At least 53 Palestinians have been killed and several others injured after Israeli military aircraft carried out a fresh round of airstrikes against various residential neighborhoods across the besieged Gaza Strip.
The official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported that the warplanes bombarded several buildings in the town of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip early on Saturday, killing at least 14 people and wounding others.
The aerial raids also left several people missing beneath the rubble, according to the news agency.
At least 14 people were also killed in Jabalia town in the north of the Gaza Strip.
Moreover, Israeli fighter jets struck the eastern flank of the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, killing and wounding several people.
Israeli warplanes also pounded a number of residential buildings in the northwestern Sheikh Radwan district of Gaza City, as well as the eastern and northern parts of Beit Lahiya, WAFA reported.
Houses were hit in Khan Yunis city as Israeli aircraft pounded the southern Gaza Strip with more air raids.
There were no immediate reports about the exact number of casualties and the extent of damage caused.
The United Nations says about half of Palestinians in Gaza have been rendered homeless while still trapped inside the enclave, which is known to be one of the most densely populated places on earth.
Health officials in Gaza say the Israeli bombardment has killed at least 4,137 people since October 7, when fighters from the Hamas resistance movement launched an unprecedented large-scale attack against the occupying Israeli regime. Another 13,162 individuals have also been injured.
Ashraf al-Qudra, a spokesman for Gaza’s health ministry, confirmed that nearly 1,400 people, including 720 children, are still missing under the rubble.
Qudra also noted that 352 Palestinians were killed and 669 others wounded over the past 24 hours, including 16 victims who lost their lives in the aerial strike on the Greek Orthodox Church.
Seven general hospitals and 21 health centers are now out of service, he explained, calling for international protection of hospitals and health facilities in Gaza in light of the intensified Israeli aggression.
The senior Palestinian health official further said that 46 medical personnel were killed and 85 others injured during Israeli airstrikes. At least 23 ambulances were destroyed as well.
Rights bodies denounce West’s double standards
Meanwhile, international human rights organizations have slammed Western governments over their hypocrisy and double standards in the face of Israeli atrocities in the Gaza Strip.
Tom Porteous, the deputy program director at an international rights agency, said in a statement that while the United States and European countries denounced Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine, there was no clear condemnation of Israel’s actions in Gaza.
“Where is the clear condemnation of the cruel tightening of the 16-year closure of Gaza that amounts to collective punishment, a war crime? Where is the outrage at statements by Israeli political leaders that seek to blur the all-important distinction between civilians and combatants in Gaza even as they order ever more intense bombardment of this densely populated territory, reducing city blocks and neighborhoods to rubble? Where are the clear and unequivocal calls for Israel to respect international norms in its attack on Gaza, let alone for accountability?” he said.
He further described the West’s hypocrisy and double standards as “flagrant and obvious.”
A few days after killing hundreds of people by bombing a hospital in the Gaza Strip, Israel has threatened to attack yet another such facility in the coastal sliver, which has come to house thousands of Palestinians.
On Friday, Reuters cited the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) as saying that the Israeli military had warned it to “immediately evacuate” Gaza’s al-Quds hospital.
The facility is currently rendering services to more than 400 patients. It has also turned into a refuge for around 12,000 Palestinians, who have fled there amid a relentless Israeli war that has been pounding the Palestinian territory since October 7. The war has so far claimed more than 4,000 people.
The PRCS described “70%” of the displaced Palestinians inside the hospital as “children and women,” saying they “are in imminent danger.”
“This place could turn to ashes if those threats are carried out,” it said, asking, “Is there a world power capable of stopping the threats of the Israeli occupation army to bomb hospitals with innocent civilians inside?”
The Palestinian Red Crescent issued an urgent appeal to the international community, saying, “We call on the world to take immediate and urgent action to prevent a new massacre like the one that occurred on the al-Ahli Baptist Hospital.”
More than 500 people lost their lives in an Israeli airstrike against al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza City on Tuesday. Thousands of Palestinians were present at the facility when the attack took place.
Numerous world leaders have vehemently denounced the massacre. Major cities across the world have also turned into the scene of angry demonstrations against Tel Aviv’s indiscriminate campaign of bloodshed and destruction against the Palestinian territory.
The regime has been responsible for numerous deadly offensives against hospitals and other healthcare facilities across Gaza through both its near-daily attacks against the coastal sliver and several wars that it has waged against the territory in the past.
NBC News on Tuesday led its online broadcast with what the network said was the biggest news in the world: “President Biden to visit Israel and vaccine hesitancy on the rise for pregnant women.”
