Over 350 Humanitarian Sites and Convoys Have Been Attacked in Gaza
By Connor Freeman | The Libertarian Institute | April 16, 2024
Prior to the Israeli military’s slaughter of seven World Central Kitchen (WCK) aid workers in Gaza this month, Middle East Eye (MEE) reports that at least 357 humanitarian-run sites and convoys had been attacked.
As with the incident involving the slain WCK workers which included an American citizen, the humanitarian orgs shared their coordinates in advance of operations with the warring parties. Israel hit them anyway and UN officials have warned of great difficulty in repairing the broken humanitarian notification system.
Current data shows that at least 216 aid workers have been killed during Israel’s indiscriminate bombing and relentless war on the Palestinian people trapped in the besieged, highly dense, coastal enclave. Aid workers told MEE the “scale of the incidents was unprecedented, even compared to the most dangerous war zones and emergencies they have experienced.” The vast majority of aid workers slaughtered have been employed by UNRWA, the UN aid agency for Palestinian refugees.
Nearly 34,000 people have been confirmed killed so far amidst Israel’s genocidal campaign, including more than 20,000 women and children. Brice de la Vingne, the head of the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) emergency unit said “To be frank, every single day we are discussing internally whether to leave Gaza. We should not be there.” He added, “The level of risk we are taking, I’ve never seen.”
He explained that aid operations in other wars are conducted outside the areas of actual fighting but the entire Strip has become a war zone. “In Gaza, we are in this nightmarish hell scenario where we are working in an environment where people are not supposed to be,” Vingne lamented.
According to the report, “The majority of the hits to deconfliction humanitarian sites – 352 – were to locations run by UNRWA, the largest aid organization operating in Gaza, including a food distribution center and schools sheltering thousands of civilians.”
MEE also found there were at least five other occasions where humanitarian sites or convoys were attacked including “a compound in Al-Mawasi housing staff working for the International Rescue Committee and Medical Aid for Palestine, the Gaza City offices of Doctors of the World, a [MSF] convoy in Gaza City and an MSF shelter in Al-Mawasi, and an American Near East Refugee (ANERA) shelter in Deir al-Balah.”
Despite Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s announcement of a new deconfliction cell for humanitarian aid groups, Jamie McGoldrick, the outgoing top UN aid official in Gaza, told the outlet “nothing substantive” has changed. Two weeks after the high-profile massacre of the WCK employees, communication between aid workers and the Israeli military regarding their location remains broken down or non-existent.
McGoldrick, whose final day at the post was last Friday, maintains that aid workers in the Gaza Strip require not only a hotline to correspond directly with the IDF but also must be provided with satellite phones and two-way radios. In other conflict zones, this is standard operating procedure. Not so amid Israel’s onslaught in the Strip, however, these devices are not furnished to aid workers ostensibly because the IDF fears they will fall into the hands of Hamas.
As Israel uses starvation as a weapon of war, the entire population in Gaza is on the brink of famine. Officials from the State Department and USAID have admitted that famine is already taking place in the northern parts of the Strip, where McGoldrick has warned that despite Israeli assurances the aid distribution system has seen no improvement.
The broken deconfliction system for aid workers in the Strip will only spell more deaths of deprivation, experts estimate that the death toll will surpass 100,000 by August if the situation remains unchanged. Moreover, Gaza’s medical system and infrastructure has been decimated by the Israeli campaign. Last month, the World Health Organization released statistics exposing that in excess of 400 medical facilities have been hit, killing nearly 700 people.
The Israeli air, land, and sea blockade imposed on the illegally occupied enclave 17 years ago was severely tightened after the October 7th Hamas attack on southern Israel. Gallant announced days later that the “human animals” living in the Strip, which includes more than a million children, will be indefinitely cut off from food, water, fuel, and medicine.
After the WCK massacre, the group ended its operations in Gaza along with ANERA. WCK had been providing more hot meals in Gaza than UNRWA and the World Food Program combined. In January, Israel launched a propaganda war against UNWRA by accusing some of their employees of having ties to Hamas and the October 7th attack.
More than a dozen Western countries including the United States stripped funding for the vital agency, over Tel Aviv’s claims which were supported by no evidence. UNRWA has since revealed that its aid workers were subjected to rape and waterboarding at the hands of the IDF seeking to extract just such spurious confessions.
During previous Israeli wars against Lebanon and Gaza, there was significant communication between the UN and COGAT, the Israeli agency overseeing the occupied territories, as well as its ancillary the Civilian Liaison Administration which is focused on the Strip. This is now not taking place.
If aid workers experience a security risk or incident, when they are enroute to a destination or attempting to pass through a checkpoint, it is not possible to communicate with the IDF.
McGoldrick explained to MEE, the UN “should have pushed harder earlier in the conflict to get closer to the Israeli military, if not physically embedding someone in a joint operations room, then at least being able to have a face-to-face conversation online, in real time.” This is imperative for two reasons, he said, “First, they understand better what you do and how you do it. Secondly, you can build trust in terms of what your expectations are on both sides.”
According to Grisha Yakubovich, the former chief of COGAT until 2016, previous Israeli bombing sprees against the open-air concentration camp saw UN and COGAT officials meet on a virtually daily basis to share plans for the next 24 hours. Yakubovich told the Washington Post this is not the case anymore because Israel’s military practically refuses to work with the UN. The IDF cites their lies about UN employees’ alleged ties with Hamas to justify the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe the Israeli war has wrought.
Other aid agencies besides the UN have expressed great frustration over the lack of a clear response, if any, when their sites are bombed by Israeli pilots. For instance, the International Rescue Committee and Medical Aid for Palestine says the Israeli authorities gave six different explanations for why an F-16 jet targeted one of their stand-alone compounds with a 1,000 pound “smart bomb” in January, weeks after their coordinates had been shared.
“It is clear from this experience that the Israeli military and government are either unable or unwilling to properly investigate this serious incident,” the group stated.
Gaza authorities slam Israel for torturing Palestinian children
Press TV – April 16, 2024
Authorities in the besieged Gaza Strip say the Palestinian children the Israeli regime recently freed have recounted instances of physical abuse, torture, and deliberate starvation.
In a statement released on Tuesday, Gaza’s Government Media Office said the testimonies include accounts from children younger than 12.
The accounts underscore “extreme torture, mistreatment and cases of medical neglect.”
The office called on rights groups and the international community to take action in respect of the “horrifying” testimonies.
“These testimonies from the affected individuals prove yet again the monstrosity of this criminal army.”
“It is yet another example of how it violates international and humanitarian laws as it continues committing war crimes and genocide against our people in Gaza,” the office stated.
According to multiple reports, corroborated by the Palestinian Health Ministry as well as the Defense for Children International (DCI) NGO, one child is being killed in Gaza every 10 minutes.
Aid agencies have warned that “nowhere and no one is safe” under Israel’s relentless onslaught.
Israeli forces have been denounced for mistreating Palestinian children, including by torturing those in custody and using others as human shields during the savage campaign in the besieged territory.
The death toll from the regime’s genocidal campaign in Gaza now tops 33,800.
The Save the Children organization is deeply alarmed by the toll and sufferings being exacted on children in the Gaza Strip.
According to the charity, more than 14,500 of Gaza’s 1.1 million children have been killed since October 7, 2023. And thousands more are missing, presumed buried under the rubble, their deaths unmarked.
The life-saving aid which families rely on has either been drip-fed or denied by Israeli authorities – while essential services have been decimated by ongoing Israeli hostilities.
The Global Education Cluster estimates that as of March 30, 87.7% of all school buildings in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed.
Israel obstructs UN investigation into alleged rape on 7 October, prevents interviews of victims
MEMO | April 16, 2024
US Will Try to Rally Other Nations to Sanction Iran Over Israel Attack
By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | April 16, 2024
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will attempt to convince the international community to increase economic penalties on Iran as punishment for the drone and missile barrage Tehran launched at Israel. Iran’s attack followed Israel’s assassination of several high-ranking officials when Tel Aviv bombed Tehran’s consulate in Damascus.
On Tuesday, Axios reported that the Treasury is preparing new sanctions to levy on Iran and will use an International Monetary Fund (IMF) meeting later this week to try to convince other countries to join. “All options to disrupt terrorist financing of Iran continue to be on the table,” she said.
The sanctions would be a response to Iran’s drone and missile attack on Israel. The Iranian attack was a response to Israel’s bombing of the Iranian consulate in Syria, which killed 16 people, including seven IRGC officials.
“Treasury will not hesitate to work with our allies to use our sanctions authority to continue disrupting the Iranian regime’s malign and destabilizing activity,” Yellen is set to say during her opening remarks at the IMF conference. “The attack by Iran and its proxies underscores the importance of Treasury’s work to use our economic tools to counter Iran’s malign activity.”
According to Axios, Washington hopes the sanctions will show Tel Aviv that there is a way to punish Tehran without a direct attack on Iran. The war government in Tel Aviv says it will respond to the Iranian attack “clearly and forcefully.”
However, the Washington Post notes that the White House has few options for sanctioning Tehran as the Iranian economy is already one of the most heavily sanctioned. The Post explains that one of Washington’s few options for expanding sanctions on Iran is to blacklist Chinese firms purchasing Iranian crude oil.
Pursuing that path may create more problems for the White House as it will likely upset Beijing and drive up oil prices. The Biden administration is seeking to prevent an increase in gas prices in an election year and has previously asked Ukraine not to attack Russian energy infrastructure.
NATO member blames Israel for Iranian attack
RT | April 16, 2024
Iran’s first direct attack on Israel is the fault of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu first and foremost, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said.
In a televised address after a cabinet meeting in Ankara, Erdogan said it was unfair to look at last Saturday’s events in a vacuum.
“The one chiefly responsible for the tension that gripped our hearts on the evening of April 13 is Netanyahu and his bloody administration,” he said.
“Since October 7, the Israeli government has opted for provocative moves in order to spread the fire to the entire region. The Israeli government targeted the Iranian consulate in Damascus, violating international law and the Vienna Convention, and that was the last straw,” added Erdogan.
Tehran’s diplomatic mission was struck on April 1, killing seven high-ranking officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force, including two generals. Israel never officially claimed responsibility for the strike, but has repeatedly bombed Syria, claiming preemptive self-defense from the Iranian presence there.
“We have seen the double-standard approach of Western countries,” Erdogan said, pointing out that only a handful of countries condemned Israel’s move, but rushed to denounce Iran’s response.
Tehran eventually launched scores of drones and missiles against targets inside Israel. The US, UK, France and Jordan helped the Israelis with air defense but some of the projectiles got through, causing unspecified damage.
Erdogan also blamed Israel for the current conflict in general, saying its forces have “indiscriminately” killed tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, including people standing in line for humanitarian aid.
“For more than 132 days, Israel has been implementing genocidal policies,” the Turkish leader claimed.
Netanyahu declared war on Gaza-based Hamas after the Palestinian militant group raided nearby Israeli villages and military bases last October. Much of Gaza has since been reduced to rubble and its civilian population pushed to the edge of starvation. A recent report by UN Human Rights Council special rapporteur Francesca Albanese has accused Israel of intending to commit genocide in the enclave.
US Navy Depletes $1Bln Worth of Weapons in Middle East in 6 Months – Secretary Del Toro
Sputnik – 16.04.2024
WASHINGTON – The US Navy needs to replace about $1 billion worth of munitions that it used to combat attacks on Red Sea shipping and defend Israel over the last six months, Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro said in testimony to the Senate Appropriations Committee on Tuesday.
“Over the course of the last six months we have actually countered over 130 direct attacks on US Navy ships and merchant ships,” Del Toro said. “We currently are approaching $1 billion in munitions that we need to replenish at some point in time.”
Del Toro emphasized that it would be “critical” for Congress to pass a national security supplemental in order to replace the weapons, which include SM-2, SM-3 and SM-6 missiles.
The national security supplemental passed by the US Senate includes $2 billion in funds for the US Navy that would be used to replenish the weapons, he added.
‘Nothing You Can Do to Stop Us’: Iran’s Strikes on Israeli Bases Establish Deterrence
By John Miles – Sputnik – 15.04.2024
Former US Marine Corps intelligence officer Scott Ritter urged observers to look beyond Israel and the United States’ framing of Iran’s retaliatory strike, noting Tehran was able to successfully deal damage to Israeli military assets.
Former United Nations weapons inspector Scott Ritter stressed that Iran is playing the long game in its dealings with Israel, carefully calibrating its actions to restore deterrence against the country rather than concerning itself with world opinion.
The former US Marine Corps intelligence officer offered the analysis on Sputnik’s Fault Lines program Monday, challenging the perception that Israel is in a stronger position after intercepting most of Iran’s retaliatory strikes over the weekend.
“The point is prior to this Israel had established a dominance – I’ll call it deterrence dominance,” claimed Ritter. “Meaning that, from an Israeli perspective, nobody should ever dare attack Israel, that Israel has let it be known that if you attack Israel, there will be a ten-fold response, that your life would end, it would be horrible, you can’t do it. And, for the most part, people didn’t attack Israel.”
“And so Israel had become very arrogant, had become sort of the neighborhood bully writ large,” he explained. “And this is why Israel was bombing Syria with impunity, striking targets in Lebanon with impunity, striking targets in Iraq with impunity.”
Israel frequently bombs Syrian airports and other infrastructure and has been illegally occupying the country’s Golan Heights territory since 1967. In 1982 the Israeli military bombed the Lebanese capital of Beirut so aggressively the US President Ronald Reagan referred to the event as a “holocaust,” hurting the feelings of Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin.
Observers also suggest Zionist opposition to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein played a role in the United States’ decision to invade the country and remove him from power in 2003. “It’s very clear: Israel had the most influence in this and more so since we know how the Israelis were running into the Pentagon consulting with Rumsfeld and all those guys without even having to show any badge or anything,” former CIA Analyst Ray McGovern claimed on Sputnik’s The Critical Hour program recently.
“And then they struck the wrong target,” said Ritter, referring to Israel’s recent strike on Iran’s diplomatic compound in Syria earlier this month. “You see, Iran said, ‘we have a great latitude for pain because we’ll absorb that pain, because we recognize that in a broader sense of the word Iran is prevailing strategically against Israel, especially when it comes to Gaza and the Israeli defeat that is ongoing in Gaza.’”
“And so Iran delivered a blow, but remember, the purpose of the blow was not to destroy Israel or even bring harm to Israel,” he clarified. “The purpose of the blow was to establish Iranian deterrence precedent so that in the future Israel would know what the consequences of its actions would be. And this Iran did with extreme alacrity and extreme effectiveness.”
“The job wasn’t to say, ‘we’re going to hurt you.’ The job was to say, ‘hey, Israel, look around you. Right now you have America’s most sophisticated X-band radar to give you intelligence when we launch our missiles… you have the whole world coming to your assistance to protect you and you can’t stop our missiles from hitting your most important bases. That’s the future, if you dare attack us again.’”
Israel has claimed in public statements that it was allegedly able to intercept most of Iran’s strikes and prevent major damage. But the country has conspicuously forbidden journalists from observing the aftermath of the attack on Israel’s bases, notes former CIA analyst Larry Johnson. Video posted to social media appeared to show several hypersonic missiles striking Israel’s Ramon military airbase in the Negev desert.
Host Jamarl Thomas pushed back on Ritter’s analysis, asking, “At the point where their generals keep getting murdered, are you really projecting that level of strength if ultimately you are just choreographing in this way?… Is it really a projection of strength if you’re choreographing what you’re doing?”
“You’re referring to the Iranian attack on al-Assad airbase after the [US] assassination of Qasem Soleimani and the fact Iran telegraphed that so that they struck empty buildings and they didn’t kill Americans,” Ritter responded. “Let’s look at it this way. When Iran shot down a Global Hawk [US drone] and Donald Trump wanted to bomb Iranian air defense sites, did he? The answer’s no. Why? Because the Pentagon said they’ll kill everybody. They just set their deterrence. They showed us what they got, and we got nothing to defend against it.”
