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Medical Coder during COVID-19

CHD – April 15, 2024

“I didn’t know it was possible for a human to die so horrifically, so quickly, before they rolled out the mRNA injections… [For] days, patients would be seizing, and no medications would stop it, and eventually they… kinda had to be put down.”

DR. WILLIAM MAKIS MD – APRIL 27, 2024:

A hospital medical coder who goes only by “Zoe” for this interview describes for Children’s Health Defense (ChildrensHD) the horrors she witnessed following the rollout of the COVID injections. Among the unthinkable, and deadly, illnesses were things like encephalitis, gangrene of the spine, blood clots, strokes, and multiple system organ failure.

“I didn’t know it was possible for a human to die so horrifically, so quickly, before they rolled out the mRNA injections… It was insane, I’ve never seen anything like that. The worst of them, they called it sepsis, but it was like instant multi-organ failure. Like, within hours patients would die of liver, lung, kidney… failure [all at once]…” Zoe tells CHD. She adds that “Some of the records… [from the] emergency crew that found them [the injection victims], it’s like their body tried to reject everything and [in] some of these cases their family would be there 30 minutes before, and then within an hour they’re dead.”

Zoe notes that “there were patients coming in with seizures like I’d never seen before,” and that hospital staff “couldn’t control some of them.” The coder adds, “[For] days, patients would be seizing, and no medications would stop it, and eventually they… kinda had to be put down.”

“They called it encephalitis, or encephalopathy, and then later on, even the coding organization… [called it] COVID-19-associated encephalitis,” Zoe says.

“[T]he clots were insane,” the coder notes. “Never seen clots like that before—even the interventional radiologists that were going in with…scopes where they can do heart interventions and do stents [a stent is a tube usually constructed of a metallic alloy or a polymer] in carotid artery (if you have a stroke going to your brain), normally it’s rare to have more than one stent go in, and they were documenting… multiple locations all at once. They had heart attack cases that were like that where they needed massive amounts of stents that they never needed before.”

Zoe goes on to say that “There were people that were hiking in their 20s that were totally healthy, that had been running marathons, that suddenly needed a leg amputated because they had a massive blood clot going from their hip all the way down to their leg, and it couldn’t be saved.”

“There were some cases of overnight spinal gangrene, which I’d never seen before,” the coder adds. “And, you know, you can’t amputate the spine when it goes gangrenous. Normally they cut out tissue that’s dying like that so it prevents further infection and they didn’t know what to do. The only thing they could do was… basically replace that part of [their] spine with an implant, that’s the best they could do… It was really intense.”

As for doctors’ responses to these horrors, Zoe says, “[they] were baffled, they weren’t connecting the dots.” However, she adds that “Knowing what the potential symptoms of a vaccine injury could be, we 100% had all the things I just described.” Despite that knowledge, “doctors would never tell [patients] that. They would just say, ‘It’s a stroke. It’s a heart attack. It’s a blood clot.’ And then they would never connect the two.”

April 30, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

US military’s pier in Gaza to cost $320m

MEMO | April 29, 2024

The US military’s cost estimate to build a pier off Gaza to deliver humanitarian aid has risen to $320 million, a US defence official and a source familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The figure illustrates the massive scale of a construction effort that the Pentagon has said involves about 1,000 US service members, mostly from the Army and Navy.

Still, the cost has roughly doubled from initial estimates earlier this year, according to a person familiar with the matter.

“The cost has not just risen. It has exploded,” Senator Roger Wicker, the top Republican on the Democratic-led Senate Armed Services Committee, told Reuters.

“This dangerous effort with marginal benefit will now cost the American taxpayers at least $320 million to operate the pier for only 90 days.”

Democratic President Joe Biden announced the pier in March as aid officials implored Israel to ease access for relief supplies into Gaza over land routes. Biden opted for a sea route for the delivery of aid rather than press Israel to open land borders with Gaza and allow aid into the Strip which is experiencing a “man-made famine”.

Wicker and some other lawmakers have questioned whether the pier is a worthwhile endeavour, particularly given the risk that US military personnel could face if they were targeted during the war.

“For every day this mission continues, the price tag goes up and so does the level of risk for the 1,000 deployed troops within range of Hamas’ rockets,” Wicker said.

Biden has ordered US forces to not step foot on the Gaza shore.

The pier will initially handle 90 trucks a day, but that number could go up to 150 trucks daily when it is fully operational. The United Nations said last week that the daily average number of trucks entering Gaza during April was 200. They have also repeatedly warned that there can be no alternative to a land route for the delivery of aid, adding that though aid being delivered by sea may help Palestinians in Gaza, the amount arriving will be insufficient to stop the spread of famine.

