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Starbucks loses $11bn in value from pro-Palestine action

The Cradle | December 7, 2023

Seatle-based Starbucks Corp has lost over $11 billion in value this last quarter due to Palestinian solidarity boycotts and employee strikes since the beginning of the war in Gaza on 7 October.

The coffee giant tried to bounce back on losses with their holiday season “Red Cup Day” gimmick that would allow consumers to receive a free reusable holiday cup with every purchase.

Since the announcement of Starbucks’ scheme in mid-November, the company has seen its market share crash by 8.96 percent, accounting for $11 billion in losses, the lowest it has experienced since 1992.

The primary factor for the losses of other western corporations, like McDonald’s and KFC, is due to an international boycott action launched against Israel-supporting firms in solidarity with the Palestinian people.

The financial hit by Starbucks jumped borders as its franchises in Egypt have turned to downsizing their workforce due to the boycott’s effects.

Starbucks turned to sue their union, Starbucks Workers United, in October after objecting to the latter’s social media post in solidarity with Palestine, citing intellectual property theft and harassment of baristas at Starbucks cafe locations.

“Workers United posted a statement with an image of a bulldozer tearing down part of the Israel and Gaza border, reflecting their support for violence perpetrated by Hamas,” the company note obtained by The Intercept read. “Starbucks unequivocally condemns acts of terrorism, hate, and violence committed by Hamas, and we strongly disagree with the views expressed by Workers United.”

The boycotting impact in West Asia, where pro-Palestine sentiment has been historically strong, has multiple western brands feeling the heat from Morrocco, Kuwait, Jordan, and others.

“The scale of the aggression against the Gaza Strip is unprecedented. Therefore, the reaction, whether on the Arab street or even internationally, is unprecedented,” said Hossam Mahmoud, a member of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS) in Egypt.

December 7, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Israel rounding up hundreds of Palestinian boys, men and disappearing them

Israeli occupation forces rounded up and detained hundreds of Palestinian boys and men over the age of 15 in northern Gaza on 07 December 2023
MEMO | December 7, 2023

Hundreds of Palestinian boys and men over the age of 15 are being rounded up by occupation forces in northern Gaza, stripped of their clothes and taken away.

Shocking images and video footage circulating online show the boys and men stripped to their underwear and left sitting on the ground in the cold winter temperatures in Gaza. They can be seen surrounded by heavily armed Israeli occupation soldiers who are screaming orders at them.

Further images show an army people carrier filled with the men being driven away.

It is not clear how many boys and men were disappeared, but some reports have put the figure as high as 700. They are said to have been taken from shelter schools in northern Gaza where thousands of displaced civilians were forced to take shelter as a result of the bombing and destruction of their neighbourhoods and homes.

Reports state that among those taken is Diaa Al-Kahlot, bureau chief of Al-Arabi Al-Jadeed newspaper in Gaza. With social media users saying they have identified him sitting in a vest and his underwear among the rows of men in the images released.

December 7, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

Behind enemy bars: Palestinian and Israeli prisoners

The fair treatment of Israeli captives by Hamas has become part of the information war between Palestinians and Tel Aviv

By Robert Inlakesh | The Cradle | December 7, 2023

The issue of Prisoners of War (POWs) taken captive by Hamas-led Palestinian resistance forces has become one of the key justifications for Israel’s military assault on the Gaza Strip.

While western audiences are often presented with the image of these groups as bloodthirsty terrorists, a closer look reveals that Hamas and other factions may have treated Israeli captives more humanely than how Israel treats Palestinian political prisoners.

While the Israeli POW issue spans eight weeks, the plight of Palestinian captives has persisted since at least 1967. There are said to be some 137 Israelis that are currently being held captive in Gaza, whom Hamas claims all are males and/or soldiers.

In the seven-day truce struck in November between Hamas and Israel, the Palestinian resistance released 108 women and children held captive in Gaza. In return, Israel was to release 300 Palestinian women and children held in detention and permit much-needed aid into Gaza through the Rafah crossing with Egypt.

Stanley Cohen, a US attorney who has represented both Hamas and Hezbollah members, tells The Cradle that “the laws of war do not limit Prisoners of War to State actors.” He says that “all the laws of war apply, whether it’s state actors or non-state actors.”

This would mean that the same legal obligations on the treatment of POWs should apply to both Hamas and Israel, despite there being a greater moral expectation often placed on UN member states.

How Hamas treats Israeli POWs

Access to interviews with detainees is limited due to Israeli government restrictions on media interaction with the recently freed captives, especially since the embarrassing PR blunder in late October when one of the four Israelis unconditionally released before the truce – 85-year-old Yocheved Lifshitz – said at a presser that “they treated us very well” in Gaza, but had endured “hell” while being taken captive.