As the winter respiratory illness season rapidly approaches, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for the first time is recommending four vaccines during pregnancy: the flu vaccine, Tdap vaccine (tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis, or whooping cough), RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) vaccine, and the COVID-19 vaccine.
But more women are saying “no” to their doctors who recommend COVID-19 and the other vaccines — even shutting down conversations with, “I’m not going to talk about it,” according to the NBC News report.
“We are meeting more resistance than I ever remember,” said Dr. Neil Silverman, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist at UCLA Health. “We didn’t get this kind of pushback on this scale before the pandemic.”
“Now all vaccines are lumped together as ‘bad,’” he said.
Medical experts interviewed by The Defender criticized the CDC’s recommendations and its report on vaccine hesitancy.
One of those experts, Dr. James Thorp, a Florida physician, board-certified in obstetrics and gynecology who has practiced obstetrics for more than 42 years, urged more women to say no to COVID-19 vaccines, in particular, which he called “an abomination of science and an abomination of a corrupted health care system.”
By continuing to push dangerous mRNA COVID-19 vaccines on pregnant women, Thorp said, the CDC is breaking the “golden rule” of pregnancy.
“The golden rule of pregnancy is you don’t ever, ever use a novel substance in pregnancy, ever,” he said. “And you don’t have to be a physician or nurse, you don’t have to have any education, to know that.”
Only 27% of survey respondents took COVID booster shot
The CDC study analyzed data from an internet panel survey conducted from March 28 to April 16, 2023. The CDC surveyed 1,814 respondents who were pregnant at any time from October 2022 to January 2023.
Only 27.3% of women chose to take the COVID-19 bivalent booster vaccine before or during pregnancy during the 2022-23 flu season, nearly half the percent who agreed to take some other vaccines, the signal in the study indicating fear of COVID-19 vaccines tainted other vaccines, public health experts said.
Skepticism about vaccines has ballooned to taint the flu shot in the eyes of pregnant women, though the flu shot has been given to millions of pregnant women over several decades. Last year, the CDC study found, 47.2% of expectant mothers got their flu shots, down from 57.5% who got their flu shots during the pre-COVID-19 2019-20 season.
Among most of the 2,000 women who were pregnant during the peak of last year’s cold and flu season, or when the survey was conducted in March and April, almost a quarter said they were “very hesitant” about getting a flu shot, a significant increase in “vaccine hesitancy” over the 17.2% who said they had reservations during the 2021-22 respiratory illness season.
55.4% of women with a recent live birth elected to receive Tdap vaccination during pregnancy, a number inching back from pre-pandemic levels, but “self-reported hesitancy towards influenza and Tdap vaccination during pregnancy increased among pregnant women from 2019–20 to 2022–23.”
Dr. Denise Jamieson, vice president for medical affairs at the University of Iowa Health Care and a spokesperson for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, told NBC News that “even prior to the pandemic, it was a struggle to get pregnant women vaccinated.”
She said she is dismayed that “Tdap is just barely recovering from pre-pandemic levels” and “the number of women vaccinated for Covid is disappointing.”
Dr. Linda Eckert, an OB-GYN and global health and immunization expert at the University of Washington, said more of her patients have “a bias … about how they feel about a vaccine.”
Dr. Melissa Simon, an OB-GYN at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago, decried the rise in vaccine “myths, what I would call blatant disinformation that is intended to be more politically charged, not based in science.”
Pregnancy ‘much safer’ without ‘risks of vaccination’
Thorp, a specialist in maternal-fetal medicine who sees 6,000-7,000 high-risk pregnant patients a year, said he was horrified by the unprecedented level of complications, miscarriages and fetal deaths among his pregnant patients and their unborn children after the COVID-19 vaccine rollout.
The mRNA COVID-19 vaccines are “the deadliest drug in the history of medicine, whether you call it a vaccine, a drug, a gene medicine, a medical intervention, whatever you call it,” he said. “And they knew it. The CDC knew it. HHS knew it. Pfizer knew it and tried to bury the data, which showed 1,223 deaths from its vaccine in the first 10 weeks, for 75 years.”
“If you take all the other vaccines in the U.S. in the last century and do a literature search,” he said, “the deaths and illnesses associated with the mRNA vaccines dwarf the dangers of all other vaccines combined.”
Captured government agencies and major media have for nearly three years continued to ignore the most dire vaccine impacts in U.S. history, which are especially tragic for pregnant women and their unborn children, Thorp said.
In December 2022, Thorp was the lead author of a groundbreaking preprint article on the dangers of COVID-19 vaccines to pregnant women and unborn children. The article was peer-reviewed and published in spring 2023 in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons.
The study analyzed adverse events after COVID-19 vaccines experienced by women of reproductive age, focusing on pregnancy and menstruation. It used data collected by the VAERS database from Jan. 1, 1998, to June 30, 2022, to compare injury reports on flu vaccines versus COVID-19 vaccines.
The study found that COVID-19 vaccines, when compared to flu vaccines, are associated with a greater than double rate of reported “menstrual abnormalities, miscarriage, fetal chromosomal abnormalities, fetal malformation, fetal cystic hygroma, fetal cardiac disorders, fetal arrhythmias, fetal cardiac arrest, fetal vascular malperfusion, fetal growth abnormalities, fetal abnormal surveillance, fetal placental thrombosis, low amniotic fluid, preeclampsia, premature delivery, preterm premature rupture of membrane, fetal death/stillbirth, and premature baby death.”
“Pregnancy complications and menstrual abnormalities are significantly more frequent following COVID-19 vaccinations than Influenza vaccinations,” the authors concluded.
According to Thorp, when he first alerted the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology — the most powerful of the three medical boards in his specialty — about the signals in VAERS, the board threatened to decertify him for spreading “misinformation.”
The board has since backed off, Thorp said, because “they know they’re wrong and I’m right.”
Thorp said he proved, with documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, that the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, another one of the three major OBG-YN medical societies, took “large sums of money” from the federal government to participate in “the largest 5th generation psyops warfare in the history of the world, a massive propaganda program to bury the data,” and threatened 61,000 doctors with loss of board certification that would end their careers if they deviated from the government line that the vaccines were “safe and effective and necessary.”
The CDC and other public health authorities, backed by major media, “targeted my patients with their propaganda,” Thorp said.
“They targeted women because women make all the healthcare decisions, not men,” he said. “And they went after women because pregnant women are the most vulnerable population in the world, not children, not the elderly. If you can capture pregnant women when you’re implementing a drug you can convince everyone in the world they should follow.”
Dr. Pierre Kory, president and chief medical officer of the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance, disputed that any of the four CDC-recommended vaccines during pregnancy is necessary, but he said the COVID-19 vaccine is especially dangerous.
“It is my belief that the safety of those vaccines have never been truly proven, especially in terms of them leading to increased rates of many chronic illnesses in childhood,” he said.
Kory said he was appalled by what he said was an ongoing propaganda campaign of misinformation. “This is both absurd and unsurprising,” he said. “The level of pharmaceutical industry influence is being revealed to more Americans on a daily basis.”
Kory pointed to the CDC’s “truly alarming,” maternal mortality data for 2021. “My recommendation to the CDC is to focus more on why so many American mothers died suddenly in 2021, rather than continuing to blindly recommend mass vaccination of that patient population.”
Using the CDC’s mortality data from its March 16, 2023, report, Kory created a chart breaking out mortality rates for pregnant mothers under 25 years old. It showed a 38% increase in deaths for all mothers of all races and more than an 83% increase for young Hispanic mothers.
Why is the CDC and JAMA finding an explosion in maternal deaths in 2021? https://t.co/NTYFlVYsAc I made a table for mom's under 25. Either men started having babies (higher risk?) or the U.S aggressively vaccinated pregnant women with mRNA. Take your pick. #stoptheshotspic.twitter.com/18Dj2bxQrt
Dr. Peter McCullough told The Defender he was “concerned that unnecessary vaccines during pregnancy will cause fever in some women.”
“Fever is one of the most common triggers for miscarriage, stillbirth and premature labor,” he said. “Pregnancy is much safer when left to the natural progression of gestation without the risks of vaccination.”
“As a mother, the first thing I did, the first thing all mothers do, is evaluate what you’re consuming because it’s going directly into your baby,” said Laura Sextro, CEO of The Unity Project, a California-based nonprofit that fights for medical freedom and parental rights. “Pregnant women cut out fish because of high levels of mercury and lead, or maybe stop drinking Diet Coke.”
While mothers “go to great lengths to protect their child in the womb,” she urged more to become aware of the dangers of “injecting yourself” with the mRNA vaccine, which poses risks, both proven and unknown, to mothers and children.
“It’s an atrocity we’re seeing,” she said. “We’re seeing a dramatic uptick in spontaneous abortion in certain trimesters after women are given this vaccine.”
Sextro advised pregnant women that “the best way to protect you and baby is always make sure you’re asking questions.”
“If you’re not getting answers, it’s your right as a parent — just because the baby is in the womb doesn’t mean you’re not a parent — it is your responsibility to make sure that you stay informed and protect your child.”