A senior Biden administration official said last week that humanitarian aid coming off the pier will need to pass through Israeli checkpoints on land.

That is despite the aid having already been inspected by Israel in Cyprus before being shipped to Gaza.

The prospect of checkpoints raises questions about possible delays even after aid reaches shore. The United Nations has long complained of obstacles to getting aid in and distributing it throughout Gaza.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the Internatinal Court of Justice (ICJ), which in an interim ruling in January, called on the occupation state to ensure no genocidal acts are carried out by its officials or army and to allow for the unhindered delivery of aid to civilians in Gaza.

Palestinians fear the US pier will be used to forcibly displaced civilians from Gaza or to commandeer the occupied territory’s offshore natural resources.

April 29, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Malala slammed for collaboration with Clinton, cheerleader of Gaza genocide

By Humaira Ahad | Press TV | April 29, 2024

Dressed in traditional Shalwar Kameez, with her hair loosely covered, the youngest Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai recently shared the stage with former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the release of a musical about women’s suffrage in the US.

Born in the Swat district of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Malala rose to international fame after she was shot in the head by masked militants while she boarded her school bus in October 2012.

She then left her home country and settled in the UK, where she has been living in Birmingham.

Malala is known for lending her voice to campaigns related to children and education. However, her silence over the killing of children in Gaza and the bombing of schools has enraged her followers.

Her decision to collaborate with Clinton, the self-proclaimed votary of the Israeli regime whose country and party have been deeply complicit in the genocide unfolding in Gaza, came under fire.

The duo made their Broadway production debut this month with the “Suffs”, a Broadway musical about the early 20th-century suffragette movement in the US, which sparked outrage as people accused Malala of blatant double standards.

Many questioned her silence over the killing of more than 34,400 Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip, including more than 15,000 children, while sharing the stage with cheerleaders of the genocide.

Branded as a ‘sell-out’ on social media, netizens described Malala as a factotum for partnering with the former US Secretary of State on the music project.

Importantly, the United States has been supplying lethal weapons worth billions of dollars to the Israeli regime, which are used to slaughter Palestinians in Gaza.

President Joe Biden, who, like Malala, is a member of the Democratic Party, has gone out of his way to defend the Benjamin Netanyahu regime’s genocidal onslaught on Gaza, including the murder of civilians and the bombing of hospitals and schools.

After coming under blistering fire for sharing the stage with the former US presidential candidate while maintaining silence over the Israeli-American war on Gaza, Malala swung into damage control mode.

The 26-year-old took to social media to condemn Israel’s aggression on Palestine.

“I wanted to speak today because I want there to be no confusion about my support for the people of Gaza. We have all watched the relentless atrocities against Palestinian people for more than six months now with anger and despair. This week’s news of mass graves discovered at Gaza’s Nasser and al-Shifa hospitals is yet another reminder of the horrors Palestinians are facing,” she wrote on X.

“It is hard enough to watch from afar – l don’t know how Palestinians bear it in their bones. We do not need to see more dead bodies, bombed schools and starving children to understand that a ceasefire is urgent and necessary. I have and will continue to condemn the Israeli government for its violations of international law and war crimes, and I applaud efforts by those determined to hold them to account. Publicly and privately, I will keep calling on world leaders to push for a ceasefire and to ensure the delivery of urgent humanitarian aid,” she added.

The statement, according to critics, was an attempt to appease her legions of supporters scattered across the world who have in recent days and weeks been critical of her silence over Gaza.

Malala’s public appearance with Clinton only added fuel to the already raging fire of anger and outrage as people around the world, including her supporters, lashed out at her.

Clinton, who is co-producing the musical with the Pakistan-born education activist, has been quite outspoken about her support for the occupying regime in Tel Aviv.

Last November, she wrote an op-ed for The Atlantic arguing against a complete ceasefire in Gaza. She said that a ceasefire would “perpetuate the cycle of violence” in the war-torn region.

“A full cease-fire that leaves Hamas in power would be a mistake,” she wrote at the time.

The former first lady of the US also labeled criticism against the Zionist regime as “antisemitic”

In a 2005 speech to “The American Israel Public Affairs Committee” (AIPAC), Clinton defended Israel’s move to build a barrier wall inside the occupied West Bank.

The move was deemed illegal even by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in 2004. The ICJ had said that Israel should dismantle the wall and should pay reparation to those individuals who had suffered as a consequence of the construction of the wall.

In 2006, when the regime was bombing Lebanon and Gaza, Clinton praised the bombardment at a pro-Israel rally in New York.

