Israeli Troops to Attack Rafah as the UN Warns of ‘Large-Scale Loss of Civilian Life’
By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | February 8, 2024
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would order his troops to attack Rafah, a city in Gaza sheltering over one million internally displaced civilians. The situation in the Gazan city is already dire. The UN warns the attack could cause a massive loss of civilian life.
Netanyahu declared Israeli troops would soon attack Rafah. The statement follows the Israeli leader rejecting a ceasefire deal and hostage exchange, saying he would settle for nothing less than “total victory.”
Jens Laerke, a spokesman for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said attacking the city that is sheltering over 1.5 million Palestinians “may constitute war crimes.“ “To be clear, intensified hostilities in Rafah in this situation could lead to large-scale loss of civilian lives, and we must do everything possible within our power to avoid that,” he warned.
Palestinians living in Rafah are sheltering in tents. The people lack food and clean drinking water. Disease and starvation are spreading in the city. Gazans feel the coming assault has them “waiting to be martyred.”
Omar Shaki, the Israel-Palestine director at Human Rights Watch, expressed that Israeli attacks on the densely populated city will add to the 11,500 children Israel has killed in Gaza over four months. “Gaza is one of the most densely populated places on Earth, and Rafah is now the most densely populated place in Gaza. Any sort of military campaign or air strike would amplify risks of disproportionate attacks,” he stated.
It is unclear where the Palestinians will go after Rafah is destroyed by the Israeli military. Tel Aviv has placed two-thirds of the Strip under execution order. Outside of Rafah, other places in Gaza deemed “safe zones” lack infrastructure to support the 2.3 million Palestinians living in the small enclave. Egypt has threatened to go to war if the Israeli military attempted to drive the Palestinians across the border.
Bob Kitchen of the International Rescue Committee explained there was nowhere safe for the Palestinians to go. “If they aren’t killed in the fighting, Palestinian children, women and men will be at risk of dying by starvation or disease,” he said. “There will no longer be a single ‘safe’ area for Palestinians to go to.”
Rafah is the last city in Gaza not devastated by the Israeli military operations in the Strip. However, Israel has conducted scores of strikes in the city. On Wednesday, Israeli strikes in Gaza killed 13 people, including two women and five children.
Palestinian Red Crescent calls for pressure on Israel over fate of missing staff, child
Press TV – February 8, 2024
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) in the Gaza Strip has called on the international community to exert pressure on the Israeli regime to reveal the fate of two of its staff and a six-year-old Palestinian girl who have been missing for a week.
PRCS made the appeal in a social media post on Thursday, 122 hours after the disappearance of their staff members Youssef Zeino and Ahmed al-Madhoon as well as Palestinian girl Hind Rajab in the Tal Al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City.
“We urgently appeal to the international community to exert pressure on Israeli occupation authorities to disclose the whereabouts of Hind and the PRCS team,” the group said.
On January 29, Hind was traveling in a car with her uncle Bahsar Hamada, his wife and their four children, fleeing the brutal bombardment by the Israeli regime.
On their way, Hamada’s car was stopped by the Israeli military. The stoppage was followed by a shower of bullets at Hamada’s car, which killed him, his wife and three of their children on the spot.
Layan Hamada, 15, survived with her cousin Hind. Layan was shot dead as she was speaking on the phone with the PRCS crew while Hind was still trapped inside the vehicle.
Around 6 pm local time, the PRCS team reached the area to rescue Hind who as per the last update remained trapped alone in a car with the dead bodies of her uncle, aunt and cousins scattered around her.
The PRCS team had informed and coordinated with the Israeli authorities before dispatching an ambulance to the location but the NGO lost all contact with its crew after the team went to retrieve the girl.
Since then, demands for answers have been mounting over the fate of Hind and the PRCS medical workers.
Hind’s mother, Wisam, has also issued appeals to international rights organizations for help in finding out what happened to her daughter.
Israel waged its brutal war on besieged Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian Hamas resistance group carried out an unprecedented operation against the occupying entity in retaliation for its intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.
So far, the Tel Aviv regime has killed at least 27,700 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 67,000 others.
Albanese: Israel is still practicing ethnic cleansing in the Gaza Strip, West Bank and Jerusalem
Palestinian Information Center – February 8, 2024
GAZA – The United Nations Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, said on Wednesday that Israel has never respected the international law and has been allowed to violate it since 1967. It is still carrying out acts of ethnic cleansing in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and Jerusalem.
