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Lebanese Prime Minister Says His Country in State of War Due to Threats From Israel

Sputnik – 29.06.2024

Lebanon is in a state of war due to threats and aggression from Israel, Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, said.

“The threats we see are a kind of psychological warfare. The question that is on everyone’s lips ‘Is it a war?’ Yes, we are in a state of war. Due to Israeli aggression, there are a large number of civilian and non-civilian casualties and destroyed villages,” Mikati said in a statement on Saturday.

On June 18, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced that it had approved operational plans for an offensive in Lebanon. Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz later said that Israel was “very close” to a decision to “change the rules” against Hezbollah and Lebanon, threatening to destroy the movement “in an all-out war” and to “severely hit” Lebanon.

Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah said that the movement could invade northern Israel if the confrontation intensifies further.

The situation on the Israeli-Lebanese border worsened after the start of Israel’s military operations in the Gaza Strip in October 2023. The IDF and Lebanese Hezbollah fighters fire at each other’s positions in areas along the border on a daily basis. The Lebanese Foreign Ministry said that around 100,000 people had to leave their homes in border areas, while the Israeli Foreign Ministry said that 80,000 Israelis had to do the same.

June 29, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli media expose gap in Israeli vs. UN tally on Gaza destruction

Al Mayadeen | June 27, 2024

Israeli analysis conducted by the Israeli army suggests significantly less damage to Gaza’s infrastructure from the ongoing war compared to international reports, according to a Thursday report from Ynet.

Israeli data claim that approximately 16%, or around 36,000 of Gaza’s permanent structures, have been irreparably damaged during the war. In contrast, UN assessments based on satellite surveys have reported damage to about 50% of structures, with some media outlets suggesting as much as 70% destruction based on similar satellite analyses.

Thousands of buildings destroyed by Israeli Army not linked to Hamas

Ynet reporter Yoav Zitun acknowledged significant discrepancies—sometimes up to 70%—between “Israel’s” claims and data from international bodies regarding the true extent of the damage in the Gaza Strip since October 7.

The correspondent explained that it is “inconceivable” to assume that the data provided by the Israeli army is closer to reality, and it could also be presented to international courts and foreign investigative committees that will investigate the actions of the Israeli army and “Israel” at the end of the war.

He also noted that international investigative bodies from international organizations will be allowed to enter the Gaza Strip when the war is over.

Ynet also noted that thousands of buildings destroyed by the Israeli army are not necessarily affiliated with Hamas but are “located near the border fence.”

The Israeli army justified their destruction by creating a “border buffer zone” and a corridor that splits Gaza into two through the middle, as per the report.

It also noted that hundreds of buildings were leveled in the al-Shujaiya and the al-Tuffah neighborhoods near Nahal Oz and towers in Beit Hanoun.

‘Israel’ destroys 72% of residential buildings in Northern Gaza

Earlier this month, a Palestinian official in Gaza reported that approximately 50,000 housing units had been demolished by Israeli occupation forces during their nearly eight-month-long aggressive campaign in the northern region of the territory.

The chairman of the Emergency Committee for Northern Gaza municipalities emphasized that along with the destruction of homes, vital infrastructure, such as sewage networks and roads, has been extensively damaged across most municipalities in Northern Gaza. Additionally, the official mentioned the destruction of 35 water wells, schools, and UNRWA facilities, highlighting the imminent risk of famine in the northern area of Gaza.

The official also announced that the Jabalia refugee camp and Beit Hanoun, both located in northern Gaza, have been designated as “disaster zones” due to the devastating destruction inflicted by Israeli aggressive war, which the official characterized as genocidal.

Abdallah al-Dardari, the UN assistant secretary general and director of the UN Development Program’s regional office for the Arab states, stated that the Israeli aggression has resulted in the complete or partial destruction of 72 percent of Gaza’s residential buildings.

Analysts across the world agree that “Israel’s” war on Gaza is currently among the bloodiest and most devastating in recent history. The Israeli regime claims to be considerate of civilian lives, but the death toll and the extent of the destruction reveal otherwise.

Back in March, the UNRWA agency revealed that the war on Gaza has resulted in around 23 million tons of rubble and unexploded weapons all over the area and that it will “take years” before Gaza is safe again.

Moreover, a report by the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in January indicated that rebuilding Gaza and restoring its 0.4% growth per year seen over the past 15 years would factually take 70 years, confirming that enormous amounts of aid would be needed to make Gaza at least habitable.

