Spanish MP calls for coercive measures against Israel
Palestine Information Center | November 3, 2023
MADRID – Spanish MP and member of the European Parliament Idoia Villanueva has condemned what is happening in the Gaza Strip as a “real genocide in 2023 with complete impunity and complicity from the international community, the US administration and the European Union as well.”
“The ongoing atrocities and war crimes committed by Israel, the colonial power, against the population under occupation are considered a war crime, and all this is done in the dark,” she said.
“The cutting off of supplies, electricity, water and fuel exacerbates the situation and further harms the civilian population, which is another crime against the international humanitarian law, causing hospitals to stop functioning and causing massive loss of life,” she said.
“The attempted forced displacement of populations is also a war crime and contrary to the international humanitarian law, and a few days ago, communications and the internet were cut off in an attempt to carry out this genocide,” Villanueva said.
The Spanish MP called on the international community to do much more, adding that “it is unfortunate that the European Union is lost in the maze of expressions and words calling for a ceasefire.”
She called for coercive measures, such as arms embargoes and sanctions, against Israeli officials, as well as the suspension of European funds to Israeli arms companies currently contributing to these systematic human rights violations.
Villanueva also called for “the suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement due to these crimes and violations, accountability before the International Criminal Court, and moving forward with the recognition of the State of Palestine in order to somehow pressure Israel.”
“If the international community and Europe do not act and put an end to this genocide, they will carry a horrific stigma,” the lawmaker warned.
Palestine TV correspondent killed in Israel’s strikes on Gaza
Palestinian correspondent Mohammed Abu Hatab was killed in an Israeli strike on the besieged Gaza Strip on November 2, 2023
Press TV – November 3, 2023
A correspondent working for the Palestinian Authority’s television channel, Palestine TV, has been killed along with a number of his family members in an Israeli strike in the south of the Gaza Strip.
“Our colleague Mohammed Abu Hatab fell as a martyr along with members of his family in an Israeli bombardment against his home in Khan Yunis” on Thursday, broadcaster Palestine TV station said.
Palestinian media reports said the airstrike killed 11 of Abu Hatab’s family members, including his wife, son, and brother.
The Palestinian Official Media described the attack as “a deliberate assassination” of Abu Hatab, noting that his house was targeted shortly after he arrived home after covering Israel’s atrocities in Gaza.
“It’s a message in blood to terrorize Palestinian journalists to prevent them from reporting on our people’s suffering and exposing Israel’s crimes.” the Palestinian Official Media said in a statement.
The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) States Broadcasting Union also mourned the death of Abu Hatab and his family members.
Amr Al-Laithi, the OSBU President, also denounced the “heinous crime” committed against Abu Hatab.
The union also urged civil society organizations and human rights groups to immediately intervene to stop Israel’s “barbaric, criminal and systematic attacks” against media workers.
Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas waged the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime’s decades-long campaign of bloodletting and devastation against Palestinians.
Tel Aviv has also blocked water, food, and electricity to Gaza, plunging the coastal strip into a humanitarian crisis.
The regime has further ordered 1.1 million people in the north of Gaza to evacuate and move south of the coastal sliver. However, it has continued to rain down bombs on the south.
Israel’s aggression on Gaza has so far killed more than 9,061 Palestinians, most of them women and children, and injured about 32,000 others.
50 press unions demand end to Israel’s systematic targeting of journalists in Palestine
MEMO | November 2, 2023
Fifty Arab and foreign media institutions, associations and trade unions have demanded the UN Secretary-General and the President of the International Federation of Journalists to take a quick and strong stance to protect journalists in Palestine, condemn the killing of media professionals as well as harassing them by Israel, and to implement the provisions of the Geneva Conventions related to the protection of journalists in times of war.
This came in a joint letter, which the signatories said has been issued “based on the public’s right to the media … and the right of media professionals to practise their work freely … and in view of the systematic targeting that media professionals in Palestine are experiencing, which has reached the point of direct killing and the targeted, and harassment that makes their continued work pose a danger to them.
The signatories called on the international community to “immediately investigate the killings and ensure that criminals do not escape punishment”.
They also called on all countries of the world to “guarantee the freedom of media professionals and to take the necessary field measures to protect them and to guarantee freedom of media practice.”