But despite the challenges in obtaining their full stories, certain facts stand out. Recent audio recordings quoted by Israeli media have revealed statements from freed prisoners who claim they were more fearful of Israeli actions than those by Hamas. One former detainee, criticizing the Israeli government, highlighted the lack of support and the challenges faced during their captivity:

“We were sitting in the tunnels and we were terribly afraid not that Hamas but Israel would kill us, and then they would say – Hamas killed you.”

Another former Israeli captive went further in expressing disdain for the Israeli government’s responses on and after the events of 7 October:

“The feeling we had there was that no one was doing anything for us. The fact is that I was in a hiding place that was shelled and we had to be smuggled out and were wounded. Not including the helicopter that shot at us on the way to Gaza. You claim that there is intelligence, but the fact is that we are being shelled. My husband was separated from us three days before we returned to Israel and taken to the tunnels. And you are talking about washing the tunnels with sea water? You are shelling the route of tunnels in the exact area where they are.”

Reports on the health of detainees suggest that there was a gradual decrease in food quantity inside Gaza, with claims that prisoners lost between 10 to 15 percent of their body mass. Dr Yael Mozer-Glassberg, an Israeli pediatrician, described the children’s experience as “psychological terror,” though her account should be viewed with some healthy skepticism.

Mozer-Glassberg’s accounts are the closest thing to a detailed explanation of how the freed Israeli captives were treated. According to a report published by Haaretz, the doctor repeated the following story of two children, stating that “the older one wouldn’t eat until the younger had finished eating and felt full,” adding that “these are the kind of stories I heard from my grandfather, who was a Holocaust survivor.”

When reading the language she employs to describe the conditions of the former captives, it is quite apparent that her account is geared towards exaggeration and that the doctor is not a neutral source.

Conflicting claims 

On the other side of the spectrum are the Hamas-released videos showing the handover of mostly Israeli detainees to the International Red Cross. The footage is characterized by high-fives, smiles, waves, hugs, and even Arabic expressions of gratitude to their captors – visuals the Israeli government dismisses as propaganda.

Government spokesperson Eylon Levy said that Hamas “releases footage of crowds terrorizing the hostages in their final moments of captivity,” stating that the videos show how the group “continues to document its own atrocities.” Levy’s portrayal was a clear exaggeration, to say the least.

Tel Aviv’s health ministry has even gone as far as to suggest POWs were administered “drugs” to make them appear happy. Yet contrary to Mozer-Glassberg’s portrayals of terror, these videos provide more direct insights into the experiences of the freed Israelis.

Emily Hand, a 9-year-old Israeli girl who was held by Hamas, was returned to her father during the recent prisoner exchanges. Her father, Thomas, who had been paraded across western media after incorrectly being informed that his daughter was killed on 7 October, stated that “she [Emily] has lost a lot of weight, from her face and body, but generally doing better than we expected.”

Thai negotiator Dr Lerpong Sayed asserted that those he helped release were well cared for, receiving shelter, clothes, food, and water, with mental support provided equally to Thai and Israeli detainees – who he said were held together. There have also been reports of friendships blooming from within the Palestinian resistance groups’ detention tunnels, one between an Israeli woman and a Thai Worker. Claims of intentional injuries during transport and a letter expressing gratitude from a released captive’s family remain contested and unverified.

Hamas alleges that Israeli airstrikes have killed around 60 Israelis they were holding captive, including their Palestinian guards, with 23 of the bodies still trapped under rubble. The Israeli army, blaming Hamas, has discovered two of these corpses.

Amid varying accounts from families and doctors, it appears that conditions in the facilities where Israeli detainees were held were unpleasant, possibly exacerbated by Israel’s cutoff of all essential services at the start of the war.

A lack of hygiene, water, food, medicine, and electricity are all realities for the 2.3 million Palestinian civilians living in Gaza right now. If anything, the conditions that the Israeli captives faced were consistent with, if not better, than those faced by Gaza’s civilians.

How Israel mistreats Palestinian Prisoners

Unlike the Israeli detainees, freed Palestinian political prisoners have spoken directly to the international media and provided horrifying accounts of physical abuse, including torture, beatings, and even rape. According to a number of Palestinian women and children who were freed in the latest exchanges, they were threatened by Israelis not to speak out about their treatment in detention.

“There are no laws. Everything is permitted,” Lama Khater, a freed Palestinian captive, told the media. “I was led to the investigation handcuffed and blindfolded, I was threatened with being burned, I was explicitly threatened with rape and with deportation to the Gaza Strip,” she added.