Mike Capuzzo is the managing editor of The Defender. He is a former prize-winning reporter for The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Miami Herald, a science writer, and a regional magazine founding editor and publisher who has won more than 200 journalism awards as a writer, editor and publisher.
BEIRUT – A journalist was killed and another injured by Israeli gunfire in a southern Lebanon border area, the Lebanese army said early on Friday.
The Lebanese army said that “a media team of seven people was covering the events near the Israeli enemy’s Al-Abbad site in the outskirts of Hula town when Israeli forces opened their machine gun fire at them, killing a journalist and injuring another.”
An official for the United Nations peacekeeping troops in the region, UNIFIL, stated a civilian was killed in an exchange of fire.
“The Lebanese Army requested UNIFIL’s help for seven people stranded near the Blue Line during an exchange of fire across the Blue Line,” UNIFIL spokesperson Andrea Tenenti stated. He said one person lost his life while the others were successfully rescued,” the spokesperson confirmed.
The Lebanese army described the seven people as media personnel, saying that Israeli forces targeted them with machine guns, killing one and wounding another. It did not provide their identities.
The incident came nearly a week after a Reuters journalist was killed, and other journalists injured, in an Israeli bombing in southern Lebanon.
Israel targeted and destroyed the 7th century Al-Omari Mosque in Gaza on 20 October, coming just hours after its targeting of the third oldest church in the world in Gaza’s Old City.
Originally a 5th century Byzantine church, it was converted to a mosque during the early years of the Rashidun Caliphate.
The 1,400-year-old structure was among the largest mosques in Palestine. This is one of many mosques targeted by Israel.
The night before, Israeli warplanes bombed the centuries-old Orthodox Church of Saint Porphyrios in Gaza, leaving several people dead and injured, officials said.
The Ministry of Interior in Gaza announced that Israel launched an airstrike on the church, where hundreds of displaced Gazans, both Christians and Muslims, were seeking shelter, resulting in a “large number of martyrs and injured.” The number of dead and wounded has yet to be confirmed.
Director General of Al-Shifa Hospital, Mohammad Abu Selmia, said that dozens have been wounded, but could not give an exact toll.
“We have just received confirmation from multiple sources in Gaza that Saint Porphyrios Orthodox Church has been bombed today. Archbishop Alexios appears to have been located and is alive, but we don’t know if he is injured,” the Foreign Relations Office of the Order of Saint George said in a statement.
“We have no word on the condition of any other of the more than 500 people being housed at the church and monastery, including the person who has been our source for most of our information,” the statement added.
The Greek Orthodox Patriarchy of Jerusalem also released a statement vowing to “not abandon its religious and humanitarian duty.”
The attack came without warning, a survivor told Al-Jazeera’s Arabic service. Witnesses told AFP that Israeli jets struck a target close to the medieval structure.
The Israeli army said in a statement: “As a result of the IDF [Israeli army] strike, a wall of a church in the area was damaged … we are aware of reports on casualties. The incident is under review.”
The Church of Saint Porphyrius was built by the Crusaders in the 12th century, although the original site dates back to the 5th century.
These atrocities come just three days after Israel’s bombing of the Al-Ahli Arab Baptist Hospital in Gaza, which killed hundreds of innocent civilians in a matter of seconds.
Israel continues to blatantly carry out war crimes in Gaza. With its incessant targeting of civilian infrastructure and the shocking language used by Israeli officials regarding the population of Gaza, Israel is openly carrying out genocide.
Israeli Knesset Member Zvika Vogel said on 19 October that “there is no such thing as innocents in Gaza.” His comments were the latest of a series of murderous statements made recently by Israeli officials, including Israel’s defense minister, who referred to Gazans as “human animals.”
During a live interview on Russia’s state-run broadcaster RT, Israeli lawmaker Amir Weitmann threatened to make Moscow “pay the price” for allegedly supporting the Palestinian resistance in Gaza.
“We’re going to finish this war. We’re going to win because we’re stronger. After this, Russia will pay the price. Believe me, Russia will pay the price,” Weitmann, the head of the libertarian caucus in Israel’s ruling Likud Party, told the RT news anchor.
“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 […]. We are going to finish with these Nazis, we’re going to win this war […] we’re not forgetting what you are doing […] we will come, we will make sure that Ukraine wins, we will make sure that you pay the price for what you have done,” the close ally of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continued.
Since the start of the Gaza-Israel war, the Russian government has continuously called for a peaceful resolution. This week, the nation drafted a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire. However, Israel’s western allies struck it down.
As the campaign of genocide carried out by Tel Aviv against millions of Palestinian civilians escalates, Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that the siege of Gaza is reminiscent of the Leningrad siege by Nazi Germany.