The President of the Federation of African Journalists (FAJ) and one of the signatories to the petition, Sadiq Ibrahim, has “strongly denounced the continued aggressive escalation against journalists in Palestine” and the murders and attacks targeting them mercilessly, saying this violent escalation constitutes a serious threat to freedom of the press and the public’s right to access information.
The Secretary-General of the Palestine International Forum for Media and Communication and one of the signatories to the document, Ahmed Al-Sheikh, said, “We stand with the brave Palestinian journalists who risk their lives in order to present the truth, and we express our full solidarity with them. We call on all concerned parties to stop the violence against journalists and work to end this type of crime.”
According to independent human rights institutions, as many as 25 Palestinian journalists have been killed by Israel since the start of the Al-Aqsa Flood operation on 7 October, in addition to 13 workers in the media sector.
Moreover, the homes of more than 35 journalists were destroyed, and more than 20 journalists were injured, in addition to the arrests of 18 male and female journalists in the West Bank.
Since 7 October, the Israeli army has been waging a ruthless war on Gaza, killing more than 8,525 Palestinians, including 3,542 children and 2,187 women, wounding about 21,543. In the Occupied West Bank, Israel has killed 126 Palestinians, and arrested about 2,000 others, according to official Palestinian sources.
Algerian parliament unanimously votes to support Palestine militarily
The Cradle | November 3, 2023
The Algerian parliament on 2 November unanimously voted to authorize President Abdelmadjid Tebboune to enter the Gaza-Israel war and throw his support behind Palestine.
The 100/100 vote came a day after the anniversary of Algeria’s war of liberation against French colonialism.
Algeria is the second Arab nation that looks to enter the war against Israel, following Yemen’s declaration of war just two days prior.
“We launched a large number of ballistic and cruise missiles and a large number of drones at various targets of the Zionist enemy in the Palestine Occupied Territories,” the spokesperson of the Yemeni armed forces, General Yahya Saree, said earlier this week. “We emphasize that this operation is the third operation in support of our oppressed brothers in Palestine.”
Saree then added that “the position of our Yemeni people towards the cause of Palestine is fixed and principled, and the Palestinian people have the full right to defend themselves and use their full rights.” “Our forces performed their duty in supporting Gaza and fired ballistic and cruise missiles at enemy targets in the Occupied Territories.”
Arab nations have recently been following suit in their support of the Palestinian piece; Kuwait has condemned the Israeli aggression, Bahrain has cut all diplomatic ties, and Jordan has recalled their ambassador to Israel.
Nations outside of West Asia who have voiced their support for Palestine include Cuba, Chile, Venezuela, Bolivia – who’ve cut diplomatic ties with Israel completely – Nicaragua, and others.
Massacre in Gaza: Occupation Targets Gravediggers and Leaves Thousands Dead
Al-Manar | November 3, 2023
Israeli occupation forces mercilessly targeted a group of Palestinian citizens who were trying to dig graves in the northern Gaza Strip. The occupation aircraft launched a series of brutal raids on the central region of the Gaza Strip, resulting in a massacre at the Maghazi camp.
The bombings deliberately aimed at a gathering of innocent citizens, a restaurant, and a home belonging to the Al-Barbarawi family, leaving numerous casualties and several martyrs. Many of the injured were rushed to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital for urgent medical assistance. To make matters worse, the Israeli artillery shelling also targeted the eastern part of Rafah city in southern Gaza.
Despite the international outcry against their actions, the occupation continues to escalate its aggression. At present, occupation aircraft are launching violent raids on Al-Sinaa Street in the heart of Gaza City. Moreover, they have targeted the Northern Beach camp, which lies west of the Shuhada Al-Shati Mosque.
Yesterday, the Ministry of Health in Gaza released a devastating announcement, revealing that the death toll from Israeli aggression has risen to a staggering 9,061 martyrs. Among the fatalities are 3,760 children and 2,326 women, while approximately 32,000 individuals have been wounded with various injuries since the start of the “Al-Aqsa Flood” battle on October 7.
The ministry further disclosed that the occupation forces committed 15 massacres in the past hours alone, claiming the lives of 256 innocent people. This unfathomable brutality brings the total number of massacres against families in the Gaza Strip to a horrifying 965.
Adding to the horror, the ministry reported that the bombing of a house in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip has resulted in the deaths of 11 individuals thus far. The extent of destruction and loss of life caused by Israeli aggression is truly unimaginable.
