The life of (my) life, soul of my soul

I have been calling my daughter what translates from Hebrew as "the life of life" or "love of love" for some years now; this is a modern, Israeli take of an Arabic use of language.

I grew up in a very Zionist place and time. But I was lucky enough to grow among Mizrahi, Arab Jews; both my father and my beloved uncle spoke Arabic as their first language, and the two, childhood friends, marries two sisters, my mom ant aunt, born in Morocco to Jewish parents.

Arab music was part of the soundtrack of my childhood, and from a young age I knew the names and would recognize the voices of legends such as Farid al-Atrash, Abdel Halim Hafez, Warda, Umm Kulthum, Fairuz and others. My father would also take me with him to work occacionally (he was am aluminum worker in construction), and his teammate Isaa, an Arab from Nazareth, was almost a family friend. We all knew him, and loved and welcomed him whoever we would meet.

I never forgot how one cold winter morning, when I tagged along with my father on a work day, Issa's wife made us coffee and tea, accompanied by sweet, delicious sugar powder-covered cookies, as they wouldn't let us just pick Issa up and go (I certainly can't speak for all Arabs homes but I know enough to say with confidence that you don't just pass through an Arab home: you sit and have coffee and eat something and have some small talk. Arabs Jews are also similar in that regard).

Like many second and 3rd generation Mizrahi Jews, I can't speak Arabic, but I pick up quite a lot of it, and the musicality of the language always sounds a little like home to me.

fortunate to have been exposed to Arabs, Jews and just Arabs, from a young age, I was never intimidated by anything Arab. On the contrary: I grew immensely fond of the gentleness, the warmth of heart, the humor, the special sweetness of an Arab street, store or home.

In later years, I was lamenting the forced disconnect between me and my Arab roots created by Israel's paranoid mentality. Like many other Arab Jews of my generation I was not an Arab anymore, but not really an Israeli as well to this day I am not sure what being Israeli means, really, apart from a negation of Jewish experiences and denial of current realities).

Israeli, just like American or English, connotes whiteness. And white we Mizrahi Jews are not, nor will we ever be.

Unlike many Mizrahi Jews, I refused to become an empty shell, filled only with the ideological content of the state: A de-Arabized Arab Jew. That I wouldn't be. I chose to be free instead.
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When I heard of the way Nur's grandfather, Khaled, called her, and how similar it was to the way I call my daughter, and when I see the suffering, wounds, burns, pain and death of Gaza's children, the memory and consciousness of me and my roots, both known and simply genetic, springs to life immediately, undeniable and bare. These kids are not foreign or alien to me. They are me and mine, too. I feel their pain and fear, I understand the terms of endearment and the farewells of their grief-stricken parents, even as I really understand but a few words here and there. My soul understands Arabic is the way I'd put it.

Zionism's message of fear, hate and suspicion towards Arabs and Palestinians is totally and forever lost on me, and I consider it a personal triumph. I will never hate Arab people.

And I ache the terrible dehumanization of Arab people, societies and communities that have so much beauty, gentleness and love in them. The world will know the truth. I am sure of that, and I will do whatever I can to help bring this day about, which is why I write this.

(and that's me and my daughter)

https://twitter.com/alon_mizrahi/status/1748387894685835663?t=Q08CrljUjSZCMXaiGa2rpg&s=19

Screams without proof: questions for NYT about shoddy ‘Hamas mass rape’ report
Max Blumenthal and Aaron Maté
January 10, 2024

After dismantling a New York Times front page feature alleging “a broader pattern of gender-based violence on Oct. 7” by Hamas, The Grayzone is demanding answers of the paper for its journalistic malpractice.

The following was submitted to New York Times editors and lead author, Jeffrey Gettleman.

The Grayzone has identified serious issues with the credibility of key sources quoted in the New York Times’ December 28 story, “Screams Without Words: How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on October 7.” Authored by Jeffrey Gettleman, Anat Schwartz, and Adam Sella, the article purports to prove “a broader pattern of gender-based violence on Oct. 7” than even Israeli authorities have been willing to allege . However, the Times report is marred by sensationalism, wild leaps of logic, and an absence of concrete evidence to support its sweeping conclusion.

The Times has come under fire from family members of Gal Abdush, the so-called “girl in the black dress” who features as Exhibit A in Gettleman and company’s attempt to demonstrate a pattern of rape by Hamas on October 7. Not only have Abdush’s sister and brother-in-law each denied that she was raped, the former has accused the Times of manipulating her family into participating by misleading them about their editorial angle. Though the family’s comments have sparked a major uproar on social media, the Times has yet to address the serious breach of journalistic integrity that its staff is accused of committing.


The Israeli police have also issued a statement since the publication of the Times’ article asserting that they themselves are unable to locate eyewitnesses of rape on October 7, or to connect the testimonies published by outlets like the Times with anything remotely resembling evidence.

We call on the New York Times to publicly address the comments by the Abdush family accusing Times reporters of misleading them and lying about the circumstances of her death. The Times must also address the statement issued by Israel’s police subsequent to the article’s publication and explain why Gettleman and his co-authors apparently omitted it.

Further, we demand a response to our thoroughly sourced debunking of testimony by key witnesses quoted in the story, as well as the documented record of discredited claims and ethically dubious activity by those same witnesses.

We have provided several questions for your consideration. If you are unable to furnish responses which satisfactorily address the issues we have raised about the credibility of your article, we believe it must be retracted in full.


Family of “the girl in the black dress” accuses NYT of having “invented” rape claim

You write, “Based largely on the video evidence — which was verified by The New York Times — Israeli police officials said they believed that [Gal] Abdush was raped, and she has become a symbol of the horrors visited upon Israeli women and girls during the Oct. 7 attacks.”

However, the sister of Gal Abdush, Miral Alter, stated in a January 2 Instagram comment that “she was not raped… There was no proof that there was rape, it was only a video.” She also pointed out that the timeline between Gal’s last message to the family and the time of her reported murder made it impossible for a rape to occur: “How in 4 minutes [were] they also raped and burned [?]”

Alter concluded, “the New York Times that came to us indicated that they wanted to do a story in memory of Gal and Nagy [her husband] and that’s why we approved. If we knew that it was a headline like rape slaughter, we would never agree. Never.”

Is Alter’s statement accusing you of misleading her family true? And why have you ignored her comments bluntly stating that her sister had not been raped? Did you and Alter ever discuss your theory that Abdush was the victim of a sexual assault?

Gal Abdush’s brother-in-law has also spoken out against the claims contained in your article. In a January 4 interview with Israel’s Channel 13, Nissim Abdush denied that Gal had been raped, insisting that it would have been impossible given her husband was present with her at the time. “The media invented it,” he stated. Nissim Abdush also accused the international press – presumably referring to you – of resorting to sensationalism in place of evidence-based journalism. Finally, he lamented that the false claims of his sister-in-law’s rape were harmful to the psychological health of her orphaned children.

Once again, why have you failed to incorporate statements by a family member of Gal Abdush explicitly contradicting key claims in your article?

Eti Bracha, the mother of Gal Abdush, told Israel’s YNet she was first told that her daughter had been raped when she was contacted by you. “We didn’t know about the rape at first, we only knew when the New York Times reporter contacted us. They said they cross-examined the evidence and said that Gal had been sexually assaulted. Until now we don’t know what exactly happened,” added the mother.

Is it normal journalistic protocol to influence a family’s perspective of a loved one’s killing, when the crime remains unsolved? How did the New York Times obtain evidence which the Bracha-Abdush family had not yet seen? And what evidence existed beyond the video mentioned in your article?

There are more issues with your reporting on the killing of Gal Abdush. You claim that a video of Abdush filmed on October 8 by someone named Eden Wessely “went viral, with thousands of people responding, desperate to know if the woman in the black dress [was] their missing friend, sister or daughter.”

However, as the independent outlet Mondoweiss pointed out, you “did not link to the video but released a distant, indistinct image from it that revealed nothing.” Mondoweiss questions how you “confirmed the existence of these responses since Wessely’s Instagram account has been banned, and she created a new account in mid-December.”

Further, as Mondoweiss noted, “There is currently no trace of the video on the internet despite the [NY Times] claim that it ‘went viral.’ Moreover, the Israeli press, despite reporting on hundreds of stories about the October 7 victims, never mentioned ‘the woman in the black dress’ even once previous to the December 28 story.”

So where is the video that you claimed “went viral”? If it contained such powerful evidence of sexual violence, why was it not featured in your article? And how did you confirm the thousands of responses to the video by people supposedly demanding information about “the woman in the black dress”?

Israeli police “failed to connect the acts with the victims”

Haaretz reported on January 4, “The police are having difficulty locating victims of sexual assault from the Hamas attack, or people who witnessed such attacks, and decided to appeal to the public to encourage those who have information on the matter to come forward and give testimony. Even in the few cases in which the organization collected testimony about sexual offenses committed on October 7, it failed to connect the acts with the victims who were harmed by them.”

Why are the Israeli police struggling to find witnesses of sexual assault which your paper confidently described on October 7 as so widespread that it demonstrated “a pattern?”

Israeli police “key witness” quoted by Times made impossible claims; evidence is elusive

You describe a 24-year-old accountant identified as “Sapir” as “one of the Israeli police’s key witnesses.”

Yet one of Sapir’s key claims undermines the rest of her testimony. According to the Times, “she saw three other women raped and terrorists carrying the severed heads of three more women.”

Given that no record exists of women being beheaded on October 7, why did you include this claim from Sapir? Does such an assertion not undermine her credibility and raise doubts about the rest of her testimony? And why, at minimum, did you not mention that there is no forensic evidence to support Sapir’s claim?

According to Haaretz, “investigators were unable to identify the women who, according to the testimony of [Sapir] and other eyewitnesses, were raped and murdered.” Israeli Police Superintendent Adi Edry told the paper, “I have circumstantial evidence, but ultimately my duty is to find evidence that supports her testimony and to find the victims’ identity. At this stage I don’t have those specific corpses.”

Why did the New York Times fail to interview Edry and other investigators about Sapir’s testimony, and demand corroborating evidence to support the supposed witness’s lurid claims of gang rape, mutilation and mass beheadings? How do Edry’s statements to Haaretz reflect on Sapir’s reliability?

You also neglected to note a glaring discrepancy between Sapir’s claims to you and in previous accounts. Sapir is the only known female witness who claims to have seen sexual violence on Oct. 7th. Her story – and that of another male “witness,” Yura, who was with her – has radically changed.

On Nov. 8th, Haaretz reported that a female witness – almost certainly Sapir – claimed that she saw men in fatigues bend one woman over, shoot her in the head, and mutilate her body.

Her friend who was hiding with her — all but certainly Yura — then claims he “didn’t see the rape,” but that Sapir “told him at the time what she saw.”

Fast forward to Dec. 28th, and Sapir and Yura tell the NYT a completely new tale:

According to Sapir, there is now not one woman victim, but two women. And now no one is shot. The first woman was bent over and repeatedly knifed in the back when she flinched. The second woman was raped, had her breast cut off, and the terrorists supposedly played with the breast. Then she saw three severed heads.

And whereas Yura previously did not witness the rape, he now – according to the NYT – says he “described seeing a woman raped and killed.”

So at this point, according to these “witnesses,” there is not one but two female rape victims. And there is no longer a mere shooting, but a breast mutilation, knifing, and three severed heads. What’s more, the male “witness” now suddenly remembers seeing a rape after not seeing one the first time he told the story.

Why did you ignore these glaring discrepancies from your own “witnesses”? If these are somehow different witnesses, why did you neglect to interview them or even mention their existence?

Testimony by supposed paramedic debunked by official records, previous record of lying to media

You write, “A paramedic in an Israeli commando unit said that he had found the bodies of two teenage girls in a room in Be’eri. One was lying on her side, he said, boxer shorts ripped, bruises by her groin. The other was sprawled on the floor face down, he said, pajama pants pulled to her knees, bottom exposed, semen smeared on her back.”

