An Israeli airstrike targeting a refugee camp in the central part of the Gaza Strip has killed at least 70 Palestinians as the regime’s genocidal war across the besieged territory continues unabated.
Gaza’s Health Ministry reported the massacre in a late Sunday statement, saying the fatalities came after the regime’s air raid hit a number of houses at the al-Maghazi refugee camp.
According to the ministry’s spokesman, the strike destroyed a “residential block” and the “toll is likely to rise” given the large number of families residing there and the fact that many people are still under the rubble.
“What is happening at the al-Maghazi camp is the annihilation of an entire residential square,” Ashraf al-Qudra said.
The ministry also noted that another Israeli strike on a house in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza has killed 10 members of the same family.
The ministry’s spokesman said the regime’s forces “are bombing the main roads between the [refugee] camps … to impede the arrival of ambulances and civil defense vehicles to the targeted locations.”
“Most of the martyrs who arrived from the Maghazi camp were children, women, and the elderly,” the spokesman for Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital was quoted by the Palestinian media as saying.
Gaza’s Government Media Office said the Israeli strike saw the regime’s military bombing “four inhabited homes” at al-Maghazi.
“We call on all countries of the world to put pressure on the criminal occupation in order to stop the genocidal war … against our Palestinian people and against children, women and civilians,” it added.
The Gaza-based Palestinian resistance movement Hamas also reacted to the Israeli attack, describing it as a “horrific massacre.”
Hamas called the strike “a new war crime extending the genocide” that the Israeli regime “commits against children and unarmed civilians.”
The movement said Israel perpetrated “this treacherous and cowardly bombing…in an attempt to renovate the image of its defeated army.”
Hamas noted that Israel’s onslaught on Gaza is being “supported by [US] President [Joe] Biden’s administration, [which is] the primary partner of the Zionist entity in its crimes and fascist aggression” against the blockaded territory.
The Israeli war machine launched its military aggression on October 7 following an operation by Gaza’s resistance movements, dubbed Operation Al-Aqsa Storm. Over 20,400 people, most of them women and children, have been killed in the Israeli genocide so far.
As the regime’s most dedicated ally, the US has supplied it with more than 10,000 tons of military equipment since the onset of the aggression.
Washington has also cast its veto against all the United Nations Security Council resolutions that called for implementation of an immediate ceasefire across Gaza.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has slammed US President Joe Biden’s administration for “actively supporting” Israel’s ongoing “genocide and ethnic cleansing” in the Gaza Strip and indifference to the genocide there.
In a statement on Sunday, CAIR national communications director of the US-based Muslim advocacy group said Biden’s actions will “stain” the US “international reputation.”
“The Biden administration’s callous indifference to – and active support for – the ongoing genocide and ethnic cleansing being carried out by [Israel] will stain our nation’s international reputation for generations to come,” Ibrahim Hooper said.
“The fact that President Biden admits that he did not even ask for a ceasefire in a recent conversation with [Israeli prime minister Benjamin] Netanyahu speaks volumes about the administration’s heartless and immoral approach to the genocide in Gaza,” he added.
On Saturday, Biden told reporters that his conversation with Netanyahu over the war on Gaza was a “long talk,” but he did not ask for a ceasefire in that call.
“Israel has now killed probably more than one in every 100 people in Gaza. That shocking figure alone should be all the evidence that is needed to finally acknowledge the truth of the ‘genocide’ label,” Hooper said.
The statement came as Israel’s deadly air raid on the al-Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza killed at least 70 people, including pregnant women and children on Monday.
An Al Jazeera reporter in Gaza interviewed eyewitnesses who said Israeli forces killed pregnant women “without mercy.”
“The women were reportedly raising white flags as they were attempting to reach the Al-Awda Hospital when they were shot by Israeli forces,” the reporter said.
On Saturday, CAIR called on Americans of all backgrounds to demand that the Biden administration act to “end the slaughter, starvation and ethnic cleansing.”
The call came after several reports revealed that Israeli forces massacred 76 members of an extended family in Gaza, Israeli-imposed famine is widespread, and that bodies are decaying in the streets and are being dug up by Israeli bulldozers.
The group said more than 110,000 Americans have used CAIR’s action alert to contact their members of Congress and call for an end to the violence and occupation.
Previously, CAIR called on the Biden administration to stop sending what it called “genocide bombs” to Israel after the New York Times revealed that US-supplied 2,000-pound bombs were “routinely” used against Palestinian civilians in so-called “safe areas” in Gaza.
CAIR also said the Biden administration must stop “justifying war crimes” Israel has perpetrated against hospitals after an investigation by the Washington Post debunked claims that Gaza’s Al Shifa Hospital had to be attacked because it was a military command center.
Israel waged the war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas carried out Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime’s decades-long campaign of death and destruction against Palestinians.
The Israeli attacks have so far killed at least 20,400 Palestinians, including 6,200 women and 8,200 children, and wounded 53,688 others in the besieged territory, where the Zionists cut off fuel, electricity, food, and water to Gaza’s 2.3 million population.
A veteran member of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), who was serving as a military advisor in Syria, has been martyred in an Israeli airstrike in the Sayyeda Zeinab neighborhood of Damascus.
The senior IRGC commander, Seyyed Razi Mousavi, was martyred by the Israeli regime on Monday while on an advisory mission, Press TV’s correspondent in Damascus reported.
Mousavi was one of the companions of Iran’s top anti-terror commander, Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, who was assassinated by the US in Iraq four years ago.
General Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force of the IRGC, and his Iraqi trenchmate Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the second-in-command of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), were martyred along with their companions in a US drone strike on January 3, 2020.
