An Israeli airstrike targeting a refugee camp in the central part of the Gaza Strip has killed at least 70 Palestinians as the regime’s genocidal war across the besieged territory continues unabated.
Gaza’s Health Ministry reported the massacre in a late Sunday statement, saying the fatalities came after the regime’s air raid hit a number of houses at the al-Maghazi refugee camp.
According to the ministry’s spokesman, the strike destroyed a “residential block” and the “toll is likely to rise” given the large number of families residing there and the fact that many people are still under the rubble.
“What is happening at the al-Maghazi camp is the annihilation of an entire residential square,” Ashraf al-Qudra said.
The ministry also noted that another Israeli strike on a house in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza has killed 10 members of the same family.
The ministry’s spokesman said the regime’s forces “are bombing the main roads between the [refugee] camps … to impede the arrival of ambulances and civil defense vehicles to the targeted locations.”
“Most of the martyrs who arrived from the Maghazi camp were children, women, and the elderly,” the spokesman for Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital was quoted by the Palestinian media as saying.
Gaza’s Government Media Office said the Israeli strike saw the regime’s military bombing “four inhabited homes” at al-Maghazi.
“We call on all countries of the world to put pressure on the criminal occupation in order to stop the genocidal war … against our Palestinian people and against children, women and civilians,” it added.
The Gaza-based Palestinian resistance movement Hamas also reacted to the Israeli attack, describing it as a “horrific massacre.”
Hamas called the strike “a new war crime extending the genocide” that the Israeli regime “commits against children and unarmed civilians.”
The movement said Israel perpetrated “this treacherous and cowardly bombing…in an attempt to renovate the image of its defeated army.”
Hamas noted that Israel’s onslaught on Gaza is being “supported by [US] President [Joe] Biden’s administration, [which is] the primary partner of the Zionist entity in its crimes and fascist aggression” against the blockaded territory.
The Israeli war machine launched its military aggression on October 7 following an operation by Gaza’s resistance movements, dubbed Operation Al-Aqsa Storm. Over 20,400 people, most of them women and children, have been killed in the Israeli genocide so far.
As the regime’s most dedicated ally, the US has supplied it with more than 10,000 tons of military equipment since the onset of the aggression.
Washington has also cast its veto against all the United Nations Security Council resolutions that called for implementation of an immediate ceasefire across Gaza.
Biden smirked and responded, “I know”, when told by a guest that Netanyahu is drawing the U.S. into a civilisational conflict – and further that Netanyahu blames him (Biden), complaining that the White House wants to block Israel from getting at the root of the problem, by harping on about Gaza and the ‘day after’.
In practice, what Netanyahu is doing is simply mounting a classic flanking manoeuvre – attempting to circumvent Biden by pointing to the ‘broader conflict’ with Iran: ‘Why are you pestering me about Gaza when there’s a monumental conflict raging’, suggests Bibi in exasperation?
“This is not only ‘our war’ but in many ways your war… This is a battle against the Iranian axis… now threatening to close the maritime strait of Bab Al-Mandeb… It is the interest … of the entire civilized community”, Netanyahu has said – not very subtly.
Biden’s reaction is a smug smile, hinting that he thinks he can outplay Netanyahu (‘the fox’). This is Biden’s approach: He aims to disarm Netanyahu’s allegation of an obstructionist U.S. through a parade of top-level visits that reiterates his unstinting support Israel – and to pre-empt Bibi, through insisting that he (Biden) will take care of the non-Gaza issues (Hizbullah, Yemen etc.).
So, the U.S. is assembling a maritime force to confront AnsarAllah in Yemen; the Biden Admin will act to sanction violent settlers in the West Bank; it is warning Baghdad to rein-in the Hashad al Sha’abi; and his envoys in Beirut are trying to forge a ‘diplomatic agreement’ that will include the withdrawal of Hizbullah’s Radwan Forces to the other side of the Litani River in southern Lebanon, and also deal with the unresolved border disputes between Israel and Lebanon.
Biden prides himself on being a hugely experienced foreign policy actor – and thinks himself too wily for Bibi’s tricks. But maybe, Netanyahu – for all his many faults – better understands the Region?
Biden clearly is being played. Even though he fails to recognize it.
Netanyahu knows that ‘no way’ will Hizbullah disarm, and withdraw to north of the Litani. He knows this, and thus can wait out Biden’s diplomatic failure, before saying that the approximately 70,000 Israeli citizens displaced from the northern towns in the wake of 7 October need to ”go home”, and that if the U.S. cannot remove Hizbullah from the border-fence, then Israel will do it.
Netanyahu is using Biden’s diplomatic Lebanese initiative to build European justification for an Israeli operation in a few weeks’ time to push Hizbullah away from the border with Israel. (An Israeli operation against Hizbullah has been in the works from the outset of the Gaza war).
Netanyahu knows too that control over settler violence in the West Bank lies not with him, but is in the hands of his partners: i.e., Ministers Ben Gvir and Smotrich. Neither he, nor Biden can dictate to them – they have been quietly increasing the squeeze on West Bank Palestinians for months.
And finally, Netanyahu knows the Houthis: They will not be deterred by Biden’s maritime flotilla. They will, rather, relish drawing the West into a Red Sea quagmire.
Like it or not, Biden’s tactic of containing and pre-empting regional escalation through the U.S. itself becoming lead actor – in lieu of Israel – is clearly drawing the U.S. deeper into conflict. Does Biden believe that the Houthis will just quietly ‘roll-over’ because the Gerald Ford is anchored off Bab Al-Mandeb, or that Hizbullah will accept instruction from Amos Hochstein?
The second way that Biden is being outplayed is through him seeing the Israeli problem as ‘just Bibi’ – indulging in personal politics. Of course, it is true that the Israeli PM is moulding Israeli politics to his own survival needs; yet pause a moment to consider what President Herzog said on Tuesday during an interview facilitated by the Atlantic Council, a leading Washington-based think tank.
Herzog has long been viewed as distinctly ‘dovish’ and ‘Leftist’ by the Beltway foreign policy establishment – prior to the war – compared to Netanyahu.
In the interview, Herzog said: “We intend to take over the entire Gaza Strip and change the course of history”. He said that the current conflict is a clash of “a set of civilizational values” and he cast Hamas (in pure Manichaean terms) as a “force of evil”, adding that Israel would no longer tolerate Gaza being a “platform for Iran – driving everyone into the abyss of bloodshed and warfare”.
Not much daylight then between him and the PM then.
The convergence between Herzog and Bibi reflects, perhaps, a more substantive change taking place in Israel – a strategic shift that extends far beyond Biden’s personal obsession with Bibi:
Since 7 October, the New York Times and the Jerusalem Post report that 36% of Israelis have moved decidedly to the right on a number of political issues, including support for settlers in the West Bank, endorsements for far-right politicians, and even settlements again inside the Gaza Strip. And while public opinion of Netanyahu himself is faltering, his government is not expected to fall.
And even were that to occur, the more important point to grasp is that support for the policies upheld by Netanyahu’s radical Rightist government is growing, and rapidly.
Israel’s Right generally believes in Israeli control of the West Bank and Gaza, with many right-wing Israelis opposed to the principle of a Palestinian state existing at all alongside Israel. This can be seen in many of the current government’s policies, which have worked toward expanding Israeli settlement of the West Bank and rendering Gaza unlivable for Palestinians.
On the opposite side of the spectrum sits Israel’s Left. The Jerusalem Post notes that the Left largely believe that Israel is ‘occupying’ the West Bank, and that an end to the conflict can only be achieved by ending the occupation and enabling a two-state solution. But no one is explicit on where that second state – a Palestinian state – would be situated. Legally it would be Gaza, the West Bank and part of Jerusalem. But who could enforce that? Who would expel settlers from the West Bank?
For many Israelis, the separation ‘apartheid’ Occupation state of the past 30 years was the workable ‘two-state solution’ – but its pillars (structural separation, military enforcement and deterrence) which had for many Israelis seemed to promise the ‘quiet’ that many hoped for – blew apart on 7 October.
“The trauma of what happened on Oct. 7 shifted Israeli society. It made them question the most basic tenets of whether they were safe in their homes”,said Israeli columnist, Tal Schneider:
“They are calling now for more — more military, more protection, more hard-line policies”.
“Many right-wing people,” Ariella Marsden writes in the Jerusalem Post, “and a minority of left-wingers, saw 7 Oct as proof that peace with the Palestinians is impossible”. Not surprisingly, thinking has turned to population removal which chimes with Netanyahu’s ‘new war of Independence’ theme.
In short, Biden may believe that his ‘long experience’ puts him on the ‘right side’ in judging events. His experience however, is drawn from another era. The political Israel he knew is over: It has reached the end of the road in respect to the old paradigm of its Palestinian modus vivendi. Demography no longer pushes towards ‘giving’ the Palestinians a state, but rather to a clearing of the land of all ‘hostile populations’.
Israelis are rummaging now for their new solution.
And just as Hamas’ resistance has pointed to new ways of conducting warfare, so Biden’s ‘long experience’ exemplified in the sending of 1960s era carriers and vessels to sit offshore, in an age of smart nimble, often untraceable drones and pinpoint missiles, points to something also passé.
The U.S. is directly engaged today in Yemen, Lebanon, the West Bank, Iraq and Syria. And as the war widens, so the U.S. will be held at least partly responsible – You deliberately let Gaza break, and what’s broken, you own. What further gets broke, you own that too.
A destitute 2 million Gazans will be all refugees with no government to provide basic functions and services. Does Netanyahu get it? Of course. Do the vast majority of Israelis care? Nope. But the rest of the world does, and sees a dark stain spreading across the map, and leeching into the West.
And does the U.S. Red Sea flotilla; does the diplomatic effort in Lebanon; do the frantic calls to China to ask for help to rein-in Iran, and the efforts in Baghdad – will this suffice to bring an end to the Axis’ plan?
No – the Resistance must see the U.S. floundering and that Israel – suffused with anger – is positively inviting the next ascent up the escalatory ladder of diffused incremental wider conflict.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has slammed US President Joe Biden’s administration for “actively supporting” Israel’s ongoing “genocide and ethnic cleansing” in the Gaza Strip and indifference to the genocide there.
In a statement on Sunday, CAIR national communications director of the US-based Muslim advocacy group said Biden’s actions will “stain” the US “international reputation.”
“The Biden administration’s callous indifference to – and active support for – the ongoing genocide and ethnic cleansing being carried out by [Israel] will stain our nation’s international reputation for generations to come,” Ibrahim Hooper said.
“The fact that President Biden admits that he did not even ask for a ceasefire in a recent conversation with [Israeli prime minister Benjamin] Netanyahu speaks volumes about the administration’s heartless and immoral approach to the genocide in Gaza,” he added.
On Saturday, Biden told reporters that his conversation with Netanyahu over the war on Gaza was a “long talk,” but he did not ask for a ceasefire in that call.
“Israel has now killed probably more than one in every 100 people in Gaza. That shocking figure alone should be all the evidence that is needed to finally acknowledge the truth of the ‘genocide’ label,” Hooper said.
The statement came as Israel’s deadly air raid on the al-Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza killed at least 70 people, including pregnant women and children on Monday.
An Al Jazeera reporter in Gaza interviewed eyewitnesses who said Israeli forces killed pregnant women “without mercy.”
“The women were reportedly raising white flags as they were attempting to reach the Al-Awda Hospital when they were shot by Israeli forces,” the reporter said.
On Saturday, CAIR called on Americans of all backgrounds to demand that the Biden administration act to “end the slaughter, starvation and ethnic cleansing.”
The call came after several reports revealed that Israeli forces massacred 76 members of an extended family in Gaza, Israeli-imposed famine is widespread, and that bodies are decaying in the streets and are being dug up by Israeli bulldozers.
The group said more than 110,000 Americans have used CAIR’s action alert to contact their members of Congress and call for an end to the violence and occupation.
Previously, CAIR called on the Biden administration to stop sending what it called “genocide bombs” to Israel after the New York Times revealed that US-supplied 2,000-pound bombs were “routinely” used against Palestinian civilians in so-called “safe areas” in Gaza.
CAIR also said the Biden administration must stop “justifying war crimes” Israel has perpetrated against hospitals after an investigation by the Washington Post debunked claims that Gaza’s Al Shifa Hospital had to be attacked because it was a military command center.
Israel waged the war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas carried out Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime’s decades-long campaign of death and destruction against Palestinians.
The Israeli attacks have so far killed at least 20,400 Palestinians, including 6,200 women and 8,200 children, and wounded 53,688 others in the besieged territory, where the Zionists cut off fuel, electricity, food, and water to Gaza’s 2.3 million population.
The adoption of a resolution by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on Friday with focus on a pause in the fighting in Gaza to allow for the delivery of more humanitarian aid can be seen as a turning point in the tortuous journey toward imposing a sustainable ceasefire.
But a caveat must be added that the ultimate litmus test lies in the implementation of the UNSC resolution, as the past history of such resolutions on Palestine does not give cause for optimism.
In fact, Israel’s defiance was in full view already. As the Security Council passed the resolution, Israeli forces pushed ahead with their offensive into Gaza on Friday and ordered residents in Al Bureij — an area in central Gaza where Israel had not previously focused its offensive — to evacuate. The Israeli military’s chief spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said on Thursday: “Our forces continue to intensify ground operations in northern and southern Gaza.”
UN Secretary General António Guterres was spot on when he told reporters after the resolution was passed that “a humanitarian ceasefire is the only way to begin to meet the desperate needs of people in Gaza and end their ongoing nightmare.”
The resolution itself is the outcome of week-long intense negotiations between the United States and the Arab countries that sponsored it — the UAE and Egypt, in particular — to settle for the lowest denominator, which meant accepting a Washington-friendly text that enabled the Biden administration to evade responsibility for another veto, for the third time since 7 October.
Unsurprisingly, the US negotiators brazenly resorted to pressure tactics by drawing on their usual diplomatic tool box — blackmail, arm-twisting and ultimatums — to water down the text to the extent that important provisions relating to a ceasefire and a UN mechanism to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza and ensure its monitoring were abandoned.
And, yet, the US abstained in the vote at the end of the day, registering its reservations — principally, that the resolution was silent on the attack by Hamas on 7 October.
The unkindest cut of all is that the resolution accommodated the US diktat to replace the language describing an immediate cessation of violence with an ambiguous phrase calling on the parties to “create conditions for a cessation of hostilities.” The wording meets the Israeli requirement to have a free hand to continue with its barbaric military operations.
This anomaly, coupled with the absence of any reference to the condemnation of indiscriminate attacks by the Israeli military against civilians almost delivers the wrong signal that the Security Council is effectively becoming an accomplice to the destruction of Gaza — a misnomer that agitated Russia so much that it proposed a last-minute amendment to replace the phraseology in the resolution: “to create the conditions for a sustainable cessation of hostilities” with the unambiguous call “for urgent steps toward a sustainable cessation of hostilities.”
Russia’s demand for an immediate ceasefire was in line with a resolution overwhelmingly passed by the UN General Assembly recently, but the Americans would have nothing of that sort. The unfortunate part is that the Arab sponsors of the resolution caved in to US blackmail to veto the resolution. What transpired between the protagonists behind the scenes is not known.
The paradox is that, in reality, the Americans themselves were desperately keen to avoid casting a veto — the third in as many months — that would have made a mockery of President Joe Biden’s bombastic remark in his September speech at the UN last year that the permanent members of the Security Council should cast vetoes only under “rare, extraordinary situations to ensure the council remains credible and effective.”
All indications are that the US is acutely conscious of finding itself “diplomatically isolated and in a defensive crouch,” as the New York Times put it in an acerbic commentary on the Biden administration’s plight as “an increasingly lonely protector of Israel … (that) puts it at odds with even staunch allies such as France, Canada, Australia, and Japan.”
The commentary says that what rankles most is that first, when the US seems to have green-lit a massive Israeli military response to 7 October “without guardrails,” it:
“painfully confirmed to many in the (global) south this sense that there was a double standard” — and second, even more, “the Russian strategy works, because beyond the United Nations what everyone sees is Russia standing up for international law — and the US standing against it.”
The crux of the matter is that Israel’s Gaza operation is running into a Cornelian dilemma (dilemme cornélien) where sooner rather than later, it is obliged to choose one option from a range of options, all of which reveals a detrimental effect on itself.
Hamas’ top leaders have evaded capture so far, and Gaza’s armed resistance groups have continued to fire rockets into Israel, including two barrages that reached Tel Aviv and its environs last week.
According to another New York Timesreport,“ political commentators and some military experts have been lowering expectations for a quick and decisive Israeli victory.
“Nobody should imagine that there will be a situation where we put a flag on top of a hill and say: OK, we won, and now Gaza will be peaceful and safe. It will not happen,” said Gabi Siboni, a colonel in the reserves and a fellow at the conservative-leaning Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security. “The reality is that we are going to be fighting in Gaza for years to come.”
But is that sustainable — even if Israel controls the US Congress? Conceivably, Israel’s main goal in Gaza was to ethnically cleanse the Strip and drive the Palestinian population to Egypt and Jordan by killing and starving them and making Gaza unlivable.
The real significance of the UNSC resolution, therefore, lies in that such an Israeli game plan will not fly. By not vetoing the resolution, the US may also have signaled that it will not allow the ethnic cleansing. There seems to be an understanding on this score between the US and the Arab protagonists at the political level — Egypt, in particular.
On the other hand, can Israel really destroy Hamas while the Palestinian population remains in Gaza? No, it will not be possible. Now, there is reason to believe that Hamas is inflicting significant damage to the Israeli military. The retreat of the Golani Brigade from the Gaza operation also points in that direction.
The bottom line is that the Israeli operation in Gaza will have to take a different form during the next several weeks — one that is anchored on surgical strikes rather than continuing with the extended ground operation and open-ended Israeli occupation. With warts and all, the Security Council resolution that was passed on Friday paves the way for such a transition.
In yet another case of blowback, reflecting the failure of Western military interventionism in West Asia, Yemen’s Ansarallah (Houthi) movement has inserted itself as an active participant in the ongoing war between Israel and Gaza. First launching batches of loitering munitions, ballistic and cruise missiles towards Israel, Ansarallah then moved on to prevent the passage of Israeli-owned or operated ships through the Red Sea, before announcing a complete closure of the shipping route for any vessels destined to dock at the port of Eilat.
After the Houthis seized a number of ships, while attacking others with drone strikes, activity at Eilat has dropped some 85%. International and Israeli shipping companies have opted to take the long route, which in some cases takes an additional 12 days, to reach Israel with their cargo, a costly diversion to say the least. In opposition to this, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin traveled to the region and announced the formation of a multinational naval task force to be deployed in the Red Sea. Despite talk of the coalition including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and even the United Arab Emirates, the only Arab nation that joined was Bahrain.
So, without a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution to back them up, usually required to make the militarisation of a territory legal under international law, the US has launched yet another foreign intervention. This one is significant because it failed to convince any major regional players to join, demonstrating the decline in American influence, but has also elevated the status of Yemen’s Ansarallah.
Under former US President Barack Obama, Washington backed the Saudi-led coalition’s intervention in Yemen back in 2015. Since then, some 377,000 people have died, largely as a result of the deadly blockade imposed on the majority of the country’s population, while some 15,000 civilians have died due to direct conflict. The objective of the Saudi-led intervention, which received the backing of the US and UK, was to remove Ansarallah from power in the nation’s capital, Sanaa. Although the group does not enjoy international recognition as Yemen’s governing force, it rules over more than 80% of the population, has the support of two-thirds of the nation’s armed forces, and operates a government out of Sanaa.
Ansarallah came to power following a popular revolution against then-Yemeni President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi in 2014. Months later, Hadi resigned and fled the country after Ansarallah militants had decided to take over by force. In the midst of a seven-year war, the political, social and armed movement that is often referred to as “the Houthi rebels” operates as the de facto government of Yemen, but is yet to receive recognition at the UN, which instead recognises the ‘Presidential Leadership Council’ that was created in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in 2022.
The context above is crucial for understanding the capabilities of Yemen’s Ansarallah, which was downplayed as a band of “Iran-backed rebels” in Western corporate media for years. While the governments of the collective West have tried to pretend that the Yemeni group is insignificant, Washington’s recent decision to form a multi-national naval coalition to confront the Houthis is an admission that they are a major regional actor. In fact, Ansarallah is the only Arab movement that controls state assets and a standing army that is participating in the ongoing war with Israel.
The reality that the US is now confronting is something that both Saudi Arabia and the UAE came to realize early last year. Following two separate drone and missile attacks on Abu Dhabi and Dubai in January of 2022, it became apparent that the West’s current level of support could not provide sufficient security for the UAE. Up until a nationwide ceasefire was brokered in April 2022, Ansarallah had also demonstrated its developed missile and drone capabilities, striking valuable economic targets inside Saudi Arabia too.
Despite receiving a lot less attention than it deserved, Ansarallah forces strategically timed their second attack on the UAE to coincide with the arrival of Israeli President Isaac Herzog in the country. This was a clear message to the Emirati and Saudi leaderships that Western support will not provide sufficient security. It’s likely because of this threat from Yemen that Riyadh sought a security pact with the US, in order to make a normalization agreement with Israel possible. Such a security pact would have stipulated that an attack on one is an attack on all, hence dragging the Americans into a direct war against Yemen in the event that the conflict was to flare up again.
The US attempted to help topple the current government in Sanaa, but ended up creating a battle-hardened group that has domestically developed capabilities well beyond those it possessed at the start of the conflict in 2015. In his first foreign policy address after taking office in 2021, US President Joe Biden pledged to end the war in Yemen. However, instead of pursuing a Yemen-Saudi deal, the White House abandoned its pledge and sought to broker a Saudi-Israeli deal instead. That fatal decision is coming back to bite policymakers in Washington.
Backing the Israelis to the hilt in their war on Gaza, spelling out that there are no red lines as to how far the government of Benjamin Netanyahu can go, the US has allowed a Palestine-Israel war to expand into a broader regional Arab-Israeli conflict. The threat of escalation between the Israeli army and Lebanese Hezbollah is growing by the day, while Ansarallah leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi has stated that his forces “will not stand idly by if the Americans have a tendency to escalate and commit foolishness by targeting our country.”
By every metric, US diplomatic stock has dropped internationally as a result of its handling of Israel’s war on Gaza. It has failed to convince any major regional actors in West Asia to back its escalatory agenda, all of which are standing on the same side as Russia and China in calling for a ceasefire. The world sees the hypocrisy of Washington. For the sake of comparison, the death toll in Gaza today is said to have exceeded 23,000, the majority being women and children. Israel has killed this many people in just over two months, while in the first two years of the ISIS/Daesh insurgency in Iraq, the UN estimated that the terrorist group killed some 18,800 civilians. The total number of civilians killed by ISIS in Syria is set at just over 5,000.
The level of human suffering being inflicted in Gaza is without precedent, breaking records in modern history for the tonnage of explosives dropped on such a small territory, in addition to the highest number of journalists, medical workers, and children killed in a single conflict. In reaction, the US government has repeatedly blocked ceasefire resolutions at the UNSC, gives Israel unlimited support unconditionally, and now threatens to drag a coalition of Western nations into a war on Yemen. The solution here is very simple: Ansarallah has said the blockade on ships to Israel will end when the war on Gaza ends. Washington has the ability to stop the war, but refuses to do so, while its threats against Yemen will not work to achieve any result beyond further escalation.
Robert Inlakesh is a political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker currently based in London, UK. He has reported from and lived in the Palestinian territories and currently works with Quds News. Director of ‘Steal of the Century: Trump’s Palestine-Israel Catastrophe’.
The United Nations Security Council has finally passed a resolution on the ongoing Israeli onslaught against Gaza, demanding increased aid deliveries to the besieged region but stopping short of calling for an immediate halt to the genocide.
The watered-down resolution, ratified on Friday, demanded all sides in the conflict allow the “safe and unhindered delivery of humanitarian assistance at scale.”
It also called for the creation of “conditions for a sustainable cessation of hostilities” but it did not call for an immediate end to fighting.
The vote in the 15-member council was 13-0 with the United States and Russia abstaining.
The vote followed the US veto of a Russian amendment that would have restored that call for a suspension of hostilities. That vote was 10 members in favor, the US against and four abstentions.
The text, sponsored by the United Arab Emirates, was passed following days-long negotiations over its wording, during which it was watered down at the US request.
Washington had earlier vetoed two UNSC resolutions on the conflict, drawing widespread condemnations over the body’s lack of action since the start of the onslaught.
Russia says resolution ‘toothless’
Russian ambassador to the UN Vasily Nebenzya hit out at the United States, saying “they have resorted to their favorite tactic… of twisting of arms”, calling the text “toothless.”
The UAE’s ambassador to the UN Lana Zaki Nusseibeh said “it responds with action to the dire humanitarian situation.”
“We know this is not a perfect text… We will never tire of calling for a humanitarian cease-fire,” she said.
The resolution demands all sides “allow and facilitate the use of all… routes to and throughout the entire Gaza Strip, including border crossings… for the provision of humanitarian assistance.”
It also requests the appointment of a UN humanitarian coordinator to oversee and verify third-country aid to Gaza.
An earlier text had said that the aid mechanism to accelerate the delivery of relief would be “exclusively” under UN control.
It now states it would be managed in consultation with “all relevant parties” — meaning Israel would retain operational oversight of aid deliveries.
Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip since October 7, killing at least 20,057 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injuring 53,320 others, according to health authorities in the region.
The Israeli onslaught has left Gaza in ruins with half of the coastal territory’s housing stock damaged or destroyed, and nearly 2 million people displaced within the densely-populated territory amid shortages of food and clean water.
In a 2002 interview the former Israeli government minister Shulamit Aloni was asked by Amy Goodman: “Often when there is dissent expressed in the United States against policies of the Israeli government, people here are called antisemitic. What is your response to that as an Israeli Jew?” Shulamit Aloni replied “Well, it’s a trick, we always use it. When from Europe somebody is criticizing Israel, then we bring up the Holocaust. When in this country [the US] people are criticizing Israel, then they are antisemitic.” She added that there is an “Israel, my country right or wrong” attitude and “they’re not ready to hear criticism.” Antisemitism, the Holocaust and “the suffering of the Jewish people” are exploited to “justify everything we do to the Palestinians.”
Currently Israel is involved in a conflict with Hamas in Gaza that it has described as a “war” though the disparity in force levels involving a country with a modern fully equipped army, navy and air force versus something more like a militia armed with small arms and home-made rockets suggest that a different label might be more appropriate. The fighting has been constant apart from a six day pause to exchange hostages and prisoners and promises to continue into the New Year, and possibly much longer, due to the difficulty in engaging in anything like conventional warfare in a bombed out and devastated urban environment that favors the defense.
Israeli extreme brutality has been on display for all the world to see. Last week, Israeli soldiers shot dead three Jewish hostages who had escaped from their Hamas captors under cover of an Israeli bombardment. The hostages took most of their clothes off so it could be clearly seen that they were unarmed and they were carrying a white flag with their hands in the air, but the soldiers reacted by shooting two of them immediately. The third took cover in a building while calling for help in Hebrew, but he too was pursued and killed. In another incident two Catholic women, mother and daughter, taking shelter in Gaza’s only Catholic church were targeted and shot by Israeli snipers. This produced a rebuke from the Pope.
However it turns out, the conflict in Gaza will be Israel’s longest “war” by far since the creation of the country in 1948. Israel’s intention is to force the Gazans to leave whether by forced resettlement in neighboring countries, in Europe or in the United States, or by killing them all. The deputy mayor of Jerusalem has recently labeled the Palestinians “subhumans” and has recommended rounding them up and burying them alive. He is not alone in that viewpoint and, at a minimum, many government ministers believe that the best outcome of the Palestinian problem is to get rid of the Palestinians in Gaza and also on the West Bank completely, whatever that takes, to establish once and for all “Eretz” or Greater Israel from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River and possibly even expanding into southern Lebanon and Egypt’s Sinai.
Israeli willingness to use bombs, starvation and even disease against the Palestinians in what is now being frequently referred to as a genocide has meant that the Jewish state’s list of friends around the world has shrunk dramatically and is limited to several European states and the US under self-declared Zionist President Joe Biden. A UN Security Council motion calling for a ceasefire was blocked by a US veto even though the ten other council members voted for it with one abstention by the UK. A subsequent call for a ceasefire, ignored by Israel, obtained 153 “Yes” votes in the UN General Assembly against 10 “Nos” two of which were Israel and the United States plus US “freely associated” micro-states Micronesia and Palau which always align with Washington. And even in those mostly European countries nominally supporting Israel’s attacks in Gaza, there have been large demonstrations supporting the Palestinians. As the death toll among civilians approaches and almost certainly has already exceeded 20,000, many governments have begun to hedge their bets and wobble in their assertions that “Israel has a right to defend itself.” Defense does not apparently include targeting hospitals, schools, churches and apartment buildings full of fearful civilians seeking shelter from the explosions. Even Joe Biden is calling for restraint in the “indiscriminate” bombing though he is also expediting providing the Israelis with more bombs to do the killing.
As the crisis in Gaza worsened, the UN responded with yet another Security Council resolution, which was introduced by the United Arab Emirates on December 18th. The vote was subsequently delayed three times until the 21st primarily to allow time for debate over the exact wording so as to make it acceptable to the United States in order to avoid another veto by Washington. Cynics have been quick to observe quite plausibly that the Biden Administration is seeking to vote in favor of or abstain on a document that is completely toothless, allowing Israel to do whatever it wants, as is usually the case. The vote on “urgent humanitarian pauses” was expected on Thursday December 21st, but the US again forced a delay for further discussion after aligning its position with that of Israel and claiming, falsely, that UN involvement in the monitoring of assistance would actually slow down relief efforts.
Israel had previously insisted, with US support, that UN direct involvement in monitoring and coordinating the massive humanitarian effort needed to help the Gazans should not be permitted. Israel demanded that only it should be responsible for inspecting incoming goods for “threats,” which, as the Jewish state is a party to the conflict, will itself inevitably and intentionally slow down assistance dramatically and will result in many unnecessary deaths. And Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also objected to the possibility that some wording in the resolution might suggest transformation of the “pause” into a lengthy ceasefire rather than a temporary “suspension” of hostilities with fighting resuming after a short period. Netanyahu has vowed that the military action will continue until all Hamas leaders and followers have surrendered or are dead. He is also demanding the immediate release of all Israeli hostages as a sine qua non for further deliberations on what might come next.
More important to Americans than dishonest parliamentary maneuvers at the UN should be the fact that defending Israel has meant that there is underway a wholesale assault on the First and Fourth Amendments of the Bill of Rights relating to freedom of speech and association. The attacks are being conducted by the Israeli Lobby and its assets and allies in both of the major political parties, the mainstream news media, Zionist-dominated American social media, and the American National Security apparatus. This has distorted what has happened in Gaza and why by turning the narrative of the conflict into a totally false bit of propaganda claiming alleged Arab terrorism and irredentism directed against the poor Jewish Israelis, who are once again serving as the featured victims. In America, universities are being described as hotbeds of surging antisemitism because students are protesting against Israel’s ethnic cleansing in Gaza while the heavily Jewish-influenced media and Jewish billionaires are working overtime to do whatever it takes to block any and all such criticism. Interestingly, the drive to ban or shut down protests and gatherings has had some major success directed against Arab or Muslim groups in a number of states with no Jewish groups on campus or in the community being interfered with in spite of their often robust support of Israel’s killing spree in Gaza.
The interference of Israel in both American domestic and foreign politics will only get worse in the upcoming year due to national elections. A number of Jewish groups are currently raising money and organizing to go after critics of Israel more aggressively, most particularly the few progressives in the Democratic Party who have spoken up about the genocide of the Palestinians that is taking place. Since the Israel Lobby already controls the White House, its aim is to make the Congress a 100% loyal cheerleader and protector of Israel and all its works, to include the continuing flow of billions of taxpayer dollars annually. Some major American Jewish organizations have, for example, just launched “The 10/7 Project” which will feature centralized communications to promote bipartisan support of Israel. “The 10/7 Project” will be sponsored and managed by the American Jewish Committee, the Jewish Federations of North America, the Anti-Defamation League, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
Ted Deutch, CEO of the American Jewish committee explained “The 10/7 Project’s” purpose, saying that “Since October 7, there has been a concerted and consistent effort from Israel’s enemies to draw a false and dangerous equivalence between Hamas’ deadly rampage to destroy the Jewish state and Israel’s right to defend itself against terrorists. ‘The 10/7 Project’ will be a trusted and timely source of accurate information to set the record straight and combat false narratives perpetuated by Hamas terrorists and their anti-Israel allies… At this critical juncture, it is imperative that we separate fact from fiction regarding America’s most important Middle East ally and remind people that the vast majority of Americans understand that Hamas is our common enemy.”
What Deutch is really saying between the lies and misinformation is that there will be a well-funded and staffed effort to stifle criticism of Israel’s slaughter of the Palestinians using a narrative that portrays the Israelis as victims of Arab terror, an assertion which might well be described as Zionist propaganda and fact twisting. The attacks on free speech at universities will definitely be on the agenda, in a campaign that started several months ago, when students at a number of public and private universities began protesting over Israel’s deliberate targeting of civilians, leading to a death toll that is almost certainly currently approaching or exceeding 20,000 when all the corpses are dug up from the rubble of bombed buildings.
As the anti-Palestinian narrative took shape in political, media and Zionist circles, it adopted a familiar line, which goes something like this though with slight adjustments to reach target audiences: Israel is the Jewish state. If you criticize the Jewish state and/or Zionism you are therefore by the definition accepted by the US government State Department Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism an antisemite. Antisemitism is a “hate crime” since it is by the same logic based on hatred of Jews. If you advocate or argue for any Palestinian group like Hamas, which the US government has conveniently labeled “terrorist” even though it has never threatened Americans, you are providing “material assistance to terrorism” which is a crime for which you can be fined or imprisoned. The end result is that Israel, which is immune from the consequences of its own actions internationally, also increasingly cannot be criticized at all without serious consequences for the critic, which have included posting the names of protesting students on lists of alleged antisemites so they will be unable to find work after they graduate. In other words, freedom of speech in the United States and also in some European countries including France and Germany only exists, insofar as it does, if you are not disparaging Israel or even its friends due to their easily demonstrable “war criminal” behavior.
Some of those consequences of not rolling over for the Israel Lobby were experienced recently by three presidents of prominent American universities, responding to a congressional December 7th grilling that was set up to address concerns over allegations that colleges are hotbeds of antisemitism and are responsible for major increases in incidents targeting Jews. The presidents of the University of Pennsylvania Liz Magill, Harvard Claudine Gay and MIT Sally Kornbluth were grilled by Congress but were afterwards trashed because they were unwilling to agree with the congressional interrogators that Jews were being terrorized on campus, observing that words must have a physically threatening or harassing “context” if they are to be banned or blocked.
The responses of the three women suggesting that speech should remain free on campus were found to be unacceptable by Congress and the largely Zionist media. Magill has since resigned, joined by the chairman of the university board of trustees Scott Bok, who was immediately replaced by Julie Beren Platt, head of the Jewish Federations of North America, who has been named interim board chair. But politicians joined by prominent commentators and philanthropists still continue to call for the others to resign as well, though Harvard’s Gay has received a vote of confidence from her board and also from faculty and students. Many major Jewish donors have coupled those “calls” with threats that their multi-million dollar gifts would be withdrawn if the presidents stay on. In one example, Penn lost a $100 million donation from Ross Stevens, who pulled it after the hearing. Those seeking to punish appear to be undeterred by the fact that their actions have already sparked discussions about unacceptable levels of Jewish power, often including the observation how promise of money or denying it is used as an instrument to obtain what Israel and its Lobby want.
There is a certain irony in the allegations since Jews in America are the wealthiest, best educated, most politically powerful, most prestigiously employed and most protected by Homeland Security of all ethno-religious demographics. And there is not much real evidence that Jews are in any way increasingly “victims” in the United States or in Europe. The antisemitic incidents that are “surging” are frequently based on criticisms of what the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians and often consist of a Jewish college student being offended or annoyed by a poster or a speaker criticizing Israeli behavior. Instances of actual physical confrontation are few and far between and are immediately reported in the accommodating mainstream media to heighten the sense that Jews in America and even worldwide are threatened. Certain groups like the American Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC) and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) are heavily into the promotion of the narrative of Jew hatred as it is in their bottom line to do so given their donor base which likes to hear exactly that.
In other words, what one reads and hears about “surging antisemitism” is largely a contrivance to obtain political and economic benefits as well as a free pass on bad behavior both by Israel and domestically that might not otherwise be forthcoming. And it should be noted in passing that the Israel Lobby groups have somehow avoided registering with the Department of Justice, as required by the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) of 1938, which would require them to maintain transparency over their funding and political activity. The last American president who tried to register what became the Israel Lobby and also sought to stop Israel’s illegal secret nuclear weapons program was John F. Kennedy. Some suspect that Israeli interests might have played a part in his assassination as a result.
Some congressmen have been particularly incensed by student pro-Palestinian demonstrators chanting “Intifada” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” interpreting both expressions being calls for the destruction of Israel, which they are not. Intifada is “shaking off” in Arabic and is a call for liberating the Palestinian people and their land from the Israeli tyranny. The “river to sea” is somewhat similar, a call for a Palestinian state with actual sovereignty and neither is an explicit call for killing Israelis or Jews. They might be considered generic cries for freedom.
But the real mystery in this is why is it happening at all? Jews are supposed to be smart but is it smart to reveal how much power you have, particularly when you are prepared to wield it ruthlessly to suppress people who just might begin to wonder if there is something going on that is being deliberately contrived to benefit a tiny percentage of the US population and a foreign government? And if that kind of thinking catches on, which I believe it already has, there might be serious discussions of ways to counter the efforts to limit free speech and association for citizens who are not comfortable with the way Israel behaves and the way the US Israel Lobby silences critics. Instead of trying to criminalize what people are thinking, wouldn’t it be smarter and even more ethical for American Jews to call on Israel to stop the killing and work out some formula that allows the Palestinians at least a modicum of self-government and freedom? That would seem to make sense and many Jews in the US are actually making that argument. The problem is to also convince the hard core and well financed Jewish groups that support Israel no matter who it has to kill that learning to live together with equal rights is the way to go. And then we must convince the know nothings in the Biden Administration and idiots in Congress like Senator Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio…
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.
Bahraini authorities have ordered the seven-day detention of a leading opposition figure after he denounced the Al Khalifah regime’s participation in the US-led coalition against Yemen in the Red Sea.
Bahrain’s office of public prosecution ordered Ebrahim Sharif’s detention pending investigation for “spreading false news during wartime,” his family and lawyer said on Thursday.
Sharif, who heads the Wa’ad organization, in a series of posts criticized authorities in Manama for joining the coalition “without any consideration of the position of the Bahraini people who strongly support our besieged Palestinian people in Gaza.”
He was arrested on Wednesday. When asked about his case, the Bahraini government said “an individual” was being held for “allegedly supporting a proscribed terrorist organization.”
The charge against Sharif, a pro-democracy campaigner, can hold a prison sentence of up to 10 years.
Bahrain is the only state in the Persian Gulf region that has joined the US-led coalition established this week in response to Yemeni attacks on ships bound to the occupied Palestinian territories in the Red Sea.
Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, advocacy director at the UK-based Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD), said the Bahraini regime “wants to make an example of Sharif who is not alone in his criticism of Bahrain’s decision to the join the Americans.”
“Failure of the US administration to publicly denounce his arrest and push for his immediate release gives the green light to the Bahrain government to continue his detention,” Alwadaei said.
The Pentagon has announced a military coalition of 10 countries, including Britain and Spain, to counter the Yemeni forces that targeted ships bound for Israel in solidarity with the people of Gaza.
A series of strikes attributed to the Yemeni forces have been conducted in solidarity with the Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip. Yemen has already warned it will prevent the passage of all ships in the Red Sea bound to the occupied territories.
The leader of Yemen’s Ansarullah movement said in a televised speech broadcast live Wednesday that the armed forces will not hesitate to target US military warships in the Red Sea if Washington and its allies carry out military strikes against Yemen.
Bahrain’s main opposition group al-Wefaq National Islamic Society recently denounced human rights violations in the country.
Al-Wefaq has denounced Manama’s normalization of relations with Israel as “a crime.”
The opposition party has underlined that the normalization is in flagrant contradiction to Bahrain’s history and Islamic identity.
Bahrain and the Israeli regime established diplomatic relations in 2020 as part of the United States-brokered Abraham Accords.
Last month, the deputy speaker of Bahrain’s National Assembly said members of the legislative body were pressing to reverse the normalization following the regime’s devastating war in Gaza.
Abdulnabi Salman said Bahraini lawmakers were demanding an end to diplomatic relations with Israel.
The Persian Gulf country has witnessed numerous protests ever since the rapprochement.
The United States and Britain refrain from the criticism of human rights violations across Bahrain.
In July, British legislators were pressing the government to provide clear explanations why Bahrain has been removed from its list of human rights priority countries, accusing the government of putting its principles “up for auction” after sealing a billion-pound investment deal with the Persian Gulf state.
The escalating attacks on ships in the Arabian Sea and the Bab Al-Mandeb Strait by the Houthi movement in Yemen pose a real threat to the Israeli, Western and American economies. The Red Sea is one of the world’s busiest shipping routes for oil and gas. Most of the major shipping companies, such as the world’s largest container company, Italian and Swiss-owned Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), Denmark-based Maersk, Germany’s Hapag-Lloyd, and France’s CMA CGM have suspended their use of the Red Sea.
Due to the Houthi attacks, ships now have to go around Africa via the Cape of Good Hope, adding 4,000 nautical miles to the journey. This will result in the doubling of the shipping costs, to $4,000 per forty-foot container. According to experts, this change is due to the extra fuel cost of $1 million for each vessel going via the Cape instead of the Red Sea and the Suez Canal.
The Houthis are apparently applying an ethically justified approach built on the same logic used by the Israeli occupation state. Israel besieges the Gaza Strip and grants itself the right to do so. With this logic, the group grants itself the right to besiege Israel and links the opening of the strait to lifting the Israeli blockade on Gaza.
As the attacks intensify and pose a real danger to maritime routes, causing many companies to fear using the Red Sea and raising the cost of insurance and transportation, the US has announced the formation of an international naval coalition intended to protect cargo vessels. Ironically, though, the US is the largest country to impose blockades on other states and use sanctions as a weapon.
While previous US presidents considered any foreign war as an opportunity to rally the American people behind them and give themselves an electoral boost, the situation under President Joe Biden is different. He is the main advocate of the war against Russia in Ukraine, which he is losing despite throwing billions of dollars into it. Engaging in an armed confrontation with the Houthis would be a resounding failure, since the group has little to lose and does not fear war. Indeed, it would gain more legitimacy as the only force in Yemen to be fighting imperialism. Moreover, its war with the Saudi-led Arab coalition, including the United Arab Emirates, has shown that it is resilient, and able to force the coalition to freeze combat missions after years of fighting.
The outbreak of another war in this region would mean serious long-term disruption and increased transportation costs, as well as rising fuel and energy costs for end users. This would have a major impact on Europe during the winter given the already suspended supplies of oil and gas from Russia. Crude oil prices are already creeping up.
The impact of a war would be challenging for Biden as well. The US president sees himself as the, not a, world leader, but he faces difficult choices. He is accused of corruption and faces domestic issues, as does his rival, former President Donald Trump. In addition, the existing wars and crises are having long-term negative impacts on Washington’s standing and international influence.
Despite this, it seems to be impossible for Americans to consider alternative, more intelligent means to approach problems instead of military “shock and awe”. The US and its protégé Israel have always tried to play the role of gods in international politics, where what they want becomes a reality regardless of international laws and conventions. This may succeed in the short term, but it backfires in the long run, as seen in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. Armed interference in all of these countries has drained the US and its people, who are generally controlled by the political, economic and media elites.
These elites combined work systemically to nurture violence among American citizens, implanting a gung-ho mentality with war seen as the most effective way to solve international problems. Hollywood and video games instill the idea of US (and Israeli) exceptionalism and invulnerability in the minds of the public, so that it becomes easy to recruit them to fight and die in the elite’s battles. The US helps to spread racism in the world by creating divisions among people and inciting them against each other. The old principle well-loved by settler-colonial states is divide and rule; people are easier to manipulate, helping to ensure the concentration of wealth in the hands of the elite that fosters racism.
A simple comparison with cinema in Iran — which the US designates as a sponsor of terrorism — reveals a stark difference. Iranian cinema only rarely focuses on humanitarian and social topics, and hardly ever depicts violence, unlike Hollywood, which thrives on screen violence, normalising it and de-sensitising the audience to the extent that people find it easier to harm their fellow human beings in the service and interests of the elite.
While the economy is failing and education is facing great challenges in America, the government is spending trillions of dollars on unjustified and futile wars, including the one which Israel is waging against the Palestinian people. Sinking more and more resources in the quagmire of the Middle East will only lead to more suffering within America and abroad. Likewise, what is happening in Yemen will have an impact worldwide, not just in Gaza.
The consequences of a war against the Houthis will be much broader, dragging the Zionist colonial project and Western imperialism into a hellish scenario. Regardless of what the Zionists and their supporters in the West believe, they did not create a safe haven for Jews when they created the state of Israel in the heart of the Arab world. The Houthis are turning the tables on everyone in their defence of the Palestinians against Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
While Israel is causing starvation in Gaza, Israeli soldiers are cheerfully filming themselves destroying food, looting, and vandalizing Palestinian property.
Defence for Children Palestine | December 18, 2023
Dunia A., 12, and her family were struck by an Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip. Dunia’s family was killed and she lost her leg.
While she was recovering in Naser Hospital in Khan Younis, an Israeli tank-fired shell hit the hospital and killed Dunia. This video was filmed on November 25 during a seven-day truce between Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups and Dunia was killed on December 17, 2023.
The Malaysian government has imposed an indefinite ban on vessels owned by an Israeli shipping cargo company from docking at its ports in response to the bloody Israeli onslaught against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Ships en route to the occupied Palestinian territories and Israeli-flagged vessels will also be barred from loading cargo at any port in the largely Muslim Southeast Asian nation.
Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said in a statement on Wednesday that the Transport Ministry has been instructed to enforce the ban with immediate effect.
Anwar singled out Israel’s biggest shipping firm ZIM.
Malaysia’s cabinet had in 2002 authorized Israeli-registered companies to dock vessels at Malaysian ports; and in 2005, allowed Israeli-registered ships to anchor in Malaysia. However, Wednesday’s statement said that authorizations had been rescinded.
“The Malaysian government decided to block and disallow the Israeli-based shipping company ZIM from docking at any Malaysian port,” Anwar said.
“These sanctions are a response to Israel’s actions that ignore basic humanitarian principles and violate international law through the ongoing massacre and brutality against Palestinians.”
Malaysia “also decided to no longer accept ships using the Israeli flag to dock in the country” and ban “any ship on its way to Israel from loading cargo in Malaysian ports.”
Anwar said his country was confident its trade would not be affected by the decision.
Malaysia does not have diplomatic ties with Israel.
Malaysians have kept up a strong show of support for the Palestinian people’s struggle to claim their sovereign rights, and strongly condemned the cruelties being perpetrated by the Israeli regime in Gaza.
Malaysians in various parts of the country have held marches and motorcycle convoys to voice their support for the Palestinian people, who are suffering from oppression and atrocities committed by the Israeli regime.
Muslim scholars have called on all people to show undivided support for Palestine because the Palestinian issue is related to humanity and not just religion.
Israel waged the brutal war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian Hamas resistance movement carried out Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the usurping entity in retaliation for its intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.
Since the start of the offensive, the Tel Aviv regime has killed at least 19,667 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 52,586 others.
Thousands more are also missing and presumed dead under the rubble in Gaza, which is under “complete siege” by Israel.
The US-led joint patrol in the Red Sea following Houthi militia attacks against ships heading toward Israel shows that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in Gaza is not only affecting the whole region, but also the international community. Chinese analysts pointed out that the root cause of the trade route problem is the ongoing conflict in Gaza, and only a sustainable cease-fire and allowing humanitarian aid to enter Gaza via land and sea routes can solve the problem in the Red Sea.
China will pay close attention to the situation, and Chinese naval vessels that conduct UN authorized anti-piracy missions in the region will keep performing their duty, analysts said, adding that China will stick to the priority of realizing a cease-fire and clear the way for humanitarian aid for the people in Gaza, rather than joining the US to conduct any military operations without UN authorization to escalate the crisis in Gaza.
The US and a host of other nations are creating a new force to protect ships transiting the Red Sea that have come under attack by drones and ballistic missiles fired from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced Tuesday in Bahrain, the AP reported.
The UK, Bahrain, Canada, France, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Seychelles and Spain have joined, Austin said. Some of those countries will conduct joint patrols while others will provide intelligence support in the southern Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.
The Houthi militia attacked two commercial ships in the Red Sea with naval drones on Monday. The recent attacks have caused concerns about the impact on the passage of oil, grain and other goods on what is an important global trade route, and have pushed up the cost of insuring and shipping goods through the Red Sea, Reuters reported.
The Shanghai-based news website The Paper reported on Tuesday that following other international shipping companies including Denmark’s Maersk and France’s CMA, Chinese shipping giants like COSCO and Orient Overseas Container Line (OOCL) also suspended transport through the Red Sea.
Ma Xiaolin, dean of the Institute for Studies on the Mediterranean Rim at Zhejiang International Studies University, told the Global Times on Tuesday that the trade route via the Red Sea is truly important for China as it connects Europe, Asia and Africa, so China will pay close attention to the situation.
“However, although China has naval vessels in the region, their mission is about anti-piracy, rather than intervening in regional issues and other countries’ internal affairs. Only a solution to the ongoing crisis in Gaza can effectively solve the problem in the Red Sea,” Ma said.
On December 9, Al Jazeera reported that the armed group in Yemen claimed that “it will target all ships heading to Israel, regardless of their nationality, and warned all international shipping companies against dealing with Israeli ports.”
“If Gaza does not receive the food and medicines it needs, all ships in the Red Sea bound for Israeli ports, regardless of their nationality, will become a target for our armed forces,” the group’s spokesperson said in a statement on Saturday, according to Al Jazeera.
Song Zhongping, a Chinese military expert and TV commentator, told the Global Times on Tuesday that the “Houthis are specifically targeting Israel, so it’s unlikely it will attack Chinese vessels. China doesn’t need to be too worried about the situation and the Chinese warships in the region will stick to their plan.”
“China will keep making efforts to realize a sustainable cease-fire and clear the way for humanitarian aid to get into the Gaza Strip. This is the real priority that needs to be done,” Wang Jin, an associate professor at the Institute of Middle Eastern Studies at Northwest University, told the Global Times on Tuesday.
If Washington and its allies want to solve the Red Sea problem, they should play a responsible role in the UN Security Council to pass a cease-fire resolution and to put concrete efforts into improving the humanitarian situation in Gaza, which would be more effective than sending warships to conduct joint patrols, experts said.
The humanitarian situation in Gaza remains severe. According to Reuters on Tuesday, Israeli missiles and air strikes on the Rafah area in southern Gaza struck three houses killing at least 20 Palestinians, Gaza health officials said on Tuesday. Tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians have crammed into Rafah on Gaza’s border with Egypt to escape Israeli bombardments.
The lack of unity in the UN that is mainly caused by the US is another key reason why the situation is far from easing. The UN Security Council delayed until Tuesday morning a vote on an Arab-sponsored resolution calling for a halt to hostilities in Gaza to allow for urgently needed aid deliveries to a massive number of civilians as members intensified negotiations to try to avoid another veto by the US, the AP reported.
Wang Wenbin, a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said at a routine press conference on Tuesday that “the UN General Assembly has adopted two resolutions with an overwhelming majority. We hope the US will listen to the voice of the international community, stop single-handedly blocking Security Council resolutions, and play its due role to promote an immediate cease-fire and prevent an even larger humanitarian catastrophe.”
“Infertility: A Diabolical Agenda,” is the fourth vaccine-related documentary by Dr. Andrew Wakefield. It tells the story of an intentional infertility vaccine program conducted on African women, without their knowledge or consent.
While it’s been brushed off as a loony conspiracy theory for years, there’s compelling evidence showing it did, in fact, happen, and there’s nothing to prevent it from happening again. … continue
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