You report that the paramedic conveniently “kept moving and did not document the scene.” However, “neighbors of the two girls killed — who were sisters, 13 and 16 — said their bodies had been found alone, separated from the rest of their family.”

That paramedic appears to be the same source CNN relied on in its own special report accusing Hamas of a systematic and deliberate campaign of rape on October 7. He is a supposed paramedic from Israeli Air Force Special Tactics rescue unit 669 identified only as “G.” And like your other sources, he has proven to be an unreliable, if not deeply dishonest, witness.

The closest match to the teenage girls described by “G” is Yahel and Noiya Sharabi, who were 13 and 16, respectively. But according to the Times of Israel, the girls’ bodies were “found in an embrace” with their mother, and not “alone, separated from the rest of the family,” as stated by the anonymous neighbors you quoted.

Israeli media has also reported, “Lianne and Yahel [Sharabi] could only be identified through DNA samples. Noiya was identified through her teeth only two days ago.”

How was the paramedic “G” able to detect semen on one of the girls, and bruises on the other, and view their states of undress, if their bodies were, in fact, burned beyond recognition?

Why did you not cross check the anonymous, supposed paramedic’s testimony with evidence from the scene?

“G,” was previously interviewed by the right-wing Republic TV of India. In that appearance, he described in a distinctive Brooklyn accent how his “teammate” found “a baby, perhaps not even more than a year old, with multiple points stabbed all over his body and tossed into the garbage.”


This was a clear falsehood, as only one baby was recorded among the dead on October 7: Mila Cohen, who was accidentally shot, not stabbed, and who was not found in any garbage can.

Why did the documented record of fabrication by “G” not lead you to question his testimony? Did you vet “G” to verify that he was actually on the ground in Kibbutz Be’eri when he said he was? How do you know he was a paramedic with an Israeli special forces unit, and not an Israeli intelligence operative?

Times’ key “eyewitness” changed story multiple times, did not mention rape in initial testimony

Similar issues of credibility arise when considering the testimony you collected from an Israeli special forces veteran and mercenary named Raz Cohen.

Since his first interview on October 9, Cohen has altered his testimony several times.

Cohen told the NYT he personally witnessed a white van filled with Hamas militants pull up a mile from the Nova music festival, gather over a woman, and gang rape her: “I saw the men standing in a half circle around her. One penetrates her. She screams. I still remember her voice, screams without words.” He said they then butchered the woman with knives.

When Cohen was interviewed on October 9 about the attack on the music festival, however, he did not mention any act of sexual assault committed by Hamas militants. See here and here.

A day later, Cohen began to introduce vague suggestions of sexual assault into his testimony, but did not indicate that he witnessed any such acts taking place: “The terrorists captured women and hurt them in any way possible, and when they were done with them, they started butchering them in front of their friends,” Cohen told an Israeli publication.

Cohen was also interviewed by Canada’s CBC on October 10, but was not quoted about witnessing any rape. The same day, Cohen offered lurid new details to PBS, claiming that “the terrorists” not only slaughtered women after raping them on October 7, but engaged in necrophilia as well: “The terrorists, people from Gaza, raped girls. And after they raped them, they killed them, murdered them with knives, or the opposite, killed — and after they raped, they — they did that.”

Testimony he provided to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on October 11 differed slightly, and remained vague: “We see from there a lot of people and girls screaming and murdered by knives. And the girls, the terrorists rape them,” he stated abruptly and without apparent emotion.

By this point, no Israeli media had reported that any rapes occurred on October 7.

Cohen quickly fell off the media’s radar. He would not be heard from again until you interviewed him. The novel testimony he delivered to you raises serious questions about his credibility, and that of your newspaper’s editorial standards.

How and why did Cohen’s story transform so dramatically over time, providing explosive new details at a moment of political urgency for the army in which he served? Was it plausible that a group of hardened Hamas commandoes suddenly paused their surprise attack, which was focused on taking as many captives as quickly as possible, stood in a circle and gang raped a woman, one after another, while Israeli forces mobilized to attack them? Why did Hamas militants use knives to kill their victims, as Cohen alleged, when they carried rifles and grenades? Why did he drop his earlier allegation of necrophilia when speaking to the Times? And why did he mention seeing “a lot of people and girls” being raped to the ABC on October 11, but alter his testimony to refer specifically to a single female victim when interviewed by the Times?

Perhaps most importantly, why did Cohen’s friend, Shoam Gueta, who took shelter with him on October 7, not describe witnessing a gang rape when interviewed by the Times?

There is also the issue of Cohen’s odd behavior during the October 7, and in its aftermath. Would someone who claimed to have witnessed a horrific gang rape and mass murder have been taking selfies of himself smiling and making the trademark Hawaiian “shaka” hand gesture? And if that source appeared in an October 7-themed fashion show to gain celebrity and potential profit off their experience at the Nova music festival, would that not also raise questions about their credibility? Because that is precisely what Raz Cohen did.


Times’ “rescuer” source has established pattern of lying, embellishment; works for group with documented history of sexual abuse, corruption

You prominently feature testimony by Yossi Landau, Southern Commander of the ZAKA organization. For critical background on Landau and his organization, we refer you to Max Blumenthal’s December 6 investigation for The Grayzone, “Scandal-stained Israeli ‘rescue’ group fuels October 7 fabrications.”

Were you aware, as The Grayzone documented, that Landau’s previous claims of having seen beheaded babies and a fetus cut from a dead woman’s womb on October 7 have been discredited not only by the Israeli newspaper by Haaretz, but by the Biden White House, which retracted the president’s claim that he had seen photographs of beheaded babies? In fact, only one baby is recorded among those killed on October 7, which means any claim to have seen multiple dead babies must be dismissed out of hand.

Were you aware that failing to provide photographic evidence to back up his dubious testimony, Yossi Landau has said that those who question his claims “should be killed”?

Why did you not mention ZAKA’s lack of coronary credentials, which makes it unqualified to provide forensic evidence? And why were Times readers not informed of ZAKA’s active relationship with the Israeli military?

Were you aware that the founder and longtime leader of ZAKA attempted suicide in 2021 after facing multiple charges of rape of youth of both genders, and that Israeli media published reams of reports documenting corruption and theft of donations by ZAKA leadership?

Taken together with Landau’s well-established pattern of lying about October 7 atrocities, the organization’s record of high-level corruption and malfeasance should have raised bright red flags for any journalistic professional.


NY Times report larded with innuendo that proves nothing

The Times states that women were “shot in the vagina” on October 7. Did this occur during combat, as many women were serving as active duty soldiers on base as part of the Gaza Division at the time? Were they shot in other parts of their body as well? How does this prove your confidently stated assertion that rape occurred on a systematic level on October 7?

You also write of a “woman’s corpse that emergency responders discovered in the rubble of a besieged kibbutz with dozens of nails driven into her thighs and groin.” In what way did this support your conclusion of a “pattern of gender based violence” on October 7? Did a Hamas militant meticulously drive nails into a woman’s pelvic region before bringing an entire home down on her? Or were the nails actually part of furniture, drywall or other parts of the housing structure which collapsed on the female victim? The latter instance would seem far more plausible, as such injuries are now commonly witnessed – though never detailed by the Times – in the Gaza Strip, where thousands of civilians have been killed by the Israeli military in their homes with heavy munitions.

Finally, who or what was responsible for reducing parts of a kibbutz to rubble? Did Hamas militants armed only with automatic rifles and RPG launchers have the capacity to destroy entire homes? Or was the female Israeli casualty described in your article, in fact, a victim of friendly fire from an Israeli tank shell or Hellfire missile?

The public now knows that many Israeli noncombatants were killed by their country’s military on October 7. They know this largely thanks to the work of The Grayzone and other independent outlets. We were initially attacked for our work, but now Israeli media is demanding answers as well. Major legacy media organizations like yours continue to ignore serious political scandals like these while pursuing factually-challenged, shamefully unethical journalistic efforts aimed at legitimizing the Israeli government’s public relations objectives.

https://thegrayzone.com/2024/01/10/questions-nyt-hamas-rape-report/

‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 80: Israel kills at least 100 Palestinians in Christmas Eve attacks

At least 100 Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks on Khan Younis and Al-Maghazi refugee camp, as a new Euro-Med Monitor report documents brutal Israeli crimes against civilians sheltering in Palestinian schools, including executions.

Mustafa Abu SneinehDecember 25, 2023

Palestinians attend the funeral held at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital for 70 people killed in Israeli airstrike on the al Maghazi refugee camp in Deir Al Balah, Gaza on December 25, 2023. (Photo: Omar Ashtawy/APA Images)

Casualties

20,424+ killed* and at least 54,036 wounded in the Gaza Strip.

303 Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem

Israel revises its estimated October 7 death toll down from 1,400 to 1,147.

489 Israeli soldiers killed since October 7, and at least 1,952 injured.

*This figure was confirmed by Gaza’s Ministry of Health on December 24. Due to breakdowns in communication networks within the Gaza Strip, the Ministry of Health in Gaza has been unable to regularly and accurately update its tolls since mid-November. Some rights groups put the death toll number closer to 28,000 when accounting for those presumed dead.

Key Developments

UNRWA says 142 employees killed in Israeli bombardment in Gaza Strip since October 7.

UNRWA warns it is struggling to provide health care for 50,000 pregnant women in Gaza.

WHO chief calls for ceasefire and decries Israel’s destruction of Gaza health system.

Geneva-based Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor accuses Israeli forces of turning Palestinian schools in Gaza Strip into “settings for brutal crimes against civilians.”

Israeli military says 162 killed in armed battles with Palestinian fighters since late October.

Israeli forces recover five bodies of captives in a tunnel in Gaza, and Hamas says it killed 48 Israeli soldiers and destroyed 35 military vehicles since Thursday.

Pope Francis says during Christmas Eve mass: “Tonight, our hearts are in Bethlehem, where the Prince of Peace is once more rejected by the futile logic of war.”

Israeli jailers beat and tortured Nael al-Barghouti, the longest-serving Palestinian prisoner, during his transfer from Ofer Prison in western Ramallah, to Gilboa Prison in northern Israel.

Israel bombs homes in Khan Younis and Al-Maghazi, killing 100 Palestinians

At least 100 Palestinians were killed in Israeli air strikes in Khan Younis and Al-Maghazi refugee camp, most of them were family members on Sunday night.

Israeli forces bombed two houses in east of Khan Younis, killing 23 people, and injuring dozens on Sunday evening. Warplanes targeted the Saleh family house in the Ma’an area, and several Palestinians remain under the rubble as of Monday morning.

In the Al-Amal neighborhood, west of Khan Younis, Israeli forces bombed a house killing Yahya Mahmoud Jawaher and his brother Abdul Rahim on Sunday night, Wafa news reported.

In Al-Maghazi, a refugee camp in central Gaza, Israeli airstrikes and artillery shelling killed at least 70 Palestinians when it bombed four houses on Sunday night, most of them women and children.

Palestine’s Civil Defence said it recovered the bodies of eight people and 14 injured from under the rubble on Sunday night in the Al-Bureij refugee camp after it was shelled by Israeli artillery.

Al-Bureij was severely damaged following Israeli forces detonating numerous buildings in the past weeks. Israel carpet bombed the area surrounding Abu Hilo school in Al-Bureij and fired smoke bombs in the area.

On Sunday, Gaza’s Ministry of Health said that at least 20,424 Palestinian martyrs have been killed and 54,036 injured in Israeli bombardment since October 7. An estimated 8,000 Palestinians are reportedly also still missing under the rubble, according to Palestine’s Red Crescent Society.

Gaza’s government media office said on Sunday that 103 journalists have been killed in Israeli bombings since October.

UNRWA says 142 employees killed as it struggles to provide care for pregnant women

On Sunday, the UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) announced that 142 employees have been killed in Israeli bombardment in the Gaza Strip since October 7.

“In this somber moment, it’s hard to wish those celebrating ‘Merry Christmas’, with ongoing loss, grief and destruction,” the UN agency said in a statement.

“Our teams are doing the impossible to help people in need. We mourn the loss of more UNRWA colleagues killed in Gaza, now 142, the majority with their families,” it added.

UNRWA has been calling for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip to ease the humanitarian crisis and provide aid, water, food, and medicine to hospitals and shelters in the enclave. The UN Security Council resolution last week was welcomed by UNRWA.

Juliette Touma, a spokesperson for UNRWA said that “only time will tell what real difference this resolution is going to make, and it needs to increase the humanitarian assistance into Gaza.”

“Without a truce, the UN resolution may do little for Gaza,” Touma added.

UNRWA warned that it is struggling to provide health care for 50,000 pregnant women in the Gaza Strip.

“There are an estimated 50,000 pregnant women in the Gaza Strip, with over 180 giving birth every day,” it said in a statement.

“UNRWA doctors and midwives are doing everything possible to provide care for post-natal & high-risk pregnant women at the 7 [out of 22] operational UNRWA health centers,” it added.

Last week, nine out of the 36 hospitals and healthcare centers were partially operating in the Gaza Strip. The World Health Organization’s chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, called for a ceasefire and condemned the destruction of Gaza’s health system.

“The decimation of the Gaza health system is a tragedy,” he wrote on X on Sunday.

“In the face of constant insecurity and inflows of wounded patients, we see doctors, nurses, ambulance drivers and more continue striving to save lives,” Tedros said.

He confirmed that WHO is adamant in calling for a “ceasefire now.”

Euro-Med: Israeli ‘crimes against civilians’ taking place at Gaza schools

On Monday, the Geneva-based Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor accused Israeli forces of turning Palestinian schools in the Gaza Strip into “settings for brutal crimes against civilians.”

Euro-Med said in a report, “the Israeli occupation continues to violate schools that have been converted into shelters for tens of thousands of displaced people, committing grave violations including extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests, torture, and intimidation of civilians.”

Euro-Med said that Israeli forces stormed Al-Rafi’I school in Jabalia over the weekend, arresting tens of Palestinians and forcing them to strip down to their underwear before taking them to unknown destinations.

The group added that Israeli forces bombed Palestinian schools from the air since October, however, in recent weeks it resorted to storming them in various towns, including north of Gaza, Khan Younis, and Al-Bureij. This has been accompanied by destroying the schools’ walls and gates with gunfire and tank shells.

“These attacks were unjustified and targeted innocent civilians who had sought refuge in shelter centres after receiving Israeli orders to evacuate their homes and residential areas,” Euro-Med said in a statement.

The group collected several testimonies from survivors who were sheltering in the schools when Israeli forces attacked and stormed them.

In Shadia Abu Ghazala school in Jabalia, Euro-Med said that Israeli forces carried out field executions, where nine bodies were found following Israeli forces withdrawal from the area on December 13.

In Shadia Abu Ghazala school in Jabalia, Euro-Med said that Israeli forces carried out field executions, where nine bodies were found following Israeli forces withdrawal from the area on December 13.

Youssef Khalil told Euro-Med that two Israeli soldiers opened fire at his family, killing them in Shadia Abu Ghazala school while they were sheltering in one of the classrooms. Khalil was later arrested along with other Palestinians, subjected to beatings during his detention before being released.

He found his family members in a state of decomposition when he returned to the school, alongside other bodies of Palestinians killed in the area.

“The ongoing operations of killing, physical elimination, and systematic destruction of buildings and facilities have no explanation or justification other than being part of deliberate acts of revenge,” the Euro-Med stated.

“Civilians choosing to remain in evacuation areas do not lose their protection, and it is prohibited to target them under any pretext,” it added.

Israeli forces recover five captives’ bodies as Hamas and Islamic Jihad target troops in Gaza

On Monday, the Israeli military announced that 162 soldiers have been killed in armed battles with Palestinian fighters since the late October ground invasion of the Gaza Strip. In total, 489 soldiers have been killed since October 7.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday afternoon that “the war is exacting a very heavy price on us; however, we have no choice but to continue to fight.”

Thousands of Israelis have been protesting for the past weeks in Tel Aviv, calling on Netanyahu to step down and for a general election in Israel.

Netanyahu added that “we are continuing with full force until the end, until victory, until we achieve all of our goals: the destruction of Hamas, the return of our hostages and ensuring that Gaza will never again constitute a threat to the State of Israel.”

So far, Israeli forces have failed to rescue or return any of the captives held by Hamas alive to Israel. Last week, Israeli soldiers shot dead three of those captives in Gaza after misidentifying them as Palestinians.

On Sunday, the military spokesperson said Israel recovered five bodies of captives from a Hamas tunnel in Gaza. Israel also released video footage of the Palestinian tunnel and said it killed 8,000 Palestinian fighters since October 7, a figure drawn from “accounts of targeted strikes and battlefield tallies as well as the interrogations of captives.”

On Saturday, Hamas said that it feared five Israeli hostages were killed in Israeli bombardment of Gaza after it lost contact with the group in charge of them.

Hamas’ military spokesperson, Abu Ubaida, said in a message on Sunday that in the past four days, Palestinian fighters have killed 48 Israeli soldiers, injured dozens, and completely or partially destroyed 35 military vehicles across various areas in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas also released video footage of targeting Israeli soldiers in north Gaza. In the Tel Al-Zaatar neighborhood, Hamas sniper shot at Israeli soldiers, while in west Beit Lahia, fighters fired a Kornet anti-tank missile at Israeli soldiers barricading inside a building and on another force inside a home in Beit Hanoun.

Islamic Jihad’s Al-Quds Brigades announced that it targeted three Israeli military vehicles with RPG missiles and a planted bomb in the Al-Zaytoun and Al-Shuja’iya neighborhoods in Gaza.

Hamas also welcomed the decision to limit Christmas celebrations to prayers and religious rituals in Palestine.

“The holidays of our Christian people come this year amid a continuing fascist aggression launched by the occupation [forces] against all components of our Palestinian people targeting all both mosques and churches,” Hamas said in a statement.

