al-Qassam Brigades destroy 335 enemy vehicles since Israel’s ground operation started
Palestine Information Center – November 23, 2023
GAZA – Abu Obeida, the spokesman for al-Qassam Brigades of Hamas, has said that the group’s fighters have destroyed 335 Israeli army vehicles fully or partially since the beginning of the Israeli ground offensive in the Gaza Strip.
33 of those vehicles, including tanks, troop carriers and bulldozers, were targeted and destroyed in the last 72 hours, Abu Obeida said in a recorded statement broadcast by Al Jazeera satellite channel on Thursday evening.
Abu Obeida added that al-Qassam fighters carried out “dozens of operations” targeting Israeli soldiers on foot, including in Beit Hanoun and east of al-Rantisi Hospital in Gaza City.
During the last three days, al-Qassam fighters also conducted “special operations” that resulted in the killing of several “enemy forces,” the spokesman said.
The spokesman emphasized that the Palestinian resistance is ready to confront “the enemy” for as long as the aggression against Gaza continues.
He urged the Palestinian people in the West Bank and the resistance groups in Yemen, Lebanon and Iraq to escalate their confrontation with the Israeli occupation forces.
Scott Ritter: Hamas Winning Battle for Gaza
By Scott Ritter – Sputnik – 23.11.2023
The recently announced ceasefire is a blessing for Palestinians and Israelis alike—a chance for prisoners to be exchanged, humanitarian aid to be distributed to those in need, and for emotions on both sides of the conflict to cool down.
While the ceasefire, negotiated between Israel and Hamas by Qatar, was mutually agreed between the two parties, let no one be fooled into thinking this was anything less than a victory for Hamas. Israel had taken a very aggressive position that, given its stated objective of destroying Hamas as an organization, it would not agree to a ceasefire under any conditions.
Hamas, on the other hand, had made one of its primary objectives in initiating the current round of fighting with Israel the release of Palestinian prisoners, and in particular women and children, held by Israel. Seen in this light, the ceasefire represents an important victory for Hamas, and a humiliating defeat for Israel.
One of the reasons Israel eschewed a ceasefire was that it was confident that the offensive operation it had launched into northern Gaza was going to neutralize Hamas as a military threat, and that any ceasefire, regardless of the humanitarian justification, would only buy time for a defeated Hamas enemy to rest, refit, and regroup. That Israel signed on to a ceasefire is the surest sign yet that all is not well with the Israeli offensive against Hamas.
This outcome should not have come as a surprise to anyone. When Hamas launched its October 7 attack on Israel, it initiated a plan years in the making. The meticulous attention to detail that was evident in the Hamas operation underscored the reality that Hamas had been studying the Israeli intelligence and military forces arrayed against it, uncovering weaknesses that were subsequently exploited. The Hamas action represented more than sound tactical and operational planning and execution—it was a masterpiece in strategic conceptualization as well.
One of the main reasons behind the Israeli defeat on October 7 was the fact that the Israeli government was convinced that Hamas would never attack, regardless of what the intelligence analysts charged with watching Hamas activity in Gaza were saying. This failure of imagination came about by Hamas having identified the political goals and objectives of Israel (the nullification of Hamas as a resistance organization by undertaking a policy built on “buying” Hamas through an expanded program of work permits issued by Israel for Palestinians living in Gaza.) By playing along with the work permit program, Hamas lulled the Israeli leadership into complacency, allowing Hamas’ preparations for their attack to be carried out in plain view.
The October 7 attack by Hamas was not a stand-alone operation, but rather part of a strategic plan possessing three main objectives—to put the issue of a Palestinian state back on the front burner of international discourse, to free the thousands of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, and to compel Israel to cease and desist when it came to its desecration of the Al Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third holiest place. The October 7 attack, on its own, could not achieve these outcomes. Rather, the October 7 attack was designed to trigger an Israeli response which would create the conditions necessary for Hamas’ objectives to reach fruition.
The October 7 attack was designed to humiliate Israel to the point of irrationality, to ensure that any Israeli response would be governed by the emotional need for revenge, as opposed to a rational response designed to nullify the Hamas objectives. Here, Hamas was guided by the established Israeli doctrine of collective punishment (known as the Dahiya Doctrine, named after the West Beirut suburb that was heavily bombed by Israel in 2006 as a way of punishing the Lebanese people for Israel’s failure to defeat Hezbollah in combat.) By inflicting a humiliating defeat on Israel which shattered both the myth of Israeli invincibility (regarding the Israel Defense Forces) and infallibility (regarding Israeli intelligence), and by taking hundreds of Israelis hostage before withdrawing to its underground lair beneath Gaza, Hamas baited a trap for Israel which the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu predictably rushed into.
Hamas has prepared a network of tunnels underneath the Gaza Strip that, in total, stretch for over 500 kilometers. Nicknamed the “Gaza Metro,” these tunnels consist of interconnected deep underground bunkers used for command and control, logistical support, medical treatment, and billeting, along with other tunnel networks dedicated for both defensive and offensive operations. The tunnels are buried deep enough to avoid destruction by most bombs in Israel’s possession and have been provisioned to withstand a siege of up to three months (90 days) in duration.
