Israeli commandos carry out kidnapping operation in north Lebanon
The Cradle | November 2, 2024
Israeli naval commandos conducted a raid in northern Lebanon on 1 November, abducting one Lebanese man, prominent journalist Hasan Illaik reported for Al-Mahatta.
Some 25 soldiers landed Friday on the Lebanese coast in Batroun, a Christian town south of Tripoli. They raided a chalet near the beach and abducted a Lebanese man before escaping in speedboats, the report says.
Illaik provided surveillance camera footage from the incident showing a group of soldiers taking the abducted person with them.
The abducted man has been identified as Imad Amhaz, who had been attending a month-long captain’s training course at a maritime institute located in the area.
Illaik reported further that Lebanese security forces are investigating the incident and suspect the Israeli commandos collaborated with German naval forces deployed to the Lebanese coast as part of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).
By collaborating with German naval forces, the Israeli commandos could ensure that the Lebanese Navy, which is active in the region to combat smuggling to Europe, would not be able to disrupt the operation.
Illaik suggested that the Israeli commandos were likely from the Shayetet 13 or Sayeret Matkal divisions of the Israeli military.
Shayetet 13 specializes in sea-to-land incursions, sabotage, maritime intelligence gathering, maritime hostage rescue, and boarding.
Sayeret Matkal is a special reconnaissance unit (sayeret) of Israel’s General Staff (matkal).
On Saturday afternoon, Lebanon’s Caretaker Minister of Public Works and Transportation, Ali Hamieh, told the media that “The kidnapped person is a sea captain of civilian and commercial ships and is receiving his education at a civilian institute.”
He added that the government and security institutions are conducting the necessary investigations.
Saudi news station Al-Hadath claimed that the abducted man was a top Hezbollah operative, citing sources within the Islamic resistance movement.
However, Hezbollah’s media relations department rejected the Al-Hadath claim.
The media relations department issued a statement, saying: “Our policy is very clear; we have previously explained and confirmed in past statements that there are no sources in Hezbollah or sources close to Hezbollah that would provide such alleged information to Al Hadath and its affiliated channels, which are openly engaged in the Zionist propaganda machine against our resistance and the Lebanese people.”
A massacre within a massacre: How journalists reporting on Gaza deaths are being targeted
By Eva Bartlett | RT | November 2, 2024
In spite of experiencing two Israeli wars on Gaza, I never imagined the horrific scenes coming out of northern Gaza now: Israel is exterminating the population in broad daylight, broadcast for all the world to see.
And no one is doing a damn thing to stop it.
Israel has besieged northern Gaza for weeks days, preventing most humanitarian aid from entering, putting the population of 400,000 already starving Palestinian civilians in the north at severe risk of full starvation. The Israeli parliament has voted to ban UNRWA, the United Nations agency for humanitarian aid, which has been the sole lifeline for many Palestinians.
Israeli forces have also bombarded water stations and wells, as well as cutting off communications with the outside world, depriving people of access to water, and leaving them trapped and isolated.
According to Euro-Med Monitor, in the last two weeks, 500 Palestinians have been confirmed dead in northern Gaza, “and thousands more have sustained injuries. Many remain unaccounted for, either in the streets or buried under the debris.”
As they have done elsewhere throughout the Gaza Strip during more than one year of genocide, Israeli forces are targeting hospitals in Gaza’s north. Euro-Med reported that, “Israeli army forces surrounded the Indonesian Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Lahia. They fired two artillery shells at the hospital, cut off its electricity, and targeted anyone moving in the area.”
The army is firing on medics and other rescuers, as they’ve done throughout 2023-2024, and as they did in 2009, when medics I was with came under Israeli sniper fire, and another medic I knew was killed by a flechette (dart) bomb. By killing the rescuers and destroying the hospitals, Israel ensures maimed Palestinians will go without medical care and probably die.
This is, of course, illegal under international law. But as Israel’s genocidal actions have shown the world, the Israeli government, army and settlers believe laws don’t apply to them. Take the horrific video of an Israeli drone precision-targeting a Palestinian child, killing it, and then bombing the civilians who ran to try to rescue the child. Par for the course for the Israeli army. Were the perpetrator one of the United States’ enemies, there would be calls for no-fly zones, sanctions and corporate media howling 24/7.
Not content to merely murder Palestinian civilians by bombing, sniping and starvation, the Israeli army has reportedly been deploying robots with explosives and leaving booby trapped barrels to remotely detonate.
The scenes which journalists have been able to publish are surreal, like science fiction, with quadcopters policing the streets. A week ago, a friend told me in a message that he had to choose between starving or risking being shot dead by Israel soldiers or quadcopters if he tried to get bread.
Some days ago, he messaged me at 4 in the morning: Israeli tanks were outside his home, the audio he sent was terrifying. He chose to stay in his home rather than endure another Nakba.
I don’t know if he is alive now.
War on journalists
Earlier this month, Palestinian cameraman Fadi al-Wahidi was shot in the neck by an Israeli quadcopter, leaving him paralyzed. Aside from Al Jazeera, for which Fadi worked, most Western media and journalist projection organizations are unsurprisingly silent.
Reporters Without Borders, which I previously wrote about for its downplaying the number of Palestinian journalists killed by Israel, has no entry on Fadi. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CJP), at least, does. Its entry notes:
“Al Wahidi was critically injured in the neck by a bullet fired from an Israeli reconnaissance aircraft while Al Wahidi and correspondent Anas Al-Sharif were covering an Israeli siege on northern Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp. Both men were wearing “Press” vests and clearly identifiable as journalists.”
Anas al-Sharif – who continues to courageously report from northern Gaza – told CJP they’d been in an area “completely far from the areas of operations of the Israeli occupation forces,” and full of residents when, “an Israeli reconnaissance drone fired at us. After the shooting, we tried to move to another safer place and hide from any danger, but a bullet from the plane hit our colleague Fadi Al-Wahidi in the neck, which led to his complete paralysis.”
Wahidi has since fallen into a coma. His colleagues and friends are pleading for some sort of international intervention to allow him to be taken abroad for medical care, to save his life.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported, citing the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate (PJS), that between 7 October 2023 and 10 October 2024 168 Palestinian journalists and media workers have been killed in the Gaza Strip, including 17 women, 360 were injured, and 60 were detained.
The extermination campaign continues
It’s absolutely devastating to watch every day pass with alarming new updates from or on northern Gaza. Like Anas al-Sharif, Palestinian journalist Hossam Shabat courageously reports apocalyptic scenes of Israeli bombarding in northern Gaza.
In a live update on X recently, he said:
“We are witnessing genocide and ethnic cleansing in northern Gaza, specifically in Jabalia, which is under siege from all directions. Israeli occupation forces are bombing displaced civilians, detaining them, and attempting to ethnically cleanse them. They are targeting shelters for displaced civilians, and bodies are scattered everywhere in the north, along the roads. Thousands of civilians are being forcefully displaced (ethnically cleansed) from the north.”
Meanwhile, in a bout of meaningless theatrics, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin have “demanded Tel Aviv improves the humanitarian situation in Gaza within 30 days or risk losing US military aid and face possible legal action.”
But clearly Israel’s biggest backer is spouting nonsense: there will be no cut to military aid, there will be no legal action, the US will never take a position to force Israel to cease the massacre in Gaza. In fact, giving Israel one month before any supposed repercussion is, in my opinion, giving Israel a green light to ethnically cleanse northern Gaza as quickly as possible.
Israel seems hell-bent on implementing former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s ‘Five Fingers’ project, which envisioned carving Gaza into segments, all under Israeli security control. If this is Israel’s intent, we will see the same bloody scenes from northern Gaza repeated block by block Israel all over the rest of the already brutalized Strip.
Eva Bartlett is a Canadian independent journalist. She has spent years on the ground covering conflict zones in the Middle East, especially in Syria and Palestine (where she lived for nearly four years).
The Threat to the Existence of Palestinian Refugee Camps
By Diana Khwaelid | International Solidarity Movement | November 1, 2024
Nur Shams – Tulkarm
Has Israel Succeeded in Implementing the Voluntary Displacement Policy in West Bank Camps?
Israeli forces launched another incursion into the Nur Shams camp in the city of Tulkarm. A military operation by the Israeli occupying forces in the camp led to the destruction of infrastructure that had already been damaged during previous incursions.
The presence of Occupation forces mechanisms
Almost a month after the last assault on the camp, the occupation returned to launch another military operation, further destroying infrastructure and the camp’s main entrance. Dozens of shops were damaged again after recent rebuilding efforts following the last assault.
Bulldozer used to destroy store fronts and infrastructures
The camp’s main electricity distribution transformer was targeted, sewage pipes were destroyed, and internet lines were cut during the military operation. The Israeli incursion into the camp and city lasted 13 continuous hours.
The headquarters of the UNRWA office and camp services were also targeted and destroyed just three days after the decision to ban UNRWA offices in Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank was issued.
One of the martyrs was 30-year-old Hossam al-Mallah, a resident of Tulkarm camp. An Israeli special force infiltrated Tulkarm, specifically targeting his workplace in the camp and fatally shooting him on the evening of Wednesday, October 31. On the same night, Israeli forces re-entered Tulkarm around 3:00 AM, with helicopters stationed in Nur Shams camp.
More destruction in the camp
Three Martyrs in Nur Shams Camp The Nur Shams refugee camp has continued to lose young lives, with the occupation repeatedly targeting Palestinian youth in camps across the northern West Bank. The martyrs include Mutassim Aisha, aged 32; Abdulaziz Abu Samin, aged 22; and Ahmad Fahmawi, aged 18. The Israeli forces killed them without warning.
Farewell to martyr Ahmad Fehmawi, 18 years old
Medical and ambulance crews were also prevented from entering the camp to transport wounded Palestinians, some of whom died due to the occupation’s obstruction of medical aid. Displacement of Camp Residents Abu Ahmed, a 61-year-old resident of Nur Shams camp, reported that the entrance to his house was destroyed for the sixth time, and his shops were destroyed for the third time during the recent incursion. He said the occupation aims to displace residents of Palestinian camps in the West Bank, especially in Nur Shams camp. However, he added, “The policy of destruction in the camp will not succeed in displacing us. Where are we supposed to go? There’s nowhere else.”
Israeli forces destroy Nur Shams – Tulkarm
A state of sadness has gripped the city of Tulkarm, especially in the camps, during the funeral of four martyrs who were killed by the occupation in less than 24 hours. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, the West Bank has witnessed 766 martyrs since the beginning of the year, with 177 from the city of Tulkarm.
Funeral of the martyrs
Lebanese PM: ‘Israel’ Rejects Ceasefire, Evacuation Warnings Additional War Crime
Al-Manar | November 1, 2024
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati accused the Zionist entity on Friday of rejecting any ceasefire with Lebanon or any commitment to the UN Resolution 1701.
In a meeting with UNIFIL Head of Mission and Force Commander Lt. Gen. Aroldo Lázaro at the Grand Serail, the acting Lebanese premier condemned the expansion of Israeli attacks, saying they signaled a Tel Aviv’s refusal to engage in truce efforts.
“The Israeli enemy’s renewed expansion… and its renewed targeting of Beirut’s Dahiyeh with destructive raids are all stark indicators that confirm the Israeli enemy’s rejection of all efforts being made to secure a ceasefire,” he said.
Mikati denounced the Israeli regime’s evacuation warnings for Baalbek and the southern city of Tyre as an additional war crime.
Meanwhile, he condemned the Israeli assaults on UNIFIL and the threats directed at its personnel, commending “the determination of many friendly nations to support the continuation of UNIFIL’s work in south Lebanon.”
Mikati insisted on the need to preserve the tasks and operational protocols assigned to UNIFIL, which are executed in close cooperation with the Lebanese Army.
The Lebanese PM further reaffirmed Lebanon’s ongoing commitment to the United Nations resolution and its provisions, asserting that “Israeli statements and the diplomatic signals received by Lebanon reflect the enemy’s obstinacy in rejecting proposed solutions and its insistence on a path of killing and destruction. This places the entire international community before its historical and moral responsibilities to stop this aggression.”
House Panel Refers Andrew Cuomo for Prosecution
By John Leake | Courageous Discourse | November 1, 2024
NBC News just reported the following:
The Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic sent a letter Wednesday to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland accusing the former governor of providing false statements to the panel when he testified on June 11.
In the Republican-led committee’s referral, it says Cuomo “knowingly and willfully made materially false statements” to the panel during its investigation into the New York’s Covid-19 response. The statements in question stem from exchanges about a New York state Department of Health report on nursing home infections and deaths that was released on July 6, 2020.
The report caught my eye because I have long followed the New York nursing home scandal, which I thoroughly investigated for our book The Courage to Face COVID-19: Preventing Hospitalization and Death While Battling the Bio-Pharmaceutical Complex.
This particular chapter about the mindbogglingly stupid and criminal pandemic response is so noteworthy that I believe it is worth republishing.
CHAPTER 11: “Cuomosexuals”
On the same day (March 23) that Dr. Bright initiated his scheme to restrict hydroxychloroquine to hospitalized patients, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo issued the following executive order:
No pharmacist shall dispense hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine except when written as prescribed as an FDA-approved indication; or as part of a state approved clinical trial related to COVID-19 for a patient who has tested positive for COVID-19 with such test result documented as part of the prescription. No other experimental or prophylactic use shall be permitted …
This order prohibited New York pharmacies from filling off-label prescriptions for Covid patients. The exceptionally determined Dr. Zelenko found a way to get around it, but it made his practice much more difficult.
Two days later, on March 25, the New York Department of Health issued the following directive to nursing home administrators:
No resident shall be denied re-admission or admission to the NH solely based on a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of COVID-19. NHs are prohibited from requiring a hospitalized resident who is determined medically stable to be tested for COVID-19 prior to admission or readmission.
As anyone who has ever worked in a nursing home knows, respiratory viruses can rip through the facility and cause severe illness. Virulent common cold rhinovirus outbreaks have resulted in multiple deaths in this setting. By March 25, it was crystal clear that the risk of severe disease and death from COVID-19 is by far the highest for patients over the age of seventy-five. Thus, ordering “confirmed or suspected” Covid patients to be readmitted to nursing homes was the equivalent of forcing foxes into henhouses. What was the New York State Health Department thinking?
On March 27, the United States set the world record of COVID-19 cases, and New York City was the nation’s epicenter—a five-alarm fire of serious infections. On April 10, New York State recorded more Covid cases than any country on earth except the United States in total and its nursing homes were devastated by the contagion. The legacy media was slow to notice this, perhaps because it was blinded by Governor Cuomo’s stardom. He gave daily press conferences in which he spoke about the measures he and his team were taking to keep New Yorkers safe. Millions across the country watched these performances for which he later received an Emmy.
As the spring wore on, reports of mass casualty events in nursing homes emerged, and these drew scrutiny to the Health Department’s March 25 directive. On May 21, the Associated Press reported that over 4,500 Covid patients had been sent back into New York nursing homes. This number would later be revised upward to over 9,000. The AP report coincided with growing suspicion the Health Department wasn’t being transparent about mortality data in these facilities. Suspicion was confirmed on January 28, 2021, when New York Attorney General Latitia James reported that the Department of Health had undercounted nursing home deaths by 50%.
On February 11, 2021, the New York Post published a leaked audio recording of Governor Cuomo’s secretary, Melissa DeRosa, speaking confidentially with the New York State Democratic Committee. On this tape she can be heard apologizing for concealing nursing home data. Though mealy-mouthed, her apology revealed that Cuomo’s team had acted out of fear of getting into trouble with the DOJ.
Basically, we froze because then we were in a position where we weren’t sure if what we were going to give to the Department of Justice or what we give to you guys and what we start saying was going to be used against us, and we weren’t sure if there was going to be an investigation.
After making this confession, she changed the subject to “the context” of their decision—namely, they were concerned that President Trump would try to politicize the incident in the upcoming election.
“Right around the same time, he [Trump] turns this into a giant political football,” she told the Committee.
For many who followed the New York nursing home story, it seemed emblematic of many pathologies afflicting the U.S. political and media class. First was the nepotism of the Cuomo family, with CNN Anchor Chris and Governor Andrew regularly putting on shows for their fawning, sentimental fans, many of whom called themselves “Cuomosexuals.” T-shirts, hats, coffee mugs, and even a popular music video appeared bearing the term’s definition: In love with competent, reassuring governance by a leader who uses complete sentences and displays common sense during a pandemic.
The Governor’s cult of personality yielded a $5.2 million book deal with Penguin Random House, initiated by an acquiring editor on March 19, 2020, three days before the state went into lockdown. The deal for American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic stipulated the book be ready for publication before the November elections. Governor Cuomo purportedly wrote a 70,000-word typescript in three months while at the same time executing his duties as full-time “Leader” in handling New York’s Covid crisis. The state ethics board approved the deal on the condition that no state resources were used in the book’s production, but that didn’t stop Cuomo from using his staff and a ghostwriter.
Complementing the governor’s book deal was his Emmy Award. As Bruce Paisner, CEO of the International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, explained in his announcement of November 20, 2020:
The Governor’s 111 daily briefings worked so well because he effectively created television shows, with characters, plot lines, and stories of success and failure. People around the world tuned in to find out what was going on, and New York tough became a symbol of the determination to fight back.
All these awards and extravagant expressions of adulation for the Governor’s leadership overlooked his executive order impeding access to hydroxychloroquine and his Health Department’s catastrophic directive to nursing homes. Protecting nursing homes was the only contagion control policy for which there was a crystal clear rationale. While general lockdowns did little to stop the spread, extraordinary measures to secure nursing homes probably would have given some protection to society’s most vulnerable. Instead, the New York Health Department sent thousands of Covid patients back into these facilities and then concealed the ensuing death toll. On June 2, 2020, USA Today reported that “Over the last three months, more than 40,600 long-term care residents and workers have died of COVID-19—about 40% of the nation’s death toll attributed to the coronavirus …”
After flying high in 2020, the Cuomo brothers fell back to earth in 2021, when multiple women accused the Governor of sexual harassment. He was then further accused of using his executive power to suppress these allegations. Chris Cuomo was likewise accused of using his powerful media connections to aid and abet his brother in the concealment.
A cynic might be tempted to wonder about the timing of the sexual misconduct allegations—right as reports emerged that New York Attorney General Letitia James, U.S. Attorney Seth Ducharme of the Eastern District of New York, and the FBI were opening investigations into allegations of malfeasance resulting in nursing home deaths. Especially disturbing was the allegation that Governor Cuomo provided legal immunity to nursing home executives from whom he received campaign contributions, possibly giving them carte blanche to cut costs at the expense of the care and safety of their residents. As the Attorney General stated in her preliminary findings:
On March 23, Governor Cuomo created limited immunity provisions for health care providers relating to COVID-19. The Emergency Disaster Treatment Protection Act (EDTPA) provides immunity to health care professionals from potential liability arising from certain decisions, actions and/or omissions related to the care of individuals during the COVID-19 pandemic. While it is reasonable to provide some protections for health care workers making impossible health care decisions in good faith during an unprecedented public health crisis, it would not be appropriate or just for nursing homes owners to interpret this action as providing blanket immunity for causing harm to residents.
With multiple allegations of sexual misconduct made in March 2021, the subject in mainstream media reporting was largely changed from New York State’s possible liability for the preventable deaths of thousands to Governor Cuomo’s inappropriate behavior with women.
On August 7, 2021, the New Yorker published a coda to Governor Cuomo’s rise to superstardom and his crashing fall from grace. In an essay titled, Diving Into the Subconscious of the “Cuomosexual,” reporter Lizzie Widdicombe posed the question:
How could we have witnessed the Governor’s narcissism, bullying, and hackneyed paternalism and found these qualities attractive?
To answer it, she interviewed psychoanalyst Virginia Goldner, who explained that Governor Cuomo “was radiating an eroticized masculinity that has within it hostility and a little tenderness. That combination of soft and hard—mostly hard, but also soft—is what so many women crave in some way.”
Dr. Goldner’s remarks pointed to a key feature of how the public responded to official Covid policy. Approval of policies had little to do with their substance. Mostly it derived from impressions of the personal qualities, political affiliation, and perceived authority of the officials who presented the policies. Governor Cuomo exuded masculine confidence and gave the impression of taking bold action against a foreign invader. His performances were fascinating to watch, but they had little to do with reality.
By late March of 2020, the virus had spread far beyond the possibility of being contained. The Swedish state epidemiologist, Anders Tegnell, pointed this out in a March 28, 2020 New York Times interview, but no major public health official in the United States acknowledged this reality. Because the virus was far beyond containment, it was unlikely that any of Governor Cuomo’s contagion control orders such as his statewide lockdown or shutdown of “nonessential businesses” made any positive difference. He was awarded an Emmy for embodying “the determination to fight back” against the virus. In fact, he disarmed New Yorkers by impeding their access to the only weapon (hydroxychloroquine) known at the time for fighting it. Covid patients, including thousands of sitting ducks in nursing homes, were consequently left defenseless.
From: The Courage to Face COVID-19: Preventing Hospitalization and Death While Battling the Bio-Pharmaceutical Complex, by John Leake and Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH, SKYHORSE, New York, 2022.
In Bryansk, the West once again shows its terrorist face
By Lucas Leiroz | Strategic Culture Foundation | November 1, 2024
On October 28, 2024, in the Bryansk region, an undisputed territory of the Russian Federation, military personnel and border guards prevented an attempted ground invasion led by a foreign sabotage and reconnaissance group consisting of approximately 20 people.
As a result of the clash, four foreign saboteurs from the USA, Canada and Poland were eliminated by Russian soldiers. The other members of the group were hit by rocket and artillery fire while trying to evade, suffering even greater losses. Militarily, the enemy operation was an absolute failure, with no practical results on the battlefield and a high number of casualties.
It is surprising that, despite the fact that the conflict is, for the Western media, “between Russia and Ukraine”, not a single Ukrainian military personnel was identified in the group. It was discovered that the destroyed saboteurs had foreign weapons, uniforms and communications equipment, as well as personal items indicating their belonging to other countries that are not legally involved in the conflict in Ukraine. For example, according to some reports circulating on military channels (and confirmed by me with local sources), a Canadian flag, a prayer book in Polish, and a notebook with notes on tactical training in English were found with the dead enemies.
In addition, a rather interesting fact drew the attention of the Russian military to the case. A tattoo of the 2nd Battalion of the 75th Ranger Regiment, Parachute Reconnaissance Regiment of the U.S. Army Special Forces, was found on the body of one of the dead militants. It is practically impossible that such a tattoo was made “by chance”. Surely, the eliminated enemy was a veteran of such a military unit, and therefore a member of one of the most qualified commando groups in the West.
It must be remembered that the 75th Parachute Reconnaissance Regiment of the United States Army (75th Ranger Regiment), also known simply as the “Rangers”, is an amphibious reconnaissance paratrooper regiment. Like all American military units, the regiment is directly subordinate to the U.S. Department of Defense – and is, of course, part of the American war apparatus. The headquarters and main units of the Army’s special forces are stationed on the territory of the U.S. Army unit at Fort Benning, Georgia.
The regiment is designed to perform special combat missions, including reconnaissance and sabotage behind enemy lines, capture of airfields and reconnaissance in the interests of advancing units of the Ground Forces. Units of the 75th Parachute Regiment are troops prepared for helicopter landing or amphibious assault, being highly qualified groups with broad operational capabilities for the most diverse environments of military activity.
Officially, by decision of the U.S. Army leadership, the parachute battalions of the 75th Airborne Division must be on combat readiness to deploy anywhere in the world within 18 hours. This only reinforces how the group is part of what is most advanced, special and sophisticated in the American military.
Despite the special nature of the American unit, the Western media simply ignored Russian reports of a Ranger in the Bryansk raid. There was no explanation from U.S. authorities as to why members of their most highly skilled military personnel were fighting in a land invasion on another continent.
In theory, the Rangers should be under the full control of U.S. authorities. Like any special forces unit, the group must be on combat readiness so that it can be called into a real operational situation at any time – if Washington deems it necessary to use such forces on the battlefield. Given such conditions, it would not be an exaggeration if the Russian Federation viewed the involvement of such special forces in Ukraine as an open declaration of war, prompting an appropriate military response.
In practice, once again, it is only Russia’s diplomatic goodwill and its desire for de-escalation that prevent Moscow from taking decisive action against Western countries. NATO is making it increasingly clear that it is at war with Moscow and will not stop its efforts to harm Russia, using ever more terrorism and even its most skilled troops.
As long as this Western war effort is limited to low-level impacts, such as the useless and shameful invasion of Bryansk, Russian patience will prevent a reaction. But it is unwise for the West to continue betting on the constant violation of Russian red lines, since once patience runs out, there will be no turning back.
Here’s why the Israeli military only knows how to fight civilians
By Robert Inlakesh | Al Mayadeen | October 31, 2024
While it may sound hyperbolic, the Israeli military is only truly prepared to commit high-tech civilian massacres and cannot confront any well-prepared foes. The Zionist regime’s history of asymmetric warfare lulled it into a false sense of security that supplemented their racist worldview, proving catastrophic for them in today’s multi-front war.
Who are the soldiers who make up the military?
In order to understand the Israeli military and how it fights, we first have to understand the society that shapes its soldiers. All Israelis are indoctrinated from a young age with a supremacist ideology through their school system and are geared toward military service from the moment they exit the womb. They believe their army to be “the most moral” on earth, while also believing in the concept of their own supremacy over others.
Any discussion on the Zionist armed forces must begin with recognizing who the Israeli public are because when every one of them finishes high school, they are required to do a 2-3-year stint of mandatory service, which is often followed by reserve service for some time. While there are the likes of the Ultra-Orthodox (Haredim) who do not serve due to religious reasons and liberal Israelis who often use mental health issues as an excuse, most are drafted into some section of the military.
Those soldiers who enter their mandatory years of service, who will actually experience real combat settings, will not enter direct warfare and are instead stationed at checkpoints, do crowd control, or participate in night raids that aim to arrest teenagers who do things like throw stones. This is why many young Israelis find it more mentally stimulating to join the Air Force or work on intelligence. It is not uncommon to find soldiers sitting at checkpoints, bored out of their minds and with frustrated looks. For journalists covering protests across the West Bank, the Israeli soldiers who are deployed to shoot at children/teenagers who burn tires and throw stones act as if they are playing a game of paintball.
These soldiers also quickly gain rank in the Israeli army, earning in a matter of years what most other militaries would usually only issue to their forces after 10 to 15 years of service. These are entitled individuals whose minds aren’t focused and especially over the past decades have become ill-disciplined, permitted to get away with all kinds of decisions they take on an individual basis. It is a citizens’ army, which means that they are very much part of the society as a whole.
If we look at the actions they have been able to commit during armed confrontations, especially inside the Gaza Strip, it is no wonder that they feel emboldened to take matters into their own hands at this time too. This is exemplified through the trend over the past year where their fighters have filmed themselves committing all kinds of crimes and perverted activities, posting this onto social media.
These videos that are posted gleefully on online platforms like Tiktok, where Israeli soldiers wear the underwear of Palestinian women they displaced and killed or blow up/bulldoze civilian homes, are not only reflective of a lack of discipline but also hurt the objectives of the Zionist entity too.
The following are two such cases that highlight how the soldiers damaged the Israeli army’s war efforts: 1) The instant release of information and photos/videos of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, which prevented their superiors from creating a false story about what happened and inflicting a psychological blow. 2) Israeli forces who seized the Rafah Crossing in May filmed themselves callously destroying the site and insulting the Egyptian army while committing an action that technically violated the normalization agreement between Cairo and “Tel Aviv”.
So why can the Israeli army not just clear up this problem? Well, we all saw what happened when 10 soldiers were detained over the gang-rape of a Palestinian detainee; who was being held at the Sde Teiman detention facility without any charge. This led to protests where thousands of Israelis rioted and stormed military facilities in what were dubbed the “right to rape” demonstrations. However, it wasn’t just protesters, the idea of the right of soldiers to gang-rape prisoners was expressed by members of the Israeli Knesset and received support from a large segment of the public.
Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that if the Israeli high command gives the order to begin prosecuting its soldiers for posting videos of themselves burning homes in Gaza and defecating on the floors of houses or committing a litany of other disgusting actions, they would face an internal uprising against such decisions.
What is the Israeli military strategy?
Understanding that Israeli society is inextricably linked to the armed forces, it also helps to shape how we view the mindset of this military. For instance, while in most societies around the world, a civilian death is perceived as more damaging than the death of a soldier, this is precisely the opposite for Israelis. This partly comes down to the supremacist myth of Israeli superiority and also the fact that soldier deaths have not been all that common, with the exception of occasional lone-wolf attacks here and there.
The doctrine of the Israeli military is roughly congruent with that of the US’ Counterinsurgency model that emerged during the so-called “War on Terror” in the early 2000s, yet it differs in key dimensions that make it way less effective than the American military.
In the 1990s and early 2000s, the Israeli military enjoyed asymmetry on the battlefield, heavily relying on their air force to respond to aggression with a significant force that would complete missions and achieve tactical victories at a very low cost to military personnel. While relying on their superior military vehicles/aircraft during the years of the Second Intifada (2000-2005), the Israelis managed to inflict a defeat on the West Bank-based Resistance groups, the most significant blow being delivered during their 2002 “Operation Defensive Shield” that resulted in around 500 Palestinians being killed.
In the year 2000, the Zionist regime withdrew from South Lebanon – as the situation became costly to their forces – then in 2005, they decided to do the same in the Gaza Strip after failing to crush Hamas during a battle that took place in northern Gaza back in October of 2004.
However, as the Zionists discovered in their 2006 war on Lebanon and later in their countless wars against Gaza, they were now facing a new kind of threat that today they describe as “rocket-based terror armies.” Throughout the past nearly two decades, the Zionist military believed that it could manage the threats posed by both the Palestinian and Lebanese Resistance, needing only to periodically attack in order to maintain “deterrence”.
Yet, between 2019 and 2020, the Israeli military began recalculating and released two important publications: “The Momentum Multiyear Plan” and “The Operational Concept for Victory”. In these documents, it is clear that the Israelis were seeking to adapt to their newly faced challenges. It presents a plan to integrate the developments of the technological “fourth industrial revolution” into military planning, noting that the short military operations that the Zionist armed forces had committed were not delivering the desired image of victory in the face of Iran’s ever-growing military power.
Therefore, the Israelis sought to implement a system that would link all their technological surveillance, reconnaissance, and spyware devices together. We see that in 2021, this new system begins coming into practice as the Zionists brag about their AI systems that helped them conduct the 11-day Gaza war in May of that year. The idea here was to use this system that would be eventually fully integrated to enable the Zionist entity to strike first and deliver undeniable blows resulting in strategic victory.
Then came October 7, when the Hamas-led Operation Al-Aqsa Flood flipped the world upside down for an overconfident Israeli military and its leadership. Suddenly, they were the side that had to muster a response to a blow that completely embarrassed them on every single level, delivered by the least powerful bastion of resistance they faced.
Understanding the Israeli strategy, it shouldn’t come as a surprise also that Hezbollah instantly began targeting the Zionist regime’s reconnaissance and spyware technology during its first phase of the war either.
If we look at their Counterinsurgency strategy in Gaza on the ground, we see that, unlike the US military, they don’t allow infantry to go through and clear buildings before tanks enter an area, instead they use armored vehicles to protect their soldiers and reduce the number of deaths. But the problem with this improvised US Counterinsurgency strategy is that in reducing soldier deaths, it also makes it nearly impossible to properly combat the fighters that they are supposed to be seeking out.
This is because the Israelis are simply too cowardly to follow a traditional Counterinsurgency strategy, attempting to perform this task without the required risk it involves. In the absence of anything to show for their ground operations, which are designed to keep their ill-prepared and ill-disciplined soldiers out of harm’s way, they began to just destroy more and more civilian infrastructure.
What has occurred before our eyes is that the Israelis have been knocked back to their armed strategies of the 1970s, where we see today that they are trying to besiege the Palestinian Resistance in northern Gaza the way they besieged the Egyptian military in 1973. Yet, in the current war inside the Gaza Strip, the Israeli ground forces aren’t prepared for the kind of strategies that were implemented during the October war.
The Israelis needed to reinstate their military dominance and were suddenly placed in the worst possible position, knowing only how to use their technology to kill from a distance, and appearing to have no coherent ground strategies, they were forced to use this rather useless army to achieve extremely difficult goals that their air force and AI tech couldn’t perform for them. In light of this understanding, genocide became the choice and the strategy.
In the past, civilian massacres weren’t simply used for the purpose of shedding blood for no reason – although the Zionist regime had no issue with this at all – the massacres that we saw periodically in Gaza were committed with the goal of inflicting real psychological blows on the Resistance and Palestinian public; in addition to sending a message to the wider region. This time, it is an uncontrolled mass slaughter campaign, allowing their racist unhinged soldiers to do whatever they choose to butcher innocent people and completely destroy the infrastructure of the Gaza Strip.
Why? The Zionist entity realized that it had no military options left and the only way to achieve a victory and rescue the image of strength they had lost was to unleash a genocide, to kill, displace, and destroy everyone and everything. Even their tactical achievements in Lebanon around a month ago are today being swept away by Hezbollah, to which they have no real answer. To their peril, it has become obvious that assassinations and booby-traps cannot achieve a strategic victory and in face-to-face combat, the Lebanese Resistance is clearly superior to them.
Israel’s Deadly Miscalculation: Consequences of Attacking Iran & Hezbollah
Dialogue Works | October 29, 2024
Seyed Mohammad Marandi is a Professor of English Literature and Orientalism at the University of Tehran and advisor to Iran’s nuclear negotiations team: (https://x.com/s_m_marandi)
The US Is Funding 70% of Israel’s Wars
By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | October 29, 2024
A new report by the Israeli outlet Calcalist reviewed Israeli military spending on wars since October 7, finding that Washington is funding 70% of Tel Aviv’s military costs. In a little over a year, the US has provided Israel with more than $20 billion in military aid.
“The scope of American aid since the beginning of the war is about 85 billion shekels… According to official estimates by the Bank of Israel, the total cost of the war is…approximately NIS 118 billion.” It continues, “Therefore, according to a simple calculation, The Americans financed about 70% of the war effort.”
According to the Cost of War Project, the US has given Israel $22.57 billion in military aid since the Hamas attack. Calcalist concludes without US support, Tel Aviv’s war would simply be unaffordable.
“There is no doubt that without the American aid the government deficit for the years 2024-2025 (which is one of the highest in the country’s history), would have increased by about 4.3 % GDP, which would have made it unfinanceable,” it says. “Therefore, it is doubtful whether this war would have been conducted as it is – neither in intensity nor in scope – without the American assistance.”
The US has sent Israel tens of thousands of bombs, artillery rounds, and tank shells. Those weapons have been used to commit countless war crimes against the Palestinian people of Gaza.
The official death toll in the besieged enclave now exceeds 43,000. However, a group of American healthcare workers who have spent time volunteering in Gaza estimate the actual death count to be over 118,000.
Dr Tammy Abughanim, a pediatric intensive-care surgeon, said, “We cannot do our jobs, because Israel has made our jobs impossible, and Israel has made our jobs impossible with the direct support of the United States.” She added, “We all know the obvious step is to stop supplying Israel with the arms that it is using, the weaponry that it is using to target and kill civilians.”
Denmark Not Interested in Finding Truth About Nord Stream Explosion – Russian Ambassador
Sputnik – 29.10.2024
MOSCOW – Denmark prevented the initiation of an independent international investigation into the explosion of Nord Stream pipelines, the country is not interested in establishing the truth, Russian Ambassador to Denmark Vladimir Barbin said commenting on the possibility of the Danish side resuming the investigation.
“This would contradict the logic of the Danish side’s behavior. Denmark curtailed its own investigation, rejected any interaction with the Russian side, prevented the initiation of an independent international investigation under the auspices of the UN, concealed the fact of the presence of American warships in the area of the explosions on the eve of this terrorist attack on the gas pipelines,” he said.
The head of the diplomatic mission noted that Copenhagen had no interest in establishing the truth.
“The Danish authorities are obviously concerned that the investigation may reveal inconvenient facts and evidence that will compromise both Euro-Atlantic solidarity and further arms supplies to the Kiev regime,” the ambassador added.
Denmark and Sweden stopped investigating the Nord Stream explosions in February 2024.
The explosions on two Russian export gas pipelines to Europe, Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2, occurred on September 26, 2022. Germany, Denmark and Sweden did not rule out deliberate sabotage. Nord Stream AG, the operator of Nord Stream, said that the destruction of the gas pipelines was unprecedented and that it was impossible to estimate the repair time. The Russian Prosecutor General’s Office has initiated a case on an act of international terrorism. Russia has repeatedly requested data on the explosions on Nord Stream, but has never received it, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
Israeli army bombed shelter centers in Gaza Strip 39 times during October: Euro-Med
Palestinian Information Center – October 28, 2024
GAZA – The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor documented that the Israeli occupation army targeted shelter centers in the Gaza Strip 39 times since the beginning of October 2024, resulting in the deaths of 188 Palestinians and injuries to hundreds more. This marks a serious escalation in crimes targeting civilian gathering places, especially in northern Gaza, aimed at forcibly emptying it of its Palestinian residents.
The Euro-Med Monitor said that its field team recorded the Israeli army’s targeting of schools, hospitals, clinics, and halls used for shelter 65 times since the beginning of August this year, 39 of which occurred in October. During these incidents, 672 Palestinians were killed, and over a thousand others were injured.
The report highlights that 57 of these attacks targeted locations in northern Gaza and Gaza City, while 8 occurred in central Gaza. The attacks include bombings, direct gunfire, and the killing of forcibly displaced individuals and their families, or forcing them to evacuate schools under fire or through orders of forced displacement, followed by burning or destroying these schools to render them uninhabitable and to prevent the displaced from returning.
The Monitor noted that Israel’s systematic policy of destroying shelter centers further tightens the noose on the available options for residents regarding places they can seek refuge, facilitating Israel’s goals of destroying and forcibly displacing Palestinians and altering the demographic makeup of the region, especially in northern Gaza. Various Israeli officials have explicitly expressed their intention to annex and settle in the area.
The Euro-Mediterranean team documented the scattering of dozens of Palestinian families and the separation of their members due to the targeting of shelter places and the subsequent repeated waves of forced displacement, which have compounded their psychological suffering, especially among children.
Targeting shelter places is considered a fundamental part of Israel’s strategy to undermine the social structures of Palestinians in Gaza, continuing to weaken the population psychologically and physically, and eradicating their shared spaces that could provide some degree of psychological and social support.
Furthermore, the targeting of shelter places negatively affects families’ and individuals’ access to humanitarian aid, as many of these sites serve as distribution points for humanitarian assistance from charities. If they are forced to flee to other locations, they may find themselves in areas lacking access to available humanitarian aid, which is already limited in the region, exacerbating the humanitarian situation and increasing the suffering of the population.
The Euro-Med Monitor reported that its field team documented, on the afternoon of Sunday, October 27, the Israeli air force bombing the “Asma” school, which shelters thousands of displaced individuals in the Shati Camp west of Gaza City, resulting in the deaths of 11 Palestinians, including 4 journalists, among them two women, and injuries to dozens more. This bombing came eight days after the Israeli air force targeted the same school, killing eight Palestinians and injuring others.
The field team also documented the bombing of the “Shuhada al-Nuseirat” secondary school for boys, which shelters thousands of displaced individuals in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, resulting in the deaths of 18 Palestinians, including 12 children and 3 women, and injuries to 52 others.
A review conducted by the Euro-Med field team revealed that none of the victims were militants, among whom was Professor Ashraf Yaqub Al-Jadi, 54 years old, the dean of the nursing faculty at the Islamic University of Gaza.
The Monitor noted that the Israeli occupation army evacuated no fewer than 10 schools housing thousands of displaced individuals in northern Gaza, burning most of them. This evacuation followed quadcopter aircraft sending of Palestinian detainees, ordering those inside to evacuate and head to checkpoints established by the Israeli occupation army.
The occupation forces also unexpectedly bombed some of these schools, as happened with the Jabalia Preparatory School, where 10 displaced individuals were killed on October 21, and the Zaid bin Haritha School, where 7 displaced individuals were killed on October 22.
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor renewed its call on all countries to fulfill their international responsibilities to stop the crime of genocide and the serious crimes being committed by Israel in the Gaza Strip, to protect civilians there, to ensure Israel’s compliance with international law and the decisions of the International Court of Justice, to impose effective sanctions on Israel, and to halt all forms of political, financial, and military support provided to it, including an immediate cessation of arms sales, exports, and transfers to Israel, as well as export licenses and military assistance.
It also called for accountability and prosecution of countries complicit and partners with Israel in committing crimes, especially those supplying Israel with any forms of support or assistance related to these crimes, including providing aid and engaging in contractual relationships in military, intelligence, political, legal, financial, media, and other fields that may contribute to the continuation of these crimes.
The Monitor demanded the activation of all available accountability and prosecution pathways at the international, regional, and local levels, including serious and joint efforts to activate the pathway of universal jurisdiction to hold accountable the perpetrators of crimes against Palestinian civilians before the national courts of countries that recognize this jurisdiction.
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Book Review
The Voters’ Self-Induced Matrix
By Jeb Smith | The Libertarian Institute | April 20, 2026
In Collective Illusions: Conformity, Complicity, and the Science of Why We Make Bad Decisions, Professor Todd Rose explains that to belong to a group, people “keep twisting [themselves] into pretzels, trying to conform to what we falsely believe everyone else expects of us.” Seeking acceptance from the group, we conform in language, behavior, beliefs, and practices. As a result, we lose our individuality and aggregate into herds. Within our group we create an alternate reality to fit whichever collective mindset we attach ourselves to, and interpret the world through those lenses—our innate desire to belong overrides reality.
Rose says these illusions “have become a defining feature of our modern society.” In other words, the collectivist mindset is a great conduit for spreading illusions; thus, it is the politician’s favored form of governance.
Rose points to studies in psychology and neuroscience showing we delude ourselves into believing what the majority does, even if it is not what we desire or know to be accurate. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Islamabad’s post-war push: A new Gulf security order takes shape
- IRGC seizes Israeli ship, second vessel for violations in Strait of Hormuz
- US Embargo on Iran Undermined as 34 Tankers Slip Through, Vortexa Says
- Trump’s erratic behavior signals US deadlock: Ansarullah
- US nuclear official accused of leaking data on Iran, nerve agents
- The Voters’ Self-Induced Matrix
- Douglas Macgregor: No Peace – U.S. Prepares for ‘Total War’ Against Iran
- How A Fake Iranian Terror Group Was Invented To Proscribe IRGC in Europe
- Iran’s judiciary rejects Trump’s claim on ‘planned execution’ of 8 women
- Israeli army blows up school in southern Lebanon in violation of ceasefire
- If Americans Knew
- Final Gaza Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment
- Zionist Doxxing Campaigns Upended Their Lives. Now They’re Suing for Damages.
- Eyes on Gaza, as trends reveal increased Israeli violence – Daily Update
- Israeli soldiers using sexual assault to force Palestinians out of West Bank, report says
- Top Biden Official Supports Trump Iran Attack, Says Biden May Have Done The Same
- A history of Israel’s invasions of Lebanon
- How the powerful pro-Israel lobby keeps controlling Democrats in the US
- Replay: Israel’s slow ethnic cleansing of Christians from the Holy Land
- 5 times Israelis desecrated Christian sites in the past two years
- US running out of weaponry for Israel’s war; Iran has plenty – Daily Update
- No Tricks Zone
- New Study: The Climate May Be 5 Times More Sensitive To Solar Forcing Than Commonly Assumed
- EV Industry Reached $70 Billion In Losses In 2024 Due To Delusional Green Ideologies
- Reality Check: Maldives Have Actually Grown In Size Or Remained Stable Over Recent Decades
- Abrupt Climate Change Also Occurred NATURALLY In The Past …25 Times During Last Ice Age
- Cave Discovery Reveals Today’s Desert Climates Were Recently Far Warmer, Wetter, Teeming With Life
- German Expert: Heat Dome Led To Record Temps In Western USA…Warmer In 1934, 1936
- New Study: No Linear Warming Or Glacier Retreat Along Northern Antarctic Peninsula Since 1980s
- An Inconvenient Tree: Uncovered In Alps… Europe Much Warmer Than Today 6000 Years Ago
- New Study Reports A 60% Slowdown In Greenland’s Ice Loss Rate In The Last Decade
- Low Intensity Tornado Wrecks Major Solar Farm, Creating A Potential Toxic Dump
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