Weitmann’s unhinged accusations follow in the footsteps of other wild claims made by current and former Israeli officials.
When asked last week during a TV interview about the suffering faced by Palestinians in Gaza, former prime minister Naftali Bennett lashed out at the interviewer and repeated the claim that Palestinian resistance fighters are “Nazis.”
“Are you seriously going to keep asking me about Palestinian civilians? What is wrong with you? Have you not seen what’s happened? We’re fighting Nazis,” the former premier shouted.
“Shame on you,” Bennett continued, interrupting and accusing the anchor of “spinning a narrative” in favor of the Palestinians.
A few days after Bennett’s tirade, Israeli President Isaac Herzog claimed during a news conference that “there are no innocent civilians in Gaza.”
“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. They could have risen up. They could have fought against that evil regime which took over Gaza in a coup d’etat,” Herzog claimed about the 2.3 million Palestinians – half of whom are children – who live under a brutal military blockade and are the constant targets of Israeli air raids.
While international law is clear that belligerents who fail to distinguish between combatants and civilians are guilty of war crimes, Israeli officials have been working overtime to spin the narrative that the entire population of Gaza are “terrorists” or “Nazis.”
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant last week went even further, saying Gazans are “human animals” who must be eradicated, while National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said that Gaza doesn’t need humanitarian aid, only “tons of bombs.”
Ben Gvir’s comments came a few hours after an Israeli jet bombed the Baptist Hospital in Gaza City, killing hundreds of wounded civilians, most of them women and children.
France’s President, Emmanuel Macron, has condemned the reported deadly Israeli strike on a hospital in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday night, urging for humanitarian aid to be allowed into the besieged Territory.
On Tuesday night, a missile struck the compound of the Al-Ahli Arabi hospital in Gaza City, with a massive explosion being seen and heard, killing at least 300. Other reports put the number at over 500, and some at over 800 or 1,000.
Following the strike, French President, Emmanuel Macron, stated on X that “Nothing can justify striking a hospital. Nothing can justify targeting civilians. France condemns the attack on the Al-Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza, which made so many Palestinian victims. Our thoughts are with them. All the light must be shed on the circumstances.”
He then stated in a following post that “Humanitarian access to the Gaza Strip must be opened without delay”, acknowledging the necessity for Israel and Egypt to allow the massive inflow of humanitarian aid and convoys – which are awaiting access – to enter the besieged Territory.
A statement by France’s Foreign Ministry also stressed that “International humanitarian law is binding on all and must allow for the protection of civilian populations. Humanitarian access to the Gaza Strip must be opened without delay.”
Following the strike, Israel denied its responsibility and instead blamed the Palestinian Resistance group, Hamas, for a rocket misfire, which the group rejected, in turn. There also ensued fierce debate online regarding whether an Israeli-fired American JDAM munition struck the hospital or a rocket fired by Hamas or Islamic Jihad.
Tel Aviv’s claim has been debunked by weapons expert and US Army veteran, Dylan Griffith, who toldMiddle East Monitor that the footage and sound of the hospital strike bear the markers of a US JDAM munitions strike – the likes of which have been seen in strikes on Afghanistan and which have been provided to Israeli forces – in comparison to the smaller munitions generally used by Hamas and other Gazan groups.
Attempts by the US and its allies to “paint Moscow as a global pariah” have been “poisoned” by their rush to support Israeli retaliation against Hamas in Gaza, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday, citing more than a dozen officials.
Western nations have long framed the Ukraine conflict as an act of “unprovoked aggression” and blasted Moscow for the suffering of civilians.
However, the same nations have appeared reluctant to condition their support for Israel on exercising restraint in the wake of the deadly incursion by the Palestinian militant group Hamas, earlier this month. Israel has cut off essential supplies to the enclave and subjected it to intense bombardment.
“We have definitely lost the battle in the Global South,” one senior G7 diplomat was quoted as saying. “All the work we have done with the Global South [over Ukraine] has been lost… Forget about rules, forget about world order. They won’t ever listen to us again.”
“What we said about Ukraine has to apply to Gaza. Otherwise we lose all our credibility,” the official added. “The Brazilians, the South Africans, the Indonesians: why should they ever believe what we say about human rights?”
Meanwhile, an Arab official noted an apparent lack of consistency: “if you describe cutting off water, food and electricity in Ukraine as a war crime, then you should say the same thing about Gaza.”
White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan was confronted over the issue on CNN. Host Jack Tapper stressed that “civilians are civilians” regardless of where they reside. The official declined to say whether Washington was putting pressure on Israel to let supplies into Gaza.
