Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

Total War – The Economic Backbone of the Occupation

Gazans being held by Israeli police. Photo from one of the workers.
International Solidarity Movement | October 15, 2023

EXPLOITATION AND OCCUPATION

Hundreds of Gazan workers are being given refuge in Palestine, after having been dumped in the West Bank by Israel.

45 of them are in al-Khalil and the ISM spoke to many of them this evening.

These labourers were working in Israeli settlements. When Hamas broke out of Gaza they were rounded up, detained, and at least one of them was beaten and hospitalised. They spent four hours in prison, their phones confiscated and without contact with the outside world. One man says 6500NIS was stolen from him by the police.

Apartments have been provided by charitable individuals and groups are giving them food and bringing them brand-new clothing to replace the belongings they were not allowed to bring from Israel. No help comes from the P.A.

SO WHAT WERE THESE GUYS DOING IN ISRAEL?

After 16 years of blockade, Gaza’s economy has collapsed. Gazans buy Israeli work permits so as to get jobs as labourers in construction or hospitality. These permits, valid for one month, are purchased from specialised companies and cost 3,000 NIS. Gazan workers earn 6000 NIS monthly for 45 hour weeks. Israelis would be paid around 20,000 shekels for doing an equivalent job. These migrant workers have no health insurance or job security. They have to be married, too.

Women migrant workers find jobs in factories or in agriculture. Manual labour is the only option available to people from Gaza. One of the workers we spoke to has a degree in engineering, one qualified as a social worker and another was a teacher.

Visits to their wives and families are possible at weekends, and they try to return at least twice a month. Travel through the Eretz crossing involves a long wait of up to 12 hours, the crossing opens at 4am on a Sunday morning to let them through. Everything is checked, and they can’t take clothes through, so clothing has to be bought (at high expense) in Israel.

The guards at the border can deny entry at will to anyone, whether or not they have a permit. Israeli intelligence often interrogates and threatens the workers, hoping to add them to the network of informers in Gaza.

THE LUCKY ONES

We were told that around 1,500  migrant workers are still detained or missing in Israel. Their families in Gaza were asking for information about them.

We heard that, when Israel declared war, one of the employers of Gazan workers informed the police that the people working for him were terrorists. We saw a video of corpses after the police intervention. The people shot were colleagues of one of the men we spoke to. Here are their names:

Hashim Barawi (killed)

Suliman Al Atar (killed)

Hary Al Masry (location unknown)

Sahel AL Masry

Nabil Al Barrawi (injured)

Talal Warshasha (injured)

The workers intend to use every legal means possible to obtain justice.

NOT WAR BUT EXTERMINATION

The situation these men are in is difficult, but they are distraught about the situation in Gaza and worried about their families. “My son works with the emergency services, Israel bombed his ambulance, the driver was killed and my son is injured.” “My building was bombed, and my wife and kids are now living in a tent.” “I keep phoning my wife, but there is no answer.”

They denounce the lies and hypocrisy of the international community in its support for Israel. Western countries talk about law and democracy, but they respect neither. How can they support this massacre, this lack of humanity?

One of the men sums it up: This is not war, it is extermination.

Despite the atrocious, immoral position of the countries whose passports we hold, only one man didn’t greet us warmly. Hearing we were from European countries, he said he didn’t want to be in the same room as us.

I was totally sincere when I replied that I understood his feelings, that we are in Palestine because of our countries’ responsibility in the destruction of Palestine, because we don’t agree with Europe’s policies and that we would like to do what we can to tell people  about what is happening here. If you’ve read this far, please help us in getting the word out and stopping this genocide.

October 15, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

LAWLESS IN GAZA: WHY BRITAIN AND THE WEST BACK ISRAEL’S CRIMES

As Western politicians line up to cheer on Israel as it starves Gaza’s civilians and plunges them into darkness to soften them up before the coming Israeli ground invasion, it is important to understand how we reached this point – and what it portends for the future.

BY JONATHAN COOK | DECLASSIFIED UK | OCTOBER 13, 2023

More than a decade ago, Israel started to understand that its occupation of Gaza through siege could be to its advantage. It began transforming the tiny coastal enclave from an albatross around its neck into a valuable portfolio in the trading game of international power politics.

The first benefit for Israel, and its Western allies, is more discussed than the second.

The tiny strip of land hugging the eastern Mediterranean coast was turned into a mix of testing ground and shop window.

Israel could use Gaza to develop all sorts of new technologies and strategies associated with the homeland security industries burgeoning across the West, as officials there grew increasingly worried about domestic unrest, sometimes referred to as populism.

The siege of Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians, imposed by Israel in 2007 following the election of Hamas to rule the enclave, allowed for all sorts of experiments.

How could the population best be contained? What restrictions could be placed on their diet and lifestyle? How were networks of informers and collaborators to be recruited from afar? What effect did the population’s entrapment and repeated bombardment have on social and political relations?

And ultimately how were Gaza’s inhabitants to be kept subjugated and an uprising prevented?

The answers to those questions were made available to Western allies through Israel’s shopping portal. Items available included interception rocket systems, electronic sensors, surveillance systems, drones, facial recognition, automated gun towers, and much more. All tested in real-life situations in Gaza.

Israel’s standing took a severe dent from the fact that Palestinians managed to bypass this infrastructure of confinement last weekend – at least for a few days – with a rusty bulldozer, some hang-gliders and a sense of nothing-to-lose.

Which is part of the reason why Israel now needs to go back into Gaza with ground troops to show it still has the means to keep the Palestinians crushed.

Collective punishment

Which brings us to the second purpose served by Gaza.

As Western states have grown increasingly unnerved by signs of popular unrest at home, they have started to think more carefully about how to sidestep the restrictions placed on them by international law.

