Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

My sister was the 166th doctor to be murdered in Gaza

Dr Soma Baroud, was killed on 9 October when Israeli warplanes bombed the taxi that carried her and other tired Gazans near Bani Suhaila roundabout, Khan Yunis.
By Dr Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | October 15, 2024

“Your lives will continue. With new events and new faces. They are the faces of your children, who will fill your homes with noise and laughter.”

These were the last words written by my sister in a text message to one of her daughters.

Dr Soma Baroud was murdered on 9 October when Israeli warplanes bombed the taxi that carried her and other tired Gazans somewhere near the Bani Suhaila roundabout near Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip.

I still don’t know whether she was on her way to the hospital where she worked, or leaving the hospital to go home. Does it even matter?

The news of her assassination — which was a political murder; Israel has deliberately targeted and killed 986 medical workers, including 166 doctors — arrived through a screenshot copied from a Facebook page: “Update: these are the names of the martyrs of the latest Israeli bombing of two taxis in the Khan Yunis area…” It was followed by a list of names. “Soma Mohammed Mohammed Baroud” was the fifth name on the list, number 42,010 on Gaza’s ever-growing list of martyrs.

I refused to believe the news, even when more posts began popping up everywhere on social media, listing her as number five, and sometimes six in the list of martyrs of the Khan Yunis air strike.

I kept calling her, over and over again, hoping that the line would crackle a bit, followed by a brief silence, and then her kind, motherly voice would say, “Marhaba Abu Sammy. How are you, brother?” But she never answered the call.

I had told her repeatedly that she does not need to bother with elaborate text or audio messages due to the unreliable internet connection and electricity.

“Every morning,” I said, “just type: ‘We are fine’.” That’s all I asked of her.

But she would skip several days without writing, often due to the lack of an internet connection. Then, a message would arrive, although never brief. She wrote with a torrent of thoughts, linking up her daily struggle to survive, to her fears for her children, to poetry, to a Qur’anic verse, to one of her favourite novels, and so on.

“You know, what you said last time reminds me of Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude,” she told me on more than one occasion, before she would take the conversation into the most complex philosophical spins. I would listen, and just repeat, “Yes… totally… I agree… one hundred per cent.”

For us, Soma was a larger-than-life figure. This is precisely why her sudden absence has shocked us to the point of disbelief. Her children, although grown up, felt orphaned. But her brothers, me included, felt the same way.

I wrote about Soma as a central character in my book My Father Was a Freedom Fighter, because she was indeed central to our lives, and to our very survival in a Gaza refugee camp.

The first born, and only daughter, she had to carry a much greater share of work and expectations than the rest of us. She was just a child when my eldest brother, Anwar, still a toddler, died in an UNRWA clinic at the Nuseirat refugee camp due to the lack of medicine. Then, she was introduced to pain, the kind of pain that with time turned into a permanent state of grief that would never abandon her until her murder by a US-supplied Israeli bomb in Khan Yunis.

Two years after the death of Anwar, another boy was born. They also called him Anwar, so that the legacy of the first boy could carry on. Soma cherished the newcomer, maintaining a special friendship with him for decades to come.

My father began his life as a child labourer, then a fighter in the Palestine Liberation Army, then a police officer during the Egyptian administration of Gaza, then, once again, a labourer, because he refused to join the Israeli-funded Gaza police force after the 1967 Naksa (the Six Day War).

A clever, principled man, and a self-taught intellectual, my Dad did everything he could to provide a measure of dignity for his small family; and Soma, a child, often barefoot, stood by him every step of the way. When he decided to become a merchant, as in buying discarded and odd items in Israel and repackaging them to sell in the refugee camp, Soma was his main helper. Although her skin healed, cuts on her fingers due to wrapping thousands of razors individually, remained as a testament to the difficult life she lived.

“Soma’s little finger is worth more than a thousand men,” my father would often repeat, to remind us, eventually five boys, that our sister will always be the main heroine in the family’s story. Now that she is a martyr, that legacy has been secured for eternity.

Years later, my parents sent her to Aleppo to obtain a medical degree. She returned to Gaza, where she spent over three decades healing the pain of others, although never her own.

She worked at Al-Shifa Hospital and Nasser Hospital among other medical centres. Later, she obtained another certificate in family medicine, and opened a clinic of her own. She did not charge the poor, and did all she could to heal those victimised by war.

Soma was a member of a generation of female doctors in Gaza who truly changed the face of medicine.

Collectively, they put great emphasis on the rights of women to medical care and expanding the understanding of family medicine to include psychological trauma with particular emphasis on the centrality as well as the vulnerability of women in a war-torn society.

When my daughter Zarefah managed to visit her in Gaza shortly before the ongoing war, she told me that, “When aunt Soma walked into the hospital, an entourage of women — doctors, nurses and other medical staff — would surround her in total adoration.”