According to The Huffington Post, the US State Department last week instructed high-level diplomats working in the Middle East not to use three specific phrases regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: “de-escalation/ceasefire,” “end to violence/bloodshed,” and “restoring calm.”
This week, a Russian-proposed draft resolution denouncing violence against civilians and urging a ceasefire was rejected by the UN Security Council. Another one submitted by Brazil was later vetoed by the US, after 12 members voted for it.
Russia abstained on the second proposal, after its amendment to include a call for a truce was rejected.
“You, colleagues, will certainly come up with some formal justification citing ‘unbalanced language,’ but at this point they would sound pathetic. You have made your choice,” Moscow’s envoy, Vassily Nebenzia, said about the non-inclusion of the wording.
Let’s say it again: The BIGGEST fake news comes from the establishment media. When the stakes are high, it barely bothers to hide its role as mouthpiece for Western propaganda.
This is another Iraqi WMD moment. We are being gaslit. Believe your eyes and ears, and the laws of physics, not the lies being peddled by our leaders and media about last night’s missile strike on the Baptist hospital in Gaza:
1. No Palestinian group has a rocket that can hit a hospital, killing hundreds. What they have are glorified fireworks that can cause minor damage and the occasional death or two. If Hamas or Islamic Jihad could cause the kind of damage that happened last night, you would hear about it happening in Tel Aviv or Ashkelon too. You don’t, because they can’t.
2. Israel’s apologists (and there are lots of them) are sharing all sorts of videos unrelated to the hospital strike. But the video of the strike itself shows that an incredibly large and powerful weapon is used. Listen to the noise the missile makes just before the hit – that whooshing noise is caused by its phenomenal velocity as it cuts through the air. That is not the noise of a falling Palestinian rocket.
If you watch videos being shared of Palestinian rockets being fired, notice how slowly they travel. Almost at a snail’s pace. If they fail, they drop at free-fall speed, not the near-supersonic speed of the missile that hit the hospital. To think otherwise is to misunderstand the laws of physics.
3. Israel’s apologists are trying to further muddy the waters by suggesting that either a Palestinian rocket fell, or was intercepted, and the rocket or fragments of it hit a very large ammo dump in the hospital. Let’s just accept the racist premise that hundreds of families were quite happy to seek safety next to a huge stash of explosives in the middle of a relentless Israeli bombing campaign. Let’s also accept the fantastical idea that a falling glorified firework or fragment of it could penetrate the hospital’s strong walls and set off such an explosion. If all this was true, you would still see a series of secondary explosions as the arms were detonated by the initial explosion. You don’t because there is only one explosion – from an enormous missile.
4. It’s a desperate psyop, so Israel has now released a recording of two Hamas militants conveniently having a chat after the missile strike, discussing whether they or Islamic Jihad did it. This is the same Israel that did not detect months of planning by Hamas that was needed to organise its breakout 10 days ago. But Israel got lucky this time, it seems, and just happened to be listening in when Huey and Louie decided to self-incriminate.
Remember Israel has a whole unit of ‘mistaravim’, Israeli Jewish undercover agents trained to pose as Palestinians and secretly operate among Palestinians. Israel produced a highly popular TV series about such people, set in Gaza, called Fauda. You have to be beyond credulous to think that Israel couldn’t, and wouldn’t, rig up a call like this to fool us, just as it regularly fools Palestinians in Gaza.
Most of the people spreading these lies know they are lies, including the media, and most especially the Middle East and defence correspondents. At least a few, like the BBC’s Jeremy Bowen and Jon Donnison, are trying cautiously to suggest it’s unlikely a Hamas rocket could cause damage on the scale seen at the Gaza hospital. But it’s not unlikely. It’s impossible, and they know it. They just don’t dare say it.
Israel’s propaganda machine has begun to work overtime to convince the world of the occupation state’s innocence in the bombing of Al-Ahli Arab Hospital yesterday. Complicit in the destruction of Gaza, Western leaders aided by the media have also started to work round the clock to dutifully parrot the lies, amplifying the fog of war. US President Joe Biden, who was the first Western leader to repeat the gruesome Israeli lie about 40 beheaded babies, dutifully trumpeted the Israeli narrative that a misfired Hamas rocket killed 500 people.
The playbook is all too familiar. First blanket denial. Then blame militants. As the truth emerges, Israelis cry “mistake”, “just an accident”. When that fails to quell public outrage and people demand accountability, Israel shouts anti-Semitism. And when all else fails, critics are denounced as Nazis and fascists in their twisted narrative. This course has been charted before. The same smokescreens used to obscure the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh are being deployed once again.
