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.
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.
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.”
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.
Palestinian Factions: The day after the war is a Palestinian internal affair
Palestinian Information Center – July 19, 2024
GAZ – The Palestinian national and Islamic factions said on Thursday evening that the day after the war on Gaza is a purely Palestinian national affair, and no external party will be allowed to interfere in the Palestinian internal affairs.
The factions stressed in a statement that the Rafah crossing is a Palestinian-Egyptian border crossing, and that the form of its management on the Palestinian side is determined by the Palestinian forces and definitely not the USA or Israel, or those who cooperate with them.
“The recent Knesset resolution which rejects the establishment of a Palestinian state takes us to the heart of the conflict with the occupier,” the statement added.
The factions called for establishing a widespread national movement aimed at “reclaiming the Palestine Liberation Organization that has been silenced for decades and for developing a national strategy and program for liberation.”
The factions’ statement comes in light of the news about a secret meeting held last week between the USA, Israel, and the Palestinian Authority, represented by its intelligence chief Majid Faraj, to discuss reopening the Rafah crossing under the control of Israel and the USA.
For 73 days, Israeli occupation forces have been occupying and closing the Gaza crossings, preventing the wounded and sick from traveling abroad for treatment or bringing in any humanitarian aid into the besieged Strip, turning a blind eye to warnings from humanitarian and relief organizations and international demands to reopen the crossings to avoid famine and to save the lives of thousands of citizens.
Collapsing Empire: Yemen Defeats US Navy
By Kit Klarenberg | Al Mayadeen | July 19, 2024
On July 12th, the Associated Press (AP) published an astonishing report, on the return of US Navy fighter pilots to Virginia after nine months of failing to thwart the righteous anti-genocide blockade of Red Sea shipping by Yemen’s Ansar Allah. The article was at pains to portray the pilots’ arrival Stateside as a heroic homecoming for courageous American flying aces. In reality, the Empire’s terminal weaknesses, and drastically ever-reducing power, were amply exposed.
AP described the pilots as “feeling relieved…after months of shooting down Houthi-launched missiles and drones off Yemen’s coast in the most intense running sea battle the Navy has faced since World War II.” Accompanying photos depicted them embracing their wives, and children waving the Star Spangled Banner. One pilot, “clearing the emotion from his voice,” boasted that he “couldn’t be prouder of his team” – the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier strike group – and “everything that the last nine months have entailed.”
The pilot looked ahead to spending time with his family, and trying to “make up for nine months of lost time.” The wife of a Navy lieutenant commander and pilot lamented that she “initially thought this deployment would be relatively easy” – “it was going to be, if you could call it, a fun deployment where he’s going to get lots of ports to visit.” As it was, the USS Eisenhower became embroiled in a brutal, unwinnable quagmire, and “plans continued to change.”
The drastic prolongation of her husband’s deployment “was exacerbated” due to knowing “people” – in other words, Ansar Allah – “[wanted] to harm the ship.” She was forced to consult “counselors provided by the Navy,” and was not alone. AP records “months of fighting and extensions placed extra stress on roughly 7,000 sailors and their families.” Pentagon officials are now investigating how to care for pilots and sailors “when they return home, including counseling and treatment for possible post-traumatic stress.”
It’s been a hellacious nine months for the US Navy in the Red Sea, courtesy of God’s Partisans [literal translation of Ansar Allah]. AP notes the Eisenhower and its accompanying ships have been bombarded relentlessly by Ansar Allah drones, and ballistic and cruise missiles. Frequently, these attacks have penetrated multiple layers of on-ship defenses, which is totally unprecedented in modern history. AP reports many sailors “have seen incoming Houthi-launched missiles seconds before they are destroyed by their ship’s defensive systems.”
Battling an enemy that can actually fight back has been a deeply ravaging experience for the US Navy. One pilot remarked, “most of the sailors…weren’t used to being fired on given the nation’s previous military engagements in recent decades.” He described the experience as “incredibly different”, “traumatizing for the group”, and “something that we don’t think about a lot.” A new experience it may be – but it’s one the US military will need to promptly and permanently adapt to.
Given the pace with which events move in this epoch, many may have forgotten the tubthumping fanfare that accompanied Operation Prosperity Guardian’s launch in December 2023. This followed a flurry of ineffectual, flaccid British and US airstrikes on Yemen. Officials in Washington bombastically announced that a multi-country coalition led by the US, comprising Bahrain, Britain, Canada, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, the Seychelles, and Spain would be dispatched to the Red Sea, to decisively end Ansar Allah’s blockade, and ensure “freedom of trade”.
Almost immediately though, the much-vaunted coalition came apart. France, Italy, and Spain all announced they wouldn’t actually be taking part. Despite this inauspicious debut, when footage emerged of a grand international naval flotilla dramatically slicing its way to the region, many prominent social media users shrieked that Yemenis were about to find out why Americans don’t enjoy universal healthcare. Fast forward to July this year, and the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) published a forensic report on the impact of AnsarAllah’s “attacks on international trade.”
It found that container shipping through the Red Sea, which typically accounts for approximately 10-15% of international maritime trade, had declined by approximately 90% since Operation Prosperity Guardian began. Due to Ansar Allah’s inexorable onslaught against corporations and countries supporting the Gaza genocide, many ships were forced to take alternative routes around Africa, adding approximately 11,000 extra nautical miles, up to two weeks further transit time, and approximately $1 million in additional fuel costs for each voyage:
“For many shipping companies, the combined costs of crew bonuses, war risk insurance (roughly 1000% more than pre-war costs), and Suez transit fees make the additional time and financial costs traveling around Africa less expensive by comparison…Threats to Red Sea transits are compounding ongoing stress to global maritime shipping…Insurance premiums for Red Sea transits have risen to 0.7-1.0% of a ship’s total value, compared to less than 0.1% prior to December 2023.”
The DIA calculates that “at least 65 countries’ interests have been affected” by Ansar Allah’s actions, and “at least 29 major energy and shipping companies have altered their routes to avoid Houthi attacks.” And this is while their anti-shipping aerial strikes have been subject to relentless bombardment by US missiles and pilots.
On July 15th, mere days after Associated Press surveyed the smoldering wreckage of Operation Prosperity Guardian, AnsarAllah announced three separate operations in response to the Zionist entity’s massacre at the UN al-Mawasi Khan Yunis refugee camp. Undefeated and indefatigable, God’s Partisans are not backing down, and are going nowhere. The Resistance fights to win.
US not solution but obstacle in way of resolving international issues: Iran
Press TV – July 19, 2024
Iran’s interim foreign minister says the United States’ unilateral approach to international issues has proven to be a failure, stressing that Washington is not part of the solution, but an obstacle in the path of peace.
Speaking to reporters in New York on Friday, Ali Bagheri Kani criticized the US’s withdrawal from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and its export of weapons to Israel amid the regime’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip.
“The Americans’ claims that unilateralism can bring about peace, stability and security to the world have failed,” he said.
“Practically, the American’s approaches to the Iran nuclear negotiations, as well as the Palestine issue and the Zionist’s aggression against Gaza, demonstrated that they cannot be part of the solution, but they are themselves the main obstacle.”
The top diplomat also noted that the US is not qualified to be a “neutral mediator” as it disrupted the JCPOA’s implementation and is even “encouraging” Israel to commit more crimes in Gaza by providing the regime with lethal arms.
Bagheri Kani made the remarks after he attended two United Nations Security Council meetings focusing on the developments in Palestine and multilateralism.
He said that in the meetings, he had underlined the need for an immediate end to the Gaza genocide and highlighted the consequences if the regime committed a “strategic mistake” by invading Lebanon.
“The Zionists are killing and injuring 20 oppressed Palestinians almost every hour. Thus, the world should not remain silent and passive in the face of these continued crimes that are being normalized,” he added.
The interim foreign minister further hailed resistance as an effective element in the region, saying it plays a major role in creating regional stability and prevents the Zionists from escalating their offensive and massacre in the region.