At one point, it felt that all of Soma’s suffering was finally paying off: a nice family home in Khan Yunis, with a small olive orchard, and a few palm trees; a loving husband, a professor of law and eventually the dean of law school at a reputable Gaza university; three daughters and two sons, whose educational specialties ranged from dentistry to pharmacy, to law to engineering.

Even under siege, life — at least for Soma and her family — seemed manageable. True, she was not allowed to leave the Strip for many years due to the blockade, and thus we were denied the chance to see her for years on end. True, she was tormented by loneliness and seclusion, hence her love affair with and constant citation of García Márquez’s seminal novel. But at least her husband was not killed or missing. Her beautiful house and clinic were still standing. And she was living and breathing, communicating her philosophical nuggets about life, death, memories and hope. And then…

“If I could only find the remains of Hamdi, so that we can give him a proper burial,” she wrote to me last January, when the news circulated that her husband had been executed by an Israeli quadcopter in Khan Yunis. Because his body was missing, she held on to some faint hope that he was still alive. Her boys, on the other hand, kept digging in the wreckage and debris of the area where Hamdi was shot, hoping to find him and give him a proper burial. They would often be attacked by Israeli drones in the process of trying to unearth their father’s body. They would run away, and return with their shovels to carry on with the grim task.

To maximise their chances of survival, my sister’s family decided to split up between displacement camps and other family homes in southern Gaza. This meant that Soma had to be in a constant state of moving, travelling, often long distances on foot, between towns, villages and refugee camps, just to check on her children, following every incursion, and every massacre.

“I am exhausted,” she kept telling me. “All I want from life is for this war to end, for cosy new pyjamas, my favourite book, and a comfortable bed.”

These simple and reasonable expectations looked like a mirage, especially when her home in the Qarara area, in Khan Yunis, was demolished by the Israeli army last month. “My heart aches,” she wrote. “Everything is gone. Three decades of life, of memories, of achievement, all turned into rubble.”

She pointed out that this is not a story about stones and concrete. “It is much bigger. It is a story that cannot be fully told, however long I write or speak. Seven souls had lived here. We ate, drank, laughed, quarrelled, and despite all the challenges of living in Gaza, we managed to carve out a happy life for our family.”

A few days before she was killed, she told me that she had been sleeping in a half-destroyed building belonging to her neighbours in Qarara. She sent me a photo taken by her son, as she sat on a makeshift chair, on which she also slept amidst the ruins. She looked tired, so very tired.

There was nothing I could say or do to convince her to leave. She insisted that she wanted to keep an eye on the rubble of what remained of her home. Her logic made no sense to me. I pleaded with her to leave. She ignored me, and instead kept sending me photos of what she had salvaged from the rubble, an old photo, a small olive tree, a birth certificate…

My last message to her, hours before she was killed, was a promise that when the war is over, I would do everything in my power to compensate her for all of this. That the whole family would meet in Egypt, or Turkiye, and that we would shower her with gifts, and boundless family love. I finished with, “Let’s start planning now. Whatever you want. You just say it. Awaiting your instructions…” She never saw the message.

Even when her name, as yet another casualty of the Israeli genocide in Gaza was mentioned in local Palestinian news, I refused to believe it. I continued to call. “Please pick up, Soma, please pick up,” I pleaded.

Only when a video emerged of white body bags arriving at Nasser Hospital in the back of an ambulance did I think that maybe my sister was indeed gone.

Some of the bags had the names of the others mentioned in the social media posts. Each bag was pulled out separately and placed on the ground. A group of mourners, bereaved men, women and children would rush to hug the body, screaming the same shouts of agony and despair that have accompanied this ongoing genocide from the first day.

Then, another bag, with “Soma Mohammed Mohammed Baroud” written across the thick white plastic.

Her colleagues carried her body and laid it gently on the ground. They were about to zip the bag open to confirm her identity. I looked away.

I refuse to see her in any way but the way that she wanted to be seen, a strong person, a manifestation of love, kindness and wisdom; someone whose “little finger is worth more than a thousand men.”

But why do I continue to check my messages with the hope that she will text me to tell me that the whole thing was a major, cruel misunderstanding and that she is okay?

My sister Soma was buried under a small mound of dirt, somewhere in Khan Yunis.

No more messages from her.

October 15, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Tim Walz Ducks Free Speech Debate in Evasive Interview Over Misinformation Crackdown

By Dan Frieth | Reclaim The Net | October 14, 2024

In an interview with Fox News Sunday’s Shannon Bream, Democratic Vice Presidential Nominee Tim Walz found himself in the hot seat over his stance on free speech, particularly regarding so-called “misinformation” and “hate speech.” Walz, who has previously expressed a desire to limit certain forms of expression, gave an evasive and meandering response when asked to clarify his position.