The term refers to a body of laws that were formalised in the aftermath of the second world war, when both sides treated civilians on the other side of the battle lines as little more than pawns on a chessboard.

The aim of those drafting international law was to make it unconscionable for there to be a repeat of Nazi atrocities in Europe, as well as other crimes such as Britain’s fire bombing of German cities like Dresden or the United States’ dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

One of the fundamentals of international law – at the heart of the Geneva Conventions – is a prohibition on collective punishment: that is, retaliating against the enemy’s civilian population, making them pay the price for the acts of their leaders and armies.

Very obviously, Gaza is about as flagrant a violation of this prohibition as can be found. Even in “quiet” times, its inhabitants – one million of them children – are denied the most basic freedoms, such as the right to movement; access to proper health care because medicines and equipment cannot be brought in; access to drinkable water; and the use of electricity for much of the day because Israel keeps bombing Gaza’s power station.

Israel has never made any bones of the fact that it is punishing the people of Gaza for being ruled by Hamas, which rejects Israel’s right to have dispossessed the Palestinians of their homeland in 1948 and imprisoned them in overcrowded ghettos like Gaza.

What Israel is doing to Gaza is the very definition of collective punishment. It is a war crime: 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks of every year, for 16 years.

And yet no one in the so-called international community seems to have noticed.

Rules of war rewritten

But the trickiest legal situation – for Israel and the West – is when Israel bombs Gaza, as it is doing now, or sends in soldiers, as it soon will do.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu highlighted the problem when he told the people of Gaza: “Leave now”. But, as he and Western leaders know, Gaza’s inhabitants have nowhere to go, nowhere to escape the bombs. So any Israeli attack is, by definition, on the civilian population too. It is the modern equivalent of the Dresden fire bombings.

Israel has been working on strategies to overcome this difficulty since its first major bombardment of Gaza in late 2008, after the siege was introduced.

A unit in its attorney general’s office was charged with finding ways to rewrite the rules of war in Israel’s favour.

At the time, the unit was concerned that Israel would be criticised for blowing up a police graduation ceremony in Gaza, killing many young cadets. Police are civilians in international law, not soldiers, and therefore not a legitimate target. Israeli lawyers were also worried that Israel had destroyed government offices, the infrastructure of Gaza’s civilian administration.

Israel’s concerns seem quaint now – a sign of how far it has already shifted the dial on international law. For some time, anyone connected with Hamas, however tangentially, is considered a legitimate target, not just by Israel but by every Western government.

Western officials have joined Israel in treating Hamas as simply a terrorist organisation, ignoring that it is also a government with people doing humdrum tasks like making sure bins are collected and schools kept open.

Or as Orna Ben-Naftali, a law faculty dean, told the Haaretz newspaper back in 2009: “A situation is created in which the majority of the adult men in Gaza and the majority of the buildings can be treated as legitimate targets. The law has actually been stood on its head.”

Back at that time, David Reisner, who had previously headed the unit, explained Israel’s philosophy to Haaretz: “What we are seeing now is a revision of international law. If you do something for long enough, the world will accept it.

“The whole of international law is now based on the notion that an act that is forbidden today becomes permissible if executed by enough countries.”

Israel’s meddling to change international law goes back many decades.

Referring to Israel’s attack on Iraq’s fledgling nuclear reactor in 1981, an act of war condemned by the UN Security Council, Reisner said: “The atmosphere was that Israel had committed a crime. Today everyone says it was preventive self-defence. International law progresses through violations.”

He added that his team had travelled to the US four times in 2001 to persuade US officials of Israel’s ever-more flexible interpretation of international law towards subjugating Palestinians.

“Had it not been for those four planes, I am not sure we would have been able to develop the thesis of the war against terrorism on the present scale,” he said.

Those redefinitions of the rules of war proved invaluable when the US chose to invade and occupy Afghanistan and Iraq.

‘Human animals’

In recent years, Israel has continued to “evolve” international law. It has introduced the concept of “prior warning” – sometimes giving a few minutes’ notice of a building or neighbourhood’s destruction. Vulnerable civilians still in the area, like the elderly, children and the disabled, are then recast as legitimate targets for failing to leave in time.

And it is using the current assault on Gaza to change the rules still further.

The 2009 Haaretz article includes references by law officials to Yoav Gallant, who was then the military commander in charge of Gaza. He was described as a “wild man”, a “cowboy” with no time for legal niceties.

Gallant is now defence minister and the man responsible for instituting this week a “complete siege” of Gaza: “No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel – everything is closed.” In language that blurred any distinction between Hamas and Gaza’s civilians, he described Palestinians as “human animals”.

That takes collective punishment into a whole different realm. In terms of international law, it skirts into the territory of genocide, both rhetorically and substantively.

But the dial has shifted so completely that even centrist Western politicians are cheering Israel on – often not even calling for “restraint” or “proportionality”, the weasel terms they usually use to obscure their support for law breaking.

Britain has been leading the way in helping Israel to rewrite the rulebook on international law.

Listen to Keir Starmer, the leader of the Labour opposition and the man almost certain to be Britain’s next prime minister. This week he supported the “complete siege” of Gaza, a crime against humanity, refashioning it as Israel’s “right to defend itself”.

Starmer has not failed to grasp the legal implications of Israel’s actions, even if he seems personally immune to the moral implications. He is trained as a human rights lawyer.

His approach even appears to be taking aback journalists not known for being sympathetic to the Palestinian case. When asked by Kay Burley of Sky News if he had any sympathy for the civilians in Gaza being treated like “human animals”, Starmer could not find a single thing to say in support.

Instead, he deflected to an outright deception: blaming Hamas for sabotaging a “peace process” that Israel both practically and declaratively buried years ago.

