Israel’s War on Truth-Telling Media and Journalists
By Stephen Lendman | May 16, 2021
Time and again, truth-telling journalism as it should be is a casualty of all things war and related violence.
Big Lies, mass deception, and censorship are weapons of war by other means — in support of the official falsified narrative.
In their book titled “Guardians of Power,” David Edwards and David Cromwell explained why today’s media are in crisis — free and open societies at risk.
It’s because press prostitution substitutes fiction for fact — notably in the US, other Western countries and Israel.
Their state-approved sanitized reports stick exclusively to the official falsified narrative in support of wealth, power and privilege over full and accurate reporting.
In the US especially, news consumers are fed a daily diet of managed news misinformation, disinformation, junk food news and infotainment — at all times.
Notably in times of war, their reports regurgitate state-supplied talking points.
Whatever diverges from the official falsified narrative is filtered out and suppressed.
Adopted unanimously by Security Council members in December 2006, SC Res. 1738 affirms protection for civilians and journalists in war theaters — calling their safety and security “urgent and important.”
Condemning intentional attacks on fourth estate members, the resolution demands accountability for responsible parties.
At all times, especially at times of war and under occupation, civilians are protected persons. So are journalists — under international law.
Throughout at least most of its history, Israel waged war on truth-telling Palestinian journalists.
They’re at risk of arrest, prosecution, imprisonment, and/or assassination.
According to the Committee to Support Palestinian Journalists, “(t)he Israeli occupation tries to muzzle the Palestinian journalists’ mouths and prevent them from unmasking its barbaric practices in the occupied Palestinian territories to the international media.”
Palestinian journalists covering Israeli violence against legitimate protesters risk serious injury or death.
Anyone wearing a flak jacket labeled press is vulnerable, their unprotected areas vulnerable to Israeli sniper attacks by live fire — including use of exploding dum dum bullets able to leave fist-sized existing wounds in individuals struck.
They’re designed to inflict disabling damage to internal organs or death — even though banned by the 1899 Hague Convention.
Since IDF terror-bombing and shelling of Gaza began on May 10, silencing truth-telling media has been a prioritized Netanyahu regime aim.
The same objective is sought in all Israeli preemptive wars, as well as at all other times on whatever conflicts with official falsified Israeli talking points.
On May 15 in Gaza, Israeli terror-bombing turned the 11-story Al-Jalaa building to smoldering rubble — its occupants given one hour to vacate the premises.
It’s unknown so far if some remained inside and perished.
Along with residences of Gazan families, the building housed international media offices.
According to DW News, AP News, AFP, Al Jazeera, other international media operations, and local Palestinian news agencies had offices in the building.
The IDF defied reality by falsely claiming that the building included Hamas “military assets (sic),” adding:
“(O)ffices of civilian media outlets (were) use(d) (by Hamas) as human shields (sic).”
According to AP News, the Netanyahu regime and IDF “did not provide evidence for the claim” — because there is none.
On its Saturday newscast, senior Al Jazeera (AJ) political analyst Marwan Bishara minced no words in debunking the thinly veiled IDF Big Lie.
Gaza-based AJ journalist Al Kahlout said the following in response to Israel’s destruction of the Al-Jalaa building with three missiles:
“(N)o one can understand the feeling of the people whose homes have been destroyed by such kind of air attacks,” adding:
“It’s really difficult to wake up one day and then you realize that your office is not there with all the career experiences, memories that you’ve had.”
Separately on Saturday, IDF terror-bombing destroyed a Gaza City area refugee camp three-story residence, massacring eight children and two women.
The above buildings had no military significance. Israel defied reality by claiming otherwise.
In response to its destruction of Gaza’s Al Jalaa building, AP News president and CEO Gary Pruitt said the following:
“The world will know less about what is happening in Gaza because of what happened today.”
“We are shocked and horrified that the Israeli military would target and destroy the building housing AP’s bureau and other news organizations in Gaza.”
“This is an incredibly disturbing development. We narrowly avoided a terrible loss of life.”
Separately, AP reported:
“For 15 years, the AP’s top-floor office and roof terrace were a prime location for covering Israel’s conflicts with Gaza.”
Now it’s gone, along with scores of massacred Gazans, including women and children.
NY-based Committee to Protect Journalists’ executive director Joel Simon said the following:
“This latest attack on a building long known by Israel to house international media raises the specter that the IDF is deliberately targeting media facilities in order to disrupt coverage of the human suffering in Gaza.”
Indeed so!!
Silencing coverage of its high crimes of war, against humanity, and other human rights abuses is longstanding Israeli policy — in flagrant breach of international law.
On May 10, the Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA) reported the following:
It “condemn(ed) escalating attacks of the occupation forces against journalists and media workers in Palestine…”
MADA noted what’s going on in “occupied…Jerusalem…aim(s) (to) block the transmission of the violations to the world.”
“This was accompanied by widespread violations of freedom of expression committed by social media companies to serve the goal of the occupation state by obscuring the attacks implemented by its soldiers and settlers.”
In early May alone, “Israeli attacks against journalists during their field coverage of events, as the occupation army targeted a number of journalists while they were” reporting on what’s going on.
At least “10 (Palestinian) journalists” were targeted and “injured.”
“(I)mpunity of the Israeli occupation forces over the years for their almost daily crimes and violations of media freedoms in Palestine, including the killing of more than 40 journalists during the past two decades, is what encourage them to continue committing more crimes and violations, which requires serious action to prosecute the perpetrators of these crimes, as the only way to reduce it.”
