Israel Releases Abducted Lebanese Shepherd, Leaves Scars All Over His Body
Islamic Resistance of Lebanon | June 28, 2010
It seems that the Lebanese citizens remain to be subject to the “Israeli” enemy’s atrocities while the UN Interim Forces set a blind eye to all violations, and it seems that its only mission is to keep record of these “Israeli” violations.
In this context, a Lebanese shepherd was abducted on Sunday the 27th of June 2010 by “Israeli” forces, and then released 24 hours later, with scars of torture and violence covering his body.
Intiqad correspondent to South Lebanon Fatima Shoeib visited the Lebanese abducted citizen and shepherd Imad Hassan Atwi- 37 years old- in Tyr Governmental Hospital, where he received treatment for his injuries.
Released Shepherd Imad Hassan Atwi told Al Intiqad that he was grazing his sheep a hundred meters away from the Blue Line when suddenly soldiers captured him and started hitting him brutally, “I am nothing but a shepherd who has been present in this area for the past 20 years. This time I fell in the hands of “Israeli” forces and was unable to run away as “Israeli” soldiers surrounded me and hit me brutally on my head, chest and back until I passed away,” he said.
Atwi added “They threw me to the ground, sat on my chest, and hit me on my head until I passed away. They transferred me then on a stretcher off which I fell multiple times until I was put in the vehicle. I was then transported to Roweisat Al Alam point, from there again transported to the intelligence center where 9 detectives conducted investigations with me. Their accusation was that I aimed at abducting Zionist soldiers… At that point, I mocked them questioning if I was able to abduct any soldiers with a stick I use to graze the cattle…”
“When I denied the charges, they started questioning me about fellow brothers from my village Sheba’a. They even showed my photos taken by reconnaissance planes and asked me to determine the owners of the houses in the village, but again I said I knew nothing. That was when they threatened me that I will stay imprisoned for 20 years, but my answer was that I will be with my children tomorrow.” Atwi added.
Atwi, who was hospitalized for serious injuries, was handed over at the Naqura border crossing.
He was received by the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) at the Naqoura border crossing and later handed over to the specialized Lebanese forces. He was transferred to the Tyre governmental hospital for having had incurred some bruises. Enquiry into incident is still underway.
UK: Spies told to reveal instructions which ‘turned blind eye to torture’
By Abul Taher | Daily Mail | 27th June 2010
MI5 and MI6 have been ordered by a High Court judge to release secret guidelines which human rights groups claim instructed spies to turn a blind eye to the torture of British terror suspects abroad.
The guidelines will be released to six British former Guantanamo Bay detainees who are suing the Government for allegedly being complicit in their torture by the Americans.
The guidelines were issued to agents in 2002 and 2004.
‘We believe they will reveal a policy of complicity to torture, which explains all these cases over the years of MI5 agents knowing a Briton is being tortured but doing nothing about it,’ said Katherine O’Shea of Reprieve, a charity which has given legal help to former Guantanamo Bay detainees.
The release is likely to damage David Miliband, the front-runner to become Labour leader. As Foreign Secretary, he told Parliament that the Government was never complicit in the torture of Britons abroad.
In February, the High Court overruled Mr Miliband’s attempt to stop former Guantanamo detainee Binyam Mohamed, 31, seeing a CIA document which showed MI5 knew he was being tortured.
Mr Miliband argued the release would jeopardise intelligence-sharing accords between Britain and America which would damage the national interest. Mr Mohamed is a claimant in the latest case with Bisher Al Rawi, 49, Jamil El Banna, 58, Richard Belmar, 30, Omar Deghayes, 40, and Martin Mubanga, 37.
All six claim that during their detention they were questioned by British agents who not only knew they were being tortured, they also supplied further questions for interrogators.
The Foreign Office said last night that it was considering Mr Justice Silber’s ruling. A spokesman said: ‘We will look at whether their disclosure raises any national security issues that may need to be protected.’
Even if publication is blocked, advocates can still read the documents and give the six an outline of what they contain.
Israeli Occupation Authority still banning entry of 3,500 commodities into Gaza
Palestine Information Center – 28/06/2010
GAZA: MP Jamal Al-Khudari, the head of the popular committee against the siege, has said that the Israeli occupation authority (IOA) was still barring the entry of 3500 commodities into the Gaza Strip.
He said in a report published on Sunday that the IOA allowed only 10% of goods that were previously banned from entering Gaza, describing the IOA talk about easing the siege as mere propaganda and means to deceive the world and is contrary to what is happening on the ground.
The lawmaker noted that in the first week the IOA opened two commercial crossings out of four, which were all completely closed, then it opened one crossing for a couple of days while the fourth was only partially opened.
