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Federal Court Judge Pulls Canada Back from the Brink

By Bruce Pardy | Brownstone Institute | January 25, 2024

The Canadian government’s use of the Emergencies Act was unlawful. The Trucker Convoy did not constitute a national emergency. So said a judge of the Federal Court on Tuesday. The decision may help to pull Canada back from the brink of authoritarian rule.

The Federal Court decision contains four conclusions. Two prerequisites for invoking the Emergencies Act, said Justice Richard Mosley, were not met. Moreover, the two regulations issued under it were unconstitutional. Predictably, the government has promised to appeal. For the government to prevail, an appeal panel would have to overturn all four. But there is a wrinkle, which I will get to momentarily.

Between 1963 and 1970, the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ), a separatist organization in Quebec, committed bombings, robberies, and killed several people. In October 1970, they kidnapped British trade commissioner James Cross, and then kidnapped and killed Pierre Laporte, a minister in the Quebec government. In response, Pierre Trudeau’s government invoked the War Measures Act, the only time it had been used in peacetime. In the years that followed, the invocation of the Act became regarded as a dangerous overreach of government powers and breach of civil liberties.

The Emergencies Act, enacted in 1988 to replace the War Measures Act, had higher thresholds. It was supposed to be more difficult for governments to trigger. Before Covid and the trucker convoy, it had never been used.

The Freedom Convoy arrived at Parliament Hill in Ottawa on January 29, 2022 to protest Covid vaccine mandates. The truckers parked unlawfully in downtown Ottawa. They violated parking bylaws and probably the Highway Traffic Act. Authorities could have issued tickets and towed the trucks away. But they didn’t.

In the meantime, protests in other parts of the country emerged. Trucks blocked border crossings in Coutts, Alberta and at the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor, Ontario. Local and provincial law enforcement dealt with those protests and cleared the borders. By February 15, when Justin Trudeau’s government declared a public order emergency and invoked the Emergencies Act, only the Ottawa protests had not been resolved.

The government issued two regulations under the Act. One prohibited public assemblies “that may reasonably be expected to lead to a breach of the peace.” The other outlawed donations and authorized banks to freeze donors’ bank accounts. On February 18 and 19, police brandishing riot batons descended on the crowd. They arrested close to 200 people, broke truck windows, and unleashed the occasional burst of pepper spray. By the evening of the 19th, they had cleared the trucker encampment away. Banks froze the accounts and credit cards of hundreds of supporters. On February 23, the government revoked the regulations and use of the Act.

Governments cannot use the Emergencies Act unless its prerequisites are met. A public order emergency must be a “national emergency” and a “threat to the security of Canada,” both of which are defined in the Act. A national emergency exists only if the situation “cannot be effectively dealt with under any other law of Canada.” “Threats to the security of Canada” can be one of several things. The government relied upon the clause that requires activities “directed toward or in support of the threat or use of acts of serious violence against persons or property for the purpose of achieving a political, religious or ideological objective.”

The trucker protests were neither a national emergency, Mosley concluded, nor a threat to the security of Canada.

There was no national emergency:

Due to its nature and to the broad powers it grants the Federal Executive, the Emergencies Act is a tool of last resort. [Cabinet] cannot invoke the Emergencies Act because it is convenient, or because it may work better than other tools at their disposal or available to the provinces.…in this instance, the evidence is clear that the majority of the provinces were able to deal with the situation using other federal law, such as the Criminal Code, and their own legislation…For these reasons, I conclude that there was no national emergency justifying the invocation of the Emergencies Act and the decision to do so was therefore unreasonable and ultra vires.

A threat to the security of Canada did not exist:

Ottawa was unique in the sense that it is clear that [Ottawa Police Services] had been unable to enforce the rule of law in the downtown core, at least in part, due to the volume of protesters and vehicles. The harassment of residents, workers and business owners in downtown Ottawa and the general infringement of the right to peaceful enjoyment of public spaces there, while highly objectionable, did not amount to serious violence or threats of serious violence…[Cabinet] did not have reasonable grounds to believe that a threat to national security existed within the meaning of the Act and the decision was ultra vires.

Nor were the regulations constitutional. The prohibition on public assemblies infringed freedom of expression under section 2(b) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Empowering financing institutions to provide personal financial information to the government and to freeze bank accounts and credit cards was an unconstitutional search and seizure under section 8. Neither was justified, Mosley concluded, under section 1 of the Charter, the “reasonable limits” clause.

To prevail on appeal, the government would have to reverse all four conclusions. Justice Mosley did not make obvious errors of law. But there are a couple of odd bits. In particular, Mosley admits to doubts about how he would have proceeded had he been at the cabinet table himself:

I had and continue to have considerable sympathy for those in government who were confronted with this situation. Had I been at their tables at that time, I may have agreed that it was necessary to invoke the Act. And I acknowledge that in conducting judicial review of that decision, I am revisiting that time with the benefit of hindsight and a more extensive record of the facts and law…

Which brings us to the wrinkle. In April 2022, Richard Wagner, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, gave an interview to Le Devoir. Speaking in French, he characterized the protest on Wellington Street in Ottawa, where Parliament and the Supreme Court are located, as “the beginning of anarchy where some people have decided to take other citizens hostage.” Wagner said that “forced blows against the state, justice and democratic institutions like the one delivered by protesters… should be denounced with force by all figures of power in the country.” He did not mention the Emergencies Act by name. But his comments could be interpreted as endorsing its use.

The government’s appeal will go first to the Federal Court of Appeal but then to the Supreme Court of Canada. Its chief justice appears to have already formed an opinion about the dispute. Having made his public comments, the chief justice should announce that he will recuse himself from the case to avoid a reasonable perception of bias. That too would help bring Canada back from the brink.

Bruce Pardy is executive director of Rights Probe and professor of law at Queen’s University.

January 26, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Israel clinches new US arms deal as Gaza atrocities mount

The Cradle | January 26, 2024

The US is finalizing three major military aircraft sales to Israel, as it continues to bomb Gaza, across a series of meetings led by the director general of the Israeli Defense Ministry, Eyal Zamir, Haaretz reported on 25 January. 

Progress was made toward purchasing 25 F-35 fighter jets, 25 F-15 fighter jets, and a new squadron of Apache attack helicopters, possibly involving 12 units. These jets and helicopters will reportedly be paid for using the US aid provided to Israel. 

Zamir, alongside other officials, held a series of meetings in Washington with senior Pentagon and State Department officials. The Israeli officials met with arms dealers, namely Lockheed Martin, manufacturer of the F-35, and Boeing, manufacturer of the F-16 and Apache. 

Haaretz reports that the sale “demonstrated the urgent need to deploy attack helicopters to hit enemy targets and to assist [Israeli army] ground forces.”

The F-35 and F15 purchases will be carried out after completing previous purchases of a second F-35 squadron. The third F-35 group will arrive in Israel from 2027 onward, and the new F-15s will be received a year later. The Apaches are expected to arrive in Israel within two years. 

Alongside the procurement of jets and helicopters, Israel has also increased its aerial munitions purchases, costing hundreds of millions of dollars, that are expected to arrive shortly. 

These arms are needed to both replenish their quickly depleting stockpile in the fight against Palestinian resistance forces in Gaza as well as to prepare the front in the north against the Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah. 

The US has voiced concerns over its potential need to stretch an already thin ammunition stockpile to support Israel as well as continue its support for Ukraine. 

Israel’s new proposed budget has increased its weapons spending budget by an extra $8.3 billion, now projecting it to a historic high of about $37 billion. 

Israel has been carrying out a brutal bombing campaign on the Gaza Strip since their war on the besieged enclave began in October. To date, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, at least 26,083 Palestinians have been killed and with over 64,000 injuries.

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

ICJ orders Israel to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza

Press TV – January 26, 2024

The United Nations’ top court has ordered the Israeli regime to take all measures within its power to prevent genocide in Gaza, but stopped short of ordering a ceasefire.

The order by the International Court of Justice was part of its interim ruling on the emergency measures requested by South Africa in its genocide case against Israel over its war on the Gaza Strip.

The court demanded Israel try to contain death and damage in the Gaza Strip and warned it to “take all measures in its power to prevent” acts that could fall under the UN Genocide Convention set up in 1948.

The court also ordered Israel to take measures to prevent and punish direct incitement of genocide in the Gaza Strip.

Israel must take “immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to address the adverse conditions of life faced by Palestinians,” the court said.

It ordered the regime to report back in one month on the measures it has been asked to carry out.

Palestinians appear to be a protected group under the genocide convention, the court said, noting that it has jurisdiction to rule in the case.

Friday’s ruling at the ICJ did not deal with the core accusation of the case – whether genocide occurred – but focused on the urgent intervention sought by South Africa.

The case was brought by South Africa, which has accused Israel of breaching the UN Genocide Convention.

Over two days of hearings earlier this month in the gilded hall of the Peace Palace, where the ICJ sits, lawyers from both sides battled over the interpretation of this Convention.

South Africa said Israel had carried out “genocidal” acts that were intended to cause the “destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnical group.”

It urged the court to order Israel to “immediately suspend” its military operations in Gaza and allow humanitarian aid to reach the civilians there.

The question now is whether the court’s rulings will be obeyed. Although its rulings are legally binding, the ICJ has no mechanism to enforce them and they are sometimes completely ignored.

South Africa has been one of the outspoken critics of Israel’s ongoing onslaught against Palestinians and has led some initiatives to hold Israel accountable for its actions in Gaza. The African country, which has experienced long years of an apartheid regime, has been praised by activists as the vanguard of the global conscience and voice of the oppressed.

At least 26,083 Palestinians, around 70 percent of them women, young children, and adolescents, have been killed in the Gaza Strip in Israeli bombardments and ground offensive since October 7.

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

CHD, Parents Take on Philadelphia Health Officials in Bid to Overturn Law Allowing Kids to Get Vaccines Without Parents’ Consent

By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D.| The Defender | January 23, 2024

Children’s Health Defense (CHD) and seven Pennsylvania parents last week opposed the City of Philadelphia’s motion to dismiss their lawsuit seeking to overturn the city’s law that allows minors as young as 11 to consent to vaccination without their parents’ knowledge.

Tricia Lindsay, lead attorney for the plaintiffs, told The Defender it is important the case be heard and that its significance goes beyond the City of Philadelphia.

“This case is one which addresses pivotal issues, and is significant for all citizens,” Lindsay said, adding, “The right of a parent to the care, custody and control of their children is not a right which should be taken lightly, and is not one that can simply be extinguished with the stroke of a pen.”

The lawsuit, filed Nov. 1, 2023, alleges the City of Philadelphia engaged in a “wink and a nod” practice of vaccinating children behind parents’ backs without informed consent for the past 15 years, under the cover of its 2007 General Minor Consent Regulation (MCR).

That rule allows children 11 and older to consent to vaccination without parental knowledge as long as they receive a “vaccine information statement” for the administered shot.

It also absolves the vaccine administrator of liability related to the vaccine if the minor gives consent.

On May 14, 2021, the Philadelphia Department of Public Health enacted an additional COVID-19 Minor Consent Regulation, allowing children ages 11 and up to consent to the COVID-19 vaccine then available under emergency use authorization.

In its motion to dismiss, filed on Jan. 5, the city and its health department argued that none of the plaintiffs had been directly harmed or are likely to be harmed by the regulations and therefore they lack standing to sue.

City and health officials also argued that even if the plaintiffs did have standing, the complaint failed to “state a claim,” or show sufficient facts and legal justification, that Philadeliphia’s law violated federal or state law or that it violated parents’ constitutional rights to make decisions about their children’s upbringing.

But the defendants ignored a key relevant federal court decision — Booth v. Bowser — cited by the plaintiffs to support their claim and which legally “eviscerates” the regulations, CHD told the court.

Plaintiffs in Booth v. Bowser sought to stop the D.C. Minor Consent for Vaccinations Amendment Act of 2020, a bill that similarly would have allowed children as young as 11 in the District of Columbia to be vaccinated without the knowledge or consent of their parents. Defendants in that case tried to have the case thrown out using the same rationale invoked by Philadelphia plaintiffs — lack of standing and failure to state a claim.

In Booth v. Bowser, the court found the plaintiffs did have standing, had adequately pleaded their claims and were likely to win their case. When the amended version of the bill —  Consent for Vaccinations of Minors Amendment Act of 2022 — took effect March 10, 2023, the section allowing children under age 11 to consent to vaccines without their parents’ knowledge had been repealed.

But in the Philadelphia case, rather than following that precedent and repealing the regulations, CHD attorneys wrote:

“Defendants here refuse to acknowledge that children, particularly those as young as eleven, are simply incapable of making vaccination decisions on their own, especially when defendants engage in manipulative tactics directly targeting children with false statements of safety and efficacy, calculated bullying, and peer pressure campaigns.

“Defendants have the audacity to say they are not actively interfering in compelling children to be vaccinated without parental knowledge and consent when they are blatantly manipulating children to the point of compelling children to make critical health decisions on their own and then, through the MCRs, providing the vehicle for children to obtain healthcare in secret.

“The MCRs are a critical part of [the] defendants’ propaganda machine. Without the MCRs, children cannot receive these vaccines in the absence of parental consent.”

Videos pressuring teens promote ‘name calling, outright bullying and violence’

CHD and the parents suing the city argued that whether or not their children were vaccinated without their consent, they were injured because the regulations put their children at risk of imminent vaccination, violating their constitutionally and statutorily protected parental rights.

The parents — all of whom are either residents of Philadelphia or travel frequently to Philadelphia — said they are concerned their children may be pressured into vaccination when they are in the city because of measures put in place targeting teens to get vaccinated.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Philadelphia, like the district, created a “pressure-cooker environment,” in which children could be psychologically manipulated into defying their parents and getting vaccinated, the plaintiffs allege.

The plaintiffs’ memo included several examples illustrating the intense pressure teens could be subject to, which along with the arguments in the brief, “exposed the underbelly of city officials’ methods of persuasion and coercion by directing extreme forms of psychologically manipulative peer pressure under the guise of empowerment, equality, freedom and health,” Ray Flores, an attorney for the plaintiffs, told The Defender.

That evidence included two videos that Flores called “cringeworthy.”

In one video, teens perform a skit where one teen pressures another to go with her to get the COVID-19 vaccine, by pushing her and calling her an idiot. The video, Flores said, “promotes name calling, outright bullying and violence.”

No parents are present or referenced and the teens in the skit go to get vaccinated alone.

After the skit, another teen presents a series of “facts” about the vaccine, including a guarantee that the vaccines do not affect DNA, they have no adverse effects and that they provide immunity to the virus.

“We provide the facts, so you can get the vax!” the teens chant.

In a second video, a “Teen Vaxx Ambassador” talks about how effective “teen-to-teen” conversations are in convincing others to get vaccinated. She also details how they make getting the vaccine fun by creating a “party-like atmosphere” around the vaccine.

“The city indoctrinates these children to convince peers to make rash decisions without any professional information,” Flores said. “Given that these children can receive nearly any injection without parental permission, the dangers are clear and obvious since a plethora of vaccination sites are located within the city limits.”

The memo also included links to several news stories celebrating the city’s policy allowing minors to consent to vaccination and promoting vaccination to teens.

The plaintiffs also underscored several key arguments from the complaint.

They argued that Philadelphia’s regulations conflict with the consent requirements of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 (NCVIA), the federal law that has primacy over conflicting local laws on such matters, according to the U.S. Constitution, and must be applied equally in all places.

They also argued that children are not “capable of providing informed consent” for vaccines, as the regulations suggest, because the vaccine information sheets or COVID-19 fact sheets are not written for children to understand. Additionally, children may not know their health history, or understand and be able to navigate the process for identifying and seeking compensation should they become vaccine-injured.

The memo reiterates that vaccinating a child without parental consent violates parental constitutional rights to direct their children’s upbringing. In their motion to dismiss, the defendants argued this right is only violated if the child is compelled to be vaccinated.

The plaintiffs countered that the injury occurs when parents are deprived of their right to make the decision in the first place.

They wrote:

“The Defendants have crafted a procedure to clandestinely bypass parents lawfully exercising their authority. Meanwhile, the City has ratcheted up the pressure on children whose parents have opted out of vaccines and even on children who do not know their vaccination status and thus even are susceptible to over-vaccination.

“The City has publicly and vocally encouraged children to be vaccinated as part of its program to do an end-run around parents.”

Brenda Baletti Ph.D. is a reporter for The Defender. She wrote and taught about capitalism and politics for 10 years in the writing program at Duke University. She holds a Ph.D. in human geography from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a master’s from the University of Texas at Austin.

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

January 25, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

UAE enlists Al-Qaeda, US mercenaries to operate in Yemen: Report

The Cradle | January 24, 2024

A BBC investigation released on 22 January reveals that the UAE hired Al-Qaeda militants to fight for the Southern Transitional Council (STC), the Emirati-backed government in Yemen. 

A whistleblower cited in the investigation provided the BBC with “a document with 11 names of former Al-Qaeda members now working in the STC,” among them former high-ranking operatives of the extremist group. 

Nasser al-Shiba, a former high-ranking Al-Qaeda member, is now the commander of the of the STC’s armed units, several sources told the BBC. 

These militants were hired to carry out political assassinations across Yemen at the behest of Abu Dhabi, according to the investigation. 

The BBC also points to a shadowy group of US mercenaries, known as Spear Operations Group, hired by the UAE to carry out assassinations. 

Isaac Gilmore, a former US navy seal who later became Spear’s chief operating officer, is “one of several Americans who say they were hired to carry out assassinations in Yemen by the UAE.”

“He refused to talk about anyone who was on the ‘kill list’ provided to Spear by the UAE — other than the target of their first mission: Ansaf Mayo, a Yemeni MP who is the leader of Islah in the southern port city of Aden.” 

Saudi and UAE-backed mercenary groups have run rampant across Yemen since the start of the war in the country nine years ago. Aside from assassinations, these mercenaries have also been implicated in a number of crimes, including the looting and illegal trading of Yemeni cultural heritage. 

Several ancient sites and museums have been looted and stripped of valuable artifacts by UAE-backed mercenary groups in Yemen. There are also accounts of underage girls being raped by militants of such groups. 

This is not the first time that UAE-backed armed groups in Yemen have been accused of working or coordinating with Al-Qaeda and ISIS. 

According to documents obtained by Yemen’s Al-Masirah media outlet in February last year, Takfiri militants affiliated with the UAE-backed mercenary group, the Giants Brigade, looted large amounts of oil from the reserves in the energy-rich province of Shabwah, south of the country.

“We have all the evidence of the UAE’s relationship with Al-Qaeda and ISIS in Yemen,” Saleh al-Jabwani, Saleh al-Jabwani, a minister in the former Saudi-backed government of Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, said in 2019. 

The BBC investigation comes one month after UAE-backed mercenaries came under the spotlight once again, following reports that the US was working to recruit members of these mercenary groups to “distract” Ansarallah from its military operations against Israel. 

“The United States is moving to activate factions loyal to the UAE in Yemen to distract Sanaa from continuing to carry out more air and sea attacks against the Israeli entity,” the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar reported on 8 December. 

According to Hebrew media, the UAE-backed STC has approached Israel and offered to help protect Israeli shipping in the Red Sea from attacks by Yemen’s Ansarallah resistance movement and the armed forces of the government in Sanaa. 

Since November, Yemen’s Armed Forces and Ansarallah have seized one Israeli-linked vessel and have targeted over a dozen other ships, either owned by Israelis or Israeli firms or en route to Israeli ports. The Red Sea blockade by Yemen is in solidarity with the Palestinian resistance, which Sanaa has vowed to continue until the war and siege in Gaza ends. 

Yemeni armed forces have also launched drones and missiles towards Israel’s southern port city of Eilat. 

These attacks are garnering significant amounts of popular support for Ansarallah in Yemen. 

According to Yemeni officials and analysts who spoke with Responsible Statecraft on 24 January, elements of the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Islah Party – which has, for the most part, been opposed to Ansarallah throughout the Yemen war – have been providing them with material support and have praised their pro-Palestine operations. 

January 24, 2024 Posted by | Militarism, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Ukrainian military comments on Belgorod plane attack

RT | January 24, 2024

Ukraine has used “measures of destruction” against Russian transport aircraft in Belgorod Region and will continue to do so, the General Staff in Kiev said on Wednesday after an Il-76 carrying Ukrainian prisoners was shot down.

The transport crashed at 11:15am local time in the Korochansky district, about 90 km (55 miles) from the border. Initial reports in Ukrainian media, since deleted, claimed that Ukrainian forces had shot it down because it had been carrying S-300 missiles.

In a Facebook post on Wednesday evening, the Ukrainian General Staff accused Russia of “terror” attacks on Kharkov and said the “recorded intensity of shelling is directly related to the increase in the number of military transport aircraft that have been heading to Belgorod airport in recent times.”

”In order to reduce the missile threat, the Armed Forces of Ukraine not only control the airspace, but also track in detail the rocket launch points and the logistics of their supply, especially with the use of military transport aviation,” the General Staff said, adding that AFU will “continue to use measures of destruction of means of delivery and airspace control to eliminate the terrorist threat.”

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the plane was transporting 65 Ukrainian POWs, who were scheduled to be exchanged later in the day at the Kolotilovka checkpoint. Ukraine was informed of the flight in advance, so the military in Kiev knew it was carrying POWs, the Russian military said. Another plane with 80 more prisoners turned around after the first transport was struck and landed safely.

Russian radars detected the launch of two missiles from the village of Liptsy in Ukraine’s Kharkov Region. Six crew members and three Russian soldiers on board the IL-76 were killed along with the 65 Ukrainian captives.

”By committing this terrorist act, the Ukrainian leadership showed its true face, disregarding the lives of its citizens,” the Russian military said.

This would not be the first time Ukraine has targeted its own POWs in Russian custody. In August 2022, Ukrainian artillery used US-supplied HIMARS launchers for a rocket strike on a penal colony in Yelenovka, in the Donetsk People’s Republic. The facility housed almost 200 prisoners from the notorious neo-Nazi ‘Azov’ unit, who had surrendered in Mariupol several months prior. The missile strike killed 50 of them and wounded another 73. Russian authorities later revealed that the location was known to the Ukrainians because the government in Kiev had requested to have the prisoners moved there.

January 24, 2024 Posted by | War Crimes | | Leave a comment

Kiev deliberately shot down plane carrying its POWs: Russian Defense Ministry

RT | January 24, 2024

A Russian IL-76 heavy transport plane was carrying 65 captured Ukrainian military personnel when it crashed in Belgorod Region some 90km (55 miles) from the Ukrainian border. The Russian Defense Ministry has claimed that the aircraft was brought down by Kiev’s forces.

Here is what we know so far about what happened.

The plane crash On Wednesday at 11:15 Moscow time, reports came in that an IL-76 military transport plane carrying Ukrainian POWs had crashed and exploded in a field near the village of Yablonovo in the Korochansky district of Belgorod Region, which neighbors Ukraine.

Several people captured footage of the crash and shared videos of the incident on social media.

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the plane was flying from the Chkalovsky airfield to Belgorod and was transporting the Ukrainian personnel for a prisoner swap with Kiev. Aside from the POWs, there were also six crew members and three accompanying personnel.

All those on board the aircraft were killed in the crash, according to the governor of Belgorod Region, Vyacheslav Gladkov. However, the crash did not cause any damage to structures or people on the ground, landing five to six kilometers from the nearest village.

According to Russian officials, another plane carrying an additional 80 Ukrainian POWs was also in the air at the time of the incident. After the first plane crashed, the second aircraft was diverted, according to MP Andrey Kartapolov.

What was the cause? Following the incident, the Russian Defense Ministry released a statement accusing Kiev’s forces of shooting down the plane using an anti-aircraft missile system. The ministry claimed that the radars of Russia’s Aerospace Forces recorded the launch of two Ukrainian missiles from the village of Liptsy in Kharkov Region.

The ministry has also stated that the Ukrainian side was informed of the flight ahead of time and was aware that it was carrying POWs, noting that the prisoner exchange was supposed to take place later in the afternoon at the Kolotilovka checkpoint.

Ukrainian media reports Shortly after the crash, the Ukrainian media outlet Ukrainskaya Pravda released a report claiming that it had received confirmation from the Ukrainian military that the plane was shot down by Kiev’s forces, but was told that the aircraft was believed to be carrying S-300 missiles.

Shortly after, however, the outlet redacted that statement, stating only that Kiev had confirmed that it was aware of the plane crash but could not confirm it was carrying Ukrainian POWs.

Meanwhile, other Western media outlets such as Radio Liberty have confirmed from sources within the Kiev government that a prisoner exchange with Russia was indeed scheduled for Wednesday, but no further comments have been provided.

Kiev’s intelligence A representative of the Ukrainian Intelligence Service, Andrey Yusov, has also confirmed the scheduled prisoner exchange.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Coordinations Headquarters for matters regarding prisoners of war has refused to confirm the planned swap, only stating that it was “collecting and analyzing all the necessary information” while urging the media and its citizens to refrain from speculating on the incident. The body also noted that Russia is “actively carrying out special information operations” aimed at destabilizing Ukrainian society.

Russia’s reaction The head of Russia’s State Duma Defense Committee, Andrey Kartapolov, has suggested that the IL-76 was shot down using Western Patriot or Iris-T air defense missiles. He has also proposed calling off any further prisoner swap negotiations with Kiev and insisted that Ukraine should officially be branded a terrorist state and its government a terrorist cell.

State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin has called on Russian lawmakers to make a formal address to the US and Germany, urging them to stop actively supporting the “Nazi regime” in Kiev, which has stooped to killing its own POWs.

Meanwhile, the Russian Defense Ministry stated that Kiev had once again “shown its true colors” by committing this “terrorist act” against its own citizens in an attempt to slander Russia’s forces.

The Russian Foreign Ministry has said that this act of “mindless barbarism” puts into question the possibility of reaching future agreements with Kiev, noting that “there is no doubt” that the Ukrainian authorities will eventually violate any guarantees that they give.

The ministry also stressed that the regime of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, which was propped up by the US and its NATO allies, has once again proven to be a threat not only to Russia, but to “Ukraine itself, its citizens and the whole world.”

Former Russian President and current deputy chairman of the National Security Council Dmitry Medvedev has suggested that the downing of the IL-76 may have been the result of internal political turmoil between “neo-Nazi elites in Kiev.” He suggested that “it’ll be even worse in the future” as the Ukrainian government will continue slaughtering its own troops and POWs and bombing its own cities to protect its power and money.

January 24, 2024 Posted by | War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Israel allows 8 trucks of aid into Gaza City ‘then shoots at them’

MEMO | January 23, 2024

A MEMO correspondent in Gaza City has reported that eight truck loads of aid arrived in the besieged city today with Palestinians rushing to collect the much needed food, however occupation forces quickly opened fire at them.

“The Israeli occupation allowed the entry of eight truckloads of humanitarian aid, then gave five minutes for starving people to collect them and then opened fire at them. People were forced to flee,” Motasem Dalloul said.

As little aid has trickled into northern Gaza over the past few months, people have been forced to walk long distances to reach the aid trucks and to carry the goods on foot back to their shelters.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said yesterday that Israel has prevented three out of every four humanitarian missions heading to the northern Gaza Strip.

It had earlier warned that since the beginning of 2024, Israel has doubled the restrictions imposed on the arrival of relief missions to the Gaza Strip.

Gaza Testimonies; Destruction in Al-Maghazi Camp

Al-Haq | January 22, 2024

“The entire Al-Maghazi Camp is destroyed. No homes are left, no column left. The corpses are thrown around on the ground in front of us.”

Gaza Testimonies; Paramedics Targeted

Al-Haq | January 23, 2024

”As we approached the ambulance, we were surprised to see the bodies of people killed near the ambulance. Those killed included our dispatched crew of four paramedics, along with two injured individuals. Six people were killed in this attack.”

January 24, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Video, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Israel minister: We will not agree to a deal that includes a ceasefire

MEMO | January 23, 2024

Israeli TV Channel 7 reported far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich saying that his party will not agree to any deal with Hamas that includes a ceasefire.

The head of the Religious Zionism Party said: “We will not agree to a deal that includes a ceasefire.”

In response, Minister of Heritage Amihai Ben-Eliyahu stated that if the war stops, his far-right party, Otzma Yehudit, will withdraw from the government.

He added that he feels frustrated because Hamas has not been defeated yet.

Smotrich has previously called for encouraging the “voluntary migration” of Palestinians from Gaza. Such an exodus of Palestinians from the besieged enclave would presumably be followed by the re-occupation of the Strip by Israeli authorities and its resettlement by illegal Jewish settlers.

January 23, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli military’s blunders, brazen lies, failures sum up 110 days of war on Gaza

By Shabbir Rizvi | Press TV | January 23, 2024

Since the beginning of the Israeli regime’s ground operation against Gaza in late October, the regime forces have been met with fierce resistance by Palestinian fighters, prompting military experts to predict that Israeli troops would not find it easy to meet any of their objectives.

Nearly three months into the ground assault, these military analysts have been proven correct.

In the latest, at least 24 Israeli troops were declared killed in less than 24 hours on Tuesday, laying bare the fragility of what many have described as the “TikTok occupation army.”

The Israeli regime has not met a single objective. Instead, it has attempted to cover up its losses, committed egregious war crimes resulting in a genocide case against it at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), and spent nearly $246 million per day on sustaining its genocidal war on Gaza.

The Tel Aviv regime, which has launched a Western-focused campaign to have the hundred-some Israeli captives held by Hamas released, has not been able to secure the release of any of them so far.

In fact, the one opportunity Israeli forces had to secure their release, they instead shot them. Coupled with this embarrassment was the retreat of Israeli troops, including the infamous Golani brigade.

Facing pressure from the inevitability of military, political, and economic disaster, Zionist officials have been contradicting each other at every corner, smacking of frustration from their losses.

For example, an Israeli war minister admits that “Hamas is far from being defeated in Gaza,” while another spokesperson says that Hamas has been completely dismantled in the north.

These contradictory statements usher in more public distrust as to what is really happening on the battlefield. They also expose the dilemma the regime is facing in the face of indomitable resistance.

The Israeli regime is notorious for brazenly lying and covering up its losses while inflating its “successes.” So in order to find the truth, we must observe the battlefield itself.

Just over a week after Israeli forces announced the “dismantlement” of Hamas in the north, a barrage of 50 rockets launched from northern Gaza by the movement’s armed wing Qassam Brigades hit buildings in surrounding settlements in the occupied Gaza envelope.

The operations of Qassam Brigades are giving jitters to Israeli settlers still in the area, as Zionist forces again failed to ensure their safety, especially after downplaying the existence of threats in north Gaza.

Furthermore, thousands of Zionist settlers from the Gaza Envelope who flocked out of the occupied territories in the wake of the Al-Aqsa Storm (Al-Aqsa Flood) operation have yet to return home.

As one former settler told Israel’s Channel 13 recently, it is “not only due to the threat of rockets … no one knows if the Palestinians from Gaza can reach us. No one knows where their tunnels extend to.”

“I have been living in Sderot for years, and I cannot count the times they told us that Hamas is deterred,” he was quoted as saying, laying bare the hollow rhetoric of the Israeli military.

Meanwhile, the Al-Qassam Brigades and other resistance factions remain strong. This is through demonstrable proof – over 100 days after the start of Operation Al-Aqsa Storm (Al-Aqsa Flood), the resistance groups are able to launch rockets as far as Tel Aviv at will.

