More Palestinians killed in early morning Israeli strikes across Gaza Strip
Press TV – October 21, 2023
At least 53 Palestinians have been killed and several others injured after Israeli military aircraft carried out a fresh round of airstrikes against various residential neighborhoods across the besieged Gaza Strip.
The official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported that the warplanes bombarded several buildings in the town of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip early on Saturday, killing at least 14 people and wounding others.
The aerial raids also left several people missing beneath the rubble, according to the news agency.
At least 14 people were also killed in Jabalia town in the north of the Gaza Strip.
Moreover, Israeli fighter jets struck the eastern flank of the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, killing and wounding several people.
Israeli warplanes also pounded a number of residential buildings in the northwestern Sheikh Radwan district of Gaza City, as well as the eastern and northern parts of Beit Lahiya, WAFA reported.
Houses were hit in Khan Yunis city as Israeli aircraft pounded the southern Gaza Strip with more air raids.
There were no immediate reports about the exact number of casualties and the extent of damage caused.
The United Nations says about half of Palestinians in Gaza have been rendered homeless while still trapped inside the enclave, which is known to be one of the most densely populated places on earth.
Health officials in Gaza say the Israeli bombardment has killed at least 4,137 people since October 7, when fighters from the Hamas resistance movement launched an unprecedented large-scale attack against the occupying Israeli regime. Another 13,162 individuals have also been injured.
Ashraf al-Qudra, a spokesman for Gaza’s health ministry, confirmed that nearly 1,400 people, including 720 children, are still missing under the rubble.
Qudra also noted that 352 Palestinians were killed and 669 others wounded over the past 24 hours, including 16 victims who lost their lives in the aerial strike on the Greek Orthodox Church.
Seven general hospitals and 21 health centers are now out of service, he explained, calling for international protection of hospitals and health facilities in Gaza in light of the intensified Israeli aggression.
The senior Palestinian health official further said that 46 medical personnel were killed and 85 others injured during Israeli airstrikes. At least 23 ambulances were destroyed as well.
Rights bodies denounce West’s double standards
Meanwhile, international human rights organizations have slammed Western governments over their hypocrisy and double standards in the face of Israeli atrocities in the Gaza Strip.
Tom Porteous, the deputy program director at an international rights agency, said in a statement that while the United States and European countries denounced Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine, there was no clear condemnation of Israel’s actions in Gaza.
“Where is the clear condemnation of the cruel tightening of the 16-year closure of Gaza that amounts to collective punishment, a war crime? Where is the outrage at statements by Israeli political leaders that seek to blur the all-important distinction between civilians and combatants in Gaza even as they order ever more intense bombardment of this densely populated territory, reducing city blocks and neighborhoods to rubble? Where are the clear and unequivocal calls for Israel to respect international norms in its attack on Gaza, let alone for accountability?” he said.
He further described the West’s hypocrisy and double standards as “flagrant and obvious.”
Biden Speech on Aid to Israel, Ukraine Embodied ‘America Last’ Policy, Says Ex-US Diplomat
Sputnik – 21.10.2023
WASHINGTON – The president made a rare address to the nation on Thursday in which he argued that funding Israel and Ukraine was a matter of US security.
President Joe Biden’s nationally broadcast speech seeking broad support for stepping up already huge levels of US aid to Ukraine and Israel was another unthinking, reflexive expression of the globalist mindset that has been destroying the US economy and society over the past several decades in pursuit of crazed international goals, former State Department diplomat James Carden said.
“The speech will be remembered, if at all, as a perfect encapsulation of the ‘America Last’ mindset of our ruling class, which privileges foreign countries over middle and working class Americans,” Carden said.
The US president said he was requesting that Congress fund renewed supplies of weapons and other aid to President Volodymyr Zelensky’s regime in Ukraine and he was linking that goal with pushing through a parallel enormous increased aid package to Israel as it prepares to invade Gaza to eliminate Hamas.
However, Carden pointed out that Biden paid no attention to the out of control crime, security, economic, social and drug crises now sweeping the United States.
