US-drafted resolution on Israeli war on Gaza does not call for ceasefire: Report
Press TV – October 22, 2023
The United States has submitted a draft for a UN Security Council resolution on Israel’s onslaught in Gaza without any mention of a ceasefire in it, a report says.
According to a document obtained by Russia’s TASS news agency, the US-drafted resolution condemned the Hamas resistance group’s Operation Al-Aqsa Storm, urged the release of war prisoners, and supported Israel’s so-called right to defend itself. However, it does not stipulate a call for a ceasefire.
It also calls for the full respect of international humanitarian law, including the protection of civilians, and recognizes the efforts of Qatar and other countries that led to the release of two Israelis on October 20, who had been kept as war prisoners by Hamas.
The United States on October 18 vetoed Brazil’s draft resolution on the Middle East. Russia abstained from voting in light of the UN Security Council’s rejection of its suggested amendments to the document.
The UK also abstained, while the remaining 12 members of the UN Security Council voted in favor of the resolution.
On October 17, the UN Security Council did not adopt the Russia-drafted resolution on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as only five countries voted in favor.
The draft resolution called for an immediate ceasefire and also blamed the United States for the unfolding situation in the Middle East.
A UNSC resolution needs at least nine votes in favor and no vetoes by the US, Britain, France, China, or Russia. The United States has traditionally shielded its ally Israel from any Security Council action.
Till now, none of the draft resolutions have received enough votes to pass.
The Israeli regime began the war on Gaza on October 7 following Operation Al-Aqsa Storm launched by Hamas in response to the Israeli regime’s incessant campaign of bloodshed and destruction against Palestinian people.
The war has so far claimed the lives of at least 4,385 Palestinians, mostly women, children, and the elderly.
US needs ‘Department of Offense, not Defense’ – presidential candidate
US presidential candidate Nikki Haley speaks at a campaign event on Saturday in Pella, Iowa. © Getty Images / Scott Olson
RT | October 22, 2023
Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley has called for instilling fear in Washington’s foreign enemies by transforming the US Department of Defense into the “Department of Offense.”
Speaking at a campaign event on Friday in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Haley demanded that the US respond to the Israel-Hamas war by providing the Israeli government and military with “whatever they need whenever they need it.” She added that Washington’s goal must be to “eliminate Hamas, not weaken them,” and she called for cutting off government funding to colleges whose students or employees hold protests in support of the Palestinians.
Haley, a former South Carolina governor who served as US ambassador to the UN under then-President Donald Trump, suggested that the administration of US President Joe Biden must not be fooled by Friday’s release of two American hostages by Hamas. “They are doing this to earn favor with America because they want to try and look good in the eyes of America,” she said. “Don’t fall for it.”
Having a stronger military and strong leadership in the White House could have prevented the war in Israel, as well as the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Haley argued. Biden’s botched withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan in 2021 and his administration’s recent prisoner-swap agreement with Iran emboldened America’s enemies, she claimed, adding that only a stronger military can restore US credibility.
“We’ve got to be smart, and we’ve got to be ready,” Haley said. “I’m tired of talking about a ‘department of defense’. I want a ‘department of offense’. Every enemy needs to fear us.”
Haley is calling for a bigger and apparently more aggressive military despite the fact that the Pentagon already boasts annual spending of nearly $832 billion – exceeding the world’s nine next largest defense budgets combined. The US has about 750 bases in 80 countries, and it has a long history of regime-change programs and military interventions around the world.
“This woman is a crazed warmonger,” US podcast host Joey Mannarino said in an X (formerly Twitter) post. “Don’t let the sweet Southern accent fool you. She’d have us in every war she could find.”
Haley has reportedly been enriched by the US military industrial complex since resigning as Trump’s UN ambassador in October 2018. She was hired as a board member with US defense contractor Boeing in 2019. Although she left the company the following year, she still owned as much as $250,000 in Boeing stock as of a financial disclosure filing in May.
Haley has earned six-figure fees for speaking engagements, including over $230,000 from the Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs, and she was paid $127,500 for her work as a consultant to an advocacy group called United Against a Nuclear Iran, which has lobbied for military strikes against Tehran. She also netted more than $708,000 in consulting fees from Prism Global Management LLC, an investment fund, and her husband holds stakes in two firms with ties to the defense industry.
Israel must be internationally designated as terrorist entity: Iran FM spokesman
Press TV – October 21, 2023
The spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry has censured the ongoing Israeli onslaught in the besieged Gaza Strip, stating that the international community must designate the occupying Tel Aviv regime as a “terrorist entity” and put its leaders on trial over war crimes against Palestinians.