The Israeli regime has for years targeted what it calls Iran-linked positions in Syria.
In a statement, the IRGC said Mousavi was martyred in a criminal missile attack by the “fake and child-killing Zionist regime” adding that the usurping and savage Israeli regime would undoubtedly pay the price for this crime.
During the first six weeks of the war on Gaza, Israel routinely used one of the largest and most destructive bombs supplied by the US in areas it deemed safe zones for civilians, according to an analysis of visual evidence conducted by the New York Times published on Friday.
The report showed Israel’s bombardment using bombs weighing approximately one tonne in an area in southern Gaza, to which civilians were displaced under the pretext of seeking safety.
Many Western armies use bombs of this size, but munitions experts confirmed that US forces no longer drop them in densely populated areas, according to quotes by the newspaper.
The newspaper reported that it had programmed an artificial intelligence tool to scan satellite images of southern Gaza in search of craters resulting from this type of bomb. Its reporters manually reviewed the search results, looking for craters 13 metres or more.
According to munitions experts, only bombs weighing one tonne would create craters of this size in Gaza’s light, sandy dirt.
The investigation identified 208 craters in satellite images and drone footage. Due to limited satellite images and differences in bomb effects, many instances were likely not captured. However, the findings reveal that the one-tonne bombs pose a widespread threat to civilians seeking safety in southern Gaza.
The newspaper quoted the remarks of an Israeli army spokesperson, claiming that Israel’s priority is to destroy Hamas and “questions of this kind will be looked into at a later stage,” adding that the Israeli army “takes feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm.”
US officials say Israel must do more to minimise the number of civilians killed in its war on Hamas.
The Pentagon has increased its arms shipments to Israel, including smaller bombs considered more suitable for use in densely populated and urban environments like the Gaza Strip. Despite this, since October, the US has supplied Israel with more than 5,000 MK-84 munitions — a type of one-tonne bomb.
The United Nations Security Council has finally passed a resolution on the ongoing Israeli onslaught against Gaza, demanding increased aid deliveries to the besieged region but stopping short of calling for an immediate halt to the genocide.
The watered-down resolution, ratified on Friday, demanded all sides in the conflict allow the “safe and unhindered delivery of humanitarian assistance at scale.”
It also called for the creation of “conditions for a sustainable cessation of hostilities” but it did not call for an immediate end to fighting.
The vote in the 15-member council was 13-0 with the United States and Russia abstaining.
The vote followed the US veto of a Russian amendment that would have restored that call for a suspension of hostilities. That vote was 10 members in favor, the US against and four abstentions.
The text, sponsored by the United Arab Emirates, was passed following days-long negotiations over its wording, during which it was watered down at the US request.
Washington had earlier vetoed two UNSC resolutions on the conflict, drawing widespread condemnations over the body’s lack of action since the start of the onslaught.
Russia says resolution ‘toothless’
Russian ambassador to the UN Vasily Nebenzya hit out at the United States, saying “they have resorted to their favorite tactic… of twisting of arms”, calling the text “toothless.”
The UAE’s ambassador to the UN Lana Zaki Nusseibeh said “it responds with action to the dire humanitarian situation.”
“We know this is not a perfect text… We will never tire of calling for a humanitarian cease-fire,” she said.
The resolution demands all sides “allow and facilitate the use of all… routes to and throughout the entire Gaza Strip, including border crossings… for the provision of humanitarian assistance.”
It also requests the appointment of a UN humanitarian coordinator to oversee and verify third-country aid to Gaza.
An earlier text had said that the aid mechanism to accelerate the delivery of relief would be “exclusively” under UN control.
It now states it would be managed in consultation with “all relevant parties” — meaning Israel would retain operational oversight of aid deliveries.
Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip since October 7, killing at least 20,057 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injuring 53,320 others, according to health authorities in the region.
The Israeli onslaught has left Gaza in ruins with half of the coastal territory’s housing stock damaged or destroyed, and nearly 2 million people displaced within the densely-populated territory amid shortages of food and clean water.
WASHINGTON – The Israeli military reportedly used the locations of a Catholic Church and a convent in Gaza obtained from US congressional staff to later strike them with rockets and snipers.
In an attempt to prevent Israeli strikes on religious sites in Gaza, one of the largest Christian aid organizations there, Catholic Relief Services, passed on the coordinates of several sites in the enclave to Senate staffers, who, in turn, sent them to Israel, US media reported on Thursday citing a series of emails from October.
The move by the aid organization was reportedly an attempt to get a commitment from Israel not to target at least four buildings in Gaza, including the two that were later struck by the Israeli military.
On more than one occasion, church leaders shared GPS satellite data with the Israeli military, but it didn’t help to prevent the deadly incident, according to Father Ibrahim Nino, a spokesperson for the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem cited in the report.
“But what happened, happened,” the report cited Father Nino as saying. “And we are sure of it because we have 648 witnesses inside the compound of the church.”
On Saturday, the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, the Catholic body overseeing the region, published a statement condemning Israeli sniper and tank attacks on the Holy Family parish, the only Catholic parish in the enclave, and the convent of the Missionaries of Charity located in a shared compound in Gaza killing two women and injuring several more.
The US is continuing to oppose a UNSC resolution on Gaza because it would give legal sanction to action nations may take against Israel, such as that threatened by Ansarallah, the de facto government in Yemen, a journalist told Sputnik.
After a second resolution for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza was brought before the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) this week, the US has again moved to delay the vote after having vetoed the first resolution earlier this month.