Biden spent no time at all addressing the sufferings of the domestic communities that have been destroyed over the past three decades by free trade agreements, endless wars and an open border policy that has flooded the country with fentanyl and opioids which are killing what little remains of their communities, Carden said.
The almost-81-year-old president gave no hint of new thinking, moderation, compromise or flexibility in his address, Carden added.
“Biden’s speech signals that there will be no rethinking US policy toward Ukraine or the Middle East,” he said, adding that instead, the “strategic assumptions in the speech were absurd and obsolete”.
Biden’s comments “validated George Kennan’s view that the United States is similar to one of those prehistoric monsters with a body as long as this room and a brain the size of a pin,” Carden added.
The Biden administration is requesting from Congress funds in the amount of $106 billion, primarily for the defense needs of Ukraine and Israel, but also for strengthening the United States’ position in the Indo-Pacific and for operations on the southern US border. Of the total sum, the administration is requesting more than $60 billion for Ukraine.
Israel threatens to bomb Gaza hospital housing 12,000 Palestinians
Press TV – October 20, 2023
A few days after killing hundreds of people by bombing a hospital in the Gaza Strip, Israel has threatened to attack yet another such facility in the coastal sliver, which has come to house thousands of Palestinians.
On Friday, Reuters cited the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) as saying that the Israeli military had warned it to “immediately evacuate” Gaza’s al-Quds hospital.
The facility is currently rendering services to more than 400 patients. It has also turned into a refuge for around 12,000 Palestinians, who have fled there amid a relentless Israeli war that has been pounding the Palestinian territory since October 7. The war has so far claimed more than 4,000 people.
The PRCS described “70%” of the displaced Palestinians inside the hospital as “children and women,” saying they “are in imminent danger.”
“This place could turn to ashes if those threats are carried out,” it said, asking, “Is there a world power capable of stopping the threats of the Israeli occupation army to bomb hospitals with innocent civilians inside?”
The Palestinian Red Crescent issued an urgent appeal to the international community, saying, “We call on the world to take immediate and urgent action to prevent a new massacre like the one that occurred on the al-Ahli Baptist Hospital.”
More than 500 people lost their lives in an Israeli airstrike against al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza City on Tuesday. Thousands of Palestinians were present at the facility when the attack took place.
Numerous world leaders have vehemently denounced the massacre. Major cities across the world have also turned into the scene of angry demonstrations against Tel Aviv’s indiscriminate campaign of bloodshed and destruction against the Palestinian territory.
The regime has been responsible for numerous deadly offensives against hospitals and other healthcare facilities across Gaza through both its near-daily attacks against the coastal sliver and several wars that it has waged against the territory in the past.
The Double Standard Applied by the Covid Inquiry
When Taking Evidence from John Edmunds and Carl Heneghan Yesterday Inquiry Reveals its Bias
BY KIERAN SAXON | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | OCTOBER 20, 2023
The contrast between the evidence sessions of Prof. John Edmunds (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, SAGE modeller) and Prof. Carl Heneghan at the Covid Inquiry yesterday was absolutely shocking and raises huge questions about the professionalism of the Inquiry.
The King’s Counsel in the morning spent hours questioning Edmunds in a friendly, at times obsequious manner, as he explained how misunderstood the modelling was, how it wasn’t needed to justify lockdowns – as the indicative Basic reproduction number (R0) and Indicative Fatality Rate (IFR) were enough – to justify earlier and harder lockdown measures. Yet, according to Edmunds, the modelling would still be needed in the future. Truly an “all things to all men modelling” – useful when needed to justify future lockdowns, yet hides in the corner when retrospectively scrutinised and compared with real-world data. Three key flaws in the Covid modelling have been highlighted:
- Over-estimation of the effect of mandatory NPIs versus under-estimation of the effect of voluntary NPIs.
- Over-estimation of ICU per hospitalised rates, where the Imperial College team doubled the rate of hospitalised patients going into ICU to 30% based on flawed data from China.
- Failure to take into account the impact of prior and innate immunity in the population, especially children and the asymptomatic.
These aren’t flaws that can be explained away by saying the scenarios changed with the reality of lockdowns. For example, ICU rates are unaffected by shelter-in-place orders and school closures.
The dangerous implication here is that the Covid Inquiry is lining us up for future restrictions based on indicative RO and IFR, a lockdown hair-trigger switch that gives more authority to the modellers.
The soft-ball questioning and praise from the Inquiry continued as the discussion moved to Summer 2020, circuit breakers and the elision from “flatten the curve” to “zero Covid”.
Then the Inquiry moved on to the Downing Street Summit, where other voices – counsel highlighting as the ‘let it rip’ brigade – were invited at short notice. The big reveal was that Angela McLean, who has replaced Sir Patrick Vallance as Chief Scientific Officer, referred to Carl Heneghan as a “f*ckwit” in a contemporaneous WhatsApp chat, while Edmunds challenged Heneghan’s epidemiological knowledge. In my view, the Inquiry raising the point in this way is indicative of a lack of professionalism.
The Inquiry was also keen to include another pet villain – Doctor Death – the sobriquet applied by McLean to refer to Rishi Sunak, for the perceived crime of pushing for Eat Out to Help Out to reinvigorate the pub and restaurant industry, and providing a much needed moral boost to the nation.
The questioning continued for hours, covering the narrative classics of Long Covid, why the Vaccine rollout should have been broader, etc., all carried out in a cosy relationship included Baroness Hallett’s freely-given praise for Edmund, Ferguson and the whole modelling team.
By contrast, the interrogation of Carl Heneghan started out with a blatant attempt to undermine his credentials, strongly re-buffed by Carl, setting a tone for the only adversarial evidence session I have seen at this Inquiry so far. Any discussion that strayed from the narrative was met with aggressive and hostile demands for ‘yes/no’ answers.
Counsel objected to Carl’s answer rightly pointing out the danger of lockdowns to care homes, as he wanted to concentrate on focused protection and the misrepresentation of it by Counsel as hermetically sealing up the old and vulnerable. The minimum of critical thinking could have told Counsel that it was about reducing risk where it was highest, rather than across the board.
Carl was challenged on his views on the Great Barrington Declaration (GBD) – he broadly agreed with it, he explained, but didn’t sign at the time as he needed more evidence on the details as you would expect, before Counsel dived into the Downing Street conference call.
Carl was challenged on his definition of ‘Endemicity’ on that call (presumably Edmunds’ gotcha epidemiological point), with Counsel demanding that the spread of infection be “broad and predictable” for it to qualify as endemic, when seasonal spikes shown on a graph means it wasn’t. This was rebuffed in a strong response from Prof. Heneghan, emphasising the seasonal pattern of endemic respiratory viruses and the variability of testing data and evidence on the ground.
Carl’s response to being challenged on the “f*ckwit” comment was dignified and professional, indicating it signified a lack of professionalism from the author as well as a lack of willingness to engage in debate, and an assumption of certainty where there was great uncertainty. He further pointed out that the entire lockdown response was driven by modelling and failed to take into account empirical data or the reality on the ground. Counsel scuttled along to that favourite fallback of the lockdown zealots – Long Covid – where Carl educated the Inquiry by telling it there was no greater risk of lingering disease from Covid than from any other seasonal respiratory disease.
At this point, Counsel decided to end the very short proceedings, presumably to shield the carefully constructed narrative to live another day.
It was hard not to notice the stark contrast in the attitude and approach to the two witnesses and it raises further serious questions on the ability of this long and expensive public inquiry to professionally and impartially challenge the decision making that led to lockdowns.
Kieran Saxon is a member of UsForThem.
Dr. McCullough Not Recommending Fall Vaccines for Healthy Adults and Children
Products are Not Compelling for Prevention of Severe COVID-19, Influenza, RSV
By Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH | Courageous Discourse | October 20, 2023
I appeared on American Sunrise (10/18/23) with Dr. Gina Loudon to let America know I am not recommending COVID-19 XBB.1.5 Boosters, influenza, or respiratory syncytial virus vaccines for healthy adults or children. None of these vaccines are compelling and conditions are easily treatable. The EUA COVID-19 injections have been determined to be unsafe for human use by the World Council for Health and the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons.
