Eyewitness Reveals How Family of Four Died During Israeli Strike in Southern Lebanon
Samira Ayoub with her daughter Huda, granddaughters Rimas, Talin and Lian; her elder brother Samir Ayoub with his son before the tragedy
By Christina Malyk – Sputnik – 14.11.2023
Samir Ayoub, a Russian-Lebanese journalist, lost four of his family members – younger sister Samira (60) and her granddaughters Rimas (14), Talin (12) and Lian (10) – during an Israeli drone strike on the village of Aitarun near the Lebanese-Israeli border. The tragedy occurred right before his eyes.
Samir highlighted that he did not expect that an Israeli drone would attack the civilians who “have nothing to do with the military.” That tragic day, his sister Samira, her daughter Huda, and granddaughters Rimas, Talin, and Lian were packing their things and moving to Beirut, while schools were closed near the Israeli border, and asked Samir for help.
“We, who live near the border, already know that the drone sees everyone and everything that is on earth, even animals. Therefore, I asked the children to play near the car. I thought they would see the children and definitely not touch us. The youngest of the girls even jumped on the hood of the car. Therefore, I am absolutely sure they saw that only children and women got into the car,” he added.
Then, when the family started driving to Beirut, the tragedy suddenly occured. Samir Ayoub described the moment:
“We left Aitarun for Beirut in two cars. I was driving in front. Suddenly, I heard a sound as if pyrotechnics had gone off. The car received a direct hit, and it burned to the ground. My sister was sitting in the passenger seat, she died on the spot. The girls, my niece’s daughters, were burned alive in the back seat. Only my niece survived – she was driving.”
According to him, Huda, mother of the murdered girls and his niece, is still in hospital with serious injuries, but her life is not in danger now. She remembers what happened to her car that day.
“Huda remembers the tragedy every day. Although she is recovering physically, it is extremely difficult for her mentally. We all try to support her as best we can. Her husband also holds on despite such a terrible loss. He and I constantly come to the hospital to visit her,” Samir noted.
Samir wants to remember the murdered girls as “wonderful children,” who had their own dreams about the future. He revealed:
“The eldest, Rimas, was 14, she wanted to become a doctor. The middle one, Talin, was 12 and dreamed of becoming a designer. The youngest, Lian, was 10, and she dreamed of becoming an artist. But, alas, due to the actions of the Israeli army, their dreams will no longer be able to come true.”
The Lebanese government condemned the actions of the Israeli military and filed a formal complaint to the UN for committing a war crime.
“The Israelis reported they had eliminated three terrorists in the south of Lebanon. But what kind of terrorists? These were my sister, a pensioner, and her schoolgirl granddaughters. All we want now is truth and justice,” he concluded.
Report: Israel killed 3,100 school students, 130 teachers in Gaza
MEMO | November 14, 2023
The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) said as many as 3,141 Palestinian students have been killed by Israel in the besieged Gaza Strip and occupied West Bank since 7 October, along with 130 teachers and administrators.
In a statement, the PCBS said 3,117 Palestinian students were killed in the Gaza Strip between 7 October and 11 November while 24 students were killed in the West Bank. A further 4,863 have been injured during this period; 4,613 of them in the Gaza Strip and 250 in the occupied West Bank.
Israeli occupation forces have also arrested 67 students, all of them from the West Bank, during that period.
As many as 403 teachers and administrators were wounded by the Israeli raids on the besieged Gaza Strip while more than 40 teachers and administrators were arrested in the occupied West Bank.
The Israeli warplanes have purposefully targeted 239 government schools in the Gaza Strip with air strikes, causing severe destruction to 45 schools while 50 schools run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Refugees (UNRWA) have been attacked. In the occupied West Bank, the Israeli army has attacked 27 government schools, the PCBS report found.
Racist and genocidal: Zionist leaders and cheerleaders in their own words
By David Miller | Press TV | November 14, 2023
Although they spend a lot of time and resources pretending that they are “democrats” and not racists, Zionists are often, especially in a crisis situation, very clear about what they believe.
We see settlers regularly on the streets of occupied Palestine chanting provocative slogans such as “may your village burn”, and “death to Arabs” and also calling for a second Nakba.
But the racist and genocidal nature of Zionism goes right to the top.
What follows is a series of inflammatory and deeply racist statements by Zionists, all uttered after 7 October 2023 and the launch of the Al Aqsa Storm (also known as Al Aqsa Flood) operation by the Hamas-led Palestinian resistance.
“I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals.”
Yoav Gallant, Israeli military affairs minister, 9 October 2023
“Israel needs to increase the humanitarian pressure on the Gaza Strip so that eventually hundreds of thousands of hungry and thirsty Gazans will break through the Rafah crossing.”
Tzachi Levi, Israel National News, 20 October 2023
“I am very puzzled by the constant concern which the world, … is showing for the Palestinian people and is actually showing for these horrible inhuman animals who have done the worst atrocities that this century has seen.”