American diplomats are reportedly engaging in high-level talks with Arab nations and US allies about changing parts of the text they dispute, ranging from references to a cessation of hostilities to a plan for the UN to take over security details for aid trucks entering the Gaza Strip.
After the US veto earlier this month, in which it was the sole nation to vote against the resolution, the General Assembly took up the question and passed a non-binding resolution calling for a humanitarian ceasefire. Since October 7, Israeli bombing and a ground invasion have killed more than 20,000 Palestinians in Gaza and left over 50,000 wounded. Almost the entire population of 2.3 million people have been uprooted, forced into a tiny corner of the territory where Israel says it will not bomb as it continues to hunt down Hamas forces.
Despite the veto and continued opposition to a ceasefire, there are signs the Biden administration’s patience is wearing thin: US President Joe Biden has publicly criticized his Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu, for being uninterested in a two-state solution, the internationally accepted path to peace for Israel and the Palestinians. Netanyahu replied by confirming the accusation.
Editor of The Polemicist Jim Kavanagh told Radio Sputnik’s Political Misfits on Thursday that a UN resolution would give any nation the authority to act to relieve the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza – something neither Israel nor the US will allow.
“A Security Council resolution, at least theoretically, legally opens the door to enforcement, that’s the issue here. The United Nations, the United States, can say anything it wants, whatever United Nations resolutions are passed doesn’t mean anything if they’re not going to be enforced by someone. And as you said, the only ones that get enforced are the ones that allow the United States to go to war,” he said.
“In this case, you can’t be naive about it, the downside is for the United States. The United States is supporting Israel in its attack on Gaza. And the attack on Gaza has a main objective, which is to kill and expel Gazans, to create a situation where Gazans can no longer live in Gaza, which they have mostly created, to kill as many of them as they can, in front of the world, showing the world they will cruelly and gratuitously attack hospitals, kill doctors and their families, journalists and their families, poets and intellectuals and their families at home. They know what they’re targeting, they’re destroying the possibility of life in Gaza and they’re pushing the Gazans into a corner where they’re starving, there’s no medicine, there’s going to be diseases that even the Israelis are saying you’ve got to be careful about this because those diseases might come and infect us.”
“The purpose of the Israelis is to create a situation where the world is either going to have to take the Gazans out [of the Gaza Strip], which is really what Israel wants … Israel’s going to say ‘take them.’ They’re saying it, ‘take 25,000 to this country, 50,000 to that – oh, Canada, Germany, you like your immigrants? Take them.’ We want the Palestinians to have a nice life – just not in Gaza. They want the Palestinians out of Gaza and they’re creating a situation where the world is going to have to either watch the Palestinians get killed or take them out,” he said.
Kavanagh noted that despite the dire need for humanitarian aid in Gaza, Israel has jealously guarded its sole control over the aid that goes into Gaza, having for 15 years kept the Palestinians “on a diet,” only allowing in just enough to prevent starvation.
“So you have a situation now where somebody, some force in the world has to come in in defiance of Israel and the United States, which is going to support Israel, and force humanitarian aid in there and force the rebuilding of a country where the possibility of life doesn’t exist. It’s a very dangerous situation.”
“The United States is going to support Israel and is not going to vote for a resolution that Israel doesn’t give it the permission to vote for. And no resolution that degrades Israeli control of Gaza, that takes out of the hands of Israel the control of life in Gaza, is going to be okay with Israel.”
Calling the humanitarian situation “the most horrible thing since World War II,” Kavanagh said the situation is “deliberate” and has “got a purpose: to create misery and pain and starvation and horror until they leave or someone takes them.”
“Everybody is complaining about it: the Arab states, Turkiye, Russia, the Gulf states certainly, but what are they doing?” he asked. “Because to do something is going to require defying, with either military and/or economic force, and it must be backed by military force. Why don’t Turkiye and Russia say, ‘We’re having a flotilla of ships and we’re coming into Gaza without navies supporting them and we’re going to bring humanitarian aid in?’ That’s the only way it’s going to get in.”
“The only people who are doing anything are Ansarallah, the Houthis, who are saying, ‘We’re not going to let Israel have its merchant shipping unless they let humanitarian aid in.’ That’s the demand of Ansarallah: the demand is to let humanitarian aid into Gaza. Let food and medicine in. So those are the only people I see in the world who are actually doing something. It’s hard because they’ll threaten you, the Israelis will threaten you and the Americans will back them up,” he said.
“A UN Security Council resolution would allow some other country to say, ‘well we have the legitimacy of doing this now, we’re enforcing a UN Security Council resolution.’ But even then, I don’t know if anybody would do anything,” Kavanagh said.
“Israel doesn’t care if it is the most hated country in the world, it doesn’t care, it’s going to do what it wants to do unless it is forcibly stopped from doing it.”
While Israel is causing starvation in Gaza, Israeli soldiers are cheerfully filming themselves destroying food, looting, and vandalizing Palestinian property.
Defence for Children Palestine | December 18, 2023
Dunia A., 12, and her family were struck by an Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip. Dunia’s family was killed and she lost her leg.
While she was recovering in Naser Hospital in Khan Younis, an Israeli tank-fired shell hit the hospital and killed Dunia. This video was filmed on November 25 during a seven-day truce between Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups and Dunia was killed on December 17, 2023.
Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has called for the execution of imprisoned members of the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, for each day Israeli prisoners of war are held by the movement in the besieged Gaza Strip.
Ben-Gvir also called to “immediately stop” any talks aimed at concluding prisoner exchange deals with Hamas.
“Instead, the death penalty must be applied against the terrorists. Prisoners from elite Hamas forces must be executed for each day that passes in which the kidnapped are not released,” he posted on X.