Israel unleashed its brutal Gaza onslaught on October 7, 2023, after the Hamas resistance group carried out its historic operation against the occupying entity in retaliation for the regime’s intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.
The Tel Aviv regime has so far killed at least 38,848 Palestinians, mostly women, and children, in Gaza, and injured 89,456 others in the besieged Gaza Strip.
US declares ‘mission complete’ for Gaza Aid Pier after delivering one day’s worth of food
The Cradle | July 18, 2024
The Pentagon announced on 17 July that the floating pier built off the coast of Gaza would be dismantled for good, declaring its “mission complete” two months after it started operations.
“The maritime surge mission involving the pier is complete. So there’s no more need to use the pier,” Navy Vice Admiral Brad Cooper, deputy commander of US Central Command (CENTCOM), told a news briefing late Wednesday.
“Our assessment is that the temporary pier has achieved its intended effect to surge a very high volume of aid into Gaza and ensure that aid reaches the civilians in Gaza in a quick manner,” Cooper said, adding that nearly 20 million pounds of aid entered Gaza via the pier – the equivalent of about 600 truckloads.
For months, the UN and other human rights organizations have established that a minimum of 500 to 600 truckloads of aid need to enter Gaza daily to alleviate critical famine conditions. A large part of the aid that reached Gaza via the pier rotted under the sun for weeks after the US and Israel used the alleged humanitarian corridor to launch a bloody rescue operation in Nuseirat camp that killed nearly 300 Palestinians.
Cooper also announced that efforts to deliver aid to Gaza by sea would shift to the Israeli port of Ashdod. He added that, after US troops failed to re-attach the pier last week for a final time, about five million pounds of aid stranded in Cyprus and at sea will be heading to Ashdod.
“Having now delivered the largest volume of humanitarian assistance ever into the Middle East, we’re now mission complete and transitioning to a new phase,” Cooper claimed. “In the coming weeks, we expect that millions of pounds of aid will enter into Gaza via this new pathway.”
Earlier this week, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced that the floating pier would be replaced with a “dedicated facility” called Pier 28 in Ashdod Port without specifying a timeline.
He also claimed that the facilities will include a field hospital to “treat Palestinian children.” “This is a significant short-term solution that will address immediate humanitarian needs until a permanent mechanism is established to evacuate and treat ill children,” Gallant’s office said.
US President Joe Biden, who announced the construction of the $230 million structure in March, expressed disappointment in the pier’s ultimate failure, saying, “I was hopeful that would be more successful.”
After its launch in mid-May, the pier operated for fewer than 25 days, and aid agencies used it only about half that time due to security concerns, as the Israeli army has continuously targeted aid convoys and humanitarian groups operating in Gaza.
Barely any humanitarian aid has entered Gaza since the start of May when Israel violently took control of the Rafah crossing after Hamas accepted the terms of a US-backed ceasefire agreement. Tel Aviv is also in control of another six land crossings into the besieged enclave, which could allow for the delivery of necessary assistance that has been rotting on the Egyptian side of the border.
160 journalists killed by ‘Israel’ since October: Gaza Media Office
Mohammed Meshmesh, program director at Al-Aqsa Voice radio.
Al Mayadeen | July 16, 2024
The media office of Gaza’s government reported on Tuesday that at least 160 journalists have been killed in the strip since Israeli airstrikes began in October.
“The number of journalists killed since the start of the genocide war against the Gaza Strip has risen to 160,” the media office said in a statement.
In April, the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate reported that at least 140 journalists had been killed in the Israeli military offensive on Gaza. The latest martyr is Mohammed Meshmesh, a program director at Al-Aqsa Voice radio, according to the media office.
On Sunday, a senior official in the Israeli security administration claimed that the intensive phase of military operations in Gaza has ended and the regime has proceeded to the third stage of the war, as quoted by Israeli broadcaster Channel 14.
This supposedly means that “Israel” has concluded its most active and aggressive period of its campaign in Gaza.
Yet, earlier today, Israeli forces committed two massacres across the Strip, including at the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) school of al-Razi in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, where many forcible displaced families were taking refuge.
23 Palestinians were killed in the horrific massacre and dozens were injured.
Another attack on displaced people near the al-Attar Station in the al-Mawasi, Khan Younis, has resulted in the killing of at least 17 people and the injury of at least 26, as per the Ministry of Health in Gaza.
The Ministry of Health in Gaza announced in its daily report today that the number of Palestinians killed in Gaza due to the Israeli genocidal war ongoing since October 7 has now reached 38,713, in addition to 89,166 injuries.
It further confirmed that Israeli forces committed two massacres in 24 hours, killing 49 and injuring 69, and that thousands of victims are still under the rubble on the streets.
Palestinian steadfastness and Hamas tactics have thwarted Israel’s goals
By Nidal Adaileh | MEMO | July 15, 2024
There is no dispute about Hamas’ ability to survive, despite more than nine months of fighting against Israel. The occupation state has to admit that it has not achieved any of its goals.
More than 38,000 Palestinians have been killed, and almost 100,000 more have been wounded. Nevertheless, Hamas and the factions fighting alongside it remain steadfast, and even take the war to the so-called invincible army occasionally.
It has become clear that Benjamin Netanyahu’s stated objective of eliminating Hamas is pure vanity. Now we see statements from Israeli officials which are clearly intended to prepare the general public that this objective may not really be possible, even as Hamas and its allies have adopted a new strategy targeting Israeli forces inside Gaza, instead of launching rockets towards Israel.
The Israeli prime minister is trying to limit the threats of the Palestinian resistance factions through the ongoing military offensive against the Palestinians in Gaza. However, he faces major challenges in achieving his two main goals of “eradicating” the Islamic Resistance Movement and returning the Israelis held as prisoners in the enclave.
Time is no longer on Israel’s side.
International pressure is increasing for it to “limit its operations”. The longer that Hamas holds out, the more difficult it becomes for Israel to achieve its goals.
Nine months into its war, Israel has failed to destroy Hamas as a military and political force, and even if it has succeeded in killing key leaders who planned the 7 October cross-border incursion, battle-hardened replacements are emerging in their stead.
The resilience of the resistance groups reflects their effective use of guerrilla tactics, the extent of their arsenal and the regrouping of their fighters. Led by the Hamas military wing, Al-Qassam Brigades, the factions are engaged in confrontations that reflect a high level of preparation and implementation, despite the technological imbalance favouring the Israeli army. The objective of the resistance groups is to inflict losses on the Israeli war machine so that it pays the price for its brutal offensive which has targeted and killed so many innocent civilians and destroyed essential infrastructure in Gaza. If and when Israel realises the extent of its failures, it may open the way for an end to the war.
Hamas has had to cope with 18 years of siege imposed on the Gaza Strip, but has nevertheless been able to develop militarily. Its fighting capabilities have grown, with locally-produced weapons and munitions produced using technology provided by supporters. The movement’s strategic, operational and tactical options are hugely varied compared with those of its early days.
The steadfastness of the Palestinians in Gaza in the face of the bloody massacres of the Zionist entity, meanwhile, has attracted global attention and admiration. It is a mistake to think that the Palestinians can be defeated through military means; they may be bloodied, but they are unbowed. On many occasions throughout the 20th century societies retreated in the face of brutal crimes and terrorism, even though they knew themselves to be in the right, but what we are witnessing in Gaza is the steadfastness of an entire people.
It may not be clear who are the victors and who are the defeated, but what is clear is that Israel has not achieved its goals: Hamas still very much exists, and Israelis are still held as prisoners in Gaza.
The Gaza Strip has now become a thorn in the side of the Israeli occupation army. It is at a loss about what it can do. I am sure that the Gaza experience will — if it has not already — become a special case study for military academies around the world.
Palestinian steadfastness in Gaza and, increasingly, in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, is the password in the current phase of the struggle to end the Israeli occupation and establish an independent, sovereign Palestinian state in which Palestinians can live in safety.
Israel using US-provided internationally prohibited weapons: Hamas
Press TV – July 15, 2024
The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas says Israel is using the US-provided internationally prohibited weapons against people in Gaza.
Hamas said in a statement on Monday that more than 320 martyrs and injured have reached hospitals in the past 48 hours with their bodies burned due to the use of internationally prohibited weapons by Israeli occupation forces.
The weapons used by the Israeli occupation forces have caused third-degree burns which thermal or chemical arms cause, Hamas said.
The group added that these “are unconventional, internationally banned weapons, mostly of American manufacture.”
“These weapons cause a chemical reaction with the skin, leading to the direct chemical erosion of tissues in the bodies of martyrs and the injured,” it added.
“They cause severe pain and deep physical damage, resulting in fatal burns within 27 hours or less. We have indeed lost many martyrs in this tragic manner,” the statement added.
Hamas said they strongly condemn the crimes against humanity committed by the Israeli occupation against civilians, children, and women.
“We call on all countries of the world to denounce these incendiary crimes against civilians and to pursue and prosecute the occupation in international courts,” it added.
Hamas said it holds the US administration “fully responsible, both legally and morally, for supplying the Israeli occupation with these various types of internationally prohibited weapons.”
“We also hold the Israeli occupation responsible for the crimes and massacres it commits against civilians and displaced persons,” the resistance movement said.
“We call on the international community, all international and UN organizations, and all free countries of the world to pursue the Israeli occupation and pressure it to stop the genocide that the occupation army is committing to kill and destroy our Palestinian people,” it concluded.
Gaza Civil Defense Service has in several statements pointed to the “dissolution of victims corpses and their conversion into ashes.”
A Euro-Med Monitor report highlights that the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, the Geneva Conventions of 1949, and international humanitarian law all forbid the use of thermal bombs against civilians in populated civilian areas.
“The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court also classifies the use of thermal bombs as a war crime.”
Two weeks into the war, Gaza’s Health Ministry warned in a statement that “medical staff monitored the usage of unusual weapons that caused severe burns to the bodies of the martyrs and wounded.”
Analysts believe that the Gaza war is the latest laboratory for Israel’s arms industry as the regime is known to test its weapons on Palestinians in its offensives against the occupied nation.
At least 90 Palestinians mostly women and children were killed and almost 300 others were injured in the July 13 Israeli aerial assault on the densely-populated camp near Khan Younis.
Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7 after Palestinian resistance groups carried out a surprise retaliatory operation into the occupied territories.
Concomitantly with the war, the regime has been enforcing a near-total siege on the coastal territory, which has reduced the flow of foodstuffs, medicine, electricity, and water into the Palestinian territory into a trickle.
So far during the military onslaught, the regime has killed at least 38,664 Gazans, most of them women, children, and adolescents. Another 89,097 Palestinians have sustained injuries as well.
Israel launches new Gaza strikes after weekend attack kills scores in safe zone
MEMO | July 15, 2024
Israel struck the southern and central Gaza Strip on Monday to put more pressure on Hamas, following a weekend strike targeting the group’s leadership, which killed scores of Palestinians who had sought shelter in a makeshift camp, Reuters reports.
Two days after the Israeli strike turned a crowded swathe of Mawasi near the Mediterranean coast into a charred wasteland littered with burning cars and mangled bodies, displaced survivors said they had no idea where they should go next.
“Those moments as the ground shook underneath my feet and the dust and sand rose to the sky and I saw dismembered bodies – was like nothing I have seen in my life,” said Aya Mohammad, 30, a market seller in Mawasi, reached by mobile text message. “Where to go is what everybody asks, and no one has the answer.”
Mawasi on the western outskirts of Khan Yunis has been sheltering hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who fled to the area after Israel declared it a safe zone. Israel said its strike there on Saturday targeted Hamas military commander, Mohammed Deif, an architect of the 7 October assault on Israeli towns and villages that triggered the Gaza war.
The military said it struck an open area, with several buildings and sheds, adding it was a compound run by Hamas and not a tented camp.
Palestinian officials say at least 90 people were killed on Saturday and many hundreds wounded. Reuters journalists at the scene filmed carnage, with residents carrying the wounded and dead amid flames and smoke.
Further south in Rafah, the main focus of Israel’s advance since May, residents reported renewed fighting on Monday. Israeli forces in western and central parts of the city blew up several homes, they said. Medical officials said they recovered 10 bodies of Palestinians killed by Israeli fire in eastern areas of the city, some of which had already begun to decompose.
The military also stepped up aerial and tank shelling in central Gaza in the Al-Bureij and Al-Maghazi historic Refugee Camps. Health officials said five Palestinians were killed in an Israeli air strike on a house in Maghazi Camp.
The Israeli military said the air forces struck dozens of Palestinian military targets across Gaza, killing many gunmen. It said forces killed gunmen in Rafah and central Gaza, sometimes in close combat.
A statement from the Al-Quds Brigade, the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad group, said its fighters were engaged in fierce battles in the Yabna camp in Rafah.
Later, on Monday, in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, where Israel has not yet invaded and hundreds of thousands have taken refuge, the municipality issued an urgent statement saying it was no longer able to provide 700,000 people in the area with drinking water after running out of fuel.
“We urge citizens to preserve what is left in their private tankers and we stress the need to maintain the spirit of cooperation and sharing,” the statement said.
Speaking amidst the rubble of his family home in Deir Al-Balah, Walid Thabet told how an Israeli strike earlier on Monday had killed members of his family. Rescue workers and neighbours sifted through the debris to search for survivors buried beneath the wrecked building.
“My mother, an elderly woman, was sitting with me upstairs. She went downstairs and after five minutes, I pulled her out from under the rubble. We also pulled my sister out from under the rubble, and my sister’s children, too,” said Thabet.
“Those who died are my mother, my sister, and my sister’s children. Children! One was two and a half years old, and the other two, I don’t know what happened to them. God willing, may God save them,” he added.
Talks
Saturday’s carnage in Mawasi, one of the deadliest Israeli strikes of the war, has overshadowed negotiations that both sides had previously described as the closest yet to a lasting ceasefire. A senior Hamas official said on Sunday the group had not walked out of the talks despite the Mawasi strike.
Israel says another senior commander was killed in the strike but it has not yet confirmed the fate of Deif. Hamas officials have denied Deif was killed.
The Gaza Health Ministry said at least 38,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s military offensive since 7 October. It does not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants but officials say most of the dead throughout the war have been civilians.
Israel says it has lost 326 soldiers in Gaza and says at least a third of the Palestinian fatalities are fighters.
The war began after a Hamas-led attack inside Israel on 7 October, which killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took more than 250 hostages to Gaza, according to Israeli authorities.
However, since then, it has been revealed by Haaretz that helicopters and tanks of the Israeli army had, in fact, killed many of the 1,139 soldiers and civilians claimed by Israel to have been killed by the Palestinian Resistance.
Citing a report by the United Nations Environment Programme, the UN Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA, said in a post on X it would take 15 years to clear around 40 million tons of war rubble in Gaza. The effort would need 100+ trucks and cost over $500 million.
“Debris pose a deadly threat for people in the #GazaStrip as it can contain unexploded ordnance and harmful substances,” it added.
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How Ukraine Tortured and Slaughtered Donbass
By Kit Klarenberg | Al Mayadeen | July 11, 2024
Almost immediately after the proxy war erupted, ISIS-tier footage of the torture and murder of Russians in Ukrainian custody emerged.
On July 6th, the New York Times published an astonishing investigation: In Ukraine, Killings of Surrendering Russians Divide an American-Led Unit. The article documents in grim detail how Chosen Company, an international volunteer battalion for Kiev, routinely executes Russian prisoners of war. It is the very first mainstream admission that this practice – a brazen breach of the Geneva Conventions, and a grave war crime – is widespread among Ukraine’s fighters, both foreign and homegrown. … continue
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