Dan Gillerman, Israel’s former ambassador to the United Nations, 25 October 2023
“We are sons of light, they are sons of darkness. And light will prevail over darkness.
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Prime Minister, 25 October 2023
“Do not leave a stone upon a stone in Gaza. Gaza needs to turn to Dresden, Yes! Complete incineration, No more hope…. Annihilate Gaza Now! Now!”
Moshe Feiglin, leader of the libertarian Zionist party Zehut, former Knesset member, 26 October 2023
“If we were dealing with humans, we’d send humanitarian aid, but we’re dealing with animals.”
Rabbi Meir Mazuz, October 2023
“It is an entire nation out there that is responsible. It is not true this rhetoric about civilians not being aware, not involved. It’s absolutely not true.”
Israeli President Isaac Herzog, 12 October 2023.
“You have to be very careful. Let me tell you we are going to finish this war, we are going to win, because we are stronger. After this Russia will pay the price. Russia will pay the price. Russia is supporting the enemies of Israel. Russia is supporting Nazi people who want to commit genocide on us. And Russia will pay the price.”
Amir Weitmann, a senior member of Likud party, on RT, 19 October 2023
“This is not Auschwitz – This is Hamas! We are not fighting against humans – we are fighting monsters! Israel will not stop until Hamas is destroyed! This is what I said at the General Assembly podium when I showed footage of Israeli civilians burnt alive by Hamas and of Hamas savages.”
Gilad Erdan, Israel ambassador to the United Nations, 26 October 2023
“Are you serious asking about Palestinian civilians? What’s wrong with you?”
Former Israeli PM Naftali Bennett on Sky News after being asked – “What about the babies in incubators in Gaza whose life support has been turned off because the Israelis have cut off the power”, 12 October 2023
“Right now, one goal: Nakba! A Nakba that will overshadow the Nakba of 48. Nakba in Gaza and Nakba to anyone who dares to join!”
Ariel Kallner, Likud party, member of the Knesset
“Be triumphant and finish them off and don’t leave any behind. Erase the memory of them Erase them, their families, their mothers and their children. These animals can no longer live.”
Ezra Yachin, 95, former Stern Gang terrorist, now back in the occupation forces. October 2023
These are only a sample of the many genocidal statements issued by Zionist leaders and cheerleaders from the past month alone.
Many more can be found online in various useful threads, compilations and videos.
The epidemic of genocidal statements in the period after October 7 has shocked the world and rightly so. But, of course, Zionism has always been an ideology and a practical movement that is intrinsically racist and inherently genocidal.
To establish a “Jewish state” in historic Palestine, Zionists deemed it necessary to find a way to eliminate the natives either by killing them or forcing them to leave.
In his 1896 book The Jewish State, a foundational text for the Zionist racist movement, Theodor Herzl explained that the Zionist movement should appeal to European imperial powers to support the creation of a “Jewish state” in Palestine.
To help bolster support for Zionism among European imperialists, Herzl presented Zionism as a civilising mission, saying, “To Europe, we would represent a part of the barrier against Asia; we would serve as the outpost of civilization against barbarism.”
During his trip to Palestine in 1898, Herzl said that “large-scale drainage operations and the elimination of swamps … could make [Palestine] habitable [for Europeans]” and that, “Such Arabs, as are immune to the fever, might be used for the work”.
He went on to say “If we move into a region where there are wild animals to which the Jews are not accustomed – big snakes, etc. – I shall use the natives, prior to giving them employment in their transit countries [i.e. before they are deported], for the extermination of these animals.”
In April 1905, at a talk in Manchester, England, leading Zionist ideologue Israel Zangwill said, “[We] must be prepared …. to drive out by the sword the [Arab] tribes in possession … or to grapple with the problem of a large alien population, mostly Mohammedan”.(Masalha, The Politics of Denial: Israel and the Palestinian Refugee Problem, Pluto Press 2003: 15)
The Council of the Jewish Agency responded to the 1938 Peel Commission by constituting a Population Transfer Committee, to plan the compulsory removal of Palestinians, to take place, as they put it, not “by preaching ‘sermons on the mount’ but by machine-guns”.(Porter et al. (eds), Faith in the Millennium Sheffield Academic Press 2001: 79)
Later, in 1941, Ben-Gurion, the Labour Zionist leader and first Prime Minister of the Zionist entity said, “It is impossible to imagine general evacuation [of Palestinians from the land] without compulsion and brutal compulsion”. (Masalha: 19)
Today the ‘brutal compulsion’ continues as the Zionists try and finish the job of eliminating the natives either by killing them or by forcing them out into the Sinai or Jordan.
It’s not just the “far right”, it’s not just the revisionists, it’s not just the centrists, it’s not just the labour Zionist tradition, it’s not just the “socialist” Zionists.
Zionism at its root is a racist and genocidal ideology. It must be eradicated.
