Iran has no goal to accelerate cyber activities to influence US elections: UN mission
Press TV – August 9, 2024
Iran’s permanent mission to the United Nations says the country has no goal or interest in “cyber activities” to influence the 2024 US presidential election.
“Iran does not have any goal or a plan for a cyber attack and it does not interfere in the US elections which is an internal issue of this country,” the mission said on Friday.
It vehemently rejected a report released on Friday claiming that Microsoft has identified a series of actions by Iranian cyber actors aimed at influencing the upcoming US election. These include email phishing attacks, fake news sites, and impersonating activists.
“Iran has been a victim of various cyber offensive operations against the country’s infrastructures, public service centers and industries,” the mission said.
It emphasized that Iran’s cyber power is defensive and proportionate to the threats posed against the country.
Late in July, Iran’s mission to the UN dismissed allegations that Tehran intended to disrupt the election and negatively affect it in favor of Donald Trump, the Republican Party candidate.
The mission described a major part of such accusations as psychological operations to give false momentum to election campaigns.
Under the facile pretext of preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, the US and Mossad have been carrying out a campaign of sabotage and cyber attacks on Iran’s civilian nuclear program for quite some time.
One of the most well known cyber attacks utilized the notoriously malicious Stuxnet worm.
In 2011, Tehran announced that an investigation had concluded that both the United States and Israel were behind the Stuxnet attack.
Israeli sabotage attempts against Iran’s nuclear program have miserably failed despite the regime’s assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists through unrelenting US support.
Mossad has assassinated Iranian nuclear scientists using methods ranging from magnetic mines attached to their cars and allegedly the use of a remote controlled robotic assassin.
Italian paper pays damages after labelling Palestine rights advocate a ‘terrorist’
MEMO | August 8, 2024
Italian newspaper Il Corriere Della Sera has been ordered to pay €15,000 in damages to Shawan Jabarin, the general director of Palestinian rights group Al-Haq, for falsely accusing him in 2021 of being a terrorist and murderer.
In a press release published this week, Al-Haq said the paper had published the claims days after Jabarin was invited to join a hearing at the Chamber of Deputies in the Italian Parliament on 20 December 2021 following Israel’s designation of Palestinian NGOs as ‘terrorist organisations’.
Two days after the hearing, Il Corriere della Sera published an article “containing false and defamatory statements” labelling Jabarin a “terrorist”. Additionally, “the newspapers omitted essential contextual information around Israel’s targeted designation of six Palestinian civil society organisations as ‘terror organisations’, thereby infringing on the readers’ right to access free and impartial information.”
After being summoned to court, the paper accepted a settlement agreement, which included compensating Jabarin for “reputational” damage suffered and publishing an article retracting the defamatory claims. However it failed to admit, in its article, that it was among those who had defamed the Palestinian rights advocate.
Debunking the debunkers on the “myths” of antidepressants
By Maryanne Demasi, PhD | August 5, 2024
Recently, The Conversation ran an article which claimed to “debunk” a range of myths about antidepressants such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs).
Natalina Salmaso, a clinical psychologist at Carleton University in Canada, highlighted five common myths that make people hesitant to take antidepressants.
Salmaso said hesitancy is often “unfounded” and “may not be grounded in science” and that “debunking the myths surrounding antidepressants is critical to permitting educated treatment decisions for those who suffer.”
However, Salmaso’s article was full of omissions and falsehoods, so we decided to debunk the debunker.
Myth 1 – I am stronger if I do this without meds
Salmaso says that a person with depression is like an athlete with a broken leg.
An athlete cannot compete effectively with a broken leg, in the same way a person with depression cannot function effectively, because their brain “is no longer responding to everyday life.”
She adds that a person’s brain needs to “heal” before they can expect it to function like they did pre-depression and implied antidepressants can help.
This is grossly misguided. This feeds into the false narrative that depression is a brain disease that can be cured by antidepressants.
Antidepressants don’t cure people with depression and their symptomatic effects are so small that they lack clinical relevance.
Studies show that patients actually do better with psychotherapy, which has enduring effects. Further, psychotherapy halves the risk of suicide whereas antidepressants double this risk, in people of all ages.