Hamas knows that it cannot engage Israel in a classic force-on-force encounter. Instead, the goal was to lure Israeli forces into Gaza, and then subject these forces to an endless series of hit-and-run attacks by small teams of Hamas fighters who would emerge from their underground lairs, attack a vulnerable Israeli force, and then disappear back underground. In short, to subject the Israeli military to what is the equivalent of a death by a thousand cuts.
And it worked. While Israeli forces have been able to penetrate into the less urbanized areas of the northern Gaza strip, taking advantage of the mobility and firepower of its armored troops, the progress is illusory, as Hamas forces harry the Israelis continuously, using deadly tandem-warhead rockets to disable or destroy Israeli vehicles, killing scores of Israeli soldiers and wounding hundreds more. While Israel has been reticent in releasing the figures of armored vehicles lost in this fashion, Hamas claims the number is in the hundreds. Hamas’ claims are bolstered by the fact that Israel has halted the sale of older Merkava 3 tanks, and instead has organized their inventory of these vehicles into new reserve armor battalions to make up for the heavy losses being sustained in both Gaza and along the northern border with Lebanon, where Hezbollah forces are engaged in a deadly war of attrition with Israel in operations designed to support Hamas in Gaza.
But the main reason for Israel’s defeat to date is Israel itself. Having taken the bait, and fallen into the Hamas trap, Israel went on to execute its Dahiya Doctrine against the Palestinian population of Gaza, carrying out indiscriminate attacks against civilian objects in blatant disregard for the law of war. An estimated 13,000 Palestinian civilians have been killed by these attacks, including more than 5,000 children. Many thousands more victims remain buried under the rubble of their destroyed housing.
While Israel may have been able to garner the support of the international community in the aftermath of the October 7 attack by Hamas, its gross overreaction has instead turned world public opinion against it—something Hamas was counting on. Today, Israel is increasingly isolated, losing support not only in the so-called Global South, but also in traditional strongholds of pro-Israeli sentiment in the US, UK, and Europe. This isolation, combined with the kind of political pressure Israel is unaccustomed to receiving, helped contribute to the Netanyahu government’s acquiescence regarding the ceasefire and subsequent prisoner exchange.
Whether the ceasefire will hold or not remains to be seen. So, too, the question of turning the ceasefire into a lasting cessation of hostilities remains an open question. But one thing is certain—having declared that victory is defined by Hamas’ total defeat, the Israelis have set the stage for a Hamas victory, something Hamas achieves simply by surviving.
But Hamas is doing more than surviving — it is winning. Having fought the Israel Defense Forces to a standstill on the battlefield, Hamas has seen every one of its strategic objectives in this conflict reach fruition. The world is actively articulating the absolute necessity of a two-state solution as a prerequisite for a lasting peace in the region. Palestinians held prisoner by Israel are being exchanged for the Israelis Hamas took hostage. And the Islamic world is united in condemning Israel’s desecration of the Al Aqsa Mosque.
None of these issues were on the table on October 6. That they are being addressed now is testament to the success Hamas enjoyed on October 7, and in the days and weeks that followed, as Israeli forces were defeated by a combination of Hamas’ tenacity and their own predilection for indiscriminate violence against civilians. Far from being eliminated as a military and political force, Hamas has emerged as perhaps the most relevant voice and authority when it comes to defending the interests of the Palestinian people.
Turkey’s intelligence organization foils Mossad attempt to kidnap Palestinian Iron Dome hacker
A view of the headquarters of Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MIT) in the capital Ankara on January 5, 2020.
Press TV -November 22, 2023
Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MIT) has rescued a renowned Palestinian hacker from the Israeli Mossad spy agency seeking to kidnap or possibly kill him.
MIT rescued Omar A, who was behind the disruption of Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system in 2015 and 2016, in an international operation and offered him protection as he was targeted by Mossad in Turkey and Malaysia.
The young Gazan hacker was sought by the Israeli regime for a long time after his hacking of the Iron Dome helped al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas, launch missile strikes against Israel at the time.
Omar, a computer programming graduate of the Islamic University of Gaza, moved to Istanbul in 2020 after Mossad identified him as the one behind the disruptions. MIT was aware of his residence in Turkey due to his background as a hacker.
In an attempt to deceive him, Mossad offered him jobs at software companies several times but Omar, suspicious of Israel’s involvement, rejected the offers.
Omar was about to accept to join a team for an online project in June 2022 and to travel abroad for the project as Mossad was intent on taking him to Tel Aviv for interrogation. But MIT contacted him and warned him against the scheme.
The Palestinian hacker decided to take a vacation in Malaysia in September 2022. The Istanbul branch of MIT’s counter-intelligence department intervened again and installed tracking software on his cellphone after warning him against a possible abduction while abroad.
Indeed, he was kidnapped days later in Kuala Lumpur and was taken to a remote cabin some 50 kilometers (31.06 miles) from the Malaysian capital.
There, he was interrogated and tortured by suspects working for Mossad and was questioned on the methods he employed to infiltrate Iron Dome.
When MIT became aware of the abduction, Turkish officials contacted Malaysian authorities and through tracking software, helped them pinpoint the location where Omar was held.
Malaysian security forces raided the house and rescued Omar. Eleven suspects were arrested in connection with his abduction. Omar returned to Turkey and was taken to a safe house provided by MIT.
Turkey’s MIT has earlier uncovered similar Mossad plots to spy on Palestinians in the country.
Back in July, Turkish authorities said they had uncovered and disrupted a vast “ghost” Mossad spy network centered in Istanbul, following months of surveillance.
The substantial efforts by Turkey’s MIT exposed 56 operatives allegedly spying on non-Turkish citizens in Turkey in the service of Mossad.
The vast network consisted of citizens from various West Asian countries.
The findings by MIT revealed that the Mossad agents would gather information about foreigners through various surveillance methods, vehicle movements using GPS, and hacking into password-protected networks using Wi-Fi and location tracking devices.
These Mossad spies also used several fake websites in multiple languages, mainly Arabic, to secure technical locations and real IP addresses of the targeted individuals.
Also in May, Turkish media outlets reported that local authorities had managed to arrest 11 people accused of being part of a Mossad-led network.
Turkey has also broken Mossad-aligned spy rings in 2022 and 2021.
Hamas reaches agreement on prisoner swap, pause in fighting
Palestine Information Center – November 22, 2023
GAZA – The Hamas Movement announced at dawn Wednesday that it had reached an agreement with the Israeli occupation regime on a four-day humanitarian ceasefire following concentrated mediation efforts by Qatar and Egypt.
“Based on our responsibility towards our long-suffering and steadfast Palestinian people, and our tireless endeavor to strengthen the steadfastness of our heroic people in our proud Gaza, to assist them and heal their wounds … and after difficult and complex negotiations for several days, we announce — with help and blessing from Almighty Allah — that we have reached a humanitarian truce agreement (temporary ceasefire) for a period of four days, thanks to persistent and appreciated Qatari and Egyptian efforts,” the Movement stated.
In a statement published on its Telegram account, Hamas revealed the most prominent provisions of the agreement:
• A ceasefire from both sides, a cessation of all military actions by the occupation forces in all areas of the Gaza Strip and a freeze on the movement of its military vehicles that have infiltrated into the Gaza Strip.
• Hundreds of aid trucks carrying humanitarian, relief, medical and fuel supplies will be allowed into all areas of the Gaza Strip, with no exception, in the north and south.
• The release of 50 civilian women and children (under the age of 19) currently held in the Gaza Strip in exchange for the release of 150 Palestinian women and children (under the age of 19) from Israeli jails according to the time they have spent in jail.
• Air traffic will stop completely in southern Gaza during these four days and for daily six-hour periods in the north, from 10:00 a.m. until 04:00 p.m.
• During the ceasefire period, Israel commits not to target or arrest anyone in all areas of the Gaza Strip.
• The free movement of people from north to south along Salahuddin Street is guaranteed.
“As we announce the conclusion of this truce agreement, we affirm that our hands will remain on the trigger and our Brigades will remain on the lookout to defend our people.”
“The resistance has steered the negotiations while its position on the ground is steadfast and strong despite the occupation’s attempts to procrastinate in this regard.”
“The terms of the agreement has been formulated in accordance with the resistance’s vision that aims to serve our people and strengthen their steadfastness in the face of aggression, while it will always remain mindful of their sacrifices, suffering and concerns.”
Joe Biden’s Washington Post op-ed shows the US never learns its lessons
By Tarik Cyril Amar | RT | November 20, 2023
The president of the United States, Joe Biden, has recently published an op-ed. Appropriately released through the Washington Post, it is, of course, really the equivalent of a regime policy declaration – a laying down of the party line, if you wish. As such, the text deserves attention, never mind that it is impossible that America’s leader, clearly challenged by worsening senescence, has written it himself. This is, to borrow a phrase from the Russia-watching crowd, America’s “collective Biden” speaking.
Translated from official jargon and scrubbed of empty rhetoric and euphemisms, the long proclamation makes only two substantial points about what the US and its “allies” (really clients and vassals) must do: Continue waging a proxy war against Russia in Ukraine and continue backing Israel in its genocidal war against the Palestinians (no, it is not a “war against Hamas,” that’s a side effect).
In that sense, there is nothing surprising, or hopeful, in collective Biden’s announcement: It took them more words this time, but this Democratic administration of neocons is simply repeating the equally tone-deaf slogan of a former Republican president representing a past gaggle of neocons: Stay the course, as George W. Bush put it succinctly during the Iraq disaster. Deja Vue all over again, in the words of America’s greatest philosopher.
But the details of the text still merit scrutiny. Let’s pick out a few highlights:
Hamas is repeatedly denounced as carrying out “pure, unadulterated evil” and such. Every fair observer would reserve such terms by now for what the Israelis are doing in Gaza. But let’s set that aside for now and let’s also set aside that we now know that substantial numbers of Israelis were killed by Israeli forces. Let’s instead focus on Hamas. Is such language factual? The rational answer to that question is not a matter of opinion, and it has to be “no”: In reality, the empirical record shows that Hamas is a resistance organization engaged in a legally and ethically justified struggle against massive national oppression. It has attacked military targets, which is legitimate, as well as committed terrorist crimes. But if any political and armed organization that does both engage in legitimate violence and terrorist crimes is carrying out “pure evil,” then almost every halfway powerful state in this world has done just that or is doing it even now. Clearly, we are dealing with an absurd statement here.
Usually, the cause of such absurdities is strategic dishonesty. That holds here as well. For the Biden administration is transparently pursuing two aims with this Orwellian abuse of terminology: First, make Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians appear, if not justified, then at least so “understandable” or “inevitable” that we stop objecting to them (and, if we are Americans, vote for Democrats, even while they support these perfectly avoidable crimes).
Secondly, prepare the ground for the proposal, following further down in the proclamation, to entirely eliminate Hamas from any post-assault settlement and, instead, “ultimately” make a “revived Palestinian Authority” rule both the West Bank and Gaza, while work on some lasting settlement continues.
This proposal is wrapped in deceptive and revoltingly cynical rhetoric: If Joe Biden has a broken heart over the slaughtered children of Gaza, then Andrew Jackson must have cried while signing the Indian Removal Act. If Biden wants a two-state solution, then why is he allowing and helping one of the “two states” to wipe out the other? If he has “counselled” Israeli leaders to refrain from excessive violence, then why has he not backed up his kind words with using his massive leverage and stopping the flow of arms, money, information, and diplomatic cover to help their genocidal attack? If Biden is worried about antisemitism spreading, why does he allow far-right Zionists to claim that their policies, which lead to deaths of thousands upon thousands of Palestinian children, are somehow “Jewish”?
Hypocrisy like that may still fool some Americans, namely those who really believe that the adequate answer to the umpteenth mass shooting at home is “thoughts and prayers.” But a US president and those writing and thinking for him would be well-advised not to embarrass themselves further before everyone else, at home and abroad.
The real policy proposal, meanwhile, is nothing else but an attempt to return to the post-Oslo Accords system on even worse terms. That means, creating a situation in which urgent, vital Palestinian needs and crystal-clear Palestinian rights will, once again, be de facto suspended in an endless dishonest “process,” which really only serves as a screen and stalling device for Israel, while the latter settles occupied land, practices the internationally recognized crime of apartheid, and conducts the occasional massacre.
But the proclamation addresses more than the Middle East. Turning on Russia, the collective Biden personalizes the issue, in bad old neocon style. Instead of any attempt at a rational – albeit critical, even hostile – approach to Moscow’s actions and interests, we find the usual daft insults: Russian President Vladimir Putin is juxtaposed with Hamas, as if he were a one-man “terrorist organization.” (Never mind that Hamas is not, actually, a terrorist organization, although it also engages in terrorist acts; see above.)
The war in Ukraine is reduced to Putin’s personal “drive for conquest,” as if there has been no history of two decades of American provocations by reckless over-expansion, bad faith, and refusal to negotiate serious issues of international security in earnest and constructively. In that regard, Russia is receiving the same rhetorical treatment as the Palestinians: When it fights, we are forbidden to notice all the very real reasons it was given to do so.
And finally, both “Putin” – read: Russia – and Hamas stand accused of two things: Wanting to “wipe a neighboring democracy off the map” and taking us to a new, vile international order, where the strong abuse the weak and might makes right.
Newsflash: Actually, neither Israel nor Ukraine are democracies. In Israel’s case, the claim is vitiated by the simple fact that its government exerts de facto control over millions of Palestinians, all of whom face discrimination and the vast majority of whom do not have a vote, or, for that matter any ordinary civil and human rights. Ukraine, meanwhile, has Vladimir Zelensky, Washington’s darling in decline, who started dismantling the country’s brittle democratic structures – for what they were worth – in 2021, well before the war, and clings to power by cooperating with a violent far-right, eliminating the political opposition, streamlining the media, and delaying elections. Again, these are not matters of opinion but facts.
Secondly, Hamas is not trying to wipe out Israel, despite endless claims to the contrary. In the past, it has repeatedly signaled a willingness to compromise and accept a two-state solution. Claiming Hamas wants the total destruction of Israel is akin to using one idiotic quote from former US President Ronald Reagan to “prove” that he wanted to erase the whole Soviet Union. Hamas also simply does not have the capacity – not by a very far stretch – to do so.
Likewise, Russia is not trying to abolish Ukraine. As its compromise proposals of late 2021 clearly showed, its key aim is a neutral Ukraine that is not used as a proxy by the West. It is true that Russia, by now, claims some Ukrainian territory. Depending on how long the war continues, it may end up claiming and taking even more. You may very well object to that. Yet it is not the same as a will to exterminate a whole state or, for that matter, its population.
