Debunking The Conspiracy Theory That Netanyahu Wanted Last Weekend’s Attacks To Happen
BY ANDREW KORYBKO | OCTOBER 9, 2023
Hamas’ sneak attack on Israel over the weekend prompted speculation among some on social media that the latter knew about these plans in advance but allegedly had an interest in letting them happen. According to proponents of this conspiracy theory, embattled Prime Minister Netanyahu wanted to unite his politically divided people and/or establish the pretext for destroying Hamas, ergo why he supposedly let these attacks unfold. That doesn’t make much sense though if one really thinks about it.
It’s fashionable nowadays to claim that leaders sometimes provoke foreign conflicts to distract from domestic political problems, but that’s arguably not the case with the latest Israeli-Hamas war. In fact, Netanyahu was pursuing the exact opposite approach up until last weekend as suggested by credible reports over the months that he was engaged in secret talks with Saudi Arabia over recognizing Israel. This was aimed at uniting Israelis around him and unlocking their country’s geo-economic potential.
Had these efforts borne fruit, then not only would his fiercest opponents have been forced to praise him for this diplomatic achievement, but Israel could then have profited from its central role in the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) that was unveiled last month. Both goals required Saudi recognition of Israel, which Netanyahu hoped to obtain without recognizing Palestine’s independence, but that’s now in doubt since Riyadh might freeze these talks after Israel’s bombing of Gaza.
Those who claim that he knew about Hamas’ plans in advance but still let them happen are either unaware of his secret talks with Saudi Arabia, downplay their grand strategic importance, or think that they were all a ruse in preparation of this convoluted plot to establish the pretext for destroying Hamas. About that dimension of their conspiracy theory, it’s difficult to imagine that security-obsessed Netanyahu would let his country’s enemies inflict such unprecedented damage to Israel for that purpose.
He could always have simply exploited comparatively minor rocket fire to justify a disproportionate bombing campaign against that group without having to first lose literally hundreds of civilians and soldiers. Hamas’ breaching of the border barrier was also a strong blow to the Israeli psyche from which its people might never recover after having assumed that its construction would forever protect them. The same goes for that group doubling the territory under its control during the climax of its attacks.
Observers can still be opposed to the border barrier in particular, Israeli policy towards Palestine in general, and Netanyahu personally while also acknowledging that he’s such a security-obsessed leader that it doesn’t make sense to claim that he’d let Hamas powerfully undermine all three for any reason. He looks extremely weak after what happened, Israeli policy towards Palestine is now questioned from both sides like never before, and the border barrier is no longer deemed to be a credible defense.
These three outcomes represent the sum of Netanyahu’s worst nightmares, not to mention the likely failure of his plans to obtain Saudi recognition of Israel that would in turn unlock his country’s geo-economic potential via IMEC, all of which indisputably contradict Israeli interests. It remains unclear exactly how all of Israel’s security systems failed at the same time during last weekend’s attacks, nor has anyone explained the intelligence failures up until then either, but that’s indeed what happened.
The conspiracy theory speculating that Netanyahu knew about all this in advance but still let it happen doesn’t stand up to scrutiny as proven in this piece and is pretty much only predicated on the false perception that Israel’s intelligence services are omnipotent. They’re run by humans though and are therefore naturally imperfect, yet those who claim otherwise impart godlike power to the Mossad. This gives Israel too much credit while denying Hamas’ independent ability to organize attacks of this scale.
Israel has no one to blame but itself for war with Palestinians: Lawmaker
Press TV – October 8, 2023
Israel has no one to blame but itself for the war with the Palestinians, says a lawmaker of the regime, insisting that the illegal occupation of the Palestinian land has caused the situation to escalate.
Ofer Cassif, a member of the Knesset and leftist Hadash coalition, told Al Jazeera on Sunday that his party had repeatedly warned the regime authorities that the way they treated the Palestinians would have serious repercussions.
“We have been warning time and time again… everything is going to erupt and everybody is going to pay a price… And unfortunately, that is exactly what happened,” said Cassif, whose party has four seats in the 120-member parliament.
The “fascist” regime, he said, “supports, encourages, and leads pogroms against the Palestinians.”
“There is an ethnic cleansing going on. It was obvious the writing was on the wall, written in the blood of the Palestinians.”
Some sources say more than 750 Israelis have been killed since early Saturday, when the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas launched massive rocket attacks and a ground operation from its bases in the Gaza Strip into the occupied territories.
Hamas says Operation al-Aqsa Storm is a response to Israel’s growing acts of aggression against the Palestinians, especially in the occupied West Bank, and its support for the recurrent presence of settlers in the al-Aqsa Mosque in the occupied Quds.
Scores of Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza, a besieged enclave on the Mediterranean, since the regime started to respond to Hamas attacks on Saturday.
US Deploying Carrier Strike Group to Eastern Mediterranean Amid Hamas Attacks – Pentagon
Sputnik – 08.10.2023
WASHINGTON – The United States is deploying the USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group to the Eastern Mediterranean to bolster US regional deterrence efforts in response to the Hamas attack on Israel, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Sunday.
“I have directed the movement of the USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group to the Eastern Mediterranean. This includes the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78), the Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser USS Normandy (CG 60), as well as the Arleigh-Burke-class guided missile destroyers USS Thomas Hudner (DDG 116), USS Ramage (DDG 61), USS Carney (DDG 64), and USS Roosevelt (DDG 80),” Austin said in a statement.
The United States maintains ready forces globally to further reinforce this deterrence posture if required, the US defense chief also said.
The US will be rapidly providing the Israel Defense Forces with additional equipment and resources, including munitions, which will begin arriving in the coming days, Austin added.
‘We are not attacking civilians’: Hamas says amid Operation Al-Aqsa Storm
Press TV – October 8, 2023
The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has rejected accusations of targeting civilians as the fighting rages across the occupied territories since the resistance groups launched Operation Al-Aqsa Storm on Saturday.
Osama Hamadan, senior spokesperson of Hamas, has told Al Jazeera that they are not attacking civilians.
“You have to differentiate between settlers and civilians; settlers attacked Palestinians,” Hamdan said.
“We are not targeting civilians on purpose. We have declared settlers are part of the occupation and part of the armed Israeli force. They are not civilians,” Hamadan added.
His remarks came after a number of Western-backed rights groups, including Amnesty International, accused the resistance movement of killing “Israeli civilians” in their retaliatory strikes.
Asked whether civilians in southern Israel were considered settlers, the Hamas spokesman said “Everyone knows there are settlements there.”
On Saturday, the Palestinian Hamas resistance movement launched its large-scale operation, with a heavy barrage of rockets in response to Israel’s desecration of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and increased settler violence.
At least 400 Israeli settlers and forces have died as a result of the large-scale operation — code-named Al-Aqsa Storm — and more than 2000 others have sustained injuries.
Following the operation, a spokesperson for the Israeli defense forces confirmed that Israeli settlers and soldiers are held captive in Gaza, however, the spokesperson declined to specify the number of hostages.
According to Israeli media outlets, unofficial estimates suggest that approximately 750 Israeli soldiers and settlers have been missing since fighting broke out.
Hospital officials in the Gaza Strip have recorded the death of 320 Palestinians and the injury of 1,990 others. A large number of buildings, homes, and public facilities have also been badly damaged due to heavy Israeli bombardments.
The Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, said on its Telegram channel that the group had directed a “major missile strike on the settlement of Sderot with 100 missiles.”
The Qassam Brigades also called on Palestinians “to join this battle” as fighting between Israeli forces and Hamas fighters continues.
Meanwhile, Mohannad Aklouk, Palestine’s permanent representative to the Arab League, said he had submitted a request for an emergency meeting of the regional body’s foreign ministers in the wake of the latest Israeli onslaught.
“The urgent meeting comes in light of the ongoing Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people, including the escalation of incursions into the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound by thousands of settlers and Israeli officials over the past days,” Aklouk was quoted as saying by the official Wafa news agency.
The retaliatory operation by Hamas on the occupied territories is the largest after the 11-day Israeli war against the Gaza Strip in May 2021, which took place after weeks of violence against Palestinians in Al-Quds and a brutal crackdown on worshipers at the al-Aqsa Mosque, as well as attempts to steal their land in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood.
At least 260 Palestinians, including over 60 children, were killed during the Israeli offensive as the Gaza-based resistance movements retaliated. The regime was eventually forced to announce a ceasefire brokered by Egypt.
Statement by Hamas’s Al-Qassam Brigades top military commander
MEMO | October 7, 2023
On the military operation against the Israeli occupation across the borderline of the Gaza Strip, the commander-in-chief of Hamas’s Al-Qassam Brigades, Mohammed Deif, states the following:
The Zionist colonial occupation occupied our Palestinian homeland and displaced our people, destroyed our towns and villages, committed hundreds of massacres against our people, killing children, women and elderly people and demolishing homes with their inhabitants inside in violation of all international norms, laws and human rights conventions.
We have previously warned the Israeli occupation against continuing their crimes and appealed to world leaders to work on putting an end to the Israeli crimes against our Palestinian people and detainees, their holy sites and homeland and to put pressure on the Israeli occupation to abide by international law and resolutions.
Neither did the Israeli occupation leaders heed our demands, nor did the world leaders act in this regard.
Instead, the Israeli occupation intensified its crimes, crossing all red lines, particularly in occupied Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa Mosque – the Muslims’ first Qibla and third holiest site.
The Israeli occupation forces have escalated their raids into the Al-Aqsa Mosque, desecrating the Muslim sacred sites and repeatedly attacking worshippers, particularly women, children and elderly people.
Meanwhile, the Israeli occupation banned the Palestinian citizens from accessing the Al-Aqsa Mosque and allowed Israeli colonial settlers to defile the Muslim sacred site and conduct daily raids into the Muslim holy compound.
During such raids, Israeli colonial settlers performed religious rituals and prayers and blew the horn at the Al-Aqsa Mosque. They have declared their intentions to build their purported temple on the ruins of Al-Aqsa Mosque.
They also insulted our Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) inside the Al-Aqsa compound, tore up the Quran and brought dogs into the Muslim sacred site.
Each day, the Israeli colonial settlers attempt to impose a new fait accompli on the ground, attack the Palestinian citizens of occupied Jerusalem and steal their homes and property.
The Israeli occupation has desecrated the Al-Aqsa Mosque, from which the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) ascended to heaven on the Al-Isra wa Al-Mi’raj journey.
Hundreds of Palestinian citizens have been killed and wounded so far this year in crimes committed by the Israeli occupation and colonial settlers.
In the meantime, the Israeli occupation is holding thousands of Palestinian detainees in its prisons, where they are subjected to the most heinous forms of oppression, torture and humiliation.
Hundreds of Palestinian detainees have been jailed for over 20 years; dozens more have suffered cancers and other diseases; several more have died as a result of medical negligence and deliberate slow-death policies.
However, our calls for a humanitarian swap deal were met with rejection by the Israeli occupation.
The Israeli occupation forces storm the towns and villages of the occupied West Bank on a daily basis, raiding and ransacking Palestinian homes and shooting and detaining Palestinian citizens.
Hundreds of Palestinian citizens have been killed and wounded in crimes committed by the Israeli occupation.
Israeli settlers captured as Hamas and PIJ fighters overrun the Israeli army near the Gaza border
The Cradle | October 7, 2023
Palestinian resistance factions from the Gaza Strip have taken control of over a dozen illegal settlements in southern Israel as part of ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Floods,’ which has been raging since the early hours of 7 October.
Fighters from Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) say they hold at least 50 prisoners of war (POW) after overrunning many Israeli checkpoints and neighborhoods. Israeli media says the death toll from the operation has reached 100, with close 1,000 injured.
In describing the operation, Hamas deputy chief Saleh al-Arouri told Al Jazeera: “We managed to kill and capture many Israeli soldiers. The fighting is still on. As to our prisoners, I say, your freedom is looming large. What we have in hand will see you set free. The longer fighting continues, the higher the number of prisoners will become.”
Footage across social media has shown the extent of the resistance’s advance, as Israeli soldiers lay dead in many streets while settlers had to run for their lives or surrender to the armed groups.
https://twitter.com/TheCradleMedia/status/1710605327501017461
Among those captured is Israeli General Nimrod Aloni, the commander of the Depth Corps, a unit that coordinates the army’s long-range operations “deep in enemy territory.”
The spokesman for Hamas’ armed wing, Abu Hamza, confirmed that fighters from the Al-Quds Brigades and the Al-Qassam Brigades were at the front of today’s incursion, saying that the Gaza resistance recorded “a new chapter of victory” and “broke the prestige of the enemy entity,” with “a resounding historical shock.”
“Al-Aqsa Flood [revealed Israel] as an illusion made of dust and capable of being defeated and broken.”
In response, Tel Aviv has been conducting air raids inside the Gaza Strip, a coastal area considered the world’s largest open-air prison, leaving over 200 Palestinians dead and 1,600 injured. Survivors of the onslaught say they are “bracing” for the continued Israeli response as Hamas declared, “We are ready for an [Israeli] land invasion.”
Saturday’s operation caught the world by surprise, with even former Israeli security officials calling it a “colossal failure” of the intelligence apparatus, which failed to detect the launch of about 7,000 rockets from Gaza.
“All of Israel is asking itself: Where is the [army], where is the police, where is the security?” the former head of the Israeli Navy said during a TV interview. “It’s a colossal failure; the hierarchies have simply failed, with vast consequences.”
In response to the crisis, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared his country at “war” to the support of his western allies. However, the offensive may throw a wrench at ongoing normalization talks with Saudi Arabia.
In a statement, kingdom officials said: “[Saudi Arabia] repeatedly warned of the consequences of [the deterioration] of the situation as a result of the occupation as well as of depriving the Palestinian people of their legitimate rights and [not halting] systematic provocations against their holy [sites].”
The UAE, which normalized ties with Israel in 2020, issued a statement “[expressing] its deep concern over the escalation of violence between Israelis and Palestinians,” also calling “for an immediate cessation of the escalation and protection of the lives of civilians.”
Support for the operation has poured in from the regional resistance, with Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah calling it a “triumphant operation [and] a decisive response to the ongoing crimes of the occupation.”
Nasrallah also said the Lebanese resistance is “closely following the significant developments [in Palestine]” and “looking at the field conditions with utmost interest.”
Similarly, Yemen’s Ansarallah said that “[Operation Al-Aqsa Flood] revealed the weakness, fragility, and impotence of the temporary zionist entity and showed the world the strength and effectiveness of the resistance in Palestine and its ability to strike the ‘Israeli’ depths, storm the settlements, kill the zionists, and capture their soldiers.”
For Israel, support has poured in from the west, with French President Emmanuel Macron saying via statement, “France stands in solidarity with Israel and the Israelis, committed to their security and their right to defend themselves.”
The White House issued a similar statement, describing Saturday’s resistance operation as “appalling terrorist attacks.”
Saudi Arabia willing to forego oil production cuts to secure Israel normalization: Report
The Cradle | October 7, 2023
Saudi Arabia has offered Washington to boost oil production levels next year if crude prices are “too high” as part of negotiations to reach a normalization deal with Israel, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on 6 October.
This plan is allegedly aimed at winning over US lawmakers who are wary about Biden’s “megadeal” with Riyadh, which includes mobilizing US troops in case of an attack in the kingdom.
The deal would also see the US help Saudi Arabia develop a uranium enrichment program.
“Saudi negotiators emphasized that market conditions would guide any action on production, and officials familiar with the talks said the discussions didn’t represent a long-term agreement to cut prices,” the WSJ says.
For the past year, Saudi Arabia has led the powerful OPEC+ bloc into significantly cutting oil production levels to offset the damage caused to the market by western sanctions on Russia’s energy sector.
The ongoing cuts have come despite multiple demands and threats from Washington.
In September, Riyadh, in a joint effort with Moscow, voluntarily extended oil cuts to help maintain the market’s stability. This cut sent oil prices up nearly two percent to $91.08 a barrel.
Per WSJ, Brett McGurk and Amos Hochstein flew to Riyadh in late September to warn Saudi officials that soaring oil prices would make winning Washington over on the “megadeal” much harder.
This deal has raised concerns by 20 Democratic senators sent US President Joe Biden a letter on Wednesday regarding the deal. They voiced how he should demand that Israel makes a “meaningful and enforceable” concession to the Palestinian people as part of the normalization deal.
Negotiations are now discussing the defense benefits for Saudi Arabia, which requires US Senate approval for the civilian nuclear site in the Kingdom and billions of dollars in weapons sales.
The deal has left a sour taste in the US public’s mouth. In a poll conducted in September, 3 out of 5 US citizens “feel this is a bad deal for the US.” Those polled added that they don’t feel there’s justification for US soldiers defending the Gulf nation.
It has also caused an uproar in the Islamic world, as many see a normalization agreement with Israel as a betrayal of the Palestinian cause.
Publicly, Riyadh has expressed that any deal with Tel Aviv must also include significant concessions for the Palestinians, including forming an independent state.
The WSJ report was released one day before the Palestinian resistance in Gaza launched its biggest offensive against Israel in Gaza, with officials saying the operation serves as a message to Arab nations who want to normalize ties with Israel.
Palestine: The Resistance Rises toward Revolution, Return and Liberation
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network | October 7, 2023
As the morning dawns on 7 October 2023, the resistance is rising throughout occupied Palestine, smashing the siege on Gaza with a comprehensive offensive confronting the occupier by land and air, taking control of Palestinian land, seizing occupation settlers and soldiers and launching thousands of missiles as Palestinian resistance forces fight to advance return and the liberation of Palestine.
The new resistance operation, titled the Al-Aqsa Flood by Mohammed Deif, commander in chief of the Izz el-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, comes on the 50th anniversary of the 1973 war in which Egypt reclaimed the occupied Sinai from Zionist occupation, and is set to alter the direction of the struggle in occupied Palestine, moving from resistance toward revolution and liberation.
The resistance operation comes in response to the ongoing stream of crimes against the Palestinian people, the daily murder of Palestinians on the streets of the West Bank of occupied Palestine, the siege on Gaza, the theft of land for settlements, the denial of refugees’ right to return, imposing exile for over 75 years, the torture and attacks on the Palestinian prisoners, the ongoing invasions of Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the 75 years of Zionist occupation and over 100 years of imperialist domination and colonialism throughout occupied Palestine.
It also comes to bring about the liberation of Palestinian prisoners, as part and parcel of the Palestinian people and land. The occupation has repeatedly dragged its feet in conducting a prisoner exchange with the resistance, and now the resistance has announced that it has taken a significant number of prisoners from among the occupation soldiers and settlers in order to liberate the 5,250 Palestinian prisoners in occupation prions, including the 1350 jailed without charge or trial under administrative detention, 39 women and 170 children. The resistance is taking new steps to liberate Palestinian land, to confront the settlement project and to liberate the prisoners from a position of power.
News is developing rapidly; however it is clear that the Palestinian resistance is determined to reset the status quo in the region and uncover the reality that the Zionist regime can no longer rely on its technological strength and imperialist weaponry to impose its domination on the Palestinian people. In particular, coming as it does on the 50th anniversary of the 1973 war, it is a decisive rebuke to the entire path of Oslo and normalization imposed upon the Palestinian and Arab people for the past 50 years, indicating a new path forward with a clear goal: liberation, and nothing less. It builds upon the liberation of south Lebanon from occupation by the Lebanese resistance, led by Hezbollah, in 2000, and the defeat of the Zionist invasion of Lebanon in 2006, as well as the successive heroic battles waged by the Palestinian resistance throughout occupied Palestine and especially from its base area of resistance land in Gaza.
In his statement announcing the operation, Deif said: “Starting from today, security coordination ends. Today, the people reclaim their revolution, correct their path, and return to the march of return.” He called upon all to participate in the resistance, and specifically to all the forces of resistance in the region, in Lebanon, Syria, Iran and Yemen, and all of the Arab peoples from the Gulf to the ocean, to join in this battle, which is their battle for freedom, dignity and liberation, declaring, “it is time for the forces of Arab resistance to unite.”
Samidoun joins the Masar Badil, the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement, in calling “the masses of our Palestinian people, supporters of the resistance in exile and diaspora, allies from the liberation forces and movements, and solidarity committees with the Palestinian people everywhere, to express their support for the heroic Palestinian resistance, raise the flag of Palestine and the banners of resistance, and organize popular, political and media demonstrations and events to expose the Zionist crimes against our people in occupied Palestine…. The heroic Palestinian resistance has opened a chapter of battles of dignity and pride at the dawn of October 7, 2023, and it is now responding to decades of continuous and repeated Zionist, American and European aggression against the masses of our Arab and Islamic nation from the ocean to the Gulf, and in the face of the wars of starvation and siege that the United States and its agents have engineered against our peoples in the region, especially in Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Iran.”
As the Palestinian resistance confronts occupation forces, it is critical that internationalists everywhere speak out, mobilize and act to confront the U.S.-led imperialist system, including the EU states, Britain and all complicit powers to end their ongoing crimes against the Palestinian people, and to defend the resistance. These crimes are reflected not only in the Balfour Declaration and the $3.8 billion in U.S. military aid to the occupation regime annually, but in the racist assaults on the Palestinian people in exile and diaspora throughout Europe, and especially in Germany, for speaking out and organizing to take up their role in the cause, for their return to Palestine and the liberation of their land.
Imperialism is the primary enemy of the Palestinian cause, creating the Zionist project and arming it to the teeth as a mechanism of attack against the Arab and Iranian peoples, alongside Zionism, the “Israeli” occupation regime and reactionary, complicit Arab forces.
Today, the resistance is making clear that despite the weaponry and brutality of the occupier, the promise of liberation is closer than ever before.
From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.
Dozens of Israeli jets strike Gaza
RT | October 7, 2023
Dozens of Israeli jets have struck Hamas targets in Gaza, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have said. The airstrikes were launched in response to a surprise attack unleashed by the Palestinian armed group against Israel on Saturday morning.
IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said “Hamas terrorists” had infiltrated the Israeli territory from land, sea and air.
More than 2,200 rockets have been fired from Gaza, according to the spokesman. Hamas claimed that it used more than 5,000 projectiles in just the first 20 minutes of its attack.
Rocket sirens have been heard in many places across Israel, including Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Beersheba, and Ashkelon.
There were at least seven instances of fighting between IDF troops and Hamas militants, Hagari said.
According to the Times of Israel newspaper, gun battles have been underway in and around the towns of Kfar Aza, Sderot, Sufa, Nahal Oz, Magen, Be’eri, and the IDF’s Re’im military base.
In an earlier statement, the IDF said it had declared “a state of readiness for war” due to the attack. “Hamas terror organization will pay a very heavy price,” it warned.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said he had approved a call-up of reservists in response to the actions by Hamas.
At least six people are believed to have been killed in Israel on Saturday. Four died in missile strikes in the town of Kuseife and one in the Gderot area.
The head of Sha’ar HaNegev town Ofir Liebstein was also shot dead in a gunfight with Hamas militants. “Ofir was killed when he went to defend a town during the terrorist attack,” the local administration said.
Information coming from medical institutions across Israel suggests that more than 200 people were wounded, including many in serious condition.
Some videos uploaded online during the day purportedly show a number of IDF troops being killed and captured by Hamas fighters. There’s also social media footage and photos of what appears to be a burning Israeli tank and Palestinians celebrating the seizure of a US-made Humvee military vehicle from the IDF. The videos have yet to be verified.
What is ‘Firing Zone 918’ and how Israel uses it to grab more Palestinian land
By Dr Mustafa Fetouri | MEMO | October 5, 2023
Israeli forces target vehicle of two Palestinian youths, kill them near West Bank city of Tulkarm
Press TV – October 5, 2023
Israeli forces have opened fire on a vehicle near the occupied West Bank city of Tulkarm, killing two Palestinian youths.
The victims, identified as Hudhayfah Fares and Abd al-Rahman Atta, were shot dead after Israeli troops targeted their car near the village of Shufah, south of Tulkarm in the northwestern part of West Bank, on Thursday.
The Palestinian Health Ministry confirmed the death of Atta, 23, and Fares, 27, saying they were killed during confrontations with the occupying regime’s forces, Palestine’s official Wafa news agency reported.
The two slain Palestinians were from the Tulkarm camp and lived in the suburb of Dhanaba, east of the city.
Violent clashes erupted in the Tulkarm refugee camp after Israeli forces invaded it, and fired live rounds, stun grenades and teargas canisters towards Palestinians.
Medical sources also reported that two people were wounded by Israeli bullets, one in the shoulder and the other in the abdomen, adding that their condition is stable.
Over the past months, Israel has ramped up attacks on Palestinian towns and cities throughout the occupied territories. As a result of these attacks, dozens of Palestinians have lost their lives and many others have been arrested.
More than 200 Palestinians have been killed this year in the occupied Palestinian territories and Gaza. The majority of these fatalities have been recorded in the West Bank.
Those figures indicate that 2023 is already the deadliest year for Palestinians in the West Bank since the United Nations began keeping track of fatalities in 2005.
Previously, 2022 had been the deadliest year with 150 Palestinians killed, of whom 33 were minors, according to the United Nations.
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Fanatical Followers of the Covid Regime: A Jim Jones-Style Cult?
By Professor Roger Watson and Dr. Niall McCrae | The Daily Sceptic | November 15, 2021
As scholars at leading British universities over recent decades, we witnessed the replacement of critical thinking and debate by narrative: facts are discrimination and scientific method is imperialism; truth, instead, is derived from ‘progressive’ values. This educational trend may be a major contributory factor to the ease in which society has been inculcated to the Covid ‘new normal’ of masking, testing, and repeated doses of vaccines for a disease of similar risk to severe influenza.
One doesn’t need much critical reasoning to observe the flawed logic of some vaccination enthusiasts, such as people who respond to experiencing any side effects, however debilitating, by saying “at least I know it’s working”, or, after contracting the disease despite their promised inoculation (over 90% effective, according to initial drug company claims), “I’d have been worse off without the jab.” … continue
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