David Miller is the producer and co-host of Press TV’s weekly Palestine Declassified show. He was sacked from Bristol University in October 2021 over his Palestine advocacy.
The media’s Nord Stream lies just keep coming
Why do billionaires and governments scramble to control the media? Because the power over our minds is the greatest power there is.
BY JONATHAN COOK | NOVEMBER 14, 2023
Want to understand why the media we consume is either owned by billionaires or under the thumb of government? The latest developments in the story about who was behind the explosions that destroyed the Nord Stream pipelines that brought Russian gas to Europe provide the answer.
Although largely forgotten now, the blasts in the Baltic Sea in September 2022 had huge and lasting repercussions. The explosion was an act both of unprecedented industrial sabotage and of unparalleled environmental terrorism, releasing untold quantities of the most potent of the greenhouse gases, methane, into the atmosphere.
The blowing up of the pipelines plunged Europe into a prolonged energy crisis, tipping its economies deeper into a recession from which they are yet to recover. Europe was forced to turn to the United States and buy much more expensive liquified gas. And one of the long-term effects will be to accelerate the de-industrialisation of Europe, especially Germany.
There can be almost no one in Europe who did not suffer personal financial harm, in most cases significant harm, from the explosions.
The question that needed urgently answering at the time of the blasts was one no media organisation was in a hurry to investigate: Who did it?
In unison, the media simply recited the White House’s extraordinary claim that Russia had sabotaged its own pipelines.
That required an unprecedented suspension of disbelief. It meant that Moscow had chosen to strip itself both of the lucrative income stream the gas pipelines generated, and of the political and diplomatic leverage it enjoyed over European states from its control of their energy supplies. This was at a time, remember, when the Kremlin, embattled in its war in Ukraine, needed all the diplomatic influence it could muster.
The need to breathe credibility into the laughably improbable “Russia did it” story was so urgent at the time because there was was only one other serious culprit in the frame. No media outlet, of course, mentioned it.
The United States had both the motive and the means.
US officials from Biden down had repeatedly threatened that Washington would intervene to make sure the Nord Stream pipelines could not operate. The administration was expressly against European energy dependency on Russia. Another gain from the pipelines’ destruction was that a more economically vulnerable Europe would be forced to lean even more heavily on the US as a guarantor of its security, a useful chokehold on Europe when Washington was preparing for prolonged confrontations with both Russia and China.
As for the means, only a handful of states had the divers and technical resources enabling them to pull off the extremely difficult feat of successfully planting and detonating explosives on the sea floor undetected.
Had we known then what is gradually becoming clear now, even from establishment media reporting – that the US was, at the very least, intimately involved – there would have been uproar.
It would have been clear that the US was a rogue, terrorist state, that it was willing to burn its allies for geostrategic gain, and that there was no limit to the crimes it was prepared to commit.
Every time Europeans had to pay substantially more for their heating bills, or filling up their car, or paying for the weekly shop, they would have known that the cause was gangster-like criminality by the Biden administration.
Which is precisely why the establishment media were so very careful for the first months after the explosions not to implicate the Biden administration in any way, even if it meant ignoring the mass of evidence staring them in the face.
It is why they ignored the incendiary report by legendary investigative journalist Seymour Hersh – who has broken some of the most important stories of the last half century – detailing exactly how the US carried out the operation. When his account was occasionally referenced by the media, it was solely to ridicule it.
It is why, when it became obvious that the “Russia did it” claim was unsupportable, the media literally jumped ship: credulously reporting that a small group of “maverick” Ukrainians – unknown to President Volodymyr Zelensky, of course – had rented a yacht and carried off one of the most daring and difficult deep-sea stunts ever recorded.
It is why, later, the media treated it as entirely unremarkable – and certainly not worthy of comment – that new evidence suggested the Biden administration was warned of this maverick Ukrainian operation against the whole of Europe. It apparently knew what was about to happen but did precisely nothing to stop it.
And it is why the latest reporting from the Washington Post changes the impossible-to-believe “maverick” Ukrainian operation into one that implicates the very top of the Ukrainian military. Still, the paper and the rest of the media steadfastly refuse to join the dots and follow the implications contained in their own reporting.
The central character in the new drama, Roman Chervinsky, belongs to Ukraine’s special operations forces. He supposedly oversaw the small, six-man team that rented a yacht and then carried out the James Bond-style attack.
The ingenuous Post claims that his training and operational experience meant he was “well suited to help carry out a covert mission meant to obscure Ukraine’s responsibility”. It lists his resistance activities against Russia. None indicate that he had the slightest experience allowing him to mastermind a highly challenging, extremely dangerous, technically complex attack deep in the waters of the Baltic Sea.
If the Ukrainian military really was behind the explosions – rather than the US – all the indications are that the Biden administration and Pentagon must have been intimately involved in the planning and execution.
Not least, it is extremely unlikely that the Ukrainian military had the technical capability to carry out by itself such an operation successfully and undiscovered.