Myth 2 – I will be dependent on antidepressants to be happy
Salmaso says that antidepressants won’t make people ‘happy’ per se, but they “allow people to experience all emotions in an appropriate and balanced way.”
However, this is not what patients report. SSRIs tend to make people feel “numb” and unable to experience emotions. Some describe it as an inability to feel love, attachment or sexual excitement.
Some experience sexual dysfunction, which can continue long after the drug is discontinued.
Salmaso says that antidepressants “are a long-term (typically at a minimum for a year) and (hopefully) curative treatment, much like chemotherapy for certain types of cancer.”
This is also misguided. Most people become depressed because they have stressful or depressing circumstances, which no drug can cure.
People have been misled to believe that antidepressants can “correct” a chemical imbalance in the brain. A systematic review in 2022 thoroughly debunked the hypothesis that depression is caused a serotonin imbalance.
Salmaso even says that “most studies show that if you take antidepressant medications for a year before coming off of them, the majority of people will not relapse.”
This is also incorrect. The majority of studies on relapse are flawed because they involve subjects already on antidepressants and when they suddenly stop them for the trial they experience withdrawals, which interferes with the assessment of relapse.
Also, the longer someone takes an antidepressant, the higher the probability of that person experiencing withdrawal effects.
Myth 3 – Meds will change who I am, I will be different or feel high
Salmaso says that antidepressants won’t change you, but rather “allow you to view things from a more balanced perspective.”
However, Danish psychiatrists have reported that half of the patients on antidepressants agreed that the treatment could alter their personality and that they had less control over their thoughts and feelings.
Far from rebalancing the brain, antidepressants alter the normal functioning of the brain and disrupt biological processes with potentially devastating consequences.
As far as “changing who you are,” there have been ample reports of out-of-body experiences (including akathisia) where people became suicidal or homicidal on antidepressants, even in people with no history of this behaviour.
A systematic review found that taking antidepressants increased aggression three times more than taking a placebo, in children and adolescents.
Myth 4: I will become addicted
Salmaso says that antidepressants “are generally not addictive and have a low potential for misuse.”
This is not correct. Antidepressants can lead to dependency. Many people experience withdrawal symptoms, which are very similar to those that people experience when they try to come off benzodiazepines.
Salmaso claims that some patients get headaches and other withdrawal symptoms when the stop taking antidepressants “suddenly” but says they are “generally short-lived and can be minimised by tapering off treatment slowly.”
However, it is well-documented that about half of patients on antidepressants cannot stop them without experiencing withdrawals symptoms, which for some, can persist for many years. These symptoms are very difficult to “minimise” even with slow tapering.
Myth 5: Meds should only be used as a last resort
Salmaso disagrees that antidepressants should be used as a last resort.
She says that reserving antidepressants only for extreme cases “doesn’t make sense” because depression can reduce “work productivity and has immense societal consequences.”
“The financial repercussions that can be attributed to depression in terms of the number of workdays missed, jobs lost, accidents caused, etc. are enormous,” she added.
However, studies examining the efficacy of antidepressants have not shown any meaningful effects, such as improvements in quality of life, and they make it more difficult for people to function.
In all countries where this relationship has been examined, the increased use of antidepressants has been accompanied by an increase in disability pensions for mental health reasons.
Salmaso argues that, “Depression significantly increases risk of cardiovascular disease, gastrointestinal disease, respiratory disease and Parkinson’s disease, to name a few. It also seems to worsen the outcomes for cancer.”
Antidepressants do not improve these conditions either. Overall, it is our view that Salmaso’s evidence and arguments are flawed and misguided.
Political and Media Elites ‘Turned UK Into Tinderbox’
Sputnik – 06.08.2024
Britain’s cities have been engulfed in riots triggered by a deadly stabbing attack which killed three children and injured ten others in the seaside town of Southport, England. British political analyst and former MEP Nick Griffin told Sputnik what role government policy, and the US Deep State, played in setting the stage for the explosion.
Hundreds of people have been arrested and dozens injured in the ongoing riots across England, Wales and Northern Ireland in the wake of the July 29 stabbing rampage in Southport.
British authorities and media have cast the riots as a misinformation-fueled act of far-right subversion and violence. But while high profile right-wing figures “confrontational” social media posts and messaging have certainly played a role in sparking the disorder, its cause is related to decades of ignoring the will and wishes of ordinary Britons by the country’s political and media class, former MEP Nick Griffin told Sputnik.
“The British people have been extremely patient with successive governments which have imposed a swamping tide of mass immigration on the country, without the slightest democratic mandate or any good or properly explained reason,” Griffin said.
“17.4 million people – the largest democratic mandate in UK electoral history – voted for Brexit, which was a very clear instruction to the political elite to get a grip on our borders and to halt the uninvited transformation of the country into a foreign place,” Griffin said.
“If the political class had listened to that warning and accepted the verdict of the people, the killings in Southport either would not have happened at all (because the killer and his family would have been sent back to now entirely peaceful and safe Rwanda) or would have been seen as a terrible crime which the police and courts alone should deal with,” the ex-lawmaker believes.
“But the political and media elite refused to accept the vote, failed to deliver the secured borders and only increased the contempt they showed for ordinary Brits – especially the white working class. It is this, together with an endless litany of two-tier policing and criminal justice, which make indigenous Brits, and especially the English, feel like second-class citizens in their own country. Frustration and anger over this had turned large parts of the country into a tinderbox, just waiting for a spark,” Griffin said.
The observer, who is the former leader and MEP lawmaker from the right-wing British National Party, says he doesn’t rule out the presence of foreign money and influence in the unrest overwhelming the UK, recalling how in 2008, he was approached by a man “with very good connections in the UK broadcasting media and press” who offered the party “limitless support” if it attacked Islam but dropped its opposition to neocon warmongering overseas, and the BNP’s “hostile position to the international banking cartel.”
“The money offer was repeated a few years ago, with literally a blank check available if the Christian nationalist social media network with which I became involved after leaving the BNP dropped any criticism of Zionism and Israel, stopped criticizing the banking cartel, abortion and the LGBTQ agenda, and concentrated on condemning Muslims and Islam,” Griffin said, emphasizing that that both offers were refused.
The observer believes the offers came from “very wealthy members of the pro-Likud Zionist lobby in America,” and estimates “that the US Deep State finds the highly motivated Zionist lobby to be very useful front for moves which fit its own agenda.”
“It’s similar,” Griffin said, “to the way that George Soros for so long funded all sorts of radical [liberal] leftist causes, leading many critics to focus on his far-left sympathies and even his Jewish heritage. This provided camouflage for the fact that his Open Society Foundation worked extremely closely with the National Endowment for Democracy, which is of course a CIA front. People have been so busy (rightly) condemning Soros that they missed the Deep State involvement altogether.”
In the wake of the mass migration crisis affecting many European countries, Griffin believes the US Deep State may have deliberately helped to create the crisis, “and is now stoking it,” to destabilize its “supposed allies,” just as the US sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline network ostensibly targeted Russia, but really struck the German economy and the euro, damage to which set back the looming end to the dollar’s hegemony.
“Likewise, destabilizing Britain and EU states with artificially imported and provoked racial conflict is a typical US Deep State trick. It’s using the same CIA playbook as was applied to destroy the former Yugoslavia. As with their coups and other interference, they never care about how many innocent people get hurt,” Griffin summed up.
WSJ admits no proof of UNRWA staff collaborating with Hamas
Al Mayadeen | August 5, 2024
The chief editor of The Wall Street Journal Elena Cherney has admitted to not having evidence to back up its January claims that numerous UNRWA employees in Gaza were involved in Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, Semafor news reported.
The Wall Street Journal stated in January, citing Israeli intelligence, that at least 12 UNRWA employees were personally involved in the events of October 7.
“The fact that the Israeli claims haven’t been backed up by solid evidence doesn’t mean our reporting was inaccurate or misleading, that we have walked it back or that there is a correctable error here,” Cherney said at the time.
Sources told Semafor that since the WSJ article was published, its writers have attempted to validate the information several times but have failed at doing so.
They also divulged that WSJ journalists covering the war on Gaza have frequently expressed worry about the newspaper’s biased coverage of “Israel”.
In March, Reuters reported that following weeks of a nonstop Israeli-targeted campaign against the UN agency, UNRWA said in an unpublished report that some of its staffers were coerced into falsely stating that they had ties with the Palestinian Resistance movement – Hamas and that they took part in Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7
The occupation entity alleged in January that 12 of the 12,000 UNRWA members in Gaza participated in the October operation.
According to the news agency, UNRWA’s report dated February said that its workers were subjected “to threats and coercion” by the Israeli authorities “while in detention and pressured to make false statements against the Agency,” including that it has affiliations with Hamas and that “UNRWA staff members took part” in the Resistance operation in October 2023.
The Israeli allegations prompted over 15 countries, including the United States, to suspend almost half a billion dollars in UNRWA funding. The agency warned of the catastrophic repercussions of this decision on the humanitarian situation in Gaza, already in shatters due to “Israel’s” ongoing genocide and starvation policy.
Since then, several countries resumed their funding as none of the Israeli allegations were corroborated.
‘Israel’ passes bill in first reading to label UNRWA ‘terrorist org.’
Last month, the Israeli parliament granted initial approval to a bill that aims to label UNRWA as a “terrorist organization” and suggests severing ties with the humanitarian agency.
The bill received approval during its first reading in the Knesset. It was set to be sent back to the Israeli “Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee” for additional review and discussion before the final decision is made.
Commenting on the Knesset’s measure, UNRWA spokesperson Juliette Touma warned that this is “another attempt in a wider campaign to dismantle the agency,” adding that “such steps are unheard of in the history of the United Nations.”
The Palestinian Resistance group Hamas condemned the approval of the bill, saying that the bill seeks “to end the Palestinian cause, foremost the refugee issue.”
Hamas called on the international community and the United Nations to “take firm stances against Israel” and protect UNRWA from the occupation’s attempts to “eliminate it.”
Similarly, the Palestinian al-Mujahideen Movement condemned the bill, describing it as a “Zionist attempt to eliminate one of the legal witnesses to our people’s tragedy and their displacement in 1948,” asserting that the decision is a “precursor to a new policy of starvation and siege” against the Palestinian people.
Source tells Tasnim NYT report on Haniyeh assassination false
Al Mayadeen | August 3, 2024
An informed source has dismissed a recent report by The New York Times regarding the assassination of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. Speaking to Tasnim News Agency on Saturday, the source described the NYT article published on August 1 as being “riddled with lies” and a continuation of a psyop of the Israeli occupation that lacks any news value.
The source specifically highlighted the involvement of Ronen Bergman, one of the report’s authors, suggesting that his track record undermines the credibility of the article.
“The Zionist regime has crossed a major red line and committed a barbaric and cowardly assassination, whose full details are being investigated,” the source stated.
They accused the Israeli occupation of mobilizing its security elements within media outlets to disseminate false details, thereby confusing the public and experts to cover up their terrorist acts.
According to the source, vital information has surfaced about Haniyeh’s martyrdom. They refuted the NYT‘s claim that Haniyeh was killed by an explosive device covertly smuggled into his residence. Instead, the source stated that evidence indicates an aerial projectile, possibly carried by a drone, was responsible for the explosion.
The source further denied claims in the NYT report that members of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council met with the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei at 7 am on July 31.
The source described such details as part of an old media tactic designed to make readers believe in the authenticity of the report by providing seemingly precise information.
Evidence indicates federal agencies must have been involved in Trump’s attempted assassination
By Uriel Araujo | July 30, 2024
It has been reported that Donald Trump’s would-be assassin, Thomas Matthew Crooks, was seen carrying a rangefinder (a device employed to measure distances to remote objects, often used by hunters and military) and was deemed a suspect over 90 minutes before shooting. This has been revealed by newly released text messages exchanged between members of the Beaver County Emergency Service Unit. The messages are clear enough: “he know you guys are up there”, “I did see him with a range finder”. Pictures of Crooks were also shared with Secret Service. Forbes has called this a “possible security lapse”, but in the overall context, such sounds almost like a euphemism. It is far from being the only “lapse” in an increasingly strange case.
One may remember that, as I wrote, according to the FBI, during the Trump rally the would-be assassin was spotted on the roof, holding a weapon, no less than 20 minutes before the shooting, with civilians in the crowd alerting the authorities – and bizarrely nothing was done. Moreover, CNN reported that “forensic analysis suggests that as many as three weapons were fired at the Trump rally.” Stephen Bryen, security expert and former Deputy Under Secretary of Defense, also takes the possibility of there being at least a second shooter seriously and calls for a “solid FBI investigation with Congressional oversight” on the issue.
On top of all of that, let us consider the following points hyperlinked below – for the sake of brevity I shall not elaborate too much on each, but shall merely present them:
1. The Oversight Project (OP) employed mobile ad analysis in a geo-location investigation and claims to have thusly “tracked devices that regularly visited both Crooks’s home and place of work and followed them.” It leads straight to Washington DC – to a building that happens to house both the Gallery mall and offices of the FBI, of all places: “someone who regularly visited Crooks home and work also visited a building in Washington, DC located in Gallery Place. This is in the same vicinity of a FBI office on June 26, 2023.”
Of course, this is a busy downtown area in DC, and geolocation cannot pinpoint someone to the most precise address. But still, given the context, the coincidence is enough to raise eyebrows. It does not necessarily mean something more sinister: it could just mean that federal agents were monitoring Crooks before the incident – neither scenario looks good, though (the latter would only make the security breach look even stranger). The OP is a pro-“government transparency” initiative by the Heritage Foundation that uses Freedom of Information Act requests.
2. The FBI, after finally having broken into the shooter’s phone device, claims to have found no leads pertaining to motives. The Bureau also claimed that encrypted messaging applications are a “real challenge”. The espionage capabilities of the US federal agencies regarding telecommunications are well known, which makes this claim hard to swallow.
3. Crooks even flew a drone over the rally’s perimeter, on the day of the attempted assassination, and he might have used a ladder to climb the roof.
5. Before the shooter went up, two local officers inside a building overlooking the same roof left their posts, a short while before Crooks started firing.
6. The SS admitted having repeatedly denied requests for extra security at Trump rallies.
All of the above is very hard to explain in terms of a mere “security lapse”. In fact, such a hypothesis sounds even absurd. Had any of that taken place in any other country in the world, the whole international media would be asking questions about authorities being involved or a cover-up. In the US political culture, however, one usually cries “conspiracy theory” to shut down discussion. It remains to be seen whether this will work in this case, though.
If one looks at the timeline, a man (Crooks) was seen acting suspiciously within the Trump’s rally perimeter (60 minutes before the incident); was then spotted walking around with a rangefinder, a telescope-like device (40 minutes before); was later spotted by Secret Service on the roof (20 minutes before), and was even seen by civilians attending the rally who pointed and shouted “he’s on the roof, he’s got a gun” while Trump gave his speech (2 minutes before); and even pointed his rifle at an officer (30 seconds before). Then, of course he fired eight shots at Trump, hurting the former President’s ear (only because Trump tilted his head to read something on a screen) and hitting three civilians – one of them died. Crooks was finally killed by a SS counter-sniper. Before all of this, at no point was he questioned, asked to leave, detained or shot – having been shot down only after attacking the former President.
It is no wonder then the US Secret Service itself is being investigated by Homeland Security, with a probe looking into all these security lapses; and it is no wonder SS Director Kimberly Cheatle finally resigned after appearing under subpoena in front of the House Oversight Committee. As I’ve written, the Secret Service is increasingly under suspicion, amid its several contradictions.
The hard truth is that, considering all of that, some Secret Service role in an attempted assassination is the most likely scenario so far. During a congressional hearing last week, the now-resigned SS Director was asked: “Was there a stand-down order, Ms. Cheatle? Was there a conspiracy to kill President?” It certainly seems so, considering all the above. The Director may have resigned, but the crisis remains – and this is not the only scandal haunting Washington before the upcoming elections.
