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Gaza resistance stands firm six days into Israeli onslaught

The Cradle | October 12, 2023

The Gaza resistance continued targeting occupied towns and cities with large rocket barrages into 12 October, marking the sixth day since the start of Hamas’ Operation Al-Aqsa Flood and the subsequent launch of Israel’s brutal campaign against civilians in the Gaza Strip.

Before noon on Thursday, missiles targeted several Israeli settlements, towns, and sites in the Gaza envelope, including the Nahal Oz settlement, the city of Sderot, and the Raim military base. Several injuries among settlers have been reported.

Rocket barrages were also launched earlier in the morning toward Tel Aviv and other areas, with one of the missiles impacting the Ariel settlement in the occupied West Bank, causing a large explosion.

A massive barrage was fired the previous night at around 9:00 PM, resulting in injuries and significant material damage in several settlements.

Despite Israel’s announcement that the Gaza border had been sealed, resistance fighters managed to carry out several new infiltrations into the occupied territories, engaging Israeli troops with heavy gunfire and sparking clashes in several settlements.

At least 1,300 Israelis have been killed since Saturday, with more than 3,300 wounded.

Hamas has also called for a mass Palestinian uprising, particularly in the occupied West Bank, where resistance has been at an all-time high recently and has surged to unprecedented levels since the start of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on Saturday.

Meanwhile, Israeli warplanes have not stopped targeting civilian neighborhoods in Gaza.

According to WAFA news agency, an entire family in Gaza was killed by Israeli airstrikes on 12 October.

“Former prisoner Abdul Rahman Shihab, who spent 23 years in Israeli prisons for resisting the occupation and was released in 2011, and his wife, children, and mother were killed in the shelling of their home without prior warning,” a WAFA correspondent said.

Hundreds of homes and buildings have been razed to the ground. Several medics, journalists, and UN staffers have also been killed.

The death toll in Gaza stands at over 1,300 people, with around 6,000 others injured. The numbers are expected to continue rising.

Israel has used White Phosphorus and cluster bombs to target Gaza, both internationally banned weapons.

While Israel claims it targets Hamas sites and positions, much of the resistance group’s infrastructure lies underground and remains unaffected by the Israeli bombardment.

October 12, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

Peculiarities of Russian television reporting on the Hamas-Israeli war

By Gilbert Doctorow | October 11, 2023

A couple of days ago, I mentioned how Russian state television news was providing viewers with information about aspects of the ongoing armed conflict between Hamas and Israeli armed forces that you would not find in Western media during the first days of reporting. In particular, it was immediately evident from the news briefings on Vesti that Russian emphasis was on the military side rather than on the humanitarian catastrophe side.

BBC, Euronews, CNN have all focused attention on the slaughtered Israeli citizens and the apparent savagery of the Hamas fighters including today’s revelations about the hundred or more men, women and children who were killed in a Hamas raid on a kibbutz in the South of Israel.  Russian news from day one showed pictures of the latest generation Israeli tank destroyed by a grenade dropped by a drone and of Hamas fighters approaching Israeli shores from the sea on paragliders. On two successive Evening with Vladimir Solovyov shows, images of the destruction to Israel’s billion dollar wall around Gaza and similar engineering feats by the insurgents as they moved deep into Israel proper. Solovyov’s panelists also provided expert analysis of the military threats Israel faces from the neighborhood if the war in Gaza escalates.

Why is this difference in what is reported important?  Because coverage of the slaughter of civilians by Hamas fighters and interviews with relatives of those taken captive to Gaza as hostages plays into the hands of the Hamas strategists: it places enormous pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to proceed with a land invasion of Gaza which will result in many thousands of deaths among Israeli Defense Force soldiers as well as deaths of civilians in Gaza that may be an order of magnitude higher.  The violence of an Israeli invasion may be so shocking as to justify outside Palestinian forces, namely Hezbollah in Lebanon and Arab fighters in Syria, in Iraq, in Yemen to send contingents of armed men to join the battle on the side of Hamas in Gaza.

The Western reporting has provided a wealth of material for those who would denounce the Hamas fighters as “sub-human.”  However, considering the great sophistication of the Hamas methods to overcome Israeli technical devices at the border and the wall itself intended to prevent such a raid from the enclave, considering the 5,000 or more missiles sent by Hamas into Israel that overwhelmed the “Iron Dome” Israeli defenses, it is unreasonable to speak of the executions and hostage taking as spontaneous or expressions of raw anger by Arab youths.  No, it had to be planned in advance and handed over to disciplined fighters for implementation with a certain military objective in mind: namely to provoke the Israeli government and draw it into the lair of urban, guerilla warfare in Gaza.

A couple of days ago, in my geopolitical analysis of the conflict, I mentioned that the dispatch of a U.S. naval force led by the aircraft carrier Gerald Ford to the waters adjacent to Israel was likely intended to intimidate Iran and possibly to prepare for an American attack on Iran under accusations that Teheran had aided and guided the Hamas attack.  However, the Biden administration has now stated clearly that it has no evidence Iran was involved in preparing the Hamas action. This confirms what the supreme religious leader of Iran said yesterday in a public speech, namely that the Palestinians themselves are fiercely independent and that they alone prepared the assault on Israel.  He insisted that in the West people under-appreciate the skills and determination of Palestinians.  It is only individual American politicians like would-be Republican candidate for the presidency Nikki Haley and the ever saber rattling Republican Senator Lindsey Graham who are calling for Iran to be attacked now.

Based on the information about the military capabilities of pro-Hamas forces in the neighborhood aired on the Solovyov show last night by first quality Russian experts, it is far more likely that the United States military presence is intended for use against Hezbollah in Lebanon than against Iran.  This organization is now said to be the strongest pro-Palestinian force in the region with tens of thousands of fighters, with advanced military equipment including perhaps one hundred thousand missiles ready for use against Israel at any time. Israel’s last incursion into Lebanon to crush Hezbollah in 2006 ran into serious difficulties when enemy strength surprised them. Some fifty Israeli tanks were said to have been destroyed then. There is no question that Hezbollah has become more powerful since. Its war hardened forces received battlefield experience very relevant to the present Hamas-Israel conflict when they fought in the civil war in Syria.

One of the Russian experts who spoke at length about the situation in Israel on Sunday night was Yevgeny Satanovsky, who is a professor attached to two centers of Near East studies in Moscow. He appeared in the past on Russian television talk shows when the subject was Russian-Turkish relations but his core specialty is in fact Israeli politics and the economy. It was difficult to follow Satanovsky’s remarks in detail because he was speaking as if to academic friends over a cup of coffee and there was a lot of jargon. But his appraisal of the Israeli military’s degraded state was clear enough. The deplorable discipline within their army compounded the initial problems from the intelligence failures of Mossad. The common denominator both in intelligence and in military command was hubris, undeserved self-confidence, lulled by technological superiority over the enemy. But just as Hamas outfoxed Israeli intelligence by returning to 19th century methods of communications, couriers and face to face meetings in place of electronic means that Israel can intercept, so fairly rudimentary bulldozers were sufficient to break through the Israeli wall and a combination of firearms and drones neutralized the sensors and cameras protecting Israel from Gaza raids.

Said Satanovsky, the Israeli military has suffered an additional debilitating flaw, namely the succession of second quality generals who rose to the premiership of Israel over the past thirty years and the politicization of military ranks. He blamed in particular the 2005 decision by then prime minister Ariel Sharon to withdraw all Israeli presence from inside Gaza and to secure the enclave from its perimeter.

For those who want to know more about who Satanovsky is, he has a large entry in the Russian language edition of Wikipedia. Suffice it here to say that he calls himself an atheist as well as a “Russian Jew,” and for several years at the start of the new millennium he helped to create the Russian Jewish Congress and served as its president for three years. He has a teaching affiliation with the International Center of University Instruction on Jewish Civilization in the Jewish University of Jerusalem.

I mention this aspect of the man’s past and present because it brings us to the special relationship that Russia has with Israel. More than one million Soviet and Russian Federation Jews emigrated to Israel. These included people from every walk of life, including some scandalously wealthy crooks who evaded Russian justice for crimes including murder and are not extradited. Since the start of the Special Military Operation, their numbers have risen with the arrival in Israel of Russia’s ‘fifth column’ personalities in the entertainment industry, in finance, in government. With the Hamas attack some of those, like the billionaire banker Mikhail Fridman, took the first plane out of Israel for Moscow this past Sunday, as reported in a feature article of The Financial Times. The scoundrel who assisted Yeltsin’s fraudulent election in 1996 and then stayed on in power to enrich himself, serving in a succession of high positions, Anatoly Chubais, also slithered out of Israel the same day, but not to Moscow, where he would face arrest. Their compatriots in Russia snigger over the cowardice and selfishness of these high visibility characters.

Of course the vast majority of Russian settlers in Israel are normal, hard working folks and it is they to whom the Vesti journalists turn now for first-hand accounts of the impact of the Hamas attack. They can be doctors receiving the wounded at hospitals or officials in the mayor’s office of one or another Israeli city. You will not see them on CNN.

On the other side of the coin, Russia has and needs excellent relations with the Arab world. Fifteen per cent of the Russian population is Muslim, with their cultural and religious center in Kazan, some 860 km southeast of Moscow, in a wealthy oil-producing region.  Chechnya is also a Muslim center in the Russian Federation and its leader Ramzan Kadyrov is well known in the Middle East. More to the point, Russia is a highly valuable partner of Saudi Arabia in Opec+ in which they jointly set production targets and price targets for the global oil industry.  And Russia has close relations with the United Arab Emirates, particularly financial arrangements. The UAE dirham is now used as a currency for settling import-export transactions by Russia. Of course, Russia is closely aligned with Iran as a fellow member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and, as from 1 January 2024, BRICS. The close ties to Syria need no explanation, since Russia singlehandedly saved the government of Bashar Assad from the radical fundamentalist fighters that Washington was arming. The closeness of Russian ties with Iraq was in full evidence yesterday during the state visit of the Iraqi prime minister to Moscow. Russian companies Lukoil, Gazpromneft and others have already invested $16 billion in production assets in Iraq.

The official position with respect to the war now raging between Israel and Hamas was stated yesterday on television by President Putin: it can be solved only with implementation of the UN resolution on creation of a fully sovereign Palestine state, i.e. the “two state solution” that has been so long discussed but never brought to fruition.  However, what will follow the creation of such a state is equally important and remains terra incognita:  which world powers will guarantee the security of these two states?

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2023

October 12, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Russia fully supports establishment of Palestinian state: Putin

Press TV – October 11, 2023

Russian President Vladimir Putin says Moscow has always fully supported the establishment of a Palestinian state, as the Israeli regime is ceaselessly pounding the besieged Gaza Strip with barrages of missile attacks.

Speaking at the plenary session of the Russian Energy Week on Wednesday, Putin stressed that his country has always supported the implementation of the United Nations Security Council’s decision on the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.

“We have always supported the implementation of the decisions of the UN Security Council, I mean, first of all, the creation of an independent Palestinian state,” the Russian leader emphasized.

Putin’s remarks came as Israel has been launching deadly strikes on the densely-populated Gaza Strip since Saturday after the Palestinian Hamas resistance group waged a surprise attack, dubbed Operation Al-Aqsa Storm, against the usurping entity.

Hamas says that its operation came in response to Israel’s violations at al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East al-Quds and growing settler violence.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Putin called the eruption of violence between Israel and the Palestinians a vivid example of the failure of US policy in the Middle East.

He stressed that Washington’s policy in the region has taken no account of the needs of the Palestinians as the White House tried to focus on financial assistance, rather than finding solutions to existing fundamental political challenges.

“It is unclear whether it will be possible to somehow calm the situation in the near future, but we must strive for this because the expansion of the conflict zone can lead to dire consequences,” Putin said.

The Russian president also denounced as a mistake the Washington’s move of sending a carrier strike group, which includes the USS Gerald R. Ford, closer to Israel.

“I don’t understand why the US is dragging aircraft carrier groups into the Mediterranean Sea. I don’t really understand the point. Are they going to bomb Lebanon or what? Or have they decided to try to scare someone? There are people there who are no longer afraid of anything. This is not the way to solve the problem. Compromise solutions need to be looked for. Of course, such actions are inflaming the situation,” Putin said.

More than a thousand people have been killed and thousands more have been injured in nearly five days of Israeli airstrikes on Gaza, a besieged territory on the Mediterranean which is home to some 2.3 million people despite its relatively small land area.

October 12, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , | Leave a comment

Iran and Saudi Arabia say Israel, its supporters inviting ‘destructive insecurity’

Press TV – October 11, 2023

Iran and Saudi Arabia have said that the Israeli regime’s crimes and the United States’ green light for the atrocities stand to invite “destructive insecurity” for the occupying regime and its supporters.

The remarks were made on Wednesday in the first phone call to take place between President Ebrahim Raeisi and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Mohammad Jamshidi, the Iranian chief executive’s deputy chief of staff for political affairs, wrote on a message on X, formerly known as Twitter.

The comments came after the Gaza Strip’s resistance movements initiated their biggest operation against Israel in years on Saturday in response to the occupying regime’s decades-long campaign of bloodshed and destruction against Palestinians.

Codenamed the al-Aqsa Storm Operation, the campaign killed at least 1,000 Israeli forces and settlers, and led to many others among them being taken hostage by the resistance groups.

Shedding further light on the contents of the conversation between Raeisi and bin Salman, Jamshidi said, “…the 2 agreed on the need to end war crimes against Palestine.”

Israel has responded to the Palestinian operation by waging a “long” war against Gaza, for which it has called up an unprecedented 300,000 reservists.

The Israeli war has killed at least 1,100 Palestinians, including 326 children, and injured 5,339 others.

The military campaign has seen the regime leveling entire districts and featured its use of banned white phosphorous munitions against densely populated neighborhoods.

Earlier this week, Israeli Minister for Military Affairs Yoav Gallant announced a “total blockade” to stop food and fuel from reaching Gaza, home to 2.3 million people.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday said he was “deeply distressed” by Israel’s announcement of the complete siege.

“The humanitarian situation in Gaza was extremely dire before these hostilities; now it will only deteriorate exponentially,” Guterres said.

October 12, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

326 Palestinian children killed as Israel plunges Gaza into darkness

Defense for Children International – Palestine | October 11, 2023

Israeli authorities prohibit food, fuel, electricity, and water into the Gaza Strip as Defense for Children International – Palestine has so far confirmed the killing of at least 105 Palestinian children since Saturday, with the total now surpassing 300.

DCIP has confirmed the killing of at least 105 Palestinian children in direct Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip between October 7 and 11, while the Ministry of Health in Gaza announced today that over 326 children have been killed. DCIP staff in Gaza and the West Bank continue to document and confirm Palestinian child fatalities as hostilities continue between Palestinian armed groups and Israeli forces. Intensive Israeli bombardment throughout the Gaza Strip, lack of electricity, Israeli airstrikes on telecommunications infrastructure, and the unprecedented rate of daily child fatalities has resulted in a lag between confirmed fatalities by DCIP and the overall total child fatalities published regularly by the Ministry of Health in Gaza.

“Israeli forces are destroying entire neighborhoods in the Gaza Strip as an apparent full-scale ground assault is imminent,” said Ayed Abu Eqtaish, accountability program director at DCIP. “Immediate humanitarian relief is necessary to protect civilians as Israeli forces prepare to intensify attacks and Israeli officials declare their intention to commit further war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

Around 6 p.m. on October 9, Israeli warplanes targeted, without prior warning, a two-story building behind the Golden Hall in the Americana area west of Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip, killing at least 14 Palestinians, including at least six children: siblings Karam, three, Akram, 10, Watan, one, Mahmoud, nine, Amani, four, and Fatima Mohammad Abdulrahim Al-Madhoon, seven, according to documentation collected by DCIP. Rescue teams were able to recover seven bodies.

An Israeli airstrike targeted without prior warning a residential building in Jabalia refugee camp around 9 a.m. on October 10, killing four Palestinians, including three children: Mohammad, two, Karam, three, and Naheda Mousa Yousef Al-Hesi, 11, according to documentation collected by DCIP. Other children were also injured in the attack.

Israeli warplanes targeted a residential building without prior warning around 11 a.m. on October 10 in Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, killing 14 Palestinians, including seven children, according to documentation collected by DCIP. The airstrike killed seven children from the Ahmad family: siblings Mustafa, nine, and Elayn Tamer Mohammad Ahmad, four, their cousins Sidra, five, Haidy, one, Linda, seven, and Qusai Mohammad Aladdin Ahmad, three, as well as another cousin, two-year-old Obaida Rafat Aladdin Ahmad.

Israeli warplanes completely destroyed a three-story residential building without warning in the Tal Al-Zaatar area of Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip around 9:25 p.m. on October 10, killing everyone inside, including at least one child, 10-year-old Mohammad Baraa Taysir Shahin, according to documentation collected by DCIP. Palestinian civil defense teams have recovered two bodies from the building, while an estimated 10 Palestinians were inside during the bombing.

In addition to these incidents, DCIP has verified the killing of an additional 11 Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip in other attacks, though DCIP field researchers are still gathering and verifying details of the incidents. Those killed include:

  • Ali Omar Mousa Al-Qatnani, four, from Jabalia
  • Siblings Layan, two and Majd Mohammad Ismail Salah, two, from Beit Lahia
  • Haitham Khaled Abdulazeem Asayleh, 17, from Jabalia
  • Hassan Mohammad Ismail Salah, nine, from Jabalia
  • Malak Mohammad Majed Al-Daqs, two, from Jabalia
  • Kenan Mohammad Mahmoud Farhat, two, from Jabalia
  • Cousins Nadeen Mohammad Abdulati Salah, 13, and Diaa’ Ahmad Abdulati Salah, six months, from Jabalia
  • Mohammad Hassan Ali Al-Zain, seven, from Khan Younis
  • Sham Mohammad Saleh Al-Sawalha, eight months, from Jabalia

Israeli forces unleashed a massive military offensive on the Gaza Strip on Saturday after Palestinian armed groups fired rockets toward Israel and breached the Israeli perimeter fence surrounding Gaza early on October 7, launching attacks inside Israel. Israeli forces initiated a large-scale military operation dubbed Operation Iron Swords.

At least 1,100 Palestinians, including at least 326 children, have been killed in the Gaza Strip since Saturday morning, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza. DCIP is working to document additional attacks and killings. Israeli forces have shot and killed six Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank since October 7, including 12-year-old Ahmad Abdulnaser Adnan Rabi.

DCIP previously confirmed the killing of at least 74 Palestinian children in direct Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip between October 7 and 10, 2023, in a report issued yesterday.

Over 263,934 people in the Gaza strip have fled their homes as mass displacement escalates with intensifying Israeli attacks, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA). More than 175,486 internally displaced Palestinians are sheltering in 88 United Nations schools throughout the Gaza Strip, while over 73,900 Palestinians, whose homes have been destroyed or damaged, are hosted by relatives and neighbors, according to UN OCHA.

October 11, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Resistance reinforces forces in Israel’s southern settlements

The Cradle | October 11, 2023

Hamas’ military wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, announced on 11 October it has managed to replace its fallen fighters and continue battles against the Israeli army in the settlements and cities surrounding the Gaza Strip.

On 7 October, Hamas launched an unprecedented surprise attack on Israeli settlements and military positions surrounding Gaza. Hamas sent some 1,000 fighters into Israel and launched thousands of rockets, killing hundreds of Israelis and taking an unknown number of captives back to the Gaza Strip.

Israel responded by unleashing a punishing campaign of airstrikes on Gaza, also killing hundreds and destroying whole neighborhoods, while amassing troops to expel the Hamas fighters who had managed to enter Israel.

However, the battles in the settlements and cities surrounding Gaza continue.

The Qassam Brigades announced that on Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning they had sent additional fighters to the Zikim-Ashkelon axis north of Gaza, and to the Sufa axis, and other axes east of Gaza. The Qassam Brigades confirmed that their fighters are now engaged in violent clashes in the Sufa area.

On Tuesday, Hamas launched a rocket attack on the Israeli city of Ashkelon, 14 km north of Gaza, after giving civilians a 90-minute warning to leave.

Hamas fighters also clashed with Israeli soldiers. “Israeli army soldiers backed by a helicopter and UAV conducted an exchange of fire with a number of terrorists in Ashkelon Industrial Park,” said the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.

In addition, an Israeli report said the Hamas fighters possessed detailed maps of the military bases contained in the area, including the Hatzerim air base in the Negev desert.

The report pointed out that it is possible that the fighters planned to occupy the Hatzerim base, according to the Israeli i24 News website.

On the first day of the war, Hamas fighters managed to penetrate up to 20 kilometers into areas controlled by Israel, reaching cities far as Ofakim and Mishmar HaNegev. Palestinian forces were able to take control of the Karam Abu Salem crossing, which is the only active crossing of the Gaza Strip.

The settlements of Mefalsim, Kfar Aza, Nahal Oz, Saad, Alumim, Beeri, Shokeda, Kisssufim, Nirim, Magen, Re’im and the important base of Reim as well as the Zikim base were captured by Palestinian forces.

In Sderot, located 3 km from Gaza, Hamas fighters opened fire on cars, killing 20 settlers, before assaulting a police station killing some 12 policemen.

On Wednesday, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir approved arming residents of Sderot, stating that, “This war proves that we need to arm our citizens.”

October 11, 2023 Posted by | Illegal Occupation | , , | Leave a comment

Hamas denies beheading Israeli children

MEMO | October 11, 2023

Hamas has dismissed false claims promoted by some Western media outlets accusing freedom fighters of killing or beheading children and targeting civilians.

In a statement issued today, Hamas condemned “promoting the Israeli occupation’s propaganda, which is full of lies and fabrications, as an attempt to cover up the crimes and massacres committed by the Israeli occupation around the clock, most of which amount to war crimes and genocide.”

Hamas added: “The Palestinian freedom fighters are targeting Israeli occupation military and security posts and bases – all of which are legitimate targets.”

Meanwhile, the Palestinian freedom fighters have sought to avoid targeting civilians, Hamas added, pointing to televised testimonies made by several colonial settlers.

Hamas regretted that Western mainstream media have failed to report war crimes and genocide being committed by the Israeli occupation, which has indiscriminately and violently pounded neighbourhoods and bombed dozens of homes with their inhabitants inside, killing more than 1,050 people, including 260 children and 230 women, so far.

Israeli journalist Oren Ziv wrote on X platform: “I’m getting a lot of question about the reports of “Hamas beheaded babies” that were published after the media tour in the village. During the tour we didn’t see any evidence of this, and the army spokesperson or commanders also didn’t mention any such incidents.”

October 11, 2023 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Video | , , , | Leave a comment

Netanyahu wants US involved in war – ex-Pentagon official

RT | October 11, 2023

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would like Washington directly involved in the conflict with Hamas because he hopes to expand the war to Lebanon and Iran, former senior security policy analyst at the US Department of Defense, Michael Maloof, told RT on Wednesday.

On Monday, the US ordered the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford and five guided missile destroyers to the Eastern Mediterranean. According to Maloof, this “meets Netanyahu’s wildest dreams.”

“He wanted the US involved in this conflict,” the former Pentagon official told RT.

Netanyahu “wants to open up the war with Lebanon, by attacking Hezbollah” in pursuit of his ultimate objective, “to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities,” Maloof added. For that to happen, “he has to have a Gulf of Tonkin moment, if you will.”

Maloof recalled how US President Lyndon Johnson essentially started the Vietnam War by sending ships to the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964. An alleged North Vietnamese attack on two US destroyers was then used as a pretext for direct involvement.

The US has also pledged to help Israel with deliveries of weapons and ammunition, with the Pentagon insisting it has enough to do so and continue supplying Ukraine. Maloof is skeptical of that assertion, however.

He also told RT it was “not surprising” that some of the weapons Washington had sent Kiev ended up in the hands of Hamas.

That accusation was first made by former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. Ukraine’s military intelligence, the GUR, responded on Monday by accusing Russia of sending captured Western weapons to Hamas militants in a “false flag” operation designed to make Kiev look bad to its backers.

Israel has neither confirmed nor denied the weapons claim, but rejected the Ukrainian insinuations of Russian involvement in the Hamas attack as “complete nonsense.”

October 11, 2023 Posted by | False Flag Terrorism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

How Western media, social media influencers peddle lies to vilify Palestinians

By Shabbir Rizvi | Press TV | October 11, 2023

Since the Hamas-led Palestinian resistance operation “Al Aqsa Storm” on Saturday, mainstream Western media and social media influencers have been aggressively pushing Zionist narratives as part of a murky disinformation campaign against the resistance.

The multi-front information war is designed to control the narrative around anything surrounding the Palestinian issue and the latest military operation that has shaken the foundation of the regime.

Now more than ever, it is becoming clear that Western governments and their ruling class, which have a tight grip on media and information control, are losing the battle of ideas.

Palestinian support in the West is at an all-time high, despite Western leaders coming out in the open in defense of the Zionist regime and its relentless and indiscriminate aggression against Palestinians.

Western leaders came out in unison on Saturday to tow the same false narrative: That the Hamas operation is “unprovoked,” that the Israeli regime is “just” in its decades-long ethnic cleansing of Palestine, and that the Palestinian resistance is “terrorism.”

However, the world saw past these imperialist lies. Millions of people in the West, from New York to London to Paris, poured into the streets to pledge their support to Palestine and the Palestinian resistance, despite their own governments denouncing the Palestinian cause.

In fact, the rallies themselves began to be denounced by Western officials, who despite their aggressive rhetoric against the Palestinian cause saw no end to the outpouring of support for Al Aqsa Storm.

Now, the West and its media apparatuses have turned to their usual assortment of disinformation campaigns to muddy the line between fact and reality.

Perhaps the most egregious claim came from Zionist outlet “i24 News.” Nicole Zedeck, a reporter, falsely claimed that “40 Israeli babies” were killed, and that some were “decapitated.”

Obviously a jarring claim, many netizens pushed back asking for more details or any source that could corroborate this claim, which is part of the disinformation campaign.

Zedeck walked back the claim, saying Zionist soldiers told her this was happening –  but the post, which still has not been deleted – or retracted – has been proven categorically false by media outlets.

The multiple high-profile accounts on X (formerly Twitter) shared Zedeck’s baseless claim, disseminating the proven lie to millions of people across the world.

Perhaps most frustrating of all is that while this claim of Israeli babies being killed was spread with no source or proof, very real footage of martyred Palestinian babies being pulled from the Gaza rubble was also being shared – but without the solidarity of any Western influencer accounts.

Another similar example was shared of a woman, Shani Louk, allegedly being held hostage by Hamas.

Zionist influencers claimed she was sexually assaulted and murdered. Later, the woman’s own mother confirmed she was safe and that Hamas had taken her to a hospital in the Gaza Strip – the same hospital targeted multiple times by Israeli warplanes.

This is a very intentional strategy of the Zionist regime, and the West – when their narrative is being challenged by reality itself, they will not be above spreading lies and refusing to apologize or issue a real retraction when they are caught.

The claims are instead echoed by official Zionist accounts as reality without citation, leading media outlets in the West to print the story verbatim.

Even the celebrity apparatus of the West plays a significant role in disseminating false claims – and then quietly walking them back after millions of people were exposed to flagrant lies.

Actress Jamie Lee Curtis published a photo on Instagram of terrified children looking at the sky, with a caption expressing solidarity with the Zionist State. When netizens correctly identified the children in the photo as children of Gaza, fleeing from a Zionist airstrike, she quickly deleted the photo.

The strategy of publishing lies and issuing a whimper of a retraction (if any at all) has been an imperialist strategy for decades.

The US entry into Vietnam was sparked by a false report of an attack on a US warship in the Gulf of Tonkin. The US illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003 was due to a made-up claim of weapons of mass destruction. The invasion of Afghanistan before that was also based on false assumptions.

Iran’s foreign-plotted riots were caused by a categorical lie peddled by accounts known to be on the payroll of the United States intelligence agencies – then were spread using a vast network of online bots and influencer accounts.

Western celebrities and influencers then picked up the story to smear the Islamic Republic, despite multiple witnesses and CCTV footage proving the tragic death of Mahsa Amini was of natural causes.

More recently, after a 16-year-old Iranian girl Armita Geravand fell unconscious at the Tehran subway, social media accounts and news media in the West jumped on the bandwagon, claiming “torture.”

Western media apparatus and celebrity apparatus are intertwined. They are part of a sophisticated system that is forced into place by the US ruling class and further strengthened by the Zionist lobby.

Any deviation – meaning support for Palestine – is met with categorically false claims of anti-semitism, racism, or outlandish smear campaigns.

Western outlets will never publish about the true carnage unleashed upon the people of Gaza – the women and children who were martyred.

They will never publish, for example, the video of Israeli soldiers shutting off the water to Gaza – already contaminated – despite it being a human rights violation and a war crime. The imperialist media will never document reality, because reality would condemn the West for its barbarism.

Furthermore, if the West cannot win a war of information, then it seeks to outright ban inconvenient facts altogether. Take for example the shutdown of Press TV in the United States – or the deplatforming of Russia Today or Sputnik after the February 2022 Russian military operation in Ukraine.

Lebanon’s Al-Maydeen was also briefly banned on Meta platforms for its coverage of Al Aqsa Storm. According to the network, no reason was provided for it, nor was any prior notice given.

The fact of the matter is the imperialist media does not shy away from playing dirty to ensure only its pro-imperialist outlets and narratives dominate public perception.

It understands it is in a losing battle against the truth and is aggressively conducting widespread disinformation and information stifling in a final bid to control its narratives.

An age-old saying is that in war, the first casualty is truth. The imperialist West has been imposing war on the entire globe for over a century. The truth has been “killed” in this sense many times – leading to racism, Islamophobia, and more rot within society – but it can also be salvaged.

As growing contradictions sharpen within our world, the imperialist West will intensify its disinformation campaigns. Based on what we already know about its unethical conduct, the world cannot look to the West for the truth.

The West’s truth is a false reality based on the vision created by the US ruling class and its partners, who are committed to defiling the world for their own greed.

If the West fears the narrative of the Palestinians so much then it must know that the truth is with Palestine – and that Palestine is the truth.

October 11, 2023 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Islamophobia, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , | Leave a comment

Fact Check: Hamas ‘Beheading Babies’ Story Based on Weak Evidence

By Svetlana Ekimenko – Sputnik – 11.10.2023

Amid the fresh escalation of violence in the Middle East, a story by Israeli i24NEWS reporter Nicole Zedeck from Kfar Aza, in which she reported that Israeli soldiers claimed they had found babies with heads severed by Hamas militants, was seized upon by the Western mainstream press, despite a lack of official confirmation.

The Western mainstream press has yet again dipped into its playbook of hawking unproven claims and peddling what are often false narratives. Gut-wrenching headlines like “Hamas cut the throats of babies,” “An act of sheer evil,” and “Massacre of innocents” were emblazoned across a plethora of media outlets after an Israeli reporter claimed that bodies of babies, including some with their heads cut off, had been stumbled upon by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers in the Israeli kibbutz of Kfar Aza.

Amid the latest spiral of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, an i24NEWS reporter was among the journalists invited to survey the aftermath of the infiltration of southern Israel by Hamas fighters. As IDF soldiers went from house to house removing the bodies of victims in the kibbutz near the Gaza border, the reporter, Nicole Zedeck, said:

“Talking to some of the soldiers here, they say what they witnessed as they’ve been walking through these communities is bodies of babies with their heads cut off and families gunned down in their beds… We can see some of these soldiers right now, comforting each other.”

Sputnik fact-checked the media hype around the swirling Hamas “beheadings” story, and found it to be based on weak evidence.

The unverified news of Hamas fighters reportedly beheading 40 Israeli babies swiftly took off on social media platforms, shared and retweeted despite not being verified by any news outlet.

The Israeli military does not have any data confirming the alleged massacre of women, elderly people, and children in Kfar Aza, an army representative told Sputnik.

The Israel Defense Forces, alternatively referred to by the Hebrew-language acronym Tzahal, is not in possession of any information regarding allegations that “Hamas beheaded babies,” Turkiye’s Anadolu news agency reported, after requesting a comment from the IDF. “We have seen the news, but we do not have any details or confirmation about that,” an IDF spokesperson was cited as saying.

Palestinian militants based in the Gaza Strip launched an offensive against Israel dubbed Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7, launching thousands of missiles while other groups breached the border and advanced into Israeli territory. The Israel Defense Forces retaliated with airstrikes against the Gaza Strip. The attack prompted Israel to declare a state of war, and put the Gaza Strip under full blockade, cutting off food, gas, and electricity supplies. Israeli and Palestinian authorities have reported that hundreds of people have died and thousands have been injured in the flare-up.

The Palestinian movement Hamas has also vehemently dismissed reports that Gazan fighters allegedly attacked civilians and killed children during the operation near the Gaza Strip.

“The [Hamas] movement categorically rejects the false accusations fabricated by certain Western media outlets, most recently of the alleged killings of children, their beheadings and attacks on civilians,” it stated on its Telegram account. Hamas added that such false claims are “aimed at covering up war crimes and [Israel’s] genocide against the Palestinian people.”

The movement noted that it exclusively targets “[Israel’s] military machine and the security system built [by the Israeli authorities],” calling on Western media to “be objective and professional in reporting the latest events around the Gaza Strip.”

Incidentally, the correspondent who eagerly spread the “Hamas beheaded 40 children” news, without any images or official statements to buttress them, later retracted her claim, and was quoted in media reports as saying:

“I just wanted to clarify that I did not tweet 40 babies had been beheaded. I tweeted that foreign media had been told women and children had been decapitated but we had not been shown bodies – which was my response to reports which had gone viral about the 40 babies. I realized the way my tweet was written was too short to explain the full context, so deleted it. My headline of my story references that toddlers were killed.”

However, the reporter’s words fell on deaf ears, as the media frenzy had already caught fire.

There is no shortage of similar instances when the mainstream press has devoured deliberate distortions of facts to fit the Western narrative.

Bucha Frame-Up

Amid Russia’s ongoing special military operation in Ukraine, in early April, 2022, the Kiev regime’s media and social networks published graphic photos and videos of allegedly dead bodies strewn in the streets of Bucha. Russian troops had withdrawn from the Ukrainian town on March 30 as Ukrainian forces shelled it with artillery, tanks, and multiple launch rocket systems. After Ukrainian forces, including the neo-Nazi Azov regiment, entered the city, they did not report any casualties among the locals. On April 2, Ukraine’s National Police, which also entered the town, filmed a video showing the city’s streets and damaged buildings. Shortly after, Kiev claimed that Bucha was full of corpses, accusing Russia of war crimes and providing a video showing numerous alleged bodies lying in the streets – while the previous clip had failed to show any.

Ukrainian authorities blamed the alleged killings on Russia, despite many corpses in the videos wearing white armbands, which may have been considered Russian insignia by Ukrainian troops. Moscow denounced the allegations, with the Russian Ministry of Defense saying that this was yet another provocation, and stressing that not a single Bucha resident had been harmed by the Russian military while the city was under its control. It underscored that Ukrainian forces shelled the city after Russian troops had already withdrawn from the area. It should be noted that before reports of the mass killings surfaced, the Ukrainian police announced an operation in the settlement to “clear the area of saboteurs and accomplices of Russian troops,” which also raises questions about possible preparations for a false flag operation. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called on the international community to conduct an impartial investigation into the provocation in Bucha. While Moscow demanded that international leaders should not rush to make sweeping accusations, but listen to Russia’s arguments, the Western mainstream media wasted no time in jumping on the graphic footage and peddling the uncorroborated “Bucha massacre” story, while branding Russia as the culprit.

Alleged Chemical Attack in Douma, Syria

On April 7, 2018, a number of NGOs, including the White Helmets, alleged that chemical weapons were used in Douma, Eastern Ghouta, by the Syrian government. Chlorine bombs were allegedly dropped on the city, killing dozens and poisoning many locals, who were rushed to hospitals. Russia dismissed the report as fake news, with its Defense Ministry pointing out that the White Helmets were notorious for spreading falsehoods. On April 9, 2018, Russian military chemists visited the site of the alleged chemical weapons attack in Douma, including the health facility shown in the White Helmets’ footage, but found neither cases of exposure to chemical weapons nor traces of toxic agents. Yet the Donald Trump administration used the frame-up to justify massive US and allied strikes on Syrian government targets.

Both Moscow and Damascus lambasted the US attacks, citing the fact that Syria had joined the OPCW agreement in 2013 and destroyed its chemical stockpiles by 2014.

However, the US narrative was supported by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in its 2019 report. Soon after, both a WikiLeaks release and whistleblower accounts revealed that the organization had suppressed evidence confirming that the Douma incident was a staged provocation.

Kuwaiti Incubator Hoax

The so-called “Kuwaiti incubator hoax” in 1990 was based on unverified reports and a testimony given to the United States Congressional Human Rights Caucus by a 15-year-old girl named Nayirah. She claimed that during the August 1990 invasion, Iraqi soldiers took Kuwaiti babies out of hospital incubators and left them to die. The horrendous story was resorted to by then-US President George H.W. Bush as a rationale behind supporting Kuwait in the 1991 Gulf War against Iraq. However, when the war was over, it turned out that the story lacked any evidence.

October 11, 2023 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , | Leave a comment

Cheap Hamas drones made Israel’s border wall ‘useless’ – NYT

An Israeli watchtower with a remotely-controlled machine gun at the border with Gaza ©  Majdi Fathi / NurPhoto via Getty Images
RT | October 11, 2023

Deceiving Israel about its intentions and finding a key vulnerability in the surveillance infrastructure on the Gaza border were some of the crucial elements of the plan which allowed Hamas to inflict the worst breach of the country’s security in five decades, The New York Times reported on Tuesday.

The newspaper spoke to senior Israeli security officials about the preliminary conclusions that their agencies made about last Saturday’s incursion of Hamas fighters into southern Israel. The Palestinian militants raided more than 20 towns and military bases, killing hundreds of troops and civilians and capturing dozens of hostages.

Prior to the attack, Israel had considered Hamas successfully deterred since clashes in May 2021. Intercepted calls between militants appeared to confirm the assessment that the organization was not an imminent threat, sources said. An analysis is underway on whether those conversations were staged.

Israel was over-reliant on the sophisticated wall it built along the Gaza border, which has multiple types of sensors and remotely operated machine guns. Officials believed it to be virtually impenetrable and kept a relatively small military force nearby, prioritizing other areas for deployment, the report said.

Hamas took out at least four communication towers using drone-dropped munitions in the early phase of its attack, rendering the system “useless,” NYT said. The Israelis could not see the consequent breach of the physical barrier, which turned out to be an easier task than they expected it would be. Hamas used explosives and bulldozers to create nearly 30 gaps for some 1,500 fighters to pour through.

An operational lapse by Israel resulted in the clustering of its senior commanders in the area at a single base, which was overrun in a lightning offensive by the militants. With the leadership mostly killed or taken hostage, Israeli response to the emergency was disorganized and slow, sources said.

People higher up in the command chain did not initially realize the scale of the incursion amid the chaos. It took Israeli warplanes hours to provide air support to responding forces, despite their being based just minutes’ flying time from the area.

A thorough investigation of the Israeli failures is pending, as its forces are currently focused on retaliatory military action in Gaza. The newspaper suggested that the Hamas raid had shattered the nation’s sense of safety and undermined its international reputation as a reliable security partner.

October 11, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Operation Al-Aqsa Flood has altered the relationship between Palestine and Israel

By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | October 10, 2023

Regardless of the precise strategy of the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, or any other Palestinian faction for that matter, the daring military campaign deep inside Israel on Saturday, 7 October was only possible because Palestinians are simply fed up. Israel, remember, has imposed a hermetic siege on the Gaza Strip for the past 17 years.

The story of the siege is often presented in two starkly different ways. For some, it is an inhumane act of “collective punishment”; for others, it is a necessary evil so that Israel may protect itself from so-called Palestinian terrorism. Largely missing from the story, however, is that 17 years is long enough for a whole generation to grow up under siege, enlist in the Resistance and fight for freedom.

According to Save The Children, nearly half of the 2.3 million Palestinians living in Gaza today are children. This fact is often infused to delineate the suffering of a population that has never stepped outside the tiny, impoverished Strip of 365 square km, approximately 141 square miles. Again, although numbers may seem precise, they are often employed to tell a small part of a complex story.

This Gaza generation, which either grew up or was born after the imposition of the siege, has experienced at least five major, devastating wars, in which children like them, along with their mothers, fathers and siblings, were the main targets and thus the main victims.

“If you surround your enemy completely, give them no chance to escape, offer them no quarter, then they will fight to the last,” wrote Sun Tzu in The Art of War, the ancient text that is still used in military academies the world over. Yet, year after year, this is precisely what Israel has done. This strategy has proved to be a major strategic miscalculation.

Even attempts to protest against the injustice of the siege by gathering in large numbers at the fence separating besieged Gaza from Israel, was not permitted by the occupation state. The mass protests, known as the Great March of Return, were answered with Israeli sniper bullets. Images of youngsters carrying other young people bleeding from gunshot wounds and shouting “God is Great” became a regular feature at the fence. As the casualties mounted, the media interest in the story simply faded over time.

The hundreds of fighters who crossed into Israel through four different entry points at dawn last Saturday were the same young Palestinians who know nothing but war, siege and the need to protect one another. They have also learned how to survive the hard way, despite the shortages or complete lack of almost everything in Gaza, including clean water and proper medical care.

This is where the story of this generation intersects with that of Hamas, or Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian groups.

Yes, Hamas chose the timing and the nature of its military campaign to fit into a very precise strategy. This, however, would have not been possible if Israel did not leave these young Palestinians with no other option but to fight back.

Videos circulating on social media showed Palestinian fighters yelling in Arabic, with that distinct, often harsh Gaza accent: “This is for my brother,” and “This is for my son.” They shouted these and many other angry statements as they fired at panic-stricken Israeli settlers and soldiers. Many of the latter, apparently, had abandoned their positions and run away.

The psychological impact of this war will most certainly exceed that of October 1973, when Arab armies made quick gains against Israel, also following a surprise attack. This time, the devastating impact on the collective Israeli thinking will prove to be a game-changer, since the “war” involves a single Palestinian group, not a whole army, or three combined.

The October 2023 surprise attack, however, is linked directly to the October 1973 Arab-Israeli war. By choosing the 50th anniversary of what Arabs regard as a great triumph against Israel, the Palestinian Resistance wanted to send a clear message: the Palestine cause is still the cause of all Arabs. All of the statements made by senior Hamas military commanders and political leaders were loaded with such symbolism and other references to Arab countries and peoples.

This pan-Arab discourse was not random, and was delineated in statements made by the Commander of Al-Qassam Brigades, Mohammed Deif; the founding commander of Al-Qassam, Saleh al-Arouri; the Head of the Hamas Political Bureau, Ismail Haniyeh; and Abu Obeida, the Brigades’ masked spokesman. They all urged unity and insisted that Palestine is but one component of a larger Arab, Islamic struggle for justice, dignity and collective honour. Hamas called its campaign “Al-Aqsa Flood”, re-centring Palestinian, Arab and Muslim unity around Al-Quds, Jerusalem, and all of its holy places.

Everyone seemed shocked, including Israel itself, not by the Hamas attack per se, but by the coordination and daring of the relatively massive, unprecedented operation. Instead of attacking at night, the Resistance attacked at dawn. Instead of striking at Israel using the many tunnels under Gaza, they simply drove, paraglided, paddled by sea and, in many cases, walked across the nominal border.

The element of surprise became even more baffling when Palestinian fighters challenged the very fundamentals of guerrilla warfare: instead of fighting a “war of manoeuvre” they fought, albeit temporarily, a “war of position”, holding for many hours the areas that they had gained control of inside Israel.

Indeed, for the Gaza groups, the psychological aspect of warfare was as critical as the physical fighting. Hundreds of videos and images went viral on social media, as if hoping to redefine the relationship between Palestinians, the usual victims, and Israel, the military occupier.

The insistence on not killing the elderly and children was stressed by field commanders. This was not just intended for Palestinians. It was also a message to an international audience, that the Palestinian Resistance will play by the universal rules of war.

The number of Palestinians that Israel kills, and will kill in the future, in retaliation for Al-Aqsa Flood, will be tragic, but it will not salvage the tattered reputation of an undisciplined army, a divided society and a political leadership that is focused solely on its own survival.

It is too early to reach sweeping conclusions regarding the outcomes of this unprecedented war. What is crystal clear, however, is that the fundamental relationship between the Israeli occupation and the occupied Palestinians is henceforth altered, probably permanently.

October 10, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

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