Instead of a decorated tree in Manger Square opposite the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem, the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Tourism organized an artwork piece called “Nativity under the Rubble” to symbolize the agony and destruction in Gaza.

On Sunday evening, Pope Francis led a Christmas Eve mass at St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican and said “Tonight, our hearts are in Bethlehem, where the Prince of Peace is once more rejected by the futile logic of war.”

Longest serving Palestinian prisoner, Nael al-Barghouti, tortured by Israeli jailers

Israeli forces raided towns and villages in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem overnight and arrested several Palestinians from Hebron, Qalqilya, Tubas, Jerusalem, Ramallah, Tulkarem, and the Jordan Valley.

In a joint statement, the Prisoners’ Affairs Authority and the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club said that “testimonies from recently released detainees in Gaza revealed gruesome details of torture and abuse by the occupying army upon them, with their bodies bearing signs of abuse.”

They added that the “prisoner Nael al-Barghouti, 66, had been tortured during his transfer from Ofer Prison in western Ramallah, to Gilboa Prison in northern Israel.”

Barghouti was released from prison in 2011 after spending 34 years. However, in 2014 Israeli forces rearrested him. He has currently spent 44 years in total in Israeli jails.

“[He] was brutally beaten with batons and rifles and the assault on him and his fellow prisoners continued for three consecutive hours,” the statement added.

The Club said that Israeli forces arrested 4,696 Palestinians from the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem since October 7.

Before you go - We need your help.Mainstream media’s wilful complicity in the genocide of Palestinian people is a reminder of just how vital our work at Mondoweiss is. This article and our extensive coverage since October 7 have been made possible by readers like you who donate to keep our reporting free and independent. 

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Syria is playing the long game - developing strategy for the potential of all-out war.
An in-depth analysis of Syrian military developments since October 7th

vanessa beeley

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

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

Ibrahim Wahdi - SAA soldier and journalist

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ISIS aggression on behalf of Israel and US

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Israeli aggression against Syria since October 7th

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

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

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


Hezbollah fighters killed by Israeli aggression on November 10th

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

Attacks on illegal US occupation bases in Syria and Iraq

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Video:



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

Video:



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

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

Syrian Ministry of Defense:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ibrahim Wahdi:

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

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

****

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

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



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Will Russia-China Strategic Patience Extinguish the Fire in West Asia?, by Pepe Escobar - The Unz Review
Once upon a time, by the Don river, in the southern steppes of what today is still known as “Ukraine”, the Great King of Persia, the mighty Darius, leading the most powerful army ever assembled on earth, received a puzzling message from a foe he was pursuing: the nomad ruler Idanthyrsus, King of the Scythians.

A Scythian envoy arrived at the Persian camp carrying a bird; a mouse; a frog; and five arrows.

And then he left, in a rush.

Wily Darius interpreted the message as the Scythians ready to submit to the Persians.

Not so fast. It was up to Darius’s senior foreign policy advisor, Gobryas, who also happened to be his brother-in-law, to break the code:

“Unless you Persians turn into birds and fly up in the air or into mice and burrow in the ground or into frogs and leap into lakes, you will never get home again but stay here in this country, only to be shot by Scythian arrows.”

Well, apparently this tale from the depths of the pre-Silk Roads proves the strategic nightmare of waging war against elusive nomadic horse archers on the Eurasian steppes.

But that could also be a tale about waging war against invisible urban guerrillas in sandals and RPGs hidden in the rubble in Gaza; flash mini-squads emerging from tunnels to hit and burn Merkava tanks before disappearing underground.

History also tells us that Darius failed to bring the Scythian nomads to a head-to-head battle. So, in the autumn of 512 B.C., he pulled a pre-American gambit in Afghanistan 2,500 years before the fact: he declared victory and left.

That Landed Aircraft Carrier

Everyone familiar with West Asia – from US generals to grocers in the Arab Street – knows that Israel is a landed aircraft carrier whose mission is to keep West Asia in check on behalf of the Hegemon.

Of course in a dog eats dog geopolitical environment it’s easy to misunderstand all wag the dog shenanigans. What’s certain is that for hegemonic circles of the US Deep State, and certainly for the White House and the Pentagon, what matters in the current incandescent juncture is the uber-extreme/genocidal Likud-led Netanyahu government in Israel, not “Israel” per se.

That projects Netanyahu as the exact mirror image of the beleaguered sweaty sweatshirt actor in Kiev. Quite the geopolitical gift – in terms of deflecting blame away from the Hegemon for a genocide deployed live on every smartphone on the planet.

And all that conducted under a veneer of legality – as in the White House and the State Department “advising” Tel Aviv to act with moderation; yes, you can bomb hospitals, schools, medical workers, journalists, thousands of women, thousands of children, but please be gentle.

Meanwhile, the Hegemon has deployed an Armada to the Eastern Mediterranean, complete with two very expensive iron bathtubs, sorry aircraft carrier groups plus a nuclear submarine close to the Persian Gulf. That’s not exactly to survey guerrillas in underground tunnels and to “protect” Israel.

The ultimate – neocon and Zio-con – targets are of course Hezbollah, Syria, Hashd al-Shaabi in Iraq and Iran: the whole Axis of Resistance.

Iran-Russia-China, the new neocon-defined “axis of evil”, which happen to be the Top Three Actors of Eurasia integration, for all practical purposes have interpreted the genocide in Gaza as an Israeli-American operation. And they have clearly identified the key vector: energy.

The inestimable Michael Hudson has noted how “we’re really seeing something very much like the Crusades here. It’s a real fight for who is going to control energy, because, again, the key, if you can control the world’s flow of energy, you can do to the whole world what the United States did to Germany last year by blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines.”

BRICS 10 on the Move

And that brings us to the fascinating case of the OIC/Arab World delegation of Foreign Ministers now on tour of selected capitals promoting their plan for a complete ceasefire in Gaza plus negotiations for an independent Palestinian state. The delegation, called the Gaza Contact Group, includes Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, Indonesia, Nigeria and Palestine.

Their first stop was Beijing, meeting Wang Yi, and the second stop Moscow, meeting Sergei Lavrov. That tells us all we need to know about BRICS 11 in action – even before the fact.

Well, that’s actually BRICS 10, because after the election of pro-Hegemon Zionist Javier “Chainsaw Massacre” Milei for President, Argentina is now out of the picture, and possibly discarded by January 1st, 2024, when BRICS previously 11 starts under the Russian presidency.

The OIC/Arab League special conference on Palestine in Saudi Arabia had yielded a meek final declaration that disappointed virtually the whole Global South/Global Majority. But then something started to move.

Foreign Ministers started to coordinate closely. At first Egypt with China, after previous coordination with Iran and Turkey. That may sound counter-intuitive – but it’s all due to the gravity of the situation. That explains why the Iranian Foreign Minister is not part of the current traveling delegation – which is led, in practice, by Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

The meeting with Lavrov coincided with an extraordinary online BRICS meeting on Palestine, called by the current South African presidency. Crucial point: the flags of new members Iran, Egypt and Ethiopia could be identified behind the speakers.

Iran’s President Raisi went no holds barred, calling for BRICS member states to use every political and economic tool available to pressure Israel. Xi Jinping called once again for a two-state solution and positioned China as the mediator of choice.

For the first time Xi in his own words laid it all out: “There can be no security in the Middle East without a just solution to the question of Palestine. I have emphasized on many occasions that the only viable way to break the cycle of Palestinian-Israeli conflict lies in a two-state solution, in the restoration of the legitimate national rights of Palestine, and in the establishment of an independent state of Palestine.”

And it should all start via an international conference.

All of the above implies a concerted BRICS 10 unified position, in the next few days, applying maximum pressure on Tel Aviv/Washington for a ceasefire, fully supported by virtually the whole Global Majority. Of course there are no guarantees the Hegemon will allow it to succeed.

Secret negotiations involving Turkey, for instance, have floundered. The idea was to have Ankara cutting off the supply of oil to Israel coming from the BTC pipeline from Baku to Ceyhan: the oil is then loaded on tankers to Ashkelon in Israel. That’s at least 40% of the oil fueling Israel’s military machine.

Ankara, still a NATO member, balked – spooked by the inevitably hardcore American response.

Riyadh, in the long run, could be even more daring: no more oil exports until there’s a definitive solution to Palestine according to the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative. Yet MbS won’t do it – because Saudi wealth is all invested in New York and London. It’s still a long, winding, bumpy road to the petroyuan.

Meanwhile, realpolitik practitioners such as John Mearsheimer correctly point out that a negotiated solution for Israel-Palestine is impossible. A quick glance at the current map shows how the two-state solution – advocated by everyone from China and Russia to the Arab world – is dead; a Palestinian state, as Mearsheimer noted, “is going to be like an Indian reservation” in the US, “cut apart and isolated, not really a state.”

No Hedging When it Comes to Genocide

So what is Russia to do? Here is a very good informed hint.

“Putin in the Labyrinth” means Moscow actively involved, in a BRICS 10 manner, to bring about a peaceful West Asia while maintaining internal stability in Russia under the ever-evolving Hegemon Hybrid War: it’s all interconnected.

The Russia-China strategic partnership’s approach to West Asia set on fire by the usual suspects is all about strategic timing and patience – which the Kremlin and the Zhongnanhai exhibit in droves.

No one really knows what goes on in the background – the deep shadow play behind the fog of intertwined wars. Especially when it comes to West Asia, always enveloped in serial mirages arising from the desert sands.

At least we may try to discern mirages around the Persian Gulf monarchies, the GCC – and especially what MbS and his mentor MbZ are really playing at. This is the absolutely crucial fact: both the Arab League and the OIC are controlled by the GCC.

And yet, as both Riyadh and Abu Dhabi become members of BRICS 10, they certainly see that the Hegemon’s new gambit is to set back the advances of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in West Asia by setting the region on fire.

Yes, this is the War against China morphing from Hybrid to Hot, side by side with the Final Solution for the “Palestinian problem”.

And as a bonus, from the Hegemon’s perspective, that should bring this bunch of desert bedouins firmly on board the new D.O.A. gambit, the IMEC (India-Middle East Corridor), which is in fact the Europe-Israel-Emirates-Saudi Arabia-India trade corridor, in theory a competitor to BRI.

A major running theme across all nooks and crannies of the Arab street is how killing off the Palestinian resistance is an even more passionate issue for the sold out GCC elites than confronting Zionism.

That explains, at least in part, the non-reaction reaction of the GCC to the ongoing genocide (they are now trying to make amends). And that is parallel to their non-reaction reaction to the Hegemon’s methodical, slow motion genocide, rape and pillaging over time of Iraqis, Syrians, Afghans, Libyans, Yemenis, Sudanese and Somalis.

It’s absolutely impossible – and inhuman – to hedge when it comes to genocide. The verdict is still pending on whether the GCC has chosen a side, thus turning completely apart, spiritually and geopolitically, from the wider Arab street.

This genocide may be the defining moment of the young 21st century – realigning the entire Global South/Global Majority and clarifying who’s on the right side of History. Whatever it does next, the Hegemon seems destined to totally lose the entire West Asia, the Heartland, wider Eurasia and the Global South/Global Majority.

Blowback works in mysterious ways: as the “aircraft carrier” in West Asia went utterly insane, it only turbo-charged the Russia-China strategic partnership to mold History further on down the road to the Eurasia Century.


https://www.unz.com/pescobar/will-russia-china-strategic-patience-extinguish-the-fire-in-west-asia/

After the 30th of April when the zealy.io campaign was launched, LeoFinance is taking a great move that I could hardly catch up on during the first few days. I had no idea what was going on. Grateful to @libertycrypto27's article that somehow explained to me in simple terms what the campaign is all about.
After 15 days, I didn't expect to be included in the list of top 10 threaders:
[Source](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Qbt_lbeyfSn-Bn3cPHjIpDMrbUcRtAaBPJVkj-YfqnU/edit#gid=0)
As for the zealy.io leaderboard, I suffered a huge drop back to # 60 due to my inactivity for the last two days. I failed to complete the assigned quests.
Overall, except for the above setback, I am satisfied with my performance. We still have 26 days in this campaign and a lot of surprises can happen along the way.
Shifting to my participation in today's #LPUD, four days ago, I sold 1,129 #CENT and 445.97 #CTP to buy 71.9 $LEO. Due to such a purchase, I was able to achieve the 300 LEO monthly target.
Today is my 11th time participating in #LPUD and the fifth consecutive month this year that I have been powering up 300 LEO. The goal is to reach the CUB status by the end of the year with 5,000 LEO Power.
As I write this post, two hours already passed in #LPUD. As usual, I have been early in publishing my post I think for the past three months.
Just a minute ago, I powered up 300 LEO.
I now have 2,906 staked LEO and 26.59 liquid LEO in my wallet. By the next #LPUD, I will reach 3,000 plus LEO Power. Here is now the new status of my LEO power:



Date
Starting LEO
Ending LEO
LEO Growth
% Growth
Cumulative % Growth




15 January
1,406
1,706
300
21.33%
21.33%


15 February
1,706
2,006
300
17.58%
42.67%


15 March
2,006
2,306
300
14.95%
64.01%


15 April
2,306
2,606
300
13.00 %
85.34%


15 May
2,606
2,906
300
11.51%
106.68%



Again, it's my prayer and I hope that I can sustain this growth in the following months.
Happy threading and an enjoyable #LPUD to everyone and more power to the LeoFinance community!
Grace and peace!
What is LeoFinance?
What is Hive?

Greywarden > This is my first post on the SoMee main platform in weeks now. As you all can see i changed my username back to Greywarden as it has always been. My original profile picture on SoMee is also back. Dragon Age Origins is my favorite RPG ever. I really enjoyed Dragon Age 2 as well, as whatever decison you made, and how you completed Dragon Age Origins, along with all of the added quests and how you complete them, affects the story line of Dragon Age 2. Same goes from 2 to Dragon Age 3 and so forth.

I have been retired from gaming for 5 years now. My game for the past 6 years has been crypto, and for the most part SoMee and now Hive. I promised my wife that i won't return to gaming until i become very rich. I am a man of my word as i have proven to her since we got married. I won't lie however, even after 5 solid years of not playing video games i still get big time cravings. Especially Massive online role playing games like Neverwinter. I also miss the days when i was ranked 800 out of the top 100,000 best Madden Players on XBOX1. I was even invited to tournaments. Those days are over for now lol.

How many of you enjoy gaming as much as i do, or did rather?

When JED said real estate, they mean not just residential, commercial or agricultural, it can be also be Virtual/Metaverse/MMORPG<br />
<br />
Been there on the kickstart-still <a href="https://somee.social/search/hashtag/IHOLd">#IHOLd</a> (Initial Home Offering Holder)<br />
<br />
We specifically avoided selling land plots to players because we understood that barren land has no value and any price movements would be derived from pure speculation, which was not only unhealthy by predatory in a waning market-FOMO Duck (Looking back on 2022 and Preparing for Success in 2023)<br />
<br />
<a href="https://somee.social/search/hashtag/BinanceLabs">#BinanceLabs</a><br />
<a href="https://somee.social/search/hashtag/Highstreet">#Highstreet</a><br />
<a href="https://somee.social/search/hashtag/HIGH">#HIGH</a><br />
<a href="https://somee.social/search/hashtag/IHOLd">#IHOLd</a><br />
<a href="https://somee.social/search/hashtag/CryptoNursePrenure">#CryptoNursePrenure</a><img src="https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/sng-somee-uploads/uploads/photos/2023/01/somee_36990743e0349e5120232d93fbcb97e2.png" /><br/>When JED said real estate, they mean not just residential, commercial or agricultural, it
----------- REFERENT URL ---------------
https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/sng-somee-uploads/uploads/photos/2023/01/somee_36990743e0349e5120232d93fbcb97e2.png
https://somee.social/search/hashtag/IHOLd
https://somee.social/search/hashtag/BinanceLabs
https://somee.social/search/hashtag/Highstreet
https://somee.social/search/hashtag/HIGH
https://somee.social/search/hashtag/IHOLd
https://somee.social/search/hashtag/CryptoNursePrenure

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CpCyFLWrPGH/?igshid=OTJlNzQ0NWM=

"Hogwarts Legacy" breaks all records: Over a million players in a few days

"Hogwarts Legacy" has already set incredible records after its release, one of which is the figure of half a million users on Steam who were waiting for the launch of the game in the last hours.

The game "Hogwarts Legacy" was a huge success even before it came out, and experts are already speculating that it is a new franchise that will earn more than a billion dollars. Those who bought the "Deluxe" edition were able to start playing the game two days before its release, and already then it became one of the most played titles on Steam, the most famous gaming platform for PC.

The new Harry Potter-themed game is therefore a hit, and will achieve much greater success than first expected. This is because it is an open world that is very well made.

It's not easy at all, because almost all major open-world hits have some omission. Those who tested the game claim that this is not the case with Hogwarts Legacy, so it is possible that more sequels await us.

The story is set in the time before the original Harry Potter sequels, so it is completely independent from the books and movies. A single-player RPG is something completely new, and it stands out because of the environment that engulfs the player and the atmosphere that draws them into the story.

When JED said real estate, they mean not just residential, commercial or agricultural, it can also be Virtual/Metaverse/MMORPG
Been there on the kickstart-still #IHOLd (Initial Home Offering Holder) #PiecesofMamaE
We specifically avoided selling land plots to players because we understood that barren land has no value and any price movements would be derived from pure speculation, which was not only unhealthy and predatory in a waning market-FOMO Duck (Looking back on 2022 and Preparing for Success in 2023) Article.
#BinanceLabs
#Highstreet
#HIGH
#IHOLd
#CryptoNursePrenure

Rpg Gamers
#meme #rpg #gamer #thgaming #SoMee #someeofficial #AweSoMee #SME