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.”
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; 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.”
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.
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.
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.”
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)
‘Barbaric attack using Western arms’ – Moscow decries Ukrainian shelling of Donetsk
A market destroyed in the Ukrainian shelling of the Russian city of Donetsk. © Sputnik / Viktoria Velenskaya
RT | January 21, 2024
The shelling of the Russian city of Donetsk, which has claimed the lives of at least 25 civilians and wounded 20 others, is “a barbaric terrorist act” carried out by Ukraine with the support of the West, Russia’s Foreign Ministry has said.
It has been established that Sunday’s bombardment of a busy market in the capital of Russia’s Donetsk People’s Republic was inflicted with weapons supplied to Kiev by the US and its allies, the ministry said in a statement.
“This again confirms [the West’s] direct involvement in the conflict and makes it complicit in the criminal acts of the Zelensky regime, which has once again displayed its inhumanity and hatred towards innocent people,” it said.
“The West’s unrestrained desire to inflict a ‘strategic defeat’ on Russia through the hands of their Ukrainian puppets, whom it is eager to support mindlessly and without limit, is pushing the Kiev regime to increasingly reckless steps, including acts of terrorism, massive violations of international humanitarian law, and war crimes,” the ministry added.
Russia is calling on governments and international bodies to condemn this “treacherous attack on the civilian population,” it stated. Failure to do so would be a sign of “silent approval of the murders of civilians” that would only encourage Kiev “to commit even more bloody atrocities,” it also pointed out.
All those involved in the shelling of Donetsk and in other “terrorist attacks” on Russia will face “an inevitable punishment,” the ministry warned.
The desperate strikes clearly demonstrate the lack of political will on the part of the Ukrainian authorities to search for peace and a settlement of the conflict with Russia through diplomatic means, the statement continued.
“The need to achieve all of the goals and objectives of Russia’s military operation is obvious. Security threats and acts of terrorism shouldn’t be committed from the territory of Ukraine,” it said.
Russia’s First Deputy Permanent Representative at the UN, Dmitry Polyansky, wrote on Telegram that the attack on Donetsk, which he described as “another heinous crime” by Ukraine, will “undoubtedly” become one of the main topics of discussion during the UN Security Council meeting on Monday. Russia had requested the UNSC meeting several days ago, to discuss deliveries of Western weapons to the Kiev government.
Israelis opposing war receiving ‘death threats,’ says Knesset member Ofer Cassif
Lawmaker from the Arab-majority Hadas-Ta’al party and a Knesset member, Ofer Cassif in his office in West Jerusalem on January 12, 2024. [Arif Kayacan – Anadolu Agency]
MEMO | January 20, 2024
Firebrand Israeli lawmaker Ofer Cassif, who has been criticized for backing South Africa’s genocide case against Israel, says “there is an assault going on” against those who are opposing Tel Aviv’s military campaign in Gaza.
The vocal politician from the left-wing, Arab-majority Hadash-Ta’al party, was suspended from the Knesset for 45 days for criticizing the war that began after the Oct. 7 cross-border offensive by Hamas.
The Palestinian death toll from Israel’s more than 100-day bombardment of the Gaza Strip has crossed 24,000 people, most of them women and children.
The initial Hamas attack is said to have killed 1,200 people, and around 240 hostages were taken, some of whom were released during a week-long truce in November.
In a wide-ranging exclusive interview with Anadolu, Cassif said rejection of Israel’s military response has led to “an assault on freedom of speech,” including death threats.
“People are arrested for tweets and posts, not in support of Hamas, of course, but in supporting ending the war, or before even cease-fire. Students are suspended from the universities and colleges. People are fired from their workplaces. The police are brutally violent towards the demonstrators,” Cassif said.
“There is an assault on freedom of speech of those who raise voice against the war … there are death threats. Because it’s not only violence from above, from the government from the prime minister, legitimization of the violence against the protesters, of course by [Itamar] Ben Gvir (national security minister) and the police, which unfortunately mostly became a kind of a private militia of Ben Gvir. But it also penetrates the society as a whole. And you can see that within the society, a growing a part of the public supports, literally and explicitly, violence against those who oppose the war, including death threats.”