Al-Qassam Brigades routinely (nearly daily) upload videos of their fighters confronting Zionist tanks and personnel head-on and at point-blank range, posting the destruction of Israeli forces for the world to see.

Where just a few days ago Israeli military officials announced the withdrawal of Israeli forces to give them time to lick their wounds and regroup, the political pressure amassed on the Netanyahu regime has now forced some brigades from the Israeli regime back into Northern Gaza, where they continue to be met with fierce resistance.

Clearly, the claim of Hamas’ dismantlement has been proven false.

Hamas’ leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, says that Al Qassam is “smashing the Israeli army and will continue to do so,” and that Hamas “will not submit to the conditions of the occupation.”

Israel now faces the same resistance but with worn-out soldiers and less numbers.

Though thousands of soldiers still fight in Gaza, it is nowhere near as much quantity as it was just under a month ago. Thousands have backed out under “strategic withdrawal” while thousands more suffer injury and permanent disability.

To dilute the success of Palestinian resistance, the Israeli occupation has ordered hospitals not to cover the losses from Gaza. A spokesman declares that the order violates “press freedom, but claims that the logic behind the new procedure is the desire to maintain the dignity of the injured and their families.”

To date, Hamas has claimed the destruction of thousands of troops and over one thousand vehicles

The same battlefield ferocity cannot be said of Israeli forces. Resorting to aerial bombardments that only slaughter innocent civilians, the Israeli military has yet to claim a categorical battlefield win, instead filming themselves bullying and assaulting civilians and destroying their homes and neighborhoods.

The statements and videos from Al Qassam are not just demonstrations of Hamas’ battlefield skills. They also serve as a weapon against the Zionist entity itself, forcing Israeli settlers to reckon with the fact that the Israeli military cannot protect them, as they cannot even protect themselves.

Tamer Eidam, a settler and “head of the Sdot Negev regional council” has reported that the Netanyahu regime is going as far as bribing settlers to return to the Gaza envelope, without “removing the security threat.” The feelings among settlers are also the same in north-occupied Palestine, fearing Hezbollah strikes and lack of Israeli military protection.

Netanyahu insists on the return of settlers to the Gaza envelope while simultaneously asserting that the aggression on Gaza could last until 2025, as Western media and Israeli outlets report.

Meanwhile, sirens ring nearly daily due to incoming rockets from the besieged Gaza Strip.

Here lies the turbulent political landscape. Netanyahu and his officials are in direct contradiction with the assessment of the military, and within themselves, resulting in no certainty for their troops or their settlers.

Where Netanyahu promises safety and security, Al Qassam responds with barrages of rockets. And where the regime’s military affairs minister Yoav Gallant promises the elimination of Hamas, worn-out Israeli troops are met with ambushes and fierce resistance.

The scenes and reports of Israeli military withdrawal in Gaza succinctly underscore the fate of the Netanyahu regime.

The regime, which was already unpopular amongst settlers and routinely being protested against, now faces more heat from its own settlers, as facts surface from October 7 proving the usage of the infamous “Hannibal Directive.”

The directive was created to ensure civilians and soldiers are not captured by enemy fighters in order to force the Israeli regime into hostage negotiations. The directive purportedly says the capturing of any civilians or soldiers should be stopped by any means necessary – including killing them.

New details have emerged that Israeli forces not only deliberately opened fire on settlers and their own soldiers at the “Nova Festival,” but also within Israeli settlements, indiscriminately killing hundreds of Israelis.

The Tel Aviv regime lays the blame for these deaths on Hamas while destroying evidence that would tie the deaths to its own forces.

This directive comes into direct contradiction with the public occupation demand to free Israeli captives

Culminating failures of the security apparatuses of the occupation have resulted in heated war cabinet meetings that have resulted in further division within Israeli leadership, to the point of Netanyahu even demanding lie detector tests.

Zionist reports say that ministers have stormed out of meetings, or even turned meetings into nasty shouting matches where little “progress” was made.

The regime is torn between two demands: first, the demand for the return of Israeli captives with the restoration of settlements, and second, the destruction of Palestinian resistance.

Pursuing the latter risks the failure of the former as Israeli bombs have killed captives, and pursuing the former concedes defeat to the day one objective of “eliminating Hamas.”

The Zionist regime believes it can save face by conducting a flagrant genocide in front of the world. But this is a severe miscalculation. It has only brought them to the ICJ in the Hague and launched a worldwide campaign in support of Palestinian resistance. Through this horrific crime, they have crossed the point of no return.

Furthermore, other allies of the Palestinian cause – including Yemen, Hezbollah, and Iraqi resistance groups, now exert pressure on American forces in the region, with the potential to escalate into a regional war.

Hamas and the Palestinian resistance have put the Israeli occupation into a box. The very stability of the occupation is falling apart, as public distrust of the Netanyahu regime and the occupation forces itself flourishes.

While protests grow and ministers argue amongst themselves, Al Qassam taunts the occupation with rockets and videos of destroyed Merkava tanks.

Hence, the Zionist regime must reckon with the inevitability of its crushing defeat.

Shabbir Rizvi is a Chicago-based political analyst with a focus on US internal security and foreign policy.

January 23, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

DC Think Tank: House Could Kill Ukraine Aid Bill

By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 23.01.2024

House Republicans could block a hefty Ukraine aid package even if a bipartisan border security and immigration deal is passed, suggests the latest report by the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.

Republican and Democratic senators have engaged in a series of negotiations regarding President Joe Biden’s proposed $100 billion package for Ukraine. Senate leaders, Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), have expressed optimism about the bipartisan Ukraine aid-border security agreement’s prospects.

Last year, the multi-billion package for Ukraine, as well as aid for Israel and the island of Taiwan, became stuck in the US Congress after the GOP deemed the border security issue to be an absolute priority.

According to Blaise Malley, a reporter for Responsible Statecraft and a former associate editor at The National Interest, it is uncertain whether the House of Representatives would align with the upper chamber’s position, despite the bipartisan agreement on border issues being on the horizon.

Malley referred to House Speaker Mike Johnson’s firm stance with regard to the implementation of sweeping migration reforms and his concerns about Ukraine aid oversight and Kiev’s strategy.

“We need the questions answered about the strategy, about the endgame and about the accountability for the precious treasure of the American people,” Johnson told journalists after a January 17 meeting with President Biden and other congressional leaders at the White House. The House speaker also stressed that the border issue should still come first. Rep. Johnson has a record of consistently voting against Ukraine aid in the past.

A GOP conference on Ukraine aid is due to be held on January 24 following the request by a group of Senate Republicans, led by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), Malley noted, adding that support for further bankrolling Ukraine is beginning to steadily wither among House Republicans.

What’s more, some GOP lawmakers even threatened to introduce a “motion to vacate” against the incumbent House speaker, if he allows another package of Ukraine aid to pass.

“Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene tells me ‘I would introduce the motion to vacate myself’ if Speaker Johnson passes funding to Ukraine,” Axios congressional reporter Andrew Solender tweeted on January 17.

Last October, the so-called Freedom Caucus forced then-Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy to step down after Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida forced the vote on the “motion to vacate.”

According to Malley, Speaker Johnson is unlikely to go against the Freedom Caucus for many reasons, one of which is that it may upend his relations with leading Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

But that is not all: the multi-billion aid bill, which also includes at least $10 billion for Israel, has come under scrutiny from some Democratic congressmen who are seeking to obligate Tel Aviv to observe human rights in its war against Gaza. Since the conflict started, 25,105 Palestinians have been killed in the region, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

The RS reporter pointed out that 18 Senators on January 19 announced their support for an amendment to the national security supplemental that would require “that the weapons received by any country under this bill are used in accordance with US law, international humanitarian law and the law of armed conflict.”

“The path to passing this legislation is filled with roadblocks and question marks,” Malley wrote. “Biden has implored Congress to approve his proposal as soon as possible, but even as incremental progress is made, final passage still appears to be a ways away.”

January 23, 2024 Posted by | War Crimes | | Leave a comment

New Evidence of Mass Execution of Gazans by Israeli Forces

IMEMC | JANUARY 20, 2024

A new report has revealed details about one of the numerous incidents of Israeli soldiers carrying out a mass execution of Palestinian civilians – this one in the ‘Anan’ residential building in Gaza City on December 19, 2023.

Photos and eyewitness testimonies documented this incident, in which 15 men were forced to lay down on their stomachs, then shot and killed. A three-year old girl, Nada, was killed in the Israeli shelling that followed the executions.

According to eyewitness testimony from a woman, Heba, her daughter Rula and son, Uday, the Israeli soldiers separated the men from the women before shooting them, and their father, Ayman (44 years old), was among the victims.

Heba told Al Jazeera reporters, “They separated us from the men first, then they pushed the women and kids from one room to another, brutally beating us as they moved us.”

She continues in her narration, “There were about 15 men in the building. They stripped them of their clothes and tortured them in front of us. They broke my husband’s jaw with rifle butts, and broke his arms severely, while he was groaning in severe pain. Then they shot all the men mercilessly while they were lying on their stomachs.”

Shortly after the executions, the Palestinian woman added, Israeli tank shells and Israeli quadcopter fire began raining down on women and children.

The Israeli tank shells hit Heba’s daughter, Nada (3 years old), who died in her older sister’s arms.

The older sister, Rula, said that she tried to protect her little sister, but she was not able to, since her injuries were too severe. She said that other women and children were also injured.

Her younger brother, Uday, confirms her account of the incident, and tells how the men were executed in front of him, including his father.

Their mother, Heba Salem, who lost her husband in the summary execution, told Al Jazeera “This was a day we will never, ever forget.”

Exclusive photos and videos obtained by Al Jazeera show the residential building where the mass execution took place, and document the first pictures of Nada’s body shortly after her death.

Other scenes also show the bodies of men lying face down with deep wounds on their bodies and traces of bullets in various parts of them, indicating execution-style killings.

Other internal shots of the building show the effects of continuous tank shelling on it. The camera also monitors the scene of the crime committed by the Israeli occupation soldiers, showing bloodstains on the walls and floors, and many empty bullet casings.

The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor said regarding the incident that “field killings and executions are one of the types of horrific violations practiced by Israeli forces in areas of incursion, which include looting, intimidation, arbitrary arrest, torture, and widespread destruction without any necessity or proportionality.”

The Observatory called for an urgent international investigation to be opened into the horrific crimes committed by the Israeli army in areas of its incursion into the Gaza Strip, including field executions, torture, threats to rape women, stripping of men, women and children, beatings and torture of Palestinian civilians, according to testimonies collected from released civilians. … Video report (disturbing)

January 21, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

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