BOMBSHELL AUDIT EXPOSE CALIFORNIA DEMOCRATS LOSING $20 BILLION FIGHTING HOMELESSNESS THAT EXPLODED!
https://www.bitchute.com/video/N8PMr2721h9I/

Repugnant Trump PRO-VAX and PRO-ZIONISTS! - VT Foreign Policy
March 29, 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 Fabio Giusepe Carlo Carisio

VERSIONE IN ITALIANO

«The Pandemic no longer controls our lives. The Vaccines that saved us from COVID are now being used to help beat Cancer – Turning setback into comeback!” YOU’RE WELCOME, JOE, NINE MONTH APPROVAL TIME VS. 12 YEARS THAT IT WOULD HAVE TAKEN YOU!»

Trump’s Pro-VAX Propaganda for Big Pharma Money

This is what we read in a post published in recent days by Donald Trump, the only Republican candidate remaining in the running for the US Presidential Elections of November 2020, relaunched by the attentive analyst of the problems of mRNA genetic serums Igor Chudov who limited himself to a laconic comment.

«In the TruthSocial post above, Trump mentioned his nine-month approval time for Covid vaccines.I am frankly shocked by the stupidity of both statements.The vaccines did not “save us from the pandemic” – they made the pandemic worse. And being proud that such vaccines were pushed through in just nine months is perhaps a bit misguided».


Trump’s embarrassing post was immediately contested by one of his followers
Chudov’s comment was far too pitiful. Trump, who poses as an anti-system fighter, hits the ground running by relaunching propaganda on vaccines while completely ignoring three crucial elements:

the SARS-Cov-2 pandemic was created in the laboratory in a deal between CHINA and the USA (with the help of the EU and the United Kingdom) as reported by the late biologist Luc Montagnier and his biomathematician friend Jean-Claude Perez, confirmed by dozens of scientific studies and finally also supported by the US Senate Health Committee led by a Republican
there is evidence that Moderna patented its anti-Covid vaccine 9 months before the discovery of the Wuhan outbreak in collaboration with the virologist Anthony Fauci and with funding from the Pentagon’s DARPA military agency provided by the Obama-Biden administration
Suspicious Turbo-Cancer from Vaccines for Wales Princess Kate. Devastating Toll of VIPs Ill or Dead from Tumors after Genetic Serums

mRNA gene sera are causing a myriad of adverse reactions, including serious and lethal ones, precisely because they are based on the artificial manipulation of proteins and molecules that interact in a devastating way with the natural immune system of human beings
finally, these Covid vaccines have been identified as the main culprits in the degeneration of the Turbo-Cancer phenomenon, so much so that a doctor suffering from a tumor acted as a guinea pig for the new anti-Cancer vaccine in a grotesque spiral with the stench of transhumanism.
TRANSHUMANIST BIOMEDICINE! World 1st mRNA Cancer Vaccine to treat a Brain Turbo-Cancer from mRNA Covid

After 4 years and tens of thousands of deaths after reports of unwanted effects related to Covid vaccines, the former president seems not to want to make a “mea culpa” for the management of the pandemic left in the hands of the terrorist Fauci (former NIAID director but also consultant of the White House on the Covid emergency) nor question the work of Moderna (which benefited from the Warp Speed contribution provided by the Trump administration) and Pfizer, which refused the help but in return financed an avalanche of senators and Republican deputies.

The impression is that he is looking for sponsors among Big Pharma…

DA PFIZER SOLDI PURE AI PROCURATORI USA! Lobbying da 1milione di Dollari alla Conference Attorneys General. Altri 8 a 1.842 Politici Bipartisan

Lolling in wavering positions like a drunken elephant, after pretending to ride the battle against Big Pharma of Florida governor Ron DeSantis and surgeon general Joseph A. Ladapo who called for a stop to all mRNA serums precisely because they can cause cancer, now reveals his idolatry towards one of the fundamental components of the global immunization plan launched by Bill Gates and the Rockefeller Foundation way back in 1999 in Italy and then culminated in a pandemic “planned for decades” as declared by Robert F-Kennedy jr and demonstrated by patent expert David Martin but above all detailed by the 74 investigations of the WuhanGates cycle by Gospa News.

BOMBSHELL! Florida State Surgeon General Calls for Halt of COVID MRNA Vaccines due to Dangerous, Oncogenes DNA Fragments

Believing that voters are drunk on ignorance like him, however, he is countered by one of his followers who gained 2.59 Likes, 10% of those of Trump’s post.

This would be enough to make it clear that the former president is hypocrisy personified.

Donny’s Connections to the Weapons Lobby

But since we have followed him since he had the US Navy launch 100 Tomahawk missiles on Syria in retaliation for the chemical attack in Douma attributed to Assad’s army but which turned out to be a “false flag” of the jihadists of Al Nusra with the complicity of the White Helmets trained by British intelligence, we know well the international damage it has done.

Especially in Venezuela, triggering electromagnetic sabotage against President Maduro and consequent lethal blackouts interrupted only by the intervention of Russian experts.


Il presidente Donald Trump ad un vertice internazionale accanto al ceo di BlackRock Larry Fink
In the first Weapons Lobby investigation we published a photo of Trump smiling next to Larry Fink, the Zionist financier from New York who founded BlackRock, shareholder of the main warlord corporations but also of Big Pharma.

Trump’s policy in the Middle East allowed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to build a Zionist dictatorship in his country and lay the foundations for the latest devastating war in Gaza which turned into a systematic and premeditated genocide.

And in fact the former MAGA president who fell like a fish in a barrel into the Capitol Hill trap on January 6, 2021, never misses an opportunity to reiterate his support for the Zionists.

Support for the Israeli Zionists of the Gaza Genocide

Here is what he recently wrote from the international newspaper Politico:

The Biden campaign and allied Democratic groups swiftly denounced Donald Trump on Monday after the former president told a conservative radio host that Jews who vote Democratic were sacrilegious.

The comments from Trump came during an interview with Sebastian Gorka, his one time campaign aide, who pressed him on criticism prominent Democrats have had for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the Israel-Hamas war.

Paradoxically, at the very moment in which Biden is trying to distance himself from the massacre of Palestinians aimed at depopulating the Gaza Strip, Trump strengthens his extremist positions thus becoming a fan of that New World Order of Masonic and Zionist origin which through Tel Aviv aims to take control of the Mediterranean Sea with the complicity of a NATO that almost seems like a supporting player.

Toward another Zionist Massacre in Gaza Strip: Netanyahu approves Rafah Operation Plan

Unfortunately too many people in Italy too are blinded by the image of Donny as the only opponent of NWO and Biden, but they have not understood that he is also the son of that same evil bipartisan alliance of Big Pharma and the Weapons Lobby which has imposition in its sights of military dictatorships for “inevitable wars” and who knows how many new “laboratory” pandemics for other compulsory vaccination campaigns.

WEAPONS LOBBY – 15. Kiev War: Gold Mine for NATO’s Merchants of Death. German Industry aims New Plants in Ukraine

Trump is nothing more than the right-wing – almost extreme – counterpart of his rival.

Indeed, given his different size, he could become a grotesque sarcophagus if, with the help of the Zionist lobbies, he won the challenge for the White House.

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Fabio Giuseppe Carlo Carisio
© COPYRIGHT GOSPA NEWS
prohibition of reproduction without authorization
follow Fabio Carisio Gospa News director on Twitter
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MAIN SOURCES

GOSPA NEWS – COVID-19 DOSSIER

GOSPA NEWS – WUHAN-GATES DOSSIER

BLACKROCK “KILLED” CARLSON FOR VACCINES & WEAPONS BUSINESS. The Fund of WEF’s Zionist King owns Big Part of Fox News

WUHAN-GATES – 62. MANMADE SARS-Cov-2 FOR GOLDEN VACCINES: Metabiota, CIA, Biden, Gates, Rockefeller intrigued in Ukraine, China and Italy

WUHAN-GATES – 74. The Greatest Story Never Told: German Virology in China and Montana

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

Venezuela: Guaido’s Friends ParaMilitary Narcos Tied to Italian Mafia but Trump charges Maduro

WEAPONS LOBBY – REPORT 1: The Us Corporations shareholders

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

UPDATE – Fauci’s Testimony before US Congress: “Pandemic from Lab Leak is not a Conspiracy Theory”.

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/

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https://www.vtforeignpolicy.com/2024/03/repugnant-trump-pro-vax-and-pro-zionists/

Opinion: Why I’m resigning from the State Department
Editor’s Note: Annelle Sheline, PhD, served for a year as a foreign affairs officer at the Office of Near Eastern Affairs in the Department of State’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. The views expressed here are her own. Read more opinion on CNN.

CNN — normal
Since Hamas’ attack on October 7, Israel has used American bombs in its war in Gaza, which has killed more than 32,000 people — 13,000 of them children — with countless others buried under the rubble, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. Israel is credibly accused of starving the 2 million people who remain, according to the UN special rapporteur on the right to food; a group of charity leaders warns that without adequate aid, hundreds of thousands more will soon likely join the dead.

Yet Israel is still planning to invade Rafah, where the majority of people in Gaza have fled; UN officials have described the carnage that is expected to ensue as “beyond imagination.” In the West Bank, armed settlers and Israeli soldiers have killed Palestinians, including US citizens. These actions, which experts on genocide have testified meet the crime of genocide, are conducted with the diplomatic and military support of the US government.

For the past year, I worked for the office devoted to promoting human rights in the Middle East. I believe strongly in the mission and in the important work of that office. However, as a representative of a government that is directly enabling what the International Court of Justice has said could plausibly be a genocide in Gaza, such work has become almost impossible. Unable to serve an administration that enables such atrocities, I have decided to resign from my position at the Department of State.

Whatever credibility the United States had as an advocate for human rights has almost entirely vanished since the war began. Members of civil society have refused to respond to my efforts to contact them. Our office seeks to support journalists in the Middle East; yet when asked by NGOs if the US can help when Palestinian journalists are detained or killed in Gaza, I was disappointed that my government didn’t do more to protect them. Ninety Palestinian journalists in Gaza have been killed in the last five months, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. That is the most recorded in any single conflict since the CPJ started collecting data in 1992.

By resigning publicly, I am saddened by the knowledge that I likely foreclose a future at the State Department. I had not initially planned a public resignation. Because my time at State had been so short — I was hired on a two-year contract — I did not think I mattered enough to announce my resignation publicly. However, when I started to tell colleagues of my decision to resign, the response I heard repeatedly was, “Please speak for us.”

Related article Opinion: What Biden needs to know about Rafah

Across the federal government, employees like me have tried for months to influence policy, both internally and, when that failed, publicly. My colleagues and I watched in horror as this administration delivered thousands of precision-guided munitions, bombs, small arms and other lethal aid to Israel and authorized thousands more, even bypassing Congress to do so. We are appalled by the administration’s flagrant disregard for American laws that prohibit the US from providing assistance to foreign militaries that engage in gross human rights violations or that restrict the delivery of humanitarian aid.

The Biden administration’s own policy states, “The legitimacy of and public support for arms transfers among the populations of both the United States and recipient nations depends on the protection of civilians from harm, and the United States distinguishes itself from other potential sources of arms transfers by elevating the importance of protecting civilians.” Yet this noble statement of policy has been directly in contradiction with the actions of the president who promulgated it.

President Joe Biden himself indirectly admits that Israel is not protecting Palestinian civilians from harm. Under pressure from some congressional Democrats, the administration issued a new policy to ensure that foreign military transfers don’t violate relevant domestic and international laws.

Yet just recently, the State Department ascertained that Israel is in compliance with international law in the conduct of the war and in providing humanitarian assistance. To say this when Israel is preventing the adequate entrance of humanitarian aid and the US is being forced to air drop food to starving Gazans, this finding makes a mockery of the administration’s claims to care about the law or about the fate of innocent Palestinians.

Related article Opinion: The crux of Israel’s challenge

Some have argued that the US lacks influence over Israel. Yet Retired Israeli Maj. Gen. Yitzhak Brick noted in November that Israel’s missiles, bombs and airplanes all come from the US. “The minute they turn off the tap, you can’t keep fighting,” he said. “Everyone understands that we can’t fight this war without the United States. Period.”

Even now, Israel is considering invading Lebanon, which brings a heightened risk of regional conflict that would be catastrophic. The US has sought to prevent this outcome but shows no appetite for withholding offensive weapons from Israel in order to compel greater restraint there or in Gaza. Biden’s support for Israel’s far-right government thus risks sparking a wider conflagration in the region, which could well put US troops in harm’s way.

So many of my colleagues feel betrayed. I write for myself but speak for many others, including Feds United for Peace, a group mobilizing for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza that represents federal workers in their personal capacities across the country, and across 30 federal agencies and departments. After four years of then-President Donald Trump’s efforts to cripple the department, State employees embraced Biden’s pledge to rebuild American diplomacy. For some, US support for Ukraine against Russia’s illegal occupation and bombardment seemed to reestablish America’s moral leadership. Yet the administration continues to enable Israel’s illegal occupation and destruction of Gaza.

I am haunted by the final social media post of Aaron Bushnell, the 25-year-old US Air Force serviceman who self-immolated in front of the Israeli Embassy in Washington on February 25: “Many of us like to ask ourselves, ‘What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?’ The answer is, you’re doing it. Right now.”

I can no longer continue what I was doing. I hope that my resignation can contribute to the many efforts to push the administration to withdraw support for Israel’s war, for the sake of the 2 million Palestinians whose lives are at risk and for the sake of America’s moral standing in the world.


https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/27/opinions/gaza-israel-resigning-state-department-sheline/index.html

WEF Orders U.S. Electors To Not Certify Trump’s 2024 Election Win
Sean Adl-Tabatabai
Fact checked
WEF orders electors to decertify election if Trump wins
The World Economic Forum has instructed electors in the U.S. to not certify the upcoming presidential election if Trump wins.



According to the WEF-funded publication The Atlantic, Democrats must prepare to refuse to certifiy the 2024 election in November.



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The WEF mouthpiece put out an article Friday titled, “How Democrats Could Disqualify Trump If the Supreme Court Doesn’t“, outlining a strategy for Democrats to defy the election results if they don’t get their way.

Infowars.com reports: The editorial lamented the Supreme Court’s recent hearing on the 14th Amendment over Colorado’s unprecedented ruling to remove Trump from the 2024 ballot, and claimed Democrats may have to find another way to stop Trump outside the democratic process.


From The Atlantic:

Without clear guidance from the Court, House Democrats suggest that they might not certify a Trump win on January 6.

Sensing that Trump would likely stay on the ballot, the attorney, Jason Murray, said that if the Supreme Court didn’t resolve the question of Trump’s eligibility, “it could come back with a vengeance”—after the election, when Congress meets once again to count and certify the votes of the Electoral College.

Murray and other legal scholars say that, absent clear guidance from the Supreme Court, a Trump win could lead to a constitutional crisis in Congress. Democrats would have to choose between confirming a winner many of them believe is ineligible and defying the will of voters who elected him. Their choice could be decisive: As their victory in a House special election in New York last week demonstrated, Democrats have a serious chance of winning a majority in Congress in November, even if Trump recaptures the presidency on the same day. If that happens, they could have the votes to prevent him from taking office.

In interviews, senior House Democrats would not commit to certifying a Trump win, saying they would do so only if the Supreme Court affirms his eligibility. But during oral arguments, liberal and conservative justices alike seemed inclined to dodge the question of his eligibility altogether and throw the decision to Congress.

The Atlantic piece was roundly criticized on social media over the left’s hypocrisy of prosecuting hundreds of Jan. 6 protesters contesting the results of the 2020 election while now scheming to halt the certification of the 2024 election.






This is just the latest example of Democrats projecting their intention to defy the will of the voters if Trump wins the 2024 election.

Last month, NBC News reported that “a loose-knit network of public interest groups and lawmakers” are preparing to “foil any efforts” for Trump to use the military to carry out his political agenda if he becomes Commander-in-Chief once again.

JOIN THE FIGHT: BECOME A CITIZEN JOURNALIST TODAY!

Democrats should expect to go to prison in D.C. for 22 years for trying to overturn the election since they’ve set the precedent by jailing nonviolent J6 protesters for speaking out against the rigged 2020 election.

https://thepeoplesvoice.tv/wef-orders-u-s-electors-to-not-certify-trumps-2024-election-win/

“I Have Lost Everything”: In Federal Court, Palestinians Accuse Biden of Complicity in Genocide
Bolstered by a momentous ICJ ruling, Palestinians, including Americans, gave three hours of testimony against the Biden administration.


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In a momentous day for the quest to keep Israel and its allies accountable for its brutal war on Gaza, members of leading Palestinian human rights groups, residents of Gaza, and Palestinian Americans argued in a U.S. District Court on Friday that the Biden administration should halt its financial and military support for Israel and uphold its obligations to prevent genocide.

The arguments came in a lawsuitOpens in a new tab that the Center for Constitutional Rights, or CCR, filed in November against President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, charging them with complicity and failure to prevent the “unfolding genocide” in the occupied strip. Testifying either in person at the Oakland, California, courthouse or remotely from Palestine, the plaintiffs spoke for nearly three hours about the deliberate devastation wrought by Israel in the aftermath of the October 7 Hamas attacks.

The hearing commenced hours after the International Court of Justice in The Hague found that it’s plausible that Israel has committed acts of genocide in Gaza, in a case brought by South Africa. While the United Nations court fell short of ordering an immediate ceasefire, a panel of judges delivered a historic set of rulings and denied Israel’s request to dismiss the case. A final resolution in that case is expected to take years.

Lawyers involved with the lawsuit playing out in federal court said that the ICJ ruling bolsters their case. Their lawsuit argues that Biden, Blinken, and Austin are liable under U.S. lawOpens in a new tab for failing to uphold their obligation to prevent genocide in Gaza. In Oakland, dozens of people lined up outside the courthouse hours before the hearing on Friday, according to organizers on the ground, while the Zoom stream reached its capacity of 1,000 people tuning in.

The Biden administration has maintained that genocide allegations against Israel are “meritless” and “unhelpful” while on Friday, U.S. government attorneys argued the court has no standing to decide on what they say is a matter of foreign policy. Plaintiffs meanwhile, including several Palestinian Americans, spoke powerfully about the need for the U.S. government to take immediate action to save lives.

In the last three months, Israel’s has killed at least 25,000 Palestinians — one in every 100 residentsOpens in a new tab of Gaza.

Laila el-Haddad, a Palestinian American writer and one of the plaintiffs in the case, described her neighborhood being reduced to “a large pile of sand” and the killing of dozens of her relatives, including some who were buried in mass graves.

“My family is being killed on my dime,” she told the court. “President Biden could, with one phone call, put an end to this.”

Questions of Law

At the hearing, U.S. Judge Jeffrey S. White went to some length to state the impact of Israel’s war on Palestinian civilians and the U.S. government’s support for it but indicated the case might ultimately hinge on questions of jurisdiction.

“The Palestinian people are living in fear and without food, medical care, clean water, or sufficient humanitarian aid. Defendants — the president of the United States and his secretaries of state and defense — have provided substantial military, financial, and diplomatic support to Israel,” he said.

“However, the primary concern for this court is the limitation of its own jurisdictional reach.”

He later described the case as one of the “the most difficult” of his career. “You have been seen, you have been heard by this court,” he told the plaintiffs. “I’m going to take it extremely seriously.”

CCR and Justice Department attorneys deliberated for more than an hour about the court’s standing to hear the case. Attorneys for the plaintiffs referenced a different legal case accusing Russia of genocide in Ukraine, which the U.S. government has supported, to point to the Biden administration’s awareness of its responsibility to take steps to prevent genocide.

Katherine Gallagher, a senior attorney at CCR, stressed that the case is not a “wholesale challenge to U.S. military support to Israel.”

“This case does not present the court with a political question,” she added. “These are not questions of policy. These are questions of law.”

Justice Department attorney Jean Lin, for her part, referenced a legal concept known as the “political question doctrine” to argue the court has no authority over foreign policy matters. “It’s a long-standing doctrine that the court has no jurisdiction to enjoin the president in his exercise of official duties,” she said.

“This court is not the proper forum,” she said in her closing remarks.

“Judges and courts have roles to play in enforcing and making real this duty that all of us in this world have to prevent a genocide,” CCR senior attorney Pamela Spees said in her closing remarks. “And the government’s only response is to say to this court that it can’t even engage with the question.”

“Everything Has Been Destroyed”

The legal argument was followed by nearly three hours of testimony by the plaintiffs, which include the human rights groups Defense for Children International – Palestine and Al-Haq, as well as Gaza residents Ahmed Abu Artema, the founder of the 2018 Great March of Return; Omar Al-Najjar, a 24-year-old doctor; and Mohammed Ahmed Abu Rokbeh, all of whom have lost many relatives since the war started. The plaintiffs also include Palestinian Americans whose families in Gaza have been subjected to a relentless bombing campaign by Israel.

Al-Najjar called into the hearing from a hospital hallway in Rafah, on the border with Egypt. Wearing scrubs, he described a medical infrastructure that is overwhelmed and on the brink of collapse, heavy shelling and gun fighting near medical facilities, and medical workers coming under attack in areas the Israeli military had declared safe.

“I have lost everything in this war … I have nothing but my grief,” he told the court. “This is what Israel and its supporters have done to us.”

Ahmed Abofoul, a Palestinian lawyer and legal researcher at Al-Haq, testified from the courthouse that he lost 60 relatives on his father’s side of the family alone, 15 in a single airstrike, and that many of their bodies remain under the rubble. His cousin, he said, has been unable to retrieve the bodies of his five children, as the Israeli military fires at him whenever he tries to approach his destroyed home. Abofoul described not being able to get in touch with some family members after the war started and other relatives, including children, with no access to food and water.

“People are struggling to have anything to survive on,” he said. “Those who survive the bombing most likely will not survive staying in this condition.”

Abofoul also put the current onslaught in the context of the forced displacement of Palestinians since the 1948 establishment of the state of Israel. Pleading with his grandfather to evacuate to a different part of the territory after the war started, Abofoul’s relatives reassured the grandfather he would eventually return home. “That is exactly what they told me in 1948,” he responded, echoing fears by tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians that Israel is seeking to drive them out for good.

Schools, universities, churches, and even Gaza’s archives were destroyed in the ongoing war, Abofoul added. “Everything has been destroyed,” he said, “The Gaza that we know no longer exists.”

El-Haddad, the writer, told the court that she felt an obligation as an American to bring the lawsuit against the Biden administration and that hearing “our president not only actively support this, but cast doubt on the deaths of my family members and other college students in Gaza” had made her feel “dehumanized” and “completely invisible.”

“I felt it was my duty as an American whose taxes and government have been directly responsible for the deaths of my family,” she added. “My government is complicit in this ongoing genocide against my family and the destruction of everything that I knew and I loved.”

Barry Trachtenberg, a professor of Jewish history and author of two books about the Holocaust, testified as an expert witness in the case – over repeated objections from Justice Department attorneys. When he filed his declaration in the case in November, he said, some 11,000 Palestinians had been killed. Today, that number is far greater.

“Everything that we feared and more is unfolding,” he said, noting that often, legal actions about genocide happen long after the fact. “What makes this situation so unique is that we’re watching the genocide unfold as we speak. And we’re in this incredibly unique position where we can actually intervene to stop it using the mechanisms of international law that are available to us.”

A Historic Case

CCR’s 89-page complaintOpens in a new tab lays out, in painstaking detail, statements of genocidal intent by Israeli officials, paired with affirmations by U.S. officials that they would back Israel’s war effort with every tool at their disposal.

“The highest level of Israel’s senior political and military leadership made statements on October 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, laying out that they intended, in effect, to destroy Gaza,” Gallagher, a senior staff attorney at CCR and one of the lead attorneys on the case, said on Intercepted last week. “And as the statements of intent were being made, senior levels of the United States government — including President Biden, Secretary of State Blinken, and Secretary of Defense Austin — were likewise making declarations about their intentions in the coming days, weeks, months … And that was to give unconditional and complete support to Israel.”

Under international law, the crime of genocide is defined as the intention to destroy or partially destroy a group of people based on their ethnic, religious, racial, or national identity, either by direct killing or by the creation of conditions making life impossible. While Israel has for decades flouted international law standards and ignored rebukes, including by the ICJ, the Israeli government’s actions in the aftermath of the Hamas attacks were “qualitatively different,” Gallagher said.

Two days after the attacks, Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant ordered mass war crimes when he announced “a complete siege of the Gaza Strip,” which is home to 2.2 million Palestinians, nearly half of them children. “There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed,” he said then, a threat that Israel has since largely delivered on. “We are fighting human animals, and we act accordingly.”

As Israel unleashed an onslaught that quickly outpaced any recent conflictsOpens in a new tab for the number and pace of deaths, human rights groups warned the Biden administration that its unconditional support for Israel risked making it complicit in the crime of genocide.

Josh Paul, a former senior State Department official who resigned over the Biden administration’s support for the war on Gaza and filed a declaration in support of the CCR case, said on Friday morning, “Since October 7th, we’ve seen a sharp increase in the transfer of arms to Israel both through the speeding up of previously authorized transfers and through the ramming through Congress of so-called emergency sales of thousands of rounds of tanks, ammunition, and alternative shells.”

“The U.S. has likely transferred munitions totaling in the tens of thousands since October 7 to Israel,” he added, speaking at a briefing CCR hosted on Friday morning. “This also demonstrates, I think, the significant amount of leverage that we have if we wanted to push Israel to end or curtail its operations in Gaza.”

“None of this could be done without the U.S. government,” echoed Ata Hindi, a lawyer who helped draft an amicus brief in support of the lawsuit on behalf of the Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee, at the event preceding the hearing. “It’s for the United States to say whether or not, through its weapons in particular, whether or not this genocide continues.”

The Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee, he noted, was “drowned” in complaints by Palestinian Americans who accused the U.S. government of discriminating against them. “It’s unfortunate to see how little the U.S. government in particular has paid attention to these American citizens and their families,” said Hindi. “And we hope that the court will do something to change that.”

The lawsuit has garnered significant international attention, with 77 legal and civil society groups from around the world backing it in a late December briefing to the court. They argued that the U.S. is violating its duties under international law to prevent and not be complicit in genocide, contributing to the erosion of “long and widely-held norms of international law,” like the Genocide Convention and Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The U.S. federal case is one of a number of legal efforts stemming from Israel’s war on Gaza. In another U.S. lawsuit, Palestinian Americans have accused the administrationOpens in a new tab of failing to protect U.S. citizens in Gaza and denying them equal protection, a constitutional right. That lawsuit argues that U.S. officials have not done as much to evacuate U.S. citizens trapped in Gaza as they did for Israeli Americans.

In addition to South Africa’s genocide case against Israel before the ICJ, a group of South African lawyers have also indicated their intentOpens in a new tab, pending the court’s early rulings, to bring civil action against the U.S. and British governments over their support for Israel’s actions. Other countries have also filed separate complaintsOpens in a new tab against Israel before the ICJ.

The cascading cases against Israel are a remarkable development for a country that has for decades acted with impunity, largely thanks to unwavering U.S. support. In a further sign of waning support, a poll Opens in a new tab released this week issued its own verdict: One-third of Americans — and nearly half of the country’s Democrats — believe Israel is committing genocide in Palestine.

*

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America's oldest gun manufacturer, RemArms, previously known as Remington Arms, will close its manufacturing facility in Ilion, New York, next year, a decision that Republicans are blaming on Democrats’ anti-gun policies.

Biden became ‘Genocide Joe’ thanks to the Israel lobby
Philip WeissNovember 29, 2023
Netanyahu and Biden meet, July 14, 2022. Photo by Israeli government press office.
Netanyahu and Biden meet, July 14, 2022. Photo by Israeli government press office.
At Thanksgiving, a friend took me aside and said, “How does Israel get away with this? They are wiping these people out, you can see it before your eyes. But people here are losing their jobs if they say anything against it on social media. Health care workers have lost their jobs at hospitals.”

My friend is not alone. The upside of our government’s greenlight to Israel’s unending massacre and destruction in Gaza, with disease and famine looming, is that many are asking the same questions. Why is Joe Biden incapable of doing what any decent person would do, and any leader—of saying, Stop this madness now!

An overwhelming majority of countries in the region and world have condemned the brutal military offensive– what BBC describes as “apocalyptic,” and one high UN official says is “the worst” destruction he’s ever seen. (“They stopped counting the number of women and children killed.. . It’s complete and utter carnage.”)

And the progressive Democratic base is appalled. And there have been resignations at the State Department and at mainstream media. Even as Israelis regularly appear on our broadcasts, thanking Biden for his unwavering support.

The answer to this puzzle is that Biden fears the domestic political cost: the loss of the Israel lobby inside the Democratic Party. Biden fears the disaffection of the Jewish establishment that has for over 50 years dedicated itself to the principle that there must be no daylight between the U.S. and Israeli governments, even as war crimes are blasted over the airwaves.

This dynamic is rarely discussed in our media because it is thought to foster antisemitic theories of Jewish control. Even addressing the Israel lobby is labeled a conspiracy theory with lawless consequences — such as the reported vandalism of the Los Angeles home of the head of the Israel lobby group AIPAC, with red paint flung on his property as protesters shouted, Baby killer.

There is plenty of evidence for the idea that the lobby’s support is what weighs on Biden’s mind.

Jews are an important part of Biden’s Democratic base. 70 percent of Jews say they are Democrats. And the Jewish community appears to be overwhelmingly supportive of Israel, just as it was during other historical crises– with notable and honorable exceptions. We are “working around the clock to bring urgent relief to the people of Israel,” the Jewish Federations announces in its regular ad on WNYC, the NPR station I listen to.

The dissent of liberal Zionists is over – J Street is back with the rightwing pro-Israel groups in backing Israel’s “right to defend itself” and in opposing a ceasefire.

Zionists are flexing their political muscle in plain sight. AIPAC is said to be planning a multi-million-dollar offensive to pick off Squad members in Congress who have been critical of Israel. A progressive senatorial candidate in Michigan has reportedly been offered $20 million in campaign contributions from a former AIPAC donor to drop his bid and take on Rep. Rashida Tlaib instead. Big donors have withdrawn gifts from universities or threatened to do so in anger over anti-Zionist demonstrations and faculty statements. One Forbes headline said a “Jewish billionaire” was pulling his money from Columbia; and craven remarks equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism from Harvard’s president and Columbia’s too appear to be responses to donor pressure. Columbia’s banning of pro-Palestinian groups has the backing of the president and former president and has sent chills through the academic community.

The media are under similar top-down pressure from Israel supporters. “We are horrified and deeply saddened by the brutal attack on Israel,” the chairman of Comcast/MSNBC (who once participated in the Israeli Maccabee games) said last month, even as Israel was already pounding the Gaza Strip.

The CEO of Warner/CNN, David Zaslav, also issued a statement of support for Israel after it experienced “one of the deadliest [days] in Jewish history since the Holocaust.” Later Zaslav was reported to be considering taking part in a $50 million publicity campaign to “define Hamas to the American people as a terrorist organization.”

CNN’s coverage has been distinctly pro-Israel, as has MSNBC’s. While both networks have aired reports that portray the Palestinian nightmare of the last seven weeks, generally the coverage has been from the Israeli point of view, often with a propaganda-like tone. Israeli government spokespeople are frequent guests, and the Zionist ideology is happily ensconced throughout liberal media. Wolf Blitzer once worked for AIPAC; the Atlantic’s editor once was an Israeli prison guard; and Tom Friedman told a Jewish audience in 2021 that “Israel had me at hello,” and “Don’t worry. In times of crisis, I know where I will be. When the Jewish state is under threat.” Joe Scarborough regularly equates anti-Zionism with antisemitism.

Our official political culture is Zionist. Joe Biden calls himself a Zionist. Last summer House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries took 22 first-year Democratic congresspeople on a tour of Israel and stood at Netanyahu’s side, alongside the head of AIPAC (whose house is the target of demonstrations).

Biden and Jeffries are surely concerned about Democratic fundraising. Israel supporters use campaign contributions to make sure that the policy debate in the U.S. “remains extremely narrow,” as Nathan Thrall wrote in the New York Times in 2019.

“Despite pointed critiques of American support for Israel by representatives like Betty McCollum of Minnesota, [Rashida] Tlaib and [Ilhan] Omar, there is little willingness among Democrats to argue publicly for substantially changing longstanding policy toward Israel,” Thrall said. “In part, some Hill staff members and former White House officials say, this is because of the influence of megadonors: Of the dozens of personal checks greater than $500,000 made out to the largest PAC for Democrats in 2018, the Senate Majority PAC, around three-fourths were written by Jewish donors. This provides fodder for anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, and for some, it is the elephant in the room. Though the number of Jewish donors known to prioritize pro-Israel policies above all other issues is small, there are few if any pushing in the opposite direction.”

Yes, it’s about “Jewish donors.” At J Street in 2016 political experts described the “gigantic” and “shocking” magnitude of Jewish donors in Democratic Party campaigns– who are perceived to be pro-Israel. A former finance director for many Democratic congressional campaigns said she had always gone to AIPAC for a position paper on Israel before undertaking to raise money from the Jewish community.

To understand what Joe Biden is thinking, it is worth reviewing presidential history, to remind ourselves how significant the Israel lobby is as a force. A few key moments:

–Truman overrode his own State Department and his own opposition to the idea of a religious state to back Israel’s establishment and then turn a blind eye to its expansions. John Judis wrote in his history, “Genesis,” that Truman did so because he needed $100,000 from political donors Abe Feinberg and Ed Kaufmann – a huge sum in 1948–for a whistlestop campaign trip through the midwest when his campaign was broke and Thomas Dewey was threatening to make him a one-termer.

–Both Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush lost their bids for a second term in the White House, and it is said that both politicians saw the Israel lobby as a factor in those losses.

Carter repeatedly challenged Israel over its settlements and believed that taking on Israel and its American lobby cost him his job. “From the New York primary [in March 1980] onward, I believe Carter was left with the view that New York Jews had not only defeated him in the primary but were also a factor in his loss in November,” Carter aide Stuart Eizenstat writes.

Bush also hammered Israel over settlements, “because I think this is what the American people want,” he said. But Bill Clinton ran to Bush’s right in 1992 with the support of the Israel lobby and defeated him. Tom Friedman summarized the lesson: “President Bush the first stood outside the White House one day and said I’m one lonely man standing up against the Israel lobby. What happened as a result of that… is that Republicans post Bush I, and manifested most in his son Bush 2, took a strategic decision, they will never be out pro-Israel’d again. That they believe cost them electorally a lot.”

–Obama made the same calculation. His need for the endorsement of Haim Saban and other “major Jewish donors” caused him to give in on Israel’s unending landgrabs, Judis writes. And Obama aide Ben Rhodes confirms that view. When Obama and Netanyahu clashed the year before Obama’s reelection campaign, Rhodes had to call “a list of leading Jewish donors . . . to reassure them of Obama’s pro-Israel bona fides.”

Obama waited for his second term to take Israel on over the Iran deal in 2015. In a major speech, he said that Israel was the only country in the world that opposed the deal. And while Benjamin Netanyahu is completely “sincere” in his opposition, Obama said, “As president of the United States, it would be an abrogation of my constitutional duty” to defer to Israel’s wishes on this matter.

–Trump of course abrogated his duty. He did whatever Israel wanted including trashing the Iran deal and moving the embassy and seeking to legalize illegal settlements – all to maintain the support of his largest donor Sheldon Adelson, who gave 100s of millions to Republicans.

This is the history that counts for Joe Biden. He is going to go by the playbook that has evolved over his lifetime — regardless of the growing sympathy for Palestinians in the Democratic base that is evident in poll after poll.

The good thing about today’s crisis is that the lobby’s influence is naked. “Sleepy Joe has a new nickname– Genocide Joe,” cracked another friend at Thanksgiving. It is impossible to imagine Biden ignoring the world’s calls for ceasefire or his own base’s outrage over the images of slaughtered Palestinian families and children – impossible to imagine that without the influence of the organized Jewish community, which patently does not care about these victims, or when it does mention them says that Hamas is to blame.

Another good effect of this crisis is that it has provided a different picture of the Jewish community from blind support for Israel: the vigorous opposition to Israel’s militarism among young and progressive Jews. Witness the incredible cease-fire demonstrations organized by IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace. The growth of anti-Zionism will transform (and redeem) the Jewish community. And be a major factor in transforming U.S. policy, as well.

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Office Hours: Are you in favor of a ceasefire in Gaza?
As Palestinian deaths in Gaza mount, so do demands for a ceasefire. But many fear that Hamas would only use it to regroup and rearm.

Robert Reich

Friends,

I don’t recall an issue that has as sharply divided the left in America in recent years as whether the U.S. should support a ceasefire in Gaza.

More than 11,100 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since October 7, including more than 4,500 children — surpassing the number of children killed in conflict zones around the world each year since 2019, according to Save the Children.

The World Health Organization says that Gaza’s large Al-Shifa Hospital can no longer function because of a lack of electricity, fuel, and water. Other Gaza hospitals have shut down. Hamas accuses Israel of targeting health facilities to cut off a lifeline for residents. Israel alleges that Hamas uses hospitals to conceal their bases, while the injured and displaced living on the grounds act as human shields.

Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), have joined 15 other House Democrats in calling for an immediate ceasefire. In recent days, demonstrations demanding a ceasefire have occurred in Chicago, Oakland, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Manhattan.

But is a ceasefire possible with Hamas — an organization committed to the destruction of Israel?

Bernie Sanders says a ceasefire with Hamas is impossible because Hamas wants “permanent war and the destruction of Israel” and would not abide by a ceasefire. He believes that instead of a ceasefire, Israel should stop bombing and allow for an “extended” humanitarian pause to allow the United Nations to rush in humanitarian aid and for hostage negotiations to continue.

President Biden similarly argues against a ceasefire but favors a pause to make time for more Palestinians to move out of harm’s way and for more food, water, fuel, and medical supplies to enter into Gaza.

Both a ceasefire and a humanitarian pause would involve a cessation of hostilities, but a humanitarian pause is temporary, with the specific purpose of improving the humanitarian situation. A ceasefire is meant to last for a more extended time, to encourage the start of peace talks or other arrangements that deal with an underlying conflict. Much more than a pause, a ceasefire cements the situation on the ground until it is violated.

So, today’s Office Hours question: Are you in favor of a ceasefire in Gaza?

Are you in favor of a ceasefire in Gaza?

3326 VOTES · POLL CLOSED

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‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 43: Israeli forces order evacuation of Al-Shifa’ hospital, bomb schools in Gaza
Civilians flee Al-Shifa’ Hospital carrying people in wheelchairs and gurneys as Israeli forces order an immediate evacuation on Saturday morning. Only 120 patients in a critical state reportedly left, with five doctors to care for them.

Mondoweiss Palestine Bureau
November 18, 2023
Israeli forces outside Al-Shifa' hospital (Screenshot: Al Jazeera)
Israeli forces outside Al-Shifa’ hospital, published November 18, 2023 (Screenshot: Al Jazeera)
Casualties

11,470 killed*, including 4,707 children, and more than 29,000 wounded in Gaza
More than 200 Palestinians killed and 2,750 injured in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem
Israel revises its estimated October 7 death toll down from 1,400 to 1,200
*This figure covers the casualties from October 7 to November 16. Due to breakdowns in communication networks within the Gaza Strip (particularly in northern Gaza), the Gaza Ministry of Health has not been able to regularly update its tolls.

Key Developments

Israeli forces ordered the immediate evacuation of Al-Shifa’ hospital on Saturday morning — leaving only 120 patients in critical state and five doctors on the premises.
Civilians flee Al-Shifa’ carrying people in wheelchairs and gurneys, amid reports that Israeli forces barred men from entering southern Gaza.
Israeli forces reportedly took the bodies of 18 Palestinians from Al-Shifa’, with no information on their whereabouts.
An Israeli airstrike on al-Fakhura school in Jabalia refugee camp on Saturday has killed at least 50 people.
Scores of deadly Israeli airstrikes pummel Gaza schools, mosques, and homes, killing at least 26 in the southern town of Khan Younis.
Israel decides to allow two trucks’ worth of fuel a day into Gaza — a paltry amount that has nonetheless angered the government’s most extreme members.
Forty-eight Democrats send letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken calling on the White House to pressure Israel to let more fuel into Gaza.
The WHO says Gaza’s health system is “on its knees”.
Israeli media reports that Israeli army killed Vice President of the Palestinian Legislative Council Ahmed Bahr.
Fighting continues between Palestinian resistance groups and Israeli ground forces in northern Gaza and Gaza City.
In the West Bank, Israeli forces bombed the Fatah party headquarters in Balata refugee camp, killing five.
At least two other Palestinians die in the West Bank after being shot by Israeli forces, while armed confrontations continue in several areas of the occupied territory.
Palestinians raise the alarm about growing Israeli settler threat of takeover of Palestinian homes in the Old City’s Armenian Quarter in occupied East Jerusalem.
Hezbollah and other armed groups in Lebanon continue to trade fire with Israeli forces, as Lebanese media reports several wounded and an aluminum factory hit in southern Lebanon.
The International Criminal Court said on Friday that five countries had sent referrals requesting it investigate whether Israel’s actions in the wake of October 7 constituted crimes.
Israel’s Channel 12 says Hamas fighters who staged Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7 most likely weren’t aware that a music festival was taking place in Reim.
Saturday marks the first anniversary of the adoption of the Political Declaration on Strengthening the Protection of Civilians from the Humanitarian Consequences Arising from the Use of Explosive Weapons in Populated Areas. U.N.’s Martin Griffiths says “there is no greater reminder of the importance of its universal endorsement and implementation” than the current situation in Palestine.
U.N. Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation calls on Israel to “stop using water as a weapon of war.”
Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi tells conference in Bahrain: “Israel says it wants to wipe out Hamas. There’s a lot of military people here, I just don’t understand how this objective can be realised.”
Thousands of Israelis, including opposition leader Yair Lapid, march to prime minister’s office in Jerusalem calling for the return of hostages held by Hamas.
Biden’s Middle East adviser Brett McGurk says humanitarian relief to Gaza hinges on release of Israeli hostages, as Qatari mediators were reportedly negotiating this week for the release of around 50 civilian hostages held by Palestinian resistance groups in exchange for a three-day ceasefire.
Despite numerous reports of Washington applying more pressure onto Israel in private, an Israeli official tells The Times of Israel that Tel Aviv doesn’t feel that the U.S. is closing its “window of support”.
Israeli army generals express concern over behavior of a number of soldiers in Gaza, including playing soccer and racing military vehicles.
Al-Shifa’ hospital evacuated, Israeli forces reportedly stop Palestinians from fleeing south

Staff at Gaza City’s Al-Shifa’ hospital said that the Israeli army had called for the medical complex — which has been occupied by Israeli forces since Wednesday after days of siege — to be evacuated “within the hour” on Saturday morning, causing widespread panic among the estimated 7,000 medical staff, patients, and civilians who have taken refuge in the biggest medical complex of the Gaza Strip.

While the Israeli army Arabic spokesperson Avichay Adraee denied the report, Israeli forces have repeatedly called for Al-Shifa’ to be evacuated in past weeks, amid its unconvincing claims that the hospital sits above a Hamas command center.

“I categorically deny these false allegations [from the Israeli army] … I am telling you we were forced to leave by gunpoint,” Director-General of hospitals in Gaza Mohammed Zaqout told Al Jazeera. An AFP journalist at Al-Shifa’ meanwhile reported that Israeli forces issued the call for evacuation over loudspeaker.

WAFA news agency reported that hundreds of people waving white flags, pushing wounded in wheelchairs and gurneys, left the hospital on foot towards southern Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have been forced to flee over the past 43 days.

But medical sources on the ground have said it is “impossible” to evacuate everyone from the hospital, and that 120 critically wounded or particularly fragile patients were left in the hospital, along with five doctors.

The hospital had notably been caring for 39 premature babies, whose incubators ran out of power last week. Munir al-Barsh, the general-director of the Ministry of Health in Gaza, said a fourth infant had died Friday, and that five of the remaining 35 babies were severely ill, amid lack of access to electricity, medical supplies, food, and safe drinking water. At least 24 patients at Al-Shifa’ have died in the past 24 hours.

Al-Bursh also accused Israeli forces on Friday of taking the bodies of at least 18 Palestinians — who had been left in the hospital courtyard for days as Israeli snipers prevented people from burying them — and took them to an unknown location

As of midday on Saturday, Al-Shifa’ director Mohammed Abu Salmiya told Al Jazeera that the hospital was almost completely deserted, with Israeli soldiers in “total control” of the medical complex.

Meanwhile, eyewitnesses told Al Jazeera that Israeli forces had set up a checkpoint on Salah el-Din Street, one of the two main roads used by Palestinians fleeing northern Gaza, and detained men, only allowing women and children to head south.

Deadly bombings hit Gaza schools, Israel allows tiny amounts of fuel in

As has been the case for more than 42 days, Israeli airstrikes have continued to pummel the tiny Gaza Strip — both in the north, where Israel has also been carrying out a ground invasion, but also in the south, where Israeli officials have repeatedly called on Palestinian civilians to evacuate for their “safety”.

The director of Al-Wafa hospital and elderly care home, was among those killed in an airstrike in the al-Zahra neighborhood of Gaza City.

In northern and central Gaza, including Gaza City, deadly airstrikes were reported in al-Qasasib, the UNRWA-run al-Fakhura and al-Falah schools, Beit Lahia, Deir al-Balah, Jabalia refugee camp, Nuseirat refugee camp, the Grand Mosque in al-Maghazi refugee camp, and in the vicinity of the Indonesian hospital.

Initial reports by Al Jazeera estimated that 50 people had been killed by the bombing of al-Fakhura school in Jabalia refugee camp. Another strike in Jabalia reportedly killed 32 people.

In southern Gaza, at least 26 people, many of them children, were killed by Israeli airstrikes on residential buildings in Khan Younis. A cultural center was also reported bombed in Rafah.

Due to the breakdown of communication services, particularly in northern Gaza, the Palestinian Ministry of Health says it has been facing “significant difficulties” in updating its data regarding death tolls for the past week. Numbers issued cannot take into account the full scope of devastation, as untold numbers of dead are unable to be retrieved from the rubble, whether due to the presence of Israeli ground forces in northern Gaza, or the lack of fuel and communication services affecting rescue teams’ ability to be on the scene quickly and with all necessary materiel.

Meanwhile, Israeli forces are now dropping their pretense of maintaining a “safe zone” in southern Gaza. “We are determined to keep moving forward. This will happen wherever Hamas is, which includes the southern Gaza Strip,” Army spokesman Daniel Hagari said on Friday. “It will happen at a time, place, and under conditions that are favorable to us.” The Financial Times quoted Israeli army Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi on Friday as saying that “as far as we are concerned, more and more regions [will be targeted].”

FT further reported that the Israeli army had dropped thousands of leaflets over some neighborhoods on Khan Younis telling people to evacuate their homes, claiming that it would set up a “safe zone” in a 14-square-kilometer area in southwest Gaza — a unilateral move that has already been rejected by the heads of all major U.N. humanitarian agencies.

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said on Friday that “the current Israeli proposal for a so-called ‘safe zone’ is untenable: the zone is neither safe nor feasible for the number of people in need.”

Türk also hinted at the need for an international investigation against Israel, as the International Criminal Court said on Friday that five countries had sent referrals requesting it investigate whether Israel’s actions in the wake of October 7 constituted crimes.

“No-one is above the law. Breaches of international humanitarian law – even war crimes – committed by one party do not, ever, absolve the other from compliance with the principles of the law of war and their human rights obligations,” Türk said. “All serious allegations of multiple and profound breaches of international humanitarian and human rights law – whoever commits them – demand rigorous investigation and full accountability.”

“Where national authorities prove unwilling or unable to carry out such investigations, and where there are contested narratives on particularly significant incidents, international investigation is called for.”

The Gaza Strip was already one of the most densely populated places on earth before the mass displacement of 1.5 million of its 2.3 million inhabitants in the past 43 days. A number of Israeli officials have not hidden their desire to expel Palestinians from parts or all of Gaza altogether. A senior U.N. official told FT that they had warned the United States of “a Nakba 2”, in reference to the 750,000 Palestinians who were forcibly displaced in 1948.

“We do not believe the Israelis will allow those displaced from the north to go back,” the official said.

Telecommunications had partially returned to Gaza on Friday, after a limited amount of fuel was allowed in the Strip, the Palestinian Authority minister of telecommunications and information technology said. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) noted that this was the fourth communications blackout in Gaza since October 7, but the first caused by a lack of fuel.

Israel’s war cabinet decided on Friday to begin allowing two trucks of fuel a day into the besieged Gaza Strip starting on Saturday — only 2 to 4 percent of the amount that entered Gaza daily before the war, The Times of Israel reported.

The cabinet said the move would “enable the minimal maintenance necessary for water, sewer and sanitary systems to prevent pandemics that could spread to the entire area, hurting residents of the Strip as well as our own forces and potentially spreading into Israel as well.”

Mentioning pressure from the U.S. government, the statement added that the limited entry of fuel would also “offer Israel the necessary diplomatic maneuvering room to eliminate Hamas.”

Despite the self-interested reasoning put forward by the war cabinet, which includes Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Minister without portfolio Benny Gantz, the decision has sparked outrage from among the most extreme members of Netanyahu’s far-right government.

“So long as our hostages don’t even get a visit from the Red Cross, there is no sense in giving the enemy humanitarian gifts,” the Times of Israel quoted National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir as saying.

These statements come as World Health Organization (WHO) representative in the Occupied Palestinian Territory Richard Peeperkorn said on Friday that Gaza’s health system was “on its knees” while faced with “endless need”. According to the WHO, 75 percent of hospitals in Gaza were non-functional as of Friday. The remaining 11 hospitals were only “partially operational and admitting patients with extremely limited services”.

Seven Palestinians killed in West Bank, East Jerusalem under threat

While most international attention has been focused on Gaza, violence continued to rage on in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, with Türk saying on Friday that he was “ringing the loudest possible alarm bell about the West Bank.”

An Israeli drone bombed the Fatah party headquarters in Balata refugee camp in the northern West Bank on Friday night, killing five Palestinians, identified at Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades commander Mohammed Zuhd, Mohammed al-Musaimi, Mohammed Hashash, Mohammed Mustafa, and Ali Faraj.

WAFA news agency reported that, following the airstrike, Israeli forces went on to blow up a home and destroy roads with a bulldozer in Balata.

At least one other Palestinian was killed in the occupied West Bank on Saturday morning, identified as Omar Shahrouri during an Israeli army raid in Tubas during which two other Palestinians were wounded.

Meanwhile, 21-year-old Jamal Mahmoud Masharqa from Jenin refugee camp succumbed on Friday to wounds he had sustained during an Israeli raid on November 9.

Confrontations between armed Palestinian resistance groups and Israeli forces were reported overnight in Balata, Tubas, Yabad, and Jericho.

Meanwhile, Palestinians were reported wounded by Israeli forces or Israeli settlers in Kafr Dan, Khirbet Tana, Dhahariya, Masafer Yatta, Burin, and Hebron. At least 38 Palestinians were detained by Israeli forces overnight across the West Bank

Israeli forces reportedly fired tear gas into a school in occupied East Jerusalem’s Issawiya neighborhood on Friday, attacking teachers and students and leaving at least three students with broken bones.

Israeli forces and settlers have meanwhile been escalating threats and violence against Palestinian residents of the Old City’s Armenian Quarter, in what has been described as an “existential threat” following a deal that could reportedly see 25 percent of the quarter sold to settlers, in violation of international law.

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U.S. and Russia ‘can’t stop’ Turkey’s new Syria incursion
By ALEXANDER WARD, MATT BERG and LAWRENCE UKENYE
11/22/2022 03:59 PM EST
Syrian Kurds attend a funeral of people killed in Turkish airstrikes.
Syrian Kurds attend a funeral of people killed in Turkish airstrikes in the village of Al Malikiyah, northern Syria, Monday, Nov. 21, 2022. | Baderkhan Ahmad/AP Photo
Subscribe here | Email Alex | Email Matt

With help from Phelim Kine and Lara Seligman

PROGRAMMING NOTE: We’ll be off for Thanksgiving this Thursday and Friday but back to our normal schedule on Monday, Nov. 28.

Turkey is threatening to kill more U.S.-allied Kurdish fighters in Syria — and the United States and Russia might not try very hard to stop it.

Turkish President RECEP TAYYIP ERDOÄžAN vowed to soon launch a ground attack on U.S.-backed Kurdish forces in northern Syria, claiming they were responsible for a deadly terrorist attack last week.

“We have been bearing down on terrorists for a few days with our planes, cannons and guns,” ErdoÄŸan said Tuesday, alluding to Turkey’s recent lethal aerial bombardments in Syria. “God willing, we will root out all of them as soon as possible, together with our tanks, our soldiers.”

It’s unclear if it was Kurdish separatists who killed six people in the heart of Istanbul on Nov. 13. The Kurds deny the allegation, after all. But experts say it has presented ErdoÄŸan with a pretext to delve deeper into northern Syria, a push he’s long wanted to do.

“Turkey is quite serious about the current Syria offensive,” the Middle East Institute’s and St. Lawrence University’s HOWARD EISSENSTAT told NatSec Daily. “This fits with both long-standing Turkish assumptions about its security interests and ErdoÄŸan’s need to look strong in advance of elections scheduled for June. Under the current circumstances, Russia or the U.S. might be able to impose limits on Turkish actions, but they can’t stop them entirely.”

Both have reasons to be worried about Turkey launching a ground attack.

Russia backs Syrian President BASHAR AL-ASSAD while Turkey supports rebels seeking to topple him. “We understand and respect Turkey’s concerns about ensuring its own security,” Kremlin spokesperson DMITRY PESKOV told reporters. “At the same time, we call on all parties to refrain from steps that could lead to the destabilization of the overall situation.”

About 900 U.S. troops, meanwhile, are in Syria to keep ISIS at bay alongside Syrian Democratic Forces and fear heavy fighting could disrupt their plans.

Turkey has a legitimate right to defend itself and its citizens, National Security Council spokesperson JOHN KIRBY told NatSec Daily during a Tuesday news conference, but added cross-border operations “might force a reaction by some of our SDF partners that would limit and constrain their ability to fight against ISIS…and we want to be able to keep the pressure on ISIS.”

“We continue to urge for deescalation on all sides and in our conversations,” Pentagon deputy press secretary SABRINA SINGH later told reporters.

But those statements don’t fully reflect the state of play, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s SONER CAGAPTAY told NatSec Daily, because “Ankara has just about aligned all-stars for an incursion.”

The U.S. may not resist too strongly since it wants Turkey, a NATO ally, to accept Sweden and Finland’s accession to the alliance. Cagaptay said a Monday State Department statement that barely lambasted Turkey over the violence in Syria was evidence of Washington’s light approach. “I can’t recall any statement that nicely worded about Turkey’s incursion into Syria in a long time,” he said.

And Russia is providing millions for Turkey’s economy and energy sector, propping up ErdoÄŸan ahead of next year’s vote. In exchange, experts say ErdoÄŸan may finally accept Assad as Syria’s legitimate ruler, effectively bringing an end to what remains of the war in Syria.

If that’s the case, it seems the U.S. and Russia may stand aside as Turkey kills more Kurds — and American allies — in Syria.

The Inbox

U.S. LEADERS IN ASIA: Vice President KAMALA HARRIS warned of U.S. intervention if China takes aim at the Philippines, our own PHELIM KINE reports.

In a visit to the Philippines, Harris pushed back against Beijing’s expansive territorial claims in the region, pledging $7.5 million for the Philippine Coast Guard. On Monday, Harris also warned of a U.S. response if there is “an armed attack” on Filipino ships or aircraft in the South China Sea, invoking a treaty between the allies.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson ZHAO LIJIAN clapped back on Tuesday, warning that U.S.-Philippines cooperation “should not target or hurt other countries’ interests.”

Meanwhile, Defense Secretary LLOYD AUSTIN met with his Chinese counterpart in Cambodia on Tuesday, discussing strained bilateral relations and regional and global security issues, the Associated Press’ HENG SINITH reports.

The two met on the sidelines of a regional meeting, marking the second time in six months Austin and Gen. WEI FENGHE met face-to-face. It comes just over a week after President JOE BIDEN met with Chinese leader XI JINPING in Indonesia, a gathering widely seen as an effort to ease tensions between the two world powers.

On the issue of Taiwan, Austin assured Wei of Biden’s commitment to the “one China” policy, but called on China to refrain from taking destabilizing actions toward the island nation, Pentagon spokesperson Brig. Gen. PAT RYDER said.

EUROPE’S NEW MIGRANT INFLUX: Europe is struggling even more to properly welcome thousands of people seeking asylum from war and famine.

Specifically, the EU plus Norway and Switzerland recorded about 564,000 applications in August this year — an increase of 62 percent from the same period last year, according to the European Union Agency for Asylum.

That increase doesn’t include the millions of Ukrainian refugees moving westward since Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24. “Tents and sleeping bags have become a common sight along the canal in central Brussels, as well as in underpasses and railway stations, as some asylum seekers are forced to wait months for shelter after lodging applications,” per The Financial Times’ SAM FLEMING and GUY CHAZAN, underscoring just how overwhelmed the reception system is right now.

NAVY BLAMES IRAN FOR DRONE ATTACK: The U.S. Navy confirmed Iran’s involvement in a Nov. 15 drone attack on a commercial tanker, identifying the drone as a Shahed-136 — the same type Iran has supplied to Russia for use in Ukraine.

The attack fits “a historical pattern of Iran’s increasing use of a lethal capability directly or through its proxies across the Middle East,” reads a statement by U.S. Naval Forces Central Command.

“The Iranian attack on a commercial tanker transiting international waters was deliberate, flagrant and dangerous, endangering the lives of the ship’s crew and destabilizing maritime security in the Middle East,” said Vice Adm. BRAD COOPER, the command’s chief.

U.S. officials had already said they suspected Iran was behind the strike.

IT’S TUESDAY: Thanks for tuning in to NatSec Daily. This space is reserved for the top U.S. and foreign officials, the lawmakers, the lobbyists, the experts and the people like you who care about how the natsec sausage gets made. Aim your tips and comments at [email protected] and [email protected], and follow us on Twitter at @alexbward and @mattberg33.

While you’re at it, follow the rest of POLITICO’s national security team: @nahaltoosi, @woodruffbets, @politicoryan, @PhelimKine, @BryanDBender, @laraseligman, @connorobrienNH, @paulmcleary, @leehudson, @AndrewDesiderio, @magmill95, @ericgeller, @johnnysaks130, @ErinBanco and @Lawrence_Ukenye.

Flashpoints

ARCTIC POWER: Russian President VLADIMIR PUTIN touted Moscow’s growing footprint in the Arctic at a Tuesday flag-raising ceremony that commemorated two new nuclear-powered icebreakers that will allow the country to have year-round access to western parts of the Arctic, Reuters reports.

The icebreakers “are part of our large-scale, systematic work to re-equip and replenish the domestic icebreaker fleet, to strengthen Russia’s status as a great Arctic power,” Putin said.

The Arctic has become more significant due to climate change as melting ice has prompted countries like Russia, the U.S. and China to try to increase their influence in the region, which could also affect trade and shipping lane access.

Keystrokes

KISS IT GOODBYE, FOR NOW: The idea of creating a new platform where the government and the private sector can rapidly share data on cyber threats has hit a Fort Meade-sized speed bump: the National Security Agency, our friends over at Morning Cybersecurity (for Pros!) report.

Until recently, the joint collaborative environment looked like a solid bet to make it into the final version of this year’s National Defense Authorization Act, featuring in both the House and Senate markups of the must-pass defense bill.

But the NSA began voicing objections to the JCE in the last few weeks, tilting the scales against the provision on the Hill, two Hill staffers granted anonymity to speak freely about the proposal told MC.

The NSA’s “biggest concern” about the legislation is that it “would overly constrain” the NSA and CISA’s ongoing threat-sharing efforts, ROB JOYCE, the director of NSA’s cybersecurity directorate, told MC.

The Complex

ON THE WAY: The Army is on track to award the multibillion-dollar contract for the UH-60 Black Hawk replacement by the end of the year, our friends over at Morning Defense (for Pros!) report.

Competing for the deal are Bell, with its V-280 Valor tiltrotor, and a Sikorsky-Bell team, with the SB-1 Defiant coaxial helicopter for the Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft, Army acquisition chief DOUG BUSH told reporters Monday. Bell estimates the program is worth more than $100 billion because of foreign military sales opportunities.

Black Hawks won’t be phased out of the Army overnight. The service intends to buy them through fiscal 2028 and does not anticipate the replacement to come online until 2035.

On the Hill

NOT WINGING IT: Republicans have an answer for anyone asking about the effect the party’s populist wing might have on foreign policy: Sorry, what?

Lawmakers at the Halifax International Security Forum told our own ANDREW DESIDERIO that “Congress is likely to allocate well more than the $38 billion the Biden administration requested for Ukraine’s military and economic needs as part of a year-end governing funding bill. And that extra infusion is set to advance with the help of senior Republicans, even as influential conservative groups urge a pause.”

That means Republicans predict enough Democrats and Republicans will support the package, drowning out loud voices on the right who don’t want to give Kyiv another penny.

“If we were on the other side of this, they’d be pounding the table saying, ‘Send more money to Ukraine,’” Sen. JIM RISCH (R-Idaho), the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in an interview.

Lawmakers from both parties believe the package will get through Congress before newly elected representatives and senators arrive in Washington.

SEND ARMED DRONES TO UKRAINE: Sixteen senators are urging the Biden administration to give Ukraine armed drones to better repel Russia’s invasion, our own LEE HUDSON reports.

The Biden administration has been hesitant to send the drone to Ukraine due to fears that sensitive technologies aboard the aircraft may end up in Russian hands. An electro-optical/infrared ball on the Gray Eagle provides real-time intelligence, targeting and tracking. The administration was also concerned that the drone and the instruments it carries would pose too many training and logistics challenges for the Ukrainian military.

But the bipartisan group of lawmakers, led by Sens. JONI ERNST (R-Iowa) and JOE MANCHIN (D-W.V.), say the benefits of helping Ukraine take out Russian positions outweigh the risks.

“The MQ-1C could erode Russia’s long-range fires advantage. Most importantly, armed UAS could find and attack Russian warships in the Black Sea, breaking its coercive blockade and alleviate dual pressures on the Ukrainian economy and global food prices,” they wrote in the letter.

The Wall Street Journal first reported on the letter.

Broadsides

FIRST IN NATSEC DAILY — CAMPAIGN AGAINST CHIPS IN 889: Loyal NatSec Daily readers will remember our report that two senators want to ban the federal government from acquiring products or services from Chinese chipmakers. Simply put, they want to update Section 889 in the federal code to include three Chinese firms and Chinese-made semiconductors.

Well, the backlash to that bill by Sens. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-N.Y.) and JOHN CORNYN (R-Texas) has begun.

“Left unaddressed, adding the covered semiconductors to part B of section 889 would harm federal agencies’ ability to procure the essential goods and services they need to promote our nation’s well-being, while putting added financial pressure on businesses that are operating in an inflationary economy,” reads a draft letter obtained by NatSec Daily. It’s signed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Aerospace Industries Association, among other groups.

The groups are fine with the section’s Part A, which deals with the procurement of items, even though “it presents federal contractors with costly and complex compliance burdens.” Their main gripe is with Part B because it bans interactions with a contractor that “uses” a banned technology. That makes compliance much harder, they argue. “A company with both federal and nonfederal customers would be barred from selling to the government because it ‘uses’ a coffee service that ‘uses’ the covered semiconductors,” the letter reads.

Some lawmakers in both parties told NatSec Daily they don’t fully support the Schumer-Cornyn bill because of Point B.

The draft note, dated Nov. 22, is addressed to Sens. JACK REED (D-R.I.) and JIM INHOFE (R-Okla.), the top members of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Still, much of the non-government national security community is behind the chip ban out of fear China can manipulate the semiconductors for its own purposes. Some of the three companies up for a ban allegedly have ties to China’s military.

An AIA spokesperson said of the reason for sending the letter: “We have serious concerns about the cumulative effect of well-intentioned, but burdensome regulations that could drive small businesses out of the industrial base.”

Transitions

— MICHAEL HOCHMAN is now chief of staff for the White House Office of the National Cyber Director. He previously was deputy chief of staff and deputy general counsel.

— HADY AMR has been named a special representative for Palestinian affairs, the first time the State Department has had a D.C.-based post focused on that issue. He was previously the deputy assistant secretary of State for Israeli-Palestinian affairs.

What to Read

— NATHALIE TOCCI, POLITICO: Europe’s Defense Efforts Remain Underwhelming

— BEN OLLERENSHAW and JULIAN SPENCER-CHURCHILL, Real Clear Defense: To Deter China, the U.S. Must Have the Political Courage to Retaliate Against Russia

— ANDREW KREPINEVICH, JR., Foreign Affairs: Is Putin a Rational Actor?

Wednesday Today

— The Hudson Institute, 10 a.m.: “Countering Russian Influence in Georgia”

Have a natsec-centric event coming up? Transitioning to a new defense-adjacent or foreign policy-focused gig? Shoot me an email at [email protected] to be featured in the next edition of the newsletter.

Thanks to our editor, Heidi Vogt, who has aligned the stars to gain full control of this newsletter.

And we thank our producer, Kierra Frazier, who is a star in her own right.



https://www.politico.com/newsletters/national-security-daily/2022/11/22/u-s-and-russia-cant-stop-turkeys-new-syria-incursion-00070431

‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 34: Children who survive the bombs may die of starvation, disease, and dehydration
Leila WarahNovember 9, 2023
A Palestinian father carries his child as he marches with a crowd of Palestinians from northern Gaza to southern Gaza amidst a relentless Israeli bombing campaign, and orders by the Israeli military for Gazans to leave the northern part of the strip.
Palestinians flee to the southern Gaza Strip on Salah al-Din Street in Bureij, Gaza Strip, on Wednesday, November 8, 2023. Photo by STR apaimages
Casualties

Gaza

10,818 Killed, 4,412 including children

26,905 injured

West Bank

175 Palestinains Killed

Key Developments

Palestinian Ministry of Health: “nowhere in Gaza is safe”.
UNRWA: 92 agency staff have been killed since October 7, the “highest number of United Nations aid workers killed in a conflict in the history of the United Nations.”
UNRWA: 160 people sheltering in UNRWA school facilities share a single toilet; one shower unit for every 700 people
Palestinian lawmaker Rashida Tlaib was censured by the House of U.S. Representatives over the phrase “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”
70 Democrats sign onto a statement condemning the “river to the sea” phrase “as a rallying cry for the destruction of the State of Israel and genocide of the Jewish people.”
The Israeli parliament passes “draconian” law criminalizing ‘consumption of terrorist materials’, the latest development in Israel’s censorship war against Palestinians.
Israeli forces arrested Palestinian politicians in Israel, including the head of the High Follow-Up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel, Mohammad Barakeh, and former Knesset member Haneen Zoabi, reports Wafa.
Two mosques were completely destroyed in the attack on Khan Younis on Wednesday: Khalid bin al-Walid and al-Ikhlas mosques, according to the Interior Ministry in Gaza.
The U.S. carried out a strike on a facility in eastern Syria, the second U.S. attack on the country since October 7, in “response to attacks on American personnel in Iraq and Syria” over the past weeks, killing at least nine people, according to the Pentagon.
An American drone was shot down off the coast of Yemen by the country’s pro-Iranian Houthi rebels, U.S. officials confirmed to Reuters and AFP.
Israeli airstrikes have hit eight hospitals in the Gaza Strip in the last three days, according to Gaza’s government media office.
Treating patients in ‘corridors, on the floor, and outdoors’

Israel has subjected Gaza’s population to five weeks of incessant bombing while denying over two million people trapped in the besieged enclave necessities, including food, water, medical care, and fuel.

Hospitals, in particular, have been targeted during the ongoing aggression and hard hit by the tight siege.

Al Jazeera reported three people were killed and dozens of others injured after Israeli airstrikes hit the vicinity of Al-Nasr Hospital in western Gaza at dawn on Thursday, adding that Israel also fired several missiles around Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Medical Complex, resulting in missile fragments falling into the hospital courtyard.

Similarly, the vicinity of Al-Quds Hospital in the north of Gaza has been subjected to daily bombardment since Sunday, according to Nebal Farsakh, a spokesperson for the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS).

On Wednesday, PRCS reported the Israeli bombardment near Al Quds Hospital resulted in all roads leading to the hospital being closed and medical teams being unable to leave the hospital to reach the injured.

The organization added that the hospital was facing “an acute shortage of fuel and was expected to run out of fuel today,” so they have curtailed most operations in an attempt to ration what is left.

“We have about 500 patients inside the hospital. We have 15 patients in the ICU. They are wounded and on respirators. We have newborns in incubators. We have 14,000 displaced people, the majority of whom are women and children,” Farsakh told Al Jazeera, adding that they have had to “stop four ambulances from working.”

“Patients are undergoing immense and unnecessary pain as medicines and anesthetics are running out. In addition, tens of thousands of displaced people have sought shelter in the hospital’s parking lots and yards,” Farsakh said.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini and the World Health Organisation (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a joint statement that doctors in Al-Shifa, where the conditions are “disastrous,” doctors are being forced to treat the sick and injured in “corridors, on the floor, and outdoors” as emergency rooms are overflowing.

“Without fuel, hospitals and other essential facilities such as desalination plants and bakeries cannot operate, and more people will most certainly die as a result,” they said.

Alexandra Saieh of Save the Children underscored that the children who are not killed by bombs may die of starvation, disease, and dehydration.

“The situation is catastrophic. Civilians, especially children, continue to pay the heaviest price for the ongoing violence. If we don’t have a ceasefire, the numbers will continue to worsen,” she stated, according to Al Jazeera.

On Wednesday, The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said 106 trucks from the Egyptian Red Crescent, loaded with aid and five ambulance vehicles from Kuwait, crossed through the Egypt Rafah border crossing; however, none contained much-needed fuel.

The organization says 756 trucks have entered the besieged enclave since October 21, which is still far below what the besieged enclave needs. In contrast, before October 7, the besieged enclave would receive about 500 truck deliveries daily.

A convoy with much-needed medical supplies was delivered to Gaza’s main hospital, al-Shifa, according to Ghebreyesus and Lazzarini.

However, the supplies are “far from sufficient to respond to the immense needs” in Gaza, as the situation at al-Shifa Hospital is “disastrous,” and medical facilities across the besieged enclave are running out of supplies and fuel.

“The ability of hospitals and medical facilities to operate is paramount, especially during conflicts,” the statement continued.

Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari presented video, photographs, and audio recordings that allegedly pointed to a Hamas building tunnel under hospitals.

However, an investigation conducted by Al Jazeera found no grounds to support Israel’s claims of a Hamas tunnel under hospitals and, specifically, under the Sheikh Hamad Hospital in north Gaza.

Similarly, Mohammed al-Emadi, the chairman of the Qatari Committee for the Reconstruction of Gaza, described Israel’s allegation as a “blatant attempt to justify the occupation’s targeting of civilian facilities, including hospitals, schools, gatherings of population and shelters of displaced people.”

Fighting on the ground continues

As civilians continue fighting for their lives across the Gaza Strip, the Israeli military has continued its advancement into northern Gaza.

“I’d like to put to rest all kinds of false rumors we’re hearing from all kinds of directions, and reiterate one clear thing: There will be no ceasefire without the release of our hostages,” Netanyahu said on Wednesday.

That same day, after 10 hours of battle, the Israeli army said they took control of a Hamas outpost in Jabalia, north of Gaza City, saying their soldiers confronted and killed Hamas figures, adding that they confiscated weapons and destroyed tunnel shafts.

“Since the beginning of the fighting, 130 tunnel shafts have been destroyed,” the military said.

“Soldiers of the Nahal Brigade conducted operational activity at a Hamas training post in northern Gaza. Tunnels were located under the post, and after they were exposed, the shafts in the post were destroyed.”

Hamas, who has accused Israel of spreading lies in the past, has not commented on the statement.

While Israelis call for Jews to resettle in Gaza, their government says they have “no intention” of reoccupying Gaza or controlling it for a long time, the Reuters news agency reported, quoting an unnamed senior Israeli official.

During a televised address on Wednesday, Deputy Hamas chief Saleh al-Arouri clarified that the Hamas attack on October 7 was launched mainly to “ensure the freedom and independence of our people, which begins with the freedom of our political prisoners.”

“All of our prisoners must be released from prisons,” Arouri said, reiterating Hamas’s readiness for a “comprehensive deal.”

“Take everyone we have and give us all of the prisoners you have,” he proposed, referring to the captives taken from Israel on October 7 and Palestinian political prisoners being held in Israeli jails.

“It’s best to take your hostages alive. Come forward and agree to an exchange deal now.”

“This issue cannot be resolved except via a trade within each of these categories [of prisoners and captives] or in a comprehensive process that includes everyone,” Qassam Brigades spokesperson Abu Obeida said in a televised address on Al-Aqsa T.V.

West Bank: ‘Enough is enough’

The situation in the West Bank continues to worsen as Israeli soldiers and settlers continue their deadly attacks on Palestinians.

In the last 24 hours alone, Israeli forces have killed at least 12 Palestinians.

In Jenin, the north of the West Bank, the Palestinian Ministry of Health reported nine Palestinians were killed during an Israeli military raid on Thursday morning in the Palestinian city.

Two Palestinian men were killed overnight on Wednesday by Israeli forces during a violent military incursion in Hebron and Bethlehem, according to Wafa.

In Hebron, Anas Abu Atwan, 25, was killed after being shot in the chest in the village of Tabqa.

In Bethlehem, Mohammad Thawabta, 51, from Beit Fajjar, died of wounds sustained during Israeli forces’ incursion into Bethlehem on Wednesday, injuring 19 people were wounded by live bullets and five by shrapnel.

The 12th Palestinian died from critical wounds after being shot by Israeli forces Thursday morning in al-Amari refugee camp, Ramallah.

Israel’s mass arrest campaign has also continued, detaining over 2,200 Palestinian men and women since October 7, according to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club.

Ahed Tamimi, a 22-year-old prominent Palestinian activist from the Ramallah-area village of Nabi Saleh, was beaten in custody after being reported earlier this week for alleged social media activity, reported Al Jazeera journalist Dena Takruri, citing Tamimi’s mother.

“Her mom received a call from a lawyer who was visiting another female Palestinian prisoner. That prisoner informed her lawyer of Ahed’s status [and] to notify her family,” Takruri said.

Human rights organizations such as the U.K.-based group Amnesty International recorded “horrifying cases of torture and degrading treatment of Palestinian detainees” amid the “spike in arbitrary arrests.”

Israeli news outlet Haaretz has also noted an increase in Israeli soldiers openly documenting their abuse of Palestinians online.

As tensions rise in the West Bank, Al Jazeera said an armed Palestinian fighter reportedly shot two Israeli settlers near the illegal Israeli settlement of Itamar, east of Nablus, and one of them is now in critical condition.

Conditions in the occupied West Bank are becoming “increasingly dire,” says U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths, outlining the number of Palestinians, including dozens of children, who have been killed, injured, and displaced since October 7.

“Enough is enough,” he said.


U.S. representatives ignore constituents, staffers calling for ceasefire

The Biden administration has continued to offer its unwavering support to Israel’s mass slaughter of Palestinian civilians in Gaza while repeatedly rejecting pressure to support a ceasefire. Instead, U.S. President Joe Biden is supporting a “pause” in the fighting to allow captives in Gaza a safe evacuation.

White House Spokesman John Kirby told reporters that the pause would be localized, temporary, and short, “hours to days,” depending on the need.

“So it would be an agreement that for a set period of time in these agreed coordinates, there would be a pause in the fighting,” Kirby said.

“That doesn’t mean there won’t be, or couldn’t be, fighting outside that zone during that same period of time. So all of that has to get factored in, and I have no doubt that on the Israeli side, as they look at each proposal, they’ll think about the potential impact on their military operations on the ground or in the air.”

On Tuesday, democratic lawmaker Rashida Tlaib was censured by the House of U.S. Representatives, claiming she was “promoting false narratives regarding the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel and for calling for the destruction of the state of Israel.”

According to the House, a censure is a “deep disapproval of Member misconduct that, nevertheless, does not meet the threshold for expulsion.”

Taliba rejected the charge, which condemned her use of the phrase “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” and described it as “widely recognized as a genocidal call to violence to destroy the state of Israel and its people to replace it with a Palestinian state extending from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.”

Progressive Jewish American senator Bernie Sanders slammed the U.S. for the censure of Talib. Describing it as “Pathetic and shameful.”

In response, Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib delivered a speech on the House floor “on the attempts to silence her” while expressing her gratitude for the countless Jewish Americans across the country standing with Palestine.

“I’m the only Palestinian American serving in Congress, Mr. Chair, and my perspective is needed here now more than ever. I will not be silenced, and I will not let you distort my words,” she said.

Tlaib also used the opportunity to highlight Israel’s extensive list of human rights violations against Palestinians in Gaza, including collective punishment, the use of white phosphorous bombs, and the denial of food, water, electricity, and medical care to “millions of people with nowhere to go.”

“We will continue to call for a ceasefire, Mr. Chair, for the immediate delivery of critical humanitarian aid to Gaza, for the release of all hostages and those arbitrarily detained, and for every American to come home.”

Following her speech, more than 100 congressional staffers staged a walkout as they demanded a ceasefire in Gaza.

“Our constituents are pleading for a ceasefire, and we are the staffers answering their calls,” the staffers said, “Most of our bosses on Capitol Hill are not listening to the people they represent. We demand our leaders speak up.”

Hours later, Democratic Congresswoman Sara Jacobs withdrew her proposal to censure Republican Brian Mast for the racist comments he made on the House floor last week likening Palestinian civilians to Nazis, according toThe Hill.

The comment in question: “As a whole, I would encourage the other side to not so lightly throw around the idea of innocent Palestinian civilians, as is frequently said. I don’t think we would so lightly throw around the term innocent Nazi civilians during World War II.”

While expressing their continued support for U.S. aid to Israel, U.S. senators have asked the Biden administration to clarify Israel’s “strategy in Gaza” in a letter signed by Twenty-six lawmakers, including more than half of all democratic senators.

The senators asked for an “assessment of the viability of Israel’s military strategy in Gaza” and an “achievable plan” to govern Gaza after the fighting ends as well as “assessment of the viability of Israel military strategy in Gaza” and an “achievable plan” to govern Gaza after the war ends.

Meanwhile, Israel’s war cabinet minister, Benny Gantz, says Israel has not set a limit for its current Gaza ground operation in Gaza, reported Israeli media.

“On the question of the operation’s length, there are no limitations,” Gantz said on Wednesday.

“The war here is for our existence and for Zionism, and so I can’t provide an estimate of the length of each stage in the war and the fighting that will continue after. We can’t retreat from our strategic objective.”

Following his war on the besieged enclave, Netanyahu told ABC News that Gaza should be governed by “those who don’t want to continue the way of Hamas” without elaborating.

“I think Israel will, for an indefinite period, have the overall security responsibility because we’ve seen what happens when we don’t have it. When we don’t have that security responsibility, what we have is the eruption of Hamas terror on a scale that we couldn’t imagine,” he said.

‘It’s time for sanctions against Israel’

Every day Israel continues their ruthless bombardment of Gaza, they experience more diplomatic fallout.

Turkey’s President Erdogan says Israel is “crushing all humanitarian values.”

“Israel continues to bomb schools, mosques, churches, hospitals, crushing all humanitarian values,” Erdogan said, adding that 73 percent of those killed are women and children.

On Wednesday, Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto told reporters that Italy will send a hospital ship to the coast of Gaza with 170 staff members and 30 people trained for medical emergencies to help treat victims.

The Prime Minister of Malaysia, which has a long history of supporting Palestine and advocating for a two-state solution, denied the U.S. proposed legislation for unilateral sanctions against Hamas, targeting the Palestinian resistance group as well as foreign supporters.

“We only recognize decisions of the United Nations Security Council that are considered multilateral,” Al Jazeera quoted Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim as telling the parliament.

Belgian’s Deputy Prime Minister Petra De Sutter is urging Belgium to adopt sanctions on Israel and is calling for investigations into the bombings of hospitals and refugee camps in the Gaza Strip.

“It is time for sanctions against Israel. The rain of bombs is inhumane,” Reuters reported her saying.

“It is clear that Israel does not care about the international demands for a ceasefire,” she continued, adding that those responsible for war crimes should be banned from the E.U.

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The bill would cut $14.3 billion from the IRS to pay for the military aid, an idea opposed by Democrats.
https://www.activistpost.com/2023/10/house-republicans-unveil-14-3-billion-bill-for-israel.html

The United States Government overreach is becoming worse and worse with every passing day. Our freedoms are diminishing and everyone is worried about cutting branches rather than removing the problem from its root. The reason why people are cutting branches is because the mainstream media has a vested interest in defending the Government through repetious lies and propaganda. The individual is believing these lies and even standing with the Government's doctrines which is to get the individual to agree that he/she must give up their freedoms and bow down to the Collective Public Sector State.

It is interpreted that Republicans are Capitalist and are on the Right of the Political Spectrum. This is false, as Republicans just like the Democrats are fighting for more and more State Control, and both are stranguling the Economy through Socialist Measures. What we are seeing in the U.S is a leftist Civil War between the Socialist Republicans VS the Marxist Democrats.

The only difference between these two Socialist parties is that one of them wants complete ownership of the economy (The Democrats), and the other one does not want complete ownership of the Economy, but as much State Control as possible (The Republicans). Both of these Parties are Statist Socialist Parties and they are both Leftist Parties. Both of these parties belong on the left of the Political Spectrum not on the Right. If you can't comprehend something this simple. That explains the reason why you are still cutting branches rather than dealing with the root of the actual problem.

You may ask me how did i reach that conclusion? It is very simple. State Control of the Means of Production is Socialism, and Capitalism is Anti State by definition. The Republicans are all for regulating the Economy and thus they strangle the Economy identically to any other branch of Socialist that exists. The Democrats are a little different in how they socialise the means of production. What the Democrats are trying to do is something similar to the Doctrines of Marx and Hitler.

In fact, the Democrats have a lot of similarities with Lenin's Socialism (Marxism = Class Socialism), and Hitler's Socialism (National Socialism = Race Socialism). We see the Democrats want a Revolution of the Proletarians like Marx, which is the Class Collective Ideology. We also see the Democrats want a Race Socialism which is for a Race Collective to Control the Economy which also includes violent revolution, and support for Racist Groups such as Black Lives Matter, Antifa and some of the Fake Hebrew Israelite Movements are examples of this. The Democrats also want to collectivise the Genders. That is, to put enmity between men and women. They want a war of genders pretending that they are doing it so women have equal rights, which is far from the case. The gender wars also includes the transgender abusers wanting to compete with women in women sports. The Deomocrats are attempting to socialise this group collective as well and have them control the means of production.

The Democrats are a Mix between National Socialist (Race Socialist), and Marxist Socialist (Class Socialist), with additional Elements like Gender as add-ons. They want worker control of the means of production (Marxism). But they also want race control of the means of production (National Socialism). As well as Gender Control of the means of Production (Feminism).

The tricky part is to understand that both parties are Socialist Statist. As Mussolini said, everything in the State, nothing outside the State and nothing against the State. The Republicans very similar to the Italian Fascist, are all about the Nation.

Yes, the Republicans love to call themselves (Nationalists). This is a secret word to coverup their Socialism. But we can easily unmask this right here. A Nation by definition is a Society. So, what exactly is the difference between a Nationalist and a Socialist? Absolutely nothing! There is no difference between Nationalism and Socialims. They are one and the same. Is there any difference between Nationalizing the means of produciton or Socializing the means of produciton? There aren't any differences of course. Just like there was no difference when Hitler spoke about Nationalizing the Masses and Socializing the People. He meant exactly the same thing. Nationalism is Socialism and Socialism is Nationalism. They are exactly the same thing. And Republicans trying to hide behind the use of this term rightfully need to be called out.

Reports of millions of dollars of international kick backs to our fearless leader and his family members. LOL, you can't make this stuff up!!! Elite Democrats never get prosecuted, you are fine Joe, no worries!!!
Corruption at it's finest!!!

Surveys showed that the democrats is the party for the priviliged and rich nowadays and have more high income voters. So the same people that benefited over George Bush’s Iraq war. https://geopolitics.co/2022/11/13/billions-of-usd-laundered-as-aid-to-ukraine-laundered-back-to-democrats-via-ftx-crypto-platform/