Palestinian journalist Baraah Abu Ramouz, who was also freed from Israeli detention, gave the following testimony of what she witnessed:

“The situation in the prisons is devastating. The prisoners are abused. They are being constantly beaten. They’re being sexually assaulted. They are being raped. I’m not exaggerating. The prisoners are being raped.”

Mohammed Nazal had his fingers broken, his back bruised, and hands fractured by Israeli prison guards. “One week ago, we were savagely beaten with metal bars. I put my hands on my head to protect it from injury, but the soldiers did not stop until they broke my hands,” the 18-year-old freed prisoner said. Despite his clear injuries and horrifying testimony given to the media, where he said he was left lying on the floor in pain and was denied medical treatment, the Israeli authorities tried to claim he was a liar and released a video claiming he was unharmed. His testimonies and medical reports were later verified, revealing that Israel had lied and not Mohammed.

Ahed Tamimi, a Palestinian icon and activist who was being held without a charge, looked shaken and weak following her release, stating:

“The circumstances in the prison are very difficult, with daily abuse against female prisoners. They are left without water or clothes, sleeping on the floor and being beaten… The Israeli authorities threatened me with [targeting] my father if I spoke about anything that happens in prison.”

Their testimonies consistently highlight that conditions inside Israeli prisons further deteriorated after 7 October. Freed detainees spoke of physical and psychological abuse, and deprivation of essentials such as food, water, medical care, and proper sleeping arrangements.

Palestinian prisoner support and human rights association, Adameer reports that over 7,600 political prisoners are held in Israeli military detention, with more than 3,000 of these civilians captured since 7 October – far surpassing the total number of Israelis held in Gaza.

The overlooked Palestinian struggle

Tel Aviv’s claims that these Palestinians are all “convicted terrorists” is a farce. Israel’s military court system maintains a near 100% conviction rate for Palestinians, while thousands more are held under what is called “administrative detention” — jargon for those individuals detained without any charge. One testimony, which I recorded last year, came from now 22-year-old Abdul-Khaliq Burnat, who told a harrowing story from when he was held in Israel’s notoriously brutal al-Moskobiyya detention center:

“They shouted at me, beat me with their fists, slapped me and used tools. I was restricted with a plastic zip tie which cut into my wrists, whilst I was strapped to a chair in a stress position for 20 hours of the day … for three days they had me in a smelly, tiny cell; it was so cold in there and there wasn’t any light, I was stripped of all my clothes for the whole time and tied up naked, they didn’t give me any food and I couldn’t even use the bathroom.”

During his detention in May of 2021, Abdul-Khaliq says that he was informed daily by Israeli interrogators about how many women and children were being killed in Gaza at that time. His captors then brought his then 17-year-old brother Mohammed to the same detention center and beat him so severely that he was hospitalized on three separate occasions.

Mohammed Burnat still languishes in Israeli jail, where he has been held without a charge since his 2021 arrest. Abdul-Khaliq, who was first held captive for 13 months, at the age of 17, has again been taken captive by Israeli forces following the 7 October operation, and is currently being held in administrative detention.

When taking into consideration that the plight of Palestinian political prisoners represents one of the most important issues in contemporary Palestinian society, one can begin to understand the rationale and strategic thinking behind the resistance’s Al-Aqsa Flood operation to capture Israeli POWs.

Since 1967, Israel has detained over 1 million Palestinians, including tens of thousands of children, according to the UN.

Cases of torture, sexual abuse, and psychological trauma have been well documented throughout decades of Israel’s occupation of Palestine and detention of its people, yet this has not received a fraction of the media attention afforded to the Israelis imprisoned only two months ago.

December 7, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

USA and Israel Should be Worried: The Muslim Middle East is Moving Its Own Way

By Karsten Riise | Covert Geopolitics | December 7, 2023

Less than a month before Russia takes over the chairmanship of BRICS-11 where both UAE and Saudi Arabia will be full members, Russia makes a big move to bring cooperation with UAE and Saudi Arabia to an unprecedented level.

Russia ties everything together in this meeting: Head of States relations, Foreign Policy, Non-Dollar currency and Financial Policy, Industrial Policy, Nuclear Cooperation, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Space Development, International Direct Investments – and the whole private Business sector.

Note also that Putin travels safely in person to both the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

Both UAE and Saudi Arabia are visited by President Putin, Foreign Minister Lavrov, First Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Andrei Belousov, head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade  Denis Manturov, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak, head of the Central Bank  Elvira Nabiullina, head of Roscosmos Yuri Borisov, head Rosatom Alexey Likhachev, and head of Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) Kirill Dmitriev.