‘Region will explode’ if Netanyahu doesn’t go
Cassif said everyone will pay a “huge price” and the entire “region is going to explode” if Israel does not get rid of the “terrible government” headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
According to him, the only way to stop the catastrophe from happening is by stopping the war, exchange of prisoners and release of all hostages, withdrawal of Israeli military from Gaza, and the beginning of serious peace process.
“This government should go home, if not to prison” as it has caused a lot of damage to both Israelis and Palestinians, he said. “The only way to live, to have a future, to prosper, is this. No war.”
Israeli contradictions
He also highlighted the contradiction in statements of Israeli authorities over the assault on the blockaded enclave, who on one hand say they never intentionally target civilians, but at the same argue there are no innocents in Gaza.
“A minister said ‘… dropping an atomic bomb on Gaza is an option.’ Another member of the Knesset, although a backbencher, said Gaza be eliminated. He used this term eliminated. Netanyahu himself, the prime minister, said Gaza is like Amalek. Amalek is like a codename, a biblical codename, of a group that deserves extermination.
“The president of Israel, who is supposed to be objective and beyond politics, signed a bomb, before it was sent to Gaza. And he also said that there aren’t any innocent people in Gaza. This is only the tip of the iceberg. So how can you say that you do not target civilians, innocent civilians, and at the same time, you say they aren’t innocent civilians. This contradiction shows exactly how this government behaves, what is the policy of this government, and I emphasize this is against Israel too.”
‘What’s going on in Gaza must be investigated by impartial body’
Cassif said he did not want to claim that the Israeli government is pursuing a genocidal policy in the Gaza Strip, arguing: “The legal definition of genocide is one that I leave experts to analyze.”
But, he added, there are two main reasons for him supporting the genocide case in The Hague: conducting an impartial investigation on Gaza bombing, and to save lives.
“What’s going on in Gaza must be investigated by an impartial body. I do not trust the government of Israel or any branch or proxy of the Israeli government to investigate itself … It’s like asking a thief to investigate oneself whether he or she stole something. It doesn’t make any sense,” he said.
“This terrible assault on Gaza is costing the lives of thousands of thousands of Palestinians, and hundreds of Israeli soldiers and Israeli hostages. They (Israeli hostages) are held in terrible conditions by Hamas in Gaza. I want the lives to be saved.”
But that cannot be done just through protests in Israel, he added.
“We cannot demonstrate, we cannot raise our voice. We are limited. There is a dictatorship now here, practically. What’s left is to look for a refuge in international organizations. So that’s the main reason why I think we should have supported the appeal of South Africa.”
Interests of Palestinians and Israelis ‘not contradictory’
“The interests of Israel, and the interests of Palestinians, as far as I see, are not contradictory. I think it’s in common interest of both the Palestinians and the Israelis to seek peace and to end the war,” Cassif said.
The Israeli government, he said, “totally neglected” the hostages. “The government doesn’t do anything to save the hostages. And everybody knows the only way to save the hostages, who are dying there, is by ending the war.”
The parliamentarian claimed 47% of the Israeli public, according to polls, supports ending the war in order to rescue the captives. “I agree with this specific point. I do hope the ICJ will ensure a decision that will end the war.”
Israeli press ‘betrayed’ profession
Asked why the Israeli army does not allow journalists to enter Gaza, Cassif said: “Perhaps they have something to hide … Normally when you don’t allow someone to get into somewhere. It’s because you don’t want someone to see something.”
About press freedom in Israel, Cassif said there have been situations where authorities “mobilize,” or force the media to “publish something and not to publish something else,” but now a vast majority of journalists are “voluntarily” supporting the policy of the government.
“You can say, there are not many limitations on freedom of the press, but the press itself, most of them, choose not to act freely … this is disgraceful, it’s unprofessional, and it will be remembered once this terrible era is ended and finished. It will be remembered that they betrayed the profession.”
‘They want to silence us’
Commenting over a lawmaker’s efforts to get him expelled from the 120-member Knesset, Cassif said “they want to silence” and “don’t want our voice to be heard … the voices against the war. This is the part of the persecution and silencing of the people who support peace and go against violence and war.”
The opposition lawmaker said he believed the efforts against him will succeed, but he will approach the Supreme Court to get relief as “there is no legal basis.”
“According to the law, a member of Knesset can be expelled only if one supports racism, terrorism, or armed struggle against Israel. Neither of those is relevant to me. I’m against racism, I’m against terrorism. I am against armed struggle against Israel.”
