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Hamas commander’s reappearance on video belies Israeli claim of killing him

Press TV – January 23, 2025

The reappearance of a high-ranking commander of the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas in a video clip has belied the Israeli military’s claim of killing him in the northern Gaza Strip last May.

The Palestinian media outlet Arab48 released footage of Hussein Fayyad at a funeral in northern Gaza on Wednesday as he was speaking among a group of people amid the ruins of a bombed-out building.

The video, which was widely shared on social media, showed Fayyad praising Gaza’s resistance against the Israeli regime’s months-long aggression and dismissing the onslaught as futile.

“When the strong do not achieve their goals, they are defeated, but the weak, which prevented the strong from achieving their goals, are the victors,” the Hamas commander said. “Gaza has emerged unbreakable. We all saw yesterday how Gaza stood victorious with its head held high.”

The Israeli occupation army claimed in May last year that Fayyad, the commander of the Beit Hanoun Brigade of the al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, had been “eliminated” in an underground operation in Jabaliya tunnel, north of Gaza City.

Following the release of the footage on Wednesday, the Israeli military was forced to admit that its claim of killing the Hamas commander was based on flawed intelligence.

Fayyad’s reappearance once again raised questions about Israel’s battlefield claims in Gaza as the regime has in the past erroneously claimed the killing of key Palestinian figures.

The Israeli regime was forced to agree to a ceasefire agreement with Hamas on Sunday, which put an end to more than 15 months of merciless aggression on the blockaded Gaza Strip.

Israel’s brutal onslaught on the besieged territory, which started on October 7, 2023, killed more than 47,000 Palestinians and wounded nearly 112,000 others.

The toll continues to climb as families return to the ruins of their former homes following the ceasefire, searching for the bodies of loved ones left in the aftermath. The Palestinian Ministry of Health has reported that around 10,000 bodies are still unaccounted for beneath the rubble.

January 23, 2025 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | 1 Comment

Israel holds multiple Palestinian doctors captive. Some are already dead

By Eva Bartlett | RT | January 22, 2025

As you read this, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, a Palestinian doctor from Gaza, is likely still in Israeli detention – and, according to mounting evidence, being tortured.

Despite the recent hostage swap with Hamas, multiple health professionals are still being held captive, with abundant reports of mistreatment, neglect and torture. One of these is Dr. Abu Safiya, arrested on December 27 and transferred to the notorious Sde Teyman prison camp (dubbed Israel’s version of Guantanamo Bay).

As each day passes, and with reports from released prisoners who attest Dr. Abu Safiya was being tortured while they were in the same prison, fears of his death grow. At least three Palestinian doctors abducted from Gaza have died in Israeli prisons since October 2023.

Dr. Abu Safiya, the director of  Kamal Adwan Hospital, was taken after the IDF had repeatedly attacked the hospital over the course of over three months, ultimately invading it, burning and severely damaging essential buildings, and detaining dozens of medical staff. By now the chilling scene of Dr. Abu Safiya walking toward the Israeli tank has gone viral, as people around the world are demanding his release.

According to Medical Aid for Palestinians, a British charity working in Palestine, when the IDF invaded his place of work, “an estimated 350 people, including patients, were forced to leave the hospital. Some patients arrived at the Indonesian Hospital, which was not able to provide any care after being forced out of service by the Israeli military on December 24. The last remaining partially operational hospital in the North Gaza Governorate, al-Awda Hospital, is on the brink of collapse, struggling to function amid relentless attacks and resource shortages.”

The non-profit Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor reports that after abducting him, “the Israeli army subsequently transferred Dr. Abu Safiya to a field interrogation site in the Al-Fakhura area of Jabalia Refugee Camp, where he was stripped and whipped with a thick wire commonly used for street electrical wiring.”

The torture of Palestinians in Israeli prisons has been widely reported. Methods include electric shocks to genitals, stress positions, psychological torture, near-starvation, and rape resulting in serious internal damage.

Following a request by the non-profit organization Physicians for Humans Rights-Israel (PHRI) for a legal visit to  Abu Safiya, the Israeli military claimed that it had “found no indication of the arrest or detention of the individual in question.”

However, one report cites Palestinians released from Sde Teiman detention camp on December 29, 2024, saying Dr. Abu Safiya was being held there. One of the released Palestinians said the doctor had given him the phone numbers of his sons, and requested that The Red Cross and media look into his situation.

On January 5, PHRI posted on X, “The Israeli military also continues to withhold information about Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya’s detention location, despite retracting their earlier claim that he isn’t being held in Israel.”

A more recently-released detainee, Hazem Alwan, said he had been abducted from Jabalia by the Israeli army and used as a human shield before ultimately being taken to an Israeli prison, where he says he spent two days with Dr. Abu Safiya.

“It was clear, the brutal methods of torture used by the occupation on him. Dr. Hussam is in danger, nobody is looking after him. His mental state is completely shattered, completely…”

In October 2024, when the Israeli army invaded Kamal Adwan Hospital, they killed Dr. Abu Safiya’s son, Ibrahim. But Dr. Safiya continued to work to help injured Palestinians in the dire conditions of northern Gaza.

In November 2024, he was injured in an Israeli quad-copter drone attack, believed to be, “an assassination attempt by Israel due to his unwavering commitment to providing medical care to patients in northern Gaza.”

He continued his updates from the besieged hospital, on December 6, 2024, noting, “The situation inside and around the hospital is catastrophic. There are a large number of martyrs and wounded, including four martyrs from the hospital’s medical staff, and there are no surgeons left.”

He spoke of the series of Israeli airstrikes, just outside the hospital, and of being forced by Israeli soldiers to evacuate all patients, displaced persons and medical staff to the hospital yard and forcibly take them out to the checkpoint.