June 27, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Yemen shows off hypersonic missile in Arab Sea op

The Cradle | June 27, 2024

Yemen’s Armed Forces released footage on 26 June of the new hypersonic ballistic missile that was used to target an Israeli ship in the Arab Sea a day earlier.

The Hatem-2 hypersonic ballistic missile is equipped with an intelligent control system and has significant maneuverability, according to the Yemeni army’s military media page. The locally-made Yemeni missile runs on solid fuel and boasts several different types with differing ranges.

The video and pictures released by Sanaa’s forces on Wednesday show the missile in use against the Israeli ship, the MSC Sarah.

The Yemeni army announced its attack on the MSC Sarah on 25 June.

“The naval forces of the Yemeni Armed Forces carried out an effective military operation targeting the Israeli ship (MSC SARAH V) in the Arabian Sea. The hit was accurate and direct … We announce that this operation was carried out with a new ballistic missile that entered service after the successful completion of trial operations,” Yemeni army spokesman Yahya Saree said in a statement.

“The missile is distinguished by its ability to hit targets accurately and over long distances, as this operation demonstrated.”

The armed forces of Yemen’s Sanaa government – which is militarily aligned with the Ansarallah resistance movement – are known to locally produce weapons. Sanaa’s Armed Forces are also still in possession of weapons stockpiles from the Soviet era.

Washington and other western nations accuse Iran of smuggling weapons to Ansarallah in Yemen. Yemen has been under a tight Saudi-led blockade for nearly 10 years, making the import of arms into the country extremely difficult.

However, Iranian expertise has played a significant role in the production of Yemen’s anti-ship ballistic missiles, according to a 29 May report from Tasnim news agency.

Tasnim says that the Yemeni Muhit missile – revealed in a military parade in the capital, Sanaa, in September last year – is directly modeled after the Iranian Qadr missile, Tehran’s first locally manufactured anti-ship ballistic missile, which was developed over 10 years ago by late Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander Brigadier General Hassan Tehrani-Moqaddam.

June 27, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

GMO: Famine is worsening in Gaza

Palestinian Information Center – June 25, 2024

GAZA – The Government Media Office (GMO) in Gaza warned that famine is seriously worsening in the Gaza Strip, especially in Gaza City and North Gaza governorates.

The GMO Director-General, Ismail Thawabta, said in a press conference in Gaza on Monday that the humanitarian conditions have seriously deteriorated across the Gaza Strip, especially following the inhumane US and Israel’s decision to “prevent the entry of food and medicine.”

He pointed out that this comes within the framework of the genocidal war against civilians in the Gaza Strip, stressing that famine directly threatens the lives of citizens, which portends a rise in the death toll due to hunger.

About 3,500 children are currently facing the dire threat of death in Gaza due to malnutrition and the lack of essential nutritional supplements, he highlighted.

“The specter of famine looms larger each day, with a grim forecast of increased fatalities resulting from hunger,” Thawabta said.

He pointed out that “for 49 days, the Israeli occupation army has been preventing 25,000 sick and wounded people from traveling to receive treatment abroad, after it took over the Rafah border crossing with Egypt,” stressing that Israel’s control over the Rafah crossing has significantly impacted the wounded people’s access to essential medical care.

He underlined that 700,000 people endure daily famine conditions due to Israel’s obstruction of aid entry, leaving approximately 15,000 trucks stranded at border crossings, exacerbating the crisis.

Thawabta stressed that this heartbreaking reality underscores the urgent need for action to prevent further suffering and loss of life.

He charged the US administration and the Israeli occupation authorities for this catastrophic situation in Gaza, saying, “The people of the Gaza Strip are facing death as a result of famine and the starvation policy pursued by Israel and the US administration.”

The floating pier built by the United States did not do anything to stop the famine in the northern Gaza Strip, he added.

The GMO director launched a distress call to the international community, international organizations, all countries of the free world, and the Arab and Muslim countries, to intervene in order to protect the Palestinian people, who are being subjected to genocide.

June 25, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Hamas slams Biden regime for political, military support of Israel’s Gaza genocide

Press TV – June 25, 2024

Hamas says US President Joe Biden’s administration is responsible for the genocidal campaign in the Gaza Strip.

The Palestinian resistance movement said Washington continues to lend political and military support to Israel to carry out further destruction and carnage in the besieged territory.