He said the claim is based on political reasons. “The world should understand that the assault on Gaza, and the silencing of peace lovers and the democrats in Israel are two sides of the same coin. They continue with a coup they began before Oct. 7 by other means.”
Israeli forces desecrated at least 16 cemeteries in Gaza during their aggression: Report
Press TV – January 20, 2024
A new investigation has found that Israeli forces have desecrated at least 16 cemeteries in the Gaza Strip during the regime’s ongoing war against the besieged terrirtoy.
CNN, based on satellite imagery and social media footage, published an investigation on Saturday, saying Israeli troops have left tombstones torn down and even bodies unearthed as they destroyed the cemeteries.
It went on to say that the regime forces have destroyed an entire cemetery in the southern city of Khan Yunis, removing bodies buried there.
The Israeli military has defined the move as part of a search for the remains of captives taken by the Palestinian resistance during the operation al-Aqsa Strom in early October, the US-based broadcaster added.
Legal experts told CNN that Israel’s acts could amount to war crimes, stressing that the intentional destruction of religious sites, such as cemeteries, violates international law.
Confirming the desecration of the cemeteries by the regime forces, an Israeli military spokesman also told the broadcaster that the military sometimes has “no other choice” but to target cemeteries it claimed Hamas uses for military purposes.
The report further noted that in other cases, however, Israeli forces appear to have used cemeteries as military outposts.
Satellite imagery and videos showed that Israeli bulldozers turned multiple cemeteries into staging grounds, leveling large swaths and erecting fortifications.
Satellite imagery also showed a fixed presence of Israeli military forces in the central part of the Shajaiya cemetery since December 10.
At the Bani Suheila cemetery, east of Khan Yunis, satellite imagery revealed the graveyard’s deliberate and progressive bulldozing and the creation of defensive fortifications over the course of at least two weeks in late December and early January.
Destroyed tombstones and heavy tread marks also pointed to heavily armored vehicles or tanks driving over graves in Al Falouja cemetery in the Jabalia neighborhood as well as the Tuffah cemetery, east of Gaza City.
Israeli forces also severely damaged the cemetery in Khan Yunis, as they moved in on the area surrounding the Nasser Hospital and a Jordanian field hospital, according to satellite imagery and videos reviewed by CNN.
The Israeli regime waged the war on Gaza on October 7 after Hamas carried out the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime’s atrocities against Palestinians.
Since the start of the aggression, Israel has killed more than 24,900 Palestinians, mostly women and children.
The Tel Aviv regime has also imposed a “complete siege” on the territory, cutting off fuel, electricity, food, and water to the more than two million Palestinians living there.
Israel says 253 people were taken captive during the Hamas surprise operation and believes 132 hostages are still in Gaza – 105 of them alive and 27 dead.
IRGC officials killed in Israeli attack on Damascus
The Cradle | January 20, 2024
An Israeli airstrike on the Syrian capital Damascus killed four members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) during the early hours of 20 January.
“An Israeli aggression today targeted a residential building in the Mezzeh neighborhood of Damascus,” SANA reports.
According to Al-Mayadeen, the building targeted consisted of three stories and is affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
“Once again, the evil and criminal Zionist regime invaded the city of Damascus, the capital of Syria,” The IRGC statement following today’s attack read. “During the air attack […] several Syrian forces and four military advisers of the Islamic Republic of Iran were martyred.”
Two high-ranking members of the IRGC were among those killed: Commander Haj Sadegh Omidzadeh, deputy intelligence officer of the IRGC Quds Force, and his deputy, Haj Gholam.
This attack comes days after Iran targeted a Mossad-affiliated base in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region (IKR) in retaliation for an earlier assassination of an IRGC commander in Syria.
On 16 January, Iranian missiles leveled an alleged Mossad base in IKR’s capital, Erbil, that was reportedly involved in coordinating the recent assassinations of several commanders of the IRGC and the Resistance Axis.
The IRGC noted that this base was used “to develop espionage operations and plan acts of terrorism” across the region, specifically in Iran.
The Iranian operation in IKR killed Kurdish oil tycoon Peshraw Dizayee, owner of the Empire and Falcon Group, who have reportedly facilitated oil exports to Israel.