In a clear call for carrying out war crimes, the controversial minister demanded humanitarian aid be banned from entering Gaza.
It is only a matter of time before Ukraine uses depleted uranium ammunition on the battlefield, if it hasn’t already. The United States and United Kingdom sent the radioactive shells to the Zelensky regime earlier this year, and the rounds have been spotted in warehouses near the frontlines.
Following the costly failure of their “summer counteroffensive,” the Ukrainian military has begun desperately searching for “wonder weapons” to restore their battlefield fortunes.
Announcing the provision of DU rounds to Ukraine, Washington insisted in September that there’s nothing to worry about: the wonder-weapon is somewhat toxic, but overall harmless and fine. Rafael Grossi, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director general, joined the chorus, asserting to the public that there are “no significant radiological consequences” from the use of depleted uranium shells.
These are barefaced lies, according to Damacio A. Lopez, a US Air Force veteran who founded the International Depleted Uranium Study Team and co-founded the International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons (ICBUW).
“He [Grossi] is part of the team, part of the team that promotes this project, use of these weapons, he is part and parcel of the superpowers that use it and making excuses for it and trying to convince the public that this is not a problem, as they do repeatedly here in this country. You asked what the people thought about this. Well, they haven’t been getting accurate information. And I tried my best to get that information out in Uranium Battlefields and go in and talk to all these countries and try to explain what was going on.”
Damacio was one of the first Americans who raised the red flag about the disastrous consequences of the weapons. Since 1985, he has been seeking a global ban on depleted uranium arms, which are still not covered by international chemical or nuclear conventions, despite DU’s toxicity and radioactivity.
Sinister Black Cloud Over Socorro
Damacio was born in Socorro, a town in southern central New Mexico along the Rio Grande. Back in 1945, the Trinity nuclear test rocked the Jornada del Muerto Desert, only 36 miles southeast of his hometown. Damacio was only two years at that time, but later he became curious about radiation hazards.
The Trinity blast wasn’t the only US nuclear experiment in the region. In 1985, when Lopez visited his parents in Socorro during the Christmas holidays, the first thing he heard on his arrival was the sound of very loud explosions less than two miles from his house. Explosions occurred regularly, making dishes rattle and causing cracks in the walls. But even more alarming was a dark black cloud hovering over the town after the blasts.
“This was disturbing. And it wasn’t just my family. It was all the families in Socorro. From the middle of Socorro, the city park, to where the explosions had taken place, is two miles. That’s up. And the prevailing winds come over the community every time one of these bombs goes off. And of course, people were very concerned about what was going on. And my Mom asked me to look into this. And so I did. I contacted the Board of Regents of the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, who are responsible for these explosions. Because they had been testing different kinds of weapons there since 1946.”
Lopez went to a Board of Regents meeting and asked about the explosions and dark clouds of smoke. But in response, he only got evasive answers.
Still, his efforts bore some fruit: one morning, he found five mysterious boxes in the front yard of his Socorro house. When he opened them, he found documents shedding light on the ongoing disaster.
“Well, those boxes were full of information about depleted uranium and testing in Socorro, and their ideas and what they were doing. And it went way, way back, before 1972, explaining the development of these weapons and what they were trying to do and the different kinds of weapons they were experimenting with, like cluster bombs instead of using metal or tungsten or titanium. They would try depleted uranium and see how that worked. So they were doing these kinds of preliminary testing, along with two other laboratories in New Mexico, plus laboratories outside of New Mexico. They were all working together. And I saw all this information. It wasn’t just about Socorro. It was about worldwide testing with what was going on in Europe and who was testing these weapons and what kind of weapons they were testing.”
He learned that the black cloud that he saw was radioactive and chemically toxic dust ejected into the atmosphere by depleted uranium blasts.
Damacio decided to dig deeper. He knew that the exposure to nuclear materials could lead to health problems, so he went to the Health Department in Santa Fe and sought information about Socorro’s residents. The records gave him the shivers: over past years, the community’s health problems had piled up, with the number of cases of hydrocephalus, cancer, and birth defects higher than in the other counties around the state.
This gruesome discovery prompted him to start researching the effects of depleted uranium contamination.
Horrific Effects of Exposure to Depleted Uranium
“I have a brother who’s bent over, and when he speaks, and he’s 10 years younger than me, something’s wrong with his spine,” Damacio said. “And his body is kind of flopped over. And when he looks at you, he looks like a turtle. He’s way down like this, and looks up. I mean, he’s normally about 5 ft 6 in. And now he looks like he’s about 4 ft. It’s a horrible sight. His teeth are all rotten. He’s the one who lives right next to the facility. You know, here’s the facility right here.
Here’s my house. And here is a town. There’s a fence between us and it says ‘Keep out, government property.’ And so our family is very close, one of the closest homes to this facility.”
“My dad ended up dying from cancer,” the activist continued. “And it was a sad situation for us. And like I said earlier, the people there, when they realized the truth about what was going on, instead of saying, ‘Oh, we want to stop this,’ no, they’re saying, ‘What? What can we do to survive? How can we survive this thing?’ And well, they couldn’t leave. So they just stay. And over the years, refusing sometimes to even acknowledge the dangers around them, because I believe they have no other choice. And it’s dehumanizing for people to be in that situation.”
In the late 1990s, Damacio was invited to Iraq by the nation’s authorities to speak at a conference on the depleted uranium weapons used in the country by the US during the Persian Gulf War (1990-1991). In 1993, Lopez and his fellows published the book Uranium Battlefields Home and Abroad: Depleted Uranium Use by the US Department of Defense, looking into DU testing sites in the US and the Pentagon’s use of the weapons abroad. The US and its allies unleashed over 300 tons of DU in Iraq.
