To conquer a place is to fundamentally subdue its population. This must be clearly differentiated from ‘occupation’, a specific legal term that governs the relationship between a foreign “occupying power” and the occupied nation under international law, particularly the Fourth Geneva Convention.
When Israeli forces were ultimately compelled to redeploy from the Gaza Strip in 2005, a direct consequence of the persistent resistance of the Palestinian population there, the United Nations resolutely insisted that the Gaza Strip remained an occupied territory under international law.
This position stood in stark contradiction to that of Israel, which conveniently produced its own legal texts that designated Gaza a ‘hostile entity‘ – thus, not an occupied territory.
Let us try to understand what appears to be a confusing logic:
Israel proved incapable of sustaining its military occupation of Gaza, which began in June 1967. The paramount reason for Israel’s eventual redeployment was the enduring Palestinian Resistance, which rendered it impossible for Israel to normalise its military occupation and, crucially, to make it profitable – unlike the illegal settlements of East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
Between 1967 and the early 1970s, when Israel began investing in building illegal settlement blocks in the Strip, the Israeli military under the command of Ariel Sharon relentlessly strove to suppress Palestinians. He employed extreme violence, mass destruction, and ethnic cleansing tactics to subdue the Strip.
Yet, at no juncture did he achieve his ultimate and comprehensive objectives of complete subjugation.
Subsequently, he invested in his infamous, but failed ‘Five Fingers‘ plan. At the time the head of the Israeli army Southern Command – which included Gaza – Sharon stubbornly believed that the only way to defeat the Gazans was by severing the contiguity of the Strip, thus hindering organised resistance.
In pursuing this aim, he sought to divide Gaza into so-called security zones where the main Israeli Jewish settlements would be built, fortified by massive military build up. This would be joined by Israeli military control of key routes and the blocking of most coastal access.
However, this plan never fully actualised, as creating these ‘fingers’ required that Palestinians on both sides of the ‘security zones’ would have to be pacified to some extent – a condition that reality on the ground never delivered.
What was actualised was the building of isolated settlement blocks: the largest was in the southwest of the Gaza Strip, near the border with Egypt, known as the Gush Katif, followed by the northern settlements, and finally the central settlement of Netzarim.
Housing a few thousand settlers, and often requiring the presence of a far greater number of soldiers assigned to protect them, these so-called settlements were essentially fortified military towns. Due to the limited geography of Gaza (181 square miles or 365 square kilometres) and the stiff resistance, the settlements had limited space for expansion, thus remaining a costly colonial endeavour.
When the Israeli army emptied the last illegal settlement in Gaza in 2005, the soldiers snuck out of the Strip in the middle of the night. At their heels were thousands of Gazans who chased the soldiers until the last of them fled the dramatic scene.
That singular and powerful episode alone is more than sufficient to allow one to assert with unwavering certainty that Gaza was at no point truly conquered by Israel.
Though Israel withdrew its permanent military presence from the main population centers of the Strip, it continued to operate within so-called buffer zones, which were often significant incursions into Palestinian territory, far beyond the armistice line. It also imposed a hermetic siege against Gaza, which starkly explains why the majority of Gazans have never stepped a foot outside the Strip.
Israel’s control over airspace, territorial water, natural resources (mostly Mediterranean gas fields), and much more readily led the UN to its immediate conclusion: Gaza remains an occupied territory.
Unsurprisingly, Israel vehemently opposed this reality. Tel Aviv’s true desire is absolute control over Gaza, coupled with the convenient and self-serving designation of the territory as perpetually hostile. This twisted logic would grant the Israeli military an endlessly exploitable pretext to initiate devastating wars against the already besieged and impoverished Strip whenever it deemed convenient.
This brutal and cynical practice is chillingly known within Israel’s military lexicon as ‘mowing the grass‘ – a dehumanising euphemism for the periodic and deliberate degradation of the military capabilities of the Palestinian Resistance in an attempt to ensure that Gaza can never effectively challenge its Israeli jailors or break free from its open-air prison.
7 October 2023, ended that myth, where Al-Aqsa Flood Operation challenged Israel’s long-standing military doctrine. The so-called Gaza Envelope region, where the late Sharon’s Southern Command is based, was entirely seized by the youth of Gaza, who organised under the harshest of economic and military circumstances, to, in a shocking turn of events, defeat Israel.
While acknowledging the UN designation of Gaza as occupied territory, Palestinians understandably speak of and commemorate its ‘liberation’ in 2005. Their logic is clear: the Israeli military’s redeployment to the border region was a direct consequence of their resistance.
Israel’s current attempts to defeat the Palestinians in Gaza are failing for a fundamental reason rooted in history. When Israeli forces stealthily withdrew from the Strip two decades ago under the cover of night, Palestinian resistance fighters possessed rudimentary weaponry, closer to fireworks than effective military instruments. The landscape of resistance has fundamentally shifted since then.
This long-standing reality has been upended in recent months. All Israeli estimates suggest that tens of thousands of soldiers have been killed, wounded, or psychologically impaired since the start of the Gaza war. Since Israel failed to subdue the Gazans over the course of two relentless decades, it is not merely improbable, but an outright absurdity to expect that Israel will now succeed in subduing and conquering Gaza.
Israel itself is acutely aware of this inherent paradox, hence its immediate and brutal choice: the perpetration of a genocide, a horrific act intended to pave the way for the ethnic cleansing of the remaining survivors. The former has been executed with devastating efficiency, a stain on the conscience of a world that largely stood by in silence. The latter, however, remains an unachievable fantasy, predicated on the delusional notion that Gazans would willingly choose to abandon their ancestral homeland.
Gaza has never been conquered and never will be. Under the unyielding tenets of international law, it remains an occupied territory, regardless of any eventual withdrawal of Israeli forces to the border – a withdrawal that Netanyahu’s destructive and futile war cannot indefinitely postpone. When this inevitable redeployment occurs, the relationship between Gaza and Israel will be irrevocably transformed, a powerful testament to the enduring resilience and indomitable spirit of the Palestinian people.
April 21, 2025
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Gaza, Israel, Palestine, Zionism |
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SANA’A – At least 12 civilians were killed and 30 others were injured in US airstrikes on a market and residential area in the center of Yemen’s capital city, Sana’a, on Sunday night.
According to local media, deadly US strikes targeted the Furwah neighborhood market in Sana’a’s Sha’ub district.
Footage aired by al-Masirah satellite channel showed extensive damage to vehicles and buildings in the bombed area in Sana’a, with citizens, who rushed to the scene, holding what appeared to be a dead child. Other wounded civilians wailed on stretchers heading for hospitals.
The strikes also targeted other populated areas in Sana’a, including Faj Attan neighborhood and the sanitation project in Aser neighborhood. No casualties in those areas have been reported.
Multiple strikes overnight also hit other areas of the country, including in Amran, Hodeida, Marib and Saada governorates.
On Saturday night, at least 29 US airstrikes targeted areas in northern Yemen, resulting in multiple casualties.
These deadly strikes come after the US army bombarded the Ras Issa fuel port in Yemen last week, killing at least 80 people and wounding 171 others, all of them civilians.
April 21, 2025
Posted by aletho |
War Crimes, Wars for Israel | United States, Yemen |
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The chairman of Yemen’s Supreme Political Council says Sana’a has not suffered even one percent damage at the military level despite all US assaults in support of Israel’s war on Gaza.
“I assure you that the aggression failed from its very first day, and we had previously managed to obtain information that thwarted the aggression before it occurred,” Mahdi al-Mashat said during a meeting of the National Defense Council on Sunday.
He added that if the Americans increase their mobilization, it means their weapons have failed.
Referring to US warship USS Harry S. Truman, Mashat said that it lost its command and control and was rendered out of service in the early days of the aggression.
The warship “achieved nothing for the enemy, forcing them to bring in other vessels and use other weapons,” he further said.
Mashat also said that, “The criminal US President Donald Trump will be held accountable for all that he did to civilians and civilian facilities, whether he remains in office or not.”
The US military has been carrying out almost daily attacks on Yemen for the past month, claiming that they are aimed at stopping the Ansarullah movement’s attacks on Israel-related ships.
The Yemeni army, however, said it will not stop its attacks on Israel-bound vessels until the regime halts its genocidal war on Gaza.
“Our stance in supporting our brothers in Gaza is firm and we will never retreat from it,” he said, adding that Yemen cannot allow the Americans and the “Israelis” to prey upon the Palestinian people in Gaza alone.
Since March, over 200 individuals have lost their lives due to US aggression in Yemen.
In retaliation for Israeli atrocities in Gaza and the US-UK-led assault on Yemen, the Yemeni Armed Forces began to carry out a series of strikes against Israeli, American, and British interests in the Red Sea and nearby regions in late 2023.
As the brutal conflict in Gaza worsened, Yemen imposed a strategic blockade on major maritime routes to hinder the movement of military supplies to their enemies and to pressure the international community to respond to the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
April 21, 2025
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | Israel, Palestine, United States, Yemen, Zionism |
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As part of an ongoing military escalation, Israeli occupation forces advanced into Syria’s Quneitra countryside and established a temporary military checkpoint, according to local sources.
The sources reported that several Israeli military vehicles were mobilized west of the village of al-Asha in southern Quneitra, where they advanced toward Tel al-Ahmar al-Gharbi and set up a checkpoint.
Civilian areas targeted amid escalation
The Syrian province of Quneitra has witnessed a rapid increase in Israeli military activity, marked by swift incursions and expanded targeting zones. Local reports indicate that the occupation forces have widened their operations to include civilian areas, suggesting a strategy that may involve the displacement of the local population.
Earlier this week, Israeli occupation forces carried out a sudden military operation near the towns of Taranjeh and Koum Mheires, targeting Syrian army positions and destroying installations within minutes. The strikes also hit nearby residential zones, raising concerns about whether the targeting was deliberate or collateral.
Local voices, claims of forced displacement
Abu Marwan, a resident of Quneitra province, told Al Mayadeen he is seeking compensation after ongoing Israeli operations damaged property and farmland. He said that hundreds of farmers have been affected, with Israeli forces targeting abandoned posts, disabled vehicles, and civilian areas despite the lack of any apparent security threat.
“Israel’s” creation of so-called buffer zones has moved civilian homes into active military zones, increasing the risk to residents and reinforcing concerns about an intentional push toward forced displacement.
This latest Israeli military operation aligns with a broader pattern of rapid and forceful strikes, including similar raids near the town of Hadr. In those cases, military sites were destroyed swiftly, with effects extending beyond combat zones and into populated regions.
The frequency and scale of such operations in Quneitra and near the occupied Golan Heights reflect growing concerns over Israeli expansionism and its long-term impact on southern Syria.
April 20, 2025
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, War Crimes | Human rights, Israel, Syria, Zionism |
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Two former Microsoft employees slammed the company for complicity in the Israeli genocide in Gaza and systematic apartheid in the West Bank, urging global boycotts against the tech giant.
Hossam Nasr, a software engineer, and Abdo Mohamed, a data scientist, who were both fired in 2024 for organizing a vigil for Palestinians killed in Gaza, called for severing Microsoft’s partnerships that support military operations.
According to Nasr, Microsoft provides cloud services, AI capabilities, translation, and data storage to the Israeli military, and “they use Microsoft translation services to translate the data they collect on Palestinians from Arabic to Hebrew.”
“Then they feed that into a pipeline of AI targeting systems that help determine where to bomb in Gaza and help Israel classify innocent Palestinians as terrorists,” he said, citing reports showing a 200-fold increase in Israel’s use of Microsoft’s AI tools between October 2023 and March 2024.
“Their usage of cloud storage increased to 13.6 petabytes,” he added.
“Microsoft Azure also hosts the target bank for the Israeli military,” he said, noting: “It hosts the civil registry of the Palestinian population.”
“These systems allow Israel to accelerate and exacerbate its genocide in Gaza to unforeseen levels,” he said.
Nasr pointed out that Microsoft staff became deeply embedded in Israeli military units, including Unit 8200, the notorious Israeli military intelligence branch.
“Microsoft employees become so embedded… that they become described as soldiers, acting as soldiers within those units,” he said.
“This kind of deep partnership allows Israel to automate and remove any sort of human element to the Palestinians,” he added. “It turns the mass murder of Palestinians into essentially a video game.”
Nasr said Microsoft’s technology is also used in the West Bank through applications such as Al-Munasik, which helps control Palestinian movement.
“Microsoft is enabling the apartheid system and the racial segregation system in the West Bank and the rest of Palestine,” he said.
He also criticized Microsoft’s employee donation program, saying, “They allow donations to illegal Israeli settlements and match them.”
“No Azure for Apartheid” campaign, which they co-founded, was inspired by earlier efforts at other tech companies.
“That campaign started as bombs were dropping on the heads of Palestinian children in Gaza in the wake of the Sheikh Jarrah events in 2021,” Nasr said, adding, “We took inspiration from our colleagues at Google and Amazon… to launch our own campaign at Microsoft in 2024.”
Nasr explained that the goal of their campaign was to sever Microsoft’s partnerships that support the Israeli regime’s forces brutal attacks against Gaza and the West Bank.
He insisted that holding meetings and writing letters did not have the necessary impact, and boycotting the company was the only way to stop its cooperation.
Nasr said that their campaign coordinated the April 4 protests during Microsoft’s 50th anniversary events.
“As soon as we became aware that Microsoft was planning a celebration… we made it clear that we will not allow Microsoft to celebrate while their hands are stained with Palestinian blood.”
“It is no longer sufficient to be in meetings with executives or writing emails,” Nasr highlighted.
“It is imperative for us… to stop materially contributing and materially partnering to the genocide of our brothers and sisters in Palestine,” he emphasized.
“We have made a huge dent in this Microsoft castle,” Nasr concluded. “I do believe that Microsoft’s reputation has never been more tarnished because of its complicity in genocide,” he said.
Nasr said losing his job or being deported from the US was a “cheap price to pay” compared to what Palestinians endure.
“A lot of the time I’m asked… Are you not scared of being fired? Of being deported?” he said. “And my response is always… Are you not scared of being complicit in the Holocaust of our time? Of what you’ll tell your children and grandchildren when they ask… Where were you when the genocide in Palestine and Gaza was happening?”
The Israel regime launched the campaign of genocide in Gaza on October 7, 2023.
Since then, it has killed at least 51,065 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured more than 116,505 others.
April 19, 2025
Posted by aletho |
Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | Human rights, Israel, Palestine, United States, Zionism |
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International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi called threats of strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities “unacceptable.”
“The IAEA has always emphasized that threats against Iran’s nuclear facilities are unacceptable and that the attacks that are being discussed could not only worsen existing problems, but also create more serious environmental consequences,” Grossi was quoted as saying by the IRIB news agency on Thursday.
On Wednesday, The New York Times newspaper reported that US President Donald Trump did not allow Israel to attack Iranian nuclear facilities after he decided to pursue diplomacy with Tehran. Israeli officials were allegedly ready to attack Iran in May and counted on US support, promising to set back Tehran’s nuclear program by a year or more.
April 18, 2025
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, War Crimes | IAEA, Iran, Israel, United States, Zionism |
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In repeatedly targeting and destroying a cancer center in Yemen, the United States has carried on a long pattern of bombing hospitals.
On March 24, the United States carried out a premeditated attack on the Al Rasool Al-Azam Oncology Hospital in Saada, Yemen, turning it into rubble. At least two people were killed and 13 more injured.
This was not an isolated incident. Eight days previously, on March 16, Washington launched 13 separate airstrikes against the building, systematically destroying the hospital’s five blocks.
The Anti-Cancer Fund, a local government medical organization, described the events as a clear “war crime.”
“These attacks are not just airstrikes, but systematic executions, intended to eliminate hope and wipe out life amid a suffocating blockade,” it said in a statement.
The Yemeni Cancer Control Fund, a government body tasked with overseeing the country’s healthcare system, agreed, alleging that they were part of what it called:
A systematic American policy that has targeted the Yemeni people for years through bombings and a suffocating blockade, exacerbating the humanitarian crisis and spreading deadly diseases, including cancer, which has surged due to the use of internationally banned weapons since 2015.”
The newly built Al Rasool Al-Azam Hospital was the centerpiece of the region’s healthcare network. Costing over $7.5 million, the center provided crucial treatment to hundreds of cancer patients who previously went without any care at all or faced an eight-and-a-half-hour round trip to the capital, Sanaa, for therapy.
The repeated strikes on healthcare facilities in Yemen have received virtually zero attention in the United States. Indeed, Washington’s attacks on Yemen have elicited almost no critical coverage, with corporate media seemingly more outraged that senior Trump officials used a Signal group chat to plan their operations than those deeds leading to the deaths of dozens of civilians.
The United States returned to bombing Yemen because its government, in an effort to halt the Israeli assault on Gaza, stopped Israeli ships traveling through the Red Sea. And like Palestine, Yemen is under an international blockade, depriving its people of basic necessities.
Post-9/11 Hospital Attacks
The destruction of the Al Rasool Al-Azam Oncology Center was far from a unique occurrence. In fact, the attack carries on an extremely long and well-documented tradition of the United States targeting hospitals.
In August 2017, the Trump administration itself not only bombed a hospital in Raqqa, Syria but reportedly used white phosphorous munitions to do so. Officials from the Red Crescent reported that the U.S. carried out 20 separate attacks on the hospital, systematically targeting its power generators, vehicles and wards, turning the site into rubble. At least 30 civilians were killed, some likely due to the effects of the white phosphorous, which causes respiratory damage and organ failure.
A highly controversial and widely-banned weapon, white phosphorous instantly ignites upon contact with oxygen, sticks to clothes and skin, and burns at an extremely high temperature. It cannot be extinguished by water, leaving those affected to suffer excruciating – and deadly – injuries.
In 2015, the U.S. Air Force carried out a bombing campaign against a Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan. The trauma center, one of the newest, largest, and most recognizable buildings in the city, was deliberately targeted; Doctors Without Borders had already supplied the military with its precise coordinates.
The aftermath of US airstrikes on the MSF Trauma Centre in Kunduz, Afghanistan in October 2015. Photo | MSF
An internal inquiry revealed that the airmen aboard the AC-130 gunship that carried out the operation pushed back against their superiors, questioning the strike’s legality. However, they were overruled and ordered to bomb the hospital regardless of their concerns. A Doctors Without Borders report concluded that the U.S. knew where the hospital was and that it did not hide any Taliban fighters and targeted it anyway. At least 42 people are known to have been killed in the incident.
The 2015 Kunduz bombing was a unique moment in history, as it was the first time that one Nobel Peace Prize winner (Barack Obama) bombed another one (Doctors Without Borders).
During his time in office, Obama bombed seven countries, including Libya. In July 2011, as part of its mission to overthrow the government of Muammar Gaddafi, NATO planes bombed Zliten, destroying the city’s hospital. Eighty-five people were killed, including at least 11 at the medical center. The event helped turn what was once Africa’s most prosperous and stable country into a failed state replete with open-air slave markets. Libya’s downfall has, in turn, helped to destabilize the entire Sahel region.
Perhaps no country in the 21st century has felt the wrath of Washington as much as Iraq. U.S. strikes on civilian infrastructure were a frequent occurrence, and hospitals were no different. Arguably, the most notable example is the April 2003 bombing of the Red Crescent Maternity Hospital in Baghdad.
American missiles struck the city center complex housing the hospital, killing several and wounding at least 25 people, including doctors.
The charitable hospital was crucial to providing affordable healthcare to working-class Iraqis, charging ten times less than the city’s private clinics. It developed a reputation as a first-class maternity hospital, delivering an average of 35 babies per day before the invasion. UNICEF noted a sharp rise in maternal mortality after the bombing, partially due to the lack of obstetric care in Baghdad.
Clinton’s War on Hospitals
Four years earlier, in May 1999, U.S.-led NATO planes dropped cluster munitions on an outdoor market and hospital in the Yugoslav city of Nis, killing at least 15 people and injuring 60 more, according to the hospital’s director. Cluster munitions are now banned under international law. Regardless, between 2023 and 2024, the United States transferred large quantities to Ukraine for use against Russian forces.
Two weeks after the Nis bombing, NATO targeted a hospital in the Yugoslav capital, Belgrade. The missile strike destroyed much of the maternity ward, with rescuers pulling infants and mothers from the rubble in the dead of night. At least three people were reported killed.
The Yugoslav attacks were not the Clinton administration’s only attacks on medical facilities. In 1998, in response to Osama bin Laden’s recent bombings of American Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, President Bill Clinton ordered an attack on the Al-Shifa medicine factory in Sudan. Fourteen cruise missiles hit the plant, turning what had been the largest producer of medicine in the country into a pile of twisted metal. The factory had produced over half of Sudan’s pharmaceuticals, including crucial antibiotics and antimalarial and diarrhea medications.
While not a hospital, the destruction of Al-Shifa was vastly more lethal than any other attack listed. The event led to a collapse in the availability of drugs in one of Africa’s poorest countries. The German Ambassador to Sudan estimated that the death toll reached into the “tens of thousands.”
The Clinton administration publicly insisted that the plant was actually bin Laden’s chemical weapons factory. Privately, however, Secretary of State Madeline Albright worked hard to suppress a government report, noting this was not true.
Sudan was Clinton’s second attack on Africa. In June 1993, U.S. soldiers (under U.N. auspices) carried out a mortar attack against Digfer Hospital in Mogadishu, Somalia. The bombs destroyed the main reception area, blew a gaping hole in the wall of the recovery room, and shattered glass across the building. “It probably will never be known how many Somalis died in the U.N. [U.S.] onslaught,” wrote The Chicago Tribune. One reason for this is that helicopter-borne soldiers attacked reporters and photographers attempting to cover the attack, throwing stun grenades at them and chasing them away from the scene.
Latin American Dirty Wars
During the 1980s, Latin America and the Caribbean were the sites of intense U.S. interest. In October 1983, during the U.S. invasion of the island, American warplanes hit the Richmond Hill Mental Hospital in Grenada. The Reagan administration initially attempted to deny the attack before finally conceding their culpability. Dozens of people were injured, and at least 20 were killed, although The New York Times suggested an actual death toll of over twice that number.
The U.S. invaded Grenada in order to crush the island’s socialist revolution. In Central America, however, it relied on funding, training and arming proxy forces to do its bidding. These death squads would wreak destruction across the region and continue to shape its politics and society to this day.
In El Salvador, U.S.-trained forces waged a dirty war against the population in order to crush leftist FMLN guerilla forces. Hospitals were among their preferred targets. On April 15, 1989, for instance, pilots flying U.S.-made A-37 jets and UH 1M and Hughes-500 helicopters bombed an FMLN hospital in San Ildefonso, killing five people.
Paratroopers armed with M-16 rifles arrived on U.S. helicopters and attacked and abducted the medical staff, including French nurse Madeleine Lagadec. Before executing her, the soldiers spent eight hours raping and torturing her. Images of the remains of her mutilated body caused outrage in France, which issued an international arrest warrant for the four U.S.-backed officers overseeing the operation.
In Nicaragua, meanwhile, throughout the 1980s, U.S.-trained paramilitaries intentionally attacked “soft targets” such as hospitals in an effort to terrorize the population into dropping their support for the country’s socialist government.
A study by Richard M. Garfield, Professor of Nursing at Columbia University, found that, between 1981 and 1984, at least 63 health centers were forced to close due to attacks from the U.S.-backed “Contra” death squads.
These operations were carefully planned for maximum effect, with the Contras leaving behind graffiti at the crime scenes, announcing that the “Lion Cubs of Reagan” had visited the area. Throughout their campaign, President Reagan supported the Contras, labeling them “the moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers.” Dr. Michael Gray, Chairman of Occupational Medicine at Kino Community Hospital in Tucson, AZ., a doctor who visited Nicaragua, held a different opinion, describing them and their actions as “no different than the SS at the end of the Second World War.”
Cold War Killing Machine
During the American wars in Indochina, the bombing of hospitals was official – if unstated – U.S. policy.
Alan Stevenson, a former Army intelligence specialist, testified that, while on duty in Quang Tri province in Vietnam, he regularly identified hospitals to be struck by U.S. fighter jets. “The bigger the hospital, the better it was,” he said, explaining the military’s thought process. “This wasn’t something that was hush‐hush,” he added. “We really didn’t consider it that nasty an item.”
Former Air Force captain Gerald Greven corroborated Stevenson’s allegations, noting that he personally ordered bombing raids against medical centers. It was official policy to “look for hospitals as targets,” he said.
Perhaps the most notorious and well-documented case of this in Vietnam occurred on December 22, 1972, when American planes dropped over 100 bombs on the 1000-bed Bach Mai Hospital in Hanoi, nearly obliterating the building, in the process killing 28 medical staff and an unconfirmed number of patients.
The U.S. military justified the strike by claiming that the hospital “frequently housed antiaircraft positions” and noted its proximity to a military airbase.
During the Congressional hearings on clandestine U.S. activities in Laos and Cambodia, meanwhile, lawmakers were told that the bombing of hospitals was “routine.” Indeed, the former remains the most bombed country, per capita, in world history.
Like in Vietnam, the targeting of hospitals was not only commonplace but deliberate. In 1973, former Army captain Rowan Malphurs testified that, while serving with the Combined Intelligence Center of Vietnam, he helped orchestrate attacks on Cambodian health centers. “We were planning bombings of hospitals,” he said. Yet Malphurs was unrepentant. “I think it was a good thing because the North Vietnamese Army had a privileged sanctuary in Cambodia,” he added.
Thus, as this brief rundown of the past five decades has shown, last month’s attacks on the Al Rasool Al-Azam Oncology Hospital in Yemen are far from an aberration. As these examples from 13 different countries show, Washington, in fact, has a longstanding history of targeting medical centers.
Going further back, the government of North Korea estimates that the U.S. military destroyed some 1,000 hospitals during the Korean War. These numbers are entirely plausible, given the gigantic bombing campaign that the country faced. Entire cities were leveled or flooded after American planes targeted dams. Professor Bruce Cummings, America’s foremost expert on Korea, estimates that the U.S. killed around 25% of the entire North Korean population between 1950 and 1953.
Radio Silence
Article 8 of the Rome Statute, one of the fundamental texts of international law, explicitly identifies “intentionally directing attacks against buildings dedicated to religion, education, art, science or charitable purposes, historic monuments, hospitals and places where the sick and wounded are collected, provided they are not military objectives,” as war crimes.
That the Trump administration repeatedly struck a well-known and easily identifiable hospital in Yemen is an extremely important story. But it has, in fact, received zero coverage in corporate media. Searches for “Al Rasool Al-Azam Hospital” and “Yemen Hospital” in the Dow Jones Factiva news database, a tool that records the content from more than 32,000 U.S. and international media outlets, show that no mainstream American publication has even mentioned this grave war crime.
This is not because the information is particularly hard to find. Well-known media figures such as Pepe Escobar and Jackson Hinkle visited Saada and recorded viral videos from the wreckage where the hospital once stood. The information has been all over social media for weeks and has been covered widely in alternative media, including Drop Site News, AntiWar.com, Truthout, Common Dreams, and foreign outlets such as Al-Jazeera, RT (formerly Russia Today), and The Cradle. Thus, every single editor in every newsroom and television studio in the United States has access to this information and made the decision not to cover the story – a fact that suggests a lot about the diversity of opinion and freedom of our press.
This complete disinterest in U.S. misdeeds sits in stark contrast to when official enemy states do the same thing. When Russia hit hospitals in Ukraine and Syria, those incidents became front page news and led television news bulletins. Moreover, corporate media regularly explicitly framed the events as war crimes (see PBS, Politico, Foreign Policy, CNN, Newsweek, ABC News and the Los Angeles Times). Talking heads waxed lyrical about how Russian President Vladimir Putin must be brought to justice. And yet, when the United States does the same, that cacophony falls to complete silence – even when it is carried out by a president that many in corporate media appear desperate to attack at any opportunity.
What the recent attack on the cancer center in Yemen underlines is that it is dangerous to be a healthcare worker. The United States has a longstanding history of targeting hospitals in nations it selects for regime change. This is true of both Democratic and Republican administrations.
Therefore, the sad truth is that if you are in a country targeted by the United States, you are often safer away from a hospital than inside one.
April 17, 2025
Posted by aletho |
War Crimes | Human rights, Latin America, NATO, United States, Yemen |
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The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights announced Tuesday that Israeli airstrikes have killed at least 71 civilians in Lebanon since the November 27 ceasefire came into effect, in what it described as an ongoing Israeli assault on Lebanese territory.
Among the victims were 14 women and 9 children, according to the UN rights office, which added that fear continues to grip the population, and over 92,000 people remain displaced from their homes.
UN human rights spokesperson Thameen al-Kheetan told reporters in Geneva that the southern suburb of Beirut was bombed in two separate incidents since the ceasefire was struck. He noted that both strikes targeted areas near schools.
On the morning of April 1, an Israeli airstrike hit a residential building in the area, killing two civilians and causing serious damage to nearby buildings, he said.
Just two days later, on April 3, Israeli airstrikes destroyed a newly constructed medical center operated by the Islamic Medical Association in the southern town of Naqoura. The strike also damaged two ambulances.
Deadly Israeli strikes
Between April 4 and 8, Israeli airstrikes reportedly killed at least six more people in various towns across southern Lebanon.
Al-Kheetan said Israeli strikes have repeatedly hit civilian infrastructure since the ceasefire was declared, including residential buildings, medical facilities, roads, and even a café in the town of Aita al-Shaab.
The latest report comes amid continued Israeli violations of the ceasefire agreement, with repeated attacks on southern Lebanon, the Bekaa region, and Beirut’s southern suburb, alongside the ongoing Israeli occupation of five disputed points along the border.
Targeting of civilians
Earlier today, one person was killed and three others, including a child, were injured in an Israeli airstrike targeting a vehicle in the town of Aitaroun, in the Bint Jbeil district of southern Lebanon.
On a related note, MP Hassan Fadlallah of the Loyalty to the Resistance bloc emphasized in parliament last week that expelling the Israeli occupation from Lebanese territory, liberating Lebanese prisoners, halting “Israel’s” aggression and violations of sovereignty, and rebuilding what it has destroyed are responsibilities that fall on all loyal Lebanese citizens, as well as on the state and its institutions.
He emphasized that the defensive strategy is a purely internal Lebanese matter to be agreed upon by those who believe in these principles and who recognize “Israel” as Lebanon’s enemy.
“As for those who do not view Israel as an enemy of Lebanon, who incite internal division, and who promote, justify, and market for the enemy — such individuals are unfit to take part in any internal dialogue focused on building the components of national strength to protect sovereignty,” Fadlallah indicated.
April 15, 2025
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, War Crimes | Israel, Lebanon, Zionism |
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With US support, UAE proxy militias in Yemen are planning a ground offensive to take the port city of Hodeidah from the Ansarallah-led Yemeni government and armed forces, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on 15 April, in a move that would reignite the country’s devastating civil war.
“Private American security contractors provided advice to the Yemeni factions on a potential ground operation, people involved in the planning said. The United Arab Emirates, which supports these factions, raised the plan with American officials in recent weeks,” the WSJ wrote.
The ground offensive seeks to take advantage of the recent US bombing campaign targeting the Yemeni Armed Forces (YAF).
US officials speaking with the newspaper said Washington has launched more than 350 strikes during its current campaign against Yemen and claim that the YAF has been weakened as a result.
While the Ansarallah-led National Salvation Government controls Yemen’s most populous areas, including the capital, Sanaa, and the strategic port city of Hodeidah, other parts of the country have remained in control of UAE and Saudi-supported factions since the end of the civil war in 2022.
Under the plan being discussed, factions of the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) would deploy their forces north to the western Yemeni coast and try to seize the Red Sea port of Hodeidah, pro-UAE Yemeni sources said.
If successful, the ground operation would push the YAF back from large parts of the coast from where they have launched attacks on Israeli-linked ships transiting the Red Sea.
The YAF began targeting Israeli-linked ships in November 2023 in response to Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. The US launched a war against Yemen and the YAF on Israel’s behalf shortly thereafter.
Capturing Hodeidah would be a “major blow” to the Ansarallah-led Yemeni government, “depriving them of an economic lifeline while also cutting off their main route to receive arms from Iran,” the WSJ wrote.
“A major ground offensive risks reigniting a Yemeni civil war that has been dormant for years and that spurred a humanitarian crisis when a Saudi–Emirati coalition supported local ground forces with a bombing campaign,” the WSJ added.
Officials from Saudi Arabia, which supports another Yemeni faction, the Presidential Leadership Council (PLC), have privately said they will not join or help a ground offensive in Yemen.
During the civil war, the Saudi-led coalition, alongside the UAE, conducted a major bombing campaign in Yemen that killed nearly 15,000 people, while the Saudi navy blockaded Yemen’s major ports, causing a humanitarian crisis that killed hundreds of thousands more.
In 2018, the Saudi Kingdom launched three operations against Ansarallah in an attempt to capture Hodeidah, yet failed.
Ansarallah forces retaliated by launching ballistic missile and drone attacks on Saudi cities, including striking a Saudi Aramco oil storage facility in Jeddah, which threatened to devastate the kingdom’s oil production and exports.
The YAF also responded to the UAE’s aggression on Yemen by launching its first drone and missile attacks on Abu Dhabi in January 2022, targeting three oil trucks and an under-construction airport extension infrastructure.
Both the UAE and Saudi Arabia allegedly cooperated with and recruited fighters from the local Al-Qaeda affiliate, known as Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), to assist in their proxy war against Ansarallah.
April 15, 2025
Posted by aletho |
War Crimes, Wars for Israel | al-Qaeda, Saudi Arabia, UAE, United States, Yemen |
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Al Mayadeen’s correspondent in southern Lebanon reported on Tuesday that an Israeli occupation drone targeted a car in the town of Aitaroun in the Bint Jbeil district of southern Lebanon, near the border with occupied Palestine.
The Lebanese National News Agency reported that the Israeli aggression was carried out with three guided missiles, while Lebanon’s Ministry of Health reported one martyr and three wounded, including a child.
Also, according to the National News Agency, the Israeli occupation forces opened fire with machine guns on the eastern neighborhood of Mays al-Jabal.
The occupation continues to breach the ceasefire agreement with Lebanon through repeated assaults on the South, the Bekaa, and Beirut’s southern suburbs, as well as by maintaining control over the five disputed points.
On a related note, MP Hassan Fadlallah of the Loyalty to the Resistance bloc emphasized in parliament last week that expelling the Israeli occupation from Lebanese territory, liberating Lebanese prisoners, halting “Israel’s” aggression and violations of sovereignty, and rebuilding what it has destroyed are responsibilities that fall on all loyal Lebanese citizens, as well as on the state and its institutions.
He emphasized that the defensive strategy is a purely internal Lebanese matter to be agreed upon by those who believe in these principles and who recognize “Israel” as Lebanon’s enemy.
“As for those who do not view Israel as an enemy of Lebanon, who incite internal division, and who promote, justify, and market for the enemy — such individuals are unfit to take part in any internal dialogue focused on building the components of national strength to protect sovereignty,” Fadlallah indicated.
April 15, 2025
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | Israel, Lebanon, Zionism |
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On Thursday, Israeli forces intensified bombing and shelling across the destroyed, besieged, and starved Gaza Strip, causing dozens of casualties, including women and children.
In Gaza City, a building in the city center was targeted, killing at least five Palestinians and injuring many others. Six more Palestinians lost their lives, and several were wounded when the army struck the Abu Al-Awn family’s home in the Shuja’iyya neighborhood.
Among the injured was a Palestinian infant whose arm had to be amputated following the attack.
In Deir Al-Balah, central Gaza, the army launched missiles at the Abu Al-Ajeen area, killing two Palestinians and wounding several others. Homes in Qizan Najjar, south of Khan Younis, were also shelled by Israeli forces.
Further south, in Khan Younis, a missile targeted the Abu Doqqa family’s home in the Shahayda area, north of Abasan town, killing two Palestinians, including a child.
In another incident, a displaced family sheltering near Nasser Hospital was struck by a missile fired from an Israeli helicopter, killing one Palestinian and injuring others.
Additional strikes in Khan Younis led to the death of a woman and injuries to several residents at the Al-Farra family’s home in the Sheikh Nasser area.
In Mawasi Rafah, the southernmost part of Gaza, a Palestinian was killed when soldiers fired live rounds at displaced residents in the Shakoush area.
On the political front, Israeli Channel 13 reported ongoing indirect discussions regarding a prisoner exchange deal, which include proposals for the release of more than five Israeli captives. Kan News stated that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu conducted a situation assessment with military officials and negotiation teams about the Egyptian-mediated proposal.
According to reports, the Egyptian plan includes releasing eight captives alive, implementing a 50-day ceasefire, allowing humanitarian aid to enter Gaza, and commencing negotiations for a second phase aimed at ending the war and facilitating an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
Sources reveal that the proposal, considered “serious” by Arab media, includes the release of eight or nine Israeli captives, among them an American-Israeli soldier named Aidan Alexander, along with eight bodies. In return, Israel would release 300 Palestinian detainees, including 150 serving life sentences, and 2,200 detainees from Gaza.
The plan also outlines a 70-day extension of the ceasefire in Gaza, during which the second phase of negotiations would proceed. This phase includes facilitating the delivery of fuel and humanitarian aid to Gaza, reopening border crossings, and providing Hamas with detailed information about the status of remaining hostages.
Medical sources cited by Al Jazeera reported that Israeli attacks since dawn on Thursday have claimed the lives of at least 29 Palestinians, with additional casualties being reported amid ongoing strikes. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), expressed alarm over the escalating humanitarian crisis. He warned of worsening health conditions and rising fatalities resulting from Israel’s blockade on aid shipments, emphasizing the urgent need for medical evacuations for over 10,000 individuals in Gaza.
To date, Israeli bombardments have claimed the lives of at least 50,886 Palestinians, including 12,365 women and 17,954 children. Approximately 11,000 individuals remain missing, largely believed to be under the rubble of bombed homes and buildings. The total number of wounded has now surpassed 115,875, primarily affecting children, women, and the elderly.
April 11, 2025
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | Gaza, Israel, Palestine, Zionism |
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UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres told the Security Council this week that, “As aid has dried up, the floodgates of horror have re-opened. Gaza is a killing field – and civilians are in an endless death loop.” With not a single mention of the word genocide in his entire speech, Guterres stated, towards the end, “The world may be running out of words to describe the situation in Gaza, but we will never run away from the truth.”
A correction is needed here. The world is not running out of words to describe the situation in Gaza — “genocide” will do for the moment — and the UN is indeed running away from the truth.
Guterres’s statement is evidence of this, as is over a year of prioritising Israel’s security narrative and purported concern about the hostages, while Israel itself bombs them along with Palestinian civilians in Gaza. “Certain truths are clear since the atrocious 7 October terror attacks by Hamas,” said Guterres.
But he uttered not a single word about Israel bombing the Gaza Strip.
As expected, because the international community follows its own trends rather than the facts on the ground, Guterres maintained the rhetoric of ceasefires and humanitarian aid shamelessly. Ceasefires work, said the UN Secretary General, allowing for the release of hostages and the delivery of humanitarian aid. “That all ended with the shattering of the ceasefire,” he added, without bringing Israel’s culpability into the equation. The ceasefire just “shattered”.
It is the UN’s tactic of portraying the delivery of humanitarian aid as a form of neutrality that has enabled this façade of helplessness for so long. Humanitarian aid is highly politicised, which is one reason why there is always less money for it than there is for arms and ammunition. It is the reason why corrupt power remains at the helm; starving people need nourishment and they are forced to wait for it in the name of human rights. Meanwhile, the politics of liberation, of decolonisation, of autonomy, are not only marginalised but eliminated altogether.
Why? Because international law is forced to revolve around the demands of the oppressor and its accomplices.
Guterres should say something about this. Some truths from the halls of power would clarify why Gaza has been abandoned in the name of humanitarian aid and ceasefires.
In the absence of truth, though, Guterres would have the world believe that all that Gaza needs is linked to the delivery of humanitarian aid, and that the hostages can be released if a ceasefire is maintained. However, humanitarian aid can no longer even gloss over colonial violence; the Gaza Genocide is too visible to ignore. Negotiations for ceasefires take months due to Israel’s insistence on completely wiping out Palestinians from Gaza — more talks give the occupation state more time to finish the job — which make the correlation between ceasefires and the hostages’ release very minimal.
To further his humanitarian paradigm, Guterres reminded Israel of its obligations under international law which, of course, Israel will ignore. Again, however, the travesty of reminding a colonial enterprise – “an occupying power” as Israel is usually described to avoid describing its occupation as colonialism – to be mindful of its humanitarian duties is the way the UN pretends to make international law work.
But how about a reminder from Guterres that the colonised people are entitled to decolonisation under international law, instead of ensuring – against international law – that colonial entities are apparently entitled to commit genocide?
April 10, 2025
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Progressive Hypocrite, War Crimes | Gaza, Human rights, Israel, Palestine, United Nations |
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