During her presidential campaign in 2008, Clinton’s staunch support for Israel was clearly evident.

In a letter in July 2015, she vowed to combat the Boycott, Sanctions, and Divestment (BDS) movement, urging the need to “make countering BDS a priority” and“fight back against further attempts to isolate and delegitimize Israel.”

“I am very concerned by attempts to compare Israel to South African apartheid. Israel is a vibrant democracy in a region dominated by autocracy, and it faces existential threats to its survival,” she wrote in that letter.

In August 2015, Clinton again bragged about her staunch support for the illegitimate regime in an op-ed published in a Jewish newspaper. I “stood with Israel my entire career,” she said.

Besides her unwavering support for Israel, the top diplomat in the Obama administration oversaw a campaign of deadly American drone strikes targeting tribal areas in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

These drone strikes killed hundreds of civilians in Malala’s home region of Swat, propelling online criticism against the youngest Nobel Laureate’s partnership with Clinton.

Since its inception, the Nobel Prize has been a farce as the award was born out of a blunder.

A French daily in 1888 carried a story of Alfred Nobel’s death, after whom the award is named.

The newspaper wrote, “Dr Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday.” Petrified by the thought that he would be remembered as a “death trader”, Nobel set up the foundation for the Nobel Prize, an activity to rebrand himself.

On his TV show ‘Have it Out With Galloway’, George Galloway, a British parliamentarian while responding to a panelist on whether Iran or Houthis should get Nobel Peace Prize this year, said: “Neither will get the prize as you have to be a warmonger for the empire to get that prize.”

The selection process for the Nobel Peace prize has been shady, reducing the whole process to a farce. The people who get the prize are either war criminals or stooges of the imperialist empire.

In 1973, one of history’s most vicious war criminals Henry Kissinger, was a co-recipient of the prize with Vietnamese Le DucTho for the “peace agreement” that did not achieve peace and the Vietnam war continued.

Tho, however, turned down the controversial award. While negotiating the “peace agreement”, Kissinger was also carpet-bombing Cambodia.

Former US President Barack Obama was given the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009. In Obama’s tenure as the president of the US, there were at least ten times more air strikes in the so-called “war on terror” than under his predecessor, George Bush.

A total of 563 strikes, largely by drones, targeted Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen during Obama’s two terms, compared to 57 strikes under Bush. Hundreds of people were killed in these strikes.

Another farcical Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Shimon Peres in 1994, who shared that with Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat. Peres, one of the founding fathers of the apartheid regime, systematically helped the regime to bolster its nuclear capabilities.

Peres launched two full-scale wars against the Gaza Strip, killing more than 3,700 Palestinians.

Under him, Israel shelled a United Nations compound near Qana, a village in southern Lebanon. The raid killed 106 people and injured around 116 others.

Bushra Shaikh, a London-based political commentator and analyst, in a post on X, said Malala’s case as someone with brown skin used as an operative is an old practice employed by the West:

“Malala Yousafzai working as an agent for the West isn’t new. Her selective activism for women and girls fails to extend to ALL. A personal struggle soon engineered into a Brown face actor for dollar bills. We’ve seen this happen time and time again.”

Zaman from India questioned the Nobel Laureates’ meeting with Clinton, a staunch supporter of Israel’s genocide in Gaza:

“It’s disheartening to see Malala Yousafzai cozying up to war criminals. Meeting with Hillary raises serious questions about her commitment to justice & human rights. She should be using her platform to hold accountable those responsible for violence and oppression, not rubbing shoulders with them.”

Based in California, US, Maryam regarded Malala as a performer activist whose activities bring forth her reality:

“Never forget I was bullied on every platform for weeks for calling Malala Yousafzai a performative activist 3 years ago. And she keeps proving me right without me doing ANYTHING… truth will always come out.”

April 29, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Progressive Hypocrite, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

China calls for ‘international investigation’ into Nord Stream attack

RT | April 27, 2024

China’s deputy envoy to the UN has called for an international probe into the bombing of the Nord Stream gas pipelines, adding that Russia would be involved in such an investigation.

“With the situation standing where it is, one cannot help but suspect a hidden agenda behind the opposition to an international investigation, while lamenting the potential cover-up and loss of quantities of compelling evidence,” China’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, Geng Shuang, said on Friday, according to the Xinhua news agency.

“We reiterate our call for the early launch of a UN-led international investigation to bring the truth to light for the international community,” Geng continued, adding that Western nations should “actively communicate and cooperate with Russia and jointly investigate the incident.”