Walz’s comments have been the subject of concern, especially following his assertion that “There’s no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech” if he and Kamala Harris win the upcoming election.

When Bream pressed him on who would ultimately have the power to define “misinformation,” Walz sidestepped the question. Instead, he launched into a lengthy discussion about book bans and violent threats, avoiding the central issue of free speech restrictions.

Bream’s attempt to distinguish between threats and misinformation resulted in yet another detour from Walz, who again brought up book banning without offering any substantive answer on misinformation. His unwillingness to engage directly on the topic of free speech raised further concerns that under a Harris-Walz administration, the government itself could become the arbiter of what constitutes “misinformation.”

The implications of Walz’s remarks are troubling for advocates of free speech. In his convoluted responses, Walz seemed to blur the lines between genuine threats and dissenting opinions, a tactic that has left many questioning the true intent behind his push to regulate speech. By conflating hate speech with misinformation, Walz opens the door to potential government overreach that could infringe on the First Amendment rights of Americans.

While Walz insists that he supports the First Amendment, his reluctance to differentiate between dangerous threats and controversial speech raises red flags about the future of open discourse in America.

Related: Walz’s War on Words: A Blatant Distortion of the First Amendment

October 14, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Americans Must End Israel’s Serial Slaughter of Gaza’s Children

By Connor Freeman | The Libertarian Institute | October 14, 2024

It’s time for the American people to stand up to Washington and demand an immediate end to the endless support the United States has provided to apartheid Israel for its killing spree during the past year.

For fifty-seven years, Israel has subjected millions of Palestinian Muslims and Christians to a totalitarian, foreign military occupation. The Palestinian people have been systematically deprived of the ability to vote as well as their natural rights to life, liberty, freedom of movement, and property. With Israeli army protection and participation, for decades, the illegal Jewish settler movement has been stealing Palestinian property, demolishing homes, seizing agricultural land, terrorizing towns, villages, and refugee camps. This process has been mercilessly accelerated in the occupied West Bank during the last two years.

Concurrently, with full backing from the U.S. government, the Israeli military has now seized at least 26% of Gaza, comprehensively demolishing the Strip’s infrastructure, slaughtering Palestinians en masse, and making the enclave uninhabitable. It is no longer in doubt that under the rule of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his radical Jewish supremacist ministers, such as National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Occupation Governor Bezalel Smotrich, of the Jewish Power and Religious Zionism parties respectively, Tel Aviv is implementing its final solution regarding historic Palestine’s indigenous population.

In the besieged Gaza Strip, Tel Aviv has murdered, mutilated, and maimed roughly 215,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children. Those figures do not include countless thousands of Palestinians missing or presumed dead beneath the 40 million tons of rubble Israel’s war has generated.

With Washington’s support—including over 50,000 tons of weapons and artificial intelligence platforms reportedly furnished by military-industrial complex giants like Palantir—Israel is openly exterminating an entire nation.

Last month, the Gaza Health Ministry published a 649-page document providing information regarding 34,344 murdered Palestinians identified thus far.

Antiwar.com news editor Dave DeCamp reported that, “The document lists 11,355 children, including 710 infants under the age of one, as Palestinian babies have been killed throughout the genocidal campaign. The infants are listed on the first 14 pages of the document…Out of the 34,344 people who have been identified, 60% are children, women, and elderly. The remaining 40% are men ranging in age from 18 to 59.” Currently, the total number of Palestinian children slaughtered in Gaza is approximately 16,800.

Vice president of the International College of Surgeons, Dr. Mark Perlmutter, an orthopedic surgeon based in North Carolina, volunteered his services in Gaza between April and May this year. In July, he lamented to CBS News unequivocally that “[of] all of the disasters I’ve seen, combined—40 mission trips, 30 years, Ground Zero, earthquakes, all of that combined—doesn’t equal the level of carnage that I saw against civilians in just my first week in Gaza.”

He bluntly described Tel Aviv killing children on an unprecedented scale, warning Israeli military snipers were deliberately shooting children and murdering toddlers:

“I’ve seen more incinerated children than I’ve ever seen in my entire life, combined. I’ve seen more shredded children in just the first week…missing body parts, being crushed by buildings, the greatest majority, or bomb explosions, the next greatest majority. We’ve taken shrapnel as big as my thumb out of eight-year-olds. And then there’s sniper bullets. I have children that were shot twice.”

After being asked to clarify his statement, Perlmutter said, “I have two children that I have photographs of that were shot so perfectly in the chest, I couldn’t put my stethoscope over their heart more accurately, and directly on the side of the head, in the same child. No toddler gets shot twice by mistake by the ‘world’s best sniper.’ And they’re dead-center shots.”

CBS noted that over twenty doctors had recounted similar child slayings. One American doctor reportedly felt compelled to review CT scans to confirm what he saw with his own eyes because he “didn’t believe that this many children could be admitted to a single hospital with gunshot wounds to the head.”

In April, Dr. Fozia Alvi, a Canadian physician, described her experience treating two children shot in the brain by Israeli snipers during her last day volunteering at southern Gaza’s European hospital. Alvi told The Guardian, “I asked the nurse, what’s the history? She said that they were brought in a couple of hours ago. They had sniper shots to the brain. They were seven or eight years old.”

She elaborated, “They were not able to talk, paraplegic. They were literally lying down as vegetables on those beds. They were not the only ones. I saw even small children with direct sniper shot wounds to the head as well as in the chest. They were not combatants, they were small children.”

Scores of American doctors, surgeons, nurses, and emergency room physicians have confirmed these accounts, writing multiple open letters to the White House urging the Joe Biden administration to cease support for the Israeli genocide and warning that the true death toll already includes more than 118,000 Palestinians, vastly exceeding Palestinian Health Ministry estimates.

One July letter features Asma Taha, a pediatric nurse practitioner based in Oregon, describing the nightmare of living as a pregnant mother, newborn infant, or fetus trapped and under siege in the Gaza death camp. “Every day I saw babies die. They had been born healthy. Their mothers were so malnourished that they could not breastfeed, and we lacked formula or clean water to feed them, so they starved,” she wrote.

Another open letter sent to the White House was signed this month by ninety-nine American physicians, nurses, nurse practitioners, surgeons, and midwives who’ve spent a combined 254 weeks volunteering in Gaza. “This letter and the appendix show probative evidence that the human toll in Gaza since October is far higher than is understood in the United States. It is likely that the death toll from this conflict is already greater than 118,908, an astonishing 5.4% of Gaza’s population,” it reads.

The medics continue, describing the devastating toll that the genocidal campaign has taken on the entire civilian population:

“With only marginal exceptions, everyone in Gaza is sick, injured, or both. This includes every national aid worker, every international volunteer, and probably every Israeli hostage: every man, woman, and child.”

Israel’s brutal siege warfare, combined with constant bombing of civilian infrastructure including water systems, is designed to spread diseases by systematically liquidating and infecting Palestinian children, newborns, and babies.

As the American medical volunteers have thoroughly detailed:

“Virtually every child under the age of five whom we encountered, both inside and outside of the hospital, had both a cough and watery diarrhea. We found cases of jaundice (indicating hepatitis A infection under such conditions) in nearly every room of the hospitals in which we served, and in many of our healthcare colleagues in Gaza. An astonishingly high percentage of our surgical incisions became infected from the combination of malnutrition, impossible operating conditions, lack of basic sanitation supplies such as soap, and lack of surgical supplies and medications, including antibiotics.

“Malnutrition led to widespread spontaneous abortions, underweight newborns, and an inability of new mothers to breastfeed. This left their newborns at high risk of death given the lack of access to potable water anywhere in Gaza. Many of those infants died. In Gaza we watched malnourished mothers feed their underweight newborns infant formula made with poisonous water. We can never forget that the world abandoned these innocent women and babies…

We urge you to realize that epidemics are raging in Gaza. Israel’s continued, repeated displacement of the malnourished and sick population of Gaza, half of whom are children, to areas without running water or even toilets available is absolutely shocking. It was and remains guaranteed to result in widespread death from viral and bacterial diarrheal diseases and pneumonias, particularly in children under the age of five. Indeed, even the dreaded polio virus has reemerged in Gaza due to a combination of systematic destruction of the sanitation infrastructure, widespread malnutrition weakening immune systems, and young children having missed routine vaccinations for nearly an entire year. We worry that unknown thousands have already died from the lethal combination of malnutrition and disease, and that tens of thousands more will die in the coming months, especially with the onset of the winter rains in Gaza. Most of them will be young children.”

These doctors reaffirmed the claims from the previous letters and testimonies from medical volunteers that Israeli snipers are relentlessly targeting children as young as toddlers with head shots:

“Specifically, every one of us who worked in an emergency, intensive care, or surgical setting treated pre-teen children who were shot in the head or chest on a regular or even a daily basis,” the letter states. The American medical professionals insist, “It is impossible that such widespread shooting of young children throughout Gaza, sustained over the course of an entire year is accidental or unknown to the highest Israeli civilian and military authorities.”

Perlmutter is quoted again, emphasizing, “Gaza was the first time I held a baby’s brains in my hand. The first of many.”

It is absolutely clear that supporting Israel, quite literally, means mass murdering children every day in our name and on our dime. Since October 2023, the AIPAC-owned Congress has robbed over $22 billion of Americans’ hard-earned money, amidst crippling inflation, to facilitate and underwrite this genocide. Now, Tel Aviv wants to take our kids to war with Iran, Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine simultaneously.

Americans are lectured incessantly, including by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, that this is all obligatory and essential. We are told Americans must fight and die on the side of Israeli “civilization” against Middle Eastern “barbarism.” This author defies anyone to try to make a case for our “shared values” with the Israelis after reading these American doctors’ testimonies.

October 14, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel considers plan to starve Gaza’s civilians to death

Press TV – October 13, 2024

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is examining a plan to seal off humanitarian aid to northern Gaza in an attempt to starve out hundreds of thousands of Palestinians unwilling or unable to leave their homes.

Under the proposed plan, seen by the Associated Press, civilians who remain in northern Gaza would be classified as combatants, allowing Israeli troops to kill them. They would be denied access to food, water, medicine, and fuel.

The plan proposed to Netanyahu by a group of retired generals, calls for Israel to maintain control over the north for an indefinite period to attempt to create a new administration, splitting the Gaza Strip in two.

Israeli media reported that Netanyahu told a closed parliamentary committee session that he was considering the plan.

Israeli authorities with knowledge of the matter said parts of the plan are already being implemented.

The plan gave Palestinians a week to leave the northern third of the Gaza Strip, including Gaza City, before declaring it a closed military zone.

Israel has issued many evacuation orders for the north throughout the yearlong campaign of death and destruction, the most recent of which was Sunday.

Israeli forces widened their brutal military offensive on north Gaza early on Sunday, after killing 300 people over nine days in a ramped-up ground offensive targeting the Jabalia refugee camp.

Israeli tanks made their way to the north edge of Gaza City, while airstrikes from above continued.

Residents say they have been isolated from the rest of Gaza, with Israeli forces not allowing anyone to enter or exit the north.

No trucks of food, water, or medicine have entered the north since Sept. 30, according to the UN.

So far, very few Palestinians have heeded the latest evacuation order. Much fear there’s nowhere safe to go and that they will never be allowed back. Israel has prevented those who fled earlier in the war from returning.

“All Gazans are afraid of the plan,” said Jomana Elkhalili, a 26-year-old Palestinian aid worker for Oxfam living in Gaza City with her family.

“Still, they will not flee. They will not make the mistake again … We know the place there is not safe,” she said. “That’s why people in the north say it’s better to die than to leave.”

Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees, wrote on X Thursday that only about 100 Palestinians have fled the north since Sunday.

“At least 400,000 people are trapped in the area,” the UN official said “With almost no basic supplies available, hunger is spreading.”

Human rights groups say the plan would likely starve civilians and that it flies in the face of international law, which prohibits using food as a weapon and forcible transfers.

The fact that Israel is intentionally limiting food to Gaza is central to the genocide case brought against it at the International Court of Justice.

Israeli authorities say that if the strategy is successful in northern Gaza it could then be replicated in other areas, including tent camps further to the south sheltering hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.

When asked about the plan Wednesday, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said the US, Israel’s main benefactor, was going to “make absolutely clear that it’s not just the United States that opposes any occupation of Gaza, any reduction in the size of Gaza, but it is the virtually unanimous opinion of the international community.”

The Israeli military presses ahead with its relentless bombardment of the besieged Gaza Strip now more than one year into the genocidal war.

The Israeli aggression on Gaza began in October last year, claiming the lives of more than 42,000 so far. Over 98,000 d others have also been injured since then.

October 13, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli Military and Police Raid International Home in Qusra

International Solidarity Movement | October 13, 2024

At about 20:00 Friday night, the Israeli army and police raided the international volunteers’ home in the village of Qusra, south of Nablus. This raid was conducted at gunpoint by a heavily armed force.

Leading the raid was the same military officer who had commanded a squadron that forced Palestinian harvesters out of their land in the village of Duma earlier in the day. During the raid, he pointed out specific volunteers to the police, saying he recognized them from earlier in the day.

The police broke into the house by destroying the door using a pneumatic hammer, and proceeded to search the premises without a search warrant, as well as the car of a Palestinian resident of Qusra who was there at the time. They demanded all the international activists present to show their passports, and photographed them.

Israeli law and police regulations only allow for police to require identification on the basis of suspicion of having broken the law, or for several specific reasons, which must be stated to those identified. The police had refused to state their grounds for either the search or identification, even declaring before they left, “You have done nothing wrong; we were only here to see who you are.”

The raid on the international volunteer quarters directly followed the forced removal of harvesters from their lands in the village of Duma earlier in the day, under the claim that it is forbidden for Palestinians to access their lands anywhere in Area C – which comprises around 60% of the West Bank – without prior coordination.

October 13, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | Leave a comment

Democrat Congresswomen Tell Social Media Platforms to “Quickly and Decisively” Censor Hurricane “Misinformation”

By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | October 11, 2024

Despite recent pushback for politicians encouraging social media platforms to increase censorship online, in the wake of Hurricanes Helene and Milton, a cadre of Democratic House representatives from the affected regions have appealed to major social media platforms to intensify their efforts to censor alleged “misinformation” related to the storms.

We obtained a copy of the letter for you here.

“We write to your platforms with an urgent request on behalf of states affected by the devastation of Hurricane Helene and those currently being impacted by Hurricane Milton,” the letter states. “In the aftermath of Helene, we have witnessed a troubling surge in misinformation, disinformation, conspiracy theories, and scams that are hindering recovery efforts and exploiting vulnerable individuals and families.”

The representatives say that they are concerned about the proliferation of false claims and blame these reportedly false claims for the hindering of recovery efforts. The congresswomen also say that social media posts are undermining public confidence in institutions.

The call for a crackdown on misinformation was articulated in a letter addressed to seven major social media entities, including Meta, X, TikTok, Discord, YouTube, Snap, and Instagram. Authored by Representatives Deborah Ross (D-N.C.), Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), Nikema Williams (D-Ga.), and Wiley Nickel (D-N.C.), the letter alleges that misinformation is having a dire impact.

The letter doesn’t directly demand censorship of alleged misinformation, but it does put pressure on platforms to police speech, saying that they have the “power and the responsibility” to “improve the digital spaces.”

The congresswomen say that they “strongly encourage” platforms to act “quickly and decisively.”

In a press conference today, President Biden dismissed some of the criticism of the response to the hurricane as “lies” and said, “Those who have been spreading these lies to try to undermine the opposition, they are going to pay a price for it.”

The political pressure on social media platforms to step in regarding a major event echoes what happened during the Covid pandemic.

During the pandemic, the call for online censorship by politicians and health authorities under the guise of combating misinformation became a contentious issue. This initiative, aimed at preventing the spread of allegedly harmful or misleading information about the virus, its transmission, and treatments, led to a wide array of interventions by social media platforms and tech companies.

As part of these efforts, platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube introduced policies to flag, remove, or demote content that contradicted the evolving understanding of health authorities such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The intent was supposedly to protect public health; however, the execution of these policies often resulted in the suppression of legitimate discourse and the removal of content that later proved to be accurate.

October 11, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Rights group files ICC complaint against 1,000 Israel soldiers for war crimes in Gaza

MEMO | October 11, 2024

A European rights group has filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court (ICC) against 1,000 Israeli occupation soldiers for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in Gaza.

In a statement released on its website on Tuesday, the Hind Rajab Foundation, a branch of the March 30 Movement,  said the complaint is “supported by over 8,000 pieces of verifiable evidence – including videos, audio recordings, forensic reports, and social media documentation – demonstrates the soldiers’ direct involvement in these atrocities.”

It added that soldiers were named and were all “located in Gaza during the genocidal assault, and the evidence reveals their participation in violations of international law.”

It added that it provided evidence that they had taken part in the “destruction of civilian infrastructure … Illegal occupation and looting … Participation in the Gaza blockade … Targeting civilians … Use of inhumane warfare tactics,” which are violations under international law.

The soldiers named include “high-ranking officers and commanders responsible for planning and executing military operations in Gaza,” individuals with dual citizenship, “including 12 from France, 12 from the United States, 4 from Canada, 3 from the United Kingdom, and 2 from the Netherlands,” and soldiers “who have openly boasted about their war crimes on social media,” the statement explained.

October 11, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Israel’s war on journalism continues: American Jeremy Loffredo arrested, faces severe punishment for accurate reporting

By Iara Modarelli | 21st Century Wire | October 11, 2024 

Israeli authorities have arrested American journalist Jeremy Loffredo, intensifying their assault on press freedom and extending their war on journalism by targeting independent American reporters working in Israel.

Loffredo, 28, is an investigative journalist known for his work with The Grayzone, and was arrested shortly after publishing his recent report on the Iranian missile retaliation which reportedly struck several Israeli military and intelligence sites, including one missile landing next to the Mossad headquarters in Tel Aviv, as well as multiple impacts in and around Israel’s most important air operations sites located at Nevatim Air Base.

According to colleagues, Loffredo was with a group of four other journalists when they were blindfolded, beaten, and detained by the Israel security forces, allegedly for exposing the Israeli regime’s military activities, according to Russian-Jewish reporter Andrey X.

Jeremy is currently the only journalist still being detained from the group, and his arrest is sparking widespread concerns of a potential diplomatic catastrophe between the U.S. and Israel after representatives from the U.S. Embassy attended court hearings in Jerusalem regarding his continued detention. Loffredo’s lawyer, Leah Tsemel, has argued that Loffredo had acted transparently and publicly and challenged the claim put against the journalist. claims that he was aiding the enemy.

Overall, his on-the-ground reporting shed light on the comprehensive damage caused by Iran’s Operation True Promise II, a retaliatory strike following a series of high-profile assassinations carried out by Israel which targeted key leaders in Hamas, Hezbollah, and the IRGC. The Grayzone journalist was arrested on charges of endangering national security with allegations that he was “aiding the enemy during wartime” by disclosing sensitive information.

Loffredo also explains how airstrikes on Gaza were launched from the Nevatim base, information which had largely been omitted from western mainstream coverage of the event. He also reported how Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s private jet may also have been located at the base.

A campaign on X has gone viral under the hashtag #FreeJeremyLoffredo, with thousands of people seeking to bring attention to Jeremy’s arrest and intensify pressure on the U.S. State Department, as the Israeli charges against Loffredo intensify, where he faces the potential of life behind bars, or even the death penalty – all for the crime of doing journalism.

Interestingly, Grayzone editor Max Blumenthal revealed on X how US mainstream media outlet PBS had already reported from one of the same ‘sensitive’ locations as Loffredo – with no repercussions whatsoever from Israeli authorities.

UPDATE: Blumenthal broadcast this morning that the Israel authorities have now released Jeremy Loffredo from custody, but he is forbidden from leaving the country for the time being.

Israel’s crackdown on the free press and journalism has escalated dramatically over the past 12 months, with the killer of over 180 journalists, many of them Palestinian, including a number of targeted murders in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon since hostilities increased October 2023. This unprecedented death toll marks the highest number of journalists killed over a 12 month period of any war zone in history.

Currently, dozens of other reporters remain imprisoned without official charges as Israel intensifies its efforts to suppress any media coverage which exposes a mounting list of warcrimes carried out in the occupied territories.

To date, there has been no official statement by the U.S. government regarding the status of Jeremy Loffredo.

VIDEO: View Jeremy Loffredo’s most recent video report from Israel.

October 11, 2024 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | Leave a comment

Israel hopes to put American on death row for doing journalism

He must be punished for telling the truth about Israel

Laura and Normal Island News | October 11, 2024

This is going to come as upsetting news, but I must inform you a number of terrorists have been attempting to do journalism in Israel. This has prompted fears the truth might reach the public and they might be informed about what is really going on. I know, it doesn’t bear thinking about…

Following the recent rocket attack by Iran that was the most terrifying thing in history, but also embarrassingly pathetic and a massive failure, Israel sensibly decided no one is allowed to report the truth. Unfortunately, several individuals decided it was their right to pollute your mind with facts and evidence.

The officially authorised version of events is that almost all of those Iranian rockets were intercepted by the iron dome, the ones that exploded did no damage, and Iran embarrassed itself by even trying to attack Israel, but it’s also such a massive threat that it must be nuked out of existence. Only an idiot would see a contradiction here.

Sadly, several so-called journalists decided to visit the sites of the rocket impacts and show you what really happened. These people had the audacity to tell you to believe your own eyes and ears, instead of letting smart people like myself program your brain.

Jeremy Loffredo and his terrorist friends found an unexploded rocket near Mossad HQ and showed it just sitting on the road. Disgustingly, Loffredo pointed out Mossad embedded its HQ among civilian infrastructure as though this is somehow relevant. Just imagine if a rocket landed near MI5 HQ and journalists decided you had a right to know. Obviously, we would have to bring back the death penalty for journalists like that.

Somehow, Loffredo managed to make things even worse. He mentioned that Mossad HQ is located near a hospital, implying any potential victims could be considered human shields. What kind of monster would use language like this? Does Loffredo not know Israelis are human beings?

Thankfully, Loffredo and his accomplices were caught by the IDF, and naturally, they were beaten up and blindfolded before being taken to a military base. How else would the Middle East’s only democracy arrest someone? While most of the terrorists have inexplicably been released without charge, Loffredo is thankfully being detained. I understand there is a campaign in Israel to send him to that rapey place in the Negev desert.

The country that has murdered 128 journalists in the past year demonstrated it’s better than all those Arab countries by charging a man with journalism, leaving him facing a life sentence, or even the death penalty, for the crime of reporting the truth.

Loffredo’s reporting was mirrored by outlets like PBS, however, only Loffredo is getting punished because we don’t like the Grayzone, and finally, we have an excuse to execute its journalists. I yearn for the day we can do this in the west. Until we’ve taken care of Declassified UK, we can’t sensibly call ourselves a democracy, can we?

Personally, I don’t understand why any journalist would feel uncomfortable repeating Israel’s authorised version of events. It’s so much better for your career to gloss over the build up to World War III and the possible extinction of the human race. All you have to say is “Yup, that school was definitely exploded by a stray Hamas rocket” or “Sure, Israel sniped that toddler, but it has a right to defend itself”. You see how easy that was? Anyone who can’t lie for Israel gets no sympathy from me.

