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‘Israel’ knows nothing about Hamas’ tunnels: Released captive

Al Mayadeen | September 8, 2024

Released Israeli captive Adina Moshe, 72, who was held by Palestinian Resistance factions in Gaza, revealed that the Israeli military has no real knowledge of the Resistance’s tunnel infrastructure.

During an interview for Israeli broadcaster Channel 12, Moshe said that the Israeli Shin Bet security service asked her to draw a map of the tunnels after she was released in a prisoner exchange deal.

“The Shin Bet asked me to draw a map of the tunnels in Gaza because they know nothing about them,” Moshe told an interviewer.

The security agency had dispatched an engineer to speak to Moshe at an earlier time, where she told him that the tunnels in the Gaza Strip are a “vast underground maze stretching across the entire area.” She also told the engineer that military operations alone will not help retrieve the remaining captives.

“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is lying, and neither he nor the military know anything about Hamas’ tunnels in Gaza,” the released captive added.

According to Channel 12, when Moshe was asked to draw up a sketch of the tunnels, she responded by saying that she was not an artist.

She was also asked to describe the tunnels, their pathways, their locations, and the communication devices and wiring installed in them.

Hamas’ tunnel city, ‘Israel’s’ collapse

In an article titled “It is not Hamas that is collapsing, but Israel,” published in Haaretz, retired Brigadier General Yitzhak Brik offered a critical assessment of the ongoing battles in the Gaza Strip. He underscored the significant and escalating losses “Israel” is facing, arguing that the war is exerting a far heavier toll on “Israel” itself than on Hamas.

He pointed out the need to concentrate occupation forces in other sectors, namely in the north and the West Bank due to the ongoing escalations. This would necessitate occupation forces to withdraw from Gaza  because there are “not enough forces to fight on several fronts at the same time.”

“In other words, the day will come when the IDF will no longer be able to remain in the Gaza Strip because Hamas will be in full control of it – both in the underground tunnel city that stretches hundreds of kilometers and above ground,” Brik explained.

Throughout the period of the war on Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s goal of uprooting the Palestinian Resistance from the Gaza Strip has proven elusive. A substantial factor as to why the Resistance has been able to command and control operations, even in the areas most hard-hit by the Israeli aggression, has been the exceptional use of underground tunnels by Palestinian Resistance fighters and commanders.

Despite the launching of hundreds of bunker-buster bombs, flooding tunnel networks with seawater, and other methods, the Israeli regime has found little to no success in deactivating the strategic infrastructure.

September 8, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Is ‘Israel’ using small nuclear weapons in Gaza and South Lebanon?

Dr. Christopher Busby is part a mixed crew of investigative reporters and commentators from Lebanon and some film-makers investigating “Israel’s” use of enriched uranium in strikes on Gaza on Lebanon, and aim to follow up on the strange illnesses that are appearing on the battlefield.
By Robert Daly and Christopher Busby | Al Mayadeen | September 6, 2024

The American Peace Information Council (APIC) and Green Audit (UK) are conducting an investigation of “Israel’s” possible use of small nuclear weapons in Gaza and South Lebanon. Dr. Christopher Busby—Scientific Secretary, European Committee on Radiation Risk; once Member, UK Committee Examining Radiation Risk from Internal Emitters; once Member, UK Ministry of Defence Depleted Uranium Oversight Board—presents the scientific and social background of the case below.

APIC and Green Audit ask people who drive ambulances down in the South, or live there, to come forward with engine air filters from ambulances driven in bombed areas, samples of long hair (at least 10 cm in length) if they live in bombed areas, and Geiger counter readings and soil samples from bomb craters. Please send these samples and evidence to Al Mayadeen who will forward them to us. One would think that the easiest way to obtain ambulance air filters would be from the Lebanese Red Cross, but its General Secretary, Mr. Georges Kitanneh, refuses to assist this investigation.

Dr. Robert Daly

‘Israel’ in Gaza: Red Mercury

Dr. Christopher Busby

In 2021, a scientific report in the prestigious journal Nature confirmed what I had been saying since 2006. “Israel” has, since its attacks on Lebanon in 2006 and those on Gaza in 2008 and 2014, used a new nuclear weapon, one which kills with a high temperature radiation flash and with neutrons. This weapon, which leaves an identification footprint, but no fission products like Caesium-137, we now know was also employed by the USA in Fallujah, Iraq in 2003, and previously in Kosovo also.

The residues, inhalable Uranium aerosol dust, together with the neutron damage to tissues, cause a range of serious and often fatal health effects that puzzle doctors and defy treatment. Without knowing what caused such effects, which often mimic other illnesses or result in fungal infections that kill, doctors are powerless to help and just watch the exposed individuals die.

In the cases of direct exposures to the flash, parts of the body, arms, legs, places that were not behind significant shielding are burned to blackened sticks. The aerosol Uranium dust is inhaled, destroys the lungs through fibrosis, is translocated to the lymphatic system, and later causes cancers, not only lymphomas and leukemias, but pretty much any cancer as a result of localisation of the Uranium particle in the organ, for example the breast, which has extensive lymphatic vessels. If the particle is coughed up and swallowed, it can end up immobilised in the colon and cause cancer there.

Downstream results in exposed populations include genetic effects, unexplained infant mortality, congenital malformations, miscarriages, sex ratio perturbations at birth, and fertility loss, all of which were found in epidemiological studies I helped carry out in Fallujah from 2010-2011.

This is not science fiction or arm-waving. I have acted as an expert witness in two successful legal cases, one in England and one in Australia, where the judge and coroner court concluded that the particles caused colon cancer. I am helping a US DU veteran at the moment in his case against the military. He has a pituitary tumour (the small gland is located behind the nose where the particles lodge).