“In the morning, we were shocked to see hundreds of dead bodies and wounded people in the streets surrounding the hospital.”

On January 9, the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, an NGO based in the Jabalis refugee camp in Palestine, noted that, “Dr. Abu Safiya’s detention was extended until February 13, 2025 by an Israeli Court” and that his legal counsel – which has been prevented from seeing him – will remain banned from visiting the doctor until January 22.

Still another doctor, Dr. Akram Abu Ouda, head of Orthopedics at the Indonesian Hospital (also in northern Gaza) is missing. Ramy Abdu (of Euro-Med) noted, “He has been detained by Israel for over a year, and it is our duty to remind the world he is wrongfully imprisoned, suffering under torture, with his health deteriorating.”

Palestinian doctors tortured to death

In September 2024, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health, Tlaleng Mofokeng, stated, “Dr. Ziad Eldalou is the third doctor confirmed to have died while being detained by Israel since October 7, 2023.”

Eldalou was, the OHCHR notes, an internal medicine physician at Gaza’s Al Shifa Hospital, detained with other healthcare workers by invading Israeli soldiers on March 18, 2024, who died just three days later, while in detention.

In its report on Dr. Abu Safiya, Euro-Med recalls the deaths of Dr. Adnan Al-Bursh, head of the orthopedics department at Al-Shifa Hospital, who was “killed under torture at Ofer Detention Centre on April 19, 2024,” and Dr. Iyad Al-Rantisi, head of the obstetrics department at Kamal Adwan Hospital, who was “killed due to torture at an Israeli Shin Bet interrogation center in Ashkelon, one week after his detention in November 2023. Israeli authorities concealed his death for more than seven months.”

Dr. Adnan Al-Bursh was “likely raped to death,” wrote United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese.

These murders, and the imprisonment and torture of numerous Palestinian doctors from Gaza, and the killing of over 1,000 Palestinian health and medical professionals, are part of Israel’s systematic attack on every aspect of Gaza’s health care system, as well as on the Palestinians’ morale: seeing doctors who didn’t abandon their patients be imprisoned, tortured and killed is a crushing blow.

Both Mofokeng and Albanese, at the beginning of January, 2025, issued an urgent warning: “We are horrified and concerned by reports from northern Gaza and especially the attack on the healthcare workers including the last remaining of 22 now-destroyed hospitals: Kamal Adwan Hospital.”

“We are gravely concerned with the fate of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, yet another doctor to be harassed, kidnapped and arbitrarily detained by the occupation forces, in his case for defying evacuation orders to leave his patients and colleagues behind. This is part of a pattern by Israel to continuously bombard, destroy and fully annihilate the realization of the right to health in Gaza.”

The lack of information on Dr. Abu Safiya’s well-being, the testimonies from released abductees that he was being tortured, and the prohibition on him accessing his lawyer have heightened fears that he could die in Israeli detention.

This must not be allowed to happen. As Euro-Med stated, immediate international intervention is needed for his release. What’s even more tragic is that were he being held by one of the West’s proclaimed ‘adversaries’, rather than its allies, such intervention would not be long in coming.

Eva Bartlett is a a Canadian independent journalist. She has spent years on the ground covering conflict zones in the Middle East, especially in Syria and Palestine (where she lived for nearly four years).

January 22, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , , , , | 2 Comments

Gaza’s unbreakable resistance: A historical perspective on the war and its aftermath

By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | January 22, 2025

The problem with political analysis is that it often lacks historical perspective and is mostly limited to recent events.

The current analysis of the Israeli war on Gaza falls victim to this narrow thinking. The ceasefire agreement, signed between Palestinian groups and Israel under Egyptian, Qatari and US mediation in Doha on 15 January is one example.

Some analysts, including many from the region, insist on framing the outcome of the war as a direct result of Israel’s political dynamics. They argue that Israel’s political crisis is the main reason the country failed to achieve its declared and undeclared war objectives –  namely, gaining total “security control” over Gaza and ethnically cleansing its population.

However, this analysis assumes that the decision to go to war or not is entirely in Israel’s hands. It continues to elevate Israel’s role as the only entity capable of shaping political outcomes in the region, even when those outcomes do not favour Israel

Another group of analysts focuses entirely on the American factor, claiming that the decision to end the war ultimately rested with the White House. Shortly after the ceasefire was officially declared in Gaza, a pan-Arab TV channel asked a group of experts whether it was the Biden or Trump administration that deserved credit for supposedly “pressuring Israel” to agree to a ceasefire.

Some argue that it was Trump’s envoy to Israel, Steve Witkoff, who denied Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu any room to manoeuvre, thus forcing him, albeit reluctantly, to accept the ceasefire terms.

Others counter by saying that the agreement was initially presented by the Biden administration. They argue that Biden’s supposedly active diplomacy ultimately led to the ceasefire.

The latter group fails to acknowledge that it was Biden’s unconditional support for Israel that sustained the war. His UN envoy’s constant rejection of ceasefire calls at the Security Council made international efforts to stop the war irrelevant.

The former group, however, ignores the fact that Israeli society was already at a breaking point. The war on Gaza had proven unwinnable. This means that, whether Trump pressured Netanyahu or not, the outcome of the war was already sealed. Continuing the war would have meant the implosion of Israeli society.

On the Palestinian side, some analyses – affiliated with one faction or another – exploit the war’s outcome for political gain. This type of thinking is extremely insensitive and must be wholly rejected.