If Israel doesn’t want people to know that rockets are reaching Tel Aviv, it’s because that information is not in the public interest. You’re not allowed to know the truth about Israel because the truth would make Israel look bad.

I’m sure you will agree that journalists who don’t comply with Israeli censorship demands should be jailed for the rest of their lives, or even sent to death row. Jeremy Loffredo must be punished in the strongest way possible for telling the truth about Israel. It’s time to make an example of him so no one ever makes this mistake again.

If you’re American, do not under any circumstances call the US embassy in Israel on +011-972-2-630-4000 or email them at JersusalemACS@state.gov to demand Loffredo’s release because this would make you a decent person who cares about journalistic freedom and human rights and we don’t do those things anymore, do we?

October 11, 2024 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | Leave a comment

Energy prices cross a critical threshold in Poland, leaving some companies fighting for their lives

By Liz Heflin | Remix News | October 10, 2024

Energy prices have crossed a critical point in Poland, leaving some companies fighting for their lives, according to wnp.pl. The site further says that the EU’s goal of lowering greenhouse gas emissions means higher obligations on those companies that depend on energy usage.

Market participants are finding it increasingly difficult to compete, with those relying on coal burdened by emission fees. “The energy-intensive industry is responsible for over 20 percent of Poland’s GDP,” WNP says, which has led to more and more demand for renewables to lower carbon footprint and remain competitive.

Henryk Kaliś, president of the board of the Chamber of Industrial Energy and Energy Recipients, says the key factor for companies is not the price of energy itself, but whether it allows for profitable production and competition with foreign (non-European) companies. Electricity prices need to be below 60 euros per megawatt-hour to compete, and prices have already surpassed this threshold.

The EU’s climate policy affects companies across the continent and has led to European industry moving to Asia. However, Poland is in a particularly vulnerable position, as gas fuel accounts for 45 percent of the country’s energy system, explains Robert Tomaszewski, head of the energy department of Polityka Insight. Compare this to Scandinavian countries where electricity is mainly supplied by hydroelectric power plants, Spain where nuclear and renewables make up 70 percent of the energy mix, or France which has turned back on their nuclear plants, driving one megawatt-hour of electricity down to €47.

In early August, Polityka Insight’s data had Poland’s average wholesale price of electricity at an average of €90 per megawatt-hour, with higher prices only seen in Ireland (€98.68) and Italy (€95-98)

Mikołaj Budzanowski, who sits on the management board of Poland’s Boryszew Group, says there is no doubt that high energy prices are a major problem for Polish industry.

October 10, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , , | Leave a comment

Israel Commits Crime Against Humanity in Gaza – UN Investigation Commission

Sputnik – 10.10.2024

Israel has committed a crime against humanity during its actions in the Gaza Strip, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel said on Thursday.

“The report found that Israeli security forces have deliberately killed, detained and tortured medical personnel and targeted medical vehicles while tightening their siege on Gaza and restricting permits to leave the territory for medical treatment. These actions constitute the war crimes of willful killing and mistreatment and of the destruction of protected civilian property and the crime against humanity of extermination,” the document said.

Both Israel and Palestinian armed groups torture prisoners, the commission found.

“The Commission also investigated the treatment of Palestinian detainees in Israel and of Israeli and foreign hostages in Gaza since 7 October 2023, and concluded that Israel and Palestinian armed groups are responsible for torture and sexual and gender-based violence,” the document said.

Israeli Minister of National Security Ben-Gvir personally ordered to torture Palestinian prisoners, the commission said.

“The report found that the institutionalized mistreatment of Palestinian detainees, a longstanding characteristic of the occupation, took place under direct orders from the Israeli Minister in charge of the prison system, Itamar Ben-Gvir, and was fuelled by Israeli government statements inciting violence and retribution,” the document concluded.

October 10, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Israel seizes UNRWA headquarters’ land in Occupied Jerusalem

Palestinian Information Center – October 10, 2024

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM – Israel has confiscated UNRWA’s headquarters land in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in Occupied Jerusalem with the aim to build 1,440 illegal settlement units on the site.

The announcement comes a day after members of the United Nations Security Council warned Israel against proceeding with a law aimed at curbing UNRWA’s ability to operate.

Earlier Sunday, the Israeli Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee approved two bills that effectively aim at ending UNRWA’s activity and privileges in Israel.

The move came as part of the Israeli systematic targeting of UNRWA in the occupied territories.

Last January, a number of countries suspended financing for the agency after Israel accused 12 of the 30,000 UNRWA employees of participating in the 7 October attack.

Most resumed funding, however, after a UN report found that Israeli authorities had not provided “any supporting evidence” to back up allegations of UNRWA staff links to the attack.

Germany, Australia, Canada, Sweden, and Japan were among the countries to restore funding to UNRWA following the report.

October 10, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , , | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »