US-drafted resolution on Israeli war on Gaza does not call for ceasefire: Report
Press TV – October 22, 2023
The United States has submitted a draft for a UN Security Council resolution on Israel’s onslaught in Gaza without any mention of a ceasefire in it, a report says.
According to a document obtained by Russia’s TASS news agency, the US-drafted resolution condemned the Hamas resistance group’s Operation Al-Aqsa Storm, urged the release of war prisoners, and supported Israel’s so-called right to defend itself. However, it does not stipulate a call for a ceasefire.
It also calls for the full respect of international humanitarian law, including the protection of civilians, and recognizes the efforts of Qatar and other countries that led to the release of two Israelis on October 20, who had been kept as war prisoners by Hamas.
The United States on October 18 vetoed Brazil’s draft resolution on the Middle East. Russia abstained from voting in light of the UN Security Council’s rejection of its suggested amendments to the document.
The UK also abstained, while the remaining 12 members of the UN Security Council voted in favor of the resolution.
On October 17, the UN Security Council did not adopt the Russia-drafted resolution on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as only five countries voted in favor.
The draft resolution called for an immediate ceasefire and also blamed the United States for the unfolding situation in the Middle East.
A UNSC resolution needs at least nine votes in favor and no vetoes by the US, Britain, France, China, or Russia. The United States has traditionally shielded its ally Israel from any Security Council action.
Till now, none of the draft resolutions have received enough votes to pass.
The Israeli regime began the war on Gaza on October 7 following Operation Al-Aqsa Storm launched by Hamas in response to the Israeli regime’s incessant campaign of bloodshed and destruction against Palestinian people.
The war has so far claimed the lives of at least 4,385 Palestinians, mostly women, children, and the elderly.
US needs ‘Department of Offense, not Defense’ – presidential candidate
US presidential candidate Nikki Haley speaks at a campaign event on Saturday in Pella, Iowa. © Getty Images / Scott Olson
RT | October 22, 2023
Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley has called for instilling fear in Washington’s foreign enemies by transforming the US Department of Defense into the “Department of Offense.”
Speaking at a campaign event on Friday in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Haley demanded that the US respond to the Israel-Hamas war by providing the Israeli government and military with “whatever they need whenever they need it.” She added that Washington’s goal must be to “eliminate Hamas, not weaken them,” and she called for cutting off government funding to colleges whose students or employees hold protests in support of the Palestinians.
Haley, a former South Carolina governor who served as US ambassador to the UN under then-President Donald Trump, suggested that the administration of US President Joe Biden must not be fooled by Friday’s release of two American hostages by Hamas. “They are doing this to earn favor with America because they want to try and look good in the eyes of America,” she said. “Don’t fall for it.”
Having a stronger military and strong leadership in the White House could have prevented the war in Israel, as well as the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Haley argued. Biden’s botched withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan in 2021 and his administration’s recent prisoner-swap agreement with Iran emboldened America’s enemies, she claimed, adding that only a stronger military can restore US credibility.
“We’ve got to be smart, and we’ve got to be ready,” Haley said. “I’m tired of talking about a ‘department of defense’. I want a ‘department of offense’. Every enemy needs to fear us.”
Haley is calling for a bigger and apparently more aggressive military despite the fact that the Pentagon already boasts annual spending of nearly $832 billion – exceeding the world’s nine next largest defense budgets combined. The US has about 750 bases in 80 countries, and it has a long history of regime-change programs and military interventions around the world.
“This woman is a crazed warmonger,” US podcast host Joey Mannarino said in an X (formerly Twitter) post. “Don’t let the sweet Southern accent fool you. She’d have us in every war she could find.”
Haley has reportedly been enriched by the US military industrial complex since resigning as Trump’s UN ambassador in October 2018. She was hired as a board member with US defense contractor Boeing in 2019. Although she left the company the following year, she still owned as much as $250,000 in Boeing stock as of a financial disclosure filing in May.
Haley has earned six-figure fees for speaking engagements, including over $230,000 from the Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs, and she was paid $127,500 for her work as a consultant to an advocacy group called United Against a Nuclear Iran, which has lobbied for military strikes against Tehran. She also netted more than $708,000 in consulting fees from Prism Global Management LLC, an investment fund, and her husband holds stakes in two firms with ties to the defense industry.
Israel must be internationally designated as terrorist entity: Iran FM spokesman
Press TV – October 21, 2023
The spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry has censured the ongoing Israeli onslaught in the besieged Gaza Strip, stating that the international community must designate the occupying Tel Aviv regime as a “terrorist entity” and put its leaders on trial over war crimes against Palestinians.
In a post published on his X account on Saturday, Nasser Kan’ani denounced the appalling Israeli atrocities against Palestinians and threats of bombardment of hospitals in the Gaza Strip.
“Following the catastrophic attacks on the al-Ahli Arab Hospital, mosques, schools and the Greek Orthodox church in Gaza, the Zionist regime has threatened to pound other hospitals in Gaza!” he wrote.
“Such horrendous crimes mean that the Zionist regime has crossed the limits of insanity,” said Kan’ani, adding that they amount to a morally shameful scandal for the governments that have long provided unconditional support to the Zionist regime while preaching to others about human rights.
