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Bolivia cuts ties with Israel over Gaza conflict

RT | November 1, 2023

The government of Bolivia announced on Tuesday it was severing diplomatic relations with Israel due to its military operation in Gaza and alleged war crimes against the Palestinians.

“Bolivia decided to break diplomatic relations with the state of Israel in repudiation and condemnation of the aggressive and disproportionate Israeli military offensive taking place in the Gaza Strip,” Deputy Foreign Minister Freddy Mamani said at a press conference, as quoted by AP.

Acting Foreign Minister Maria Nela Prada accused Israel of “committing crimes against humanity” against the Palestinians in Gaza, calling on the Israeli government to “cease attacks in the Gaza Strip that have already resulted in thousands of civilian casualties and the forced displacement of Palestinians.”

She also demanded the end to the Israeli blockade of Gaza that “prevents the entry of food, water and other essential elements for life,” in violation of international humanitarian law.

The move follows President Luis Arce’s meeting on Monday with the Palestinian ambassador in La Paz, Mahmoud Elalwani.

Bolivia has severed relations with Israel on account of Gaza once before, in 2009, under the rule of President Evo Morales. Diplomatic relations were re-established by the pro-US government that ousted Morales in 2019, and remained even after the former president’s party – led by Arce – returned to power in late 2020.

Writing on X (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday evening, Morales criticized the government for taking three years to break off relations with Israel again, and doing so only under popular pressure.

“This is not enough, Bolivia must declare Israel a terrorist state and file a complaint with the International Criminal Court,” added the former president, who announced last month he would challenge Arce for the office in 2025.

Israel declared war on Hamas after the October 7 incursion by the Palestinian militant group, which claimed the lives of 1,400 Israelis, including many civilians. Gaza officials have said that more than 8,500 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli air and artillery strikes in the weeks since.

November 1, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

‘Turning Gaza into ashes’: Israel propaganda vs the world

By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | October 31, 2023

Gaza has changed the political equation in Palestine. Moreover, the repercussions of the ongoing devastating war are likely to alter the political equation in the entire Middle East and to re-centre Palestine as the world’s most urgent political crisis for years to come.

Since the establishment of Israel in 1948, facilitated by Britain and protected by the United States and other Western countries, the priorities have been entirely Israeli. “Israel’s security”; Israel’s “military edge”; “Israel’s right to defend itself”, and much more, are the mantras that have defined the West’s political discourse on the Israeli occupation and apartheid in Palestine.

This bizarre US-Western understanding of the so-called conflict, that an oppressor has “rights” over the oppressed; the occupier has “rights” over the occupied, has enabled Israel to maintain a military occupation over Palestinian territories that has lasted for over 56 years. Indeed, many would argue that it is for more than 75 years.

It has also empowered Israel to neglect the roots of this “conflict”, namely the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948, and the long-denied, and very legitimate, Right of Return for Palestinian refugees.

Within this context, every Palestinian-Arab overture for peace was rejected. Even the supposed “peace process”, namely the Oslo Accords, turned into an opportunity for Tel Aviv to entrench its military occupation, expand its illegal settlements and corral Palestinians in Bantustan-like spaces, humiliated and racially segregated.

Some Palestinians, whether enticed by American handouts or shattered by a lingering sense of defeat, lined up to receive the US-Israeli peace dividends: pitiful crumbs of false prestige, empty titles and limited power, granted and denied by Israel itself.

However, the Israeli war against the Palestinians in Gaza is already changing much of this painful status quo. The occupation state’s constant insistence that its deadly war is against Hamas, against “terror”, against Islamic fundamentalism, and all the rest, may have convinced those who are ready to accept the Israeli version of events at face value. However, as the bodies of thousands of Palestinian civilians, including thousands of children, began piling up at Gaza’s hospital morgues and, tragically, in the streets, the narrative began changing.

The pulverised bodies of Palestinian children, of whole families who perished together, stand witness to the brutality of Israel; to the immoral support of its allies; and to the inhumanity of an international order that rewards the murderer and reprimands the victim.

Of all the biased statements made by US President Joe Biden, the one where he suggested that Palestinians are lying about the body count of their own dead was perhaps the most inhumane. Washington may not realise this yet, but the repercussions of its unconditional support for Israel will prove to be disastrous in the future, especially in a region that is fed up with war, hegemony, double standards, sectarian divisions and endless conflict.

The greatest impact, though, will be felt in Israel itself. When Palestinian Ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour gave a powerful, emotional speech on 26 October, he could not hold back his tears. International delegations at the UN General Assembly clapped non-stop, reflecting the growing support for Palestine, not only at the UN, but also in hundreds of towns and cities, and on countless street corners around the world.

When the Israeli Ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, who had promoted many of the lies communicated by Tel Aviv, especially in the early days of the war, finished his speech, not a single person clapped. The contempt was palpable.

The Israeli narrative had clearly crumbled into a thousand pieces. Israel has never been so isolated. This is definitely not the “New Middle East” that Netanyahu had prophesised in his UN General Assembly speech on 22 September.

Unable to fathom how the initial sympathy with Israel turned so quickly into outright disdain, the settler-colonial state resorted to old tactics. On 25 October, Erdan demanded that UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres should resign for being “unfit to lead the UN”. The UN chief’s supposedly unforgivable crime was to suggest that “the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum”. Which, of course, they didn’t.

As far as Israel and its American benefactors are concerned, however, no context is allowed to taint the perfect image that the Israelis have created for its genocide in Gaza. In this perfect Israeli world, no one is allowed to speak of military occupation; of siege; of the lack of political prospects; of displacement; of the absence of a just peace for Palestinians.

Even though Amnesty International has said that both sides have committed “serious violations of international humanitarian law, including war crimes”, Israel still attacked it, accusing the organisation of being “anti-Semitic”. In Israel’s thinking, even the world’s leading international human rights group is not permitted to contextualise the atrocities in Gaza or dare suggest that one of the “root causes” of the conflict is “Israel’s system of apartheid imposed on all Palestinians”.

Israel is no longer all-powerful, as it wants us to believe. Recent events have proven that its “invincible army” — a branding that allowed Israel to become, as of 2022, the world’s tenth-largest international military exporter — turned out to be a paper tiger.

This is what is infuriating Israel the most. “Muslims are not afraid of us anymore,” former Knesset member Moshe Feiglin told Arutz Sheva-Israel National News. To restore this fear, the extremist politician called for burning “Gaza to ashes immediately.”

But nothing will turn Gaza into ashes. Not even the more than 12,000 tons of high explosives dropped on the Strip in the first two weeks of war which have already incinerated at least 45 per cent of its housing units, according to the UN’s humanitarian office.

Gaza will not die because it is a powerful idea that is deeply entrenched within the hearts and minds of every Arab, of every Muslim and of millions of people around the world. This new idea is challenging the long-held belief that the world needs to cater to Israel’s priorities, security, selfish definitions of peace and all of the other illusions.

The focus should now be on where it should have always been: the priorities of the oppressed, not the oppressor. It is time to speak about Palestinian rights, Palestinian security and the Palestinian people’s right — in fact, obligation — to defend themselves.

It is time for us to speak about justice — real justice — the outcome of which is non-negotiable: equality, full political rights, freedom and the right of return.

Gaza is telling the world all of this, and much more. And now it is time for us to listen.

October 31, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

500 casualties in a new Israeli massacre in Gaza

Palestine Information Center – October 31, 2023

GAZA – Israeli warplanes bombed the densely-populated Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza Strip on Tuesday killing 100 civilians and wounding 400 in a preliminary estimate.

Dozens remain under the rubble of the destroyed buildings, medical sources said.

The health ministry spokesman said that the casualties in the Jabalia massacre might exceed those murdered in the shelling of the Ma’madani Hospital.

Local sources said that the warplanes fired 20 missiles and huge American-made bombs on a residential block that contains 20 houses, destroying them completely over the heads of their occupants.