There is no real end to the siege without opening all commercial crossings on permanent basis, allowing influx of all types of goods, opening a safe passage between Gaza and the West Bank, and finally allowing a sea route between Gaza and the outside world under European supervision, Khudari elaborated.
He championed continued pressure on the IOA to achieve those goals, asking the UN Secretary General and UNRWA to continue pressuring the IOA until the siege is totally lifted.
Meanwhile, a delegation of Lebanese doctors arrived in the Gaza Strip on Sunday in a show of solidarity with the besieged people of Gaza.
The crossings and borders authority said in a statement that the 8 Lebanese doctors would remain in Gaza till next Thursday and might operate on a number of patients.
Israeli flotilla investigation panel member castrated Palestinian in blood vengeance
By Richard Silverstein | June 17, 2010
Amos Horev, the retired IDF general, former Technion president, and chief booster of the Israeli defense industry, has a rather sordid past that many might find akin to being a terrorist, Israel-style.
He is one of three panel members of the Gaza flotilla investigation and this incident, described by the inimitable Tom Segev in a 2002 Haaretz article, should shed light on the type of justice he might mete out in this inquiry:
`We castrated you, Mohammed!’
In the mid-1940s, a popular song [by Haim Hefer] among the members of the Palmach was entitled “We castrated you, we castrated you, Mohammed!” [Serasnucha ya Muhammad–the Hebrew lyrics censor the word for “castration” and substitute the meaningless Saragosa in order to permit Israeli youth groups to sing and dance to the song without having to explain the true meaning to such tender ears] That song is remembered even today. During the 60 years that have passed since that time, various theories have surfaced about the song’s origin. However, it was commonly assumed that members of the Palmach had tracked down and then castrated an Arab who had raped a Jewish woman. This was not an isolated case. In his biography of Yitzhak Sadeh, Zvika Dror writes that the commander of the Palmach even sent some of his men to a special course that was given at the Mendele clinic of the Kupat Holim Clalit health maintenance organization. “We would go there at 8:30 P.M. when the clinic was empty,” Dror quotes his source. “A physician and a nurse taught us anatomy and afterward we practiced a castration procedure.”
Now it is official: A book by Gamliel Cohen, “Undercover: The Untold Story of the Palmach’s Undercover Arab Unit,” published by the Ministry of Defense and the Galili Center for Defense Studies, reveals, with amazing precision, who the mythological “Mohammed” was, whom he raped, who authorized the rapist’s castration, who performed the castration and how precisely the “surgical operation” was carried out. Cohen eventually joined the Mossad. He describes how the Palmach’s undercover agents performed their liquidations; the same procedure is being used today in the territories.
The rapist…is identified in Cohen’s book as Araf Ahmed Shatawi, a broad-shouldered, muscular man who lived in the village of Bissan, where the town of Beit She’an is presently located. Shatawi was suspected of having attempted to rape a young woman from Kibbutz Messilot. According to Cohen, the suspicions were based on intelligence data. Shatawi was alleged to have spotted the woman as she descended from a bus and to have dragged her into the bushes. She struggled and managed to thwart the rape attempt. Since the atmosphere in the kibbutz was already highly charged and since this was not the first attempted rape, the supreme command of the Haganah decided that it would provide an effective response to the incident. At first it was proposed that Shatawi be assassinated; however, because of the fear that an assassination might set off a chain of blood vendettas, it was decided, as Cohen puts it, “to deal with him in accordance with the biblical principle that calls for the chopping off of a thief’s hand and which, in this case, would call for attacking the organ he used to perform the crime, namely, for castrating him.”
The plan was submitted to Shaul Avigur for approval. He was somewhat hesitant, in view of the cruel nature of the proposed action; however, Yehoshua Palmon, who later became the prime minister’s adviser on Arab affairs, persuaded him, and Avigur gave the plan the green light. According to Cohen, who quotes documents preserved in the IDF archives, the two individuals who carried out the castration procedure were Yohai Bin-Nun, who later became a major general and the commander-in-chief of the Israel Navy, and Amos Horev, who also later became a major general, the chief scientist of the defense establishment and the president of the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. There was a third man, named Yaakuba Cohen; however, according to the Ministry of Defense version of the incident, he did not actually participate in the castration but instead stood guard over the rapist’s family, while Bin-Nun and Horev dragged him from his home into an open field, where they castrated him. Before they set off for this mission, they were briefed by the chief physician of the communities of Tel Yosef and Ein Harod. Cohen does not name him. The book then goes on to provide a detailed surgical description of the castration, which sounds almost like a “do-it-yourself” manual. In the final analysis, according to the Ministry of Defense version, the “operation, it was pointed out, proved highly valuable because it had an immense impact on the entire Beit She’an Valley and horrified the Arab population.”
