no power at all,” Mr. Taweel said. “And the moment that the government restores power, the terrorists shell and destroy it…to make us live in darkness.”

    Mr. Taweel said Hadar village has two high schools, two primary, two intermediate, and one kindergarten. We drove to one of the schools, the one near to the site of the November 3, 2017, suicide car bombing just at the northern edge of Hadar. Mr. Taweel pointed to a deep rut in the road, now filled in with gravel, saying that was where the suicide bomber had detonated the explosives. Some meters away, the ruins of a small shop.

    Zooming in on the Israeli observatories overlooking Hadar, I asked whether they believed Israel had a role in the attacks that day.

    One of two Israeli observation posts overlooking the village and region
    One of the two Israeli observation posts overlooking Hadar, Syria. Eva Bartlett | MintPress News
    “For sure,” Mr. Taweel replied, “The final battle on November 3 was schemed, planned, and supported by Israel.”

    In his November 5, 2017 report, Alaa Ebrahim interviewed a Syrian army official who said: “Militants and Israel prepared this assault for three months and were thwarted in two hours.”

    By mid-December, Syrian army units recaptured areas to Hadar’s northeast that had been occupied by al-Nusra. By the end of December, following military operations by the Syrian army and local defenders, terrorists were evacuated from Beit Jinn (to Hadar’s east), part of a deal to restore peace to that area. By January 2018, families who had been displaced from Beit Jinn and surrounding areas were returning. The restoration of security to Beit Jinn and surrounding areas also, importantly, meant one less front from which terrorists could attack Hadar. Terrorists remain in areas south of the village, and continue their attacks.

    Facing occupied land

    Israeli road cutting through Syrian land at occupied Syrian Golan Heights
    An Israeli road, heavily fortified, cuts through Syrian land on both sides in the occupied Golan Heights. Eva Bartlett | MintPress News
    Descending the winding road a few kilometers to the west of Hadar, the hills of Majdal Shams, in the occupied Syrian Golan, appeared. Between the hill I stood on and Majdal Shams, an Israeli road fortified by a fence sliced the two Syrian lands, securing the land Israel has stolen and illegally occupies.

    The Syrian mission to the UN post on the occupied Syrian Golan reads:

    …[T]he Golan was home to over 140,000 Syrians, most of whom were driven out of their homeland and into Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) status. Till this day, almost 40 years later, the Syrian inhabitants of the Golan are still unable to return to their homes, towns and cities. Today these Syrians exceed 500,000 people. Some Syrians remained in the Occupied Syrian Golan and continue to live in small villages amounting to approximately 20,000 Syrians.

    Most of the Syrian cities, towns and villages in the Golan were destroyed by Israeli occupation forces, who in turn have built over 40 illegal settlements despite all international condemnation. Israel continues not only to occupy the Syrian Golan but to also destroy its ancient ruins and geopolitical atmosphere for the sole purpose of cleansing the Golan of its Syrian people and their history.”

    DSCN2890
    White Building is on “Shouting Hill”, when Syrians on Hadar side communicated with Syrians in occupied Golan’s Majdal Shams. -Eva Bartlett
    The hill I stood on, far lower than surrounding hills, was known as the Shouting Valley, because shouting by megaphones was for many years the sole means of communication between Syrians from Hadar and those in Israeli-occupied Majdal Shams.

    A February 2014 article in al-Akhbar by Firas Choufi noted:

    After the 1973 War, residents of liberated Hadar and occupied Majdal Shams were separated into ‘two banks,’ and since then, they would meet, converse, and share news and concerns by shouting in megaphones, giving the area its name.

    …The villages of Majdal Shams, Baqaatha, Masaada, Ain Qanya, and al-Ghajar are in truth the only villages in the Golan still inhabited by their native residents. In the 1967 War, the Israeli occupation ethnically cleansed two cities and more than 300 villages and farms in the Golan, using systematic massacres, bombardment, demolition of homes, and arrests, completely leveling existing villages.

    Today, around 23,000 Syrians live in the Golan Heights, and reject Israeli citizenship. They inhabit an area that is no bigger that 7 percent of the total area of the Golan Heights, which represents the primary source of water for occupied Lake Tiberias (Sea of Galilee).

    Meanwhile, 10,000 Jewish Israeli settlers live in 45 settlements built atop the ruins of Syrian villages, the largest of which is the settlement of Katzrin, which was built on the ruins of the Syrian town of Qisrin. Recently, the Israeli government officially declared the settlement an Israeli city.”

    In the valley to my right, between Jabal al-Sheikh and the hill I stood on, lay farmland belonging to residents living in occupied Majdal Shams. Mahmoud Taweel explained that since the owners can’t cross from occupied Majdal Shams, relatives tend the land for them. He also noted that the lush land roughly two hundred meters from the fence is not workable; it is prohibited. Yet, on the side occupied by Israel, houses and worked farmland extend right up to the fence.

    Farmland which owners in occupied Majdal Shams can not accessAccording to Hadar resident Mahmoud Taweel farmers are prohibited from farming near the fence

    I was again reminded of Gaza, where farmers can’t access fertile land within up to a kilometer along the fence with Israeli-occupied Palestine. This land, the former breadbasket of Gaza, has been forcibly rendered dry and wasted. Israel has systematically destroyed wells and cisterns to ensure that those brave farmers who try to work their land regardless of Israel’s unilaterally and illegally imposed restrictions will find it nearly impossible to grow wheat and vegetables. On the Israeli-occupied side of that Gaza fence, the land is lushly green, irrigated with modern equipment. The same Israeli double-standards apply around the occupied Syrian Golan.