“When Iran said we’re going to strike Israel, what did the United States do?” he asked. “Say bring it on? We stand side by side with the Israelis? We will attack you? We will bomb your territory? The United States went ‘wow, we’ll defend Israel, but we’re not attacking you.’ Yeah, that’s called deterrence.”
“Iran doesn’t want a shooting match with the United States,” Ritter argued. “They wanted to avoid it, and they have done so. The United States is scared to death of bombing Iran, of creating a conflict because they know what Iran will do. Iran will flatten every single American military base within the range of their missiles. And if the United States takes its next step, Iran will shut down international oil supplies and the economy will crash, and Joe Biden will never get reelected.”
Ritter insisted that Iran attacked Israel in such a way that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could save face and back down while also revealing Tehran’s capabilities if Israel strikes it again.
“All those things that were shot down – understand those were designed to be shot down,” he claimed. “Iran put a program together with the United States that said, ‘we’re going to let you shoot all this stuff down so you feel good. But in the end our good stuff hit the bases, just so you know that we can do that anytime we want, and there’s nothing you can do to stop us.’”
Ritter also claimed Iran is focused on economic development rather than seeking military conflict with Tel Aviv.
“They’ve been focused on the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, they’ve been focused on BRICS, they’ve been focused on their strategic pivot to the East,” he noted. “So for them to come in and do this feel good thing to make you, me and everybody else feel good – because apparently that’s what this is about, making the larger audience that has nothing to do with Iran feel good about the Iranian response – they don’t care.
“The Iranians are focused strategically on maintaining that pivot to the East, building strong economic relations, normalizing relations with Saudi Arabia, and, more importantly since October 7th, facilitating the victory of Hamas over Israel which by Israel’s own admission Hamas is winning,” he claimed.
“Haaretz – I think a day before the Iranian retaliation – came out with a headline story that said ‘Israel’s lost this thing, it’s over.’ I mean, there’s nothing Israel could do to turn this around in Gaza. They’ve lost the world. They can’t defeat Hamas. Hamas is emerging still intact militarily, they’re stronger politically. And Iran’s like, ‘we want to sustain that, too. We don’t want to distract the world with this larger Israeli-Iranian conflict, we want to keep the focus on Palestinian statehood.’”
Germany confirms its collaboration with genocide
By Rick Sterling | Dissident Voice | April 15, 2024
A three day Palestine conference in Berlin was forcibly shut down after three hours on Friday. Electricity was abruptly terminated in the midst of the presentation by Salman Abu Sitta, the 87 year old author of the authoritative “Atlas of Palestine”.
Former Greek Finance Minister and leader of DIEM25, Yanis Varoufakis, was prevented from entering Germany to attend the conference. He went on Twitter/X to send a message:
Do you know that the German Interior Ministry has just banned me from entering Germany? Indeed if that were not enough, I have been banned from talking to you via zoom, or indeed through a video message like this, exactly like this. The threat being that I will be tried in Germany for breaking German law. Why? Because of a speech that I published yesterday on my blog calling for universal human rights in Israel- Palestine …. So my question to my German friends, to Germans in general whether you agree with me or not doesn’t matter. … Is this (banning) in your name? Is it something that you feel comfortable happening in your democracy? From my perspective this is essentially the death knell of the prospects of democracy in the Federal Republic of Germany.
Another banned guest speaker was UK citizen Dr. Ghassan Abu Sittah. He reported on Twitter/X:
I have just returned from Germany where I was prevented from entering the country for attending a conference in Germany to give evidence on the war in Gaza and my witness statement as a doctor working in its hospitals. This morning at 10 I landed in Berlin to attend a conference on Palestine where I had been asked … to give my evidence of the 43 days that I had seen in the hospitals in Gaza, working in both Shifa and al-Ahli Hospital. Upon arrival I was stopped at the passport office. I was then escorted down to the basement of the airport where I was questioned for around 3.5 hours. At the end of 3.5 hours I was told that I will not be allowed to enter German soil and that this ban will last the whole of April. Not just that … if I were to try to link up by Zoom or Facetime with the conference even if I were outside Germany or if I were to send a video of my lecture to the conference in Berlin, then that would constitute a breach of German law and that I would endanger myself to have a fine or even up to a year in prison.
