Israel aiming to derail ICJ genocide case – Axios
RT | January 6, 2024
The Israeli Foreign Ministry has ordered its embassies across the globe to pressure their host countries to reject South Africa’s genocide case against it at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), Axios has reported, citing an urgent diplomatic cable.
Pretoria addressed the ICJ last week, claiming that Israel’s ongoing attacks on Gaza are “genocidal in character because they are intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part” of the Palestinian population. South Africa wants the The Hague-based court to issue an injunction ordering the IDF to suspend its military campaign in the enclave. More than 22,600 people have been killed in Gaza over the past three months, according to the local health ministry.
The cable, which was sent out by the Foreign Ministry on Thursday, stresses that Israel’s “strategic goals” are for the ICJ to reject South Africa’s request for an injunction, refrain from determining that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and acknowledge that the IDF’s actions in the enclave comply with nternational law, Axios said in an article on Saturday.
“A ruling by the court could have significant potential implications that are not only in the legal world but have practical bilateral, multilateral, economic, security ramifications,” the document, copies of which were seen by the outlet, read.
According to the Foreign Ministry, Israeli diplomats must pressure their counterparts and high-level politicians in host countries to issue “immediate and unequivocal public statement along the following lines: To publicly and clearly state that YOUR COUNTRY rejects the outragest, absurd and baseless allegations made against Israel.”
It’s also important for foreign nations “to publicly acknowledge that Israel is working to increase the humanitarian aid to Gaza, as well as to minimize damage to civilians, while acting in self defense after the horrible October 7 attack by a genocidal terrorist organization [Hamas],” the cable read.
The Foreign Ministry stressed that Israeli diplomats must urgently work on obtaining such statements so that they come out before the ICJ hearings begin on January 11. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will also send letters to dozens of world leaders, relaying a similar message, it added.
Countries like Türkiye, Jordan, and Malaysia have supported South Africa’s cases. However, it was rejected by Israel’s prime backer, the US. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said earlier this week that “we are not seeing any acts that constitute genocide” in Gaza.
Gaza destroys western divide-and-rule narratives
By Sharmine Narwani | The Cradle | January 4, 2024
It could be a clean sweep. Decades of western-led narratives crafted to exploit differences throughout West Asia, create strife amid the region’s myriad communities, and advance western foreign policy objectives over the heads of bickering natives are now in ruins.
The war in Gaza, it transpires, has blown a mile-wide hole in the falsehoods and fairytales that have kept West Asia distracted with internecine conflicts since at least the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran.
Shia versus Sunni, Iran versus Arabs, secular versus Islamist: these are three of the west’s most nefarious narrative ploys that sought to control and redirect the region and its populations, and have even drawn Arab rulers into an ungodly alliance with Israel.
Facts are destroying the fiction
It took a rare conflict – uncooked and uncontrolled by Washington – to liberate West Asian masses from their narrative trance. Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza also brought instant clarity to the question of which Arabs and Muslims actually support Palestinian liberation – and which do not.
Iran, Hezbollah, Iraqi resistance factions, and Yemen’s Ansarallah – maligned by these western narratives – are now visibly the only regional players prepared to buttress the Gaza frontline, whether through funds, weapons, or armed clashes that aim to dilute and disperse Israeli military resources.
The so-called ‘moderate Arabs,’ a misnomer for the western-centric, authoritarian Arab dictatorships subservient to Washington’s interests, have offered little more than lip service to the carnage in Gaza.
The Saudis called for support by hosting Arab and Islamic summits that were allowed to do and say nothing. The Emiratis and Jordanians trucked supplies to Israel that Ansarallah blockaded by sea. The mighty Egypt hosted delegations when all it needed to have done was to open the Rafah Crossing so Palestinians can eat. Qatar – once a major Hamas donor – now negotiates for the freedom of Israeli captives, while hosting Hamas ‘moderates,’ who are at odds with Gaza’s freedom fighters. And Turkiye’s trade with the Israeli occupation state continues to skyrocket (exports increased 35 percent from November to December 2023).
Palestine, for the pro-west ‘moderate Arabs,’ is a carefully handled flag they occasionally wave publicly, but sabotage privately. So, they watch, transfixed and horrified today, at what social media and tens of millions of protesters have made crystal clear: Palestine remains the essential Arab and Muslim cause; it may ebb and flow, but nothing has the power to inflame the region’s masses like this particular fight between right and wrong.
The shift toward resistance
It is early days yet in the battle unfolding between the region’s Axis of Resistance and Israel’s alliances, but the polls already show a notable shift in public sentiment toward the former.
An Arab barometer poll taken over a six-week period – three weeks before and three weeks after the Al-Aqsa Flood operation – provides the first indication of shifting Arab perceptions. Although the survey was restricted to Tunisia, the pollsters argue that the country is “as close to a bellwether as one could imagine” and that it represents views similar to other Arab countries:
“Analysts and officials can safely assume that people’s views elsewhere in the region have shifted in ways similar to the recent changes that have taken place in Tunisia.”
The survey results should be of paramount concern to meddling western policymakers: “Since October 7, every country in the survey with positive or warming relations with Israel saw its favorability ratings decline among Tunisians.”
The US saw its favorability numbers plummet the most, followed by West Asian allies that have normalized relations with Israel. Russia and China, both neutral states, experienced little change, but Iran’s leadership saw its favorability figures rise. According to the Arab barometer:
“Three weeks after the attacks, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has approval ratings that matched or even exceeded those of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Emirati President Mohammed bin Zayed.”
Before 7 October, just 29 percent of Tunisians held a favorable view of Khamenei’s foreign policies. This figure rose to 41 percent according to the conclusion of the survey, with Tunisian support most notable in the days following the Iranian leader’s 17 October reference to Israel’s actions in Gaza as a “genocide.”
The Saudi shift
Prior to the 7 October operation by the Palestinian resistance to destroy the Israeli army’s Gaza Division and take captives as leverage for a mass prisoner swap, the region’s main geopolitical focus was on the prospects of a groundbreaking Saudi normalization deal with Tel Aviv. The administration of US President Joe Biden flogged this horse at every opportunity; it was seen as a golden ticket for his upcoming presidential election.
But Operation Al-Aqsa Flood ruined any chance for Saudi Arabia – home to Islam’s holiest sites – to seal that political deal. And with Israeli airstrikes raining down daily on Palestinian civilians in Gaza, Riyadh’s options continue to shrink.
A Washington Institute poll conducted between 14 November and 6 December measures the seismic shift in Saudi public sentiment:
A whopping 96 percent agree with the statement that “Arab countries should immediately break all diplomatic, political, economic, and any other contacts with Israel, in protest against its military action in Gaza.”
Meanwhile, 91 percent believe that “despite the destruction and loss of life, this war in Gaza is a win for Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims.” This is a shockingly unifying statement for a country that has adhered closely to western narratives that seek to divide Palestinians from Arabs, Arabs among themselves, and Muslims along sectarian lines – geographically, culturally, and politically.
Although Saudi Arabia constitutes one of the few Arab states to have designated Hamas as a terrorist organization, favorable views of Hamas have increased by 30 percent, from 10 percent in August to 40 percent in November, while most – 95 percent – do not believe the Palestinian resistance group killed civilians on 7 October.
Meanwhile, 87 percent of Saudis agree with the idea that “recent events show that Israel is so weak and internally divided that it can be defeated some day.” Ironically, this is a long-stated Resistance Axis refrain. Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah was famously quoted as saying “Israel is weaker than a spider’s web,” upon its defeat by the Lebanese resistance on 25 May, 2000.
Prior to 7 October, Saudis had strongly favored economic ties with Israel, but even that number dropped dramatically from 47 percent last year to 17 percent today. And while Saudi attitudes toward the Resistance Axis remain negative – Saudi Arabia, after all, has been the regional epicenter for anti-Iran and anti-Shia propaganda since the 1979 revolution – that may be largely because their media is heavily controlled.
Contrary to the observations of the Arab masses, 81 percent of Saudis still believe that the Axis is “reluctant to help Palestinians.”
The Palestinian shift
Equally important to the discussion of Arab perceptions is the shift seen among Palestinians themselves since 7 October. A poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) in both the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip between 22 November and 2 December mirrors Arab views, but with some nuances.
Gazan respondents, understandably, displayed more skepticism for the ‘correctness’ of Hamas’ Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, which triggered Israel’s genocidal assault on the Strip in which over 22,000 civilians – mostly women and children – have so far been brutally killed. While support for Hamas increased only slightly in the Gaza Strip, it tripled in the West Bank, with both Palestinian territories expressing near equal disdain for the western-backed Palestinian Authority (PA), which governs from Ramallah.
Support for acting PA President Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah party was hit hard. Demands for his resignation are at nearly 90 percent, while almost 60 percent (the highest number recorded in a PSR poll to date in relation to this matter) of those surveyed want a dissolution of the PA.
Over 60 percent of Palestinians polled (closer to 70 percent in the West Bank) believe armed struggle is the best means to end the occupation, with 72 percent agreeing with the statement that Hamas made a correct decision to launch its 7 October operation, and 70 percent agreeing that Israel will fail to eradicate the Palestinian resistance in Gaza.
Palestinians have strong views about regional and international players, who they largely feel have left Gaza unprotected from Israel’s unprecedented violations of international law.
By far the country most supported by respondents is Yemen, with approval ratings of 80 percent, followed by Qatar (56 percent), Hezbollah (49 percent), Iran (35 percent), Turkiye (34 percent), Jordan (24 percent), Egypt (23 percent), the UAE (8 percent), and Saudi Arabia (5 percent).
In this poll, the region’s Axis of Resistance dominates the favorability ratings, while pro-US Arab and Muslim nations with some degree of relations with Israel, fare poorly. It is notable that of the four most favorable countries and groups for mostly-Sunni Palestinians, three are core members of the “Shia” Axis, while five Sunni-led states rank lowest.
This Palestinian view extends to non-regional international states, with respondents most satisfied with Resistance Axis allies Russia (22 percent) and China (20 percent), while Israeli allies Germany (7 percent), France (5 percent), the UK (4 percent), and the US (1 percent) struggle to maintain traction among Palestinians.
The numbers depend on the war ahead
Three separate polls show that Arab perceptions have shifted dramatically over Israel’s war on Gaza, with popular sentiment gravitating to those states and actors perceived to be actively supporting Palestinian goals, and away from those who are perceived to support Israel.
The new year starts with two major events. The first is the drawdown of Israeli reservists from Gaza, whether because Washington demands it, or due to unsustainable loss of life and injury to occupation troops. The second is the shocking assassination of Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri and six others in Beirut, Lebanon, on 2 January.
All indications are that Israel’s war will not only continue, but will expand regionally. The new US maritime construct in the Red Sea has drawn other international actors into the mix, and Tel Aviv has provoked Lebanon’s Hezbollah in a major way.
But if the confrontation between the two axes escalates, Arab perceptions will almost certainly continue to tilt away from the old hegemons toward those who are willing to resist this US-Israeli assault on the region.
There will be no relief for Washington and its allies as the war expands. The more they work to defeat Hamas and destroy Gaza, and the more they lob missiles at Yemen, Iraq, and Syria, and besiege the Resistance Axis, the more likely Arab populations are to shrug off the Sunni-versus-Shia, Iran-versus-Arab, and secular-versus-Islamist narratives that have kept the region divided and at odds for decades.
The swell of support that is mobilizing due to a righteous confrontation against the region’s biggest oppressors is unstoppable. Western decline is now a given in the region, but western discourse has been the first casualty of this war.
Israel’s Gaza withdrawal, a prelude to full-out war
By Hasan Illaik | The Cradle | January 4, 2024
At the start of the new year, Israel’s occupation army began implementing the withdrawal of a large portion of its forces from the northern Gaza Strip.
This withdrawal did not mean the end of the war on Gaza, and it certainly did not suggest calm on the Lebanese-Israeli front. On the contrary, reducing the pace of the war in the Gaza Strip increases the possibilities of an Israeli war on Lebanon.
The battles taking place between the occupation army and Hezbollah along the southern Lebanese border since 8 October, in support of the resistance in Gaza, have been increasing in intensity day after day.
Washington and Tel Aviv have sought to maximize pressure on Hezbollah by warning of the possibility of a large-scale war between Israeli forces and the Lebanese resistance. These tactics were in effect long before the assassination of Hamas’ Deputy Head of the Political Bureau Saleh Al-Arouri on 2 January by an Israeli air strike in Dahiyeh, the southern suburb of Beirut. The killing of Al-Arouri now increases the chance of the war expanding.
The third stage is coming
The first stage of Tel Aviv’s war was the mass destruction and occupation of northern Gaza; the second stage is the occupation of key points in the south of the Gaza Strip, where Palestinian civilians have flocked for safety. The current troop withdrawal from the territory’s north means that the Israelis are cementing their southern plans and preparing to move on to phase three: the long, low-intensity war.
As it enters the third stage, the occupation army intends to maintain a geographical buffer surrounding the northern Gaza Strip. It also plans to continue occupying the Gaza Valley area (central Gaza), while completing its operations in Khan Yunis in the south.
The fate of the Philadelphia axis – or Salah ad-Din Axis – a strip of land on the border between Gaza and Egypt which Israel wants to control, will be left to deliberations between Tel Aviv and Cairo. This is to ensure that incidents do not occur that lead to tension between the two parties, as well as to guarantee that refugees do not flow from the south of the Gaza Strip towards Sinai.
Israel’s ground withdrawal from northern Gaza is taking place primarily because the occupation army’s target bank has been depleted. All targets prior to the start of the war have been destroyed, and all new operational targets have been bombed.
Despite this, the Palestinian resistance continues to carry out operations against Israeli forces. These organizations remain relatively unscathed in the entire area of the northern Gaza Strip, which will increase the ability of the resistance to inflict losses on occupation ranks, now and in the future.
This clear Israeli loss – in terms of Tel Aviv’s stated war objectives – has been made evident by two basic factors: First, that the occupation army cannot ‘cleanse’ the northern Gaza Strip house by house or tunnel by tunnel, because this process will take years, expose more of its soldiers to danger, and cannot be implemented without further displacing the entire population of northern Gaza or massacring them. It should be noted, despite Israeli attempts to portray matters otherwise, that hundreds of thousands of civilians are still present in the north.
Second, the Israeli government needs to gradually re-inject reserve soldiers into the country’s economy to jump-start it, and to ensure that the productive sectors are not exposed to damage from which recovery will take a long time. This, despite the fact that the US and much of Europe appear ready to assist Israel’s economy, if necessary.
These measures are being taken because Israel has patently failed to achieve the two main goals of its war, namely, eliminating the Hamas-led resistance in Gaza, and liberating the Israeli prisoners captured by the resistance on 7 October.
There remains a basic motive that must be noted: The Israeli army is currently putting all its efforts into implementing a US decision to push the war from its first and second phases into the third phase before the end of January 2024. This requires the war to be managed at a slower boil, drawing less attention to Israeli carnage and the mass suffering of Palestinians.
After three months of brutalities, Washington has assessed the Israeli army as unable to eliminate the resistance or the possibilities of regional escalation, and has noted the significant harm caused to the US administration of Joe Biden as he enters the presidential primary season.
An escalation with Lebanon
As the Israeli occupation army moves to focus its operations on the southern Gaza Strip, the intensity of military operations along the Lebanese border between Hezbollah and the Israeli army has also been ratcheted up.
Hezbollah increased its targeting of occupation soldiers, both in their visible locations and inside the settlements of northern Palestine.
The information capabilities of Hezbollah have developed in both sophistication and accuracy during the past months. The Lebanese resistance fighters have employed missile types not previously utilized, which have a greater range and better destructive capacity than previous generations.
On the other hand, Tel Aviv has doubled the firepower it used in southern Lebanon. The Israelis continue to limit their operations to the area south of the Litani River, and are not expanding their scope except to target resistance groups that carry out strikes across the border. In recent weeks, the occupation army’s destructive power has risen dramatically since the early days of the battle.
By increasing its strikes, Israel’s leadership seeks to inflict the greatest possible number of losses among the ranks of the resistance fighters, as well as to spread panic among southern Lebanese residents – displacing more of them, and destroying the largest possible number of homes. This places a burden on both Hezbollah and the Lebanese state in the reconstruction process after the end of hostilities.
But there is a longer-term goal to this Israeli military performance. The government in Tel Aviv, according to its official statements, wants Hezbollah to withdraw from the south of the Litani, to ensure the security of Israeli settlers in northern Palestine who abandoned their homes, either voluntarily or under evacuation orders from their army. By some estimates, the number of Israelis fleeing their settlements in occupied north Palestine has reached more than 230,000 people.
In parallel with the public statements, messages began arriving in Beirut, from the US and from European capitals, demanding what they call ‘the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701,’ meaning Hezbollah’s withdrawal from the south of the Litani River.
According to emerging information, Tel Aviv is betting that Hezbollah will be deterred, as the 2019 economic collapse from which Lebanon has not yet recovered and the country’s long-running internal tensions are factors that will ultimately prevent Hezbollah from waging war.
Israel is therefore hoping that Hezbollah will yield to pressure and meet its demands regarding the withdrawal of its fighters from the border area with occupied Palestine.
The Israeli assessment of Lebanese affairs preceded its assassination of Al-Arouri in Beirut on 2 January. But in the same way that Israel military commanders and politicians have under-estimated and dismissed armed Palestinian resistance initiatives within occupied lands prior to 7 October, they continue to cling to a dated Israeli calculus that Hezbollah will never fully retaliate, or that it will only do so in a way that stops short of war.
Granted, Hezbollah does genuinely seek to limit the scope of the military confrontation, and has often pushed for a Gaza ceasefire to end hostilities throughout the region. Hezbollah is equally concerned about not disrupting the lives and livelihood of southern residents.
But while Hezbollah takes into account the complex political and economic Lebanese reality, it is not prepared to make concessions. Sources in the resistance axis say that Israel, as Hezbollah sees it, is not in a position to go to war with Lebanon when it cannot even compensate or digest the massive strategic losses it has incurred from Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.
Despite its desire to not expand the war, Hezbollah has already begun to prepare for it. Hezbollah’s party statement, issued after the assassination of Al-Arouri, indicates this, and field measures and developments will begin to appear in time.
What Israel was unable to achieve in Gaza (restoring deterrence) while facing the tight ranks of the region’s Axis of Resistance, it will most certainly not be allowed to gain in Lebanon.
The first signs of this will appear in the plans that Hezbollah is expected to carry out in response to Israel’s 2 January raid on Dahiyeh to assassinate Al-Arouri – the first of its kind since August 2006 – and to which its Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah had previously threatened he would respond.
The bottom line is that Tel Aviv’s assessment of a war with Lebanon is based on its reading that Hezbollah wishes to prevent a major confrontation at any cost. Not only is this calculus wrong, but it has also muddled Israeli minds to the point where this may itself lead to the outbreak of a destructive war between the two sides.
Palestinians return to north Gaza after Israel pulls back troops over ‘high cost of war’
Press TV – January 2, 2024
Thousands of Palestinians have reportedly been returning to the north of the Gaza Strip after the withdrawal of some Israeli forces from the area.
After returning to northern Gaza, a woman told Al Jazeera TV that people were sitting and sleeping among the debris “where the smell of blood and death is everywhere.”
“A lot of massacres have been committed here. The resilience of the people here will always be stronger than the occupation army,” she added.
Another woman said she would “never abandon north Gaza” despite a lack of food and clean water.
“I will never leave my land and house and family despite the suffering,” she emphasized.
The Israeli military said earlier that it was withdrawing thousands of forces from the Gaza Strip, in the first significant troop pullback since the devastating war began nearly three months ago.
In a statement on Monday, the regime’s army said, “The move is expected to significantly alleviate economic burdens and enable troops to gather strength for upcoming activities in the next year, as the fighting will persist and their services will be needed.”
The announcement came as fighting has tapered off in the northern areas of Gaza, though clashes continue to rage in the south.
Earlier, Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said the regime’s army was making adjustments to its deployment in Gaza, in anticipation of a long war ahead.
“The goals of the war require lengthy fighting, and we are prepared accordingly,” he noted.
Meanwhile, an unnamed Israeli official claimed that some of the five brigades withdrawn will prepare for a potential second front against the Lebanese Hezbollah resistance movement.
‘Gradual shift to lower intensity operations’
A US official said that Israel’s drawdown of troops from Gaza signifies a potential beginning of operations with reduced intensity in the territory’s north, stressing, however, that the conflict in that area persists.
“This appears to be the start of the gradual shift to lower intensity operations in the north that we have been encouraging… I’d caution though there is still fighting in the north and this does not reflect any changes in the south,” the official said.
A few days ago, the Israeli army’s much-hyped Golani Brigade was forced to withdraw from Gaza to “reorganize its ranks” after suffering huge losses at the hands of resistance fighters.
Israel waged the brutal war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian Hamas resistance group carried out an historic operation against the occupying entity in retaliation for its intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.
However, almost three months into the war, Tel Aviv has failed to achieve its declared objective of eliminating Hamas and finding Israeli captives in Gaza, despite killing at least 21,978 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injuring 57,697 others.
Israeli ministers call for Palestinians’ expulsion from Gaza
Speaking on Monday, Israel’s far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich said that the regime “will permanently control the Gaza Strip to ensure security”.
He stressed that the objective would be achieved through the “permanent presence of Israeli forces” along with “establishing Jewish settlements,” adding that he would present the plan soon to the regime’s war cabinet.
“Those who think that the solutions in the Gaza Strip will be similar to those tried in the past are mistaken,” he said.
Similarly, Israel’s extremist security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said the war presents an “opportunity to concentrate on encouraging the migration of the residents of Gaza,” branding such a policy as “a correct, just, moral and humane solution.”
Veteran Arab lawmaker at the Israeli parliament Ahmad Tibi condemned Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, saying their rhetoric was “inciting genocide.”
“A day will come and these two senior ministers in the Israeli government will stand before an international tribunal for war crimes,” he stated.
PFLP announces death of captive Israeli soldier in Gaza after failed rescue
The Cradle | December 31, 2023
An Israeli soldier held captive by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in Gaza was killed in an Israeli air strike, the spokesman for the armed wing of the Palestinian resistance group announced on 30 December.
In his first speech since the beginning of the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation, Martyr Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades spokesman Abu Jamal announced the death of the Israeli captive, adding that the air strike took place following a failed attempt by Israeli special forces to free him and which was confronted by the PLFP fighters.
Abu Jamal said the airstrike was called in to cover the retreat of the Israeli forces, and lightly wounded the PLFP fighters who were responsible for the captive.
The spokesperson gave no details of when the soldier had been taken captive, or where he was being held in Gaza. He said the group is still holding the soldier’s body.
Abu Jamal also announced the PLFP had destroyed or disabled 95 Israeli army vehicles during the ongoing ground invasion of Gaza. He also announced the group obtained a laptop and flash drives with sensitive information and private data during the attack on 7 October on Israeli military bases and settlements surrounding Gaza. He said Martyr Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades continue to benefit from this information in their operations.
Because the Israeli airstrike killed the Israeli soldier, it is possible the Israeli military may have invoked a controversial policy known as the “Hannibal Directive.”
The policy was established in 1986 following the capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The Times of Israel described how the “directive allows soldiers to use potentially massive amounts of force to prevent a soldier from falling into the hands of the enemy. This includes the possibility of endangering the life of the soldier in question in order to prevent his capture.”
“Some officers, however, understand the order to mean that soldiers ought to deliberately kill their comrade in order to stop him from being taken prisoner, not that they may accidentally injure or kill him in their attempt,” the paper added.
The directive is meant to prevent Israel’s enemies from gaining leverage and forcing concessions from it in the form of prisoner exchanges.
Following the launch of the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation on 7 October, the PFLP announced that, “This is the day when the nature of the struggle and the dignity of the Arab nation are reclaimed,” while declaring the resistance is “determined to achieve a strategic victory over this enemy in a battle that will open the door to return and redefine the history of Palestine and the region.”
Israel targets UNRWA to expel it from Gaza, change territory’s demographics: Palestinian Foreign Ministry
Press TV – December 31, 2023
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry says Israel has been targeting the UN agency for Palestinian refugees across the Gaza Strip to force it to leave the territory and change Gaza’s demographic characteristics.
The ministry made the remarks in a statement on Saturday concerning the Israeli regime’s attacks on employees and facilities of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
According to the ministry, since the beginning of Israel’s genocidal war against Gaza on October 7, the regime has killed hundreds of the agency’s employees, destroyed its centers and schools, and obstructed its work and ability to perform its tasks, especially in the northern part of the Gaza Strip.
It added that the regime’s assaults on the UN agency are also in line with Israel’s plans to forcefully displace the people of Gaza and change demographic characteristics of the coastal territory.
“Such Israeli plans directly target the Palestinian issue and the rights of our people, most notably the right of return [to their homeland], and are an integral part of an official Israeli policy aimed at liquidating the Palestinian issue,” the ministry noted.
It added that apart from the official goals declared for the regime’s war on Gaza by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he is using genocide of Palestinian civilians as a means to achieve other strategic goals, which are gradually unfolding with each passing day.
Israel’s genocide in Gaza has so far killed at least 21,672 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured over 56,000 others.
The regime has also cut off the flow of basic supplies such as water, electricity, medicines, and fuel, to one of the world’s most densely-populated territories that houses over two million Palestinians.
Why Are Israelis Obsessed with Killing Palestinian Children?
KEVIN BARRETT • DECEMBER 29, 2023
Kevin Barrett is editor at Veterans Today who joins us. Welcome to the program, Kevin Barrett. I’m not too sure whether I should talk about the reference that the Osama Hamdan, the senior Hamas leader there, made to the Israeli regime force who wanted to kill children or to the other aspect of this war. But let’s start with that one in particular, which is pretty gruesome and pretty shocking. Why do you think the Israeli soldiers are acting in that way unless they’re being maybe instructed to kill babies? But then again, isn’t that part of their psyche in terms of the training that they received in the past in their military?
Yes, the Israeli military is notorious for deliberately targeting and murdering children. Chris Hedges wrote about that in his famous article “A Gaza Diary” from 15 years ago, maybe 20, I think, actually. And he described how he had been in war zones and witnessed atrocities before, but until he went to Gaza, he had never seen soldiers barking out obscene insults over their bullhorns in order to lure Palestinian children within range of their gun sights so that they could be shot for sport. And he witnessed that happen to several Palestinian children. It’s a common occurrence. The sport shooting of children is a regular part of what the Israeli Defense Forces do. And they never face any kind of justice. Because it’s open season on Palestinian childfen.
The Israeli Defense Forces hand out t-shirts that say, “one shot, two kills,” and they show a pregnant Palestinian woman with a target on her belly.
They are proud of killing children. Ayelet Shaked, the former Justice Minister, is notorious for calling for the mass murder of Palestinian children. She called them “little snakes.” And she said Israel should also kill their mothers. So there is something deep in the Israeli psyche that is twisted, mentally ill. They hate Palestinian children and want to kill them.
In this current war in Gaza there are mainstream Western reports attesting to the fact that Israel soldiers have been lured into ambushes by the resistance fighters broadcasting recorded sounds of children. The Israelis are always going to want to kill the children. That lures them into the ambush. And the Israeli military even admitted to this. So these are psychotic, genocidal child killers. And they are terrorists.
The Palestinian side is rationally calculating a military operation and trying to diplomatically negotiate a solution. The Israeli side is just psychotic and genocidal and they want to exterminate Amalek, as Netanyahu said, referring to the Hebrew Bible ordering the complete extermination of every man, woman, child and baby and even animal.
So there’s something deeply wrong with the Israeli psyche.
So when you take a look at the future here, what are we looking at? At this point we are hearing about the losses that the Israeli regime forces are suffering on the ground, but it’s not to the point where I don’t think they’re going to throw the white flag in. So are we looking at a war of attrition here? Are we looking at a long ways to go when it comes to this genocidal war?
It’s really just a matter of how long the world puts up with genocide. And the longer it waits, the worse it will look in the eyes of history.
I have no idea at what point the proverbial straw will break the camel’s back and the relevant forces in the world will shift enough to the point that the Zionists feel that they have no choice but to stop the genocide.
It could be a combination of things: Pressure from the Ansarullah forces of Yemen, who have been heroically targeting Israeli shipping and imposing their own blockade on the Israelis, who are of course themselves imposing a genocidal blockade on food, water, and medicine and fuel in Gaza. So that’s the biggest factor that’s got the Americans concerned about the possibility of a wider war. Naturally Netanyahu wants a wider war, because his whole political career, and maybe his staying out of jail, depends on his keeping the war going, and seeing how much mass murder of civilians he can get away with.
The resistance forces have been good at managing things to avoid the escalation that could lead to something utterly disastrous for the region. At this point Yemen is the only country meaningfully pressuring the US to put an end to this genocide.
UN convoy attacked by Israel on designated ‘humanitarian route’
The Cradle | December 29, 2023
The Director of the UNRWA in the Gaza Strip, Thomas White, announced on 29 December that the Israeli army had targeted one of the organization’s aid convoys as it was returning from north Gaza on a route designated by Tel Aviv itself.
“Israeli soldiers fired at an aid convoy as it returned from Northern Gaza along a route designated by the Israeli Army,” White said via social media.
“Our international convoy leader and his team were not injured, but one vehicle sustained damage – aid workers should never be a target,” he added.
Israel has shown blatant disregard for humanitarian aid workers during its campaign of genocide and ethnic cleansing which began on 7 October.
As of 28 December, 142 UNRWA employees have been killed as a result of the Israeli assault on Gaza, according to the organization’s 57th situation report on the besieged enclave. According to the report, 125 UNRWA installations have also been damaged.
“At least 308 internally displaced peoples (IDPs) sheltering in UNRWA premises have been killed and 1,095 injured since 7 October,” the situation report adds.
It is worth noting that a large majority of the over 30,000 employed by UNRWA are Palestinians.
This is not the first time Palestinians and aid workers have been targeted on humanitarian routes designated specifically by Israel.
Upon resuming the assault after the seven-day truce that ended at the very start of this month, Israel published a map of so-called ‘safe zones’ for Gazans to flee to, ignoring the fact that the vast majority of Palestinians in Gaza do not have electricity or internet to access the map. Many Gazans reported airstrikes on a number of the zones designated by Israel.
“The so-called safe zones … are not scientific, they are not rational, they are not possible, and I think the authorities are aware of this,” a UNICEF spokesman told Al-Jazeera on 5 December.
Gazans are suffering due to a severe lack of humanitarian aid, which since the start of the war has trickled into Gaza at a pace nowhere near fast enough to address the dire situation.
Israel continues to bombard the civilian population indiscriminately, while actively pursuing plans for forced displacement.
Tel Aviv recently issued more evacuation orders for Gazans in Khan Yunis to evacuate further south, as tens of thousands of displaced Gazans are already stranded in the southern border city of Rafah.
“People forced to move once again. More people in less space. Rafah in the south is now bursting at the seams. No respite. Time for a humanitarian ceasefire,” Thomas White wrote on social media on 26 December.
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