There are also those hoping to play a role in Gaza’s reconstruction to gain political and financial leverage and increase their influence. This is a shameful stance, given the total destruction of Gaza and the urgent need to recover the thousands of bodies trapped under rubble, as well as to heal the wounded and the population as a whole.

One thing all these analyses overlook is that Israel failed in Gaza because the population of Gaza proved unbreakable. Such notions are often neglected in mainstream political discussions, which tend to commit to an elitist line. This line is entirely removed from the daily struggles and collective choices of ordinary people, even when they achieve extraordinary feats.

Gaza’s history is one of both pain and pride. It stretches back to ancient civilisations and includes great resistance against invasion, such as the three-month siege by Alexander the Great and his Macedonian army in 332 BCE.

Back then, Gazans resisted and endured for months before their leader, Batis, was captured, tortured to death, and the city was sacked.

This legendary resilience and sumoud (steadfastness) proved crucial in numerous other fights against foreign invaders, including resistance to Napoleon Bonaparte’s army in 1799.

Even if some of Gaza’s current population is unaware of that history, they are a direct product of it. From this perspective, neither Israeli political dynamics, the change of the US administration, nor any other factor is relevant.

This is known as “long history” or longue durée. Far from being merely an academic concept, the long legacy of resistance against injustice has shaped the collective mindset of the Palestinian population in Gaza over the years. How else can we explain how a small, isolated and impoverished population, living in such a tiny piece of land, managed to withstand firepower equivalent to many nuclear bombs?

The war ended because Gaza withstood it –  not because of the kindness of an American president. It is crucial that we emphasise this point repeatedly, rather than seeking inconclusive and irrational answers.

It matters little how we define victory and defeat for a nation still suffering the consequences of a war of annihilation. However, it is important to recognise that Palestinians in Gaza stood their ground, despite immense losses and prevailed. This can only be credited to them -a nation that has historically proven unbreakable. This truth, rooted in “long history”, remains valid today.

January 22, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | 1 Comment

The Gaza Genocide: A New Low in Democracy and Human History

Germany’s Undemocratic Assaults

By Ricardo Martins – New Eastern Outlook – January 22, 2025

The genocide unfolding in Gaza continues to expose the inadequacies of the international judiciary, organizations, and, more importantly, the complicity of part of the global community of nations in enabling such atrocities.

Germany Taken to the ICJ for Complicity in Genocide

In March 2024, Nicaragua brought a case against Germany at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), accusing it of aiding and supporting genocide in Gaza by supplying arms to Israel, fully aware of the genocidal risks involved. Shockingly, the ICJ failed to condemn Germany.

Germany also maintains unwavering and unconditional political and diplomatic support for Israel. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock displayed a cheerleader-like demeanor during her initial visit to support Israel after October 7—a stance echoed by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

According to the Middle East Eye, Germany’s support for Israel’s actions highlights a hypocritical approach to international law and human rights. The analysis goes further: “No one can reasonably believe in the fairytale of Germany’s moral responsibility anymore, as the country defends, finances, arms, and diplomatically supports the genocide of Palestinians, in addition to the bombing of Lebanon, Yemen, and Syria, while shielding those responsible from accountability.”

Protests Against Israel Are Considered “Antisemitic” in Germany

With the Bundestag’s adoption last November of the resolution “Never again is now: Protecting, preserving, and strengthening Jewish life in Germany”, the country has entered a proto-fascistic state—without any condemnation from the European Union. Policymakers crafting this resolution refused input from diverse human rights groups and instead relied solely on the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism.

Even before this resolution, but now bolstered by it, Germany has witnessed a gradual erosion of democracy under its ‘proud guilty’ ideology. This includes prior censorship of cultural events partially or fully funded by public money, the cancellation of events featuring critics of Israel’s government, and even conferences discussing the Palestinian question. Concurrently, there has been a sharp rise in the smearing of critics with allegations of antisemitism. Make no mistake—censorship is alive and well in Germany. Protests critical of Israel’s actions in Gaza are being unjustly and undemocratically labelled as antisemitic.

Further, children can be banned from schools for wearing “pro-Palestinian symbols such as the keffiyeh,” as is written in a letter sent to school principals by Berlin’s education senator, Katharina Günther-Wünsch.

Furthermore, this resolution introduced a mandatory declaration for asylum seekers, requiring them to affirm the existence of the state of Israel and pledge not to participate in or support boycott campaigns against it.

Over the past month, German politicians have called for changing laws, including those around the right to demonstrate and freedom of opinion. The idea of withdrawing citizenship, residency, welfare benefits or funding from anyone accused of making anti-Semitic statements has been floated as well as a plan to only allow “native Germans” to protest.

Prior to this resolution, we have already witnessed undemocratic and even fascistic actions in Germany. These include the arrest of citizens for trivial reasons, such as holding a placard stating “I am not complicit in genocide,” and the arrest of a child for holding a Palestinian flag. Former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis was prohibited from addressing a Jew-Palestinian conference and from permanently speaking to the German public online. A meeting organised by the progressive collective DiEM25, alongside Palestinian and Jewish Voice for Peace groups, on April 12th, 2024, was disrupted, dismantled, and labelled an “Islamist” event by the Interior Ministry.

Furthermore, the renowned British-Palestinian surgeon Dr Ghassan Abu-Sitta, who volunteered in Gaza hospitals during the genocide, was banned from entering Germany. Dr Abu-Sitta was due to provide a firsthand account of the atrocities taking place on the ground. Due to Germany’s Schengen-wide interdiction, he was also barred from entering France to speak at a French Senate meeting, despite being invited by the Senate itself.

These actions raise pressing and undeniable questions about a democratic deficit and institutional racism within German governmental structures.

A Threat to Germany’s Academic Freedom and Reputation?

Protests critical of Israel’s actions in Gaza have been wrongfully labelled antisemitic. The German Education Ministry sought to explore whether academic funding could be cut for those critical of clearing the pro-Palestinian camp at Freie Universität Berlin (Free University Berlin). This crackdown led to police detaining over 70 individuals temporarily and initiating 80 criminal investigations, alongside 79 misdemeanour proceedings.

Ironically, the Education Minister, Bettina Stark-Watzinger of the Free Democratic Party (FDP), previously declared that freedom is the foundation “for the way we live in our country, for our democracy, our constitutional state, and our prosperity.” She made this statement during the launch of Germany’s Science Year 2024.

In stark contrast, over 2,900 academics have accused Stark-Watzinger of threatening freedom of expression, calling for her resignation in an open letter. The letter, signed by thousands of German and international academics, accuses the education minister of intimidation, stating: “Repressive reviews of academics who publicly express critical views of governmental decisions are characteristic of authoritarian regimes that systematically suppress free discussion, including within universities.”

Why is Germany Having This Behaviour?

Driven by its ideology of ‘proud guilt,’ which elevates support for Israel to a raison d’état, Germany appears to have abandoned all sense of proportionality and reason—where even a child wearing a keffiyeh in a school is deemed a threat to Israel’s existence and, by extension, to German security.

In many respects, it now exhibits the characteristics of a quasi-fascist state. My few examples above, out of thousands, support this claim. To make things worse, the German government refuses to comply with the ICC prosecutor’s request to arrest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.

According to Körber Fondation’s latest survey, which polls German citizens on foreign policy, only 19% of Germans support their country’s military aid to Israel. This shows a blatant divide between Germany’s political/media elites and the people they are supposed to represent.

German citizens deserve to know why their freedoms are being restricted and whose interests are being served. Why do Israel’s interests take precedence over those of German citizens and Germany’s international reputation? Why must the Palestinian people continue to pay the price for Germany’s past mistakes? I will delve into this matter further in my next article.

To conclude, the most astonishing aspect of these atrocities against German freedoms and the Palestinian people is the deafening silence of the European Union and the European Human Rights Court. The double standards of the European institutions are blatant and hypocritical.

Ricardo Martins ‒ PhD in Sociology, specializing in policies, European and world politics and geopolitics

January 22, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , , | 1 Comment

Trump nominee for UN ambassador says Jews have ‘biblical right’ to occupied West Bank

(Photo credit: Tierney L. Cross for The New York Times)
The Cradle | January 22, 2025

Representative Elise Stefanik, recently nominated by President Donald Trump for the position of US ambassador to the UN, said that she supports the claims made by the far right in Israel that Jews have the “biblical right” to take land from Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

Stefanik, a Republican congresswoman from New York, made the statement while being questioned during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on 21 January to discuss her confirmation as the new UN Ambassador.

Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen asked Stefanik whether she supported Palestinians’ right to self-determination.

Stefanik, who is known to be a staunch advocate of Israel and supports its decision to defund the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), refused to answer the question directly, saying, “I think they deserve more than the failures that they have suffered under the leadership of terrorists.”

Van Hollen pressed her further by saying that she had previously stated to him in a private meeting that “Israel has a biblical right to the entire West Bank.”

“I rarely get surprised by answers in my office, but I asked you if you believe the views of Israeli Finance Minister (Bezalel) Smotrich and former National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who believe that Israel has a biblical right to the entire West Bank. In that conversation, you said to me (yes) that you agree with that view. Is that your view today?”

Stefanik responded with one word, “Yes.”

The term “biblical right” refers to claims by extremist Jews and Zionist Christians that the Torah included a promise from God to give the entire historical land of Palestine to modern-day Jews. It claims that Jews are justified in killing and ethnically cleansing Palestinian Christians and Muslims from their lands and homes.

In June last year, US-Israeli billionaire Miriam Adelson reportedly donated $100 million to Trump for his presidential campaign in exchange for a promise to allow Israel to annex the West Bank.

https://twitter.com/KhalilJeries/status/1874889229815460333

Representative Stefanik was first elected to the US House of Representatives in 2014, the youngest woman elected to Congress at the time, at just 30 years old, and represented New York’s 21st Congressional District.

She made headlines in 2024 by questioning the presidents of the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology about what she claimed was antisemitism on college campuses.

At the time, US students at university campuses all across the country were protesting Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

After positioning herself as a champion in the fight against the alleged rise in antisemitism, Rep. Stefanik began receiving large donations from Republican Jewish donors.

POLITICO reported that she “raked in more than $7 million during the first quarter of the year [2024] fueled by her support from prominent Jewish Republicans in the wake of her grilling of university presidents over campus antisemitism.”

The claim that Israeli Jews have the biblical right to the West Bank ignores the rights of Palestine’s indigenous Christians, who have lived in the Holy Land continuously since the time of Jesus over 2000 years ago. Palestinian Christians refer to themselves as “living stones,” in reference to Jesus telling his disciple Peter, “On this rock I will build my church.”

https://twitter.com/a_westgate/status/1718710112603283504

Israel’s occupation and Jewish settlement of the West Bank and Gaza since 1967 have brought the Palestinian Christian community to the brink of extinction.

In January of last year, Rev. Munther Isaac of the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem stated, “Here in the West Bank, many Palestinian Christian families have already left out of fear. They look at what was happening in Gaza, and they think, ‘Could this happen to us one day?’”

Isaac said it is “impossible to thrive as a community in the midst of conflict, oppression and occupation.”

January 22, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | 2 Comments

Who is Trump’s Pick For Pentagon’s Middle East Policy Chief?

Sputnik – 22.01.2025

Former CIA analyst and counterterrorism officer Michael P. DiMino, who advocated for humanitarian aid to Gaza and against escalation with Iran, has been sworn in as the Pentagon’s Middle East policy chief.

He will be responsible for signing off on all foreign military agreements on the supply of weapons to US-aligned countries in the region, including Israel.

Earlier, DiMino criticized Biden’s administration for failing to pressure Israel on opening the humanitarian flow to Gaza; meanwhile, he praised the former administration for refusing to participate in Israel’s retaliatory strikes on Iran, Al-Monitor reports.

January 22, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , | Leave a comment

Israeli snipers kill two Palestinian children in Gaza’s Rafah despite ceasefire

Press TV – January 21, 2025

Israeli gunfire has killed two Palestinian children and injured several others in the city of Rafah in the Gaza Strip, despite a ceasefire currently in effect between Israel and Palestinian resistance movement Hamas.

Zakaria Hamid Yahya Barbakh was fatally shot on Monday near al-Awda Square in southern areas of Rafah city, south of the Gaza Strip, before witnesses filmed the Israeli army opening fire on a man trying to recover the child’s body.

According to reports, another Palestinian kid had been killed and nine others, among them children, were injured by Israeli gunfire in Rafah earlier in the day.

Palestinian sources reported that Israeli tanks violated a designated buffer zone, unleashing heavy gunfire on civilians. According to the sources, the military pushed forward 850 meters (2,789 feet) into the territory, surpassing the 700-meter limit established in the ceasefire agreement.

The ceasefire agreement, which took effect on Sunday, is designed to last for 42 days and includes provisions for negotiations on subsequent phases, mediated by Egypt, Qatar, and the United States. As part of the agreement, Hamas released three Israeli women in exchange for 90 Palestinian prisoners, mostly women and children.

As the ceasefire continues in war-wracked Gaza. the Israeli violence rages in the occupied West Bank.

Israeli settlers, backed by military forces, unleashed violence in the occupied West Bank villages north of al-Quds, where Palestinian homes, a nursery and a local business were burned.

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Palestine, in a statement, has expressed alarm at the “wave of renewed violence” by Israeli settlers and armed forces in the occupied West Bank, amid the implementation of the Gaza ceasefire agreement.

In addition to the violence perpetrated by settlers, Israeli forces have reportedly established military checkpoints and closed roads across the West Bank, restricting Palestinians’ movement.

According to Palestinian media outlets, all entrances to al-Khalil, Qalqilya, and Salfit, as well as several towns and villages within the Salfit governorate have been closed, with similar measures being enforced in Bethlehem.

In a related development, US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order reversing sanctions on Israeli settlers in the West Bank, which were previously implemented by the Joe Biden administration as part of efforts against what they called the “extremist settlement movement.”

January 21, 2025 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , | 1 Comment

Blinken slammed by NYT as the “Secretary of War” for continuing war in Ukraine, Gaza

By Ahmed Adel | January 21, 2025

During his final trip as America’s top diplomat last week, Antony J. Blinken was described by French President Emmanuel Macron as “an eminent servant of peace” at a ceremony at the Élysée Palace in Paris before being awarded the country’s highest tribute, the Legion of Honour medal. However, Blinken’s reception in the US during the last few days as Secretary of State has been the polar opposite, with the New York Times describing him as the “Secretary of War” and protestors slamming him for having a “legacy” of genocide.

“Secretary Blinken! Your legacy will be genocide! You will forever be known as ‘Bloody Blinken, Secretary of Genocide,’” shouted a protester who had infiltrated an Atlantic Council event on January 16. Security officers led the protestor out of the room, as well as a man who waved a sign that read “Blinken: War Criminal.”

The founder and editor of the Grayzone website, Max Blumenthal, also interrupted the press conference, telling Blinken: “In Gaza, 300 journalists have been targeted by your bombs. We all know there was an agreement in May. Tony, you didn’t stop the flow of bombs. Why have you sacrificed a rules-based order for your commitment to Zionism?”

The Biden administration faced consistent criticism for its military and political support for Israel through its war against Hamas, which has only elevated since US President Donald Trump, days before he entered the Oval Office, managed to coerce Israel to accept a peace deal that had been on the table for most of 2024.

However, beyond activist-journalists, even the mainstream media in the US began slamming Blinken, but only days before stepping down as Secretary of State.

Blinken’s term began with the disorderly withdrawal of US personnel from Afghanistan, where Washington had accumulated forces and assets for 20 years and left everything in only a few days in August 2021. The situation was so precarious that some Republican Party congressmen demanded that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken resign, recalls the New York Times.

In a recent interview with the same newspaper, Blinken admitted that Washington began discreetly arming Kiev even before the start of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine, specifically in September and December 2021.

In the new article, the newspaper said that the US Secretary of State was more of a war strategist than a peacemaker in the Ukrainian conflict.

“When the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark A. Milley, suggested in late 2022 that Ukraine should capitalize on battlefield gains by seeking peace talks with Moscow, Mr. Blinken insisted the fight should go on,” the New York Times reported.

However, it was a new armed conflict that significantly damaged the reputation of the former head of US diplomacy. After the attack by Hamas against Israel on October 7, 2023, Blinken stressed not only the historic alliance between Tel Aviv and Washington but also his Jewish ethnicity on this issue.

But the more frightening Israel’s methods of warfare in Gaza became, the more public disillusionment with the Secretary of State grew against the backdrop of the declining effectiveness of his numerous visits to the Middle East.

“Of everyone in the cast of characters at the top, Antony Blinken has been the most disappointing,” the newspaper quoted diplomat and Iraq war veteran Michael Casey, who resigned last year from his State Department post in Jerusalem, where he worked on Gaza.

In fact, Blinken’s propensity for war has led to the New York Times finally acknowledging, albeit too late since Trump is already in power, as the “Secretary of War.”

“So entwined are Mr. Blinken’s work and his reputation with conflict that he could just as easily be called by a retired cabinet title that is still on office plaques in the old State Department building — secretary of war,” the newspaper added.

Following the chorus condemning Blinken’s passion for war, Hala Rharrit, a diplomat who resigned from the US State Department in April, said that the former Secretary of State’s choice to support Israel would “haunt” him for the rest of his life.

“When I became a diplomat, I swore an oath to defend the Constitution. They are circumventing the process to continue the flow of arms, knowing how catastrophic that is. For me, it’s really unforgivable, and it is criminal,” Rharrit said.

“This will haunt him for the rest of his life. History, for sure, will judge him, and it is already doing so today,” she added.

Blinken’s legacy is tarnished, and he will forever be remembered for encouraging the continuation of war in Ukraine and Gaza when he had the power and influence to establish peace deals.

This was completely exposed when Trump managed to achieve an agreement between Israel and Gaza even before he returned to the presidency, confirming that prolonged war, and therefore the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives, was because of Blinken’s decision.

Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.

January 21, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism | , , , , | 3 Comments

Can Trump Fix Our Broken Foreign Policy?

By Ron Paul | January 20, 2025

By the time most of you read this column, we will have a new US President. Donald J. Trump will be inaugurated for his second term today at 11:30 AM, Eastern time, and many Americans are hopeful that the disastrous foreign policy of the past four years under Biden will be improved. There is good news and bad news.

First the good news. It is no surprise that Trump’s appointees to foreign policy and national security positions are to the person very hawkish on China. However Trump, as he often does, has defied conventional wisdom on what his China policy might be by not only inviting Chinese leader Xi Jinping to attend the inauguration, but actually picking up the telephone and having a conversation with his Chinese counterpart.

According to a read-out of the call, the two discussed “trade, fentanyl, TikTok, and other subjects” and agreed to remain in regular contact. Winston Churchill is often (inaccurately) credited with the phrase “jaw-jaw is better than war-war,” but nonetheless it is an accurate statement. It is much better to engage even with “adversaries” than to refuse contact and add more sanctions. Those who prefer sanctions over communications are the true isolationists.

On TikTok, the popular application has credited Trump with preventing the Congressional ban from taking effect. If true, it is another good Trump move in favor of our Constitutional free speech guarantees.

Likewise with Russia, media reports suggest that holding a conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin will be among the first things Trump does as President. That is great news for all of humanity, as Biden’s dangerous proxy war in Ukraine and refusal to communicate with the Russian president has brought us to the very edge of a once-unimaginable nuclear exchange. When the end of life on earth is at stake, it is reckless to ignore the possibility of de-escalation.

In the Middle East, incoming President Trump is being credited with securing a ceasefire in Gaza, an achievement the Biden Administration seemed incapable of or uninterested in seriously attempting for the past year. Does Trump deserve all the credit? We don’t know. But we do know that thousands have been needlessly slaughtered while Biden dithered and sent more weapons. The wholesale destruction of Gaza with US bombs and financial support will be Biden’s enduring legacy and a stain on everyone involved.

The bad news is that because of President Trump’s decision to appoint the most hawkish advisors, he will be surrounded by individuals who will constantly encourage him to confront rather than disengage. For example, his special envoy on the Ukraine war has recently boxed Trump in on Iran by declaring a return to the failed “maximum pressure” campaign of his first Administration. The policy failed to achieve the desired results when first implemented and it will fail again if adopted again. Why? Iran has developed far more extensive trade ties outside the influence of the US government, for example among the BRICS countries. It is not possible to isolate Iran as it has been in the past. As with China and others, with Iran it would be far better to jaw-jaw than to war-war. Let’s hope President Trump understands that.

We will no doubt see some disappointments in incoming President Trump’s foreign policy, but there are solid reasons to be cautiously optimistic. Particularly when measured against his predecessor.

January 20, 2025 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , | 1 Comment

UK police summon Jeremy Corbyn after pro-Palestine rally

MEMO | January 20, 2025

The Metropolitan Police have summoned former UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn and ex-shadow chancellor John McDonnell for an “interview” following a pro-Palestinian rally in central London on Saturday, Anadolu reported.

The Metropolitan Police is investigating what it described as a “coordinated effort by the rally’s organisers to breach conditions imposed on the event.”

Corbyn, 75, and McDonnell, 73, who agreed to the interviews, voluntarily appeared at a police station in the capital yesterday afternoon.

After leaving the police station, the two MPs did not answer reporters’ questions.

Police also summoned three unnamed persons to give voluntary testimony as part of an “ongoing investigation”.

The rally, organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) and its coalition partners, saw thousands gather in Whitehall after police blocked plans for a march from Portland Place, near the headquarters of the BBC.

Officers had imposed conditions under the Public Order Act restricting the protest to Whitehall, citing concerns over a potential “serious disruption” near a synagogue.

Police said a group of protesters broke through a police line to reach Trafalgar Square, where officers stopped them.

The Metropolitan Police posted a photo on social media showing a group that it said have forced its way through the police line being held at the northwest corner of Trafalgar Square.

Corbyn, however, disputed the account.

“This is not an accurate description of events at all,” he said in a post on X.

He said he was part of a delegation of speakers intending to lay flowers in memory of children killed in Gaza, which was “facilitated by the police”.

McDonnell echoed his comments.

“We did not force our way through. The police allowed us to go through, and when we stopped in Trafalgar Square, we laid our flowers down and dispersed.”

Nine people, including Corbyn’s brother Piers Corbyn, and Chris Nineham, a chief steward on the march, have been charged with public order offences and will appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court in the coming days.

The Met Police also confirmed that 24 people have been released on bail, while 48 remain in custody. Three other men aged 75, 73 and 61 have agreed to be interviewed under criminal caution.

The protest coincided with the announcement of a ceasefire and prisoner swap deal between Israel and Hamas.

Corbyn, who now sits as an independent member of parliament for Islington North, has been a vocal supporter of Palestinian rights.

McDonnell, the MP for Hayes and Harlington, also sits as an independent after Labour suspended the whip from him for six months in July 2024 over his vote against the government on child benefit rules.

The demonstration in London drew tens of thousands of supporters of Palestine, despite the police-imposed restrictions and banning of a previously agreed-upon route.

During the protest, 77 people were arrested.

Met Commander Adam Slonecki said security forces have been deployed for more than 20 national protests organised by the PSC since October 2023.

He highlighted that the number of arrests at yesterday’s rally marked the “highest number” recorded at such demonstrations during this period.

January 20, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Dozens of Palestinian women, teens freed from Israeli jails as part of Gaza ceasefire

The Cradle | January 20, 2025

After several hours of delay following the handing over of three Israeli captives by Hamas’s Qassam Brigades, 90 Palestinian prisoners – all females and minors – were released from Israeli jails early on 20 January as part of the first phase of the ceasefire and exchange deal.

The Palestinians were released from Ofer prison in the occupied West Bank and Moscovia prison in Jerusalem, as well as the Damon prison.

Those from Ofer were dropped off by Red Cross buses at Beitunia north of Ramallah, where their families received them, and those from Moscovia went straight to their neighborhoods in occupied Jerusalem.

Among the prisoners was Abla Saadat, wife of the Secretary General of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) Ahmad Saadat. She was detained in September last year.

PFLP member Khalida Jarrar was also released. Jarrar had been in and out of Israeli prisons for several years and was detained for the fifth and final time in December 2023 after the start of the genocidal war in Gaza.

She was held in solitary confinement for the last six months of her detention despite suffering from serious medical issues, including deep vein thrombosis. Jarrar was in a state of exhaustion upon her release and was not able to speak to the media.

Palestinian journalist and prisoner activist Bushra al-Tawil was also among those released. She has been incarcerated seven times.

Rose Khweis, an 18-year-old who was also freed, told Reuters inmates were treated ”like animals” where she was imprisoned.

“The occupation forces were cursing us and treating us badly [during the release]. The occupation authorities contacted our families and warned them against any manifestations of joy,” Jenin Amro told Al Jazeera upon being discharged.

The next six weeks are meant to see the release of 2,000 Palestinians. Israel will discharge 30 to 50 prisoners for each captive released by Hamas. The first phase of the deal – which was announced last week – is supposed to see the release of 33 Israeli captives being held in Gaza. Negotiations for the second phase will begin 16 days into phase one.

Three Israeli captives were handed over to the Red Cross in Gaza on the afternoon of 19 January.

Huge crowds of Palestinians, along with a strong presence of Qassam Brigades fighters, gathered in Gaza City’s Al-Saraya Square as the three female Israeli captives were released and given over to the Red Cross.

The captives were retrieved by the Israeli army at the Reim Base outside Gaza.

January 20, 2025 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

UK knew about Israel’s brutal torture of Palestinian detainees 50 years ago, but refused to act, British documents reveal

The UK knew about Israel’s brutal torture of Palestinian and Arab detainees nearly 50 years ago but refused to act, British documents reveal. The papers, unearthed by MEMO in the British National Archives, also reveal that the US opted to address the issue solely through non-governmental organisations.

Israeli soldiers lead blindfolded Palestinian detainees across the Israel-Gaza border after they were detained by Israeli forces operating inside Gaza, 1 August 2007. [DAVID FURST / AFP/ Getty Images]
By Amer Sultan | MEMO |January 20, 2025

Documents from the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office show that Britain was aware that Israeli authorities were systematically torturing Palestinian and Arab detainees in mid-1977 but declined to pressure Israel to halt these practices.

In June 1977, the Sunday Times published a shocking dossier exposing the brutal torture of Palestinian and Arab detainees in Israeli prisons and detention centres. The report described the torture as “systematic” and “organised so methodically that it cannot be dismissed as a handful of ‘rogue cops’ exceeding orders”.  It found that torture “appears to be sanctioned at some level as deliberate policy” and detailed 17 different methods of abuse, including beatings, genitalia squeezing, insertion of foreign objects into body orifices, hanging upside down, cigarette burns, and torture of family members in front of prisoners.”

The Sunday Times’ dossier was based on interviews with former detainees who described other physical abuse and psychological pressure during their detention.

At the time, the FCO reports indicated there were 3,200 Palestinian and Arab detainees from the occupied territories, Egypt, Syria and Jordan held in Israeli prisons or detention centres in Israel and the territories occupied by the Israeli military in the 1967 war.

The documents show that before the report’s publication, the Sunday Times shared its findings with then-UK FOreign Secretary David Owen. British diplomats in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem conducted confidential interviews with officials from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Quaker Service (QS), a Northern Ireland charity, to explore their views on the torture allegations.

James Fine of QS confirmed to Mike Jenner, the British consul-general in East Jerusalem, that “all forms of torture used in Northern Ireland had been used [against the Palestinians] here [by Israel].” He gave examples such as “hooding, sleep deprivation, and bread-and-water diets.” Fine added that “in all interrogations, some beating up was used,” and in a minority of cases, “serious” beatings occurred. He further noted that more sophisticated torture such as “electric shocks, bottles up the anus and objects inserted into the penis” were used in “a few cases”. While Fine acknowledged the evidence came from Palestinian and Arab detainees and prisoners, he emphasised that “exaggeration must be discounted”.

Jenner informed his bosses in the FCO that Fine believed that the body of evidence was “so consistent that, at the very least, there was a prima facie case for a full enquiry into allegation of torture.”

The ICRC representative in Jerusalem, Alfredo Witschi, supported the Sunday Times findings, calling the report “a very fair presentation of the available evidence,” despite it containing “some mistakes”. Witschi stated that the ICRC possessed “similar evidence though in much greater quantity”, alerting the British diplomat that the weight of the ICRC’s evidence of beating, which he said was very severe in some cases, was such that he “considered it amounted to proof” of torture.

He suggested that Israeli interrogators “were unlikely to be acting without instructions” and these instructions “were possibly to give them a free hand provided that they didn’t go too far”. Witschi also highlighted that the Sunday Times report “paid too little attention” to psychological techniques of torture used by the Israelis  such as “threat of torture after exhausting the suspect by sleep deprivation and rigorous exercises.” The ICRC official was keen to alert Jenner that their conversation should be confidential.

The FCO Research Department reviewed the Sunday Times report and concluded that the allegations were “consistent with the available evidence from other sources, including the ICRC.” It acknowledged that psychological pressure was “probably condoned by higher authorities in Israel,” and more serious cases of maltreatment were probably isolated but did occur. The department drew the attention of FCO officials that the more serious allegations are “against Shin Bait [Israeli Internal Security Service] personnel in Moscobia, Hebron and Sarafand prisons.”

The Near East and North Africa Department (NENA) within the FCO noted that the sources for the allegations were primarily Arab prisoners and their legal representatives, making the accounts potentially one-sided. However it admitted the allegations of torture in the Israeli prisons “is not entirely inconsistent with that which emerges from the other material available to us and in particular with what the ICRC representative in Jerusalem told the Consulate-General there in confidence.”

William R. Tomkys, head of NENA, recommended raising the issue discreetly with Avraham Kidron, the Israeli ambassador to London, rather than involving the UK ambassador in Tel Aviv, to avoid straining relations with the Israeli government. “We may get off on the wrong foot with Mr Kidron as a result but this is less damaging than the risk that HM ambassador at Tel Aviv might lose the confidence of Mr Begin’s government,” Tomkys wrote.

He suggested advising Israel to conduct “a public inquiry”, arguing it would be “consistent with Israel’s close concern for human rights” and address widespread public concern in the UK about the allegations about the Israeli treatment of prisoners.

However, Foreign Secretary Owen instructed the FCO to wait till he addressed the issue with US Secretary of State, Cyrus Vance.

Commenting on Tomkys’ report and recommendation, Owen ordered “No action to be taken” instructing the issue “should be raised at a political level not Ambassadorial.” But he stressed that raising the issue should be “certainly not immediately”. Owen stressed to his staff that “we will also need to discuss with the Americans whom I know need time to consider” the issue.

He also disclosed that he had spoken to Sunday Times Editor Harry Evans about the report but the documents did not show whether he had shared the details of their conversation with his staff.

When the British ambassador raised the issue with the US State Department, officials confirmed they “had taken the report of the Sunday Times seriously.” However, Walter Smith, head of Israeli and Arab-Israeli Affairs, told the ambassador he was preparing a paper for Vance and the Americans “would encourage one or two members of the American Bar Association to get in touch with their Israeli opposite numbers to see whether further investigation leading to remedial action would be possible.”

The Sunday Times report sparked significant public and political concern in the UK. Thirty-three Members of Parliament signed a motion to discuss the issue in July 1977, while others wrote letters to Owen and his ministers. David Watkins, an MP and member of the Labour Middle East Council, strongly criticised the government’s “failure” to address the violations of Palestinians’ rights and to raise the issue “more vigorously and more openly” with the Israeli government given the available evidence. He warned that the UK risked being accused of “applying double standards” if it did not act as it had in the case of South Africa.

 The MP pressed the ministers to inform him whether the UK has done all it should to find out the truth about “the persistent of allegations of torture” in Israeli prisons. He slammed what he described as “covering up” the Israeli ill-treatment of the Arab prisoners and detainees “both officially and on the news media”, giving an example of a US State Department document, which he confirmed he has seen, reporting on Israel observance of human rights in both Israel and the occupied territories. The MP described the document, prepared for Jimmy Carter, the then-US president, as “remarkably dishonest”. Watkins believed that the paper “was designed to assure the President that in difficult circumstance, Israel is making commendable, even if not wholly successful, effort to provide for and observe the Palestinian human rights both in Israel and in the occupied territories.”

In his response to Watkins, Frank Judd, minister of state for the Middle East, acknowledged that the allegations published by the Sunday Times were “disturbing” and stressed the need for Israel to address them.

Judd stressed that if true, these stories “would also reflect a situation which we, as a government committed to the promotion of human rights worldwide, would view most seriously.”

He suggested an “independent inquiry”, but he noted that its success would require Israel’s full cooperation. He rejected any idea to press Israel, expressing fears that if the UK raised the individual cases of human rights violation with the Israelis, such a move “would almost certainly be misinterpreted as an attempt to put political pressure on Israel over the wider issues of a Middle East settlement.”

Watkins, however, insisted that pressure on Israel was necessary, arguing that Israel would never withdraw from occupied territories or recognise Palestinian rights “except under pressure”.

January 20, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , | Leave a comment

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