US in a quandary over Israel’s war on Gaza
BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | OCTOBER 13, 2023
The US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s press conference on Thursday concluding his visit to Israel conveyed three things. One, the Biden Administration will be seen as backing Israel to the hilt by way of meeting its security needs but Washington will not be drawn into the forthcoming Gaza operations except to arrange exit routes in the south for hapless civilians fleeing the conflict zone.
Two, Washington’s top priority at the moment is on engaging with the regional states who wield influence with Hamas to negotiate the hostage issue. Fourteen US citizens in Israel remain unaccounted for. (White House confirmed that the death toll in the fighting now includes at least 27 Americans.)
Three, the US will coordinate with the regional states to prevent any escalation in the situation to widen the conflict on the part of Hezbollah. Although the US cannot and will not stop Israeli leadership on its tracks apropos the imminent Gaza operation, it remains unconvinced.
Blinken was non-committal about any direct US military involvement, and the chances are slim as things stand. Most important, even as Blinken could hear the war drums, he also cast his eye on a future for Israel (and the region) where it will be at peace with itself, would integrate into the region and concentrate on creating economic prosperity — metaphorically put, beating its swords into plowshares in a Biblical Messianic intent.
That is to say, despite the massive show of force off the waters of Israel, with the deployment of two aircraft carriers along with destroyers and other naval assets and fighter jets off the waters of Israel, the Biden Administration is profoundly uneasy about any escalation of the conflict into a wider war. If the US senses that this is a catastrophe that Israel allowed to happen, that remains a strictly private thought.
Even as Blinken was heading for Tel Aviv, US House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul told reporters in Washington on Wednesday following a closed-door intelligence briefing that “We know that Egypt has warned the Israelis three days prior that an event like this could happen. I don’t want to get too much into classified, but a warning was given. I think the question was at what level.”
Shortly after McCaul spoke to reporters in Washington, an anonymous Egyptian official confirmed to the Times of Israel that Cairo’s agents did warn their Israeli counterparts about a planned Hamas attack, but that this warning may not have made it to Netanyahu’s office.
These disclosures would embarrass the Israeli government, as Saturday’s surprise attack can be viewed as a catastrophic failure for Israel’s intelligence services. In a brutally frank statement on Thursday, the Chief of General Staff of the Israel Defense Forces General Herzi Halevi admitted, “The IDF is responsible for the security of our nation and its citizens, and we failed to do so on Saturday morning. We will look into it, we will investigate, but now it is time for war.”
This failure will impact the decision-making in Tel Aviv. Gen. Halevi described Hamas as “animals” and “merciless terrorists who have committed unimaginable acts” against men, women and children. He said that the IDF “understands the magnitude of this time, and the magnitude of the mission that lays on our shoulders.”
“Yahya Sinwar, the ruler of the Gaza Strip, decided on this horrible attack, and therefore he and the entire system under him are dead men,” the general added, vowing to “attack them and dismantle them and their organisation” and that “Gaza will not look the same” afterward.
Make no mistake, the Israeli objective will be to use overwhelming force with its most advanced weapons, including powerful bunker-busting bombs, to inflict crippling losses on Hamas formations so that the movement cannot wage an armed struggle for many years. A ground operation is to be expected any day.
It is improbable that Blinken would have even tried to dissuade Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from going ahead with a brutal operation. He told the media that the US would rather leave it to Israel to do what needed to be done. Meanwhile, the US deployment will not only aim to enhance surveillance, intercept communications, and prevent Hamas from acquiring more weapons, but also act as deterrent.
That said, the US cannot afford to watch passively. Washington has no choice but to limit the expected fighting in the coming days and weeks in Gaza to ensure that it does not spread to other areas. Thus, the US force projection specifically serves as a deterrent to Hezbollah, which possesses a vast armoury of 150,000 missiles that can be launched at major cities in Israel, potentially leading to a broader war not only in Gaza but also in Lebanon, drawing others into the conflict.
Israel knocked out of service the airports in Damascus and Aleppo in Syria in missile strikes simultaneously on Thursday, presumably to prevent reinforcements reaching Lebanon. Iran’s foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian was due to travel to Syria and Lebanon in the weekend.
Through the past four decades, the US and Iran have made a fine art of communicating with each other in dangerous times to set ground rules to avoid confrontation. This time around too, it is happening.
Certainly, the speech by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Tuesday on the conflict situation, which was translated into Hebrew by the Iranians and disseminated in an unprecedented move, conveyed a subtle message in three parts to both Israel and the US, signalling essentially that Tehran does not intend to get involved in the conflict. (See my blog Iran warns Israel against its apocalyptic war.)
In turn, the US has signalled that it has intelligence showing that key Iranian leaders were surprised by the Hamas attacks on Israel. Equally, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s phone conversation with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Wednesday — their first ever conversation which Tehran initiated — harped on efforts to “halt the ongoing escalation.”