No doubt, Amos Horev feels like the Israeli bus driver who decorated his bus with a banner that read:
Flotilla 13 [the navy unit that attacked the Mavi Marmara], be ashamed. Why did you kill so few?
Yes, there are those who will say this incident happened nearly 70 years ago and times have changed and that people change. I’m not even going to argue with this proposition though I disagree with it. The fact is that Horev should not have been appointed because his past taints his participation in the present inquiry. Surely, not even a reasonable supporter of the Gaza attack can argue that Horev has the type of past that would instill confidence that he can judge the facts dispassionately.
As an aside, if Israel embraces the type of Biblical justice meted out by the Palmach to the alleged Palestinian rapist, then should we expect, in the unlikely event the Israeli commission finds Flotilla 13 guilty of criminal acts against the Mavi Marmara passengers, that Horev will advocate cutting off the trigger fingers of the shooters? Or perhaps Turkey should take that mission on itself in the event the commission absolves the team of any culpability?
And the next time any supporter of Israel’s draconian policies rants about Arab terror, let them consider for a moment the rather sordid past of some of Israel’s current elite. If those who engaged in acts of terror like Horev can play major roles in their nation’s subsequent history, there is no reason why those Israel currently labels dangerous, murderous terrorists cannot do the same in Palestine.
Kashmir killings provoke protests
Al-Jazeera | June 26, 2010
Fresh protests have rocked Indian-administered Kashmir as thousands took to the streets defying a curfew to demonstrate against the killing of two young men by security forces.
Demonstrators chanted “we want freedom” and “blood for blood” on Saturday in the town of Sopore in response to the killings a day earlier.
Police have said the two men, both in their 20s, were killed on Friday when troops opened fire on protesters after a police car was attacked with stones in Sopore, 50km north of Srinager, Kashmir’s summer capital.
Following the deaths, police imposed a curfew after thousands poured into the streets and torched a security vehicle and attacked a police station.
Renewed clashes erupted on Saturday when police fired teargas and used batons in an attempt to disperse demonstrators.
Resignation demanded
Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, a leading separatist figure and head of the region’s main mosque, has demanded the resignation of the state’s chief minister over the killings.
Omar Abdullah, the chief minister, “should resign because he has failed to protect the lives of Kashmiris”, Farooq said.
“Abdullah’s government is allowing India to oppress Kashmir,” he said.
Friday’s killings are the latest crisis to hit the government of Abdullah, who became chief minister of the volatile state 18 months ago.
Indian security forces have also been accused of killing three other civilians in the last two weeks.
In a statement released on Saturday, Abdullah said that “all forces deployed in the state have to exercise utmost restraint while dealing with civilians”.
Farooq has called for the withdrawal of Indian army and paramilitary forces from civilian areas, arguing that “their presence fuels resentment”.
India and Pakistan each rule a part of Kashmir but lay claim to the entire Himalayan territory.
IOF soldiers abduct daughter of businessman, serve demolition notice
Palestine Information Center – 26/06/2010
File Photo – IOF Home Invasion
TULKAREM — Israeli occupation forces (IOF) have stormed the home of Palestinian businessman Ali Al-Dadu in Tulkarem city and kidnapped his daughter Yasmin after confiscating a number of personal computers in the house.
Local sources said that the IOF troops broke into the house before dawn Friday and thoroughly searched it, wreaking havoc in the process.
The IOF soldiers had detained Dia, Yasmin’s brother, a couple of days ago at the Karame crossing on returning from Jordan into the West Bank.
Dadu’s shop was burnt at the hands of Fatah elements after Hamas took over control of the Gaza Strip more than three years ago and his losses were estimated at millions of dollars. The businessman and his sons were repeatedly detained by Fatah militias and the IOF soldiers since then.
Hebrew press had reported that the IOF soldiers rounded up six Palestinians on Friday in northern and southern areas of the West Bank including two brothers in Qabatia, Jenin district.
Meanwhile, IOF troops delivered a demolition notice to a citizen in the northern Jordan Valley on Friday following a series of similar demolition notifications in the area.
Local sources told the PIC that the IOF soldiers handed Ahmed Nawaja’a a written order not to live or be present in the area of his residence and asked him to evacuate his home within 24 hours.
Israel seizes oxygen machines donated to PA
Haaretz | June 26, 2010
Israel confiscated seven oxygen machines en route to hospitals in the West Bank and Gaza based on the claim that there was a chance the generators attached to the machines would not be used for medical purposes, Palestinian news agency Ma’an reported Saturday.