Nord Stream 1 and 2 each comprised two separate pipelines, linking Russia and Germany. Three out of the four lines were destroyed in a series of explosions near the Danish island of Bornholm in September 2022, severing Germany’s energy ties to Russia and leaving its gas-dependent economy reliant on more expensive American liquefied natural gas.

Germany, Sweden, and Denmark all opened investigations into the attack, but Sweden and Denmark closed their inquiries in February. Swedish investigators published no conclusions, while the Danish team concluded that “there was deliberate sabotage,” but declined to blame the attack on anyone.

China and Russia have demanded an international investigation into the bombings since last year. However, the UN Security Council rejected a Russian request for such a probe last March, with Washington’s deputy envoy to the UN, Robert Wood, accusing Russia of trying to “discredit the work of ongoing national investigations.”

On Saturday, a spokesman for the German Foreign Ministry appeared to reject Geng’s proposal, telling Russia’s TASS news agency that an “investigation is already being conducted by the German Public Prosecutor General’s Office.”

Absent any official conclusions, two competing theories about the bombings have emerged. According to reports in the Western mainstream media, a team of Ukrainian commandos used a rented yacht to transport explosives to the blast sites, with the CIA and European intelligence agencies being made aware of the plot several months beforehand but ultimately failing to stop it.

American journalist Seymour Hersh has said that US President Joe Biden ordered the CIA to blow up the pipelines. Citing sources in the intelligence community, Hersh has claimed that CIA divers working with the Norwegian Navy planted remotely-triggered bombs on the lines in the summer of 2022, using a NATO exercise in the region as cover.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that he “fully agrees” with Hersh’s conclusions. Russian Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov, who is leading Moscow’s investigation into the blasts, said last month that “everyone knows perfectly well who did it,” and that “the tracks undoubtedly lead beyond the Atlantic,” – an apparent reference to the US.

April 27, 2024 Posted by | War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Colombia University panel slams president for suppressing pro-Gaza protests

Al Mayadeen | April 27, 2024

The President of Columbia University faced increased pressure on Friday as a campus oversight committee strongly condemned her administration’s actions in suppressing a pro-Palestine demonstration in the school.

Universities across the United States have witnessed in the past few weeks a historic surge in student protests in support of Palestine and Gaza, calling for ending all agreements with “Israel” and divesting from the occupation entity. Students also demanded an end to US support to “Israel” and involvement in the genocidal war.

Cross-country protests in the US continue to grow as the Israeli genocide in Gaza reaches its 204th day. The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza announced on Saturday that the number of Palestinians killed in the ongoing Israeli genocide in the Strip since October 7 has now reached 34,388, with 77,437 injured.

After Colombian students established their Gaza Solidarity Encampment on April 17, University President Nemat Minouche Shafik summoned the NYPD to the campus to disperse the demonstrations, resulting in the arrest of over 100 students. But shortly after, outraged by the footage of their fellow students being arrested, a new group of students arrived on campus and set up another encampment in protest.

Shafik: Decamp or ‘alternative options’

On Friday, Shafik issued an ultimatum to student protesters: either negotiate an agreement with the administration to disband the encampment or the school would pursue alternative measures to dismantle it. However, the demonstrators remained steadfast in their demands, with new supporters swelling their ranks.

The Columbia University Senate passed a resolution following a Friday meeting, stating that Shafik’s administration had eroded academic freedom and disregarded the privacy and due process rights of students and faculty members by involving the police and terminating the protest.

“The decision… has raised serious concerns about the administration’s respect for shared governance and transparency in the university decision-making process,” it said.

The Senate, predominantly comprising faculty members and other staff with a minority representation of students, refrained from explicitly mentioning Shafik in its resolution and opted for a less severe tone than a censure. The president, also a member of the senate, did not attend.

A task force was established in the resolution to monitor the “corrective actions” requested by the Senate concerning the handling of protests.

Columbia spokesperson Ben Chang stated that the administration shared the Senate’s objective of restoring calm to the campus and was dedicated to maintaining an ongoing dialogue.

According to a press release from the institution, on Friday, a minimum of 40 demonstrators were arrested at the Auraria Campus in Denver, which is jointly utilized by the University of Colorado Denver, Metropolitan State University of Denver, and the Community College of Denver.

Near the White House, approximately 200 protesters at George Washington University continued to assemble for a second consecutive day on Friday. The university stated that students failed to comply with instructions to disperse, leading to the suspension and temporary prohibition from campus for several individuals.

Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden described the protests as “antisemitic” and stressed that campuses must remian safe, hinting that current anti-Israeli war protests are a destablizing factor.

Additonally, Congress Republicans said that Shafik and other college administrators are not being firm enough in cracking down on the encapments.