Confirming that the Labour party now condones war crimes by Israel, his shadow attorney general, Emily Thornberry, has been sticking to the same script. On BBC’s Newsnight, she evaded questions about whether cutting off power and supplies to Gaza is in line with international law.

It is no coincidence that Starmer’s position contrasts so dramatically with that of his predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn. The latter was driven out of office by a sustained campaign of antisemitism smears fomented by Israel’s most fervent supporters in the UK.

Starmer does not dare to be seen on the wrong side of this issue. And that is exactly the outcome Israeli officials wanted and expected.

Israeli flag on No 10

Starmer is, of course, far from alone. Grant Shapps, Britain’s defence secretary, has also expressed trenchant support for Israel’s policy of starving two million Palestinians in Gaza.

Rishi Sunak, the UK prime minister, has emblazoned the Israeli flag on the front of his official residence, 10 Downing Street, apparently unconcerned at how he is giving visual form to what would normally be considered an antisemitic trope: that Israel controls the UK’s foreign policy.

Starmer, not wishing to be outdone, has called for Wembley stadium’s arch to be adorned with the colours of the Israeli flag.

“The media is playing its part, dependably as ever“

However much this schoolboy cheerleading of Israel is sold as an act of solidarity following Hamas’ slaughter of Israeli civilians at the weekend, the subtext is unmistakeable: Britain has Israel’s back as it starts its retributive campaign of war crimes in Gaza.

That is also the purpose of home secretary Suella Braverman’s advice to the police to treat the waving of Palestinian flags and chants for Palestine’s liberation at protests in support of Gaza as criminal acts.

The media is playing its part, dependably as ever. A Channel 4 TV crew pursued Corbyn through London’s streets this week, demanding he “condemn” Hamas. They insinuated through the framing of those demands that anything less fulsome – such as Corbyn’s additional concerns for the welfare of Gaza’s civilians – was confirmation of the former Labour leader’s antisemitism.

The clear implication from politicians and the establishment media is that any support for Palestinian rights, any demurral from Israel’s “unquestionable right” to commit war crimes, equates to antisemitism.

Europe’s hypocrisy

This double approach, of cheering on genocidal Israeli policies towards Gaza while stifling any dissent, or characterising it as antisemitism, is not confined to the UK.

Across Europe, from the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, to the Eiffel Tower in Paris and the Bulgarian parliament, official buildings have been lit up with the Israeli flag.

Europe’s top official, Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, celebrated the Israeli flag smothering the EU parliament this week.

She has repeatedly stated that “Europe stands with Israel”, even as Israeli war crimes start to mount.

The Israeli air force boasted on Thursday it had dropped some 6,000 bombs on Gaza. At the same time, human rights groups reported Israel was firing the incendiary chemical weapon white phosphorus into Gaza, a war crime when used in urban areas. And Defence for Children International noted that more than 500 Palestinian children had been killed so far by Israeli bombs.

It was left to Francesca Albanese, the UN’s special rapporteur on the occupied territories, to point out that Von Der Leyen was applying the principles of international law entirely inconsistently.

Almost exactly a year ago, the European Commission president denounced Russia’s strikes on civilian infrastructure in Ukraine as war crimes. “Cutting off men, women, children of water, electricity and heating with winter coming – these are acts of pure terror,” she wrote. “And we have to call it as such.”

Albanese noted Von der Leyen had said nothing equivalent about Israel’s even worse attacks on Palestinian infrastructure.

Sending in the heavies

Meanwhile, France has already started breaking up and banning demonstrations against the bombing of Gaza. Its justice minister has echoed Braverman in suggesting solidarity with Palestinians risks offending Jewish communities and should be treated as “hate speech”.

Naturally, Washington is unwavering in its support for whatever Israel decides to do to Gaza, as secretary of state Anthony Blinken made clear during his visit this week.

President Joe Biden has promised weapons and funding, and sent in the military equivalent of “the heavies” to make sure no one disturbs Israel as it carries out those war crimes. An aircraft carrier has been dispatched to the region to ensure quiet from Israel’s neighbours as the ground invasion is launched.

Even those officials whose chief role is to promote international law, such as Antonio Gutteres, secretary general of the UN, have started to move with the shifting ground.

Like most Western officials, he has emphasised Gaza’s “humanitarian needs” above the rules of war Israel is obliged to honour.

This is Israel’s success. The language of international law that should apply to Gaza – of rules and norms Israel must obey – has given way to, at best, the principles of humanitarianism: acts of international charity to patch up the suffering of those whose rights are being systematically trampled on, and those whose lives are being obliterated.

Western officials are more than happy with the direction of travel. Not just for Israel’s sake but for their own too. Because one day in the future, their own populations may be as much trouble to them as Palestinians in Gaza are to Israel right now.

Supporting Israel’s right to defend itself is their downpayment.

October 15, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli Army Kills A Palestinian Child In Tulkarem

IMEMC | OCTOBER 14, 2023

On Saturday, Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian child in Zeita town, north of Tulkarem, in the occupied West Bank’s northwestern part.

The Palestinian Health Ministry has confirmed that the soldiers killed Omar Ahmad Abdul-Rahman Asmar, 15, after shooting him with live fire.

The child was among many wounded Palestinians during protests that took place after several Israeli army vehicles invaded the town.

His death brings the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli army fire in Tulkarem on Friday and Saturday to six, in addition to dozens of injuries.


On Saturday dawn, Israeli soldiers killed Mahmoud Shehada, 27, injured three, including one who suffered serious wounds, and abducted six in Jericho, in the northeastern part of the occupied West Bank.

Also at dawn, Israeli soldiers killed a young Palestinian man, Abdul-Rahman Ribhi Al-Ammouri, in a car near Al-Isawiya town junction, northeast of the occupied Palestinian capital Jerusalem, in the West Bank.

On Saturday dawn, as the Israeli army continued to fire hundreds of missiles and shells at homes and buildings in the Gaza Strip, including a busy marker in the Nusseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.

The Health Ministry has confirmed that the extensive Israeli bombing Saturday has killed 315 Palestinians, including 90 children, and injured 1788, mainly women and children.

It added that 2215 Palestinians, including 724 children and 458 women, have been killed, and 8714 Palestinians, including 2450 children and 1536 women, have been injured as the Israeli onslaught on Gaza entered its eighth day.

On Friday, the soldiers killed fifteen Palestinians, including two children, in several parts of the occupied West Bank Friday.

October 14, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Day 8: Death toll from Israeli war on Gaza climbs to 2,269, including over 700 children

A Palestinian man carries a wounded girl at the site of Israeli strikes, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, October 14, 2023. (Photo by Reuters)
Press TV – October 14, 2023

At least 2,269 people, including over 700 Palestinian children, have been killed as the Israeli war on the besieged Gaza rages on.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza announced in a statement on Saturday that 2,269 Palestinians lost their lives and another 9,814 were injured ever since the Israeli strikes began on October 7. More than 700 children are among the fatalities.

This comes as more than 420,000 people are displaced within the Gaza Strip. A total of 270,374 out of 423,378 internally displaced people are now in UN shelters and schools.

At least 15 hospitals have been damaged by Israeli shelling and air raids.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees says its shelters in the enclave “are not safe anymore” and warns that water is running out for the 2.3 million residents of the blockaded territory.

Israeli strike at school in Jabalia kills at least 27 Palestinians

Renewed Israeli airstrikes near a school on Saturday afternoon have killed more than 20 Palestinians.

According the media office of the Gaza-based Interior Ministry, The attack targeted areas adjacent to al-Fakhura School in Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, leaving at least 27 civilians, including children, dead.

The Israeli air raids also resulted in the injury of more than 80 people.

Gaza hospitals given final warning to be evacuated or bombed

Furthermore, a Palestinian doctor said the Israeli military has given them a final notice to leave hospitals in northern Gaza before they start bombing them.

Sohaib al-Hems said staff of al-Awda Hospital in Jabalia and the General Services Hospital in Gaza City are refusing to leave.

“We will die in the hospitals. More than 27 ambulances have been targeted just now, and dozens of medical staff and patients have been killed,” Hems said. “Do not stay silent over what’s happening in Gaza. We will not forgive you.”

UN: Water runs out in Gaza

The United Nations also said more than two million people are risk in Gaza as water runs out.

It has become a matter of “life and death,” Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner-general of UNRWA, the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency, said.

According the UNRWA, no humanitarian supplies have been allowed into Gaza since last Saturday.

“Fuel needs to be delivered now into Gaza to make water available for 2 million people,” Lazzarini said.

“If not, people will start dying of severe dehydration, among them young children, the elderly and women. Water is now the last remaining lifeline. I appeal for the siege on humanitarian assistance to be lifted now,” he added.

Clean and drinking water is running out, forcing people to use dirty water from wells and increasing risks of waterborne diseases, the UNRWA noted.

Water supply has also been impacted by the total electricity blackout imposed by Israel since October 11.

October 14, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , , , , | 2 Comments

AfD NEEDLE ATTACK UPDATE

The Banana Republic of Germany has become a very absurd and extreme place

eugyppius: a plague chronicle | October 13, 2023

Last week, I posted about allegations of a needle attack on Alternative für Deutschland co-chair Tino Chrupalla. On 4 October, at a rally in Ingolstadt ahead of the Bavarian state elections this past Sunday, Chrupalla was posing for selfies with supporters when two fans hugged him. His right arm suddenly felt heavy and within minutes he was near collapse. An ambulance rushed him to hospital and he spent several days under medical observation in intensive care.

There have now been important developments in this case.

In the days after the attack, Ingolstadt prosecutors acknowledged that police were investigating, but insisted they had “no evidence … that Mr. Chrupalla was approached or attacked.” As intended, this gave the right-thinking press space to jeer that the AfD were “exaggerating shamelessly” for political gain ahead of the elections, and for the Bavarian interior minister Joachim Herrmann (CSU) to deplore “how perfidiously and deceitfully the AfD is trying to capitalise on these incidents … in the state elections.”

Amid Herrmann’s bizarre fulminations, AfD-adjacent newsweekly Junge Freiheit (JF) reported that Chrupalla’s own doctor had diagnosed an “intramuscular injection” with an unknown substance in Chrupalla’s deltoid. Police immediately summoned the doctor for interrogation, after which he mysteriously distanced himself from the diagnosis, pleading that in his assessment he had merely provided “a description of the injury based on Chrupalla’s statements and not an actual determination of an injection.” Public prosecutors again said that allegations of an attack had “no basis in witnesses statements … including the testimony of Mr. Chrupalla and his bodyguards.”

Only this Wednesday did Chrupalla feel well enough to give his first public statements on the attack. Because the police would do nothing, he said he was forced to enlist a Dresden pathologist to investigate his needle injury. The doctor took a skin sample from the injection site on his arm, confirming that an injection had occurred. Chrupalla also said that he still felt unwell and that he’d lost 3.5 kg in the days since the Ingolstadt rally, and he added an additional detail that the press had not yet reported: Immediately after the attack, federal police had noticed a blood-stain on his right shirt sleeve, corresponding to the injection site. All those official claims that police had no evidence of a needle attack were lies, in other words; they had clear indications from the first moment.

Hours after Chrupalla’s statements, Ingolstadt prosecutors suddenly reversed themselves, finally acknowledging the obvious:

… Expert opinion has confirmed that the blood stain on MdB Chrupall’s clothes is his own blood. According to our current assessments, this blood stain probably corresponds to the diagnosed puncture wound. The investigations of the Ingolstadt public prosecutor’s office continue to focus on the open question of when and how Chrupalla’s diagnosed puncture wound … occurred during the campaign rally … in Ingolstadt, and who caused it. In order to clarify these matters, we are identifying and questioning further witnesses, evaluating video recordings and seeking out expert assessments.

What happened here could not be clearer:

Chrupalla suffered a needle attack less than two weeks after a serious “security incident” against his co-chair Alice Weidel on 23 September. Worried that these possibly coordinated efforts against AfD leadership might have consequences for the elections in Hesse and Bavaria, the German press played down the Weidel incident, suggesting that she was just seeking any excuse for a holiday on Mallorca. In the case of Chrupalla, police and prosecutors collaborated towards the same ends, denying the attack until the elections were over and mounting evidence, procured by Chrupalla himself, stripped their stupid efforts of all credibility.

Aside from the Federal Republic of Germany, is there any other developed Western nation where the police, the press and the political establishment react with such obviously calculated indifference to serious assaults on leading opposition party officials? [Yes, USA for example.]

October 13, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Subjugation - Torture | , | Leave a comment

German opposition party leader was attacked, medical exam suggests

RT | October 6, 2023

A medical examination of Tino Chrupalla, the co-chair of the right-wing party Alternative for Germany (AfD), has confirmed the politician was attacked with a syringe, the party said in a statement on Friday.

Citing a letter from the Ingolstadt Clinic, the party said the politician sustained a syringe puncture on his “right upper arm.” The medical examination also indicated the politician was injected intramuscularly with a “yet unknown substance.”

“Forensic toxicology analysis is ongoing,” the party added.

The incident occurred at a campaign event in Ingolstadt on Wednesday, when the politician collapsed after taking selfies with the participants of the rally. The AfD immediately alleged Chrupalla had been assaulted during the event. The politician ended up in the intensive care unit of Ingolstadt hospital.

Shortly after the alleged attack, sources confirmed it to RT.de, claiming the party’s co-chair suffered anaphylactic shock, apparently caused by the substance from the syringe. A party spokesperson further elaborated on the matter on Thursday, stating that Chrupalla had sustained a “puncture wound” and was being tested for “substances in his body.”

That account of events, however, has been disputed by German authorities, who stated on Thursday that there was “no evidence” of an attack on Chrupalla.

“At this time, there is no evidence that Mr. Chrupalla was tackled or attacked,” the Ingolstadt public prosecutor’s office and police said in a joint statement.

Chrupalla’s personal security detail did not witness any physical assault on the politician, authorities claimed. Local media reports also said no needles or similar objects were recovered from the scene by police except for two push-pins.

October 6, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | | Leave a comment

Gitmo detainees continue to be tortured by CIA physically, mentally: Attorney

By Syed Zafar Mehdi | Press TV | October 4, 2023

Torture has always existed at Guantanamo Bay in different forms and the inmates there continue to be tortured physically and psychologically, says a US-based human rights attorney.

In an interview with the Press TV website, Alka Pradhan, who has represented Guantanamo Bay detainees as well as victims of US drone strikes, described various forms of torture prevalent at the notorious American detention facility, also known as Gitmo, in southeastern Cuba.

“In the early days, it took the form of beatings and forced nudity, starvation and force-feedings, and other terrible techniques,” said Pradhan, referring to the institutionalizing of torture at Gitmo.

“Now, decades of arbitrary detention, and lack of family visits and medical care – including botched or substandard procedures carried out by poorly qualified staff – continue to torture these men psychologically and physically.”

Pradhan, one of the leading human rights lawyers in the US, is currently Human Rights Counsel at the Guantanamo Bay Military Commissions. She was previously Counter-Terrorism Counsel at Reprieve US, where she represented several Guantanamo Bay detainees.

She also conducted advocacy and litigation on behalf of civilian victims of US drone strikes in Yemen and Pakistan and has advised the US government on compliance with international legal obligations.

Last week, Pradhan was invited to the European Parliament to speak on Gitmo human rights abuses amid growing calls from human rights advocates to shut down the notorious US detention center.

She is an attorney representing Ammar al-Baluchi, an Iranian citizen, who has suffered high-degree torture at the hands of the CIA and even denied medical care by the White House.

“Ammar, an Iranian citizen, was brutally tortured for 3.5 years at the “black sites” – the CIA’s secret prisons all over the world – before he was rendered to Guantanamo Bay in September 2006,” Pradhan told the Press TV website.

“According to CIA records, CIA personnel used him as a human experiment, bashing his head against a wall over and over again for hours, to obtain their interrogator certifications. They also tortured him using water, shackling his wrists over his head, beatings, forced nudity, and forced starvation. For most of his time at the black sites, he was sleep-deprived, first with ear-splitting music, and then with 24/7 fluorescent lights,” she hastened to add.

Ammar, the American human rights attorney, said is 46 years old today and suffers from multiple brain injuries because of CIA torture as well as severe post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), inability to sleep normally and cognitive decline, denied proper medical care by the US government.

“They will not allow medical histories to be taken that discuss the causes of his ailments (torture), the DoD (US Department of Defense) will not allow independent doctors to treat him, and according to the Chief Medical Officer, they do not have the ability to provide complex medical care or do proper surgeries here,” she said.

“Despite entreaties, the White House and DoD have absolutely refused to either implement a proper medical and torture rehabilitation program here or conduct humanitarian transfers of the remaining men to places where they can receive the care they need.”

Pradhan also spoke about the Guantanamo military commissions set up by the US government that have only exacerbated the miserable conditions of Gitmo inmates.

These military commissions, she said in a conversation with the Press TV website, were built to “benefit from CIA torture while hiding as many details of the torture program as possible.”

“The US government made a conscious decision after 9/11 to torture men abroad instead of bringing them to court for prosecution. Once they could no longer hide them in secret prisons, it was too late to prosecute them in real US courts because of that torture,” Pradhan said.

“The Military Commissions Act was written to allow the government to use torture-acquired evidence (the bulk of their evidence against these men), but also to prevent them from giving the defense the information we require about exculpatory or mitigating factors – like the men’s torture in CIA black sites,” she added.

The US-based attorney said the US government has “continuously invaded attorney-client privilege, with listening devices in our meeting rooms and the FBI attempting to place an informant on one defense team”, noting that the corruption in the military commissions “precludes any justice.”

On why the US government chose a detention facility in Cuba, away from the mainland, to detain people after the 9/11 attacks, Pradhan said the decision was taken so that the US “exercises complete control” and international and domestic laws do not apply.

“To this day, the US refuses to apply the Constitution in the military commissions, or the full provisions of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions to the remaining detainees. And the detainees themselves have no real legal remedies – they are not allowed to file lawsuits in the United States, and no country will sanction the US for its illegal treatment of these men,” she stated.

The international calls for the closure of the notorious detention facility have grown louder, but the Joe Biden administration, like previous administrations, has adopted the policy of dilly-dallying.

Pradhan said the strength of the US propaganda campaign around Guantanamo at the beginning, “labeling all of the men here the “worst of the worst” and categorizing them all as some sort of combatant against the United States, has proven impossible to reverse.”

“Despite the fact that no one should ever have been held at Guantanamo, that most were sold to the US for bounty payments, and that only a handful have ever been charged, most Americans still believe that Guantanamo detainees are all terrorists,” she told the Press TV website.

“President Obama had the ability to tell the truth about the men at Guantanamo, even when Congress stopped him from closing the facility, but he did not. The enduring misinformation about the detainees means that many countries do not want to accept them and that Congress has banned any transfers of the men to US territory.”

October 5, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Subjugation - Torture | | Leave a comment

What is ‘Firing Zone 918’ and how Israel uses it to grab more Palestinian land

By Dr Mustafa Fetouri | MEMO | October 5, 2023

Israeli firing zones are usually closed military areas exclusively reserved for military training purposes. They are scattered all over the Occupied West Bank, encompassing many small and equally scattered Palestinian villages of mostly Bedouin communities.

The idea of the creation of “firing zones” was the brainchild of Ariel Sharon when he was minister of agriculture in 1979. Despite designating them as firing zones, Sharon, essentially a military man, had another sinister purpose in mind.

In a recently declassified document (in Hebrew), Sharon told a secret meeting with the World Zionist Organisation’s Settlement Division, that he wanted such zones to “provide an opportunity for Jewish settlements in the area.” He explained his intention behind creating the zones by saying “the firing zones were created for one purpose: land reserves for settlements.” Literally, to help settlers grab more Palestinian land.

Firing zones are not the same as “closed military areas” regularly announced by the Israeli army. Closed military areas are usually temporary, limited in scope and intended for a purpose. Usually, their designation, as such, is lifted once the purpose behind the designation has been achieved. For example, when the Israeli army and security forces besiege any Palestinian city, town or village looking for resistance fighters or seeking to murder or apprehend an individual, they designate such target area as a “closed military area”. Once the purpose is achieved, the designation is lifted.

Firing zones, on the other hand, tend to be permanent or remain as such for longer. Any civilians – and there are thousands of them – living in such zones or near them become less safe and face expulsion and their dwellings are demolished. Israel usually justifies such measures by “building without permit” or because the building is standing in a “military zone”, but usually avoids using the firing zone label.

Firing Zone 918, declared in the 1980s, is a good example of this. It encompasses a sizeable piece of land in the Southern Hebron region, surrounding, particularly, the Masafer Yatta, area. Thousands of Bedouin Palestinians living in the area are facing expulsion.  Their case has been in the courts for the last 40 years. By the time it reached the Israeli occupation High Court in May 2022, the court simply threw out all residents’ petitions by upholding the long-standing expulsion of thousands of them. In explaining its ruling, the court said that those Palestinians were not living in the area before it was designated as a firing zone.  However, historical Israeli sources show that Palestinians have been there, at least, since the end of the 19th century— long before Israel itself came into existence.

Under international law, firing zones are illegal since they are on occupied land. According to the United Nations 2022 report, firing zones take up to 18 per cent of the West Bank land which is about the same total area under the control of the Palestinian Authority pursuant to the Oslo Accords (some 17.7 per cent of the West Bank area is supposed to be controlled by PA) when, in reality, the PA only enjoys limited and occasional authority over this area and it is always vulnerable to incursions by Israeli forces. On top of that, as per the Oslo Accords, some 30 per cent of area C of the West Bank has also been designated as a firing zone—area C is fully controlled by Israel and is supposed to be transferred to full PA control after the final status negotiations, which have never taken place so far. Area C is about 60 per cent of the entire Occupied West Bank.

The same UN report estimates that almost 5,000 civilian Palestinians in 38 communities are scattered within these firing zones. It says that only 20 per cent of the designated firing zones are actively used for military training purposes, while the rest are mostly inactive. Around these areas, settlers, under the protection of the Israeli army, usually erect their colonial outposts on Palestinian land and later expand them into fully-fledged settlements.

Firing zones are closed to the public and the Israeli military uses them whenever it wants without any warning, thus endangering the lives of the civilian population living within or around such areas, eventually, leading to their forced expulsion. They represent serious dangers including: displacement, damage to property, safety risks and access restrictions among others.

Last March, Cassandra Dixon, a 64-year-old peace activist from Wisconsin in the United States, joined other protestors in trying to prevent the expulsion of Tuba village residents. Tuba is one of 15 such villages that make up Masafer Yatta.

Despite her age and the fact that she was peacefully protesting, she was attacked by a settler who hit her with what she described as a “large stick” over her head, causing a fracture to her skull and bleeding in “my brain”, she said.

Because she is a US citizen, she managed to go to court with the help of the US State Department. With additional pressure from a US Senator, the Israeli authorities arrested the settler and the case went to trial.

Mrs. Dixon, in an email message to me, wrote “the court scheduled another hearing for 2 November.”  In a previous hearing, on 6 September, she said the entire proceeding was held “in Hebrew”, without interpretation. She does not understand the language. To make things even worse, the presiding judge ordered the human rights lawyer, who was accompanying her, to leave the courtroom, leaving her alone.

The attacking settler, named Dovid Weinstock, was released from jail and put under house arrest, pending the court ruling.

Mrs. Dixon told me she is determined to go back during next year’s olive harvest to help prevent the village being “seized” by Israel. In the meantime, while in Wisconsin she, along with a group of locals, are sponsoring olive trees to “replace” the ones destroyed by settlers.

Mrs. Dixon managed to reach the court because she was a US citizen. Imagine how it is for Palestinians, whom Israel does not recognise as citizens of its own or that of any other state, including Palestine, and how their suffering is simply ignored by Israel and its judiciary.

October 5, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

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.

October 5, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

Israel undercover forces kill Palestinian child after he discovers operation in Jenin

MEMO | September 21, 2023

Undercover Israeli Special Forces killed a 15-year-old Palestinian boy when he saw them sneaking into the Jenin refugee camp during an operation, making it the latest arbitrary execution of a Palestinian by Occupation forces this year.

In a report yesterday by Defence for Children Palestine (DCIP), the Palestinian sector of Geneva-based Defence for Children International (DCI), Rafat Omar Ahmad Khamayseh left his grandfather’s house in the northern West Bank’s Jenin refugee camp on Tuesday this week, when he then “saw Israeli Special Forces exiting three Palestinian licensed cars and surround the home of the father of a Palestinian man wanted for arrest.”

The report stated that “Rafat fled, yelling, ‘Special Forces! Special Forces!’ One Israeli soldier chased Rafat and shot him in the abdomen from a distance of 10 meters”.

The Occupation forces then shot at the boy again, as a Palestinian man came to his aid and “threw himself on top of Rafat and rolled him toward his house, less than five meters away. The man and his family sheltered Rafat for about an hour and a half as the Israeli military prevented ambulances from accessing Jenin refugee camp.”

The boy was reported to have been “struck with one bullet that entered his abdomen and exited from the upper right side of his chest … He bled extensively from his mouth and nose while waiting for an ambulance.” The DCIP stated that “Rafat died before an ambulance transferred him to Ibn Sina Hospital in Jenin.”

Khamayseh’s murder is the latest killing of a Palestinian – especially a minor – by Israeli forces or settlers this year, with at least 240 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and besieged Gaza Strip having reportedly been killed since the beginning of 2023, including 46 children.

The human rights group acknowledged the killing of Palestinian minors as a common practice by Occupation forces, stating in its report that “Investigations and evidence collected by DCIP regularly suggest that Israeli forces use lethal force against Palestinian children in circumstances that may amount to extrajudicial or wilful killings”.

September 22, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

The CIA’s Continued Secrecy on Chile and JFK

By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | September 8, 2023

On August 31, the Nation magazine published an article entitled “Chile: The Secrets the US Government Continues to Hide,” which details the CIA’s continued steadfast insistence on keeping its records secret that relate to the agency’s 1970-1973 efforts to bring regime change to Chile. 

The CIA’s continued secrecy, of course, brings to mind the agency’s equally steadfast insistence on keeping its JFK-assassination related records secret into perpetuity. 

The CIA, needless to say, cites the two magic words — “national security” — to justify its continued secrecy in both events. 

I suggest that two other words are the real reason for the CIA’s continued secrecy in both events: “criminal cover-up.”

After all, the JFK assassination took place 60 years ago and the Chilean coup took place 50 years ago. The notion that the release of CIA assassination-related and coup-related records would threaten “national security,” no matter what definition is used for that ridiculous, meaningless term, is laughable to the extreme.

Actually, the Chilean coup bears a relationship to the JFK assassination. That’s because the national-security establishment’s mindset toward its regime-change operation in Chile reflected its mindset toward its regime-change operation in Dallas. My hunch is that those still-secret records relating to Chile would provide further circumstantial evidence pointing toward the reasons for the operation in Dallas.

In 1970, Chilean voters delivered a plurality of vote to Salvador Allende in the presidential election. Since Allende had not received a majority of votes, the election was thrown into the hands of the Chilean congress.

U.S. officials deemed Allende a grave threat to U.S. national security, on two grounds: that he was a socialist but, more important, that he was befriending the communist world, including Cuba and the Soviet Union, something that Kennedy had done as well in his famous Peace Speech at American University a few months before he was assassinated. 

The CIA embarked on a campaign of bribing the members of the Chilean congress to vote against Allende (which, of course, is somewhat ironic given the fierce U.S. reaction to supposed Russian involvement in U.S. elections).

At the same time, the U.S. national-security establishment made plans for a Chilean military takeover. What’s interesting is that the CIA did not assassinate Allende. Instead, it convinced the Chilean national-security establishment that Allende posed a grave threat to Chilean national security and, therefore, that the Chilean national-security establishment had a moral duty to violently prevent Allende from assuming the presidency.

That’s a very important and very revealing point, one that undoubtedly comes across loud and clear in those still-secret CIA records relating to the Chile coup. The point reveals the U.S. national-security establishment’s conviction that it had the moral duty to violently remove JFK from power in order to protect America from a president whose policies, they concluded, posed a grave risk to “national security.” (See FFF’s book JFK’s War with the National Security Establishment: Why Kennedy Was Assassinated by Douglas Horne.)

Much to the chagrin of the U.S. national-security establishment, however, the commanding general of Chile’s armed forces, Gen. Rene Schneider, opposed the idea of a coup. His position was that the Chilean constitution did not permit a coup as a way to remove a democratically elected president from office. He said that Chileans would have to wait until the next election. 

Therefore, the CIA simply orchestrated a violent kidnapping of Schneider which left him dead from gunshot wounds on the streets of Santiago. Ironically, the CIA’s kidnapping and assassination of this innocent man boomeranged because the Chilean congress, faced with tremendous anger over Schneider’s murder among the Chilean citizenry, rejected the CIA’s bribes and installed Allende into power. 

Three years later, however, the U.S. national-security establishment prevailed in its efforts and helped military strongman Gen. Augusto Pinochet violently take over the reins of power. By the end of the war between the executive and national-security branches of the government, Allende was dead, just as Kennedy was ten years before.

With the full support of the Pentagon and the CIA, Pinochet’s henchmen rounded up some 60,000 innocent people and proceeded to torture and/or rape most of them. They also killed or disappeared around 3,000 of them. 

Orlando Letelier

Among those rounded up was Orlando Letelier, a highly respected man who had served in the Allende administration as ambassador to the United States, minister of foreign affairs, minister of the interior, and minister of defense. After being tortured in captivity, world pressure forced Pinochet to release him.

Letelier moved to Washington, D.C., where he joined a leftist think tank and began lobbying against the Pinochet regime. Pinochet and his national-security establishment deemed Letelier to be a grave threat to Chilean “national security.”

On September 21, 1976, Letelier was killed by a car bomb on the streets of Washington, D.C., along with his young assistant Ronni Moffitt. 

It was determined that Pinochet’s secret Gestapo-like internal police force, which was called DINA and which worked with the CIA, had orchestrated and carried out the Letelier assassination. Among those convicted of the crime was a DINA agent named Michael Townley, who was a U.S. citizen. 

As part of what was clearly a sweetheart deal, Townley pled guilty in U.S. District Court as part of a plea bargain with U.S. officials. Get this: He was sentenced to only ten years in jail for what amounted to the cold-blooded murder of two innocent people. To put that in perspective, compare it to the 22-year jail sentence that a U.S. District Judge recently meted out to a man convicted of simply participating in the January 6 protests. Townley was also given immunity from prosecution in Chile for another national-security assassination in which he had allegedly been involved. 

But that’s not all. After serving only 62 months in jail, get this: He was admitted into the federal witness protection program! That meant that the feds gave him a secret identity and let him live a normal life somewhere in the world. 

The Letelier assassination has always been blamed on Pinochet. Is it possible that the CIA, working with DINA, was also embroiled in that assassination, on grounds of “national security”? My hunch is that those records relating to Chile that the CIA steadfastly continues to keep secret would help provide an answer to that question, which, needless to say, would be a good reason for wanting them to kept secret.

September 10, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Ukraine has ‘assassination directorate’ – ex-security chief

RT | September 5, 2023

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has a dedicated assassination program responsible for taking out Russian “collaborators,” the former head of the agency, Valentin Nalivaichenko, has claimed in an interview with the Economist.

According to the former official, the special SBU division dates back to at least 2015 and was formed from the elite fifth counterintelligence directorate, after Ukraine’s leaders at the time decided that imprisoning people was not enough.

“We reluctantly came to the conclusion that we needed to eliminate people,” Nalivaichenko told the British magazine.

The Economist noted that the unit has been linked to the assassinations of Donbass commanders such as Mikhail Tolstykh, aka ‘Givi’, who was killed in a rocket attack in 2017, Arsen Pavlov, aka ‘Motorola’, who was blown up in an elevator in 2016, and Aleksandr Zakharchenko, the first head of the Donetsk People’s Republic, who was killed in a restaurant bombing in 2018.

Ukrainian intelligence insiders also reportedly told the outlet that the SBU’s fifth directorate currently plays a “central role” in operations against Russia, and that it has carried out attacks such as bombing the Crimean Bridge.

According to the Economist, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky is “understood to authorize the most controversial operations,” while other decisions are often delegated.

Since the conflict between Russia and Ukraine broke out in February last year, Kiev’s security services are believed to have been responsible for several high-profile killings of Russian journalists and public officials. These include the August 2022 car bomb assassination of Darya Dugina – the daughter of Russian philosopher Aleksandr Dugin – and the killing of military blogger Maxim Fomin (also known as Vladlen Tatarsky) in a bomb attack in St. Petersburg in April of this year.

Several of the Ukrainian insiders interviewed by the Economist admitted that they were disturbed by the targeting of “mid-level” targets. “It makes me uncomfortable,” one former SBU fifth-directorate officer said, claiming that some killings were designed to “impress the president rather than bring victory any closer.” The former spy also admitted concerns that Kiev’s assassination campaign appears to be “driven by impulse rather than logic,” the outlet said.

Moscow has repeatedly accused Ukraine of adopting terrorist tactics, and has criticized its Western backers for allegedly turning a blind eye to its activities.

September 5, 2023 Posted by | Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »