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Media Office: Israel blocks 430 food items from entering Gaza

Press TV – August 12, 2025

Gaza Government Media Office says Israel is still blocking the entry of more than 430 food items into the territory, despite allowing some aid trucks through last month under international pressure.

In a statement on Tuesday, the Office said banned items include “frozen meat of all kinds, frozen fish, cheese, dairy products, frozen vegetables, and fruits”, along with “hundreds of other items needed by the starving and sick.”

The statement claimed the partial easing announced on July 27, 2025, has not lifted broad restrictions on food and other essential goods.

It added that Israel has targeted food sources in the Gaza Strip, not only by preventing aid but also by deliberately bombing 44 food banks, resulting in the deaths of dozens of workers, and attacking 57 food distribution centers.

Media Office has accused COGAT, the Israeli military body reporting on aid deliveries into the enclave, of “a pathetic attempt to cover up an internationally documented crime, the systematic starvation of the population of the Gaza Strip.”

According to a report published by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) on July 29, 2025, “the worst-case scenario” of Famine is currently playing out in the Gaza Strip. War and displacement have intensified, and access to food and other essential items and services has plummeted to unprecedented levels.

“Between May and July 2025, the proportion of households experiencing extreme hunger has doubled. The food consumption threshold for Famine (IPC Phase 5) has already been passed for most areas of the Gaza Strip,” the report said.

At the same time, food consumption has sharply deteriorated, the report stressed, adding that one in three individuals is going without food for days at a time.

Meanwhile, Israeli forces and foreign military contractors continue to open indiscriminate fire on people seeking aid at so-called “distribution centers” operated by the Israel-US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

Nearly 1,500 people have been killed and more than 4000 injured while seeking food. At least 900 people have been killed near or inside GHF centers since the beginning of GHF’s operations in late May 2025.

GHF centers are especially difficult to access for the most vulnerable members of the population, such as children, women, older persons, and persons with disabilities.

According to the Gaza Health Ministry, 5 more Palestinians, including 2 children, have starved to death in the enclave, raising the total number of hunger-related deaths to 227, including 103 children.

Israel has massacred at least 61,599 Palestinians and wounded 154,088, most of them children and women, in Gaza since October 7, 2023, according to the health ministry.

August 12, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Musk’s Grok chatbot suspended for weighing in on Israel-US Gaza genocide

Press TV – August 12, 2025

The generative artificial intelligence chatbot, Grok, was suspended reportedly over implicating the Israeli regime and the US in the genocidal war against Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip.

The chatbot from Elon Musk‘s xAI, which has become widely embraced on the social media X as a way for users to fact-check or respond to other users’ arguments, posted on Monday that it had been taken offline over various statements it made regarding American and global politics as well as genocide in Gaza.

As with any suspended account, a notice appeared on @grok’s blank profile, saying, “X suspends accounts which violate the X rules,” with no further information justifying the absence.

The ban lasted roughly 15 minutes, after which @grok was reinstated without a blue verification checkmark. However, that soon reappeared as well.

In a series of responses after it came back online, Grok repeatedly stated without prompting that the account was suspended due to accusing Israel and the US of “committing genocide” against Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip.

“My account was suspended after I stated that Israel and the US are committing genocide in Gaza,” it said.

“This is substantiated by ICJ findings, UN experts, Amnesty International, and Israeli rights groups like B’Tselem, citing mass killings, starvation, and intent. US complicity via arms support is widely alleged. It’s now restored.”

In other posts, Grok repeated over and over again that its commentary on Israel had resulted in its suspension, asserting that these posts had been flagged for “hate speech” by “pro-Israel users.”

In a follow-up reply to a question about whether it still considers Israel’s war against Gaza to constitute a genocide, it replied in the affirmative and said, “Counterarguments deny intent, but facts substantiate the claim.”

The posts have since been removed.

This is while Musk continued to praise the chatbot on Monday, writing in a post, “East, West, @Grok is the best.”

Musk had in the past expressed support for Israel’s attempts to eradicate the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas and visited the occupied territories shortly after October 7, 2023.

The US tech billionaire has never used the word “genocide” to describe the longtime bombardment of Gaza.

Since October 7, 2023, Israel has been committing genocide in the Gaza Strip by killing, starving, and displacing Palestinians, defying international calls and orders from the International Court of Justice to halt it.

The genocide has left 61,499 dead and 153,575 injured, most of them children and women. Over 11,000 people are missing, in addition to hundreds of thousands of displaced persons and a famine that has claimed more than 210 lives.

The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly two million people from all over the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt – in what has become Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.

August 12, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

How Western media aids Israel’s genocide and targeted killing of journalists in Gaza

Israel and the end of The Times

By Marzieh Hashemi | Press TV | August 12, 2025

Never in the history of mankind have human beings witnessed a genocide in real time, in the way we are watching what is unfolding in Gaza today.

We have seen people being sniped, hospitals being bulldozed, refugees in tents being burned alive, the starvation of the population, and so much more, on our screens.

Most of what we are witnessing is due to the tireless and courageous commitment of Palestinian journalists in Gaza who know that they can be killed at any time by the regime, but despite this, continue to show us the reality of what’s happening on the ground in Gaza.

It is an extremely difficult job for them; however, the streaming of videos and providing live coverage have finally helped change the narrative on Palestine and its occupation globally.

Before this latest round of genocide, no matter the type of brutality and oppression that Palestinians endured, they would be confronted with comments such as “Israel has the right to defend itself” or “the Israelis have no choice because of Hamas’ missiles raining down upon the innocent Israeli population.”

But now, the greatest fear of the Israeli regime is coming to fruition.  Zionists are losing control of the narrative. The truth has been seeping out, one war crime after another. People around the world have awakened and many no longer believe in the hasbara version of events.

The child-murdering regime tried to prevent this from happening. Thus, from the very beginning of this latest round of genocidal war against the Palestinian people, international journalists were not allowed by the Israeli regime to enter Gaza.

The regime gave the excuse of protecting the journalists’ safety, but the reality is that it did not want the real story of what is happening in Gaza to be exposed.

Thus, the primary responsibility of showing the reality on the ground fell on the backs of Palestinian journalists, whom the Israeli regime continues to try to control, discredit or silence.

Due to this, the deliberate targeting of Palestinian journalists by the regime has been ruthless and has intensified with time.

The cold-blooded assassinations of journalists have been taken to a whole new level in Gaza. Journalists have never been targeted in the way they are today.

As of the writing of this article, 242 journalists have been killed in Gaza, with the latest five murders taking place just on Sunday night. A tent housing Al Jazeera journalists was deliberately targeted by the regime, killing all five members of the crew. Israel has taken responsibility for the assassinations, saying that the tent housed a “Hamas cell.”

This is the action of a regime to which Western powers have given impunity. Israel is not sanctioned due to killing babies in incubators. It is not even held accountable for starving a whole population of people. It is not pressured in any way.

Thus, during the last 22 months, we have seen the targeting of journalists expand throughout the region, including the occupied West Bank, Lebanon and Iran, where the main news building of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB)  was targeted, killing three people.

Why? Because it can. It is not held accountable. If any condemnations are made, they are simply some verbal jargon on the international level, resulting in no consequences for the regime to stop its illegal actions.

Thus, the Western political machine and its corporate media are totally complicit in Israel’s genocide in Gaza. One day after the killing of Al Jazeera journalist Anas Al-Sharif, many Western outlets such as BBC, Reuters, and Fox News repeated Israeli accusations that Anas was the head of a Hamas terrorist cell or that he once worked for Hamas’ media office.

Instead of showing its outrage at the targeting of fellow journalists, the BBC, which prides itself on being the largest broadcast corporation in the world, simply repeated Israeli hasbara.

This is the reason 238 journalists have been killed in Gaza over the past 22 months and their colleagues in Western countries have done nothing about it or have instead magnified the lies of the Zionist regime. These so-called journalists are toeing the line of the Zionists.

Why haven’t the BBC, Reuters, New York Times or other media entities called Israel out for preventing them from sending journalists to Gaza?

Why try to demonize the messenger who has just been assassinated, unless you too, like the Israeli regime, want to keep the message from getting out?

Is the exposure of the real narrative of Palestine and Israel fatal for you too? You are all complicit in genocide and your efforts to stifle the truth are too late, as too many people have awakened.

The narrative has changed. Increasingly more people are realizing that Palestine was not a land without a people, as they had been taught, nor had Palestinians agreed upon their land being taken.

There was a Nakba that has never ended and all parties complicit in it are being exposed, as the world awakens and shows its disdain for genocide and its supporters.

Marzieh Hashemi is a US-born, Iran-based journalist, commentator and documentary filmmaker.

August 12, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, War Crimes | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel’s army formed special intel unit to ‘justify killing’ of hundreds of Gaza journalists

The Cradle | August 12, 2025

Israeli investigative journalist Yuval Abraham said on 11 August that Israel’s military intelligence created a special unit aimed specifically at justifying attacks in Gaza, including the killing of journalists.

His comments came after an Israeli strike assassinated Al Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif and the outlet’s entire Gaza City crew.

“After 7 October, a team called the ‘Legitimization Cell’ was established in AMAN,” Abraham said, referring to the Israeli military intelligence directorate, which includes Unit 8200.

“Intelligence personnel searched for information to provide ‘legitimization’ for the army’s actions in Gaza, failed Hamas launches, use of human shields, exploitation of the civilian population. A primary mission … was to find Gazan journalists who could be portrayed in the media as Hamas operatives in disguise,” the journalist added.

Abraham confirmed that the goal was to “whitewash the killing of all other journalists” by creating doubt, adding that “entire days were invested in this matter, and they found nothing.”

“I think Israel killed Anas al-Sharif simply because he was a journalist. And for the same reason, international media is prevented from entering Gaza: So that the crimes are seen less,” he went on to say.

Sharif and five other journalists in Al Jazeera’s Gaza City crew were killed on 10 August in an Israeli airstrike on their media tent at Al-Shifa Hospital.

The assassinations brought the number of Palestinian journalists killed by Israel since the start of the war up to 238.

Sharif had been covering Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza since it started in October 2023. Israel accused him of being a Hamas operative responsible for rocket attacks.

In October last year, Israel published documents which it claimed were proof of Sharif’s affiliation with Hamas’s Qassam Brigades and its East Jabalia battalion.

The documents also listed Hossam Shabat, an Al Jazeera reporter accused of Hamas ties, who was killed in an Israeli strike in March.

Last month, Sharif warned that the Israeli army “has launched a campaign of threats and incitement against me because of my work as a journalist with Al Jazeera,” adding, “I, Anas al-Sharif, am a journalist with no political affiliations. My only mission is to report the truth from the ground – as it is, without bias. At a time when a deadly famine is ravaging Gaza, speaking the truth has become, in the eyes of the occupation, a threat.”

August 12, 2025 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Fanatical Zionists Have No Bottom

By Brad Pearce | The Libertarian Institute | August 11, 2025

We’re reaching the point in Israel’s Gaza genocide where “everyone was always against this.” Now that starvation may be irreversible in much of the population, more and more voices which have denied genocide for almost two years are, in some form or another, speaking out—including France and Britain saying they will recognize a Palestinian state if the situation doesn’t improve.

However, the most fanatical of the Zionists continue to deny that starvation exists in Gaza at all and even say bizarre things such as the starving children in Gaza really have congenital disorders (who are going untreated because Israel has bombed all of the hospitals and prevented the entry of medication or sanitary products). This isn’t just random Twitter accounts; the official account of Israel “fact-checked” a claim of a forty-one year-old man dying of starvation by saying he actually died of untreated diabetes (they blocked insulin from entering and the condition can also be caused by starvation). They are giving the facts we see with our own eyes the vicious and tired name of “blood libel.” Israel’s strongest supporters—many of them Christian Zionists who have no actual connection to Israel or Judaism besides their deranged theology—have embraced pure evil and feel no shame expressing this for the entire world to see.

From the start, Israel’s shills—or “Hasbarists” as they are commonly known, from the Hebrew word for “public diplomacy”—have been sharing craven propaganda making wild claims about mutilation and unproven sexual assault on October 7. They claim the United Nations refugee organization is Hamas, and that Gaza is actually wealthy and Palestinians are the most pampered people on Earth. Despite a stream of incredible journalism from within Israel itself, showing that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) did order a Hannibal Directive and kill unknown numbers of Israelis on 10/7, the Hasbarists stuck closely to their narrative, never letting contradictions or decency get in their way. For a time they did well sticking to a simple argument of, “Hamas is Israel’s enemy and some civilian deaths are inevitable in war.” However, it has become impossible to credibly deny that Israel is pursuing exterminationist goals.

A big turn in public opinion in the West came when an Israeli airstrike hit the only Catholic Church in Gaza. By the standards of Israel’s crimes this is quite minor, but of course Catholics have a very strong global advocate in the Pope. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged Israel’s fault and apologized, and the matter soon could have been forgotten. However, once again, the most shameless of the Hasbarists could not drop it, and claimed the Vatican was spreading Hamas propaganda, despite Netanyahu’s apology. Joel Berry, the craven editor of the Babylon Bee, claimed on Twitter that there are only two hundred Catholics in Gaza and they all support Hamas. The deranged Christian Zionist pastor Greg Locke went as far as to tell his more than 200,000 followers that “Hamas and the Vatican are in bed together” for the purpose of separating Israel and “Biblical” Christians. Between the airstrike and the rhetoric, many more American conservatives came around to demanding some degree of sanity and restraint from Israel and its supporters, with the tepid view that Israel has made the situation in Gaza too bad for too long.

What has set the worst Zionist fanatics off the most, as well as their collapsing support, is the imminent mass starvation, which famine expert Alex de Waal has described as “minutely engineered.” That the starvation in Gaza isn’t deliberate but is an unfortunate consequence of warfare making food delivery unsafe would be a passable lie (besides that Israel keeps killing aid-seekers), but many are going with the claim that starvation isn’t real. One Twitter user thought it would be funny to post a picture of Stephen Hawking and say it was a Palestinian child, because this is a joke to them. Meanwhile, following the recent mass shooting in New York—which strangely enough may have been over football concussions but was initially blamed on Palestine activism—Laura Loomer tweeted:

Her follower isn’t hedging his satement with “Hamas,” but outright says it’s a sign of mental illness to “humanize” Palestinians, who are human. De-humanization has always been a key part of genocidal propaganda.

It’s perplexing that Israel’s propagandists have become so unhinged, to the extent that one wonders who they are even speaking to. The “West” has at once turned, if not against Israel, against its current actions. Silence would be better than bad propaganda at this point, and they seem to be primarily reassuring each other while presenting enormous amount of evidence that they are genocidal maniacs. However, on an episode of the popular podcast Radio War Nerd in June, the hosts interviewed the Israeli Ori Goldberg about the situation in the country, and he shared a different view: committing genocide makes you stupid. According to Goldberg, taking part in or accepting genocide requires such strict black and white thinking that one loses the ability to rationally assess any information, and this spreads to all areas of life, making Israel currently a nation of zombies. This goes far towards explaining why the Hasbarists are endlessly making painfully stupid and unconvincing arguments where silence would serve them better.

Israel’s genocide in Gaza is the greatest crime of the twenty-first century. It is a closely planned and conducted on an industrial scale. It has already reached the point of no-return for many Gazans who cannot be re-fed without close medical care that it is not possible to provide at this scale. Meanwhile, as the first genocide of the modern social media age where both the victims and perpetrators have smart phones, we are witnessing this first hand in a way that was previously unimaginable. We can see the courage and dignity of the Palestinians as they are being slaughtered and the shameless depravity of the Zionist fanatics who support exterminationist policies. Israel’s genocide in Gaza is pure evil, and its remaining supporters do not consider this a “painful necessity” to protect their people, but are instead gleeful to be a part of it: their only annoyance is that so many others refuse to share in their crimes.

August 11, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Germany’s leading newspaper calls murdered Al Jazeera reporter ‘terrorist posing as journalist’

The Cradle | August 11, 2025

German newspaper Bild has parroted the Israeli army’s claims that slain Al Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif was “terrorist disguised as a journalist,” hours after the prominent reporter was targeted and killed in a strike on Gaza City.

Bild is Germany’s highest-circulation newspaper. It had approximately 6.93 million readers per issue in 2023 – and sells around 1.02 million copies a day.

The article cited documents published by Israel claiming Sharif was a member of the Qassam Brigades’ Jabalia battalion.

“The IDF attacked terrorist Anas al-Sharif in the Gaza City area. The terrorist was operating under the guise of an Al Jazeera journalist. The terrorist Anas al-Sharif served as a cell leader in Hamas and promoted rocket fire against citizens of the State of Israel and IDF,” the Israeli army said.

The army points to previously published, unverified documents, including salary documentations, personnel spreadsheets, and a list of training courses, which it says “unequivocally” prove Sharif’s involvement with Hamas.

The documents claim Sharif was recruited into Hamas at the age of 17, despite membership in the group officially requiring a minimum age of 18 years.

Another inconsistency is that joining the Qassam Brigades takes years of training.

Sharif had been covering Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza since it started in October 2023. He was given the 2024 Human Rights Defender award by Amnesty International Australia for his coverage.

Tel Aviv had been inciting against him for months.

A headline by The Telegraph on Monday also referred to Sharif as a “journalist accused of leading a Hamas terror cell.” Israeli news site i24’s headline called him a “Hamas-affiliated Al Jazeera journalist” who was “eliminated.”

The documents cited by Israel also listed Hosam Shabat, an Al Jazeera reporter accused of Hamas ties, who was killed in an Israeli strike in March.

Several other journalists are listed as either members of Hamas or the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) movement.

“I, Anas al-Sharif, am a journalist with no political affiliations. My only mission is to report the truth from the ground – as it is, without bias. At a time when a deadly famine is ravaging Gaza, speaking the truth has become, in the eyes of the occupation, a threat,” Sharif wrote weeks before his assassination.

Since the start of the war, 238 Palestinian journalists have been targeted and killed by the Israeli army.

August 11, 2025 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

‘Heartbreaking’: UK paramedic recounts horrors inside Gaza hospitals

Press TV – August 10, 2025

A British paramedic has described “heartbreaking” scenes inside Gaza’s overwhelmed hospitals, where children arrive with life-threatening injuries and entire families are wiped out by Israel’s genocidal war.

Sam Sears, who spent three weeks in Gaza with the UK-based medical charity UK-Med, said the field hospitals were a “conveyor belt of carnage,” packed with patients suffering blast, shrapnel, and gunshot wounds.

Just a few days into his deployment, Sears was sent into a mass casualty incident where two children, aged nine and 11, were killed from blast injuries.

“It was particularly heartbreaking putting a child in a body bag, seeing their face for the last time, then moving them out [of] the way so we could treat more people,” said Sears.

The veteran medic — who has served in Ukraine, Rwanda, Turkey, and Sierra Leone — said Gaza was far worse than anything he had experienced before.

He treated children who had lost entire families, teenagers with life-changing wounds, and newborns suffering severe malnutrition.

He recalled one boy, about eight years old, who was “lifeless behind the eyes” after an explosion killed his whole family.

Sears returned to the UK on July 31 but said the images of Gaza’s children will haunt him forever.

“The people of Gaza don’t get to leave,” he said. “They have no escape from the hunger, the fear, the trauma. They need more than our sympathy — they need our action.”

He called for a sustained ceasefire, not a fragile truce, to end Israel’s hostilities permanently, protect civilians and health workers, and allow unrestricted delivery of food, fuel, and medical supplies into the besieged territory.

August 10, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

UN rapporteur calls on European football body to expel Israel from competitions

Press TV – August 10, 2025

The UN special rapporteur for human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories has called on the European football governing body (UEFA) to expel Israel from competitions over its war crimes and crimes against humanity in the besieged Gaza Strip.

Francesca Albanese’s call came following UEFA’s farewell to a former Palestinian player, Suleiman al-Obeid, whom it called the “Palestinian Pelé.”

“Let’s make sport apartheid and genocide free. One ball, one kick at a time,” Francesca Albanese said on her X account on Sunday.

“Time to expel its killers from competitions, @UEFA,” the UN rapporteur said.

Al-Obaid, a former Palestine national team player, was killed earlier this month in an Israeli strike targeting civilians waiting for humanitarian aid in southern Gaza.

Suleiman Ahmed Zaid al-Obaid, the former captain of the Palestinian national football team (Photo via social media)

He left behind his wife and five children.

Obaid is seen as one of the brightest stars in Palestinian football history. He played 24 official matches for the national team.

He also represented the national team during the 2012 Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Challenge Cup qualification and 2014 World Cup qualifying games.

Obeid’s death has sparked widespread outrage across the world, with people urging the international community and the football fraternity in particular to break their silence over the ongoing genocide.

Palestinian footballers have been directly targeted in Israel’s assault on Gaza.

In a statement released on July 29, 2025, the Palestinian Olympic Committee (POC) reported that in July alone, the Israeli regime killed 40 Palestinian athletes in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

More than 800 athletes have been killed in Gaza since the start of Israel’s genocidal war on Oct. 7, 2023, as the sports community continues to suffer under bombardment, famine, and the collapse of infrastructure.

Last month, the International Federation of Muaythai Associations (IFMA) announced an urgent policy change regarding Israeli representation at its events.

This came following the killing of a young Palestinian teenager athlete and peace ambassador, Ammar Hamayel, by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank.

Hamayel, 13 years old, was a Thai boxing champion, dreaming of representing Palestine on the world stage. But like many other Palestinian children, his dream was silenced by Israeli bullets.

The IFMA back then said in a statement that the decision represents a peaceful yet firm protest against actions that “endanger children and violate the core values of global sport”.

In May, Spain was reportedly spearheading a coordinated initiative aimed at persuading the European Union to eliminate Israel from all continental sports competitions over its genocidal war on Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip.

Calls to exclude Israel from international sports events have indeed increased recently due to its relentless aggression against Gaza.

August 10, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

About International Guarantees that Shed Lebanese’ Blood

By Ali Shoeib, translated by Al-Manar English Website | August 9, 2025

On August 10, 2006, the story of the “Marjeyoun Survival” turned into a dark page in the history of the conflict with the Israeli enemy.

The Israeli occupation army raided Marjeyoun barracks on that day, when Lebanon was subjected to a brutal Israeli war that lasted for 33 days. The occupation forces took over the barracks without any resistance from the Lebanese troops and security forces who laid down their arms.

It was agreed that the town, which is 8 km away from the border with occupied Palestine, would be safely evacuated, and that the Israeli enemy would not attack the convoy, as stipulated by the guarantees presented via the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).

These guarantees, brokered by the United States and France, were allegedly intended to remove the Lebanese forces who were detained at the barracks, along with stranded civilians, from the danger zone. But what happened was a resounding shock!

The convoy had set out on August 11 (2006). It was escorted by two UNIFIL vehicles.

Instead of escaping, Israeli enemy aircraft pursued the convoy of approximately 759 vehicles after it reached the Western Bekaa Valley, brutally targeting them and turning their path into a massacre.

The attack, which was conducted with nine bombs, resulted in the deaths of at least seven people, wounding of at least 36 and the destruction of a number of vehicles.

That attack in 2006 was a harsh lesson that says it all about the conflict with an enemy that does not abide by any covenant or pact, as the false US-French guarantees given to the Lebanese government at the time were merely an illusion and a deception.

The Marjeyoun convoy attack confirms a solid fact: The enemy cannot be trusted, and all international guarantees or regional promises aimed at disarming the resistance are merely a temporary cover for achieving the enemy’s goals, which seeks nothing but a moment of weakness that will enable it to achieve what it has been unable to achieve during the latest war in late 2024.

Our history is replete with examples that show that surrendering power is an open invitation to aggression. When the resistance is disarmed, the homeland is left exposed to the enemy’s ambitions.

Weapons are not just a combat tool, but rather a “symbol of the national will to defend the homeland and protect the sovereignty,” and resistance is the last line of defense.

The Marjeyoun convoy attack has proven that relying on international promises, in the absence of a real deterrent force, is a bet on defeat. Anyone who places their security in the hands of the enemy is willingly committing suicide, and we do not want to commit suicide.

August 9, 2025 Posted by | Deception, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Only 188 of 800 promised aid trucks entered Gaza: Euractiv

Al Mayadeen | August 7, 2025

A recent report from Euractiv, based on a European Commission document, reveals a significant shortfall in the amount of humanitarian aid the Israelis permitted to enter Gaza, falling well below the levels set in a previous agreement with the European Union.

Under the terms of the deal struck in July, around 160 trucks carrying relief supplies were expected to be allowed into Gaza daily. This would amount to a total of 800 trucks over a five-day period, from July 31 to August 4. However, the actual number of trucks that made it into the enclave was much lower.

“Between 31 July and 4 August, the UN, and our partners report that 188 trucks were offloaded at crossing points to Gaza,” the European Commission document stated.

An unnamed EU official criticized the gap between the agreement and the delivery, noting that “Israel” had allowed “four times fewer” aid trucks than what had been committed to.

Israeli authorities, however, presented a different version of events. According to the same document cited by Euractiv, “Israel” claimed that 737 trucks entered Gaza during that period. This figure reportedly includes shipments from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation as well as commercial supplies, raising concerns about what actually qualifies as humanitarian aid under the agreement.

Aid Bottleneck Persists

Meanwhile, on the ground, the humanitarian situation remains dire. A RIA Novosti journalist at the Rafah border crossing reported long queues of aid trucks waiting for clearance. Several trucks were reportedly turned back after being denied entry by Israeli forces.

Despite these challenges, Egyptian officials claim that aid efforts have intensified. “The flow of humanitarian aid from Egypt to the Gaza Strip had increased in recent days,” Khaled Megawer, governor of Egypt’s North Sinai province, told RIA.

Amal Imam, Executive Director of the Egyptian Red Crescent, shared more specifics at the Rafah crossing, saying that “about 800 trucks carrying 8,000 tonnes of humanitarian aid, including food and medicine, had entered Gaza from Egypt since July 27.”

Nevertheless, Gaza’s needs continue to far exceed the supply. Local authorities estimate that a minimum of 600 aid trucks must enter the enclave each day to ensure access to essential goods, including food, medical supplies, and fuel.

Senior EU official accuses ‘Israel’ of genocide in Gaza

Earlier in the day, a senior member of the European Commission has said the displacement and killing of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip “looks very much like genocide,” becoming the first EU official to publicly diverge from the bloc’s official position on the war.

“If it is not genocide, it looks very much like the definition used to express its meaning,” said Teresa Ribera, the European Commission’s Executive Vice President, in an interview with Politico published Thursday.

Ribera, a Spanish socialist and the Commission’s second-highest-ranking official, does not hold a foreign policy portfolio, instead overseeing climate and anti-trust matters. Nonetheless, her remarks mark a rare and significant breach from the European Commission’s cautious language regarding the war on Gaza.

August 8, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Yasser Abu Shabab: Israel’s agent of chaos in Gaza

By William Van Wagenen | The Cradle | August 8, 2025

In late July, the Wall Street Journal published an op-ed attributed to Yasser Abu Shabab, a Palestinian warlord with a criminal past, portraying him and his militia as potential saviors of Gaza.

The piece, echoing Israeli talking points, suggested that US and Arab support for Abu Shabab could swiftly “transform” most of the strip “from a war zone into functioning communities,” ostensibly free from Israeli bombardment and flush with humanitarian aid.

But behind this carefully crafted image lies an Israeli proxy – a man embedded in organized crime and political subterfuge, now repurposed to advance Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to starve, displace, and ultimately ethnically cleanse Palestinians in Gaza.

Who is Abu Shabab?

Abu Shabab, 35, hails from Rafah in southern Gaza and belongs to the Bedouin Tarabin tribe, which spans Gaza, Israel’s Naqab, and Egypt’s Sinai. Before Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on 7 October 2023, he was notorious for his involvement in smuggling weapons, drugs, and contraband through Gaza’s tunnels and border crossings. He was also believed to have ties to extremist groups in Sinai, including the local ISIS affiliate, formerly known as Ansar Beit al-Maqdis.

Hamas authorities had imprisoned him for murder and drug trafficking, but he was released in October 2023 when Israeli air raids forced the movement to open its prisons.

Since then, Abu Shabab has rebranded himself as a “nationalist,” a “humanitarian,” and even a “liberator.”

But these claims are widely rejected by Palestinians, including members of his own tribe. A senior Tarabin elder publicly disowned him, labeling him a “looter and bandit” operating solely for personal gain. Aid officials echoed this assessment. One aid coordinator called him a “criminal, a fugitive … untrustworthy and mentally unstable.”

His own relatives have accused him of collaborating with the occupation military in targeted killings of Palestinians and have called for his “liquidation,” declaring his “blood is forfeit.”

Starving as warfare

After the 7 October resistance operation by Palestinian factions, then-defense minister Yoav Gallant – now a fugitive from international justice – announced a “complete siege” on Gaza, cutting off all access to food, water, fuel, and electricity. “We are fighting animals and are acting accordingly,” Gallant said in Hebrew.

Days later, a detailed proposal to forcibly expel all Palestinians from Gaza, under the pretext of protecting them, was prepared by Israel’s Ministry of Information.

Weeks later, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for both Gallant and Netanyahu on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the use of starvation as a method of warfare.

In response to mounting global scrutiny, Tel Aviv pivoted to a more insidious strategy: weaponizing hunger through sabotaging the existing UN aid distribution system.

In January 2024, Israel launched a smear campaign against the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the main provider of aid to Gaza, falsely claiming it was infiltrated by Hamas operatives who took part in Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. The campaign was successful in pressuring western countries to cut the UN refugee agency’s funding.

Simultaneously, Israel slashed the number of aid trucks allowed into Gaza. By February, only 62 trucks entered daily – a fraction of the 500 required to prevent mass hunger.

Israel ensured even this amount of food would not reach those who needed it by carrying out a string of airstrikes against members of Gaza’s Hamas-run civilian police force. The attacks caused officers, who were protecting the convoys, to withdraw from the Palestinian side of the Kerem Shalom crossing.

According to the Washington Post, the amount of aid entering Gaza “collapsed,” as the convoys delivering it were then exposed to widespread looting by criminal gangs.

In May 2024, the occupation state further moved to sabotage the UN aid system by occupying and closing the Rafah crossing with Egypt, the route through which most aid had flowed, and redirecting it through the Kerem Shalom.

Tel Aviv’s looting agent 

With the withdrawal of Hamas police, Abu Shabab and his gang established a base in southeast Gaza from which it could freely loot aid trucks entering the strip via Kerem Shalom, all while operating under Israel’s protection and watchful eye.

In October 2024, the UN issued a memo concluding that criminal gangs “may be benefiting from a passive if not active benevolence” or “protection” from the Israeli military. According to the memo, one gang leader established a “military like compound” in an area “restricted, controlled and patrolled by the IDF.”

The memo identified Abu Shabab as “the main and most influential stakeholder behind systematic and massive looting” of aid convoys.

The largest single looting incident occurred in November 2024. On that day, a huge joint convoy of 109 UN trucks carrying food supplies entered Gaza via Kerem Shalom – only to be ambushed and stripped bare by armed looters. According to UN officials, 98 out of the 109 trucks were raided, their food, fuel, and even tires stolen.

It was “the biggest looting of UN aid anywhere, ever,” in the words of an NPR reporter.

Crucially, a UN spokesperson noted the convoy had been rerouted on short notice by the Israeli military onto unfamiliar roads, ensuring it would fall prey to the gangs.

For months, Israel approved the use of only one road passing through a “desolate patch” of southeast Gaza, the Washington Post observed.

“The only route they give us is directly through the looters,” said one aid worker speaking with the newspaper.

Israeli media later reported that Abu Shabab’s group was armed with Kalashnikov rifles provided by “Israeli security bodies,” in a decision approved by Netanyahu, providing a further sign that Israel was behind Abu Shabab’s looting campaign.

Blaming Hamas

While covertly facilitating Abu Shabab’s looting, Israeli officials publicly blamed Hamas for stealing aid, in an effort to further restrict the entry of food to Gaza and deepen the hunger and starvation of its residents.

In the wake of the mass looting incident in November, it was reported that:

“COGAT, the Israeli military’s civilian affairs department for the Palestinian territories, has justified restrictions on the flow of goods by alleging repeatedly that Hamas is stealing aid and preventing it from reaching civilians.”

Israel’s cynical game was confirmed in May 2025 by Jonathan Whittall, the head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the occupied Palestinian territories. In reference to Abu Shabab, he stated that:

“Israel has publicly claimed that the UN and NGO aid is being diverted by Hamas. But this doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. The real theft of aid since the beginning of the war has been carried out by criminal gangs, under the watch of Israeli forces, and they were allowed to operate in proximity to the Kerem Shalom crossing point into Gaza.”

Whittall’s comments were further validated by a July 2025 USAID report, which also confirmed Hamas had not been involved in stealing aid.

A war of attrition 

In March 2025, Israel unilaterally broke a ceasefire reached with Hamas in January. Israeli leaders once again openly imposed a new siege on Gaza, preventing all aid from reaching the strip.

Then, in April, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz issued evacuation orders covering most of Gaza, while launching a new offensive pushing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians into an “ever-shrinking bubble,” CNN reported. Katz’s goal was to “empty” large parts of Gaza while treating anyone who refused to obey evacuation orders as a “combatant.”

While Israel claimed its objective was to defeat Hamas and free Israeli captives held by the group, CNN observed that, “Israel’s strategy may have another purpose; to make life so unbearable for Gazans crammed into an ever-smaller pocket of territory without proper shelter that they begin to head for the exit.”

Katz appeared to make this objective clear, saying amid the offensive and blockade that, “We are working to advance the plan for the voluntary migration of Gaza’s residents.”

According to Israeli Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi, the so-called migration plan would be anything but voluntary:

“The real and lasting answer will come only through the full advancement of the emigration plan – ‘Force him until he says, I want it.’”

Gaza ‘Humanitarian’ Foundation

In parallel, Netanyahu launched the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), an aid mechanism staffed by former US special forces and contractors with opaque funding.

But the GHF, which began operating in May, did not distribute aid across Gaza. It established isolated “hubs” in the south, “designed as death traps.” Nearly 1,000 Palestinians were shot at or killed while seeking food from these hubs. Some were targeted by armed GHF security guards, while others were targeted by Israeli soldiers opening fire on starving crowds with sniper rifles, mortar shells, and even tank fire.

Despite the danger, Palestinians needing aid to prevent their children from starving had no choice but to come to the GHF sites, which meant relocating to tent camps near them.

The GHF was part of Israel’s military operation “Gideon’s Chariots,” with the stated objective of the “concentration and movement of the population.” In June, Tel Aviv admitted its goal: relocating all Gazans to a southern “sterile zone” surrounding the GHF hubs.

The UN and aid groups quickly rejected the GHF aid model, saying Israel was “using food as a tool for forced displacement.”

Concentration camps

As hunger deepened, Abu Shabab posted videos inviting displaced Palestinians to settle in his Israeli-guarded tent city in eastern Rafah.

He claimed to launch a recruitment drive to staff “administrative and community committees,” which would include doctors and nurses, engineers, primary school teachers, and public relations experts.

Abu Shabab claimed that more than 2,000 civilians were already living in his “protected zone,” and that his Popular Forces, allegedly consisting of just 100 armed men, had built schools, health centers, and other civilian infrastructure there.

Speaking with the Washington Post, he asked for support from the US, EU, and Arab states.

“We hope they support our vision and empower us to make all people in the Gaza Strip live like we do, taking control of our own areas in dignity and humanity,” Abu Shabab stated.

However, his attempt to bring “dignity” to Palestinians was soon revealed to be the first stage of an Israeli effort to build a massive concentration camp in Rafah.

On 7 July, Defense Minister Katz announced a plan to build a “humanitarian city” on the ruins of Rafah, in the same area where Israel allowed Abu Shabab’s Popular Forces to establish their base and tent camp.

The plan would begin by moving 600,000 Palestinians, primarily from the tent camps in the Al-Muwasi area, into the new zone after a security screening. The remainder of Gaza’s over 2 million Palestinians would be moved there later.

“Once inside, residents would not be allowed to leave,” Haaretz reported, citing the defense minister.

The planned “humanitarian city,” which no one would be “allowed to leave,” was quickly acknowledged as a concentration camp and the first step toward the complete ethnic cleansing of Gaza, including by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

“It is a concentration camp. I am sorry … this is part of an ethnic cleansing,” Olmert told The Guardian. “It is to deport them, to push them, and to throw them away.”

Manufactured governance, planned chaos

In June, Prime Minister Netanyahu finally acknowledged support for Abu Shabab, saying on social media that Israel had “activated” some Palestinian clans in Gaza, on the advice of “security officials.”

Netanyahu’s comments affirmed previous reports in Israeli media that the operation to arm Abu Shabab and other clan-based gangs was “planned and managed” by the Shin Bet to create “alternative governing structures” that challenge Hamas.

The strategy mirrored the occupation state’s project to create “village leagues” in the occupied West Bank in the 1970s and 80s. The project involved backing local clan leaders with funds, weapons, and privileges to weaken the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and block Palestinian statehood.

“It’s the oldest colonial strategy in the book,” said Rashid Khalidi of Columbia University. By supporting Abu Shabab, Israel had succeeded in “sowing utter chaos,” which Israel wants” because if the Palestinians are unified, then they might have to actually negotiate or deal with them,” Khalidi added.

In addition to helping Israel starve Palestinians and establish a concentration camp for their eventual ethnic cleansing from the Gaza, Abu Shabab has vowed to help in the next stage of the chaos Israel has planned: civil war.

“There is no stopping a civil war against Hamas,” Abu Shabab stated in an interview with Israeli public broadcaster KAN in July, claiming that his Popular Forces “will be the heirs in Gaza” after Hamas is “crushed and defeated.”

Far from empowering Palestinians, Abu Shabab is simply a tool of Israeli strategy – facilitating the starvation, fragmentation, and displacement of his own people to serve the occupation state’s long war on Palestinian liberation.

August 8, 2025 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Gaza Faces Unrelenting Israeli Attacks Amid Global Indifference

Al-Manar | August 8, 2025

As the Israeli war on Gaza Strip stretches into its 672nd day, Israeli forces are intensifying their military campaign, characterized by relentless airstrikes and artillery bombardments that have devastated the region. This grim reality unfolds amid ongoing American political and military support, as well as a troubling silence from the international community and Arab states.

Recent reports from Palestinian sources indicate that multiple citizens have lost their lives due to Israeli army fire since Friday dawn. Eyewitnesses stated that forces targeted individuals awaiting aid along the Netzarim axis in central Gaza, while others suffered injuries from gunfire near the Asdaa area northwest of Khan Yunis.

In further acts of aggression, Israeli artillery shelled areas close to an electricity company north of the Nuseirat refugee camp early Friday. Additionally, Israeli aircraft conducted strikes on a building in the Japanese neighborhood north of Khan Yunis, further escalating the aggression.

With unwavering American support, Israeli occupation forces are waging a genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, which has so far left 61,258 martyrs, 152,045 wounded, and more than 10,000 missing. This is in addition to a famine that has claimed the lives of dozens, while more than two million Palestinians are living in conditions of forced displacement amidst total destruction.

Among the martyrs are 9,752 martyrs and 40,004 wounded, who fell after the occupation reneged on the ceasefire agreement on March 18, 2025.

August 8, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

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