Facebook, Twitter, and other “social media companies… deliberately blocked and suspended the accounts of many Palestinian citizens, including many journalists…”
MADA called their action “a severe violation against freedom of expression (in cahoots with) the occupation state (by) blocking facts and suppressing media freedoms and freedom of expression.”
At the same time, they freely allow hostile-to-truth-telling Western and Israeli propaganda on their “platforms.”
Israel is deliberately obliterating media buildings in Gaza to cover up the war crimes that will follow
By Eva Bartlett | RT | May 14, 2021
The destruction of two important Gaza buildings housing 20 media outlets was both shocking and predictable. History shows that if the media aren’t around to document Israel’s war crimes, it’s a lot easier for it to commit them.
On Tuesday, Israel bombed the 10-storey Al-Jawhara Tower, causing it to collapse. Before doing so, it had ‘benevolently’ warned that the airstrikes were coming. The following day, it bombed the 14-storey Al-Shorouk Tower, also giving warning it was going to do so.
Most reports have the buildings as evacuated before being levelled. But without these media offices, reporting on Israel’s other war crimes will be left largely to what little media remain and citizen journalists.
The buildings were significant. A statement by the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) noted the Al-Jawhara building housed the offices of 13 media institutions and NGOs. And an advisory by the Committee to Protect Journalists noted that the Al-Shorouk building housed at least seven media outlets.
A further statement by the same committee said that the Israeli military had defended its bombing of the building via email, bizarrely claiming it had “acted within international law,” alleging the Al-Jawhara building housed Hamas’ intelligence and military offices, and saying the Al-Shorouk building was a base for Hamas’ military intelligence offices and “infrastructure to communicate tactical-military information.”
Just minutes after the Al-Shorouk building was destroyed, I spoke by phone with Shadi Ali, a producer who had worked there for ten years and was understandably devastated at what had happened. He told me of previous occasions when Israel had bombed the building, in 2009, 2012, and 2014.
“I was there in 2012. My office was on the 14th floor when it was hit at 6am. I was sleeping; I had only slept for one-and-a-half hours when it was hit by two missiles on the top floor,” he told me. “When it was bombed in 2014, we had taken precautions and left it already. They struck the 15th floor, destroying it completely. Our floor became the top floor after that.”
The building was on a main Gaza street, Omar Mukhtar, surrounded by residential apartment buildings. I asked whether he knew if there had been casualties this time. He replied, “We’re waiting, because often they’ll strike again soon after, knowing that people have come to search for casualties.”
I’ve witnessed this tactic with my own eyes. In January 2009, while I was accompanying Palestinian Red Crescent medics, one of the bodies the medics retrieved was that of a Kiffah Lum Towwak, 35, killed by an Israeli missile strike on her backyard in Jabaliya, just minutes after a strike which killed a family member living in the same house.
The same month, I was inside the now-destroyed Al-Shorouk building, having just finished an interview with RT about what I’d seen while riding in ambulances in the extremely dangerous areas of Gaza’s north. Shortly after concluding the interview, Israel shelled the building at least seven times. Thankfully, the tank shelling didn’t destroy the building, and we were able to run down the stairs to “safety” (although in reality nowhere was safe).
The Al-Shorouk building was again bombed a week after this. Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists condemned the bombing and noted that the Israeli military had contacted Reuters (which had an office inside) “minutes before the attack to confirm the location of its Gaza office,” and had explained it would not be targeted.
In November 2012, I reported from a hospital in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, after Israeli attacks, and documented the destruction of bridges and other infrastructure as well as visiting the media buildings which had been targeted. I wrote at the time, “At least three Palestinian journalists were killed in the November 2012 Israeli attacks on Gaza, and at least 12 reported injured. The Sharook building suffered damage on its upper floors from a number of bombings including drone and possibly Apache helicopter missiles. The building housing Aqsa TV and various other media offices likewise suffered major damage on its upper floors.”
The CPJ reported, “A series of airstrikes beginning early Sunday and continuing today targeted two buildings, Al-Shawa and Housari Tower and Al-Shuruq Tower, which are well-known for housing numerous international and local news organizations, news reports said. At least seven journalists were injured in the first attack. Khader al-Zahhar, a cameraman for Al-Quds TV, lost his right leg.”
Having journalists on the ground in a place like this is critical. In previous wars on Gaza, Israel has committed a litany of war crimes, including in 2009 targeting with a flechette bomb and killing a uniformed Palestinian medic as he worked to save injured civilians; firing more dart bombs on mourners the following day, killing six, including a pregnant woman; targeting with sniper fire two medics I was with, during ceasefire hours; assassinating children and infants; drone-striking a 14-year-old during ceasefire hours; raining white phosphorous down heavily on civilian areas throughout Gaza; bombing a school sheltering the displaced; bombing hospitals and repeatedly shelling a home Israeli soldiers had forced 60 members of an extended family into, killing 26, including 10 children and seven women.
And that was only in 2009. In 2012 and 2014, Israel again committed more unspeakable crimes of war, destroying entire neighbourhoods and massacring the residents, shelling children on a beach, and drone-striking a teen hours before ceasefire, among many others.
And now, after a few days of Israeli bombardment, horrific reports are emanating from Gaza, including accounts of Palestinians killed by what is believed to be toxic gas, and Israeli precision bombings killing entire families. As of May 14, Gaza’s health ministry reports at least 119 killed, including 31 children.
Meanwhile, across occupied Palestine, Israelis are calling for Palestinians’ deaths, with a rabbi allegedly saying, “I call on you to kill all Arabs!” and others using Facebook and Telegram to organize attack mobs. And it was recently reported, “Israel’s defense minister Benny Gantz threatened more destruction than he ordered in Gaza in 2014. At that time, he was Israel’s chief of staff commanding the 51-day assault that killed more than 2,200 Palestinians, including 551 children.”
Also reported is an Israeli MP’s call for the Israeli army to “flatten the Strip.” That is nothing new. As I wrote in 2014, “During the eight days of slaughter, Israeli figures called to ‘blow Gaza back to the Middle Ages, destroying all the infrastructure including roads and water,’ and to ‘Flatten all of Gaza. There should be no electricity in Gaza, no gasoline or moving vehicles, nothing,’ said the deputy Israeli Prime Minister Eli Yishai and Gilad Sharon respectively.”
Israel’s bombing spree of media targets has been rightly condemned. The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate stated that, “the targeting of media headquarters in the brutal bombardment of Gaza is part of the full-fledged war crimes committed by the Israeli occupation authorities against the Palestinian people,” and called for the United Nations and the Red Cross “to provide urgent protection to journalists and the media, and to activate Security Council resolution 2222 (which includes the protection of journalists) and oblige the occupation to fulfil [sic] this.”
The CPJ stated, “It is utterly unacceptable for Israel to bomb and destroy the offices of media outlets and endanger the lives of journalists, especially since Israeli authorities know where those media outlets are housed.” And the International Federation of Journalists said, “The international community cannot turn a blind eye to the systematic violations of human rights and the deliberate targeting of media and journalists. Urgent actions must be taken to hold those responsible for these crimes internationally accountable”.
However, while journalist protection committees have condemned the recent Israeli bombings of media buildings in Gaza, Western corporate media generally haven’t. Imagine, though, if this was taking place in Syria: if Syrian or Russian planes premeditatedlybombed and levelled media buildings there. That would be front page news for days, if not weeks.
I would go back to Gaza to report on this horror if I could enter, but that’s impossible: Israel would not let me in, and is not allowing journalists in in general.
In December 2008, RWB reported, Israel declared the Gaza Strip a “closed military zone” and denied access to journalists working for international media. And now, as Shadi Ali told me the other day, Israel knows there are not many foreigners in Gaza to report what is going on. There is a media blockade, on top of the brutal siege of Gaza and Israel’s bombardment.
“Israel will commit so many crimes in Gaza, while foreign media are not present,” Ali predicted. And he’s right. As Israel threatens to invade by land, the protection of media buildings and journalists becomes all the more important, because Israel will commit more war crimes. They’ve already pledged to make Gaza burn.
Eva Bartlett is a Canadian independent journalist and activist. She has spent years on the ground covering conflict zones in the Middle East, especially in Syria and Palestine (where she lived for nearly four years).
Israel’s War Cabinet Approves Escalated Aggression on Gaza
By Stephen Lendman | May 13, 2021
Late Wednesday, cabinet members unanimously agreed to intensify IDF terror-bombing of Gaza — including strikes on civilian targets.
War minister Gantz said “Gaza will burn” — meaning an intent to commit greater crimes of war and against humanity than already.
He lied accusing Hamas of using civilians as human shields.
Israeli warplanes continue terror-bombing civilian neighborhoods as it’s done before during preemptive wars on the Strip.
Residential and government buildings, schools, medical facilities, at least one mosque, agricultural lands, farmers in their fields, children in harm’s way, and Strip infrastructure was struck to make conditions for Gazans more untenable than already.
Mass slaughter and destruction keeps increasing by the hour.
Cold-blooded murder of Arabs is longstanding Israeli policy.
According to Defense for Children International – Palestine on Wednesday:
“Israeli forces continue to exhibit…complete disregard for international law, deploying explosive weapons and attacking densely-populated civilian areas in Gaza,” adding:
“As Palestinian children and families seek shelter from Israeli attacks, there is no safe space in the Gaza Strip.”
“Palestinian children in Gaza increasingly bear the brunt of Israel’s repeated military offensives and a human-made humanitarian crisis as a result of Israel’s closure policy toward the Gaza Strip.”
Deputy mayor of Lod, Ami Kaufman, said “hundreds of armed settlers from the West Bank are on their way to the city.”
“I suggest to every Arab resident not to leave their homes.”
“This has potential to be a bloodbath.”
Palestinian students in Israeli universities are being attacked, including in their dorms.
The Al Mezan Center for Human Rights condemned “intentional and disproportionate targeting of civilians and civilian properties” by Israeli terror-bombing and cross-border shelling,” adding:
The organization sharply criticized “inaction of the international community, as Gaza is pushed into perpetually worse security and humanitarian conditions.”
On Thursday, Al Jazeera reported that “residents and shop owners in Gaza City walked among the rubble and what is left of their homes and businesses following the heavy Israeli bombardment,” adding:
Shop owner Zakria Al-Halees struggled for words to explain damage affecting “the whole area.”
Images show widespread debris from days of ruthless IDF terror-bombing, defenseless civilians bearing the brunt of it — while the world community yawns and does nothing to hold Israel accountable for the highest of high crimes.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani called for Muslim countries to unite against Israel, saying:
“The tragic incidents of the last few days and the crimes of the Zionist regime, more than ever, remind us of the need for unity and cooperation of Islamic countries to confront the Zionist coercion and occupation.”
“It is necessary for the Islamic countries to work together to defend the Palestinian people, and to confront the aggression and hostile and racist actions of the Zionist regime that we have witnessed in recent days and during the holy month of Ramadan.”
“The attacks and aggressions of the Zionist regime against the people of Palestine and Gaza Strip should stop immediately and we must not allow the Palestinian people to be oppressed anymore.”
In Damascus for discussions on “bilateral, regional and international issues,” Iran’s Foreign Minister Zarif condemned the “Israeli regime’s brutal aggression against Palestinians,” separately tweeting:
“It wasn’t enough for the Israeli regime to
-Steal people’s land & homes;
-Create an Apartheid regime;
It had to shoot innocent worshippers inside Islam’s 3rd Holiest Mosque upon Islam’s Holiest Eid.”
On Thursday, the Syrian People’s Assembly (PA) “condemned in the strongest terms the barbaric Zionist racist practices against the defenseless Palestinian Arab people, stressing that these practices are a flagrant violation of all international pacts, resolutions and norms, and a violation of the most basic rules of the international humanitarian law” — the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported, adding:
The PA “affirmed its stand by the Palestinians in Occupied Jerusalem and in every part of the land of Palestine, indicating that the Syrians, who have faced for years and are still facing the forces of evil and terrorism, will continue to support their Palestinian brothers, as their enemy is one, and their fate and victory are the same.”
In vain, it urged the world community to intervene against Israeli aggression on their behalf.
It hasn’t happened since Israeli forces stole historic Palestine for exclusive Jewish use and development.
Nor is Israel ever held accountable for the highest of high crimes of war, against humanity, and other atrocities against Palestinians and other Arabs.
Separately on Thursday, Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh said “(r)esistance responds to the crimes of the occupying regime in Quds, the Gaza Strip and everywhere.”
“If the occupying regime wants to continue its attacks, we will also continue more attacks.”
According to the Hamas Al-Qassam Brigades’ Abu Obeida:
Its forces fired a cruise “missile… at (Israel’s) Ramon airport, about 220km from Gaza.”
Reuters reported that the facility continues to operate, saying it wasn’t struck.
According to Palestinian/American writer/activist Yousef Munayyer:
“Israeli lynch mobs (are) attacking Palestinians” unobstructed while IDF warplanes terror-bomb Gaza.
Armed and dangerous, extremist settlers are assaulting Palestinians in public, storming their homes, beating and terrorizing them — including women and children — while nearby Israeli security forces do nothing to stop them.
They’ve been roaming East Jerusalem streets, shouting “Death to Arabs.”
In Occupied Palestine, the safety and welfare of non-Jews is never secure at all times.
Today in apartheid Israel, Arabs are in mortal danger — from Netanyahu regime security forces and extremist settlers out for blood.
A Final Comment
Instead of condemning Israeli ruthlessness and demanding accountability, spokesman for UN secretary general Guterres, Stephane Dujarric, merely called on the Netanyahu regime to “exercise maximum restraint and respect the right to freedom of peaceful assembly,” according to a UN statement.
“The secretary general reiterates his commitment, including through the Middle East Quartet, to supporting Palestinians and Israelis to resolve the conflict on the basis of relevant United Nations resolutions, international law and bilateral agreements,” Dujarric added.
Time and again, Guterres disgraced himself and the office he holds by failing to denounce US/NATO/Israeli aggression and demand accountability for high crimes too serious to ignore.
Meaningless weak-kneed statements — directly or through his spokesman — are issued time and again instead of doing the right thing he consistently avoids.
Horrific bombing in Kabul part of US plot to cover up failures in proxy, Takfiri wars: Iran military chief
Press TV – May 13, 2021
Iran’s military chief has condemned a terrorist attack that recently targeted a girls’ school in the Afghan capital, saying the “horrific crime” committed by mercenaries of the US is part of America’s plots to cover up two decades of its failures in the Asian country and the region.
“This horrific crime is in fact part of a series of the Americans’ overt and covert measures to cover up the defeat of their policies in Afghanistan during 20 years of disgraceful presence [in Afghanistan] and also their failure in the proxy and Takfiri wars in the region,” said Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Major General Mohammad Baqeri in a statement on Friday.
At least 85 people, mostly schoolgirls, lost their lives in explosions caused by a car bomb and mortar shells targeting a school in the Shia majority neighborhood of Dasht-e-Barchi in western Kabul on Saturday.
The Afghan government blamed the Taliban for the bloody attack, but the militant group has denied any role. Analysts say the incident bears the hallmark of attacks by Daesh terrorists, who have gained a foothold in the country by taking advantage of the mayhem caused by the US-led military intervention.
Baqeri further said the US had organized and sent the remnants of Daesh terrorists and other Takfiri groups from Syria and Iraq to Afghanistan as a pretext to prepare the ground for halting the pullout of the American forces from the war-stricken state and to justify the claim that the presence of its troops there would prevent violence.
“The brutal crime committed by mercenaries of the terrorist regime in the US… showed that the hated and evil rulers of this country consider it permissible to commit any crime against humanity, specially Muslims, to achieve their evil goals and intentions,” Baqeri said.