We don’t require a forensic investigation – though one should be carried out by an independent body – to hold Israel responsible for the bombing of Al-Ahli Arab Hospital. Israel has been openly pre-justifying hospital bombing and school bombing before launching its military campaign. It’s been pre-justifying war crimes, declaring with no fear of accountability that it will impose collective punishment by denying Gazans electricity, water and food.
Israel’s denial is not credible, because the occupation state has a long history of committing atrocities and massacres against Palestinians. For decades, the brutal realities of massacres were suppressed, details buried. But slowly they came to light – stories of indiscriminate slaughter, rape, torture and exile, of defenceless civilians. The brutal details of these killings have been revealed over the course of time. Fortunately, in the world of social media, lies and propaganda are harder to conceal. While Israel still tries desperately to control the narrative, Palestinian voices now ring out louder. Their stories and images expose Israeli lies in real-time.
A cursory glance at history shows how mass killing of Palestinians was a strategy employed by Zionist military groups to ethnically cleanse Palestinians. Israel’s potential ground offensive in Gaza raises a chilling prospect – mass slaughter and ethnic cleansing, repeating the dark tactics of the past.
One of the earliest and most notorious was the massacre at the Palestinian village Deir Yassin in 1948. As many as 250 people including men, women, children and the elderly are said to have been killed. The aim of the atrocity was to sow terror and fear to force Palestinians to flee. Some 750,000 Palestinian, three-quarters of the population, fled because of the terror campaign unleashed by the Israelis.
A month after Deir Yassin, Israeli forces slaughtered up to 200 Palestinians in the coastal village of Tantura. It was part of a ruthless ethnic cleansing campaign – Plan Dalet – to seize territory for a future Jewish state. Tantura was one of 64 Palestinian villages lining the road between Tel Aviv and Haifa. Once thriving coastal communities, all were wiped off the map – except two. The inhabitants were expelled en masse, joining the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians ethnically cleansed from their ancestral lands in 1948.
Israel’s seemingly never-ending drive to uproot Palestinians from their homes by force of arms and threat of imminent slaughter resulted in another massacre on 29 October 1956 in the village of Kafr Qasem, on the Israeli side of the 1949 Armistice (“Green”) Line. Soldiers went door-to-door, spraying homes with gunfire. Forty-nine residents were massacred in under an hour – men, women, children gunned down in cold blood. The violence was calculated, intended to stoke terror, make Palestinians flee for their lives.
According to Palestinian historians, the massacre at Kafr Qasem mirrored the typical Israeli blueprint of terrorising Palestinians into fleeing. In his book Atlas of Palestine (1917-1966), Dr Salman Abu Sitta lists at least 232 places where atrocities, massacres, destruction, plunder and looting were carried out by the Zionists between 1947 and 1956. Almost every one of 30 military operations were accompanied by one or two massacres of civilians. There were at least 77 reported massacres, half of which took place before any Arab regular soldier set foot in Palestine during the 1948 Israeli-Arab war.
Decades of Israeli occupation birthed countless atrocities against Palestinians, including horrors beyond their borders. In 1982, the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon became a brutal killing field. Christian militia, unleashed into the camps under Israeli protection, went on a 38-hour rampage. They slaughtered over 3,000 Palestinian civilians in cold blood. Rape, mutilation and torture preceded endless executions. Parents saw their children die before facing the same fate.
Israel denied direct blame, but its fingerprints were everywhere. They lit up the camps at night to aid the killers. They prevented desperate victims from fleeing. UN resolutions declared Israel complicit in an act of genocide. Then Defence Minister Ariel Sharon, found personally responsible for enabling the bloodbath, faced no real consequences. The victims saw no justice. It was one of countless episodes of Israeli leaders incubating anti-Palestinian violence with impunity.
Israel’s violence against Palestinians extends far beyond isolated massacres. Thousands have been killed over decades to maintain Israel’s illegal occupation.
Past Gaza assaults bear names now synonymous with death – Operation Cast Lead in 2008-2009 left 1,400 Palestinians dead. Operation Protective Edge in 2014 killed 2,251 more. These attacks came on the heels of countless other operations, each leaving hundreds dead and thousands more wounded.
The onslaught did not cease. During the 2019 Great March of Return, Israeli snipers gunned down 267 unarmed protesters. Over 30,000 more suffered critical injuries. Children and medics were not spared.
With the fog of war descending once more as Israel’s propaganda machine lurches into motion, fabricating myths to shield the truth, following the bombing of Al-Ahli Hospital, while Western leaders and media obediently amplify Israel’s distortions, muddying reality, let’s not forget Israel’s legacy of killing and massacres.
