Red Cross condemns attack on aid convoy in Gaza City
MEMO | November 8, 2023
Humanitarian aid convoy came under attack in Gaza yesterday, International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
Condemning the strike, the ICRC said it was “deeply troubled that its humanitarian convoy in Gaza City came under fire on Tuesday. The ICRC reminds the parties of their obligation under international humanitarian law to respect and protect humanitarian workers at all times.”
The convoy of five trucks and two ICRC vehicles was carrying lifesaving medical supplies to health facilities, including to Al-Quds Hospital of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, when it was hit. Two trucks were damaged, and a driver was lightly wounded.
“These are not the conditions under which humanitarian personnel can work,” said William Schomburg, the head of the ICRC delegation in Gaza. “We are here to bring urgent assistance to civilians in need. Ensuring that vital assistance can reach medical facilities is a legal obligation under international humanitarian law.”
After the incident the convoy altered its route and reached Al-Shifa hospital where it delivered the medical supplies. Afterward, the ICRC convoy accompanied six ambulances with critically wounded patients to the Rafah crossing.
Israel has intensified its bombing campaign in the northern Gaza Strip and has called on all civilians to leave, saying that those who remain will be assumed to be fighters and therefore targeted. This is in spite of the fact that tens of thousands do not have the means or ability to leave the area and thousands are working as emergency workers supporting their local community, including at Al-Shifa Hospital.
US media say Israel is retaliating. The facts show the opposite

A woman taking part in the women’s march near Israel’s fence imprisoning Gazans on July 3, 2018 is carried on a stretcher
By Alison Weir | If Americans Knew | November 8, 2023
US media reports virtually always say that Israeli violence against Palestinians is “retaliation”. The chronology, however, shows the opposite.
Time after time, US news coverage of the issue begins when Palestinians have committed violence, without noting that this violence was preceded by Israeli violence.
Most recently, US news reports make it appear that the current violence began on October 7th, while failing to mention that Israeli forces had been killing Palestinians regularly in the days, weeks, months, and years before that.


Current news reports also fail to note that October 7th was basically a prison break from what many have accurately described as the world’s largest open air prison, imprisoning over 2 million men, women, and children.
Media reports also neglect to inform Americans that the communities surrounding Gaza are built on stolen Palestinian land, many of the former owners imprisoned in the Gaza ghetto, destitute and desperate.
Media reports also fail to inform Americans that before the October operation, thousands of Gazans had gathered every week for over a year and a half to protest their imprisonment and dispossession – and Israeli forces had shot them, week after week.
Media also fail to inform Americans that it is Israel that regularly initiates the violence after periods of calm, according to an MIT professor’s study on the subject.
This type of news coverage is not new, and has often been found in alternative media as well as legacy media companies.
While the pro-Israel lobby in the US is arguably the most powerful special interest group in the country (it appears that $19 billion may go to Israel this year alone), and while media coverage of the issue is demonstrably slanted toward Israel, there are growing numbers of Americans who are demanding a stop to US support for Israeli crimes.
Until Americans learn the many facts on this issue being obscured by US media, the tragic violence in the region, and the wars fought on Israel’s behalf, will continue, and Americans, too, will continue to die.
Alison Weir is executive director of If Americans Knew, president of the Council for the National Interest, and author of Against Our Better Judgment: The Hidden History of How the U.S. Was Used to Create Israel.
Hamas faces off against Israeli troops pushing into ‘heart’ of Gaza City
The Cradle | November 8, 2023
Hamas’ Qassam Brigades continue to confront invading Israeli troops in the Gaza Strip, as Tel Aviv claims its forces have reached the “heart” of Gaza City.
The Qassam Brigades announced in a statement on 8 November that since the early morning, its forces destroyed “15 enemy vehicles in several areas in Gaza.”
The statement also announced “the sniping of a soldier in the Al-Tawam area, wounding him directly.”
Resistance fighters also targeted a gathering of soldiers and vehicles south of Gaza City with a Konkurs guided missile, as well as two tanks and an armored troop carrier near the Al-Shati camp in the northern Gaza Strip, according to the group’s Telegram page.
Fierce clashes were reported in Beit Lahiya, in the northern Gaza Strip, as well.
The Quds Brigades of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) movement also targeted several Israeli armored vehicles with mortar fire near the Al-Mashtal hotel in northwestern Gaza.
The Israeli army said on 8 October that two more soldiers were killed inside Gaza. This brings the number of casualties admitted by Israel up to 33 since 27 October, when Tel Aviv announced limited ground operations inside Gaza.
Meanwhile, the Israeli army claims that its troops are now deep inside Gaza City.
Israeli forces are operating “in the heart” of Gaza City and are “tightening the noose” around Hamas, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on 7 November.
“Gaza City is surrounded. We are operating within it; we are deepening the pressure on Hamas every hour, every day,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that evening.
The prime minister vowed that there would be no ceasefire until all prisoners inside Gaza were returned to Israel.
The Israeli air force has also continued to launch indiscriminate air strikes across the strip, including in the south, where Tel Aviv has called on civilians to evacuate.
In Khan Younis, Israeli warplanes destroyed two Mosques on 8 November. Several other areas in central and northern Gaza were struck by fighter jets.
Hamas to remain key player in Gaza’s future: Resistance group’s senior official to Netanyahu
Press TV – November 8, 2023
A senior member of Hamas political bureau says the resistance movement will continue to be the key player in the politics and the administration of the Gaza Strip which has been under brutal aggression by the Israeli regime for over a month.
Ghazi Hamad said on Wednesday that claims by US officials about the diminishing role of Hamas in Gaza are in fact a sign they have failed to defeat the group after more than a month of military action.
Hamad told Al Jazeera that despite the claims, Hamas is currently a powerful political and military force in Gaza that still determines the course of action in the territory.
He said efforts by the Israeli regime and the US to redefine the situation in Gaza have failed and they have achieved nothing in the small blockaded territory and have only caused mass killing of civilians and destruction of hospitals and the civilian infrastructure.
The official said restoring order to Gaza is purely a Palestinian issue and Hamas will remain a key part of that process despite the will of the US government and the Israeli regime.
The remarks came after Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggested that Israel would maintain “overall security responsibility” for Gaza “for an indefinite period” when the war ends.
He, however, did not elaborate on the kind of security mechanism such a plan would involve.
At least 10,569 people have been killed in Gaza since the Israeli regime launched its military campaign on the territory on October 7.
The aggression started after an operation by Hamas that killed 1,400 settlers and military forces in the Israeli-occupied territories of Palestine near Gaza.
Israel has declared its main ambition from invading Gaza is to eradicate Hamas, which has ruled the territory for the past 15 years.
Military experts say the Hamas operation against Israel dealt a huge blow to the regime’s myth of invincibility and boosted the morale of resistance groups in Gaza and in the wider Palestine.
Why Does US Keep Mum on Arms Supplies to Israel?
By Oleg Burunov – Sputnik – 08.11.2023
The Biden administration remains tight-lipped about “critical” US military equipment being delivered to Tel Aviv amid the ongoing armed conflict between Palestine and Israel.
US claims that transparency about Washington’s weapons delivers to Tel Aviv would endanger Israel’s operational security are misleading, experts have told The Intercept.
William Hartung, a fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and an expert on weapons sales, said: “The notion that it would in any way harm the Israeli military’s operational security to provide more information is a cover story for efforts to reduce information on the types of weapons being supplied to Israel and how they are being used.”
According to him, “the purposeful lack of transparency over what weapons the US is supplying to Israel ‘on a daily basis’ is tied to the larger administration policy of downplaying the extent to which Israel will use those weapons to commit war crimes and kill civilians in Gaza.”
Hartung added that even as the Biden administration supports Israel with “weapons and rhetoric, it is a delicate matter politically to give all the details on US weapons supplied to the Israeli military, some of which will certainly be used in illegal attacks on civilians if the war continues to grind on.”
The Intercept also cited an unnamed retired US Marine general as saying that Washington keeping mum on details on its arms supplies to Tel Aviv can be attributed to the political sensitivity of the Palestine-Israel conflict.
In particular, weapons used in door-to-door urban warfare, which […] result in civilian casualties, are not going to be something the [Biden] administration wants to publicize, the retired officer said.
The remarks come after US National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby admitted late last month that the White House is “being careful not to quantify or get into too much detail about what Israel is getting [in terms of military aid]— for their own operational security purposes, of course.”
Although the US Department of Defense at first declined to identify any specific weapons systems supplied to Israel, it finally revealed that these include “precision guided munitions, small diameter bombs, artillery, ammunition, Iron Dome interceptors and other critical equipment.”
The Intercept noted in this vein that, “What ‘other critical equipment’ entails remains a mystery, as do specifics about the quantity of arms being supplied, which the US administration has refused to disclose.”
The US news website also recalled that while the Biden administration “put out a three-page list of arms for Ukraine, information on weapons sent to Israel could fit in one sentence.”
US President Joe Biden earlier requested $14.3 billion in funding for Israel in addition to the over $3 billion in military assistance Washington already provides.
Barcelona dock workers refuse to deal with weapons ships heading to Israel
MEMO | November 7, 2023
Workers at the Spanish port of Barcelona announced their refusal to allow any ships carrying weapons to operate inside the port, rejecting the violence practiced by Israel in the occupied territories, and accusing the UN of failing to carry out its role.
The workers said in a statement to their association that it is their duty to adhere to and defend the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, at a time when the signatory countries have forgotten about it.
The statement continued: “We decided within the association not to allow ships containing war materials to operate in our port, for the sole purpose of protecting any civilian population, regardless of their location, as there is no justification for sacrificing civilians.”
The statement called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, the search for peaceful solutions to conflicts, and for the UN to stop its complicit and negligent behaviour in order to maintain international peace and security and defend international law.
Earlier last week, the Belgian transport workers’ unions called on their members to refuse to load or unload arms shipments being sent to Israel.
“While genocide is under way in Palestine, workers at various airports in Belgium are seeing arms shipments in the direction of the war zone,” the trade unions said in a joint statement.
A Belgian government spokesman declined to comment on whether weapons were being shipped to the region via Belgium.
The unions said that loading or unloading these weapons means contributing to supplying regimes that kill innocent people.
The unions added: “We, several unions active in ground logistics, call on our members not to handle any flights that ship military equipment to Palestine/Israel, like there were clear agreements and rules at the start of the conflict with Russia and Ukraine.”
Displacement of Palestinians to be considered ‘declaration of war’: Jordan
Press TV – November 7, 2023
Jordanian Prime Minister Bisher Khasawneh has warned against vicious attempts by the Israeli regime to displace Palestinians from the Gaza Strip or the occupied West Bank, saying any such move would be a “declaration of war.”
Khasawneh said in a statement on Tuesday that all options were on the table for Jordan within the framework of a gradual stance in dealing with the ongoing Israeli aggression on the besieged Palestinian enclave and its repercussions.
Any attempt by Israel to displace Palestinians would be considered a “red line” and could be deemed a declaration of war, the prime minister noted.
“The continuation of the sinful aggression against the Gaza Strip, with all its crimes, constitutes a flagrant violation of international law and international humanitarian law,” he said.
“The immunity and protection that gives Israel a license to kill Palestinian civilians must be stopped. International humanitarian law prohibits and criminalizes targeting and killing civilians, without exception,” he added.
The premier made remarks in a meeting held in the Jordanian House of Representatives with the members of the Permanent Bureau and heads of parliamentary blocs and committees.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Khasawneh said the Israeli aggression would not succeed in violating legitimate Palestinian rights and establishing an independent, sovereign Palestinian state on the lines of 4 June 1967, in accordance with the two-state solution, with East al-Quds as its capital.
Norwegian Refugee Council chief warns of forced displacement of Palestinians
Jan Egeland pointed to recent comments by far-right Israeli minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has urged that so-called “security zones” be established around illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and along major roads.
The move “would prevent Palestinians [from] freely moving & increase [the] risk of forced displacement,” Egeland wrote on social media.
He also said that in Gaza, the past month has seen “the transfer, en masse, of Palestinians without any guarantees of their safety, survival, and eventual return to their homes.”
“Israel must not further perpetrate forcible transfer, and should allow the safe return and compensate for damages caused to displaced Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza according to international law,” Egeland said.
The United Nations human rights office last month said Israel’s brutal blockade of the Palestinian enclave of Gaza, combined with the evacuation order and forcible transfer of civilians, could amount to a crime against humanity and is punishable by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
On October 12, Israel ordered 1.1 million people in the north of Gaza to evacuate and move south of the enclave as the regime forces prepare for a ground invasion of the besieged Gaza Strip.
Israel’s bombardment has already pushed Palestinians in the besieged enclave into smaller areas and spaces.
Israel has pressed ahead with its deadly war on Gaza for over a month now. The total death toll from the Israeli war since October 7th has topped 10,300. Over 6,500 of the victims are children and women as the regime keeps raining down bombs on residential buildings.