According to Ma’an, the Ramallah-based health ministry said that the generators, which were donated to the Palestinian Authority by a Norwegian development agency, were seized by Israeli officials despite the fact that only one machine was bound for Gaza.
The generators “came under the category of possible use for non-medical purposes” if they were delivered to southern Gaza, the Palestinian health ministry said in a statement, adding that the six other machines were bound for government hospitals in the northern Gaza, inducing the European Hospital in Gaza City, the Rafdieyah hospital in Nablus, and other facilities in Ramallah and Hebron.
The Ministry of Health appealed to the Norwegian Development Agency, which supplied the machines, and asked that they intervene and demand the release of the equipment at the soonest possible date, Ma’an reported.
“Any delay in obtaining the medical equipment will negatively affect the health of patients,” the statement concluded.
2 bodies pulled from bombed Gaza tunnel
Ma’an – 26/06/2010
Gaza: Medics pulled two bodies from a Rafah-area tunnel following overnight airstrikes launched by Israeli fighter jets Friday.
Officials said the young men were inside the tunnels during the strike and were crushed by falling rock and sand.
One was identified by medics as Amer Abu Hadid, 23, while the second remains unnamed. A third was said to have been injured. All three were taken to the Abu Yousef An-Najjar Hospital in Rafah.
No injuries were reported on the strikes in northern Gaza, but severe damage to buildings was recorded.
The deaths mark the first resulting from Israeli fire since commandos boarded an aid ship in international waters and commandeered the vessels, killing eight Turkish nationals and one dual Turkish-US citizen.
Obama forgot vow of closing Gitmo?
Press TV – June 26, 2010
US President Barack Obama has sidelined efforts to close the Guantanamo prison, making it unlikely that he will fulfill his promise to close it before his term ends in 2013, US senators say.
The White House acknowledged last year that Obama will miss his initial January 2010 deadline for shutting the prison and to eventually move the detainees to one in Illinois.
“There is a lot of inertia” against closing the prison, “and the administration is not putting a lot of energy behind their position that I can see,” said Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and supports the Illinois plan.
He added that “the odds are that it will still be open” by the next presidential inauguration.
And Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who supports the plan to close the plan, said the effort is “on life support and it’s unlikely to close any time soon.”
He says some fellow Republicans’ “demagoguery” and the administration’s poor planning and decision-making “paralysis,” have stymied the plan, The New York Times reported.
Some senior officials say privately that the administration has done its part, including identifying the Illinois prison, and blame Congress for failing to execute that endgame.
But Levin says the US administration is unwilling to make a serious effort to exert its influence.
Last year, for example, the administration stood aside as lawmakers restricted the transfer of detainees into the United States except for prosecution. And its response was silence several weeks ago, Levin said, as the House and Senate Armed Services Committees voted to block money for renovating the Illinois prison to accommodate detainees, and to restrict transfers from Guantanamo to other countries — including, in the Senate version, a bar on Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Somalia. About 130 of the 181 detainees are from those countries.
“They are not really putting their shoulder to the wheel on this issue,” Levin said of White House officials.
A recent Pentagon study, obtained by The New York Times, shows US taxpayers spent more than $2 billion between 2002 and 2009 on the prison.
The US Administration officials believe taxpayers would save about $180 million a year in operating costs if Guantanamo detainees were held at Thomson, which they hope Congress will allow the Justice Department to buy from the State of Illinois at least for federal inmates.