The famine suffered by the residents of the Gaza Strip is unparalleled in the whole world, she said, stressing the necessity of taking all required measures to prevent genocide in Gaza.
Albanese said, in a press statement, “the more aid and ceasefire are delayed, the greater the number of casualties in the Gaza Strip will be.”
She accused Israel of ignoring the International Court of Justice’s ruling by killing more civilians everyday in Gaza, calling on world countries to put pressure on Israel by halting mutual commercial trades.
Albanese said she was shocked to know that member states of the International Court have recently attacked UNRWA, noting that the international community is capable of stopping the ongoing massacres carried out by Israeli occupation forces in the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli occupation’s ongoing aggression on the blockaded Gaza Strip has so far led to the martyrdom of 27,708 people and the injury of 67,147 others, in addition to the enforced displacement of more than 85 percent (about 1.9 million people) of the Strip’s population, according to official authorities and international bodies and organizations.
Palestinian Information Center director Gharabli martyred in Israeli strike
Palestinian Information Center | February 7, 2024
GAZA – The Palestinian Information Center (PIC) has mourned the tragic loss of its office director in Gaza, Dr. Rizq al-Gharabli, who was martyred on Tuesday during relentless Israeli attacks on Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip.
Dr. Gharabli’s death brings to 123 the number of Palestinian journalists who have been martyred since the Israeli occupation state started its genocidal war on Gaza.
The Government Media Office announced yesterday the martyrdom of Dr. Gharabli in an Israeli airstrike on his home in Khan Yunis.
Last Monday, the International Federation of Journalists organized a rally outside the European Union headquarters in Brussels in solidarity with the journalists in Gaza and in protest at the European silence on Israel’s crimes against civilians, especially journalists.
The participants in the protest carried placards and banners that said “Freedom for Palestinian journalists,” “Israel, stop killing journalists in Gaza” and “Journalists in Gaza, we are with you.”
FOR WESTERN MEDIA, ISRAEL’S BOMBING OF GAZA IS NOT ‘DEADLY’
Right across the Anglo-American mainstream media, the killing of Palestinians is seen as normal. It’s only Israeli lives that matter.
BY DES FREEDMAN | DECLASSIFIED UK | JANUARY 30, 2024
Twenty-four Israeli soldiers were killed in two separate incidents in Gaza on 22 January. Mainstream media outlets around the world reacted in unison: that this was the “deadliest day” for Israel since 7 October.
This exact phrase was used in headlines on 23 January carried by news agencies such as Reuters and AFP, and major broadcasters including the BBC, CBS, NBC, CNN, ABC and ITV News.
The exact same phrase was also used by leading news titles including the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Time magazine, Daily Telegraph, the Sun, Jerusalem Post, Guardian, London’s Evening Standard, Financial Times, Independent and Yahoo News.
On the same day, Israeli forces killed almost 200 Palestinians in Gaza including at least 65 people in Khan Younis alone.
These deaths received no headlines in the above outlets. Where they were reported, they were listed as part of the regular daily round-up of events in an unfolding genocide that has now seen more than 26,000 people killed in Gaza.
How is it possible that the world’s media could embrace exactly the same phrase in relation to Israeli victims but largely ignore the identities of the much higher number of Palestinians killed?
Why would 22 January be described as “deadly” for one group of people but not for another?
Unequal value
You might expect that editors took the “deadliest day” phrase from press statements from the Israeli government or military.
Yet Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson Daniel Hagari did not use this phrase in his statement and neither did the IDF Chief of the General Staff, Herzi Halevi, who instead simply called it a “difficult day”.
Prime minister Benjamin Netanhayu also described it as “one of the most difficult days” while Israel’s President, Isaac Herzog, spoke of “an unbearably difficult morning”.
He used the same language as both Knesset speaker Amir Ohana and minister Benny Gantz, both of whom referred to a “painful morning”.
Of course, it is possible the phrase was used in private and informal briefings to the press on the morning of 23 January. It is, however, equally conceivable that this was a trope that came “naturally” from a deep-rooted idea in the western media that the lives of Israelis and Palestinians are not of equal value.
And, therefore, that measuring the “deadliness” of a particular day should only be done for Israelis (where every life matters) and not for Palestinians (whose individual lives clearly appear to count for less).
‘Deadliest day’
Indeed, a search of the Nexis database of UK national and local news (including BBC broadcast bulletins) reveals that there were 856 uses of the phrase “deadliest day” from 7 October 2023 until 25 January 2024, none of which directly referred to evidence of Palestinian deaths in Gaza.