In an alarming revelation, the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Observatory disclosed that Israel has dropped over 25,000 tons of explosives on the Gaza Strip since the start of the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation. This amount is said to be equivalent to the destructive power of two nuclear bombs, underscoring the immense suffering inflicted upon the Palestinian population.
As international calls for an end to the aggression grow louder, the world watches in horror as the occupation forces continue their onslaught on innocent Palestinians.
How Long Has Netanyahu Got Left?
By Martin Jay | Strategic Culture Foundation | November 2, 2023
Is Israel really losing the media war? In a conflict where the truth seems to be the first and most predominant casualty, this might be the only truth, certainly when we look at recent events. The war in Gaza is not an irony-free zone though. Recently, Israel stormed social media with claims that the Palestinians were faking videos and they took one of a medic giving resuscitation to a victim, claiming that the technique was erroneous, and so, therefore, the video must have been faked. How are we to take this? Given that Israel is the expert on faking videos to support its heinous war crimes, was the logic behind the claims “trust us, we know what we’re talking about when we talk about faked videos”? In either case it failed. The mob justice of social media didn’t give any gravitas to the claims and soon enough the Red Cross said that the health worker was using the right technique.
But how interesting that Israel is now resorting to this level, to stoop so low makes many wonder if they are even close to winning the war. It doesn’t smack of a victorious side to do this and there are other examples, even, previously. When the Baptist hospital was bombed, the IDF didn’t seem bothered that there was documented evidence to prove that it had actually warned the bosses of it, that they, the IDF, were about to bomb it. Almost as soon as it was bombed and Israel fed the revolting swine of western journalists feeding from the teat of mother Israel for all of their information with the assertion that the Palestinians actually blew it up themselves by a faulty rocket which Hamas had just recently fired close to the hospital. The IDF even produced audio of a conversation which apparently confirmed this. The problem with this though was that the audio was faked. There is actually a history of the IDF faking audio conversations. Some will remember the 2010 storming of the Turkish aid boat where the IDF murdered in cold blood ten activists at point blank range. Audio tape of the activists insulting Israel’s special forces soldiers turned out to be fake.
Western media are playing a role in helping Israel though simply by accepting the carefully arranged circus that they have been invited into. No western journalists that I can see are working within Gaza as it’s simply too dangerous so they are forced to lap up the information which is handed to them on a plate standing on the touchlines and being really nothing more than a spectator to a secret war which they can’t and won’t understand. The holocaust which is taking place is about the annihilation of the Palestinians in Gaza. We can’t really call it a war as this would suggest that both sides have a fair chance to compete on a level playing field. In Gaza, the Israelis are starving the Palestinians so that even if they survive, they will be too weak to fight when, or if, the IDF finally go in with their tank divisions.
The story which isn’t being reported by western journalists is how Hamas is already having some victories in hitting tanks with RPGs and how phosphorous is being dropped on civilians. Of course Netanyahu has been promised by the Biden administration that he can break every war crime ever recorded with the knowledge that he and his people will never face any legal action. And this is really a big part of America’s support to Netanyahu as what we are witnessing – but are unable to film due to Israel cutting off electricity and internet – are war crimes which we have never really seen before in the last 100 years except with the holocaust itself during WWII.
The total ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians which will never be reported as such by British journalists, which citizens of the free world cannot actually see, so it will continue until only a few hundred thousand Palestinians remain, who then will be convinced by Israel and the West to move onto another location. In fact, there is documentation to prove that the Israelis were planning all along to move out Palestinian citizens out of Gaza all together with the assistance of Egypt.
The big question is time. Time is really an important component in this war. It is only a matter of time before Biden messes up and is drawn into a war with Israel against Iran. Biden doesn’t want this but he is unfortunately stupid and weak and Netanyahu likes American presidents this way. A looming speech from Hezbollah’s secretary general Hassan Nasrallah is expected to give an ultimatum to Israel to stop the mass murder of Palestinians, we will soon be reminded who are the most important players: Iran and Turkey.
Both these countries, although from different Muslim faiths who, in other parts of the Middle East are killing each other, seem to be united in their defiance of Israel. It is no longer a question of if they will react to the Gaza holocaust but when. Biden is out of his depth and the Iranians know this. He has only one real ace to play, which is to get rid of Netanyahu which if he was any other U.S. president, he could probably pull this off. But this is Biden we’re talking about whose foreign policy sheet includes the hugely embarrassing exit from Afghanistan and the 130 billion dollar colossal waste of sending cash to Ukraine, the most corrupt country in the world, which most Americans can’t even find on a map of Europe.
The rumours are that Biden is thinking in the longer term than Israel and that he believes that Netanyahu doesn’t have long in office as many Israelis don’t support his war crimes strategy, a point made by Haaretz recently which pointed out his demise was not long off. Something’s got to give. The servile, revolting, passive international press pack might be all that Netanyahu has left.
Bahrain ‘halts’ economic relations with Israel over war on Gaza: Parliament
Press TV – November 2, 2023
Bahrain’s lower house of parliament has said the country has halted its economic relations with the Israeli regime over Tel Aviv’s ongoing war against the Gaza Strip that has claimed thousands of Palestinians.
“Economic relations with Israel have been halted,” said a statement from the Council of Representatives on Thursday.
The chamber also “confirms that the Israeli ambassador to the Kingdom of Bahrain has left Bahrain, and the Kingdom of Bahrain decided to return the Bahraini ambassador from Israel to the country,” it noted.
The move was “in support of the Palestinian cause and the legitimate rights of the brotherly Palestinian people,” the statement read.
Abdulnabi Salman, the Bahraini legislature’s first deputy speaker, confirmed the decision to AFP, saying the “ongoing conflict in Gaza cannot tolerate silence.”
Bahrain’s National Communication Center, the government’s media arm, said the “priority at this stage must be focused on protecting the lives of civilians” in the besieged Palestinian territory.
The brutal war that the Israeli regime has been waging against the coastal sliver since October 7, has so far claimed the lives of nearly 9,061 people, including 3,700 children and more than 2,300 women.
The regime launched the war after Gaza’s resistance groups conducted Operation al-Aqsa Storm, their biggest operation against the occupying entity in years.
Bahrain and the regime established diplomatic relations in 2020 as part of United States-brokered Abraham Accords.
Back in 2021, Bahrain’s main opposition group, the al-Wefaq National Islamic Society, denounced Manama’s normalization of relations with Israel as “a crime,” emphasizing that the ruling Al Khalifah regime’s policies did not conform to the will of the Bahraini nation.
The country has witnessed numerous protests ever since the rapprochement, condemning the detente as an instance of “treason.”
The other mass displacement: while eyes are on Gaza, settlers advance on West Bank herders
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs | November 1, 2023
Shortly after armed Israeli settlers threatened to kill them if they did not leave, 24 Palestinian households totaling 141 people, half of whom are children, were displaced from Khirbat Zanuta in the southern West Bank.
On 28 October 2023, the families dismantled about 50 residential and animal structures and vacated the area with their 5,000 livestock. The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has previously documented settler attacks in this community, most recently on 12, 21 and 26 October. About two thirds of the families that comprised this community are now displaced.
“On 26 October, settlers attacked us, destroying our homes, water tanks, solar panels, and cars,” said 43-year-old Abu Khaled from Khirbet Zanuta. “I felt the presence of death so tangibly as if I saw it with my own eyes. I was torn between staying in or leaving the place I love, where I belong, where I may die. On 28 October, I made the hardest decision in my life: to leave Zanuta and leave everything behind, as memories. I did this to protect my children.”
These experiences are not unique to Khirbat Zanuta. In 15 herding communities across the West Bank, at least 98 households comprising 828 people, including 313 children, have been displaced amid settler violence or increased movement restrictions since 7 October. Since then, Israeli settler violence has increased significantly, from an already high average of three incidents per day thus far in 2023 to a current average of seven per day.
In this period, OCHA has recorded 171 settler attacks against Palestinians, resulting in Palestinian casualties (26 incidents), damage to Palestinian properties (115 incidents), or both (30 incidents). Cases of harassment, trespass, and intimidation are not included in these statistics when they do not result in damage or casualties, although they too increase the pressure on Palestinians to leave.
On 9 October, 40 people were displaced from the herding community of Al Ganoub. Armed Israeli settlers had raided the community, threatening residents at gunpoint, saying they would kill them if they did not leave within an hour. Abu Jamal, 75, is one of those who were displaced. “Settlers set fire to our tent and stole my goats,” he told us. “They destroyed everything that had kept me here.” Another residential structure was also set on fire during this incident.Since 7 October, access restrictions, typically imposed by the Israeli occupation authorities, have intensified throughout the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. These are particularly severe in areas near illegal Israeli settlements and in the ‘Seam Zone,’ the Palestinian area isolated by Israel’s 712-kilometre-long illegal Separation Wall in the West Bank. Settlers too have imposed movement restrictions, blocking access roads to Palestinian communities. Such measures have limited Palestinians’ access to essential services and livelihoods. In some cases, settlers have also damaged water resources relied upon by herding communities, depriving them of a fundamental human necessity. Palestinian herding communities are often highly dependent on humanitarian assistance, including health and education services. However, since restrictions intensified, many of the services have had to stop.