Police Violence Shocks Activists, Others at Port of Oakland Protest
By Dana Hull |San Jose Mercury News | April 7, 2003
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An anti-war demonstration at the Port of Oakland turned violent this morning when Oakland Police opened fire with wooden dowels, “sting balls,” concussion grenades, tear gas and other non-lethal weapons when protesters at the gates of two shipping lines refused an order to disperse. Scores of protesters ran from a line of police or tried to hide behind nearby big rigs. At least a dozen demonstrators and nine longshoremen who were standing nearby were injured. “Our guys were standing in one area waiting to go to work, and then the police started firing on the longshoremen,” said Henry Graham, the president of ILWU Local 10. “Some were hit in the chest with rubber bullets, and seven of our guys went to the hospital. I don’t want to imply that the police deliberately did this, but it doesn’t make sense.” There have been so many anti-war demonstrations in the Bay Area in recent months that they have almost become routine, and most have been peaceful. Monday’s events mark the first time that local police have used projectiles to disperse crowds, and many demonstrators said they were stunned that the projectiles were fired at such close range. “I was just marching in a big circle and the police lowered their guns at us,” said Scott Fleming, 29, who took off his shirt to reveal four large red and swollen welts on his back. “I turned to run and I started getting hit with wooden bullets. They just kept shooting at us, and I kept running. I’m a lawyer, and I’m seriously considering filing charges.” The early morning mayhem came as a shock to veteran activists and Oakland leaders alike. Oakland was one of the first cities in the region to pass a resolution condeming the U.S.-led war with Iraq, and the City Council has a progressive reputation. Some well known public officials even turned out to participate in the early morning protest. “I got hit a few times with rubber bullets,” said Dan Siegel, an attorney and member of the Oakland School Board. Siegel pulled a sting ball out of the pocket of his business suit and said he was outraged that the police fired on a peaceful protest. “The police totally overreacted. It’s over the top. They were reckless, and I also saw an officer on a motorcycle run over a woman’s foot.” The port protest was one of several anti-war demonstrations held Monday in the Bay Area. Several people were arrested at the Concord Naval Weapons Station, and seven were arrested after they temporarily blocked an off-ramp from Interstate 280 in San Francisco. Other demonstrators walked in a circle in front of the federal building in San Francisco, drumming wooden spoons together as federal employees arrived for work. The action at the Port was the largest. Hundreds of demonstrators met near dawn Monday at the terminals of Neptune Orient Lines Ltd.’s APL unit and Stevedoring Services of America, shipping companies that activists say are profiting from the war. In late March, Stevedoring Services of America won a $4.8 million contract from the U.S. government to manage the Iraqi port Umm Qasr and ensure that urgent food assistance and materials flow smoothly through the seaport. Critics are screaming foul over the process, which excluded any foreign companies from bidding on the lucrative contracts. The demonstrations at the port were planned with the quiet support of the ILWU, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union. Many rank-and-file members of ILWU Local 10 oppose the war with Iraq, and the local has its own Anti-War Action Committee. Police fired into the crowd after some protesters failed to clear the street in front of the terminals. “At that point, we fired non-lethal munitions,” said Danielle Ashford, an officer with the Oakland Police Department. “There were a few agitators in the crowd. The majority of them were peaceful.” But others said they never saw any evidence of “agitators” and urged any witnesses to come to Tuesday’s City Council meeting. “I was there from 5 a.m. on, and the only violence that I saw was from the police,” said Joel Tena, the constituent liason for Vice Mayor Nancy Nadel. “What happened today was very surprising. It seemed the police were operating under the assumption that they were not going to let any kind of protest happen.”
Copyright 2003 San Jose Mercury News |
Flotilla Check: Facts and Israeli Lies
By Haitham Sabbah on June 18, 2010
Flouting international demands for an independent investigation of its deadly attack on a humanitarian aid flotilla in international waters, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has formed an internal commission composed of three Israelis and two, non-voting international observers. The commission chair, retired Israeli Supreme Court justice Jacob Turkel, expressed his hope that the panel would finish its work as “quickly” as possible. And Netanyahu has promised that the “Gaza flotilla probe will show the world Israel acted lawfully.” Both comments leave many observers wondering how seriously the findings of a quick, internal investigation with a seemingly pre-determined outcome can be taken. Skepticism is heightened by the way in which Israel handled evidence of the incident and by what many see as its misinformation campaign designed to discredit the flotilla’s humanitarian aid workers.
How did Israel handle evidence of its deadly raid in international waters?
According to Australian journalist and flotilla passenger Paul McGeough, “The systematic attempt and very deliberate first priority for the Israeli soldiers as they came on the ships was to shut down the story, to confiscate all cameras, to shut down satellites, to smash the CCTV cameras that were on the Mavi Marmara, to make sure that nothing was going out. They were hellbent on controlling the story.”
After seizing all recordings of the event, Israeli authorities then began releasing highly-edited footage, including footage stolen from journalists and others on board the ships. The Committee to Protect Journalists denounced Israel’s use of stolen footage. And the Foreign Press Association in Israel, representing hundreds of foreign correspondents, called the use a “clear violation of journalistic ethics and unacceptable” and warned news outlets to “treat the material with appropriate caution.”
Israel claims its heavily-armed Navy commandos were “lynched” by the flotilla passengers and acted in self-defense. Do the facts support this claim?
CLAIM #1: The violence onboard the Mavi Marmara resulted from the surprising resistance the Israeli commandos encountered when they boarded the ship. According to an Israeli military spokesman, “We had in mind a sit-down, a linking of arms.”