The only exception to this were some BBC bulletins on 25 October which mentioned “Palestinians reporting the deadliest day in Gaza” (emphasis added).
Otherwise, there was not a single reference during this period across the British media to “the deadliest day for Palestinians” or “for the people of Gaza”.
The other approximately 850 references directly related only to Israeli casualties. Some 28 per cent of them focused on the killing of IDF soldiers on 22 January.
The vast majority referred to the events of 7 October, described either as “the deadliest day for Jews” or “the deadliest day for the Jewish people” which accounted for some 25% of all references.
Many of these stories were focused on the words of US president Joe Biden who, in a much publicised speech to Jewish leaders at the White House, described the Hamas attack on 7 October as the “deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust”.
Biden’s words alone make up 20% of all references to the “deadliest day” trope.
Perhaps Biden’s words were on the minds of editors across the world as they listened to Israeli spokespeople on the morning of 23 January and that the deaths of 24 IDF soldiers merited such a phrase when talking about Israeli lives.
Framing the war
But why has the phrase not been used in relation to Palestinians and, indeed, why is there so little preoccupation with days when particularly large number of Gazans are killed?
Precisely because the war is not framed in a way which recognises the equal worth of all those affected – in other words, a situation where every instance of significant Palestinian casualties would deserve a headline – it’s hard to be certain of which have been the very deadliest days for the residents of Gaza.
However, it’s clear that the period immediately after the temporary ceasefire in the last week of November saw particularly intense airstrikes and there were, according to Al Jazeera, at least 700 Palestinians killed on 2 December alone.
Yet there was no mention in the UK media about this being the “deadliest day” for Palestinians. Instead, the Guardian simply ran with a headline of “‘Israel says its ground forces are operating across ‘all of Gaza’” while the Sunday Times wrote that “Fears for hostages as Gazans say bombardment is worse than ever”.
According to the Mail Online, “Israel says it is expanding its ground operations against Hamas’ strongholds across the whole of the Gaza Strip as IDF continues to bomb territory after terrorists broke fragile truce”.
The BBC’s TV news bulletins on 3 December carried distressing footage of casualties but also featured a quote from an adviser to Netanyahu saying that “Israel was making the ‘maximum effort’ to avoid killing civilians” without carrying an immediate rebuttal of this outrageous claim.
In other words, despite the fact that 30 times more Palestinians were killed on 2 December than when the 24 IDF soldiers were killed, there was no recognition of the “deadliness” of that day.
Instead, the framing was all about the strategic plans of the Israeli military rather than the mass slaughter of Palestinians.
‘Intensive strike’
On 26 December, a further 241 people were killed by Israeli bombs. Britain’s “newspaper of record”, The Times, responded with the headline: “Israel-Gaza war: Palestinians hit by ‘most savage bombing’” with a sub heading that “Israel launches most intensive strike since Hamas attack on October 7”.
You could be forgiven for thinking that there was nothing deadly about this episode because, after all, Palestinians were only being “struck” as opposed to brutally killed.
But this was hardly an exceptional day given that Oxfam reported earlier this year that Israel’s military was killing Palestinians at an average rate of 250 people a day, a figure it said exceeded the daily death toll of any other major conflict of recent years.
There is clearly a brutal politics to counting the dead. The New York Times ran an article on 22 January headlined “The Decline of Deaths in Gaza” arguing that average daily deaths across a 30-day period have now fallen below 150.
For the NYT, it is “plausible that a lower percentage of deaths are among civilians now that Israel’s attacks have become more targeted and the [average] daily toll has declined”.
Not only, however, is there little evidence that the IDF is in any way opposed to killing civilians but the idea that casualties are declining at a time when we are soon likely to see a total of 30,000 Palestinian deaths is profoundly shocking.
Any slowdown in the rate of killing is hardly a consolation to the millions who still live in fear of IDF raids and rockets.
Media consensus
The media consensus that only Israelis are the victims of the “deadliest days” in the region and not Palestinians, despite the latter accounting for 95% of deaths since 7 October, is one of the many illustrations of the unequal and profoundly distorted coverage of this war.
Until the South African government submitted its partially successful claim to the International Court of Justice, news organisations were unwilling even to investigate the genocidal language of Israeli political and military leaders.
The media also routinely uses dehumanising and differential language where Israelis are “massacred” while Palestinians simply “die”. This illustrates the awful role of the mainstream media in paving the way for the ethnic cleansing we are currently seeing.
The real reason you don’t see or hear the media talk about a “deadly day” for Palestinians is that every day is deadly when you live in Gaza.
New wave of US, UK strikes target Yemen
The Cradle – February 4, 2024
US and UK warships and fighter jets bombed Yemen on 4 February, in a wave of missile strikes US officials claim hit 36 targets.
The US said in a CENTCOM statement that it hit “36 targets at 13 locations,” striking “underground storage facilities, command and control, missile systems, UAV storage and operations sites, radars, and helicopters.”
According to the statement, the US, UK, Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, and New Zealand took part in the attacks.
The strikes were in response to Yemeni efforts to target Israeli-linked commercial ships passing through the narrow Bab al-Mandab Strait in the Red Sea. The Yemeni attacks are in response to Israel’s genocidal bombing campaign in Gaza.
Rather than press its ally Israel to stop its military campaign, which has killed over 27,000 Palestinians, the majority women and children, the US has joined forces with the UK to bomb Yemen.
Saturday’s strikes were launched by US F/A-18 fighter jets from the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier, British Typhoon FGR4 fighter aircraft, and the Navy destroyers USS Gravely and the USS Carney firing Tomahawk missiles from the Red Sea, according to US officials and the UK Defense Ministry.
The Yemen Armed Forces issued a statement detailing where the attacks took place, reporting 13 raids on Sanaa, 9 on Hodeidah, 11 on Taiz, 7 on Al-Bayda, 7 on Hajjah, and one on Saada.
“These attacks will not deter us from our moral, religious, and humanitarian stance in support of the steadfast Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, and will not go unanswered and punished,” read the statement.
The strikes come one day after the US sent B-1 bombers to target 85 locations affiliated with the Islamic Resistance of Iraq in eastern Syria and western Iraq, killing at least 16. This was in response to an operation by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq that targeted US military outpost Tower 22 in Jordan last week, killing three US soldiers.
US officials reportedly told Al-Jazeera that the strikes on Yemen are “considered a next round of retaliation for the killing of the [US] soldiers in Jordan.”
Like Ansarallah, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq coalition, formed after 7 October, has also targeted Israel, as well as US bases in Syria and Iraq. The groups say their attacks are in response to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, which the US has supported militarily and diplomatically.
Ansarallah leaders in Yemen say they have no intention of scaling back their campaign despite pressure from the US and UK bombing.
Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, an Ansarallah official, said, “military operations against Israel will continue until the crimes of genocide in Gaza are stopped and the siege on its residents is lifted, no matter the sacrifices it costs us.” He wrote on social media that the “American-British aggression against Yemen will not go unanswered, and we will meet escalation with escalation.”
Kata’ib Hezbollah: Iraq strikes stem from US statesmen’s criminal mindset
Press TV – February 4, 2024
Iraqi anti-terror group Kata’ib Hezbollah has roundly denounced the latest US military airstrikes against several sites used by resistance groups in the country, stating that the attacks emanate from the US administration’s criminal mindset and its craving for more bloodshed.
“We extend our condolences to our proud and steadfast nation for the martyrdom of several compatriots, who were targeted while protecting the homeland against the evils of American forces and the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group,” it said in a statement.
It added that criminality is deeply ingrained in the mindset of American politicians, and they long for relentless bloodletting as well as starvation and massacre of ordinary people in pursuit of their interests and advancement of their malicious agendas.
“US officials do not shy away from the occupation of other countries, plundering others’ national assets, influencing their decision-making and their humiliation.
“Under the American mindset, the first solution is murder. Such an attitude has historically been responsible for the extensive destruction of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is now behind the deadly attacks against sites in al-Qa’im,” Kata’ib Hezbollah pointed out.
Separately, the Yemeni Ansarullah resistance movement censured the US aggression against areas in Iraq and neighboring Syria, terming them as barbaric, in breach of international law, and a serious violation of the two countries’ sovereignty.
“The aggression falls within the context of US support for the Zionist enemy as it continues its crimes against the Palestinian population of Gaza,” it added.
Ansarullah warned that US moves will drag the entire region into a more complex conflict, and will jeopardize international peace and security.
“Washington could have compelled the Tel Aviv regime to halt its aggression on Palestinians and lift the siege on Gaza. It, however, decided to target the countries and nations of the region.
“We reiterate that Muslim nations reserve the right to defend themselves and protect their security and sovereignty against repeated US acts of aggression,” the Yemeni movement underscored.
US Central Command (CENTCOM) said its military forces struck more than 85 targets in Iraq and Syria “with numerous aircraft to include long-range bombers flown from the United States”.
“The air strikes employed more than 125 precision munitions,” it added in a statement.
US President Joe Biden said in a statement on Friday that the strikes were the first in a series of actions by Washington in response to a drone attack that killed a number of soldiers at a remote US base in Jordan.
“Our response began today,” Biden said. “It will continue at times and places of our choosing,” he stated.
Three US soldiers were killed and about 40 others injured in the assault on the military base known as Tower 22 near the Jordan-Syria border on Sunday.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of anti-terror fighters, in a statement published on its Telegram channel claimed responsibility for the drone strike.
In retaliation for the flurry of US aerial assaults on several locations in Iraq and Syria, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq announced that it had conducted missile strikes against the Ain al-Asad Airbase, housing US occupation forces in the western Iraqi province of al-Anbar.
The group also said it had staged missile and drone strikes against the strategic al-Tanf military base in southeastern Syria near the border with Jordan and Iraq, as well as the al-Khadra Village in Syria’s northeastern province of al-Hasakah.
Nearly two million at risk as Israel threatens assault on Rafah
The Cradle | February 2, 2024
Nearly two million Palestinians stranded in south Gaza’s Rafah were struck with panic after the Israeli defense minister said the southern city – previously described as a safe zone to which the displaced can flee – will be the next target of Israel’s brutal offensive on the strip.
Around 1.9 million Palestinians live in increased fear following the Israeli threats, Al-Jazeera reported on 2 February.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant claimed on 1 February that the presence of Hamas would be dealt with in Rafah as it is being dealt with in Khan Yunis.
“Hamas’s Khan Yunis Brigade boasted that it would stand against the IDF, now it’s falling apart,” Gallant said, despite the fact that the Israeli army continues to face fierce resistance from the Qassam Brigades in the southern city.
“I am telling you here, we are completing the mission in Khan Yunis and we will also reach Rafah and eliminate everyone there who is a terrorist who is trying to harm us,” the defense minister added.
“They don’t have weapons, they don’t have ammunition,” Gallant said about Hamas fighters across Gaza, as RPG attacks continued to target Israeli tanks and troop carriers in Khan Yunis on 2 February.
In the first months of the war, hundreds of thousands of residents in north and central Gaza were forced to flee to Rafah – where Tel Aviv repeatedly said civilians would be safe from harm.
Despite this, Israeli warplanes bombarded Rafah several times.
As the army began pushing into Khan Yunis in early December, hundreds of thousands more were forced deeper south into Rafah. Israel continues to order more forced evacuations – despite Rafah being severely overcrowded with the displaced.
Last month, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported, citing Israeli and Egyptian officials, that Israel is planning a risky military operation to take control of the Philadelphi Corridor.
The Philadelphi Corridor is the border area of the southern Gaza Strip, which includes the Rafah border crossing with Egypt.
An Israeli operation in this area – and in the city of Rafah in general – would have catastrophic effects on the civilian population currently stranded there
Gallant’s threats came in the wake of new truce discussions. A Palestinian source told Al-Mayadeen on Thursday evening that Hamas has yet to agree to the proposal, and dispelled rumors that it sent a delegation to Cairo for negotiations.
Israeli forces follow orders to occupy, burn Palestinian homes in Gaza
Press TV – February 1, 2024
Israeli forces have set fire to Palestinian homes in the Gaza strip, following direct orders from their commanders to “burn Gaza”, a move considered an apparent war crime in the South African-led genocide case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz on Wednesday reported that Israeli forces have occupied and then burned hundreds of Gaza homes and everything in them, on direct orders of their commanders, without the necessary legal permission to do so.
Some Israeli troops have posted videos on social media, which showed them taking part in acts of home burning, which they described as revenge for fellow soldiers’ deaths or the “October 7 Hamas-led attacks on Israel.”
“Until last month, the army’s combat engineering corps mostly used mines and explosives, and in some cases heavy machinery such as D9 bulldozers, to demolish structures. Setting fire to homes belonging to noncombatant civilians, for the mere purpose of punishment, is forbidden under international law,” Haaretz wrote.
“Civilians and civilian infrastructure are not a target. They must be protected. Everywhere. At all times,” the United Nations account on X platform posted.