Iyad al-Buzom, the interior ministry spokesman, said that the Israeli warplanes dropped at least six bombs on the camp, each one weighing more than 1,000 kilograms. He added that the majority of those killed were women and children.

More than 120,000 citizens inhabit the Jabalia refugee camp, whose total area is 1.4 square kilometer.

October 31, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel has killed 133 babies under a year old since 7 October

MEMO | October 31, 2023

Since 7 October, at least 133 infants less than one year old have been killed in the Gaza Strip, which Israel has now been bombing for over 24 days, Anadolu Agency reports.

On 26 October, the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza released a 212-page report that lists the names, identification, and ages of those killed in Israel’s attacks on the strip since 7 October, when the current conflict began.

According to the report, 2,913 of the 7,280 people killed in the Israeli attacks were children.

In the Israeli attacks, 444 babies were killed, including 133 under one year old, 153 one-year-olds and 158 two-year-olds.

Israel’s bombing also killed 171 three-year-olds, 1,527 pre-school to primary school aged children (ages 4-13), and 523 high-schoolers, age 14 to 17.

Of the casualties, 2,262 were women and 462 were over the age of 60.

The report also said that the identities of 281 of the victims have not been confirmed.

63 UN employees and 36 journalists killed

The UN Agency for Palestinian refugees, or UNRWA, announced on 30 October that 63 of its staff members had been killed in the Israeli attacks.

Since the start of the Israeli attacks on 7 October,  35 journalists have been killed in Gaza and one in Lebanon.

The armed wing of Hamas, the Izz Ad-Din Al-Qassam Brigades, launched a comprehensive attack on 7 October in response to ongoing Israeli violations against Palestinians and their holy sites, including the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

The Israeli army responded with a relentless campaign of airstrikes on the Gaza Strip and seems now to have started a long-expected ground offensive.

October 31, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Both major UK parties have made an example of an MP calling for a Gaza ceasefire

This is a moment of great moral clarity. The values of our political system stand starkly exposed.

BY JONATHAN COOK | OCTOBER 31, 2023

Britain’s two main political parties each made an example this week of an MP brave enough to break ranks and call for an end to the mass slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza.

The ruling Conservative party sacked Paul Bristow MP from his government post after he wrote to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak: “A permanent ceasefire would save lives and allow for a continued column of humanitarian aid [to] reach the people who need it the most.”

Labour withdrew the whip from Andy McDonald MP, effectively kicking him out of the parliamentary party. McDonald had said at a rally against the killing in Gaza: “We won’t rest until we have justice, until all people, Israelis and Palestinians, between the river and the sea can live in peaceful liberty.”

This should be a moment of great moral clarity for all of us.

It is shameful enough that both major British political parties – in what is effectively a two-horse race – back to the hilt Israel’s mass slaughter of Palestinian civilians through weeks of indiscriminate bombing.

It is shameful enough that both parties term this “self-defence”, giving Israel licence for as long as it wants to carry on murdering civilians, including killing by its rain of bombs a Palestinian child every few minutes.

It is shameful enough that both parties want to continue arming Israel, meaning British weapons are helping to blow up entire Palestinian families.

It is shameful enough that both parties enthusiastically support Israel’s genocidal policy of starving 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza of food, water, medicines and the power needed to keep hospitals running, as well as destroying infrastructure essential to the maintenance of life.

It is shameful enough that both parties have refused to raise their voices in protest at the ethnic cleansing of 1 million Palestinians from northern Gaza – for some of them a third expulsion in their lifetime by Israel – into what was supposedly a ‘safe zone’ that Israel is bombing just as aggressively as the ‘evacuation zone’.

All of that is shameful enough. But now we are supposed to swallow a further moral outrage. That neither party will tolerate even the mildest dissent from this licence for depravity.

Neither party will allow a solitary MP to say “Not in my name”.

Neither party will permit an MP to represent the large majority in Britain that is appalled by the tidal wave of blood being spilt in Gaza and wants it to end through a ceasefire.