None of these vaccines have compelling efficacy. For example, the RENOIR Trial in 34,284 adults tested the unadjuvanted RSVpreF vaccine at a dose of 120 μg (containing 60 μg each of RSV A and RSV B antigens) (17,215 participants) versus placebo (17,069 participants). RSV-associated lower respiratory tract illness with at least two signs or symptoms occurred in 11 participants in the vaccine group and 33 participants in the placebo group, (vaccine efficacy, 66.7%; 96.66% confidence interval [CI], 28.8 to 85.8); 2 cases and 14 cases with least three signs or symptoms (vaccine efficacy, 85.7%; 96.66% CI, 32.0 to 98.7). RSV-associated acute respiratory illness occurred in 22 participants in the vaccine group and 58 participants in the placebo group, vaccine efficacy, 62.1%; 95% CI, 37.1 to 77.9). There were no hospitalizations or deaths mentioned in either group. Because data are sparse, we must rely on the lower limit of the confidence interval for treatment effect, which is unacceptable being far below 50% for all outcomes.
RSV, like influenza and COVID-19 are easily treatable infections at home. As you can see RSV is very rare with <1% of adults contracting the virus. Vaccinating the entire adult population is an excessive use of a poorly effective new product. For healthy persons, it is perfectly reasonable to skip fall vaccines and seek early treatment in the rare circumstance that one of these viral infections is contracted.
Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH
President, McCullough Foundation
Rights groups push back against EU censorship chief Thierry Breton after he pressured platforms to censor “disinformation”
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | October 20, 2023
European (EU) Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton is asked to answer some tough questions after his (latest) escapade, now seen as a new attempt to pressure tech platforms to censor content – while he was explaining that as, combating “disinformation.”
Both politicians, and tech platforms, have been hearing this for a long time, many years now, from people opposed to the obvious censorship: don’t let it “find a home” in the heart of your governments and media, or political discourse – because once it does, it may never leave.
Sure, on any given day, it might feel great to suppress information about an election, a side you don’t like in a war, etc, by just labeling it as “disinformation.”
But what happens once those causes you do support start to get affected, as well? Unfortunately, that’s all there seems to be to it, regarding Breton’s latest outrageous moves – although one would hope and wish for a more universal understanding of the importance and need of protection of free speech, full stop.
Now groups like the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT Europe), Access Now, Article 19, and about two dozen others are expressing their extreme discomfort with Breton’s letter to X, TikTok, Google (YouTube) and Meta.
We obtained a copy of the letter for you here.
It has to do with the latest Middle East escalation. The groups behind the initiative are attempting to influence Breton mainly by asserting that his actions – penning a letter pressuring tech platforms demanding the censorship of “disinformation” on this particular geopolitical issue – as essentially contravening EU’s own Digital Services Act (DSA).
The long and the short of the civil society groups’ attempt here is that Breton is creating “a false equivalency” between illegal content and disinformation – as per the DSA.
To be honest – the EU is such a winding and “blinding” bureaucracy, that it’s not entirely impossible that some of its scriptwriters don’t fully understand their own plot.
Regardless, the letter the CDT now joins claims that Commissioner Breton – in his “censor-right-now” letter to big platforms – “incorrectly and confusingly invoked obligations under DSA to make several demands from these online platforms to swiftly address this content, which are not in fact required by the law.”
Obviously, nobody from these groups is ready to address the EU’s core policy – it’s all procedural.
Or – maybe they do – just a little bit?
“The Commissioners’ (Breton’s) highly politicized engagement risks pressuring online platforms to take actions in ways that are not guided by the law and may undermine human rights, which in this case disproportionately affects human rights defenders, advocates, and journalists. His actions further risk undermining the authority and independence of the Commission’s DSA Enforcement Team,” CDT’s Asha Allen is quoted.
Frankfurt Book Fair slammed, boycotted for ‘shutting down’ Palestinian voices
Press TV – October 20, 2023
The Frankfurt Book Fair in Germany, the world’s largest forum for books and literature, and a literary association have come under fire after they postponed a Palestinian writer’s award ceremony and canceled a public discussion with her.