The RDIF recently published a Russian international platform for AI services. The delegation also includes representatives of the business community. See this.

In cooperation with Russia and China, the UAE and Saudi Arabia are becoming not only oil powers, but powers in the modern AI, hi-tech knowledge and Space economy – and military powers.

The central Middle Eastern powers, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and even Türkiye, are emerging as pillars in the international policies of Russia and China – in all dimensions.

Algeria builds deeper relations with its biggest arms supplier Russia, and Algeria opens defense cooperation China. Russia and Egypt have also for years been reinforcing cooperation, including defense cooperation, nuclear cooperation (a Russian nuclear powerplant is being built) and trade-logistics (a Russian trade zone near the Suez Canal).

In Syria, Russia has already long ago stabilized the government in Damascus, and even in Iraq, Russia just a few days ago took over Iraq’s biggest oil field and kicked out the biggest western player in Iraq’s oil sector.

Recently, Russia as the Chairman of BRICS-11 after 1 January 2024 even gave its nod of approval for the admission of China’s best friend Pakistan into BRICS in spite of Indian hesitations.

The Muslim Middle East is moving its own way – independently of the West. At a time when all the non-Western world including the Muslim world is outraged by Israel’s Nakba pressing out Palestinians with genocide on over 16,000 civilians in Gaza, Israel and its US backer should be worried.

Karsten Riise is a Master of Science (Econ) from Copenhagen Business School and has a university degree in Spanish Culture and Languages from Copenhagen University. He is the former Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Mercedes-Benz in Denmark and Sweden.

December 7, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Towards a Palestine Without Palestinians

Israel’s ethnic cleansing continues with no end in sight

BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • DECEMBER 7, 2023

On Friday December 1st active Israeli combat operations resumed directed against Gaza after a one week “pause” to exchange hostages and prisoners. It should surprise no one to learn that Israel’s ultimate objective in its sustained war crime directed against Gaza is to kill and/or drive out its 2.3 million Palestinian inhabitants. The adopted policy, which has been revealed through a top level Israeli intelligence document relating to options for operations in Gaza that was leaked to the media, “…recommends a full population transfer as its preferred course of action. …” to include “the evacuation of the civilian population from Gaza to Sinai.” And Israel should “Make It Clear [to the refugees that] there Is No Hope of Returning [home]” with the final objective being “wiping Gaza off the map.”

Less widely observed or even reported in the western media, however, is the associated campaign to drive out the Palestinians living in the other major Arab enclave the West Bank, where armed settlers and soldiers have been shooting to kill and imprisoning local residents, to include children, to set the stage for forcing the local population across the Jordan River into Jordan itself. Part of the program has been to destroy the livelihoods of the 3 million plus Palestinians who have resisted previous efforts to pressure them into leaving what remains of Palestine. It is the harvest season in Palestine and the major cash crop is olive oil, so settlers and soldiers have been destroying olive trees and closing off roads so that the olives cannot be harvested and brought to market. It is just one measure of the hardships being inflicted on the Palestinians by an Israeli government that clearly believes that the way to treat Arabs is to regularly force them to endure maximum pain and suffering. Many would also argue that it is precisely those policies that produced the armed incursion into Israel by Hamas.

The Israeli intelligence assessment also cites the need to keep “friends” in the US and NATO supportive, or at least not critical, of the ethnic cleansing or genocide of the Palestinians while it is taking place. That would seem to be rather tricky as there have been large demonstrations in most European capitals as well as in American cities calling for a ceasefire and supporting the Palestinians. Against that, European leaders have been reluctant to directly criticize Israel and have repeatedly voiced their delusional view that Israel has a “right to defend itself,” a punchline that one often hears in the halls of the US Congress and coming from the White House.

UN Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese has dismissed the “defense” argument as “Israel cannot claim self-defense from a threat that emanates from a territory that it occupies – from a territory that is kept under belligerent occupation.” Beyond that, defending oneself should not necessarily include the targeted killing of thousands of helpless civilians together with the wholesale destruction of infrastructure to include hospitals, schools, apartment buildings, churches and mosques, which never seems to occur to the Nancy Pelosis and Chuck Schumers who unfortunately share our planet with us. Nor to Joe Biden, apparently, as he is dependent on Jewish donations and friendly media to support his next presidential campaign.

To help the ethnic cleansing succeed as smoothly as possible, the Israeli intelligence produced document encourages the Israel government to work through all its friendly media and lobbying groups to develop a publicity campaign in the Western world to promote the transfer plan by obtaining international support “in a way that does not incite or vilify Israel.” This would be done by presenting the expulsion of Gaza’s population in a positive light as a humanitarian necessity, arguing that relocation will lead to “fewer casualties among the civilian population compared to the expected casualties if the population remains.” The document also recommends that the United States should be enlisted in the process to exert pressure on Egypt to absorb the Palestinian residents of Gaza.