And given that, even before the war, the Ukrainian military had fallen almost completely under US military operational control, the idea that Ukraine’s senior command would have been able to, or dared, execute this complex and risky venture without involving the US beggars belief.
Politically, it would have been quite extraordinary for Ukrainian leaders to imagine they could unilaterally decide to shut down energy supplies to Europe without consulting first with the US, especially when Ukraine’s entire war effort was being paid for and overseen by Washington and Europe.
And of course, Ukrainian leaders would have been only too aware that the US was bound to quickly work out who was behind the attack.
It would be telling indeed that, in such circumstances, the Biden administration would apparently choose to reward Ukraine with more money and arms for its act of industrial sabotage against Europe rather than punish it in any way.
It would be equally astonishing that the three states supposedly investigating the attack – Germany, Sweden and Denmark – would not also soon figure out for themselves that Ukraine was culpable. Why would they decide to cover up Ukraine’s attack on Europe’s economy rather than expose it – unless they were worried about upsetting the US?
And of course, there is the elephant in the room: the Washington Post’s earlier reporting indicated that the US had prior knowledge that Ukraine was planning the attack. That is even more likely if the pipeline blast was signed off by Ukrainian military commanders rather than a group of Ukrainian “mavericks”.
The Washington Post’s new story repeats the line that the Biden administration was forewarned of the attack. Now, however, the Post casually reports that, after expressing opposition, “US officials believed the attack had been called off. But it turned out only to have been postponed to three months later, using a different point of departure than originally planned”.
The Washington Post simply accepts the word of US officials that the most powerful country on the planet fell asleep at the wheel. The CIA and Biden administration apparently knew the Ukrainian military was keen to blow up the Nord Stream pipelines and plunge Europe into an energy crisis and economic recession. But US officials were blindsided when the same small Ukrainian operational team changed locations and timings.
On this account, US intelligence fell for the simplest of bait and switches when the stakes were about as high as could be imagined. And the Washington Post and other media outlets report all of this with a faux-seriousness.
Either way, the US is deeply implicated in the attack on Europe’s energy infrastructure and the undermining of its economy.
Even if the establishment media reporting is right and Ukraine blew up Nord Stream, the Biden administration must have given the green light, overseen the operational planning and assisted in the implementation and subsequent cover-up.
Then again, if as seems far more likely, Hersh is right, then there was no middle man – the US carried out the attack on its own. It needed a fall guy. When Russia no longer fitted the bill, Ukraine became the sacrificial offering.
A year on, these muffled implications from the media’s own reporting barely raise an eyebrow.
The establishment media has played precisely the role expected of it: neutering public outrage. Its regimented acceptance of the initial, preposterous claim of Russian responsibility. Its drip-feed, uncritical reporting of other, equally improbable possibilities. Its studious refusal to join the all-too-visible dots. Its continuing incuriousness about its own story and what Ukraine’s involvement would entail.
The media has failed by every yardstick of what journalism is supposed to be there for, what it is supposed to do. And that is because the establishment media is not there to dig out the truth, it is not there to hold power to account. Ultimately, when the stakes are high – and they get no higher than the Nord Stream attack – it is there to spin narratives convenient to those in power, because the media itself is embedded in those same networks of power.
Why do billionaires rush to own media corporations, even when the outlets are loss-making? Why are governments so keen to let billionaires take charge of the chief means by which we gain information and communicate between ourselves. Because the power to tell stories, the power over our minds is the greatest power there is.
UNRWA: Gaza fuel depot now empty, waste collection, water pumps will now stop
MEMO | November 13, 2023
The UN Palestinian refugee agency’s fuel depot in Gaza has run dry and within a few days UNRWA will no longer be able to resupply hospitals, remove sewage and provide drinking water, its chief said today according to Reuters.
UNRWA is sheltering nearly 800,000 people, or about half of the total population of Gazans who have fled their homes since the Israeli military bombardment of the Strip on 7 October.
The agency chief, Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini, told donors today that it had been slowly emptying a fuel depot on the Israeli border containing strategic reserves.
A request to the Israeli military to replenish it had gone unanswered, he said.
“That reservoir is now empty,” Lazzarini said.
“If we project out a couple of days, by the 14th of November this will severely impact ambulances and major hospital operations. Some of them (hospitals) have a bit of solar but it is marginal, so those hospitals cease functioning,” he said.
Already, many hospitals have had to close in Gaza due to war damage or lack of fuel, including Al-Quds, one of the major hospitals in the north of Gaza that has been the focus of Israel’s ground invasion.
Israel’s military has so far refused imports of fuel into Gaza. Collective punishment of a civilian population is illegal under international law and Israel’s claims that fuel supplies may be directed to support the Palestinian resistance have not been substantiated, with the UN saying there are checks on fuel so it is accounted for.
UNRWA’s fuel is also used to remove hundreds of tonnes of solid waste from increasingly overcrowded camps in southern Gaza, and Lazzarini said these services would soon halt.