In a post published on his X account on Saturday, Nasser Kan’ani denounced the appalling Israeli atrocities against Palestinians and threats of bombardment of hospitals in the Gaza Strip.
“Following the catastrophic attacks on the al-Ahli Arab Hospital, mosques, schools and the Greek Orthodox church in Gaza, the Zionist regime has threatened to pound other hospitals in Gaza!” he wrote.
“Such horrendous crimes mean that the Zionist regime has crossed the limits of insanity,” said Kan’ani, adding that they amount to a morally shameful scandal for the governments that have long provided unconditional support to the Zionist regime while preaching to others about human rights.
Kan’ani stated that occupation, aggression, war, misdeeds, assassination, genocide, infanticide, attacks on mosques, churches, hospitals, ambulances and rescue vehicles, schools, houses and residential complexes, refugee camps and journalists, etc. are all crimes collectively manifested in the contemporary world by a bogus and terrorist regime entity called “Israel” with a 75-year-long record of relentless atrocities.
“Nowadays, all these crimes are being committed simultaneously and on a daily basis in Gaza just in front of the international community,” he said.
“All people advocating freedom, justice and fairness across the world demand that the Israeli regime be designated internationally as a terrorist entity, and that Zionist leaders be prosecuted and punished as war criminals,” Kan’ani asserted.
The United Nations says about half of Palestinians in Gaza have been made homeless, still trapped inside the enclave, which is known to be one of the most densely populated places on earth.
Health officials in Gaza say the Israeli bombardment has killed at least 4,137 people since October 7, when fighters from the Hamas resistance movement launched an unprecedented large-scale attack against the occupying Israeli regime. Another 13,162 individuals have also been injured.
Ashraf al-Qudra, a spokesman for Gaza’s health ministry, confirmed that nearly 1,400 people, including 720 children, are still missing under the rubble.
Qudra also noted that 352 Palestinians were killed and 669 others wounded over the past 24 hours, including 16 victims who lost their lives in the aerial strike on the Greek Orthodox Church.
Seven general hospitals and 21 health centers are now out of service, he added, calling for international protection of hospitals and health facilities in Gaza in light of intensified Israeli aggression.
The Palestinian health official noted that 46 medical personnel were killed, and 85 others injured during Israeli airstrikes. At least 23 ambulances were destroyed as well.
Israel settler: ‘Israel forces killed hostages, not Hamas’
Soldiers of Israeli army patrol in Kfar Aza settlement near Gaza, on October 15, 2023. [Mostafa Alkharouf – Anadolu Agency]
MEMO | October 21, 2023
Biden laments Hamas attack on Israel ‘disrupted’ Saudi normalization
The Cradle | October 21, 2023
US President Joe Biden says that the historic Operation Al-Aqsa Flood carried out by resistance factions in Gaza aimed to disrupt a potential normalization of ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
“One of the reasons why they acted like they did, why Hamas moved on Israel, is because they knew I was about to sit down with the Saudis,” Biden said on 20 October at a campaign fundraiser in Washington. “Because the Saudis wanted to recognize Israel, and that would in fact unite [West Asia].”
His comments came five days after he told CBS’ 60 Minutes that the prospect of normalization was still alive.
“Look, it’s just going to take time to get done,” Biden said. “It’s going to take time. But the direction, moving into the normalization makes sense for the Arab nations as well as Israel.”
In the weeks leading up to 7 October – the day Hamas and other Gaza resistance factions successfully stormed Israel’s southern settlements – the White House had been working around the clock to seal a “megadeal” with Saudi Arabia that would have seen the kingdom normalize ties with Israel in exchange for a US-sponsored civilian nuclear program, access to more advanced US weapons, and a firm defense pact with Washington that would have forced the US to come to the kingdom’s aid in case of attack.
Furthermore, Saudi Arabia publicly demanded concessions for the Palestinians in exchange for signing a normalization deal, insisting on establishing a Palestinian State along the lines of the 2002 Saudi Peace Initiative to garner any possible support from the Islamic world.
“Every day we get closer [to a deal with Israel],” Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) told Fox News in late September.
“For us, the Palestinian issue is very important. We need to solve that part,” MbS added. “And we have a good negotiations strategy til now.”
However, in the wake of Israel’s campaign of genocide against the civilian population of Gaza, the kingdom was forced to “freeze” normalization talks and has thrown its support behind the plight of the Palestinians.
On Friday, the Saudi leader stressed the need “to stop military operations against civilians and infrastructure that affect their daily lives” and “create conditions to achieve lasting peace that ensures the establishment of a Palestinian state.”