Right to free speech

The University of Texas at Austin’s president, Jay Hartzell, encountered comparable criticism from faculty members on Friday, following his collaboration with Republican Governor Greg Abbott in deploying police to disband a pro-Palestine demonstration two days earlier.

Dozens of protesters were arrested, but the Travis County Attorney’s office stated that charges were dismissed due to a lack of probable cause for the arrests.

Read more: MIT, Emerson, other US colleges students launch pro-Palestine protests

Close to 200 university faculty members penned a letter indicating a lack of confidence in Hartzell, citing his actions as “needlessly endangering” students, staff, and faculty when police, equipped with riot gear and mounted on horseback, intervened against the protesters.

Civil rights organizations have denounced the arrests and called on authorities to uphold the right to free speech.

April 27, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

US lawmakers want to deploy ‘anti-Semitism monitors’ at colleges

RT | April 27, 2024

Two US congressmen have introduced a bill that would appoint independent “anti-Semitism monitors” to federally funded college campuses across the country. The draft law comes amid a police crackdown on anti-Israel protests at dozens of US universities.

Introduced on Friday by New York Representatives Ritchie Torres, a Democrat, and Mike Lawler, a Republican, the COLUMBIA Act would task the Department of Education with sending a “third-party anti-Semitism monitor” to any college or university receiving federal money.

The inspector would release a quarterly report on “the progress that a college or university has made toward combating antisemitism.” Schools that fail to sufficiently crack down on alleged hatred against Jews would then have their funding stripped.

“Rising antisemitism on our college campuses is a major concern and we must act to ensure the safety of students,” Lawler said in a statement. “Jewish students have told my office that they feel completely abandoned by their university administrators and they view Congress as the only avenue for accountability and safety,” Torres added.

The bill’s title – an acronym for the College Oversight and Legal Updates Mandating Bias Investigations and Accountability Act – refers to Columbia University, where pro-Palestinian rallies and protests have been taking place for nearly two weeks. Similar rallies have broken out at around 40 universities and colleges in the US and Canada, including Harvard, Yale and UC Berkeley.

Protesters are demanding that their universities “divest” from companies such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Lockheed Martin that have contracts with the Israeli government. They also want the US to stop giving money to Israel, citing its “genocide” of the Palestinians in Gaza.

Jewish organizations claim that some of the demonstrators have openly praised Hamas, and that the protests have stoked a climate of fear among Jewish students. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu weighed in on Wednesday, claiming that “anti-Semitic mobs have taken over leading universities” in scenes “reminiscent of what happened in German universities in the 1930s.”

Police arrested hundreds of protesters on Wednesday in a crackdown targeting 21 universities across the country. In a raid at the University of Texas at Austin, Governor Greg Abbott ordered the deployment of heavily armed officers from the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), who detained more than 30 people. Abbott – a Republican and professed free speech advocate – declared on social media that “these protesters belong in jail.” Hundreds more were arrested on Thursday and Friday.

While mainstream Democrats and Republicans have joined forces in condemning the protests and promising stiff penalties for those involved, members of the Democratic Party’s progressive wing have visited campuses to encourage the demonstrators. “Contrary to right-wing attacks, these students are joyfully protesting for peace and an end to the genocide taking place in Gaza,” Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar said after meeting protesters at Columbia on Thursday. “I’m in awe of their bravery and courage.”

April 27, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

US campus crackdown: 500 pro-Palestinian protesters arrested

Press TV – April 26, 2024

US police have arrested more than 500 protesters during a crackdown against pro-Palestinian protesters on university campuses across the country on Thursday.

Anti-riot police used chemical irritants and tasers against protesters, who set up camps in defiance of police warnings from Massachusetts to California, to protest against Israel’s savage war against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Protesters were arrested at schools including the Ohio State University, the University of Minnesota, Indiana University and Princeton University.

At Emory University in Atlanta, police clashed with protesters, including students from other Atlanta universities and area activists and arrested dozens of protesters, including faculty members.

Videos are shared on social media, showing officers using tear gas, tasers and handcuffs to detain protesters.

Emory’s vice president for public safety Cheryl Elliott said in a statement that law enforcement “released chemical irritants into the ground” to disperse the crowd after protesters ignored multiple warnings.

She said 28 protesters had been arrested, including 20 members of the Emory community, “some of whom have been released.”

“We are working with responding agencies to expedite the release of any Emory community members who remain in custody.”

At Emerson College in Boston, police also tore down an encampment there and arrested more than 100 demonstrators early Thursday morning.

Police detained 93 people at the University of Southern California.