IN FACT:
- Testimony from passengers confirms that Israeli commandoes began firing before boarding the ship. According to Al-Jazeera correspondent and Mavi Marmara passenger Jamal El Shayyal, “Commandos on board the choppers joined the firing, using live ammunition, before any of the soldiers had descended onto the ship. Two unarmed civilians were killed just meters away from me. Dozens of unarmed civilians were injured right before my eyes”
- An Israeli soldier’s testimony shows that “the commandos threw a number of stun grenades and fired warning shots before rappelling down onto the deck.”
- Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren acknowledged that Israel considered the Mavi Marmara to be “simply too large to stop by nonviolent means.”
- And Israel’s Maariv newspaper documented the significant planning that went into the raid, including the approval of the use of force by senior government officials well ahead of the incident.
CLAIM #2: “when IDF forces tried to quietly carry out their mission to stop the flotilla, they unfortunately met violence, including from firearms on deck of the ship that were used against IDF soldiers.” Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon
IN FACT: The IDF could provide no evidence of this claim. The boats and passengers were thoroughly searched before setting sail and were only cleared to sail because they were found to be free of weapons. IDF sources then changed their story claiming that firearms may have been thrown overboard. Mavi Marmara passengers confirm that firearms were in fact thrown overboard – firearms which passengers confiscated from the Israeli commandos in self defense. According to Swedish Mavi Marmara passenger and professor of religion Mattias Gardell, “An Uzi and a pistol were seized, emptied of ammunition and were thrown into the sea. We would by all means show that there was a peaceful campaign and that we did not have weapons….Then came the paratroopers in four helicopters and they shot sharply already from the time they were in the air.”
CLAIM #3: When Israeli soldiers boarded the ship “they were going to be killed and they had to act in self-defense” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
IN FACT:
- As a result of the IDF’s violence, which began prior to boarding the ship, nine passengers on the Mavi Marmara were killed, having been shot a total of 30 times. Five of the nine were shot in the head, some at close range, some from the back, and one, a 19 year old American citizen named Furkan Dogan, was shot in what can only be seen as execution-style: once in the chest and four times in the head from a range of less than 45 centimeters.
- Photographs from the incident show that, once they were disarmed, IDF soldiers had their wounds treated and were given water by passengers, further disproving the claim that they were intent on killing Israelis.
- The testimony of filmmaker Iara Lee who was onboard the Mavi Marmara shows that passengers called for medical help for the injured, “but [they] were ignored, and a lot of people who were injured actually ended up bleeding to death and died.” Her testimony is supported by other eyewitness accounts.
What other claims did Israel make that were then retracted or proven false?
“GO BACK TO AUSCHWITZ”
The Israeli military released what it claimed were audio transmissions of flotilla passengers responding to radio calls from the IDF by telling the soldiers to “go back to Auschwitz” and to quot;remember 9/11.”
IN FACT:
- Investigative journalists uncovered the fact that IDF had previously released what appeared to be identical video of the exchange between this Israeli sailor and the Mavi Marmara in which the only reply from the ship was “Negative, negative. Our destination is Gaza. Our destination is Gaza.”
- One of the individuals whose voice appears on the IDF’s tape, Huwaida Arraf, confirmed that she was not even on the Mavi Marmara, but on another ship altogether.
- The IDF then admitted that the audio transmission was edited and released what it claims was the full, unedited transmission. Though as New York Times reporter Robert Mackey points out, “since they are snippets of audio over a black screen, it is impossible to verify their authenticity.”
IHH LINKS TO TERROR
Israel claims that groups participating in the flotilla, particularly the Turkish aid group , Insani Yardim Vakfi (IHH) “are non-governmental organizations that support terror and are affiliated with terror” and that the flotilla’s organizers “have close, longstanding ties with agents of international terror, international Islam, Hamas, Al-Qaeda and others.”
IN FACT:
- The Israeli government failed to provide evidence of individual claims of terrorist affiliations or intentions.
- The Israeli government edited its own websites to remove Al-Qaeda assertions after it could not substantiate claims that flotilla passengers had connections to Al-Qaeda.
- The Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, a think tank with ties to Israel’s Defense Ministry, concluded that there is “no known evidence of current links between IHH and ‘global jihad elements.”
- Not only does the IHH not appear on the US State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, the group played an active role in delivering humanitarian aid to Haiti after the devastating January earthquake while the US military directed relief efforts there.
What about Israel’s claims regarding the humanitarian situation in Gaza?
Israel claims that it told the flotilla that if they docked in Ashdod, the Israeli government would “transfer their aid through the existing land crossings, in accordance with established procedures.”
Did the flotilla passengers have reason to doubt that Israel would in fact let the humanitarian aid enter Gaza?