I began this investigation in 2006 when an article appeared in a Lebanese newspaper reporting that an Israeli bomb crater in Khiam was radioactive. A Dr. Ali Khobeisi had taken a Geiger counter to the crater and found a 20-times background radiation level in the crater relative to nearby. By 2006, I had become something of an alternative authority on Depleted Uranium weapons (DU). I had given evidence to the US Congressional Committee on Veterans Affairs on the effects of DU and Gulf War syndrome, I had visited Iraq and also Kosovo, and I was a member of the UK government Depleted Uranium Oversight Board (DUOB); I had written articles, including for the United Nations, I had given evidence to the Royal Society.

Dr Ali Khobeisi (right) taking Geiger counter readings at a bomb crater in Khiam, Lebanon 2006

I asked a colleague to go to Lebanon and get samples from the crater, and also an ambulance air filter. When they were analysed, using two separate methods, they showed the presence not of Depleted Uranium, but of Enriched Uranium (EU). Now this is impossible, unless the weapon was made from EU or created EU from neutron irradiation of U-234 and U-238.

Ambulance that provided air filter for 2006 investigation

To follow the explanation of the problem, you need some science. Natural Uranium, as mined, has three isotopes, U-238 U-234 and U-235. Most of this Uranium by mass is U-238 (99.7%). The 0.3% of U-235 is important for nuclear bombs and nuclear energy and is extracted in various ways to make EU. What is left behind is less radioactive U-238, and this is what is termed Depleted Uranium (DU).

When U-238 decays, it changes into Thorium-234, which rapidly changes into Protoactinium-234 and this turns into Uranium-234. Then you get a long list of progeny, but these do not concern us. All this happens quite quickly, and the process releases some gamma rays which make DU a gamma radiation hazard, contrary to the statements of the military that DU is not a handling hazard. It is. But this is not important in this story.

The main issue here is this. Was the enriched Uranium in the Lebanon bomb a real finding? Could it have been a laboratory error? The answer is No. We used two different laboratories and two different Uranium analysis methods, ICPMS and alpha spectrometry.

What we found was picked up by the reporter Robert Fisk, who put the story into The Independent in October 2006: The Mystery of “Israel’s” Secret Uranium Bomb.

Until we found EU, I had focused on the health effects of DU. Everyone did. But in 2006 I was contacted by an eminent Italian nuclear physicist, Emilio Del Guidice. I met him in London, where he told me that the source of the EU was a new weapon which used Hydrogen or heavy hydrogen, Deuterium dissolved in Uranium and when this warhead, as small as a baseball, was fired at a solid object, the hydrogen suffered Cold Fusion to form Helium with the emission of a powerful gamma ray which cause the U238 to convert to an unstable U-239 which decayed to U-235 and a neutron.

I am not a nuclear physicist, though I have my own ideas about this explanation but at that time I accepted that he knew what he was talking about. At least it explained the source of the enrichment.

In 2008 I was approached by some doctors in Egypt who wondered if the Israelis were bombing Gaza with DU. With some difficulty, I obtained samples from Gaza, again soil samples and an air filter, and analysis showed the presence of EU. In 2010, as part of our study of the congenital malformations in Fallujah, we analysed the hair of the mothers for 52 elements to try and identify the cause of the birth defects. We found EU in the mothers’ hair.

Further support for the existence of an EU-containing or EU-producing weapon came from a study of a Kosovo war Veteran whose mysterious illnesses were investigated thoroughly by some doctors in Liverpool and Manchester. The man’s kidneys contained Enriched Uranium.

Emilio del Guidice had not stood still in this Sherlock Holmes investigation. Together with reporters from Italian TV (Rai News) he had visited the father of Cold Fusion, Prof Martin Fleischmann, whom I had also previously worked with when I was at the University of Kent in 1980. Fleishmann added to the intriguing scientific puzzle, but was unwilling to get involved. It seemed that scientists looking at cold fusion were dying under suspicious circumstances. Fleischmann himself had seemingly been poisoned with something that caused multi-site cancer and passed away on August 3, 2012. A cold fusion colleague developed the same multi-site cancer and didn’t survive.

Del Guidice and the Rai News producer following up the story wrote a book: The Secret of the Three Bullets, published in 2014. It is still in print and contains their side of the story. I am in the book under various names. But a few months before its publication, del Guidice unexpectedly died when alone in his house. I am told that the Rai News co-author editor of the book, Maurizio Torrealta has gone into hiding after having been posted three real bullets in an envelope.

Fast forward to 2021. The Nature paper gave the results of analyses of 65 samples of soil, sand, cement, and building materials from Gaza. Using gamma spectrometry (where you use the whole sample and look at the identifiable peaks from U-235 and Th-234 = U238) the authors identified some significantly high levels of Enriched Uranium in all the samples, but mostly in the soil samples. The levels of enrichment had become greater than those that we found in our earlier studies. The natural isotope mass ratio in nature (U238/U235) is 138. In Lebanon we found 116. In Gaza 108. The 2021 paper found about 85. Since this was before the recent bombing, this contamination must date to the 2014 Israeli bombing. What should we expect to find now?

In March of this year, I wrote to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the official UN watchdogs for the use of nuclear weapons. My colleague from Fallujah, Dr. Mohamad Al-Darraji also sent my letter under his name. Nothing happened. No reply. He was to organise a Press Conference in Vienna to draw attention to the use of this weapon in Fallujah, and the cover up of the residual high levels of radiation by the Iraqi Ministry of Science. I made a video to be presented at this conference (it is online). But he couldn’t get a venue.