    UN condemns then collaborates

    The United Nations’ Security Council and General Assembly have long-condemned Israel’s many violations of international law with respect to its occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights, including Israel’s “failure to comply with Security Council resolution 497 (1981)…” That resolution included demanding that Israel rescind its “decision to impose its laws, jurisdiction and administration in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights.”

    The UN General Assembly declared:

    Israel’s decision of 14 December, 1981 to impose its laws, jurisdiction and administration on the occupied Syrian Golan Heights constitutes an act of aggression under the provisions of Article 39 of the Charter of the United Nations and General Assembly resolution 3314 … Israel’s decision to impose its laws, jurisdiction and administration on the occupied Syrian Golan Heights is null and void and has no legal validity and/or effect whatsoever.”

    The UN rightly views Israel’s occupation and annexation of the Syrian Golan Heights as a “continuing threat to international peace and security.”

    That Israel essentially has gotten a carte blanche from most Western nations to illegally annex further Palestinian land, occupy Syrian and Lebanese land, and continue murdering Palestinians and attacking Syria is not terribly surprising given the Israeli-UN collaboration in the occupied Syrian Golan, a collaboration notably including al-Qaeda terrorists.

    image_650_365
    A photo from the Israel, Syrian border along the Golan Heights shows IDF soldiers conversing with al-Qaeda affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra fighters.
    On December 22, 2014 Al Akhbar reported:

    Observers from the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) confirmed in a report cooperation and coordination between the Israeli army and militant groups in Syria.

    The UNDOF report said that observers witnessed several meetings between rebel leaders and Israeli army forces between December 2013 and March 2014, in addition to witnessing the transportation of hundreds of injured militants to Israeli hospitals following confrontations between the militants and the Syrian army near the occupied Golan border.”

    Regarding the November 3, 2017 terrorist attacks on Hadar and surrounding Syrian areas, a UNSC report noted:

    Armed groups launched an attack involving heavy machine gun, small arms and indirect fire from the tri-village area of Jubbata al-Khashab, Turunjah and Ufaniyah in the area of separation against pro-Government forces in the vicinity of Hadar, which is largely inhabited by members of the Druze community.

    …Preceding the attack, open sources reported that a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device targeted a pro-Syrian forces checkpoint in Hadar, killing nine people.”

    But the role of the UN regarding Israel’s interaction with, and support of, terrorists doesn’t end with merely reporting on these facts. The UN also whitewashes the Israeli-al-Qaeda coordination and puts the blame on Syria for defending itself.

    As I wrote previously:

    In a November 2014 report, the Secretary-General mentioned the presence of al-Nusra and other terrorists in the ceasefire area ‘unloading weapons from a truck,’ as well as a ‘vehicle with a mounted anti-aircraft gun’ and Israeli ‘interactions’ with ‘armed gangs.’ Nonetheless, he went on to condemn strongly the Syrian army’s presence, offering no alternative solution to how to fight against those who fire on Syrian army and civilians from within the UNDOF-deserted area.”

    The Syrian Mandela



    al-Maket-arrested-under-gag-1-001
    Sedqi al-Maqt was arrested by Israel’s Shin Bet for exposing collaboration between Syrian rebels and Israel.
    In April 2017, Syria’s Ambassador to the UN Dr. Bashar al-Ja’afari, speaking on Israel’s occupation of Syrian territory, also said:

    We have to call on Israel to free Sedqi al-Maqt—who we call the Syrian Mandela—and others who are in Israeli prisons for taking pictures, taking photos that prove that Israel is cooperating with the al-Nusra Front in the occupied Syrian Golan.”

    Maqt is a Syrian in his early 50s from the occupied Syrian Golan who was imprisoned 27 years in Israeli prisons for his resistance to the Israeli occupation of Syrian land. He was released in 2012. Later, Maqt began filming the “joint cooperation between,” as he stated, Israeli soldiers and al-Qaeda terrorists near the Quneitra crossing. He was re-arrested by Israeli secret police in February 2015.



    Maqt also reported seeing Israeli forces supplying terrorists with weapons and munitions, and conveyed his feeling that the crossing had been turned into an operations room and safe shelter for terrorists attacking Syria, with the support and knowledge of the Israelis and the UN.

    In one of his reports, Maqt noted that, “the terrorists would move with complete freedom,” from the areas they occupied in the Syrian Golan to areas where UN and Israeli forces were present. He noted that when the Syrian army shelled them, al-Qaeda and other terrorists took cover in areas where the Israeli and UN forces were present.

    Prior to his 2015 arrest, Maqt also reported on the Israeli field hospitals that are treating terrorists, and reported that residents of the occupied Syrian Golan daily see Israeli ambulances transporting terrorists, and Israeli forces interacting with terrorists:

    There’s no way you could bring these terrorists to this field hospital if there wasn’t a joint operations room and daily communication and coordination..between Israeli forces and terrorist commanders.”



    Ironically, when Sedqi al-Maqt was arrested, Israel charged him with “terrorism offences.”

    When I visited the last couple hundred meters of Syrian land before occupied Majdal Shams, the sight of the vacated UN post, just to my left and before the illegally annexed Majdal Shams, was a visible reminder that Israel — with over 70 UN resolutions condemning it for its genocidal, land-thieving, war-criminal behavior against Palestinians, also including attacks on Syria and Lebanon — continues to evade facing any proper justice, making a farce of the UN and international law.

    Hadar villagers speak through tears of terrorism they’ve faced

    Just before the main square in Hadar, I met Atef Nakkour, sitting in his small shop. He welcomed me and spoke of Hadar’s defiance:

    You are very welcome in Hadar, this resistant village that has provided the invaluable to defend its dignity and freedom, and the dignity of the motherland. We are clinging to our land regardless of who agrees or disagrees.”

    Atef Nakkour defiantly proud of Syrian army and leadership
    Hadar resident Atef Nakkour, proud supporter of Syrian army and leadership. -Eva Bartlett
    He too mentioned at least 130 martyrs from the village, and spoke of Hadar’s gratitude to the Syrian army:

    We wholeheartedly endorse our army and our leadership.”

    Hadar’s former mukthar (mayor), Jawdat al-Taweel, “Abu Abdu,” is a towering, charismatic man. He is still a popular figure in Hadar, and now runs a clothes shop in town.

    He gave me a tour of the destruction from terrorist attacks. We stopped first at an internally-gutted, one-level shop that used to sell dairy and other food products. The shop, run by a family of women, was shelled and its equipment and goods destroyed in September 2017. The women now have no income.

    Watch | Jawdat al-Taweel, Hadar’s former mayor, shows damage to homes after terrorist’ shelling



    We continued, Abu Abdu pointing out scars of the shellings, in walls and roofs on either side. From around a corner, Atef Nakkour shouted for Abu Abdu to show me his own damaged home. We climbed onto a rooftop and walked to its edge. The former mayor pointed out more damage, the remnants of shelling, and called down to Nakkour, “Where were you standing when it happened?”

    Nakkour, standing on the street below us, replied that he’d been standing in the same spot, that a shell landed on a car parked nearby, shrapnel exploding towards the second level, damaging his home. Largely repaired, pockets in the roof overhang evidence the shelling.

    Walking down from the square and to a small home surrounded by a stone wall, bushes and flowers, an elderly man and his wife spoke of their murdered son and relative. Mr. Hassoun spoke slowly, and as he described losing his son, Minhal Ahmed Hassoun, both he and his wife next to him began to cry. Through tears, he began:

    Yes we lost young men, but we invaded no one, and we had no intention to kill anyone. They came to us on our land, and wanted to kill us and to humiliate us, but our youth and our heroic men preferred martyrdom to humiliation.”

    Mahmoud Taweel added that the village men had fought alongside the Syrian army, fighting the terrorists who attack Hadar.

    Mr. Hassoun continued:

    They [terrorists] came in large numbers, and Israel backed them with artillery, but our men refused to withdraw a meter from their trenches. When the hero Minhal was martyred, his brother was next to him. He closed Minhal’s eyes, and said to him: ‘Your blood is invaluable, and they will pay for what they did.’”

    Minhal had been studying law at Damascus University, Mr. Hassoun said:

    I told him, ‘My son, finish your studies and get your degree, these battles are long.’ He answered me, ‘My father, the degree dies the moment its holder dies, but martyrdom for the motherland never dies, it lasts for generations.’

    He took his wife to Jaramana, to the hospital so that she could give birth. They told him that there were still three or four days until it was her time, but he left his wife with his siblings, and said to her: ‘I want to go, the elders [his parents] are there and I won’t leave them alone.’

    He came back in the evening, left for the battle next morning, and was martyred at 8 a.m.”

    The newborn baby was named after his martyred father, Minhal.

    Watch | Abu Minhal speaks of his son, who was killed defending Hadar



    Minhal’s mother, who had been quietly wiping away her tears, listed their losses:

    My grandson was the first martyr, his name was Anas. Then after him my son was martyred, his name was Minhal. After him my nephew was martyred, his name was Ismaeel. After that two more nephews of mine were martyred: one was called Hamed and the other one Hasan.”

    She finished with a stoic comment reflecting the resilience not only of Hadar but of Syrians in general:

    Losing a feather wouldn’t make a bird nude. No matter how many we lose, it’s better than those dogs come here.”

    Before leaving, Mr. Hassoun brought out his old rifle and said:

    We are following our ancestors’ steps and will never give up our motherland as long as we are alive.”

    The terrorist attacks on Hadar and its farmland continue to the shrugs of Western corporate media precisely because reporting on such devastation by what the same media sells us as “rebels” would once again shatter the myth of “moderates,” the myth of a “revolution,” and of a “civil war.”

    In addition to Hadar’s strategic position, the people of Hadar are being attacked because they stand with their army and president. But after years of such attacks, and after over 130 martyrs, it is clear Hadar villagers have no intention of changing their stance, much like defiant Syrians throughout Syria.

    Now unemployed Hadar resident outside her former food and dairy shop destroyed in terrorist shelling in September 2017
    Now unemployed Hadar resident outside her former food and dairy shop destroyed in terrorist shelling in September 2017 -Eva Bartlett
    Hadar resident outside of his shrapnel damaged home
    A Hadar resident stands outside of his shrapnel damaged home. Eva Bartlett | MintPress News
    Looking south from Hadar2
    The author. To the left of this frame, some kilometres south, al-Qaeda occupied Jubata al-Khashab and attacks Hadar.
    The author with Mahmoud Taweel taxi driver and Syria army protection just near occupied Majdal Shams
    At occupied Majdal Shams, with Hadar resident Mahmoud Taweel, my hired taxi driver, and two Syrian soldiers who accompanied me to ensure my safety from al-Qaeda terrorists off the road to Hadar.
    Related articles:

    –Absurdities of Syrian war propaganda

    –Scoundrels & gangsters at UN: Silencing the Syrian narrative

    –Interview: Syrian Ambassador to the UN, Dr. Bashar al-Ja’afari on Sovereignty, Terrorism, and the Failure of the UN
    Welcome to Hadar: A Village Under Siege by al-Qaeda and Israeli Forces Alike Eva BartlettJune 27, 2018 The village of Hadar, in Southern Syria, is buttressed on one side by Israeli watchtowers and walls – and endures deadly attacks from jihadist Syrian rebels from the other three. June 22, 2018, Mint Press News HADAR, SYRIA — Situated in the northern part of Quneitra governorate, with the towering Jabal al-Sheikh (Mt. Hermon) overlooking it and the region, Hadar is in both a beautiful area of Syria and a dangerous one. The roughly 10,000 defiant villagers of Hadar are isolated and under constant threat of attack. Until December 2017, Hadar was surrounded on three sides by terrorists and was attacked many times. The southwestern Syrian village of Hadar is next to the 1974 ceasefire line Positioned in a valley, with the al-Qaeda alliance until December 2017 occupying Beit Jinn and other villages to the east, Hadar also borders the ceasefire line of the occupied Syrian Golan, an area teeming with still more al-Qaeda terrorists. From their positions inside the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) zone of the occupied Syrian Golan, terrorists in Jubata al-Khashab (roughly 6 kilometers directly south of Hadar), Turunjah (roughly 5 kilometers south of Hadar), and Ufaniyah (further south than Jubata al-Khashab), have fired mortars, missiles, and other explosives on Hadar, something acknowledged even by the UN Secretary-General. Distance between Hadar and Jubata al Khashab which is occupied by al Qaeda terrorists In his December 6, 2017 report, the Secretary-General noted that terrorist groups fighting in the UNDOF area of operation include “the listed terrorist group Jabhat Fath al-Sham (formerly the Nusra Front) and Jaysh Khalid Ibn al-Walid, which pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).” The same report noted the attacks from the three villages towards Hadar were preceded by a “vehicle-borne improvised explosive device,” which killed nine people. In Hadar, I would learn that the car bomb didn’t just target “a pro-Syrian forces checkpoint in Hadar,” as per the UN report, but was headed towards the heart of the village when shot at by Hadar defenders. The vehicle exploded less than 100 meters from a school, at 9 a.m., according to Hadar resident Mahmoud Taweel. Had the village not been on alert, and families staying at home, the number killed would have surely been higher and included many children. Road of Nov 2017 suicide car bomb Israeli observation post above The road leading to the site of the deadly, Nov 2017 suicide car bomb. An Israeli observation post is visible atop in the mountain in the background. Eva Bartlett | MintPress News Most recently, on June 16, Syrian state media, SANA, reported that terrorists in Jubata al Khashab, “set fire once again to a large area of agricultural lands in the vicinity of Hadar village,” burning acres of fruit orchards south of the village. SANA further reported that firefighters were unable to reach the area to quell the fire, devastating the farmland and depriving landowners of their prime source of income. The support of Hadar villagers for their army and president is unsurprising, given these are the two bodies that have protected them and supported them against attacks from al-Qaeda and Israel, next door to Hadar. According to a report by Syrian journalist Alaa Ebrahim, the last attack on Hadar was on November 3, 2017, “… a ground offensive in three different directions, in an attempt to take the last few kilometers the government still controls along the border with Israel.” The Syrian army, Ebrahim noted, controls only five kilometers of the border with Israel and is limited in the number of military units it can move to the area, under the disengagement agreement reached following the 1973 war with Israel. Mr. Taweel explained that people of his town view Jabal al-Sheikh as a symbol of blessings. On top of that same mountain, Israeli observation posts oversee all activity. Hadar residents and Syrian soldiers believe that Israel has been coordinating with terrorist groups in their attacks on the village. Given that UNDOF forces themselves have documented Israeli soldiers interacting with terrorists in the occupied Syrian Golan, and given that Israel has attacked Syria on numerous occasions, the belief that the Israelis are aiding al-Qaeda terrorists in attacks on Hadar is more than reasonable. The corporate media silence on Hadar, in spite of what the villagers have endured and continue to face, would be surprising if it wasn’t already clear that corporate media isn’t interested in highlighting these kinds of Syrians. Just as they dismiss narratives of Syrians who do not support any of the terrorist factions, so have they corporate media dismissed narratives of Syrians who are proud supporters of the Syrian army and the democratically-elected president and Syrians whose experiences defy outside claims of a “civil war,” “revolution,” or “sectarian conflict.” “Our farmers can’t reach their land” On May 4, in a hired taxi and with a translator, I headed for Hadar to meet with Mahmoud Taweel, an English teacher, who would also introduce me to other Hadar residents, to hear from them on the attacks they’ve endured and the threats they’ve fought off, along with the Syrian army — largely to the silence of corporate media. Along the way, our taxi was joined by a car of four Syrian soldiers, who accompanied us both to show us the safest route to Hadar and also to protect us should terrorists in surrounding areas attack. We drove along a road flanking a heavily fortified UN base for a brief period, then followed another road cutting through open fields, Jabal al-Sheikh in the distance, finally descending along a narrow road winding its way through endless fruit-tree orchards before entering Hadar. In hired taxi en route to Hadar with Jabal al Sheikh in background20180504_112417 In the town square, I chatted with a woman and man in a small shop until Mr. Taweel arrived. After a five minute walk, we reached his stone house, surrounded by fruit and other trees and adorned with yellow rose bushes. Watch | Hadar resident Mahmoud Taweel on life under threat from terrorism I asked Mahmoud Taweel to speak about life in Hadar over the past years. He said, of the terrorists south of Hadar and those formerly east of the town: They have been terrorizing us, by shelling, mortars. The most important thing is that they are depriving us of reaching our fertile farms. Ninety percent of our civilians depend on farming for their living. But our farmers can’t reach their land.” I was struck by the similarity of the situation of Palestinian farmers and these Hadar villagers. In the case of Palestinians, it is Israeli illegal colonists and soldiers who violently prevent them from accessing their lands, whether in West Bank areas of occupied Palestine or in the tiny and all too familiar Gaza Strip. Having worked for years with farmers in Gaza and also in the West Bank, with the violent Israeli tactics of shooting live ammunition to harass farmers off their land. This harassment has killed dozens of farmers and maimed many more. The situation in Hadar isn’t much different, except al-Qaeda and other terrorists do the attacking, bombing and burning of farmland and killing of villagers. Many maimed, many martyrs Hadar has a population of around 10,000, according to Mahmoud Taweel. I asked him about those injured and killed by terrorist attacks. He replied: Too many people were killed. At least 130 martyrs, and around 400 injuries and casualties. Some of them are hopeless cases: they can’t walk, speak, talk, and they need a very intensive health care on a daily basis.” So I asked him whether there is a hospital in the town to provide the needed health care to the injured: No hospital in Hadar, just a small mobile clinic with insufficient equipment. Ambulances took injured to Damascus, always under the threat of sniping from terrorists on either side.” Additionally, Hadar has suffered periods of no electricity. “Three months with no power at all,” Mr. Taweel said. “And the moment that the government restores power, the terrorists shell and destroy it…to make us live in darkness.” Mr. Taweel said Hadar village has two high schools, two primary, two intermediate, and one kindergarten. We drove to one of the schools, the one near to the site of the November 3, 2017, suicide car bombing just at the northern edge of Hadar. Mr. Taweel pointed to a deep rut in the road, now filled in with gravel, saying that was where the suicide bomber had detonated the explosives. Some meters away, the ruins of a small shop. Zooming in on the Israeli observatories overlooking Hadar, I asked whether they believed Israel had a role in the attacks that day. One of two Israeli observation posts overlooking the village and region One of the two Israeli observation posts overlooking Hadar, Syria. Eva Bartlett | MintPress News “For sure,” Mr. Taweel replied, “The final battle on November 3 was schemed, planned, and supported by Israel.” In his November 5, 2017 report, Alaa Ebrahim interviewed a Syrian army official who said: “Militants and Israel prepared this assault for three months and were thwarted in two hours.” By mid-December, Syrian army units recaptured areas to Hadar’s northeast that had been occupied by al-Nusra. By the end of December, following military operations by the Syrian army and local defenders, terrorists were evacuated from Beit Jinn (to Hadar’s east), part of a deal to restore peace to that area. By January 2018, families who had been displaced from Beit Jinn and surrounding areas were returning. The restoration of security to Beit Jinn and surrounding areas also, importantly, meant one less front from which terrorists could attack Hadar. Terrorists remain in areas south of the village, and continue their attacks. Facing occupied land Israeli road cutting through Syrian land at occupied Syrian Golan Heights An Israeli road, heavily fortified, cuts through Syrian land on both sides in the occupied Golan Heights. Eva Bartlett | MintPress News Descending the winding road a few kilometers to the west of Hadar, the hills of Majdal Shams, in the occupied Syrian Golan, appeared. Between the hill I stood on and Majdal Shams, an Israeli road fortified by a fence sliced the two Syrian lands, securing the land Israel has stolen and illegally occupies. The Syrian mission to the UN post on the occupied Syrian Golan reads: …[T]he Golan was home to over 140,000 Syrians, most of whom were driven out of their homeland and into Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) status. Till this day, almost 40 years later, the Syrian inhabitants of the Golan are still unable to return to their homes, towns and cities. Today these Syrians exceed 500,000 people. Some Syrians remained in the Occupied Syrian Golan and continue to live in small villages amounting to approximately 20,000 Syrians. Most of the Syrian cities, towns and villages in the Golan were destroyed by Israeli occupation forces, who in turn have built over 40 illegal settlements despite all international condemnation. Israel continues not only to occupy the Syrian Golan but to also destroy its ancient ruins and geopolitical atmosphere for the sole purpose of cleansing the Golan of its Syrian people and their history.” DSCN2890 White Building is on “Shouting Hill”, when Syrians on Hadar side communicated with Syrians in occupied Golan’s Majdal Shams. -Eva Bartlett The hill I stood on, far lower than surrounding hills, was known as the Shouting Valley, because shouting by megaphones was for many years the sole means of communication between Syrians from Hadar and those in Israeli-occupied Majdal Shams. A February 2014 article in al-Akhbar by Firas Choufi noted: After the 1973 War, residents of liberated Hadar and occupied Majdal Shams were separated into ‘two banks,’ and since then, they would meet, converse, and share news and concerns by shouting in megaphones, giving the area its name. …The villages of Majdal Shams, Baqaatha, Masaada, Ain Qanya, and al-Ghajar are in truth the only villages in the Golan still inhabited by their native residents. In the 1967 War, the Israeli occupation ethnically cleansed two cities and more than 300 villages and farms in the Golan, using systematic massacres, bombardment, demolition of homes, and arrests, completely leveling existing villages. Today, around 23,000 Syrians live in the Golan Heights, and reject Israeli citizenship. They inhabit an area that is no bigger that 7 percent of the total area of the Golan Heights, which represents the primary source of water for occupied Lake Tiberias (Sea of Galilee). Meanwhile, 10,000 Jewish Israeli settlers live in 45 settlements built atop the ruins of Syrian villages, the largest of which is the settlement of Katzrin, which was built on the ruins of the Syrian town of Qisrin. Recently, the Israeli government officially declared the settlement an Israeli city.” In the valley to my right, between Jabal al-Sheikh and the hill I stood on, lay farmland belonging to residents living in occupied Majdal Shams. Mahmoud Taweel explained that since the owners can’t cross from occupied Majdal Shams, relatives tend the land for them. He also noted that the lush land roughly two hundred meters from the fence is not workable; it is prohibited. Yet, on the side occupied by Israel, houses and worked farmland extend right up to the fence. Farmland which owners in occupied Majdal Shams can not accessAccording to Hadar resident Mahmoud Taweel farmers are prohibited from farming near the fence I was again reminded of Gaza, where farmers can’t access fertile land within up to a kilometer along the fence with Israeli-occupied Palestine. This land, the former breadbasket of Gaza, has been forcibly rendered dry and wasted. Israel has systematically destroyed wells and cisterns to ensure that those brave farmers who try to work their land regardless of Israel’s unilaterally and illegally imposed restrictions will find it nearly impossible to grow wheat and vegetables. On the Israeli-occupied side of that Gaza fence, the land is lushly green, irrigated with modern equipment. The same Israeli double-standards apply around the occupied Syrian Golan. UN condemns then collaborates The United Nations’ Security Council and General Assembly have long-condemned Israel’s many violations of international law with respect to its occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights, including Israel’s “failure to comply with Security Council resolution 497 (1981)…” That resolution included demanding that Israel rescind its “decision to impose its laws, jurisdiction and administration in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights.” The UN General Assembly declared: Israel’s decision of 14 December, 1981 to impose its laws, jurisdiction and administration on the occupied Syrian Golan Heights constitutes an act of aggression under the provisions of Article 39 of the Charter of the United Nations and General Assembly resolution 3314 … Israel’s decision to impose its laws, jurisdiction and administration on the occupied Syrian Golan Heights is null and void and has no legal validity and/or effect whatsoever.” The UN rightly views Israel’s occupation and annexation of the Syrian Golan Heights as a “continuing threat to international peace and security.” That Israel essentially has gotten a carte blanche from most Western nations to illegally annex further Palestinian land, occupy Syrian and Lebanese land, and continue murdering Palestinians and attacking Syria is not terribly surprising given the Israeli-UN collaboration in the occupied Syrian Golan, a collaboration notably including al-Qaeda terrorists. image_650_365 A photo from the Israel, Syrian border along the Golan Heights shows IDF soldiers conversing with al-Qaeda affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra fighters. On December 22, 2014 Al Akhbar reported: Observers from the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) confirmed in a report cooperation and coordination between the Israeli army and militant groups in Syria. The UNDOF report said that observers witnessed several meetings between rebel leaders and Israeli army forces between December 2013 and March 2014, in addition to witnessing the transportation of hundreds of injured militants to Israeli hospitals following confrontations between the militants and the Syrian army near the occupied Golan border.” Regarding the November 3, 2017 terrorist attacks on Hadar and surrounding Syrian areas, a UNSC report noted: Armed groups launched an attack involving heavy machine gun, small arms and indirect fire from the tri-village area of Jubbata al-Khashab, Turunjah and Ufaniyah in the area of separation against pro-Government forces in the vicinity of Hadar, which is largely inhabited by members of the Druze community. …Preceding the attack, open sources reported that a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device targeted a pro-Syrian forces checkpoint in Hadar, killing nine people.” But the role of the UN regarding Israel’s interaction with, and support of, terrorists doesn’t end with merely reporting on these facts. The UN also whitewashes the Israeli-al-Qaeda coordination and puts the blame on Syria for defending itself. As I wrote previously: In a November 2014 report, the Secretary-General mentioned the presence of al-Nusra and other terrorists in the ceasefire area ‘unloading weapons from a truck,’ as well as a ‘vehicle with a mounted anti-aircraft gun’ and Israeli ‘interactions’ with ‘armed gangs.’ Nonetheless, he went on to condemn strongly the Syrian army’s presence, offering no alternative solution to how to fight against those who fire on Syrian army and civilians from within the UNDOF-deserted area.” The Syrian Mandela al-Maket-arrested-under-gag-1-001 Sedqi al-Maqt was arrested by Israel’s Shin Bet for exposing collaboration between Syrian rebels and Israel. In April 2017, Syria’s Ambassador to the UN Dr. Bashar al-Ja’afari, speaking on Israel’s occupation of Syrian territory, also said: We have to call on Israel to free Sedqi al-Maqt—who we call the Syrian Mandela—and others who are in Israeli prisons for taking pictures, taking photos that prove that Israel is cooperating with the al-Nusra Front in the occupied Syrian Golan.” Maqt is a Syrian in his early 50s from the occupied Syrian Golan who was imprisoned 27 years in Israeli prisons for his resistance to the Israeli occupation of Syrian land. He was released in 2012. Later, Maqt began filming the “joint cooperation between,” as he stated, Israeli soldiers and al-Qaeda terrorists near the Quneitra crossing. He was re-arrested by Israeli secret police in February 2015. Maqt also reported seeing Israeli forces supplying terrorists with weapons and munitions, and conveyed his feeling that the crossing had been turned into an operations room and safe shelter for terrorists attacking Syria, with the support and knowledge of the Israelis and the UN. In one of his reports, Maqt noted that, “the terrorists would move with complete freedom,” from the areas they occupied in the Syrian Golan to areas where UN and Israeli forces were present. He noted that when the Syrian army shelled them, al-Qaeda and other terrorists took cover in areas where the Israeli and UN forces were present. Prior to his 2015 arrest, Maqt also reported on the Israeli field hospitals that are treating terrorists, and reported that residents of the occupied Syrian Golan daily see Israeli ambulances transporting terrorists, and Israeli forces interacting with terrorists: There’s no way you could bring these terrorists to this field hospital if there wasn’t a joint operations room and daily communication and coordination..between Israeli forces and terrorist commanders.” Ironically, when Sedqi al-Maqt was arrested, Israel charged him with “terrorism offences.” When I visited the last couple hundred meters of Syrian land before occupied Majdal Shams, the sight of the vacated UN post, just to my left and before the illegally annexed Majdal Shams, was a visible reminder that Israel — with over 70 UN resolutions condemning it for its genocidal, land-thieving, war-criminal behavior against Palestinians, also including attacks on Syria and Lebanon — continues to evade facing any proper justice, making a farce of the UN and international law. Hadar villagers speak through tears of terrorism they’ve faced Just before the main square in Hadar, I met Atef Nakkour, sitting in his small shop. He welcomed me and spoke of Hadar’s defiance: You are very welcome in Hadar, this resistant village that has provided the invaluable to defend its dignity and freedom, and the dignity of the motherland. We are clinging to our land regardless of who agrees or disagrees.” Atef Nakkour defiantly proud of Syrian army and leadership Hadar resident Atef Nakkour, proud supporter of Syrian army and leadership. -Eva Bartlett He too mentioned at least 130 martyrs from the village, and spoke of Hadar’s gratitude to the Syrian army: We wholeheartedly endorse our army and our leadership.” Hadar’s former mukthar (mayor), Jawdat al-Taweel, “Abu Abdu,” is a towering, charismatic man. He is still a popular figure in Hadar, and now runs a clothes shop in town. He gave me a tour of the destruction from terrorist attacks. We stopped first at an internally-gutted, one-level shop that used to sell dairy and other food products. The shop, run by a family of women, was shelled and its equipment and goods destroyed in September 2017. The women now have no income. Watch | Jawdat al-Taweel, Hadar’s former mayor, shows damage to homes after terrorist’ shelling We continued, Abu Abdu pointing out scars of the shellings, in walls and roofs on either side. From around a corner, Atef Nakkour shouted for Abu Abdu to show me his own damaged home. We climbed onto a rooftop and walked to its edge. The former mayor pointed out more damage, the remnants of shelling, and called down to Nakkour, “Where were you standing when it happened?” Nakkour, standing on the street below us, replied that he’d been standing in the same spot, that a shell landed on a car parked nearby, shrapnel exploding towards the second level, damaging his home. Largely repaired, pockets in the roof overhang evidence the shelling. Walking down from the square and to a small home surrounded by a stone wall, bushes and flowers, an elderly man and his wife spoke of their murdered son and relative. Mr. Hassoun spoke slowly, and as he described losing his son, Minhal Ahmed Hassoun, both he and his wife next to him began to cry. Through tears, he began: Yes we lost young men, but we invaded no one, and we had no intention to kill anyone. They came to us on our land, and wanted to kill us and to humiliate us, but our youth and our heroic men preferred martyrdom to humiliation.” Mahmoud Taweel added that the village men had fought alongside the Syrian army, fighting the terrorists who attack Hadar. Mr. Hassoun continued: They [terrorists] came in large numbers, and Israel backed them with artillery, but our men refused to withdraw a meter from their trenches. When the hero Minhal was martyred, his brother was next to him. He closed Minhal’s eyes, and said to him: ‘Your blood is invaluable, and they will pay for what they did.’” Minhal had been studying law at Damascus University, Mr. Hassoun said: I told him, ‘My son, finish your studies and get your degree, these battles are long.’ He answered me, ‘My father, the degree dies the moment its holder dies, but martyrdom for the motherland never dies, it lasts for generations.’ He took his wife to Jaramana, to the hospital so that she could give birth. They told him that there were still three or four days until it was her time, but he left his wife with his siblings, and said to her: ‘I want to go, the elders [his parents] are there and I won’t leave them alone.’ He came back in the evening, left for the battle next morning, and was martyred at 8 a.m.” The newborn baby was named after his martyred father, Minhal. Watch | Abu Minhal speaks of his son, who was killed defending Hadar Minhal’s mother, who had been quietly wiping away her tears, listed their losses: My grandson was the first martyr, his name was Anas. Then after him my son was martyred, his name was Minhal. After him my nephew was martyred, his name was Ismaeel. After that two more nephews of mine were martyred: one was called Hamed and the other one Hasan.” She finished with a stoic comment reflecting the resilience not only of Hadar but of Syrians in general: Losing a feather wouldn’t make a bird nude. No matter how many we lose, it’s better than those dogs come here.” Before leaving, Mr. Hassoun brought out his old rifle and said: We are following our ancestors’ steps and will never give up our motherland as long as we are alive.” The terrorist attacks on Hadar and its farmland continue to the shrugs of Western corporate media precisely because reporting on such devastation by what the same media sells us as “rebels” would once again shatter the myth of “moderates,” the myth of a “revolution,” and of a “civil war.” In addition to Hadar’s strategic position, the people of Hadar are being attacked because they stand with their army and president. But after years of such attacks, and after over 130 martyrs, it is clear Hadar villagers have no intention of changing their stance, much like defiant Syrians throughout Syria. Now unemployed Hadar resident outside her former food and dairy shop destroyed in terrorist shelling in September 2017 Now unemployed Hadar resident outside her former food and dairy shop destroyed in terrorist shelling in September 2017 -Eva Bartlett Hadar resident outside of his shrapnel damaged home A Hadar resident stands outside of his shrapnel damaged home. Eva Bartlett | MintPress News Looking south from Hadar2 The author. To the left of this frame, some kilometres south, al-Qaeda occupied Jubata al-Khashab and attacks Hadar. The author with Mahmoud Taweel taxi driver and Syria army protection just near occupied Majdal Shams At occupied Majdal Shams, with Hadar resident Mahmoud Taweel, my hired taxi driver, and two Syrian soldiers who accompanied me to ensure my safety from al-Qaeda terrorists off the road to Hadar. Related articles: –Absurdities of Syrian war propaganda –Scoundrels & gangsters at UN: Silencing the Syrian narrative –Interview: Syrian Ambassador to the UN, Dr. Bashar al-Ja’afari on Sovereignty, Terrorism, and the Failure of the UN
    0 Комментарии 0 Поделились 17335 Просмотры
  • The corncrake is an elusive bird that spends a lot of its time hiding in meadows. These birds travel from Africa to Scotland between April and September. Because of their shy nature, you’re far more likely to hear their distinctive raspy call than ever see them!

    However, the corncrake is critically endangered in western Europe, with the population plummeting in recent decades due to intensive farming practices. Once found across Scotland, they can now be only found in certain parts of the west and north of the country.

    The way we use our land is one of the biggest threats to our native mammals and birds, but nature-friendly farming promises an alternative to intensive methods that allows birds like the corncrake to thrive and return to our farmland. ????
    The corncrake is an elusive bird that spends a lot of its time hiding in meadows. These birds travel from Africa to Scotland between April and September. Because of their shy nature, you’re far more likely to hear their distinctive raspy call than ever see them! However, the corncrake is critically endangered in western Europe, with the population plummeting in recent decades due to intensive farming practices. Once found across Scotland, they can now be only found in certain parts of the west and north of the country. The way we use our land is one of the biggest threats to our native mammals and birds, but nature-friendly farming promises an alternative to intensive methods that allows birds like the corncrake to thrive and return to our farmland. ????
    Like
    8
    0 Комментарии 0 Поделились 1769 Просмотры
  • America's BIGGEST Owners Of Farmland REVEALED.. https://youtu.be/80z8gvQR81I
    America's BIGGEST Owners Of Farmland REVEALED.. https://youtu.be/80z8gvQR81I
    0 Комментарии 0 Поделились 287 Просмотры
  • Been out in the northern part of the lake system and looked at a piece if land with my plummers. Nice acres with lakefront, farmland and forrests for 650K $
    then got some late lunch from my aunt. salmon pie, sausage, Janssons and dessert :)
    "Janssons frestelse (in English, “Jansson’s temptation”) is a typical Swedish dish prepared with potatoes cut into sticks, onions, pickled sprats (Norwegian anchovies), cream, milk and breadcrumbs.
    It is usually considered one of the typical Christmas and Easter meals in the country" -196flavours.com for the translation
    Been out in the northern part of the lake system and looked at a piece if land with my plummers. Nice acres with lakefront, farmland and forrests for 650K $ then got some late lunch from my aunt. salmon pie, sausage, Janssons and dessert :) "Janssons frestelse (in English, “Jansson’s temptation”) is a typical Swedish dish prepared with potatoes cut into sticks, onions, pickled sprats (Norwegian anchovies), cream, milk and breadcrumbs. It is usually considered one of the typical Christmas and Easter meals in the country" -196flavours.com for the translation
    0 Комментарии 0 Поделились 288 Просмотры
  • Saying some obvious facts about resources and housings and why it has gone up so much. Well, it is not lack of farmland or housing that is the problem.... it is worse.
    https://youtu.be/BgSqVNnH0R8
    Saying some obvious facts about resources and housings and why it has gone up so much. Well, it is not lack of farmland or housing that is the problem.... it is worse. https://youtu.be/BgSqVNnH0R8
    0 Комментарии 0 Поделились 250 Просмотры
  • Whatever you upvote or not, listen to Ian Crosslands statement in the beginning about how big corp/Fe/goverment just ca take newly printed money and buy up peoples crypto and now they control all this as well. Just like Blackrock does with peoples villas now. They force them out, but whole blocks and then rent it back... Total power! If there would be the same value in Pineapples ???? they would make sure they own all Pineapples. Just like with Gates and the farmland and so on. https://youtu.be/3N24X5jJuCg

    Whatever you upvote or not, listen to Ian Crosslands statement in the beginning about how big corp/Fe/goverment just ca take newly printed money and buy up peoples crypto and now they control all this as well. Just like Blackrock does with peoples villas now. They force them out, but whole blocks and then rent it back... Total power! If there would be the same value in Pineapples ???? they would make sure they own all Pineapples. Just like with Gates and the farmland and so on. https://youtu.be/3N24X5jJuCg
    0 Комментарии 0 Поделились 131 Просмотры
  • Shakasun Family Farms
    0% $0 Raised of $1000
    Hello all, I encourage everyone to start farming ASAP. Over the last 3 years I have been buying farmland myself so far I am up to 300 acres with 16 ready for production.

    Your donation would really help us move forward with our goals of hiring and getting farm tools and inputs. Over the next few months here as I and some other good friends get ready to become fully fledged farms we hope that our experiences help and inspire other to become more self sufficient the more food we have available the cheaper the market prices them this our goal.

    Do you want to make a massive change in others lives? A donation of just $1 can make a change in some ones life we are up to the task, are you?
    Hello all, I encourage everyone to start farming ASAP. Over the last 3 years I have been buying farmland myself so far I am up to 300 acres with 16 ready for production. Your donation would really help us move forward with our goals of hiring and getting farm tools and inputs. Over the next few months here as I and some other good friends get ready to become fully fledged farms we hope that our experiences help and inspire other to become more self sufficient the more food we have available the cheaper the market prices them this our goal. Do you want to make a massive change in others lives? A donation of just $1 can make a change in some ones life we are up to the task, are you?
    Like
    1
    0 Комментарии 0 Поделились 2527 Просмотры 0 Donations