“Well, when I went to Iraq and I told the people, I want to see if what’s happening here is happening there as well. So I’m not only the victim, but I’m also a researcher and I want to have accurate information. I just don’t want to take other people’s word for things. And I don’t, and I never have. Maybe at the very beginning of my discovery I did that. But since then, I want to see the people involved in these situations.”
“I found a lot of [health] related issues. At that conference that I went to, I learned a lot of things and I was one of the speakers at this conference. And so I was able to get studies from these medical people who had done a lot of studies on the people in Iraq and birth defects, cancers. These were the top things that were going on in their country, and some of the cancers were the same cancers, the same cancer that my father died from. And a lot of other people in the town were having problems in Socorro with birth defects. So I was able to go into hospitals in Iraq to see for myself the people who were victims.”
But the greatest shock for Damacio was Iraqi children who were born after the US bombing campaign. When he recalls them, he cannot hold back his tears.
“In one particular hospital I was able to see many, many children with birth defects that were so severe that it was so hard for me to think of them as even human.”
“I’m talking about very, very serious birth defects. Can you imagine walking into a place and seeing a child with one eye and his forehead? It’s like not even human. And I met this little boy. He was three years old. He was with his mother and he had a big head, hydrocephalus. And one eye was turned up and his other eye was turned down. He was skin and bones. He was three years old, couldn’t weigh more than 20 pounds. And his head was huge. Little tiny, tiny legs. It’s almost skin and bone. And the mother was holding him and wiping the blood from his mouth. And as I was leaving the hospital, tears started streaming down my face. I couldn’t control it. It was so, so bad.”
The little boy looked listless. Damacio thought for a moment that the toddler couldn’t see or hear. “And as I was leaving the room, I heard the little boy scream out: ‘Mama, mama!’ And it sent chills through my entire body.”
If Damacio were told at the time that the US government would throw another thousand tons of depleted uranium on Iraq in just three weeks during the Second Gulf War, it would have stopped the researcher’s heart.
Geiger Counter Never Lies: DU Weapons are Radioactive
Lopez suspected that these hideous birth defects and the spike in cancer cases were caused by depleted uranium’s radioactivity and toxicity. Preparing for his Iraq trip, he took his Geiger counter. The radiation detector “could identify alpha, beta, and gamma, and could identify whether it was depleted uranium or something more hot than depleted uranium,” according to the researcher.
While in Baghdad, Damacio visited the Amiriyah shelter, which was subjected to a US aerial attack that killed over 400 civilians, including children, on February 13, 1991.
“It was quite a sight when I was looking at the blood and hairs of the people on the walls and the children. And then there was an area where they had all their pictures. I was there with the Japanese delegation in this particular visit. And for them, it was common – it was not common, but they knew this well about the shadows on the wall and the hair and the blood from what happened in their country when they were bombed. So they understood all this.”
“Eyewitnesses told me, more than one said to me: ‘Damacio, what happened here is… I saw this projectile. I saw this large Tomahawk cruise missile making curves around streets.’ And then, when they got to the Amiriyah shelter, they went up high, came straight down in the middle of the shelter that had three stories, three feet of concrete between the stories to protect the people in there. In this case, children. There were more than 600 kids and school kids in that shelter at this time. The missile came down from the middle of the shelter, went through, went all the way down to the bottom of the shelter, and then went into a deep hole there. I saw all this, and they’re watching it.”
Lopez decided to find remnants of projectiles used during the US bombing of Baghdad and other areas and make measurements. He knew that typically, natural background radiation levels could range between five and 60 counts per minute, or a little more. Anything higher than that meant potential radioactive contamination.
“I found in one of the facilities in Baghdad after going to the Amiriyah shelter, there was an exhibition, there was a big building and they had picked up all the war remnants that they had found. One of them was partially, about three quarters, a Tomahawk cruise missile. And I had my detector and I checked it out. It was about a hundred counts per minute, which was an indication that there was radiation within this Tomahawk cruise missile.”
Then he travelled to a site on the border between Kuwait and Iraq, dubbed the “Highway of Death,” where thousands of Iraqi tanks and armored vehicles were pierced and burned by DU munitions fired by US A-10 Warthogs. There, he got readings of about 100-120 counts per minute on the holes of the damaged tanks. Lopez also collected small pieces of metal as samples that showed a reading of 600 counts per minute.
“And I happened to find several projectiles, 30 millimeters, that had missed the target and hit the ground and bounced. And they were intact. So I checked them out with my detector, thinking I’m going to get 600 counts per minute. I was getting 2,500 per minute on these projectiles, so high that my radiation detector wouldn’t go any higher than in its capabilities. And it would go ‘u-u-u-u,’ could have been higher than 2,400 counts per minute. And the only conclusion I could draw from that is that nuclear waste from nuclear facilities was being mixed with what was so-called depleted uranium. And this became even more alarming.”
DU Weapons are Made of Radioactive Waste
Lopez tried to find out why the US had decided to use depleted uranium for its ammo in the first place.
Damacio’s book Uranium Battlefields Home and Abroad: Depleted Uranium Use by the US Department of Defense explains that DU is a byproduct of the uranium enrichment process by which the fissionable isotope uranium-235 (U235) is extracted from natural uranium for subsequent use as fuel for nuclear reactors.
Natural uranium, a silvery-grey metal, contains 0.7% U235, 99.3% U238, and a small amount of U234 by mass. After producing 85 kilograms of enriched uranium, one would get 915 kg of U238, or depleted uranium.