I followed the letter up with a second version in July, demanding that the IAEA respond. I wrote a paper about the issue and submitted it to two journals, putting the pre-print online. It was rejected on the basis that the reviewers didn’t believe the Nature analysis results. Eventually, Al-Darraji got a reply from the IAEA (naturally, I didn’t). The IAEA didn’t believe the Nature results. Nothing to investigate. No problem.

The UK Green Party House of Lords member, Baroness Jenny Jones (who I know) asked a question in UK Parliament. The government said they didn’t have anything to say about it. About the high level of Enriched Uranium in Gaza.

So that’s it. What can we do? “Israel” and the USA (at least) have developed what is almost certainly a mini-neutron bomb. “Israel” is using it in Gaza. And may be using it in Lebanon (again). In fact, there is evidence for the development of such a bomb having been tested as long ago as October 1962, in the final US atmospheric test in the Dominic series in the Pacific. This was the test named “Housatonic” which achieved 9.96Mt yield but reportedly had zero fallout. That means it had no fission primer in the first stage, a necessary requirement for all the hydrogen bombs before it.

The significance of this appears to have been overlooked, but, astonishingly, you can find details on Wikipedia. The UK government put all that stuff under the Official Secrets Act and when I was representing the Test Veterans in the Royal Courts of Justice from 2010 to 2016, I was refused access to these details. The new bomb was successfully detonated just before the Kennedy Kruschev test ban, and just before Kennedy was assassinated. Could there be a link?

I have joined a mixed crew of investigative reporters and commentators from Lebanon and some film-makers to seek out the solution to this conundrum. We aim to follow up on the strange illnesses that are appearing on the battlefield. We aim to look for Enriched Uranium and also neutron activation products like Cobalt-60, Tritium and Carbon-14. In a new development, the laboratories that I used to examine the earlier samples have all suddenly closed their doors. One of them was shut down altogether after the first Gaza analysis. One of them was threatened. But we can do a lot with what we have.

What we want is for people to obtain Geiger Counters to check out the impact sites soon after the explosion, and if it is radioactive to get us samples of dust and dirt. We want women’s hair samples, especially long hair, cut from the nape of the neck, from women who were near or lived in areas that were bombed. You can buy a simple Geiger Counter now for about 60 euros. You can even get a low-resolution portable gamma spectrometer for about 350 euros.

We would like anyone with comments or information to contact us. This is a big deal.

The weapon will certainly be used in future exchanges, and will make local nuclear war possible, since the scary scenarios involving fallout may not materialise. I have named the device Red Mercury because that is what it probably is (remember the red mercury story: written off officially by science (haha) as a fraud, as a phony). Red Mercury was Stalin’s code for Enriched Uranium. Clearly, from the Dominic Housatonic test, the USA also developed the weapon. Since it kills without leaving fission products, it is invisible to the global nuclear explosion detection systems and the IAEA watchdogs.

But there is no doubt the IAEA know about it. Their latest report on Uranium in the Environment completely ignores Enriched Uranium. When I asked one of the report authors why, I was told they were short of money. They only had enough to look at Depleted Uranium. Can you believe this stuff?

September 6, 2024 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Gaza and Polio

By Richard Hugus | August 27, 2024

On July 30, 2024 the Health Ministry of Gaza declared a polio epidemic in Gaza. The World Health Organization then said it would send more than a million polio vaccine doses to Gaza. On August 16, according to Al-Jazeera, the first case was reported and the UN’s Antonio Guterres called for a ceasefire to make a vaccination campaign possible. This call was supported by Hamas.

Health authorities rightly point out that the cause of the horrific health conditions in Gaza is the ongoing Israeli genocide – the bombing of homes and infrastructure, the shelling, the withholding of food and medical supplies, the sadistic evacuations — and the authorities of course call for all these things to end. But the involvement of globalist agencies like the UN and WHO raise suspicions that the polio declaration may be just another attack on the people of Gaza concealed under a cloak of humanitarianism.

According to Al-Jazeera, the announcement of the alleged outbreak came on August 7 from one Dr. Hamid Jafari, a World Health Organization polio specialist who claimed the polio virus was found in wastewater samples in Deir el-Balah and Khan Younis. Dr. Jafari is currently employed by the US Centers for Disease Control, a deeply corrupt organization which has spent the past three years pushing vaccines for another purported virus – covid 19 – in spite of clear proof from the very beginning of multiple harms caused by the vaccine. This harm is not limited to the US. Denis Rancourt and colleagues have recently offered statistical proof of almost 31 million excess deaths globally for the period 2020-2022, deaths which they attribute to the strangely universal worldwide public health response to covid 19, to include lockdowns, business closures, isolation, harmful hospital protocols, and particularly the mRNA vaccines.

Regarding Dr. Jafari in Gaza, The CDC website tell us that he “is a graduate of CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) program, class of 1992. . .  currently serving as the Principal Deputy Director, Center for Global Health, at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.The website goes on to say that “Dr. Jafari served as the project manager of World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) National Polio Surveillance Project in India from 2007-2012. As the project manager, he was the main technical advisor to the government of India in the implementation of the nation’s large scale polio eradication, measles control, and routine immunization activities, and he directed WHO’s extensive network of more than 2000 field staff.”

Thus Dr. Jafari was in in charge of a vaccination campaign in India where, in one study, researchers found that between 2000–2017 there were “an additional 491,000 paralyzed children” above normal. The ambitious “polio eradication” program in India was funded and led by the Gates Foundation and the WHO. The number of paralysis cases was found to be proportional to the number of vaccine doses administered. The Gates Foundation and WHO are not exactly separate entities – Gates is a major funder of the WHO. Dr. Jafari’s employment at the CDC, his authoritative declaration of a polio epidemic in Gaza, and WHO’s immediate announcement of the shipment of over a million vaccines should raise red flags.

Polio is a condition that is often confused with the catchall “acute flaccid paralysis.”  Acute flaccid paralysis may even be the result of injection of polio “vaccines, but it is not polio. The polio vaccine can and does cause acute flaccid paralysis. From experience in the US since the 1950s it is known that what was often called polio was not the gut virus that humans have lived with more or less uneventfully throughout history, but a form of paralysis caused by human exposure to neurotoxins introduced in the 20th century — for example, mercury and aluminum adjuvants used in vaccines, leaded fuel, fluoridated water, pesticides and herbicides like arsenic, DDT, dioxin, and glyphosate. DDT was in widespread use in the 1950s. When it was banned, the high numbers of “polio” cases went down. The famous Salk and Sabin vaccines had little to do with it, though the medical establishment claimed victory. Indeed, as we know from what is called “the Cutter incident”  in 1955, vaccines produced by Cutter Laboratories ended up causing 40,000 cases of polio, severely paralyzed 200 children, and killed 10. Later iterations of the vaccine were found to contain a cancer-causing agent called SV-40 (SV being short for ‘simian virus’). Bernice Eddy, the scientist who discovered this, was hounded out of her job at the US National Institute of Health. Lest one think that things are surely more advanced now than in the 1950s, as recently as April 2023 a well-known scientist named Kevin McKernan found SV-40 in samples of the Pfizer covid -19 vaccine. A new term was coined to describe a common effect of the covid injections — “turbo cancer” — perhaps attributable to the SV-40 and the normally forbidden DNA plasmids also found in the samples.

In an emergency involving a projected 2,700 aid workers delivering 1.6 million doses over a short period of time (between bombings), will the parents of the one million children in Gaza be given complete information about the contents of the polio vaccine their children are about to be given? Will there be a full explanation about risks and possible side-effects? Will the parents have any understanding of the negative history of polio vaccines or of vaccines in general? Will they have the informed consent required in any medical intervention? Will they be given redress for any injuries? No, not a chance. The instructions will be “here’s your dose, now move along.” To be fair, it’s the same all over the world.

Dr. Suzanne Humphries is a well-known kidney specialist who spent years of her professional life coming to grips with organized medicine’s ignorance of the fact that vaccines may cause rather than cure disease. She found that high numbers of polio cases mysteriously went away when polio came to be named other things, like poliomyelitis, transverse myelitis, Guillain-Barré syndrome, enteroviral encephalopathy, traumatic neuritis, and Reye’s syndrome. A similar trick was played when influenza suddenly disappeared between 2020 and 2023 and “covid” took its place. Incidentally, one of the common effects of the covid vaccine was facial paralysis, or Guillain-Barré syndrome. Vaccines contain neurotoxins. Neurotoxins cause paralysis and myriad other problems. When it comes to Gaza, we might ask: is the confirmed case there actually polio, or is it one of the many distinct diseases under the umbrella of acute flaccid paralysis? Does a vaccine designed for one strain of polio address some, all, or even any of the mimicking diseases? Is there documentation that the confirmed case was actually polio, or do we just have to take Dr. Jafari’s word for it?

According to Dr. Humphries, “no vaccines are safe. Having “efficacy” means an antibody response is generated, not that they keep you from getting sick. There are many other ways to keep children healthy other than injecting them with disease matter, chemicals, animal DNA, animal proteins, detergents and surfactants that inflame and weaken the blood brain barrier, potentially causing inflammation and other problems.” One way would be to stop bombing them.

The Gaza Health Ministry and Hamas are surely busy enough dealing with zionist genocide, but they need to know that in the last few years public health has been revealed as a very effective weapon of war. The US Department of Defense had a leading role in the worldwide biowarfare operation known as “covid 19 countermeasures.” The WHO and the UN were very much involved in this operation. They are not to be trusted. Like the US government, these supposed humanitarian organizations speak from both sides of their mouth – calling for ceasefire while doing nothing to stop the weapons that every day kill more Palestinians. They know that the best way to protect the children of Gaza is to bring good nutrition, clean water, clean air, housing, and an end to the trauma of psychopath Israel’s daily bombing, yet they do nothing meaningful to bring this about. They are not offering aid with their polio vaccines; they are offering more poison.

August 27, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

25 shelters, 4 wells in Deir al-Balah went out of service due to forced displacement

Palestinian Information Center – August 26, 2024

DEIR AL-BALAH – The Municipality of Deir al-Balah announced that 25 shelters and four water wells went out of service, following the Israeli evacuation of new neighborhoods in Deir al-Balah over the past 72 hours.

The municipality said in a press statement on Monday, “25 shelter centers went out of service after forced displacement of 250,000 citizens within the past 72 hours, including the only government hospital which was still operating in the southern Gaza Strip.”

The municipality further explained that the closure of the four water wells brings the number of disabled wells to 14, noting that the disabled wells were supplying nearly 70% of the people in the city, and their closure would exacerbate the water and food crisis.

The recent Israeli evacuation order in the vicinity of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital threatened the only remaining main water tank in the city, according to official sources.

Deir al-Balah municipality called on the international community to urgently intervene to enable the humanitarian service crews, including municipalities, hospitals and relief associations, to carry out their humanitarian duty to provide service to the displaced and citizens.

On Sunday evening, the Israeli occupation army issued a decision to evacuate new neighborhoods northeast of Deir al-Balah, and some neighborhoods west of Salah al-Din Street.

August 26, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Over 40 Palestinians released from Israel prisons with signs of torture, skin diseases

23 Palestinians detained by Israel are taken to the Nasser Hospital for medical treatment after release at Karm Abu Salem border crossing in Gaza on August 20, 2024. [Doaa Albaz – Anadolu Agency]
MEMO | August 23, 2024

Israeli occupation authorities released over 40 Palestinian prisoners from the occupied West Bank, including several administrative detainees who had been held without charge or trial.

The prisoners were released at the Thaheriyya military roadblock south of occupied Hebron, outside Ofer Prison and near the Salem military base. According to the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS), some of those released, particularly from Naqab Prison in the Negev, are suffering from skin diseases.

Initial images of the released detainees highlight the severe mistreatment they suffered, including systematic starvation and food deprivation. Many were immediately transferred to hospitals for medical care.

Last night’s release follows the release of around 25 Palestinian detainees from Gaza earlier this week. They were immediately transferred to Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis for medical treatment after enduring months of captivity in “inhumane” conditions, according to the New Arab.

One video showed the detainees arriving at the Karm Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) crossing, dressed in tattered clothes, looking gaunt and pale, with bandages around their heads. Among them was Walid Ibrahim Habib, who had serious injuries to his arms and legs.

The Israeli military has denied allegations of “systematic abuse”, claiming that any abuse of detainees is strictly prohibited and thoroughly investigated. However, the sheer number of consistent accounts from former detainees, coupled with the testimony of Israeli personnel at the site, suggests a disturbing pattern of mistreatment and torture.

Moreover, despite these recent releases, Israel continues its daily raids across various cities and towns in the occupied West Bank to arrest more Palestinians.

A joint statement from the Commission of Detainees’ Affairs and the PPS estimates that more than 10,100 Palestinians have been detained by the Israeli occupation army in the West Bank since 7 October 2023.

At least 635 Palestinians have since been killed and nearly 5,400 others injured by Israeli army fire in the occupied territory, according to the Ministry of Health.

In a landmark advisory opinion on 19 July, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) declared Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestinian land “illegal” and demanded the evacuation of all existing settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and for reparations to be paid to Palestinians.

August 23, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli strikes on Gaza kill two more Palestinian journalists, their family members

Deceased Palestinian journalists Abdullah al-Soussi (L) and Tamim Muammar (Photo via social media)
MEMO | August 10, 2024

The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate mourned two journalists from the Gaza Strip who were killed by the Israeli army on Friday.

The Syndicate called on International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan to immediately investigate the Israeli crimes committed against journalists.

This was conveyed in a statement, a copy of which was received by Anadolu Agency, in which the Syndicate mourned journalists Tamim Muammar and Abdullah Al-Soussi, who were killed in a bombing of the city of Khan Yunis in central Gaza, denouncing this “crime”.

The Syndicate reported that Muammar worked as an editor at the Voice of Palestine (governmental) radio station, while Al-Soussi worked for Al-Aqsa TV (affiliated with Hamas). The journalists were assassinated in two separate airstrikes on Khan Yunis, along with a number of their children, family members and relatives.

The Syndicate considers the assassination of Palestinian journalists a “systematic crime” committed by the Israeli army.

The agency called on: “The International Criminal Court Prosecutor to quickly begin investigations into the occupation’s crimes against Palestinian journalists.”

Earlier on Friday, Wafa news agency quoted medical sources stating: “The bodies of 14 martyrs arrived at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis as a result of the occupation’s ongoing raids on various parts of the city.”

It added that an airstrike targeted: “The Muammar family home in the Tahlia area in central Khan Yunis, leading to the martyrdom of fellow journalist Tamim Muammar from Voice of Palestine radio.”

Meanwhile: “Local sources announced the martyrdom of journalist Abdullah Al-Soussi in an occupation airstrike that targeted his home in Khan Yunis,” according to the agency.

With the killing of Muammar and Al-Soussi, the number of journalists killed since the start of the Israeli war on Gaza has risen to 168, according to official Palestinian figures.

With US support, Israel has been waging a devastating war on Gaza since 7 October, leaving more than 131,000 Palestinians dead and wounded, most of them women and children, with more than 10,000 missing, amid massive destruction and deadly famine.

In disregard of the international community, Tel Aviv continues this war, ignoring the United Nations Security Council resolution to stop it immediately and the International Court of Justice’s orders to take measures to prevent acts of genocide and improve the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza.

August 10, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Khan Yunis: Israeli army destroyed over 70 percent of the city’s water wells

Palestinian Information Center – August 8, 2024

GAZA – The municipality of Khan Yunis City in southern Gaza has affirmed that the Israeli occupation army has destroyed over 70 percent of the city’s water wells since October 7, 2023.

In a statement on Thursday, the municipality explained that the Israeli army destroyed the city’s water purification station, 26 of its 37 wells, and 220 kilometers of water lines.

According to the municipality, more than 1,200,000 displaced people currently sheltering in al-Mawasi area of western Khan Yunis are struggling to access drinking and usable water.

The municipality warned that the severe water shortage in Khan Yunis led to the spread of infectious diseases among the local and displaced families.

August 8, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Jordan, Qatar, KSA balk at US-led ‘peacekeeping force’ for post-war Gaza: Report

The Cradle | August 7, 2024

Jordan, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia have reportedly refused requests to take part in a US-led “peacekeeping force” for Gaza once Israel’s genocide of Palestinians comes to a stop, according to informed sources who spoke with the Times of Israel.

One of the sources told the Israeli outlet that troops from the Arab nations would be seen to be “protecting Israel from the Palestinians.”

The reported positions of Aman, Doha, and Riyadh contrast starkly with those of the UAE and Egypt, which have reportedly expressed willingness to participate in the effort.

Abu Dhabi made this position public last month when Lana Nusseibeh, the country’s Permanent Representative to the UN and special envoy of the Emirati Foreign Ministry, penned an op-ed for the Financial Times (FT) in which she called for the establishment of a “temporary international mission” in Gaza.

“Any ‘day after’ effort must fundamentally alter the trajectory of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict towards the establishment of a Palestinian state that lives in peace and security with the state of Israel … A first step in such an effort is to deploy a temporary international mission that responds to the humanitarian crisis, establishes law and order, lays the groundwork for governance and paves the way to reuniting Gaza and the occupied West Bank under a single, legitimate Palestinian Authority (PA),” Nusseibeh declared.

The UAE in June hosted a secret gathering with US and Israeli officials to discuss plans for Gaza after the genocidal war ends. Abu Dhabi has also stepped up joint efforts with Tel Aviv since 7 October to construct military and intelligence infrastructure on the Socotra Archipelago off the coast of Yemen.

During trips to Qatar, Egypt, Jordan, and Israel in June, US State Secretary Anthony Blinken reportedly informed officials that Washington had received “support from Cairo and Abu Dhabi for the creation of a force that would work alongside local Palestinian officers” in Gaza, the Times of Israel reports.

“Blinken told counterparts that the US would help establish and train the security force and ensure that it would have a temporary mandate so that it could eventually be replaced by a fully Palestinian body, the third source said, adding that the goal is for the PA to eventually take over full control of Gaza. Blinken clarified, though, that the US would not be contributing troops of its own, the officials said,” the report adds.

August 7, 2024 Posted by | Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

US armed Israel with 25,000-plus bombs, missiles since Oct. 7: Report

Press TV – July 25, 2024

The United States has reportedly armed the Israeli regime with upwards of 25,000 bombs and missiles since October 7, 2023, which marked the onset of Tel Aviv’s yet-ongoing genocidal war against the Gaza Strip.

The New York Times provided the figure on Thursday, citing the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, a think tank.

According to the report, the American arms shipments to the occupied Palestinian territories throughout the war had featured over 20,000 unguided bombs, some 2,600 guided bombs, and 3,000 surgical strike missiles.

The regime launched the war following al-Aqsa Storm, a retaliatory operation staged by Gaza’s resistance groups against the occupied territories.

Ever since, it has been deploying the US-supplied projectiles against numerous civilian targets.

Earlier this month, the regime’s military radio reported that the Israeli Air Force had dropped a total eight US-manufactured JDAM (Joint Direct Attack Munition) bombs against the al-Mawasi refugee camp in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, killing and injuring a total of 390 Palestinians.

In all, the war has so far claimed the lives of more than 39,175 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and wounded 90,257 others.

Last month, The Washington Post reported that the US had supplied the regime with over $6.5 billion in military supplies since the beginning of the brutal military onslaught.

The sheer increase comes while Washington’s annual so-called military aid for Tel Aviv stands at around $3.3 billion.

Washington has also used its veto power on several occasions so far to prevent the UN Security Council from issuing a resolution that would call for implementation of an immediate ceasefire in the war.

The untrammeled American political and military support for the regime comes despite an order issued by the International Court of Justice, the United Nations top court, on the regime back in January to take all measures within its power to prevent genocide in Gaza.

July 26, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

What’s behind Israel’s war against UNRWA?

By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | July 23, 2024

Targeting a school during a war could be justified as, or at least argued, to have been a mistake. But striking over 120 schools, and killing and wounding thousands of civilians sheltering inside, can only be intentional, with each attack a horrific war crime in its own right.

Between 7 October last year and 18 July, Israel has done precisely that, targeting with total impunity UN infrastructure in the besieged Gaza Strip, including schools and medical centres. According to the estimates of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), at least 561 internally displaced Palestinians sheltering in UNRWA buildings have been killed and 1,768 have been wounded since the start of Israel’s war. Within just ten days between 8 and 18 July, at least six UNRWA schools serving as makeshift shelters for displaced Palestinians were targeted by the Israeli army, resulting in the killing and wounding of hundreds.

Historically, UN-linked organisations have been more or less immune from the impact of wars. The privilege of being neutral outsiders to any conflict allowed those affiliated with such organisations to carry out their duties largely unhindered. The Israeli war on the Palestinians in Gaza, however, is the primary exception among all modern conflicts. According to UN sources, 274 aid workers and over 500 healthcare workers linked to the international organisation have been killed by the Israeli occupation forces.

These figures are consistent with all other statistics produced by the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza. Indeed, not a single category of people has been spared: neither doctors nor civil defence workers, mayors or even traffic police, let alone the children, women and elderly.

It was obvious from the very start of the war that Israel wanted to criminalise all Palestinians.

Not only those affiliated with Hamas or other groups, but also the civilian population and any international organisation that came to their aid. Blaming and dehumanising all of Gaza was and remains part of Israel’s strategy that lets its army operate without any restraints, and without even the most minimal moral threshold or respect for international law.

However, the Israeli attacks on all UN institutions, in particular UNRWA, the agency responsible for the welfare of Gaza’s Palestinian refugees, serve a different purpose than that of mere “collective punishment”. Israel does not attempt to mask or justify its attacks on the agency as it did during previous Gaza wars. This time around, the Israeli war was accompanied, from the very beginning, with the outlandish accusation that UNRWA staff had participated in the 7 October cross-border incursion by Hamas and other Palestinian groups.

Without providing any evidence, Tel Aviv launched an international vilification campaign against the UN agency which has, for decades, provided essential educational, medical and humanitarian services to millions of Palestinian refugees, not only in occupied Palestine, but also in refugee camps in Syria, Jordan and Lebanon. Sadly, and tellingly, some Western, and even non-Western governments, answered the Israeli call to punish UNRWA by withholding badly-needed funds, the urgency of which did not only stem from the direct impact of the Israeli war, but also the acute famine resulting from the war. UNRWA depends almost entirely on such voluntary donations from UN member states.

True, a number of governments eventually resumed their funding of the agency, but such action was only taken when much damage had already been done. Moreover, most, if not all, Western governments have taken no action against Israel for its continued targeting of UNRWA facilities, and thus the killing of hundreds of innocent Palestinians in the process.

This non-committal attitude has emboldened Israel to the extent that, just this week, the Israeli Knesset (parliament) passed the first reading of a bill to designate UNRWA as a “terrorist organisation”. On 18 July, Israeli spokesman David Mencer accused the Commissioner-General of UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, of being a “terrorist sympathiser”.

Israel’s hate for UNRWA, however, stretches back long before the current war.

For years, successive Israeli governments, not least with the aid of the Donald Trump administration in the US, have sought to shut down the agency altogether.

Jared Kushner, Trump’s former advisor on the Middle East, said in January 2018 that it was “important to have an honest and sincere effort to disrupt UNRWA.” For him, the dismantlement of the agency meant the eradication of the legitimate Right of Return for Palestinian refugees.

Indeed, the issue is not just about UNRWA, but rather the historic role the agency has played as a reminder of the plight of millions of Palestinian refugees in occupied Palestine, the Middle East and across the world.

UNRWA was established through General Assembly Resolution 302 (IV) of 8 December 1949. The founding of UNRWA came one year after the passing of UN Resolution 194, which granted Palestinian refugees the right to “return to their homes”. Although UNRWA’s mission has turned into a de facto permanent mandate (albeit one that has to be renewed periodically), since Palestinian refugees were not granted their right of return, the role of the agency has remained as critical as it was decades ago.

Since Kushner and others have failed to have UNRWA shut down, the Israeli government has taken advantage of its war on Gaza to try to do so. According to Israeli “logic”, without a UN agency specifically for Palestinian refugees, there must be no more Palestinian refugees, so the issue of their return would lose its main legal platform and would ultimately disappear. This would give Israel the space and leverage to “resolve” the problem of the refugees in any way it sees fit, especially if it has Washington’s full support.

Israel must not be allowed to dismantle UNRWA or to dismiss the generational struggle of Palestinian refugees, which is the core of the Palestinian fight for justice and freedom. The international community must challenge Israel’s vilification of UNRWA and insist on the centrality of the Right of Return for Palestinian refugees. Without it, no real peace is possible.

July 23, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Gaza refugee camp attacked 63 times by Israel in a week, authorities say

MEMO | July 21, 2024

The Israeli army bombarded the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip 63 times in a week, killing at least 91 people and injuring 251 others, local authorities said on Sunday.

“More than 75% of the victims were admitted to hospitals with burns due to Israel’s use of thermal and chemical weapons,” Gaza’s government media office said in a statement.

The Nuseirat refugee camp is one of the most densely populated camps in Gaza, currently housing 250,000 residents and displaced people.

The media office held Israel and the US administration “fully responsible for the continued massacres against the displaced and civilians.”

It called on the international community, the UN, and international organizations to “pressure the Israeli occupation and the US administration to stop the genocide and halt the bloodshed in the Gaza Strip.”

July 21, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

How western Big Tech giants enable Israel’s occupation

By Kit Klarenberg | The Cradle | July 20, 2024

On 10 July, Hebrew newspaper Maariv reported that 46,000 Israeli businesses have been forced to shut down due to the ongoing Gaza war and its devastating effect on the economy. The outlet referred to Israel as a “country in collapse.”

Regular readers of The Cradle will be well aware of the scale of the occupation state’s economic collapse since the Gaza genocide began. Yet, its effect on the precipitous decline of Tel Aviv’s once-thriving tech sector remains underexplored.

Complicity in occupation infrastructure

In mid-June, mainstream news outlets reported that chip giant Intel was halting expansion of a major factory project in Israel, which was slated to pump an extra $15 billion into the occupation entity’s economy.

Intel is just one tech giant whose fortunes have soured since Palestinian freedom fighters breached Gaza’s concentration camp walls on 7 October 2023.

The same fate has been suffered by many tech companies profiteering from illegal Zionist settlement expansion, which also provide infrastructure and resources used to oppress Palestinians and enforce Tel Aviv’s apartheid.

Multiple consumer-facing western companies that not only profit from illegal Jewish settlement expansion but actively provide core infrastructure and resources used to oppress Palestinians and enforce Tel Aviv’s apartheid could now be subject to lawsuits.

This week, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s continued presence in occupied Palestinian territory is unlawful and should come to an end “as rapidly as possible.” Notably, the court opened the door to “reparations” for any illegal actions carried out by Israel and other entities since 1967.

The ICJ’s landmark judgment means the long-term viability of these tech firms’ operations in the occupied territories is moribund – for fear of legal repercussions, if nothing else.

Fittingly, given Germany is currently in the dock at the ICJ for its support and facilitation of the genocide in Gaza, Munich-headquartered tech conglomerate Siemens is among the culprits.

The firm is “focused on automation and digitalization in the manufacturing industries, intelligent infrastructure for buildings and distributed energy systems, smart mobility solutions for rail transport, and medical technology and digital healthcare services.” Its products are profuse throughout the occupation state and its illegal settlements.

Traffic control systems and traffic lights produced by Siemens can be found in areas of the West Bank where Palestinian residents are forbidden from traveling. In 2014, the company’s Israeli subdivision RS Industries won a tender to provide traffic control systems across the Jerusalem Municipality too – East Jerusalem, designated as the capital of the Palestinian state, was occupied in 1967, and falls within the ICJ’s mandate.

Elsewhere, Siemens provides its DDEMU model cars for the Tel Aviv Jerusalem Fast Train and, in 2018, was awarded a $1 billion contract by the entity-owned Israel Railways to supply 330 electric cars as part of Israel’s electrification project, which includes the Tel Aviv – Jerusalem Fast Train (A1).

A highly controversial project that passes through two areas of the West Bank, including privately owned, occupied Palestinian land, it is intended for exclusive use by Israeli Jews.

Don’t Buy Into Occupation (DBIO) states: “Siemens’ activities are of concern, as they are linked to the provision of services and utilities supporting the maintenance and existence of settlements.”

However, the company’s activities extend far further. Through its Israeli representative, Orad Group, the company provides equipment and technology to the notorious Israel Prison Service (IPS).

In 2004, the Orad Group provided a Siemens technology-based perimeter security system to Gilboa prison — a detention center specifically designated for Palestinian political prisoners. Siemens also supplies the IPS with a sophisticated fire detection and extinguishing system.

Connecting settlements

US brand Motorola is widely recognized for its innovative smartphone devices. However, DBIO has meticulously documented the involvement of Motorola’s Tel Aviv division in settlement expansion over the past decade.

The tech giant has collaborated closely with Israeli occupation forces, the Ministry of Defense, and Zionist settlement councils across the illegally occupied territories. A prime example of this collaboration is the surveillance system “MotoEagle,” designed to monitor settlers on appropriated land, operate within occupation military bases, and oversee the Gaza concentration camp’s separation wall.

Notably, Motorola-produced radar stations have been installed on illegally appropriated private Palestinian land, restricting Palestinian movement in these areas. Furthermore, Motorola supplies the Ministry of Defense’s Zramim System, a smart card operation utilized at Israeli checkpoints to monitor goods transportation.

Palestinian drivers, merchants, and transport companies are compelled to register their personal information in this system, enabling Tel Aviv to monitor all entry and exit points meticulously.

The company is also a preferred contractor for internal security systems in numerous occupation settlements. The Jordan Valley regional council, encompassing more than 20 settlements in the occupied West Bank, employs multiple Motorola products, including command and control systems and surveillance cameras. Additionally, the Population and Immigration Authority in the settlement of Beitar Illit uses Motorola for its security needs.

In 2022, Motorola Solutions secured a contract to provide security cameras and entrance control resources for the Jerusalem Light Rail’s (JLR) entire Green Line. This route links the Gilo settlement in occupied East Jerusalem with the city center and the Ramat Eshkol, Ma’alot Dafna, and French Hill settlements, facilitating connectivity between settler enclaves and supporting settler movement. Consequently, Motorola has been listed in the UN’s database of firms profiting from illegal settlement expansion.

Powering apartheid

Hewlett Packard Enterprises (HPE), which split from personal computer and printer provider Hewlett Packard in 2015, is one of the most profitable US corporations. However, it is less well-known that HPE supplies and manages much of the technological infrastructure underpinning the occupation state’s apartheid and settler colonialism.

For example, HPE provides “Itanium” servers and maintenance services to Tel Aviv’s Population and Immigration Authority. This computerized Israel’s checkpoint system while storing vast amounts of information on all Palestinians with Israeli citizenship and non-citizen Palestinian residents of occupied East Jerusalem.

HPE directly contracts with the illegal settler municipalities of Modi’in Ilit and Ariel, two of the largest Jewish-only settlements in the West Bank, providing them with a range of services. Additionally, HPE maintains the central server system for the Israeli Prison Service (IPS), placing the company at the core of Tel Aviv’s use of mass incarceration to suppress Palestinian resistance. A 1994 Human Rights Watch report highlighted this by noting:

“The extraction of confessions under duress, and the acceptance into evidence of such confessions by the military courts, form the backbone of Israel’s military justice system.”

Moreover, HPE is the primary provider of the Basel system, an automated biometric access control system employed at Israeli checkpoints and the Gaza apartheid wall. ID cards distributed under Basel are integral to the systematic discrimination against Palestinians.

The checkpoints, by design, segregate and fragment the Occupied Palestinian Territories and its inhabitants, separating workers from their places of employment, students from their schools, and families from each other through electrified fences, watchtowers, and concrete barriers.

Electronic counter intifada

This system is part of a broader state of siege under which Palestinians have lived for decades, significantly intensified by the sealing off of Gaza and the West Bank. The Israeli navy, another HPE customer, relies on the company’s IT infrastructure and support services. The siege severely restricts the movement of goods and people in and out of Palestinian territories, aiming explicitly to crush Palestinian resistance.

In 2006, Dov Weisglass, an adviser to then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, explained: “The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger.” It was hoped hunger pangs through limited caloric intake might encourage Palestinians to reject Hamas or at least force its fighters to temper their resistance efforts. The starvation of Palestinians has only galvanized their support for Hamas and their yearning for freedom from Israeli occupation.

The occupation state failed to crush the Palestinian resistance via Operation Swords of Iron, an effort so catastrophic that even Israeli media has branded it a “total defeat.”

Following Iran’s successful 14 April retaliatory strikes against Israel, Tel Aviv’s reign of impunity appears to be nearing its long-overdue end. It is only a matter of time before major western tech firms like HPE, which facilitated the oppression of Palestinians, will face consequences for their complicity.

This investigation is the second in a series at The Cradle that examines illegal investments by western corporations in the occupied Palestinian territories and/or that assist Israel in implementing its apartheid system. The first investigation can be found here.

July 20, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , , | Leave a comment

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