No doubt the gutless Mr. Biden will do whatever it takes to help his Zionist friends and it is interesting to note that the Israeli government is already heavily engaged in its propaganda blitz in the United States, where it helps to have a strongly Jewish Hollywood as an ally. A notorious video of a choir of Jewish children singing angelic praise for mass murder is being circulated both by the Israeli government and by Jewish Lobby groups. The production, entitled in Hebrew translated into English as “The Friendship Song 2023,” was produced by Israel’s Rosenbaum Communications and it could quite possibly represent a new low in manipulative war propaganda, even low for Israel. The video was so objectionable that it was removed from its biggest platform “for violating You Tube’s Terms of Service.” The children affirmed in their song that “we will show the world how we destroyed our enemy… within a year we will annihilate everyone.” “Everyone” was intended to mean all the Palestinians.

There is also a film entitled “Bearing Witness,” which was produced by the Israeli army’s so-called Spokespersons Unit, which has been making the rounds on the West Coast and also in private showings before members of congress. The film shows alleged “Hamas atrocities” and has been viewed at select gatherings for the past three weeks, with one showing in New York City hosted by actress Gal Gadot, an Israeli army veteran last seen playing Wonder Woman, causing a riot when protesters showed up. A recent showing to a group of Senators on Capitol Hill concluded with America’s Solons staggering out crying and otherwise expressing both their horror and their emotion as well as their love for Israel. Interestingly, the “evidence” presented in the film has been contradicted by a number of eyewitnesses and Jewish hostage/survivors of the October 7th attack by Hamas, who have stated that they were treated well and that most of the deaths came not from Hamas but from the counter-attack by the Israeli military.

But truly the biggest surprise in where the catastrophe of Gaza might be leading is coming from the Europeans. One would expect maneuvering to avoid too deep involvement in the Gaza conflict, but quite to the contrary some European leaders are eager to help Israel out in its search for a “final solution” for dealing with the Palestinians. Referring to the mass expulsion of millions of people as any kind of “solution” is apparently a polite expression for what has surfaced regarding the EU’s attempted bribery of Egypt and Jordan. Reportedly, the EU President, Ursula von der Leyen, has recently visited Egypt and Jordan to present them with financial inducements ($10bn for Egypt and $5bn for Jordan), in exchange for the transfer of the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip to their territory – effectively to facilitate the evacuation of the Palestinian population from the Strip in line with Israel’s intention to ethnically cleanse Gaza.

And there should be no doubt that the Netanyahu government has clearly decided to use the Hamas attack as an excuse to finally put an end to what it sees as the Gaza problem. The Israeli view on the proper outcome has been several times outlined by government officials, one of whom is prepared to use his country’s nominally secret nuclear weapons to clear out the Gaza Strip completely. On the day after the Hamas attack, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant notoriously announced that the “human animals” in Gaza would be subjected to a “siege” including being cut off from all food, water, and electricity. Likud Knesset Member Ariel Kallner has elaborated how “the solution… to move the population to Egypt, is a logical and necessary solution.” Former minister Ayalet Shaked’s tweet “After we turn Khan Yunis into a soccer field, we need to tell the countries that each of them take a quota: We need all 2 million to leave.” That’s what Israel’s leadership increasingly sees as its own version of the “solution” for Gaza. And nobody is mentioning how there will, of course, be a payoff in getting rid of the Gazans when the oil and gas fields off the Gaza shoreline fall into Israel’s hands to be exploited.

Another Israeli leadership bright spark is not intimidated by words like “genocide” and is prepared to unleash plague to get rid of the Gazans. Major General Giora Eiland has been arguing that all Palestinians in Gaza are legitimate enemy terrorist targets and that even a “severe epidemic” in Gaza will only serve a good cause, i.e. to “bring victory closer.” And it does not end there. Government minister in charge of the West Bank Bezalel Smotrich wants to apply the Gaza solution to the remaining Palestinian territory that he oversees as the occupying power. Smotrich, a settler himself, has submitted a plan for Israel to annex the entire West Bank. He claims that Palestinian territories on the West Bank are “home” to two million nazis who will have to be forced to leave.