The ‘known unknown’ scenario
Yet, the big question is, how far the Biden Administration would be confident about the success of any Israeli military incursion into Gaza. During the press conference in Tel Aviv, Blinken underscored in a subtle way the importance of “lessons” learnt from past experiences. The point is, Israel will be involved in urban warfare in a densely populated area with a population of 2.1 million people.
Gaza has an average of 5,500 people per sq. km, and there are bound to be heavy civilian casualties caused by Israel’s advanced American weaponry, which would lead to an international outcry, including in Europe, and lead to condemnation of not only Israel but the US as well. However, Israel is in a defiant mood and Netanyahu needs at least some of the operation’s goals achieved before agreeing to a ceasefire.
More importantly, Israel needs an exit strategy, if past experiences in Lebanon and Gaza gave any lessons. Colin Powell’s Pottery Barn rule comes into play — ‘You break it, you own it.’
An extended occupation of Gaza will be an extremely dangerous outcome fraught with great risks, given the deep economic, religious, and social roots that Hamas enjoys. Suffice to say, the Israeli military will be hard-pressed to show “success” and head for the exit door.
Besides, if other Palestinian groups and organisations in the West Bank make decisions that advance Hamas’s strategic goals, all bets are off, as Israeli military will face a two-front war. In fact, the conditions for a third intifada do exist in the West Bank.
And in such a scenario, the advantage goes to Hamas, which would position itself as potentially the appropriate and perhaps the sole alternative after Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who is now 87 years old.
Again, in a worst case scenario, it cannot be ruled out that the Arab Israeli population may draw inspiration from Hamas, and if their violent eruption in 2021 is anything to go by, the long-term viability of the state of Israel will be put to test.
Suffice to say, the best solution lies in a paradigm shift in the Israeli statecraft away from its primacy on coercion and brutal force. Blinken’s remarks suggested that the US hopes that when the dust settles down, with the helping hand of friendly Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Jordan, a turnaround to calm the situation and reach a ceasefire might be possible.
Of course, the longer that takes, the greater the strain it will put on the US-Israeli ties and the harder it will become for the Biden Administration to maintain an equilibrium in what is already a troubled relationship with Netanyahu. Fundamentally, Israel needs to come terms with the new reality that they are no longer invincible or the dominant power in the West Asian region.
Yes, Treating COVID Patients With Hydroxychloroquine Can Save Lives
By Angelo DePalma, Ph.D. | The Defender | October 11, 2023
Hospitalized COVID-19 patients treated with hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) alone, or HCQ plus the antibiotic azithromycin, had significantly lower mortality than those not receiving the drugs, according to a study released this month in New Microbes and New Infections.
Researchers in Belgium report that just 16.7% of COVID-19 patients given HCQ, with or without azithromycin, died within 28 days compared to 25.9% among those not taking HCQ — a 35% lower mortality.
After adjusting for age differences, the risk of death was still 24% lower for HCQ-treated hospitalized patients.
The survival benefit was seen across all ages and was statistically significant.
The results support the efficacy of HCQ and azithromycin in improving outcomes for hospitalized COVID-19 patients. This contrasts with earlier studies using dangerously high HCQ doses that found no benefits.
Who participated in the study?
Led by Dr. Gert Meeus, a nephrologist at AZ Groeninge Hospital, Kortrijk, Belgium, researchers collected data from March 16 to May 20, 2020 — the first few months of the pandemic.
They compared outcomes for 352 COVID-19-positive, HCQ-treated adults hospitalized at AZ Groeninge Hospital with those of 3,533 patients across Belgium who did not receive the drug.
Treated patients averaged 69.7 years versus 73.1 years for the control group. While this age difference favors the younger subjects who face less risk from the virus, this factor was more than offset by the treatment group’s higher incidence of high blood pressure, diabetes, liver and lung diseases, and weakened immunity.
Treated subjects were also more obese — a COVID-19 risk factor — with lower blood oxygen (suggesting severe illness) and higher C-reactive protein levels. C-reactive protein is a blood marker for inflammation and poor COVID-19 outcomes.
During the 28 days following initial treatment, 16.7% of patients who received HCQ, either alone or with azithromycin, died compared with 25.9% in the control group.
How was HCQ administered?
For the study, 299 patients (85%) received HCQ plus azithromycin versus 53 who took HCQ alone. Researchers only prescribed the antibiotic when they suspected bacterial pneumonia. Data for HCQ alone and HCQ plus azithromycin were combined.
Subjects received HCQ as two 400-milligram doses on day one and two 200-milligram doses on days two through five.
Patients younger than 75 years received 500 milligrams of azithromycin for five days. Older patients took 500 milligrams on day 1 and 250 milligrams per day for four days.
88% of patients received the full treatment course but 12% took the drugs for less time, at the caregiver’s discretion, due to side effects or reaching a terminal condition.
Otherwise, side effects observed in 197 patients were mild and mostly stomach issues. One patient had hallucinations and two developed a skin rash.