Without fuel, desalination plants in the narrow, densely populated coastal strip used to provide drinking water to support at least 290,000 people will also stop on 15 November, he added.
“So the situation is very dire now and it’s about to get much worse,” Lazzarini told donors.
Hamas denies turning down fuel supply to hospital, calls it ‘part of Israel’s lies’
Press TV – November 13, 2023
Hamas has denied having turned down a meager fuel supply allegedly offered by Israel for use at the Gaza Strip’s biggest hospital, which is suffering from dire fuel shortage due to the regime’s ongoing war against the besieged territory.
The Gaza-based Palestinian resistance movement made the remarks in a late Sunday statement concerning the supply of 300 liters of fuel allegedly offered by the occupying regime for Gaza’s al-Shifa Hospital.
“As part of the series of lies that the occupation spreads [on a] daily [basis], the spokesman for its Nazi army said they had offered the administration of al-Shifa Hospital to supply the hospital with a quantity of fuel, but the Hamas movement refused it,” the statement said.
Stressing that the hospital’s needs for fuel far outweighed such a scanty supply, Hamas said, “The offer belittled the pain and suffering of the patients who are trapped inside without water, food, or electricity. This quantity was not enough to operate hospital generators for more than thirty minutes.”
The movement noted that the occupying regime of Israel “sought through this offer to launch a cheap propaganda campaign to beautify its ugly face and hide its crimes against humanity, its bombing of hospitals, its killing of medical staff, and its endangering the lives of patients by cutting off fuel, water, and medicines” to Gaza.
Hamas also renewed its call on the United Nations and the international community to immediate intervene to bring fuel into the Gaza Strip to help hospitals work “and to stop flagrant violations of international laws by the fascist occupation entity.”
The movement emphasized that it plays no role in decisions made by the hospital’s management and was not part of its decision-making structures, adding, “The hospital is completely subject to the authority of the Palestinian Health Ministry.”
Israel began its war on Gaza on October 7 following an operation by the territory’s resistance groups. More than 11,000 Palestinians, including 4,506 children, have been killed, and 27,490 others sustained injuries so far.
The regime has also cut off the flow of basic supplies such as water, electricity, medicines, and fuel to the densely-populated territory that houses over two million Palestinians.
According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, 21 out of 35 hospitals with inpatient facilities have stopped functioning either due to damage from Israeli shelling and airstrikes or lack of fuel.
Gaza’s deputy health minister, Youssef Abu Rish, said on Sunday that fuel shortage at al-Shifa Hospital has claimed the lives of five premature babies and seven critically ill patients, adding, “We fear the toll will rise further by morning.”
Throughout the war, the occupying regime has been staging scores of attacks against the healthcare system across Gaza, including hospitals and ambulances, alleging that they are used to either accommodate or transport Palestinian fighters. The World Health Organization has recorded at least 137 Israeli attacks on healthcare staff in Gaza, killing 521 people and injuring 686 others.
UN chief decries ‘collective punishment’ of Palestinians
Separately, United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres decried “collective punishment” of Palestinians by Israel under the excuse of Hamas’ operation against the regime.
Speaking to CNN, Guterres also regretted that as many as 101 UN personnel have died since the regime unleashed its genocidal war on the Palestinian territory.
Genocide is Israel’s Strategy
By Paul Larudee | Syria Support Movement | November 12, 2023
Israel is losing the battle. They cannot afford to remain fully mobilized this long, even with unlimited US financial support. It is estimated that despite limited commercial flights, more than a quarter million Israelis have left the country. This is also the number that have evacuated settlements in both the south, in a large radius around Gaza, and in a wide ribbon along the northern border with Lebanon.
Israel is not used to this, and despite its sophisticated military equipment, it depends upon concluding its combat quickly and overwhelmingly. The problem is that it can’t. Hamas is too well dug in, and Hezbollah is too strong. Both have their own sophisticated equipment, despite an absence of navy and air force. Their strategy has been to make air and naval forces largely useless against them by means of a vast and well equipped underground network of reinforced, sealed and well defended tunnels. Their strategy is attrition: to draw out the conflict longer than Israelis are willing or able to endure.
It appears to be effective. Israelis are taking casualties at a rate to which they are not accustomed. This is making them slower and more cautious, except in the air, and it is disrupting civilian life to an unprecedented extent. The resistance forces of the Palestinians and their allies have planned for a confrontation of unlimited duration, while Israel plans only short, massive attacks designed for a quick, decisive victory, which in this case is illusive.
This is the main reason they have chosen genocide as a tactic. They reason that massive, horrible deaths of vulnerable civil Palestinians, mainly women and children, will force Hamas, Hezbollah and their allies to take risks and expose themselves. But genocide is not working. And when it doesn’t, Israel’s answer is to use more genocide.
Gaza is largely without food, medicine, electricity, fuel or potable water. Israel is trying to force a panicking population to leave or die. If they leave, it is to the Sinai, never to return to their own country. That suits Israel, but not Egypt, which has arrayed a solid row of tanks and other equipment along the border to prevent being forced to admit the Palestinian population.
This is why Israel is resorting to bombing hospitals, schools, mosques and even the few churches of the tiny Christian community that opened their doors to their Muslim brothers and sisters seeking refuge. The Israeli strategy seems to be that when pictures of gaunt living skeletons of children and mounds of corpses begin to be estimated in the hundreds of thousands, or more, the fighters will become desperate and/or the international community will compel Egypt to open its doors.
The strategy could backfire. The international community could become so horrified that no amount of hasbara [friendly media] will cover such epic crimes. Instead, their staunchest allies may be forced to abandon them, and other powers may enter the fray on the side of the Palestinians. At that point, the consequences become unpredictable. Demonstrations by the millions are already beginning to occur around the globe. At least one prominent voice in Israel has suggested the nuclear option.
The call for a ceasefire is becoming louder, but Israel sees that as a Palestinian win, and the Palestinian factions have little stomach for returning to the status quo ante, which means little more than confinement to destitute concentration camps or “reservations”. Caring people from around the globe are beginning to mobilize near the conflict zone, to try to, at minimum, allow the resumption of humanitarian aid, fuel, electricity and water to the besieged, starving, sick, parched and dying people of Gaza.
This is just the beginning. Things could change very quickly, for good or bad.
Paul Larudee is a board member and key supporter of Syria Support Movement. He is currently in Egypt with a group of activists attempting to deliver aid to the people of Gaza.
Australian whistleblower for Afghan war crimes stands trial
Press TV – November 12, 2023
The Australian government is set to put a former military lawyer on trial for leaking classified documents about the perpetration of crimes by Australian occupation troops during the invasion of Afghanistan.
David McBride is scheduled to appear in the Supreme Court in Canberra on Monday for breaching the Defence Act and unauthorised disclosure of information. He could be facing a “life sentence” if found guilty at the Australian top court.
McBride is accused of leaking classified defence information to three senior journalists at the ABC and the then Fairfax Media newspapers.
The material later formed the basis of “The Afghan Files,” a 2017 ABC expose revealing allegations of misconduct by Australian special forces in Afghanistan, including possible unlawful killings. The disclosures also led to a much-publicised federal police raid on the ABC’s Sydney offices in 2019.
McBride has pleaded not guilty to five charges, including the unauthorised disclosure of information, theft of commonwealth property and breaching the Defence Act.
He has not been the first or only person to reveal information about alleged Australian war crimes in Afghanistan.
Back in 2020, an Australian military investigation confirmed that Australian forces had murdered dozens of civilians and prisoners in Afghanistan between 2005 and 2016.
The report, released by Major General Justice Paul Brereton, determined that Australian special forces had murdered 39 civilians and prisoners, including children, in Afghanistan.
The Australian government had previously spent years trying to gag whistle-blowers or dismiss reports of wrongdoings by the country’s military personnel.
Australia, which is not a member of NATO, has had an active role in Afghanistan since the US, along with a number of its allies, invaded the country in 2001.
Israeli Finance Minister Demands Security Zones Around Illegal West Bank Settlements
By Connor Freeman | The Libertarian Institute | November 9, 2023
Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, the leader of the Religious Zionism party in the ruling right-wing coalition, demanded Tel Aviv impose security zones around illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank on Monday. The letter Smotrich has sent to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant includes an insistence that Palestinians be kept away during the ongoing olive harvest season.
This follows a pattern of occupying forces and settlers exploiting the war on Gaza as an opportunity to further cut Palestinian towns, cities, and villages off from each other via more military checkpoints, cement blocks, iron gates, and earth mounds.
“I demand that a written directive be issued immediately by the political echelon to the Israel Forces to create those wide security zones around the settlements and roads and to prevent Arabs from approaching them… including for the olive harvest,” Smotrich’s letter reads.
Murders of Palestinians by settlers and soldiers alike in the West Bank are concurrently soaring while apartheid Israel concurrently wages its unprecedented bombing campaign against the besieged Gaza Strip, killing thousands of civilians and children.
At least 175 Palestinians have been killed, and thousands injured, in the West Bank since the October 7th Hamas attack on southern Israel. According to UNICEF, dozens of children have been killed and injured in the West Bank during the past month.
On October 28th, Bilal Mohammad Saleh, the 40-year-old wild herbs vendor, was shot in the chest by a settler and murdered in front of his wife, children, and other relatives while the Israeli military stood by and watched.
Bilal and his family were harvesting olives on land he inherited from his father, just less than a dozen miles south of Nablus, in the village of al-Sawiya. The village is encircled by Jewish-only colonies, or illegal settlements, Palestinian residents are only able to build and work on five percent of the 12,000 dunums that they own.
The area has been terrorized for years by the settlers. Nihad Arar, the village council head, told Al Jazeera, “[They] cut down our trees, burn our farms, steal our olives, and are known to assault Palestinians inside their homes and on their own property.”
As the war on Gaza rages, settler attacks and murders on Palestinians, including those working their olive groves during the prime harvest month of October have significantly escalated.
Mohammed Wadi, whose father and brother were shot dead by settlers during a funeral procession for three Palestinian olive growers killed by settlers a day earlier, told Reuters that although the settlers used to aim low at Palestinians in the past, “[n]ow, they shoot to kill.”
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says that, since the October 7th Hamas attack and the war on Gaza began, settler attacks on Palestinians have more than doubled.
For Palestinians, prior to this month, this year was already one of the deadliest on record. Before the end of September, more than 220 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli forces, including over three dozen children. That figure included 187 people who were murdered in the occupied territories and another 37 killed – mostly amidst a smaller bombing campaign – in the Gaza Strip.
In March, Smotrich proclaimed that there is “no such thing as a Palestinian people.” His party, along with National Security Minister Itmar Ben-Gvir’s Jewish Power party, support massive settlement expansion and ultimately the complete annexation of the West Bank. Additionally, Smotrich has endorsed illegal collective punishment policies and called for “wiping out” the entire Palestinian village of Huwwara earlier this year.
With Smotrich at the helm, approving new settlements and the demolition of Palestinian homes, the Netanyahu coalition has set records for illegal settlement construction this year.
As Mondoweiss explains, “Smotrich holds sway over two ministries — the first is the Finance Ministry, for which he is directly responsible given his role as Finance Minister, and the other is a new position in the Defense Ministry, essentially making him the governor of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and most crucially making him responsible for settlement in the West Bank.”
Ben-Gvir announced last month that Tel Aviv would purchase and distribute 10,000 assault rifles to Israeli citizens including within the West Bank’s illegal settlements. According to Axios, the US State Department is set to approve a $34 million sale of 24,000 M-16 semiautomatic and automatic rifles after reportedly receiving assurances from Tel Aviv that the weapons will not be provided to settlers.
It is not at all clear if Ben-Gvir will hold to that promise, as he has personally distributed hundreds of rifles to settlers in recent weeks.
New Israeli strikes kill dozens of Palestinians in Gaza as Netanyahu rejects ceasefire calls
Israeli bombardment on Gaza on November 12, 2023
Press TV – November 12, 2023
Relentless Israeli air and ground attacks have killed dozens of Palestinian civilians over the last few hours, as the Israeli regime’s prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu has rejected mounting international calls for a ceasefire.
Rescue and civil defense teams retrieved the bodies of four civilians from the Hamdan family home in the Sabra neighborhood of Gaza City, which was targeted by an Israeli missile strike in the early hours of Sunday morning.
Israeli warplanes also targeted a house belonging to Abdullah al-Adini, a local Palestinian resident in the city of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, resulting in the murder of three civilians.
Separately, at least 10 civilians lost their lives and more than 20 others were injured in an Israeli airstrike targeting the Najjar family’s house east of Khan Yunis in southern Gaza.
Meanwhile, three infants and five critically ill patients in the Shifa Medical Complex died Sunday morning due to oxygen shortage, while others are on the verge of death due to the continuous Israeli siege.
At least five infants died in less than 48 hours due to the cessation of medical services at the Shifa Complex.
Israeli tanks are currently stationed outside the maternity ward of the Shifa Complex, and that Israeli artillery have targeted the intensive care unit, resulting in multiple injuries.
Dozens of dead bodies remained across the compound and in its surroundings, and rescue teams have been unable to reach them for evacuation due to the intensity of the Israeli bombardment and gunfire targeting anyone moving.
The headquarters of the United Nations Development Programme in Gaza was also hit by Israeli airstrikes, leading to the death of five displaced persons and the injury of 15 others.
Gaza’s embattled hospitals face total collapse as bombardments continue and Israeli tanks and troops surround medical facilities, with patients and staff trapped inside.
In Gaza City, operations have been suspended at Al-Shifa Hospital after it completely ran out of fuel.
The Israeli military has repeatedly targeted this hospital and other medical facilities over the past five weeks.
The World Health Organization (WHO) recently said that 20 hospitals in the Gaza Strip are now out of action, and the largest hospital in the Palestinian territory was that day coming under bombardment.
Netanyahu rejects growing international pressure over ceasefire
In a televised address on Saturday night, the Israeli prime minister rejected growing international calls for a ceasefire.
Netanyahu also rejected the idea that the Palestinian Authority (PA), which currently administers parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, would at some stage control Gaza.
He said that Israelis shouldn’t cave into any pressure from such statements or the protests taking place worldwide and said he would stand firm against the world if necessary.
So according to Netanyahu, the Israeli regime has its own agenda and will push it through regardless of what other countries say.
His primetime address came hours after Arab and Muslim leaders at a summit in Riyadh called for an immediate ceasefire as major hospitals in Gaza were on the front line of Israel’s ground offensive.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Palestinians are facing an unmatched genocidal war by the Israeli regime.
Abbas said Israeli actions in the besieged Gaza Strip and across the occupied territories amount to a clear violation of international and humanitarian law.
The president said Palestinians need international protection in the face of Israeli attacks including the desecration of Muslims’ holy sites. He also noted that Palestinians will not negotiate when it comes to their inalienable rights.
Erdogan calls for US to stop Israel’s attack
The United States must use its influence to halt Israel’s offensive in Gaza, Turkey’s leader says.
“The US should increase its pressure on Israel. The West should increase pressure on Israel… It’s vital for us to secure a ceasefire,” said Erdogan. “The most important country that needs to be involved is the United States, which has influence on Israel.”
Erdogan said the US must accept Gaza as Palestinian land. “We cannot agree with Biden if he approaches [the war] by seeing Gaza as the land of occupying settlers or Israel, rather than the land of the Palestinian people.”
Palestinians are enduring relentless bombing of civilian infrastructure including residential buildings, schools, medical facilities, everywhere in the besieged territory.
The total death toll from the war is now at over 11,000. The majority of victims are women and children. Hundreds of people are also missing under the rubble of bombed-out buildings.
According to reports, more than half of the housing units in Gaza were destroyed or damaged by the Israeli bombings.
Featured Video
Fear Is the Mind Killer
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
Alarmist climate science as a textbook example of groupthink
By Paul MacRae | May 1, 2012
A while ago, I received an email from a friend who asked:
How can many, many respected, competitive, independent science folks be so wrong about [global warming] (if your [skeptical] premise is correct). I don’t think it could be a conspiracy, or incompetence. … Has there ever been another case when so many ‘leading’ scientific minds got it so wrong?
The answer to the second part of my friend’s question—“Has there ever been another case where so many ‘leading’ scientific minds got it so wrong?”—is easy. Yes, there are many such cases, both within and outside climate science. In fact, the graveyard of science is littered with the bones of theories that were once thought “certain” (e.g., that the continents can’t “drift,” that Newton’s laws were immutable, and hundreds if not thousands of others).
Science progresses by the overturning of theories once thought “certain.” … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Iran Will Respond With Long-Term Strikes to US Attack, Even If It Is Short-Term – IRGC
- Fear Is the Mind Killer
- Israeli strikes kill 10 in southern Lebanon, including 3 rescue workers
- Israeli military ‘failed on all fronts’: Poll
- US at a crossroads: Iran’s firm positions leave Trump no option but to capitulate
- Iran signals decisive response to end US maritime bullying, piracy
- Trump eager for off-ramp in war on Iran, but Netanyahu has him trapped: Former official
- Trump’s ‘Golden Dome’ offers ‘limited’ shield against ballistic missiles: Defense official
- Ukraine Seeks to Provoke a Nuclear Conflict: Zakharova
- US squares up to China over Panama Canal
- If Americans Knew
- How Tony Dokoupil Became the Face of ‘Zionist Fanatic’ Bari Weiss’s CBS
- Far Right Israeli Settler Movement Enters Syria in a Push for “Greater Israel”
- ‘People Have the Right to Be Buried’: In Gaza, Thousands of Palestinians Remain Trapped Under Rubble
- Born during Israel’s genocide: Gaza’s child survivors bear the scars of war
- Who are the women and girls behind Gaza war’s horrific casualty toll?
- Beloved Gaza doctor detained “indefinitely” without charge – Daily Update
- By Week’s End, Trump’s War Will Be Plainly Illegal
- CBS News Reportedly Ousts London Bureau Chief Over Differences With Bari Weiss Over Gaza Coverage
- State Department Says US Is in Conflict With Iran ‘At the Request’ of Israel
- What ceasefire? Israel won’t stop killing in Gaza, Lebanon – Daily Update
- No Tricks Zone
- Oversupply Of Volatile Solar Energy Leads To Record NEGATIVE Prices!
- New Study: Extreme Heat Records, Heatwaves, Extreme Cold Records Declining Across US Since 1899
- It’s The Cold, Stupid! Cold 20 Times More Lethal Than Heat, Multiple Studies Show
- European Institute For Climate And Energy: “Climate Debate is Seldom About Science”
- New Study: The Climate May Be 5 Times More Sensitive To Solar Forcing Than Commonly Assumed
- EV Industry Reached $70 Billion In Losses In 2024 Due To Delusional Green Ideologies
- Reality Check: Maldives Have Actually Grown In Size Or Remained Stable Over Recent Decades
- Abrupt Climate Change Also Occurred NATURALLY In The Past …25 Times During Last Ice Age
- Cave Discovery Reveals Today’s Desert Climates Were Recently Far Warmer, Wetter, Teeming With Life
- German Expert: Heat Dome Led To Record Temps In Western USA…Warmer In 1934, 1936
Aletho News 