This is moment of great moral clarity. We see who leads us, and what they value. And it is not life. It is not humanity.

October 31, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Keir Starmer: Hostage, or Accomplice to Rishi Sunak?

Why is the current Labour leader in complete lock step with the ruling Tory party, with unfettered support for Israel’s war crimes in occupied Palestine?

By Peter Ford | 21st Century Wire | October 30, 2023

The leader of the Labour Party is just as much a hostage as any of the Israelis held by Hamas. Only in his case he wasn’t kidnapped: he delivered himself, bound and gagged, to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Netanyahu.

Keir Starmer, basking in media acclaim just a week ago after yet another spectacular by-election win for his party, is now probably the most reviled politician in Britain, a pretty contested field.

This turnabout has come about because over the last three years Starmer has staked his all on extirpating from the Labour Party all traces of his allegedly anti-semitic Hamas-friendly predecessor Jeremy Corbyn and his barbaric followers (does this kind of operation sound familiar?). He has been largely successful in this endeavour and earned in consequence the favour of important elites well represented in the media. In so doing, however, he has made himself a hostage to fortune, or more specifically to the behaviour of Israel.

Starmer could not afford to let daylight over Israel emerge between himself and Rishi Sunak, otherwise all his good work shoring up his credentials as scourge of the Labour anti-semites could start to crumble. This was fine as long as even the Arabs seemed to be ditching the Palestinians by making their separate Abraham Accords with Israel.

But what if it all blew up in the faces of the architects of these Accords and Israel turned out to be behaving barbarically? Well, Starmer is now finding out. Following as he thought the Sunak line, in a notorious radio interview he stated as clearly as he ever states anything (that is, not very much) that Israel had the right to withhold food, water, electricity and fuel from starving Gazans. Desperate backtracking failed to stem the avalanche of protest that followed, mainly from representatives of the Muslim community. Labour councillors started resigning.

Starmer compounded his error by failing to support calls for a ceasefire, just as British TV screens were filling with horrific pictures of Palestinian children being pulled bloodied from rubble. The trickle of resignations at local level became a flood and panicking senior Labour figures started to distance themselves from him. That many of them depend on Muslim votes to get re-elected has of course nothing to do with this welcome if tardy appreciation that genocide is, well, overdoing it a bit.

Starmer is in a massive bind. If he caves in to pressure and starts to let daylight emerge between himself and Sunak he will immediately be assailed from all sides for being the treacherous, cynical, unprincipled flip flopper he is, if not as an actual anti-semite. And if he stands firm he will gain poisonous praise from the Right and not much else.

Meanwhile Sunak is having a ball at Starmer’s (and Gaza’s) expense. However outrageous Sunak’s pro-Israeli stance he knows Starmer can only distance himself at his peril and the longer this goes on the more Starmer impales himself on this hook of his own foolish making. At a stroke Starmer has lost millions of potential votes, even if he now zigzags, while Sunak’s fortunes, a moment ago worth less than Sam Bankman-Fried’s investments in crypto, rise correspondingly. And with Netanyahu promising that his Gaza campaign is going to be long, hard and painful (for Gazans) the hostages, including Starmer, look set for a lengthy ordeal.

Rarely will a comeuppance have been more richly deserved. By cynically sacrificing Palestinians to his own electoral calculus Starmer has brought the rubble from his crumbling edifice of a Middle East policy cascading down on his own head.

Eventually of course public opinion will force Sunak to change course. Even if Starmer beats him to it the shift will come too late to rescue his reputation. Whatever he does from now on Starmer will be remembered by many as the man who condoned the vilest Israeli war crimes.

His party if it has any sense will ditch him for someone with slightly less filthy hands before voters have a chance to express their revulsion at Tories and Labour both by not voting at all.

October 30, 2023 Posted by | War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Hungary calls halt of Nord Stream probe ‘outrageous and scandalous’

Al Mayadeen | October 28, 2023

In an interview for RIA Novosti, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto stated that the lack of intention to continue in the investigation of the explosion on the Nord Stream pipeline that occurred last year is “outrageous and scandalous.”

“I really do find it outrageous and scandalous that no forward progress has taken place regarding the attack against the Nord Stream pipeline. It has taken place more than a year ago. So, there’s no forward progress and I don’t really see the intention to have forward progress which is outrageous,” Szijjarto said.

He added that his country prefers a thorough and deep investigation into the situation regarding a recent incident at Finland’s Baltic connector pipeline that took place earlier this month.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán warned after the attack on the Nord Stream pipeline that it would view any acts of sabotage on gas routes used to buy gas from Russia as a casus belli, or a reason for war, though he noted that the warning had been heeded.

“What we, Hungarians, did immediately: we made clear that there is another pipeline, not just Nord Stream, but there is Southern Stream, coming gas from Russia through the southern corridor,” he said.

Internal play 

Famed journalist Seymour Hersh, who had previously exposed US war crimes in My Lai and Abu Ghraib, and had most recently exposed the US’ role in the Nord Stream explosions, revealed further information in an interview with China Daily in March this year.

Hersh argued that the US elites had a “long-standing history” of being “disturbed by the Russian gas and oil sales to Western Europe” which was further confirmed after US President Joe Biden’s public threat to “bring an end” to the Nord Stream pipelines just two weeks prior to the war in Ukraine. This, Hersh said, proved that it “wasn’t much of a secret what we wanted to do.”

Biden’s decision to order the demolition of the Nord Stream pipelines, says Hersh, was motivated by Germany’s projected reluctance to continue arming Ukraine.

Significantly, Hersh explained that the US administration was unhappy with the fact that its proxy war against Moscow was not “going well”, and “decided in late September to trigger the mines.” He said that American foreign policy elites had made it clear, in the past, that they objected to Russian-Europpean cooperation. Based on that, Hersh said he was not “surprised one bit” by the decision to sabotage the Nord Stream Pipelines.

October 30, 2023 Posted by | False Flag Terrorism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli ‘ethnic cleansing’ plan leaked

RT | October 30, 2023

A leaked policy document compiled by Israel’s Ministry of Intelligence calls for the depopulation of Gaza and the forced displacement of its residents to Egyptian territory, according to a copy published by the Sicha Mekomit news site on Saturday.

The ten-page document, dated October 13, recommends that Israel establish tent cities in Egypt’s Sinai peninsula to accommodate the Gazan population. These tent cities should then be developed into permanent settlements, with a“sterile zone of several kilometers” separating them from the Israeli border.

Under the plan, Gaza’s 2.3 million residents would be told that “there is no longer any hope of returning to the territories that Israel will occupy in the near future,” and that “Allah made sure that you lost this land because of the leadership of Hamas.”

US support will be vital to the plan’s success, the document states. Washington could put “pressure on Egypt, Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the Emirates to contribute to the initiative either in resources or in accepting displaced persons,” it notes, adding that Spain, Greece, and Canada could also be convinced to accept refugees from the strip.

Sicha Mekomit stated that the plan “amounts to the ethnic cleansing of Gaza.” According to the Ministry of Intelligence, however, the policy would be portrayed to the rest of the world as  causing “fewer casualties among the civilian population” than the current cycle of Hamas attacks and overwhelming Israeli reprisals.

Despite its name, the Ministry of Intelligence does not oversee the activities of Israel’s security and intelligence agencies. Instead it prepares studies and policy papers for review by the government, which ultimately decides whether or not to implement them.

The ministry is headed by Gila Gamliel, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party. Gamliel is the second Netanyahu ally in recent weeks to recommend the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, with the Meshgav Institute, a right-wing think tank, publishing a similar policy paper last week describing the war as “a rare opportunity” for the “relocation and final settlement of the entire Gaza population.”

The Meshgav Institute is led by Meir Ben Shabat, who served as Netanyahu’s national security adviser from 2017 until 2021. The paper was published online but deleted after it drew international condemnation.

Netanyahu’s office told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that the ministry’s document represents “initial thoughts” on the future of Gaza, and will not be considered until the war is over.

October 30, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

EU may become complicit in ‘genocide’ – Spanish official

RT | October 30, 2023

Spanish Social Rights Minister Ione Belarra has urged European leaders to take immediate action against Israel, including severing diplomatic ties and imposing economic sanctions, amid the intensified bombing and expanded ground operations against Hamas militants in the besieged Palestinian enclave.

She also called for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to be prosecuted for the alleged war crimes committed against civilians in Gaza.

“After this hellish night in Gaza, I have a very simple but very important message for European leaders. Do not make us complicit in genocide. Act. Not in our name,” Belarra said in a passionate video message on X on Saturday.

More than 8,000 Palestinians, including 3,342 children, have been killed in Gaza since Israel’s air campaign began, according to the latest figures from the Gaza Health Ministry. The unprecedented Hamas raid into Israel, as well as hundreds of rocket strikes on Israeli territory earlier this month, left around 1,400 people dead, while 230 Israelis and foreigners were taken hostage, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

Addressing the severity of the current situation in Gaza and Israel’s disproportionate retaliation, the minister highlighted the termination of internet and telephone services in the strip, claiming that the move “has a very clear objective” of guaranteeing that “Israel commits crimes against humanity without consequences.”

“Our inaction is turning us into accomplices,” the minister stressed, arguing that “Israel believes that its international alliances guarantee its impunity.”

“We have to act now, tomorrow will be too late,” she continued, voicing her message to the EU leaders: “Cut diplomatic relations with the State of Israel. Carry out exemplary economic sanctions against those responsible for this genocide. And without a doubt, let’s take Netanyahu before the International Criminal Court, so that he can be tried for what he is, a war criminal.”

She also appealed to EU citizens to take to the streets and raise their voice so that “this genocide” comes to an end.

The IDF escalated air and ground attack on Gaza on Friday, causing a near-total communication blackout. Connectivity was partially restored over the weekend, but the Israeli blockade of Gaza continues; Netanyahu announced the “second stage” of the war against Hamas on Saturday.

October 30, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Deadly strike on journalists in southern Lebanon ‘targeted’, coming from Israel: Reporters Without Borders

Press TV – October 30, 2023

An investigation by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has found out that an artillery shelling that killed a Reuters journalist and injured six others in southern Lebanon earlier this month was deliberate and came from Israel.

Video journalist Issam Abdallah, who worked for Reuters, died and six other journalists were wounded — including two from AFP, one of them seriously — in the Israeli shelling of the village of Alma al-Shaab in southern Lebanon on October 13.

Qatar-based Al Jazeera said the network’s cameraperson Elie Brakhia and reporter Carmen Joukhadar were also among those wounded in the attack.

“The initial findings of the investigation show that the reporters were not collateral victims of the shooting,” the RSF said on Sunday, adding, “One of their vehicles, marked ‘press’, was targeted, and it was also clear that the group stationed next to it was [comprised of] journalists.”

Although the RSF did not explicitly name Israel, it added that according to ballistic analysis the shots came from the east of where the journalists were standing; that is, from the direction of Lebanon’s border with the 1948 Israeli-occupied territories.

The journalists themselves have been quoted as saying that they believe they were hit by fire coming from the direction of Israel.

Offering more details, the investigation revealed that the journalists had occupied the spot, which was hit by two strikes 37 to 38 seconds apart. The first strike killed Abdallah, while the second and more powerful one ignited the vehicle used by Al-Jazeera TV crew and injured several journalists.

“Two strikes in the same place in such a short space of time, from the same direction, clearly indicate precise targeting,” the RSF report said.

It added, “It is unlikely that the journalists were mistaken for combatants, especially as they were not hiding: in order to have a clear field of vision, they had been in the open for more than an hour, on the top of a hill.”

Meanwhile, the report noted, the journalists’ bullet-proof vests and the nearby vehicle were marked ‘press’.

