• Inside the anti-Syria lobby’s Capitol Hill push for more starvation sanctions
    Hekmat AboukhaterMarch 20, 2024

    A week from the 13th anniversary of the US-backed Syrian dirty war, the American Coalition for Syria held its annual day of advocacy in Washington DC. I went undercover into meetings with Senate policy advisors and witnessed the lobby’s cynical campaign to starve Syria into submission.

    On the morning of March 7, as the US Capitol teemed with lobbyists securing earmarks ahead of appropriations week and activists decrying the Gaza genocide, one special interest group on the Hill stood out. In the corridors of the Rayburn building, a group of roughly 50 people prepared for a busy day of advocating for sanctions to be levied against their homeland.

    They were the Anti-Syria lobby — and had I infiltrated their influence campaign.

    Throughout the day, I watched as this group pushed US officials to accept their policy of starvation sanctions while cynically ignoring famished Palestinians in Gaza.

    Among the lobbyists was Raed Saleh, the head of the Syrian White Helmets, who were to propagandize for regime change from behind humanitarian cover.

    I attended a total of seven meetings with policy teams representing Senators Sherrod Brown, Maggie Hassan, Ben Cardin, Mark Kelly, Chris Van Hollen, John Fetterman, and Rick Scott. Throughout these sessions, I witnessed the anti-Syria Lobby attempt to bully and manipulate US officials into accepting their policy of starvation while cynically throwing starving Palestinians in Gaza under the bus.

    At one moment, Raed Saleh, head of the Syrian White Helmets, which was founded by British intelligence, and funded by NATO states, painted Israeli air strikes against Syria in a positive light.

    During a separate meeting, Wa’el Alzayat of the pro-Zionist Muslim outreach Emgage even demanded Senator Chris Van Hollen’s office support the approval of aid for Al Qaeda-linked militias in Syria.

    “Stop freaking out about the stuff going to terrorists,” he insisted, adding that “the Brits are doing it, the Turks are doing it, [and] the Qataris are doing it.”

    Purporting to be a voice for all Syrians, the anti-Syria lobby is spearheaded by the American Coalition for Syria (ACS), an umbrella organization representing opposition groups such as the Syrian American Council (SAC), the Syrian Forum, and a handful of others located in the US and Turkey.

    Emgage, meanwhile, has been credited with getting the diaspora vote out for then-candidate Joe Biden in November 2020. The group has since fallen under criticism for acting as a de facto extension of the Biden White House and Democratic Party within the Muslim community. Emgage board member Farooq Mitha formally went to work for the Biden Pentagon in March 2021. On March 7, Alzayat aimed to weaponize Emgage’s influence against Democratic Senators who seemed uncomfortable with an escalating sanctions policy.

    “I need a good story for my voters,” he explained to Senator Van Hollen’s team.

    Throughout their sanctions campaign on the Hill, Alzayat and his cohorts operated like a miniature version of their Israel lobby allies, supplying roughly 50 volunteers with folders outlining talking points and the biographies of congressional representatives. The bios included a comprehensive list of the Senator or Representative’s recorded stance on Syria, such as their votes on the extension of the AUMF, the US military withdrawal from Syria, and previous sanctions packages targeting the country.



    The handouts also laid out the lobby’s key legislative requests, which largely focused on securing development aid for militia-controlled territory in Syria — including that held by Al Qaeda’s local ally in the country — and ensuring passage of the ‘Assad Regime Anti Normalization Bill,’ which seeks to extend and expand sanctions targeting Damascus.

    The Anti-Syria Lobby’s resemblance to their Israeli counterparts was no mistake. As Republican Florida Sen. Rick Scott’s chief of staff reassured us, “the Israelis want you guys in charge.”


    Syrian Civil War map|Syrian Civil War map (November 24, 2023) via Wikimedia Commons. Edited by author
    More Starvation Sanctions

    Ever since the US included Syria on its inaugural State Sponsor of Terrorism (SST) list over Damascus’ support for the Palestinian resistance in 1979, Washington has gradually ratcheted up its financial war on the Syrian people. When decades of covert hybrid war erupted into an all-out proxy battle for the country’s territory—and survival—in 2011, the Anti-Syria Lobby officially began to take shape in Washington.


    Syria is the unrivaled champion of the SST having never been delisted since the list’s inception in 1979.
    In 2019, as Syria’s government emerged victorious from a multi-year battle with foreign-backed militias, Washington decided that while Damascus may have won the war, it would not win the peace. That January, New York Rep. Eliot Engel, a recipient of $1.8 million in AIPAC donations, introduced a sanctions package known as the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act. Trump signed the bill as part of the National Defence Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2020.


    The US has a 45-year long tradition of sanctioning and isolating Syria economically in response to the country’s support of Palestinian resistance
    The bill was unprecedented in both the way that it sanctioned broad sectors of the Syrian economy rather than only specific individuals, and in its deployment of so-called “secondary sanctions.” Secondary sanctions are imposed on parties that do business with a sanctioned entity even if those exchanges occur outside of the sanctioning entity’s jurisdiction.

    Syria’s economy has been in free fall ever since the Caesar sanctions came into effect. Today, over 12 million Syrians representing more than half of the total population face food insecurity — a 51% increase from 2019. Meanwhile, 90 percent of the population lives under the poverty line. In 2019, the US dollar exchanged for 500 Syrian Pounds. Today, that number is more like 14,100— figures that represent a 2,720 percent devaluation.


    The Syrian currency has devalued by 35,150% since the initial exchange rate of 40 SYP to 1 USD early 2011
    Though H.R. 3202 appears to be focused on addressing UN aid divergence, and sanctioning previously unsanctioned entities like Asma Al Assad’s Syria Trust for Development and the Syrian Red Crescent, the real agenda of the bill is found deep within its 22-page text.

    With the Caesar Sanctions set to expire by the end of 2024, H.R. 3202 seeks to quietly extend the aggressive financial measures until 2032.


    The new bill’s main aim, which received very little attention, is the extension of the Caesar Act for 8 more years.
    Having passed the House with overwhelming enthusiasm, H.R. 3202’s sister bill in the Senate can only pass with Democratic support. It was introduced by Israeli lobby-funded Republican Idaho Sen. James Risch last September and has since been co-sponsored by arch-neoconservative Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.

    Because S. 2935 can only pass with Democratic sponsorship, the Anti-Syria Lobby chose Sen. Ben Cardin, the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and sponsor of the anti-Russia Magnitsky Act, as a crucial target for influence.

    After meeting with Sherrod Brown’s office, Cardin’s Research and Legislative Assistant, Christopher Barr, hosted us in the Senator’s office. There, Raed Saleh of the White Helmets complained to Barr that USAID had slashed funding for his organization from $12 million to $3 million in recent years.

    Next, it was time to discuss the true purpose of our visit: the passage of S. 2935.

    Barr appeared uneasy from the outset and even expressed displeasure about the bill, complaining, “What passed the House was kind of a lot… the list of targets is vast.”

    “Syria has already been so heavily sanctioned,” he added.

    In response, Ghanem revealed a critical piece of information about the forces driving the dirty war on Syria, explaining that the impetus to expand and extend Caesar did not come from the Anti-Syria Lobby itself, but someone on Capitol Hill. Ghanem explained that the Hill source actually contacted the American Coalition for Syria to alert them to the fact that Caesar was set to expire, lamenting the fact that its sunset would amount to a loss of “US leverage over the Syrian regime.”

    This line echoed the disturbing language of officials representing both the Biden and Trump administration alike. In 2019, neoconservative operative Dana Stroul declared that thanks to Caesar, Washington “holds a card on preventing reconstruction aid and technical expertise from going back,” to Syria. She lauded the fact that the U.S. could weaponize that “leverage” to keep Syria in “rubble.” Two years later, she would take up post as Deputy Secretary of Defense for the Middle East under Biden.


    Similarly, during an event at the neoconservative think tank, WINEP, the following year, the Special Envoy for Syria under Trump, Joel Rayburn, boasted that Caesar “lowers the bar” for evidence-based sanctions and allows for the broad targeting of any and all reconstruction projects in Syria.


    “We don’t have to prove, for example, that a company that’s going in to do a reconstruction project in the Damascus region is dealing directly with the Assad regime,” Rayburn explained.

    “We don’t have to have the evidence to prove that link,” he continued. “We just have to have the evidence that proves that a company or an individual is investing in […] the construction sector, the engineering sector, most of the aviation sector, the finance sector, energy sector, and so on.”

    These public confessions did not stop the Anti-Syria Lobby from lying to the faces of congressional staffers throughout their March 7 campaign. During a meeting with Sen. Mark Kelly’s office, Ghanem falsely stated that the Caesar Sanctions were “targeted,” “not sectoral,” and “not [an] embargo, nothing punishing to civilians.”

    Yet Alena Douhan, the UN Special Rapporteur on Sanctions who visited Syria to document the effects of Washington’s unilateral sanctions regime on Syria, disagrees. In her 19-page report she clearly states that the sanctions are both illegal and inhumane in the way they affect the average Syrian.

    Stabilization for me but not for thee

    The second legislative ask came in the form of a well rehearsed speech by Ghanem, Zayat, and others, outlining what US tax dollars do and don’t fund in Syria. US aid packages are typically divided into two categories: “humanitarian funding” earmarked for goods such as food, water, and basic medical supplies or “stabilization” funding designed to secure a country as it transitions out of a period of turmoil. Unlike humanitarian assistance, stabilization funding may be used to support major investment and infrastructure projects such as roads, schools, healthcare facilities, and government services.

    The US is the primary funder of humanitarian aid in both North East (NE) and NW Syria. However, while the US spends abundantly on stabilization needs in NE Syria, it spends $0 on the NW. That is because while Washington has long dreamed of establishing a secessionist Kurdish state in Syria’s Northeast, it neglected to send stabilization funds to the Northwest in order to avoid providing direct support to HTS, the Al Qaeda offshoot that governs the territory. The Anti-Syria Lobby was in Washington to change that.

    Leading the push for US funds to Al Qaeda-affiliated elements in Northwest Syria was Wa’el Alzayat, a Syrian expat who proudly served in Iraq’s Green Zone under George Bush’s State Department and more recently published a shocking Washington Post oped begging US officials not to “lift sanctions to help Syria earthquake victims.” In the office of Sen. Chris Van Hollen, Alzayat voiced his frustration with US hesitation in the Northwest.

    “Stop freaking out about the stuff going to terrorists,” he demanded, adding that “the Brits are doing it, the Turks are doing it, the Qataris are doing it.”




    We’re missing out on a golden opportunity here to stabilize the region and leverage it for a political settlement,” he pleaded. In other words, Alzayat was openly lobbying US officials to strengthen Al Qaeda’s position in Syria in order to leverage the terrorist group against the country’s government.

    Alzayat then weaponized his six-figure salary as head of Emgage to bully Van Hollen’s office into bowing before the anti-Syria Lobby, falsely claiming that his AIPAC-linked organization was “behind” the “Uncommitted” vote campaigns that damaged Biden’s primary performance in Michigan and Minnesota.




    Towards the end of the meeting, the regime change lobbyist cynically invoked Israel’s slaughter of 30,000 Palestinians in Gaza to make the case for Al Qaeda in Syria one last time.

    He argued that although “his community” is up in arms about the Biden administration’s funding and arming of the Gaza genocide, they would gladly flock back to the Democratic Party if the US funded roads and schools in Al Qaeda-controlled Idlib.

    “I need a good story for my voters,” Alzayat explained, noting the Muslim community’s disapproval of the Biden Administration’s policy in Gaza and Yemen.

    “You’re upset about all these disappointments,” he continued, play-acting a scenario in which he convinced a Muslim constituent to vote for Biden, again. “Guess what? They’re pumping 50 million into the school sector in the North [of Syria]!”




    Overtures Towards Israel

    The Israel-Palestine crisis loomed large throughout the ACS lobbying trip. Sen. Sherrod Brown’s secretary happened to be a hijabi Muslim woman sporting a pendant outlining the map of Palestine around her neck. As she greeted us, Farouk Belal, the head of the Syrian American Council, grumbled to Ghanem and me: “I hope she’s not with the resistance.”

    When I asked him to clarify what he meant as we exited the office, he explained that people aligned with the Palestinian cause in Washington “don’t like us.”

    Meanwhile, in Sen. Cardin’s office, Raed Salah of the White Helmets painted Israeli strikes on Syria which have crippled Syrian infrastructure, regularly damaged the country’s International civilian airports, and killed hundreds of Syrian Soldiers and civilians alike in a positive light:

    “The situation in Syria is very complicated. Every day we hear of Israeli strikes on the dens, or the bases of the IRGC and its militias. Even we as Syrians did not know the extent to which the Iranians were entrenched in the country…”




    For Saleh, the Israeli strikes do nothing but highlight the presence of the Syrian government-invited Iranian military presence in Syria.

    Later that day, Ghanem attempted to capitalize on Sen. Fetterman’s fanatical pro-Israel antics by describing recent developments in Syria to a 20-something staffer. Referring to the Syrian government’s successful campaign to retake southern territory, he explained that the South is “where they lob missiles on Israel, by the way.” The aide dutifully transcribed this seemingly random piece of information in her notepad. Towards the end of the meeting, Fetterman was discussed as a potential Democratic sponsor of S. 2935 in the Senate.

    In Senator Rick Scott’s office, a Cuban American Government Relations Associate for ACS, Alberto Hernandez, accidentally said the quiet part out loud. When Senator Scott’s ultra-Zionist National Security Advisor, Paul Bonicelli, asked if our group had connected with our “counterparts” in the Israeli lobby so that they could “vet” our proposals — revealing that Scott has apparently outsourced his brain to Zionists — Hernandez remarked: “Formally? No. Informally.”

    He then turned to the rest of the ACS team in the meeting room and said: “You didn’t hear me say that.”

    That admission prompted Bonicelli to suggest that ACS directly coordinate with groups such as the Aramaic Church in Israel, which has supported regime change efforts in Damascus despite overwhelming Christian support of the government within Syria itself.

    As the meeting wound to a close, Bonicelli informed us that he agreed with ACS on the necessity to oppose Iran and Russia.

    “If Obama had done the right thing in 2012, we wouldn’t be here,” he lamented, adding: “the Israelis want you guys in charge.”


    At one point during the meeting in Rick Scott’s Office, Alberto Hernandez, and Sarah Salas, a Cuban American legislative aide, expressed full agreement with US use of unilateral sanctions as means to “push” governments that “we don’t like.”
    Starving Syrians Without A Mandate

    Though several ACS volunteers shared painful personal encounters with the Syrian government throughout the day, many were simply too far removed from Syria to truly represent the voice of Syrian people, especially the 12 million plus civilians currently living in Syrian government-controlled territory.

    One 24-year-old woman who did not speak Arabic and has not been to Syria since 2003 described the Syrian Army’s 2016 liberation of Aleppo from Al Qaeda-linked militants as “the fall of Aleppo.”

    Other Syrians like myself experienced the terror of the West’s proxy war in Syria firsthand. In 2012, my aunt and cousins watched in horror as the Turkish-backed Liwa’ Al Tawhid, an umbrella group of takfiri jihadist militias, arrived on their street in the Seryan El Jdideh neighborhood of Aleppo. The militants proceeded to execute a local pick-up truck driver and steal his vehicle, leaving his bleeding corpse on the street. Shahba, where my family lived up until 2015, was located just a stone’s throw away from these sectarian death squads during our final months there.

    The Syrian dirty war was bloody and gruesome, yet the picture that ACS paints is entirely one-sided. Unfortunately, while organizations like ACS have flocked to the Beltway swamp throughout the last 13 years, there are no Syrians present in Washington DC to counter them. While these groups claim to speak on behalf of the Syrian people, those of us who have lived and still live in areas controlled by Syrian government — regardless of our political affiliations—are rendered voiceless in the very center of power where our perspective should matter most. Even Syria’s embassy has been shuttered since 2014, while Syrian diplomats at the UN in New York are heavily monitored and restricted from traveling beyond the NYC metro area.

    As I witnessed on Capitol Hill, there are few obstacles to the anti-Syria lobby’s ruthless push to prevent the majority of Syrians from emerging from the ruins of war.

    https://thegrayzone.com/2024/03/20/anti-syria-lobbys-capitol-hill-sanctions/
    Inside the anti-Syria lobby’s Capitol Hill push for more starvation sanctions Hekmat AboukhaterMarch 20, 2024 A week from the 13th anniversary of the US-backed Syrian dirty war, the American Coalition for Syria held its annual day of advocacy in Washington DC. I went undercover into meetings with Senate policy advisors and witnessed the lobby’s cynical campaign to starve Syria into submission. On the morning of March 7, as the US Capitol teemed with lobbyists securing earmarks ahead of appropriations week and activists decrying the Gaza genocide, one special interest group on the Hill stood out. In the corridors of the Rayburn building, a group of roughly 50 people prepared for a busy day of advocating for sanctions to be levied against their homeland. They were the Anti-Syria lobby — and had I infiltrated their influence campaign. Throughout the day, I watched as this group pushed US officials to accept their policy of starvation sanctions while cynically ignoring famished Palestinians in Gaza. Among the lobbyists was Raed Saleh, the head of the Syrian White Helmets, who were to propagandize for regime change from behind humanitarian cover. I attended a total of seven meetings with policy teams representing Senators Sherrod Brown, Maggie Hassan, Ben Cardin, Mark Kelly, Chris Van Hollen, John Fetterman, and Rick Scott. Throughout these sessions, I witnessed the anti-Syria Lobby attempt to bully and manipulate US officials into accepting their policy of starvation while cynically throwing starving Palestinians in Gaza under the bus. At one moment, Raed Saleh, head of the Syrian White Helmets, which was founded by British intelligence, and funded by NATO states, painted Israeli air strikes against Syria in a positive light. During a separate meeting, Wa’el Alzayat of the pro-Zionist Muslim outreach Emgage even demanded Senator Chris Van Hollen’s office support the approval of aid for Al Qaeda-linked militias in Syria. “Stop freaking out about the stuff going to terrorists,” he insisted, adding that “the Brits are doing it, the Turks are doing it, [and] the Qataris are doing it.” Purporting to be a voice for all Syrians, the anti-Syria lobby is spearheaded by the American Coalition for Syria (ACS), an umbrella organization representing opposition groups such as the Syrian American Council (SAC), the Syrian Forum, and a handful of others located in the US and Turkey. Emgage, meanwhile, has been credited with getting the diaspora vote out for then-candidate Joe Biden in November 2020. The group has since fallen under criticism for acting as a de facto extension of the Biden White House and Democratic Party within the Muslim community. Emgage board member Farooq Mitha formally went to work for the Biden Pentagon in March 2021. On March 7, Alzayat aimed to weaponize Emgage’s influence against Democratic Senators who seemed uncomfortable with an escalating sanctions policy. “I need a good story for my voters,” he explained to Senator Van Hollen’s team. Throughout their sanctions campaign on the Hill, Alzayat and his cohorts operated like a miniature version of their Israel lobby allies, supplying roughly 50 volunteers with folders outlining talking points and the biographies of congressional representatives. The bios included a comprehensive list of the Senator or Representative’s recorded stance on Syria, such as their votes on the extension of the AUMF, the US military withdrawal from Syria, and previous sanctions packages targeting the country. The handouts also laid out the lobby’s key legislative requests, which largely focused on securing development aid for militia-controlled territory in Syria — including that held by Al Qaeda’s local ally in the country — and ensuring passage of the ‘Assad Regime Anti Normalization Bill,’ which seeks to extend and expand sanctions targeting Damascus. The Anti-Syria Lobby’s resemblance to their Israeli counterparts was no mistake. As Republican Florida Sen. Rick Scott’s chief of staff reassured us, “the Israelis want you guys in charge.” Syrian Civil War map|Syrian Civil War map (November 24, 2023) via Wikimedia Commons. Edited by author More Starvation Sanctions Ever since the US included Syria on its inaugural State Sponsor of Terrorism (SST) list over Damascus’ support for the Palestinian resistance in 1979, Washington has gradually ratcheted up its financial war on the Syrian people. When decades of covert hybrid war erupted into an all-out proxy battle for the country’s territory—and survival—in 2011, the Anti-Syria Lobby officially began to take shape in Washington. Syria is the unrivaled champion of the SST having never been delisted since the list’s inception in 1979. In 2019, as Syria’s government emerged victorious from a multi-year battle with foreign-backed militias, Washington decided that while Damascus may have won the war, it would not win the peace. That January, New York Rep. Eliot Engel, a recipient of $1.8 million in AIPAC donations, introduced a sanctions package known as the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act. Trump signed the bill as part of the National Defence Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2020. The US has a 45-year long tradition of sanctioning and isolating Syria economically in response to the country’s support of Palestinian resistance The bill was unprecedented in both the way that it sanctioned broad sectors of the Syrian economy rather than only specific individuals, and in its deployment of so-called “secondary sanctions.” Secondary sanctions are imposed on parties that do business with a sanctioned entity even if those exchanges occur outside of the sanctioning entity’s jurisdiction. Syria’s economy has been in free fall ever since the Caesar sanctions came into effect. Today, over 12 million Syrians representing more than half of the total population face food insecurity — a 51% increase from 2019. Meanwhile, 90 percent of the population lives under the poverty line. In 2019, the US dollar exchanged for 500 Syrian Pounds. Today, that number is more like 14,100— figures that represent a 2,720 percent devaluation. The Syrian currency has devalued by 35,150% since the initial exchange rate of 40 SYP to 1 USD early 2011 Though H.R. 3202 appears to be focused on addressing UN aid divergence, and sanctioning previously unsanctioned entities like Asma Al Assad’s Syria Trust for Development and the Syrian Red Crescent, the real agenda of the bill is found deep within its 22-page text. With the Caesar Sanctions set to expire by the end of 2024, H.R. 3202 seeks to quietly extend the aggressive financial measures until 2032. The new bill’s main aim, which received very little attention, is the extension of the Caesar Act for 8 more years. Having passed the House with overwhelming enthusiasm, H.R. 3202’s sister bill in the Senate can only pass with Democratic support. It was introduced by Israeli lobby-funded Republican Idaho Sen. James Risch last September and has since been co-sponsored by arch-neoconservative Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. Because S. 2935 can only pass with Democratic sponsorship, the Anti-Syria Lobby chose Sen. Ben Cardin, the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and sponsor of the anti-Russia Magnitsky Act, as a crucial target for influence. After meeting with Sherrod Brown’s office, Cardin’s Research and Legislative Assistant, Christopher Barr, hosted us in the Senator’s office. There, Raed Saleh of the White Helmets complained to Barr that USAID had slashed funding for his organization from $12 million to $3 million in recent years. Next, it was time to discuss the true purpose of our visit: the passage of S. 2935. Barr appeared uneasy from the outset and even expressed displeasure about the bill, complaining, “What passed the House was kind of a lot… the list of targets is vast.” “Syria has already been so heavily sanctioned,” he added. In response, Ghanem revealed a critical piece of information about the forces driving the dirty war on Syria, explaining that the impetus to expand and extend Caesar did not come from the Anti-Syria Lobby itself, but someone on Capitol Hill. Ghanem explained that the Hill source actually contacted the American Coalition for Syria to alert them to the fact that Caesar was set to expire, lamenting the fact that its sunset would amount to a loss of “US leverage over the Syrian regime.” This line echoed the disturbing language of officials representing both the Biden and Trump administration alike. In 2019, neoconservative operative Dana Stroul declared that thanks to Caesar, Washington “holds a card on preventing reconstruction aid and technical expertise from going back,” to Syria. She lauded the fact that the U.S. could weaponize that “leverage” to keep Syria in “rubble.” Two years later, she would take up post as Deputy Secretary of Defense for the Middle East under Biden. Similarly, during an event at the neoconservative think tank, WINEP, the following year, the Special Envoy for Syria under Trump, Joel Rayburn, boasted that Caesar “lowers the bar” for evidence-based sanctions and allows for the broad targeting of any and all reconstruction projects in Syria. “We don’t have to prove, for example, that a company that’s going in to do a reconstruction project in the Damascus region is dealing directly with the Assad regime,” Rayburn explained. “We don’t have to have the evidence to prove that link,” he continued. “We just have to have the evidence that proves that a company or an individual is investing in […] the construction sector, the engineering sector, most of the aviation sector, the finance sector, energy sector, and so on.” These public confessions did not stop the Anti-Syria Lobby from lying to the faces of congressional staffers throughout their March 7 campaign. During a meeting with Sen. Mark Kelly’s office, Ghanem falsely stated that the Caesar Sanctions were “targeted,” “not sectoral,” and “not [an] embargo, nothing punishing to civilians.” Yet Alena Douhan, the UN Special Rapporteur on Sanctions who visited Syria to document the effects of Washington’s unilateral sanctions regime on Syria, disagrees. In her 19-page report she clearly states that the sanctions are both illegal and inhumane in the way they affect the average Syrian. Stabilization for me but not for thee The second legislative ask came in the form of a well rehearsed speech by Ghanem, Zayat, and others, outlining what US tax dollars do and don’t fund in Syria. US aid packages are typically divided into two categories: “humanitarian funding” earmarked for goods such as food, water, and basic medical supplies or “stabilization” funding designed to secure a country as it transitions out of a period of turmoil. Unlike humanitarian assistance, stabilization funding may be used to support major investment and infrastructure projects such as roads, schools, healthcare facilities, and government services. The US is the primary funder of humanitarian aid in both North East (NE) and NW Syria. However, while the US spends abundantly on stabilization needs in NE Syria, it spends $0 on the NW. That is because while Washington has long dreamed of establishing a secessionist Kurdish state in Syria’s Northeast, it neglected to send stabilization funds to the Northwest in order to avoid providing direct support to HTS, the Al Qaeda offshoot that governs the territory. The Anti-Syria Lobby was in Washington to change that. Leading the push for US funds to Al Qaeda-affiliated elements in Northwest Syria was Wa’el Alzayat, a Syrian expat who proudly served in Iraq’s Green Zone under George Bush’s State Department and more recently published a shocking Washington Post oped begging US officials not to “lift sanctions to help Syria earthquake victims.” In the office of Sen. Chris Van Hollen, Alzayat voiced his frustration with US hesitation in the Northwest. “Stop freaking out about the stuff going to terrorists,” he demanded, adding that “the Brits are doing it, the Turks are doing it, the Qataris are doing it.” We’re missing out on a golden opportunity here to stabilize the region and leverage it for a political settlement,” he pleaded. In other words, Alzayat was openly lobbying US officials to strengthen Al Qaeda’s position in Syria in order to leverage the terrorist group against the country’s government. Alzayat then weaponized his six-figure salary as head of Emgage to bully Van Hollen’s office into bowing before the anti-Syria Lobby, falsely claiming that his AIPAC-linked organization was “behind” the “Uncommitted” vote campaigns that damaged Biden’s primary performance in Michigan and Minnesota. Towards the end of the meeting, the regime change lobbyist cynically invoked Israel’s slaughter of 30,000 Palestinians in Gaza to make the case for Al Qaeda in Syria one last time. He argued that although “his community” is up in arms about the Biden administration’s funding and arming of the Gaza genocide, they would gladly flock back to the Democratic Party if the US funded roads and schools in Al Qaeda-controlled Idlib. “I need a good story for my voters,” Alzayat explained, noting the Muslim community’s disapproval of the Biden Administration’s policy in Gaza and Yemen. “You’re upset about all these disappointments,” he continued, play-acting a scenario in which he convinced a Muslim constituent to vote for Biden, again. “Guess what? They’re pumping 50 million into the school sector in the North [of Syria]!” Overtures Towards Israel The Israel-Palestine crisis loomed large throughout the ACS lobbying trip. Sen. Sherrod Brown’s secretary happened to be a hijabi Muslim woman sporting a pendant outlining the map of Palestine around her neck. As she greeted us, Farouk Belal, the head of the Syrian American Council, grumbled to Ghanem and me: “I hope she’s not with the resistance.” When I asked him to clarify what he meant as we exited the office, he explained that people aligned with the Palestinian cause in Washington “don’t like us.” Meanwhile, in Sen. Cardin’s office, Raed Salah of the White Helmets painted Israeli strikes on Syria which have crippled Syrian infrastructure, regularly damaged the country’s International civilian airports, and killed hundreds of Syrian Soldiers and civilians alike in a positive light: “The situation in Syria is very complicated. Every day we hear of Israeli strikes on the dens, or the bases of the IRGC and its militias. Even we as Syrians did not know the extent to which the Iranians were entrenched in the country…” For Saleh, the Israeli strikes do nothing but highlight the presence of the Syrian government-invited Iranian military presence in Syria. Later that day, Ghanem attempted to capitalize on Sen. Fetterman’s fanatical pro-Israel antics by describing recent developments in Syria to a 20-something staffer. Referring to the Syrian government’s successful campaign to retake southern territory, he explained that the South is “where they lob missiles on Israel, by the way.” The aide dutifully transcribed this seemingly random piece of information in her notepad. Towards the end of the meeting, Fetterman was discussed as a potential Democratic sponsor of S. 2935 in the Senate. In Senator Rick Scott’s office, a Cuban American Government Relations Associate for ACS, Alberto Hernandez, accidentally said the quiet part out loud. When Senator Scott’s ultra-Zionist National Security Advisor, Paul Bonicelli, asked if our group had connected with our “counterparts” in the Israeli lobby so that they could “vet” our proposals — revealing that Scott has apparently outsourced his brain to Zionists — Hernandez remarked: “Formally? No. Informally.” He then turned to the rest of the ACS team in the meeting room and said: “You didn’t hear me say that.” That admission prompted Bonicelli to suggest that ACS directly coordinate with groups such as the Aramaic Church in Israel, which has supported regime change efforts in Damascus despite overwhelming Christian support of the government within Syria itself. As the meeting wound to a close, Bonicelli informed us that he agreed with ACS on the necessity to oppose Iran and Russia. “If Obama had done the right thing in 2012, we wouldn’t be here,” he lamented, adding: “the Israelis want you guys in charge.” At one point during the meeting in Rick Scott’s Office, Alberto Hernandez, and Sarah Salas, a Cuban American legislative aide, expressed full agreement with US use of unilateral sanctions as means to “push” governments that “we don’t like.” Starving Syrians Without A Mandate Though several ACS volunteers shared painful personal encounters with the Syrian government throughout the day, many were simply too far removed from Syria to truly represent the voice of Syrian people, especially the 12 million plus civilians currently living in Syrian government-controlled territory. One 24-year-old woman who did not speak Arabic and has not been to Syria since 2003 described the Syrian Army’s 2016 liberation of Aleppo from Al Qaeda-linked militants as “the fall of Aleppo.” Other Syrians like myself experienced the terror of the West’s proxy war in Syria firsthand. In 2012, my aunt and cousins watched in horror as the Turkish-backed Liwa’ Al Tawhid, an umbrella group of takfiri jihadist militias, arrived on their street in the Seryan El Jdideh neighborhood of Aleppo. The militants proceeded to execute a local pick-up truck driver and steal his vehicle, leaving his bleeding corpse on the street. Shahba, where my family lived up until 2015, was located just a stone’s throw away from these sectarian death squads during our final months there. The Syrian dirty war was bloody and gruesome, yet the picture that ACS paints is entirely one-sided. Unfortunately, while organizations like ACS have flocked to the Beltway swamp throughout the last 13 years, there are no Syrians present in Washington DC to counter them. While these groups claim to speak on behalf of the Syrian people, those of us who have lived and still live in areas controlled by Syrian government — regardless of our political affiliations—are rendered voiceless in the very center of power where our perspective should matter most. Even Syria’s embassy has been shuttered since 2014, while Syrian diplomats at the UN in New York are heavily monitored and restricted from traveling beyond the NYC metro area. As I witnessed on Capitol Hill, there are few obstacles to the anti-Syria lobby’s ruthless push to prevent the majority of Syrians from emerging from the ruins of war. https://thegrayzone.com/2024/03/20/anti-syria-lobbys-capitol-hill-sanctions/
    THEGRAYZONE.COM
    Inside the anti-Syria lobby's Capitol Hill push for more starvation sanctions - The Grayzone
    A week from the 13th anniversary of the US-backed Syrian dirty war, the American Coalition for Syria held its annual day of advocacy in Washington DC. I went undercover into meetings with Senate policy advisors and witnessed the lobby’s cynical campaign to starve Syria into submission. On the morning of March 7, as the US Capitol teemed with lobbyists securing earmarks ahead of appropriations week and activists decrying the Gaza genocide, one special interest group on the Hill stood out. […]
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  • Israel’s Trojan Horse
    The “temporary pier” being built on the Mediterranean coast of Gaza is not there to alleviate the famine, but to herd Palestinians onto ships and into permanent exile.

    Chris Hedges

    Israel’s Trojan Horse - by Mr. Fish

    Piers allow things to come in. They allow things to go out. And Israel, which has no intention of halting its murderous siege of Gaza, including its policy of enforced starvation, appears to have found a solution to its problem of where to expel the 2.3 million Palestinians.

    If the Arab world will not take them, as Secretary of State Antony Blinken proposed during his first round of visits after Oct. 7, the Palestinians will be cast adrift on ships. It worked in Beirut in 1982 when some eight and a half thousand Palestine Liberation Organization members were sent by sea to Tunisia and another two and a half thousand ended up in other Arab states. Israel expects that the same forced deportation by sea will work in Gaza.

    Israel, for this reason, supports the “temporary pier” the Biden administration is building, to ostensibly deliver food and aid to Gaza – food and aid whose “distribution” will be overseen by the Israeli military.

    “You need drivers that don’t exist, trucks that don’t exist feeding into a distribution system that doesn’t exist,” Jeremy Konyndyk, a former senior aid official in the Biden administration, and now president of the Refugees International aid advocacy group told The Guardian.

    This “maritime corridor” is Israel’s Trojan Horse, a subterfuge to expel Palestinians. The small shipments of seaborne aid, like the food packets that have been air dropped, will not alleviate the looming famine. They are not meant to.

    Five Palestinians were killed and several others injured when a parachute carrying aid failed and crashed onto a crowd of people near Gaza City’s Shati refugee camp.

    “Dropping aid in this way is flashy propaganda rather than a humanitarian service,” the media office of the local government in Gaza said. “We previously warned it poses a threat to the lives of citizens in the Gaza Strip, and this is what happened today when the parcels fell on the citizens’ heads.”

    If the U.S. or Israel were serious about alleviating the humanitarian crisis, the thousands of trucks with food and aid currently at the southern border of Gaza would be allowed to enter any of its multiple crossings. They are not. The “temporary pier,” like the air drops, is ghoulish theater, a way to mask Washington’s complicity in the genocide.

    Israeli media reported the building of the pier was due to pressure by the United Arab Emirates, which threatened Israel with ending a land corridor trade route it administers in collusion with Saudi Arabia and Jordan, to bypass Yemen’s naval blockade.

    The Jerusalem Post reported it was Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who proposed the construction of the “temporary pier” to the Biden administration.

    Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who has called Palestinians “human animals” and advocated a total siege of Gaza, including cutting off electricity, food, water and fuel, lauded the plan, saying “it is designed to bring aid directly to the residents and thus continue the collapse of Hamas’s rule in Gaza.”

    “Why would Israel, the engineer of the Gaza famine, endorse the idea of establishing a maritime corridor for aid to address a crisis it initiated and is now worsening?” writes Tamara Nassar in an article titled “What’s the Real Purpose of Biden’s Gaza Port?” in The Electronic Intifada. “This might appear paradoxical if one were to assume that the primary aim of the maritime corridor is to deliver aid.”

    When Israel offers a gift to the Palestinians you can be sure it is a poison apple. That Israel got the Biden administration to construct the pier is one more example of the inverted relationship between Washington and Jerusalem, where the Israel lobby has bought off elected officials in the two ruling parties.

    Oxfam in a March 15 report accuses Israel of actively hindering aid operations in Gaza in defiance of the orders by the International Court of Justice. It notes that 1.7 million Palestinians, some 75 percent of the Gaza population, are facing famine and two-thirds of the hospitals and over 80 percent of all health clinics in Gaza are no longer operable. The majority of people, the report reads, “have no access to clean drinking water” and “sanitation services are not functioning.”

    The report reads:

    The conditions we have observed in Gaza are beyond catastrophic, and we have not only seen failure by Israeli authorities to meet their responsibility to facilitate and support international aid efforts, but in fact seen active steps being taken to hinder and undermine such aid efforts. Israel’s control of Gaza continues to be characterized by deliberate restrictive actions that have led to a severe and systemic dysfunctionality in the delivery of aid. Humanitarian organizations operational in Gaza are reporting a worsening situation since the International Court of Justice imposed provisional measures in light of the plausible risk of genocide, with intensified Israeli barriers, restrictions and attacks against humanitarian personnel. Israel has maintained a ‘convenient illusion of a response’ in Gaza to serve its claim that it is allowing aid in and conducting the war in line with international laws.

    Oxfam says Israel employs “a dysfunctional and undersized inspection system that keeps aid snarled up, subjected to onerous, repetitive and unpredictable bureaucratic procedures that are contributing to trucks being stranded in giant queues for 20 days on average.” Israel, Oxfam explains, rejects “items of aid as having ‘dual (military) use,’ banning vital fuel and generators entirely along with other items essential for a meaningful humanitarian response such as protective gear and communications kit.” Rejected aid, “must go through a complex ‘pre-approval’ system or end up being held in limbo at the Al Arish warehouse in Egypt.” Israel has also “cracked down on humanitarian missions, largely sealing off northern Gaza, and restricting international humanitarian workers’ access not only into Gaza, but Israel and the West Bank including East Jerusalem too.”

    Israel has allowed 15,413 trucks into Gaza during the past 157 days of war. Oxfam estimates that the population of Gaza needs five times that number. Israel allowed 2,874 trucks in February, a 44 percent reduction from the previous month. Before Oct. 7, 500 aid trucks entered Gaza daily.

    Israeli soldiers have also killed scores of Palestinians attempting to receive aid from trucks in more than two dozen incidents. These attacks include the killing of at least 21 Palestinians, and the wounding of 150, on March 14, when Israeli forces fired on thousands of people in Gaza City. The same area had been targeted by Israeli soldiers hours earlier.

    “Israel’s assault has caught Gaza’s own aid workers and international agencies’ partners inside a ‘practically uninhabitable’ environment of mass displacement and deprivation, where 75 percent of solid waste is now being dumped in random sites, 97 percent of groundwater made unfit for human use, and the Israeli state using starvation as a weapon of war,” Oxfam says.

    There is no place in Gaza, Oxfam notes, that is safe “amid the forcible and often multiple displacements of almost the entire population, which makes the principled distribution of aid unviable, including agencies' ability to help repair vital public services at scale.”

    Oxfam blasts Israel for its “disproportionate” and “indiscriminate” attacks on “civilian and humanitarian assets” as well as “solar, water, power and sanitation plants, UN premises, hospitals, roads, and aid convoys and warehouses, even when these assets are supposedly ‘deconflicted’ after their coordinates have been shared for protection.”

    The health ministry in Gaza said Monday that at least 31,726 people have been killed since the Israeli assault began five months ago. The death toll includes at least 81 deaths in the previous 24 hours, a ministry statement said, adding that 73,792 people have been wounded in Gaza since Oct. 7. Thousands more are missing, many buried under the rubble.

    None of these Israeli tactics will be altered with the building of a “temporary pier.” In fact, given the pending ground assault on Rafah, where 1.2 million displaced Palestinians are crowded in tent cities or camped out in the open air, Israel’s tactics will only get worse.

    Israel, by design, is creating a humanitarian crisis of such catastrophic proportions, with thousands of Palestinians killed by bombs, shells, missiles, bullets, starvation and infectious diseases, that the only option will be death or deportation. The pier is where the last act in this gruesome genocidal campaign will be played out as Palestinians are herded by Israeli soldiers onto ships.

    How appropriate that the Biden administration, without whom this genocide could not be carried out, will facilitate it.

    Share


    https://open.substack.com/pub/chrishedges/p/israels-trojan-horse
    Israel’s Trojan Horse The “temporary pier” being built on the Mediterranean coast of Gaza is not there to alleviate the famine, but to herd Palestinians onto ships and into permanent exile. Chris Hedges Israel’s Trojan Horse - by Mr. Fish Piers allow things to come in. They allow things to go out. And Israel, which has no intention of halting its murderous siege of Gaza, including its policy of enforced starvation, appears to have found a solution to its problem of where to expel the 2.3 million Palestinians. If the Arab world will not take them, as Secretary of State Antony Blinken proposed during his first round of visits after Oct. 7, the Palestinians will be cast adrift on ships. It worked in Beirut in 1982 when some eight and a half thousand Palestine Liberation Organization members were sent by sea to Tunisia and another two and a half thousand ended up in other Arab states. Israel expects that the same forced deportation by sea will work in Gaza. Israel, for this reason, supports the “temporary pier” the Biden administration is building, to ostensibly deliver food and aid to Gaza – food and aid whose “distribution” will be overseen by the Israeli military. “You need drivers that don’t exist, trucks that don’t exist feeding into a distribution system that doesn’t exist,” Jeremy Konyndyk, a former senior aid official in the Biden administration, and now president of the Refugees International aid advocacy group told The Guardian. This “maritime corridor” is Israel’s Trojan Horse, a subterfuge to expel Palestinians. The small shipments of seaborne aid, like the food packets that have been air dropped, will not alleviate the looming famine. They are not meant to. Five Palestinians were killed and several others injured when a parachute carrying aid failed and crashed onto a crowd of people near Gaza City’s Shati refugee camp. “Dropping aid in this way is flashy propaganda rather than a humanitarian service,” the media office of the local government in Gaza said. “We previously warned it poses a threat to the lives of citizens in the Gaza Strip, and this is what happened today when the parcels fell on the citizens’ heads.” If the U.S. or Israel were serious about alleviating the humanitarian crisis, the thousands of trucks with food and aid currently at the southern border of Gaza would be allowed to enter any of its multiple crossings. They are not. The “temporary pier,” like the air drops, is ghoulish theater, a way to mask Washington’s complicity in the genocide. Israeli media reported the building of the pier was due to pressure by the United Arab Emirates, which threatened Israel with ending a land corridor trade route it administers in collusion with Saudi Arabia and Jordan, to bypass Yemen’s naval blockade. The Jerusalem Post reported it was Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who proposed the construction of the “temporary pier” to the Biden administration. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who has called Palestinians “human animals” and advocated a total siege of Gaza, including cutting off electricity, food, water and fuel, lauded the plan, saying “it is designed to bring aid directly to the residents and thus continue the collapse of Hamas’s rule in Gaza.” “Why would Israel, the engineer of the Gaza famine, endorse the idea of establishing a maritime corridor for aid to address a crisis it initiated and is now worsening?” writes Tamara Nassar in an article titled “What’s the Real Purpose of Biden’s Gaza Port?” in The Electronic Intifada. “This might appear paradoxical if one were to assume that the primary aim of the maritime corridor is to deliver aid.” When Israel offers a gift to the Palestinians you can be sure it is a poison apple. That Israel got the Biden administration to construct the pier is one more example of the inverted relationship between Washington and Jerusalem, where the Israel lobby has bought off elected officials in the two ruling parties. Oxfam in a March 15 report accuses Israel of actively hindering aid operations in Gaza in defiance of the orders by the International Court of Justice. It notes that 1.7 million Palestinians, some 75 percent of the Gaza population, are facing famine and two-thirds of the hospitals and over 80 percent of all health clinics in Gaza are no longer operable. The majority of people, the report reads, “have no access to clean drinking water” and “sanitation services are not functioning.” The report reads: The conditions we have observed in Gaza are beyond catastrophic, and we have not only seen failure by Israeli authorities to meet their responsibility to facilitate and support international aid efforts, but in fact seen active steps being taken to hinder and undermine such aid efforts. Israel’s control of Gaza continues to be characterized by deliberate restrictive actions that have led to a severe and systemic dysfunctionality in the delivery of aid. Humanitarian organizations operational in Gaza are reporting a worsening situation since the International Court of Justice imposed provisional measures in light of the plausible risk of genocide, with intensified Israeli barriers, restrictions and attacks against humanitarian personnel. Israel has maintained a ‘convenient illusion of a response’ in Gaza to serve its claim that it is allowing aid in and conducting the war in line with international laws. Oxfam says Israel employs “a dysfunctional and undersized inspection system that keeps aid snarled up, subjected to onerous, repetitive and unpredictable bureaucratic procedures that are contributing to trucks being stranded in giant queues for 20 days on average.” Israel, Oxfam explains, rejects “items of aid as having ‘dual (military) use,’ banning vital fuel and generators entirely along with other items essential for a meaningful humanitarian response such as protective gear and communications kit.” Rejected aid, “must go through a complex ‘pre-approval’ system or end up being held in limbo at the Al Arish warehouse in Egypt.” Israel has also “cracked down on humanitarian missions, largely sealing off northern Gaza, and restricting international humanitarian workers’ access not only into Gaza, but Israel and the West Bank including East Jerusalem too.” Israel has allowed 15,413 trucks into Gaza during the past 157 days of war. Oxfam estimates that the population of Gaza needs five times that number. Israel allowed 2,874 trucks in February, a 44 percent reduction from the previous month. Before Oct. 7, 500 aid trucks entered Gaza daily. Israeli soldiers have also killed scores of Palestinians attempting to receive aid from trucks in more than two dozen incidents. These attacks include the killing of at least 21 Palestinians, and the wounding of 150, on March 14, when Israeli forces fired on thousands of people in Gaza City. The same area had been targeted by Israeli soldiers hours earlier. “Israel’s assault has caught Gaza’s own aid workers and international agencies’ partners inside a ‘practically uninhabitable’ environment of mass displacement and deprivation, where 75 percent of solid waste is now being dumped in random sites, 97 percent of groundwater made unfit for human use, and the Israeli state using starvation as a weapon of war,” Oxfam says. There is no place in Gaza, Oxfam notes, that is safe “amid the forcible and often multiple displacements of almost the entire population, which makes the principled distribution of aid unviable, including agencies' ability to help repair vital public services at scale.” Oxfam blasts Israel for its “disproportionate” and “indiscriminate” attacks on “civilian and humanitarian assets” as well as “solar, water, power and sanitation plants, UN premises, hospitals, roads, and aid convoys and warehouses, even when these assets are supposedly ‘deconflicted’ after their coordinates have been shared for protection.” The health ministry in Gaza said Monday that at least 31,726 people have been killed since the Israeli assault began five months ago. The death toll includes at least 81 deaths in the previous 24 hours, a ministry statement said, adding that 73,792 people have been wounded in Gaza since Oct. 7. Thousands more are missing, many buried under the rubble. None of these Israeli tactics will be altered with the building of a “temporary pier.” In fact, given the pending ground assault on Rafah, where 1.2 million displaced Palestinians are crowded in tent cities or camped out in the open air, Israel’s tactics will only get worse. Israel, by design, is creating a humanitarian crisis of such catastrophic proportions, with thousands of Palestinians killed by bombs, shells, missiles, bullets, starvation and infectious diseases, that the only option will be death or deportation. The pier is where the last act in this gruesome genocidal campaign will be played out as Palestinians are herded by Israeli soldiers onto ships. How appropriate that the Biden administration, without whom this genocide could not be carried out, will facilitate it. Share https://open.substack.com/pub/chrishedges/p/israels-trojan-horse
    OPEN.SUBSTACK.COM
    Israel’s Trojan Horse
    The “temporary pier” being built on the Mediterranean coast of Gaza is not there to alleviate the famine, but to herd Palestinians onto ships and into permanent exile.
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  • Why Are Arab Regimes So Impotent in the Face of Zionist Barbarism?
    Kevin Barrett, Senior EditorMarch 9, 2024
    VT Condemns the ETHNIC CLEANSING OF PALESTINIANS by USA/Israel

    $ 280 BILLION US TAXPAYER DOLLARS INVESTED since 1948 in US/Israeli Ethnic Cleansing and Occupation Operation; $ 150B direct "aid" and $ 130B in "Offense" contracts
    Source: Embassy of Israel, Washington, D.C. and US Department of State.

    By Kevin Barrett, for Crescent international

    As I write this in late February 2024 CE (mid-Sha‘ban 1445 Hijri) the official number of Palestinians murdered by zionist aggression in the al-Aqsa Storm war has risen to nearly 30,000. The real number is considerably higher, since many victims are still buried beneath layers of rubble. Nearly 70,000 have been injured. Most of those killed and maimed have been women and children.

    The martyrs dispatched quickly to paradise are luckier than the survivors, who are forced to endure almost unimaginable horrors. The zionists have blockaded food in a deliberate attempt to slowly starve Gazans to death. Social media videos abound showing crying mothers unable to find so much as a crumb for their famished children. Surviving families, many of whom have lost loved ones, lack housing, heat, and warm clothing in the midst of the cold, rainy winter.

    The demonic zionists have deliberately bombed water, sewage, electrical, fuel, and health care infrastructure. They have destroyed the majority of Gaza’s housing, in an effort to mass-murder Gazans and expel the survivors. The destruction of Palestinian homes and life support has forced 1.4 million people to take shelter in Rafah on the Egyptian border. Now the zionists are intensifying their bombing of Rafah in the latest episode of their “final solution to the Palestinian problem.”

    On January 26, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) agreed with South Africa’s contention that there is probable cause to believe that Israel is committing genocide (see also here). Any nation on earth could invoke the made-in-USA “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P) doctrine and use military force in an effort to stop the #GazaHolocaust. The very first nations that might be expected to act are those that share Palestine’s Arabic language and culture. And yet only two relatively small and weak Arab nations have tried: Lebanon and Yemen. The larger, richer, and more powerful states, beginning with Saudi Arabia and Egypt, have been missing in action.

    What explains this bizarre situation, in which the weak show courage while the strong reek of abject cowardice? Let’s begin with the cowardice. Egypt has basically been a zionist colony ever since the traitor Anwar Sadat “abnormalized” with Israel in 1979. Since then, the Egyptian military has been awash in American funding, with nearly $100 billion in bribes convincing junta leaders to continue betraying their Palestinian brothers and sisters.

    Today, Egyptian dictator Abdel Fattah el-Sisi finds himself in a tight spot, as Israel pushes him to endorse genocide and open the border to Palestinian refugees, which would enable the complete erasure of the people of Gaza. To his credit, el-Sisi has thus far refused, saying that any expulsion of Palestinians to Egypt would cause Cairo to break off relations and return to an anti-Israel war footing. But ominously, Egypt is building a gigantic human cattle pen on the Gaza border, “just in case” or so el-Sisi says.

    Saudi Arabia, historically a source of both lip service and a degree of real support for Palestine, has gradually followed Egypt’s path of abject surrender. The current de facto ruler, Mohammad Bin Salman, implicitly endorsed zionist claims to al-Quds (Jerusalem) by acquiescing to Donald Trump’s “Abraham Accords” fiasco, setting the stage for the current catastrophe. Today, the Saudis are trying to make amends for that mistake by insisting on “no normalization without a Palestinian state with pre-1967 borders” and strengthening the Kingdom’s peace deal with Yemen’s Ansarullah movement, even in the face of US pressure to join Washington’s anti-Yemen “Operation Prosperity Guardian,” better known as “Operation Genocide Guardian.”

    It is ironic that Saudi Arabia is tacitly (though not actively) supporting Ansarullah’s blockade of Israeli-bound shipping. After all, it was the Saudis themselves who originally dragged the US into their war on Ansarullah in 2015. Now the tables are turned, and the Americans are trying to drag the Saudis into an anti-Yemen war, so far without success.

    Saudi Arabia has a nearly two-trillion-dollar adjusted GDP, while Yemen’s is a mere $0.2 trillion. By that measure, Yemen’s economy is one-hundredth the size of the Saudi economy. But despite its apparent weakness, Yemen was not only able to defeat the Saudis and their western backers in a nine-year war, but is now taking military action to try to stop the genocide of Gaza.

    Lebanon, too, boasts a mere $0.2 trillion GDP, one percent of Saudi Arabia’s and one-twentieth the size of Egypt’s. But like Yemen, Lebanon has distinguished itself by taking military action in support of Palestine. Throughout Israel’s genocide of Gaza, the Lebanese resistance group Hizbullah, the de facto main branch of the Lebanese military, has been pounding the zionists nonstop, puncturing Israel’s “Iron dome,” forcing 200,000 zionist settlers to flee the northern strip of Occupied Palestine, and diverting Israel’s forces from the Gaza genocide campaign.

    So why are mice like Yemen and Lebanon roaring, while lions like Saudi Arabia and Egypt whimper? There are two categorically different kinds of answers: political (dunyawi) and theological-spiritual (rouhani).

    Politically, most leaders feel constrained by circumstance; their choices are dictated by the limits of the possible. Caught between a proverbial rock (zionist power) and a hard place (their own people’s support for Palestine) they try to walk a fine line, careful not to anger the zionists too much lest they become targets, while offering sufficient lip service to the Palestinian cause to at least minimally placate their subjects.

    That balancing act has become more difficult since October 7. Any Arab leader who takes active steps to support Palestine will be painting a target on his back—and the stronger the steps, the bigger the target. Yet any Arab leader who is seen as complicit in the genocide risks being overthrown by his own people.

    The leaders of Hizbullah and Ansarullah already have zio-American targets painted on their backs. They have less to lose, are principled rather than merely pragmatic, and therefore are free to seek Allah’s good pleasure doing the right thing: actively resisting the zionist genocide of Gaza. Whereas leaders like Bin Salman and el-Sisi, presiding over states whose economies and militaries are intertwined with American and hence zionist money and power, would have to take huge risks in order to return their countries to forthrightly anti-zionist positions. And even if they did, and survived, there is no guarantee that, given the current balance of power, they would have much of a chance of succeeding in saving Gazans, much less fully defeating the zionist genocidaires.

    So, from a worldly political viewpoint, the situation is bleak. Arab leaders are simply acting within constraints imposed by the power of circumstance.

    But how did they, and their regimes, arrive in such circumstances? By way of a long process of cultural decline. Whole peoples, led by their elites, have repeatedly chosen expediency over ethics, laziness over diligence, egotism over islam (submission of the self to God).

    According to well-known ahadith, one of the signs of Yawm al-Qiyyama is that “the lowest and the worst man in the nation will become its leader.” The world may not quite have reached that point yet, but it isn’t far off. Today, leaders who represent the best of their nation, like those of Hizbullah and Ansarullah, are the exceptions. Most leaders are neither pious nor courageous nor brilliant. When an uncommonly good leader arises, like Imran Khan in Pakistan, he risks being assassinated or imprisoned.

    So, the deeper reason the Arab nation is so helpless today is that it, like much of the rest of the world, has declined in spiritual quality, allowing itself to be divided and conquered by the forces of evil. The mediocre-at-best leaders that predominate in today’s Arab lands, like the shattered and corrupted societies they preside over, are simply not a match for demonic energy of the zionist shayateen.

    But the seeds of better leadership, planted in places like Yemen and Lebanon and Iran and (insha’Allah) Pakistan, are beginning to sprout. As the secular-materialist west declines, and Zio-American power with it, the circumstances constraining Arab leadership will change, and the possibility of good leadership reviving united Arab and Islamic lands (rather like Putin’s leadership reviving Russia) will become manifest.

    Whatever worldly conquests the zionist dajjal acquires will be only temporary, and will bring the Occupation demons no real happiness nor any respite from their self-inflicted torment of hatred, greed, and cruelty. In the end, it will be seen that they were only digging their own graves—all the way to hell. For as the Qur’an tells us, “They plot and Allah plans; and Allah is the best of planners.” (Surat al-Anfal, 30).



    Dr. Kevin Barrett, a Ph.D. Arabist-Islamologist is one of America’s best-known critics of the War on Terror.

    He is the host of TRUTH JIHAD RADIO; a hard-driving weekly radio show funded by listener subscriptions at Substack and the weekly news roundup FALSE FLAG WEEKLY NEWS (FFWN).

    He also has appeared many times on Fox, CNN, PBS, and other broadcast outlets, and has inspired feature stories and op-eds in the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, the Chicago Tribune, and other leading publications.

    Dr. Barrett has taught at colleges and universities in San Francisco, Paris, and Wisconsin; where he ran for Congress in 2008. He currently works as a nonprofit organizer, author, and talk radio host.

    Archived Articles (2004-2016)

    www.truthjihad.com

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    https://www.vtforeignpolicy.com/2024/03/why-are-arab-regimes-so-impotent-in-the-face-of-zionist-barbarism/


    https://telegra.ph/Why-Are-Arab-Regimes-So-Impotent-in-the-Face-of-Zionist-Barbarism-03-09
    Why Are Arab Regimes So Impotent in the Face of Zionist Barbarism? Kevin Barrett, Senior EditorMarch 9, 2024 VT Condemns the ETHNIC CLEANSING OF PALESTINIANS by USA/Israel $ 280 BILLION US TAXPAYER DOLLARS INVESTED since 1948 in US/Israeli Ethnic Cleansing and Occupation Operation; $ 150B direct "aid" and $ 130B in "Offense" contracts Source: Embassy of Israel, Washington, D.C. and US Department of State. By Kevin Barrett, for Crescent international As I write this in late February 2024 CE (mid-Sha‘ban 1445 Hijri) the official number of Palestinians murdered by zionist aggression in the al-Aqsa Storm war has risen to nearly 30,000. The real number is considerably higher, since many victims are still buried beneath layers of rubble. Nearly 70,000 have been injured. Most of those killed and maimed have been women and children. The martyrs dispatched quickly to paradise are luckier than the survivors, who are forced to endure almost unimaginable horrors. The zionists have blockaded food in a deliberate attempt to slowly starve Gazans to death. Social media videos abound showing crying mothers unable to find so much as a crumb for their famished children. Surviving families, many of whom have lost loved ones, lack housing, heat, and warm clothing in the midst of the cold, rainy winter. The demonic zionists have deliberately bombed water, sewage, electrical, fuel, and health care infrastructure. They have destroyed the majority of Gaza’s housing, in an effort to mass-murder Gazans and expel the survivors. The destruction of Palestinian homes and life support has forced 1.4 million people to take shelter in Rafah on the Egyptian border. Now the zionists are intensifying their bombing of Rafah in the latest episode of their “final solution to the Palestinian problem.” On January 26, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) agreed with South Africa’s contention that there is probable cause to believe that Israel is committing genocide (see also here). Any nation on earth could invoke the made-in-USA “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P) doctrine and use military force in an effort to stop the #GazaHolocaust. The very first nations that might be expected to act are those that share Palestine’s Arabic language and culture. And yet only two relatively small and weak Arab nations have tried: Lebanon and Yemen. The larger, richer, and more powerful states, beginning with Saudi Arabia and Egypt, have been missing in action. What explains this bizarre situation, in which the weak show courage while the strong reek of abject cowardice? Let’s begin with the cowardice. Egypt has basically been a zionist colony ever since the traitor Anwar Sadat “abnormalized” with Israel in 1979. Since then, the Egyptian military has been awash in American funding, with nearly $100 billion in bribes convincing junta leaders to continue betraying their Palestinian brothers and sisters. Today, Egyptian dictator Abdel Fattah el-Sisi finds himself in a tight spot, as Israel pushes him to endorse genocide and open the border to Palestinian refugees, which would enable the complete erasure of the people of Gaza. To his credit, el-Sisi has thus far refused, saying that any expulsion of Palestinians to Egypt would cause Cairo to break off relations and return to an anti-Israel war footing. But ominously, Egypt is building a gigantic human cattle pen on the Gaza border, “just in case” or so el-Sisi says. Saudi Arabia, historically a source of both lip service and a degree of real support for Palestine, has gradually followed Egypt’s path of abject surrender. The current de facto ruler, Mohammad Bin Salman, implicitly endorsed zionist claims to al-Quds (Jerusalem) by acquiescing to Donald Trump’s “Abraham Accords” fiasco, setting the stage for the current catastrophe. Today, the Saudis are trying to make amends for that mistake by insisting on “no normalization without a Palestinian state with pre-1967 borders” and strengthening the Kingdom’s peace deal with Yemen’s Ansarullah movement, even in the face of US pressure to join Washington’s anti-Yemen “Operation Prosperity Guardian,” better known as “Operation Genocide Guardian.” It is ironic that Saudi Arabia is tacitly (though not actively) supporting Ansarullah’s blockade of Israeli-bound shipping. After all, it was the Saudis themselves who originally dragged the US into their war on Ansarullah in 2015. Now the tables are turned, and the Americans are trying to drag the Saudis into an anti-Yemen war, so far without success. Saudi Arabia has a nearly two-trillion-dollar adjusted GDP, while Yemen’s is a mere $0.2 trillion. By that measure, Yemen’s economy is one-hundredth the size of the Saudi economy. But despite its apparent weakness, Yemen was not only able to defeat the Saudis and their western backers in a nine-year war, but is now taking military action to try to stop the genocide of Gaza. Lebanon, too, boasts a mere $0.2 trillion GDP, one percent of Saudi Arabia’s and one-twentieth the size of Egypt’s. But like Yemen, Lebanon has distinguished itself by taking military action in support of Palestine. Throughout Israel’s genocide of Gaza, the Lebanese resistance group Hizbullah, the de facto main branch of the Lebanese military, has been pounding the zionists nonstop, puncturing Israel’s “Iron dome,” forcing 200,000 zionist settlers to flee the northern strip of Occupied Palestine, and diverting Israel’s forces from the Gaza genocide campaign. So why are mice like Yemen and Lebanon roaring, while lions like Saudi Arabia and Egypt whimper? There are two categorically different kinds of answers: political (dunyawi) and theological-spiritual (rouhani). Politically, most leaders feel constrained by circumstance; their choices are dictated by the limits of the possible. Caught between a proverbial rock (zionist power) and a hard place (their own people’s support for Palestine) they try to walk a fine line, careful not to anger the zionists too much lest they become targets, while offering sufficient lip service to the Palestinian cause to at least minimally placate their subjects. That balancing act has become more difficult since October 7. Any Arab leader who takes active steps to support Palestine will be painting a target on his back—and the stronger the steps, the bigger the target. Yet any Arab leader who is seen as complicit in the genocide risks being overthrown by his own people. The leaders of Hizbullah and Ansarullah already have zio-American targets painted on their backs. They have less to lose, are principled rather than merely pragmatic, and therefore are free to seek Allah’s good pleasure doing the right thing: actively resisting the zionist genocide of Gaza. Whereas leaders like Bin Salman and el-Sisi, presiding over states whose economies and militaries are intertwined with American and hence zionist money and power, would have to take huge risks in order to return their countries to forthrightly anti-zionist positions. And even if they did, and survived, there is no guarantee that, given the current balance of power, they would have much of a chance of succeeding in saving Gazans, much less fully defeating the zionist genocidaires. So, from a worldly political viewpoint, the situation is bleak. Arab leaders are simply acting within constraints imposed by the power of circumstance. But how did they, and their regimes, arrive in such circumstances? By way of a long process of cultural decline. Whole peoples, led by their elites, have repeatedly chosen expediency over ethics, laziness over diligence, egotism over islam (submission of the self to God). According to well-known ahadith, one of the signs of Yawm al-Qiyyama is that “the lowest and the worst man in the nation will become its leader.” The world may not quite have reached that point yet, but it isn’t far off. Today, leaders who represent the best of their nation, like those of Hizbullah and Ansarullah, are the exceptions. Most leaders are neither pious nor courageous nor brilliant. When an uncommonly good leader arises, like Imran Khan in Pakistan, he risks being assassinated or imprisoned. So, the deeper reason the Arab nation is so helpless today is that it, like much of the rest of the world, has declined in spiritual quality, allowing itself to be divided and conquered by the forces of evil. The mediocre-at-best leaders that predominate in today’s Arab lands, like the shattered and corrupted societies they preside over, are simply not a match for demonic energy of the zionist shayateen. But the seeds of better leadership, planted in places like Yemen and Lebanon and Iran and (insha’Allah) Pakistan, are beginning to sprout. As the secular-materialist west declines, and Zio-American power with it, the circumstances constraining Arab leadership will change, and the possibility of good leadership reviving united Arab and Islamic lands (rather like Putin’s leadership reviving Russia) will become manifest. Whatever worldly conquests the zionist dajjal acquires will be only temporary, and will bring the Occupation demons no real happiness nor any respite from their self-inflicted torment of hatred, greed, and cruelty. In the end, it will be seen that they were only digging their own graves—all the way to hell. For as the Qur’an tells us, “They plot and Allah plans; and Allah is the best of planners.” (Surat al-Anfal, 30). Dr. Kevin Barrett, a Ph.D. Arabist-Islamologist is one of America’s best-known critics of the War on Terror. He is the host of TRUTH JIHAD RADIO; a hard-driving weekly radio show funded by listener subscriptions at Substack and the weekly news roundup FALSE FLAG WEEKLY NEWS (FFWN). He also has appeared many times on Fox, CNN, PBS, and other broadcast outlets, and has inspired feature stories and op-eds in the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, the Chicago Tribune, and other leading publications. Dr. Barrett has taught at colleges and universities in San Francisco, Paris, and Wisconsin; where he ran for Congress in 2008. He currently works as a nonprofit organizer, author, and talk radio host. Archived Articles (2004-2016) www.truthjihad.com ATTENTION READERS We See The World From All Sides and Want YOU To Be Fully Informed In fact, intentional disinformation is a disgraceful scourge in media today. So to assuage any possible errant incorrect information posted herein, we strongly encourage you to seek corroboration from other non-VT sources before forming an educated opinion. About VT - Policies & Disclosures - Comment Policy Due to the nature of uncensored content posted by VT's fully independent international writers, VT cannot guarantee absolute validity. All content is owned by the author exclusively. Expressed opinions are NOT necessarily the views of VT, other authors, affiliates, advertisers, sponsors, partners, or technicians. Some content may be satirical in nature. All images are the full responsibility of the article author and NOT VT. https://www.vtforeignpolicy.com/2024/03/why-are-arab-regimes-so-impotent-in-the-face-of-zionist-barbarism/ https://telegra.ph/Why-Are-Arab-Regimes-So-Impotent-in-the-Face-of-Zionist-Barbarism-03-09
    WWW.VTFOREIGNPOLICY.COM
    Why Are Arab Regimes So Impotent in the Face of Zionist Barbarism?
    So why are mice like Yemen and Lebanon roaring, while lions like Saudi Arabia and Egypt whimper?
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  • BIDEN ADMIN DEPLOYED AIR FORCE TEAM TO ISRAEL TO ASSIST WITH TARGETS, DOCUMENT SUGGESTS


    Biden Admin Deployed Air Force Team to Israel to Assist With Targets, Document Suggests
    Ken Klippenstein, Matthew Petti
    January 11 2024, 3:33 p.m.
    A picture taken from Rafah shows smoke billowing over Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip during Israeli bombardment on January 11, 2024, amid ongoing battles between Israel and Palestinian Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip. (Photo by AFP) (Photo by -/AFP via Getty Images)
    Targeting intelligence — the information used to conduct airstrikes and fire long-range artillery weapons — has played a central role in Israel’s siege of Gaza. A document obtained through the Freedom of Information Act suggests that the U.S. Air Force sent officers specializing in this exact form of intelligence to Israel in late November.

    Since the start of Israel’s bombardment in retaliation for Hamas’s strike on October 7, Israel has dropped more than 29,000 bombs on the tiny Gaza Strip, according to a U.S. intelligence report last month. And for the first time in U.S. history, the Biden administration has been flying surveillance drone missions over Gaza since at least early November, ostensibly for hostage recovery by special forces. At the time the drones were revealed, U.S. Gen. Pat Ryder insisted that the special operations forces deployed to Israel to advise on hostage rescue were “not participating in [Israel Defense Forces] target development.”

    “I’ve directed my team to share intelligence and deploy additional experts from across the United States government to consult with and advise the Israeli counterparts on hostage recovery efforts,” said President Joe Biden three days after the Hamas attack.

    But several weeks later, on November 21, the U.S. Air Force issued deployment guidelines for officers, including intelligence engagement officers, headed to Israel. Experts say that a team of targeting officers like this would be used to provide satellite intelligence to the Israelis for the purpose of offensive targeting.

    “They’re probably targeting people, targeting officers,” Lawrence Cline, who served as an intelligence engagement officer in Iraq before retirement, told The Intercept. Targeting intelligence refers to the identification and characterization of enemy activities including missile and artillery launches, location of leadership and command and control centers, and key facilities. “What I can see is we’ve got a lot of global assets in terms of satellites and the like and the Israelis have a lot in terms of more localized radar coverage.”

    The deployment guidelines were issued by the Pentagon’s Air Force component command for the Middle East, Air Forces Central, on November 21. The document provides deployment instructions to air personnel sent to the country, including an “Air Defense Liaison Team” as well as “airmen assigned as the Intelligence Engagement Officer (IEO).”

    Intelligence engagement officers, Cline explained, coordinate intelligence between the U.S. and partner militaries. When deployed in Iraq, Cline, who now works as an instructor for the Defense Department Counterterrorism Fellowship Program, recalled that he and other IEOs comprised a small team who spent “probably three quarters of our time working with the Iraqis, the other quarter checking in with headquarters,” adding that “it was sort of half and half a liaison and advising.”

    Asked about the airmen’s mission, the Defense Intelligence Agency referred questions to the Air Forces Central, which did not respond to a request for comment. Neither the Office of the Secretary of Defense nor Central Command responded to requests for comment.

    Most Read

    The intelligence engagement process provides a low-profile mechanism through which the U.S. can coordinate with the Israeli military, a valuable tool amid the political sensitivity of the conflict.

    A U.S. Army primer defines intelligence engagement as a “powerful” tool that is useful “especially when U.S. policy might restrict our interaction,” as it “often does not require large budgets or footprints.” Experts say that may be the case here.

    Tyler McBrien, managing editor of Lawfare, a website specializing in national security law, said that there seems to be an “Israel exception” to the U.S. rules around military assistance.

    Past presidents have issued several executive orders banning the U.S. government from carrying out or sponsoring assassinations abroad. This ban has been interpreted to include wartime targeting of civilians, according to a recent Foreign Affairs article by Brian Finucane, a former legal adviser for the State Department who now works for Crisis Group.

    And the so-called Leahy law, a set of budget amendments named for Sen. Patrick Leahy, requires the U.S. government to vet foreign military units for “gross violations of human rights” when providing training or aid to those units. Several progressive members of Congress have raised concerns that U.S. aid to Israel — both before and during the present war — violates that requirement.

    “For air advisory missions, which I imagine involve intelligence sharing and training, specific domestic legal restrictions such as the Leahy law and the assassination ban would likely come into play,” McBrien said. But the Leahy vetting process is “reversed” for Israel; rather than vetting Israeli military units beforehand, the U.S. State Department sends aid and then waits for reports of violations, according to a recent article by Josh Paul, who resigned from his post as a State Department political-military officer over his concerns with U.S. support for Israel.

    “As a general matter, U.S. officials who are providing support to another country during armed conflict would want to make sure they are not aiding and abetting war crimes,” Finucane told The Intercept. He emphasized that the same principle applies to weapons transfers and intelligence sharing.

    The Israeli military intentionally strikes Palestinian civilian infrastructure, known as “power targets,” in order to “create a shock,” according to an investigation by the Israeli news website +972 Magazine. Targets are generated using an artificial intelligence system known as “Habsora,” Hebrew for “gospel.”

    “Nothing happens by accident,” an Israeli military intelligence source told +972 Magazine. “When a 3-year-old girl is killed in a home in Gaza, it’s because someone in the army decided it wasn’t a big deal for her to be killed — that it was a price worth paying in order to hit [another] target. We are not Hamas. These are not random rockets. Everything is intentional. We know exactly how much collateral damage there is in every home.”

    The Biden administration has gone to great lengths to conceal the nature of its support for the Israeli military. The Pentagon quietly tapped a so-called Tiger Team to facilitate weapons assistance to Israel, as The Intercept has previously reported. The administration has also declined to reveal which weapons systems it’s providing Israel and at which quantities, insisting that the secrecy is necessary for security reasons.

    “We’re being careful not to quantify or get into too much detail about what they’re getting — for their own operational security purposes, of course,” White House spokesperson John Kirby told reporters during a press briefing in October.

    This contrasts with its support for Ukraine, about which it has been far more transparent. The administration has provided an itemized list of its weapons assistance to Ukraine, a country facing at least as much of a threat amid the invasion of Russia. The White House has never addressed the incongruity. Past administrations have also provided detailed public information about U.S. targeting support for the Saudi and Emirati military campaigns in Yemen, which U.S. officials claim was meant to reduce civilian casualties.

    The secrecy “may reflect the fact that the U.S. has interests that are in tension, the Biden administration has interests that are in tension,” Finucane said. “On the one hand, they want to publicly embrace Israel and support Israel, providing what seems to be unconditional support. On the other hand, they don’t want to be perceived as taking the country into another war in the Middle East.”

    https://theintercept.com/2024/01/11/israel-air-force-targeting-intelligence/
    BIDEN ADMIN DEPLOYED AIR FORCE TEAM TO ISRAEL TO ASSIST WITH TARGETS, DOCUMENT SUGGESTS Biden Admin Deployed Air Force Team to Israel to Assist With Targets, Document Suggests Ken Klippenstein, Matthew Petti January 11 2024, 3:33 p.m. A picture taken from Rafah shows smoke billowing over Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip during Israeli bombardment on January 11, 2024, amid ongoing battles between Israel and Palestinian Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip. (Photo by AFP) (Photo by -/AFP via Getty Images) Targeting intelligence — the information used to conduct airstrikes and fire long-range artillery weapons — has played a central role in Israel’s siege of Gaza. A document obtained through the Freedom of Information Act suggests that the U.S. Air Force sent officers specializing in this exact form of intelligence to Israel in late November. Since the start of Israel’s bombardment in retaliation for Hamas’s strike on October 7, Israel has dropped more than 29,000 bombs on the tiny Gaza Strip, according to a U.S. intelligence report last month. And for the first time in U.S. history, the Biden administration has been flying surveillance drone missions over Gaza since at least early November, ostensibly for hostage recovery by special forces. At the time the drones were revealed, U.S. Gen. Pat Ryder insisted that the special operations forces deployed to Israel to advise on hostage rescue were “not participating in [Israel Defense Forces] target development.” “I’ve directed my team to share intelligence and deploy additional experts from across the United States government to consult with and advise the Israeli counterparts on hostage recovery efforts,” said President Joe Biden three days after the Hamas attack. But several weeks later, on November 21, the U.S. Air Force issued deployment guidelines for officers, including intelligence engagement officers, headed to Israel. Experts say that a team of targeting officers like this would be used to provide satellite intelligence to the Israelis for the purpose of offensive targeting. “They’re probably targeting people, targeting officers,” Lawrence Cline, who served as an intelligence engagement officer in Iraq before retirement, told The Intercept. Targeting intelligence refers to the identification and characterization of enemy activities including missile and artillery launches, location of leadership and command and control centers, and key facilities. “What I can see is we’ve got a lot of global assets in terms of satellites and the like and the Israelis have a lot in terms of more localized radar coverage.” The deployment guidelines were issued by the Pentagon’s Air Force component command for the Middle East, Air Forces Central, on November 21. The document provides deployment instructions to air personnel sent to the country, including an “Air Defense Liaison Team” as well as “airmen assigned as the Intelligence Engagement Officer (IEO).” Intelligence engagement officers, Cline explained, coordinate intelligence between the U.S. and partner militaries. When deployed in Iraq, Cline, who now works as an instructor for the Defense Department Counterterrorism Fellowship Program, recalled that he and other IEOs comprised a small team who spent “probably three quarters of our time working with the Iraqis, the other quarter checking in with headquarters,” adding that “it was sort of half and half a liaison and advising.” Asked about the airmen’s mission, the Defense Intelligence Agency referred questions to the Air Forces Central, which did not respond to a request for comment. Neither the Office of the Secretary of Defense nor Central Command responded to requests for comment. Most Read The intelligence engagement process provides a low-profile mechanism through which the U.S. can coordinate with the Israeli military, a valuable tool amid the political sensitivity of the conflict. A U.S. Army primer defines intelligence engagement as a “powerful” tool that is useful “especially when U.S. policy might restrict our interaction,” as it “often does not require large budgets or footprints.” Experts say that may be the case here. Tyler McBrien, managing editor of Lawfare, a website specializing in national security law, said that there seems to be an “Israel exception” to the U.S. rules around military assistance. Past presidents have issued several executive orders banning the U.S. government from carrying out or sponsoring assassinations abroad. This ban has been interpreted to include wartime targeting of civilians, according to a recent Foreign Affairs article by Brian Finucane, a former legal adviser for the State Department who now works for Crisis Group. And the so-called Leahy law, a set of budget amendments named for Sen. Patrick Leahy, requires the U.S. government to vet foreign military units for “gross violations of human rights” when providing training or aid to those units. Several progressive members of Congress have raised concerns that U.S. aid to Israel — both before and during the present war — violates that requirement. “For air advisory missions, which I imagine involve intelligence sharing and training, specific domestic legal restrictions such as the Leahy law and the assassination ban would likely come into play,” McBrien said. But the Leahy vetting process is “reversed” for Israel; rather than vetting Israeli military units beforehand, the U.S. State Department sends aid and then waits for reports of violations, according to a recent article by Josh Paul, who resigned from his post as a State Department political-military officer over his concerns with U.S. support for Israel. “As a general matter, U.S. officials who are providing support to another country during armed conflict would want to make sure they are not aiding and abetting war crimes,” Finucane told The Intercept. He emphasized that the same principle applies to weapons transfers and intelligence sharing. The Israeli military intentionally strikes Palestinian civilian infrastructure, known as “power targets,” in order to “create a shock,” according to an investigation by the Israeli news website +972 Magazine. Targets are generated using an artificial intelligence system known as “Habsora,” Hebrew for “gospel.” “Nothing happens by accident,” an Israeli military intelligence source told +972 Magazine. “When a 3-year-old girl is killed in a home in Gaza, it’s because someone in the army decided it wasn’t a big deal for her to be killed — that it was a price worth paying in order to hit [another] target. We are not Hamas. These are not random rockets. Everything is intentional. We know exactly how much collateral damage there is in every home.” The Biden administration has gone to great lengths to conceal the nature of its support for the Israeli military. The Pentagon quietly tapped a so-called Tiger Team to facilitate weapons assistance to Israel, as The Intercept has previously reported. The administration has also declined to reveal which weapons systems it’s providing Israel and at which quantities, insisting that the secrecy is necessary for security reasons. “We’re being careful not to quantify or get into too much detail about what they’re getting — for their own operational security purposes, of course,” White House spokesperson John Kirby told reporters during a press briefing in October. This contrasts with its support for Ukraine, about which it has been far more transparent. The administration has provided an itemized list of its weapons assistance to Ukraine, a country facing at least as much of a threat amid the invasion of Russia. The White House has never addressed the incongruity. Past administrations have also provided detailed public information about U.S. targeting support for the Saudi and Emirati military campaigns in Yemen, which U.S. officials claim was meant to reduce civilian casualties. The secrecy “may reflect the fact that the U.S. has interests that are in tension, the Biden administration has interests that are in tension,” Finucane said. “On the one hand, they want to publicly embrace Israel and support Israel, providing what seems to be unconditional support. On the other hand, they don’t want to be perceived as taking the country into another war in the Middle East.” https://theintercept.com/2024/01/11/israel-air-force-targeting-intelligence/
    THEINTERCEPT.COM
    Biden Admin Deployed Air Force Team to Israel to Assist With Targets, Document Suggests
    Guidance issued for intelligence officers in Israel appears to show the U.S. military providing intelligence for airstrikes in Gaza.
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  • https://www.mintpressnews.com/new-study-shows-media-pushing-us-war-yemen/286754/
    https://www.mintpressnews.com/new-study-shows-media-pushing-us-war-yemen/286754/
    WWW.MINTPRESSNEWS.COM
    Study Finds Media Giants New York Times, CNN, and Fox News Pushing for US War in Yemen
    A study of major media outlets’ coverage of Yemen's Red Sea blockade found overwhelming bias in the press, which put forward pro-war talking points and portrayed the US as a good faith, neutral actor “dragged” into another Middle Eastern conflict against its will
    0 Comments 0 Shares 243 Views
  • https://www.mintpressnews.com/yemen-unending-nightmare-hidden-consequences-us-uk-airstrikes/286769/
    https://www.mintpressnews.com/yemen-unending-nightmare-hidden-consequences-us-uk-airstrikes/286769/
    WWW.MINTPRESSNEWS.COM
    Yemen’s Unending Nightmare: The Hidden Consequences of US and UK Airstrikes
    MintPress spoke to Yemeni leaders, academics, and ordinary citizens about the effects of the US-led bombing campaign in the country and the prospect of an all-out war amid escalating tension between Western Powers and Ansar Allah.
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  • How Arab States Are Helping Israel Commit Genocide
    February 16th, 2024
    Palestine’s Arab neighbors seem to have taken a bold stance on Israel’s genocide of Gaza in a public show of solidarity with Palestinians. But behind those strong words, states like Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the UAE are quietly assisting Israel.

    These four nations are working together to circumvent the actions of one of the few regional actors who are challenging Israel concretely: Yemen’s Ansar Allah. In a bid to alleviate pressure on Israel from the Ansar Allah (a.k.a the Houthi) blockade of the Red Sea, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Jordan have established land corridors, ensuring cargo destined for the apartheid state arrives safely in Israeli hands.

    According to Hebrew Channel 13, Israeli-linked cargo ships arrive in the UAE to unload goods. Trucks then transport these goods through UAE and Saudi highways to Jordan. They eventually reach Israel via the Jordan River Crossing.

    German shipping company Hapag-Lloyd announced that it was working with Saudi Arabia and the UAE to create a land route “bypassing the Houthis,” which connects ports in the UAE and the Saudi port of Jeddah facilitating cargo movement to Israel through the Suez Canal.


    https://www.mintpressnews.com/how-arab-states-are-helping-israel-commit-genocide/286825/
    How Arab States Are Helping Israel Commit Genocide February 16th, 2024 Palestine’s Arab neighbors seem to have taken a bold stance on Israel’s genocide of Gaza in a public show of solidarity with Palestinians. But behind those strong words, states like Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the UAE are quietly assisting Israel. These four nations are working together to circumvent the actions of one of the few regional actors who are challenging Israel concretely: Yemen’s Ansar Allah. In a bid to alleviate pressure on Israel from the Ansar Allah (a.k.a the Houthi) blockade of the Red Sea, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Jordan have established land corridors, ensuring cargo destined for the apartheid state arrives safely in Israeli hands. According to Hebrew Channel 13, Israeli-linked cargo ships arrive in the UAE to unload goods. Trucks then transport these goods through UAE and Saudi highways to Jordan. They eventually reach Israel via the Jordan River Crossing. German shipping company Hapag-Lloyd announced that it was working with Saudi Arabia and the UAE to create a land route “bypassing the Houthis,” which connects ports in the UAE and the Saudi port of Jeddah facilitating cargo movement to Israel through the Suez Canal. https://www.mintpressnews.com/how-arab-states-are-helping-israel-commit-genocide/286825/
    WWW.MINTPRESSNEWS.COM
    How Arab States Are Helping Israel Commit Genocide
    Mnar Adley looks into the difference between the rhetoric and the actions of the Arab states towards Israel.
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  • The Pulitzer Winner Hersh Unveils Mystery on Death of Navy SEALS in Gulf of Aden | VT Foreign Policy
    February 16, 2024
    VT Condemns the ETHNIC CLEANSING OF PALESTINIANS by USA/Israel

    $ 280 BILLION US TAXPAYER DOLLARS INVESTED since 1948 in US/Israeli Ethnic Cleansing and Occupation Operation; $ 150B direct "aid" and $ 130B in "Offense" contracts
    Source: Embassy of Israel, Washington, D.C. and US Department of State.

    In the cover image the USS Lewis B. Puller departs Naval Station Norfolk in July 2017. / US Navy photo by Bill Mesta.

    The Seals and the Dhow

    Originally published by Seymour Hersh on his Substack

    All links to Gospa News articles (and headlines) have been added aftermath, in relation to the topics highlighted

    Subscribe to the Gospa News Newsletter to read the news as soon as it is published

    This is a painful story for the families of three Navy SEALs. Two of the SEALs were lost at sea and a third was critically injured on a mission on January 11 in the Gulf of Aden between Yemen and Somalia. It was a mission that never should have been ordered, and when everything went wrong, it was covered up with a series of lies.

    Why report a story about two deaths and an injury when there is a president who has put America indirectly into wars in Ukraine, Israel, Yemen, and elsewhere in the Middle East? I have learned in six decades of chasing down hidden stories that it is delving into the little lies that reveals much about the bigger lies. So it has been in the past month with the story of the dead and injured SEALs.

    Middle East Dashing to WWIII! Kremlin Condemns Illegal US, UK Strikes on Houthis in Yemen. Germany to Join Mission

    Their target was a wooden smuggling vessel, operated by Somalis, that was suspected of delivering modern ballistic missiles or missile parts to America’s new enemy: the Houthis of Yemen. Somalis have been smuggling goods through the Red Sea and Indian Ocean in their wooden sailing vessels, known as dhows, since biblical times. Few have motors or any means of electronic communication, and the larger dhows, like the one targeted by the SEALs, often serve as living quarters for the smugglers’ families. (dhow is a a sailing boat with a long, thin hull – ed).

    The SEALs were assigned to a ship named the Lewis B. Puller, after a fabled combat general, the most decorated marine of all time, who fought in World War II against the Japanese, as well as in Haiti, in Central America, and in the Korean War. The ship, modeled on an oil tanker, is what the Navy calls an Expeditionary Mobile Base, which means that it is capable, with its landing decks, of supporting a vast number of air and sea military activities from all the services, including those of the Navy SEALs. The Puller was commissioned in 2017 in a port in Bahrain and was not much in the news until it became known that the failed SEAL mission took place.

    IRGC Missiles hit anti-Iran terrorists’ and Mossad Espionage Base (video). Houthis Struck US Ship

    On January 13, the New York Times, citing two current and two former Pentagon officials, published the first account of the two deaths, which were said to have taken place while the SEALs were attempting to board a dhow at night.

    The Quoting of a Former SEAL Senior Chief

    The sea was rough, and one SEAL slipped off the boarding ladder. The initial report claimed that a second SEAL jumped into the water in an effort to save his colleague and both drowned. It was not clear whether he was also on the ladder or jumped from the inflatable speedboat known as a RHIB, for rigid hulled inflatable boat, that the SEALs used to approach the ship. A January 22 Times article about the incident, by Dave Philipps, known for his excellent sources in the special operations community, revealed that a third SEAL attempted to climb the ladder to board the dhow. He fell during the attempted boarding and struck the speedboat. He was rescued and today remains in critical condition.

    Philipps quoted a former SEAL senior chief explaining that he and his retired colleagues were convinced the story, as told by administration officials, “doesn’t make sense. Something else must have gone wrong.”

    Navy Seal Who Went AWOL Killed While Fighting Russians In Bakhmut

    There were questions at the time about President’s Biden decision in early January to expand the American war portfolio. He has taken on the Houthis, who had survived a seven-year war with the Saudi air force, supported by American bombs and targeting intelligence. That war ended with what amounted to a Saudi surrender. The American attacks, still being supported by British air power, are in their second month, and the world’s major shipping companies are still choosing not to chance a ten-day shortcut by sailing from Europe via the Suez Canal into the Red Sea. The Houthi threat is still there, pending an Israeli decision to cease its onslaught in the Gaza Strip. Ironically, or tragically, Biden is now said to be telling the Israelis that a ceasefire is needed. The world is coming to its own judgment about Biden, who is now seeking a second term.

    Refer a friend

    The Somali dhow offered the White House a chance to justify its new offensive. It had been tracked by American intelligence since leaving Somalia because it was believed to be carrying ballistic missile parts needed by the Houthis in their ongoing campaign against Western shipping; The basis for that intelligence, which proved to be wrong, has not been made known.

    Worse than Ukraine! In Yemen “Catastrophic” Hunger due to Saudi War: 400,000 Toddlers at “Risk of Death”

    Back to the Lewis B. Puller. The more than a dozen senior officers from all services assigned to the ship’s command center were gung-ho to send the hot-shot SEAL team to intercept the dhow, compel the boat to stand to, and board it to find ballistic missiles or parts of weapons that were coming to the Houthis from Iran, known to American intelligence as a longtime supporter and supplier of weaponry to Yemen. But there was a serious problem. The issue is what is known in the Navy as the Sea State Code, which is based on terminology used in oceanography to describe the general conditions of the ocean’s surface, as determined by three key factors: wind, waves, and swell.

    The Serious Problem of Sea State

    There are ten categories of sea state, and SEALs can operate with ease and safety up to sea state 3. One experienced retired senior American Navy officer told me that even four- and five-foot waves can sometimes create difficulties for a Navy tanker attempting to refuel an aircraft carrier, but it can be done with skilled maneuvering. No ship loaded with high-octane fighter fuel wants to crash into the side of a carrier.

    When the seas get higher, to level 4 or 5, the waves and stronger current make boarding a targeted vessel, even a wooden dhow, an extremely dangerous prospect, in part because of the difficulty in handling steel ladders, known as caving ladders, that are standard SEAL boarding gear. The steps are lightweight aluminum tubes linked by equally lightweight steel cables.

    US judge rules in favor of Navy SEALs Refusing Vaccination on Religious Grounds

    What is hard to do at sea state 3 is deadly dangerous at sea state 4 or 5, a retired Navy officer, with years of experience in special operations, told me. “The waves are going up and down eight feet and more and you do not board a ship in heavy sea,” he said. He added that Navy captains of combat ships finishing a long deployment understand that crews due for shore leave are not permitted to leave the ship in such churning waters.

    The retired officer said that when the officer on the Puller who was in charge of all special operation missions, an Army colonel, told “the SEAL team leader to ‘saddle up,’ the team leader told him to look outside the window.” His message was that “it was dark, and the sea was too rough. And it was beyond the capabilities of his team.” The retired officer added: “It was an argument between the on the scene commander and a guy in charge of the SEALs.”

    The SEAL team leader said no. But he was ordered to carry out the mission, despite the obvious weather issues, and he did so.

    The Mystery on a Ballistic Missile

    The questions that were not asked, the retired officer said, were these: “Do we know if the dhow is carrying a ballistic missile or a box full of missile parts?” No. “Can you get a key to a launch site?” No. “Or a map of all the Houthi launch sites?” No. “Do Somali smugglers know the difference between a case of Johnny Walker Red and one of Johnny Walter Black?” Yes.

    CIA-GATE – 1. Bulgarian Network to Weaponize Ukraine Intelligence and Middle-East’s Terrorists

    The decision to ignore the concerns of the SEAL commander has been seen by the angered SEAL community in America as “beyond rational planning” and “a disaster waiting to happen.” I learned that one high-ranking member of the community, now retired, wrote a private letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, asking that the officer who overruled the SEAL commander be court-martialed for dereliction of duty as the buck-stops-here boss of the operation. “It will never happen,” the former officer told me. “Dead SEALs will go down in Navy annals as heroes, not victims.” His point was that the Navy would never acknowledge that the SEAL team had no business being sent on a search-and-destroy mission in such weather.

    US launches ‘Retaliatory AirStrikes’ in the Middle East. Targeted 85 sites in Iraq and Syria. At least 18 People Died

    As many as nine SEALs may have been aboard the SEALs’ inflatable speedboat—there was a second boat with no SEALs aboard as backup—as it dashed to the dhow that, as ordered, came to a stop and acknowledged that it was to be boarded. Three SEALs began the treacherous climb aboard the vessel. It is not known just what happened—did one fall off the special ladder, made up of steel tubes and chain links? Or did the ladder, swaying to and from in the heavy sea with two SEALs making the climb and a third waiting to do so, suddenly get rocked by a huge wave that flung the men against the side of the dhow, leaving both unconscious or worse, with only to drop into the sea? The badly injured third SEAL survived only because he fell into one of the speedboats.

    Only Obsolete Rocket Motors and Pieces of Old Missiles on the Dhow

    The SEALs who made the climb into the dhow “did find the treasure,” the retired officer sardonically told me. “There were some obsolete rocket motors, all Iran-made, and some pieces of Styx missiles from the 1950s and ’60s, but no significant missile components among the cargo, other than ancient engines and some random tubes that had been used in missile attacks. There was the usual cargo of liquor, cigarettes, random knock-off clothing, porn cassettes.”

    The Somali smugglers were taken prisoner and placed on Navy vessels that came to the scene, and the dhow sent to the bottom.

    The two deaths were reported, but over the next few days, the retired officer said, all involved “were playing the game,” keeping as many details as possible under wraps. The Lewis B. Puller was locked down in extreme secrecy. The names of the dead were made public, but not that of the survivor, if he does survive. His is a story that no one in the Navy wants told. I learned that the commanding officer of the Lewis B. Puller, who graduated from the Naval Academy in 2000 and spent his career in Navy aviation—not as a pilot but as a backseat radar intercept officer—may be quietly retired, if the system works as it usually does.

    Gaza, Donbass, Syria: GENOCIDES of the Zionist, Nazi, Jihadist Regimes is US-NATO’s “New” Geopolitical WEAPON

    There is a Navy history for such arrogance and deception that dates to the end of the Second World War. The chief of Naval Operations was crusty Admiral Ernest King, a brilliant officer who played a key role in advising President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on military matters. When asked at one point by an aide what to tell the press about the progress of the war against the Japanese fleet, King famously said: “Don’t tell them anything. When it’s over, tell them who won.”

    Originally published by Seymour Hersh on his Substack

    All links to Gospa News articles (and headlines) have been added aftermath, in relation to the topics highlighted

    Subscribe to the Gospa News Newsletter to read the news as soon as it is published

    Seymour Myron “Sy” Hersh (born April 8, 1937) is an American investigative journalist and political writer. He gained recognition in 1969 for exposing the My Lai massacre and its cover-up during the Vietnam War, for which he received the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. During the 1970s, Hersh covered the Watergate scandalfor The New York Times, also reporting on the secret U.S. bombing of Cambodia and the CIA’s program of domestic spying. In 2004, he detailed the U.S. military’s torture and abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib in Iraq for The New Yorker. Hersh has won a record five George Polk Awards, and two National Magazine Awards. He is the author of 11 books, including The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House (1983), an account of the career of Henry Kissinger which won the National Book Critics Circle Award.

    “Soros” French Judges want to Arrest Assad for Douma Chemical Attack despite it was White Helmets False-Flag

    In 2013, Hersh’s reporting alleged that Syrian rebel forces, rather than the government, had attacked civilians with sarin gas at Ghouta during the Syrian Civil War, and in 2015, he presented an alternative account of the U.S. special forces raid in Pakistan which killed Osama bin Laden. In 2023, Hersh highlighted that the U.S. and Norway had sabotaged the Nord Stream pipelines.

    Nord Stream Sabotage: UN Security Council Rejected Investigation on Terroristic Act. Russia: “Dangerous Precedent”

    GOSPA NEWS – WARZONE

    GOSPA NEWS – WEAPONS LOBBY DOSSIER

    Thanks to Ukrainian Weapons Hamas resists vs Israel’s Massacre in Gaza which goes on due to US Veto at UN

    Western Weapons sent to Kiev found in Possession of Mexican Drug Cartels

    Pentagon’s Weaponry Shady Traffic. Missiles for Ukraine Disappeared. New US Supplies to Kosovo Separatists

    Fabio G. C. Carisio
    Fabio is investigative journalist since 1991. Now geopolitics, intelligence, military, SARS-Cov-2 manmade, NWO expert and Director-founder of Gospa News: a Christian Information Journal.

    His articles were published on many international media and website as SouthFront, Reseau International, Sputnik Italia, United Nation Association Westminster, Global Research, Kolozeg and more…

    Most popolar investigation on VT is:

    Rumsfeld Shady Heritage in Pandemic: GILEAD’s Intrigues with WHO & Wuhan Lab. Bio-Weapons’ Tests with CIA & Pentagon

    Fabio Giuseppe Carlo Carisio, born on 24/2/1967 in Borgosesia, started working as a reporter when he was only 19 years old in the alpine area of Valsesia, Piedmont, his birth region in Italy. After studying literature and history at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan, he became director of the local newspaper Notizia Oggi Vercelli and specialized in judicial reporting.

    For about 15 years he is a correspondent from Northern Italy for the Italian newspapers Libero and Il Giornale, also writing important revelations on the Ustica massacre, a report on Freemasonry and organized crime.

    With independent investigations, he collaborates with Carabinieri and Guardia di Finanza in important investigations that conclude with the arrest of Camorra entrepreneurs or corrupt politicians.

    In July 2018 he found the counter-information web media Gospa News focused on geopolitics, terrorism, Middle East, and military intelligence.

    In 2020 published the book, in Italian only, WUHAN-GATES – The New World Order Plot on SARS-Cov-2 manmade focused on the cycle of investigations Wuhan-Gates

    His investigations was quoted also by The Gateway Pundit, Tasnim and others

    He worked for many years for the magazine Art & Wine as an art critic and curator.

    VETERANS TODAY OLD POSTS

    www.gospanews.net/

    ATTENTION READERS

    We See The World From All Sides and Want YOU To Be Fully Informed
    In fact, intentional disinformation is a disgraceful scourge in media today. So to assuage any possible errant incorrect information posted herein, we strongly encourage you to seek corroboration from other non-VT sources before forming an educated opinion.

    About VT - Policies & Disclosures - Comment Policy
    Due to the nature of uncensored content posted by VT's fully independent international writers, VT cannot guarantee absolute validity. All content is owned by the author exclusively. Expressed opinions are NOT necessarily the views of VT, other authors, affiliates, advertisers, sponsors, partners, or technicians. Some content may be satirical in nature. All images are the full responsibility of the article author and NOT VT.

    https://www.vtforeignpolicy.com/2024/02/the-pulitzer-winner-hersh-unveils-mystery-on-death-of-navy-seals-in-gulf-of-aden/

    https://donshafi911.blogspot.com/2024/02/the-pulitzer-winner-hersh-unveils.html
    The Pulitzer Winner Hersh Unveils Mystery on Death of Navy SEALS in Gulf of Aden | VT Foreign Policy February 16, 2024 VT Condemns the ETHNIC CLEANSING OF PALESTINIANS by USA/Israel $ 280 BILLION US TAXPAYER DOLLARS INVESTED since 1948 in US/Israeli Ethnic Cleansing and Occupation Operation; $ 150B direct "aid" and $ 130B in "Offense" contracts Source: Embassy of Israel, Washington, D.C. and US Department of State. In the cover image the USS Lewis B. Puller departs Naval Station Norfolk in July 2017. / US Navy photo by Bill Mesta. The Seals and the Dhow Originally published by Seymour Hersh on his Substack All links to Gospa News articles (and headlines) have been added aftermath, in relation to the topics highlighted Subscribe to the Gospa News Newsletter to read the news as soon as it is published This is a painful story for the families of three Navy SEALs. Two of the SEALs were lost at sea and a third was critically injured on a mission on January 11 in the Gulf of Aden between Yemen and Somalia. It was a mission that never should have been ordered, and when everything went wrong, it was covered up with a series of lies. Why report a story about two deaths and an injury when there is a president who has put America indirectly into wars in Ukraine, Israel, Yemen, and elsewhere in the Middle East? I have learned in six decades of chasing down hidden stories that it is delving into the little lies that reveals much about the bigger lies. So it has been in the past month with the story of the dead and injured SEALs. Middle East Dashing to WWIII! Kremlin Condemns Illegal US, UK Strikes on Houthis in Yemen. Germany to Join Mission Their target was a wooden smuggling vessel, operated by Somalis, that was suspected of delivering modern ballistic missiles or missile parts to America’s new enemy: the Houthis of Yemen. Somalis have been smuggling goods through the Red Sea and Indian Ocean in their wooden sailing vessels, known as dhows, since biblical times. Few have motors or any means of electronic communication, and the larger dhows, like the one targeted by the SEALs, often serve as living quarters for the smugglers’ families. (dhow is a a sailing boat with a long, thin hull – ed). The SEALs were assigned to a ship named the Lewis B. Puller, after a fabled combat general, the most decorated marine of all time, who fought in World War II against the Japanese, as well as in Haiti, in Central America, and in the Korean War. The ship, modeled on an oil tanker, is what the Navy calls an Expeditionary Mobile Base, which means that it is capable, with its landing decks, of supporting a vast number of air and sea military activities from all the services, including those of the Navy SEALs. The Puller was commissioned in 2017 in a port in Bahrain and was not much in the news until it became known that the failed SEAL mission took place. IRGC Missiles hit anti-Iran terrorists’ and Mossad Espionage Base (video). Houthis Struck US Ship On January 13, the New York Times, citing two current and two former Pentagon officials, published the first account of the two deaths, which were said to have taken place while the SEALs were attempting to board a dhow at night. The Quoting of a Former SEAL Senior Chief The sea was rough, and one SEAL slipped off the boarding ladder. The initial report claimed that a second SEAL jumped into the water in an effort to save his colleague and both drowned. It was not clear whether he was also on the ladder or jumped from the inflatable speedboat known as a RHIB, for rigid hulled inflatable boat, that the SEALs used to approach the ship. A January 22 Times article about the incident, by Dave Philipps, known for his excellent sources in the special operations community, revealed that a third SEAL attempted to climb the ladder to board the dhow. He fell during the attempted boarding and struck the speedboat. He was rescued and today remains in critical condition. Philipps quoted a former SEAL senior chief explaining that he and his retired colleagues were convinced the story, as told by administration officials, “doesn’t make sense. Something else must have gone wrong.” Navy Seal Who Went AWOL Killed While Fighting Russians In Bakhmut There were questions at the time about President’s Biden decision in early January to expand the American war portfolio. He has taken on the Houthis, who had survived a seven-year war with the Saudi air force, supported by American bombs and targeting intelligence. That war ended with what amounted to a Saudi surrender. The American attacks, still being supported by British air power, are in their second month, and the world’s major shipping companies are still choosing not to chance a ten-day shortcut by sailing from Europe via the Suez Canal into the Red Sea. The Houthi threat is still there, pending an Israeli decision to cease its onslaught in the Gaza Strip. Ironically, or tragically, Biden is now said to be telling the Israelis that a ceasefire is needed. The world is coming to its own judgment about Biden, who is now seeking a second term. Refer a friend The Somali dhow offered the White House a chance to justify its new offensive. It had been tracked by American intelligence since leaving Somalia because it was believed to be carrying ballistic missile parts needed by the Houthis in their ongoing campaign against Western shipping; The basis for that intelligence, which proved to be wrong, has not been made known. Worse than Ukraine! In Yemen “Catastrophic” Hunger due to Saudi War: 400,000 Toddlers at “Risk of Death” Back to the Lewis B. Puller. The more than a dozen senior officers from all services assigned to the ship’s command center were gung-ho to send the hot-shot SEAL team to intercept the dhow, compel the boat to stand to, and board it to find ballistic missiles or parts of weapons that were coming to the Houthis from Iran, known to American intelligence as a longtime supporter and supplier of weaponry to Yemen. But there was a serious problem. The issue is what is known in the Navy as the Sea State Code, which is based on terminology used in oceanography to describe the general conditions of the ocean’s surface, as determined by three key factors: wind, waves, and swell. The Serious Problem of Sea State There are ten categories of sea state, and SEALs can operate with ease and safety up to sea state 3. One experienced retired senior American Navy officer told me that even four- and five-foot waves can sometimes create difficulties for a Navy tanker attempting to refuel an aircraft carrier, but it can be done with skilled maneuvering. No ship loaded with high-octane fighter fuel wants to crash into the side of a carrier. When the seas get higher, to level 4 or 5, the waves and stronger current make boarding a targeted vessel, even a wooden dhow, an extremely dangerous prospect, in part because of the difficulty in handling steel ladders, known as caving ladders, that are standard SEAL boarding gear. The steps are lightweight aluminum tubes linked by equally lightweight steel cables. US judge rules in favor of Navy SEALs Refusing Vaccination on Religious Grounds What is hard to do at sea state 3 is deadly dangerous at sea state 4 or 5, a retired Navy officer, with years of experience in special operations, told me. “The waves are going up and down eight feet and more and you do not board a ship in heavy sea,” he said. He added that Navy captains of combat ships finishing a long deployment understand that crews due for shore leave are not permitted to leave the ship in such churning waters. The retired officer said that when the officer on the Puller who was in charge of all special operation missions, an Army colonel, told “the SEAL team leader to ‘saddle up,’ the team leader told him to look outside the window.” His message was that “it was dark, and the sea was too rough. And it was beyond the capabilities of his team.” The retired officer added: “It was an argument between the on the scene commander and a guy in charge of the SEALs.” The SEAL team leader said no. But he was ordered to carry out the mission, despite the obvious weather issues, and he did so. The Mystery on a Ballistic Missile The questions that were not asked, the retired officer said, were these: “Do we know if the dhow is carrying a ballistic missile or a box full of missile parts?” No. “Can you get a key to a launch site?” No. “Or a map of all the Houthi launch sites?” No. “Do Somali smugglers know the difference between a case of Johnny Walker Red and one of Johnny Walter Black?” Yes. CIA-GATE – 1. Bulgarian Network to Weaponize Ukraine Intelligence and Middle-East’s Terrorists The decision to ignore the concerns of the SEAL commander has been seen by the angered SEAL community in America as “beyond rational planning” and “a disaster waiting to happen.” I learned that one high-ranking member of the community, now retired, wrote a private letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, asking that the officer who overruled the SEAL commander be court-martialed for dereliction of duty as the buck-stops-here boss of the operation. “It will never happen,” the former officer told me. “Dead SEALs will go down in Navy annals as heroes, not victims.” His point was that the Navy would never acknowledge that the SEAL team had no business being sent on a search-and-destroy mission in such weather. US launches ‘Retaliatory AirStrikes’ in the Middle East. Targeted 85 sites in Iraq and Syria. At least 18 People Died As many as nine SEALs may have been aboard the SEALs’ inflatable speedboat—there was a second boat with no SEALs aboard as backup—as it dashed to the dhow that, as ordered, came to a stop and acknowledged that it was to be boarded. Three SEALs began the treacherous climb aboard the vessel. It is not known just what happened—did one fall off the special ladder, made up of steel tubes and chain links? Or did the ladder, swaying to and from in the heavy sea with two SEALs making the climb and a third waiting to do so, suddenly get rocked by a huge wave that flung the men against the side of the dhow, leaving both unconscious or worse, with only to drop into the sea? The badly injured third SEAL survived only because he fell into one of the speedboats. Only Obsolete Rocket Motors and Pieces of Old Missiles on the Dhow The SEALs who made the climb into the dhow “did find the treasure,” the retired officer sardonically told me. “There were some obsolete rocket motors, all Iran-made, and some pieces of Styx missiles from the 1950s and ’60s, but no significant missile components among the cargo, other than ancient engines and some random tubes that had been used in missile attacks. There was the usual cargo of liquor, cigarettes, random knock-off clothing, porn cassettes.” The Somali smugglers were taken prisoner and placed on Navy vessels that came to the scene, and the dhow sent to the bottom. The two deaths were reported, but over the next few days, the retired officer said, all involved “were playing the game,” keeping as many details as possible under wraps. The Lewis B. Puller was locked down in extreme secrecy. The names of the dead were made public, but not that of the survivor, if he does survive. His is a story that no one in the Navy wants told. I learned that the commanding officer of the Lewis B. Puller, who graduated from the Naval Academy in 2000 and spent his career in Navy aviation—not as a pilot but as a backseat radar intercept officer—may be quietly retired, if the system works as it usually does. Gaza, Donbass, Syria: GENOCIDES of the Zionist, Nazi, Jihadist Regimes is US-NATO’s “New” Geopolitical WEAPON There is a Navy history for such arrogance and deception that dates to the end of the Second World War. The chief of Naval Operations was crusty Admiral Ernest King, a brilliant officer who played a key role in advising President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on military matters. When asked at one point by an aide what to tell the press about the progress of the war against the Japanese fleet, King famously said: “Don’t tell them anything. When it’s over, tell them who won.” Originally published by Seymour Hersh on his Substack All links to Gospa News articles (and headlines) have been added aftermath, in relation to the topics highlighted Subscribe to the Gospa News Newsletter to read the news as soon as it is published Seymour Myron “Sy” Hersh (born April 8, 1937) is an American investigative journalist and political writer. He gained recognition in 1969 for exposing the My Lai massacre and its cover-up during the Vietnam War, for which he received the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. During the 1970s, Hersh covered the Watergate scandalfor The New York Times, also reporting on the secret U.S. bombing of Cambodia and the CIA’s program of domestic spying. In 2004, he detailed the U.S. military’s torture and abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib in Iraq for The New Yorker. Hersh has won a record five George Polk Awards, and two National Magazine Awards. He is the author of 11 books, including The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House (1983), an account of the career of Henry Kissinger which won the National Book Critics Circle Award. “Soros” French Judges want to Arrest Assad for Douma Chemical Attack despite it was White Helmets False-Flag In 2013, Hersh’s reporting alleged that Syrian rebel forces, rather than the government, had attacked civilians with sarin gas at Ghouta during the Syrian Civil War, and in 2015, he presented an alternative account of the U.S. special forces raid in Pakistan which killed Osama bin Laden. In 2023, Hersh highlighted that the U.S. and Norway had sabotaged the Nord Stream pipelines. Nord Stream Sabotage: UN Security Council Rejected Investigation on Terroristic Act. Russia: “Dangerous Precedent” GOSPA NEWS – WARZONE GOSPA NEWS – WEAPONS LOBBY DOSSIER Thanks to Ukrainian Weapons Hamas resists vs Israel’s Massacre in Gaza which goes on due to US Veto at UN Western Weapons sent to Kiev found in Possession of Mexican Drug Cartels Pentagon’s Weaponry Shady Traffic. Missiles for Ukraine Disappeared. New US Supplies to Kosovo Separatists Fabio G. C. Carisio Fabio is investigative journalist since 1991. Now geopolitics, intelligence, military, SARS-Cov-2 manmade, NWO expert and Director-founder of Gospa News: a Christian Information Journal. His articles were published on many international media and website as SouthFront, Reseau International, Sputnik Italia, United Nation Association Westminster, Global Research, Kolozeg and more… Most popolar investigation on VT is: Rumsfeld Shady Heritage in Pandemic: GILEAD’s Intrigues with WHO & Wuhan Lab. Bio-Weapons’ Tests with CIA & Pentagon Fabio Giuseppe Carlo Carisio, born on 24/2/1967 in Borgosesia, started working as a reporter when he was only 19 years old in the alpine area of Valsesia, Piedmont, his birth region in Italy. After studying literature and history at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan, he became director of the local newspaper Notizia Oggi Vercelli and specialized in judicial reporting. For about 15 years he is a correspondent from Northern Italy for the Italian newspapers Libero and Il Giornale, also writing important revelations on the Ustica massacre, a report on Freemasonry and organized crime. With independent investigations, he collaborates with Carabinieri and Guardia di Finanza in important investigations that conclude with the arrest of Camorra entrepreneurs or corrupt politicians. In July 2018 he found the counter-information web media Gospa News focused on geopolitics, terrorism, Middle East, and military intelligence. In 2020 published the book, in Italian only, WUHAN-GATES – The New World Order Plot on SARS-Cov-2 manmade focused on the cycle of investigations Wuhan-Gates His investigations was quoted also by The Gateway Pundit, Tasnim and others He worked for many years for the magazine Art & Wine as an art critic and curator. VETERANS TODAY OLD POSTS www.gospanews.net/ ATTENTION READERS We See The World From All Sides and Want YOU To Be Fully Informed In fact, intentional disinformation is a disgraceful scourge in media today. So to assuage any possible errant incorrect information posted herein, we strongly encourage you to seek corroboration from other non-VT sources before forming an educated opinion. About VT - Policies & Disclosures - Comment Policy Due to the nature of uncensored content posted by VT's fully independent international writers, VT cannot guarantee absolute validity. All content is owned by the author exclusively. Expressed opinions are NOT necessarily the views of VT, other authors, affiliates, advertisers, sponsors, partners, or technicians. Some content may be satirical in nature. All images are the full responsibility of the article author and NOT VT. https://www.vtforeignpolicy.com/2024/02/the-pulitzer-winner-hersh-unveils-mystery-on-death-of-navy-seals-in-gulf-of-aden/ https://donshafi911.blogspot.com/2024/02/the-pulitzer-winner-hersh-unveils.html
    WWW.VTFOREIGNPOLICY.COM
    The Pulitzer Winner Hersh Unveils Mystery on Death of Navy SEALS in Gulf of Aden
    In the cover image the USS Lewis B. Puller departs Naval Station Norfolk in July 2017. / US Navy photo by Bill Mesta. The Seals and the Dhow Originally published by Seymour Hersh on his Substack All links to Gospa News articles (and headlines) have been added aftermath, in relation to the topics highlighted Subscribe to...
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  • ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 129: Israel bombards Rafah, killing more than 60 in a night
    67 Palestinians, including babies and children, were killed Sunday night as Israel intensified bombing in Rafah, where over 1 million Palestinians are sheltering, in preparation for a ground invasion that experts warn would amount to genocide.

    Leila WarahFebruary 12, 2024
    A Palestinian man inspects the rubble of a building destroyed in an Israeli airstrike in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip
    Palestinians inpect the damage in the rubble of a building where two Israeli captives were reportedly held before being extracted in an operation by Israeli forcess in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip on February 12, 2024. Israeli bombardments on Rafah on the 12th killed more than 60 Palestinians. (Bashar Taleb/ APA Images)
    Casualties:

    28,340+ killed* and at least 67,984 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.
    566 Israeli soldiers killed since October 7, and at least 3,221 injured.**
    *This figure was confirmed by Gaza’s Ministry of Health on Telegram channel. Some rights groups put the death toll number closer to 35,000 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:

    Hamas’ military wing says Israeli bombing kills two Israeli captives and wounds of eight others, it is unclear where the attacks took place.
    CENTCOM: US carries out “self-defense strikes” in Yemen.
    UNICEF: Civilians in Rafah must be protected as they have nowhere to go.
    UN: At least 395 displaced people killed in UNRWA shelters since October 7
    100 Palestinian bodies recovered from Gaza City after Israeli troops withdrew, most killed by sniper bullets.
    Israel says two captives rescued from Rafah in southern Gaza, claims they are in good medical condition.
    In the last 24 hours, Israeli forces killed 164 people and injured 200 in Gaza, a ministry statement on Telegram said.
    At least 67 Palestinians killed in overnight Israeli airstrikes in Rafah, says the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
    Israeli forces kill Palestinian man in occupied West Bank
    In four months, 17 settlement plans for over 8,400 housing units were advanced in occupied East Jerusalem.
    Israel spends at least 7 million dollars on zionist Super Bowl advertisement.
    Dutch court orders Netherlands to halt delivery of F-35 jet parts to Israel.
    US Senator Bernie Sanders: “No one in Congress” should support the Biden administration sending military aid to Israel, Netanyahu’s “war machine” is responsible for an “unprecedented humanitarian disaster.”
    Military expert: Israeli army invasion of Rafah would lead to genocide, considering over a million Palestinians are living in 60 square kilometers, reported Al Jazeera
    Dutch court orders government to halt delivery of F-35 fighter jet parts used by Israel in its attacks on Gaza, saying there is a “clear risk” that the parts being exported by the Netherlands are being used in “serious violations of international humanitarian law”.
    Israel ‘deports’ 51-year-old Palestinian journalist from occupied West Bank to Gaza Strip.
    Israel bombards Rafah ahead of planned ground invasion

    The Israeli military has ramped up its attacks on Rafah in southern Gaza as it prepares for a possible ground offensive on the Palestinian city, which has become one of the most densely populated areas in the world.

    Advertisement

    Watch now: NOURA ERAKAT on Witnessing Palestine with Frank Barat
    Rafah, which borders Egypt, is the last key city that Israeli troops have yet to enter. The area was once designated a “safe zone,” although it has been subjected to constant air attacks since Israel’s offensive began.

    Overnight on Sunday, the military intensified their air raid on the city, killing at least 67 Palestinians, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, including babies and children.

    The strikes have resulted in significant destruction in Rafah, damaging homes, businesses, and mosques, which, according to Al Jazeera, are hosting 1.4 million Palestinians.

    Hamas has condemned the latest Israeli air strikes on Rafah in southern Gaza, saying they represent an “expansion of the scope of the massacres it is committing against our people,” in a press release, reported Al Jazeera.

    “The Nazi occupation army’s attack on the city of Rafah tonight” the group said, “is considered a continuation of the genocidal war and the attempts at forced displacement it is waging against our Palestinian people,” the group continued.

    Similarly, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry has “condemned in the strongest terms the mass massacres” the Israeli forces continue to commit against Palestinians, especially displaced people.

    “Israel is officially continuing to target civilians and transfer the war to Rafah to push the population to get displaced under bombardment,” it said in a statement released on X.

    “The recent massacres of the occupation are evidence of the validity of international warnings and fears of catastrophic results of the expansion of the war to Rafah,” the ministry added.

    The Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has warned of “dire consequences” of an Israeli military assault on the southern city.

    “Egypt reiterates its complete rejection of statements by top Israeli officials about launching a military operation on Rafah, warning of its dire consequences, in light of the humanitarian catastrophe it threatens to deepen,” the ministry said in a statement.

    “Egypt called for the necessity of uniting all international and regional efforts to prevent the targeting of the Palestinian city of Rafah,” it added.

    Military expert Wassef Erekat has told Al Jazeera that an Israeli army invasion of Rafah would lead to genocide, considering over a million Palestinians are living in 60 square kilometers.

    “It would be another tragedy befalling the Palestinian people, a catastrophe of epic proportions,” he said.

    Erekat added that in the eyes of Netanyahu, a war without an invasion of Rafah would mean an admission of defeat.

    “An invasion has dangerous and disastrous repercussions. Any number of scenarios can unfold: allowing the displaced back into the central and northern Gaza Strip, pushing them into [Egypt’s] Sinai, or merely bombing them further,” Erekat added.

    The evacuation of Rafah would be ‘unlawful’, human rights experts warn

    The majority of those in Rafah have been forcibly displaced several times since October due to Israel’s offensive, which has gradually expanded its invasion across the besieged enclave.

    The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) “estimates that in total at least 395 IDPs [internally displaced persons] sheltering in UNRWA shelters have been killed and at least a further 1,379 injured” since October 7, it said in a statement.

    Nadia Hardman, researcher at Human Rights Watch, has said that people are already struggling to survive in the small area where they have been pushed and displaced.

    Hardman told Al Jazeera that people she spoke with, some of whom have been displaced up to 10 times, say they are fearful of a ground invasion of the area.

    “The one question they continue to ask is ‘Where do we go?’ They have fled from areas that were once considered safe. Israel’s promise to provide safe passage must be analyzed in light of the fact that it has consistently failed to do this,” Hardman said.

    “This evacuation would be unlawful if it is ordered,” she added.

    The Executive Director of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Catherine Russell, has said that the civilians in Rafah must be protected no matter what.

    “Civilians are pushed into a corner, living on streets or in shelters. They must be protected. They have nowhere safe to go,” Russell posted on X, adding that the area is teaming with children and families.

    “Rafah already has nearly half of Gaza’s population. Since the beginning of the war in Gaza, people have been fleeing to Rafah following Israeli evacuation orders.” Nebal Farsakh, the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) spokesperson, told Al Jazeera.

    “There is no safe place at all, and there is no way to evacuate. On top of that, there is a complete destruction of the infrastructure, and the lack of transportation as well makes it impossible for people to make their way anywhere,” Farsakh added.

    “We are asking to stop war because it has continued for so long,” he concluded.

    Healthcare system in Gaza continues to suffer

    Medical care all across the besieged enclave has been severely affected by Israel’s deliberate attacks on medical personnel and facilities. With the looming ground invasion of Rafah, Medical professionals are apprehensive about how the ground operation would further debilitate the already collapsed health system in the area.

    Jamal al-Hams, a doctor at the Kuwaiti Hospital in Rafah, told Al Jazeera that an Israeli attack on the southern city would cause endless suffering for Palestinians.

    “We are suffering a lot during these days because of the huge number of people who have been displaced from the northern and middle areas of the Gaza Strip towards Rafah,” al-Hams said.

    “Secondly, we [already] have a huge number of injured people and patients with chronic diseases and acute illnesses who have been collected from all over the Gaza Strip [to Rafah]. We are suffering from the shortage of medical disposables and drugs. Most of the antibiotics and analgesics are not available.”

    “We have changed the admission beds to emergency beds. The Najjar Hospital has a bed capacity of 70, and they changed it to 200 but that is still not enough,” al-Hams continued.

    “I don’t know what is coming but I am sure that we will suffer very much,” al-Hams concluded.

    “There would be no place for more injured people. There will be no bed capacity, not even for one, because all hospitals [in the south] – the European, Najjar, and Kuwaiti – are all at full capacity.”

    World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has described the reports of Israel’s looming offensive as “extremely worrying”.

    “Proceeding with the plans could have gravely devastating consequences for the 1.4 million people who have nowhere else left to go, and who have almost no place left to seek health care,” he posted on X.

    Moreover, the WHO chief said hospitals in Rafah in the Gaza Strip were “overwhelmed and overflowing.”

    “In the rest of the Strip, a majority of hospitals are either minimally or non-functional,” he added.

    Meanwhile, in Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, sewage water has flooded the emergency department of the medical complex, hindering medical staff from providing life-saving medical care.

    The Palestinian Ministry of Health is calling for the protection of the hospital’s technical staff to repair the sewage network in the medical courtyard, where seven people have been shot dead by Israeli snipers and 14 others injured.

    Both al Nasser and Al Amal hospital in Khan Younis have been under military siege for over two weeks and subjected to constant Israeli attacks.

    PCRS has once again called on the international community to protect healthcare professionals after Israeli forces killed two PRCS paramedics in an airstrike on their way to rescue six-year-old Hind Rajab, who was also killed by Israel a few meters away.

    “According to international humanitarian law and the Geneva Conventions, the direct targeting and deliberate killing of PRCS crews and volunteers is considered a war crime,” the group said in a statement on X.

    “[T]he contracting parties that signed the Geneva Conventions and are obligated to enforce respect for international humanitarian law must take the necessary measures to suppress, rebuke and punish the perpetrators.”

    Francesca Albanese, the United Nations rapporteur on Palestine, has also said that Israel’s escalation in Gaza has led to hundreds of casualties, more devastation, and forced displacement, defying the terms the International Court of Justice imposed on Israel, including ending incitement to genocide and improving the supply of humanitarian aid.

    “Israel is obligated to adhere to the court’s order and states must act decisively to prevent further atrocities,” she said.

    Despite growing international calls, U.S. won’t tell Israel not to invade Rafah

    Despite the growing international concern regarding the plans to invade Rafah, Israel is determined to go forward with the attack. Meanwhile, the US has put little to no pressure on Israel to halt their plans, aside from a verbal request, with no material pressure, to protect civilian lives.

    The White House released a readout after Biden’s call with Netanyahu, where the US president said: “a military operation in Rafah should not proceed without a credible and executable plan for ensuring the safety of and support for more than one million people sheltering there.”

    The readout added that Biden stressed “the need to capitalize on progress made in the negotiations to secure the release of all hostages as soon as possible.”

    Mustafa Barghouti of the Palestinian National Initiative told Al Jazeera that the fact that the United States president did not call for an immediate ceasefire represents a regression in US policy vis-a-vis the war on Gaza.

    “What I expected to hear from Biden [is something] we will never hear. His comments about the imminent Israeli attack on Rafah should have been accompanied by the United States supporting a ceasefire,” he said.

    “Rafah is the only area that is not destroyed completely in Gaza. Israel never gave up on its plan to ethnically cleanse the Palestinian population into Egypt. That’s what the US president should have opposed. But he doesn’t. The US is a participant in this attack,” Barghouti continued.

    “For days, United States officials have been suggesting that this potential Rafah military operation would be disastrous and that it can’t go ahead, but now we have the conditions for the Rafah operation to go ahead, despite the 1.5 million people there,” Al Jazeera’s Shihab Rattansi pointed out.

    As the US funded Israel’s increasing attacks, the American public tuned into the Super Bowl, where Israel spent at least 7 million dollars on zionist propaganda to be shown during the football game advertisements.

    Australian Senator David Shoebridge has decried the bombardment on Rafah and questioned the timing while viewers in the United States watch the Super Bowl.

    “The attack on Rafah happening at 2am Gaza time while the US is watching the Superbowl is utterly horrific and devastating,” said Shoebridge.

    “Our hearts are with the Palestinian people now more than ever,” he added.

    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/2024/02/operation-al-aqsa-flood-day-129-israel-bombards-rafah-killing-more-than-60-in-a-night/


    ☝️https://donshafi911.blogspot.com/2024/02/operation-al-aqsa-flood-day-129-israel.html
    ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 129: Israel bombards Rafah, killing more than 60 in a night 67 Palestinians, including babies and children, were killed Sunday night as Israel intensified bombing in Rafah, where over 1 million Palestinians are sheltering, in preparation for a ground invasion that experts warn would amount to genocide. Leila WarahFebruary 12, 2024 A Palestinian man inspects the rubble of a building destroyed in an Israeli airstrike in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip Palestinians inpect the damage in the rubble of a building where two Israeli captives were reportedly held before being extracted in an operation by Israeli forcess in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip on February 12, 2024. Israeli bombardments on Rafah on the 12th killed more than 60 Palestinians. (Bashar Taleb/ APA Images) Casualties: 28,340+ killed* and at least 67,984 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. 566 Israeli soldiers killed since October 7, and at least 3,221 injured.** *This figure was confirmed by Gaza’s Ministry of Health on Telegram channel. Some rights groups put the death toll number closer to 35,000 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: Hamas’ military wing says Israeli bombing kills two Israeli captives and wounds of eight others, it is unclear where the attacks took place. CENTCOM: US carries out “self-defense strikes” in Yemen. UNICEF: Civilians in Rafah must be protected as they have nowhere to go. UN: At least 395 displaced people killed in UNRWA shelters since October 7 100 Palestinian bodies recovered from Gaza City after Israeli troops withdrew, most killed by sniper bullets. Israel says two captives rescued from Rafah in southern Gaza, claims they are in good medical condition. In the last 24 hours, Israeli forces killed 164 people and injured 200 in Gaza, a ministry statement on Telegram said. At least 67 Palestinians killed in overnight Israeli airstrikes in Rafah, says the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Israeli forces kill Palestinian man in occupied West Bank In four months, 17 settlement plans for over 8,400 housing units were advanced in occupied East Jerusalem. Israel spends at least 7 million dollars on zionist Super Bowl advertisement. Dutch court orders Netherlands to halt delivery of F-35 jet parts to Israel. US Senator Bernie Sanders: “No one in Congress” should support the Biden administration sending military aid to Israel, Netanyahu’s “war machine” is responsible for an “unprecedented humanitarian disaster.” Military expert: Israeli army invasion of Rafah would lead to genocide, considering over a million Palestinians are living in 60 square kilometers, reported Al Jazeera Dutch court orders government to halt delivery of F-35 fighter jet parts used by Israel in its attacks on Gaza, saying there is a “clear risk” that the parts being exported by the Netherlands are being used in “serious violations of international humanitarian law”. Israel ‘deports’ 51-year-old Palestinian journalist from occupied West Bank to Gaza Strip. Israel bombards Rafah ahead of planned ground invasion The Israeli military has ramped up its attacks on Rafah in southern Gaza as it prepares for a possible ground offensive on the Palestinian city, which has become one of the most densely populated areas in the world. Advertisement Watch now: NOURA ERAKAT on Witnessing Palestine with Frank Barat Rafah, which borders Egypt, is the last key city that Israeli troops have yet to enter. The area was once designated a “safe zone,” although it has been subjected to constant air attacks since Israel’s offensive began. Overnight on Sunday, the military intensified their air raid on the city, killing at least 67 Palestinians, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, including babies and children. The strikes have resulted in significant destruction in Rafah, damaging homes, businesses, and mosques, which, according to Al Jazeera, are hosting 1.4 million Palestinians. Hamas has condemned the latest Israeli air strikes on Rafah in southern Gaza, saying they represent an “expansion of the scope of the massacres it is committing against our people,” in a press release, reported Al Jazeera. “The Nazi occupation army’s attack on the city of Rafah tonight” the group said, “is considered a continuation of the genocidal war and the attempts at forced displacement it is waging against our Palestinian people,” the group continued. Similarly, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry has “condemned in the strongest terms the mass massacres” the Israeli forces continue to commit against Palestinians, especially displaced people. “Israel is officially continuing to target civilians and transfer the war to Rafah to push the population to get displaced under bombardment,” it said in a statement released on X. “The recent massacres of the occupation are evidence of the validity of international warnings and fears of catastrophic results of the expansion of the war to Rafah,” the ministry added. The Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has warned of “dire consequences” of an Israeli military assault on the southern city. “Egypt reiterates its complete rejection of statements by top Israeli officials about launching a military operation on Rafah, warning of its dire consequences, in light of the humanitarian catastrophe it threatens to deepen,” the ministry said in a statement. “Egypt called for the necessity of uniting all international and regional efforts to prevent the targeting of the Palestinian city of Rafah,” it added. Military expert Wassef Erekat has told Al Jazeera that an Israeli army invasion of Rafah would lead to genocide, considering over a million Palestinians are living in 60 square kilometers. “It would be another tragedy befalling the Palestinian people, a catastrophe of epic proportions,” he said. Erekat added that in the eyes of Netanyahu, a war without an invasion of Rafah would mean an admission of defeat. “An invasion has dangerous and disastrous repercussions. Any number of scenarios can unfold: allowing the displaced back into the central and northern Gaza Strip, pushing them into [Egypt’s] Sinai, or merely bombing them further,” Erekat added. The evacuation of Rafah would be ‘unlawful’, human rights experts warn The majority of those in Rafah have been forcibly displaced several times since October due to Israel’s offensive, which has gradually expanded its invasion across the besieged enclave. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) “estimates that in total at least 395 IDPs [internally displaced persons] sheltering in UNRWA shelters have been killed and at least a further 1,379 injured” since October 7, it said in a statement. Nadia Hardman, researcher at Human Rights Watch, has said that people are already struggling to survive in the small area where they have been pushed and displaced. Hardman told Al Jazeera that people she spoke with, some of whom have been displaced up to 10 times, say they are fearful of a ground invasion of the area. “The one question they continue to ask is ‘Where do we go?’ They have fled from areas that were once considered safe. Israel’s promise to provide safe passage must be analyzed in light of the fact that it has consistently failed to do this,” Hardman said. “This evacuation would be unlawful if it is ordered,” she added. The Executive Director of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Catherine Russell, has said that the civilians in Rafah must be protected no matter what. “Civilians are pushed into a corner, living on streets or in shelters. They must be protected. They have nowhere safe to go,” Russell posted on X, adding that the area is teaming with children and families. “Rafah already has nearly half of Gaza’s population. Since the beginning of the war in Gaza, people have been fleeing to Rafah following Israeli evacuation orders.” Nebal Farsakh, the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) spokesperson, told Al Jazeera. “There is no safe place at all, and there is no way to evacuate. On top of that, there is a complete destruction of the infrastructure, and the lack of transportation as well makes it impossible for people to make their way anywhere,” Farsakh added. “We are asking to stop war because it has continued for so long,” he concluded. Healthcare system in Gaza continues to suffer Medical care all across the besieged enclave has been severely affected by Israel’s deliberate attacks on medical personnel and facilities. With the looming ground invasion of Rafah, Medical professionals are apprehensive about how the ground operation would further debilitate the already collapsed health system in the area. Jamal al-Hams, a doctor at the Kuwaiti Hospital in Rafah, told Al Jazeera that an Israeli attack on the southern city would cause endless suffering for Palestinians. “We are suffering a lot during these days because of the huge number of people who have been displaced from the northern and middle areas of the Gaza Strip towards Rafah,” al-Hams said. “Secondly, we [already] have a huge number of injured people and patients with chronic diseases and acute illnesses who have been collected from all over the Gaza Strip [to Rafah]. We are suffering from the shortage of medical disposables and drugs. Most of the antibiotics and analgesics are not available.” “We have changed the admission beds to emergency beds. The Najjar Hospital has a bed capacity of 70, and they changed it to 200 but that is still not enough,” al-Hams continued. “I don’t know what is coming but I am sure that we will suffer very much,” al-Hams concluded. “There would be no place for more injured people. There will be no bed capacity, not even for one, because all hospitals [in the south] – the European, Najjar, and Kuwaiti – are all at full capacity.” World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has described the reports of Israel’s looming offensive as “extremely worrying”. “Proceeding with the plans could have gravely devastating consequences for the 1.4 million people who have nowhere else left to go, and who have almost no place left to seek health care,” he posted on X. Moreover, the WHO chief said hospitals in Rafah in the Gaza Strip were “overwhelmed and overflowing.” “In the rest of the Strip, a majority of hospitals are either minimally or non-functional,” he added. Meanwhile, in Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, sewage water has flooded the emergency department of the medical complex, hindering medical staff from providing life-saving medical care. The Palestinian Ministry of Health is calling for the protection of the hospital’s technical staff to repair the sewage network in the medical courtyard, where seven people have been shot dead by Israeli snipers and 14 others injured. Both al Nasser and Al Amal hospital in Khan Younis have been under military siege for over two weeks and subjected to constant Israeli attacks. PCRS has once again called on the international community to protect healthcare professionals after Israeli forces killed two PRCS paramedics in an airstrike on their way to rescue six-year-old Hind Rajab, who was also killed by Israel a few meters away. “According to international humanitarian law and the Geneva Conventions, the direct targeting and deliberate killing of PRCS crews and volunteers is considered a war crime,” the group said in a statement on X. “[T]he contracting parties that signed the Geneva Conventions and are obligated to enforce respect for international humanitarian law must take the necessary measures to suppress, rebuke and punish the perpetrators.” Francesca Albanese, the United Nations rapporteur on Palestine, has also said that Israel’s escalation in Gaza has led to hundreds of casualties, more devastation, and forced displacement, defying the terms the International Court of Justice imposed on Israel, including ending incitement to genocide and improving the supply of humanitarian aid. “Israel is obligated to adhere to the court’s order and states must act decisively to prevent further atrocities,” she said. Despite growing international calls, U.S. won’t tell Israel not to invade Rafah Despite the growing international concern regarding the plans to invade Rafah, Israel is determined to go forward with the attack. Meanwhile, the US has put little to no pressure on Israel to halt their plans, aside from a verbal request, with no material pressure, to protect civilian lives. The White House released a readout after Biden’s call with Netanyahu, where the US president said: “a military operation in Rafah should not proceed without a credible and executable plan for ensuring the safety of and support for more than one million people sheltering there.” The readout added that Biden stressed “the need to capitalize on progress made in the negotiations to secure the release of all hostages as soon as possible.” Mustafa Barghouti of the Palestinian National Initiative told Al Jazeera that the fact that the United States president did not call for an immediate ceasefire represents a regression in US policy vis-a-vis the war on Gaza. “What I expected to hear from Biden [is something] we will never hear. His comments about the imminent Israeli attack on Rafah should have been accompanied by the United States supporting a ceasefire,” he said. “Rafah is the only area that is not destroyed completely in Gaza. Israel never gave up on its plan to ethnically cleanse the Palestinian population into Egypt. That’s what the US president should have opposed. But he doesn’t. The US is a participant in this attack,” Barghouti continued. “For days, United States officials have been suggesting that this potential Rafah military operation would be disastrous and that it can’t go ahead, but now we have the conditions for the Rafah operation to go ahead, despite the 1.5 million people there,” Al Jazeera’s Shihab Rattansi pointed out. As the US funded Israel’s increasing attacks, the American public tuned into the Super Bowl, where Israel spent at least 7 million dollars on zionist propaganda to be shown during the football game advertisements. Australian Senator David Shoebridge has decried the bombardment on Rafah and questioned the timing while viewers in the United States watch the Super Bowl. “The attack on Rafah happening at 2am Gaza time while the US is watching the Superbowl is utterly horrific and devastating,” said Shoebridge. “Our hearts are with the Palestinian people now more than ever,” he added. 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/2024/02/operation-al-aqsa-flood-day-129-israel-bombards-rafah-killing-more-than-60-in-a-night/ ☝️https://donshafi911.blogspot.com/2024/02/operation-al-aqsa-flood-day-129-israel.html
    MONDOWEISS.NET
    ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 129: Israel bombards Rafah, killing more than 60 in a night
    67 Palestinians, including babies and children, were killed Sunday night as Israel intensified bombing in Rafah, where over 1 million Palestinians are sheltering, in preparation for a ground invasion that experts warn would amount to genocide.
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  • ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 121: Israel kills more than 1,000 Palestinians since ICJ ruling; U.S. bombs Yemen
    Israeli forces bomb Rafah, where thousands of Palestinians are displaced in shelters near the Egyptian border, as an Israeli minister wishes to “encourage voluntary emigration” from Gaza. In West Bank, settlers attack Palestinian villages.

    Mustafa Abu SneinehFebruary 4, 2024
    An injured child gets treatment at Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip
    Injured Palestinians, including children, are brought to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital for treatment following the Israeli attacks in Deir Al-Balah, in central Gaza on February 04, 2024. (Omar Ashtawy/apaimages)
    Casualties

    27,365+ killed* and at least 66,630 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.
    562 Israeli soldiers killed since October 7, and at least 3,221 injured.**
    *This figure was confirmed by Gaza’s Ministry of Health on Telegram channel. Some rights groups put the death toll number at more than 35,000 when accounting for those presumed dead.

    ** This figure is released by the Israeli military.

    Key Developments

    Israeli far-right National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, says his plan is to “encourage Gazans to voluntarily emigrate to places around the world” by offering them cash incentives.
    Ben-Gvir says he looks forward to Donald Trump’s return to the Oval Office; believes that Tump will give Israel free hand in Gaza, while President Joe Biden is “hampering Israel’s war effort”.
    Israeli forces bomb kindergarten housing hundreds of displaced Palestinian in Al-Salam neighborhood, east of Rafah, which borders Egypt.
    Israeli forces lay siege for day six over Al-Shifa Hospital in north Gaza, preventing people from accessing the facility.
    Israeli airstrikes bomb two inhabited houses in Rafah and kill at least 26 Palestinians.
    Hamas military wing, Izz El-Din Al-Qassam Brigades, releases video of attack in Al-Maghazi that killed 21 Israeli soldiers last month.
    Hamas also releases video of its fighters shooting an Israeli command officer in Gaza City; fighters firing direct and close hit on D9 Bulldozer in Khan Yunis.
    US and UK bomb 48 targets of Yemeni Armed Forces, led by the Ansar Allah group (unofficially known also as “Houthis”).
    Yemeni Armed Forces spokesperson says: “These attacks will not deter us from our moral, religious, and humanitarian stance in support of the steadfast Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, and will not pass without response and punishment.”
    Israeli authorities and forces kill five Palestinians, demolish 22 properties, detain 163 people, and put 13 under house arrest in occupied Jerusalem in January, according to the Al-Quds Governate report.
    Israeli minister wants to ‘encourage Gazans to voluntarily emigrate’

    Israel has killed more than 1,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip since the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling last week, ordering Tel Aviv to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza.

    Advertisement

    Watch now: SUSAN ABULHAWA and FRANCESCA ALBANESE on Witnessing Palestine with Frank Barat
    The Israeli forces have not ceased to bomb the Gaza Strip since October, except for a temporary pause in November to allow for the exchange of captives.

    Gaza’s Ministry of Health said on Sunday morning that Israel killed 127 Palestinians and injured 178 others, committing 14 massacres in the past 24 hours.

    The number of Palestinians killed in the Israeli aggression on Gaza now stands at 27,365 martyrs, and 66,630 were injured since October.

    Meanwhile, some Israeli government ministers and Knesset members are making it clear that their wish is to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from Gaza.

    The far-right National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, told the Wall Street Journal that his plan is to “encourage Gazans to voluntarily emigrate to places around the world” by offering them cash incentives.

    Ben-Gvir’s position aligns with the Religious Zionism political alliance, one of the core blocs that makes up Netanyahu’s government. Last week, members of Religious Zionism held a conference in occupied Jerusalem, dubbed “Return to Gaza Conference”, in which they called for building 21 Israeli settlements on top of recently destroyed Palestinian neighbourhoods.

    Ben-Gvir is also looking forward to the day Donald Trump would sit in the Oval Office, believing that he will give Israel a free hand in Gaza, while President Joe Biden is “hampering Israel’s war effort”.

    Ben-Gvir made these statements despite the fact that the Biden administration has stood firmly behind Israel since October 7, authorizing the sale of thousands of munition rounds, rejecting calls for a ceasefire, and supporting Tel Aviv diplomatically and in the UN Security Council.

    The U.S. also called Hamas to free all the Israelis captured during the Operation Al-Aqsa Flood cross-fence attack on October 7. However, Hamas had refused these calls before an agreement on a permanent ceasefire is reached.

    Currently, Hamas is still deliberating over a proposed truce for 45 days and the release of 35 Israeli captives in return for the freeing of thousands of Palestinian prisoners in the Israeli jails. The deal is yet to be confirmed.

    But releasing Israeli captives is not a top agenda item for some Israeli politicians. Amichai Elhaho, the Israeli Minister of Heritage, who called for nuking Gaza, pleaded to Israelis who protested against Netanyahu to release hostages, to think outside the box.

    “We must get out of mental stagnation that the deal is the only way to free the hostages,” Elhaho told army radio on Sunday. “The Jewish morality does not hold us fully responsible for the release of the captives,” he added.

    Israeli forces bomb kindergarten sheltering Palestinians in Rafah

    Overnight, Israeli forces bombed a kindergarten housing hundreds of displaced Palestinian in Al-Salam neighborhood, east of Rafah, the southern city which borders Egypt.

    Wafa news agency reported that two girls were killed in the Israeli airstrike and dozens injured. Another Israeli airstrike on an apartment in Hassan Salama Tower in Al-Geneina neighbourhood, east of Rafah, killed a child and wounded two others.

    An Israeli airstrike on the house of the Abu Safar family killed seven Palestinians, including children, in the Al-Hakar area in Deir Al-Balah city, in central Gaza. Wafa also reported that several Israeli airstrikes and artillery shelling were launched on Khan Yunis overnight.

    An airstrike on the house of Masran family in Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza injured several Palestinians as Israeli forces continued to bomb north Gaza neighbourhoods, killing at least eight Palestinians in an airstrike on the Al-Rimal area.

    Wafa reported that in north Gaza, medical teams transferred the bodies and the injured to the Kamal Adwan Hospital, while for the sixth day in a row, Israeli forces are laying siege over the Al-Shifa Hospital, preventing people from accessing the facility.

    Last week, Israeli tanks approaching the Al-Shifa Hospital and Al-Rimal neighborhood, forced thousands of Palestinians to flee in panic and fear to the eastern areas of Gaza City. Despite being one of the first hospitals attacked by the Israeli military in its ground offensive campaign, Al-Shifa is one of the few remaining hospitals that are still partially operating in Gaza.

    In Rafah, Israeli airstrikes on two inhabited houses killed at least 26 Palestinians, according to Wafa, and injured dozens. Rafah, the southernmost district of the Gaza Strip, has seen the influx of nearly half of Gaza’s 2 million residents, who were forcibly displaced by Israeli forces. Thousands of Palestinian families are living in tents in Rafah and lack sufficient food, fresh water and heating sources.

    In the past weeks, Israel has been mulling a plan to invade the Philadelphia Axis, a zone which separates the Gaza Strip from Egypt.

    Palestinians are concerned that Israel will use the military operation in the area to push thousands of people out to the Sinai Peninsula under the threat of bombardment and airstrikes. Israel claims that the border area is still a breathing lung for Hamas fighters and has tunnels running underneath it.

    Hamas releases video of attack that killed 21 Israeli soldiers

    Hamas’ military wing, Izz El-Din Al-Qassam Brigades, released a video of the attack that killed 21 Israeli soldiers last month.

    The attack was the heaviest combat loss the Israeli military has suffered since December, when eight soldiers from the Golani Brigade were killed in Al-Shuja’iya refugee camp, east of Gaza City.

    Since October, at least 562 Israeli soldiers have been killed in the Gaza Strip or during armed clashes with Palestinian fighters, according to the Israeli military. The 562 identified soldiers are, according to the military’s website, the soldiers whose names “were allowed to be published.”

    In the video released by Hamas, fighters fired a 105mm Al-Yaseen anti-tank shell on a two-story building in Al-Maghazi in central Gaza, while another one fired another Al-Yaseen on an Israeli tank, followed by detonating a minefield.

    The Israeli force were preparing mines and explosives to demolish a building 600 meters away from Kissufim, an Israel kibbutz to the east of the Gaza Strip’s fence.

    The Israeli military said one of Hamas’s anti-tank grenades hit the explosives and mines being set up by the Israeli unit inside the building, which led to a massive explosion, killing the 21 soldiers and the collapse of the building, Haaretz reported.

    Since December, the Israeli military demolished several houses and residential buildings along the Gaza fence in a bid to create a “buffer zone” and further push Palestinian neighborhoods to the west away from Israeli towns.

    Hamas also released a video of shooting an Israeli command officer west of Gaza City, with a sniper fire, while in Khan Yunis, it attacked several Israeli tanks and military vehicles, including the D9 Bulldozer with a direct and close hit, while it was destroying Palestinian homes.

    U.S. and U.K. bomb dozens of targets in Yemen

    Overnight, the U.S. and U.K. said that they bombed 48 targets of the Yemeni Armed Forces, led by Ansar Allah group (unofficially known also as “Houthis”).

    These strikes are the second to be carried out by the US in the region in less than 24 hours, following more than 80 strikes in Iraq and Syria.

    Ansar Allah spokesperson said that the US and UK launched 13 airstrikes on Sana’a, nine on Hodeidah on the Red Sea, 11 raids on Taiz, seven on Al-Bayda town, while it struck one target in Saada and seven in Hajjah.

    “These attacks will not deter us from our moral, religious, and humanitarian stance in support of the steadfast Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, and will not pass without response and punishment,” he added.

    Yemen’s Ansar Allah vowed to target any Israel-bound or Israeli-owned ships in Bab Al-Mandab Strait as long as Israeli aggression continues on the Gaza Strip. It added the U.S. and U.K. to the list of targeted ships following a joint U.S.-U.K. airstrikes on Yemen early in January.

    The U.S. Central Command (Centcom) wrote on X platform that it targeted Ansar Allah’s “multiple underground storage facilities, command and control, missile systems, UAV storage and operations sites, radars, and helicopters.”

    On Sunday morning, Centcom said that it shot down an anti-ship cruise missile launched from Yemen against its forces in the Red Sea.

    The U.S. strikes in Yemen, Iraq and Syria are endangering a full-blown war in the region.

    Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said on Sunday that U.S. attacks are “in clear contradiction with the repeated claims of Washington and London that they do not want the expansion of war and conflict in the region.”

    Kanaani accused the U.S. and U.K. of “fuelling chaos, disorder, insecurity and instability” by supporting the Israeli war on Gaza.

    Israeli settlers rampage Palestinian villages in West Bank

    Israeli forces arrested a total of 6,512 Palestinians from the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem since October, some of them were released later, according to the Commission for Ex-Prisoners’ Affairs and the Prisoners’ Club.

    In occupied Jerusalem, Israel killed five Palestinians since January, demolished 22 properties, detained 163 people, and put 13 under house arrest, according to a comprehensive report by Al-Quds Governate affiliated with the Palestinian Authority (PA).

    A total of 3,405 Israeli settlers stormed Al-Aqsa Mosque in the old city of Jerusalem in January.

    In the past 24 hours, Israeli forces raided several Palestinian towns, including Husan, Anabta, Khirbet Tuba, Jericho and Ein Al-Sultan refugee camp, Nablus and Balata refugee camp, Deir Jreer and the Jalazon refugee camp.

    In Ain al-Auja, north of Jericho, Israeli settlers stole ten sheep from a Palestinian Bedouin community, according to Wafa.

    Wafa also reported that Israeli settlers stormed Farasin village, south of Jenin, and vandalized security cameras of shops a poultry farm in the village, and tore down greenhouses.

    The Wall and Settlement Resistance Committee said in January, Israeli settlers, protected by soldiers on most occasions, launched 1,593 attacks against Palestinian towns and properties.

    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/2024/02/operation-al-aqsa-flood-day-121-israel-kills-more-than-1000-palestinians-since-icj-ruling-u-s-bombs-yemen/

    https://donshafi911.blogspot.com/2024/02/operation-al-aqsa-flood-day-121-israel.html
    ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 121: Israel kills more than 1,000 Palestinians since ICJ ruling; U.S. bombs Yemen Israeli forces bomb Rafah, where thousands of Palestinians are displaced in shelters near the Egyptian border, as an Israeli minister wishes to “encourage voluntary emigration” from Gaza. In West Bank, settlers attack Palestinian villages. Mustafa Abu SneinehFebruary 4, 2024 An injured child gets treatment at Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip Injured Palestinians, including children, are brought to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital for treatment following the Israeli attacks in Deir Al-Balah, in central Gaza on February 04, 2024. (Omar Ashtawy/apaimages) Casualties 27,365+ killed* and at least 66,630 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. 562 Israeli soldiers killed since October 7, and at least 3,221 injured.** *This figure was confirmed by Gaza’s Ministry of Health on Telegram channel. Some rights groups put the death toll number at more than 35,000 when accounting for those presumed dead. ** This figure is released by the Israeli military. Key Developments Israeli far-right National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, says his plan is to “encourage Gazans to voluntarily emigrate to places around the world” by offering them cash incentives. Ben-Gvir says he looks forward to Donald Trump’s return to the Oval Office; believes that Tump will give Israel free hand in Gaza, while President Joe Biden is “hampering Israel’s war effort”. Israeli forces bomb kindergarten housing hundreds of displaced Palestinian in Al-Salam neighborhood, east of Rafah, which borders Egypt. Israeli forces lay siege for day six over Al-Shifa Hospital in north Gaza, preventing people from accessing the facility. Israeli airstrikes bomb two inhabited houses in Rafah and kill at least 26 Palestinians. Hamas military wing, Izz El-Din Al-Qassam Brigades, releases video of attack in Al-Maghazi that killed 21 Israeli soldiers last month. Hamas also releases video of its fighters shooting an Israeli command officer in Gaza City; fighters firing direct and close hit on D9 Bulldozer in Khan Yunis. US and UK bomb 48 targets of Yemeni Armed Forces, led by the Ansar Allah group (unofficially known also as “Houthis”). Yemeni Armed Forces spokesperson says: “These attacks will not deter us from our moral, religious, and humanitarian stance in support of the steadfast Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, and will not pass without response and punishment.” Israeli authorities and forces kill five Palestinians, demolish 22 properties, detain 163 people, and put 13 under house arrest in occupied Jerusalem in January, according to the Al-Quds Governate report. Israeli minister wants to ‘encourage Gazans to voluntarily emigrate’ Israel has killed more than 1,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip since the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling last week, ordering Tel Aviv to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza. Advertisement Watch now: SUSAN ABULHAWA and FRANCESCA ALBANESE on Witnessing Palestine with Frank Barat The Israeli forces have not ceased to bomb the Gaza Strip since October, except for a temporary pause in November to allow for the exchange of captives. Gaza’s Ministry of Health said on Sunday morning that Israel killed 127 Palestinians and injured 178 others, committing 14 massacres in the past 24 hours. The number of Palestinians killed in the Israeli aggression on Gaza now stands at 27,365 martyrs, and 66,630 were injured since October. Meanwhile, some Israeli government ministers and Knesset members are making it clear that their wish is to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from Gaza. The far-right National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, told the Wall Street Journal that his plan is to “encourage Gazans to voluntarily emigrate to places around the world” by offering them cash incentives. Ben-Gvir’s position aligns with the Religious Zionism political alliance, one of the core blocs that makes up Netanyahu’s government. Last week, members of Religious Zionism held a conference in occupied Jerusalem, dubbed “Return to Gaza Conference”, in which they called for building 21 Israeli settlements on top of recently destroyed Palestinian neighbourhoods. Ben-Gvir is also looking forward to the day Donald Trump would sit in the Oval Office, believing that he will give Israel a free hand in Gaza, while President Joe Biden is “hampering Israel’s war effort”. Ben-Gvir made these statements despite the fact that the Biden administration has stood firmly behind Israel since October 7, authorizing the sale of thousands of munition rounds, rejecting calls for a ceasefire, and supporting Tel Aviv diplomatically and in the UN Security Council. The U.S. also called Hamas to free all the Israelis captured during the Operation Al-Aqsa Flood cross-fence attack on October 7. However, Hamas had refused these calls before an agreement on a permanent ceasefire is reached. Currently, Hamas is still deliberating over a proposed truce for 45 days and the release of 35 Israeli captives in return for the freeing of thousands of Palestinian prisoners in the Israeli jails. The deal is yet to be confirmed. But releasing Israeli captives is not a top agenda item for some Israeli politicians. Amichai Elhaho, the Israeli Minister of Heritage, who called for nuking Gaza, pleaded to Israelis who protested against Netanyahu to release hostages, to think outside the box. “We must get out of mental stagnation that the deal is the only way to free the hostages,” Elhaho told army radio on Sunday. “The Jewish morality does not hold us fully responsible for the release of the captives,” he added. Israeli forces bomb kindergarten sheltering Palestinians in Rafah Overnight, Israeli forces bombed a kindergarten housing hundreds of displaced Palestinian in Al-Salam neighborhood, east of Rafah, the southern city which borders Egypt. Wafa news agency reported that two girls were killed in the Israeli airstrike and dozens injured. Another Israeli airstrike on an apartment in Hassan Salama Tower in Al-Geneina neighbourhood, east of Rafah, killed a child and wounded two others. An Israeli airstrike on the house of the Abu Safar family killed seven Palestinians, including children, in the Al-Hakar area in Deir Al-Balah city, in central Gaza. Wafa also reported that several Israeli airstrikes and artillery shelling were launched on Khan Yunis overnight. An airstrike on the house of Masran family in Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza injured several Palestinians as Israeli forces continued to bomb north Gaza neighbourhoods, killing at least eight Palestinians in an airstrike on the Al-Rimal area. Wafa reported that in north Gaza, medical teams transferred the bodies and the injured to the Kamal Adwan Hospital, while for the sixth day in a row, Israeli forces are laying siege over the Al-Shifa Hospital, preventing people from accessing the facility. Last week, Israeli tanks approaching the Al-Shifa Hospital and Al-Rimal neighborhood, forced thousands of Palestinians to flee in panic and fear to the eastern areas of Gaza City. Despite being one of the first hospitals attacked by the Israeli military in its ground offensive campaign, Al-Shifa is one of the few remaining hospitals that are still partially operating in Gaza. In Rafah, Israeli airstrikes on two inhabited houses killed at least 26 Palestinians, according to Wafa, and injured dozens. Rafah, the southernmost district of the Gaza Strip, has seen the influx of nearly half of Gaza’s 2 million residents, who were forcibly displaced by Israeli forces. Thousands of Palestinian families are living in tents in Rafah and lack sufficient food, fresh water and heating sources. In the past weeks, Israel has been mulling a plan to invade the Philadelphia Axis, a zone which separates the Gaza Strip from Egypt. Palestinians are concerned that Israel will use the military operation in the area to push thousands of people out to the Sinai Peninsula under the threat of bombardment and airstrikes. Israel claims that the border area is still a breathing lung for Hamas fighters and has tunnels running underneath it. Hamas releases video of attack that killed 21 Israeli soldiers Hamas’ military wing, Izz El-Din Al-Qassam Brigades, released a video of the attack that killed 21 Israeli soldiers last month. The attack was the heaviest combat loss the Israeli military has suffered since December, when eight soldiers from the Golani Brigade were killed in Al-Shuja’iya refugee camp, east of Gaza City. Since October, at least 562 Israeli soldiers have been killed in the Gaza Strip or during armed clashes with Palestinian fighters, according to the Israeli military. The 562 identified soldiers are, according to the military’s website, the soldiers whose names “were allowed to be published.” In the video released by Hamas, fighters fired a 105mm Al-Yaseen anti-tank shell on a two-story building in Al-Maghazi in central Gaza, while another one fired another Al-Yaseen on an Israeli tank, followed by detonating a minefield. The Israeli force were preparing mines and explosives to demolish a building 600 meters away from Kissufim, an Israel kibbutz to the east of the Gaza Strip’s fence. The Israeli military said one of Hamas’s anti-tank grenades hit the explosives and mines being set up by the Israeli unit inside the building, which led to a massive explosion, killing the 21 soldiers and the collapse of the building, Haaretz reported. Since December, the Israeli military demolished several houses and residential buildings along the Gaza fence in a bid to create a “buffer zone” and further push Palestinian neighborhoods to the west away from Israeli towns. Hamas also released a video of shooting an Israeli command officer west of Gaza City, with a sniper fire, while in Khan Yunis, it attacked several Israeli tanks and military vehicles, including the D9 Bulldozer with a direct and close hit, while it was destroying Palestinian homes. U.S. and U.K. bomb dozens of targets in Yemen Overnight, the U.S. and U.K. said that they bombed 48 targets of the Yemeni Armed Forces, led by Ansar Allah group (unofficially known also as “Houthis”). These strikes are the second to be carried out by the US in the region in less than 24 hours, following more than 80 strikes in Iraq and Syria. Ansar Allah spokesperson said that the US and UK launched 13 airstrikes on Sana’a, nine on Hodeidah on the Red Sea, 11 raids on Taiz, seven on Al-Bayda town, while it struck one target in Saada and seven in Hajjah. “These attacks will not deter us from our moral, religious, and humanitarian stance in support of the steadfast Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, and will not pass without response and punishment,” he added. Yemen’s Ansar Allah vowed to target any Israel-bound or Israeli-owned ships in Bab Al-Mandab Strait as long as Israeli aggression continues on the Gaza Strip. It added the U.S. and U.K. to the list of targeted ships following a joint U.S.-U.K. airstrikes on Yemen early in January. The U.S. Central Command (Centcom) wrote on X platform that it targeted Ansar Allah’s “multiple underground storage facilities, command and control, missile systems, UAV storage and operations sites, radars, and helicopters.” On Sunday morning, Centcom said that it shot down an anti-ship cruise missile launched from Yemen against its forces in the Red Sea. The U.S. strikes in Yemen, Iraq and Syria are endangering a full-blown war in the region. Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said on Sunday that U.S. attacks are “in clear contradiction with the repeated claims of Washington and London that they do not want the expansion of war and conflict in the region.” Kanaani accused the U.S. and U.K. of “fuelling chaos, disorder, insecurity and instability” by supporting the Israeli war on Gaza. Israeli settlers rampage Palestinian villages in West Bank Israeli forces arrested a total of 6,512 Palestinians from the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem since October, some of them were released later, according to the Commission for Ex-Prisoners’ Affairs and the Prisoners’ Club. In occupied Jerusalem, Israel killed five Palestinians since January, demolished 22 properties, detained 163 people, and put 13 under house arrest, according to a comprehensive report by Al-Quds Governate affiliated with the Palestinian Authority (PA). A total of 3,405 Israeli settlers stormed Al-Aqsa Mosque in the old city of Jerusalem in January. In the past 24 hours, Israeli forces raided several Palestinian towns, including Husan, Anabta, Khirbet Tuba, Jericho and Ein Al-Sultan refugee camp, Nablus and Balata refugee camp, Deir Jreer and the Jalazon refugee camp. In Ain al-Auja, north of Jericho, Israeli settlers stole ten sheep from a Palestinian Bedouin community, according to Wafa. Wafa also reported that Israeli settlers stormed Farasin village, south of Jenin, and vandalized security cameras of shops a poultry farm in the village, and tore down greenhouses. The Wall and Settlement Resistance Committee said in January, Israeli settlers, protected by soldiers on most occasions, launched 1,593 attacks against Palestinian towns and properties. 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/2024/02/operation-al-aqsa-flood-day-121-israel-kills-more-than-1000-palestinians-since-icj-ruling-u-s-bombs-yemen/ https://donshafi911.blogspot.com/2024/02/operation-al-aqsa-flood-day-121-israel.html
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    ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 121: Israel kills more than 1,000 Palestinians since ICJ ruling; U.S. bombs Yemen
    Israeli forces bomb Rafah, where thousands of Palestinians are displaced in shelters near the Egyptian border, as an Israeli minister wishes to “encourage voluntary emigration” from Gaza. In West Bank, settlers attack Palestinian villages.
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  • “Our goal is to stop the genocide”: The Grayzone interviews Houthi spokesman
    Max BlumenthalJanuary 25, 2024

    Mohammed Al-Bukhaiti, senior political officer and spokesman for Yemen’s Ansarallah movement, explains the objectives behind his movement’s naval blockade of the Red Sea in this interview with The Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal. Al-Bukhaiti also responds to military threats from the Biden administration and allegations that Ansarallah is controlled by Iran’s IRGC.

    Translation by Hekmat Aboukhater



    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9k3hAkr1FNc
    “Our goal is to stop the genocide”: The Grayzone interviews Houthi spokesman Max BlumenthalJanuary 25, 2024 Mohammed Al-Bukhaiti, senior political officer and spokesman for Yemen’s Ansarallah movement, explains the objectives behind his movement’s naval blockade of the Red Sea in this interview with The Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal. Al-Bukhaiti also responds to military threats from the Biden administration and allegations that Ansarallah is controlled by Iran’s IRGC. Translation by Hekmat Aboukhater https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9k3hAkr1FNc
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  • ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 115: Israel pushes Gazans further south; U.S threatens further regional violence
    The U.S. government threatens further regional violence on the heels of drone attack that killed three American troops in Jordan. Human rights groups slam countries for pulling funding for UNRWA as Palestinians in Gaza face famine and starvation.

    Leila WarahJanuary 29, 2024
    Palestinians walk through the rubble of Gaza city, carrying bags of flour delivered on an aid truck
    Palestinians try to get bags of flour after 10 trucks loaded with flour arrived in Gaza City, Gaza strip, on January 28, 2024. (APA Images)
    Casualties

    26,422+ killed* and at least 65,087 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

    Occupied West Bank: Israeli forces shoot dead a Palestinian child southeast of Bethlehem and Palestinian man west of Jenin.
    High-ranking Israeli politicians attend “Return to Gaza Conference” to plan re-settlement.
    Human Rights Monitor: Israeli forces kill 373 Palestinians, including 345 civilians, 48 hours after ICJ interim ruling.
    UNICEF: Over 16,000 children at risk of missing routine vaccinations, exposing them to illnesses like measles, pneumonia and polio.
    PCRS: Israeli shellings and heavy gunfire in the vicinity of besieged Al-Amal Hospital, Khan Younis.
    CENTCOM: Three US service members killed, 25 injured in drone attack by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq in northeast Jordan.
    Gaza Health Ministry: 7,000 wounded and sick people need to leave Gaza to access life-saving medical care.
    Jordan, Turkey, Amnesty International, and WHO call on countries to reinstate funds for UNRWA.
    UNRWA: Only 4 of 22 health centers in Gaza operational due to bombardment and access restrictions
    Yemen’s Ansar Allah send message of defiance to Israel and its allies via music video.
    Japan and Austria join about a dozen countries in suspending funds to UNRWA.
    Gaza’s Health Ministry: Al Nasser Hospital, Khan Younis medical and non-medical waste is piling up “everywhere” amid military siege.
    Since ICJ ruling, hundreds have been killed, hospitals under attack

    In the 48 hours after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) interim ruling on Israel, which placed the state on trial for genocide, the military has continued attacking Gaza with full force.

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    Within the last two days, at least 373 Palestinians, including 345 civilians, have been killed and at least 643 wounded, reported Human Rights Monitor (HRM).

    The entire city of Khan Younis, located in the second-most southern district in the Gaza Strip, is being pounded by Israeli bombardment.

    The Al Amal Hospital in the city is being subjected to a military siege that has lasted several days, trapping medical staff, patients, and displaced people inside.

    “Israeli shelling and heavy gunfire continue in the vicinity of PRCS Al-Amal Hospital,” reported the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) on Monday afternoon.

    PRCS also announced the burial of three people in the courtyard of the al-Amal Hospital due to the “difficulty of transporting them to an official cemetery due to the ongoing blockade imposed on the hospital.”

    On Sunday, PRCS shared a video from inside the Hospital, documenting two members of the medical charity distracting a child amid the sounds of clashes around them. In the video, the young girl shared with them her dreams of returning to her home and school as she expressed her determination to become a dentist.

    Meanwhile, Al Nasser Hospital, also located in the city of Khan Younis, is similarly being subjected to a brutal blockade where medical and non-medical waste is piling up “everywhere,” says Gaza’s Health Ministry.

    The medical waste, which could be toxic, may contribute to the spread of the diseases amid already deteriorating public health conditions in southern Gaza.

    To make matters worse, bodies are also piling up on hospital grounds due to Israeli military vehicles blocking people in, resulting in the inability of citizens to reach the cemeteries in the city, Al Jazeera reported.

    Staff and residents of the Hospital are digging a mass grave on hospital grounds to bury the bodies. At least one other mass grave has already been dug on the property.

    Palestinians pushed farther south in Gaza

    Growing numbers of Palestinians are being forced to flee their homes and shelters in Khan Younis as the army pushes them further south into Rafah, the last remaining place for Palestinians.

    “Thousands of people have been ordered to evacuate and are going through security checkpoints with facial recognition technology. Women and children are separated from the men. A large number of people have been detained and dehumanized during the process,” reported Hani Mahoud from Rafah for Al Jazeera.

    “They are making different groups of people raise their ID cards as they pass through these military checkpoints. In many cases, Palestinian men have been abducted and arrested by the Israeli military, and others have been taken for investigations,” Al Jazeera added.

    The displaced civilians are fleeing Israeli attacks on Khan Younis only to arrive in the already overcrowded district of Rafah, where people are sleeping on the street and in tent camps flooded with sewage amid the harsh weather conditions.

    “Scenes of forcibly displaced people are a disgrace to humanity,” the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.

    “Over half a million Palestinians in Khan Younis were instructed by the occupying forces to evacuate their homes, including hospitals and health centres, in a cruel expansion and deepening of forced displacement from southern regions,” the ministry continued.

    “Israel has ramped up its efforts to starve [Palestinians] as well as forcibly displace them from their homes in the Strip,” Human Rights Monitor said.

    “In defiance of the ruling of the world’s highest court and in violation of its own international obligations, including to international law and principles, Israel persists in committing egregious violations that amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, including genocide against the Palestinian people,” the humanitarian group continued.

    Gazans starve as world powers cut off funding to UNRWA

    Japan and Austria are the most recent countries to join the approximately dozen others who have announced plans to suspend funding to The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), the main agency delivering humanitarian aid to Gaza.

    The countries are awaiting the outcome of an investigation into allegations that 12 staff members participated in Hamas’s October 7 operation, collectively punishing Gaza’s population in the process.

    UNRWA, which has provided primary healthcare to Gaza’s nearly two million residents since before October 7, is already collapsing under Israel’s military attacks and struggling to provide social and primary care to the besieged enclave.

    According to the humanitarian organization, only four out of 22 of its health centers in Gaza are operational due to Israeli bombardment and access restrictions.

    “UNRWA is the lifeline for over 2 million Palestinians facing starvation in Gaza,” Ayman Safadi, Jordan’s foreign minister and deputy prime minister, said in a post on X, stressing that the potential participation of 12 staff does not justify measures to starve an entire nation.

    “It shouldn’t be collectively punished upon allegations against 12 persons out of its 13,000 staff. UNRWA acted responsibly and began an investigation. We urge countries that suspended funds to reverse the decision,” Safadi continued.

    Agnes Callamard, the secretary general of Amnesty International, has called the cuts a “heartless decision” by some of the world’s richest countries “to punish the most vulnerable population on earth because of the alleged crimes of 12 people.”

    “Right after the ICJ ruling finding risk of genocide. Sickening,” Callamard added.

    Similarly, the Director General of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has said that “cutting off funding” to UNRWA at this “critical moment” will only “hurt the people of Gaza who desperately need support.”

    “We appeal to donors not to suspend their funding to UNRWA at this critical moment,” Ghebreyesus said.

    Israeli politicians discuss plans to ‘re-settle’ Gaza

    As Gaza’s population continues to be systematically wiped out by Israel, high-ranking Israeli cabinet ministers and parliament members are planning for the besieged enclaves’ re-settlement with Jewish Israelis.

    On Sunday, the politicians attended the “Return to Gaza Conference” in Jerusalem. At the conference, plans were made for the re-establishment of 15 Israeli settlements and the addition of six new ones on top of recently destroyed Palestinian communities.

    The fact that Israeli officials would “convene a high-level meeting to plan an act of aggression – the acquisition of occupied territory and its colonization – is an early indication of intent to breach the provisional measures order by the ICJ,” says Israeli humanitarian lawyer Itay Epshtain.

    Hamas has also released a statement saying the conference goes against the interim rulings of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the war on Gaza by openly calling for the “voluntary migration” of Palestinians at the conference.

    “We call on the international community and the UN to take a firm stance … and condemn it clearly as a fascist conference based on the idea of ethnic cleansing,” Hamas said.

    U.S. threatens to escalate regional violence

    The United States Central Command (CENTCOM) announced three service members were killed and and 34 were wounded on Sunday during a drone attack on US forces stationed in northeast Jordan near the Syrian border, which is likely to cause further escalation in regional violence.

    “While we are still gathering the facts of this attack, we know it was carried out by radical Iran-backed militant groups operating in Syria and Iraq,” President Joe Biden said shortly afterward but did not cite any evidence.

    Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin says he is “outraged and deeply saddened” by the killing of the three troops.

    “The president and I will not tolerate attacks on American forces, and we will take all necessary actions to defend the United States, our troops, and our interests,” he said in a statement.

    Iran later denied their involvement in the fatal drone attack. The country’s Foreign Ministry released a statement saying the “baseless accusations” connecting them to the attack are aimed at fanning the flames of war.

    “This is a conspiracy by those who see their interests in again dragging the US into a new conflict in the region,” Iranian spokesman Nasser Kanani said, as cited by Al Jazeera.

    “Resistance groups across the region do not take orders from the Islamic Republic of Iran in their decisions and actions. And even though Iran does not welcome expanding fighting in the region, it also does not interfere in the decisions of resistance groups on how they support the Palestinian nation, or defend themselves and their countries’ peoples against any violations or occupation,” Kanani continued.

    Later on Monday, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq claimed responsibility for the drone attack, explaining it was “in response to the massacres of the Zionist entity against our people in Gaza.”

    Al Jazeera analyst Marwan Bishara says that the US “recognizes” that it is in a sort of “proxy conflict with Iran,” noting that this is the first time American troops have been killed since the war on Gaza started.

    “This is important because this is another landmark day where we are seeing escalation, a widening of the war. Clearly America is slowly – but surely – getting stuck in the Middle East.”

    “This is the president who famously said we have to end the “forever wars,” and now he’s making threats about punishing the perpetrators and those who are responsible. America is already involved in a number – I’m not sure if we’ve reached a dozen strikes against Yemen. It has employed its most sophisticated aircraft carriers to the eastern Mediterranean,” Bishara continued.

    Many right-wing hawkish US politicians have responded to the attacks by calling for military retaliation, including republican Tom Cotton.

    “The only answer to these attacks must be devastating military retaliation against Iran’s terrorist forces, both in Iran and across the Middle East. Anything less will confirm Joe Biden as a coward unworthy of being commander in chief,” Cotton said in a statement.

    David Des Roches, former Pentagon director of Arabian peninsula affairs, told Al Jazeera that the US reaction to the drone attack that killed three service members “will be a significant one.”

    “I don’t think it will be directed solely against proxies; I think there will be something higher up the hierarchy of Iranian interests destroyed,” he said.

    “It’s a calculus that’s very hard to get right and it’s fraught with danger. The greatest danger is that both sides might create a sort of unwanted momentum towards a confrontation that neither side truly wants,” Roches concluded.

    However, Trita Parsi, the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute, said it’s likely US interests will continue to be threatened without an end to the war in Gaza.

    “It’s important to note that there were zero attacks during the six days between November 24-30 when there was a ceasefire in Gaza,” Parsi told Al Jazeera, adding that the Biden administration appears willing to put US service members at risk to allow Israel to push on with the war.

    “In fact, the carnage in Gaza is increasingly clear now. It is posing a threat to US interests because we’re seeing how it’s threatening the US in the Red Sea,” Parsi said.

    “We’re seeing the casualties now on the Syrian border. There may be a war between Israel and Lebanon as well and, down the line, a new nuclear crisis with Iran. Biden is not pursuing US interests by allowing this to continue. If he really wants to end it and protect US troops, there needs to be de-escalation and de-escalation begins with a ceasefire in Gaza,” Parsi concluded.

    Similarly, the US National Iranian American Council (NIAC) says the US and Iran “are now closer to the brink of being pulled into a full-blown regional war by the vortex of violence” unleashed by the conflict in Gaza.

    “President Biden must show leadership and recognize that there is no military solution to this crisis that has only been expanded and prolonged by military escalation and a dearth of diplomacy,” NIAC concluded on X.

    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-115-israel-pushes-gazans-further-south-u-s-threatens-further-regional-violence/

    https://donshafi911.blogspot.com/2024/01/operation-al-aqsa-flood-day-115-israel.html
    ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 115: Israel pushes Gazans further south; U.S threatens further regional violence The U.S. government threatens further regional violence on the heels of drone attack that killed three American troops in Jordan. Human rights groups slam countries for pulling funding for UNRWA as Palestinians in Gaza face famine and starvation. Leila WarahJanuary 29, 2024 Palestinians walk through the rubble of Gaza city, carrying bags of flour delivered on an aid truck Palestinians try to get bags of flour after 10 trucks loaded with flour arrived in Gaza City, Gaza strip, on January 28, 2024. (APA Images) Casualties 26,422+ killed* and at least 65,087 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 Occupied West Bank: Israeli forces shoot dead a Palestinian child southeast of Bethlehem and Palestinian man west of Jenin. High-ranking Israeli politicians attend “Return to Gaza Conference” to plan re-settlement. Human Rights Monitor: Israeli forces kill 373 Palestinians, including 345 civilians, 48 hours after ICJ interim ruling. UNICEF: Over 16,000 children at risk of missing routine vaccinations, exposing them to illnesses like measles, pneumonia and polio. PCRS: Israeli shellings and heavy gunfire in the vicinity of besieged Al-Amal Hospital, Khan Younis. CENTCOM: Three US service members killed, 25 injured in drone attack by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq in northeast Jordan. Gaza Health Ministry: 7,000 wounded and sick people need to leave Gaza to access life-saving medical care. Jordan, Turkey, Amnesty International, and WHO call on countries to reinstate funds for UNRWA. UNRWA: Only 4 of 22 health centers in Gaza operational due to bombardment and access restrictions Yemen’s Ansar Allah send message of defiance to Israel and its allies via music video. Japan and Austria join about a dozen countries in suspending funds to UNRWA. Gaza’s Health Ministry: Al Nasser Hospital, Khan Younis medical and non-medical waste is piling up “everywhere” amid military siege. Since ICJ ruling, hundreds have been killed, hospitals under attack In the 48 hours after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) interim ruling on Israel, which placed the state on trial for genocide, the military has continued attacking Gaza with full force. Advertisement Follow the Mondoweiss channel on WhatsApp! Within the last two days, at least 373 Palestinians, including 345 civilians, have been killed and at least 643 wounded, reported Human Rights Monitor (HRM). The entire city of Khan Younis, located in the second-most southern district in the Gaza Strip, is being pounded by Israeli bombardment. The Al Amal Hospital in the city is being subjected to a military siege that has lasted several days, trapping medical staff, patients, and displaced people inside. “Israeli shelling and heavy gunfire continue in the vicinity of PRCS Al-Amal Hospital,” reported the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) on Monday afternoon. PRCS also announced the burial of three people in the courtyard of the al-Amal Hospital due to the “difficulty of transporting them to an official cemetery due to the ongoing blockade imposed on the hospital.” On Sunday, PRCS shared a video from inside the Hospital, documenting two members of the medical charity distracting a child amid the sounds of clashes around them. In the video, the young girl shared with them her dreams of returning to her home and school as she expressed her determination to become a dentist. Meanwhile, Al Nasser Hospital, also located in the city of Khan Younis, is similarly being subjected to a brutal blockade where medical and non-medical waste is piling up “everywhere,” says Gaza’s Health Ministry. The medical waste, which could be toxic, may contribute to the spread of the diseases amid already deteriorating public health conditions in southern Gaza. To make matters worse, bodies are also piling up on hospital grounds due to Israeli military vehicles blocking people in, resulting in the inability of citizens to reach the cemeteries in the city, Al Jazeera reported. Staff and residents of the Hospital are digging a mass grave on hospital grounds to bury the bodies. At least one other mass grave has already been dug on the property. Palestinians pushed farther south in Gaza Growing numbers of Palestinians are being forced to flee their homes and shelters in Khan Younis as the army pushes them further south into Rafah, the last remaining place for Palestinians. “Thousands of people have been ordered to evacuate and are going through security checkpoints with facial recognition technology. Women and children are separated from the men. A large number of people have been detained and dehumanized during the process,” reported Hani Mahoud from Rafah for Al Jazeera. “They are making different groups of people raise their ID cards as they pass through these military checkpoints. In many cases, Palestinian men have been abducted and arrested by the Israeli military, and others have been taken for investigations,” Al Jazeera added. The displaced civilians are fleeing Israeli attacks on Khan Younis only to arrive in the already overcrowded district of Rafah, where people are sleeping on the street and in tent camps flooded with sewage amid the harsh weather conditions. “Scenes of forcibly displaced people are a disgrace to humanity,” the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. “Over half a million Palestinians in Khan Younis were instructed by the occupying forces to evacuate their homes, including hospitals and health centres, in a cruel expansion and deepening of forced displacement from southern regions,” the ministry continued. “Israel has ramped up its efforts to starve [Palestinians] as well as forcibly displace them from their homes in the Strip,” Human Rights Monitor said. “In defiance of the ruling of the world’s highest court and in violation of its own international obligations, including to international law and principles, Israel persists in committing egregious violations that amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, including genocide against the Palestinian people,” the humanitarian group continued. Gazans starve as world powers cut off funding to UNRWA Japan and Austria are the most recent countries to join the approximately dozen others who have announced plans to suspend funding to The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), the main agency delivering humanitarian aid to Gaza. The countries are awaiting the outcome of an investigation into allegations that 12 staff members participated in Hamas’s October 7 operation, collectively punishing Gaza’s population in the process. UNRWA, which has provided primary healthcare to Gaza’s nearly two million residents since before October 7, is already collapsing under Israel’s military attacks and struggling to provide social and primary care to the besieged enclave. According to the humanitarian organization, only four out of 22 of its health centers in Gaza are operational due to Israeli bombardment and access restrictions. “UNRWA is the lifeline for over 2 million Palestinians facing starvation in Gaza,” Ayman Safadi, Jordan’s foreign minister and deputy prime minister, said in a post on X, stressing that the potential participation of 12 staff does not justify measures to starve an entire nation. “It shouldn’t be collectively punished upon allegations against 12 persons out of its 13,000 staff. UNRWA acted responsibly and began an investigation. We urge countries that suspended funds to reverse the decision,” Safadi continued. Agnes Callamard, the secretary general of Amnesty International, has called the cuts a “heartless decision” by some of the world’s richest countries “to punish the most vulnerable population on earth because of the alleged crimes of 12 people.” “Right after the ICJ ruling finding risk of genocide. Sickening,” Callamard added. Similarly, the Director General of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has said that “cutting off funding” to UNRWA at this “critical moment” will only “hurt the people of Gaza who desperately need support.” “We appeal to donors not to suspend their funding to UNRWA at this critical moment,” Ghebreyesus said. Israeli politicians discuss plans to ‘re-settle’ Gaza As Gaza’s population continues to be systematically wiped out by Israel, high-ranking Israeli cabinet ministers and parliament members are planning for the besieged enclaves’ re-settlement with Jewish Israelis. On Sunday, the politicians attended the “Return to Gaza Conference” in Jerusalem. At the conference, plans were made for the re-establishment of 15 Israeli settlements and the addition of six new ones on top of recently destroyed Palestinian communities. The fact that Israeli officials would “convene a high-level meeting to plan an act of aggression – the acquisition of occupied territory and its colonization – is an early indication of intent to breach the provisional measures order by the ICJ,” says Israeli humanitarian lawyer Itay Epshtain. Hamas has also released a statement saying the conference goes against the interim rulings of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the war on Gaza by openly calling for the “voluntary migration” of Palestinians at the conference. “We call on the international community and the UN to take a firm stance … and condemn it clearly as a fascist conference based on the idea of ethnic cleansing,” Hamas said. U.S. threatens to escalate regional violence The United States Central Command (CENTCOM) announced three service members were killed and and 34 were wounded on Sunday during a drone attack on US forces stationed in northeast Jordan near the Syrian border, which is likely to cause further escalation in regional violence. “While we are still gathering the facts of this attack, we know it was carried out by radical Iran-backed militant groups operating in Syria and Iraq,” President Joe Biden said shortly afterward but did not cite any evidence. Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin says he is “outraged and deeply saddened” by the killing of the three troops. “The president and I will not tolerate attacks on American forces, and we will take all necessary actions to defend the United States, our troops, and our interests,” he said in a statement. Iran later denied their involvement in the fatal drone attack. The country’s Foreign Ministry released a statement saying the “baseless accusations” connecting them to the attack are aimed at fanning the flames of war. “This is a conspiracy by those who see their interests in again dragging the US into a new conflict in the region,” Iranian spokesman Nasser Kanani said, as cited by Al Jazeera. “Resistance groups across the region do not take orders from the Islamic Republic of Iran in their decisions and actions. And even though Iran does not welcome expanding fighting in the region, it also does not interfere in the decisions of resistance groups on how they support the Palestinian nation, or defend themselves and their countries’ peoples against any violations or occupation,” Kanani continued. Later on Monday, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq claimed responsibility for the drone attack, explaining it was “in response to the massacres of the Zionist entity against our people in Gaza.” Al Jazeera analyst Marwan Bishara says that the US “recognizes” that it is in a sort of “proxy conflict with Iran,” noting that this is the first time American troops have been killed since the war on Gaza started. “This is important because this is another landmark day where we are seeing escalation, a widening of the war. Clearly America is slowly – but surely – getting stuck in the Middle East.” “This is the president who famously said we have to end the “forever wars,” and now he’s making threats about punishing the perpetrators and those who are responsible. America is already involved in a number – I’m not sure if we’ve reached a dozen strikes against Yemen. It has employed its most sophisticated aircraft carriers to the eastern Mediterranean,” Bishara continued. Many right-wing hawkish US politicians have responded to the attacks by calling for military retaliation, including republican Tom Cotton. “The only answer to these attacks must be devastating military retaliation against Iran’s terrorist forces, both in Iran and across the Middle East. Anything less will confirm Joe Biden as a coward unworthy of being commander in chief,” Cotton said in a statement. David Des Roches, former Pentagon director of Arabian peninsula affairs, told Al Jazeera that the US reaction to the drone attack that killed three service members “will be a significant one.” “I don’t think it will be directed solely against proxies; I think there will be something higher up the hierarchy of Iranian interests destroyed,” he said. “It’s a calculus that’s very hard to get right and it’s fraught with danger. The greatest danger is that both sides might create a sort of unwanted momentum towards a confrontation that neither side truly wants,” Roches concluded. However, Trita Parsi, the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute, said it’s likely US interests will continue to be threatened without an end to the war in Gaza. “It’s important to note that there were zero attacks during the six days between November 24-30 when there was a ceasefire in Gaza,” Parsi told Al Jazeera, adding that the Biden administration appears willing to put US service members at risk to allow Israel to push on with the war. “In fact, the carnage in Gaza is increasingly clear now. It is posing a threat to US interests because we’re seeing how it’s threatening the US in the Red Sea,” Parsi said. “We’re seeing the casualties now on the Syrian border. There may be a war between Israel and Lebanon as well and, down the line, a new nuclear crisis with Iran. Biden is not pursuing US interests by allowing this to continue. If he really wants to end it and protect US troops, there needs to be de-escalation and de-escalation begins with a ceasefire in Gaza,” Parsi concluded. Similarly, the US National Iranian American Council (NIAC) says the US and Iran “are now closer to the brink of being pulled into a full-blown regional war by the vortex of violence” unleashed by the conflict in Gaza. “President Biden must show leadership and recognize that there is no military solution to this crisis that has only been expanded and prolonged by military escalation and a dearth of diplomacy,” NIAC concluded on X. 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-115-israel-pushes-gazans-further-south-u-s-threatens-further-regional-violence/ https://donshafi911.blogspot.com/2024/01/operation-al-aqsa-flood-day-115-israel.html
    MONDOWEISS.NET
    ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 115: Israel pushes Gazans further south; U.S threatens further regional violence
    The U.S. government threatens further regional violence on the heels of drone attack that killed three American troops in Jordan. Human rights groups slam countries for pulling funding for UNRWA as Palestinians in Gaza face famine and starvation.
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  • More US-Driven Escalations Toward War In The Middle East
    Caitlin Johnstone

    Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):



    Well, it finally happened. The scores of attacks on US troops in the middle east in response to Israel’s US-backed atrocities in Gaza have resulted in American deaths, just as critics of US foreign policy have been saying would happen for months. At least now we can stop bracing for it, I guess.

    Antiwar’s Dave DeCamp, among those who have long warned of this eventuality, writes the following:

    “Three US troops were killed by an overnight drone attack in northeastern Jordan, the first Americans to die by enemy fire in the region since President Biden threw the US’s weight behind the Israeli onslaught in Gaza.

    “According to CNN, one-way attack drones hit Tower 22, a small US outpost in Jordan near the Syrian border. Over 30 troops were also wounded in the attack.

    “Since mid-October, US bases in Iraq and Syria have come under attack over 150 times in response to US support for the Israeli slaughter in Gaza. The overnight drone attack in Jordan appears to be the first time Tower 22 was targeted.”


    https://twitter.com/Antiwarcom/status/1751658255397642704
    The Biden administration immediately claimed the attack was backed by Iran, with profoundly influential news agencies like AP and Reuters regurgitating this claim as established fact in their headlines immediately thereafter. As DeCamp notes in the aforementioned article, back in October a US official acknowledged to CNN that that there’s actually a “persistent intelligence gap” as to how much these Shia militias are in fact beholden to the orders of Tehran, but apparently this attack being linked to Iran is now being treated as established gospel truth anyway.

    This attribution has allowed perpetually war-horny Republican senators Lindsey Graham, Tom Cotton and John Cornyn to call on Biden to attack Iran directly. US officials actually told the press last week that Biden would consider direct strikes on Iran if and when the attacks on US troops led to American deaths, with The New York Times reporting the Biden administration knew it was “only a matter of time” before this occurred.

    In a statement on the attacks Biden said the US “will hold all those responsible to account at a time and in a manner our choosing,” meaning yet another military escalation in the middle east is on its way under this murderous administration. A full-scale war with Iran would be the absolute worst-case scenario resulting from the violence which erupted in the middle east this past October, potentially with mass deaths on a scale that would make what’s been happening in Gaza look like child’s play.


    https://twitter.com/mtracey/status/1751762902493593663
    In that same statement Biden said the US troops who were killed in the “despicable and wholly unjust attack” died working “to fight terrorism”, which is of course ridiculous. People who live in the middle east have far more legitimacy attacking US troops in resistance to a US-backed genocide than US troops have in being in the middle east to begin with, and the US military presence they attacked is there to shore up geostrategic control, not to fight terror.

    As Aris Roussinos explains in a new article for Unherd, the US base by the Jordan-Syria border that was struck by Iraqi forces functions as a support base for America’s al-Tanf garrison, a sprawling “deconfliction zone” (read: illegal military occupation) in Syria which the US has for years been using to disrupt Iranian activities in the region and help Israel carry out its constant airstrikes in Syria. “Fighting terrorism” is just the pretense for the US military presence in the region; as always, the real reason is to facilitate the geostrategic domination of the US empire.

    Those three US military personnel didn’t die fighting terrorism. They didn’t even die advancing the interests of ordinary Americans. The real reason they died was summed up nicely by Responsible Statecraft’s Trita Parsi:

    “They didn’t die defending US interests, they died defending Biden’s refusal to press Israel for a ceasefire. Their lives were put at risk by Biden to defend Israel’s ability to continue its carnage in Gaza.”

    Parsi has spent months arguing that the only thing that can de-escalate the rapidly expanding hostilities in the middle east is a ceasefire in Gaza, since that’s what they all ultimately arise from. The massive increase in attacks on US troops, the Yemeni blockade in the Red Sea, the brinkmanship with Hezbollah in Lebanon and the skyrocketing tensions with Iran are all the direct result of Israel’s massacre in Gaza and the opposition thereto.

    Instead of pushing for a ceasefire, the US is preparing to send Israel 50 fighter jets and 12 Apache helicopters in preparation for the next war while stepping toward the horrifying prospect of a hot war with Iran. Meanwhile Nancy Pelosi is saying there needs to be an FBI investigation into people calling for a ceasefire, because they might be Russian secret agents.


    https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/1751763357454176566
    Every US military fatality in the middle east is the fault of the US government for putting them there. US troops shouldn’t be in the middle east at all, and the US has no legitimacy in retaliating against efforts to kick them out of the region by the people who live there. Iraqi militias have 100 percent legitimacy in attacking US troops in the middle east during a US-backed genocide, and the US has zero legitimacy in retaliating.

    To the managers of the US empire:

    Get out of the middle east. Just get the fuck out. Stop backing a genocide in Gaza, stop murdering people to shore up domination of world resources, and leave. Leave before you unleash something far worse than the nightmare you’ve already inflicted upon our species.

    ___________

    My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.


    Bitcoin donations: 1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2

    Featured image via Adobe Stock.

    https://open.substack.com/pub/caitlinjohnstone/p/more-us-driven-escalations-toward?r=1tqe1i&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
    More US-Driven Escalations Toward War In The Middle East Caitlin Johnstone Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley): Well, it finally happened. The scores of attacks on US troops in the middle east in response to Israel’s US-backed atrocities in Gaza have resulted in American deaths, just as critics of US foreign policy have been saying would happen for months. At least now we can stop bracing for it, I guess. Antiwar’s Dave DeCamp, among those who have long warned of this eventuality, writes the following: “Three US troops were killed by an overnight drone attack in northeastern Jordan, the first Americans to die by enemy fire in the region since President Biden threw the US’s weight behind the Israeli onslaught in Gaza. “According to CNN, one-way attack drones hit Tower 22, a small US outpost in Jordan near the Syrian border. Over 30 troops were also wounded in the attack. “Since mid-October, US bases in Iraq and Syria have come under attack over 150 times in response to US support for the Israeli slaughter in Gaza. The overnight drone attack in Jordan appears to be the first time Tower 22 was targeted.” https://twitter.com/Antiwarcom/status/1751658255397642704 The Biden administration immediately claimed the attack was backed by Iran, with profoundly influential news agencies like AP and Reuters regurgitating this claim as established fact in their headlines immediately thereafter. As DeCamp notes in the aforementioned article, back in October a US official acknowledged to CNN that that there’s actually a “persistent intelligence gap” as to how much these Shia militias are in fact beholden to the orders of Tehran, but apparently this attack being linked to Iran is now being treated as established gospel truth anyway. This attribution has allowed perpetually war-horny Republican senators Lindsey Graham, Tom Cotton and John Cornyn to call on Biden to attack Iran directly. US officials actually told the press last week that Biden would consider direct strikes on Iran if and when the attacks on US troops led to American deaths, with The New York Times reporting the Biden administration knew it was “only a matter of time” before this occurred. In a statement on the attacks Biden said the US “will hold all those responsible to account at a time and in a manner our choosing,” meaning yet another military escalation in the middle east is on its way under this murderous administration. A full-scale war with Iran would be the absolute worst-case scenario resulting from the violence which erupted in the middle east this past October, potentially with mass deaths on a scale that would make what’s been happening in Gaza look like child’s play. https://twitter.com/mtracey/status/1751762902493593663 In that same statement Biden said the US troops who were killed in the “despicable and wholly unjust attack” died working “to fight terrorism”, which is of course ridiculous. People who live in the middle east have far more legitimacy attacking US troops in resistance to a US-backed genocide than US troops have in being in the middle east to begin with, and the US military presence they attacked is there to shore up geostrategic control, not to fight terror. As Aris Roussinos explains in a new article for Unherd, the US base by the Jordan-Syria border that was struck by Iraqi forces functions as a support base for America’s al-Tanf garrison, a sprawling “deconfliction zone” (read: illegal military occupation) in Syria which the US has for years been using to disrupt Iranian activities in the region and help Israel carry out its constant airstrikes in Syria. “Fighting terrorism” is just the pretense for the US military presence in the region; as always, the real reason is to facilitate the geostrategic domination of the US empire. Those three US military personnel didn’t die fighting terrorism. They didn’t even die advancing the interests of ordinary Americans. The real reason they died was summed up nicely by Responsible Statecraft’s Trita Parsi: “They didn’t die defending US interests, they died defending Biden’s refusal to press Israel for a ceasefire. Their lives were put at risk by Biden to defend Israel’s ability to continue its carnage in Gaza.” Parsi has spent months arguing that the only thing that can de-escalate the rapidly expanding hostilities in the middle east is a ceasefire in Gaza, since that’s what they all ultimately arise from. The massive increase in attacks on US troops, the Yemeni blockade in the Red Sea, the brinkmanship with Hezbollah in Lebanon and the skyrocketing tensions with Iran are all the direct result of Israel’s massacre in Gaza and the opposition thereto. Instead of pushing for a ceasefire, the US is preparing to send Israel 50 fighter jets and 12 Apache helicopters in preparation for the next war while stepping toward the horrifying prospect of a hot war with Iran. Meanwhile Nancy Pelosi is saying there needs to be an FBI investigation into people calling for a ceasefire, because they might be Russian secret agents. https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/1751763357454176566 Every US military fatality in the middle east is the fault of the US government for putting them there. US troops shouldn’t be in the middle east at all, and the US has no legitimacy in retaliating against efforts to kick them out of the region by the people who live there. Iraqi militias have 100 percent legitimacy in attacking US troops in the middle east during a US-backed genocide, and the US has zero legitimacy in retaliating. To the managers of the US empire: Get out of the middle east. Just get the fuck out. Stop backing a genocide in Gaza, stop murdering people to shore up domination of world resources, and leave. Leave before you unleash something far worse than the nightmare you’ve already inflicted upon our species. ___________ My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley. Bitcoin donations: 1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2 Featured image via Adobe Stock. https://open.substack.com/pub/caitlinjohnstone/p/more-us-driven-escalations-toward?r=1tqe1i&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
    OPEN.SUBSTACK.COM
    More US-Driven Escalations Toward War In The Middle East
    Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley): Well, it finally happened. The scores of attacks on US troops in the middle east in response to Israel’s US-backed atrocities in Gaza have resulted in American deaths, just as critics of US foreign policy have been saying would happen for months. At least now we can stop bracing for it, I guess.
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  • It May be Genocide, But it Won’t Be Stopped - Read by Eunice Wong
    Chris Hedges19 hrs ago
    Text Originally posted Jan. 26, 2024


    Red Ink - by Mr. Fish

    The International Court of Justice (ICJ) refused to implement the most crucial demand made by South African jurists: “the State of Israel shall immediately suspend its military operations in and against Gaza.” But at the same time, it delivered a devastating blow to the foundational myth of Israel. Israel, which paints itself as eternally persecuted, has been credibly accused of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Palestinians are the victims, not the perpetrators, of the “crime of crimes.” A people, once in need of protection from genocide, are now potentially committing it. The court’s ruling questions the very raison d'être of the “Jewish State” and challenges the impunity Israel has enjoyed since its founding 75 years ago.

    The ICJ ordered Israel to take six provisional measures to prevent acts of genocide, measures that will be very difficult if not impossible to fulfill if Israel continues its saturation bombing of Gaza and wholesale targeting of vital infrastructure.

    The court called on Israel “to prevent and punish the direct and public incitement to commit genocide.” It demanded Israel “take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance.” It ordered Israel to protect Palestinian civilians. It called on Israel to protect the some 50,000 women giving birth in Gaza. It ordered Israel to take “effective measures to prevent the destruction and ensure the preservation of evidence related to allegations of acts within the scope of Article II and Article III of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide against members of the Palestinian group in the Gaza Strip.”

    The court ordered Israel to “take all measures within its power” to prevent the crimes which amount to genocide such as “killing, causing serious bodily and mental harm, inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, and imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.”

    Israel was ordered to report back in one month to explain what it had done to implement the provisional measures.

    Gaza was pounded with bombs, missiles and artillery shells as the ruling was read in The Hague — at least 183 Palestinians have been killed in the last 24 hours. Since Oct. 7, more than 26,000 Palestinians have been killed. Almost 65,000 have been wounded, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Thousands more are missing. The carnage continues. This is the cold reality.

    Translated into the vernacular, the court is saying Israel must feed and provide medical care for the victims, cease public statements advocating genocide, preserve evidence of genocide and stop killing Palestinian civilians. Come back and report in a month.

    It is hard to see how these provisional measures can be achieved if the carnage in Gaza continues.

    “Without a ceasefire, the order doesn’t actually work,” Naledi Pandor, South Africa’s minister of international relations, stated bluntly after the ruling.

    Time is not on the side of the Palestinians. Thousands of Palestinians will die within a month. Palestinians in Gaza make up 80 percent of all the people facing famine or catastrophic hunger worldwide, according to the United Nations. The entire population of Gaza by early February is projected to lack sufficient food, with half a million people suffering from starvation, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, drawing on data from U.N. agencies and NGOs. The famine is engineered by Israel.

    At best, the court — while it will not rule for a few years on whether Israel is committing genocide — has given legal license to use the word “genocide” to describe what Israel is doing in Gaza. This is very significant, but it is not enough, given the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.

    Israel has dropped almost 30,000 bombs and shells on Gaza — eight times more bombs than the U.S. dropped on Iraq during six years of war. It has used hundreds of 2,000-pound bombs to obliterate densely populated areas, including refugee camps. These “bunker buster” bombs have a kill radius of a thousand feet. The Israeli aerial assault is unlike anything seen since Vietnam. Gaza, only 20 miles long and five miles wide, is rapidly becoming, by design, uninhabitable.

    Israel will no doubt continue its assault arguing that it is not in violation of the court’s directives. In addition, the Biden administration will undoubtedly veto the resolution at the Security Council demanding Israel implement the provisional measures. The General Assembly, if the Security Council does not endorse the measures, can vote again calling for a ceasefire, but has no power to enforce it.

    Defense for Children International - Palestine v. Biden was filed in November by the Center for Constitutional Rights against President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. The case challenges the U.S. government’s failure to prevent complicity in Israel’s unfolding genocide of the Palestinian people. It asks the court to order the Biden administration to cease diplomatic and military support and comply with its legal obligations under international and federal law.

    The only active resistance to halt the Gaza genocide is provided by Yemen’s Red Sea blockade. Yemen, which was under siege for eight years by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, France, Britain and the U.S., experienced over 400,000 deaths from starvation, lack of health care, infectious diseases and the deliberate bombing of schools, hospitals, infrastructure, residential areas, markets, funerals and weddings. Yemenis know too well — since at least 2017 multiple U.N. agencies have described Yemen as experiencing “the largest humanitarian crisis in the world” — what the Palestinians are enduring.

    Yemen’s resistance — when the history of this genocide is written — will set it apart from nearly every other nation. The rest of the world, including the Arab world, retreats into toothless rhetorical condemnations or actively supports Israel’s obliteration of Gaza and its 2.3 million inhabitants.

    The Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported that the U.S. has sent 230 cargo planes and 20 ships filled with artillery shells, armored vehicles and combat equipment to Israel since the attacks of Oct. 7, in which some 1,200 Israelis were killed. U.S. weapons and military equipment are being shipped to Israel — which is running out of munitions — from the British base RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus, according to the U.K. investigative website Declassified UK. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that more than 40 U.S. and 20 British transport aircraft, along with seven heavy-lift helicopters, have flown into RAF Akrotiri, a 40-minute flight from Tel Aviv. Germany reportedly plans to provide 10,000 rounds of 120mm precision ammunition to Israel. If the court rules against Israel, these countries will be recognized by the world’s most important international court as accomplices to genocide.

    The ruling was dismissed by Israeli leaders.

    Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, seeking to paint the decision not to demand a ceasefire as a victory for Israel, said “Like every country, Israel has an inherent right to defend itself. The vile attempt to deny Israel this fundamental right is blatant discrimination against the Jewish state, and it was justly rejected. The charge of genocide leveled against Israel is not only false, it’s outrageous, and decent people everywhere should reject it.”

    “The decision of the antisemitic court in The Hague proves what was already known: This court does not seek justice, but rather the persecution of Jewish people,” National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said. “They were silent during the Holocaust and today they continue the hypocrisy and take it another step further.”

    The ICJ was founded in 1945 following the Nazi Holocaust. The first case it heard was submitted to the court in 1947.

    “Decisions that endanger the continued existence of the State of Israel must not be listened to,” Ben-Gvir added. “We must continue defeating the enemy until complete victory.”

    The court, which rejected Israel’s arguments to dismiss the case, acknowledged “that the military operation being conducted by Israel following the attack of 7 October 2023 has resulted, inter alia, in tens of thousands of deaths and injuries and the destruction of homes, schools, medical facilities and other vital infrastructure, as well as displacement on a massive scale.”

    The ruling included a statement made by the U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Martin Griffiths, who on Jan. 5, called Gaza “a place of death and despair.” The court document went on:

    . . . Families are sleeping in the open as temperatures plummet. Areas where civilians were told to relocate for their safety have come under bombardment. Medical facilities are under relentless attack. The few hospitals that are partially functional are overwhelmed with trauma cases, critically short of all supplies, and inundated by desperate people seeking safety.

    A public health disaster is unfolding. Infectious diseases are spreading in overcrowded shelters as sewers spill over. Some 180 Palestinian women are giving birth daily amidst this chaos. People are facing the highest levels of food insecurity ever recorded. Famine is around the corner.

    For children in particular, the past 12 weeks have been traumatic: No food. No water. No school. Nothing but the terrifying sounds of war, day in and day out.

    Gaza has simply become uninhabitable. Its people are witnessing daily threats to their very existence — while the world watches on.

    The court acknowledged that “an unprecedented 93% of the population in Gaza is facing crisis levels of hunger, with insufficient food and high levels of malnutrition. At least 1 in 4 households are facing ‘catastrophic conditions’: experiencing an extreme lack of food and starvation and having resorted to selling off their possessions and other extreme measures to afford a simple meal. Starvation, destitution and death are evident.”

    The ruling, quoting Philippe Lazzarini, the Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), continued:

    Overcrowded and unsanitary UNRWA shelters have now become ‘home’ to more than 1.4 million people,” the ruling read. “They lack everything, from food to hygiene to privacy. People live in inhumane conditions, where diseases are spreading, including among children. They live through the unlivable, with the clock ticking fast towards famine.

    The plight of children in Gaza is especially heartbreaking. An entire generation of children is traumatized and will take years to heal. Thousands have been killed, maimed, and orphaned. Hundreds of thousands are deprived of education. Their future is in jeopardy, with far-reaching and long-lasting consequences.

    The court also referred pointedly to comments made by multiple senior Israeli government officials advocating genocide, including the president and minister of defense. Statements made by government and other officials form a crucial element of the “intent” component when seeking to establish the crime of genocide.

    It quoted Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant who declared — two days after the Hamas-led attack of Oct. 7 — that he ordered a “complete siege” of Gaza City with “no electricity, no food, no fuel” being permitted.

    “I have released all restraints . . . You saw what we are fighting against. We are fighting human animals. This is the ISIS of Gaza,” Gallant told Israeli troops massing around Gaza the following day. “This is what we are fighting against…Gaza won’t return to what it was before. There will be no Hamas. We will eliminate everything. If it doesn’t take one day, it will take a week, it will take weeks or even months, we will reach all places.”

    The ICJ quoted Israel’s President Isaac Herzog as saying, “It is not true this rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved. It is absolutely not true. They could have risen up. They could have fought against that evil regime which took over Gaza in a coup d’état. But we are at war. We are at war. We are defending our homes.” Herzog continued “We are protecting our homes. That’s the truth. And when a nation protects its home, it fights. And we will fight until we’ll break their backbone.”

    Today’s decision was read out by the ICJ’s current president, Judge Joan Donoghue, an American lawyer who used to work at the U.S. State Department and the Department of the Treasury before she joined the World Court in 2010.

    “In the Court’s view, the facts and circumstances mentioned above are sufficient to conclude that at least some of the rights claimed by South Africa and for which it is seeking protection are plausible,” it read. “This is the case with respect to the right of the Palestinians in Gaza to be protected from acts of genocide and related prohibited acts identified in Article III, and the right of South Africa to seek Israel’s compliance with the latter’s obligations under the Convention.”

    It is clear from the ruling that the court is fully aware of the magnitude of Israel’s crimes. This makes the decision not to call for the immediate suspension of Israeli military activity in and against Gaza all the more distressing.

    But the court did deliver a devastating blow to the mystique Israel has used since its founding to carry out its settler colonial project against the indigenous inhabitants of historic Palestine. It made the word genocide, when applied to Israel, credible.

    Share
    It May be Genocide, But it Won’t Be Stopped - Read by Eunice Wong Chris Hedges19 hrs ago Text Originally posted Jan. 26, 2024 Red Ink - by Mr. Fish The International Court of Justice (ICJ) refused to implement the most crucial demand made by South African jurists: “the State of Israel shall immediately suspend its military operations in and against Gaza.” But at the same time, it delivered a devastating blow to the foundational myth of Israel. Israel, which paints itself as eternally persecuted, has been credibly accused of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Palestinians are the victims, not the perpetrators, of the “crime of crimes.” A people, once in need of protection from genocide, are now potentially committing it. The court’s ruling questions the very raison d'être of the “Jewish State” and challenges the impunity Israel has enjoyed since its founding 75 years ago. The ICJ ordered Israel to take six provisional measures to prevent acts of genocide, measures that will be very difficult if not impossible to fulfill if Israel continues its saturation bombing of Gaza and wholesale targeting of vital infrastructure. The court called on Israel “to prevent and punish the direct and public incitement to commit genocide.” It demanded Israel “take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance.” It ordered Israel to protect Palestinian civilians. It called on Israel to protect the some 50,000 women giving birth in Gaza. It ordered Israel to take “effective measures to prevent the destruction and ensure the preservation of evidence related to allegations of acts within the scope of Article II and Article III of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide against members of the Palestinian group in the Gaza Strip.” The court ordered Israel to “take all measures within its power” to prevent the crimes which amount to genocide such as “killing, causing serious bodily and mental harm, inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, and imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.” Israel was ordered to report back in one month to explain what it had done to implement the provisional measures. Gaza was pounded with bombs, missiles and artillery shells as the ruling was read in The Hague — at least 183 Palestinians have been killed in the last 24 hours. Since Oct. 7, more than 26,000 Palestinians have been killed. Almost 65,000 have been wounded, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Thousands more are missing. The carnage continues. This is the cold reality. Translated into the vernacular, the court is saying Israel must feed and provide medical care for the victims, cease public statements advocating genocide, preserve evidence of genocide and stop killing Palestinian civilians. Come back and report in a month. It is hard to see how these provisional measures can be achieved if the carnage in Gaza continues. “Without a ceasefire, the order doesn’t actually work,” Naledi Pandor, South Africa’s minister of international relations, stated bluntly after the ruling. Time is not on the side of the Palestinians. Thousands of Palestinians will die within a month. Palestinians in Gaza make up 80 percent of all the people facing famine or catastrophic hunger worldwide, according to the United Nations. The entire population of Gaza by early February is projected to lack sufficient food, with half a million people suffering from starvation, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, drawing on data from U.N. agencies and NGOs. The famine is engineered by Israel. At best, the court — while it will not rule for a few years on whether Israel is committing genocide — has given legal license to use the word “genocide” to describe what Israel is doing in Gaza. This is very significant, but it is not enough, given the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza. Israel has dropped almost 30,000 bombs and shells on Gaza — eight times more bombs than the U.S. dropped on Iraq during six years of war. It has used hundreds of 2,000-pound bombs to obliterate densely populated areas, including refugee camps. These “bunker buster” bombs have a kill radius of a thousand feet. The Israeli aerial assault is unlike anything seen since Vietnam. Gaza, only 20 miles long and five miles wide, is rapidly becoming, by design, uninhabitable. Israel will no doubt continue its assault arguing that it is not in violation of the court’s directives. In addition, the Biden administration will undoubtedly veto the resolution at the Security Council demanding Israel implement the provisional measures. The General Assembly, if the Security Council does not endorse the measures, can vote again calling for a ceasefire, but has no power to enforce it. Defense for Children International - Palestine v. Biden was filed in November by the Center for Constitutional Rights against President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. The case challenges the U.S. government’s failure to prevent complicity in Israel’s unfolding genocide of the Palestinian people. It asks the court to order the Biden administration to cease diplomatic and military support and comply with its legal obligations under international and federal law. The only active resistance to halt the Gaza genocide is provided by Yemen’s Red Sea blockade. Yemen, which was under siege for eight years by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, France, Britain and the U.S., experienced over 400,000 deaths from starvation, lack of health care, infectious diseases and the deliberate bombing of schools, hospitals, infrastructure, residential areas, markets, funerals and weddings. Yemenis know too well — since at least 2017 multiple U.N. agencies have described Yemen as experiencing “the largest humanitarian crisis in the world” — what the Palestinians are enduring. Yemen’s resistance — when the history of this genocide is written — will set it apart from nearly every other nation. The rest of the world, including the Arab world, retreats into toothless rhetorical condemnations or actively supports Israel’s obliteration of Gaza and its 2.3 million inhabitants. The Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported that the U.S. has sent 230 cargo planes and 20 ships filled with artillery shells, armored vehicles and combat equipment to Israel since the attacks of Oct. 7, in which some 1,200 Israelis were killed. U.S. weapons and military equipment are being shipped to Israel — which is running out of munitions — from the British base RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus, according to the U.K. investigative website Declassified UK. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that more than 40 U.S. and 20 British transport aircraft, along with seven heavy-lift helicopters, have flown into RAF Akrotiri, a 40-minute flight from Tel Aviv. Germany reportedly plans to provide 10,000 rounds of 120mm precision ammunition to Israel. If the court rules against Israel, these countries will be recognized by the world’s most important international court as accomplices to genocide. The ruling was dismissed by Israeli leaders. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, seeking to paint the decision not to demand a ceasefire as a victory for Israel, said “Like every country, Israel has an inherent right to defend itself. The vile attempt to deny Israel this fundamental right is blatant discrimination against the Jewish state, and it was justly rejected. The charge of genocide leveled against Israel is not only false, it’s outrageous, and decent people everywhere should reject it.” “The decision of the antisemitic court in The Hague proves what was already known: This court does not seek justice, but rather the persecution of Jewish people,” National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said. “They were silent during the Holocaust and today they continue the hypocrisy and take it another step further.” The ICJ was founded in 1945 following the Nazi Holocaust. The first case it heard was submitted to the court in 1947. “Decisions that endanger the continued existence of the State of Israel must not be listened to,” Ben-Gvir added. “We must continue defeating the enemy until complete victory.” The court, which rejected Israel’s arguments to dismiss the case, acknowledged “that the military operation being conducted by Israel following the attack of 7 October 2023 has resulted, inter alia, in tens of thousands of deaths and injuries and the destruction of homes, schools, medical facilities and other vital infrastructure, as well as displacement on a massive scale.” The ruling included a statement made by the U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Martin Griffiths, who on Jan. 5, called Gaza “a place of death and despair.” The court document went on: . . . Families are sleeping in the open as temperatures plummet. Areas where civilians were told to relocate for their safety have come under bombardment. Medical facilities are under relentless attack. The few hospitals that are partially functional are overwhelmed with trauma cases, critically short of all supplies, and inundated by desperate people seeking safety. A public health disaster is unfolding. Infectious diseases are spreading in overcrowded shelters as sewers spill over. Some 180 Palestinian women are giving birth daily amidst this chaos. People are facing the highest levels of food insecurity ever recorded. Famine is around the corner. For children in particular, the past 12 weeks have been traumatic: No food. No water. No school. Nothing but the terrifying sounds of war, day in and day out. Gaza has simply become uninhabitable. Its people are witnessing daily threats to their very existence — while the world watches on. The court acknowledged that “an unprecedented 93% of the population in Gaza is facing crisis levels of hunger, with insufficient food and high levels of malnutrition. At least 1 in 4 households are facing ‘catastrophic conditions’: experiencing an extreme lack of food and starvation and having resorted to selling off their possessions and other extreme measures to afford a simple meal. Starvation, destitution and death are evident.” The ruling, quoting Philippe Lazzarini, the Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), continued: Overcrowded and unsanitary UNRWA shelters have now become ‘home’ to more than 1.4 million people,” the ruling read. “They lack everything, from food to hygiene to privacy. People live in inhumane conditions, where diseases are spreading, including among children. They live through the unlivable, with the clock ticking fast towards famine. The plight of children in Gaza is especially heartbreaking. An entire generation of children is traumatized and will take years to heal. Thousands have been killed, maimed, and orphaned. Hundreds of thousands are deprived of education. Their future is in jeopardy, with far-reaching and long-lasting consequences. The court also referred pointedly to comments made by multiple senior Israeli government officials advocating genocide, including the president and minister of defense. Statements made by government and other officials form a crucial element of the “intent” component when seeking to establish the crime of genocide. It quoted Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant who declared — two days after the Hamas-led attack of Oct. 7 — that he ordered a “complete siege” of Gaza City with “no electricity, no food, no fuel” being permitted. “I have released all restraints . . . You saw what we are fighting against. We are fighting human animals. This is the ISIS of Gaza,” Gallant told Israeli troops massing around Gaza the following day. “This is what we are fighting against…Gaza won’t return to what it was before. There will be no Hamas. We will eliminate everything. If it doesn’t take one day, it will take a week, it will take weeks or even months, we will reach all places.” The ICJ quoted Israel’s President Isaac Herzog as saying, “It is not true this rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved. It is absolutely not true. They could have risen up. They could have fought against that evil regime which took over Gaza in a coup d’état. But we are at war. We are at war. We are defending our homes.” Herzog continued “We are protecting our homes. That’s the truth. And when a nation protects its home, it fights. And we will fight until we’ll break their backbone.” Today’s decision was read out by the ICJ’s current president, Judge Joan Donoghue, an American lawyer who used to work at the U.S. State Department and the Department of the Treasury before she joined the World Court in 2010. “In the Court’s view, the facts and circumstances mentioned above are sufficient to conclude that at least some of the rights claimed by South Africa and for which it is seeking protection are plausible,” it read. “This is the case with respect to the right of the Palestinians in Gaza to be protected from acts of genocide and related prohibited acts identified in Article III, and the right of South Africa to seek Israel’s compliance with the latter’s obligations under the Convention.” It is clear from the ruling that the court is fully aware of the magnitude of Israel’s crimes. This makes the decision not to call for the immediate suspension of Israeli military activity in and against Gaza all the more distressing. But the court did deliver a devastating blow to the mystique Israel has used since its founding to carry out its settler colonial project against the indigenous inhabitants of historic Palestine. It made the word genocide, when applied to Israel, credible. Share
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  • ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 113: A day after ICJ ruling, U.S. and allies withdraw funding to UNRWA
    At least five countries have pulled their funding from the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees over Israeli claims that staff members participated in the October 7 attack. Israel keeps killing Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

    Mondoweiss Palestine BureauJanuary 27, 2024
    A grief-stricken Palestinian man holds up the shrouded body of a dead child in Gaza amidst a crowd outside the mortuary of the Al-Aqsa Hospital in central Gaza.
    Palestinians who lost their loved ones mourn as bodies of the deceased are taken out of the mortuary of Al-Aqsa Hospital for burial in Dair El-Balah, Gaza on January 26, 2024. (Omar Ashtawy/apaimages)
    Casualties:

    26,257 killed* and at least 64,797 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.
    556 Israeli soldiers killed since October 7, and at least 3,221 injured.**
    *This figure was confirmed by Gaza’s Ministry of Health on Saturday, January 27. 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

    International Court of Justice ruling on Friday garners mixed reviews, Israel and U.S. maintain Israeli innocence, Palestinians point out nothing short of ceasefire will end genocide.
    UNRWA fires 12 members of staff and announces launch of independent investigation following Israeli claims that some UNRWA employees participated in October 7 attack.
    U.S., UK, Australia, Italy, and Canada pull funding from UNRWA without waiting for the results of investigation, despite dire humanitarian need in occupied Palestinian territories amid relentless Israeli assault on Gaza.
    Israeli forces kill at least 174 Palestinians, injure 310 others in Gaza in 24 hours.
    Multiple reports emerge of Israeli forces killing Palestinians waving white flags, including two brothers aged 14 and 20 fleeing Khan Younis.
    Israeli forces kill Palestinian in northern occupied West Bank overnight, detain at least eight others.
    U.S. federal court case opens accusing President Joe Biden and other key officials of complicity in Israeli violations against Palestinians.
    Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon kill at least four members of Hezbollah movement.
    U.S. carries out new strikes in Yemen after Ansar Allah targets tanker in Red Sea.
    World reacts to ICJ ruling

    The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling on Friday — which found that there was plausible evidence of Israel committing genocidal acts in Gaza and ordered that Israel show proof within a month that it was reversing course on its indiscriminate targeting of civilians in Gaza and obstruction of humanitarian aid, but stopped short of calling for a ceasefire — has sparked reactions from Israel, Palestine, and across the world.

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    Some of the Israeli press framed the decision not to order an immediate ceasefire as a “win” and the “best Israel could hope for.” Others interpreted it as a “warning shot” that could further isolate the Israeli government and its closest ally, the United States, on the international stage.

    While Israel had vowed ahead of the ruling that it wouldn’t comply with any ICJ calls for an end to the relentless assault on Gaza, analysts in Israel believe that Tel Aviv won’t openly reject the provisional orders issued by the court — as the Israeli government continues to argue, despite extensive evidence to the contrary on the ground, that it is already doing its utmost to protect Palestinian civilians.

    The ICJ notably ordered that Israel prevent and punish officials inciting to genocide. South Africa, which presented the case in front of the ICJ, had cited statements from high-ranking members of the Israeli government, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as proof of genocidal intent against Palestinians in its oral arguments.

    The Times of Israel reported on Friday that Netanyahu had instructed his cabinet members to refrain from responding to the ICJ ruling, in vain. Far-right settler and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, whose own words were cited in the court as evidence of genocidal intent, accused the ICJ of “not seek[ing] justice, but rather the persecution of Jewish people.”

    Netanyahu himself expressed anger that the court did not throw out the case in its entirety. “The court’s willingness to discuss this at all is a mark of disgrace that will not be erased for generations,” he said on Friday.

    In Palestine, Friday’s ruling received a mixed reception for entirely different reasons.

    Hamas politburo member Izzat al-Rishq welcomed the decision as “an important step towards justice for our people.” Meanwhile, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh said the ruling marked an “end to Israel’s era of impunity.” The PA Foreign Ministry meanwhile said an immediate ceasefire was the only way to ensure Israel’s compliance with the court orders.

    South Africa, which has been hailed for bringing the case to the court, commended the ICJ.

    “South Africa had to do what was possible to protect hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and not stand idly by. It must do everything possible to protect hundreds of thousands of Palestinians,” South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor said on Friday. “Israel cannot continue its crimes against Palestinian civilians without consequences.”

    Scores of countries around the world also expressed support for the decision, with the European Union saying it expected its “full, immediate and effective implementation.”

    Israel’s staunchest allies, however, continued to maintain that the court case was baseless.

    “There’s no indication that we’ve seen that validates a claim of genocidal intent or action by the Israeli Defense Forces,” U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told journalists on Friday, adding that he stood by his previous statements that the ICJ case was “meritless, counterproductive, and completely without any basis in fact whatsoever.”

    In the U.K., a spokesperson for the U.K.’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office told Al Jazeera on Saturday: “Our view is that Israel’s actions in Gaza cannot be described as a genocide, which is why we thought South Africa’s decision to bring the case was wrong and provocative.”

    These statements likely ring hollow for Palestinians in Gaza, many of whom had hoped that the ICJ would call for an immediate ceasefire that could put an end to the devastation and misery they have been facing for 113 days.

    “We have no one to support us. No one can stop Israel, no court decisions or UN resolutions. As long as the U.S. supports Israel, we will continue to suffer,” Hassan Khalil, who has been internally displaced five times in three months, told Al Jazeera.

    For Palestinian rights groups and advocates, the onus is now on the international community to abide by the ruling and the Geneva Convention, and bring an end to the slaughter of Palestinians.

    “This ruling holds immense significance, serving as a crucial milestone in the collective effort to hold Israel accountable for the egregious crimes committed against the Palestinian people,” Issam Younis, the general director of the Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights, said. “The responsibility to end the ongoing genocide in Gaza now lies with the international community, which must fulfill its legal obligations and take decisive measures to safeguard Palestinians from the genocidal acts perpetrated by Israel. Ending the ongoing genocidal Israeli military campaign in Gaza should be the primary pursuit.”

    Gaza suffering doesn’t end

    As expected, the events in The Hague have not slowed Israel’s war machine in the Gaza Strip.

    Fighting between armed Palestinian groups and Israeli ground forces was reported in the past 24 hours in al-Bureij, Khan Younis, al-Maghazi, Shuja’iyya, al-Masdar, Beit Lahia, and east of Rafah.

    The Gaza Ministry of Health reported on Saturday that Israeli forces had killed at least 174 Palestinians and injured 310 others in the span of 24 hours – bringing the overall estimated toll, which does not include thousands of people still trapped under the rubble, to 26,257 killed and 64,797 wounded.

    WAFA news agency reported deadly Israeli strikes on tents and homes where displaced people have been sheltering in the horrifically crowded Rafah, as well as in Khan Younis, Deir al-Balah, and Gaza City. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society meanwhile reported that Al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis continued to be under siege by Israeli forces, which shot and killed a young man who had taken refuge in the hospital courtyard on Saturday.

    Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor reported on Friday on the killing of two brothers by Israeli snipers earlier this week as they tried to evacuate Al-Amal Hospital — the latest of numerous alleged cases of deliberate and indiscriminate killing of Palestinian civilians by Israeli forces in Gaza.

    Fourteen-year-old Nahed Barbakh, who eyewitnesses said was holding a white flag, was shot by Israeli snipers three times and killed. His brother Ramez, 20, was also shot in the head while trying to rescue the boy.

    On Friday, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) slammed Israel’s relentless mass displacement of some 85 percent of Gaza’s population into ever tinier slivers of land while continuing to bomb them wherever they go.

    “I have very grave concerns that these chaotic and mass evacuation orders are ineffective in ensuring the safety of Palestinian civilians, instead placing them in increasingly vulnerable, dangerous, situations,” Ajith Sunghay, OHCHR’s director in the occupied Palestinian territories. “Such a failure violates Israel’s obligations under international law.”

    A report by Ground Truth Solutions, which interviewed scores of internally displaced Palestinians in recent months, said “very few people” in Gaza were able to access formal humanitarian aid amid breakdowns in communication and difficulties in access, leaving many to rely only on one another.

    “People are sharing resources among themselves. Their primary source of support is family members. People have also been both giving and receiving food, water, shelter, electricity and healthcare independently of the aid system. They have been taking care of other people’s children, and relying on community support for transportation and the management of daily tasks like sourcing meals, finding fuel, organizing shelters and so on,” the report noted.

    UNRWA once again in the crosshairs

    On the very day that the ICJ ordered for Israel to ensure the unimpeded entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza, Washington saw fit to cut off all funding to UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees.

    The decision came after Israel claimed that 12 UNRWA workers had been involved in the October 7 attack. UNRWA has said that it has terminated the contracts of these workers as it commissions an independent investigation into the allegations — but the United Kingdom, Australia, Italy, and Canada have followed the U.S.’s lead and pulled their funding of the organization.

    In an election year during which he is trying to convince the American public that he is the only alternative to the return of Donald Trump to the White House, U.S. President Joe Biden is following his predecessor’s lead, as Trump had partially suspended funding to UNRWA in 2018.

    “We call on the countries that announced the cessation of their support for UNRWA to immediately reverse their decision, which entails great political and humanitarian relief risks, as at this particular time and in light of the continuing aggression against the Palestinian people, we need the maximum support for this international organization and not stopping support and assistance to it,” Palestine Liberation Organization Secretary-General Hussein al-Sheikh wrote on X.

    Hamas, meanwhile, called on the United Nations “not to yield to the threats and blackmails.”

    “We stress the importance of the role of these agencies in providing relief to our people and documenting the crimes of the occupation, which exceed the most horrific crimes known to humanity in our modern era,” the movement said in a statement.

    Even as the U.S. appears steadfast in siding with Israel, Biden is facing legal trouble at home over his administration’s failure to stop the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

    Palestinians testified on Friday in front of a federal court, in a case brought forth by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) against Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, arguing that the three high-ranking officials are liable under U.S. law for complicity in Israel’s violations of the Genocide Convention.

    Israeli forces kill Palestinian in the West Bank, exchanges of fire continue on all fronts

    In the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces killed at least one Palestinian overnight.

    Qassam Ahmad Yasin, 27, was shot and killed in the village of Deir Abu Deif near Jenin, where overnight clashes were reported between Israeli forces and Palestinian residents. Armed confrontations were also reported in Qalqilya, near the illegal Israeli settlement of Etzion, and an Israeli checkpoint in Beit Furik.

    Israeli forces have been setting up more flying checkpoints across the Jenin governorate in recent days, assaulting Palestinians and tearing down flags.

    Israeli forces detained at least eight Palestinians overnight across the West Bank, WAFA reported.

    Meanwhile, Friday marked the sixteenth consecutive week of Israeli restrictions for worshippers seeking to pray at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem. Israeli forces fired tear gas and skunk water at Palestinians seeking to enter the holy site on the Muslim day of worship.

    Further north, the Hezbollah movement said an Israeli airstrike on the southern Lebanese village of Beit Lif on Friday night had killed four of its members, as the Lebanese resistance movement continues to exchange fire with Israel across the Blue Line.

    Yemen’s Houthi rebels meanwhile struck a British-linked tanker in the Gulf of Aden on Friday. U.S. forces launched an airstrike on Hodeidah on Saturday in retaliation.

    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-113-a-day-after-icj-ruling-u-s-and-allies-withdraw-funding-to-unrwa/
    ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 113: A day after ICJ ruling, U.S. and allies withdraw funding to UNRWA At least five countries have pulled their funding from the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees over Israeli claims that staff members participated in the October 7 attack. Israel keeps killing Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. Mondoweiss Palestine BureauJanuary 27, 2024 A grief-stricken Palestinian man holds up the shrouded body of a dead child in Gaza amidst a crowd outside the mortuary of the Al-Aqsa Hospital in central Gaza. Palestinians who lost their loved ones mourn as bodies of the deceased are taken out of the mortuary of Al-Aqsa Hospital for burial in Dair El-Balah, Gaza on January 26, 2024. (Omar Ashtawy/apaimages) Casualties: 26,257 killed* and at least 64,797 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. 556 Israeli soldiers killed since October 7, and at least 3,221 injured.** *This figure was confirmed by Gaza’s Ministry of Health on Saturday, January 27. 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 International Court of Justice ruling on Friday garners mixed reviews, Israel and U.S. maintain Israeli innocence, Palestinians point out nothing short of ceasefire will end genocide. UNRWA fires 12 members of staff and announces launch of independent investigation following Israeli claims that some UNRWA employees participated in October 7 attack. U.S., UK, Australia, Italy, and Canada pull funding from UNRWA without waiting for the results of investigation, despite dire humanitarian need in occupied Palestinian territories amid relentless Israeli assault on Gaza. Israeli forces kill at least 174 Palestinians, injure 310 others in Gaza in 24 hours. Multiple reports emerge of Israeli forces killing Palestinians waving white flags, including two brothers aged 14 and 20 fleeing Khan Younis. Israeli forces kill Palestinian in northern occupied West Bank overnight, detain at least eight others. U.S. federal court case opens accusing President Joe Biden and other key officials of complicity in Israeli violations against Palestinians. Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon kill at least four members of Hezbollah movement. U.S. carries out new strikes in Yemen after Ansar Allah targets tanker in Red Sea. World reacts to ICJ ruling The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling on Friday — which found that there was plausible evidence of Israel committing genocidal acts in Gaza and ordered that Israel show proof within a month that it was reversing course on its indiscriminate targeting of civilians in Gaza and obstruction of humanitarian aid, but stopped short of calling for a ceasefire — has sparked reactions from Israel, Palestine, and across the world. Advertisement Subscribe to the Mondoweiss YouTube Channel! Some of the Israeli press framed the decision not to order an immediate ceasefire as a “win” and the “best Israel could hope for.” Others interpreted it as a “warning shot” that could further isolate the Israeli government and its closest ally, the United States, on the international stage. While Israel had vowed ahead of the ruling that it wouldn’t comply with any ICJ calls for an end to the relentless assault on Gaza, analysts in Israel believe that Tel Aviv won’t openly reject the provisional orders issued by the court — as the Israeli government continues to argue, despite extensive evidence to the contrary on the ground, that it is already doing its utmost to protect Palestinian civilians. The ICJ notably ordered that Israel prevent and punish officials inciting to genocide. South Africa, which presented the case in front of the ICJ, had cited statements from high-ranking members of the Israeli government, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as proof of genocidal intent against Palestinians in its oral arguments. The Times of Israel reported on Friday that Netanyahu had instructed his cabinet members to refrain from responding to the ICJ ruling, in vain. Far-right settler and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, whose own words were cited in the court as evidence of genocidal intent, accused the ICJ of “not seek[ing] justice, but rather the persecution of Jewish people.” Netanyahu himself expressed anger that the court did not throw out the case in its entirety. “The court’s willingness to discuss this at all is a mark of disgrace that will not be erased for generations,” he said on Friday. In Palestine, Friday’s ruling received a mixed reception for entirely different reasons. Hamas politburo member Izzat al-Rishq welcomed the decision as “an important step towards justice for our people.” Meanwhile, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh said the ruling marked an “end to Israel’s era of impunity.” The PA Foreign Ministry meanwhile said an immediate ceasefire was the only way to ensure Israel’s compliance with the court orders. South Africa, which has been hailed for bringing the case to the court, commended the ICJ. “South Africa had to do what was possible to protect hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and not stand idly by. It must do everything possible to protect hundreds of thousands of Palestinians,” South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor said on Friday. “Israel cannot continue its crimes against Palestinian civilians without consequences.” Scores of countries around the world also expressed support for the decision, with the European Union saying it expected its “full, immediate and effective implementation.” Israel’s staunchest allies, however, continued to maintain that the court case was baseless. “There’s no indication that we’ve seen that validates a claim of genocidal intent or action by the Israeli Defense Forces,” U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told journalists on Friday, adding that he stood by his previous statements that the ICJ case was “meritless, counterproductive, and completely without any basis in fact whatsoever.” In the U.K., a spokesperson for the U.K.’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office told Al Jazeera on Saturday: “Our view is that Israel’s actions in Gaza cannot be described as a genocide, which is why we thought South Africa’s decision to bring the case was wrong and provocative.” These statements likely ring hollow for Palestinians in Gaza, many of whom had hoped that the ICJ would call for an immediate ceasefire that could put an end to the devastation and misery they have been facing for 113 days. “We have no one to support us. No one can stop Israel, no court decisions or UN resolutions. As long as the U.S. supports Israel, we will continue to suffer,” Hassan Khalil, who has been internally displaced five times in three months, told Al Jazeera. For Palestinian rights groups and advocates, the onus is now on the international community to abide by the ruling and the Geneva Convention, and bring an end to the slaughter of Palestinians. “This ruling holds immense significance, serving as a crucial milestone in the collective effort to hold Israel accountable for the egregious crimes committed against the Palestinian people,” Issam Younis, the general director of the Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights, said. “The responsibility to end the ongoing genocide in Gaza now lies with the international community, which must fulfill its legal obligations and take decisive measures to safeguard Palestinians from the genocidal acts perpetrated by Israel. Ending the ongoing genocidal Israeli military campaign in Gaza should be the primary pursuit.” Gaza suffering doesn’t end As expected, the events in The Hague have not slowed Israel’s war machine in the Gaza Strip. Fighting between armed Palestinian groups and Israeli ground forces was reported in the past 24 hours in al-Bureij, Khan Younis, al-Maghazi, Shuja’iyya, al-Masdar, Beit Lahia, and east of Rafah. The Gaza Ministry of Health reported on Saturday that Israeli forces had killed at least 174 Palestinians and injured 310 others in the span of 24 hours – bringing the overall estimated toll, which does not include thousands of people still trapped under the rubble, to 26,257 killed and 64,797 wounded. WAFA news agency reported deadly Israeli strikes on tents and homes where displaced people have been sheltering in the horrifically crowded Rafah, as well as in Khan Younis, Deir al-Balah, and Gaza City. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society meanwhile reported that Al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis continued to be under siege by Israeli forces, which shot and killed a young man who had taken refuge in the hospital courtyard on Saturday. Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor reported on Friday on the killing of two brothers by Israeli snipers earlier this week as they tried to evacuate Al-Amal Hospital — the latest of numerous alleged cases of deliberate and indiscriminate killing of Palestinian civilians by Israeli forces in Gaza. Fourteen-year-old Nahed Barbakh, who eyewitnesses said was holding a white flag, was shot by Israeli snipers three times and killed. His brother Ramez, 20, was also shot in the head while trying to rescue the boy. On Friday, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) slammed Israel’s relentless mass displacement of some 85 percent of Gaza’s population into ever tinier slivers of land while continuing to bomb them wherever they go. “I have very grave concerns that these chaotic and mass evacuation orders are ineffective in ensuring the safety of Palestinian civilians, instead placing them in increasingly vulnerable, dangerous, situations,” Ajith Sunghay, OHCHR’s director in the occupied Palestinian territories. “Such a failure violates Israel’s obligations under international law.” A report by Ground Truth Solutions, which interviewed scores of internally displaced Palestinians in recent months, said “very few people” in Gaza were able to access formal humanitarian aid amid breakdowns in communication and difficulties in access, leaving many to rely only on one another. “People are sharing resources among themselves. Their primary source of support is family members. People have also been both giving and receiving food, water, shelter, electricity and healthcare independently of the aid system. They have been taking care of other people’s children, and relying on community support for transportation and the management of daily tasks like sourcing meals, finding fuel, organizing shelters and so on,” the report noted. UNRWA once again in the crosshairs On the very day that the ICJ ordered for Israel to ensure the unimpeded entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza, Washington saw fit to cut off all funding to UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees. The decision came after Israel claimed that 12 UNRWA workers had been involved in the October 7 attack. UNRWA has said that it has terminated the contracts of these workers as it commissions an independent investigation into the allegations — but the United Kingdom, Australia, Italy, and Canada have followed the U.S.’s lead and pulled their funding of the organization. In an election year during which he is trying to convince the American public that he is the only alternative to the return of Donald Trump to the White House, U.S. President Joe Biden is following his predecessor’s lead, as Trump had partially suspended funding to UNRWA in 2018. “We call on the countries that announced the cessation of their support for UNRWA to immediately reverse their decision, which entails great political and humanitarian relief risks, as at this particular time and in light of the continuing aggression against the Palestinian people, we need the maximum support for this international organization and not stopping support and assistance to it,” Palestine Liberation Organization Secretary-General Hussein al-Sheikh wrote on X. Hamas, meanwhile, called on the United Nations “not to yield to the threats and blackmails.” “We stress the importance of the role of these agencies in providing relief to our people and documenting the crimes of the occupation, which exceed the most horrific crimes known to humanity in our modern era,” the movement said in a statement. Even as the U.S. appears steadfast in siding with Israel, Biden is facing legal trouble at home over his administration’s failure to stop the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Palestinians testified on Friday in front of a federal court, in a case brought forth by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) against Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, arguing that the three high-ranking officials are liable under U.S. law for complicity in Israel’s violations of the Genocide Convention. Israeli forces kill Palestinian in the West Bank, exchanges of fire continue on all fronts In the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces killed at least one Palestinian overnight. Qassam Ahmad Yasin, 27, was shot and killed in the village of Deir Abu Deif near Jenin, where overnight clashes were reported between Israeli forces and Palestinian residents. Armed confrontations were also reported in Qalqilya, near the illegal Israeli settlement of Etzion, and an Israeli checkpoint in Beit Furik. Israeli forces have been setting up more flying checkpoints across the Jenin governorate in recent days, assaulting Palestinians and tearing down flags. Israeli forces detained at least eight Palestinians overnight across the West Bank, WAFA reported. Meanwhile, Friday marked the sixteenth consecutive week of Israeli restrictions for worshippers seeking to pray at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem. Israeli forces fired tear gas and skunk water at Palestinians seeking to enter the holy site on the Muslim day of worship. Further north, the Hezbollah movement said an Israeli airstrike on the southern Lebanese village of Beit Lif on Friday night had killed four of its members, as the Lebanese resistance movement continues to exchange fire with Israel across the Blue Line. Yemen’s Houthi rebels meanwhile struck a British-linked tanker in the Gulf of Aden on Friday. U.S. forces launched an airstrike on Hodeidah on Saturday in retaliation. 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-113-a-day-after-icj-ruling-u-s-and-allies-withdraw-funding-to-unrwa/
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    ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 113: A day after ICJ ruling, U.S. and allies withdraw funding to UNRWA
    At least five countries have pulled their funding from the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees over Israeli claims that staff members participated in the October 7 attack. Israel keeps killing Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
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