Yes. According to a guide produced by the BBC, for much of the last three years, Gaza’s “1.5 million people have relied on less than a quarter of the volume of imported supplies they received in December 2005.” This falls far short of the minimum required to avoid malnutrition, poverty, and prevent or treat a variety of illnesses. According to Amnesty International’s recently-released annual report, the siege has resulted in “mass unemployment, extreme poverty, food insecurity and food price rises caused by shortages.”
Israel claims that “there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza“
Consider the following statistics:
- 61 percent of households face food insecurity, defined as inadequate physical, social or economic access to food, and rely on assistance from aid agencies. An additional 16.2 percent are considered vulnerable to food insecurity.
- 65 percent of the food insecure are children under the age of 18.
- Unemployment is at 40 percent.
- 10 percent of children under five are stunted (low height for age, usually attributed to a chronic lack of protein and micronutrients, including iron and essential vitamins), a steadily increasing trend over recent years, according to UNICEF.
- More than 10 percent of children are chronically malnourished, according to the World Health Organization, a significant increase since siege began.
- The number of children under five suffering from acute malnutrition nearly doubled between 2006 and 2008 from 1.4 to 2.4 percent, according to UNICEF.
- 65 percent of children aged 9-12 months, and 35 percent of pregnant women are anemic.
- According to a recent poverty survey conducted by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, the number of Palestinian refugees completely unable to secure access to food and lacking the means to purchase even the most basic items, such as soap, school stationery and safe drinking water (‘abject poverty’) has tripled since the imposition of the blockade in June 2007.
Israel claims that its blockade of Gaza is in response to rockets fired into Israel.
- As documented by the Israeli human rights organization Gisha, “Beginning in September 2007, Israel openly stated that it would restrict the movement of goods into and out of Gaza not in order to protect against security threats stemming from the transfer, but rather as part of a policy to apply “pressure” or “sanctions” on the Hamas regime.” This amounts to collective punishment of Gaza’s civilians, and as such is a violation of international humanitarian law (Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949). Further, as an occupying power, Israel is required under Articles 55, 59 and 60 of the Fourth Geneva Convention to ensure free, unimpeded passage of humanitarian relief and is prohibited from impeding the full realization of the occupied people’s human rights. Israel’s blockade impedes Gazans’ rights to food, to an adequate standard of living, to work, and to the highest attainable standard of health.
- Further, according to Amnesty International, Hamas upheld its end of the 2008 cease-fire and halted rockets, yet Israel did not respond by lowering the blockade on Gaza. The cease-fire had been “the single most important factor in reducing civilian casualties and attacks on civilians to the lowest level since the outbreak of the uprising (intifada) more than eight years ago. The ceasefire [had] brought enormous improvements in the quality of life in Sderot… However, nearby in the Gaza Strip the Israeli blockade remains in place and the population has so far seen few dividends from the ceasefire.”
- The cease-fire was unilaterally broken by Israel on November 4th, 2008 and led to an escalation of hostility and the eventual Operation Cast Lead.
- Those “22 days of death and destruction” resulted in the deaths of roughly 1,400 Palestinians, destroyed Gaza’s infrastructure, schools, and hospitals, and left its citizens in even greater humanitarian crisis than before.
- The items blockaded by the Israeli government at various times include “light bulbs, candles, matches, books, musical instruments, crayons, clothing, shoes, mattresses, sheets, blankets, pasta, tea, coffee, chocolate, nuts, shampoo and conditioner.” These items have no connection to Hamas rocket capacity and serve only to punish Gaza’s civilian population , half of which is comprised of children.
***
For more information on the legal issues surrounding Israel’s blockade of Gaza and attack on the flotilla: Israel’s Siege of Gaza and Attacks on the Humanitarian Aid Flotilla – Legal Background
For more information on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza: The Facts Behind Israel’s “Gourmet Gaza” Claims
Source: IMEU
The Red Cross and Israeli MPs prevented from knowing location of secret prison
Middle East Monitor | 18 June 2010
It now seems clear that the Red Cross and, indeed, members of Israel’s parliament, are being stopped by Israeli intelligence services from finding out the location of what has been called a “secret prison”. The MP for the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality, Dr. Dov Hanin, has filed an enquiry to the Israeli Internal Security Minister, Yitzhak Aheronovic, regarding an unidentified prisoner at Ayalon Prison, Department 15. The prisoner, whose details were referred to on the Ynet website, and then quickly removed, has been held in total isolation and prevented from having visits or giving any information about himself to the officers who guard him. Nobody claims any knowledge of the reasons for the said prisoner to be in this situation.
Dr. Hanin wondered, in his enquiry to the minister, about the identity of the prisoner and the reason for the total information blackout and his complete isolation from the outside world. He also asked about the lack of access to rights which are guaranteed for any prisoner under Israeli law, including whether this prisoner’s family has been informed of his whereabouts. The MP refused to accept the concept of the state holding a prisoner of unknown identity.
The enquiries being made about this particular prisoner are reminiscent of recent calls in the media for a disclosure of information about “secret” prisons in Israel the existence of which has long been denied by the government, which has also sought to hide them from international observers such as the Red Cross. The calls for more transparency were made following the publication of a report by the UN Committee against Torture.
Yediot Aharonot newspaper published what looked like a prisoner identification card for “1391 secret prison”, which was a base used as an investigation office at military unit 504 associated with the Intelligence Department of the Israeli army. The task of the unit is to recruit and investigate terrorists and soldiers of hostile armies captured by the Israel Defence Forces. According to Yediot Aharonot, the secret prison was set up in an investigation section in Unit 504 in Gdera city in the south of the country. For many years, the department was a centre for investigating the perpetrators of the famous coast operation and the Palestinians who tried to blow up an El Al aircraft at Nairobi airport. In the 1980s, the secret prison was transferred to a building built for this purpose near another base for high-security intelligence operations. The newspaper said that the prison has rooms deep underground and soldiers from the military police provide all the logistics services at this facility, such as the transfer of detainees to and from the prison and from their cells to the interrogation rooms.
The most prominent case linked to this secret prison, according to the report, was the interrogation of the Lebanese former prisoner, Mustafa Dirani. Mr. Dirani was tortured severely during the interrogation, when he was beaten, forced to walk wearing an adult “nappy” and forced to swallow triangular objects; he was also anally raped. The army was forced to investigate this case as a result of which the chief investigator, a man known as George, was dismissed.
According to the newspaper report, the secret facility has another function, which is training Israeli soldiers who wish to join some specialist military units, such as CERT Mtkal, and Cedlag Haitt 13, which carried out the attack on the Freedom Flotilla. They undergo interrogation as part of their training in case they are ever captured during an operation. The officers of unit 504 expose the soldiers to serious torture to the extent that medical personnel and psychologists have joined the process to monitor such methods to ensure that no serious harm is done to the trainees.
A human rights organization known as the Centre for Defence of the Rights of Individuals has submitted a petition to the Israeli Supreme Court against those responsible for perpetrating torture at the secret prison, and has asked for checks to be made to see if the Israeli authorities have in detention in unit 504 those Palestinians who have simply disappeared since their capture by the Israel army. The Prosecutor General Representative has refused to consider the petition, claiming that the detention unit is in a secret military base and therefore cannot be investigated or revealed. In this way, the prosecutor sought to prevent the issue of a warrant for the disclosure of the detention centre thus opening its doors to legislators who want to visit and find out what is happening inside.
The government claims that the prison has been closed but the petitioners say it cannot verify this claim because of the ban on visits. The petitioners say that detainees in the secret prison know nothing about their location of what happens outside. When they ask the guards where they are, they are told, “on the moon” or “in a spacecraft”.
The Director of the Centre which has submitted the petition, Dalia Christine, said the prison is a blatant violation of international law. The petition included sworn testimonies by former Palestinian prisoners who believe that they were detained in this prison; the rooms, they claim, had no windows, the walls were painted black and the “toilet” was a bucket placed in the corner. The ex-prisoners also claim that they did not see anyone for the length of their detention apart from the investigators and military judges. They talked about the torture they suffered in the prison, including sleep deprivation, shackling in uncomfortable positions and beating.
Following a discussion in camera at the Supreme Court, the judges rejected the petition.
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Villains of Judea
Samuel Zemurray
The ruthless businessman who financed coups in Central America and shaped Israeli statehood
José Niño Unfiltered | May 7, 2026
Leftist commentators consistently push a shallow and economically reductive narrative that frames American foreign policy as the sole domain of greedy White capitalists while choosing to ignore the obvious Jewish power structure directing these events. When the veneer of this supposed corporate imperialism is stripped away, it becomes clear that the United States has often served as a vehicle for the specific goals of organized Jewry. The life of Samuel Zemurray stands as prime evidence of this hidden mechanism.
Few figures in American business history wielded power as ruthlessly or as secretly as Zemurray. Born Schmiel Zmurri on January 18, 1877, to a poor Jewish family in Imperial Russia, this teenage immigrant would rise from peddling rotting bananas off railroad cars in Alabama to become the controlling force behind the United Fruit Company, the most powerful agricultural corporation on earth. Along the way he overthrew governments, bribed presidents, hired mercenaries, and played a pivotal behind-the-scenes role in the creation of the State of Israel. … continue
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