Is there no end to the carnage in sight? Not really, as even the Israelis are predicting a drawn-out months long campaign amidst the rubble of Gaza to completely destroy Hamas. The key to some kind of admittedly temporary resolution is for the United States to actually use its considerable leverage over Israel due to the money and weapons that it is supplying to keep the war going. A ceasefire driven by Washington would create some space to consider the damage that is being done to all sides involved while seeking a solution that gives Israel security and the Palestinians some kind of real sovereignty where they will not feel trapped and persecuted. Alas, however, such forward thinking is not about to come out of Washington and hopes for a European initiative are likely to be squashed by EU President Ursula von der Leyen and her advisers, all of whom seem intent on vindicating Israel’s actions. And, like the slaughtered Ukrainian soldier-victims in that other senseless and avoidable conflict, the ones who will be paying the biggest price will inevitably be the ordinary defenseless Palestinians who will wind up bereft of their homes, their jobs and, all too often, their very lives.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.

December 7, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Military expert: Israel’s talk of flooding Gaza tunnels is ‘psychological warfare’

MEMO | December 6, 2023

Israel’s plans to flood the resistance’s tunnels in the Gaza Strip with seawater are part of its “psychological warfare” tactics and are unrealistic, retired Jordanian Colonel and military expert, Mohamed Al-Muqabla, has said.

During an interview with Quds Press yesterday, Al-Muqabla said Israeli occupation forces are “engaging in psychological warfare against the resistance and the people of Gaza. They are constantly discussing plans and tools that could be used to neutralise the effectiveness of the tunnels, weaken the resistance, and undermine its popular support.”

He added: “For the past two months, the Israeli occupation has been unable to discover the main tunnel entrances, despite having sensitive devices. All they have discovered are secondary tunnel entrances, which are often booby-trapped. The previous occupation’s talk about pumping gas into the tunnels to kill the resistance fighters was easier for them than using water, but for two months they have done nothing because they do not know the reality of the tunnels, which are not connected, and therefore the step of flooding the tunnels with water is unrealistic.

December 6, 2023 Posted by | War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Palestinian surgeon slams HRW as unreliable source, says al-Ahli Hospital report ‘baseless’

Press TV – December 6, 2023

A British-Palestinian surgeon has denounced as “unfounded” a report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) on the deadly strike on Gaza’s al-Ahli Hospital, saying it was published without a genuine investigation or conclusive evidence, and that HRW is not a reliable source “as it serves the enemy.”

Professor Ghassan Abu Sitta made the remarks during a lecture titled “The destruction of Gaza’s health sector: confronting devastation and forced displacement” in the Qatari capital Doha on Tuesday.

Sitta highlighted that HRW neither communicated with the director of the hospital nor contacted the doctor who received Israeli orders for evacuation in its report.

He went on to say that HRW did not bother to talk to any of the witnesses of the crime as it unfolded, adding, “I always told you never use HRW as a reliable source because it served the enemy.”

On Sunday, HRW reported that evidence suggested a misfired Gaza rocket was the likely cause of an explosion that resulted in heavy casualties at al-Ahli Hospital on October 17, which left at least 417 people dead.

In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, As’ad Abdukhalil, a professor at California State University, Stanislaus, said Sitta’s verdict against HRW was “very damning.”

Sitta, traveled with Doctors Without Borders via Egypt to Gaza on 9 October to work in the besieged territory’s hospitals as a surgeon. He worked in both al-Shifa and al-Ahli hospitals in Gaza.

He has already recounted harrowing healthcare-related ordeals the Palestinian civilians have gone through during Israel’s onslaught on the besieged Gaza Strip.

HRW said in its report that, “The explosion that killed and injured many civilians at Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza on October 17, 2023, resulted from an apparent rocket-propelled munition,” such as those commonly used by Palestinian resistance groups.

It claimed that the findings of its investigation into the explosion were based on a review of photos and videos, satellite imagery, and interviews with witnesses and experts.

Senior Hamas official Basem Naim said all indications pointed to Israel’s responsibility, adding that the HRW report was biased towards Israel and was not “decisive”.

“HRW hasn’t come up with any evidence to support their findings nor eyewitness testimonies nor opinion of independent military exports,” he said, adding that Hamas received questions from HRW two weeks ago but asked it to delay its report until after the war had ended.

The explosion at the al-Ahli Baptist Hospital triggered outrage across the Arab world. Palestinians blamed an Israeli air strike, while Israel claimed it was caused by a misfiring Palestinian rocket launch.

Since the start of the war in Gaza on October 7, Israel has pounded hospitals across the besieged enclave where thousands of displaced people and patients were sheltering.

The regime has falsely accused the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas of using hospitals as bases, which Hamas has dismissed.

December 6, 2023 Posted by | Deception, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Hamas: Biden’s sexual violence claims “cheap Zionist propaganda”

Palestine Information Center – December 6, 2023

GAZA – The Hamas Movement has strongly denounced US president Joe Biden for adopting the Israeli narrative that accuses Palestinian resistance fighters of committing sexual assaults on October 7.

In a statement on Tuesday, Hamas said Biden’s sexual violence claims against its fighters reflected his moral decline and his adoption of Israeli propaganda.

Hamas said that Biden was “supposed to have a minimum level of objectivity and avoid repeating empty and baseless accusations and adopting cheap Zionist propaganda.”

“Repeating such a blatant lie is a Zionist behavior aimed at covering up the ethnic cleansing and genocidal crimes that are being committed by the criminal Nazi occupied army against our people, with American cover and weapons,” Hamas underscored.

Hamas also described Biden’s remarks as “an attempt to mislead the public opinion after the world has seen the good treatment the detainees received from the resistance.”

The Movement called on the international media outlets to side with the truth and debunk the new Zio-American claims against the Palestinian resistance, as they did before when they exposed the lies of beheading children and using Al-Shifa Hospital as a command and control center.

December 6, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel revokes UN humanitarian coordinator’s visa for ‘not condemning Hamas’

The Cradle | December 6, 2023

Israel’s Foreign Minister Eli Cohen announced on 5 December the state’s decision to revoke the resident visa of UN humanitarian coordinator Lynn Hastings.

“We will no longer be silent in the face of the bias of the UN!” the foreign minister said via social media. “I decided to revoke the residence visa to Israel of the UN humanitarian coordinator Lynn Hastings.” 

“Someone who did not condemn Hamas for the brutal massacre of 1,200 Israelis, for the kidnapping of babies and the elderly and for the horrific acts of abuse and rape, and for using the residents of Gaza as human shields, but instead condemns Israel, a democratic country that protects its citizens, cannot serve in the UN and cannot enter Israel!” Cohen’s social media statement continued.

The Israeli foreign minister’s remarks came on the heels of comments made by Hastings, in which she voiced concern for the Palestinian people after Israel resumed indiscriminate attacks on residential neighborhoods, hospitals, and UN shelters.

“Nowhere is safe in Gaza, and there is nowhere left to go,” Hasting’s statement read. “The conditions required to deliver aid to the people of Gaza do not exist. If possible, an even more hellish scenario is about to unfold, one in which humanitarian operations may not be able to respond.”

Israel’s UN envoy, Gilad Erdan, had also voiced his condemnation of the organization’s view regarding the war between Israel and Palestinian resistance. 

“There is no justification or point in talking to those who show compassion for the most terrible atrocities committed against the citizens of Israel and the Jewish people. There are simply no words,” Erdan said on social media. 

Cohen had also voiced his displeasure in October to a UN-fronted ceasefire despite Hamas being open to such a resolution. 

“We reject outright the [UNGA]’s despicable call for a ceasefire,” Israel Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said. “Israel intends to eliminate Hamas just as the world dealt with the Nazis and ISIS.”

December 6, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Google reinstates app that helps boycott Israel-linked companies

Press TV – December 5, 2023

Google has reinstated a mobile phone application that helps people identify and potentially avoid the products that have been made by companies that are linked to the Israeli regime.

The application, named “No Thanks,” was made available again on Google’s Play Store on Sunday, days after it was removed.

The app was launched last month amid a genocidal and yet-ongoing war by the Israeli regime against the Gaza Strip, which has so far killed more than 16,000 people.

The developer, named as Ahmad Bashbash, is a Hungary-based Palestinian from Gaza, who has lost his siblings to the regime’s campaign of bloodletting against the coastal sliver and its crippling siege of the territory.

“I made it (the app) on behalf of my brother and my sister who I lost because of this brutal occupation, and my goal is to try to prevent what happened to me from happening to another Palestinian,” he told German broadcaster Deutsche Welle.

“No Thanks” allows customers to scan products’ barcodes and be notified if they have been made by Israeli-linked companies.

It was taken off the Play Store on November 30 owing to its description that read, “Welcome to No Thanks, here you can see if the product in your hand supports killing children in Palestine or not.”

Before being removed, it was downloaded over 100,000 times.

The new version’s description says, “Our app simplifies the process of scanning barcodes and searching for products that are listed for the boycott movement.”

A version designed for Apple products has reportedly been developed and is currently under review.

December 6, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | , , , | Leave a comment

Environmentalists: Gaza’s Water, Farmland ‘Will Be Unusable’ if Israel Floods Tunnels With Seawater

By Fantine Gardinier – Sputnik – 05.12.2023

Gaza’s fragile ecosystem could be permanently damaged by a huge influx of salty seawater like that which Israel is considering pumping into the city, experts said. Some of the deepest tunnels dug by Hamas and other militant groups could be near groundwater depths, souring the area’s drinking water.