Iran FM says Tehran received new message from Washington on Gaza

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian
Press TV – November 6, 2023
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian says Tehran has received a new message from Washington claiming that the US seeks a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, but they continue to support Israel’s genocide in the Palestinian territory in practice.
The minister, who was speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a Monday meeting between Iranian and Iraqi heads of governments in Tehran, said, however, that the message did not correspond to what the US has done in practice in Gaza where it has supported the Israeli crimes against the civilians.
“The Americans … delivered a message to us in the past three days (claiming) that they are after ceasefire and have carried out efforts in this regard,” said Amir-Abdollahian, but “they, however, back mass killing and genocide” of people in Gaza.
“We hope that the US will soon change its policy and stop supporting the occupying party,” he said.
The US had sent similar messages to Iran, a country with influence over resistance groups in Palestine, since the Israeli aggression on Gaza started on October 7, according to statements by Amir-Abdollahian and other authorities.
Amir-Abdollahian also commented about reports suggesting that his US counterpart Antony Blinken had arrived in the Iraqi capital Baghdad earlier on Monday while wearing a bullet-proof vest out of fears that he could be targeted because of his support for the Israeli carnage in Gaza.
“This is the reality about the US role in the region,” said the diplomat.
Resistance groups in Iraq have launched attacks on US military bases in the Arab country in response to Washington’s offering of direct and open support for the Israeli attacks on Gaza.
Those groups and peers in other countries of the region have warned that such attacks on US interests could expand if Israel does not stop its brutal aggression against Gaza.
Gaza health authorities said on Monday that the number of people killed in 31 days of Israel attacks had exceeded 10,000 with children accounting for nearly half of the death toll.
Hamas calls for an international committee to inspect Gaza hospitals
Palestine Information Center – November 5, 2023
GAZA – The Hamas Movement called on the Secretary-General of the United Nations to form an international committee to visit Gaza hospitals and verify the Israeli false narrative about being used for resistance activities.
The Movement strongly condemned the Israeli army spokesman’s claims regarding Indonesian and Hamad hospitals in Gaza as media fabrications.
According to the Movement, the occupation is attempting to use the claim that Hamas constructed tunnels beneath the buildings as justification for its attacks on the Qatari and Indonesian hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip.
“This is just a lie to cover up the Israeli crimes committed against injured people and civilians.”
The Movement also confirmed that the Israeli allegation about a tunnel entrance under the Indonesian hospital is, in fact, a fuel store for the facility, while the alleged tunnel beneath Hamad Hospital is just a room for pumps and electricity generators.
Targeting more than 100 hospitals and medical centers and putting about 16 hospitals out of service refutes the Israeli army spokesman’s allegations.
Additionally, Hamas refuted Israeli claims that it is stealing fuel, an accusation that UNRWA has categorically refuted.
Spain ‘neo Nazi’ mercenary among others helping Israel in Gaza

MEMO | November 5, 2023
The Israeli occupation army has resorted to using foreign mercenaries as part of its genocidal campaign against the besieged Gaza Strip, according to a report on Friday by major Spanish outlet El Mundo.
Among the foreign fighters is a notorious Spanish mercenary who previously fought alongside Ukrainian neo Nazis following Russia’s invasion last year. Pedro Diaz Flores was previously presumed dead by the Russians, but he is alive and well, according to the newspaper who interviewed him.
“So I came for economy, for money. They pay very well, they offer good equipment and the work is calm. It is 3,900 euros [$4,187] per week, complementary missions aside,” he said of his motives for joining the occupation forces.
However, he insists that he fights in occupied Golan Heights, “we only provide security support to arms convoys or the troops of the Israeli armed forces that are in the Gaza Strip, we do not fight Hamas directly, nor are we involved in assault operations.”
“We are in charge of the security of the checkpoints and access control on the borders of Gaza and Jordan. There are many PMCs [private military companies] here and they share the work. Traditionally they have guarded border terminals between Eliat and Aqaba,” he added.
The article features an image of Flores, 27, alongside colleagues at a border checkpoint with the Gaza Strip.
Last month, speculation arose that mercenaries stationed in Ukraine have started to divert their attention to aiding and joining the Israeli military, while the focus of the West has also shifted in standing with Israel while it commits war crimes and massacres against Palestinian civilians.
Speaking yesterday during a briefing in Kyiv with visiting European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said: “It’s clear that the war in the Middle East is taking away the focus” from Ukraine.