The Saudi government has also refused to condemn the actions of the Gaza resistance, instead reminding Tel Aviv that Riyadh had issued repeated warnings of a possible escalation in light of “the ongoing occupation and the deprivation of the Palestinian people of their legitimate rights, as well as the repeated deliberate provocations against their sanctities.”
More Palestinians killed in early morning Israeli strikes across Gaza Strip
Press TV – October 21, 2023
At least 53 Palestinians have been killed and several others injured after Israeli military aircraft carried out a fresh round of airstrikes against various residential neighborhoods across the besieged Gaza Strip.
The official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported that the warplanes bombarded several buildings in the town of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip early on Saturday, killing at least 14 people and wounding others.
The aerial raids also left several people missing beneath the rubble, according to the news agency.
At least 14 people were also killed in Jabalia town in the north of the Gaza Strip.
Moreover, Israeli fighter jets struck the eastern flank of the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, killing and wounding several people.
Israeli warplanes also pounded a number of residential buildings in the northwestern Sheikh Radwan district of Gaza City, as well as the eastern and northern parts of Beit Lahiya, WAFA reported.
Houses were hit in Khan Yunis city as Israeli aircraft pounded the southern Gaza Strip with more air raids.
There were no immediate reports about the exact number of casualties and the extent of damage caused.
The United Nations says about half of Palestinians in Gaza have been rendered homeless while still trapped inside the enclave, which is known to be one of the most densely populated places on earth.
Health officials in Gaza say the Israeli bombardment has killed at least 4,137 people since October 7, when fighters from the Hamas resistance movement launched an unprecedented large-scale attack against the occupying Israeli regime. Another 13,162 individuals have also been injured.
Ashraf al-Qudra, a spokesman for Gaza’s health ministry, confirmed that nearly 1,400 people, including 720 children, are still missing under the rubble.
Qudra also noted that 352 Palestinians were killed and 669 others wounded over the past 24 hours, including 16 victims who lost their lives in the aerial strike on the Greek Orthodox Church.
Seven general hospitals and 21 health centers are now out of service, he explained, calling for international protection of hospitals and health facilities in Gaza in light of the intensified Israeli aggression.
The senior Palestinian health official further said that 46 medical personnel were killed and 85 others injured during Israeli airstrikes. At least 23 ambulances were destroyed as well.
Rights bodies denounce West’s double standards
Meanwhile, international human rights organizations have slammed Western governments over their hypocrisy and double standards in the face of Israeli atrocities in the Gaza Strip.
Tom Porteous, the deputy program director at an international rights agency, said in a statement that while the United States and European countries denounced Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine, there was no clear condemnation of Israel’s actions in Gaza.
“Where is the clear condemnation of the cruel tightening of the 16-year closure of Gaza that amounts to collective punishment, a war crime? Where is the outrage at statements by Israeli political leaders that seek to blur the all-important distinction between civilians and combatants in Gaza even as they order ever more intense bombardment of this densely populated territory, reducing city blocks and neighborhoods to rubble? Where are the clear and unequivocal calls for Israel to respect international norms in its attack on Gaza, let alone for accountability?” he said.
He further described the West’s hypocrisy and double standards as “flagrant and obvious.”
Israel threatens to bomb Gaza hospital housing 12,000 Palestinians
Press TV – October 20, 2023
A few days after killing hundreds of people by bombing a hospital in the Gaza Strip, Israel has threatened to attack yet another such facility in the coastal sliver, which has come to house thousands of Palestinians.
On Friday, Reuters cited the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) as saying that the Israeli military had warned it to “immediately evacuate” Gaza’s al-Quds hospital.
The facility is currently rendering services to more than 400 patients. It has also turned into a refuge for around 12,000 Palestinians, who have fled there amid a relentless Israeli war that has been pounding the Palestinian territory since October 7. The war has so far claimed more than 4,000 people.
The PRCS described “70%” of the displaced Palestinians inside the hospital as “children and women,” saying they “are in imminent danger.”
“This place could turn to ashes if those threats are carried out,” it said, asking, “Is there a world power capable of stopping the threats of the Israeli occupation army to bomb hospitals with innocent civilians inside?”
The Palestinian Red Crescent issued an urgent appeal to the international community, saying, “We call on the world to take immediate and urgent action to prevent a new massacre like the one that occurred on the al-Ahli Baptist Hospital.”
More than 500 people lost their lives in an Israeli airstrike against al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza City on Tuesday. Thousands of Palestinians were present at the facility when the attack took place.
Numerous world leaders have vehemently denounced the massacre. Major cities across the world have also turned into the scene of angry demonstrations against Tel Aviv’s indiscriminate campaign of bloodshed and destruction against the Palestinian territory.
The regime has been responsible for numerous deadly offensives against hospitals and other healthcare facilities across Gaza through both its near-daily attacks against the coastal sliver and several wars that it has waged against the territory in the past.
Israeli economy plunges into recession
The Cradle | October 20, 2023
Israeli economists have reported a major recession due to the ongoing war against the Palestinian resistance factions.
“Israel has entered the war, and it is in a recession, and trade is currently zero,” Israeli daily business paper, The Marker, noted.
The Israeli economy has taken a serious hit at the hands of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, losing $3 billion in damages on the first day of the war alone, a state that some economists say is worse than it was during their 2006 war with Hezbollah.
The Marker report went on to say, “the second week of the war is about to end, a week when there is almost no trade in Israel, and many are trying to stay with their heads above the water, afraid of the future – and they still don’t know who will compensate them and when?”
US economic risk analysis firm Moody’s has put the Israeli A1 rating, a high rating attractive to any investor, on hold, given the current crisis.
Fitch Ratings had also negatively reviewed Israeli economic status, placing their credit score on a negative watch earlier this week.
“While not our base case, such large-scale escalation, in addition to human loss, could result in significant additional military spending, destruction of infrastructure, sustained change in consumer and investment sentiment and thus lead to a large deterioration of Israel’s credit metrics,” Fitch Ratings wrote in a statement.
No previous war or global economic crisis has downgraded Israel’s rating by any of the major economic rating companies. These downgrades can make future trade more difficult for Israel.
Interest rates are at the highest they have been since the 2006 war with Lebanon.
According to a Bloomberg report, the shekel is among the world’s worst-performing currencies this month despite a $45 billion package of emergency measures.
Two days after the start of the current war, on 9 October, the Bank of Israel sold off $30 billion in foreign reserves in an attempt to prevent the currency from further falling under the dollar.
This increasing economic decline is an addition to the already faulty economy.
Featured Video
No Vote, No Representation, No State: Democracy, Israeli Style
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
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
Blog Roll
Aletho News- No Vote, No Representation, No State: Democracy, Israeli Style
- Zionist Bought Senate Blocks Information About American Citizens Killed By Israel
- While Gaza dominates the UN, these are the people keeping it alive
- New Report: “Scholasticide and Genocide in Gaza: Assessment, Testimonies and Legal Analysis”
- ‘THAAD Delusion’: Iran war exposes US missile shield limits – The Atlantic
- Moscow issues warning to NATO over Russian exclave
- Yes, the Iran war has destroyed Trump’s presidency
- The fallacy of US delusions about Iran’s economic collapse
- Hezbollah denies Syria cell link, warns of Israeli plan to sow discord
- The legacy of US sanctions, war, and occupation in Iraq
- If Americans Knew
- Mamdani releases plan to combat antisemitism and hate crimes in New York City
- Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Publish Letter to the American People
- DMFI launches $1 million ad campaign supporting Virginia’s Elaine Luria
- US Senate blocks resolution seeking report on Americans killed by Israel
- Israeli Attacks Kill Ten Palestinians in Gaza
- Massacre at Minab: The School That Became a Grave
- Israeli media: The IDF Shows It Doesn’t Turn a Blind Eye; It Actively Emboldens Settler Havoc
- As settlers ravage West Bank, Israeli forces kill 10 in Gaza – Daily Update
- New Report: “Scholasticide and Genocide in Gaza: Assessment, Testimonies and Legal Analysis”
- Ex-Biden officials are desperate for a Gaza scapegoat
- No Tricks Zone
- Green Energy Debacle: German Expert Professor Fritz Vahrenholt Warns Of Severe Economic And Social Consequences
- Two More Paleo Reconstructions Affirm Meters-Higher Sea Levels Across Ireland, Brazil 7000-6000 Years Ago
- New Study: Earth And Venus Surface Warmth Largely Explained By Convection And Lapse Rate, Not CO2 Or Radiation
- 2025 Nature Paper Claiming Worsening Global Drought Gets RETRACTED …Heavily Flawed
- New Study: ‘Global Drought Shows No Detectable Recent Acceleration Under Climate Warming’
- Economic Masterminds: German Socialists Suggest Taxing Productivity Gains Stemming From Using AI
- The South China Sea Has Not Been Cooperating With The Climate Change Narrative
- Energy Crisis: Germany Enters Heating Season With Historically Low Gas Reserve Fill Levels
- New Study: The Antarctic Ice Sheet Gained Mass From 2020-2024 Due To Staggering Snow And Ice Accumulation
- Study: Ocean Heating Rates From Thousands Of Years Ago ‘Dwarf’ Modern Ocean Heating Rates