The Pentagon argues that U238 retains “only” 60% of natural uranium’s radioactivity and emits alpha particles, which have low penetration depth and can be stopped by skin. Inside the body, however, alpha-emitters can be extremely harmful, damaging sensitive living tissue. After the explosion of DU projectiles, microscopic and light uranium dust can travel with the wind, be inhaled, swallowed, or enter the body through a wound, later causing cancer and chromosome damage.
One should bear in mind that depleted uranium is radioactive waste that should be disposed of, Lopez pointed out in his book. However, almost all DU tails have been saved by the US government since the early 1940s. Moreover, they can be purchased for commercial use, according to the researcher. To date, the US has accumulated a massive storage of DU amounting to over 700,000 metric tons.
Why Do Pentagon and Defense Contractors Like DU So Much?
Lopez explained that from a military standpoint, the most important property of DU is its great density, relatively low cost of fabrication, and availability. The material is used for tank armor and projectiles of different sizes.
Highly-dense DU munitions easily pierce tanks and other armored vehicles. While tungsten carbide projectiles are capable of doing the same, DU is cheaper, more accessible, and offers greater margins for US military firms.
On the other hand, turning spent uranium into bullets and shells has become an “ingenious” solution for the US nuclear industry on how to “dispose” of radioactive waste, Lopez said in his book. So, as money talks, the US’ testing and use of DU weapons continue unabated, according to the activist.
But has the Pentagon ever been aware of the long-lasting hazard related to DU projectiles?
The US Department of Defense’s internal memos, leaked to the press in the late 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s, indicate that the Pentagon knew. But why would it use the toxic and radioactive substance nevertheless?
A March 1, 1991 document shows the US DoD’s attitude to DU weapons use in a nutshell. Authored by US Lieutenant Colonel M.V. Ziehmn at the Los Alamos Laboratories in New Mexico, the memo reads:
“There has been and continues to be a concern regarding the impact of DU [sic] on the environment.
Therefore, if no one makes a case for the effectiveness of DU on the battlefield, DU rounds may become politically unacceptable and thus, be deleted from the arsenal.”
The memo went on by saying: “If DU penetrators proved their worth during our recent combat activities, then we should assure their future existence (until something better is developed),” adding “we should keep this sensitive issue at mind when after action reports [sic] are written”; otherwise the US may lose “a valuable combat capability.”
Why Are the Pentagon and White House Keeping DU’s Deadly Effects Secret?
The documentary Uranium 238: The Pentagon´s Dirty Pool (2009), used by Lopez’s International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons (ICBUW) as part of its international campaign to prohibit DU, said that the Pentagon is in denial about DU munitions potentially leading to carcinogenic diseases, birth defects, and environmental contamination.
The US Defense Department has even invented a sort of “DU diplomacy” to reassure the world community and American citizens that there is nothing to worry about, according to the ICBUW. Meanwhile, the US has not only failed to inform affected nations – Iraq, Bosnia, Serbia, Syria – about the DU hazard, but also repeatedly exposed American soldiers to the toxic and radioactive waste. Per the documentary, DU weapons in all but name are a “dirty bomb” – a mix of explosives and radioactive material – used by terrorists. Yet somehow DU rounds are still called “conventional weapons.”
One could easily imagine that if the US government admits DU’s hazardous effects, the weapon would be banned, influential defense contractors would be stripped of their profits, and Washington would be slapped with a heap of legal cases with compensation demands.
And the US is not the only country that uses depleted uranium as a weapon, as some of its NATO allies also do, according to Lopez.
“[The US keeps DU’s deadly effect secret], for the same reason all the other countries that have the weapon kept secret, as much as they can keep it secret, it is because they know they’re violating international laws, international conventions on weapons, and they know that they’re going to have to pay the price someday, and they may end up with charges of violations of international laws. And so they’re trying to protect themselves. And at the same time, they want to continue to keep the weapon because they’re afraid other countries have weapons too,” Lopez concluded.
Jewish Anti Zionists are occasionally irritated by the ‘conflation’ of ‘Zionism and Judaism’ but the terms are inherently related.
Conflation is usually understood as the merging of two or more distinct sets of information, texts, ideas, etc. into one. Does this concept apply to Zionism and Judaism? Are Zionism and Judaism distinct terms? Are Jews and Zionism categorically different from each other?
For example, can Americanism and exceptionalism be conflated? Can round and circular be conflated? The distinction between terms that are related can be confusing. But the relationship between Jews and Zionism is clear. This is also true of the relationship among Zionism, Jews and Judaism. These terms are intrinsically related politically, culturally, religiously and at times they form a metaphysical continuum.
Rabbi Yaakov Shapiro, probably the most eloquent Torah Jew spokesperson, has repeatedly argued that those who ‘conflate’ Judaism and Zionism are “either Zionists or anti-Semites.” But Zionism and Judaism, as we will see next, are integrally related.
The vast majority of Rabbinical Jews see Judaism and Zionism as correlated precepts. This is not a recent phenomenon. As early as 1942, at the peak of WWII, 818 orthodox American rabbis signed a document reaffirming the essential bond between Zionism and Judaism. The Rabbis’ document reads, “the overwhelming majority of American Rabbis regard Zionism not only as fully consistent with Judaism but as a logical expression and implementation of it.” We can also look to the Judaic teaching of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook. Kook, who died in 1935, was the chief rabbi of Mandatory Palestine. He is considered one of the fathers of religious Zionism. For Kook, Eretz Yisrael was the spatial centre of holiness in the world. Like other Zionist agitators, Kook rejected the galut (Jewish Diaspora). The messianic Zionist settler movement is largely inspired by Kook’s teaching.
The Rabbis who subscribe to the Zionist enterprise clearly do not differentiate between Judaism and Zionism. For them, Zionism and Judaism are at the core of the contemporaneous Judaic call. These Rabbis do not conflate Zionism with Judaism: they simply do not differentiate the two.
But what about the so-called ‘anti Semites,’ do they ‘conflate’ Judaism and Zionism? Some critics of Israel argue that Zionist criminality is the outcome of Judaic dismissal of otherness. They point at some problematic segments within the Talmud and argue that Israeli brutality is a continuation of those inhumane teachings. Whether or not this argument is valid, the suggestion that Zionism inherited its brutality from Judaism suggests that the so called anti Semite’s understanding of Zionism and the Talmud are linked by a chain of causality, and is not a case of conflation.
So the rabbinical Zionists and the ‘anti Semites’ do not conflate Zionism and Judaism, but what about Israel and the Israelis? Israel is invested in a dialectical battle with the merger of Judaism and Zionism. Israel defines itself as the ‘Jewish’ State not the ‘Judaic’ State. Secular Zionism has, since its inception, had an ambivalent relationship with Rabbinical institutes. Though the rabbinical institutions in Israel have managed to dictate halakha law, Israeli political institutions have, at least until now, compartmentalised religious and civil matters.
While in Judaism (as in Islam), there is no dichotomy between the religio and the civil, Zionism promised to make Jews into‘people like all other people.’ This promise was inspired by Christian civilisation — a social environment that endeavored to maintain a dichotomy between religion and civil laws. Zionism’s original promise to civilise the Jews was intended to liberate the newly invented Jewish ‘nation’ from its ‘reactionary’ religious heritage. This indicates that even the Israelis do not conflate Judaism and Zionism. They, somehow, differentiate between the two, although they probably admit to themselves that they often overlap.
But if Judaism and Zionism are not distinct notions and, as a result, conflation is not possible, it would also be wrong to argue, as many commentators do, that ‘Judaism was hijacked by Zionism.’ If anything, the facts suggest the opposite. It was Zionism that was hijacked by Judaism. Zionism began as an anti Judaic movement. It promised to emancipate the Jews from their ‘reactionary’ past by means of a ‘homecoming’. It promised to civilise diaspora Jews and make them a part of a productive, functional and autonomous nation. Many early Zionist texts read like anti-Semitic tracts. They spew anti Jewish rants. But it didn’t take long for Judaism to contain the emerging tsunami of Early-Zionist ferocity and teach the Jews to love themselves once again. It is important to note that when Zionism was anti Judaic, universalist and humanist, it was a marginal movement. Hardly any Jews followed the few early Zionist idealists. However, as soon as Zionism became tribal, expansionist and even militant, its popularity amongst Jews grew rapidly. It is reasonable to argue that it was Rabbis like Kook and later the Chabbad sect that skillfully and wittingly integrated Zionism into their Judaic teaching. By doing so, they killed Zionist anti Judaic ferocity. They reunited the tribe.
It seems that no one conflates Judaism and Zionism, not the Rabbinical Zionist who see Judaism and Zionism as one, nor the anti-Semite who sees Judaism and Zionism in causal terms. Even the Israelis do not conflate the two. Those who reference to conflation may do so in order to sustain the confusion relating to Jews and their politics.
Kosher Trinity And Jewish Quantum Mechanics
While pre-emancipated Jews where at ease with their ethno-religious identity, the French revolution, emancipation and secularisation introduced complexity to identity issues for European Jews. Since then, secular Jews have found it difficult or even impossible to consolidate their tribal identity within the emerging universal discourse around them. They find it impossible to fuse their cultural racial orientation with their anti racist progressive political rants. Zionism offered a solution. It promised to take the Jews away, to remove the problem. But Zionism only managed to move the problem to a new place.
Diaspora Jews have developed different tactics to deal with their identity crises. Contemporary Jewish identity is shaped like a tri-polar magnetic field in which one pole is religion, another is race and the third is politics.
When Jewish politics is subject to criticism (Israel, Zionism, the Lobby, etc.) some Jews claim to be ‘racially offended’ in spite of the fact that race, biology, blood or ethnicity was never mentioned. When Jewish racism is subject to criticism (choseness, Israel race laws, etc.) some Jews are affronted by a perceived attack on their religion. When the religion or some obscene Jewish religious teaching is disparaged, many Jews are quick to assert that they are hardly religious anymore (which is true by the way). We are confronting a quantum leap–an evasive identity that is morphing constantly. It moves rapidly within its kosher trinity field, it is everywhere and nowhere. The reason for this is that the Kosher Trinity makes it very difficult, or even impossible to criticise Jewish politics, ideology and religion. The Kosher Trinity allows Jews to boast about their cultural symptoms and great achievements while claiming offense when any of these symptoms are discussed by others. This quantum model is set to suppress any possible dissent and avoid Jewish self-reflection. As much as you may find it hard to grasp what Jews are, Jews share the struggle to address who they are and what they are up to.
It’s really no surprise that Israel’s military is killing its own people after reports of three hostages shot dead by “friendly fire”.
The Israeli authorities said the three Israeli men were “mistakenly identified as threats” during close combat with Palestinian militants and were fired on by troops.
There are reports of the bodies of three other hostages having been recovered. However, the Israeli regime is not disclosing the circumstances of their deaths. Or rather they haven’t come up with a good cover story yet.
There are also reports that up to 20 per cent of the 117 Israeli soldiers killed so far in action in Gaza have been by “friendly fire”.