Iraq condemned the IRGC operation, saying it is “an aggression against the sovereignty of Iraq and the security of the Iraqi people, and an insult to good neighborliness and the security of the region.”
BBC HardTalk: Professor Marandi on the Gaza Genocide and its regional implications
January 16, 2024
Professor Seyed Mohammad Marandi discusses the Israeli genocide in Gaza, Yemen and the conflict in the Red Sea, Hezbollah’s border war, and Iraq. He explains the regional implications as well as the possibility of escalation and regional war.
UK Backing Israel With Spy Planes Over Gaza – Report
Sputnik – 19.01.2024
Late last year it was revealed the United Kingdom was supplying Israel with weapons from a base in Cyprus. Now new evidence is emerging of the lengths the country has gone to assist Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his Gaza military campaign.
British Defense Minister Grant Shapps had previously admitted the UK was providing “surveillance support to Israel,” although he couched the assistance in terms of “preventing the transfer of weapons to terrorist groups.” Shapps later claimed the surveillance flights were intended to locate two British captives being held in Gaza.
But now it has emerged that the British Armed Forces have flown 50 surveillance flights over the besieged enclave since December alone. The flights departed from RAF Akrotiri, the UK’s air force base in Cyprus.
The revelation is likely to prove controversial as the UK has been rocked by demonstrations protesting Israel’s deadly military operation in Gaza, which has killed nearly 25,000 people in the territory. Thousands of Britons have taken to the streets even as the country’s government has provoked free speech concerns by attempting to ban pro-Palestine protest chants. In France and Germany, authorities have banned some pro-Palestine demonstrations entirely.
The UK’s embattled defense minister was recently widely ridiculed for a speech warning that the UK was at risk of attack from China, Russia, Iran and North Korea. Shapps was mocked for an address where he declared “the era of the peace dividend is over” – the United Kingdom has been perhaps the strongest supporter of US military interventions throughout the world.
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From the Archives
Politicians lie
By Mazin Qumsiyeh | Popular Resistance | August 18, 2013
There is no way to say this truth nicely: Politicians lie. That includes Japanese, American, Egyptian, Israeli, and Palestinian politicians! Is there something more common sense than that? Yet, so many citizens around the world believe their own politicians or wistfully acknowledge lies but think it is part of the job needed to run things. They believe even when politicians contradict themselves blatantly. This phenomenon is rather remarkable. It is a dissonance and disconnect from reality that many seem oblivious to. It is very dangerous because it can lead to accepting rationales for going to war. These can be deadly wars that lead to millions of lives lost as happened in what was called World War 1 and WW2. Even when incredible and declassified evidence abound, politicians continue to lie and old mythologies refuse to die. Here are just a few of the countless lies told to us over the past few decades… continue
Blog Roll
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- China pushes back against US on Cuba, Iran
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- Burnham’s UN debut… A masterclass in British disinformation
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- Global Tipping Points Lead the World Into a State of Entropy
- The day-after at the White House: USA and Xi Jinping
- The Geopolitical Balance in the Red Sea: The UAE Being Displaced by New Players
- Iraqi resistance group vows to stage airport sit-ins over Iran aerial blockade
- If Americans Knew
- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
- No Tricks Zone
- New Study: Earth And Venus Surface Warmth Largely Explained By Convection And Lapse Rate, Not CO2 Or Radiation
- 2025 Nature Paper Claiming Worsening Global Drought Gets RETRACTED …Heavily Flawed
- New Study: ‘Global Drought Shows No Detectable Recent Acceleration Under Climate Warming’
- Economic Masterminds: German Socialists Suggest Taxing Productivity Gains Stemming From Using AI
- The South China Sea Has Not Been Cooperating With The Climate Change Narrative
- Energy Crisis: Germany Enters Heating Season With Historically Low Gas Reserve Fill Levels
- New Study: The Antarctic Ice Sheet Gained Mass From 2020-2024 Due To Staggering Snow And Ice Accumulation
- Study: Ocean Heating Rates From Thousands Of Years Ago ‘Dwarf’ Modern Ocean Heating Rates
- Climate Extremists Target, Attack Large-Scale Power Grid Infrastructure In Germany!
- New Study: Antarctic Ice Melt Has Contributed Less Than 1 Centimeter To Sea Level Rise In The Last 30 Years