He extended his condolences to the prudent Afghan people, especially the bereaved families of the victims, and expressed hope that the brave nation would neutralize the vicious plots of the US and its regional and trans-regional allies through their vigilance.
The top Iranian commander also expressed hope that the perpetrators of the terrorist crime would be identified, and that Afghanistan and other Muslim nations in the West Asia region would witness sustainable independence, stability, security and tranquility.
Just two days after the Kabul attack, a bus explosion in Afghanistan’s Zabul Province’s Shahr-e Safa District killed or injured as many as 25 people.
The rise in such acts of violence follows a decision announced by the United States for the withdrawal of its forces from the country.
Some observers view as suspicious the circumstances surrounding the terrorist attacks and the fact that no group has yet claimed them.
They cite the precedence of Washington’s refusal of acting on its pledge of withdrawal from the regional countries, saying such incidents could be used as pretexts to prolong the presence of America and its allies.
Israel rains down bombs on Gaza, resistance responds with 1000-plus rockets
Press TV – May 12, 2021
Palestinian resistance groups have fired a barrage of rockets at the Israeli-occupied cities in response to the regime’s continued bombardments of civilian targets in the Gaza Strip, as the death toll from the latest flare-up rises on both sides.
The Islamic Jihad resistance movement’s military wing, the al-Quds Brigades, announced that 100 rockets had been fired at the cities of Tel Aviv, Ashkelon, Be’er Sheva and Sderot early on Wednesday, Palestine Today reported.
Hamas’s military arm also announced that it launched 210 rockets toward the occupied territories early in the morning.
The Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades said in a statement that it was “in the process of firing 110 rockets toward the city of Tel Aviv” and 100 others toward the town of Be’er Sheva, “as reprisal for the restarting of strikes against civilian homes.”
The Israeli army announced on Wednesday morning that Palestinian resistance groups in Gaza have launched more than 1,000 rockets toward different cities in the occupied territories since Monday evening.
Since then, the army said, 850 rockets have landed in Israel or been intercepted by the Iron Dome missile system.
Israeli authorities have so far confirmed five deaths as a result of the rockets fired from Gaza on several cities, including Tel Aviv.
The Israeli army also announced it had intercepted a Hamas drone early Wednesday.
Two Hamas commanders killed
The Israeli military has conducted hundreds of airstrikes on the blockade Gaza Strip, resulting in scores of fatalities.
Palestinian media reported that the Israeli regime continued its bombardment of the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, killing two Hamas commanders and three children.
Palestinian sources identified the two commanders as Hassan al-Kaogi (Abu Ali) and Wail Issa (Abu Ahmad).
Israel targeted Gaza’s police and security headquarters and the Islamic University of Gaza for the third consecutive day, which saw 30 simultaneous attacks on the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli army said in a tweet that the victims were Hamas intelligence officials.
It also said the Israeli attacks were a response to “hundreds of rockets” launched from Gaza in the last 24 hours, adding that they marked “our largest strike since 2014.”
Three Palestinian children were also killed during an Israeli air raid on Tel al-Hawa neighborhood in Gaza, Shehab News reported.
Pregnant Palestinian woman, 5-year-old son killed
Meanwhile, a pregnant Palestinian woman and her 5-year-old son were also killed during the Israeli airstrike that targeted their house in the Gaza Strip.
The woman, identified as Reem, and her son, Zaid, were reported killed after the strike hit their house in Tel al-Hawa, a neighborhood in the southern part of Gaza.
Reem’s brother, Ahmed Saad, reported their deaths on social media. She was four months pregnant.
Meanwhile, Gaza’s Health Ministry announced on Wednesday afternoon that as many as 48 Palestinians, including 14 children and three women, had lost their lives in Gaza in the latest Israeli strikes, with a total of 296 civilians — most of them women and children — wounded since Monday.
Palestinian rocket hits Israeli pipeline
As a result of rockets fired from Gaza on Wednesday, an Israeli pipeline near Ashkelon was hit causing fire.
The rockets also killed two Israeli settlers and injured at least 100 Israelis.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said Israel is responsible for the consequences of its atrocities in Jerusalem al-Quds and al-Aqsa Mosque, whose flames “extended to Gaza.”
He said Qatar, Egypt and the UN had been in contact with Hamas urging calm, but he told the regime in Israel that “If they want to escalate, the resistance is ready, if they want to stop, the resistance is ready.”
Earlier, Israeli minister for military affairs Benny Gantz warned that “this is just the beginning” of Israel’s assaults.
‘I saw my cousins set alight’, survivor recalls
One of the survivors of Israel’s attack in northern Gaza on Tuesday recalled the horror of watching five members of his family, including young brothers Ibrahim and Marwan, die during the strike.
“We were laughing and having fun, when suddenly they began to bomb us, everything around us caught fire,” their cousin, also called Ibrahim, told AFP.
“I saw my cousins set alight, and torn into pieces,” said the 14-year-old, breaking down in tears. “Why did they leave me? I would have wanted to die as a martyr like them.”
Israeli bombardments of Gaza continued on Wednesday, shaking Gazans’ homes and lighting up the besieged city’s sky just after dawn, with at least 30 explosions reported by residents within a matter of minutes.
Israel declares ‘state of emergency’ in Lod
The occupied territories were hit with protests as well, which, in the city of Lod, prompted the Israeli government to declare a “state of emergency” following the killing of a Palestinian by a Jewish settler in the city.
“Everything necessary is done to restore law and order in Lod” and throughout the occupied territories, Israeli public security minister Amir Ohana said.
He announced that the Israeli regime has decided to deploy 16 Border Police reserve units to Lod from the occupied West Bank.
Minor confrontations were also reported following Fajr (dawn) prayers at al-Aqsa Mosque on Wednesday morning, with Palestinians chanting protest and resistance songs, while Israeli forces were deployed around the complex.
Unrest erupted across Israeli-occupied territories on Tuesday night and into Wednesday, as social media posts showed protests in the city of Rahat as well as in Qalansawe.
The al-Aqsa Mosque and Bab al-Amoud (Damascus) Gate in Jerusalem al-Quds’ Old City as well as the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood have witnessed a spike in Israeli atrocities since the beginning of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Biden lied about Yemen
By Caitlin Johnstone | April 29, 2021
The Biden administration has finally admitted that the US is indeed providing offensive material support to Saudi Arabia’s genocidal assault on Yemen, directly contradicting Biden’s February claim that it would no longer be providing offensive support in that war. We are being lied to about yet another US war by yet another US president.
“The United States continues to provide maintenance support to Saudi Arabia’s Air Force given the critical role it plays in Saudi air defense and our longstanding security partnership,” Pentagon spokesperson Jessica McNulty has informed Vox reporter Alex Ward.
“Multiple US defense officials and experts acknowledged that, through a US government process, the Saudi government pays commercial contractors to maintain and service their aircraft, and those contractors keep Saudi warplanes in the air. What the Saudis do with those fighter jets, however, is up to them,” Ward reported, adding, “The US could cancel those contracts at any time, thus effectively grounding the Saudi Air Force, but doing so would risk losing Riyadh as a key regional partner.”
“The recent admission by the Department of Defense that US companies are still authorized to maintain Saudi warplanes … means that our government is still enabling the Saudi operations, including bombings and enforcing a blockade on Yemen’s ports,” Hassan El-Tayyab, the legislative manager for Middle East policy at the Friends Committee on National Legislation lobbying group, told Ward.
El-Tayyab is on record speaking out after Biden’s deceitful February announcement, saying this administration needs to make it abundantly clear what it actually means by ending offensive support for the war on Yemen and actually stick to it.
“I’m not a full pessimist here. I welcome the news,” he told Al Jazeera at the time, adding, “But I’m just trying to stay vigilant and not take the foot off the gas on advocacy pressure. Because we don’t know what’s going to happen.”
Well, now we do know. The US is maintaining and servicing the warplanes that are bombing Yemen and enforcing a blockade, which has killed hundreds of thousands and the United Nations warns could kill 400,000 more this year alone if conditions don’t change, proving Joe Biden a liar and vindicating the experts and activists who cautioned against accepting his announcement on blind faith.
Getting to this point where questions are finally answered about the reality of the Biden administration’s Yemen policy has been like pulling teeth, with officials giving questioners the runaround for months on this issue. Watch this clip of US Yemen Envoy Tim Lenderking dodging questions like George Bush dodges shoes as congressman Ted Lieu tries to get a straight answer as to whether the US has stopped supporting the war on Yemen:
Antiwar’s Dave DeCamp writes the following:
“The admission comes over two months since President Biden said he was ending support for Riyadh’s ‘offensive’ operations in Yemen. Vox reporter Alex Ward asked Pentagon spokesman John Kirby on Monday if the planes that the US is servicing could be used for offensive operations in Yemen. Kirby admitted that the ‘maintenance support for systems could be used for both’ offensive and defensive operations. … Besides continuing to maintain the Saudi Air Force, the Biden administration has given Riyadh the political cover to continue enforcing the blockade on Yemen. Biden officials have claimed that Yemen is not under a blockade, even though Saudi warships are preventing fuel shipments from docking in the port of Hudaydah, which makes it impossible to deliver food to Yemen’s starving civilian population.”
The United Nations conservatively estimates that some 233,000 Yemenis have been killed in the [Saudi-led] war … mostly from what it calls “indirect causes.” Those indirect causes would be disease and starvation resulting from what UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres calls “the worst famine the world has seen for decades.”
When people hear the word “famine” they usually think of mass hunger caused by droughts or other naturally occurring phenomena, but in reality the starvation deaths we are seeing in Yemen (a huge percentage of which are children under the age of five) are caused by something that is no more natural than the starvation deaths you’d see in a medieval siege. They are the result of the Saudi coalition’s use of blockades and its deliberate targeting of farms, fishing boats, marketplaces, food storage sites, and cholera treatment centers with airstrikes aimed at making those parts [of the country, which are] controlled by Yemen’s Ansarullah movement so weak and miserable that they break.
The United States lies about all its wars with the help of the mass media, but up until this year its lies about Yemen have largely consisted of lies by omission: simply not talking about Yemen (like when MSNBC went an entire year without mentioning it a single time during the height of Russiagate hysteria), reporting on the famine as though it’s the result of a tragic natural disaster, or omitting America’s role in the slaughter. This time, it was just a straightforward lie: Biden said the US was ending offensive support, and it wasn’t.
As we’ve discussed previously, when the people demand something of their government it’s a lot easier to simply tell them you’re on their side and redirect them than to tell them no. Democrats are especially good at this.
As awareness grows that Yemen is the single most horrifying atrocity taking place in our world today, pressure is mounting for the US government to use its tremendous amount of leverage over Saudi Arabia to cease the human butchery. Rather than increasing that pressure by saying no, the Biden administration defused it by falsely pretending to give in to the demands. Because the risk of “losing Riyadh as a key regional partner” was deemed too great.
And meanwhile the slaughter continues, unbroken from Obama to Trump and from Trump to Biden. The names change, the narratives change, but the murderous imperial war machine rolls on uninterrupted.
Ten years on, Syria is almost destroyed. Who’s to blame?
Syria in ruins after ten years of conflict (File photo)
BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | MARCH 20, 2021
In George Orwell’s novel Animal Farm, the ruling pigs led by Napoleon constantly rewrote history in order to justify and reinforce their own continuing power. The rewriting by the western powers of the history of the ongoing conflict in Syria leaps out of Orwell.
The joint statement issued by the foreign ministers of the US, UK, France, Germany and Italy last week to mark the tenth anniversary of the Syrian conflict begins with an outright falsehood by holding President Bashar al-Assad and “his backers” responsible for the horrific events in that country. It asserts that the five western powers “will not abandon” the Syrian people — till death do us part.
The historical reality is that Syria has been a theatre of the CIA’s activities ever since the inception of that agency in 1947. There is a whole history of CIA-sponsored “regime change” projects in Syria ranging from coup attempts and assassination plots to paramilitary strikes and funding and military training of anti-government forces.
It all began with the bloodless military coup in 1949 against then Syrian president Shukri al-Quwatli which was engineered by the CIA. As per the memoirs of Miles Copeland Jr, the CIA station chief in Damascus at that time — who later actually went on to write a fine book of high literary quality on the subject — the coup aimed at safeguarding Syria from the communist party and other radicals!
However, the CIA-installed colonel in power, Adib Shaishakli, was a bad choice. As Copeland put it, he was a “likeable rogue” alright who had not “to my certain knowledge, ever bowed down to a graven image. He had, however, committed sacrilege, blasphemy, murder, adultery and theft” to earn American support. He lasted for four years before overthrown by the Ba’ath Party and military officers. By 1955, CIA estimated that Syria was ripe for another military coup. By April 1956, a joint CIA-SIS (British Secret Intelligence Service) plot was implemented to mobilise right-wing Syrian military officers. But then, the Suez fiasco interrupted the project.
The CIA revived the project and plotted a second coup in 1957 under the codename Operation Wappen — again, to save Syria from communism — and even spent $3 million to bribe Syrian military officers. Tim Weiner, in his masterly 2008 book Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA, writes:
“The president (Dwight Eisenhower) said he wanted to promote the idea of an Islamic jihad against godless communism. “We should do everything possible to stress the ‘holy war’ aspect,” he said at a 1957 White House meeting… (Secretary of state) Foster Dulles proposed a “secret task force,” under whose auspices the CIA would deliver American guns, money, and intelligence to King Saud of Saudi Arabia, King Hussein of Jordan, President Camille Chamoun of Lebanon, and President Nuri Said of Iraq.”
“These four mongrels were supposed to be our defence against communism and the extremes of Arab nationalism in the Middle East… If arms could not buy loyalty in the Middle East, the almighty dollar was still the CIA’s secret weapon. Cash for political warfare and power plays was always welcome. It could help an American imperium in Arab and Asian lands.”
But, as it happened, some of those “right-wing” officers instead turned in the bribe money and revealed the CIA plot to the Syrian intelligence. Whereupon, 3 CIA officers were kicked out of the American embassy in Damascus, forcing Washington to withdraw its ambassador in Damascus. With egg on its face, Washington promptly branded Syria as a “Soviet satellite”, deployed a fleet to the Mediterranean and incited Turkey to amass troops on the Syrian border. Dulles even contemplated a military strike under the so-called “Eisenhower Doctrine” as retaliation against Syria’s “provocations”. By the way, Britain’s MI6 was also working with the CIA in the failed coup attempt; the details came to light accidentally in 2003 among the papers of British Defence Minister Duncan Sandys many years after his death.
Now, coming down to current history, suffice to say that according to the WikiLeaks, since 2006, the US had been funding London-based Syrian dissidents, and the CIA unit responsible for covert operations was deployed to Syria to mobilise rebel groups and ascertain potential supply routes. The US is known to have trained at least 10,000 rebel fighters at a cost of $1 billion annually since 2012. President Barack Obama reportedly admitted to a group of senators the operation to insert these CIA-trained rebel fighters into Syria.
The well-known American investigative journalist and political writer Seymour Hersh has written, based on inputs from intelligence officers, that the CIA was already transferring arms from its Benghazi station (Libya) to Syria around that time. Make no mistake, Obama was the first world leader to openly call for the removal of Assad. That was in August 2011. Then CIA chief David Petraeus paid two unannounced visits to Turkey (in March and September 2012) to persuade Erdogan to step in as the flag carrier of the US’ regime change project in Syria (under the rubric of “anti-terror fight”.)
In fact, the US’ key allies in the Persian Gulf — Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE — took the cue from Obama to loosen their purse strings to recruit, finance and equip thousands of jihadi fighters to be deployed to Syria. Equally, from the early stages of the conflict in Syria, major western intelligence agencies provided political, military and logistic support to the Syrian opposition and its associated rebel groups in Syria.
Curiously, the Russian intervention in Syria in September 2015 was in response to an emergent imminent defeat of the Syrian government forces at the hands of the jihadi fighters backed by the US’ regional allies. Saudi Arabia withdrew from the arena only in 2017 after the tide of the war turned, thanks to the Russian intervention.