Hamas, the Palestinian militant group, has stated that several Israeli hostages have been killed during eight weeks of Israeli bombardment of Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the latest three hostage deaths as an “unbearable tragedy” and vowed that there would be a full investigation into the circumstances to avoid repeating the error.
There are believed to be around 130 Israeli hostages still remaining in Gaza after they were taken there by Hamas and other Palestinian militants during the daring attacks on Israel on October 7. More than 100 captives have already been released during an earlier prisoner exchange truce.
The latest deaths of hostages sparked public protests in Tel Aviv demanding Netanyahu to end hostilities and bring all captives home. Israeli families and supporters have been furious at Netanyahu’s war cabinet for not prioritizing the release of all captives by calling a ceasefire.
Netanyahu and his ministers have rejected domestic and international calls for a ceasefire. Israel’s Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said that Israel’s attacks on Gaza will continue “with or without international support”.
The U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan in a visit to Israel on Friday consented to the continuation of military operations for months to come, although no doubt for public relations benefit the American envoy urged a “transition” to minimize civilian casualties.
The intransigent Israeli leaders have said the military operations in Gaza will continue for “several months”. That means the death toll of civilians and hostages will inevitably escalate beyond what is already an unprecedented aggression and litany of war crimes. Already there have been 20,000 Palestinian civilians killed during 70 days of bombing and ground invasion by Israeli troops in Gaza.
Nearly 30,000 bombs have been dropped on Gaza and half of them are “unguided” munitions or so-called “dumb bombs”. That’s over 50 tonnes in high explosive ordnance, or three times the lethal force that was dropped on Hiroshima by the Americans in 1945.
The wanton murder of women and children by the Israeli regime shows that it has no regard for international law nor the commission of crimes against humanity.
Given the barbarity of Israel’s onslaught, it is not surprising that its forces are killing its own people. This is not merely due to “error” or what is called “friendly fire”.
The Israeli military is bombing civilian targets with deliberate genocidal intent. Its snipers are shooting medics and patients through hospital windows.
There are reports of Israeli commandos raiding shelters and executing women and children at close range.
In this unbridled slaughter of innocents and orgy of mass murder it is to be expected that the Israeli forces are killing Israeli hostages because these forces are killing everyone. Anyone that appears in the gun sights of Israeli forces is to be obliterated.
And the Israeli regime and its American apologists have the gall to call the Israeli killers-in-uniform “the most moral army in history”.
During the Hamas attacks on Kibbutzim and other Israeli sites on October 7, it is now well-documented that many of the deaths that day out of the 1,200 victims were caused by Israeli military violence. Israeli witnesses have testified that troops opened fired with tanks and heavy machine guns on houses where Palestinian fighters were holding residents.
Israeli soldiers have also expressed dismay and disbelief that their forces used such indiscriminate firepower in situations where Israeli citizens would be knowingly killed.
The destruction of houses as well as numerous cars at the open air dance festival where several Israeli partygoers were killed could not have been carried out by lightly armed Palestinian fighters. The latter claimed to have killed nearly 400 Israeli soldiers on October 7. Hamas say their primary targets were military. No doubt the militants killed civilians too. However, the emerging evidence indicates that most of the deaths of Israeli civilians were by their own security forces.
This would account for images that purport to show that Hamas fighters incinerated and mutilated victims. Such images have been cited by Netanyahu and U.S. President Joe Biden as evidence of Palestinian “terrorism” and justification for the Israeli offensive on Gaza.
But the deliberate killing of Israelis by their military in situations of close combat as a means to destroy the enemy is known as the Hannibal Doctrine. It is Israeli state policy, albeit not openly acknowledged.
The latest Israeli plan reported this week to flood underground tunnels in Gaza with seawater is also risking the drowning of Israeli hostages. Just like the carpet bombing of Gaza, the lives of the hostages are of little value to Netanyahu and the psychopaths in his cabinet.
If it weren’t for the genocidal offensive on Gaza, Netanyahu would be in court facing prosecution for long-time charges of personal corruption. He wants this murderous war to continue for as long as possible to keep himself out of jail. His cabinet of Zionist fascists also want to wipe Palestinians off the map in a Final Solution of ethnic cleansing.
For the fascist Israeli regime who have gotten away with mass murder and theft for so long with absolutely no compunction, well… why not kill a few of their own for good measure?
Their perennial cover story of the Nazi Holocaust against Jews is just an added sickening depravity. The Neo-Nazis are in Tel Aviv, sponsored and weaponised by Washington.
By Thomas Riggins | Dissident Voice | February 5, 2014
A new report in Science News Magazine (1-25-2014) by Bruce Bower details a reevaluation of the view that the Rapa Nuians, the native inhabitants of Easter Island (Rapa Nui), were responsible for the collapse of their population and society due to over exploitation of natural resources and the destruction of the rain forest on their island, a view recently popularized by Jared Diamond in his book Collapse (2005).
As Bower reports, the anthropologist Maria Mulrooney has published the results of her studies of the Rapa Nui culture (Journal of Archeological Science, December 2013) based on new radiocarbon dates from archeological sites on the island. She has concluded that after the clear cutting of the forest in the 1500s, to make room for agricultural production, the population of Rapa Nui remained sufficiently vibrant to carry on food production and continue their cultural development.
Exactly when the Rapa Nui arrived on Easter Island is unknown but it was on or before 1200 A.D. or so. Mulrooney maintains they had a thriving culture which was still going strong even after their “discovery” by the Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen on Easter Sunday 1722. This would indicate that they had not suffered “collapse” as a result of forest clearance. … continue
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