With an incumbent President whose senility and mental decline has been covered up by the White House’s inner circle, it is even unclear who has been governing the country thus far – with some talking about a “ triumvirate” (referring to Biden’s close advisers Bruce Reed, Mike Donilon, and Steve Ricchetti). One can thereby forecast political instability and turmoil within the United States, including possibly espionage agencies infighting, with unclear and unpredictable consequences foreign policy-wise.
Did an Israeli Iron Dome missile cause the Majdal Shams massacre?
By Ali Halawi | Al Mayadeen | July 28, 2024
The Majdal Shams strike resulted in the tragic loss of 12 lives, all natives of the occupied Golan. What insights can we recover from the evidence gathered following yesterday’s incident?
Israeli regime authorities claimed on Saturday afternoon that Hezbollah launched a rocket at the occupied town of Majdal Shams, killing twelve civilians, including 10 children, in the process.
The Israeli military command even specified the type of rocket artillery shell used in the alleged attack, which it claimed was the Falaq-1 rocket.
On the other hand, the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon – Hezbollah fully denied any involvement and responsibility for a deadly strike on the village in the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan.
So where does the truth lie?
A brief analysis of the impact site and the video capturing the moment of the strike dismantles the Israeli narrative, bolstering Hezbollah’s account.
A few points must be made clear before analyzing the moment of the strike on Majdal Shams and the aftermath caused by the explosion.
First, Israeli officials said the Israeli occupation forces were able to identify the shell used in the attack as the Falaq-1 rocket, reportedly confirming their suspicions.
The Falaq-1 rocket is a rocket artillery shell with the following specifications:
- 240 mm caliber
- 1320 mm length
- Estimated 10 km range
- Maximum flight ceiling of 3.5 km
- 50 kg high explosive warhead
- Solid-propellant rocket
Second, high-explosive warheads usually contain a mixture of explosives alongside components that would act as shrapnel propelled by the pressure caused by the aforementioned explosives. Following the moment of impact with the surface, a crater should be formed.
The size of this crater varies according to several factors, which include the mass of the explosives, the pressure generated by the warhead into the ground, and the surface’s composition, among other elements.
Third, the Falaq rocket exhausts the solid propellant less than two seconds after being fired.
Israeli Iron Dome interceptors record multiple failures since October
Another important nuance that would aid Hezbollah’s denial of involvement is the failure of Iron Dome interceptors, Tamir surface-to-air missiles, on several occasions in the past months.
This includes a crash of an Iron Dome interceptor in Tel Aviv in early December 2023 and a fire caused by an Israeli interceptor in occupied al-Jalil following a failed interception of a Hezbollah drone on July 25, 2024.
There are many such incidents, with some being captured live on camera, including an event in which an Israeli Tamir missile struck a hospital in Tel Aviv on November 6, 2023.
Several technical issues related to an Iron Dome battery could result in a catastrophic interception failure. These issues include a malfunctioning engagement radar, a faulty radar seeker, a defective self-detonation sensor, and a compromised motor, among other potential problems. The most dangerous of these are faults in self-detonating sensors, which leave operators unable to destroy rogue surface-to-air missiles.
Did an Israeli Tamir missile impact Majdal Shams?
It is highly probable that faults in a surface-to-air missile fired from an Iron Dome launcher just behind Majdal Shams caused the grave massacre.
Majdal Shams, which is among the towns and cities occupied by “Israel” in 1967, hosts a vast majority of Arab Syrian Druze and a minority of Israeli settlers. The town and other similar demographics, where natives are significantly represented, have not come under the direct fire of the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon since October 8, 2023.
Although the Resistance has launched highly precise weapons such as an anti-tank guided missile and drones at Israeli military positions in towns such as Arab al-Aramshe, it never fired unguided rocket artillery weapons at these towns.
Specifically, Majdal Shams has never come under an attack by Hezbollah, throughout the nearly 300 days of intense confrontations near the Lebanese-Palestinian border.
The Resistance has also not been shy of taking responsibility for mishaps in the past, such as an incident in the 2006 war on Lebanon when a rocket launched by Hezbollah fighters impacted a home in occupied al-Nasirah.