The joint statement issued last week by the US and its NATO allies belongs to the world of fiction. In reality, there is Syrian blood in the hands of these NATO countries (including Turkey) and the US’ Gulf allies. Look at the colossal destruction that the US has caused: in the World Bank’s estimation, a cumulative total of $226 billion in gross domestic product was lost to Syria due to the war from 2011 to 2016 alone.
The Syrian conflict has been among the most tragic and destructive conflicts of our time. Hundreds of thousands of Syrians have died, half a nation has been displaced, and millions have been forced into desperate poverty and hunger. In the UNHRC estimation, after ten years of conflict, half of the Syrian population has been forced to flee home, 70% are living in poverty, 6.7 million Syrians have been internally displaced, over 13 million people need humanitarian assistance and protection, 12.4 million people suffer from lack of food (or 60% of the entire population), 5.9 million people are experiencing a housing emergency and nearly nine in 10 Syrians are living below the poverty threshold.
And, come to think of it, Syria used to have one of the highest levels of social formation in the entire Muslim Middle East. It used to be a middle income country until the US decided to destabilise Syria. Ever since the late 1940s, the US’ successive regime change projects were driven by geopolitical considerations. The agenda is unmistakeable: the US has systematically destroyed the heart, soul and mind of “Arabism” — Iraq, Syria and Egypt — with a view to perpetuate the western [Zionist] domination of the Middle East.
Former President Donald Trump intended to withdraw the US troops from Syria and end the war. He tried twice, but Pentagon commanders sabotaged his plans. What Joe Biden proposes to do is anybody’s guess. Biden doesn’t seem to be in any rush to withdraw the US troops.
The most disturbing aspect is that the US is methodically facilitating a Balkanisation of Syria by helping the Kurdish groups aligned with it to carve out a semiautonomous enclave in the country’s northeast. In fact, the the Arab population in northeastern Syria resents being under the Kurds’ governance, and this may eventually turn into a new source of recruits for Islamic State. Meanwhile, Turkey seized the US-Kurdish axis as alibi to occupy vast territories in northern Syria.
The sad part of the joint statement by the US and its European allies is not only that it is rewriting history and spreading falsehood but conveys a sense of despair that there is no hope for light at the end of the tunnel in the Syrian conflict in a conceivable future.
The US policy in Syria is opaque. It has oscillated between aiming to prevent a resurgence of IS, confronting Iran, pushing back against Russia, providing humanitarian aid, and even protecting Israel, while the crux of the matter is that successive US administrations have failed to articulate a clear strategy and rationale for the US military presence in Syria.
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From the Archives
Israel Is A Genocidal Society
The Israeli Political Spectrum From The “Liberal Left” To The Far Right, Is United In Genocide
The Dissident | May 5, 2026
… The fundamental issue of Israel is not Benjamin Netanyahu, but the fact that Israel is overwhelmingly a bloodthirsty, war-ready, genocidal society.
Historian Zachary Foster has documented that the overwhelming majority of Jewish Israelis have supported every Israeli war since the 2006 invasion of Lebanon, writing:
2006
86% of the Israeli adult population justified “the IDF operation in Lebanon against Hizbollah,” or 2006 Lebanon War, in which Israel killed 1,191 people, the vast majority civilians according to HRW (Note that the % of Jewish Israelis who supported the war was even higher)2008-2009
82% of the Israeli public thought that the 2008-9 war on Gaza was justified (in which Israel killed 1,417 Palestinians, the vast majority civilians.) Note that the % of Jewish Israelis who supported the war was even higher2012
90% of Israeli Jews supported war on Gaza ( in which Israel killed 160 Palestinians, 66% civilians)2014
95% of Jewish Israelis believed the war on Gaza was justified (in which Israel killed 2,310 Palestinians, 70% civilians)2021
72% of Israelis believed the war on Gaza should continue (as of May 21) after Israel had already killed 250 Palestinians in Gaza, vast majority civilians. The % of Jewish Israelis who supported killing more Palestinians was much higher.2024
A January poll found 95% of Jewish Israelis thought the Israeli military was using either the “appropriate” amount of force or “too little” force in Gaza at a time when Israel had already killed >25,700 Palestinians in Gaza.2024
In September, 90% of Jewish Israelis supported the war on Lebanon (in which Israel killed 800+, including hundreds of civilians)2025
In March, 82% of Israeli Jews supported the forced expulsion of residents of Gaza, Israel’s main goal in it’s genocide & war on Gaza.2025
In June, 82% of Jewish Israelis supported the war on Iran known as the “twelve day war”2026
On March 4, 93% of Israeli Jews expressed support for the war on Iran. 97% of “right-wing” Jewish Israelis support it, compared with 93% in the center and 76% on the left.
The overwhelming majority of Jewish Israelis also have openly genocidal views towards Palestinians.
Polls in Israel have shown that:
- 84% of the (Israeli )public gives the IDF an excellent or very good grade regarding the moral conduct of the army
- 75% of Jewish Israelis agree with the idea that ‘there are no innocents in Gaza.’
- A vast majority of Israeli Jews – 79 percent – say they are ‘not so troubled’ or ‘not troubled at all’ by the reports of famine and suffering among the Palestinian population in Gaza.
The fundamental problem in Israel is Zionism, not Benjamin Netanyahu. – Full article
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