Just as in the past the truth will not be buried under this avalanche of deception. People around the world see through the web of lies, and recognise the regime’s brutality laid bare. The stories of those shelled while seeking care at Al-Ahli cannot be erased.
Israel’s desperate myths may multiply, but the blood-drenched reality remains. The propaganda will not whisk away the war crimes, nor inoculate Israel from accountability.
The Palestinian Ministry of Interior in Gaza said that the occupation forces committed a new massacre in the northern Gaza Strip, killing 37 Palestinians.
The ministry said that occupation forces bombed Palestinian homes in the areas of Al-Qasasib and Halima Al-Saadia in the town of Jabaliya, north of the Gaza Strip.
In Khan Yunis, the occupation targeted a flat in the Japanese neighbourhood with missiles. There were families who fled bombing from several areas in the flat, with three people killed, including a child.
This new massacre comes hours after the Baptist Hospital massacre, in which more than 500 martyrs were killed and more than 1,000 were seriously wounded. The occupation bombed the hospital where hundreds of Palestinian families had sought refuge.
The Israeli occupation has committed 394 massacres against Palestinian families since the start of the aggression against the Gaza Strip on 7 October, with the death toll reaching about 3,000, with 12,500 Palestinians wounded. The number of martyred children rose to over 1,000, and female martyrs to 1,032.
The Israeli regime’s “deliberate, indiscriminate and disproportionate” targeting of civilians in the besieged Gaza Strip goes against all norms of civility and violates international law, says Pakistani ambassador to Tehran.
In an interview with the Press TV website on Tuesday, hours before an Israeli air raid on a Gaza hospital killed more than 700 Palestinians, Muhammad Mudassir Tipu said the “conscience of humanity has been shaken” by the unrelenting massacre of Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip.
“The conscience of humanity has been shaken by watching innocent civilians, children, older people, pregnant woman being killed; buildings being razed to ground; water and electricity being cut off; massive blockades; and the use of massive ammunition by the Israeli military forces,” he stated.
“That is why people are showing solidarity with the Palestinians, who are symbolizing their struggle for justice, all over the world.”
Demonstrations have been held worldwide in recent days in solidarity with the oppressed people of Palestine amid the new wave of Israeli genocidal bombardment of the besieged coastal strip.
One of the biggest demonstrations was held in Pakistan’s port city of Karachi, where tens of thousands took to the streets following a call given by a local political party with the support of trade unions.
Tipu said the “sense of righteousness is deeply ingrained in the minds” of the people in Pakistan.
“We stand for those principles that are morally justified and right rather than the ones propagated for political and hegemonic ambitions. Pakistanis also believe in the equal application of international law and norms rather than using one set of laws for one country and another set of laws for another country,” he remarked in a conversation with the Press TV website.
“We can’t have double standards and false moral equivalences to justify unjustifiable and illegitimate positions,” the Pakistani envoy hastened to add.
The death toll in the Israeli aerial bombardment in the Gaza Strip has risen to 3,000, including at least 700 children, with tens of thousands of others displaced after the Israeli evacuation orders.
The Pakistani ambassador said massive pro-Palestine demonstrations must be seen in the context of years of forced and illegal occupation of Palestinian territory and repressive policies against its people.
“Our cause resonates with the cause of the hapless Palestinians who are facing unspeakable brutality and massive use of force on the civilians as well as an overwhelming use of military might over its innocent people,” he asserted.
Tipu also “appreciated” the role of the Iranian leadership in “standing up for the oppressed people of Palestine and making resolute efforts to halt and reverse the conflict in Gaza consistent with international norms.”
“The great Iranian leadership has also unambiguously urged for a just resolution of this historic injustice,” he remarked, adding that the foreign ministers of Pakistan and Iran had a phone conversation on Monday in which they “discussed this grave situation” in Palestine.
On Pakistan’s interim Prime Minister Anwaar ul Haq Kakar’s statement on Saturday that the Israeli aggression in the Gaza strip should be seen in the context of years of illegal Israeli occupation, the Pakistani envoy said he “clearly and unambiguously outlined Pakistan’s position on this crisis.”
He also dismissed any speculation about Pakistan mulling normalization with the Israeli regime.
“Pakistan’s Foreign Minister, Mr. Jalil Abbas Jilani has categorically articulated that “there is absolutely no move to recognize Israel. Our position is very clear. We take decisions based on our interests and the interests of the Palestinians,” he told the Press TV website.
“I must emphasize that Pakistan is a sovereign country, with enormous capabilities, and would always take decisions of vital importance independently.”
He hastened to note that Islamabad “wishes to seek a just resolution” of the issue of Palestine so that “regional peace, development, and growth can take place and a sense of equity and justice prevails.”
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
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