Wars have rules that must be respected by all sides.
Humanitarians must be able to safely deliver aid.
Civilians & civilian infrastructure are #NotATarget.
They must be protected.
Everywhere.
At all times.
— via @UNOCHA pic.twitter.com/zerJ31NC7D
— United Nations (@UN) January 31, 2024
Previous UN reports have indicated that Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip have displaced more than 90% of the territory’s population and destroyed or damaged over 60% of the infrastructure there.
In the occupied West Bank, the same case is happening, where settlers regularly attack Palestinian people and property and burn their houses. For decades, Israel’s policy of destroying the homes of relatives of Palestinian resistance fighters has been condemned as illegal collective punishment.
Meanwhile, international human rights groups have documented Israeli troops conducting systematic looting of Palestinians’ homes across Gaza, stealing their property, vandalizing Palestinian businesses and even burning humanitarian aid supplies, including food.
Several Israeli officials, including the deputy speaker of the Knesset, Nissim Vaturi, who is a member of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, have called for the destruction, burning, and even nuclear annihilation of Gaza, advocating the policy to “Burn Gaza now.”
Some of their statements have been used as evidence in the South African-led genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague as deliberate attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure are forbidden under international humanitarian law.
The ICJ last week called on Israel to prevent genocidal acts in its ongoing war in Gaza but stopped short of ordering a ceasefire. It also ordered the regime to ensure humanitarian assistance reaches the population in Gaza.
UN: Israel refusing entry of aid to Gaza for ‘unclear’ reasons
MEMO | February 1, 2024
“Israel is refusing the entry of a significant amount of aid to Gaza for unclear reasons,” UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Martin Griffiths, has warned.
In a press statement issued yesterday, the UN official added: “We continue to face the frequent rejection for entry of much-needed items into Gaza by Israel, for unclear, inconsistent and often unspecified reasons.”
“We must also have access to civilians in need across Gaza. At present, our access to Khan Younis, the Middle Area and North Gaza is largely absent,” he added.
“The ability of the humanitarian community to reach the people of Gaza with relief remains grossly inadequate. This is not for want of trying.”
He emphasised that anyone who has been displaced from their home in Gaza should have the right to return voluntarily as required by international law.
Since 7 October, Israel’s genocidal military operation in Gaza has forced more than 1.7 million Palestinians out of their homes. Many of them have been displaced multiple times, as families have been forced to move repeatedly in search of safety.
Almost 66,000 have been injured, many losing one or both their limbs with Israel banning the entry of crutches in the enclave and thus leaving them immobile.
US troops told to prepare for war in Gaza – media
RT | January 31, 2024
US Air Force personnel in Iraq have been ordered to remain on standby in case of “on ground US involvement in the Israel Hamas war,” The Intercept reported on Tuesday, citing a Pentagon memo.
Circulated earlier this month, the memo instructs an unknown number of troops to be placed “on standby to forward deploy to support troops in the case of on ground US involvement in the Israel Hamas war,” the news site reported. The standby order applies to troops stationed in Iraq since last year, according to a separate Pentagon document seen by The Intercept.
The Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment.
The White House has stated on several occasions since October that its support for the Jewish state would not involve American soldiers fighting alongside their Israeli counterparts.
The US responded to Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel by immediately dispatching two aircraft carriers to the region and preparing 2,000 additional troops for deployment to the Middle East, but White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters on October 10 that “there is no intention to put US boots on the ground” in Israel or Gaza.
However, US special forces have been active in Israel since October, with senior official Christopher Maier telling reporters at the time that American commandos were “actively helping the Israelis to do a number of things.” The Pentagon has also admitted to flying spy drones over Gaza “in support of hostage recovery efforts.”
Since the conflict began, US troops in Iraq, Syria, and Jordan have come under fire more than 150 times, with Iran-aligned Shi’ite militias subjecting their bases to regular drone and rocket barrages. One such attack on an outpost in Jordan on Sunday killed three US soldiers and injured several dozen others.
American ships and warplanes have also launched several strikes against Houthi militants in Yemen, in a bid to break the Houthi blockade on “Israel-linked” merchant shipping passing through the Red Sea. The Houthis have responded by targeting US commercial and military vessels in the area. On Wednesday, the militants announced that they had fired multiple missiles at the destroyer USS Gravely.
US Central Command, which oversees American military operations in the Middle East, said that the Graveley shot down one incoming missile, and suffered no damage or casualties.
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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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