Thirteen patients dropped out of the study due to side effects, including 4 of 15 who developed heart muscle abnormalities — despite an earlier study reporting an association between HCQ and lower cardiovascular risk.
Nine patients dropped out because of digestive upset. One patient developed an abnormal but nonfatal post-study heart rhythm, but no treated patients experienced sudden death or irregular heartbeat during the study.
How the drugs work
HCQ and azithromycin work together to eliminate the COVID-19 virus, but the drugs may benefit patients in other ways.
Both drugs act on the immune system in ways that may suppress the COVID-19 cytokine storm responsible for much of COVID-19-related illness and death.
HCQ may also prevent blood clots in COVID-19 patients, while azithromycin may prevent additional, non-lung bacterial infections.
HCQ was approved in the U.S. in 1955 to treat malaria, but because of its anti-inflammatory effects it is also prescribed to adults to treat autoimmune diseases like lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.
Most serious side effects — including retinopathy, which causes blindness — occur after years of use, while COVID-19 treatments generally last for less than one week.
The World Health Organization lists HCQ as an “essential medicine” based on its “safety, efficacy and public health relevance.”
Study strengths and weaknesses
Meeus designed his study and interpreted his findings to include results that may not have supported the “safety and efficacy” of HCQ.
For example, all patients receiving at least one dose of HCQ were included in the treatment group regardless of whether they completed the study. One dose of HCQ was unlikely to affect their survival, but including such patients would have increased mortality numbers in the treatment group, thereby underestimating HCQ survival benefits.
Excluding very sick patients in a survival study tends to make data appear stronger because fewer deaths invariably occur among healthier subjects. Meeus and coworkers did not do this.
Meeus’ results also likely underestimated the benefits of HCQ treatment by reviewing patients only after hospitalization, when they were already quite sick. COVID-19 treatment experts stress the importance of treatment before patients reach this stage.
This retrospective study associated a current outcome (death) with an earlier effect (receiving HCQ). Retrospective studies are less capable of establishing causation than prospective studies that first look at the intervention or cause and only later for effects.
Another potential study shortcoming involves the statistics investigators chose to report HCQ’s benefits. A reduction in deaths from 25.9% to 16.7% is a 36.5% decrease, but the effect is smaller when survival, not death, is the outcome measured.
Death rates of 25.9% and 16.7% mean that 83.3% of treated and 74.1% of untreated patients survived, for an overall survival benefit under 10%.
Reporting relatively large differences between two small numbers is a common strategy for amplifying modest clinical benefits.
Meeus did not account for the many observational studies carried out by such doctors as Didier Raoult, Vladimir Zelenko, Pierre Kory, Peter McCullough and others using HCQ with azithromycin and/or zinc to treat COVID-19 beginning in 2020 — some with very large practices — all demonstrating significant benefits with early treatment.
He also did not review early treatment randomized control trials or the many other studies showing clear benefits of HCQ treatment.
Conclusion: ‘remarkable’ results
The authors described their results as “remarkable” since large HCQ studies during the first pandemic year showed no benefit.
However, where Meeus and co-workers used HCQ at standard doses, the earlier trials used a fourfold higher total dose, including an initial dose seven times higher than the maximum approved dosage.
For example the WHO “Solidarity” and U.K. “Recovery” clinical trials used HCQ dosages that were considered fatal.
According to Meeus, other studies (see here, here, and here) using more reasonable HCQ dosing failed because they did not recruit enough subjects to show a statistically significant effect.
One of these studies found a 44% reduction in death at 28 days but included too few patients to be able to claim an HCQ benefit.
Percentage of patients who died in the HCQ group (white bars) vs. the no-HCQ group (black bars) by age group. A survival benefit was seen in all age groups. While about 2.5% of untreated 31- to 44-year-olds died during the study, no treated patients in this age group died. Credit: Gert Meeus et al.
Meeus concluded:
“Our study suggests that, despite the controversy surrounding its use, treatment with hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin remains a viable option. The favorable results and reassuring safety data support the need for adequately powered confirmatory randomized controlled trials using low dose hydroxychloroquine plus azithromycin.
“Given the pandemic emergency it is reasonable to give this treatment the benefit of the doubt pending the results of these trials or the advent of better treatment options.”
Angelo DePalma, Ph.D., is a science reporter/editor for The Defender.
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
Palestinians have faced ‘unprecedented levels’ of Zionist terrorism for decades
Palestinians mourn after 8 members of Shamlah family killed in Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City, Gaza on 9 October 2023 [Mustafa Hassona – Anadolu Agency]
By Ramona Wadi | MEMO | October 12, 2023
The White House National Security Council Spokesman John Kirby told the Times of Israel this week that, “Our focus right now is making sure that they [Israel] have the tools they need to defend themselves against this truly historic, unprecedented level of violence against their people.” The statement conveniently obliterates the fact that the US guarantees Israel a qualitative military edge which secures the occupation state’s military power in the region, the preservation of which it is scrambling to ensure, in the context of the Abraham Accords.
What else does Israel need, then? What the settler-colonial entity unleashed in Gaza has nothing to do with the protection of its illegal settler population. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s declaration of war, and what followed next, including the spread of misinformation and lies, was reminiscent of the “war on terror” narrative post 9/11, which was used to justify foreign intervention. Only, there is no war; it’s just yet another display of Israel’s colonial power and violence that traces its roots back to the then “unprecedented level of violence” that Palestinians experienced at the hands of Zionist paramilitary terrorists during the 1948 Nakba.
Who supported or even mentioned the Palestinians’ right to defend themselves back in 1948? No one. Palestine was ethnically cleansed, the major part of its population replaced by settler-colonialists, and all the UN could come up with was a very flawed right of return that placed all the burden of hypothetical coexistence on the Palestinian people. The colonialists became “neighbours”, and Israel was accepted as a full UN member state in 1949 largely due to the fact that some of the major 1948 Nakba atrocities happened before the state was established. Which means that the UN decided to ignore the establishment of Israel as a violent, settler-colonial entity founded on terrorism.
Under the guise of a state, and in line with what other colonial powers did to their former colonies, Israel’s impunity was guaranteed.
When the US and Israel comment on “unprecedented levels of violence”, therefore, we should revert to history. And if Israel wishes to play the card that it wasn’t established at the time of the Tantura massacre, for example, or Deir Yassin, one can always refer to the Kafr Qasem massacre in 1956, which was approved by the Israeli government and took place on the same day as the tripartite — Israel, France and the UK — attack on the Suez Canal. And Lydda. And Saliha. And Safsaf. And Jish. And Al-Dawayima. And Khan Yunis. And, and, and; all the way to Sabra and Shatila, Hebron and Jenin. And Gaza, of course.
Each of these examples draws attention to the annihilation of the Palestinian people in their own towns and villages. The international community stayed silent in years gone by, and has maintained its silence every time Gaza has been bombed by Israel.
Now, when Netanyahu declares war and a total siege on the entire Palestinian population in Gaza, the international community dares not speak of war crimes. Instead, it promotes Israel’s security and self-defence narrative, which plays into the terror narrative that the US and Israel are spreading. However, it is the Palestinian people who face Zionist terror and colonial violence, and have done for decades; “unprecedented levels of violence” for a population that was coerced into territorial appropriation, population elimination and replacement; which continues to face displacement, massacres and mass graves. Why else does Israel refuse to open the state’s Nakba archives completely for fear of the corroboration between Palestinian narratives of the Nakba and the atrocities that the Israeli government wants to keep hidden from sight?
From the Zionist paramilitary terrorists, to the colonial establishment and continuity of Israel, it is the Palestinians that have faced unprecedented levels of terrorism. Anyone who stands with Israel, therefore, is complicit, not only in terrorism, but also in war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Israel shells mosque in Lebanon’s Dhahira
MEMO | October 12, 2023
Israel has shelled the Ahl Al-Qur’an Mosque in the town of Al-Dhahira in the Tyre district of southern Lebanon, Anadolu news agency reported.
Anadolu’s correspondent in southern Lebanon reported that the mosque and dozens of nearby homes were directly hit by the Israeli artillery shelling.
Lebanese army patrols are inspecting damage caused by the Israeli bombing.
Ali Al-Suwaid, a local resident, said the town was exposed to random Israeli bombing, forcing its people to flee to safer neighbouring villages. Al-Suwaid added that the Israeli shelling had hit his house while he and his family were inside the house, causing material damage to the building.
Three civilians were injured, he added, and were taken to hospital for treatment.
Earlier yesterday, three people were injured as a result of Israeli bombing on border villages and towns in the western sector of southern Lebanon, according to government media.
Biden, US politicians greenlighting ‘potential genocide’ of Palestinians: Analysts
The ruins of houses destroyed in Israeli strikes in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, Tuesday, October 10, 2023.
Press TV – October 12, 2023
Political analysts have warned that US President Joe Biden’s unflinching backing of Israeli aggression against Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip could give the Tel Aviv regime the greenlight to commit mass atrocities and genocide against the people of Palestine.
And while the US has always supported Israel in previous incursions and attacks on Palestinians, a number of concerned experts say this time is completely different.
“What’s different now is that the president and Congress have provided the greenest of possible green lights to enable Israel to do anything that it wants to do up to and including genocide,” Josh Ruebner, a political analyst, told Middle East Eye on Thursday.
“Make no mistake about it, by providing 100 percent backing for any action that Israel takes in the Gaza Strip, President Biden is complicit in Israel’s commission of war crimes, and potentially much, much worse,” said Ruebner, who is also the author of Shattered Hopes: Obama’s Failure to Broker Israeli-Palestinian Peace.
“As of this point, I do not believe that President Biden will stop Israel at any point,” Ruebner added.
“It’s unclear how long this green light will last. It’s unclear to what extent mass murder would need to be committed by Israel before it’s reined in by the United States,” he said.
In his public address on Tuesday, Biden described the actions of Hamas, the Palestinian resistance group against the Israeli regime, as “sheer evil,” and said that the US stands behind Israel and will provide it whatever it needs to attack Gaza.
“We will make sure Israel has what it needs to take care of its citizens, defend itself, and respond to this attack,” Biden said. “Let there be no doubt. The United States has Israel’s back. We’ll make sure the Jewish and democratic state of Israel can defend itself today, tomorrow, as we always have.”
No mention of concern for Palestinians
Yet none of Israel’s actions against the civilian population of Gaza received a mention in Biden’s speech on Tuesday.
“Biden’s address to the nation, was horrifying in that he didn’t express one iota of concern for the loss of Palestinian civilian life, the war crimes that are being committed currently by the Israeli military in the Gaza Strip, and the widescale incitement to genocide that we’ve heard in recent days from Israeli political and military leaders,” Ruebner said.
Instead, Biden said with confidence that “we uphold the law of war.”
However, experts said the US and Israel both have an extensive history of violating international humanitarian law and the laws of war.
“The United States has been the most fervent violator of the laws of war and international law in general on a global scale ever since it played a leading role in establishing the so-called ‘rules-based’ international order during the post-WWII years,” Kenney-Shawa said.
“I want to be clear with my words right now. It’s rich that the US would claim to abide by the laws of war. Anyone who still believes that the US would uphold the laws of war or respect the international laws it wrote is deluding themselves.”
“In the past, the US may have been counted on to go through the motions of parroting the usual de-escalatory talking points, like calling for ‘both sides’ to avoid civilian casualties or for Israel to exercise a modicum of restraint,” said Tariq Kenney-Shawa, a US policy fellow for al-Shabaka think tank.
“But today, Biden and the rest of the American political establishment are fervently united in giving Israel carte blanche to completely devastate Gaza.”
Ahmad Abuznaid, executive director of the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, said that rather than calling for a ceasefire and end to the hostilities, the US is “cheerleading” the latest Israeli assault.
“The Israeli forces are murdering entire families in Gaza while supplying arms to their violent settlers in the West Bank to carry out attacks. The situation in Gaza was already devastating and again the people of Gaza are facing attacks from the most powerful military force in the region, with no Iron Dome, no military, and no US government valuing their lives,” Abuznaid said.
Israel fighting religious war, hellbent on exterminating Palestinians
US Senator Lindsey Graham has said clearly and unequivocally in an interview aired on right-wing channel Fox News that “we are fighting a religious war, and I am on Israel’s side”.
Graham’s message to Israel was: “Do whatever it takes. Raze this place to the ground.”
And nearly 400 members of US Congress signed a measure introduced on Tuesday, in which it condemned the Hamas resistance group for its attack on Israel and gave complete support for Israel’s right to defend itself.
“Lawmakers on the left and on the right, from Lindsey Graham to Ritchie Torres, are using this opportunity to viciously demonize Palestinians in order to drum up anti-Palestinian hatred that will give Israel cover to commit unspeakable crimes right in front of our eyes,” said Kenney-Shawa.
“Israel is hellbent on exterminating Palestinians in Gaza, and it knows no one will get in between them and what they see as their divine objective.”
Deadly Israeli bombing campaign
Israeli air strikes have so far targeted hospitals, mosques, and residential buildings across Gaza. Entire families have been wiped out by the bombing campaign.
The Israeli violence has also once again made its way into the occupied West Bank, where Israeli forces have killed 28 Palestinians.
So far, in addition to about 1,500 Palestinians that have been killed, at least 6,268 have been injured. It is unclear how many buildings have been razed, as the number continues to rise by the hour.
Israel has imposed a full siege on the already blockaded enclave, cutting off electricity and water and also refusing requests to allow the entry of food and medical supplies. It also threatened to bomb aid trucks trying to enter from the Egyptian border with Gaza.
The UN Refugee Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) said on Tuesday that it has about 12 days of supplies of food and water for the nearly 200,000 people taking shelter in its school buildings. While a blockade is not necessarily a war crime, the intentional starvation of a civilian population as a war tactic is a violation of the Geneva Conventions.
In previous Israeli incursions on Palestinians, the US had called for Israel to use restraint. However, in the past few days, there have been no such calls coming from Washington, at least in public.
The attack on Israel from Hamas and Palestinian resistance groups has been dubbed by Israelis as their own 9/11.
The rhetoric around it has caused even more concern about the fallout for Palestinian civilians, as well as Palestinians across the Western diaspora, as Western governments have begun using the rhetoric aimed at cracking down on pro-Palestinian sentiment by equating it with support for Hamas.
“The mass attack on Israeli civilians on Saturday was not only unprecedented in its scope, in terms of Israeli civilians being impacted by Palestinian attacks. That’s obvious. What hasn’t been discussed so much yet, is that what Hamas did on Saturday is the deepest, darkest fear of every settler colonial society,” Ruebner said.
He added that in looking throughout history, settler-colonial states have often responded in “an overwhelming perhaps eliminatory response.”
“And I gravely fear that Israel’s response will pale in comparison to anything that it has inflicted on innocent Palestinians up to this point, including 1948. That’s how dire I think the situation is.”
The Israeli regime launched its onslaught on Saturday after Gaza-based resistance groups carried out a multi-front operation in response to Israeli crimes.
According to media, the Hamas operation has left 1,200 Israelis dead and nearly 3,000 others injured.
UN Chief Antonio Guterres has already expressed concern over the situation in Gaza, saying the clashes will deteriorate the situation exponentially. He said he was “deeply distressed” by an announcement that Israel will initiate a complete siege of Gaza.
US Provides Data of Syrian, Russian Military’s Movement to Jihadists – Russian Intel Head
Sputnik – 12.10.2023
MOSCOW – The United States is providing jihadists with data on the places of dislocation and movement routes of the Syrian and Russian military in Syria, Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) Director Sergei Naryshkin said on Thursday.
“Work is underway to destabilize the situation, including through the capabilities of ISIS [Islamic State, a terrorist group banned in Russia]. Information about places of dislocation and movement routes of the Syrian army and Russian military is being transmitted to the jihadists,” Naryshkin was quoted as saying by the SVR.
US President Joe Biden’s administration is aimed at disrupting the emerging positive dynamics around and inside Syria, Naryshkin added.
Iran and Saudi Arabia say Israel, its supporters inviting ‘destructive insecurity’
Press TV – October 11, 2023
Iran and Saudi Arabia have said that the Israeli regime’s crimes and the United States’ green light for the atrocities stand to invite “destructive insecurity” for the occupying regime and its supporters.
The remarks were made on Wednesday in the first phone call to take place between President Ebrahim Raeisi and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Mohammad Jamshidi, the Iranian chief executive’s deputy chief of staff for political affairs, wrote on a message on X, formerly known as Twitter.
The comments came after the Gaza Strip’s resistance movements initiated their biggest operation against Israel in years on Saturday in response to the occupying regime’s decades-long campaign of bloodshed and destruction against Palestinians.
Codenamed the al-Aqsa Storm Operation, the campaign killed at least 1,000 Israeli forces and settlers, and led to many others among them being taken hostage by the resistance groups.
Shedding further light on the contents of the conversation between Raeisi and bin Salman, Jamshidi said, “…the 2 agreed on the need to end war crimes against Palestine.”
Israel has responded to the Palestinian operation by waging a “long” war against Gaza, for which it has called up an unprecedented 300,000 reservists.
The Israeli war has killed at least 1,100 Palestinians, including 326 children, and injured 5,339 others.
The military campaign has seen the regime leveling entire districts and featured its use of banned white phosphorous munitions against densely populated neighborhoods.
Earlier this week, Israeli Minister for Military Affairs Yoav Gallant announced a “total blockade” to stop food and fuel from reaching Gaza, home to 2.3 million people.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday said he was “deeply distressed” by Israel’s announcement of the complete siege.
“The humanitarian situation in Gaza was extremely dire before these hostilities; now it will only deteriorate exponentially,” Guterres said.
326 Palestinian children killed as Israel plunges Gaza into darkness
Defense for Children International – Palestine | October 11, 2023
Israeli authorities prohibit food, fuel, electricity, and water into the Gaza Strip as Defense for Children International – Palestine has so far confirmed the killing of at least 105 Palestinian children since Saturday, with the total now surpassing 300.
DCIP has confirmed the killing of at least 105 Palestinian children in direct Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip between October 7 and 11, while the Ministry of Health in Gaza announced today that over 326 children have been killed. DCIP staff in Gaza and the West Bank continue to document and confirm Palestinian child fatalities as hostilities continue between Palestinian armed groups and Israeli forces. Intensive Israeli bombardment throughout the Gaza Strip, lack of electricity, Israeli airstrikes on telecommunications infrastructure, and the unprecedented rate of daily child fatalities has resulted in a lag between confirmed fatalities by DCIP and the overall total child fatalities published regularly by the Ministry of Health in Gaza.
“Israeli forces are destroying entire neighborhoods in the Gaza Strip as an apparent full-scale ground assault is imminent,” said Ayed Abu Eqtaish, accountability program director at DCIP. “Immediate humanitarian relief is necessary to protect civilians as Israeli forces prepare to intensify attacks and Israeli officials declare their intention to commit further war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
Around 6 p.m. on October 9, Israeli warplanes targeted, without prior warning, a two-story building behind the Golden Hall in the Americana area west of Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip, killing at least 14 Palestinians, including at least six children: siblings Karam, three, Akram, 10, Watan, one, Mahmoud, nine, Amani, four, and Fatima Mohammad Abdulrahim Al-Madhoon, seven, according to documentation collected by DCIP. Rescue teams were able to recover seven bodies.
An Israeli airstrike targeted without prior warning a residential building in Jabalia refugee camp around 9 a.m. on October 10, killing four Palestinians, including three children: Mohammad, two, Karam, three, and Naheda Mousa Yousef Al-Hesi, 11, according to documentation collected by DCIP. Other children were also injured in the attack.
Israeli warplanes targeted a residential building without prior warning around 11 a.m. on October 10 in Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, killing 14 Palestinians, including seven children, according to documentation collected by DCIP. The airstrike killed seven children from the Ahmad family: siblings Mustafa, nine, and Elayn Tamer Mohammad Ahmad, four, their cousins Sidra, five, Haidy, one, Linda, seven, and Qusai Mohammad Aladdin Ahmad, three, as well as another cousin, two-year-old Obaida Rafat Aladdin Ahmad.
Israeli warplanes completely destroyed a three-story residential building without warning in the Tal Al-Zaatar area of Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip around 9:25 p.m. on October 10, killing everyone inside, including at least one child, 10-year-old Mohammad Baraa Taysir Shahin, according to documentation collected by DCIP. Palestinian civil defense teams have recovered two bodies from the building, while an estimated 10 Palestinians were inside during the bombing.
In addition to these incidents, DCIP has verified the killing of an additional 11 Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip in other attacks, though DCIP field researchers are still gathering and verifying details of the incidents. Those killed include:
- Ali Omar Mousa Al-Qatnani, four, from Jabalia
- Siblings Layan, two and Majd Mohammad Ismail Salah, two, from Beit Lahia
- Haitham Khaled Abdulazeem Asayleh, 17, from Jabalia
- Hassan Mohammad Ismail Salah, nine, from Jabalia
- Malak Mohammad Majed Al-Daqs, two, from Jabalia
- Kenan Mohammad Mahmoud Farhat, two, from Jabalia
- Cousins Nadeen Mohammad Abdulati Salah, 13, and Diaa’ Ahmad Abdulati Salah, six months, from Jabalia
- Mohammad Hassan Ali Al-Zain, seven, from Khan Younis
- Sham Mohammad Saleh Al-Sawalha, eight months, from Jabalia
Israeli forces unleashed a massive military offensive on the Gaza Strip on Saturday after Palestinian armed groups fired rockets toward Israel and breached the Israeli perimeter fence surrounding Gaza early on October 7, launching attacks inside Israel. Israeli forces initiated a large-scale military operation dubbed Operation Iron Swords.
At least 1,100 Palestinians, including at least 326 children, have been killed in the Gaza Strip since Saturday morning, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza. DCIP is working to document additional attacks and killings. Israeli forces have shot and killed six Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank since October 7, including 12-year-old Ahmad Abdulnaser Adnan Rabi.
DCIP previously confirmed the killing of at least 74 Palestinian children in direct Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip between October 7 and 10, 2023, in a report issued yesterday.
Over 263,934 people in the Gaza strip have fled their homes as mass displacement escalates with intensifying Israeli attacks, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA). More than 175,486 internally displaced Palestinians are sheltering in 88 United Nations schools throughout the Gaza Strip, while over 73,900 Palestinians, whose homes have been destroyed or damaged, are hosted by relatives and neighbors, according to UN OCHA.
UN: Israel’s total Gaza blockade amounts to war crime
Press TV – October 10, 2023
The United Nations human rights chief has warned that Israel’s imposition of a total blockade on the Gaza Strip amounts to a war crime and violates international law.
Volker Turk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said in a statement on Tuesday that the blockade “seriously” risks the already dire humanitarian situation in the Palestinian enclave.
Turk underscored the limited capacity of medical facilities to operate, especially in light of the growing number of injured. He said Israel’s “imposition of sieges that endanger the lives of civilians by depriving them of goods essential for their survival is prohibited under international humanitarian law.”
“This risks seriously compounding the already dire human rights and humanitarian situation in Gaza, including the capacity of medical facilities to operate, especially in light of increasing numbers of injured,” Turk said, adding that a siege may amount to “collective punishment.”
Separately on Tuesday, UN Human Rights spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani clarified that such acts may amount to a war crime. Findings of the UN rights chief are based on a review of available material, including from its own monitors on the ground, she added.
Furthermore, UN children’s agency spokesman James Elder sounded alarm over the siege on Gaza.
“UNICEF is extremely alarmed about measures to cut electricity, to cut food, to cut water, to cut fuel from entering Gaza. This will add another layer of suffering to the existing catastrophe faced by families in Gaza.”
Israel launched deadly strikes on the densely-populated Gaza Strip on October 7, after the resistance movement Hamas waged the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the usurping entity.
Hamas said its operation came in response to Israel’s violations at al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East al-Quds and growing settler violence.
According to the Gaza Health Ministry, at least 830 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli bombardment.
Israel’s Hannibal Directive: Israeli Attack Will Likely Result in 120 Hostage Deaths
By Richard Silverstein | Tikun Olam | October 9, 2023
The latest Gaza death toll is 1,000 Israeli dead and 700 Palestinians. Hamas fighters continue to attack southern Israel and the IDF has conceded that it has not blocked all of the 22 sites where militants blew up its security fence. It also concedes that Palestinian fighters continue to enter Israel from them. The army also conceded that the Palestinian resistance inside Israel continues unabated.
Israel has called 300,000 reservists for active duty. Tens of thousands of troops are massing outside Gaza preparing to invade the enclave. IDF spokesperson, Jonathan Conricus declared that Israel will occupy Gaza and ensure Hamas will never again control it. To do so, Israel will have to reoccupy it and station thousands of troops. They in turn will be targeted by Hamas, which Israel cannot succeed in eradicating.
Israel occupied southern Lebanon for 20 years and lost hundreds of soldiers to Hezbollah attacks. Israeli occupation of Gaza would repeat the quagmire.
The Yassin mosque in Gaza, destroyed by IAF missiles (AP Photo/Adel Hana)
Bibi Netanyahu has threatened to turn Gaza to “rubble.” Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has called Hamas “human animals” and denied Gazans food, water, electricity and fuel. This is collective punishment and forbidden under Geneva Convention. It is a war crime.
The International Criminal Court has already opened a file against Israel for alleged war crimes during the last major invasion in 2014.Then, it killed 2,300 Palestinians. The ICC has not yet agreed to open a formal investigation after several years of delay. The world awaits action. Holding war criminals accountable, whether Palestinian or Israeli, is critical to maintaining the credibility of international law. Israel is shredding it by the day.
Palestinian militant groups hold up to 120 Israelis hostage in Gaza. Netanyahu has not announced any effort to free them or exchange them for Palestinian prisoners. Instead, he speaks of all-out war. Hamas, on the other hand, has threatened to execute one hostage for every Palestinian killed or house destroyed.
Hamas says that it is detaining hostages in its underground tunnels. The IAF has already dropped bunker buster bombs to destroy them. If what Hamas says is true, then Israel is killing its own citizens. If it unleashes a full-scale exterminationist assault, then all the Israeli hostages will die. Either at the hands of Hamas, of from IDF assault.
This is reminiscent of the IDF’s Hannibal Directive, a policy calling for the killing of Israeli soldiers who fall captive to Palestinian militants. Israel prefers a dead soldier to a live one it will be forced to exchange for Palestinian prisoners. Israel’s imminent attack will likely kill its own citizens, and is a version of this horrible Directive. As this Haaretz makes clear, Netanyahu has no intent to negotiate for the hostages’ release. He has given them up for lost. Abandoned them. It’s a cynical, morally bankrupt approach characteristic of him.
The Biden administration has ordered a naval task force to the eastern Mediterranean and declared readiness to offer whatever weapons Israel needs to obliterate Gaza. Though meant as show of strength, it is really a confirmation of the impotence of Israeli policy. We claim to support a tw0-state solution. Yet we are accessories to mass murder of Palestinians. We are all-in for Israel. Palestine can go to hell (and it will, if the Israelis have anything to say about it).
Israel is an example of the worst of humanity. Of the depths of depravity to which our species can sink. Israel’s apologists raise bitter cries over the murder of children and women, while refusing to acknowledging that many times more Palestinian children and women have died under Israeli onslaught. As I said in an earlier post, this is terror for terror. Hamas declares that if every Palestinian is a legitimate target, then every Israeli will be as well. It is a cold, brutal calculation. But Israel has no monopoly on brutality. It will suffer what it metes out.
Israel airstrikes have destroyed seven Gaza mosques since Saturday
Israeli warplanes blow up the Yarmouk Mosque in Gaza city on October 09, 2023 [Mohammed Asad/Middle East Monitor]
MEMO |October 9, 2023
Israeli attacks have destroyed seven mosques in the Gaza Strip since Saturday, Anadolu Agency reports.
Israeli warplanes attacked the Al Abbas Mosque in central Gaza with many rockets.
The attacks have now led to the destruction of seven mosques, with the most recent being the Al-Abbas Mosque.
Israel had previously hit the Al-Susi, Al-Yarmouk, Al-Amin Muhammad, Ahmed Yassin, Al-Habib Mohammad, and Al-Garbi mosques in Gaza.
The Israeli army’s intensified attacks on the Gaza Strip continue.
The Gaza-based Resistance group, Hamas, launched Operation Al-Aqsa Flood against Israel early Saturday, firing a barrage of rockets. It said the surprise attack was in response to the storming of Al-Aqsa Mosque in Occupied East Jerusalem and increased settler violence.
In retaliation, the Israeli army launched Operation Swords of Iron against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
At least 800 Israelis have been killed and over 2,300 others wounded in the fighting, according to the Israeli Ministry of Health.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said that over 560 Palestinians died and over 2,900 were wounded.
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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
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