According to two journalists interviewed by the RSF, an Israeli helicopter had flown over the scene a few seconds before the strikes.

Lebanon’s Press Editors’ Syndicate condemned what it called the “targeting” of journalists and described the killing of a Reuters video journalist as a “deliberate crime.”

One day after the incident, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kan’ani condemned the attack. He condoled with and expressed sympathy towards the survivors as well as the international community of journalists.

The Lebanese Hezbollah resistance movement also strongly condemned the fatal Israeli attack against journalists in southern Lebanon, stating that the regime’s killing of civilians and threats to Lebanon’s security will not go unanswered.

“We vehemently denounce the occupying Israeli regime’s new crime against a journalist team of seven people covering news… near the Israeli enemy’s al-Abad site, outside the town of Hula, which resulted in the martyrdom of a civilian,” Hezbollah said in its statement.

“This act of aggression comes in line with the occupiers’ assaults on members of the press in Lebanon and Palestine, and is meant to prevent exposition of truth to the international community,” it added.

October 30, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

‘Gaza Fights Back’ (2022)

MintPress News

Gaza Fights Back is a MintPress News original documentary, directed by Dan Cohen. It tells the story of how Gaza’s armed resistance intervened in occupied Jerusalem as Israeli settlers expelled Palestinians from their homes and created provocations at the al-Aqsa compound. Featuring rare interviews with the Palestinian armed resistance and innocent victims of Israeli aggression, Gaza Fights Back offers a unique look at how Hamas’ armed wing outwitted the region’s most powerful military, and the toll exacted against the civilian population.

October 29, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Video, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

‘Israel’s plan is to crush you and your people,’ Hezbollah warns Arab states

Press TV – October 29, 2023

Hezbollah Deputy Secretary General Sheikh Naim Qassem has lauded the steadfastness of the resistance front in the face of the Israeli occupation.

Sheikh Qassem warned certain Arab states in the region that they will not be spared from Israeli brutality if they do not throw their weight behind the Palestinians in Gaza.

The high-ranking official with the Lebanese resistance movement made the remarks in a statement on his X social media account on Sunday, the 23 day of Israel’s constant bombardment of Gaza.

“Let the Arab rulers know the resistance is strong, steadfast and victorious, God Almighty willing, and the days will prove that,” Sheikh Qassem said.

“You should know that Israel’s plan is to crush you and your people. What is happening in Gaza is a model for you and your role after it unless you are slaves and subject to it. And remember that the Israeli slogan is ‘From the Euphrates to the Nile.”

“Get together and threaten, do what will deter them, boycott, make way for your people to express freely, declare your support for Palestine and al-Quds; this is an opportunity to break the brutality,” Sheikh Qassem said.

“The Palestinian people and their resistance are paying the price for the pride of the nation and future generations, so be with them so that you can be with yourselves and your peoples, and victory comes only from God.”

Sheikh Qassem also censured the unflinching support the United States and Western governments provided to the Israeli onslaught.

“The brutality of the US, France, Britain and Germany in their absolute support of Israeli criminality and genocide against civilians in Gaza has exceeded the lowest levels of humanity.”

Israel has been waging a barbaric war on Gaza since October 7, when Hamas-led Palestinian resistance groups launched their biggest operation against Israel in years. The sneak Operation Al-Aqsa Storm came in response to the regime’s intensified crimes against the Palestinian people.

The Israeli war has so far claimed the lives of over 8,000 innocent Palestinians, including more than 3,000 children, and left upwards of 20,500 others wounded.

The United Nations General Assembly overwhelmingly passed a resolution on Friday, calling for the implementation of an immediate “humanitarian truce” in Gaza. The vote came after the United Nations Security Council failed four times in the past two weeks to take action due to Washington’s veto against relevant resolutions.

The assembly stressed the “importance of preventing further destabilization and escalation of violence in the region,” urging “all parties to exercise maximum restraint and upon all those with influence on them to work toward this objective.”

Israel has rejected all calls for a ceasefire, claiming it would benefit Hamas.

October 29, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

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