On 12 October, eight households, comprising 51 people, were displaced from Shihda WaHamlan herding community in Nablus, after settlers threatened them at gunpoint, saying they would kill them and set their tents on fire during the night. One of the family members, 52-year-old Abu Ismail, stated: “I had no choice but to leave everything behind to protect my children.” More than one in every three settler-related incidents since 7 October has involved settlers using firearms to threaten Palestinians, including by opening fire. In almost half the cases, Israeli forces accompanied or actively supported the attackers. Many of the latter incidents were followed by confrontations between Israeli forces and Palestinians, where three Palestinians were killed, and dozens injured. Eight Palestinians were killed by settlers directly, as of the end of October. Damage or destruction was caused to 24 residential structures, 40 structures used for farming, 67 vehicles and more than 400 trees and saplings. Settlements are illegal under international humanitarian law and, compounded by settler violence, they have for many years resulted in increased risks and heightened humanitarian needs among Palestinians.
At the same time, concerns are high over families who have remained and continue to endure attacks by settlers. Mohamad Abu Seif (Abu Khalid), 90, has been living with his family in the herding community of Ein Shibli for over 40 years. While they have remained, they are exposed to repetitive threats and harassment by settlers. “They prevent us from grazing our sheep,” he told us.
He and his family are among five Palestinian households, comprising 33 people, who remain in this community. All of them are at risk of displacement as grazing areas diminish by the actions of Israeli settlers. Eight families, comprising 51 people, have already left this area since 7 October. While Abu Khalid is still there, he and his family have no assurances that they would be able to remain for much longer.
Why a global anti-Hamas coalition pushed by Macron is a bad idea
By Rachel Marsden | RT | November 2, 2023
Last week, standing beside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a visit to Jerusalem, French President Emmanuel Macron suggested recycling the global coalition of 86 nations against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) to focus on Hamas.
“Hamas is a terrorist group, whose objective is the destruction of the state of Israel. This is also the case of ISIS, of Al-Qaeda, of all those associated with them, either by actions or by intentions,” Macron said, betraying a short and selective memory. The stated goal of IS wasn’t to eradicate Israel – it was to establish a caliphate in Syria and Iraq, then broaden it into Arab countries. IS was first and foremost a threat to the stability of Syria – the same country whose government the US and its Western allies actively hindered in its fight against terrorism by making a failed attempt at overthrowing President Bashar Assad through Pentagon and CIA-backed training and equipping of “Syrian rebel” jihadists. As for Al-Qaeda, Israel was even reportedly at one point helping treat wounded militants from the group who were fighting their common enemy, the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, in Syria – in turn effectively hindering the fight against IS, as Syria and Hezbollah worked to destroy it.
The Global Coalition against Daesh (another name for IS), founded in 2014, explicitly excluded Russia, whose invitation by Damascus to help it eradicate the terrorist threat can be largely credited for Syria’s stabilization, and the fact that it’s rare to even hear any talk of IS anymore. Russia’s involvement in neutralizing the terrorist group, coupled with former US President Donald Trump’s refusal to continue funding Washington’s incursion into Syria, beyond hunkering down in the oil-rich Kurdish part, was the ultimate key to IS’ defeat. So with apparently little left for it to do now, Macron recommends that the coalition that mostly sat and watched – while Russia, Iran, and Syria did the heavy lifting – take on Hamas. Who does he think is going to do the work this time? Russia, which is still excluded from the coalition? Syria, which has recently taken incoming missile fire from Israel? Iran’s Hezbollah allies, who lost 1,000 men fighting IS in Syria – and whom Netanyahu has placed in the same basket as Hamas as an enemy of Israel? Good luck with that.
So with the most effective anti-IS fighters excluded from fighting Hamas, who’s left in Macron’s proposed coalition? There’s the Global South, including some African countries that just kicked out French troops for their own failed counterterrorism missions which had led to multiple coups and the flourishing of jihadism. It’s doubtful these nations will now be keen to embark on yet another counterterrorism mission alongside the same forces that they just expelled.
Then there are all those members of the international community who are quietly thinking what United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres dared to say aloud last week – that Hamas’ brutal attack on October 7, which left close to a thousand civilians and hundreds of military and security personnel dead, “did not happen in a vacuum.” He was, of course, hinting at Israel’s longstanding, UN-recognized oppression of civilians in Gaza. His statement begs yet another question: Is Hamas really a global threat? Or is it just Israel’s problem?
Anti-Israel unrest has reverberated outside of the immediate conflict zone, including in Western Europe and the US, but these protests have nothing to do with Hamas. Instead, citizens elsewhere in the world are merely reacting to perceived injustices, particularly in light of what they consider to be an overwhelmingly pro-Israel bias on the part of the Western establishment, which initially and drastically minimized concerns over the protection of Palestinian civilians. So any global action against Hamas seems futile.
The anti-IS coalition targeted the terror group’s propaganda, with its website stating that IS’ “use of social media tied to acts of terrorism is well-documented. In response, Coalition partners are working together to expose the falsehoods that lie at the heart” of its ideology. They’re free to do that, but why bother when there’s already open debate among those who have the opportunity to see reports from the ground and assess the situation for themselves? Governments can’t be trusted not to promote their own propaganda under the guise of combating it – all to secure an advantage for their preferred narrative.
Just consider the recent example of propaganda emitted by one of the self-styled gatekeepers of truth: European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. “Russia and Hamas are alike… their essence is the same,” she said. Nah, actually they aren’t the same at all. And not even Israel has been saying that, but still, “Vladimir Putin wants to wipe Ukraine from the map. Hamas, supported by Iran, wants to wipe Israel from the map,” von der Leyen explained. Besides the hot take on Putin’s intentions regarding Ukraine, that’s like saying that since Warren Buffet has a bank account, and I have a bank account, then I’m also a billionaire. This is exactly the kind of nonsense that Western anti-propaganda campaigns end up spewing.
The anti-IS coalition was made to tackle IS. If that’s no longer an issue, then just toss it in the trash. How many interventionist entities does the West need to spearhead, anyway? There are already more than enough vehicles and coordination mechanisms for intelligence sharing, propagandizing, and security operations. Besides, there’s no proof that better intelligence could have helped Israel when Egyptian and American officials have claimed that Netanyahu had warning of the impending Hamas attack. About the only thing that more useless Western-led bureaucracy would help is the West’s own hunger for more of it.
Rachel Marsden is a columnist, political strategist, and host of independently produced talk-shows in French and English.
Hamas holds strong in Gaza despite army’s best efforts: Israeli media
The Cradle | November 2, 2023
Hebrew newspaper Maariv reported on 2 November that the Israeli army is facing a difficult and complex situation the more it deepens its ground assault on the Gaza Strip.
“The fighting in the coming days is expected to be much more difficult … The officers describe how it is evident that Hamas prepared itself to fight against IDF forces,” Maariv reports.
At the current stage, Hamas “is very far from a breaking point or crisis,” it says, adding that it has managed to maintain an organized method of fighting that relies mainly on tunnel warfare,” in which the fighters regularly ascend from out of tunnels and ambush Israeli soldiers with anti-tank weaponry.
The Panther APC armored vehicle, which Hamas ambushed on 28 October, proved to be the “most difficult event for the IDF so far,” Maariv wrote.
Fighters emerged out of a tunnel and struck the armored vehicle with anti-tank missiles, killing at least 11 soldiers and wounding several more. Israel has announced an investigation to determine the military failures that led to the incident.
Since then, several more Israeli soldiers have been killed as a result of intense clashes and anti-tank missile ambushes carried out by the resistance.
Eighteen Israeli soldiers have been killed inside the Gaza Strip since Tuesday, among them a senior officer. Intense fighting continues to rage on.
The Qassam Brigades announced on 2 November that its forces destroyed an Israeli tank and an armored personnel carrier with Al-Yassin 105 rockets.
Israel’s army also announced the killing of dozens of Hamas militants and breaching the group’s first defensive line.
The military has also allegedly begun an operation to destroy Hamas’ tunnels, Walla news outlet reported.
“Under no circumstances” should Israeli forces attempt to enter the tunnels; an ex-military chief was quoted as saying.
According to an Israeli officer cited by Walla, the Israeli army aims “to collapse the entrances and the tunnels” on Hamas and turn the underground network into a “death zone.”
However, as Maariv notes, Hamas has continued to use tunnels that the army had claimed to have destroyed in previous wars.
After Operation Guardian of the Walls in 2021, the army “greatly exaggerated and arrogantly overestimated the intensity of the damage to the tunnels” and the “psychological effect” that was meant to scare Hamas into fighting above ground out of fear that the tunnels would become “death traps.”
This assessment was “disconnected from reality on the ground,” Maariv said, adding that Hamas “will fight hard … and will not surrender easily.”
Israel has vowed to completely eradicate Hamas and dismantle its vast underground network of tunnels.
Between Iraq and a hard place: Sudani’s US dilemma over Gaza
By Khalil Harb | The Cradle | November 1, 2023
The Yamamah Palace, the epicenter of Saudi Arabia’s royal authority in Riyadh, is known for its deliberate and measured decision-making, particularly in the face of significant regional events.
But Israel’s genocidal war against Gaza proved an exception, warranting a rapid dispatch of Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan to Baghdad within a mere 48 hours after the Hamas-led resistance operation Al-Aqsa Flood was launched. This is far from a coincidence; a large subset of Iraqis belong to the regional Axis of Resistance.
Likewise, it is noteworthy that Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani revealed a discussion point that was visibly absent from the White House statement on his 16 October phone call with US President Joe Biden. Specifically, the part where the Iraqi leader expresses that “the continued aggression in Gaza stirs outrage among people in the region and globally.”
These two incidents lay bare Iraq’s state of confusion. The Persian Gulf state’s inner turmoil became even more evident in the way it voted on the Arab draft resolution presented by Jordan at the UN General Assembly.
War in West Asia
Although Baghdad had a hand in sponsoring the draft calling for a “sustained humanitarian truce,” the electronic vote initially showed that it had abstained. The Iraqi delegation in New York later scrambled to amend its vote in support of the resolution, blaming the mishap on “technical issues.”
Geographically, Baghdad may seem distant from occupied Palestine, but for many Iraqis and Palestinians, the legacy of Iraqi soldiers who helped prevent the Zionist occupation of Jenin in 1948 remains a powerful memory, with the cemetery of Iraqi martyrs standing as a solemn tribute.
However, Prime Minister Sudani faces challenges far more treacherous than reviving the heroic legacy of the Palestinian cause. Over the past week, at the Trebil border crossing with Jordan, large crowds of Iraqi protesters have camped out, and Iraqi oil shipments offered to Jordan at favorable prices are being hindered.
Chants of “Give me the fatwa, and see with your eyes” reflect the Iraqi street’s desire for a fatwa from the supreme Shia authority in Najaf, calling for defensive “jihad” against Israel. Sudani is also dealing with almost daily attacks on US military bases since 17 October.
While there are no “official” military fronts opened against Israel by the Arab states, the intensity of the political scene in Baghdad makes it almost impossible for Iraq to remain immune from the ripple effects of the “Unity of Fronts” that brings together the forces of the Axis of Resistance in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen.
The Resistance’s ‘red lines’
If Israel has shown little concern – at least so far – about the extent to which its brutal assault on Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank affects the passive Arab governments near and far, it is the US that should actually be most anxious.
The relentless Israeli onslaught on Gaza, which has so far claimed over 8,000 civilian lives and left more than 20,000 people injured, poses a significant threat to one of the few accomplishments the US could still claim from its illegal 2003 invasion of Iraq. Back then, Washington boasted it was establishing a democratic system to replace an authoritarian Iraqi regime.
However, even the staunchest American ideologues who defended and justified the invasion are lost for words today, as the Gaza war undermines any noble goals attributed to their intervention. This genocide being committed in Gaza before the eyes of the world is eroding the last remnants of respect and prestige associated with the US.
Indeed, the urgent visit of Prince Faisal bin Farhan to Baghdad underscores Saudi awareness, traditionally aligned with US interests, of the sensitivity of the situation in Iraq. It signals a growing conviction that Iraq may not stay neutral in the ongoing conflict, especially now that Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has announced that Israel has crossed certain “red lines” set by the Axis of Resistance.
These red lines include the much-delayed ground invasion of Gaza, an attempt to completely uproot Hamas and other Palestinian resistance factions, and the Israeli government stepping up its acts of aggression against other fronts.
Checking US moves
For Sudani, being Iraq’s prime minister without a solid party, parliamentary support, or political base to weather the looming regional war is a daunting challenge. Diplomatically, Baghdad is also in an uneasy position.
Incidents such as the one at the UN, where Iraq supported a ceasefire resolution but balked over references to the defunct “two-state solution” – given Iraqi legal stances against normalization with Israel – and concerns about placing Palestinian civilians on the same footing as their occupying overlords.
Sudani’s biggest fear is being pulled into Iraq’s messy domestic politics over this issue. Observers believe that the “Coordination Framework” forces, which played a pivotal role in bringing him to power, won’t stand idle if the US allows Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu to bring about another nakba.
Among these Framework forces, there are Iraqi factions that align themselves with the Resistance Axis, maintain close ties with Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah, and consider the Palestinian cause a central issue in their political discourse.
Hadi al-Amiri, leader of the Badr Organization, was among the first to escalate the rhetoric a day after Washington announced it would ramp up arms supplies to Israel, warning that: “If they intervene, we would intervene… if the Americans intervened openly in this conflict… we will consider all American targets legitimate … and we will not hesitate to target it.”
Three weeks into the current conflict, the extent of US involvement becomes clearer, including implicit and overt threats to prevent any regional party from intervening against US and Israeli interests. Calls and letters from western leaders to Baghdad have also been on the rise.
Jaafar al-Husseini, spokesman for the prominent Iraqi resistance faction Kataib Hezbollah, said that “the resistance in Iraq achieved its first attacks … and will continue at a higher pace,” adding that “The Americans are essential partners in killing the people of Gaza and therefore they must bear the consequences.”
US Proxy or Protector of Palestine?
The west, particularly the US, is employing intimidation tactics through messages conveyed to Baghdad. They are trying to push the Sudani government to act as their proxy within the “containment front,” which will potentially spark internal conflict.
This would jeopardize the relative calm that marked the first year of Sudani’s premiership. It will further undermine efforts to promote Iraq’s regional integration and distance it from Iran in exchange for closer ties with Arab states like Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE.
Iraqi sources say that the status-of-forces agreement known as “SOFA” between Baghdad and Washington may be one of the first “victims” of the Israeli escalation in Gaza and the destabilizing US military involvement in the war.
If Iraqis cancel the agreement regulating US military presence in their country, it would render the US mission and presence illegitimate, effectively pushing Iraq out of the Atlanticist orbit two decades after the invasion.
Another potential casualty of Al-Aqsa Flood is the third Baghdad Conference backed by Paris – Its convening is now in doubt, especially if the region becomes further inflamed. This would be a setback for France’s influence and its role in Iraq, including a lucrative deal worth over $27 billion with French conglomerate Total Energy.
The “hands on the trigger,” as the Iranians have stressed repeatedly, are not just a threat but also a form of pressure to compel the US to rein in the Israeli government’s genocidal actions. Baghdad has conveyed a message from Washington to Tehran that calm is needed, and the Iraqis have also relayed to the Americans the importance of not provoking Lebanese Hezbollah if the US truly wants to contain the situation regionally.
The real question here isn’t whether Iraqi factions will engage in a major war, but whether Washington is so beholden to Israel that it will overlook the potential repercussions of the growing outrage within Iraq and the rest of West Asia, which will eventually engulf the US’s remaining overt colonial outpost in the region.
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Sanctions, War and the Policy of Dual Containment
By SASAN FAYAZMANESH | March 17, 2008
It is now nearly three decades since the Unites States adopted the policy of dual containment of Iran and Iraq. While much has been written about the containment of Iraq, there has been very little in-depth analysis of this policy when it comes to Iran. In a book that is going to be released on March 31, 2008, entitled The United States and Iran: Sanctions, Wars and the Policy of Dual Containment (Routledge), I attempt to address this shortcoming by investigating when and why the US policy of containment of Iran came about, how it evolved, and where it stands today.[1] To the extent that Israel has been involved in US policy making, the study will also include the role that Israel has played in the containment of Iran. Also, since the fate of Iran has been inextricably linked to that of Iraq, occasionally the investigation will overlap with the containment of Iraq.
The policy of dual containment of Iran and Iraq originated during the Carter Administration, but it was not until the Clinton Administration that the expression “dual containment” became popular. … continue
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