Dr. Abu Sitta further commented:
Germany is defending itself against Nicaraguan charges that it is an accomplice to genocidal war as described by the International Court of Justice. This is exactly what accomplices to a crime do. They bury the evidence and they silence or harass or intimidate the witnesses. …. This crackdown on free speech is a dangerous precedent… We are watching the first genocide unfold in the 21st Century and for Germany to become implicated as an accomplice in silencing the witnesses of this genocide does not bode well for the rest of the century.
A large contingent of police invaded the conference and shut off the electricity. Organizers told the reported 250 conference attendees to not provoke the police to violence. Afterward, organizers held a press conference reporting on the behaviour of police before and during the crackdown. Even before the conference, police tried to intimidate supporters of the conference and the owner of the conference venue. They threatened the venue owner might not be able to hold events in future if the conference went ahead. An organizer asked, “Are these the methods of the mafia or democracy?”
Western and Israeli media reported the closure was to prevent “anti semitism” or “hatred of Israel”. On this dubious and hypothetical basis, public education about a real ongoing massacre and mass starvation was made illegal.
US-NATO: The Cost of War in Occupied Europe
By Manlio Dinucci | Global Research | April 15, 2024
NATO’s war against Russia in Ukraine involves increasing military spending. According to official data, Italy’s military spending has increased from 21 billion euros in 2019 to more than 30 billion euros in 2023, equivalent to an annual daily average of more than 80 million euros, in public money diverted from social spending. According to the NATO commitment, Italy will have to increase this spending to about 100 million euros per day. Since 2014, NATO-member Europe’s military spending has soared, exceeding the level of the last phase of the Cold War.
NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg emphasizes,
“The Allies are providing Ukraine with unprecedented military and financial aid. France will soon send more Caesar howitzers, and several Allies have joined the Czech Republic’s initiative to procure 800,000 additional artillery shells.”
Italy, which has already also supplied Kiev with heavy artillery pieces, is participating in the purchase of these additional 800,000 shells, with an additional outlay of public money paid by us citizens.
A further aggravation comes from the fact that Italy shares in the expenses of U.S.-NATO bases that, from Italian territory, play primary roles in supporting war operations, from Ukraine to the Middle East. Of particular importance is the role of Camp Darby, the largest U.S. arsenal outside U.S. territory. These days, new and more powerful armored vehicles are arriving from the United States at this base, located between Pisa and Livorno, which will be sent from Camp Darby, via the port of Livorno, to Ukraine.
The U.S. bases at Camp Darby, Sigonella and others on Italian soil also support war operations in the Middle East, where the United States continues to arm Israel under an agreement, entered into by President Obama and his deputy Biden, to supply Israel with $38 billion worth of weapons, including the bombs with which Israel is exterminating Palestinians in Gaza.
Russia Slams UNSC for Ignoring Attack on Iranian Consulate, Calls for End to Bloodshed
Sputnik – 14.04.2024
UNITED NATIONS – Russia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzia criticized the UN Security Council for failing to act on the Israeli attack on the Iranian consulate in Syria as he urged an end to bloodshed in the Middle East during an emergency UNSC meeting on Sunday.
“It is regrettable that unlike the meeting today, you did not propose to bring it to brief the Council on the 2nd of April,” he said, adding that Russia called an emergency briefing to discuss the Israeli strike against the consular premises in Damascus.
Nebenzia criticized Israel for not complying with the UN Security Council resolutions, which he said was “an obvious disrespect shown to the Council, to all of you who are here in the members seats, and a complete disregard to the decisions made by the Security Council.”
“This high level confrontation and bloodshed must be stopped We think it’s urgent for the entire international community to undertake all the efforts necessary to de-escalate the situation,” Nebenzia said.
Iran’s attack on Israel did not happen in a vacuum – it was a response to the shameful inaction of the UN Security Council, the Russian ambassador stressed.
“What happened on the night of April 14 did not happen ‘in a vacuum.’ Iran’s steps were a response to the shameful inaction of the United Nations Security Council [and] a response to Israel’s blatant attack on Damascus… by no means the first. Syria is constantly being bombed by Israel,” Nebenzia said.
On April 3, the US and UK refused to discuss Russia’s proposed draft UN Security Council statement on the Israeli strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus. London and Washington then cited the fact that there was no unity in the meeting’s assessment of what happened. On Sunday, an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council is taking place in connection with the retaliatory strike that Iran carried out on the territory of Israel. Meanwhile, shortly before that, Iran’s mission to the UN said that if the Security Council had condemned the Israeli strike on the Iranian consulate and brought the perpetrators to justice, the need for Iran to punish the Israeli side “could have been eliminated.”
Russia calls for restraint on all sides involved in the incident with Iran’s attack on Israel, Russia’s permanent representative to the UN highlighted.
Russia calls on Israel to follow the example of Iran, which has said it does not want further escalation, Nebenzia said.
“We note Tehran’s signal of unwillingness to further escalate hostilities with Israel. We urge West Jerusalem to follow its example and abandon the practice of provocative forceful actions in the Middle East, fraught with extremely dangerous risks and consequences on the scale of the entire region, already destabilized as a result of the escalation of the Palestinian-Israeli confrontation,” Nebenzia emphasized.
Israeli minister calls for full seizure of Gaza Strip
MEMO | April 14, 2024
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called on Sunday for imposing a full control over the entire Gaza Strip, Anadolu Agency reports.
Smotrich’s remarks came following an announcement by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office that Hamas’ response to mediators’ proposals for a prisoner exchange deal was negative.
“Giving up on Israel’s red lines and chasing after Hamas for a deal only makes the chance of bringing everyone (hostages) home further away,” the leader of the Religious Zionism party wrote on X.
“It’s time to learn lessons, change direction, … and restore full Israeli control all over the Gaza Strip,” he added.
On Sunday morning, Netanyahu’s office called Hamas’ response to the broad outlines presented by mediators regarding a proposal for a cease-fire with Israel as negative.
“It has been over a week since the Cairo meeting – Hamas has rejected the outline that was tabled by the mediators,” Netanyahu’s office wrote on X.
Hamas is estimated to be holding more than 130 Israeli hostages, while Tel Aviv is holding more than 9,100 Palestinians in its jails.
Hamas demands an end to Israel’s deadly offensive on the Gaza Strip and the withdrawal of the Israeli forces from the territory for any hostage-prisoner swap deal with Tel Aviv.
Israel has killed more than 33,000 Palestinians since an Oct. 7, 2023 cross-border attack by Hamas in which some 1,200 Israelis were killed and around 250 hostages taken.
A previous deal in November saw the release of 81 Israelis and 24 foreigners in exchange for 240 Palestinians, including 71 women and 169 children.
The US, Qatar and Egypt have tried to broker an agreement to release the remaining Israeli captives.
The conflict has pushed 85% of Gaza’s population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water, and medicine, while 60% of the enclave’s infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed.
Global calls for a cease-fire have been growing as the war has entered its seventh month.
Israeli army shells hundreds of displaced Palestinians in Gaza
Press TV – April 14, 2024
The Israeli army has shelled hundreds of displaced Palestinians trying to return to their homes in the northern Gaza Strip, as the Tel Aviv regime presses ahead with its genocidal war in the besieged Palestinian territory.
At least five Palestinians, including a woman, were killed and several others injured in Israeli artillery shelling on Sunday.
“Five fatalities, including a woman, and a number of injured people arrived at Al-Awda Hospital in the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip,” media outlets quoted medical sources as saying.
The casualties occurred among “the displaced Palestinians who tried to return to the northern Strip via al-Rashid Street,” they added.
Palestinians gathered at al-Rashid Street to cross to the north of Gaza after rumors spread that children and women under the age of 14 were allowed to cross the north in Gaza City.
The Israeli army spokesman Avichay Adraee said the regime had warned the Palestinians against approaching the Israeli forces invading the northern Gaza Strip.
“The Israeli army does not allow the return of residents, neither through Salah al-Din Street nor through Al-Rashid Street,” he said, “The northern Gaza Strip is still a war zone and we will not allow a return to it.”
Witnesses confirmed that the Israeli army asked them to return to the southern Gaza Strip and fired smoke bombs at them to prevent them from reaching the north.
Israel waged the genocidal war on Gaza after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas carried out a historic operation against the occupying entity in retaliation for its intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.
The Israeli aggression has so far killed at least 33,700 Palestinians, mostly women and children.
The Tel Aviv regime has imposed a “complete siege” on the territory, cutting off fuel, electricity, food, and water to the more than two million Palestinians living there.
The Israeli war has pushed 85% of Gaza’s population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water, and medicine, while 60% of the enclave’s infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.
In January, an interim ruling by the International Court of Justice ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.
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Book Review
The Voters’ Self-Induced Matrix
By Jeb Smith | The Libertarian Institute | April 20, 2026
In Collective Illusions: Conformity, Complicity, and the Science of Why We Make Bad Decisions, Professor Todd Rose explains that to belong to a group, people “keep twisting [themselves] into pretzels, trying to conform to what we falsely believe everyone else expects of us.” Seeking acceptance from the group, we conform in language, behavior, beliefs, and practices. As a result, we lose our individuality and aggregate into herds. Within our group we create an alternate reality to fit whichever collective mindset we attach ourselves to, and interpret the world through those lenses—our innate desire to belong overrides reality.
Rose says these illusions “have become a defining feature of our modern society.” In other words, the collectivist mindset is a great conduit for spreading illusions; thus, it is the politician’s favored form of governance.
Rose points to studies in psychology and neuroscience showing we delude ourselves into believing what the majority does, even if it is not what we desire or know to be accurate. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Trump’s erratic behavior signals US deadlock: Ansarullah
- US nuclear official accused of leaking data on Iran, nerve agents
- The Voters’ Self-Induced Matrix
- Douglas Macgregor: No Peace – U.S. Prepares for ‘Total War’ Against Iran
- How A Fake Iranian Terror Group Was Invented To Proscribe IRGC in Europe
- Iran’s judiciary rejects Trump’s claim on ‘planned execution’ of 8 women
- Israeli army blows up school in southern Lebanon in violation of ceasefire
- The desalination front: Water as Israel’s Achilles heel
- Washington cuts flow of US dollars to Iraqi central bank until ‘acceptable’ government formed
- China blames US for diplomatic impasse with Iran, urges it to show ‘sincerity’ in talks
- If Americans Knew
- Israeli soldiers using sexual assault to force Palestinians out of West Bank, report says
- Top Biden Official Supports Trump Iran Attack, Says Biden May Have Done The Same
- A history of Israel’s invasions of Lebanon
- How the powerful pro-Israel lobby keeps controlling Democrats in the US
- Replay: Israel’s slow ethnic cleansing of Christians from the Holy Land
- 5 times Israelis desecrated Christian sites in the past two years
- US running out of weaponry for Israel’s war; Iran has plenty – Daily Update
- Israel is (still) killing aid workers in Gaza
- Catholics finally splitting with Trump over Iran war and Israel
- Israel’s “Black Wednesday” Massacre Leaves Lebanese Families Giving DNA To ID Loved One’s Remains
- No Tricks Zone
- New Study: The Climate May Be 5 Times More Sensitive To Solar Forcing Than Commonly Assumed
- EV Industry Reached $70 Billion In Losses In 2024 Due To Delusional Green Ideologies
- Reality Check: Maldives Have Actually Grown In Size Or Remained Stable Over Recent Decades
- Abrupt Climate Change Also Occurred NATURALLY In The Past …25 Times During Last Ice Age
- Cave Discovery Reveals Today’s Desert Climates Were Recently Far Warmer, Wetter, Teeming With Life
- German Expert: Heat Dome Led To Record Temps In Western USA…Warmer In 1934, 1936
- New Study: No Linear Warming Or Glacier Retreat Along Northern Antarctic Peninsula Since 1980s
- An Inconvenient Tree: Uncovered In Alps… Europe Much Warmer Than Today 6000 Years Ago
- New Study Reports A 60% Slowdown In Greenland’s Ice Loss Rate In The Last Decade
- Low Intensity Tornado Wrecks Major Solar Farm, Creating A Potential Toxic Dump
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