According to reports in US media on Tuesday, Israel has pushed ahead with plans to flood Gaza City with seawater in an attempt to destroy the network of tunnels dug beneath the city by Palestinian militant groups.

According to the report, the IDF finished assembling five massive seawater pumps north of the Al-Shati refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip in mid-November. The plan is reportedly to flood the tunnels slowly over several weeks, giving Palestinian fighters and their Israeli captives time to safely evacuate.

The report was unclear about the disposition of the White House toward the plan. The Biden administration has largely supported Israel’s actions in Gaza as self-defense against Hamas, but given rhetorical warning against violating Palestinian human rights. The warnings have had little effect, though, as nearly 20,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza by IDF bombing and ground operations since Hamas attacked several Israeli border towns in early October, killing some 1,200 people.

Andrey Frolov, co-chair of Moscow’s Environmental Organizations, told Sputnik on Tuesday that an influx of salty seawater could wreck Gaza’s fragile ecosystem, making it difficult to sustain life there.

“When water comes in, it all depends of course, depending on the scale of the disaster. That is, what kind of tunnels are they, where are they laid and what is their size. Because the first thing that immediately catches your eye is that if the tunnels are shallow, say, two to three meters deep, then this will simply undermine the foundations of buildings. When moisture enters, the stability of the soil changes, subsidence begins, and accordingly, it will just begin [to collapse]. Israel has already destroyed the entire city, so I think that for them it is not important.”

“There is information that these tunnels are hundreds of square kilometers in size and go to a depth of up to 80 meters,” he noted, adding that it was probably “a bit of an exaggeration.”

Frolov noted “it depends on the waters” how the influx of salty seawater would affect the fresh groundwater. Some of the deepest tunnels rumored to have been dug in Gaza could be near the depths of the aquifers.

“Because seawater can get into these aquifers it will make them salty. As a result, those wells that were used in Gaza will simply stop working. The territory was already short on water, Israel supplied water from the Sea of ​​Galilee. If a large amount of sea water is pumped into it, it will simply become unusable.”

He noted the salt will also impact agriculture in Gaza, making it “so that any kind of farming or maintaining green spaces will simply be impossible.”

“Our nature lives in biocenosis. That is, it is a complex of living beings that adapt to a certain habitat. If the biocenosis is salted and the living conditions are changed, then some species simply will not be able to live there. And if one, two, three species stop living, then the entire biocenosis crumbles,” he explained.

Full article

December 5, 2023 Posted by | Environmentalism, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Top Defense Official: US Can Handle Middle East, Russia and China All at Once

By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | December 5, 2023

Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Christopher Grady said the Pentagon was prepared to fight a proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, aid the Israeli onslaught in Gaza, and arm Taiwan for a potential war with China. The Admiral argued all the military efforts could be completed simultaneously and the Navy was not stretched thin.

At an Atlantic Council event, Grady said, “You look at what is required to support Ukraine, look at what might be required to support our partner in Israel, and then, of course, you put Taiwan on top of that—we have the construct that we do with combatant commanders and the rest that should allow us to command and control those three things all at one time.” He continued, “It’s part of our campaigning process, which is central to the national defense strategy. Is it challenging? Sure.”

After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the Biden administration pledged to give Ukraine the weapons needed to win the war. Over the past 19 months, Washington has sent Kiev tens of billions in arms.

Over the past two months, Washington has sent Tel Aviv 15,000 bombs and 57,000 artillery shells. Israel has targeted civilian homes with American-made bombs. However, the White House has refused to place any conditions on the aid it sends to Tel Aviv.

The transfers have stretched American weapons depots to their redline levels. The shortage has led the White House to send cluster variants of artillery shells to both Ukraine and Israel.

In addition to arms transfers, the US has deployed tens of thousands of soldiers to Eastern Europe to train Ukrainian troops and facilitate weapons shipments to Kiev. In the Middle East region, the White House deployed two aircraft carrier strike groups.

Grady’s belief that the US could fight a three-front war is White House policy. President Joe Biden is pushing Congress to pass a $106 billion funding package to fund arming Ukraine, Israel, and a military buildup in the Asia-Pacific.

The Admiral also indicated that military-to-military talks between the US and China may start soon. “So we’re ready when they are and I suspect we’ll see that shortly, “he said.

During a meeting between Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping last month, the two leaders agreed to resume military-to-military communications. However, the US has engaged in a pair of provocative naval maneuvers in the South China Sea to challenge Beijing’s territorial claims.

December 5, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Russophobia, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

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