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As Gazans starve, Israeli rhetoric grows more and more radically anti-Palestinian – Day 306 [email protected] August 9, 2024 AIPAC, ceasefire, Cori Bush, ethnic cleansing, humanitarian aid gaza, kamala harris on palestine, polio in gaza, rape of palestinian prisoners, sanctions, tim walz on palestine, torture of Palestinian prisoners A Palestinian girl clings to her mother in Gaza City, June 2 [Dawoud Abo Alkas/Anadolu] (photo) In Gaza, airstrikes continue, food rations drop, polio threat grows; in Israel, calls to punish not the rapists, but the one who filmed them, to make rape of Palestinian prisoners official policy, to make Nablus in West Bank “look like Rafah,” to legalize Israeli settlement in Gaza, to end US sanctions on violent settlers; Biden administration ok’s more war after prisoner swap (risking ceasefire deal), condemns not AIPAC’s purchase of congressional candidates, but Cori Bush’s warnings against AIPAC; Kamala Harris indicates no tolerance for pro-Palestinian protesters or their message; Tim Walz’s track record on Palestine is not nearly as moral as Dems painted it; more. By IAK staff, from reports. At least 15 killed in Israeli bombing of two Gaza schools The New Arab reports: An Israeli attack on two schools in Gaza City left at least 15 people killed and dozens injured in the Tuffah district of the besieged enclave. The schools targeted, Abdel Fattah Hamoud and al-Zahraa, were destroyed with many Palestinians still missing and trapped under the rubble, according to local civil defence teams who were still working to pull people out. Displaced Palestinians were sheltering in the schools, which were reportedly targeted without any prior warning. Earlier on Thursday, Israeli forces stepped up airstrikes across the Gaza Strip, killing at least five Palestinians in a house in the heart of Gaza City. Another airstrike in the southern city of Khan Younis killed one person and wounded others, according to medics. NOTE: Every single day, Gaza’s population endures many airstrikes, tank shells, and snipers’ bullets – too many to report on here. And every day, more Palestinians are lost under the rubble of bombed-out buildings. We acknowledge that these are important stories, even if we are unable to cover them all. A view of the destruction after an Israeli attack on Deir el-Balah, central Gaza, on Tuesday [Ashraf Amra/Anadolu] A view of the destruction after an Israeli attack on Deir el-Balah, central Gaza, on Tuesday [Ashraf Amra/Anadolu] (photo) World Food Program forced to reduce rations in Gaza Al Jazeera reports: The deputy spokesperson for the UN secretary-general, Farhan Haq, explained that the World Food Program has been forced to reduce rations for Palestinians in Gaza because of the continuing war on the enclave. “WFP urgently needs fuel deliveries, increased flow of blood supplies and greater capacity to deliver hot meals, particularly in Gaza City and north Gaza,” Haq said. “WFP warns that it will be unable to bring in the quantity of food required this month unless more border crossing points into Gaza open and aid workers are able to bring in half the quantity of food needed in July and in the West Bank.” Without ceasefire for vaccines, polio could spread throughout region: WHO specialist Al Jazeera reports: The UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) has called for a ceasefire in Gaza to administer a mass polio vaccination campaign, including to 600,000 children under the age of eight, after samples of the disease were detected in the enclave’s wastewater. Hamid Jafari, a polio specialist with the WHO, says that if such a ceasefire is not implemented and if healthcare workers are not granted enough freedom of movement to distribute all the vaccines, the risk of a polio outbreak both within Gaza and regionally is “very high”. “This can spread very fast internationally and most importantly, it is a direct threat to the children of Gaza,” Jafari told Al Jazeera. “This can start paralysing children very very rapidly.” He added: “If it [polio] spreads into Israel or the West Bank, it becomes a public health emergency there. Lebanon is at risk. Egypt is at risk. Jordan is at risk. And other countries of the region are at risk. After Israel destroyed Gaza's water and sewage systems, filthy water runs or stands stagnant all over the enclave, carrying polio and other diseases. After Israel destroyed Gaza’s water and sewage systems, filthy water runs or stands stagnant all over the enclave, carrying polio and other diseases. (collage) Friendly Fire: Israeli Man Dies After Being Wounded by Malfunctioning Iron Dome Interceptor Ha’aretz reports: The Israeli military said a preliminary investigation showed Samara was mistakenly struck by a malfunctioning interceptor rocket that was launched at a drone launched from Lebanon. The investigation showed that the rocket had fallen after failing to explode in the air as designed, it added. Two others were wounded besides Samara: a woman who was hit by shrapnel from the explosion and a cyclist who was hit by a car during the alarm. The hospital in the area said 19 people were admitted for treatment, including six soldiers – most of them requesting help for headaches, ringing in the ears and anxiety. Israel bans imam Ekrima Sabri from Al-Aqsa Mosque for 6 more months Al Jazeera reports: Israel has extended its ban on Al-Aqsa Mosque’s speaker Ekrima Sabri, restricting his access to the mosque and its courtyards for six more months, his lawyer tells Al Jazeera. Sabri was detained on August 2 on suspicion of inciting “terrorism” after he mourned assassinated Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh at the mosque. Sabri, 85, the former grand mufti of Jerusalem and current head of its Supreme Islamic Council, called Haniyeh a “martyr” at the mosque in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem, his lawyer Hamzeh Qutteineh said at the time. At the time, he was also banned from entering the mosque until August 8. Sheikh Ekrima Sa’id Sabri, the former grand mufti of Jerusalem and the Palestinian territories walks outside an Israeli police station after being summoned for interrogation, in Jerusalem on January 2, 2023. [Saeed Qaq/NurPhoto via Getty Images] Sheikh Ekrima Sa’id Sabri, the former grand mufti of Jerusalem and the Palestinian territories walks outside an Israeli police station after being summoned for interrogation, in Jerusalem on January 2, 2023. [Saeed Qaq/NurPhoto via Getty Images] (photo) Smotrich demands punishment for person who filmed Sde Teiman rape video Middle East Eye reports: Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has called for an investigation to find out who took the video that shows Israeli soldiers raping a Palestinian in the Sde Teiman detention centre. In a post on X, he demanded “an immediate criminal investigation to locate the leakers of the trending video that was intended to harm the reservists and that caused tremendous damage to Israel in the world and to exhaust the full severity of the law against them”. NOTE: On Monday, Smotrich said that letting two million people in Gaza die from hunger is “justified and moral”. Israeli journalist urges rape to become state policy for Palestinian prisoners Andalou Agency reports: An Israeli journalist advocated rape Thursday as an official policy by the state for Palestinian prisoners in the Israeli jails. “The only thing that is a problem for me here is that it is not a regulated policy of the state to abuse the (Palestinian) detainees,” journalist Yehuda Schlesinger said on a television program on Channel 12 when asked if raping prisoners is acceptable. He justified his comments by claiming, “Because first of all, they deserve it, and it is great revenge that we need to give them.” “And secondly, maybe it will also serve us a little more as a deterrent,” he said. “It is just a shame that we don’t do it in an institutionalized way as a part of regulations for torture of prisoners.” The comments follow reports by media outlets that showed a video of Israeli soldier raping a Palestinian detainee at the Sde Teiman Prison in the Negev desert in southern Israel. A leaked video showing Israeli soldiers sexually assaulting a Palestinian detainee from Gaza has emerged. (Photo: video grab) A leaked video showing Israeli soldiers sexually assaulting a Palestinian detainee from Gaza has emerged. (Photo: video grab) (photo) Israeli lawmaker says ‘Nablus should look like Rafah’ Middle East Eye reports: Israeli member of parliament Zvi Sukkot, a member of the far-right Religious Zionist Party, said Israel should act in the occupied West Bank the same way it is acting in the Gaza Strip. “We still see processions of armed men,” he said. “Maybe we are waiting for them to try to shoot someone? This is a disturbing event, an unacceptable reality. Nablus should look like Rafah as long as it exports terror, Tulkarm like Khan Younis, Jenin like Jabalia.” Israeli forces have killed at least 620 Palestinians in the West Bank since the start of the war on Gaza, according to the Palestinian health ministry. Israeli lawmakers, settler leaders unite to legalize Gaza settlements: Report The Cradle reports: Israel’s Channel 12 reported on 8 August that lawmakers from the Likud and Religious Zionism parties have formed a “civilian parliamentary working group” alongside settler leaders that seeks to legitimize the resettlement of Gaza by repealing the 2005 disengagement law. The working group reportedly expects to present the draft bill at the opening of the next Knesset session. Approved in 2005, the Gaza Disengagement Law led to the dismantling of the Gush Katif settlement bloc in the strip and four Jewish settlement outposts in the occupied West Bank. For several years preceding the current war, religious Zionist settlers in Israel called for a war to conquer Gaza, reverse the disengagement, and rebuild Gush Katif. Israeli army responds to announcement of World Central Kitchen of Israel’s killing of staff The US-based World Central Kitchen aid group had announced the killing of a Palestinian staff member, Nadi Sallout, near Gaza’s Deir el-Balah. The Times of Israel newspaper reports that the Israeli military said it conducted a preliminary examination and held a conversation with the WCK about the reported killing. It claimed that “there is no known incident of harm to an employee of the organization while working in the last few days,” adding, “The [army] examines each unusual incident individually.” In early April, Israel killed seven people working with the United States-based NGO in an attack on the Gaza Strip. NOTE: Israel’s self-investigations consistently whitewash its crimes and fail to appropriately punish the perpetrators. Israeli sources, including the government itself, have a long track record of lying (for example, this and this and this.) US To Let Israel Restart Military Operations in Gaza After First Phase of Ceasefire Deal As Ha’aretz reports ceasefire negotiations are nearly completed, AntiWar reports: The US is ready to guarantee that it would allow Israel to restart the genocidal war in Gaza after the first phase of any hostage and ceasefire deal that might be reached with Hamas, according to Israeli media reports. The Israeli condition could make Hamas less likely to agree to a deal since one of its main demands has been a permanent ceasefire and Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. According to The Times of Israel, a proposal that’s been discussed would involve three phases where Israel would halt its military operations and Hamas would release hostages. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants a guarantee that he’ll be able to restart military operations after the first phase, which is when negotiations will be held on implementing the next two phases. The US has not yet provided a written agreement that it would allow Israel to restart operations but has expressed its approval of the idea. Yedioth Ahronoth reported that the US wouldn’t give the guarantee in writing until an agreement is reached with Hamas. Israel ‘working to block’ sanctions on violent settlers: Netanyahu Israeli government press release: The Israeli prime minister held a meeting Thursday in Tel Aviv with council heads from illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank to discuss their concerns about the effects of the Western sanctions imposed on a limited number of violent settlers and organizations. Regarding the sanctions against the settlers and the organizations, Prime Minister Netanyahu noted that he views this with utmost gravity and said: “We are working to block this. It is an issue for the entire State of Israel, not just Judea and Samaria.” RECOMMENDED READING: Israel revokes diplomatic status of Norwegian envoys Netanyahu: Israel should have waged war against Hamas sooner In an exclusive interview given to the US’s Time Magazine, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he made a mistake not launching a full-scale war against the Palestinian group in the years leading up to its October 7 attacks on Israel. He blamed the Israeli security establishment for its hesitation, and himself for acceding to their reluctance. “October 7 showed that those who said that Hamas was deterred were wrong,” he said to Time during his interview. “If anything, I didn’t challenge enough the assumption that was common to all the security agencies.” [In reality, Israel had frequently waged war on Gaza.] White House denounces Cori Bush’s ‘inflammatory’ words to AIPAC after primary loss The Hill reports: Asked for President Biden’s thoughts on Bush’s vow to challenge AIPAC, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the president condemns that kind of “divisive” and “inflammatory” rhetoric. Earlier this week, Cori Bush told supporters, “They’re about to see this other Cori, this other side…All they did was radicalize me, so now they need to be afraid,” and, “AIPAC, I’m coming to tear your kingdom down.” The White House press secretary said of this comment, “Look, the president has always been very clear — and very recently, after the assassination attempt of the last president — about lowering rhetoric, right? Lowering political rhetoric and the importance of doing that,” Jean-Pierre said Wednesday at the daily press briefing. “It is important — important that we be very mindful of what we say. This kind of rhetoric is inflammatory and divisive and incredibly unhelpful.” “We’re going to continue to condemn any type of political rhetoric in that way, in that vein,” she continued. “And so, it is important to be mindful in what we say and how we say it. But we cannot have this type of inflammatory, divisive language in our political discourse.” NOTE: In what some analysts have called an attack on the democratic process, AIPAC spent over $17 million to topple Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., in June, and around $26 million to defeat Cori Bush. The administration’s position toward Bush’s comment indicates it is more worried about challenges to Israel’s primacy in US politics than the fact that Congressional seats are for sale. Kamala’s husband, the US Second Gentleman, claims ‘We’re witnessing the worst wave of Jew-hatred since World War II’ Ha’aretz reports: Talking to the media while visiting Paris, U.S. Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff said that “There is a ferocious surge of antisemitism occurring around the world, including here in France. It is a crisis.” We are witnessing the worst wave of Jew-hatred the globe has experienced since World War II,” he added. According to the second gentleman, “When Jews are targeted because of their beliefs or identity, and when Israel is singled out because of anti-Jewish hatred, that is antisemitism.” NOTE: A large portion of alleged antisemitism is opposition to Zionism, a racist ideology under which Israel dispossessed 750,000 Palestinian people and exiled them to Gaza and other locations. The so-called “demonization” of Israel is in most cases a legitimate criticism of Israel’s policies of occupation, apartheid, and genocide, and other illegal practices. Activists in Minnesota: ‘Governor Walz has refused to meet Palestinian families’ Middle East Eye reports: It’s been 10 months since Israel’s war on Gaza began, and Governor Tim Walz, the newly appointed vice-presidential nominee on Kamala Harris’ ticket, has yet to meet with Palestinian families from his home state of Minnesota, anti-war activists have told Middle East Eye. The accusations are in stark contrast to the public image being conjured up by the Democratic Party establishment to present Walz, along with presidential hopeful Kamala Harris, as more sympathetic and empathetic towards the carnage suffered by Palestinians over the past 10 months. But according to several activists in Minnesota, not only has the governor refused to meet with Palestinian families who have lost relatives in Israel’s war on Gaza, he has barely acknowledged their concerns and and demands. Sana Wazwaz, spokesperson for the group, said the Palestinian community had been trying for months to arrange a meeting with the governor to talk about the devastating losses in Gaza and their demands for an arms embargo on Israel. When they did manage to arrange a meeting with the governor for early July, it was abruptly cancelled when they explained to the governor’s staff that they had come to discuss “material solutions” with the governor and not merely to narrate “sob stories” about the loss of their loved ones. When asked why the meeting had been cancelled, they were told that the governor “was prepared to listen to you tell your stories, but we weren’t prepared to talk about divestment”. “Walz wanted us for the PR stunt and not for actual, genuine conversation about political change. He just wanted to check it off the list that he met with another marginalized group that he’s been ignoring for months upon months,” Wazwaz explained. “We have been trying for months to arrange a meeting. Phone calls have been made, but Governor Walz has refused to show up for any of the Palestinian families; has refused to sit down and meet with them, has refused to, you know, visit a single mosque or a single Palestinian institution to check in on our families,” Wazwaz said. Activists also point out that Walz’s nomination has also garnered praise from liberal pro-Israel lobbying groups in the US. J Street described the Harris-Walz team as “pro-Israel”; Mark Mellman, chair of Democratic Majority for Israel described Walz as a “proud pro-Israel Democrat with a strong record of supporting the US-Israel relationship”. COUNTERPUNCH ADDS: Harris has offered sympathetic words on Gaza: “The images of dead children and desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety – sometimes displaced for a second, third, or fourth time – we cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering, and I will not be silent.” Eman Abdelhadi of the University of Chicago finds such sentiments from Harris parch dry, arguing that a lack of “an actual commitment to stop killing the children of Gaza” invalidates any claims to empathy. “To be empathetic to someone that you’re shooting in the head is not exactly laudable. We don’t need empathy from these people. We need to stop providing the weapons and the money that is actively killing the people that they’re supposedly empathising with.” [Also see Glenn Greenwald’s commentary.] MORE NEWS: IMEMC Daily Reports. The Intercept: The Outrageous Case of an NY Journalist Charged With a Hate Crime for Recording a Gaza Protest Action Caitlin Johnson: US Policy: Let Israel Escalate Against Iran, Then Tell Iran Not To Escalate Back Middle East Monitor: In Gaza, keeping the internet on can cost lives but also save them STATISTICS OCTOBER 7 – AUGUST 8: Palestinian death toll from October 7 – August 8: at least 40,315* (39,699 in Gaza* – 11,445 women (30%), 16,251 children as of July 22. [The Ministry’s figures have been contested by the Israeli authorities, although they have been accepted as accurate by Israeli intelligence services, the UN, and WHO. These data are supported by independent analyses, comparing changes in the number of deaths of UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) staff with those reported by the Ministry, which found claims of data fabrication implausible.] This is expected to be a significant undercount since thousands of those killed have yet to be identified – and at least 616 in the West Bank (~140 children). This does not include an estimated 10,000 more still buried under rubble (4,900 women and children). Euro-Med Monitor reports 46,848 Palestinian deaths. Lancet: “Applying a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death9 to the 37,396 deaths reported, it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186 000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza. Ralph Nader earlier estimated 200,000 Palestinians may have been killed in Gaza. At least 45 Palestinians have died in Israeli prisons (27 from Gaza, 18 from West Bank). At least 41 Palestinians have died due to malnutrition**. About 1.7 million, or 75% of Gaza’s population are currently displaced. 2.15 million (out of total population of 2.3 million) are projected to face Crisis or worse levels of food insecurity. Palestinian injuries from October 7 – August 8: at least 97,142 (including at least 91,722 in Gaza and 5,420 in the West Bank, including 830 children). [It remains unknown how man Americans are among the casualties in Gaza.] Reported Israeli death toll from October 7 – August 8: ~1,486 (~1,139 on October 7, 2023, of which ~32 were Americans, and ~36 were children); 331 military forces since the ground invasion began in Gaza; 16 in the West Bank) and~8,730 injured. Times of Israel reports: The IDF listed 41 soldiers killed due to friendly fire in Gaza and other military-related accidents – nearly 16%. NOTE: It is unknown at this time how many of the deaths and injuries in Israel on October 7 were caused by Israeli soldiers. *Previously, IAK did not include 471 Gazans killed in the Al Ahli hospital blast since the source of the projectile was being disputed. However, given that much evidence points to Israel as the culprit, Israel had previously bombed the hospital and has attacked many others, Israel is prohibiting outside experts from investigating the scene, and since the UN and other agencies are including the deaths from the attack in their cumulative totals, if Americans knew is now also doing so.** Euro-Med Monitor reports that Gaza’s elderly are dying at an alarmingly high rate. The majority die at home and are buried either close to their residences or in makeshift graves dispersed across the Strip. There are currently more than 140 such cemeteries. Additionally, according to Euromed, thousands have died from starvation, malnourishment, and inadequate medical care; these are considered indirect victims as they were not registered in hospitals. † For most of the conflict, women and children accounted for about 70% of deaths in Gaza, with children making up a little over 40% of those killed, according to official statistics. Find previous daily casualty figures and daily news updates here. Hover over each bar for exact numbers. Source: IsraelPalestineTimeline.org Human rights reports on Israel-Palestine (regularly updated) Western media continue to withhold the truth about Israel and Gaza – 4 stories “Well What SHOULD Israel Have Done After October 7?” Welcome to Hell More dead children. More BBC ‘news’ channelling Israeli propaganda as its own U.S. media downplays and ignores ICJ ruling declaring Israeli occupation illegal Israeli soldiers tell story of savage cruelty in Gaza – one given blessing by the West Searching for Gaza’s missing children What Would You Do With An Extra $320 Million? Assassination of Haniyeh an intentional, dangerous escalation – Parsi, Macgregor When Israel Burned Refugees Alive, Establishment Media Called It a ‘Tragic Accident’ Israel has turbocharged West Bank housing demolitions under the cover of war Western media ignores Israeli confirmation of Hannibal Directive on 7 Oct US Should Arrest Benjamin Netanyahu When He’s in Washington Airwars investigation: Israeli airstrikes uniquely lethal (video) Hesen Jabr paid the price of conscience Gaza genocide denial Why the news media’s job is to groom us ‘Disappeared, buried, detained’: The horrors of Gaza’s missing children Hundreds of social media influencers attend Israel strategy summit in NYC Supporting Israel Is Big Business in the U.S. for Israel partisans Toys, spices, sewing machines: the items Israel banned from entering Gaza Synopsis of ICJ’s decision on Israeli occupation, reactions, and take-aways Russia attacks hospitals in Ukraine; Israel does the same in Gaza. The US response couldn’t be more different. ‘I have the prison inside me’: The emaciated Palestinian bodybuilder broken by Israel Israel has manufactured an industrial-scale version of Jim Crow rape hoaxes If Americans Knew Mobile Billboard Truck at Republican Convention Col. Douglas MacGregor: US is under the control of Israel, likens Gaza to Warsaw Ghetto https://israelpalestinenews.org/gazans-starve-israeli-rhetoric-more-radically-anti-palestinian-day-306/

Israel has killed over 600 in West Bank since October 7th – Day 301 [email protected] August 4, 2024 Bram Settenbrino, hamas, home demolition, israeli attack west bank, israeli settlement, josh shapiro, netanyahu lying, neturei karta One of the latest massacres to take place in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. (photo) Israel rains death and destruction on Gaza and West Bank; UNRWA gradually resumes educational activities; anti-Zionist rabbis attend Haniyeh’s funeral; Israeli-American soldier posted videos of Gaza homes, mosque being detonated; Kamala Harris VP contender Shapiro has ties to Israeli military; US aircraft carrier has eyes on Iran; US official says Biden figured out Netanyahu has been lying to him. By IAK staff, from reports. Israeli attack on school in Gaza kills at least 15 people Al Jazeera reports: At least 15 people have been killed in multiple Israeli air raids on a school sheltering displaced Palestinians in central Gaza on Saturday, Gaza’s Government Media Office said. Many others were reportedly injured in the attack on the Hamama school in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood in Gaza City. Reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza on Saturday, Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud said that at least three bombs were dropped on the school as rescuers and volunteers inside the facility were trying to help people escape from under the rubble from a bomb just a few minutes earlier. “Those three bombs destroyed the facility completely. This is the tactic that the Israeli military has widely used in the past. The military drops a bomb that partially destroys facilities, namely evacuation centers, killing a number of people, and then within a few minutes, it drops other bombs,” he said. The Israeli military said the school was being used as a command centre for Hamas, the Palestinian group that governs Gaza, to hide fighters and manufacture weapons. Israeli army bombs university in Gaza City, destroying campus buildings Andalou Agency reports: The Israeli army bombed the University College of Applied Sciences in the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood of southwest Gaza City, completely destroying campus buildings, the Palestinian Civil Defense in Gaza reported on Saturday. Civil Defense spokesperson Mahmoud Basal said in a press release that “Israeli occupation forces, which have penetrated the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood, executed operations of bombing and destroying the university buildings, leading to their total demolition.” Eyewitnesses told Anadolu that massive explosions were heard around the university premises, and thick clouds of smoke were seen rising from the area. Since the onset of the devastating Israeli war on Gaza on Oct. 7, the Israeli army has deliberately targeted and destroyed educational institutions, particularly during ground offensives. According to statistics from the Government Media Office in Gaza, Israel has destroyed 117 schools and universities, damaged 332 others, and killed 107 scientists, university professors, and researchers. West Bank: Israeli Drone Strikes Assassinate Nine Palestinians Near Tulkarem IMEMC reports: Israeli forces assassinated, on Saturday, nine Palestinian young men in two separate drone strikes in the Tulkarem governorate, in northwestern part of the West Bank. Media sources said that early Saturday morning, an armed Israeli drone fired two missiles at a vehicle carrying five Palestinian young men on a road northeast of Tulkarem. According to the director of the Martyr Thabet Thabet Governmental Hospital in Tulkarem, reported that five badly burned bodies arrived at the hospital, only one of whom was identified as Haitham Nour al-Din Balidi, 25, from the Tulkarem refugee camp. Meanwhile, at dawn on Saturday, occupation forces invaded the city of Tulkarem, accompanied by four military bulldozers, which proceeded to raze streets and infrastructure in the city, while reconnaissance drones flew overhead. Bulldozers destroyed streets and privately-owned property in the eastern part of the city and razed streets and infrastructure inside the Tulkarem camp, amid heavy gunfire. The army reportedly opened fire with tear gas canisters towards a group of journalists near the Tulkarem camp, causing at least three of them to sustain inhalation injuries. Furthermore, on Saturday afternoon, a second Israeli drone strike killed four more Palestinian citizens while they were present on lands located between the towns of Iktaba and Bal’a, northeast of the city. Media sources said that an armed Israeli drone fired a missile at a group of citizens, killing four young men. Sources added that a large army force surrounded the site, prevented ambulance crews from reaching the slain men, before confiscating the bodies. AL JAZEERA ADDS: Israel is averaging 40 raids per day in the occupied West Bank, a massive increase since the war started. West Bank: contrary to Int’l Court ruling, Israel demolished Palestinian structures, approved settlement plans in July Andalou Agency reports: The Israeli army demolished 135 homes and other facilities in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, in July alone, the Palestinian Colonization and Wall Resistance Committee reported on Saturday. According to the committee’s monthly report, “Israeli authorities carried out 98 demolition activities in July, affecting 135 structures, including 62 inhabited homes, 14 uninhabited homes, and 12 agricultural facilities.” The report also noted that the Israeli army issued demolition notices for 16 homes and other structures in several West Bank provinces. Regarding illegal Israeli settler attacks, the report said “Illegal settlers carried out 196 assaults ranging from land seizures and expansion activities to extrajudicial executions, vandalism, land leveling, tree uprooting, property seizures, roadblocks, and the burning of homes and vehicles.” The report stated: “Israeli authorities reviewed 54 illegal settlement plans for the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem in July, approving 20, including one in Jerusalem and 19 in West Bank settlements.” Additionally, 33 plans were submitted for future approval, with one in Jerusalem and 32 in West Bank provinces. According to the report, Israeli authorities also “legalized three new settlement outposts, adding to the 11 outposts already in the process of legalization since the beginning of the year.” Settlement outposts are small communities established by illegal Israeli settlers on privately owned Palestinian land without approval from the Israeli government. In a landmark opinion on July 19, the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestinian land “illegal” and demanded the evacuation of all existing settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. UN agency gradually resuming educational activities in Gaza amid Israeli offensive Andalou Agency reports: The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) announced on Saturday that it began a gradual resumption of educational activities in some shelters in the central and southern Gaza Strip this week. In an interview with Anadolu, UNRWA Media Director Inas Hamdan explained that the resumed activities are part of a longer-term plan, focusing initially on sports, arts, drama, and games. She added that these activities will also include psychosocial support for students in various shelters, tailored to the prevailing conditions. Hamdan stressed that while this step aims to help children affected by the ongoing war regain a semblance of normalcy, it is still too early to discuss a comprehensive educational plan due to the continuing war and multiple challenges. The UNRWA reported earlier this week that 85% of its schools in Gaza, or 477 out of 564 buildings, have been either directly damaged or require significant repairs to become operational again. RECOMMENDED READING: ‘Suffering horrifically’: 10 months of Israel’s ‘war on children’ in Gaza Anti-Zionist rabbis attend Haniyeh’s funeral in Doha Andalou Agency reports: Rabbis from the anti-Zionist Jewish movement “Neturei Karta” attended the funeral of Hamas political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh in the Qatari capital Doha. Neturei Karta announced on its Facebook page that “anti-Zionist Jewish Rabbis arrived in Qatar to participate in the funeral procession of Hamas political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh.” A viral video from Haniyeh’s funeral showed these rabbis holding signs reading “Jews are not Zionists.” This movement is made up of Orthodox Jews who say Zionism is an ideology that does not represent Judaism. “This latest crime was committed amidst the ten-month-long genocide launched on the besieged Gaza, with tens of thousands killed in the brutal aggressive war, leading to a humanitarian disaster within the territory under siege,” the movement said. Neturei Karta revealed that its rabbis had met with Haniyeh during a “historic humanitarian visit” to Gaza in 2009, where they “emphasized the authentic Jewish opposition to Zionism and the hope to live peacefully as we did historically.” The rabbinic delegation had assured Haniyeh that “according to the Jewish religion, Jews are forbidden to have their own sovereign state and are forbidden to kill, steal, or fight any nation.” They informed Haniyeh that “authentic Jews stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people until total liberation” and pointed out that “the State of Israel does not represent the Jewish people, and the nationalistic movement does not represent Judaism, which is a holy religion.” Hamas says it has started process of choosing new leader Al Jazeera reports: Hamas has issued a statement saying it has initiated a broad consultation process to select a new leader of its movement following the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh. Haniyeh headed the group’s political bureau. His deputy, Saleh al-Arouri, who was killed in an Israeli strike in Beirut in January, would have been the automatic replacement. Several top Hamas officials could replace Haniyeh once the group’s Shura council, the main consultative body, meets. NYT ‘completely fabricated’ report saying Haniyeh killed by remote bomb: Hamas The Cradle reports: Speaking to The Cradle, Hamas representative in Iran Khaled Kaddoumi called “ridiculous” and “completely fabricated” a recent New York Times (NYT) report claiming to reveal how Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Iran this week. The NYT report from 1 August claimed Haniyeh was killed by an explosive device planted in his room in a guest house controlled by the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC). The bomb was planted two months ago and detonated remotely by Israel’s intelligence service, the Mossad, NYT report claimed. Haniyeh was in the Iranian capital, Tehran, for the inauguration of newly elected President Masoud Pezeshkian. In contrast, Kaddoumi stated that Haniyeh and his bodyguard were killed by explosives dropped from the air. “I was there, and the wall and ceiling of the place where he was were collapsed. It is clear from the appearance of the place after the attack, and from the body of the martyr leader Ismail Haniyeh, that the targeting was carried out by an air-dropped projectile,” Kaddoumi told The Cradle. He noted further, “There are ongoing investigations, and technicians who inspected the crime scene will issue detailed reports on what happened.” Israeli-American soldier posted videos showing detonation of Gaza homes and mosque The Guardian reports: An American-Israeli man deployed in Gaza with a combat engineering unit of Israel’s armed forces posted videos online that show indiscriminate fire at a destroyed building and the detonation of homes and a mosque. One video posted by the man, Bram Settenbrino, and filmed from the shooter’s viewpoint, shows dozens of rounds being fired into the ruins of a building. Another video shows what appears to be an armored vehicle’s fire-control system trained on a mosque before it is razed to the ground. Others depict the detonation of several homes as soldiers cheer. It is not clear whether Settenbrino personally filmed the videos or was involved in the acts depicted in them, but the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Settenbrino did not dispute the videos’ authenticity. The videos recently went viral on X, drawing accusations that they showed “war crimes”. Settenbrino wrote in a message to the Guardian that the videos were “taken out of context” but declined to elaborate. “I have not committed any war crimes whatsoever,” he added. After the Guardian reached out to Settenbrino and his family, his father published a response attributed to his son through Arutz Sheva, a news site associated with the settler right. “The machine gun fire video in question was suppressive fire in an area cleared of civilians after my team was attacked by Hamas terrorists from that area. The mosque that was blown up was being used to house armed terrorists and weapons stockpiles and used as a base to attack IDF soldiers.” The soldier’s father said his son had “sent a congratulatory video dedicating a detonation to honor a friend’s new marriage”, and that the family business had received threats since the videos began circulating. Israeli soldiers have shared scores of videos during the 10-month war showing themselves mocking Palestinians in Gaza and destroying Palestinian property. Some have been used as evidence in the genocide case against Israel at the international court of justice (ICJ). With thousands of Americans serving in the IDF, potential misconduct documented by soldiers themselves raises uncomfortable questions for US officials about their willingness to enforce federal law against citizens acting in an overseas war the US government funds and supports. The extensive destruction of property, when “not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly” is a violation of international law regulating conflict and a war crime under US law. Kamala Harris VP contender Josh Shapiro downplays Israeli military volunteer experience Times of Israel reports: Pennsylvania Governor and potential Democratic vice presidential nominee Josh Shapiro on Friday sought to distance himself from a recently uncovered op-ed he wrote in college, in which he identified as a former volunteer in the IDF and argued that the Palestinians are too “battle-minded” to pursue peace with Israel. “While he was in high school, Josh Shapiro was required to do a service project, which he and several classmates completed through a program that took them to a kibbutz in Israel where he worked on a farm and at a fishery,” Shapiro’s spokesperson Manuel Bonder told The Times of Israel. “The program also included volunteering on service projects on an Israeli army base. At no time was he engaged in any military activities,” Bonder added in a statement responding to an inquiry regarding the nature of his volunteer work. While Shapiro’s Jewish roots are well established — including his enrollment at the Akiba Hebrew Academy in Philadelphia — the op-ed from his time at the University of Rochester appeared to be the first revelation of such direct ties to the IDF. “Palestinians will not coexist peacefully,” Shapiro also wrote in a 1993 op-ed titled “Peace Not Possible.” “They do not have the capabilities to establish their own homeland and make it successful even with the aid of Israel and the United States. They are too battle-minded to be able to establish a peaceful homeland of their own,” added the then-20-year-old student. Salon reports that Shapiro’s support for Israel has continued in recent times: “On the contentious issue of Israel’s relentless war against civilians in Gaza, Shapiro sounds much less bothered by the lethal violence than by U.S. activists for Palestinian lives, many of whom he has demonized.” “In 2021, after Ben & Jerry’s (a company founded and led by Jewish Americans) refused to sell its products in Israel’s illegal settlements, Shapiro, who was then Pennsylvania’s attorney general, threatened the company by urging state agencies to enforce a constitutionally suspect law targeting advocates of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, or BDS, against Israel over its discriminatory policies. Shapiro smeared such advocates by claiming that “BDS is rooted in antisemitism” – although the effort has wide support globally, including from many Jews, as a thoroughly nonviolent tactic aimed at advancing Palestinian rights.” After the Oct. 7 attack, critics objected Gov. Shapiro’s one-sided comments: “Not only did you fail to recognize the structural root causes of the conflict,” they argued, “you chose to intentionally ignore the civilian loss of life in Gaza.” After Democratic governors in other states had called for a ceasefire in Gaza, Shapiro refused to do so. On May 9, Shapiro invoked student “safety” in demanding the encampment be shut down. Police arrested 33 people. In two different interviews, Shapiro seemed to compare campus ceasefire activists, many of whom are Jewish or students of color, to “white supremacists”… US aircraft carrier arrives in the Strait of Hormuz: Report Al Jazeera reports: Israeli Army Radio reports that the US aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt has arrived in the Strait of Hormuz, just 10km (6.2 miles) from the coast of Iran, amid fears of Iranian retaliation for the killings of Hamas’s political leader in Tehran and a Hezbollah commander in Beirut. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has also ordered additional ballistic missile defense-capable cruisers and destroyers to the Middle East and areas under the United States European Command, as well as a new fighter squadron to the Middle East. In April, the US, UK, France and Jordan helped shoot down missiles and drones fired by Iran at Israel in retaliation for an Israeli strike on Iran’s embassy compound in Damascus. Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said on Friday that “the Department of Defense continues to take steps to mitigate the possibility of regional escalation by Iran or Iran’s partners and proxies”. U.S. Official: Biden Realized Netanyahu Lied to Him About Hostage Deal Ha’aretz reports: A senior official in the Biden administration told Haaretz on Saturday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is ungrateful toward the United States and disregards the significant amount of aid it has provided to Israel throughout the past 10 months of war. The official also said that the last two conversations between President Joe Biden and Netanyahu – one during a meeting at the White House some 10 days ago, the other over the phone last week – were difficult and tense. “Biden realized that Netanyahu was lying to him about the hostages,” the official told Haaretz. “He’s not saying it publicly yet, but in the meeting between them, he specifically told him, ‘Stop bullshitting me.'” “Netanyahu is trying to prolong the war instead of focusing on how to get to a hostage deal,” the official said. “It’s making it harder for us to continue supporting Israel over time.” Netanyahu responded to the reports Saturday night about the tense conversations between him and Biden through a press release attributed to the Prime Minister’s Office that read, “The prime minister does not interfere in American politics and will work with whoever is elected president, just as he also expects the Americans not to interfere in Israeli politics.” MORE NEWS: IMEMC Daily Reports. STATISTICS OCTOBER 7 – AUGUST 3: Palestinian death toll from October 7 – August 3: at least 40,186* (39,583 in Gaza* – 11,445 women (30%), 16,251 children as of July 22. [The Ministry’s figures have been contested by the Israeli authorities, although they have been accepted as accurate by Israeli intelligence services, the UN, and WHO. These data are supported by independent analyses, comparing changes in the number of deaths of UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) staff with those reported by the Ministry, which found claims of data fabrication implausible.] This is expected to be a significant undercount since thousands of those killed have yet to be identified – and at least 603 in the West Bank (~140 children). This does not include an estimated 10,000 more still buried under rubble (4,900 women and children). Euro-Med Monitor reports 46,848 Palestinian deaths. Lancet: “Applying a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death9 to the 37,396 deaths reported, it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186 000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza. Ralph Nader earlier estimated 200,000 Palestinians may have been killed in Gaza. At least 45 Palestinians have died in Israeli prisons (27 from Gaza, 18 from West Bank). At least 41 Palestinians have died due to malnutrition**. About 1.7 million, or 75% of Gaza’s population are currently displaced. 2.15 million (out of total population of 2.3 million) are projected to face Crisis or worse levels of food insecurity. Palestinian injuries from October 7 – August 3: at least 96,818 (including at least 91,398 in Gaza and 5,420 in the West Bank, including 830 children). [It remains unknown how man Americans are among the casualties in Gaza.] Reported Israeli death toll from October 7 – August 3: ~1,486 (~1,139 on October 7, 2023, of which ~32 were Americans, and ~36 were children); 331 military forces since the ground invasion began in Gaza; 16 in the West Bank) and~8,730 injured. Times of Israel reports: The IDF listed 41 soldiers killed due to friendly fire in Gaza and other military-related accidents – nearly 16%. NOTE: It is unknown at this time how many of the deaths and injuries in Israel on October 7 were caused by Israeli soldiers. *Previously, IAK did not include 471 Gazans killed in the Al Ahli hospital blast since the source of the projectile was being disputed. However, given that much evidence points to Israel as the culprit, Israel had previously bombed the hospital and has attacked many others, Israel is prohibiting outside experts from investigating the scene, and since the UN and other agencies are including the deaths from the attack in their cumulative totals, if Americans knew is now also doing so.** Euro-Med Monitor reports that Gaza’s elderly are dying at an alarmingly high rate. The majority die at home and are buried either close to their residences or in makeshift graves dispersed across the Strip. There are currently more than 140 such cemeteries. Additionally, according to Euromed, thousands have died from starvation, malnourishment, and inadequate medical care; these are considered indirect victims as they were not registered in hospitals. † For most of the conflict, women and children accounted for about 70% of deaths in Gaza, with children making up a little over 40% of those killed, according to official statistics. Find previous daily casualty figures and daily news updates here. Hover over each bar for exact numbers. Source: IsraelPalestineTimeline.org Human rights reports on Israel-Palestine (regularly updated) More dead children. More BBC ‘news’ channelling Israeli propaganda as its own U.S. media downplays and ignores ICJ ruling declaring Israeli occupation illegal Israeli soldiers tell story of savage cruelty in Gaza – one given blessing by the West Searching for Gaza’s missing children What Would You Do With An Extra $320 Million? Assassination of Haniyeh an intentional, dangerous escalation – Parsi, Macgregor When Israel Burned Refugees Alive, Establishment Media Called It a ‘Tragic Accident’ Israel has turbocharged West Bank housing demolitions under the cover of war Western media ignores Israeli confirmation of Hannibal Directive on 7 Oct US Should Arrest Benjamin Netanyahu When He’s in Washington Airwars investigation: Israeli airstrikes uniquely lethal (video) Hesen Jabr paid the price of conscience Gaza genocide denial Why the news media’s job is to groom us ‘Disappeared, buried, detained’: The horrors of Gaza’s missing children Hundreds of social media influencers attend Israel strategy summit in NYC Supporting Israel Is Big Business in the U.S. for Israel partisans Toys, spices, sewing machines: the items Israel banned from entering Gaza Synopsis of ICJ’s decision on Israeli occupation, reactions, and take-aways Russia attacks hospitals in Ukraine; Israel does the same in Gaza. The US response couldn’t be more different. ‘I have the prison inside me’: The emaciated Palestinian bodybuilder broken by Israel Israel has manufactured an industrial-scale version of Jim Crow rape hoaxes If Americans Knew Mobile Billboard Truck at Republican Convention Col. Douglas MacGregor: US is under the control of Israel, likens Gaza to Warsaw Ghetto https://israelpalestinenews.org/israel-killed-over-600-west-bank-since-october-7th-day-301/ https://donshafi911iamthefaceoftruth.blogspot.com/2024/08/israel-has-killed-over-600-in-west-bank.html

Biden and US are at Bibi’s beck and call – Day 300 [email protected] August 3, 2024 AIPAC, archbishop of canterbury, humanitarian aid, Rashida Tlaib, sheikh ekrima sabri, US military in the Middle East Palestinians in Jabalia Refugee Camp wait in line to receive food distributed by charitable organizations in Jabalia, Gaza on August 1, 2024. [Mahmoud İssa – Anadolu Agency] (photo) Israel continues to confound aid delivery; unbelievable amount of debris covers Gaza; 85-year-old Al Aqsa mosque preacher detained for mourning Ismail Haniyeh’s killing; several Hamas officials killed; Biden tells Bibi, “don’t count on Washington in an escalation– then sends a dozen warships to the Middle East; Archbishop of Canterbury calls for all to respect ICJ’s occupation ruling; Rashida Tlaib: hero; AIPAC calls on US to support rogue Israeli state; more. By IAK staff, from reports. Gaza aid is “significantly hindered” by Israeli restrictions, unsafe conditions: UN OCHA reports: The UN’s Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says Israeli restrictions, the closure of the Rafah border crossing, continued fighting, and damaged and risky roads are preventing life-saving aid from getting to Gaza. OCHA’s latest Gaza report says the Israeli military continues to impose restrictions on the entry of certain humanitarian supplies, including recreational and psychosocial support kits for children. “Between 1 and 29 July, an average of 77 truckloads of aid supplies entered Gaza daily, representing a decline of about 42 per cent compared with the daily average of 132 trucks between January and April 2024,” the OCHA says. NOTE: Before the war, about 500 truckloads of aid entered Gaza every day. “In July, out of 157 humanitarian assistance missions coordinated with the Israeli authorities to northern Gaza, 67 missions were facilitated by the Israeli authorities, 42 were impeded, 30 were denied, and 18 were cancelled due to logistical, operational, or security reasons.” Out of 386 aid mission requests to reach areas south of Wadi Gaza that require coordination, 250 missions were facilitated by the Israeli authorities, 46 were impeded, 53 were denied and 37 were cancelled, according to OCHA. UN says debris in Gaza amounts to 41.95 million metric tonnes UNITAR reports: The UN Satellite Centre (UNOSAT) has said that the total debris in the Gaza Strip generated by the war amounts to approximately 41.95 million metric tonnes. The figure is up 83 percent from the nearly 23 million tonnes estimated on January 7. The Israeli war has resulted in 14 times more debris than the combined total from all previous conflicts in the Palestinian territory since 2008, UNOSAT said. The agency estimated that 114 kilogrammes (250 pounds) of debris were generated for each square metre in the Gaza Strip. A view of the destruction after buildings turn into piles of rubble due to intense Israeli attacks in Gaza City [File: Dawoud Abo Alkas/Anadolu Agency] A view of the destruction after buildings turn into piles of rubble due to intense Israeli attacks in Gaza City [File: Dawoud Abo Alkas/Anadolu Agency] (photo) Israeli police arrest Al-Aqsa Mosque preacher for mourning Haniyeh Middle East Monitor reports: Israeli police, on Friday, reportedly arrested Al-Aqsa Mosque preacher, Sheikh Ekrima Sabri, for mourning slain Hamas Political Bureau chief, Ismail Haniyeh. Haniyeh was assassinated on Wednesday in Tehran, Iran’s capital. While Hamas and Iran blamed Israel for the killing, Tel Aviv has not confirmed or denied its responsibility. One of Sabri’s relatives said that the Israeli police officers stormed into his home in the Occupied East Jerusalem and arrested him. Following the Friday prayer in Al-Aqsa Mosque, Sabri led a funeral prayer in absentia for Haniyeh. “The people of Jerusalem and the environs of Jerusalem from the pulpit of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque mourn the martyr Ismail Haniyeh,” he said during his sermon. Following the sermon, the Israeli police said they were probing whether the statement constituted “incitement” and that they would act accordingly. The 85-year-old preacher was detained multiple times by the Israeli forces in the past and was banned from entering Al-Aqsa Mosque in Occupied East Jerusalem for several months. Sabri is a staunch critic of the decades-long Israeli Occupation of the Palestinian Territories. He had previously held the position of Mufti of Jerusalem and the Palestinian Territories from 1994 to 2006. Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir had boasted earlier about Sabri’s detention. “My policy towards instigators is clear – zero tolerance,” Ben-Gvir said in a social media post. UPDATE: Lawyer Khalid Zabarqa was quoted as telling al-Jazeera that Israeli police had decided to release Al-Aqsa Mosque imam, Sheikh Ekrima Sabri, after interrogation. Sheikh Ekrima Sa’id Sabri, the former grand mufti of Jerusalem and the Palestinian territories walks outside an Israeli police station after being summoned for interrogation, in Jerusalem on January 2, 2023. [Saeed Qaq/NurPhoto via Getty Images] Sheikh Ekrima Sa’id Sabri, the former grand mufti of Jerusalem and the Palestinian territories walks outside an Israeli police station after being summoned for interrogation, in Jerusalem on January 2, 2023. [Saeed Qaq/NurPhoto via Getty Images] (photo) Two senior Hamas officials, three from military wing killed in Israeli strikes last week: Report Middle East Eye reports: The Saudi newspaper Asharq al-Awsat quoted two Hamas sources as saying that two senior officials of the group’s political bureau, along with another three military wing members, were killed in an Israeli air strike while in a tunnel in Gaza last week. The Saudi newspaper named the two senior officials as Rawhi Mushtaha and Samah al-Sarrag, and the other three military members as Abdel Hadi Seyam, Samy Awdah, and Mohamed Hadid. The report says Mushtaha is a close associate of the Hamas leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar. According to the report, the strike hit southwest of Gaza City and targeted an area located above a tunnel where the five Hamas members were said to be residing. It said the tunnel had already been damaged at the start of the war on Gaza. The five Hamas members were buried on Thursday, according to Hamas sources cited in Asharq Al-Awsat. MEE has not been able to independently verify the report. West Bank: Paramedic succumbs to wounds from Israeli army gunfire in Balata camp WAFA reports: A Palestinian paramedic Friday evening succumbed to his wounds sustained from Israeli army gunfire in the Balata refugee camp, according to the Health Ministry. The Ministry announced that Jalal Mohammad Saqr died of the critical wounds he had sustained after being shot by Israeli occupation forces almost a week earlier in the refugee camp. Saqr, 21, a volunteer paramedic with PRCS, had sustained wounds while evacuating casualties in an Israeli drone airstrike on a house in the camp last Saturday, which resulted in killing two people and injuring over 20 others. Abbas faces backlash for skipping Haniyeh’s funeral after attending Peres’s Middle East Monitor reports: A number of activists expressed their objections in the media on Friday to the absence of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas from the funeral of the elected Palestinian Prime Minister and head of the Hamas Political Bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, in the Qatari capital, Doha. The activists criticized Abbas’s absence from Haniyeh’s funeral after he attended the funeral of former Israeli President Shimon Peres. However, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that Abbas sent Deputy Chair of the Fatah Movement Mahmoud Al-Aloul and Secretary of the Central Committee of the movement Jibril Rajoub to Doha to participate in the funeral. U.S. forces move toward Israel as Iran threatens to attack Washington Post reports: The U.S. military is repositioning assets and moving additional forces into the Middle East and Europe to defend against a potential attack on Israel by Iran, U.S. officials said. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered the deployment of additional Navy destroyers and cruisers, both with offensive and defensive ballistic missile capabilities, as the Pentagon also takes steps to beef up land-based missile defense, Sabrina Singh, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said in a statement Friday evening. An additional squadron of fighter jets also will be deployed to the Middle East to reinforce defensive air support, she said. They will be added to the “broad range of capabilities the U.S. military maintains in the region.” The moves come after Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, and Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah vowed to retaliate after the killing this week of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and a senior Hezbollah commander, Fuad Shukr. Israel has not claimed responsibility, but U.S. officials privately acknowledge it was behind the killing. Washington was not apprised of the operation beforehand and had no role in it, officials have said. Shukr was killed in an Israeli airstrike in a Beirut suburb. The events have brought the region closer to full-blown conflict than perhaps at any point since the Gaza war began 10 months ago. Biden tells Netanyahu “not to count on Washington” in case of regional escalation: Axios Middle East Eye reports: US President Joe Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to rely on Washington’s support in case a regional escalation occurred, Axios has reported, citing unnamed US officials. In a “tough” phone call, the US president said his country would only help Israel against an expected Iranian attack, following the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, but there should be no more escalation from Israel and progress towards a Gaza ceasefire. However, the White House has issued an official statement stating that Biden has “reaffirmed his commitment to Israel’s security against all threats from Iran, including its proxy terrorist groups Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis”. The Axios story also cited three anonymous Israeli officials as saying there was tension during Biden’s meeting with Netanyahu in the Oval Office last week, in which Biden “raised his voice and said he wants a deal reached within a week to two weeks”. Archbishop of Canterbury urges respect for ICJ ruling against Israeli occupation Reuters reports: The Church of England’s spiritual head has urged governments to respect the findings of the United Nations top court that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory is illegal, saying the law should be upheld across the board, not in a “selective manner”. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) said in an advisory opinion last month that the occupation should be withdrawn as soon as possible. Justin Welby – who also heads the worldwide Anglican Communion – said in a statement the ICJ opinion had made it clear the occupation is “unlawful” and must end. “At a time when the world is marked by increasing violations of international law … it is imperative governments around the world reaffirm their unwavering commitment to all decisions by the ICJ, irrespective of the situation,” Welby said. He added that it was clear to him from many visits in recent decades the “system of military rule” imposed by successive Israeli governments in occupied Palestinian territory was one of “systemic discrimination”. Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport’s website is down, Israeli media says Middle East Eye reports: Israel’s Channel 12 has reported that the website of Israeli Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv is down because of immense pressure from travellers, amid the current tensions and cancellation of several countries’ airline flights to Israel. Several airlines have suspended their flights from and to Israel due to the ongoing tensions in the region Rashida Tlaib: A Profile in Courage Mark Dimondstein, president of the American Postal Workers Union and “proud Jewish-American,” writes in Common Dreams: During the Civil Rights Movement, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., famously said, “The time is always right to do what is right.” While she may have been a lone protest voice during Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech to a joint session of Congress last week, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) did what is right. Most mainstream news reporting either ridiculed her or only briefly mentioned her silent protest displaying a sign with “War Criminal” printed on one side and “Guilty of Genocide” on the other. Missing was any analysis as to whether she was right. While Rashida Tlaib, the one Palestinian-American in Congress, courageously protested inside the Capitol, thousands of us, including this union leader and proud Jewish-American, were peaceably demonstrating outside demanding a cease-fire, condemning Netanyahu’s crimes against humanity, and the U.S. government for continuing to send armaments to Israel. I am proud that my union, which deplored the Hamas actions of October 7 and condemned Israel’s barbaric response, called for the release of all hostages and advocates for a permanent cease-fire and for massive humanitarian aid. Recently, our union took further action by a vote at our national convention to demand that our government halt military aid to Israel and joined six other unions, representing over 6 million U.S. unionized workers, calling on President Biden to implement an arms embargo. As the largest arms supplier to Israel, the Biden-led U.S government should use its leverage to stop the carnage. We are outraged that the taxes of workers are being used to kill, maim, and slaughter innocent people. AIPAC says US must ‘stand with Israel’ against Iran Al Jazeera reports: The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has suggested that Washington and its allies should support Israel in retaliating against a possible Iranian response to the killing of Haniyeh in Tehran. “As Iran plans an attack that could cause mass destruction in Israel and spark a regional war, America and our allies must work together to deter Iran by demonstrating that we will stand with Israel as it responds to any strikes by the Iranian regime and its proxies,” the pro-Israel lobby group said in a message to supporters. AIPAC has spent tens of millions of dollars in recent US elections to help defeat candidates critical of Israel. RECOMMENDED READING ABOUT AIPAC: The Guardian: AFP must investigate Israel’s killing of Zomi Frankcom after quest for truth and justice goes nowhere Al Jazeera: Thousands mourn Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh at funeral prayer Al Jazeera: Gaza and the death of Western journalism STATISTICS OCTOBER 7 – AUGUST 2: Palestinian death toll from October 7 – August 2: at least 40,071* (39,550 in Gaza* – 11,445 women (30%), 16,251 children as of July 22. [The Ministry’s figures have been contested by the Israeli authorities, although they have been accepted as accurate by Israeli intelligence services, the UN, and WHO. These data are supported by independent analyses, comparing changes in the number of deaths of UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) staff with those reported by the Ministry, which found claims of data fabrication implausible.] This is expected to be a significant undercount since thousands of those killed have yet to be identified – and at least 591 in the West Bank (~140 children). This does not include an estimated 10,000 more still buried under rubble (4,900 women and children). Euro-Med Monitor reports 46,848 Palestinian deaths. Lancet: “Applying a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death9 to the 37,396 deaths reported, it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186 000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza. Ralph Nader earlier estimated 200,000 Palestinians may have been killed in Gaza. At least 45 Palestinians have died in Israeli prisons (27 from Gaza, 18 from West Bank). At least 41 Palestinians have died due to malnutrition**. About 1.7 million, or 75% of Gaza’s population are currently displaced. 2.15 million (out of total population of 2.3 million) are projected to face Crisis or worse levels of food insecurity. Palestinian injuries from October 7 – August 2: at least 96,548 (including at least 91,280 in Gaza and 5,420 in the West Bank, including 830 children). [It remains unknown how man Americans are among the casualties in Gaza.] Reported Israeli death toll from October 7 – August 2: ~1,486 (~1,139 on October 7, 2023, of which ~32 were Americans, and ~36 were children); 331 military forces since the ground invasion began in Gaza; 16 in the West Bank) and~8,730 injured. Times of Israel reports: The IDF listed 41 soldiers killed due to friendly fire in Gaza and other military-related accidents – nearly 16%. NOTE: It is unknown at this time how many of the deaths and injuries in Israel on October 7 were caused by Israeli soldiers. *Previously, IAK did not include 471 Gazans killed in the Al Ahli hospital blast since the source of the projectile was being disputed. However, given that much evidence points to Israel as the culprit, Israel had previously bombed the hospital and has attacked many others, Israel is prohibiting outside experts from investigating the scene, and since the UN and other agencies are including the deaths from the attack in their cumulative totals, if Americans knew is now also doing so.** Euro-Med Monitor reports that Gaza’s elderly are dying at an alarmingly high rate. The majority die at home and are buried either close to their residences or in makeshift graves dispersed across the Strip. There are currently more than 140 such cemeteries. Additionally, according to Euromed, thousands have died from starvation, malnourishment, and inadequate medical care; these are considered indirect victims as they were not registered in hospitals. † For most of the conflict, women and children accounted for about 70% of deaths in Gaza, with children making up a little over 40% of those killed, according to official statistics. Find previous daily casualty figures and daily news updates here. Hover over each bar for exact numbers. Source: IsraelPalestineTimeline.org Human rights reports on Israel-Palestine (regularly updated) More dead children. More BBC ‘news’ channelling Israeli propaganda as its own U.S. media downplays and ignores ICJ ruling declaring Israeli occupation illegal Israeli soldiers tell story of savage cruelty in Gaza – one given blessing by the West Searching for Gaza’s missing children What Would You Do With An Extra $320 Million? Assassination of Haniyeh an intentional, dangerous escalation – Parsi, Macgregor When Israel Burned Refugees Alive, Establishment Media Called It a ‘Tragic Accident’ Israel has turbocharged West Bank housing demolitions under the cover of war Western media ignores Israeli confirmation of Hannibal Directive on 7 Oct US Should Arrest Benjamin Netanyahu When He’s in Washington Airwars investigation: Israeli airstrikes uniquely lethal (video) Hesen Jabr paid the price of conscience Gaza genocide denial Why the news media’s job is to groom us ‘Disappeared, buried, detained’: The horrors of Gaza’s missing children Hundreds of social media influencers attend Israel strategy summit in NYC Supporting Israel Is Big Business in the U.S. for Israel partisans Toys, spices, sewing machines: the items Israel banned from entering Gaza Synopsis of ICJ’s decision on Israeli occupation, reactions, and take-aways Russia attacks hospitals in Ukraine; Israel does the same in Gaza. The US response couldn’t be more different. ‘I have the prison inside me’: The emaciated Palestinian bodybuilder broken by Israel Israel has manufactured an industrial-scale version of Jim Crow rape hoaxes If Americans Knew Mobile Billboard Truck at Republican Convention Col. Douglas MacGregor: US is under the control of Israel, likens Gaza to Warsaw Ghetto https://israelpalestinenews.org/biden-and-us-are-at-bibis-beck-and-call-day-300/ https://donshafi911iamthefaceoftruth.blogspot.com/2024/08/biden-and-us-are-at-bibis-beck-and-call.html

MMA fears lack of accountability in expanding health officers’ powers The Malaysian Medical Association urges the government to reconsider proposed amendments to the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases Act. FMT Reporters16 Jul 2024, 02:06 PM Free Malaysia Today MMA president Dr Azizan Abdul Aziz said the association is prepared to work with the government to develop a more balanced and effective approach to managing infectious diseases. (MMA pic) PETALING JAYA: The Malaysian Medical Association (MMA) has voiced concern that the government’s proposed amendments to the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases Act 1988 (Act 342) could lead to a lack of accountability among authorised officers. In a statement, MMA president Dr Azizan Abdul Aziz said the amendments to Act 342 posed a significant risk of misuse by the authorities and called for the government to reconsider them. The proposed changes include increasing the maximum compound fine from RM1,000 to RM5,000, requiring individuals suspected of infection or close contact to wear tracking devices, and significantly expanding the powers of the health director-general during a public health emergency. The proposed increase in fine is excessive and could disproportionately affect lower-income groups, she said. The use of tracking devices for infected individuals, while potentially useful for disease control, must be balanced with robust privacy protections and clear limitations on data use. The amendments to Act 342 were tabled for a first reading in the Dewan Rakyat yesterday. This is the second attempt to amend the law, after the first bid was withdrawn by then prime minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob in March 2022. Acknowledging a need for updated public health emergency legislation, Azizan nevertheless called for a more balanced approach to ensure the best interests of both public health and individual rights. Apart from the use of punitive measures, she proposed a focus on public health education and ensuring the fair enforcement of regulations to avoid double standards. We propose the inclusion of provisions for financial and social support for those affected by quarantine or isolation measures, particularly for lower-income individuals, she said. Azizan also said that healthcare infrastructure must be strengthened to better respond to infectious diseases as opposed to a primary reliance on penalties. The MMA stands ready to work with the government to develop a more balanced and effective approach to managing infectious diseases, she said. We believe public health measures should be based on scientific evidence, respect for individual rights, and consideration of socioeconomic factors. Stay current - Follow FMT on WhatsApp, Google news and Telegram The Malaysian Medical Association urges the government to reconsider proposed amendments to the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases Act. https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2024/07/16/mma-fears-lack-of-accountability-in-expanding-health-officers-powers/ t.me/healingthedivide

‘Operation al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 279: Israel orders Gaza City residents to flee south — again Israel ordered Gaza City residents to leave as Shuja’iyya has become “uninhabitable.” Meanwhile, ceasefire talks are set to continue in Egypt as Netanyahu is accused of sabotaging a potential deal. Qassam MuaddiJuly 11, 2024 Palestinian families migrate to the southern parts of the Gaza Strip by way of Salah al-Din Street after Israeli attacks in Gaza City, July 10, 2024. (Photo: Omar Ashtawy/APA Images) Palestinian families migrate to the southern parts of the Gaza Strip by way of Salah al-Din Street after Israeli attacks in Gaza City, July 10, 2024. (Photo: Omar Ashtawy/APA Images) Casualties 38,345 + killed* and at least 88,295 wounded in the Gaza Strip. Among the dead, 28,428 have been fully identified. These include 7,779 children, 5466 women, and 2418 elderly people as of May 1. In addition, around 10,000 more are estimated to be under the rubble.* 572+ Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank including eastern Jerusalem. These include 137 children.** Israel revised its estimated October 7 death toll down from 1,400 to 1,140. 681 Israeli soldiers have been recognized as killed, and 4096 as wounded by the Israeli army since October 7.*** * Gaza’s branch of the Palestinian Ministry of Health confirmed this figure in its daily report, published through its WhatsApp channel on July 11, 2024. Some rights groups estimate the death toll to be much higher when accounting for those presumed dead. ** The death toll in the West Bank and Jerusalem is not updated regularly. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health on July 10, this is the latest figure. *** These figures are released by the Israeli military, showing the soldiers whose names “were allowed to be published.” The number of Israeli soldiers wounded according to declarations by the head of the Israeli army’s wounded association to Israel’s Channel 12 exceeds 20,000 including at least 8,000 permanently handicapped as of June 1. Israel’s Channel 7 reported that according to the Israeli war ministry’s rehabilitation service numbers, 8,663 new wounded joined the army’s handicap rehabilitation system since October 7, as of June 18. Key Developments Israel kills 192 Palestinians, wounds 467 across Gaza since Monday, July 8, raising death toll since October 7 to 38,345 and number of wounded to 88,295, according to Gaza health ministry. Israeli delegation returns from Qatar to update Israel’s government after high level meeting to restart ceasefire talks. Hamas accuses Israel of prolonging talks in order to make them fail. Netanyahu says that the war will continue until destruction of Hamas and release of Israeli captives, says Netanyahu says any deal must allow Israel to resume war. U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan says that Wahington sees chance to reach ceasefire deal in Gaza. Israeli army chief of staff says army gave results of investigation into October 7 events at Kibbutz Beeri to residents. Israeli army says 12 soldiers wounded in past 24 hours, including seven in Gaza. PFLP calls for trying U.S. president Biden in international courts for complicity in Gaza genocide. Palestinian Civil Defense in Gaza says Shuja’iyya has become uninhabitable after latest Israeli assault, says it has recovered over 60 dead bodies from Shuja’iyya so far, where Israel conducted a new invasion on June 26 two weeks ago. Israeli forces kill Palestinian child during raid in village of Deir Abu Mishaal, west of Ramallah. Israeli forces raid Nur Shams refugee camp in Tulkarem for 18 hours, destroy infrastructure. Israeli forces uproot 150 newly-planted trees, bulldoze 20 dunams of farmland in village of Haris near Salfit, West Bank. Secretary-General of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, says in speech that war on Lebanese front will only end if war on Gaza ends, says that Hezbollah will accept any deal accepted by Hamas for ending war. ‘Chance’ to achieve ceasefire deal as talks set to continue in Qatar The Israeli negotiations team returned from Qatar after the first meetings of the resumed ceasefire talks on Wednesday to update the government ahead of upcoming talks in Cairo, Israel’s Channel 12 reported. On Wednesday, the heads of the Israeli Mossad, the CIA, and the Egyptian intelligence met in Doha with Qatar’s Prime Minister to discuss a potential deal with Hamas, as several Israeli and U.S. sources reported “progress” in the talks to reach a deal with the Palestinian group. In Washington, U.S. National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, said that Washington sees an opportunity to reach a ceasefire and prisoners’ exchange deal in Gaza. Meanwhile, the Israeli news site, Walla, quoted an unnamed Israeli official involved in the talks saying that the remaining issues to reach an agreement on are the return of displaced Palestinians to the northern Gaza Strip, the names of high-ranking Palestinian prisoners to be released, and the Israeli withdrawal from the Philadelphi corridor along the Egyptian border. For its part, Hamas said in a statement that Israel is prolonging the talks in order to sabotage them. The group added that it had not informed mediators of any updates regarding the talks. Last week, Israeli media reported that leaders of Israeli security branches were “shocked” at Netanyahu’s statements setting preconditions for a deal. Israeli daily Haaretz also published a report saying that Netanyahu had used sensitive intelligence information and leaked it to the media in order to sabotage previous talks in recent months. Netanyahu, who leads a fragile government coalition with allies opposed to ending the war, said on Wednesday that any coming deal must allow Israel to resume the war after releasing its captives, and that the war “will continue to achieve its goals.” Israel destroys Shuja’yya, tells Palestinians in Gaza City to leave The Israeli army has made the Shujaiyeh neighborhood east of Gaza City “uninhabitable” after its destruction in the ongoing assault, which Israel began in the neighborhood two weeks ago, the Palestinian Civil Defense said on Thursday. The Civil Defense added that its teams had been able to recover at least 60 dead bodies from some areas of Shuja’iyya, while indicating that Israeli forces were blocking the Civil Defense and medical teams from reaching parts of the neighborhood. The Israeli army launched a surprise attack on Shuja’iyya on June 26, forcing thousands to flee their homes. Israel had attacked Shuja’iyya in December of last year and confronted heavy resistance from Palestinian groups. Fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinian resistance groups in Shuja’iyya broke out again since the beginning of the current assault. Last week, the Israeli army admitted that two of its officers were killed in Shuja’iyya. Israeli renewed its ground assault on Gaza City last week, pushing forces into the western parts of the city. On Wednesday, Israeli forces dropped leaflets in Gaza City, telling residents to flee south to Deir al-Balah. Israeli strikes also intensified on the city’s neighborhoods, such as the Daraj, Tal al-Hawa, and Sabra neighborhoods. In the south of the Strip, Israeli forces killed at least 29 Palestinians in a bombing of a school sheltering displaced families in Abasan, east of Khan Younis, and wounded 53. CNN reported that the remains of Israeli bombs used in the Abasan massacre show that they were US-made GBU-39 bombs. On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Biden administration decided to send new 500-pound bombs to Israel. https://mondoweiss.net/2024/07/operation-al-aqsa-flood-day-279-israel-orders-gaza-city-residents-to-flee-south-again/

The Sisi-linked cartel boss in charge of Gaza "file" - Why Egypt is not a friend of Palestine Part 3 The Sinai Mafia boss and powerbroker linked to the Sisi regime and military vanessa beeley Ibrahim Al-Arjani (Organi) the Sinai cartel chief in charge of Gaza. Image from FT. Ibrahim Al Arjani rose to prominence during the alleged Egyptian war on terror in the Sinai as head of the Sinai Tribal Union. His rise was meteoric and his Empire established almost overnight as the Al Organi group that dominates construction and trade in the Sinai Peninsula. Al Arjani was a smuggler during the Mubarak era but became one of the most powerful men in Egypt under the Sisi regime. According to a 2023 article in Egypt Watch: The man whose name was associated with the president’s son, who helps him control the General Intelligence, suddenly seemed to have an empire or, as it is called, the Al-Arjani group, which is a partner of the regime internally and externally and is considered as an ambassador of the “Decent Life” initiative, and one of the warlords who will help the Armed forces in the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip. Timothy Kaldas, deputy director of the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, said the nature of the political economy under Sisi “means almost nobody can be a big player in business without co-ordination and some kind of dependence on the regime”. Financial Times 14 years ago Al Arjani was in prison as a Bedouin tribal leader targeted in the crack down on Bedouin protests against the destruction of their environment as mentioned in Part Two of this series. Today Al Arjani is one of Egypt’s most influential warlords with shared business interests and close ties to the son of the Egyptian president, Mahmoud Al Sisi. Arjani, who owns some of the largest construction firms in Egypt, takes his orders from Egyptian intelligence – and also a big cut of Egypt's aid to Gaza, and from the movement of goods from Egypt into Gaza, mostly those that pass through the Saladin checkpoint in Rafah. Al Arjani has a de facto monopoly in the Sinai development project: Al-Arjani is a member of the board of directors of the National Agency for the Development of the Sinai Peninsula, a public economic agency affiliated with the Egyptian Ministry of Defence, which is responsible for granting the right for Egyptians and foreigners to own or use land, as well as managing and investing in land in Sinai. Please refer to Part One for information on the international (majority Gulf State) investment in the Sinai. The Sisi regime claims that it has spent $ 12.8 billion since Sisi took power in 2013 on the Sinai development project - headed up by Al Arjani. The Treasure Plane scandal In August 2023, 2 months before the Israeli genocide was launched, scandal rocked the Sisi strong-arm regime. While the majority of Egypt suffers power cuts, gas shortages, economic uncertainty and corruption a plane carrying millions of dollars, gold and weapons left Cairo and landed in Zambia where it was promptly seized by the authorities. According to a report in Middle East Monitor: Such speculation is reinforced by reports of links between the aircraft and Sinai businessman Ibrahim Al-Arjani, who is close to Mahmoud Al-Sisi, the son of the Egyptian president. Al-Arjani is suspected of being involved in the attack on the National Security headquarters in El-Arish last month in an attempt to release detainees belonging to his Tarabin tribe. Some say that those behind the attack were paid back in Zambia. This incident exposed the deep corruption within the Sisi regime’s close circle. Millions of dollars being smuggled during a time of severe dollar hard currency shortages in the country and while the regime was requesting yet another loan from the International Monetary Fund point to insider dealing. The plane was reported to have carried out multiple mysterious missions over the years. There is potential that scrutiny of these missions will highlight the involvement of regional and even international partners. Political opponents have claimed that the plane is affiliated to the General Intelligence Services and to Mahmoud Al Sisi. Middle East Monitor reported: Pictures being circulated show that the location of the aircraft often coincided with the presence of Egyptian intelligence and security delegations. These include officials from the Egyptian intelligence service accompanied by Al-Arjani in Libya, as well as Interior Minister Mahmoud Tawfiq at the head of an Egyptian security delegation participating in the 40th session of the Arab Interior Ministers’ Council in Tunisia in February. Al Arjani’s Gaza Monopoly Al Arjani’s monopoly extends into the Rafah border and Gaza itself. In 2021 Egypt was given the exclusive contract to rebuild Gaza after the May 2021 Zionist aggression against the besieged enclave that left thousands of Palestinians injured and killed an estimated 250 (probably a much higher number) Post-Zionist-aggression billboards were erected along the coastal road in Gaza emblazoned with Sisi’s image. Egyptian bulldozers rolled into the enclave along with construction workers and engineers - their mission to “rebuild Gaza”. Egypt pledged $500 million to reconstruct and to build new roads inside Gaza. An article in Haaretz at the time reported: The main beneficiary of the reconstruction plan is the company Beni Sinai, owned by Bedouin businessman Ibrahim al-Arjani, who also heads the Tarabin Bedouin tribe and the association of the tribe's leaders in northern Sinai – which are cooperating with Egyptian intelligence in its war against the terrorist groups in the Sinai Peninsula. Arjani, who owns some of the largest construction firms in Egypt, takes his orders from Egyptian intelligence – and also a big cut of Egypt's aid to Gaza, and from the movement of goods from Egypt into Gaza, mostly those that pass through the Saladin checkpoint in Rafah. Egypt was awarded a monopoly over more than just the initial rebuilding efforts. With the consent of Israel, the United States and the United Arab Emirates, Qatar agreed to a new arrangement for transferring its aid: Qatar would pay Egypt for oil and gasoline that Egypt would supply to Gaza where Hamas would have control over the sale of the resources. The pretext given by Israel for this change was that it no longer wanted Qatar-managed suitcases of cash being brought into Gaza. Israel has always claimed that Hamas has used a percentage of this cash to fortify the Resistance infrastructure and to buy weapons. Egypt would therefore take charge of the indirect distribution of $ 30 million per month. In the past this sum was divided three ways. One part was paid out directly to poor families, another was for buying diesel fuel for the Gaza power plant, and the third was for projects to create jobs and reduce unemployment that has now topped 60 percent. The irony is that the Sisi regime benefits from the sale of gas and oil to the Gaza strip while 1. the Egyptian people endure power outages and gas shortages 2. There are 1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas sitting 20 nautical miles off the Gaza coastline that Palestinians have never been given access to by the Zionist regime and its allies in the UK and US. Please refer to Part Two for Sisi’s deepening ties with Israel. The Rafah Border provides blood money for the Sisi regime The Rafah border crossing is the only crossing allegedly not controlled by Israel. The reality is a little different, Israel controls Egyptian policy at the Rafah crossing without a doubt. In his November 2023 CNN interview, Egyptian Health Minister Khaled Abdel Ghaffar addresses the challenging situation regarding the transfer of infants from Gaza’s Al Shifa Hospital to Egypt. Despite Egypt’s preparedness, boasting 37 hospitals and over 11,000 beds, the transfer process is stalled due to required clearances from an unspecified authority. When probed about Israel’s potential role in controlling border access, Ghaffar, while non-committal, acknowledges the influence of an external decision-maker. Israel. Watch: A young Iranian team of journalists and researchers put together this short report on the intricacies of the 2005 Philadelphi Accords, perceived by Israel as an extension of the 1979 Camp David agreement: Al Arjani has control over trade and construction at the Rafah border. That trade extends to the millions extorted from Palestinian refugees, many children, who have fled to Egypt. An adult is charged $ 5000 and a child $ 2,500. An average family of two parents and three children will be forced to pay $ 17,500 to enter Egypt where they are given only a three month visa which does not include a work permit. After three months they are effectively illegal aliens and face expulsion back to Gaza. Palestinians desperate to leave Gaza are paying bribes to brokers of up to $10,000 (£7,850) to help them exit the territory through Egypt, according to a Guardian investigation. [..] Belal, a US citizen from Gaza, was told he would need to raise $85,000 to get 11 family members out of the territory, including five children under three. Before the genocide, the cost was $ 500. This is a shocking exploitation of human suffering to profit from their bloodshed by Al Arjani and the Sisi regime - while Egypt is portrayed as a peace broker and mediator, it is taking blood money from the most vulnerable Palestinians without remorse. When Egyptian foreign minister Sameh Shoukry was asked in March whether the government condoned Hala now charging $5,000 for Palestinians to leave the Gaza Strip, he said: “Absolutely not.” “We will take whatever measures we need so as to . . . eliminate it totally,” Shoukry told Sky News. Yet weeks later Hala was still providing the service. Financial Times Where next for Al Arjani and the Sisi regime? A recent report in the Financial Times has detailed the “shuttering” of the Rafah Crossing. The Zionist military occupation of the crossing has dealt a blow to the Egyptian regime’s economic stake in Gaza, controlled by Al Arjani. The FT reports that Al Arjani’s response to the crisis was to create the “Union of Arab Tribes” to “work side by side with the Egyptian state” on security. In a sign of Cairo’s concerns, Organi, a leader of the Tarabin, Sinai’s largest tribe, last month announced the formation [already formed, perhaps mothballed and revived - my note] of an “Union of Arab Tribes” to “work side by side with the Egyptian state” on security. There have been recent reports on social media that Egypt is increasing its military presence in Sinai close to the Rafah border. According to Zionist media, at least 160 armoured vehicles and 140 other vehicles have been deployed to the area. It is wishful thinking to assume that this may be a reaction to halt the genocide that Israel has been conducting since October 7th. Instead I believe that this is linked to Al Arjani’s “security” project which is designed to PREVENT the exodus of exhausted, starved and hunted Palestinians from Gaza. Experts viewed the move as a sign of an anxious government seeking the support of the Bedouin — once nomadic tribes that inhabit the Sinai — amid concerns that Israel’s offensive could eventually drive Palestinians into Egypt. “It is with one eye towards Rafah and long-standing fears about displacement [of Gazans],” said Michael Hanna, an expert at Crisis Group. FT With the effective occupation of the Rafah border by Israel, with very little concrete protest by Egypt - Al Arjani will instead assume the role of policing the Egyptian side of the border with the tribal alliance. Sabry said he saw no signs that militias were being re-established, but added that the military was likely to be “trying to organise a locally grown, broad network of spies and informants” to monitor events on the Sinai side of Gaza’s border. FT A spokesperson for the alliance made it even clearer: Mostafa Bakry, spokesman for the union, has said the alliance would not be armed, adding that weapons were collected from the previous tribal union three years ago. But he told a Saudi television channel that the alliance “comes at a very important moment”. “We are surrounded by a ring of fire,” Bakry said. “We are facing a displacement plot and the president has been very clear from the start. We will not allow displacement [of Gazans].” FT During a televised address on Sunday 30th June, Sisi made the following statement: The region is going through serious changes recently amid intense Israeli war in the Gaza Strip and attempts to impose forced displacement towards Egyptian territories. The conscience of humanity was absent in this war. The international community remained silent, turning its face away from tens of thousands of innocent victims. (Emphasis added) I don’t think I need to spell out the rank and criminal hypocrisy of such a statement in the context of this article and Part One and Two. Von Der Leyen and President Sisi in Cairo. Body language says it all. Meanwhile European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announces the signing of more than 20 memorandums of understanding between European companies and Egyptian companies worth more than 40 billion euros, covering the fields of hydrogen, water, construction, chemicals, shipping, aviation, and automobiles. Egypt is the Ukraine of West Asia. **** Please do consider subscribing to my Substack. My work is entirely dependent upon public donations and I would like to thank everyone who already contributes xxx https://substack.com/home/post/p-146102703

Israel ordered thousands to ‘safe’ areas in Gaza City — then bombed them After fleeing west at the Israeli army’s instruction, Palestinians quickly found themselves encircled and under fire from tanks, drones, and snipers. By Mahmoud Mushtaha July 10, 2024 Palestinians flee the neighborhood of Al-Rimal in response to Israeli evacuation orders, Gaza City, July 8, 2024. (Ferial Abdu) Palestinians flee the neighborhood of Al-Rimal in response to Israeli evacuation orders, Gaza City, July 8, 2024. (Ferial Abdu) On Sunday, July 7, the Israeli army ordered residents of three neighborhoods in eastern Gaza City to immediately evacuate toward the west, ahead of a new ground invasion. Thousands of displaced families abandoned their shelters and searched desperately for a place to stay the night in the city’s western neighborhoods. Within hours, however, Israeli forces attacked those very areas. The evacuation order came less than two weeks after Israeli forces reinvaded the Shuja’iya neighborhood in the east of Gaza City. Amid continuing displacement and ground incursions in the southern cities of Khan Younis and Rafah, and bombing throughout the Strip — including in designated “safe zones” — there is nowhere for Palestinians to find reprieve from Israel’s onslaught. Mahmoud Al-Shawa, 28, fled with his family from the eastern Al-Tuffah neighborhood after the army ordered them to leave on Sunday. He recounted how thousands of others displaced from Al-Tuffah, Al-Daraj, and the Old City sought refuge in what little space remained in university buildings and UN schools. After those quickly filled up, many were forced to sleep on the streets. Al-Shawa’s family were lucky to find temporary shelter at Al-Zeitoun Preparatory School in the western neighborhood of Al-Rimal, but it didn’t provide any safety from what soon followed. “At approximately 2 a.m., the bombing began from every direction,” he told +972. “The sky was ablaze. Everyone was screaming. “We were in the schoolyard, and shrapnel was falling on us,” Al-Shawa continued. “We tried to hide in the classrooms, but quadcopter drones were shooting directly at us. Suddenly, my cousin fell to the floor — he’d been hit in his left arm by shrapnel. There were dozens of bodies on the ground. I’m sure people were killed. I was trying to escort my mother away from the chaos, but suddenly she stopped and vomited on the floor due to all the bodies. I covered her eyes so she wouldn’t see them. “We heard the sound of army tanks, and then someone screamed: the army had surrounded the headquarters of UNRWA [the UN Relief and Works Agency], only meters away from us,” he went on. “Somehow, we escaped from the school with Israeli tanks behind us and quadcopters shooting at us from the sky. It was like an earthquake or a volcano erupting. There was complete darkness — only the color of blood and missiles illuminated the area.” Al-Shawa and his family eventually reached the Majda Wasila School, further away from the invading Israeli forces. But as they fled from their initial shelter, they saw two paralyzed girls in wheelchairs, who had likely taken shelter in the nearby UNRWA rehabilitation center and were now left to fend for themselves. Amid the crowds of those fleeing, Al-Shawa recounted, the girls were in danger of being trampled — but he was unable to help them. According to the Gaza Civil Emergency Service, dozens of people were killed or wounded in Israeli attacks that night. Due to the intensive military operations in the area, however, emergency teams have not been able to reach the victims to verify the numbers, and Al-Rimal has become a ghost town. ‘If we try to evacuate, we will be shot; if we stay, we will be killed’ Like Al-Rimal, the neighborhood of Al-Sabra in southwestern Gaza City was also attacked by the Israeli military Sunday night without prior warning. Many displaced families had sought refuge there from the eastern neighborhoods following the initial evacuation order. But at around 11 p.m., residents began hearing explosions and Israeli helicopters in the area. “What we witnessed was not a safe area but a battlefront,” Alaa Sbaih, a 24-year-old resident of Al-Sabra, told +972. Earlier that day, Sbaih had opened her home to relatives who had fled from the eastern neighborhood of Al-Daraj. But they soon became trapped: as the bombings continued into the following day, they discovered that Israeli snipers had set up positions atop the nearby buildings of Al-Azhar University, the Islamic University, and Al-Sousi Tower, and were shooting at anyone who moved. Sbaih is fearful of even approaching the windows to check what is happening outside — and for good reason. “Our neighbor from the Al-Qasas family tried to escape, but once he got to his car, a sniper shot him and left him bleeding in the street, with his children screaming for him,” Sbaih recounted. Indeed, Israeli soldiers have testified to +972 and Local Call that Palestinian civilians throughout Gaza are routinely shot dead, simply for being outside in areas where Israeli forces operate or even for watching them from behind a window. Palestinians flee the neighborhood of Al-Rimal in response to Israeli evacuation orders, Gaza City, July 8, 2024. (Ferial Abdu) Palestinians flee the neighborhood of Al-Rimal in response to Israeli evacuation orders, Gaza City, July 8, 2024. (Ferial Abdu) It was not until Monday afternoon that the Israeli army eventually issued a second evacuation order, instructing people in the western neighborhoods of Al-Sabra, Al-Rimal, and Tal Al-Hawa to evacuate southward to the city of Deir Al-Balah. But as Israeli forces remain in the area, Sbaih and her relatives face an impossible decision. “We have no option except death: if we try to evacuate, we will be shot, and if we stay, we will be killed.” Maher Mamdooh, 21, told +972 that after being forced to relocate with more than 30 of his relatives just two weeks ago from Shuja’iya, he was then displaced three times between Sunday afternoon and Monday morning: from Al-Daraj to the border of Al-Rimal, then into central Al-Rimal, and then eventually further north toward Jabalia. During this ordeal, he lost all of his belongings, and was separated from some of his relatives. “We fled from the house in the middle of the night — we were running in all directions and no one knew where to go,” he recounted. “There were explosions everywhere, and we were surrounded by helicopters, quadcopters, and tanks. My relatives were with us, but now we do not know where they went. It was a night from hell.” On Wednesday, the Israeli army issued a third new evacuation order, instructing Palestinians to flee the entire Gaza City area. The renewed offensive has also forced Gaza City’s two remaining hospitals to close their doors: Al-Ahli — which was hit by missiles — and the Patient’s Friends Benevolent Society. Al-Shifa, Gaza’s largest hospital, remains in ruins following the Israeli siege of the area in March. After nine months of endless displacement, killing, and starvation, Mamdooh said life long ago became unbearable. “How many times do we have to die? There are no ways left for Israel to kill us. No one in the world can feel what I feel now.” In a comment to +972, a spokesperson for the Israeli army spokesperson denied that it had bombed the areas described, and said that “all of northern Gaza is defined by the IDF as an evacuated combat zone, and Hamas operates in the heart of civilian areas.” https://www.972mag.com/gaza-city-israeli-army-attacked-safe-areas/

‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 142: UN experts call for immediate arms embargo on Israel Israel bombs near Egypt’s fortified wall with Rafah as talks resume to reach a captive exchange with Hamas. UN experts call for arms embargo against Israel and say states supplying weapons, ammunition or intelligence risk violating international law. Mustafa Abu SneinehFebruary 25, 2024 Palestinian women grieve over the bodies of their loved ones killed in Israeli airstrikes in Deir Al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip. Relatives of the Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks mourn as they receive the bodies of their loved ones at the the morgue of Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al-Balah, central Gaza, on February 24, 2024. (Bashar Taleb/apaimages) Casualties 29,606+ killed* and at least 69,737 wounded in the Gaza Strip. 380+ 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. 579 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 on February 24. Some rights groups put the death toll number at more than 38,000 when accounting for those presumed dead. ** This figure is released by the Israeli military, showing the soldiers whose names “were allowed to be published.” Key Developments CNN satellite imagery shows Egypt built more than two-mile-wide buffer zone along wall with Rafah, in southern Gaza, to keep displaced Palestinians at bay. Egyptian buffer zone is planned to stretch east-to-west from Kerem Abu Salem Crossing to the Mediterranean Sea. Several Palestinians in Gaza sound call of prayer through loudspeakers from windows in city where mosques have not held a Friday prior since October. UN experts call states to immediately cease transferring arms, and ammunition to Israel or share it with intelligence that could be used in Gaza Strip and violate international law. UN experts says that “military intelligence must also not be shared [with Israel] where there is a clear risk that it would be used to violate international humanitarian law.” So far, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Netherlands halted arms transfers to Israel, while Japan trade giant, Itochu Corporation, suspended agreement to supply Israel with military technology. Senior Hamas figure tells Al-Jazeera Arabic that “atmosphere of optimism” regarding prisoners’ exchange deal with Israel and ceasefire “does not reflect the truth.” EU chief of foreign policy Josep Borrell says Israel’s government plan to expand settlements in occupied West Bank is “inflammatory and dangerous”. In 2023, Israeli forces and settlers seized 43 agricultural tractors, 293 vehicles, and 296 sheep from Palestinian Bedouin communities in Jordan valley, inflicting heavy losses and disturbing their lives. Israeli forces bomb areas near Egypt’s border with Rafah In the past 24 hours, Israeli forces bombed several Palestinian neighborhoods in Deir Al-Balah, Rafah and north Gaza, killing and injuring tens of people. Israel’s warplanes launched bombs on a vast open area near the Egyptian border with Rafah, in southern Gaza, where thousands of Palestinians are sheltering. A video shows Palestinians fleeing from the bombs close to Egypt’s fortified wall to keep displaced people at bay from entering the Sinai Peninsula. All of the 1.4 million Palestinians who sought refuge in Rafah cannot enter Sinai except those who obtained a travel permit. Recent satellite imagery obtained by CNN reveals that Egypt had built more than a two-mile-wide buffer zone along the wall with Rafah. In early February, Egyptian bulldozers and cranes started working on the buffer zone as Israeli politicians threatened to invade Rafah. The Egyptian buffer zone is planned to stretch east-to-west from Kerem Abu Salem Crossing to the Mediterranean Sea. Overnight, Wafa news agency reported that Israeli forces bombed Al-Sabra neighborhood in Gaza City, and launched an air raid on Al-Shaaf area in Gaza. Armed clashes between Palestinian resistance fighters and Israeli forces were reported in the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood. Several Palestinians in Gaza sounded the call of prayer through loudspeakers from windows in a city where mosques have not held a Friday prior since October as most of it has been either damaged or destroyed by Israel, including the ancient Al-Omari Mosque. In the Al-Shati refugee camp, Israeli forces killed two Palestinians and injured four in an airstrike overnight. It also bombed Beit Lahia, Rafah, and Deir Al-Balah. On Sunday, Gaza’s Ministry of Health did not update the casualty’s number for the past 24 hours. Yesterday, it said that Israeli forces committed eight “massacres” in various areas of the Gaza Strip, killing at least 92 Palestinian martyrs and injuring 123 people. UN experts call for immediate arms embargo on Israel Supplying arms to Israel to bomb, destroy, kill, and maim Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and also in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem has taken center stage in the past weeks. A UN report concluded that states should cease immediately from transferring arms and ammunition to Israel or supplying it with intelligence that could be used in the Gaza Strip, risking the violation of international law. So far, the U.S., Germany, the U.K., France, Canada and Australia have been at the helm of supplying weapons to Israel since October, with Washington and Berlin as the largest exporters of munitions. “States must accordingly refrain from transferring any weapon or ammunition – or parts for them – if it is expected, given the facts or past patterns of behavior, that they would be used to violate international law,” the UN experts said. They added that “as long there is a clear risk” of violating the 1949 Geneva Conventions and the States Parties to the Arms Trade Treaty and that arms will be used to commit crimes, exports of weapons and munitions to Israel should not go ahead. This also extends to sharing military intelligence. The U.S. and the U.K. have reportedly fed Israel with intelligence, dispatching military personnel to advise Israel early in October and operated reconnaissance flights over the Gaza Strip, eavesdropping on Palestinians in a bid to locate Israeli captives and help Tel Aviv destroy Hamas movement. “Military intelligence must also not be shared where there is a clear risk that it would be used to violate international humanitarian law,” the UN experts wrote. They added that there is a need for an arms embargo on Israel following the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling on January 26 ordering Israel to prevent genocide in Gaza. However, Israel has killed nearly four thousand Palestinians since then. “This necessitates halting arms exports in the present circumstances,” the experts said. Belgium, Italy, Spain, and the Netherlands are the only EU countries to halt arms transfers to Israel, while Japan trade giant, Itochu Corporation, has suspended an agreement to supply Israel with military technology. Early in February, the Netherlands halted a deal to export F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel following a court decision that found that Israeli forces would use these parts “to commit or facilitate serious violations of international humanitarian law.” “There are many indications that Israel has violated the humanitarian law of war in a not insignificant number of cases,” the UN report added. Deal between Hamas and Israel swings between optimism and despair On Sunday morning, hopes were dashed again of reaching a deal between Israel and Hamas, despite high expectations over the weekend as Qatari and Egyptian mediators traveled back to Paris to hold talks with CIA and Israeli officials. A senior Hamas figure told Al-Jazeera Arabic that “the atmosphere of optimism”, regarding a possible prisoners exchange deal with Israel and ceasefire, “does not reflect the truth.” He accused Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of “evading” to engage with Hamas counter-proposal for four and half months of ceasefire, the exchange of hostages and prisoners, and the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip. He added that Israel’s starvation policy in the Gaza Strip, blocking aid trucks from reaching north Gaza, could hinder any efforts to reach a deal. Israel’s Kan news reported on Sunday that they were “optimistic” about reaching a deal before the month of Ramadan, on March 10, but that would not discourage Israel from invading Rafah. An Israeli delegation is expected to fly to Qatar, Al-Jazeera reported. Scores of arrests in Tel Aviv as Netanyahu’s options narrow down On Saturday, the police arrested 18 Israelis as thousands protested in Tel Aviv, calling Netanyahu’s resignation and for a deal to be made on the release of Israeli captives in Gaza. The Israeli analyst at Haaretz, Amos Harel, wrote that Netanyahu’s government is facing three options at the current stage, either to strike a deal with Hamas, invade Rafah or “more empty promises” for Israelis and the US administration. A deal with Hamas, would mean a political headache for Netanyahu from his coalition government and threats of resignation from Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich. Invading Rafah would be a gamble as it risks deteriorating ties with Egypt, igniting the region, and massacring tens of thousands of Palestinians. “According to the third scenario,” Harel wrote, “things will continue as they have until now: Netanyahu will continue to provoke the Biden administration, will continue to promise ‘total victory,’ will evade promoting a hostage release deal, and will possibly antagonize Benny Gantz,” to push him to resign from war cabinet. Settlement expansion in West Banks is ‘dangerous’, officials warn Josep Borrell, the EU chief of foreign policy, said on Saturday that Israel’s government plan to expand settlements in the occupied West Bank is “inflammatory and dangerous”. “Settlements make Israelis and Palestinians less safe, fuel tensions, obstruct peace efforts, and constitute a grave breach of international law,” he added. Israel’s Finance Minister Smotrich announced on Thursday a plan of constructing 3,300 housing units as a “response” to a shooting attack carried out by three Palestinians near Ma’ale Adumim settlement in occupied East Jerusalem, killing at least one Israeli and wounding five others. “The serious attack on Ma’ale Adumim must have a decisive security response but also an answer from the settlements… Our enemies know that any harm to us will lead to more construction and more development and more of our control across the entire country,” Smotrich said. Following the attack, Israeli military prevented Palestinian vehicles from travelling on a main road leading to the Al-Eizariya neighborhood, close to Ma’ale Adumim’s main entrance, between 9pm and 6am the next morning. Over the past 24 hours, Israeli forces arrested 15 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank towns of Hebron, Nablus, Jericho, Jenin, and Ramallah. Sami Al-Shami, a journalist and former political prisoner, was arrested from his home in Asira Al-Qibliya, south of Nablus. North of the West Bank, Israeli forces stormed the towns of Qalqilya and Nabi Saleh, raiding several Palestinian houses. The Prisoners’ Club said around 7,225 Palestinians were arrested by Israel in the West Bank since October. Some of them were released. On Sunday morning, Israeli settlers stole sheep from the Palestinian community of Arab Malihat, northwest of the city of Jericho, Wafa reported. Hassan Malihat, an activist in the community, said 30 sheep belonged to Suleiman Atallah Malihat were stolen by settlers. Palestinian communities in the Jordan Valley rely on raising livestock and agricultural farm to make a living. Wafa reported that Israeli forces and settlers seized 43 agricultural tractors, 293 vehicles, and 296 sheep in 2023, inflicting heavy losses on these communities and disturbing their lives. As Ramadan is approaching in a couple of weeks, Israeli settlers stormed Al-Aqsa Mosque on Sunday and performed silent Jewish prayers. These storming have become an almost daily act for over two decades and threaten to escalate tensions in Jerusalem and the West Bank. https://mondoweiss.net/2024/02/operation-al-aqsa-flood-day-142-un-experts-call-for-immediate-arms-embargo-on-israel/

‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 116: Israeli forces carry out assassination raid inside Jenin hospital disguised as doctors Israeli forces continue to besiege Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, and carried out an assassination raid inside a Jenin hospital disguised as doctors and civilians. A truce and captive exchange deal between Israel and Hamas could be confirmed soon. Mustafa Abu SneinehJanuary 30, 2024 Screenshot from CCTV footage of Israeli forces raiding Ibn Sina Hospital in Jenin while disguised as doctors and civilians. (Video: Social Media) Screenshot from CCTV footage of Israeli forces raiding Ibn Sina Hospital in Jenin while disguised as doctors and civilians. (Video: Social Media) Casualties 26,751+ killed* and at least 65,636 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. 557 Israeli soldiers killed since October 7, and at least 3,221 injured.** *This figure was confirmed by Gaza’s Ministry of Health. Some rights groups put the death toll number at more than 33,000 when accounting for those presumed dead. ** This figure is released by the Israeli military. Key Developments Israeli force of ten soldiers storm Ibn Sina Hospital in Jenin and kill three Palestinians with silenced pistols. Israeli forces siege Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, bar entry and exit to Palestinians. Dr. Asharf al-Qudra says Israeli forces are besieging Nasser Hospital for a second consecutive week, trapping 150 medical staff, 450 injured, and 3,000 displaced Palestinians. The Palestine Red Crescent Society loses communication with team sent to rescue 6-year-old girl in Gaza. Israeli forces push Palestinians sheltering in Al-Shifa’ Hospital to eastern areas as it bombs southern and western Gaza City. Israel bombs house of Madoukh family in the Al-Sabra neighborhood in Gaza City, killing at least 20 people. It also bombs Rafah’s El-Geneina neighborhood, Nuseirat camp, Batn al-Sameen area, and Al-Amal neighborhood in Khan Younis. Israeli protest attempts to block aid trucks entering into Gaza Strip from the Kerem Abu Salem crossing. Israeli “Order 9” movement calls on government to bar entry to humanitarian aid into Gaza as long as Hamas holds Israeli captives. UN warns, “If the funding is not resumed, UNRWA will not be able to continue its services and operations across the region, including in Gaza, beyond the end of February.” According to a potential deal between Israel and Hamas, there will be 45-day pause of fighting, during which Hamas will release 35 Israeli captives in return for 4,000 Palestinian prisoners. Hamas launches barrage of rockets on Tel Aviv on Monday from Khan Younis and published footage of targeting Israeli tanks with 105mm Al-Yaseen anti-tank shells. Israeli forces kill three Palestinians in Ibn Sina Hospital in Jenin In the past 24 hours, Israeli forces have targeted hospitals in the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank, killing and injuring several Palestinians. Advertisement Join the Mondoweiss channel on Telegram! On Tuesday morning, an Israeli force of ten soldiers stormed the Ibn Sina Hospital in Jenin town, killing three Palestinians with silenced pistols. The Israeli unit was disguised as doctors, nurses, and civilians. Footage of the moment they stormed Ibn Sina shows shocked medical staff and patients who were threatened at gunpoint. Palestinian resistance fighters clashed with the Israeli forces, which stormed Jenin and its refugee camp overnight. Israel has killed more than 380 Palestinians in the West Bank and occupied Jerusalem since October; 62 of them since January. The Palestinian Authority’s (PA) Minister of Health, Dr. Mai al-Kaila, condemned the Israeli attack. “This crime comes after dozens of crimes committed by the [Israeli] occupation forces against health centers and staff… International law provides general and specific protection for civilian sites, including hospitals,” said al-Kaila. The three Palestinians killed in the Ibn Sina Hospital were identified as the brothers Muhammad and Basil Ayman Al-Ghazawi, and Muhammad Walid Jalamna, according to Wafa news agency. Basel has been injured during a previous Israeli raid of Jenin and has been in the Ibn Sina since October 25, Wafa reported. Israel said the Palestinians in the hospital were a “Hamas unit.” In the last 48 hours Israeli forces have killed at least nine Palestinians in the West Bank (more below). Israel puts Nasser Hospital under siege for a second week In the Gaza Strip, Israeli forces has put the Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis under a brutal siege, barring entry and exit to the facility, which has forced Palestinian families to bury their relatives in the hospital’s yards. The Nasser Hospital is the biggest and most vital health facility in south Gaza and has the highest number of beds, doctors, and operation rooms. It offers medical services to Palestinians as far as Rafah, the most southern town in Gaza. Gaza’s Ministry of Health spokesperson Dr. Asharf al-Qudra said on Tuesday that Israeli forces are besieging the hospital for the second consecutive week. Currently, there are 150 medical staff, 450 injured patients, and 3,000 displaced Palestinians trapped in the facility, and they are at risk of Israeli fire if they attempt to leave. “Electrical generators at Nasser Medical Complex will stop within two days due to fuel shortages,” Dr. al-Qudra said in a statement on Telegram. “Waste accumulates in the sections and courtyards of the Nasser Medical Complex, and the occupation refuses to allow it to be transported out,” he added. The ministry said that Israeli forces killed 114 Palestinians and injured 249 others in 13 massacres in Gaza in the past 24 hours. “A number of victims are still under rubble and on the roads. The occupation prevents ambulance and civil defense crews from reaching them,” it added. The number of Palestinians killed in the Israeli aggression on Gaza now stands at 26,751 martyrs, and 65,636 were injured since October. Red Crescent loses communication with team rescuing girl in Gaza One of those victims is Hind, a 6-year-old girl, who found herself surrounded by Israeli tanks in Gaza City. The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said that it lost communication with a team dispatched to rescue Hind, who was inside a vehicle. “We remain unaware of their fate and whether they succeeded in evacuating her or not,” PRCS said. Israeli forces had targeted Hind’s family, killing her father, mother, and four brothers. The girl was trapped inside a car in a designated military zone in Gaza. Israeli forces placed the Al-Shifa’ Hospital under siege again in north Gaza. Al-Shifa’ dominated the headlines when Israel stormed it in November in search of a purported Hamas command center underneath it, which proved to not exist. On Monday, Israeli forces pushed Palestinians sheltering in the Al-Shifaa to areas east of Gaza City as it bombed southern and western Gaza. A Palestinian woman, who was sheltering in Al-Rimal school near the Al-Shifa, told Al-Jazeera Arabic that Israeli tanks kept approaching until it stopped at the gates of the school. “We fled. We were scared and terrorized. I can’t remember how we escaped. We walked all the way, pushed by fear. My daughter is injured. The tanks were at the school gates for an hour,” she said. “We left while it was dark, tumbling over each other. We walked over the bodies of martyrs in the dark. There were 13 of them,” she said. In Rafah, thousands of Palestinians have been living under heavy rain, lacking drinking water and food. Some could not find a tent, which a used one could cost around $1,000 USD on the open market. The desperate situation pushed some families to rent warehouses, a corridor in residential buildings, or even a barn in Rafah. Al-Akhbar newspaper’s correspondent, Youssef Faris, spoke to a family who rented a barn to shelter from the rain after it lost its home in an Israeli attack. “The owners agreed to rent [the barn] to us for $600 a month. We worked hard for a week to clean it, and now we live in it,” he reported. Israel had turned the Gaza Strip into a hell on earth, with nearly two million Palestinians currently displaced and thousands buried under the rubble. Israel also kept bombing Gaza, killing hundreds of Palestinians each day, despite its announcement early in January that it was moving to a “less intense stage” of military operations. On Monday evening, the Israeli military bombed the house of the Madoukh family in the Al-Sabra neighborhood in Gaza City, killing at least 20 people. It also bombed Rafah’s El-Geneina neighborhood, Nuseirat camp, Batn al-Sameen area, and the Al-Amal neighborhood in Khan Younis. Israeli activists attempt to block aid trucks entering Gaza For the seventh consecutive day, an Israeli protest organized by the Order 9 movement, attempted to block aid trucks entering into the Gaza Strip from the Kerem Abu Salem crossing. The Order 9 movement, whose slogan is “The Victory Depends on You!” in Hebrew, is calling for the Israeli government to bar entry to humanitarian aid into Gaza as long as Israeli captives are held by Hamas. Skirmishes between the activists and Israeli military police took place over the past two days. An Israeli reserve soldier was arrested at the Kerem Abu Salem crossing along with 13 others on Monday. Minister of Defence, Yoav Gallant, was faced with a protest by reserve soldiers who called him to block aid going into Gaza. Gaza is already under a severe shortage of medical, food, water, and fuel supplies. A number of states, including the U.S., had suspended its donations to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) after Israel claimed that 12 UNRWA employees were involved in the Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7. UNRWA said that it sacked nine of the employees, and the tenth is still being identified. The remaining two were killed in the October attack. UNRWA employs 30,000 workers, 13,000 of them are in the Gaza Strip, and the rest are in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and the West Bank. The agency warned that “If the funding is not resumed, UNRWA will not be able to continue its services and operations across the region, including in Gaza, beyond the end of February.” Potential Hamas-Israel deal for 45-day truce and captive exchange On Tuesday, Hamas political chief, Ismail Haniyeh said the movement received a proposal following Paris talks over the weekend, mediated by Qatar, Egypt, and the CIA, to reach a truce and captive exchange deal. Haniyeh said that Hamas is studying the proposal, and its priority remains “to stop the brutal aggression against Gaza and the complete withdrawal of the [Israeli] occupation forces from the [Gaza] Strip.” According to the potential deal, a 45-day pause of fighting will be announced by Israel and Palestinian resistance movements, during which Hamas will release 35 Israeli captives in return for 4,000 Palestinian prisoners. If successful, the deal will be the biggest since 1985, when Israel released more than 1,150 Palestinian and some Arab national prisoners in exchange for three Israeli soldiers captured in Lebanon. Hamas launched a barrage of rockets on Tel Aviv on Monday from the area of Khan Younis, where Israeli tanks and forces are launching bombardment and military strikes. Hamas’s armed wing, the Izz El-Din Al-Qassam Brigades, also published footage of its forces targeting Israeli tanks with 105mm Al-Yaseen anti-tank shells. Israeli forces raid West Bank towns and kill nine Palestinians in 48 hours Israeli forces raided more than a dozen Palestinian towns and villages in the occupied West Bank, and killed at least nine people in less than 48 hours. The Palestinian Prisoners Club said Israel arrested 18 Palestinians overnight, bringing the number of arrest cases to 6,390 since last October 7, some of them were later released. Israeli forces killed five Palestinians on Monday. Obaida Hassan Abdel Rahman Hamed, 18, was shot dead in Silwad village, east of Ramallah, during an Israeli raid. In Nablus, an Israeli force shot at a Palestinian vehicle driving on a road between Aqraba and Osrin villages. The two brothers escaped death; however, bullets damaged their car windscreen and body, Wafa reported. Overnight, Israeli forces raided the Palestinian towns of Sinjil, Tulkarm, Noor Shams refugee camp, Nahalin near Bethlehem, Al-Aroub refugee camp, Oum Safa, Jenin, Bani Naim near Hebron, Nablus, Silwan in Jerusalem, Qalandia, Kisan, Qabatia, Al-Samou and Qalqilya. 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-116-israeli-forces-carry-out-assassination-raid-inside-jenin-hospital-disguised-as-doctors/ https://donshafi911.blogspot.com/2024/01/operation-al-aqsa-flood-day-116-israeli.html

"Is it now fair to say that the US is at war in Yemen?" Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh: "We don't think that we are at war." "We've bombed them five times now...If this isn't war, what is war?" Singh: "We are not at war with the Houthis." @stayfreeworld

#Davos Vanesa Kerry supuesta metereologa o más bien "Calentologa y Apocaliptologa" "2023 fue un año apocalíptico en términos de fenómenos meteorológicos extremos... Eso está a punto de empeorar". "Estamos perdiendo avances en relación a nuestros objetivos de desarrollo sostenible, tenemos que movilizar más dinero" ¿Y que sabrá ella de lo quiere hacer el NOM ahora?

"Evidence for a connection between coronavirus disease-19 and exposure to radiofrequency radiation from wireless communications including 5G" Beverly Rubik1,2*, Robert R. Brown3 Sage Hana In advance, hand wringers…and Info Thought Minders. Yes, I’m going to keep asking the next question on my mind. I’m not a STEM. I’m not an engineer or scientist. Good news, though. Those geniuses are all pretty much captured by the forces that wish to murder you and your children and appear to be making shit up as they go…doubling, tripling, quadrupling down on theories of Super-Antigens or Virulent Virus Variants or conversely Not A Virus Terrains or Diablo Fairy Sauce Particles. Here is your Expert #3: Two clips of Lifetime Bioweapons Industry Expert Dr. Robert Malone trying to shut down Reverse Transcription of mRNA warnings in 2021 and 2022 Read full story Here is your Expert #4: Dr. Pierre Kory. In July 2020, Kory warned about "maskless presymptomatic 'super spreaders'." Read full story Astrid v. Cole #3: Bigtree Follows Cole into Dubious Logicville Read full story In August, 2022, Bret Weinstein doubled down on "intense lockdowns" and ramped up testing to combat the Dangerous Novel Coronavirus. Straight out of Rockefeller's Operation Lockstep. Read full story Dr. Jay Bhattacharya and Dr. Mike Yeadon Disagree on the Ability of Vaccines to Save the Elderly Read full story You get the idea. So me, being a soon to be liver-eaten contrarian logician, knowing what I do about the Master Plans thanks to the Cheat Codes… (Day Tapes: 1, 2, 3, 4.) …when I consider the various Chocolate vs. Peanut Butter false binary choices… Why not both? Why not three things? Why not a collection of vectors into your BODY, SOON TO BE CULLED CRITTER? I cannot stop thinking about radiation. Because good ole RADIATION has better access to the critters. Than say…Bird Covid. On that note, ME DIVE IN! Again! The Sabrina Files: "Everybody agrees the heart is electrical...your biofield is a body part." Read full story Here is a paper that I found buried in the interwebz. Here is the bonafides of the author, Dr. Beverly Rubik. In advance, this is not TRUST THE EXPERTS. This is parse out what various EXPERTS have to say and at the very least consider some logical explanations for WTF hebbbenned because after four years of this crap, it is pretty danged clear that ZEEE SCIENCE HAS BEEN FALSIFIED. FALSIFIED SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH Somewhere in this connection, then, was the statement admitting that some scientific research data could be - and indeed has been - falsified in order to bring about desired results. And here was said, "People don't ask the right questions. Some people are too trusting." Now this was an interesting statement because the speaker and the audience all being doctors of medicine and supposedly very objectively, dispassionately scientific and science being the be all and end-all ... well to falsify scientific research data in that setting is like blasphemy in the church ... you just don't do that. Anyhow, out of all of this was to come the New International Governing Body, probably to come through the U.N . and with a World Court, but not necessarily through those structures. It could be brought about in other ways. Acceptance of the U.N . at that time was seen as not being as wide as was hoped. Efforts would continue to give the United Nations increasing importance. People would be more and more used to the idea of relinquishing some national sovereignty. Here is the linked paper and I will pull a notable excerpt. (And also format into paragraphs to better digest.) I invite all STEMS to weigh in with information or factual data to refute any of the points within this paper. In theory, this is how science should work, yes? Just as with self assembling nano particles, graphene, or Wide Body Area Networks. Or Infectious Clones, or Virus Like Particles, or SV40, or germ transmission, or Blood Antibodies vs. Mucosal Antibodies vs. T-Cell Antibodies vs. Cow Poop Antibodies. *You laughed. Admit it. COVID-19 began in Wuhan, China in December 2019, shortly after city-wide 5G had “gone live,” that is, become an operational system, on October 31, 2019. COVID-19 outbreaks soon followed in other areas where 5G had also been at least partially implemented, including South Korea, Northern Italy, New York City, Seattle, and Southern California. In May 2020, Mordachev [4] reported a statistically significant correlation between the intensity of radiofrequency radiation and the mortality from SARS-CoV-2 in 31 countries throughout the world. During the first pandemic wave in the United States, COVID-19 attributed cases and deaths were statistically higher in states and major cities with 5G infrastructure as compared with states and cities that did not yet have this technology [5]. There is a large body of peer reviewed literature, since before World War II, on the biological effects of WCR that impact many aspects of our health. In examining this literature, we found intersections between the pathophysiology of SARS-CoV-2 and detrimental bioeffects of WCR exposure. Here, we present the evidence suggesting that WCR has been a possible contributing factor exacerbating COVID-19. 1.2. Overview on COVID-19 The clinical presentation of COVID-19 has proven to be highly variable, with a wide range of symptoms and variability from case to case. According to the CDC, early disease symptoms may include sore throat, headache, fever, cough, chills, among others. More severe symptoms including shortness of breath, high fever, and severe fatigue may occur in a later stage. The neurological sequela of taste and smell loss has also been described. Ing et al. [6] determined 80% of those affected have mild This should be a totally rational and stable comment section. 😹👍 https://youtu.be/2IfHqJufSME https://ko-fi.com/sagehanaproductions64182 https://www.buymeacoffee.com/sagehanaJ https://open.substack.com/pub/sagehana/p/evidence-for-a-connection-between?r=29hg4d&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post

TORTURE AT ABU GHRAIB From the archive Seymour Hersh An Iraqi who was told he would be electrocuted if he fell off the box. I am on vacation this week but thought it would be useful to republish a painful story I did two decades ago for the New Yorker about a group of US army soldiers who went out of control amid a war in Iraq that, so they were told, was being waged against the terrorism that struck America on 9/11. What the GIs did then are what any army does in war when hating and fearing the enemy is encouraged and runs through the ranks, from the lowest level grunts to the senior generals. It takes a special leader, as you will read about below, who confounds his superiors by not covering up the crimes of his soldiers and their most senior officers, and does so knowing that his career is over. Would that there were such fearless leaders in the Middle East today. In the era of Saddam Hussein, Abu Ghraib, twenty miles west of Baghdad, was one of the world’s most notorious prisons, with torture, weekly executions, and vile living conditions. As many as fifty thousand men and women—no accurate count is possible—were jammed into Abu Ghraib at one time, in twelve-by-twelve-foot cells that were little more than human holding pits. In the looting that followed the regime’s collapse, last April, the huge prison complex, by then deserted, was stripped of everything that could be removed, including doors, windows, and bricks. The coalition authorities had the floors tiled, cells cleaned and repaired, and toilets, showers, and a new medical center added. Abu Ghraib was now a U.S. military prison. Most of the prisoners, however—by the fall there were several thousand, including women and teen-agers—were civilians, many of whom had been picked up in random military sweeps and at highway checkpoints. They fell into three loosely defined categories: common criminals; security detainees suspected of “crimes against the coalition”; and a small number of suspected “high-value” leaders of the insurgency against the coalition forces. Last June, Janis Karpinski, an Army reserve brigadier general, was named commander of the 800th Military Police Brigade and put in charge of military prisons in Iraq. General Karpinski, the only female commander in the war zone, was an experienced operations and intelligence officer who had served with the Special Forces and in the 1991 Gulf War, but she had never run a prison system. Now she was in charge of three large jails, eight battalions, and thirty-four hundred Army reservists, most of whom, like her, had no training in handling prisoners. General Karpinski, who had wanted to be a soldier since she was five, is a business consultant in civilian life, and was enthusiastic about her new job. In an interview last December with the St. Petersburg Times, she said that, for many of the Iraqi inmates at Abu Ghraib, “living conditions now are better in prison than at home. At one point we were concerned that they wouldn’t want to leave.” A month later, General Karpinski was formally admonished and quietly suspended, and a major investigation into the Army’s prison system, authorized by Lieutenant General Ricardo S. Sanchez, the senior commander in Iraq, was under way. A fifty-three-page report, obtained by The New Yorker, written by Major General Antonio M. Taguba and not meant for public release, was completed in late February. Its conclusions about the institutional failures of the Army prison system were devastating. Specifically, Taguba found that between October and December of 2003 there were numerous instances of “sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses” at Abu Ghraib. This systematic and illegal abuse of detainees, Taguba reported, was perpetrated by soldiers of the 372nd Military Police Company, and also by members of the American intelligence community. (The 372nd was attached to the 320th M.P. Battalion, which reported to Karpinski’s brigade headquarters.) Taguba’s report listed some of the wrongdoing: Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees; pouring cold water on naked detainees; beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape; allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall in his cell; sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick, and using military working dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting a detainee. There was stunning evidence to support the allegations, Taguba added—“detailed witness statements and the discovery of extremely graphic photographic evidence.” Photographs and videos taken by the soldiers as the abuses were happening were not included in his report, Taguba said, because of their “extremely sensitive nature.” The photographs—several of which were broadcast on CBS’s “60 Minutes 2” last week—show leering G.I.s taunting naked Iraqi prisoners who are forced to assume humiliating poses. Six suspects—Staff Sergeant Ivan L. Frederick II, known as Chip, who was the senior enlisted man; Specialist Charles A. Graner; Sergeant Javal Davis; Specialist Megan Ambuhl; Specialist Sabrina Harman; and Private Jeremy Sivits—are now facing prosecution in Iraq, on charges that include conspiracy, dereliction of duty, cruelty toward prisoners, maltreatment, assault, and indecent acts. A seventh suspect, Private Lynndie England, was reassigned to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, after becoming pregnant. The photographs tell it all. In one, Private England, a cigarette dangling from her mouth, is giving a jaunty thumbs-up sign and pointing at the genitals of a young Iraqi, who is naked except for a sandbag over his head, as he masturbates. Three other hooded and naked Iraqi prisoners are shown, hands reflexively crossed over their genitals. A fifth prisoner has his hands at his sides. In another, England stands arm in arm with Specialist Graner; both are grinning and giving the thumbs-up behind a cluster of perhaps seven naked Iraqis, knees bent, piled clumsily on top of each other in a pyramid. There is another photograph of a cluster of naked prisoners, again piled in a pyramid. Near them stands Graner, smiling, his arms crossed; a woman soldier stands in front of him, bending over, and she, too, is smiling. Then, there is another cluster of hooded bodies, with a female soldier standing in front, taking photographs. Yet another photograph shows a kneeling, naked, unhooded male prisoner, head momentarily turned away from the camera, posed to make it appear that he is performing oral sex on another male prisoner, who is naked and hooded. Such dehumanization is unacceptable in any culture, but it is especially so in the Arab world. Homosexual acts are against Islamic law and it is humiliating for men to be naked in front of other men, Bernard Haykel, a professor of Middle Eastern studies at New York University, explained. “Being put on top of each other and forced to masturbate, being naked in front of each other—it’s all a form of torture,” Haykel said. Two Iraqi faces that do appear in the photographs are those of dead men. There is the battered face of prisoner No. 153399, and the bloodied body of another prisoner, wrapped in cellophane and packed in ice. There is a photograph of an empty room, splattered with blood. The 372nd’s abuse of prisoners seemed almost routine—a fact of Army life that the soldiers felt no need to hide. On April 9th, at an Article 32 hearing (the military equivalent of a grand jury) in the case against Sergeant Frederick, at Camp Victory, near Baghdad, one of the witnesses, Specialist Matthew Wisdom, an M.P., told the courtroom what happened when he and other soldiers delivered seven prisoners, hooded and bound, to the so-called “hard site” at Abu Ghraib—seven tiers of cells where the inmates who were considered the most dangerous were housed. The men had been accused of starting a riot in another section of the prison. Wisdom said: SFC Snider grabbed my prisoner and threw him into a pile. . . . I do not think it was right to put them in a pile. I saw SSG Frederick, SGT Davis and CPL Graner walking around the pile hitting the prisoners. I remember SSG Frederick hitting one prisoner in the side of its [sic] ribcage. The prisoner was no danger to SSG Frederick. . . . I left after that. When he returned later, Wisdom testified: I saw two naked detainees, one masturbating to another kneeling with its mouth open. I thought I should just get out of there. I didn’t think it was right . . . I saw SSG Frederick walking towards me, and he said, “Look what these animals do when you leave them alone for two seconds.” I heard PFC England shout out, “He’s getting hard.” Wisdom testified that he told his superiors what had happened, and assumed that “the issue was taken care of.” He said, “I just didn’t want to be part of anything that looked criminal.” The abuses became public because of the outrage of Specialist Joseph M. Darby, an M.P. whose role emerged during the Article 32 hearing against Chip Frederick. A government witness, Special Agent Scott Bobeck, who is a member of the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division, or C.I.D., told the court, according to an abridged transcript made available to me, “The investigation started after SPC Darby . . . got a CD from CPL Graner. . . . He came across pictures of naked detainees.” Bobeck said that Darby had “initially put an anonymous letter under our door, then he later came forward and gave a sworn statement. He felt very bad about it and thought it was very wrong.” Questioned further, the Army investigator said that Frederick and his colleagues had not been given any “training guidelines” that he was aware of. The M.P.s in the 372nd had been assigned to routine traffic and police duties upon their arrival in Iraq, in the spring of 2003. In October of 2003, the 372nd was ordered to prison-guard duty at Abu Ghraib. Frederick, at thirty-seven, was far older than his colleagues, and was a natural leader; he had also worked for six years as a guard for the Virginia Department of Corrections. Bobeck explained: What I got is that SSG Frederick and CPL Graner were road M.P.s and were put in charge because they were civilian prison guards and had knowledge of how things were supposed to be run. Bobeck also testified that witnesses had said that Frederick, on one occasion, “had punched a detainee in the chest so hard that the detainee almost went into cardiac arrest.” At the Article 32 hearing, the Army informed Frederick and his attorneys, Captain Robert Shuck, an Army lawyer, and Gary Myers, a civilian, that two dozen witnesses they had sought, including General Karpinski and all of Frederick’s co-defendants, would not appear. Some had been excused after exercising their Fifth Amendment right; others were deemed to be too far away from the courtroom. “The purpose of an Article 32 hearing is for us to engage witnesses and discover facts,” Gary Myers told me. “We ended up with a C.I.D. agent and no alleged victims to examine.” After the hearing, the presiding investigative officer ruled that there was sufficient evidence to convene a court-martial against Frederick. Myers, who was one of the military defense attorneys in the My Lai prosecutions of the nineteen-seventies, told me that his client’s defense will be that he was carrying out the orders of his superiors and, in particular, the directions of military intelligence. He said, “Do you really think a group of kids from rural Virginia decided to do this on their own? Decided that the best way to embarrass Arabs and make them talk was to have them walk around nude?” In letters and e-mails to family members, Frederick repeatedly noted that the military-intelligence teams, which included C.I.A. officers and linguists and interrogation specialists from private defense contractors, were the dominant force inside Abu Ghraib. In a letter written in January, he said: I questioned some of the things that I saw . . . such things as leaving inmates in their cell with no clothes or in female underpants, handcuffing them to the door of their cell—and the answer I got was, “This is how military intelligence (MI) wants it done.” . . . . MI has also instructed us to place a prisoner in an isolation cell with little or no clothes, no toilet or running water, no ventilation or window, for as much as three days. The military-intelligence officers have “encouraged and told us, ‘Great job,’ they were now getting positive results and information,” Frederick wrote. “CID has been present when the military working dogs were used to intimidate prisoners at MI’s request.” At one point, Frederick told his family, he pulled aside his superior officer, Lieutenant Colonel Jerry Phillabaum, the commander of the 320th M.P. Battalion, and asked about the mistreatment of prisoners. “His reply was ‘Don’t worry about it.’ ” In November, Frederick wrote, an Iraqi prisoner under the control of what the Abu Ghraib guards called “O.G.A.,” or other government agencies—that is, the C.I.A. and its paramilitary employees—was brought to his unit for questioning. “They stressed him out so bad that the man passed away. They put his body in a body bag and packed him in ice for approximately twenty-four hours in the shower. . . . The next day the medics came and put his body on a stretcher, placed a fake IV in his arm and took him away.” The dead Iraqi was never entered into the prison’s inmate-control system, Frederick recounted, “and therefore never had a number.” Frederick’s defense is, of course, highly self-serving. But the complaints in his letters and e-mails home were reinforced by two internal Army reports—Taguba’s and one by the Army’s chief law-enforcement officer, Provost Marshal Donald Ryder, a major general. Last fall, General Sanchez ordered Ryder to review the prison system in Iraq and recommend ways to improve it. Ryder’s report, filed on November 5th, concluded that there were potential human-rights, training, and manpower issues, system-wide, that needed immediate attention. It also discussed serious concerns about the tension between the missions of the military police assigned to guard the prisoners and the intelligence teams who wanted to interrogate them. Army regulations limit intelligence activity by the M.P.s to passive collection. But something had gone wrong at Abu Ghraib. There was evidence dating back to the Afghanistan war, the Ryder report said, that M.P.s had worked with intelligence operatives to “set favorable conditions for subsequent interviews”—a euphemism for breaking the will of prisoners. “Such actions generally run counter to the smooth operation of a detention facility, attempting to maintain its population in a compliant and docile state.” General Karpinski’s brigade, Ryder reported, “has not been directed to change its facility procedures to set the conditions for MI interrogations, nor participate in those interrogations.” Ryder called for the establishment of procedures to “define the role of military police soldiers . . . clearly separating the actions of the guards from those of the military intelligence personnel.” The officers running the war in Iraq were put on notice. Ryder undercut his warning, however, by concluding that the situation had not yet reached a crisis point. Though some procedures were flawed, he said, he found “no military police units purposely applying inappropriate confinement practices.” His investigation was at best a failure and at worst a coverup. Taguba, in his report, was polite but direct in refuting his fellow-general. “Unfortunately, many of the systemic problems that surfaced during [Ryder’s] assessment are the very same issues that are the subject of this investigation,” he wrote. “In fact, many of the abuses suffered by detainees occurred during, or near to, the time of that assessment.” The report continued, “Contrary to the findings of MG Ryder’s report, I find that personnel assigned to the 372nd MP Company, 800th MP Brigade were directed to change facility procedures to ‘set the conditions’ for MI interrogations.” Army intelligence officers, C.I.A. agents, and private contractors “actively requested that MP guards set physical and mental conditions for favorable interrogation of witnesses.” Taguba backed up his assertion by citing evidence from sworn statements to Army C.I.D. investigators. Specialist Sabrina Harman, one of the accused M.P.s, testified that it was her job to keep detainees awake, including one hooded prisoner who was placed on a box with wires attached to his fingers, toes, and penis. She stated, “MI wanted to get them to talk. It is Graner and Frederick’s job to do things for MI and OGA to get these people to talk.” Another witness, Sergeant Javal Davis, who is also one of the accused, told C.I.D. investigators, “I witnessed prisoners in the MI hold section . . . being made to do various things that I would question morally. . . . We were told that they had different rules.” Taguba wrote, “Davis also stated that he had heard MI insinuate to the guards to abuse the inmates. When asked what MI said he stated: ‘Loosen this guy up for us.’ ‘Make sure he has a bad night.’ ‘Make sure he gets the treatment.’ ” Military intelligence made these comments to Graner and Frederick, Davis said. “The MI staffs to my understanding have been giving Graner compliments . . . statements like, ‘Good job, they’re breaking down real fast. They answer every question. They’re giving out good information.’ ” When asked why he did not inform his chain of command about the abuse, Sergeant Davis answered, “Because I assumed that if they were doing things out of the ordinary or outside the guidelines, someone would have said something. Also the wing”—where the abuse took place—“belongs to MI and it appeared MI personnel approved of the abuse.” Another witness, Specialist Jason Kennel, who was not accused of wrongdoing, said, “I saw them nude, but MI would tell us to take away their mattresses, sheets, and clothes.” (It was his view, he added, that if M.I. wanted him to do this “they needed to give me paperwork.”) Taguba also cited an interview with Adel L. Nakhla, a translator who was an employee of Titan, a civilian contractor. He told of one night when a “bunch of people from MI” watched as a group of handcuffed and shackled inmates were subjected to abuse by Graner and Frederick. General Taguba saved his harshest words for the military-intelligence officers and private contractors. He recommended that Colonel Thomas Pappas, the commander of one of the M.I. brigades, be reprimanded and receive non-judicial punishment, and that Lieutenant Colonel Steven Jordan, the former director of the Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center, be relieved of duty and reprimanded. He further urged that a civilian contractor, Steven Stephanowicz, of CACI International, be fired from his Army job, reprimanded, and denied his security clearances for lying to the investigating team and allowing or ordering military policemen “who were not trained in interrogation techniques to facilitate interrogations by ‘setting conditions’ which were neither authorized” nor in accordance with Army regulations. “He clearly knew his instructions equated to physical abuse,” Taguba wrote. He also recommended disciplinary action against a second CACI employee, John Israel. (A spokeswoman for CACI said that the company had “received no formal communication” from the Army about the matter.) “I suspect,” Taguba concluded, that Pappas, Jordan, Stephanowicz, and Israel “were either directly or indirectly responsible for the abuse at Abu Ghraib,” and strongly recommended immediate disciplinary action. The problems inside the Army prison system in Iraq were not hidden from senior commanders. During Karpinski’s seven-month tour of duty, Taguba noted, there were at least a dozen officially reported incidents involving escapes, attempted escapes, and other serious security issues that were investigated by officers of the 800th M.P. Brigade. Some of the incidents had led to the killing or wounding of inmates and M.P.s, and resulted in a series of “lessons learned” inquiries within the brigade. Karpinski invariably approved the reports and signed orders calling for changes in day-to-day procedures. But Taguba found that she did not follow up, doing nothing to insure that the orders were carried out. Had she done so, he added, “cases of abuse may have been prevented.” General Taguba further found that Abu Ghraib was filled beyond capacity, and that the M.P. guard force was significantly undermanned and short of resources. “This imbalance has contributed to the poor living conditions, escapes, and accountability lapses,” he wrote. There were gross differences, Taguba said, between the actual number of prisoners on hand and the number officially recorded. A lack of proper screening also meant that many innocent Iraqis were wrongly being detained—indefinitely, it seemed, in some cases. The Taguba study noted that more than sixty per cent of the civilian inmates at Abu Ghraib were deemed not to be a threat to society, which should have enabled them to be released. Karpinski’s defense, Taguba said, was that her superior officers “routinely” rejected her recommendations regarding the release of such prisoners. Karpinski was rarely seen at the prisons she was supposed to be running, Taguba wrote. He also found a wide range of administrative problems, including some that he considered “without precedent in my military career.” The soldiers, he added, were “poorly prepared and untrained . . . prior to deployment, at the mobilization site, upon arrival in theater, and throughout the mission.” General Taguba spent more than four hours interviewing Karpinski, whom he described as extremely emotional: “What I found particularly disturbing in her testimony was her complete unwillingness to either understand or accept that many of the problems inherent in the 800th MP Brigade were caused or exacerbated by poor leadership and the refusal of her command to both establish and enforce basic standards and principles among its soldiers.” Taguba recommended that Karpinski and seven brigade military-police officers and enlisted men be relieved of command and formally reprimanded. No criminal proceedings were suggested for Karpinski; apparently, the loss of promotion and the indignity of a public rebuke were seen as enough punishment. After the story broke on CBS last week, the Pentagon announced that Major General Geoffrey Miller, the new head of the Iraqi prison system, had arrived in Baghdad and was on the job. He had been the commander of the Guantánamo Bay detention center. General Sanchez also authorized an investigation into possible wrongdoing by military and civilian interrogators. As the international furor grew, senior military officers, and President Bush, insisted that the actions of a few did not reflect the conduct of the military as a whole. Taguba’s report, however, amounts to an unsparing study of collective wrongdoing and the failure of Army leadership at the highest levels. The picture he draws of Abu Ghraib is one in which Army regulations and the Geneva conventions were routinely violated, and in which much of the day-to-day management of the prisoners was abdicated to Army military-intelligence units and civilian contract employees. Interrogating prisoners and getting intelligence, including by intimidation and torture, was the priority. The mistreatment at Abu Ghraib may have done little to further American intelligence, however. Willie J. Rowell, who served for thirty-six years as a C.I.D. agent, told me that the use of force or humiliation with prisoners is invariably counterproductive. “They’ll tell you what you want to hear, truth or no truth,” Rowell said. “ ‘You can flog me until I tell you what I know you want me to say.’ You don’t get righteous information.” Under the fourth Geneva convention, an occupying power can jail civilians who pose an “imperative” security threat, but it must establish a regular procedure for insuring that only civilians who remain a genuine security threat be kept imprisoned. Prisoners have the right to appeal any internment decision and have their cases reviewed. Human Rights Watch complained to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld that civilians in Iraq remained in custody month after month with no charges brought against them. Abu Ghraib had become, in effect, another Guantánamo. As the photographs from Abu Ghraib make clear, these detentions have had enormous consequences: for the imprisoned civilian Iraqis, many of whom had nothing to do with the growing insurgency; for the integrity of the Army; and for the United States’ reputation in the world. Captain Robert Shuck, Frederick’s military attorney, closed his defense at the Article 32 hearing last month by saying that the Army was “attempting to have these six soldiers atone for its sins.” Similarly, Gary Myers, Frederick’s civilian attorney, told me that he would argue at the court-martial that culpability in the case extended far beyond his client. “I’m going to drag every involved intelligence officer and civilian contractor I can find into court,” he said. “Do you really believe the Army relieved a general officer because of six soldiers? Not a chance.” https://open.substack.com/pub/seymourhersh/p/torture-at-abu-ghraib?r=29hg4d&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post

Trusting Allah in Difficult Times For Muslims, the Quran and Sunnah provide solace and guidance during difficult times. Islam teaches that life is a temporary test, where hardships strengthen faith, expiate sins, and help individuals become their best selves. Trusting Allah in Difficult Times In this journey of life, we often encounter trying times that test our strength, patience, and faith. When faced with adversity, finding strength and solace is something that many of us seek, and for us Muslims, the Quran and Sunnah serve as sources of comfort and guidance. Islam presents us with a perspective that views this world as a temporal abode, where Allah tests His servants only to raise one’s level of faith when it wavers, to expiate their sins and to bring out the best version of themselves. It is important that Muslims draw on these resources within the rich tapestry of Islamic teachings in the face of adversity. 1. Remember That Allah Does Not Burden a Soul Beyond Its Capacity Allah s.w.t. says in the Quran in Surah Al-Baqarah, verse 286: لَا يُكَلِّفُ ٱللَّهُ نَفْسًا إِلَّا وُسْعَهَا ۚ لَهَا مَا كَسَبَتْ وَعَلَيْهَا مَا ٱكْتَسَبَتْ ۗ “Allah does not require of any soul more than what it can afford. All good will be for its own benefit, and all evil will be to its own loss.” This verse highlights the belief that Allah does not inflict nor impose a burden on a soul beyond its capacity and serves as a poignant reminder that His wisdom surpasses our comprehension and that the trials and obstacles we encounter are indefinitely tailored to our capabilities. 2. Keep in Mind that Allah Alone is Sufficient for Us, and He is the Best Protector There is another profound Quranic verse that encapsulates and captures the essence of faith, dependence, and submission to God’s divine will. Muslims facing the trials and tribulations of life can turn to this potent verse nestled in Surah Ali-’Imran as a source of comfort and wise counsel. Allah s.w.t. mentions in the Quran: ٱلَّذِينَ قَالَ لَهُمُ ٱلنَّاسُ إِنَّ ٱلنَّاسَ قَدْ جَمَعُوا۟ لَكُمْ فَٱخْشَوْهُمْ فَزَادَهُمْ إِيمَـٰنًا وَقَالُوا۟ حَسْبُنَا ٱللَّهُ وَنِعْمَ ٱلْوَكِيلُ “Those who were warned, “Your enemies have mobilised their forces against you, so fear them: the warning only made them grow stronger in faith, and they replied, “Allah (alone) is sufficient (as an aid) for us and (He) is the best Protector.” (Surah Ali-’Imran, 3:173) It was recorded in Sahih Al-Bukhari that Ibn ‘Abbas explains that the verse refers to the early Muslims who faced immense opposition from their opponent. Despite being warned that a massive army had gathered against them, their faith and trust in Allah s.w.t. only grew stronger. This rooted faith stemmed from their deep understanding of Allah’s power and omniscience. Ibn Kathir also emphasised this concept of reliance on Allah s.w.t. and explained that the verse highlights the inherent strength and resilience that faith can bestow upon individuals. When faced with intimidation and threats, the true believers’ faith remains unshakable, and their trust in Allah s.w.t. is unwavering. Our Prophet Ibrahim a.s. also uttered the same words, “Allah (alone) is sufficient (as an aid) for us and (He) is the best Protector” and placed complete reliance on Allah s.w.t. when he was about to be thrown into a fire pit. As a result, he found coolness and tranquillity amidst the blazing fire. Thus, these faith-inspiring words signify a deep acknowledgement that placing trust in Allah s.w.t. is the key to enduring and overcoming challenges and uncertainties, and it serves as a reminder to the believers that no matter the circumstances one is in, Allah’s care and provision are boundless. He is The Bestower and The Withholder of Mercy, and He, alone, is The Remover of harm and affliction. The recurring utterance of “حَسْبُنَا ٱللَّهُ وَنِعْمَ ٱلْوَكِيلُ” reflects not only a verbal expression of trust in Allah but also serves as a profound embodiment of Islamic teachings. The phrase adds a layer of spiritual resilience as it invites one to maintain a positive outlook, trusting that Allah’s plan is ultimately for the best, even if the immediate circumstances may seem otherwise. what does Allah say about hard times Palestinians search a house after an Israeli air strike, in the city of Rafah, southern of the Gaza Strip, on October 15 2023. This is evident in various media coverage of our Palestinian brothers and sisters, where their reliance on Allah s.w.t. (Tawakkal) and admirable patience (Sabr) serve as noteworthy and compelling examples for Muslims around the world. From those who had to pull their own family members out of the rubbles themselves, to the grandfather who forcefully opened the eyes of his granddaughter to take one final look at her face and to the thousands of innocent children whose childhoods are being robbed from them – all of them echoed with a little to no hesitation: Hasbunallah Wa Ni’mal-Wakil. Their resilience becomes a source of inspiration, urging us to introspect and embody similar outlooks and coping mechanisms in our own lives. Read: Navigating The Crisis In Gaza: A Guide by the Asatizah Youth Network 3. Be Patient Another virtue within the teachings of Islam is the virtue of patience (Sabr), and it is held in high regard, constituting an integral element of faith. To be patient is not merely about tolerating adversity and equating it to complacency and resignation but rather about embracing it as an opportunity for advancement and strengthening one’s connection with Allah s.w.t. Patience in Islam is a dynamic and active principle that involves having to endure challenges in life with resilience and complete reliance on Allah s.w.t. while simultaneously engaging in constructive efforts to overcome them. Allah s.w.t. says in the Quran: وَاسْتَعِينُوا بِالصَّبْرِ وَالصَّلَاةِ ۚ وَإِنَّهَا لَكَبِيرَةٌ إِلَّا عَلَى الْخَاشِعِينَ "O believers! Seek comfort in patience and prayer. Allah is truly with those who are patient." (Surah Al-Baqarah, 2:153) Read: Quranic Verses About Patience 4. Understand that Everything that Happens to a Believer is Good The Prophet s.a.w. also said in a hadith: مَا يُصِيبُ الْمُسْلِمَ مِنْ نَصَبٍ وَلاَ وَصَبٍ وَلاَ هَمٍّ وَلاَ حُزْنٍ وَلاَ أَذًى وَلاَ غَمٍّ حَتَّى الشَّوْكَةِ يُشَاكُهَا، إِلاَّ كَفَّرَ اللَّهُ بِهَا مِنْ خَطَايَاهُ "No fatigue, nor disease, nor sorrow, nor sadness nor hurt nor distress befalls a Muslim, even if it were the prick he receives from a thorn, but that Allah expiates some of his sins for that." (Sahih Bukhari) Every event in a believer’s life, even if it seems unfavourable, is ultimately considered good. Thus, as a true believer in times of prosperity, gratitude should blossom, and during periods of hardship, patience should take root. Such steadfast resilience, akin to ‘beautiful patience,’ was exemplified by our Prophets, who faced numerous challenges throughout their lives. The Treaty Of Hudaybiyah is a key example; when faced with resistance to perform pilgrimage in Makkah, Prophet Muhammad s.a.w. chose patience and proceeded to engage in negotiations. The resulting treaty may have seemed unfavourable at the time. However, it exemplified patience and trust in Allah’s will and decree, which eventually led to long-term peace and success for the Muslims. Read: 4 Things to Know about The Story of Hudaibiyah 5. Comprehend Allah’s Attributes how to trust Allah That said, it is almost impossible to trust and rely entirely on Allah s.w.t. without knowledge of who He is. To truly know Allah is to delve into an understanding and acknowledgement of His Divine names and attributes, such as Al-Hafiz (The Guardian), Al-’Azim (The Most Great) and Al-Qadir (The All-Powerful). Comprehending these attributes fosters a more rooted sense of trust in Allah s.w.t. and His plans and distinguishes anxiety and worries about the unknown. Therefore, the deeper our awareness of The Almighty, the stronger our certainty in Him, our love towards Him and consequently, the greater our reliance on Him – this is the essence of Tawakkul. In return, it will help us put everything, whether good or bad, into the proper perspective. References: Al-Quran Ibn Kathir Tafsir| Alim.org. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.alim.org/quran/tafsir/ibn-kathir/surah/3/169/ Bonab, B. G., & Koohsar, A. A. H. (2011, January 1). Reliance on God as a Core Construct of Islamic Psychology. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences. Retrieved December 3, 2023, from https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2011.10.043 Parrott, J. (2020, March 23). When Our Worlds Are Shaken: Finding Strength in ‘Beautiful Patience.’ Retrieved December 3, 2023, from https://nyuscholars.nyu.edu/en/publications/when-our-worlds-are-shaken-finding-strength-in-beautiful-patience Riyad as-Salihin 76 - The Book of Miscellany - كتاب المقدمات - Sunnah.com - Sayings and Teachings of Prophet Muhammad (صلى الله عليه و سلم). (n.d.). Retrieved from https://sunnah.com/riyadussalihin:76 Tahir. (2020, April 2). In Hardship and in Ease: How to Rely on God | Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research. Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research. Retrieved December 3, 2023, from https://yaqeeninstitute.org/read/paper/in-hardship-and-in-ease-how-to-rely-on-god What Does Tawakkul Mean? (2020, June 3). Retrieved from https://muslim.sg/articles/tawakkul-meaning Listen to our Podcasts! https://muslim.sg/articles/trusting-allah-in-difficult-times