And at The University of Texas at Austin, 60 protesters were arrested.

In the event, faculty members gathered at a rally and called for the school’s president, Jay Hartzell, to resign after he praised law enforcement for exercising restraint against the protestors.

The latest arrests which followed others at Columbia, Yale, Brown and New York University, came as a growing number of students joined the protests after President Joe Biden approved $26 billion in war aid to Israel on Wednesday.

Across the United States, groups of students and activists are now demanding the leadership of their universities to cut financial ties with Israel, whose brutal war on the Gaza Strip has killed more than 34,300 people since early October.

April 26, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Daughter of martyr Al-Areer martyred along with husband, newborn baby in Israeli airstrike

Palestinian Information Center – April 26, 2024

GAZA – The daughter of martyr Refaat Al-Areer, Shaima, was martyred on Friday along with her husband, engineer Muhammad Siam, and their newborn baby in an Israeli airstrike that targeted their apartment near Al-Rimal Clinic in Gaza City.

Media sources said Israeli aircraft launched several attacks this morning targeting the headquarters of the International Red Cross, which houses displaced people, and a residential apartment near Al-Rimal Clinic, resulting in a number of martyrs and wounded.

The sources revealed that among the martyrs was Shaima, the eldest daughter of martyr Dr. Refaat Al-Areer, who was previously assassinated last December in a deliberate Israeli airstrike targeting his sister’s home in Gaza City.

Dr. Refaat Al-Areer was one of the pillars of the English Section at the PIC, and the supervisor of its Social Media Department. He was martyred along with his brother, sister, and her four children.

The martyr Al-Areer also worked as Professor of English Language at the Islamic University which was destroyed in the Israeli aggression. A number of its staff along with its President were martyred as well.

Al-Areer was one of the courageous voices who spoke and wrote in English about the Palestinian cause and refuted the Israeli narrative. He is the author of the book “Gaza Writes Back”.

He was also hosted in distinguished interviews with various Western media outlets.

April 26, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

UK APPROVED ARMS FOR ISRAEL DAYS AFTER IT KILLED BRITISH AID WORKERS

BY JOHN MCEVOY | DECLASSIFIED UK | APRIL 23, 2024

On 1 April, Israeli forces launched a series of airstrikes on a convoy of aid workers in Gaza, killing three Britons, a Polish national, a Palestinian, an American-Canadian dual citizen, and an Australian.

The Israeli Air Force carried out the bombing with a Hermes 450 drone. According to Campaign Against the Arms Trade, this drone may be powered by a R902(W) Wankel engine produced in Britain by UAV Engines Limited (UEL).

New court documents show that the UK government decided to continue arms exports to Israel on 8 April, one week after the strike on the aid workers who were employed by the charity World Central Kitchen (WCK).

The revelation will put additional pressure on the Foreign Office to justify its decision not to suspend arms sales to Israel.

‘Killed with British weapons’

Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) and Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq challenged the UK government today in court over arms sales to Israel.

Documents provided to the court show that the UK government has conducted five legal assessments of the situation in Gaza since 18 December.

One of those assessments, which covered the period 18 December to 29 February, was delivered to UK foreign secretary David Cameron on 28 March.

On 3 April, two days after the Israeli airstrike on the aid workers, Cameron used this assessment to recommend that the UK continue arms sales to Israel.

Five days later, UK trade secretary Kemi Badenoch authorised the continuation of extant licences and new licences to Israel, according to GLAN’s press statement.

The court documents further show that the UK government is capable of making “out of cycle assessments… where circumstances require” on Israel’s compliance with international humanitarian law.

However, such an assessment was apparently not conducted following Israel’s attack on the WCK staff.

Charlotte Andrews-Briscoe, a lawyer at GLAN, said: “The world has watched as 34,000 people have been killed, and more are being killed every day… Has the Government no regard for the immense loss of human life thus far, some of whom will have been killed with British weapons?”

Hermes 450 drone

The UK government is also refusing to rule out whether British machinery was used in the killing of the aid workers.

On 12 April, Kenny MacAskill MP asked in parliament whether the government had made an assessment of whether UEL engines or engine parts had been used in the strike. Trade minister Alan Mak said his department could not comment “on specific licences”.

On 17 April, Andy McDonald MP also asked whether the three British aid workers “were killed by weapons manufactured in Britain”. Foreign Office minister David Rutley responded simply that “we have strong export controls”.

UEL designs and manufactures engines for drones, specialising in Wankel technology which delivers an “outstanding power-to-size and weight ratio… ideal for tactical unmanned aircrafts”.

The company was established in Staffordshire in 1992, before being acquired by Israeli arms firm Elbit Systems.

Over recent decades, concerns have been raised that UEL produces engines and engine parts for Israel’s drone fleet, which is frequently used to support bombing campaigns over Gaza.

Made in Britain

In 2009, it was reported that the engines for Israel’s Hermes 450 drone had been manufactured by UEL. These claims were supported by information on Elbit’s own website.

British arms control officials subsequently admitted that they had licensed engines to Israel for onward export, but could not confirm that the engines had not instead been fitted to the Hermes 450 drone.

Since then, the UK government has continued to issue licences to UEL for exports to Israel. The most recent licence was seemingly granted in 2021, allowing UEL to export parts for military engines to Israel.

Campaign Against the Arms Trade’s Sam Perlo Freeman told Middle East Eye: “The evidence seems to stack up that it is a UK engine and, if it’s not, then Elbit need to clarify that… Definitely it seems to be based on a UK design at the very least”.

An Elbit Systems spokesperson told Declassified: “Elbit Systems UK, its subsidiaries and joint ventures, including UAV Engines Limited and U-Tacs, are not involved in the Hermes 450 programme”.

The company’s spokesperson, however, would not respond to a further question on whether Israel’s Hermes 450 drones use engines or engine parts produced by UEL in the UK. They said: “We have nothing further to add to the [previous] statement”.

A UK-based subsidiary of Elbit Systems and Thales also produces the Watchkeeper drone, which is modelled on Elbit’s Hermes 450 and used by the British army.

“The British government is, in effect, buying technology that has been ‘field tested’ on Palestinians”, noted campaign group War on Want.

‘A full, transparent explanation’

The day after the Israeli airstrikes on the aid convoy, UK foreign secretary David Cameron announced that he had “called on Israel to immediately investigate and provide a full, transparent explanation of what happened”.

On 5 April, the IDF published the conclusions of its investigation, claiming that Israeli forces had identified gunmen near the trucks and “mistakenly assumed that the gunmen were located inside the accompanying vehicles and that these were Hamas terrorists”.

The report continued: “Those who approved the strike were convinced that they were targeting armed Hamas operatives and not WCK employees”. The IDF chief of the general staff subsequently dismissed the Israeli brigade’s commander and chief of staff.

Israel’s self-exonerating investigation was led by Yoav Har-Even, the former head of the IDF operations directorate, and now the president and CEO of Rafael Advanced Defense Systems.

Rafael is one of Israel’s biggest arms firms. It is owned and controlled by the Israeli state, and its largest client is the IDF. The investigation into the killing of the aid workers was therefore led by the CEO of a company which supplies many of the bombs that Israel is using to destroy Gaza.

The UK government has not commented on whether this satisfies its demand for a “full, transparent explanation”, and the extent to which the Foreign Office is pressing Israel on the matter remains unclear.

Mak recently told parliament: “We are carefully reviewing initial findings of Israel’s investigations into the killing”. He continued: “The findings of the inquiry must be published in full and followed up with a wholly independent review to ensure the utmost transparency and accountability”.

Prior to the attack on the WCK staff, at least 357 humanitarian-run sites in Gaza had reportedly been attacked.

John McEvoy is an independent journalist who has written for International History Review, The Canary, Tribune Magazine, Jacobin and Brasil Wire.

April 26, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

UN expert calls for arms, oil embargo against Israel

Press TV – April 25, 2024

UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territory Francesca Albanese has called on the international community to immediately impose oil sanctions and an arms embargo against Israel.

“At this point, Israel has reneged on its international obligations to a degree that warrants an imperative implementation of immediate and unconditional sanctions which should entail first and foremost an arms and oil embargo,” Francesca Albanese said during a press conference on Thursday.

Albanese accused the United States and certain other Western states of being accomplice to Israel’s crimes by sending military aid and weapons.

“Complicity with genocide is a crime on its own under the Genocide Convention, so definitely interested in investigating to what extent, the aid – political and military aid that has been granted to Israel by a number of countries primarily the United States, might amount to complicity. What I can tell you for sure is that this support is in clear violation, is in clear breach with the International Court of Justice interim order that ordered the suspension, among others, of the cessation of acts that might amount to genocide and unhindered access for the Palestinians to humanitarian aid.”

In January, the United Nations’ top court ordered the Israeli regime to take all measures within its power to prevent genocide in Gaza.

Albanese further said the European Union should impose sanctions on Israel, not merely on extremist settlers. “Settlers operate as part of Israel’s expansionism over what remains of historic Palestine,” Albanese said. “So it is Israel, not settlers per se, [that has] to be targeted by sanctions.”

Elsewhere in her remarks, the UN expert further said countries must do everything in their power to prevent ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

“Israeli policies expanding the occupied Palestinian territory are unquestionably endangering Palestinian existence on their land, or what remains of their land. The focus of the international community must zero in on the most likely implication of the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and states must do everything in their power to prevent it.”

Last month, Albanese told the UN rights body in Geneva that she believed that Israel’s military campaign in Gaza since October 7 amounts to genocide.

Palestinians on Thursday mourned people killed in the Israeli bombardment of Rafah, the crowded city in the southern Gaza Strip, where Israel says it is advancing plans for a ground invasion.

At the city’s Najjar Hospital, among the mourners were two men crouching, grief-stricken, in front of a white body bag.

Those killed in an Israeli strike on Rafah included Abdallah Nabhan, 33, who worked for Belgium’s Enabel development agency.

Brussels said it would summon Israel’s ambassador to explain the death.

Palestinian journalist Mohammad Bassam al-Jamal was killed along with his family members in an attack on their house in the city of Rafah. His death brings to 139 the number of journalists killed in the Gaza war.

April 25, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Palestinians ‘buried alive’ by Israeli army in Nasser Hospital mass graves

The Cradle | April 25, 2024

Officials from Gaza’s Civil Defense Department announced on 25 April that 392 bodies have been unearthed from three mass graves discovered at the Nasser Medical Complex in the city of Khan Yunis, with some showing signs of having been buried alive.

“We need forensic examination for approximately 20 bodies for people who we think were buried alive in the Nasser Medical Complex,” Palestinian Civil Defence member Mohammed Mughier told reporters on Thursday, adding that some were the bodies of children.

“Why do we have children in mass graves?” he added, stressing that the evidence shows the Israeli army committed “crimes against humanity.”

Ten of the bodies unearthed had their hands bound, while others still had medical tubes attached to them.

“There are indications of carrying out field executions against some of the victims, while the bodies of other victims carried signs of torture and others were buried alive,” officials from Gaza’s Civil Defense Department said during a press conference.

“Several victims were buried in plastic bags and placed at a depth of three meters, which accelerated their decomposition,” the officials added.

The mass graves were discovered after the Israeli army withdrew from Khan Yunis on 7 April following a four-month raid of the city that decimated most infrastructure and left thousands dead.

Gaza officials have previously stressed that the Israeli army uses forced disappearance as a systematic policy against the people of the strip, highlighting that thousands of Palestinians are still missing.

“Some of the bodies found have evaporated and turned to ash. International institutions must identify the type of weapons used [by Israel],” the Civil Defense Department said earlier this week. “We found in the Nasser Complex corpses without heads and bodies without skins, and some of them had their organs stolen,” Gaza’s Government Media Office office also revealed.

Hundreds of bodies were recently recovered in the northern Gaza Strip, particularly in and around Al-Shifa Hospital, where Israeli troops launched a bloody and destructive military operation lasting from 18 March until 1 April.

On Wednesday, UN Secretary-General Spokesman Stéphane Dujarric called on a “clear, transparent and credible investigation” into the mass graves found in the Gaza Strip.

April 25, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

US Pays Lip Service to Palestinians’ Plight While Arming Israel

Sputnik – 25.04.2024

US President Joe Biden authorized providing some $15 billion worth of military supplies to Israel this week.

While the United States has repeatedly voiced concerns about the massive civilian casualties caused by the ongoing Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip, it does not deter Washington from sending military supplies to Tel Aviv, essentially helping Israel wage this campaign.

The latest multibillion-dollar package for Israel comes as the Israeli military leadership appears intent to attack Rafah, a city in the southern Gaza Strip that is currently densely packed with refugees who fled from other parts of the Palestinian enclave ravaged by the Israeli invasion.

Although Biden reportedly warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last month that an assault on Rafah would be a mistake, the White House does not seem keen to actually prevent Tel Aviv from carrying out this attack – which is likely to result in a large number of civilian casualties.

Earlier this month, CNN reported that the Biden administration authorized the transfer of some 1,000 MK82 bombs and an equal number of small-diameter bombs, apparently undaunted by the fact that the Israeli military seems rather keen to flatten buildings across the Gaza Strip via airstrikes.

The US leadership also seems unperturbed – or at least unperturbed enough to halt the military supplies to Israel or, heaven forbid, impose sanctions on Tel Aviv – by occurrences such as the Israeli airstrike on a humanitarian convoy in the Gaza Strip, which killed seven aid workers from the World Central Kitchen food relief NGO.

April 25, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

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