In an open letter, hundreds of prominent authors and publishers from around the world slammed the organizers of the Frankfurt book fair, saying the forum has “a responsibility to be creating spaces for Palestinian writers to share their thoughts, feelings, reflections on literature through these terrible, cruel times, not shutting them down.”
The 350 authors who signed the letter included the Irish novelist Colm Toibin, the American-Libyan Pulitzer winner Hisham Matar, the British-Pakistani novelist Kamila Shamsie, and the British historian William Dalrymple.
Palestine-born novelist and essayist Adania Shibli was scheduled to be granted the 2023 LiBeraturpreis, an annual prize given to female writers from Africa, Asia, Latin America, or the Arab world, on 20 October for her novel “Minor Detail” which is about the suffering of the Palestinian people.
However, the LitProm association that hands out the prize said last week that it would postpone the award ceremony “due to the war started by Hamas, under which millions of people in Israel and Palestine are suffering.”
LitProm, which had hailed the novel as a “rigorously composed work of art that tells of the power of borders and what violent conflicts do to and with people”, said it had taken the step as a “joint decision” with the author, but Shibli’s literary agency stressed that the decision was not made with her consent.
The agency told the Guardian that Shibli would have taken the opportunity to reflect on the role of literature in these cruel and painful times.
Meanwhile, the international book fair has also explicitly voiced support for Israel, with Juergen Boos, director of the Frankfurt Book Fair, publishing a statement detailing plans “to make Jewish and Israeli voices especially visible” during the literary event. Boos has expressed “complete solidarity on the side of Israel.”
Indonesia and Malaysia boycotting FBF
The forum’s statement prompted Indonesia and Malaysia to boycott the fair that started on Wednesday, with writers from the two countries backing their countries’ decision.
Malaysian writer Faisal Tehrani told Arab News on Thursday that the approach of the fair’s organizer completely disregarded the situation in Gaza, where more than 3,800 people, mostly women and children, have been killed since the start of the Israeli aggression.
Meanwhile, Indonesian novelist Laksmi Pamuntjak, who won the LiBeraturpreis in 2016, issued a statement in support of her country’s decision to withdraw.
The fair’s decision to side with the Israeli regime “shows that this book fair no longer represents the voice of the world, where all nations and countries have the right and deserve a platform to voice their own truths,” she said.
Indonesian novelist Okky Madasari also said her country’s decision to boycott the fair was valid as it was important for writers, publishers and intellectuals to remind the world “that such a support disregarding the context and history can provide Israel with justification to kill more people and do more violence.”
Moreover, Indonesian writer Andina Dwifatma declined an invitation to speak at a literary event associated with the fair over its organizers’ stance.
“I’ve been following the news with a broken heart. And after I saw what FBF posted … I told them that I can’t attend the festival now that they made clear that they stand in complete solidarity with Israel,” she said.
“I think everybody must do something within their means … This is not a bilateral problem between Israel and Palestine; it’s a genocide, a humanitarian tragedy. So, declining that invitation is the least I can do as a writer.”
Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas waged the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime’s decades-long campaign of bloodletting and devastation against Palestinians.
Journalist killed by Israeli gunfire in southern Lebanon

Palestine Information Center – October 20, 2023
BEIRUT – A journalist was killed and another injured by Israeli gunfire in a southern Lebanon border area, the Lebanese army said early on Friday.
The Lebanese army said that “a media team of seven people was covering the events near the Israeli enemy’s Al-Abbad site in the outskirts of Hula town when Israeli forces opened their machine gun fire at them, killing a journalist and injuring another.”
An official for the United Nations peacekeeping troops in the region, UNIFIL, stated a civilian was killed in an exchange of fire.
“The Lebanese Army requested UNIFIL’s help for seven people stranded near the Blue Line during an exchange of fire across the Blue Line,” UNIFIL spokesperson Andrea Tenenti stated. He said one person lost his life while the others were successfully rescued,” the spokesperson confirmed.
The Lebanese army described the seven people as media personnel, saying that Israeli forces targeted them with machine guns, killing one and wounding another. It did not provide their identities.
The incident came nearly a week after a Reuters journalist was killed, and other journalists injured, in an Israeli bombing in southern Lebanon.
Israeli economy plunges into recession
The Cradle | October 20, 2023
Israeli economists have reported a major recession due to the ongoing war against the Palestinian resistance factions.
“Israel has entered the war, and it is in a recession, and trade is currently zero,” Israeli daily business paper, The Marker, noted.
The Israeli economy has taken a serious hit at the hands of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, losing $3 billion in damages on the first day of the war alone, a state that some economists say is worse than it was during their 2006 war with Hezbollah.
The Marker report went on to say, “the second week of the war is about to end, a week when there is almost no trade in Israel, and many are trying to stay with their heads above the water, afraid of the future – and they still don’t know who will compensate them and when?”
US economic risk analysis firm Moody’s has put the Israeli A1 rating, a high rating attractive to any investor, on hold, given the current crisis.
Fitch Ratings had also negatively reviewed Israeli economic status, placing their credit score on a negative watch earlier this week.
“While not our base case, such large-scale escalation, in addition to human loss, could result in significant additional military spending, destruction of infrastructure, sustained change in consumer and investment sentiment and thus lead to a large deterioration of Israel’s credit metrics,” Fitch Ratings wrote in a statement.
No previous war or global economic crisis has downgraded Israel’s rating by any of the major economic rating companies. These downgrades can make future trade more difficult for Israel.
Interest rates are at the highest they have been since the 2006 war with Lebanon.
According to a Bloomberg report, the shekel is among the world’s worst-performing currencies this month despite a $45 billion package of emergency measures.
Two days after the start of the current war, on 9 October, the Bank of Israel sold off $30 billion in foreign reserves in an attempt to prevent the currency from further falling under the dollar.
This increasing economic decline is an addition to the already faulty economy.
Evacuation on Israel’s northern border begins
The Cradle | October 20, 2023
Israel has begun evacuating the settlement of Kiryat Shmona, the military said on 20 October, coming as part of previously announced plans to empty out the settlements on the northern Israeli border with Lebanon.
“The National Emergency Authority (NAE) in the Ministry of Defense and the IDF announce the activation of a plan to evacuate the residents of Kiryat Shmona to state-funded guest houses,” the Israeli army said.
“The implementation of the program was approved by the Minister of Defense, Yoav Galant. The Northern Command informed the mayor of the decision a short time ago,” the statement added.
Kiryat Shmona has around 22,000 settlers residing in it.
Four days ago, Tel Aviv announced plans to evacuate around two dozen settlements on the border with Lebanon over fears that a new front could open up against it. Intense crossfire between Israel and Hezbollah continues to escalate, with the resistance group having carried out numerous successful strikes against Israeli forces since 7 October.
Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said during a meeting with his German counterpart, Annalena Baerbock, on 19 October that “Israel is not interested in another military operation in the north, but it will know how to deal on any front in order to protect its citizens.”
Following the announcement on Friday, Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said that evacuating Kiryat Shmona, which lies around five kilometers south of Israel’s border with Lebanon, “allows the expansion of operational work against Hezbollah.”
The exchange of fire between Israeli forces and the Lebanese resistance has been a daily occurrence since the start of Israel’s ongoing war against the Gaza Strip.
Hezbollah announced on Friday that it targeted several sites in two Israeli-occupied Lebanese border areas, the Shebaa Farms and the Kfar Shuba hills.
Meanwhile, the Israeli army continued its shelling of Lebanese border villages. It also announced targeting Hezbollah’s infrastructure the night before.
On 19 October, a barrage of rockets was fired from Lebanon into the northern Israeli settlements, damaging a building and causing injuries in Kiryat Shmona.
Israeli media said the rocket attack on Kiryat Shmona “appeared to be the most serious assault on the city since 2006,” when Hezbollah defeated Israeli forces after a 33-day war.
It remains unclear who launched the rockets, as Palestinian groups also operate in the south of Lebanon, and have fired rockets towards Israel’s north since the fighting erupted.
The tense border situation has raised concerns that Hezbollah may fully enter the war between the Gaza resistance and Israel. Observers believe that a ground invasion into the Gaza Strip and an Israeli attempt to dismantle the resistance completely may instigate the full involvement of the Lebanese resistance and the rest of the Resistance Axis.