In a statement released on Tuesday, the Gaza-based resistance movement also lamented the death of family members of Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the Hamas political bureau, including his sister, in an Israeli airstrike on their home in western Gaza City.

“We in the Hamas movement hold the Biden administration accountable for the unrelenting genocide war against our Palestinian brethren and sisters in the Gaza Strip, as it continues to offer the Zionist regime and its criminal army unconditional political and military support to press ahead with its destruction and genocide in the Strip,” the statement read.

“In light of the continuation and escalation of these horrific massacres, we call on Arab and Muslim nations as well as freedom-loving people of the world to step up their actions, and push for an end to the aggression.”

Hamas urged the international community and the United Nations to assume responsibility for the crimes of Israel in Gaza, protect innocent civilians, and hold the leaders of the terrorist Zionist regime accountable for their crimes.

One of the sisters of Haniyeh was killed in Gaza City’s Shati refugee camp on Tuesday morning.

Palestinian sources say an airstrike on a building belonging to Haniyeh’s extended family claimed the lives of 13 people.

Earlier in April, Israel had targeted and killed three of Haniyeh’s sons, along with four grandchildren — three girls and a boy.

Israel launched the atrocious onslaught on Gaza, targeting hospitals, residences, and houses of worship after Palestinian resistance movements conducted surprise Operation al-Aqsa Storm against the usurping regime on October 7, 2023.

Israel has killed more than 37,650 Palestinians, most of them women and children, and injured nearly 86,240 in Gaza since that October day.

More than 1.7 million people have also been internally displaced.

June 25, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Euro-Med: Israel destroyed 75% of Gaza’s farmlands, uses starvation as weapon

Press TV – June 23, 2024

An international human rights organization says Israel has rendered over 75 percent of farmlands in Gaza unusable either by isolating them to annex those lands to its so-called buffer zone, or by bulldozing them.

Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor made the comment in a Sundy report, adding that the regime’s forces seek to destroy Gaza’s food basket of vegetables, fruits and meat, in addition to destroying its local food production system.

The organization noted that “in addition to destruction of all components of local food production,” Israel is also preventing the entry of food supplies and humanitarian aid in order to “perpetuate famine in the Gaza Strip and use starvation as a weapon of war as part of its ongoing crime of genocide, which continues for the ninth month in a row.”

Euro-Med added that its teams have documented evidence of the occupation army intentionally killing farmers who were either working or attempting to access their lands and farms.

In addition, Euro-Med said it has also documented extensive destruction of farms, greenhouses, water wells and tanks, and agricultural equipment by the regime’s forces.

Euro-Med urged the international community “to ensure the entry of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, including essential food and non-food items, in order to address the territory’s health and environmental disaster in an immediate, safe and effective manner.”

The organization’s report came after the Gaza media office decried the use of starvation as a tool by the United States and Israel to achieve their political goals in Gaza despite the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the besieged territory.

“We condemn the inhumane crime of starvation used by the occupation and the American administration in a gruesome manner to achieve political goals,” it said in a statement last Monday.

According to the statement, thousands of sick and wounded people have no access to food or medicine amid the continued closure of Gaza’s crossings by Israeli forces.

“The situation in the Gaza Strip is becoming increasingly catastrophic and difficult, with the humanitarian crisis significantly worsening, especially for children, the sick, and the wounded who lack food and treatment.”

Earlier, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, had said in a separate statement that more than 50,000 children in Gaza require immediate medical treatment for acute malnutrition.

June 24, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Max Blumenthal: ‘TARGETED FOR EXPOSING ISRAEL’S LIES’- The Washington Post Attacks The Grayzone

Afshin Rattansi’s Going Underground | June 21, 2024

June 24, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Video | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Investigation confirms Israeli tank killed six-year-old Hind Rajab

The Cradle | June 23, 2024

An investigation by open-source analysis firm Forensic Architecture concluded that a six-year-old Palestinian girl, Hind Rajab, and several of her relatives were killed by an Israeli tank gunner opening fire on their car.

Hind and her relatives were killed on 29 January while fleeing their neighborhood in Gaza City after the Israeli military issued evacuation orders for the area. Their bodies were finally recovered 12 days later.

Forensic Architecture mapped a total of 335 bullet holes in the Kia sedan they were killed in.

The investigation, carried out in cooperation with Earshot and journalists from Al-Jazeera’s Fault Lines, also found that two Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) medics who tried to save Hind were also killed by Israeli tank fire.

While the deaths of most Palestinians killed by Israel in its genocidal war in Gaza pass unnoticed, Hind’s killing gained international attention when the PCRS published the audio of the call for help made by Hind’s cousin, 15-year-old Layan Hamadam.

After the adults in the car had been shot and killed, Layan desperately used a cell phone to call the PRCS dispatcher.

Layan said, “They are shooting at us. The tank is next to me. [We are hiding] in the car. We’re next to the tank.”

Layan screams until her voice stops abruptly twenty seconds into the call.

During the call, a total of 64 gunshots are heard within just 6 seconds, indicating a firing range of 750–900 rounds per minute. This range of rounds per minute is consistent with Israeli army-issued weaponry, such as the M4 assault rifle or the FN MAG machine gun on a Merkava tank.

Israel has tried to claim that its tanks were not in the area where Hind, Layan, and their relatives were killed. Israel instead suggested they were killed by gunfire from Hamas. But Forensic Architecture notes that the firing range observed in the call exceeds that of the AK-47 assault rifles most commonly used by Hamas.

By measuring the sound of the bullet traveling at supersonic speed and comparing it to the sound of the blast from the muzzle of the gun reaching the recording device at the speed of sound, Earshot was able to determine that the tank firing at Hind and Layan’s car was located between 13 and 23 meters away.

“At such proximity, it is not plausible that the shooter could not have seen that the car was occupied by civilians, including children,” Forensic Architecture writes.

The “ballistic analysis supports the final words of Layan Hamada: the gunfire came from a tank that was next to them.”

After the Israeli tank gunner killed Layan, six-year-old Hind was the only person left alive in the car. PCRS dispatchers sent paramedics Yusuf al-Zeino and Ahmed al-Madhoun in an ambulance to rescue her. When they reached the site of Hind’s car, they were immediately killed.

Forensic Architecture reported the ambulance was destroyed using a 120mm M830A1 High Explosive Anti-Tank Multi-Purpose-Tracer (HEAT-MP-T) round.

“Our assessment of the position of the tanks at the time of the attack, together with the direction of the shot, suggests that the ambulance was likely hit by ammunition from an Israeli tank,” Forensic Architecture wrote.

June 23, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

US magazine: ‘Hamas is winning’

MEMO | June 22, 2024

US Foreign Affairs magazine confirmed on Friday: “Hamas is stronger today than it was on October 7. Its cause is more popular and its appeal stronger than before October 7.”

The magazine wrote in a report: “After nine months of gruelling war, it is time to recognize the stark reality: there is no military-only solution to defeat Hamas,” adding that “Hamas is neither defeated nor on the verge of defeat.”

It also noted: “Israel has invaded northern and southern Gaza with approximately 40,000 combat troops, forcibly displaced 80 percent of the population, killed over 37,000 people, dropped at least 70,000 tons of bombs on the territory (surpassing the combined weight of bombs dropped on London, Dresden, and Hamburg in all of World War II), destroyed or damaged over half of all buildings in Gaza, and limited the territory’s access to water, food, and electricity, leaving the entire population on the brink of famine.”

According to the magazine: “Although many observers have highlighted the immorality of Israel’s conduct, Israeli leaders have consistently claimed that the goal of defeating Hamas and weakening its ability to launch new attacks against Israeli civilians must take precedence over any concerns about Palestinian lives. The punishment of the population of Gaza must be accepted as necessary to destroy the power of Hamas.”

However, Foreign Affairs states: “The central flaw in Israel’s strategy is not a failure of tactics or the imposition of constraints on military force—just as the failure of the United States’ military strategy in Vietnam had little to do with the technical proficiency of its troops or political and moral limits on the uses of military power. Rather, the overarching failure has been a gross misunderstanding of the sources of Hamas’s power. To its great detriment, Israel has failed to realize that the carnage and devastation it has unleashed in Gaza has only made its enemy stronger.”

“Despite its losses, Hamas remains in de facto control of large swaths of Gaza, including those areas where the territory’s civilians are now concentrated,” it added. “According to a recent Israeli assessment, Hamas now has more fighters in the northern areas of Gaza, which the IDF seized in the fall at the cost of hundreds of soldiers, than it does in Rafah in the south.”

The report also pointed out that Hamas: “Could still strike in Israel; Hamas likely has some 15,000 mobilized fighters—roughly ten times the number of fighters who carried out the October 7 attacks. Further, more than 80 percent of the group’s underground tunnel network remains usable for planning, storing weapons, and evading Israeli surveillance, capture, and attacks. Most of Hamas’s top leadership in Gaza remains intact.”

The magazine explained that the Israeli bombing and ground invasion of the Gaza Strip did not lead to a decline in Palestinian popular support, and: “Support for armed attacks against Israeli civilians appears to have risen especially among Palestinians in the West Bank, which is now rightly on par with the consistently high levels of support for these attacks in Gaza, showing that Hamas has made extensive gains across Palestinian society since October 7.”

A US official told television broadcasting company CBS that Israel is not close to achieving its goal of destroying Hamas, given the lack of an Israeli plan for the day after the war in Gaza.

According to Israeli army spokesperson Daniel Hagari: “This business of destroying Hamas, making Hamas disappear — it’s simply throwing sand in the eyes of the public,” adding that the group will remain in control of the Gaza Strip unless Israel “develops something else to replace it.”

June 22, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Nearly 50,000 Palestinians reported dead, missing in Gaza

The Cradle | June 20, 2024

The Ministry of Health in Gaza reported on 20 June that Israel’s assault on the strip has left over 47,000 Palestinians killed or missing, with at least 3,000 massacres to date.

“There are more than 47,000 martyrs and missing persons in Gaza due to the occupation committing more than 3,000 massacres,” the government ministry said.

Gaza’s health ministry emphasized that they are working with the “bare minimum” equipment in the northern Gaza Strip as Israel continues to deny medicines, medical supplies, and fuel to the besieged enclave.

“We are trying to restart vital departments in the Al-Shifa Medical Complex and the Indonesian Hospital,” the health ministry added.

Both hospitals have come under direct attacks by the Israeli army in the 258 days of war in the Gaza Strip.

The government body registered 37,431 Palestinian deaths and estimates at least 10,000 bodies trapped under rubble that health workers are unable to reach, with around 5,000 of them children.

Three-quarters of the registered deaths are children (about 15,747), women (10,406), and elderly people.

Over 85,653 have been injured due to Israel’s bombing of the strip, most of whom are children and women.

Gaza’s health ministry also noted that 98 percent of children in Gaza “do not have access to safe drinking water.”

At least “33 children across the Gaza Strip, especially in the northern areas, died as a result of malnutrition and dehydration amid growing famine,” the ministry wrote.

Israel continues its onslaught on the Gaza Strip as it seeks to push further into the southernmost city of Rafah despite international condemnation.

Rafa’s mayor, Ahmed al-Soufi, told Anadolu Agency that “over 70 percent of public facilities and infrastructure have been destroyed in the Israeli onslaught.”

Soufi noted that Israel, earlier this week, destroyed dozens of homes in western Rafah’s Saudi neighborhood.

“Israel seeks to turn Gaza into an uninhabitable area by destroying the Rafah Crossing and preventing the entry of humanitarian and relief aid,” the mayor said.

June 20, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli actions in Gaza ‘intentional attack on civilians’: UN inquiry

Press TV – June 19, 2024

A new report by a United Nations-backed independent commission has discovered that the Israeli military’s deliberate use of heavy weapons during its relentless offensives in the Gaza Strip has been an “intentional and direct attack on the civilian population.”

Navi Pillay, chairperson of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, said on Wednesday that “Israeli authorities are responsible for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and violations of international humanitarian and human rights law.”

These include “extermination, intentionally directing attacks against civilians and civilian objects, murder or willful killing, using starvation as a method of war, forcible transfer, gender persecution targeting Palestinian men and boys, sexual and gender-based violence amounting to torture, and cruel or inhuman treatment,” Pillay said as she presented the report to the UN Human Rights Council.

The UN commissioner said the Israeli military “forcibly transferred almost the entire population [in Gaza] into a small enclosure that is unsafe and uninhabitable” and used heavy weapons in densely populated areas in “an intentional and direct attack on the civilian population”.

Pillay said the commission concluded that specific forms of sexual and gender-based violence constituted part of the Israeli forces’ procedures.

The UN commissioner said the world faces its biggest threat of impunity for violations of international law unless perpetrators are held to account and justice is delivered for all victims.

She underscored that the large-scale surprise attack by members of Hamas and other Gaza-based resistance fighters against Israel in early October did not occur in a vacuum as it was preceded by decades of violence and retribution against Palestinians.

“Thousands of Palestinians have been detained and are being held incommunicado… ” Pillay said.

“The enormity of this tragedy overwhelms us, and we are deeply disturbed by the immense human suffering.”

Pillay’s commission found that the immense numbers of civilian casualties in Gaza, and the widespread destruction of civilian objects and infrastructure were the inevitable result of an intentional strategy to cause maximum damage.

Pillay also noted that the daily onslaught in Gaza must not sideline attention to a parallel wave of violence in the occupied West Bank, where more Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers since the start of the Gaza war in any other recorded period.

Israel waged the atrocious onslaught against the Gaza Strip, targeting hospitals, residences, and houses of worship after Palestinian resistance movements launched a surprise attack, dubbed Operation al-Aqsa Storm, against the usurping regime on October 7.

Israel has killed more than 37,390 Palestinians, most of them women and children, in Gaza since that October day.

Over 85,500 individuals have also sustained injuries. More than 1.7 million people have been internally displaced during the war as well.

June 19, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

On Israel, White House Lives in ‘Parallel Reality’

By Ian DeMartino – Sputnik – 19.06.2024

On Tuesday, US special envoy Amos Hochstein met with Lebanese officials, including Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, a day after visiting with Israeli officials. The trips were made in an attempt to prevent a full-on war between the two countries after exchanges escalated in the region.

Hezbollah and Israel have been exchanging fire since Israel launched its siege on Gaza following Hamas’ surprise attack on October 7. Hezbollah said it launched its campaign in response to Israel’s actions in Gaza and that it will stop once a ceasefire is implemented in the area.

Hochstein stated that Hamas needs to “just say yes and accept” the ceasefire deal outlined by US President Joe Biden nearly three weeks ago. Those comments are part of a trend among high-ranking US officials that Israel has accepted the ceasefire deal and only Hamas is preventing a pause in fighting.

“[With] the statements from the White House officials, they seem to live in a parallel reality from everyone, including Israeli officials,” Esteban Carrillo, a Beirut-based journalist and the editor of The Cradle, told Sputnik’s Fault Lines.

While Hamas has reportedly made some amendments to the deal, it has responded positively while Israel has refused to say if it will accept it and promised to keep fighting until Hamas is defeated. Israeli officials have also refused to confirm if the ceasefire deal presented by Biden was their creation, as US officials claim.

“Just today, a top Israeli negotiator told the Israeli media that there would be absolutely no room to negotiate any of the amendments that Hamas asked for in response to the ceasefire proposal,” Carrillo explained, adding that the negotiator said the war will continue after the Israeli assault on the southern city of Rafah is completed. “These are their words. This is not anybody putting words in their mouth.”

While the US continues to provide political cover for the Israelis by insisting that Israel has accepted a deal, its officials have been clear that they expect their actions in Gaza to continue for the foreseeable future. The day after Biden gave his speech outlining the ceasefire deal, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted that their conditions for ending the war “have not changed.” Days earlier, Israeli national security adviser, Tzachi Hanegbi said Israel expects at least “another seven months of fighting,” extending the killing until 2025.

An estimate by the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) said that they expect the war to continue until 2026 and that a full-scale war with Lebanon will begin in September.

“[US Secretary of State Antony] Blinken and [US Defense Department spokesperson Matthew] Miller [are] saying that Hamas is the one being intransigent. No, it’s Israel that is being completely intransigent and they have been so for the past several decades,” Carrillo argued.

In 2006, Israel and Hezbollah fought to what is generally described as a tie, with more than 1,200 IDF soldiers wounded and another 120 dead, including the two soldiers who were captured at the Zar’it-Shtula incident, Israel failed to meet its objectives in that conflict and in the meantime Hezbollah has become increasingly sophisticated and powerful.

“This is what the US has also been warning them,” Carrillo said. “It’s time to de-escalate the North because you’re going to get your asses kicked.”

On Tuesday, Hezbollah released drone footage of Haifa and other parts of northern Israel, highlighting critical Israeli military and civilian infrastructure, including weapon depots, military bases and sea and airports.

Netanyahu said earlier this month that his country is “prepared for a very intense operation” against Lebanon.

Haifa, about 17 miles (27km) from the closest Lebanese border, is Israel’s most active port. Its importance has increased since the Ansar Allah (Houthi) movement in Yemen successfully shut down the Port of Eilat through its blockade of Israel in the Red Sea.

More than 60,000 Israelis have been ordered to evacuate from communities near the border with Lebanon, and many of the towns have been virtually abandoned since October.

June 18, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Leave a comment