The attack took place on July 19, 2006, and the Secretary-General of Hezbollah Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah took the nearest opportunity amid the ongoing war to apologize to the family.
“To the family that was hit in al-Nasirah — on my behalf and my brothers’, I apologize to this family,” he said.
“Some events like that happen. In any event, those who were killed in al-Nasirah, we consider them martyrs for Palestine and martyrs for the nation. I pay my condolences to them.”
A corresponding crater
As for evidence collected from the impact site, the crater formed by the projectile is around 2 meters wide and a few centimeters deep. This indicates that the warhead that detonated in the area is far less than 50 kg and closer to the 10 kg range.
In comparison, a crater formed by a Falaq-1 rocket in Kiryat Shmona ripped through cement and caused extensive damage to nearby infrastructure as seen in this video.
The Falaq-1 rocket is among Hezbollah’s heaviest rocket artillery shells that can be fired from multiple rocket launchers and which can cause extensive damage to targets.
On the other hand, the crater seen in Majdal Shams could be more closely attributed to a Tamir missile.
The possibility that Hezbollah used a smaller caliber munition to conduct the attack is improbable, as it was Israeli authorities who claimed that the munition used in the attack was a Falaq-1 rocket.
Large flames produced by liquid propellant
Another aspect to examine is the relatively large amount of combustion that occurred as a result of the impact on the football field.
High-explosive warheads generally do not produce large fireballs upon detonation. Instead, they create a powerful blast wave and intense fragmentation. The explosion of an HE warhead primarily generates heat, shock waves, and shrapnel rather than a visible fireball. A large-sized and visible fireball is typically associated with the combustion of fuel, such as that found in rocket engines or fuel tanks.
As seen in this footage, the projectile produced a large fireball.
A Tamir missile launched from a nearby position is likely to contain a substantial amount of fuel, as the air defense rocket was designed to fly for around 70 km. This means that the majority of the fuel meant for the missile’s flight after take-off detonated and produced the fireball seen in the video.
Despite Israeli assertions of a Hezbollah attack using a Falaq-1 rocket, substantial analysis points towards a malfunctioning Israeli Tamir interceptor missile as the more plausible cause of the explosion. The discrepancies in crater size, the nature of the explosion, and Hezbollah’s historical targeting patterns all support this alternative explanation. The true story behind the Majdal Shams explosion remains shrouded, but the evidence presented here offers a compelling case for reconsidering the initial narrative.
Harris claims support of Palestinian rights, sends IOF weapons: DFLP
Al Mayadeen | July 27, 2024
The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine responded to the US Vice President’s statement regarding Palestinian rights, saying “There is nothing new about such statements, the lesson remains in implementation.”
Vice President Kamala Harris had previously discussed the Palestinian people’s rights to liberation, self-determination, and security, in a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In a statement, the DFLP compared Harris’ words to those of the US presidents that came before her.
“Barack Obama, in a visit to Cairo at the beginning of his term as president, claimed that Palestinian Statehood was part of US national security.
Before him was Bush Jr., who vowed to establish a Palestinian State until he concluded his presidency in 2008 with a brutal war on the Gaza Strip via Ehud Olmert’s Israeli government.
Biden also vowed to instate the two-state solution but rapidly backed down before Netanyahu’s fascist government, which rejected the establishment of a Palestinian State. Biden evaded the issue saying there is more than one model for a Palestinian state, hinting at self-administrative rule for our people,” which he considered to be an Israeli-American model of the so-called two-state solution.
The Democratic Front further blasted Harris, noting that while she speaks of Palestinian liberation and self-determination, the US military continues to supply the Israeli occupation forces with weapons to commit massacres against Palestinians and transform the entire Gaza Strip into a murder zone using Israeli-American war machines.
Amid theatrics about Gaza, Harris starts campaign with lies: Hamas
Izzat al-Risheq, a member of the political bureau of Hamas, considered Kamala Harris’ pretensions about her concerns and sorrow regarding the humanitarian situation and human suffering in Gaza to be yet another American lie.
He reiterated that the United States could have ended the war and blocked its military, security, political, and intelligence support to “Israel’ and its occupation forces if it wanted to.
Al-Risheq also affirmed that the presidential candidate and vice president kickstarted her presidential campaign with fabricated lies, reminding her that Gaza’s martyrs are not just “deaths”, but innocent civilians, elderly, women, children, and refugees, killed by the “Zionazi army” with American decisions, weapons, and political cover.
Harris “disregards the human rights she pretends to protect, and the Resistance’s right to confront an occupier protected by international law,” he said, adding that her vision was biased toward the Israeli occupation and opposed the people of Palestine in Gaza.
This comes after Harris convened with Netanyahu and emphasized her rock-solid support for “Israel”.
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Lies are Unbekoming | January 25, 2026
The waiting room is clean. The receptionist is polite. The forms ask reasonable questions. Nothing in the physical environment suggests danger. The magazines are current. The hand sanitizer dispenser works. Someone has chosen calming colors for the walls.
A pregnant woman sits in a chair designed for her comfort. She has been told to be here. Not ordered—no one orders. Recommended. Strongly recommended. Everyone does this. Her mother did this. Her friends did this. The women in her prenatal group compare notes about their appointments the way they compare notes about nursery furniture. Which provider did you choose? What tests have you had? The questions assume the answers. The answers assume the questions.
She will be offered things today. Offered is the word used. The offers will come with information sheets that list risks and benefits in tabular form. She will sign consent documents. Everything will be voluntary in the legal sense. No one will hold her down. No one will threaten her. She will choose, and her choices will feel like choices, and she will leave feeling she has done the responsible thing.
What she will not feel is the weight of what has been arranged before she arrived. … continue
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Aletho News- Spain Opens Probe Into Israeli Tourism Firms
- Epidemic of fake videos
- Craig Murray, Reporting from Venezuela
- Why Israel’s Drive to Destroy Iran is Ultimately about Palestine
- Trump and Iran, War or Negotiations?
- US pressure contributing to Israeli influence in Latin America: Experts
- China Rejects U.S. Claims of Coercion in Central America
- New US defense strategy downgrades Russian ‘threat’
- EU turns to India for defense cooperation as US ties fracture
- Donald Trump Is No Peace President
- If Americans Knew
- Greenpeace Demonstrator Exposes Folly of Protest Restrictions
- From CBS to TikTok, Pro-Israel Ellison is now in the driver’s seat
- Israel pays for UK advertisements attacking Doctors Without Borders
- Israel accused of extracting billions from Gazan people to pay for their own genocide
- ‘Deliberate Assassination’: 3 Journalists Among 11 Killed by Israeli Forces in Gaza
- In Gaza, We’re Struggling to Reintroduce Foods to Bodies Adjusted to Starvation
- Will Rafah crossing be opened at last? – Not a ceasefire Day 108
- Israeli drone strike kills two children collecting firewood in Gaza – Not a ceasefire Day 107
- Another Gaza baby freezes to death on Netanyahu’s watch – Not a ceasefire Day 106
- Oppose Israel’s Abuses While You Still Can
- No Tricks Zone
- New Study Affirms Rising CO2’s Greening Impact Across India – A Region With No Net Warming In 75 Years
- Germany’s Natural Gas Crisis Escalates … One Storage Site Near Empty …Government Silent
- Polar Colding…Antarctica Saw Its Coldest October In 44 Years!
- New Study: Sea Levels Rose 20 Times The Modern Rate During The Roman Warm Period
- As German Gas Storage Dips Dangerously Low…Shortage Hardly Avoidable
- New Study: Brazil’s Relative Sea Level Was 2+ Meters Higher And SSTs 3-4°C Warmer 6000 Years Ago
- Philosopher Schopenhauer: Climate Science Certainty Stems From Stupidity, Ignorance
- New Study: Species Extinction Rates Declining Since 1980 – ‘Climate Change Is Not An Important Threat’
- Denmark Places Climate Protection Above Animal Welfare, Poisoning And Culling Cows
- New Study: Greenland Was 3-7°C Warmer And Far Less Glaciated Than Today 6000-8000 Years Ago
Aletho News 