Finally, regarding the warning that Hamas, Russia, and who knows who else (China? India? Brazil? Simply everyone who won’t do as told by Washington?) are hellbent on dragging us all into new dark ages of ultra-cynical realpolitik and brute force, guess what: That is precisely where we are now. And have been for the last quarter of a century, under the benevolent aegis of the USA. Don’t believe it? Ask Gaza.
In sum, all we can really learn from this letter from on-high is that the Biden administration has understood nothing and is determined to learn even less. If, in the words of the declaration, the world is ever supposed to have even a slight chance of seeing “more hope, more freedom, less rage, less grievance, and less war,” then we first need to see much less of Joe Biden and everything and everyone he stands for.
Tarik Cyril Amar is a historian from Germany working at Koç University, Istanbul, on Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe, the history of World War II, the cultural Cold War, and the politics of memory.
Imam Khamenei Urges Muslim Countries to Cut Zionist Regime’s Lifeline
Al-Manar | November 19, 2023
Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei has described the Zionist regime as a manifestation of racial discrimination, urging Muslim countries to cut the lifeline of the Zionist regime of Israel.
Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei made these remarks during his visit to the IRGC Aerospace Forces exhibition on Sunday.
Ayatollah Khamenei said that Zionists consider themselves to be a superior race and consider the rest of human beings to be inferior, and that is why they have killed thousands of children without any remorse.
He described scientific achievements, such as the ones showcased in the exhibition, to be the result of a motivation based on determination and faith.
Whatever field our young people entered with determination and faith, they have been able to do great jobs, he stressed.
The signs of determination and faith were clearly evident in this exhibition, he stated.
The Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution referred to innovation as another feature of the event, saying, “We should not be content with the current level of success because various military and civilian sectors in the world are progressing, and we must try not to stay behind.”
Referring to the developments in Palestine and the continuation of the Zionist regime’s crimes in Gaza, Ayatollah Khamenei said that the developments in Gaza revealed many hidden truths to the people of the world, one of which is the support of the heads of Western countries for racial discrimination.
When the US president, the German chancellor, the French president, and the British prime minister aid and abet such a racist regime, it means that they support racial discrimination as the most detestable issue in the world, he noted.
The people of Europe and America should clarify their stance on this situation and show that they are not in favor of racial discrimination, he stressed.
Despite extensive bombings in Gaza, the Zionist regime has failed to achieve its goal of destroying Hamas and the resistance, even after more than 40 days of using all their military power, he stated.
Ayatollah Khamenei described the brutal bombing of hospitals and women and children in Gaza as a sign of the extreme frustration of the Zionist regime’s leader about their defeat, saying that the defeat of the Zionist regime in Gaza is a fact and entering hospitals or people’s houses is not a victory.
Victory means defeating the other party, which the Zionist regime has not been able to achieve so far and will not be able to in the future, he reiterated.
Some Islamic governments apparently condemned the Zionist regime’s crimes in public gatherings, he said adding that some others have not done so yet, which is not acceptable.
He urged Islamic countries to stop exporting energy and goods to the Zionist regime and to cut off their political relationship with the Zionist regime, at least for a limited period.
Israel sets sights on southern Gaza: Report
The Cradle | November 17, 2023
Members of the Israeli war cabinet are in favor of expanding the current ground invasion into the southern Gaza Strip, a senior security official told Hebrew news outlet Walla on 17 November.
According to the source, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, minister Benny Gantz, and former army chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot are all in agreement for expanding the ground war – regardless of ongoing talks for prisoner releases.
Intense clashes have been raging across the northern Gaza Strip. Israel expanded its limited incursions into the strip late last month and, by early November, had begun its advance toward Gaza City.
This week, Israel announced the capture of a number of Hamas government buildings, as well as the main port in Gaza.
Since the start of the war, Israel has repeatedly told Gazan civilians to evacuate to the south, claiming they would be safe.
However, the Israeli army dropped leaflets in the southern city of Khan Yunis on 15 November, warning people to evacuate and saying that anybody found in close proximity to Hamas fighters would be in “danger.”
The army’s Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi said on Friday, 17 November, that Israel is “close to dismantling the military system in northern Gaza,” adding that it “will continue to work in other areas.”
Warplanes have continued to target southern Gaza despite Israel simultaneously urging civilians to evacuate south.
Israel is “ordering residents on the eastern side of Khan Younis, close to the border, to move to the western side [of the south],” Al-Jazeera correspondent Hani Mahmoud said on Thursday.
“All these claims of supposedly safe areas in Gaza are baseless; there’s no place that is safer than the other, and the entire Strip has been equally targeted and is equally dangerous,” Mahmoud added.
Meanwhile, no end to the war is within sight, as Israel has planned to eradicate Hamas, who remain deeply entrenched across a vast network of underground tunnels.
Deliberations on expanding the ground war into southern Gaza come as prisoner release talks – being mediated by Qatar and the US – continue to stall.
Hamas announced on 13 November that it informed Doha of its willingness to release around 70 women and children in exchange for a five-day ceasefire.
However, Israel is insisting on three days, Haaretz analyst Amos Harel said on Friday.
“This is a smaller number than Israel had originally hoped for,” Harel added, stating that the proposed deal also includes “about 150 female [Palestinian] prisoners and minor prisoners” to be returned to Hamas.
According to the analyst, Netanyahu is rejecting the deal in order to appease members of the extreme right within his coalition, including National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who has been criticizing the government’s decisions lately.
“If the extreme right attacks Netanyahu’s position in the wake of the concessions made to Hamas in return, the prime minister will lose his grip on his original coalition,” Harel states, adding that “even in the midst of a terrible war, political survival, which keeps him away from the possibility of being thrown into prison, remains the prime consideration for the prime minister.”
Biden admin justifies Israel’s assault on Gaza hospitals with recycled Israeli ‘intelligence’
BY WYATT REED · THE GRAYZONE · NOVEMBER 15, 2023
As Israel assaults Gaza’s Shifa Hospital, the Biden administration claims that “Hamas does use hospitals” as military bases. Once again, Washington appears to be relying on dubious Israeli propaganda rather than independent analysis.
With Israeli troops storming Gaza’s Al-Shifa and Al-Rantisi hospitals, the United States and Israel are doubling down on discredited claims that Hamas has been maintaining “command centers” out of the basements of hospitals in Gaza, even after so-called evidence produced by Tel Aviv was thoroughly debunked.
“I can confirm for you that we have information that Hamas, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, used some hospitals in the Gaza Strip, including Al-Shifa, and tunnels underneath them, to conceal and to support their military operations and to hold hostages,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters Tuesday.
Kirby’s claim echoed the assertion by National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, who maintained that “open-source reporting” shows “Hamas does use hospitals, along with a lot of other civilian facilities, for command-and-control, for storing weapons, for housing its fighters.”
On November 14, Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh told reporters that US intelligence had no “boots on the ground,” nor any intelligence assets capable of independently gathering intelligence from or about Shifa. When asked if the declassified intel briefing spun out by Kirby and Sullivan arrived through Washington’s “Israeli counterparts,” she refused to answer. But she strongly suggested the intelligence dump was politically motivated.
“This is newly-downgraded information that we felt was important to get out today, because there have been a lot of questions about the hospital and how Hamas operates, and so it was important to get out there,” Singh insisted.
Hamas denies using hospitals for military purposes, and both local healthcare workers and international humanitarian organizations back that up. “I’m sick and tired of these [Israeli] claims that there are Hamas command centers [in hospitals],” Norwegian physician Dr. Mads Gilbert told Al-Jazeera on November 12. Having performed life-saving procedures for several weeks inside Shifa during Israel’s 2014 assault on Gaza, Gilbert noted, “As I’ve said 100 times… we’ve never seen high-ranking Hamas people in Al-Shifa,” adding “we’ve been able to roam freely.”
But that did little to prevent Israeli troops from waging an all-out assault on the facilities. As Israeli forces surrounded Shifa hospital on Tuesday with the full-throated support of the Biden administration, arresting journalists outside the facility and violently clearing displaced people from its grounds, doctors inside were forced to move babies in intensive care from one wing of the hospital to another to save their lives. A lack of fuel had already forced many of those infants off vital oxygen supply units.
Meanwhile, Israeli forces have been unable to find any presence of hostages inside or around the hospital. As Israeli Army Radio reported on November 15, “There is no indication of the presence of abductees inside the hospital.”
Systematic Israeli misinformation campaign dismissed by US as “fog of war”
Israeli and American officials have yet to produced any proof that Hamas operates a “command center” under Al-Shifa. Video published by the Israeli military purporting to prove Hamas kept hostages in the basement of Al-Rantisi Children’s Hospital, Gaza’s last remaining medical center with a pediatric cancer ward, was less than convincing.
In that video performance, top Israeli army spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari claims that what appears to be a bomb shelter for young children is actually a Hamas torture chamber, citing objects as unlikely as a baby bottle and a woman’s clothes. In one particularly memorable and widely panned moment, Hagari insisted the days of the week written in Arabic on a calendar were actually the names of the “terrorists” meant to guard captive Israelis ostensibly being held there.
The Israeli military has since attempted to downplay the deception as a “mistake in translation.”
It was hardly the first round in Tel Aviv’s fake news campaign. In the weeks since Palestinian resistance groups launched their shock assault on October 7, native Arabic speakers have taken to social media to mock the audio recordings Israel regularly publishes which purport to show Hamas members gleefully discussing carrying out war crimes.
In November alone, official Israeli social media accounts have been forced to walk about at least a half-dozen false assertions. A video showing a crying woman describing how she retrieved her son’s decomposing body from the streets of Gaza was transformed by Israel’s embassy to the US, which used fake captions to falsely claim she was blaming Hamas for the siege. When questioned, the embassy subsequently deleted the post.
The same week, Israel’s main government account on Twitter had to delete its false claim that “AP, CNN, NY Times, and Reuters had journalists embedded with Hamas terrorists on October 7th massacre” – a lie which the New York Times condemned as “reckless” and said put its journalists on the ground in Israel and Gaza “at risk.”
Days later, Israel’s official Arabic-language Twitter account deleted footage of a woman dressed in nursing scrubs who claimed to work as a nurse in Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital denounced Hamas for supposedly stealing fuel and medicine. Other doctors and nurses at the medical center reportedly told journalist Younis Tirawi: “We don’t know this woman; she has never worked here before & we’ve never seen her at the hospital.”
Social media users claimed the woman was Israeli actress Hannah Abutbul, who moonlights as a social media manager of an Israeli company named Aish International that works alongside the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Abutbul denies appearing in the video.
On November 10, Israel’s Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) claimed Hamas was “INSIDE the Indonesian hospital last night,” citing a video which appeared to show a firearm being displayed. An observer who pointed out that the object was actually a billy club had their reply ‘hidden’ by the official Israeli account.
Throughout the blood-spattered onslaught on the Gaza Strip, US officials have consistently taken Israeli claims at face value, even parroting Tel Aviv’s excuses when prompted. Following Biden’s now-retracted claim to have seen “confirmed pictures of terrorists beheading children,” US officials continue to exhibit a remarkable willingness to side with the Israeli government and echo its talking points.
During a November 14 press briefing, a reporter asked State Department spokesman Matthew Miller about the Israeli government’s habitual spreading of “misinformation.” Miller responded by brushing off Israel’s parade of fabrications as an inevitable feature of the “fog of war.”
“In the fog of war, from thousands of miles away at the podium,” the spokesman insisted, “I have no way to independently adjudicate the various claims that are being made.”
Hamas rebuts Israeli claim about finding weapons at Al-Shifa Hospital
Palestine Information Center – November 16, 2023
GAZA – The Hamas Movement has belied the Israeli occupation army’s claim that it found weapons and military equipment in the Shifa Medical Complex, describing it as “part of its lies and cheap propaganda that aim to justify its crimes against the health sector in Gaza.”
“These claims are part of the silly propaganda that was spread by the occupation after it stormed the Rantisi Children’s Hospital. They put weapons in the place and then make up a weak story that no longer deceives anyone,” Hamas said in a statement on Wednesday.
“We have repeated more than once and for two weeks our call on the UN and international organizations to form an international committee to visit the hospitals and check on their conditions to expose the occupation’s lies and false claims because we are aware of the size of its fabrications and deception that aim to cover up its crimes against children, women and defenseless civilians,” the Movement added.
Biden Calls Xi ‘Dictator’ Hours After Meeting Meant to Repair Relations with China
By Ian DeMartino – Sputnik – 16.11.2023
US President Joe Biden met with his Chinese Counterpart Xi Jinping on Wednesday at the Asia Pacific Economic Council (APEC) Leaders’ summit in San Francisco on Wednesday and held a press conference later in the day.
Hours after a meeting designed to restore US-Chinese relations between US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping, Biden called the Chinese leader a dictator during a press conference about the meeting.
Biden and Xi met in San Francisco during the APEC Leaders’ Summit on Wednesday. The highly anticipated meeting was hyped as a critical opportunity to restore Chinese-US relations following years of heightened tensions between the two countries.
During a press conference following the meeting, Biden touted the progress made, saying that they reached a deal to combat fentanyl precursor chemicals from China entering the United States, resuming direct communications between the world’s two largest militaries and a plan to have experts from both countries meet on the dangers of AI.
He said they also discussed Ukraine, Gaza, Taiwan and the South China Sea.
After Biden stated he would take no more questions he started walking towards the exit but then stopped and announced that he would take another question, “Who can holler the loudest?” the President asked the crowd of supporters.
The reporter, whose name and outlet were not clearly audible in the video, first asked if Biden could share the evidence he had that Hamas hid a headquarters in Al-Shifa hospital, something Biden said was a “fact” earlier in the press conference.
Biden said he was confident in the evidence he saw, but declined to provide it. “No, I can’t tell you. I won’t tell you.”
The same reporter then asked if Biden still calls Xi a “dictator” as he did earlier in the year. Biden confirmed that he still does.
“Well look, he is. I mean he is a dictator in the sense that he is a guy who runs a country that is a communist country that is based on a form of government that is totally different from ours,” Biden stated before leaving the press room.
The Chinese government has not yet responded to Biden’s latest description of the Chinese President as a “dictator.” In June, one day after Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Beijing in an effort to ease tensions between the countries, Biden harmed those discussions by calling Xi a dictator and implying that he did not know what was going on in his country.
“The reason why Xi Jinping got very upset in terms of when I shot that balloon down with two box cars full of spy equipment is he didn’t know it was there,” Biden said at a fundraiser. “That’s a great embarrassment for dictators.”
Mao Ning, a spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that Biden’s June comments were “extremely absurd and irresponsible, seriously contradicting the basic facts,” while stressing that China was “strongly dissatisfied.”
At the start of the press conference, Biden called the meeting he had with Xi the most productive discussion he had with the Chinese leader, noting that their relationship goes back to when they were both Vice-Presidents of their respective countries.
Biden was also asked about Gaza, saying that he is “deeply involved” in the hostage negotiations and remains “mildly hopeful.”
When asked if he gave Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a deadline for the conflict, Biden stressed that he had not. “I believe it’s going to stop when Hamas no longer maintains the capacity to murder and do horrific things to the Israelis.”
Outside the building where APEC is taking place, hundreds of protesters gathered in the streets, demanding a ceasefire in Gaza.
Al-Shifa Hospital under Israeli control, turned into center for ‘detention and torture’
The Cradle | November 15, 2023
Gaza’s largest medical complex, Al-Shifa Hospital, fell under the control of the Israeli army on 15 November following an overnight raid that saw dozens of troops storm the hospital based on Israeli and US intelligence that alleged the complex houses a “Hamas command center.”
“Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) use some hospitals in the Gaza Strip, including Al-Shifa and tunnels underneath them, to conceal and to support their military operations and to hold hostages,” US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said on Tuesday night, in comments that preceded the brutal raid on the besieged medical complex.
Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh made similar comments before the raid, claiming that Washington obtained “newly declassified intelligence” showing Gaza resistance factions use hospitals as a “way to conceal and support their military operations and hold hostages.”
Neither US official provided evidence to back their claims, citing simply a “variety” of intelligence sourcing to back up the assertion.
“Since last night, it’s been a nightmare that cannot be imagined […] Before storming the compound, they targeted all the floors, the generators, the communications unit, and now we can have no contact with the outside world,” Palestinian journalist Jihad Abu Shanab, who is inside the Al-Shifa compound, told Al-Jazeera on Wednesday morning.
“[The Israelis] have told everyone to go up a floor, then go to a lower floor for investigation, and then they are forced to be interrogated, and they have seen a lot of humiliation,” he added.
The Qatari news agency also cites sources saying “about 30 people [were] taken outside of the building, stripped of their clothes. They are in the courtyard of the hospital, blindfolded, surrounded by three tanks. There is one tank right at the front of the emergency department targeting any moving object inside these buildings.”
Sources add that the Israeli tanks surrounding the hospital “blew up a warehouse of medicines and medical devices.”
According to a statement by the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, Israel has turned Al-Shifa Hospital into a center for “detention and torture.” The monitor also expressed concerns that patients, medical staff, and refugees will be executed as sporadic gunfire continues inside the complex.
“Israeli allegations about the use of the Al-Shifa Medical Complex for military purposes do not need all these long hours of searching and raiding. Therefore, there are concerns that the army may be creating an artificial scene for a new play,” Rami Abdu, the Chairman of the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, said on Wednesday.
Staff inside the hospital report that the Israeli army has continued its attacks against the hospital, bombing several sections while live fire can be heard inside the complex.
“Israeli drones are shooting anything moving inside the hospital,” the head of the orthopedics department told Al-Alam Radio.
Videos shared online showed medical staff and volunteers transferring babies from one ward in Al-Shifa to another to protect them from the Israeli raid.
According to Israeli media, the invading troops discovered “weapons and Hamas assets” inside the hospital. Nonetheless, Tel Aviv claims there is “no indication” of Israeli captives held inside the complex, as they previously claimed.
“We hold the occupation [Israel] and President Biden wholly responsible for the assault on Al-Shifa medical complex,” Hamas said in a statement early on Wednesday.
“The adoption by the White House and the Pentagon of the occupation’s false claim that the resistance is using Al-Shifa medical complex for military ends has given the green light to the occupation to commit more massacres against civilians,” the statement added.
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The Kevin Barrett-Chomsky Dispute in Historical Perspective – 10th part of the series “9/11 and the Zionist Question”
Prof. Tony Hall | American Herald Tribune | August 9, 2016
… In Among The Truthers Kay repeats the core idea of The Volunteer: A Canadian’s Secret Life in the Mossad. As Kay would have it, 9/11 confirms the role of Israel as the West’s primary bulwark against Islamic savagery. In making this case Kay repeats the assertion of Benjamin Netanyahu that 9/11 was good for Israel.
Kay asserts, “Following the attacks supporters of Israel spoke of a silver lining. The war against militant Islam suddenly was a global one. Now the whole world would see and understand the sort of nihilistic hatred that Israelis confront every day.” As Kay sees it, Jews are being enlisted en masse to serve as primary soldiers in a war of civilizations.
He writes, “The Jew was the perfect anti-Islamist, whose zeal and reliability was hard-wired into his political DNA thanks to six decades of Israeli warfare against Islamic terrorists in the Middle East.” … Read full article
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