Kan’ani stated that occupation, aggression, war, misdeeds, assassination, genocide, infanticide, attacks on mosques, churches, hospitals, ambulances and rescue vehicles, schools, houses and residential complexes, refugee camps and journalists, etc. are all crimes collectively manifested in the contemporary world by a bogus and terrorist regime entity called “Israel” with a 75-year-long record of relentless atrocities.
“Nowadays, all these crimes are being committed simultaneously and on a daily basis in Gaza just in front of the international community,” he said.
“All people advocating freedom, justice and fairness across the world demand that the Israeli regime be designated internationally as a terrorist entity, and that Zionist leaders be prosecuted and punished as war criminals,” Kan’ani asserted.
The United Nations says about half of Palestinians in Gaza have been made homeless, 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 added, calling for international protection of hospitals and health facilities in Gaza in light of intensified Israeli aggression.
The Palestinian health official noted that 46 medical personnel were killed, and 85 others injured during Israeli airstrikes. At least 23 ambulances were destroyed as well.
Biden laments Hamas attack on Israel ‘disrupted’ Saudi normalization
The Cradle | October 21, 2023
US President Joe Biden says that the historic Operation Al-Aqsa Flood carried out by resistance factions in Gaza aimed to disrupt a potential normalization of ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
“One of the reasons why they acted like they did, why Hamas moved on Israel, is because they knew I was about to sit down with the Saudis,” Biden said on 20 October at a campaign fundraiser in Washington. “Because the Saudis wanted to recognize Israel, and that would in fact unite [West Asia].”
His comments came five days after he told CBS’ 60 Minutes that the prospect of normalization was still alive.
“Look, it’s just going to take time to get done,” Biden said. “It’s going to take time. But the direction, moving into the normalization makes sense for the Arab nations as well as Israel.”
In the weeks leading up to 7 October – the day Hamas and other Gaza resistance factions successfully stormed Israel’s southern settlements – the White House had been working around the clock to seal a “megadeal” with Saudi Arabia that would have seen the kingdom normalize ties with Israel in exchange for a US-sponsored civilian nuclear program, access to more advanced US weapons, and a firm defense pact with Washington that would have forced the US to come to the kingdom’s aid in case of attack.
Furthermore, Saudi Arabia publicly demanded concessions for the Palestinians in exchange for signing a normalization deal, insisting on establishing a Palestinian State along the lines of the 2002 Saudi Peace Initiative to garner any possible support from the Islamic world.
“Every day we get closer [to a deal with Israel],” Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) told Fox News in late September.
“For us, the Palestinian issue is very important. We need to solve that part,” MbS added. “And we have a good negotiations strategy til now.”
However, in the wake of Israel’s campaign of genocide against the civilian population of Gaza, the kingdom was forced to “freeze” normalization talks and has thrown its support behind the plight of the Palestinians.
On Friday, the Saudi leader stressed the need “to stop military operations against civilians and infrastructure that affect their daily lives” and “create conditions to achieve lasting peace that ensures the establishment of a Palestinian state.”
The Saudi government has also refused to condemn the actions of the Gaza resistance, instead reminding Tel Aviv that Riyadh had issued repeated warnings of a possible escalation in light of “the ongoing occupation and the deprivation of the Palestinian people of their legitimate rights, as well as the repeated deliberate provocations against their sanctities.”
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.”
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.
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.
Israel’s Negev prison new ‘Abu Ghraib’: Official
The Cradle | October 19, 2023
Broken limbs and severe beatings are among the extreme tactics being used by Israeli officials inside the Negev prison on Palestinian detainees since the start of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on 7 October.
“Many prisoners have had their limbs, legs, and hands broken, and after the beatings, their comrades could no longer recognize them.
The Negev prison has become like Abu Ghraib, a center of brutality and savage treatment towards the heroic prisoners,” reads a statement issued on 19 October by the head of the Palestinian Prisoners and Ex-Prisoners Affairs Commission.
“‘Israel’ is making the Palestinian prisoners pay the price for its failures, acting solely with a spirit of revenge,” Fares adds.
Last week, the Negev prison administration also cut off all water and electricity to all sections of the prison as part of the collective punishment approach by Tel Aviv.
The Israeli prison system is considered excessively brutal for incarcerated Palestinians, especially those convicted for resisting the occupation. Methods used by Israel against prisoners include physical torture, mental abuse, sleep deprivation, and sexual assault.
Additionally, prisoners with severe illnesses are intentionally neglected and left to die, as in the recent case of cancer-stricken resistance fighter Nasser Abu Hamid.
Over 850 Palestinians have been detained in less than two weeks, as Tel Aviv has launched daily arrest campaigns in the occupied West Bank while laying siege on the Gaza Strip’s civilian population.
Since Wednesday night, at least 120 Palestinians have been detained by Israeli troops in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
According to local sources, in the city of Tulkarem, Israeli raids have been ongoing for over 12 hours. Tel Aviv also deployed bulldozers to destroy the streets and infrastructure of the Nour Shams refugee camp.
Resistance against the Israeli incursions has also been constant, with Palestinian fighters fighting back and destroying Israeli vehicles across the West Bank.
Israeli soldiers and armed settler militias have killed at least 69 Palestinians in the West Bank and Jerusalem since the start of the campaign of genocide unfolding in the Gaza Strip.
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